Showing posts with label Antiwar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Antiwar. Show all posts
Monday, May 31, 2010
Crosspost: Sanitizing War: What would "Memorial Day" Be Without The Memories?
"We don't do body counts,"General Tommy Franks, commander of the U.S. invasions of both Afghanistan and Iraq, famously remarked, when asked about Iraqi civilian casualties. We do do body counts of our own -- though we don't talk about them much. (source)
In modified form, from Auntie Imperial's News & Blog Review
The war to liberate Southeast Asia from communism resulted in the deaths of 3.5 million Vietnamese, 2 million Laotians & Cambodians, and 58,000 Americans.
Rather than raping and pillaging the lands for its resources, the American military napalmed its jungles, carpet bombed its cities, defoliated the jungles with 20 million gallons of herbicides (including Agent Orange) and slaughtered women and children (My Lai Massacre).
It was easy to rationalize these acts when referring to the inhabitants as gooks, dinks, tunnel rats, and Uncle Ben's boys. Racism makes it easy to treat human beings as objects and dehumanize your acts of horror. ~~Jim Quinn, Charlie Don't Surf, OpEd News, February 2009
Here's a little something Auntie Imperial lashed together for Memorial Day 2010. It's Dedicated to those who have fallen, and Americans still at risk, in our ongoing IMPERIAL wars.
[Pop Out Player]
(Also See: Vietnamistan - PoP dEFECT Radio, Agitational Propaganda For A 'Failed State')
The bulk of the rest of this post is taken from Cabale News Service's Labor Day post last year titled: A 'Labor Day' Message - The Working Class And The Employing Class Have NOTHING In Common. It has been slightly edited for clarity.
Labor Day 2009...
There was a breaking story.
It revolved around an image of a dying soldier, Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard.
As we head into Memorial Day 2010... because it's not JUST Memorial Day this weekend, it's also Trillion Dollar Day because that's what the AfPakIraq war has cost us (The direct cost of occupying Iraq and Afghanistan)... so far, with no real end in sight, just troops moved from theatre (Iraq) to theatre (Afghanistan) to theatre (See here for a list of them)I think we should all ruminate on what we're getting for that money.
Yes.
Peace?
No.
Security?
NOT!
Dead soldiers?
Absofuckinglutely!
But the Pentagon, and the other interested parties who want you to just simply play along with their murderous imperial wars like "Good Americans-cum-Germans" don't want you to think about... REALLY think about, those Absofuckinglutely dead soldiers.
Source, PoP dEFECT Radio, Courtesy of Skidmark Bob Freek Radio Santa Cruz |
To Wit, one of the headlines @ Cabale News Service, on Labor Day 2009 read:
"Not Supposed To..." Times Two:
One of the primary rules of Journalism... "The journalist IS "NOT supposed to" become part of the story..." has been broken by Associated Press, apparently not on purpose, but because they 'violated' a 'rule' of American social mores...
Associated Press has published a picture of a dying US Marine, Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard.
Lance Cpl. Joshua Bernard is tended to by fellow U.S. Marines in Afghanistan.
Photograph: Julie Jacobson/AP
Astonishing! If you thought the pictures of soldier's caskets coming into Dover AFB raised a shitstorm, you ain't seen nuthin'.
It IS notable that it took a FEMALE photojournalist to push this limit.
What's ALSO notable is that Photobucket violated my TOS over this picture, NOT due to AP's copyright or insistence, but due to it's graphic nature, despite MANY pictures of dead and dying Iraqis and other third world folk in my album, including THIS gruesome and heartbreaking photo:
It's nice to know that PhotoBucket.com cares more about American soldiers and their privacy-in-their-dying-moments than an INNOCENT BLOOD-SPATTERED IRAQI CHILD SCREAMING IN GRIEF OVER THE MURDER BY US SOLDIERS OF HER FAMILY WHILE SHE WAS SITTING NEXT TO THEM IN THE FAMILY CAR.
Censorship is NOT Dead in America.
The Guardian UK hints that the flap over it's publication was essentially merit-less :
It is a graphic image of the harsh realities of war: the fatally wounded young marine lying crumpled in the mud, his vulnerable face turned to the camera. And it is one the US defence secretary would rather you did not see.
Lance Corporal Joshua Bernard, pictured being tended by comrades in southern Afghanistan, died of his injuries soon after. Now the release of this record of the 21-year-old's last moments has divided America, prompting furious debate over the sanitisation of war at a critical time for the military offensive. [In Full]
Whereas Tom Ricks, EX-Washington Post War Reporter, now ensconced as a pundit for CNAS (Neo-Liberal Think Tank) affiliated Foreign Policy magazine Headlined it this way:
"The dying marine: What the hell was the AP thinking?"
Yours truly responded to Mr. Ricks, as have others...
I'm just surprised... stunned really, that it made it to copy at all in the current milieu of 'embedded' reporting and "'sanitized' for the discerning media consumer who doesn't want their conscience bothered" war reporting by the majors.
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If the Pentagon, and your peers at CNAS want to continue these worthless wars Tom... Better stop the lying, the dissuasion from the belief that we're not vulnerable to the mayhem and non-culpable for it.. and hiding our deaths (incl the mundane, such as the returning caskets @ Dover AFB) in these wars IS a particularly creepy, Big-Brotherish, semantically corrupt, way to lie to the citizens of the country.
I feel for this soldier and his family, but "War Is Hell", whether one wins OR loses, as a nation, and as an individual human.
Condolences from AP is in order... Maybe they should MAKE SURE that the soldier's family gets every single benefit due them, because the Pentagon sure won't.
But they DO NOT owe an apology.
The last so many presidential administrations INCLUDING the current regime owe his family that.
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([Should we] Publish this picture...) To a nation full of children raised on video game and fantasy movie violence?
Whose parents who often don't let those children out of their sight to the age of majority?
A nation who's media panders them and tells them they NEED the trinkets sold them ('trinkets' often produced by what amounts to 3rd world slave labor) at behaviour controlled shopping malls where they lose the ability to socialize or empathize with anyone besides people just like them (consumers of products we destroy countries like Afghanistan to obtain the extractive resources for..)
([Should we] Publish this picture...) YES! Absolutely.
[Read what Tom Ricks had to say, and other comments, at his Blog, The Best Defense]
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
DoD anti-terror training program question - "Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorist activity? Correct answer: " protests."
FireFox users might also want this add-on
Among the multiple-choice questions included in its Level 1 Antiterrorism Awareness training course — an annual training requirement for all DOD personnel that is fulfilled through Web-based instruction — the department asks the following: "Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorist activity?"To answer correctly, the examinee must select "protests." [In Full]
Peace Out, Luv Duv, and don't forget to take it easy...
Da' Buffalo Amongst Wolves, "low-level terrorist"
Saturday, June 6, 2009
Notable Web Sites - Map The Fallen US & Coalition Soldiers, Iraq & Afghanistan
Note: 'Map The Fallen' Uses Google Earth KMZ Files.
Excerpt:
"For the past two years I've been working on the Google Earth Outreach team, aimed at helping non-profits and public benefit groups use Google Earth and Google Maps to further their cause.
In that time I've worked on so many cool projects, from training indigenous communities in Brazil on the use of internet and mapping technologies, to helping with Google's disaster response mapping efforts for the San Diego fires and Cyclone Nargis, to even working with NASA to get a copy of Google Earth on the International Space Station (more on that later!).
I'm also in charge of the Global Awareness layers in Google Earth and helped develop and polish many of those projects, including Crisis in Darfur and Appalachian Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining.
This Memorial Day I would like to share with you a personal project of mine that uses Google Earth to honor the more than 5,700 American and Coalition servicemen and women that have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. I have created a map for Google Earth that will connect you with each of their stories—you can see photos, learn about how they died, visit memorial websites with comments from friends and families, and explore the places they called home and where they died."
Click on the map image above, or HERE to visit Map The Fallen
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
Gaza Relief Ship Damaged In 'Encounter' (If That's What Being Repeatedly Rammed Is Called Now) With Israeli Military Vessel - CNN.com
(CNN) -- An Israeli patrol boat struck a boat carrying medical volunteers and supplies to Gaza early Tuesday as it attempted to intercept the vessel in the Mediterranean Sea, witnesses and Israeli officials said.
CNN Correspondent Karl Penhaul was aboard the 60-foot, Gibraltar-registered pleasure boat Dignity when the contact occurred. When the boat later docked in the Lebanese port city of Tyre, severe damage was visible to the forward port side of the boat, and the front left window and part of the roof had collapsed.
The Dignity was carrying crew and 16 passengers -- physicians from Britain, Germany and Cyprus and human rights activists, including former U.S. Rep. Cynthia McKinney -- who were trying to reach Gaza through an Israeli blockade of the territory.
The captain of the Dignity said the Israelis broadcast a radio message accusing the vessel of being involved in terrorist activity. But Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor denied that and said the radio message simply warned the vessel not to proceed to Gaza because it is a closed military area.
Palmor said there was no response to the radio message, and the vessel then tried to out-maneuver the Israeli patrol boat, leading to the collision.
Penhaul said at least two Israeli patrol boats had shadowed the Dignity for about half an hour before the collision, moving around the vessel on all sides. One of the patrol boats then shined its spotlight on the Dignity while the other, with its lights off, "very severely rammed" the boat.
The captain of the Dignity told Penhaul he received no prior warning. Only after the collision did the Israelis come on the radio to say they struck the boat because they believed it was involved in terrorist activities. VideoWatch the chaos in Gaza and Israel »
The captain and crew said their vessel was struck intentionally, Penhaul said, but Palmor called those allegations "absurd."
"There is no intention on the part of the Israeli navy to ram anybody," Palmor said.
"I would call it ramming. Let's just call it as it is," McKinney said. "Our boat was rammed three times, twice in the front and one on the side."
In Full @ CNN
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Monday, March 31, 2008
TXTmob writer subpoenaed over 2004 RNC - NYTimes via Indybay
TXTmob writer subpoenaed over 2004 RNC
NYTimes
Sunday Mar 30th, 2008 11:16 AM
By COLIN MOYNIHAN
Published: March 30, 2008
When delegates to the Republican National Convention assembled in New York in August 2004, the streets and sidewalks near Union Square and Madison Square Garden filled with demonstrators.
Police officers in helmets formed barriers by stretching orange netting across intersections. Hordes of bicyclists participated in rolling protests through nighttime streets, and helicopters hovered overhead.
These tableaus and others were described as they happened in text messages that spread from mobile phone to mobile phone in New York City and beyond. The people sending and receiving the messages were using technology, developed by an anonymous group of artists and activists called the Institute for Applied Autonomy, that allowed users to form networks and transmit messages to hundreds or thousands of telephones.
Although the service, called TXTmob, was widely used by demonstrators, reporters and possibly even police officers, little was known about its inventors. Last month, however, the New York City Law Department issued a subpoena to Tad Hirsch, a doctoral candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who wrote the code that created TXTmob.
Lawyers representing the city in lawsuits filed by hundreds of people arrested during the convention asked Mr. Hirsch to hand over voluminous records revealing the content of messages exchanged on his service and identifying people who sent and received messages. Mr. Hirsch says that some of the subpoenaed material no longer exists and that he believes he has the right to keep other information secret.
“There’s a principle at stake here,” he said recently by telephone. “I think I have a moral responsibility to the people who use my service to protect their privacy.”
The subpoena, which was issued Feb. 4, instructed Mr. Hirsch, who is completing his dissertation at M.I.T., to produce a wide range of material, including all text messages sent via TXTmob during the convention, the date and time of the messages, information about people who sent and received messages, and lists of people who used the service...
Go to the New York Times for more
There Have Been Thanks For Stopping By
Sunday, March 30, 2008
That Old Time Religion - Police arrest anti-war protester, 80, at mall - Feral Scholar
That Old Time Religion
The Catonsville Nine (Daniel and Philip Berrigan, other activists, burn draft records in a parking lot with homemade napalm)
Not THIS kind of 'religion':
H/T to Stan Goff, Feral Scholar
Police arrest anti-war protester, 80, at mall
[Hat tip to Jeri Reed]
An 80-year-old church deacon was removed from the Smith Haven Mall yesterday in a wheelchair and arrested by police for refusing to remove a T-shirt protesting the Iraq War.
Police said that Don Zirkel, of Bethpage, was disturbing shoppers at the Lake Grove mall with his T-shirt, which had what they described as “graphic anti-war images.” Zirkel, a deacon at Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal in Wyandanch, said his shirt had the death tolls of American military personnel and Iraqis - 4,000 and 1 million - and the words “Dead” and “Enough.” The shirt also has three blotches resembling blood splatters.
Police said in a release last night that…
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