The U.S., according to journalist Chris Hedges, is addicted to war and the dehumanization of an Other. This has serious consequences in the form of collateral damage, which is what his latest book is about. Our war on terror is actually a war on people, because the numbers of civilian dead is climbing, and our next president has said he wants to escalate the war in Afghanistan instead of end it. That means we have to step up our efforts at organizing for peace and pressuring our government to give up seeking revenge and start to focus on a peaceful future.
Who is Eric Holder? Obama’s new Attorney General.
Chris Hedges talks about the Iraq war and his new book about Collateral Damage.
You can see the entire Miami Book TV event from last week at CSPANjunkie.
Obama advisers: Bush era war criminals will walk.
Obama: Warming must be tackled now.
Good speech! This ones gives me real hope for the future.
Congress has fast-track power to Kill Bush rules.
Good! I hope they come through and do it.
What is Islamofascism? It’s a meaningless made-up word that racist people use to justify all sorts of bad attitudes towards people who are from the Middle East or Muslim. It’s a way to demonize them and justify our being at war with them. We have to make sure this war in Afghanistan stops as soon as possible because we are spreading terrorism instead of stopping it and it’s just plain immoral to be trying to solve problems by bombing people. Time to evolve. We need to convince President Obama to end the war in Afghanistan even as he is bringing soldiers out of Iraq, before they are redeployed. It’s time to start to get invovled in a real peace movement, one that looks at the root cause of terrorism and fights it as the crime that it is, not a dehumanizing war where we drop bombs on civilians. Collateral damage is not acceptable now and it never was. (There is no such thing as “avenging” 9/11, no matter what Rachel Maddow says.) An eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.
This episode also covers news about Obama, the Iraq status of forces agreement, automakers headed for bankruptcy, the G20 summit and more. You can download it here or subscribe on the right.
Take action on the bailout issue by visiting Break the Bailout by visiting http://www.BreakTheBailout.com — we need to show Congress that we will hold them accountable.
Music by American Sex Machine, Little Green Bag and Michael Franti, The Future
Wondering what President Obama is busy doing to promote peace in the Middle East? He started with returning the US to the “moral high ground” by ending torture and signing an executive order to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay. He then continued on Thursday at the State Department with Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State, and George Mitchell as special envoy to the Middle East.
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