whitebeard

Don't curse the darkness, light a candle.

Embedded Media

The US corporate media coverage of the Indian Ocean tsunami disaster, for most Americans, was shocking, and emotional. Empathic Americans, with the knowledge that a terrible natural disaster of huge significant to hundreds of thousands people had occurred, wanted to help in any way they could. Church groups held prayer sessions for the victims, and the Red Cross received an upsurge of donations.

The US corporate media coverage of the tsunami disaster exposes a huge hypocrisy in the US press. Left uncovered this past year was the massive disaster that has befell Iraqi civilians. Over 100,000 civilians have died since the beginning of the US invasion and hundreds of thousands more are homeless and weakened. In late October 2004 the British Lancet medical journal published a scientific survey of households in Iraq that calculated over 100,000 civilians, mostly women and children, have died from war related causes.

Corporate Media Ignores US Hypocrisy on War Crimes
By Peter Phillips
http://www.projectcensored.org/

posted by: Whitebeard at 00:35 | link | comments |

Israel against children

In the present intifada, 323 Palestinian children under the age of 14 have been killed by IDF fire. Three recent examples from Nablus...

Why waste ammunition? A few days ago, an Israel Defense Forces soldier fired at two boys in the casbah of Nablus. Just a lone bullet that penetrated the body of one of the boys, exited, penetrated the second boy, and killed both of them. Two 15-year-old boys standing with their arms around each other on the street that descends to the marketplace.

The soldier didn't "confirm the kill" after his two victims fell; perhaps that is why nobody on our side was shocked by this horrific double killing. But in two homes in the casbah of Nablus, dead children were being mourned. One, Amar Banaat, was his mother's only child, born after 15 years of infertility; the other, Montasser Hadada, had lost his father only three months ago. On the wall, next to the picture of the two children, there is also one of their good friend Hani Kandil, who was killed in the same place in the casbah several months ago. Three pictures of dead children on the wall.
follow here

 

 

posted by: Whitebeard at 16:26 | link | comments |

posted by: Whitebeard at 08:52 | link | comments |

Read and sign

Open letter addressed to:

President Jacques Chirac (France)

Prime minister Tony Blair (Great Britain)

The following open letter is a call for the application of effective international pressure on Israel, in order to put an end to the occupation and oppression of the Palestinian people by Israel.
The letter is addressed to President Jacques Chirac and Prime Minister Tony Blair and will be delivered to them by leading French and British public personalities, respectively, together with the list of international signatories.
You, together with all other peace activists worldwide, are invited to add your signature to this open letter, in order to add to its moral weight.
As our common goal is to collect as many signatures as possible within 4-6 weeks, please consider helping by sending a link to this page to those who you think may want to join.
The letter is signed initially by:
Shulamit Aloni
Former Israeli minister of education and leader of the Meretz party
Dr. Hannan Ashrawi
Secretary General - The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy - MIFTAH.
Palestinian Legislative Council Member for the Jerusalem District.

========
Mr. President / Mr. Prime minister,
This letter is being written at one of the darkest moments in the history of the conflict between the state of Israel and the Palestinian people. Palestinians are being killed daily and the level of destruction to the Palestinian infrastructure is catastrophic. Israelis, for their part, are now living in constant fear of suicide attacks with violence ruling the day. Both sides are longing for a real peace which they have not enjoyed for even one year since the creation of the state of Israel in 1948.
In view of the extent of Israeli colonization and stubborn resistance to the dismantling of even the smallest settlements in Gaza, it is becoming increasingly clear that Israel does not have the will, nor the political resolve, required to end the occupation and allow the creation of a sovereign, free and viable Palestinian state. Indeed, not only is there no real intention of returning lands, there is even intensified building around Jerusalem and expansion of settlements.
We therefore call for firm and decisive international intervention that will put the necessary pressure on Israel, in order to make sure it complies with international law, the principles of human rights and the relevant UN resolutions The end result of this intervention should be the dismantling of all Israeli settlements in the territories occupied by Israel during the 1967 war, and the creation of a Palestinian state therein. We do not regard such international intervention as anti- Israeli, or anti-Semitic, but rather the contrary. This seems to us the only way to put an end to a century of bitter conflict and nearly forty years of brutal occupation that seems set to continue for the foreseeable future.
Britain and France have been involved with this part of the world since the end of the 19th century. Since 1945 you have supported the forces of peace and cooperation in Europe and all over the world. We ask you to use your influence and do the same in the Middle East! The roots of this conflict go far back, at the least to May 16th, 1916, when the Sykes-Picot agreement between France and Britain divided control over the crumbling Ottoman Empire. The wounds and scars of that division are still apparent today, and their effects can clearly be seen in the current conflict. We are asking, therefore, that France and Britain take a bold, historic stand that will move us from strategies of power to strategies of reconciliation - a stand that will reflect your resolve that the 21st century be a century of respect for international law and institutions, a century of justice and peace.
Shulamit Aloni
former Israeli minister of education
and leader of the Meretz party      
Dr. Hannan Ashrawi
Secretary General - The Palestinian Initiative for the Promotion of Global Dialogue and Democracy - MIFTAH.
Palestinian Legislative Council Member for the Jerusalem District.

Add your signature at      http://www.petitions.medicks.net

posted by: Whitebeard at 23:38 | link | comments |

 

 

Killed while killing

 

 

 

 

My wishes for 2005 to american people.

 

posted by: Whitebeard at 09:50 | link | comments |

George W. Bush is a product of the Wild West myth. He sees himself as the fast-drawing sheriff who kills the bad guys and maintains order in town.

But in fact he is much more like another stock figure of the Westerns: the top-hatted vendor of the patent medicine which heals everything: tooth-ache and belly-ache, cholera and impotence, gunshot wounds and heart attacks.

Bush's patent medicine is called "democracy".
...So who is worried? Of all people, Ariel Sharon, his great friend, teacher and guide.
...As fate would have it, Bush achieved his great victory one day before the sudden, mysterious breakdown of Yasser Arafat's health. Sharon's alibi was buried in Ramallah.
Cast a glance over Znet.

Gush Shalom was founded in 1993 as a new peace movement, which came into existence because the other Israeli peace movements had decided not to criticise the new Labour government. Gush Shalom is founded on three
principles

Israeli withdrawal from all the occupied territories.
Recognition of the PLO as the Palestinians' representative.
Recognition of the right of Palestinians to establish their own independent state, with East Jerusalem as its capital, alongside Israel.

posted by: Whitebeard at 09:47 | link | comments |

 

 

 

 In God we kill

 

 

 iraq bomber

 

 

 

You must know there are two ways of contesting, the one by the law, the other by force; the first method is proper to men, the second to beasts; but because the first is frequently not sufficient, it is necessary to have recourse to the second. Therefore it is necessary for a prince to understand how to avail himself of the beast and the man. ... 

But it is necessary to know well how to disguise this characteristic, and to be a great pretender and dissembler (disguiser, concealer); and men are so simple, and so subject to present necessities, that he who seeks to deceive will always find someone who will allow himself to be deceived. One recent example I cannot pass over in silence. Alexander VI did nothing else but deceive men, nor ever thought of doing otherwise, and he always found victims; for there never was a man who had greater power in asserting, or who with greater oaths would affirm a thing, yet would observe it less; nevertheless his deceits always succeeded according to his wishes, because he well understood this side of mankind.

Therefore it is unnecessary for a prince to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious (harmful), and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright (honest), and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.

For this reason a prince ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete (filled) with the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality, inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you.

For that reason, let a prince have the credit of conquering and holding his state, the means will always be considered honest, and he will be praised by everybody because the vulgar are always taken by what a thing seems to be and by what comes of it; and in the world there are only the vulgar, for the few find a place there only when the many have no ground to rest on.

One prince of the present time, whom it is not well to name, never preaches anything else but peace and good faith, and to both he is most hostile, and either, if he had kept it, would have deprived him of reputation and kingdom many a time.

Machiavelli, here.

 

posted by: Whitebeard at 19:33 | link | comments |

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

found here

posted by: Whitebeard at 12:47 | link | comments |

Committee for Democracy in Cuba

Under Washington’s remote control,  the meeting brought together several right and extreme right politicians on the International Committee for Democracy in Cuba, such as Vaclav Havel,  former Spanish prime minister José Maria Aznar, and Madeleine Albright, former Secretary of State under the Clinton administration. They are, for the most part,  closely linked to the White House and the fascist wing of the Cuban exiles which is deeply implicated in international terrorism. (4)

The organisation of this meeting is far from innocent. In reality, its aim was to create within international opinion the conditions necessary for a US military invasion of Cuba. Several Latin-American personalities have joined the movement, such as former president of Uruguay Luis Alberto Lacalla, the former strong man of Chile Patricio Aylwin Azóca, and the former president of Costa Rica, Luis Alberto Monje, who did not hesitate for a single second to rub shoulders during the aforesaid meeting with individuals such as Carlos Alberto Montaner, president of the Cuban Liberal Union and also former CIA agent, who has a long criminal record  linked to international terrorism. (9)

In the face of the growth of US hostility against Cuba, the British House of Commons recorded a 79% vote in favour of a common declaration condemning the current Bush policy against the Havana government, and warning against a future military aggression against the Cuban people. Peter Hain, Leader of the House of Commons, offered the following comments : « I am absolutely opposed to military action being taken against Cuba and also opposed to the continuing blockade of Cuba by the United States. I visited Cuba two years ago and was very impressed with the social advances that have been made despite all the pressure from the US.” (23)

The impressive level of human development reached by Cuba is totally censored by the media monopolies. On 17th September 2004, the United Nations Population Fund called the Cuban health model exemplary and praised the social policies of the Cuban government. The report of the aforementioned organisation underlined that Cuba is the only Third World country to have achieved an infant mortality rate comparable to that of industrialised nations, namely 6%.

Cast a glance over

posted by: Whitebeard at 22:07 | link | comments |