USA JOURNALISM UNDER REPORTING DARFUR STORY - THEIR EYES ON IRAN

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Day 6 iACT8 in Darfuri refugee camp - Djabal
June 20, 2009 ~ World Refugee Day
Uploaded by stopgenocidenow

Firefox has been crashing for me all day. I can't upload pictures, because every time I try to save a picture or add a picture to this blog, Firefox shuts down. You can find the pictures here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/stopgenocidenow/3642642729/

Day 6 Action: Act in Solidarity

Posted by Katie-Jay on June 20th, 2009

Today is World Refugee Day. i-ACT is providing live video feed from refugee camps in Chad and there are events all around the world to honor the lives and the daily struggles of refugees. Each moment you spend getting to know a Darfuri brings you closer to the reality of today’s theme: Real People, Real Needs.

Today we invite you to go deeper by joining Darfur Fast for Life. For at least one day, 24 hours, fast on water-only or refugee rations in solidarity with the people of Darfur. Today, even as we honor them, they have few choices compared to ours.

To learn more about refugee rations and to join Darfur Fast for Life visit the website.

Letting Go

I’m angry. And I’m tired. My mind and my heart ache. It’s always a combination out here of emotional ups and downs from being around the refugees and then being personally challenged by exhaustion. I am at the point of constantly wanting to cry, and spending energy trying to hold it back.

I am not sure that by simply sleeping I would recover. I am not sure what I need to do or how to go about getting it. I just know that I am sad and emotional.

Taking a shower is an amazing thing. It did help, and although I am not magically ready to take on the world, I feel a bit better. I cried a bit in the shower. That probably helped too.

Walking through the camp today I heard my name a lot. There are many Khadijas in this camp, but only one “Hawaji” Khadija (the white one). They just don’t stop calling my name. I think mostly it’s that it is easy to remember, and I am easy to spot. I take their pictures, show them, and chase after them. I can’t help but play with the children. Today I saw Ibrahim who I met in March.

As we walked out of the school today, a tear ran down my cheek. I wasn’t able to hold it back. I want to suck it back in, smile and continue to play, but I didn’t have the power, it had been released.

After showering, I lay on my back in the dark of our new guest house at Feed the Children I close my eyes and reflect. I can be both sensitive, and strong. I can shed tears, and work hard to bring that passion and emotion through my work to others.

The generator begins to hum and think, “My heart is not aching, it is growing bigger.”

Paz, ktj

They are continuing the live feed (as in a loop) - which is a video of the live feed from earlier today for World Refugee Day - June 20, 2009 at
http://www.refugeedaylive.org/

For me at this website, much of the video has no picture, but only sound. This seems to be from the parts that were video and not live streaming from today's presentation. Much of that video can be seen at http://www.stopgenocidenow.org/iact/iact7/
as well as on Youtube, such as this one:
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iACT 7, Day 6 Reunion with Adef's family March 28, 2009
Uploaded by stopgenocidenow

Test below is from Mohamed Suleiman, June 20, 2009. Mohamed is Darfuri, who has family still in Darfur being affected. Mohamed lives currently in the United States.

The IDPs (Internally Displaced People) in the refugees camps in Darfur speak out.
Leaders of refugees in IDP camps in Darfur in interviews with Radio Dabanga this morning asked The President of The United States of America Barack Obama to fire his Special Envoy General Scott Gration for his remarks on Wednesday. One leader from a camp in Zalengie (west Darfur) said since the expulsion of the NGOs "the rations are cut 50%, we live with our children under rain in torn shelters, we lack health services, how could the Special Envoys says the humanitarian conditions are improving, from where he got this 100% figure?!". Another Leader said that when Gration visited Sudan in his first trip he said that he came to learn from the Government of Sudan. The refugees' Leader said that it is evident that Gration has learned from GoS how to lie and distort facts about the humanitarian situation on the ground. The Leader challenged the Special Envoy to come to his camp or any other camp in Darfur not staged by GoS to see the real conditions for himself.

UNAMIDsaid in a statement that the incidents of attacks by armed militias against people in the IDP camps has increased dramatically. The UNAMID spokesperson Nurddin said in a separate interview to Radio Dabanga that there is serious lack of drinking water, blankets, shelter material, food, health care, and education in the IDP camps of Darfur. The spokesperson said that no one likes to live in these camps due to the bad living conditions there. He added that there is a lot to be done to improve the living situation there and/or work on the return of these refugees to their original homes.

While We Wait



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iACT 2007, Day 6
Visit to the camp primary camp
Uploaded by stopgenocidenow

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iACT 6, Day 9
The monthly food is rationed out to Darfuri refugees
August 09, 2008
Uploaded by stopgenocidenow
Darfur refugee Husna receives her food rations at Camp Oure Cassoni in Eastern Chad. For one month, she and her family of five will have to survive on:

2.5 oz of salt
6 cups of sugar
11 lbs of cereal
8 cups of oil
25 cups of yellow split peas
70 lbs of sorghum (grain)

Below is from http://www.stopgenocidenow.org/iact/iact5/

We’re Going Back

Posted by Gabriel on May 28th, 2008

I’ve told you “we’re going back” three times in the past, but this one is a little different. The last time we left Chad after our visits to the refugee camps in the east, we left on a French military plane, being evacuated in the middle of an all out coup attempt that left an already unstable country and region in even worse conditions.

Soon after, the Sudanese government attacked Darfuri villages, displacing tens of thousands of more civilians. This was in February 2008. Of the over 13,000 that reached the border between Chad and Darfur, 8,000 are still sitting in the desert, waiting to be transferred to camp Mile, according to UNHCR. The insecurity has stopped the transfers indefinitely.

Services have been reduced and interrupted at almost all of the camps in Chad. Chadian security officers working at the camps have been attacked and killed, and humanitarian aid workers have been targets. Our friends in the camps, mostly women and children, continue to live the life of a refugee—but the life of a refugee in grave danger.

We are returning after ourselves having been in some danger. That also makes it different. Our experience at the hotel in N’Djamena had an effect on Katie-Jay and I and on all the people around us. We are not taking this lightly. We will take all precautions possible and will make decision based on the best information from experts on the ground.

We want to continue putting a face on the numbers and allowing the voice of the victims to be heard. The innocent civilians of Darfur need immediate protection, and sovereignty cannot be an excuse for inaction from the entire world.

Join us for i-ACT, staring June 10th and for twelve consecutive days of webcasts, interactive blog, and opportunities for action. Scott Warren, the outgoing National Director of STAND: A Student Anti-Genocide Coalition, and Colin O’Brien, who served as the National High School Outreach Coordinator for STAND, will be going with us on the journey. Students have been the leaders of the Darfur movement, and we are looking for students and their communities to increase the heat and raise the noise this summer to bring peace to Darfur.

Paz,
Gabriel
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iACT 6, Day 3 ~ August 02, 2008

Uploaded by stopgenocidenow

Taking matters into their own hands

Text from this video

Today was the hottest day yet in Camp Oure Cassoni. Hardly anyone was out in the heat, even as early as 9am. Even then it was only to fill their jugs with water, and quickly retreat to the shade. We met 15 women working hard to build a brick school to replace the primary school their children attend. Behind their 1/2 built structure we can see a dozen or so make shift tents with stick structures and tarps sewn together. Most are flapping in the wind and the sand has begun to strip sections of the walls and roofs. Their basketball court is cracking, and their swing set no longer has seats to rest to on. The futbol field is empty. In the furthest Zone of Oure Cassoni, you can see the harshest reality of living in this environment. The wind shifts the sand so much that building walls around your four-year old tent is not a choice, but a necessity. The sand burns to the touch, and yet more than half of the children we met wear no shoes to protect their feet. Even when the rainy season consumes the rest of the country, Camp Oure Cassoni remains a desert.

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iACT6, Day 6
Tour of the outskirts of the Darfuri refugee camp
August 08, 2008
Gabriel takes us on a drive around the outskirts of Camp Oure Cassoni, just across the border from Darfur.
Uploaded by stopgenocidenow

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President Obama's Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration needs to be replaced.

US Tries to Walk Back From Comments Downplaying Genocide in Darfur

June 18, 2009 5:41 PM

Kristina Wong

--ABC News' Kirit Radia reports: Special Envoy to Sudan Scott Gration's comments yesterday that Darfur is experiencing only the "remnants of genocide," thus implying the troubled region's worst violence is in the past, have exposed a deep disagreement on the matter within the Obama administration.

Just two days earlier US Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice described th e situation as "genocide" and at a press conference in Germany earlier this month President Obama used the phrase "ongoing genocide."

After Gration's comments yesterday, Rice was furious, according to US officials.

The remarks touched off a debate within the administration, which is working to complete its policy review on Sudan. The debate continued today, and even delayed the start of the State Department daily briefing by over an hour until language could be agreed upon at the National Security Council, officials said.

Today, Assistant Secretary of State for Public Affair PJ Crowley walked back from Gration's comments when asked to explain the discrepancy.

"I think there is no question that genocide has taken place in Darfur. We continue to characterize the circumstances in Darfur as genocide," Crowley said.

When asked if Gration had misspoken, Crowley said: "there's room in the administration for a debate about the interpretation of the facts that go into that judgment."

Gration's comments also irked the Darfur advocacy community.

"President Obama and Ambassador Rice recently labeled the situation in Darfur as an ongoing genocide, and it is troubling that key players in the administration are not singing from the same song sheet with regard to this fundamental issue," Save Darfur Coalition President Jerry Fowler said in a statement today.

John Norris, Executive Director of the Enough Project, told ABC News today that his group believes genocide is ongoing in Darfur.

"We believe that the ongoing efforts by the government of Sudan meet the classic definition. That they, through their actions, not only through their support of the Janjaweed, government denials, denial of humanitarian aid, seem to be designed to destroy people in whole or in part," he said.

ABC News' Elizabeth Gorman and Devin Dwyer contributed to this report

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From Mohamed Suleiman

Two victims of rape still in Zalengie hospital. Raped by janjaweed using rape as a weapon to break the will of Darfur people. Government of Sudan tell the Janjaweed : You have to kill them savegly and violate their women, otherwise they will come back and claim their land.
Still bomb craters fresh in Furawiah when it was bombed just few days ago.
Gration is a hero in Khartoum. Champion of normalization.
Gration does not feel the pain of Darfur people who are still suffering from an on going Genocide.

Gration wants to redfine "Genocide".

Gration must go.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalpunch/2009/06/-sudan-envoy-darfur-experiencing-remnants-of-genocide-says-aid-capacity-back-near-100.html

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I wrote the following on April 28, 2009

If Scott Gration reflects what Barack Obama believes, then I believe we have a problem. Scott Gration needs to be replaced in my opinion. We can't expect to make deals with Bashir and believe good will come of it. I am beside my self with frustration and anger.

I wrote the brief note below via http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

Sent April 28, 2009

As someone who went to other states to help get Barack Obama elected, even though it was outside my comfort zone to go door-to-door and phone bank, as well as give money over and over, although I couldn't afford it - I am deeply in despair over Barack Obama's failure to act appropriately regarding the Darfuris.

Scott Gration needs to be replaced as envoy to Sudan.
"US State Dept. moves toward appeasement policy with Khartoum" at
http://www.sudantribune.com/spip.php?article31006

These are my heroes:
http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2009/04/27/us-lawmakers-arrested-in-darfur-protest-at-sudan-embassy/

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Write to President Obama
http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/

You can also write to the President at:
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

President Obama can be called:

202-456-1111
or
1-800-GENOCIDE

The White House comment line is available
9:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. weekdays

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Find USA elected politicians contact information at this link:
www.usa.gov/Contact/Elected.shtml

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www.stopgenocidenow.org


www.enoughproject.org
www.savedarfur.org
www.eyesondarfur.org

whilewewaitsudan.blogspot.com

WISDOM OF KNOWING WHAT OTHERS THINK ABOUT USA NEEDS TO BE PART OF USA'S STRENGTH

OTHERWISE OUR IGNORANCE BECOMES STRONGER THAN OUR WISHFUL THINKING

THAT WE STILL ARE IN CHARGE

WHAT EXACTLY ARE WE IN CHARGE OF?

I am not supposed to be here. I am supposed to be where anyone should be at midnight who is not working at a job. But just as I was trying to wind down my internet obsession, I went over to what has become a "must" website for me ~ Watching America - News

I found this article and had to post it.

Die Welt, Germany

Osama Obama

By Philipp Neumann, Political Editor

But then what really stunned me were the arguments Carl and his three companions brought out against Obama.

Translated By Ron Argentati

28 October 2008


Germany - Die Welt - Original Article (German)

What some McCain fans say about the Democratic presidential candidate.

“Where are you from? Germany? That’s really nice! I was stationed there in 1972.” It’s hard to believe how easily one can get into a conversation in the United States, especially when you look as un-American (and as German) as I do. Most people guess it right off the bat. Some have to work their way through Holland or Switzerland before they peg me as German. A few others think I come from England – something really astounding considering my accent – but maybe it’s because I persist in pronouncing the “a” in “can’t” as if it were spelled “cawnt.” But I digress.

Such small talk is always nice, even if you don’t learn much about your partner. The subject of politics is generally avoided in small talk. At least that’s what I thought until I had my first political discussion last night in a restaurant. As usual, it began innocently. The two elderly couples and I exchanged glances, then came the “Where froms?” and then the “Where tos?” followed by a few sightseeing tips around New York City. And then came the question, “What do you think of the presidential election?” I admitted I was for Obama.

Silence.

One of the husbands, Carl, said they were against Obama. They were for McCain and asked whether I had thought about why Obama really wanted to be President. “Because he wants the power?” I guessed. “Exactly,” said Carl, “and McCain wants to be President because he wants to serve his country.”

Well, O.K. I don’t really believe anyone who’s looking to get the most powerful political job in the world is driven by pure altruism, but I have to admit there might be something to the idea that there could be other motivating forces besides just the desire for power. There may at least be another basic philosophy, but I don’t really know if that’s true. In Germany, it’s normal for politicians to have always been politicians; they’ve never had any other profession. In the United States, the idea of anyone planning a political career as thoroughly as Obama has is somehow distasteful.

But then what really stunned me were the arguments Carl and his three companions brought out against Obama. He has no character, he’s a Muslim, he hobnobs with terrorists – the whole palette of cheap right-wing propaganda. And besides, they said, Sarah Palin was more intelligent than Obama. Excuse me? I’d had about enough. I finished my beer, signed the credit card receipt and departed the way everyone here departs after some small talk: “Nice meeting you!” Source: http://watchingamerica.com/News/10031/osama-obama/

CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL VERSION

And this is worth reading

Original Article (German)	Die Welt, Germany The Unrepresentative American Election
	Surveys show that Democratic contender Barack Obama will likely be elected president. That’s not as certain as some polls indicate, however, because the electoral system in the U.S. wasn’t created to best represent the will of the people. It was created to create the most stable majorities...

Link to this article: watchingamerica.com/News/10131/the-unrepresentative-american-election

I have noticed the few Russian articles that I have read at Watching America are putting the USA and Russia at real odds, today. Russia is not keen on the USA. Anyone remember, not long ago, about the Russia - USA relationship that was called the Cold_War?

It is a wise thing to know what others are writing about the USA...

From Izvestia, Russia

The Dollar Is Being Inflated:
One Day It Will Burst…

By Anna Kaledina

As it turns out, the United States is inflating the demand for its currency and printing the dollars at full speed.

Translated By Irina Tanurcov

October 28, 2008

Link to the article listen-if-the-dollar-is-being-inflated-one-day-it-will-burst


And then there is this from

Die Zeit, Germany
That's Not What We Intended

the following is a portion of the article:


From Paul Wolfowitz to Richard Perle: How the American architects of the Iraq war explain their failure.

...Over lunch at the Bombay Club, Paul Wolfowitz, the Pentagon’s number two man at the time, begins with a surprising admission: “Contrary to what you read everywhere, I wasn’t the mastermind, the string-puller.” Richard Perle, known as the “Prince of Darkness” to opponents of re-armament in the eighties and who works today at the conservative American Enterprise Institute, says much the same thing: “We three had the least to say; Rummy (Rumsfeld) made all the decisions. We didn’t have any real influence, although I wanted it very much. He usually ignored our advice. Doug (Feith) had no operative power. I saw Rumsfeld perhaps only three or four times outside the Defense Policy Board.” The Defense Policy Board was an advisory forum where Rumsfeld appeared every six months...

...Surprise number two: The original objective wasn’t regime change and democracy. Regime change was “the result, and not the object of the war,” – although Wolfowitz himself believed whole-heartedly in the benefits of democracy. “Just think of democratic Poland, with its totally changed, western-oriented policies.”

...Why did it go so badly? Wolfowitz: “We didn’t know our enemy. Saddam had already been planning a revolt for two years. We had no idea of the internal infighting that would be stirred up.” Perle recounts another fiasco: “We wanted to be liberators but within five or six months we became occupiers and targets.”

....Was it a war to bring democracy to Iraq in the sense recounted by the eminent scholar Bernard Lewis? In truth, no. A distressed Feith writes in his book “War and Decision” that democracy “required Iraqi leadership, and there weren’t enough Iraqis with experience in democratic practice.” And so? It would be “naïve to think that democracy would have taken hold if we had just left Iraq alone.”

And, as misfortune would have it, the country really wasn’t left alone. Enter L. Paul (Jerry) Bremer in the role of Viceroy after Donald Rumsfeld called him out of retirement in Vermont. Bremer is no Lawrence of Arabia and proceeded with Plan F, which was to solve all the problems by dissolving the military and all the political parties. With that decision, the United States was transformed from liberator to conqueror. “We had the best intentions,” Richard Perle recalls, but under Bremer, the United States treated the Iraqis with “condescension and contempt.” The United States “was suddenly responsible for everything,” but without the expertise it needed. “All at once, 8,000 Americans had occupied one of Saddam’s former palaces in the Green Zone and half of them had never been in a foreign country before.”

Why did the plundering begin so early? The mind-boggling answer: “Tommy Franks (the top military commander) claimed he wasn’t responsible for internal security.” Perle’s conclusion: “I never thought we would botch it so badly.” And on the subject of democratization he added: “That wasn’t our main objective. If Saddam had brought out every bit of information he had on his WMD on the evening of the invasion, the whole war would have been called off. We were one hundred percent certain that Saddam had hidden all the stuff.”

So does the Iraq war shrink down to a saga of incompetence and ignorance? No other result than blood, tears and a big bill? $600 billion spent and 4,500 dead Americans so far? David Frum, coiner of the label “axis of evil” and member of the American Enterprise Institute, takes a protective stance with his colleagues: “Bush and Cheney really believed Saddam had WMD.” When asked why nobody bothered questioning this belief, Frum rages, “Do you know what would have happened if anyone had opposed him in February 2003 by saying ‘Mr. President, we’re not prepared to act. Please consider what will happen if anything goes wrong?’ He would have gone crazy and screamed, “I already told you we’re going in March!” That’s the way it was.

But the irony, Frum adds, is that “Iraq will become a stable, pro-Western country, it will return to the oil markets and it will play a positive role in the Middle East.” On the other hand, the war in Afghanistan, the one everyone called the one worth fighting, isn’t going well at all. Even if Frum wants to maintain he was right, it was an extravagant project that, despite all the talk in Washington, still has no clear meaning.

But why? An old Bush insider who absolutely refuses to be identified answers with the biggest surprise of all: “It was an act of imperial ego-boosting. We had to do something because we had been humiliated on September 11th and made into a laughing stock. We had to show our determination and power.” Would you do it all over again? The answer: “You would have to be crazy to do it again.”


CLICK HERE FOR ORIGINAL VERSION

Another story found at Watching America

Impoverished Americans Lean Toward Spoiled Food

Some of our best journalism in the USA is done by foreign journalists. They aren't pandering to our entertainment level of news so much as the USA media.

THE WILL TO MAKE A CHANGE, STARTS WITH SOME SANE THOUGHT

AND MORAL INTEGRITY. AND TRUTH. OH. TRUTH. A FOREIGN CONCEPT FROM THIS DUO WE CALL PRESIDENT AND VICE-PRESIDENT.

ONCE WE SPLIT THE ATOM WE STEPPED OVER THE THRESHOLD OF NO RETURN

WE REALLY CAN’T CONTROL WHO HAS NUCLEAR WEAPONS. Seriously, how is it possible to control what some other leader will do? It is self-delusion that we will be able to control what Iran, North Korean, Russian or any country does regarding building nuclear weapons. We wrote the Japanese constitution and wrote in it that they can’t have a military. Maybe, having no military isn’t a bad idea. Maybe.

“We” (Bush and Cheney intellectual types) want to control the world. But “we” really can’t. Not really. Seriously.
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Universal Soldier by Donovan
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLzUNDaF00U


WE NEED TO STOP AND THINK. The unabashed, illogical, short-sighted, fear-based policies and mode of operation, that we have had from Cheney and Bush, have been mistakes and yet where is the will to make a change?