American Foreign Policy – Have Our War Lovers Learned Anything? by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
February 7, 2013

Image by World Bank Photo Collection via Flickr

Over the past four decades, of all the reasons people over a certain age have given for their becoming radicalized against US foreign policy, the Vietnam War has easily been the one most often cited. And I myself am the best example of this that you could find. I sometimes think that if the war lovers who run the United States had known of this in advance they might have had serious second thoughts about starting that great historical folly and war crime.

“Death by Stupidity” by William Blum + Untold History of the United States–World War II

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
December 11, 2012

Image by mockstar via Flickr

“Nuclear, ecological, chemical, economic — our arsenal of Death by Stupidity is impressive for a species as smart as Homo sapiens” ¹

The hurricanes, the typhoons, the heat waves … the droughts, the heavy rains, the floods … ever more powerful, ever new records being set. Something must be done of course. Except if you don’t believe at all that it’s man-made. But if there’s even a small chance that the greenhouse effect is driving the changes, is it not plain that, at a minimum, we have to err on the side of caution? There’s too much at stake. Like civilization as we know it. Carbon dioxide emissions into the atmosphere must be greatly curtailed.

Syria, the story thus far + How many voters does it take to change a light bulb? by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
October 3, 2012

Image by weeklydig via Flickr

Syria, the story thus far

“Today, many Americans are asking — indeed I ask myself,” Hillary Clinton said, “how can this happen? How can this happen in a country we helped liberate, in a city we helped save from destruction? This question reflects just how complicated, and at times, how confounding the world can be.” 1

The Secretary of State was referring to the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya September 11 that killed the US ambassador and three other Americans. US intelligence agencies have now stated that the attackers had ties to Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.2

The hidden, obvious, peculiar, fatal, omnipresent bias of American mainstream media concerning US foreign policy by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
August 31, 2012

Image by Vertigogen via Flickr

“We pledge allegiance to the republic for which America stands and not to its empire for which it is now suffering.” 1

Louis XVI needed a revolution, Napoleon needed two historic military defeats, the Spanish Empire in the New World needed multiple revolutions, the Russian Czar needed a communist revolution, the Austro-Hungarian and Ottoman Empires needed World War I, the Third Reich needed World War II, the Land of the Rising Sun needed two atomic bombs, the Portuguese Empire in Africa needed a military coup at home. What will the American Empire need?

The United States and its comrade-in-arms, Al Qaeda by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
August 11, 2012

Image by jennzebel via Flickr

The United States and its comrade-in-arms, Al Qaeda. And other tales of an empire gone mad.

Afghanistan in the 1980s and 90s … Bosnia and Kosovo in the 1990s … Libya 2011 … Syria 2012 … In military conflicts in each of these countries the United States and al Qaeda (or one of its associates) have been on the same side. ¹

What does this tell us about the United States’ “War On Terrorism”?

When you f*ck around with God’s country, you pay a price! by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
July 3, 2012

Image by Takver via Flickr

The Anti-Empire Report

Julian Assange

I’m sure most Americans are mighty proud of the fact that Julian Assange is so frightened of falling into the custody of the United States that he had to seek sanctuary in the embassy of Ecuador, a tiny and poor Third World country, without any way of knowing how it would turn out. He might be forced to be there for years.

Barack Obama – His Words Are Not True by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
May 2, 2012

Image by sandy_sanders via Flickr

What you need to succeed is sincerity, and if you can fake sincerity you’ve got it made. (Old Hollywood axiom)

“A few months ago I told the American people that I did not trade arms for hostages. My heart and my best intentions still tell me that is true, but the facts and evidence tell me it is not.” — President Ronald Reagan, 1987 1

On April 23, speaking at the Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, DC, President Barack Obama told his assembled audience that as president “I’ve done my utmost … to prevent and end atrocities”.

The Holy Triumvirate — The United States, NATO, and the European Union by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
April 6, 2012

Putting Syria into some perspective

The Holy Triumvirate — The United States, NATO, and the European Union — or an approved segment thereof, can usually get what they want. They wanted Saddam Hussein out, and soon he was swinging from a rope. They wanted the Taliban ousted from power, and, using overwhelming force, that was achieved rather quickly. They wanted Moammar Gaddafi’s rule to come to an end, and before very long he suffered a horrible death. Jean-Bertrand Aristide was democratically elected, but this black man who didn’t know his place was sent into distant exile by the United States and France in 2004. Iraq and Libya were the two most modern, educated and secular states in the Middle East; now all four of these countries could qualify as failed states.

The Saga of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Wikileaks by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
Mar. 5, 2012

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

The Saga of Bradley Manning, Julian Assange, and Wikileaks, to be put to ballad and film

“Defense lawyers say Manning was clearly a troubled young soldier whom the Army should never have deployed to Iraq or given access to classified material while he was stationed there … They say he was in emotional turmoil, partly because he was a gay soldier at a time when homosexuals were barred from serving openly in the U.S. armed forces.” (Associated Press, February 3)

The Grand Ayatollah of nuclear menace by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
Feb. 3, 2012

The Lord High Almighty Pooh-Bah of threats. The Grand Ayatollah of nuclear menace.

As we all know only too well, the United States and Israel would hate to see Iran possessing nuclear weapons. Being “the only nuclear power in the Middle East” is a great card for Israel to have in its hand. But — in the real, non-propaganda world — is USrael actually fearful of an attack from a nuclear-armed Iran? In case you’ve forgotten …

Never forget Iraq + Happy New Year: 2012 News Highlights (satire) by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
Jan. 3, 2012

Iraq. Began with big lies. Ending with big lies. Never forget.

“Most people don’t understand what they have been part of here,” said Command Sgt. Major Ron Kelley as he and other American troops prepared to leave Iraq in mid-December. “We have done a great thing as a nation. We freed a people and gave their country back to them.”

“It is pretty exciting,” said another young American soldier in Iraq. “We are going down in the history books, you might say.” (Washington Post, December 18, 2011)

Occupy American Exceptionalism by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
Dec. 2, 2011

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Some thoughts that OCCUPY my mind

When the Vietnam War became history, and the protest signs and the bullhorns were put away, so too was the serious side of most protestors’ alienation and hostility toward the government. They returned, with minimal resistance, to the restless pursuit of success, and the belief that the choice facing the world was either “capitalist democracy” or “communist dictatorship”. The war had been an aberration, was the implicit verdict, a blemish on an otherwise humane American record.

William Blum: The corporations are the beneficiaries of the wars, interviewed by Cindy Sheehan

with Cindy Sheehan
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox Blog
Cindy Sheehan’s Soapbox

and with William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
Nov. 6, 2011

Image by SS&SS via Flickr

Today, (November 6th), Cindy welcomes William Blum, who is an American author, historian, and critic of United States foreign policy.  He studied accounting in college.  Later he had a low-level computer-related position at the United States Department of State in the mid-1960s.  Initially an anti-communist with dreams of becoming a foreign service officer, he said he became disillusioned by the Vietnam War. 

The destruction of Libya by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
Nov. 1, 2011

It doesn’t matter to them if it’s untrue. It’s a higher truth.

“We came, we saw, he died.”
— US Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton,
giggling, as she spoke of the depraved murder of Moammar Gaddafi

Imagine Osama bin Laden or some other Islamic leader speaking of 9-11: “We came, we saw, 3,000 died … ha- ha.”

Clinton and her partners-in-crime in NATO can also have a good laugh at how they deceived the world. The destruction of Libya, the reduction of a modern welfare state to piles of rubble, to ghost towns, the murder of thousands …

The crime of making Americans aware of their own history by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.killinghope.org
Oct. 4, 2011

Image via Wikipedia

The crime of making Americans aware of their own history

Is history getting too close for comfort for the fragile little American heart and mind? Their schools and their favorite media have done an excellent job of keeping them ignorant of what their favorite country has done to the rest of the world, but lately some discomforting points of view have managed to find their way into this well-defended American consciousness.