Posts Tagged ‘air’

First Class Security Theater

Thursday, March 15th, 2012

If you live in the United States and you travel by air,  you are familiar with the TSA. Yes, the notorious Transportation Security Administration, renown for hiring sexual deviant employees to molest children  while their easily bypassed, radiation spewing body scanners preferentially select hot women, has reached a whole new level of greasiness.

So what are they up to, you ask? Why, creating a caste system for airport security! Now CEOs, celebrities, politicians and other mucky-mucks won’t have to settle for simple first class seating. Instead, they can also snub their noses at the masses while cruising past screening lines with their first class security clearance. (more…)

US-NATO Perpetrated Extensive War Crimes in Libya

Monday, January 23rd, 2012

The invasion of Libya and murder of Gaddafi has been touted by many as the future of warfare. Why use expensive invasions and occupations when you can just drop bombs from the safety of the sky?

Well, the war may be fought by-proxy with jets and remote controlled drones, but the same atrocities remain, even if they happen to be further out of sight. There is no such thing as a clean war.

Confirming this is an in-depth report released by several Middle East Human Rights groups, presenting extensive evidence of war crimes carried out in Libya by the United States and NATO. The coalition stands accused of targeting civilian sites, including schools, government buildings, food warehouses, and private homes.

The report also shows evidence of systematic murder, torture, expulsion and abuse of suspected Gaddafi loyalists by the NATO-backed “rebel” forces of the National Transitional Council (NTC). It describes the forced expulsion of the mostly black-skinned peoples and the ongoing persecution of sub-Saharan migrant workers by forces allied to the NTC and its transitional government.

Investigators also discovered evidence of savage and repeated beatings of prisoners held without trial or charges, the summary execution of pro-Gaddafi fighters, along with witness reports of “indiscriminate and retaliatory murders, including the ‘slaughter’ (i.e., throat slitting) of former combatants.”

What’s that you say? America and NATO shouldn’t be held liable for what the rebels were doing? Of course they should! US-NATO gave the rebels carte blanche, and are therefore just as culpable for the heinous acts committed under their wing.

The lie we were sold, and what the UN mandated, was an operation to protect civilians. But, as estimated by the NTC themselves, the war took 50,000 lives and injured another 50,000 people. And now, with escalating infighting between rival NTC factions, the door is open for full-scale civil war across Libya.

So much for improving security. The only thing US and NATO secured in Libya is control over its natural resources, which were divvied up long before Gaddafi was dragged out of a hole and shot.

Don’t be fooled again. The next time the United States or NATO want to ‘help’ some other nation for whatever cockamamie reason they come up with, rest assured that unspeakable atrocities will be committed for the true motive behind war – furthering corporate interests around the globe.

NATO Gets Boot for Misplaced Bombs

Sunday, November 27th, 2011

Once again NATO missiles have fallen way off mark. This time, instead of exploding innocent children, NATO slaughtered two dozen Pakistani border patrols.

In response, Pakistan has closed a vital supply line for US forces in Afghanistan, as well as ordered all NATO troops out of the Shamsi airbase – where the Americans reportedly control their remote killing machines.

This goes to show the ease with which soldiers are willing to unleash certain death. The process is so detached, so dehumanized, that enemies and allies and little kids all start to blur together, until it’s just black and white figures being rendered into smoldering body parts.

With bomb-laden UAVs becoming the latest in must-have weaponry, more and more innocents stand being accidentally executed by some bonehead keyboard warrior.

Relying on violence as a tool for peacebuilding is inherently flawed, which is why we need to unite as a species and rally against the military industrial complex. It is time for the whole world to see that war is going away for good!

US Drones Kill At Least 160 Pakistani Children – Report

Monday, August 15th, 2011

A damning report released this week from the UK’s Bureau of Investigative Journalism highlights another blight on America’s foreign policy. Since 2004, United States drone attacks over Pakistan have killed 2,292 people, including at least 160 children.

Ugh! That is so deplorable! How can anyone whose ‘side’ does something like that still feel like they’re the good guys?

How? Probably with some kind of rationalization techniques like this: ‘Mumble, mumble… gotta break a few eggs to make an omelet. Grumble, grumble… it’s the cost of our freedom.  Grumble, mumble… America, FUCK YEAH!

Well, probably not quite like that. But whatever mental and ethical tap dancing it takes for someone to somehow justify these deaths, you can be assured that it’s still being done right now.

Since President Obama has taken office, there has been 236 strikes on Pakistan. This means the Nobel Peace Prize Laureate is ultimately responsible for snuffing out Pakistani lives at the press of a button once every four days!

Good on the report’s authors for helping to blow the lid on this covert war. The more the world becomes aware of these ongoing atrocities, the sooner humankind will be able to move beyond this shameful period in our history.

Canadian MP’s Vote to Extend Libya Air Bombing

Tuesday, June 14th, 2011

(Yea, it looks cool, but that doesn’t make it right.)

Members of Canadian Parliament voted 294-1 to extend the military mission in Libya. What a disappointment. The one and only member willing to stand against the war was Elizabeth May from the Green Party.

Taking action to increase profits for the war machine is to be expected from the Conservative Party. And the Liberals went off track years ago, which is why they got the boot last election.

But even the NDP??? Every single one of them voted to continue drone strikes on Libyan soil? Shame.

The longer this war drags on, the deeper NATO forces will be digging themselves in, which, non-coincidentally, is exactly what the war-profiteers want.

But it’s not what Canadians want… at least not this one. There has got to be better ways to help the people of Libya besides dropping bombs on them.