Monsters & victims: the legacy of war

The propaganda offensive is on to defend Robert Bales--the US soldier (& according to villagers, not the only one) who ran amok in Afghanistan massacring 16 men, women, & children--against the Afghan victim's demands for justice. Many articles & news profiles portray him as a prince among men, a helping neighbor, good to the vulnerable, & a puppy lover. The media & his legal line of defense is that he snapped under the stress of multiple deployments--which, by the way, are elected, not conscripted. During the Vietnam War, Seymour Hersh, reporting for the NYTimes on the My Lai massacre of an entire village by US soldiers, toured college campuses laying the blame entirely on Lt. Calley, the officer in charge at the massacre. Antiwar activists challenged Seymour to instead place the blame squarely where it belonged: on the US government which indoctrinates young people with racism, trains them to kill, & sends them into conflict. The families & fellows of Bale’s victims demand justice; they have a right to demand the perpetrator(s) of this crime face them & be prosecuted in their courts, & their demand should be fully supported. But the US will not allow this since what will be put on trial along with Bale & others is the entire US-NATO occupation of their country. Legally, the snapped from multiple deployments defense will work because, in truth, a US court is unlikely to give Bale anything more than a tsk tsk. But politically, this defense hands a weapon to the antiwar movement, particularly the antiwar veterans who are such a vital part of it. The antiwar movement has never taken an adversarial attitude toward soldiers & veterans, regarding them as our brothers & sisters & trying to reach out to them with our antiwar message because their testimony against war has unparalleled & powerful moral authority. In war after war, we have seen returning veterans by the thousands commit suicide, suffer PTSD & other mental health issues, traumatic brain injuries, addiction & violence problems, & represent a disproportionate number of homeless & incarcerated as a result of what they did in war. Under the stress of war, they have seen themselves commit unspeakable acts--war crimes--and they are unable to rebuild trust in themselves shattered by that knowledge. This attempt to defend Bale only backfires on the warmakers & confirms the judgement of antiwar veterans & activists; it condemns US-NATO war policy. War does indeed create monsters; that's why we oppose it. And that’s why it’s time to bring the troops home now. Demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all US-NATO troops. (The soldier on the left is Robert Bales)

Boycott the Dowlympics 2012

This young mother is a victim of the 1984 Union Carbide explosion of toxic gases in Bhopal, India caused by equipment & safety maintenance neglect. Union Carbide (now Dow Chemical) has refused to contain chemical efflux from that explosion for now 26 years which has poisoned the underground water reservoirs. Over 30,000 people still live nearby due to extreme poverty & are forced to drink the contaminated water. This 3 year-old child was born healthy to a gas-affected mother but developed physical & neurological problems in early childhood connected to the contaminated water & probably to her mother’s toxicity. Dow Chemical which now owns Union Carbide has not offered even a small compensation to the second generation of victims of this continuing tragedy. Bhopal victims have been campaigning to get the craven International Olympic Committee & the English government sponsoring the 2012 olympic games to reject Dow Chemical as a sponsor of the Dowlympics but they have steadfastly refused, choosing to side with venality & criminality. To participate in & find ways to support their campaign you can go to their website (http://2012.boycottolympics.org/) or their page on FB (https://www.facebook.com/boycottolympics?ref=ts).   (Photo by Alex Masi)

War crimes mount in Afghanistan; antiwar protests must mount in response

That winning hearts & minds thing is really working in Afghanistan. US kill teams, desecrating the dead, disrespecting holy books, torturing animals, & now a massacre where the US won’t even tell the truth about what happened & preempts justice by spiriting the gunman out of the country to Club Fed where a court will give him a spanking for getting caught. A monstrous war crime has been committed & the families & fellows of the 16 men, women, & children massacred & burned have a right to face the perpetrator(s) in a court of law. This is the rubble of US emancipation--& including massive homelessness, starvation, & millions of refugees. The racism & every rancid lying justification for the US-NATO occupation of Afghanistan stand exposed. Election years take a beating on antiwar protest when activists focus on electing an antiwar candidate. But the increasing evidence of constant war crimes make independent political protest imperative to demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all US-NATO forces. This Afghan refugee from the war beats on a drum in the squalid quarters where she lives in Pakistan. She cannot be asked to wait any longer without hearing the thunderous voices of international opposition to this war.(Photo by Muhammed Muheisen/AP)

Afghan parliamentary team says many Americans were involved in massacre in which army accuses one

A parliamentary probe team on Thursday said up to 20 American troops were involved in Sunday’s killing of 16 civilians in southern Kandahar province.
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Afghan parliamentary team says many Americans were involved in massacre in which army accuses oneDirectly after the incident, Reuters reported multipl

A parliamentary probe team on Thursday said up to 20 American troops were involved in Sunday’s killing of 16 civilians in southern Kandahar province.
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"Another civilian massacre and the savagery of our soldiers"

The bodies of Afghan civilians loaded into the back of a truck in Alkozai village of Panjwayi district of Kandahar (Photo: AFP)

Nima Shirazi

Nowhere has this vengeance been more tragically demonstrated than Afghanistan and upon an innocent and terrorized civilian population that bares absolutely no responsibility for the events that led the United States to invade and occupy the country over a decade ago.

According to the official U.S. government story, the attacks of September 11, 2001 were carried out by 19 hijackers, none of whom were from Afghanistan. Fifteen were from Saudi Arabia, two from the United Arab Emirates, one from Egypt and another from Lebanon. None of them lived in Afghanistan. They lived in Hamburg, Germany. They didn't train in Afghanistan, but rather in Sarasota, Florida. They didn't attend flight school in Afghanistan; their school was in Minnesota. The attacks were reportedly planned in many places, including Falls Church, Virginia and Paris, France, but not in Afghanistan.

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Palestinian terrorist terrorising a peaceful Israeli soldier with his camera

Madness is not the reason for this massacre

Robert Fisk
I'm getting a bit tired of the "deranged" soldier story. It was predictable, of course. The 38-year-old staff sergeant who massacred 16 Afghan civilians, including nine children, near Kandahar this week had no sooner returned to base than the defence experts and the think-tank boys and girls announced that he was "deranged". Not an evil, wicked, mindless terrorist – which he would be, of course, if he had been an Afghan, especially a Taliban – but merely a guy who went crazy.
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The simple ugly truth of apartheid

The most amazing thing about this damning photo may be the caption: “An Israeli army dog attacks a Palestinian protester during a demonstration against the expropriation of Palestinian land by Israel in the West Bank village of Kafr Qaddum.” No mention of Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants or Palestinian rocket squads. Just the truth.  Boycott Israeli products to stand in solidarity with the Palestinian struggle for justice.  (Photo by Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP)

Charlie loves kindergarten

For the first time in my life, I really feel sorry for Charlie. He & Cammy are being taught how to cut paper by a pre-schooler & they’re overwhelmed with giggles & delight. They’ve never done anything all by themselves before. He never knew he could really really do something. With a good job training program, they should be ready for some unskilled jobs soon enough. Cleaning toilets is a good place to begin--just like the rest of us. (Photo by John Stillwell)

Feng shui for the working poor

Hidden behind bolted doors in multimillion dollar high-rises in Hong Kong, thousands of working poor rent densely packed cages as their living quarters (not just bedrooms). Each space, with just enough headroom to sit up, costs about $200 a month to rent. They are miserable, depressed living conditions deemed only preferable to homelessness. Hong Kong was relinquished to China from Britain in 1997 under the principal of one country, two systems. Under the agreement, Hong Kong remained a capitalist economy & retains a different political system than mainland China. It is one of the world’s leading finance & trade centers & has a highly developed economy with the greatest concentration of corporate headquarters in the Asia-Pacific region. In an irony you just couldn’t make up, Hong Kong is romantically described as a place where “east meets west”, combining Chinese cultural traditions with British colonial influences. Reflecting the Chinese traditions, feng shui (a system of geomancy part mystic, part energetic to govern spatial arrangement & used in siting & designing buildings) is taken very seriously, with construction projects requiring consultants to determine placement of the building in relation to nature & surrounding buildings, & including interior design. Mirrors & many other objects & devices are used to deflect evil energy & spirits & buildings are often built without a floor numbered four due to its similarity to the word for “die” in Cantonese. Geomancy is not a system to stand in the way of greed however, so in the catacombs beneath the buildings the working poor are crammed like sardines & it could be said, generating enough evil energy to raze those buildings to the ground. (Photo by Brian Cassey)

The Chinese parliament

Yup, this is the national Chinese parliament. And so the great Chinese Revolution has come to this! It didn’t work that well with the gang of four so they reduced it to one. That way there’s unity & no dissent at all. Especially if you maintain high levels of police & military control, cultivate an enriched group of wannabe capitalists sucking off the body politic, & imprison any plebeian voices who say this isn’t working for them. But hark, in the distance you can hear the thunderous awakening of a mighty angry working force, including children & millions of migrants, who don’t like a return to feudalism under the guise of restoring capitalism. (Photo by Ng Han Guan/AP)

Slick & Slicker "saving" Africa

Some people call Clowney a heart throb but they may be lowballing sex appeal. Let’s be frank, he’s got fishy eyes & his episodic forays into international politics--morphing from playboy into humanitarian & back again--are mighty suspicious. Clowney has made highly-publicized trips to Sudan, hanging out with a shady character named John Prendergast & he always comes back shooting his mouth off about the need for US military involvement in Africa. Prendergast, his guide to colonialism, is a telling study in how covert agents operate & how the oligarchs attempt to preempt human rights from genuine activists & use the language to advance a military & colonial agenda. Prendergast is touted all over the media as a human rights activist in Africa--in other words, another great white savior. There isn’t a media genre he hasn’t invaded in his safari outfits & where he isn’t treated like a self-sacrificing hero: he does op-eds, articles, news interviews, documentaries, books, even “Law & Order” episodes. For over 25 years he has been involved in Sudan, Darfur, & claims he was instrumental in the secession of South Sudan into a separate country. You can bet your bottom dollar, he’s involved in the chaos & trauma of the entire region--with Chinese oil exploration a primary concern. He is weighing in heavy on the side of “Kony 2012” & may even be involved in the making of this political mockery. If you take a close look at who this guy answers to you’ll see his humanitarian credentials stink to high heaven. His colluders include Obama, the Clintons, Susan Rice, the National Security Council, & several foundations that are nothing but fronts for US foreign policy in Africa. You can’t have it both ways in politics: you can’t serve power & oppose power at the same time. In other words, his mission is to advance US economic & military interests in Africa, not human rights, & nothing he says can be trusted. Clowney just returned from the border of Sudan & South Sudan & with Prendergast coaching him, testified to a Senate hearing about war crimes he witnessed & urging more US military engagement. For this he was rewarded with a seat next to Michelle Obama at a state dinner. (Some people sell their puny souls for a pittance & a little flattery.) But the case for US military engagement in Africa is being built--lie by lie, with phony documentaries, movie stars & everything else they can marshall. Here Clowney & Prendergast enter the Senate hearing to spew their lies. This campaign must be answered with a resounding, "Hands off Africa".  (Photo by Kris Connor)

And in the middle runs a wall

Cammy at the races

Cammy Windsor reacts in horror when her horse loses the race. These are the things that excite the moochocrats who play no useful role in life & would otherwise die from boredom. Perhaps you think they should be left alone to do just that but freeloading sustains them enough to live on. Besides, with a year-long spectacle called diamond jubilee, they have to expect opprobrium. It’s a duty to do your part to bring them down even if your only weapon is derision. Problem is the jubilee will carry on long after derision is exhausted. (Photo by Eddie Keogh)

The three stooges

Look at the three losers. If it were just a modern rendition of the three stooges, I’d be okay with that. But these jackasses are the leaders of two of the most predatory militaries on the planet. Biden just cracked what passes for a joke in witless circles; he said his Irish grandfather wasn’t a fan of the British. Hahaha. Well at least we know now where one of those snakes St. Patrick expelled from Ireland ended up. Good to know on the eve of St. Patrick’s Day. If we can't find the birth certificate, maybe we can send him back to Ireland. I've said it before, Ireland; stop making the US the solution to your pest control problem! (Photo by Jonathan Ernst)

Watching "Kony 2012" in Uganda

The news today is a cornucopia of accidental ironies. Here people in the Lira district north of Kampala, Uganda gather to watch the US-made film, “Kony 2012”, used to fire up support for US military intervention into Uganda to save them from Joseph Kony, the murderous militia guy. The photo caption says the showing is to “raise awareness about Joseph Kony”. How is it that a scourge requiring US military occupation to stamp out is all news to the Ugandans? Or is this another photo worth a thousand lies! (Honest to gosh, you can't make this stuff up!) (Photo by James Akena)

Homeless in Dhaka

Homeless in Dhaka, Bangladesh: these little girls live on a brick kiln site in one of the fastest growing cities in the world. There are 8,000 brick kilns in Bangladesh employing over one million workers. Many workers are migrants, many children, many forced labor (despite laws forbidding child & forced labor). Without affordable housing, workers & their families are forced to live on these sites under poor & unhealthy conditions. The dust, along with the toxic gases emitted from tires & coal used to fuel the kilns, cause respiratory & skin diseases. The kilns are also an environmental disaster, polluting air, cultivable land, & devastating forests. It is estimated that nearly 15,000 premature deaths annually in Dhaka are due to poor air quality, mainly attributed to the kilns. Housing is a primary human need that is being denied millions of people around the world. The demand for safe, affordable housing should become a mantra--of the non-negotiable kind. (Photo by Jan Moller Hansen)

Homeless in Las Vegas

Homeless in Las Vegas, Nevada: underneath the glamor of the Las Vegas strip, there are 500 miles of tunnels originally designed as gutters where the homeless live: the elderly, the young, the troubled, the sick, addicts, veterans--all poor. They are subject to police evictions & when it rains they have minutes to run for safety. Housing is a primary human need & the demand for safe, affordable housing must ring from the roof tops. (Photo by Alessandro Gandolfi)

Santorum wooing Florida

The choir renders it's verdict on the US presidential campaign--snoring & weeping. (Photographer not identified)

Thwarting a popular revolution against tyranny

This Syrian woman recovers from severe injuries while grieving the loss of her husband & two children killed when the Syrian army of Assad shelled their home in Idlib, north Syria last Saturday. Many claim the massive social unrest in Syria is political theater fomented by the CIA & Mossad & that Assad is unfairly maligned as a dictator. Yet none of the Arab uprisings are as documented in thousands of videos going back nearly a year as the Syrian uprising. It’s clear nefarious special ops have moved into the situation to thwart the popular revolution against dictatorship & create a mess as they did in Libya. But to consider it an orchestration manipulated in Washington & Tel Aviv is to abandon the democracy movement in Syria & hand their heads to the US & NATO. It may be a contradictory situation, but what’s the dialectic for? Despite important differences on the character of the Syrian revolt, we can unite in demanding “US-NATO forces hands off Syria.” (Photo by Rodrigo Abd/Associated Press)

Neoliberal version of mother & child

This is not a woman practicing “extreme mothering”, a parenting practice in all the headlines where you keep your child with you 24/7. This is an instance of extreme burden on women workers & reckless disregard for children's welfare. And the criticism is not directed at the woman who has no options. With no social services to support working mothers, she has to hold & care for her infant as she works at a brick factory in Bungmati, Nepal. The job is a health hazard for the woman & especially for the child, including dust pollution, gas pollution, & extreme heat stress. IMF policies undercut unionization & union independence. Nothing is more important for this woman than the social & political power of a union; women may well lead that struggle. (Photo by Niranjan Shrestha/AP)

Is it over yet?

Betty & the gargoyle are beaming ear to ear since they think they’ve hit pay dirt with the new generation of moochocrats: WWWWilly, KKKKaty, & Hairy (signifying primal idiocy), now referred to in US media as the “People’s Prince”. Hairy, the man of a dozen apologies for a dozen racist comments against Blacks, Pakistanis, & Arabs, is now doing photo ops galore with Black children to redeem his public image. It’s clear now this diamond jubilee gig will end long before it’s begun to be a pleasure. Tours of charities, tours of former colonies, groupies waving the imperial flag like mad. It looks to be a year chock full of unseemly deference & feudal homage--mostly by the US media. Mark my words, any anatomy of the cheering throngs would turn up ham actors, government officials & their kids, social climbers, & others bribed & coerced into service. (Photo by Leon Neal/AP)

Eurozone ministers throttle each other

The eurozone ministers can’t even stand each other. The PM of Luxembourg, appropriately named Juncker, attempts to strangle the economy minister of Spain while the Dutch minister just snarls. The IMF-EU program for Spain was on the agenda at this eurozone meeting in Brussels. Spain has the highest unemployment rate of the 17 countries that use the euro (nearly 22% officially) & millions of working people have protested government austerity measures. No need for violence, Juncker; let the people of Spain finish him off. The Bible says, "Revenge is mine, I will repay sayeth the Lord". But why should God have all the fun!? (Photo by Virginia Mayo/AP)

Taking shelter from the storm

Children take shelter from a sandstorm on the outskirts of Islamabad. They are from Pakistan’s Mohmand region (on the Afghanistan border) where thousands of families have been displaced & separated as a result of Pakistani & US military operations in the region. It’s an impoverished area to begin with & thousands migrate abroad & within Pakistan to find work. Many migrants are unaccompanied minors. A third of children under 5 years-old suffer malnutrition & under half of the people do not have access to clean water & sanitation facilities. Some analysts claim the impoverishment is due to feudal relations in the district but these same analysts don’t mention the bombing & shelling or predatory practices of the capitalist government. (Photo by Anjum Naveed/AP)

@IDFSpokesperson tweets inaccurate video and fake civilian casualty statistics

Allison Deger- Mondoweiss
"It began with "Israel's bogus case for bombing Gaza." But the Israeli military kept up its war of disinformation over the weekend. The military’s official Twitter account @IDFSpokesperson contributed to the creation of a false narrative by tweeting a dated video of rocket fire and reporting a fake statistic on civilian casualties."
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A picture worth a thousand lies

Photojournalist coverage in mainstream media of Israel’s 3-day bombing rampage in Gaza looks like it came out of Netanyahu’s office & the Israel Hasbara Committee. One marvels, then pukes at the cynicism involved. Photos show Israeli schools girls cowering, an Israeli infant in an incubator being wheeled to what is called a bomb shelter, young men described as “Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants” in Gaza City. Captions explain that “two Palestinian militants & a schoolboy” were killed in Gaza, that “Palestinian rocket squads barraged southern Israel". A few media outlets published photos of building destruction in Gaza, even fewer published photos of Palestinian children injured or killed in the bombing. In fact, 23 Palestinians were killed by Israeli bombing & 60 were injured. Given the “barrage by rocket squads” from Gaza, why doesn’t the media explain why there are no Israeli casualties? Why don’t they get to the bottom of why Israel initiated this carnage? These Palestinian children in hospital are not propaganda props to sell ethnic cleansing; they are victims of Israeli bombs, emotionally traumatized & physically injured. Some have died. Boycott Israeli products to support Palestinians against Zionist terror.

Musical & political collaboration between South African & Palestinian musicians

In a first ever musical collaboration between South African & Palestinian musicians, South African band, The Mavrix, & Palestinian Oud player, Mohammed Omar, have released a music video called "The New Black". The song is taken from The Mavrix' upcoming album,"Pura Vida", due for release in June 2012. Written & composed by Jeremy Karodia & Ayub Mayet, the song was a musical reaction to the horror of the Gaza Massacre of 2008/2009 & then subsequently inspired by the book "Mornings in Jenin", authored by Susan Abulhawa. Mayet penned the first lyrics in 2009 after the massacre & the song went into musical hibernation. Having read the novel, "Mornings in Jenin", he then re-wrote the lyrics & the song evolved into its current version.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Y4rLfja8488

Cooking fire or arson?

In mid-February, a fire at Gundlapochampally village about 6.2 miles/10 km north of Hyderabad, India, burned down a makeshift slum colony for 500 migrant construction workers employed on a housing project. Most of the men & women were away at work & only the elderly & children were at home during the fire. Seven people, including four children, were burnt alive & 100 huts were gutted. Officials said it was caused by a cooking gas cylinder explosion. Many workers allege that the fire was a deliberate act of arson to forcibly vacate the land for real estate development. Less than a month later (on Saturday), another major fire “broke out” in Hyderabad (Sai Nagar, Nagole area), taking the life of a 10-year-old girl, injuring many others, & leaving 500 families homeless. Here, women weep at the site of their gutted homes. Again, the families are migrant construction workers who were away at work with only the elderly & children at home. Officials have yet to identify the cause of the fire or to explain why it took 30 minutes to get to the site to contain the conflagration. Mass urbanization caused by predatory economic policies in rural areas & in every part of the world means that millions are crowded into slums, often of a makeshift nature. The cause of frequent fires is usually attributed to things like cooking accidents, gas pipeline explosions, electrical lines, or shoddy construction materials. There have been hundreds of fatalities. But the huge number & similar nature of these slum fires around the world raises questions, especially when coupled with the slum evictions going on everywhere. It resonates with the gentrification of older neighborhoods in the US & elsewhere (in the 1970s), where arson was used to forcibly evict residents & which also involved fatalities. (Photo by Mahesh Kumar A/AP)

Starvation in Yemen

School children in al-Zailaea, a village in the western Yemeni province of Houdieda: UNICEF reports Yemen has the highest rate of chronic malnutrition in the world with nearly 60% of children diagnosed as stunted. UNICEF, which mostly confines its activities to hand-wringing, jeremiads, & fund-raising, also strongly suggests that the food shortages, increased food prices, & lack of access to education are due to protests against the Saleh dictatorship. Such idiocy would explain why UNICEF should stick to pretty Christmas cards & stop covering for Saleh’s dictatorship & why they don’t demand an end to US bombing in Yemen. (Photo by Khaled Abdullah)

Boycott Israeli ethnic cleansing

Grieving & dying are usually private moments but the massive scale of US & Israeli war crimes have made them so public that even the wretched lies of media cannot hide the horror. This weekend, we saw a US soldier massacre Afghani civilians in their beds & relentless Israel bombers in Gaza murder 23 people & injure 60 others, including many children. Last week, this young Palestinian man, named Zakariya Abu Eram, was murdered when an Israeli soldier opened fire on a man he claimed attacked him with a knife. Although Eram was not involved in the alleged attack, the Israeli military claims he was an accomplice. The photographic record is replete with documentation of Israeli soldiers with tear gas, grenades, rubber bullets,  live ammunition, & bombers, going up against unarmed Palestinians. That’s the nature of occupation & ethnic cleansing. Here Palestinian women grieve over Eram in the West Bank town of Yatta as they are grieving in Gaza & Afghanistan. Boycott Israeli goods to support Palestinians in their struggle against apartheid. (Photo by Bernat Armangue/AP)

The people demand some blood

Ytzhak Laor-Haaretz
"This hooligan-like (Israeli) logic turns into part of a totally uninhibited language. We are allowed to assassinate, but you aren't allowed to respond: For the little, if any, of our blood spilled, you will pay with many liters of blood. This is a colonial logic, in which the West has permission to do what it pleases, while the natives do not. This, incidentally, is the logic in the campaign against Iran: You don't have permission to acquire nuclear facilities, only we do."
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Tolerable Savagery: Israeli Killing of Palestinians

"The carnage continues. Israel, or more accurately the Zionist movement, has not stopped its brutality and repression of Palestinians since the advent of the Zionist movement in Palestine in the late 19th century. Lately, we have been able to watch with disgust. Western hypocrisy knows no bounds in the Middle East.

Western governments are just aghast at the Syrian regime’s repression and brutality. Of course, Western governments could not care less about the Syrian people. They were able to “do business” with the Assad ruling dynasty for decades. Their criteria for political judgment in the Middle East are divorced from considerations of justice and democracy. The criteria are set in Washington, DC and Western governments just follow. The criteria are based on the regime’s services to Israel and its subservience to US interests. This criteria allowed the US to shift its attitude to Qaddafi in a manner of months: from a pariah, Qaddafi became the darling of Western governments while US senators and officials flocked to his tent (just as they flock to the palaces of Gulf kings and princes).

Western governments never expressed sympathy for the Syrian people: as victims of the Assad regime and as victims of Israeli occupation and brutality. Yet, Western governments were quick to call for arming the Syrian people only months after the uprising began.”

Link to al-akhabar

US soldier massacres 16 Afghan civilians

A US soldier walked out of his base in southern Afghanistan and massacred at least 16 local civilians on Sunday, reports said.

The soldier is believed to have left his base without the knowledge of his superiors early on Sunday morning and begun shooting local civilians without provocation.

The attacker opened fire in at least three homes, with women and children confirmed to be among the dead.

Link to al-akhabar

Another day, another crime in Afghanistan & another White House apology

A young man grieves family members killed when a US soldier opened fire on civilians today in Kandahar province, south of Kabul, Afghanistan. So far, 16 men, women, & children are reported dead & 5 are injured. The soldier turned himself in. Another apology will be forthcoming from the White House. Another apology Obama can put where the sun don’t shine. Demand the immediate, unconditional withdrawal of all US-NATO troops from Afghanistan. (Photo by Allauddin Khan /AP)

Kony 2012 is another name for baloney 101

Kony 2012 is another name for boloney 101. It’s a war-mongering scam appealing to people’s compassion & social conscience but relying on widespread ignorance of Africa, it’s people, & it’s politics. The dead giveaway is the tone of the campaign: hysterical urgency. The film maker thought he would revive a moribund film career on the backs of the people of Uganda by combining war propaganda with cinematic devices of melodrama.

Anyone who grew up in the McCarthy era is well familiar with the hysterical method since we were taught communists used mind control & put fluoride in the water to corrupt the morals of youth--at the same time as we were asked to give pennies for the “poor pagan babies of Africa”. Media uses the hysterical voice selectively so as not to wear out its value. It’s primary purpose is to whip up war fever & convince thousands of kids to enlist in the military to take out an evil, monstrous tyrant--under the guise of making the world safe for democracy. (It first struck a discordant note with me when the US was drumming up support for Israel in the 1967 war. It was so overplayed that a political naif could recognize the manipulation & sought out the truth behind the hysteria.)

Media also used the hysterical voice against women’s liberation when they baited feminists as lesbians too ugly to get a man; they used it against Black power activists, portraying them as armed & violent thugs rather than freedom fighters & they continue to use it against Black youth, portraying them as violent gang members engaged in drug dealing--using hysteria to railroad them into prison. The hysterical voice--used to sell salacious gossip in tabloid journalism & to sell war, racism, & misogyny in respectable journalism--has been given a new lease on life through the rapid-fire nature of social networking.

The Kony 2012 campaign is not about Joseph Kony & the Lord’s Resistance Army. By reliable accounts, Kony is no longer even operative in Uganda. It’s about promoting US war designs in Africa under the banner of humanitarianism. It’s about the US-NATO war in Libya, US drones bombing in Somalia, & US Marines deployed in Uganda. In short, it’s about US military intervention & occupation in Africa. And it’s about competition for Africa’s abundant natural resources being played out in the entire region of east Africa between the US, China, European, & other countries.

Why haven’t the humanitarian war-mongers--the celebrities, athletes & billionaires the film maker appeals to--ever spoken out against US wars in Iraq & Afghanistan? Why haven’t they denounced US bombing in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia? Why have we never heard Clooney, Jolie, DeGeneres, Oprah, & this schmo, Jason Russell ever speak out about the plight of millions of Iraqi & Afghani refugees? Why do their tender hearts & indignation only beat in sync with US militarism & the Pentagon? And if US & UN concerns are humanitarian, why haven’t they been able to get food to millions of starving people all over the entire region of east Africa? Because believe me, they will have no problem moving in entire armies, or erecting air strips & military bases. Kony 2012 & Invisible Children may be a commercial bonanza in hoodies & posters but it is nothing but a war-mongering scam appealing to the best in people in order to make a handful of people rich at the expense of the people of Uganda. US out of Africa. (Photo of children of Uganda by Sue O’Connor)

You want to get Kony? Here's Kony!

Democracy in America

No one bears greater responsibility for the trap Israel finds itself in today than Mr Netanyahu. As prime minister in the late 1990s, he did more than any other Israeli leader to destroy the peace process. Illegal land grabs by settlers were tolerated and quietly encouraged in the confused expectation that they would aid territorial negotiations. Violent clashes and provocations erupted whenever the peace process seemed on the verge of concrete steps forward; the most charitable spin would be that the Israelis failed to exercise the restraint they might have shown in retaliating against Palestinian terrorism, had they been truly interested in progress towards a two-state solution. Mr Netanyahu believed that the Oslo peace agreements were a mirage, and his government's actions in the late 1990s helped make it true.

The economist

STUNNING photographs of India’s Holi Celebrations (Spring Festival of Colours)

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Egyptians protest against US intervention in their country

You can fool some people all of the time & all the people some of the time but it’s getting harder & harder to slip anything past the Egyptians. That “lesser evil” stuff just doesn’t wash in Tahrir Square when the tear gas canisters lobbed at you are US made & supplied. Today Egyptians protested at the American embassy in Cairo against US intervention in their country. Their intransigence inspires suffering humanity around the world & we cannot allow them to stand alone against the treachery & might of US operations. (Photo by Amr Nabil/AP)

Speaking to the oligarchy in their own language

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schäuble--a chief architect of the vicious neoliberal austerity policies imposed on Portugal, Italy, Ireland, Greece, & Spain--was suitably greeted at the European University Institute in Florence, Italy by protestors wearing pig masks & holding banners saying, “No austerity” & “Europe is not for sale”. Protestors who came from several European countries booed the guy on his arrival, sang the anthem of the Italian resistance, & challenged him during the debate period on the undemocratic character of neoliberal policies. He recently urged the Greek government to postpone elections to more expeditiously ram through the EU/IMF austerity program. The Financial Times newspaper observed that by trying to control the government of Greece, the EU/IMF is making Greece “the eurozone’s first colony.” Schäuble proved himself an invincibly callous & stupid minion of the oligarchs when he said, “ultimately, those to blame for the crisis are the Greek people themselves.” He’s lucky he got out of there alive.

Dumping: a metaphor for plunder

Haitians surround a truck at a rubbish dump in Port-au-Prince to scavenge recyclable items to use or sell. Under neoliberal policies, waste management in the plundered countries is completely neglected & they’ve become dumping grounds for the plundering regimes. (Somali pirating was a response to foreign vessels dumping toxic waste in their fishing waters.) This scene of impoverished peoples reduced to scavenging is documented in dozens of countries across the globe. In Haiti, the crime is magnified to the nth degree since millions & millions of dollars were donated for earthquake relief, 10,000 NGOs operate there, awards are being dished out right & left to movie stars like Sean Penn & reprobates like Clinton for humanitarian service to Haiti. So why are a million people still living in pup tents & reduced to scavenging? This isn’t just grand larceny. It is a crime of colossal proportions & it is an attempt to break the spirit of the Haitian people. No need to donate money to the black hole of earthquake relief but there are Haitian solidarity groups around the world to support the Haitian people in getting the US, the 10,000 NGOS, & all other predators out of their country. (Photo by Spencer Platt)

Homage to International Women's Day

This might be a testimony to human inventiveness. On the other hand, it could be a homage to something much cornier. Car designer, Sudhakar Yadav created this car with a top speed of 28 mph to celebrate International Women’s Day. Given the worsening conditions of life for millions of women, he might better have made it a steel-tipped boot & revved it up to 240. Here a worker test-drives it in Hyderabad, India. (Photo by Krishnendu Halder/Reuters)

Protestors again "turn violent" when attacked

Unarmed activists marching in Santiago, Chile yesterday to celebrate International Women’s Day inexplicably “turned violent” when riot cops attacked them. Here one of the steroidal gorillas is muzzling a young woman’s face. (Photo by Martin Bernetti/AFP)

Psyckozy on the run

You wouldn’t know it from the US presidential campaign but this country doesn’t have all the jackasses. One braying Psyckozy may be worth a couple of his US counterparts. You know how bad he is when they thought the unsavory creep who was head of the IMF could take him out. Now that’s desperate! What the whole vile lot of them share (besides being ugly as sin) is racism & anti-immigration politics. We appeal to you France: take them all out! (Photo by Francois Nascimbeni)

The global gold rush is on

The global gold rush is on, especially in Africa, Indonesia, & Latin America. It’s no longer a one-man operation of penniless fortune seekers panning in a river. It’s multinational outfits moving in heavy equipment, leveling rain forests, destroying wild life habitats, polluting rivers with tons of the mercury efflux from gold processing (up to 40 tons of mercury a year in Amazon rivers), & impairing the health of thousands of workers, including children, with mercury poisoning. Here a miner in Lamal, Peru works liquid mercury into sludge with his bare feet. The gold amalgam formed will be collected & confiscated, fortunes will be made & an ecology laid in ruins--all for private gain. (Photo by Ron Haviv)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/06/12/amazon-gold-rush-peru-rain-forest_n_875482.html

Settlers war on Palestinian Christians in Jerusalem

Recent Israeli settler attacks on Christian holy sites and churches have highlighted the specific struggle faced by Christian Palestinians in Jerusalem.

"Price tag" and "Greeks out" scrawled on a car outside of Jerusalem's Monastery of the Cross

Christian holy sites and places of worship in Jerusalem have been violently attacked by Israeli settlers over the past several months. In the aftermath of the shameful slogans and “price tags” drawn on the city’s Baptist Church in West Jerusalem, on a Christian cemetery on Mount Zion and on the Greek Orthodox monastery in the Valley of the Cross, Elena Viola examines Christian Jerusalemites’ life in the ‘holy’ city.

Christians have inhabited Jerusalem since the time of Christ and his followers and have always lived amongst Muslims and Jews. Although the number of Christians in Jerusalem has never been high, primarily due to the conversions occurring during the advent of Islam and the big wave of Christian emigration in the aftermath of the 1947 and 1967 wars, this already restricted number of Christians continues to shrink.

From 32,000 community members prior to the 1948 Middle East War and subsequent establishment of the state of Israel, the Christian population in Jerusalem has dramatically dropped to some 8,000 individuals in 2011.

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The faces of immigration

The face of immigration: these young men, just barely past boyhood, are traveling north to the US border to find work. Their journey was documented by the photojournalist, Chico Sanchez--& not dispassionately or with any phony neutrality. He’s on their side. I don’t know much about these young men, not even what country they’re from. It could be Mexico or any country in Central America or even South America. I don’t know why the one fellow is on crutches. What I do know is that thousands make this journey, including unaccompanied women & minors, & that hundreds are injured & lose their limbs jumping on & off moving trains. What I do know is the US stands strongly by its national sovereignty when it comes to letting immigrants enter the US. And I know the reason they’re forced to leave their families & homelands is because the US economically & militarily violates every standard of national sovereignty in their own homelands with millions of US dollars invested in stripping natural resources & for barracking US military might. What I do know is that plunder & IMF policies have combined to make employment impossible & have given them no other choice for survival but migration. And I also know IMF policies prohibit any social services at all for those who lose their limbs. And lastly, I know these young men are our brothers & our fellow workers & our commitment to their human rights is also not dispassionate. Our support begins with demanding the borders be opened & with opposition to US plundering abroad. (Photo by Chico Sanchez)

Is America in a perpetual state of war?

Mary Dudziak, a law professor at the University of Southern California and author of “War Time: An Idea, Its History, Its Consequences,” joins The Dylan Ratigan Show saying war is no longer a short term reality, but rather permanent.

Watch the video

"Why Don't We Dialogue?" SJP-UCLA's IDF Walkout

This is the only way to Dialogue with criminals

On Tuesday, February 28th, 2012, SJP at UCLA organized a Gaza memorial as part of its annual Palestine Awareness Week. In response, Bruins for Israel and StandWithUs invited IDF soldiers to campus to present a whitewashed version of the IDF's actions in Operation Cast Lead, the 2008-2009 assault on the Gaza Strip which resulted in over 1,400 casualties and, to date, no accountability for documented war crimes and possible crimes against humanity. SJP at UCLA and several campus allies organized a walkout in protest of the continuing lack of justice for the victims of the IDF during Cast Lead. Because it is not held to account for its violations of international law and human rights, the IDF is not welcome at UCLA.

We chose not to include footage of the man shouting at us, "You all look like terrorists!"

Stepford sisters

Does the crazed Stepford quality of these women's smiles explain their choice in husbands?

The great ocean garbage patches

There are five zones in the world’s oceans where massive soups of plastic debris & flotsam float. Scientists say that powerful rotating ocean currents determine the locations of these vortexes in the North Pacific, South Pacific, North Atlantic, South Atlantic, & Indian Oceans. 250,000 tons per year of this plastic debris wends its way to the oceans through sewers, polluted streams & rivers, or from coasts, is swept to sea, & trapped in these swirling vortexes of garbage. They are not islands of hardened trash but confetti like & fragmented shards & objects difficult to recover from the sea. Because ocean fish mistake the debris as food, scientists have warned it inadvisable to eat fish. On Midway Island, a remote island in the North Pacific Ocean, near the north west end of the Hawaiian archipelago, thousands of baby albatrosses lie dead, their bodies filled with plastic debris they mistook as food. This is an environmental alert way beyond the canary in the mine. (Photo by Chris Jordan)

The young face of immigration

The face of immigration: a frightened little girl traveling north to the US border sleeps over at a shelter for migrants run by a Catholic priest in Ixtepec, Oaxaca state, Mexico. The next leg of the perilous over 1,000 mile journey involves hopping on & off moving trains, avoiding assault, injury, starvation, dehydration, murder. That is the criminal face of US & Mexican immigration policy which must be opposed & changed. She is a human being, not a beast. It is time for a world without borders & visas. (Photo by Chico Sanchez)

In Ynet an Israeli writer can't see why colonialism is such a bad thing

Addressing anti-Zionism
Zionism will only cease being demonized when West stops to demonize colonialism
Rafael Castro
"Zionism will only cease being demonized in the politically correct corners of the West once our schools and film industry cease to demonize colonialism. The politically correct depiction of the colonialist as a racist and covetous brute must give space to the majority of well-meaning administrators that helped build roads, schools, and hospitals for the natives."
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Now if this, for the sake of the argument, were true then Israel isn't doing a good job at it because it's not building anything for the natives, rather systematically destroying the very fabric of their society..

A very insightful and knowledgeable analysis of the history and stakes of the Syrian revolution.

It’s time to take the ambiguity out of the (still) Syrian revolution.

Knighting (aka groveling)

Betty Windsor “knighting” some hapless schnook. Knighting is considered an honor by people like Paul McCartney, Elton John, & Mick Jagger but for most people curtsying & kneeling to someone else is called groveling & thought to be unseemly.

The era of TMI

Today, Brangelina were spotted at McDonald’s drive-thru, Justin Bieber pulled a prank on Taylor Swift, Lindsay Lohan was on SNL, & celebrity botched nose jobs & face lifts are held up for public ridicule. Can’t a starving girl even grab a happy meal without an audience? Is there anything they do that doesn’t get fawned over like it actually was news? What happened to privacy? The nosy gossip TMI factor shows up everywhere & with reality TV seems to be taking over popular culture when it used to be consigned to movie magazines. It’s a bread & circuses thing with a distinct feudal miasma (teaching people to scrape & bow before wealth) but it’s better than Nyquil for insomnia. (Btw, Angelina's right leg is in the back seat.)

Global warming & tornados

While those who believe in Santa Claus & the tooth fairy continue to deny global warming based on their political views, scientists, including from establishments like NASA, use computer models to chart the relationship between climatic conditions & tornadic activity based on the physical sciences. As the planet warms, more moisture evaporates from oceans into the atmosphere providing a combustible element for storm systems. The Gulf of Mexico, with above average sea surface temperatures, is the main moisture source for storm systems moving east from the Rockies to the Appalachians in the Tornado Alley where US tornados are most frequent. In this area, there are often hundreds of tornados recorded per month. The recent ones have killed 39 people so far & taken out entire towns. Somehow, these children in Harrisburg, Illinois have managed to find humor in a situation of devastation as they sit on the porch of their grandmother’s home, display a prosthetic leg found in the wreckage,  & post, “for sale fixer upper”. (Photo by Stephen Lance Dennee/AP)

The English 1% strutting their stuff

These cadaverous & dapper fellows are the English oligarchs on parade. They figured since so many English plebeians have been out marching, they would show them up with their own show of force. All 1% of them. Frankly we expected to see more portly guys since they hog most of the world’s resources but some here look like they have eating disorders & could use some biscuits. If they pass by you throw them a bone. They belong to an exclusive club called the In & Out Club (which certainly doesn’t describe their plundering policy since when they get in, you can't get them out) but nobody knows why they’re exclusive. They look like a coven of kill joys & no one in their right mind would want to party with them. (Photo by Dan Kitwood)

US elections are so exciting

Things are really getting exciting in the US presidential race now. Wake me up when it’s over. Snore.

Fashion and foolishness

At a time when Islamophobia focuses it’s insinuations on women in niqabs, aint it special these parodies show up on the Paris runways in both mens & women’s wear!? If the models step outside for a little Gauloises break they can be immediately arrested, carted off to jail, & prosecuted. According to social psychology, there are any number of possible explanations for this fashion travesty, running the gamut from the nerd is now haute couture to designer’s secret admiration for the veiled women defying autocracy. If it's the former, nice job! If it's the latter, they chose a damn poor way of expressing it. (Photo on left by Thibault Camus/AP & on right by Antonio de Moraes Barros Filho)