Wednesday, September 28, 2022

Mars

Mars?  There's some new news.  Smriti Mallapaty (NATURE) reports:


China’s Zhurong rover has peered deep under the surface of Mars, finding evidence of two major floods that probably shaped the region the robot has been exploring since it landed in May 2021.

An analysis published in Nature today1 is the first result from Zhurong’s radar imager, which can probe up to 100 metres below the surface. “It is a very interesting paper, and I was particularly impressed by how deep they can see with this radar,” says Svein-Erik Hamran, a planetary scientist at the University of Oslo, who analysed the only previous data from ground-penetrating radar used on the planet, collected by NASA’s Perseverance rover.

The history of Zhurong’s landing site — on Utopia Planitia, vast plains in Mars’s northern hemisphere — has puzzled scientists. Some have theorized that water or ice was once a feature of the landscape. Observations from space have identified sedimentary deposits that suggest the region was once an ancient ocean or submerged by huge floods, and geological features, such as pitted cones, resemble structures formed by water or ice. In May, researchers analysed infrared images of the landing site taken by China’s Mars orbiter, Tianwen-1, and found hydrated minerals that could have formed when groundwater rose through the rock or ice melted.

But the region could have also been covered in lava, concealing some of these hydrological processes in the subsurface. Eruptions from the volcano Elysium Mons to the east of the landing site, or other volcanic activity, could have covered the region in magma, as has been observed in other parts of the Utopia basin. By studying the radar data, researchers hope to understand what happened, and whether water or ice could still be lurking below the rocks. “We want to know what is going on beneath the surface,” says study co-author Liu Yang, a planetary scientist at the National Space Science Center in Beijing.


INDIA TODAY notes:

"The new radar image suggests the occurrence of episodic hydraulic flooding sedimentation that is interpreted to represent the basin infilling of Utopia Planitia," Chinese researchers said in the paper. However, they maintained that while no direct evidence for the existence of liquid water was found within the radar detection depth range, "they cannot rule out the presence of saline ice in the subsurface of the landing area."


And PEOPLE'S DAILY adds:


Researchers found no direct evidence for the existence of liquid water within the radar detection depth range, but the presence of saline ice cannot be ruled out.

Detailed information about Mars’ underground structure and physical property is an important foundation for the study of Martian geology and environmental changes. It is an important part of Mars exploration.

Can't wait to hear what they find next.



"Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

Wednesday, September 28, 2022.  Joe Biden continues to persecute Julian Assange, in Iraq the Parliament meets for the first time since July, guess who shows up to protest, and much more.



Starting with Julian Assange.

"Julian Assange's detention is arbitrary and he must be released immediately.” - Agnes Callamard, Amnesty International General Secretary Support the film here: gofund.me/ebd7821f #FreeAssangeNOW #Assange #FreeAssange #NoExtradition #FreeSpeech #PressFreedom
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US President Joe Biden continues his ongoing persecution of Julian Assange.   Julian's 'crime' was revealing the realities of Iraq -- Chelsea Manning was a whistle-blower who leaked the information to Julian.  WIKILEAKS then published the Iraq War Logs.  And many outlets used the publication to publish reports of their own.  For example, THE GUARDIAN published many articles based on The Iraq War Logs.  Jonathan Steele, David Leigh and Nick Davies offered, on October 22, 2012:



A grim picture of the US and Britain's legacy in Iraq has been revealed in a massive leak of American military documents that detail torture, summary executions and war crimes.
Almost 400,000 secret US army field reports have been passed to the Guardian and a number of other international media organisations via the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks.

The electronic archive is believed to emanate from the same dissident US army intelligence analyst who earlier this year is alleged to have leaked a smaller tranche of 90,000 logs chronicling bloody encounters and civilian killings in the Afghan war.
The new logs detail how:
• US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape and even murder by Iraqi police and soldiers whose conduct appears to be systematic and normally unpunished.

• A US helicopter gunship involved in a notorious Baghdad incident had previously killed Iraqi insurgents after they tried to surrender.
• More than 15,000 civilians died in previously unknown incidents. US and UK officials have insisted that no official record of civilian casualties exists but the logs record 66,081 non-combatant deaths out of a total of 109,000 fatalities.

The numerous reports of detainee abuse, often supported by medical evidence, describe prisoners shackled, blindfolded and hung by wrists or ankles, and subjected to whipping, punching, kicking or electric shocks. Six reports end with a detainee's apparent death. 


To make sure no one's confused, Joe Biden is not going after Julian Assange because Julian committed War Crimes in Iraq.  Joe is going after Julian because Julian exposed War Crimes.  In Joe's mind, War Crimes are like his son's laptop in that both should be hidden from the public.



James Goodale, former general counsel and vice chair of The New York Times, has called on editorial boards throughout the country to condemn the prosecution of Assange. To Goodale, who represented the Times in four U.S. Supreme Court cases — including the landmark Pentagon Papers case — the true danger lies in moderate figures, such as Biden, perpetuating Trump’s repressive, anti-journalism policies.

In a way, “the New York Times problem” is a microcosm for recent administrations’ perspectives on the rule of law and freedom of the press. The Obama administration showed restraint. The Trump administration showed recklessness and contempt.

Attorney General Merrick Garland’s failure to reject the Trump-era indictment against Assange risks the erosion of the First Amendment safeguards that protect reporters and publishers. Even if Assange is never convicted, the chilling effect on investigative journalism increases with each day that Assange remains locked in a maximum-security London prison fighting extradition. If he were to be flown to the United States for trial, the damage to press freedom would be immeasurable.

Biden backers often portray the president’s legacy in opposition to Trumpism, and Biden himself has called journalists “indispensable to the functioning of democracy.” With the midterms approaching, if Biden truly wishes to roll back the authoritarian abuses of the Trump era, he should have a problem with “the New York Times problem.”

Outlets such as the Tribune must follow the lead of the Times and the Guardian, increasing the pressure on Biden to dismiss the charges against Assange and to return us to safer, saner territory.




Meanwhile Cory Allen Heidelberger (DAKOTA FREE PRESS) notes this regarding the US Defense Dept self-reporting deaths:

The report details 12 total deaths from U.S. forces in “a declared theater of active armed conflict,” which the report defines as Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and Syria. All of the deaths occurred in Afghanistan in support of Operation Freedom’s Sentinel. “DOD does not assess other U.S. military operations in 2021 resulted in civilian casualties,” the report says, and only actions “attributed to the use of U.S.-operated weapons” are listed.

Included are the 10 deaths on Aug. 29 from the case of mistaken identity that killed a family during America’s rushed withdrawal from Kabul. In addition, approximately five civilians were injured by American forces in 2021, two in Afghanistan and three in a Jan. 1 airstrike in Qunyo Barrow, Somalia. Three cases of potential civilian casualty incidents in 2021 in support of Operation Inherent Resolve in Iraq and Syria “continue to be under assessment,” according to the report, which Congress has mandated since 2018.

The report details 10 deaths and 18 injuries from American strikes that occurred in Syria from 2018 to 2020 that previous annual reports did not account for [Chris Gordon, “Pentagon Releases Report Detailing Civilian Casualties in 2021,” Air and Space Forces Magazine, 2022.09.27].



You can be sure it's an undercount.  It certainly doesn't include Zainab Essam Majed al-Khazali.  


15 year-old girl Zainab Essam Majed al-Khazali was just killed by US forces in Iraq, you won't hear any big news outlets talking about it because the crimes of western imperialism get a pass. BRING HOME THE DAMN TROOPS FROM IRAQ!

It's been a week since she was killed and the only US news outlet to cover the death is WSWS.

Turning to politics, earlier this morning, Julian Bechoocha (RUDAW) reported:

Iraqi parliament’s leading Sunni bloc on Tuesday affirmed confidence in the legislative body’s Speaker Mohammed al-Halbousi, urging MPs to vote against vacating his post as he prepares to submit his resignation letter in the legislature’s first session after intra-Shiite clashes.

The Sovereignty Alliance in a statement said it stands by Halbousi as parliament speaker and called “on political parties and independent MPs to reject his resignation request," while hailing his position in straying the country away from “several woes.”

The Iraqi parliament will convene on Wednesday in its first session since June 23. Parliament meetings were suspended due to concerning protests in Baghdad when supporters of powerful Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr stormed the legislature building and demanded the dissolution of parliament and early elections amid suffocating political unrest in the country.

The parliament's agenda includes voting on Halbousi's resignation, however, many expect the vote to fail.

"We do not expect Halbousi's resignation to be accepted," Shakhawan Abdullah, second deputy speaker of the Iraqi parliament, told Rudaw on Monday.

Halbousi's decision to call quits comes as the main Kurdish, Sunni, and pro-Iran Shite political blocs are expected to announce the formation of a new coalition with Iraq approaching a staggering one year without a permanent cabinet.

The new coalition, expected to be titled Running the State Coalition, does not include the Sadrist Movement, mounting fears that protests once again will ensue in the Iraqi capital by Sadrist loyalists due to dissatisfaction with Iraq's political system.


ASHARQ AL-AWSAT offers this take on the Speaker's moves:

Several political parties, starting with the Framework, have expressed their skepticism over Halbousi’s resignation, speculating that it was just a political maneuver to undermine the grouping and ensure his re-election to his post with a vast majority.


A Sunni official described as “very smart” Halbousi’s move to resign, noting that the Framework was going to sack him as soon as parliament convened because of his alliance with Sadr that had led to divisions among Shiites.


Speaking on condition of anonymity to Asharq Al-Awsat, the official explained that had the alliance with Sadr been successful, the Shiites would have lost their majority in parliament.


“The Framework would have never allowed this,” he stressed.


Moreover, the official said the Framework then worked on encouraging Halbousi’s rivals to “rebel against him” and even name an alternative for the position of parliament speaker.


However, Halbousi was one step ahead of them and joined the new alliance with the Framework. This move not only thwarted the plan to dismiss him, but also forces those who sought his sacking to back his re-appointment as speaker because his resignation would lead to the collapse of the new alliance before it is even officially announced, explained the official.


A leading member of the Framework confirmed that Halbousi’s resignation announcement throttled the group’s plan to unveil the new alliance. 


We'll note this Tweet:

Eventful day in #Iraq: - Sadrists protest in Green Zone & met w/ violence, many injured - Parliament convenes; majority rejects Halbousi's resignation. He chairs today's session, new deputy voted in - Federal Supreme Court upholds validity of Sadrist MPs' parliament withdrawal

Yes, Moqtada's cult is protesting again.  AP notes:

Supporters of Iraq’s influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr again stormed Baghdad’s Green Zone government area Wednesday as the Iraqi parliament holds session on the resignation of its speaker.

Associated Press journalists saw those supporting Sadr waving flags as security forces gathered around them.

 

In other news, Margaret Kimberley (BLACK AGENDA REPORT) notes Joe Biden's trip to the United Nations:

It takes a special kind of hubris for a president of the United States to speak at the United Nations, the place where international law is supposed to be upheld and defended. Yet the representative of the worst violator of international law predictably shows up every September when the United Nations General Assembly holds its annual session. The late Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez got it right when he spoke in 2006:

“Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world. I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday’s statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation, and pillage of the peoples of the world.”

Chavez is no longer with us, and Joe Biden is the third man to serve as U.S. president since George W. Bush was compared to the devil. But the words are as true now as they were then. This year Biden’s speech was replete with the usual drivel about the United States being some sort of guarantor of peace. Among other things, he said that permanent members of the Security Council should “...refrain from the use of the veto, except in rare, extraordinary situations, to ensure that the Council remains credible and effective.”

Perhaps Biden thinks that the rest of the world has amnesia. Every time the members of UN General Assembly condemn Israeli apartheid it is the U.S. that predictably steps in with a Security Council veto to protect its ally and partner in crime. Twelve of the 14 U.S. vetoes since 2000 were made on behalf of Israel. Any U.S. proposal calling for change in the Security Council structure is intended to weaken China and Russia’s veto power and to bring in its own puppets such as Germany and Japan.

Of course, Russia bashing was the focus of Biden’s speech with false claims of a nuclear threat, unprovoked attack, and accusations of war crimes. He didn’t mention well documented Ukrainian war crimes such as the shelling of civilians in Donetsk. Worse yet, there was no acknowledgement that Ukraine and Russia were negotiating until the U.S. and the U.K. intervened and scuttled the talks. Biden’s speech was full of projection and every condemnation leveled against Russia or Iran or Venezuela was instead an indictment of U.S. behavior in the world.


In the US, Will Lehman is running to become the next president of the United Auto Workers union.  His campaign issued the following:




The following sites updated:





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Tuesday, September 27, 2022

Asteroids and more

ARMAGEDDON -- among other films -- has a plot about an asteroid hitting the planet. Could we deflect it the way we've done in films?  Change its trajectory to save the Earth?   NASA carried out a test exercise yesterday.



THE NEWSHOUR (PBS) reports:


  • William Brangham:

    This is video received just a few moments ago of the exact moment when NASA's DART spacecraft approached and then crashed into that asteroid 100 million miles away. We'll talk with science correspondent Miles O'Brien in just a moment. But first, here's his report on exactly what NASA was attempting with this mission.

  • Miles O’Brien:

    Planet Earth is practicing defense. David and Goliath style. A spacecraft the size of a vending machine is hurtling toward a kamikaze dove into an asteroid the size of a great pyramid.

  • Elena Adams, Systems Engineer, Double Asteroid Redirection Test:

    DART is the biggest engineer's dream ever.

  • Miles O’Brien:

    Alena Adams is the systems engineer for the double asteroid redirection test or DART. It's a $330 million Nassar mission designed at the Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland. And liftoff. Launched in November of 2021. DART is nearing the end of a 107 million mile journey to the asteroid Didymos.

  • Elena Adams:

    Our job is to go hit an asteroid, and that's a very specific job for planetary defense.

  • Miles O’Brien:

    Their target is actually the asteroid's moon de Morpheus. DART is programed to auger in at 14,000 miles an hour. Engineers hope the 1300 pound spacecraft will nudge the 5 billion ton day morphs into a new orbit. De Morpheus is not headed toward Earth. It's just a test.

  • Lindley Johnson, NASA Planetary Defense Officer:

    This is the first time in human history that we've actually set out to change the orbit of a natural object in space.

  • Miles O’Brien:

    Lindley Johnson is NASA's planetary defense officer.

  • Lindley Johnson:

    The orbit of an object is determined by the velocity at which it is orbiting. So if you just, you know, shave a hair, you know, less than 1% off of that speed, you change the orbit and, you know, forever altered where that object will be in space in the future.

  • Miles O’Brien:

    Our planet gets grazed and hit by asteroids all the time. Most offer harmless thrills for stargazers, but the bigger ones are a different story. In 2013, a 60 foot asteroid exploded about 100,000 feet over Chelyabinsk, Russia. About 1500 were injured by shattering glass over the apex. Much bigger asteroids have triggered mass extinctions, including, most infamously, the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. Planetary scientist Nancy Szabo is coordination lead for DART. Is it accurate to say it's inevitable over the course of time that there will be some rock of relatively big size which has our number on it?

  • Nancy Chabot, Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory:

    So this is going to continue in the future. It is sort of a cosmic inevitability at this point. The good news is of the asteroids that we're tracking, there are no known threats. Right. But this is also why we need to find all these asteroids and figure out where they are in 25.

  • Miles O’Brien:

    Congress directed NASA to find 90% of potentially hazardous near-Earth objects, 460 feet or larger by the end of 2020. So far, ground based surveys have found all the planet killers they can see, but only about 40% of the asteroids big enough to wipe out a city. At this rate, it would take 30 years to approach the finish line. But no matter how hard they try, they will never cross it. Using only ground based telescopes.

    Scott Sheppard, Carnegie Institution for Science: So there's a whole half of the sky we're not looking at, because basically the glare of the sun prevents you from looking at it very easily.

  • Miles O’Brien:

    Astronomer Scott Sheppard is a senior research scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science.

  • Scott Sheppard:

    The ones that are most concerning, the ones I spend almost all their time in the daylight that just get up to where Earth's orbit is or just barely cross it. So the vast majority of the time is in the daylight.



    • So it worked there.  Hopefully, it would work again,  When do you think our planet will end?  


    I think it will end because we refuse to appreciate it or honor it.  We can't even keep it clean.


    But even if we could and we were able to address climate change, one day, life on the planet will end. 

     

     

    "Iraq snapshot" (THE COMMON ILLS):

     Tuesday, September 27, 2022.  Some 'movement' on the political situation in Iraq while Ed Snowden is granted citizenship in Russia.


    Starting with whistle-blower Ed Snowden.

    Russian President Putin has granted US whistle-blower Edward Snowden Russian citizenship Snowden fled the US and was given asylum in Russia after leaking secret files in 2013 that revealed vast domestic and international surveillance operations carried out by the NSA.
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    Jameel Jafar Tweets:


    Think what you want about Snowden and Russia. He did an immense public service by exposing mass surveillance programs that multiple courts later found to be unconstitutional. The newspapers that happily collected prizes for their reporting on the abuses should say this clearly.


    In his most recent column, Ed Snowden notes:

    Our glittering nation of laws observes this year two birthdays: the 70th anniversary of the National Security Agency, on which my thoughts have been recorded, and the 75th anniversary of the Central Intelligence Agency.

    The CIA was founded in the wake of the 1947 National Security Act. The Act foresaw no need for the Courts and Congress to oversee a simple information-aggregation facility, and therefore subordinated it exclusively to the President, through the National Security Council he controls.

    Within a year, the young agency had already slipped the leash of its intended role of intelligence collection and analysis to establish a covert operations division. Within a decade, the CIA was directing the coverage of American news organizations, overthrowing democratically elected governments (at times merely to benefit a favored corporation), establishing propaganda outfits to manipulate public sentiment, launching a long-running series of mind-control experiments on unwitting human subjects (purportedly contributing to the creation of the Unabomber), and—gasp—interfering with foreign elections. From there, it was a short hop to wiretapping journalists and compiling files on Americans who opposed its wars.

    In 1963, no less than former President Harry Truman confessed that the very agency he personally signed into law had transformed into something altogether different than he intended, writing:

    “For some time I have been disturbed by the way CIA has been diverted from its original assignment. It has become an operational and at times a policy-making arm of the Government. This has led to trouble…”

    Many today comfort themselves by imagining that the Agency has been reformed, and that such abuses are relics of the distant past, but what few reforms our democracy has won have been watered-down or compromised. The limited “Intelligence Oversight” role that was eventually conceded to Congress in order to placate the public has never been taken seriously by either the committee’s majority—which prefers cheerleading over investigating—or by the Agency itself, which continues to conceal politically-sensitive operations from the very group most likely to defend them.

    "Congress should have been told," said [Senator] Dianne Feinstein. "We should have been briefed before the commencement of this kind of sensitive program. Director Panetta... was told that the vice president had ordered that the program not be briefed to Congress."

    How can we judge the ultimate effectiveness of oversight and reforms? Well, the CIA plotted to assassinate my friend, American whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, in 1972, yet nearly fifty years of “reforms” did little to inhibit them from recently sketching out another political murder targeting Julian Assange. Putting that in perspective, you probably own shoes older than the CIA’s most recent plot to murder a dissident... or rather the most recent plot that we know of.

    If you believe the Assange case to be a historical anomaly, some aberration unique to Trump White House, recall that the CIA’s killings have continued in series across administrations. Obama ordered the killing of an American far from any battlefield, and killed his 16 year-old American son a few weeks later, but the man’s American daughter was still alive by the time Obama left.

    Within a month of entering the White House, Trump killed her.

    She was 8 years old.

    It goes beyond assassinations. Within recent memory, the CIA captured Gul Rahman, who we know was not Al-Qaeda, but it seems did save the life of Afghanistan’s future (pro-US) President. Rahman was placed in what the Agency described as a “dungeon” and tortured until he died.

    They stripped him naked, save a diaper he couldn’t change, in a cold so wicked that his guards, in their warm clothes, ran heaters for themselves. In absolute darkness, they bolted his hands and feet to a single point on the floor with a very short chain so that it was impossible to stand or lie down – a practice called “short shackling” – and after he died, claimed that it was for his own safety. They admit to beating him, even describing the “forceful punches.” They describe the blood that ran from his nose and mouth as he died.


    And Glenn Greenwald Tweets:

    As a reminder, US courts repeatedly ruled the programs Edward Snowden disclosed to us and enabled us to report were *unconstitutional and illegal violations of Americans' privacy rights*. I can't imagine the serf-like mentality needed to oppose this.
    theguardian.com
    NSA surveillance exposed by Snowden was illegal, court rules seven years on
    Appeals court says intelligence leaders who defended dragnet – which was revealed by Snowden to the Guardian – were not telling the truth


    Meanwhile, Turkey continues to terrorize Iraq.  ANF NEWS reports:

    Iraqi and Yazidi Kurdish women made a press statement yesterday (Sep. 25) at the Al Mound Hall in Baghdad concerning the increasingly ongoing Turkish air strikes against Iraq.

    The Iraqi and Kurdish women stated that they took a step against the invasion attacks carried out by the invading Turkish state in South Kurdistan in an attempt to “stop Turkish aircraft that put the peace and security of the region in jeopardy and kill the Kurdish people.”

    Interviewed by Rojnews, the activists said that they wanted to collect 1 million signatures to denounce the invasion attacks of the Turkish state.

    Esma Shemeri, deputy head of the Peace Message Organization and an activist, called on the Iraqi government to object to the invasion of the Turkish state. She stressed that the Iraqi government should take a stand against the Turkish violation of Iraqi sovereignty.

    Ala Qeytan, head of the International Inanna Media Institution, stated that all political parties in Iraq should support their campaign in order to end the occupation of the Turkish state. “The Turkish violation of Iraqi sovereignty should be taken to the United Nations. Furthermore, Iraqi forces who want to remove the Turkish state from Iraqi territory should be endorsed,” Qeytan added.


    Meanwhile, October 10th, Iraq held elections.  All this time later -- thirteen days shy of one year -- still no prime minister, still no president, still on Cabinet of Ministers.  There has been talk that this week will some sort of a power-sharing alliance announcement.  Though that hasn't happened, there has been movement on the political stalemate today -- movement backwards.   Mohammed al-Halbousi, the Speaker of Parliament, has announced his resignation.  AFP notes:


    The speaker "is not planning to resign but by allowing a potential vote of confidence to go ahead he is expecting his coalition partners to back him strongly", Sajad Jiyad, a fellow at the Century International think-tank, told AFP.

    He said the aim was to "end any further attempts to unseat him.

    "This will cement his position as political leader of Iraq's Sunnis and put pressure on" Shiite and Kurdish parties to form a government, Jiyad added.


    I'm reading a lot of garbage elsewhere and don't want to link to the nonsense.  Mohammed al-Halbousi?  THE NATIONAL, for example, wastes of ton of words but never says anything.


    Mohammed was the only national figure that could be voted in after the October 10th elections.  They couldn't decide on who should be president or who should be prime minister, but they could decided on who should be Speaker of Parliament.  


    And the decision was made all the easier -- pay attention at THE NATIONAL -- because Mohammed became Speaker of Parliament . . . in September 2018.  All they did in 2022 was retain him in the post -- not as a 'caretaker' but as the new Speaker.  That's the only progress they made and when he was (re)voted in, the attitude was: We had an election to just retain the same people?


    We'll wind down with this from Black Alliance for Peace:


    For Immediate Release:

    Media Contact
    communications@blackallianceforpeace.com
    (202) 643-1136

    SEPTEMBER 19, 2022—October 1, 2022 is the 14th anniversary of the launch of the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM). Yet, jihadist terrorist violence on the African continent has increased since the founding of AFRICOM and NATO’s destruction of Libya resulting in civilian casualties and instability, which the West has used as pretext and justification for the continued need for AFRICOM. Since its founding, coups carried out by AFRICOM-trained soldiers have also increased.

    That is why the Black Alliance for Peace (BAP) is organizing an International Month of Action Against AFRICOM in October. This is an effort to raise the public's awareness about how the presence of U.S. military forces exacerbates violence and instability throughout the continent.

    Despite its rhetoric, the purpose of AFRICOM is to use U.S. military power to impose U.S. control on African land, resources and labor to service the needs of U.S. multinational corporations and the wealthy in the United States. It also serves as a major boon to “defense” contractors.

    AFRICOM is a direct product of NATO via the U.S. European Command (EUCOM), which originally took responsibility for 42 African states. In 2003, NATO started expanding; four years later, in 2007, EUCOM commander James L. Jones, who was also NATO commander of operational forces, proposed the creation of AFRICOM.

    NATO has become a huge global axle in the wheel of the military industrial complex, which includes more than 800 U.S. military bases around the world as well as  joint bases or relationships with almost all African countries. These are all controlled by the U.S. empire for realizing the U.S. policy of Full Spectrum Dominance, which is driven by the ferocious appetite of international finance  capital.

    NATO continues today in the form of AFRICOM facilitating wars, instability and the corporate pillage of Africa. This hypocrisy explains why 17 African nations abstained from the March 2 United Nations resolution condemning Russia. One African state, Eritrea, even voted no. Their experiences with NATO and AFRICOM ensure skepticism of self-proclaimed noble motives.

    Motives such as bill H.R. 7311, the “Countering Malign Russian Activities in Africa Act',' a racist affront to African sovereignty designed to dictate what bi-lateral relations African states are permitted to have.

    That is why we call on our friends and allies to endorse this month as an individual or organization. Beyond that, we are calling on you to participate each week using our calls to action, for which we have provided materials on our webpage. Each week’s call to action ranges from watching our kick-off webinar to organizing mass actions like banner drops, facilitating teach-ins using our materials and spreading the word using BAP’s custom graphics.

    The Black Alliance for Peace calls for the dismantling of NATO, AFRICOM and all imperialist structures. Africa and the rest of the world cannot be free until all peoples are able to realize the right of sovereignty and the right to live free of domination.

    We demand:

    • The complete withdrawal of U.S. forces from Africa;

    • The demilitarization of the African continent;

    • The closure of U.S. bases throughout the world; and

    • The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) oppose U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and conduct hearings on AFRICOM’s impact on the African continent, with the full participation of members of U.S. and African civil society.


    Thee following sites updated:







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