US special forces “tried to cover-up” botched Khataba raid in Afghanistan: US special forces soldiers dug bullets out of their victims? bodies in the bloody aftermath of a botched night raid, then washed the wounds with alcohol before lying to their superiors about what happened, Afghan investigators have told The Times.
Two pregnant women, a teenage girl, a police officer and his brother were shot on February 12 when US and Afghan special forces stormed their home in Khataba village, outside Gardez in eastern Afghanistan. The precise composition of the force has never been made public.
Orphaned Children Look at The Graves of Family Murdered By U.S. Soldiers
A senior Afghan official involved in a government investigation told The Times: “I think the special forces lied to McChrystal.”
“Why did the special forces collect their bullets from the area?” the official said. “They washed the area of the injuries with alcohol and brought out the bullets from the dead bodies. The bodies showed there were big holes.” [ READ MORE ]
Other “perverted” War Crimes Committed By U.S. Troops in Iraq, Afghanistan and Vietnam.
1. The Haditha Killings: U.S. Marines committed WAR CRIMES of unfathomable proportions!
2. Abu Ghraib: American soldiers tortured and perverted Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison
3. The My Lai Massacre: This was the mass murder conducted by a unit of the U.S. Army on March 16, 1968 of 347 to 504 unarmed citizens in South Vietnam, all of whom were civilians and a majority of whom were women, children (including babies) and elderly people. Many of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, and some of the bodies were found mutilated. [ READ MORE ] [ TIME.COM ]
4. The Other Bush-Cheney War Crimes: [ READ MORE ]
In another incident, in 2007, the WikiLeaks Web site yesterday released a harrowing until-now secret video of a U.S. Army Apache helicopter in Baghdad in 2007, repeatedly opening fire on a group of men that included a Reuters photographer and his driver — and then on a van that stopped to rescue one of the wounded men.
None of the members of the group were taking hostile action, contrary to the Pentagon’s initial cover story; they were milling about on a street corner. One man was evidently carrying a gun, though that was and is hardly an uncommon occurrence in Baghdad.
In the video, soldiers can be heard celebrating their kills:
“Oh yeah, look at those dead bastards,” says one soldier after multiple rounds of 30mm cannon fire left nearly a dozen bodies littering the street.
A soldier begs for permission to open fire on the van and its occupants, even though it has done nothing but stop to help the wounded: “Come on, let us shoot!”
Two soldiers share a laugh when a Bradley fighting vehicle runs over one of the corpses.
And after soldiers on the ground find two small children shot and bleeding in the van, one soldier can be heard saying: “Well, it’s their fault bringing their kids to a battle.” [ READ MORE ]
Columnist – John Sammon Maybe Obama can undo the Bush Cheney years. I doubt he can on his own.
The Founding Fathers who talked about freedom and designing an egalitarian state were themselves elitist, racist and corporate (Alexander Hamilton called the public an ass). America has not lived up to its promise, for it was a promise only made, not intended to be kept. Basically, the system has been and still to this day is founded on the principle, the (white) cream, the privileged elite among us, rises to the top.
Obama remains something of an anomaly. Elected by a popular vote, how long he remains in office and is viewed with favor depends on the degree to which he attempts to change the corporate influence on American life and the unquestioning obedience to it of the American people.
Here are 10 reasons why:
1. Look at the numerous wars we’ve fought or instigated, always in the name of righteousness. Look at the list of our opponents. A few were evil, corporate and powerful, for example, Imperial Japan, and Nazi Germany, developing dictatorial states who attempted to copy the imperialism of England and the United States. Remember, Japan was a hermit kingdom that simply wanted to be left alone until we forced her to open her doors for exploitation and she began to modernize at a rapid rate. But many wars have been dynastic in nature, colonial, undertaken against impoverished Third World nations for natural resources, from the Philippines in 1900 to gain a colony in Asia, to Iraq, deposing a dictator we had equipped and encouraged because he wouldn’t act like a proper puppet, and we wanted his oil.
2. Capitol Hill is ruled by corporate lobbyists, whose loyalty is not to the country, but to their respective corporations and the profit margins they gain by not only exploiting you as a customer, artificially jacking up the price of oil, or skyrocketing the price of medicines, or developing overseas markets to take advantage of cheap or slave labor even if it means eroding jobs here at home and promoting unethical, obscene regimes abroad. China for example. Thus, it’s not the government and the people of the United States. It’s the government, the lobbyists and the people in order of influence, with the people a distant third. Dynastic and monetary power rules.
3.The American people, many of them, it sounds harsh to say, are fairly stupid, and docile, fertile ground for manipulators. Many of them get their filtered news from corporate controlled television conglomerates or hate radio. Stupidity is not a matter of simply not knowing. It’s not wanting to know, not caring that you don’t know. Tuning out. Never doubting. Not reading. Not learning.
4.THE PRESIDENT IS ABOVE THE LAW. They, the powers that be, love to say it isn’t so. But time and again it’s been proven. Nixon should have done jail time. Bush and Cheney should be prosecuted for lying America into a war over false weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Always, the reasons for not doing it are the same, it’s inconvenient, it makes us look bad, we need to move ahead. The problem with excusing wrongdoing because it was allegedly patriotically motivated is that it encourages future wrongdoing. It also creates two separate classes of accountability, us, and them.
5. The United States is truly a Roman Empire-style colossus, stockpiling every kind of weapon imaginable, arming much of the world with these weapons, but castigating countries we don’t like for trying to acquire the same weapons.
6. There is a developing disturbing psychological quirk only I report. American military officers and soldiers have taken to posing with the bodies of defeated foes for photos, such as the dead sons of Saddam Hussein. Or, the still-living wretches thrown into Abu Ghraib Prison, tied up and photographed often in bondage, pseudo-sexual positions. Wanting to project power by using bodies as perverse propaganda props makes me doubt the sanity of people who, like Frankenstein’s monster, have been sent out in the world to do good in our name.
7. Our former president loved posing in uniform like Benito Mussolini, even though he was only a Vietnam-dodging, National Guard week-end warrior who skipped meetings.
8. In the reactionary hysteria after 9-11, everybody drove around town displaying flags from car antennas in a tacky display as though they were bumper stickers. This was new. Misuse of the flag in a cheap football pep rally-like attempt to stifle dissent and to glorify solidarity for government policy is perhaps the most basic of all fascist tendencies.
9. To a corporate democraphobe (dislikes democracy), the following rating system applies, war, good, weapons, good, profits from outrageous prices, good, spend on schools, bad, help people in need with training, bad, shared health care, bad, immigration, bad.
10. A McCarthy-style climate of fear, of enemies, traitors, subversives, Islam, even though we love Saudi Arabia, has been promoted.
Bush Finds WMDs in Iraq, Umm, or WMHs (Weapons of Mass Humiliation)
The Nation — President Bush finally found the long-missing Weapons of Mass Humiliation in Iraq. Iraqis, millions of them, are wearing them on their feet. Not exactly WMDs, but WMHs will have to do.
Unfortunately, Bush discovered the WMHs when a pair of them sailed past his head at a press conference in Baghdad. The hurler, Muntader al-Zaidi, is already a hero in Iraq, and beyond.
I hope I don’t get in trouble with the Secret Service by saying that I, too, found satisfaction in the display of anger toward Bush, whose reckless war costs hundreds of thousands of lives and destroyed an entire nation. What Zaidi did was to put an exclamation point on Bush’s war, fittingly — and, given the fact that the smoothly bipartisan, rancorless Barack Obama isn’t likely to investigate the crimes of the Bush adminstration in Iraq, it might be all we get before Bush rides off into the Texas sunset. …[READ MORE]
The Guantanamo Bay prison is a reviled symbol of America’s arrogance and disrespect for the Geneva conventions and other international laws. In the name of fighting terrorism the Bush administration has violated the sovereignty of foreign countries, tortured suspected terrorists, denied prisoners habeas corpus and violated the privacy of Americans.
Barack Obama realizes that symbols are very important, and he has made it his priority to close down the notorious prison camp.
The Statue of Liberty is an important symbol that speaks volumes about the generosity of America in opening its arms to foreigners seeking freedom. The Guantanamo Bay is a hated symbol that speaks volumes about the xenophobia of the Bush administration. We should take down all symbols that paint a false portrait of our great democracy.
“President-elect Obama’s advisers are crafting plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and prosecute terrorism suspects in the U.S., a plan that the Bush administration said Monday was easier said than done.
Under the plan being crafted inside Obama’s camp, some detainees would be released and others would be charged in U.S. courts, where they would receive constitutional rights and open trials.” — MATT APUZZO and LARA JAKES JORDAN, Associated Press Writers
Bush tried to establish democracy in Iraq, an utterly impossible mission in a country with no history of democracy and no taste for it. At the same time he made a mockery of democracy by denying the suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay the most basic human rights.
Maybe developing countries wouldn’t have such a poor opinion of democracy, if we set a good example and treat everyone, even suspected terrorists, as human beings who are entitled to protection under the Geneva conventions.
Guantanamo Bay Naval Base is located on the shore of Guantánamo Bay at the southeastern end of Cuba and has been used by the United States Navy for more than a century. It is the oldest overseas U.S. Navy Base, and the only one in a country with which the United States does not have diplomatic relations.[1]
The Cuban government opposes the presence of the naval base, claiming that the lease is invalid under international law. The US government claims that the lease is valid. — [MORE]
The McCain-Palin HATE MEETINGS are affecting Obama supporters worldwide — In a London street, a man wearing an Obama T-shirt was shot three times. Dube Egwuatu was shot three times in street by racist gunman. Mr Egwuatu, a data analyst with Croydon Council, said: “The venom in his attackers voice was frightening.” McCain and his side-kick Sarah Palin, are a sick, racist, divisive and deluded monster couple, unfit to lead a country struggling to dump it’s sordid racial past!. Click Here For HOPE
Republican racist bigots realizing that Obama is for real, are in frenzied panic. Barack Obama has momentum and John McCain cannot stop the Obama train. The McCain-Palin Ticket is in Racist ‘Kamikaze’ Mode.
And, it has spread all the way to “Cousin-Land,” Great Britain ….in London, where Dube Egwuatu was shot three times in street by racist gunman – for wearing a Barack Obama T-shirt. Mr Egwuatu, a data analyst with Croydon Council, said: “The venom in his attackers voice was frightening.”
After two debates, McCain has nothing to offer but FEAR and RACIST INNUENDO.
First it was Sarah Palin, McCain’s sidekick barracuda, now he has thrown all he has left into the mix — his “Beer Inheritance,” Cindy McCain.
Invoking son’s military service, Cindy McCain said: “The day that Sen. Obama cast a vote to not to fund my son when he was serving sent a cold chill through my body let me tell you,” Cindy McCain said in introducing the GOP ticket. “I would suggest Sen. Obama change shoes with me for just one day. I suggest he take a day and go watch our men and women deploying.” READ: OBAMA IS UN-PATRIOTIC, YELLOW and DOES NOT BELONG
A couple of days ago Sarah Palin accused Obama of “Paling With Terrorists,” … in reference to Obama’s association with fellow Chicagoan, Bill Ayers, a reformed 1960′s anti-war radical, who is currently leading a productive life as a professor at the University of Illinois.
Ayers was protesting the VietNam War — another illegal war America lost, during which, just like in Iraq, U.S. military personnel often went on civilian LYNCHING rampages.
The spectacle of John McCain’s Town Hall campaign meetings reminds me of a Saturday Evening Lynching Meet ups in the not too distant past of America.
Lynching of black people in the United States often took place on “Market Days,” during which families accompanied by their young children would watch blacks humiliated, killed by hanging and sometimes by burning. To demonstrate a ritual of power, mobs sometimes tortured the victim first before hanging them.
1935 lynching of Rubin Stacy in Fort Lauderdale, Florida
Lynching was(is) highly associated with Southern efforts to retain and enforce white supremacy after their defeat in the American Civil War.
Many lynchings still happen today and go unreported, and they are not necessarily by rope or burning.
Guns, beatings and NOOSES have been hung on trees to afflict MENTAL LYNCHING on African-Americans.
McCain’s Town Hall Meetings have turned into Lynch Mob Meetings during which McCain, Cindy and Sarah Palin intentionally, knowingly and willfully, by using code-words have incited RETARDED Republicans to help them bring down Barack Obama, by hook or crook.
The BLOOD-CUDDLING braying goes like this:
“KILL HIM!”…. “TREASONER!”…. “NIGGER!”…. “NOBAMA!”…. “SOCIALIST!”…. “COMMUNISM!”…. “SOCIALIST SWINE!”…. “OBAMA IS A MUSLIM TERRORIST!”…. “SLEAZY SCUM OF THE EARTH!”…. “OBAMA REGISTERS DEAD PEOPLE!”…. “BARACK ‘HUSSEIN‘ OBAMA!”…. “OFF WITH HIS HEAD!”…. “OBAMA WILL PAINT THE WHITEHOUSE BLACK!”…. “OBAMA IS A BLACK MUSLIM TERRORIST!”….
Here is Sarah Palin calling Obama a Terrorist & Racist ScumBag
Republicans Responding in Kind.
“Obama is a Moslem Terrorist” ….McCain event in Bethlehem, PA
Terrorist!
The Sheriff’s GESTAPO Also Joined In — In FULL UNIFORM
[Enlarge] Joining in the chorus, a local Black talk show host, a Mr. James T. Harris, took great umbrage in begging McCain to “HIT” Obama.
“I am begging you sir, I am begging you — take it to him,” pleaded the Mr. Harris, earning himself a standing ovation!. “We have the good Reverend Wright. We have [the Rev. Michael L.] Pfleger.
We have all of these shady characters that have surrounded him,” Harris bellowed. “We have corruption here in Wisconsin and voting across the nation. I am begging you, sir. I am begging you.
CNN’s Campbell Brown Laments McCain’s “Hate Speech”
As you can see McCain-Palin campaign is inciting violence and racial hatred against Senator Obama.
They call it “Rallying Their Base.” A base consisting of the most despicable racists on earth.
And it is no surprise that Sarah Palin feels mighty comfortable in this setting. She has a history of association with Alaskan Extremists. Right-wing extremists Mark Chryson and Steve Stoll helped launch Palin’s political career in Alaska, and in return had influence over policy. “Her door was open,” says Chryson — and still is. …. [READ MORE]
Any little respect I had for McCain is gone forever.
Mr. McCain you are racist pig not fit to lead a nation trying so hard to progress beyond bigotry and racism. You are unfit to run this country.
You are totally sick, divisive, “Viet-Cong deluded,” monster!.
That you referred to a crowd at one of your rally’s as “My Fellow Prisoners!” instead of “My Fellow Citizens” …in a “Prepared” speech!, ….is proof that you have lost your mind,…completely!
“My Fellow Prisoners!”
As for Sarah Palin, first, you are a RACIST, next let me paraphrase the RUSSIANS: “Palin, the shrieking cow from Alaska is the joke of American politics. You are a “housewife, chosen by mere chance.” A Mrs. Nobody “know-it-all.” You are a “Hockey Mom” housewife-cum-small-town gossip merchant and cheap little guttersnipe. You pith-headed little bimbo from the back of beyond. Keep your mouth shut and while you’re at it, make sure the members of your family keep their legs shut too.”
I didn’t say that, the Russians who are equally pissed off at you did: Read PRAVDA
On The Issue of McCain’s Character
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By: bcblue84′s
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I forgot to mention John McCain was a POW. While John McCain was a POW, he endured torture, and he dreamt of his beautiful wife and children back home. Carol McCain was John’s first wife. She kept the faith back home. She and her 3 young children struggled to get by. While he was still imprisoned, Carol McCain was in a horrific, near fatal car accident, which left her alive, but crippled and disfigured. Carol McCain endured and whispered not a word of these horrors to her husband because she wanted to spare him the agony and worry. Upon his return from Vietnam, seeing his wife was not the woman he once knew, John McCain, forsake his marital vows, and forsake his wife and his family. John McCain committed an act that women all across America fear. He deserted his wife in her hour of need. He turned his back on her, and took a second wife, a woman nearly 20 years his junior.
This truth makes me uncomfortable. This truth reveals to me the horror of who John McCain really is. He is a man who would rid himself of a woman who he had sworn to protect, who he had sworn to build a life with. He is a man who in his lust for political power, and his overriding vanity, would abandon his first wife, crippled and disfigured, in favor of a blond beauty, nearly 20 years his junior.
John McCain does not embody honor or sacrifice or duty. John McCain embodies a man who would abandon his wife, a man who places no value on sacred marital vows, a man who does not know the meaning of family sacrifice or family commitment.
John McCain and his campaign does nothing but call a lie to the sacrifice and earnest endeavors of military wives. He presents himself as a man with whom Military families can identify. But would they still identify with him if they knew he abandoned the wife and family who supported him when he was in the military?
For every woman who devotes herself to her home and her family, John McCain embodies their worst nightmare. John McCain is the husband who would instantly and arbitrarily discount the work and devotion a wife commits, for a lifetime, to her home and family, the husband who would toss her aside for a younger woman, the husband who would dismiss his solemn marital vows as “a mistake,” the husband with no conscience and no heart and no smidgen of duty. Would the women of America stand by John McCain if they knew even the smallest hint of his first forgotten wife?
How can Cindy McCain voice a need “to make sure the American people understand what we have to say, what we stand for as a husband and wife” when what they stand for is adultery, betrayal, privilege, entitlement, and cover up. Maybe Cindy thinks she deserves respect and instant credibility because she is John McCain’s second wife, or because she is rich and wears $280,000 earrings, or because she owns 8 houses so she has perspective on the economic crisis because she can retreat to one of those 8 houses and wait till her stock portfolio recovers
One Nation Under Fear: Scaredy Cats and Fear-Mongers in the Home of the Brave (And What You Can Do About It) — by Bob Cesca
Editorial Reviews
“Bob Cesca is easily one of the most incisive political writers on the scene today. Nobody else can make me think, laugh and cry–all at once–by simply giving his take on the corrupt political establishment that runs things in Washington.” — Cliff Schecter, Author of The Real McCain: Why Conservatives Don’t Trust Him and Why Independents Shouldn’t
“The great irony of this book is that Bob’s writing is totally fearless. That’s what I love about it. Are you allowed to write a fearless book about country living under fear? Whether he is allowed or not, Bob has done it.” — Cenk Uygur, “The Young Turks”
“Fearless and funny, Bob Cesca captures the smart brawling style of today’s blogosphere, while putting the press and Republicans on notice.” — Eric Boehlert,Media Matters
“As a liberal blogger of profound depth, righteous outrage and sly humor, Cesca’s like a combination of Molly Ivins, H.L. Mencken and Wavy Gravy. I’m not sure what that means but it looks nice in a sentence.” — Steven Weber,Actor/Hockey Mom
Product Description
In post-9/11 America, authoritarians and politicians are happily leaning on the panic button for fun, profit, and the ongoing oppression of a frightened populace. This timely book examines that fear: where it came from, how it’s promoted, and what can be done about it. Author Bob Cesca hits a bracingly wide range of targets — the right-wing noise machine, climate change deniers, creeping fascism from the Bush White House — before presenting a sober, sensible plan for fighting and overcoming this potentially irreversible trend.
In the name of fighting terrorism the Bush administration has violated the sovereignty of foreign countries, tortured suspected terrorists, denied prisoners habeas corpus and violated the privacy of Americans. 
Editorial Reviews
