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That Which Is Seen -- may I unerringly consider All to be imbued with Divine Presence

07:43:37 am Iraq Occupation Anniversary

Categories: Criminal Injustice, U.S. Foreign Policy

• Six years since the U.S. invasion
• In six years likely more than 1.3 million Iraqi deaths
• Millions of Iraqis are out of their homes, displaced
• 4,260 acknowledged U.S. Military deaths
• 30,000 Iraqis remain detained, most of them without charges, in US and Iraqi prisons, where torture continues
• The majority of the U.S. people are opposed
• U.S. President Obama has indicated he is with the military Wall Street

¹ http://www.arthistoryclub.com/art_history/Iraq

² http://countrystudies.us/iraq/30.htm

29.3 million population estimate for 2007? ^0,  0.9 25.4 million estimate for 2004? ¹ 17.9 million people lived there as of a 1991 estimate, a different estimate says 16.28 million in 1987 and 12 million + in 1975 ²

"One Million Dead in Iraq: Our Own Holocaust Denial"
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article18765.htm

there are various other official "credible" counts, there are efforts to confuse
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/conflicts/iraq_handover/numbers_game_revisited

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09:22:30 am Chomsky: No change coming with Obama

Categories: U.S. Foreign Policy

Iraqis get some deserved credit, as should many others:

"What happened in Iraq is extremely interesting and important. [...]

What has happened is that there was a remarkable campaign of non-violent resistance in Iraq, which compelled the United States, step-by-step, to back away from its programs and its goals. They compelled the US occupying forces to allow an election, which the US did not want and tried to evade in all sorts of ways.

Then they went on from there to force the United States to accept at least formally a status of forces agreement, which if the Obama administration lives up to it, will abandon most of the US war aims. It will eliminate the huge permanent military bases that the US has built in Iraq. It will mean the US will not control decisions over how the oil resources will be accessed and used. And in fact just every war aim is gone.

Of course there is a question of whether the US will live up to it"

Chomsky: No change coming with Obama
Noam Chomsky interviewed by Afshin Ratansi
Press TV, January 24, 2009

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05:18:57 pm Chomsky article: Obama on Israel-Palestine

Categories: U.S. Foreign Policy

"Obama is not directly falsifying the Arab League proposal, but the carefully framed deceit is instructive."

I read this recent Chomsky article at Znet

All of this is happening as Obama's new foreign policy team prepares escalated bloodletting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, writes Patrick Martin at the World Socialist Web Site.

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02:39:32 pm Chomsky article: "Exterminate all the Brutes": Gaza 2009

Categories: U.S. Foreign Policy, People under attack

"Exterminate all the Brutes": Gaza 2009

January, 20 2009

By Noam Chomsky

On Saturday December 27, the latest US-Israeli attack on helpless Palestinians was launched. The attack had been meticulously planned, for over 6 months according to the Israeli press. The planning had two components: military and propaganda. It was based on the lessons of Israel's 2006 invasion of Lebanon, which was considered to be poorly planned and badly advertised. We may, therefore, be fairly confident that most of what has been done and said was pre-planned and intended.

That surely includes the timing of the assault: shortly before noon, when children were returning from school and crowds were milling in the streets of densely populated Gaza City. It took only a few minutes to kill over 225 people and wound 700, an auspicious opening to the mass slaughter of defenseless civilians trapped in a tiny cage with nowhere to flee.

In his retrospective "Parsing Gains of Gaza War," New York Times correspondent Ethan Bronner cited this achievement as one of the most significant of the gains. Israel calculated that it would be advantageous to appear to "go crazy," causing vastly disproportionate terror, a doctrine that traces back to the 1950s. "The Palestinians in Gaza got the message on the first day," Bronner wrote, "when Israeli warplanes struck numerous targets simultaneously in the middle of a Saturday morning. Some 200 were killed instantly, shocking Hamas and indeed all of Gaza." The tactic of "going crazy" appears to have been successful, Bronner concluded: there are "limited indications that the people of Gaza felt such pain from this war that they will seek to rein in Hamas," the elected government. That is another long-standing doctrine of state terror. I don't, incidentally, recall the Times retrospective "Parsing Gains of Chechnya War," though the gains were great.

The meticulous planning also presumably included the termination of the assault, carefully timed to be just before the inauguration, so as to minimize the (remote) threat that Obama might have to say some words critical of these vicious US-supported crimes.

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09:58:58 am Chomsky - Ossetia-Georgia-Russia-USA

Categories: U.S. Foreign Policy

Ossetia-Georgia-Russia-U.S.A.

Towards a Second Cold War?

By NOAM CHOMSKY

Aghast at the atrocities committed by US forces invading the Philippines, and the rhetorical flights about liberation and noble intent that routinely accompany crimes of state, Mark Twain threw up his hands at his inability to wield his formidable weapon of satire. The immediate object of his frustration was the renowned General Funston. “No satire of Funston could reach perfection,” Twain lamented, “because Funston occupies that summit himself... [he is] satire incarnated.”

It is a thought that often comes to mind, again in August 2008 during the Georgia-Ossetia-Russia war. George Bush, Condoleezza Rica and other dignitaries solemnly invoked the sanctity of the United Nations, warning that Russia could be excluded from international institutions “by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with” their principles. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations must be rigorously honored, they intoned – “all nations,” that is, apart from those that the US chooses to attack: Iraq, Serbia, perhaps Iran, and a list of others too long and familiar to mention.

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11:16:33 am On eve of Democratic convention, Obama advances agenda of global militarism

Categories: Elections, U.S. Foreign Policy

"With less than a week to go until the Democrats officially nominate Obama at their convention in Denver, and with barely two-and-a-half months until the election, the candidate's speech underscores a stark political reality confronting the American people. Once again this November, the two-party system will offer no means of expressing the massive popular opposition to war, but rather an empty choice between two big business candidates who are committed to the expanded use of militarism in pursuit of US corporate and financial interests."

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10:20:17 pm Bush's Last State of the Union

Categories: U.S. Foreign Policy

January 31, 2008 By Stephen Zunes
Source: Foreign Policy In Focus

On January 28, President George W. Bush gave the last State of the Union address of his two-term tenure. Many of his remarks centered on foreign policy. FPIF’s Stephen Zunes annotates the president’s claims and statements.

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