jimstaro's blog

March 25th, 2011 - This week on War News Radio, "Phoning Home." In an exclusive two-part interview, Pulitzer Prize-winning New York Times reporter David Rohde and his wife Kristin Mulvihill came to War News Radio to tell the story of his 2008 kidnapping at the hands of the Taliban, and to talk about the new book they wrote together: "A Rope and a Prayer: A Kidnapping from Two Sides." WNR's Elliana Bisgarrd-Church reports. Our program begins with this week's headline.

 

"lived in fear of being killed by them every day."

By their actions, not only in killing civilians but the mistreatment of the bodies of those killed, they raised the bar of more retaliation and blowback, you can't hide atrocities and war crimes in a conflict theater, not only towards them but all the soldiers serving in the occupation as well as a rise in international criminal terrorism, it only takes a few!

JBLM Soldier Morlock Sentenced To 24 Years For Killing Afghan Civilians

March 23, 2011 - Spc. Jeremy Morlock, one of five 5th Stryker Brigade soldiers out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord facing military charges of premeditated murder while deployed in Afghanistan, pleaded guilty in a general court-martial Wednesday and was sentenced to 24 years in prison.

The experts{?} may eventually find a way to negotiate the foreign occupations way out of Afghanistan but they certainly won't be able to negotiate away the extreme rise in the hatreds created by the decade plus long quagmire of that country, especially those by the children who survived and grew up in the carnage of or in Iraq and the rest of that region, leaving it to become that quagmire of insurgent warfare by leaving to invade, destroy and occupy Iraq. Iraq itself is still ongoing after eight years, as the invaders and occupiers, in Afghanistan, didn't fulfill the initial so called goals related to 9/11 attach on the U.S., rid the country of the Taliban, capture bin Laden and others and minimize or destroy the so called al Qaeda and help the Afghans rebuild after decades of War, destruction and Occupation. Afghanistan stopped being about anything related to 9/11 as the first drumbeat of War was pointed at Iraq.

Garment workers around 1900. (Credit: Kheel Center, Cornell University, photographer unknown)

23 March 2011 - Turn back the clock on New York City’s garment district to around the year 1900.

“The average work week was 84 hours, 12 hours every day of the week,” said Ellen Rothman with the Jewish Women’s Archive in Brookline, Mass. “During the busy season, the grinding hum of sewing machines never entirely ceased day or night.”

 

And I'm goin to hazard a guess probably not the only one. Who in the hell does the screening for these so called 'private contractors' that are then sent into these occupation theaters?

I just caught this, and an update to the 'kill team' of U.S. soldiers.

This goes Way Beyond Disgusting!!

Especially what's written about this, and people wonder why the world is turning it's collective backs on us!!

This a**wipe can and should ask himself how many soldiers his actions have gotten killed while he parades around thinking he's superior, scumbag!!

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, nothing like winning hearts and minds of the occupied while on ours or their dime!!

Victorian neo-Nazi used as medic in Afghanistan

VICTORY! Court Says Plaintiffs Can Challenge Bush Wiretapping Law

Mar 21st, 2011 - In a huge victory for privacy and the rule of law, a federal appeals court today reinstated our landmark lawsuit challenging the FISA Amendments Act (FAA), a statute that gives the executive branch virtually unchecked power to collect Americans' international e-mails and telephone calls.

If the past decade plus didn't answer that question, after 9/11, as well as the one about our 'freedoms', because you didn't pay attention to what's done in your names over the decades, maybe these very recent news reports will jog that overwhelming arrogance and total apathy embedded in the minds of this country.

A friend of american christianity is back in the news.

Adding to the recruitment by more then just the actions within the occupations and wars of choice, the ongoing hateful actions and rhetoric. The fear from within under the guise of 'religious?' ideology followed by the hateful and intolerant. But this 'preacher?', and those like him, the rehadists (R), aren't 'fighting them over there' nor anywhere, those we send over and over are!!

March 15th, 2011 - "What is a union anyway but working people coming together, acting together to improve their lives," Tony Schultz, Farmer Director of Family Farm Defender said. "And that is what we're here to do - to act together, to speak together in solidarity, saying we reject this union busting bill and we reject this budget."

Rolling down the streets of Madison in their tractors, Wisconsin's farmers joined the protests that rose throughout Madison this weekend. While in Madison, Laura also spoke with Scott Schultz, executive director of Wisconsin Farmers Union, who spoke about the ripple effects of the anti-union bill that will be felt throughout their community.

U.S. and coalition forces launched missiles and bombs at targets in Iraq including a “decapitation attack” aimed at Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other top members of the country’s leadership.

There were nearly 300,000 American, British and other troops at the border.
President George W. Bush warned Americans that the conflict "could be longer and more difficult than some predict." He assured the nation that “this will not be a campaign of half-measures, and we will accept no outcome except victory.”

Read about the cost of this war

Timeline

This Week in Peace History

My father was a hard working postal worker, then called a postal clerk who sorted the mail. Up till this strike he was making less take home than I started making working construction till I went into the service. He did have some benefits and a pension plan, I didn't. After the strike they started making a more comfortable wage as well as the postal service started automating, as they advanced they gave schooling in the newer technologies. He retired some years later and they lived comfortably on a decent pension for his hard work of many years, a pension he contributed to. Also around this time companies, turning into corporations, were axing older workers as they were approaching retirement age, this continued as the safety nets for dedicated hard working folks were marginalized. leaving them out of any and all pensions they had already contributed into and living off lower waged jobs then Social Security.

March 18th, 2011 - This week on War News Radio, we hear about a new documentary, "Shepards of Helmand." Then, we talk to veterans coping with traumatic brain injury. This, and the week's news

 

Photo: Erica Silverman/IRIN: Undergraduate students on the green at Islamic University in Gaza City

16 March 2011 (IRIN) - The next generation in the Gaza Strip may be less educated, less professional and perhaps more radical because an Israeli blockade has restricted educational and employment opportunities, say UN and other sources.

eighth anniversary of America's invasion of Iraq.

Yep, and it seems now that the U.S. media is trying to spin their own rovian revisionist history as to why they didn't do their jobs, eight years later!

And after all this time, questions still remain as to why the United States launched the war in the first place.

Really Simon, questions? Seems hundreds of thousands here with added millions, us 'focus groups', around this planet were questioning before, on the day the invasion started and all these years later, as well as paying attention to the better late then never Inquiries held as well as all the proof then and through these eight years. Where have all of you been?

Keep in mind that what this administration has been attempting to do hasn't been done previously, opening up our government information even more and to retrieve quicker. Will they succeed, doubt it, to many want a closed agenda of what is done in our names. makes no difference whether they are sincere or insincere they might or might not be, the country isn't controlled by us the people.

Also keep in mind what wasn't done in the previous administration and their congresses especially as we waged war on two countries, reasons for, building the coalitions.........., but even more as to foreign and domestic policies, regulations, closed energy meetings and on and on.

This is a live feed coming out of Madison:

Right now they are bouncing back and forth from the speaker at the station to show recordings from yesterday as well as some live feeds via cell phones as the rally goes on today.

Reason I'm posting this up, besides the obvious of some wanting to watch, is they announced that the 14 State Senators will be speaking at around twelve noon CST and they are hoping to bring live coverage of those speeches.

This feed comes from The UpTake.

This is in an e-mail from GRITtv:

HEARD ON THE STREET: "If you live in Wisconsin, don't forget to turn your clock back 50 years this weekend."

That link is running live coverage supposedly but doesn't look like a stream.

There's suppose to be live streaming coverage here and at Free Speech TV
According to GRITtv's Laura Flanders who's in Madison Wis.

March 11th, 2011 - This week on War News Radio: Best of Spring 2011. We will hear about the Basetrack program and the controversy surrounding its sudden closure. Then, we will learn about training the Afghan National Army. Finally, we talk to a Swarthmore alumnus who returned home to Afghanistan following graduation.

 

March 10th, 2011 - It started with a Facebook status update. Upset at the media's coverage of Charlie Sheen, someone took up for American soldiers dying in Afghanistan.

"Charlie Sheen is all over the news because he's a celebrity drug addict," it said, "while Andrew Wilfahrt 31, Brian Tabada 21, Rudolph Hizon 22, Chauncy Mays 25, are soldiers who gave their lives this week with no media mention. Please honor them by posting this as your status for a little while."

The status update has since gone viral, shared by tens of thousands on Facebook. An abbreviated version is on Twitter.

This is how we treat a lower rank soldier suspect, as the leaders walk free with no worries, apparently, as to accountability of what they did In Our Names!!

Now why would someone, or a group, target a site such as this? It would be really interesting to find the sources and ask them. Are they funded by the wealth already going after women's rights or just pranksters with a sick agenda? Something tells me there's more to this than that.

Afghan women listen to President Hamid Karzai's speech during an event to mark International Women's Day in Kabul. Photograph: Omar Sobhani/Reuters

March 8, 2011 - Hackers have brought down the International Women’s Day website today, the 100th anniversary of the event.

This report just aired on CBS Evening News:

March 7, 2011 - Kathy Strong was 12 years old when she put on a bracelet to keep vigil for a solider missing in Vietnam -- now it's time for her to take it off

 

Statement by Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Resumption of Military Commission Charges

Earlier today I posted up an article I found on one of my sites, this one related to the Green Economic growth going on mostly everywhere but here in the U.S., though here we are finally doing some things. I was going to leave it at that posting but low and behold I started streaming NPR and caught a related short interview with an author that wasn't directly related to Green but was about what we once had as an economy here in the States, which gives me the title.

This site, and message, just popped up on FaceBook and many are joining in even if only in spirit for most. But hey if you're in that region and can make the run, join in.

What's it about:

Time Saturday, March 12 · 12:00pm - 2:00pm

Location The Capitol, Madison WI

We will never have any type of full accountability of the deaths of the civilians in Iraq as to the invasion and long occupation, still ongoing, what we do know is the possibility of tens of thousands killed, tens of thousands maimed, unknown numbers of physiological damaged Iraqi's living in the death and destruction of almost daily 9/11's especially in the cities destroyed, millions made into refugee's both inside the country and to neighboring countries and beyond, a country totally destroyed and changed forever! Done In Our Names!

No need to say much as to an intro to this discussion, they, as usual, do a great job.

One thing I would like to say is that think Keith would be doin great if he picked up Laura and gave her a spot on the rebuild of that Gore and company TV Station.

She's always done a great job when doing radio, her books, and now with this GRITtv venture, though to a to small an audience and Rachel's still under contract to MSNBC.

Michael Moore: People Still Have the Power

March 1 2011 - "This is a movement that is not going to stop," says filmmaker Michael Moore of the uprising in Madison, Wisconsin (and across the country--all 50 states held solidarity rallies this weekend). "I knew sooner or later people would say they've had enough."

This week on War News Radio, "Under Pressure." We speak with a blogger and a filmmaker about recent protests in the Iraqi province of Sulaimaniyah. Then, we hear about the February 25th "Day of Rage" in Iraq. Finally, we explore media coverage of the controversy surrounding the arrest of a CIA contractor in Pakistan. But first, a round up of this week's news.

 

This photo of inmates from the Communications Management Unit in Terre Haute was taken in 2007. Among those pictured are (left to right, bottom row) Ibrahim al-Hamdi, Avon Twitty, Enaam Arnaout.

March 3, 2011 - Part 1 of a two-part series

Reports about what life is like inside the military prison for terrorism suspects at Guantanamo Bay are not uncommon. But very little is reported about two secretive units for convicted terrorists and other inmates who get 24-hour surveillance, right here in the U.S.