Military
Since 2001, when then US President George Bush announced his “War on Terror,” presidents and politicians both in the United States and among America’s allies, have repeated this phrase and have done their utmost to convince the public that indeed, the West was fighting a “War on Terror.” Yet there is something disturbingly ambiguous about what exactly the “War on Terror” consists of, who it’s being waged against and how it could ever possibly be brought to a successful conclusion.
I didn’t really understand what it meant to kill at first. It was horrible. The first time was horrible, the second time was horrible, the third time was numbing, the fourth time was numbing, but of course the first time sticks with you the longest.
Fears over what the United States’ expansive War on Terror looks like with President Donald Trump at the helm were confirmed this week after a hastily-approved, dangerous ground assault resulted in the deaths of one U.S soldier and dozens of Yemeni civilians, including women and children. Quoting unnamed U.S. military officials, Reuters reported Wednesday that the covert operation was approved by the president “without sufficient intelligence, ground support, or adequate backup preparations.” The U.K.-based humanitarian group Reprieve issued a statement saying it had “evidence that many as 23 civilians were killed in the US raid, including a newborn baby boy, and ten children.”
While Trump uses refugees from seven Muslim-majority nations as a scapegoat for the inner turmoil facing the United States and other Western nations, his policies will only help exacerbate the refugee crisis – a crisis at least partly caused by the U.S.
You can bomb a country into submission and chaos, leaving dead and wounded from shore to shore, and that might be counted as a “mistake in judgment”; but using a few loaded words—or in this case—criticizing an intelligence agency—is an earthshaking event that could make the planet spin off-course…
The militarization of law enforcement at the site of the Dakota Access Pipeline has apparently reached a whole new level. On Monday, independent journalist John Ziegler posted photos and video on Facebook showing what appears to be an Avenger Air Defense System, or AN/TWQ-1, deployed near the Standing Rock Indian reservation.
Conspiracy theories are stigmatized because people don’t want false news filling up their heads, and how can anyone blame them? Yet, because mainstream media has garnered the reputation of being the go-to for factual information, they have the ability to take possible truths and immediately have them ridiculed and dismissed.
But alternative outlets and powerful people such as WikiLeaks, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, and many unbiased journalists are paving the path to break such stigmas.
One of the components of airborne drone swarms is the use of micro-drones – small, sometimes insect-sized autonomous vehicles that can be deployed from larger aircraft. Rapid advances are being made in artificial intelligence that enable autonomous systems to be fully released from human control altogether – identifying, surrounding and incapacitating targets.
Last month, former CIA analyst John Nixon made headlines when he asserted that while he was interrogating Saddam Hussein after the 2003 invasion, the dictator warned him that the U.S. would fail in Iraq. Now, Nixon has revealed yet another unsettling detail: the Bush administration knew they were going to take on Iraq on “day one” — before the 9/11 terror attacks even occurred. In fact, they viewed Iraq as “unfinished business,” according to the former analyst.
As U.S. President-elect Donald Trump continues to receive domestic and international rebuke for his comments on expanding nuclear weapons, the General Assembly of the United Nations on Friday adopted a resolution that calls for negotiations to begin next year on an international treaty to completely ban the use of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, yet predictably, the resolution was opposed by the major nuclear powers, including the United States, Britain, France and Russia.
We know a few things about what happened in Syria over the past five years. This was no popular uprising to overthrow a dictator and bring in democracy. From the moment President Obama declared “Assad must go” and approved sending in weapons, it was obvious this was a foreign-sponsored regime change operation that used foreign fighters against Syrian government forces.
The case was brought against Bush by Sundus Shaker Saleh, an Iraqi woman who charges Bush and high-ranking officials in his administration with breaking international and US law by planning and executing the invasion and subsequent occupation of Iraq. Saleh maintains that Bush and his colleagues are guilty of the “crime of aggression,” which was defined as the “supreme international crime” at the 1946 Nuremberg Trials.
Though the corporate media often describe Henry Kissenger as an “internationally prestigious” political scientist and “uber-diplomat,” his penchant for death, destruction, and genocide is well-documented. Kissinger, as Secretary of State under former President Nixon, transformed US foreign policy into one of perpetual wars waged throughout the world. Kissinger oversaw a bloody coup in Chile, an illegal bombing campaign in Cambodia, and millions dead in Vietnam. His disregard for human life shows no limits as he once famously said that US “military men are just dumb, stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.”
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange stated that the emails provide definitive proof that the United States CIA is “essentially responsible for creating ISIS”.
On Sunday, the US Army Corps of Engineers denied an easement for the pipeline to cross Lake Oahe, meaning the DAPL would need to be rerouted. Shortly after that declaration, however, ETP and SXL released their own statement, making it very clear that the companies have no intention of delaying or stopping construction… A ‘victory’ might have been obtained yesterday, but the ‘fight’ is far from over.
