Category Archives: racism

Trading missiles for captives of Iran – The Iran-Contra Affair . Reagan . WGBH American Experience | PBS

In 1985, while Iran and Iraq were at war, Iran made a secret request to buy weapons from the United States. McFarlane sought Reagan’s approval, in spite of the embargo against selling arms to Iran. McFarlane explained that the sale of arms would not only improve U.S. relations with Iran, but might in turn lead to improved relations with Lebanon, increasing U.S. influence in the troubled Middle East. Reagan was driven by a different obsession. He had become frustrated at his inability to secure the release of the seven American hostages being held by Iranian terrorists in Lebanon. As president, Reagan felt that “he had the duty to bring those Americans home,” and he convinced himself that he was not negotiating with terrorists. While shipping arms to Iran violated the embargo, dealing with terrorists violated Reagan’s campaign promise never to do so. Reagan had always been admired for his honesty.

Corbis

Reagan during the Iran-Contra Affair

The arms-for-hostages proposal divided the administration. Longtime policy adversaries Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and Secretary of State George Shultz opposed the deal, but Reagan, McFarlane and CIA director William Casey supported it. With the backing of the president, the plan progressed. By the time the sales were discovered, more than 1,500 missiles had been shipped to Iran. Three hostages had been released, only to be replaced with three more, in what Secretary of State George Shultz called “a hostage bazaar.”

When the Lebanese newspaper “Al-Shiraa” printed an exposé on the clandestine activities in November 1986, Reagan went on television and vehemently denied that any such operation had occurred. He retracted the statement a week later, insisting that the sale of weapons had not been an arms-for-hostages deal.

via The Iran-Contra Affair . Reagan . WGBH American Experience | PBS.

You Want Pictures, You’ve Got Pictures: Conservative Backlash Gets Visual in White House’s Soldier – Taliban Prisoner Swap — BagNews

Certainly, the prisoner exchange for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl is red meat for an opposition that hasn’t had that as vivid an issue to really sink its teeth into. The deal to trade Bergdahl for five high profile Gitmo detainees, however, threatens to dust off the visual genre of the “war on terror,” a vocabulary that has been more in remission.

Of course, I’m not showing you anything here that isn’t already circulating in the caustic hothouse of the political and social web. Rather, I’m just taking those visuals boiling to the surface and putting some air quotes around them. One thing that can be said, though, is that visual memes are moving faster and lending themselves to more chaotic and viral expression then anything we saw during the heyday of Bush’s Iraq intervention. The DailyMail put together the Homeland/Nicholas Brody analogy, by the way, as if Bowe was actually a one man Taliban sleeper cell, not just a young man who has had some seriously mixed feelings about the war.

via You Want Pictures, You’ve Got Pictures: Conservative Backlash Gets Visual in White House’s Soldier – Taliban Prisoner Swap — BagNews.

Israel bans Muslim call to prayer in Hebron 53 times in May | Maan News Agency

Israeli forces have forbidden mosque leaders from playing the call for prayer through loudspeakers at the Ibrahimi Mosque in Hebron 53 times in May under the pretext that it bothers nearby Jewish settlers, the Palestinian ministry of endowment said.

Hundreds of extremist Jewish settlers have taken over homes in Hebron’s Old City, and Israeli authorities use their presence in the southern West Bank city as an excuse to limit the ability of the mosque to play the call five times a day, according to Islamic custom.

The ministry of endowment’s Hebron office said in a statement that banning call for prayer “is a clear violation of freedom of worship which all international conventions maintain.”

In April, Israeli authorities prevented the mosque from playing the call to prayer 60 times.

More than 500,000 Israeli settlers live in settlements across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, in contravention of international law.

via Israel bans Muslim call to prayer in Hebron 53 times in May | Maan News Agency.

Only Chinese-born parliamentarian in UK to quit politics over racist abuse | UK news | theguardian.com

The Hong-Kong-born immigrant, who has lived in Northern Ireland for four decades, said she was also considering leaving the province for good because of enduring sectarianism and now rising racism.

Lo, who represents South Belfast in the regional parliament, blamed continual racist behaviour towards her, as well as first minister Peter Robinson’s support for a born-again Christian preacher’s depiction of Islam as “the spawn of the devil”, as her reasons for wanting out of Ulster politics.

In an interview with the Guardian on Thursday, Lo said she was shaken up by a recent incident during the European election campaign when a loyalist mob followed her out of an east Belfast shopping centre.

“They started hurling abuse at me and I decided to get out of Connswater shopping centre as quickly as possible. About three or four individuals then followed me to the car park but I kept ahead of them walking as quickly as I could. Even when I got inside my car there was a young girl who climbed out of the wound-down window of a parked car and started shouting vile things at me. If I hadn’t decided to act quickly and get out of there I don’t know what would have happened to me,” Lo said.

via Only Chinese-born parliamentarian in UK to quit politics over racist abuse | UK news | theguardian.com.

Watch: Israeli forces detain 4 teenage girls in south Hebron hills | Maan News Agency

Israeli forces on Tuesday detained four Palestinian girls in the south Hebron hills after a settler accused them of stealing cherries, human rights group B’Tselem said.

The girls, aged 11 to 15, were on their way home from school with an Israeli army escort when Israeli police arrested them. They were taken to an Israeli police station in Hebron with no adult accompaniment and held for four hours until being handed over to Palestinian police and released.

via Watch: Israeli forces detain 4 teenage girls in south Hebron hills | Maan News Agency.

Texas woman files federal lawsuit after birth in solitary confinement results in baby’s death

The claim further goes on to describe Guerrero’s night in solitary confinement, where she tried in vain to get medical attention all night and ended up delivering a baby that was not breathing and had its umbilical cord wrapped around its neck.

Though shocking, I wish I could say this news is surprising. Given what we know about access to reproductive health care in prison and the criminalization of drug-addicted pregnant women, it really isn’t – it is a mere continuation of the long list of degradations and indignities people suffer when imprisoned. I’ve quoted Cece McDonald on this and before and will do so again: prisons aren’t safe for anybody.

via Texas woman files federal lawsuit after birth in solitary confinement results in baby’s death.

The Hindu fundamentalists: request to ban the Muslim call to prayer in India – Fides News Agency

Feeling big after win of fundamentalist to lead India – shame!

The protest follows a series of incidents in Mangalore in recent days, in which groups of thugs threw stones against two mosques. In another incident, some Hindu extremists entered a madrassa (Islamic religious school) in the village of Vittla, shouting slogans of victory. In other cases, the individual Muslim citizens were beaten by radical militants.

via The Hindu fundamentalists: request to ban the Muslim call to prayer in India – Fides News Agency.

Mississippi Judge Accused of Striking Young Black Man, Then Yelling ‘Run, Nigger, Run!’ and being as abusive to a female vendor| Hatewatch

“I do not care if this young man was being a nuisance,” said the first witness, who is white. “I do not care if he were breaking a law, I do not care if he were loitering, but I do care that a man of authority, one that is sworn to protect and serve, was slapping a young man.”

She added that she also saw Weisenberger verbally assault a female vendor at the market, threatening to make her move her car to a distant location before she could unload. When the woman asked him to change his tone, he reportedly replied that he would only deal with her husband, “because he didn’t take orders from a woman.”

The executive director of the state Judicial Commission, Darlene Ballard, told Mitchell that if the allegations are true, they would “violate multiple canons” of the state’s Judicial Code of Conduct.

Former Canton Mayor William Truly, president of the Canton branch of the NAACP, led a press conference Friday denouncing Weisenberger.

“This is 2014, not 1960, where someone could slap a young man and call out, ‘Run, nigger, run,” Truly said. He called on Weisenberger either to simply resign or to step aside from hearing cases until the matter is resolved.

“No citizen should have to face justice before a judge who holds such a high degree of racial animus and hatred,” Truly said.

via Mississippi Judge Accused of Striking Young Black Man, Then Yelling ‘Run, Nigger, Run!’ | Hatewatch.

Palestinian beaten by settlers near Ramallah | Maan News Agency

Dozens of Israeli settlers on Tuesday assaulted a Palestinian man on the road between the villages of Mikhmas and al-Tayba near Ramallah.

Ahmad Abbas, 41, from Beitin village east of Ramallah was brutally beaten after he left his cousins car to urinate because he suffers from diabetes, his sister said.

He was attacked with rods and plastic sticks, and suffered a fracture in his skull and bruises all over his body, the sister added.

via Palestinian beaten by settlers near Ramallah | Maan News Agency.

Israeli forces deny Nablus farmers access to fields to harvest wheat | Maan News Agency

Israeli forces on Saturday morning prevented Palestinian farmers from accessing their fields to harvest wheat south of Nablus in the northern West Bank, a Palestinian official said.

Ghasan Daghlas, who monitors settlement-related activities in the northern West Bank, told Ma’an that dozens of Palestinian farmers were on their way to harvest wheat in the area of Lafjan near the village of Aqraba when they were stopped.

Daghlas said that Israeli troops blocked the farmers and told them that they could not access their fields because the area had been declared a closed military zone, with no further explanation.

via Israeli forces deny Nablus farmers access to fields to harvest wheat | Maan News Agency.