9/11 Paved the Way for America’s Permanent Wars of Aggression by Finian Cunningham

by Finian Cunningham
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
11 September 2011

Image by malyousif via Flickr

Whether 9/11 was an inside job or an amazing terrorist success, the fact is that either way the atrocity is intimately linked with US state terrorism.

The attacks on the Twin Towers in 2001 were a seminal event that paved the way for permanent wars of aggression by the US and its puppet allies – wars that have made a travesty of international law, taking state criminality to new heights and resulting in mass murder of innocents. That is state terrorism, by any definition, that is out of control, which no alleged original crime can justify.

Twisted up by a super coup d’etat by Bruce Gagnon

by Bruce Gagnon
featured writer
Dandelion Salad
Organizing Notes
August 27, 2011

Image by Fibonacci Blue via Flickr

The Boston Globe had a blaring headline on August 14: ‘Doomsday’ defense cuts directly affect panel members – Large military contractors are in their states.

Put your ear to the railroad tracks and you can hear the train coming. Now that the new 12-member Congressional “Super Committee” has essentially been given the power of God (and the Devil) the military industrial complex, and their appendage called the corporate media, are swinging into action.

Massive Perpetual Wars against Fantastical Dwarfed Terrorists, by Sibel Edmonds

by Sibel Edmonds
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Originally published by Boiling Frogs Post
August 5, 2011

Image by Todd Huffman via Flickr

For almost 10 years we have been engaged in a massive and many-fronted war advertised as a war on terror-war on Al Qaeda. Recent reports put the total cost to America of this war on terror at around $3 trillion. This is not counting un-countable covert operations with secret budgets, and it does not include the war in Libya or covert wars elsewhere.

The Strange Silencing of Liberal America by John Pilger

Dandelion Salad

by John Pilger
www.johnpilger.com
July 7, 2011

Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr

How does political censorship work in liberal societies? When my film, Year Zero: the Silent Death of Cambodia, was banned in the United States in 1980, the broadcaster PBS cut all contact. Negotiations were ended abruptly; phone calls were not returned. Something had happened. But what? Year Zero had already alerted much of the world to the horrors of Pol Pot, but it also investigated the critical role of the Nixon administration in the tyrant’s rise to power and the devastation of Cambodia.

Libya And Millennium Of War by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
Stop NATO-Opposition to global militarism
July 2, 2011

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

On June 26 the West’s war against Libya reached its hundredth day. Launched on March 19 with a barrage of bombing raids and Tomahawk cruise missile attacks conducted by American, British and French warplanes, ships and submarines, control of military operations, including a naval blockade of the Mediterranean nation and the deployment of special forces in the country’s east, was ceded by U.S. Africa Command to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on March 31.

God Bless America. And its Bombs. by William Blum

by William Blum
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
3 June, 2011

Image by Resident on Earth via Flickr

God Bless America. And its Bombs.

When they bombed Korea, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, El Salvador and Nicaragua I said nothing because I wasn’t a communist.

When they bombed China, Guatemala, Indonesia, Cuba, and the Congo I said nothing because I didn’t know about it.

Kucinich Continues Challenge to White House War Strategy

Dandelion Salad

Image by Fibonacci Blue via Flickr

by Congressman Dennis J. Kucinich
Washington, May 18, 2011

Congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), who will introduce a bill to end the war in Libya based on the War Powers Resolution when Congress returns on May 23, 2011, today made the following statement about the war. Kucinich made the statement ahead of a speech tomorrow by President Obama.

“The President’s speech tomorrow concerning U.S. policy in the Middle East is yet another attempt to stem the loss of support for our role in the war in Libya. He is up against the 60-day War Powers Act countdown from the beginning of U.S. military involvement in Libya.

Gareth Porter: Bush Admin Didn’t Pursue Bin Laden Post 9/11

with Gareth Porter
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
6 May, 2011

Image via Wikipedia

Article: U.S. Refusal of 2001 Taliban Offer Gave bin Laden a Free Pass by Gareth Porter

[…] But Bush brusquely rejected any talks on the Taliban proposal, declaring, “They must have not heard. There’s no negotiations.”

Bush rejected the Taliban offer despite the fact that U.S. intelligence had picked up reports in the previous months of deep divisions within the Taliban regime over bin Laden. It was because of those reports that Bush had authorised secret meetings by a CIA officer with a high-ranking Taliban official in late September. […]

NATO Observes Easter By Intensifying Bombardment Of Libya by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
Stop NATO-Opposition to global militarism
April 26, 2011

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

As it has done daily since it assumed control of the air war and naval blockade against Libya on March 31, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization on April 25 posted on its website a report on the number and nature of air missions flown by warplanes assigned to it over Libya the preceding day.

The North Atlantic Alliance flew 143 sorties on April 24, of which 62 were described as strike sorties; that is, air deployments involved in the dropping of bombs and firing of missiles. As of the above date, NATO aircraft had flown a total of 3,725 sorties and 1,550 strike sorties since the Western military bloc took command of the war against Libya from U.S. Africa Command’s Joint Task Force Odyssey Dawn. By April 25 the figures had risen to almost 4,000 and over 1,600, respectively.

The Obama-Gates Maneuver on Military Spending by Gareth Porter

by Gareth Porter
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
20 April, 2011

Image by turtlemoon via Flickr

Last week Barack Obama announced that he wants to cut $400 billion in military spending and said he would work Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and the Joint Chiefs on a “fundamental review” of U.S. “military missions, capabilities and our role in a changing world” before making a decision.

Spokesman Geoff Morrell responded by hinting that Gates was displeased with having to cut that much from his spending plan. Gates “has been clear that further significant defense cuts cannot be accomplished without future cuts in force structure and military capability,” said Morrell, who volunteered that the Secretary not been informed about the Obama decision until the day before.

Gareth Porter: Military-Industrial Complex from Eisenhower to Obama

Image by Dandelion Salad via Flickr

Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews on Mar 7, 2011

Gareth Porter on how the Military-Industrial Complex evolved into the Permanent War State

Afghanistan: War Without End In A World Without Conscience by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
Stop NATO-Opposition to global militarism
January 26, 2011

The largest foreign military force ever deployed in Afghanistan is now well into the tenth year of the longest and what has become the deadliest war of the 21st century.

Some 154,000 occupation troops, almost two-thirds American and the rest from fifty other nations, are waging an armed conflict that has become more lethal with each succeeding year.

Gareth Porter: US keeps Americans in the dark about secret wars

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/

Presstvusdesk | January 20, 2011

Military industries are posing an increasing threat to the United States due to the sector’s mounting pressure for higher military budgets and larger military programs, says investigative journalist and historian Gareth Porter.

Corey Pein: Privatizing war inevitably prolongs it, interviewed by Peter B. Collins and Sibel Edmonds

by Peter B. Collins and Sibel Edmonds
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
originally published by Boiling Frogs Post
January 12, 2011

Corey Pein recounts the creation of the recently launched groundbreaking site warisbusiness.com, a nonpartisan site covering military contracting, the global arms trade and the lobby, and how he began the project with two assumptions: The first- a lot of people are making money from war, while enjoying the comforts of anonymity (such people were once plainly called profiteers), and the second: Privatizing war inevitably prolongs it, creating what economists call a “perverse incentive.” Mr. Pein discusses the bought out generals and the militarization of the economy, and the latest on the ‘Rent-A-Generals’ exposé. He talks about scandals such as Mina Corp and the subsequent cover up, US Embassies as marketing arms of military corporations, the win-win outcome of elections for the Pentagon contractors and arms makers, Wikileaks, and more!

Even Lost Wars Make Corporations Rich by Chris Hedges + Mike Prysner Protests Obama’s Wars

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
January 10, 2011