Crimes Against Humanity

Crimes against humanity is being committed the same way in the Middle East today as it did back in 1492 by the same so called Western Christendom.

Heal the World

What A Nuclear Holocaust Would Look Like

The Final Minutes



"The only way to win Word War III is to prevent it"
---Dwight Eisenhower

Dahr Jamail

"Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan"
October 26, 2009



Talk by independent journalist Dahr Jamail author of "The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan" given September 27, 2009 at University Temple United Methodist Church in Seattle as a benefit for the GI Coffee House - Coffee Strong.

For more information:
http://www.coffeestrong.com/

US Diplomat Quits Over Afghan War

Matthew Hoh: new poster boy for critics of Afghanistan war
By Mark Sappenfield Mark Sappenfield – Oct 27, 2009

Matthew Hoh, perhaps unintentionally and unavoidably, has instantly made himself the poster boy for Vice President Joe Biden, liberal Democrats, and every American who looks at a troop surge in Afghanistan with deep skepticism.

Mr. Hoh, a respected retired marine captain, resigned his post as a Foreign Service officer in Afghanistan last week, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

The reason: "I fail to see the value or the worth in continued US casualties or expenditures of resources in support of the Afghan government in what is, truly, a 35-year-old civil war," he said in his resignation letter.

Hoh is perhaps the highest profile official with a military background to question the wisdom of the war in Afghanistan. With President Obama nearing a decision on a new Afghan strategy, Hoh's words come at a crucial time.

So far, the US military has spoken with resounding unanimity. Overwhelmingly, generals have backed the prescription of Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the US commander in Afghanistan. McChrystal says American security would be best served by sending 44,000 more troops to stabilize Afghanistan.

Though Hoh makes pains to underscore the difficulty of his decision, he has chosen to respectfully – and publicly – disagree.

He is already scheduled to meet with the foreign policy adviser for Mr. Biden – the most vocal proponent of a more limited military presence in Afghanistan. Biden advocates a "counterterrorism" strategy that relies more on Predator drone strikes against Al Qaeda targets – a strategy that has shown some success in Pakistan's tribal territories. McChrystal pointedly dismissed such an idea.

But Hoh now gives this argument a degree of military credibility. Hoh says that the was is not truly a pan-Afghan insurgency, but rather a hundred different wars with variables unique to each valley. In many cases, "holy war" is virtually a cottage industry for local power-brokers – and the US is merely providing a convenient enemy.

Moreover, he echoes a key Obama administration concern: Corruption in the Afghan government makes it an unreliable partner.

In his letter, he calls Afghan President Hamid Karzai "a president whose confidants and chief advisers comprise drug lords and war crimes villains, who mock our own rule of law and counternarcotics efforts."

The report comes on the heels of Sen. John Kerry's comments Monday that McChrystal's plan "reaches too far, too fast."

Senator Kerry has emerged as one of Mr. Obama's key point men on Afghanistan. It was Kerry who was in Afghanistan to persuade Mr. Karzai to accept a Nov. 7 runoff after investigations found massive fraud in his favor.

Kerry said three conditions must be met before Afghanistan would be ready for a troop surge: more capable Afghan troops, less corruption, and enough development capacity to build upon military gains.

Now, Democrats in Congress have another voice suggesting that Afghanistan is not worth American blood and treasure. Hoh tells the Post that the US should decrease its combat forces in Afghanistan, if not remove them entirely.

Hoh's military credentials are impressive. He served twice in Iraq with distinction, mastering the difficult tasks that today's insurgencies demand of warriors – knowing when to fight and when to act as scholars, peace-brokers, or aid workers to rebuild shattered communities, according to the Post account.

After leaving the Marines as a captain, he became a Foreign Service officer in Afghanistan's Zabul Province – a wild and forbidding land near the epicenter of the Afghan insurgency.

There, he became convinced that the US presence merely provided "an occupation force against which the insurgency is justified."

What really happened in Gaza

What really happened in Gaza w/ Dr. Norman Finkelstein 2009 Trailer
PennStateSJP, October 28, 2009



A teaser trailer for the upcoming event held by SJP and other PSU organizations. Monday November 2, 2009 in 117 HUB/Auditorium. Dr. Finkelstein will be part of a discussion panel discussing aspects of the Palestine/Israel conflict and U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East.

61 years of illegal occupation. 61 years of statelessness. 61 years of systematic ethnic cleansing. The Palestinians have lost thousands of lives and millions of have been displaced from their homes. Despite all of this, their resolve remains steadfast, their resistance enduring, their fire unflinching. However, though Israel continues to violate international law and inflict these injustices, Palestinian blood stains our hands, too. We as taxpaying American citizens directly contribute to Israels perpetual dehumanization of the Palestinians, as United States tax dollars directly fund Israeli military operations and sustain Israel, the largest recipient of US foreign aid annually. We invite you to attend these events dedicated to raising awareness of the plight of the Palestinians, and to explore the potential for changing this situation through our efforts.

“CIA prevented prisoner deaths to prolong torture”

RussiaToday, October 28, 2009

The CIA took measures to make sure their tortured prisoners did not die – in order to continue further torturing, according to human rights lawyer John Sifton.

President Obama has cut a swathe through the Bush-era National Security Program, forcing the CIA to close its secret overseas prisons and banning harsh interrogation methods.

RT spoke to Human Rights lawyer John Sifton about the kind of abuses which took place.

"In the military there were a large number of deaths with the CIA," he said.

"It engaged in horrendous abuses, they appear to have taken precautions to prevent people from dying. This might sound humane, but in fact it’s sickening, as they were torturing them at the same time trying to maintain their health so that they could continue."

War Is a Hate Crime

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, interviewed in 2003 by Charlie Rose, spoke in a sexualized language of violence to justify the war in Iraq (see video below):

“What they needed to see was American boys and girls going house to house, from Basra to Baghdad, and basically saying, ‘Which part of this sentence don’t you understand?’ ” Friedman said. “ ‘You don’t think, you know we care about our open society, you think this bubble fantasy, we’re just gonna let it grow? Well, suck on this.’ That, Charlie, is what this war is about. We could have hit Saudi Arabia, it was part of that bubble. Could have hit Pakistan. We hit Iraq because we could.”

This is the kind of twisted logic that lead to the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse.

Massacre at Al-Sukkariya

The Warning

Frontline PBS Broadcast October 21, 2009

In The Warning, veteran FRONTLINE producer Michael Kirk unearths the hidden history of the nation's worst financial crisis since the Great Depression.

Now, with many of the same men in key positions in the Obama administration, The Warning reveals the complicated politics that led to this crisis and what it may say about current attempts to prevent the next one.

The New American Century

The untold history of The Project for the New American Century

This film demonstrates how the first film theaters in the US were used over a hundred years ago to broadcast propaganda to rile the American people into the Spanish-American War.

The film exposes how every major war in US history was based on a complete fraud.

MLK Anti-War Speech

Silence Is Betrayal



Now, it should be candidly clear that no one who has any concern for the integrity and life of America today can ignore the present wars. If America's soul becomes totally poisoned, part of the autopsy must read: Middle East conflicts & US Foreign Policy in the region. It can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over. So it is that those of us who are yet determined that America will be are led down the path of protest and dissent, working for the health of our land.

Big Ideas That Changed The World

Democracy

"Why can't you plan for peace in the way you plan for war"

Tony Benn is a former Labor MP and cabinet minister in Britain. In this BBC film, Tony Benn looks at how the concept of democracy developed and spread across the world over the centuries from its beginnings in Ancient Greece. Particularly considers the impact of extending the vote to more people in 19th century Britain and the state of democracy in 20th century Britain.

“There is never a final victory for democracy. It’s always a struggle – in every generation. And you have to take up the cause time and time and time again. And we also learned that those rights can only be won collectively. But in the attempts to win those rights, many people have been imprisoned and tortured by those who have power and were determined to retain it.”

The Torture Song

This is an amazing video, it gave me the chills, there's so much truth in it. I love the catch phrase "We can be better than that." One day they will be brought to justice and it is there they will face their crimes.

Resistance

By Adel - PeaceMaker

Kennesaw, GA

We Must All Resist Against Injustice Around The World.

Resistance begins in doubt. Then it grows into the adolescence of skepticism and matures into defiance, confrontation and struggle. Resistance is above all the determination to say, no. No! to bureaucratic euphemism and deceit. No! to falsehood and lies. No! to broken promises and assurances.

Resistance is the precise opposite of acceptance of what the Occupying Power offers and the resulting retreat into submission. Resistance is the rejection of the Occupiers version of life. It is rejection of wide-eyed acquiescence to the Occupiers lure.

People prefer freedom of choice. They want to be respected and want to be recognized. The sentiment (born from fear) that justifies the abandonment of that for which one should struggle. People don’t want to be tamed by obedience to a way of life that does not respect human beings. Otherwise, fear wins out.

Fears such as the fear of terrorism, ironically, of terrorist acts executed by ourselves against ourselves. Does one not talk openly today about the next institutionally organized terrorist act permitting occupation and subjugation?

We have to resist. It is not necessary to be a hero to resist. It can be much less than throwing rocks or Molotov cocktails at the Occupiers, or going to prison. Resistance is to refuse to be a tool in the lurid machine of “their” assurances that we are “happy” or to be a cogwheel in the great machine of the Occupying Power.

Abandon concepts of the Occupying Power centrism, which is no less than the view that the real world begins and ends with the Occupier. We know that the Occupiers are a small part of our planet earth. The reality is, the rest of the world is out there.

Resistance thinking, leads to unexpected directions. For example, the opposite of peace is not necessarily war, abandonment of social inequalities, the lack of respect for fundamental rights and justice; it is everything that closes the proximity between the rich and poor, whether nations or individuals.

Resistance to injustice should not be seen as revolutionary. Resistance does mean rejection of the Occupying Powers expansionism and imperialism as if it were the end goal of human behavior. Expansionism and imperialism has created and fomented the “culture of exclusion” and its gradual and massive death toll among a great part of our human society.

Resistance is Yes! to equality, human rights, social justice, and No! to colonialism (the US invasion of Iraq and the Israel occupation of the Palestine land are a clear example).

STAY COOL - War is Coming

This is the horrifying consequences of the immoral acts of the Zionist government and our own government’s political and financial support.

STAY COOL - War is Coming from MAN of HANK on Vimeo.

The Media is Hiding the Truth

The media is hiding the truth from you to see. You can see the truth by yourself now just by watching this video and thinking what did those innocent people do?



Michael Jackson's song will always stay alive. It speaks the truth about a lot of things. One of them is the holocaust occurring in Palestine.

Tell Me Why

Cynicism

Excerpts from Mazin Qumsiyeh essay (Excess cynicism: Our biggest challenge) that follows, he provides all of us who are fed up with imperialism, zionism, deceptions and war. His words command deep respect and our self-evaluation as individuals. They are imperative in a chaotic world where governments and media feed cynicism and not hope.

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Our biggest challenge in my opinion is not the Israeli occupation, corrupt politicians, the apartheid wall, the economic deprivation, the moral slide, or the environmental catastrophe unfolding. Our biggest challenge is excess and paralyzing cynicism. How can one not be cynical while evicted Jerusalemites sleep on the street outside their homes (see video):

I could go on describing other examples but I am sure readers can come up with dozens more examples even from their own communities of items that could lead to increase in cynicism.

Cynicism is a pervasive temporally and spatially. In excess, it is corrosive and destructive. It is a monster which feeds on itself creating self-fulfilling prophesies and shaping its own fertile grounds. All countries and communities face the ravenous cynicism monster and are cowed in so many spheres of life. Look at how talk about global warming has been co-opted by corporations (even ones heavily contributing to it) and the average person becomes cynical of our ability to change it.

What would have happened if cynicism is decreased through positive energy and hope in humanity? Would we even have Zionism or Nazism or environmental damage? Would we have corruption? Would we have wars?

First, we must realize that cynicism is a biologically useful defense mechanism that allows individuals to be wary of a treacherous environment, to prepare, to be ready for the unexpected. But cynicism in excess can lead to paranoia, delusions, destructive behaviors, and even suicide (personal or collective). When it is in excess we humans need to find at least some positives to balance in order to maintain a natural, manageable, and healthy cynicism. This is not an easy task.

It starts within our own hearts by first forgiving ourselves for being negative/excessively cynical. We then need to deal with cynicism in our community by reminding ourselves that humans are highly adaptable species. Change begins with us not on the outside. I am sure that if each of us makes a point to look for positive things in our own surrounding, we will find so many which will help create a more positive energy for change and keep our excess cynicism in check.

We feel lucky that we interact with so many people daily who show us what positive energy feels like. To these interactions, we owe so much. Sometimes friends need to point these things out to each other. So come where ever you are, let us visit together and walk around the streets of this troubled land and point out to each other all the great things that lift our spirits and keep our cynical side a bit more realistic.

Right of Resistance

The continuing failure of the international community to enforce its own laws and protect the people of Gaza demands that we, as private citizens, nonviolently intervene.

The Free Gaza Movement, the International Solidarity Movement and the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Movement campaigns in the struggle for justice for Palestine.

The sad fact however is that the Americans–as much as they champion themselves as a “free people”–are in no better shape than the Palestinians. On the contrary, the American position is worse than that of the Palestinians. The Palestinians can identify the enemy–he is the one with the gun and blowing away their loved ones. They KNOW they are occupied and oppressed. They KNOW how Israel occupied Palestine, killed its inhabitants and forced the majority of those who survived the carnage out of their homes and lands to then live as strangers in refugee camps.

The Americans however, have no idea. Like a drug addict who thinks he feels great after shooting up, he does not realize he is a slave, to his substance and to his pusher. The history of how the Zionists’ controlled England is not shrouded in mystery. Through Jewish control of the British government the Balfour Declaration was drafted that “gave” the land of Palestine to the Jews after WWI, a land they did not own or possess.

“We must all become part of the resistance”