Why The World Hates America; in Bumper Stickers

Found in the archives when looking for an image to accompany the article below, which you could say is as much a part of this post as anything. Posted numerically.

Conformation

He Must Have To Apologize an Awful Lot: Petraeus

Incalculable

Friday 04 March 2011


Recent polls suggest that while a majority of US people disapprove of the war in Afghanistan, many on grounds of its horrible economic cost, only 3 percent took the war into account when voting in the 2010 midterm elections. The issue of the economy weighed heavily on voters, but the war and its cost, though clear to them and clearly related to the economy in their thinking, was a far less pressing concern.

US people, if they do read or hear of it, may be shocked at the apparent unconcern of the crews of two US helicopter gunships, which attacked and killed nine children on a mountainside in Afghanistan's Kumar province, shooting them "one after another" this past Tuesday, March 1. ("The helicopters hovered over us, scanned us and we saw a green flash from the helicopters. Then they flew back high up, and in a second round they hovered over us and started shooting." (The New York Times March 2, 2011)).


Four of the boys were seven years old, three were eight, one was nine and the oldest was twelve. "The children were gathering wood under a tree in the mountains near a village in the district," said Noorullah Noori, a member of the local development council in Manogai district. "I myself was involved in the burial," Noori said. "Yesterday we buried them." (The Associated Press, March 2, 2011) General Petraeus has acknowledged, and apologized for, the tragedy.

He has had many tragedies to apologize for just counting Kunar province alone. Last August 26, in the Manogai district, Afghan authorities accused international forces of killing six children during an air assault on Taliban positions. Provincial police chief Khalilullah Ziayee said a group of children were collecting scrap metal on the mountain when NATO aircraft dropped bombs to disperse Taliban fighters attacking a nearby base. "In the bombardment six children, aged six to 12, were killed," the police commander said. "Another child was injured."

In the Bamiyan province of Afghanistan, Zekirullah, a young Afghan friend of mine, age 15, rises at 2:00 AM several mornings each week and rides his donkey for six hours through the pre-dawn to reach a mountainside where he can collect scrub brush and twigs, which he loads on the donkey in baskets. Then, he heads home and stacks the wood - on top of his family's home - to be taken down later and burned for heat. They don't have electrical appliances to heat the home, and even if they did, the villagers only get electricity for two hours a day, generally between 1:00 AM - 3:00 AM. Families rely on their children to collect fuel for heat during the harsh winters and for cooking year round. Young laborers, wanting to help their families survive, mean no harm to the United States. They're not surging at us, or anywhere: they're not insurgents. They're not doing anything to threaten us. They are children, and children anywhere are like children everywhere: they're children like our own.

Sadly, more and more of us in America are getting used to the idea of child poverty - and even child labor - as our own economy sinks further under the burden of our latest nine years of war, of two billion dollars per week we spend creating poverty abroad that we can then emulate at home. Things are getting bad here, but in Afghanistan, children are bombed. Their bodies are casually dismembered and strewn by machines already lost in the horizon as the limbs settle. They lie in pools of blood until family members realize, one by one, that their children are not late in returning home, but, in fact, never will.

In October and again in December of 2010, our small delegation of Voices for Creative Nonviolence activists met with a large family living in a wretched refugee camp. They had fled their homes in the San Gin district of the Helmand Province after a drone attack killed a mother there and her five children. The woman's husband showed us photos of his children's bloodied corpses. His niece, Juma Gul, age nine, had survived the attack. She and I huddled next to each other inside a hut made of mud on a chilly December morning. Juma Gul's father stooped in front of us and gently unzipped her jacket, showing me that his daughter's arm had been amputated by shrapnel when the US missile hit their home in San Gin.

Next to Juma Gul was her brother, whose leg had been mangled in the attack. He apparently has no access to adequate medical care and experiences constant pain. The pilot of the attacking drone, perhaps controlling it from as far away as Creech Air Force Base here in the United States, knows nothing of this family or of the pain that he or she helped inflict. Nor do the commanders, the people who set up the base, the people who pay for it with their taxes and the people who persist in electing candidates intent on indefinitely prolonging the war.


But, sometimes, the war is like it was this past Tuesday, March 1. Sometimes, the issue is right in front of us - as it was to those helicopter crews - it's up close so there can be no mistake as to what we are doing. According to the election polls, we see the cost of war, dimly, but, as with the helicopter crews, it doesn't affect - or prevent - our decisions. Afterward, we deplore the tragedy; we make a pretense of acknowledging the cost of war, but it is incalculable. We can't hope to count it. We actually, finally, have to stop making people like the nine children who died on March 1 pay it.truthout

A bit of humour for you Cletis.

Assange Lodges Extradition Appeal

Julian Assange lodges extradition appeal

WikiLeaks founder's lawyers file appeal against his extradition to Sweden to face charges of rape and sexual assault

Lawyers representing the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, have lodged papers to appeal against his extradition from Britain to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault.

The high court in London confirmed it had received documents to challenge the ruling made at Belmarsh magistrates court, south London, last week. No date has been set for a hearing.

The 39-year-old Australian had always planned to appeal if he failed to escape the European arrest warrant (EAW) at the first attempt. He faces being sent to Sweden within 10 days if his appeal is unsuccessful.

Last week Assange dismissed the decision to extradite him as a "rubber-stamping process". It came as no surprise, he said, but was wrong. "There was no consideration during this entire process as to the merit of the allegations made against me, no consideration or examination of even the complaints made in Sweden and, of course, we have always known we would appeal."

He has been fighting extradition since he was arrested and bailed in December, and has consistently denied the allegations, made by two women in August last year.

Assange's lawyers argued he would not receive a fair trial in Sweden. They said the warrant was invalid because he had not been charged with any offence and the alleged assaults were not grounds for extradition. Assange fears removal to Sweden will make it easier for Washington to extradite him to the US on possible charges relating to WikiLeaks's release of the US embassy cables. The US has been investigating the WikLeaks website, although no charges have been laid. Sweden would have to ask the UK for any onward extradition.

Assange faces four allegations, the most serious that, during a visit to Stockholm, he had sex with a woman, Miss B, while she was sleeping, without a condom and without her consent. Three counts of sexual assault are alleged by another woman, Miss A. If found guilty of the rape charge he could face up to four years in prison.

Howard Riddle, the chief magistrate at the extradition hearing, acknowledged "considerable adverse publicity" against Assange in Sweden but said if there had been any irregularities in the Swedish system the best place to examine them was in a Swedish trial. Gruniad

Canadian Mind Products: A New Found Blog

I know it was released prior to me starting this, my first blog, how much before is purely academic, but having watched the début of Richard Dawkins, The Root of All Evil/The God delusion, it gave me occasion to discuss the program and content on one of the more enlightened American blogs that I used to contribute to at that time.

What I was doing there, or more precisely, what took me in the first place, to this day I still don't know. But it was something that drew me there, at a guess I would go for the terrible injustices perpetrated by the State itself aided and abetted by the most inappropriately named US Department of Justice. Throw in a great big dollop of hypocrisy and coat it all in Syrup of Jesus, and I guess you could say it had my attention.

I had as a young fellow me lad, lived in Canada for a few years, so I wasn't entirely ignorant of the North American way, but of the actual nuts and bolts of the US system at the time blogs and blogging were coming into there own, I was, and getting my eyes opened with alarming regularity.

And one such occasion was discussing Dawkins aforementioned program, and the eye-opener was in reply to me saying that I wouldn't elaborate on the content too much in order not to spoil the thing when it showed stateside. Naive enough now I suppose, but back then, I guess I was naive. The reply, to the effect of, that there wouldn't be a TV channel in the whole of America that would air a program with such content, not one. I don't know how accurate a figure that was, but I sure got the idea.

How sad I thought, to be shielded from what after all was a pretty innocuous program, to be fed a constant diet of pap, the content no doubt being dictated by the advertisers. But sinister just as it was sad, two or three fat controllers keeping the plebs in a state of perpetual ignorance.

No such restrictions or pap to be found though at a newly found site that I am thoroughly going to recommend. I'm still finding my way around it myself, but there is a host of stuff on multiple subjects, and all far from the main stream. Do be aware though, it is a site that doesn't take prisoners, the shit that happens in this world, gets reported as just that, often extremely graphically, but the site owner is only offering photographic evidence of what people are having to endure and are victim to, due to the actions of the great big killing machine, the United States of America.

By way of an introduction I shall feature an article that mirrors my feelings entirely. And as the writer, a few exceptions apart, the left leaning cyber colleagues that I have met, I wouldn't piss on the whole sorry bunch if they were on fire.

Why I Despise Most Americans

I get email all the time from Americans claiming to be puzzled why I despise America. Let me spell it out more clearly.

1. On 2001-10-07 the USA attacked Afghanistan unprovoked. It is an international war crime to aid or abet such an aggressive war. Nearly all Americans support that illegal war.
2. On 2003-03-20 the USA attacked Iraq unprovoked. It is an international war crime to aid or abet such an aggressive war. Colin Powell presented counterfeit evidence of Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons at the UN to justify the preemptive attack. Nearly all Americans supported that illegal war. They only had second thoughts when the costs in dollars and American lives mounted, not because they had an attack of conscience.
3. America routinely tortures detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq. This is illegal by the Geneva conventions. Only a handful of Americans made any protest.
4. Americans killed over hundred thousand civilians, mostly children. Targeting civilians is illegal by the Geneva conventions. Nearly all Americans excuse this behaviour.
5. The American soldiers in Afghanistan and Iraq are in no way defending the USA. They are fighting to control oil. The attraction of the war to soldiers is not the money or the travel, but the appeal of absolute power of life and death over others, the opportunity to maim, rape, kill and plunder without restraint. The soldiers are morally then the equivalent of Mafia hitmen. Nearly all Americans treat them as heroes, on the same plane as those who sacrificed their lives in WWII to protect the USA. This a blasphemy. Nearly all Americans support president Bush in thumbing his nose at the world court, and harbouring American war criminals safe from prosecution. America forces other countries to violate their treaty duty to prosecute war criminals on their soil.
6. Americans use banned weapons such as Napalm, white phosphorus, cluster bombs and depleted uranium to kill slowly and painfully.
7. The Bush administration gradually whittled away at constitutional right after constitutional right with a mere peep of protest. America is a nation of cowards. A people afraid to lift a finger to defend the constutition don’t deserve to have such an exemplary constitution.

I can’t understand how anyone could be proud to belong to a country that degenerate. It is like being proud of being a German in the time of Hitler.

My anger and contempt are based on the above seven recent behaviours of Americans. I have nothing inherent against Americans per se, just the majority of Americans who support these wrongful acts. My room mate is an American and my ex is an American. They don’t support the mayhem.

http://mindprod.com/politics/iraqdespise.html#DESPISE

H/T Steel Magnolia

'Ere, Anybody Seen Our Spysat: X-37B Up To No Good?

My initial reaction when seeing the above photo for the first time was that of, I don't think I would be too happy flying that thing because of the tile pattern. That little ''missing'' right angular area wouldn't inspire a great deal of confidence in me, to say the least. Being the spaceship designer that I am, I would apply the first rule of boat building, if it looks right, it is right, and that don't look right in anybody's book.

My hypothetical concerns soon became more hypothetical still when I began to read the article and was subsequently informed that this yoke is in fact unmanned. And then the story gets interesting, very interesting .....

Second US 'secret space warplane' to launch tomorrow

The US Air Force is set to launch its second X-37B miniature unmanned spaceplane - the type famously dubbed a "secret space warplane" by the Iranian government - on Friday.

The USAF Rapid Capabilities Office, which oversees the X-37B programme, says that the second Orbital Test Vehicle mission (OTV-2) will lift off from Cape Canaveral Air Force Station atop an Atlas V rocket, just as the preceding OTV-1 mission did, and will deploy the second of two X-37B spaceplanes currently owned by the airforce. The launch window will open at 3:39pm EST.

Once in orbit the X-37B deploys a solar panel array, unlike its bigger cousin the Space Shuttle which uses fuel cells for electrical power. Thus the little robot spaceplane can remain in orbit for much longer periods unsupported before re-entering the atmosphere to make a runway landing. The previous OTV-1 mission, carrying a payload which remains secret, lasted 224 days and ended with a successful landing at the Vandenberg military space base in California.

As yet the USAF has not revealed the planned duration of the OTV-2 mission launching tomorrow, and again details of the payload are not being revealed.

There has been extensive speculation among space watchers regarding just why the USA needs a small robotic spaceplane. For most purposes a more normal spacecraft, unburdened by heat shields for re-entry, would be more economical. Even supposing a need to return to Earth, there would seem to be no need for the X-37B's Shuttle-style delta wings, which add weight unnecessarily - a capsule design could be used, or a lifting body if runway landing was regarded as essential.

This was also true for the Shuttle, of course. The bigger spaceplane has its wings because the US military insisted that it should, in order to provide "cross range" capability - that is the ability to take off from Vandenberg and land back there after just one orbit. If this is done on certain high-angle spysat type orbits, it is very hard for anyone down on Earth to know where the spacecraft has been or what it may have done during such a flight profile.

It could even be possible, rather than dropping off or picking up spysats of one's own, that such a mission might be used to meddle with (or even snatch and retrieve to Earth, in the case of the Shuttle) someone else's space hardware. From their point of view their satellite (or whatever) would simply fail to come back around the planet again as expected.

Rumour has it that worries about the Shuttle's capability caused the Soviets to ponder a "space fighter" modified from the MiG-105 manned test craft, though the proposed "Uragan" (Hurricane) never actually came to fruition.

In the end the Shuttle never flew from Vandenberg on secretive military ghost missions: but the X-37B is already landing there, and could be launched from California too. Indeed this is to be expected, as one of the avowed goals of the project is to achieve rapid turnaround between launches.

The two X-37Bs are probably just what the USAF says they are - reusable satellites intended for checking out new technologies in space before putting them into purpose-built sats, and/or for putting something into orbit rapidly without any need to build a satellite specially.

But the facts that the spaceplane is funded from the secret, or "black", budget and that details of missions are apparently never to be disclosed - not to mention that the X-37B has already shown that it can elude the attention of watchers on the ground at least temporarily - will no doubt continue to fan the flames of speculation. And it is true that while the little ship is too small to physically snatch a foreign spacecraft the way a Shuttle might, it would be ideal for covert electronic-intelligence (or even electronic warfare) runs past other nations' sats.

Disappointingly perhaps, the objectives of the OTV-2 mission which will follow tomorrow's launch will probably not become known for a long time. The Register

It's Official: Americans Have Fat Arses

Yanks outweigh Canucks: Official

US leads in obesity stakes

It's official: US adults have the edge in the heavyweight stakes over their Canadian counterparts, with the 2007-9 figures showing "the prevalence of obesity among adults in Canada is lower than it is in the United States".

That's according to a study which took data from the Canadian Health Measures Survey, 2007–2009; the Canadian Heart Health Surveys, 1986–1992; and the US National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey, 1988–1994 and 2007–2008, to conclude that "the prevalence of obesity in Canada was 24.1 per cent, over 10 percentage points lower than in the United States (34.4 per cent)".

Regarding gender, the figures show that "among men, the prevalence of obesity was over 8 percentage points lower in Canada than in the United States (24.3 per cent compared with 32.6 per cent) and among women, more than 12 percentage points lower (23.9per cent compared with 36.2 per cent)".

There's more detailed analysis on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website, but here's a further unsurprising snippet from the study: "Between the late 1980s and today, the prevalence of obesity increased significantly in both the United States and Canada."

The CDC notes: "American society has become 'obesogenic,' characterized by environments that promote increased food intake, nonhealthful* foods, and physical inactivity."

It adds: "Policy and environmental change initiatives that make healthy choices in nutrition and physical activity available, affordable, and easy will likely prove most effective in combating obesity. source

They are also batshit fucking crazy, that's not official, just proven.

And in the case of Maaargret below,(and 1min in) fat arsed and batshit fucking crazy.

Embedded disabled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bOpva_iit-8






Is this the Nation that took Mankind to the Moon?

Silly me, I was forgetting, it was cool to believe in science back then.

Tendring District Council and Essex Police, You Are Proper Sad Bastards

Is this the best you can do with your pathetic sad little lives?

This is one of those stories that defies belief

Council and police blasted for hiring 'sniffer wardens' to smoke out drivers who light up in company cars

Drivers who light cigarettes in company cars are being hunted down by 'sniffer wardens' after a council teamed up with police to smoke them out.

Tendring District Council and Essex Police are so eager to catch employees having a puff behind the wheel that they've set up road blocks across the county.

Armed with nothing but a heightened sense of smell, the sharp-nosed enforcers lie in wait, sniffing inside the cars of suspected lawbreakers, and scouring for used ashtrays.

Anyone caught smoking in a company car faces a £50 fixed penalty fine or taken to court and issued with a £200 fine and conviction.

And if they discover signs that the driver may have been smoking, they can alert the company boss who too may receive a fine up to £2,500. Failure to apply no smoking stickers inside the work vehicle can carry a fine of up to £1,000.

Smoking in work cars was banned in 2006 under the Health Act. It made illegal smoking in any vehicle used predominantly for business which more than one person might use.

But council chiefs have been blasted for the 'ridiculously disproportionate clampdown'.

John O’Connell, of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, told Small World News Service: 'This is a complete waste of money and a ridiculously disproportionate clampdown on what is a victimless crime.



'Taxpayers want to see police out on the streets solving and preventing crime in their communities, not setting up road blocks to pull over plumbers for having a cigarette.'

He said the council should have bigger priorities, branding the scheme 'a total waste of resources'.

He added: 'The council must reassess its priorities and work much, much harder to provide value for money for hard-pressed families.'

But Ian Wilkins, environmental officer, defended the programme, saying: 'When the new legislation came into force on July 1 2007, it became illegal to smoke in virtually all enclosed public places and public and work vehicles.

'I think it is fair to say that most people understood the rules when it came to public buildings, but there was some confusion over the rules about smoking in vehicles.'

He said that it will be enforced throughout March, around National Non Smoking Day on March 9.

He added that the scheme was mainly about raising awareness but that action would be taken where and when Tendring District Council 'feels the case is aoppropriate'. The Wail

NASCAR: It's The Cannon Fodder Don't You See?

WASHINGTON — The Minnesota (left wing pinko socialist who hates God, America and NASCAR) Democrat who's out to get rid of the Pentagon's sponsorships for NASCAR teams says she won't back away from her efforts and, despite GOP resistance, will broaden her fight to repeal tax breaks for track owners, too.

Rep. Betty McCollum says her work could save American taxpayers tens of millions of dollars. But Defense Department officials and lawmakers from NASCAR country say the sponsorships help military recruitment, and that the tax breaks could save jobs in the struggling economy.

In an interview Friday, McCollum said it doesn't make sense to keep the benefits for NASCAR teams and track owners when other cuts are being made to community health care, programs for homeless veterans and Head Start.

"I started to look what is in this large defense budget to see what's not related to security that we could redirect to critical supplies or mission support," she said. "Or in the case of racetrack owners, what are some of the special tax perks that some of the special interests are getting?"

She plans to file legislation to prohibit Pentagon sponsorships of dragsters, Indy cars, stock cars and motorcycle racing, affecting just about every level of motorsports. more

There has for some time now been lurking in me, an article about the US Army's picking ground for its cannon fodder, the NASCAR weekend. So having been made aware by email of Betty McCollum's efforts to curtail tax payer sponsorship, via the armed forces, of various motor sport events, I did a quick search of the net, and sure enough, there was enough there already writ that I could have let others do it for me.

But rather than chose one of the current articles to do the job for me, I settled for a 2005 piece that was straight from the horses mouth so to speak, NASCAR itself.

What I will do however, for the enlightenment of my less informed readers from around the world, is to up a couple of short clips of some of the goings on at a NASCAR event. With one such clip I have imported comments n'all.

I have chopped this article up, just to give you the relative content, full article at the link.

Armed services target NASCAR and its fans

If you look at the pit area at a Nextel Cup or Busch Series race, you see a lot of different logos.

What you'll also see is $30 million of advertising aimed at NASCAR fans by our nation's armed forces.

Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines. ... they're all there, and the reason is simple: NASCAR fans are some of the most patriotic citizens we have, and if you're in the business of recruiting, you go where potential recruits will be.

More jingoistic military shite here.

The mobile marketing compound that helps anchor the midway at most every race features a 25-foot climbing wall, a Humvee simulator and an interactive "patrol" where the potential recruit shoots laser "bullets" at imaginary enemies. There's also a station where visitors can get their names stamped onto replica dog tags, and a trailer that houses other exhibits explained by Army specialists.

All this is cool, but what does the Army get for all the high-tech, high-dollar advertising?

Plenty. According to a recent article in the Boston Globe, NASCAR is the Army's top program for generating leads for its recruiters. Col. Thomas Nickerson, the director of advertising for the U.S. Army, told the Globe that NASCAR has "a massive fan base that allows us to talk to as many people as we can.

Our goal is to talk to face to face, in influencers, parents and prospects. It makes good business sense."

Recruiting is the backbone of the Army, since the United States military is all volunteer, and using NASCAR to promote service to one's country is an idea that works well.

One Army recruiter said that NASCAR events were the kind the Army wanted to be part of, as race fans are traditionally very supportive of the nation's defense.

Which leads me to beg the question, who sponsored this, surely not....?

According to the Army, a typical weekend at a NASCAR track yields from 1,000 to 2,500 potential recruits. Extrapolated out over the full NASCAR season, that translates to about 40,000 names. All will be contacted at least once by the recruiting office in their region.

In addition to the Army, the other branches of the military are also using NASCAR as a resource to aid recruiting.

Military presence at NASCAR races has always been high, from the pilots who do the flyovers to the Color Guard, and they are by and large welcomed with open arms. That is especially true since 9/11.

Or better still, this! George Bush's Whitehouse?

NASCAR fans, like few other groups, have embraced the men and women who defend this country at home and abroad, and most of the military personnel at the tracks are amazed at the reception they get from fans and competitors alike.

The Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines recognize that NASCAR fans are patriotic, stand-up people, and they recruit from a base they know is suitable to their needs. That's similar to what all the other companies involved in NASCAR do, when you boil it down. full article

You can say what you like about NASCAR, but it puts on a show and it puts bums on seats, but it also has God by far too much in a bad way.



No comment, other than perhaps, I wonder what Montoya makes of it all?

• What a disgusting & garish display of religious kitsch and hillbilly / jingoist nonsense. I hope the tax payer did not have to pay for this inbred, mountain dew display.
DavidKWegley 3 months ago


Reply ******
• @DavidKWegley Men like me give a lives every damn day so that you can post shity comments like that. We give up a chance at a comfortable job and put on the uniform of this great nation. When some one wants to do a Tribute to all those that die for you every damn day with out thought or question. You wonder where or not the taxes pays had to pay for it. I wonder if the taxes pays had to pay for your lap top that you bought with you unemployed checks that I fight to provide for you every day ******
musicMan1445 2 months ago


• @musicMan1445 Um...er...this is a silly driving game, not WW2. Stop glorifying yourself like you are some sort of queer catholic saint. You may be a tax and spend liberal, but I don't think the taxpayer should supply the military crap for this emotional hillbilly kitsch. I can tell you that a Gay Man named Alan Turing stopped Hitler in his tracks and invented your computer so you can vomit this filth for the world to see. SEMPER FI to all Lesbian & Gay Marines.
DavidKWegley 2 months ago


• @DavidKWegley Lot a blood sweat and tears were give to stop Hitler so cock sucking mother fuck dumb shit like you could bitch about a little tribute that Nascar had to fucking pay for out of there now pocket. There are a hole hell of a lot of shity things that are government gives you for nothing.
musicMan1445 2 months ago


• @musicMan1445 Yeah, well fuck you and fuck NASCAR. You midwesterners are a real hoot.
DavidKWegley 2 months ago


• Comment removed
youngtroy84PFC 1 month ago


• @DavidKWegley Good one, your the imbred
youngtroy84PFC 1 month ago


• @youngtroy84PFC OK, well, it's inbred, but nevermind.
DavidKWegley 1 month ago


• @youngtroy84PFC Do you say Valentimes, also?
DavidKWegley 1 month ago


• @JackHabbit When people say "America," they usually associate that with the USA because we have the same word in the name of our country. USA stands for United States of America. North America is a continent. This is where the USA is located. Canada, for example, didn't include the word America in it's name so nobody refers to Canada as America, even though it is on the same continent. Nobody is associating you with us. We wouldn't do that.
robgeezy785 3 months ago


• America is a continent not a country!!! The U.S only have a small portion of North America... not even 20% of America is part of the U.S so quit associating the rest of us with you uneducated patriots.
Be proud but quit being insolent. Nice insertion BTW, I looove MH-6's
JackHabbit 4 months ago


• all I can say is: FUCKING AMAZING! God bless the USA
SuperMike82 5 months ago


• im not a waltrip fan, but you dont get this type of thing anywhere else exept the
US of A.
350z350zify 8 months ago


• My dad was one of the persons in the ch-47 in this video
patrioticman1 1 year ago


• This video is all kinds of hooah!!!!
casimer76522 1 year ago


• The NBA never does cool stuff like that, it's just some idiot making 20 million straight out of high school whin ing about how rough he's got it.
kdraper2007 1 year ago 2


• Shit, I would've been honored to be in that flight. Peferably in the Little Bird.
SUFI194189 2 years ago 2


• Now those are real pilots. NSDQ!
SUFI194189 2 years ago 2


• Beat that for an entrance!
Laxpowertoo 2 years ago


• God Bless em!
johnnyd911 2 years ago


• Dude that is fucking kick ass!
SuperRobot7 2 years ago

*****Well; what are we to make of musicMan1445? Is he a Solja Boy, or is he just an undereducated semi-literate redneck wanabee? I may be wrong, but I will go for wanabee, based on the assumption that anybody who had actually experienced a stint of combat might not be so vocal or so keen to try and glorify this shite.

And I have never quite grasped the logic, even though I am the recipient of such, of how invading Iraq somehow gave me the freedom to, post shity comments like that.

But what do I know, I'm just a fag that drives a Prius.

That's more like it.

Wikileaks Sheds Light on the Land of Darkness: The Excesses of 'Al Saud Inc.'

I think if any regime was deserving of an uprising against it, Saudi Arabia, the Land of Darkness, must surely be at the top of the list.

As equally deserving, the takeover should be at the hands of women, enabling the lasses to give this backward bunch of misogynist goat fuckers, a taste of their own medicine for a justifiable change.

There is much on the land of darkness in the side-bar, usually tagged ''Us and Them'' or ''Women in Islam.''

click

US Cables Detail Saudi Royal Family's Lavish Lifestyles
Royals 'known for the stories of their fabulous wealth — and tendency to squander it'

By Simon Robinson
February 28, 2011


When Saudi King Abdullah arrived home last week, he came bearing gifts: handouts worth $37 billion, apparently intended to placate Saudis of modest means and insulate the world's biggest oil exporter from the wave of protest sweeping the Arab world.

But some of the biggest handouts over the past two decades have gone to his own extended family, according to unpublished American diplomatic cables dating back to 1996.

The cables, obtained by WikiLeaks and reviewed by Reuters, provide remarkable insight into how much the vast royal welfare program has cost the country -- not just financially but in terms of undermining social cohesion.


Besides the huge monthly stipends that every Saudi royal receives, the cables detail various money-making schemes some royals have used to finance their lavish lifestyles over the years. Among them: siphoning off money from "off-budget" programs controlled by senior princes, sponsoring expatriate workers who then pay a small monthly fee to their royal patron and, simply, "borrowing from the banks, and not paying them back."

As long ago as 1996, U.S. officials noted that such unrestrained behavior could fuel a backlash against the Saudi elite. In the assessment of the U.S. embassy in Riyadh in a cable from that year, "of the priority issues the country faces, getting a grip on royal family excesses is at the top."

A 2007 cable showed that King Abdullah has made changes since taking the throne six years ago, but recent turmoil in the Middle East underlines the deep-seated resentment about economic disparities and corruption in the region.

A Saudi government spokesman contacted by Reuters declined to comment.


MONTHLY CHEQUES

The November 1996 cable -- entitled "Saudi Royal Wealth: Where do they get all that money?" -- provides an extraordinarily detailed picture of how the royal patronage system works. It's the sort of overview that would have been useful required reading for years in the U.S. State department.

It begins with a line that could come from a fairytale: "Saudi princes and princesses, of whom there are thousands, are known for the stories of their fabulous wealth -- and tendency to squander it."

The most common mechanism for distributing Saudi Arabia's wealth to the royal family is the formal, budgeted system of monthly stipends that members of the Al Saud family receive, according to the cable. Managed by the Ministry of Finance's "Office of Decisions and Rules," which acts like a kind of welfare office for Saudi royalty, the royal stipends in the mid-1990s ran from about $800 a month for "the lowliest member of the most remote branch of the family" to $200,000-$270,000 a month for one of the surviving sons of Abdul-Aziz Ibn Saud, the founder of modern Saudi Arabia.


Grandchildren received around $27,000 a month, "according to one contact familiar with the stipends" system, the cable says. Great-grandchildren received about $13,000 and great-great- grandchildren $8,000 a month.

"Bonus payments are available for marriage and palace building," according to the cable, which estimates that the system cost the country, which had an annual budget of $40 billion at the time, some $2 billion a year.

"The stipends also provide a substantial incentive for royals to procreate since the stipends begin at birth."


After a visit to the Office of Decisions and Rules, which was in an old building in Riyadh's banking district, the U.S. embassy's economics officer described a place "bustling with servants picking up cash for their masters." The office distributed the monthly stipends -- not just to royals but to "other families and individuals granted monthly stipends in perpetuity." It also fulfilled "financial promises made by senior princes."

The head of the office at the time, Abdul-Aziz al-Shubayli, told the economics officer that an important part of his job "at least in today's more fiscally disciplined environment, is to play the role of bad cop." He "rudely grilled a nearly blind old man about why an eye operation promised by a prince and confirmed by royal Diwan note had to be conducted overseas and not for free in one of the first-class eye hospitals in the kingdom." After finally signing off on a trip, Shubayli noted that he himself had been in the United States twice for medical treatment, once for a chronic ulcer and once for carpal tunnel syndrome. "He chuckled, suggesting that both were probably job-induced."


FOLLOWING THE MONEY

But the stipend system was clearly not enough for many royals, who used a range of other ways to make money, "not counting business activities."

"By far the largest is likely royal skimming from the approximately $10 billion in annual off-budget spending controlled by a few key princes," the 1996 cable states. Two of those projects -- the Two Holy Mosques Project and the Ministry of Defense's Strategic Storage Project -- are "highly secretive, subject to no Ministry of Finance oversight or controls, transacted through the National Commercial Bank, and widely believed to be a source of substantial revenues" for the then-King and a few of his full brothers, according to the authors of the cable.

In a meeting with the U.S. ambassador at the time, one Saudi prince, alluding to the off-budget programs, "lamented the travesty that revenues from 'one million barrels of oil per day' go entirely to 'five or six princes,'" according to the cable, which quoted the prince.

Then there was the apparently common practice for royals to borrow money from commercial banks and simply not repay their loans. As a result, the 12 commercial banks in the country were "generally leary of lending to royals."


The managing director of another bank in the kingdom told the ambassador that he divided royals into four tiers, according to the cable. The top tier was the most senior princes who, perhaps because they were so wealthy, never asked for loans. The second tier included senior princes who regularly asked for loans. "The bank insists that such loans be 100 percent collateralized by deposits in other accounts at the bank," the cable reports. The third tier included thousands of princes the bank refused to lend to. The fourth tier, "not really royals, are what this banker calls the 'hangers on'."

Another popular money-making scheme saw some "greedy princes" expropriate land from commoners. "Generally, the intent is to resell quickly at huge markup to the government for an upcoming project." By the mid-1990s, a government program to grant land to commoners had dwindled. "Against this backdrop, royal land scams increasingly have become a point of public contention."

The cable cites a banker who claimed to have a copy of "written instructions" from one powerful royal that ordered local authorities in the Mecca area to transfer to his name a "Waqf" -- religious endowment -- of a small parcel of land that had been in the hands of one family for centuries. "The banker noted that it was the brazenness of the letter ... that was particularly egregious."


Another senior royal was famous for "throwing fences up around vast stretches of government land."

The confiscation of land extends to businesses as well, the cable notes. A prominent and wealthy Saudi businessman told the embassy that one reason rich Saudis keep so much money outside the country was to lessen the risk of 'royal expropriation.'"

Finally, royals kept the money flowing by sponsoring the residence permits of foreign workers and then requiring them to pay a monthly "fee" of between $30 and $150. "It is common for a prince to sponsor a hundred or more foreigners," the 1996 cable says.


BIG SPENDERS

The U.S. diplomats behind the cable note wryly that despite all the money that has been given to Saudi royals over the years there is not "a significant number of super-rich princes ... In the end," the cable states, Saudi's "royals still seem more adept at squandering than accumulating wealth."

But the authors of the cable also warned that all that money and excess was undermining the legitimacy of the ruling family. By 1996, there was "broad sentiment that royal greed has gone beyond the bounds of reason". Still, as long as the "royal family views this country as 'Al Saud Inc.' ever increasing numbers of princes and princesses will see it as their birthright to receive lavish dividend payments, and dip into the till from time to time, by sheer virtue of company ownership."

In the years that followed that remarkable assessment of Saudi royalty, there were some official efforts toward reform -- driven in the late 1990s and early 2000s in particular by an oil price between $10-20 a barrel. But the real push for reform began in 2005, when King Abdullah succeeded to the throne, and even then change came slowly.


By February 2007, according to a second cable entitled "Crown Prince Sultan backs the King in family disputes", the reforms were beginning to bite. "By far the most widespread source of discontent in the ruling family is the King's curtailment of their privileges," the cable says. "King Abdullah has reportedly told his brothers that he is over 80 years old and does not wish to approach his judgment day with the 'burden of corruption on my shoulder.'"

The King, the cable states, had disconnected the cellphone service for "thousands of princes and princesses." Year-round government-paid hotel suites in Jeddah had been canceled, as was the right of royals to request unlimited free tickets from the state airline. "We have a first-hand account that a wife of Interior minister Prince Naif attempted to board a Saudia flight with 12 companions, all expecting to travel for free," the authors of the cables write, only to be told "to her outrage" that the new rules meant she could only take two free guests.

Others were also angered by the rules. Prince Mishal bin Majid bin Abdulaziz had taken to driving between Jeddah and Riyadh "to show his annoyance" at the reforms, according to the cable.


Abdullah had also reigned in the practice of issuing "block visas" to foreign workers "and thus cut the income of many junior princes" as well as dramatically reducing "the practice of transferring public lands to favored individuals."

The U.S. cable reports that all those reforms had fueled tensions within the ruling family to the point where Interior Minister Prince Naif and Riyadh Governor Prince Salman had "sought to openly confront the King over reducing royal entitlements."

But according to "well established sources with first hand access to this information," Crown Prince Sultan stood by Abdullah and told his brothers "that challenging the King was a 'red line' that he would not cross." Sultan, the cable says, has also followed the King's lead and turned down requests for land transfers.

The cable comments that Sultan, longtime defense minister and now also Crown Prince, seemed to value family unity and stability above all. Reuters

''Failure to do so would call into question their integrity''

Cop speak, don't you just love the bullshit, a member of ACPO (S) inferring how inconceivable it could be, that another member of ACPO (S) might not be possessed of the highest degree of integrity.

....Last night, George Esson, who was Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway when Megrahi was indicted for mass murder, confirmed he was aware of the development.

But Esson, who retired in 1994, questioned the officer's motives. He said: "Any police officer who believed they had knowledge of any element of fabrication in any criminal case would have a duty to act on that. Failure to do so would call into question their integrity, and I can't help but question their motive for raising the matter now."

An interesting enough article nevertheless.

CIA Involvement.: Lockerbie evidence was faked.

CIA planted tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people
February 24 2011

This report was published by the Scotesman more than four years exactly three years ago. "the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people."

A former Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated.

The retired officer - of assistant chief constable rank or higher - has testified that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people.

The police chief, whose identity has not yet been revealed, gave the statement to lawyers representing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, currently serving a life sentence in Greenock Prison.

The evidence will form a crucial part of Megrahi's attempt to have a retrial ordered by the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission (SCCRC). The claims pose a potentially devastating threat to the reputation of the entire Scottish legal system.

The officer, who was a member of the Association of Chief Police Officers Scotland, is supporting earlier claims by a former CIA agent that his bosses "wrote the script" to incriminate Libya.

Last night, George Esson, who was Chief Constable of Dumfries and Galloway when Megrahi was indicted for mass murder, confirmed he was aware of the development.

But Esson, who retired in 1994, questioned the officer's motives. He said: "Any police officer who believed they had knowledge of any element of fabrication in any criminal case would have a duty to act on that. Failure to do so would call into question their integrity, and I can't help but question their motive for raising the matter now."

Other important questions remain unanswered, such as how the officer learned of the alleged conspiracy and whether he was directly involved in the inquiry. But sources close to Megrahi's legal team believe they may have finally discovered the evidence that could demolish the case against him.

An insider told Scotland on Sunday that the retired officer approached them after Megrahi's appeal - before a bench of five Scottish judges - was dismissed in 2002.

The insider said: "He said he believed he had crucial information. A meeting was set up and he gave a statement that supported the long-standing rumours that the key piece of evidence, a fragment of circuit board from a timing device that implicated Libya, had been planted by US agents.

"Asked why he had not come forward before, he admitted he'd been wary of breaking ranks, afraid of being vilified. more

But Any Country That Did This to Their Citizens Wouldn't Qualify as The Greatest Nation on Earth!

It would qualify as a fascist state on par with Nazi Germany. Doctor Mengele please come back, all is forgiven.

Stroll on! what a horrific bit of reading. I think I shall keep this short and pass on the pictures, they can be found at the source.

America's shocking secret: Pictures that show how U.S. experimented on its own disabled citizens and prison inmates

Pictures have emerged providing the shocking proof that U.S. government doctors once experimented on disabled American citizens and prison inmates.

Such experiments included giving hepatitis to mental patients in Connecticut, squirting a pandemic flu virus up the noses of prisoners in Maryland, and injecting cancer cells into chronically ill people at a New York hospital.

Much of this horrific history is 40 to 80 years old, but it is the backdrop for a meeting in Washington this week by a presidential bioethics commission.

The meeting was triggered by the government's apology last year for federal doctors infecting prisoners and mental patients in Guatemala with syphilis 65 years ago.

U.S. officials also acknowledged there had been dozens of similar experiments in America - studies that often involved making healthy people sick.

A review by the Associated Press of medical journal reports and decades-old press clippings found more than 40 such studies.

At best, these were a search for lifesaving treatments - at worst, some amounted to curiosity-satisfying experiments that hurt people but provided no useful results.

It echoes the deadly and meritless experiments conducted on Jewish concentration camp detainees at the hands of Nazi doctors.

And it will undoubtedly be compared to the Tuskegee syphilis study, where U.S. health officials tracked 600 black men in Alabama who already had syphilis - but didn't give them adequate treatment even after penicillin became available.

Arthur Caplan, director of the University of Pennsylvania's Center for Bioethics, said: 'When you give somebody a disease - even by the standards of their time - you really cross the key ethical norm of the profession.'

Most of the recently revealed studies, from the 1940s to the 1960s, apparently were never covered by news media. Others were reported at the time but the focus was on the promise of enduring new cures, while glossing over how test subjects were treated. more

Rogue States

On occasion, little things catch the eye that give cause for a second look. (aka wtf!) This for instance, catching my eye in the dead tree version of that scurrilous rag, the Daily Mail.

Gaddafi himself was earlier said to have left for his home town in the south of the country – or even the rogue South American state of Venezuela, according to British Foreign Secretary William Hague. 22 Feb

– or even the rogue South American state of Venezuela, Dependant on your political leanings, WTF indeed, and slipped in so nicely you would hardly notice, well maybe not. And maybe not at all for someone not unfamiliar with the workings of said rag, n' slag editor, Paul, I'm such a cunt, Dacre.

Slipped in with ease, and with the same ease, the same article, slipping off into that big cyber hole that the Mail has been known to make use on the rarest of occasions. (Shurely shome mishtake?)

But disappeared nonetheless, given the date and the headline, written by 'Chief Reporter David Williams,' Libya protests: Gaddafi may have fled to Venezuela after air force attacks civilians perhaps not altogether surprisingly.

Disappeared as I say, but cached here, not that it matters in the slightest I must add, other than giving attribution to our phrase du jour: Rogue State.

I had a little feeling in me bones, this before I went of in search of examples for and what actually constituted a Rogue State. And me old bones said to me, in only the way old bones can, hegemony! refusing to succumb to American hegemony, I'll bet that is the first prerequisite before you can join the Rogue State Club.

I can hear your brain ticking now, your thinking, the next thing this bugger will be telling us, is that rocks fall to earth! Yes I do apologise, but a fellow has to indulge himself in at least a bit of rhetoric of his own now and then; you'll grant me that, surely?

And I think at this point, it might not be a bad idea to split this post in two, particularly in light of my decision to up the complete article, Of “Dictators” and “Rogues”: Media Give Clinton a Free Pass on Anti-Venezuela Rhetoric on this here page. It's not a unworthy thing to have it featured here, not at all at all it isn't.

More later, unedited.



Ah! dear Hillary, ever the shrinking violet.

Of “Dictators” and “Rogues”: Media Give Clinton a Free Pass on Anti-Venezuela Rhetoric
by Alejandro Reuss
Mar 27 2008

On February 25, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) made a major foreign-policy speech at George Washington University, in which she vowed that, as president of the United States, she would not meet with the “dictators” of various countries without “preconditions.”1 “I will not be penciling in the leaders of Iran or North Korea or Venezuela or Cuba on the presidential calendar without preconditions,” Clinton said, “until we have assessed through lower level diplomacy, the motivations and intentions of these dictators.” She also stated that she would not “legitimize rogue regimes … by impulsively agreeing to presidential level talks that have no preconditions.” Evidently, Clinton considers the countries on her list, including Venezuela, “rogue regimes” ruled by “dictators.”

Numerous major news organizations carried news stories or commentary on the speech. The Wall Street Journal2, the Boston Globe3, CBSnews.com4, CNN.com5, FOXnews.com,6 the Miami Herald7, USA Today8, Bloomberg,9 and Agence France-Presse10 specifically quoted Clinton’s remarks about “preconditions,” “dictators,” or “rogue regimes”— remarks widely interpreted as a rejoinder to Sen. Barack Obama’s (D-IL) statement, in a debate in July, that if he were elected president he would meet, without preconditions, the leaders of Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, and Venezuela (The Guardian)11.

None of the news organizations commented on, nor appear to have inquired with Clinton or her staff, whether she is aware that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez won presidential elections in 1998, 2000, and 2006, survived a recall referendum in 2004, and accepted defeat in a constitutional reform referendum last year. Neither do the news organizations appear to have asked for Clinton’s definition of “dictator” or “rogue regime,” or by what definition Chávez or Venezuela would qualify.



Whether a head of government has come into and remains in power via competitive elections—as opposed to force, family succession, or other means—is a common criterion for judging if that leader is a “dictator” or not. The Carter Center (founded and led by former President Jimmy Carter) sent election monitors to all the recent Venezuelan elections mentioned above. Its reports frankly criticize some of the votes as “flawed,” but they do not report widespread violence, intimidation, or fraud. They do not conclude that Chávez’s victory in any of the presidential elections was stolen.12 The Carter Center’s findings are publicly available and, in fact, HuffingtonPost.com reported them in a critique of Clinton’s speech focusing specifically on Venezuela.13 None of the mainstream news organizations, however, mentioned the Carter Center reports or any other findings on the conduct of Venezuela’s recent elections or referenda in their reporting on Clinton’s speech.

None asked whether Clinton believes (contrary to the Carter Center’s findings) that Chávez achieved his election victories by force or fraud, or whether she had other criteria for this characterization, unrelated to the validity of the polling results. This suggests that reporters and editors themselves are either unaware of the contrary facts about Venezuela (by the Carter Center and others) or share some underlying view in which Clinton’s characterizations of the country and its government are uncontroversial.

During the same speech in February, Clinton referred to Pakistan’s General Pervez Musharraf not as a “dictator,” but with his self-granted title of “president” (even while criticizing the Bush administration’s uncritical support for his regime). She did describe him as moving “further and further away from democracy,” a rather understated description of someone who came to power via military coup, overthrowing an elected government. She did not call Pakistan a “rogue state.” Along with her characterization of Venezuela, this suggests that Clinton was using the terms “dictator” and “rogue regime” much as U.S. leaders have in the past. That is, heads of government perceived as “friendly” to the United States (e.g., anti-Communist, supportive of U.S. foreign policy, welcoming to U.S. investors) are not tagged with these labels, regardless of how they came to power or the means they use to retain it. The terms “dictator” or “rogue regime” are reserved for those who impinge on the interests of U.S. corporations or oppose U.S. foreign policy. By those criteria, Clinton’s characterizations of Chávez and Venezuela are not at all puzzling.

The mainstream media’s failure to raise these issues, even from the narrow standpoint of effective electoral reporting, is a serious failing. Reporters should certainly care whether a major presidential candidate knows if the government of another country—especially a major actor in regional politics and a country with which the U.S. government has a recent history of conflict—is a dictatorship or not. They should inquire as to whether the refusal to have certain kinds of relations (in this case, top-level talks, at least without “preconditions”) with certain kinds of countries (here, “dictatorships”) is meant as a general foreign-policy principle. Would the U.S., under a Clinton administration, impose “preconditions” for top-level talks with any non-democratic government—including such stalwart U.S. allies as Egypt, Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia? Would a Clinton administration, as a general principle, change other kinds of policy stances (e.g., military aid, or foreign aid generally) with respect to such governments? Above all, the media should demand to know whether labeling a country a “rogue state” or “dictatorship” may signal future aggression by the U.S. government.

The possibility of future U.S. aggression against Venezuela is hardly speculation. The current administration is known to have conspired with coup plotters who attempted to overthrow the Venezuelan government in 2002. Britain’s the Observer reported just days after the coup, in April 2002, that “officials at the Organization of American States and other diplomatic sources . . . assert that the US administration was not only aware the [Venezuela] coup was about to take place, but had sanctioned it, presuming it to be destined for success.” Coup plotters were received repeatedly at the White House in the months preceding the coup. “The coup was discussed in some detail,” the newspaper reported, “right down to its timing and chances of success, which were deemed to be excellent.”14 None of the coverage of Clinton’s recent speech raised the question of whether a future Clinton administration would follow a similar policy of “regime change.”

Presumably, almost all summit meetings between countries require prior negotiations (e.g., on what topics will be discussed), and so involve some “preconditions.” The current invocation of “preconditions,” however, sounds above all like an assertion of U.S. superiority and entitlement: The United States lays down “preconditions” before it deigns to meet with the leaders of other countries, like a lord who will only grant an audience to a peasant who appears hat in hand. The mainstream news media, unfortunately, have done nothing to question the premise of U.S. superiority, which pervades U.S. political discourse on foreign policy, especially with respect to poor countries.

If countries that engage in aggression against their neighbors are “rogue” nations, then is the United States a rogue nation? (Its attempt to overthrow the Venezuelan government being only one recent example of a long pattern of such behavior.) Isn’t it the government of Venezuela, therefore, that is entitled to demand “preconditions” from the United States government—such as a pledge that it will make no further such attempts—before its representatives will engage in talks with the U.S. president (rather than the other way around)? These are the kinds of questions that news reporters should be asking U.S. politicians and candidates for high office—but aren’t. mediaaccuracy

And of course, no show without punch.




2002 Hugo Chavez UN six minute version, Hugo smells sulphur. Full speech below.










Previous: South America tag in side bar.
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An Empire of Lies: The CIA and the Western Media

An Empire of Lies: The CIA and the Western Media

......But even the Guardian, often regarded as fearless in taking on powerful interests, packaged its report in such a way as to deprive Curveball’s confession of its true value. The facts were bled of their real significance. The presentation ensured that only the most aware readers would have understood that the US had not been duped by Curveball, but rather that the White House had exploited a “fantasist” — or desperate exile from a brutal regime, depending on how one looks at it — for its own illegal and immoral ends.

Why did the Guardian miss the main point in its own exclusive? The reason is that all our mainstream media, however liberal, take as their starting point the idea both that the West’s political culture is inherently benevolent and that it is morally superior to all existing, or conceivable, alternative systems.

In reporting and commentary, this is demonstrated most clearly in the idea that “our” leaders always act in good faith, whereas “their” leaders — those opposed to empire or its interests — are driven by base or evil motives.

It is in this way that official enemies, such as Saddam Hussein or Slobodan Milosevic, can be singled out as personifying the crazed or evil dictator — while other equally rogue regimes such as Saudi Arabia’s are described as “moderate” — opening the way for their countries to become targets of our own imperial strategies.

States selected for the “embrace” of empire are left with a stark choice: accept our terms of surrender and become an ally or defy empire and face our wrath.

When the corporate elites trample on other peoples and states to advance their own selfish interests, such as in the invasion of Iraq to control its resources, our dominant media cannot allow its reporting to frame the events honestly. The continuing assumption in liberal commentary about the US attack on Iraq, for example, is that, once no WMD were found, the Bush administration remained to pursue a misguided effort to root out the terrorists, restore law and order, and spread democracy.

For the western media, our leaders make mistakes, they are naïve or even stupid, but they are never bad or evil. Our media do not call for Bush or Blair to be tried at the Hague as war criminals. more

‘Do remember that dishonesty and cowardice always have to be paid for. Don’t imagine that for years on end you can make yourself the boot-licking propagandist of the Soviet Regime, or any other régime, and then suddenly return to mental decency. Once a whore, always a whore.’ As I Please

Build a Great Big Bomb Factory? Yes We Can

If nothing else in this tale from the asylum, the accompanying graphic gets it spot on. And I don't mean the slightly updated one on this page.

U.S. trims its nuclear arsenal while upgrading production

......The $85 billion upgrade of our bomb-making infrastructure in Kansas City with Honeywell and at other locations is occurring 50 years after President Dwight Eisenhower warned in his farewell address of the military-industrial complex and its “potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power.”

It’s also taking place two years after President Barack Obama told the world in a speech in Prague, Czech Republic, that the United States was committed to ridding itself of nuclear weapons.

“Today, I state clearly and with conviction America’s commitment to seek the peace and security of a world without nuclear weapons,” he said to the cheers of 20,000 people.....

There is a madness going on here that is.... that is.... nothing new I don't suppose.

.......U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Tennessee Republican, in explaining his vote on the Senate floor in December made no effort to make the deal sound anything but quid pro quo:

“I will vote to ratify the New START treaty with Russia because it leaves our country with enough nuclear warheads to blow any attacker to kingdom come and because the president has committed to an $85 billion, 10-year plan to make sure that those weapons work.” More Kansas City Star

Update here.