U.S. 2014 budgetary priorities reflect chronic paradigm in violence

 Destroying futures at home and abroad

Re-reporting, editing, commentary by Carolyn Bennett

Deliberate cruelty

Reported by the Associated Press, U.S. President Barack Obama has proposed a $3.8 trillion budget for fiscal year 2014 that, among other warped priorities, increases war funding and decreases education funding. 

Citadel of U.S. global violence: protracted war

Department of Defense 

Total Spending: $682.9 billion            [700 BILLION]

Percentage Change from 2013: 0.5 percent increase

Discretionary Spending: $615.3 billion

Mandatory Spending: $67.6 billion    [70 BILLION]

Cradle of future creators and leaders

Department of Education

 

Total Spending: $56.7 billion [60 BILLION]

Percentage Change from 2013: 10.8 percent decrease

Discretionary Spending: $71.2 billion

Mandatory Spending: $0        [ZERO]

The U.S. president’s proposed defense spending is almost 12 times ─ even on an incomplete list as war spending is spread out across government agencies ─ the level of education spending. It’s a good thing the president and members of congress are millionaires, pensioned, on corporate payrolls and speaker circuits so they don’t have to worry about their heirs and the future of their heirs.

Connected with defense is nuclear proliferation. Under “energy,” the president is proposing a 35.3 percent increase over 2013, which includes is a $2.1 BILLION DOLLAR upgrade in the U.S. nuclear weapons stockpile.

Britain and the United States ─ under threat by no nation or people but instead a threat to all ─ are upgrading their deadly weaponry while demonizing Iran for wanting nuclear technology for energy purposes. While claiming not to “trust” Iran, demanding an end to energy use of nuclear material and attempting to destroy peoples and drive them from their land (Iraq, Iran, North Korea and other places) by the imposition of economic sanctions (warfare by another name) ─ the United States alone holds the distinction of having wiped out hundreds of thousands of people and lands, committed unconscionable harm lasting well into the future, with its detonation of the atomic bomb.

U.S./West’s straw man (person) tactic justifying cruelty

To ‘attack a straw man’ is to create the illusion of having refuted a proposition by replacing it with a superficially similar yet unequal or different proposition (the ‘straw man’); and to refute the ‘straw man’ without ever having actually refuted the original position.

S

traw man fallacy occurs in the following pattern of argument:

Person 1 has position X.

Person 2 disregards certain key points of X and instead presents the superficially similar position Y. The position Y is a distorted version of X and can be set up in several ways, including:

Presenting a misrepresentation of the opponent’s position;

Quoting an opponent’s words out of context—i.e., choosing quotations that misrepresent the opponent’s actual intentions;

Presenting someone who defends a position poorly as the defender, then refuting that person’s arguments—thus giving the appearance that every upholder of that position (and thus the position itself) has been defeated;

Inventing a fictitious persona with actions or beliefs which are then criticized, implying that the person represents a group of whom the speaker is critical;

Oversimplifying an opponent’s argument then attacking this oversimplified version.

Person 2 attacks position Y, concluding that X is false/incorrect/flawed.

T

his reasoning is fallacious because attacking a distorted version of a position does not address the actual position. The ostensible argument that Person 2 makes has the form:

‘Don’t support X because X has an unacceptable (or absurd or contradictory or terrible) consequence.’

However, the actual form of the argument is:

‘Don’t support X because Y has an unacceptable (or absurd or contradictory or terrible) consequence.’

This argument doesn’t make sense; it is a non sequitur. Person 2 relies on the audience not noticing this.

U

nited States’ nuclear straw man against Iran

In a report yesterday by Press TV, Iran’s Ambassador to France, Ali Ahani, continued to emphasize “that Iran has vehemently rejected claims that its nuclear energy program has military purposes, saying Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei issued a religious decree (fatwa) two years ago on the prohibition of production, proliferation and the use of nuclear weapons.”

Note: The Iranian cleric and politician Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei served as president of Iran (1981–89) and as that country’s Rahbar or Leader from 1989. A religious figure of some significance, Khamenei was generally addressed honorifically as Ayatollah.

“On February 22, 2012, Ayatollah Khamenei said the Islamic Republic considers the pursuit and possession of nuclear weapons ‘a grave sin’ from every logical, religious and theoretical standpoint [and described the proliferation of nuclear weapons as ‘senseless, destructive and dangerous,’ adding that the Iranian nation has never sought and will never seek atomic bombs as the country already has the conventional capacity to challenge the nuclear powers.”

 Ahani reiterated to Press TV that the Ayatollah Khamenei had announced that the use of atomic weapons is a crime against humanity. As far back as September 1974, he said, “Iran proposed an initiative to the United Nations on the establishment of a Middle East Free of Nuclear Weapons and has been following up on it insistently. However it seems that everybody is overlooking such realities and no country is willing to acknowledge Iran as a responsible country and a signatory to the NPT (Non-proliferation Treaty or Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons) that seeks to use its legal rights just as other IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) members.…

“

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) closely monitors Iran’s nuclear energy work through cameras that have been installed at the country’s nuclear facilities and sites and record all activities around the clock.” Ahani said Iran’s “‘nuclear energy program is completely non-military [and] it is the Western countries that insist Iran is pursuing a military nuclear program.’

“The United States, Israel and some of their allies have falsely accused Iran of pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program, with the U.S. and European Union using the claim as an excuse to impose illegal sanctions against Tehran.

The West, the ambassador said, “refrains from accepting the realities of Tehran’s nuclear energy program.”

Priorities in chaos and killing

Stockpile, destabilize, displace, destroy by any means

Air, ground or underground, sea, robotics, remote

The U.S. President’s budget proposes ZERO for a national domestic jobs program and ZERO for mandatory domestic education spending but gazillions for high tech public funding private ventures (drones?).

“Advanced Manufacturing Technology Consortia program” (WHAT!?): $21 million

“International Trade Administration”: $520 million (off shoring jobs?)

“National Institute of Standards and Technology laboratories” (WHAT!?): $754 million (“cyber security, manufacturing, communications, disaster resilience”? Meaning what exactly ─ warrantless surveillance, domestic, foreign spying, black sites?)

U.S. wars against peoples of Afghanistan, Pakistan

The people of Pakistan continue to suffer under U.S. technology. In today’s news today four people died needlessly. Press TV reports “a U.S. killer drone fired two missiles at a house in Datta Khel area located some 35 kilometers (22 miles) west of Miranshah, the main town in the Pakistani tribal region of North Waziristan.” The full death toll is not yet known but at the time of the report four people had died as a result of yet another attack “carried out by a U.S. assassination drone in northwestern Pakistan.”

W

hat is to me patently, disingenuously callous is to hear that deaths of the young in the United States (Connecticut or Chicago or Colorado or Virginia) murdered by whomever in public places are somehow more important than the hundreds of millions of defenseless children, women and men slaughtered, wounded in mind and body (not to mention young U.S. soldiers), robbed of their livelihoods and homes in so many malicious ways and there is no outrage, arrest or prosecution, or demands for the carnage to stop. I suspect Washington’s orators don’t care about the dead in California or New York or New Orleans or Georgia or Connecticut or Chicago or Colorado or Virginia either.

I seem to digress but they all connect; now return to U.S. massacres in Afghanistan’s southern neighbor bordering India.

The author, political analyst and historian, Webster Tarpley, told Press TV that Washington’s use of assassination drones and continued military presence in neighboring Afghanistan is a ploy to weaken, divide and destroy Pakistan. Consider similarly factional or sectarian violence all across the Middle East, where people had once lived together in harmony (consider the Koreas that had been trying to normalize, to resolve their conflict, consider Africa and the Americas) ─ stirred up and inflamed by Western foreigners in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, Lebanon.

“The use of U.S.-led assassination drones in Pakistan and the ongoing war in Afghanistan,” Tarpley said, “are both part of Washington’s policy to eventually break up states which are ‘big enough to defend themselves.’”

T

his is the chronically violent, irrational and insensible model of U.S. engagement in the world. It is an ethos, a character that drives U.S. budgetary priorities and it inflicts deep and lasting harm on the United States of America and its people and on other nations and peoples of the world.  

Sources and notes

“An agency-by-agency guide to Obama’s 2014 budget” The Associated Press, Sunday, April 14, 2013 | 12:38 a.m., http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2013/apr/14/us-obama-budget-agency-highlights/

“West refuses to accept realities of Iran's nuclear energy program: Envoy,” April 13, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/04/13/298005/west-evading-realities-of-iran-nwork/

“U.S. assassination drone attack kills 4 in NW Pakistan,” April 14, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/04/14/298274/us-drone-strike-kills-4-in-pakistan/

“U.S. seeks to divide Pakistan through drones, Afghan war: Analyst,” April 14, 2013,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/04/14/298241/washington-seeks-to-divide-pakistan/

Straw man (person): “One common folk etymology of ‘straw man’ is that it refers to men who stood outside courthouses with a straw in their shoe in order to indicate their willingness to be a false witness.” 

Straw man, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Straw_man

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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Streets of the Americas to Cluster bombs to encore Kuwait

Violence incorporated

Re-reporting, editing, brief comment by Carolyn Bennett

A character of violence pervasively violates. There’s no end to it.

When “religious” people rape women and impressionable young people with impunity; when military personnel rape women, men and the young (including their colleagues); when military officers mutilate people in countries they have invaded, destroyed and occupied and do this publicly, on camera and with impunity; when Washington makes a practice of violating people at home and abroad — why feign shock when mere sports figures commit acts to which we,  by our silence, have sanctioned?

USA domestic

Soldiers

A United States military officer stationed in Afghanistan who gunned down unarmed Afghan civilians for sport and dismembered them for trophies now stands convicted of his crimes. His colleague criminals apparently said this military officer “played with his victims' corpses as if they were “puppets.” The so-called “Kill team” leader imprinted skulls on his leg keeping count of his slaughter.

Teachers

Staff of one of the United States’ “distinguished” universities for years allowed their colleagues to sexually abuse the young. A sports coach covered up the crimes, in effect lending approval. Top administrators did nothing. One boy was reportedly sexually assaulted at least 20 times. When the coach and college president were finally called to account, though in a limited way, thousands of students went “on a rampage” protesting the firing of an entrenched coach who saw the crimes and let them happen.

Elders

In the U.S. State of Georgia, another group of American criminals composed a “hit list” of Americans and U.S. cities and icons to destroy. These “elder citizens” apparently plotted to spray deadly ricin over U.S. cities and kill major political figures or government officials. They stand accused of “plotting to produce toxin and buying machine gun parts.”

USA International

 

There is a permeating presence of violence — a  Foreign Policy of Violence

AFRICA

SOMALIA

This week 79 more people died in U.S. assassination drone attacks in southern Somalia. These deaths bring the death toll to 146 in two days.

The U.S. military reportedly launched the terror drone attacks today on Bilis Qooqaani town located d 448 kilometers (278 miles) southwest of the Somali capital Mogadishu. Along with the dead, several people others were injured in the strikes.

Today’s aerial attacks follow U.S. terror drone strikes against Afmadow city in the middle of the Juba region, 620 kilometers (385 miles) south of Mogadishu. The earlier aerial assassination attacks reportedly killed at least 29 people and wounded 43 others.

 Another 38 people died and more than 66 others were wounded after U.S. remote-controlled terror drones launched attacks on Tabataa town in the southern Lower Juba region of Somalia.

Somalia is the sixth country where the United States has used assassination drones to launch deadly missile strikes. On October 28, the United States admitted to flying the terror aircraft from a base in Ethiopia.

Horn of Africa including
Somalia

Somalia is strategically located in the Horn of Africa and generates the highest number of refugees and internally displaced persons in the world.

The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in September warned that the humanitarian situation remains ‘highly critical’ in Somalia. Somali doctors also warned that more than 1,479 people, mostly women and children, are suffering from cholera and other waterborne diseases in Mogadishu and Afgooye town.

Within a 24-hour period at the time of today’s news report, Press TV said, cholera took the lives of 87 more people. “The victims died within the past 24 hours in Mogadishu, and in Afgooye town in the Shabeellaha Hoose region of southern Somalia about 25 kilometers (16 miles) west of Mogadishu.

Commenting this week on the Washington’s belligerence and failure to advocate or actively cooperate for peace  in the Middle East, Iraq’s influential religious and political leader Muqtada al-Sadr said that the United States plans to expand its occupation of Islamic countries.

“Occupying Iraq means occupying what is around Iraq, and then to control the Middle East.”

Oil rig in
Persian Gulf off Kuwait

ASIA

PERSIA - MIDDLE EAST

U.S. forces move from Iraq to Kuwait adding to the 23,000 soldiers already deployed in the oil-rich Persian Gulf emirate.

The United States has reportedly decided to station a 4,000-soldier U.S. army Brigade Combat Team in Kuwait after withdrawing them from neighboring Iraq by the end of the year. Implementation of this deepening occupation reportedly depends on a final decision by military planners and Kuwaiti leaders.

Commenting on the news of redeployment of U.S. troops, Muqtada al-Sadr said last Thursday that the U.S. plans to station troops across the Middle East region is a move that amounts to occupying other Islamic countries. “‘America is not only occupying Iraq but also other Islamic countries.… Occupying Iraq means occupying what is around Iraq, and then to control the Middle East.’”

In the face of incessant bullying from Washington together with what some have called a false IAEA report on Iran’s nuclear capability, leaders in Iran let fire with their own belligerence. The Iranian armed forces chief said, “Iran will not be bullied by hegemonic regimes.”

IRAN [U.S. allied against]

After the most recent U. S. and Israeli anti-Iran rhetoric threatening a military strike on the pretext that Iran’s nuclear program may have a covert military aspect, Iran’s Deputy Head of Armed Forces Joint Chiefs of Staff Brigadier General Masoud Jazayeri issued a warning. On Friday, he said “that if arrogant regimes do not learn anything from their past encounters with Iran, Tehran ‘will have no choice but to adopt measures and respond in a way’ that will teach the West to stop their wrongful behavior.”

Referencing U.S. and Israeli threats, an article in Pravda reported that Russia and Germany have warned Israel against striking Iran.

Oil rig - Iran
Second to Saudi Arabia in exports 

“Foreign ministers of Germany and Russia, Sergei Lavrov and Guido Westerwelle, fear that striking a blow on Iran will not solve the problem. Moreover, it will lead to considerable loss of life among civilians and will endanger the security both in the region and in the rest of the world. The ministers believe that there are diplomatic opportunities left to solve the problem of the Iranian nuclear program peacefully.”

Iran holds the world’s third largest proven oil reserves and the second-largest natural gas reserves. Of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), Iran is next to Saudi Arabia as the second major oil exporter.

Iran exports oil to Pakistan and this week an Iranian oil official said Iran’s oil shipments to Pakistan continue as scheduled and a new contract on oil sales to this country is to be finalized.

GULF

BAHRAIN [U.S. allied with dynasty here and in Saudi Arabia]

Since mid-February, thousands of anti-government protesters have been holding regular demonstrations in Bahrain. They are calling for the U.S.-backed Al Khalifa royal family to relinquish power. On March 14, troops from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates invaded Bahrain to assist the ruling regime in its brutal crackdown on peaceful protesters in the Persian Gulf Island, home to a huge military base, the U.S. Navy’s fifth fleet.

This week thousands of Bahrainis attended an anti-government protest rally in the capital, Manama, organized by the al-Wefaq opposition group, and called for the release of hundreds of Bahrainis detained for supporting anti-regime protests. The mass rally came one day after Saudi-back Bahraini forces fired tear gas and rubber bullets at the house of Sheikh Ali Salman, the top leader of the al-Wefaq party.

JORDAN [U.S. allied with repressive regime]

Since January, Jordanians have been holding street protests demanding reforms, including the election of the prime minister by popular vote and an end to government corruption. There have been no calls for the removal of the king.

This week, hundreds took to the streets in the southern city of Tafila calling for an end to corruption and the prosecution of dishonest officials.

TURKEY receives U.S.-operated drones

According to reports, Turkey has received four U.S. Predator drones now stationed in Turkey’s southern Incirlik air base. A Press TV correspondent reported on Friday, “Two of the drones arrived in Turkey on October 16; the remaining ones were delivered on October 23.”

Citing reports, the correspondent said, “The U.S. will operate the drones whenever it receives a request from Turkey to do so. Turkish military personnel will not be allowed to operate the drones.”

The delivery of these drones comes after an agreement by Turkey and the United States “to step up the fight against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) ‘terrorists.’”

YEMEN [U.S. allied with repressive regime]

Also since January in Yemen, hundreds of thousands of Yemenis have been holding anti-government demonstrations demanding an end to the rule of Ali Abdullah Saleh.

Demonstrators have also called for his execution for the brutal crackdown on popular demonstrations. Hundreds of peaceful protesters have died and many more have been injured.

Today in the southern city of Taizz, Saleh’s Republican Guard troops shelled residential areas. At least 15 Yemenis died and dozens suffered wounds. Among the dead were three women and three children. Witnesses told the press, “Saleh loyalists started shelling residential areas in Taizz shortly after midnight (2100 GMT Thursday) and intensified their crackdown into the morning.”

ASIA

Central/South

AFGHANISTAN [under U.S. invasion, occupation]

Increasing numbers of military dead have given rise to rising anger in the U.S. and in other NATO member states. Across Afghanistan, insecurity rises despite or because of nearly 150,000 U.S.-led forces in this war-ravaged country. Civilian casualties, already at record levels in the first six months of the year, according to a September UN report, climbed by five percent between June and August 2011 compared with the same three-month period in 2010. People displaced by the conflict in the first seven months of the year, according to estimates, are 130,000 — up nearly two-thirds from the same period last year.

Today, another soldier serving with the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) died in a “militant” attack in southern Afghanistan.

In cold blood — Early last year in Afghanistan’s Kandahar province U.S. Staff Sergeant Calvin Gibbs and four other soldiers during patrols killed unarmed Afghan men.

Prosecutors said Gibbs and his co-defendants knew the victims posed no danger. However, to make the victims appear to have been combatants, Gibbs and his co-criminals had dropped weapons by the bodies of the men they killed.

Gibbs admitted, “Cutting fingers off corpses and yanking out a victim’s tooth to keep as war trophies — ‘like keeping the antlers off a deer you’d shoot.’”

On Thursday, a U.S. military jury brought in a verdict of guilty for the head of an army unit that killed three Afghan civilians for sport and collected body parts as war trophies. The sergeant was convicted of murder, conspiracy and other charges. The maximum sentence given was life in a military prison.

PAKISTAN [under U.S. drone attacks]

Thousands of people have died in incidents of violence across Pakistan since 2007.

Yesterday in the troubled northwest Pakistani tribal areas where government troops are fighting militants, unknown assailants destroyed a state-run school. Detonated explosives severely damaged the school building in the Shabqadar village situated in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province 136 kilometers (85 miles) northwest of the capital Islamabad. The school was empty at the time and no casualties were reported.

AMERICAS

USA

Suicide, shootouts

Two men died Thursday night on separate U.S. coasts after shots were fired in or close to Occupy Oakland and Occupy Burlington encampments.

In Burlington, Vermont, a preliminary police investigation has shown that a 35-year-old former U.S. soldier killed himself yesterday at an “Occupy Wall Street encampment.” The same day close to an Occupy Oakland, California, camp, “six shots were fired in a gunfight” that left one person dead. Protesters in both states had encountered resistance from police and local government officials.

MURDEROUS intent, implementation

The United States has consistently refused to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions so far having been signed by 111 countries. The Convention prohibits cluster munitions and requires the destruction of stockpiles within eight years. Cluster bombs are highly imprecise weapons that work by dispersing hundreds of smaller sub-munitions — often referred to as bomblets or grenades — which do not explode immediately but later when civilians are about, often children at play.

The United States used cluster bombs in the initial phases of its wars against Afghanistan and Iraq. Israel dropped more than four million bomblets on southern Lebanon in July 2006, some of which were M85s. Norwegian experts discovered that on the field of battle the M85 had a failure rate close to 10 percent. The world’s major cluster bomb manufacturers — that include the U.S., Israel, Russia, China, South Korea, India and Pakistan — have all refused to sign the Convention on Cluster Munitions.

Now, U.S. officials are leading an effort to water down an international ban on cluster bombs, weapons that kill long after they are dropped and without regard for enemy or ally, whether innocent child or entrenched combatant.

“Within days,” Pravda reports, “the U.S. could approve a new law allowing the use of cluster bombs — a banned lethal weapon that kills children in playgrounds years after wars have ended. However, if we build a mass campaign now, we can convince other governments to stop the U.S. from using these weapons.”

 

HAITI

Cleansing with Cholera

The cholera started in Haiti nine months after a 2010 earthquake wrecked the capital Port-au-Prince, killing tens of thousands and leaving many more homeless. The cholera outbreak did not remain within the borders of Haiti; it has spread to Dominican Republic, the neighboring country on the island of La Hispaniola. Several studies including one carried out by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that the contamination was spread from a pipe discharging refuse from a Nepalese military camp.

After numerous investigations suggested that the cholera, which has killed 6,600 Haitian people and infected about 475,000 others, was brought to the quake-hit island by Nepalese peacekeepers, Haitians have taken legal action against the UN seeking hundreds of millions of dollars compensation for the cholera outbreak in the Caribbean country.

In their petition, Haitians argued that the UN peacekeepers caused the deaths by throwing untreated waste infected with cholera into the main river of the country.

MEXICO

Since President Felipe Calderon deployed security forces to the streets to fight the drug cartels, drug violence in the past four years has killed more than 40,000 people in Mexico. Mexican government findings show that 2010 was the bloodiest year so far — with 15,273 drug-related murders.

In late September in several locations in the municipality of Boca del Rio, Mexican police found 46 bodies.

This week, Mexican police found victims whose dead bodies bore signs of violence. The dead were seven men and women in a village outside the country’s northern city of Durango.

[U.S] NATO 

An idea whose time has come [an opinion excerpted in part from Pravda]

ACCUSED

“Case of the century: Indictment against North Atlantic Treaty Organization [NATO] military and political leaders

An Indictment of NATO

For breach of international law in the

Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya

“Understanding that international law exists and that with impunity it has been systematically broken by certain powers

“Understanding that such a situation is unacceptable and that the same set of laws should apply to all, equally, with the same sets of weights and measures employed in upholding it —

“The military and political leaders of NATO are hereby accused of the following crimes committed in the Libyan campaign of 2011 in which the systematic breaches of international law are underlined.

“I hereby accuse NATO and the below-mentioned individuals, party to its acts in the Great Socialist People’s Libyan Arab Jamahiriya from February to September (ongoing) 2011, of breach of international law.”

Accusation:

“NATO war crimes, crimes against humanity, breach of UN Charter, Breach of UNSC Resolutions, breach of Geneva Conventions, occasioning murder, attempted murder, actions occasioning grievous and actual bodily harm, destruction of private and public property.”

The Accused:

“Anders Fogh Rasmussen (Denmark) NATO Secretary-General;

Charles Bouchard (Canada), Commander of Operations;

Nicolas Sarkozy, Édouard Guillaud (France);

Rinaldo Veri, Commander Allied Maritime Command (Italy);

David Cameron, Sir Stuart Peach (UK);

Barack Obama, Carter Ham, Sam Locklear (USA);

Harald Sunde (Norway),

Abdullah II (Jordan);

Hamad bin Khalifa al Thani (Qatar),

Khalifa bin Zayed al Nahyan (UAE);

Sverker Goranson (Sweden);

Defense Ministers Pieter de Crem (Belgium),

Anuy Angelov (Bulgaria),

Gitte Lillelund Bech (Denmark);

Panos Beglitis (Greece);

Hans Hillen (Netherlands);

Gabriel Oprea (Romania);

Carme Chacón Piqueras (Spain);

Ismet Yilmaz (Turkey),

Liam Fox (UK),

Ignazio La Russa (Italy),

Gérard Longuet (France).

Foreign Minister William Hague (UK),

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (USA)

Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini”

U.S. foreign relations

Arming and bankrolling to create domestic and regional pressure • assassination with impunity •    direct aggression • direct/indirect threat/intimidation • displacement/destabilization • economic/financial sanctions • failing nations • failure to negotiate with words or nonviolent diplomacy • provocation/incitement to protracted violence • occupation • unlawful search and detention • torture…

The United States is at WAR with the world’s peoples and their countries —

1.     Afghanistan	2.     Bahrain
3.     Cuba	4.     Djibouti
5.     Eritrea	6.     Ethiopia
7.     Haiti	8.     Honduras
9.     Iran	10.  Iraq
11.  Japan (Okinawa)	12.  Kenya
13.  Libya	14.  Mexico
15.  Nigeria	16.  North Korea
17.  Pakistan	18.  Palestine
19.  Russia	20.  Saudi Arabia
21.  Somalia	22.  South Korea
Syria	24.  Turkey
25.  Uganda [dominoes The Sudan, South Sudan, Central African Republic, Republic of the Congo (Brazzaville), Democratic Republic of the Congo (Kinshasa)]	26.  Yemen

Sources and notes

“Gibbs convicted of murder in one of the most gruesome cases of Afghan war” (Daily Mail UK Reporter), November 11, 2011, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2060230/US-Army-sergeant-Calvin-Gibbs-murdered-3-Afghan-civilians-jailed-life.html

“‘We want Joe back!’” (Laurie Whitwell), November 10, 2011, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2059571/Joe-Paterno-fired-amid-Penn-State-scandal-President-Graham-Spanier.html

“Men discussed ‘murder, theft, and making toxic agents’— had a ‘murder bucket list’; one man in group ‘wanted to use plot of fictional novel Absolved as model for attacks on government officials’, another suspect described a plan to ‘blow ricin out of a moving car on the freeway’”

(Daily Mail Reporter), November 2, 2011, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2056517/The-geriatric-terrorists-Four-pensioners-busted-terror-plot-involving-toxin-ricin.html#ixzz1dQDq43XO

ri·cin \'rī-sən, 'ri-\ n [L ricinus castor-oil plant] (1896) : a poisonous protein in the castor bean

AFRICA

“U.S. terror drones kill 146 in two days,” November 11, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209503.html

ALSO:  “Al-Shabab ambush kills 30 Kenyan troops — Somalia’s al-Shabab fighters say they have killed at least 30 foreign soldiers in an attack in the country’s south, as violence rages on the Horn of Africa nation” (Press TV reports), November 11, 2011, .

“Pirates demand $8 million for UAE vessel — Somali pirates have demanded a ransom payment of millions of dollars for the release of a UAE-owned vessel that they hijacked last year” (Press TV reported), November 11, 2011,

CAPTION

Somalia displaced

Geediyo Mohamed Abdi, a displaced Somali mother, sits next to her sick children in Banadir hospital in Mogadishu on August 14, 2011. (file photo)

Also: Near Somalia’s Southern port city of Kismayo, a French helicopter crashes. Ten people are believed to have died in the crash. Nov ember 11, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209558.html

“Cholera claims 87 more lives in Somalia,” November 11, 2011, 

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209506.html

ASIA

ASIA MIDDLE EAST

Kuwait

“‘U.S. to shift troops from Iraq to Kuwait,’” November 11, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209448.html

CAPTION

Oil rig in the Persian Gulf off Kuwait – Britannica

KUWAIT

A former British protectorate (1899 until 1961) of the Arabian Peninsula located in the northwestern corner of the Persian Gulf, Kuwait (slightly larger in area than the U.S. state of Hawaii) is a small emirate bounded to the west and north by Iraq, to the east by the Persian Gulf, and to the south by Saudi Arabia.

Kuwait is situated in a section of one of the driest, least-hospitable deserts on earth. Its shore, however, includes Kuwait Bay, a deep harbor on the Persian Gulf; at the western end of Kuwait Bay, and a few fertile patches in the southeastern and coastal areas. Kuwaiti territory includes nine offshore islands, the largest of which are the uninhabited Būbiyān and Al-Warbah. The island of Faylakah, which is located near the entrance of Kuwait Bay, has been populated since prehistoric times.

KUWAITI OIL and GAS

Kuwait has nearly one-tenth of the world’s proven oil reserves.

Kuwait’s proven recoverable reserves are thought to be enough to sustain current production levels for some 150 years, and, though the oil industry sustained severe damage during the Iraqi invasion, most of that was repaired by the mid-1990s.

Kuwait also has considerable natural gas reserves, almost all in the form of associated gas (gas produced together with crude oil).

Iran

“U.S. must stop using hostile tone: Iran,” November 11, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209544.html

“Will USA and Israel join efforts for splendid little war against Iran?” November 10, 2011,

http://english.pravda.ru/world/asia/10-11-2011/119581-israel_iran_war-0/

“‘Iran continues oil export to Pakistan,’” November 11, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209499.html

Also on foreign relations, Iran, Israel, U.S. reports November 11, 2011:

“Ban Ki-moon highlights diplomacy in Iran Nuclear case — UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon has underscored the role of diplomacy as the sole approach to settle Iran’s nuclear issue, rejecting any military options as repeatedly boasted by the U.S. and the Israeli regime”

“Iran, Russia ink strategic security pact — Iran and Russia have finalized a strategic security agreement aimed at further enhancing ties between the two countries”

“‘UN inept over silence on Israeli threat’ — UN’s silence over Israel’s recent military threats against Iran is indicative of the organization’s ineptitude (political analyst tells Press TV)

IAEA FRAUD

Pravda reports, “According to reliable sources quoted in Russia, the so-called nuclear weapons scientist cited as helping Iran’s weapons program is NOT a nuclear weapons scientist at all. The Ukrainian, Vyacheslav Danilenko, has NEVER worked on nuclear weapons; he is one of the top specialists in the world in the production of nanodiamonds. Danilenko worked in an Institute that specialized in the synthesis of diamonds. Iran has a program to develop its nanotechnology sector, with one major focus being nanodiamonds.

This is the latest to come out exposing the utter fabrication that the IAEA report is. If they talk about this report a thousand times, are people going to hear all of the evidence pointing to all the holes in this obvious lie or will they believe it because it has been beaten to death by the western corporate media?

“The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reports accusing Tehran of having planned nuclear weapons, something the country’s government vehemently denies.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said, “‘The U.S. administration looks for prosperity by driving other countries to poverty, plundering their riches.’”

“IAEA report on Iran exposed as a BIG fraud,” November 10, 2011,

http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/crimes/10-11-2011/119583-IAEA_report_on_Iran_BIG_fraud-0/

GULF

“Bahrainis rally upon opposition’s call,” November 11, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209549.html

“Jordanians rally for real reforms,” November 11, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209569.html

“U.S. predator drones arrive in Turkey,” November 11, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209511.html

“Saleh loyalists kill 15 in Taizz,” November 11, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209528.html

ASIA

Central/South

AFGHANISTAN

“U.S.-led soldier killed in Afghan war,” November 11, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209484.html

“U.S. soldier convicted in Afghans killings,” November 11, 2011,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209445.html

Also “Germany to cut Afghan force contingent— Germany says it is planning to withdraw its military forces from Afghanistan at the beginning of next year amid growing public opposition to the U.S.-led Afghan war,” November 11, 2011

PAKISTAN

“Militants destroy school in NW Pakistan,” November 11, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209472.html

AMERICAS

United States

“Veteran commits suicide in Occupy Burlington, second man dies in Oakland,” November 11, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/209545.html

“U.S. moves to overturn ban on cluster bombs,” November 11, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/usdetail/209555.html

Also — “Cluster bombs, unsafe for living things,” http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/11-11-2011/119596-Cluster_bombs_unsafe_for_iving_things-0/

http://www.avaaz.org/po/cluster_bombs_ii_b/?vl

AVAAZ on cluster bombs and the Convention,

Sign the urgent petition to save our children now!

“Thousands of people - many of them children - were killed or maimed by these bombs. When they are released, they are divided into many ‘small bombs’ across a wide area, many of which do not explode. Years later, people find these devices in fields or on playgrounds of schools without knowing what they are. They are disturbed, picked up and then they explode.

In 2008, more than half of world governments banned these weapons by signing the Convention on Cluster Munitions. Now, surprisingly, countries like France, Germany, Italy, Sweden and the UK, who signed the Convention, are under pressure from the U.S., China and Russia to carry out signing a separate agreement that would allow the use of cluster bombs. Only Norway, Mexico, Austria and a few others are fighting this horror.

Negotiators for the Convention on Conventional Weapons will meet in Geneva next week. Most governments do not really want this protocol and did not say how they will vote, but are under strong U.S. pressure. They will object only if the global public does something to convince them.

No time to lose; the conference starts on Monday. We will ask our governments to reject this cynical and deadly U.S. campaign to legalize killing with cluster bombs.

Cluster bombs and landmines were banned because citizens sounded the alarm to the world — with victims and survivors leading the way. Because of them, and to ensure no more lives are lost, we will not allow these cruel weapons to be allowed. Let us unite now to demand a more peaceful world.

HAITI

“Haitians seek UN compensation,” November 9, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209208.html

MEXICO

“Seven found dead in north Mexico,” November 10, 2011, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209282.html

Also November 11— Mexican Interior Secretary Francisco Blake Mora and seven others died in a helicopter crash near Mexico City, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/209589.html

[U.S.-led] NATO ACCUSED

“The law case of the century: Indictment against NATO military and political leaders,” November 6, 2011, http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/06-11-2011/119534-indictment_nato-0/

http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/06-11-2011/119534-indictment_nato-0/

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire

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