Globalove Think Tank

I dream of a Star Trek world. This think tank will focus on creative actions
designed to initiate a global paradigm shift towards a world where racism, poverty
and war will be a thing of the past.

Category: war

death without due process


The United States has reportedly initiated a targeted killing program under which the CIA and the military have the authority to hunt and kill individuals, including U.S. citizens, far away from the battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan and even the Pakistani border regions, and potentially anywhere in the world. The program operates without any checks and balances; all of the essential details about the program remain secret. We do not know what criteria are used to put people on the “kill lists” maintained by the CIA and military, how much evidence is required to add a person to the lists, or whether there are any geographical limits on where individuals can be targeted. The President has, in effect, claimed the unchecked authority to put the names of citizens and others on “kill lists” on the basis of a secret determination, based on secret evidence, that a person meets a secret definition of the enemy.

We are all familiar with how the death penalty works. A crime (usually murder) is committed. It’s investigated by law enforcement. A suspect is arrested, charged with the crime, and goes to trial. The government shows the judge or jury the evidence against the accused. The accused can defend against the accusations. The jury delivers a verdict. If it’s a guilty verdict, the defendant might be sentenced to death.

The process, from arrest to sentencing, is the Fifth Amendment in action, the part that states: “no person…shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law.”

The Constitution protects all Americans’ right to life, whether they’re living at home or abroad. If the government thinks you should be dead, it should at least tell you why. The fact that the standard that puts Americans on the “kill list” is a secret is itself unconstitutional. As our complaint states, “U.S. citizens have a right to know what conduct may subject them to execution at the hands of their own government. Due process requires, at a minimum, that citizens be put on notice of what may cause them to be put to death by the state.”

(ACLU: Targeted Killings) (ACLU: blog)

The USS Liberty Incident


The USS Liberty incident was an attack on a United States Navy technical research ship, USS Liberty, by Israeli Air Force jet fighter aircraft and Israeli Navy torpedo boats, on June 8, 1967, during the Six-Day War. The combined air and sea attack killed 34 crew members (naval officers, seamen, two Marines, and one civilian), wounded 170 crew members, and severely damaged the ship. At the time, the ship was in international waters north of the Sinai Peninsula, about 25.5 nmi (29.3 mi; 47.2 km) northwest from the Egyptian city of Arish.

Both the Israeli and U.S. governments conducted inquiries and issued reports that concluded the attack was a mistake due to Israeli confusion about the identity of the USS Liberty. Attack survivors contacted in 2007, by John M. Crewdson for a Chicago Tribune article about the attack, “to a man” rejected Israel’s mistaken identity explanation. Also, the Tribune article said that most senior U.S. government officials, involved with the incident, did not believe that the attack was a mistake. The attack remains “the only maritime incident in U.S. history where [U.S.] military forces were killed that was never investigated by the [U.S.] Congress.”

James Bamford, a former ABC News producer, in his 2001 book Body of Secrets, proposes a different possible motive for a deliberate attack: to prevent the discovery of a massacre by the IDF of Egyptian prisoners of war that was allegedly taking place at the same time in the nearby town of El-Arish. In 1995, mass graves of Egyptian soldiers were discovered outside of El-Arish, and IDF veterans have admitted that up to 1,000 unarmed civilians and prisoners of war were murdered in the 1967 War. According to Israeli reporter Gabriel Bron, a former IDF soldier who witnessed the massacre, “The Egyptian POWs were ordered to dig pits, then army police shot them to death”. Deputy Foreign Minister, Eli Dayan offered compensation to the victims families in 1995, but explained that Israel was unable to pursue those responsible due to the statute of limitations.

The press release for the BBC documentary film Dead in the Water states that new recorded and other evidence suggests the attack was a “daring ploy by Israel to fake an Egyptian attack” to give America a reason to enter the war against Egypt. Convinced that that attack was real, President of the United States Lyndon B. Johnson launched nuclear-armed planes targeted against Cairo from a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Mediterranean. The planes were recalled only just in time, when it was clear the Liberty had not sunk and that Israel had carried out the attack. The video also provides hearsay evidence of a covert alliance of U.S. and Israel intelligence agencies. (read more)

100 ways to hate

something wicked this way comes

Atomic Cover-Up: The Hidden Story Behind the U.S. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Atomic Cover-Up: The Hidden Story Behind the U.S. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

Democracy Now!
August 9, 2011
"As radiation readings in Japan reach their highest levels since the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant meltdowns, we look at the beginning of the atomic age. Today is the 66th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombing of Nagasaki, which killed some 75,000 people and left another 75,000 seriously wounded. It came just three days after the United States dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, killing around 80,000 people and injuring some 70,000. By official Japanese estimates, nearly 300,000 people died from the bombings, including those who lost their lives in the ensuing months and years from related injuries and illnesses. Other researchers estimate a much higher death toll. We play an account of the 1945 atomic bombing of Nagasaki by the pilots who flew the B-29 bomber that dropped that bomb, and feature an interview with the son of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist George Weller, who was the first reporter to enter Nagasaki. He later summarized his experience with military censors who ordered his story killed, saying, 'They won.' Our guest is Greg Mitchell, co-author of 'Hiroshima in America: A Half Century of Denial,' with Robert Jay Lifton. His latest book is 'Atomic Cover-Up: Two U.S. Soldiers, Hiroshima & Nagasaki and The Greatest Movie Never Made.' [includes rush transcript]"


Atomic bombing of Nagasaki on August 9, 1945

• more at whats up: Atomic Cover-Up: The Hidden Story Behind the U.S. Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

military spending

The United States

spends more money on the military

than the rest of the world combined.

Why is it that military “entitlements”

always seem to escape the chopping block

in these times of extreme debt crisis?

due process ?

Judge

jury

and executioner

holy – cost

The Art Of War

All warfare is based on deception…Sun Tzu

The Art of War is an ancient Chinese military treatise that is attributed to Sun Tzu (also referred to as “Sunzi” and “Sun Wu”), a high ranking military general and strategist of the Kingdom of Wu who was active in the late-sixth century BC, during the late Spring and Autumn period. (Some scholars believe that the Art of War was not completed until the subsequent Warring States period.) Composed of 13 chapters, each of which is devoted to one aspect of warfare, it is said to be the definitive work on military strategies and tactics of its time, and is still read for its military insights.

The Art of War is one of the oldest and most successful books on military strategy in the world. It has been the most famous and influential of China’s Seven Military Classics: “for the last two thousand years it remained the most important military treatise in Asia, where even the common people knew it by name.” It has had an influence on Eastern military thinking, business tactics, and beyond.

Sun Tzu emphasized the importance of positioning in military strategy, and that the decision to position an army must be based on both objective conditions in the physical environment and the subjective beliefs of other, competitive actors in that environment. He thought that strategy was not planning in the sense of working through an established list, but rather that it requires quick and appropriate responses to changing conditions. Planning works in a controlled environment, but in a changing environment, competing plans collide, creating unexpected situations. (read more)

theft

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”

…Dwight D. Eisenhower…

WATCH OUT FOR THE BOGYMAN DEPT.


by Jim Marrs on Wednesday, May 4, 2011 at 12:58pm

The surest way to control a free people is to initiate a war. But to have a war requires an enemy. In recent years, America’s great enemy has been Osama bin Laden and his al Qaeda network, but this has turned out to be a Bogyman — a false and ethereal image to provoke fear.

“There are people within the US intelligence community who doubt that the hijacker list from 9/11 has much truth in it,” said one unnamed intelligence source quoted by investigative reporter and publisher Jon Rappoport, who has built up many sources in his more than 20 years of experience. “They see it as a more-or-less invented list. They know that if you start with men showing false passports (or no passports) to get on four planes on 9/11, you can’t assemble a correct list of nineteen suspects within a few days—especially since all those men are presumed dead and missing, untraceable. Al Qaeda is being used as a term to convince people that these terrorists are all connected in a vast, very well-organized network that is global in reach, that has a very sophisticated and far-flung communication setup, that issues orders from the top down to cells all over the world,” stated the intelligence source. “There are a number of people inside the US intelligence agencies who know this is a false picture. They know that false intelligence is being assembled in order to paint a picture which is distorted, so that the American people will have a single focus on one grand evil enemy.”

If one doubts this source, consider this video of author researcher Jason Burke:

http://www.brasschecktv.com/page/59.html

Supporting the claim that the terrorist organization is a fabrication is the fact that not one of the accused 9/11 hijackers’ names appeared on the passenger lists made public by American or United airlines. In fact, as many as seven of those named as the culprits in the attacks were soon found alive and well in the Middle East. These included Saudi pilot Waleed al-Shehri, identified by the US Justice Department as one of the men who crashed American Flight 11 into the WTC. But a few days later, Waleed al-Shehri contacted authorities in Casablanca, Morocco, to proclaim that he was very much alive and played no part in the attacks. Another man identified as one of the hijackers of Flight 11, Abdulaziz al-Omari, also turned up alive in the Middle East, telling BBC News that he lost his passport while visiting Denver, Colorado. Actually two turned up, as yet another Abdulaziz al-Omari surfaced in Saudi Arabia very much alive and telling newsmen, “I couldn’t believe the FBI put me on their list. They gave my name and my date of birth, but I am not a suicide bomber. I am here. I am alive. I have no idea how to fly a plane. I had nothing to do with this.”

Yet another man identified as one of the hijackers of United Flight 93, Saeed al-Ghamdi, was reported alive and well and working as a pilot in Saudi Arabia. “You cannot imagine what it is like to be described as a terrorist—and a dead man—when you are innocent and alive,” said al-Ghamdi, who was given a holiday by his airline in Saudi Arabia to avoid arrest. At least three other named 9/11 hijackers surfaced to proclaim their innocence in the attacks but none of this was widely reported in the US corporate mass media.

In October, 2004, the BBC in England broadcasted a documentary entitled The Power of Nightmares: The Rise of the Politics of Fear, a three-hour documentary that challenged the Bush administration’s stated concept of al Qaeda as a multi-faceted globe-spanning octopus of terrorism. The documentary raised questions such as:

Why has the Bush administration, after rounding up hundreds of suspected terrorists and using torture during interrogation, failed to produce any hard evidence of al Qaeda activities?

Of the 664 suspected terrorists detained in Britain, why have only 17 been found guilty of crimes? Why have none of these men been proven to be members of al Qaeda

Why has the Bush administration prompted so much frightening speculation over “dirty” radioactive bombs when experts have stated that public panic over such devices will kill more people than any radioactivity caused by one?

Why did Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld claim on Meet the Press in 2001 that al Qaeda controlled massive high-tech cave complexes in Afghanistan, when none were later found following the military invasion?

While it is clear that groups of disaffected Arab Muslims do exist, the BBC documentary nevertheless convincingly argued that “the nightmare vision of a uniquely powerful hidden organization waiting to strike our societies is an illusion. Wherever one looks for this al Qaeda organization, from the mountains of Afghanistan to the ‘sleeper cells’ in America, the British and Americans are chasing a phantom enemy.”

Los Angeles Times political columnist Robert Scheer said that the documentary makes “a powerful case that the Bush administration, led by a tight-knit cabal of Machiavellian neoconservatives, has seized upon the false image of a unified international terrorist threat to replace the expired Soviet empire in order to push a political agenda.” He pointed out that everything we know about al Qaeda comes from only two sources, both with a vested interest in maintaining the concept of a well-financed and deeply entrenched enemy— the terrorists themselves and military and governmental intelligence agencies. “Such a state of national ignorance about an endless war is, as The Power of Nightmares makes clear, simply unacceptable in a functioning democracy,” Scheer wrote.

In Britain it has been suggested that al Qaeda is not a real organization, but rather a computer list of Arab freedom fighters or terrorists available for hire. British commentator Robin Cook, who served as Foreign Secretary from 1997 – 2001 and as Leader of the House of Commons from 2001 – 2003, has suggested that “Bin Laden …was armed by the CIA and funded by the Saudis to wage jihad against the Russian occupation of Afghanistan. Al Qaeda, literally ‘the database,’ was originally the computer file of the thousands of Mujahideen who were recruited and trained with help from the CIA to defeat the Russians.”

Ironically, supposed enemies are often two sides of the same coin. Author Thom Hartmann pointed out that both Bush’s neocons and Muslim terrorists operated from similar ideologies— though the specifics may differ, both groups believe the end justifies the means and that people must be frightened into accepting religion and nationalism for the greater good of morality and a stable state.

Now, we are told that Osama bin Laden has been killed in a Pakistani firefight, yet controversy sprang up immediately.

Why did it take 10 years to find the man when an errant taxpayer can be found by computer within minutes? Why did government sources claim Osama hid behind his wife, who was then killed only to retract those statements later? Why were the American people told his body was buried at sea as a Muslim custom when there is no such custom in Muslim countries, most of which are desert nations? Why did a photograph purporting to be the body of Osama prove to be a composite forgery? Why did “official sources” claim Osama died at least nine times during the past 10 years? Why did several sources, including former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, say Osama died years ago but would be preserved until he could be brought public at the proper time? Has anyone in authority discussed rescinding the PATRIOT Act, the Military Commissions Act, the Real ID Act or any of the other Constitution-shredding legislation passed by a panicked and cowardly Congress who by several accounts never even read these laws before passing them?

This whole issue smells like a barrel of dead fish yet do not expect to hear any truth concerning this on our corporate-controlled mass media. This scam, along with the growing defense and TSA budgets, must be continued.

FALSE PICTURE OF AL QAEDA — sources

Unnamed intelligence source: Jon Rappoport, “Briefing on Al Qaeda,” StratiaWire (Sept. 5, 2002)

Accused 9/11 hijackers turned up alive: Editors, “Hijack suspects alive and well,” BBC News (Sept. 23, 2001)

Al Qaeda an illusion: http://articles.latimes.com/2005/jan/11/opinion/oe-scheer11

Al Qaeda as CIA database: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2005/jul/08/july7.development

Enemies operate from same ideology: http://www.commondreams.org/cgi-bin/print.cgi?file=%2Fviews04%2F1207-26.htm

Obama on intelligence estimates and more troops: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=BUR20090329&articleId=12943

Obama sends 30,000 troops but pledges withdrawal in 2011: http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2009/12/01/obama-afghanistan001.html?ref=rss–

Northern Command: http://www.northcom.mil/About/index.html

Jim

We Are Winning

must see

OCCUPATION

The De-Humanization Of Mankind

sexism…the oldest form of de-humanization.

racism…came next adding to de-humanization.

war…made the civilian populations combatants.

i’m a number…not a person, indexed, filed, controlled.

bill moyers…..culture of corruption…follow the money.

economic slavery…people are consumers, commodities.

germ warfare…antithesis of humanity…they will kill us all.

citizens united vs F.E.C….corporations get more influence.

indoctrinated…programmed, surveilled, brainwashed, used.

pharma guinea pigs…they don’t need rats…they have us now.

engineered terrorism…culture of fear…they instill fear and hate.

they want to give a zygote…full human rights…a cell is not human.

human testing…Operation Whitecoat…Tuskegee…mental patients.

cash is king

Cost of War

935

Harry Shearer

December 7, 1941


USS Arizona (BB-39) was a Pennsylvania-class battleship of the United States Navy and the first to be named “Arizona”. On March 4, 1913, Congress authorized the construction of Arizona, named to honor the 48th state’s admission into the union on 14 February 1912. The ship was the second and last of the Pennsylvania class of “super-dreadnought” battleships.

She is most remembered because of her sinking, with the loss of 1,177 lives, during the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on 7 December 1941, the event that goaded the US into World War II. Unlike most of the other ships sunk or damaged that day, the Arizona could not be salvaged, although the U.S. Navy removed several elements of the ship that were reused. The wreck still lies at the bottom of Pearl Harbor and was established as a memorial to all those who died during the Pearl Harbor attack. (read more)

“charlie”


Charles Bernard “Charlie” Rangel (born June 11, 1930) is the U.S. Representative for New York’s 15th congressional district, serving since 1971. He is a member of the Democratic Party. As the most senior member, he is the Dean of New York’s congressional delegation. In January 2007, Rangel became Chair of the powerful House Ways and Means Committee, the first African-American to do so. He is also a founding member of the Congressional Black Caucus.

Rangel enlisted in the United States Army, and served from 1948 to 1952. During the Korean War, he was a member of the all-black 503rd Field Artillery Battalion in the 2nd Infantry Division.

In late November 1950, this unit was caught up in heavy fighting in North Korea as part of the U.N. forces retreat from the Yalu River. In the Battle of Kunu-ri, Rangel was part of a vehicle column that was trapped and attacked by the Chinese Army. In the subzero cold, Rangel was injured by shrapnel from a Chinese shell. Some U.S. soldiers were being taken prisoner, but others looked to Rangel, who though only a private first class had a reputation for leadership in the unit. Rangel led some 40 men from his unit, during three days of freezing weather, out of the Chinese encirclement. Nearly half of the battalion was killed in the overall battle.

Rangel was awarded a Purple Heart for his wounds and the Bronze Star with Valor for his actions in the face of death. His Army unit was awarded the Presidential Unit Citation, the Republic of Korea Presidential Unit Citation, and three battle stars. In 2000, Rangel reflected with CBS News that

“Since Kunu Ri – and I mean it with all my heart, I have never, never had a bad day.”

Rangel later viewed his time in the Army, away from the poverty of his youth, as a major turning point in his life: “When I was exposed to a different life, even if that life was just the Army, I knew damn well I couldn’t get back to the same life I had left.” After an honorable discharge from the Army with the rank of staff sergeant, he returned home to headlines in The New York Amsterdam News.

Rangel finished high school, completing two years of studies in one year and graduating in 1953. Rangel then received a Bachelor of Science degree from the New York University School of Commerce in 1957, where he made the dean’s list. Then, on full scholarship, he obtained his law degree from the St. John’s University School of Law in 1960.

Rangel is a member of Alpha Phi Alpha, the first intercollegiate Greek-letter fraternity established for African-Americans. He is also a member of the fraternity’s World Policy Council, a think tank whose purpose is to expand Alpha Phi Alpha’s involvement in politics and social and current policy to encompass international concerns. (read more)

“Charlie”

folly of man

the skull

“In Voluptas Mors”
Philippe Halsman 1951
(in collaboration with Salvador Dali)

Lest We Forget

Today 11-11 at 11 o’ clock we stand for a two minute silence, to remember those warriors who were sent to war, to give their all, they innocently trusted that what they were told was true, that they were and are lied to does not detract from their bravery or from their sacrifice.

In England we buy red poppies fron the British Legion who use the money to provide help for widows, to help people who have been hurt in the fighting and to remember our brave warriors who gave their all on Flanders field and in sadly many, many other conflicts through our the world.

Today I can only think of two words, Depleted Uranium,

The Pentagon has been using radio active weapons for at least a decade and a half with full complicity of at least three White House administrations and Republican and Democratic congressional legislators. Conservatively, at least 300 tons and 1,700 tons of depleted uranium were used in the Gulf War and the current Iraq War, respectively. This is about 70 grams of depleted uranium per Iraqi citizen, and if inhaled or ingested, it is enough to kill them all.

Is this not radioactive genocide, especially when our troops used and continue to use most of the depleted uranium munitions in densely populated areas such as Baghdad and Fallujah? Depleted uranium has a half-life of billions of years. Consequently, Iraq will be a wasteland forever and essentially uninhabitable for anyone.

Iraqi and visiting doctors, and a number of news reports, have reported that birth defects and cancers in Iraqi children have increased five- to 10-fold since the 1991 Gulf War and continue to increase sharply, to over 30-fold in some areas in southern Iraq. Currently, more than 50 percent of Iraqi cancer patients are children under the age of 5, up from 13 percent. Children are especially vulnerable because they tend to play in areas that are heavily polluted by depleted uranium.

After the 1991 Gulf War, about 1 in 4, or 150,000, U.S. veterans came down with what is referred to as “Gulf War Syndrome.” Most of the ailments characteristics of Gulf War Syndrome are consistent with radiation or heavy-metal poisoning. Veterans’ children are now also born with higher proportions of birth defects and other genetic disorders, according to sporadic accounts. The Pentagon continues to deny the harmful effects of depleted uranium or its role in Gulf War Syndrome.

As described by a report of the World Health Organization Depleted Uranium Mission to Kosovo, uranium can be found in rocks and soil and contributes to natural background levels of radioactivity. Depleted uranium is a waste product of uranium enrichment for nuclear reactors and is about 60 percent as radioactive as naturally occurring uranium. Depleted uranium is considered weakly radioactive.

Nevertheless, depleted uranium is considered nuclear waste and has to be disposed of accordingly, which is expensive and a potential environmental hazard. The nuclear industry must be very pleased the U.S. military has found a way to get this stuff off their hands cheaply.

Depleted uranium is really a misnomer, because the potentially harmful effects are by no means depleted. Research reports have found that when depleted uranium is ingested or inhaled, it can cause cancers and birth defects. It has considerable heavy-metal toxicity.

As stated in the WHO report, because of its high density, depleted uranium is used in armor-piercing ammunition and as reinforcement against conventional weapons. Upon impact, the depleted uranium fragments burn at intense heat, and 10 to 35 percent of it becomes aerosolised. This aerosolised uranium “dust” is the most harmful component because it can easily be ingested or inhaled.

Wind and people walking through it also easily disperse the depleted uranium dust. This dust is a predominant by product of military use of depleted uranium, in contrast to, for example, exposures in uranium mines or nuclear reactors.

Our troops in Iraq will be severely affected by this radioactive war, not only because a lot more depleted uranium has been used and continues to be used, but also because they have been there a lot longer than during the Gulf War. Hundreds of thousands of our troops will come down with Gulf War Syndrome as a result of depleted uranium poisoning, and thousands will die from it. Thousands of their children will be born with genetic diseases, cancers and birth defects.

Please be warned the pictures in these links showing tragic birth defects are upsetting and haunting

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=1777

http://www.xs4all.nl/~stgvisie/VISIE/extremedeformities.html

So this is Christmas

Happy Xmas (War is Over)
John Lennon, Yoko Ono

So this is Christmas
and what have you done
another year over
a new one just begun

and so this is Christmas
i hope you have fun
the near and the dear ones
the old and the young

a very merry Christmas
and a happy new year
let’s hope it’s a good one
without any fear

and so this is Christmas
for weak and for strong
the rich and the poor ones
the road is so long

So happy Christmas
for black and for white
for the yellow and red ones
let’s all stop the fight

a very merry Christmas
and a happy new year
lets hope it’s a good one
without any fear.

War is over, if you want it
War is over now

(watch video)

See The Light

PTSD

The military is known for instilling leadership and teamwork ability ..skills that battle conditions can quickly take away. According to a Rand study, nearly one third of all returning troops suffer from some form of post-traumatic stress (PTSD) or traumatic brain injury. Some of them show up at student services where I see them. James was part of a tank crew. On a hot day in Iraq ..they left the hatch open. That’s when a grenade blast slammed his head against an iron plate. At home, he enrolled in college using his GI benefits. However, crowded classrooms make him feel trapped and panicky. When he tries to contain these feelings, he finds he can’t make sense out of what the instructors are saying. Answering a question is like trying to find the answer to a riddle. He mumbles and strains to put together a coherent sentence ..and hopes he’s somewhere in the ballpark. I referred him to the VA for therapy. A short time later he quit school and went looking for a job. He hoped the skills they taught him in the service would help. Unfortunately, many employers told him they couldn’t accommodate time off for therapy. When I talked to him about it, he said he didn’t think that was the real reason. “They hire the disabled all the time” he says “Guys that need just as much time off as I do. No, it’s more like they’re afraid I’ll go postal or something. Head-cases make them nervous.”

The Fall

(The Fall trailer)

Aisha

“White” propaganda

and the subtleties of lies

Make Love, Not War

“Skull” 1924

“Stormtroops Advancing Under Gas” 1924

Wilhelm Heinrich Otto Dix


Afghan

I wouldn’t ordinarily be writing about the situation in Afghanistan, but since I am familiar with one of their chief exports, hashish ..I have been following the war kind of closely. I think there’s a story here. Or some half-baked ideas. I can never tell. But I was wondering, since when is it the role of army generals to build stable communities when all they’ve been trained to do throughout history is knock them down. So now we’ve put them in charge of ‘social engineering’ ..a practice we abhor in the west ..and rightly so. It doesn’t lead to ‘participatory’ government. Instead, it contributes to feelings of helplessness by replacing traditional customs with circumstances that the local population had no hand in creating ..and over which they have no control.
 

There’s another mission that’s equally unclear to me “Our goal is to break Taliban momentum.” What the hell does that mean in a town where the Taliban have already seized the means of production, which in addition to producing hashish, means subsistence-level bakeries. You think the villagers want to participate in U.S efforts to ‘break Taliban momentum’ when their survival instincts fill them with a sense of foreboding.
 
Last week Obama sacked a commanding general for using the term ‘diplomatic incoherence’ to describe the difference between what is happening in Afghanistan ..and what the U.S government would have us believe is happening in Afghanistan. Call me a cynic, but I don’t believe that giving the military contradictory goals like ‘building stable communities’ and ‘breaking Taliban momentum’ is going to lead to anything like the ‘progress’ I’ve been hearing about from politicians. I’m hunkering down for a long-term disruption in the supply of hash from Afghanistan..

The Long War

World War Two lasted 44 months.

The American Civil War lasted 48 months.

The Vietnam War went on for 103 months.

U.S. forces attacked Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2001.

As of today, the war will complete its 104th month.

(you are a prisoner of war)

brothers against brothers

Stupid is…

as stupid does

Double Edged Sword

They go to fight for freedom,

but they are dying for conquest !!!


(War Is a Racket)

(the arms industry)

(permanent war economy)

(list of arms manufacturers)

(military industrial complex)

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