Thursday, January 30, 2014

FUKUSHIMA
“Are vested interests trying to prevent the world from knowing the true scale of the nuclear disaster at Fukishima?”

Fukushima: The Coming Depopulation Experience
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ypXu9JMGFuc


Sign the Petition:
The World Community Must Take Charge at Fukushima



Video - Full Movie
Investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill chases down the hidden truth behind America's expanding covert wars. 
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By Glen Ford
"...The sympathetic Democratic liar disarms those who are about to be sacrificed by pretending to feel their pain..."  
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The REAL "State of the Union"? . . .





An Iraq war veteran's reflection
"Two familiar faces at the
State of the Union told us everything"



By Mike Prysner

The author is a former U.S. Army Corporal and Iraq war veteran. He is a co-founder of March Forward! and a member of the Board of Directors of Veterans For Peace.

Before President Obama even began the State of the Union address, two people I knew in the audience, from two defining points in my life, were much more significant to me. I thought their presence reflected the “State of the Union” better than anything the President could have said.


The first guest was General Ray Odierno, now the Chief of Staff of the Army. One of my most invasive memories is of my time on an outpost with his 4th Infantry Division, relentlessly attacked, in a rural farming area called Hawija. I would see him from time to time—in much safer places, of course. Long nights huddled in a smoke-filled bunker, feeling like nothing but target practice, was no place for a general.

I remember him as the happiest (and highest-ranking) person I encountered in country, always jovial and excited. I remember thinking then, at age 19, that he was so happy because he knew that deployment could make his career. And he was right; commanding an armored division during the biggest invasion and occupation of a country since Vietnam would certainly do that; especially when your soldiers end up capturing Saddam Hussein. The future was looking bright for Odierno in 2003.

Odierno even slept in Saddam Hussein’s main palace in Tikrit. Far away, his soldiers bled all over his outposts and drove over IEDs, earning him his “glory.” Iraqi civilians in his area of operations experienced what would lead to major criticism of the “belligerence” of his tactics as a commander.

The other guest was Carlos Arredondo, the “cowboy hat wearing hero” of the Boston bombing, famously photographed rushing a victim with severed legs to safety.

The first time I ever spoke publicly at an anti-war event, back in 2006, it was sharing a panel with Carlos. His first of two sons, Alexander Arredondo, was killed in Iraq in 2004, in different part of the country from Odierno and me.  He was just 20 years old. I didn’t say much that day, but just sitting there with him and his partner, Melida, was a source of strength and inspiration that would never leave me.


Carlos—at the time an undocumented immigrant—reacted to the death of Alexander by dedicating his entire life to anti-war activism, touring the country with a striking visual memorial to his son, talking to everybody he encountered along the way about opposing the war. He became an icon of the Iraq war—a shattered, mourning father, pulling a flag-draped coffin with his son’s photo in front of the White House.

Odierno’s career had been made. He shot up to Four-Star General by 2008. Like all general officers, especially of his privileged West Point-graduate variety, very lucrative post-retirement “advisor” positions in the defense industry have opened up. He got the top staff position in the Army under Obama in 2011.

Carlos’s only surviving son, Brian, committed suicide that same year. It was just days before Christmas. He was only 24 years old. Suicide—another hallmark of the misery caused by that war for both veterans and families—became another cause Carlos would dedicate his life to.

Millions of lives were torn apart by the Iraq war. But not equally.

It was working-class and immigrant families who had to bear the hair-pulling horror of seeing their children come home in coffins. It was idealistic, college- and career-aspiring youth who were sent to be blown apart in those flimsy Humvees. It was Iraqi teachers, nurses, farmers, hotel workers—and their children, babies and grandparents—who were the so-called “collateral damage.”

It wasn’t the general officers who built their careers on having the most aggressive strategy, which they watched from computer screens in palaces while their soldiers were blown to pieces. It wasn’t the families of the CEOs of the defense and energy industry giants, bursting with profits from Pentagon contracts, or the families of the politicians they take to dinner.

Some got promotions and career boosts. Some got bonus checks and fat dividends. But most are shredded, in body and mind. Most will spend the rest of their lives overwhelmed with trying to recover; many on crutches and canes, many with pills. Most will forever struggle to choke back tears whenever a reminder of those years enters their minds.

Carlos and Odierno may have been guests at the same speech, but they live in two very different worlds.

Whatever Obama said in his address, from employment and immigration to foreign policy, it was all about fixing things within a world like that—where only one class (which constitutes the majority of us) is made to make the biggest sacrifices, and another class—a much smaller one—is the supreme leader and benefactor.

A system set up like this can only replicate the same heart-wrenching tragedies for people like us.

No need to watch the State of the Union—we need a revolution.


This statement was originally published by March Forward!, an anti-war organization of veterans and service members. Click here to make a donation to support their work.



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Wednesday, January 29, 2014

Renowned for his protest songs, Seeger was blacklisted by the US Government in the 1950s for his leftist stance. Denied broadcast exposure, Seeger toured US college campuses spreading his music and ethos, later calling this the "most important job of my career".

He was quizzed by the Un-American Activities Committee in 1955 over whether he had sung for Communists, replying that he "greatly resented" the implication that his work made him any less American. Seeger was charged with contempt of Congress, but the sentence was overturned on appeal.

He returned to TV in the late 1960s but had a protest song about the Vietnam War cut from broadcast. British singer and left-wing activist Billy Bragg who performed with Seeger on several occasions called the singer "hugely encouraging".

"He was a very gentle man and intensely optimistic," he told the BBC. "He believed in humanity and the power of music to make a difference..."
Seeger became a standard bearer for political causes from nuclear disarmament to the Occupy Wall Street movement in 2011...
Seeger's influence continued down the decades, with his induction into the US Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1996, and he won a Grammy award in 1997 for best traditional folk album, Pete. He won a further two Grammys - another for best traditional folk album in 2008 for At 89 and best children's album in 2010...

Mark Radcliffe, host of BBC Radio 2's Folk show, paid tribute, saying: 

"Pete Seeger repeatedly put his career, his reputation and his personal security on the line so that he could play his significant musical part in campaigns for civil rights, environmental awareness and peace. 

He leaves behind a canon of songs that are both essential and true, and his contribution to folk music will be felt far into the future."...
 


*

Karzai has formalized his suspicions with a list of dozens of attacks that he believes the U.S. government may have been involved in, according to one palace official. The list even includes the recent bomb and gun assault on a Lebanese restaurant in Kabul...


Friday, January 24, 2014

On Syria: "...The Western media has not only been wrong, but has lied on so many occasions in the past, that it cannot be expected to tell the truth now."



By Shamus Cooke

The media spin machine is again kicking into high gear, perfectly timed to accompany the "Geneva II" Syria peace talks. The lies are necessary to give the Obama administration an upper hand in the peace negotiations, which are not being used to pursue peace, but instead, to accomplish the Obama administration’s longstanding goal of Syrian regime change. 

Here are the top three Western media lies about the Syrian peace talks. 

1) The removal of Syrian Bashar al-Assad was an agreed upon "precondition" for the Geneva II peace talks. 
This lie has been repeated over and over by government and media alike. It has zero basis...

2) The U.S.-backed rebel militias are "moderate" Islamic groups.
The fact that this lie can even be uttered publicly without encountering ridicule is a major success of Western media propaganda...

3) New Evidence of Syrian government "industrial scale" torture.  
...the lie here is that the Western media promoted the "evidence" as being unquestionably true, when the story doesn’t reach first base when it comes to evidence-based journalism...

...How do these lies become such permanent fixtures in the Western media? An excellent article in the Guardian newspaper recently discussed in depth the principal sources the Western media has used to understand the Syrian conflict. 

The article exposed the incredible bias of some of the most important Western media sources on Syria, which is why they were handpicked in the first place to be "expert" sources: they had political agendas that were aligned with the US government’s foreign policy decisions. The other side of the conflict was completely ignored, except when it was targeted for ridicule. 

Thus, Americans and Europeans [and Australians] have a completely one-sided, if not fantasy-based perspective of what is happening in Syria. This has been systematic since the beginning of the conflict, as happened with the Yugoslav, Afghan, Iraq, and Libya wars...
 




“The West Publicly Claims to Be Fighting Terrorism, Whilst It Is Covertly Nourishing It.”

Must Read By Walid al-Moallem - Syria Foreign Minister

"...Today, in this gathering of Arab and Western powers, we are presented with a simple choice: we can choose to fight terrorism and extremism together and to start a new political process, or you can continue to support terrorism in Syria. Let us reject and isolate the black hands and the false faces, which publicly smile but covertly feed terrorist ideology, striking Syria today, but ultimately spreading to infect us all. This is the moment of truth and destiny; let us rise to the challenge..." Continue




The Ugly American (and Friends) in Geneva

By Daniel McAdams

"US Secretary of State John Kerry's delusions continued as he arrived in Montreux, Switzerland to open the "Geneva II" talks on the ongoing conflict in Syria... Kerry proceeded to bully and blunder his way through the pre-opening of the conference.

"We need to deal with reality here," Kerry said on the eve of the conference. "Bashar Assad will not be part of that transition government."

Kerry's pressure on Ban to uninvite Iran to the conference — though Iran is far more affected by the crisis than the majority of countries invited to participate — was based on Iran's refusal to endorse the pre-condition of support for "regime change" in Syria as the goal of the conference. 

At least "regime change" was the US interpretation of the Geneva I Communique issued after that conference in 2012.

However the US appears to be purposely misinterpreting the statement made after the Geneva I conference. 

According to the Communique signed after that conference, there is no demand that Assad must leave office. At most, the agreement calls for:

The establishment of a transitional governing body which can establish a neutral environment in which the transition can take place. That means that the transitional governing body would exercise full executive powers. It could include members of the present government and the opposition and other groups and shall be formed on the basis of mutual consent.

If anyone is violating the letter and spirit of the Geneva Communique, it is the US/Saudi side. The US government demanding that Assad must go clearly violates this statement in the Communique: 

The sovereignty, independence, unity and territorial integrity of Syria must be respected.

Therefore if any country should be disqualified from participation in Geneva II on the basis of refusing to observe to the Communique issued at the end of Geneva I, it should be the US and any other nation demanding the overthrow of the current Syrian government as a pre-condition to further talks...

This conference is a farce."      Continue




5 Reasons The Latest Report On Syria War Crimes May Not Be True

By Brandon Turbeville

"...Qatar is the sponsor of the report. Qatar is, one of the major sponsors of the Syrian invasion (aka the Syrian “rebels”) and has played a massively important role in financing, training, arming, and directing the death squads..." Continue





"...The ongoing conflict in Syria was engineered by the West and its regional allies as far back as 2007, revealed by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh in his article,  The Redirection: Is the Administration's new policy benefiting our enemies in the war on terrorism?  which prophetically stated (emphasis added):
 
‘To undermine Iran, which is predominantly Shiite, the Bush Administration has decided, in effect, to reconfigure its priorities in the Middle East. In Lebanon, the Administration has coöperated with Saudi Arabia’s government, which is Sunni, in clandestine operations that are intended to weaken Hezbollah, the Shiite organization that is backed by Iran. 
The U.S. has also taken part in clandestine operations aimed at Iran and its ally Syria. A by-product of these activities has been the bolstering of Sunni extremist groups that espouse a militant vision of Islam and are hostile to America and sympathetic to Al Qaeda.’


It is now admitted that Al Qaeda comprises almost entirely all of the militants fighting the Syrian government, many of whom are foreigners crossing into Syrian territory with NATO's aid 



Wednesday, January 22, 2014

While the mainstream media continues to present a false and misleading narrative about the crisis in Syria, consider this assessment by Finian Cunningham. . . 



There is a good reason why Iran has been blocked from attending the Geneva II conference on Syria – because the meeting is not about finding a peaceful settlement. Rather, it is merely an American mechanism for engineering regime change in Syria.

What the Americans have failed to achieve through state-sponsored terrorism, they are now trying to win through state-sponsored politics.
Iran has consistently endorsed the sovereign right of the Syrian people to negotiate their political future – without pre-conditions or pressure from external powers.
And it is because of this Iranian position of principle over Syria that it is being banished at the behest of the US. Iran being nixed proves the US has fixed.
Contrary to Washington’s claims, Iran’s stance underpins the Geneva Communiqué formulated in June 2012, which called for any transitional Syrian government that might be formed to be furnished only through mutual Syrian consent. 

The communiqué does not call for incumbent President Bashar al Assad to stand down, it does not obligate his government to resign, and it accedes only to the principle of mutual Syrian consent over any agreed political outcome.

Washington and its allies, including the manufactured opposition-in-exile, have delayed the holding of the Geneva II conference by more than 18 months. That inordinate delay due to Western prevarication tells a lot. In the meantime, tens of thousands of Syrians have died due to violence and deprivation.
Why the tardiness in convening Geneva II? This is because Washington and its proxies have all the while been forging a warped reinterpretation of the Geneva Communiqué. In their new version, President Assad is not to be part of any Syrian transitional government. He has to go.
American Secretary of State John Kerry said so last week when he stated that “there can be no political solution in Syria” which involves Assad staying in power. In other words, Washington is just tailoring rhetoric for regime change.

Thus the Americans, having unleashed a covert terror war for regime change in Syria beginning in mid-March 2011, and subsequently having failed in that objective, now want to re-write the rules of the game, by insisting that the political process is pre-determined in their favor. . .
 




Saturday, January 18, 2014

U.S. fighter jet fuel tanks were dumped on 
Vietnamese farmers during the 'Vietnam War'. . . 
What did they do with them?


During the Vietnam War, fighter jets would be constantly flying over the countryside.  Military tactical jet planes rely on the JP-8 fuel that’s loaded into external fuel tanks, but once fuel is used, they are jettisoned to reduce overall weight of the plane. The large fuel tanks were dumped onto the countryside by USAF jets so that they could maneuver better.


Those fuel tanks scattered throughout the country were eventually recovered and recycled by the resilient Vietnamese. 

http://cdn.viralnova.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/fuel-tanks2.jpg

The citizens of Vietnam transformed them into makeshift canoes. . .

http://cdn.viralnova.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/fuel-tanks4.png

. . . perfectly suited for water travel. 

http://cdn.viralnova.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/fuel-tanks.jpg

There's more to the news than the corporate media tells us ~


The 53rd Anniversary of
Eisenhower's Farewell Address to the Nation          
  Video       "In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist." Continue
 

ICC Receives “Devastating” Dossier on British War Crimes
By Felicity Arbuthnot
The dossier charges that: ‘ “those who bear the greatest responsibility” for alleged war crimes “include individuals at the highest levels” of the British Army and political system.’
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Geneva II – Washington’s Plan B for Regime Change in Syria
By Finian Cunningham
The US and its Western allies and their regional proxies, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, do not want to allow a genuine political process worked out by the Syrian people.
Continue


The case U.S. officials initially made for retaliatory military action was flawed.


The Special Ops Surge
America’s Secret War in 134 Countries

By Nick Turse
This presence -- now, in nearly 70% of the world’s nations -- provides new evidence of the size and scope of a secret war.
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The potential conflict of interest between the new Washington Post owner, Jeff Bezos and a recent $600 million CIA contract with his other company, Amazon.


The "Iron-fisted Kleptocratic Financial Oligarchy"
95% Income Growth Goes to the 1%: Michael Hudson

Video
Hudson sees a parasitic financial industry that looks only to determine how much wealth it can extract via fees, interest income, and tax breaks, rather than providing capital to increase.
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Dr. King’s Nightmare
By Bob Lord
The wealth possessed by our nation's 400 richest billionaires is equal to the collective net worth of all African-American households.
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Government of the Rich, by the Rich and for the Rich:
It’s Time for ‘Militant Nonviolent Resistance’

By John W. Whitehead

There are two sets of laws: one set for the government and its corporate allies, and another set for you and me.
Continue




Selected from Information Clearing House


Friday, January 17, 2014


"...The abolition of war is an idea whose time has come. We are at a transformative moment in history..."


From David Swanson  (January 12, 2014)

I've been involved in starting enough activist campaigns and coalitions to know when one has more potential than any other I've seen.   

When hundreds of people and organizations are signing up on the website before you've announced it anywhere, and nine months before you plan to officially launch, and when a large percentage of the people signing on ask how they can donate funding, and when people from other countries volunteer to translate your declaration into other languages, and when committees form of volunteer women and men to work on a dozen different aspects of the planning -- and they actually get to work in a serious way, and when none of this is due to anything in the news or any statement from anyone in government or any contrast between one political party and another, then it's time to start thinking about what you're going to help build as a movement.



In this case I'm talking about a movement to end, not this war or that war, but the institution of war as an acceptable enterprise for the human species. The declaration of peace that people and groups are signing reads, in its entirety:
"I understand that wars and militarism make us less safe rather than protect us, that they kill, injure and traumatize adults, children and infants, severely damage the natural environment, erode civil liberties, and drain our economies, siphoning resources from life-affirming activities. I commit to engage in and support nonviolent efforts to end all war and preparations for war and to create a sustainable and just peace."
This can be signed at http://WorldBeyondWar.org -- and we fully expect a million people to sign it in short order. 



There's a great weariness in resisting militarism piecemeal, in reforming or refining war, in banning a weapon or exposing a tactic. All of that is a necessary part of the work. This will be a campaign of numerous partial victories, and we'll be directing our efforts toward various strategic weaknesses in the military-industrial complex. 

But there is enthusiasm right now for stopping not just missile strikes into Syria, not just deadly sanctions and threats to Iran, but stopping also -- as part of these actions -- the thinking that assumes war must always be with us, the casual discussions of how "the next war" will be fought.

So, we've set up an online center for addressing the concerns of anyone who thinks we might need to keep war around or who thinks war will stay around regardless of what we do. We address a number of myths, including the myths that war is inevitable, and war is necessary, and war is beneficial

Then we provide a number of reasons for ending war, including these:








We've also provided an explanation of how nonviolent tools are more effective in resisting tyranny and oppression and resolving conflicts and achieving security than violence is, in other words how we can be more secure without war and without preparations for war.


This movement to abolish war, will be a movement to create a better world in which we are better able to address real crises, such as those in the earth's natural environment, rather than manufactured crises, such as the urgent need to drop missiles on Syria -- which vanishes the moment we block that proposal.


Our plan is to announce on the
 International Day of Peace,  
a broader, wider, more mainstream and more international movement for peace and nonviolence than we've seen in a while, and a coalition capable of better uniting those doing good work toward that end in various corners of the globe and of our societies. 


But we've only just begun to work out our plans, and we'd like everyone's input. 

If you go to http://WorldBeyondWar.org and sign the declaration, it will ask you to indicate how you might like to be involved beyond that. You can check any of a number of ways or invent your own.  You can get involved in shaping our thinking and our plans and activities. 


You can also enter a brief statement of your own.  Here are a few of the many entered already:

"I support this proposal and agree with this great and important initiative to abolish militarism and war.  I will continue to speak out for an end to the institution of militarism and war and for institutions built on international law and human rights and nonviolent conflict resolution." — Mairead Maguire, Nobel Peace Laureate

"As a 29 year veteran of the US Army/Army Reserves, retiring as a Colonel and having served as a U.S. diplomat for 16 years and resigning in 2003 in opposition to the Iraq war, I firmly believe war does not resolve political issues.  We must work diligently to force the governments of our nations to use diplomacy, not weapons." —Ann Wright

"Everybody's worried about stopping terrorism. Well, there's a really easy way: stop participating in it." — Noam Chomsky

"It is so inspiring to see a new group coming together not to focus on a particular war or weapons system, but on all war--everywhere. And it's great to have such beautifully crafted arguments about why war is not inevitable and how war contributes to so many other global ills. This coalition is worthy of Martin Luther King's call to end violence and instead put our energies and resources into 'life-affirming activities.' Bravo!" —Medea Benjamin

"We must work to end all war because: 1. In war there are no winners, only losers. 2. To thrive, humans need peace, which cannot be created by war. 3. We need all our ingenuity, creativity, technology and will to find a solution to runaway climate change. We cannot afford the military-industrial complex." — Sally Reynolds, Abingdon Peace Group

"The abolition of war is an idea whose time has come. We are at a transformative moment in history. Our Mother Earth is under siege from destructive global warming and industrialization. It is essential that we mobilize to save our planet. War is a cruel and untenable distraction, draining trillions of dollars and incalculable losses of intellectual firepower away from the essential work that needs to be done to create a livable future for humanity." — Alice Slater, Global Council of Abolition 2000

"War is a crime against humanity. When 90% of the casualties of war are civilians including children, its time to End ALL WARS! The world badly needs the resources to meet human and environmental needs. Wars are not making us more secure, but creating more enemies. There are more effective means of achieving security than war and killing other people's children. As former President Eisenhower said, 'I like to believe that the people of the world will want peace so much that governments will have to get out of the way and let them have it.' When the people of the world decide to end war, we can end it. At least 99% of the world's people do not benefit at all from all the wars our governments are waging. The time is NOW. Please join us." — David Hartsough