Western, Saudi Terror Hits Syria, Iraq by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Writer, Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from PressTV
May 21, 2013

Image by Wall in Palestine, via Flickr

You could hardly make this up: two countries sitting side-by-side, sharing the same border and sharing the same kind of horrific violence against their civilian populations.

Yet, Western governments and their dysfunctional news media defy rational thinking – and the glaring truth – by referring to the perpetrators in one country in positive tones as “rebels” while in the other country the pejorative term “terrorists” is permitted in discourse. That is what you call “doublethink” – an absurd inability to see or tell the truth.

Barack Obama Is Comfortable with Bush’s Inferno by Ralph Nader + ABA White Papers

Dandelion Salad

Image by World Can’t Wait via Flickr

by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
April 19, 2013

George W. Bush is riding high. A megamillionaire, from the taxpayer-subsidized Texas Rangers company, he makes $150,000 to $200,000 per speech, receives a large presidential pension and support facilities and is about to dedicate the $500 million George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum on April 25.

Noam Chomsky: The Gospels Are Radical Pacifist Documents

Image by Peat Bakke via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

with Noam Chomsky

TheChomskyVideos – Apr 10, 2013

Noam Chomsky (April, 2013) Interview (Hugo Chavez’s death, Pope, and other topics)

LATEST NEW Interview with Professor Noam Chomsky.

The Latest Threats To Life As We Know It by William Blum

by William Blum
Writer, Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
April 9, 2013

Image by Abode of Chaos via Flickr

The Anti-Empire Report

Would you believe that the United States tried to do something that was not nice against Hugo Chávez?

Wikileaks has done it again. I guess the US will really have to get tough now with Julian Assange and Bradley Manning.

In a secret US cable to the State Department, dated November 9, 2006, and recently published online by WikiLeaks, former US ambassador to Venezuela, William Brownfield, outlines a comprehensive plan to destabilize the government of the late President Hugo Chávez. The cable begins with a Summary:

The Hijacking of Human Rights by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
April 8, 2013

Image by flatKat via Flickr

The appointment of Suzanne Nossel, a former State Department official and longtime government apparatchik, as executive director of PEN American Center is part of a campaign to turn U.S. human rights organizations into propagandists for pre-emptive war and apologists for empire. Nossel’s appointment led me to resign from PEN as well as withdraw from speaking at the PEN World Voices Festival in May. But Nossel is only symptomatic of the widespread hijacking of human rights organizations to demonize those—especially Muslims—branded by the state as the enemy, in order to cloak pre-emptive war and empire with a fictional virtue and to effectively divert attention from our own mounting human rights abuses, including torture, warrantless wiretapping and monitoring, the denial of due process and extrajudicial assassinations.

Chris Hedges: Why I Resigned from PEN

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

with Chris Hedges
Writer, Dandelion Salad
April 5, 2013

TheRealNews·Apr 5, 2013

Chris Hedges: Suzanne Nossel, new head of PEN – which is supposed to defend human rights – supported war in Iraq and advocates use of military force in the name of democracy, lock step with Obama admin. wars in Afghanistan, drone attacks and more.

Depleted Uranium: The BBC’s John Simpson does a hatchet job on Fallujah’s genetically damaged children by William Bowles

by William Bowles
Writer, Dandelion Salad
williambowles.info
1 April 2013

Image by NewsHour via Flickr

Under the title ‘Fallujah’s children’s ‘genetic damage’ that old war horse ‘literally’ of the BBC’s foreign propaganda service, John Simpson, manages not to mention the phrase ‘depleted uranium’ when allegedly reporting on the alarming rise in birth defects that include cancer, leukaemia and a horrific rise in child mortality since the US demolished the city of Fallujah in 2004. And it’s not until right at the end of the piece that the US attack on Fallujah is even mentioned, let alone depleted uranium!

The Treason of the Intellectuals by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
April 1, 2013

Image by therese flanagan via Flickr

The rewriting of history by the power elite was painfully evident as the nation marked the 10th anniversary of the start of the Iraq War. Some claimed they had opposed the war when they had not. Others among “Bush’s useful idiots” argued that they had merely acted in good faith on the information available; if they had known then what they know now, they assured us, they would have acted differently. This, of course, is false.

“The Crime of the Century”: Napalm Use in Iraq by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
March 28, 2013

Image by NewsHour via Flickr

“Why should we hear about body bags and deaths … I mean, it’s not relevant, so why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that …” (Former First Lady, Barbara Bush, Good Morning America, 18th March 2003)

In these days of the tenth anniversary of the illegal invasion and near destruction of Iraq, answers are owed not alone for the dead, but to the cancer stricken, the deformed, to their parents, their siblings and all Iraqis. They were left with a land poisoned by depleted uranium in 1991, the burden ever building over twelve more years of (illegal) US and UK bombings, then the enormity of 2003.

The Day That TV News Died by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
March 25, 2013

Image by pandabrand via Flickr

I am not sure exactly when the death of television news took place. The descent was gradual—a slide into the tawdry, the trivial and the inane, into the charade on cable news channels such as Fox and MSNBC in which hosts hold up corporate political puppets to laud or ridicule, and treat celebrity foibles as legitimate news. But if I had to pick a date when commercial television decided amassing corporate money and providing entertainment were its central mission,

Dr. John Johnson: US Soldiers Killed My Daughter + William Blum: The Destruction of Iraq, interviewed by Cindy Sheehan

by Cindy Sheehan
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
March 24, 2013

Image by ¡Que comunismo! via Flickr

with William Blum
Writer, Dandelion Salad
http://williamblum.org/
March 24, 2013

The US Empire’s War ON Iraq has lasted for a decade now. I am sure, I don’t have to convince supporters and fans of Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox that the US Empire’s Illegal and Immoral War on the people of Iraq was/is wrong.

The War Crime of Iraq was/is just one more notch in the bloody belt of Empire, and we must tell the stories and never give up the fight for peace: no retreat, no surrender.

The Sociocide of Iraq by Bush/Cheney by Ralph Nader

Dandelion Salad

Image by Truthout.org via Flickr

by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
March 21, 2013

Ten years ago George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, as war criminals, launched the sociocide of the people of Iraq – replete with embedded television and newspaper reporters chronicling the invasion through the Bush lens. That illegal war of aggression was, of course, based on recognized lies, propaganda and cover-ups that duped or co-opted leading news institutions such as the New York Times and the Washington Post.

Dahr Jamail Returns to Iraq to Find Rampant Torture and a Failed State Living in “Utter Devastation” + Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers

Dandelion Salad

Image by mugley via Flickr

democracynow·Mar 20, 2013

www.democracynow.org/ - Investigative journalist Dahr Jamail reported for Democracy Now! throughout the early stages of the U.S. invasion of Iraq 10 years ago. Now with Al Jazeera, Jamail has just returned from Iraq once again, finding what he calls a “failed state” living in “utter devastation.” In part one of our interview, Jamail discusses the harrowing security situation for Iraqis living in fear of bombings, executions, and kidnappings, the widespread torture in Iraq’s prisons, and the breakdown of security in what he calls a “a lawless state.”

Tariq Ali: US, UK Never Faced Justice for Iraq War Crimes + Deadly Blasts Rock Iraq

Image by chrisjohnbeckett via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

RussiaToday·Mar 19, 2013

At least 56 people have been killed in a series of attacks across Baghdad. The deadly assaults come as Iraq marks ten years since the coalition, led by the US and Britain, invaded the country with their ‘freedom and democracy’ mission. Historian and political campaigner, Tariq Ali, says it’s surprising that no-one has been held responsible for creating havoc in Iraq.

Every Building in Baghdad that Falls, Crushed and Broken to the Ground…. by Felicity Arbuthnot

by Felicity Arbuthnot
Writer, Dandelion Salad
London, England
March 17, 2013

Image by matthewgood via Flickr

I wrote this article as the bombs fell on Baghdad on the 20th of March 2003, with tears streaming down my face.

I had come back from Iraq just days before. In another sparkling pink and azure dawn on the day I left Baghdad, (dubbed “the Paris of the ninth century” by 19th century traveller, Sir Richard Burton) I photographed the panoramic views of this great, vibrant city. I would, I felt certain, never see it like this again. I never will. Felicity Arbuthnot, March 17, 2013