US regionalizes Iraq Conflict, as antiwar movement snores

Is the US antiwar community asleep? It seems like all the citizenry are completely hypnotized by our phoney elections coming up, where we will get a the ‘choice’ of voting for one of the two corporate pro-war parties, and their candidates. Many of our more delusional participants in the ‘peace movement’ are expecting big things afterwards, even as both US corporate parties have been engaging in slowly building up support for regionalizing the Iraq conflict. They call that regionalized war ‘The War on Terror’, and both the DP and RP are big fans of fighting it! For eternity! And it comes following the already regionalized, so-called “War on Drugs’. Of course we haven’t heard much on that front recently, as drug production from Afghanistan is now quite on the rise. Question- Could Sparta have ever been so addicted to warfare as America’s ruling elite is? Win or lose, must sell equipment and weaponry to government. Support the Troops.

The signs of the regionalization of this conflict are coming hard and fast, yet the ‘peace’ pacifists snore. It’s all Iraq, Iraq, Iraq! Things are not being done competently there. But surprise, Bush and Cheney are outflanking you guys, even as you pray. The war is now, Gaza, Lebanon, West Bank, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan. With Syria and Iran on the way! It’s a war not against just Arabs anymore, it’s a block party! How complicated. Hey liberal Democrats, you said you wanted to go kill Osama? We going to do it, even if we have to bomb Antartica, too. Blow up any penguins at their Madrasa we will. Just keep talking about Iraq, and we’ll get you your damn timetable.

And how sweet the press is to not interrupt the US citizenry as it snores. NATO does the killing in Afghanistan, so no need to highlight it for the sleeping giant, the American public. And Bush supported, Dictator Musharraf of Pakistan just did the last killing in that country, so we can sleep here, too. No need to examine the US involvement on that one. Duh! Everybody knows that Pakistan is a sovereign country, rolling on floor giggling. And shhhh….. Bush couldn’t possibly attack Syria and Iran. Not with the Democratic Party on guard! Giggling gets more intense. Stop tickling us, please. Let’s make the whole Middle East like we made SE Asia and Central America! Another success story for US governmental terrorism.

Yet the Democratic Party voting, Christian ‘peace’ people just snore on, firm in that their personal peacefulness is example enough. Please don’t so violently shake them. They’ll never wake up. Let them dream their pacifist dreams. But the rest of us need to stop ceding the organizing of a movement to stop US warmaking to these sweet Christian folk. That is if we want to save the penguins?

Afghanistan, where cowardly US military is deliberately murdering children

Every week now, it seems that the US puppet president of Afghanistan, Hamid Karzai, is ‘investigating’ another tragic ‘accidental bombing of civilians. He demands that these ‘accidents’ stop. But these are not accidents, and Karzai knows this well, as every other Afghan must now know it well, too. An accident occurs once or twice, but an intentional strategy of targeting civilians becomes constant, as have become the US bombings of Afghan civilians in the more remote regions of that country.
 
The strategy is ‘to destroy the sea that the guerrilla fighter must swim in’, as it was once explained in the Vietnam War era, years ago. In short, the quickest, easiest way to combat the enemy, is simply to target his wife and family, including the kids. So the cowardly US-led NATO army of occupation in Afghanistan, is systematically doing that instead of engaging the enemy on the ground, where politically dangerous casualties might occur. Bomb the Afghan women and children in their homes from up high, if there is even the remotest military resistance to US forces in their general neighborhood.

This is the same strategy that the US government formerly used in SE Asia, some 35 to 45 years previously. It is the same strategy that the NAZIs used when they pushed into East Europe against the Russians during the Second World War. In their pathway, they razed to the ground villages, towns, and even entire cities. It is even the same strategy that Mafia gangsters use against their opponents. It is the same strategy that the US fed Colombian death squads use, too. They go into villages with chain saws, and cut people up before their own family members. Basically, this is government sponsored terrorism against civilians, and the US is committing internationally recognized war crimes by targeting civilians instead of the armed combatants they face. The strategy, is to target the families of combatants, and not those who might actually be able to inflict return casualties upon the invading and occupying, barbarian armed forces.

see Hamid Karzai orders investigation

We expect this cowardice from the cowardly US military commanders and chiefs, like Dubya and Dick Cheney, Donald and Alberto, who all get great glee out of torturing US-held POWs. And we expect it from the US grunts, too. They mainly just want to get out alive, and don’t much care who gets hurt, as long as it is not themselves. Innocent children bombed as they play, or as they sleep? Well who cares? Not the uniformed soldier cowards, nor their leaders. They are much like the Israeli troops, another cowardly group of soldiers, that distributed hundreds of thousands of cluster bombes in the last 3 days of their Lebanon vacation. Early Christmas for the children? Well the uniformed forces of occupying armies don’t care. They are simply cowards who want to get back home whole, and they will follow cowardly orders, from cowardly leaders.

But what of the press? The press barely even reports Afghanistan these days to US readers. And when they do, they cowardly hide away the nature of what they are reporting on. To the US press, the Afghanistan fighting is a NATO conflict, and they will report whole articles without even once using the letters, ‘US’ or ‘USA’! Let’s keep our jobs, and let’s keep the whole Afghanistan issue away from the American public, who are too cowardly to actually think about what they are doing to that poor country.

And what about the US peaceniks’? They are cowardly, too. 99% of them vote for the Democratic Party, and talking about Afghanistan is too embarrasing to the top party hacks. So, shhhhhh….. Keep quiet. The recent AFSC tour of their ‘Eyes Wide Open’ exhibit was basically a ‘Mouths Tightly Closed’ exhibit of their AFSC political cowardice when it comes to Afghanistan. They should remember and be ashamed of this, when the Quaker leaders are inside the voter booths pushing the levers for the Democratic Party candidates. They could have put boots out for the US soldiers killed in Afghanistan. But they didn’t. They could have placed out shoes of Afghani civilians killed by US and allied troops, but they didn’t.

But the other liberal peaceniks from the other liberal churches are equally as cowardly. When was the last time one saw a sign saying, Get Out of Afghanistan Now? All the talk is of Iraq instead. The liberal megawebsite, commondreams, carries bumperstickers calling for Get out of Iraq, No war with Iran, and even No War with Syria. But Get Out of Afghanistan? Not a chance! More political cowardness. It would push the Democratic Party hacks too hard. Yet our country is now deliberately bombing civilian children in that country, and doing it routinely, too.

It is political cowardice to bomb huts full of empoverished women and children noncombatants, rather than fight on the ground below against the men. But that’s what an imperialist army is full of. They are full of cowards who want to kill people like they are playing some video game back in the suburbs at home. But it, too, is cowardly for the US Peace Movement not to demand that our government get its troops out of Afghanistan with the same force we demand it get out of Iraq. We are betraying the children of that country, who are being slaughtered down like cattle. Yes, we have a cowardly antiwar movement in the US that wants only to concentrate on ‘Iraq’, and getting their cowardly Democratic Party leaders elected to office once again. Let’s hope that liberals can grow some backbone, and start opposing this war, too. Otherwise, the peace crowd is just as bad as ‘our troops’, who mainly want to kill from afar and from up high, with no possilbe repercussions to their cowardly, uniformed selves. Those that don’t mind killing innocent children, just so that they can claim a high ‘enemy’ body count.

The Path to 9 11

In defense of ABC’s docudrama The Path to 9/11. Near the beginning, when the terrorists were taking responsibility for the 1993 WTC bombing, “Ramzi Youssef – Palestinian Terrorist” explained why they had done it: because of America’s military and economic support of Israel.

The subject of Israel and Palestine never came up again, and never came up at all on Ted Koppel’s counter-ABC-straw-man The Price of Security.

We’ve got our boot on Palestine’s windpipe, they’re flailing their arms hoping to dislodge us, and we declare a war on arm flailing. Our media runs through what options America has to be safe from arm-flailing without looking at our boots to let American citizens consider how we might tread the earth with more humanity.

The US and Israel, it’s hard to say who is the master of whom, are actively killing Palestinians in a genocidal program every bit as calculated as the Holocaust or the extermination of the Native Americans. The US supported the recent slaughter of Lebanese peoples, also considered by the international community as genocide.

The US accuses Syria or Iran of backing Hizb’Allah. Those links are sketchy compared to our sending weapons and aid to Israel and other false authorities in the Middle East. When Israel was stepping up its bombing Lebanon in advance of the nearing ceasefire, we had to speed our resupply of Cluster Bombs lest Israel run out of time to use them. The US arms and defends the self-proclaimed kings and sultans who amass great wealth from the sale of their countries’ oil while at the same time subjecting their peoples to abject poverty. Bin Laden opposed our propping up of the Saudis. Youssef decried our support of Israel in Palestine. Arabs have cause to reject US strong arm policies in Egypt, Qatar, Kuwait, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, and of course Iraq. Muslims have very good reasons to reject US policy in Afghanistan, Indoneasia and the Philippines.

The least ABC could do in its mockudrama was to set the scene with the Muslim extremists’ motives, and that was it. Even though the rest of the program was re-edited because of the criticism, there followed closely law enforcement characters endlessly lamenting they needed authority for warrantless searches, domestic eavesdropping and inter-departmental information sharing. Filipino police were depicted heroically for not waiting for warrants, female border agents were lauded for using their intuitive -read racial- profiling, suggestions were made of an FBI coverup, even that Clinton’s people were helping Osama.

The irrationality-mongering was so egregious it would take forever to enumerate. The good news is that the Stephen Bochco style shaky camera, the endlessly tight closeups, the jump cuts unto incongruous details lacking context, and the frenetic action going every direction, serve really like an alarm bell going off next to your ear. It’s not conducive to critical thinking, but it’s also painfully and obviously contrived.

I draw one fundamental conclusion. The 9/11 truth seekers have been right all along. We must diffuse the 9/11 lie because the establishment yahoos, both Republican and Democrats, plan to ride this vile deception as long as they can.

By comparison, Ted Koppel’s sombre contemplative piece was full of verbal obfuscation. Koppel began his report with “by now every adult in America knows what happened on 9/11.” What an innocuous way to brush aside the fact that what happened is known, yes, and disputed! His language got no clearer as the program progressed. Lots of “clearly” this, when of course it very clearly could be unclear.

Koppel asked critical questions of such criminals as the author of the latest definition of torture and the commander of Gitmo who declined to admit that detainees had ever been tortured, but Koppel let Bush cabinet officials off with softballs and setups. Koppel let Tom Ridge appear thoughtful as to hold a mirror to himself asking what America is about, he let effete Senator Hays tell everyone that nuclear bombs can be made from items purchased at Home Depot, and Koppel let an NSA software developer appear pro-civil liberties by rejecting racial-profiling. His solution? Eavesdrop on everybody.

By assuming the role of white knight, Ted Koppel is really an effective mouthpiece for the Time-Warner machine, a major player in upholding corporate dominance. What do you think of his “point well taken” technique? As if his smilingly elusive subjects have just trumped him with something other than a quacking canard!

The good news about Koppel on Discovery is that we got a close look at the Bush operatives. They are in charge, yes, and they benefit from being presented by a charming, deep voiced newsman, but didn’t you recognize Larry, Moe and Curly right down to the haircuts? These guys are dopes! In morals, self-reflection and speech. It makes me giddy to contemplate because it’s not going to take much thinking power to take them down. Call me gullible, call me idealistic. It’ll take effort, determination and sacrifice, but it won’t take nucular-chemical-rocket science.

August 2006 Sountrack MSM unoriginal score

Israel bombs Lebanese power plant, unleashes oil spill over the coasts of Lebanon and Syria, an environmental disaster greater than the Exxon Valdez oil spill.

What does our media report? John Mark Karr, John Mark Karr.

The last couple hours before it must adhere to the cease fire, Israel pulls back its troops and litters southern Lebanon with thousands of anti-personnel cluster bombs.

John Mark Karr, John Mark Karr.

Israel shifts its military energies to increase raids and assassinations in the Occupied Territories of Palestine.

John Mark Karr, John Mark Karr.

In violation of the cease fire, Israel conduct raids against the Hizb’Allah who are trying to help Lebanese recovery.

John Mark Karr, John Mark Karr.

The US Iraq death toll climbs faster, for civilians and American soldiers.

John Mark Karr, John Mark Karr. John Mark Karr, John Mark Karr.

Middle East sibling rivalry no holds barred

OverkillCan I explain the current cataclysm in Lebanon? The media doesn’t want to do it. Unfortunately for them, it’s becoming a simpler story at each denouement.

Here’s an interesting overview: Peace, Propaganda & The Promised Land. And here’s a chronology of the recent escalation.

Here goes: Both Hamas and Hizb’Allah are always negotiating secret prisoner exchanges with Israel. Israel holds thousands of prisoners of both Hamas and Hizb’Allah. On June 25, Hamas captured an Israeli soldier which it hoped to use in an exchange. Similarly, Hizb’Allah captured two Israeli soldiers in Lebanon.

In Palestine, instead of negotiating with Hamas, Israel decided to escalate its attacks on the Occupied Territories. Israel had already been refusing to recognize Hamas as Palestine’s ruling party, it had been withholding all Palestinian Authority funding, and it was bombing the suspected houses and cars of the democratically-elected Hamas leaders. In its escalation, Israel bombed Palestine’s only power plant and sent tanks into the Gaza Strip to force an immediate release of their “kidnapped” soldier.

Out of solidarity for the defenseless population of Palestine, the military branch of the Hizb’Allah hiding in Syria decided to launch indiscriminate rocket attacks upon Israel, across the Israeli border from southern Lebanon. When Israel sent troops to Lebanon to attack those sites, Hizb’Allah captured two Israeli soldiers. With the precedent set: a-kidnapped-soldier- justifies-massive-air-strikes and M0Fo Bolton in the U.N. to stifle international pressure, Israel now had an identical pretext for attacking Lebanon.

So, Israel is clearing the population out of southern Lebanon, just as it has been displacing the original occupants of Palestine. The world wants an immediate cease-fire, but the US won’t let the U.N. take action. The US says it doesn’t want to interrupt because Israel isn’t finished. Finished what? Retaliating or house-cleaning?

Secretary of State Rice calls Israel’s bombardments “birth pangs” of the new Middle East, as if Israel’s actions have been part of the U.S. remake for the region all along. A recently interviewed Israeli soldier, asked what he thought his unit was doing in Lebanon, smiled and said “purification I guess.”

This is like a household where one of the children, already in the headlock of a stronger sibling, is acting up. Under the pretext of disciplinary action, the bullying sibling decides to convert its headlock into a strangulation, simultaneously pushing that child right out of its room, in fact clear out of the house. The mother decries the disproportionate severity of the reaction, but the father, an abusive lout in his own right, refuses to intervene, and instead sides with the offspring so much his likeness.

Bush the yapping idiot

Gotta get Hezbolla to stop this shitIn Al Gore’s film AN INCONVENIENT TRUTH, much is made of Gore’s new found demeanor. Yes he’s a lot smoother and passionate. It helps that the camera captures him more intimately, and that he had directorial control over how he is portrayed. Contrast this to a hostile media determined in 2000 to make Gore look as bad as possible. Corporate media made Gore’s I-discovered-Love-Canal, I-invented-the-Internet, and Love-Story-was-written-about-me remarks look buffoonish instead of the remarkable half-truths they really were.
 
Juxtapose Gore’s role with George W’s microphone gaff at the G-8.

Not just his expletive, not just his eating with his mouth open and talking with his mouth full, but the inanity of his statements. “Syria has got to get Hezbolla to stop this shit” duh. (See a GREAT musical lampoon at the Huffington Post!)
 
What about his earlier observation: “Russia’s big. So’s China.” Wow.

Our media made hay with Bush’s expletive. The world press came to the bigger conclusion. Idiot. The British saw and heard their Tony Blair, normally of impeccable intellect, play lap dog to a yapping idiot.

To compare Bush and Gore reminds me of the 2000 presidential debates when it was clear as day that Bush was Edward E. Neuman to Gore’s everyman. Bush was Lilliputian.

Yet when the cameras went out to “spin alley” to consult the pundits, wee conservative dweebs told us giddily that Bush had won.

Strength in numbers

Mohommed bombheadTwo German newspaper have joined a leading French newspaper in reprinting the controversial Danish caricatures of Islam’s prophet Mohammed. They are acting in solidarity with the Danish paper whose actions provoked an international boycott of Danish products. This is how collective action is supposed to work. Speak out, and if you’re threatened, be joined by another voice and then another, until there would be too many voices to silence.

Isn’t it interesting that the U.S. is speaking out against the unified actions of the Europeans? Perhaps it is not surprising that American fundamentalists are coming to the defense of Islamic fundamentalists.

A survey of Newspapers shows that Western voices are dismissive of the notion that the cartoons should be found so offensive. Muslim papers demand apology yet do not condone the violence. Perhaps surprising to many, Palestinian papers are calling for moderation among Muslims.

I worry that this entire tempest is going to be used to show the volatility of Islam. This will be fuel for the argument that Iran must under no circumstance be allowed to have nukes.

2-8 UPDATE
The Americans and British are now accusing Iran and Syria of inciting the violence. Meanwhile a French paper is printing additional provocative cartoons.

Now the Islamic voices are labeling this provocation as Zionist. An Iranian paper is retaliating by soliciting contributions from cartoonist to lampoon the greatest -and perhaps only- Western taboo, the Holocaust. While I deplore this escalation, the cartoons should prove interesting. They certainly have hit on a taboo which the West cannot countenance.

Since the Enlightenment I think to the western mind freedom of expression is revered. We can tolerate our Jesus depicted as a bald transvestite. We can burn our flag, even piss on it. We have no image that is sacrosanct, except the victims of the Holocaust.

It will be interesting to see if Europeans or Americans can get a dose of what it feels like to be injured by a cartoon. Can you even imagine making fun of a Holocaust victim?

When Anne Frank is depicted at the wheel of a bulldozer, crushing Palestinian children, even maybe unwittingly (hopefully), then we’re probably going to see escalation.