The Nobel Peace Prize for War by Michael Parenti

Image by DonkeyHotey via Flickr

by Michael Parenti
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Michael Parenti Blog
www.michaelparenti.org
October 18, 2012

Those who own the wealth of nations take care to downplay the immensity of their holdings while emphasizing the supposedly benign features of the socio-economic order over which they preside. With its regiments of lawmakers and opinion-makers, the ruling hierarchs produce a never-ending cavalcade of symbols, images, and narratives to disguise and legitimate the system of exploitative social relations existing between the 1% and the 99%.

Turkey and An Act Of War Against Syria by Finian Cunningham

Image by Eman Jueid for Aslan Media via Flickr

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
East Africa
Crossposted from www.presstv.com
Oct. 5, 2012

For the second consecutive day Turkish military forces bombarded Syria’s border region with artillery. Several Syrian soldiers are reported dead from the assault in the Tel Abyad district. Civilians have also suffered injuries, according to unconfirmed video footage, despite Turkish claims that its forces are using military “rules of engagement” and radar to select targets.

Never forget that Bradley Manning, not gay marriage, is the issue, by John Pilger

Dandelion Salad

by John Pilger
www.johnpilger.com
May 20, 2012

Image by Poster Boy NYC via Flickr

In the week Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2009, he  ordered bombing attacks on Yemen, killing a reported 63 people, 28 of them children. When Obama recently announced he supported same-sex marriage, American planes had not long blown 14 Afghan civilians to bits. In both cases, the mass murder was barely news. What mattered were the cynical vacuities of a political celebrity, the product of a zeitgeist driven by the forces of consumerism and the media with the aim of diverting the struggle for social and economic justice.

Saudi Arabia and Qatar Accused of Shielding Iraqi ‘Death Squad Leader’ by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
East Africa
April 5, 2012

Fugitive Iraqi Vice President Tareq Al Hashemi, who is wanted on terrorism charges in Iraq, has fled to Saudi Arabia amid growing controversy over the role of the Gulf monarchies in the region’s volatile geopolitics.

Hashemi, a leading Sunni politician, is facing charges that he ran death squads at the height of the Shia-Sunni sectarian conflict in Iraq, which saw thousands killed, during the US-led nine-year occupation of that country. Hashemi denies the charges, but the authorities in Baghdad claim they have evidence that he personally directed Sunni death squads.

Murder Is Not an Anomaly in War by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
March 19, 2012

The war in Afghanistan—where the enemy is elusive and rarely seen, where the cultural and linguistic disconnect makes every trip outside the wire a visit to hostile territory, where it is clear that you are losing despite the vast industrial killing machine at your disposal—feeds the culture of atrocity. The fear and stress, the anger and hatred, reduce all Afghans to the enemy, and this includes women, children and the elderly. Civilians and combatants merge into one detested nameless, faceless mass. The psychological leap to murder is short. And murder happens every day in Afghanistan. It happens in drone strikes, artillery bombardments, airstrikes, missile attacks and the withering suppressing fire unleashed in villages from belt-fed machine guns.

Acts of Love by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
Feb. 20, 2012

Image by The UpTake via Flickr

Love, the deepest human commitment, the force that defies empirical examination and yet is the defining and most glorious element in human life, the love between two people, between children and parents, between friends, between partners, reminds us of why we have been created for our brief sojourns on the planet. Those who cannot love—and I have seen these deformed human beings in the wars and conflicts I covered—are spiritually and emotionally dead. They affirm themselves through destruction, first of others and then, finally, of themselves. Those incapable of love never live.

Obama’s “State of Delusion Address”: Rebuilding America With War Crimes by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
East Africa
25 January 2012

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

From beginning to end, Barack Obama’s State of the Union speech was replete with delusion and falsifications. His promise of building an “America that lasts” was predicated on a sentimental, but utterly disingenuous notion of selfless teamwork. The invocation of American military “heroes” and their “achievements” during nine years of waging war on Iraq as an exemplar of how to salvage his nation from economic and social catastrophe was both sickening and laughable.

The American Empire in Latin America: “Democracy” is a Threat to “National Security” by Andrew Gavin Marshall

by Andrew Gavin Marshall
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://andrewgavinmarshall.com
Dec. 14, 2011

NOTE: This is an excerpt from a chapter in a current book-in-progress being funded through The People’s Book Project. The chapter is on the American Empire’s early implementation of its “Grand Area” designs in Latin America, as defined by the Council on Foreign Relations during World War II. The Project is currently in dire need of funding, so please donate if possible to allow progress on this book to continue.

Britain’s Cover-Up of Inside Job in Fatal RAF Chinook Crash, by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
East Africa
20 November 2011

Typical foggy weather on Mull of Kintyre that was prevailing when Chinook ZD576 went down. Note how official British inquiries misrepresented poor visibility.

Evidence points to liquidation of British counterinsurgency team to trick Irish republicans into a defeating political process

For 17 years the British authorities have lied about the fatal RAF helicopter crash on the Mull of Kintyre in which 25 senior counterinsurgency personnel were killed. Now Global Research reveals new evidence showing that the loss of life was an intentional act of sabotage.

The Son of Africa claims a continent’s crown jewels by John Pilger

Dandelion Salad

by John Pilger
Global Research
www.johnpilger.com
20 October 2011

On 14 October, President Barack Obama announced he was sending United States special forces troops to Uganda to join the civil war there. In the next few months, US combat troops will be sent to South Sudan, Congo and Central African Republic. They will only “engage” for “self-defence”, says Obama, satirically. With Libya secured, an American invasion of the African continent is under way.

“The 15% Solution,” Serialization, 19th Installment: Chapter Eighteen: 2020: The Second Final Solution

Note: The Preface and Chapters One through Seventeen can be found here: The 15% Solution

by Jonathan Westminster, Ph.D. aka Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on TPJmagazine.us
August 28, 2011

This is the nineteenth installment of the serialization of a book entitled The 15% Solution: A Political History of American Fascism, 2001-2022. 

Killing the Truth: Western Mainstream Media Complicit in NATO War Crimes in Libya by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
25 August 2011

Image by BlueRobot via Flickr

Libya represents a new low in Western government war crimes – which is something of a disturbing record given the decades of war criminality by these governments.

In Libya, not only is there the criminal military assault on a sovereign country, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, the murder of women and children, and all the violation of international law that that entails – we now have the complete lobotomisation of language and normal meaning of words.

America’s Disappeared by Chris Hedges + Returning the Stolen – Argentina

Updated: Feb. 1, 2015

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
July 18, 2011

Chinook Disaster: Did Britain Sacrifice Counterinsurgency Top Brass To Defeat Irish Republicans? by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Belfast, Ireland
July 14, 2011

Image via Wikipedia

After 17 years, two Royal Air Force pilots were finally cleared this week of any wrongdoing in the fatal Chinook helicopter crash that wiped out Britain’s top counterinsurgency personnel in Northern Ireland in the summer of 1994.

Making the World Safe for Hypocrisy, by Michael Parenti (1996)

by Michael Parenti
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
July 10, 2011

Image by *TreMichLan* via Flickr

Excerpted from Dirty Truths.

Why has the United States government supported counterinsurgency in Colombia, Guatemala, El Salvador, and many other places around the world, at such a loss of human life to the populations of those nations? Why did it invade tiny Grenada and then Panama? Why did it support mercenary wars against progressive governments in Nicaragua, Mozambique, Angola, Ethiopia, Afghanistan, Indonesia, East Timor, Western Sahara, South Yemen, and elsewhere?