It's Official: The U.S. Army is Targeting and Assassinating Children
Via Washington’s Blog:
Obama and the American military label all young men – between the ages of say 15 and 35 - who happen to be in battle zones as suspected insurgents who they can target and kill.
Under the Bush administration, children were tortured.
Now, the U.S. military is starting to target children for assassination in battle zones. As the Nation reports:
In a despicable article in Military Times, the US military says that children are legitimate targets in the war in Afghanistan because sometimes the Taliban and other insurgents use kids.
In the original incident, which I cited in October, The New York Times reported it this way:
The…case of three children allegedly killed in a coalition strike was reported by local officials in Helmand Province’s Nawa district. The officials said that the children were killed in a NATO strike on Sunday afternoon as they were gathering dung to burn as fuel, a common practice in the desert reaches of southern Afghanistan where there are few trees.
***
The Marja governor said that NATO forces watched as improvised explosive devices were being planted, and targeted the insurgents planting them. “As a result two I.E.D. planters were killed and the shrapnel killed the three children who were wandering nearby,” he said. Other reports said that three insurgents had been killed.
A spokesman for the international forces, Maj. Adam Wojack, said that the coalition forces were aware of the allegations and that the episode was being investigated. “I.S.A.F. did conduct a precision airstrike on three insurgents in Nawa district, and the strike killed all three insurgents,” he said.
“None of our reporting shows any civilian casualties or any children.”
But on December 3 Gannett, which owns Military Times, ran an article headlined: “Some Afghan Kids Aren’t Bystanders.” It said:
When Marines in Helmand province sized up shadowy figures that appeared to be emplacing an improvised explosive device, it looked like a straightforward mission. They got clearance for an airstrike, a Marine official said, and took out the targets.
It wasn’t that simple, however. Three individuals hit were 12, 10 and 8 years old, leading the International Security Assistance Force in Kabul to say it may have “accidentally killed three innocent Afghan civilians.”
But a Marine official here raised questions about whether the children were “innocent.” Before calling for the M142 High Mobility Artillery Rocket System mission in mid-October, Marines observed the children digging a hole in a dirt road in Nawa district, the official said, and the Taliban may have recruited the children to carry out the mission.
Shockingly, the article quotes a senior officer saying that the military isn’t just out to bomb “military age males,” anymore, but kids, too:
“It kind of opens our aperture,” said Army Lt. Col. Marion “Ced” Carrington, whose unit, 1st Battalion, 508th Parachute Infantry Regiment, was assisting the Afghan police. “In addition to looking for military-age males, it’s looking for children with potential hostile intent.”
War crimes? It would appear so.
Ron Paul nails the “foreign aid” issue. I linked to 4:24, but go back and watch the whole thing because his answers on Bernanke may intrigue you.
Patrick Witty, International Picture Editor of TIME;
former freelance photographer on this photograph that he took on 9/11:
“After the towers fell, I walked back to my apartment on the Lower East Side, completely in a daze. I had shot black and white film that morning and there was a small lab in the kitchen of my neighbor’s apartment where I could process and scan. When I walked inside, covered in dust and a ripped t-shirt, my neighbors were there and we looked at each other in silence, in disbelief. Another photographer was there who I didn’t know, named David Surowiecki. At the time he was an editor at Getty Images, along with my old roommate Craig Allen. David and Craig were scanning film and transmitting the images from the apartment since Getty’s offices had been evacuated. David’s film from the morning was on a light table near the film dryer in the kitchen. I started looking at his film with a loupe and will never forget the feeling of despair when I saw this one particular image. It was a bizarre and terrifying, yet almost calm image, split down the middle with four tiny bodies falling to the ground. I saw bodies falling when I was near the burning towers, but I didn’t shoot it myself. I couldn’t.”
(via thefreelioness)
(via lalibertarienne)
40 Embarrassing Things That America Is the Best in the World At
U-S-A … U-S-A!
(Source: moralanarchism)
Obama pledges no more wars unless 'absolutely necessary'
President Barack Obama honored veterans on Monday by noting “the light of a new day” of having U.S. troops home from Iraq and returning soon from Afghanistan, while promising not to send soldiers back to war without a clear need.
Obama did not mention tension with Iran and Syria in his remarks to veterans and military families at a hot, sunny Memorial Day ceremony, focusing instead on the wars started by his predecessor, George W. Bush, that he wound down as president.
“After a decade under the dark cloud of war, we can see the light of a new day on the horizon,” he said at Arlington National Cemetery, drawing applause when he noted the “milestone” of it being the first Memorial Day in nine years without Americans fighting and dying in Iraq.
“As commander in chief, I can tell you that sending our troops into harm’s way is the most wrenching decision that I have to make,” Obama said shortly after laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.
“I can promise you I will never do so unless it is absolutely necessary and that when we do, we must give our troops a clear mission and the full support of a grateful nation.”
Later on Monday, Obama will attend a ceremony at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington.
Defense Secretary Leon Panetta, introducing Obama at the Arlington military cemetery, said that 58,000 Americans died in the Vietnam War. More than 4,000 Americans died in Iraq from 2003 to 2011, and nearly 2,000 have died in Afghanistan from the war’s start in 2001 to date.
Who needs a ground offensive, when you’ve merely evolved the apparatus/methods/means of war.
See / Meanwhile -
- US drone ‘kills six’ in Pakistan’s tribal north-west,
- Up to 34 Dead in US-Aided Yemen Offensive,
- Hundreds Die as US-Backed Yemen Offensive Escalates,
- US Drone Strikes Increase in Pakistan: 31 Killed Since Wednesday,
- Nato air strike ‘kills Afghan family’,
- Panetta Vows ‘Enduring Presence’ in Afghanistan,
etc.
Good joke Obama.
(via lalibertarienne)
I’m NOT in because I want a politician and not a celebrity!
Our socialized medicine in Canada causes just as many bankruptcies as the 'capitalist' medical system in the USA
What people don’t ever think about is all the folks who lose everything because of the tax burden of paying for this outrageous medical system. So while people may not be going bankrupt under the direct burden of their own medical bills, they are going bankrupt on the burden of other folksmedical bills!
Oh and if you think the USA has a ‘capitalist’ or ‘for profit’ healthcare industry can you explain why roughly 80% of the healthcare in the US is funded by taxpayers?
"In the midst of the ubiquitous 9/11 nationalism and jingoism, let’s not forget that America is worse off as a result of what we have done under the guise of ‘making us safe’ and ‘fighting terror.’ The gov’t has taken advantage of a tragedy in order to kill hundreds of thousands of innocent people in unrelated wars, spy on us, torture people and detain them indefinitely, poke and prod us like cattle, and militarize local police while disarming the rest of us. Tragedy upon tragedy."
Ricardo Perez (via disobey)
Talk Straight: Stu Burguiere: Five things the media didn’t mention from the S&P downgrade report
Yes, people like John Kerry were quick to blame the Tea Party and claim that the S&P downgrade was solely due to a lack of tax increases, but that’s not what S&P said. Still, that’s probably all you heard. So, here are five things the media made sure you missed:
1) The left says the S&P downgrade…
"There’s nobody in this world that could possibly attack us today… we could defend this country with a few good submarines. If anybody dared touch us we could wipe any country off of the face of the earth within hours. And here we are, so intimidated and so insecure and we’re acting like such bullies that we have to attack third-world nations that have no military and have no weapons."
Ron Paul, on Foreign Policy (via trevisd00dz)
(Source: all-glory-to-pizza, via erintheheroine-deactivated20111)
