Tag: Libya

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Pitasanna Shanmugathas March 29th/April 2nd, 2023

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded March 29th and April 2nd, 2023.

And welcome to the Spring of discontent! While leaders In the capitals of Europe and America promise to carry on the Ukraine proxy war no matter the price, the People are already in the streets protesting the real and rising costs of that belligerence. For Canadians, whose government is already full-throatedly behind: the bellicose stance against Russia, prospects of an expanded war against China and Iran, battles by sanction in Venezuela, Nicaragua, and elsewhere, there is too Haiti.

Last week, the Trudeau Liberals blithely announced another $100 million dollars to be delivered to the tiny island nation’s military and police effort to keep the restive population under heel. This on top of millions already delivered. It’s almost as if Ottawa believes the fatted tax goose’s golden eggs will never flag.

Yves Engler is an independent, Montreal-based journalist and author. He’s written twelve books on Canadian foreign policy, including ‘Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority’, co-authored with Anthony Fenton. His recent article, ‘Canadian government prioritizes war over climate crisis‘ is a troubling portrait of a country few here in our home and native land would recognize.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; just what is Canada’s place in the world? Generations of us have been taught we are global agents of good; fair-minded, and justice-seeking. You know, “Wherever they’s a fight so hungry people can eat, we’ll be there. Wherever they’s a cop beatin’ up a guy“, etc., etc.

It’d be a great story, if only it were true.

Pitasanna Shanmugathas completed an advanced degree at one of Canada’s world-class Universities but found, beyond Canada’s “two solitudes” another bifurcation – one not in the curriculum – separating the real from an imagined nation. And so, he says, he set out on an epic three year journey of discovery, from coast to coast to coast, and across the tractless prairies. He documented his Canadian quest in the film series, ‘Truth to the Powerless: An Investigation into Canada’s Foreign Policy‘.

Pitasanna Shanmugathas and the hunt for Canada’s elusive identity in the second half.

But first, Yves Engler and Trudeau of the Tropics, taking Haiti.

Song: The Panic Is On

Artist: David Rovics

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Saul Arbess, Ken Stone January 28th, 2023

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded January 22 & 28th, 2023.

More than two years after BC’s former premier, John Horgan’s re-election promise to implement the recommendations of his own government’s Old Growth Strategy Review panel it’s business as usual in the woods. While some of the OGSR’s 14 point plan was implemented, big trees are still falling and the forests are in peril. The NDP also, after Horgan’s snap election win, ceded policing authority to deal with old growth forest defenders near the capital to the federal RCMP, whose paramilitary tactics and brutality at the Fairy Creek encampments elicited international expressions of disgust and condemnation.

Now, a grand manifestation of First Nations, conservation organizations, ecological agencies, and citizens concerned about the loss of an irreplaceable biological legacy is planned to surround the seat of government to state demands for policy change in more fervent language.

Saul Arbess is a long-time peace, justice, and environmental champion. He describes himself as a cultural anthropologist and futurist, dedicated to “creating a new architecture of peace in the world“. Saul served as National Co-chair of the Canadian Department of Peace Initiative, was co-founder and chair of the Global Alliance for Ministries and Departments of Peace, and currently works for peace, non-violence, and protecting the wildlands around his home city of Victoria.

Photo: Bill Johnston

Saul Arbess in the first half.

And, January on Canada’s west coast means Season’s change is soon; but even as we ready for Spring, east of here the cruelest months of Winter still lay ahead. That cold reality isn’t however deterring citizen demonstration of dissatisfaction with the ongoing NATO wars and occupations.

Monday, January 23, as part of the week-long protests around North America, Hamiltonians picketed the prime minister’s cabinet meeting taking place in the Hamilton Convention Centre. One focus of their vigil being the “purchase of the obscenely-expensive F-35 fighter jets”.
Ken Stone is an executive member of both the Syria Support Movement and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the Wars.

Ken Stone and Canada’s Winter war resisters in the second half.

But first, Saul Arbess and Uniting for Old Growth in British Columbia.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ken Stone January 22, 2023

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded January 22, 2023.

January on Canada’s west coast means Season’s change is soon; but even as we ready for Spring, east of here the cruelest months of Winter still lay ahead. That cold reality isn’t however deterring citizen demonstration of dissatisfaction with the ongoing NATO wars and occupations.

Monday, January 23, as part of week-long protests around North America, Hamiltonians will picket the prime minister’s cabinet meeting taking place at the Hamilton Convention Centre.

One focus of their vigil will be the “purchase of the obscenely-expensive F-35 fighter jets”.

Ken Stone is an executive member of both the Syria Support Movement and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. He’ll be there Monday, and insists, “Canada needs an independent foreign policy” and “should get out of NATO, the aggressive US-led military alliance that drags us into every conflict of the US empire, including the war in Yemen and the occupation of Haiti.”

Today, Ken Stone and Canada’s Winter war resisters.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: https://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Alfred de Zayas November 19th, 2022

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded November 19th, 2022.

Last week a missile landed on a farm in the Polish countryside. Two people were reportedly killed, and the rocket that killed them was reported to be Russian. Immediately the media machine in the West began to churn, and perhaps without meaning to brought the World a step closer to the next and last World War. That the story was wrong – false at first, and faked after the fact – made little difference to its dangerous amplification.

Alfred de Zayas is a law professor at the Geneva School of Diplomacy whose lengthy career in the service of human rights law includes twenty five years at the United Nations as a staff member, special rapporteur, and after “retirement” a six year stint as Independent Expert on International Order to the UN.

De Zayas is too the author of twelve books, including “Nemesis at Potsdam” with a preface by the late Ambassador Robert Murphy, Eisenhower’s political advisor, “The Wehrmacht War Crimes Bureau”, with a preface by the foremost US expert on Prisoner of Wars, the late Professor Howard Levie.

His recent “human rights trilogy”: ‘Building a Just World Order,’ ‘Countering Mainstream Narratives: Fake News, Fake Law, Fake Freedom,’ and the forthcoming, ‘The Human Rights Industry’ are published by Clarity Press.

Alfred’s many essays appear online at Truthout and CounterPunch, where I found his recent article, ‘Peace as a Human Right‘ on the topic of “25 Principles of International Order to Ensure Sustainable Peace”.

Alfred de Zayas and building another Order for the World.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, broad/webcasting since 1999. Check out the Archive at Gorilla-Radio.com, GRadio.Substack.com, and the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Song: Fighting Injustice

Artists: The Four Fathers

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler, Yves Smith July 16th, 2022

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded July 13th and 16th, 2022.

The late, and truly great, British playwright, Harold Pinter summed up the age in his 2005 Nobel Prize for Literature acceptance speech. Delivered dramatically via video stream – something not so common then – and at the height of America’s military demolition of Iraq . The terminally ill Pinter spent most of his thirty two and a half minute address addressing the profoundly ignorant state in which We the people exist, and how we blithely allow the horrors of our times be committed in our name. Who hearing that speech could forget his hoarsely stentorian remonstration of the Bush claque and its cowardly coalition’s willful crimes? “It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter.”

Seventeen years later, and millions killed, maimed, dispossessed and made desperate the lying and killing continues apace. Pinter would be unsurprised, because as he said then, for the powerful, “… it is essential that people remain in ignorance, that they live in ignorance of the truth, even the truth of their own lives.” And so it is in Canada today, as we march towards another global war, standing on guard in ignorance.

Yves Engler is a Montréal-based activist, and author of 12 books, mostly on Canadian foreign policy, including his latest, ‘Stand on Guard For Whom? A People’s History of the Canadian Military’. He’s also a prolific essayist whose many articles appear at numerous sites online, including at his website, YvesEngler.com, where his recent article, ‘Is It Time for Canada to Apologize to Libya?‘ appears.

Yves Engler in the first half.

And; what’s old is news again: Inflation, the economy’s nemesis so long thought slain has resurfaced, its dragon’s teeth popping up in balance sheets and union negotiation positions, and most scarily, ravishing family budgets the World over.

Yves Smith is a Harvard Business School grad, blogger, and author whose investment banking and management career has intersected all the biggest names on Wall Street. In late 2006, seeing the financial ice bergs on the horizon and frustrated by the “obvious under-reporting…of the risk in all credit instruments” she started Naked Capitalism in an effort to “promote critical thinking through the medium of a finance and economics blog.”

Her 2010 book, ‘ECONned: How Unenlightened Self Interest Undermined Democracy and Corrupted Capitalism‘ followed, dissecting the “obvious” and inevitable 2008 financial disaster and the dismal Obama administration reaction to it. Yves’ has also written articles for many major publications, appeared on US network television and alternative online news programs like The Real News, Democracy Now, and the now-banned RT.

Her recent article at Naked Capitalism, ‘The G-7 is Still Pushing Its Nutty Russia Oil Price Cap Idea‘ reveals how at sea the West is in what is rapidly emerging as a truly New (economic) World Order.

Yves Smith and the stark state of a capitalist system in crisis in the second half.

But first, Yves Engler and “the considerable bearing of the truth on where the World stands now“.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing since 1998; in Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: cfuv.ca.  Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Christopher Mott, Dave Lindorff January 13, 2022

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded January 8th and 9th, 2022

Contrary to the hoary adage, what’s old in Washington these days is just old – and getting older by the day. Unlike his democratic predecessor, America’s most seasoned president is not only willing to look back at history but seems ready to repeat it: At least as far as rerunning the long discredited Responsibility to Protect doctrine. Listeners of a certain vintage may recall the principle, dreamt up long, long ago; before the places it was applied became the smoldering ruins of where countries used to stand.

Poised right now at the heart of the Biden administration – in the perfect position to release again the Hellfire of “humanitarian intervention” – is Samantha Power, paladin of the 21st century ‘Cosmopolitan Crusade’.

Dr. Chris Mott holds a Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of St Andrews. He says his work focuses on, “… historical geopolitics, grand strategy, and the intersection of defensive realism and conceptions of sovereignty in an era of increasing multi-polarity.” His book, ‘The Formless Empire: A Short History of Diplomacy and Warfare in Central Asia’, traces the historical “…rise of indigenous forms of geopolitical strategy on the Eurasian steppe“.

Chris also has served as researcher and desk officer for the U.S. Department of State, is a current fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy, and the author of numerous peer reviewed and general audience articles on foreign policy, including the recent Covert Action Magazine piece, ‘Samantha Power and the Cosmopolitan Crusaders‘.

Chris Mott in the first half.

And; it’s a story upon whose outcome the fate of life on Earth depended. At the beginnings of the nuclear age, two brilliant brothers were seconded to top secret US military projects. Each were determined to use their prodigious intellectual talents to help avert another disastrous World War; but by working on opposite sides of the Cold War divide.

Dave Lindorff is a publisher, Izzy Award-winning investigative journalist, author, and documentary film producer whose tentatively titled feature documentary tells the tale. Dave’s film in-progress is on Ted Hall, the American wunderkind who may well have saved Russia and the World from nuclear conflagration. Dave’s also the founder of the web news site, This Can’t Be Happening.net, and contributor to The Nation magazine, where his latest piece, ‘One Brother Gave the Soviets the A-Bomb. The Other Got a Medal‘ reveals new evidence of how both brothers beat J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI at the height of America’s infamous communist witch hunt.

Dave Lindorff and the Teenager Who Saved the World in the second half.

But first, Chris Mott and the horrible second coming of humanitarian intervention.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, and serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Yves Engler November 4th, 2021

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Welcome to Gorilla Radio, recorded October 30th, 2021

Next week, Canadians will again gather in towns and cities across the nation to commemorate Armistice Day, (November 11th, 1918) and celebrate the fulfillment of The Great War’s promise to be the “End of All Wars”. But you needn’t worry about putting to knee the youth of the land and painfully instructing them on the glorious horrors, or forgotten methods and meaning of human warfare. The promise was a lie. And the wars and the lying about war persist a century and more later – obviously. Less obvious to even the most engaged citizens of this Canada however is the depth and breadth of the lies sustaining both the country’s military and militarism in the country. The reasons for that dearth of Canadian incredulity are many, but primary among them is the dismal grasp of history here.

Yves Engler is a Montreal-based political activist, essayist, lecturer, and author whose eleven books – mostly on Canadian foreign policy – are joined now by a twelfth title, ‘Stand on Guard for Whom? A Peoples’ History of the Canadian Military.’ Yves is preparing now for the far western swing of his book tour, which will see him presenting in Nanaimo, Victoria, Duncan, and Vancouver from November 10th to 14th.

Today, Yves Engler and revealing, remembering, and recognizing the pervasiveness of Canada’s militarist past and present.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.com

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ken Stone November 26, 2020

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s home edition recorded on this date, November 26th, 2020.

Eighteen years ago this month, a group of Hamiltonians joined together in efforts to avert a calamitous war. The Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War were not alone in that; in cities around the World tens of thousands fretted and strategized and organized, trying to stand between the United States and the object of its next “war this time”, Iraq.

That collective effort to belay the disaster failed, but the Coalition has continued working to bring to a halt the “generational wars” George W. Bush promised following the 2001 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.

Ken Stone is a long-time antiwar activist, serving as an executive member of both the Syria Solidarity Movement and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. In 2016 Ken participated in the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria, sending back home his column, Dispatch from Syria. Those dispatches are now collected in the book, ‘Defiant Syria: Dispatches from the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria’.

Today, Ken Stone and searching still for a Canadian route to peace.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Ken Stone, John Philpot, Janine Bandcroft November 26, 2020

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s home edition recorded on this date, November 26th, 2020.

Eighteen years ago this month, a group of Hamiltonians joined together in efforts to avert a calamitous war. The Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War were not alone in that; in cities around the World tens of thousands fretted and strategized and organized, trying to stand between the United States and the object of its next “war this time”, Iraq.

That collective effort to belay the disaster failed, but the Coalition has continued working to bring to a halt the “generational wars” George W. Bush promised following the 2001 attacks on New York City and the Pentagon.

Ken Stone is a long-time antiwar activist, serving as an executive member of both the Syria Solidarity Movement and Hamilton Coalition to Stop the War. In 2016 Ken participated in the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria, sending back home his column, Dispatch from Syria. Those dispatches are now collected in the book, ‘Defiant Syria: Dispatches from the Second International Tour of Peace to Syria’.

Ken Stone in the first half.

And; On December first 2018, Meng Wanzhou, Huawei executive and daughter of the Chinese telecom giant’s chairman, was detained, interrogated, and arrested at Vancouver International Airport. She has been living ever since under house arrest in one of her Vancouver properties as the courts there hear arguments for her extradition to the United States for fraud.

John Philpot is a Montreal-based defence attorney in International Criminal Law. Long active in Palestinian and African support organisations, and the peace movement, Philpot is too a distinguished panel member of the Cross-Canada Campaign to Free Meng Wanzhou.

John Philpot and Canadians standing up for Canadian Justice in the Meng Wanzhou case in the second half.

And; CFUV Radio broadcaster and host of Plant Powered Radio, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events bulletin of some of the good things ou can get up to in and around Victoria, and virtually, in the coming week.

But first, Ken Stone and searching still for a Canadian route to peace.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: https://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/

Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Conn Hallinan, John Ross, Janine Bandcroft October 30, 2020

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Welcome back to Gorilla Radio’s home edition, recorded “live-to-tape” via Skype from our home-based … studios on this date, October 27th, 2020.

An added caveat for today’s Friday edition; I recorded this program in 2011, just weeks before the murder of Libyan revolutionary and long-time national leader, Muammar Gaddafi. Colonel Gaddafi’s Libya was attacked by NATO forces nine years ago, and he murdered by NATO-supported fighters; cornered, mobbed, and stabbed to death in the most gruesome fashion. More vile though than the facts of Gaddafi’s slaughter is the fate of his country since. Once the richest country in Africa, benefactor to it’s neighbours and dedicated to Pan-Africanism, Libya is today a wrecked and war-torn disaster.

Conn Hallinan is an American educator and independent journalist. Hallinan is a columnist at Foreign Policy in Focus, and is author of the news analysis site, ‘Dispatches from the Edge, where he bravely opposed the accepted wisdom of the time, writing ‘Juan Cole: Ten Myths About Libya?’ challenging the University of Michigan professor’s support for NATO’s intervention in Libya.

Conn Hallinan and getting behind the myths of the destruction of the Gaddafi regime in the first half.

And; in January of 2011 the legendary journalist and author, John Ross died in Mexico.

Remembering John Ross, rebel to the roots in the second half.

And; CFUV Radio broadcaster and host of Plant Powered Radio, Janine Bandcroft will join us at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin of some of the good things to be gotten up to in and around our town, and virtually, for the coming week. But first, Conn Hallinan and a Libyan regime change rejoinder.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday, 11am-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.ca. He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://GorillaRadioBlog.blogspot.com