[Peace] AWARE on the Air for 22 July 2014

Wed Jul 23 21:43:04 EDT 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gX53toUxAHg

AWARE ON THE AIR, URBANA PUBLIC TV, 22 JULY 2014

{INTRO} Good evening & welcome to AWARE ON THE AIR, presented by members & friends of AWARE, the Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort of Champaign-Urbana, a local peace group. I’m Carl Estabrook.  

AWARE was formed after the attacks of 9/11/2001 by citizens of Champaign-Urbana who saw that the U.S. government would use those crimes as an excuse to carry on its wars in the Middle East. 

Some people think that the U.S. government staged the 9/11 events to give it an excuse to attack the world’s greatest oil-producing region, the Middle East. But unfortunately the U.S. government didn’t need an excuse: it had already been killing people in the Mideast for two generations to secure control of those energy resources. The Obama administration, which promised hope and change, simply continued the murderous policies of earlier administrations - often with the same personnel, like the secretary of defense - and simply lied about what it was doing.

Today we see the U.S. war policy being carried on in two vicious wars by American client states, Ukraine and Israel.  Israel has massacred more than 600 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, and the U.S.-backed (and installed) government in Kiev has killed hundreds in eastern Ukraine: its war this week resulted in the destruction of a commercial airliner that killed 298 men, women, and children. 

Who is responsible for the Israeli military assault on Gaza? Many can be blamed for Israel’s committing what the Nuremberg Tribunal called “the supreme international crime - launching aggressive war” - but the final responsibility lies with the President of the United States.

Without the support - economic, military, political, and diplomatic - that the U.S. government provides, Israel’s crimes would not be possible. But the U.S. does not provide this support because of undue influence from the  government of Israel or the Israel lobby, as you hear some people say: The U.S. government supports Israel - and its oppression of Palestinians - because Israel is America’s “stationary aircraft carrier” in the Mideast.

Our government has been killing people in the Mideast since the Second World War to secure control of what the U.S. State Department called then “the world’s greatest material prize,” Mideast gas and oil. The U.S. government demands not just access to Mideast energy resources but control of them, because a strangle-hold over world energy flows gives the U.S. the advantage over its economic rivals in Europe and Asia, notably Germany and China.

President Obama fails to stop Israel’s ongoing murders in Gaza - as he could, with a word - because it’s been the policy of all U.S. administrations for two generations to allow the Israelis to continue their oppression of the Palestinians so long as Israel supports and participates in the crimes of its U.S. master.

Washington uses 1,000  military bases around the world and its “special forces,” active in 124 countries - they’re activities include kidnapping (rendition) torture and murder - to control the world economy - in the interests of the 1%. That control is not in the interests of  not the vast majority of Americans, who pay for it. 

And, although Americans don’t know it, Obama has killed thousands of people with drone strikes alone, including hundreds of children. No other country - not China or Russia - has foreign bases or conducts similar killing.  No wonder the US is hated around the world.

But Obama’s main task is to convince Americans that he is withdrawing from the war, although he clearly isn’t. Three-quarters of Americans disapprove of the wars of the Bush-Obama years, and the billions of collars spent on them that could have been used here at home. Obama was elected to end the wars and provide jobs. He hasn’t done either one, and Americans’ anger is growing. His job is to turn aside that anger. 

One way that’s done is to use a compliant media to misrepresent the Obama administration’s military and economic policy. Our task here at AWARE ON THE AIR - like similar independent programs around the country - is to combat that overwhelming propaganda. 

We’ll try to do that tonight with reports & comments from

David Green - on the situation in Gaza;
Ron Szoke - on “darkness ascending”; 
Deb Johnson - on the downed airliner in Ukraine; 
Karen Aram - on Obama’s pivot to Asia; and
Karen Evans-Levy - on local anti-war actions.

[...]
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.chambana.net/pipermail/peace/attachments/20140723/5d192c48/attachment.html>