Blogs

U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton delivered a clear and legally compelling decision last week to block several measures of Arizona's new immigration law from going into effect.

New York City Assistant District Attorney Reopens Dismissed Cases of Healthcare Activists, Re-arrest Imminent
What to Do:
Call the office of Cy Vance, Manhattan District Attorney, to Demand "No new charges for healthcare activists."
Ask to speak with Erin Duggan, Communications Director, (212) 335-9400.
What to Say:
"I'm calling because I'm concerned about ADA Eric Kratzville's decision to re-file charges against healthcare activists Kate Barnhart and Joan Pleune. These activists were already charged, and their cases were dismissed by a judge. The ADA is wasting city resources by pursuing charges against this nonviolent protest. Instead, he should prosecute real criminals, like insurance companies that deny people lifesaving medical treatment. ADA Eric Kratzville should NOT re-file charges against Kate and Joan."
Background Information:

By Dave Lindorff

I was listening to NPR’s “Morning Edition” broadcast this morning in the car, and I heard a reporter say that President Obama was “redefining” the American role in Iraq, now that he had brought the number of US forces in that country down to “only” 50,000 troops, and that “combat operations” would be ending effective this month. The remaining forces, the reporter announced, with no hint of irony and no explanation, would “only” be engaged in helping to train Iraqi troops and police, and in “counter-insurgency” operations.

Excuse me, but aren’t we at war in Afghanistan, and isn’t that operation, involving about 200,000 US, Australian and NATO troops (excluding the Dutch, who are pulling out after the country’s participation in it brought down the conservative government), called a “counter-insurgency” campaign? Isn’t counter-insurgency by definition a kind of “combat”?

WTF? This crap is called journalism?

The subject title is the one from a Guardian report one of the participants in the Wikileaks document dump and explanations of.

In this first blockquote, and if in the U.S., think of all that you've read or especially heard since the three outlets, the Guardian where this comes from being one, helped bring out what the online Wikileaks had obtained and posted simultaneously.

One disappointed paper deliberately provided the Taliban with a to-do list: it drew their attention to specific Wikileaks documents they might inspect in order to take reprisals. The low point was perhaps reached by Channel 4 News, which respectfully quoted a "spokesman" for the bearded murderers, as he uttered promises of revenge on alleged informants. It felt like PR for the Taliban.

Now to the cut and suggestion you click the link for more.

This is Not the way to treat soldiers who've already been in theater, and in these occupations of choice, more then once and more then just one theater, and already showing the suffering from the trauma's and stresses of war, seeing, doing and knowing about which brings on the nightmares of PTS from those extreme trauma's of 24/7 war and occupation!

Military keeping traumatized soldiers in combat zones

8/1/2010 Army says it's better to treat soldiers 'in theater,' others say it only helps stretched military

Honduran Junta Murdering Journalists - by Stephen Lendman

This article follows an earlier one titled Death Squad Terror in Honduras, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/06/death-squad-terror-in-honduras.html

Orchestrated by Washington, it discussed the June 28, 2009 coup, Honduran soldiers arresting President Manuel Zelaya at gunpoint, exiling him to Costa Rica, obstructing his return, committing widespread killings and human rights abuses, conducting a sham November 2009 election under martial law, installing Porfirio (Pepe) Lobo Sosa president on January 27, 2010, the Obama administration's man in Honduras, succeeding interim leader, Roberto Micheletti, using death squad terror to solidify coup d'etat rule, what most Hondurans oppose and want ended.

As cluster bomb ban takes effect, the view from Laos

August 1, 2010 The cluster bomb ban – officially known as the Convention on Cluster Munitions – comes into force today. Countries that have ratified the treaty must stop making cluster munitions, dispose of stockpiles, and clear contaminated areas.

Vansoum Phim Mavong an employee of Mines Advistory Group, searches for unexploded munitions in a field in central Laos. The shells of 'bombies' a nickname for the tennis-ball-sized bomblets, litter fields all over Laos, the most-bombed country in the world per capita. A world-wide cluster bomb ban takes effect Sunday. Jared Feddie

The Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee has scheduled a hearing to examine the reasons and evidence used to add these three conditions to the list of presumptive diseases related to Agent Orange exposure.

Jul-31-2010 The President signed the War Supplemental yesterday. In that bill is the $13.4 billion in funding for the three newly designated presumptive diseases related to Agent Orange exposure.

What does this mean for veterans who have already filed and those waiting to file on these conditions? The money is now in place and the authorization to spend it needs to be completed. The House overwhelmingly passed the VA/Military Construction Authorization bill earlier this week and now the Senate must do the same. The House version authorizes the money for these new conditions.

Will we hear mention of this on the U.S. Sunday Morning talking heads shows, crickets! We the U.S. media be reporting on this, chances are extremely little if at all and most certainly not a front page story!

Cluster bomb ban comes into effect

The treaty prohibits signatories from using, producing and stockpiling the weapons [AFP]

1 August 2010

A global treaty banning cluster munitions has gone into force.

The Convention on Cluster Munitions, which became binding international law on Sunday, prohibits the use, production and stockpiling of the weapon, which is blamed for killing and maiming tens of thousands of civilians.

If this stands as true and not properly cleaned up then the problems still exist as we've seen with the following generations of Vietnamese since our use during the occupation of!

Army Probes Its Use Of Agent Orange In Md. City

Jul 30, 2010 FREDERICK, Md. (AP) ― The Army says it's searching internal records for details on outdoor spray testing of Agent Orange at Fort Detrick in Frederick.

A Fort Detrick spokesman said Friday that the Maryland Department of the Environment asked the Army about the tests. The Veterans Administration says they were conducted there in the 1940s and '50s. Continued

All from a Country that is based on it's Laws and Constitution to hold it together, was and is the major architect of International Laws and Condemns those who fail to uphold Human Rights and those same International Laws, not to mention that torturing of others for so called intelligence doesn't work but those ordering and those doing get a perverse joy out of carrying out these acts!

Eight years after the torture memo, Obama should take a hard look back

As apparently the Inquiry will be extended into the Fall with, as reported, the possibility of recalling some witnesses and now a trip to Iraq for direct on the spot evidence of the occupation.

'Tittle-tattle' behind Iraq invasion

31 Jul 2010 Former British Deputy Prime Minister John Prescott says the intelligence which justified the invasion of Iraq for the government of Tony Blair was nothing more than "tittle-tattle."

Speaking before the Iraq war inquiry panel, Prescott said he felt "nervous" at the time as the government was claiming that former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein could unleash deadly unconventional attacks on his desired targets within 45 minutes.

By David Swanson

Andrew Bacevich's new book, "Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War," is a good summary of the past 65 years' worth of war thinking in Washington, D.C. "Prior to World War II," he writes, "Americans by and large viewed military power and institutions with skepticism, if not outright hostility. In the wake of World War II, that changed. An affinity for military might emerged as central to the American identity." For the past 65 years or so, Bacevich writes, these beliefs have been Washington's "sacred trinity":

"an abiding conviction that the minimum essentials of international peace and order require the United States to maintain a global military presence, to configure its forces for global power projection, and to counter existing or anticipated threats by relying on a policy of global interventionism."

Palestinian Detainee Abuse during Operation Cast Lead - by Stephen Lendman

On July 6, the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PACTI) and Adalah: The Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel released a report titled, "Exposed: The Treatment of Palestinian Detainees During Operation Cast Lead," detailing their horrific treatment.

Transferred to Israel for interrogation, detainees related grim details of their ordeal - grave human rights violations, showing Israel's "contempt for the rule of law."

Wikileaks: The Pakistan connection Pt.1, visit link for Part 1.

"Invisible History: Afghanistan's Untold Story"

Second in the list of Op-Ed observations.

July 31, 2010 Slowly the lies are stripped away. A full-dress British inquiry into the origins of the Iraq war is revealing what some of us suspected pretty much from the beginning: that attacking Saddam Hussein was an act of bottomless folly, driven by the hubris of George W. Bush and the American neo-cons, and supported unquestioningly by that self-righteous prig Tony Blair. To which list of shame we can add the name John Howard. The inquiry has had little coverage here, crowded out by the election campaign. More's the pity. A killer blow was delivered last week by the Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, who sounds like a character from an Agatha Christie whodunit but who was, in fact, the head of the British counter-intelligence service MI5 from 2002 to 2007.

This is just the recent but think back these years and all read and heard or watched, this is what a big part of recruitment looks like {and rise of hatreds and thus blowback}, add in the killing, maiming, destruction and creating refugees from their homes and countries, and while in these theaters demeaning those that live there and their neighbors and not only in theater but across this country!

Occupied Palestine: Home Demolitions, Dispossessions and Residency Rights Revoked - by Stephen Lendman

Daily, Israeli oppression continues - demolishing homes, dispossessing occupants, and revoking residency rights, three of its many crimes under international law, Israel spurning it with impunity.

On July 22, the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) reported mass Jordan Valley Al Farisyie village demolitions, displacing 107 people, including 52 children. Targeted were 26 residential tents, 22 animal shelters, seven taboun clay ovens, eight kitchens, 10 bathrooms, four water tanks, and an agricultural equipment shed - in all, 74 structures illegally bulldozed, family homes and belongings destroyed along with large quantities of food and animal fodder.

Many families weren't warned or present, so lost everything under rubble, Israel displacing Palestinians to make way for Judaization, area residents on their own, abandoned and unaided.

President 43 will be 49 on August 4 and Mrs. 43 has e-mailed with a request. I’m sure many of you received the appeal.

Michelle says: “Every year, our family tries to come up with a fun way to wish Barack a happy birthday.”

The hostess of the White House continues with: “This has been a big—and hectic—year for him.” Duh.

Here’s some of the penciling on Barack Obama’s dance card.

A surge of militarism.

A surge in Afghanistan.

A surge in troop deaths.

A surge in suicide among veterans.

A surge in WikiLeak-ing of US war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.

A surge of droning in Pakistan.

A surge in civilian slaughter.

A surge of hatred.

A surge of mercenaries.

A surge in the insurgency.

A surge in war spending.

A surge of warmongering greed.

A surge of rhetoric to attack Iran.

A surge of wink wink to Big Insurance and Big Pharma.

A surge of uninsured.

A surge of oil in the Gulf of Mexico.

Poll: Majority of Pakistanis View US as Enemy

A new opinion poll indicates that roughly six in 10 Pakistanis view the United States as an enemy, oppose the war in Afghanistan and are becoming less concerned about the threat of the Taliban and al-Qaida.

The survey, released by the U.S.-based Pew Research Center this week, shows that despite intense U.S. outreach and billions of dollars in aid, Pakistanis remain extremely skeptical of Washington's intentions.

Negative image

America's overall image remains very negative in Pakistan, says the center's president Andrew Kohut. Continued

Gee I wonder why, and the rest of not only that region.....................!!

By Linn Washington Jr.

The telephone at the DC area home of Marsha Coleman-Adebayo began ringing non-stop after the story broke recently about the hasty firing of U.S. Agriculture Department employee Shirley Sherrod on false charges of being a racist.

Outraged callers wanted not just to express sympathy over Sherrod’s mistreatment but also to offer continuing support for Coleman-Adebayo, whose epic battle with a federal agency over despicable employment discrimination and retaliation produced America’s first civil rights law of the 21st Century.

Over a dozen years ago Coleman-Adebayo, an MIT-trained PhD, faced an onslaught from officials at the Environmental Protection Agency because she had spoken out about racism within that agency as well as about the EPA’s coddling of a U.S. corporation whose regulation-skirting mining practices in South Africa were seriously injuring workers there.

A Spanish judge re-issued international arrest warrants on Thursday for three US soldiers over the death of a Spanish TV cameraman in Iraq seven years ago by American tank fire.

National Court judge Santiago Pedraz's move followed a decision by Spain's Supreme Court earlier this month to reopen an inquiry into the death of Jose Couso during the shelling by US forces of a Baghdad hotel in April 2003.

The tank fire also killed a Reuters cameraman, Ukrainian-born Taras Protsyuk.

Snip

In 2006 Spain's National Court, which handles crimes against humanity and genocide, threw out an initial enquiry into the killing of Couso, saying it was an act of war and not premeditated.

And all along we thought the bush was hired as the president, as history will even record, wink, wink! They chose the right stooge to be the face of and to take their hits for the rest of time!

"former US vice-president Dick Cheney believed Iraq was "unfinished business" and was determined to press ahead with the invasion come what may. "You can't convince him of anything," Prescott said of Cheney."

Lord Prescott admits intelligence doubts prior to Iraq war

Lord Prescott arrives at the QE2 conference centre in London to give evidence to the Iraq Inquiry. Photograph: Lewis Whyld/PA

30 July 2010 Former deputy PM tells Chilcot inquiry he dismissed some intelligence about Iraq threat as 'tittle-tattle'

Damage Control: Downplaying WikiLeaks Revelations - by Stephen Lendman

When truths are too disturbing to conceal, downplay them, change the subject, and blame others, not responsible Washington officials and key allies, culpable politicians and media misinformation masters suppressing and misreporting the facts, their well-oiled spin machine counterattacking WikiLeaks - revelations too sensitive to explain, a potential game-changer otherwise, so pundits and reporters duck them.

Above all, WikiLeaks "Afghan War Diaries" are a powerful indictment of wars, their true face, the mindless daily slaughter and destruction too disturbing to reveal, for Julian Assange:

Possibly Thousands Of Mishandled Arlington Graves

July 29, 2010 Washington…The estimate of possibly mishandled graves at Arlington National Cemetery soared into the thousands Thursday, and ousted cemetery officials conceded that they knew about problems at least five years ago.

A Senate report released Thursday said that 4,900 to 6,600 graves among the 330,000 veterans and others buried at Arlington may be unmarked, improperly marked, or mislabeled on cemetery maps.

 

Gates Says Pentagon to Help Death-Benefits Inquiry

29 July 2010 Defense Secretary Robert Gates pledged to help the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs probe how insurers reap profits from death benefits retained for the families of deceased military personnel.

“I will be very interested in the outcome of the VA investigation,” Gates told a Pentagon press briefing. “We will do everything we can to help.”

Earlier today, New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo began a fraud probe into the life insurance industry and subpoenaed MetLife Inc. and Prudential Financial Inc. for information about profits on the retained death benefits.

Not only is your tax money funding the Taliban to an extent which is perhaps even greater than the opium trade; not only is the Pakistani military helping Afghan insurgents attack American troops (again most likely with part of that $1 billion a year we give them); not only is the $50 billion Congress just borrowed to keep the war going making us even poorer; the kicker is it could all be done and won for a teeny tiny fraction of the cost. In a remarkably subversive piece of journalism for the NYT, Nicholas Kristof lets the cat out of the bag: this military spending is all one big, huge waste. We could be borrowing that money from China for other things. Today he writes:

By David Swanson

Michael Pertschuk's new book "The DeMarco Factor" is a guide to political activism in the form of a chronicle of the work of one man, Vincent DeMarco. A lot of people may never have heard of him, especially if you're not from Maryland, but DeMarco led campaigns over the past 20 years that successfully passed legislation in Maryland strengthening gun control despite the opposition of the NRA, raising taxes on cigarettes despite the opposition of big tobacco, and providing more people with healthcare despite the vicious opposition to that agenda we should all be familiar with. The strategies employed are worth examining.

I just can't think of anything more to add, as not only myself but many others have stated over and over thousands of times in these years, to the three reports and link to the study then are stated within them!

This is a 10MB, 370page pdf download, you can visit the Army site by click the graphic or the link.

Army Health Promotion, Risk Reduction and Suicide Prevention Report