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Looks like its been a LONG time since the ole "The Buck Stops Here" sign has been situated on the famous presidential desk in the oval office.
If you ask me, that's most definately for the best.
Military interventions? No.
Humanitarian interventions? Yes - through the UNHCR & UNICEF.
Those advocating a military intervention misconstrue where our leadership role in the world lies - of, by and for the people; not the profits of the 0.01%, a.k.a. Ike's military, industrial, Congressional complexes.
The War on Drugs is really the Drugs Business and all the cartels are involved, including the banksters and the intelligence community. For example, Wells Farge was done for laundering billions worth of drugs money and received a tiny fine (what a business model) and all the other TBTF banks are probably involved.
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-wachovia-laundered-billions-in-mexica...
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/apr/03/us-bank-mexico-drug-gangs
Just like the War on Terror is really the Security Business :P
teach peace, sounds great, unless we;re talking 1945! no peace was being taught, not by Japan, the red army, germany, us, ANYONE! I love this 20 20 hind sight youre refusing to budge from. good for you, but no one else. trying to say that the atomic bombs were EXCESSIVE during the finality of WW2 is like complaing that there's a smudge on the door handle to your apartment when your whole place is filled FROM TOP TO BOTTOM with human feces. 70 MILLION PEOPLE OR MORE died notcho, how many died because of the bombs? A LOT, which died from which bomb? WHO fuckng cares, that is not the point, you think those civilians who died from napalms and blanket bombing give a shit if it was explosive, chemical or nuclear? WAR IS WRONG, im sorry if you dont agree with the disgusting method with which the 2nd World WAR was concluded, but there couldve been 10 atomic bombs dropped and that still would not have come close to the total mayhem and devastation amassed on our planet in that era.
Nacho, offense intended, fuck your ideals about JUSTIFIED WARFARE, there is no such thing, the war ended, lets not get back to that point or warfare in general
btw, my grandfather served in WW2, as a japanese pow for over 4 years, Jenro Lambaiso Sr., his stories were a tad bit different than the ones you heard, he lived a long time with an amazing amount of respect for Japanese culture, i still dont understand it after what they put him through, none the less, he too was adament that anything and everything needed to be done to end the war asap
Gee, Obama stopped in Sweden. Our Ambassador to Sweden is none other thsn the son of Zbigniew Brzezinski, Dr. Mark BRZEZINSKI, and you know that our president had a little chat with the man whose father authored the treatise that was the precursor to the INFAMOUS PEARL HARBOR MEMO. Yes, precursor. His (Zbig's) book: THE GRAND CHESSBOARD, which is a treatise on who is to control Greater Eurasia. The book deals with the resources of that region and who will control the flow of oil and gas through pipelines that will stretch across, you guessed it, SYRIA and other countries.
Here's a website similar to The Grand Chessboard (the PDF of which can be found on the web): http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Great_Game
I would imagine Barack met with Mark Brzezinski in Sweden. We're in for a ride.
WMD??!!
Israel drops white phosphorous/napalm on Gazans!
The USA pollutes all its battle zones with depleted uranium -- and those battle zones are all civilian zones!
I could just stop there by calling the Bomb Syria Crowd a bunch of hypocrits.
But I think it is worse still. I think if an investigation into the chemical weapon attack on that Syrian hospital were completed it would become clear that it was the agents provocateur (is the Media still calling them "rebels"?) who work for the Israelis and USA who perpetrated this act. What other reason could there be for Israel and the USA blocking a thorough investigation?
Oh KEND you never cease to amaze me...Your concerns have me busten a gut!!!
Here you are Mr Pro Oil, anti Green Energy Alternatives, and your worried about what could happen to military women if caught by the supposed enemy...Yeah they are gonna get gang raped REPEATEDLY!!! They will be treated less than human...Like filthy whores...I mean c'mon women are just second class citezens...No?
But don't freat KEND...Stick to the ideology of "by any means necessary...The ends justify the means...Profit before People". Right!?!?
Draft beer...Not me!
Bingo...Ding Ding Ding Ding Ding...Yahtzee!!!
Those are good questions CARSON, most people's opinion regarding U.S. history, more specificly WWII and the U.S.'s role, is one that leans strongly to the side of; "If the U.S. does "it" it's right and just...but when another countries government commits the same act, it's considered wrong and punishable.
Stephan Fortunato Jr puts it more elequantly; "I was greatly impressed to see that a act perpitraited by the enemy was ipso facto vicious and deceitful, whereas the same act perpitraited by the United States was just and praise worthy".
Of all the books I've read on WWII and the United State's role, my favorite is "The Bomb" (non fiction) by Howard Zinn. Zinn - if you didn't already know was a Bombadier Gunner during WWII and his story is one that, in my opinion, should be required reading in High School American History Class, along with Dalton Trumbo's "Johnny Got His Gun" (fiction). The reason I say this, not to state the obvious, is because the perspective these writters give are ones that do not glorify war, they do not hide the truth of how hellish war is. For far too long the reality of war has been twisted, and the grusome reality is swept under the rug...War is not a John Wayne movie.
My grandfather served in WWII...When I was 14 he started sharing his stories with me. He told me of a time when his unit went in to a small town the morning after it had been bombed to "have a look around"...The scene, as he put it was, horrifying and made most of the men puke and run away. That same morning he shot and killed a woman who had a gun and was hiding in a stair well. He said he didn't even see her at first, all he saw as he rounded the corner was a person pointing a gun in his direction, and he pulled the trigger first. That one incident, he said, stayed with him, and often he would wake from a deep sleep thinking about her...a terrified young women.
When I graduated High School in 1990, I strongly considered joinning the Navy. A few days before I was going to go down to the recruiters office my grandfather called me and we had a 3 min conversation, in which he said this to me; "I commend you for your selflessness, but you would better serve humanity by a peaceful means of nonviolence towards that which is violent...Our countries government no longer acts as a beacon of light for truth and justice, which is to establish and uphold peace. Instead our role in the world has become that of strong arm robbers and common thugs, who go around terrorizing others for "their own selfish gain". You are better than that...Don't be a part of what has quickly gone from a Democratic System Of, For, and By the People to a Corporate Facist Empire, of the few, for the few, and by the few, and that prays upon the weak and the less fortunate to do their dirty bidding."
I always had great respect for my grandfather, so I slep on what he said...I never went to that recruites office, instead I begain reading and studdying the practice of Non Violent Action, and it is an action...I read Coleman McCarthy's "I'd rather teach Peace", which lead me to dozens of other nonviolent activist who managed to accomplish more through nonviolent actions then by violent ones. Gandhi, Dorothy Day, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, just to name a few. And today we have our own leaders of nonviolence, and they, like their predicessors, struggle amongst Fools Gold.
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I got a letter today from AT&T Uverse saying that I have 45 days to call the numbers they provided to talk to their reps about signing up for Uverse. They seemed to be indicating that they will be changing over from normal DSL to fiber-optic, in my area, and that my internet connection via DSL will no longer work.
I did some checking on the internet and found that AT&T has been sending these letters around for years now and it is virtually the same letter..same numbers to call. I also found out that it really does look like phone numbers for AT&T Uverse.
So, after I got over being a little ticked off that they are going to disrupt my life, I am thinking that it might be nice to have higher internet speeds...so I looked into it...and it looks to me like there are several ways of connecting fiber-optics (FO)...one way is to run FO to the CO (Central Office) in my area...another is to run FO on down the line to the DSlam (that little metal cabinet on the sidewalk)...another is to run the FO to a box on the side of my house..another is to run the FO inside my house. The best speed would be obtained using FO all the way into the house...no copper wires until it gets to my hardware. And I can only get that, I understand, if I buy into their package plans of TV, Internet, and phone and the higher internet speeds. Otherwise, I will likely only get FO to the DSlam and still have copper wires going to my house. And if they don't do that, they will run FO to the CO and then copper wires to the DSlams then to my house. And the further away the DSlams or the CO is from my house (using copper wires) the worse is the internet speed (you can never really expect to get the advertised speed...it rarely happens because of many factors..one of which is distance from the CO or DSlam..others are usually loose connections, no filters on the other phones in your house, worn or abraded insulation on the copper wires and rain that gets them wet, even the age of the wires..the material used in the core...lots of things can degrade copper wires.
I was kind of hoping to hold out for Google fiber-optics but since I don't live in Kansas (anymore--I clicked the heels of my ruby slippers 3 times) where they are currently putting in fiber-optics I will have to wait..or go with AT&T. Google fiber is not available up here in Moosejaw yet.
Anyway, I looked into going for a package until I realized that AT&T Uverse TV doesn't even have FSTV, or LinkTV, or even Russia Today (RT)...No Amy Goodwin, no Thom Hartmann, no Max Keiser, no Abby Martin or any of the others I like to watch. Although I could still watch them on the new high speed fiber-optic internet I suppose. It just ticks me off that AT&T will have all those right-wing channels and no left wing ones...I don't know can we still call MSNBC even partially left anymore...I guess there is still Rachel Maddow.
They certainly have several Fox channels and a bunch of other channels that I would never be interested in. They do have MSNBC... which is good...sort of...but I wouldn't be able to live without those 3 channels that I get on DishTV.
I may just go for the internet only...unless I find out AT&T Uverse was jiving me and it won't actually take out my DSL. While AT&T is my phone provider...I use a different ISP...although I believe that ISP relies on AT&T...so I may be hosed.
I had read that one person discovered, after he lost his DSL internet from the time AT&T Uverse made the change over...that he found out that all he had to do to get his DSL to work again was to reverse the red and green phone line wires. Seems the way AT&T techs cut off internet is that they reverse the red and green copper wires in the DSlam. Others tried it and had success as well.
Palindromedary ~ Thanks for sharing that before I did. You are the man!!! And, you took the words right out of my mouth!! I thought you might get a kick out of that interview too. Don't forget to check out this one too. Duct tape your ears to your head first.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKrkokQIx9g
SHFabian ~ Please take a moment to pull your head out of your ____ and look around you. Our War on Drugs this year has caused more unnecessary deaths in Mexico alone, than it is alleged that Assad has with chemical weapons. Almost a million have fallen to the American military in Iraq that we know of for a reason that we haven't yet heard of. Millions more including innocent children will fall because of the use of depleted uranium--perhaps the most horrendous war crime in the history of humanity--by the hands of the United States of America.Yet you seem to want to imply that the world can't wait for debates in the UN.
Bottom line--there is always time to wait for the deliberations of the United Nations; and, the consensus of the world community. The crime that may always be prevented was the reason that they were created in the first place. Be patient, my friend.
Fantastic links, Flopot! And that video was some incriminating stuff for sure....!
This video was posted on Sept 11 2011 (10 years anniversary of 9/11/01)..Amy Goodwin interviewing General Wesly Clark about 9/11 and the subsequent wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
----General Wesley Clark reminiscing about conversations he had with one of his generals in the Pentagon on about 9/20/2001..then a few weeks later:
9/20/01:
General to Clark: "We've made the decision we're going to war with Iraq."
General Clark said: "We're going to war with Iraq? Why?"
General said: "I don't know....I guess they don't know what else to do."
General Clark said: "Well, did they find some information connecting Saddam to al-Qaeda?"
General said: "No, no. There's nothing new that way. They just made the decision to go to war with Iraq....I guess it's like we don't know what to do about terrorists, but we've got a good military and we can take down governments....I guess if the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem has to look like a nail."
Then a few weeks later:
General Clark: "Are we still going to war with Iraq?"
General: "Oh it's worse than that."
----He reached over on his desk. He picked up a piece of paper. And....
General said: "This is a memo that describes how we're going to take out seven countries in five years, starting with Iraq, and then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Somalia, Sudan and, finishing off, Iran."
Clark said: "Is it classified?"
General said: "Yes, sir."
Clark said: "Well, don't show it to me."
----And clark saw the General a year or so ago, and...
Clark said: "You remember that?"
General said, "Sir, I didn't show you that memo! I didn't show it to you!"
Regarding the real threat of global conflict, I'll say one thing....it sure is good to hear the voices of reason and sanity....voices like Thom, Pap, Bernie, Ed, Randi, Nicole, etc. It gives me hope. I wish our so called representative government would also listen, learn, and respond democratically.
BTW. If anyone question. In my opinion, The Pledge of Allegiance is Child Abuse!! Go figure. To place an oath in the mouth of anyone is coersion. To place an oath in the mouth of a child is Child Abuse of the first class.
What I find most unsettling about this showdown is that there are no good intentions by any of those involved. It's really just a bunch of guys afflicted with personality disorders......political ego, religious fanaticism, avarice, and the kind of self-delusion.... power trip...... that too much money almost always causes people. With the average income for Syrians around $4000, a guy like Assad who's worth well over 500 million, becomes by default pretty powerful..... and if he happens to have a personality like Caligula, Cheney, or the Koch's for example, then it becomes a real problem for the normal people. In fact the normal people, as a result of maniacs who constantly grab for more money and power, are suffering with endless death and destruction. So what's our solution...more death and destruction?????
Maybe we should send Dennis Rodman on a diplomatic mission....shoot some hoops and drink some beers with Assad, Putin, Obama.....who knows?
Wow, Putin and Obama couldn't be more different guys. I find it hard to look at President Obama as a tough guy for some reason.
I heard something interesting today about this new war your Government wants to drag you into and if I had a daughter, granddaughter etc I would be a little worried.
Now that this Obama has made your milatary genderless. With the troops exhausted from being in two wars for years. If this goes wrong and the USA has to go back to a draft.
What do young women and there parents think of this war now knowing this. With two granddaughters it scares the hell of me. with the way they treat women over there can you imagine what they would do to those girls if they captured them. Stop don't put that thought in your head you won't sleep to night.
Flopot ~ Thanks for that visual summary! Pictures are so helpful. Yet still, I'm a bit confused. Which one is supposed to be the Jack A$$?
I must say I certainly hope that Russian President Vladimir Putin steps up to the plate. Twice now the Antichrists of Nostradamus have been defeated by the Russians. That's both Napoleon and Hitler. Go figure. Certainly it may be this very same nation that defends the world against yet the third Antichrist of Nostradamus. Only they may have the wherewithal. Third time's a charm I always say!
I know 500-1 American citizens are against this stupid war in Syria. What I want to know is who is this 1 individual. My guess is he has to wear a helmet to go outside. "Duh-Ta-Duh!!" We really need to bring back publically funded mental institutions. We also have to bring back Democracy. I miss my country!
Yes. Pipeline through Syria. Petrodollars. Big oil.
Equals lies to the American people. Deaths to our fighting people. Deaths to innocent children, their parents, uncles, aunts, grandparents. Fascism is alive and well. They don't want to feed the poor; school lunches, health care, Social Security, Medicare, housing, education all will be cut in order to buy $1+million missiles, billions of rounds of ammunition, fuel for warships & planes.
And then they want to call this "the greatest nation on Earth."
Flopot ~ Bravo! That was a great video with General Wesley Clark. This is a better one. Everyone must watch this. Forgive me Flopot if you've already linked to this one; but, if so, here it is again. We do have a problem!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKrkokQIx9g
So we're going to war against Syria for humanitarian reasons? Buy that and I have a bridge to sell you! Could it be that we and Saudi Arabia are staking a claim against the proposed Iran-Iraq-Syria natural gas pipeline and for the Saudi Arabia backed Qatar pipeline so we and our allies control access. This is why Russia is beating its chest because they’re backing the IIS pipeline. How stupid the American people are if they believe what we're being told by Congress, the President and the media. This is another resource/plunder war just like Iraq and Afghanistan were/are. You don't see us going to war for "humanitarian" reasons against countries that don't have resources we want. Don’t do this.
Thanks Thom. It seems as though the President, who is hated by the body of conspiring right, may have struck upon a classic "gotcha" position on Syria. That is, if those in Congress/Senate elected by constituents on the far nut-case dare to vote for action against Syria, supporters (with the money) will say they have sided with the hated OBama, and there may be trouble at election time even if the supporters want action themselves. If they dare to vote against action against Syria, their war-profiteering supporters may say they will withdraw their support to avoid loss of billions. Good plan Mr. President!