person:george w bush

  • ’This is Iraq’: Rapper decries US legacy in Iraq in bitter parody of Childish Gambino (VIDEO) — RT World News
    https://www.rt.com/news/433651-iraq-rapper-us-torture-video
    https://cdni.rt.com/files/2018.07/article/5b4fdc93fc7e9352138b4605.png

    A musical video by an Iraqi rapper calling out the US on its abuses at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere in the war-ravaged country following the 2003 invasion has gone viral, racking up over 500,000 views.

    The video was filmed by rapper I-NZ as another parody of Childish Gambino’s ’This is America.’ While Gambino took on police brutality and racial bias in his acclaimed work, the Iraqi rapper chose to cast the light on the ugly results of the Iraq War, with its well-documented instances of maltreatment and humiliation of detainees by US soldiers. The name of the former US military prison, Abu Ghraib, the video’s supposed set, became synonymous with abuse after harrowing images and accounts of physical and psychological torture within its walls became public in 2004.

    (...) The rapper, who was born to Iraqi parents and grew up in New Zealand and has never actually been to Iraq in his life, highlights the lack of coverage on the issue and the impunity of foreign forces and local corrupt elites with the line: “They’re immune, this is telly, that’s the news, media blackout, then it’s lights out, keep sniffin’ the tar.” The video also mocks former US President George W Bush for his infamous May 2003 speech, which he delivered under a “Mission Accomplished” banner, and after which the war continued for eight more years, arguably paving the way for the rise of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) and for leaving the country in economic and political disarray.

    The video was released on July 4, and it has been watched over 500,000 times on YouTube since. Speaking to VICE Arabic, the rapper said that he did not initially plan for it to coincide with the US Independence Day, however, he then decided to speed up the release to draw more attention to the issue.

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

    #irak #rap

    • أدب .. بدر شاكر السياب : النهر و الموت
      http://www.adab.com/modules.php?name=Sh3er&doWhat=shqas&qid=68099

      بويب
      بويب
      أجراس برج ضاع في قرارة البحر
      الماء في الجرار و الغروب في الشجر
      و تنضح الجرار أجراسا من المطر
      بلورها يذوب في أنين
      بويب يا بويب
      فيدلهم في دمي حنين
      إليك يا بويب

    • The River And The Death Poem by Badr Shakir al-Sayyab - Poem Hunter
      https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/the-river-and-the-death

      Buwaib , Oh Buwaib ,
      Bells of a lighthouse lost at the bottom of the sea ,
      Water is in the pots , and the sunset in the trees ,
      The pots ooze bells of rain ,
      Their crystal melts away in wailing .

      Buwaib , Oh Buwaib !
      Sympathy for you , Buwaib darkens in my blood ,
      Sad like rain , O my river ,
      I wish I could run in the darkness ,
      Tightening my both fists to carry ,
      In each finger , a year of yearning ,
      As if I were carrying votive offerings ,
      Of wheat and roses .
      I wish I could approach from the hills beds ,
      To glance the moon ,
      Wading between your banks ,
      Planting shadows and filling the baskets ,
      With water , fish and roses .
      I wish I could wade you , to follow the moon ,
      And hear the pebbles rattle in the bottom ,
      The rattling of thousands of sparrows on the trees .
      Are you a wood of tears or a river ?
      And will the fish sleep at dawn ?
      And will these stars stay waiting ,
      To feed with silk thousands of needles ?
      And you , Buwaib , how I wish I could sink into you ,
      To pick up oyster shells to build a house out of them ,
      To enlighten with it the verdancy of water and trees ,
      Of what the stars and the moon ooze ,
      To reach the sea in you with the ebb ,
      For death is a strange world ,
      That enchants the young ,
      And its hidden door was with you , Buwaib .

      Buwaib , O Buwaib .
      Twenty years have gone , every year is like ages ,
      And today , when darkness overcast ,
      To stay up sleepless in bed ,
      And to delicate the conscience up to the daylight ,
      Like a tree with delicate branches , birds and fruits .
      I feel the blood , the tears as the rain ,
      Ooze by the sad world .
      Bells of the dead are shaking in my veins ,
      To darken sympathy in my blood ,
      Sympathy for a bullet to cut open the depths of my heart ,
      With its constrictive ice ,
      To burn up the bones like the hell .
      I wish I could run to support the strugglers ,
      To tighten my both fists and slap the fate .
      I wish I could drown in my blood to the bottom ,
      To bear the burden with human beings ,
      To infuse life . My death is then triumph .

      Translated by : Jamil Azeez Mohammad
      Badr Shakir al-Sayyab

    • Badr Shakir al-Sayyab — Wikipédia
      https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badr_Shakir_al-Sayyab

      Badr Shakir al-Sayyab (en arabe : بدر شاكر السياب ; Djaykur, 24 décembre 1926 - Koweït, 24 décembre 1964) est un poète et traducteur irakien de langue arabe. Il est la référence incontestée de la poésie arabe moderne et l’un des fondateurs du Vers libre dans la littérature arabe.

    • https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Buwaib

      Battle of Buwaib - Wikipedia
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Buwaib

      Battle of Buwaib (Arabic: معركة البويب‎) was fought between Sassanid Empire and Rashidun Caliphate soon after Battle of the Bridge.
      […]
      The war ended with huge success to the Muslims in which they killed the Persian leader Mihran bin Badhan, and got momentum to further expand their wars against the Sassanids and their allies.

    • بدر شاكر السياب - انشودة المطر - song of the rain
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NTD35zenp0

      Rain Song Poem by Badr Shakir al-Sayyab - Poem Hunter
      https://www.poemhunter.com/poem/rain-song-7

      [… 7:12]
      In every drop of rain
      A red or yellow color buds from the seeds of flowers.
      Every tear wept by the hungry and naked people
      And every spilt drop of slaves’ blood
      Is a smile aimed at a new dawn,
      A nipple turning rosy in an infant’s lips
      In the young world of tomorrow, bringer of life.
      Drip.....
      Drop..... the rain . . .In the rain.
      Iraq will blossom one day ’
      I cry out to the Gulf: ’O Gulf,
      Giver of pearls, shells and death!’
      The echo replies
      As if lamenting:
      ’O Gulf,
      Giver of shells and death.’
      And across the sands from among its lavish gifts
      The Gulf scatters fuming froth and shells
      And the skeletons of miserable drowned emigrants
      Who drank death forever
      From the depths of the Gulf, from the ground of its silence,
      And in Iraq a thousand serpents drink the nectar
      From a flower the Euphrates has nourished with dew.
      I hear the echo
      Ringing in the Gulf:
      ’Rain . . .
      Drip, drop, the rain . . .
      Drip, drop.’

      In every drop of rain
      A red or yellow color buds from the seeds of flowers.
      Every tear wept by the hungry and naked people
      And every spilt drop of slaves’ blood
      Is a smile aimed at a new dawn,
      A nipple turning rosy in an infant’s lips
      In the young world of tomorrow, bringer of life.
      And still the rain pours down.

      Translated by: Lena jayyusi and Christopher Middleton

  • #Guantanamo ’prepared’ for new inmates : US admiral | Middle East Eye
    http://www.middleeasteye.net/news/guantanamo-prepared-new-inmates-us-admiral-1684468227

    D’autant plus qu’il n’existe, d’après les farceurs de Middle East Eye, que des « accusations » de #torture et non pas des preuves en béton.

    The prison, which was opened by former President George W Bush to hold terrorism suspects captured overseas after the 11 September 2001 attacks, has come to symbolise harsh detention practices that opened the United States to accusations of torture.

    #Etats-Unis « #journalisme_objectif » #sans_vergogne

  • Gaza : la malédiction de Mohammed Dahlan
    par Ramzy Baroud | 30 juillet 2017 – Al-Jazeera – Traduction : Chronique de Palestine – Lotfallah
    http://chroniquepalestine.com/gaza-malediction-mohammed-dahlan

    (...) Dahlan, qui avait été loué par George W Bush et avait été choisi par les néo-conservateurs américains [néocons] pour fomenter un coup d’État contre le gouvernement élu du Hamas à Gaza en 2007, semble avoir finalement réussi à se frayer un chemin dans la politique palestinienne. Mais ce qui est choquant, cependant, c’est que le sinistre retour de Dahlan soit facilité par aucun autre groupe, à savoir son « archi-ennemi » : le Hamas.

    Il est aisé de dénoncer de tels changements d’attitude en incriminant la nature de la politique, toujours égoïste, « pragmatique » et souvent brutale, mais la réalité est beaucoup plus complexe et tragique. Gaza est assiégée depuis plus d’une décennie. Le siège israélien a commencé en 2006 lorsque le Hamas a remporté les élections législatives lors d’une victoire incontestable, renvoyant le Fatah, la principale faction de l’Organisation de libération de la Palestine (OLP) dans l’opposition pour la première fois depuis sa création dans les années 1960.

    Montrant ainsi son incapacité à comprendre ou accepter le processus démocratique, le Fatah a attaqué son rival du Hamas et a fait son maximum pour miner son pouvoir émergeant.(...)

    #Dahlan

  • Globalisation once made the world go around. Is it about to grind to a halt? | World news | The Guardian

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/21/davos-globalisation-trump-brexit-trade-wars

    His speech was like one normally expected of an American president. Countries must resist the temptation to retreat into harbour, the world leader said to a packed and admiring audience, but instead have the courage to swim in the vast ocean of the global market.

    This was the kind of paean to free trade that might have come from John F Kennedy, George W Bush or Bill Clinton – all occupants of the White House who saw it as the United States’s role to defend the open international trading system set up at the end of the second world war.

    #trump #états-unis

  • Trumped up climate history is bunk
    http://us6.campaign-archive2.com/?u=6e13c74c17ec527c4be72d64f&id=bff947d060&e=08052803c8

    Trumped up climate
    history is bunk

    Despite overwhelming historical evidence that human-induced climate change is happening now, Donald Trump is apparently still refusing to face the facts.

    By Tim Radford

    LONDON, 16 November, 2016 − China can proudly claim many inventions − but certainly not the concept of global warming that US president-elect Donald Trump has accredited to it.

    When Trump wrote on Twitter on 6 November, 2012, that “the concept of global warming was created by and for the Chinese in order to make US manufacturing non-competitive”, he was either ignoring or ignorant of the hard historical facts.

    In 1859, scientist John Tyndall calculated the capacity of atmospheric gases – among them water vapour, carbon dioxide and methane − to absorb infrared radiation.

    In 1896, Swedish scientist Svante Arrenhius formulated a relationship between levels of the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and changes in temperature.

    In 1938, British engineer Guy Stewart Callendar looked at the relationship between carbon dioxide and temperature, and confirmed Arrhenius’s calculations.

    In 1958, Charles David Keeling, of the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in the US, started measuring carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere at one location – at 3,400 metres altitude on the Hawaiian volcano Mauna Loa.

    In 2001, US president George W Bush awarded Keeling the President’s National Medal of Science.

    What is now called the Keeling Curve describes the steady rise of CO2 in parts per million in the last six decades.The ratio before the Industrial Revolution is put at around 280ppm. It is now at or above 400ppm.

    #climat #co2 #trump #climatosceptiques

  • Chilcot delivers crushing verdict on Blair and the Iraq war
    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/chilcot-report-crushing-verdict-tony-blair-iraq-war

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD5r0MYqN9o

    It concludes:

    • There was no imminent threat from Saddam Hussein.

    • The strategy of containment could have been adopted and continued for some time.

    • The judgments about the severity of the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction – WMDs – were presented with a certainty that was not justified.

    • Despite explicit warnings, the consequences of the invasion were underestimated. The planning and preparations for Iraq after Saddam were wholly inadequate.

    • The government failed to achieve its stated objectives.

    It report also sheds fresh light on the private discussions between Blair and the US president, George W Bush, in the run-up to war.

  • Tony #Blair hints he could refuse to accept Chilcot’s Iraq war verdict
    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/may/29/tony-blair-hints-he-could-refuse-to-accept-chilcots-iraq-war-verdict

    Sir John Chilcot is due to publish his long-awaited report into the war on 6 July. It is expected to be highly critical of Blair and other political and military figures.
    During the inquiry hearings there was particular focus on evidence suggesting Blair had given a firm commitment to back President George W Bush’s decision to invade while he was publicly saying a final decision had not yet been taken.

  • Au milieu d’un long article sur Edward Luttwak dans le Guardian, un propos assez frappant du sieur :
    http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/dec/09/edward-luttwak-machiavelli-of-maryland?CMP=share_btn_tw

    “You know, I never gave George W Bush enough credit for what he’s done in the Middle East,” Luttwak continued. “I failed to appreciate at the time that he was a strategic genius far beyond Bismarck. He ignited a religious war between Shi’ites and Sunnis that will occupy the region for the next 1,000 years. It was a pure stroke of brilliance!”

    Bien sûr j’ai de sérieux doute sur le fait que Luttwak, cet ami de Perle et de bien d’autres néoconservateurs, pense sincèrement que l’idée vienne de Bush Jr, et il y a certainement un brin d’ironie perverse là-dessous. Pas de doute qu’il trouve, par contre, que l’idée était excellente...

  • Isis: In a borderless world, the days when we could fight foreign wars and be safe at home may be long gone

    Isis was quick to understand a truth the West must now confront: that the national borders imposed by colonial powers 100 years go are becoming meaningless, says Robert Fisk

    What really manifested itself that year, I now believe, was a much more deeply held Arab conviction; that the very institutions that we in the West had built for these people 100 years ago were worthless, that the statehood which we had later awarded to artificial nations within equally artificial borders was meaningless. They were rejecting the whole construct that we had foisted upon them. That Egypt regressed back into military patriarchy – and the subsequent and utterly predictable Western acqiescence in this – after a brief period of elected Muslim Brotherhood government, does not change this equation. While the revolutions largely stayed within national boundaries – at least at the start – the borders began to lose their meaning.

    Isis has weirdly replicated this gruesome policy. However many atrocities in Europe have been committed by men who have supposedly been “radicalised” in Syria, the killers have usually been local proxies; British Muslims in the UK, French Muslims who were citizens of France or residents of Belgium. The significance of this – that Isis clearly intends to provoke a civil war within Europe, especially between France’s huge Algerian-origin Muslims and the police and political elite of France – has been spoken of in whispers. Indeed, much of the media coverage of the Paris massacres has often avoided the very word Muslim.

    But that’s what George W Bush and Tony Blair told us before marching into the graveyard of Iraq in 2003. We are always declaring ourselves “at war”. We are told to be merciless. We must invade “their” territory to stop them invading ours. But the days are long gone when we can have foreign adventures and expect to be safe at home. New York, Washington, Madrid, London, Paris all tell us that. Perhaps if we spoke more of “justice” – courts, legal process for killers, however morally repugnant they may be, sentences, prisons, redemption for those who may retrieve their lost souls from the Isis midden – we would be a little safer in our sceptered continent. There should be justice not just for ourselves or our enemies, but for the peoples of the Middle East who have suffered this past century from the theatre of dictatorships and cardboard institutions we created for them – and which have helped Isis to thrive.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/isis-in-a-borderless-world-the-days-when-we-could-fight-foreign-wars-
    #Etat-nation #ISIS #EI #Etat_islamique #Etat_national #frontières #post-colonialisme #colonialisme #nations_imaginaires #justice
    cc @reka

    • Pourvu qu’il n’ait pas raison...

      The significance of this – that Isis clearly intends to provoke a civil war within Europe, especially between France’s huge Algerian-origin Muslims and the police and political elite of France – has been spoken of in whispers

      #guerre_civile

  • Nous devons rester fermes après les attaques de Paris | Comment is free | The Guardian
    http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/nov/16/attaques-de-paris-lanalyse-le-guardian?CMP=share_btn_tw

    De plus, ce type de rhétorique a un passé récent malheureux. En 2001, George W Bush a également étiqueté 9/11 comme une déclaration de guerre. Mais ce registre de guerre, autorisant implicitement son lot de mesures extrêmes, a conduit les USA et leurs alliés à prendre plusieurs décisions désastreuses.

    Leur impact se ressent aujourd’hui encore, presque 15 ans plus tard. On peut inclure dans cette catégorie la chute orchestrée de l’Irak et l’incubation d’EI qui s’en est suivie.

  • Arrest Blair » Blair’s crime

    http://www.arrestblair.org/blairs-crimes

    Bon quelqu’un que je ne trahirai pas ne postera pas ce site, je le fais donc à sa place, vu qu’on est en ce moment, comment dir, "en situation"...

    The Iraq war, which started in 2003, has caused the deaths of between 100,000 and one million people, depending on whose estimate you believe. Two men were ultimately responsible for the decision to start it: George W Bush and Tony Blair.

    Bush and Blair claim that they were provoked into starting the war by the imminent threat Iraq presented to world peace. They further maintain that the war was legal. A series of leaked documents shows not only that these contentions are untrue, but that Bush and Blair knew they were untrue.

    #guerre #paix #crimes #crimes_de_guerre

    • Il y a la « Tony Blair FOundation »

      Our Approach | Tony Blair Faith Foundation

      http://www.tonyblairfaithfoundation.org/page/our-approach

      The Tony Blair Faith Foundation provides the practical support required to help prevent religious prejudice, conflict and extremism.

      This support is provided at two levels: At the leadership level we work with current and future leaders, providing the support to help prevent religious prejudice, conflict and extremism in the present. At the next generation level we work to ensure future generations do not inherit the grudges of the past and provide them with the knowledge and skills to secure peace in the future.

      To do this we focus on education and exposure.

      Education

      The Foundation provides leaders with the knowledge and analysis to understand the impact and complexity of religion in the world. We empower young people with the knowledge and skills to understand religion, opening their minds to respect and not fear difference, and to resist extremist voices.

      Exposure

      We facilitate human connections with lasting emotional resonance by exposing people to others with different cultures and beliefs so they can learn from each other and live with each other. We also provide the platforms for leaders to counter extremist narrative by practically demonstrating that peace and collaboration is possible.

      Delivery

      Three innovative projects bring the model to life: the Faith and Globalisation Initiative, Faiths Act, and Face to Faith.

      The Foundation works in some of the world’s toughest situations where we offer bold, practical and innovative solutions where there is real need. We are not a religious organisation. We are unaffiliated, working with all those committed to peaceful co-existence, including those of faith and none.

  • Iraq war inquiry blocked in bid to make Bush-Blair ’kick ass’ memo public
    http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2013/nov/10/iraq-war-tony-blair-george-bush

    Contents of key conversations between Tony Blair and a bellicose George W Bush, who declares he is ready to “kick ass”, are thought to be among documents relating to the Iraq war that the government is withholding from publication.

    It emerged this week that the Cabinet Office is resisting requests from the Iraq inquiry, the body set up to draw lessons from the conflict, for “more than 130 records of conversations” between Blair, his successor, Gordon Brown, and Bush to be made public. In a letter to David Cameron, published on the inquiry’s website, the committee’s chairman, Sir John Chilcot, disclosed that “25 notes from Mr Blair to President Bush” and “some 200 cabinet-level discussions” were also being withheld.

  • Archives - Irak / 11 septembre

    L’incroyable histoire du mensonge qui a permis la guerre en Irak
    http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/l-enquete-de-l-obs/20130308.OBS1260/l-incroyable-histoire-du-mensonge-qui-a-permis-la-guerre-en-ira

    C’est le plus grand mensonge de l’histoire de l’espionnage - le plus meurtrier aussi. Une mystification imaginée par un quidam qui a servi de prétexte principal à l’invasion de l’Irak, il y a dix ans. Cette extraordinaire affaire est apparue au grand jour le 5 février 2003, à l’ONU.

    Ce soir-là, dans un discours resté célèbre, le secrétaire d’Etat américain, Colin Powell, lançait au monde : « Il ne peut faire aucun doute que Saddam Hussein a des armes biologiques » et « qu’il a la capacité d’en produire rapidement d’autres » en nombre suffisant pour « tuer des centaines de milliers de personnes ». Comment ? Grâce à des « laboratoires mobiles » clandestins qui fabriquent des agents atroces tels la « peste, la gangrène gazeuse, le bacille du charbon ou le virus de la variole ». Sûr de son fait, le puissant Américain ajoute : « Nous avons une description de première main » de ces installations de la mort. Du moins, le croit-il.

    « Pétrole contre nourriture » : qui jugera les responsables de la destruction de l’Irak ? - Les blogs du Diplo
    http://blog.mondediplo.net/2013-01-23-Petrole-contre-nourriture-qui-jugera-les

    Irak, Guantanamo, etc : pourquoi Bush & Obama ne seront sans doute jamais jugés http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/monde/20120525.OBS6558/torture-pourquoi-bush-ne-sera-t-il-sans-doute-jamais-juge.html 

    Irak : 10 ans après la guerre, Blix appelle à ne pas répéter l’erreur en Iran
    http://www.lexpress.fr/actualites/1/monde/irak-10-ans-apres-la-guerre-blix-appelle-a-ne-pas-repeter-l-erreur-en-iran_

    « Le monde a la mémoire courte. L’échec et les erreurs tragiques commises en Irak ne sont pas pris suffisamment au sérieux », déclare l’ancien diplomate suédois âgé de 82 ans à un groupe restreint de journalistes, dont celle de l’AFP, lors d’un passage à Dubaï. 

    « Dans le cas de l’Irak, il y a eu une tentative de la part de certains pays d’éradiquer des armes de destruction massive qui n’existaient pas. Aujourd’hui, on parle de s’en prendre à l’Iran, pour éradiquer des intentions qui n’existent peut-être pas. J’espère que cela n’arrivera pas », ajoute-t-il. 

    Ancien ministre suédois des Affaires étrangères, Hans Blix avait dirigé de 1981 à 1987 l’Agence internationale de l’énergie atomique (AIEA) et été nommé en janvier 2000 directeur exécutif de la Commission de contrôle, de vérification et d’inspection (COCOVINU). 

    Les inspecteurs des Nations unies chargés de rechercher la présence d’armes de destruction massive avaient travaillé sous sa direction entre fin 2002 et début 2003 en Irak, sans rien trouver. 

    M. Blix s’était opposé à l’intervention militaire contre ce pays, qui a été déclenchée le 20 mars 2003 par l’ancien président américain américain George W Bush et l’ex-Premier ministre britannique Tony Blair au nom des armes de destruction massive qu’était censé détenir Saddam Hussein. 

    Auteur, après la guerre, du livre « Irak, les armes introuvables », il avait plaidé jusqu’au bout pour la poursuite des inspections. 

    La Maison Blanche avait dépêché après l’invasion de l’Irak une équipe 1.000 inspecteurs chargés de fouiller le pays, qui n’avaient pas trouvé non plus d’armes prohibées.

    #11septembre #9/11 #11/9

  • US drone strikes being used as alternative to Guantánamo, lawyer says- http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/02/us-drone-strikes-guantanamo

    The lawyer who first drew up White House policy on lethal drone strikes has accused the Obama administration of overusing them because of its reluctance to capture prisoners that would otherwise have to be sent to Guantánamo Bay.

    John Bellinger, who was responsible for drafting the legal framework for targeted drone killings while working for George W Bush after 9/11, said he believed their use had increased since because President Obama was unwilling to deal with the consequences of jailing suspected al-Qaida members.

    “This government has decided that instead of detaining members of al-Qaida [at Guantánamo] they are going to kill them,” he told a conference at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

  • Comment les États-Unis ont organisé et financé massivement le développement de l’enseignement islamique en Afghanistan :
    http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=e4d_1365286482

    Under NSDD 166, US assistance to the Islamic brigades channelled through Pakistan was not limited to bona fide military aid. Washington also supported and financed by the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the process of religious indoctrination, largely to secure the demise of secular institutions. (Michel Chossudovsky, 9/11 ANALYSIS: From Ronald Reagan and the Soviet-Afghan War to George W Bush and September 11, 2001, Global Research, September 09, 2010)

    Religious schools were generously funded by the United States of America:

    Education in Afghanistan in the years preceding the Soviet-Afghan war was largely secular. The US covert education destroyed secular education. The number of CIA sponsored religious schools (madrassas) increased from 2,500 in 1980 to over 39,000 [in 2001]. (Ibid.)

    Unknown to the American public, the US spread the teachings of the Islamic jihad in textbooks “Made in America” developed at the University of Nebraska:

    … the United States spent millions of dollars to supply Afghan schoolchildren with textbooks filled with violent images and militant Islamic teachings, part of covert attempts to spur resistance to the Soviet occupation.

    The primers, which were filled with talk of jihad and featured drawings of guns, bullets, soldiers and mines, have served since then as the Afghan school system’s core curriculum. Even the Taliban used the American-produced books…

    The White House defends the religious content, saying that Islamic principles permeate Afghan culture and that the books “are fully in compliance with US law and policy.” Legal experts, however, question whether the books violate a constitutional ban on using tax dollars to promote religion.

    … AID officials said in interviews that they left the Islamic materials intact because they feared Afghan educators would reject books lacking a strong dose of Muslim thought. The agency removed its logo and any mention of the U.S. government from the religious texts, AID spokeswoman Kathryn Stratos said.

    “It’s not AID’s policy to support religious instruction,” Stratos said. “But we went ahead with this project because the primary purpose . . . is to educate children, which is predominantly a secular activity.”

    … Published in the dominant Afghan languages of Dari and Pashtun, the textbooks were developed in the early 1980s under an AID grant to the University of Nebraska -Omaha and its Center for Afghanistan Studies. The agency spent $ 51 million on the university’s education programs in Afghanistan from 1984 to 1994.” (Washington Post, 23 March 2002)

  • Joshua Landis commente la remise des conclusions de l’enquête au Tribunal spécial pour le Liban.

    Obama Trapped in Bush’s Lebanon War
    http://www.joshualandis.com/blog/?p=8133

    When the neoconservatives of the Bush administration established the Special Tribunal for Lebanon in 2005, a number of them argued that it would serve as a ticking time bomb that would go off in the distant future and would ensure that whatever administration came after Bush would be forced to continue fighting his war. They were right. The STL means Obama must fight Bush’s war in Lebanon, despite his attempt to bury it in the name of dialogue with Syria and Iran and settling the Arab-Israeli conflict.

    President Bush is partially to blame for Hariri’s assassination and the present round of endemic civil strife in Lebanon. When he decided to ripe up the agreement on Lebanon that his father had hammered out in 1990 with Syria, he blew oxygen on the embers of the long Civil War that had never been settled but only dampened. When George W Bush proclaimed that the Syrian military was an “occupation force” and not a “positive presence” in Lebanon, the battle lines were drawn. The US had declared war on Hizbullah, Syria, and Iran. When Bush teamed up with French President Chirac to convince Rafiq Hariri to choose sides in their battle and to back UN resolutions demanding Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon, Hariri could no longer play the man in the middle. He became a combatant in a war that he did not chose and could not win. He became its most famous victim.

    Intéressant. Encore cela suppose-t-il que l’équipe d’Obama ait la moindre envie de changer réellement de politique par rapport à l’époque Bush.

    #Liban #TSL