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Obama’s Race To The Top Drives Nationwide Wave of School Closings, Teacher Firings

 By Bruce A. Dixon | Black Agenda Report | January 9, 2013

A nationwide epidemic of school closings and teacher firings has been underway for some time. It’s concentrated chiefly in poor and minority communities, and the teachers let go are often experienced and committed classroom instructors, and likely to live in and near the communities they serve, and disproportionately black.

It’s not an accident, or a reflection of changing demographics, or more educational choices suddenly becoming available to families in those areas. It’s not due to greedy unionized teachers or the invisible hand of the marketplace or well-intentioned educational policies somehow gone awry.

The current wave of school closings is  the latest result of bipartisan educational policies which began with No Child Left Behind in 2001, and have kicked into overdrive under the Obama administration’s Race To The Top. In Chicago, the home town of the president and his Secretary of Education, the percentage of black teachers has dropped from 45% in 1995 to 19% today. After winning a couple skirmishes in federal court over discriminatory firings in a few schools, teachers have now filed a citywide class action lawsuit alleging that the city’s policy of school “turnarounds” and “transformations” is racially discriminatory because it’s carried out mainly in black neighborhoods and the fired teachers are disproportionately black.

How did this happen? Where did those policies come from, and exactly what are they?

Beginning in the 1980s, deep right pockets like the Bradley and Walton Family Foundations spent billions to create and fund fake “grassroots movements.” They churned out academic studies and blizzards of media hype, first for vouchers, later on for charter schools and what’s become a whole panoply of privatization-oriented “education reforms” ranging from teacher merit pay to common core curriculum and more.

Those billions paid off with the 2001 passage of the No Child Left Behind Act which made the right wing corporate agenda of undermining and ultimately privatizing public education national policy.  Though standardized test scores were long known to prove little aside from student family income, they suddenly became the gold standard for judging teacher & school performance.  School districts were required to purchase & give dozens of costly meaningless tests and to publish lists ranking their own schools and teachers as “failing” when test scores were low, which again, was mostly wherever students were poor.

Amid torrents of “blame the teachers” propaganda, so-called “failing schools” were required to hire expensive contractors with cockeyed “run the school like a business” remedies and more crackpot tests. Thus it was that NCLB spawned almost overnight an entire industry of jack leg educational consultants and test suppliers guaranteed a market with dollars diverted from already tight public school budgets. Those industries attracted capital investors, and began doing what every other industry does in the US —- make big campaign contributions to politicians to get sweeter contracts and more favorable regulation.  When test scores still didn’t rise, NCLB required many schools to close, making openings for chains of charter schools, often highly profitable charter schools, bringing the blessings of “choice” and free market competition to the educational “marketplace.”

It was an unequal sort of “competition” though, because charter schools have always been allowed to pick and choose their students, to turn away those with special needs, and to hire teachers and principals with little or no relevant training.

Results in the classrooms of poor neighborhoods around the country were devastating.  Where in 1987-88 the modal year for teacher experience — that’s the number of years the largest cohort of teachers had been in the classrooms —  was ten years, by 2008 the biggest block of teachers were in their very first year, by definition — the least confident, the least experienced and the least effective.

This was the state of public education when President Obama walked into the White House door.  What did he do? Did he turn it around? Or did he double down? The answer is that in the spirit of corporate bipartisanship, president Obama sided with the charter school sugar daddies instead of black teachers, black parents and their children.

President Obama appointed Chicago Schools CEO Arne Duncan Secretary of Education. A champion of privatization, Duncan had closed dozens of Chicago schools, many on short notice, some at the apparent behest of gentrifying real estate developers.  Duncan fired so many veteran black Chicago teachers to , fill their slots with mostly white rookies, that teachers sued him for racial discrimination in federal court and won.  Duncan even introduced military charter schools in Chicago, in one case handing a west side middle school to the US Marine Corps.

No Child Left Behind had been passed by a Democratic congress in the first days of the Bush administration. Opposition to its policies was widespread, and much of that opposition was among Democratic constituencies. So President Obama’s signature education policy initiative, would bypass Congress and the opportunity for public debate on the disastrous effects of existing pro-privatization policies.

Secretary Duncan at his side, President Obama introduced Race To The Top, drawn up by the Bill & Melinda Gates, the Eli Broad, Boeing, the Walton Family and other foundations.  Under Race To The Top states and school districts are forced to bid against each other for many of the same education dollars they used to receive as a matter of course. The winning districts are those who apply Race To The Top’s four official solutions to their so-called “failing schools.”

Race To The Top’s four federally mandated “solutions”, which are never spelled out by corporate media news outlets, are “school transformations,” “school turnarounds,” “school restarts,”  and “school closures.”

Race to the Top defines a “school transformation,” its first remedy, as firing the principal and up to 50% of teachers, replacing them with temps and newbies, hiring expensive consultants, often the same folks who drafted Race To The Top guidelines or their cronies, to redesign curriculum and personnel policies. “Transformed” schools tie teachers jobs to test scores (that’s what caused the national epidemic of cheating scandals) lengthening school days with no extra pay, cutting wages & benefits and of course lots more costly and useless tests.

Race To The Top calls its second remedy “school turnaround.” Turnarounds are exactly the same as school transformations, with high priced “run the school like a business” consultants, increased reliance on standardized tests, sanctions for teachers and all new hires sourced from Teach For America type agencies, except that transformations fire up to 50% of school staff, but to be called a turnaround schools must fire at least 50% of school staff.

“School restarts,” are the third Race To The Top solution. In a “restart” you close the public school and reopen a new school with new staff and the same connected consultants used for transformations and turnarounds, but all under the management of a private corporation. In other words, you close the public school and open a charter school in the same building. Charters of course can use public money to hire even less qualified teachers, pick and choose the students it serves, and often to generate handsome private profits.

Race To The Top‘s fourth remedy is “school closure.” You fire the staff, padlock the school doors and let families take their chances on the free market, or find another public school if they can.

The states and school districts quickest to carry out the most transformations, turnarounds, restarts and school closings are the ones who get to keep or increase their levels of federal funding. Those who drag their feet lose federal education dollars. That’s why it’s a race, but not exactly to the top.

Clearly there‘s no broad support for these insanely destructive educational policies. But since news media never report what Race To The Top’s actual requirements are, or even that a nationwide wave of school closings and teacher firings is underway, much of the public, and even many teachers and their unions are unable to make the connection between federal policies and their local school crises. Corporate media point helpfully instead to corrupt local officials, greedy organized teachers insufficient reliance on the invisible hand of the free market. News reports in many areas are full of stories about school districts whose certification is imperiled because of looming loss of federal funds, but the public is offered few clues as to exactly WHY the funds are lacking or WHAT measures the district will have to take to get them restored. The fact is, Race To The Top is consciously designed to punish school districts that try to protect their educational assets, and rewards those who eviscerate and sell them off.

President Obama’s Race To The Top then, is the direct cause of our national wave of school closings and mass teacher firings from Philly to Atlanta and Los Angeles to Rhode Island. It was local implementation of Obama’s Race To The Top mandates that forced Chicago teachers out on strike last fall, and it’s reluctance to carry out these measures that now imperils education funding in cities as large as Las Vegas.

The Chicago teachers class action lawsuit is a good thing. But the courts have been captive to the far right wing for a long time now, and are not likely to issue quick and sweeping rulings that upset things as they are. In the end, the only thing that will begin to save public education, that will halt the wave of school closings and teacher firings is mass mobilization on a scale not seen in fifty years. Right now, that seems almost as unlikely as corporate school reform being reversed or halted by the federal court.

What passes for black leadership these days, the descendants of the old line “civil rights” organizations are firmly on the corporate education reform bandwagon. Bill Gates, for example, delivered the 2011 keynote at the National Urban League’s annual meeting. The NAACP and similar outfits are no better, all preferring to do the bidding of their funders and their president, over the interests of ordinary black families and their children. Even teachers unions are handicapped. Unlike the Chicago Teachers Union most haven’t spent the last few years forging deep ties with organized forces in their school communities, and lack even a tradition of standing up for their own members they way labor unions ought to.

In human history, the notion that everybody is entitled to a quality public education is still relatively new, and has powerful enemies. President Obama is one of these. It was the insistence of newly freed slaves that led to the first universal public education laws in the South. African American leaders till now have always been stalwart champions of public education. Until we raise up a new crop of leaders and movements not beholden to corporate funding, not disposed to uncritical worship of corporate power wielded by a black face, public education will continue to wither and die.

January 16, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Progressive Hypocrite | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Ahmadinjejad calls for structural change in economy to neutralize sanctions

Press TV – January 16, 2013

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has underlined the need to make structural modifications to the country’s economy as a means to overcome the sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic.

“Employing national capacities, overcoming sanctions and disappointing the enemy are possible through structural modifications,” Ahmadinejad said in a Majlis open session on Wednesday.

The Iranian president attended the Majlis session to provide the Iranian lawmakers with the latest information about the country’s economy.

Ahmadinejad proposed four major ways to solve the country’s economic problems, namely the decentralization of the country’s wealth and assets, engaging the people in economic activities, making the utmost use of domestic resources and cutting the budget’s dependence on oil revenues.

He noted that the sanctions have been imposed on Iran to impede the country’s progress and development.

The United States, Israel and some of their allies have falsely accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program. The US and certain other countries have imposed sanctions against the Islamic Republic over the unfounded allegation.

Iran has vehemently rejected the allegations against its nuclear energy program, arguing that as a committed signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

January 16, 2013 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

Bringing in the bullion: Germany to repatriate gold from US and France

RT | January 16, 2013

Germany’s central bank is set to reclaim some of its vast gold reserves held in the US and France, a German daily reported. The move follows an audit criticizing Bundesbank for mismanagement, stating the funds had never been “verified physically.”

Bundesbank voiced plans to withdraw its entire 450-ton store of gold bullion from the Bank of France in Paris, and a portion of the 1,500 tons currently held by the New York Federal Reserve, Handelsblatt reported.

The German government refrained from commenting on the reports ahead of its presentation of a new plan for the management of its gold reserves on Wednesday. Germany boasts the world’s second-largest bullion reserves at 270,000 gold bars ($177.5 billion), second only to the US.

Germany’s gold stockpile was relocated abroad during the Cold War amid fears of a possible Soviet invasion. There is no reason now to maintain overseas stockpiles, Bundesbank said – from now on, the bank will only keep small amounts of gold abroad for trading purposes.

About 30 percent of Germany’s gold reserves are currently being held in the country at the facilities of Frankfurt-based Bundesbank.

The move follows a damning report by the German Court of Auditors criticizing the management of Bundesbank’s foreign bullion stockpiles. Auditors said that the stores “had never been verified physically,” and were not under proper control.

Bundesbank was taken aback by the criticism, stressing there was no need for speculation on Germany’s overseas holdings and that “there is no doubt about the integrity of the foreign storage sites.” The central bank is widely regarded as one of the most trustworthy institutions in German society.

Veteran gold dealer Jim Sinclair said that Bundesbank’s strategy marked a change in trends in the global gold market, heralding a move away from paper administration of funds.

“This sends a message about storing gold near you and taking delivery no matter who is holding it,” Sinclair told British newspaper the Telegraph. “When France did these years ago it sent panic amongst the US financial leadership. History will look back on this salvo as being the beginning of the end of the US dollar as the reserve currency of choice.”

January 16, 2013 Posted by | Economics, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How a Government Report Spread a Questionable Claim About Iran

By Justin Elliott | ProPublica | January 14, 2013

Several media outlets reported this month on an alarming finding from a new U.S. government study: Iran’s intelligence ministry, as CNN put it, constitutes “a terror and assassination force 30,000 strong.”

The claim that the intelligence ministry has a whopping 30,000 employees, first reported by a conservative website, spread to other outlets including Wired and the public radio show the Takeaway and landed elsewhere online, even on the intelligence ministry’s Wikipedia page. All cited the new government study, put out by an arm of the Library of Congress called the Federal Research Division.

So how did the government researchers come up with the number? They searched the Internet — and ended up citing an obscure, anonymous website that was simply citing another source.

The trail on the 30,000 figure eventually ends with a Swedish terrorism researcher quoted in a 2008 Christian Science Monitor article. But the researcher, Magnus Ranstorp, said he isn’t sure where the number came from. “I think obviously that it would be an inflated number” of formal employees, said Ranstorp.

We inquired with six Iran experts, and none knew of any evidence for the figure. Some said it might be in the ballpark while others questioned its plausibility.

“Whether the figures emanate from Iran or from western reporting, they are generally exaggerated and either meant as self-aggrandizing propaganda, if self-reported by Iran, or just approximations based on usually scant data or evidence,” said Afshon Ostovar, a senior Middle East analyst at the Center for Naval Analyses who writes frequently on Iran. The number “could be more or less accurate, but there’s no way to know.”

Gary Sick, a longtime Iran specialist in and out of government, said the entire Federal Research Division study “has all the appearance of a very cheap piece of propaganda and should not be trusted.”

Sick pointed to the study’s use of questionable Internet sources as well as flat-out errors. In one section, for example, the study lays out in detail how “Iran’s constitution defines” the intelligence ministry’s official functions. The problem, as Sick notes: Iran’s constitution doesn’t mention an intelligence ministry, let alone define its functions.

Federal Research Division Chief David Osborne said in an email the report “was leaked to the media without authorization” and declined to comment further “because it is proprietary to the agency for which it was written.”

This is what we know about the 30,000 figure and its provenance:

On the morning of Jan. 3, the conservative Washington Free Beacon ran a story headlined, “Iran Spy Network 30,000 Strong.” The outlet said it had obtained a “64-page unclassified report” on the Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and published it with the story.

The Federal Research Service of the Library of Congress, which produced the study, provides “fee for service” research to other government agencies using the resources of the library. The study’s title page names no author but says it was produced under an agreement with an arm of the Pentagon called the Combating Terrorism Technical Support Office. (That office did not respond to requests for comment.)

The study flatly states that Iran’s intelligence ministry has “more than 30,000 officers and support personnel.”

But it also hedges. It notes Iranian intelligence is “a difficult subject to study because so little information about it is publicly available.” The study does not claim to feature any original intelligence or reporting. It says its main sources are news websites and Iranian blogs.

“The reliability of blog-based information may be questionable at times,” says the report. “But it seems prudent to evaluate and present it in the absence of alternatives.”

The evening after the report was first published, CNN ran a segment on what it called “troubling new details on a new report of Iran’s intelligence service.” The story compared the 30,000 figure to the roughly 100,000 employees in the 17 U.S. intelligence agencies and offices, and went through various attacks over the years attributed to Iranian intelligence.

A CNN spokeswoman said the network “checked the number with sources that led us to feel comfortable that the report was in line with the national security community’s understanding.”

As support for the 30,000 claim, the study cites a post on a website, iranchannel.org, which aggregates news critical of Iran’s government.

That post, from 2010, turns out to merely excerpt another study from yet another source.

That study, titled “Shariah: The Threat to America,” was put out by the hawkish Center for Security Policy. As the title suggests, it doesn’t focus on Iran but rather the purported threat of Islamic law.

The study briefly mentions that Iran’s intelligence ministry has “up to some 30,000 officers and support staff.” Its source: the 2008 article in the Christian Science Monitor.

That piece refers to Iran’s intelligence ministry having “some 30,000 on the payroll by one count,” which came from Ranstorp, the Swedish terrorism researcher.

Ranstorp told us that while he did not recall citing the figure to the Monitor, it might have originated with Kenneth Katzman, a Mideast specialist with the Congressional Research Service who often writes on Iran.

Katzman told us that the figure did not come from him. He added that 30,000 did not seem “inordinately unreasonable” but that he does not know of evidence supporting it.

Bill Gertz, the Washington Free Beacon reporter who obtained and published the Federal Research Service study, told ProPublica he stands by his story.

“In my 30-plus years in reporting on national security issues, I have found that such unclassified reports often use press reporting of such numbers to avoid having to use classified information,” Gertz said. “I also know that most of the people who write such reports have access to classified information about the subjects they write about and I doubt they would publish a figure that would be contradicted by classified assessments of the number of personnel in the [intelligence ministry].”

Gertz also pointed to another report on Iran, this one produced in 2010 by private intelligence firm Stratfor. But that report says that, as of 2006, Iran’s intelligence ministry had just 15,000 employees. It does not cite a source for the figure.

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January 15, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Protestors return to Bab-Alshams

Popular Struggle Co-ordination Committee | January 15, 2013

Bab-Alshams, Occupied Palestine – Following the violent eviction of Bab-Alshams (gateway of the sun) on Sunday around a hundred Protestors returned to the land which the Israeli Occupation Forces call E1. After the acceptance of Palestine as a non-member state to the UN, Israel announced the approval of a plan to expand by building some 4,000 residential units in this area. Such construction would effectively bisect the West Bank, effectively cutting it off from Jerusalem.

The protestors arrived before 15:00 to the surprise of Israeli Police stationed in the area; two groups approached Bab-Alshams from different directions. As protestors moved up the hill Israeli Occupation Forces began to attack the demonstration initially with stun grenades.

Activist’s remained steadfast and refused to leave the land which is privately owned by Palestinians. Israeli police began to outnumber protestors and then began detaining Palestinians violently. Slowly Israeli forces managed to push activists down the hill.

Activists regrouped at the bottom of the hill, sat down and began to sing. The violence of the Israeli authorities then again increased, one women was beaten and suffered a head wound which required medical attention. At least two others were injured one male was bleeding heavily from the wrist, while others were being treated for shock.

At-least 10 people were arrested most of which have now been released. Some remain in detention including an ISM founder Neta Golan.

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January 15, 2013 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

Two Days Before MIT and Cambridge Cops Arrested Aaron Swartz, Secret Service Took Over the Investigation

EmptyWheel | January 13, 2013

The public story of Aaron Swartz’ now-tragic two year fight with the Federal government usually starts with his July 19, 2011 arrest.

But that’s not when he was first arrested for accessing a closet at MIT in which he had a netbook downloading huge quantities of scholarly journals. He was first arrested on January 6, 2011 by MIT and Cambrige, MA cops.

According to a suppression motion in his case, however two days before Aaron was arrested, the Secret Service took over the investigation.

On the morning of January 4, 2011, at approximately 8:00 am, MIT personnel located the netbook being used for the downloads and decided to leave it in place and institute a packet capture of the network traffic to and from the netbook.4 Timeline at 6. This was accomplished using the laptop of Dave Newman, MIT Senior Network Engineer, which was connected to the netbook and intercepted the communications coming to and from it. Id. Later that day, beginning at 11:00 am, the Secret Service assumed control of the investigation. [my emphasis]

In fact, in one of the most recent developments in discovery in Aaron’s case, the government belatedly turned over an email showing Secret Service agent Michael Pickett offering to take possession of the hardware seized from Aaron “anytime after it has been processed for prints or whenever you [Assistant US Attorney Stephen Heymann] feel it is appropriate.” Another newly disclosed document shows the Pickett accompanied the local cops as they moved the hardware they had seized from Aaron around.

According to the Secret Service, they get involved in investigations with:

  • Significant economic or community impact
  • Participation of organized criminal groups involving multiple districts or transnational organizations
  • Use of schemes involving new technology

Downloading scholarly articles is none of those things.

A lot of people are justifiably furious with US Attorney Carmen Ortiz and AUSA Heymann’s conduct on this case.

But the involvement of the Secret Service just as it evolved from a local breaking and entry case into the excessive charges ultimately charged makes it clear that this was a nationally directed effort to take down Swartz.

MIT’s President Rafael Reif has expressed sadness about Aaron’s death and promised an investigation into the university’s treatment of Aaron. I want to know whether MIT–which is dependent on federal grants for much of its funding–brought in the Secret Service.

January 15, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , | Leave a comment

Zero Dark Thirty: Selling Extra Judicial Killings

By Deepa Kumar | Empire Bytes | January 13, 2013

The film Zero Dark Thirty has sparked debate on its justification of torture, its misuse of facts, and its pro-CIA agenda. The main focus of the debate so far has been on whether torture was necessary to track Osama bin Laden and whether the film is pro or anti torture.

Criticism of the film has come from the highest levels of the political establishment. In a letter to the CIA, Diane Feinstein, Karl Levin and John McCain, members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, fault the film for showing that the CIA obtained through torture the key lead that helped track down Osama bin Laden. The letter further blasts former CIA leaders for spreading such falsehoods in public statements.

Film director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Mark Boal, who worked with the CIA in the making of this film, likely did not expect such push back since they seem to have got a green light from the White House.

In the face of these attacks, some have risen to the film makers’ defense such as Mark Bowden, the author of The Finish: The Killing of Osama bin Laden. Writing in the Atlantic, he argues that the film is not pro-torture because the first scene shows that torture could not stop an attack in Saudi Arabia, instead it was cleverness and cunning that produced results.

Far more commentators, however, in a range of mainstream media from the New York Times, to CNN and the Daily Beast, have stated that the film lied about torture. Taking their lead from Feinstein et al. numerous voices have condemned the film and insisted that bin Laden’s whereabouts were obtained through means other than torture.

It’s hard to say who is correct. The CIA clearly has an interest in promoting its version in order to win public support for its clandestine activities. The Democrats have an interest in distancing themselves from torture so as to separate themselves from the worst of the Bush era policies.

While much of the air is being sucked up by this debate, scant attention has been paid to the larger, and in my view, more significant message of this film: that extra judicial killing is good. The film teaches us that brown men can and should be targeted and killed with impunity, in violation of international law, and that we should trust the CIA to act with all due diligence.

At a time when the key strategy in the “war on terror” has shifted from conventional warfare to extra judicial killing, here comes a film that normalizes and justifies this strategy. The controversy around this film will no doubt increase its box office success, but don’t expect mainstream debate on extra judicial killing. On this, there is bipartisan consent. Therefore the real scandal behind this Oscar nominated film—its shameless propaganda for extra judicial murder—will remain largely hidden.

Rebranding the Killing Machine

Zero Dark Thirty has very clear-cut “good guys” and “bad guys.” The CIA characters, in particular Maya and Dan, are the heroes and brown men, be they Arab or South Asian, are the villains.

The first brown man we encounter, Omar, is brutally tortured by Dan as Maya the protagonist (played by Jessica Chastain) watches with discomfort and anxiety. We soon learn, however, that Omar and his brethren wanted “to kill all Americans” thereby dispelling our doubts, justifying torture, and establishing his villainy.

In an interesting reversal (first established by the TV show 24) torture, a characteristic normally associated with villains, is now associated with heroes. This shift is acceptable because all the brown men tortured in the film are guilty and therefore worthy of such treatment. Maya soon learns to overcome her hesitation as she becomes a willing participant in the use of torture. In the process, audiences are invited to advance with her from discomfort to acceptance.

A clear “us” versus “them” mentality is established where “they” are portrayed as murderous villains while “we” do what we need to in order to keep the world safe. One scene in particular captures “their” irrational rage against all Americans. This is the scene when Maya is attacked by a barrage of machine gun fire as she exits a safe house in her car. We are then told that her identity as a CIA agent is not public and that, in fact, all Americans are the targets of such murderous rage and brutal attacks in Pakistan.

Pakistan, the country in which the majority of the film is set, is presented as a hell hole. In one of the early scenes, Maya, as a CIA freshman new to the area, is asked by a colleague what she thinks of Pakistan. She replies: “it’s kind of fucked up.”

Other than being the target of bombing attacks in her car and at a hotel, a part of what seems to make Pakistan “fucked up” is Islam. In one scene she is disturbed late at night by the Muslim call to prayer sounding loud enough that it wakes her from her sleep. Disgusted by this, she grunts “oh God” and rolls back to sleep. Maya also uses the term “mullah crackadollah” to express her contempt for Muslim religious leaders (I have never heard this term before and hope that I transcribed it correctly. I certainly do not wish to waste another $14 to watch the film again, and will wait till the film is out on DVD to confirm this term).

What does not need reviewing to confirm is the routine and constant use of the term “Paks” to refer to Pakistani people, a term that is similar to other racist epithets like “gooks” and “japs.” The film rests on the wholesale demonization of the Pakistani people. If we doubt that the “Paks” are a devious lot that can’t be trusted, the film has a scene where Maya’s colleague and friend is ambushed and blown to bits by a suicide bomber whom she expected to interrogate.

Even ordinary men standing by the road or at markets are suspicious characters who whip out cell phones to inform on, and plot against, the CIA. It is no wonder, then. that when Pakistanis organize a protest outside the US embassy we see them with contempt and through the eyes of Maya, who is standing inside the embassy, and whose point of view we are asked to identify with.

For a film maker of Bigelow’s talent it is shocking to see such unambiguous “good guys” and “bad guys.” The only way to be brown and not to be a villain in her narrative is to be unflinchingly loyal to the Americans, as the translator working for the CIA is. The “good Muslim” does not question, he simply acts to pave the way for American interests.

Against the backdrop of this racist dehumanization of brown men, Maya and her colleagues routinely use the word “kill” without it seeming odd or out of place. After Maya has come to terms with the anguish of losing her friend in the suicide attack she states: “I’m going to smoke everybody involved in this operation and then I’m going to kill Osama bin Laden.” When talking about a doctor who might be useful in getting to bin Laden, she says if he “doesn’t give up the big man” then “we kill him.”

At the start of the film Maya refuses a disguise when she re-enters the cell in which Omar is being held. She asks Dan if the man will ever get out and thereby reveal her identity to which he replies “never,” suggesting that Omar will either be held indefinitely or killed.

A top CIA official blasting a group of agents for not making more progress in the hunt for bin Laden sums up the role of the CIA as a killing machine in the following manner, he says “do your fucking jobs and bring me people to kill.” By this point in the film, the demonization of brown men is so complete that this statement is neither surprising nor extraordinary.

It is a clever and strategic choice that the resolution of film’s narrative arc is the execution of Osama bin Laden. After all, who could possibly object to the murder of this heinous person other than the “do good” lawyers who are chastised in the film for providing legal representation for terrorists.

Here then is the key message of the film: the law, due process, and the idea of presenting evidence before a jury, should be dispensed with in favor of extra judicial killings. Further, such killings can take place without public oversight. The film not only uses the moral unambiguity of assassinating bin Laden to sell us on the rightness and righteousness of extra judicial killing, it also takes pains to show that this can be done in secret because of the checks and balances involved before a targeted assassination is carried out.

Maya is seen battling a male dominated bureaucracy that constantly pushes her to provide evidence before it can order the strike. We feel her frustration at this process and we identify with her when she says that she is 100% sure that bin Laden is where she says he is. Yet, a system of checks and balances that involves scrupulous CIA heads, and a president who is “smart” and wants the facts, means that due diligence will not be compromised even when we know we are right.

This, in my view, is the key propaganda accomplishment of the film: the selling of secret extra judicial killing at a time when this has been designated the key strategy in the “war on terror” for the upcoming decade.

The Disposition Matrix

As I have argued in my book Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, the Obama administration has drawn the conclusion, after the failed interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, that conventional warfare should be ditched in favor of drone strikes, black operations, and other such methods of extra judicial killing.

The New York Times expose on Obama’s “kill list,” revealed that this strategy is one presided over by the president himself. John Brennen, his top counter-terrorism adviser, is one of its key authors and architects. Brennen’s nomination to head the CIA is a clear indication that this strategy will not only continue but that the spy agency will more openly become a paramilitary force that carries out assassinations through drone attacks and other means, with little or no public oversight.

Greg Miller’s piece in the Washington Post reveals that the Obama administration has been working on a “blueprint for pursuing terrorists” based on the creation of database known as the “disposition matrix.” The matrix developed by the National Counterterrorism Center brings together the separate but overlapping kill lists from the CIA and the Joint Operations Special Command into a master grid and allocates resources for “disposition.” The resources that will be used to “dispose” those on the list include capture operations, extradition, and drone strikes.

Miller notes that Brennen has played a key role in this process of “codify[ing] the administration’s approach to generating capture/kill lists.” Based on extensive interviews with top Obama administration officials, Miller states that such extra judicial killing is “likely to be extended at least another decade.” Brennan’s nomination to the CIA directorship no doubt will ensure such a result.

In short, at the exact point that a strategic shift has been made in the war on terror from conventional warfare to targeted killing, there comes a film that justifies this practice and asks us to trust the CIA with such incredible power.

No doubt the film had to remake the CIA brand dispelling other competing Hollywood images of the institution as a clandestine and shady outfit. The reality, however, is that unlike the film’s morally upright characters Brennan is a liar and an unabashed torture advocate (except for waterboarding).

As Glenn Greenwald notes, Brennen has “spouted complete though highly influential falsehoods to the world in the immediate aftermath of the Osama bin Laden killing, including claiming that bin Laden “engaged in a firefight” with Navy SEALS and had “used his wife as a human shield”.”

Zero Dark Thirty, nominated for the “best picture of year” Oscar award, is a harbinger of things to come. The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) signed into law by Obama earlier this month includes an amendment, passed in the House last May, that legalizes the dissemination of propaganda to US citizens. Journalist Naomi Klein argues that the propaganda “amendment legalizes something that has been illegal for decades: the direct funding of pro-government or pro-military messaging in media, without disclosure, aimed at American citizens.”

We can therefore expect not only more such films, but also more misinformation on our TV screens, in our newspapers, on our radio stations and in social media websites. What used to be an informal arrangement whereby the State Department and the Pentagon manipulated the media has now been codified into law. Be ready to be propagandized to all the time, everywhere.

We live in an Orwellian world: the government has sought and won the power to indefinitely detain and to kill US citizens, all wrapped in a cloud of secrecy, and to lie to us without any legal constraints.

The NDAA allows for indefinite detention, and a judge ruled that the Obama administration need not provide legal justification for extra judicial killings based on US law thereby granting carte blanche authority to the president to kill whoever he pleases with no legal or public oversight.

Such a system requires an equally powerful system of propaganda to convince the citizenry that they need not be alarmed, they need not speak out, they need not think critically; in fact, they need not even participate in the deliberative process except to pull a lever every couple of years in an elaborate charade of democracy. We are being asked, quite literally, to amuse ourselves to death.

~

Deepa Kumar is an associate professor of Media Studies and Middle East Studies at Rutgers University. She is the author of Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire: Empire Abroad and at Home and Outside the Box: Corporate Media, Globalization, and the Ups Strike. She can be reached at: deepa_k276@yahoo.com.

January 15, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Vietnam and US Policy

It Was Not a Mistake

By RON JACOBS | CounterPunch | January 15, 2013

On January 15, 1973 Richard Nixon announced a halt to offensive operations by US forces in Vietnam. Twelve days later a peace agreement was signed in Paris between the United States, northern Vietnam, the US client regime in Saigon, and the Provisional Revolutionary Government of southern Vietnam. This agreement called for an immediate ceasefire and called for the Vietnamese to negotiate a political settlement regarding the fate of southern Vietnam.

The January 27th agreement was the same as one that Saigon had refused to sign three months earlier. The interlude between the two dates saw some of the heaviest bombing of the entire conflict by the United States Air Force (USAF). I vividly recall listening to the news broadcasts on Armed Forces Radio and watching the German telecasts reporting the bombing. Cynically called Operation Linebacker II by the Nixon administration, it is estimated that this particular round of carpet bombing killed more than 1600 northern Vietnamese civilians, including over 200 at Hanoi’s Bach Mai hospital alone. I personally attended two protests in Frankfurt am Main against the so-called Christmas bombings. Similar protests occurred around the world.

The peace agreement did not stop the war. It did provide Nixon and Kissinger with a way to complete their policy of Vietnamization. US troops began to be withdrawn at a greater pace and southern Vietnamese troops (ARVN) began to replace the withdrawing forces. US forces on the ground were officially only serving as advisors.  Anecdotal evidence suggests that USAF planes continued to bomb, although the missions were now officially led by southern Vietnamese flyers.  As many a GI, sailor, or Marine who was stationed in (or off the coast of) Vietnam after the peace agreement was signed can tell you, the war did not end. However, the will to fight among southern Vietnamese forces was rapidly fading.  Since 1971, friends of mine returning from battle had been telling stories of outright refusal of orders by entire units of ARVN and US forces. Others told me that their bosses told them to “just stay out of sight and stay alive.” The official word was that no US combat soldiers remained in Vietnam after March 1973.  Reflecting the mood among US voters, Congress cut off all official military aid to the Saigon government in 1974.

I returned to the United States in August 1973 and began college in the Bronx.  Although there were some meetings and even a small protest or two regarding the continued funding of the war against the Vietnamese (and the unofficial presence of thousands of troops), most of the political activity was focused on the CIA/ITT assisted coup in Chile and the growing calls for Nixon’s impeachment.  One memorable protest against the US funding of the failing Saigon endeavor to survive the will of the Vietnamese people was a takeover of the Statue of Liberty by a small band of Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW) and members of the Attica Brigades.  Both of these groups were left anti-imperialist in nature and allies of the post-SDS formation known as the Revolutionary Unions.  John Kerry and the VVAW  had parted ways many months before;  Kerry had always represented the less-radical (some would say rightwing) elements of the VVAW and the antiwar movement in general.  His departure from the VVAW was not a surprise, especially considering the growing radicalization of the organization’s membership.  Kerry considered the US policy in Vietnam a mistake.  Much of the antiwar movement saw it as standard operating procedure.  Obviously, each understanding depended on one’s interpretation of history.

True to form, John Kerry’s understanding of history has served him well in the halls of empire.  Indeed, he may very well become the next Secretary of State; successor to another of the anti-Vietnam war movement’s imperial apologists, Hilary Clinton.  Neither Kerry nor Clinton ever considered the argument that the US war in Vietnam was part and parcel of a policy with economic and political domination of the world as its goal.  Instead, they preferred to believe that the slaughter of millions of Vietnamese, the creation of hundreds of thousands of refugees, and the destruction of a land, was just a mistake.  The overall policy was a good one, merely desiring to bring democracy and freedom to those same people being murdered and maimed.

Since that day in 1973, the United States has been involved in some kind of military conflict almost without a let up.  Democrat and Republican, right wing and liberal, the battle for world hegemony continues unabated.  Low-intensity conflicts that included the massacre of Salvadoran farmers by US-funded death squads and militaries; the murderous subversion of a popular government by CIA- contra forces in Nicaragua; the arming of religious extremists in Afghanistan to fight a secular and progressive government in Kabul; the imposition of sanctions against the Iraqi people causing the deaths of over a half-million people (leading Democratic Secretary of State Albright to state the deaths were “worth the price”); and the never-ending support for Israel’s brutal and Orwellian occupation of Palestine.  All of these elements and hundreds more are what describe US foreign policy.  They are not mistakes any more than the US war on the Vietnamese people was a mistake.  Indeed, they are the price the world must pay.

In the weeks to come, there will be a parade of powerful men and women from the nation’s elites appearing before committees of the Senate.  These individuals will be auditioning for their roles in the new White House administration.  Some, like John Kerry, will face some loud opposition from the ultra-right members of that legislative body.  Don’t be fooled by the bombast.  The proof that the individual being questioned and the individuals doing the questioning agree is in the history briefly noted above.  As long as those in both seats believe in the ideology of empire, Washington’s march will never fall and only rarely stumble.

Ron Jacobs is the author of The Way the Wind Blew: a History of the Weather Underground and Short Order Frame Up.

January 15, 2013 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli soldiers violently break into two houses in Nablus, Kidnapping one person

International Solidarity Movement | January 15, 2013

Occupied Palestine – Last night more than forty Israeli soldiers invaded the city of Nablus and raided two homes looking for two young men. One of them was arrested Emad’s Motherduring the raid and the other one avoided arrest as he was working at the time of the raid.

At 2.30 am, dozens of Israeli soldiers with several dogs broke into Mead Nijad’s house breaking the door with a hammer and violently interrupting the family’s sleep. As the soldiers entered the house, they ordered everyone to have their hands up; they asked for Emad, blindfolded, handcuffed and arrested him. Immediately after, they took the ID’s of all family members and locked them outside the house on a cold winters night. In the meantime, the soldiers ransacked the whole house causing widespread destruction. They also took with them the young boy’s working tools. As Emad’s mother explains, “if they come with dogs, why do they have to destroy everything? If there is something in the house, the dogs would find it”. Furthermore, no reasons for why they arrested Emad were given; the commander just said “your son has caused problems to the Israelis, if you want to know where your son is, come to Huwwara”. The family still does not know the fate of their son.

In the case of Moaz Darduk (19), dozens of only Hebrew speaking soldiers arrived in his house at 3 am while he was at work and woke his parents up. As they asked for him and his father told the soldiers he was not at home but working, they locked his mother in a room and took his father to his other son’s house just in the next building. The commander, who was the only one speaking Arabic, kept saying to his father “do you know who I am? I am Haroun and I came here to kill your son”. When the commander went back to Moaz’s house he told to his parents “I want you to remember who I am, I am Haroun and I am here to kill your son. If you do not bring your son to Huwwara tomorrow morning at 9.30, we will kill him and return him to you in a coffin”.

Night raids and home searching are common tools used by the Israeli Occupation Forces to arrest Palestinian youth for no reason and as a collective punishment to scare Palestinian families.

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January 15, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli army kills Palestinian teenager

Al-Akhbar | January 15, 2013

A Palestinian teenager was shot and killed after Israeli soldiers stormed a high school in the West Bank, according to activists.

The victim, 17-year-old Samir Awad was from Budrus, a village close to the Israeli apartheid wall, Ma’an news agency reported.

According to the village council head Mohammad Morar, a clash erupted between Israeli forces and teenagers attending the Budrus high school.

Witnesses told Ma’an that Israeli troops stormed into the school, causing students to throw rocks at them. Israeli soldiers then fired five bullets at the students.

Awad was shot four times in the head, chest and legs. He was taken to Ramallah for medical treatment, but succumbed to his wounds there.

The spokesman’s office of the Israeli Armed Forces claimed that Awad had tried to breach the Budrus security fence, ignoring warning shots fired in the air, The Jerusalem Post reported.

Late on Monday, 21-year-old Palestinian Mustafa Abu Jarad died in Gaza after being shot in the head by Israeli forces. A military spokesman later denied that the incident was related to the Israeli army.

January 15, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Honduras: Two More Campesinos Murdered in Aguán

Weekly News Update on the Americas | January 13, 2013

Two campesinos were shot dead on Jan. 11 in the Lower Aguán Valley in the northern Honduran department of Colón as they were walking out of an estate which they and other campesinos had been occupying for two months. A long-standing conflict between campesino groups and large landowners in the area has resulted in the deaths of some 80 campesinos since the groups began occupying estates in December 2009 to dramatize their demands for land [see Update #1154]. According to Wilfredo Paz Zúniga, spokesperson for the Permanent Human Rights Monitoring Center for the Aguán, the victims were José Luis Reyes and Antonio Manuel Pérez. He said unidentified people shot them at close range from a moving automobile.

The Unified Campesino Movement of the Aguán (MUCA), one of the main campesino groups in the region, identified the campesinos as Luis Antonio Ramos Reyes, originally from the Tepusteca de Olanchito Yoro community, and Manuel Antonio Pérez, originally from Remolino on the Aguán river’s left bank. MUCA said the two men were members of another group, the Campesino Movement for the Recovery of the Aguán (MOCRA), whose 600 families began occupying estates on July 20, 2012. According to Paz, the campesinos had been occupying land claimed by the National Autonomous University of Honduras (UNAH); MUCA said the land was owned by UNAH’s Atlantic Coast Regional University Center (CURLA), which had abandoned it. (AFP 1/12/13 via Terra.com; Anncol (Colombia) 1/13/13 via Rebelión (Spain))

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January 15, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

West Bank: Aid agencies tread gingerly in Area C

IRIN | January 11, 2013

As night descends in the Jordan Valley in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt), a family in the village of Ras Al-Ahmar lights a small paraffin lamp in the tent they call home.

There is no electricity here and the nearby Palestinian villages are enveloped in darkness. The only visible cluster of light is from a nearby Israeli settlement.

Humanitarian agencies are well aware of the needs in this part of the West Bank but they face a challenge: play by the rules established by Israel or face the risk of having projects demolished.

Despite being outside the state of Israel, 90 percent of the Jordan Valley is under full Israeli civil and military control as part of Area C, a zone that covers 60 percent of the West Bank.

Palestinian communities here, among the poorest and most vulnerable in oPt, desperately need access to water, electricity, sanitation and other basic infrastructure.

But despite the needs, development organizations that try to improve living conditions in Area C say they find their ability to make any lasting impact hampered by Israeli restrictions and bureaucracy.

Like Palestinians, organizations that want to build basic service infrastructure such as houses, schools or water systems are required to submit an application for a permit to the Israeli authorities.

Often, these permits are not granted. According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), between January 2000 and September 2007, over 94 percent of applications submitted by Palestinians to the Israeli authorities for building permits in Area C were denied.

“The permit regime is very confusing. There is no clarity about the status of an application, whether paperwork has been received, if it is complete,” Willow Heske, media lead for Oxfam in oPt, told IRIN. “Agencies have sometimes waited for two years only to get a rejection that comes without any explanation.”

“A few years ago we put in plans to build a water reservoir in Al-Jiftlik, to provide half of Al-Jiftlik with running water,” said Heske.

“The reservoir was considered a `building’ and we didn’t get the permit. So we moved to a plan B which still involved setting up a reservoir and piping system but above rather than below ground. This too was not accepted. So as a last resort we had to go back to distributing water tanks. And of course people were frustrated and disappointed.”

Challenging the Occupation

Some NGOs, among them Palestinian organizations like Ma’an Development Centre (MDC), believe that adhering to the permit regime helps legitimize the occupation, and choose to ignore the rules altogether.

“If you’re playing within the rules of the occupation then you are legitimizing it. We don’t seek permits from the Israelis. If we put in a permit request we would likely get denied,” MDC project manager Chris Keeler told IRIN. “And also because of a moral stance. We don’t think that a Palestinian NGO should be seeking permission from Israel to be building on Palestinian lands.”

For international organizations, it’s not only the possibility of having a permit denied that affects their work, but also the multiple ways in which the Israeli state bureaucracy hinders their work by issuing “stop work” orders to existing projects, refusing to issue work visas, or refusing to renew existing work permits for foreign staff.

Even MDC finds that it must sometimes work within existing framework restrictions.

“There are houses all over the Jordan Valley that need renovations,” said Keeler. “If we do a project in some of the communities in the north, it would likely get destroyed. So we work a lot in Al-Jiftlik and Al-Fasayil. We need permits in those places too, but because they are more established communities, there is less risk that they will get destroyed. A lot of donors want reassurance that structures we build will not be torn down.”

IRIN was unable to get a response from the Israeli government despite repeated attempts, but in the past the Israeli government spokesperson has said Israeli policy is shaped by security concerns.

EU Move

In May 2012, the European Union (EU) Council of Foreign Affairs called on Israel to meet its obligations to communities in Area C, “including by accelerated approval of Palestinian master plans, halting forced transfer of population and demolition of Palestinian housing and infrastructure… and addressing humanitarian needs.”

The Council stated that the “social and economic developments in Area C are of critical importance for the viability of a future Palestinian state.”

The Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs criticized the recommendations, saying they were “based on a partial, biased and one-sided depiction of realities on the ground” and that they “do not contribute to advancing the peace process”.

The Ministry said 119 projects were authorized in Area C in 2011 and that they ensured that “planned projects” were “coordinated and in conformity… with the law”.

Oxfam’s Heske believes the recent EU recommendations are bold and courageous, even though it is still not clear how they will play out on the ground. “These conclusions mean that there is now a full political commitment to work on development in Area C,” she said. “How it will play out, we don’t know, if it happens with or without permits. But we don’t want to see just one token water network here and there.”

Since 2011, the Palestinian Authority’s ministry for local government and local Palestinian councils have submitted 32 master plans for development in Area C to the Israeli Civil Administration (ICA). Each master plan includes infrastructure development, health care, primary education, water provision, electricity and the development of agricultural land, and requires approval by the ICA through a lengthy process of negotiation.

However, according to Azzam Hjouj, acting general director for urban and regional planning in the Palestinian ministry of local government, even if master plans are approved by the ICA, it is expected that the Israeli authorities may issue demolition and “stop work” orders for some plans, particularly in areas like Al-Jiftlik in the Jordan Valley, and that political pressure will be required to ensure implementation.

Bedouin Villages

As for the more isolated Bedouin villages in the valley, the new master plans will not cover their areas.

“It’s difficult to make a master plan for these herding communities, because they are dispersed over large areas. They move around a lot and we don’t want to urbanize these areas, it’s their way of life,” Hjouj said. “And even if we made master plans, it would just give the ICA an excuse to congregate the herding communities into one area and take the remaining land.”

The Israeli Coordination of Government Activity in the Territories (COGAT – a unit in the Israeli Ministry of Defense that engages in coordinating civilian issues between the government of Israel, the Israel Defense Forces, international organizations, diplomats, and the Palestinian Authority) said that many of the construction projects in Area C are “illegal and poorly planned”.

A report compiled by COGAT relating to projects in Area C states that “illegal construction projects that ignore master plans undermine the possibility for future expansions and create problems for electrical, sewage and water systems.”

More Advocacy?

As with the wider crisis, there are no easy solutions for humanitarian agencies seeking to provide aid in Area C, and finding the line between purely humanitarian work, and political engagement is tough.

For economist Shir Hever, author of The Political Economy of Israel’s Occupation, Western governments and NGOs need to be more active in opposing the occupation of West Bank areas.

“Instead, donors put 99 percent of their work in doing what is allowed and 1 percent in protesting conditions,” he said.

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January 14, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

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