Photos of Gaza

If you haven't seen photos of the slaughter in Gaza (I haven't until today), click here

And if you want to try and get your mind around the scourage of our times, the American Free Press is something you should check out. Be sure to see their article on The Zionist Elephant In The Room

If you're interested, and you should be, this publication's archives are online.


Bill

Greenwald Film on Afghanistan

Greenwald Film on Afghanistan Destroys the Logic of the War, Leading the New York Times to Whine by Jeremy Scahill,

"Perhaps more than any other major corporate news outlet, The New York Times played a central role in promoting the Bush administration's fraudulent case for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The "reporting" of Judith Miller and Michael Gordon basically served as a front-page fiction laundering factory for Dick Cheney’s fantasy of a “mushroom cloud” threat from Saddam Hussein looming on the immediate horizon, topped off with a celebratory slice of yellowcake. More recently, the paper’s propagandists, William Broad and David Sanger, have aimed their sights on reporting dubious claims about Iran’s nuclear program."

Please be sure to see Glenn Greenwald's excellent films at rethinkafghanistan.com


Bill

Celebrating Slaughter: War and Collective Amnesia

Celebrating Slaughter: War and Collective Amnesia By Chris Hedges

"War memorials and museums are temples to the god of war. The hushed voices, the well-tended grass, the flapping of the flags allow us to ignore how and why our young died. They hide the futility and waste of war. They sanitize the savage instruments of death that turn young soldiers and Marines into killers, and small villages in Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq into hellish bonfires. There are no images in these memorials of men or women with their guts hanging out of their bellies, screaming pathetically for their mothers. We do not see mangled corpses being shoved in body bags. There are no sights of children burned beyond recognition or moaning in horrible pain. There are no blind and deformed wrecks of human beings limping through life. War, by the time it is collectively remembered, is glorified and heavily censored. "


Bill

Obama’s Afghanistan Dilemma

Obama’s Afghanistan Dilemma By Stanley Kutler

"During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama repeatedly called for expanding the war in Afghanistan. Be careful what you wish for."

Be that as it may, my studies tell me that:

1. Winning in Afghanistan is a not even a remote possibility. No matter what else is said about it, it will serve as a magnet for the countless enemies we've made in the Middle East. In the best of cases it will be a long, drawn out drain of our blood and treasure. The worst of cases begins with people actually feeling the pain of war.

Why, then?

2. Afghanistan is being used as giant smoke screen to mask withdrawal from the debacle of the military invasion of Iraq (which was to serve as launching point for other conquests in the region in the larger mission to establish military authority in the Middle East - for the benefit of Big Money and Power in the MI Complex, and Israel's supporters in Washington and the "news", which I think of as a "machine").

So, no matter what happens with Afghanistan, it will take time and loads of attention, thereby achieve the goal of moving attention away from the failure of Iraq. When every semblence of victory in Iraq is crumbled, it will be featured on page 32 because everyone's attention has been diverted. Thus win or lose isn't the way to understand the Afghanistan strategy in the first place.

As it's happening today, a big moment in world history is at hand in the form of Obama's pending decision on escalating our military presence in Afghanistan. The decision is expected, and probably will be made very soon.

There is no middle of the road for him to take: it's either escalate the military approach or leave. The middle of the road is being packed with IED's.

If he obeys the machine and escalates, his worthlessness as a President and a human being will be apparent to all. If he takes a stand on behalf of the American people, the "news" machine will begin the process of eating him alive, probably using the thousand little cuts (negative "news" stories) approach, or maybe they'll try some other way.

I believe that if Obama does take a stand against this machine on behalf of the American people (the American spirit), we must disspell the power and influnce of the "news" machine (which psyched the people to launch the Iraq invasion and is now pumping up escalation in Afghanistan) by turning our heads away from it and to information sources being groomed on the net today, start with commondreams. And when we do turn our heads, we will see that the wind in their sails disappears, causing their mighty weapon to sink into the abyss with other scourages that mankind has had to overcome through history to stay the course as builders.

In the big picture of mankind's existance, the trend of civilization has consistantly favored the builders over the destroyers, i.e. an upward trend of progress. Evidentally we cannot exist without "the opposites" (Yin and Yang, with one playing the role of builder, the other destroyer, it doesn't matter which one) in our nature, but when these entities grown strong and one of the opposites becomes arrogant, belligerent and destructive, a mighty clash occurs with the other. Such a clash is brewing again today in the form of the the crusade for military authority in the Middle East. There was no "exit strategy" because there was no plan to exit.

Ask yourself: are you a builder, or a destroyer? Once again in the grand scheme of mankind's development, as has happened before, we're called again to stand up and choose.

Given the power accumulated by the forces at work, we are in a historical moment, of equal or greater significance then any in history. We must choose now, and we must choose correctly. Looking at mankind's history, I think that we will stand as builders is a no-brainer, but we still have to make it happen - it wouldn't happen by itself. It's really a question of how much pain we'll suffer before acknowledging it's time.

We've allowed ourselves to accept that frame of reference is "right" versus "left", which set us arguing in circles. We need a different and more accurate frame of reference, and that is "builder" versus "destroyer". If you're intrigued by this notion, I invite you to read C. J. Jung's excellent analysis on the subject. Most unfortunately his works are not published on the net, but can be found in your library.


Bill

Debunking the War Party

Debunking the War Party Greenwald Slaps Down Huffington by Justin Raimondo

"Odds are that, at this time in 2010, we’ll still be talking about Iran’s completely nonexistent nuclear weapons program, with rival versions of what Tehran is really up to battling it out within the administration and in the arena of public opinion. The opening shots of that war have been fired, and,while the War Party, spearheaded by the powerful Israel lobby, is bound and determined to strike at Iran, the news out of Geneva is not good for the "bomb bomb bomb Iran" crowd. "

...

"Unlike our last emperor, this one is no dummy: he knows perfectly well that Israel’s possession of weapons of mass destruction is the real issue that hangs over the entire region, a nuclear sword of Damocles in the hands of whatever rabid rightist holds the reins of power in Tel Aviv. Also unlike Bush, Obama is not beholden to the Israel lobby in the same way the Republicans were and are: not that Democrats are immune to the Lobby’s power. Far from it: on the eve of this apparent breakthrough in the US-Iranian stand-off, the Democratic majority in congress voted to impose sanctions on foreign companies that import gasoline into Iran. "

...

"It was great watching Glenn Greenwald take Arianna apart with his hardheaded appeal to both realism and common sense – and his mention of the Unmentionable Israeli nuclear arsenal. Greenwald demolished her talking points, methodically and unmercifully, and he did it by simply sticking to the facts: look, he said, at what Iran and the US have actually done. It is the US that has occupied nations on Iran’s borders, in Iraq and Afghanistan, while you have to go back a thousand years to pin down the last time the Iranians (then the Persians) crossed their borders and invaded another country. It was the US that backed Saddam Hussein when he invaded Iran, in a war in which hundreds of thousands were slaughtered. So who is the real aggressor here? "



Bill

Who Decides About War? What About the People?

In this article: Who Decides About War? What About the People? by John Nichols

Manski and his colleagues ask core questions that deserve thoughtful consideration.


Bill

Bitter Fruits of Mideast Wars

Bitter Fruits of Mideast Wars by Patrick J. Buchanan

"Impending today are two of the most critical decisions Barack Obama will ever make, which may determine the fate of his presidency, as well as the future of the United States in the Near and Middle East. "

"The first is whether to approve Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s request for thousands more U.S. troops he says he needs to prevent "mission failure" — i.e, to stave off a U.S. defeat in Afghanistan. "

"The second is whether Obama will start up the road of "crippling sanctions" to war with Iran, to prevent Tehran from moving closer to a capacity to produce nuclear weapons. "

Please read the article for Buchanan's clear analysis.

Neocon Artist by Jeff Huber

"That Kagan, and by extension the entire neocon cabal, still has such influence is not only alarming, it is dangerous. Even worse is the manner in which the neocons have aligned themselves with the Pentagon in its power struggle with the Obama administration."

Marijuana in America: More Mainstream Than Ever, More Arrests Than Ever By Tony Newman

"You might be surprised to learn that in the United States more than 750,000 people are arrested every year on marijuana possession. In New York, under "moderate" Bloomberg, there were 40,000 pot arrests last year, and the city now has the unfortunate distinction of being the marijuana-arrest capital of the world."

"... In 2008, 87 percent of those charged with pot possession in New York were black or Latino"


Bill