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This week on Uprising:

* The Impact of US Drone Strikes in Pakistan & NATO Strikes in Afghanistan
* Scott Walker Weathers the Wisconsin Recall Election
* Conversation with Political Prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal

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The Impact of US Drone Strikes in Pakistan & NATO Strikes in Afghanistan

US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta arrived in Afghanistan today after a two day visit to India. During a press conference Panetta asserted that “it is difficult to achieve peace in Afghanistan as long as there is safe haven for terrorists in Pakistan,” adding that the US is “reaching the limits of our patience here and for that reason it is extremely important that Pakistan take action.”

However the US has come under increased scrutiny internationally for fatal actions this week in both Pakistan and Afghanistan. On Monday a drone strike in northwestern Pakistan killed a top al-Qaida member and 14 others. The target, Abu Yahya al-Libi, has been wanted by the US since he escaped capture at Bagram Air Field in 2005. White House spokesman Jay Carney described al-Libi as al-Qaida’s “general manager” and called his death a “major blow” to the terrorist network. However, on Tuesday Pakistan’s foreign minister announced he would lodge a complaint with a senior US diplomat. He called the drone strike “unlawful, against international law, and a violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty.”

Monday’s strike in North Waziristan is the eighth in two weeks along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. It comes just a week after the New York Times revealed the existence of a so-called “kill list” and the details of how President Obama and his administration choose targets to be killed in areas including Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia. Obama has been reported as taking personal responsibility for the list.

And, in Afghanistan, the US and NATO are being blamed for killing 18 civilians this week. Afghan officials in Logar Province reported the deaths after a strike on Wednesday sometime after midnight. NATO officials dispute the accusation, saying no civilians were killed and two were injured when a missile hit a home in the Baraki Barak district. NATO claims a meeting of Taliban fighters was taking place at the time the house was targeted. Locals say NATO killed a tribal leader, and a number of women and children in the strike. Later on Wednesday, 22 additional civilians were killed and many more injured in a suicide bombing at a market in Kandahar.

GUEST: Junaid Ahmad, assistant professor of law at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan and is currently visiting the U.S

Scott Walker Weathers the Wisconsin Recall Election

Embattled Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker weathered a recall election on Tuesday winning 53% of the vote, and defeating Democratic challenger Tom Barrett. Walker became the first governor in US history to survive a recall election, and he did so with a greater number of votes than he had originally garnered in 2010 when he first became governor. The recall election was the culmination of a year-long battle by progressives, labor groups, and Democrats to push back against Governor Walker’s move to undermine public employee labor unions. Among the factors being invoked to explain Walker’s success was the enormous amount of campaign funding he received, outspending his opponent by 3 to 1, and spending more on the race than any candidate had ever spent on any office in Wisconsin history. Also among the factors affecting the results is thought to be President Obama’s refusal to campaign in Wisconsin leading up to the election, and the fact that white, working class voters outside major cities are shifting toward the GOP.

In explaining the impact of the elections, the LA Times’ David Lauter said, “The recall made the third election in the space of a year in which labor failed to defeat Walker or a Walker proxy. The unions lost a fight to oust a Republican state Supreme Court justice and fell short of recalling enough GOP state senators last summer to put Democrats in control of the chamber.”

GUEST: Robert Kraig, Executive Director, Citizen Action of Wisconsin

Visit www.citizenactionwi.org for more information.

Conversation with Political Prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal

Long time political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal has just published his last work while on death row called Message to the Movement. The award winning journalist was moved to the General prison population earlier this year in Pennsylvania where he is serving out a life sentence. It took years of activism and legal proceedings before Philadelphia’s District Attorney’s office announced last year that it would drop its push for the death sentence and accept life in prison for Abu Jamal. Abu Jamal spent 30 years on Death Row for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police office Daniel Faulkner in a case that has drawn international attention. Abu Jamal and his supporters maintain his innocence, and a long list of celebrities such as actor Danny Glover and Archbishop Desmond Tutu have called for his release, or at the very least, a new trial.

Mumia Abu Jamal is a former member of the Black Panther Party. Like other Panthers, he was subjected to government surveillance under COINTELPRO. Upon graduating he pursued a career in broadcast radio journalism and worked at a number of radio stations. In 1994 he sued National Public Radio for canceling an agreement to air his radio commentaries based on complaints by the Fraternal Order of Police.

Today Mumia Abu Jamal continues to make his voice heard through his regular radio commentaries at PrisonRadio.org. Earlier this year a group of high-profile activists such as Angela Davis and Cornel West, held a day called Occupy the Justice Department, which among other things, drew attention to Mumia Abu Jamal. They are demanding a meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder over issues of police corruption and civil rights violations in the case of Abu Jamal and many others.

Mumia Abu Jamal called into KPFK from the SCI Mahanoy prison in Frackville, Pennsylvania to discuss the Occupy Wall Street movement, the American prison system, the media, and more.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day:

“Conventional wisdom would have one believe that it is insane to resist this, the mightiest of empires, but what history really shows is that today’s empire is tomorrow’s ashes; that nothing lasts forever, and that to not resist is to aquiesce in your own oppression. ” — Mumia Abu Jamal