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This week on Uprising:

* US Mission in Afghanistan Fraught With Violence, Impunity
* Two Years After BP Disaster The Quest for Justice Continues
* Argentina to Nationalize Largest Oil Company
* Right Wing Group ALEC Fast Losing Corporate Members After Public Pressure

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US Mission in Afghanistan Fraught With Violence, Impunity

The Los Angeles Times reported this week that American soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division took photos of themselves in Afghanistan posing with body parts of a suspected suicide bomber. The US Army has reportedly launched a criminal investigation but it is not the first time such photos have come to light. The attitudes of US soldiers toward Afghans have repeatedly exacerbated the unpopularity of the US/NATO occupation.

An 18 hour sustained attack on the Afghan parliament and Eastern Afghan provinces by militants last weekend has also brought the Afghanistan war under greater scrutiny. The attack was launched from two partially constructed buildings in Kabul and involved the use of rocket propelled grenades and machine guns. More than 35 of the militants were reportedly killed, along with 8 Afghan security forces, and 3 civilians. It is being reported that the Pakistan-based Haqqani network was responsible for the attacks, considered to be the deadliest in six months.

President Hamid Karzai has called the attacks a failure of Afghan intelligence, as well as NATO. The violence has strained on-going talks between the US and the Afghan Central Government over the “strategic partnership agreement” that will outline the departure of over a hundred thousand troops by 2014. Australian troops, numbering at 1,500, are planning on leaving a year earlier, it was announced this week. Karzai insisted on Monday that the US commit to $2 billion in annual aid to Afghanistan as part of the agreement. In an interview he did this week on CNN, the President also insisted that the Taliban will not return to power.

Major protests against the US and NATO’s involvement in Afghanistan are planned for this May in Chicago at the upcoming NATO summit. However, a group calling themselves the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers contends that the strategic partnership agreement between Afghanistan and NATO will have been signed well before the summit. In a statement released over the weekend, the group called for Americans to take to the streets earlier.

Meanwhile, a girls school in northern Afghanistan suffered what is being called an anti-education attack. One hundred and fifty female students were reportedly poisoned and suffered violent physical reactions after their drinking water was found to be deliberately contaminated.

GUEST: Kathy Kelly, with Voices for Creative Nonviolence, has traveled to Afghanistan.

Visit www.vcnv.org for more information.

Two Years After BP Disaster The Quest for Justice Continues

This Friday April 20th was the second anniversary of the worst environmental disaster in US history. Coming just before Earth Day, on April 20, 2010, The British based company, BP’s, Deepwater Horizon Oil Rig off the coast of Louisiana exploded killing 11 workers and injuring 17 others. Spilling almost 185 million gallons of oil over the course of 86 days, the explosion of the rig caused a leak one mile below the surface of the ocean. In the course of its cleanup efforts, BP chose to use nearly two million gallons of a controversial dispersant called Corexit. It wasn’t until September 19th, 2010, that the government declared the well “effectively dead.”

Now, just a couple of days before the 2nd anniversary of the BP disaster, the company announced it had reached a $7.8 billion settlement of a class action lawsuit representing thousands of businesses and individuals impacted. A Federal judge will have to finalize the settlement and has announced plans to hold a “fairness hearing” before signing off on it. The case against BP was not allowed to go to trial. However, it is possible that unresolved claims by the government and states against BP, and claims against the other companies involved, Halliburton and Transocean, may proceed this May.

The environmental and health impacts of the BP spill are far reaching and may not come to light for many years yet. However, scientists are deeply concerned about unusual health effects seen in fish and other marine life in the Gulf Coast, and doctors are monitoring a wide range of neurological and physiological effects seen in residents all along the Gulf Coast.

GUEST: Antonia Juhasz is covering the historic trial against BP for The Nation with support from The Investigative Fund of The Nation Institute. She is a leading oil and energy analyst and author of several books, including Black Tide: the Devastating Impact of the Gulf Oil Spill. Juhasz wrote the cover article of this month’s Progressive Magazine on the BP spill.

Argentina to Nationalize Largest Oil Company

Citing a net deficit of $3 billion in energy imports and a worsening energy shortage Argentina President Cristina Fernandez de Kirchner announced plans on Monday to nationalize the country’s largest oil company. The proposal would give Argentina a 51% share of YPF oil and gas company currently under the control of the Spanish company Repsol. YPF was privatized in the 1990s. The move has angered Repsol and Spanish officials who lashed out, saying Kirchner will make Argentina an “international pariah.” However Argentineans welcomed the news with a celebratory rally held in Buenos Aires. The AP reports Argentineans carried flags and at least one sign reading “Today, with Cristina, we recovered YPF.”

GUEST: Patricia Isasa is a torture survivor from Argentina’s dictatorship years who has played an important role in the quest for justice for other survivors and their families.

Right Wing Group ALEC Fast Losing Corporate Members After Public Pressure

The American Legislative Exchange Council or ALEC announced this week that it will disband the task force behind the raft of voter ID laws and so-called “Stand Your Ground” legislation sweeping the nation. A statement ALEC released on Tuesday said it would shut down its ‘Public Safety and Elections’ group and, “refocus our commitment to free-market, limited government and pro-growth principles.” The announcement came after several high profile companies announced their withdrawal from the controversial organization that is being called a conservative “bill mill” for promoting copy-cat legislation drafted by corporations and right wing groups and pitched to state legislators at ALEC meetings.

Earlier this month, Coca Cola issued a statement saying it has, “[e]lected to discontinue its membership” with ALEC only 5 hours after the group Color of Change announced a boycott of America’s best known soda company in the wake of the Trayvon Martin killing. This week Blue Cross Blue Shield also left ALEC, following Reed Elsevier, American Traffic Solutions and Arizona Public Service companies. Overall, PepsiCo, Kraft Foods, Inuit, McDonald’s and Wendy’s have cut ties with ALEC this month. ALEC and its member corporations have been the target of public pressure since last July, when the Center for Media and Democracy published hundreds of leaked ALEC model bills, exposing its nationwide conservative agenda.

GUEST: Mary Bottari, with Center for Media and Democracy (CMD) and the blogger behind BanksterUSA

Find out more at www.alecexposed.org, www.prwatch.org, and www.banksterusa.org.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:

“Truth is by nature self-evident. As soon as you remove the cobwebs of ignorance that surround it, it shines clear.” — Mahatma Gandhi