Israel sees killing as its most effective strategy to peace and stable government. Simply make 20% of its citizens second class and brutalize the rest. What lessons have the learned?
Yet killing, the application of lethal force, remained the central strategy in America’s 20-year campaign to create a stable government in Afghanistan. Why?
Source: “If Killing People Would Win This, We’d Have Won a Long Time Ago” | Washington Monthly
in November 2020 found over 83% of Australians want Parliament to vote on this issue. Michael West Media decided to flip the same question back to our politicians to see what they had to say. We’ve contacted over 50 so far, with an aim to eventually seek out responses from all Senators and Members of Parliament. Some have been outspoken on the issue, some prosaic, and some so timid so as not to even venture a “no comment.” For this latter group we had to create a new category for politicians “in hiding, refusing to answer us”. Some responses have surprised us, but others, as one of our Twitter followers put it, “responded exactly how you would have expected them to respond.” Politics, like fashion, sees trends emerge.
Parliament does not need to be consulted before Australian troops are sent to war. What do the politicians who have donned the uniform have to say? Tasha May asks Rex Patrick, Andrew Wilkie, Jim Molan and Bob Katter.
Source: War Powers: four perspectives from politicians who have served – Michael West
The forever wars that the US launched after 9/11 led to a surge in military suicides, a new study claims, with traumatized soldiers taking their own lives as they are repeatedly deployed in conflicts that have no public support.
Yet again, both Republican and Democratic party leaders are attacking Rep. Ilhan Omar for telling the truth about American and Israeli war crimes. And yet again, Omar has nothing to apologize for.
On Monday, Omar posted on Twitter her exchange with Secretary of State Antony Blinken. There she raised what should be a fairly tame question: What mechanisms exist to investigate war crimes and crimes against humanity in Palestine and Afghanistan?
The United States government opposes the International Criminal Court’s (ICC) jurisdiction to hear alleged cases of human rights abuses by both Israel and Hamas, the United States and the Taliban. If domestic courts won’t investigate war crimes, and if the United States opposes the ICC’s ability to do so, where can victims of war crimes go for justice?
Bait poisonings of household pets and working animals have also been recorded. Peter Best, a veterinarian based in South Tamworth, estimated that one in 15 admissions to his practice had involved poisoned animals. Such facts could only make another researcher at the CSIRO sigh. “If it’s used properly,” observed Steve Henry, “it should be a very, very low risk that a bird should find one of those grains of zinc phosphide and eat it.” The bait was sound. The same could not be said for those using it. “Why birds start falling out of the sky is [that] people do inappropriate things.” Such people used the bait in ways “not described on the label, or people make up their own baits.” When asked about her attitude to the problem, Healthy Rivers Dubbo convenor Melissa Gray suggested, with no detectable irony, that everybody wanted “the mouse plague gone, but there’s no silver bullet.” No silver bullets, maybe, but virtually everything else in the armoury of extermination. For the president of the NSW Farmers Association, the mayhem caused by such a poison as bromadiolone was worth the effort. Showing the somewhat patchy wisdom of his forebears, he accepted the lethal calculus. “It will ca
Source: Of Plagues and Rodents: Australia’s War Against Mice – » The Australian Independent Media Network
Paul Taucher and Dr Dean Aszkielowicz argue that war crimes justice does not work the way commentators generally suggest it does. AFTER THE SECOND World War, the victorious Allies prosecuted German and Japanese civilian leaders and military personnel for war crimes. The decision to hold these trials was based partly on a belief that the decades prior to the war had seen a genuine awakening among nations that some rules should apply to the conduct of wars and that efforts must be made to avoid devastating conflicts.
Source: The problem with war crimes law and what needs to be done
For the journalists who report this violence on our behalf, there is nowhere to hide. There is no neutral, objective mode. Your choice is to stand so far back from the “conflict” that you obscure its brutal irrationality and, in so doing, unwittingly or otherwise, put your support behind the most powerful belligerents. Or you can come in close and show mutilated and traumatised children, and suffer the journalistic ignominy of “biased” reporting.
The power to send Australian troops to fight in foreign wars rests in effect with the Prime Minister alone, yet a huge majority of Australians think parliamentary approval should be required. Alison Broinowski reports.
While the USA moves towards war, anti-China rhetoric grows on a daily basis and the idea of war is being sold as the ‘right’ thing.
Source: Not sleepwalking but marching with eyes wide open to war
This raid appears to be the worse case of mass rape committed by a U.S. ally in Africa in recent years. Over the last decade, the United States aided Cameroon’s security forces to the tune of almost $224 million, according to Security Assistance Monitor, which tracks U.S. security aid and arms sales. Over that same span, U.S. troops trained elite Cameroonian forces and even saw combat alongside them. The U.S. military also built up a network of outposts integral to drone operations in the region.
Soldiers in Cameroon, a Close U.S Ally, Commit Mass Rape
‘Counter-Terrorism’?: Two Decades After 9/11, New Interactive Map Details Footprint of US War Machine in 85 Countries | Common Dreams News
“The map raises a number of questions. Why is the United States militarily active in so many countries? Are these operations meeting the stated U.S. goals of reducing violence against Americans?”
‘Counter-Terrorism’?: Two Decades After 9/11, New Interactive Map Details Footprint of US War Machine in 85 Countries | Common Dreams News
Not just a US Domestic Threat: Beating Back the Far Right Globally
After four years of shock, confusion, and paralysis, the United States is finally taking action against the far right. Perhaps most dramatic has been the deplatforming of Donald Trump: the suspension of his Twitter and Facebook accounts and the targeting of his prominent followers across social media platforms. Even a few months ago, such a radically sensible action would have been inconceivable. Kick a president off of social media?
Not just a US Domestic Threat: Beating Back the Far Right Globally
The US Senate, long the lap dog of the man who would be king, President Donald Trump, appears to have finally remembered its proper constitutional role.
Last week, the Senate voted 55/45 for a new bipartisan War Powers Act to constrain military action against Iran. The Congress voted a similar act. Both are designed to start returning the right to make war to Congress, as the Constitution clearly intended. The president is not the Warlord-in-chief in spite of what he thinks.
Here’s a word of advice to Prime Minister Scott Morrison. Unless he wants to risk a smudge on his reputation of the sort that accompanies John Howard to this day: don’t get involved in conflict with Iran beyond limited naval engagement in a Gulf peace-keeping role.
via Acting on Iran has painful shades of joining the US in Iraq
“John Bolton and the Trump administration are turning us away from international accountability and cooperation and towards war and unilateral aggression,” concluded Win Without War.
In a rush to create heroes where there are only victims (ODT)
Ben Roberts-Smith: Beneath the bravery of Australia’s most decorated soldier
Notorious billionaire and war profiteer Erik Prince, who founded the disgraced mercenary firm Blackwater, is once again appealing to President Donald Trump to privatize the 17-year-old war in Afghanistan. Notorious War Profiteer Erik Prince Refuses To Give Up Dream of Mercenary Takeover of Afghan War
The story didn’t say whether any of the reporters listening to General Dunford asked why it had taken more than 16 years for the world’s leading military power to come up with the “fundamentally different approach” that the general believes has put U.S. and Afghan forces on the path to success. (None of the changes he mentioned really sounded fundamental, either.) Still, it’s a question worth asking: If Americans are right in ceaselessly telling themselves that theirs is the most powerful country the world has ever seen and that their military is the “greatest fighting force ever,” as President Trump calls it, should it have been this hard and taken this long to find a way — if they really have — to defeat enemies whose war-making resources are a tiny fraction of ours?
via “Infinity War?” After 17 fruitless years in Afghanistan & elsewhere the US Military needs to Rethink
According to the report, military spending across the world has increased by 1.1 percent in 2017 compared to the previous year to reach $1739 trillion.
The United States continues to top the world’s list of military expenditure with $610 billion, followed by China, which increased its military expenditure by 5.6 percent over 2016, or $228 billion.
The report explained that Middle Eastern countries increased their military spending by 6.2 percent in 2017 where they spent 5.2 percent of their GDP on armaments; the highest in the world.
via Saudi Arabia world’s 3rd highest military spender but 41st in World Population
The states pursuing this kind of offensive war see three advantages, two military and one political:
* Their own forces take minimal casualties, meaning fewer bodybags and funeral corteges
* They believe that the tactic works in practice
* There is very little media coverage of this type of war, and in the case of some countries, most notably Britain, there has been a long-term political convention that the role of special Forces should not be subject to public debate or even scrutiny.
The U.S. Air Force is on track to triple the number of bombs dropped in Afghanistan this year compared with last year.
Ominously, the former head of the IAEA, Mohammed Albaradei, who pointed out in spring of 2003 that the George W. Bush administration’s case for going to war against Iraq was bogus has weighed in on this new warmongering ploy:
Source: Elbaradei: Trump Propaganda on Iran Nuclear Deal like Run-up to Iraq War | Informed Comment
Not only are our two publicly owned television channels spewing pro US rhetoric, our so called “left-wing” party, Labor have once again bent over for Uncle Sam. Why do both parties constantly shill for US wars? The answer is that our rich and powerful elite need the US. This is all about money and both parties are very much protecting the parasitism and immorality of the very wealthy.
Source: “War Pigs” – » The Australian Independent Media Network
In case you haven’t noticed, the US is about to start another war. Remember George W. Bush and the lead up to the US invasion of Iraq in 2003? On that occasion it was a carefully calculated move, complete with lies about Saddam Hussein’s arsenal, fabricated intelligence delivered to the United Nations by then Secretary…
Source: It’s all happening again. – » The Australian Independent Media Network
The billionaire inventor says an artificial intelligence arms race, and not the nuclear stand-off on the Korean Peninsula, will most likely be the cause of World War III.
By Riccardo Labianco | (The Conversation) | – – Since the catastrophic Yemeni civil war began in 2015, the British …
Source: Should Western Countries be Selling Masses of Arms to Saudi Arabia? | Informed Comment
Trump’s mercenary supporter Erik Prince has a self-serving proposal for Afghanistan. It must be condemned and rejected.
The United States is on a war path with Iran.
Source: America’s Looming War with Iran: What You’re Not Being Told
World leaders aren’t taking Donald Trump’s trade barbs lying down.
The United States remains the world’s dominant weapons dealer despite a fall in sales.
Source: Who’s benefiting from the war industry? – Al Jazeera English
Worries of ‘New Cold War’ intensify as United States cuts diplomatic ties with Moscow over war in Syria.
Source: Russian Government Orders 40 Million Citizens to Prepare for Nuclear War
The U.S. is addicted to war. Stopping this horrible situation is up to the American people. The way we do this is by getting informed. These documentaries can help.
Source: Important Anti-War Films That Reveal the Uncensored History of the United States – Truthdig
Former New York mayor and close Trump ally discusses Republican nominee’s call to take Iraq’s oil, a move which appears to break international law
An Arkansas judge has been accused of operating a “modern-day debtor’s prison” that has locked up poverty-stricken citizens incapable of paying their bills,
Source: Judge Sends Cancer Patient to Jail For 90 Days When He Can’t Pay His Bill
At the annual Veterans For Peace convention, speakers including filmmaker Oliver Stone, historian Andrew Bracevich and journalist Ann Jones discussed public relation campaigns in support of war and the struggles American veterans face.
Source: War ‘Has Become a Permanent Condition’ for the United States – Truthdig
Soldiers in Britain’s elite special forces regiment associated with organized crime gangs, sold ammunition and some may have been borderline psychopaths, SAS veteran Chris Ryan has claimed.
Trump’s flap with the Khans over “sacrifice” misses a crucial question: Sacrifice for what?
The NATO summit says that the war is on the doorstep. They see Putin as their enemy
Source: The West has raped, killed and destroyed the whole world – PravdaReport
Barack Obama has called for a “world without nuclear weapons” during a historic speech in Hiroshima, Japan. There are around 15,850 nuclear warheads spread between nine nations, according to a report from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).
By William D. Hartung | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – Now you see it, now you don’t. Think of it as …
Source: The Pentagon’s War on Accountability: At 600 Bn a Year, Why aren’t any Wars being Won?
An Australian soldier speaks publicly for the first time about a commando night raid in which five Afghan children were killed.
