There's something fishy about the story of German sailor Juergen Gustav Kantner, whose beheading video was just released by Abu Sayyaf rebels (ASG). Apparently Kantner, 70, had been kidnapped by Somali pirates before this. What are the chances, considering all the gin joints and circumnavigators these days? In a further coincidence, the umpteen sensational articles are all short on details, including the dead woman found on Kantner's boat, her identity discarded by even the media. Why? Her name was Sabine Isne Merz, 59, sometimes cited as Sabina Wetch. She and husband Kantner were ransomed in Somalia in August 2008 after 52 days in captivity. This time Merz's body was found aboard the Bermuda-rigged "Rockall", but a whole Sulu Sea away from where the couple was allegedly captured. I'd like to lay out the geography of what's been revealed so far, so emerging facts will more easily shake themselves out online. According to the ASG, the Germans were seized in November 2016 while sailing on Tanjong Luok Pisuk (spelled Luuk in media reports), an inlet on the Northwest coast of Borneo, in the state of Sabah, Malaysia. Then, halfway down Sabah, Merz was purportedly killed in a shootout with her captors off Tawi-Tawi Isand in the Pangutaran province of Western Mindanao, the Philippines. Her body was found beside a shotgun on the Rockall, abandoned off Laparan Island in Sulu province. Some reports say the sailboat was moored, some say adrift. Though Tawi-Tawi and Sulu belong to the Philippines, they are governed by the Autonomous Region of Muslim Mindanao (ARMM), from which today's gruesome video is thought to originate. Juergen Kantner met his end at the edge of a curved blade wielded by Muslim rebels in the Philippines’ long contested province of Mindanao. A nearby indigenous resistance in Cebu, under the leadership of Lapu-Lapu five hundred years ago, stopped explorer Ferdinand Magellan halfway round the circumnavigation for which he’s given credit because on a previous trip he'd come around from the other direction to "discover" the Malay Archipelago. By coincidence, Kanter and Merz almost bridged the gap.
Tag: Somalia
Obama cried because the Connecticut schoolchildren were not Pakistani. Is that statement untrue?
So, no, the twenty schoolchildren killed at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown Connecticut were not Pakistani. That’s apparently what everyone is so upset about. I’m rather embarrassed how distraught Americans are about the Connecticut school shooting, considering equivalent child-massacres happen daily in Pakistan, victims of US drones, to no public outcry. In Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, and all the far reaches of our multinational corporate empire, child killing is public policy, far from being a subject of public anguish. Now I’m besieged with invitations to join local and statewide protests to “end gun violence.” I say YES, so long as I can ALSO commemorate the thousands of children killed by US drones and US troops. “Don’t politicize this tragedy” is the indignant objection. Classic. Might there be a value to hopping aboard this bandwagon opportunity to call for gun control and mental-healthcare reform? Maybe by showing solidarity with this profound revulsion to our cultural violence, a social justice movement can broaden a reciprocal sense of solidarity for the larger pool of its victims? I doubt it. Showing antiwar support for veterans of war, for example, hasn’t yet tempered anyone’s senseless enthusiasm for militarism or blind patriotism, or I’ve yet to see it. A disclaimer: my apparent insensitive is helped by the fact that I don't watch television. I'm guessing the media are really cooking this tragedy to an unrelenting boil. Probably my lack of exposure has rendered me unfathomably incapable of addressing the subject with sufficient tact. I've no idea the orchestrated catharsis indulged upon the viewers over dead American children. My profound condolences to the parents, but curses upon the media for exploiting the event to condemn lone crazies and not to curb the culture of violence which breeds them. Frank Lloyd Wright said television was chewing gum for the eyes. Turn it off. You'll quickly see what an emotional maelstrom they've made of the Sandy Hook shootings. Imagine if they created that kind of drama about war's atrocity. We'd have viewers clamoring to end war. This might give you some idea about why the ongoing Sandy Hook fallout leaves such a bad taste. My advice to nearly all Americans parents upset about the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting: get a hold of yourselves. These weren’t your children. Your schools and schoolchildren are many leagues out of harm’s way. Connecticut may as well be Pakistan for all you care.
How the US starves people to death in the Horn of Africa with help from the United Nations
First you create a war on a people then you pretend to save them; that's how the US Pentagon works in tandem with the United Nations. The following commentary shows it being done today in Somalia, but we can also see it being done in Libya and Syria. ____ The UN's Cold Blooded Plan How to Starve in Somalia on 10 Cents a Day ____ Plus, that's the fate the Iranian people will face if their government continues to resist US domination of the region. Look what was done to Iraq.
Behind the UN’s messing over Somalia and Haiti, lies the US government
The UN, with the US behind them, just can't stay out of the news completely about how the two together are royally screwing over the people of both Somalia and Haiti. In Haiti, the UN has had continually been involved in the sexual abuse of Haitians and also in bringing them a virulent strain of cholera from Nepal. See Peacekeepers in Haiti face sex attack inquiry, and Two peacekeepers sentenced to a year in prison with hard labour after a trial found them guilty of sexual abuse. Wow! A whole year in jail? The UN soldiers wouldn't have gotten that if they had been stationed as 'piecekeepers' inside Congo! But let the Haitian OCCUPATION go on and on and on! And in Somalia, the UN has been very busy spreading widespread hunger and chaos, too, Haitians. So the US and UN together love other peoples just as well as they are screwing yourselves! An odious affair: The UN in Somalia Makes one proud to be an American doesn't it? And so very proud to be backing up the US corporate government's 'United Nations'! The UN- the Pentagon's clean up squad!
Tea-Potty successfully test-fire Dumb Bomb, counters “Smart Bombs” nicely.
Remember the infamous Speech boycotted by whole School Districts including D-11 locally? The Hoam Skule parents, aided and abetted by the Tea-Party, in turn organized and funded by Fox News, combined to convince themselves that Education Is Satanic. Frightened Tea-Baggers kept their kids from hearing the Zombie-Brainwashing message that educational excellence is a good thing. In doing so, they set up a series of events that has led to among other school districts the Kansas City MO ISD closing half their schools, school closings are the Drug of Choice for the "conservatives" because quite simply, the only way they can hold any kind of political power is to Keep the People Ignorant. They remind me of the "Gone Tertiary" mobs in the movie "Omega Man", led by a former (until they burned down every radio and TV station as "evil") Rush Limbaugh think-alike named Matthias. With their torches and robes, burning down schools, libraries, museums, any form of culture and education, chanting "Evil! Evil! Evil! Evil!" BUT... there is a bright side to this. As painful as it seems, they're tearing their own Empire down. Already, after 8 years of Bush junior and 12 years of the Reagan/Bush Regime breaking down American Public Education into a 12 year Political Indoctrination session for each kiddo, the Pentagoons report that American kids who they wanted to recruit into the Murder Machine, aren't qualified for it anymore. They're too fat, too lazy and too damn dumb. The Fox OUTRAGE! Nation has dumbed itself into a corner. They want world-wide power, but the people they were counting on doing their fighting for them, (Because let's face it, the NeoCons ain't ever going to fight for their own gain, they have always counted on Other People to be stupid enough to do it for them and always will) got the necessary Political Indoctrination, where they're Stupid Enough to believe that they'd be "fighting for Freedom"... But it came at a price, they're also too stupid to operate advanced weaponry. And fat and lazy. This according to the Pentagon. It's a major OOPSIE!! moment for the Right WingNuts. And that damage was accomplished BEFORE the mass hysteria inflamed by the Fox Propagandists. "Evil! Evil! Evil! Evil! Evil! Evil! Evil! Evil! " They'll drag American War Technology so low that they'll never again be beaten down by Small Third World Nations like North Korea, VietNam, and Somalia. Because they'll be too stupid to find their way over there and wouldn't have enough High-Tech weaponry to make them feel safe enough to start the wars in the first place. No more being humiliated by Barefoot Armies.
Leave it to pirates to run honest bourse
With investment bankers trying to weasel another broker's percentage from a carbon-credit trading system, comes a living example of rudimentary venture capitalism. In Haradheere, Somalia, there's a stock market for pirates, by comparison, something benefiting all participants. The pirate's market is no middleman's monopoly. It works just like the collectives of investors who floated Britain's privateers and the Dutch East Indies Trading Companies, just two examples of crown-sanctioned adventure-mercenary conquerors. Had you wondered why the definition of "float" includes the economies participant to navigational buoyancy? Got a boat, a weapon, a tip on an incoming treasure galleon? Invest the pirates with your contribution and reap a stake in the rewards. Every successive stock market since the formative times, from commodities, to insurance, to futures, etc, have well surpassed the illegitimacy and immorality of the seafaring pirate variety. Sang the Pirate King in The Pirates of Penzance: Away to the cheating world go you, Where pirates all are well-to-do. While the corporate media decries the savagery of the lawless Somali coastal enterprises, sophisticated traders descend upon COP15 to extort a cap-and-trade protection racket from a world desperate to arrest climate change. The pirate bourse is a reminder of what purpose the stock markets used to play. If you had a money-making idea, and needed investors, that's where you went. But to describe a business proposal as germinating from an idea, is to peddle platitudes defining entrepreneurship as being about intellectual innovation. In practice, business opportunities chiefly present themselves from licenses obtained from the state, to operate lucrative monopolies. It usually takes the combination of disproportionate profits and manageable risk to interest wealthy investors. I think I enjoy this Somalia juxtaposition particularly because Wall Street can't get a piece of the pirate action. Only those with real pirate commodities need apply. And of course, only those financiers brave enough to circulate in a "pirate's lair" like Haradheere. So the suddenly infamous Dalsan Bank of Haradheere is basically for scrappers and warlords only, and certainly no whites need apply, unless it's to be ransomed. Here's a snippet from yesterday's Reuters article: Piracy investor Sahra Ibrahim, a 22-year-old divorcee, was lined up with others waiting for her cut of a ransom pay-out after one of the gangs freed a Spanish tuna fishing vessel. "I am waiting for my share after I contributed a rocket-propelled grenade for the operation," she said, adding that she got the weapon from her ex-husband in alimony. "I am really happy and lucky. I have made $75,000 in only 38 days since I joined the 'company'." If it sounds like a personal testament for a get-rich-quick scheme, it is! But unlike the television infomercials, this bourse is grounded in providing a legitimate function in Somalia. Note that the ransom from which Ms. Ibrahim expects to profit was paid for the release of a "tuna fishing vessel." For those who want to judge the pirates like terrorists, the inconvenient characteristic about the Somali pirates is the role they play as coast guard for a national government not up
Stop recruiting US soldier terrorists
Did I hear this right -- Minnesota families are alarmed that their young men are recruited to travel overseas to commit acts of terrorism? Except reporters aren't talking about shadowy military recruiters with unfettered access to US classrooms and kindergartens enticing American youth to join the global capitalist Jihad, the alarm is about Somali relatives enjoining their fellow refugees to return to their homeland to defend Somalia against Ethiopian invaders. Trouble is, al-Shabaab, the organization leading the fight in Somalia is being declared a terrorist organization by the US Government. Strange really, because the only acts of terrorism in Somalia are being committed by the US military or their Ethiopian proxy. But terrorism has always been defined by authoritarian propagandists as only what the enemy does. Whether it is a state or an insurgency. I should think this is problematic when the definition of terrorism is linked to a religious cause. Radical Islam, it would seem, becomes by definition a terrorist goal. Is there not something about the separation of church and state that should hinder the US from deciding that one religion can be outlawed? Doesn't this mark an escalation of US state oppression -- for the state to decide on which side of foreign struggles its citizens are permitted to weigh? How are foreign populist movements to manage lobbyists in Washington to ensure their struggle isn't blacklisted as "terrorist?" It does open the door to American domestic counter-recruiting efforts. Declare the US military a terrorist organization, and we can halt its recruiters in their tracks. No more fresh recruit pipeline to the occupation zones, no more "underground railroad" to Fort Hood. Have the US Congress declare our military a perpetrator of terrorism. It's not a difficult argument to make. Evidence goes back to before US independence, when "Americans" fought dirty against the continent's aboriginal population. Now examples of US state sponsored terrorism are gratuitous. The young men we send on Jihad return with haunted consciences from the acts they inflict on innocent populations. What are the motives of indiscriminate bombing, apprehension and torture, but pure terrorism to buttress subjugation to US goals?
That’s how many Black Hawk Down?
COLO. SPRINGS- A spectacular migration of Army attack helicopters traversed the city sky yesterday, flying south to Ft Carson where they will catch trains to faraway winter fear-breeding grounds in the news. It took only one Black Hawk Down to terminate US ground operations in Somalia. If you're hoping such a milestone could be a benchmark for Iraq or Afghanistan, unfortunately "hawk" also denotes the plurality. How many Black Hawk have to go down before Americans cry uncle? This week we are nearer to finding out. I know I'm mixing Apaches with Chinooks, but I'm grouping all multi-million-dollar vertical-flight aircraft together obviously to note that the US lost three over the weekend in Afghanistan, with a commensurate record setting loss of US soldiers. Which will prove the more alarming? Earlier in the week, Brazilian paramilitary forces lost a helicopter in a gunfight over a Rio slum, where a war is suspected to have been declared on the poor in preparations for the 2016 Olympics. The significance of sophisticated weaponry downed by common insurgency tactics is not going uncelebrated. Isn't it interesting how the official reaction, whether you're a spokesman for the Brazilian military or Israel's is to deny any possibility that the aircraft might have been struck by enemy fire? Uniformly that it the denial, which almost always proves untrue. As if even the cause of the crash matters. What's probably critical to military strategists is that opponents not receive accurate feedback about the effectiveness of whatever tactics they used. Meaning armchair strategists have no reliable information to go on, other than to keep a tally.
Armed UAS drones need no defending
I was curious about the etymology of the term "drone" applied to military (& DHS) Unmanned Aerial Surveillance aircraft, these days, mostly Armed. Obviously Armed UAS are not named after the stingless unproductive bees whose task it is to impregnate the queen, nor lazy idlers, nor clueless computer sales techies, nor thankless menial worker drones. Anyone who's been around Radio Controlled model planes knows drones are named for the sound they make, a steady drone as they labor across the sky. While military aerial surveillance predates the Wright Brothers, and RC model airplanes have been around for half that time, it took the advent of asymmetric warfare to open the window to military drones. Their constant buzz offering the most intractable reason. By "asymmetric" I do not mean the US intelligence code for off-textbook warfare, for counter-insurgency methods outside von Clausewitz etiquette. I mean the inherency they obscure, war between foes lopsided. Look at a drone's design. It's more Gossamer Condor than military aircraft. Obviously an unmanned vehicle comprises fewer mechanical systems because it doesn't need to propel, nor sustain, a crew of human beings. It might need less armature for the same reason, except of course, today's drones are of high value in their own right. So why no armament? Why too, no powerful jet engines or swept wings for aeronautic superiority? This drone looks about as robust as a paper glider. Laymen can distinguish bombers from jet fighters, as they can trucks from a race cars. I'd say the military drone resembles more a stick insect than its accidental namesake the bee. Do Armed UASs have no need for evasive maneuver capability? I'll ask another obvious question, why do drones carry no customary insignia designating to whose side it belongs? In particular this element would be of primary importance when encountered by other aircraft. But a drone doesn't encounter enemy aircraft, nor allied aircraft who might confuse it for belonging to an adversary, because drones operate where aerial supremacy is already absolute. The key to a drone's military usefulness is that there is no opponent to shoot it down. An Armed UAS can drone all it wants, taking its sweet time laying siege to defenseless objectives and other targets of opportunity. The US Predator or Reaper models can glide when they want to surveil in silence, although otherwise their motors project their presence with the deliberate imposition of a school hall monitor. It is more efficient to deter the placing of IEDs than to try to catch insurgents in the act. Meanwhile all civilians are terrorized by the sound, associating it with sudden, unpredictable and often unjustified destruction and death. The WWII German Stuka dive bomber had inverted gull wings which were thought to produce a horrifying wail as the notorious aircraft attacked city populations, Guernica among them. In fact the sound was produced by a siren the Nazis called Jericho's Trumpet, mounted purposefully to spread fear on the ground. Like modern drones, the Stuka were not designed to fend off attackers
US government continues its terrorist attacks against Iran
Iranian commanders assassinated. The US government, under multiple administrations has such a long record for using terrorism throughout multiple regions of the world that it is actually incredible that it has the gall to proclaim that it is now engaged in a 'global war against terrorism', even as it uses terrorism in areas like Somalia, Honduras, and Iran, not to mention other countries. Open up your eyes, my fellow Americans. Your own government is a terrorist government itself! The following is copied from Wikipedia and is about the terrorist group run by the US called Jundullah... United States ABC news reported in April 2007, citing US and Pakistani tribal and intelligence sources,[38] that the terrorist group "has been secretly encouraged and advised by American officials" to destabilize the government in Iran.[39] According to this report by Brian Ross and Christopher Isham of ABC News, the United States government had been secretly encouraging and advising the Jundullah in its attacks against Iranian targets. This support is said to have started in 2005 and arranged so that the United States provided no direct funding to the group, which would require congressional oversight and attract media attention.[40] The report was denied by Pakistan official sources.[41] But despite their denial ABC stood by their claim.[42] Alexis Debat, one of the sources quoted by Ross and Isham in their report alleging US support for the Jundullah, resigned from ABC News in June 2007, after ABC officials claimed that he faked several interviews while working for the company.[43] Brian Ross, an award winning journalist and the correspondent who worked most closely with Mr. Debat, said the Jundullah story had many sources. “We’re only worried about the things Debat supplied, not about the substance of that story,” he said in regard to the Jundullah report. So far, ABC has found nothing that would undermine the stories Mr. Debat worked on, Mr. Ross said last night. But he acknowledged that as the stories of fabrications continue to roll in, the network “at some point has to question whether anything he said can be believed.”[44] This caused the network in 2007 to send a second team of producers to Pakistan investigating the original reports.[45] ABC never retracted the story. The ABC exclusive further reveals that U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney discussed the activity of the group against Iran during his visit to Pakistan.[46] The exclusive makes parallels between American support for Jundallah and U.S. involvement in Nicaragua through Contras.[47] Fars News Agency, an Iranian state run news agency, reported that the United States government is involved in PRMI's terrorists acts.[48] Gholamali Haddadadel, Iranian parliament speaker in 2007, speaking to reporters said, Jundallah is part of pressure tactics used by United States to subdue Iran and hoped with Pakistani help, Iran would be able to defeat Jundallah.[49] On April 2, 2007, Abdul Malik Rigi, appeared on the Persian service of Voice of America, the official broadcasting service of the United States government, which identified Rigi as "the leader of
What will Michael the Savage Weiner say
… to spin away the fact that the suspects are White, “conservative” Small-Town and with Mayflower ties?? This from Mt Vernon NH and the woman killed, also white, was murdered with a machete. Since the loud-mouth Hate Radio host “Savage” has been known to spend huge amounts of airtime screaming and denouncing anybody who doesn’t believe that Machete Murders are the exclusive domain of (black) recent Immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean. In a non-racist way, of course. At least to hear his lawyers tell it. For the past week he’s been denouncing (black) kids in Chicago, comparing them to Somalia, dig dig dig at the African Immigrant references he gosh darn it just doesn’t like have to make but… oh cut the CRAP, Weiner, you love to spew Hatred and blacks are his favorite target. No telling what sets somebody like that on the path of Slash and Burn Rage. Maybe his first boyfriend dumped him for a black dude or something. Since the (alleged) perpetrators are Skinhead Wannabees who probably never saw a live black person or a live Jewish person, how much would you like to bet they’re fans of The Savage Nation drivel? Which leads to another point, although he’s not observant, not “religiously” a Jew, he’s ethnically Jewish. Why would the SKI… errr.. Pinheads listen to him, since they despise among other PEOPLE, Jews. And not from a religious point of view either. Like Mike, they’ve abandoned the pretense of Religion as the justification of Extremist Hatred.?They just Love to Hate.
US govt spreads terror to Yemen
Hundreds of thousands of new refugees and yet another country, Yemen, is now being destabilized by the US's relentless drive to control the Middle East's oil resources. Yemen is not oil rich but sits in a strategic locale between Iran and Saudi Arabia, and Iran and the Horn of Africa (Somalia, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Djibouti, Kenya). That makes it a key battle zone (like Lebanon and Syria to the West) in US efforts to destabilize and topple the current Iranian government in order to replace it with a servile puppet regime under US government control. If you hear anything about this new outbreak of fighting, it will be described by the corporate media as being nothing but a battle between Yemen government forces allied with US ally, Saudi Arabia, and Northern Shia Houtha rebels allied with Iran. No hint beyond that of this civil war being part of anything much larger in size. No hint of US government involvement in the hostilities. Hiding in the shadows though, is the US government and their traditional European allies, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, and so on. This is just one more front line in their neo-imperial expansionism, and thus Yemen joins Pakistan joins Lebanon joins Gaza. The direct casualties of these imperialist wars by the US government and the Pentagon can be seen in this film, and make up, as usual, many very innocent civilians, including many small children. Barack Obama doesn't care though. These children victims of US government war making live far away and are quite defenseless. Out of sight out of mind to the Big Shots in D.C. See Yemenis flee to Saudi border - a film from Al Jazeera for a snapshot picture of the new conflict.
Sept 11 – America Reaps What It Sows!
A post-911 perspective by Black Liberation Army prisoner of war Jalil Muntaqim. U.S. International Warfare Initiates World War III Human Rights During Wartime By Jalil A. Muntaqim In the aftermath of the September 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon, Americans have displayed their true colors of jingoism, a militaristic spirit of nationalism. Similarly, it was witnessed how the people of Iraq rallied in support of their President, Saddam Hussein, after the U.S. bombed to death 250,000 Iraqis, and continued devastation of that country with collateral damage of 1 million dead women and children. Hence, people rallying in support of their government and representatives is a common phenomenon when a country is attacked by an outsider. The U.S. has been foremost in the world extending foreign policy of free-market economy, to the extent of undermining other countries cultures and ideologies expressed as their way of life. Such conflicts inevitably positions the U.S. as the centerpiece, the bulls-eye for international political dissent, as indicated by demonstrations against the U.S. controlled IMF, WTO and World Bank conferences. The attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon did not occur in a vacuum. The people that carried out the attacks were not blind followers or robots with an irrational hatred of the U.S. peoples. Rather, this attack was part of an overall blowback to U.S. imperialist policy in support of zionist Israel and opposition to fundamentalist Islam. There are essentially three primary world ideologies or world views: the capitalist free-market economy/democracy; the socialist production economy; and Islamic theocratic government, of which has been in competition for many decades. However, in the last 20 years the socialist economies has been severely subverted and co-opted by free-market economies, the ideals of American style democracy. This isolated, for the most part, Islamic theocratic ideology and system of government as the principle target of the U.S. in its quest for world hegemony. This reality of competing world views and economies is further complicated due to religious underpinning of beliefs that motivates actions, especially as they are expressed by U.S. and Western European christianity and Israel zionist judaism in opposition to Islam. From the struggles of the Crusades to the present confrontation, the struggle for ideological supremacy reigns, as the faithful continue to proselytize in the name of the Supreme Being. When geopolitics are combined with religious fervor in the character of nationalist identity and patriotism, rational and logical thinking is shoved aside as matters of the moment takes historical precedents. It has often been said that "Truth Crush to the Earth Will Rise Again". Since truth is relative to ones belief, can it be safely said that America has reaped what it has sowed? The American truth of capitalist christian democracy and its imperialist hegemonic aspirations has crushed both socialist and Islamic world views. It has extended its avaricious tentacles as the world police and economic harbinger of all that is beneficent, in stark denial of its history as a purveyor of genocides, slavery and colonial violence.
Enchanting place names of Ethiopia
I found this travel poster for Ethiopia, the African ally with whom the US harasses Somalia and Sudan. But it features pictures of lynched black men, and was circulated by OSPAAAL, Cuba's Tri-continent alliance. "Some of the far away places with charming names that tourists should visit: ALEM BEKAGNE The biggest prison in East Africa. KAGNEW US strategic military base for "technical" espionage. ADOLA MINES Where 20,000 men waste away doing forced labor. MASSAWA Important Ethiopian-US-Israeli naval base for the control of the Red Sea."
Activists have so far failed to construct a real American Antiwar Movement
Despite the grass roots sentiment against all the bloodshed that Bush and now Barack Obama are engaged in, activists in the US have ever failed to construct a real Antiwar Movement. Do you consider that to be a harsh judgment on my part? Then please consider the fact that the US is moving towards the end of what will a decade long occupation of Afghanistan, and yet there has not been one antiwar demonstration, on even a local yet alone a national level, that has focused on opposing this! As Barack Obama escalates US war making further and into one more new country, Pakistan, the misleaders of the so-called US 'Peace' Movement remain totally silent and inactive about it. Further, there never was any public antiwar reaction to the occupation and demolishing of Somalia, the Israeli destruction of Lebanon in 2006, and also the US moves against Russia with its Georgian adventure at big time war starting, that boom-a-ranged back into the faces of the Republican Klan, absolutely not because the 'Peace' movement ever did or said anything in opposition to that war in Southern Ossetia. And even with the issue of blatant US use of torture, the opposition to government terrorism remains scant and ephemeral. The US public is utterly demoralized and unaware of its own power, thanks to 'Peace' misleadership itself, which seems to believe that only tiny groups of religiously motivated New Agers can come together and only for the most milquetoast reasons. Let me illustrate with the local PPJPC (Pikes Peak Justice and Peace Commission) and their PPJPC May calendar of inactivity. Look at it and weep! They simply plan to not mobilize themselves against THEIR President. Sad to say, the national groups they affiliate with are about on the same wave length, too. Instead of being leaders, the misleaders who call themselves 'Peace' activists are leaders in public apathy and not challengers of it. Instead of smashing the War State, they seem to want to be junior partners to it. They are about as alternative as National Public Radio, KRCC, and The not so Independent are here in the local area. In short, they are not opponents to war making at all. Without an end to the permanent War State of our American ruling class, there will be no economic or political stability to build a future for us in America. In fact, without an end to this constant construction for the War machine, the Earth is headed for a Dead End. We are currently just sleep walking toward oblivion and there simply is no way to sugar coat that basic fact. Wake up, American Antiwar Movement. You have to organize yourselves, because,People... nobody else is going to do it for you. Join and work with Coloradans for Peace here in Colorado Springs.
Civilians everywhere receive special care
From the AP comes news of nearly 6,500 civilians killed in ______: "Foreign Secretary [X] said the government took special care to avoid civilian casualties, and that many of those killed were combatants dressed in civilian clothing." "At least 6,432 civilians have been killed in the intense fighting over the past three months and 13,946 wounded, according to a private U.N. document circulated among diplomatic missions in ________ in recent days. A foreign diplomat gave a copy to The Associated Press on Friday. "The U.N. has declined to publicly release its casualty figures and had no immediate comment on the document. "Civilian deaths have increased dramatically, according to the U.N. An average of 33 civilians were killed each day at the end of January, and that jumped to 116 by April, the document said. More than 5,500 of those killed were inside a government-declared "no-fire" zone.
UN, US, and EU all split on how best to continue to plague Somalia?
UN head against new Somalia force 'In December, Mr Ban had said few countries were willing to send peacekeeping troops to Somalia, as there was no peace to keep.' That would be the United States' fault since they tore the country apart along with the help of Ethiopia's dictator. Again 'the UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-Moon, warned against sending a UN peacekeeping force to Somalia.' He was opposing a push by the US controlled 'UN' Security Council to gather yet more mercenary troops to occupy Somalia with, now that the Ethiopians have long gone arunning from the havoc they caused while serving George W. Bush. Why is Barack Obama so eager to continue doing the same wrecking job? Are there now too many underage 'pirates' pestering the Buccaneer Emperor for him to pullout from screwing Somalia? For more coverage, see the BBC's report... On Board a White Pirate Vessel
How long can the US and Mexico militarily occupy Ciudad Juarez?
Ciudad Juarez is a city of 1,500,000 plus people directly opposite El Paso, Texas, and Presidente Fecal Calderon and his Gringo manager, US President Barack Obama, have occupied the city with 10,000 Mexican troops. In short, this is where and what the so-called 'War on Drugs' has 'retreated' to. Sure military pacification works short term but not long term, as the examples of Lebanon, Somalia, Iraq, and Afghanistan, and Gaza so poignantly illustrate. So what happens when the troops are withdrawn, and they eventually must be? What happens then? See An Army Takeover Quells Violence in Mexico/ Drug Killings in Juarez Plummet, but Rights Complaints Surge My guess is that they move on and occupy with troops yet other major cities in the years ahead. And eventually... voila! we have a situation much like that of Colombia. In other words, 'the solution' becomes the bigger problem.
Black Pirates meted Southern Justice
Dutch NATO forces rescued 20 hostages off the coast of Africa last week without loss of life. They thwarted a pirate attack, confiscated the booty, but must release the captured pirates owing to International Maritime Law. Contrast this with American cowboy rules of engagement. Several US Navy warships faced a solitary lifeboat on which three teenage Somali pirated held hostage Maersk Alabama captain Richard Phillips. The covered lifeboat remained tethered to the stern of one of the Navy ships while negotiations, we're told, progressed. Going into day three, before the American TV audience could lose interest, US Navy Seals rescued the captive Phillips at a cost of a 100% casualty rate to the pirates. Although the DoD did not initially want to reveal its anti-pirate tactics, spokesmen have admitted that the "daring rescue" was in effect three precisely-simultaneous sniper shots to the heads of the three captors. The fourth pirate already having been entrusted to the US ship's custody for medical care. The captain freed, the wounded pirate's collateral was thus gone, and his grant of safe-passage was rescinded. The official story is that US infrared imagery revealed that the American captive's life was in danger. One of the pirates was holding a gun to his head, and this act prompted the snipers to intervene. Negotiations, apparently, were not proving fruitful. I'm guessing that this account reflects the exact opposite of what happened. The navy snipers had been holding their fire until the moment Captain Phillip was NOT in a pirate's crosshairs. Although the Somali pirates were just teens, I bet they knew from brutal experience, what most of us know from violent television, that holding your gun to a hostage's head is the only way to prevent your rivals from gunning you down. Trapped in a lifeboat, the pirates knew that high powered US weaponry would be trained upon each of their heat silhouettes. The moment their captive was not in the predicted trajectory of the crossfire, nor threatened by a collateral death-spasm squeeze of a trigger, the pirates would be toast. The rescue operation began with a greater-than-three number of US snipers aiming weapons at the little boat. The more the better, to assure that at every instant, complicated by the rocking and turning of the lifeboat in the waves, at least one sniper could claim one pirate, without the hostage laying vulnerable to leeward bullets. The images in the sniper scopes were wired to a director's console, where the determination could be made when all three targets were spoken for, and the order could be given to fire. The last hurdle remained for the pirate who held his gun on the hostage to drop his guard for just an instant, lest he squeeze off a round into the hostage. Wanna bet that's what happened? Great marksmanship, no question. Plenty of training no doubt. We can take nothing away from the heroism shown in braving responsibility for jeopardizing Captain Phillip's life. It is probably also a common law
Cornmeal
Lack of money to pay for higher priced cornmeal is what is helping starve millions in Southern Sudan, Kenya, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Ethiopia, Somalia, and elsewhere in Africa. Many are just a few weeks from dying because they can't buy the cornmeal at current prices. See: ZAMBIA: A better meal than maize-meal. and: Facing hunger in Kenya's Kajiado. Why not send the cornmeal in, instead of sending in the troops, setting up 'no fly zones', and spending money on 'pirate control'? Not to mention all that money being spent on supplying those US troops spread all around the globe with their daily rations of hamburger with cheese? Where's the humanitarian interventionism? Because your government is so horrible you can do your own personal part in helping people out here. Go to any dollar store and buy a couple of dollar bags of corn meal, then go the post office, get the stamps and send it off to... Starving Child Aid c/o Barack Obama White House USA with a note... Please make sure this food gets to countries in Africa where the poor can't buy cornmeal because you are spending so damn much world $$$ on 'missile shields', wars on drugs, wars on a ghost called global terrorism, and the war against common sense. Thank you, Mr. President Then again? ...better yet, just send it straight to... Starving Child Postal service of African Country with increasing hunger It would get there then perhaps? Less corruption.
Somalia seizes Pentagon pirate ship
More is coming in about the pirate ship just seized by Somalia off their shores. See Pirate Maersk Inc. The ocean surveillance ships (of Pirate Maersk Inc) – USNS Effective, USNS Impeccable, USNS Loyal and USNS Victorious – work directly with the Navy fleets to listen for undersea threats. The range instrumentation ships – USNS Invincible and USNS Observation Island – support the U.S. Air Force by serving as seaborne platforms for radar systems. As part of MSC’s Special Mission Program, the noncombatant, government-owned ships will be crewed by U.S. commercial mariners. Special mission ships provide operating platforms and services for unique U.S. military and federal government missions. These specialized services include oceanographic and hydrographic surveys, underwater surveillance, missile flight data collection and tracking, acoustic survey and submarine support. In addition to performing special missions, MSC operates more than 110 noncombatant, civilian-crewed ships that replenish U.S. Navy ships, strategically preposition combat cargo at sea around the world and move 95 percent of military equipment and supplies used by deployed U.S. forces. from Seafarers International Union, aiding Pentagon Pirates everywhere!
From Iraq to Afghanistan to Palestine, Occupation is a Crime!
A.N.S.W.E.R. has 7 Reasons to March on DC. We can borrow them! - The war in Afghanistan is expanding and widening. - 350,000 U.S. troops and US-paid contractors still occupy Iraq. - Israel’s Siege of Gaza remains in place, with backing of Washington. - Obama's Justice Department is continuing the policy of renditions. - Air strikes on Pakistan are killing an increasingly number of civilians. - The real Pentagon war budget is over $1.3 trillion annually. - More than 20 million people are now unemployed and under-employed. 7 Reasons You Should March on the Pentagon on March 21, 2009 1 The war in Afghanistan is expanding and widening. President Obama announced last week that another 17,000 troops are on their way to Afghanistan. Only 18 percent of Afghanis support this escalation and only 34 percent of the people of the United States approve of the added troops despite the president’s popularity, according to the Washington Post/ABC poll announced on February 17, 2009. This is a colonial war. The president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, was not involved in the decision to add more occupying troops into his country. Rather, he was “informed of the deployments in a telephone call with Obama” on February 17, according to the Washington Post (February 18, 2009). 2 About 350,000 U.S. troops and U.S.-paid private contractors (mercenaries) still occupy Iraq. The Iraqi people want the occupation to end. Gen. Ray Odierno, the top U.S. commander in Iraq, is insisting that only two of the 14 combat brigades in Iraq exit in 2009. The war and occupation of Iraq costs $430 million each day. If the U.S. government were to end the military occupation, any and all future Iraqi governments would return to a position of political independence from the economic and political dictates of the United States. Iraq’s anti-colonial legacy has created a political reality that prohibits the country from becoming like Kuwait or Saudi Arabia--an out-and-out dependency on U.S. imperialism. That is the real reason that the U.S. government fears a complete disengagement from Iraq and an end to its military occupation. 3 Israel’s Siege of Gaza remains in place, with the full backing of Washington. The U.S. government has continued to fund Israel’s war and blockade against the people of Gaza. The Pentagon provided the funding, and technical and logistical support for the establishment of the Israeli war machine, including its massive cluster and white phosphorous bomb arsenal, and the country’s large cache of nuclear bombs. 4 The new Justice Department has announced that it will continue the policy of renditions, meaning the CIA and Pentagon will capture and kidnap individuals anywhere in the world and transfer them to other countries. “The Obama administration appears to have determined that the rendition program was one component of the Bush administration's war on terrorism that it could not afford to discard.” (LA Times, Feb. 1, 2009) 5 The new administration has stepped up the air strikes that are killing an increasingly large number of Pakistani civilians. Unmanned drone bombing attacks violate Pakistani sovereignty and are creating
Current slaughter in Sri Lanka is part of the spread of war into the greater region
The struggle for justice for the Tamil community in both India and Sri Lanka has taken place for many long decades and at a great loss of live, and like the struggle for justice in Kashmir, has seen the entire world hardly take the slightest notice. The Tamil people have failed to create a celebrity cause like Darfur and Tibet have become here in the US. Instead, they have fallen victim to slaughter by State Terrorism much like the peoples of Kashmir, Peru (with the suppression of the Sendero Luminoso by the US-Peruvian governments), and Colombia (with it s decades long death squad massacres promoted by the US-Colombian government) have also suffered tens of thousands of casualties. And how many peoples in Africa have suffered similarly without anybody batting an eye in either Europe or the English speaking countries? The Tamil have probably lost 100,000 in their struggle for self determination of their communities in Sri Lanka alone. Now, the world government enablers of the Sri Lanka slaughter have stepped in with their typical show of humanitarianism at the last moment in the ongoing slaughter with pleas to help the civilians! Sri Lanka Tigers urged to end war What a sad situation. However, these same countries that are 'urging and end to war' in Sri Lanka are actively part of the US's spread of war into Afghanistan, Pakistan, and into possibly the entire Indian sub-continent, if the US manages to heat up more the Pakistan-India conflicts with its so-called Global War on Terrorism, a war against shadows that merely serves to feed the US military-industrial complex's welfare-guzzling operations. Though the American population is hardly aware of this fact, the US and Indian governments have been increasingly allying their special interests together against what both governments conceive of as common political enemies in Asia. Neither governments are actually concerned at all about this conflict in Sri Lanka, as long as the slaughter is not of such a proportion as to detract from their goals of aggressively pursuing regional conflicts in other arenas of the area. India, for example, must have good enough press to be able to quietly fight 'pirates' for the US in the Indian Ocean region that extends to Somalia. Tens of thousands of deaths in nearby Sri Lanka certainly will not help things here for India. And certainly might make it look nastier for the US's military public relation's team as the Pentagon pops civilians in Pakistan on a weekly basis. One thing for the world to keep in mind, is that the more slaughter that occurs in the Indian sub-continent region, the more unstable becomes the nuclear caches of India and Pakistan, too. It ups the ante about how much bloodshed could possibly be effective or not in achieving sectarian goals. Meanwhile, let us wish the best for the Tamil people who are suffering so because
Barack in Iraq- freezes US inside Iraq
The big news about the new Democratic Party Administration is the obvious one. Barack Obama is not pulling the US government out of Iraq. He is stalling us there and is committed to doing that as long as the US government can get away with it, which might be quite a while? If the US were to pull out anytime soon, the simple reality is that the puppet government left behind would have its remaining days quite numbered. Yes, the US is stalled in Iraq, and it is also stalled in Somalia where the last Ethiopian troops have just left. Now that US puppet government left behind is hanging on by a single thread, as it holds control over no more than a few blocks inside Mogadishu, the Ethiopian capital. Iraq might well follow along the same scenario eventually and that is why the US stays stalled inside the country with its troops, Barack Mr. CHANGE Obama or nothing? He is turning out to be Mr. NOTHING as far as changing US foreign policy for Iraq seems to be concerned. He is stalling us there right now, and nothing much more. The USA government simply does not want to admit that it cannot run a country from afar when it can't even find more than a few of its own people who speak the same language as the inhabitants do. How stupid it was to invade a country and try to occupy it when your ties to the area or so slim! What arrogance! Unfortunately Barack Obama is just another arrogant numb skull with US cultural immunity from ever admitting his ignorance to what he is actually trying to do there with his troops in Iraq. He is simply stalling us there, and stalling hundreds of billions of much needed American give away dollars (to the military-industrial complex) there, too. Hardly the same 'economic stimulus' he likes to talk about so much with his fellow Clintonite neo-liberals mouthing the same babble. The solution? Pack up the bags. Stop moving the lines of conflict farther ahead into yet more countries. Bring the troops home now, Mr. Obama. Obama Is freezing the US military into a stupid commitment to occupy Iraq as long as he can get away with it. That's the Republican Party for you! Oh... I forgot! Obama is a Democrat, isn't he? I thought he wasn't!
Ethiopia fails at task US gov set for it
Ethiopia says it has finished pulling its troops out of Somalia failing at the task of pacifying Somalia that the Pentagon had set for it. Who knows the details of the secret details that led to Ethiopia acting as mercenaries for the US government, but what is known is the total destruction inside Somalia that has ensued because of this US government terrorism against that poorest of countries. Now, Barack Obama is in the process of trying to get the United Nations gang to once again act as Pentagon troops and to go into Somali and continue to destroy the future of that poor country. The UN has done such a knock out bang up job in keeping Haiti in similar dire conditions, I guess? The US government, like Israel, seems to specialize in picking on the poorest peoples of the planet, and that says something about the American people themselves, does it not? One thing is absolutely clear by now, and that is that Barack Obama no more respects the national sovereignty of other countries than Bush did. Africa will have bleak prospects ahead under this new US government, which refuses to just leave Africa alone rather than to 'manage' it.