War

Before we Bomb Syria, Shouldn’t we Seek Proof of Guilt?

In a criminal trial, doubt simply has to be reasonable to prevent conviction. But where has reason gone in this episode? The ridiculous William Hague, who seems to have become sabre-rattler in chief just as this country has sunk to the level of a third-rate military power, talks and acts as if the matter is settled. Our Prime Minister has abandoned one of his holidays ( and who can blame him? It appears to be taking place solely for PR reasons) to hurry back to London for a meeting of the grandiosely-titled ‘National Security Council’. Not only is this name copied from the Americans. It is a body which we managed very well without for many centuries of free and independent (and secure) existence. Do these people think they are in an episode of ‘The West Wing’, that seductive drama of power-pornography, in which minor politicians imagine themselves as mighty political hunks?

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Bradley Manning and the Gangster State

If we actually had a functioning judicial system and an independent press, Manning would have been a witness for the prosecution against the war criminals he helped expose. He would not have been headed, bound and shackled, to the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kan. His testimony would have ensured that those who waged illegal war, tortured, lied to the public, monitored our electronic communications and ordered the gunning down of unarmed civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen were sent to Fort Leavenworth’s cells. If we had a functioning judiciary the hundreds of rapes and murders Manning made public would be investigated.

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Imminent US War on Syria?

Syria is Washington’s war. It was planned years ago. It’s about regime change. America wants pro-Western puppet leaders replacing independent ones.

Washington doesn’t launch conflicts to quit. US-enlisted death squads are no match against Syria’s military. They’re being routed.

Fresh terrorists are imported from abroad. They’re from dozens of countries. They’re recruited continually. They replace depleted ranks.

Waging war requires selling it. Public support’s needed. Big Lies substitute for truth and full disclosure. Wednesday’s chemical attack was a classic false flag.

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What Manning Revealed

The revelations below were compiled for the book in March 2011–many others followed, including the important Gitmo files (see my piece about them) in April 2011. Here is a NYT take on just part of those Gitmo files: “What began as a jury-rigged experiment after the 2001 terrorist attacks now seems like an enduring American institution, and the leaked files show why, by laying bare the patchwork and contradictory evidence that in many cases would never have stood up in criminal court or a military tribunal.” So even this accounting below is far from complete.

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WHO Is Delaying Release of Iraqi Birth Defect Data?

Doctors have been crying out for help since at least 2010, when the BBC’s John Simpson was handed a photograph of a baby born in Fallujah with two heads. Women there were being told to stop getting pregnant. A 2010 study published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health declared that some kind of congenital malformation was found in 15 percent of all births in Fallujah – heart defects being the most common, followed by neural tube defects.

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John Perkins: Confessions of an Economic Hitman

As an Economic Hitman (EHM), John Perkins helped further American imperial interests in countries such as Ecuador, Panama, Indonesia and Saudi Arabia. As Chief Economist for the international consulting firm Chas. T. Main, he convinced underdeveloped countries to accept massive loans for infrastructure development and ensured that the projects were contracted to multinational corporations. The countries acquired enormous debt, and the US and international aid agencies were able to control their economies.

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Syria gas attack story has whiff of Saudi war propaganda

Pending confirmation by genuinely independent judges of the latest allegations of Al Arabiya, we are well-advised to leave the reports in the category of war propaganda, in league with others such as the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964. That incident, we might recall, was faked by the Pentagon to railroad Congress into giving President Lyndon B. Johnson authority to “assist any Southeast Asian country whose government was considered to be jeopardized by communist aggression.” The resolution became Johnson’s legal justification for deploying US forces and the onset of open war against North Vietnam.

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Bradley Manning’s sentence: 35 years for exposing us to the truth

I want to thank Bradley Manning for the service he has done for humanity with his courage and compassionate action to inform us, so that we have the means to transform and change our societies for the better. I want to thank him for shining light into the shadows. It is up to each and everyone of us to use the information he provided for the greater good. I want to thank him for making our world a little better. This is why I nominated him for the Nobel Peace Prize, for there are very few individuals who have ever brought about the kind of social change Manning has put in motion.

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Photojournalist Kate Brooks Reveals the Human Cost of War

Immediately after the September 11 attacks, the then 24-year-old photographer Kate Brooks set out to document the impact of war on civilians. Since then, she has covered major conflicts throughout the Middle East and Afghanistan, including the American invasion of Iraq, the 2006 Lebanon War, and more recently the Libyan revolution. “When it comes to military force and going into conflicts, people are very short sighted about what it’s actually going to mean,” says Brooks. “Civilians are always the ones who pay the biggest price in any conflict.”

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Manning, Apology and an Onerous Fidelity

It is left to those outside the formal legal process to continue the campaign. Any project against the abuse of state power that does not make the protection and release of such figures as Manning is a hollow one. The sparks and sparkles are already to be found in movements across the globe. Let them continue till they burn with a savage yet constructive fury.

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