Category Archives: Current Events

Current Events

Retribution: Hospitals Bombed On Purpose By U.S.

“Punished” For Opposing TPP Trade Deal

by Robert S. Newport, Jr

Photo by Sharif Kouddous
Photo by Sharif Kouddous
If there’s one lesson to be learned from the last 40 years of America’s behavior, it is that no deed is black enough, no morals are ever on display, and no quarter is given, not even to woman, children, doctors, or hospitals.  Every time you think that you’ve seen it all, another heinous event pops up.  The kidnappings, the renditions, the torture cells operated around the world, the torture prisons at Abu Ghraib, the Guantanamo disgrace, the use of “depleted” uranium in Iraq, the assassinations by drones of American citizens without a trial, the murder of thousands of others in the middle east on a weekly basis by merciless aerial bombardment against civilian populations, the list goes on.
And now we have another set of incidents.  Blatant war crimes carried out by the Pentagon and its partner Saudi Arabia.  At the present time there will be no investigation by Congress, the President, or any other U.S. Government authority into the hospital attacks, and the key question: “Who ordered these murderous attacks?” will not be answered by the authorities or the mainstream press.
There’s plenty of evidence as to why the attacks were ordered.  It is circumstantial, but so self-revealing that no other conclusion can even be considered.  The “oops, we goofed” excuse doesn’t wash.  The Pentagon knew exactly where both hospitals were located.  They were both deliberately destroyed.  Why?   One word:  Payback.
Photo by Sharif Kouddous
Photo by Sharif Kouddous
For What?  For the huge campaign that Doctors Without Borders (MSF) has waged against the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal.  Before anyone scoffs at this suggestion, look at the stakes.  If this trade deal goes through, the big pharmaceutical companies will reap billions of dollars over the next couple of decades, maybe hundreds of billions, because the treaty locks in the high priced drugs and extends patent protection for years.  Say goodbye to a lot of generic drugs.  Also say goodbye to a lot of soon to be dead people, even in the United States  (drugs to fight AIDS comes immediately to mind).
Photo by Sharif Kouddous
Photo by Sharif Kouddous
Doctors Without Borders has been aggressively fighting this trade deal, claiming that millions of folks who depend on the inexpensive generic drugs will be at risk, and that means a death sentence to many of them, and horrible suffering for the rest. Their campaign against the TPP was causing waves, threatening the passage of this horrendous deal.  The poor people of the world, already racked by war, pestilence, and drought, fleeing by the hundreds of thousands by land and sea, seeking some place of refuge, these folks cannot pay the high prices that  the drug companies want for their life saving pills. If the TPP deal goes through, they may die by the millions.  And certainly, we Americans, may be among the casualties.
Recent history teaches that when there’s billions of dollars to be made, the morals and the laws take a back seat to profit.  War itself is immensely profitable, so much so that the Pentagon has ” lost track” of over 8 trillion dollars since 2001.  The added benefit of the TPP, the possible population reduction that will result, would make Prince Phillip, The Club of Rome boys, and the depopulation fanatics in the Obama administration squeal with joy.
So the hidden hand slips the co-ordinates of the hospital into the Pentagon’s attack database, and on October 3rd planes bombed the MSF hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan for hours. Doctors, nurses, and patients alike were blown to bits.  Then, even as howls went up around the world to this vicious atrocity, the Pentagon sent tanks in to crush the remaining parts of the building into rubble, just to make sure that the message got through.  On October 26th, U.S. ally Saudi Arabia  attacked another MSF hospital operating in Heedan, Yemen.  Once again, the Saudis knew of the co-ordinates, they were following orders from Washington, who of course supplies them with the weaponry and training.   As you can see from these pictures, they bombed the hospital into rubble.
It’s at once bad enough to follow the events in the Middle East, the religious and political barbarism reaching new heights, with groups like ISIL thugs running mad dog campaigns of terror.  They and others like them do it for their sick, twisted religious fanaticism.  Here in the West, especially in Washington, where there’s no religion OR morals, it’s done for financial gain.  The end result is nearly the same.
Make way for the Four Horseman of the Apocalypse, for they are indeed now riding hard around the world, killing anything in their path.

The Treacherous Words of Memorial Day

There Are No “Good Wars”

“War.” “Casualties.” “IEDs.” I’m using words a combat veteran might use, but in truth we’d be speaking different languages. How could it be otherwise, unless I too have experienced the searing reality of the battlefield? Civil War soldiers talked about “knowing the elephant.” When it comes to war, I’ve only seen pictures of elephants. That’s a different thing than having a herd of enraged behemoths bearing down upon you with bloodstained tusks.

Words Are Treacherous

Words are treacherous. The same squiggles on a screen can summon up a vague abstraction in one person’s mind, inspire chicken hawk posturing in another’s, whet the appetite for video gaming in yet another’s. But in only a few minds can it trigger memories of real-life carnage.
Me? I’ve never known war, or even the rigors of boot camp. I drew a high number in the mid-70’s and never had to serve.
And yet, as an American citizen, I can raise my voice and cast my vote in favor of war or against it. Mind you, if I do shout for battle I won’t be the one to actually fight it. (“We should fight!” really means, “You, young men and women, should fight!”) Like millions of American citizens, I don’t have combat experience to guide me, only common sense and common decency.
But common sense does tell us that the evils of war go even beyond the death of an American daughter or the disability of an American son. There are innocent lives on the other side of the battle lines as well: children bombed out of existence or starving to death in ruined cities. With the best will in the world, military leaders miscalculate and erase yet more lives. Some soldiers accidentally kill innocents, and never forgive themselves. And some lose it and do terrible, soul-shattering things that they never would have done in civilian life. Who is to say that I wouldn’t have done the same had I been forced to fight in their boots? The credit I’m tempted to give to good character likely belongs to good fortune.

There Are No Good Wars

All these horrors occur even in so-called “good” wars. But ask any war veteran: There are no good wars. At best, there are only necessary ones. At worst, war is a sacrifice of our children to modern-day Molochs who care for nothing but their own wealth and power. And we, in our ignorance of geography and history, fall for their cover stories.
And so common decency tells us war must be a last resort, the only way to avert even greater evils than war itself would bring. That’s a pretty tall order. In a free and virtuous republic, the purpose of war is not to pump up defense stocks, or boost political careers or secure markets for a favored few. All this is the mischief of empire, more wicked now than in the days of ancient Rome.
Yes, America would have enemies even if it had never trampled on a single soul. But if we took away the meddling and empire building, we’d have fewer enemies, more friends and more enduring economic strength. We need a foreign policy more in keeping with the wisdom of John Quincy Adams, President and son of Founding Father John Adams:

The Real Role of Our Republic

[America] goes not abroad in search of monsters to destroy. She is the well-wisher to the freedom and independence of all. She is the champion and vindicator only of her own. She will recommend the general cause, by the countenance of her voice, and the benignant sympathy of her example.  So let’s focus on walking our talk and taking out the numerous beams in our own national eye. Then, when atrocities do occur beyond our shores, we (and our allies) can see more clearly how to remove them without causing even greater harm.
Before they descend to outright dictatorship, empires use the tattered sheds of democracy as a fig leaf, paying lip service to liberty while betraying it with every law bribed or blackmailed into existence. But in a free republic, the purpose of war is first and foremost to defend the freedom of its citizens. A free republic does not provoke unnecessary quarrels. And if it foresees a shortage of a critical resource, like oil, it invents its way out of trouble rather than invades its way into it. And if invention should take longer than invasion, so be it. Better to endure austerity with honor than seize prosperity with shame. We should be citizens first, consumers second.
So as citizens of the republic we have pledged allegiance to, “with justice and liberty for all,” how should we “support the troops?” You’d think that giving them decent medical care would be on the list. But I believe there are two forms of support that are even more crucial:

No More Unnecessary Wars

1) Don’t have our soldiers fight in wars that are unnecessary or unjust. I’m not talking about wars that time’s rearview mirror reveals to have been unnecessary. I’m talking about wars that were entered into in bad faith from the start. We buy cars with greater caution than we buy the arguments for war. A volunteer military is not a moral blank check. If we carelessly send our bravest into battle, we have betrayed them, no matter how many banners we hang in their honor. And let’s at least be able to locate on a globe the country to where we’re sending them, and let’s dare to imagine that men and women as human as ourselves are living beyond our borders. Above all, let’s remember that even though our elected officials should be public servants, they are often the servants of war-profiteering mammon.

Don’t Sacrifice Our Liberties  To “American” Tyrants

2) Don’t surrender the freedoms our soldiers have fought for. Don’t allow terrorism to be an excuse for tyranny. Back in the 17th Century, Milton said it best: “Necessity, the tyrant’s plea.” Consider the high risk a soldier takes in combat, and place it against the far, far lower risk we face here at home. Shall we surrender in anxiety what was purchased for us in blood? Shall we cease to be “the home of the brave,” and become a land where the cowardice of the citizen undoes the courage of the soldier? As Patrick Henry once said, “Forbid it, Almighty God!” We’d be betraying not just the soldiers of today, but also every American soldier that fought and died for our country and its freedom.
Let’s remember with gratitude the soldiers who fought in good faith, who lost their lives to save the lives of their comrades-in-arms, who refrained from brutalizing civilians even when they were half-mad with terror, who held onto their humanity in spite of the inhumanity that swirled around them. But let’s never forget that individual acts of honor cannot redeem a dishonorable war.
By all means, let’s keep sending letters and care packages to men and women facing uncertain days half a world away. But let’s also frustrate the designs of power-hungry people and do our best to keep our soldiers out of war in the first place.
And when we bow our heads in silent remembrance of the honored dead, let’s remember the liberty they fought and bled for, and swear to preserve it.

posted by Greg Simay

How Economists and Policymakers Destroyed Our Economy

Secret Treaty Now Threatens Our Way of Life

by Paul Craig Roberts

From: www.paulcraigroberts.org

Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts

The economy has been debilitated by the offshoring of middle class jobs for the benefit of corporate profits and by the Federal Reserve’s policy of Quantitative Easing in order to support a few oversized banks that the government protects from market discipline. Not only does QE distort bond and stock markets, it threatens the value of the dollar and has resulted in manipulation of the gold price. See article – click here.

When US corporations send jobs offshore, the GDP, consumer income, tax base, and careers associated with the jobs go abroad with the jobs. Corporations gain the additional profits at large costs to the economy in terms of less employment, less economic growth, reduced state, local and federal tax revenues, wider deficits, and impairments of social services.

When policymakers permitted banks to become independent of market discipline, they made the banks an unresolved burden on the economy. Authorities have provided no honest report on the condition of the banks. It remains to be seen if the Federal Reserve can create enough money to monetize enough debt to rescue the banks without collapsing the US dollar. It would have been far cheaper to let the banks fail and be reorganized. Continue reading How Economists and Policymakers Destroyed Our Economy

Link to Complete Hamilton Testimony in U.S. Senate on Elephant Holocaust

Here is the link to the complete testimony of Iain Douglas-Hamilton’s recent appearance in the United States Senate regarding the slaughter of the elephant herds in Africa.

Click here

Here is the beginning page of the testimony:

Testimony of Iain DouglasHamilton

Founder and CEO, Save the Elephants

on

Ivory and Insecurity: The Global Implications of Poaching in Africa

before the Committee on Foreign Relations

U.S. Senate

May 24, 2012

INTRODUCTION

Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ranking Member, and members of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to testify today. I am honoured to appear before your committee.  My name is Iain Douglas‐Hamilton, and I have been studying elephants in Africa since 1966. I founded the African Elephant Specialist Group of the IUCN in 1975 and launched the first pan‐African elephant survey in 1977, funded by WCS and WWF. I have testified three times before Congress in the 1970s and 1980s when elephants were in peril from the ivory trade. We are once again in that situation. We are experiencing a huge upsurge in poaching, possibly to levels as high as those witnessed in the 1980s before the ivory ban. This time, however, we have more eyes on the ground and some unified systems endorsed by parties of the CITES treaty, for monitoring illegal killing of elephants (MIKE) and monitoring illegal trafficking of ivory through TRAFFIC, and their Elephant Trade Information System (ETIS). There are also many independent elephant scientists on the ground and trained rangers of wildlife authorities.

Click here to read the full United States Senate testimony.

Click here to go to Save The Elephants Organization

Click here to go to Elephants in Peril website

Please become involved in this project.  Last year something like 25,000 magnificent elephants were slaughtered in Africa.  Entire elephant families were killed for their ivory.  If we do nothing they will be extinct in 20 years at this rate of slaughter.  Just like the American Bison, and many other species that have been pillaged, the elephants will be no more.  What good is the earth without our beautiful elephants, whales, dolphins, rhinos, and our other wildlife friends?  The human species will have shamed itself before God for this outrage against nature.  We have been given the responsibility to be good stewards of the earth.  When is mankind going to take this seriously as a responsibility that we have been given as a condition for our own survival?   Pass this information on to your friends and family.  Shine the light of truth on this subject.  Make sure our government takes the right steps to save the elephant herds in Africa.

Ivory Poachers Are Slaughtering Elephants

An animated cartoon that usually focuses on the humor of animals and Africa now takes on a very serious problem:  The mass-killing of elephants in Africa.  Click to watch this youtube animated cartoon that shines a light on this problem and is something that you can show your children.

To see the humorous cartoons featuring Knucklehead and the Professor check out Cartoon Bazooka.com