Tag Archives: international

Here Are the Origins of Benghazi Fever

by CALKelseyngmd Posted on May 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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Read what Martin Longman says today about Benghazi. If you want to understand the origins of Benghazi fever in the fever swamps of the right, I think he has it right. It was basically born out of shame at the initial conservative reaction to the attacks combined with rage that they finally got called on their vile behavior, which ended up helping Obama win reelection.

If you need to refresh your memory about the details—which you really should—see my real-time reaction here: Day 1, Day 2, Day 2.1, Day 2.2.

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Here Are the Origins of Benghazi Fever

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"The Simpsons" Producer Responds To Insane Conspiracy Theory That His Show Helped Start the Arab Spring

by CarleyYXZV Posted on May 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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There is a new theory that an episode of The Simpsons (one that aired on February 25, 2001) predicted the Syrian uprising and civil war, and also that the episode is proof of a massive international conspiracy that laid the groundwork for the Arab Spring.

You read that right.

The conspiracy theory was recently proposed by anchor Rania Badawy on the Egyptian TV channel Al Tahrir. Badawy insists that the Simpsons episode “New Kids on the Blecch“—in which Bart, Nelson, Ralph, and Milhouse are recruited into a boy band called the Party Posse—contains clues that suggest “what is happening in Syria today was premeditated.”

Here’s the segment, which was flagged by the Middle East Media Research Institute:

In the episode, the boys star in a music video for “Drop Da Bomb,” a pop song that seems to encourage heroic bombing of hostile Arab countries. (“Your love’s more deadly than Saddam / That’s why I gotta drop da bomb!“) The chorus of the tune is “Yvan eht Nioj,” which is “Join the Navy” backwards; the Party Posse turns out to be a secret project by the US Navy to boost recruitment numbers through subliminal messages.

Badawy, the astute television anchor, noticed that the soldiers bombed in the music video (posted below) have a car emblazoned with a version of the Syrian flag that looks an awful lot like the ones Syrian rebels and protesters waved in 2011. “How it reached this animated video nobody knows, and this has aroused a debate on the social networks,” she says. “This raises many question marks about what happened in the Arab Spring revolutions and about when this global conspiracy began.”

Not that you need it at this point, but the New York Times has a thorough rundown of why—when you factor in “crucial aspects of both Syrian history and details of the Simpsons episode”—this is all so silly.

Still, I thought I’d ask Al Jean, a longtime Simpsons executive producer, what he thought about this interesting theory. Jean sent along the following brief statement:

Yes, we had the amazing foresight to predict conflict in the Middle East.

Somehow, I doubt the heavy sarcasm in Jean’s admission will register with certain conspiracy theorists. There are also wacky theories out there that The Simpsons predicted the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Also, there’s a fun post on the 11 times The Simpsons “predicted” the future of technology.

Now here’s the “Drop Da Bomb” music video that is complicit in the bloodshed in Syria, I guess:

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"The Simpsons" Producer Responds To Insane Conspiracy Theory That His Show Helped Start the Arab Spring

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Eastern Ukrainians Dislike EU and US, But They Dislike Russia Even More

by DoraOZLPgq Posted on May 8, 2014

Mother Jones

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I don’t have a lot to add to this, but I thought this recent poll result from Pew was sort of fascinating. It’s part of a survey of Ukrainian attitudes toward governance, and the main takeaway is that Ukrainians from both east and west are strongly in favor of remaining united. Even in the east, only 18 percent favor allowing regions to secede.

That’s a surprisingly high number, but the question on the right was even more interesting. It turns out that eastern Ukrainians don’t really think very highly of any of the foreign actors currently meddling in Ukrainian politics. Unsurprisingly, 46 percent don’t like the EU and 52 percent don’t like the US, but an even higher number, 58 percent, don’t like Russia either. Even among Russian speakers, a small plurality dislike Russia.

If these poll results are accurate, there’s little appetite for secession in eastern Ukraine, and little appetite for Russian intervention. That should be food for thought for Vladimir Putin.

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Eastern Ukrainians Dislike EU and US, But They Dislike Russia Even More

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New Photobook Documents the Travails of Transgender Cubans

by WilhemiBanniste Posted on May 8, 2014

Mother Jones

Malu with her parents and sister, in front of their home. Mariette Pathy Allen

Of all the allies in the global fight for LGBT equality, Cuba may be the most unlikely. For decades, the island was notorious for its crackdown on “social deviants”—an underclass that included homosexuals, transgender people, Jehovah’s Witnesses, Seventh Day Adventists, and anyone critical of the Castro regime. The 1960’s were especially bleak. Deemed unfit for the revolution, gay Cubans were banned from joining the military or becoming teachers. Thousands were confined to isolated labor camps. Conditions deteriorated further in the ’80s and ’90s as Cuba quarantined HIV-positive citizens, many of whom were gay.

Mariette Pathy Allen’s new photobook, TransCuba (Daylight Books), captures a country slowly outgrowing its history of persecution. Shot in 2012 and 2013, the book is haunted by the trauma inflicted by Fidel Castro’s government. But it is optimistic about life under his brother, Raúl, who assumed the presidency in 2008. Since the change in power, Cuba’s Ministry of Public Health has approved state-funded sex reassignment surgery, and the government has relaxed many discriminatory policies targeting sexual orientation and gender. In 2012, Adela Hernandez became the country’s first openly transgender person elected to public office. Perhaps most shockingly, in a 2010 interview with the Mexican newspaper La Jornada, Fidel Castro called his decision to imprison homosexuals in the 1960’s “a great injustice….I’m not going to place the blame on others,” Castro said, “We had so many and such terrible problems, problems of life or death.”

Despite its progressive reforms, Cuba continues to have serious problems, particularly with transgender rights. “I see transgender Cubans as a metaphor for Cuba itself: people living between genders in a country moving between doctrines,” Allen writes. The women she documents are grateful for the increasing tolerance, but they still suffer from entrenched stigmas. Natalie, for example, was denied a factory job because of her appearance. She began hooking to make ends meet, and picked up HIV at age 18. She also had a run-in with police that escalated, at which point an officer “hit her until he didn’t feel like it anymore.” She was imprisoned for inciting violence.

Allen’s other protagonists share similar tales of woe. Amanda, a 36-year-old prostitute with HIV, tried twice to get to the United States, and twice failed. She was taken to Guantánamo Bay, where she begged her English-speaking captors to return her to the streets of Havana.

Another subject, Alsola, spent two years studying psychology and medicine at a school in Santiago de Cuba, the country’s second largest city. School policy mandated that students respect the dress code of their birth gender, so she dropped out rather than conform. “My life is nothing special,” she says now.

Allen’s portraits are moving proof to the contrary. TransCuba follows her two previous photobooks—Transformations (1989) and The Gender Frontier (2003)—capping a loose trilogy that is one of contemporary photography’s most poignant explorations of gender identity. Her portraits, whether shot in Cuba or the United States, remind us that looking is a political act, and seeing a revolutionary one. Although Allen’s subjects face the camera instead of a jury or a firing squad, their expressions bear the same frank entreaty for compassion. To quote Yanet, another Allen subject: “We all have implausible dreams, things that make no sense, we all have fantasies.” TransCuba is a testament to the difficult, intoxicating, sometimes tragic work of realizing who we are.

Alsola, Santiago de Cuba Mariette Pathy Allen

Charito at home with her week-old piglet, Camagüey. Mariette Pathy Allen

Paloma with her boyfriend at Mi Cayito beach, near Havana. Mariette Pathy Allen

Partners Nomi and Miguel at Malu’s apartment, Havana. Mariette Pathy Allen

Laura at home, Havana. Mariette Pathy Allen

Erika at home, Cienfuegos. Mariette Pathy Allen

The view from Natalie’s window in Havana. Mariette Pathy Allen

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New Photobook Documents the Travails of Transgender Cubans

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Boko Haram Has Been Terrorizing Nigeria for Years. Why Did We Just Start to Care?

by DongTrouette Posted on May 7, 2014

Mother Jones

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In the wake of the April kidnapping of 276 Nigerian schoolgirls by the terrorist group Boko Haram, fearsome images of the militants—in army fatigues and turbans, brandishing automatic weapons and rounds of ammo—have been splashed over the front pages of the international press. But the Al Qaeda-linked group has been slaughtering Nigerians by the hundreds since 2009. They’ve also kidnapped scores of women and children and attacked dozens of schools over the past year, with little attention from the Western media. Why did the foreign press decide to start paying attention now?

Part of the reason is the sheer scale of the kidnapping. According to the latest numbers, nearly 300 schoolgirls were abducted on April 15 from Chibok boarding school in the northern Nigerian state of Borno. Last year, Boko Haram abducted handfuls of children, as well as Christian women, whom the group converts to Islam and forces into marriage. The group attacked 50 schools last year too, killing more than 100 schoolchildren and 70 teachers. The number of kids taken during the raid on the Chibok school is staggering, however. “It is the largest number of children abducted in one swoop in the country,” says Nnamdi Obasi, a senior Nigeria analyst for the International Crisis Group, a nonprofit conflict resolution organization. “Certainly not a minor incident that could be ignored.”

But it’s not just the shock value of the Chibok school attack that’s put a recent spotlight on Boko Haram. The group has terrorized the country on this scale before, having killed thousands over the past five years. In November 2011, the militants attacked police facilities in the northern state of Yobe, killing 150. That year, the group also carried out a brazen attack on the UN compound in the capital city of Abuja. In January 2012, coordinated bombings by the Islamist militants in the city of Kano killed about 150. And in July of that year, the group attacked multiple Christian villages in the north, killing more than 100. Those attacks prompted obligatory reports by the likes of the New York Times, the Associated Press, Reuters, and the BBC.

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Boko Haram Has Been Terrorizing Nigeria for Years. Why Did We Just Start to Care?

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Annie Leonard of “Story of Stuff” will be new head of Greenpeace USA

by MollyDruitt Posted on May 6, 2014

Annie Leonard of “Story of Stuff” will be new head of Greenpeace USA

By

Story of Stuff Project

Today, Greenpeace USA announced that Annie Leonard, creator of The Story of Stuff, will take the reins as the organization’s new executive director.

Leonard launched what became the Story of Stuff Project in 2007 with a 20-minute web video (you can watch it below). The video examined, to put it succinctly, where the hell all our stuff comes from and where it ends up, and in doing so, she got lots of people to think critically about the ugly underpinnings of our consumer society.

The Story of Stuff turned into the little viral video that could. It beget a whole series of explainer videos, a bestselling book, and even a movement.

Leonard actually got her start at Greenpeace International in the late ’80’s, and even back then she was tracking the lifespan of seemingly mundane objects. She investigated what was happening to all the hazardous waste produced by companies in industrialized countries (spoiler alert: they were sending it to developing countries).

Leonard will start her new gig in August, replacing the outgoing executive director, Phil Radford. We’ll be interviewing her shortly, so stay tuned …

Eve Andrews is a Grist fellow and new Seattle transplant via the mean streets of Chicago, Poughkeepsie, and Pittsburgh, respectively and in order of meanness. Follow her on Twitter.

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Annie Leonard of “Story of Stuff” will be new head of Greenpeace USA

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Iraq Delusion Syndrome Is Alive and Well

by nowabazaBS1 Posted on May 1, 2014

Mother Jones

Max Boot writes today that over the past couple of years, Iraq has spiraled ever downward into outright anarchy and civil war:

Contrast that with Afghanistan, which I visited last week. While violence, corruption, drug production and government dysfunction remain very real problems in what is still one of the world’s poorest countries, Afghanistan is making real progress. Kabul is bustling and, notwithstanding some high-profile Taliban attacks, far safer than Baghdad….Even more impressive, the security forces managed with virtually no coalition presence on the ground to secure the April 5 presidential election despite Taliban attempts to disrupt it.

….Just a few years ago, Iraq appeared to be in much better shape: President Obama bragged on Dec. 14, 2011, that “we’re leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq.” In hindsight, however, it is obvious that Iraq began to unravel the minute the last U.S. troops left.

….There is an important lesson to be learned here: It’s vitally important to keep a substantial commitment of U.S. troops in Afghanistan after this year. Military commanders are asking for at least 10,000 personnel, and if that request isn’t granted by the White House (as leaks suggest it may not be), the odds will increase that Afghanistan, like Iraq, will descend into a civil war that undoes everything U.S. troops sacrificed so much to achieve.

I should say at the outset that I don’t necessarily oppose a long-term commitment of a small US peacekeeping force to Afghanistan. Fifteen years after the Kosovo war, NATO still has several thousand troops there, about a thousand of which are American. That’s how long this stuff takes sometimes.

That said, I’m endlessly flummoxed by the attitude of guys like Boot. After ten years—ten years!—of postwar “peacekeeping” in Iraq, does he still seriously think that keeping a few thousand American advisors in Baghdad for yet another few years would have made a serious difference there? In Kosovo there was a peace to keep. It was fragile, sure, but it was there. In Iraq it wasn’t. The ethnic fault lines hadn’t changed a whit, and American influence over Nouri al-Maliki had shrunk to virtually nothing. We had spent a decade trying to change the fundamentals of Iraqi politics and we couldn’t do it. An endless succession of counterterrorism initiatives didn’t do it; hundreds of billions of dollars in civil aid didn’t do it; and despite some mythologizing to the contrary, the surge didn’t do it either. The truth is that we couldn’t even make a dent. What sort of grand delusion would persuade anyone that yet another decade might do the trick?

Maybe things are different in Afghanistan. Tribal conflicts are different from sectarian ones. The Taliban is a different kind of enemy than al-Qaeda. Afghanistan’s likely next leader will almost certainly be more pro-American than Hamid Karzai. And strategically, Afghanistan plays a different role than Iraq ever did.

But Iraq? In 2003, maybe it was reasonable to think that the US could not just topple a dictator, but change the culture of a country. We can argue about that forever. But to still believe that in 2014? That’s the stuff of dreamland. Why are there still people around who continue to cling to this fantasy?

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Iraq Delusion Syndrome Is Alive and Well

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Is Oil Money Turning the NRA Against Hunters?

by Myrna Posted on April 30, 2014

Two new reports examine how America’s “number-one hunter’s organization” takes oil money and lobbies for anti-conservationist policies most hunters oppose. Eduard Vulcan/Thinkstock Last week, as the National Rifle Association geared up for its annual meeting in Indianapolis, a spokesman summed up the group’s base. “Everyone thinks our strength comes from our money. It doesn’t,” Andrew Arulanandam told the Indianapolis Star. “Our strength is truly in our membership. We have a savvy and loyal voting bloc.” The NRA regularly cites its devoted 4-5 million members as evidence of its clout and relevance. Yet while the gun lobby publicly extols its grassroots supporters, it has also been overlooking their interests while catering to those of the oil and gas industry. The NRA calls itself ”the number-one hunter’s organization in America.” But two new reports published by the Center for American Progress (CAP) and the Gun Truth Project and Corporate Accountability International show that, following contributions from oil and gas companies, the NRA lent its support to legislation that would open up more federal public lands to fossil-fuel extraction, compromising the wilderness that many hunters value. In 2012, six oil and gas companies contributed a total of between $1.3 million and $5.6 million to the NRA, according to CAP. (The companies are Clayton Williams Energy, J.L. Davis Gas Consulting, Kamps Propane, Barrett Brothers Oil and Gas, Saulsbury Energy Services, and KS Industries.) Read the rest at Mother Jones. View article:  Is Oil Money Turning the NRA Against Hunters? ; ;Related ArticlesNo, New York Times, Keystone XL Is Not A “Rounding Error”Germany’s Key to Clean Energy Is…This Coal Mine?Watch Live: Darren Aronofsky Discusses “Noah” and Climate Change ;

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Is Oil Money Turning the NRA Against Hunters?

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"Talk to Me So I Know You Are Safe": Syrian Refugees Text Home

by Andrianayhv Posted on April 18, 2014

Mother Jones

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His face lit by the phone in his hand, a boy texts with family members in Homs, Syria, the site of some of the worst fighting in his country’s three-year civil war. The teen was one of 100 or so refugees photographer Liam Maloney found living in an abandoned slaughterhouse in northern Lebanon. Maloney’s “Texting Syria” project depicts the displaced Syrians and their texts with loved ones behind the frontlines.

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"Talk to Me So I Know You Are Safe": Syrian Refugees Text Home

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Is the Crisis in Ukraine About to Wind Down?

by DedraFreee Posted on April 15, 2014

Mother Jones

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I’ve been watching the unfolding events in Ukraine with the usual rising mix of apprehension and horror, but I haven’t blogged about it much since I don’t have anything to add in the way of insight or analysis. So instead I’ll turn the mike over to Fred Kaplan, who does:

Contrary to appearances, the crisis in Ukraine might be on the verge of resolution. The potentially crucial move came today when interim President Oleksandr Turchynov said that he would be open to changing the country’s political system from a republic, with power centered in the capital Kiev, to a federation with considerable autonomy for the regional districts.

That has been one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s key demands….If Putin can win this demand—and the political, economic, and cultural inroads it would provide—an invasion would be not just be unnecessary, it’d be loony. War is politics by other means, and a revamping of Ukraine’s power structure would accomplish Putin’s political aims by less costly means.

….Sending NATO fighter aircraft to Poland and the Baltic states, mobilizing warships to the Black Sea, ratcheting up sanctions with threats of more to come—all this sends a signal that the West won’t stand by. In fact, Putin has done more to rivet the NATO nations’ attention, and perhaps get them to boost their defense budgets, than anything in the past decade.

But Obama and the other Western leaders also know they’re not going to go to war over Ukraine. Putin knows this, too. At the same time, if he’s at all rational (and this is the worrying thing—it’s not clear that he is), Putin would calculate that escalation is not a winning strategy for him. He could invade the eastern slices of Ukraine, especially around Donetsk, but he couldn’t go much further. The move would rile the rest of Ukraine to take shelter under the EU’s (and maybe NATO’s) wing, and it would rouse the Western nations to rearm to an extent unseen in 20 years (and to a level that the Russian economy could not match).

I keep thinking that even from a nationalistic Russian point of view, the cost of invading and holding eastern Ukraine is simply too large. The game isn’t worth the candle. And yet….who knows? Rationality is sometimes in short supply. I’d still bet against a Russian invasion, especially if Putin can get much of what he wants without it, but it would be a pretty iffy bet.

In any case, I wonder how long this “federation” will last? If Putin is smart, he can bide his time and just wait. A federated Ukraine could organically turn into eastern and western Ukraine with a bit of patience and without firing a shot. In the end, that would probably suit Russia’s interests better than outright annexation.

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Is the Crisis in Ukraine About to Wind Down?

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