San Diego Free Press

Grassroots News & Progressive Views

You are here: Home / Archives for Government / Military / War and Peace

Conservatives Cry Wolf About Refugee Terror Threat

by

Right-wing politicians in the United States are working overtime to drum up fears about refugees in the wake of last weekend’s terrorism in Paris. Today we’ll look at the coverage of the cowardly lions and the facts which, unsurprisingly, don’t support their case.

Twelve million people have fled their homes in Syria over the past five years. Four million of those displaced have fled the country, coming mostly from what’s left of the once-burgeoning middle class. Half of those leaving the country are children.

At present, the United States is poised to accept 10,000 refugees in the coming year. Since the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011, the United States has taken in 1,800 refugees. It is likely some of the refugees well be resettled through San Diego, given the existing infrastructure.
  [Read more…]

Wargasms Won’t Stop More Paris Bombings

by

As long as people are dying in Paris, nobody important is dying in Doha or Riyadh… Charles P. Pierce, Esquire

News out of Paris dominated the media over the past few days. Shock and horror turned to anger and disgust.

At least 129 people were killed in a coordinated terrorist attack on Friday evening. At least 350 people were wounded, 99 of them in critical condition.

The terrorist group known as the Islamic State has claimed credit, and law enforcement investigators are inclined to agree these attacks were coordinated out of Syria via Belgium.

Seven people killed themselves in the course of the attacks, an eighth attacker is the subject of a massive manhunt. Scores of arrests have been made as police in France and Belgium have raided homes and picked up some of the usual suspects. Belgian national Abdelhamid Abaaoud –who may have already fled to Syria– has been identified as the leader of the group.

And the French are bombing the sh*t out of Syria.   [Read more…]

Waging Endless War From Vietnam to Syria

by

Greg Grandin’s Kissinger, the Bombardier

By Tom Engelhardt / TomDispatch

As October ended, White House spokesperson Josh Earnest announced that the U.S. would be sending “less than 50” boots-on-the-ground Special Operations forces into northern Syria in an “advise-and-assist” program for Kurdish rebels and their (essentially nonexistent) Arab allies.

Only days before, in yet another example of twenty-first-century mission creep, Secretary of Defense Ashton Carter had told Congress that the intensity of U.S. air attacks in Syria would rise “with additional U.S. and coalition aircraft and heavier airstrikes.” For this, A-10 and F-15 aircraft were to be deployed to Incirlik Air Base in Turkey.

It was the sort of military promise from Washington — more of the same — that has grown increasingly familiar in these years and could be summed up by adapting that old DuPont ad line, “better living through chemistry”: a better world through bombing. Unfortunately for such plans, the verdict has long been in: air power as a decisive factor in American war in this century has proven a dismal failure.   [Read more…]

Veterans Day Reflection: An Unexpected Gesture of Appreciation

by

The ROK (Republic of Korea) has had in place a standing invitation for veterans of the Korea War to visit Seoul and be guests of the South Korean government for one week. With the exception of one half the airfare and a fee paid to the arranging agency, all expenses, first class hotel accommodations, meals including banquets, tours, ceremonies, gifts and entertainment are courtesy of the Korean government.

I have been able take advantage of the opportunity two times, once in 2003, during which the sixtieth anniversary of the cease fire was being widely celebrated.   [Read more…]

A Cry for Ending the Slaughter in the ‘Drone Papers’ Revelations

by

By Marjorie Cohn / Truthdig

A new whistleblower has joined the ranks of Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, John Kiriakou and other courageous individuals. The unnamed person, who chose to remain anonymous because of the Obama administration’s vigorous prosecution of whistleblowers, is a member of the intelligence community.

In the belief that the American public has the right to know about the “fundamentally” and “morally” flawed U.S. drone program, this source provided The Intercept with a treasure trove of secret military documents and slides that shine a critical light on the country’s killer drone program. These files confirm that the Obama administration’s policy and practice of assassination using armed drones and other methods violate the law.   [Read more…]

Donald Trump Is Right About One Thing. GW Bush Did Not Keep Us Safe Before 9/11

by

The Donald just doesn’t know how to back up his statement with the actual facts, that’s all. Richard Clarke, the CIA’s National Coordinator for Counterterrorism, was running around with his hair on fire trying to get George W Bush to listen to him about the imminence of an attack by bin Ladin.

Bush blew him off and then demoted him so that he didn’t report directly to the President as he had under the Clinton and George H W Bush administrations. Now he had to go through Condoleeza Rice and her deputy who also blew him off. Bush simply was not interested in terrorism; he was only interested in getting the goods on Saddam so he would have some kind of rationale for invading Iraq. He wanted to invade Iraq the worst way so he went about manufacturing evidence that would justify his doing so. In the meantime, he totally ignored terrorism and the advice he should have heeded about an imminent attack.   [Read more…]

Reflections on Palestine: Symbols of Homeland

by

By Pedro Rios

As I traveled throughout the occupied Palestinian territories, it was evident to me that life under Israeli occupation means that Palestinians must live under a constant stage of siege.  Israeli military and police forces use violence to enforce apartheid-style policies to control every aspect of Palestinian life. I heard many stories about how the Israeli government flagrantly violates international human rights conventions and agreements, and witnessed examples of how Palestinians live with unreasonable restrictions that are meant to humiliate and demean an entire people.

In spite of this, there were natural resources that have become symbols in Palestinian life that call for a dignified homeland. These symbols – water, olive trees, and cactus plants – all are palpable objects that transcend the callousness of occupation because they represent long-lasting survival, in spite of what appears to be a permanent occupation. Below, I offer my brief reflections on each.  I believe they each merit a more just and thorough contemplation for what they’ve come to mean to Palestinians.   [Read more…]

What Clinton Gets Wrong About Snowden

by

By  / OtherWords

Hillary Clinton is wrong about Edward Snowden. Again.

The presidential candidate and former secretary of state insisted during the recent Democratic debate that Snowden should have remained in the United States to voice his concerns about government spying on U.S. citizens. Instead, she claimed, he “endangered U.S. secrets by fleeing to Russia.”

After accusing Snowden of stealing “very important information that has fallen into the wrong hands,” she added: “He should not be brought home without facing the music.”   [Read more…]

Readers Write: Grim Prospect of Hundred Years War

by

Bush’s War is thirteen years old and counting. It is increasingly evident that none of the participants in this expanding global tragedy knows how, nor it seems, has anyone the will, to put an end to war.

Children born in the Middle East and children born in the United States at the time of our ill advised incursion into the affairs of a foreign country are now about thirteen years old. They know of no time of no war.   [Read more…]

A Dark and Dirty Shadow Falls Over California Plastic Bag Ban

by

By Doug Porter

Efforts to eliminate the use of plastic grocery bags in California face all-out opposition via two well-funded industry campaigns in 2016. Hilex Poly, Superbag Corp, Advance Polybag and Formosa Plastics Corporation are expected to cough up most of the probable $55.3 million price tag for the efforts.

An estimated $38.1 million war chest will back a November referendum aimed at SB270, State Senator Alex Padilla’s bill banning the use of plastic bags. The measure was suspended following a $3.2 million signature-gathering campaign funded by the American Progressive Bag Alliance.

And just to make sure they get their way, industry proponents are spending an estimated $4 million qualifying a second ballot measure innocuously titled the Environmental Fee Protection Act. It’s likely they’ll spend $17.2 million selling this bit of misdirection, according to Forward Observer.com.   [Read more…]

It’s Time to Abolish Columbus Day

by

By Bill Bigelow / Common Dreams

Once again this year many schools will pause to commemorate Christopher Columbus. Given everything we know about who Columbus was and what he launched in the Americas, this needs to stop.

Columbus initiated the trans-Atlantic slave trade, in early February 1494, first sending several dozen enslaved Taínos to Spain. Columbus described those he enslaved as “well made and of very good intelligence,” and recommended to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella that taxing slave shipments could help pay for supplies needed in the Indies.

A year later, Columbus intensified his efforts to enslave Indigenous people in the Caribbean. He ordered 1,600 Taínos rounded up—people whom Columbus had earlier described as “so full of love and without greed”—and had 550 of the “best males and females,” according to one witness, Michele de Cuneo, chained and sent as slaves to Spain. “Of the rest who were left,” de Cuneo writes, “the announcement went around that whoever wanted them could take as many as he pleased; and this was done.”   [Read more…]

Killer Robots: Coming Soon to a Battlefield Near You

by

“If there is not a pre-emptive ban on the high-level autonomous weapons then once the genie is out of the bottle it will be extremely difficult to get it back in.”

By Nadia Prupis / Common Dreams

The U.S. and UK are undermining attempts by the United Nations to negotiate over the future of autonomous weapons—or “killer robots”—talks which, if delayed further, could come too late to prevent so-called “robot wars.”

Technology and human rights experts have been pushing for the UN to preemptively ban machines that can kill on the battlefield without human operators, citing a greater risk to civilian life and a broader lack of accountability for military officials. But Christof Heyns, UN special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary, or arbitrary executions, said Tuesday that the negotiation process is in danger of getting “stuck.”   [Read more…]

©2010-2017 SanDiegoFreePress.org

Code is Poetry