The Monitor

News Analysis and Expert Interviews — Understand Your World

Archive for March, 2011

Show Details for Monday March 28th, 2011

Posted by themonitor on March 28, 2011

This week’s show looks at events in Libya with two different guests – Horace Campbell and Robert Naiman.

Horace Campbell

Horace Campbell is Professor of African American Studies and Political Science at Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York. He is the author of Rasta and Resistance From Marcus Garvey to Walter Rodney; Reclaiming Zimbabwe: The Exhaustion of the Patriarchal Model of Liberation; and Pan Africanism, Pan Africanists and African Liberation in the 21st century. His most recent book is Barack Obama and 21st Century Politics: A Revolutionary Moment in the USA. He is working on a book on AFRICOM (United States Africa Command).

Links to articles:
George Bush and the US Africa Command

Opposing Gaddafi’s massacre and foreign intervention in Libya
http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/72004

Website: Horace Campbell

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Robert Naiman


Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy. Mr. Naiman edits the Just Foreign Policy daily news summary and writes on U.S. foreign policy at Huffington Post. He is president of the board of Truthout. Naiman has worked as a policy analyst and researcher at the Center for Economic and Policy Research and Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch. He has masters degrees in economics and mathematics from the University of Illinois and has studied and worked in the Middle East. He joins us tonight to talk about military action in Libya and the potential consequences of these actions.

He just wrote the piece “Congress Must Debate the Libya War,” which states: “To put it crudely: as a matter of logic, if President Obama can bomb Libya without Congressional authorization, then President Palin can bomb Iran without Congressional authorization. If, God forbid, we ever get to that fork in the road, you can bet your bottom dollar that the advocates of bombing Iran will invoke Congressional silence now as justification for their claims of unilateral presidential authority to bomb anywhere, anytime.”
http://www.truth-out.org/congress-must-debate-libya-war68643

Website: Robert Naiman | Just Foreign Policy

Posted in Africa, Arab World, Dictatorship, Empire, Libya, Obama, Pro-Democracy movements in the Arab World, Revolution, The Constitution, The New Middle East | Leave a Comment »

Show Details for Monday March 21st, 2011

Posted by themonitor on March 21, 2011

This week marks the 8th anniversary of the official start of the invasion of Iraq. As has been noted on this show many times, Iraq had been under fairly constant bombardment for over a decade prior to that date but this was an official declaration of war. Even though it was unconstitutional since Congress did not declare war, the people most affected by the war – Iraqi civilians – don’t much care about the constitutionality of the war and continue to suffer as a result of it.

This week also marks the 8th anniversary of The Monitor. Tonight’s guests will be Raed Jarrar and Phyllis Bennis.

Raed Jarrar

Raed Jarrar is an Iraqi-American blogger and political advocate. He has just returned from his last trip to Iraq last week where he spent a month in Erbil  participating in a conference on Iraqi media. Raed Jarrar was born in Iraq, and he was in Baghdad 8 years ago during the US-led invasion. Raed immigrated to the US in 2005. He is joining us from Washington, DC.

Blog: Raed in the Middle

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Phyllis Bennis

Phyllis Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of “Calling the Shots: How Washington Dominates Today’s UN.”

Quote: “Libya’s opposition movement faces a ruthless military assault. They have already paid a far higher price in lost and broken lives than activists in any of the other democratic uprisings shaping this year’s Arab Spring. They are desperate. So it is not surprising that they have urged, demanded, pleaded for international help, for support from the most powerful countries and institutions most able to provide immediate military aid. [Thursday night] the UN Security Council gave them what they asked for. Or did it? The legitimacy of the Libyan protesters’ demand does not mean that the decision by the United Nations and the powerful countries behind it was legitimate as well. The Libyan opposition, or at least those speaking for it, asked for a no-fly zone, for protection from the regime’s air force, to allow them to take on and defeat their dictatorship on their own terms. Many of us opposed that idea, for a host of reasons including the dangers of escalation and the threat of a new U.S. war in the Middle East. But whatever one thinks about that demand, the Security Council resolution went far beyond a no-fly zone. Instead, the United Nations essentially declared war on Libya.”

Commentary: UN Declares War on Libya

Posted in Arab World, Iraq, Libya, Pro-Democracy movements in the Arab World, Radio Shows, The New Middle East, UN Resolutions | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Show Details for Monday March 14th, 2011

Posted by themonitor on March 14, 2011

Tonight’s show looks at recent events in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Japan. Our guests are Toby Jones and Aileen Mioko Smith.

Toby Jones:

Toby Jones is an assistant professor of history at Rutgers University and author of  the book “Desert Kingdom: How Oil and Water Forged Modern Saudi Arabia.” He is regularly in touch with people in Bahrain. Saudi Forces have entered Bahrain. Jones said today: “This is an effort on the part of the Saudis to bring Bahrain from the tipping point. But the outcome will likely be the opposite — this is a provocation.”

See video of Bahraini government forces shooting at a protester face to face:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9W_-0uGN1E&skipcontrinter=1

On Twitter:
http://twitter.com/#!/OnlineBahrain

For more online resources:
http://www.accuracy.org/uprisings

Ad for mercenaries by Bahrani government on Pakistani webpage:
http://www.faujioes.org.pk/25Feb2011/bng.html

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Aileen Mioko Smith:

Aileen Mioko Smith first became aware of the dangers of hazardous waste and technology in the 1970s, when she and her husband, photojournalist W. Eugene Smith, spent three years documenting the human toll of mercury poisoning on the town of Minamata. Years later, as she became aware of the safety problems at Japan’s nuclear power plants, she worked to turn public concern for plans for a plutonium-based energy economy into international opposition.  She has since become one of Japan’s leading and most effective voices challenging the production, commerce and transport of nuclear material, and calling for sustainable energy policies.

Posted in Arab World, Bahrain, Democracy, Dictatorship, Economic Inequality, Japan, Nuclear Power, Revolution, The New Middle East | Tagged: , , | Leave a Comment »

Show Details for Monday March 7th, 2010

Posted by themonitor on March 7, 2011

This week’s show looks at the economy from a couple of different angles. The first is the redistribution of wealth from poorer to richer and the second is the effect recent events in the Middle East have had on oil and gas prices. Our guests are Richard Wolff and Chris Markowski

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Richard Wolff


Richard D. Wolff is Professor of Economics Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Amherst where he taught economics from 1973 to 2008. He is currently a Visiting Professor in the Graduate Program in International Affairs of the New School University, New York City. He also teaches classes regularly at the Brecht Forum in Manhattan. He recently wrote and article titled “How the rich soaked the rest of us – The astonishing story of the last few decades is a massive redistribution of wealth, as the rich have shifted the tax burden.”

It is well worth the read.

Article: How the rich soaked the rest of us

Website: Professor Richard D. Wolff | Economics Professor

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Chris Markowski:

Christopher Markowski is the youngest nationally syndicated talk radio host in the USA. He has worked on Wall Street and runs a company providing financial advice to private investors. He will be talking with us about his views on the latest ‘energy crisis’.

Website: http://watchdogonwallstreet.com

Posted in Economic Inequality, Economy, Libya, Oil, Pro-Democracy movements in the Arab World, Radio Shows, The Economy, The Market | Tagged: , | Leave a Comment »

 
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