therealnews--2020-01-14--Puerto Rico Earthquakes Set Hurricane Recovery Back as Trump Denies Aid

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Greg Wolpert : Welcome to the Real News Network .
I ’ m Greg Wolpert in Arlington , Virginia .
Last Saturday , another major earthquake hit Puerto Rico , the 6.0 magnitude quake followed on the heels of a 6.4 magnitude quake that hit the island last Tuesday , which killed at least one person and caused an estimated $ 110 million in damage to buildings and infrastructure .
Power was temporarily knocked out of the Puerto Rico .
Power Authority says 94 % @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Still , over 6,000 Puerto Ricans are estimated to be staying away from their homes because these have been destroyed or damaged .
Their earthquakes come at a delicate time for Puerto Rico as it continues to recover from both political upheaval and natural disasters .
In September , 2017 hurricane Maria hit the island .
A category five hurricane , which killed at least 3000 people and caused an estimated $ 100 billion worth of damage .
Then last August , governor Ricardo Rosselló resigned in a scandal because he and his @ @ @ @ @ @ @ me now to discuss the situation in Puerto Rico is professor José Caraballo-Cueto .
He ’ s an economist and associate professor at the University of Puerto Rico .
He is also the director of the Census Information Center .
Thanks for joining us again , José .
José C. : Thank you .
Greg Wolpert : So let ’ s start with the current situation following Saturday ’ s second major earthquake .
I have seen contradictory reports about the power situation with some saying that at least 20 % of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ power companies saying that it ’ s only about 6 % .
What can you tell us about the power situation and also the situation more generally at the moment ?
José C. : Well there was a blackout for almost a week and most of the sectors right now have electricity , but it ’ s coming back and forth .
So it ’ s not stable , especially in the South , there is a lot of of people that are not working right now because many businesses , they don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , but more important that many businesses were destroyed and there ’ s people that lost their home , but there is also people that are almost losing their jobs .
So I will say that the economy , especially of the South of Puerto Rico has a stop and there is no interest either in the local government or in the federal government to resolve basically .
Greg Wolpert : Well , I want to turn to that in a moment , but first , as I mentioned earlier , Puerto Rico @ @ @ @ @ @ @ which tore through the island more than two years ago .
Now , how well has Puerto Rico been able to recover since then and how badly have these quakes set the recovery back ?
José C. : That ’ s a very important question .
Yesterday I was in Guánica which is the county , was the epicenter of this earthquake and I say the ongoing earthquake because we have had more than 503 earthquake since December 28th .
So there ’ s a lot of people there afraid that the economy @ @ @ @ @ @ @ war zone there .
And I talked to a couple of refugees that are in improvised shelters about have you seen anybody from FEMA here ?
And they say no .
Actually , the roof of my house was destroyed with the hurricane .
It took a while to repair it .
And now the structure , especially the walls of my house are destroyed .
Now I have a roof , but I don ’ t have walls in in my house , so I have to be in an improvised shelter @ @ @ @ @ @ @ humanitarian aid has been local organizations and individuals that want to show solidarity .
But there is , as I said , no interest whatsoever in the local or the federal government .
Greg Wolpert : Well that ’ s exactly the issue I want to turn to now .
The US government is supposed to disperse $ 18 billion in aid , but the Trump administration is refusing to do so arguing that corruption in Puerto Rico would make disbursement pointless .
Now Trump is withholding this aid even though Congress recently @ @ @ @ @ @ @ billion worth of aid .
Now what ’ s your reaction to the Trump administration ’ s argument about corruption as being the reason for or justification for holding back aid ?
José C. : That ’ s just an excuse .
We can see how much the president cares about Puerto Rico .
It ’ s more than one week from the big earthquake and so far , not even one statement saying , I ’ m sorry with the victims we don ’ t have in here even that .
That @ @ @ @ @ @ @ his position .
The federal government have many controls for corruption .
No reconstruction in any state will depend on the good faith of local officials .
The federal government have many controls for corruption and even though FBI actually works in Puerto Rico and is paying a lot of attention to these issues .
I don ’ t think that we should be waiting more than two years for reconstructing houses and people are suffering .
I saw many going to the countryside here in Puerto Rico , many houses with blue @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a lot of rain in the island .
I don ’ t say there is any justification for that and also there is no justification to be exaggerating the figures .
President Trump said that it has been $ 90 billions and no one in Congress has even said that number or allocate or or obligate those funds .
We ’ re talking just about $ 40 billions that have been obligated .
And not even half of those have been dispersed .
So the recovery from hurricane Maria , I will say @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
We are not in the middle of it .
We are just at the beginning of the recovery of hurricane Maria .
And on top of that , we have this earthquake that just is exacerbating the situation .
Greg Wolpert : Now I want to turn to the internal political situation in Puerto Rico .
That is , how is that affecting the disaster recovery effort ?
I mentioned earlier that governor Ricardo Rosselló had to resign and now there ’ s a new governor , Wanda Vázquez , who ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ What if any effect has that had on the recovery effort ?
And also can you talk about the referendum on statehood that ’ s scheduled for later , I think , this year ?
What impact might that have on the situation right now ?
José C. : I was hoping that because we are in an election year in Puerto Rico and in the US that I was hoping that the reaction is going to be better and I also was hoping that given the experience with Maria and how people @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , I hope that this recover is going to be better and faster , but I think history is repeating itself right here .
There is a big disregard about this new government that we have in Puerto Rico because most of the officials are the same one that used to work with the previous governor and they really are not paying attention , not even having a plan to how to address this disaster .
Some people are talking that we have to evacuate people from the South , move it to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ even sure how they ’ re going do that .
There ’ s a lot of poor people that are actually Guánica will qualify us the poorest county in any US territory .
It ’ s 65 % of the population that is poor there .
How are you going to evacuate that population ?
It ’ s hard to know and there is no plan and actually they ’ re are just talking about elections and how they ’ re going to win , but they ’ re not really establishing any @ @ @ @ @ @ @ recover from this earthquake and to prepare us here or the next event that we may have .
Greg Wolpert : Okay , well .
We ’ re going to have to leave it there for now , but I was speaking to José Caraballo-Cueto , associate professor at the University of Puerto Rico .
Thanks again , José , for having joined us today .
José C. : Thank you .
Greg Wolpert : And thank you for joining The Real News Network .

The U.S. territory was hit with two major earthquakes and hundreds of aftershocks, but local and national politics are still getting in the way of real help for the people of Puerto Rico.
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Greg Wolpert: Welcome to the Real News Network. I’m Greg Wolpert in Arlington, Virginia. Last Saturday, another major earthquake hit Puerto Rico, the 6.0 magnitude quake followed on the heels of a 6.4 magnitude quake that hit the island last Tuesday, which killed at least one person and caused an estimated $110 million in damage to buildings and infrastructure.
Power was temporarily knocked out of the Puerto Rico. Power Authority says 94% of the population has electricity again. Still, over 6,000 Puerto Ricans are estimated to be staying away from their homes because these have been destroyed or damaged. Their earthquakes come at a delicate time for Puerto Rico as it continues to recover from both political upheaval and natural disasters.
In September, 2017 hurricane Maria hit the island. A category five hurricane, which killed at least 3000 people and caused an estimated $100 billion worth of damage. Then last August, governor Ricardo Rosselló resigned in a scandal because he and his advisors mocked ordinary Puerto Ricans. Joining me now to discuss the situation in Puerto Rico is professor José Caraballo-Cueto. He’s an economist and associate professor at the University of Puerto Rico. He is also the director of the Census Information Center. Thanks for joining us again, José.
José C.: Thank you.
Greg Wolpert: So let’s start with the current situation following Saturday’s second major earthquake. I have seen contradictory reports about the power situation with some saying that at least 20% of the population was still without power and they power companies saying that it’s only about 6%. What can you tell us about the power situation and also the situation more generally at the moment?
José C.: Well there was a blackout for almost a week and most of the sectors right now have electricity, but it’s coming back and forth. So it’s not stable, especially in the South, there is a lot of of people that are not working right now because many businesses, they don’t have electricity or continuous electricity, but more important that many businesses were destroyed and there’s people that lost their home, but there is also people that are almost losing their jobs. So I will say that the economy, especially of the South of Puerto Rico has a stop and there is no interest either in the local government or in the federal government to resolve basically.
Greg Wolpert: Well, I want to turn to that in a moment, but first, as I mentioned earlier, Puerto Rico is still recovering from hurricane Maria, which tore through the island more than two years ago. Now, how well has Puerto Rico been able to recover since then and how badly have these quakes set the recovery back?
José C.: That’s a very important question. Yesterday I was in Guánica which is the county, was the epicenter of this earthquake and I say the ongoing earthquake because we have had more than 503 earthquake since December 28th. So there’s a lot of people there afraid that the economy has halt. It looks like a war zone there. And I talked to a couple of refugees that are in improvised shelters about have you seen anybody from FEMA here? And they say no. Actually, the roof of my house was destroyed with the hurricane. It took a while to repair it. And now the structure, especially the walls of my house are destroyed. Now I have a roof, but I don’t have walls in in my house, so I have to be in an improvised shelter that the only people that have bringing humanitarian aid has been local organizations and individuals that want to show solidarity. But there is, as I said, no interest whatsoever in the local or the federal government.
Greg Wolpert: Well that’s exactly the issue I want to turn to now. The US government is supposed to disperse $18 billion in aid, but the Trump administration is refusing to do so arguing that corruption in Puerto Rico would make disbursement pointless. Now Trump is withholding this aid even though Congress recently mandated the immediate release of $8 billion worth of aid. Now what’s your reaction to the Trump administration’s argument about corruption as being the reason for or justification for holding back aid?
José C.: That’s just an excuse. We can see how much the president cares about Puerto Rico. It’s more than one week from the big earthquake and so far, not even one statement saying, I’m sorry with the victims we don’t have in here even that. That anybody will will say, especially in his position. The federal government have many controls for corruption.
No reconstruction in any state will depend on the good faith of local officials. The federal government have many controls for corruption and even though FBI actually works in Puerto Rico and is paying a lot of attention to these issues. I don’t think that we should be waiting more than two years for reconstructing houses and people are suffering. I saw many going to the countryside here in Puerto Rico, many houses with blue tarp in a season where you have a lot of rain in the island.
I don’t say there is any justification for that and also there is no justification to be exaggerating the figures. President Trump said that it has been $90 billions and no one in Congress has even said that number or allocate or or obligate those funds. We’re talking just about $40 billions that have been obligated. And not even half of those have been dispersed.
So the recovery from hurricane Maria, I will say that is not even in the middle. We are not in the middle of it. We are just at the beginning of the recovery of hurricane Maria. And on top of that, we have this earthquake that just is exacerbating the situation.
Greg Wolpert: Now I want to turn to the internal political situation in Puerto Rico. That is, how is that affecting the disaster recovery effort? I mentioned earlier that governor Ricardo Rosselló had to resign and now there’s a new governor, Wanda Vázquez, who’s running for election in 2021. What if any effect has that had on the recovery effort? And also can you talk about the referendum on statehood that’s scheduled for later, I think, this year? What impact might that have on the situation right now?
José C.: I was hoping that because we are in an election year in Puerto Rico and in the US that I was hoping that the reaction is going to be better and I also was hoping that given the experience with Maria and how people get angry with local and federal officials, I hope that this recover is going to be better and faster, but I think history is repeating itself right here.
There is a big disregard about this new government that we have in Puerto Rico because most of the officials are the same one that used to work with the previous governor and they really are not paying attention, not even having a plan to how to address this disaster. Some people are talking that we have to evacuate people from the South, move it to other parts.
I’m not even sure how they’re going do that. There’s a lot of poor people that are actually Guánica will qualify us the poorest county in any US territory. It’s 65% of the population that is poor there. How are you going to evacuate that population? It’s hard to know and there is no plan and actually they’re are just talking about elections and how they’re going to win, but they’re not really establishing any policy to recover from hurricane Maria to recover from this earthquake and to prepare us here or the next event that we may have.
Greg Wolpert: Okay, well. We’re going to have to leave it there for now, but I was speaking to José Caraballo-Cueto, associate professor at the University of Puerto Rico. Thanks again, José, for having joined us today.
José C.: Thank you.
Greg Wolpert: And thank you for joining The Real News Network.
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therealnews--2020-01-14--US Commits Acts of War, But No One Is Asking the Hard Questions

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Marc Steiner : Welcome to The Real News .
I ’ m Marc Steiner .
Great to have you all with us .
When you look at the coverage of the killing of Soleimani , the situation in Iraq and Iran , pulling out of the nuclear treaty with Iran , and the subsequent sanctions against that country , you have to begin to ask yourself , who ’ s been asking the tough questions , that we laud the murders of those the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the wake of Soleimani , we see that lies were told once again , that this has been in the works since 2017 , not just over the last couple of weeks .
We read stories in the New York Times and see on TV news programs stories of Iraq War veterans killed and maimed .
They ’ re now suing Iraq .
I understand the pain they go through , but do we have amnesia here ?
Are the lies told to us about Bush , Cheney , Tenent , Rumsfeld that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ first place ?
Do you remember the United States worked with Soleimani to fight ISIS ?
Do you remember that ?
And now the choices of increased conflicts in the Middle and Near East have grown exponentially .
We ’ re going to figure this out today , at least part of it , with our guest , Khury Petersen-Smith , Middle East research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies , whose most recent article appeared in In These Times , called We Need a Strong Antiwar Movement , Yesterday .
Khury @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back with us .
Khury P. : Thank you .
It ’ s always great to be here , Marc .
Marc Steiner : Essentially , you started your article off with reminding us of not what just happened on January the 3rd , reminding us what happened on January the 1st , 2019 when Jamal al-Badawi was assassinated .
Khury P. : Yeah , exactly .
Folks who have been paying attention to the drone war that the United States started after declaring the so-called war on terror under Bush and then @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that war has been shrouded in secrecy .
It ’ s been operated by the Department of Defense and the CIA and they have not disclosed who was on the list of people to be killed , how you get off the list , when the killings happened , et cetera .
Journalists and scholars and activists had been trying to figure this out for a long time .
Last year , January 1st opens with a U.S. drone strike in Yemen and CENTCOM , under the Department of Defense , tweets it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Here we do have some information where the U.S. is publicly assassinating somebody by drone .
Yet , where were the questions about that assassination and whether or not it was justified , about the legality of the U.S. carrying out an extrajudicial assassination elsewhere in the world ?
Presumably , we want these things to be public .
They shouldn ’ t be happening at all , but they should be public and transparent so that these institutions can be held accountable .
Yet , the institutions that are supposed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the mainstream media , really have failed to ask questions with that assassination .
There ’ s any number of things that happened over the past year that Congress in particular did not ask questions about when the U.S. did all kinds of things , not only in terms of threatening Iran , but in terms of escalating the war on terror in Somalia , continuing operations in Yemen and , of course , in Iraq and elsewhere in the region , in Syria and so on .
This is really the most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ this point .
Last week we had a situation where the U.S. really was on the brink of war with Iran in Iraq , and it was good to see members of Congress asking questions about the justification of the assassination of Soleimani .
It was good talking about the fact that Congress is the entity that has a say in the Declaration of War and so on , but there were all these other actions that really paved the way to get us to that point .
We have to look at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Let ’ s look at a couple of things here .
Let ’ s start with this .
This is an interesting montage of the U.S. media in the wake of Soleimani ’ s assassination .
Media clips : I think with these Democrats , largely , you ’ re seeing these are lawmakers in more conservative districts .
You can ’ t have this debate in this kind of supercharged partisan atmosphere .
Nancy Pelosi does it again and her Democrats fall right in line .
By the way , I don @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
This is the resistance continuing overseas as adamantly as we ’ ve seen it here at home .
Marc Steiner : If you take that , and also if you look at the article that was in New York Times today about the kind of fluctuating expectations for the Soleimani strike , explanations , I should say , that the Trump administration gave .
There were a lot of lies leading up to this , so the question is , let me talk to you a bit about your thoughts that I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ writing about , about what has not been asked and what should have been asked .
Khury P. : Right .
We can go back .
Of course , there ’ s a whole long history and questions that haven ’ t been asked , but even just going back to December , the month opens with the Washington Post publishing what they call the Afghanistan papers , a whole trove of documents and articles that constitute an investigation about how the U.S. lied over years , over these 18 years that the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and that U.S. officials , even from their strategic standpoint , don ’ t have a way of winning the war , if you can call it that .
Yet , they have continued to maintain these operations , to continue funding the operations and so on .
That was an opportunity for Congress to say , wow , we should have some congressional hearings into the fact that officials have been lying about U.S. operations in this country under so-called war on terror .
Shortly after that , the New York Times @ @ @ @ @ @ @ interviews with Navy SEALS , that really confirm what we already knew , that a Navy SEAL , Eddie Gallagher , who was charged with committing war crimes in Iraq , was in fact guilty of those crimes .
Again , this is another area where the U.S. has been doing military operations for years and years .
We have evidence of the U.S. committing war crimes in that country as well .
Yet , where were the congressional hearings ?
In fact , the opposite thing happened .
Congress passed a new @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , really giving Trump the green light to continue the operations that he has been carrying out .
By the way , there were provisions , such as that reported by [ inaudible 00:06:45 ] that say that the president does not have the authority to declare war on Iran , that were stripped , actually , from that final bill .
That was voted on with the support of 188 Democrats in the House .
There was any number of , even before we get to the assassination of Soleimani , Congress @ @ @ @ @ @ @ repeatedly in terms of military activity .
Marc Steiner : What you ’ re referring to here is the National Defense Authorization Act that took place on December the 10th , and the vote was 377 to 48 .
If you juxtapose that with this graphic here of the weapons contractors and the profit they ’ re making , how their shares soared , I should say , after the killing of Soleimani , there ’ s a direct connection between that act , weapons contractors , the U.S. Congress , and why @ @ @ @ @ @ @ asking questions .
That , to me , is at the heart of this .
Khury P. : Yeah , absolutely .
Essentially it ’ s just the U.S. military machine .
It ’ s like a runaway train and there ’ s nobody providing any kind of oversight for what the U.S. is doing in these wars .
It ’ s really kind of incredible .
Again , I ’ ve referred to a couple of things .
We ’ re talking about U.S. operations in Afghanistan , in Iraq as well @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that ’ s repeatedly voted to put sanctions on Iran , too .
In any number of ways , Trump has been given the green light to go ahead and basically do anything .
The U.S. military is able to do anything .
We have evidence from Afghanistan to Somalia that the war on terror has only brought destruction and catastrophe and yet , year after year , we see support for that kind of war .
Similarly , last week- that ’ s , think , in terms of government officials , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it ’ s their role to be providing some oversight and I really think have failed to .
Similarly , when we ’ re talking about the mainstream media , it is good that we are seeing some questions after the fact , after the assassination , after we were on the precipice of a new round of war with Iran , but during that week when we were on the brink , these questions were not being asked in the mainstream media nearly enough .
These institutions that are supposed to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ U.S. military are really failing , and I think that points to the importance of an antiwar movement to hold the government accountable .
Marc Steiner : Let ’ s talk a bit about that , because we don ’ t know how this is going to unfold .
It could unfold in some major confrontations inside of Iraq and Iran .
We see massive movements in both of those countries , against their own governments and also against American intervention .
They ’ re not for the Americans , or they ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ be a place where they can live in a civil society .
Marc Steiner : You see that taking place and you see articles like in the New York Times today about American soldiers who were maimed and/or killed in Iraq , now suing Iran .
Again , it ’ s like when you ’ re talking about an antiwar movement , it ’ s almost like the left is stuck in some ways between a rock and a hard place .
When you look at those articles , my first thought , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Bush and Dick Cheney for lying us into this war that killed these Americans and maimed these Americans , not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and dismembering an entire nation .
There ’ s an emotionality to it all .
Americans who were killed and maimed are seen as fighting for their country .
The same thing happened in Vietnam .
You can go all the way back to the Spanish American War with the antiwar movement .
Let ’ s talk about the difficulty here of building that opposition @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Congress voting against the national authorization , the defense act .
Marc Steiner : Let ’ s maybe take , extrapolate out , this idea you have about building an antiwar movement with that difficulty people face in the popular mind .
Khury P. : Right , absolutely .
What this really gets at , I think , is the commitment to U.S .
Empire , which is so strong .
It is overwhelmingly bipartisan and it really presents a challenge for those of us here who are critical of what the U.S. @ @ @ @ @ @ @ key is for us to have an orientation on the struggles in the region and around the world that are fighting for self-determination .
That ’ s really got to guide us .
In other words , we need to build an antiwar movement , but the movement needs to be a solidarity movement with people who are fighting for their own futures .
Before the assassination of Soleimani or , really , before the protests that took place at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq , the news that captured headlines for months @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the streets for months and months , fighting for a different Iraq .
Khury P. : Iraqis of various backgrounds , overcoming the sectarian divisions that have been imposed on them , saying that we want a different country .
We ’ re against this corrupt government .
We ’ re against the foreign influence in this country , whether that ’ s by the United States or by Iran .
It ’ s important to note that because there was some coverage in this country in the mainstream media of the protests @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and in Southern Iraq and so on , that ’ s very significant because Iran does have great influence in Iraq .
The United States , I mean , the current Iraqi government , its origins lie in the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq .
That government has been given billions of dollars by the United States , particularly in a form of military aid , in terms of training and in terms of the joint operations that the U.S. has been carrying out with that Iraqi state .
This was a struggle @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S. is backing in Iraq .
It is , I would say , one of many inspiring troubles in the region , including in Lebanon , again , where there ’ s been this mobilization for months when people are fighting , again , against a corrupt government and against sectarian division and fighting for a new kind of future .
We ’ ve seen popular protests in Iran as well .
Here you have people who are fighting from Lebanon to Iraq , to Iran , to Egypt , to Syria @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in many ways challenging the U.S. presence and the U.S. Wars in that region .
The question is , what are we doing in this country to build a solidarity movement that stands with those people and that ’ s really important .
Marc Steiner : I think that ’ s very critical and I think that that sounds like a subject we should have a little round table about with you and some others about how you do that .
In Vietnam , where things have turned around the Vietnam War , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it , was the Vietnam Veterans Against the War .
You have people like Danny [ inaudible 00:13:45 ] and Matthew Ho and other Iraqi-Afghan vets who are key to showing America that there ’ s a different way and what happened to them and why they changed their thinking .
I think that ’ s , a movement does have the ability that can be stopped , because I feel like we ’ re being railroaded into another war , we could be being railroaded into another war .
Khury P. : @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s , I think you ’ re totally right .
There have been courageous veterans who have spoken up against the U.S. operations , political prisoners like Chelsea Manning , who- Khury P. : Have spoken up , right ?
Those voices are really critical .
I also think , one thing , one difference between the U.S. ’ s wars today and those that took place in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and ’ 70s , is there is a much larger population of folks in diaspora whose nations of origin are @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , who are living here in the United States and who have been speaking out against their oppression , against their communities , against Somali communities , against the Iraqis who have been attacked by ICE and so on in Michigan and elsewhere .
Last week , one of the issues was not only , it wasn ’ t just that the U.S. was gunning for war with Iran , it ’ s that people of Iranian background were detained at the U.S. border trying to re-enter the United States as well .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the Muslim ban .
There ’ s a large population of folks who are intimately connected with people in Iran and Iraq and Somalia and Yemen and those who live here , who live in North America .
I think that they have a really important role to play in terms of the solidarity movement .
I think that it ’ s backwards .
We have to ask ourselves , how are we building a movement that involves that kind of solidarity ?
That requires not only looking at what the U.S. is @ @ @ @ @ @ @ taking on the incredible Islamophobia and repression that has characterized domestic life in the United States here for people of that population .
Marc Steiner : I wish we had great deal more time with Khury .
We ’ re talking with Khury Petersen-Smith , who is a Middle East research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington , D.C. joining us today from Boston .
Khury , thanks for your work .
Look forward to continuing this discussion with you in the coming weeks and months , and seeing if @ @ @ @ @ @ @ at a massive scale .
Thanks so much for joining us .
Khury P. : Thank you so much , Marc .
It ’ s always a pleasure .
Marc Steiner : Mine , too .
I ’ m Marc Steiner here for The Real News Network .
Please let us know what you think .
Take care .

Gen. Soleimani was an ally in the fight against ISIS, just as Saddam was an ally against Iran. Why did the U.S. turn against them?
Story Transcript
This is a rush transcript and may contain errors. It will be updated.
Marc Steiner: Welcome to The Real News. I’m Marc Steiner. Great to have you all with us. When you look at the coverage of the killing of Soleimani, the situation in Iraq and Iran, pulling out of the nuclear treaty with Iran, and the subsequent sanctions against that country, you have to begin to ask yourself, who’s been asking the tough questions, that we laud the murders of those the United States classifies as terrorists and, on the wake of Soleimani, we see that lies were told once again, that this has been in the works since 2017, not just over the last couple of weeks.
We read stories in the New York Times and see on TV news programs stories of Iraq War veterans killed and maimed. They’re now suing Iraq. I understand the pain they go through, but do we have amnesia here? Are the lies told to us about Bush, Cheney, Tenent, Rumsfeld that got us into this war in the first place? Do you remember the United States worked with Soleimani to fight ISIS? Do you remember that? And now the choices of increased conflicts in the Middle and Near East have grown exponentially.
We’re going to figure this out today, at least part of it, with our guest, Khury Petersen-Smith, Middle East research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies, whose most recent article appeared in In These Times, called We Need a Strong Antiwar Movement, Yesterday. Khury, welcome. Good to have you back with us.
Khury P.: Thank you. It’s always great to be here, Marc.
Marc Steiner: Essentially, you started your article off with reminding us of not what just happened on January the 3rd, reminding us what happened on January the 1st, 2019 when Jamal al-Badawi was assassinated.
Khury P.: Yeah, exactly. Folks who have been paying attention to the drone war that the United States started after declaring the so-called war on terror under Bush and then wildly escalated under Obama, know that that war has been shrouded in secrecy. It’s been operated by the Department of Defense and the CIA and they have not disclosed who was on the list of people to be killed, how you get off the list, when the killings happened, et cetera. Journalists and scholars and activists had been trying to figure this out for a long time.
Last year, January 1st opens with a U.S. drone strike in Yemen and CENTCOM, under the Department of Defense, tweets it out on Twitter a few days later. Here we do have some information where the U.S. is publicly assassinating somebody by drone. Yet, where were the questions about that assassination and whether or not it was justified, about the legality of the U.S. carrying out an extrajudicial assassination elsewhere in the world?
Presumably, we want these things to be public. They shouldn’t be happening at all, but they should be public and transparent so that these institutions can be held accountable. Yet, the institutions that are supposed to have that accountability, like Congress, the mainstream media, really have failed to ask questions with that assassination. There’s any number of things that happened over the past year that Congress in particular did not ask questions about when the U.S. did all kinds of things, not only in terms of threatening Iran, but in terms of escalating the war on terror in Somalia, continuing operations in Yemen and, of course, in Iraq and elsewhere in the region, in Syria and so on.
This is really the most recent stage that gets us up to this point. Last week we had a situation where the U.S. really was on the brink of war with Iran in Iraq, and it was good to see members of Congress asking questions about the justification of the assassination of Soleimani. It was good talking about the fact that Congress is the entity that has a say in the Declaration of War and so on, but there were all these other actions that really paved the way to get us to that point. We have to look at all of those.
Marc Steiner: Let’s look at a couple of things here. Let’s start with this. This is an interesting montage of the U.S. media in the wake of Soleimani’s assassination.
Media clips: I think with these Democrats, largely, you’re seeing these are lawmakers in more conservative districts.
You can’t have this debate in this kind of supercharged partisan atmosphere.
Nancy Pelosi does it again and her Democrats fall right in line.
By the way, I don’t care about Iranian cultural sites. This is the resistance continuing overseas as adamantly as we’ve seen it here at home.
Marc Steiner: If you take that, and also if you look at the article that was in New York Times today about the kind of fluctuating expectations for the Soleimani strike, explanations, I should say, that the Trump administration gave. There were a lot of lies leading up to this, so the question is, let me talk to you a bit about your thoughts that I know you have you’ve been writing about, about what has not been asked and what should have been asked.
Khury P.: Right. We can go back. Of course, there’s a whole long history and questions that haven’t been asked, but even just going back to December, the month opens with the Washington Post publishing what they call the Afghanistan papers, a whole trove of documents and articles that constitute an investigation about how the U.S. lied over years, over these 18 years that the U.S. has been waging war in Afghanistan and that U.S. officials, even from their strategic standpoint, don’t have a way of winning the war, if you can call it that.
Yet, they have continued to maintain these operations, to continue funding the operations and so on. That was an opportunity for Congress to say, wow, we should have some congressional hearings into the fact that officials have been lying about U.S. operations in this country under so-called war on terror.
Shortly after that, the New York Times published a set of documents, including interviews with Navy SEALS, that really confirm what we already knew, that a Navy SEAL, Eddie Gallagher, who was charged with committing war crimes in Iraq, was in fact guilty of those crimes. Again, this is another area where the U.S. has been doing military operations for years and years. We have evidence of the U.S. committing war crimes in that country as well.
Yet, where were the congressional hearings? In fact, the opposite thing happened. Congress passed a new military budget, $733 billion dollars, really giving Trump the green light to continue the operations that he has been carrying out. By the way, there were provisions, such as that reported by [inaudible 00:06:45] that say that the president does not have the authority to declare war on Iran, that were stripped, actually, from that final bill. That was voted on with the support of 188 Democrats in the House. There was any number of, even before we get to the assassination of Soleimani, Congress has essentially given Trump a green light repeatedly in terms of military activity.
Marc Steiner: What you’re referring to here is the National Defense Authorization Act that took place on December the 10th, and the vote was 377 to 48. If you juxtapose that with this graphic here of the weapons contractors and the profit they’re making, how their shares soared, I should say, after the killing of Soleimani, there’s a direct connection between that act, weapons contractors, the U.S. Congress, and why people vote the way they do without asking questions. That, to me, is at the heart of this.
Khury P.: Yeah, absolutely. Essentially it’s just the U.S. military machine. It’s like a runaway train and there’s nobody providing any kind of oversight for what the U.S. is doing in these wars. It’s really kind of incredible. Again, I’ve referred to a couple of things. We’re talking about U.S. operations in Afghanistan, in Iraq as well with Iran. We have a Congress that’s repeatedly voted to put sanctions on Iran, too. In any number of ways, Trump has been given the green light to go ahead and basically do anything. The U.S. military is able to do anything.
We have evidence from Afghanistan to Somalia that the war on terror has only brought destruction and catastrophe and yet, year after year, we see support for that kind of war. Similarly, last week- that’s, think, in terms of government officials, particularly in Congress, who, really, it’s their role to be providing some oversight and I really think have failed to.
Similarly, when we’re talking about the mainstream media, it is good that we are seeing some questions after the fact, after the assassination, after we were on the precipice of a new round of war with Iran, but during that week when we were on the brink, these questions were not being asked in the mainstream media nearly enough. These institutions that are supposed to be checks on the power of the U.S. military are really failing, and I think that points to the importance of an antiwar movement to hold the government accountable.
Marc Steiner: Let’s talk a bit about that, because we don’t know how this is going to unfold. It could unfold in some major confrontations inside of Iraq and Iran. We see massive movements in both of those countries, against their own governments and also against American intervention. They’re not for the Americans, or they’re for their own nation trying to be a place where they can live in a civil society.
Khury P.: Right.
Marc Steiner: You see that taking place and you see articles like in the New York Times today about American soldiers who were maimed and/or killed in Iraq, now suing Iran. Again, it’s like when you’re talking about an antiwar movement, it’s almost like the left is stuck in some ways between a rock and a hard place. When you look at those articles, my first thought, why aren’t we blaming George Bush and Dick Cheney for lying us into this war that killed these Americans and maimed these Americans, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and dismembering an entire nation.
There’s an emotionality to it all. Americans who were killed and maimed are seen as fighting for their country. The same thing happened in Vietnam. You can go all the way back to the Spanish American War with the antiwar movement. Let’s talk about the difficulty here of building that opposition. You only have 48 people in Congress voting against the national authorization, the defense act.
Khury P.: Right.
Marc Steiner: Let’s maybe take, extrapolate out, this idea you have about building an antiwar movement with that difficulty people face in the popular mind.
Khury P.: Right, absolutely. What this really gets at, I think, is the commitment to U.S. Empire, which is so strong. It is overwhelmingly bipartisan and it really presents a challenge for those of us here who are critical of what the U.S. does abroad. I think that the key is for us to have an orientation on the struggles in the region and around the world that are fighting for self-determination. That’s really got to guide us.
In other words, we need to build an antiwar movement, but the movement needs to be a solidarity movement with people who are fighting for their own futures. Before the assassination of Soleimani or, really, before the protests that took place at the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, the news that captured headlines for months out of Iraq was people mobilized on the streets for months and months, fighting for a different Iraq.
Marc Steiner: Right.
Khury P.: Iraqis of various backgrounds, overcoming the sectarian divisions that have been imposed on them, saying that we want a different country. We’re against this corrupt government. We’re against the foreign influence in this country, whether that’s by the United States or by Iran. It’s important to note that because there was some coverage in this country in the mainstream media of the protests against Iran, against the Iranian consulates and in Southern Iraq and so on, that’s very significant because Iran does have great influence in Iraq.
The United States, I mean, the current Iraqi government, its origins lie in the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq. That government has been given billions of dollars by the United States, particularly in a form of military aid, in terms of training and in terms of the joint operations that the U.S. has been carrying out with that Iraqi state. This was a struggle in the streets that was confronting what the U.S. is backing in Iraq.
It is, I would say, one of many inspiring troubles in the region, including in Lebanon, again, where there’s been this mobilization for months when people are fighting, again, against a corrupt government and against sectarian division and fighting for a new kind of future. We’ve seen popular protests in Iran as well. Here you have people who are fighting from Lebanon to Iraq, to Iran, to Egypt, to Syria, people who are mobilizing, and in many ways challenging the U.S. presence and the U.S. Wars in that region. The question is, what are we doing in this country to build a solidarity movement that stands with those people and that’s really important.
Marc Steiner: I think that’s very critical and I think that that sounds like a subject we should have a little round table about with you and some others about how you do that. In Vietnam, where things have turned around the Vietnam War, part of it, not all of it, was the Vietnam Veterans Against the War. You have people like Danny [inaudible 00:13:45] and Matthew Ho and other Iraqi-Afghan vets who are key to showing America that there’s a different way and what happened to them and why they changed their thinking. I think that’s, a movement does have the ability that can be stopped, because I feel like we’re being railroaded into another war, we could be being railroaded into another war.
Khury P.: Yeah, I think that that’s, I think you’re totally right. There have been courageous veterans who have spoken up against the U.S. operations, political prisoners like Chelsea Manning, who-
Marc Steiner: Right.
Khury P.: Have spoken up, right? Those voices are really critical. I also think, one thing, one difference between the U.S.’s wars today and those that took place in Southeast Asia in the 1960s and ’70s, is there is a much larger population of folks in diaspora whose nations of origin are places where the U.S. is waging war, who are living here in the United States and who have been speaking out against their oppression, against their communities, against Somali communities, against the Iraqis who have been attacked by ICE and so on in Michigan and elsewhere. Last week, one of the issues was not only, it wasn’t just that the U.S. was gunning for war with Iran, it’s that people of Iranian background were detained at the U.S. border trying to re-enter the United States as well.
Marc Steiner: Right, right.
Khury P.: That also speaks to the Muslim ban. There’s a large population of folks who are intimately connected with people in Iran and Iraq and Somalia and Yemen and those who live here, who live in North America. I think that they have a really important role to play in terms of the solidarity movement. I think that it’s backwards. We have to ask ourselves, how are we building a movement that involves that kind of solidarity? That requires not only looking at what the U.S. is doing abroad, but it also involves taking on the incredible Islamophobia and repression that has characterized domestic life in the United States here for people of that population.
Marc Steiner: I wish we had great deal more time with Khury. We’re talking with Khury Petersen-Smith, who is a Middle East research fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C. joining us today from Boston. Khury, thanks for your work. Look forward to continuing this discussion with you in the coming weeks and months, and seeing if that movement can’t be built at a massive scale. Thanks so much for joining us.
Khury P.: Thank you so much, Marc. It’s always a pleasure.
Marc Steiner: Mine, too. I’m Marc Steiner here for The Real News Network. Please let us know what you think. Take care.
Studio: Adam Coley, Taylor Hebden
Production: Genevieve Montinar, Taylor Hebden, Andrew Corkery
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therealnews--2020-01-14--Poverty Is the New Draft

Poverty Is the New Draft

This is a rush transcript and may contain errors .
It will be updated .
Jackie Luqman : This is Jackie Luqman with The Real News Network .
Last week and this , Black Twitter was aflood with funny memes that seem to make light about how black people aren ’ t included in the “ We ’ re going to war with Iran ” sentiment because the push for this war wasn ’ t about black people or what black people wanted .
But all jokes aside , are black and Latino and native and poor white people really @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s military actions , or are they more involved in them than they realize or would even like to be ?
Here to talk about all the ways that black people , brown people , and poor people actually are the people most targeted by military recruiters , which puts them right in the cross hairs of military action , is Erica Caines .
Erica is a local organizer in Baltimore and is the founder of Liberation Through Reading .
You can find that on # liberationthroughreading on Twitter .
Erica , thank @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Caines : Thank you for having me .
Jackie Luqman : So since the draft ended in 1973 , militaries relied on an all voluntary service and has used strategies that target young people that include placing recruiters in schools .
People don ’ t know where that comes from because it ’ s from the No Child Left Behind Act signed by President George Bush in 2002 which requires military recruiters to be granted the same access in schools that college recruiters are granted .
Erica , how does this affect black @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and does it affect them differently than everybody else ?
Erica Caines : Oh yeah .
Well , as we can see , it ’ s a societal issue obviously .
What we know is that we are , well , black and brown colonized people , are specifically targeted because they kind of corner us , squeeze us without options .
I think a report just came out that said that this was the highest recruitment year specifically because they targeted student loan debt .
What it is is that the common @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black people are not necessarily patriotic .
We are just out of option .
So I would attribute that to what ’ s happening at the schools and why they ’ re also making it an access to or access out of poverty the same way that colleges are used .
Jackie Luqman : So Erica , what you ’ re saying is that the military is targeting young people who are out of financial and economic options .
So what is going on is that it may not be a national draft @ @ @ @ @ @ @ a few years ago , the phrase popped up a few years ago , a poverty draft .
Is that pretty accurate ?
Erica Caines : Yes .
I would say that poverty in fact is the new draft .
I think they are creating conditions , systemic and systematic conditions that are leaving poor black colonized people without choices .
We ’ re seeing that we ’ re suffering from lack of healthcare .
The military offers that .
Lack of free education , the military offers that .
Housing , the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s happening is we ’ re kind of getting squeezed into if you don ’ t find yourself with the ability to go to higher education or go to college because you have been deemed not smart enough of or don ’ t have the money to get into colleges because higher education is not free , then the military is always the other option .
Jackie Luqman : And actually the data from the Department of Defense actually backs up what you say because the 2017 population representation in the military services @ @ @ @ @ @ @ military members come from neighborhoods with a median household income of around $ 40,000 or less .
Keeping in mind that in 2017 the median US household income was around $ 60,000 , and that ’ s according to the United States census .
So the things that military recruiters are doing , Erica , to entice kids in high schools and sometimes even from what I understand middle school to get them to sign up in the military seemed pretty nefarious .
One of the things are military sponsored a video game @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ways that recruiters might entice young people to join the military that their parents may not be aware of that are going on ?
Erica Caines : I mean , I talk about this often about Girl Scouts of America , just with their partnership with Raytheon , even though that is not the military itself , it ’ s still an extension of the military .
And I think that partnership , what it does is it normalizes that relationship or normalizes military or the US military existence .
I don ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that that partnership exists because a lot of the enticement with military is wrapped up in STEM or tech programs .
That ’ s a big push .
And I think that we see that push , especially during the Obama years .
And I do want to say that it was especially during those years that you can see that black people , I don ’ t want to say became extra patriotic , but kind of gotten used to the idea of assimilating into being an American and what that meant @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and that all translated into acceptance of the military .
Jackie Luqman : So I want to touch on really quickly what you said about black people in particular wanted to be accepted as American , especially under the Obama years .
What ’ s the historical reference to that ?
Because I think there is a unique strain of the history of black people in this country that ties wanting to be accepted as American in military service .
Can you elaborate on that a little bit ?
Erica Caines : I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in how I speak about military servicemen as individuals and just the function of a military because many black people do join , and we do have many black veterans .
I think the difference now though is that when we speak to elders , we ’ re speaking to people who were drafted .
We ’ re not necessarily talking to people who volunteered .
Whereas now we have been involved in a war since I was a freshman in high school at 2001 , and black people have since continuously volunteered @ @ @ @ @ @ @ not necessarily a product of over-patriotism or the sense of pride of America , but I think that that disconnect really occurred during the Obama years where we got to see ourselves or somebody who looked like us represented this country that always denied us .
And I think before we looked at , especially during the Bush years , we were incredibly anti-war because it was always looked at “ this is a y ’ all thing , this is a us and them , this is not a black people ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ became a black president , there was no way to separate any conflicts .
Jackie Luqman : That is really interesting , especially because it seems like we ’ ve gone back to that sentiment in the black community with this conflict that we are hoping is a deescalating between the United States and Iran , where , as I said at the beginning of our discussion , there were a lot of memes floating around social media , on Black Twitter , on Facebook , and on Instagram kind of making light @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Iran , if it was going to exist , was not black people ’ s war .
And I ’ m going to venture to say that some native Americans and some Latino people and certainly some poor people express the idea that they were not willing to fight another rich man ’ s war .
But what were your sentiments ?
What were you thinking when you saw some of those memes come up on your social media timeline ?
Erica Caines : I mean naturally as an anti-imperialist and an antiwar @ @ @ @ @ @ @ it funny .
I found it kind of disturbing in a way because I don ’ t think that connections or I don ’ t think people understood why it wasn ’ t funny .
It wasn ’ t that I didn ’ t… The common excuse was , was that this is just something that black people traditionally do .
We laugh at our pain .
But I counter that with , but this isn ’ t our pain .
We ’ re not the people who are going to be affected @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in it .
I mean regardless if we are for the war , we are for candidates that push sanctions .
We are for candidates that support wars and support these actions .
And to remove yourself from these things and not consider your part , it just shows this vast disconnect and the kind of black apathy that I don ’ t recall ever seeing or reading a text or even speaking to elders about .
There ’ s always been that contradiction and it ’ s always been that battle between @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and those who didn ’ t .
But I think now what we ’ re seeing is just a sort of just don ’ t care .
I mean , we noticed that with all these uprisings going around the world .
There ’ s no real investment in it .
Not in the days of of the Civil Rights Black Power Movement where we were distinctly antiwar and pushed the antiwar movement .
We were the head of it .
I know now they rewrite it and they put other people there @ @ @ @ @ @ @ black people standing down against the draft and refusing to take part of it .
That really rocked the boat .
And I think that we are so far removed from that now .
Jackie Luqman : Now , that seems to me that that ’ s a function of lack of political education especially when you mentioned the issue of sanctions where people in this country , and I want to get your thoughts on this , people in this country don ’ t think of the economic dire straits that marginalized @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s manufactured .
Poverty is a manufactured condition in the United States .
People don ’ t think that way .
So when they ’ re talking about , they meaning the US government , talking about imposing sanctions on another country full of brown people or another country full of Muslims , or another country that this government has considered the other and the enemy , most Americans don ’ t think that that ’ s so bad as long as we ’ re not dropping bombs on people because it ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ economic sanctions in this country .
Marginalized people do , and we feel the pain from that .
But we can not make the connection between the imposed economic conditions that cause young people to be more likely to look at the military as a viable option for getting a college education , for getting healthcare , for getting housing .
We don ’ t connect that pain , that economic pain that is created here in this country with the economic pain that ’ s created when sanctions are imposed on another @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to me for marginalized young people in this country to sign up to be a part of that imperialist machine because they lack the political education to understand the connections .
What are your thoughts on that ?
Erica Caines : Well , that ’ s what I think the big part of the antiwar movement is lacking .
I think a lot of the criticisms of mass protests are partly valid .
I think a lot of it is criticism for criticism ’ s sake , but there is a point that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ?
We can chant anti-war .
We can chant hands off Iran , but we have to really get the people to understand why it ’ s important .
I think that that ’ s part of the reason why there ’ s such a huge disconnect .
Again , I think that happened a lot during the Obama years where it was less , I don ’ t think people even understand how long we ’ ve been in Afghanistan or how long we ’ ve been in that region because we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there as often or how we visualize war with people boots on the ground .
It ’ s not how we ’ ve been doing war these last few years .
We sort of turn that around with droning and sanctions .
And I don ’ t think that people that sanctions are an act of war .
I mean , when you are intentionally starving people and preventing them for the ability to get medicine , that is an act of war .
When we look at what happened in Venezuela where @ @ @ @ @ @ @ were still referring to Maduro as a dictator and not look at anything wrong with America ’ s role and how and why people weren ’ t able to get food and medicine and such things in that country .
The same thing with Iran .
What ’ s happening in that nation is a lot of it is the cause of the US and we ’ re not understanding how war has changed , shifted more towards technology and more towards not needing to put our people in direct harm .
Jackie @ @ @ @ @ @ @ same survey that I mentioned earlier , the 2017 Population Representation in the Military Services Report from the Department of Defense says that of the young people they surveyed , 49 % said that if they were to join the military , one reason for doing so would be to pay for future education .
So young people who are joining the military do understand , especially marginalized young people who as you repeatedly made clear , recognize that they don ’ t have any options to achieve parts of the so-called American @ @ @ @ @ @ @ don ’ t have those options outside of the military .
In that reality , how do we address this situation ?
How do we challenge this system of creating an environment in which young people feel they have no other choice but to join the military in order to get healthcare and a decent place to live and a college education at the same time we are challenging the imperialism of this government and at the same time that we are trying to educate a whole new generation of people into all @ @ @ @ @ @ @ challenge this ?
Erica Caines : So I think that in realizing that poor black and brown marginalized people are pushed and squeezed and kind of cornered into joining the military , I think that people say that also as a soft way of justifying why people join the military .
They don ’ t actually say that to combat those reasons , but just to excuse it .
And I think that ’ s another way that we kind fall complicitly in it , even if it ’ s not intentional .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ the devastation and all of the placement has caused , people go , “ Well , it ’ s not the soldier ’ s fault.
” Yeah .
But in saying that we ’ re making this an individual issue and not actually challenging the structure and function of the US military .
And I think the best way to do that is create mutual aid .
I don ’ t think that people understand that we ’ re not helpless .
And I think that that ’ s just a fallback to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ helpless in this .
So we have no choice but to join the military .
And I think even in that , when we talk about why people are joining , they ’ re joining for individual reasons .
They ’ re not joining for communal uplifting .
It ’ s for an uplifting of themselves out of poverty or out of their situation or to a better way of life .
But it ’ s not like it ’ s a communal effort .
And I think if more people were to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ these avenues of mutual aid and basic community building , we can alleviate the amount of people that feel like , well the military is an option because I don ’ t have a house , I don ’ t have housing , I don ’ t have food , I don ’ t have education .
And we ’ re helping to provide these things .
Or we are seriously challenging candidates .
If voting is your thing and you ’ re seriously challenging candidates about providing these things , then that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ alleviate the amount of people that do join the military .
But we ’ re not helpless .
Jackie Luqman : You mentioned… Oh , I ’ m sorry , go ahead .
Jackie Luqman : So you mentioned joining organizations .
What are some of the organizations that you can recommend for our viewers in Baltimore and even some organizations that our viewers internationally and nationally can look into ?
Erica Caines : I am a member of the Black Lives for Peace , and I am in the Baltimore chapter and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ do political education .
We do disruptions .
We show up at the marches .
It ’ s not just a one facet thing .
It ’ s a multifaceted .
You have to combat at all angles .
We are also linked up with Eugene with People ’ s Progress Party , which I am a member of that as well .
And they do mutual aid in the community and in Baltimore they ’ re helping right now currently Douglas Homes fight to keep their housing .
So there ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of ways to combat this .
But I fear that we ’ re always going to continue to fall back on .
There ’ s nothing we do and the military is our only option .
So for as long as we continue to do that and so long as we justify the strong and long arm of US imperialism , intentional or not .
Jackie Luqman : Well , we certainly have our work cut out for us , but we thank you so much , Erica , for coming on today @ @ @ @ @ @ @ really does involve black , brown , native , Latin and poor white communities , why it is their fight also , we ’ re just fighting it from a different perspective .
So thank you so much for joining me .
Erica Caines : Thank you for having me .
Jackie Luqman : And thank you for watching .
This is Jacquelyn Luqman with the Real News Network in Washington DC .

The draft might be gone, but not everyone volunteers for the same reasons. Inconsistent access to education, healthcare, or housing means marginalized communities are systemically pushed into military service to gain those benefits–especially poor students.
Story Transcript
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: This is Jackie Luqman with The Real News Network.
Last week and this, Black Twitter was aflood with funny memes that seem to make light about how black people aren’t included in the “We’re going to war with Iran” sentiment because the push for this war wasn’t about black people or what black people wanted. But all jokes aside, are black and Latino and native and poor white people really sitting on the sidelines of America’s military actions, or are they more involved in them than they realize or would even like to be?
Here to talk about all the ways that black people, brown people, and poor people actually are the people most targeted by military recruiters, which puts them right in the cross hairs of military action, is Erica Caines. Erica is a local organizer in Baltimore and is the founder of Liberation Through Reading. You can find that on #liberationthroughreading on Twitter. Erica, thank you so much for joining.
ERICA CAINES: Thank you for having me.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: So since the draft ended in 1973, militaries relied on an all voluntary service and has used strategies that target young people that include placing recruiters in schools. People don’t know where that comes from because it’s from the No Child Left Behind Act signed by President George Bush in 2002 which requires military recruiters to be granted the same access in schools that college recruiters are granted. Erica, how does this affect black and brown and indigenous and poor communities, and does it affect them differently than everybody else?
ERICA CAINES: Oh yeah. Well, as we can see, it’s a societal issue obviously. What we know is that we are, well, black and brown colonized people, are specifically targeted because they kind of corner us, squeeze us without options. I think a report just came out that said that this was the highest recruitment year specifically because they targeted student loan debt. What it is, is that the common thing that we are hearing is that black people are not necessarily patriotic. We are just out of options. So I would attribute that to what’s happening at the schools and why they’re also making it an access out of poverty the same way that colleges are used.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: So Erica, what you’re saying is that the military is targeting young people who are out of financial and economic options. So what is going on is that it may not be a national draft, but it is what people called a few years ago, the phrase popped up a few years ago, a poverty draft. Is that pretty accurate?
ERICA CAINES: Yes. I would say that poverty in fact is the new draft. I think they are creating conditions, systemic and systematic conditions that are leaving poor black colonized people without choices. We’re seeing that we’re suffering from lack of healthcare. The military offers that. Lack of free education, the military offers that. Housing, the military offers that. So what’s happening is we’re kind of getting squeezed into if you don’t find yourself with the ability to go to higher education or go to college because you have been deemed not smart enough of or don’t have the money to get into colleges because higher education is not free, then the military is always the other option.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: And actually the data from the Department of Defense actually backs up what you say because the 2017 population representation in the military services report indicates that nearly 20% of military members come from neighborhoods with a median household income of around $40,000 or less. Keeping in mind that in 2017 the median US household income was around $60,000, and that’s according to the United States census. So the things that military recruiters are doing, Erica, to entice kids in high schools and sometimes even from what I understand middle school to get them to sign up in the military seemed pretty nefarious. One of the things are military sponsored video game tournaments. But what are some other ways that recruiters might entice young people to join the military that their parents may not be aware of that are going on?
ERICA CAINES: I mean, I talk about this often about Girl Scouts of America, just with their partnership with Raytheon, even though that is not the military itself, it’s still an extension of the military. And I think that partnership, what it does is it normalizes that relationship or normalizes military or the US military existence. I don’t think that many people are aware that that partnership exists because a lot of the enticement with military is wrapped up in STEM or tech programs. That’s a big push. And I think that we see that push, especially during the Obama years. And I do want to say that it was especially during those years that you can see that black people, I don’t want to say became extra patriotic, but kind of gotten used to the idea of assimilating into being an American and what that meant and just that pride of America, and that all translated into acceptance of the military.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: So I want to touch on really quickly what you said about black people in particular wanted to be accepted as American, especially under the Obama years. What’s the historical reference to that? Because I think there is a unique strain of the history of black people in this country that ties wanting to be accepted as American in military service. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
ERICA CAINES: I think that I try to be cautious in how I speak about military servicemen as individuals and just the function of a military because many black people do join, and we do have many black veterans. I think the difference now though is that when we speak to elders, we’re speaking to people who were drafted. We’re not necessarily talking to people who volunteered. Whereas now we have been involved in a war since I was a freshman in high school at 2001, and black people have since continuously volunteered.
And that disconnect I think is not necessarily a product of over-patriotism or the sense of pride of America, but I think that that disconnect really occurred during the Obama years where we got to see ourselves or somebody who looked like us represented this country that always denied us. And I think before we looked at, especially during the Bush years, we were incredibly anti-war because it was always looked at “this is a y’all thing, this is a us and them, this is not a black people’s war.” But then when it became a black president, there was no way to separate any conflicts.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: That is really interesting, especially because it seems like we’ve gone back to that sentiment in the black community with this conflict that we are hoping is a deescalating between the United States and Iran, where, as I said at the beginning of our discussion, there were a lot of memes floating around social media, on Black Twitter, on Facebook, and on Instagram kind of making light of the fact that this war with Iran, if it was going to exist, was not black people’s war. And I’m going to venture to say that some native Americans and some Latino people and certainly some poor people express the idea that they were not willing to fight another rich man’s war. But what were your sentiments? What were you thinking when you saw some of those memes come up on your social media timeline?
ERICA CAINES: I mean naturally, as an anti-imperialist and an antiwar organizer, I didn’t find it funny. I found it kind of disturbing in a way because I don’t think that connections or I don’t think people understood why it wasn’t funny. The common excuse was that this is just something that black people traditionally do. We laugh at our pain. But I counter that with, but this isn’t our pain. We’re not the people who are going to be affected by it and are the people complicit in it. I mean regardless if we are for the war, we are for candidates that push sanctions. We are for candidates that support wars and support these actions. And to remove yourself from these things and not consider your part, it just shows this vast disconnect and the kind of black apathy that I don’t recall ever seeing or reading a text or even speaking to elders about.
There’s always been that contradiction and it’s always been that battle between black veterans and black people who served and those who didn’t. But I think now what we’re seeing is just a sort of just don’t care. I mean, we noticed that with all these uprisings going around the world. There’s no real investment in it. Not in the days of of the Civil Rights Black Power Movement where we were distinctly antiwar and pushed the antiwar movement. We were the head of it. I know now they rewrite it and they put other people there, but it was a lot of black people standing down against the draft and refusing to take part of it. That really rocked the boat. And I think that we are so far removed from that now.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Now, that seems to me that that’s a function of lack of political education especially when you mentioned the issue of sanctions where people in this country, and I want to get your thoughts on this, people in this country don’t think of the economic dire straits that marginalized communities are in and that it’s manufactured. Poverty is a manufactured condition in the United States. People don’t think that way. So when they’re talking about, they meaning the US government, talking about imposing sanctions on another country full of brown people or another country full of Muslims, or another country that this government has considered the other and the enemy, most Americans don’t think that that’s so bad as long as we’re not dropping bombs on people because it’s just sanctions.
But we experience economic sanctions in this country. Marginalized people do, and we feel the pain from that. But we cannot make the connection between the imposed economic conditions that cause young people to be more likely to look at the military as a viable option for getting a college education, for getting healthcare, for getting housing. We don’t connect that pain, that economic pain that is created here in this country with the economic pain that’s created when sanctions are imposed on another country. And so it seems easier to me for marginalized young people in this country to sign up to be a part of that imperialist machine because they lack the political education to understand the connections. What are your thoughts on that?
ERICA CAINES: Well, that’s what I think the big part of the antiwar movement is lacking. I think a lot of the criticisms of mass protests are partly valid. I think a lot of it is criticism for criticism’s sake, but there is a point that what do we do after we mobilize? We can chant anti-war. We can chant hands off Iran, but we have to really get the people to understand why it’s important. I think that that’s part of the reason why there’s such a huge disconnect. Again, I think that happened a lot during the Obama years where it was less, I don’t think people even understand how long we’ve been in Afghanistan or how long we’ve been in that region because we haven’t had to directly go there as often or how we visualize war with people boots on the ground.
It’s not how we’ve been doing war these last few years. We sort of turn that around with droning and sanctions. And I don’t think that people that sanctions are an act of war. I mean, when you are intentionally starving people and preventing them for the ability to get medicine, that is an act of war. When we look at what happened in Venezuela where thousands of people died, yet people were still referring to Maduro as a dictator and not look at anything wrong with America’s role and how and why people weren’t able to get food and medicine and such things in that country. The same thing with Iran. What’s happening in that nation is a lot of it is the cause of the US and we’re not understanding how war has changed, shifted more towards technology and more towards not needing to put our people in direct harm.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: So, Erica, the same survey that I mentioned earlier, the 2017 Population Representation in the Military Services Report from the Department of Defense says that of the young people they surveyed, 49% said that if they were to join the military, one reason for doing so would be to pay for future education. So young people who are joining the military do understand, especially marginalized young people who as you repeatedly made clear, recognize that they don’t have any options to achieve parts of the so-called American dream that they want to achieve, don’t have those options outside of the military.
In that reality, how do we address this situation? How do we challenge this system of creating an environment in which young people feel they have no other choice but to join the military in order to get healthcare and a decent place to live and a college education at the same time we are challenging the imperialism of this government and at the same time that we are trying to educate a whole new generation of people into all of those things? How do we challenge this?
ERICA CAINES: So I think that in realizing that poor black and brown marginalized people are pushed and squeezed and kind of cornered into joining the military, I think that people say that also as a soft way of justifying why people join the military. They don’t actually say that to combat those reasons, but just to excuse it. And I think that’s another way that we kind fall complicity in it, even if it’s not intentional. When you talk about the destruction and the devastation and all of the placement has caused, people go, “Well, it’s not the soldier’s fault.” Yeah. But in saying that we’re making this an individual issue and not actually challenging the structure and function of the US military. And I think the best way to do that is create mutual aid.
I don’t think that people understand that we’re not helpless. And I think that that’s just a fallback to make it seem that we are pretty helpless in this. So we have no choice but to join the military. And I think even in that, when we talk about why people are joining, they’re joining for individual reasons. They’re not joining for communal uplifting. It’s for an uplifting of themselves out of poverty or out of their situation or to a better way of life. But it’s not like it’s a communal effort.
And I think if more people were to join organizations that are focused on creating these avenues of mutual aid and basic community building, we can alleviate the amount of people that feel like, well the military is an option because I don’t have a house, I don’t have housing, I don’t have food, I don’t have education. And we’re helping to provide these things. Or we are seriously challenging candidates. If voting is your thing and you’re seriously challenging candidates about providing these things, then that’s one way that we can alleviate the amount of people that do join the military. But we’re not helpless.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: So you mentioned joining organizations. What are some of the organizations that you can recommend for our viewers in Baltimore and even some organizations that our viewers internationally and nationally can look into?
ERICA CAINES: I am a member of the Black Lives for Peace, and I am in the Baltimore chapter and this is what we do. We do political education. We do disruptions. We show up at the marches. It’s not just a one facet thing. It’s a multifaceted. You have to combat at all angles. We are also linked up with Eugene with People’s Progress Party, which I am a member of that as well. And they do mutual aid in the community and in Baltimore they’re helping right now currently Douglas Homes fight to keep their housing.
So there’s different organizations of people in different avenues of ways to combat this. But I fear that we’re always going to continue to fall back on. There’s nothing we do and the military is our only option. So for as long as we continue to do that and so long as we justify the strong and long arm of US imperialism, intentional or not.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: Well, we certainly have our work cut out for us, but we thank you so much, Erica, for coming on today and explaining why this situation with Iran really does involve black, brown, native, Latin and poor white communities, why it is their fight also, we’re just fighting it from a different perspective. So thank you so much for joining me.
ERICA CAINES: Thank you for having me.
JACQUELINE LUQMAN: And thank you for watching. This is Jacqueline Luqman with The Real News Network in Washington, DC.
Studio: Will Arenas, Bababtunde Ogunfolaju
Production: Genevieve Montinar, Bababtunde Ogunfolaju
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therealnews--2020-01-13--Democratic Debate: Will Progressives Highlight the Cost of War?

On Tuesday , Jan. 14 , Democratic presidential contenders will square off for their seventh debate at 9PM EST on CNN .
Looming over the debates is President Donald Trump ’ s assassination of top Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Iraq , which took the U.S. to the brink of war with Iran .
Candidate positions have ranged from disagreeing with how Trump carried out the strike , to principled opposition to the killing of foreign leaders , considered a war crime under international law .
It will also be the final debate before voting begins at the Iowa caucuses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ : former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg , Sen. Amy Klobuchar ( D-MN ) , former VP Joe Biden , Sen. Bernie Sanders ( D-VT ) , Sen. Elizabeth Warren ( D-MA ) , and billionaire Tom Steyer , who surged in recent polls after spending $ 116 million on television ads .
There will be no people of color on the stage after Sen. Cory Booker ( D-NJ ) and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang failed to qualify , and former HUD secretary Julian Castro dropped out ( and endorsed Warren ) .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ campaign .
Billionaire and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also failed to qualify despite spending over $ 100 million on advertising .
The assassination of Soleimani gave the Democratic contenders , who have all criticized Trump ’ s actions , their greatest opportunity to articulate their vision of U.S. foreign policy , as well as their fundamental priorities for the nation .
Previous debates have included questions on funding programs like Medicare for All , but the corporate media rarely raises the costs of war .
Sanders , who surged ahead in @ @ @ @ @ @ @ lead role in the opposition to further escalation of tensions , introducing the No War with Iran Act with California Congressman Ro Khanna ( D ) to block additional military spending on conflict with Iran .
Sanders continued to hammer Biden ’ s support for the 2003 war in Iraq , which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and nearly 5,000 U.S. soldiers , and created the destabilization from which ISIS was able to secure a stronghold in the region .
Post-9/11 wars have cost taxpayers over $ 6.4 trillion , according to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ has fallen in the polls , also voiced opposition to war with Iran .
“ The job of the president of the United States is to keep America safer , and having killed Soleimani does not make America safer , ” Warren told The View .
Warren pointed to the timing of the assassination , saying it could have been used to distract from Trump ’ s impeachment .
The Wall Street Journal reported Trump felt pressured to act by Republican Senators whose support he needs for his upcoming impeachment trial .
Polls @ @ @ @ @ @ @ social services rather than in war and the Pentagon .
Warren and Sanders , who have called on taxing the rich to fund social services , will likely seek to capitalize on this .
Both joined a conference call with anti-war groups like MoveOn and Indivisible last week to help support grassroots protests against a move to war .
Former VP Biden , who remains the front runner in national polls , attacked Trump , tweeting “ Donald Trump brought us dangerously close to starting a new war with Iran without any semblance @ @ @ @ @ @ @ also highlighted Trump ’ s withdrawal from the landmark Iran nuclear deal , a key accomplishment of the Obama administration , of which he was part .
Biden also recently falsely claimed he opposed the Iraq War from the beginning .
Buttigieg , who has been rising in the polls , used the incident to highlight his experience as a former naval intelligence officer , and to attack Trump ’ s handling of the situation .
But he has not expressed principled opposition to war in Iran .
He also said rising tensions @ @ @ @ @ @ @ says was the unintentional downing of a Ukranian flight , killing all 176 on board .
Sen. Klobachar said the president must obtain congressional authorization : “ We can only hope that the president has carefully thought through the national security implications of this attack , ” Bloomberg said in a statement , ” and urged Trump to de-escalate tensions with Iran .
He also attacked Sanders for calling Solemani ’ s killing an assassination .
The debate is hosted in partnership with the Des Moines Register and will be held at Drake @ @ @ @ @ @ @ where The Real News covered a rally for Sanders headlined by freshmen Congressmen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in November .

On Tuesday, Jan. 14, Democratic presidential contenders will square off for their seventh debate at 9PM EST on CNN. Looming over the debates is President Donald Trump’s assassination of top Iranian General Qasem Soleimani in Iraq, which took the U.S. to the brink of war with Iran. Candidate positions have ranged from disagreeing with how Trump carried out the strike, to principled opposition to the killing of foreign leaders, considered a war crime under international law. It will also be the final debate before voting begins at the Iowa caucuses on Feb. 3rd.
Six candidates qualified: former South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D-MN), former VP Joe Biden, Sen. Bernie Sanders (D-VT), Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), and billionaire Tom Steyer, who surged in recent polls after spending $116 million on television ads.
There will be no people of color on the stage after Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) and tech entrepreneur Andrew Yang failed to qualify, and former HUD secretary Julian Castro dropped out (and endorsed Warren). On Monday, Booker suspended his presidential campaign. Billionaire and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg also failed to qualify despite spending over $100 million on advertising.
The assassination of Soleimani gave the Democratic contenders, who have all criticized Trump’s actions, their greatest opportunity to articulate their vision of U.S. foreign policy, as well as their fundamental priorities for the nation. Previous debates have included questions on funding programs like Medicare for All, but the corporate media rarely raises the costs of war.
Sanders, who surged ahead in key polls in Iowa, took a lead role in the opposition to further escalation of tensions, introducing the No War with Iran Act with California Congressman Ro Khanna (D) to block additional military spending on conflict with Iran.
https://twitter.com/CANCEL_SAM/status/1215487526363979776?s=20
Sanders continued to hammer Biden’s support for the 2003 war in Iraq, which killed hundreds of thousands of civilians and nearly 5,000 U.S. soldiers, and created the destabilization from which ISIS was able to secure a stronghold in the region. Post-9/11 wars have cost taxpayers over $6.4 trillion, according to a recent analysis.
Warren, who has fallen in the polls, also voiced opposition to war with Iran. “The job of the president of the United States is to keep America safer, and having killed Soleimani does not make America safer,” Warren told The View.
Warren pointed to the timing of the assassination, saying it could have been used to distract from Trump’s impeachment. The Wall Street Journal reported Trump felt pressured to act by Republican Senators whose support he needs for his upcoming impeachment trial.
Polls show voters want investment in healthcare and social services rather than in war and the Pentagon. Warren and Sanders, who have called on taxing the rich to fund social services, will likely seek to capitalize on this. Both joined a conference call with anti-war groups like MoveOn and Indivisible last week to help support grassroots protests against a move to war.
Former VP Biden, who remains the front runner in national polls, attacked Trump, tweeting “Donald Trump brought us dangerously close to starting a new war with Iran without any semblance of a plan.” He’s also highlighted Trump’s withdrawal from the landmark Iran nuclear deal, a key accomplishment of the Obama administration, of which he was part. Biden also recently falsely claimed he opposed the Iraq War from the beginning.
Buttigieg, who has been rising in the polls, used the incident to highlight his experience as a former naval intelligence officer, and to attack Trump’s handling of the situation. But he has not expressed principled opposition to war in Iran. He also said rising tensions with Iran contributed to what Tehran now says was the unintentional downing of a Ukranian flight, killing all 176 on board.
Sen. Klobachar said the president must obtain congressional authorization:
“We can only hope that the president has carefully thought through the national security implications of this attack,” Bloomberg said in a statement, ”and urged Trump to de-escalate tensions with Iran. He also attacked Sanders for calling Solemani’s killing an assassination.
The debate is hosted in partnership with the Des Moines Register and will be held at Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa, where The Real News covered a rally for Sanders headlined by freshmen Congressmen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez in November.
https://therealnews.com/stories/thousands-rally-with-bernie-sanders-and-aoc-at-iowa-climate-summit
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