resident bush: because the sheeple never learn.

Please Forgive Us. We Are Not All w/out Conscience.

When will we ever have peace. War creates misery for the masses and obscene wealth for the few. We can’t keep killing each other and destroying everything we touch. Enough is enough…rb


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Fallujah: Anatomy of an Atrocity
by David Rothscum
DavidRothscum.blogspot.com
Uruknet.info

Today July 6th of 2010 is the day that Chris Busby, Malak Hamdan Entesar Ariabi released their epidemiological study on the health problems the people of Fallujah are suffering from. The full study can be downloaded here, free of charge. You may not have heard of these men yet, but I am quite sure their names will be found in the history books. The reason for this is that they have gathered scientific evidence of the genocide the people of Fallujah are suffering from at the hands of the imperialists that invaded Iraq. Unfortunately, they have not yet raised much attention to their discoveries, and thus I feel compelled to help with this myself.

A few days ago, on 2 July, they released a press release on Uruknet that showed some of their findings. It was entitled “Genetic damage and health in Fallujah Iraq worse than Hiroshima”. In April, they announced preliminary findings on Global Research, a site I suspect most of you are familiar with. Please realize that when people discover horrendous atrocities, that the mainstream media refuses to touch, they come to you, the Truth movement, and it is you that are responsible for this information becoming public. Before 2003, before the invasion of Iraq war, the slaughter of Fallujah, and so much more, you were trying to raise awareness of Gulf War Syndrome, the epidemics of cancer and birth defects in Southern Iraq due to Depleted Uranium, and were generally met with ridicule and disbelief.

Now that the horrors you warned of are slowly being revealed to the world, all of you have reason to be proud of your hard work. Not just the main activists (Leuren Moret, Doug Rokke, and many others) but all of you who contributed in their own way by reposting their stories to blogs, forums, writing to politicians, and everything else you did to raise awareness to this atrocity. If people listened to you much of it could have been prevented. I find it important you realize you should be proud of yourselves for the effort you took while most people around you did nothing.

I also have a lot of respect for the team of 11 people that went house to house in Fallujah to gather the data. People in Fallujah are suspicious of authorities (they have every reason to), and they were suspected of being part of a secret-service operation. In one case they were unfortunately met with physical violence. The team nonetheless completed the survey, despite the risk they faced from both the threat of physical violence, and of course by simply being in such an unhealthy environment.

With that said, let me move on to the study itself. As shocking as the information announced in the press release and the preliminary findings was, the complete results they showed in their study are worse. The press release mentioned that: “infant mortality was found to be 80 per 1000 births which compares with a value of 19 in Egypt, 17 in Jordan and 9.7 in Kuwait”. What the press release did not mention was that this is the period of 2006 until 2010. Unfortunately, from 2006 to 2010, the infant mortality continued to rise.

As the full study mentions, when we only look at 2009, and the first two months of 2010, we find that the infant mortality rate now is not at a level of 80 children out of 1000 that die within a year, but at a horrific rate of 136 per 1,000 births. When we look at the table in the study, we find that in 2008, 6 infants (age 0-1) died, compared to 0 in 2005, and only 1 in 2004. In 2009, 10 infants died.

However, in the first two months of 2010 that the scientists studied, they found that 6 infants had died. Thus, in only the first two months of 2010, as many infants died as in the entirety of 2008. If the rate for 2010 were to continue (and this is not guaranteed, it could be lower, but due to the rising trend it is more likely to increase further), in 2010, 36 infants will die, compared to only 1 in 2004.

Although I should have known better, I had hoped that the situation was easing in Fallujah, or at least not getting worse, because I had not heard much news recently, but instead, the situation is only getting worse as we speak. A further finding the scientists made was that in the category of children aged 0-4, there are only 860 boys per 1000 girls. A normal ratio is 1050 boys per 1000 girls. This is evidence of genetic mutations.

The reason for this is that girls have two X-chromosomes, while boys only have a single X-chromosome. Thus, if one of a girl’s X-chromosomes suffers from a genetic mutation, the girl still has another functional copy. However, if a boy’s X-chromosome suffers from the same genetic mutation, he has no functional copy of the same gene left, and this can cause the boy’s death. However, the skewed birth ratio can also be (partly) caused by another effect the scientists didn’t mention in their study: The endocrine disrupting effect of Uranium.

At levels below the EPA standard, Uranium is a potent endocrine disruptor. Endocrine disruptors are chemicals that have a hormonal effect on humans, and Uranium works as an estrogen (female hormone) in the human body. This causes a lower number of male children to be born. Thus, the skewed birth ratio could be the result of the hormonal effect of Depleted Uranium as well, besides being caused by an increase in genetic mutations.

Another fact the researchers have discovered needs to be mentioned as well. Their study has found there has been a sharp decline in the birth rate. As they mention: “It is clear that the 0–4 population, born in 2004–2008, after the fighting, is significantly 30% smaller than the 5–9, 10–14 and 15–19 populations.” This is what I call depopulation in action.

Unfortunately there is an epidemic of cancer in Fallujah as well. This is to be expected, but it has not received a lot of attention so far. There are 4.2 times more cases of cancer than you would expect for the region. For childhood cancer, there is a 12.6 relative risk. Brain cancer, breast cancer and lymphoma are all particularly higher than you would expect, but worst of all is the epidemic of Leukemia, at a 22.2 times relative risk, and 38.5 in the age category 0–35.

These are the exact types of cancers we would expect if the cause was radiation exposure. Veterans exposed to Depleted Uranium also suffer from epidemics of Leukemia for example. Children are most sensitive to the effects of radiation due to their rapidly dividing cells.

All evidence shows the disaster is caused by Depleted Uranium. It’s not stopping, but only getting worse, and will continue to get worse. We are now in 2010, and the intense fighting happened in 2004. In Basra, the intense fighting happened in 1991. In 1998, the increase in birth defects began to get seriously noticeable, and in 2001, ten years later, it had gone through the roof. In 2005, the cancer rate was still rising in Basra. Thus there is little reason to believe the situation is going to get better anytime soon unfortunately.

I would not wish what is happening to my worst enemy. Then surely I would not wish it upon the great people of Iraq, who managed to build a first world country in the desert, where people of different faiths intermarried, and Muslims and Christians ran the secular government together. Women were in university, and did not have to hide their beauty.

Now they will cover their bodies, to hide the scars of cancer and birth defects that will plague the great people of Iraq for decades to come. Those left 50 years from now will still ask themselves when they get cancer if the Depleted Uranium could be responsible. They suffer every bit as much as you and I would if this were to happen to us. Therefore I do not see the survivors of this genocide forgiving us anyday soon.

I do not think we would forgive and want to be friends with people that send their soldiers to invade our countries, destroyed our DNA with their radioactive weapons, and do not show an ounce of regret or guilt either. When we saw what they had done to our children, born deformed and suffering from cancer, we would fight the invaders until they were all dead, or had all left our country. Do not interpret this as a call for violence, I am merely stating the obvious:

If you harm someone’s children, they will fight you until death, without a moment of doubt in their mind. When you mourn the 4.400 dead American veterans, or the hundreds from other countries, think about that. They can not point at their commanders, they have an own responsibility to do no harm to others, and they failed to live up to it. At all times, tell anyone you know in the military to desert when they get the chance. It’s never too late to return from evil.

And this evil unfortunately seems to be quite out in the open. When Israel bombed Gaza, they called it “Operation Cast Lead”, a poetic description of Depleted Uranium (Uranium generally being described as being denser than lead, which is supposedly why it’s used). When Americans took over Fallujah, they called their slaughter, Operation Phantom Fury. I would again call this a poetic description of what they did to the people of Fallujah.

The American military establishment was furious about the death of 4 of its elite warriors, the Blackwater contractors whose bodies were hung from a bridge. Thus, they unleashed their “phantom fury”. The invisible radiation that human senses can not detect, that destroys every living thing it touches. If poisoning an entire city with radiation is not a form of “Phantum Fury”, I don’t know what is.

Any possibility for reconciliation is not helped by the reaction I see from people on the Internet to these stories. “Wow, all this for hanging the bodies of burned dead American contractors from the bridges and desecrating them. I do not feel very sorry for them.” Is what one individual responded.

When news of an epidemic of blood cancer in the Gaza Strip due to Operation Cast Lead was revealed, someone responded with: “With any luck maybe they will stop breeding on the strip.” Dr. Daud Miraki posted a number of images of the children born in Afghanistan and wrote in an e-mail to Jeff Rense about the response he got: “For the past few days, I have been going through hell receiving rotten and hate-filled email from some of the sick and stupid people in America. They make fun of the babies…and they curse Islam and I and my family.”

I do not know what kind of sick individuals it takes to say such things. It seems to be predominantly those in the middle of the political spectrum, the people who believe that the Democrats and Republicans give them a choice, and who believe what they see on TV.

Communists, Anarchists, White Nationalists, Black Nationalists, Islamists, they are all appalled by the use of Depleted Uranium and oppose it. These are the people who the media calls extremists, because they don’t fit into the controlled opposition, and who we are taught to fear. Instead, the people I find who ignore, or worse encourage this genocide are those from the political mainstream.

If there is anyone I fear, it is those in the political mainstream, composed of people too scared to think for themselves and who think nothing will happen to them if they cheer for those in power. They are the people who make this genocide possible.

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Be Careful What You Ask For

We look at this monumental disaster and can’t help but think of our handiwork in the Middle East. It’s as though Mother Nature has awakened from her DU-induced stupor and is saying, “You want oil? I’ll give you oil!”

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There’s Obscenity & Then There’s Obscenity-Obscenity

I was shocked (shocked!) to learn that the woman who wandered America in tight miniskirts which kept John McCain’s eyes glued to her ass would so often be, uh… “immortalized” …in porn. First there was Nailin’ Palin, and today I discovered this little gem [by going further or clicking any link you've declared under penalty of perjury that you are 18 years of age, or older]:

Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!

Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh, God!

OMG! At least it’s obvious she didn’t drag her real daughter into this, but.

I can’t tell…is that one of the outfits she was supposed to auction off after the campaign ended?

I heard she got more than two grand for her Naughty Monkey Double-Dare pumps. Those definitely sound like the shoes of a true believer who speaks in tongue, so I’m guessing they went to another good Christian woman with strong family values who’s somehow earned the right to tell everyone else how to live. Or to a good Christian man with strong family values who’s somehow earned the right to a foot fetish [and probably grown the cojones to lead a national coalition (of good Christians with strong family values) trying to criminalize foot fetishes].

I’m not wondering why she resigned as governor of Alaska. This gig must have paid ten times her old salary for just a few hours work — and I’ll bet no one on the set was asking her which newspapers she reads!

Now, I started doing some sleuthing and ran across all kinds of outrage. A lot of people screaming, “sexist!” Insisting this wouldn’t be happening were Sarah Palin a man. I agree! This wouldn’t be happening were Sarah Palin a man. If there’d been a drag queen running around the country wearing tight miniskirts and hoping to be “a heartbeat away from the presidency,” we would have cared that John McCain couldn’t keep his eyes off the gurl’s ass. But we wouldn’t have [let anyone know we] wanted to see her porn tapes!

I probably would’ve liked Sarah Palin a hell of a lot more were she a drag queen, but it’s hard to imagine [her with a wit (when we're so used to seeing her with only half that)]. No self-respecting drag queen would spend her weekends shooting wolves from helicopters or disemboweling moose. But Americans just aren’t ready for chicks with dicks in the Oval Office.

We do love our tired old queens, though! Liberace, Rip Taylor, Tom Delay. Of course, most of us deny their “flamboyance” and tell ourselves they like the ladies, but that kind of repression is scary. It’s how gay porn slips under the radar and into primetime on a major network. Okay, so it’s gay porn for seniors and would only pack heat in a wrinkle bar, but — trust me — it’s gay porn [your first clue is the fag hag young enough to be his daughter].

Honestly, I don’t know what all the fuss is about. So a woman who’s wrapped too tightly [in scripture] is now as one with her inner wanton exhibitionist. And a flouncing should-be convicted felon is doing softcore scenes in front of the children. You know what’s “obscene?”

“Obscene” is what we’ve been doing to other human beings in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan, etc. “Obscene” is pretending we believe “decent healthcare is a basic human right” — as we continue doing what we’re doing to other human beings in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan, etc. “Obscene” is the concern we show for the occasional missing or murdered child — well, the occasional missing or murdered American child — as we continue doing what we’re doing to children in Iraq and Afghanistan and Pakistan, etc.

Truly “obscene” is that Tom Delay dances for the world rather than for a cell mate, and that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rove, etc., ad nauseam [including just about every politician, banker, lobbyist, ceo, and general] aren’t all in the same [vast] cell block…but we’ve got millions of pot smokers — often licensed medical marijuana patients and providers — doing hard time.

Most obscene of all is that we the people are enabling the fall of our Rome [while we yammer about next elections, and sign petitions, and write angry emails]. We act as though we can do nothing without permission. And we will have no “change” until we Americans, as one, go on strike. No going to work or school, no shopping, no pumping gas.

How long would it take to bring this mutha down — 48 hours? 72? Throw in a few pitchforks and we might be talkin’ 24. Starting over from scratch is a scary prospect, I know. But not as scary as where we’re headed, now. And, despite the protests to the contrary, our descent has absolutely nothing to do with porn…rb  [who apologizes, sincerely and profusely, for anything which might have caused the reader to picture Tom Delay naked and/or having carnal knowledge.]

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Brand Obama

Sadly, facts have been anathema to the average American for as long as I’ve been alive. All that matters is that we’re allowed to believe “we’re number one.” No one can compete when it comes to self-delusion and belligerence, and our ignorance would be amusing were it not a threat to every life-form on the planet. That there are still those who would call themselves “progressives” and Obama supporters makes clear that “crazy” is the national default. Thank you, John Pilger. Orwell is making popcorn…rb

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Obama Is A Corporate Marketing Creation:  John Richard Pilger is an Australian journalist and documentary maker. He has twice won Britain’s Journalist of the Year Award, and his documentaries have received academy awards in Britain and the US.

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Obama the ChickenHawk

Obama — our “man of peace” and “Constitutional scholar” [aka our new decider-daddy] — has got his balls set on “winning in Afghanistan.” Then it’s on to Pakistan! And Iran! And North Korea! And Syria! And, what’s up with his Colin Powell Act? rb

[from Ted Rall] “I’ve asked my national security team to…collect the facts,” Obama told CNN. Then, he said, “we’ll probably make a decision in terms of how to approach it once we have all the facts together.”

Probably.

Such was Obama’s tepid reaction to a New York Times cover story about an alleged “mass killing of hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Taliban prisoners of war by the forces of an American-backed warlord during the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.”

Obama sounds so reasonable. Doesn’t he always? But his reaction to the massacre in the Dasht-i-Leili desert is nothing more than the latest case of his administration refusing to investigate a Bush-era war crime.

There are two things Obama doesn’t want you to know about Dasht-i-Leili. First, the political class and U.S. state-controlled media have sat on this story for six to seven years. Second, U.S. troops are accused of participating in the atrocities, which involved 12 times as many murders as My Lai.

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CONVOY OF DEATH

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The Only Brave Troop Is An AWOL Troop

Johnny Needs to Put Down His Gun

Johnny Needs to Put Down His Gun

It takes guts to do the right thing, especially after having taken great pride in doing the wrong thing…rb

from Dahr Jamail: On May 1st at Fort Hood in central Texas, Specialist Victor Agosto wrote on a counseling statement, which is actually a punitive U.S. Army memo:

“There is no way I will deploy to Afghanistan. The occupation is immoral and unjust. It does not make the American people any safer. It has the opposite effect.”

Ten days later, he refused to obey a direct order from his company commander to prepare to deploy and was issued a second counseling statement. On that one he wrote, “I will not obey any orders I deem to be immoral or illegal.”

Shortly thereafter, he told a reporter, “I’m not willing to participate in this occupation, knowing it is completely wrong. It’s a matter of what I’m willing to live with.”

Agosto had already served in Iraq for 13 months with the 57th Expeditionary Signal Battalion. Currently on active duty at Fort Hood, he admits, “It was in Iraq that I turned against the occupations. I started to feel very guilty. I watched contractors making obscene amounts of money. I found no evidence that the occupation was in any way helping the people of Iraq. I know I contributed to death and human suffering. It’s hard to quantify how much I caused, but I know I contributed to it.”

According to Sergeant Simpson, here’s how a feeling of discontent and opposition creeps up on you while you’re on duty: The part of the war you’re involved in, interrogating Iraqis in his case, “doesn’t make any sense. You realize that the whole system is flawed and if that is flawed, then obviously the whole war is flawed. If the basic premise of the war is flawed, definitely the intelligence system that is supposed to lead us to victory is flawed. What that implies is that victory is not even a possibility.”

Sergeant Travis Bishop, who served 14 months in Baghdad recently went AWOL when his unit deployed to Afghanistan. He insists that it would be unethical for him to deploy to support an occupation he opposes on moral grounds.

On his blog, he puts his position this way: “I love my country, but I believe that this particular war is unjust, unconstitutional and a total abuse of our nation’s power and influence. And so, in the next few days, I will be speaking with my lawyer, and taking actions that will more than likely result in my discharge from the military, and possible jail time…and I am prepared to live with that. My father said, ‘Do only what you can live with, because every morning you have to look at your face in the mirror when you shave. Ten years from now, you’ll still be shaving the same face.’ If I had deployed to Afghanistan, I don’t think I would have been able to look into another mirror again.”

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We Will NEVER “Get Over It!”

Today, we thank Hot Potato Mash for this video of Vincent Bugliosi discussing his latest book, The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder [now enjoying a media blackout]. We continue to maintain that, had Dubya not been born with silver service for a hundred up his ass, he’d be riding around Texas with a trunkful of duct tape, ski-masks, rope, and machetes, preying upon prostitutes and migrant workers.

The “man” is nothing but a state-sanctioned serial killer, and we’d bet money that he now spends his days drinking, doing massive amounts of coke, and jerking off over the war-porn collection that was his raison d’être for the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan. These homo-erotic snuff films are surely George W. Bush’s primary source of “entertainment.”  rb

“In my book, ‘The Prosecution of George W. Bush for Murder,’ I present evidence that proves beyond all reasonable doubt that George Bush took this nation to war on a lie, under false pretenses, and therefore under the law is guilty of murder for the deaths of over 4,000 young American soldiers who died so far in this war.”  — Vincent Bugliosi

rb:  Though greatly disturbed that Bugliosi neglected to mention the untold murders of “Others,” and of the belief that the untold murders of the aforementioned “Others” are an even more heinous and criminal offense than the deaths of American soldiers who were “just following orders,” we at residentbush remain fans of Bugliosi, and None Dare Call It Treason will continue to occupy many exalted positions in our archives:

In the December 12 ruling by the US Supreme Court handing the election to George Bush, the Court committed the unpardonable sin of being a knowing surrogate for the Republican Party instead of being an impartial arbiter of the law. If you doubt this, try to imagine Al Gore’s and George Bush’s roles being reversed and ask yourself if you can conceive of Justice Antonin Scalia and his four conservative brethren issuing an emergency order on December 9 stopping the counting of ballots (at a time when Gore’s lead had shrunk to 154 votes) on the grounds that if it continued, Gore could suffer “irreparable harm,” and then subsequently, on December 12, bequeathing the election to Gore on equal protection grounds.

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He’s A Giver!

Although the poor man has recently lost more than twenty-five percent of his net worth and is down to his last fourteen billion dollars, Charles Koch remains as committed as ever to being recognized for his charitable work. Though he finds his uncharitable work far more rewarding, both emotionally and financially, he knows better than to share this lifelong passion with the general public. Give the people what they want!

“Prosperity is only possible in a system where property rights are clearly and properly defined and protected, people are free to speak, exchange, and contract, and prices are free to guide beneficial action.” — Charles G. Koch

More Dead Chugach Natives

More Dead Chugach Natives

from Greg Palast: Here are a few pit-stops on the oily trail of tears:

In the 1980s, Charles Koch was found to have pilfered about $3 worth of crude from Stanlee Ann Mattingly’s oil tank in Oklahoma. Here’s the weird part.

Koch was (and remains) the 14th richest man on the planet, worth about $14 billion. Stanlee Ann was a dirt-poor Osage Indian.

Stanlee Ann wasn’t Koch’s only victim. According to secret tape recordings of a former top executive of his company, Koch Industries, the billionaire demanded that oil tanker drivers secretly siphon a few bucks worth of oil from every tank attached to a stripper well on the Osage Reservation
where Koch had a contract to retrieve crude.

Koch, according to the tape, would, “giggle” with joy over the records of the theft. Koch’s own younger brother Bill ratted him out, complaining that, in effect, brothers Charles and David cheated him out of his fair share of the looting which totaled over three-quarters of a billion dollars from the Native lands.

The FBI filmed the siphoning with hidden cameras, but criminal charges were quashed after quiet objections from Republican senators.

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The 50 Top American Givers: Charles Koch focuses on libertarian causes, giving money for academic and public policy research and social welfare around strict conservative ideals. He co-founded the Cato Institute and contributes to groups such as the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. Other recipients of Koch’s charity include Florida State University, Mercatus Center at George Mason University, the Bill of Rights Institute, Big Brothers Big Sisters, Salvation Army, and Koch Cultural Trust (formerly Kansas Cultural Trust).

He’s a regular Robin Hood! Steal from the brown, give to the white — just the way God likes it…rb

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May God Forgive Us

Kill and Die for Me

Kill and Die for Me

William Norman Grigg: Desertion is a moral imperative when continued service implicates a soldier in crimes against God and mankind. Indeed, there are times when desertion is a moral duty.

Yes, American enlistees swear an oath in God’s Name. Then again, so do Mafiosi. Nobody outside of that criminal fraternity considers it improper for a Mafia foot soldier to renounce his oath.

We applauded the courage of those who defected from the Red Army during its occupation of Afghanistan. (Interestingly, I don’t recall the correct term, “deserted,” being used to describe such cases.)

Apart from nationalistic special pleading, I can’t think of a way of framing an argument to justify the Soviet deserter while execrating an American stationed in Iraq or Afghanistan who follows the same course of action for the same reason: The triumph of conscience over programming.

While we should focus most of our hostile attention on the policymakers responsible for sending the military on imperial errands of that sort, we shouldn’t ignore the moral responsibility of every individual who enlists in the military and carries out the killing business such immoral policies entail.

Given the pervasive stench of imperial corruption exuded by all of our public institutions, I cannot understand how anybody possessing the moral equivalent of the sense of smell could enlist in the military, or remain therein – as if that particular organization enjoys some peculiar immunity from the decadence that afflicts the rest of the Regime.

Conservatives and others who revere the founders of our late Republic might recall that the men who won our independence and wrote the Constitution opposed a standing army, not only because it could be employed as an instrument of domestic tyranny, but also because it would offer irresistible opportunities for foreign adventurism. In this, as in so much else, the Founders’ wisdom has withstood the passage of time.

Yes, it’s entirely likely that releasing the photographs of torture and sexual assault – including homosexual rape and, God forgive us, the defilement of children – would lead to dangerous and potentially lethal complications for armed government employees who are killing people and destroying property in Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere, countries they invaded and continue to occupy by force.

If our rulers were genuinely concerned about danger to “our troops,” they would release the Abu Ghraib documents and bring the troops home. There – problem solved! Instead, they are illegally suppressing the photos and keeping the troops in the field – and now letting it be known that the U.S. military will remain mired in Mesopotamia (which is the more tractable of the two ongoing conflicts) for another decade or longer.

I suspect that the “danger” that preoccupies the ruling Establishment is not that confronted by the troops (about whom that Establishment cares little), but rather the danger potentially posed by those troops if enough of them escape the mental dungeon of official indoctrination and take a good, critical look at the people, institutions, and causes for which they’re hired to kill and die. Exposure to the abuse photos, and the battlefield consequences that would ensue, would tend to focus the mind in that direction.

An observation by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who investigated the Abu Ghraib abuses, seems to underscore my point.

“I am not sure what purpose [releasing the 2,000 additional photos of prisoner abuse] would serve other than a legal one and the consequence would be to imperil our troops, the only protectors of our foreign policy – ”

Hold it right there: Taguba said “protectors of our foreign policy,” not “defenders of our independence” or “guardians of our liberties.” The foreign policy referred to entails open-ended entanglements in the affairs of nearly every nation on earth, as well as plundering huge sums from taxpayers to sustain a grotesquely huge military establishment and bribe political elites abroad.

That foreign policy cultivates misery and harvests war and terrorism. Why in God’s Name would any decent human being defend that foreign policy in the abstract, much less spill blood to implement it?

Although I wish harm or death on no human being, it seems to me a good idea to adjust the current set of incentives in such a way that at least some American military personnel, as they deal with another gust of blowback, will have an overdue confrontation with their conscience and decide unilaterally to end their service of the world’s largest criminal enterprise, the government of the United State (spelling intentional)…[snip]

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Shell Oil: Nigeria’s Scammers

This video should come as no surprise, since militaries the world over seem to be working for the oil companies. Makes me wonder if we’ll ever (be allowed to) see similar videos regarding America’s military and the job they’re doing in the Middle East. I bet Obama’s working cheap compared to his predecessors. Pelosi’s probably making more than he is.

I guess we should consider ourselves lucky we ran out of oil when we did. The coal companies make a bigger mess, but they don’t seem to have the same clout (or reach). I probably don’t drive 30 miles a week, but I really need to get rid of my car…rb

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Shell = Guilty

In May 2009, multinational oil giant Shell will stand trial in United States federal court to answer to charges that it conspired in horrific human rights abuses in Nigeria in the 1990s.

The lawsuit, Wiwa v. Shell, charges Shell with requesting, financing, and assisting the Nigerian military which used deadly force to repress opposition to Shell’s operations in the Ogoni region of the Niger Delta.

The lawsuit also charges Shell with conspiring with the Nigerian military dictatorship in the prosecution of the leaders of this movement – the Movement for the Survival of the Ogoni People (MOSOP). Shell bribed witnesses to give false testimony, ultimately leading to a death sentence for nine men, including acclaimed author, activist, and leader of MOSOP Ken Saro-Wiwa. On November 10th, 1995, Saro-Wiwa and eight other Ogoni leaders were hanged. But Shell’s crimes didn’t end there.

For over fifty years, Shell’s operations in the Niger Delta have caused environmental devastation and human suffering. And for fifty years, the associated gas produced with Nigeria’s oil has been burned off in huge roaring flares rather than being either re-injected or used commercially.

This gas flaring poisons the land and air with a toxic cocktail of pollutants, including sulphur and nitrogen dioxides, benzene, xylene and dioxins. Devastating to the local environment and to the health of surrounding communities, Shell’s gas flaring was one of the abuses that Ken Saro-Wiwa and many other Ogoni people died seeking to end.

Shell’s gas flaring in Nigeria is a climate crime too. Gas flaring in Nigeria emits more greenhouse gases in sub-Saharan Africa than all other sources combined. In addition to harming the local environment and human health in Nigeria, Shell’s gas flaring is significantly contributing to global warming, adding to the peril the planet faces. Shell must come clean:

* Stop gas flaring in Nigeria, a practice devastating to the environment and human health, and a significant contributor to global warming.
* Disclose its role in the abuses committed against the Ogoni people in Nigeria, including the execution of Ken Saro-Wiwa and the Ogoni 9.

ShellGuilty is a coalition initiative of Friends of the Earth, Oil Change International, and Platform/Remember Saro-Wiwa

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