April 10, 2017

Morality, Race, and Chemical Assaults in Syria
With No Black President to Oppose, Trump Decides to Take Action

By Roger Witherspoon

Tomahawk launch from USS Ross 

The tragic result of Assad's use of gas to kill more than 1,400 men, women and children in Syria.

This photo of a South Sudanese child is among the horrific pictures of men, women, and children being massacred or starving in an ongoing civil war.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - In 2013, Syria’s President Bashar Al-Assad launched a massive gas attack on civilians which killed more than 1,400 men, women, and children.  President Barack Obama was both horrified and angry and sought legal authorization from the GOP-controlled Congress to launch a military strike against Syria.

The Republicans, who had criticized many Obama initiatives as “overreaching,” unauthorized and illegal, declined to grant approval. They were encouraged in their position by Donald Trump, who had seen newspaper still photos — sanitized for American audiences — of the chemical attack. Trump repeatedly said the U.S. has “no business” in Syria and the use of chemical weapons there was not our problem. More than once the prolific Trump tweeted “stay out!”

That attitude didn’t change with the regular use of barrel bombs (http://bit.ly/2oGZg7S ) which have killed thousands of Syrian men, women, and children.  There were videos and still pictures of destroyed neighborhoods and assorted bodies sticking out of what used to be apartment buildings. But they didn’t earn a 3 a.m. tweet.

And that was understandable: Why should a Caucasian billionaire give a damn about a bunch of Muslim babies dying in a Syrian street? And why would a rich White man who associated freely with White supremacists ever side with a Black President over a moral issue?

In the ensuing years, on the other side of the globe, thousands of Muslim Rohingya men, women, and children have been slaughtered by Buddhist mobs and military in Myanmar and Thailand.  Thousands of Rohingya people tried to flee on overloaded boats, only to be pushed further out to sea to die by Navy vessels from surrounding countries whose captains viewed Muslims as vermin to be exterminated.

To this, Trump has said nothing. But then, it was a bunch of Muslims being killed by a bunch of “slopes” — nothing for a White man to bother tweeting about.

Meanwhile, in South Sudan there were horrific pictures of men, women, and children being massacred or starving in an ongoing civil war. There were some photos of desiccated bodies rotting in the sun, and others of reed-thin waifs (  http://bit.ly/2nJTQnz ), their empty bellies bloated, being held to the last by emaciated mothers with no milk to give.

The incoming president, during the course of his world briefs, would have had these photos if he cared to look at them and thick dossiers if he cared to read them. But then, a bunch of Black women and children dying in the African sun was hardly worth a White man’s tweet.

Which brings us to April 2017. As it happens, President Trump, as usual roaming the mansion bored and alone, was looking at late night television and saw real time videos of men, women, and children dying in the streets of Syria from the same type of gas attack launched by the same murderous President Assad four years ago. The videos of these 70 victims were riveting, a stark difference from the static photo or two in a local newspaper four years earlier. It didn’t matter that in terms of scale, this brutal assault killed just 5 percent as many as the 2013 attack he dismissed with a tweet.

This time, there was no Black president to automatically oppose. This time, there was no opposition Congress to interfere.  This time, Trump actually looked at the videos — and found it difficult to turn away from the haunting scene: a woman’s writhing, uselessly flailing limbs that eventually stop in death; the straining, heaving chests of children starving for air until their little bodies give up and the heaving slows and then stops forever — children light-skinned enough to evoke images of his own grandchildren.

And that was enough for Trump to loose the weapons of war (http://bit.ly/2p7XN6G).

The launching of 59 Tomahawk missiles against a Syrian airbase came less than a week after Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced that the official policy of the United States was that President Trump didn’t give a damn how many people were slaughtered in Syria’s one-sided, uncivil war. A generation ago, Assad’s father secured control of the country by the brutal slaughter of some 20,000 Syrians.  Assad has improved on that level of butchery with more than half a million dead citizens to his credit as he seeks to kill anyone who isn’t part of his minority sect and a sycophant blindly supporting him. With Tillerson’s announcement, the President of the United States gave Assad permission to continue his murderous ways, secure in the knowledge that America would neither question his morality nor interfere in his slaughter.

But then, there was late night television and the images that Trump couldn’t get out of his head. It would be encouraging to think that the immorality of Assad’s chemical war offended Trump. But that’s unlikely in a man who boasts of sexually assaulting women and openly disdains morality.

It would be encouraging to think that, as President, Trump realizes America has a longstanding role in the world to oppose evil and could not ignore this brazen violation of civilized norms. But that would be counter to his longstanding position of “America First” and the rest of the world can go to hell. It would be encouraging to think that Trump sat down with all the long-term experts at the State Department to understand America’s role in the face of this reviled throwback to World War I. But then, Trump fired all the State Department experts.

Which brings us back to skin color.

The man who schemed to avoid serving his country saw death in Syria stalk scores of women and children who looked like his and felt compelled to order other Americans’ children into the breach to avenge them. As a parent, I understand the revulsion at the chemical attack. But then, as a father and grandfather I understood it in 2013.

But as a Black father whose child is serving her country overseas, I wish I had confidence that decisions that could again place her in harm’s way were based squarely on the morality of the situation and the role of America in a dangerous world and not on the ability of the President to identify with the color of a foreign victim’s skin.

Roger Witherspoon, a board member of the Society of Environmental Journalists, has been a professional writer for more than 40 years.  He has published in Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Essence, Black Enterprise, The Economist, and US Black Engineer & IT among others.He can be contacted at https://witherspoontnp.wordpress.com/

April 4, 2017

Pentagon Gets Green Light to Expand War in Somalia

(TriceEdneyWire.com/GIN) – Clouds are moving across Somalia's drought-wrecked landscape – but not the kind that make grass grow and flowers bloom.

Instead, military aircraft will be raining down “precision fires” after an authorization signed by President Trump that relaxes rules meant to prevent civilian casualties in the region. Military officials are also granted wider authority for conducting airstrikes under the relaxed rules.

The new approach to Somalia is in line with increasingly aggressive policies the administration has already adopted in Iraq, Syria, and Yemen.

U.S. troops will be working with the Somali National Army and the African Union Mission in Somalia in offensive operations “consistent with our approach of developing capable Somali security forces and supporting regional partners in their efforts to combat al-Shabab,” said Pentagon spokesman Navy Capt. Jeff Davis.

News of the signed authorization was revealed in national newspapers this week.

Experts fear the so-called Somalia campaign carries enormous risks — including more American casualties, botched airstrikes that kill civilians and the potential for the United States to be drawn further into defending a government that barely controls the lands beyond its capital.

The operations are likely to create a new exodus of desperate refugees fleeing towards Kenya which already houses almost a quarter of a million Somalis escaping war at home.

The war build-up, it must be said, was already underway during the last year of the Obama administration using Special Operations troops, airstrikes, private contractors and African allies in an escalating campaign against Islamist militants in the Horn of Africa nation.

Hundreds of American troops now rotate through makeshift bases in Somalia, the largest military presence since the United States pulled out of the country after the “Black Hawk Down” battle in 1993.

"There appears to be a move by the Trump administration to loosen the rules," said Joel Charny, director of the Norwegian Refugee Council's office in Washington. "The theme seems to be more aggressive, and the consequences seem to be a spike in civilian casualties. “

Unnamed defense sources told ABC News that the “southern” portion of Somalia will be considered an “active area of hostilities” for the next six months.

The latest war plans were unveiled as Somalia's government declared the current drought a national disaster, with the U.N. saying roughly half of the country's 12 million people are at risk. A cholera outbreak has also spread.

The country is also one of the seven predominantly Muslim countries included in Trump's recent travel ban that has been suspended by federal courts. 

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April 4, 2017

Dr. Bernice King Tells 'Stateswomen' Gathering: 'Rise Above' Anger and Animus
By Barrington M. Salmon

Dr. Bernice King addresses the Stateswomen for Justice Luncheon and Issues Forum. PHOTO: Roy Lewis/Trice Edney News Wire

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The Rev. Dr. Bernice A. King, at the close of Women’s History Month, electrified an audience of men and women at the National Press Club, challenging them to rise above bickering with people with whom they may have political and cultural disagreements and find common ground – including with President Donald Trump.

In a speech she called, “What Does the Black Lives Matter Movement and Trump Have in Common?” she focused on the reality of the anger and animus on one side and the disgust, concern and fear of Trump on the other. She said the way to move forward from to the vilification hurled from both sides is to find common ground.

“We need people to rise above it and engage in conversation, real conversation,” she advised. “We’re not hearing each other right now because we’re not listening. We’re trying to react to what is said. We have to realize that that individual (with whom we disagree) is still of value. We have to win over people. The next generation is watching us for cues.

“We must listen and hear even though we don’t want to,” she continued. “We should not be drawing the line, unfriending people on Facebook, disconnecting links on LinkedIn or dragging them on Twitter. We must resist separation in the face of difference. We must love unconditionally …”

Chief executive officer at the King Center in Atlanta, Dr. King was keynote speaker at the 7^th annual Stateswoman for Justice Luncheon and Issues Forum, sponsored by the Trice Edney News Wire. The event, also in celebration of the 190^th anniversary of the Black Press, drew about 200 men and women to the Press Club even in chilly, rainy weather.

The youngest daughter of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and Coretta Scott King caused a stir and murmurs in the crowd as she prefaced her remarks by warning the packed ballroom that her comments about Black Lives Matter and Trump might cause some discomfort.

“Now I’m going to say some things that might be a little different and controversial,” she said with a wry smile. “I’m pushing the envelope. What do they have in common? They have awakened in us deep down divisions that in many respects we have tried to avoid, ignore, deny. I don’t know about you, but I’m very concerned about that.”

The Spelman College graduate who has a Bachelor’s Degree in psychology and a Masters of Divinity and Doctorate of Law from Emory University, went on to say that “there’s a deep polarization that exists in our nation and in fact, it’s potentially getting worse…Dr. King tried to teach us how to live in a world and co-exist with all of these different ideologies. What he left is an important blueprint that we cannot escape if you’re going to create a just, equitable world. He gave us plans and a strategy: chaos or community.”

She offered Black Americans four policy and moral prescriptions they should pursue if they hope to achieve the justice and equality for which her father fought and died:

• She said the Black community must be willing to value and embrace all of the community and all aspects of justice.
• She said they and others must realize that we’re all on the same boat – that justice can’t be narrow and one-sided.
• She said there is a great need for people who’re working to forge an agency for justice and who value long-term strategic planning in that area.
• Lastly, she said the community needs people who value building the “beloved community.”

King’s remarks magnified the growing racial, social and cultural divide that has been exacerbated by a vitriolic presidential campaign, Trump’s naked appeals to race and his masterful stoking of racial fears. Sensing the anxiety and feeling of disenfranchisement White voters carried, he spoke to their anger and their belief that Washington, African Americans, Latinos and immigrants had conspired against their interests.

Hazel Trice Edney, president/CEO of Trice Edney Communications and Trice Edney News Wire - convener of the luncheon and forum – also assembled a distinguished panel of Black leaders to discuss the topic, “Listen Up America: Forging Our Agenda for Justice.”  Panelists were Washington Informer Publisher Denise Rolark Barnes, chair of the National Newspaper Publishers Association (NNPA); former Bennet College President Dr. Julianne Malveaux, a noted economist, businesswoman, author, and commentator; Dr. Lezli Baskerville, Esq., president/CEO of the National Association for Equal Opportunity in Higher Education (NAFEO); Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights Under Law; and Rev. Dr. Barbara Reynolds, an award-winning journalist, minister and author of the autobiography of Coretta Scott King, “My Life, My Love, My Legacy.”

Howard University’s Yanick Rice Lamb, journalist, author and chair of the Radio, TV and Film Department, moderated the lively panel discussion. During her remarks, Malveaux drew laughter when she told King that she had to part ways with the reconciliation aspects of her keynote speech.

“My sister, I’m a Baby Panther and a cynic. Even though my doctor said fisticuffs isn’t good for my health and my girlfriend said she’s going to let me stay in jail for 24 hours,” said Malveaux, who leaned forward and gestured with her hands to accentuate her comments. “I’m resisting. I am a fighter because in every good we saw in Dr. King, we’ve seen an erosion. As Rev. Willie Barrow said, ‘We’re not as divided as disconnected.’”

Clarke expressed her deep concern about the nomination of Judge Neil Gorsuch to the US Supreme Court, who she described as an extremist who is wholly unsuited to be elevated to the High Court.

“This Supreme Court nomination has tremendous implications for us as black people in Voting Rights, healthcare and the death penalty,” Clarke said. “We deserve a justice who will fairly interpret civil rights and Constitutional laws.”

She also condemned Attorney General Jeff Sessions, saying he didn’t have to character or compassion to properly serve the people, especially African-Americans.

“The US Department of Justice is led by a man who couldn’t bring a more hostile attitude. He voted against hate crimes as a senator and he is pro-police,” Clarke continued. “We need to bring pressure to let him know that he must put aside his personal and political views. Mass incarceration is an issue we cannot turn a blind eye to. He has supported the return to the use of private prison and he has abandoned police reforms.”

During an audience question and answer session, women and men touched on multiple topics such as the disrespect meted out to women. A specific reference was to Trump Press Secretary Sean Spicer, whose exchanges with White House Correspondent April Ryan have recently been criticized as disrespectful. In a condescending way, he once told her to stop shaking her head. Concerns about missing Black and Brown girls and Fox’s Bill O’Reilly’s disparaging remark about Rep. Maxine Waters wig were also discussed.

“I’m furious and angry up here and I’m still not gracious,” Rev. Reynolds said forcefully as dozens in the audience stood and applauded. “I’m angry at how Rep. Waters was disrespected. He didn’t look at her record. We can take it off and pull it off because it’s ours! April Ryan was disrespected and she’s a grown woman. She can shake her hair, her finger, any part of her! We need to shake it up!”

April 2, 2017

He Wanted to Murder a Black Man and He Did

By Frederick H. Lowe

Timothy Caughman

James Jackson

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from NorthStarNewsToday.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - An admitted white supremacist, who stabbed to death a black man with a sword in order to discourage white women from dating black men, has been arrested and charged with murder and a hate crime.

James Jackson, 28, of Baltimore is charged with murdering 66-year-old Timothy Caughman on March 20 in New York City,  said Cyrus R. Vance, Jr., District Attorney for Manhattan.

Jackson is charged with first-degree murder as an act of terrorism, second-degree murder as a hate crime, second-degree murder as a crime of terrorism and three counts of criminal possession of a weapon, Vance said.

Caughman was collecting plastic bottles for recycling when Jackson repeatedly plunged an 18-inch blade into his back and chest.  Bleeding profusely, Caughman stumbled into the Midtown South Precinct station where paramedics rushed him to Bellevue Hospital. He died in the hospital.

More than 24 hours later, Jackson walked into the Times Square police station where he confessed to killing Caughman.

Jackson had ridden a bus from Baltimore to New York City and he prowled the streets for three days, hunting for black men to kill.

“James Jackson wanted to kill black men, planned to kill black men, and then did kill a black man,” Vance said. “He chose Midtown as his crime scene because Manhattan is the media capital of the world, and a place where people of different races live together and love one another.”

In an interview with the tabloid New York Daily News, Jackson said he wished he would have killed ‘a young thug’ or a ‘successful older black man with blondes…people you see in Midtown.’

Jackson told the Daily News reporters that Caughman’s murder was a ‘practice run.’ He planned to kill other black men to discourage white women from forming romantic relationships with black men, asserting that interracial relationships were taboo when it is between a black man and a white woman.

Jackson, an Army veteran, is now locked up in Rikers Island, a prison with a large population of black-male inmates and a substantial number of black- male staff members.

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, who is married to a black woman, called Jackson’s alleged crimes “domestic racist terrorism.”