Our weekly edition is a nationally syndicated one-hour digest of the best of our daily coverage.

Audio Stream | Podcast | Mp3 Download

This week on Uprising —

* US Strikes on Somalia – a Model for “Anti-Terror” Missions?
* Empire Notes on “Iraqi Ingratitude”
* The Meaning of Chavez’s “21st Century Socialism”
* Black Agenda Report on Lies in the American Political Discourse
* 2007: A Sankofa Year?

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

US Strikes on Somalia – a Model for “Anti-Terror” Missions?

GUEST: Najum Mushtaq, a Nairobi-based journalist and a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus, Stephen Zunes, professor of Politics at the University of San Francisco, where he teaches Middle Eastern and African politics. He serves as Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus and is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism

Earlier this month, U.S. Special Operations forces launched air strikes on Somalia, killing dozens of civilians. The US has claimed that the strikes were aimed at Al Qaeda operatives in Somalia and that no civilians were killed. The aid agency Oxfam has confirmed that in fact 70 civilians were killed. The civilians were nomads in the Kenya border region, searching for water sources. The US ambassador to Kenya acknowledged that the onslaught failed to kill any of the stated prime targets. The attack was the first overt U.S. military action in Somalia since American troops left the country in 1993 after the infamous “Black Hawk Down” episode. The attacks came on the heels of an invasion by Ethiopian forces, backed by the US, overthrew the Union of Islamic Courts which were controlling large parts of Somalia.

Empire Notes on “Iraqi Ingratitude”

GUEST: Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today’s commentary is called “Iraqi Ingratitude”

Empire Notes is online at www.empirenotes.org.

The Meaning of Chavez’s “21st Century Socialism”

GUEST: Gregory Wilpert, editor at VenezuelaAnalysis.com, and author of the forthcoming book, “Venezuela and the Quest for 21st Century Socialism””

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez recently attended a two-day summit of Mercosur leaders in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He claimed he had had come to “decontaminate” the South American geopolitical trade project of its “Neo-Liberalism.” Chavez’s visit to the summit comes more than a week after he was sworn-in for another term as President of Venezuela. Chavez took the oath of office and promised to lead his country towards what he calls “21st Century Socialism.” He also said he would deepen and radicalize the process during the course of his new presidential term. As part of this process, he outlined five “motors,” the first of which is a law that would allow for constitutional decrees for the next year and a half. President Chavez has also expressed a desire to nationalize Venezuela’s main telephone company as well as institute an indefinite number of presidential reelections. In terms of Venezuela’s path towards a 21st Century version of Socialism, Chavez noted that it would be patently different than the 20th Century Socialist models that governed Eastern Europe. Questions remain, however, about what Venezuela’s Socialist path will entail.

Black Agenda Report on Lies in the American Political Discourse

GUEST: Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report

This week’s commentary is called “Lies in the American Political Discourse.” Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

2007: A Sankofa Year?

GUEST: Emira Woods, co-director of Foreign Policy In Focus at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, DC.

This year marks the 200th anniversary of the end of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade – the purchase of slaves and their transport from West Africa and Central Africa, into slavery in the so-called “New World.” The trade relied on kidnapping persons in Africa to make them ready for the arrival of the foreign slave-ships. The slave trade ripped an estimated 12 million Africans from their homelands and transported them to lives of unspeakable suffering and humiliation in Europe and the Americas. According to my guest, Emira Woods, “it is important to reflect on this tragic history, but also, like the Sankofa bird, to look towards ways of abolishing the forms of slavery that still ravage lives throughout much of the African world.” In West African mythology, the “Sankofa” is a bird that flies forward while looking backward, with an egg symbolizing the future in its mouth.

Emira Woods’ commentary can be found here: http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3875.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“History will one day have its say, but it will not be the history that Brussels, Paris, Washington, or the United Nations will teach, but that which they will teach in the countries emancipatied from colonialism and its puppets. Africa will write its own history, and it will be, to the north and to the south of the Sahara, a history of glory and dignity.” — Patrice Lumumba (from his last letter before his execution).