Pakistani giant poster of a child looks up at drone operators

The goal is to put a human face on what drone operators are said to call ‘bug splats’

By Dylan Stableford
Yahoo News

In an attempt to put a face on civilian victims of U.S. drone strikes, a group of artists has installed a massive portrait of a girl facing up from a field in Pakistan.

The poster, measuring 90 by 60 feet and made of vinyl, was unrolled with the help of locals two weeks ago in a village in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa region in northwest Pakistan, where residents say attacks by the pilotless aircraft are a part of daily life.

Selling the public on teratogenic wars: ‘deceptions2’ a lesson in war propaganda

By Rady Ananda
COTO Report

Under 30 minutes, deceptions 2 is Chris Pratt’s follow-up to his popular full-length documentary from 2010 (reviewed here). D2 focuses on the use of public relations firms to manipulate the public into supporting foreign wars of aggression.

But these aren’t ordinary wars, where industry sends armies into the bush to slaughter natives to seize their lands. Instead, now the US and its allies are poisoning the lands they invade, using depleted uranium and caustic chemicals, and generating an epidemic of birth defects.

An Open Letter to the Jewish Community

By A Private Citizen
COTO Report

Dear Jewish Community,

I am writing on a very serious issue, one that has been made almost taboo – the necessity of civilian ownership of weapons, a right protected by our Constitution.

To support this is almost taboo among liberal Jews.  But in knowing this tabooed subject is central to what happened to us in Germany, we can see how Jewish Senators just betrayed us and our country.

They all broke their sworn oath to the Constitution.

The Moral Equivalent of Nuremberg

By Robert C. Koehler
COTO Report

My favorite quote was from the British government spokesperson, who assured us: “All ammunition used by UK armed forces falls within international humanitarian law and is consistent with the Geneva Convention.”

Tears come to my eyes as I think about the kindness of coalition bullets, the empathy of coalition bombs — unlike, I’m certain, the ammo used by terrorists, which is cruel, which hates our way of life and wants only to destroy it.

Forgive me the sarcasm. Another study has come out, this one underwritten by the Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the University of Michigan, linking the U.S.-British war in Iraq with a hideous, heartbreaking and “staggering” increase in birth defects in areas of the country where bombing and heavy fighting occurred.

Happy Savages

By Robert C. Koehler

“Thirty seconds to zero . . . six, five, four, three, two, one.”

Suddenly a big orange blossom fills the screen, accompanied by ukuleles and lovely — I mean Strangelovian — Polynesian music. The blossom is actually Castle Bravo, a 15-megaton hydrogen bomb blast, the largest U.S. test ever, detonated over Bikini Atoll on March 1, 1954.

This is a few minutes into Nuclear Savage: The Island Experiments of Secret Project 4.1, one of the most disturbing documentaries I’ve ever seen, and one of seven feature-length films that are part of Chicago’s fourth annual Peace on Earth Film Festival, Feb. 23-26, at the Chicago Cultural Center. The event, once again, is free of charge.

The Spiritual Jackpot

As you think about giving gifts with meaning this year, please consider my book, Courage Grows Strong at the Wound, which speaks with honesty and humor about the human condition. It’s especially appropriate for anyone who has suffered recent loss and is coping with the grieving process. Be aware also that the sale of the book supports this column and my ability to give a peace journalist’s perspective on current events. The book has been reduced in price through the end of the year.  See below.

By Robert C. Koehler

The topic was “Indians of the Midwest” and the professor was knowledgeable and conveyed serious respect for Native culture, but something kept gnawing at me as she talked.

There are two types of Indian stereotypes, she said — the negative (the ignorant savage, the abductor of white women, etc.) and the romantic (woo-woo, New Agey, let’s play Indian, “go ’Skins!”) — and left it at that, implying, OK, if you are non-Native, the best attitude to strike is a certain respectful distance, neither denigrating the culture nor seizing hold of it like an idiot. If you want more, attend lectures and look at the artifacts on display behind glass cases, but DO NOT TOUCH.

This was all academic and sensible, the voice of the expert, an anthropologist, and given the history of the last 500 years — given colonialism, land grabs and boarding schools, given the genocide perpetrated by Western governments on every continent during and beyond the Age of Exploration — understandable, but only up to a point. Beyond that point, it’s just more cultural arrogance, a denial of the relevance of indigenous consciousness in the present moment.

U.S. soldiers fighting for Haliburton, KBR (video)

Intro by Susan Lindauer

This is a thought provoking video that should make you very angry. It depicts war crimes and the hand over of U.S. soldiers to build market share for Haliburton and Kellogg, Brown & Root.  It’s not for our benefit as a nation, or the benefit of our young men and women in uniform who are abused by this system as surely as the Iraqi and Afghan civilians we are fighting.

From Barbarism to Barbarism: Libya, Troy Davis, Abu Ghraib

By Cynthia McKinney
Global Research

After Georgia was forced by the United States Supreme Court to abandon its scheme to deny Black people the right to an undiluted vote and representation, Leroy Johnson became the first Black person elected to the Georgia State Senate since Reconstruction. The year was 1962. During his tenure, Johnson used his considerable influence inside the body to become the Senate’s Chair of the Judiciary Committee. From this position, he was able to bottle-up legislation that was bad for the State of Georgia, especially its Black residents. Outside and inside the State Senate, Leroy Johnson practiced the art of leadership and engaged in the fight for justice. He produced solid results for a people who were hungry for justice.

The Old Integrity

By Robert C. Koehler

The old order and the old integrity slowly collapse, but the statues remain, and the words. How odd they sound:

“The founder of the University of Chicago, John D. Rockefeller, on December 13, 1910, made provision for the erection of this chapel and thus defined its purpose: As the spirit of religion should penetrate and control the university, so that building which represents religion ought to be the central and dominant feature of the university group. Thus it will be proclaimed that the university is dominated by the spirit of religion. All its departments are inspired by religious feeling, and all its work is directed to the highest ends.”

Well, hmm. This was the 19th century’s religion, of course. Its patriarchal God presided over empire and scientific progress and the Industrial Age, but even still — no matter how many passionate arguments I’ve had with this God over the course of my lifetime — I was struck, on this beautiful fall afternoon in Chicago, as I stood in the vestibule of Rockefeller Chapel with my out-of-town guests, by this God’s absence in contemporary public life. The regulating force is gone and we’re spinning, it seems, out of control.

NATO contaminating Libya water with depleted uranium

By Leonor en Libia

Part of the NATO war crimes are the pollution of water supplies. This video ends because we got ‘cut-off’.

Amy Jade

By Volaar

Mitch Winehouse Posing With Wax Figurine of Daughter

“The truth is, everyone is going to hurt you. You just got to find the ones worth suffering for.” — Bob Marley

As a child who grew up in one of the many flavors of household, “dysfunction,” I can report emphatically that children always believe their parents are worth suffering for, over, about and instead of. And, sadly, Amy Jade Winehouse was, probably unbeknownst to her, a victim of this particular scourge of western civilization, the cliché of the “dysfunctional family.”

DU – You Don’t Have to Inhale or Ingest It for It to Make You Sick

Loading the ammo into an A-10 Thunderbolt Jet. The pilot sits over the “consolidated quantity” of 30mm DU + HEI munitions.

By Dr. Prof. Elaine A. Hunter
Veterans Today

Concentrated “Depleted” Uranium Munitions Emit: Alpha + Beta + Gamma rays + Neutrons + X-rays, Can Wreak Havoc in the Human Body While Waiting to be Used in Battle!

From Multiple Horses’ Mouths:  More, Much More on Ignored and Suppressed US Government and Military Data that Show the Threat of Harmful Effects of “Consolidated Quantities” of Concentrated “Depleted” Uranium (DU) Munitions

I am quaking in my genes knowing the mayhem men manufacture

Norway backs Palestine bid at UN; gets bombed 5 days later

7/25 UPDATE: Norwegian Shooter Loves Israel, By Israel National News. “The time has come to stop the stupid support of the Palestinians…and to start supporting our cultural cousins – Israel.”

7/24 UPDATE: Oslo Police Conducted Bombing Exercise Days Before Terrorist Blast. Also see this June 2011 news flash: Norway Announces Withdrawal From Libya Campaign

After supporting Palestine’s bid for sovereignty at the United Nations in an announcement on Monday, Norway today suffered numerous terrorist attacks.

Three days ago, July 19, Reuters reported:

Norway, host of the 1993 Palestinian-Israeli peace accords, said on Monday it was “perfectly legitimate” for Palestinians to take their case for statehood to the United Nations for voting in September.

Israeli Navy Attacks International Monitoring Vessel in Gaza Waters

By Julie Webb-Pullma
Scoop NZ

GAZA July 15, 2011: The Israeli navy today attacked international monitoring vessel Oliva and several Palestinian fishing boats in Gazan waters, for the second time in two days.

The Oliva, which monitors and documents Israeli attacks against Gaza fishermen, began its operations on 20 April 2011 under the auspices of the Spanish Civil Peace Service. The monitoring team is comprised of activists from Italy, Sweden, USA and the UK.

How to Celebrate the Fourth of July: Read Frederick Douglass

By Kai Wright
Colorlines.com

I’m content to let most holidays be just that—a time when you come off your daily grind and act up with the friends and family. July 4th—or, Independence Day—is a bit more complicated for me. It’s a celebration of the United States’ mythical founding story, an ahistorical account that was written to obscure the young nation’s many, many crimes against humanity. It never fails to surprise me how little Americans know of their real history, and thus how often we repeat its sins.

Today, Americans of all races hear about slavery, but haven’t the faculties to truly grasp it, or how crucial that brutality was to creating the wealth upon which this nation was built. Few schools teach that, in fact, trans-Atlantic slavery began as British capitalists stole their own countrymen’s common lands and forced the displaced into pressed labor on their ships. Or that it grew through their Irish conquest, where they repeated the formula, shipping forced labor to the Caribbean. Or that white supremacy was concocted by European capitalists who feared a multinational, multiracial coalition of the many hues of people they had forced to labor for them in deadly conditions in the Americas. When African slavery proved the most profitable way to extract labor, they just dehumanized the Africans from which they stole. Anybody who objected to this labor system was branded an outlaw, an illegal, as it were.

POSCO Protest in Pictures: Warren Buffet, TIAA-CREF finance Indian land grab

Lying Down For Justice: The POSCO Satyagraha in Pictures

By POSCO Pratirodh Sangram Samiti
Countercurrents.org

Here is an excerpt from an article by S.G.Vombatkere “Lying Down For Justice Children Show The Way”

“The people and especially the children of Dhinkia, Gadkujang, Govindpur and Nuagaon villages in Jagatsinghpur District in Odisha have shown the nation how people matter over governments’ plans for development of business corporations at their cost. The children ‘illegally’ lay down on the hot earth under in the blazing summer heat and refused to move to allow entry to government officials to take over forest land and their villages for the POSCO mega-project.

“This was in the face of around 1,000 policemen armed with lathis, tear gas and rifles threatening dire consequences if the villages were not vacated, making loudspeaker announcements every 15 minutes. Apprehending night or dawn attack by the police, the people have also been maintaining overnight vigils. This situation prevails not for one or two days but for two weeks, during which normal life in the villages is completely disrupted; the area is essentially in a ‘state of war.’ But the people have been strictly peaceful throughout and have been able to withstand the Odisha government’s terror tactics that work towards the strategy of acquiring the land for POSCO in terms of the MoU signed in 2005.”

Israel fires on Golan border protesters, kills 23, wounds 50

Radio Netherlands reports:

Israeli troops opened fire on Sunday as protesters from Syria stormed a ceasefire line in the occupied Golan Heights, with Damascus saying 23 demonstrators were killed.

Hundreds of protesters rushed the ceasefire line, cutting through barbed wire as they tried to enter the Golan Heights in a repeat of demonstrations last month that saw thousands mass along Israel’s north.

Similar protests were held in the West Bank and in the Gaza Strip.

Egypt lifts blockade: Gaza gets gateway to the world

By Nasser Najjar
Gulf News

Gaza: Hundreds of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip flocked to enter Egypt via the Rafah border crossing as it reopened Saturday after a four-year closure.

Among the first to cross the coastal enclave’s only border post not controlled by Israel were two ambulances ferrying patients from the Israeli-blockaded Gaza Strip for treatment in Egypt, as well as a bus carrying 50 visitors.

The Chemtrail Song: A Plane Trail of Deadly Deception

By Trillion, featuring Luca

Be sure to see Dr. Ilya Sandra Perlingieri’s latest article, Radiation & Chemtrail Assault: Additional Support for Your Immune System (Part 2). ~ Ed.

Israel Attacks Humanitarian Ship to Gaza in International Waters

By Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research

Montreal, 12.30 AM EST, May 16, 2011

Global Research has been in contact with the Spirit of Rachel Corrie, a Malaysian ship carrying a humanitarian aid cargo to Gaza, which has been attacked in international waters by Israel.

The vessel left the Port of Piraeus, Greece on Wednesday, May 11 carrying 7.5 kilometers of UPVC (plastic) sewage pipes to help restore the devastated sewerage system in Gaza. The humanitarian initiative is sponsored by Perdana Global Peace Foundation (PGPF) and participating in this mission includes anti-war activists and journalists, consisting of 7 Malaysians, 2 Irish, 2 Indians and 1 Canadian.