Punditman says...Last night punditman watched "State of Play," the 2009 movie with Russell Crowe, Helen Mirren, Ben Affleck, and Rachel McAdams. Punditman highly recommends it. Among other issues, it deals with the subject of the outsourcing of war for profit through mercenary armies. Art imitating life.
by Tim Shorrock
As American commanders meet this week for the Afghanistan review, Obama is hiring military contractors at a rate that would make Bush blush. Tim Shorrock on the Blackwater heirs.
Top U.S. commanders are meeting this week to plan for the next phase of the Afghanistan war. In Iraq, meanwhile, gains are tentative and in danger of unraveling.
Both wars have been fought with the help of private military and intelligence contractors. But despite the troubles of Blackwater in particular – charges of corruption and killing of civilians—and continuing controversy over military outsourcing in general, private sector armies are as involved as ever.
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Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label war. Show all posts
12/22/10
7/24/09
America's Wars: How Serial War Became the American Way of Life
punditman says...The thing that got punditman to start his website and to later morph it into this blog was the impending and subsequent American invasion of Iraq. Think about it: Punditman predates blogs.
The start of the Iraq War is beginning to feel like a long time ago. I think. And yet Iraq is far from resolved or peaceful. Think about it: What has changed in your life since 2003? Most of you will point to many things. But the problem is that not much has changed in terms of American foreign policy. As this cogent article points out, each new president is now expected to never give up one war without taking on another. Welcome to the age of perpetual warfare. It behooves us all to ask, "What is to be done about it?" Have a peaceful weekend.
By David Bromwich | TomDispatch.com
On July 16, in a speech to the Economic Club of Chicago, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that the “central question” for the defense of the United States was how the military should be “organized, equipped — and funded — in the years ahead, to win the wars we are in while being prepared for threats on or beyond the horizon.” The phrase beyond the horizon ought to sound ominous. Was Gates telling his audience of civic-minded business leaders to spend more money on defense in order to counter threats whose very existence no one could answer for? Given the public acceptance of American militarism, he could speak in the knowledge that the awkward challenge would never be posed.
We have begun to talk casually about our wars; and this should be surprising for several reasons. To begin with, in the history of the United States war has never been considered the normal state of things. For two centuries, Americans were taught to think war itself an aberration, and "wars" in the plural could only have seemed doubly aberrant. Younger generations of Americans, however, are now being taught to expect no end of war -- and no end of wars.
For anyone born during World War II, or in the early years of the Cold War, the hope of international progress toward the reduction of armed conflict remains a palpable memory. After all, the menace of the Axis powers, whose state apparatus was fed by wars, had been stopped definitively by the concerted action of Soviet Russia, Great Britain, and the United States. The founding of the United Nations extended a larger hope for a general peace. Organizations like the Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) and the Union of Concerned Scientists reminded people in the West, as well as in the Communist bloc, of a truth that everyone knew already: the world had to advance beyond war. The French philosopher Alain Finkielkraut called this brief interval "the Second Enlightenment" partly because of the unity of desire for a world at peace. And the name Second Enlightenment is far from absurd. The years after the worst of wars were marked by a sentiment of universal disgust with the very idea of war.
Keep Reading (scroll when you get there to find your place)...
2/2/09
Robert Fisk’s World: When did we stop caring about civilian deaths during wartime?
The mere monitoring of bloody conflict assumes precedence over human suffering
I wonder if we are "normalising" war. It's not just that Israel has yet again got away with the killing of hundreds of children in Gaza.
And after its own foreign minister said that Israel's army had been allowed to "go wild" there, it seems to bear out my own contention that the Israeli "Defence Force" is as much a rabble as all the other armies in the region. But we seem to have lost the sense of immorality that should accompany conflict and violence. The BBC's refusal to handle an advertisement for Palestinian aid was highly instructive. It was the BBC's "impartiality" that might be called into question. In other words, the protection of an institution was more important than the lives of children. War was a spectator sport whose careful monitoring – rather like a football match, even though the Middle East is a bloody tragedy – assumed precedence over human suffering.
I'm not sure where all this started. No one doubts that the Second World War was a bloodbath of titanic proportions, but after that conflict we put in place all kinds of laws to protect human beings. The International Red Cross protocols, the United Nations – along with the all-powerful Security Council and the much ridiculed General Assembly – and the European Union were created to end large-scale conflict. And yes, I know there was Korea (under a UN flag!) and then there was Vietnam, but after the US withdrawal from Saigon, there was a sense that "we" didn't do wars any more. Foreigners could commit atrocities en masse – Cambodia comes to mind – but we superior Westerners were exempt. We didn't behave like that. Low-intensity warfare in Northern Ireland, perhaps. And the Israeli-Arab conflict would grind away. But there was a feeling that My Lai had been put behind us. Civilians were once again sacred in the West.
Keep Reading...
punditman says...
It's amazing what the politics of fear can do. For awhile after 9-11, people were afraid of terrorists popping out from under their beds and putting anthrax in their pajamas. White powder scares brought out SWAT teams in the most obscure locations. Some idiots even bought duct tape to protect their homes from chemical attack. Remember...WTF?
Now with this economic mess, people are turning inward again, afraid of losing their jobs, houses and savings, so they're hoarding lima beans and raising chickens on their balconys. Hmmm...perhaps this crisis is yet another way to keep people afraid and insular so that they won't band together for real change? In other words, it's an engineered crisis. 9-11 has lost its desired affect. WMDs was 99% poppycock. Punditman will have to think about that a little more.
Yet still, the war machine marches on, gobbling up precious resources while bringing death and destruction in its wake. Innocent people are being killed in our names. Does anyone care anymore? Robert Fisk does. Peacenik does. Punditman does.
I wonder if we are "normalising" war. It's not just that Israel has yet again got away with the killing of hundreds of children in Gaza.
And after its own foreign minister said that Israel's army had been allowed to "go wild" there, it seems to bear out my own contention that the Israeli "Defence Force" is as much a rabble as all the other armies in the region. But we seem to have lost the sense of immorality that should accompany conflict and violence. The BBC's refusal to handle an advertisement for Palestinian aid was highly instructive. It was the BBC's "impartiality" that might be called into question. In other words, the protection of an institution was more important than the lives of children. War was a spectator sport whose careful monitoring – rather like a football match, even though the Middle East is a bloody tragedy – assumed precedence over human suffering.
I'm not sure where all this started. No one doubts that the Second World War was a bloodbath of titanic proportions, but after that conflict we put in place all kinds of laws to protect human beings. The International Red Cross protocols, the United Nations – along with the all-powerful Security Council and the much ridiculed General Assembly – and the European Union were created to end large-scale conflict. And yes, I know there was Korea (under a UN flag!) and then there was Vietnam, but after the US withdrawal from Saigon, there was a sense that "we" didn't do wars any more. Foreigners could commit atrocities en masse – Cambodia comes to mind – but we superior Westerners were exempt. We didn't behave like that. Low-intensity warfare in Northern Ireland, perhaps. And the Israeli-Arab conflict would grind away. But there was a feeling that My Lai had been put behind us. Civilians were once again sacred in the West.
Keep Reading...
punditman says...
It's amazing what the politics of fear can do. For awhile after 9-11, people were afraid of terrorists popping out from under their beds and putting anthrax in their pajamas. White powder scares brought out SWAT teams in the most obscure locations. Some idiots even bought duct tape to protect their homes from chemical attack. Remember...WTF?
Now with this economic mess, people are turning inward again, afraid of losing their jobs, houses and savings, so they're hoarding lima beans and raising chickens on their balconys. Hmmm...perhaps this crisis is yet another way to keep people afraid and insular so that they won't band together for real change? In other words, it's an engineered crisis. 9-11 has lost its desired affect. WMDs was 99% poppycock. Punditman will have to think about that a little more.
Yet still, the war machine marches on, gobbling up precious resources while bringing death and destruction in its wake. Innocent people are being killed in our names. Does anyone care anymore? Robert Fisk does. Peacenik does. Punditman does.
8/13/08
Georgia War a Neocon Election Ploy?
By Robert Scheer
Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?
Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government who ended his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.
Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century. It was Scheunemann who, after working on the McCain 2000 presidential campaign, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which championed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
There are telltale signs that he played a similar role in the recent Georgia flare-up. How else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, an invasion that clearly was expected to produce a Russian counterreaction? It is inconceivable that Saakashvili would have triggered this dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans he trusted, like Scheunemann, that the United States would have his back. Scheunemann long guided McCain in these matters, even before he was officially running foreign policy for McCain’s presidential campaign.
In 2005, while registered as a paid lobbyist for Georgia, Scheunemann worked with McCain to draft a congressional resolution pushing for Georgia’s membership in NATO. A year later, while still on the Georgian payroll, Scheunemann accompanied McCain on a trip to that country, where they met with Saakashvili and supported his bellicose views toward Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Full Article...
punditman says...
The article above notes, "What a stark contradiction that the United States, which championed Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, now is ignoring Georgia’s invasion of its ethnically rebellious provinces."
This observation is no surprise to anyone who has ever read Chomsky. In fact, it is the usual hypocritical, propaganda-driven double standard we've come to expect from each and every US administration, obediently parroted by Western media outlets.
Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?
Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government who ended his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.
Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century. It was Scheunemann who, after working on the McCain 2000 presidential campaign, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which championed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
There are telltale signs that he played a similar role in the recent Georgia flare-up. How else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, an invasion that clearly was expected to produce a Russian counterreaction? It is inconceivable that Saakashvili would have triggered this dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans he trusted, like Scheunemann, that the United States would have his back. Scheunemann long guided McCain in these matters, even before he was officially running foreign policy for McCain’s presidential campaign.
In 2005, while registered as a paid lobbyist for Georgia, Scheunemann worked with McCain to draft a congressional resolution pushing for Georgia’s membership in NATO. A year later, while still on the Georgian payroll, Scheunemann accompanied McCain on a trip to that country, where they met with Saakashvili and supported his bellicose views toward Russia’s Vladimir Putin.
Full Article...
punditman says...
The article above notes, "What a stark contradiction that the United States, which championed Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, now is ignoring Georgia’s invasion of its ethnically rebellious provinces."
This observation is no surprise to anyone who has ever read Chomsky. In fact, it is the usual hypocritical, propaganda-driven double standard we've come to expect from each and every US administration, obediently parroted by Western media outlets.
8/5/08
War! (What is it Good For?) - Joan Osborne & Bob Weir
punditman says...What a great soul-felt rendition of the Edwin Starr classic!
6/1/08
Enabling Nuke Proliferation
by Gordon Prather
www.antiwar.com
www.antiwar.com
Surely you already knew – without reading Scott McClellan's mea culpa – that the Cheney Cabal came to power in January, 2001, determined to firmly establish by any means an American Hegemony, removing or destroying any opposition regimes.
But, how to rationalize to you the absolute necessity for "removing" those pesky regimes? And how to justify to you the use of nukes – if “necessary” – to effect those removals?
Well, within days of the spectacularly successful second attack by al-Qaeda on the World Trade Center Towers, the Cheney Cabal had formulated their game plan.
And in his first State of the Union Address, President George W. Bush, already the self-anointed Commander-in-Chief of the War on Terror, outlined it.
After singling out the pesky regimes then in place in North Korea, Iran and Iraq, Bush declared that –
"States like these, and their terrorist allies, constitute an axis of evil, arming to threaten the peace of the world. By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger. They could provide these arms to terrorists, giving them the means to match their hatred. They could attack our allies or attempt to blackmail the United States.
"In any of these cases, the price of indifference would be catastrophic.I will not wait on events, while dangers gather. I will not stand by, as peril draws closer and closer. The United States of America will not permit the world's most dangerous regimes to threaten us with the world's most destructive weapons."
For reasons perhaps known only to Bush, himself, within hours of the Twin Towers coming down, he had directed that plans be drawn up to invade and occupy Iraq.
In August 2003, Walter Pincus and Barton Gellman at the Washington Post revealed to you that the White House Iraq Group had been established by President Bush's chief of staff in August 2002, to essentially "market" to you gullible consumers what was – as we now know, thanks to the Downing Street Memos – Bush's impending war of aggression against Iraq.
WHIG – which met weekly in the White House Situation Room – included the president's political adviser Karl Rove, National Security Adviser Condi Rice, her deputy Stephen Hadley, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby, and various congressional-relations and media-relations flacks.
The rationale for the upcoming invasion and occupation of Iraq was to be the (known to be non-existent) threat to you and yours of "mushroom clouds."
Known to be non-existent?
You better believe.
punditman says...As in the case of the lead-up to the war on Iraq, Iran now is being asked to prove a negative. From the above link, we read:
In the case of Iran, Director-General ElBaradei has consistently reported to the IAEA Board that he can find "no indication" that any NPT-proscribed materials have ever been "diverted" to any purpose, military or otherwise.
Therefore, the IAEA Board is acting corruptly, contrary to its own Statute, when it repeatedly requires Iran to essentially "prove" to ElBaradei that it does not have a nuclear weapons program, never had a nuclear weapons program, and does not intend to ever have a nuclear weapons program.
Similarly, the Security Council is acting corruptly, contrary to the UN Charter, when it imposes Article 41 sanctions on Iran without ever making a determination under Article 39 that Iran's IAEA Safeguarded uranium-enrichment program constitutes a "threat to the peace"!
5/13/08
Disturbing Stirrings - Ratcheting Up For War on Iran
by Stephen Lendman
Led by Dick Cheney, Bush administration neocons want war on Iran. So does the Israeli Lobby, but it doesn't mean they'll get it. Powerful forces in Washington and the Pentagon are opposed and so far have prevailed. Nonetheless, worrisome recent events increase the possibility and must be closely watched.
Global Research, May 12, 2008
Led by Dick Cheney, Bush administration neocons want war on Iran. So does the Israeli Lobby, but it doesn't mean they'll get it. Powerful forces in Washington and the Pentagon are opposed and so far have prevailed. Nonetheless, worrisome recent events increase the possibility and must be closely watched.
Recall George Bush's January 10, 2007 address to the nation. He announced the 20,000 troop "surge" and more. "Succeeding in Iraq," he said, "also requires defending its territorial integrity and stabilizing the region in the face of extremist challenges. This begins with addressing Iran and Syria. These two regimes are allowing 'terrorists' and 'insurgents' to use their territory to move in and out of Iraq. Iran is providing material support for attacks on American troops. We will disrupt (those) attacks....we will seek out and destroy the networks providing advanced weaponry and training to our enemies in Iraq."
That was then; this is now. On May 3, Andrew Cockburn wrote on CounterPunch: "Six weeks ago, President Bush signed a secret 'finding' authorizing a covert offensive against the Iranian regime that, according to those familiar with its contents, (is) 'unprecedented in its scope.' " The directive permits a range of actions across a broad area costing hundreds of millions with an initial $300 million for starters. Elements of the scheme include:
-- targeted assassinations;
-- funding Iranian opposition groups; among them - Mujahedin-e-Khalq that the State Department designates a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO); Jundullah, the "army of god militant Sunni group in Iranian Baluchistan; Iranian Kurdish nationalists; and Ahwazi arabs in southwest Iran;
-- destabilizing Syria and Hezbollah; the current Lebanon turbulence raises the stakes;
-- putting a hawkish commander in charge; more on that below; and
-- kicking off things at the earliest possible time.
These type efforts and others were initiated before and likely never stopped. So it remains to be seen what differences emerge this time and how much more intense they become.
More concerns were cited in a Michael Smith May 4 Times Online report headlined "United States is drawing up plans to strike on Iranian insurgency camp." It refers to a "surgical strike" against an "insurgent training camp." In spite of hostile signals, however, "the administration has put plans for an attack on Iran's nuclear facilities on the back burner" after Gates replaced Rumsfeld. The article makes several other key points:
-- "American defense chiefs (meaning top generals and admirals) are firmly opposed to (attacking) Iranian nuclear facilities;"
-- on the other hand, they very much support hitting one or more "training camps (to) deliver a powerful message to Tehran;"
-- in contrast, UK officials downplay Iranian involvement in Iraq even though Tehran's Revolutionary Guard has close ties to al-Sadr and his Mahdi Army; and
-- Bush and Cheney are determined not to hand over "the Iran problem" to a successor.
5/2/08
The Iranian Chessboard: Five Ways to Think About Iran Under the Gun
By Pepe Escobar
TomDispatch.com
TomDispatch.com
More than two years ago, Seymour Hersh disclosed in the New Yorker how George W. Bush was considering strategic nuclear strikes against Iran. Ever since, a campaign to demonize that country has proceeded in a relentless, Terminator-like way, applying the same techniques and semantic contortions that were so familiar in the period before the Bush administration launched its invasion of Iraq.
The campaign's greatest hits are widely known: "The ayatollahs" are building a Shi'ite nuclear bomb; Iranian weapons are killing American soldiers in Iraq; Iranian gunboats are provoking U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf - Iran, in short, is the new al-Qaeda, a terror state aimed at the heart of the United States. It's idle to expect the American mainstream media to offer any tools that might put this orchestrated blitzkrieg in context.
Here are just a few recent instances of the ongoing campaign: Secretary of Defense Robert Gates insists that Iran "is hell-bent on acquiring nuclear weapons." Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, admits that the Pentagon is planning for "potential military courses of action" when it comes to Iran. In tandem with U.S. commander in Iraq Gen. David Petraeus, Mullen denounces Iran's "increasingly lethal and malign influence" in Iraq, although he claims to harbor "no expectations" of an attack on Iran "in the immediate future" and even admits he has "no smoking gun which could prove that the highest leadership [of Iran] is involved."
But keep in mind one thing the Great Saddam Take-out of 2003 proved: that a "smoking gun" is, in the end, irrelevant. And this week, the U.S. is ominously floating a second aircraft carrier battle group into the Persian Gulf.
But what of Iran itself under the blizzard of charges and threats? What to make of it? What does the world look like from Tehran? Here are five ways to think about Iran under the gun and to better decode the Iranian chessboard.
4/7/08
Report From Iran: Should We Really Bomb These People?
I'm in Shiraz, on the way to Esfahan.
It's good to get out of gray, smoggy Tehran, one of the least photogenic cities in the world, where black is the new black, from the hejabs on down.
One of the attractions of Shiraz is the tomb of Hafez, a Persian poet from the 14th century. It's thronged at night. Iranians bring flowers, then stand or kneel beside the sarcophagus and recite his poems. My personal reaction is, this is how writers should always be treated.
Iranians are among the most gracious and hospitable people I've ever met.
The question, of course, is whether we should bomb these people?
In America today, we tend to see things in Manichaean terms. That is, we divide things into absolute opposites, light and dark, good and evil, us and them.
We could, if we went back far enough, blame that on them. The word Manichaean refers to the Persian prophet Mani (from around 250 AD). The whole notion of good and evil, with man in the middle, having to make a choice, then rewarded and condemned in an afterlife, goes back to an even earlier Persian prophet, Zoroaster, from around 1,000 BC. Those ideas entered Judaism during the Babylonian exile and the liberation of the Jews by Cyrus the Great of Persia, and from there into Christianity.
There are still Zoroastrians and Jews in modern-day Persia, the Islamic Republic of Iran.
These are people with a rich and varied history. A very humanistic history.
The question is, why should we bomb these people?
The answer is that they are part of the Axis of Evil!
Iranians are somewhat confused by that designation.
The United States was attacked on Sept. 11, 2001, by a ragged group of conspirators called Al Qaeda, led by Osama bin Laden, headquartered in Afghanistan, where they were protected and nurtured by the Taliban. The Taliban were, and are, fanatical, fundamentalist Sunnis. They're the ones who put women in burkhas, those full-body coverings and veils; required men to be bearded; and banned all music, television, movies, photographs, statues, stuffed animals and dolls.
The Taliban came to power in 1996. They were supported by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
They were opposed by the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance was supported by Russia, India and, most of all, by Iran.
punditman says...From the article link above:
Iran is, ultimately, ruled by the Supreme Leader. He is deemed to be infallible. In 2003 he issued a fatwa, a ruling of holy law, against the development and use of nuclear weapons. This is when, according to the U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, Iran stopped such developments.Iran claims it only wants nuclear energy...At least 56 countries have nuclear research reactors.
If they had nuclear weapons and used them, especially if they used them aggressively, as a first strike, then Israel and the United States would retaliate with far more force and effectively destroy Iran. What we are likely to have in reality is the sort of mutual stand-off we had with the Soviet Union for 50 years.
punditman further says...
So we are supposed to believe that this is Iran's intent; we are supposed to believe that an ancient civilization is engrossed in the notion of collective suicide. Ah...unlikely, Sherlock! Do your flipping homework.
Petraeus Testimony May Signal Iran Attack
| |
| by Paul Craig Roberts |
| On April 5, the London Telegraph reported that "British officials gave warning yesterday that America's commander in Iraq will declare that Iran is waging war against the U.S.-backed Baghdad government. A strong statement from Gen. David Petraeus about Iran's intervention in Iraq could set the stage for a U.S. attack on Iranian military facilities, according to a Whitehall assessment." The neocon lackey Petraeus has had his script written for him by Cheney, and Petraeus together with neocon warmonger Ryan Crocker, the U.S. governor of the Green Zone in Baghdad, will present Congress next Tuesday and Wednesday with the lies, for which the road has been well paved by neocon propagandists such as Kimberly Kagan, that "the U.S. must recognize that Iran is engaged in a full-up proxy war against it in Iraq." Don't expect Congress to do anything except to egg on the attack. On April 3, the International Herald Tribune reported that senators and representatives have made millions of dollars from their investments in defense companies totaling $196 million. Rep. Ike Skelton, the Democratic chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, is already on board with the attack on Iran. The Telegraph quotes Skelton: "Iran is the bull in the china shop. In all of this, they seem to have links to all of the Shi'ite groups, whether they be political or military." |
3/26/08
Too Timid, Too Little and Too Late
Frontline's War
By RAY McGOVERN
Former CIA Analyst
www.counterpunch.org
Frontline's "Bush's War" on PBS Monday and Tuesday evening was a nicely put-together rehash of the top players' trickery that led to the attack on Iraq, together with the power-grabbing, back-stabbing, and limitless incompetence of the occupation.
Except for an inside-the-beltway tidbit here and there-for example, about how the pitiable secretary of state Colin Powell had to suffer so many indignities at the hands of other type-A hard chargers, Frontline added little to the discussion. Notably missing was any allusion to the unconscionable role the Fourth Estate adopted as indiscriminate cheerleader for the home team; nor was there any mention that the invasion was a serious violation of international law. But those omissions, I suppose, should have come as no surprise.
Nor was it a surprise that any viewer hoping for insight into why Cheney and Bush were so eager to attack Iraq was left with very thin gruel. It was more infotainment, bereft of substantive discussion of the whys and wherefores of what in my view is the most disastrous foreign policy move in our nation's history.
By RAY McGOVERN
Former CIA Analyst
www.counterpunch.org
Frontline's "Bush's War" on PBS Monday and Tuesday evening was a nicely put-together rehash of the top players' trickery that led to the attack on Iraq, together with the power-grabbing, back-stabbing, and limitless incompetence of the occupation.
Except for an inside-the-beltway tidbit here and there-for example, about how the pitiable secretary of state Colin Powell had to suffer so many indignities at the hands of other type-A hard chargers, Frontline added little to the discussion. Notably missing was any allusion to the unconscionable role the Fourth Estate adopted as indiscriminate cheerleader for the home team; nor was there any mention that the invasion was a serious violation of international law. But those omissions, I suppose, should have come as no surprise.
Nor was it a surprise that any viewer hoping for insight into why Cheney and Bush were so eager to attack Iraq was left with very thin gruel. It was more infotainment, bereft of substantive discussion of the whys and wherefores of what in my view is the most disastrous foreign policy move in our nation's history.
punditman says... For those interested in media bias and manipulation, here's an excerpt from the above Full article link:
"...the White House, and especially Cheney's swollen office, exert enormous pressure over what we are allowed to see and hear. The fear they instill in the corporate press, and in what once was serious investigative reporting of programs like Frontline, translates into programs getting neutered or killed outright-and massive public ignorance."
"...the White House, and especially Cheney's swollen office, exert enormous pressure over what we are allowed to see and hear. The fear they instill in the corporate press, and in what once was serious investigative reporting of programs like Frontline, translates into programs getting neutered or killed outright-and massive public ignorance."
3/23/08
More Iraq War Propaganda
Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting (FAIR)
http://www.fair.org
http://www.fair.org
Action Alert
No Antiwar Voices in NYT 'Debate'
Look back at Iraq features nine hawkish 'experts'
The New York Times offered a look back at the Iraq War in its March 16 "Week In Review" section that leaned heavily towards pro-war voices.
The Times explained to readers:
The "experts" who were asked to weigh in all more or less supporters of the Iraq War, most of whom evinced no regret about their errors. The neoconservative American Enterprise Institute provided three columnists: Richard Perle, Fred Kagan and Danielle Pletka, all of them among the strongest advocates for the invasion. The Times also gave space to the Brookings Institution's Kenneth Pollack, another strong supporter of the invasion.
Keep Reading...
punditman says... More propaganda from the newspaper with the masthead logo that states: "All the news that fit to print." Have they no shame?
No Antiwar Voices in NYT 'Debate'
Look back at Iraq features nine hawkish 'experts'
The New York Times offered a look back at the Iraq War in its March 16 "Week In Review" section that leaned heavily towards pro-war voices.
The Times explained to readers:
"To mark this week's fifth anniversary of the invasion of Iraq, the Op-Ed page asked nine experts on military and foreign affairs to reflect on their attitudes in the spring of 2003 and to comment on the one aspect of the war that most surprised them or that they wished they had considered in the prewar debate."
The "experts" who were asked to weigh in all more or less supporters of the Iraq War, most of whom evinced no regret about their errors. The neoconservative American Enterprise Institute provided three columnists: Richard Perle, Fred Kagan and Danielle Pletka, all of them among the strongest advocates for the invasion. The Times also gave space to the Brookings Institution's Kenneth Pollack, another strong supporter of the invasion.
Keep Reading...
punditman says... More propaganda from the newspaper with the masthead logo that states: "All the news that fit to print." Have they no shame?
2/26/08
Ex-SAS soldier: 'Britain knew about US torture'
A former SAS soldier claimed today that the British secret service had been operating in a covert joint squad with the United States in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001 and that UK operatives knew detainees were being tortured by the Americans.
Ben Griffin, 29, who left the military at the beginning of last year, said British political leaders knew about what went on in the taskforce and were therefore complicit in the "illegal" tactics being used by US troops. He called for Tony Blair and Gordon Brown to face trial for breaking international law.
punditman says...And still, politicians keep saying, "Torture? Who, us?"
10/3/07
Beating the Drums for the Next War
Scott Horton | Harpers
October 1, 2007
Last week brought heads of state and senior diplomats in number to New York for the opening of the General Assembly of the United Nations. It also brought President Bush and President Ahmadinejad to the podium. For the larger audience in the world community, however, one of the most important questions of the day remains whether the verbal blows traded between these two pugnacious leaders will turn in the fullness of time into bullets and bombs. And the sense of the best-informed was clear: yes.
I spoke with a number of European diplomats who are keeping track of the issue, and I found a near uniform analysis. These diplomats believe that the United States will launch an air war on Iran, and that it will occur within the next six to eight months. I am therefore moving the hands of the Next War clock another minute closer to midnight and putting the likelihood of conflict at 70%. It’s still not certain, and it’s still avertable, but at this point it has to be seen as conventional wisdom to say that America is headed for another war in the Islamic world—it’s fourth since Bush became president, if we include the proxy war in Lebanon. And this time it will be a war against a nation with vastly greater military resources, as well as a demonstrated ability to wield terrorism as a tactic—Iran.
Let’s take quick stock of the further indicators from the last week or so.
Keep Reading...
punditman says:
The article summarizes the "rollout" campaign that has already begun as a lead-up to an air attack against Iran. Thus far, the mainstream media has played their part as collaborators, just as they did last time regarding Iraq (witness their ludicrous subservience and lack of balanced analysis during the Ahmadinejad visit last week).
October 1, 2007
Last week brought heads of state and senior diplomats in number to New York for the opening of the General Assembly of the United Nations. It also brought President Bush and President Ahmadinejad to the podium. For the larger audience in the world community, however, one of the most important questions of the day remains whether the verbal blows traded between these two pugnacious leaders will turn in the fullness of time into bullets and bombs. And the sense of the best-informed was clear: yes.
I spoke with a number of European diplomats who are keeping track of the issue, and I found a near uniform analysis. These diplomats believe that the United States will launch an air war on Iran, and that it will occur within the next six to eight months. I am therefore moving the hands of the Next War clock another minute closer to midnight and putting the likelihood of conflict at 70%. It’s still not certain, and it’s still avertable, but at this point it has to be seen as conventional wisdom to say that America is headed for another war in the Islamic world—it’s fourth since Bush became president, if we include the proxy war in Lebanon. And this time it will be a war against a nation with vastly greater military resources, as well as a demonstrated ability to wield terrorism as a tactic—Iran.
Let’s take quick stock of the further indicators from the last week or so.
Keep Reading...
punditman says:
The article summarizes the "rollout" campaign that has already begun as a lead-up to an air attack against Iran. Thus far, the mainstream media has played their part as collaborators, just as they did last time regarding Iraq (witness their ludicrous subservience and lack of balanced analysis during the Ahmadinejad visit last week).
7/18/07
Bombing and Spraying Afghanistan
The New Air War in the Hindu Kush
By CONN HALLINAN
The rising tide of Afghan civilian deaths has opened a rift between the U.S. and NATO's 37,000-member International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). According to NATO officials, the U.S.'s increasing use of air power has badly damaged support for the war in both Afghanistan and Europe.
Daan Everts, the senior NATO civilian in Afghanistan, says the U.S. has created "a fallout that is negative because the collateral damage and particularly the civilian casualties are seen as unduly high, certainly by the Afghan people. This is of concern to us."
More...
punditman says: This helps explain why support for the war is falling amongst Canadians as well. In addition to the US air war, there is the disastrous opium-spraying program thanks to DynCorp, a private US mercenary company that has done extensive spraying of coca plants in Columbia. Perhaps citizens in NATO countries are waking up to the reality of who is in charge of this war, who is making a mess of it and who the cannon fodder are?
By CONN HALLINAN
The rising tide of Afghan civilian deaths has opened a rift between the U.S. and NATO's 37,000-member International Security Assistance Force (ISAF). According to NATO officials, the U.S.'s increasing use of air power has badly damaged support for the war in both Afghanistan and Europe.
Daan Everts, the senior NATO civilian in Afghanistan, says the U.S. has created "a fallout that is negative because the collateral damage and particularly the civilian casualties are seen as unduly high, certainly by the Afghan people. This is of concern to us."
More...
punditman says: This helps explain why support for the war is falling amongst Canadians as well. In addition to the US air war, there is the disastrous opium-spraying program thanks to DynCorp, a private US mercenary company that has done extensive spraying of coca plants in Columbia. Perhaps citizens in NATO countries are waking up to the reality of who is in charge of this war, who is making a mess of it and who the cannon fodder are?
7/13/07
'A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi... You know, so what?'
Interviews with US veterans show for the first time the pattern of brutality in Iraq
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 12 July 2007
It is an axiom of American political life that the actions of the US military are beyond criticism. Democrats and Republicans praise the men and women in uniform at every turn. Apart from the odd bad apple at Abu Ghraib, the US military in Iraq is deemed to be doing a heroic job under trying circumstances.
That perception will take a severe knock today with the publication in The Nation magazine of a series of in-depth interviews with 50 combat veterans of the Iraq war from across the US. In the interviews, veterans have described acts of violence in which US forces have abused or killed Iraqi men, women and children with impunity.
More...
punditman says:This is what happens in all wars. Ordinary people turn into ruthless killing machines. No one should be surprised at how people behave under horrific circumstances. No side is ever spared and no side is without sin. These atrocities are the natural outcome of a war that is itself an atrocity of the highest order: the supreme crime of international aggression. Time to stop sugar-coating the deeds of the "good guys" and see reality for what it is.
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
Published: 12 July 2007
It is an axiom of American political life that the actions of the US military are beyond criticism. Democrats and Republicans praise the men and women in uniform at every turn. Apart from the odd bad apple at Abu Ghraib, the US military in Iraq is deemed to be doing a heroic job under trying circumstances.
That perception will take a severe knock today with the publication in The Nation magazine of a series of in-depth interviews with 50 combat veterans of the Iraq war from across the US. In the interviews, veterans have described acts of violence in which US forces have abused or killed Iraqi men, women and children with impunity.
More...
punditman says:This is what happens in all wars. Ordinary people turn into ruthless killing machines. No one should be surprised at how people behave under horrific circumstances. No side is ever spared and no side is without sin. These atrocities are the natural outcome of a war that is itself an atrocity of the highest order: the supreme crime of international aggression. Time to stop sugar-coating the deeds of the "good guys" and see reality for what it is.
'A dead Iraqi is just another dead Iraqi... You know, so what?'
Interviews with US veterans show for the first time the pattern of brutality in Iraq
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
It is an axiom of American political life that the actions of the US military are beyond criticism. Democrats and Republicans praise the men and women in uniform at every turn. Apart from the odd bad apple at Abu Ghraib, the US military in Iraq is deemed to be doing a heroic job under trying circumstances.
That perception will take a severe knock today with the publication in The Nation magazine of a series of in-depth interviews with 50 combat veterans of the Iraq war from across the US. In the interviews, veterans have described acts of violence in which US forces have abused or killed Iraqi men, women and children with impunity.
The report steers clear of widely reported atrocities, such as the massacre in Haditha in 2005, but instead unearths a pattern of human rights abuses. "It's not individual atrocity," Specialist Garett Reppenhagen, a sniper from the 263rd Armour Battalion, said. "It's the fact that the entire war is an atrocity."
Full article...
punditman says:
This is what happens in all wars. Ordinary people are turned into ruthless killing machines. No side is spared, no side holier than thou. Citizens of the West should stop sugar-coating the actions of "our" side, and instead recognize that these atrocities are the natural result of a war based upon lies.
By Leonard Doyle in Washington
It is an axiom of American political life that the actions of the US military are beyond criticism. Democrats and Republicans praise the men and women in uniform at every turn. Apart from the odd bad apple at Abu Ghraib, the US military in Iraq is deemed to be doing a heroic job under trying circumstances.
That perception will take a severe knock today with the publication in The Nation magazine of a series of in-depth interviews with 50 combat veterans of the Iraq war from across the US. In the interviews, veterans have described acts of violence in which US forces have abused or killed Iraqi men, women and children with impunity.
The report steers clear of widely reported atrocities, such as the massacre in Haditha in 2005, but instead unearths a pattern of human rights abuses. "It's not individual atrocity," Specialist Garett Reppenhagen, a sniper from the 263rd Armour Battalion, said. "It's the fact that the entire war is an atrocity."
Full article...
punditman says:
This is what happens in all wars. Ordinary people are turned into ruthless killing machines. No side is spared, no side holier than thou. Citizens of the West should stop sugar-coating the actions of "our" side, and instead recognize that these atrocities are the natural result of a war based upon lies.
7/8/07
Tribal Chief Says NATO Airstrike Killed 108 Afghan Civilians
punditman says:
Here we go again. The mainstream media is mostly focused on whether or not the Afghan War is worth the cost--in Western lives. But the reality is that foreign forces have been killing thousands of innocent Afghanis--men, women and children--for almost six years.
It is worth noting that as citizens, we have no say whatsoever over the military strategy that is being pursued in our names. This means that if you support the war, then you support the way it is being waged because you can't have your war and eat it too. There is to be no tinkering around the edges by Joe Sixpack, no tweaking of tactics. You don't get to say, "I support the mission, I just wish we didn't kill civilians."
Supporters of this campaign need to ask themselves why they think aerial bombardment and counter-insurgency win hearts and minds when the history of warfare teaches us that these techniques merely turn civilians against the occupier, adds to the number of foe and heightens their resolve to strike back in any way they can.
Here we go again. The mainstream media is mostly focused on whether or not the Afghan War is worth the cost--in Western lives. But the reality is that foreign forces have been killing thousands of innocent Afghanis--men, women and children--for almost six years.
It is worth noting that as citizens, we have no say whatsoever over the military strategy that is being pursued in our names. This means that if you support the war, then you support the way it is being waged because you can't have your war and eat it too. There is to be no tinkering around the edges by Joe Sixpack, no tweaking of tactics. You don't get to say, "I support the mission, I just wish we didn't kill civilians."
Supporters of this campaign need to ask themselves why they think aerial bombardment and counter-insurgency win hearts and minds when the history of warfare teaches us that these techniques merely turn civilians against the occupier, adds to the number of foe and heightens their resolve to strike back in any way they can.
4/17/07
The Mindless Menace of Violence
punditman says:
Is there any correlation between the horrific events at Virginia Tech and the daily carnage unfolding in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world? There may be no direct link, but it has been shown that domestic violence does increase when nations go to war, as outlined by the landmark study, Violence and Crime in Cross-National Perspective, published in 1984 by Yale University Press. The hypothesis posits that when countries do violence to other human beings, this incites their citizens to perpetrate more violence than they would normally commit. So the phenomenon extends well beyond the returning war vet who becomes a ticking time bomb (although this is a huge problem as well).
Add to this, the plethora of television shows thematically constructed around murder and mayhem, news footage of the daily death toll in Baghdad, even the violence in professional sports--and you have to conclude that this deadly cocktail has an insidious, demonstrable affect on social consciousness, making rage an option for some, instilling fear among the many, and desensitizing us all.
I am reminded of the words of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., himself a victim of violence, who during a time of war, spoke of the Mindless Menace of Violence in America. His words may seem obvious for his time and prescient for ours, yet they remain unheeded:
This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.
It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.
Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.
"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."
Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
Is there any correlation between the horrific events at Virginia Tech and the daily carnage unfolding in Iraq, Afghanistan and around the world? There may be no direct link, but it has been shown that domestic violence does increase when nations go to war, as outlined by the landmark study, Violence and Crime in Cross-National Perspective, published in 1984 by Yale University Press. The hypothesis posits that when countries do violence to other human beings, this incites their citizens to perpetrate more violence than they would normally commit. So the phenomenon extends well beyond the returning war vet who becomes a ticking time bomb (although this is a huge problem as well).
Add to this, the plethora of television shows thematically constructed around murder and mayhem, news footage of the daily death toll in Baghdad, even the violence in professional sports--and you have to conclude that this deadly cocktail has an insidious, demonstrable affect on social consciousness, making rage an option for some, instilling fear among the many, and desensitizing us all.
I am reminded of the words of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., himself a victim of violence, who during a time of war, spoke of the Mindless Menace of Violence in America. His words may seem obvious for his time and prescient for ours, yet they remain unheeded:
This is a time of shame and sorrow. It is not a day for politics. I have saved this one opportunity, my only event of today, to speak briefly to you about the mindless menace of violence in America which again stains our land and every one of our lives.
It is not the concern of any one race. The victims of the violence are black and white, rich and poor, young and old, famous and unknown. They are, most important of all, human beings whom other human beings loved and needed. No one - no matter where he lives or what he does - can be certain who will suffer from some senseless act of bloodshed. And yet it goes on and on and on in this country of ours.
Why? What has violence ever accomplished? What has it ever created? No martyr's cause has ever been stilled by an assassin's bullet.
No wrongs have ever been righted by riots and civil disorders. A sniper is only a coward, not a hero; and an uncontrolled, uncontrollable mob is only the voice of madness, not the voice of reason.
Whenever any American's life is taken by another American unnecessarily - whether it is done in the name of the law or in the defiance of the law, by one man or a gang, in cold blood or in passion, in an attack of violence or in response to violence - whenever we tear at the fabric of the life which another man has painfully and clumsily woven for himself and his children, the whole nation is degraded.
"Among free men," said Abraham Lincoln, "there can be no successful appeal from the ballot to the bullet; and those who take such appeal are sure to lose their cause and pay the costs."
Yet we seemingly tolerate a rising level of violence that ignores our common humanity and our claims to civilization alike. We calmly accept newspaper reports of civilian slaughter in far-off lands. We glorify killing on movie and television screens and call it entertainment. We make it easy for men of all shades of sanity to acquire whatever weapons and ammunition they desire.
Too often we honor swagger and bluster and wielders of force; too often we excuse those who are willing to build their own lives on the shattered dreams of others. Some Americans who preach non-violence abroad fail to practice it here at home. Some who accuse others of inciting riots have by their own conduct invited them.
Some look for scapegoats, others look for conspiracies, but this much is clear: violence breeds violence, repression brings retaliation, and only a cleansing of our whole society can remove this sickness from our soul.
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