Thomas Paine's version of "you didn't build that":
"Separate an individual from society,and give him an island or a continent to possess,and he cannot acquire personal property. He cannot be rich. So inseparably are the means connected with the end,in all cases,that where the former do not exist the latter cannot be obtained. All accumulation, therefore,of personal property,beyond what a man's own hands produce, is derived to him by living in society; and he owes on every principle of justice,of gratitude,and of civilization,a part of that accumulation back again to society from whence the whole came"
Submitted by Leah
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The war criminals, Bush,Cheney,Rice,Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and Powell who sold us the war still go on doing what they do.
How many Iraqis have died as a result of the invasion 15 years ago? Some credible estimates put the number at more than one million. You can read that sentence again.
The invasion of Iraq is often spoken of in our country as a “blunder,” or even a “colossal mistake.” It was a crime.
Those who perpetrated it are still at large. Some of them have even been rehabilitated thanks to the horrors of a mostly amnesiac citizenry. (A year ago Mr. Bush was on “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” dancing and talking about his paintings.)
We condemned children to death, some after many days of writhing in pain on bloodstained mats, without pain relievers. Some died quickly, wasted by missing arms and legs, crushed heads. As the fluids ran out of their bodies, they appeared like withered, spoiled fruits. They could have lived, certainly should have lived – and laughed and danced, and run and played- but instead they were brutally murdered. Yes, murdered!
The war ended for those children, but it has never ended for survivors who carry memories of them. Likewise, the effects of the U.S. bombings continue, immeasurably and indefensibly.
Airport push marks third day of campaign to drive out rebels from vital Red Sea port as death toll rises
The McGlynn
A March 2016 Human Rights Watch report states that U.S. participation in specific military operations, such as selecting targets and aerial refueling during Saudi air raids “may make US forces jointly responsible for laws-of-war violations by coalition forces”.[402] In September The Guardian reported that one in three bombing raids hit civilian sites.[403]
U.S. government lawyers have considered whether the United States is legally a “co-belligerent” in the conflict, but had not reached a conclusion as of September 2016. Such a finding would oblige the U.S. to investigate allegations of war crimes by the Saudi coalition, and U.S. military personnel could be subject to prosecution.[404][405]
On 13 October 2016, the USS Nitze fired Tomahawk missiles at Houthi-controlled radar sites “in the Dhubab district of Taiz province, a remote area overlooking the Bab al-Mandab Straight known for fishing and smuggling.”[406]
In January 2017, Secretary of State nominee Rex Tillerson voiced support for the Saudi Arabian-led intervention in Yemen.[407] U.S. Secretary of Defense James Mattis asked President Donald Trump to remove restrictions on U.S. military support for Saudi Arabia.[408][409] In February 2017, Mattis wanted to intercept and board an Iranian ship in the Arabian Sea to look for contraband weapons, which would have constituted an “act of war”.[410] In April 2017, Justin Amash, Walter Jones and other members of Congress criticized U.S. involvement in Saudi Arabian military campaign in Yemen, highlighting that Al Qaeda in Yemen “has emerged as a de facto ally of the Saudi-led militaries with whom [Trump] administration aims to partner more closely”.[410]
Saudi-led coalition and Yemeni fighters backing the country’s government have taken control of the airport of a crucial rebel-held port, according to Yemen’s military media office.
The death toll climbed to at least 280 by the fourth day of the campaign on Saturday aimed at driving out the Iranian-backed Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, from the Red Sea port of Hodeidah. It is the entry point for food and aid supplies in a country teetering on the brink of famine.
The Saudi-led pro-government forces had “freed” the airport in the country’s main port city, the media office said.
“Army forces backed by the resistance and the Arab alliance freed Hodeidah international airport from the grip of the Houthi militia,” the military said on Twitter on Saturday.
ISTANBUL (Reuters) – The Turkish military said on Friday air strikes its forces carried out killed 26 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in northern Iraq’s Qandil mountain region on June 12, the state-run news agency Anadolu reported.
The PKK, which has fought a decades-old insurgency against the state in southeastern Turkey, has bases in the Qandil region. President Tayyip Erdogan recently vowed to “drain the terror swamp” in Qandil.
COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A Danish court on Friday ordered the country’s Defense Ministry to compensate 18 Iraqi civilians detained by Iraqi security troops during a 2014 military operation in Iraq in which Danish soldiers assisted.
The Eastern High Court in Copenhagen says the Danish soldiers did not abuse any of the Iraqi civilians but they knew the detainees were “in real danger of being exposed to inhumane treatment in terms of being hit and kicked” by the Iraqi forces.
The court said Friday it was the responsibility of the Danish troops because they didn’t intervene. The court said each civilian should get 30,000 kroner ($4,716) in compensation, adding the Iraqi security forces had rounded up the detainees “on suspicion of being armed terrorists or rebels.”
Defense Minister Claus Hjort Frederiksen said his ministry would appeal.
The ruling “is problematic because it puts Denmark in a very difficult situation when we send out soldiers,” he said, adding that “in some situations it means that we cannot contribute to improving the security situation — hence the human rights situation — in conflict areas. That doesn’t benefit anyone.”
Christian Harlang, who handled the case for 23 Iraqi plaintiffs, called the ruling “an important victory” because Western countries “in the future should observe the rules of not only military engagement, but also human rights as binding standards for military operations.”
KABUL (Reuters) – Afghan soldiers and Taliban militants celebrated an unprecedented ceasefire marking the end of the Ramadan fasting season with Eid greetings, handshakes, big hugs and selfies.
The Taliban announced a surprise three-day ceasefire over the Eid holiday, which began on Friday, except against foreign forces. It overlaps with an Afghan government ceasefire which lasts until Wednesday.
Video and pictures on social media showed cheerful soldiers and Taliban hugging one another and exchanging Eid greetings in Logar province, south of Kabul, and Zabul in the south and central Maidan Wardak.
Afghan Deputy Interior Minister Masood Azizi said the ceasefire was being monitored throughout the country.
“Luckily there have been no attacks,” he told Reuters.
Governors in Helmand, Kandahar and Zabul said both sides had adhered to the ceasefire and that there had been no reports of violence for 24 hours.
KABUL/PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani Taliban leader Mullah Fazlullah has been killed in a U.S.-Afghan air strike in Afghanistan, a senior Afghan Defence Ministry official said on Friday, a killing likely to ease tension between the United States and Pakistan.
An official at the NATO-led Resolute Support mission in Afghanistan confirmed Fazlullah was killed on Thursday.
The U.S. military said earlier in Washington it had carried out a strike aimed at a senior militant figure in the eastern Afghan province of Kunar, which is on the Pakistani border, and one U.S. official said the target was believed to have been Fazlullah.
Fazlullah was Pakistan’s most-wanted militant, notorious for attacks including a 2014 school massacre that killed 132 children and the 2012 shooting of schoolgirl Malala Yousafzai, who was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.
“I confirm that Mullah Fazlullah, leader of the Pakistani Taliban, has been killed in an joint air operation in the border area of Marawera district of Kunar province,” Mohammad Radmanish, spokesman for Afghan defense ministry, told Reuters, adding the air strike was carried out at about 9 a.m. on Thursday………….He was reviled in Pakistan for the 2014 assault on an army-run school in the city of Peshawar in which Pakistani Taliban gunmen killed at least 132 children.
He is also believed to have ordered the 2012 shooting of then-15-year-old Malala Yousafzai over her advocacy of girls’ education.
RICHMOND, Va. — A federal appeals court has rejected a request for a new hearing for a former Russian military officer convicted of leading a 2009 Taliban attack on U.S. forces in Afghanistan.
In April, a three-judge panel of the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the convictions of Irek Hamidullin.
Hamidullin’s attorney sought a rehearing before the full court, but that request was denied Friday.
Hamidullin led the attack on behalf of the Taliban and an allied terrorist organization, the Haqqani Network.
The court found he wasn’t entitled to lawful-combatant status because the attack took place when the war in Afghanistan was no longer classified as an international armed conflict and had shifted to a conflict against unlawful Taliban insurgents.
Members of the peace march walking to Wardak, Afghanistan, from Ghazni on Tuesday. Among them are day laborers, farmers, retired army officers and even a bodybuilding champion.CreditJim Huylebroek for The New York Times
GHAZNI, Afghanistan — As they march for peace through Afghan villages laced with roadside bombs and bottomless heartache, their numbers keep growing.
They come from all walks of life, ages 17 to 65. Among them is a high school student who went home to complete his final exams before rejoining the others; a poet who still carries in his chest one of the four bullets he was shot with; a bodybuilding champion who abandoned his gym and has lost 20 pounds of muscle on the journey. They are day laborers, farmers, retired army officers, a polio victim on crutches, a mechanic who was robbed of his sight by war.
Afghanistan’s most striking grass-roots movement for peace in recent years started with just eight people. I started watching their movement then, when it was a hunger strike born out of pain and outrage at a suicide bombing that killed and wounded dozens in Helmand Province. A group of young men pitched a protest tent next to the carnage. Their blood had become cheap — too cheap, they said. For too long, they had been dying in silence.
Then they began marching north toward the capital through some of the most devastated parts of southern Afghanistan. We joined them this past Sunday, 30 days and 300 miles into their journey, as they rested their blistered feet in the cool of a small mosque near the city of Ghazni.
By that point, their numbers had grown to 65, and they kept walking through the Ramadan fast, taking no food or water through the 100-plus-degree daytime heat.
They are marching to say this: that the war has turned into a monster with a life of its own, feeding on the poor at the rate of more than 50 a day. The longer it drags on, the more difficult it becomes to reach a settlement. Killings turn into blood feuds that lead to more killings.
They want it to end, to give them a chance to live. At every stop, hundreds gather to hear their stories of loss and share their own.
Mohammed Tahir, left, the youngest of the marchers, sitting with other members at a roadside mosque in Ghazni.CreditJim Huylebroek for The New York Times
One of their latest members is a shopkeeper from the western province of Herat named Mohamed Anwar. He arrived on a bus with three changes of clothing tucked under his arm and three pairs of prayer beads in his pocket…………….Most of the marchers get barely four hours of sleep. Around 2:30 a.m., villagers bring a quick meal before the day’s fast: a cup of sweetened milk, some cookies and bread. They pray the dawn prayer, grab their bags and set off single file into the soft dawn light.
Their 64th member, a sharp-eyed mason named Mohammed, arrived on Sunday with just a change of clothes knotted into the shawl on his back. He had tracked the march’s progress on his phone during rest stops as he rode the bus toward them.
When asked how old he was, Mr. Mohammed did a calculation.
“I was 15, in eighth grade, when the war started,” he said. “It’s been 40 years since then.”
The Commander of the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission and the US Forces in Afghanistan General John Nicholson reaffirmed the international community and coalition forces support to President Asrhaf Ghani’s ceasefire initiative and offer for peace talks. “The international community and coalition forces respect and strongly support H.E. President Ghani’s ceasefire initiative during these holy days
At least three militants affiliated with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria Khurasan (ISIS-K) were killed in an airstrike in eastern Nangarhar province of Afghanistan. The Ministry of Defense (MoD) in a statement said the airstrike was carried out in the vicinity of Achin district. The source further added that a weapons and munitions .
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Octave Shield.
Staff Sgt. Alexander W. Conrad, 26, of Chandler, Arizona, died June 8, in Somalia of injuries sustained from enemy indirect fire. The incident is under investigation.
Conrad was assigned to 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group, Fort Bragg, North Carolina.
The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Freedom’s Sentinel.
Spc. Gabriel D. Conde, 22, of Loveland, Colorado, was killed in action April 30 as a result of enemy small arms fire in Tagab District, Afghanistan. The incident is under investign.
Conde was assigned to 3rd Battalion, 509th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team (Airborne), 25th Infantry Division, U.S. Army Alaska, Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson, Alaska.
All VA Medical Centers provide PTSD care, as well as many VA clinics.Some VA’s have programs specializing in PTSD treatment. Use the VA PTSD ProgramLocator to find a PTSD program.If you are a war Veteran, find a Vet Center to help with the transition from military to civilian life.
WAR DOCUMENTARY: IRAQ A DEADLY DECEPTION ALJAZEERA DOCUMENTARIES 2018 On the evening of 9/11, George W Bush made a vow to the American public – that he would defeat terrorism. Unknown to those listening in shock to the presidential address, the president and his advisers had already begun planning their trajectory into an invasion of Iraq. It was packaged as “holding responsible the states who support terrorism” by Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser between 2001 and 2003. “I believe it represented a recognition that we would never succeed against the terrorists if we went after them one at a time and as long as governments were facilitating the organisation, training, equipping of, financing of terrorist organisations, we were never going to get it under control,” says Perle. After 100 days spent fighting those who had become publicly accepted as the culprits – Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan – the US set the ball rolling for war against Iraq. On the evening of 9/11 the president is saying: well, maybe we’ll be going after Iraq now and somebody said, well, that would be against international law. The president responded: I don’t care, we’re going to kick some ass
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