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  1. Atypical is offline
    01-08-2010, 04:11 PM #1

    Do NOT Read This - IT MUST REMAIN HIDDEN!

    Chris Hedges, Truthdig. Posted January 5, 2010.


    War is brutal and impersonal. It mocks the fantasy of individual heroism and the absurdity of utopian goals like democracy. In an instant, industrial warfare can kill dozens, even hundreds of people, who never see their attackers. The power of these industrial weapons is indiscriminate and staggering. They can take down apartment blocks in seconds, burying and crushing everyone inside. They can demolish villages and send tanks, planes and ships up in fiery blasts. The wounds, for those who survive, result in terrible burns, blindness, amputation and lifelong pain and trauma. No one returns the same from such warfare. And once these weapons are employed all talk of human rights is a farce.

    In Peter van Agtmael’s "2nd Tour Hope I don’t Die" and Lori Grinker’s "Afterwar: Veterans From a World in Conflict," two haunting books of war photographs, we see pictures of war which are almost always hidden from public view. These pictures are shadows, for only those who go to and suffer from war can fully confront the visceral horror of it, but they are at least an attempt to unmask war’s savagery.

    "Over ninety percent of this soldier’s body was burned when a roadside bomb hit his vehicle, igniting the fuel tank and burning two other soldiers to death," reads the caption in Agtmael’s book next to a photograph of the bloodied body of a soldier in an operating room. "His camouflage uniform dangled over the bed, ripped open by the medics who had treated him on the helicopter. Clumps of his skin had peeled away, and what was left of it was translucent. He was in and out of consciousness, his eyes stabbing open for a few seconds. As he was lifted from the stretcher to the ER bed, he screamed ‘Daddy, Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,’ then ‘Put me to sleep, please put me to sleep.’ There was another photographer in the ER, and he leaned his camera over the heads of the medical staff to get an overhead shot. The soldier yelled, ‘Get that ****ing camera out of my face.’ Those were his last words. I visited his grave one winter afternoon six months later,” Agtmael writes, “and the scene of his death is never far from my thoughts."

    "There were three of us inside, and the jeep caught fire," Israeli soldier Yossi Arditi, quoted in Grinker’s book, says of the moment when a Molotov cocktail exploded in his vehicle. “The fuel tank was full and it was about to explode, my skin was hanging from my arms and face -- but I didn’t lose my head. I knew nobody could get inside to help me, that my only way out was through the fire to the doors. I wanted to take my gun, but I couldn’t touch it because my hands were burning." [To see long excerpts from “Afterwar” and to read an introduction written by Chris Hedges, click here.]

    Arditi spent six months in the hospital. He had surgery every two or three months, about 20 operations, over the next three years.

    "People who see me, see what war really does," he says.

    Filmic and most photographic images of war are shorn of the heart-pounding fear, awful stench, deafening noise and exhaustion of the battlefield. Such images turn confusion and chaos, the chief element of combat, into an artful war narrative. They turn war into porn. Soldiers and Marines, especially those who have never seen war, buy cases of beer and watch movies like "Platoon," movies meant to denounce war, and as they do so revel in the despicable power of the weapons shown. The reality of violence is different. Everything formed by violence is senseless and useless. It exists without a future. It leaves behind nothing but death, grief and destruction.

    Chronicles of war, such as these two books, that eschew images and scenes of combat begin to capture war’s reality. War’s effects are what the state and the press, the handmaiden of the war makers, work hard to keep hidden. If we really saw war, what war does to young minds and bodies, it would be harder to embrace the myth of war. If we had to stand over the mangled corpses of the eight schoolchildren killed in Afghanistan a week ago and listen to the wails of their parents we would not be able to repeat clichés about liberating the women of Afghanistan or bringing freedom to the Afghan people. This is why war is carefully sanitized. This is why we are given war’s perverse and dark thrill but are spared from seeing war’s consequences. The mythic visions of war keep it heroic and entertaining. And the press is as guilty as Hollywood. During the start of the Iraq war, television reports gave us the visceral thrill of force and hid from us the effects of bullets, tank rounds, iron fragmentation bombs and artillery rounds. We tasted a bit of war’s exhilaration, but were protected from seeing what war actually does.

    The wounded, the crippled and the dead are, in this great charade, swiftly carted off stage. They are war’s refuse. We do not see them. We do not hear them. They are doomed, like wandering spirits, to float around the edges of our consciousness, ignored, even reviled. The message they tell is too painful for us to hear. We prefer to celebrate ourselves and our nation by imbibing the myth of glory, honor, patriotism and heroism, words that in combat become empty and meaningless. And those whom fate has decreed must face war’s effects often turn and flee.

    Saul Alfaro, who lost his legs in the war in El Salvador, speaks in Grinker’s book about the first and final visit from his girlfriend as he lay in an army hospital bed.

    "She had been my girlfriend in the military and we had planned to be married," he says. "But when she saw me in the hospital -- I don’t know exactly what happened, but later they told me when she saw me she began to cry. Afterwards, she ran away and never came back."

    The public manifestations of gratitude are reserved for veterans who dutifully read from the script handed to them by the state. The veterans trotted out for viewing are those who are compliant and palatable, those we can stand to look at without horror, those who are willing to go along with the lie that war is about patriotism and is the highest good. “Thank you for your service,” we are supposed to say. They are used to perpetuate the myth. We are used to honor it.

    Gary Zuspann, who lives in a special enclosed environment in his parent’s home in Waco, Texas, suffering from Gulf War syndrome, speaks in Grinker’s book of feeling like "a prisoner of war" even after the war had ended.

    "Basically they put me on the curb and said, okay, fend for yourself," he says in the book. "I was living in a fantasy world where I thought our government cared about us and they take care of their own. I believed it was in my contract, that if you’re maimed or wounded during your service in war, you should be taken care of. Now I’m angry."

    I went back to Sarajevo after covering the 1990s war for The New York Times and found hundreds of cripples trapped in rooms in apartment blocks with no elevators and no wheelchairs. Most were young men, many without limbs, being cared for by their elderly parents, the glorious war heroes left to rot.

    Despair and suicide grip survivors. More Vietnam veterans committed suicide after the war than were killed during it. The inhuman qualities drilled into soldiers and Marines in wartime defeat them in peacetime. This is what Homer taught us in "The Iliad," the great book on war, and "The Odyssey," the great book on the long journey to recovery by professional killers. Many never readjust. They cannot connect again with wives, children, parents or friends, retreating into personal hells of self-destructive anguish and rage.

    "They program you to have no emotion -- like if somebody sitting next to you gets killed you just have to carry on doing your job and shut up," Steve Annabell, a British veteran of the Falklands War, says to Grinker. “When you leave the service, when you come back from a situation like that, there’s no button they can press to switch your emotions back on. So you walk around like a zombie. They don’t deprogram you. If you become a problem they just sweep you under the carpet.”

    "To get you to join up they do all these advertisements -- they show people skiing down mountains and doing great things -- but they don’t show you getting shot at and people with their legs blown off or burning to death," he says. "They don’t show you what really happens. It’s just bullshit. And they never prepare you for it. They can give you all the training in the world, but it’s never the same as the real thing."

    Those with whom veterans have most in common when the war is over are often those they fought.

    "Nobody comes back from war the same," says Horacio Javier Benitez, who fought the British in the Falklands and is quoted in Grinker’s book. "The person, Horacio, who was sent to war, doesn’t exist anymore. It’s hard to be enthusiastic about normal life; too much seems inconsequential. You contend with craziness and depression."

    "Many who served in the Malvinas," he says, using the Argentine name of the islands, "committed suicide, many of my friends."

    "I miss my family," reads a wall graffito captured in one of Agtmael’s photographs. "Please God forgive the lives I took and let my family be happy if I don’t go home again."

    Next to the plea someone had drawn an arrow toward the words and written in thick, black marker "Fag!!!"

  2. Atypical is offline
    01-08-2010, 04:12 PM #2

    Part Two

    Look beyond the nationalist cant used to justify war. Look beyond the seduction of the weapons and the pornography of violence. Look beyond Barack Obama’s ridiculous rhetoric about finishing the job or fighting terror. Focus on the evil of war. War begins by calling for the annihilation of the others but ends ultimately in self-annihilation. It corrupts souls and mutilates bodies. It destroys homes and villages and murders children on their way to school. It grinds into the dirt all that is tender and beautiful and sacred. It empowers human deformities -- warlords, Shiite death squads, Sunni insurgents, the Taliban, al-Qaida and our own killers—who can speak only in the despicable language of force. War is a scourge. It is a plague. It is industrial murder. And before you support war, especially the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, look into the hollow eyes of the men, women and children who know it.

  3. john is offline
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    01-08-2010, 05:39 PM #3
    Hey dumbass next time why dont you look into the eyes of these people and ask them:

    1) Holocaust Survivors if they thought going to war with Germany was a bad idea.

    2) Chinese people that lived through Japanese occupation, if they thought going to war with Japan was a bad idea.

    3) Philippine people that lived through Japanese occupation, if they thought going to war with Japan was a bad idea.

    4) The English people and what they think of Chamberlain and why he did not stop Hitler from the beginning when he had the chance. Remember this: "Piece in our time." I guess we all know how well that worked out dont we.

    5) The Iraqy Kurds if they dont think going to war with Iraq, was a good idea. You know 1/5 of the people that live in Iraq.

    6) The Iraqy Shiites if they dont think going to war with Iraq, was a good idea. You know the same people that were pissed at Bush 41 when he would not help them when they tried to go to war with Saddam. You know 2/3 of the people that live in Iraq.

    7) The South Koreans, if they would rather be living in the same style of government as the North Koreans are.

    8) I would say the millions of people Hồ Chí Minh Massacred after the USA pulled out and he took control of the south but we cant.


    Hey the list gos on and on.


    The thing I find funny is it is because of dumbasses like you that we need a full standing military. I say that because it is people like you that are mindless followers of people like Hitler, and his ilk. It is exactly people like you that cause wars. Your the type that give people like Hitler power because you will do nothing to stop his type before they get that powerful.

  4. Havakasha is offline
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    01-08-2010, 10:25 PM #4
    Who is "a mindless follower of Hitler"?

    I know the right wing white supremacists are, as well of course the right wing neo nazis of present times.

    Why is it the right wing always brings up Hitler? You guys have more anti-semitics among you than any other group. Jewish people vote more consistently as Democrats than any other group besides African Americans.

    Why dont you give ****in Hitler a rest you asshole because my great grandparents were killed by the Nazis and you know absolutely nothing about the pain of that history.

  5. john is offline
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    01-09-2010, 12:05 PM #5
    The reason jewish vote democratic more then republican is because jews are a people that feel they should feel guilty about everything from the amount of money they have to the fact if they have suffered enough to have what they have. You will never find a people that is more apologedic for what they have and that feel they have not suffered enough to get what and where they are. CAN YOU REALLY DENIE THAT, you twit.


    As for the differences and between the democrats and republicans, it is clear that democrats believe in socalism and republicans believe in capitalism. Now what was the party Hitler not only belonged to but was the head of and came to power under again, Ho yes thats right the Nationalist Socalist Party. Did you notice the middle word in there it was "SOCALIST". You dumb twitish libs really need to brush up on your history.



    As for your grandparents, it is my type that would have stopped it and your type that let Hitler get away with it, as my post above yours AND ADUMBICALs above mine clearly shows, dumbass. It is my type that knows the history and tyour type that has learned nothing from it and that is why you are going to repeat it. A clear example is this:

    Look Bush saw the failings of Clinton and why you cant treat terrorist like criminals. So he changed the polocies even though he was fought every step of the way by the democrats. The result was we did NOT yes thats right NOT for 7 years have a terrorist attack. What does Obama do as soon as he gets in (with most of the democrats blessings), he goes right back to the Clinton way of doing things. Thats not all though, because he also dismantled almost everything Bush did to keep us safe. So it is clear lets run down the list:

    1.) He starts by trying to close Gitmo.

    2.) He stops calling it a war, he and his people stop even using the term terrorist (remember his Homeland security advisor now calling terrorist attacks like 911, "Man made disasters")

    3.) He then trys to go after the CIA for being aggressive towards TERRORIST.

    4.) Then he says it is important to treat TERRORIST like regular criminals and give them all the rights the constitution gives anyone else. I guess he forgot they are enimie combatants and we are at war and if we want to hold them until the war is over then that is what we are allowed to do in war.

    5.) Ho yes and he stop agressive interigations (Also see number 3 as Obamas back up to it).


    Now lets see what has all that got us, 3 yes THREE terrorist attacks in 6 months. The AR. recruiter shooting (thats right that one was also only really reported by FOX), the Fort Hood shooting (yes thats right because while it took the rest of the media forever to catch on that it was a terrorist attack FOX called it what it was a day after), and now the latest NWA underwear bomber (It took the president 3 days and 3 different speeches to finally go from an "isolated insident" to a terrorist attack).

    There are facts that can not be denied:

    Fact: Bush did not have one attack on us since 911 thats right, NOT ONE IN 7 SEVEN YEARS.

    Fact: Within the first year of Obama we have had THREE in JUST the last six MONTHS of Obama first year.

    Fact: When the man at the top and most his administartion treat terrorism as a forth or fifth thought and actively go after people trying to STOP terrorism then it will at the very least have everyone else below them NOT doing what they have done before.

    Fact: Most when they see colleagues being punished for doing what they did to protect this country it makes you less ampt to want to do what you used to do before as agressively as you used to (Fort Hood is a perfect example of that).

    Those things above are all a perfect example of how you libs will never learn from your history and the reason Hitler is such a good example is because alls they had to do to stop Hitler was look at history and LEARN FROM IT.

    Conservatives all warned Obama and you libs what would happen if he went back to treating terrorist like criminals like Clinton did. The fact is you cant even blame Clinton because who knew back then. The point is, WE KNOW NOW, that is if you are not a dumb twit.


    P.S. You dumb twit, if you could ask your grandparents if they thought us going to war with Hitler was a bad idea what do you think their answer would be? Thanks you just helped me prove my point.
    Last edited by john; 01-09-2010 at 12:26 PM.

  6. Havakasha is offline
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    01-09-2010, 07:03 PM #6
    Every time you open your mouth you reveal a level of anger and hatred toward people that is truly astonishing.

    "Its your type that let Hitler get away with it". Some of my relatives who are Jewish and Democrats fought and died trying to stop the nazis.
    You got it backwards. The right wingers of that time opposed fighting the Nazis.


    Your statement about Jews is shocking in its extreme ignorance. Thanks for telling us all about our guilt over money etc Where i come from we call comments like that anti-semitic because they perpetuate false myths about our ethnicity. Cant wait to hear your theories on Buddhists, Christians, Muslims and all others.
    The fact is that the Jewish people know what its like to persecuted and therefore have a sensitivity to the persecution of others. We empathize with the less fortunate and therefore generally support policies that aim to alleviate their suffering.

    Do your read? No one that i know thought that going to war against Hitler was wrong.

    White supremacists, klu klux klan, and neo nazis praise Hitler. They have in common their anti semitism, racism, and their right wing politics. Just the facts.


    You say no terrorists attacks took place after 9/11 ( somehow i knew you would want to ignore that one. LOL).

    When did the shoe bomber try to blow up that plane? Oh yeah it was during Bush/Cheney.
    When did the anthrax attack happen? Oh yeah it was during Bush/Cheney.
    When did the egyptian terrorist shoot dead 2 people at LA airport? Oh yeah thats right it was during Bush/Cheney.

    The policies initiated by Republicans and Democrats after 9/11 were in place during these latest incidents. What does that prove? That the sytem has failings and that they occur no matter who is President and whose party controls Congress. The attempt to suggest otherwise is juvenile and ignorant at best. Treasonous at worst.
    Last edited by Havakasha; 01-10-2010 at 12:21 PM.

  7. john is offline
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    01-10-2010, 06:06 PM #7
    Please Chamberlain while was from the conservative party, He was as conservative as Gordan Brown (also from the same conservative party in England) That same party would be considerd the moderate part of the democrat party here, There is another party in England that is further to the right and what could be compared to republicans here in America. It just so happen the challenger from that party is ahead in the polls in England. I also know you are not going to try and compare most democrats back then to democrats of today because lets face it, JFK would not even have been let into the democrat party of today. JFK would be better compared to Sen. McCain then he would be Obama, Sen. Harry Ried (head of the Senate), or Rep. Nancy Polocie (head of the House of Repersentatives).



    Those comments come straight from jewish actions and what they tell me. (because unlike you I am not afraid to ask such questions). Now while many of those jews are orthodox jews, (you know the ones that build little huts off the backs of their houses and eat their meals in them for the month (cant remember what holyday (I dont think it was Rashasona or Yon Kipper) they call it but it is about the same time as lent) and may have different feelings on the issue I am not sure. What I am sure about is that they tell me.


    Next Havakasha says this: "Do your read? No one that i know thought that going to war against Hitler was wrong."

    Ho I am sorry where in here does it say that (Havasuckers quote from his only other post before on this thread):

    "Who is "a mindless follower of Hitler"?

    I know the right wing white supremacists are, as well of course the right wing neo nazis of present times.

    Why is it the right wing always brings up Hitler? You guys have more anti-semitics among you than any other group. Jewish people vote more consistently as Democrats than any other group besides African Americans.

    Why dont you give ****in Hitler a rest you asshole because my great grandparents were killed by the Nazis and you know absolutely nothing about the pain of that history."



    Do you understand what you write I know you dont have a clue about what you read but really, YOU WROTE that YOURSELF. The fact is you got lost in what you read and wrote. It is clear you tried to defend Adumbical and his thread, Adumbicals thread is totally anti war.


    As for your arguement of how conservatives are like the klu klux klan, and neo nazis because you want try and call them right wingers. Then I guess all those riots that take place everytime the WTO, or the G-8 or the NAFTA meets or those twits at the Copenhagen summit are left wingers like you, right.




    Now on to your last point, and it shows why your name is HavaSUCKER, You have not one clue. Lets take each one seperately to show the difference between them.

    The "shoe bomber": First I should not even have to get into the fact it was over the Alantic and not over the U.S. Besides that technical fact of that we have the fact it took place 3 JUST THREE MONTHs after 911. I guess 3 months is what you would consider enough time to not only have found out who was responsible for 911 but to come up with procedures from scratch and implement them THROUGH OUT THE WORLD.

    The "anthrax attack": While I will give you the only point that you have which is while it was a terrorist attack. The rest of the facts must have slipped by you: It was not an attack from the PEOPLE WE ARE AT WAR WITH ("al qaeda"). It was an attack from what would be best discribed as a disgruntled employee with no connection to "al qaeda" what-so-ever. Not to mention (which I should not have to) that it also took place at almost the same time as 911.


    The "egyptian terrorist": The fact is the only ones calling it a radical muslim "terrorist attack" are the Israelis (While I would agree with them the fact that he had no connections to radical muslim makes it difficly to stop such a person). Other facts you forget to mention is that he also had no connection to THE PEOPLE WE ARE AT WAR WITH ("al qaeda"). Humm not to mention the fact that he did not have to go through ONE SECURITY CHECK POINT to do what he did (as explain before).


    Now while because you are a twit and dont see the clear differences most people are not and do. So for you HavaSUCKER I will explain. The only two that actually happen in the USA did not have any connections to "al qaeda" (you know the people we are at war with and are the only ones we are really guarding against). Unlike all three of the examples I gave, none of yours have the at least 2 of the major things in them that you need: 1.) That they happened in American territory, 2.) That they had any connection to the people we are trying to guard against (al qaeda). Really you need at least those two things before you can even start to compare. Then maybe we can disguss the time required to implement the system of checks and weather 3 months would have been enough time to implement them. You see the clear difference you dumbass. If not, you should have gotten a clue when you noticed it is only you and your lib friends trying to compare those three things and some how try to compare them. You see how your idealogy gets in the way of common sense and logic. They dont dare argue those with anyone else because others outside that circle of theirs would make them look as dumb as I just made you look.
    Last edited by john; 01-10-2010 at 06:09 PM.

  8. Atypical is offline
    01-10-2010, 06:32 PM #8

    Are U.S. Forces Executing Afghan Kids?

    By DAVE LINDORFF

    The Taliban suicide attack that killed a group of CIA agents in Afghanistan on a base that was directing US drone aircraft used to attack Taliban leaders was big news in the US over the past week, with the airwaves and front pages filled with sympathetic stories referring to the fact that the female station chief, who was among those killed, was the "mother of three children."

    But the apparent mass murder of Afghan school children, including one as young as 11 years old, by a US-led group of troops, was pretty much blacked out in the American media. Especially blacked out was word from UN investigators that the students had not just been killed but executed, many of them after having first been rousted from their bedroom and handcuffed.

    Here is the excellent report on the incident that ran in the Times of London(like Fox News, a Rupert Murdoch-owned publication) on Dec. 31:

    Western troops accused of executing 10 Afghan civilians, including children

    By Jerome Starkey in Kabul

    American-led troops were accused yesterday of dragging innocent children from their beds and shooting them during a night raid that left ten people dead.
    Afghan government investigators said that eight schoolchildren were killed, all but one of them from the same family. Locals said that some victims were handcuffed before being killed.
    Western military sources said that the dead were all part of an Afghan terrorist cell responsible for manufacturing improvised explosive devices (IEDs), which have claimed the lives of countless soldiers and civilians.
    "This was a joint operation that was conducted against an IED cell that Afghan and US officials had been developing information against for some time," said a senior Nato insider. But he admitted that "the facts about what actually went down are in dispute".

    The article goes on to say:

    In a telephone interview last night, the headmaster [of the local school] said that the victims were asleep in three rooms when the troops arrived. "Seven students were in one room," said Rahman Jan Ehsas. "A student and one guest were in another room, a guest room, and a farmer was asleep with his wife in a third building.

    "First the foreign troops entered the guest room and shot two of them. Then they entered another room and handcuffed the seven students. Then they killed them. Abdul Khaliq [the farmer] heard shooting and came outside. When they saw him they shot him as well. He was outside. That's why his wife wasn't killed."

    A local elder, Jan Mohammed, said that three boys were killed in one room and five were handcuffed before they were shot. "I saw their school books covered in blood," he said.

    The investigation found that eight of the victims were aged from 11 to 17. The guest was a shepherd boy, 12, called Samar Gul, the headmaster said. He said that six of the students were at high school and two were at primary school. He said that all the students were his nephews.

    Compare this article to the one mention of the incident which appeared in the New York Times, one of the few American news outlets to even mention the incident. The Times, on Dec. 28, focusing entirely on the difficulty civilian killings cause for the US war effort, and not on the allegation of a serious war crime having been committed, wrote:

    Attack Puts Afghan Leader and NATO at Odds
    By Alissa J. Rubin and Abdul Waheed Wafa

    KABUL, Afghanistan - The killing of at least nine men in a remote valley of eastern Afghanistan by a joint operation of Afghan and American forces put President Hamid Karzai and senior NATO officials at odds on Monday over whether those killed had been civilians or Taliban insurgents.

    In a statement e-mailed to the news media, Mr. Karzai condemned the weekend attack and said the dead had been civilians, eight of them schoolboys. He called for an investigation.

    Local officials, including the governor and members of Parliament from Kunar Province, where the deaths occurred, confirmed the reports. But the Kunar police chief, Khalilullah Ziayee, cautioned that his office was still investigating the killings and that outstanding questions remained, including why the eight young men had been in the same house at the time.

    "There are still questions to be answered, like why these students were together and what they were doing on that night," Mr. Ziayee said.

    A senior NATO official with knowledge of the operation said that the raid had been carried out by a joint Afghan-American force and that its target was a group of men who were known Taliban members and smugglers of homemade bombs, which the American and NATO forces call improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.'s.

    According to the NATO official, nine men were killed. "These were people who had a well-established network, they were I.E.D. smugglers and also were responsible for direct attacks on Afghan security and coalition forces in those areas," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the issue.

    "When the raid took place they were armed and had material for making I.E.D.'s," the official added.

    While the article in the New York Times eventually mentions the allegation that the victims were children, not "men," it begins with the unchallenged assertion in the lead that they were "men." There is no mention of the equally serious allegation that the victims had been handcuffed before being executed, and the story leaves the impression, made by NATO sources, that they were armed and had died fighting. There is no indication in the Times story that the reporters made any effort, as the London Times reporter did, to get local, non-official, sources of information. Moreover, the information claiming that the victims had been making bombs was attributed to an anonymous NATO source, though there was no legitimate reason for the anonymity ("because of the delicacy of the situation" was the lame excuse offered)--indeed the use of an anonymous source here would appear to violate the Times' own standards.

    It's not that in American newsrooms there was no knowledge that a major war crime may have been committed. Nearly all American news organizations receive the AP newswire. Here is the AP report on the killings, which ran under the headline "UN says killed Afghans were students":

    The United Nations says a raid last weekend by foreign troops in a tense eastern Afghan province killed eight local students.

    The Afghan government says that all 10 people killed in a village in Kunar province were civilians. NATO says there is no evidence to substantiate the claim and has requested a joint investigation.

    UN special representative in Afghanistan Kai Eide said in a statement Thursday that preliminary investigation shows there were insurgents in the area at the time of the attack. But he adds that eight of those killed were students in local schools.

    Once again, the American media are falling down shamefully in providing honest reporting on a war, making it difficult for the American people to make informed judgements about what is being done in their name.

    Let's be clear here. If the charges are correct, that American forces, or American-led forces, are handcuffing their victims and executing them, then they are committing egregious war crimes. If they are killing children, they are committing equally egregious war crimes. If they are handcuffing and executing children, the atrocity is beyond horrific. This indeed, would actually be worse than the infamous war crime that occurred in My Lai during the Vietnam War. In that case, we had ordinary soldiers in the field, acting under the orders of several low-ranking officers in the heat of an operation, shooting and killing women and children. But in this case we appear to have seasoned special forces troops actually directing the taking captives, cuffing them, herding them into a room, and spraying them with bullets, execution style.

    Given the history of the commanding general in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who ran a massive death squad operation in Iraq before being named to his current post by President Obama, and who is known to have called for the same kind of operation in Afghanistan, it should not be surprising that the US would now be committing atrocities in Afghanistan. If this is how this war is going to be conducted, though, the US media should be making a major effort to uncover and expose the crime.

    On January 1, the London Times's Starkey, in Afghanistan, followed up with a second story, reporting that Afghan President Hamid Karzai is calling for the US to hand over the troops who killed the students. He also quoted a "NATO source" as saying that the "foreigners involved" in the incident were "non-military, suggesting that they were part of a secret paramilitary unit based in the capital" of Kabul. Starkey also quotes a "Western official" as saying: "There's no doubt that there were insurgents there, and there may well have been an insurgent leader in the house, but that doesn't justify executing eight children who were all enrolled in local schools."

    Good enterprise reporting by the London Times and its Kabul-based correspondent. Silence on these developments in the US media.

    Meanwhile, it has been a week since the New York Times reporters Rubin and Wafa made their first flawed report on the incident, and there has been not a word since then about it in the paper. Are Rubin and Wafa or other Times reporters on the story? Will there be a follow-up?

  9. Atypical is offline
    01-10-2010, 06:32 PM #9

    Continuation

    On the evidence of past coverage of these US wars and their ongoing atrocities by the Times, and other major US corporate media news organizations don't bet on it. You'll do better looking to the foreign media.

    By the way, given that we're talking the allegation of a serious war crime here, it should be noted that it is, under the Geneva Conventions, a legal requirement that the US military chain of command immediately initiate an official investigation to determine whether such a crime has occurred. One would hope that the commander in chief, President Obama, would order such an inquiry.

    Any effort to prevent such an inquiry, or to cover up a war crime, would be a war crime in itself. We just had one administration that did a lot of that. We don't need another one.

  10. Havakasha is offline
    Legend
    Havakasha's Avatar
    Joined: Sep 2009 Posts: 5,358
    01-10-2010, 10:59 PM #10
    I see you had no answer for your previous prejudiced comments on Jewish guilt.

    You dont know the Jewish holidays but you try to claim you know all about why Jews feel guilt and why Jews vote Democratic. (if you listen to the small percentage of right wing jews no wonder you have such a distorted picture of the overall Jewish population.) LOL.

    The fact is that people on the extreme right supported (and continue to in the form of right wing neo nazi groups) the Nazis, and people on the extreme left didnt. Just the facts. Remember Mussolini, and Franco supported Hitler. The Russian Communists fought Hitler.

    The rest of your diatribe is either obvious distortion. or nonsense and really not worth the bother to respond. Buena suerte.
    Last edited by Havakasha; 01-11-2010 at 02:35 AM.

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