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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Black",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Turse has the definitive book on US military intervention throughout Africa. This book has been supplemented and updated by several articles you can find
on Tom.Dispatch.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Black",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Fab<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Black",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Ed Norton Professor of Law<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Black",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">UIUC Shithouse College of Law<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Black",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:16.0pt;font-family:"Arial Black",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Francis A. Boyle<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Law Building<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">504 E. Pennsylvania Ave.<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">Champaign IL 61820 USA<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">217-333-7954 (phone)<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">217-244-1478 (fax)<o:p></o:p></span></b></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">(personal comments only</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D">)</span><span style="font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif;color:#1F497D"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif">From:</span></b><span style="font-size:11.0pt;font-family:"Calibri",sans-serif"> Peace-discuss [mailto:peace-discuss-bounces@lists.chambana.net]
<b>On Behalf Of </b>Karen Aram via Peace-discuss<br>
<b>Sent:</b> Monday, January 15, 2018 5:17 PM<br>
<b>To:</b> Peace-discuss List <peace-discuss@lists.chambana.net><br>
<b>Subject:</b> [Peace-discuss] Journalist Nick Turse blacklisted by US Africom, what do they not want him to cover?<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<span style="font-size:31.0pt;font-family:"Georgia",serif;color:#333333;font-weight:normal">US AFRICOM blacklists reporter Nick Turse as “not a legitimate journalist”<o:p></o:p></span></h2>
<h5 style="mso-margin-top-alt:7.5pt;margin-right:0in;margin-bottom:0in;margin-left:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:15.6pt">
<i><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#666666;font-weight:normal">By Eddie Haywood <o:p></o:p></span></i></h5>
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<i><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#666666;font-weight:normal"><a href="http://wsws.org">WSWS.ORG</a><o:p></o:p></span></i></h5>
<h5 style="margin:0in;margin-bottom:.0001pt;line-height:15.6pt"><i><span style="font-size:13.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#666666;font-weight:normal"><br>
15 January 2018<o:p></o:p></span></i></h5>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Journalist Nick Turse, who has reported extensively on US military operations in Africa, was recently told that
he has been deemed “not a legitimate journalist” by AFRICOM, the US military command which oversees operations across the continent.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">The move is of a piece with the US government’s drive to silence critical reporting by alternative news outlets
and comes amid the global effort to censor oppositional and alternative viewpoints on the Internet.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Turse explained in an article published by the<em><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif"> Intercept</span></em> on Saturday
that AFRICOM officials began stonewalling his queries after he authored an article in July which documented torture by US-trained Cameroonian forces at a US base in Salak, Cameroon.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">For several years, the Pentagon has been perturbed by Turse’s reporting, which has exposed the vast spectrum
of United States military operations across Africa, most of which it wishes to keep shrouded in secrecy.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Turse related a telephone conversation in October with Lt. Commander Anthony Falvo, the head of AFRICOM’s public
relations office, in which Falvo told him, “Nick, we’re not going to respond to any of your questions...We just don’t feel that we need to.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">When asked by Turse if Falvo believed AFRICOM did not need to address questions from the press in general, or
just Turse himself, Falvo stated abruptly, “No, just you. We don’t consider you a legitimate journalist, really.” Falvo then hung up on Turse.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Turse noted several attempts by AFRICOM to stonewall his queries into US military operations on the continent
in the weeks following his phone call with Falvo. During the course of his investigation into torture by US-trained Cameroonian forces, he stated that AFRICOM essentially ignored his emails and telephone calls.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Around 10 days before his call with Falvo and after several fruitless phone calls to AFRICOM by Turse to verify details in his
July article published by the <em><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">Intercept</span></em>, “Cameroonian troops tortured and killed prisoners at base used for US drone surveillance,” his call was finally taken by AFRICOM spokesperson Robyn Mack,
who told Turse to proceed with his questions.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Bizarrely, Turse says that while in the middle of giving her his list of queries, Mack interrupted, “Hello,
hello, Nick are you there? Hello?” as if the two had a faulty connection. Turse replied several times that he was still on the line, but after several moments, Mack hung up.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">After several attempts to call back went unanswered, finally someone picked up the line. When Turse asked to
speak to Mack, he was told that she “went out for lunch, along with everyone in the office.”<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">On November 15, several days after the first phone call, Robyn Mack answered, but when Turse identified himself,
Mack again hung up.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Turse’s exposures have shed light on the Pentagon’s vast array of secret military bases and its operations across
the African continent. In the course of several year of reporting Turse has sought to exhaustively documented the extent of Washington’s criminal drive to re-colonize Africa.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Since October, when five Green Berets were killed in an ambush in Niger, exposing the extent and scale of the
US military offensive in West Africa, AFRICOM and its offensive operations across the continent have come under greater scrutiny.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">With the blacklisting of a journalist who has exposed its criminal operations, the United States military is attempting to control
the flow of information to those media outlets who toe the official line, such as the <em><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">New York Times,Washington Post,</span></em> and other such officially approved media organs which make up the corporate press
on which the ruling class can depend.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">The antidemocratic attempt by the US government to establish “genuine journalism” coincides with Washington’s
drive to censor the Internet in coordination with the big tech companies, including Google, Facebook and Twitter.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">The attempt to smear Turse as an illegitimate journalist comes after Google’s introduction last April of a new
search engine algorithm which resulted in a decline in search results leading to sites with political views which are critical of the right-wing reaction coming out of Washington.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">Various left-leaning and anti-war websites have seen a drastic decline in incoming traffic from Google, with the <em><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">World
Socialist Web Site</span></em> suffering the most with a 75 percent decline in incoming searches. <em><span style="font-family:"Arial",sans-serif">The Intercept</span></em> has also experienced a noticeable decline in traffic generated by Google searches.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top:7.5pt;mso-line-height-alt:16.3pt"><span style="font-size:17.0pt;font-family:"Arial",sans-serif;color:#333333">The attack on the democratic right of the American population to freedom of the press and access to information
online should be taken within the broader context of the campaigns conducted against former NSA contractor Edward Snowden and journalist Julian Assange of Wikileaks, who have been condemned and pursued as criminals by Washington for exposing the crimes of
US imperialism.<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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