Welcome to DU!
The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards.
Join the community:
Create a free account
Support DU (and get rid of ads!):
Become a Star Member
Latest Breaking News
General Discussion
The DU Lounge
All Forums
Issue Forums
Culture Forums
Alliance Forums
Region Forums
Support Forums
Help & Search
polly7
polly7's Journal
polly7's Journal
April 30, 2016
MSF154301The remains of a bed frame in a room on eastern wing of the main Outpatient Department building.
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/03/kunduz-killers-go-free/
http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2016/815-kunduz-killers-go-free.html
They knew what they were bombing.
"OCTOBER 3, 2015 — Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) condemns in the strongest possible terms the horrific bombing of its hospital in Kunduz, which was full of staff and patients. MSF wishes to clarify that all parties to the conflict, including in Kabul and Washington, were clearly informed of the precise location (GPS Coordinates) of the MSF facilities in Kunduz, including the hospital, guesthouse, office and an outreach stabilization unit in Chardara northwest of Kunduz.
As it does in all conflict contexts, MSF communicated the precise locations of its facilities to all parties on multiple occasions over the past months, including most recently on September 29.
The bombing in Kunduz continued for more than 30 minutes after American and Afghan military officials in Kabul and Washington were first informed by MSF that its hospital was struck."
BBM
http://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/article/afghanistan-msf-staff-killed-hospital-partially-destroyed-kunduz
Kunduz Killers Go Free
by Media Lens / March 31st, 2016
On the night of October 3, 2015, a United States Air Force AC-130 gunship repeatedly attacked a Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. Forty-two people were killed and dozens wounded. The US military plane had conducted five strafing runs over the course of more than an hour despite MSF pleas to Afghan, US and Nato officials to call off the attack.
MSF154301The remains of a bed frame in a room on eastern wing of the main Outpatient Department building.
As we reported at the time, MSF were unequivocal in their condemnation of the American attack. The hospital was ‘intentionally targeted’ in ‘a premeditated massacre’; it was a ‘war crime’. The medical charity rejected US assurances of three inquiries by the US, Nato and the Afghan government. MSF demanded instead an independent international investigation. It was to no avail. The US ignored public outrage and went ahead with its standard whitewashing procedures when it commits war crimes that get exposed. The outcome was announced on March 18. BBC News reported:
Note that the BBC wording – ‘the Pentagon has acknowledged that the clinic was targeted by mistake‘ – is deceptive bias. The BBC made no mention that MSF had presented strong evidence that the clinic was ‘deliberately targeted’, that the attack was a ‘war crime’, and that there was an urgent need for an independent inquiry.
The BBC continued:
The US military has disciplined more than a dozen service members after an air strike on a Medecins Sans Frontieres (MSF) hospital in Afghanistan killed 42 people last year.
‘The Pentagon has acknowledged that the clinic was targeted by mistake, but no personnel will face criminal charges.
Note that the BBC wording – ‘the Pentagon has acknowledged that the clinic was targeted by mistake‘ – is deceptive bias. The BBC made no mention that MSF had presented strong evidence that the clinic was ‘deliberately targeted’, that the attack was a ‘war crime’, and that there was an urgent need for an independent inquiry.
The BBC continued:
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/03/kunduz-killers-go-free/
http://medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2016/815-kunduz-killers-go-free.html
April 28, 2016
• First published in Middle East Eye
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/04/the-classified-28-pages-a-diversion-from-real-us-saudi-issues/
Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan. His Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare was published in 2014. Read other articles by Gareth.
The Classified “28 Pages”: A Diversion from real US-Saudi Issues
by Gareth Porter / April 26th, 2016
The controversy surrounding the infamous “28 pages” on the possible Saudi connection with the terrorists that were excised from the joint Congressional report on the 9/11 attacks is at fever pitch. But that controversy is a distraction from the real problems that Saudi Arabia’s policies pose to the United States and the entire Middle East region.
The Saudi regime certainly played a role in the trail of events that led to 9/11, but there is no need to wait for the declassification of the 28 pages to understand that trail. It has long been well documented that the socio-political constituency for bin Laden’s anti-US organisation in the kingdom was so large and influential that the government itself was forced to tread with extreme caution on al-Qaeda until the group’s attacks on the Saudi regime began in 2003.
The Clinton administration had learned that Saudi supporters of bin Laden were being allowed to finance his operations through Saudi charities. The regime systematically denied CIA requests for bin Laden’s birth certificate, passport and banks records. 9/11 Commission investigators learned, moreover, that after bin Laden’s move from Sudan to Afghanistan in May 1996, a delegation of Saudi officials had asked top Taliban leaders to tell bin Laden that if he didn’t attack the regime, the 1994 termination of his Saudi citizenship and freezing of his assets would be rescinded.
The US government has known that Saudi financing of madrassas all over the world has been a major source of jihadist activism. The Saudi regime’s extremist Wahhabi perspective on Shia Islam is the basis for its paranoid stance on the rest of the region and the destabilisation of Syria and Yemen. The 28 pages should be released, but at a time when the contradictions between US and Saudi interests are finally beginning to be openly acknowledged, the issue is just another diversion from the real debate on Saudi Arabia that is urgently needed.
The Clinton administration had learned that Saudi supporters of bin Laden were being allowed to finance his operations through Saudi charities. The regime systematically denied CIA requests for bin Laden’s birth certificate, passport and banks records. 9/11 Commission investigators learned, moreover, that after bin Laden’s move from Sudan to Afghanistan in May 1996, a delegation of Saudi officials had asked top Taliban leaders to tell bin Laden that if he didn’t attack the regime, the 1994 termination of his Saudi citizenship and freezing of his assets would be rescinded.
The US government has known that Saudi financing of madrassas all over the world has been a major source of jihadist activism. The Saudi regime’s extremist Wahhabi perspective on Shia Islam is the basis for its paranoid stance on the rest of the region and the destabilisation of Syria and Yemen. The 28 pages should be released, but at a time when the contradictions between US and Saudi interests are finally beginning to be openly acknowledged, the issue is just another diversion from the real debate on Saudi Arabia that is urgently needed.
• First published in Middle East Eye
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/04/the-classified-28-pages-a-diversion-from-real-us-saudi-issues/
Gareth Porter, an investigative historian and journalist specialising in U.S. national security policy, received the UK-based Gellhorn Prize for journalism for 2011 for articles on the U.S. war in Afghanistan. His Manufactured Crisis: The Untold Story of the Iran Nuclear Scare was published in 2014. Read other articles by Gareth.
April 28, 2016
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/04/if-youre-a-misanthrope-are-you-a-misogynist/
If You’re a Misanthrope, are You a Misogynist?
by Peter Breschard / April 27th, 2016
Let’s get some terms straightened out. If you’re a misanthrope, you pretty much hate humanity in general. Women, children, men, you despise them all. You can still hate everyone and have exceptions for your own family and puppy dog, but you’re probably more than willing to press the button and vaporize millions. Frankly, you don’t give a shit about anyone other than you and your own.
What’s a misogynist? Misogyny is a sub-category of misanthropy but focuses its hatred on women. In other words, if you’re a misanthrope, you’re pretty much a misogynist as well. But if you’re a misogynist, you are not necessarily a misanthrope. (Even if you probably are, but that’s another matter.)
War should be considered the ultimate manifestation of misanthropy. Those who facilitate the mass exterminations of human beings which constitute modern day warfare must be considered to be at the pinnacle of human hatred. War is as misanthropic as it gets.
If you assist in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of women should you be considered a misogynist? After all, if you’re a young woman lying dead in a ditch, being pro-choice is hardly relevant. If a drone fires a rocket into your house, you don’t care if the ceiling is wood or glass as it collapses and kills you and your children. You don’t care if you have equal opportunity for a job when your village has been brought to rubble by foreign military forces.....
What’s a misogynist? Misogyny is a sub-category of misanthropy but focuses its hatred on women. In other words, if you’re a misanthrope, you’re pretty much a misogynist as well. But if you’re a misogynist, you are not necessarily a misanthrope. (Even if you probably are, but that’s another matter.)
War should be considered the ultimate manifestation of misanthropy. Those who facilitate the mass exterminations of human beings which constitute modern day warfare must be considered to be at the pinnacle of human hatred. War is as misanthropic as it gets.
If you assist in the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of women should you be considered a misogynist? After all, if you’re a young woman lying dead in a ditch, being pro-choice is hardly relevant. If a drone fires a rocket into your house, you don’t care if the ceiling is wood or glass as it collapses and kills you and your children. You don’t care if you have equal opportunity for a job when your village has been brought to rubble by foreign military forces.....
Full article: http://dissidentvoice.org/2016/04/if-youre-a-misanthrope-are-you-a-misogynist/
April 27, 2016
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/military-spending-is-the-capitalist-worlds-fuel/
Fuck Trump. Pay for your own empire.
Military spending is the capitalist world’s fuel
By Pete Dolack
Source: Systemic Disorder
April 21, 2016
The U.S. maintains military bases in 80 countries, and has military personnel in about 160 foreign countries and territories. Another way of looking at this question is the number of foreign military bases: The U.S. has around 800 while the rest of the world combined has perhaps 30, according to an analysis published in The Nation. Almost half of those 30 belong to Britain or France.
Asking others to pay more is endorsing imperialism
Is there some sort of altruism in the U.S. setting itself up as the gendarme of the world? Well, that’s a rhetorical question, obviously, but such self-deception is widespread, and not just among the foreign-policy establishment.
One line of critique sometimes heard, especially during this year’s presidential campaign, is that the U.S. should demand its allies “pay their fair share.” It’s not only from Right-wing quarters that phrase is heard, but even from Left populist Bernie Sanders, who insisted during this month’s Brooklyn debate with Hillary Clinton that other members of Nato ought to pay more so the Pentagon budget can be cut. Senator Sanders said this in the context of pointing out the superior social benefits across Europe as compared to the U.S., but what it really implies is that militarism is justified.
Asking others to pay more is endorsing imperialism
Is there some sort of altruism in the U.S. setting itself up as the gendarme of the world? Well, that’s a rhetorical question, obviously, but such self-deception is widespread, and not just among the foreign-policy establishment.
One line of critique sometimes heard, especially during this year’s presidential campaign, is that the U.S. should demand its allies “pay their fair share.” It’s not only from Right-wing quarters that phrase is heard, but even from Left populist Bernie Sanders, who insisted during this month’s Brooklyn debate with Hillary Clinton that other members of Nato ought to pay more so the Pentagon budget can be cut. Senator Sanders said this in the context of pointing out the superior social benefits across Europe as compared to the U.S., but what it really implies is that militarism is justified.
So why is U.S. military spending so high? It’s because the repeated use of force is what is necessary to maintain the capitalist system. As top dog in the world capitalist system, it’s up the to the U.S. to do what is necessary to keep itself, and its multi-national corporations, in the driver’s seat. That has been a successful project. U.S.-based multi-nationals hold the world’s highest share in 18 of 25 broad industrial sectors, according to an analysis in New Left Review, and often by commanding margins — U.S. multi-nationals hold at least a 40 percent global share in 10 of those sectors.
A partial list of U.S. interventions from 1890, as compiled by Zoltán Grossman, a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington state, lists more than 130 foreign military interventions (not including the use of troops to put down strikes within U.S.). Consistently, these were used to impose U.S. dictates on smaller countries.
At the beginning of the 20th century, U.S. President William Howard Taft declared that his foreign policy was “to include active intervention to secure our merchandise and our capitalists opportunity for profitable investment” abroad. Taft overthrew the government of Nicaragua to punish it for taking a loan from a British bank rather than a U.S. bank, and then put Nicaragua’s customs collections under U.S. control and handed two U.S. banks control of Nicaragua’s national bank and railroad. Little has changed since, including the overthrows of the governments of Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964) and Chile (1973), and more recently the invasion of Iraq and the attempted overthrow of the Venezuelan government.
Muscle men for big business
We need only recall the statement of Marine Corps general Smedley Butler, who summarized his highly decorated career in 1935, in this manner:
“I spent thirty three years and four months [in] the Marine Corps. … [D]uring that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.”
A partial list of U.S. interventions from 1890, as compiled by Zoltán Grossman, a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington state, lists more than 130 foreign military interventions (not including the use of troops to put down strikes within U.S.). Consistently, these were used to impose U.S. dictates on smaller countries.
At the beginning of the 20th century, U.S. President William Howard Taft declared that his foreign policy was “to include active intervention to secure our merchandise and our capitalists opportunity for profitable investment” abroad. Taft overthrew the government of Nicaragua to punish it for taking a loan from a British bank rather than a U.S. bank, and then put Nicaragua’s customs collections under U.S. control and handed two U.S. banks control of Nicaragua’s national bank and railroad. Little has changed since, including the overthrows of the governments of Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964) and Chile (1973), and more recently the invasion of Iraq and the attempted overthrow of the Venezuelan government.
Muscle men for big business
We need only recall the statement of Marine Corps general Smedley Butler, who summarized his highly decorated career in 1935, in this manner:
“I spent thirty three years and four months [in] the Marine Corps. … [D]uring that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.”
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/military-spending-is-the-capitalist-worlds-fuel/
Fuck Trump. Pay for your own empire.
April 26, 2016
+1,000,000. Great post. nt.
April 26, 2016
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-pentagons-twisted-potlatch/
The Pentagon’s Twisted Potlatch
By John Feffer
Source: Foreign Policy in Focus
April 26, 2016
Among the Kwakiutl and several other indigenous cultures of the Pacific Northwest, the potlatch was a ritual of hospitality. The host would invite guests to a big feast and then distribute gifts. The distribution was a way of demonstrating the host’s status: the more significant the gifts, the more important the host. Think: swag bags for the pre-celebrity era.
GDAMS
The problem, ultimately, boils down to status.
The bloated military budgets no longer bear much relationship to actual defense, at least not for the big spenders. The Pentagon and its ilk are more concerned with perceptions. If the arguments over budget priorities focused on defense, the different sides could debate issues of sufficiency. But when the debate enters the realm of perception, there is never enough spending to satisfy the status imperative.
Several organizations have tried to redefine global status in non-military terms with the Global Peace Index, the Human Development Index, the Global Green Economy Index, and so forth. All of this is to the good. Some day, we will declare the top-ranking countries in these indices the global superpowers and pity the idiot countries that pride themselves on the amount of money they lavish on soldiering.
Public pressure is mounting. For the sixth year in row, activists around the world organized events for the Global Day of Action on Military Spending. In Prague, Athens, Nairobi, Buenos Aires, across Canada and the United States, in New Zealand and Australia, all over the UK, on the Peace Boat as it sailed around Northeast Asia, and in 50 rural villages in India, peace and human needs organizations came together around a simple message: Cut military spending, fund human needs.
There is something fundamentally dysfunctional about the primitive culture inside the military-industrial complex. What started out as homeland defense has morphed into a self-destructive feedback loop, sustained by Congress, nurtured by universities, and reinforced by popular culture. Severing this feedback loop is no mean task.
Anthropologists and activists: We have our work cut out for us.
The problem, ultimately, boils down to status.
The bloated military budgets no longer bear much relationship to actual defense, at least not for the big spenders. The Pentagon and its ilk are more concerned with perceptions. If the arguments over budget priorities focused on defense, the different sides could debate issues of sufficiency. But when the debate enters the realm of perception, there is never enough spending to satisfy the status imperative.
Several organizations have tried to redefine global status in non-military terms with the Global Peace Index, the Human Development Index, the Global Green Economy Index, and so forth. All of this is to the good. Some day, we will declare the top-ranking countries in these indices the global superpowers and pity the idiot countries that pride themselves on the amount of money they lavish on soldiering.
Public pressure is mounting. For the sixth year in row, activists around the world organized events for the Global Day of Action on Military Spending. In Prague, Athens, Nairobi, Buenos Aires, across Canada and the United States, in New Zealand and Australia, all over the UK, on the Peace Boat as it sailed around Northeast Asia, and in 50 rural villages in India, peace and human needs organizations came together around a simple message: Cut military spending, fund human needs.
There is something fundamentally dysfunctional about the primitive culture inside the military-industrial complex. What started out as homeland defense has morphed into a self-destructive feedback loop, sustained by Congress, nurtured by universities, and reinforced by popular culture. Severing this feedback loop is no mean task.
Anthropologists and activists: We have our work cut out for us.
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/the-pentagons-twisted-potlatch/
April 25, 2016
Is the Obama Admin Ignoring the Role of Turkey & Saudi Arabia in Syria's 2013 Sarin Gas Attacks?
APRIL 25, 2016
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh rejects the Obama administration’s claim that the Bashar al-Assad regime carried out deadly chemical weapon attacks in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in August 2013 that killed hundreds of Syrian civilians. "We had a crime," Hersh says. "Sarin was used. ... But the only villain we looked at was the Syrian government, when the United States had internal high-level CIA reports that extremist groups ... were getting the chemicals needed to make sarin [gas] ... from the Turks and also from the Saudis." Hersh writes in his new book that al-Nusra, a militant group fighting in Syria’s civil war, had "mastered the mechanics of creating sarin and was capable of manufacturing it in quantity.”
Please check back later for full transcript.
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/4/25/is_the_obama_admin_ignoring_the
April 25, 2016
Horrible. K&R. nt.
April 24, 2016
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/military-spending-is-the-capitalist-worlds-fuel/
"Military spending is the capitalist world’s fuel" - as are all of these 'free trade' agreements guaranteed to further blight the poorest of the poor in nations that cannot fight off the ISDS' and lawsuits against their gov'ts resulting in austerity, environmental catastrophe and all of the ruined lives because of it. The corporations really do own it all, don't they. Makes me sick.
Military spending is the capitalist world’s fuel
By Pete Dolack
Source: Systemic Disorder
April 21, 2016
The U.S. maintains military bases in 80 countries, and has military personnel in about 160 foreign countries and territories. Another way of looking at this question is the number of foreign military bases: The U.S. has around 800 while the rest of the world combined has perhaps 30, according to an analysis published in The Nation. Almost half of those 30 belong to Britain or France.
Asking others to pay more is endorsing imperialism
Is there some sort of altruism in the U.S. setting itself up as the gendarme of the world? Well, that’s a rhetorical question, obviously, but such self-deception is widespread, and not just among the foreign-policy establishment.
One line of critique sometimes heard, especially during this year’s presidential campaign, is that the U.S. should demand its allies “pay their fair share.” It’s not only from Right-wing quarters that phrase is heard, but even from Left populist Bernie Sanders, who insisted during this month’s Brooklyn debate with Hillary Clinton that other members of Nato ought to pay more so the Pentagon budget can be cut. Senator Sanders said this in the context of pointing out the superior social benefits across Europe as compared to the U.S., but what it really implies is that militarism is justified.
Asking others to pay more is endorsing imperialism
Is there some sort of altruism in the U.S. setting itself up as the gendarme of the world? Well, that’s a rhetorical question, obviously, but such self-deception is widespread, and not just among the foreign-policy establishment.
One line of critique sometimes heard, especially during this year’s presidential campaign, is that the U.S. should demand its allies “pay their fair share.” It’s not only from Right-wing quarters that phrase is heard, but even from Left populist Bernie Sanders, who insisted during this month’s Brooklyn debate with Hillary Clinton that other members of Nato ought to pay more so the Pentagon budget can be cut. Senator Sanders said this in the context of pointing out the superior social benefits across Europe as compared to the U.S., but what it really implies is that militarism is justified.
So why is U.S. military spending so high? It’s because the repeated use of force is what is necessary to maintain the capitalist system. As top dog in the world capitalist system, it’s up the to the U.S. to do what is necessary to keep itself, and its multi-national corporations, in the driver’s seat. That has been a successful project. U.S.-based multi-nationals hold the world’s highest share in 18 of 25 broad industrial sectors, according to an analysis in New Left Review, and often by commanding margins — U.S. multi-nationals hold at least a 40 percent global share in 10 of those sectors.
A partial list of U.S. interventions from 1890, as compiled by Zoltán Grossman, a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington state, lists more than 130 foreign military interventions (not including the use of troops to put down strikes within U.S.). Consistently, these were used to impose U.S. dictates on smaller countries.
At the beginning of the 20th century, U.S. President William Howard Taft declared that his foreign policy was “to include active intervention to secure our merchandise and our capitalists opportunity for profitable investment” abroad. Taft overthrew the government of Nicaragua to punish it for taking a loan from a British bank rather than a U.S. bank, and then put Nicaragua’s customs collections under U.S. control and handed two U.S. banks control of Nicaragua’s national bank and railroad. Little has changed since, including the overthrows of the governments of Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964) and Chile (1973), and more recently the invasion of Iraq and the attempted overthrow of the Venezuelan government.
Muscle men for big business
We need only recall the statement of Marine Corps general Smedley Butler, who summarized his highly decorated career in 1935, in this manner:
“I spent thirty three years and four months [in] the Marine Corps. … [D]uring that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.”
A partial list of U.S. interventions from 1890, as compiled by Zoltán Grossman, a professor at Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington state, lists more than 130 foreign military interventions (not including the use of troops to put down strikes within U.S.). Consistently, these were used to impose U.S. dictates on smaller countries.
At the beginning of the 20th century, U.S. President William Howard Taft declared that his foreign policy was “to include active intervention to secure our merchandise and our capitalists opportunity for profitable investment” abroad. Taft overthrew the government of Nicaragua to punish it for taking a loan from a British bank rather than a U.S. bank, and then put Nicaragua’s customs collections under U.S. control and handed two U.S. banks control of Nicaragua’s national bank and railroad. Little has changed since, including the overthrows of the governments of Iran (1953), Guatemala (1954), Brazil (1964) and Chile (1973), and more recently the invasion of Iraq and the attempted overthrow of the Venezuelan government.
Muscle men for big business
We need only recall the statement of Marine Corps general Smedley Butler, who summarized his highly decorated career in 1935, in this manner:
“I spent thirty three years and four months [in] the Marine Corps. … [D]uring that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism.”
Full article: https://zcomm.org/znetarticle/military-spending-is-the-capitalist-worlds-fuel/
"Military spending is the capitalist world’s fuel" - as are all of these 'free trade' agreements guaranteed to further blight the poorest of the poor in nations that cannot fight off the ISDS' and lawsuits against their gov'ts resulting in austerity, environmental catastrophe and all of the ruined lives because of it. The corporations really do own it all, don't they. Makes me sick.
Profile Information
Gender: Do not displayHometown: Saskatchewan
Home country: Canada
Member since: Sat Jul 9, 2005, 11:46 PM
Number of posts: 20,582
