*BLOWBACK IN LIBYA AND EGYPT
* ** *In embassy and consulate attacks in Libya and Egypt <http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/09/12/us-libya-usa-attack-idUSBRE88B0EI20120912>, several people, including the US ambassador to Libya, appear to have been killed. After these attacks, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said "The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others. Our commitment to religious tolerance goes back to the very beginning of our nation. But let me be clear: There is never any justification for violent acts of this kind. " This is hypocrisy at its worst for several reasons. First, Hillary was behind religious fanatics, including al Qaeda fighters who likely had been killing American troops in Iraq, overthrowing the Ghaddafi government in order to install a puppet government. This is blowback, like the CIA's original al Qaeda, which included Osama bin Laden, turning on its master. Second, Hillary and husband Bill boasted that the iron fisted Egyptian leader, General Mubarak, was their close friend. Egyptian protesters in the "Arab Spring" last year pointed out that the tear gas used against them was clearly marked "Made in USA" even as Hillary pretended to be on the side of an outbreak of democracy against her close friend. Third, religious beliefs have been denigrated by the USA since the "war on terrorism" began, with troops burning Korans and urinating on Muslims they've killed, so this is nothing more than blowback, and there will be more, with hatreds fueled by the many insane invasions, occupations and bombings by US forces in the region for "justifications" which are, at best, nebulous. * ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *DAMNING OUR FELLOW CREATURES * ** *"Over 8,000 conservation experts have issued a plea to save the world's 100 most endangered species," begins a report at /Common Dreams/ <http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/09/11-6> this morning. Scientists have been reporting that the extinction rate may now be higher than it's ever been-- in part because of human activities. * ** ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *THE STRIKE-- DAY 3 * ** *Chicago Mayor Rham Emanuel is claiming that the end of the teacher's strike is at hand. But the Chicago teachers union has issued a statement <http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/sep/11/chicago-teachers-strike-second-day-live> saying negotiations with the school board have not touched on core union concerns and "we have a considerable way to go." We back the teachers, they are right, the US public education system is under attack everywhere in the land and this action is the right thing to do at the right time. The Empire now has over 2,000 foreign military bases (we are counting the little ones) where we are wasting valuable resources to wage war and protect transnational corporations that don't give a damn about this country or its people. Most citizens would rather see money spent on educating kids for the future. With the presidential election going on, President Obama does not want to appear to be anti-union, and with an education secretary from Chicago, his own Chicago roots, combined with a mayor who was his chief of staff, Obama is in the cross hairs after taking lots of union money for his political campaigns, which should add pressure to help those on strike. * ** ------------------------------------------------------------------------ **Many of us true progressives, desiring peace and justice, feel as if we are screaming from a realm in which sound doesn't carry-- nobody hears our voice. We are surrounded by citizens entirely unaware of what we are saying, and they look at us as though we are mad for our dissidence, mumbling, as though the words contained wisdom, "You must vote for a Democrat or a Republican, then you may go back to watching TV." So imagine what it would be like if your world was like this, but with the additional sting of having a powerful empire casually dropping bombs from drone aircraft on your villages, slaughtering your children as helter skelter as tornadoes twisting randomly from out of the blue. For so many on the planet, outside of the 1%, life is becoming increasingly unbearable. But one thing you will not hear from the mass media is the opinion of the 99% under the dark curtain of modern transnational corporate fascism --Jack Balkwill ** **Memorandum to the National and International Powers** **** **Letter From a Wretched Pakistani <http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/11/letter-from-a-wretched-pakistani/> ** **** **by SHAFQAT HUSSAIN** **** **** **** **Jab zulm-o-sitam ke koh-e giran Rooyi ki tarah ur jayenge. ** **When the weighted mountains of tyranny Will fly off like cotton whisps. ** **-- Faiz Ahmed Faiz.** **** **This memorandum is addressed to you. You know who you are. You are the "international community." You watch us on television, or not. Either way you have ideas about us, fears about us. ** **We, the Pakistanis, feel under siege. We feel under siege from our government policies at home and by how you see us, as worthless and terrifying. We feel directionless and lost. ** **Our rights are violated, our expectations dashed. You scorn us for these miseries. We have lost all dignity in our own eyes. We ask, "how can this go on? How can the masters of our country take us to ruin? What is it that they see that we do not see? Whose interests do they serve if not ours?" ** **We find no answers. We realize that no one is listening. ** **Our rulers and masters are powerful; their power comes from their ability and authority to control us and keep us poor and wretched. Tragically, or ironically, our rulers' rulers don't even know that they have us in the small of their hands. We are so insignificant, that our tormenters don't know we exist. We are like ants beneath the feet of a giant who cannot even see them.We have been fantasized and re-fantasied as part of other people's world. ** **We, the Pakistanis, are of no interest to anybody. We are poor, dangerous, disorganized, unfamiliar and chaotic. We can't control geopolitics and we don't have any overlapping interests with the superpowers. We want to have peace, security and dignity. ** **We have lived and we can live under difficult times, we have endured the burden of poverty for a long time, but we have never been so thoroughly condemned and humiliated as now. Compared to our current moral bankruptcy and shame, our past, albeit full of poverty, seems like a golden age. ** **The power of global politics and control is a glamorous and seductive business. We neither have the acumen nor the perspicacity nor even the desire to appreciate it. But we are still part of it. We are like the extras in Hollywood and Bollywood movies who spent all their lives thinking that one day they will get a break. Their lives are full of false hope and optimistic explanations, but deep down their hearts they know that they don't have control over that great leap into Success. ** **Just like them, we too will perish nameless. We will be talked about and written about in historical narratives, but only as objects of other people's histories and destinies. We have no destiny. ** **A text message whizzes around the social media in Pakistan: "Pakistan has become so dangerous that even OBL is not safe here." OBL. That's Osama Bin Laden, who lived his last days in the cantonment town of Abbottabad. Even refugees from war torn Syria would refuse exit visas to Pakistan. ** **But we hope. We hope that in the end, everything will be all right. Or at least not as bad as it is now. We hope that the drunken stupor of the powerful will result in a hangover of reconciliation -- that they will see the error of their ways and somehow treat the rest of us with some decency. ** **We endure the shame and denigration today in the hope that someday, in the near future please, our leading families will stand up for us. Dil, Dil Pakistan, goes the anthem from a band whose name reveals our hopefulness, Vital Signs. Reading the signs, we hope that from some corner will emerge someone who can emerge and take us out of this bad period, our champion. ** **Our national policies and priorities are set by the military, or what Ayesha Siddiqa calls Military Inc. (it has vast business interests, selling us oil through its Fauji Oil Terminal and running computer training workshops through Fauji Soft -- Fauji being soldier). Dislike for the civilians is promoted through an army culture in which anyone who has had not gone through the discipline of army training is deemed an idiot and unprofessional. Professionalism comes from disciplines and discipline means obeying order and doing the training. ** **Intellectualism is abhorred and looked down up as a sign of free ranging thoughts. Intellectuals who are not yoked to the Fauji Foundations are seen as out of control and in need of discipline (either through the seduction of grants or the mediation of jail). These idiots are to be controlled and made subservient to the interest of the military. Proxy wars, defense contracting, and arms trading are some of the main functions and interests of the military. The Military creates an aura of perpetual decay of all national institutions, so that justification for the pursuit of their interests can be presented as a solution to all of these failures. They present their interests to us as ours. ** **You indict us, us, who are wretched, broken, dis-reputed and disenfranchised. You tell us that we hate you because we hate your freedom. You may be wrong but not totally. We don't disagree with your freedom; in fact we would like to have nothing to do with your freedom. ** **We only hate you when you support dictators and a dictatorial structure that take away our freedom: our freedom to determine our values and our interests. You support those who decide our values and interests, without ever bothering to know what they are. ** **Both you and they call it the best thing in our interests. But the interests are yours, and theirs. You make alliances on interests, we want alliances on principles. You align interests of everyone with yours. You never think of aligning your interests with others. Your principles are slave to you interests. You support democracy, a principle, when it is in your interests. But you also topple democracies when it is in your interest. ** **You watch us on television. We create anxiety for you. But we have interests too, desires too. We, the wretched, do not feature anywhere in the scheme of your interests. ** **http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/09/11/letter-from-a-wretched-pakistani/ ** **Shafqat Hussain teaches Anthropology at Trinity College. He likes to spend his days in Gilgit, chasing after snow leopards. He created Project Snow Leopard, an insurance scheme in several valleys of northern Pakistan that compensates farmers for goats killed by the big cats. It has saved the lives of between 25 and 40 snow leopards.****** ------------------------------------------------------------------------ *If you wish to be removed from this list, please let us know* ** *To join the Liberty Underground news service email libertyuv@hotmail.comwith "join" for a subject* ** *You may also join our talk group athttp://groups.yahoo.com/group/libertyundergroundtalk/ <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/libertyundergroundtalk/>if you would like to participate or join our Facebook group here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/461619557192964/ * ** *email: libert...@hotmail.com* ** *Tell your friends about /LUV News/ because some people just don't get it* [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ --------------------------------------------------------------------------- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribe: <mailto:laamn-unsubscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Subscribe: <mailto:laamn-subscr...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Digest: <mailto:laamn-dig...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Help: <mailto:laamn-ow...@egroups.com?subject=laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Post: <mailto:la...@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive1: <http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Archive2: <http://www.mail-archive.com/laamn@egroups.com> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yahoo! 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