"I spent 33 years and 4 months in active service as a member of our country's most agile military force--the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from second lieutenant to Major General. And during that period I spent most of my time being a high-class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer for capitalism. I suspected I was part of a racket all the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all members of the military profession I never had an original thought until I left the service."
Smedley D. Butler (1881-1940)
One of the most decorated combat veterans in US military history...but you'll never hear his name.
Here's why:
Monday, May 30, 2011
Sunday, May 22, 2011
Decline of Empires
Chalmers Johnson, author of Blowback, Sorrows of Empire and Nemesis: The Last Days of the American Republic , talks about the similarities in the decline of the Roman and Soviet empires and the signs that the U.S. empire is exhibiting the same symptoms: overextension, corruption and the inability to reform.
Previously released bin Laden photos
There is no question that there are serious differences is the physical characteristics of the people in these photos. The fundamental argument against the implications of this fact is, in a nutshell, "they wouldn't do that". That argument is based on faith and nationalist fervor engrained socially through popular culture, not on fact, recorded history, psychology, or observable human behavior.
A glimpse of CIA tactics: Portray Saddam as gay, make fake bin Laden videos
During planning for the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the CIA's Iraq Operations Group kicked around a number of ideas for discrediting Saddam Hussein in the eyes of his people.
One was to create a video purporting to show the Iraqi dictator having sex with a teenage boy, according to two former CIA officials familiar with the project.
“It would look like it was taken by a hidden camera,” said one of the former officials. “Very grainy, like it was a secret videotaping of a sex session.”
The idea was to then “flood Iraq with the videos,” the former official said.
The spy agency’s Office of Technical Services collaborated on the ideas, which also included inserting fake “crawls” -- messages at the bottom of the screen -- into Iraqi newscasts.
The agency actually did make a video purporting to show Osama bin Laden and his cronies sitting around a campfire swigging bottles of liquor and savoring their conquests with boys, one of the former CIA officers recalled, chuckling at the memory. The actors were drawn from “some of us darker-skinned employees,” he said.
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One was to create a video purporting to show the Iraqi dictator having sex with a teenage boy, according to two former CIA officials familiar with the project.
“It would look like it was taken by a hidden camera,” said one of the former officials. “Very grainy, like it was a secret videotaping of a sex session.”
The idea was to then “flood Iraq with the videos,” the former official said.
The spy agency’s Office of Technical Services collaborated on the ideas, which also included inserting fake “crawls” -- messages at the bottom of the screen -- into Iraqi newscasts.
The agency actually did make a video purporting to show Osama bin Laden and his cronies sitting around a campfire swigging bottles of liquor and savoring their conquests with boys, one of the former CIA officers recalled, chuckling at the memory. The actors were drawn from “some of us darker-skinned employees,” he said.
read full article
Friday, May 20, 2011
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Thursday, May 5, 2011
Monday, May 2, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Culture shock: Iran
From the LA Times travel blog:
“Travel writers love to help Americans understand other places,” Steves said when I interviewed him this week. “And if there’s a place we don’t understand, it’s Iran. It’s pathetic how little we know about it: the hostage crisis and the name Khomeini.”
Steves said he was invited by a U.S. chapter of the United Nations Assn. to help foster American understanding of Iran. “The only thing I could think of with impact was to go there and make a TV show. It’s more difficult to kill people when you know them,” he said
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