On This Day, 1973: The First Cell Phone Call
3 hours ago
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Two thousand seven hundred twenty-two days after U.S. troops crossed the Kuwaiti border into Iraq, U.S. combat operations there officially ended. Vice President Joseph Biden arrived to usher in "Operation New Dawn," during which the nearly 50,000 American troops remaining in the country will still be available for combat missions when requested by Iraqi forces. Al Qaeda in Iraq claimed responsibility for coordinated attacks in 13 towns and cities that killed at least 56 people, many of them members of the Iraqi police and security forces, calling the assaults "the wings of victory sweeping again over a new day." General Ray Odierno, the outgoing U.S. commander in Iraq, said that the formation of a new government there could still be months away. "If we get the government formed, I think we're okay," Odierno said. "If we don't, I don't know." A gunman killed six people and wounded 14 in the Slovak capital of Bratislava. Five soldiers in Afghanistan were charged with forming a "kill team" to summarily execute random Afghan civilians, a college student recently returned from a month spent filming Marines in Afghanistan slashed a Muslim cab driver in New York, and General David Petraeus revealed that he is "an Enya guy."
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Sunday, the Associated Press reportedIn Sacramento California, a state where funding for the health, education, and welfare of the state's residents is about to be razed (snigger...) again, the governor wants to spend $60 million dollars on the construction of a new death row and the legislature is considering a ban on plastic shopping bags."BAGHDAD - An American solider was killed in a rocket attack in southern Iraq on Sunday, the U.S. military said, marking the first American fatality since the last combat unit in Iraq pulled out of the country."As the "last" combat brigade left Iraq, President Obama prepares to give a major speech next week. He probably won't claim victory; that would be laughable. He will claim that the U.S. is taking responsible action, now that the Iraqis are ready to "step up" and run "their own" country. This is the same plan the Bush regime had, but framed and re-branded, Obama-style, to cover a thoroughly illegitimate occupation. [source]
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Mohammed Zia Salehi, an aide to Afghan President Hamid Karzai who was arrested last month on corruption charges, has been on the CIA's payroll for years, according to Afghan and U.S. sources. Salehi's exact job for the U.S. intelligence agency remains unclear. However, his case has reopened the debate within the Obama administration regarding whether the United States should press Karzai to crack down on corruption, or accept that it must cut deals with unethical officials in order to stabilize the Afghan government. [In Full]
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“Can you foresee a scenario like that, that there would be some U.S. military presence, albeit much smaller, at 2020?”
See this interview for more including his view of Iran's involvement in Iraq and the potential that the US will keep 'troops just over the horizon' for the foreseeable future:ODIERNO: “Well I -- yes -- I think I don't know. I think it depends on what kind of presence you're talking about. If the government of Iraq requests some technical assistance in fielding systems that allow them to continue to protect themselves, some external threats, we could be here.”
11:30 am pdt this morning - March to the police department to reclaim police-stolen property including political tabling materials confiscated as "abandoned" or "unattended".Property is only available for claiming (after arrest confiscations etc) for FOUR HOURS EVERY WEEK! Two hours on Tuesday, and two hours on Thursday.
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"What harm would befall the United States if we actually decided, against all odds, to close those hundreds and hundreds of bases, large and small, that we garrison around the world? What if we actually dismantled our empire, and came home?
Would Genghis Khan-like hordes descend on us? Not likely. Neither a land nor a sea invasion of the U.S. is even conceivable.
Would 9/11-type attacks accelerate? It seems far likelier to me that, as our overseas profile shrank, the possibility of such attacks would shrink with it.
Would various countries we've invaded, sometimes occupied, and tried to set on the path of righteousness and democracy decline into "failed states?"
Probably some would, and preventing or controlling this should be the function of the United Nations or of neighboring states. (It is well to remember that the murderous Cambodian regime of Pol Pot was finally brought to an end not by us, but by neighboring Vietnam.)
In other words, the main fears you might hear in Washington -- if anyone even bothered to wonder what would happen, should we begin to dismantle our empire -- would prove but chimeras.
They would, in fact, be remarkably similar to Washington's dire predictions in the 1970s about states all over Asia, then Africa, and beyond falling, like so many dominoes, to communist domination if we did not win the war in Vietnam.
What, then, would the world be like if the U.S. lost control globally -- Washington's greatest fear and deepest reflection of its own overblown sense of self-worth -- as is in fact happening now despite our best efforts?
What would that world be like if the U.S. just gave it all up? What would happen to us if we were no longer the "sole superpower" or the world's self-appointed policeman?" [Continued]
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"Erik Prince, the founder of the notorious security company Blackwater/Xe, has left the United States and is settling with his family in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates" (source).Prince may think the the pressure is on for a U.S. gun smuggling indictment (CPA-owned Glocks to Turkish street criminals most likely) and go figure... The United States has no extradition treaty with the United Arab Emirates, one of it's main allies in the Middle East.
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The U.S. military consumes about 85 million barrels of oil a year, making it the biggest single consumer of fuel in the country and perhaps the world. According to an interdisciplinary panel convened by the Defense Science Board (DSB ), cheap oil has distorted the American military into a handful of super-killing steel monsters, with the majority of the forces devoted to the logistics of simply feeding and fueling them.
“The Army employed sixty thousand soldiers solely for the purpose of providing petroleum, oil, and lubricants to its war machines, which have themselves become increasingly fuel-heavy. The sixty-eight-ton Abrams tank, for instance, burns through a gallon of fuel for every half mile. With its inefficient, 1960s-era engine, the Abrams tank burns twelve gallons of fuel an hour just idling.
“So much time and money is spent fueling the American fighting machines that, according to the head of the Army Materiel Command, a gallon of fuel delivered to the U.S. military in action can ultimately cost up to $400 a gallon. Indeed, 70 percent of the weight of all the soldiers, vehicles, and weapons of the entire U.S. Army is pure fuel.” [In Full]
It may be hard to imagine a revolution erupting tomorrow, but we need to remember that human history is one of resistance, riot and rebellion. In this issue, Adbusters #91: The Revolution Issue – I, Revolution, we provide a look back at history’s greatest struggles as well work from some of today’s freshest radical thinkers [In Full]
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Tensions Rise in Greece as Austerity Measures BackfireOne can only wonder what will happen when the US institutes the pending G20/IMF plan to rape its Social Security system for debt reduction.
The austerity measures that were supposed to fix Greece's problems are dragging down the country's economy. Stores are closing, tax revenues are falling and unemployment has hit an unbelievable 70 percent in some places.
Frustrated workers are threatening to strike back. [In Full at Spiegel]
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Woodstock, NY, 41 yrs ago, Aug 15, 1969, the tiny town is scene of a 300,000 people's festival of a cultural revolution.Meanwhile, in the here and now, in the 'revolution interrupted', the word gets passed around:
Just back from Viet Nam, I was on military leave, coincidentally at a B & B in Woodstock, VT. Only learning of the festival in the newspaper at breakfast table, I was ecstatic that a people's revolution seemed in the making. Another couple at the table was in grief as their only son had been killed in Viet Nam the previous month. When I told them I was just back, they clasped my hands and we just cried together, hoping that a revolution was about to turn the USA into a kind society.
If, only if. [In Full]
This is a nation-wide call to action!
Come to Fort Hood, Texas, Aug. 22 to participate in peaceful actions with veterans and anti-war leaders opposing the deployment of the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment's 5,000 Soldiers to Iraq. This is your invite. Can you attend? [In Full]
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