₦airaland Forum

cheikh:
Igbo2011
@^^ America(U.S.A.) have a right to do what is right for their own National Interest. That's what a true "Nation" does for her people/interest. It's for the Africans to do the right thing for self and protect/defend their own shikena! . Like I said in my earlier post, Power [/b]and [b]Respect does not just happen wily-nily. We are lazy, disorganised and criminally minded like most of our power mongers in our midst are. You become susceptible and can be bought and sold like slaves of old for lucre and cheap propaganda(blandishment). Please stop blaming others for your own incapacity, inherent weakness and outright home grown wickedness .

Olodostein:
You are categorically saying Noam Chomsky-- one of the greatest living intellectuals-- has a disease? Haha, don't let hm hear this oooo.

noblezone:
Bia Mr. Zuma or whatever you call your self!

I hate it when the a "dead chicken leaves the knive that slaughtered it and starts bending its neck for the pot that is cooking it".

Where was your African Union all these forty-something years when Gadaffi stole power from the Libyans? When he started bombing his people what did your AU do?

Africans should stop decieving themselves: the whiteman is not our problem. We are our problem here.

When Chris Uba (supported by an Afrcian tyrant called OBJ) kidnapped a Governor in a democratic era, where was the AU? Please Sir, Neither Chris Uba not OBJ is a whiteman. They are both blacks and Africans like you and I. Fact is this: if we, the citizens of Anambra had taken to the streets, OBJ would had called out his soldiers who would come and practice "war" on defenceless citizens and I am sure that neither you nor your AU would say a word.

I am sure that if the whitema had kept quiet and watched Gadaffi slaughter his people, people like you will be out now calling them names. You would accuse them of watching while people are dying. Have you people not called them nmames because of somalia? So, what did your AU do about Somalia? What is your AU doing about Somalia?

I thank God for what happened in Sudan. What role did AU play? Please tell me.

Mr. Zuma. Have you heard of Boko Haram? Don't you think that the menace of this Arabic deluded Africans will affect Africa so much? What is AU doing about it? For your information, the Whiteman is not sleepiong over Boko Haram. Some of our people are "conspiracy busters", they are accusing the whiteman of being the motivator of the Boko Harams. Yet, all the names that are so far called are all African Names. The suicide bombers are all Africans. Nay, Nigerians.

African leaders should be ashamed for being too greedy. Some of them will stay in power for 20 to 50 years and what does your AU do? They rig elections and hold the populace to ransom. It was Abacha (one of the greats Afrcian leaders) who told us about "home grown democracy". A "democracy" where the people are held at gun point.

Mr. zuma, stay in power ooo. Don't quit when your tenure is over. Stay and oppress your poeple like African Leaders do, then when your people revolts, start killing them. I am sure that your AU will come and save you if the whiteman comes for you.

If Africans are taking care of their affairs, what will the white man come to do?

Monsters made in the US
The pretext for the US invasion of Panama was to remove its ruler, General Noriega. George Bush labelled Noriega a drug runner and a dictator. Bush knew better than anyone. Noriega had been on the payroll of the US CIA, when it had been run by, George Bush.

Noriega pocketed over $100,000 a year from the CIA for his services to US interests. For years Bush, then the US drugs tsar, protected Noriega from prosecution for drugs running. This was because Noriega used his drug trade to ship arms to the US-backed Contras in Nicaragua. The US hoped Noriega would continue to be its loyal supporter in a strategically vital region, home to the Panama canal. But Noriega's rule faced growing opposition in Panama, and as a result of that pressure he sought to shore up his rule by beginning to raise questions about the US's role in Central America.

That was the signal for the US to use its massive firepower to punish a monster it had created, in a pattern that has been repeated ever since, from Iraq to Yugoslavia and Afghanistan. The US used the invasion of Panama as a testing ground.

Weapons like Stealth bombers, Apache helicopters and laser-guided missiles were unleashed on Panama. A year later they were used in the Gulf War, and now they are being used in Afghanistan.

Former US attorney general Ramsey Clarke admitted, "It was highly probable they used sophisticated weapons merely to test them. Above all there was the use beyond any conceivable necessity of just sheer firepower."

Sun of god:
Zuma seems pissed off . . . . . .

My understanding is S.Africa must vote the same way as Israel at UN/nato meetings.

I think its been documented - that Israel controls S.Africa including the way they vote at UN meetings.

Anyway, his rumblings are pleasing to my ear - if all African leaders start singing the same tune then it would b a welcome start to what we need to do.

Olodostein:
@KoboJunkie
Listen in toto. Before you open your mouth to assassinate other people's character and mock their condition, you have to bear in mind that you are not immune to attacks in any form.  The way you throw the word imbe-ciles loosely shows that you have no respect nor regard for the handicapped. Yet, you want to posit yourself and make us believe how you were "perfectly" raised.  You are nothing but a bloody Hypocrite and a bitter woman. If you were to caricature imbe-ciles insensitively in front of your 'privileged yankee' friends or workmates, you would either be fired from work and deserted. You don't even understand the environment you are living in neither have you learned an iota from anything there. If you were raised to hate yourself; the root of your tree, the land of your parents, your identity and everything associated with it. Those who did that to you must have damaged you and your sense of belonging. You are a lost sheep, carelessly left to roam in the wild by an uncaring and out of touch shepherd. You need redemption.

If you think you know everyone by the back and forth exchange you have on this forum, then you must be really sick in the head.  Your sentence composition is not even coherent. What kind of mind do you possess?  A weak and bitter mind. If I were asleep, you won't be able to beat me in any subject matter. You are just a town crier who come to the internet to rant and ramble.

You are fond of mocking Nigerians on this forum even when it is absolutely not warranted. People find themselves in difficult circumstances and you mock them. Do you think you are better? What audacity do you have to put negativity in everything Nigerian? If you think you are living in a 'glorified paradise', your day of reckoning is coming.  I bet you won't be spared at the slightest chance. You will also have to explain to your child, why she/he is being ridiculed because of the colour of their skin. You will have to explain to them why they were left behind for promotion. You will have to face these realities; if you are not facing them already.

Every country has it owns myriad problems. Nigeria is no exception. She is in bad shape today does not mean that tomorrow can't bring forth good, whichever way it comes. You don't compare a nation at war with a nation trying to sort themselves out. How do you justify when innocent people are targeted for the colour of their skin?  If you were in Libya, I am certain, you wouldn't be spared. And my Nigerian brothers and sisters were lucky to come back alive against all odds. Instead of show solidarity, you compare Borno with the New Libya? How much insensitive can you get?  Do you know War? Have you experienced it? Do you know what a war zone looks like? Do you know the meaning of anarchy- where a radical on the street thinks he is the law?

For the record, we the eastern businessmen are in the center of the largest city and market in Northern Nigeria. The fact that BH operates in fringe locations does not mean that the whole country is held at ransom, no matter what/how they want to make you believe. If the eventuality happens, we are ready to defend and protect our families, colleagues and comrades and what we have earned.

What makes me feel good is that we are not bunch of Cowards like you who run away from your own problems. If your house is on fire, do you run to your neighbours to hide or do you put out the fire, so that you can later make repairs and continue living in it with DIGNITY, PRIDE and SENSE OF SELF?

justwise:
Why did his people fought against him from the beginning if he was that good?

Kobojunkie:
They arrive with, or to harrowing tales

sheyguy:
He also left $30b in foreign reserves, reduced debt and beta economy

Beaf:
Did they? Maybe your history books are faulty; the US lost 58,220 soldiers, while Vietnam lost between 1 and 3 million. A staggering statistic.


There is also a simple point you fellows are missing, if Pakistan fires back at the US, the response would not be a ground war. It would simply be a frying party for those involved in that "firing back." It would be similar to what the 24 dead learnt, or were those 24 not members of the Pakistani army?

The reference to oil and pipelines explains everything. Since the collapse of the USSR at the end of 1991, U.S. oil companies and their friends in the State Department have been salivating at the prospect of gaining access to the huge oil and natural gas reserves in the former Soviet republics bordering the Caspian Sea and in Central Asia. These have been estimated as worth $4 trillion.

In 1994, a new group, the Taliban (Pashtun for "students", emerged on the scene. Its members came from madrassas set up by the Pakistani government along the border and funded by the U.S., Britain, and the Saudis, where they had received theological indoctrination and military training. Thousands of young men-refugees and orphans from the war in Afghanistan-became the foot soldiers of this movement:
These boys were from a generation who had never seen their country at peace-an Afghanistan not at war with invaders and itself. They had no memories of their tribes, their elders, their neighbors nor the complex ethnic mix of peoples that made up their villages and their homeland. These boys were what the war had thrown up like the sea's surrender on the beach of history ,

They were literally the orphans of war, the rootless and restless, the jobless and the economically deprived with little self-knowledge. They admired war because it was the only occupation they could possibly adapt to. Their simple belief in a messianic, puritan Islam which had been drummed into them by simple village mullahs was the only prop they could hold on to and which gave their lives some meaning. Untrained for anything, even the traditional occupations of their forefathers such as farming, herding or the making of handicrafts, they were what Karl Marx would have termed Afghanistan's lumpen proletariat.
With the aid of the Pakistani army, the Taliban swept across most of the exhausted country promising a restoration of order and finally capturing Kabul in September 1996. The Taliban imposed an ultra-sectarian version of Islam, closely related to Wahhabism, the ruling creed in Saudi Arabia. Women have been denied education, health care, and the right to work. They must cover themselves completely when in public. Minorities have been brutally repressed. Even singing and dancing in public are forbidden.

The Taliban's brand of extreme Islam had no historical roots in Afghanistan. The roots of the Taliban's success lay in 20 years of "jihad" against the Russians and further devastation wrought by years of internal fighting between the warlord factions. Initially, villagers-especially the majority Pashtuns in the south who shared the Taliban's ethnicity-welcomed them as a force that might end the warfare and bring some order and peace to Afghanistan. Their lack of a social base within Afghanistan made them appear untainted by the factional warfare, and their moral purism made them appear above compromise. Before launching their war to conquer power, they first won some public support by appearing as the avenger against the warlords' raping of women and boys. Of course, they could not have risen so far and so fast without the financial and military backing of Pakistan.

[b]The U.S. government was well aware of the Taliban's reactionary program, yet it chose to back their rise to power in the mid-1990s. The creation of the Taliban was "actively encouraged by the ISI and the CIA," according to Selig Harrison, an expert on U.S. relations with Asia. "The United States encouraged Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to support the Taliban, certainly right up to their advance on Kabul," adds respected journalist Ahmed Rashid. When the Taliban took power, State Department spokesperson Glyn Davies said that he saw "nothing objectionable" in the Taliban's plans to impose strict Islamic law, and Senator Hank Brown, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on the Near East and South Asia, welcomed the new regime: "The good part of what has happened is that one of the factions at last seems capable of developing a new government in Afghanistan." "The Taliban will probably develop like the Saudis. There will be Aramco [the consortium of oil companies that controlled Saudi oil], pipelines, an emir, no parliament and lots of Sharia law. We can live with that," said another U.S. diplomat in 1997.
[/b]

davidif:
This is what they get for playing both sides of the fence. For years, pakistan was in denial, they were signing peace treaties with them thinking that they were there friends and that they could control them, now see what's happening. Whenever they signed a peace treaty with the taliban, they would just use it to regroup, then when they are stronger, they start attacking again. George Bush was right, he warned them earlier on but they didn't listen. This guys would come and cause trouble in Afghanistan, then run back across the border into Pakistan. As if that wasn't bad enough, the pakistani secret service (ISI) were very close friends with this guys and they used to give them a lot of money.
Pakistan is a weak state which has nuclear weapons and if they collapse all bets are off. Let's hope India doesn't stand by and watch this happen.

morale of the story: don't keep a cobra as a pet, IT CANNOT BE DOMESTICATED.

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/24/world/asia/24pstan.html?hp

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1893370,00.html

[b]The objective of the intervention, as spelled out by Brezinski, was to trap the Soviets in a long and costly war designed to drain their resources, just as Vietnam had bled the United States. The high level of civilian casualties that this would certainly entail was considered but set aside. According to one senior official, "The question here was whether it was morally acceptable that, in order to keep the Soviets off balance, which was the reason for the operation, it was permissible to use other lives for our geopolitical interests." Carter's CIA director Stansfield Turner answered the question: "I decided I could live with that." According to Representative Charles Wilson, a Texas Democrat,

There were 58,000 dead in Vietnam and we owe the Russians one,  I have a slight obsession with it, because of Vietnam. I thought the Soviets ought to get a dose of it,  I've been of the opinion that this money was better spent to hurt our adversaries than other money in the Defense Department budget.
[/b]

The mujahideen consisted of at least seven factions, who often fought amongst themselves in their battle for territory and control of the opium trade. To hurt the Russians, the U.S. deliberately chose to give the most support to the most extreme groups. A disproportionate share of U.S. arms went to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, "a particularly fanatical fundamentalist and woman-hater."' According to journalist Tim Weiner, " [Hekmatyar's] followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. CIA and State Department officials I have spoken with call him 'scary,' 'vicious,' 'a fascist,' 'definite dictatorship material."

There was, though, a kind of method in the madness: Brezinski hoped not just to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan, but to ferment unrest within the Soviet Union itself. His plan, says author Dilip Hiro, was "to export a composite ideology of nationalism and Islam to the Muslim-majority Central Asian states and Soviet Republics with a view to destroying the Soviet order." Looking back in 1998, Brezinski had no regrets. "What was more important in the world view of history?,  A few stirred-up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War>"
[b]With the support of Pakistan's military dictator, General Zia-ul-Haq, the U.S. began recruiting and training both mujahideen fighters from the 3 million Afghan refugees in Pakistan and large numbers of mercenaries from other Islamic countries. Estimates of how much money the U.S. government channeled to the Afghan rebels over the next decade vary, but most sources put the figure between $3 billion and $6 billion, or more. Whatever the exact amount, this was "the largest covert action program since World War II" - much bigger, for example, than Washington's intervention in Central America at the same time, which received considerably more publicity. According to one report:
The CIA became the grand coordinator: purchasing or arranging the manufacture of Soviet-style weapons from Egypt, China, Poland, Israel and elsewhere, or supplying their own; arranging for military training by Americans, Egyptians, Chinese and Iranians; hitting up Middle-Eastern countries for donations, notably Saudi Arabia which gave many hundreds of millions of dollars in aid each year, totaling probably more than a billion; pressuring and bribing Pakistan-with whom recent American relations had been very poor-to rent out its country as a military staging area and sanctuary; putting the Pakistani Director of Military Operations, Brigadier Mian Mohammad Afzal, onto the CIA payroll to ensure Pakistani cooperation.[/b]

Nwaka77:
You have said it all. Nothing more to add and nothing more to subtract. Lots of Nigerians/Africans do not understand what goes on behind the scene in world politics. They don't understand that power lies in the hands of a few very powerful elite white men who belong to a cult and who control the media, dictate the world economy, control the entertainment industry and what have you. They will all one day be exposed is what I believe. Everyday is for the theif but one day is certainly for the owner they say. Africa is where it is today because these white men dictate what they want our leaders to do and not to do and if they divert from the instructions given, the western world pulls a fast one on you like they did Gadaffi. They will secretly sponsor internal fighting and strife to destabilize the country and then go in there with the pretense that they are helping the citizens but the truth is that there are in there for themselves and their devlish interests.

As for the pink, I mean white heffers and that demonic hate spirit that posesses most, I have given up on them a long time ago. I watch my back around them always. I can't get myself to trust them and deep down in my spirit, there is something about them that leaves me quite unsettled lately. I have an ill feeling that something ugly is brewing that in the not-so-distant future will make predominately white western societies death traps for blacks. What is happening in the UK is happening all over the western world. Even here in the States, its the same problem. I know alot of Nigerians who left already or are seriously looking to leave within the next few years. In another few years, I intend going back to Africa myself. It does not necessarily have to be Nigeria, it can be anywhere in Africa. I am aware that disccrimination is everywhere in this world but the types, variations and levels of discrimination varies immensely from one nation to the next. I don't want my kids growing up in a place where they are made to believe that there is something terribly wrong in the way God created them. I don't want kids that will grow up with psycological scars and innate feelings of low self esteem and inferiority. I suffered those as a teenager in my late teens and as a young adult living in Europe after leaving Nigeria. It is by the grace of God that I did not end up psycologically messed up for life. I thank God for giving me the opportunity to live abroad because I now more than ever appreciate the times I spent growing up in Nigeria. I will not trade that experience for anything. Thank you for your insightful contributions to this thread Cap28.

all4naija:
Find solution to your African leaders corruptions first before seeing what's wrong with those blacks in the West. Has Africans in Africa really be living better off in what you guys are alluding to here?No sure! The police brutality, killing and extortion of money from innocent citizens on daily bases in Nigeria is appalling and absurd. The rich forcefully oppress the poor, no rights to basic facilities,etc then, we begin to wonder how those in Africa are actually better off beside tribalism and bigotry which is as bad as racism that is illegal in almost all Western world. Blacks themselves are not helping the matter by engaging in illegal activities yet are quick to point fingers. All I am saying is that we need to start taking responsibility if we are to control the level of problems facing us as people.

“Black workers are bearing the brunt of Britain’s jobs crisis. It’s a truly desperate situation, with the unemployment rate for workers from ethnic minority backgrounds almost twice the level for white workers.”

“It gets even worse for black youngsters – almost one in three are without work. That’s not just a terrible waste of talent, but evidence of persistent discrimination within the labour market.” (TUC: 8 April 2011)

With the cuts to welfare, housing benefit changes, soaring tuition fees and the VAT rise black and minority ethnic families will be hit the hardest because of government policies, said Barber.

[b][/b]How racism continues to be the barrier to progress for black and minority ethnic communities

It is important that people from ethnic backgrounds recognise that racism continues to shape every aspect of their life relating to work, education, pension and mortgages etc.

According to Omar Khan, director of policy research at UK race equality think tank The Runnymede Trust (The racial wealth gap: not just an American problem: Omar Khan: The Runnymede Trust: 8 April 2011). the UK Department of Pensions has revealed that 60 percent of Black and Asian households do not have any savings whatsoever compared to 33 percent of white households.

Khan said that the UK’s Wealth and Assets survey in 2009 revealed that the average white household had £221,000 in assets compared to £76,000 for Black Caribbean households, £21,000 for Bangladeshi households and £15,000 for African households.

Khan also said that children of parents who have no assets struggle to access higher education and often take the first job that comes along.

In 2010 a report by the Equality and Human Rights Commission (EHRC) titled, “How Fair is Britain?”, (Read New equality report reveals a racially unequal Britain) revealed a country far from being multicultural and equal.

The EHRC report said “Recent research found that Black and Asian groups earn less than White British people with the same qualification level and in particular Black male graduates earn 24% less than White British male graduates.” (p.415)

Black and minority ethnic groups, particularly, Bangladeshi and Afro Caribbean groups tend to live in a low income household in comparison to the white population. (p.479)

The EHRC report said “In the UK, a 2005 Fawcett Society survey estimated that 40% of ethnic minority women live in poverty; One-fifth of White women and two-fifths of Black women live in poverty, while poverty extends to almost two-thirds of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women.” (p.480)

When it comes to housing black and minority ethnic groups fare the worse according to the report. It stated “…in Britain, just over 9% of all Asian (including Asian British) households are overcrowded relative to the bedroom standard, while almost 15% of all Black (including Black British) households are overcrowded against the standard. In contrast, fewer than 2% of all White British households are overcrowded.” (p.500)

Overall, “There is also a strong association between ethnicity and substandard housing”, according to the EHRC report.

At the 2009 Black Worker’s Conference Leslie Manasseh, and Chair of the 2007 Black Worker’s Conference, said that once in employment black and minority ethnic workers (BME) workers face racial barriers to job-related training, education and promotion. Manasseh also said that as a result of racial discrimination in the employment sector BME workers are still disproportionately concentrated in the service sectors such as public services, retail, hospitality, restaurants, banking, finance and insurance.

If you are unemployed racism has most likely played a part, if you live in sub standard housing more or likely racism has played a part, if you are paid low wages more or likely racism has played a part, if you cannot afford higher education or a mortgage more or likely racism has played a part, if you are going to suffer financially when you retire more or likely racism has played a part.

It can be argued that this type of structural organised racism at all levels of British society is not just coincidental, or even pockets of racism randomly scattered around British society, but rather a deliberate ploy to restrict the progress of BME communities. The figures supports this conclusion.

Racism continues to be the enemy of progress for many people from ethnic backgrounds in Britain and and still continues to play a massive role in shaping the life of every single person from an ethnic background and it is up to each and every one of us to organise, come together and fight for a better future.[/b]

stmarc32:
I have met a few african americans and black british who have told me straight to my face that they are definitely not african, The sickle-cell looking kid in the first video who thinks racism is so 1958 should have thought about why Duggan was shot this year and why most blacks are still stopped and searched on a daily basis in the UK,US,AUS and some european countries.

  When these kids become baby daddies and can't find good housing or jobs  to adequately provide for their families then they realiz the system has been against them but they've been blinded by MTV,l BET ,self denial, and hunger for acceptance. But it makes you ponder if their parents who have been thru lynching shooting n wrong convictions by the police and whites would ingrain in their kids the absolute need for identification of one's self as African first.

The annual TUC Black Workers’ Conference has revealed that black and minority ethnic workers have a bleak future in Britain with job losses in the public sector and the soaring unemployment rate for 18-24 year-olds from an ethnic background.

The annual TUC Black Workers’ Conference was held on Friday, 8 April 2011, and ended on Sunday, 10 April.

In 2009 the TUC 16th Black Workers Conference highlighted the need for black and minority ethnic workers to organise as the credit crunch would most likely lead to these groups being disproportionately targeted for layoffs and redundancies. Two years on with government cuts in the public sector and soaring unemployment, and this prediction has come true for many workers from ethnic backgrounds.

In this years’ 2011 annual Black Worker’s Conference, held at Congress House, Great Russell Street, London, the TUC said that the unemployment rate for Black and Asian workers rose from 10.2 percent in October-December 2007, to 13 percent in the same period last year, a figure nearly twice as high than whites.

For young Black and Asian people, the picture was even bleaker. According to the TUC research the unemployment rate for 18-24 year-olds rose from 20.1 percent in 2007 to 30.5 percent in 2010. The unemployment rate for young whites is 16.4 percent.

Since 2007 the rate of unemployment among black women has ballooned to a massive 68 percent, and 24 percent among black males in just three years, and the TUC estimates that at least 127,000 Black and Asian workers will be on the dole as a result of the public sector cuts.