UnEmbeded!

Zoriah, who was an embeded photojournalist in Iraq, blogs:

A few hours after posting my story on the suicide bombing in Anbar Province, I was woken up by a young marine who took me to receive a phone call.  A high ranking Public Affairs Officer told me that they were requesting that I remove my blog post immediately.  I asked on what grounds, as media rules state that wounded and killed soldiers may be portrayed in images as long as their name tags and identifiable features are not shown.  I made very sure my images followed those guidelines, and questioned a large number of soldiers on base to see if they could find anything at all that would identify the dead.  I did this primarily out of respect for the families.

I truly labored with the decision to post these images and I still do.  But in my heart of hearts I know that people need to see and feel the reality of this horrible situation.  How can things change if all that comes out of Iraq are sanitized, white-washed images of war designed for mainstream media outlets who focus on making money, not on the quality and truth in what they report?

America’s “Good” War

Jo Swift blogs:

If you look more closely at what the U.S. has done in Afghanistan and plans to do in the future, it’s clear that the rhetoric about upholding democracy and making the world safer is – as in Iraq – a smokescreen to justify pursuing imperial ambitions.

The War Inside

Terrance blogs about Memorial Day, his father, and the wars being fought now:

One of the earliest rules I remember learning as a child was how to wake dad up from a nap. Don’t touch him or shake him, I was told. He might be dreaming about being back in Vietnam, or the defensive reflex required to survive there might kick in and the reaction might be violent. So, when it was time to wake him up, we would stand at the door and call to him until he responded, even well into my high school years. Looking back, in think it was a way of not releasing the war inside — the war he carried with him — into our home.

…

It’s bad enough that we sent men and women overseas to fight a war founded disinformation, in insufficient numbers, and with inadequate equipment. But, when they come home with deep psychological wounds from that war, and we give them less than the treatment they need, Memorial Day celebrations and speeches ring hollow.

Student Activists and Protests

Michael Connery blogs about the protests over Tony Blair’s speech at Yale:

Normally I’m skeptical of student anti-war protests. While throwing a pie in Tom Friedman’s face might be emotionally satisfying on some level, it accomplishes very little in the way of real change. In recent years, students have achieved far greater success on campus when their protests were directed at their college or university. Over the past half decade, student protests have helped establish a living wage for workers at Harvard, many campuses, bowing to student pressure have divested from regimes involved in human rights abuses, and many more campuses have made strides toward becoming carbon neutral thanks to the pressure of students. The same cannot be said of student anti-war efforts.

That may be changing…

Age of Empire

Bhupinder writes about Zinn’s new book and video on YouTube:

Unlike European powers, US imperialism has sought to create and maintain its hegemony via puppet regimes or via local elites (see the post below with an extract from David Harvey’s interview), leading to an impression that it is not a colonial power like, say, England or France that ruled their colonies directly and more visibly.

When Bengal Cried

Vidrohi, of Red Diary, blogs about the war for Bengali independence:

The 1971 war against the Bengali population, paved on the “good intentions” of keeping the Pakistan together, was carried out in a classical genocidal fashion. “Kill three million of them,” President Yahya Khan reportedly said in February of 1971, “and the rest will eat out of our hands”. The genocidal war initiated on 25th of March with the attack on University of Dhaka where hundreds of students were murdered. In the subsequent months, hundreds of thousands of the Bengali people was exterminated, millions of women were raped, and millions were displaced from their homes. History has not forgotten the atrocities committed in the East Bengal by the Pakistani Army and their stooges in Jamaat-e-Islami.

The Future of GI Resistance

Justin Cliburn blogs at the Winter Soldier LiveBlog, which was apart of the group Iraq Veterans Against the War:

We have heard heartbreaking testimony this weekend, but we have also heard and seen these things firsthand in Iraq and Afghanistan. Until we eradicate homophobia, sexism, and racism in the military, we will not be fully united as a military and as a nation. IVAW will not rest until we reach the three goals of our three points of unity: withdrawal of American troops from Iraq; reparations for the Iraqi people; and full benefits for the veterans when they return home.

Real Israelis

Connie writes on Sabbah Blog about a recent ad campaign in Israel:

An aggressive public relations campaign against military draft evaders is currently being waged on billboards, television sets and computer screens throughout Israel. Entitled “Real Israelis Don’t Shirk the Draft,” the low point of this campaign is a brief video clip featuring secular, European Jewish Israelis in their early twenties, sitting around drinking chai during their post-military trip abroad.

Will the Real General Ripper Please Stand Up

Renegade Eye posts on Histologion:

The Guardian reports that five prominent military officers have submitted a “manifesto for a new NATO” which advocates that

The west must be ready to resort to a pre-emptive nuclear attack to try to halt the “imminent” spread of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction…

he manifesto as presented by the Guardian is like something out of an updated Dr. Strangelove movie. It purports to defend the West’s values, lamenting that “the west is struggling to summon the will to defend them”. The particular subset of the West’s values being defended hails from the colonial era, with a healthy dose of the “shoot first and see who’s dead later” ethos which has endeared billions of the unfortunate portion of humanity to the West and its values for some centuries now…

The Peace Movement

The blogger at History is a Weapon (and a Blog) writes:

This weekend, we went to a peace demonstration in D.C. We talked with a lot of people and had a good time, but also left with a lot of concerns about the direction of the anti-war movement and renewed confidence in some of our earlier misgivings.

Mother’s Day

Ann blogs:

In the United States, Mother’s Day is copied from England by social activist Julia Ward Howe after the Civil War with a call to unite women against war. She wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870. The Proclamation was tied to Howe’s feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level

…

“In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The great and general interests of peace.”

Mother’s Day

Ann blogs:

In the United States, Mother’s Day is copied from England by social activist Julia Ward Howe after the Civil War with a call to unite women against war. She wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation in 1870. The Proclamation was tied to Howe’s feminist belief that women had a responsibility to shape their societies at the political level

…

“In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And at the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The great and general interests of peace.”

“Security” or Imprisonment: The Wall of A’Adhamyia

Al-Rasheed Capital, of the blog Great Baghdad, writes about the “security” wall of A’adhamyia which is being built in a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad:

So the solution they came up with is that they just imprison the whole city there and let every one eat the other. And they stay out of it. So much for law enforcement security plan!. This is just another phase of tagging the sonnies with Terrorism, something the Iraqi People do not approve but the sectarian government is doing that. And do not be surprised if another Wall emerged separating the Shiat dominated Kadhumyia city from the rest of the sonni dominated western part of Baghdad.

“Security” or Imprisonment: The Wall of A’Adhamyia

Al-Rasheed Capital, of the blog Great Baghdad, writes about the “security” wall of A’adhamyia which is being built in a Sunni neighborhood in Baghdad:

So the solution they came up with is that they just imprison the whole city there and let every one eat the other. And they stay out of it. So much for law enforcement security plan!. This is just another phase of tagging the sonnies with Terrorism, something the Iraqi People do not approve but the sectarian government is doing that. And do not be surprised if another Wall emerged separating the Shiat dominated Kadhumyia city from the rest of the sonni dominated western part of Baghdad.

Bill Moyers on the Media

Louis Proyect writes:

Bill Moyers is an interesting figure. As press secretary to Lyndon Johnson, he turned against the kind of party politics that produces such wars and hooked up with PBS in 1971. Like Ramsey Clark, LBJ’s attorney general, he has been an effective voice for the left even if his ideas stop short of the anti-capitalist conclusions that are implicit in their dynamic. Along with Ralph Nader, these three elder statesmen of the liberal-left know how the system operates from inside and often have unique insights about the rot contained in its heart, as last night’s documentary demonstrates.

Japanese Supreme Court Denies History

The blogger of Chinese in Vancouver posts a response by the Canadian Association for Learning & Preserving the History of World War II in Asia to the recent ruling by the Japanese Supreme Court denying compenstation to Japanese “comfort” women:

“However, to this day the Japanese government has been covering up the facts, putting off and delaying redress, deliberately misinterpret the law and stubbornly shirking its responsibility. The Japanese corporations involved in enslaving Chinese labourers adopt the same immoral position as the Japanese government. The Supreme Court of Japan is supposed to uphold judicial justice. However, in the final ruling of the Nishimatsu forced labour case, the chief justice of the Second Petty Bench of the Supreme Court Ryoji Nakagawa stated that according to the Joint Communique of the Government of Japan and the People’s Republic of China (1972), Chinese individuals’ right to seek compensation had already been abandoned and that as far as court trial was concerned, there was no legal basis (for the victims) to claim compensation. Because the Chinese victims’ rights to claim have been denied by the Supreme Court, all other Chinese victims’ lawsuits seeking postwar compensation including the case of the Chinese “comfort women” have been deprived of any chance in seeking justice in the Japanese judiciary system.”

Ethiopian Troops Further Push Towards Somalia

On the Blog Shining Light Into Dark Corners the author writes:

Al Jazeera is reporting a new offensive in Somalia accompanied by a new incursion of Ethiopian troops. Local residents have reported hundreds of Ethiopian soldiers moving into Mogadishu via trucks and air transport. Ethiopia is still reporting they are withdrawing from Somalia. However there is clearly an offensive going on, allegedly prior to a “National Reconciliation” conference scheduled to begin on April 16th. Perhaps most significantly, the US new allies are being accused of war crimes.

Policy of Death

Arthur Silber blogs about U.S. foreign policy in his blog Once Upon a Time…:

One of the primary ways in which evil advances is by means of people’s refusal to see the connection between their actions and their ultimate results. As I have often pointed out, those results are felt by specific, individual human beings. These are not finally abstract questions of “policy” or of intentionally unenforceable “timetables”: these are people’s lives — and people’s deaths.

Just Another Propoganda Commodity

LeeSee writes a blog about Pat Tilman’s death and government lies in the blog Hasta Los Gatos Quieren Zapatos:

Does the government war machine imagine us so stupid that we will swallow what ever shit they put on a spoon? Do they think we are so misinformed we will fall for any lie regarding the motives for the war and that we believe in patriotism and the American Way of Life? Do they really believe we don’t understand the motives of the Halliburton war machine? That we don’t get the phrase; “no blood for oil” ?

One Young Man’s Atrocities

In the wake of Japan’s official denial of its World War II atrocities against “comfort women,” the folks over at The Fighting 44s post the story of Yasuji Kaneko, a veteran of the Imperial Army who tells readers about his own rapes of Chinese and Korean women forced into sexual slavery:

“They cried out, but it didn’t matter to us whether the women lived or died,” Kaneko said in an interview at his Tokyo home. “We were the Emperor’s soldiers. Whether in military brothels or in the villages, we raped without reluctance.”

Japan’s forced prostitution of some 200,000 women in military brothels in the 1930s and ’40s has long constituted one of the most horrifying chapters of its wartime rampage across Asia. The top government spokesman was finally forced to acknowledge wrongdoing in 1993.

Now the government is questioning whether the apology was needed.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday publicly denied women were forced into the military brothels in conquered lands, boosting renewed efforts by rightwing politicians who claim the women involved were professional prostitutes rather than victims of abuse.

One Young Man’s Atrocities

In the wake of Japan’s official denial of its World War II atrocities against “comfort women,” the folks over at The Fighting 44s post the story of Yasuji Kaneko, a veteran of the Imperial Army who tells readers about his own rapes of Chinese and Korean women forced into sexual slavery:

“They cried out, but it didn’t matter to us whether the women lived or died,” Kaneko said in an interview at his Tokyo home. “We were the Emperor’s soldiers. Whether in military brothels or in the villages, we raped without reluctance.”

Japan’s forced prostitution of some 200,000 women in military brothels in the 1930s and ’40s has long constituted one of the most horrifying chapters of its wartime rampage across Asia. The top government spokesman was finally forced to acknowledge wrongdoing in 1993.

Now the government is questioning whether the apology was needed.

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday publicly denied women were forced into the military brothels in conquered lands, boosting renewed efforts by rightwing politicians who claim the women involved were professional prostitutes rather than victims of abuse.

Erasing the Chicano Presence

Today Nezua at The Unapologetic Mexican blogs about the glaring omission of the Mexican American experience in Ken Burns’ new World War II documentary, The War.

When you have people risking their lives in the line of fire for your country’s cause, and who are even recognized by the government in such a way, and after so much minimalization and abuse; to purposefully omit their presence on what is sure to be a much-respected historical film—this is utter disrespect.

Iraq For Sale

Louis Proyect reviews the movie Iraq For Sale on his blog Louise Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist:

Directed by Robert Greenwald, who has an acclaimed documentary on Walmart to his credit as well, “Iraq for Sale” is a hard-hitting exposé of how companies such as Halliburton-KBR, Blackwater, CACI and Titan used a form of “insider trading” to reap super-profits since the war began. In every instance, the boards of directors of such big contractors are filled with former military men who use their connections to cement sweetheart contracts at the expense of the tax-payer.

Children in GITMO

On the blog Shinning Light In Dark Corners the blog’s author writes about Captain James Yee who talked about playing soccer and other games with young children being held in GITMO:

The blog the talking dog has an interview with James Yee, the Muslim Caplain charged with espionage then released with an honorable discharge and commendations. He’s wrote a book!

It seems that Bush has twelve year olds at Gitmo as well as Abu Ghraib. Just where does this guy get off?

Lt. Watada

Michael Lujan Bevacqua, of the blog No Rest for th Awake – Minagahet Chamorro, blogs about the case of Lt. Ehren Watada’s refusal to serve in Iraq:

Watada is an officer, who in exchange, for slightly more freedom, slightly more money and more opportunity is supposed to help manage the rabble. His objection to the war is dangerous to the military which is struggling to convince an underpaid and overworked, all volunteer military whose belief that the Iraq war was or is necessary is slowly eroding, to stay the course.