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This week on Uprising:

* Pakistan: The Undeclared War
* Empire Notes on the Copenhagen Climate Summit
* Randy Olson: Don’t be Such a Scientist
* Black Agenda Report about the Congressional Black Caucus
* Largest Ever Govt Settlement on American Indian Land Rights

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Pakistan: The Undeclared War

A US drone stike in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan has apparently killed a senior member of Al Qaeda according to US officials. The White House last week authorized an expansion of the not-so-secret military drone program in Pakistan, coinciding with Obama’s decision to commit to a troop surge in Afghanistan. However during the President’s carefully crafted speech explaining his Afghanistan strategy, he said little about the US’ plans for Pakistan, even though the two countries are increasingly discussed as a combined threat to United States security. On Friday, New York Times reporter Scott Shane called the program “radical” and qualified that by stating, “For the first time in history, a civilian intelligence agency is using robots to carry out a military mission, selecting people for killing in a country where the United States is not officially at war.” The drone program enjoys bi-partisan support in Congress and US military officials say their actions in Pakistan are done with the knowledge and cooperation of the Pakistani Government. However, according to a Gallup poll over the summer, 67% of Pakistanis are against the attacks, with only 9-percent in favor. Additionally, a majority of Pakistanis polled ranked the US a greater threat to Pakistan than even India or the Taliban. Meanwhile, a string of deadly suicide bombings have hit Northwest Pakistan recently – the Pakistani Taliban are claiming responsibility for the attacks which are apparently in retaliation against the Pakistani military for a US-backed offensive in South Waziristan.

GUEST: Hamid Khan, Executive Director of South Asian Network

Empire Notes on the Copenhagen Climate Summit

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by author and analyst Rahul Mahajan. Today’s commentary is on the Copenhagen Climate Summit

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

Visit www.empirenotes.org for more information.

Don’t be Such a Scientist

Conservative activists and Fox News are up in arms about what they are calling “Climate-gate” – a controversy over stolen emails from England’s University of East Anglia’s Climatic Research Unit. The content of the emails are being cast as proof that scientists have engaged in a vast conspiracy to exaggerate claims that the planet is warming as a result of human activity. Sarah Palin, the darling of America’s extreme right wing, published an op-ed in the Washington Post saying that President Barack Obama ought to boycott the UN’s Climate change conference in Copenhagen in light of “Climate-gate.” Now, some scientists are lashing back, with 25 leading figures in the US having sent a letter to Congress on Friday asserting that global warming is indeed a grim reality. At the same time, the public seems more confused than ever over global warming and the scientific consensus. Anti-climate propaganda efforts have resulted in only 51% of Americans now believing that global warming is really happening, compared to 71% two years ago. Is this a measure of the success of corporate and conservative PR groups, or the failure of scientists to effectively communicate the results of their work?

GUEST: Randy Olsen is a marine biologist turned film maker, creator of Flock of Dodos: The Evolution-Intelligent Design Circus, and his latest, Sizzle: A Global Warming Comedy, author of “Don’t be such a scientist: Talking Substance in an Age of Style.”

Black Agenda Report about the Congressional Black Caucus

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is about the Congressional Black Caucus

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Largest Ever Govt Settlement on American Indian Land Rights

An historic settlement has been reached in a case of Native American land rights against the US government this week. After a thirteen year-long legal battle with the US departments of Interior and Treasury, a settlement of more than $3.4 billion has been reached, the biggest ever against the federal government, and bigger than all previous settlements and judgments on Native American issues combined. The US Department of Interior manages more than 50 million acres of Indian land which is leased out to various enterprises for mining, grazing, and even drilling for oil and gas. The money from those leases is then supposed to be distributed to American Indians across the nations who hold the trust accounts. In June 1996, Elouise Cobell, a member of the Blackfeet Indian Nation, and four other American Indians, filed suit on behalf of all Indian trust beneficiaries, accusing the government of mismanaging the revenues of those trust funds. The terms of the historic settlement include $1.4 billion distributed to the Indian trust beneficiaries, and a $2 billion trust land consolidation fund. Sixty million dollars are also to be set aside for federal Indian education scholarship funds. According to the New York Times, “Specialists in federal tribal law described the lawsuit as one of the most important in the history of legal disputes involving the government’s treatment of American Indians.”

GUEST: Elouise Cobbel, a member of the Blackfeet Nation from Browning, MT, is the lead plaintiff in Cobell v. Salazar, great granddaughter of Mountain Chief, one of the legendary Indian leaders of the West, Executive Director of the Native American Community Development Corporation

Find out more at www.cobellsettlement.com.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“Our land is everything to us… I will tell you one of the things we remember on our land. We remember that our grandfathers paid for it – with their lives.” — John Wooden Legs, Cheyenne.