Empathy. It’s sadly lacking on the world’s stage. Watch Sam discuss what can happen when people and nations show none.
Studying Buddhism taught me the value of Empathy and Compassion. During my Christian upbringing, no one mentioned them. In fact, I didn’t know what Compassion meant until it was explained by a high school English teacher. How sad.
While the world and its media beasts are distracted by the Olympic spirit, complete with it’s altruistic dream of human coexistence, a joint fleet of US and British ships are on their way to form a blockade of Iran.
An Illegal blockade mean to provoke Iranian hostilities further:
The build up of naval forces in the Gulf will be one of the largest multi-national naval armadas since the First and Second Gulf Wars. The intent is to create a US/EU naval blockade (which is an Act of War under international law) around Iran (with supporting air and land elements) to prevent the shipment of benzene and certain other refined oil products headed to Iranian ports. Iran has limited domestic oil refining capacity and imports 40% of its benzene. Cutting off benzene and other key products would cripple the Iranian economy. The neo-cons are counting on such a blockade launching a war with Iran.
The "largest multi-national naval armada" is not hyperbole:
The US Naval forces being assembled include the following:
Carrier Strike Group Nine
USS Abraham Lincoln (CVN72) nuclear powered supercarrier
with its Carrier Air Wing Two
Destroyer Squadron Nine:
USS Mobile Bay (CG53) guided missile cruiser
USS Russell (DDG59) guided missile destroyer
USS Momsen (DDG92) guided missile destroyer
USS Shoup (DDG86) guided missile destroyer
USS Ford (FFG54) guided missile frigate
USS Ingraham (FFG61) guided missile frigate
USS Rodney M. Davis (FFG60) guided missile frigate
USS Curts (FFG38) guided missile frigate
Plus one or more nuclear hunter-killer submarinesPeleliu Expeditionary Strike Group
USS Peleliu (LHA-5) a Tarawa-class amphibious assault carrier
USS Pearl Harbor (LSD52) assult ship
USS Dubuque (LPD8) assult ship/landing dock
USS Cape St. George (CG71) guided missile cruiser
USS Halsey (DDG97) guided missile destroyer
USS Benfold (DDG65) guided missile destroyerCarrier Strike Group Two
USS Theodore Roosevelt (DVN71) nuclear powered supercarrier
with its Carrier Air Wing Eight
Destroyer Squadron 22
USS Monterey (CG61) guided missile cruiser
USS Mason (DDG87) guided missile destroyer
USS Nitze (DDG94) guided missile destroyer
USS Sullivans (DDG68) guided missile destroyerUSS Springfield (SSN761) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine
IWO ESG ~ Iwo Jima Expeditionary Strike Group
USS Iwo Jima (LHD7) amphibious assault carrier
with its Amphibious Squadron Four
and with its 26th Marine Expeditionary Unit
USS San Antonio (LPD17) assault ship
USS Velia Gulf (CG72) guided missile cruiser
USS Ramage (DDG61) guided missile destroyer
USS Carter Hall (LSD50) assault ship
USS Roosevelt (DDG80) guided missile destroyerUSS Hartfore (SSN768) nuclear powered hunter-killer submarine
Carrier Strike Group Seven
USS Ronald Reagan (CVN76) nuclear powered supercarrier
with its Carrier Air Wing 14
Destroyer Squadron 7
USS Chancellorsville (CG62) guided missile cruiser
USS Howard (DDG83) guided missile destroyer
USS Gridley (DDG101) guided missile destroyer
USS Decatur (DDG73) guided missile destroyer
USS Thach (FFG43) guided missile frigate
USNS Rainier (T-AOE-7) fast combat support shipAlso likely to join the battle armada:
UK Royal Navy HMS Ark Royal Carrier Strike Group with assorted guided missile destroyers and frigates, nuclear hunter-killer submarines and support ships
French Navy nuclear powered hunter-killer submarines (likely the Amethyste and perhaps others), plus French Naval Rafale fighter jets operating off of the USS Theodore Roosevelt as the French Carrier Charles de Gaulle is in dry dock, and assorted surface warships
Various other US Navy warships and submarines and support ships. The following USN ships took part (as the "enemy" forces) in Operation Brimstone and several may join in:
USS San Jacinto (CG56) guided missile cruiser
USS Anzio (CG68) guided missile cruiser
USS Normandy (CG60) guided missile cruiser
USS Carney (DDG64) guided missile destroyer
USS Oscar Austin (DDG79) guided missile destroyer
USS Winston S. Churchill (DDG81) guided missile destroyer
USS Carr (FFG52) guided missile frigate
This news is startling, to be sure, Even US friend and beneficiary, Kuwait is worried, issuing a "War Alert" in preparation for the hostilities.
And what are the NeoCon Christian Dominuists overlords calling this new escalation? Operation Brimstone. Now that the joint training in the Atlantic is finished, it’s time to start the fires of hell.
Today’s New York Times has what may be the most important article you will read this year:
Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
It’s a Long piece; 11 internet-sized pages. Do yourself and your loved ones a favor by reading the whole thing. Understand the heights of cynicism and depths of arrogance of our Military/Industrial Complex. Understand how this machinery is in control of our government, our media, and our lives. Finally, understand that we need to do something about this.
Read it and weep.
UPDATE:
My hero Glenn Greenwald bends the pointing finger of the NY Times inward to point out media duplicity in which even the Times themselves partook. Atta boy!
ABC News reports today that a Pentagon report that found no direct link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaida is being suppressed. Plans to announce the report via press release are canceled. It wont be emailed to the media, nor is it a available online. the Pentagon will gladly mail the report on a CD to an “interested parties” requesting the information.
Speaking of suppression, the media has spent 3 days airing a certain governors soiled laundry instead of reporting a much more important event: the resignation of Admiral William J. Fallon, the military commander of US Middle East operations who hinted that he would resign if the government continued to push for war with Iran. Others have noted the media’s disinterest the good Admirals retirement. Or perhaps the Blaring Spitzer Story (no link, you already know…) is a smokescreen?
I’m not into conspiracy theories, most assume an incredible amount of coordination and secrecy. Most coincidences like this are a product of disparate forces working independently in close proximity. That said, I get worried at the pervasiveness of the pattern, wherein a monumental occurrence is foreshadowed in the Media by stories of - shall we say - Total Bimbosity.
Now Admiral Fallon steps down to little fanfare, and he will be just as quietly replaced by a more acquiescent soldier. Just as the General who opposed the surge quit to be replaced by General David Petraus. Even the ABC News story will be swept under a rock by tomorrow. We don’t need further proof of our National Gullibility.
But none of that is NEWS. It doesn’t have any sex in it. Or murder, or violence… or Missing Blonde Women…or Psychotic Celebrities… or…
Move Along. There’s nothing to see here.
President Bush, acting as the Unitary Executive, is making secret deals with Iraq. Under the euphemism “Enduring Relationship,” a Declaration of Principles has been documented, which outlines in the most glowing terms, unending embroilment in the desert.
One of the “Principles” is “Supporting the Republic of Iraq in defending its democratic system against internal and external threats.” This is bothersome on many levels.
And under the law, the president is entitled to broker a status-of-forces agreement without congressional approval.
“The president, as the commander in chief, can enter into an agreement and in theory, certainly as complex an agreement as he deems appropriate and necessary under the circumstances,” says retired Gen. Michael Nardotti, formerly the Army’s top lawyer.
But in the case of Iraq, even the most optimistic assessments don’t expect the situation there to become as stable as Japan or South Korea for decades.
“Bases of the U.S. around the world are not situated in an occupied country,” explains Raed Jarrar, an Iraqi political activist who recently testified before Congress on this issue. “For example, U.S. forces in Japan can’t just go out of their bases and [set up] a checkpoint in Tokyo. They can’t go around Tokyo arresting Japanese people.”
And in Japan or South Korea, the U.S. military isn’t allowed to maintain internal stability. In other words, it can’t protect those governments from internal threats. Indeed, in South Korea, two governments have been overthrown in coups in the past 50 years. The U.S. military could not and did not intervene.
First we illegally occupy a sovereignty, destroy its government and prop up a puppetocracy in its place. Then we let the puppets kill the newly-deposed President. We next start negotiating - at gunpoint, of course - a business deal benefiting American oil companies. Since that failed, we are now negotiating to morph our armed forces into the Iraqi National Guard, to give us the right to protect the nation we broke from “internal and external threats.” We become their military. And, although unstated, I venture to guess that we will be the final arbiters as to who and what constitutes a threat.
Since the US is suffering the Pottery Barn effect (you break it, you buy it) with regards to Iraq, our Liar-in-Chief is tying up the loose ends of his failed hostile takeover bid of Saddam Hussein’s oilfields. As he does so, he is tying a noose around the necks of every single US Solider that will be killed in Iraq going forward, in perpetuity.
Coining vague catch phrases like “Enduring Relationship” or talk of an “Enduring Presence” in Iraq cannot sugar coat the reality that the US is an Imperial power creating a colony out of a previously autonomous nation. We’re there for the oil, and when it’s gone, we’ll leave. Not. Until. Then.
Luckily, people are asking the right questions, these days. Questions like “Is it legal.” the answer, as NPR notes, lies on the boundary between Agreement and Treaty. It’s down to semantics. Sadly, our government is ill equipped to handle the subtly of semantics. Bring in the lawyers.
Lawyering takes time, and our administration expects to broker this deal by Summer. We don’t have the time. We REALLY need to impeach these bastards.
The media is playing up yesterdays “Confrontation” between the US Navy and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. A pentagon spokesperson called the encounter “significant.”
Then the article outlines a testosterone-fueled display of playground antics on behalf of the Iranians, and an American response of the paranoid twitchy-trigger-finger variety. It’s laughable that someone would play up this episode.
Except for one thing: Our pals Dick and George only have a few more months to launch the third leg of their World Domination Tour. That truth is likely to be common knowledge to upper management at the Pentagon. That they intend to war with Iran is what makes such a silly scene scary.
Two headlines placed next to each other in the Washington Post’s daily email caught my eye. For clarity I’ll also include the first paragraph of each story - no more needs saying.
Bush Signs Domestic Spending Bill but Criticizes Pet Projects
WACO, Tex., Dec. 26 — President Bush signed a $555 billion domestic spending bill into law Wednesday, but not without taking a swipe at Congress for including pet projects that total about $10 billion.
Wars Cost $15 Billion a Month, GOP Senator Says
The latest estimate of the growing costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the worldwide battle against terrorism — nearly $15 billion a month — came last week from one of the Senate’s leading proponents of a continued U.S. military presence in Iraq.
wow……..
It took a while, but the long-awaited, epoch-ending conflagration is finally spreading. What with Pakistan’s brewing instabilities, and today’s Kurdish attack in Turkey, it looks like Armageddon is back on track.
That should make Mr. Bush happy. And the Christian fundamentalists, too, if they’re actually allowed brief fits of non-rage. I’ll bet they were a bit worried that their Chosen One wouldn’t preside over the End of the World ™. Looks like he’ll at least get credit for the opening act. Good for him.
Let’s all sit back with our popcorn and watch the show!
Even before full emplacement, America’s shadow Army is taking heat. Blackwater USA, a “security firm” with deep ties in Washington, is in a wrangle with Iraqi officals over a fire fight over the weekend. the US account has it that a convoy of diplomats were fired upon in a crowded square. The American response was typically decisive. Civilians were killed.
Of course, the enemy counts on that happening. that’s why they do these things with innocents around them - besides the camouflage benefits - to later cry how the Coalition is targeting indiscriminately.
With all that’s happen in Iraq, I would be surprised if the Yankee yahoos aren’t blasting everything in sight. The situation is out of anyone’s control. Prolonged fear can do that to the stalwart, not that that adjective applies to these hired guns.
Iraqi response was to first “revoke Blackwater’s license to operate.” As if that mattered…
Today the soup thickens as Iraqi officials re-write their initial assessment to say the “response” by Blackwater was actually an “attack.”
All this will only prove how powerless is the Iraqi government. The nation, such as it is, is in US control. All the car bombs in the world can’t change that, as they have a disturbing tendency to maim and kill more Iraqis than foreigners. That may be Bush’s grand strategy (if there is one) to let the nation self destruct until there are only isolated bands of brigands left between our Corporate interests and all that oil. All we have to do is stand aside and let that happen.
Yet with all the pressure to remove our troops outfits like Blackwater will become ever more necessary to replace the troops while the natives blow each other up. This outing of our shadow warriors might cause difficulties, but it cannot stop what is already in action: A switch out of soldiery is imminent.
Think of it as an oil change.
The Washington Post notes a contradiction between General Patreus’ testimony and actions taken by his commanders in New Halliburton:
A week ago today, Gen. David H. Petraeus started his rounds on Capitol Hill, reporting that security in Iraq was improving to the point that a small number of troops could begin coming home by year’s end.
But 10 days ago, his commanders in Baghdad began advertising for private contractors to work in combat-supply warehouses on U.S. bases throughout Iraq because half the soldiers who had been working in the warehouses were needed for patrols, combat and protection of U.S. forces.
I see a precedence occurring here: Respond to the Cries of the American public, media and congressional pressure to lower troop levels by replacing them with Mercenaries.
That’s right! We’re not supposed to use that word; private security companies don’t like it - it gives them a bad image, or something…
But since the dictionary says:
mer·ce·nar·y /ˈmɜrsəˌnɛri/
–adjective
1. working or acting merely for money or other reward; venal.
2. hired to serve in a foreign army, guerrilla organization, etc.
–noun
3. a professional soldier hired to serve in a foreign army.
4. any hireling.
I can only assume a corporation willing to work in a foreign nation as part of an outside army (albeit from the same nation, but NOT enlisted in that nation’s armed forces), willing to provide tactical and logistical assistance to a national military, can indeed be defined as a Corps of Mercenaries.
So while the quagmire continues and public support wanes, the Administration is orchestrating a bait-and-switch by replacing one set of soldiers for another. All they have to worry about is how to funnel the cost of their Shadow Army into the defense budget. Shouldn’t be too difficult.