From The Final Call Newspaper

Singled out, abused and expelled! Biden administration failures, false promises on full display at U.S. border

By J.S. Adams, Contributing Writer
- September 28, 2021



A United States Border Patrol agent on horseback tries to stop a Haitian migrant from entering an encampment on the banks of the Rio Grande near the Acuna Del Rio International Bridge in Del Rio, Texas on September 19, 2021. - The United States said Saturday it would ramp up deportation flights for thousands of migrants who flooded into the Texas border city of Del Rio, as authorities scramble to alleviate a burgeoning crisis for President Joe Biden's administration. (Photo by PAUL RATJE / AFP) (Photo by PAUL RATJE/AFP via Getty Images)


Menacing images of the U.S. Border Patrol agents on horseback, blocking the paths of Haitian migrants, went viral on social media. Nearly 15,000 migrants, mostly made up of Haitians, made the dangerous journey from Latin America to the U.S.-Mexico border, hoping to seek asylum in the U.S. But groups say, Haitians were singled out, and targets of a mass expulsion back to Haiti. This dark moment has exposed President Joe Biden’s false promises of immigration reform and advocates are demanding change and accountability.

Deportations and division

The migrant camp in the small border town of Del Rio, Texas, is now empty. Highly-criticized expulsion flights began on Sept. 19. As of Sept. 24, roughly 2,000 Haitians were sent back to Haiti, and The Associated Press reported none remained, a stark difference from just days prior. Many migrants were also released into the U.S., according to the news agency.

U.S. officials expelled Haitian migrants through several flights per day, becoming the largest-scale expulsion the country has seen in decades. The United Nations Children’s Fund expressed concern with women and children being sent back to Haiti without proper protection, its executive director stating, “they find themselves even more vulnerable to violence, poverty and displacement—factors that drove them to migrate in the first place.”




President Biden’s special envoy to Haiti, Daniel Foote, resigned over the handling of the migrants. Mr. Foote said he would not be associated with the “inhumane, counterproductive decision to deport thousands of Haitian refugees and illegal immigrants to Haiti.”

“Our policy approach to Haiti remains deeply flawed, and my policy recommendations have been ignored and dismissed, when not edited to project a narrative different from my own,” his statement Sept. 24 further read.




In speech over the Sept. 26 weekend, former President Donald Trump applauded the Border Patrol, saying they were doing “one hell of a job.” “They’re going after the riders of the horses rather than the people that came in illegally … isn’t that incredible?” he said during a rally in Perry, Ga.

The outcry that followed the alarming images of Border Patrol agents mounted on horses sparked a policy change from the Biden administration. White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki announced the suspension of horse patrols at the U.S.-Mexico border. Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said the Department of Homeland Security has opened an investigation into agents’ use of horses. NPR reported those involved have been placed on administrative duties. But advocates say, this is not enough.

Promises made, but not kept

It took several days for the president to fully address the treatment of Haitian migrants at the border, although he had the opportunity to do so during his United Nations address Sept. 21. Speaking Sept. 24, he called it “horrible.”



“There will be consequences,” President Biden told reporters. “It’s an embarrassment, but it’s beyond an embarrassment—it’s dangerous, it’s wrong, it sends the wrong message around the world and sends the wrong message at home. It’s simply not who we are.”

Prominent Democrats, as well as Republicans have put the president under intense fire for his handling of the border crisis. He has faced public criticism from Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y), as well as Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) They joined a chorus of civil rights and grassroots activists, who called for an end to deportations. Tamika Mallory, a prominent young activist, blasted President Biden on Instagram. According to Black Enterprise, Ms. Mallory said while live on the social media app, “So there’s no way to get around the fact that under this administration, they are responsible.”

“This is much bigger than just one group of Border Patrol agents,” she also said. “His boss needs to be fired, and their bosses, not the man with the whip.”

She also posted to her feed, “Our Haitian family being whipped is NO DIFFERENT from George Floyd being choked of his air supply and murdered. … Those men on horses have the same mindset of police officers who kill Black people every day. And America is responsible.”



“They need to be prosecuted,” said Marleine Bastien, founder and executive director of the Family Action Network in Miami, Fla. The organization was part of a rally outside an immigration center in Miami. “They physically abused our refugees who came here.” She is fighting to have her organization do an assessment on refugees who may have been hurt or victimized by border patrol.

On Black News Tonight, journalist Marc Lamont Hill questioned Rep. Omar, asking if the Biden administration has broken its promise for immigration reform.

“Certainly,” she said. “This is worse than a broken promise. This is truly reneging and doing the opposite of what you said you would do.”

Furthermore, many were outraged that during his speech to the United Nations in New York, President Biden hardly commented on the crisis at the border, and the mistreatment of Haitian migrants.

While migrants are owed due process when coming to the border, and a chance at asylum, Title 42, a Trump-era health law denies certain immigrants asylum into the country.

“Under the Trump administration, which was rooted in the demographic bomb that they see going off in the Black and Brown community, which will render Whites in America a minority, they bent all of the rules to ensure that the migrants were turned around and not allowed in the country,” said Abdul Haleem Muhammad, the student regional representative of the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan based in Houston, Texas. “The Biden administration’s hands are tied because Congress has not done a comprehensive immigration bill since the time of Ronald Reagan.”

The Trump administration argued that migrants coming across the southern border did not qualify as refugees fleeing persecution and were not protected by U.S. asylum law. Although a U.S. district court judge handed down a ruling that barred the federal government from expelling migrants under Title 42, the Biden administration appealed the ruling, going against the president’s promise for immigration reform.


U.S. Customs and Border Protection mounted officers attempt to contain migrants as they cross the Rio Grande from Ciudad Acuña, Mexico, into Del Rio, Texas, Sunday, Sept. 19, 2021. Thousands of Haitian migrants have been arriving to Del Rio, Texas, as authorities attempt to close the border to stop the flow of migrants. (AP Photo/Felix Marquez)

On top of that, Ms. Bastien says laws against Haitian migrants have always been racist.

“When you look at the number of people coming to the border, Haitians make up only one percent,” she said. “So why are they singled out for this treatment? We believe that racism is at the root of it.”

“There’s always been a double standard. Whether it is a Democratic or Republican administration, there’s always been a double standard,” she continued. She said Haitian-Americans are asking for the Biden administration to keep its promise to respect basic human rights. “We are asking for equal treatment.”

Many organizations stood up to blast President Biden, including the Black Alliance for Peace.

“Seeking asylum by individuals who may be facing prosecution, imprisonment and even death because of political affiliation or membership in racial, national, sexual or religious groups is a recognized requirement under international law,” Ajamu Baraka, national organizer for the Black Alliance for Peace, said. “That the Biden administration has ordered federal authorities to mass deport thousands of Haitians, which will probably have the effect of driving many of them who will resist deportation back into Mexico and Central and South America, is both unprecedented in its scope and fundamentally racist.”

The Haiti Support Project condemned the treatment of Haitians at the border, demanded an end to deportations, and a granting of Temporary Protective Status.

The Immigrant Defense Project released a statement, saying in part, “Top Biden administration officials are calling these images ‘obviously horrific,’ ‘horrible’ and claiming it ‘defies all of the values we seek to instill’ even as they orchestrate the mass deportation of the very refugees they are abusing. Actions speak louder than words, and this administration’s actions are roaring.”

The chaos the U.S. created

Haiti is currently recovering from the assassination of President Jovenel Moise and a catastrophic earthquake that killed more than 2,000 people. However, Haitians have been migrating from Haiti since the January 2010 earthquake that killed hundreds of thousands. The country’s unstable political landscape has been in place for decades, and advocates say it’s a direct result of meddling done by the United States and the United Nations.

“What’s happening at the border is a result of 30 years of a failed U.S. foreign policy with autocrats, dictators and corrupt politicians [in Haiti],” Ms. Bastien said. “So unless we address the root causes of migration, we will continue to see this crisis at the border.”


Migrants, mostly from Haiti, prepare to board a bus after they were processed and released after spending time at a makeshift camp near the International Bridge, Sunday, Sept. 19, 2021, in Del Rio, Texas. The U.S. flew Haitians camped in the Texas border town back to their homeland Sunday and tried blocking others from crossing the border from Mexico in a massive show of force that signaled the beginning of what could be one of America’s swiftest, large-scale expulsions of migrants or refugees in decades. (AP Photo/Eric Gay)

Janvieve Williams of BAP member organization AfroResistance pointed out, “Racist U.S. policies in Haiti, supported by the Core Group, the UN, and other international organizations, have created the situation in Haiti—and at the border.”

Black Alliance for Peace added, “If successive U.S. administrations had not undermined Haitian democracy and national self-determination, there would be no humanitarian crisis in Haiti or on the U.S. border.”

“The Biden administration upended democracy in Haiti by supporting Jovenel Moïse despite the end of his term,” the group continued. “All of these imperialist interventions have ensured that thousands would have to seek safety and refuge outside of Haiti. The U.S. policy response? Imprisonment and deportation. The United States has created an endless loop of dispossession, depravity and despair.”


Migrants, many from Haiti, are seen in an encampment along the Del Rio International Bridge near the Rio Grande, Thursday, Sept. 23, 2021, in Del Rio, Texas. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)

Min. Haleem Muhammad, who joined a protest in Houston called to support justice for Haitians, said all of this is part of keeping Haiti destabilized.

“The country itself is still very minerally rich and there’s vast riches on the island of Haiti,” he observed. “The moneyed interests from around the world want to continuously destabilize Haiti, so that they can steal the wealth from underneath the feet of the Haitian people.”

Kofi Taharka, chairman of the National Black United Front (NBUF), said this is an important point to understand.

“We have to understand the history of Haiti, the history of the first, the only successful revolution and Black Republic in the Western Hemisphere,” said Mr. Taharka, who is based in Houston and helped organize the protest condemning U.S. actions.




“One of the challenges as we understand it within [Haiti] itself has been an elite class of people who have partnered with these imperialists, with these global White supremacists, to help destabilize the country,” he continued. “Could you imagine if they hadn’t had all this destabilization? The people wouldn’t be running here.”

Patrick Muhammad, the Miami-based 7th Region representative of Minister Farrakhan, who is also Haitian, said the biggest need is for unity. “We’re at a critical point right now, but we have to bring the solution, and we can’t dilute it, we can’t sugarcoat it, we cannot compromise the truth that is to be spoken. That’s why the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan is the boldest Black man that we know for humanity,” he said.

Min. Haleem Muhammad said accountability for President Biden is needed. Political accountability at the ballot box is needed but a greater divine accountability and divine chastisement is happening as the United States spirals downward. America “will be held accountable by the further unraveling of this great nation as the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan pointed out in his 2020 Saviours’ Day address,” he said.

From The Final Call Newspaper

‘We don’t deserve this!’ The devastating impact of oppressive U.S. sanctions

By Brian E. Muhammad, Staff Writer
- September 21, 2021

Residents some of them wearing a face mask to avoid the spread of the new coronavirus wait near the empty containers to be filled with water provided by a government water truck in the neighborhood of Petare in Caracas, Venezuela, Monday, June 15, 2020. Water shortages have continued to deepen in Venezuela at a time when the threat of the coronavirus makes washing hands even more critical. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)


“For the day of the LORD is near for all the nations. Just as you have done, it will be done to you. Your dealings will return on your own head.” —Obadiah 1:15 (Bible)

The sins and misdeeds of the United States sordid foreign policy record of imposing debilitating sanctions on nations she has adversarial relations with was scrutinized and called out in a new report. The “We Don’t Deserve This: The Impact and Consequences of U.S. Sanctions” report is an independent review of America’s practice issued by the Sanctions Kill Coalition, a collective of social justice and human rights organizations. The report was released Sept. 12. A “Sanctions Kill” webinar sponsored by the United Anti-War Coalition was held virtually on Sept. 12 to discuss U.S. sanctions in Latin America and Africa and to introduce the report.

“We want to show the extent of the U.S. crime which has been denounced again and again in the United Nations General Assembly by a whole list of countries,” said Sara Flounders, co-founder of the International Action Center, and moderator of the webinar. “That hasn’t stopped the U.S. government,” she added.

Ms. Flounders questioned how far the U.S. was willing to go in its “lawlessness” and “criminal enforcement” of sanctions. “In recent decades, the U.S. has increasingly used sanctions as an instrument of foreign policy,” said the report’s introduction.

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Screenshot of Cuba embargo protest Photo: CBS4 Miami

There are a growing number of voices and nations worldwide that expressed deep criticism of the U.S. sanction regime. Some rights advocates charge America’s actions as Crimes Against Humanity.

“We need to keep in mind that what the U.S. is doing around the world…is illegal. It should be resisted by nations,” said Margaret Flowers, of PopularResistance.com.

“What we’re doing in all of these countries is driving isolation of the United States,” she added.

Ms. Flowers reasoned that America is failing to achieve its objectives, particularly in Latin America and is driving relationships between the region and her other foes like Russia, China, and Iran.

The Sanctions Kill website pointed out that there is a disparity between sanctioning nations and sanctioned nations. Countries imposing economic sanctions are the wealthiest, most powerful, industrially developed countries with the intention to “choke” the economies of poor, formerly colonized nations, said the website.

Others observe that sanctions are a part of America’s fiendish policy of maintaining hegemony as a global thug, even at the expense of the innocent.

People participate in a rally in Los Angeles, July 17, in solidarity with the people of Cuba and Haiti demanding that the United States end its attacks, sabotage and internal interventions. Ringo Chiu via AP

The Honorable Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam has been a voice warning America that her obstinate behavior is causing isolation and loss of “true” friendship globally. “The people of the world hate America because of America’s policies,” wrote Minister Farrakhan in a 1985 article reprinted Aug. 31 in his weekly Final Call column. “They do not hate the American people; they hate the American government,” he said.

America often justified sanctions under the pretense that the targeted nation poses a “serious risk” and iminent threat to America’s national security and foreign policy objectives. In theory sanctions are meant to accomplish geopolitical goals. However, research indicates that after the economic damage and cost of life, sanctions ultimately fail, says a February 2020 Cato Institute analysis.

The “We Don’t Deserve This” report delves into the impact of U.S. sanctions on developing nations in Africa, the Caribbean, and the Middle and Far East. The 35-page document is based on official reports, independent research, and polls among people from the sanctioned nations of Cuba, Iran, Nicaragua, Venezuela, Zimbabwe, and on-the-ground fact-finding in Syria.

The findings illustrate how America, the number one global economy and superpower, uses sanctions as an instrument of “economic terrorism” to crush geopolitical opponents.

“Sanctions are a tool of imperialism to coerce or to bully the targeted country to submit to imperialist domination,” explained Asantewaa Nkrumah-Ture, of Black Alliance for Peace, an anti-imperialism organization.

Squatter Leidi Rios sits with her two children on a bed in her home, with no running water, constructed from pieces of cardboard, plastic and pieces of wood, in Caracas, Venezuela, Saturday, June 13, 2020. Rios, who is unemployed, feeds her children with the food boxes provided by the government. (AP Photo/Ariana Cubillos)

Ms. Nkrumah-Ture gave an overview of U.S. sanction regimes as a mechanism that the U.S. has a lengthy history of using going back to the 1940s. She said the practice often harms the target nation’s most vulnerable citizens—the young, the elderly, sick and disabled people which is against international law.

International conventions like the Geneva and Nuremberg Conventions, the UN Charter and Universal Declaration of Human Rights, all prohibit targeting defenseless civilians. Some observers characterize sanctions as nothing less than the most brutal form of warfare.

To implement sanctions means restricting relations between a country and the global community of nations. Sanctions come in various forms such as blocking financial transactions and foreign assistance, freezing assets, and restricting commercial trade of arms and crucial items like food and fuel. Generally, the measure is imposed through the UN Security Council.

However, most U.S. sanctions are “unilateral coercive measures” meaning not legally authorized by the UN and imposed by the U.S. alone, said the report.

“It’s a crime against humanity, its collective punishment, but these coercive measures violate a number of different international laws,” said Ms. Flowers.

Since these sanctions deprive targeted countries of revenues to support essential infrastructure and public services for populations, they are a form of “collective punishment, comparable to a war-time siege” as stated in the Geneva and Hague Conventions, both signed by the U.S.

America has been an international snooper and meddler in other nations’ affairs. For nations that resist interference, America punishes them with crippling sanctions to cause economic and inhumane hardship, destabilization, and popular dissent with an aim of regime change. This is the strategy especially for Cuba, Venezuela, Syria, and Nicaragua.

 

As part of a nationwide action dubbed “No War,” anti-protestors rally in New York’s Foley Square in opposition to President Trump’s assassination of Iranian Gen-eral Soleimani and escalating tensions with Iran, Jan. 9, 2020. AP Photo/Bebeto Matthews

Sanctions as a destabilizing tool has been Washington’s modus operandi for decades. For example, the U.S. embargo on Cuba began in 1958 and has been the foundational stone of domestic suffering and over 600 attempted CIA assassinations on the late Fidel Castro, who died in 2016 of natural causes at 90.

In 1986 America sanctioned the Socialist Libyan Jamahiriya led by Muammar Gadhafi with economic, trade, and travel bans that adversely effected the Libyan people. The sanctions were for alleged involvement in terrorist attacks against the Rome and Vienna airports in December 1985 and lifted in 2004 after Libya agreed to relinquish its nuclear weapons program. Seven years later in shameless duplicity America re-sanctioned and invaded Libya and backed the killing of Mr. Gadhafi.

In August 1990, grueling sanctions were imposed on Iraq, originally intended to force Iraq to withdraw from neighboring Kuwait, its disputed territory at the time. According to several studies, decades into the early 2000s sanctions drove mass poverty and upwards of 350,000 Iraqi deaths, including children.

In August 2011, former President Barack Obama determined Syrian President Bashar al-Assad “must go,” and signed an executive order that froze Syrian government assets, banned importing Syrian oil, and legally barred American investing and trading with Syria. Then secretary of state Hillary Clinton assured the measures would “strike at the heart of the regime” rendering it unable to fund its security forces and harden the punch for regime change. Now, 10 years later Mr. Assad is still there. These only a few examples.

To exacerbate the suffering of an entire civilian population during a severe health crisis, to force regime change is morally corrupt and blatant disregard for basic human rights, the report further stated. The report cited a mixture of “voices from the sanctioned” describing their quality of life under embargo.

“The embargo that (President Joe) Biden is enforcing … is a cruel policy designed to make our lives miserable,” said Pablo, a musician/composer who has resided in Havana, Cuba, since 1996.

He compared the U.S. government embargo to a cop with its knee on the throat. “We can’t breathe!” he added, calling the blockade an act of war.

“The financial reserves robbed from our nation are not available for the maintenance and replacement of parts for our water system,” said Ana in Venezuela.

Sometimes there is no distribution of water for months, forcing people to walk long distances carrying water which is harmful to health, hygiene, and the economy. “People who are not able to carry water, like the elderly and disabled, must pay high prices for it,” Ana said.

U.S. sanctions affect a third of humanity with more than 8,000 measures impacting 39 countries, one-third of which are in Africa.

“Sanctions, we can see are very deliberate…elaborate, and strategic, designed to cause the most harm to the most people,” said Ms. Nkrumah-Ture.

The report details America’s offensive record which she must be accountable for, as past empires reaped what they had sown.

“She must get a taste of what she has put upon other people,” wrote the Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, in his book, “Message To The Black Man in America,” in a section called “Make America Know Her Sins.” He wrote America’s troubles are by Divine decree and God Himself is stirring up the nations against her for the trouble she has fostered in foreign lands.

A key finding in the report was the disturbing impact of U.S. sanctions on nations fighting the Covid-19 scourge. According to the UN, sanctions hindered the response to Covid-19 resulting in many people dying and the pandemic spreading further.

Last year the U.S. ignored UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres’ appeal for sanctioning powers to wave sanctions while the world fought against the virus.

The administration of former U.S. president Donald Trump added over 240 new sanctions to Cuba and so far President Biden has not reversed any decisions as many expected him to do.

Although Cuba was successful in developing safe Covid-19 vaccines and treatments for the Cuban people, the embargo blocked supplies like syringes from coming in.

A 2020 report from Alena Douhan, the special rapporteur on the Negative Impact of Unilateral Coercive Measures on the enjoyment of human rights in the course of the coronavirus pandemic, condemned the U.S. hardline sanction regime.

“The United States trade embargo against Cuba has not been eased since the start of the Covid-19 crisis,” Ms. Douhan reported after urgent appeals to the U.S. government to lift the embargo.

In August, Venezuela asked the International Criminal Court (ICC) to investigate U.S. sanctions as crimes against humanity and provided The Hague-based court with evidence.

Venezuelan Vice President Delcy Rodriguez announced Aug. 25 a dossier showing how U.S. sanctions affected Venezuelan rights to health, food, and economic development.

“We have obtained information on how (the sanctions) affected the medicine-producing industry in Venezuela. More than half the medicine-producing transnationals in the country left,” Ms. Rodriguez said.

She said all but 10 of the 150 individual companies affected by the sanctions were privately-owned, adding that Washington has also targeted specific assets, including 30 oil tankers and 58 aircraft. The aim is ousting President Nicolas Maduro and replacing him with proverbial puppet-on-a-string Juan Guaidó, observers charge.

The Washington-based Center for Economic and Policy Research estimates U.S. sanctions had caused more than 40,000 deaths in Venezuela in 2017-2018.

Ms. Douhan said targeted countries face shortages of medications and medical equipment, including oxygen supplies and ventilators, protective kits, spare parts, software, fuel, electricity, drinking water and water for sanitation.

The strength of U.S. global influence is enormous. U.S. sanctions and extraterritorial claims—or third-party entities—have led to the imprisonment of businesspersons and diplomats and the violation of international treaties, said the report.

The United States imposes broad trade embargoes as well as targeted sanctions that typically involve financial restrictions against entities and individuals. Since the Covid-19 pandemic began, the United States has broadened its use and threats of sanctions, for example, by considering new types of sanctions in connection with an effort to accuse China of the spread of the disease, such as the lifting of China’s sovereign immunity. The United States enforces its sanctions extraterritorially, thus foreign entities and individuals dealing with sanctioned countries can face United States penalties if the United States claims jurisdiction over an element of the transaction, such as the use of U.S. dollars.

Omowale Clay of the New York based December 12th Movement said despite unjust sanctions, he observed targeted countries move forward. “These countries that are battling sanctions on the other hand are doing tremendous things … pushing their country and development forward,” stated Mr. Clay.

Mr. Clay was speaking on Africa, Zimbabwe and strides made despite U.S. sanctions and international pressure.

“In the midst of sanctions for decades they’re producing their own vaccines for the people precisely because imperialism uses medicine as a weapon against the people,” he pointed out.

The United States has had Zimbabwe under sanctions for over 20 years. “It was targeted because they had the audacity to liberate themselves … seize the land that was taken from them and turn it over to the people,” said Mr. Clay.

From The Final Call Newspaper

Child Protective Services agencies are tearing Black families apart, advocates warn
By Michael Z. Muhammad, Contributing Writer
- September 14, 2021





Child protective and welfare service agencies are supposed to ensure the safety and security of children in loving and protective environments. However, for some Black family and child advocates and Black families these agencies are a wolf in sheep’s clothing and could more accurately be called “family policing services.”

Child Protective Services, the official name in many states, is the government agency that responds to reports of child neglect and abuse and is mandated to protect children, but their often reckless approach wreaks havoc on Black families daily. The story of former “American Idol” contestant Syesha Mercado and her partner Tyron Deener is a textbook case on the overreach and disturbing methods of some of these agencies, said the couple.

Manatee County Child Protective Services in Florida removed the couple’s son, Amen’Ra Sba, from their care on March 11 when he was just 13 months old, after the parents sought medical assistance for him.

Authorities allege Ms. Mercado failed to agree to have the child take a Vitamin B12 shot. The mother denies this. Their newborn daughter Ast was taken at gunpoint by Manatee County sheriff’s deputies from the couple’s car in August under the guise of a medical checkup, according to the parents. Authorities allege the parents did not inform them of her birth. Ms. Mercado captured the disturbing incident on video which garnered over three million views.

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Black parents often reach out to hospitals, physicians, and other agencies for help with their children. Suddenly the tables are turned, the parents are accused of child mistreatment or endangerment and children are taken away.


“It’s just completely false to think that White people are going to come in and save Black children that is part of that same ideology that we can go back to slavery as the origins of this idea that White people need to save Black children from their families. It’s been false, not only false but in a racist White supremacist ideology that paints Black parents and families and communities as if they’re defective and harmful,” said Dr. Dorothy Roberts, a University of Pennsylvania professor of law and sociology.

In the same manner that the murder of George Floyd brought the spotlight on racism in policing, the sad story of Ms. Mercado and Mr. Deener is shining a light on the gross inequalities of a national child welfare system steeped in racism and the ongoing destruction of the Black family as its outcome.

Targeting Black families

It’s difficult to get families victimized by the system to go on record about their ordeals out of fear of retaliation, given the vindictiveness of the system. April McBride, a Philadelphia resident, was willing to discuss her ongoing fight with the city’s child welfare agency. Ms. McBride said her descent into hell began when her eight year old daughter was disciplined for acting out in school. She received a spanking which left marks. The school reported the alleged abuse, and the child was removed from the school by the agency and placed in the foster care system immediately.

Dorothy Roberts on Twitter

“My daughter was kidnapped,” Ms. McBride declared.

This happened without the agency talking to her or discussing the situation, she said. The scenario is all too familiar.

Having the financial resources to hire a private attorney, Ms. McBride was able to have her daughter returned in a reasonable amount of time. However, she was indicted for child abuse, and her name placed on a state registry. Although she is still fighting this finding, she cannot work in many areas, which happens to thousands of people in the state.

According to the National Center for Juvenile Justice, Black people comprise about 13 percent of the total United States population and 25 percent of youth in foster care. In Philadelphia, Black people are 42 percent of the population and 65 percent of the youth in foster care. The Philadelphia Department of Human Services is legendary for its removal of Black children from their homes.

In an interview with The Final Call, the agency acknowledged problems but said it was working to solve them. “Since 2016, DHS priority is to right size the system. For child welfare, this means reducing the number of children in placement with DHS, expanding prevention services, and reunifying families as soon as it is safe to do so. This effort has resulted in a significant reduction in the number of families receiving DHS formal child welfare services,” an agency representative told The Final Call.

“We continue to work toward ensuring that families receive the services that best fit their needs, and that children and youth only come into DHS care when there is an imminent safety threat that prevents the child or youth from remaining safely in their own homes.”

Earlier this year, the “Children and Youth Services Review” found a correlation between child protective services investigations and race. It determined that Black families are subject to more significant intrusion and strident judgment at every contact stage, including disproportionate reports to Child Protective Services, subsequent investigations, and child removal.

Joyce McMillian, of Harlem-based JMacForFamilies

Over a decade ago, a study by the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia found Black children more likely to be evaluated for abuse than White children with comparable injuries. It raised concerns some children are being subjected to unnecessary testing while other cases of abuse go undiagnosed. Black families and families with governmental insurance were more likely to come under scrutiny than White families and families with private insurance.

Black families have come to dread the horrible knock on the door, which can come at any hour, day or night with the announcement, “We have received a report that your child is a victim of abuse and neglect.”

The report can even come from anonymous reports.

What follows next is an intrusion like no other. Children are awakened and can be strip searched, asked to take off their clothes by total strangers looking for signs of physical abuse. Caseworkers can rifle through the home, turn on faucets and ask, “why there is no milk in the refrigerator?”

It manifests as a humiliating, punitive and overstepping system, particularly toward Black families. Child welfare advocates say it must change.

This terrible scene played out again recently in Los Angeles. According to news reports, Kayla Love and Khari Jones were thrilled about their daughter Fari Love Jones, born at home in June. The child came quickly, and paramedics were called. Fari was subsequently taken to LA County USC Medical Center.

The couple declined to let doctors draw the baby’s blood. The parents informed the hospital they would have the child’s medical care followed up by their personal physician. “We said no. We prefer our child to be seen by a private physician. I don’t want your services. Reserve the right to deny,” Ms. Love said. After returning home that evening, 10 to 15 police with guns drawn stormed their home with a child welfare social worker in tow, she said. Authorities claimed the parents left the hospital against medical advice, placing the newborn in danger.

“This is predatory. They are just going for people they feel can be a victim. They didn’t know who they were dealing with. We are not letting this slide,” Ms. Love said.

California state Sen. Sydney Kamlager angrily posted on Twitter: “A young Black couple just had a baby at home. LAPD showed up; guns were drawn on the father and his newborn baby!”

“They were criminalized for giving birth. I am sick of us not being seen as autonomous beings. SICK!!!” Sen. Kamlager wrote.

The hospital states it was merely following protocol. “When there are concerns about the health and welfare of a minor, our medical staff have obligations to report such matters to appropriate social welfare authorities so they can investigate the safety of the home environment,” a hospital statement said.

A history of tearing Black families apart

Child welfare and the Black family can be traced back to Reconstruction after the Civil War. “For a time, white Northern reformers became captivated by an idealized mission of civilizing ‘Freedom’s Children,’ the offspring of former slaves. In an echo of the Orphan Train concept, some Black children were sent north to live—and work for white families where they traveled hundreds of miles away from their families to fill the needs of northern employers for dishwashers and household servants,” noted the International Socialist Review.

A recent study in the American Journal of Public Health examined and tracked the rates of Child Protective Services involvement in the lives of half a million children born in 1999 in California.

“The number of Black children in the system continues to be staggering: Half of the Black children, as well as half of the Native American children, experienced a CPS investigation at some point during the first 18 years of their lives, compared to nearly a quarter of white children,” the report stated.

“One in eight Black children spent time in foster care—a rate three times as high as white children. Three percent of Black children experienced termination of parental rights, compared with 1 percent of white children.”

The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam, in a message titled “Rebuilding the Family,” spoke on the intentional dismantling and targeted, systematic destruction of Black families.

“The great sin that has been committed against Black people, in particular, is the destruction of the Black male and the corruption of the Black female; the denial of our natural right to marriage and the raising of a family,” the Minister stated.

“The destruction of the Black family is a sin of huge proportion; therefore, the effort to rebuild this family must be aided by those who destroyed the family, and the responsibility of helping must be accepted by the generations that have benefited from the institutional slavery and the destruction of our families,” Min. Farrakhan continued.

Black family and child advocates are demanding agencies and systems be reformed, even reimagined. Advocates are advancing an agenda to transform the system’s approach to family safety, which they say is rooted in racist notions of non-White motherhood and plagued by institutional racism.

Joyce McMillian heads the Harlem-based group JMacForFamilies. In a detailed interview with The Final Call, Ms. McMillian reflected on the case of Ma’Khia Bryant in Columbus, Ohio. Ma’Khia, 16, called police to her foster home because she felt threatened by older adults who were at the home. A physical altercation ensued and Ma’Khia, who had a knife, was shot and killed by a responding police officer. Ms. McMillian said she advocates for Ma’Khia’s mother, who has three other children still in foster care.

“Child welfare in America is an extension of the 13th Amendment, which allows a person convicted of a crime to be forced to work. It’s the only way to have slaves in this country. They are the same system where one is for children, and one is for adults. Children in foster care are preconditioned, kind of like a prerequisite to incarceration because the outcome for the majority of the children is a prison,” she explained.

“One study shows 90 percent of children in foster care will become involved in the juvenile justice system. It’s a foster care to penitentiary pipeline. The parallels are remarkable. Both are stripped searched; both are separated from everyone they know and love. Both have oversight during visits. They both change homes and cells regularly and use pillowcases and garbage bags to transport their stuff. When they are returned home, there is oversight, and the violation of the slightest infraction will land them back in foster care or prison. I am here to tell you any system that portends to protect children should not look like a system that punishes adults,” Ms. McMillian pointed out.

A punitive system

“You should protect children by keeping them home. These children are not taken for reasons related to a crime. These kids have been taken for reasons related to an opinion. We know that the root cause of out-of-home placement is economic hardship. Simply examine where these agencies are located. The simple answer is the money spent on foster care could be better utilized to strengthen the home. Why remove a child because the lights are out or no winter coat? I tell you; it is all because of design,” said Ms. McMillian.

Pamela Muhammad is a Houston-based attorney. She has represented many mothers trapped in the child welfare system.

“You have a punitive organization, and they’re surveilling Black women to the extent that they call it ‘the new Jane Crow,’ where because of poverty, you see people targeted. They’re saying these mothers are abusive, but often at best, it may be neglect caused by poverty,” Atty. Muhammad told The Final Call.

“Once in the system, the parents are confronted with two problems. They are made to jump through hoops, having to take different classes. It’s a moneymaking machine,” Atty. Muhammad said. “The children are appointed White attorneys called guardian ad litems who allegedly represent the best interest of the child and find every reason under the sun not to return the child to their family. So you have three attorneys involved. The parent’s attorney who is almost always court appointed and overwhelmed, the child’s attorney and the attorney for the state in an adversarial system that is wholly dysfunctional and has no interest in bringing families together,” she explained.

“It’s just all punitive. If you have one child in the system, they want to find a way to place your other child. Every obstacle is placed in the way for relatives to assume care of the family member. Suppose the family member has a negative encounter with the agency in the long ago past? In that case, they are prohibited from caring for the relative child. If the parent has an abuse charge against them, they cannot find work in certain areas. This inability to find work is held against them and cited as another reason the child should not be returned,” said Atty. Muhammad.

Dorothy Roberts, who also authored “Torn Apart: How the Child Welfare System Destroys Black Families,” said the system needs to be “blown up.”

“Child welfare is an arm of the U.S. carceral state that aims to destroy the Black community,” she said. “It is intimately connected to police and the regulation of Black families and to breaking them apart. You cannot fix what is designed to oppress Black people. The harm it does to Black children is tremendous. We have to abolish the system, and it should be replaced with community-based ways of caring for families and keeping children safe,” she added.

“What is needed is radical transformative thinking where we abolish this brutal intrusion into Black families and create and build and strengthen the ways that Black people have always cared for children,” Dr. Roberts argued.

Many mothers who have been victimized by Child Protective Services have felt isolated due to many factors.

The African National Women’s Organization has stepped forward to fill this dark hole through their “#Arrest CPS campaign.”

Yejide Orunmila, president of the organization, told The Final Call something needed to happen to give voice to the many working class Black women who have felt the cold hand of CPS agencies around the country.

“Our campaign is meant to expose Child Protective Services as an agency that facilitates state-sponsored kidnapping of Black children, in particular,” she said. The campaign organizes parents who have been impacted or victimized by CPS to advocate on their own behalf, she explained.

Based in Maryland, ANWO organizes nationally around the CPS issue and is one of the few to advocate for victims of the system.

Ms. Orunmila shared how last month the group organized a “National Day of Action” with protests in St. Petersburg, Fla.; Sanford, Fla.; Wilmington, Del.; Washington, D.C.; Portland; Philadelphia; San Diego; Pittsburgh and St. Louis “exposing the parasitic nature of the foster care system and the devastating role it plays in the lives of Black families.”

Ms. Orunmila noted that her organization has been advocating for parents and families since 2017, when several women in Philadelphia who didn’t have anybody to help them in their desperate attempt to have their children returned came to their attention.

“The system is disgusting, and it requires more than us. It requires a whole movement. That’s going to bring it to task.

“In attacking these issues, ANWO works with building action committees, advocating for adequate legal representation and community support. The organization also publishes a pamphlet on guidelines to follow if investigated by CPS entitled ‘Know Your Rights,’ ” Ms. Orunmila said.

For more information on ANWO visit anwouhuru.org. Other resources include the Philadelphia-based Families Are Important to Heal (F.A.I.T.H.). This group can be found on Facebook under Faith Advocacy (Movement). Or visit officialbiggadre.hearnow.com.

 

From The Final Call Newspaper

Lies, loss, death and destruction: Twenty years of post-9/11 misery

By The Final Call
- September 7, 2021

In this Sept. 11, 2001 fi le photo, the twin towers of the World Trade Center burn after hijacked planes crashed into them in New York. As the post-Sept. 11 decade ends, some foreign families of the victims are eager to move past the tragedy. But though the pain transcended borders, foreign families have battled to cope with their loss from afar. AP Photo/Diane Bondareff


by Naba’a Muhammad and Brian E. Muhammad

More than 500 people poured into the streets in the Surkh Rod district of Nangahar province to protest the raid by international forces that they claim killed at least nine civilians. AP Photo/Rahmat Gul

U.S. service members assigned to Joint Task Force-Crisis Response, are pallbearers on Aug. 27, for the service members killed in action during operations at Hamid Karzai International Airport in Kabul, Afghanistan, as transfer cases are placed onto a U.S. Air Force C17A Globemaster III for the fl ght back to the United States. 1st Lt. Mark Andries/U.S. Marine Corps via AP

“And Allah’s is the kingdom of the heavens and the earth. And on the day when the Hour comes to pass, on that day will the followers of falsehood perish. And thou wilt see every nation kneeling down. Every nation will be called to its record. This day you are requited for what you did.”

—Holy Qur’an 45:27.28

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Twenty years have passed since jumbo jets flew into New York City’s World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. In horror, the world watched the implosion of the twin towers followed by reports of passenger planes striking the Pentagon outside of Washington, D.C., and going down in Pennsylvania.

On that day 3,000 people perished, changing reality for Americans and millions around the world in different ways. 9/11 was so momentous an event that many who lived it remember what they were doing and where they were that Tuesday at 8:46 a.m. Eastern Standard Time when tragedy struck.

The hours, days, weeks, and months after the attack brought stories of “the best” of America surfacing and praise for fire fighters, police and EMT professionals who were injured, died, and lost colleagues answering the call to save lives in New York. It also left many Americans crying for blood and a president vowing to give them blood.

September 11, 2001, was an emotional and unifying event for a country divided after the controversial election of Republican George W. Bush over Democratic Party candidate and former vice-president Al Gore in November 2000. With Mr. Bush ostensibly declared president by a Supreme Court decision to stop a vote recount in Florida, a state politically controlled by Mr. Bush’s brother, and a Gore concession, many were bitter and angry. “Hail to the thief!” had been chanted at Mr. Bush during his inauguration months before 9/11 happened and galvanized the nation.

In this Sept. 14, 2001 file photo, President George W. Bush puts his arm around fi refi ghter Bob Beckwith while standing in front of the World Trade Center in New York during a tour of the devastation. AP Photo/Doug Mills

The 20-year mark for 9/11 warrants a look at America and the world. Analysts say America must come to grips with herself, ugly truths behind 9/11, bloody U.S. foreign policy, deceit and a loss of freedoms at home and abroad.

“The tragedy of 9/11 is a tragedy on many levels,” said Mauri Saalakhan, of the Aafia Siddique Foundation, a Muslim human rights group. “It’s a tragedy for this nation vis-a-vis what this nation is supposed to represent theoretically as a nation with liberty and justice for all.”

Mr. Saalakhan said 9/11 exposed deep, “ever-present” contradictions in America’s well-crafted image as a bastion of freedom.

The U.S. government moved swiftly to attach blame for the deadly act. Officials said the enemies were Arabs, Muslims, who acted out of hatred for America’s freedoms.

The U.S. blamed Osama Bin-Laden, a Saudi businessman, onetime U.S. ally in a war against the Soviet Union, and founder of the militant organization Al-Qaeda. The U.S. blamed Al-Qaeda and its leader for the act of “terrorism,” and accused the Taliban government ruling Afghanistan of harboring him. America demanded that the Taliban turn him over. The Taliban refused to do so without evidence of his guilt. U.S. bombs quickly followed the request, and the Taliban government fell as President Bush declared a “global war on terror” divided into those with America and those against America. The first nations targeted were Afghanistan and Iraq.

“The Taliban just wanted proof,” recalled Abdul Akbar Muhammad, International Representative of the Nation of Islam. “And America went after Afghanistan and began to dismantle it as a nation,” he said. The war in Afghanistan was underway by October 2001 and, two decades later, on Aug. 31 a defeated America left the country using a resurgent Taliban to help guarantee her safe exit.

Kevin Barrett, of Veterans Today and an author, believes none of the war on terror hype and calls 9/11 a “false flag” operation that triggered years of adverse events and war in Afghanistan and Iraq. A false flag is a covert operation designed to deceive and create the appearance of a particular party, group, or nation being responsible for some activity while disguising the actual source of the action.

Local residents and relatives gather around the bodies of people killed in an overnight raid by NATO forces, at Surkh Rod, Afghanistan, May 14, 2010. More than 500 people poured into the streets in the Surkh Rod district of Nangahar province to protest the raid by international forces that they claim killed at least nine civilians. AP Photo/Rahmat Gul

“Of course, it was a false pretext,” he said, “the whole story of anti-terrorism is a big lie.” “It’s very interesting and ironic that the liberation of Afghanistan happened almost simultaneous with the 20th anniversary of 9/11,” he added.

He said fighting terrorists and going after those the Bush administration deemed responsible for 9/11 put a noble face on a bold lie. The true reasons for invading Afghanistan were planned in July 2001, months before 9/11, and the goals were to protect heroin profits, secure oil pipelines, and establish U.S military bases, he said.

Mr. Barrett referred back to America’s sordid past in Afghanistan during the 1980s when the CIA backed and trained Osama Bin Laden and the mujahadeen, Muslim warriors engaged in an armed struggle to drive the Soviet Union out of the country.

The Soviets were initially invited to Afghanistan by the socialist government of Afghan leader Mohammad Najibullah. These were the years of the Cold War between America and the Soviet Union. The U.S. military operation to oust the Soviets was initiated by Zbigniew Brzezinski, national security advisor to President Jimmy Carter.

In the nine-year conflict, an estimated one million civilians were killed as well as 90,000 mujahideen fighters, 18,000 Afghan troops, and 14,500 Soviet soldiers. The Soviets withdrew leading to a long civil war won by the Taliban in 1996.

Outside of that history, there are questions about intelligence failures by the FBI prior to 9/11 and failures of American officials to act. Coleen Rowley, an FBI agent in Minnesota, was chosen as a Time magazine person of the year in 2002.

“Coleen Rowley is the FBI staff attorney who caused a sensation in May with a memo to FBI Director Robert Mueller about how the bureau brushed off pleas from her Minneapolis, Minn., field office that Zacarias Moussaoui, who is now indicted as a Sept. 11 co-conspirator, was a man who must be investigated,” said Time.

Other questions surfaced about how U.S. intelligence agencies missed tips about foreigners trying to learn to fly planes paying large amounts in cash for classes but uninterested in learning to land and other acts. Later disclosures, including a 2015 Politico piece by researcher and writer Chris Whipple, revealed how pre-attack warnings given to President Bush and the White House officials went unheeded.

People run from the collapse of one of the twin towers of New York’s World Trade Center in this Sept. 11, 2001, file photo. (AP Photo/FILE/Suzanne Plunkett)

“ ‘Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.’ The CIA’s famous Presidential Daily Brief, presented to George W. Bush on August 6, 2001, has always been Exhibit A in the case that his administration shrugged off warnings of an Al Qaeda attack. But months earlier, starting in the spring of 2001, the CIA repeatedly and urgently began to warn the White House that an attack was coming,” wrote Mr. Whipple.

“By May of 2001, says Cofer Black, then chief of the CIA’s counterterrorism center, ‘it was very evident that we were going to be struck, we were gonna be struck hard and lots of Americans were going to die.’ ‘There were real plots being manifested,’ Cofer’s former boss, George Tenet (onetime CIA director), told me in his first interview in eight years. ‘The world felt like it was on the edge of eruption.’ ”

Persistent angry questions about what happened and different connections, especially any links to U.S. ally Saudi Arabia, were so strong that President Biden was disinvited from 2021 commemorations by family members who lost loved ones seeking answers and demanding more secret information be declassified. Mr. Biden, days before the 20-year anniversary, directed that some additional information be made public and was invited back to take part in commemorations. Mr. Biden made the announcement Sept. 3.

Min. Akbar Muhammad said it’s also important to understand the spiritual context 9/11 sprang from, the subsequent events, and that it occurred during the prophesied time of America’s decline and fall as a power. He referenced the warnings and guidance to America and world nations by the Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, the Eternal Leader of the Nation of Islam, and his student and National Representative, the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan.

‘It’s all signs,” said Min. Akbar Muhammad, referring to America’s “unravelling, both domestically and internationally.” “When you get a sign and are heedless to that warning, you pay a price,” he said.

“You will be foolish not to see the hand of the Almighty in what is happening to the world and America in particular,” explained Minister Akbar Muhammad.

The 9/11 remembrance comes while America is beset with manifest loss from a Covid-19 pestilence, weather calamities, and military defeat. Abdul Akbar Muhammad said people should consult the scriptures of Bible and Holy Qur’an to understand why America is losing.

Elijah Muhammad in his pivotal book “The Fall of America” wrote that the United States would reap what she has sown on the world stage. “She is destined to never win a war again. America is losing control of her world. In desperation, she feels that her guns, rockets, bombs, and technology will keep her kingdom in power,” he warned.

Smoke billows from the North and South Towers of the World Trade Center before they collapsed on September 11, 2001 in New York, NY. (AP Photo/Amy Sancetta)

“However, more powerful kingdoms than America had to lay their burden down when the time came, and America is no different. Time is declaring that America had better change or the end is upon her. Furthermore, as past empires had to pay for the injustices in their history, America is now in the throes of judgement.”

“America’s knees are bowing due to her corrupt domestic and foreign policies,” said Minister Farrakhan in Part 13 of a 2013 lecture series called “The Time and What Must Be Done.”

Minister Farrakhan compared America’s predicament to that of Pharaoh in the scriptures, finally bowing down when the last plague struck Egypt. “So will America bow down,” he said. At the outset of the Afghan War, Min. Farrakhan warned the president that America would not win and could unite the Muslim World against her and move closer to a final cataclysmic battle that would destroy her.

The aftermath of 9/11 changed global politics and the faith of 1.6 billion Muslims was attacked and blamed for a horrible killing.

Civil liberties were stripped from American citizens carrying such names as Abdul, Karriem, Ayesha or Muhammad. Anti-Arab xenophobia and blatant Islamophobia were rampant. Being Muslim, Middle Eastern led to being profiled as an enemy with “enemy combatants” arrested, disappeared, or held without charge at Guantanamo Bay detention camp in Cuba or CIA black sites scattered around the world. At Guantanamo Bay two decades later, 39 detainees remain, 27 held as law-of-war detainees without a charge or trial, according to the New York Times.

Mr. Saalakhan is an activist against wrongful detention cases such as Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani neuroscientist jailed on charges related to attempted murder and assault of U.S. officers in Afghanistan in 2008. America, he said, had legislation that was accelerated in the climate of 9/11.

“The process was already begun before 9/11,” said Mr. Saalakhan. “What 9/11 did was basically open the floodgates and justified what was already in the works.”

In the tradition of Communist witch hunts and illegal surveillance of individuals and organizations during the Black liberation struggles of 1960s-1970s America, the Patriot Act was enacted. The act allowed the federal government expanded authority to track and intercept communications for law enforcement and foreign intelligence gathering.

“All of this was to unveil a new Cointelpro … that was in the open and on steroids,” Mr. Saalakhan said. He was referring to the FBI’s infamous Counterintelligence Program aimed at Black and groups calling for change in American society.

While the entire U.S. was affected by these policies, the Muslim community was disproportionately affected, he said. For the military industrial complex, Muslims replaced Communists as the new bogeyman after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989. 9/11 was used to connect the fear to Islam with a “war on terror” that was really a “war on Islam,” said activists and advocates.

Washington’s war on terror also became a cover for American plans to remake the Middle East in five years. The countries to be overthrown were Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and Iran.

The war in Afghanistan shifted to an illegal war on Iraq, only with an added façade—to root out weapons of mass destruction. History debunked the lie, but not before the U.S. overthrew the government, executed Saddam Hussein, and spilled Iraqi blood.

With 9/11 the U.S. government played the American people through manipulation of their emotions to justify endless war driven by a multi-billion-dollar military industrial complex, not justice for thousands of citizens killed in a heinous act.

The government became too invasive and ratcheted up public fear, said Barry Landendorf of Veterans for Peace. It used constant streams of high alerts through color coded daily reminders of the next imminent threat, he said.

“A lot of the information was coming from prisoners at Guantanamo who were being tortured, who would just say anything not to be tortured,” Mr. Landendorf added. “And they (U.S. officials) would use that information as public propaganda,” he said.

Since 9/11, America paid a hefty price in deaths and treasure and the blood of many worldwide is on her hands. If America remains on the same course, the worse is yet to come.

An annual report released by the Costs of War project at Brown University, the leading watch group on the toll of war, tells the story. In 20 years of post-9/11 wars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, and Pakistan, America spent an estimated $8 trillion and killed more than 929,000 people.

The Afghanistan/Pakistan war zone costs were $2.3 trillion; Iraq/Syria war zone costs $2.1 trillion; and $355 billion in other wars including Libya, Somalia, and elsewhere. These staggering figures were spent based on lies.

“Eight trillion dollars dedicated to the murder of Muslims, and I see no better way to make this sound any better or different,” said Dr. Maha Hilal of Justice for Muslims Collective during a Sept. 1 virtual forum.

She added the true loss was of humanity, citing 2013 congressional testimony by a 13-year-old boy from Pakistan named Zabir whose family was targeted by U.S. drones. He told lawmakers: “I no longer love blue skies. In fact, I now prefer gray skies. The drones do not fly when the skies are gray.”

“This is the cost of war,” stated Dr. Hilal. “That a young boy can never see the sky the same as people who were never bombarded with violence can.”

Catherine Lutz, co-director of Costs of War and a professor of international and public affairs at Brown University, noted the so-called war on terror has been “long and complex,” “horrific and unsuccessful” but continues in over 80 countries.

Researchers said though the total number of direct deaths caused by wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are less than both World Wars and the Vietnam War, the post-9/11 conflicts are different because of the long-term damage done to societies that suffered years of constant bombings, death, and destruction.

“The twenty-first century was supposed to be the century of America,” said Ajamu Baraka, national organizer with the Black Alliance for Peace. That fantasy was ruined by America, “fueled by colonialist hubris” and belief she could fight two major wars simultaneously in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“What they ended up doing was not only losing those wars, but exposing the U.S. … as a paper tiger,” said Mr. Baraka. “So instead of the 21st century being the century of U.S. power, it will be the century of U.S. decline, and what we’re seeing is, in just 20 years, the precipitous decline of the U.S.,” said Mr. Baraka. “That to me is what signifies the 20-year anniversary of 9/11.”