AS THE WORLD SQUIRMSâ
Saturday, August 11, 2007
|
ARCHIVES |
||
|
~Videos~ Commentaries & Interviews |
Political
Music & Music Videos |
|
|
US death toll in Iraq passes 3500
Thursday: 3 GIs, 2 Britons, 46 Iraqis Killed; 21 Iraqis
Wounded August 9, 2007 Friday: 58 Iraqis Killed, 66 Wounded Labor Dept: 1,001 Contractors Have Died in
Iraq August 9, 2007 DC Notes: Disability claims from Iraq, Afghanistan vets top
176,000
|
|
|
Central Banks around the World pour
$325 billion into
collapsing Global markets
Action by US Federal Reserve and European
Central Bank
fails to halt
crash in Global share values
BLOODY
AMERICANS: British Military Asks US Forces to Leave Afghan Province Carlotta Gall reports for The New York
Times, "A senior British commander in southern Afghanistan said in
recent weeks that he had asked that American Special Forces leave his area of
operations because the high level of civilian casualties they had caused was
making it difficult to win over local people." By
Carlotta Gall The New
York Times August
9, 1007 (Excerpt) SANGIN,
Afghanistan — A senior British commander in southern
Afghanistan said in recent weeks that he had asked that American Special
Forces leave his area of operations because the high level of civilian casualties
they had caused was making it difficult to win over local people. Other British officers here in Helmand
Province, speaking on condition of anonymity, criticized American Special
Forces for causing most of the civilian deaths and injuries in their area.
They also expressed concerns that the Americans’ extensive use of air power was turning the people against the foreign
presence as British forces were trying to solidify recent gains against the Taliban. An American military spokesman denied that
the request for American forces to leave was ever made, either formally or
otherwise, or that they had caused most of the casualties. But the
episode underlines differences of opinion among NATO and
American military forces in Afghanistan on tactics for fighting Taliban
insurgents, and concerns among soldiers about the consequences of the high
level of civilians being killed in fighting.  Afghan Anti-Terror Meet Hears Calls
to Oust NATO Force by Waheedullah Massoud
AFP
August 10, 2007
A council of Pakistani and Afghan tribal leaders debating
ways to end Al-Qaeda-backed terrorism in the region heard calls for Western forces to be
thrown out of Afghanistan in favour of Islamic troops. Pakistani tribal elder and former MP, Malik Fazel
Manaan Mohmand, told 700 delegates seated in a giant white tent that the
presence of NATO and US-led forces in Afghanistan was a major cause of insecurity. Pakistan had helped Afghanistan battle the invading
Soviets in a jihad, or holy war, but Kabul had now brought in a new foreign
force, he said. "How can I accept that yesterday
jihad against the Russians was a must, and today this is not a jihad?"
he asked. |
|
Al-Jazeera August 10,
2007 (Excerpt) The US president has rebuked Iraq's prime minister for speaking
too favourably about Iran. "If the signal [from Nuri al-Maliki] is that Iran is
constructive, I will have to have a heart-to-heart with my friend, the prime
minister. Because I don't believe they are constructive," George Bush
said. But he voiced confidence that he and al-Maliki were on the same
page on Iran as a threat. "I don't think he, in his heart of heart, thinks they're
constructive either."
Al-Maliki
had thanked Iran for its "positive and constructive" work in
"providing security and fighting terrorism in Iraq" on a visit to
Tehran, according to the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency. |
|
When
Iraq Finally Collapses The Electoral Wave It
Sets Off In The U.S. Will Be Huge “The
number of Iraqi refuges and murder victims makes other current humanitarian
crises, including Darfur, pale by
comparison.” By Joe Rothstein August 8, 2007 (Excerpt) The Turkish Ottoman Empire had the bad judgment
to back the losing side in World War One. For its losing bet it got itself
dismembered. And out of that redrawing of the map of the Middle East emerged
a nation called "Iraq." |
|
Bomb Kills Iraqi Governor, Police Chief AP August 10, 2007 (Excerpt) BAGHDAD - A
powerful roadside bomb on Saturday killed the governor and police chief of a
southern province that has seen fierce internal fighting between Shiite
factions, officials said.  Bush's New War Czar Talks Up Draft CNN August 10, 2007 (Excerpt) WASHINGTON
(AP) -- Frequent tours for U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan have stressed
the all-volunteer force and made it worth considering a return to a military
draft, President Bush's new war adviser said Friday. "I think it makes sense to
certainly consider it," Army Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute said in an interview
with National Public Radio's "All Things Considered." "And I can tell you, this has
always been an option on the table. But ultimately, this is a policy matter
between meeting the demands for the nation's security by one means or
another," said Lute, who is sometimes referred
to as the "Iraq war czar." It was his first interview since he was
confirmed by the Senate in June. |
|
Iraq
Roadside Bomb Attacks Hit All-Time High The Independent (London, UK) By Kim Sengupta
Published: 09 August 2007 (Excerpt) Roadside
bomb attacks on American troops in Iraq reached an all-time high last month,
accounting for more than one third of all combat deaths. The increase in the number of casualties
caused by the explosive devices comes at the height of the "surge' of US
forces which, the Pentagon claims, is broadly a success.  US
Military Trying to Prevent 'Surge' in Militant Attacks By
Oren Dorell USA
TODAY August
9, 2007 (Excerpt) BAGHDAD — The U.S. military is ordering airstrikes and taking other
security measures to prevent insurgents from launching a "surge" of
their own before next month's report to Congress on Iraq strategy. Al-Qaeda and other militant groups could try to stage high-profile
attacks that would make it more difficult for Gen. David Petraeus and
Ambassador Ryan Crocker to tell Congress that progress is being made under
the new U.S. war strategy, which began in February. |
The Terror America Wrought
“That
fateful summer, 8:15 a.m. The roar of a B-29 breaks the morning calm. A
parachute opens in the blue sky. Then suddenly, a flash, an enormous
blast—silence—hell on Earth. The eyes of young girls watching the
parachute were melted. Their faces became giant charred blisters.
The skin of people seeking help dangled from their fingernails. ... Others
died when their eyeballs and internal organs burst from their
bodies—Hiroshima was a hell where those who somehow survived envied the
dead.”
By Robert
Scheer
Truthdig.com Posted on Aug 7, 2007
(Excerpt) During a week of mayhem in Iraq, in which
terrorists have rightly been condemned for targeting schoolchildren, it is
sobering to recall that this week is also the 62nd anniversary of a U.S.
attack that deliberately took the lives of thousands of children on their way
to school in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As noted in
the Strategic Bombing Survey conducted at President Harry Truman’s request, when the bomb hit Hiroshima
on April 6, 1945, “nearly all the school children ... were at work in the open,” to be exploded, irradiated or incinerated in the perfect firestorm that the planners back at the University of California-run Los
Alamos lab had envisioned for the bomb’s
maximum psychological impact. The terror plot worked all too well, as Hiroshima’s Mayor Tadatoshi Akiba recalled this week: “That fateful summer, 8:15 a.m. The roar of a B-29 breaks the morning
calm. A parachute opens in the blue sky. Then suddenly, a flash,
an enormous blast—silence—hell on Earth. The eyes of young girls watching the parachute
were melted. Their faces became giant charred blisters. The skin
of people seeking help dangled from their fingernails. ... Others died when
their eyeballs and internal organs burst from their bodies—Hiroshima was a hell where those who somehow survived envied the dead.” Like most of the others killed by the two American
bombs, neither the children nor the adults had any role in Japan’s decision to go to war, but they were
picked as the target instead of an isolated but fortified military base whose
antiaircraft fire posed a higher risk. The target preferred by U.S. atomic scientists—a patch in the ocean or unpopulated terrain—was rejected, because the effect of hundreds of
thousands of civilians dying would be all the more dramatic. The victims in Hiroshima and Nagasaki were available soft
targets, much like the children playing in Iraq, suddenly caught in the
crossfire of battles waged beyond their control. In “White Light/Black Rain,” a devastating HBO documentary released
this week, there is an interview with the sole survivor of a Japanese
elementary school of 620 students. The murder of the other 619, and the
370,000 overall deaths attributed to the bombings, 85 percent of which were
civilian deaths, has never compelled a widespread examination of the “end justifies the means” morality of our own state-sanctioned acts
of terror. Indeed, the horrifying footage taken by Japanese and
American cameramen soon after the devastation, and shown in the HBO film, was
long kept secret by the U.S. government for fear that an informed American
public might question this nation’s incipient nuclear arms race. Just exactly what distinguishes the United States’ use of the ever-so-cutely-named “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” atomic bombs on cities in Japan from the car bombs of Baghdad or the
planes that smashed into the World Trade Center? To even raise the
question, as was found in one recent university case, can be a career-ending
move. |
|
America, stop waving the nuclear
threat at potential adversaries The US should use its nuclear arsenal for deterrence only
and preserve the 'taboo' on nuclear weapons use.
By Jack Mendelsohn The Christian Science Monitor (Excerpt) If
the Democrat candidates want to distinguish themselves from their opponents,
and if the Republicans want to recover from the disastrous foreign policy
of this administration, the candidates should commit to delegitimizing – not stressing – nuclear weapons. Every time the United States
threatens a potential adversary with nuclear weapons it tells the world that
these weapons are acceptable instruments of modern warfare and that there are
no political or moral constraints on US behavior. It is overwhelmingly in the US national
interest to preserve the "taboo" on nuclear weapons use and to seek
to reduce the salience of nuclear weapons in US security policy. To achieve
this, the candidates should address four issues: First, announce that they reject nuclear
intimidation and the current policy of preventive war. In the future, and
under their leadership, the United States will retain its nuclear arsenal for
deterrence only and will not employ nuclear weapons except in retaliation for
a nuclear attack. Second, commit to the eventual elimination
of all nuclear weapons. Even President Reagan sought a nuclear-free world and
a number of senior US statesmen, from the late Paul Nitze (Democrat) to
George Schultz and Henry Kissinger (both Republicans), agree that the US
would be much safer in a world without nuclear weapons. Third, declare that they plan to withdraw
all US nuclear weapons from Europe during their term in office. These weapons
are relics of the cold war: There is no strategic requirement for them, and
no military mission that cannot be carried out by conventional weapons. Finally, make it clear that the United
States will not resume nuclear testing. A reaffirmation of the decade-old
moratorium on nuclear tests (or ratification by the next Congress of the
treaty banning such tests) would strengthen US efforts to control the spread
of nuclear weapons to other nations. |
|
Horrific ‘Divine’ Weapons Test Traps Miners In US By Sorcha Faal August 7, 2007 (Excerpts) Reports from Russia's Strategic Nuclear Forces
are reporting today that the United States Military has ‘unleashed’ upon the World a devastating new weapon that they
estimate at over 1.4 million pounds and is similar to the design of the
21,000-pound Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) detonated over Florida on March 11, 2003
prior to the Americans invasion of Iraq. Russian
Military Analysts are presently theorizing that this massive explosion was a
test of the code-named "Divine Strake"
technology that the United States had planned to detonate last year, 2006, on
their Nevada Nuclear Test Range, but were prevented from doing so by the
uproar of its citizens, and has been planned to be used by the Americans
against Iran’s
Nuclear Facilities. These
reports state that this massive explosion was first detected by Russia’s Cosmos-2422 HEO
(highly-elliptical orbit) satellite, (which is designed for the detection of
American ballistic missiles) at 08:48:40 UTC 2007 August 6 at the United
States Dugway Proving Ground Test Range in Utah, and which exactly corresponds
to the time of a reported 3.9 Magnitude Earthquake
occurring at the exact same location. To
the mammoth Dugway Proving Ground testing range in To
the mine disaster caused by this massive US Military explosion we can read as
reported by the Associated Press News Service: |
|
US Hegemony Spawns Russian-Chinese
Military Alliance
Vdare.com August 08, 2007 (Excerpt) Cynics
believe that the neocons are just shills, like Bush and Cheney, for the
military-security complex and are paid to restart the cold war for the sake
of the profits of the armaments industry. But the fact is that the neocons
actually believe their delusions about American hegemony. Russia and China have now witnessed enough
of the Bush administration’s unprovoked aggression in the world to take
neocon intentions seriously. As the US has proven that it cannot occupy the Iraqi
city of Baghdad despite 5 years of efforts, it most certainly cannot occupy
Russia or China. That means the conflict toward which the neocons are driving
will be a nuclear conflict. In an attempt to gain the advantage in a
nuclear conflict, the neocons are positioning US anti-ballistic missiles on Soviet borders in Poland and
the Czech Republic. This is an idiotic provocation as the
Russians can eliminate anti-ballistic missiles with cruise missiles. Neocons are
people who desire war, but know nothing about it. Thus, the US failures in
Iraq and Afghanistan. Reagan and Gorbachev ended the cold war. However, US
administrations after Reagan’s have broken the agreements and understandings. The US gratuitously
brought NATO and anti-ballistic missiles to Russia’s borders. The Bush regime has initiated a propaganda war
against the Russian government of V. Putin. These are gratuitous acts of aggression.
Both the Russian and Chinese governments are trying to devote resources to
their economic development, not to their militaries. Yet, both are being
forced by America’s aggressive posture to revamp their militaries. |
|
Russian Navy to operate from Syria Aryeh Egozi, Alex Fishman August 6, 2007 (Excerpt) For first
time since fall of Iron Curtain, Russia plans to build permanent bases on
Syrian soil as part of large arms deal between two countries. Defense
establishment officials fear Russian ships may try to spy on Israel's weapon
systems |
|
Nebraska poultry barred by Japan, Russia, Turkey and the
Philippines IHT (via AP) August 9, 2007 (Excerpt) LINCOLN, Nebraska: Japan, Russia, Turkey and the Philippines
have temporarily banned the import of poultry from the U.S. state of Nebraska
after a turkey flock in one county tested positive for a mild strain of bird
flu. Deputy
state veterinarian Del Wilmot said Wednesday that the flock shows no sign of
illness and was being prepared for slaughter and entry into the food supply. The
U.S. Department of Agriculture and trade groups for the poultry industry have
said no
human cases of bird flu have ever been traced to eating properly
cooked poultry or eggs. But officials in the four countries are taking no chances. Wilmot said those countries have barred all poultry and related products, such as eggs, coming from Nebraska. |
|
Part 2 (Movie)
|
This is NOT Business As Usual – Ron Paul MUST
Win…
