Yearly Archives: 2013

NATO air strike kills 10 children in Afghanistan

"A NATO air attack in eastern Afghanistan has killed 10 children, officials said Sunday, the latest case of civilian casualties which provoke great anger in the war-torn country. The children were killed during a joint Afghan-NATO operation in the Shigal district of restive Kunar province bordering Pakistan late on Saturday. An Afghan official involved in the operation who did not want to be named said air support was called in after local and coalition forces came under attack, resulting in the death of an American and injuries to several Afghan soldiers. The official said the force did not know there were women and children in the houses that were hit." Continue reading →

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‘Carrying the Future’ in Afghanistan

"The rest of the world does resist. It does not want our propagandistic textbooks, it does not want our drones, it does not want our support of radical Islamists, it does not want our soldiers, and it does not want our diplomats or NGOs engaging in all manner of manipulation of domestic affairs overseas. Sadly, until young Americans like this foreign service officer start to question the mythologies spouted by politicians and duly amplified by the corporate media about the indispensability of the US 'carrying the future,' there will be many more unnecessary deaths -- on all sides." Continue reading →

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The UN Declares War on Katanga — Again

"With the backing of both the U.S. and the Soviet Union, UN military forces were deployed to Katanga, where they carried out bloody punitive actions that killed scores of innocent people and prompted a widespread international outcry. A British inquiry documented acts of rape, plunder, and terrorism committed by multinational Blue Helmet forces. Echoes of the UN’s war to suppress Katanga five decades ago were heard last week when the UN Security Council passed a Chapter Seven resolution – the world body’s equivalent of a declaration of war – authorizing the deployment of a multinational military brigade to disarm and “neutralize” rebel groups in Congo." Continue reading →

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“State Control”: What the UN Firearms Treaty is All About

"For more than fifty years, the United Nations, with the enthusiastic support of the U.S. government, has pursued a vision of 'general and complete disarmament' in which the world body, or its successor, would claim a monopoly on the 'legitimate' use of force. Within that global monopoly, each national government would have an exclusive territorial franchise. It was in pursuit of that formula that UN 'peacekeepers' were deployed in Rwanda in 1993. Despite that country’s history of bloody ethnic conflict, Rwandans were assured that they had nothing to fear from a UN-approved government that claimed a monopoly on weaponry." Continue reading →

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Yes, Gun Control is Racist

"In testimony offered as part of a class-action federal lawsuit, state senator Eric Adams, a former NYPD officer, testified that during a July 2010 meeting, Commissioner Kelly 'Stated that he targeted and focused on that group because he wanted to instill fear in them that every time that they left their homes they could be stopped by police.' When Adams pointed out that this is against the law, Kelly reportedly replied 'How else are we going to get rid of guns?' Over the past ten years, more than 5 million people have been subjected to warrantless street detention and searches, roughly 90 percent of them young Black or Latino men." Continue reading →

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Army’s $900 Million in Warehouses Full of Useless Vehicle Parts

"The Pentagon got caught by the Defense Department’s Inspector General’s office. Again. This time it was for a military vehicle called the Stryker. It has $900 million in spare parts in just one warehouse. It keeps thousands of these vehicles in warehouses around the nation. It has so many Strykers that it lost track of them. The gear is outdated. Example: $57 million in outdated infrared equipment. The Inspector General’s Office submitted a report. No one in the media read it until a small-town newspaper in Tacoma, Washington ran a story over the weekend." Continue reading →

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Climate Change: Key mission for the US Navy

"Not only is the Navy concerned about climate change, they are attempting to do something about it. Both the Navy and the Air Force have established goals to use a 50/50 blend of biofuel and petroleum-based fuel for planes and ships. Navy plans call for establishment of a 'Green Strike Group' task force by 2016, fueled by the biofuel blend, and for alternative fuels to power half of all energy consumption by 2020. In 2011, the Navy and the Departments of Energy and Agriculture publically committed to invest $510 million to create an 'advanced biofuel industry' based on algae." Continue reading →

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Military Presentation Labels Evangelicals, Catholics as ‘Religious Extremism’

"The incident occurred during an Army Reserve Equal Opportunity training brief on extremism. Topping the list is Evangelical Christianity. Other organizations listed included Catholicism, Al Qaeda, Hamas, the Ku Klux Klan, Sunni Muslims, and Nation of Islam. The military also listed 'Islamophobia' as a form of religious extremism. Army spokesman George Wright told Fox News that the briefing happened last year and is just now coming to light. This was an 'isolated incident not condoned by the Dept. of the Army,' he said." Continue reading →

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The ATF Wants ‘Massive’ Online Database to Find Out Who Your Friends Are

"The ATF doesn’t just want a huge database to reveal everything about you with a few keywords. It wants one that can find out who you know. And it won’t even try to friend you on Facebook first. According to a recent solicitation from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the bureau is looking to buy a 'massive online data repository system' for its Office of Strategic Intelligence and Information (OSII). The system is intended to operate for at least five years, and be able to process automated searches of individuals, and 'find connection points between two or more individuals' by linking together 'structured and unstructured data.'" Continue reading →

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