Pilger takes a look at the role played by the media in the selling, and the maintaining of, the Bush/Blair war of aggression in Iraq. (and others)
The first clip is out of sinc, but sinc, as does content and revelations, improves greatly after that.
H/T Joana Morais.
Showing posts with label Genocide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Genocide. Show all posts
Saturday, 25 December 2010
Friday, 24 December 2010
Political Pressure, Whodathunkit?
Which kind of endorses the adage, no matter who you vote for, it's always the government that gets in.
What happened to all that hope people invested in you Mister President?
But not for one minute would I have expected anything different. If successive administrations prosecuted the previous one for crimes against humanity, by gum there'd be a lot of folk in gaol.
What happened to all that hope people invested in you Mister President?
But not for one minute would I have expected anything different. If successive administrations prosecuted the previous one for crimes against humanity, by gum there'd be a lot of folk in gaol.
Obama and GOPers Worked Together to Kill Bush Torture Probe
A WikiLeaks cable shows that when Spain considered a criminal case against ex-Bush officials, the Obama White House and Republicans got really bipartisan.
By David Corn
Wed Dec. 1, 2010 2:47 PM PST
In its first months in office, the Obama administration sought to protect Bush administration officials facing criminal investigation overseas for their involvement in establishing policies the that governed interrogations of detained terrorist suspects. A "confidential" April 17, 2009, cable sent from the US embassy in Madrid to the State Department—one of the 251,287 cables obtained by WikiLeaks—details how the Obama administration, working with Republicans, leaned on Spain to derail this potential prosecution.
The previous month, a Spanish human rights group called the Association for the Dignity of Spanish Prisoners had requested that Spain's National Court indict six former Bush officials for, as the cable describes it, "creating a legal framework that allegedly permitted torture." The six were former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; David Addington, former chief of staff and legal adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney; William Haynes, the Pentagon's former general counsel; Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy; Jay Bybee, former head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel; and John Yoo, a former official in the Office of Legal Counsel. The human rights group contended that Spain had a duty to open an investigation under the nation's "universal jurisdiction" law, which permits its legal system to prosecute overseas human rights crimes involving Spanish citizens and residents. Five Guantanamo detainees, the group maintained, fit that criteria.
Soon after the request was made, the US embassy in Madrid began tracking the matter. On April 1, embassy officials spoke with chief prosecutor Javier Zaragoza, who indicated that he was not pleased to have been handed this case, but he believed that the complaint appeared to be well-documented and he'd have to pursue it. Around that time, the acting deputy chief of the US embassy talked to the chief of staff for Spain's foreign minister and a senior official in the Spanish Ministry of Justice to convey, as the cable says, "that this was a very serious matter for the USG." The two Spaniards "expressed their concern at the case but stressed the independence of the Spanish judiciary."
Two weeks later, Sen. Judd Gregg (R-N.H.) and the embassy's charge d'affaires "raised the issue" with another official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. The next day, Zaragoza informed the US embassy that the complaint might not be legally sound. He noted he would ask Cándido Conde-Pumpido, Spain's attorney general, to review whether Spain had jurisdiction.
On April 15, Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), who'd recently been chairman of the Republican Party, and the US embassy's charge d'affaires met with the acting Spanish foreign minister, Angel Lossada. The Americans, according to this cable, "underscored that the prosecutions would not be understood or accepted in the US and would have an enormous impact on the bilateral relationship" between Spain and the United States. Here was a former head of the GOP and a representative of a new Democratic administration (headed by a president who had decried the Bush-Cheney administration's use of torture) jointly applying pressure on Spain to kill the investigation of the former Bush officials. Lossada replied that the independence of the Spanish judiciary had to be respected, but he added that the government would send a message to the attorney general that it did not favor prosecuting this case.
The next day, April 16, 2009, Attorney General Conde-Pumpido publicly declared that he would not support the criminal complaint, calling it "fraudulent" and political. If the Bush officials had acted criminally, he said, then a case should be filed in the United States. On April 17, the prosecutors of the National Court filed a report asking that complaint be discontinued. In the April 17 cable, the American embassy in Madrid claimed some credit for Conde-Pumpido's opposition, noting that "Conde-Pumpido's public announcement follows outreach to [Government of Spain] officials to raise USG deep concerns on the implications of this case."
Still, this did not end the matter.......more
Saturday, 11 December 2010
God Bless America and All Her Cant and Hypocrisy
God Bless America and All Her Cant and All Her Hypocrisy
If I said this post was all about hypocrisy, (which it is) I would be doing disservice to those people who are shown here being murdered by United States of America. So this post then, is about both hypocrisy and unwarranted bloody murder.
To appreciate just how rank that hypocrisy, it becomes necessary to view the clip below, or, if you have already watched the first, then the second one is still fit for purpose.
Both clips speak for themselves and it requires little further from me. Other than that is, to listen to the Redneck and the Christian in the second clip. I only give them those names to differentiate between the two, but in actual fact they are both Rednecks, as are they all, Redneck being a philosophy not circumstance.
This hour long documentary is more than worthy of watching in its own right, and I can't encourage you enough that you do so. But for the purpose of this post I want to concentrate on two areas. Starting at the 25.30s mark the film shows an American attack helicopter murdering a dozen or more Iraqis who were doing no more than going about their daily business. The callow ease with which these men were murdered, is to say, horrifying. Compounded by, and showing these bringers of democracy for what they really are, common criminals, we hear the voices of the pilot and his gunner, and are treated to the likes of this.
Quote:
"Look at those dead bastards"
"Nice"
And when it is pointed out to this pair of killers, that the Good Samaritan they had just murdered, had his children in the vehicle with him, this.
"It's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle"
All this carnage and murder bad enough, but nothing prepares you for the next couple of minutes starting 40.35s. The narrator tells the story, I can't.
God bless America.
A seventeen minute version of the forty minute original.
Same shit, different war.
Sean Penn/Bill Maher short version.
Sean Penn/Bill Maher long version.
H/T Joana Morais.
Unedited
If I said this post was all about hypocrisy, (which it is) I would be doing disservice to those people who are shown here being murdered by United States of America. So this post then, is about both hypocrisy and unwarranted bloody murder.
To appreciate just how rank that hypocrisy, it becomes necessary to view the clip below, or, if you have already watched the first, then the second one is still fit for purpose.
Both clips speak for themselves and it requires little further from me. Other than that is, to listen to the Redneck and the Christian in the second clip. I only give them those names to differentiate between the two, but in actual fact they are both Rednecks, as are they all, Redneck being a philosophy not circumstance.
This hour long documentary is more than worthy of watching in its own right, and I can't encourage you enough that you do so. But for the purpose of this post I want to concentrate on two areas. Starting at the 25.30s mark the film shows an American attack helicopter murdering a dozen or more Iraqis who were doing no more than going about their daily business. The callow ease with which these men were murdered, is to say, horrifying. Compounded by, and showing these bringers of democracy for what they really are, common criminals, we hear the voices of the pilot and his gunner, and are treated to the likes of this.
Quote:
"Look at those dead bastards"
"Nice"
And when it is pointed out to this pair of killers, that the Good Samaritan they had just murdered, had his children in the vehicle with him, this.
"It's their fault for bringing their kids to a battle"
All this carnage and murder bad enough, but nothing prepares you for the next couple of minutes starting 40.35s. The narrator tells the story, I can't.
God bless America.
A seventeen minute version of the forty minute original.
Same shit, different war.
Sean Penn/Bill Maher short version.
Sean Penn/Bill Maher long version.
H/T Joana Morais.
Unedited
Saturday, 18 September 2010
The Lesson For Today: Cant and Hypocrisy
Unedited.
It's not unusual when a visitor arrives at the blog via a Google search, for me to retrace that visitor path back to source. It's nothing other than keeping a finger on the pulse of things, the world view as it were, albeit a Google world view.
I followed one such path this afternoon and went on the proverbial mystery tour. I took a few screen shots along the way, shots far from earth shattering, but nonetheless, shots, that for one reason or another attracted my attention. Those screen shots now destined for yet another post.
I also opened a few of the Google links and among the places I ended up were, Good Quality Wristbands and The Sun, Murdoch's Sun.* Now there's a piece of work if ever there was; how it reminds me so of Fox News US. Both these ministries pandering to the similar demographics, their content aimed at similar fat arsed cretins, in the hope no doubt of achieving similar effect in its readership, no matter which side of the pond they dwell
There is however a slight difference, and for that we must be grateful. We are in the UK spared having everything coated in a sickly layer of Jesus Christ Almighty, something for which Americans have a seemingly unending appetite. Stuffing as they do, Jesus; with the same nauseating excess as their junk food, down their insatiable gobs. Still not terribly surprising is it? not with God being an American n'all, how else could there be one Nation under God.
Why am I off on this tangent? well I'll tell you, it's Sunday, I feel like it and I'm pissed. Pissed at the same cretinous fat arsed American Jezoids who wallow in ignorance like this below. *This, being a testament to ignorance and stupidity for which there is no metric, no scale, in fact it's so far off the scale its in fucking orbit. An orbit no doubt treading a similar path, not unlike Russell's Celestial Teapot. (Speaking of teapots and totally off topic, try this for size. The Apostate and the giant teapot)* Now at the bottom of the page.
Though I let it pass at the time, on the basis that I really couldn't be arsed replying to yet another cretin, the comment I received went on to be a stimulus. That comment plus yesterdays bit of found treasure combined, results in my writing today. And perhaps to be fair I should include a bit of Bill Bryson that I happen to be reading at the moment.* He being able to see things a whole lot clearer than the majority of his countrymen, I will just put it down to the twenty years he spent in civilisation. A mostly secular civilisation at that.
*Notes From a Big Country
Death From Above.
I had already received two comments in a similar vane, arrogance, for an article I had featured in 2007. A level of arrogance I might add, that seems to be almost exclusive to the citizens of the one nation under God.
So what was it about this last comment that made it so much different? nothing really, other than it was a bit more rounded, nearly the complete picture, and in so few words. The only thing missing in fact was that the Wrath of God hadn't been called upon to strike me dead for my blasphemy. Blasphemy against the Greatest Nation on Earth that is, not God.
I shall post the same offending intro here as I did then, with of course our featured comments.
I shall not mention the grammar.
Such delightful arrogance, and a non-sequitur for luck.
And then we have the icing on the cake. How he manages to cover so much in so few words is truly beyond me.
He doesn't help himself does he? In fact he sounds very much like the guy that once hailed Bill O'Reilly as, and I kid you not, a Great American.
Staying with death from above, Jesus and the Rapture I am afraid, will have to slide down the page a tad. Let us take a little look then at the organisation charged with that mission, the United States Air Force.
Never in all the annals of history has there been an institution quite like this one. Going so far as to say, an institution so wrapped in its own piety, so steeped in abject hypocrisy, and so murderous in intent, that by comparison the USAF makes the Catholic Church look positively enlightened. A shining star no less, a beacon for knowledge and understanding and I shall even throw for taste a hint of tolerance. Such is the reality and not just my opinion alone of the United States Air Force.
Earlier I stood accused of having: never worked a day in your life in service of your country.
How very right he is, not a day, not one day have I spent in the service of my country. Not one day flying half way around the world to drop by their millions of tons, indiscriminate bombs on the soft and vulnerable flesh of men women and children. Not a day spent on burning to death those that the bombs had missed by raining down upon those same vulnerable people, the horror of Napalm.
Not a day spent poisoning the country, the very earth that these gentle people had trod and had called their home for millennia. Not a day then spent in dropping just one ounce of the nineteen million gallons of dioxin that were on a shit-ass little country. The legacy of which resulting in the untold horrors of children being born with some of the most hideous deformities ever witnessed.
Not a day for me being a true American Patriot, no My Lia for me to remember, no days spent in the service of my country.
A legacy to last for generations not yet born, but a legacy that pales by comparison to the one that has been gifted to Iraq. A legacy of poisoned land, of similar * horrific birth defects as those visited on the Vietnamese, but a legacy that will last millennia, such is the legacy of Depleted Uranium. A legacy courtesy of that same One Christian Nation Under God, the sanctimonious and hypocritical United States of America and its equally sanctimonious and hypocritical Air Force. *Big site keep scrolling.
Lord bless this defender of freedom, the American psyche in a nutshell.
And if you think that one is a vomit in the making, wait until you've had six and a half minutes of much watch, United States Air Force Academy Campus Crusade for Christ. This below lifted from an earlier post.
United States Air Force Academy Campus Crusade for Christ.
Six and a half minutes of film that epitomises everything that is wrong with religion, everything that is wrong with America, and consequently, everything that is wrong with religious America.
What could be more ungodly than an organisation that by virtue of it's very existence, its purpose being to reign death and destruction on people in their thousands, if not, as in the case of South East Asia, by the millions.
And finally we get to the culprit in all this, Jesus H and the Rapture.
I've said much today so I shall save you chapter and verse on this little display of cor bleedin' blimey!
Other than to say, and to say it is not at all unique, that most things that issue from the mouths of them that's got God, (of any stripe) if it didn't have a religious tag on it, the speaker would be a worthy candidate for the nut house. These fellows just take it one step further, their requirements being much the same as the other fellows, but accompanied by a straight jacket.
Only in Ameriki folks, only in Ameriki.
For those of you that came in search of what must have seemed like a phantom post, this one:
Pissing into a dying man's oxygen mask
My apologies. I published the post for no more than three or four seconds, just long enough in fact to determine which one of two video sizes to use.
I have never had Google pick up on similar brief posts with the speed that it did. I shall endeavour to post it tomorrow.
*Murdoch's Sun, now part of tomorrows post.
It's not unusual when a visitor arrives at the blog via a Google search, for me to retrace that visitor path back to source. It's nothing other than keeping a finger on the pulse of things, the world view as it were, albeit a Google world view.
I followed one such path this afternoon and went on the proverbial mystery tour. I took a few screen shots along the way, shots far from earth shattering, but nonetheless, shots, that for one reason or another attracted my attention. Those screen shots now destined for yet another post.
I also opened a few of the Google links and among the places I ended up were, Good Quality Wristbands and The Sun, Murdoch's Sun.* Now there's a piece of work if ever there was; how it reminds me so of Fox News US. Both these ministries pandering to the similar demographics, their content aimed at similar fat arsed cretins, in the hope no doubt of achieving similar effect in its readership, no matter which side of the pond they dwell
There is however a slight difference, and for that we must be grateful. We are in the UK spared having everything coated in a sickly layer of Jesus Christ Almighty, something for which Americans have a seemingly unending appetite. Stuffing as they do, Jesus; with the same nauseating excess as their junk food, down their insatiable gobs. Still not terribly surprising is it? not with God being an American n'all, how else could there be one Nation under God.
Why am I off on this tangent? well I'll tell you, it's Sunday, I feel like it and I'm pissed. Pissed at the same cretinous fat arsed American Jezoids who wallow in ignorance like this below. *This, being a testament to ignorance and stupidity for which there is no metric, no scale, in fact it's so far off the scale its in fucking orbit. An orbit no doubt treading a similar path, not unlike Russell's Celestial Teapot. (Speaking of teapots and totally off topic, try this for size. The Apostate and the giant teapot)* Now at the bottom of the page.
Though I let it pass at the time, on the basis that I really couldn't be arsed replying to yet another cretin, the comment I received went on to be a stimulus. That comment plus yesterdays bit of found treasure combined, results in my writing today. And perhaps to be fair I should include a bit of Bill Bryson that I happen to be reading at the moment.* He being able to see things a whole lot clearer than the majority of his countrymen, I will just put it down to the twenty years he spent in civilisation. A mostly secular civilisation at that.
*Notes From a Big Country
Death From Above.
I had already received two comments in a similar vane, arrogance, for an article I had featured in 2007. A level of arrogance I might add, that seems to be almost exclusive to the citizens of the one nation under God.
So what was it about this last comment that made it so much different? nothing really, other than it was a bit more rounded, nearly the complete picture, and in so few words. The only thing missing in fact was that the Wrath of God hadn't been called upon to strike me dead for my blasphemy. Blasphemy against the Greatest Nation on Earth that is, not God.
I shall post the same offending intro here as I did then, with of course our featured comments.
Death From Above
In reality, "Death from Above" means nothing less than mass murder from 15,000 feet. It means daisy cutters, bunker busters, cruise missiles, napalm, and white phosphorous. It means depleted uranium and cluster bombs littering the landscape for decades. It means rubble, destruction, the ruination of lives by the hundreds, by the thousands and more. It means Dresden, Pearl Harbor, Hiroshima, and Nagasaki. It means "shock and awe." It means 9/11. It means more than space allows me to explain, yet it's perfectly normal for an American to slap a "Death by Above" decal on his/her vehicle...right next to "support the troops" sticker. link
I shall not mention the grammar.
Anonymous 1
well the saying "death from above" is use to discribe the us paratrooper because we jump out of planes not freakin bombs and if it wasnt for soldiers enlisting then you wouldnt even be able to write this dumbass message
Such delightful arrogance, and a non-sequitur for luck.
Anonymous 2Ah yes; bugger orf back to where you came from.
Airborne -All the Way - defending your right to be an A-hole.
...and if you don't like being an American there are plenty of other countries to choose from.
And then we have the icing on the cake. How he manages to cover so much in so few words is truly beyond me.
Anonymous 3
I stumbled upon this site looking for my death from above "Airborne" decal to put on my American made truck and I about puked when I read what the author had to say. Your the fag that drives a prius right...and never worked a day in your life in service of your country or anyone else for that matter. Keep cryin about the freedom my brothers preserve for you.....whata selfish P.O.S.
He doesn't help himself does he? In fact he sounds very much like the guy that once hailed Bill O'Reilly as, and I kid you not, a Great American.
Staying with death from above, Jesus and the Rapture I am afraid, will have to slide down the page a tad. Let us take a little look then at the organisation charged with that mission, the United States Air Force.
Never in all the annals of history has there been an institution quite like this one. Going so far as to say, an institution so wrapped in its own piety, so steeped in abject hypocrisy, and so murderous in intent, that by comparison the USAF makes the Catholic Church look positively enlightened. A shining star no less, a beacon for knowledge and understanding and I shall even throw for taste a hint of tolerance. Such is the reality and not just my opinion alone of the United States Air Force.
Earlier I stood accused of having: never worked a day in your life in service of your country.
How very right he is, not a day, not one day have I spent in the service of my country. Not one day flying half way around the world to drop by their millions of tons, indiscriminate bombs on the soft and vulnerable flesh of men women and children. Not a day spent on burning to death those that the bombs had missed by raining down upon those same vulnerable people, the horror of Napalm.
Not a day spent poisoning the country, the very earth that these gentle people had trod and had called their home for millennia. Not a day then spent in dropping just one ounce of the nineteen million gallons of dioxin that were on a shit-ass little country. The legacy of which resulting in the untold horrors of children being born with some of the most hideous deformities ever witnessed.
Not a day for me being a true American Patriot, no My Lia for me to remember, no days spent in the service of my country.
A legacy to last for generations not yet born, but a legacy that pales by comparison to the one that has been gifted to Iraq. A legacy of poisoned land, of similar * horrific birth defects as those visited on the Vietnamese, but a legacy that will last millennia, such is the legacy of Depleted Uranium. A legacy courtesy of that same One Christian Nation Under God, the sanctimonious and hypocritical United States of America and its equally sanctimonious and hypocritical Air Force. *Big site keep scrolling.
Lord Bless This Defender Of freedom
And Keep Him Safe in Your Hands
Lord bless this defender of freedom, the American psyche in a nutshell.
And if you think that one is a vomit in the making, wait until you've had six and a half minutes of much watch, United States Air Force Academy Campus Crusade for Christ. This below lifted from an earlier post.
USAF: A Most Ungodly Organisation
United States Air Force Academy Campus Crusade for Christ.
Six and a half minutes of film that epitomises everything that is wrong with religion, everything that is wrong with America, and consequently, everything that is wrong with religious America.
What could be more ungodly than an organisation that by virtue of it's very existence, its purpose being to reign death and destruction on people in their thousands, if not, as in the case of South East Asia, by the millions.
And finally we get to the culprit in all this, Jesus H and the Rapture.
I've said much today so I shall save you chapter and verse on this little display of cor bleedin' blimey!
Other than to say, and to say it is not at all unique, that most things that issue from the mouths of them that's got God, (of any stripe) if it didn't have a religious tag on it, the speaker would be a worthy candidate for the nut house. These fellows just take it one step further, their requirements being much the same as the other fellows, but accompanied by a straight jacket.
Only in Ameriki folks, only in Ameriki.
For those of you that came in search of what must have seemed like a phantom post, this one:
Pissing into a dying man's oxygen mask
My apologies. I published the post for no more than three or four seconds, just long enough in fact to determine which one of two video sizes to use.
I have never had Google pick up on similar brief posts with the speed that it did. I shall endeavour to post it tomorrow.
*Murdoch's Sun, now part of tomorrows post.
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