Glen Ford: Susan Rice’s Political Legacy-‘Genocide in Africa on Her Watch’

Hard Knock Radio logoOver the past couple of weeks there’s been a lot of controversy surrounding UN Ambassador Susan Rice. She’s been under fire, accused of misleading the American public about the circumstances that led up to the slaughter 4 Americans including Libyan Ambassador Christopher Stevens in Benghazi, Libya on September 11th of this year.

Hard Knock Radio weighed in on this issue with an insightful conversation featuring long time journalist Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report….He breaks down the political legacy of Rice and whats she’s been about long before most of us were introduced to her via the work she’s done under President Obama..

click the link below to listen to the HKR interview w/ Glen Ford on Susan Rice

Susan Rice

Susan Rice

As you listen to the interview here’s a little bit of background. ..Rice was the point person on Sunday morning talk shows in the days that followed those attacks, where she emphatically explained that attacks was the result of enraged Muslims reacting to an obscure anti-Muslim Youtube movie produced in the US. Below is one of those TV appearances she made that has now become the basis for this recent controversy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxf77xQ_NLU

Since that interview, we have come to know that the official story is it was in fact an act of terror carried out by Al Qaeda operatives. Many have questioned how Rice was so off on her assessment. It’s been determined that the intelligence around the Benghazi attacks being the work of terrorists at the time Rice spoke, was classified information. It was kept classified as to not tip-off the assailants. That realization has not calmed President Obama’s political rivals including Senators John McCain and Lindsey Graham, who have come out swinging, threatening to block Rice’s anticipated nomination to be the next Secretary of State.

John McCain

John McCain

The crassness of McCain and Graham along with right-wing political pundits has led many to see their harsh criticisms of Rice as racially motivated political sour grapes. This in turn has led to many women’s groups and civil rights organizations circling the wagon determined to back Rice to the hilt. That in turn has led to many overlooking or remaining unaware of Rice’s political legacy.

Long time journalist Glen Ford has been following the career of Susan Rice for over 15 years. He’s well aware of her track record and the roles she played when she worked under Bill Clinton all the way up to now. In our Hard Knock radio interview (HKR) Ford gives a very detailed no holds bar breakdown of Rice and the type of impact she and the policies she’s championed have had on countries like Rwanda, Sudan,  Somalia, Libya and the Congo.

When asked what word comes to mind when he here’s the name Susan Rice, Glen Ford responded ‘Genocide’.  In a recent column penned by Ford titled A Second Wave of Genocide..he notes;

Susan Rice has abetted the Congo genocide for much of her political career. Appointed to President Bill Clinton’s National Security Council in 1993, at age 28, she rose to assistant secretary of state for African affairs in 1997 as Rwanda and Uganda were swarming across the eastern Congo, seizing control of mineral resources amid a sea of blood. She is known to be personally close to Rwanda’s minority Tutsi leadership, including President Paul Kagame, a ruthless soldier trained at the U.S. Army’s Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, and mentored by Ugandan strongman (and Reagan administration favorite) Yoweri Museveni, who is believed to have pioneered the use of child soldiers in modern African conflicts.

GlenfordFord also writes:

Rice is widely credited with convincing Obama to launch NATO’s bombing campaign for regime change in Libya. She parroted false media reports that Muammar Gaddafi’s troops were raping Libyan women with the aid of massive gulps of Viagra, refusing to back down even when U.S. military and intelligence officials told NBC news “there is no evidence that Libyan military forces have been given Viagra and engaging in systematic rape against women in rebel areas.” Yet, Rice said not a word about ethnic cleansing and racial pogroms against black Libyans and sub-Saharan African migrant workers, including the well-documented erasure of the black city of Tawergha.

In our interview Ford describes Susan Rice as some one who is more hawkish and ‘thuggish’ then Condoleezza Rice who served under George Bush. He notes its an act of betrayal for Black leadership to back her nomination in lieu of her track record. Ford notes many have reacted to in such a way that perceived racial comments are more important to push back on than the genocide of millions of people in Africa on Rice’s watch. You can peep the interview by clicking the link at the beginning of this article

Did Obama Inc. Threaten Dennis Kucinich & Make Him Fold on Healthcare?

Kucinich had been given an offer that he felt he could not refuse.The Obama administration has finished the job it started in January, 2009: crush the progressive wing of the Democratic Party to clear the way for corporate governance. Rep. Dennis Kucinich‘s was the last Left opposition to Obama’s toxic health care legislation. “Once Obama’s private insurers’ bailout bill is in place, it will be almost impossible to dismantle in the foreseeable future.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

Click link below to hear Commentary

http://www.swift.fm/mrdaveyd/song/29339/

“There is nothing for a true progressive to do in Obama’s Democratic Party.”

The last Left Democrat in the U.S. Congress has folded his hand, crushed by Wall Street’s servant in the White House, Barack Obama.

Until Wednesday morning, Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich was the only opposition from the Left still holding out against Obama’s private insurance subsidy bill – a massive redistribution of wealth to Wall Street masquerading as health care reform. The bill was long ago stripped of any fig leaf of a “public option,” and now awaits passage in its pure form – the formal establishment of a private health care system in which the people are forced to finance the profits of some of the biggest players in the Wall Street casino, the insurance corporations. Far from a step forward towards a society in which health care is every person’s right, the Obama bill is a huge step backward in the opposite the direction from which the entire industrialized world has been traveling. Obama’s so-called reform is in fact, a defeat of the dream of universal health care.

Obama used every trick at his disposal to place that dream out of reach. He pulled a shameless bait and switch on health care, talking the language of universality while conniving to transfer trillions of public dollars to the private insurance industry. Once Obama’s private insurers’ bailout bill is in place, it will be almost impossible to dismantle in the foreseeable future.A trillion dollars buys lots of loyalty. And to make certain that nobody ever gets to cancel the corporate bailout, the Obama regime would prevent states from setting up their own universal health care programs.

“Kucinich was adamant that he had not changed his assessment of the president’s health care proposals.”

Obama knew that, if he were to have any chance to pass a private health insurance subsidy bill, he would first have to bludgeon the Left into submission. In the course of a little over a year, he has accomplished that mission.

To drive Kucinich back to the corporate Democratic reservation, the White House let loose the yapping dogs of the Daily Kos and MoveOn, who threatened to back an opposition candidate to Kucinich in his home district. President Obama personally browbeat Kucinich four times in the last several weeks, the last time on Monday night. According to the London Daily Telegraph, Obama threatened to refuse to campaign for any Democratic congressperson that doesn’t back his health bill – an invitation to the fat cats to fund challengers to Kucinich in November.

In a Wednesday morning press conference announcing his surrender to the White House, Kucinich was adamant that he had not changed his assessment of the president’s health care proposals. “I do not think it is a first step toward anything I have supported in the past,” he said. “This is not the bill I wanted to support.” But Kucinich had been given an offer that he felt he could not refuse.It was, said the congressman, “a defining moment.”

And it was a defining moment for those who believe there is anything politically worthwhile that can be accomplished within the structures of the Democratic Party, now firmly controlled by its corporate wing. There is nothing for a true progressive to do in Obama’s Democratic Party, but shut up, and roll over. For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to www.BlackAgendaReport.com.

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Black US Public Wants Peace, But Black US President Wages War -Black is Back rally in Washington Nov 7th

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 Black US Public Wants Peace, But Black US President Wages War

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford

The Black American image has been tarnished among peace-loving peoples of the planet.”

http://www.blackagendareport.com/?q=content/black-us-public-wants-peace-black-us-president-wages-war

GlenFordbw-225When the Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations rallies this weekend in Washington DC, it will be expressing the sentiments that have historically made African Americans the most anti-war ethnic group in the United States. Black Americans have been most consistently opposed to U.S. military adventures abroad ever since the major polls began tracking Black opinion. Black opposition to the Iraq war registered most strongly in February, 2003, when the U.S. invasion was only a little over a month away. While majorities of white men and more than a third of white women told pollsters they would favor an invasion even if it killed thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians, only seven percent of African Americans agreed. Hispanics also opposed the invasion back in 2003, although not nearly so strongly as Blacks.

More than 40 years ago, Martin Luther King, Jr., Malcolm X, and Muhammad Ali opposed the Vietnam War and remained icons in Black America because they reflected the views of large segments of their communities, including majorities of Blacks serving in the military.

The outside world had long recognized that African Americans were historically and politically different than their white fellow citizens. In a dramatic example, Iranian students freed their Black captives, along with females, when they seized the American embassy in 1979.

In succeeding decades, Black warmongers gained high profile positions in U.S. government, most notably Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice. General Powell, as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was the televised face of the first Gulf War. As Secretary of State in 2003, Powell disgraced himself at the United Nations, the Black face of a lying government justifying the coming invasion of Iraq. Condoleezza Rice, while George Bush’s national security advisor, raised the specter of an Iraqi “mushroom cloud” to stampede the nation into war. When Rice succeeded Powell as Secretary of State, she dutifully cited Cuba, Burma, North Korea, Iran, Belarus and Zimbabwe as “outposts of tyranny” in the world, and therefore justifiable targets of the United States.

Black America is caught in an historical contradiction.”

The Black American image has been tarnished among peace-loving peoples of the planet. Yet African Americans remain largely true to their traditional anti-war politics, despite having given overwhelming support to a Black president who has introduced the largest military budget in history, claimed the wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan as his own, further militarized the continent of Africa, and expanded U.S. bases and subversion in Latin America.

Black America is caught in an historical contradiction: It is emotionally invested in the first Black president, even as Barack Obama pursues warlike policies historically opposed by African Americans. It’s time to break the spell. The Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations begins the process on Saturday, November 7, at Washington DC’s Malcolm X Park. It’s about time. Hispanics are now slightly more opposed than Blacks to President Obama’s troop escalations in Afghanistan, possibly because Latinos now suffer more casualties than Blacks, but more likely because African Americans find it painful to face the fact that the first Black president is a warmonger.

You can listen to this commentary by clicking the link below:

Glenn Ford Commentary on Black is Back Rally

For Black Agenda Radio, I’m Glen Ford. On the web, go to http://www.blackisbackcoalition.org/.

BAR executive editor Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

The Black is Back Coalition for Social Justice, Peace and Reparations can be contacted through their web site:

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