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         Lately I have been editing a book of my father's correspondence and focusing especially on letters Bertrand Russell wrote to him around the time of the Cuban missile crisis. In that connection I have been looking into Operation Northwoods and Operation Mongoose. Interested persons may read declassified documents about each of these operations on the website of the National Security Archive at Georgetown University.
      Northwoods was a plan, never implemented, to comitt acts of terror which would then be blamed on Cuba as a pretext for military action against that country. These crimes were to have been committed on American soil, and by the United States Department of Defense. An unclassified memorandum from the Joint Chiefs of Staff to the Secretary of Defense about this can be read here, and a similarly unclassified document about Mongoose can be read here.   

 
      
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At the Kelly Writers House on the Campus of the Univeristy of Pennsylvania

       " ... the asymmetry between the concentrated destructive power of elegant and versatile missiles in the air and the archaic ferocity of swarms of bearded warriors outfitted with Kalashnikovs on the ground remains a morally obscene sight." - Jürgen Habermas, in Borradori (ed.), Philosophy in a Time of Terror: Dialogues with Jürgen Habermas and Jacques Derrida.
 
 
     Read my latest article in Consortium News, "Wikileaks: Defining 'Journalism.'"
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In virtue of his obviously hard, hard life, this man resting in a doorway in West Philadelphia knows things most of the rest of us don't. I'd like to know what they are, without, of course, having to experience the same hardships. Is that even possible?
                             .

   For Norman Yengeni



Norman!

I remember the old ladies, some from Guguletu, some from Khayalitcha, some
From Soweto, all so proud of their sons, even proud, sometimes, that they were
In prison. Mama Afrika -- mother of us all -- I see her smiling down on you
As you stand on the hard, dusty ground of Darfur.

Norman!

I know what you are doing and I am writing this to acknowledge it.
Onetime fighter for Umkhonto We Sizwe,
Longtime prisoner of a racist, fascist dungeon,
Truth and reconciliation bore you the sweet fruit of amnesty,
From the new government of your glorious, beautiful land,
A land you and your comrades liberated!

Norman!

You are now Military Attaché for South Africa to the African Union.
And you are doing the work of Nkosi (God). Did you know that in Cape Town
I fell in the deepest love of my life with your struggle?

Colonel Norman Yengeni,
You will stop them, you will save them - you will
Fight like the tiger that you are and you will do for Darfur something which
Will make your country and your people and all the people of this
Poor long-suffering planet lift their heads, their hearts, and be proud.
 

  

                                                                                
                                                                                                 
      Civilization’s Underside


I see all the destitute of the Earth
       Crouching
              Beside dumpsters

In cardboard boxes
        At 6th and San Julian
              Surrounded

By Marine Guards
        In full dress
              Sabres drawn

We shall not stop
        Until it is so
              The Lancet

And The New England Journal of Medicine
        Reduced to confetti kindling
             For the little cooking

Fires
       Dotting the slums
            Of the world

Seen on the screens
      In underground installations
             With indifference
 
  
 

          

 

              Speaking Truth to Empire about Empire’s Dark Heart


Speaking truth to empire
About empire’s dark heart…
About torture and mass death,
Does not endear one to it,

And at our Bangkok Embassy
I did exactly that,
And at a time of great personal need

(I had no food or water
Or a bed to sleep in,
In the tropics)

These are things Empire
Knows it does, but
Cannot bear to hear
Enunciated about it
In public, as I did…

To tell that war criminal
President’s men
Where to go

Was apparently
To be abandoned
By one’s country
To the wilderness
Of the streets of
The “host country.”

And when I told the
Consular Officer
That I felt as though
I didn’t have a country,

She said to me,
“Your country is
‘Thailand, U.S.A.'"

And in that strange, homeless,
Almost lawless, zone around
Important buildings

In diplomatic districts
The world over,
I have many, many kin –

And some of them get helped
Up off the streets by governments
And some are doubtless murdered
With impunity.

                                                                              

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

                                         

 

 

                                            For Carol

Carol, I am nearly beside myself with joy
And you are the reason; bliss such as I have never known before,
Sweetness, when we touch our poor long-suffering planet
Melts away into nothingness in your embrace and I am free.
How could I not have known that you were, as you wrote,
“Out there somewhere hoping” that I “find my way back” to you?
How could I have been so blind to your true love two decades ago?
It matters so much less now because I have come home from the world
To you. I was full of stories but without an anchor,
Without a star to steer by: you! Your tender arms…
The curve of your spine as you lie beside me
So far superior to the various diameters of the globe…
To the latitudes and the longitudes of misery and hunger
Where I have been residing - you! I lay my head across your chest
And am no longer possessed by the electronic oracles of our age,
The televisions and radios and all the front pages
Displaying human want and war… to you! To you I have come home
Always and everywhere, you are my home… you are my heart…
You are my song,
You are the victory of love over suffering…

  


                                                                            

                   

 

                        Monday, January 26, 2009

                       Our Home in University City



God guide my poem.
For love,
Love of a lady,
And for care,
Care for two children,
I remain.

    Air France the environs of Sacre Couer
    Frankfurt-am-main Darmstadt   
    And an alternate future

Jesus Christos, fallen humanity’s advocate,
Help me now.

    “You’re under arrest,” the former, high-level CIA officer         
      Jokingly said to me in a bar more than three years ago.
    “Well if I’m under arrest,” I replied, “I want a lawyer.”
    “This is war. You don’t get a laywer,” he replied.

The Prince of Darkness, they used to call me in that bar,
I think because my conversation ranged so often to the
Horrors of war and bad governance.

      “I’m not the Devil,” I once said to the self-same man,
      Who may by that time have been “called up.”
      “
We’ll be the judge of that,” he said.

For αγαπε…(love)

  
 

 

 

 

                                 And the Hatians Sighed

 

Slave revolt --

Control and public order --

Toussant Louverture --

Emancipation and the human mind and spirit --

Voudon --

Santeria --

None of the French sailors, tasked
To put down the slave revolt      (a mere aside, it was thought)
On their way to defend
The Louisiana Purchase territories
Left the Island of Hispanola alive

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 Upon Finding Peace at 14-16 Rue de Romaineville,
September 26, 2004


The television chatters on,
Because I left it on when I left,
And the many Arabs and black Africans in my neighborhood
Congregate in the cafes discussing who knows what.
Do I, as a white, European-descended Christian
Have any right to know what they are talking about?

In Cape Town, it was a good thing that the blacks spoke English,
Sometimes a little Africaans, Xhosa, Zulu and Sutu,
While the whites spoke only English and Africaans.
It enabled the blacks to speak behind the backs of the whites,
While in their presence.
Some women believe in ‘women’s only meetings,’
And I recall that at Swarthmore I believed right along with them…

It is a different situation now,
With no armed struggle enjoying the support of the majority
Being fought against France,
But still, as an outsider I am unsure about whether café discourse
Among these groups
Is any of my business.

Of course, I want to be included – I feel as if I have something to contribute,
But this may be inconsistent with my role as a journalist,
Which is to observe rather than to interact,
To chronicle, rather than agitate –
Or is it?

Is the truth not emancipatory?
Does informing a readership of injustices not
Increase the likelihood that they will be resolved,
Just as my righteous indignation about my land refusing
To extend its hospitality to Yusuf Islam, also known as Cat Stevens,*
Has led me to act
(And by “act” I mean “ask questions” and “write.”)?
Yes, I can participate in the struggle for justice
Without raising even one hand in anger against any human person,
“Armed” only with my “pen” (laptop computer)

…But I have said this before.
Whence this new peace I have?

________________

* I know they said it was just a mistake involving some other person named

Yusuf Islam, but I'm not sure I believe them.