Thursday 28th of November 2024
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the american way .....

the american way .....

Today's war in Afghanistan also has its My Lai massacres. It has them almost weekly, as US warplanes bomb wedding parties or homes "suspected" of housing terrorists that turn out to house nothing but civilians. But these My Lais are all conveniently labeled accidents. They get filed away and forgotten as the inevitable "collateral damage" of war. There was, however, a massacre recently that was not a mistake - a massacre, which, while it only involved fewer than a dozen innocent people, bears the same stench as My Lai. It was the execution-style slaying of eight handcuffed students, aged 11-18, and a 12-year-old neighboring shepherd boy who had been visiting the others in Kunar Province on December 26.

Sadly, no principled soldier with a conscience like pilot Thompson tried to save these children. No observer had the guts of a Bernhardt to report what he had seen. No Ridenhour among the other serving US troops in Afghanistan has investigated this atrocity or reported it to Congress. And no American reporter has investigated this war crime the way Hersh investigated My Lai.

There is a Hersh for the Kunar massacre, but he's a Brit. While American reporters, like the anonymous journalistic drones who wrote "CNN's" December 29 report on the incident took the Pentagon's initial cover story - that the dead were part of a secret bomb squad - at face value, Jerome Starkey, a dogged reporter in Afghanistan working for the Times of London and the Scotsman, talked to other sources - the dead boys' headmaster, other townspeople and Afghan government officials - and found out the real truth about a gruesome war crime - the execution of handcuffed children. And while a few news outlets in the US like The New York Times did mention that there were some claims that the dead were children, not bomb makers, none, including CNN, which had bought and run the Pentagon's lies unquestioningly, bothered to print the news update when, on February 24, the US military admitted that in fact the dead were innocent students. Nor has any US corporate news organization mentioned that the dead had been handcuffed when they were shot. Starkey reported the US government's damning admission</a>. Yet still the US media remain silent as the grave.

http://www.truthout.org/where-are-this-wars-heroes-military-and-journalistic57406

hillary the horrible .....

So the white man's burden (under, of course, the first black president) continues on.

Hillary Clinton, stooge of U.S. avarice and imperialism, tells Venezuela to follow the example of Chile, Brazil, and presumably other countries in the region that it gives its ok to. Of course, the U.S. cares nothing for the advancements and the movement toward greater egalitarianism and justice brought about by the Bolivarian Revolution.

Its greatest goals, its 'U.S. interests' (who voted on these interests other than the oligarchy, no one knows!) are just to extract the resources (most notably oil) as cheaply as possible, and to have a U.S. subaltern take the orders that it gives him (usually a he) from Washington. For the 'guilt', for the 'sins', of not being a U.S. puppet, a shot is fired across the bow!

This highfalutin talk from Mrs. Clinton about 'restoring democracy', 'restoring freedom of the press', and coming back into the fold of the U.S. empire, is mere window dressing for the true U.S. aims. It doesn't play as well when you say, "Young child (referring to the duly elected leader of the Bolivarian Republic) stop playing these silly tricks and games and do what mommy and poppy say now!" That just doesn't work in a world where the Obama administration pays homage to human rights, and universal freedoms, but in actuality those might as well be the manna of childhood make-believe, or science fiction tales.

When it comes to 'U.S. interests' (as I said before, highly undemocratic things that no one ever really voted on), the only 'human right' is to hold on to life and limb by your coattails, and the only 'freedom' is that of working at or near a sub-subsistence wage!

http://www.countercurrents.org/fenley070310.htm

self-righteous warriors .....

Without doubt, the US has not only become the world's major power, it has become the world's sickest warrior state. Neither conscience nor empathy for others defines the qualities of the sociopath.

It's past time for humanitarians to reject the double standards set by warmongers and supported by arms-makers and the mainstream media. The clergy needs to stop preaching sanctimonious sermons. Finally, educators should adopt and teach a zero tolerance policy for self-righteous warriors.

And yes, those who would dismiss my criticism as vitriolic should join a chorus with a conscience.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article24931.htm