This Week on Gorilla Radio

by C. L. Cook

This week: Canadian freelance journalist, photographer, and author, Jon Elmer and Israel's Trojan Horse in Palestine.

 

 

[And, check out the podcast link in the top right margin for past GR broadcasts.]

In the long and bitter history of human warfare, the siege plays a particularly savage role, for it is the deliberate punishment through privation of a trapped civilian population. The Siege of Troy is perhaps the most famous siege in western culture, the names of Helen, Paris, Achilles, and Hector still commonly recognized thousands of years after their collective demise. The sacking of Troy ended an intractable war, that had culminated with the ten year siege of the city, cunningly concluded through Greek ingenuity in the form of the famous Trojan Horse. It's a trick remembered and warned against still today, when we say; "Beware Greeks bearing gifts."

Though the Greeks are not the force they once were, and the Mediterranean's "only democracy" of its day is long ruined, War remains, and the siege as strategy is well and longer-lived than ever. Of the long list of siege warfare historians make available, the two longest by far fail to get a mention. They are: Cuba, blockaded, and lain siege to these past 47 years; and Palestine, cleansed, compressed, cordoned with walls and razor-wire, and deprived of those things we free others take as the granted normalacy of a decent life since 1948. Nearly sixty years under siege, compared with the paltry Trojan suffering of a mere decade of starvation and disease, and want! But today, the Israeli authors of imprisonment think they have hit on a horse they believe can finally break Palestinian resistance. Jon Elmer is a Canadian freelance photographer, journalist and author, whose book outlining Canada's "Mission" in Afghanistan and the changing nature of the Canadian military is due out soon. Jon Elmer and handicapping Israel's Trojan Horse in the first segment.

And; Prime Minister Stephen Harper tersely summed up the reason Canadians are killing and dying in Afghanistan; in a nutshell it is: "9/11." But what if Osama Bin Laden had nothing to do with 9/11? What if his Taliban protectors had committed no crime by harbouring a man innocent of the yet unproven allegations he and his CIA created al Qaeda planned, financed, and carried out the September 11th attacks against the United States, incidentally killing more than 30 Canadian citizens? Would that mean an end to Canada's multi-billion dollar ongoing garrison duty in occupied Afghanistan? Would it mean no more flag-draped coffins somberly marched from tarmac to grave? Last week, Vancouver hosted the 9/11 Truth Conference, a gathering of authors, scientists, engineers, and lay people still unconvinced with the official story of the events of the day that "changed everything." I went over with my tape recorder. Questioning 9/11 "truths" in the second   
half.

And Janine Bandcroft won't be joining us today, instead taking part in the birthing of an exciting new community health initiative here in Victoria. I'll have further info. on that at the bottom of the hour. But first, Jon Elmer and suspect gifts from Israel in Palestine.

 

 

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, 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, Kevin Pina, William Rivers Pitt, Justin Podur, Jack Random, Sheldon Rampton, Paul Craig Roberts, Paul de Rooij, John Ross, Danny Schechter, Vandana Shiva, Norman Solomon, Starhawk, Grant Wakefield, Paul Watson, Bernard Weiner, Mickey Z., Dave Zirin, and many others.