Posts Tagged ‘murder’

According to this well written piece from David Porter, also carried at HuffPo – US Army General David Petraeus is working to override US President Barack Obama.  

CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus, supported by Defence Secretary Robert Gates, tried to convince President Barack Obama that he had to back down from his campaign pledge to withdraw all U.S. combat troops from Iraq within 16 months at an Oval Office meeting Jan. 21.

But Obama informed Gates, Petraeus and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen that he wasn’t convinced and that he wanted Gates and the military leaders to come back quickly with a detailed 16-month plan, according to two sources who have talked with participants in the meeting.

Obama’s decision to override Petraeus’s recommendation has not ended the conflict between the president and senior military officers over troop withdrawal, however. There are indications that Petraeus and his allies in the military and the Pentagon, including Gen. Ray Odierno, now the top commander in Iraq, have already begun to try to pressure Obama to change his withdrawal policy.

Is the United States of America is the world’s largest dealer of illegal drugs?  What about the world’s largest gun runner?  For years our government has used the CIA, NSA & other super-secret ‘intelligence’ agencies to cultivate drug harvest and distribution in SE Asia and Afghanistan.  We offer ‘aid’ and ‘trade’ to countries in the forms of weapons and ammunition.  The drugs come home to the US to poison and kill our own population.  The weapons we sell are used either against us directly by people to kill others, who then seek to kill Americans.  Did the founding fathers envision a country that would become the world’s largest debtor and blood merchant?

Image courtesy of cesr.org

This post begins a series to recognize people that speak about the world in terms of what they observe and what they can prove.  Their voices stand out in the crowd.  In their words, they speak not of fantasy, delusion and rationalization.  Instead, they utilize the gifts of human cognition, awareness to observe what is here in the world around us.  They are not dogmatic, but analytic and take in the world ‘warts & all’ for what it is and what it is not.  They do not separate humankind from nature in any form of grandeur.  In short, they look at things the way they really are and not what we would have them be.

Hi everybody! 

Did you know that today is International Anti-Corruption Day?  I sure as hell did not (but I do now).  Just in case you forgot, corruption occurs when people pay money in a secret deal, in order to break the law…so they can make a lot more money.

Why don’t we look at how the world celebrated this wonderful new holiday.  Maybe we can even see some real corruption in action.  Wow!  This is so much fun.

I condemn murder in all of its forms. This is a conversation about terrorists and attacks on civilian populations.

Last week’s brutal attacks of unarmed civilians in Mumbai got me to thinking about the nature of attacks on civilians. For many years, I accepted the given definition of ‘terrorists’ as people that are so filled with evil that they want to frighten and kill us all. There are always sociopaths out there to fit into this mold. I think that for the sheer numbers of civilians killed in targeted violence, sociopaths are not the only explanation. The large role of religious / dogmatic programming in targeted violence against civilians eliminates sociopathology as a cause because the sociopath has no conscience or care for his/her impact on society. For the most part, the religious killer is convinced that his/her morality is calling for the murder of civilians.

“The true strength of rulers and empires lies not in armies or emotions, but in the belief of men that they are inflexibly open and truthful and legal. As soon as a government departs from that standard, it ceases to be anything more than “the gang in possession,” and its days are numbered.” (H. G. Wells, as quoted in the Gravel Edition of the Pentagon Papers.)

The enemies of democracy are the enemies of the rule of law.

“enemies both foreign & domestic…”

Our Presidents and our armed forces swear to protect the Constitution from this threat – with good reason. The Constitution is the rule of law and it is the one thing that can prevent tyrants, thieves and murderers from the ruinous world of their unchecked greed and brutality.

I was travelling this weekend and did not have the time to do any posting. I saw a couple of good posts on the subject of Transgender Rememberance Day. I have to be honest and admit that I did not even know this occasion existed. I am sad that it is necessary, but I am happy to support it.

Individuality is something we claim to cherish in this country. Individual’s rights. The spirit of individualism. Historically, societies punish the people that exercise the most discretion and personal choice in their definitions of themselves as individuals: Transgender.

From Wikileaks, comes the truth about Police Death squads operating under legal orders, to round up and kill young men. Kenya: The Cry of Blood – Report on Extra-Judicial Killings and Disappearances, Sep 2008 is documented evidence that over the last 18 months, the government has ordered the capture and murder of its own citizens at the hands of the police. The land of our next President’s father has become like pre-war Nazi Germany with government sanctioned murder and torture.

This is a wonderful film that details the excesses of greed and violence that permeate our government and economy.  If you wonder why things are the way they are around here, then this may help you figure out some answers.

- gadfly