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POPS500,000 Troops Will Be Required Over Five Years in Afghanistan Congress should immediately convene hearings to discuss alternatives to General McChrystal's proposal for such a massive escalation of the war in Afghanistan. It is time for the administration and Congress to demilitarize U.S. policy in Afghanistan and strike out in a new, sustainable, direction.
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POPSIs America Hooked on War?
When it comes to war (and peace), we live in a world of American Newspeak in which alternatives to a state of war are not only ever more unacceptable, but ever harder to imagine. War is now our permanent situation. It lacks, for instance, "victory." But achieving victory no longer seems to matter. War American-style is now conceptually unending, as are preparations for it. In a sense, the ongoing war system can't absorb victory. Any such endpoint might indeed prove to be a kind of defeat. Similarly drained of its traditional meaning has been the word "security". If we ever decided we were either secure enough, or more willing to live without the unreachable idea of total security, the American way of war and the national security state would lose much of their meaning. In other words, in our world, security is insecurity. And peace itself? Simply put, there's no money in it. America's true religion and addiction, is force. Americans are --always--marching as to war.
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POPSUS Hypocrisy Astonishes the World The exceptional “virtuous nation” does not think it is insensitive for America’s bombs to blow innocent villagers to pieces. What does the world think of the United States? The US government is like a criminal who accuses the police of his crime when he is arrested or a sociopathic abuser who blames the victim. It is a known fact that the CIA has violated US law and international law with its assassinations, kidnappings and torture. But it is not this criminal agency that will be held accountable. Instead, those who will be punished will be those moral beings who, appalled at the illegality and inhumanity of the CIA, leaked the evidence of the agency’s crimes. America uber alles! No one counts but us (and Israel). The deaths we inflict and the pain and suffering we bring to others are merely collateral damage on the bloody path to American hegemony.
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POPSNATO's War Plans For The High North "'These exercises increase the risk of a conflict,' says Anna Ek, head of Sweden's Peace and Arbitration Society. 'They send out offensive and aggressive signals. Should we really be planning for a conflict with Russia while there is still a window of opportunity for cooperation in the Arctic?' "This can be perceived as very provocative. The Barents region with its proximity to the Arctic makes it a sensitive area. With all the talk about melting ice and the fight over natural resources this can look like a demonstration of power from NATO's side." "NATO is not a defensive alliance. It is the world's largest nuclear weapons club and war machine." The huge exercise took place 8 to 18 June 2009. I have never even heard of it and I live here! Tss!
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POPSWar And Peace This is a great site with loads of good books and you can get them delivered in installments by email or RSS, all for free. You can decide how often you want to receive them, too. I'm going to start on War and Peace. I'll tell you in 663 days if I liked it, or not. .:D
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POPSGaza: The Wider War It is welcome news for al-Qaida. Indeed, Osama bin Laden has frequently characterised the alliance between the United States and Israel in ideological terms as a "crusader-Zionist" assault on Islam. In this light, the great advantage of the Gaza war of 2008-09 to Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and their associates is that it revalidates and reinvigorates the Zionist dimension of their worldview before a global audience. The implications of that are both complex and uncertain, but it is certain that the Gaza war will be used repeatedly in the years to come to implant and reinforce the al-Qaida message.
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POPSUSA Needs Nuclear Explosion to Turn the World Into Dictatorship new mega terrorist act will justify the beginning of USA’s new aggression in the Middle East. The Pentagon started to develop the plan of the new war in April 2006 – the third war after the campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan. Stew Bykovsky, a well-known columnist, said in his interview in August 2007 that America needed another 9/11 because the country had forgotten who its enemy was. Which weapon would make it possible to conduct a major terrorist attack with countless casualties and produce the effect of universal panic? A nuclear weapon would suit this goal best. It would not be a hardship to say that a nuclear explosion was conducted by Islamic terrorists who stole nukes from Russia in the beginning of the 1990s. A nuclear mushroom grows somewhere in the USA and the country launches another war and introduces dictatorship. Wow. Russia has a very bleak view of America, eh? I wonder why... :roll:
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POPSZinn: 9/11 Truth Has "No Practical Political Significance" Without 9/11 there would be no "War on Terror". Without 9/11 there would be no "clash of civilizations" Without 9/11 there would be no war in Afghanistan. Without 9/11 there would be no war in Iraq. Without 9/11 thousands of U.S. troops would not have been sent to their deaths. Without 9/11 hundreds of thousands of citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan would not have been sentenced to their deaths. Without 9/11 there would be no inaction on the Israeli-Palestinian peace process. Without 9/11 there would be no civilian contractors in Iraq and the scandal that has followed. Without 9/11 there would be no false military reporting (Pat Tillman, Jessica Lynch), and no crack down on the freedom of the press (banning photos of the returning coffins.)
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POPSThe Answer Terrifies Them Foreign terrorism against Americans would disappear along with the need for a "war on terror." Civil liberties that were suspended could be restored. A sense of balance and harmony could return to our lives. Ending interventionism would mean that the era of big government in foreign affairs could be brought to an end.
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POPSThe Case for U.S. Withdrawal from Afghanistan So if aerial bombardments and occupations give legitimacy to those very fundamentalists who Afghans would remove from power, what does the real war on fundamentalism look like? And it's not just that the Afghan population believes that the Taliban resistance is legitimate; that resistance is legitimate under international law. No less important a document than the United Nations charter gives the Taliban and other Afghans the right to legitimate self-defense against U.S. aggression. Instead of scaling up an already disastrous war, the United States should change it's course The whole article is worth a read.
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POPSHope for Change? Bush may speak of al Qaeda, perhaps of "Islamofascism," and others he'll accuse of brutality, while contrasting their ideology with a vision he claims to have of peace, liberty, prosperity. But the U.S. government differs not from those extremist groups who use violence to further their causes, for ours is a government which also uses unjustified violence or the intimidating threat thereof to advance its own agenda. The US... has become like the rogue states it takes pride in condemning. Our military is not used to defend our freedom any longer, it is used to enforce an evil interventionist foreign policy. I do believe this empire will eventually end. The choice is between ending it voluntarily by choosing peace and bringing our troops home from all over the world, or its demise out of necessity from economic and human suffering in America. To save lives, rather than a "liberation" of Iraq, the world needs liberation from American imperialism.
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POPSCitizens Will Risk Arrest to Bring Indictment of Bush and Cheney In April 2008, Obama said that as president he would indeed ask his new Attorney General and his deputies to "immediately review the information that's already there" and determine if an inquiry is warranted. It is the responsibility of citizens to make sure this happens. Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Tribunals following World War II, stated, "let me make clear that while this law is first applied against German aggressors, the law includes, and if it is to serve a useful purpose it must condemn aggression by any other nations, including those which sit here now in judgement." It is time, no matter who becomes our next president, to bring the criminals of the Bush regime to justice. We, the people, have the power and we can restore justice. Our group would include someone who was directly affected by the illegal invasion of Iraq.
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POPSFrom "War on Terror" to "War of Terror" This war in Afghanistan's not about avenging the 9-11 attacks or preventing new ones. It's about killing local fighters, who fight to rid Afghanistan of unwelcome foreigners from Christian-majority countries. What began as a "War on Terror" has long since become a War of Terror. The Canadians and Europeans have long since tired of it. So have the American people, despite the failure of the corporate media to expose the Big Lies that Cheney and Bush continue to promote in order to justify their Terror War. Seven years down the road, there's no end in sight. No hope except for the "fool's hope" that public opinion in the imperialist countries, plus the inevitable resistance of the Afghans to foreign control, plus the military judgement that the war is not winnable will bring this "good war" to an end. The whole article is worth reading. Clip Song
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POPSAmerica's Israeli-Occupied Media During the Six-Day War, Israel attacked and nearly sank the USS Liberty belonging to its closest ally, the USA. Thirty-four American servicemen were killed in the two-hour assault by Israeli warplanes and torpedo boats. Israel claimed that the whole affair had been a tragic accident based on mistaken identification of the ship. The American government accepted the explanation. Dead In The Water - The Sinking of the USS Liberty - 69 min Documentary 'The Israel lobby - The influence of AIPAC on US Foreign Policy' - 51 min
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POPSThe Core Misconceptions In The "War On Terror" "Terrorism is a particular tactic of political violence. Wars are conducted between states. Declaring a war on terror is like declaring war on serial murderers. War is what al-Qaeda wants. Such language elevates the terrorists to the level of warriors in a battle. The terrorists are criminals, not warriors, and should be treated accordingly. "
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POPSHow Can We Turn From War As A Solution? I'm not sure how I feel about the draft. On one hand, the thought of antiwar and non-violent people being forced to join the abhorrent killing machine, is horrifying to me. On the other hand, if a nation chooses to start a war, should it only be the civilians of the victim nation, who have to pay the price? Would the apathy and nonchalance towards war fade, if everyone (able) was at risk for being drafted? If the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue to drag on, (for a hundred years?) will America have any choice, but to bring back the draft? What say you?
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POPSWhen America Ceases To Be Good I am under no illusions about the nature of the people who think they own our government. They have declared unto themselves the new power of Extraordinary Rendition which means they believe they have the right to kidnap, imprison, torture, and even kill any person anywhere in the world. I want to leave this country not because I am foolish enough to think it will make me safe but because I can no longer justify being part of the Greatest Force for Evil in the twenty-first century. Wow. Americans fleeing America. Surreal. Who would ever have thought it, huh?
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POPSHypothetical Attack On U.S. Outlined By China The Chinese first-strike strategy is “more than hypothetical,” according to the report. But in the near term, at least, it’s considered unlikely. ----- The likely trigger would be Taiwanese elections, where assertions of complete independence from the mainland can infuriate Chinese leaders. In 2012, however, when Taiwan holds an election and mainland China’s leadership is expected to turn over, perhaps for the worse, the risk of conflict could increase.
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POPSThe War of Terror No, it's not a typo... "WE" are the terrorists. (A 3-minute excerpt from an interview with John Pilger.)
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POPSUS Mass Infanticide Let’s do a “body count”: From UN Population Division data (see: http://esa.un.org/unpp/ ) it can be calculated that Indigenous under-5 infant deaths total: 1.2 million (Sanctions War against Iraq, 1990-2003), 0.6 million (Iraq war 2003-2007) and 2.2 million (Afghanistan War, 2001-2007), a grand total of 4 million under-5 infant deaths in these US-violated territories, 90% avoidable (i.e. 3.6 million avoidable infant deaths) and largely due to gross US war crimes in gross violation of the Geneva Convention
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POPSAttack on Iran Risks Annialation of The Fifth Fleet Iran’s response will predictably result in a military escalation that culminates in Iran using its arsenal of anti-ship cruise missiles on the U.S. Fifth Fleet and closing off the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping. -------------------- The closing of the Strait of Hormuz to all shipping and total war conditions in the U.S. would lead to a collapse of the world economy, and further erosion of civil liberties in a U.S. engaged in total war.
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POPSTaxi To The Dark Side "An isolated incident. There's always a few bad apples" A few?? The whole damn tree is rotten to the core.
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POPSHeat Or Eat? So the choice for many poor will be between sick children, starving or freezing to death?? Oh well, no worries. America will take it all in it's stride. The poor can always just wrap themselves in the flag to keep warm. Or they can join the military! They say it's really hot over there in the desert. In any case, not to worry. If America is going down, at least it will be doing it in a blaze of *glory*. Now, where were we? Oh yeah ... "Support the troops". Yay. :(
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POPSMany in US Military: Bush & Cheney Out of Control CENTCOM Admiral William Fallon reportedly thwarted Cheney's wish to sent a third additional aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. One paper wrote that he "vowed privately there would be no war against Iran as long as he was chief of CENTCOM." The whole article is worth a read.
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POPSWhat Cats Know About War Read the rest at the source. In a place where we could do little else... the tally became a measure of one small thing we could do to favour life over death. Animals are often forgotten victims of war and disasters. Hats off to all who will spare a thought for the poor animals who get caught up in the miseries of mankind too. Good luck Scooter and family! .:)
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POPSA Time To Break Silence "America's soul. .... can never be saved so long as it destroys the deepest hopes of men the world over." - Martin Luther King. A different war, a different time, but MLK's words still ring true.
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