This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook

This week, Iraqi ex-patriot, Raed Jarrar and the five things you must know to understand Iraq; Toronto-based writer and analyst, Justin Podur and Ontario's new Injun' Wars; Janine Bandcroft bringing us up to speed with good goings-on in and around Victoria in the coming week.

 

 

 

This month marks the fifth anniversary of the fall of the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq, and though the tyrant's reign is over, the war goes on.

 

Despite more than five bitter years of experience in Iraq, the people paying for the continued military operations and occupation there have gained almost no understanding of either what this war is about or why the people of that country still largely resist the West and its promises of reconstruction.

 

Raed Jarrar is an Iraqi ex-pat living in Washington, D.C. He's a former architect who now serves as a consultant to the American Friends Service Committee, also known as the Quakers, and writes on Middle Eastern issues from his site, Raed in the Middle.

 

And; like its Prime Minister's role model, the United States of America the "New Government of Canada," led by Stephen Harper's "Conservative" party is not shy about taking prisoners; political prisoners in a recent case involving restless natives upset about corporate plans to irradiate their ancestral lands and waters.

 

Last month, in a ruling consistent with two centuries of colonial justice meted out to the First Peoples, Ontario's Judge Patrick Smith ruled Kitchenuhmaykoosib Inninuwug's Chief Donny Morris and six band council members spend no less than six months imprisoned for 'contempt of court.' That failing their ability to pay to the Crown exorbitant tribute, tribute the judge acknowledged as unpayable through his preemptive sentencing of the accused.

 

What's at stake is Ontario's one hundred and thirty-five year old mining statutes allowing corporate profits take precedent over federally negotiated "Indian" treaties guaranteeing First Nations' access to traditional hunting and fishing.

 

Justin Podur is a Toronto-based activist and social commentator, and long-time writer and editor for ZNet, one of the internet's seminal alternative news sites. He offers too a broad range of commentary and analysis from his own site, KillingTrain.com.

 

And; Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour to bring us up to speed with some of what's good to do on and around Vancouver Island in the coming week. But first, Raed Jarrar and (after five years) getting to know the Iraqi occupied and their land. 

  

G-Radio is dedicated to social justice, the environment, community, and providing a forum for people and issues not covered in the corporate media.

Some past guests include: M. Junaid Alam, M. Shahid Alam, Joel Bakan, Maude Barlow, David Barsamian, Rhoda Berenson, William Blum, Luciana Bohne, William Bowles, Vincent Bugliosi, Helen Caldicott, Noam Chomsky, Michel Chossudovsky, Diane Christian, Juan Cole, David Cromwell, Murray Dobbin, Jon Elmer, Reese Erlich, Anthony Fenton, Jim Fetzer, Laura Flanders, Chris Floyd, Connie Fogal, Glen Ford, Susan George, Stan Goff, Amy Goodman, Robert Greenwald, Denis Halliday, Chris Hedges, Sander Hicks, Julia Butterfly Hill, Scott Horton, Robert Jensen, Dahr Jamail, Chalmers Johnson, Diana Johnstone, Kathy Kelly, Naomi Klein, Anthony Lappe, Frances Moore Lappe, Jason Leopold, Jeff Leys, Dave Lindorff, Jim Lobe, Jennifer Loewenstein, Wayne Madsen, Stephen Marshall, Linda McQuaig, George Monbiot, Loretta Napoleoni, John Nichols, Kurt Nimmo, David Orchard, Greg Palast, Mike Palecek, Michael Parenti, Robert Parry, John Pilger, Kevin Pina, William Rivers Pitt, Justin Podur, Jack Random, Sheldon Rampton, Paul Craig Roberts, David Robb, Paul de Rooij, John Ross, Danny Schechter, Vandana Shiva, Norman Solomon, Starhawk, Grant Wakefield, Paul Watson, Bernard Weiner, Mickey Z., and many others.