So I thought people would be interested to note that there are similar zionist warmongers speaking at the Boston University Commencement today Sunday May 17. http://www.bu.edu/commencement/2009/address.html
The principal Zionist warmongering speakers are Michael Capuano, the main speaker at the afternoon commencement exercises, and Gloria White-Hammond, the speaker at the morning baccalaureate service. Both Capuano and White-Hammond have worked with Zionist groups and in particular have participated in agitating for war against Sudan, the oil-rich (but financially impoverished because of two decades of US sanctions and US-sponsored overt and covert war) largest country in Africa. I hope some BU students are protesting somehow. But at least from what I read in the mainstream Boston Globe and BU Daily Free Press, the main complaint BU students have is that they would rather that their commencement speaker be a more famous and high profile imperialist warmonger than Capuano. Previous BU commencement speakers have included Henry Kissinger and Hamid Karzai. http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/05/09/capuano_who_some_at_bu_say_choice_of_grad_speaker_is_a_bust/
Congressman Michael Capuano is going to be giving the Commencement address at the All University Commencement Exercises at Nickerson Field at 1 PM http://www.bu.edu/commencement/2009/main.html
Michael Capuano is a big supporter of "Israel". Capuano, a former mayor of Somerville, campaigned against the Somerville Divestmeent Project's (SDP) initiatives for governmental bodies in Somerville to divest from "Israel". In 2004, when an initiative for the City of Somerville to divest from "Israel" was before the Somerville Board of Aldermen, Capuano wrote a letter, which was published in newspapers including the Jewish Advocate, asking the Somerville Aldermen not to adopt the divestment resolution. In the letter Capuano said that "Israel ... is a shining example of Democracy." (See this letter halfway down the page at http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archives/005075.shtml )
The opposition to the 2004 Somerville divestment initiative was led by JCRC - the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Boston - which is an umbrella group of most of the major Jewish pro-"Israel" groups in the Boston area (including AIPAC and the ADL as members) http://www.jcrcboston.org/about/leadership.html . JCRC is funded by CJP (Combined Jewish Philanthropies) and has a multi-million dollar budget which it has used for pro-"Israel" activism and for pro-war activism against Afghanistan, Sudan, Lebanon and Iran. Initially SDP got several of the Somerville Aldermen to sponsor the initiative to divest from "Israel". But after pressure from JCRC and Capuano's letter, all but one of the Somerville Aldermen withdrew their support from the initiative. I was at the Aldermen meeting where the divestment was voted down. The meeting was packed with "Israel" supporters holding JCRC signs. For his help in stopping the City of Somerville from divesting from "Israel", JCRC rewarded Michael Capuano with a trip to Palestine ("Israel") in January 2005. See Capuano's own webpage about this trip at http://www.house.gov/capuano/news/2005/prMiddleEast.shtml
Capuano also lent his name to ads opposing SDP's 2006 ballot questions (for divestment from "Israel" and for a resolution in support of the right of return for Palestinian refugees) in a Somerville State Rep district
Also in 2006, on July 20 during the Zionist war of aggression cluster-bombing against Lebanon, Capuano voted 'yes' for a US congressional resolution supporting "Israel" and supporting "Israel"'s attacks on Lebanon and the Gaza Strip. It is a very heinously worded racist resolution turning facts around, demonizing the Palestinian and Lebanese victims, supporting the Zionist aggressors, and even demonizing Iran and Syria. http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/US-Israel/HR921.html
On Jan 9, 2009, Michael Capuano voted yes on the House resolution to support the genocidal "Israeli" attack on the Gaza Strip. http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2009/roll010.xml . Text of the resolution at http://www.israelemb.org/Operation%20Cast%20Lead/US%20official.htm#hres34 . The US House of Reps, including Capuano, officially accused Hamas of breaking the ceasefire.
Michael Capuano is also one of the biggest congressional hawks for war against Sudan. This ties in with Capuano's work for JCRC and the Zionist lobby as JCRC also does anti-Sudan activism. In 2006 JCRC changed their strategy about how to oppose divestment from "Israel". Instead of only concentrating on defending "Israel", JCRC started working on an alternative campaign to divest from an Arab Muslim country Sudan instead. Some far-rightwing Zionists even disagreed with JCRC and thought that JCRC should continue focusing on directly opposing divestment from "Israel". See http://www.jrtelegraph.com/2006/10/naomi_federland_1.html
The "Massachusetts Coalition to Save Darfur" is a JCRC frontgroup that was founded by JCRC and whose website was part of the JCRC website for many months or years before they separated it to try to make it appear that they are different groups. JCRC has spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on anti-Sudan propaganda in Massachusetts such as $80,000 for anti-Sudan billboards in Park Street Station in 2007 http://fidelityoutofsudan.googlepages.com/pressstory9
Michael Capuano is a co-founder and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on Sudan. Capuano's vision for Sudan is for a brutal U.S. military intervention in the country. In 2005 Capuano co-sponsored a bill that would have had Congress authorizing President George Bush to launch unilateral military attacks against Sudan. http://thomas.loc.gov/home/gpoxmlc109/h1424_ih.xml Capuano's bill "strongly encouraged" Bush to use drone aircraft, like the ones that Obama is now using against Pakistan, to attack Sudan, and also sought to authorize Bush to "use force to enforce a no-fly zone over the Darfur region" similar to the no-fly zones imposed on Iraq between the Gulf War and Bush's invasion of Iraq. Capuano's bill cited Iraq-liar Colin Powell's accusation of "genocide" in Darfur as part of the pretext to authorize Bush to attack Sudan. Like the WMD's in Iraq, the "genocide" does not exist.
Here is an excerpt, the most warmongering part, from Capuano's bill:
"SEC. 6. AUTHORIZATION TO USE FORCE TO STOP GENOCIDE IN DARFUR, SUDAN.
(a) Authorization To Use Force.—The President is authorized to use all necessary means, including use of the United States armed forces, to stop genocide in Darfur, Sudan, consistent with the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, to enforce United Nations Security Council Resolutions 1556 and 1564, and in response to the Comprehensive Sudan Peace Act of 2004.
(b) Authorization To Neutralize Perpetrators Of The Violence.—The President is authorized and strongly encouraged to consider utilizing unmanned armed planes and other military assets to neutralize—(1) Janjaweed or other militia groups intent in targeting civilians; (2) helicopters or fixed aircraft used to attack civilians or to provide cover and assistance to militia groups; and (3) intelligence or military headquarters used to plan and direct attacks against civilians.
(c) No-Fly Zones.—The President is authorized to use force to enforce a no-fly zone over the Darfur region by utilizing American military assets, including— (1) those currently stationed in the Horn of Africa region and/or use of NATO forces; (2) options that employ technological capabilities to intercept and jam communications between the Government of Sudan and the Janjaweed; and (3) cost-effective equipment such as aerostats, airships, or unmanned aerial vehicles to achieve situational awareness."
US private military contractors (mercenary companies), including PAE / Lockheed Martin and Dyncorp, have been operating in Darfur since 2004 and have received tens or hundreds of millions of dollars from the United Nations and from the US government for their activities in Darfur. http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=11598 http://www.innercitypress.com/lockheed101507.html http://www.innercitypress.com/uklockheed102407.html http://www.innercitypress.com/un2lockheed020708.html
Michael Capuano has received campaign contributions from Lockheed Martin and also from arms manufacturers Raytheon and Textron http://www3.capwiz.com/msnbc/bio/fec/?id=307&cycle=2007-2008 Capuano has also voted yes on some appropriations bills for the Iraq war.
Gloria White-Hammond is the speaker at BU's Baccalaureate Service this morning at 11 AM at Marsh Chapel at 735 Commonwealth Ave. http://www.bu.edu/commencement/2009/main.html She is probably speaking right now.
Gloria White-Hammond started her anti-Sudan work as a member of the Board of Directors of the so-called "American Anti-Slavery Group" (AASG). http://iabolish.org/our_history/ The AASG was founded in 1994 by Charles Jacobs. Jacobs is a Zionist anti-Muslim extremist who has also been involved in the founding and leadership of CAMERA (The so-called "Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America") and the David Project for Jewish Leadership, two groups who run smear campaigns against anyone (reporters, editors, college professors) who dares to criticize "Israel". The David Project's anti-Muslim vitriol has even extended to trying to stop the construction of the Islamic Society of Boston's mosque in Roxbury.
Jacobs founded AASG to make false accusations of "slavery" against Muslim Arab Africans in Sudan and Mauritania. In the 90s these false accusations were part of the pretext for the US government of the Clinton administration implementing starvation sanctions against Sudan and supporting the SPLA, one of the anti-government factions in the civil war in South Sudan. Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed wrote a good detailed article about US anti-Sudan activity during the Clinton era is that is available at http://www.mediamonitors.net/mosaddeq16.html . The real reason for Clinton's anti-Sudan policy was because the Sudanese government did not support the US war against Iraq, supported the Palestinians rather than "Israel", and resisted some neo-liberal schemes to allow western corporations to plunder Sudan's resources. During the Clinton era, US financial support to the SPLA was counted in tens of millions of dollars and was funneled through Uganda, Ethiopia and Eritrea . The SPLA fought against other factions in the south as well as against the government of Sudan. Over a million Sudanese fled the US-backed forces in the south and became refugees in Khartoum. (See sources in Nafeez Mosaddeq Ahmed's article). In October 2002, President George W Bush signed the so-called "Sudan Peace Act" which escalated US support for the SPLA in the civil war to one hundred million dollars per year in direct support http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/19897.pdf .
At that point Gloria White-Hammond started travelling to the SPLA-controlled area in South Sudan on phony "slave redemption" missions. White-Hammond claimed that in a process that only took a couple of days, she was able to negotiate the purchase of thousands of slaves for around $33 each. http://www.tufts.edu/home/feature/?p=white-hammond This is ridiculous. What really happens is that people were rounded up or recruited to pretend to be slaves to participate in the phony "slave redemption" industry. The SPLA went along with the whole thing because it provided good propaganda against the Sudanese government who were blamed for the alleged "slavery" even though this was all happening in areas not under control of the government. Sudan "slave redemptions" were so blatantly phony that even 60 Minutes exposed the hoax. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/05/14/60II/main508928.shtml
The civil war in south Sudan ended in a peace and power-sharing deal without changing anti-Israeli, anti-American and anti-neoliberal policies of the Sudanese government. Then American and Zionist imperialists fomented civil war in Darfur in the west of Sudan. At this point liberal imperialist and Zionist groups in the "USA" escalated the propaganda campaign against Sudan falsely accusing the government of Sudan of "genocide" in Darfur. Gloria White-Hammond has been speaking regularly at Zionist-organized pro-war anti-Sudan events demonizing the Sudanese government and people with false allegationss of crimes in Darfur and exaggerations and lies about what has been happening in Darfur.
Gloria White-Hammond's husband is Ray Hammond. Ray Hammond is the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Boston Foundation which has assets of over $700 million and gives out over $70 million of grant money each year. It is a tax write-off for billionaires such as Bob & Myra Kraft (the owners of the New England Patriots and many Boston-area radio stations, etc.) and way for them to use their money to exert influence on Boston politics. Myra Kraft is on the Board of Directors of the Boston Foundation, and Myra Kraft is the chair of the board of CJP (Combined Jewish Philanthropies) which provides the multi-million dollar annual budget to JCRC for Zionist, pro-war and anti-Muslim activism. The Kraft's also own a stadium in Jerusalem and at least one business in "Israel". http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1201523806913&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
For their work laundering money for Jewish-Zionist billionaires and demonizing Muslims & Arabs in Sudan and painting "Americans" and "Israelis" as the good guys, Gloria White-Hammond and Ray Hammond were given the annual Norman S Rabb award by the American Jewish Committee on October 14, 2007. Anti-Zionist activists protested the award ceremony. American Jewish Committee is a group that is notorious for campaigning against the UN's "Zionism is racism" declaration in the 1970s.
Incidentally Gloria White-Hammond was the commencement speaker at UMass Boston two years ago. UMass Boston, in choosing John Kerry this year, also has not deviated from standard policy of having imperialist warmongers as commencement speakers. Three years ago UMass Boston had Barrack Obama as the speaker.
~ David Rolde
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