Posted on Monday, 1 February, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
Tony Blair takes a photo of himself in front of the human rights travesty he helped create.
Tony sends George a text from Iraq: “LO George. jst writiN U frm Iraq whr wer dstroiN evrtng n cite 4 oil, cash & contRL. thx putting me n yor posse.”
A while ago a mobile phone video emerged showing some Kurdish village where this horde was stoning a girl to death because she married the wrong guy. It sparked international outrage as it should have. This photo reminds of of that for some reason.
Posted on Sunday, 31 January, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
“Our real enemies are not those living in a distant land whose names or policies we don’t understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it’s profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it’s profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it’s profitable, the Banks who take away our homes when it’s profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us.” — Mike Prysner
This guy should have been invited to speak at the Iraq Inquiry opposite Tony Blair. Thanks IVAW.
Posted on Wednesday, 27 January, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
Ah, the good ol'e days.
I’m old enough to remember the televised Iran/Contra hearings long, long ago in the United States. Now in the United Kingdom the Iraq Inquiry seems a little like Déjà vu minus Oliver North’s hot secretary.
If the former is to offer any spoilers on the latter: Nothing much will come of it. Still, it’s interesting how the UK is at least willing to explore the illegality of the the invasion of Iraq while President Obama has more or less offered unqualified amnesty to the previous White House wrecking crew that set about demolishing Iraq without any legal or logical security rationale what so ever. So it goes.
As Bush’s prayer buddy Tony Blair is to give his account in the next couple of days, 38 Degrees is asking people in the UK to press Sir John Chilcot to not go light on the New Labour patriarch.
What question would you like Tony Blair to answer?Visit the 38 Degrees website to sign their petition and let the Iraq Inquiry know what you want him to answer.
Here are the questions 38 Degrees have put forth, with my own amendments in red.
Being that the reasons given for the invasion were widely known at the time to be based on missing or questionable evidence and misleading statements, what were you offered from the White House When did you first promised George Bush you’d back an invasion?
Since there was no evidence of a stockpile and quite a bit of publicly available evidence that there wasn’t one before you made your decison, When did you really realise Saddam Hussein probably didn’t have WMD?
To what extent Did you cover up advice that the war mightwould be illegal?
Given that there was no legal basis for the war, Why did you decide to ignore the anti-war protests by the British people?
Given the highly corrupt and illegal nature of what you’ve done, why shouldn’t you be in prison right now?
Yeah, they probably won’t get asked, much less with my amendments. Maybe Cherie can make a documentary about it some day. I can likely guess what the real answer would be regarding to the protests: why would you pay attention to protesters when you’re not in any danger of losing their support at the polls?
Posted on Monday, 4 January, 2010 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
To Shoot an elephant is a new documentary by Mohammed Rujailah and my pal Alberto Arce, and they’re holding a January 18 worldwide screening which you can take part in by downloading the entire film and showing it on the day. The film covers emergency workers, human rights activist and other internationals who were in Gaza during last year’s December-January attack by the Israeli military. The footage is a mashup of edits culled from footage for another film, Erased: Wiped off the Map, which is about the attacks on Gaza. Visit www.toshootanelephant.com, where you can also see the English trailer. Download the film and hold your own screening in your living room or share it with others for screenings elsewhere.
Posted on Wednesday, 4 November, 2009 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
H. Res. 867, calls on the President and the Secretary of State to pretend Israel never attacked Gaza last year with all the weapons the U.S. sold to it and to blame Palestinians for being killed in the attack in order to drum up anti-Israel sentiments.
Thanks to the 36 representatives who voted against it. From Washington State, Brian Baird and Jim McDermott voted against it. Many of the people voting against the UN report also voted for the Iraq war. I’m sure their reasons for rejecting this report had something to do with being confronted by the actual existance of accurate facts about the situation, which must have been very scary for them.
This all centers around Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict, otherwise known as the Goldstone Report, or in some circles rightwing circles in Israel, “that self-hating, traitor basterd’s scribblings.” For short, please just refer to it as “the facts.” Word has it that the U.S. was most upset that it’s suggested edits, which blacked out every sentence not starting with the word “Hamas” was rejected. Will President OBama actually sign up and voluntarily blind himself remainst to be seen. It would be a forgone conclusion under Bush, but as the current president can read, his endorsement or rejection of this slop will offer some insight whether the White House wants to continue bombing Palestinians via the Israeli military or not.
“The United States won Israel a reprieve on the Goldstone report, so now it must ensure that Israel genuinely investigates allegations of abuse. If this doesn’t happen by March, then the US should endorse the Goldstone report’s call for international mechanisms of accountability.” — Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director at Human Rights Watch
Posted on Thursday, 16 July, 2009 By yours truly | TOOLS:Talk or Share
Shovrimshtika.org has compiled 54 testimonies by Israeli combat soldiers who participated in Operation Cast Lead, which “reveal gaps between the reports given by the army following January’s events; the needless destruction of houses; firing phosphorous in populated areas and an atmosphere that encouraged shooting anywhere.”
Among the 54 testimonies are stories revealing the use of “accepted practices,” the destruction of hundreds of houses and mosques for no military purpose, the firing of phosphorous gas in the direction of populated areas, the killing of innocent victims with small arms, the destruction of private property, and most of all, a permissive atmosphere in the command structure that enabled soldiers to act without moral restrictions.
“But who’s afraid of war? That’s to say, who’s afraid of the bombs and the machine-guns? ‘You are’, you say. Yes, I am, and so’s anybody who’s ever seen them. But it isn’t the war that matters, it’s the after-war. The world we’re going down into, the kind of hate-world, slogan-world. The coloured shirts, the barbed wire, the rubber truncheons. The secret cells where the electric light burns night and day, and the detectives watching you while you sleep. And the processions and the posters with enormous faces, and the crowds of a million people all cheering for the Leader till they deafen themselves into thinking that they really worship him, and all the time, underneath, they hate him so that they want to puke. It’s all going to happen.” — George Orwell
“But who’s afraid of war? That’s to say, who’s afraid of the bombs and the machine-guns? ‘You are’, you say. Yes, I am, and so’s anybody who’s ever seen them. But it isn’t the war that matters, it’s the after-war. The world we’re going down into, the kind of hate-world, slogan-world. The coloured shirts, the barbed wire, the rubber truncheons. The secret cells where the electric light burns night and day, and the detectives watching you while you sleep. And the processions and the posters with enormous faces, and the crowds of a million people all cheering for the Leader till they deafen themselves into thinking that they really worship him, and all the time, underneath, they hate him so that they want to puke. It’s all going to happen.”