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This week on Uprising:

* Matthew Hoh on Resigning in Protest of the Afghan War
* Black Agenda Report on Afghan President Hamid Karzai
* Multinational Companies Win Big Oil Contracts in Iraq
* Empire Notes on Nidal Malik Hasan
* Army Corps Found Liable for Katrina Damage

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Matthew Hoh on Resigning in Protest of the Afghan War

Breaking ranks with the President and Stanley McChrystal, General Wesley Clark told Congress this past Tuesday that the US should begin planning an exit from Afghanistan. Clark’s voice is part of a growing chorus within the ranks of the military and government calling for a reality check on the war. Last week leaked memos revealed that Karl Eikenberry, the US Ambassador to Afghanistan, advised the White House to deny an increase in troops. Eikenberry believes that Afghan President Hamid Karzai must demonstrate a political commitment to ending corruption for a build-up in forces to be effective. But the strongest call so far has come from a Foreign Service officer named Matthew Hoh. Hoh, the Senior Civilian Representative for the U.S. government serving in Zabul Province, resigned from his position in protest of the war. His eloquent four-page letter announcing his leave unequivocally states that the U.S. military strategy exacerbates the nation’s civil war, breeds insurgencies that seek funding from the Taliban, and bolsters a government dominated by drug lords and war criminals. Hoh wrote, “I do not believe any military force has ever been tasked with such a complex, opaque, and Sisyphean mission. Our forces have become committed to conflict in an indefinite and unplanned manner that has become a cavalier, politically expedient, and Pollyannaish misadventure.” As for the U.S., he states the war has devastated military families, and arrested the nation’s economy.

GUEST: Matthew Hoh, former Foreign Service Officer in Afghanistan who resigned in protest of the war

Special Thanks to Brave New Films for help recording this interview.

Black Agenda Report on Afghan President Hamid Karzai

Glen Ford is a writer and radio commentator and the Executive Editor of The Black Agenda Report. This week’s commentary is on Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Visit www.blackagendareport.com for more information.

Multinational Companies Win Big Oil Contracts in Iraq

Iraqi oil officials are scheduled to meet with a consortium of Japanese companies on Sunday to finalize a development deal on the Nassiriyah oil field. The negotiations follow a first round of bidding for lucrative contracts earlier this summer by several multinational oil corporations. Only the consortium comprised of British Petroleum and the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation emerged with agreed upon terms for the largest oil field in Iraq last summer but government oil officials have since made negotiations much more appealing to bidders. Earlier this month, Exxon-Mobil was able to win a fifty billion dollar contract and in doing so became the first U.S.-based oil corporation to reach a deal with Iraq in thirty-five years. Forty-five international oil corporations will be seeking future developmental deals on fifteen oil fields in the country as a highly competitive second round of bidding is scheduled to start on December 11th. Iraqi Oil Minister Hussain Shahristani characterized his nation’s move away from nationalized production by saying, “After decades of oppression and tyranny, Iraq is getting back its riches for this generation and for the next.” Resistance within Iraq and around the world, however, has thus far prevented the passage of the Iraq Oil Law that would further open the country’s reserves to multinational corporations.

GUEST: Antonia Juhasz, Director of the Chevron Program at Global Exchange, author of “The Tyranny of Oil: the World’s Most Powerful industry and What We Must Do To Stop It,” available on December 8th on paperback.

Empire Notes on Nidal Malik Hasan

Empire Notes are weekly commentaries filed by Rahul Mahajan, author of Full Spectrum Dominance and The New Crusade. Today’s commentary is on Nidal Malik Hasan.

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

Visit www.empirenotes.org for more information.

Army Corps Found Liable for Katrina Damage

A federal judge’s ruling on Wednesday against the Army Corps of Engineers has finally confirmed what many Gulf Coast residents have known for the past four years: that the flooding caused by Hurricane Katrina in 2005 was in fact a man-made disaster. In his 189 page ruling, Judge Stanwood Duval wrote, “The Corps’ lassitude and failure to fulfill its duties resulted in a catastrophic loss of human life and property in unprecedented proportions… Furthermore, the Corps not only knew, but admitted by 1988, that the MRGO (Mississippi River Gulf Outlet) threatened human life… and yet it did not act in time to prevent the catastrophic disaster that ensued with the onslaught of Hurricane Katrina.” The suit in question was brought by three homeowners and one business owner, who are to be awarded $720,000 in damages. The Times Picayune in New Orleans estimates that the ruling sets a precedent that could encourage 100,000 more lawsuits. However the government is expected to veto the ruling.

GUESTS: Amanda Moore, National Wildlife Federation’s Coastal Louisiana Organizer

For more information, visit www.MRGOmustgo.org.

Sonali’s Subversive Thought for the Day

“Justice is the great interest of man on earth. It is the ligament which holds civilized beings and civilized nations together.” — Daniel Webster