From Occupied Palestine

Iraq: Fabricated pretexts and a war for conquest
An interview with Michel Chossudovsky
JON ELMER
Guerrilla Radio, 31 March 2003

Audio: listen

Jon Elmer, Guerrilla Radio: Professor Chossudovsky, could you share your perceptions on the first two weeks of ‘official’ war in Iraq?

The arrogance of imperial punditry
JON ELMER
Dalhousie Gazette, 24 March 2003

The arrogance of the imperial pundits' predictions of a swift and surgical war in Iraq has been quickly proven false. One week into so-called Operation Iraqi Freedom the Americans and British have met resistance in every city they have moved on in the south of Iraq. They are in control of very little in the north, and are facing escalating opposition from demonstrations here at home and around the world.

Lies, wars and empire: Marching to massacre in Iraq
JON ELMER
Dalhousie Gazette, 13 February 2003

We are being lied to again.

In 1990 it was the infamous Incubator Story: more than 300 babies torn from their incubators in Kuwait City by pillaging Iraqi troops - Bush I used this fact to beat the war drums in half-dozen important speeches leading up to the Gulf massacre. The babies were left "on the cold floor to die", a tearful 15 year old Kuwaiti girl told Congress. But, alas, hyperbole doomed the propaganda department's yarn when it was pointed out that in all of Los Angeles County (pop. 15 million, to Kuwait's 3 million) there were only 53 newborn-babies in incubators. Oh ya, and the Kuwaiti girl who testified? Daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to Washington.

A Riot is the language of the unheard
Netanyahu talk shut down at Concordia
JON ELMER
Dalhousie Gazette, 11 September 2002

While former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu sipped drinks at the bar of the nearby Ritz Charlton Hotel, upward of 2,000 protestors gnarled the Hall Building at Concordia University, making delivery of the Hardliner's exclusive speech on Monday impossible.

As riot police escorted ticket-holders (tickets were not available to Muslims or Arabs) into the auditorium, taunts were exchanged between protestors and the exclusive group of attendees (who were encouraged to bring Israeli flags) and it wasn't long before tensions exploded into a battle between police and protestors. In the ensuing riot, the front windows were smashed and police used shields, baton blows, tear gas and pepper spray to clear the lobby of the building; protestors responded by barricading the escalators with tables and resisting the police advance with chairs, newspaper stands and even a fire extinguisher.

Apologists for war crimes and terror
JON ELMER
Dalhousie Gazette, 26 September 2002

I have selected two themes that I think represent the main objection to my comments on the Netanyahu's talk at Concordia, in "Riot, language of the unheard" (Sept 12). I only wish I had more space.

First, my "journalistic integrity" in commenting on an event I did not myself attend. In addition to reading all available media accounts and many personal statements, I engaged in several lengthy interviews and discussions with Concordia students and attendees, one of which was broadcast in its entirety on CKDU's Guerrilla Radio before my editorial appeared in the Gazette.

Complicity to genocide
Kissinger, Indonesia and the island of East Timor
JON ELMER
Dalhousie Gazette, 28 March 2002

After three decades of terror, destruction, murder, and mayhem, the tiny island of East Timor will officially gain independence from colonial pillage in early May 2002 - the fruits of a struggle that left more than 200,000 Timorese dead.

Barely the size of Prince Edward Island, East Timor is a willfully ignored island in the "Indonesian archipelago". When the Portuguese "handed over" the island in 1975, visions of native independence and self-rule for the Timorese were swiftly darkened by Indonesian president General Suharto.

The role of active scholarship
Intellectual responsibility and its consequences
JON ELMER
Dalhousie Gazette, 14 March 2002

"A university should not be a democracy.... The more democratic a university is, the lousier it is," then-President of Boston University, John Silber, told CBS' 60 Minutes in 1971.

Silber was responding to questions regarding his policy of "straightening out" Boston University after a series of high-profile demonstrations against the killing of some four million Southeast Asians in order to protect the rest from the scourge of socialism. Students were brutally beaten and arrested for protesting a Marine Corps recruiting operation at BU, including high-profile professor Howard Zinn.

A cocktail party for predatory capitalists
The 2002 World Economic Forum in Manhattan
JON ELMER
Dalhousie Gazette, 4 February 2002

"Run, don't walk, to the nearest revolution. Wear out your shoes, get used to being exhausted, eat only what you need and stay healthy if possible." - ABBIE HOFFMAN, 1968

New York - It truly is a remarkable event when 3,000 police officers are deployed 'round-the-clock, day after day for six straight days, with one mission: guard each and every last Starbucks coffee shop, McDonald's restaurant, and GAP clothing outlet on the entire island of Manhattan. When you add to that the 4,000 officers on the emptied and blockaded streets outside the posh Waldorf Astoria Hotel, you have what a New York Daily News headline called an "Armed Camp", complete with Mack-10 submachine guns to provide cover for the Annual General Meeting of turbo-capitalism, more formally known as the World Economic Forum.