Friday, July 7, 2006

Darfur: an open discussion on intervention, regime change & the politics of genocide

Special Coverage - Audio and Photos

Darfur: an open discussion on intervention, regime change & the politics of genocide

On Thursday, July 7th, about 80 people gathered at Smith College for this open forum on Darfur.

Following on the recent "Witnessing Darfur" fundraising event, where different points of view were not presented, panelists offered diverse and challenging perspectives on the crises, exploring the many ethical, moral and political questions behind popular calls for 'humanitarian' intervention and regime change in Sudan.

Panelists:
• Sara Flounders, Co-Director of the International Action Center, NYC, who traveled to Sudan on a fact-finding mission after the bombing of the El Shifa pharmaceutical plant in 1998;
• Dr. Elliot Fratkin, Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at Smith College and co-director of Smith's African Studies Program;
• keith harmon snow, independent photojournalist, and human rights and genocide investigator in Africa, with Genocide Watch and Survivor's Rights International in 2004, and the United Nations in 2005;
• Dimitri Oram, writer & researcher on war crimes and the politics of genocide;
• Dr. Enoch Page, Associate Professor of Anthropology at UMass, expert on race theory and the anthropology of genocide.

Hear each speaker - see link to audio below photo. All audio downloads are mp3 files with a bit rate of 64 kbps mono. Audio may be downloaded for radio airplay with notice to Traprock Peace Center and attribution to panelists and program sponsors, and to Traprock Peace Center as producer of the audio program.

Hear the panelists (mp3 files, except as indicated):

Sara Flounders - 19:38 minutes; 9 MB download

Dr. Elliot Fratkin - 16:24 minutes; 7.6 MB - Dr. Fratkin's prepared remarks (doc)

Keith Harmon Snow (presenting a slide show) - 17:38 minutes; 8.1 MB

Dimitri Oram - 16:57 minutes; 7.8 mb

Enoch Page - 17:10 minutes; 7.9 MB

Panel's response to questions - 26:20 minutes; 12.1 MB

Program introduction by Doug Wight - 4:40 minutes; 2.2 MB

Hour long edited version - 59:59; 27.4 MB - (recorded and edited by Ed Russell of Active Ingredients Media)


About 80 people filled the room at Smith College (more of the audience was seated to the right and rear of this section.)

For more information, visit:
http://www.allthingspass.com
http://www.iacenter.org
http://www.traprockpeace.org


Sponsored by:
The International Action Center of Western MA, The Northampton
Committee to Stop the War In Iraq
, Traprock Peace Center and
Touchstone Farm & Yoga Center

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Wednesday, July 5, 2006

Qana Massacre: Made in the U.S.A.

No Justice - No Peace
U.S. Out of the Middle East!


August 5

  • Support the Palestinian and Lebanese Peoples' Right to Resist!
  • End the Occupation of IRAQ, PALESTINE and LEBANON
  • Support the Palestinian People's Right to Return
  • U.S./Israeli Troops Out Now
  • No More Fighting and Dying for Oil Profits
  • STOP U.S. Aid to Israel

DONATE to help with organizing expenses

In the past few days, the horrific crimes committed against the people of Lebanon and Palestine by the U.S.-backed Israeli regime have inspired outrage and protest across the globe. What has become clear to many watching the criminal invasion of Lebanon and the ongoing brutality against the people of Palestine is the role of the U.S. as the initiator, supplier, and funder of Israel's crimes.
The Qana Massacre: Made in the U.S.

-Ever since Israel launched its criminal attack against the people of Lebanon, the U.S. government has been rushing shipments of precision missiles to Israel--the same sort of weapons that were used against Qana.

-From 2001-2005, Israel received $10.5 billion in Foreign Military Financing -- the Pentagon's biggest military aid program -- and $6.3 billion in U.S. arms deliveries

-The U.S. has resisted and blocked every call for a ceasefire in order to allow the Israeli Defense Forces time to complete its campaign of terror against the people of Lebanon.

There would be no occupation, no bombs dropping on Lebanese and Palestinian children, no tanks destroying homes, no artillery to rain destruction on hospitals without billions of dollars each year that the U.S. government gives to the Israeli government. Since 1949 the U.S. has given Israel a total of $84,854,827,200. We must expose, challenge, and struggle to end the U.S. support for Israel's crimes.

Immediately after the criminal invasion of Lebanon, the International Action Center issued a call to action for August 5, under the slogan, "No justice, no peace--U.S. Out of the Middle East!" Across the U.S., activists are organizing pickets, protests, teach-ins, informational leafleting, and public forums, all directed against the U.S. role in the crimes of war and occupation. Now, more than 200 organizations worldwide have signed on to the call, and protests will take place across the globe, from London to Cairo to Tel Aviv and throughout Latin America.

It is not enough to just say "Bring the troops home from Iraq." We must challenge the Empire everywhere that it is attempting to carve up and recolonize the area, from Afghanistan to Iran to the West Bank. We can no longer look at these struggles as isolated crises--we must unite on the streets to say "U.S. Out of the Middle East!"

Next Step: August 12, Washington DC

Join us this weekend on the streets for emergency international protests. Then, join us for the next step, the August 12th National March on Washington, called by the National Council of Arab Americans, the Answer Coalition, and the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation. Contact us at 212-633-6646 for buses from New York to Washington.

Read Call Endorse List Activity Download Flyer Donate

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No Justice, No Peace- U.S. OUT of the Middle East

Make the Weekend of August 5th National Days of Actions to Say:

No Justice, No Peace- U.S. OUT of the Middle East

Over the weekend of Saturday, August 5th, the International Action Center is proposing that activists across the country organize demonstrations, teach-ins and other events around the theme: “No Justice, No Peace, U.S. Out of the Middle East.”

Stand with the Palestinian and Lebanese Resistance

End the Occupation of Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon

Support the Palestinian People's Right to Return

U.S./Israeli Troops Out Now

No More Fighting and Dying for Oil Profits

STOP U.S. Aid to Israel


The expansion of U.S.-backed Israeli aggression in the Middle East and the widespread campaign of demonization against Hezbollah and Hamas, the movements of national resistance in Lebanon and Palestine, makes it urgent for those of us opposed to war and injustice to clarify for the people of the U.S. the reality--that the problems of the Middle East are not rooted in a struggle between religions, but in the drive by greedy imperialist policymakers in the U.S., like Bush and his super rich friends, to dominate, colonize, exploit and rob the natural resources (especially oil) of the people of the Middle East.
We must explain that the obstacles to peace in the Middle East are not Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria or Iran, but the U.S. government and its client, the Israeli settler state.

Republicans and Democrats alike have united to back the expansionist Israeli war against Palestine and Lebanon, a war that is really an extension of the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq. The Bush administration has given the Zionist rulers in Tel Aviv the green light to wage all-out war in Lebanon and Palestine, with full diplomatic, political and military support of Washington. Israeli soldiers and bomber pilots may be doing the killing in Lebanon, but this is fundamentally a U.S. war, and the Israeli army is a criminal surrogate for the Pentagon. Furthermore, Bush and Co. are dangerously laying the basis for a wider war against Syria and Iran and are ready to crush--by war, shock and awe, torture, mass murder, repression and terror--the dreams of the masses of the Middle East for self-determination and freedom from occupation and colonialism.

Together, we must intensify the struggle to get U.S. imperialism out of the Middle East and to free the thousands of Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi prisoners held in U.S. and Israeli jails, because this would serve the cause of peace and justice in that region and worldwide. We join with all the peace-loving people and organizations that are organizing locally, nationally and internationally around this struggle. Along with all the other important protests, we encourage everyone to make the weekend of August 5th days of action around the theme “No Justice, No Peace: U.S. Out of the Middle East.” We must support all local and emergency actions against this criminal war, along with the August 12 mobilization in Washington, D.C.

In organizing around the issue of justice and peace in the Middle East, we encourage activists to make the connections to other struggles. The racist nature of the U.S. war in the Middle East is part of the same racism behind the treatment of the primarily African American victims and survivors of Hurricane Katrina, and the racism behind the attacks on immigrant rights.

Now, more than ever, it’s vitally necessary for all of us in the U.S. who genuinely believe in peace and justice--whether we be Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Atheist, Black, Latin@, Native, Arab, Asian or White--to fully embrace the Palestinian freedom struggle and to forge new bonds of solidarity with all the peoples of the Middle East, so that all the world will know that Bush’s war is not our war. No justice no peace- U.S. out of the Middle East!

Please endorse the August 5th weekend of actions and plan local actions focusing on the U.S. role in the Middle East and full solidarity with the Palestinian and Lebanese people.

What you can do:

Endorse - http://iacenter.org/aug5endorse.shtml

List your local ativity - http://www.iacenter.org/aug5endorsede.shtml

Download flyers and help get the word out - http://iacenter.org/aug5flyer.pdf


Donate - http://www.iacenter.org/iacdonate.shtmlMake the Weekend of August 5th National Days of Actions to Say:

No Justice, No Peace- U.S. OUT of the Middle East

Over the weekend of Saturday, August 5th, the International Action Center is proposing that activists across the country organize demonstrations, teach-ins and other events around the theme: “No Justice, No Peace, U.S. Out of the Middle East.”

Stand with the Palestinian and Lebanese Resistance

End the Occupation of Iraq, Palestine, and Lebanon

Support the Palestinian People's Right to Return

U.S./Israeli Troops Out Now

No More Fighting and Dying for Oil Profits

STOP U.S. Aid to Israel


The expansion of U.S.-backed Israeli aggression in the Middle East and the widespread campaign of demonization against Hezbollah and Hamas, the movements of national resistance in Lebanon and Palestine, makes it urgent for those of us opposed to war and injustice to clarify for the people of the U.S. the reality--that the problems of the Middle East are not rooted in a struggle between religions, but in the drive by greedy imperialist policymakers in the U.S., like Bush and his super rich friends, to dominate, colonize, exploit and rob the natural resources (especially oil) of the people of the Middle East.
We must explain that the obstacles to peace in the Middle East are not Hezbollah, Hamas, Syria or Iran, but the U.S. government and its client, the Israeli settler state.

Republicans and Democrats alike have united to back the expansionist Israeli war against Palestine and Lebanon, a war that is really an extension of the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq. The Bush administration has given the Zionist rulers in Tel Aviv the green light to wage all-out war in Lebanon and Palestine, with full diplomatic, political and military support of Washington. Israeli soldiers and bomber pilots may be doing the killing in Lebanon, but this is fundamentally a U.S. war, and the Israeli army is a criminal surrogate for the Pentagon. Furthermore, Bush and Co. are dangerously laying the basis for a wider war against Syria and Iran and are ready to crush--by war, shock and awe, torture, mass murder, repression and terror--the dreams of the masses of the Middle East for self-determination and freedom from occupation and colonialism.

Together, we must intensify the struggle to get U.S. imperialism out of the Middle East and to free the thousands of Palestinian, Lebanese and Iraqi prisoners held in U.S. and Israeli jails, because this would serve the cause of peace and justice in that region and worldwide. We join with all the peace-loving people and organizations that are organizing locally, nationally and internationally around this struggle. Along with all the other important protests, we encourage everyone to make the weekend of August 5th days of action around the theme “No Justice, No Peace: U.S. Out of the Middle East.” We must support all local and emergency actions against this criminal war, along with the August 12 mobilization in Washington, D.C.

In organizing around the issue of justice and peace in the Middle East, we encourage activists to make the connections to other struggles. The racist nature of the U.S. war in the Middle East is part of the same racism behind the treatment of the primarily African American victims and survivors of Hurricane Katrina, and the racism behind the attacks on immigrant rights.

Now, more than ever, it’s vitally necessary for all of us in the U.S. who genuinely believe in peace and justice--whether we be Muslim, Jewish, Christian, Atheist, Black, Latin@, Native, Arab, Asian or White--to fully embrace the Palestinian freedom struggle and to forge new bonds of solidarity with all the peoples of the Middle East, so that all the world will know that Bush’s war is not our war. No justice no peace- U.S. out of the Middle East!

Please endorse the August 5th weekend of actions and plan local actions focusing on the U.S. role in the Middle East and full solidarity with the Palestinian and Lebanese people.

What you can do:

Endorse - http://iacenter.org/aug5endorse.shtml

List your local ativity - http://www.iacenter.org/aug5endorsede.shtml

Download flyers and help get the word out - http://iacenter.org/aug5flyer.pdf


Donate - http://www.iacenter.org/iacdonate.shtml