Announcing: INVALUABLE RESOURCE post (to Be UPDATED)
"If uncertainty is unacceptable to you, it turns into fear. If it is perfectly acceptable, it turns into increased aliveness, alertness and creativity." Tolle in -A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life's Purpose
(first entry in A New Earth Calendar for 2010)
NOTE:
I love to find the intersection between spirituality and peace action. I believe in the right kind of RESISTANCE to evil at times and the right sort of NONRESISTANCE when that is what is called for most. Let's not get tripped up by the terms: nonresistance and resistance...seek the RIGHT ACTION for your PRESENT MOMENT and your present calling...you can find that COUNTRY for all peacemakers - beyond all temporary and limited labels of Rights and Wrongs - a place for just law and love for all...Seek and Find this country now...I will meet you there...
Connie oneheart blogger...
Watch here for some resources I haven't mentioned much if at all in this blogsite.
First of all, I've done readers here a great disservice in covering Dr. Aafia Siddiqui's trial in not posting items from Pakistan...so I just posted an earlier one from February 4th just go below for AAFIA -an OMEN in that date with references to others which I hope you will look up on the Republic of Rumi blogsite where there are a number of interesting, poignant blogposts at The Republic of Rumi blog - Be sure also to go there and see various others...Friends from Republic of Rumi, I sure hope to make amends in time and feature your thoughtful items with more visibility - give me a few weeks and/or remind me and also send any new articles and posts on Aafia to my email with clear subject heading to newlease7@yahoo.com !
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The pattern I've noticed in terms of Peace and Justice issues of late require a deepening awareness of many aspects beyond yet including our current preoccupations with what's LEGAL and what's Pragmatic. So I plan to look for the resources which highlight ETHICS, MORALITY and HISTORY (which are of course all connected). This greater awareness of issues we are up against includes our own HISTORY at home (continually revisted) and abroad - the decent and not - and includes the HISTORY of the regions where America has been hated and is becoming more and more despised and disrespected and for all manner of reasons. What about a DEEPER look into the question: "Why do they hate us?"
At the same time, I want to look for resources which may not be entirely gloom and doom because how if there is no light can we go on with our work and offer any basis of goodness for our children?
Finally, although I don't expect perfect, I want to find resources which I wouldn't mind sending to friends abroad and at home which are a little more careful with ads and flippant religious/ethnic comments which might be either unnecessarily offensive on purpose or lacking in interpersonal skills which seeks common ground and respect.
So rather than post many individual items each week, I want to offer an occasional resource which I have not explored well enough. These are resources which themselves offer reports: Books, Media, Updates. While my choices will not be perfect nor please everyone, my requirements will be stricter in the future - resources which don't run so many extraneous and problematic ads and assumptions that all general readers, assumptions of those who are spiritual and religiously devout even international contacts who are not necessarily as blaise about our usual sarcasms and assumptions. Read between the lines...
So keep watching this blogsite and this particular post for RESOURCE updates over the next few weeks - also earlier items may be UPDATED. Please suggest your own favorites or discoveries in COMMENTS.
FIRST ENTRY:
TOM DISPATCH free emails, book reviews which include lots of history and suggest "where do we go from here?" Also, you may find something you like in Tom's list of suggested media & references?
ABOUT TOM DISPATCH:
Tom Dispatch is for anyone seeking a deeper understanding of our post-9/11 world and a clear sense of how our imperial globe actually works. Read more about the site's founder and editor Tom Engelhardt and his guest authors. MORE about Tom and his dispatches: here Click here to e-mail Tom. here
I hope to post BOOK REVIEWS in the future. Readers of Oneheart..please suggest or send your own book reviews...
BOOK recommended on Tom Dispatch: After Empire: The Birth of a Multipolar World
Dilip Hiro, an Iran expert and TomDispatch regular, has just written a new book that puts Iran, the United States, China, and Russia into a global context. It’s called After Empire: The Birth of a Multipolar World and I’m proud to say that it grew from an article Hiro wrote for this website back in 2007, “The Sole Superpower in Decline.” It offers the kind of balanced, knowledgeable assessment of our world that we’ve come to expect from him and which should put After Empire on every bookshelf.
- Tom Engelhardt, Editor of TomDispatch.com
BOOK Recommended at Tom Dispatch: Hope in the Dark: Untold Histories, Wild Possibilities
"Seemingly lost in the woods of deceit and banality, bereft of hope, we are confronted by Rebecca Solnit and her astonishing flashlight. In a jewel of a book that is poetic in substance as well as style, she reveals where we were, where we are and the step-by-step advances that have been made in human rights, as we stubbornly stumble out of the darkness." --Studs Terkel
here
ARTICLE: America, a Shadowy Base World here
Other recent articles at Tom Dispatch:
Tomgram: Pratap Chatterjee, Destabilizing Pakistan
Posted at 10:00PM on February 07, 2010.
Tomgram: Robert Lipsyte, The Commercials Are the Super Bowl
Posted at 10:40AM on February 04, 2010.
Tomgram: Michael Schwartz, Will Iraq's Oil Ever Flow?
Posted at 4:50PM on February 02, 2010.
Tomgram: Engelhardt, Movie Favorites from the Secretary of Defense
Tomgram: Anand Gopal, Afraid of the Dark in Afghanistan
Tomgram: Our Wars Are Killing Us
Find these above named items and more here in archives or on HOME PAGE with invitation to several free emails per week: here
19 comments:
Note that there are some articles celebrating that today, Feb. 11th, is the 20th anniversary of South
African Mandela's release from prison. I loved his autobiography which is deeply about the inner freedom of a soul...hence, although a bit on the lighter side, the film INVICTUS based on a short poem by William Henley, and although based on a rather violent sport is however a touching and inspiring film as well as quite entertaining. Nice to see how the director Clint Eastwood has been moving in this direction.
Also, structured around sports, The Bright Side, does something similar to INVICTUS although they are so different...both mix peoples labels and backgrounds up as if they didn't matter nearly as much as the PEOPLE and their souls underneath these disguises...
Thereby surprising people and groups enough to shatter barriers and provoke glad change.
How might we each and together do more of the same?
See News Dissector with Danny for some of these Nelson Mandela articles today
The News Dissector/Media Channel Item:
Remembering Nelson Mandela's Release From Jail 20 years later There and Here
http://mediachannel.org/blog/2010/02/it-was-20-years-ago-today-remembering-nelson-mandelas-release-from-jail/
Very efficient and thoroughly dedicated effort, something at which, you are just phenomenal. And the Autobiography of that great man, Nelson Mandela is a modern classic, a must reading.
Akhtar Wasim Dar, I would love to discuss that biography with you some day, perhaps after we've each had a chance to reread it or at least review it? 'Been a long time for me.
Thanx again for your encouragement. I also enjoyed your lastes post and the comments inspired and always when you show up anywhere I do sense less loneliness more connectedness to the great human community of which you are an invaluable and stellar contributor.
Bless your weekend, dear friend!
http://ibrahimsajidmalick.com/ideological-profiling-of-muslims-in-america/1174/ Here's an excellent article by one of the best reporters at the Dr. Aafia Siddiqui trial: The Ideological Profiling of Muslims in America which Ibrahim Sajid Malick Sahib published on this day, February 11, 2020
Various on the Prisoners in US "war on terror" from some groups who are watching these cases most intently
Press Release: Proof that British government lied to cover-up complicity in torture.
12 February 2010
Declassified documents prove that governemnt lied regarding Binyam Mohamed torture case by using secret evidence
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=31038
Articles: Cageprisoners' Response to Sunday Times Attack
08 February 2010
I was shocked and extremely disappointed to see your article in today's Sunday Times make no reference at all to the questions you so ardently sought to have answered (as mentioned below) and, that I explained to you in some detail in our telephone conversation yesterday.
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=31015
Articles: Defending Moazzam Begg and Amnesty International
10 February 2010
Just when it seemed that Republicans in America had a monopoly on Islamophobic hysteria, the Sunday Times prompted a torrent of similar hysteria in the UK by running an article in which an employee of Amnesty International — Gita Sahgal, head of the gender unit at the International Secretariat — criticized the organization that employed her for its association with former Guantánamo prisoner Moazzam Begg.
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=31032
Articles: Yvonne Ridley on Dr. Aafia Siddiqui
08 February 2010
Dr AAFIA Siddiqui is a bright, intelligent woman who has been through hell having being kidnapped, tortured in secret prisons, gunned down by US soldiers and renditioned to America where she is now facing attempted murder charges against those who shot her
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=31021
News: Verdict against Dr. Aafia exposes the myth of American justice: Fauzia Siddiqui
12 February 2010
The sister of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, Pakistani neuro-scientist, imprisoned in America, Fauzia Siddiqui has said that the recent American court verdict against her sister had exposed the myth of American justice.
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=31036
News: Binyam Mohamed: a shameful cover-up
11 February 2010
In a scathing judgment running to 84 pages, the court of appeal has slapped the government down in the case of Binyam Mohamed.
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=31033
News: Former boy soldier, youngest Guantanamo detainee, heads toward military tribunal
10 February 2010
Omar Khadr, the youngest detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, was 15 when he allegedly threw a grenade that killed a U.S. Special Forces medic in Afghanistan. Now, more than seven years later, Khadr is drawing the Obama administration into a fierce debate over the propriety of putting a child soldier on trial.
http://www.cageprisoners.com/articles.php?id=31028
Also see: Andy Worthington's website: andyworthington.co.uk
And expect a release soon on Dr. Aafia Siddiqui from Amnesty International
http://mondoweiss.net/2010/02/palestinians-dressed-as-navi-from-avatar-join-protest-against-the-wall.html
I am interested in the various discussions and view of Avatar...well here's one I didn't expect.
How are readers here reacting to the film Avatar and to this particular protest using Avatar costumes?
Current News from Bill of Rights Defence Committee:
bordc.org
2/12, Agence France-Presse, Doubts rise over civil trial for September 11 mastermind
2/12, Anne E. Kornblut and Carrie Johnson, Washington Post, Obama will help select location of Khalid Sheik Mohammed terrorism trial
***2/12, Sherwood Ross, OpEdNews, U.S.Claims Right To Kill Americans Abroad
2/12, Glenn Greenwald, Salon, Michael Mukasey: Then and now
2/12, BBC News, Home secretary defends MI5 over Binyam Mohamed claims
***2/12, Johann Hari, Independent (UK), Obama's secret prisons in Afghanistan endanger us all
2/11, Editorial, New York Times, Cellphones and Privacy
www.bordc.org
Strange this number 700 which has come up lately?
http://www.alternet.org/world/145631/totally_occupied:_700_military_bases_spread_across_afghanistan
700 Troops face Taliban
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/ap/20100213/tap-as-afghanistan-d3b07b8.html
Isn't there some sanity in this warring? No one listening to the ones who know most?
From here in US, I'm reminded of such voices of sanity in Juan Coles and would like similar voices to post from Pakistan as I have run across a number from time to time...
Isn't there any way
Urgently neede words from the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain, Ambassador Akbar Ahmed (I believe this was last May 2009)
It would have been smart if Holbrooke or even one person from the mainstream media feeding frenzy had ventured upstairs to the Progressive Caucus forum. There, the former High Commissioner of Pakistan to Great Britain, Ambassador Akbar Ahmed, offered this wise advice once given by a British General who was a veteran of wars in the frontier area: “When you invade Pashtun areas, have a good exit strategy with you, because sooner or later you are going to need it.” Having also served as the head of two civil agencies in the tribal areas and completed a doctoral thesis there, Ahmed has a kind of expertise and intimacy with the issues that Holbrooke certainly doesn’t.
Ahmed Sahib cont'
Ahmed’s frustration with both the Pakistan government and the US foreign policy was palpable. He said Obama was “absolutely right” when he called Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on the Afghan border “the most dangerous place in the world today,” and his frustration stems from what he sees as a completely wrong strategy in dealing with it.
Ahmed Sahib statement cont'
Ahmed said the tribes in the area have a sense of history, pride and dignity and live on both sides of the border — “if something happens on this side of the border, it impacts on that side” — and they are connected by kinship, politics and religion. “A successful strategy to deal with them [is] not — I repeat, not — to take them head on… sending troops, throwing grenades and missiles, or sending in airplanes and tanks…..
Ahmed Sahib cont'
The best strategy for them [is] to work through tribal organizations, tribal networks, tribal leadership…. [It requires] both strength and skill — strength alone will not do. And we see the consequences of just a military strategy….”
Indeed the approach over the past decade has been a military one. The result, Ahmed said, is that authority in the region once shared by “three pillars” — central government, tribal authority, and religious clerics — is now left with only the clerics who have “morphed into Taliban.”
Ahmed, said that Pakistan needs to begin by reestablishing the authority of the state and restoring tribal authority. He said Pakistan — with the encouragement of the US — is attempting to do that through military means alone rather than through “what remains of the tribal leadership and civil structure.”
He said if the state worked through the tribal structure there would be “resistance to the Taliban, not from up 30,000 feet in the sky, right on the ground….”
Another key to success in the border region that Holbrooke didn’t touch on is reformation of the madrassas. Ahmed said much of US aid should be earmarked for education, and half of that to the madrassas. Madrassas are the network of education for the tribes, and if they are closed down by the government there will be “hundreds of thousands of young men ready to fight a religious war against the Americans.” Reform through aid, Pakistanis and Pakistani Americans serving as advisors and teachers, new syllabi and teacher training — these are the kinds of steps that would bring change and long-term security.
“After 8 years of giving Pakistan money — $17 billion or $15 billion since 9/11 — what have you achieved?” Ahmed asked. “Had you put 10 percent of this into madrassas by now young men… who are [now] prepared to fight you… would be wanting jobs and to be part of the process…. And they would want to resist those who want to disrupt their society…. The one thing every Pakistani wants for his kids is education…. Within one to three years you will turn that entire region around. The greatest enemies of the Americans will become their allies.” (Another witness — Azhar Hussain, of the International Center for Religion and Diplomacy — pointed out that less than 1 percent of US aid went to the FATA region in the past 6 years.)
Finally, Ahmed spoke plainly of the drone strikes: “My advice is this… please, please don’t…. The drone strikes… are very counterproductive.” He said the former top advisor to General Petraeus — David Kilcullen “>– has it right. Hussain noted that there have been 61 drone attacks “in the last few years”, and only 10 have hit the intended target. The result? 798 civilians killed and “less than about 50 insurgents.”
“That is a large number of innocent people getting killed by drone attacks,” he said. “That creates an incredible amount of incitement and rage in the Pakistani community.”
As to the issue of escalation in Afghanistan, Ahmed had this to say:
“When there are more American deaths — alas, because these young men and women are out there serving their nation, they’ve got families — when these deaths take place, what message is it sending to the tribesman…? The message [is]: ‘Guys, continue this, rally around, because we are now on a winning streak.’ And what message is it sending to Taliban…? It’s 60 miles now from Islamabad! It’s saying, ‘Guys, continue doing this. The Americans can’t last….’ If that mood takes hold — don’t you see how difficult it becomes for us — talking about recreating structures? There’s no hope. You might as well hand it over to the Taliban.”
This expertise and candor–from Pakistanis who have devoted their lives to a region we are further destabilizing with this escalation — was sorely lacking at the Holbrooke hearing. Tell Congress to demand what Holbrooke didn’t give them–an exit strategy .
Found these on my home Facebook page today and felt they were mitigating reminders for all the warmaking going on:
Ymani Simmons: There's always hope...steadfast, persistent, dedicated, committed, relentless, truthful, prayerful, loving, active, creative nonviolence. We're in this together...you're not alone.
Oscar Romero: Peace is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty.
(Also see the film: Romero - what a holy man!)
DISCUSSION Here posted February 13 2010 which may address more of the Obama Administration's BASIC problems such as with Mitchell in his position having little if any skills interacting with the worlds to which he's assigned:
I've been forgetting what an amazing resource for peace this site here is: Just World Peace
http://www.justworldnews.com
I don't know how folk who come here may react to this former Ambassador and ongoing Scholar who seems to be willing to get on very conservative media and seek peace with those some may call politically incorrect? Yet there are some things he says without flinching and comments to which he doesn't back down. Also, there is of course the concern for any who would compromise by advising our US military? Which may or may not indicate a kind of support for US military occupation? Although peacemakers can be lined up in all sorts of way, I suppose.
Unfortunately, seems the US is completely ignoring the most basic advice by this Scholar and former Ambassador who seems to be doing all he can to be preventing another Crusade?
Let's have a discussion?
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week732/perspectives.html
Finally I am compelled by the recent US/British warring to refer back to this article By Nicholas J. S. Davies from November 23, 2009
found on Consortium News at consortium news dot com:
Why Afghans Dig Empire Graveyards:
"Many Americans..especially US media pundits.. view the world through a self-absorbed nearsightedness, acting as if the histories of countries only began when theyh did something that attracted US attention" and "Just why do empires keep sending tousands of their young people to die in Afghanistan?" TOUCE!
Plz go to Comments Section of UPDATED RIGHTS NEWS for further concerns...right now...the atrocities in the name of fighting terror done to innocent lives again and again...just how can anyone take Hilary and Obama seriously about their threats and hostile comments toward Iran when the USA is the name which people in that part of the world are coming to hate most?
VERY interesting debate about who let who down...the left of Obama or Obama of the Left?
http://www.
And speaking of being Black and Left try Speaking of Faith with Krista Tippett currently her program get online or on radio this week and maybe later in archives
Don't miss consortiumnews on ABC's interview with Cheney who nearly brags of being in charge of ordering the torture lawyers to do what they did
and be sure to see Sherwood Ross on Assassination permission
And See Tom Dispatch for "It's NOT a national emergency" which should quell SOME fears and over-reactions at least.
Be sure to not the Peace Caravan in Peshewar now...see the post above this one...
Keep posting stuff like this i really like it
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