US Soldiers Charged With Murdering and Mutilating Afghan Civilians

In documents released by the US Army, five US soldiers from the Army's Fifth Stryker brigade killed three male Afghan civilians with grenades and guns. In addition to the murders, the soldiers allegedly took pieces of the civilians' bodies - teeth, finger bones, leg bones and a skull as gruesome trophies. Since Muslims believe bodies should be buried intact, this is an affront to the victims' religion, as well as to their corpses. The twelve soldiers also face a variety of other charges, including stabbing a corpse, photographing the corpses, shooting Afghan civilians, and beating a junior soldier to keep him from reporting them, and lying to their fellow soldiers.
Please click on my headline to read the remainder of this disgusting story on care2.com!

Oh The Tangled Web We Weave: Sir Walter Sott (1771-1832)

Though "OUR" CIA pretends to keep our country safe from attack by "enemy" nations and other "evil" forces in our troubled world, they appear to do us much more harm than good: My first run-in with the "agency" was in Goeppingen, Germany, where I served as "Intelligence Operations Officer" for our 4th US Armored Division, under the brilliant Colonel Aantero Aakkula, who had once been an Intelligence Operative in his home country of Finland, and who was also the first man to be allowed into our United States by Act of Congress. When "Steve Mayfield", the CIA Operative, asked me to become an Intelligence Operative for his CIA in East Germany, the Colonel assured me that the East Germans would catch me almost immediately, and I would spend the rest of my life in a rat-infested East German jail. To be blunt, the Colonel assured me that "this was NOT James Bond". But I digress: Osama bin Laden, America's bogyman, was recruited by the CIA in 1979 at the very outset of the US sponsored jihad. He was 22 years old and was trained in a CIA sponsored guerilla training camp. During the Reagan administration, US foreign policy evolved toward the unconditional support and endorsement of the Islamic "freedom fighters", which are today called "Islamic terrorists".
Please click on my heading to read the full story of our endorsement of these CIA "FREEDOM FIGHTERS", by Michel Chossudovsky, at Global Research.ca

Is BP (BritishPetroleum) Company REALLY ready to "Make Things Right?"

All available evidence, despite the many commercial prime-time ads by the giant British Petroleum Company, indicates a disgusting attempt by that Oil Giant to avoid paying for the damage they have already caused, not only to the environment in the Gulf of Mexico, but also to the health and safety of those who have tried to make a decent living in that environment, and those who have been condemned to eat the contaminated seafood in the area's restaurants. Yes: Americans from DC to LA will face an increased risk of eating contaminated seafood. Since "cleanup"efforts began, Louisiana's Department of Health and Hospitals has documented a steady increase in "health complaints believed to be related to exposure to pollutants from the oil spill." In fact, according to a "Recordable Injury and Illness Data Sheet", compiled by the Deepwater Horizon Unified Command, more than 300 oil-related illnesses were reported in a period of less than two months. These maladies strongly resemble many of the 11,000 that were reported soon after Exxon/Valdez, and range from nausea, faintness and difficulty breathing to dehydration and heat exhaustion.
Please click on my heading to read the full story of this outstanding document by Byard Duncan at Alternet.org/

Iran Says It has a Legal right to demand Changes on the list of UN Inspectors

The Fact that both Israel and Washington want Iran blasted off the current map is certainly no secret. Unfortunately for both states, Iran also demands the right to select its own government, and the right for the survival of her people, even though that may inconvenience the Jewish State. The remarks from Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast take issue with the demands of the Jewish state, the "allies" of America, who had the temerity to attack the USS Liberty, while I was Intelligence Operations Officer of the 4th US Armored Division in Goeppingen, Germany. The sinking of OUR ship was considered an act of bold-faced piracy by General Sherrer, the commanding General of our division, as well as by Colonel Aantero Aaakula, my immediate boss, and by all of the personnel in our headquarters. In fact, there was not a single American soldier who decided to support Israel's piracy - I took a brief poll and verified that at the time. When we are facing a so-called ally like the renegade state of Israel, we have to be extremely careful so that they do not stab us in the back, despite their false declarations of loyalty to our magnificent country. Please click on my headline to read the full story on http://www.presstv.com/detail/141648.html

America's Empire and Endless Wars are Ruining Our Country

In his new book: Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, Andrew Bacevich, a professor of history and international relations, as well as twenty-three years in the US Army, where he retired as a colonel, and where he also lost his son in Iraq, relates a possibly bleak scenario for our great nation, if we should fail to lessons of world history: An effective approach to national security is one that will keep us safe, and that will preserve and enhance our prosperity. Our country's current path fails on every point. It's NOT keeping us safe; it's certainly depleting our resources; it's not building our prosperity; and it's costing a ton of money, and they no longer work at all, though we still demand that the United States exclusively maintain a global military presence, though not to configure our US military to defend our country, but rather to serve as instruments of power projection, and finally to support a policy of global interventionism. At one time the Brits had a dominant battle fleet, under Napoleon, France had a people in arms, but our current military structure does not fit our present needs: According to Obama's speech last December announced that the US would send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan. As we used to say in Germany: "Woher nehmen, und nicht stehlen" , which means: "Where shall we take them from, without stealing them" (From another of his "many" missions.
Please click on my heading to read the entire interview of Andrew Bacevich by Terrence McNally

America's Empire and Endless Wars Are Destroying the World

Not only is "our" Empire and Endless destroying our world, but the huge amount of money involved is also ruining our Great Country. As a professor of history and international relations at Boston University, Andrew Bacevich is uniquely well qualified to give our moribund citizens a much overdue wake-up call, before our unique nation ceases to exist. Bacevich served twenty-three years in our US Army, retiring with the rank of colonel. He is the author of several books, including The New American Militarism; The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, and his newest, Washington Rules: America's Path to Permanent War, which is, sadly, our current condition. Basevich opens with the moment which was for him a turning point: Shortly after the fall of the Berlin Wall, he was still in the army, and he observed former Soviet soldiers attempting to peddle bits and pieces of Soviet military gear, all of it junk. At that point, he began to realize that in the near future, the soldiers of our USA would be forced into a similar nightmare. Eventually, he began to realize that an effective approach to national security is one that will keep us safe, but not one which depletes our resources and drains our prosperity.
Please click on my headline to read the essential reasoning behind this brilliant analysis of the current destruction of our economy by President Obama and his clueless predecessor!

Our Government Killed Alex

A lonely father, Carlos Arredondo, a native of Costa Rica, stands in the parking lot of a Holiday Inn in Portland, Maine, next to a battered green Nissan pickup truck. Its tailgate folded down, carries a flag-draped coffin adorned with pictures of his only son, Lance Cpl. Alexander S. Arredondo, age 20, a Marine killed in Iraq in 2004. The truck and the trailer it pulls have become a mobile shrine for his boy. Driving around the United States with the aid of donations, he evokes a mixture of sympathy and hostility. White crosses with the names of other boys killed in that useless war, and combat boots nailed to the side of the display, also show a wheelchair covered with colored ribbons fixed to the roof of the cab. There is Alex's military uniform, and boots, poster-size pictures of the young marine on the streets of Najaf, and then the fallen soldier himself, his hands folded in white gloves, in his coffin. "This is what happens every week to some family in America", says Carlos. "This is what war does, and this is the grief and pain the government does not want you to see." Alex, from a working-class immigrant family, was lured into the military a month before Sept.11, 2001. The Marine recruiters made the usual appeals to patriotism, promised that he would be trained for a career,go to college and become a man.
Please click on my heading to read the rest of this story on truthdig, by Chris Hedges, an outstanding war correspondent.