therealnews--2020-01-09--Australian Wildfires Prove Denying Climate Change Won’t Save You From It

Climate scientist Michael Mann is in Australia, where the bushfire crisis is unfolding in real time. He says voters there need to look for ‘climate hawks’ who can counteract the climate-denying policies of politicians like current prime minister Scott Morrison.
Story Transcript
JAISAL NOOR: Welcome to The Real News. I’m Jaisal Noor.
It’s being called a climate emergency. Historic wildfires of swept across Australia; torching over 12 million acres of land, killing at least 25 people and an estimated one billion animals. And those numbers could be even higher. Experts say the fires could rage for months and ecosystems may never recover from the devastation. Thick smoke from the flames has already reached South America. Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has undermined the reduction of carbon emissions to fight climate change and downplayed the role climate change is playing in the fires. Meanwhile, the debunked conspiracy theory that arsonists are largely responsible for the fires has spread widely on social media there.
Well, now joining us to discuss this is Michael Mann, a climate scientist and professor at Penn State University who authored the 2012 book The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars. His newest piece in The Guardian: Australia, Your Country Is Burning–Dangerous Climate Change Is Here With You Now. And he’s speaking to us from Australia. Thanks so much for joining us.
MICHAEL MANN: Thank you. It’s good to be with you.
JAISAL NOOR: So you actually traveled to Australia to study the links between climate change and extreme weather events. You didn’t go to cover what’s happening now, but describe what you have discovered since you’ve been there.
MICHAEL MANN: Yeah. It’s a bit surreal, because this trip, this sabbatical, was more than a year in the making. And indeed my goal was to come here to Australia to collaborate with some Australian scientists and understanding the scientific linkages between climate change and extreme weather events in Australia. And of course, ironically I arrived at the time that Australia was experiencing perhaps the most extreme weather on record in the form of unprecedented heat across the continent.
And of course these unprecedented bush fires that are literally spreading across the continent. I’ve witnessed these impacts firsthand here in Sydney where I’m staying. Yesterday, I couldn’t go outside and take my usual daily run because the air quality was dangerous from all the smoke that was blowing in from these wildfires. And so here in Sydney, climate change isn’t just some theoretical construct. It’s something that is playing out in real time. I can look out my window and see it.
JAISAL NOOR: So I wanted you to address Australian Prime Minister Morrison, the leader of the country. He’s someone who famously brought up a lump of coal into parliament, accusing people who are concerned about climate change and being scared of fossil fuels. He was chased from Cobargo in New South Wales last week over his response. He initially was on vacation in Hawaii as this crisis unfolded. And he’s downplayed the role climate change is having on these fires, something that’s also been echoed by Australian media especially; owned by the Murdoch family. Can you address that?
MICHAEL MANN: Sure. Well, what we have here is a prime minister who was elected by fossil fuel interests. He was assisted by the Murdoch media empire because he advocates for their cause. Murdoch, of course, the Murdoch media empire is the sort of greatest proponent of climate change denialism and Murdoch himself has ties to fossil fuel interests and he has literally polluted the public discourse here in Australia when it comes to climate change and has assisted in the campaign of those politicians like Prime Minister Morrison who support that agenda, that fossil fuel agenda, that agenda of climate inaction.
And as you note, Morrison has been remarkably tone deaf when it comes to this issue. Vacationing in Hawaii as Australians were experiencing these devastating wildfires with loss of life and property and vast expanses of rain forest. And he has a history of coddling coal, fossil fuel interests. His administration essentially sabotaged the Madrid Climate Conference a couple of weeks ago, along with a number of other petrostate actors like United States under Trump and Russia and Saudi Arabia. Essentially sabotage that meeting. A small number of state actors, which now includes Australia, is basically blocking action internationally to do something about climate change.
So in this case, Morrison of course is getting a lot of pushback from the people. He was chased away by a woman who was understandably upset by the damage and destruction that she had experienced herself. It’s pretty clear that he has no interest in doing anything about climate change. And as I said in my Guardian commentary, if Australians don’t want to see ever worsening impacts of climate change, if they want to be part of the solution, if they want a prime minister who will engage with other politicians, other leaders around the world to actually do something about climate change, they’re going to have to show up at the voting booth.
They’re going to have to vote out climate change deniers like Morrison, and they’re going to have to vote in climate hawks, politicians who were willing to do something about the problem. But Murdoch has a stranglehold on the media here. He owns much of the print media and the television media, and he has used that as a megaphone to promote climate change denialism. In this case all sorts of false claims about these wildfires, bogus claims that they were caused by arson. The authorities are already weighed in and said that that was not the case. These wildfires were started by lightning strikes and the ignition isn’t the important point here.
The reason that these wildfires are spreading so quickly are becoming so large are covering such a large area is because of the unprecedented heat and drought that Australia is experiencing right now. That’s an inconvenient truth to the Murdoch media and to the conservative establishment and they’ve done everything in their power to try to promote myths about what’s going on so that the public won’t connect the dots. They won’t connect the dots between a prime minister and a government is unwilling to act on this problem and the death and destruction that’s arising because of that failure to act.
JAISAL NOOR: Now have we reached a tipping point when it comes to climate change and these catastrophes that are unfolding not only in Australia but you see around the world. You see this growing devastation that natural disasters are causing. And is it possible to reverse this at this point? What would that look like?
MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, so there is the danger of tipping points. You know when things get dry enough and hot enough, you can see a very dramatic escalation of these wildfires and bush fires here in Australia. And arguably that’s what we’re seeing in California and the Western US. That’s what we’re seeing here in Australia and in any many other regions around the world where summers are getting hot enough and dry enough that you just see this almost exponential escalation in these wildfires.
So we may indeed be starting to cross a tipping point where, in the very best case, we are dealing with the new norm. That is to say, if we stop warming the planet and we sort of stabilize temperatures, we don’t worsen the problem. We’re going to be dealing with this. Australia is going to have to continue to deal with these sorts of fire seasons. And if we continue on the path of inaction that we’re on, if we don’t act to bring down our carbon emissions dramatically over the next decade, then it’s worse than the new normal. It’s an ever escalating problem. Things get hotter things get dryer and these wildfires become more extensive. They become more intense to the point where large parts of Australia essentially become unlivable both to human beings and other life that occupies this continent.
JAISAL NOOR: Critics of those who want to see action on climate change in Australia, you know, they say like people like Prime Minister Morrison… They say, “Look, Australia is only responsible for 1% of the of global emissions. Therefore, you know what? Australia does doesn’t really matter.” I think that’s sort of what they’re trying to argue. But as you’ve noted and others have noted, it is a leading exporter of fossil fuels. What do you see as the connection between the bush fires and fossil fuel activity, especially in Australia? Is there a connection there?
MICHAEL MANN: Yeah, there’s a direct connection. The fossil fuels that we’re burning, the carbon pollution we’re putting into the atmosphere, is warming up the planet and it’s leading to these unprecedented extreme weather disasters like the bush fires that are breaking out across Australia right now. There’s no question about that. The science is clear on that. Australia, like many other Western nations historically has played a critical role in fossil fuel burning and generating the carbon pollution that’s already in the atmosphere.
Now other countries like China and India are starting to come online with industrial economies. But if you look at the cumulative contribution from Western nations like the United States, Europe, Australia; on a cumulative basis in terms of the total contribution to this problem, those are the leading contributors. As you know, with Australia it’s misleading to look simply at the carbon that they’re burning here in the continent. Because they are the largest exporter of coal to the rest of the world, including to China, and so they are responsible for much of the coal burning. And coal is the most carbon intensive fossil fuel. It’s the worst of the fossil fuels, when it comes to carbon pollution.
And here Australia is playing a major role in exporting coal to the rest of the world at a time when we need to be dramatically lowering our carbon emissions. We need to bring them down by a factor of two within the next decade if we’re going to avert catastrophic warming of the planet. And here Australia is continuing to export. In fact, Scott Morrison supports the construction of the Adani coal mine. This is a coal mine that would actually double Australia’s coal based carbon emissions at a time when they need to be bringing them down. Morrison and those fossil fuel interests, coal interests that he represents are doubling down in the mining, the extraction, and the burning of fossil fuels.
JAISAL NOOR: And finally, we’re almost out of time, but we had a question from a viewer. And they wanted to ask you if you can address the link between the Indian Ocean and its role in Australian bush fires.
MICHAEL MANN: Yeah. We’re warming up the planet, we’re warming up the continents in the summer, making them dryer. That’s the main contributor to the increasing wildfires that we see. But on top of that, there is variability in the climate. There are things like the El Nino phenomenon that can influence how wet or dry of the continent of Australia is in any given year. And there’s something known as the Indian Ocean dipole, which is sort of like the Indian Ocean’s own version of the El Nino phenomenon. And when it’s in what’s known as the positive phase, which it’s in right now, sea surface temperatures off the East coast of Australia are actually a little colder than normal.
Now you might think, okay, well that’s good, a cooler, but no colder water means there’s less moisture over the ocean and that region and there’s less of that moisture coming into Australia. There’s less monsoonal rainfall that Australia relies upon in the summer. And so that adds to the dryness. So there are these modes of variability in the climate that can ride on top of the effect of global warming. And sometimes they worsen things and sometimes they alleviate them a little bit. But as we continue to warm the planet, we continue to dry out the continents. When we do happen to get one of those positive dipole events like we’re getting right now, it will give us yet a new extreme, a new extreme of drought and heat and that’s really the problem.
We’re seeing more and more extreme drought and heat because of climate change along with the variations related to things like this, a dipole. And one of the interesting findings now of the scientific community is that climate change might actually be making that Indian Ocean dipole stronger, more likely to be in the positive phase. So even that component that’s adding to the heat and drought might be driven by climate change, might be driven by human caused climate change.
JAISAL NOOR: All right, Michael Mann, it’s always a pleasure to have you on climate scientist and professor at Penn State University. We’ll link to your newest piece in The Guardian: Australia, Your Country’s Burning–Dangerous Climate Change Is Here With You Now. And actually We posted that at The Real News, so our viewers will have already read it. Thanks so much for joining us.
MICHAEL MANN: Thank you. It was a pleasure.
JAISAL NOOR: And thank you for joining us at The Real News Network.
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therealnews--2020-01-09--International Criminal Court Prepares to Try Israelis over War Crimes

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Dr. Shir Hever grew up in Israel and now lives in Germany. He has been reporting on Israel/Palestine stories for 16 years, and for the Real News specifically since 2016. He’s the author of two books and many articles, and is a committed member of several Palestine solidarity groups.


therealnews--2020-01-10--War Powers Resolution on Iran Still Has Teeth

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therealnews--2020-01-10--The Critical Role Auditing Plays in the Battle Against Police Surveillance

Auditors across the country are turning the tables on police surveillance .
The Police Accountability Report spoke to an auditor @ @ @ @ @ how filming cops ultimately preserves our civil rights .

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Taya Graham is an award-winning investigative reporter who has covered U.S. politics, local government, and the criminal justice system. She is the host of TRNN's "Police Accountability Report," and producer and co-creator of the award-winning podcast "Truth and Reconciliation" on Baltimore's NPR affiliate WYPR. She has written extensively for a variety of publications including the Afro American Newspaper, the oldest black-owned publication in the country, and was a frequent contributor to Morgan State Radio at a historic HBCU. She has also produced two documentaries, including the feature-length film "The Friendliest Town." Although her reporting focuses on the criminal justice system and government accountability, she has provided on the ground coverage of presidential primaries and elections as well as local and state campaigns. Follow her on Twitter.


therealnews--2020-01-10--House Passes War Powers Resolution as Thousands Say ‘No to War with Iran’

Progressive Democrats acknowledge the War Powers Resolutions don’t go far enough to truly prevent Trump from launching war with Iran.
Story Transcript
PROTESERS: No war! With Iran! No war! With Iran! No war! With Iran!
JAISAL NOOR: I’m Jaisal Noor with The Real News Network.
We’re here in Washington at the site of one of over 300 events across the nation, calling for no war with Iran. The events have been organized by groups like MoveOn and Indivisible, along with groups of veterans who are against a possible war in Iran as well. We spoke to some of the Democratic lawmakers, progressive Democrats who’ve come out here to speak out against war on Iran.
PRAMILA JAYAPAL: There is no rationale. I listened to a classified briefing. I can tell you I learned nothing there about whether or not there was any evidence that was about an imminent threat. There was nothing that justified the assassination of General Soleimani. And this has been a long time coming. This isn’t just the assassination of Soleimani. Trump has been itching for this war. He pulled the United States out of the JCPOA. He put forward this failed maximum pressure strategy, and then he assassinated Soleimani, and he is using the 2002 authorization of use of military force as his justification. Well, that makes no sense. That does not apply here.
BARBARA LEE: The only way we’re going to stop these endless wars is through the power of the people. People have got to make sure that they let their members of Congress know that they want them to exercise their constitutional responsibility in the matters of war and peace, and debate and vote up or down as it relates to the use of force and hold them accountable. If they don’t do that, then the polls, the elections are coming up.
JAISAL NOOR: And so Trump said he doesn’t need congressional authorization. What’s your message to Donald Trump?
BARBARA LEE: I don’t know if he understands his constitutional responsibilities or not. I don’t know if he really understands this is a democracy and not a dictatorship.
ILHAN OMAR: I mean, my concern really is to really figure out how do we continue to engage peacefully around the world. We’ve had opportunities to stay with the nuclear agreement. We’ve made a choice to take ourselves out of that. That created an escalation of war. That created an escalation of tensions, and we want to make sure that we understand the consequences of his decisions like that, and we are now living with those decisions, and so it is up to us to make sure that we are pushing for a more deliberative, more cautious, more righteous process.
PRAMILA JAYAPAL: There’s this idea that somehow war is going to be a good investment for us. It never is. We have to go to diplomacy, not to military solutions. We have to make sure that we are investing in our own people. In this war alone, the estimates are trillions of dollars that we will spend, even on a limited war with Iran, and think about what that means for people. It means less money for education, less money for healthcare, less money for infrastructure, less money for our lives here, but most of all, it means more devastation for the rest of the world. We cannot continue to have these wars, endless wars where the people that get hurt are the people, children, mothers, fathers, families, our troops, but also the people of countries around the world.
JAISAL NOOR: The protests are happening despite what appears like an easing of tensions by President Donald Trump on Wednesday, a week after the killing of Qasem Soleimani, a top Iranian general in a US drone strike, what many have called an assassination. As we are recording this, the House is debating a War Powers Resolution that would limit Trump’s power to wage war on Iran, but some say it doesn’t go far enough. We asked Democratic lawmakers for their thoughts. And some people have said that the measure being proposed now doesn’t go strong enough, because it doesn’t have power to really rein Trump in. What’s your response to critics that say this isn’t strong enough?
BARBARA LEE: Well, it may not be the strongest, but I’m voting for it because we have to make sure we get the votes to pass it. We should have a bipartisan vote on this with Republicans also. I’m not sure if we will or not, but you have to have everybody voting for something. And so I would want to see it stronger, but I don’t think we can say no to something to make progress.
PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Well, we also need to pass the repeal of the authorization of use of military force, and we also have to make sure that we are stopping the power of the purse, stopping people from using money, using our congressional power of the purse to stop the use of money for these wars.
JAISAL NOOR: Well, what do you say to the people that say the War Powers Act doesn’t go far enough in being able to actually stop Trump from further escalations?
PRAMILA JAYAPAL: Well, I think that we are learning the limits of a lot of things, from our Constitution to the War Powers Act. And I do think we need to make sure that we look at rewriting and renewing some of these tools, because I don’t think the framers envisioned that there would be a… They envisioned a person who would abuse power and deny the Constitution, but they did not envision an entire party that would follow in the footsteps and bow down to person over country and put their loyalty in a place that would harm our country.
JAISAL NOOR: Do you have a message for Democrats that have supported the AUMF in the past, or have gone along with it?
RASHIDA TLAIB: It’s really important to know people like myself and others that really understand the impact of war. We are now running for office, and we’re winning. We’re not going to compromise on people’s lives, and we know now… I know, for instance, myself and others that really ran on no more war and promoting more peace, more towards really trying to better the lives of people right here at home. And we do that by recognizing–for me, I know, as a humanist–recognizing the human suffering that comes with war. And I think for me it’s not about… My presence alone here is enough for me to start getting my colleagues to understand the importance of promoting an antiwar movement.
JAISAL NOOR: We also talked to retired Colonel Ann Wright about her thoughts on who is ultimately responsible for the US war footing.
COL. ANN WRIGHT: Yeah, the Democrats are just as responsible as the Republicans are for the lack of a strong Congress. That they are manipulated by whoever the senior leadership is of the Congress. And if it’s a Democratic president, then he has led the Congress, and then the Republican the same way. And so they bow to the leader of the party, who’s the president of the country, and brush aside that thing called the Constitution. So it’s not like Trump’s the first one to try to pull this sort of stuff.
And thank goodness that now we’ve got some of the Congress that’s saying that authorization for military force, AUMF, that was passed in 2001, maybe we ought to have something else. Said, “Here it is, 18 years later, 19 years later, and the Congress really has not debated it again since then.” And they’re using that 2001 AUMF to justify anything they want, rather than on each individual case, passing an authorization for the use of military force for that specific incident.
JAISAL NOOR: With Cameron Granadino, I’m Jaisal Noor in Washington, DC.
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therealnews--2020-01-10--Canada’s Cops Were Ready to Shoot Indigenous Anti-Pipeline Activists

RCMP officers were instructed to use as much violence as they wanted at the blockade of the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline. Kanahus Manuel, an indigenous activist in British Columbia, said it’s part of Canada’s long colonial legacy.
Story Transcript
Photo Credit: Michael Toledano | Twitter
DIMITRI LASCARIS: This is Dimitri Lascaris reporting for The Real News Network from Montreal, Canada.
Last month, the British newspaper The Guardian broke the story that Canada’s Royal Canadian Mounted Police, or RCMP, were prepared to shoot Indigenous land defenders blockading construction of a natural gas pipeline in Northern British Columbia. In late 2018, a roadblock was erected by Indigenous Wet’suwet’en people to control access to their territories and stop construction of the proposed 670 kilometer or 416 mile Coastal Gaslink Pipeline.
On January 7, 2019, RCMP officers dressed in military green fatigues and armed with assault rifles descended on the checkpoint, dismantling the gate, and arresting 14 people. According to documents seen by The Guardian, RCMP commanders instructed officers to “use as much violence as you want” as part of an operation to remove a roadblock. The documents also revealed that the RCMP were prepared to arrest children and grandparents. “No exception. Everyone will be arrested in the injunction area,” one document read. Another document made reference to possible child apprehension by social services.
Now here to discuss these revelations with us: Kanahus Manuel. Kanahus is an Indigenous activist, Birthkeeper, and a member of the activist group Tiny House Warriors. She joins us today from Blue River, British Columbia. Thank you for coming on The Real News, Kanahus.
KANAHUS MANUEL: Hi.
DIMITRI LASCARIS: First of all, could you tell us what’s your understanding, Kanahus, as to the current status of the blockade of–and more broadly of the efforts to stop–the construction of the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline on Wet’suwet’en territory?
KANAHUS MANUEL: Well, first of all, I’m from the Secwepemc nation. I don’t speak for the Wet’suwet’en. It’s a different nation. We’re distinct nations here in so-called British Columbia. Anything west of the Rockies has been un-treatied; it’s un-ceded, un-surrendered. We have not signed a treaty with the federal government, not with Great Britain or the province of B.C., So we still lay claim on 100% of our territory. And Wet’suwet’en territory is one of the nations here in B.C. They also are un-ceded, and their governance structure is made up of various clans. The Wet’suwet’en clan or the Unist’ot’en clan has been there on their territory for over five years, six years stopping seven proposed pipelines. And the Gidimt’en Checkpoint. The Gidimt’en is also a clan within the Wet’suwet’en nation that has also set up a checkpoint.
First of all, I would like to say that when I arrived there at their checkpoints, there’s the free prior informed consent protocol. This is a traditional protocol that has been in place even before the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous People. Free prior informed consent, what are you doing here? What’s your intentions of coming here? If we allow you access into our territory, how is your stay here going to benefit us and our nation? And everybody has to answer that. I had to answer that when I went in with me and my husband and four children. And Coastal Gaslink had to answer that. And they have the right to deny consent and access to any individual or corporation or government that threatens their territory. And so Coastal Gaslink is one of these corporations that threatens their way of life.
And so therefore, they have denied access, but because we’re living in 2019, and the Government of Canada has continued to use injunctions as a way to force Indigenous people off of their lands. Injunctions, we call that a thousand trails of tears, it’s forcing our people off of the land. My father, Arthur Manuel, he wrote–in his book, Reconciliation Manifesto, he referred to injunctions as Canada’s legal billy club and it’s a way that they can continue to oppress off of our territory in order for corporations to get access to our lands.
The recent court decision that gave the Coastal Gaslink this interlocutory injunction, but also gave the RCMP an enforcement order. And that means that the RCMP now are armed with this legal billy club to go out onto the territory and forcibly remove the Wet’suwet’en off of their lands. And how they’re going to react to that? We’re going to have to see how everything unfolds because they come from a very strong traditional governance structure where their clans are still in place. Unlike some of the other nations here in B.C., one of the things that you can look at is the Delgamuukw decision of 1997, which really was spearheaded by the Wet’suwet’en and the hereditary system. I’m in that Delgamuukw decision, it verifies what we’ve heard already, always said is that Aboriginal title and rights exist in this country.
Aboriginal title and rights exist, especially where we have not signed treaties, we’ve not made any type of formal land agreements with the federal government. And so we lay claim to 100% and that we have the territorial authority in decision making. We have the right to our own decision making process, our own governance structure. And those are the rights that we have international respective rights as Indigenous people and as human beings we have the right to self-determination.
DIMITRI LASCARIS: If I might just stop you there, Kanahus, I want to dwell into that a little more. You know, the company Coastal Gaslink cites its justification for its construction initiative. It has signed agreements with 20 elected First Nations councils along the pipeline route. How do you respond to that argument that they’ve been authorized by these elected councils, or what they described as elected councils to do this?
KANAHUS MANUEL: Well, first one must be understood by the world and the global community is that these elected chief and council systems are actually paid by the federal government. They get a federal paycheck, just like any other politician. They are enforced under the Indian Act. The Indian Act was established and it’s a very oppressive and genocidal policy and act and law that they put in place in order to remove Indigenous people off their land and force them onto Indian reservations.
Modern day Indian reservations that we call concentration camps. This chief and council system is a colonial system, a colonial construct. It’s nothing that is traditional in our form of traditional governance structure. And so when you hear that term chief and council system in Canada, you know that they’re being paid by the federal government. And what my grandfather, Wolverine, would say is that pretty well they’re civil servants talking to civil servants. Saying that the chief and council system are also civil servants of that system.
And so we need to make that very clear that they are not speaking for the collective. It’s enforced by the federal government. It was unilaterally imposed upon us. The majority of Indigenous people in this country of Canada refuse and opt out of being involved in that elected chief and council system. We know that our title and rights as Indigenous people are held collectively here in our nation. We have around 10,000 Secwepemc, so that’s a collective right that we hold amongst every single 10,000 of those men, women and children. They are the proper title holders. Therefore, they are the proper decision makers, not that chief and council systems.
DIMITRI LASCARIS: Now you yourself, I understand have had quite a few interactions with law enforcement authorities in the course of your land defense activities. How do you respond to The Guardian revelations, and please, respond to those revelations in the context of what you yourself has experienced as a land defender in the hands of the RCMP and other police forces?
KANAHUS MANUEL: Well, I think it’s by time that mainstream media really publishes the truth about what is happening. We’ve been saying this since contact, the abuse and the terrorism that we face at the hands of the Canadian government and the police state. The RCMP was established with one purpose and that was to remove Indigenous peoples off the land in order for them to make way and access… to get access to our resources and our territories. Canada gets very wealthy and continues to get very wealthy off of stripping our natural resources off of our lands. Those are Indigenous resources. They have never got consent to remove those resources from our land.
These pipelines are transportation conduit. They’re transporting these raw resources from Northern B.C. and Northern Alberta, the frack fields and the Alberta tar sands, to get it to the tidewater, to get into these ports that they want to establish, to get them to the Vancouver port, all the way down to the California coast. It affects all of us. The transportation of this is risking hundreds and hundreds of miles of pristine wilderness. This is not a developed area like California or the East Coast and New York State. This is pristine area. There’s places on every single creek; you could go down–and river–and you can drink directly from it. This is pristine glacier waters that are feeding all of the creeks and rivers all the way to the ocean.
So British Columbia, just to give people an idea, is the size of Washington, Oregon and California combined and it’s literally, virtually untouched. Two thirds of the population of B.C. are in the Lower Mainland around Vancouver area. So we had come from a very isolated area. The Gidimt’en Checkpoint is actually around 44 kilometers off of the closest major highway and it’s not even a major highway. It’s a two lane road and the Unist’ot’en is around 65 or so kilometers off of the road. So these are back roads, these are dirt roads, these are very isolated areas. When the RCMP raided, they had a major operation just to get out to the areas to make the arrest.
DIMITRI LASCARIS: And yourself, in terms of your own experience with the law enforcement officials who are there to ensure access to Indigenous lands. What have you yourself experienced in that regard?
KANAHUS MANUEL: Well, I’ve been named on several injunctions or the Sun Peaks Ski Resort, and also the Red Chris Imperial Metals Mine. And now, I fall within millimeters of injunction right here in Blue River where they want to establish 1,099 count for the Trans Mountain Pipeline. We’re standing our ground. We’re actually taking land back. We’re occupying land. We’re living in tiny houses on our territory in order to stop the construction of this pipeline. And we are targeted. I am a person of interest. The RCMP have named me a person of interest, the Trans Mountain have hundreds and hundreds of pages of surveillance on me. And that’s just four days of surveillance.
So I know how I’m a target. And I was on target on October 19th when the RCMP, a new division, the Community Industry Response Group, the same division that’s deployed on the Wet’suwet’en peoples, I came and arrested me and broke my wrist.
So I’ve been dealing with these last months and recuperating and healing from the bodily injuries by the RCMP. They’re forcing me to go in on January 6th, just on Monday in a couple of days, to give my fingerprints again.
I don’t know if they’re going to be waiting there with more bogus charges. I don’t know if they’re going to try to detain me again. So this is the type of terrorism that they create on us as Indigenous people. You think that you could go out and have a vacation and beautiful British Columbia and go stay in a cabin in Blue River and enjoy the heli-skiing by an Austrian tour operator. It’s not the same with us. We come on our territory and we’re a target. We need constant security as Indigenous land defenders just to maintain our safety here on the front lines.
DIMITRI LASCARIS: Well, we’ve been speaking to Kanahus Manuel, an Indigenous land defender about revelations in the British newspaper, The Guardian, that Canadian law enforcement officials were prepared to shoot Indigenous land defenders to open up a road for the use of a gas pipeline company. Thank you very much for joining us today, Kanahus.
KANAHUS MANUEL: Thank you.
DIMITRI LASCARIS: And this is Dimitri Lascaris reporting for The Real News Network.
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therealnews--2020-01-10--The Liars that Led Us to War

The Liars that Led Us to War

MARC STEINER : Welcome to The Real News .
I ’ m Marc Steiner .
Good to have you all with us .
We are in the midst of a very dangerous and complex moment .
We may have evaded a major war in the wake of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani , but we must be aware and not forget of what we just witnessed has a long and embittered history , and that potential of madness is still very much with us .
Soleimani ’ s life has been seen and has to be seen , I think @ @ @ @ @ @ @ history between Iran , Iraq and the United States .
From overthrowing governments in Iran , to backing Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran , to overthrowing him again when he was no longer of any use to the United States , all of this , as well , is wrapped up in Congress , who according to Article I , Section 8 , Clause 11 of the Constitution is supposed to be vested with the power to declare war .
And then from the war powers act after Vietnam and his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got the Authorization of Use of Military Force in 2001 , the U.S. Congress has abrogated that responsibility and we have been building an imperial presidency that has taken us to war devastating millions of people while wasting trillions of dollars over these decades .
It is all connected .
And two men who went to war for this country and have written widely on these topics join us now .
Matthew Hoh is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy , former Director of Afghan Study Group and a Marine @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war and in 2009 he resigned his state department position in Afghanistan in opposition to the escalation of that war .
He ’ s now a member of Veterans for Peace .
And Danny Sjursen .
He is a retired U.S. Army officer , regular contributor to antiwar.com and his work has appeared in numerous publications : The Nation , The Hill , Salon , Truthdig , and more .
He served combat tours with recognizance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater , West Point .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ and critical analysis of the Iraq War , Ghost Riders of Baghdad : Soldiers , Civilians , and the Myth of the Surge .
And gentlemen , welcome .
Good to have you both with us .
DANNY SJURSEN : Thanks very much , Marc .
MARC STEINER : So let me begin with this .
It is a piece which kind of takes our history from Vietnam to this moment , and what presidents and people in power have said .
Let ’ s just watch this to jump into this conversation @ @ @ @ @ @ @ terror against the peaceful villagers of South Vietnam , has now been joined by open aggression on the high seas against the United States of America .
SPEAKER : These points are located on this map showing the Gulf of Tonkin , South China , North Vietnam .
DONALD TRUMP : Soleimani was plotting eminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel .
GEORGE W. BUSH : American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq , to free its people , and to defend @ @ @ @ @ @ @ POMPEO : We know it was eminent .
This was an intelligence based assessment that drove our decision making process .
DONALD RUMSFELD : We have what we consider to be a very reliable reporting of possible chemical and biological agent training .
MIKE POMPEO : But the American people should know that President Trump ’ s decision to remove Qasem Soleimani from the battlefield saved American lives .
There ’ s no doubt about that .
COLIN POWELL : We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ make more .
Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option .
SPEAKER 2 : I think it is entirely possible that this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate this killing of Soleimani and puts pressure on the Iranian government .
DICK CHENEY : I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators .
MIKE POMPEO : There was dancing in the streets and parts of Iraq .
We have every expectation that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in Iran , will view the American action last night as giving them freedom .
MARC STEINER : Lies and myth killing millions .
This is one of the things that , from the beginning , I mean , I remember this from the 1960s and the lies about what happened in the Gulf of Tonkin to this moment that we ’ re in now .
All the things that we ’ ve… All the Wars we ’ ve had , at least in my lifetime , in my memorable lifetime , from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ been built on a pack of damn lies that have not just killed so many of us Americans fighting the wars but has also killed just tens of millions of people across this globe .
So Matthew , let me start with you on this .
And then please jump right in , Danny .
I mean this is part of the madness we ’ re witnessing , and I think we forget the history that brought us to this place .
MATTHEW HOH : Oh , absolutely .
Absolutely .
Anything you @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , and not just with Iran , but literally with any other nation we ’ re dealing with , whether it be Russia and China , or India and Pakistan , or any of the multiple places in the Middle East and Africa where we are killing people daily with our military , it ’ s as if it ’ s happening in a vacuum .
As if none of this has any type of antecedent .
And it ’ s interesting , you say , about your lifetime .
I was born @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the year that the United States removed it ’ s last combat troops… Or , I ’ m sorry .
The month and year of the United States removed its last combat troops from Vietnam .
MATTHEW HOH : And as a six year old , my first memories of the world were the Iranian hostage crisis .
I clearly remember that .
And so this has been something that has absorbed American life and it has , because there ’ s so much mythology and falsehoods and lies that dominate this , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power .
And that clip you just had with all the various United States government officials lying about these wars , that as you said , Marc , have led to tens of millions of deaths , it is something that we have to , I think , reassess our actual government because we have a government that is so easily dominated by psychopaths and sociopaths that I think we have to , at some point , reevaluate our system of governance in this country .
DANNY SJURSEN : Watching those clips , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ want to bring back some like old terms and just say “ balderdash.
” There ’ s three things that concern me and I just want to talk about one now .
DANNY SJURSEN : So I ’ m concerned about the dubious legality of the strike .
The assassination .
I ’ m concerned with the un-strategic nature of the decision to strike .
But for this clip , I want to talk about the evidence problem .
We were told that the strike was imminent , but we were provided no @ @ @ @ @ @ @ well maybe it was classified .
They love to say that we have to keep official secrets .
So then they briefed Congress yesterday and Senator Mike Lee , Republican style , said it was the worst briefing he ’ d ever heard .
And he went on CNN and said that the way this whole thing went down was “ un-American and unacceptable.
” So here ’ s the thing .
In the wake of the lies that brought us the 2003 Iraq invasion , in the wake of the CIA torture @ @ @ @ @ @ @ torture program , and in the wake of the Afghanistan Papers , which we so quickly forgot , why should an American citizen ever again trust their government when they say , “ Hey , there was an imminent attack .
Hey , we ’ re protecting you from a threat.
” Hey , count me skeptical .
I will never again , whether there ’ s a Democrat or Republican in charge , trust on face value , the evidence provided to me .
In fact , when I ’ m in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ m going to be the curmudgeon rolling around telling these other old folks , “ Don ’ t trust your government.
” MARC STEINER : I ’ ll probably get there before you , though .
DANNY SJURSEN : See you there .
MARC STEINER : But let ’ s pick on what you just said .
There ’ s an interesting clip here from Pence talking about why they didn ’ t tell Congress by what was about to happen .
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE : Why not , in a classified setting , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ what it was this threat that you talk about in a classified setting ?
MIKE PENCE : Well , some of that has to do with what ’ s called sources and methods , Savannah , that if we were to share all of the intelligence and , in fact , some of the most compelling evidence that Qasem Soleimani was preparing an eminent attack against American forces and American personnel , also represents some of the most sensitive intelligence that we have .
It could compromise those sources and methods .
MARC @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you just said , was why I played that clip , Danny .
And also this kind of alludes to what I was saying in the beginning , that we are also in the midst of building this imperial presidency .
We ’ ve been doing for the last 50 years , but it ’ s really picked up intensity since the turn of the century .
And this very statement by the Vice President of States to me is a huge danger in terms of where our country could be led and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Go ahead , Danny .
DANNY SJURSEN : I ’ ll just say that the whole idea that “ sources and methods… ” they love that buzzword .
I mean , you could play buzzword bingo with Mike Pence right now .
“ Sources and methods.
” That ’ s what they use to fool you , right ?
That ’ s what they use to keep you in the dark .
Okay , we can never tell you the evidence because if we did , we , you know , give away @ @ @ @ @ @ @ who ’ s worked in intelligence knows that there are ways to give you the gist of the evidence without exposing sources and methods .
This is an imperial presidency .
What concerns me is that Trump pulled a James K. Polk .
Okay ?
To go back in history where Polk basically sent our troops into an area that was contested , and he knew there would be a war .
So we set up a fait accompli .
And I would say that Trump has done the same thing .
By @ @ @ @ @ @ @ set up a state of war .
And he left Congress , the media , and the people , but specifically in this case the Congress , to pick up the pieces .
So if you create a de facto state of war , what have we done , and what are we seeing today with this absurd vote that doesn ’ t mean anything ?
What we ’ re seeing today is that Congress is in reactive mode and that is not the design of the founding fathers regarding war making authority @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we are 70 years After the National Security Act that started this imperial presidency that we voted in .
MARC STEINER : So , Matthew , let ’ s pick up on this point .
One of the things , the questions we have to wrestle with here , in part in terms of what happened today in Congress : Is Congress really serious at all about taking back the power to declare war or not to declare war in this country ?
MATTHEW HOH : No , they ’ re not .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ this war powers vote being meaningless .
It is .
My understanding is that it ’ s a concurrent resolution , which means that it doesn ’ t go to the President for signature .
It doesn ’ t have the effect of law .
So it ’ s just the same thing Marc as you or I or Danny or anybody who ’ s watching or listening to this just posting on Facebook or Twitter that they ’ re unhappy about this .
And watching Nancy Pelosi today , all she had @ @ @ @ @ @ @ pray .
And she made the ritual , almost religious type requirements of kneeling towards it and making the gestures towards American exceptionalism all throughout her little talk about this .
But she kept saying , “ pray.
” And I ’ m reminded… My Muslim friends have a quote , and I ’ m not sure of the origins of it , if it ’ s from the prophet or not , but it ’ s basically “ Pray to Allah but tie up your camel.
” And for the Speaker of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that all she can do is pray , as well then to lie about what she ’ s doing because she did say , Nancy Pelosi did say , that this is going to limit the President ’ s actions and tie his hands when again , it doesn ’ t have the force of the law .
Just as with the Yemen War Powers Resolution that failed to override the veto , they did not then pursue a concurrent resolution , which would have then put that resolution about Yemen into the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hadn ’ t then pursued the other avenue with that of shutting down the financial support for that war .
That would stop American military operations .
So if the members of Congress were actually serious about this , if Nancy Pelosi and the democratic leadership were serious about this , they would stop funding to American military forces .
That would not allow them , then , to carry out such attacks or engage in such a war and basically force a withdrawal from the region .
But we all know that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a Republican party in many ways .
And being a card carrying member of the war machine is one such thing .
I ’ m getting back to this idea about the classification .
I was reminded , and I recommend people look at Danny ’ s writings .
Danny is basically… I ’ m not sure if , Danny , if you ’ re Gen X or if you ’ re a Millennial , but whichever generation you ’ re a part of , you are like that generations Howard Zinn .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Danny has written , particularly the things that precede our modern times , because when people ask me what they should read to understand these wars and to understand the U.S. military and the U.S. government , I always say three books .
One is About Face by David Hackworth , the other is The Best and The Brightest by David Halberstam , and the third is A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan .
And these are all books all about Vietnam .
And Sheehan said what he learned from the Pentagon @ @ @ @ @ @ @ released the documents that showed that the Pentagon and the United States government knew the war in Vietnam was unwinnable .
That we were losing .
We had no chance of success .
Just as the Washington Post recently released the Afghan Papers , Sheehan said that he realized about classified information is that it ’ s not meant to protect the American people from enemies , but it ’ s meant to protect the American people from knowledge that humiliates or embarrasses their government .
And in this case , with these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
And that ’ s why they say such things , as Danny explained , about sources and methods and we can ’ t release it and et cetera , et cetera , because it ’ s just one more lie .
MARC STEINER : And these lies are , I mean , they ’ re killing us and they ’ re wasting money and they ’ re killing people across the globe .
So I think a perfect place for us to go to at this moment would be what you just @ @ @ @ @ @ @ article that Danny wrote and one of your recent articles .
And let me ask you both to do something for our viewers here , and I ’ ll start with Danny and come back to you , Matt , on this .
On your pieces that describe where we are now , and Danny , you wrote this incredible article just talking about the history of our imperialism , the history of this country , what leads us to this place , and led us the point of assassinating Soleimani , and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ So talk a bit about what , in a sense , your thesis from that piece , because it ’ s important for people to hear it .
DANNY SJURSEN : Right .
So , look , I titled the piece The Islamic Republic of Restraint , and I did that on purpose .
Actually , I often start with the title and then build an article with idea that it ’ s probably not the correct way to do it .
Here ’ s the deal : I knew after Iran purposely @ @ @ @ @ @ @ I knew what was going to happen .
But Trump interiors from the administration were to come out and say , “ See ?
He ’ s a stable genius.
” That he ’ s a deal maker .
He knew this was going to happen .
He was right all along .
Well , the reality to me is that the gold star for restraint now and in almost every instance in the past of our relationship with Iran has to go to the Islamic Republic .
I mean , their responses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ overthrowing their first democratically elected prime minister supporting an invasion from Iraq that killed 500,000 or so people , shooting down one of their civilian airliners and then refusing to apologize , sinking half their navy , threatening with regime change , calling them part of the Axis of Evil , and then assassinating the second or third most powerful guy in their government , that ’ s just a few things , right ?
In almost every instance , Iran ’ s retaliation has been relatively muted , even in the moments @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
Usually it ’ s through proxies .
We ’ re talking about Lebanon .
We ’ re talking about Beirut .
Even in those instances , the scale of their response was nowhere near , nowhere near , the scale of our provocation .
And so what I want to say is “ Bravo ” to Tehran .
Bravo to the Islamic Republic of Iran for not being a perfect routine , not having a perfect human rights record , but for avoiding all-out war with the United States even when provoked @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s important , because what you… I mean , you were very subtle on that piece as well .
And what you just said .
I mean nobody can throw flowers and alms at the Islamic Republic for oppressing his own people all the time , but they clearly are not anxious to go to war .
Not with the United States .
They ’ ve made that very clear .
And I think that we forget the history , forget the Iraq/Iran war history , we forget how many billions we put @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a million Iranians as you talk about in your piece , as well .
We forget that part of our history .
You can ’ t talk about this moment unless you understand our history .
DANNY SJURSEN : Absolutely .
And the problem is that both Republicans , Democrats , Twitter trolls , and the entire media all act as though this happened in a vacuum and history began yesterday .
Or , at best , history began on Friday when we assassinated , when we executed Qasem Soleimani , a member @ @ @ @ @ @ @ without a declaration of war using the ubiquitous weapon , fittingly , using the ubiquitous weapon of the imperial post 9/11 wars , the drone missile .
MARC STEINER : And that , to me , dovetails perfectly , Matt Hoh , with your piece .
Because again , we forget .
Because sometimes people look at this and we talk about the military industrial complex , we talked about the power of that complex on Capitol Hill , but we really don ’ t really get down into the weeds of what @ @ @ @ @ @ @ is .
And you did in that piece you just wrote .
MATTHEW HOH : Sure .
The history of this goes back in the piece that I ’ ve finished , the article ’ s speaking about the Roman gods of war and money , Mars and Pluto , and saying how , because that ’ s who we basically serve as a nation now and have always served as a nation , that we should pull down our statues of Lincoln and Jefferson and replace them with Mars and Pluto .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ Lincoln and Jefferson sit and stand in Greco Roman style architecture .
That those monuments purposely emulate what the Romans and Greeks did .
And what we ’ ve inherited from that through centuries of , eons , basically , of ongoing exceptionalism .
Right ?
And anyone who , again , go back to what Nancy Pelosi said today , she talked about how she expects greatness from America .
Anyone who has never visited a native American reservation , and not talking about going to a casino , I ’ m @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the reservation and seeing what we have done to those people .
If you do not have African American friends , talk to them .
Not just even , not about slavery or about the convict leasing , but talk to them about like their own family history , in living memory , of the fear of lynching .
So what we have done , we are the world ’ s largest prison system in the world , and all that is just pushed aside to demonize those overseas .
And again , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of us are meaning the throw flowers and laurels at their reins .
They have a terribly oppressive system .
Their people deserve a better government than what they have by sure .
But what we do is rooted in our histories .
It is rooted in what we have done .
And it ’ s interesting because this all , of course , is dovetailing with impeachment .
And it ’ s my understanding , and Danny probably knows this better , that the first impeachment trial in U.S. history aside from @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of a non-president , of a cabinet member , occurred in the Grant administration .
And it was , I believe , the Secretary of War at the time involving the contracts for the Indian Bureau in terms of skimming and graft and bribery of all that money that was meant to go to Native American tribes and those reservations that was being stolen by the people involved in the system .
At that point , you see already the military industrial complex is alive and thriving .
And that ’ s 150 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ impeachment trial .
And here of course in our impeachment trial , or the Senate trial that ’ s coming up in the impeachment that ’ s already occurred , the basis of that is $ 400 million in military aid to Ukraine .
A nation that has a president that ’ s looking to somehow to get to a peace deal with Russia and the Ukrainian separatists .
But we ’ re still trying to sell them $ 400 million , a half billion dollars worth of weapons .
We can be @ @ @ @ @ @ @ about all the historical antecedents and precedents of this , but I think it ’ s important for people to know because , and people don ’ t understand and people not to , I don ’ t think anyone listening or watching here is going to give the benefit of the doubt , but certainly to be able to arm themselves to try and better educate relatives and friends in discussions about this because it ’ s just shocking how short memories are in the United States .
MARC STEINER : I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ here because the stuff that both of you have written and have been talking about , especially as veterans , makes huge sense and people need to read both these articles and really wrestle with them and we ’ ll have both of these men back on as much as we can and as soon as we can .
And I think we all have a responsibility here , whether it ’ s taking it to the streets or really using a ballot box , to put the people in who will fight @ @ @ @ @ @ @ wars do not happen and the madness does not still rein .
I want to thank you both for your work and thank you for joining us today .
We were just talking with Matthew Hoh and Danny Sjursen .
Good to have you both with us , and I really do look forward to getting back together with you soon .
DANNY SJURSEN : Thanks so much , Marc .
Always a pleasure .
MARC STEINER : Thanks for your work .
I ’ m Marc Steiner here for The Real News @ @ @ @ @ @ @ us .
Please let us know what you think and your ideas about where we should go with this .
Take care .

Two Iraq war veterans explain why Congress has failed to stop the endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and say the United States needs to learn from its imperialist history if anything is going to change.
Story Transcript
MARC STEINER: Welcome to The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. Good to have you all with us.
We are in the midst of a very dangerous and complex moment. We may have evaded a major war in the wake of the assassination of Qasem Soleimani, but we must be aware and not forget of what we just witnessed has a long and embittered history, and that potential of madness is still very much with us. Soleimani’s life has been seen and has to be seen, I think, in the context of the tortured history between Iran, Iraq and the United States.
From overthrowing governments in Iran, to backing Saddam Hussein in his war with Iran, to overthrowing him again when he was no longer of any use to the United States, all of this, as well, is wrapped up in Congress, who according to Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution is supposed to be vested with the power to declare war. And then from the war powers act after Vietnam and his feeble efforts to stop war, we got the Authorization of Use of Military Force in 2001, the U.S. Congress has abrogated that responsibility and we have been building an imperial presidency that has taken us to war devastating millions of people while wasting trillions of dollars over these decades. It is all connected.
And two men who went to war for this country and have written widely on these topics join us now. Matthew Hoh is a Senior Fellow at the Center for International Policy, former Director of Afghan Study Group and a Marine Corps officer who served in the Iraq war and in 2009 he resigned his state department position in Afghanistan in opposition to the escalation of that war. He’s now a member of Veterans for Peace.
And Danny Sjursen. He is a retired U.S. Army officer, regular contributor to antiwar.com and his work has appeared in numerous publications: The Nation, The Hill, Salon, Truthdig, and more. He served combat tours with recognizance units in Iraq and Afghanistan and later taught history at his alma mater, West Point. He’s author of the memoir and critical analysis of the Iraq War, Ghost Riders of Baghdad: Soldiers, Civilians, and the Myth of the Surge. And gentlemen, welcome. Good to have you both with us.
MATTHEW HOH: Thank you.
DANNY SJURSEN: Thanks very much, Marc.
MARC STEINER: So let me begin with this. It is a piece which kind of takes our history from Vietnam to this moment, and what presidents and people in power have said. Let’s just watch this to jump into this conversation.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON: Aggression by terror against the peaceful villagers of South Vietnam, has now been joined by open aggression on the high seas against the United States of America.
SPEAKER: These points are located on this map showing the Gulf of Tonkin, South China, North Vietnam.
DONALD TRUMP: Soleimani was plotting eminent and sinister attacks on American diplomats and military personnel.
GEORGE W. BUSH: American and coalition forces are in the early stages of military operations to disarm Iraq, to free its people, and to defend the world from grave danger.
MIKE POMPEO: We know it was eminent. This was an intelligence based assessment that drove our decision making process.
DONALD RUMSFELD: We have what we consider to be a very reliable reporting of possible chemical and biological agent training.
MIKE POMPEO: But the American people should know that President Trump’s decision to remove Qasem Soleimani from the battlefield saved American lives. There’s no doubt about that.
COLIN POWELL: We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction. He’s Determined to make more. Leaving Saddam Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option.
SPEAKER 2: I think it is entirely possible that this is going to be a catalyst inside Iran where the people celebrate this killing of Soleimani and puts pressure on the Iranian government.
DICK CHENEY: I really do believe we will be greeted as liberators.
MIKE POMPEO: There was dancing in the streets and parts of Iraq. We have every expectation that people, not only in Iraq but in Iran, will view the American action last night as giving them freedom.
MARC STEINER: Lies and myth killing millions. This is one of the things that, from the beginning, I mean, I remember this from the 1960s and the lies about what happened in the Gulf of Tonkin to this moment that we’re in now. All the things that we’ve… All the Wars we’ve had, at least in my lifetime, in my memorable lifetime, from the late fifties to now, has been built on a pack of damn lies that have not just killed so many of us Americans fighting the wars but has also killed just tens of millions of people across this globe.
So Matthew, let me start with you on this. And then please jump right in, Danny. I mean this is part of the madness we’re witnessing, and I think we forget the history that brought us to this place.
MATTHEW HOH: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Anything you watch about what’s occurring now, and not just with Iran, but literally with any other nation we’re dealing with, whether it be Russia and China, or India and Pakistan, or any of the multiple places in the Middle East and Africa where we are killing people daily with our military, it’s as if it’s happening in a vacuum. As if none of this has any type of antecedent. And it’s interesting, you say, about your lifetime. I was born in April of ’73 which was the year that the United States removed it’s last combat troops… Or, I’m sorry. The month and year of the United States removed its last combat troops from Vietnam.
MARC STEINER: I remember it well.
MATTHEW HOH: And as a six year old, my first memories of the world were the Iranian hostage crisis. I clearly remember that. And so this has been something that has absorbed American life and it has, because there’s so much mythology and falsehoods and lies that dominate this, it allows for people to be in power. And that clip you just had with all the various United States government officials lying about these wars, that as you said, Marc, have led to tens of millions of deaths, it is something that we have to, I think, reassess our actual government because we have a government that is so easily dominated by psychopaths and sociopaths that I think we have to, at some point, reevaluate our system of governance in this country.
MARC STEINER: Danny?
DANNY SJURSEN: Watching those clips, that whole grouping of clips, I want to bring back some like old terms and just say “balderdash.” There’s three things that concern me and I just want to talk about one now.
MARC STEINER: Please do.
DANNY SJURSEN: So I’m concerned about the dubious legality of the strike. The assassination. I’m concerned with the un-strategic nature of the decision to strike. But for this clip, I want to talk about the evidence problem. We were told that the strike was imminent, but we were provided no evidence as a public. Okay, well maybe it was classified. They love to say that we have to keep official secrets. So then they briefed Congress yesterday and Senator Mike Lee, Republican style, said it was the worst briefing he’d ever heard. And he went on CNN and said that the way this whole thing went down was “un-American and unacceptable.”
So here’s the thing. In the wake of the lies that brought us the 2003 Iraq invasion, in the wake of the CIA torture report, all the lies about that torture program, and in the wake of the Afghanistan Papers, which we so quickly forgot, why should an American citizen ever again trust their government when they say, “Hey, there was an imminent attack. Hey, we’re protecting you from a threat.” Hey, count me skeptical. I will never again, whether there’s a Democrat or Republican in charge, trust on face value, the evidence provided to me. In fact, when I’m in a nursing home someday, I’m going to be the curmudgeon rolling around telling these other old folks, “Don’t trust your government.”
MARC STEINER: I’ll probably get there before you, though.
DANNY SJURSEN: See you there.
MARC STEINER: But let’s pick on what you just said. There’s an interesting clip here from Pence talking about why they didn’t tell Congress by what was about to happen.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Why not, in a classified setting, can our briefers from this administration share what it was this threat that you talk about in a classified setting?
MIKE PENCE: Well, some of that has to do with what’s called sources and methods, Savannah, that if we were to share all of the intelligence and, in fact, some of the most compelling evidence that Qasem Soleimani was preparing an eminent attack against American forces and American personnel, also represents some of the most sensitive intelligence that we have. It could compromise those sources and methods.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Even in a classified setting?
MIKE PENCE: I have tremendous respect–
MARC STEINER: I was thinking about what you just said, was why I played that clip, Danny. And also this kind of alludes to what I was saying in the beginning, that we are also in the midst of building this imperial presidency. We’ve been doing for the last 50 years, but it’s really picked up intensity since the turn of the century. And this very statement by the Vice President of States to me is a huge danger in terms of where our country could be led and what we could be led into. Go ahead, Danny.
DANNY SJURSEN: I’ll just say that the whole idea that “sources and methods…” they love that buzzword. I mean, you could play buzzword bingo with Mike Pence right now. “Sources and methods.” That’s what they use to fool you, right? That’s what they use to keep you in the dark. Okay, we can never tell you the evidence because if we did, we, you know, give away our sources and methods. But anybody who’s worked in intelligence knows that there are ways to give you the gist of the evidence without exposing sources and methods.
This is an imperial presidency. What concerns me is that Trump pulled a James K. Polk. Okay? To go back in history where Polk basically sent our troops into an area that was contested, and he knew there would be a war. So we set up a fait accompli. And I would say that Trump has done the same thing. By attacking, by assassinating Soleimani, he set up a state of war. And he left Congress, the media, and the people, but specifically in this case the Congress, to pick up the pieces.
So if you create a de facto state of war, what have we done, and what are we seeing today with this absurd vote that doesn’t mean anything? What we’re seeing today is that Congress is in reactive mode and that is not the design of the founding fathers regarding war making authority. But here we are; here we are 70 years After the National Security Act that started this imperial presidency that we voted in.
MARC STEINER: So, Matthew, let’s pick up on this point. One of the things, the questions we have to wrestle with here, in part in terms of what happened today in Congress: Is Congress really serious at all about taking back the power to declare war or not to declare war in this country?
MATTHEW HOH: No, they’re not. And to Danny’s point about this war powers vote being meaningless. It is. My understanding is that it’s a concurrent resolution, which means that it doesn’t go to the President for signature. It doesn’t have the effect of law. So it’s just the same thing Marc as you or I or Danny or anybody who’s watching or listening to this just posting on Facebook or Twitter that they’re unhappy about this. And watching Nancy Pelosi today, all she had to offer was that we need to pray. And she made the ritual, almost religious type requirements of kneeling towards it and making the gestures towards American exceptionalism all throughout her little talk about this. But she kept saying, “pray.”
And I’m reminded… My Muslim friends have a quote, and I’m not sure of the origins of it, if it’s from the prophet or not, but it’s basically “Pray to Allah but tie up your camel.” And for the Speaker of the House to stand there and claim that all she can do is pray, as well then to lie about what she’s doing because she did say, Nancy Pelosi did say, that this is going to limit the President’s actions and tie his hands when again, it doesn’t have the force of the law.
Just as with the Yemen War Powers Resolution that failed to override the veto, they did not then pursue a concurrent resolution, which would have then put that resolution about Yemen into the force of law. Or, they hadn’t then pursued the other avenue with that of shutting down the financial support for that war. That would stop American military operations. So if the members of Congress were actually serious about this, if Nancy Pelosi and the democratic leadership were serious about this, they would stop funding to American military forces. That would not allow them, then, to carry out such attacks or engage in such a war and basically force a withdrawal from the region. But we all know that the Democratic party is no different than a Republican party in many ways. And being a card carrying member of the war machine is one such thing.
I’m getting back to this idea about the classification. I was reminded, and I recommend people look at Danny’s writings. Danny is basically… I’m not sure if, Danny, if you’re Gen X or if you’re a Millennial, but whichever generation you’re a part of, you are like that generations Howard Zinn. And go back and read the things Danny has written, particularly the things that precede our modern times, because when people ask me what they should read to understand these wars and to understand the U.S. military and the U.S. government, I always say three books. One is About Face by David Hackworth, the other is The Best and The Brightest by David Halberstam, and the third is A Bright Shining Lie by Neil Sheehan. And these are all books all about Vietnam.
And Sheehan said what he learned from the Pentagon Papers, which was when Daniel Ellsberg released the documents that showed that the Pentagon and the United States government knew the war in Vietnam was unwinnable. That we were losing. We had no chance of success. Just as the Washington Post recently released the Afghan Papers, Sheehan said that he realized about classified information is that it’s not meant to protect the American people from enemies, but it’s meant to protect the American people from knowledge that humiliates or embarrasses their government. And in this case, with these so-called evidence, there is no evidence. And that’s why they say such things, as Danny explained, about sources and methods and we can’t release it and et cetera, et cetera, because it’s just one more lie.
MARC STEINER: And these lies are, I mean, they’re killing us and they’re wasting money and they’re killing people across the globe. So I think a perfect place for us to go to at this moment would be what you just alluded to Matt, which was the article that Danny wrote and one of your recent articles. And let me ask you both to do something for our viewers here, and I’ll start with Danny and come back to you, Matt, on this.
On your pieces that describe where we are now, and Danny, you wrote this incredible article just talking about the history of our imperialism, the history of this country, what leads us to this place, and led us the point of assassinating Soleimani, and this absurdity, this dangerous absurdity. So talk a bit about what, in a sense, your thesis from that piece, because it’s important for people to hear it.
DANNY SJURSEN: Right. So, look, I titled the piece The Islamic Republic of Restraint, and I did that on purpose. Actually, I often start with the title and then build an article with idea that it’s probably not the correct way to do it. Here’s the deal: I knew after Iran purposely or not–I think purposely–missed American targets; I knew what was going to happen. But Trump interiors from the administration were to come out and say, “See? He’s a stable genius.” That he’s a deal maker. He knew this was going to happen. He was right all along.
Well, the reality to me is that the gold star for restraint now and in almost every instance in the past of our relationship with Iran has to go to the Islamic Republic. I mean, their responses to our provocations, which have included overthrowing their first democratically elected prime minister supporting an invasion from Iraq that killed 500,000 or so people, shooting down one of their civilian airliners and then refusing to apologize, sinking half their navy, threatening with regime change, calling them part of the Axis of Evil, and then assassinating the second or third most powerful guy in their government, that’s just a few things, right?
In almost every instance, Iran’s retaliation has been relatively muted, even in the moments where they did kill Americans, okay? Usually it’s through proxies. We’re talking about Lebanon. We’re talking about Beirut. Even in those instances, the scale of their response was nowhere near, nowhere near, the scale of our provocation. And so what I want to say is “Bravo” to Tehran. Bravo to the Islamic Republic of Iran for not being a perfect routine, not having a perfect human rights record, but for avoiding all-out war with the United States even when provoked.
MARC STEINER: And what’s important, because what you… I mean, you were very subtle on that piece as well. And what you just said. I mean nobody can throw flowers and alms at the Islamic Republic for oppressing his own people all the time, but they clearly are not anxious to go to war. Not with the United States. They’ve made that very clear. And I think that we forget the history, forget the Iraq/Iran war history, we forget how many billions we put into helping Saddam Hussein kill a half a million Iranians as you talk about in your piece, as well. We forget that part of our history. You can’t talk about this moment unless you understand our history.
DANNY SJURSEN: Absolutely. And the problem is that both Republicans, Democrats, Twitter trolls, and the entire media all act as though this happened in a vacuum and history began yesterday. Or, at best, history began on Friday when we assassinated, when we executed Qasem Soleimani, a member of the government of a sovereign nation without a declaration of war using the ubiquitous weapon, fittingly, using the ubiquitous weapon of the imperial post 9/11 wars, the drone missile.
MARC STEINER: And that, to me, dovetails perfectly, Matt Hoh, with your piece. Because again, we forget. Because sometimes people look at this and we talk about the military industrial complex, we talked about the power of that complex on Capitol Hill, but we really don’t really get down into the weeds of what that power means and how deep it is. And you did in that piece you just wrote.
MATTHEW HOH: Sure. The history of this goes back in the piece that I’ve finished, the article’s speaking about the Roman gods of war and money, Mars and Pluto, and saying how, because that’s who we basically serve as a nation now and have always served as a nation, that we should pull down our statues of Lincoln and Jefferson and replace them with Mars and Pluto. And that’s not coincidence that Lincoln and Jefferson sit and stand in Greco Roman style architecture. That those monuments purposely emulate what the Romans and Greeks did. And what we’ve inherited from that through centuries of, eons, basically, of ongoing exceptionalism. Right?
And anyone who, again, go back to what Nancy Pelosi said today, she talked about how she expects greatness from America. Anyone who has never visited a native American reservation, and not talking about going to a casino, I’m talking about actually visiting the towns on the reservation and seeing what we have done to those people. If you do not have African American friends, talk to them. Not just even, not about slavery or about the convict leasing, but talk to them about like their own family history, in living memory, of the fear of lynching.
So what we have done, we are the world’s largest prison system in the world, and all that is just pushed aside to demonize those overseas. And again, as you said, Marc, none of us are meaning the throw flowers and laurels at their reins. They have a terribly oppressive system. Their people deserve a better government than what they have by sure. But what we do is rooted in our histories. It is rooted in what we have done. And it’s interesting because this all, of course, is dovetailing with impeachment.
And it’s my understanding, and Danny probably knows this better, that the first impeachment trial in U.S. history aside from Andrew Johnson, or the first impeachment of a non-president, of a cabinet member, occurred in the Grant administration. And it was, I believe, the Secretary of War at the time involving the contracts for the Indian Bureau in terms of skimming and graft and bribery of all that money that was meant to go to Native American tribes and those reservations that was being stolen by the people involved in the system. At that point, you see already the military industrial complex is alive and thriving. And that’s 150 years ago. And that involves an impeachment trial.
And here of course in our impeachment trial, or the Senate trial that’s coming up in the impeachment that’s already occurred, the basis of that is $400 million in military aid to Ukraine. A nation that has a president that’s looking to somehow to get to a peace deal with Russia and the Ukrainian separatists. But we’re still trying to sell them $400 million, a half billion dollars worth of weapons.
We can be here all day and all night talking about all the historical antecedents and precedents of this, but I think it’s important for people to know because, and people don’t understand and people not to, I don’t think anyone listening or watching here is going to give the benefit of the doubt, but certainly to be able to arm themselves to try and better educate relatives and friends in discussions about this because it’s just shocking how short memories are in the United States.
MARC STEINER: I wish we could grant you more time here because the stuff that both of you have written and have been talking about, especially as veterans, makes huge sense and people need to read both these articles and really wrestle with them and we’ll have both of these men back on as much as we can and as soon as we can. And I think we all have a responsibility here, whether it’s taking it to the streets or really using a ballot box, to put the people in who will fight for us and make sure that these wars do not happen and the madness does not still rein.
I want to thank you both for your work and thank you for joining us today. We were just talking with Matthew Hoh and Danny Sjursen. Good to have you both with us, and I really do look forward to getting back together with you soon.
MATTHEW HOH: Thanks, Marc.
DANNY SJURSEN: Thanks so much, Marc. Always a pleasure.
MARC STEINER: Thanks for your work. I’m Marc Steiner here for The Real News Network. Thank you all for joining us. Please let us know what you think and your ideas about where we should go with this. Take care.
Studio: Adam Coley, Bababtunde Ogunfolaju
Production: Genevieve Montinar, Bababtunde Ogunfolaju, Andrew Corkery
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therealnews--2020-01-13--Calling Bernie Sanders Anti-Semitic Is Islamophobic

Sahar Aziz discusses her article from The New Arab, “Accusing Bernie Sanders of anti-Semitism is nothing but thinly veiled Islamophobia.” The accusation of anti-Semitism has been weaponized to attack people who promote solidarity with Muslim Americans and who demand sustainable foreign policy towards the Middle East.
Story Transcript
BERNIE SANDERS: We must treat the Palestinian people as well with the respect and dignity that they deserve. What is going on in Gaza right now when youth unemployment is 70% or 80% is unsustainable.
SHIR HEVER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Shir Hever coming to you from Heidelberg, Germany.
In the last couple of weeks, articles appeared in The Examiner and The Federalist among others accusing Bernie Sander of anti-Semitism, and implying that he’s not fully a Jew, although he’s the son of two Holocaust survivors. This is not a unique event. It is part of a trend of weaponizing anti-Semitism accusations in order to attack people who criticize Israeli policy. After Trump said that in the US Jews don’t love Israel enough, his lawyer Rudy Giuliani said this about the Holocaust survivor George Soros: “Soros is hardly a Jew. I’m more of a Jew than Soros is. I probably know more about… He doesn’t go to church. He doesn’t go to religion, synagogue. He doesn’t belong to a synagogue. He doesn’t support Israel, is an enemy of Israel. He has elected eight anarchist DA’s in the United States. He is a horrible human being.”
So a new article published in The New Arab argues that behind these accusations is a thinly veiled Islamophobia and xenophobia. The article is titled, Accusing Bernie Sanders of anti-Semitism is Nothing but Thinly Veiled Islamophobia. The author is Professor Sahar Aziz, who is joining us now. Professor Sahar Aziz teaches Law and Social Justice at the Rutgers Law School. She’s the Director of the Center for Security, Race and Rights. And her upcoming book is titled, Whosoever Sees an Evil: Muslim Americans’ Human Rights Advocacy, by Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion. Thank you very much for joining us, Sahar.
SAHAR AZIZ: Thank you for inviting me.
SHIR HEVER: So Jewish activists have always been central to the human rights movement, including when it comes to Palestinian rights and for Muslim activists who are frequently accused of anti-Semitism, and this is not new. Joining forces with progressive Jewish groups and politicians is sometimes also a way to ensure their legitimacy. So do you think that the attacks on Jews who stand with Muslims actually aren’t intended to target those progressive Jews, but rather to isolate the Muslim activists?
SAHAR AZIZ: I think they’re aimed for both of them. What’s happened recently in the last 10, arguably 15 years, is a major transition in the Jewish American community, where you have a young generation coming of age that has realized that the United States policies on Israel is contradictory to their own Jewish values. And it has become more and more mainstreamed among these young Jewish American progressives who are also very sensitized to anti-black racism, anti-Latin X, xenophobia and Islamophobia. And so they’re starting to see the connections between all of these phobias against minority groups and what Israel is doing. And more importantly, the US’s complicity in Israeli state abuses of Palestinians. So, you have this convergence of Jewish American youth in particular, and then the rise and growth of Muslim American youth who are now coming of age and wanting to influence US foreign policy as well.
SHIR HEVER: So I want to get back to this point about all the phobias that you mentioned. I think that’s a very important issue. But first, can you identify where are these accusations of anti-Semitism coming from? Is this just a natural thing for right-wingers and racists to do when they want to hide their own racism as they come after immigrants and Muslims while pretending to be protecting Jews? Or is this actually a coordinated campaign to change the discourse on race and, if so, coordinated by whom?
SAHAR AZIZ: Well, there’s two objectives. The first objective is to quash the rise of Muslim American voices that are going to be more critical of US foreign policy in the Middle East, writ large, not just in Israel, primarily because these Muslim Americans who are over 70% immigrants or children of immigrants from Muslim majority countries have a much deeper understanding and personal connection to how US foreign policy harms people in those countries. Because they have families there, they may themselves have gone there frequently to travel, and their parents were often raised there. So as they come of age, as they accumulate wealth, as they run for political office, they are starting to have different perspectives or bring in different perspectives into US foreign policy.
And so that is starting to challenge what has otherwise been a monopoly over US foreign policy in the Middle East, particularly with the Arab Israeli conflict by Zionists who tend to be on the far right of the political spectrum. So now these far right Zionists are finding competition among Muslim Americans of various national origins. Some of them are African Americans, some of them are Pakistani American, Middle Eastern American, as well as these younger Jewish American progressives who are joining forces and saying what we’re doing in the Middle East, in Israel, as well as other Arab countries is not keeping America safe. It’s a violation of human rights. It’s a violation of our progressive values.
Now it’s much easier to accuse Muslims of anti-Semitism because part of the Islamophobic trope is that Muslims are inherently anti-Semitic. And that is a fallacy. And it is a product of these far right Zionist politics which use the trope that Muslims are inherently anti-Semitic, they all hate Jews, and therefore you shouldn’t listen to anything they say when it comes to Arab Israeli issues because they just want to annihilate all Jews, which is palpably false. And if you look before 1948 the Jews who were treated the most humanely were those that were in North Africa and the Middle East. Many of them fled to those areas from very violent, anti-Semitic aggression. So much of the conflict between Jews and Muslims in the region is really about the issue of statehood. It’s more of a political issue. It is not a religious conflict per se. So that’s one reason why it’s easier to accuse Muslims of being anti-Semitic.
But I think the other objective is to de legitimize people like Bernie Sanders, who represent the progressive Jewish American voice and who has a strong following among younger Jewish Americans in the United States. And so that is more about competition over who gets to control the narrative coming out of the media and who gets to control US foreign policy. But I think it’s much harder, in my opinion, to accuse Bernie Sanders of anti-Semitism in light of not only his identity, but the fact that he’s the son of Holocaust survivors than it is to accuse Rashida Tlaib, Linda Sarsour, Ilhan Omar, all of these notable women, Muslim Americans, who have been working with Bernie Sanders and many Jewish American progressive organizations like Jewish Voice for Peace. And so what they’re doing is they’re using that cover because they know that it’s more believable to the American public that Muslims are anti-Semitic.
SHIR HEVER: Well, you’ve actually already partially answered my next question, but I still want to get back to it specifically because of these three women that you mentioned. So the outright and the new wave of populous right wing, which is not just emerging in the United States but all over the world is really accumulating those phobias. It’s accumulating enemies. Populous right-wing leaders go after Muslim communities, after migrants, they go after black people, after Jews, after LGBTQ, after women rights and more.
Now the answer from the left is often called “intersectionality,” an alliance of minority groups against all forms of discrimination. And in the United States specifically, this movement is mainly led by Muslim leaders, and especially by Muslim women like the three women which Sanders is supporting: Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, Linda Sarsour. So why do you think that Muslim women play such a major role in the movement? You already said something about Muslims who have a family experiences about the effects of US foreign policy in the countries from which they come. But that doesn’t explain why women are taking the center stage.
SAHAR AZIZ: It’s a great question. So I’ve written two pieces on this issue. One is called Coercive Assimilation: The Perils of Muslim Women’s Identity Performance in the Workplace. And the other one is called From the Oppressed to the Terrorist: Muslim Woman Caught in the crosshairs of Intersectionality, both of which are on my ssrn.com page. And in those articles, I explain how women, Muslim women–similar to African American women during the Civil Rights era–are in this paradox where on the one hand there are internal misogynistic practices within Muslim communities just as there are within any race or ethnic communities. But on the other hand, there has been a very systematic, structurally based attack on Muslim American communities, particularly since 9/11.
And so they’re finding themselves in this situation where they are at least internally having to stay silent in terms of dealing with their internal issues on gender and, on the other hand, having to protect the communities and stand by the communities in order to protect their own children, their own families, and their own husbands and fathers. And this is where gender comes in again. Most of us are familiar with the terrorist/other stereotype, or that Muslims are inherently violent and they’re terrorists. And that is the stereotype that has stuck and has become deeply entrenched. Now that stereotype is gendered as male, and that has paradoxically granted Muslim women more credibility in the public sphere and in the public discourse in the United States because it is not as common to call Muslim women terrorists. Now they may be accused of harboring terrorists, sympathizing with terrorists, but oftentimes there is another stereotype that’s Islamophobic, which is that Muslim women are oppressed by their male Muslim relatives, that Muslim women are meek.
So the liberal Islamophobic paradigm is to liberate Muslim women and give them a platform and give them a voice, because surely if we don’t give it to them, then they won’t have one because the stereotype is that their home communities are misogynistic. So I think that’s what explains in part how these women have been able to be at the forefront of combating Islamophobia because the liberals in particular have encouraged them to do so, have given them the space. And they have taken up the opportunity and proven, I think very clearly, that Muslim women are not oppressed as a group, that Islam is not misogynistic, they’re highly educated, they’re highly sophisticated, they’re highly articulate.
But I do think that oftentimes the reason why the public embraces them is because the public is anti-male Muslim more than it is anti-female Muslim. And it’s also very patronizing towards Muslim women. But that being said, I think it’s a fascinating phenomenon that they have been the ones that have also been attacked by people accusing Bernie Sanders and others of anti-Semitism, and many of those attacks are quite gendered. So they are attacks on them with slurs and a discourse that is very gendered, threatening them of rape, threatening them of murder, other types of physical threats, which I think is also because they see them as vulnerable women.
SHIR HEVER: Well, we’re definitely going to have to continue that conversation at an early opportunity, but for now we’re going to have to leave it there. Thank you very much, Sahar, for joining us.
SAHAR AZIZ: Thank you.
SHIR HEVER: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.
Studio: Bababtunde Ogunfolaju, Cameron Granadino
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therealnews--2020-01-14--Central American Caravan for the Disappeared Seeks to Reunite Families