In Episode 64 Tommy looks at the negotiations between the Taliban and the US. In light of the negotiations breaking down, and Trump’s desire to keep 9,000 military personnel in Afghanistan is it possible that Trump’s rhetoric on the campaign trail was another politician talking peace for votes?
Bloomberg man reminds us that Trump has failed to deliver a deal on Korea, China, Afghanistan, Palestine or Iran.
Jimmy Aldaoud was laid to rest in his home state – Michigan. He was deported to Iraq under the Trump administrations deportation policy even though he had never been to Iraq, did not speak the language, was mentally ill and dependent on insulin.
Aldaoud was born in a refugee camp in Greece in 1978 after his parents, George and Widad Aldaoud, fled Iraq between wars. His family was granted refugee status in the United States in 1979, and the family traveled from Greece to Detroit when Aldaoud was about a year old.
The Detroit News reported that his death, based on family accounts, came after he was unable to find insulin in Iraq. His family and friends in the U.S. said Aldaoud, who they say was bipolar and schizophrenic, had been living on the streets in Baghdad with two other men who had been deported the same day. He was 41 years old. Aldaoud’s body was reunited with his family after community leaders and elected officials worked with the Iraq consulate to return him to Michigan. While the family says it is grateful for his return, members say he never should have been deported.
Immigration officials claimed the case was reviewed by the courts as if that gives them absolution from the sin of murder.
Following his death, immigration officials said, “Aldaoud’s immigration case underwent an exhaustive judicial review before the courts ultimately affirmed he had no legal basis to remain in the U.S.”
What is the death of one mentally ill man to a state that has killed millions?
More here
After brutal beating of now-paralyzed Florida inmate, women take to social media to protest
On Saturday morning, a vigil was held outside the compound, the second in recent weeks, in part to protest the beating of Cheryl Weimar, a 51-year-old inmate who was slammed to a concrete floor, kicked and dragged by guards on Aug. 21. The attack left her paralyzed from the neck down. She remains hospitalized, hooked to a breathing apparatus, her lawyer, Ryan Andrews, told the Miami Herald.
One former inmate, Jordyn Cahill, also used YouTube to voice her disgust over the attack, detailing the sexual abuse Cahill herself said she had been subjected to during her eight years at the facility, ending in 2013. She named at least 11 correctional officers, including supervisors, alleging in graphic detail that they had groped, sexually attacked and extorted her for sex. In one incident, she said, an officer with a foot fetish refused to give her toilet paper unless she allowed him to play with her feet.
“For Cheryl, or any other incarcerated woman who has physically abused or sexually abused by any officer, or any male inmate who is physically or sexually abused, I am going to tell my story, I’m going to promote others to tell their story and I’m going to share the f— out of it,’’ Cahill said, vowing that she would pass a lie detector test about her experiences at Lowell.
One of several Lowell activist groups, Change is Now, also produced an emotional video that was online, posted on Facebook, that includes photographs of women who have died at the prison, through abuse or medical neglect.
“Lowell Correctional family, friends and formerly incarcerated have sat silent long enough while our daughters, sisters, mothers, aunts, grandmothers and other women incarcerated in Lowell Correctional Institution have been harmed in one way or another,’’ the group said in a press announcement about Saturday’s protest.
“We will stand together united in silence as we scream for help for the women who remain incarcerated inside of Lowell Correctional Institution.’’
President Trump tweeted that a secret meeting with Taliban negotiators and the President of Afghanistan that was supposed to occur at Camp David on Sunday has been cancelled because of the Taliban attacks in Kabul that killed an American soldier. In his tweet, he states that he has “cancelled the meeting” and “called off the peace negotiations”. This entire Afghan peace process has been strange from the start. The US negotiators made it appear that a deal was eminent and only Trump’s signature was required. Yet the Taliban continued to conduct attacks including suicide bombings in Kabul. The Daily Beast reported that the Taliban had not agreed to anything.
But Taliban officials and diplomats here in the capital of Qatar, where the talks have been held, told The Daily Beast that after Round 9 last week, there was still no deal the Taliban would sign.
Now we have Trump tweeting this.
Iran is a thousand miles away from Israel. And unlike the Palestinians, Iran doesn’t claim Israeli land.
So why does Shiite Iran arm Sunni Palestinians, when their enemies are Sunni? The Palestinians are predominately Sunni Muslim, which is the Arab group that Iran is at war with!
If you are confused, then this episode is for you. We’ll dive into the history of Israel arming Iran secretly during the Iran-Contra scandal. And how that transitioned into modern relations.
This is based on the book, Treacherous Alliance: The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the United States by Trita Parsi:
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History has been dominated by the stories of great powers diplomacy. American hegemony is grounded in this notion, and in the mind of the Pentagon, the entire post-war consensus is based on full spectrum American dominance.
What if America declines? Must China, for example, step in? Or is the anarchic world of international relations in need of a paradigm that does not require great power bullying to provide order?
With crypto-currencies and interconnected economies, I suggest that the world is eager for peaceful, objective, arbitrative solutions to disputes. Anarcho-capitalism, between states.
So which society has never had a realistic need for anarchism again? More apropos, who will step up and create the systems that lead to peaceful conflict resolution? Entrepreneurs of course, not politicians.
