<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><div>Perhaps we in C-U need a forum - at least one 'teach-in' - critiquing US government policy in the Greater Middle East (which now apparently includes North & East Africa if not Nigeria as well). </div><div><br></div><div>Country by country presentations ("US government policy toward Iraq/Iran/Israel/Pakistan/Saudi Arabia/Somalia/Egypt /Libya etc.") should consider what the policy is and whom it benefits. (Working title - "US policy in the Greater Middle East: Cui Bono?") It's clear now that the policy doesn't change much from administration to administration, so we can avoid the calculated distraction of the election campaign.</div><div><br></div><div>It seems that the rather pusillanimous faculty at UIUC is unwilling to tackle the matter, particularly publicly, so maybe AWARE should do it. A panel in the week after the Thanksgiving break might be possible.</div><div><br></div><div>For openers, here's the summary with which we begin "AWARE on the Air" each week:</div><div>
<p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font size="3"><i>[a] Each week at this
time we bring you news and comment about the wars that the United
States government is conducting around the world, and about the
opposition to them, here and across the country, by people like us
who see that these wars betray our democratic principles.</i></font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font size="3"><i>[b] Today the US
government is threatening, invading, and occupying countries from the Maghreb to the Indian subcontinent, and from Central Asia to the Horn
of Africa - a vast circle with more than a 2,000-mile radius,
sometimes called the Greater Middle East: the US military calls it
"Central Command."</i></font></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font size="3"><i>[c] This region has the
world's greatest concentration of oil and natural gas, and our
government is spending hundreds of billions of dollars month after
month to control it. Control and not just access to these energy
resources is what the US government wants: we in fact import very little oil
from the Mideast, contrary to what you've heard, but control gives
the US government an unparalleled advantage over its oil-hungry rivals in
Europe and Asia. </i></font>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font size="3"><i>[d] We're killing
people in the Mideast and North Africa because China needs oil, and
our government wants to control where they get it. Our government
says that we're conducting these vastly expensive wars to stop
terrorism and protect civilians; but we can see that, instead, we're
killing civilians and creating terrorists. These wars are against the
interests of the vast majority of Americans. </i></font>
</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0in"><font size="3"><i>[e] But the war policy
remains essentially the same whether Republicans or Democrats are
in office. The Obama administration is at least as eager as earlier
ones to kill people to maintain control of the region. More than a
thousand members of the U.S. military have died in Afghanistan alone since Obama became president - more than during both Bush administrations. Of course, many more Afghans than that
have died, and many more Americans than that have received serious
injuries.</i></font></p></div><div> </div><div><br></div><div><div>On Nov 4, 2011, at 4:40 PM, Ya'aqov Ziso wrote:</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"><font color="#000000"><font size="2"><font face="georgia,serif"><i>Thanks, Carl.<br></i></font></font></font><br><div class="gmail_quote"><br></div></blockquote></div><br></body></html>