The DISH

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Vol. 12 Issue 37…Dedicated to the Dialogue on Race…September 13, 2009

Hit of History

Berlin Conference (1884-1885)

"The Berlin Conference was Africa's undoing in more ways than one. The colonial powers superimposed their domains on the African continent. By the time independence returned to Africa in 1950, the realm had acquired a legacy of political fragmentation that could neither be eliminated nor made to operate satisfactorily."

For centuries Europeans viewed Africa with curiosity, awe, and greed. The Portuguese began exploring Africa in 1450. Their successful voyages along Africa's coast encouraged other European naval powers to explore Africa. Establishing colonies all along the coast, Europeans competed ferociously for control late into the nineteenth century. The Industrial Revolution created the need for cheap labor, raw materials and new markets. This intensified competition for overseas territories and often led to violent conflict between European powers.

Although Africa is physically remote from the power centers of Europe, North America, and Asia, it is surrounded by water which opens Africa to the prospect of an invasion. However, Africa's geography -- size, surface features, climate and remoteness -- made an invasion a very risky adventure for ambitious European empires. Avoiding constant bloodshed and competition for African resources necessitated Europeans establish ground rules for exploiting Africa.

Portugal, which had engaged in several violent conflicts, suggested an international conference that could settle territorial disputes that arose from activities in the Congo region. Using the guise of a desire to end the slave trade and promote humanitarian idealism as its focus, the Berlin Conference was convened by Chancellor Otto von Bismarck of Germany in Berlin between November 15, 1884 and February 26, 1885. The conference passed empty resolutions about ending the slave trade and providing for the welfare of Africa. The real purpose of the Conference was to divide Africa among the European powers.

Advocating the partition of Africa, Bismarck wanted not only to expand Germany's spheres of influence, but he sought advantages for Germany by playing its colonial rivals against one another. Colonial powers came together out of greed and agreed to end fighting over control in order to fully exploit their African colonies.

Europeans differed markedly in the way they governed their dependencies. The United Kingdom and France considered themselves democracies, while others were dictatorships (Portugal, Spain). The British established a system of indirect rule, leaving indigenous power structures in place and making local rulers representatives of the British Crown. Portuguese colonies were ruled directly through harsh treatment. The French desired culturally assimilated elites that reflected French ideals.

King Leopold II of Belgium, who financed the Congo expedition, used a campaign of ruthless exploitation. His enforcers mobilized almost all Congolese to gather rubber, kill elephants for their ivory, and build roads to improve export routes. Entire communities were massacred for failing to meet production quotas. Routine killing and maiming during Leopold's reign of terror caused an international outcry. The Belgium government and Roman Catholic Church shared the bloody profits from over 10 million Congolese deaths.

At the time of the conference, 80% of Africa's traditional and local control systems were intact. Ultimately, the conference produced a hodgepodge of geometric boundaries that divided Africa into fifty irregular countries. This new map was superimposed over thousands of indigenous cultures and hundreds of regions of Africa. The new countries lacked reason and divided coherent groups of people and merged disparate groups, many of which were blood enemies. This total disregard of human rights for African people sowed the seeds of the current chaos, rivalries for power and bloodshed extending from the Horn of Africa to Zimbabwe. (Sources: http://wysinger.homestead.com, http://geography.about.com and www.thenagain.info)

Intuit's Vibe

Rogue States

By Mumia Abu-Jamal

A president takes power in government, after an election marred by fraud. All opposition is cowed into silence. The country's highest judicial body gives its legal blessing to its preferred candidate, a fellow partisan.

The national media essentially silences, demonizes, and ultimately ignores the voices of any significant opposition, and gives fawning, largely uncritical coverage of 'the Great Leader' -- one given to outlandish, bombastic and martial rhetoric. The leader's repressive machinery, its police, prison guards, judges and military violate both national and international law with impunity-- torturing, beating and killing opponents.

When protests do arise-- as they inevitably do -- the leader ignores and downplays its significance. They neither change nor influence the leader's decisions -- for He believes that he is chosen by God to rule the nation, and thus his beliefs are higher than any law.

If this sounds like a rogue nation, it is: but probably not the one you're thinking about. For if you are an average American whose mind is formed by the corporate media, you can't help but think I'm making references to Iran.

Of course, I'm not. I'm writing of the U.S.A. -- especially after the 2000 presidential elections. Think of it: election fraud; judicial blessings; slavish media; presidential rejection of protests; leader 'chosen' by God?

It's all there. Not to mention the ongoing national and global costs to be paid by the election of a parade of paranoid schizophrenics. But, of course, U.S. nationalism makes it quite difficult for Americans to see their country as a rogue state. But history unknown doesn't make it untrue.

In fact, the U.S. is a rogue empire, which has sponsored rogue states around the world, largely as part of the Cold War, when there was a Soviet Union, and it wiped out, took over, replaced and/or supported puppets throughout Latin America.

If we look at U.S. policies against the indigenous 'Indian' nations -- the Comanche, the Creeks, the Lakota, the Seminoles, Apaches -- and many, many others - well: rogue nation becomes genocidal nation.

To say the media has become a tool of state is understatement. It doesn't inform us -- it misforms us, bending our minds so we don't see anything worth seeing.

American Imperialism Uncloaked

By John Burl Smith

The term "geopolitics" for some refers to the dominant political thinking during the late nineteenth century. Geopolitics relates to the contention and competition between imperialist powers of that day for control over territory, natural resources and important geographical areas. Retrospectively, this geopolitical mind-set is the "field of dreams" in which the seeds of two world wars were sowed. Supplanted by the "Cold War" and nuclear bombs, geopolitics was disguised under what became known as the policy of containment and deterrents. In a by-polar world, this seemed the only rationally viable means of survival, where a confrontation between nations with itchy trigger fingers could wipe mankind off the map.

In the words of George W. Bush, "the world changed on September 11." The demise of the Soviet Union eliminated the by-polar stalemate and left the US as the only superpower. This gave Neocons the opening to press their position paper "Project for the New American Century (PNAC). They demanded a shift in America's strategic focus from Europe to the Persian Gulf area, which possesses two-thirds of the world's oil, the Caspian Sea basin, which has large deposits of oil, Central Asia and the Middle East extending over to the Horn of Africa (Somalia). Bush created a new center of world struggle and conflict, using a thinly veiled strategy he called "the War on Terror" aimed at dominating this area.

The invasion of Afghanistan uncloaked US imperialistic designs and was but a prelude to a grand strategy that would draw down American forces with the closure of bases in East Asia and Europe while building up forces and military bases in the Persian Gulf and Central Asia. Most Americans are unaware that President Bill Clinton initiated US military ties with Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Georgia, and Azerbaijan to build up US capacity to intervene in the Persian Gulf/Caspian Sea area.

Why the Persian Gulf/Caspian Sea area? Approximately 70 % of known petroleum reserves are there. One must think of oil not as a source of fuel but as a source of power. As neocons see it, whoever controls Persian Gulf oil, controls the world's economy. Controlling the Persian Gulf means controlling the Gulf of Aden, the Horn of Africa thus Somalia. The conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan and between Abkhazia and Georgia will impact U.S. strategy because of its need to protect the trans-Caucasian gas pipeline. War in Chechen could destabilize the Stans as much as Afghanistan has pulled Pakistan directly into the Middle East conflict.

Viewed from this perspective, it is obvious why President Barack Obama has back tracked on his pledge to end the Iraq War and is escalating the war in Afghanistan. Like Bush's economic policies, Obama has bought into the Bush/neocon War on Terror geopolitical thinking of world dominance. US' thrust for dominance has truly uncloaked its imperialistic desire born during the late 1800s. The War on Terror or citing suspected Al-Qaeda connections provides the US the pretext in the name of democracy to move into a country, like Somalia, which is strategically located or one that possesses natural resources, which are being ravaged by war or a dictatorship. Democracy is a thinly veiled guise to repeat what colonial powers did in Africa.

Somalia is a current example of the destructive impact of colonial imperialism, the Cold War and neo-geopolitical thinking. After years of colonial rule by both the Italians and British, Somalia finally gained its independence in 1960, only to witness Major General Muhammad Siad Barre assassinate the democratically-elected president in a military coup in 1969. A ruthless dictator, he ruled until deposed in 1991. Along the way, during the "Cold War," Siad Barre moved Somalia into the Soviet Union's sphere to counter US support for Ethiopia during their border war. Cold War competition prompted an arms race that enabled Somali clans to stock pile weapons and turn the Horn of Africa into a tender box.

Most experts outside of Somalia believe the Obama administration's "War on Terror" is simply a pretext to further the Bush/neocon thrust for dominance. The reported movement of militants from the Afghan-Pakistan (AFPAK) border to Africa vis-à-vis Al-Qaeda justifies that scenario. Experts inside Somalia believe that instability in the country serves the interest of the US and its allies in the region. Strategically, the Red Sea, which forms Somalia's northern and western borders, has been secured by Egypt, Israel, and Jordan, US allies. However, southern shipping lanes of the Red Sea, currently a hotbed of piracy, are beyond their reach.

If a government hostile to US interests secures control of Mogadishu and the rest of Somalia, the US will completely lose control of the Gulf of Aden between Somalia and Yemen. Raising the specter of an Al-Qaeda insurgency in Somalia frees the US to demand a foreign military solution to a domestic political problem. Such a solution will help the US maintain effective control of the area without having to maintain peace and help with Somali economic development. This solution will not serve the interest of Somalia's people. (Sources: http://wysinger.homestead.com, www.questia.com, www.informationclearinghouse.info, www.islamonline.net, www.somalilandtimes.net, and http://en.wikipedia.org)

Venue for an Artist

US Hypocrisy Astonishes the World

By Paul Craig Roberts

US War Secretary Robert Gates has condemned the Associated Press and a reporter, Julie Jacobson, embedded with US troops in Afghanistan, for taking and releasing a photo of a US Marine who was wounded in action and died from his injury. Americans have lost their ability for introspection, thereby revealing their astounding hypocrisy to the world.

The photographer was on patrol with the Marines when they came under fire. She found the courage and presence of mind to do her job. Her reward is to be condemned by the warmonger Gates as "insensitive." Gates says her employer, the Associated Press, lacks "judgment and common decency."

The American Legion jumped in and denounced the Associated Press for a "stunning lack of compassion and common decency.."

To stem opposition to its wars, the War Department hides signs of American casualties from the public. Angry that evidence escaped the censor, the War Secretary and the American Legion attacked with politically correct jargon: "insensitive," "offended," and the "anguish," "pain and suffering" inflicted upon the Marine's family. The War Department sounds like it is preparing a harassment tort.

Isn't this passing the buck? The Marine lost his life not because of the Associated Press and a photographer, but because of the war criminals - Gates, Bush, Cheney, Obama, and the US Congress that supports wars of naked aggression that serve no American purpose, but which keeps campaign coffers filled with contributions from the armaments companies.

Marine Lance Cpl. Joshua M. Bernard is dead because the US government and a significant percentage of the US population believe that the US has the right to invade, bomb, and occupy other peoples who have raised no hand against us but are demonized with lies and propaganda.

For the American War Secretary it is a photo that is insensitive, not America's assertion of the right to determine the fate of Afghanistan with bombs and soldiers.

The exceptional "virtuous nation" does not think it is insensitive for America's bombs to blow innocent villagers to pieces. On September 4, the day before Gates' outburst over the "insensitive" photo, Agence France Presse reported from Afghanistan that a US/NATO air strike had killed large numbers of villagers who had come to get fuel from two tankers that had been hijacked from negligent and inattentive occupation forces:

"'Nobody was in one piece. Hands, legs and body parts were scattered everywhere. Those who were away from the fuel tanker were badly burnt,' said 32-year-old Mohammad Daud, depicting a scene from hell. The burned-out shells of the tankers, still smoking in marooned wrecks on the riverbank, were surrounded by the charred-meat remains of villagers from Chahar Dara district in Kunduz province, near the Tajik border. Dr. Farid Rahid, a spokesperson in Kabul for the ministry of health, said up to 250 villagers had been near the tankers when the air strike was called in."

What does the world think of the United States? The American War Secretary and a US military veterans association think a photo of an injured and dying American soldier is insensitive, but not the wipeout of an Afghan village that came to get needed fuel.

The US government is like a criminal who accuses the police of his crime when he is arrested or a sociopathic abuser who blames the victim. It is a known fact that the CIA has violated US law and international law with its assassinations, kidnappings and torture. But it is not this criminal agency that will be held accountable. Instead, those who will be punished will be those moral beings who, appalled at the illegality and inhumanity of the CIA, leaked the evidence of the agency's crimes. The CIA has asked the US Justice (sic) Department to investigate what the CIA alleges is the "criminal disclosure" of its secret program to murder suspected foreign terrorist leaders abroad. As we learned from Gitmo, those suspected by America are overwhelmingly innocent.

The CIA program is so indefensible that when CIA director Leon Panetta found out about it six months after being in office, he cancelled the program (assuming those running the program obeyed) and informed Congress.

Yet, the CIA wants the person who revealed its crime to be punished for revealing secret information. A secret agency this unmoored from moral and legal standards is a greater threat to our country than are terrorists. Who knows what false flag operation it will pull off in order to provide justification and support for its agenda? An agency that is more liability than benefit should be abolished.

Accusing the truth-teller instead of the evil-doer is the position that the neoconservatives took against theNew York Times when after one year's delay, which gave George W. Bush time to get reelected, the Times published the NSA leak that revealed that the Bush administration was committing felonies by violating the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The neocons, especially those associated with Commentary magazine, wanted the New York Times indicted for treason. To the evil neocon mind, anything that interferes with their diabolical agenda is treason. The agency's program of assassinating terrorist leaders is itself fraught with contradictions and dangers. The hatred created by the US and Israel is independent of any leader. If one is killed, others take his place. The most likely outcome of the CIA assassination program is that the agency will be manipulated by rivals, just as the FBI was used by one mafia family to eliminate another.

In order to establish credibility with groups that they are attempting to penetrate, CIA agents will be drawn into participating in violent acts against the US and its allies.

This is the way many Americans think. America über alles! No one counts but us (and Israel). The deaths we inflict and the pain and suffering we bring to others are merely collateral damage on the bloody path to American hegemony.

The attitude of the "freedom and democracy" US government is that anyone who complains of illegality or immorality or inhumanity is a traitor. The Republican Senator Christopher S. Bond is a recent example. Bond got on his high horse about "irreparable damage" to the CIA from the disclosures of its criminal activities. Bond wants those "back stabbers" who revealed the CIA's wrongdoings to be held accountable. Bond is unable to grasp that it is the criminal activities, not their disclosure, that is the source of the problem. Obviously, the whistleblower protection act has no support from Senator Bond, who sees it as just another law to plough under.

This is where the US government stands today: Ignoring and covering up government crimes is the patriotic thing to do. To reveal the government's crimes is an act of treason. Many Americans on both sides of the aisle agree. Yet, they still think that they are The Virtuous Nation, the exceptional nation, the salt of the earth.

About Me: Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with Lawrence Stratton, provides a documented account of how Americans lost the protection of law.

Hood Notes

New Global Currency

By Dot

First, there was China, understandably concerned about the deteriorating value of its fortune in dollar-denominated assets, warning the United States not to allow the dollar to lose its value. Successive US Treasury Secretaries have assured the Chinese that the US supports a strong dollar policy, when the opposite aids its current account balance. Given US deficits that extend farther than eyes can see and a non-stop printing press to support living beyond its means, including wars of aggression on credit, coupled with the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, the Chinese have every reason to be concerned.

Second, other voices of concern about the declining status of the dollar have included the Russians, with its experts predicting the demise of the empire. With its own history in Afghanistan, the Russians are well-schooled in the folly of a war of aggression in that region, especially since it was the US that bankrolled the opposition that bankrupt the Soviet Union as it sought to bring Afghanistan under its dominance.

Last week, a report published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development sided with the Chinese and Russians in advising that the US dollar should be replaced as the global reserve currency. If that were to happen, it would represent one of the most significant changes in the global financial system since the Bretton Woods agreement, which established the IMF and World Bank following WWII.

According to the Conference report, "[The] dominance of the dollar as the main means of international payments [has] played an important role in the build-up of the global imbalances in the run-up to the financial crisis. Another disadvantage of the current international reserve system is that it imposes a greater adjustment burden on deficit countries (except if it is a country issuing a reserve currency) than on surplus countries." The US has obviously benefited as the issuing reserve country. It has been able to amass huge deficits as a result.

A new global system with a new currency "would tackle the problem of destabilizing capital flows at its source. It would remove a major incentive for speculation and ensure that monetary factors do not stand in the way of achieving a level playing field for international trade. It would also get rid of debt traps and counterproductive conditionality. The last point is perhaps the most important one: countries facing strong depreciation pressure would automatically receive the required assistance once a sustainable level of the exchange rate had been reached in the form of swap agreements or direct intervention by the counterparty."

China is already moving its reserves away from the dollar and has joined the Russians in predicting that the increasing supply of dollars will spell its downfall. While Washington staunchly defends the dollar as the world's reserve currency, the rest of the world is gradually moving away from the dollar in favor of gold, euros or a basket of currencies. Given the US' dominance as the world's sole superpower, is there a real possibility that the global financial system will ditch the dollar?

News You Use

Planned G-20 Demonstrations

World leaders will convene in Pittsburgh for G-20 meetings on September 24-25. The G-20 is made up of finance ministers from the world's 19 largest economies, the European Union, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and World Bank. Topping discussions at the September summit will be the world economic crisis. The meetings will examine the progress of the economic initiatives from their April meeting in London.

In a public statement on the forthcoming gathering, President Barack Obama urged world leaders to "lay the groundwork" for sustainable economic growth in the future, saying "The Pittsburgh Summit is an important opportunity to continue the hard work that we have done in confronting the global economic crisis, and renewing prosperity for our people. Together, we will review the progress we have made, assess what more needs to be done, and discuss what we can do together to lay the groundwork for balanced and sustainable economic growth."

Foreshadowing the planned marches and demonstrations likely to greet G-20 leaders, on Wednesday, protesters interrupted the Pittsburgh G-20 briefing in Washington. Pittsburgh Mayor Luke Ravenstahl and County Executive Dan Onorato pitched the city's post-steel revival at the National Press Club. Protesters carrying a banner were escorted from the building. Morgan Goodwin, an organizer for Avaaz.org, a global activist Web site, said the organization "is trying to call attention to climate policy and is upset that the city has been slow to grant protest permits."

According to Mayor Ravenstahl, the city has granted eight protest permits. Others are still awaiting Secret Service review. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) filed a lawsuit on behalf of six groups, including Code Pink and the environmental group Three Rivers Climate Convergence, over the impasse after a month of negotiation with the city and the Secret Service.

According to the filing, "The plaintiffs seek to engage in peaceful, constitutionally protected expressive activities during the upcoming G20 summit in Pittsburgh." A court ruling on the suit is expected early next week.

The G-20 protests will cover a host of issues from jobs and housing to the prison and military industrial complex. For more on the upcoming summit and organized protests visit http://3riversconvergence.org/ and http://answercoalition.com/.

Mailbox: E-Mails, Faxes and Telephone Calls

Email www.truthdig.com ...Obama's Meaningless War...By Robert Scheer...True, he doesn't seem a bit like Lyndon Johnson, but the way he's headed on Afghanistan, Barack Obama is threatened with a quagmire that could bog down his presidency. LBJ also had a progressive agenda in mind, beginning with his war on poverty, but it was soon overwhelmed by the cost and divisiveness engendered by a meaningless, and seemingly endless, war in Vietnam. Meaningless is the right term for the Afghanistan war, too, because our bloody attempt to conquer this foreign land has nothing to do with its stated purpose of enhancing our national security. Just as the government of Vietnam was never a puppet of Communist China or the Soviet Union, the Taliban is not a surrogate for al-Qaida. Involved in both instances was an American intrusion into a civil war whose passions and parameters we never fully grasped and could not control militarily.

Email http://groups.yahoo.com...Bradley Schlozman …Won't Face Criminal Charges for Lying Under Oath...By Devlin Barrett -- Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., who was one of Schlozman's questioners at the original hearing and had urged Holder take a second look at the case, called the attorney general's decision "very disappointing." "Perjury is often a close call, but in this case it wasn't. Mr. Schlozman was way over the line," Schumer said. In the letter to lawmakers, Assistant Attorney General Ronald Weich said Holder oversaw an "extensive" review of the Schlozman matter. Holder found the alleged conduct of Schlozman disturbing, but ultimately chose to defer to the prosecutors' original decision not to bring charges, Weich wrote. Schlozman resigned from the Justice Department in 2007 and went to work as an attorney in private practice in Wichita, Kan. His lawyer, Bill Jordan, said his client "is extremely pleased" by the attorney general's decision, and called the original allegations in the report "grossly inaccurate and biased." The investigation of Schlozman was among a number of probes that found senior Justice Department officials in the Bush administration had violated civil service laws under the tenure of former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. The Justice Department controversies - in particular the firing of nine U.S. attorneys - led to Gonzales' resignation in 2007.

Email www.ap.com Aid agency says Somali refugee camps overcrowded...By Elizabeth Kennedy...Hundreds of thousands of Somali refugees are jammed into camps that are "barely fit for humans," with poor sanitation and little access to water and medicine, an international aid agency said Thursday. British aid agency Oxfam said the camps in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia are overcrowded and badly managed. The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, which is involved with various other organizations in running the camps and providing food and shelter, has been "weak and inefficient" in addressing the crisis, said Robert Van den Berg, Oxfam's spokesman for the Horn of Africa. Somalia has been ravaged by violence and anarchy for almost two decades. More than half of the population - 3.8 million people - needs humanitarian aid, according to the United Nations.