World History Newswire Archive

With the publication of his new memoir, At the Center of the Storm, released Monday, and in an appearance on the CBS television new program “60 Minutes” the night before, former CIA director George Tenet has become the latest former official to admit publicly that the Bush administration launched its war against Iraq based upon false pretenses and manipulated intelligence.

The attached audio file of Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed was recorded at Rep. Cynthia McKinney's congressional briefing — The 9/11 Commission Report One Year Later, A Citizens' Response: Did the Commission Get it Right? on July 22nd, 2005. The following essay was originally submitted as part of the record for the congressional briefing.

The complete transcript and submitted written material from McKinney's briefing is available as a PDF and audio rcordings were available on radio.indymedia.org but this server is currently out of action. However a high quality video of the briefing is available in 3 parts:

Part One - 696Mb avi

Introduction by Verna Avery Brown, Opening Remarks by Cynthia McKinney, blessing by pastor Rebecca West, a critique of the 911 Commission Report read by Lorie Van Auken, accompanied by Monica Gabrielle and Mindy Kleinberg, further critique by John Judge, followed by ex-CIA analyst Mel Goodman's criticism of the very structure of the Commission, Paul Thompson examines NORAD/FAA response, Nafeez Ahmed examines the "al Qaeda" links, John Newman discusses Omar Saeed Sheikh, Marilynn Rosenthal dicusses prior knowledge (forewarnings) - approx. 3.5 hours

Part Two - 697Mb avi

Ann Norton's history of the Neocons and Leo Strauss, Peter Dale Scott on 9/11 and Deep Politics, Nafeez Ahmed extends the theme - examing the Muj specifically, Wayne Smith discusses International Law, Bob McIlvaine discusses his attempts to make a difference after the loss of his son, (the next segments focus on Civil Liberties - comments from Jumana Musa - Amnesty International, Elaine Cassel - Civil Rights lawyer, Rebecca Daugherty on Freedom of the Press), Mel Goodman criticizes the "Intelligence Reform" followed by McGovern - approx. 4 hours

Part Three - 348Mb avi

Former high-level CIA analyst Ray McGovern further demolishes the Commission, ex-CIA analyst David MacMichael gives a short history of useless Commissions, John Nutter talks about Covert ops, concluding remarks by McKinney - approx. 1 hour

Thanks to 911 Blogger for making this material available: Video: McKinney's 2005 Congressional Briefing | Nafeez Ahmed - "Ties With Terror: The Continuity of Western-Al-Qaeda Relations in the Post-Cold War Period".

See also this recording from 2006, Nafeez Ahmed "International Terrorism: The Secret History" and the War on Terror topic.

On April 30, 2007 Mordechai Vanunu will learn if he will return to jail for speaking to the media in 2004.

The intrepid Vanunu Freedom Riders complete the last leg of their gruelling 600-mile bicycle journey from Faslane in Scotland to Downing Street and the Israeli Embassy in London.

If you haven't realised by now that your human rights are being sapped away from you on a daily basis, then there is no hope for you.

In response to the "Empire as a Way of Life" series of essays and the impotency of ALL erudite scholarship in the dissent space that has achieved absolutely zero efficacy in any of its attempts to halt the crimes of "empire". Instead of continuing on with business as usual - perhaps it's time to do a postmortem - as engineers and thinking peoples - to figure out why our anemic protests and rehearsal of profound works of history by the scholarly haven't worked to prevent new similar history from being constructed in new epochs as new faits accomplis only to be lamented over, and how to achieve better than zero efficacy in changing that!

Inner Terror: Your Government Doesn't Mind Killing You

Most terrorist attacks in Europe, whether attributed to left-wing or right-wing activists or even Islamist fundamentalists, can be traced to actions by government-sponsored military or intelligence agencies.

The current imperial slaughter in the Middle East, justified by the "Global War on Terror", that has resulted in at least 600,000 deaths in Iraq, is nothing new — the U.S. Empire has a long and sordid history of genocidal mass murder.

The history of the U.S. imperialism and Empire is the subject of a series of ten monthly seminars from Dr John Marciano, "Empire as a Way of Life". Attached is a recording of the fifth of these seminars and the text upon which it was based. The first 7 of these seminars have taken place and the intention is to have the whole series published on this site; the last 3 will take place between now and June.

This seminar, recorded on 16th January 2007 by the L.A. Sound Posse, runs for 38 minutes and includes the discussion following. It has been made available under a Creative Commons license. If this recording is broadcast please let the L.A. Sound Posse know. This recording was originally made available on the A-Infos Radio Project site.

The following text has been reproduced here with the kind permission of Dr John Marciano and he can be contacted at johnmarciano@mac.com. He introduced this series of seminars in the following way:

A fundamental purpose of our meetings is to understand the systemic nature of the U.S. Empire and the economic and military imperialism that is its lifeblood. The historian William Appleman Williams argues that empire became "a way of life" in the U.S., a "combination of patterns of thought and action that, as it becomes habitual and institutionalized, defines the thrust and character of a culture and society." This "way of life" has convinced many U.S. "Americans" they have a right or "manifest destiny" to impose their political and economic policies upon others.

Dr John Marciano is Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Cortland, where he taught courses on social and historical foundations of education and class, gender and race.

Previous parts of this series:

• Empire as a Way of Life, Part 1 | mp3 | doc
• Empire as a Way of Life, Part 2 | mp3 | doc
• Empire as a Way of Life, Part 3 | mp3 | doc
• Empire as a Way of Life, Part 4 | mp3 | doc

This article by Professor Boyle, first published in February 1986 provides an incisive historical review of Washington's foreign policy agenda during the Iran Hostage crisis and the Iran-Iraq war.

It is of particular relevance to an understanding both of the US sponsored Iraq war as well as the foreign policy stance of the Bush adminstration in relation to Tehran.

It is worth noting that the Reagan administration's anti-Iranian policy was conducted by many of the same NeoConservatives who are today working for the Bush Junior Adminstration

Britain and the US have a long history of covert action against and provocation of Iran in their bid to aggressively control the region. Our governments have continually violated Iranian territory covertly for decades and then covered up the fact.

Nothing has changed. These facts and past precedents are exactly the reason why we should be questioning our own governments on the authenticity of the current seizure of the British marines by Iran. It seems that we are once again witnessing the unfolding of ongoing covert military action by our governments against (whether you agree with it or not) a democratically elected foreign government in Iran.

The current imperial slaughter in the Middle East, justified by the "Global War on Terror", that has resulted in at least 600,000 deaths in Iraq, is nothing new — the U.S. Empire has a long and sordid history of genocidal mass murder.

The history of the US imperialism and Empire is the subject of a series of ten monthly seminars from Dr John Marciano, "Empire as a Way of Life". Attached is a recording of the fourth of these seminars and the text upon which it was based. The first 7 of these seminars have taken place and the intention is to have the whole series published on this site; the last 3 will take place between now and June.

This seminar, recorded on 19th December 2006 by the L.A. Sound Posse, runs for 36 minutes and includes the discussion following. It has been made available under a Creative Commons license. If this recording is broadcast please let the L.A. Sound Posse know. This recording was originally made available on the A-Infos Radio Project site.

The following text has been reproduced here with the kind permission of Dr John Marciano and he can be contacted at johnmarciano@mac.com. He introduced this series of seminars in the following way:

A fundamental purpose of our meetings is to understand the systemic nature of the U.S. Empire and the economic and military imperialism that is its lifeblood. The historian William Appleman Williams argues that empire became "a way of life" in the U.S., a "combination of patterns of thought and action that, as it becomes habitual and institutionalized, defines the thrust and character of a culture and society." This "way of life" has convinced many U.S. "Americans" they have a right or "manifest destiny" to impose their political and economic policies upon others.

Dr John Marciano is Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Cortland, where he taught courses on social and historical foundations of education and class, gender and race.

Previous parts of this series:

• Empire as a Way of Life, Part 1 | mp3 | doc
• Empire as a Way of Life, Part 2 | mp3 | doc
• Empire as a Way of Life, Part 3 | mp3 | doc

Perhaps we’d get some perspective if we realized MI6 and the CIA plotted against the democratically elected government of Mohammad Mossadegh in 1953.

Two articles on different sites related to Cadmium causing Cancer.

The current imperial slaughter in the Middle East, justified by the "Global War on Terror", that has resulted in at least 600,000 deaths in Iraq, is nothing new — the U.S. Empire has a long and sordid history of genocidal mass murder.

The history of the US imperialism and Empire is the subject of a series of ten monthly seminars from Dr John Marciano, "Empire as a Way of Life". Attached is a recording of the third of these seminars and the text upon which it was based. The first 6 of these seminars have taken place and the intention is to have the whole series published on this site; the last 4 will take place between now and June.

This seminar, recorded on 21th November 2006 by the L.A. Sound Posse, runs for 36 minutes and includes the discussion following. It has been made available under a Creative Commons license. If this recording is broadcast please let the L.A. Sound Posse know. This recording was originally made available on the A-Infos Radio Project site.

The following text has been reproduced here with the kind permission of Dr John Marciano and he can be contacted at johnmarciano@mac.com. He introduced this series of seminars in the following way:

A fundamental purpose of our meetings is to understand the systemic nature of the U.S. Empire and the economic and military imperialism that is its lifeblood. The historian William Appleman Williams argues that empire became "a way of life" in the U.S., a "combination of patterns of thought and action that, as it becomes habitual and institutionalized, defines the thrust and character of a culture and society." This "way of life" has convinced many U.S. "Americans" they have a right or "manifest destiny" to impose their political and economic policies upon others.

Dr John Marciano is Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Cortland, where he taught courses on social and historical foundations of education and class, gender and race.

Previous parts of this series:

• Empire as a Way of Life, Part 1 | mp3 | doc
• Empire as a Way of Life, Part 2 | mp3 | doc

Anti-Racist/Confronting Colonialism Residency at RampART Creative Social Centre - Thurs 22nd, Fri 23rd & Sat 24th March

A small but dedicated contingent of Glasgow activists gathered on Friday afternoon in Glasgow city centre to mark the 4th anniversary of the tragic death of American human rights activist Rachel Corrie.

New Hollywood “blockbuster” has upset Iran and Iranian nationals living in various parts of the World have started a campaign to hight light this blatant propaganda They say the film portrays the Persians as a bunch of dark skinned savages, 20.000 against 300, white Spartans
Here's a good article by an Iranian living in California.
Touraj Daryaee is Professor of Ancient History at California State University, Fullerton.

Rhetoric and wishy proposals with no chance of passage are once thing, real bipartisan action with teeth another, and so far there's none from either House with key senators and congressmen voicing the usual boilerplate about not wanting to cut off funding the troops because we have to support them. Their kind of support means letting them die or get maimed and be disabled for life for imperialism on the march. Some support.

The current imperial slaughter in the Middle East, justified by the "Global War on Terror", that has resulted in at least 600,000 deaths in Iraq, is nothing new — the U.S. Empire has a long and sordid history of genocidal mass murder.

The history of the US imperialism and Empire is the subject of a series of ten monthly seminars from Dr John Marciano, "Empire as a Way of Life". Attached is a recording of the second of these seminars and the text upon which it was based. The first 6 of these seminars have taken place and the intention is to have the whole series published on this site; the last 4 will take place between now and June.

This seminar, recorded on 17th October 2006 by the L.A. Sound Posse, runs for 35 minutes and includes the discussion following. It has been made available under a Creative Commons license. If this recording is broadcast please let the L.A. Sound Posse know. This recording was originally made available on the A-Infos Radio Project site.

The following text has been reproduced here with the kind permission of Dr John Marciano and he can be contacted at johnmarciano@mac.com. He introduced this series of seminars in the following way:

A fundamental purpose of our meetings is to understand the systemic nature of the U.S. Empire and the economic and military imperialism that is its lifeblood. The historian William Appleman Williams argues that empire became "a way of life" in the U.S., a "combination of patterns of thought and action that, as it becomes habitual and institutionalized, defines the thrust and character of a culture and society." This "way of life" has convinced many U.S. "Americans" they have a right or "manifest destiny" to impose their political and economic policies upon others.

Dr John Marciano is Professor Emeritus, State University of New York at Cortland, where he taught courses on social and historical foundations of education and class, gender and race.

Previous parts of this series:

• Empire as a Way of Life, Part 1 | mp3 | doc

This Friday is the 4 year anniversary of Rachel Corrie's murder in Rafah, Gaza.
She was an American peace activist in Palestine. As some of you may know Rachel had a lot of friends in Glasgow. A few of her closest friends who were with her when she was tragically killed will be in attendance.