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A new paradigm for a post-imperial world

Archive for the ‘Drive to Global War’ Category

Facing total economic meltdown at home US/UK, spear-heading NATO, have chosen the path of confrontation with the rest of the world, a path which will lead us to the brink of war with Russia and China

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The real story on North Korea and its healthcare

Posted by smeddum on July 23, 2010

July 21, 2010

WhatsLeft

By Stephen Gowans

The United States has announced that it is adding a new tranche to the Himalaya of sanctions it has built up since 1950 against North Korea, sanctions I outlined in my last article Amnesty International botches blame for North Korea’s crumbling healthcare. Calling the new sanctions “measures” – perhaps to escape the disfavor the word has fallen into after sanctions wiped out the lives of half of million Iraqi children in the 1990s — US secretary of state Hillary Clinton purred reassuringly that the new “measures are not directed at the people of North Korea.” [1] She didn’t predict, however, whether they would add to the misery the previous umpteenth round of sanctions has already visited upon the lives of North Koreans, even if she says they aren’t directed at them, but we can be pretty sure they will. Read the rest of this entry »

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Cancer rate in Fallujah worse than Hiroshima

Posted by smeddum on July 23, 2010

The consequences of a US war crime

By Tom Eley
23 July 2010

WSWS

The Iraqi city of Fallujah continues to suffer the ghastly consequences of a US military onslaught in late 2004.

According to the authors of a new study, “Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009,” the people of Fallujah are experiencing higher rates of cancer, leukemia, infant mortality, and sexual mutations than those recorded among survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the years after those Japanese cities were incinerated by US atomic bomb strikes in 1945. Read the rest of this entry »

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Nick Clegg’s ‘illegal’ Iraq war gaffe prompts legal warning

Posted by smeddum on July 22, 2010

guardian

26/7/2010
Coalition in confusion as deputy prime minister pronounces invasion ‘illegal’ at dispatch box

Nick Clegg labels Iraq war ‘illegal’.

Nick Clegg was tonight forced to clarify his position on the Iraq war after he stood up at the dispatch box of the House of Commons and pronounced the invasion illegal.

The deputy prime minister insisted he was speaking in a personal capacity, as a leading international lawyer warned that the statement by a government minister in such a formal setting could increase the chances of charges against Britain in international courts. Read the rest of this entry »

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Afghan heroin ‘sponsored’ by West?

Posted by smeddum on July 21, 2010

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Requiem for the Antiwar Movement by Cindy Sheehan

Posted by seumasach on July 19, 2010

Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox

9th July, 2010

“When you vote for war, don’t be surprised when you get it.”

Cindy Sheehan

“I will send at least two additional combat brigades to Afghanistan.”

Presidential Candidate Barack Obama

“This war (Iraq) prevents us from tackling every serious threat that we face, from a resurgent al-Qaeda in Afghanistan to a hostile Iranian regime intent on possessing nuclear weapons.”

Candidate Barack Obama

“And if we have actionable intelligence about high-level al-Qaeda targets (in Pakistan), we must act if Pakistan will or cannot.”
Candidate Barack Obama

This article and these observations are going to piss some people off—but oh well. You will be angry with me, even though I am not the one who is ordering more war, paying for more war, torturing people and imprisoning them without due process, destroying the economy and the environment, blah, blah, blah. I have developed an incredibly thick skin and if I rankle, it’s because I think time is running out to halt the disastrous trajectory this planet (via the US Military Corporate Complex) is on. I promise that I am not writing this because I am holding protests and no one is coming—these thoughts have been percolating in me for months now. (Note: Remember that old saying: “What if they gave a war and nobody came?” Well, here in DC I am living the opposite: “What if they gave an antiwar protest and nobody came?”)

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US Navy at Panama’s borders, invading Costa Rica

Posted by smeddum on July 14, 2010

4/7/10

bananama republic

As part of the War on Everything, the US is invading Costa Rica. About 7,000 marines on 46 warships are sailing to the small country and will, according to the US embassy, “be able to enjoy freedom of movement and the right to carry out the activities that they consider necessary to complete their mission.” Read the rest of this entry »

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Top anti-war Democrat: Afghanistan war could ‘destroy’ Obama’s presidency

Posted by smeddum on July 13, 2010

By Sahil Kapur
Monday, July 12th, 2010 — 10:00 am

nadler%20with%20mics Top anti war Democrat: Afghanistan war could destroy Obamas presidency

WASHINGTON – An outspoken anti-war Democrat said ongoing US military efforts in Afghanistan could deeply imperil the presidency of Barack Obama and the fortunes of the Democratic Party.

“I think that this war, if it goes on and if it escalates, has the potential to destroy this presidency and to destroy the Democratic majorities in Congress,” Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) told Raw Story in an interview.

The New York congressman, who has called the Afghanistan war a “fool’s errand,” said he has no qualms opposing Obama and Democratic leaders on this sensitive issue ahead of the midterm elections, despite the harsh climate for his party.

“When you’re dealing with war and peace you can’t think of it in those terms,” he said. “People are dying. The security of our country, the honor of our country, the lives of our men and women, the lives of foreign men and women – are at stake. And that’s a lot more important, frankly, than partisan advantage.”

For Nadler, his stance on Afghanistan hearkens back to when he disapproved of US efforts in Vietnam in the 1960s, which President Lyndon Johnson championed and escalated.

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The new geopolitical importance of Lubmin

Posted by smeddum on July 12, 2010

By F. William Engdahl
Online Journal Contributing Writer

Jul 12, 2010, 00:21

In the postwar history of the Federal Republic, German chancellors tend to disappear once they pursue political goals that deviate from the Washington global agenda too much.

In the case of Gerhard Schroeder, it involved two unforgiveable “sins.” The first was his open opposition to the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. The second, far more serious strategically, was his negotiations with Russia’s Putin to bring a major new natural gas pipeline directly from Russia, bypassing then-hostile Poland, to Germany. Today the first section of that Nord Stream gas pipeline has reached the Mecklenburg-Vorpommern coastal town of Lubmin on the Baltic Sea, making Lubmin into a geopolitical pivot for Europe and Russia. Read the rest of this entry »

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Poland prepares to leave Afghanistan

Posted by seumasach on July 9, 2010

New Europe

5th July, 2010

Polish acting President Bronislaw Komorowski said on Thursday that he had asked the government to prepare a document defining Poland’s postulates concerning the date of the withdrawal of Polish troops from Afghanistan. The document for the Polish president is to be ready before a NATO summit in Lisbon in November, according to the PAP news agency. Komorowski, who is the frontrunner in a presidential runoff due on July 4, made the statement after a meeting of the National Security Council (RBN) on Thursday. Komorowski also said that he had asked the government to prepare a national strategy of withdrawal from Afghanistan as the debate in Lisbon might not be fully successful. He added that Poland should start reducing Polish troops in Afghanistan in 2011 in order to end the mission in 2012. “It is very significant that we do not think of keeping Polish soldiers in Afghanistan even a day longer than Americans,” he added. Poland has some 2,600 troops stationed in Afghan province of Ghanzi, part of the NATO-led multinational peacekeeping force International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

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Pilger:The Charge of the Media Brigade

Posted by smeddum on July 8, 2010

The Charge of the Media Brigade

By John Pilger

July 07, 2010 “Information Clearing House” – — The TV anchorwoman was conducting a split-screen interview with a journalist who had volunteered to be a witness at the execution of a man on death row in Utah for 25 years. “He had a choice,” said the journalist, “lethal injection or firing squad.” “Wow!” said the anchorwoman. Cue a blizzard of commercials for fast food, teeth whitener, stomach stapling, the new Cadillac. This was followed by the war in Afghanistan presented by a correspondent sweating in a flak jacket. “Hey, it’s hot,” he said on the split screen. “Take care,” said the anchorwoman. “Coming up” was a reality show in which the camera watched a man serving solitary confinement in a prison’s “hell hole.” Read the rest of this entry »

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The Obama presidency: an unfolding disaster

Posted by seumasach on July 5, 2010

Larry Pinkney

Atlantic Free Press

2nd July, 2010

“You must be the historians who keep this lesson alive because this story isn’t about one day, one event, one person, or even one lifetime… Pass this knowledge. Don’t forget. Not ever.”

– Leonard Peltier

It was not enough that as president, Obama fully supported the criminal bail-out of the Wall Street elite, but he then went on to torpedo much needed single payer universal health care for the everyday populace of this nation – at the behest of the massive corporate insurance industry’s elite. If the Bush / Cheney regime was the inarticulate ‘Ivan the Terrible,’ then the Obama / Biden regime is assuredly a very articulate ‘Attila the Hun’ dipped in noxious perfume, which translates into more pain and blood of everyday people in this nation and around the world.

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