More Peace and Harmony Brought to You By Our Tax Dollars

This video is more proof of why we need to completely stop funding foreign governments and their criminal acts with our tax dollars. Countless incidents like this occur everyday within the occupied territories and too often they are not reported by the lame-stream media.

Misson Accomplished...again.

Yesterday,  just about every major news network held special coverage of the last American combat brigade leaving Iraq, apparently signifying the end of the war there. But as this article from Antiwar.com notes, it's simply just an elaborate farce meant to dupe the people into believing an end to only one of America's war has finally come.

It was another of those great TV moments. Embedded reports filming as the “last” brigade of American troops in Iraq cross the border into Kuwait bringing over seven years of unhappy conflict to its final, conclusive end. America was, at last, at peace.But like so many other great TV moments, this one was a scripted fantasy, a fake exit done purely for political gain by an increasingly unpopular president trying to look like he is keeping at least one campaign promise.

Read the rest here.

Evidence Obtained by Threatening a Teenager with Being "Gang-Raped to Death" Permitted in U.S. Court

The short version:  The US military arrested a Canadian kid for throwing a grenade which killed a soldier and put him in Gitmo for seven years.  He was 15 when he threw the grenade and is now 23.  He is being tried as a child in military court for war crimes using evidence obtained — and here’s the key part — by an investigator who threatened to have him gang-raped to death if he didn’t talk.

If this is a war, then why is he being tried?  Grenade throwing is normal battlefield activity, so in a real war he would just be another soldier doing soldier stuff.  If this is not a war, why is he being tried in military court?  Murder is dealt with capably by civilian judges, and guilty murderers are appropriately punished.  And regardless of what this situation is, why the hell are we using evidence obtained by threatening to gang-rape a teenager to death, however guilty he may be?

First let’s get our story straight.  Then let’s get our act together.  Then let’s go after terrorists legally, fairly, and proportionately when we actually have some remotely respectable moral high ground.  Because this is disgusting on every level and absolutely not justice in any sense of the word.

Leaving Afghanistan Behind

When it comes to armed conflict, timelines for withdrawal mean nothing if the war is undeclared. Goals are always set in the vaguest of terms with the intention of prolonging the conflict to establish a long-term commitment and remove all possibilities of a total and complete withdraw.

So when we are told by the Obama Administration that the end is near for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, it’s far too easy to be skeptical. The president’s intentionally vague plan to begin removing U.S. troops from Afghanistan in July 2011 is nothing more than a continuance of his campaign rhetoric meant to portray his administration as a sponsor of peace. Surely we haven’t forgotten about the president’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Now we hear calls by U.S. military leaders for the president to stunt his plans for a rapid withdrawal from Afghanistan on the argument that we’re just now getting it right after nine years. Those fearful of a swift withdrawal from Afghanistan can be rest assured that if there can be found a way for the government to drag its feet and reverse its commitments in the removal of U.S. troops, it will be used.