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Suicide blast kills 8 U.S.-allied forces
BAGHDAD - A female suicide bomber killed at least eight people Thursday night at a checkpoint manned by U.S.-allied Sunni guards northeast of Baghdad, Iraqi police said.
The woman blew herself up near a checkpoint in central Baqouba, a police officer said.
At least eight guards were killed and 24 other people were wounded, according to the officer. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release the information
BAGHDAD - A female suicide bomber killed at least eight people Thursday night at a checkpoint manned by U.S.-allied Sunni guards north... more -
Are We Real News or Tabloid?
Is CurrentTV Becoming the same News Tabloid TV?
I can flip 10 Th(s) of channels and see the same sensationalism and meaningless news on some TV Stations. Nothing is wrong, everything is just beyond believe. Why should I watch current TV or see the count down "n-e-w-s" happening here on the web? In the end of the day the real news gets barrier, my head is empty and I can hardly understand the real issues that affects human life happening around me. Is CurrentTV Becoming the same News Tabloid TV? ... more -
Willie Nelson & Friends NYC 2007 'Peaceful Solution' (5)
There is a Peaceful Solution!
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Scooters Pollution Radio Report - Part One
This is my response to "Mods on Scooters"
http://current.com/items/87006341_mods_on_scooters
First let me express here that I have nothing against people gathering in a club for dancing and having fun. What I do not agree it is with the false ideology where people lose their sight of their surroundings and community when they are traveling with these machines. Maybe in the future we will have better and environmentally friendly machines that won't pollute or make excessive noise. Until that time, Please cool down!
I do not want people to be falsely "sorry" about this issue! I want them to learn and understand that it is my rights of quietness that counts and NOT their desire to pollute the environment or disrupt my daily living with an act of acoustic trespassing.
One little scooter riding up hill it is already an acoustic problem. Now imagine a group of them blasting their pollution. It is like a bomb!
This is my response to "Mods on Scooters" http://current.com/items/87006341_mods_on_scooters ... more -
Kucinich to introduce one article of impeachment against Bush
WASHINGTON - Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said this morning that the House Judiciary Committee may hold hearings on an impeachment resolution offered by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-Ohio). WASHINGTON - Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said this morning that the House Judiciary Committee may hold hearings on an impeachment ... more
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Bush's Blood-Orgy In Somalia
While George Bush was busy railing at Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe at the G-8 summit in Toyako, Japan; his Ethiopian proxy-army in Somalia was grinding out more carnage on the streets of Mogadishu. More than 40 civilians have been killed in the last 48 hours. On Sunday, Osman Ali Ahmed, the head of the UN Development Program in Somalia, was shot gangland style as he left a mosque Mogadishu. He died before he reached the hospital with wounds to the head and chest. Ali Ahmed is just the latest of the peace-keepers who have been killed in the ongoing battle between Bush's Ethiopian occupiers and Somali guerrillas.
"I care deeply about the people of Zimbabwe," Bush announced. "And I am extremely disappointed in the election which I labeled a sham election."
Right. Bush's newly-discovered empathy for black people was nowhere in sight during Hurricane Katrina when thousands of African Americans were rounded up at gunpoint and forced into the Superdome without food, water or medical supplies. Nor is it visible in Somalia today where millions of Somalis have been forced to flee their homes and relocate to tent cities in the south because of Bush's support for the Ethiopian army's invasion. The latest surge in violence has been the worst in a decade and the security situation continues to deteriorate despite the arrival of 2,600 troops from the African Union and a tentative truce that was signed in June between some of the warring factions. It should be no great surprize that the western media has stubbornly refused to report on the rising death-toll in Somalia, choosing instead to focus all of their attention on America's "villain du jour", Robert Mugabe. Mugabe is next on the neocon's list for regime change. Neocon Godfather Paul Wolfowitz even composed a postmortem for Zimbabwe's president in a recent Wall Street Journal editorial "How to Put the Heat on Mugabe".
In 2006, the United States supported an alliance of Somali warlords known as the Transitional Federal Government (TFG) who established a base of operations in the western city of Baidoa. With the help of the US-backed Ethiopian army, western mercenaries, US Navy warships, and AC-130 gunships; the TFG was able capture Mogadishu and force the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) and their allies to retreat to the south. But, much like Iraq and Afghanistan, the resistance has coalesced into a tenacious guerrilla army which has returned to the capital and resumed the fight making it impossible for their Ethiopian rivals to govern. As the struggle continues, the humanitarian situation gets worse and worse. At least 2.6 million Somalis are now facing famine due to acute food shortages spurred by a prolonged drought, violence and high inflation. UN monitors have warned that the figure could hit exceed 3.5 million by the end of 2008.
The UN Security Council has played its traditional role as facilitator of American-backed imperial violence by failing to condemn US involvement in Somalia and by promising to send peacekeepers to mop up after violence subsides. The UN has shown no interest in stopping the carnage and have become little more than the glove-hand of the US military; an accomplice to Bush's chronic adventurism.
While George Bush was busy railing at Zimbabwe's President, Robert Mugabe at the G-8 summit in Toyako, Japan; his Ethiopian proxy-army... more -
Darfur, Sudan, Oil, America and China
Make no mistake as to why Bush refuses to boycott the Bejing olympics. OIL is the key factor in this decision as it is in every decision by these oil and blood soaked criminals. The genocide in Darfur began as an environmental disaster (that continues) that has now evolved into a fight for its oil. Just like in Iraq and other places around the world, Darfur will now be a central point in a power struggle for the oil that lies below Sudan and Chad, coincidentally (?) where the genocide has taken place. Lots of land were cleared off in the burning of the towns and everything was lost by the inhabitiants there to clear the land for Chinese oil companies to come in and drill. Women have been raped, villagers terrorized and murdered, children starving, all for the sake of Chinese and American oil speculation.
If there was ever a reason to have a global climate treaty that gets this world OFF OIL it is this. To think of the inhumanities spawned by the greed of these people and that Bush will now use these Bejing olympics to make business deals rather than stand up for the human rights of millions around the world who have suffered and are suffering atrocities due to the insatiable greed for oil is unconscienable.
I am BOYCOTTING the Bejing olympics. I will not watch it, and I will no longer purchase any products from any sponsors of it if I do now. The human species will drown itself in its greed for oil as our planet balances itself precariously on the climate edge. How any world leaders can sit in Bejing and smile knowing what has transpired by the government of China and their own even against their own people shows they are no better. I as an American who believes in Human Rights and freedom denounce the Bejing olympics for what it really is to those in the Chinese government: propaganda to cover the tracks of monsters. Make no mistake as to why Bush refuses to boycott the Bejing olympics. OIL is the key factor in this decision as it is in every decisi... more -
U.S. Senate approves $165 billion in new war money
The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved an additional $165 billion to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan for another year after lawmakers blocked proposed timetables for withdrawing American troops from Iraq.
By a vote of 70-26, the Senate passed the new war money the Pentagon says it urgently needs to avoid civilian layoffs and the interruption of soldiers' paychecks within months.
The House of Representatives still must weigh in on the legislation. Last week, it passed a drastically different bill that failed to provide any new money for the wars and would withdraw U.S. combat troops from Iraq by the end of 2009.
The House is likely to consider its next step in early June after lawmakers return from a week-long recess.
President George W. Bush, speaking to U.S. troops at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, repeated his opposition to Congress setting troop withdrawal schedules or other conditions on the Pentagon.
"The United States Congress needs to pass a responsible war funding bill that does not tie the hands of our commanders," Bush said.
Assuming lawmakers ultimately give Bush the war funds he has requested, Congress will have appropriated more than $800 billion for combat in Iraq and Afghanistan since 2001. Most of the money has gone for the unpopular war in Iraq.
As the Senate was debating the new war money, a House panel was looking into allegations that the Defense Department had failed to properly account for $15 billion in expenditures in Iraq, much of that for payments to contractors.
Besides the war funding, the Senate also attached expensive expansions of U.S. unemployment benefits and help for war veterans who want to get a college education. Bush opposes those measures, as well as other domestic spending included by the Senate.
Credit: Reuters
Finish at link: http://www.reuters.com/article/vcCandidateFeed7/idUSN22... The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved an additional $165 billion to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan for another year after lawmakers b... more -
Corporate Media And The Major Networks, Sold Us The War, And Refuse To Show The Mu...
During the Viet Nam war, we came home and watched it everyday on all of the news networks. As a result of it, Americans eventually became tired and angered by the war to the point of draft dodging,nationwide campus protesting, and military AWOL. The intense pressure put on the government by the American people finally made them bring the soldiers home.This war was different. This government has conspired with corporate controlled media to sell the war, but not show the war to the American public, as it did, forty years ago therefore, leaving most of the Americanpublic immune and incensitive to the reality of just how unfair, unneccesary, and inhumane war really is. As long as we did not have to hear about Iraqi women and children being murdered by American soldiers, it didn't bother us because we could say that we didn't know. Exposing Abu Ghraib was an accident.Soldiers brought photograpghs home and they fell into the hands of the wrong people. American Idol, The NFL, the NBA, sitcomes, and daytime soaps keeps us comfortably numb.
Fortunately for some of us, it didn't work.We were tired of getting high on anything but the truth. Though we may be small in numbers, we still have a divine universal obligation to report truth and help wake people up from this mad slumber that we've become addicted to, no matter the cost. The Iraqi war is a lie. The are over 1.2 million Iraqi people dead, and well over 5 million people that have becomed homeless and displaced because of this war. This video is the first in a mini-series of ruthless murder and displacement caused by this illegal invasion. Though we keep a constant monitor on hate groups in this country, this Iraqi war has given some of us permission to hate people outside of the U.S. because the media is teaching us to do so. Americans need to be reminded that it is wrong to hate anybody.
Please watch the 2nd video: Thw Widows Of Bagdad. Thank you. During the Viet Nam war, we came home and watched it everyday on all of the news networks. As a result of it, Americans eventually be... more -
The Pornography of Power
In the course of his forty-year-career as one of America's most admired journalists, Robert Scheer's work has been praised by Gore Vidal, Susan Sontag, and Joan Didion, who deems him "one of the best reporters of our time." Now, Scheer brings a lifetime of wisdom and experience to one of the most overlooked and dangerous issues of our time - the destructive influence of America's military-industrial complex.
Scheer examines the expansion of our military presence throughout the world, our insane nuclear strategy, the immorality of corporations profiting in Iraq, and the arrogance of our foreign policy. Although Scheer is a liberal, his view echoes that of former Republican president General Dwight Eisenhower, who, in his farewell speech to the American people, spoke prophetically about need to guard against the growing influence of the military-industrial complex. In George W. Bush's America, politicians like Ike and Richard Nixon seem like prudent centrists.
The views of libertarians, liberals, and pacifists are often overlooked or ignored by America's mainstream media. The Pornography of Power is the culmination of a respected journalist's efforts to change the terms of debate. At a time when many are exploiting fears of terrorist attacks and only a few national leaders are willing to advocate cuts in defense spending, nuclear disarmament, and restrained use of American force, Robert Scheer has written a manifesto for enlightened reform.
In the course of his forty-year-career as one of America's most admired journalists, Robert Scheer's work has been praised by Gore Vid... more -
U.S. Sergeant refuses to go to Iraq: "This occupation is unconstitutional and ille...
On Capitol Hill last month, an American soldier named Matthis Chiroux publicly announced his refusal to deploy to Iraq.
Matthis Chiroux is the kind of young American U.S. military recruiters love.
"I was from a poor, white family from the south, and I did badly in school," the now 24-year-old said.
"I was 'filet mignon' for recruiters. They started phoning me when I was in 10th grade," or around 16 years old, he added.
Chiroux joined the U.S. army straight out of high school nearly six years ago, and worked his way up from private to sergeant.
He served in Afghanistan, Germany, Japan, and the Philippines and was due to be deployed next month in Iraq.
On Thursday, he refused to go, saying he considers Iraq an illegal war.
"I stand before you today with the strength and clarity and resolve to declare to the military, my government and the world that this soldier will not be deploying to Iraq," Chiroux said in the sun-filled rotunda of a congressional building in Washington.
"My decision is based on my desire to no longer continue violating my core values to support an illegal and unconstitutional occupation… I refuse to participate in the Iraq occupation," he said, as a dozen veterans of the five-year-old Iraq war looked on.
Minutes earlier, Chiroux had cried openly as he listened to former comrades-in-arms testify before members of Congress about the failings of the Iraq war.
The testimonies were the first before Congress by Iraq veterans who have turned against the five-year-old war.
Former army sergeant Kristofer Goldsmith told a half-dozen US lawmakers and scores of people who packed into a small hearing room of "lawless murders, looting and the abuse of countless Iraqis."
He spoke of the psychologically fragile men and women who return from Iraq, to find little help or treatment offered from official circles.
Goldsmith said he had "self-medicated" for several months to treat the wounds of the war.
Another soldier said he had to boost his dosage of medication to treat anxiety and social agoraphobia -- two of many lingering mental wounds he carries since his deployments in Iraq -- before testifying.
Some 300,000 of the 1.6 million US soldiers who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from the psychological traumas of post-traumatic stress disorder, depression or both, an independent study showed last month.
A group of veterans sitting in the hearing room gazed blankly as their comrades' testimonies shattered the official version that the US effort in Iraq is succeeding.
Almost to a man, the soldiers who testified denounced serious flaws in the chain of command in Iraq.
Luis Montalvan, a former army captain, accused high-ranking U.S. officers of numerous failures in Iraq, including turning a blind eye to massive fraud on the part of U.S. contractors.
Ex-Marine Jason Lemieux told how a senior officer had altered a report he had written because it slammed U.S. troops of using excessive force, firing off thousands of rounds of machine gun fire and hundreds of grenades in the face of a feeble four rounds of enemy fire.
Goldsmith accused U.S. officials of censorship.
Read More here http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/85612/
On Capitol Hill last month, an American soldier named Matthis Chiroux publicly announced his refusal to deploy to Iraq. ... more -
Iraqi MPs speak out about occupation
Transcript:
MATTHEW PALEVSKY, JOURNALIST, TRNN: Presidential candidate John McCain has repeatedly warned Americans that withdrawing from Iraq would invite chaos in the Middle East and empower Iran.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN, US PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE (R): If our troops are ordered to make a forced retreat, we risk all-out civil war, genocide, and a failed state in the heart of the Middle East. Al-Qaeda terrorists would rejoice in the defeat of the United States. Allowing a potential terrorist sanctuary would profoundly affect the security of the United States, Israel, and our other friends, and would invite further intervention from Iraq's neighbors, including a very much-emboldened Iran.
I recently sat down with two Iraqi parliamentarians who testified to the contrary in front of the US Congress. I asked Nadim al-Jaberi, former general and current member of Shiite Fadhila Party, what he thought of McCain's statements.
NADIM AL-JABERI, IRAQI MP, FADHILA PARTY (SUBTITLED TRANSLATION): No, I do not agree with McCain's conclusion. I believe that Iran became influential in Iraq due to the American occupation and not the other way around. I would say that if the US is controlling the Iraqi streets, then Iran is controlling the state [government]. Iran had no power in Iraq before its occupation on the 9th of April 2003. But it established its power after that date. Iran will stay as an essential and influential factor in Iraq as long as there are foreign forces present, as it feels that these forces threaten its national security.
PALEVSKY: There is a gap in power that Iran could manipulate to gain control and influence in Iraq. Why wouldn't they take advantage of this?
AL-JABERI: No, I believe that Iran's influence grew due to the presence of the American forces on the Iraqi land. There is no connection with the dismissal of Saddam. The issue is connected to the capabilities of the Iraqi state. I believe that the Iraqi state is capable of protecting its borders from Iran or others. There is a historic competition between the two states. On that basis, there has always been a balance between the two states, and neither can swallow the other. If the American forces withdrew from Iraq, I believe that the majority of the Iraqi nation would stand against any Iranian interference. Maybe some people think that the Shias [population] would be loyal to Iran, but I believe that impression is wrong because most of the Iraqi army that fought against Iran from 1980 to 1988 were Shia. There is no connection between Iraqi and Iranian Shia. There may be a connection among some of the [Iraqi] politicians and Iran, but there is no connection between the Shia sect [in Iraq] and Iran. Only some basic ideology, but no political connection. Interestingly, the political elite that is loyal to Iran are the same people who are supported by the United States.
Transcript: ... more -
WAR SUCKS
For Memorial Day 2008, TouchArt.net's Charleen Touchette
talks about war and its immeasurable costs to the world.
Touchette, a mother of 4 adult children asks us to stop war
and work for peace and justice.
___________________
from TouchArt.net and OneEarthblog.blogspot.com For Memorial Day 2008, TouchArt.net's Charleen Touchette talks about war and its immeasurable costs to the world. ... more -
Thousands of Iraqis take to the streets to oppose occupation
It must have been frightening to stand and protest the continued occupation with armed soldiers all over the country.
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US Army suicides highest in 2 decades
More U.S. soldiers committed suicide in 2007 than at any time since the first Gulf War, according to an Army study to be released later Thursday.
There were 108 suicides last year, up from 102 the year before. The 2006 figure also was itself the highest since 1990.
More than two in five of the suicides came after soldiers returned home from deployments.
Roughly one in four of the soldiers who killed themselves were on their first deployments, according to the study. About the same percentage killed themselves without ever having been deployed. Forty-three percent committed suicide after coming home.
The statistics cover active-duty Army troops, including National Guard and reserve soldiers. The numbers do not account for other branches of service.
There are 1,075,000 troops serving in the Army, according to the Department of Defense, comprising 525,000 on active duty, 194,000 in the Army Reserve and the Army National Guard's 356,000.
The Army recorded 87 suicides in 2005, 67 in 2004 and 79 in 2003, the year the Iraq war began. The war in Afghanistan began in October 2001.
More U.S. soldiers committed suicide in 2007 than at any time since the first Gulf War, according to an Army study to be released late... more -
$78 billion of damage to the planet's land areas every year
Mankind is causing $78 billion of damage to the planet's land areas every year, making it imperative governments act to save plants and animals.
A study, presented to delegates from 191 countries in the U.N.'s Convention on Biological Diversity on Thursday, said recent pressure on commodity and food prices highlighted the effects of the loss of biodiversity to society.
On top of the current $78 billion annual loss from land-based ecosystems caused by factors including pollution and deforestation, the cumulative loss could amount to at least 7 percent of annual consumption by 2050, said the report.
European Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas said the study proved biodiversity was not just about saving pandas and tigers but underscored the need to preserve natural wealth.
Mankind is causing $78 billion of damage to the planet's land areas every year, making it imperative governments act to save plants an... more -
President Roll On the Jacket!
Shocking! I was a kid once in my life! I used to love to roll but never like to Thunder!
You know certain things are better left to nature to do it! Shocking! I was a kid once in my life! I used to love to roll but never like to Thunder! ... more -
Talks aim to avert Arctic oil rush
Five Arctic powers are holding a summit in Greenland on Wednesday to forestall a confrontation over the Polar region’s mineral resources and discuss how to protect its fragile environment.
When Russia planted its flag on the seabed 4km under the North Pole last August it raised fears of a rush to grab the Arctic’s mineral resources, particularly its oil and gas deposits, which could total up to a quarter of the world’s undiscovered reserves.
In the future, rising global temperatures could leave much of the Arctic ice-free in the summer, enabling easier exploration and opening up the North-west passage from the Atlantic to the Pacific. Soaring oil prices and improved technology also make exploration more viable.
Russia, Canada, Norway and Denmark (through the semi-autonomous territory of Greenland) are all collecting evidence to show their continental shelves extend towards the Arctic and that therefore their territorial waters should be extended beyond 200 miles offshore. The US has not signed the UN convention, making it impossible for it to even lodge a claim.
“I hope the meeting will send a clear political signal that the Law of the Sea is sufficient to sort out all the legal issues in play,” said Peter Taksoe-Jensen, undersecretary for legal affairs at the Danish foreign ministry.
Commercial interest in exploiting the Arctic is hotting up. Denmark recently attracted the likes of ExxonMobil and Chevron, the two biggest US energy groups, along with several smaller players, to explore off its western coast. Alaska, meanwhile, garnered aggressive bidding by Royal Dutch Shell, Europe’s biggest energy group, which earlier this year won the right to explore the remote part of the state’s Arctic North Slope.
Russia has promoted the development of its Arctic resources by appointing Total, the French oil major, as its partner for the giant Shtokman gas field. And on Tuesday the country’s lawmakers moved forward a bill that would cut exploration taxes for companies venturing into risky areas, including its Arctic regions of Yamal and Timan-Pechora.
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And there you have it. Waiting for the Earth to melt to carve up the spoils for themselves... Only, how irresponsible are they? Once the ice in the Arctic is gone we will enter an irreversible series of environmental consequences that will make their gold bars look pale in comparison. The fact that greed has now blinded so many to the potential consequences of this melting ice is a stark example of humanity as it stands now. Instead of countries working on signing a global pact to stop this now, they continue it to take it for themselves. Despicable. Five Arctic powers are holding a summit in Greenland on Wednesday to forestall a confrontation over the Polar region’s mineral resourc... more -
War with Iran in two months?!
The Bush administration is drawing up plans to launch a strike against Iran within the next two months says a former top US diplomat. This will be the third Muslim country he's going to attack in a row.
The source, a retired US diplomat and former assistant secretary of state, said senior Democratic Senator Diane Feinstein of California and Republican Senator Richard Lugar of Indiana have already been briefed on the attack plan.
Both senetors are planning to go public with thier opposition to the Iran war "within" days.
This comes as Bush's ex-aide claims Bush wasn’t exactly "open and forthright on Iraq".
The Bush administration is drawing up plans to launch a strike against Iran within the next two months says a former top US diplomat. ... more -
Cost of Iraq War --- Not Suitable for Children or Heart Patients
I am speechless.
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