Raed Jarrar
Democracy Now! Friday, August 19, 2011
It was one year ago today that the Obama administration officially announced it was pulling the last full U.S. combat brigade from Iraq. Today, roughly 46,000 U.S. troops remain in the country, along with more than 64,000 private contractors. "All of the U.S. troops have [gone] back to their bases since 2009, and they have not been taking any daily patrols to [do] what they used to call 'protect Iraqis,'" says our guest, Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi-American blogger and political analyst based in Washington, D.C. Thousands of environmental activists from across the continent plan to gather in Washington, D.C., tomorrow to launch a two-week protest against the proposed Keystone XL pipeline that would carry tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada, to U.S. oil refineries in the Gulf of Mexico. As the Obama administration faces industry pressure on one side and sustained grassroots protest on the other, we host a debate between Cindy Schild, the refining issues manager at the American Petroleum Institute, and Jane Kleeb, executive director of Bold Nebraska, a group taking part in the Washington protests. As a strike by 45,000 Verizon workers approaches the two-week mark, the company’s customers are beginning to feel the impact on its services. We’re joined by Steven Greenhouse, the labor reporter for the New York Times. Democracy Now!, a daily independent newshour.
Email this pageGRITtv: WikiLeaks Video: Exception or Example?
Monday's revelation of a videotape of U.S. soldiers shooting unarmed Iraqi civilians is still reverberating around the country. The Wikileaks video is raising questions about procedure, the rules of engagement, and even freedom of speech and of the press. Most importantly, though, people seem to be asking whether this is an aberration in behavior, a few soldiers overreacting or misbehaving, or the normal procedure for action in Iraq. Joining us to discuss are Rick Rowley of Big Noise Films, who was in Iraq and visited the scene of the shootings just the day after they happened, and senior fellow at Peace Action, Raed Jarrar.
Democracy Now!: Nov. 19, 2009: Obama China Trip
President Barack Obama’s first official trip to China resulted in no firm agreements and has been criticized as being tightly scripted by Beijing. British journalist Martin Jacques, author of “When China Rules the World: The End of the Western World and the Birth of a New Global Order,” discusses Obama’s visit and the future of US–Chinese relations. Iraqi political analyst Raed Jarrar talks about plans for Iraq to hold elections in January which are now up in the air after Iraq’s vice president vetoed part of an election law over the allocation of seats to Iraqis displaced by the U.S. invasion and occupation. And as Wall Street posts record profits and U.S. hunger rate grows, Robert Scheer asks: "Where is the community organizer we elected?" "Democracy Now!" is a daily independent newshour.
