‘I was still holding my grandson’s hand – the rest was gone’

Dandelion Salad

Warning

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This video and article may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

By Clancy Chassay
ICH
December 16, 2008 “The Guardian”

In the second of our series of dispatches from the ravaged country, Afghans explain how mounting civilian casualties are aiding Taliban recruiting

It was 7.30 on a hot July morning when the plane came swooping low over the remote ravine. Below, a bridal party was making its way to the groom’s village in an area called Kamala, in the eastern province of Nangarhar, to prepare for the celebrations later that day.

The first bomb hit a large group of children who had run on ahead of the main procession. It killed most of them instantly.

A few minutes later, the plane returned and dropped another bomb, right in the centre of the group. This time the victims were almost all women. Somehow the bride and two girls survived but as they scrambled down the hillside, desperately trying to get away from the plane, a third bomb caught them. Hajj Khan was one of four elderly men escorting the bride’s party that day.

“We were walking, I was holding my grandson’s hand, then there was a loud noise and everything went white. When I opened my eyes, everybody was screaming. I was lying metres from where I had been, I was still holding my grandson’s hand but the rest of him was gone. I looked around and saw pieces of bodies everywhere. I couldn’t make out which part was which.”

Relatives from the groom’s village said it was impossible to identify the remains. They buried the 47 victims in 28 graves.

via ‘I was still holding my grandson’s hand – the rest was gone’ Information Clearing House – ICH. plus video report

see

A Million McVeighs Now: The American-Made Insurgency in Afghanistan by Chris Floyd

Kinzer: Surge Afghanistan Diplomacy, Not Troops

Ray McGovern: Will Afghanistan be Obama’s Vietnam?

Afghan Massacre – The Convoy of Death

U.S. keeps silent as Afghan ally removes war crime evidence

A Million McVeighs Now: The American-Made Insurgency in Afghanistan by Chris Floyd

Dandelion Salad

by Chris Floyd
Empire Burlesque
December 16, 2008

The “Good War” in Afghanistan – the Bush-launched war that Barack Obama tells us we must fight and win – continues to deteriorate before our eyes. Just like every other operation in the so-called “War on Terror” (another Bush-launched campaign that Obama has fully embraced as his own), the Afghan war, now in its seventh year, has proven entirely counter-productive to its stated aims. Instead of stabilizing a volatile region and denying it as a base for violent extremism, it has of course done the opposite. The shock waves of the heavy-handed American-led invasion of Afghanistan – a country that no foreign power has ever conquered and held – have spread across Central Asia, most dangerously into Pakistan.

Afghanistan itself is in a desperate condition, laden with a weak, foreign-installed government dominated by warlords and riddled with corruption. The illegal opium trade, quashed by the Taliban, has now surged to historic levels, and is flooding the streets of Europe and the West with cut-rate heroin – not to mention fuelling an astonishing rise in drug addiction among Afghans, Pakistanis and Iranians. At every turn, the iron hand of American militarism is producing more suffering, more chaos, more corruption, more extremism, more slaughter, both directly and as blowback from people maddened into wanton violence by the relentless stream of atrocities.

And no, to comprehend an origin of violence is not to condone it; but reality compels acknowledgement of the fact that state-terror atrocity breeds “asymmetrical” atrocity in turn. It also teaches by example. The state militarists of empire say: Violence works. Violence is honorable. Violence is the most effective way to accomplish your goals. And you must not blench at killing innocent people in your violent operations. Is it any wonder that others adopt these methods, which are championed and celebrated by our most respected and legitimatized elites? Recall the words of one of America’s own home-grown “asymmetricals,” Timothy McVeigh, who at his sentencing for the Oklahoma City bombing quoted Justice Louis Brandeis: “Our Government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or for ill, it teaches the whole people by its example.”

McVeigh of course was schooled in death and violence as a soldier in the first Iraq War, where he had been appalled to find himself killing people who wished America no harm, and to see the wholesale slaughter of innocent people in a conflict that need never have been fought. A peaceful settlement of the complex financial and territorial dispute between Iraq and Kuwait had been brokered by the Arab League; but although Iraq accepted the deal, at the last minute, the Kuwaiti royals – long-time business partners of then-President George H.W. Bush – reneged and declared, “We will call in the Americans.” Then the regional squabble between Iran and Kuwait was deceitfully turned into a “global threat” by the false claim that Iraq’s invading forces were massing on the borders of Saudi Arabia. Pentagon chief Dick Cheney claimed secret satellite imagery showed vast Iraqi armies preparing to swoop down on the Saudi oilfields, the lifeline of the American economy. Bush Family capo James Baker, then Secretary of State, went before Congress and declared that the imminent war was all about saving American jobs. But commercial imagery obtained by a US newspaper at the time showed there were no Iraqi forces on the Saudi border. It was all a knowing lie – as were the claims paraded before Congress that Iraqi soldiers were flinging infants from their incubators in Kuwaiti hospitals. This bearing of false witness had been arranged by a prominent Bush-connected PR firm. The first Iraq War was just as falsely based and pointless as the second.

[...]

A Million McVeighs Now: The American-Made Insurgency in Afghanistan

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see

Kinzer: Surge Afghanistan Diplomacy, Not Troops

Ray McGovern: Will Afghanistan be Obama’s Vietnam?

Afghan Massacre – The Convoy of Death

U.S. keeps silent as Afghan ally removes war crime evidence

Obama-Barack

Israel expels UN rights envoy Richard Falk

Dandelion Salad

Updated: added Democracy Now’s report

AlJazeeraEnglish

The United Nation’s top human rights official has condemned Israel’s expulsion of Richard Falk, the UN’s special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian Territories, from the country, calling it ”unprecedented” and “deeply regrettable. Al Jazeera’s Ghida Fakhry spoke to Falk about his expulsion and the potential repercussions.

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Did the shoe cause rebellion at Baghdad’s July 14 Bridge?

Dandelion Salad

By Mohammed al Dulaimy
McClatchy Newspapers
12/17/2008

This article is adapted from the Inside Iraq blog, written by the Iraqi staffers of McClatchy in Baghdad.

BAGHDAD — The square in front of the July 14 Bridge in Baghdad is closed by troops several times a day. The bridge leads into the American-controlled Green Zone. On the square, not far from the Green Zone, lie the offices of the president and the head of the biggest parliamentary bloc. Official convoys come and go all day long.

In the many times that I have been at that square, no one has ever objected to soldiers closing off the road while some official’s convoy passes by. We all turn off our cars and sit there and wait.

Wednesday, however, was different. I couldn’t believe my eyes.

[...]

The horns of tens of cars were loud. Angry drivers yelled at soldiers. Not even when the soldiers brandished their rifles at the cars would the drivers stop. There were shots in the air, but the vehicles continued on. The military saw, for the first time I think, mass anger for blocking roads.

[...]

via McClatchy Washington Bureau | 12/17/2008 | Did the shoe cause rebellion at Baghdad’s July 14 Bridge?.

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George W. Bu-Shoes, The US President “Victim” of Iraq’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction” by Michel Chossudovsky + “Shoe-In” Rally

Journalist throws shoes at Bush; arrested

George W. Bu-Shoes, The US President “Victim” of Iraq’s “Weapons of Mass Destruction” by Michel Chossudovsky + “Shoe-In” Rally

Dandelion Salad

by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, December 17, 2008

FIRST SHOE:  ”This is a gift from the Iraqis; this is the farewell kiss, you dog!”

SECOND SHOE: ”This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq!” ( Muntadar al-Zaidi)

pic

For the Western media, the Bush-Shoe incident is casually described as a failure of Green Zone security. The substance of the press conference is barely mentioned, namely that Bush had travelled to Baghdad to sign the Strategic Framework Agreement and Security Agreement. The latter allows US troops to remain in Iraq until 2011. The Press Conference was to announce the signing of these far-reaching agreements.

I’d like to welcome the President of the United States, President George W. Bush. I would like to welcome you here as a guest. You have stood by Iraq and the Iraqi people for a very long time, starting with the — getting rid of the dictatorship, helping the Iraqis to fight terrorism.

Your visit today to Iraq, Mr. President, comes after the signing of the agreement between the two countries, which represents — (audio drop) — foundation and draws a road map that will govern and guide the relationship between the two states. (Prime Minister Maliki opening remarks)

Jim Rogers: We’re going to have an inflationary nightmare

Dandelion Salad

peacespeech

Jim Rogers on Kudlow&Co. on 2008.12.13 said, that through the history when government prints such amount of money it always led to inflation.

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Jim Rogers Calls Most Big U.S. Banks “Bankrupt” + The Crash of 08

rogers-jim

The Economy Sucks and or Collapse 2

Israeli Conscientious Objectors, Shministim, Send letter www.december18th.org

Dandelion Salad

JVP18

Support Israel’s young conscientious objectors. WWW.December18th.ORG Shministim say why they refuse to serve in an army that occupies the Palestinians.

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Dear –,

This is it. The Shministim Day of Action is Thursday December 18th – can we count on you to be there as Israel’s young conscientious objectors present their case to Israel and to the world?

is is your last chance to support the Shministim before the December 18th Day of Action.

Please, hear their plea and do what you can.

Tamar Katz, one of the Shministim, was planning to write one last note to Jewish Voice for Peace supporters to ask for your help. But when she refused to put on the Israeli military uniform, she was put in solitary confinement. No phone calls, no contact, not even access to the most basic hygiene. Tamar is just 19 years old. In her own words:

“I am not willing to become one of those holding the gun pointed indiscriminately at Palestinian civilians, and I do not believe that such actions could bring any change except ever more antagonism and violence in our region.”

This is the last time we will write to you about the Shministim – and it’s your last chance to sign a letter of support. Please, I urge you to support these amazing, courageous, peaceful young people. They are our hope. They are the future. They need to know we are here for them. And if I haven’t convinced you, then take a look at the video they’ve created. It’s worth your two minutes.

Lo, quite honestly, our campaign to support the Shministim is the most meaningful work I’ve had the opportunity to support in a long time. They give me such hope. I hope they give you hope too, and that you acknowledge their gift of hope by doing as much as you can to help them.

Thank you,

Sydney Levy
Jewish Voice for Peace

see

Help These Brave Young Israelis + The last time I was out of prison, I went to see my dad.

The price of resisting the occupation in Israel: “leftists aren’t allowed…”

Breaking the Silence – Israeli Soldiers Speak by Stephen Lendman

GI Resistance

Israel-Palestine-Gaza-Occupation

Countdown: Cheney’s Admission of War Crimes + Dismantling Regulations

Dandelion Salad

heathr456

Keith talks to Jonathan Turley about whether Dick Cheney has openly admitted to war crimes and that Obama has a decision to make about what sort of administration he wants to run and whether he’s going to let this go or not.

more about “Countdown: Turley on Cheney’s Admissi…“, posted with vodpod

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Obama Slam-Duncans Education by Greg Palast + Obama Press Conf

Dandelion Salad

by Greg Palast

[New York. Tuesday, December 16, 2008]

Foul Choice Of Basketball Buddy For Education Secretary

Hey, you Liberal Democrats. You may have won the election, but you’re getting CREAMED in the transition.

Today, President-elect Barack Obama stuck it to you. He’s chosen Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education.

Who? Duncan is most decidedly NOT an educator. He’s a lawyer. But Duncan has this extraordinary qualification: He’s Obama’s pick-up basketball buddy from Hyde Park.

I can’t make this up.

Not that Duncan hasn’t mucked about in the educational system. Chicago Boss Richie Daley put this guy in charge of the horror show called Chicago Public Schools where Duncan turned a bad system into a REALLY bad system.

And Obama knows it. Indeed, although he plays roundball with Duncan (who was captain of the Harvard basketball team), State Senator Obama was one of the only local Chicago officials who refused to send his kids to Duncan’s public schools. (The Obamas sent Sasha and Malia to the Laboratory School, where Duncan’s methods are derided as dangerously ludicrous.)

So, if The One won’t trust his kids to Duncan, why is he handing Duncan ours?

The answer: Duncan is supported by a coterie of teacher-union hating Republicans. The vocal cheerleader for the Duncan appointment was David Brooks, the New York Times columnist; the REPUBLICAN columnist.

Hey, didn’t those guys LOSE?

The problem with Duncan is not party affiliation. The problem is education philosophy. And Duncan is a Bush baby through and through, a card-carrying supporter of the program best called, “No Child’s Behind Left.”

At the heart of the program is testing. And more testing. Testing instead of teaching. When tests go badly, the solution is to push the low-test-score kids to drop out of school. If triage isn’t enough, then attack their teachers.

Here’s how Duncan operates this Bush program in Chicago at Collins High in the Lawndale ghetto. Teachers there work with kids from homeless shelters from an economically devastated neighborhood. Believe it or not, the kids don’t get high test scores. So Chicago fired the teachers, every one of them. Then they brought in new teachers and fired THEM too when, surprise!, test scores still didn’t rise.

The reward for a teacher volunteering for a tough neighborhood is to get harassed, blamed and fired. Now THAT’S a brilliant program, Mr. Duncan. But Duncan’s own failures have not gotten HIM fired. As long as his 20-foot jumpshot holds, he’s Mr. Secretary.

In no other cabinet department is the lack of expertise, lack of accomplishment, lack of a degree in the field found acceptable but in Education.

But what horrifies me more than Duncan’s lack of credentials is Obama’s kowtowing to the right-wing clique crusading against the teachers’ union and progressive education. The ill philosophy behind the Bush-brand education theories Duncan promotes, “Teach-to-the-Test,” forces teachers to limit classroom time to pounding in rote low-end skills, easily measured on standardized tests. The transparent purpose is to create a future class of worker-drones. Add in some computer training and – voila! – millions of lower-income kids are trained on the cheap to function, not think.

Analytical thinking skills, creative skills, questioning skills are left exclusively to privileged little Bushes at Phillips Andover Academy or privileged little Obamas at the Laboratory School.

For the rest of America’s children, instead of hope, we’ll have hoops.

—–

Greg Palast is the father of school-aged twins and the author of, “No Child’s Behind Left,” included in his New York Times bestseller, Armed Madhouse. Palast is a Nation Institute Puffin Foundation Fellow for investigative reporting.

Get a signed copy of Armed Madhouse for the holidays for a tax-deductible contribution to the Palast Investigative Fund at www.PalastInvestigativeFund.org

Subscribe to Palast’s reports at www.GregPalast.com

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U.S.: Obama Announces Education Secretary

TheNewYorkTimes
December 17, 2008

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Obama’s “Way-to-Go, Brownie!” Moment? by Greg Palast

http://www.gregpalast.com/no-childs-behind-left/

Obama-Barack

Forget about the Crusades, the pogroms, and the greedy TV ministers…

The Sermon of the Beatitudes (1886-96) by James Tissot from the series The Life of Christ, Brooklyn Museum (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

by Lo
Dandelion Salad

Note: new tag for the listing of all the posts on Dandelion Salad: Dandelion Salad Posts News Politics and-or Videos 2

To my unbelieving friends:

Read the words of Jesus yourself. Or listen to the words.

Seriously. Start with Matthew 5. Listen to this passage.

Keep an open mind and an open heart while reading and/or listening to these words.

The United States: A Country Without Mercy By Paul Craig Roberts

Dandelion Salad

By Paul Craig Roberts
December 16, 2008 “Information Clearinghouse“

The Christmas season is a time to remember the unfortunate, among whom are those who have been wrongly convicted.

In the United States, the country with the largest prison population in the world, the number of wrongly convicted is very large. Hardly any felony charges are resolved with trials. The vast majority of defendants, both innocent and guilty, are coerced into plea bargains. Not only are the innocent framed, but the guilty as well. It is quicker and less expensive to frame the guilty than to convict them on the evidence.

Many Americans are wrongfully convicted, because they trust the justice system. They naively believe that police and prosecutors are moved by evidence and have a sense of justice. The trust they have in authorities makes them easy victims of a system that has no moral conscience and is untroubled by the injustice it perpetrates.

Kinzer: Surge Afghanistan Diplomacy, Not Troops

Dandelion Salad

justforeignpolicy

Stephen Kinzer, Author, former New York Times foreign correspondent, argues that sending more U.S. troops to Afghanistan won’t bring security to the Afghan people. The U.S. needs to adopt a rational policy, which would acknowledge that not everyone now affiliated with the Taliban has to be our enemy. We need a surge of diplomacy, not troops. Ask President-elect Obama for a Just Foreign Policy: Take action now at http://www.justforeignpolicy.org.

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see

Ray McGovern: Will Afghanistan be Obama’s Vietnam?

Afghan Massacre – The Convoy of Death

Obama-Barack

Christmas Eve 40 Day Hunger Strike. Cut Warmaking, Fund Peacemaking $200 Billion

Dandelion Salad

StartLoving1

More at: http://jesusgodgoodetcnjay.blogspot.com/ HUNGER STRIKE. CUT WARMAKING, FUND PEACEMAKING $200 BILN.

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Urgent: The World Is Dying For Legends

Urgent: The World Is Dying For Legends

Dandelion Salad

StartLoving1

At PeaceAndNonviolence.blogspot.com read Franz Jagerstatter, Thich Nhat Hanh, Abraham Heschel.

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