Does the following story partly explain why US casualties in Iraq have been dropping in the past few months?
Something very similar occurred during the Vietnam War in the early 1970s. There comes a point in most long wars where soldiers begin to question the legitimacy of what they’re doing and whether or not the sacrifice of themselves, and their friends, is worth it. It’s not about being a coward, it’s about realizing whether or not you have become mere ‘cannon fodder’.
Watertown, New York : Iraq war veterans now stationed at a base here say that morale among U.S. soldiers in the country is so poor, many are simply parking their Humvees and pretending to be on patrol, a practice dubbed “search and avoid” missions.
Phil Aliff is an active duty soldier with the 10th Mountain Division stationed at Fort Drum in upstate New York. He served nearly one year in Iraq from August 2005 to July 2006, in the areas of Abu Ghraib and Fallujah, both west of Baghdad.
“Morale was incredibly low,” said Aliff, adding that he joined the military because he was raised in a poor family by a single mother and had few other prospects. “Most men in my platoon in Iraq were just in from combat tours in Afghanistan.”
According to Aliff, their mission was to help the Iraqi Army “stand up” in the Abu Ghraib area of western Baghdad, but in fact his platoon was doing all the fighting without support from the Iraqis they were supposedly preparing to take control of the security situation.
“I never heard of an Iraqi unit that was able to operate on their own,” said Aliff, who is now a member of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War (IVAW). “The only reason we were replaced by an Iraqi Army unit was for publicity.”
Aliff said he participated in roughly 300 patrols. “We were hit by so many roadside bombs we became incredibly demoralised, so we decided the only way we wouldn’t be blown up was to avoid driving around all the time.”
“So we would go find an open field and park, and call our base every hour to tell them we were searching for weapons caches in the fields and doing weapons patrols and everything was going fine,” he said, adding, “All our enlisted people became very disenchanted with our chain of command.”
Other active duty Iraq veterans tell similar stories of disobeying orders so as not to be attacked so frequently.
“We’d go to the end of our patrol route and set up on top of a bridge and use it as an over-watch position,” Eli Wright, also an active duty soldier with the 10th Mountain Division, told IPS. “We would just sit with our binoculars and observe rather than sweep. We’d call in radio checks every hour and say we were doing sweeps.”
Wright added, “It was a common tactic, a lot of people did that. We’d just hang out, listen to music, smoke cigarettes, and pretend.”
The 26-year-old medic complained that his unit did not have any armoured Humvees during his time in Iraq, where he was stationed in Ramadi, capital of the volatile Al Anbar province.
“We put sandbags on the floors of our vehicles, which had canvas doors,” said Wright, who was in Iraq from September 2003 until September 2004. “By the end of our tour, we were bolting any metal we could find to our Humvees. Everyone was doing this, and we didn’t get armoured Humvees in country until after we left.”
Geoff Millard served nine years in the New York Army National Guard, and was in Iraq from October 2004 until October 2005 working for a general at a Tactical Operation Centre.
Millard, also a member of IVAW, said that part of his duties included reporting “significant actions”, or SIGACTS, which is how the U.S. military describes an attack on their forces.
Millard told IPS “search and avoid” missions continue today across Iraq.
“One of my buddies is in Baghdad right now and we email all the time,” he explained, “He just told me that nearly each day they pull into a parking lot, drink soda, and shoot at the cans. They pay Iraqi kids to bring them things and spread the word that they are not doing anything and to please just leave them alone.”
The stats that Dahr Jamail quotes on incidents of PTSD for American soldiers who’ve served long, or repeated, tours of duty in Iraq are shocking.
While the folowing story from the Washington Post carefully avoids the subject of American troops in Iraq avoiding suicidal patrol work, it does bring into focus the kinds of question that leads to soldiers making decisions about why they should avoid placing their lives on the line, when an end to the Iraq War is not in sight, and the ultimate goals of continuing the war change every few months :
Asked if the American endeavor here was worth their sacrifice — 20 soldiers from the battalion have been killed in Baghdad — Alarcon said no: “I don’t think this place is worth another soldier’s life.”
While top U.S. commanders say the statistics of violence have registered a steep drop in Baghdad and elsewhere, the soldiers’ experience in Sadiyah shows that numbers alone do not describe the sense of aborted normalcy — the fear, the disrupted lives — that still hangs over the city.
American soldiers estimate that since violence intensified this year, half of the families in Sadiyah have fled, leaving approximately 100,000 people. After they left, insurgents and militiamen used their abandoned homes to hold meetings and store weapons. The neighborhood deteriorated so quickly that many residents came to believe neither U.S. nor Iraqi security forces could stop it happening.
The descent of Sadiyah followed a now-familiar pattern in Baghdad. In response to suicide bombings blamed on Sunni insurgent groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq, the Shiite militias, particularly the Mahdi Army, went from house to house killing and intimidating Sunni families. In many formerly mixed neighborhoods of Baghdad, such as al-Amil and Bayaa, Shiites have become the dominant sect, with their militias the most powerful force.
“It’s just a slow, somewhat government-supported sectarian cleansing,” said Maj. Eric Timmerman, the battalion’s operations officer.
Many of the soldiers from the battalion are on their second tour in Iraq. Three years ago, they were based in Tikrit, the home of Saddam Hussein, a city they entered expecting to fight a determined Sunni insurgency. By the end of their tour, with much of the violence contained, many of them felt optimistic about progress in Iraq.
“I honestly thought we were making a difference in Tikrit. Then we come back to a hellhole,” Marino said. “That was a playground compared to Baghdad.”
The American people don’t fully realize what’s going on, said Staff Sgt. Richard McClary, 27, a section leader from Buffalo.
“They just know back there what the higher-ups here tell them. But the higher-ups don’t go anywhere, and actually they only go to the safe places, places with a little bit of gunfire,” he said. “They don’t ever [expletive] see what we see on the ground.”
You have to wonder how differently Republican and Democrat senators would feel about the continuance of the Iraq War if they actually spent a week or more with American units who leave the Green Zone.
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Old thoughts endure, not because of the internet or video or technology but because of the quality of the thought. This is why we know of Shakespeare, Plato, Nicholas of Cusa as much as the words of Malcolm X, President John F. Kennedy, and Neil Armstrong. But sometimes using the internet and video to remember those words and a context can add power to those words that aren’t on the tip of the tongue.
In this case it’s the words of President Thomas Jefferson. While the issue of the FCC may not be as dramatic right now, his words ring prophetically as the next election in 2008 approaches. It has a quality in so many facets of life today, and it needs to be heard again.
Fred Thompson has been known to use this quote, but I think it can be applied in so many areas. Perhaps you may feel the same. Share your thoughts with us and let’s see what we all think.
It’s amazing what money will make some people do. Some have sex for it; others sell poison (drugs) to children. The prisons are filled with thieves and petty robbers, and sometimes there are those willing to prostitute themselves just for a buck. In this case I’m referring to 50 cent (Curtis Jackson) appearing on Fox News with Neil Cavuto at 4:50pm Monday, to market a new line of Pontiac cars that he was involved in creating (in other words he put his name on it).
Considering the broad net cast upon Fox News, and the general mood in the gangsta rap industry for the channel I found it amusing that Jackson would appear. But then again, trying to sell the new Pontiac on BET wouldn’t really be possible.
1. There is no news program for him to be on
2. Gangsta rap targets young poorer African Americans
3. The rating suck as few really watch the channel compared to most other cable network programs (though I think they exceed CNN)
So I find it interesting that Jackson went on the channel to pitch the new car essentially to a more conservative, generally White, predominantly Republican, basically older audience. But since he is getting paid (no doubt a licensing deal and or record company perks I imagine) he goes where he is told. But don’t confuse gangsta rappers with sell-outs! That’s just not fair or Black, so I’ve been told.
For those that missed the interview, it was no hatchet job. It was fair and generally stayed on point about this promotion. I found it interesting that for a guy ranking #2 on the Forbes list of top rapper incomes, he only has 3 cars (he never mentioned if any were the car he was pitching). The modesty seems far from the persona he markets on stage, video games and that movie flop.
Which lead to a question about his film coming out next year, April 12th. Sadly I will find something more interesting to do than see him in the film, like take a nap, but I was shocked to hear that Mr. Robert DeNiro and Mr. Al Pacino are in the film. How did he pull that? It’s not like he has talent, nor is he having sex with the director (I presume) so I don’t know what got him the role. I am going to guess it’s a very minor role that will be marketed and hyped as if he were the lead in a $100 million film. No matter what you think of the guy, the fact is he is no Will Smith, or even an Ice Cube.
While this was ongoing, Neil Cavuto referred to a conversation he had with Mr. Sean Combs. They showed a brief clip and the difference in the style between Mr. Combs and Jackson was stark. Mr. Combs looked professional, sharp, casual and wealthy in his suit. Jackson looked like he was just at the gym and paid too much for the quality he had on.
But I digress. Neil Cavuto asked a question of interest about how gangsta rappers are all trying to go mainstream, getting into movies and pretending to be actors. The question was, and I paraphrase both the question and answer,
“I notice that there seems to be a move away from the violence and more to the mainstream. Are you moving away from the violence?
[50 cent] It’s not a move away from aggressive content. Success removes us from the environment, we aren’t writing about those things as much. That doesn’t mean they aren’t there or that someone isn’t writing about it. We’re just not around it.”
Again, I am paraphrasing. If anyone can show me an official transcript I will gladly correct the wording, but the essence has not been changed. And “aggressive content” was exactly the term Jackson used. He was coached very well by his PR people. I was almost impressed by the ex-convict. The subtle change in terminology changing violence, which is what, is advocated and accurately describing the actions described in gangsta rap, to aggressive content implies that his lyrics are no worse than a game of touch football. Talk about spinning a scenario in your favor.
And it’s interesting to note that for the most successful rappers, the ones most in favor of the n-word, being ghetto fabulous, and living the thug-life, (in general) are the ones that have left the ghetto, and lead lives mostly without any connection to the actions they continue to promote. From what I interpreted from Jackson’s words, he believes that essentially the top and longest running rappers are fakes since they have no connection to the events they proclaim rap is meant to ‘keep real’.
[Why do people keep saying that? What does it mean? Keep it real. Like you can fake life. Like there is a choice in being alive. This isn’t the Matrix, when stuff happens it happens. The statement is ignorant, a result of minds refusing to stretch to find the words that actually convey the thought in their head.]
Now add to all this the fact that Jackson likes Senator Hillary Clinton, because he liked her husband. What President Clinton has to do with her holding the Presidency makes no sense to me. She did not gain experience in running the government by osmosis, nor did she have a real power or position when she was First Lady. And her policies, if you can figure out what they are, seem to not match his.
Of course, like most I’ve noticed in support of Senator Clinton, Jackson is strongly against President Bush. When you call the sitting President “without compassion” you clearly state your reasoning. This is not a good reason to pick the next President though. President Bush is not going to run again. He is not going to be elected again. The logic runs false.
And how dare he call any sitting President “without compassion”. I may not agree with all the actions of President Bush, but that is not the same thing as to insult the leader of our nation. I can respect that Jackson may want to bring the troops home, but I also realize that this ex-convict is hardly the most astute political thinker. While President Bush may be slightly more articulate than 50 cent, he is advised by far greater minds, and has always acted in a manner that seems to be guided by a belief that his actions are in the best interest of the nation. Disagree if you wish, but there has not been a successful terrorist attack in this nation to date, several attempts have been made but all were thwarted. And the economy, while not perfect is good.
All in all I found the interview interesting. Curtis Jackson left me unimpressed, his efforts to sell whatever increases his personal wealth left me unfazed. I was amazed that he found himself in a film with quality actors, and learning his political beliefs just makes me hope he keeps them to himself in the future. But it was a fair and mild interview.
You can really get lost in the extraordinary detail of this ultra-high resolution, 16 billion pixels strong image of DaVinci’s The Last Supper. You can now view the entire painting in more detail online than if you were standing in front of the actual painting, with a magnifying glass.
It took 1677 high-res shots to ’scan’ the entire image, soaking up two terabytes of data.
But enough of that. Here’s a closer look out the window behind Jesus :
The Simpsons go up and down in quality, and laughs, but Homer still delivers some of the best, and most, insightful observations of the human condition on television today, deconstructing the the role of the male in modern relationships and holding a mirror up to contemporary suburban society. Or whatever.
I’m normally not a praying man, but if you’re up there, please save me Superman.
When will I learn? The answer to life’s problems aren’t at the bottom of a bottle, they’re on TV!
I?m a lonely insignificant speck on a has-been planet orbited by a cold, indifferent sun.
…you tried your best and you failed miserably. The lesson is, never try.
I’m not a bad guy! I work hard, and I love my kids. So why should I spend half my Sunday hearing about how I’m going to Hell?
The three little sentences that will get you through life. Number 1: Cover for me. Number 2: Oh, good idea, Boss! Number 3: It was like that when I got here.
….what if we chose the wrong religion? Each week we just make God madder and madder.
Dear Lord.. The gods have been good to me. For the first time in my life, everything is absolutely perfect just the way it is. So here’s the deal: You freeze everything the way it is, and I won’t ask for anything more. If that is OK, please give me absolutely no sign. OK, deal.
I’m in no condition to drive…wait! I shouldn’t listen to myself, I’m drunk.
Here’s to alcohol. The cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.
I can’t live the button-down life like you. I want it all! The terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles..
When I held that gun in my hand, I felt a surge of power … like God must feel when he’s holding a gun.
God bless those pagans.
Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that’s even remotely true!
Fame was like a drug, but what was even more like a drug were the drugs…
…it takes two to lie. One to lie and one to listen.
Jesus, Allah, Buddha. I love you all!
When will people learn. Democracy doesn’t work.
…everything looks bad if you remember it.
There are only so many times I can say sorry and still mean it
I’ve learned that life is one crushing defeat after another until you just wish Flanders was dead.
In the list of things that many may not see in movie theaters there is one movie coming out that deserves more attention. This one movie needs to be seen in wide release. This one movie needs to get publicity and critical commentary. This one movie deserves the media hype and sales pitch given to forgettable films like 30 Days of Night or Transformers, but it won’t get it.
The movie is Darfur Now. A simple title and statement. And I would ask, do you even know where Darfur is or what has been happening there for years? Are you aware of what our government is doing about Darfur? If not, why?
But as for the movie, it details 6 lives that are trying to make an impact and those that work with them in this endeavor. In my humble opinion, all those fighting to bring attention and resolution in Darfur deserved the Nobel Peace Prize far more than Mr. Al Gore and his questionable movie. That’s the real intent of the Prize I always thought. The Nobel goes to people like Mother Theresa, Gandhi, Dr. Martin Luther King and such. Not an overly politicized, overly glorified, politician that has not, to my knowledge, even publicly acknowledged Darfur.
Over a million people have been allowed to die without more than a glance by the major news media. Even with the attention major stars like Mr. Don Cheadle (who is featured in the movie), Mr. George Clooney, Mr. Brad Pitt and several others the media and Congress placed this story on the back burner.
For all the movies and news out about wars and conflicts in the world, most discuss the past. This movie discusses the on-going genocide of a people in Darfur. I say that again, on-going. Yet the major news media feels that Ellen Degeneres crying about a puppy deserves 2 day+ of news coverage. Years of murders, with approximately 1 million dead and a puppy going to a different family than where Ms. Degeneres wanted gets 2 days of coverage.
This movie deserves a wide release. It needs coverage. It’s a story that should be told in a big way, even if the studios don’t make a ton of money. Underdog was a complete flop, but they put that out nationally and made a big deal of it. If they could right of that loss, why not take a loss for something that matters and could have an effect of saving hundreds of thousands of lives, literally.
Suffice to say, I suggest seeing the movie. There are plenty of other films coming out by the end of the year to get you into the holiday spirit (not that I think Fred Claus is going to do well or be a good movie) or just thrill you (Mr. Will Smith has a remake that should be quite good out in December). Why not take one day [actually slightly more than 1 ½ hours of one day] to see what is happening in the world, which the major media seems to think you aren’t adult or mature enough to handle.
For now, it’s not illegal for Brits to do a number of very simple things to avoid Big Brother scrutiny. For now.
They can bury messages to friends in forwarded newspaper articles. They can wear hoodies in most city streets and shopping malls to avoid having their faces scanned, ‘mapped’ and stored in databases. They can live ‘off the grid’. They can barter for food. They can use basic, legal technology to hide their vehicle’s number plates from ‘time and place’ registering spy cameras.
Of course, that may all change within a year or two. In the past year alone, British schoolchildren as young as five years old began getting fingerprint scans at school, and some parents have been shocked to learn their infants’ DNA has been registered on a national database. Surveillance cameras in British cities now shout instructions to passers-by, while others record and analyse supposedly ’suspicious behaviour’ in people simply walking to work.
The onslaught of Philip K Dickian ultra-surveillance in the UK has come fast and thick, a cloying torrent of high-tech police state measures that many Brits seem to have no problem accepting as a necessary part of life today. They’ve bought into the spin, and now believe ultra-surveillance provides ultra-security.
But not every Brit believes this, and not every Brit is willing to submit.
You do not need an email address of your own. One hacker I spoke to sends emails from cybercafes via The Observer website, using the service which allows anyone to send any article to a friend. He embeds his message into the covering note which goes with the article.
3 Safeguard your computer and your files
There is sophisticated software that deletes all traces of your activities from your computer. Assuming you don’t have access to this, it is still worth remembering the data about you contained inside each file.
4 Be invisible to CCTV cameras
Steve is a middle-aged IT consultant who lives in a bungalow on a smart private estate in south west London. He has never committed a criminal act. When he goes to business meetings, he wears a suit and tie, but when he walks around his local high street, he dons a hoodie. He does it on principle.
5 Stay off spam mailing lists
6 Prevent supermarkets knowing your shopping habits
(Ed note : dump your store cards. They may give you ten dollars or so credit for every grand you spend, but that store card supplies them with invaluable information on your shopping habits, as well as logging where you shop and how much you spend)
7 Avoid utility companies’ marketing departments
Live off-grid, unplugged from the system with solar panels and rainwater harvesting.
8 Keep your car off the automatic number recognition system
The simplest way is to leave the car at home and use a bicycle. But if you must drive…swap the light above the rear numberplate for an infrared bulb and that will flood the video-camera which operates at near infrared frequency.
9 Safeguard your NHS data
10 Shop outside the system
Another way to avoid buying food is to barter for it. The car park of the pub in the centre of Longframlington village in Northumberland has been a barter centre for decades. On any Friday night between April and October, locals arrive and flip down the backs of their 4×4s laden with the week’s produce, whether its chanterelles, venison, pheasant, line-caught salmon or the latest crop of beetroots and lettuces.
It may seem almost comical to go to these lengths, but the ways companies and the public sector can misuse data isn’t a joke. We cannot trust them to safeguard our data or use it ethically, so we must provide our own safeguards.
The tips are not solely for the Brits. There’s plenty of information in the story that could prove invaluable to anyone living in a city or town where ultra-surveillance is rapidly closing in and who does not wish to submit to the Orwellian mantra of “If you ain’t done nothing wrong, you ain’t got narthin’ to worry about.”
If you ain’t done nothing wrong, you shouldn’t be under surveillance.
BushCo. And Iran ‘War’ Threats Drives Up Oil Prices : Are They Both Conning Us Into Paying More For Our Fuel?
If Iran is hit with air strikes, we’re all going to pay for it. But whether or not BushCo. and/or Israel hits Iran, petrol prices are still climbing due to the ‘global supply instability’ festered up from the exchange of threats and tensions.
This story from the Washington Post quotes numerous oil industry experts saying a War On Iran is highly unlikely, because the global economic destruction wrought by massive increases in oil prices - soaring beyond $120 a barrel - makes the whole idea just plain inconceivable.
A U.S. military strike against Iran would have dire consequences in petroleum markets, say a variety of oil industry experts, many of whom think the prospect of pandemonium in those markets makes U.S. military action unlikely despite escalating economic sanctions imposed by the Bush administration.
Fair enough. But the same story reveals some remarkable facts about the international oil trade and oil supplies, and just how vulnerable they claim these supplies are.
“It will be chaos. . . . I can’t really see it,” said Abdulsamad al-Awadi, an oil trading consultant and former executive at Kuwait Petroleum. “Having been in the marketplace for almost 30 years, I can’t see a scenario for it, or precautionary measures” that oil companies could take. “There are no precautionary measures.”
“If war breaks out, anticipate that all hell will break loose in the oil markets,” said Robin West, chairman of PFC Energy, a District oil consulting firm.
“If it were a botched job with lots of targets and civilians dying and Iranians retaliating . . . it could escalate and the price of oil could shoot up to God knows where.”
Saudi Arabia, which accounts for about 8.7 million barrels a day, produces almost all of the world’s excess oil and is capable of boosting output by about 2.5 million barrels a day, Drollas said. Iran produces 2.5 million barrels a day.
“Can the world do without Iranian oil exports at the present time? The answer is: just,” said a senior planning executive at a major European oil company who spoke on condition of anonymity because the company has a policy not to publicly discuss oil prices. “There is enough spare capacity to offset Iranian exports, but it would be very tight. If every spigot were open everywhere, including Saudi Arabia, that should just about cover it. But it’s not comfortable.”
He and others noted that Iran would not need to attack well-guarded facilities in places like Saudi Arabia or harass tankers in the U.S.-patrolled Strait of Hormuz, at the head of the Persian Gulf. It could simply collaborate with Shiite forces in southern Iraq to cut off Iraq’s roughly 1.7 million barrels a day of production, further weakening its neighbor while driving up prices for its own exports.
“Certainly when you lose 2.5 million barrels a day of Iranian production, which is the most likely case scenario, that will literally just make the market go berserk,” al-Awadi said. Asked whether the companies he worked with had contingency plans, he said, “The oil industry does not have contingency plans.”
Most industrialized nations do have contingency plans; they have strategic petroleum reserves that could be tapped during an emergency. The U.S. Strategic Petroleum Reserve, which was tapped during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 and after Hurricane Katrina in 2005, has nearly 700 million barrels, enough to cover about 68 days of U.S. oil imports from all sources.
At my local 7-11 last night, customers queuing to pay for their petrol were groaning about the coming petrol price rises, mostly due to new war tensions from BushCo., Iran and Turkey. One extremely irate man spun the following theory (rough quote) :
“It’s bullshit, mate. They’re all in on it together. All these big oil countries, they argue and threaten each other and the prices go up. They get rich off their bullshit. Look at them. That bloke in Venezuela, the Iranian nutjob, the Saudis, Bush…they’re fucking laughing at us. We’re this close to going to war, they all yell, and we pay another 10 cents a litre. They’re fucking us, and they’re fucking laughing at us! They do this over and over again, and it always works. Bush and his oil mates get rich, Iran gets rich, the Saudis get even richer, they’re bleeding us fucking dry.”
Sometimes you have to wonder just how close to the truth this punter actually is.
If you’re a NeoCon with a mouthful of easy threats, you can get almost unlimited access to the American media, and through them the world’s media. Make enough threats, create a reality of tension and coming war, and watch the oil prices climb. It’s perhaps then no great coincidence that so many in the White House and the NeoCon elite have such strong ties and business interests in the oil industry.
Make a threat, shout some crap, cream a rich profit off people just trying to get to work.
Former British prime minister Tony Blair is believed to have scored a whopping $US12 million for his memoirs. Before he writes the first chapter.
It makes sense. Lie your nation into one of the deadliest, most destabilizing wars since Vietnam, reduce your military to a shadow of its former self and be vastly rewarded for your disgusting behaviour.
Blair is also said to be now worth more than $US200,000 per speaking engagement. His wife, Cherie Blair, picked up some $US3 million for her memoirs.
In the wake of Blair’s reign as British prime minister, his country is sliding into mass poverty, mind-boggling debt and plunging living standards.
So much for New Labour and Cool Britannia.
Blair is currently interfering in the Middle East peace process, and is also the hot tip to take over the European Union in a year or two.
For years your corporation has had an all but flawless public image, regularly reinforced by barely critical mainstream media profiles and praise. The President of the United States loves you, so does the vice president, as did the secretary of defence.
But then a few of your employees went absolutely berserk in a wealthy neighbourhood and slaughtered some 17 civilians, including women and children, wounding dozens more. The fact that your employees used automatic weapons and gun-launched grenades to obliterate the innocent, and then your executives tried to downplay the reality of what happened, only made the horror all the more appalling.
So what to do?
Well, if your Blackwater Security, you start by re-designing your corporate logo to make it less aggressive.
Readers of Wired’s Danger Room blog decided to help out. If it’s non-aggressive, friendly and downright cute logos that are needed, it’s hard to go past this contribution :
Blackwater Security guards are disgusted over the massacre of innocent civilians by their colleagues in Baghdad, and the Iraqi government is demanding the ’security agency’ pack up and leave, forever.
American Imposes ‘Anti-Terror’ Sanctions On Iranian Banks
BushCo.’s decision to step around the UN and impose its own economic sanctions on Iran is about stopping Iran from pursuing its terrorist causes in the Middle East, arming itself with nuclear weapons and threatening Israel.
Right?
Well, that’s what Bush, Cheney and Rice are saying. But is it the full story?
The US slapped tough sanctions on Iran’s military and three state-owned banks overnight, ratcheting up tensions over its nuclear drive and seeking to choke off funds to Tehran.
“These actions will help to protect the international financial system from the illicit activities of the Iranian government,” US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said.
“They will provide a powerful deterrent to every international bank and company that thinks of doing business with the Iranian government.”
The sanctions target Iran’s elite Quds Force, accused by the US of being a supporter of terrorism, as well as the country’s Revolutionary Guards, said to be a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction.
Some 22 Iranian government agencies, three state-owned banks and individuals are also being blacklisted as the United States steps up a drive to squeeze Iran out of the international banking system.
The bolded final half sentence is the key to the whole story. Forget terror, wiping out Israel and nuclear warheads.
The new US sanctions are all about international banking.
But that’s too boring for all of us. So they try to sell us another story. The Big Nuclear Terror story.
But look what Iran has been with its holdings of US Dollars over the past few months, in a series of financial events that culminated only days before the US suddenly announced the new sanctions that have stunned the European Union and raised threats from Russia and China.
Iran has just finished dumping the US Dollar. The Euro, and Russian and Chinese currency will now replace virtually all Iranian transactions, sales and trades formerly pegged to the stumbling, anemic US Dollar :
Iran has finished the diversification of its assets away from the dollar, reported the Gulf News on Monday. “We have done our best to implement this diversification in both our resources, instruments and forex reserves in order to get maximum out of our assets,” said Tahmasb Maaheri, Iran’s central bank governor, according to the newspaper’s Web site.
Maaheri told Washington-based Emerging Market magazine the process of diversification is almost 100 per cent.
Political tensions with the U.S. and the weakness of the dollar in the past two years “could be cited as two fundamental reasons behind Iran’s move to diversify its assets away from the dollar.”
But Iran is not alone in shoving the US Dollar overboard :
The Dubai newspaper also pointed out to recent statistics from the U.S. Treasury Department illustrating the position of other Middle Eastern countries in diversifying their reserves.
“The latest data … showed outflows of $163 billion from all forms of U.S. investments in August,” reported the paper.
Asian investors are now selling wads of US Treasury bonds, that is US debt, valued in the tens of billions of dollars. In August alone, investors from China, Taiwan and Japan got rid of $US52 billion.
We are told US sanctions will isolate Iran. They will do no such thing. Iran will just increase the amount of business it does with China, Russia, India, Afghanistan and Pakistan instead.
If you want to be really cynical about it, you could well say that the US only imposed these sanctions because they knew Iran was getting out of the US Dollar business, and wanted to look like they were playing tough when they’re actually doing nothing of the sort.
Read the front page news, but always take a quick flick through the financial pages. That’s usually where the real story is buried.
Those cursed Evil Lefties, they even got to Harry Potter.
Or so claims a French philosopher. He says all seven Potter novels are anti-Thatcherite tomes and pose powerful, influential arguments against globalization and the spread of Americanism, or something.
Then again, you would expect a French philosopher to say that, wouldn’t you?
His theories do, however, raise some interesting issues. It’s probably worth remembering, too, that JK Rowling is no conservative, though she is clearly nostalgic about Britain in the 1950s and 1960s. Anyone who read the final Harry Potter novel will know her feelings about the Iraq War, and the legitimacy of anti-imperialistic resistance.
“It must be said from the start that Harry Potter is deeply political and that the books speak of today’s England,” Jean-Claude Milner told the left-wing newspaper Liberation today.
“Reading it, one can see that JK Rowling - like many cultured English people - believes there was a real Thatcherite revolution, that it was a disaster, and that culture’s only chance is to survive as an occult science.”
According to Milner, Harry’s world of magic - and especially the elite public school setting of the Hogwarts school of wizardry - offer a means of resistance against a triumphant middle-class represented by the non-magic Muggles.
“Harry’s uncle and aunt - Muggles par excellence - live like heroes of Margaret Thatcher’s world, in a neat little estate where all the houses are identical,” he said.
“One can equally say that modern England is a world where the Muggles have indeed taken power, first with Margaret Thatcher and then with Tony Blair - a world where the omnipotence of the middle class is given free rein,” he said.
For Milner, Hogwarts provides a refuge for the minority who wish to preserve civilisation from the dangers of globalisation.
“…Harry Potter is a war-machine against Thatchero-Blairism and the ‘American way of life’.
As for the evil Voldemort, he is the “super-spin doctor”.
A wizard himself, he is proof that culture alone is not enough to save the world, Milner says.
Power-mad, he differs from good wizards because he lacks “nobility of soul”.
“So we have on one side the Muggles, where oppression means power over things; and on the other hand Hogwarts, where knowledge enables one to resist the materialism of the Muggles - but also opens the way to power over people.
“This terrible power, which Voldemort seeks and which we call tyranny, is one of the themes of Harry Potter - and indeed one of the themes of English literature since Dickens and Orwell,” he said.
I want to remind everyone that tomorrow there will be a march in Charleston West Virginia on behalf of Ms. Megan Williams. The march is planned to start at 12 noon.
The purpose of the march is to draw national attention. This crime has been largely ignored to this point, on the horrendous and obvious hate crime that was committed there. 6 Whites (men and women) kidnapped and tortured Ms. Williams for over a week. The major news media has turned a blind eye to this event, and it cannot be allowed.
Go here to be able to see a video of Ms. Williams describing what she had to endure. http://video.ap.org/v/Legacy.aspx?g=97224454-cfa0-4fda-8b5f-a1dc25ebce27&f=wvchg&fg=email&partner=en-ap
After hearing that, realize that this is still only being covered in local news and that information is difficult to receive. Then think of how much attention this would garner if only half of this was done to a White woman by Blacks.
You can see details for this march at http://www.blacklawyersforjustice.org/ . I strongly suggest visiting this site for details on the march. You can find multiple posts concerning this case by clicking Megan Williams at the bottom of this post.
In addition you may want to consider a donation to the fund for Ms. Williams to help her cover her medical and legal bills. Were it your child you’d want them to be returned to health, and see their attackers punished to the full extent of the law.
We cannot let acts like this get pushed to the wayside. If the major media can discuss Ellen Degeneres’ dog for 2 days, they certainly can discuss this case. If they can waste my time, and kill my brain cells, discussing the endless saga of Britney Spears and her multiple acts of absolute idiocy, then how dare they not discuss this case.
They must. We must remind the media and the legal system that no matter the everyday bias, there is a line and this crossed it. Justice must be for all if it is to be for anyone.
If you’re still alive in 2040 or so, kids are going to come up to you and say “What the hell was going with you people back in 2001-2010? Did you all just totally lose your minds or what?”
But what they will really want to know is what the deal was with Bush-Cheney. They will want to know if they really were as insane as people in 2040 claim they are. You will only be able to nod, sigh, and then shiver.
I’ve spent a lot of time tracking news stories about President Bush over the past 12 months, and I’ve spent far too many hours reading just about every one of his speeches, for The Last Days Of President Bush blog.
I’ve tried to highlight the good things Bush has done, and of course I’ve covered the absurdities, his threats of violence, his sometimes truly bizarre behaviour and his quotable quotes.
Stupidly, I’ve actually clung to the hope that Bush might actually surprise everyone and make the last two years of his time in the White House into something really special. That he might unfurl a plan to reshape the world for the good of the many, for the betterment of the poor and downtrodden. That he might do something, anything, that would make up for the excruciatingly grim holocaust unleashed by his illegal Iraq War.
Put simply, the question that refused to leave my head was : ‘Come on, he can’t all that bad, can he? I mean, he’s the president.’
But after reading that Bush put the veto to a $US50 billion improvement of health care for poor American children, and then, only 48 hours later, turned around and demanded another $47 billion or so to fund more war…well, that’s it then. Isn’t it?
He’s beyond hope.
He’s a filthy unrelenting whore of the American, and international, arms industry. And he doesn’t give a shit.
And sitting right beside him, only still managing to cling to life thanks to the brilliance of modern medical technology that he wants to deny the poorest of the American poor, is Dick Cheney. An ogre of our age. A dark and brutal blight on the good name of the American people.
I mean, look at them. Look at the photo. The Drunkard and the Ghoul, who now want to unleash incomprehensible violence upon the people of Iran, not because their president has nuclear weapons, or is even trying to build nuclear weapons. They want to kill thousands, if not tens of thousands, of innocent people in Iran, to stop that odious president from gaining the knowledge to build nuclear weapons.
The Knowledge.
Bush & Cheney are pumping for a war on information.
Bush said that he told countries that want to avoid World War 3 that they have to stop the Iranian president from gaining the knowledge to build nuclear weapons.
The same knowledge that kicks around to this day in literally thousands of text books, published from the early 1950s and onwards. The same knowledge that appeared in a ‘popular mechanics’ type magazine in Australia in the late 1970s in a front page cover story titled ‘How To Build Your Own Atom Bomb.’
Bush & Cheney are looking for any excuse to begin bombing Iran. Blood crazed NeoCons are demanding they do it now. Not later. Now, now, now.
Russia and China are saying “No way, it ain’t gonna happen” and American Iraq War allies like Australia and the UK are scrabbling to get out of the way. Just in case.
They’ll tell us soon enough that air strikes on Iran will be carefully targeted to avoid civilian casualties, but we’ve all heard that one before, haven’t we?
Maybe Bush will even announce that it was actually Iranians who were responsible for the 9/11 attacks. Hell, why not try that? Two years of near ceaseless fear-mongering about Iran has done little to get the American people on side. Why not go all out and claim that it was actually Iran who launched the 9/11 attacks?
I’m in regular e-mail contact with people in Iran. If this blog never achieves anything other than allowing me to make contact with these wonderful people, then I’ll always think of it as utterly worthwhile.
We talk via e-mail about books, movies, music, about weird stories in the news, about great places to visit in Australia if they ever get the chance to come to my homeland, and they always ask me to come to Iran. They love their country, they love their cities and villages, they’re immensely proud of who they are, and they want to show off their country to people in The West, who see little of Iran but that president.
For example, did you know that tens of thousands of young Iranians go skiing every year in the mountains? I didn’t, until some of them sent me photos. They looked like they were holidaying in the Australia ski-fields, or on a slope in the Alps.
What have we done wrong? they ask. Why do your people hate us so much? Do your friends think we are monsters? Are the Americans and Israelis really going to attack us? How can we stop it? We don’t want to become like the Iraqis, please help us.
So what do you say back to people in Iran who ask you questions like that? Duck?
I’m sorry?
Know this now, if Bush & Cheney get their World War 3 it will The West that goes down in history as the aggressor this time. The ones who started it all. It is The West who launched devastating pre-emptive war, using false intelligence, fully against the wishes of the world, and their own people. It is The West who now wants to park missiles on Russia’s borders, who wants to attack the innocent people of Iran, who wants to stop the people of Iraq from running their own country and doing business with whoever they please.
It’s not them.
It’s us.
Can America really survive another 15 months of Bush & Cheney?
Do we need another celebrity reality series? Is there any reason for another ‘reality’ program of any sort? Obviously network television executives think so. And one of the upcoming programs has potential. That is the potential to by abysmally bad, or astoundingly good. My bet is towards the bad, and mark my words, there is no middle ground.
Why are there so many ‘reality’ programs? They are cheap. They are dumb. They embarrass, in general, individuals and more commonly these days’ celebrities. The first 2 reasons are attractive to networks because it means they are easy to profit off of. No real sets, smaller crews, no writers (sort of), and no debates on renewing contracts. But all the profits of a successful show even if it’s only in the lower half of all programs on television.
The last reason is self-defining. The public loves to watch entertainers and celebrities fall. Add into the mix the fact that these shows tend to emphasize the bottom tier of notables, those with lesser or barely existent talents and the envy gives way to mean spirited laughter at their expense. That’s the honest answer why most watch these things. It’s not humor with, but at those on the program. It’s the most base and scraping the bottom of the barrel common denominator in television since it was invented.
This reminds me of what Senior Drill Instructor Sgt. Williams used to call television, ITV. Meaning idiot television. 20 years after the fact he is more correct than ever before.
But there are moments of real human interest. Like when Flava Flav would up in a relationship with Bridgette Nielsen, who would have guessed that? Or that Christopher Knight would wind up marrying model Adrianne Curry. But such real and warm moments are fleeting.
Then there are the programs made to emulate the reality of life, with a twist. Like the show Entourage. I’ve never seen it, so I have no clue on its appeal or quality. But I trust the multiple sources that state it’s wonderful. Even moreso because it seems that the Wayans’ family will be involved with a similar (possibly rip-off) version of the program. You know you are doing well in Hollywood when others copy what you are doing.
Now the word is that this will be on VH1. And thus we see how it could be great or horrendous and nothing in-between. VH1 LOVES celebrity ‘reality’ programs. They love to talk about anything involving un-scripted celebrity life. Entourage is right in that vain. And as one blogger mentioned (Whudat.com) if it’s about the lives of the various Wayans clan that could be interesting.
But on the other side are the issues. VH1 is owned by Viacom, the company responsible for the programming at Black Entertainment Television (BET) for years. VH1 is home of the various Flava Flav programs like Flava of Love. To say it succinctly, Viacom has shown a repeated, company wide, ideology of portraying African Americans in the worst light possible.
Add to that that the last several project headed by Shawn Wayans, Lil Man and White Chicks, have neither been the most successful or highest quality to come out of the family. While there is a relationship with Viacom (the old WB program headed by Shawn and Marlon is shown regularly on BET) that is not to say it’s a great one. And if this Entourage-esque program is just their written work, given the standards and expectations of Viacom, horror seems a big potential.
Now I have nothing against the probably most successful Black family in television and movies. I like the work that Keenan and Damon have done, generally. There’s even been one or 2 things that Shawn and Marlon have done that was of some interest. And I love the fact that they provide more work for more African Americans and minorities than roughly a dozen other programs or films, in front of the camera and behind it.
But I still have reservations. Will I see what the program is like when it’s announced? Surely. Will I be happy to know that they are employing so many that every other studio and Production Company seems to be oblivious to, definitely. Would I look at the minor characters and sideline people for up and coming stars? Without doubt, as the family has a knack for finding and developing talent everyone else ignores. [Where did Jim Carrey, Jennifer Lopez, Tommy Davidson, and Jamie Foxx all come from?]
So I will wait and see what VH1 goes with. I hope for a great show, which is quite possible. But I also will steady myself if Viacom is true to its unspoken corporate policy and the program is horrendous. At least we know what the odds are.
The above photo was submitted to the LA Times by Matt Doolin
One million people evacuated - the largest evacuation in California’s history
1500 Homes Destroyed
Hundreds of other buildings destroyed or damage
Thousands of businesses close their doors
5 Killed, Hundreds suffering from smoke inhalation
More than 14 major fires rage out of control
Half a million acres burned
Resources of firefighters, National Guard pushed to their limits
Estimates of three days before winds subdue and fires can be brought under control
Firefighters have admitted defeat in trying to contain or put out some of the larger fires. They will now be allowed to burn until they’re finished.
Reader Ron K. sent through this quote he picked up from a radio station in LA :
The guy was screaming into the phone. He said he could see waves of fire, balls of fires, ripping through house after house. He said “it’s like a movie…it’s like watching scenes from the Apocalypse”.
The LA Times has an excellent breaking news blog of up to the minute news from reporters on the scene of numerous fires, with plenty of local ‘colour’ stories, like the one detailing how evacuated home owners who can’t get through to authorities to see if their homes have been destroyed, are instead phoning home to see if the answering machines click on.
CNN is now reporting that these are the worst fires in the history of California, and San Diego.
According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) it is now official, the H5N1 bird flu virus no longer needs birds to infect humans, it can now pass between people by itself.
Is this how the pandemic begins? With a small story that barely grabs headlines finally confirming that the H5N1 virus has ‘learned’ how to spread from one human to another?
We have mentioned before that the WHO was moving towards confirmation that “clusters” of bird flu victims in Indonesia could prove human to human transmission was taking place, but this is the first time we’ve seen the claims confirmed by the World Health Organization as fact.
An interesting argument here about whether or not there might be less problems in the world today if we were all more like the ancient Greeks and believed in many gods, instead of just one.
Prominent secular and atheist commentators have argued lately that religion “poisons” human life and causes endless violence and suffering. But the poison isn’t religion; it’s monotheism. The polytheistic Greeks didn’t advocate killing those who worshiped different gods, and they did not pretend that their religion provided the right answers. Their religion made the ancient Greeks aware of their ignorance and weakness, letting them recognize multiple points of view.
Openness to discussion and inquiry is a distinguishing feature of Greek theology. It suggests that collective decisions often lead to a better outcome. Respect for a diversity of viewpoints informs the cooperative system of government the Athenians called democracy.
Unlike the monotheistic traditions, Greco-Roman polytheism was multicultural. The Greeks and Romans did not share the narrow view of the ancient Hebrews that a divinity could only be masculine. Like many other ancient peoples in the eastern Mediterranean, the Greeks recognized female divinities, and they attributed to goddesses almost all of the powers held by the male gods.
The existence of many different gods also offers a more plausible account than monotheism of the presence of evil and confusion in the world.
….in the monotheistic traditions, in which God is omnipresent and always good, mortals must take the blame for whatever goes wrong, even though God permits evil to exist in the world he created.
…as the Greeks saw it, the gods made life hard for humans, didn’t seek to improve the human condition and allowed people to suffer and die. As a palliative, the gods could offer only to see that great achievement was memorialized. There was no hope of redemption, no promise of a happy life or rewards after death. If things did go wrong, as they inevitably did, humans had to seek comfort not from the gods but from other humans.
… the main advantage of ancient Greek religion lies in this ability to recognize and accept human fallibility. Mortals cannot suppose that they have all the answers.
Ancient Greek religion gives an account of the world that in many respects is more plausible than that offered by the monotheistic traditions. Greek theology openly discourages blind confidence based on unrealistic hopes that everything will work out in the end. Such healthy skepticism about human intelligence and achievements has never been needed more than it is today.
There’s arguments in this story that are worthy of consideration and provide the basis for fiery arguments and debate, but we need to go forward, not backwards.
Why not utilize technology to create our own gods? A personal god? A god of your own, designed and constructed and spouting rhetoric of your own choosing, like an all powerful World Of Warcraft avatar?
There’s a business idea that could find a huge volume of gullible customers : designer gods.
Why aren’t you celebrating? Don’t you know what October 23 represents? It’s the 6010th birthday of the world and everything in it. Well, if you subscribe to the evangelical concept of world history, where evolution and fossil records and geological history matters not a frip.
How old is the world?
Most people would say: “Nobody knows.”
Actually, most people would say a few billion years old, at the minimum. But anyway…
…the author of the book frequently described as the greatest history book ever written, said the world was created Oct. 23, 4004 B.C. – making it exactly 6,010 today.
In the 1650s, an Anglican bishop named James Ussher published his Annals of the World.
The book, now published in English for the first time, is a favorite of homeschoolers and those who take ancient history seriously.
Ancient history that doesn’t extend back more than 4000 or so years.
