tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723595150423976130.post3337075067611313463..comments2022-08-31T13:21:11.928+02:00Comments on webdiary_<i>libre</i>: message to Obama ...Unknownnoreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723595150423976130.post-30229834048581165202009-07-08T08:04:48.829+02:002009-07-08T08:04:48.829+02:00Another Tom Engelhardt - this on the relative valu...Another <a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175092/are_afghan_lives_worth_anything_" rel="nofollow">Tom Engelhardt - this on the relative value of lives</a>. Some, it seems, don't count at all. <br /><br /><a rel="nofollow">More lack of a sense of irony from Obama.</a> <br /><br /><i>During a visit to Moscow this week aimed at improving ties with the Russian government, President Barack Obama warned the nation not to interfere in neighboring states and to get past its “old ways of thinking.”<br /><br />Obama declared the “days when empires could treat sovereign states as pieces on a chessboard are over.”</i> <br /><br />Yes but ... Fortunately the second paragraph continues:<br /><br /><i>The United States currently has hundreds of military bases across the planet, and is engaged in massive wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.</i> <br /><br />Obama continued apace, as you will see in the following paragraph of the article.Bob Wallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05144225841541320292noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723595150423976130.post-46961567450840244922009-06-15T03:55:36.579+02:002009-06-15T03:55:36.579+02:00Tom Engelhardt on Obama as president of the empire...<a href="http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175083/the_ir_af_pak_war" rel="nofollow">Tom Engelhardt on Obama as president of the empire.</a> <br /><br /><i>All that said, let's not forget reality. Barack Obama did not win an election to be president of Goodwill Industries, or the YMCA, or the Ford Foundation. He may be remarkable in many ways, but he is also president of the United States which means that he is head honcho for the globe's single great garrison state which now, to a significant extent, lives off war and the preparations for future war.<br /><br />He is today the proprietor of -- to speak only of the region extending from North Africa to the Chinese border that the Bush loyalists used to call "the Greater Middle East" -- American bases, or facilities, or prepositioned military material (or all of the above) at Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, in Bahrain, Oman, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq (and Iraqi Kurdistan), Turkey, Afghanistan, Pakistan (where the U.S. military and the CIA share Pakistani military facilities), and a major Air Force facility on the British-controlled Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia.<br /><br />Some U.S. bases in these countries are microscopic and solitary, but others like Camp Victory or Balad Air Base, both in Iraq, are gigantic installations in a web of embedded bases. According to an expert on the subject, Chalmers Johnson, the Pentagon's most recent official count of U.S. "sites" (i.e. bases) abroad is 761, but that does not include "espionage bases, those located in war zones, including Iraq and Afghanistan, and miscellaneous facilities in places considered too sensitive to discuss or which the Pentagon for its own reasons chooses to exclude -- e.g. in Israel, Kosovo, or Jordan."</i> <br /><br />Just a taste ...Bob Wallhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05144225841541320292noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723595150423976130.post-65572489682623303352009-06-11T09:33:33.574+02:002009-06-11T09:33:33.574+02:00Good articles, coming thick and fast. This one, I&...Good articles, coming thick and fast. This one, I'd put into the *must read* basket:<br /><br />June 10, 2009<br />New Rhetoric, Same Translation<br />Obama's Doublespeak on Iran<br />By ISMAEL HOSSEIN-ZADEH<br /> <i>«As I have briefly argued in this essay, two nasty viruses lie at the root of war and geopolitical convulsion in the Middle East. These are (a) the beneficiaries of war dividends (the military-industrial complex and associated businesses that benefit from war and military spending), and (b) partisans of territorial expansion in Palestine, that is, militant Zionism, as reflected, for example, in the policies of the Likud Party in Israel and those of American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in the United States.»</i> <br />[<a href="http://counterpunch.com/zadeh06102009.html" rel="nofollow">counterpunch/zadeh</a>]<br /> <br />Bon reading.<br /> IDHolmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01952349876651823852noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7723595150423976130.post-20528075844464335572009-06-11T03:07:54.385+02:002009-06-11T03:07:54.385+02:00the bully (US; sub-branch Israel)
.. no other c...the bully (US; sub-branch Israel)<br /> <br /> .. no other comment ...<br /> <br /> .. except perhaps the attributions ...<br /> <br /> .. bullies that lie, cheat, steal and murder<br /> <br />-=*=-<br /> <br />The US has about 300mio people, about 5% of the world's population. That 5% consumes about 25% of the world's resources. Lots of their people are horribly obese (the only country to have a higher obesity rate may be Aus (presumably because of the "Monkey see, monkey do" effect.)) Not too many people starve in the US, 'only' those whom the govt. 'ignores,' like the NINJA's (made famous by the toxic mortgages they Oh, so unscrupulously financially crippled themselves with) - or others without pensions, medical insurance etc. (more the neo-liberal 'norm' these days.)<br /> <br />In addition, the US has *10s of 1000s* of nukular bombs; in hardened silos from where they can reach most of the world's population centres, loaded onto B52s eternally cruising the (international?) skies, in submarines cruising the world's oceans, in bunkers in occupied lands (Germany, say), capable of being 'delivered' by Pershing IIs or even artillery. (Then, there's Israel, 150-200 nukes, and no NPT in sight - Oh, no! (Illegitimate tail wags rabid dog.))<br /> <br />(Israel has about .001% of the world's population, yet their 61+ year long campaign of murdering theft of Palestinian land monopolises a *vast* amount of the (corrupt & venal) MSM's attention. Why that? What else could we be profitably 'entertained' with/by?))<br /> <br />In other words, the two worst rogue regimes on the planet are 'sitting pretty.' Yet, apart from the tiny, insignificant fact that their own democracies are farce (no matter who 'wins' their elections, we still get murdering belligerents as their so-called 'leaders,') they both parade the world, threatening the world's military 'minnows.'<br /> <br />Like bellowing "All options!" at Iran (whose people really would like just to be left alone - one might think), and N.Korea (large numbers of whose people really are starving.) They (the US rogue regime) accuses both Iran & N.Korea of provocation, while they (the US rogue regime) send subversives across borders - to corrupt the minnows:<br /> <br />Korea<br />Jun 10, 2009<br />US shackled by Pyongyang's ploy<br />By Donald Kirk<br /> <i>«In a statement issued on Monday, North Korea's state-run news agency would not disclose in what prison the women are to serve their time. According to the Los Angeles Times, "North Koreans who receive similar sentences of 'reform through labor' often face starvation and torture in a penal system many consider among the world's most repressive." The article cited its source as David Hawk, author of the 2004 study "The Hidden Gulag: Exposing North Korea's Prison Camps."»</i> <br />[<a href="http://atimes.com/atimes/Korea/KF10Dg01.html" rel="nofollow">atimes/Kirk</a>]<br /> <br />-=*=-<br /> <br />We can be reasonably sure, that N.Korea are the fanatic fascists that the US (rogue regime) assures us they are, and the gaols quite bad.<br /> <br />Nevertheless, these US 'journalists' put themselves into danger, knowing the possible consequences.<br /> <br />Contrast that with the Guantanamo (Abu Ghraib, etc.) captives, most of whom were kidnapped whilst basically minding their own business, who knows what proportion are *totally innocent*, how many are or have been tortured, how many have actually died at the hands of their psychotic tormentors - then, switching to more serious charges, who in their right mind can conceive of N.Korea or Iran being a threat - when it is in fact the US and Israel rogue regimes actually making the <b><i>*continuous, criminally real*</i></b> threats?<br /> IDHolmhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01952349876651823852noreply@blogger.com