Category Archives: peace

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As Admin Preps “Enduring Presence” in Afghanistan, Peace Activists Build Ties to War Victims – YouTube

Published on Dec 14, 2012

DemocracyNow.org – While the U.S. military is preparing to extend what is already the nation’s longest war, new ties are emerging between the peace movement here and in Afghanistan. The group “Afghan Peace Volunteers” recently invited international peace activists to help launch a campaign called “2 Million Friends for Peace in Afghanistan,” a nod to the number of Afghans killed in the last four decades of war and occupation. We’re joined by two U.S. peace activists recently back from Afghanistan: Ann Wright, a retired Army colonel and former U.S. diplomat who helped oversee the reopening of the U.S. embassy in Afghanistan in 2001; and John Dear, a Catholic priest and longtime peace activist who was recently nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by Archbishop Desmond Tutu.

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‘Support for Palestine unprecedented, Netanyahu should recognize it’ – YouTube

Washington has lambasted its main Middle East partner over new settlement plans, saying they’re damaging longstanding US-Israeli ties. But Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu brushed off the criticism today vowing to press ahead and continue construction. British MP Jeremy Corbyn thinks Tel Aviv’s risking losing its allies.

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What does Peace in Europe mean to EU? Farage-Nobel Prize Remix – YouTube

http://www.ukipmeps.org | Excerpts from the October 23, 2012 speech in the European Parliament, Strasbourg: UKIP leader Nigel Farage MEP, Co-President of the EFD groupOriginal speech here: http://youtu.be/YSoCZs8WlDg.

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Scandal Rocks Washington by Eric Margolis

Scandal Rocks Washington

by Eric Margolis

The US has lost one war and is fast losing a second, yet what really upsets Americans seems to be a juicy sexual scandal; beautiful female general groupies; US brass in Tampa, Florida, living like potentates; the FBI investigating CIA; and the fall of America’s most important intelligence official, former top general, David Petraeus.

After America’s ugly, dreary election, it’s fun seeing the great and good caught with their pants down. Petreaus’ slinky paramour, the ambitious femme fatale, Paula Broadwell, is easy on the eyes. So are voluptuous Tampa temptresses Jill Kelley and her sister who ignited this scandal by sending catty emails to the FBI.

What business has FBI in monitoring extra-marital escapades of the military brass – provided they are not bedding Chinese or Russian agents?

This combined boudoir farce and inter-governmental feud raises serious questions about the emergence of America’s surveillance state.

We see the FBI reading thousands of Petraeus’ emails and those of another senior officer dragged into the scandal, Marine Gen. John Allen, the US commander in Afghanistan. This is the same FBI long locked in bitter institutional rivalry with CIA.

Meanwhile, CIA is being transformed from an intelligence gathering and analysis agency into a militarized outfit with its own fleets of lethal drones and combat units that will rival that other top secret military organization, the Joint Special Operations Command – America’s version of Britain’s elite killers, the SAS.

Thanks to legal changes made by the Bush administration during the post-9/11 hysteria, the FBI, CIA and National Security Agency can read emails and text messages of anyone vaguely termed a “threat to national security.” Anyone who has ever sent a message to the person of interest can also be investigated, and anyone who has sent them email, and so on.

Welcome the era of Big Internet Brother.

There’s an even bigger question. Every war produces generals glorified into heroes by government, media and their own public relations efforts. Gen. Petraeus, who commanded US occupation forces in first Iraq, then Afghanistan, continues to be hailed as a “military genius” and “war hero.”

Look again. Petraeus and his fellow generals used every weapon in the US arsenal against Iraq’s eleven resistance groups (deceptively misnamed “al-Qaida” by Washington), including the mass ethnic cleansing of two million Sunni Iraqis, death squads, torture, and brutal reprisals.

UN officials assert that some 500,000 Iraqis, mostly children, died due to the US-led blockade under Saddam Hussein. At least another half million died from the US 2003 invasion until 2011. Yet after all this, the US forces were forced pull out of Iraq at the end of what Saddam Hussein vowed would be the “Mother of All Battles.”

Cost of Iraq: $1.6-2.4 trillion; almost 5,000 US soldiers dead, 35,000 seriously wounded. Some triumph. America has yet to accept the painful fact that while it won all the tactical engagements in Iraq, it lost the bigger war.

Petraeus was then sent to work his magic in Afghanistan before returning to Washington to head CIA. There, the brainy general, who had a knack for self-promotion and public relations, tried again to crush the Pashtun resistance by massive bombardments, billions in high tech gear, reprisals that wiped out entire villages, search and destroy missions. Torture and executions were as common as during the Soviet occupation.

A disgusted American public now wants out of the endless 11-year conflict, the longest in US history. Most of the US garrison is supposed to withdraw by 2014. Petraeus and other senior US commanders had the audacity to publically criticize President Barack Obama’s withdrawal plans. They should have been dismissed at once, but the president lacked the nerve to stand up to the ever-more powerful military establishment. The incoming US commander in Afghanistan just said he wants to keep US troops there after 2014.

Cost of Afghan War: $1 trillion and rising. Afghan dead unknown. US military, some 2,100 dead, 17,000 wounded.

The US military has clearly been fought to a standstill in Afghanistan by medieval tribesmen with AK-47’s, reconfirming its name – “graveyard of empires.”

As for the military genius of Gen. Petraeus, recall the famous cry of King Pyrrhus, “one more such victory and we are lost.”

via Scandal Rocks Washington by Eric Margolis.

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Dismantling Linear Time with Dan and Vicki Mathews Dec. 6, 7, 8

Dr. Dan and Vicki Mathews

invite you to join them to celebrate

Dismantling Linear Time

A once in a lifetime event!

December 6, 7, 8, 2012

at

Peace Valley Sanctuary

Caddo Gap, AR

Home of the conscious Earth Keeper Crystal

Festivities launch Thursday at 3pm

and wrap up Sunday noon.

Dr. Dan and Vicki Mathews will dismantle linear time through Holy Divine Healing equations done with the group

each evening at 7pm.

If you cannot be there in person, there is the option of participating via telephone at no charge for up to 150 people.

By being on the call you will receive the energetics of the equations although please note that much of the call will be non-verbal.

 

You must register using the form below to be sent the conference call number by email closer to the event.

 

​Note:  An MP3 audio recording of the calls will be available for purchase.  See info below the registration form for more details.

via Events.

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The Special Interests Won Again – PaulCraigRoberts.org

The election that was supposed to be too close to call turned out not to be so close after all. In my opinion, Obama won for two reasons: (1) Obama is non-threatening and inclusive, whereas Romney exuded a “us vs. them” impression that many found threatening, and (2) the election was not close enough for the electronic voting machines to steal.

As readers know, I don’t think that either candidate is a good choice or that either offers a choice. Washington is controlled by powerful interest groups, not by elections. What the two parties fight over is not alternative political visions and different legislative agendas, but which party gets to be the whore for Wall Street, the military-security complex, Israel Lobby, agribusiness, and energy, mining, and timber interests.

Being the whore is important, because whores are rewarded for the services that they render. To win the White House or a presidential appointment is a career-making event as it makes a person sought after by rich and powerful interest groups. In Congress the majority party can provide more services and is thus more valuable than the minority party. One of our recent presidents who was not rich ended up with $36 million shortly after leaving office, as did former UK prime minister Tony Blair, who served Washington far better than he served his own country.

Wars are profitable for the military/security complex. Israel rewards its servants and punishes its enemies. Staffing environmental regulatory agencies with energy, mining, and timber executives is regarded by those interests as very friendly behavior.

Many Americans understand this and do not bother to vote as they know that whichever candidate or party wins, the interest groups prevail. Ronald Reagan was the last president who stood up to interest groups, or, rather, to some of them. Wall Street did not want his tax rate reductions, as Wall Street thought the result would be higher inflation and interest rates and the ruination of their stock and bond portfolios. The military/security complex did not want Reagan negotiating with Gorbachev to end the cold war.

What is curious is that voters don’t understand how politics really works. They get carried away with the political rhetoric and do not see the hypocrisy that is staring them in the face. Proud patriotic macho American men voted for Romney who went to Israel and, swearing allegiance to his liege lord, groveled at the feet of Netanyahu. Obama plays on the heart strings of his supporters by relating a story of a child with leukemia now protected by Obamacare, while he continues to murder thousands of children and their parents with drones and other military actions in seven countries. Obama was able to elicit cheers from supporters as he described the onward and upward path of America toward greater moral accomplishments, while his actual record is that of a tyrant who codified into law the destruction of the US Constitution and the civil liberties of the American people.

The election was about nothing except who gets to serve the interest groups. The wars were not an issue in the election. Washington’s provoking of Iran, Russia, and China by surrounding them with military bases was not an issue. The unconstitutional powers asserted by the executive branch to detain citizens indefinitely without due process and to assassinate them on suspicion alone were not an issue in the election. The sacrifice of the natural environment to timber, mining, and energy interests was not an issue, except to promise more sacrifice of the environment to short-term profits. Out of one side of the mouth came the nonsense promise of restoring the middle class while from the other side of the mouth issued defenses of the offshoring of their jobs and careers as free trade.

The inability to acknowledge and to debate real issues is a threat not only to the United States but also to the entire world. Washington’s reckless pursuit of hegemony driven by an insane neoconservative ideology is leading to military confrontation with Russia and China. Eleven years of gratuitous wars with more on the way and an economic policy that protects financial institutions from their mistakes have burdened the US with massive budget deficits that are being monetized. The US dollar’s loss of the reserve currency role and hyperinflation are plausible consequences of disastrous economic policy.

How is it possible that “the world’s only superpower” can hold a presidential election without any discussion of these very real and serious problems being part of it? How can anyone be excited or made hopeful about such an outcome?

via The Special Interests Won Again – PaulCraigRoberts.org.

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Cute video: Rare white lion cub nursed by dog – YouTube

A rare white lion cub was born in on Tuesday in China’s Quanzhou Amusement Park in eastern Fujian Province. The cub’s parents were both normal African lions with a yellow/brown coloring which makes the white lion even more unusual. Since it was the first time the female lion had given birth, keepers were worried about feeding problems so found a dog to nurse the lion cub along with her puppies.

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Rogue U.S. General Arrested for Activating Special Forces Teams; Ignoring Libya Stand-Down Order | Politics

Rogue U.S. General Arrested for Activating Special Forces Teams; Ignoring Libya Stand-Down Order | Politics.

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Good Night, And Good Luck (Movie, 2005) – YouTube

Good Night, And Good Luck (Movie, 2005) – YouTube.

In September 2005, Clooney explained his interest in the story to an audience at the New York Film Festival: “I thought it was a good time to raise the idea of using fear to stifle political debate.” Having majored in journalism in college, Clooney was well-versed in the subject matter. His father, Nick Clooney, was a television journalist for many years, appearing as an anchorman in Cincinnati, Ohio, and Buffalo, New York. The elder Clooney also ran for congress in 2004.

George Clooney was paid $1 each for writing, directing, and acting in Good Night, and Good Luck, which cost $7.5 million to make. Due to an injury he received on the set of Syriana a few months earlier, Clooney couldn’t pass the tests to be insured. He then proposed to mortgage his own house in order to make the film. Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban and former eBay president Jeff Skoll invested money in the project as executive producers.

Clooney and producer Grant Heslov decided to use only archival footage of Joseph McCarthy in his depiction. As all of that footage was black-and-white, that determined the color scheme of the film.

A small jazz combo starring jazz singer Dianne Reeves was hired to record the soundtrack to the movie. This combo (Peter Martin, Christoph Luty, Jeff Hamilton and Matt Catingub) was featured in the movie in several scenes; for example, in one scene the newsmen pass a studio where she is recording with the rest of the band. The CD is Dianne Reeves’s second featuring jazz standards, and it won the Grammy Award in 2005 for best jazz vocal performance.

One complaint about the movie among test audiences was their belief that the actor playing McCarthy was too over the top, not realizing that the film used actual archive footage of McCarthy himself.

Wikipedia/Good Night, Good Luck