Marines ignore Afghan opium so as not to upset locals

Associated Press
Published: Wednesday May 7, 2008
From: Raw Story
 GARMSER, Afghanistan — The Marines of Bravo Company’s 1st Platoon sleep beside a grove of poppies. Troops in the 2nd Platoon playfully swat at the heavy opium bulbs while walking through the fields. Afghan laborers scraping the plant’s gooey resin smile and wave.
Last week, the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit [...]

The Last Roundup

Source: Radar Magazine

“The technological capacity that the intelligence community has given the government could enable it to impose total tyranny,” Church pointed out in 1975. “And there would be no way to fight back, because the most careful effort to combine together in resistance to the government, no matter how privately [...]

Battle of the War Hawks

Full Story Here
In the increasingly unlikely event of a McCain-Clinton election, folks who care about the peace issue would have serious reason to worry. Both of these candidates are inveterate hawks, and what we would be up against is a choice between the neoconservatives and the neoliberals as to who could be more adventurous in [...]

U.S. Airstrikes on Somalia to Control Vital Waterway, Not to Combat Terrorism

Full Story Here
Emira Woods, co-director of Foreign Policy in Focus, argues for a more humane foreign policy and explains why American airstrikes in Somalia and elsewhere are about more than terrorism.
…So the end result has been Somali civilians killed as the U.S. pursues its so-called war on terror. Essentially, the rhetoric of the Bush administration [...]

USSA: how the US kills for commercial interests and does not practice free market principles

Full story here
The US government uses tax money, and worse yet, money borrowed from the Federal Reserve (which is paid off by printing new money thus inflation), to support select industries in which government employees typically hold stock.
Over-priced no bid contracts are awarded to corporations for what are often unnecessary jobs, such as [...]

Networks continue to ignore NY Times’ military analyst story, but all find time for Hannah Montana

Source: Media Matters
Since The New York Times reported on the hidden ties between media military analysts and the Pentagon on April 20, the three major broadcast networks — ABC, CBS, and NBC — have still not mentioned the report at all, according to a Media Matters for America search* of the Nexis news database.
Times [...]

Pentagon cuts funding for Iraq under pressure from Congress

Source: Google News

WASHINGTON (AFP) — US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates has withdrawn a 171-million-dollar funding request to build police stations in Iraq after demands from Congress to have Baghdad take on a greater share of reconstruction costs, according to a letter released Tuesday.
Writing to Carl Levin, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, [...]

151 Congressmen Profit From War

Source: Rogue Government
Who profits from the Iraq war? More than a quarter of senators and congressmen have invested at least $196 million of their own money in companies doing business with the Department of Defense (DoD) that profit from the death and destruction in Iraq.
According to the latest reports, 151 members of Congress invested close [...]

Unbelieveable! “al-Qaeda” Dismisses Conspiracy Theories, Defends Israel, Attacks Iran and Hizbollah!

Full Story: sott.net
By Joe Quinn
Ever since the 9/11 attacks, Sott.net, along with many others commentators (including US government officials), have repeatedly stated that “al-qaeda” is a fabricated enemy. That it is used to justify the Ziocon’s military rampage though the Middle East while simultaneously terrorising the folks back home.
In the past 7 years the world [...]

New Doubts About Health Care for US War Vets

Source: commondreams.org

Published on Tuesday, April 22, 2008 by One World.net
By Aaron Glantz

SAN FRANCISCO - About 300,000 U.S. veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) or major depression. Another 320,000 veterans likely suffer from traumatic brain injury (TBI), a type of physical brain damage often caused by explosions [...]