Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Kim Ives, David Swanson, Janine Bandcroft March 28, 2019

This Week on GR

by C. L. Cook - Gorilla-Radio.com

March 28, 2019

Last month, a curious arrest came and went in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. The incident surrounded the "catch and release" of a band of American mercenaries, allegedly nabbed in flagrante not in the boudoir, but the national bank.

In what sounds like a Mack Senate two-reeler, this Keystone Operation would be slapstick but for the deadly serious political situation in Haiti now, and its long history of foreigner-engineered disasters.

Kim Ives is a contributing editor at Haiti Liberté, a weekly newspaper published in French, Kreyol, and English,and veteran reporter, editor, and photographer for Haïti Progrès.


Listen. Hear.

Kim is also a past host of WBAI Radio's Haitian news program, Lanbi Call, and documentary film maker whose projects include: 'Bitter Cane', 'Ayisyen Leve Kanpe', and 'The Coup Continues' among others.

Ives too is a founding member of the International Support Haiti Network (ISHN), formerly the Haiti Support Network (HSN), and has led numerous delegations to Haiti since 1986 to investigate human rights violations, union struggles, peasant land conflicts, and state-enterprise privatization campaigns.

Kim's recent article, 'American Mercenaries Arrested in Haiti Were Part of a Half-Baked Scheme to Move $80 Million on Behalf of Embattled President', (published in cooperation with The Intercept) broke the story of the hapless gang who couldn't loot straight.

Kim Ives in the first half.

And; can any war be called "just". It's a concept not questioned enough, with most people assuming wars of self-defense are clearly defensible. While Afghanistan never attacked the United States, or anyone else, America and its "coalitions of the willing", while invoking UN Article 51 and the "self-defense" doctrine, bombed, invaded, and continue to occupy that nation 18 years after the first bombs fell. All this in defense of what?

David Swanson is an author, activist, tireless promoter of pro-peace networks and websites, and co-founder of World Beyond War, an organization making the case for the abolition at last of that ultimate expression of human destructiveness. His book titles include: ‘Curing Exceptionalism’, ‘A Global Security System’, ‘War Is Never Just’, ‘War Is a Lie’, ‘Killing Is Not a Way of Life’, ‘War No More: The Case for Abolition’, and many more. He's also the host of Talk Nation Radio, linked through his website, Let’s Try Democracy, and a devastatingly effective debater, especially on the topic of war and peace.

I came across a recording of David's February 13th, 2018 debate with Pete Kilner, a military ethicist, at Eastern Mennonite University on the question, "Is War Ever Justifiable?" and it's as succinct a refutation of the tropes of war and war making you're likely to hear.

David Swanson, refuting the 'Just War Doctrine' in the second half.

And; Victoria-based activist and long-time Gorilla Radio contributor, Janine Bandcroft will be here at the bottom of the hour with the Left Coast Events Bulletin, bringing us up to speed with some of what's good going on in and around our town in the coming week. But first, Kim Ives and a half-baked Haitian heist hitting the fan.

Chris Cook hosts Gorilla Radio, airing live every Thursday between 11-Noon Pacific Time. In Victoria at 101.9FM, and on the internet at: http://cfuv.uvic.ca.  He also serves as a contributing editor to the web news site, http://www.pacificfreepress.com. Check out the GR blog at: http://gorillaradioblog.blogspot.ca/