US Kills Iraqi Civilians In Air Strike3 Apr 2008An air strike in the southern Iraqi city of Basra has destroyed a house and killed at least one occupant. The US military said a militant died, but would not confirm reports from Iraqi sources that up to six civilians may also have been killed. (Source: BBC News) Another house full of innocent civilians murdered by the US [...]
Are Buddhists ?Insurgents? Too?23 Mar 2008American forces in Afghanistan say more than a dozen insurgents have been killed in a joint US-Afghan operation in the southern province of Uruzgan. The forces say they were returning fire after coming under ambush. (Source: BBC News) Let’s change this around: Replace “US” with “China” Replace “insurgents” with “Buddhist monks” There… now will it get similar TV coverage? Endless hand-wringing [...]
World Against War Demo16 Mar 2008Click the pic for a gallery of shots I took yesterday! Wow. What an amazing demo. I’m guessing that I marched alongside 40 – 50,000 other people yesterday, maybe more. The police say 10,000 so, if you go by their usual lying rate, 50k sounds about right. This was part of the World Against War international [...]
World Against War13 Mar 2008On his recent trip to the Middle East, George Bush said: “Iraq is now a different place. Levels of violence are significantly reduced. Hope is returning to Baghdad.” Try telling that to residents of the southern outskirts of Baghdad, whose homes were flattened on January 10, when US bombers unleashed 40,000 pounds of explosives in the [...]
Who?s Doing The Killing In Iraq?13 Mar 2008An Iraq war veteran, due to fight in Afghanistan, has been fined for shouting racist abuse. Thomas McFarlane, 20, from Grangemouth, boasted that he was “going to kill Pakis” just weeks before his next tour of duty. (Source: BBC News) Fine, upstanding soliders like this charmer. And they wonder why people don’t respect people in British uniforms any [...]
Psychologist Refuses To Participate In US Torture6 Mar 2008After two years of working to reform the position of the American Psychological Association, which supports psychologist participation in the interrogations of detainees at Guantanamo, CIA “black site” prisons, and elsewhere, I realized that I had been pursuing a utopian objective. On January 27th, I penned my resignation to APA. The rationale for my choice [...]
US Kills Yet More Civilians6 Mar 2008The US military in Iraq says American and Iraqi forces killed nine suspected al-Qaeda fighters in a raid near Talafar in Ninewa province last Sunday. In another operation, US soldiers shot and killed a man who was said to have drawn a pistol and then tried to detonate an explosives vest. (Source: BBC News) Let’s decode this US [...]
UK : We Aided US Kidnap Flights22 Feb 2008David Miliband has admitted two US “extraordinary rendition” flights landed on UK territory in 2002. He said he was “very sorry” to have to say that previous denials made in “good faith” were now having to be corrected. BBC world affairs correspondent Paul Reynolds said the revelations were “a serious embarrassment for the British government”. Former Foreign Secretary [...]
This Is How I Feel About My Government19 Feb 2008Members of the White Rose, Munich 1942. From left: Hans Scholl, his sister Sophie Scholl, and Christoph Probst. Courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. A different country, a different time, the same evil: It is certain that today every honest German is ashamed of his government. Who among us has any conception of the dimensions of [...]
Secret Document Released: No ?45 Minutes?19 Feb 2008David Miliband, protector of war criminals Foreign Secretary David Miliband has published an early draft of the UK’s infamous dossier on Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction. The document, by Foreign Office press chief John Williams, was an unpublished draft of the September 2002 dossier. The Foreign Office lost its appeal against a ruling the document be published [...]
NZ Cluster Bomb Summit19 Feb 2008More than 120 countries are meeting in New Zealand to discuss an agreement limiting the use of cluster bombs. The talks – launched last year – aim to smooth progress towards the signing of a global treaty later this year. But some major producers and buyers of cluster bombs – including the US, Israel, Russia and [...]
Five Years Ago Today14 Feb 2008A pic I took on the Feb 15 demo, 2003 The February 15, 2003 anti-war protest was a coordinated day of protests across the world against the imminent invasion of Iraq. Millions of people protested in approximately 800 cities around the world. According to BBC News, between six and ten million people took part in protests [...]
MySpace On The Rocks, Hopefully24 Dec 2007Darth Murdoch, giving another speech on why Iraqis need to be slaughtered… MySpace is running out of breath, while Bebo and Facebook are fast catching up. That’s the message from the latest figures on social networking in Britain. MySpace has long been the leading site for young networkers who want to run their social lives online. But research [...]
Australia To Withdraw From Iraq30 Nov 2007PM-elect, Kevin Rudd Australia’s prime minister-elect says the country’s 550 combat troops will leave Iraq by the middle of 2008. Under Mr Howard Australia was a keen supporter of the US-led invasion and made an early troop commitment. Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd came to power in a landslide election victory on Saturday. He has previously described the [...]
US Military Slaughters Iraqi Civilians28 Nov 2007Some happy, joyful Iraqis, liberated by the US military in Fallujah. From the beginning of the American occupation in Iraq, air strikes and attacks by the U.S. military have only killed “militants,” “criminals,” “suspected insurgents,” “IED [Improvised Explosive Device] emplacers,” “anti-American fighters,” “terrorists,” “military age males,” “armed men,” “extremists,” or “al-Qaeda.” The pattern for reporting on such [...]
Police ?Guilty? But Not Of Menezes? Murder2 Nov 2007Jean Charles de Menezes, murdered by the Met London’s Metropolitan Police force has been found guilty of endangering the public over the fatal shooting of a man officers mistook for a suicide bomber. The force broke health and safety laws when officers pursued Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes to a Tube station and shot him seven times, [...]
Fifth Anniversary US Antiwar Protests28 Oct 2007Tens of thousands of people have taken part in demonstrations against the war in Iraq in cities across the US. Rallies took place in a dozen cities, with the biggest crowds gathering in New York, Chicago and San Francisco. They were timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of a vote by the US Senate to authorise [...]
US General: Iraq A ?Nightmare?13 Oct 2007Lt General Ricardo Sanchez, a fan of torturing innocent civilians A former US military chief in Iraq has condemned the current strategy in the conflict, which he warned was “a nightmare with no end in sight”. Retired Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez also labelled US political leaders as “incompetent” and “corrupted”. He said they would have faced courts martial [...]
US Murders 34 Civilians, 9 Children12 Oct 2007The US military has said it will investigate an operation in Iraq which left 15 women and children dead, alongside 19 suspected militants. The operation, north of Baghdad, is thought to have resulted one of the biggest single losses of civilian life since the war began in 2003. (Source: BBC News) Read that carefully: “suspected militants.” This is [...]
Troops Out / Right To Protest9 Oct 2007Click here for a gallery of snaps from the demo! Well, despite Gordon Brown trying his best to remove our freedom of speech, the government backed down and the demo took place today. Legally! The vibe on the march was, as always, very friendly, positive and peaceful. And I’m not saying that lightly: I’ve been on some [...]
March This Monday!6 Oct 2007Despite an arcane law being used to ban this Mondays demonstration, CND Vice Presidents Tony Benn and Walter Wolfgang will lead the march jointly organised by the Stop the War Coalition and CND from a rally in Trafalgar Square towards Parliament. Assembling at 1pm at a legally permitted rally in Trafalgar Square, we will be marching [...]
John Bolton Incites Terrorism30 Sep 2007John Bolton, the former US ambassador to the United Nations, told Tory delegates today that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country. (Source: Guardian) We have laws in Britain that make it a crime [...]
Burmese Repression Bad, British Repression Good30 Sep 2007The Government has decided to ban a peaceful march called by the Stop the War Coalition on 8 October. The protest has been called to demand all the troops withdrawn from Iraq immediately. The police have said all protests within one mile of Parliament are now prohibited. This is an affront to democratic rights and [...]
Bush Blackmailed Nations To Support Iraq Invasion28 Sep 2007MADRID - US President George W. Bush threatened nations with retaliation if they did not vote for a UN resolution backing the Iraq war, according to a transcript published Wednesday of a conversation he had with former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar. In the transcript of a meeting on February 22, 2003 — a month [...]
Bush Calls Burma ?Brutal?28 Sep 2007US President George W Bush has led international condemnation of Burma after more people were killed in its crackdown on popular protests. The US imposed sanctions targeting Burma’s military leaders and called on China, one of Burma’s closest partners, to put more pressure on the country. Beijing appealed for calm, and Burma’s neighbours, in unusually harsh criticism, [...]
Jyoti Mishra