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Ajamu Baraka on Homeland Security
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Close the 700+ foreign military bases
- Cut military spending by at least 50% and close the 700+ foreign military bases. Ensure a just transition that replaces reductions in military jobs with jobs in renewable energy, transportation and green infrastructure development.
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Stop U.S. financial and military support to human rights abusers. Barring substantial changes in their policies, this would include Saudi Arabia, Israel and Egypt.
- End the US' role as the world's arm supplier.
Source: Stein-Baraka platform on 2016 presidential campaign website
, Aug 8, 2016
Public opinion is manipulated to support permanent war
This "blowback" theory [that the US actions in the Middle East led to the creation of al Qaeda and ISIL] is controversial especially among some who view all of these attacks [by terrorists on civilian targets in Europe and the US] as part of some grand
design to manipulate public opinion to support the permanent war strategy being operationalized across the planet in the name of fighting terrorism. While the forces of domination can tactically take advantage of these attacks to further that agenda,
the position that this is all part of a grand plan gives those forces a ubiquity and level of competence among the people making policy that the evidence of how policy is developed and executed does not support.
There are already calls being made in some quarters for a more forceful intervention into Syria to crush ISIS in response to the attack in Turkey.
Source: 2016 vice-presidential campaign website, AjamuBaraka.com
, Jul 6, 2016
Militarization to fight terrorism is permanent war posture
Militarization in the name of fighting terrorism--the terror phenomenon seems to develop in whatever country the U.S. has a strategic interest--is the cornerstone of the "new" strategy of counter-terrorism partnerships that President Obama revealed in
his famous (or infamous, depending on one's view) speech at West Point on May 28.The strategy of reducing the U.S. footprint by relying on small numbers of special forces--Delta force, Seals, Green Berets etc.--and not committing massive ground
forces, thus reducing the possibility of U.S. casualties and the attention of the public, reflects a serious strategic threat to the cause of peace and anti-interventionism. It is not only a strategy that commits the U.S. to a permanent war posture,
especially since the connection of covert U.S. support to these terrorist operations is now well established, it also means that the plan for Africa is being written in the blood of the people in Iraq, Syria and Libya.
Source: 2016 vice-presidential campaign website, AjamuBaraka.com
, Jun 25, 2014
Congress' AUMF wages global war into infinity
Some mainstream journalists are finally giving attention to the dangerously expanding power of the national security state. When many of us were attempting to educate the people on the threat posed to civil liberties and human rights by the National
Defense Authorization Act, the corporate press never made the connection that under the NDAA's allowance of the indefinite detention of Americans that one day it could apply to members of their profession.The press gave scant attention to the recent
declaration by the administration that it has the right under the morally dubious "Authorization for use of military force" legislation passed by the US congress, to wage global war for a period into infinity. And the press still dutifully presents
anonymous government sources in a one-sided, pro-war perspective on the situation in Syria. [We need to] be shaken out of the Obama induced fog and recognize that they are living through one of the most repressive periods in the history of this country.
Source: Ajamu Baraka column in Counterpunch, "Press and Repression"
, May 24, 2013
Page last updated: Aug 22, 2016