After investigators said an engineer in last week's collision had been texting on the job, regulators temporarily banned the use of all cellular devices by anyone at the controls of a moving train.
Since we’ve already said it all, so many times before, this time we’re staying schtum, and letting some IDF soldiers speak for themselves.
It had become increasingly evident during the beginning phases of the most recent Gaza War that the lives of ordinary Gazans had been unjustly taken or adversely affected. The systematic demolition of homes, the inappropriate usage of white phosphorus ammunition, the excessive application of violence have been called into question by various internal and external bodies and actors. As time progresses accurate, detailed, firsthand accounts concerning what truly occurred during the 22 day military campaign are surfacing.
One such attempt at exposing the events during the Gaza War was undertaken by the Israeli organization Breaking the Silence. This organization is comprised of veteran Israeli soldiers who compile testimonies from Israeli soldiers who have served or have been witness to operations in the Occupied Territories. These testimonies are then disseminated to an English and Hebrew speaking audience on their website, by print, though lectures, via other media outlets and through tours conducted in the West Bank city of Hebron.
Breaking the Silence released a 112 page document under the official codename for the Gaza war - Operation Cast Lead. This document contains testimonies from thirty Israeli soldiers who participated in the campaign. The revelations contained within corroborate many of the allegations of reprehensible wartime conduct and “[brings] into question the credibility of the official IDF versions”.
The interviews conducted explore the usage of white phosphorus, destruction of property unrelated to Israeli directives, the demolitions of homes, the use of Palestinians as human shields, the overall moral degradation of the IDF among other pertinent issue. As noted in the document, these testimonies directly challenge the IDF claim that any moral issues are not systemic, but rather concern the behavior of individual delinquent soldiers.
A further 15 British soldiers have lost their lives in just the last ten days in southern Afghanistan, whilst continuing Operation Panther’s Claw, a major assault against the Taliban. At least, 15 is still the number as we sit safely here at home on this sunny Sunday afternoon, and type.
As if this isn’t absolutely awful enough in itself, today we are told the astonishing truth by the ‘Mail on Sunday’ regarding Gordon’s Brown’s government’s continuing fatal, effing fowl-ups.
We wonder what the hell Gordon Brown and his fat-cat & fraudster “honourable friends” want? To beat (once, Great), Britain’s ‘Bloody Hands’ record still held by the traitorous turd Tony Blair?!
Read the revolting rest about our British Army’s downright betrayal by it’s own boss of bosses.
Write to the Queen. Write to Prince Charles. Write to the Prime Minister. Write to your member of parliament. Write to the national newspapers. Write to your local papers. Write on blogs. And write on web sites and forums.
In fact, write where ever you damned well can write.
And when you write, write the same simple things.
Enough is enough. Bring our brave boys (and girls), back home. And, bring them home now. Before many more of them end up being bourne back in bloody, flag draped boxes.
After all, surely we Brits are, at the very least, just as sodding sensible as the Russians?
While we readily admit that today we’re taking a sarcastic sort of swipe at the pretty dumb practice of stating the sodding obvious, we ourselves wish to make it perfectly obvious that we are in no way “having a go” at Ireland’s excellent ex President, Mary Robinson.
Since the sad truth is that there are still millions of westerners convinced that bums like George Bush and Tony Blair, to mention just a pair, always told us all the truth.
Just take a look at this.
GENEVA (Reuters)
Washington’s “war on terror” after the September 11 attacks has eroded human rights worldwide, creating lingering cynicism that the United Nations must now combat, international law experts said on Monday.
Mary Robinson, who was the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights when al Qaeda militants flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center and Pentagon in 2001, said the United States caused harm with some of the ways it responded.
“Seven years after 9/11 it is time to take stock and repeal abusive laws and policies,” the former Irish president said, warning that harsh U.S. detentions and interrogations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba gave a dangerous signal to other countries that could easily follow suit.
While new U.S. President Barack Obama has announced he will close Guantanamo to break from the practices of his predecessor George W. Bush, Robinson said sweeping changes needed to take place to ensure Washington abandons its “war paradigm.”
“There has been severe damage and it needs to be addressed,” she told a news conference in Geneva. “We are not more secure. We are more divided, and people are more cynical about the operation of laws.”
Arthur Chaskalson, former chief justice of South Africa, said that the United States should launch an inquiry into its counter-terrorism practices, including acts of torture by individual security and intelligence agents.
Although counter-terrorism issues have faded from the front pages since the change of government in Washington, Chaskalson said such practices have shifted around the world and could keep restricting liberties if they are not confronted head-on.
“We all have less rights today than we had five or 10 years ago, and if nothing happens, we will have even less,”
So here’s to you, Mrs Robinson, we have to say that we like your style. Like it a lot, in fact. Truth be told, maybe we even love it.
Lately, a lot of the reporting about Iraq has centered on happy human interest stories like this one. From reading the papers here in the US, you’d think that the occupation had already ended. But of course, for many soldiers’ families, there is no happy ending to the story:
And let’s not forget that there are still dozens of killings every week in Iraq, and it’s often parents who mourn the death of a child, not the other way around:
And please pay particular attention to the very last sentence of the BBC report. It’s a blatant, inexcusable outright lie.
Hamas did not “seize control” of anywhere. They were democratically elected by the Palestinian people.
Because said election results made such a monkey of the United States and their choice of puppet/poodle, the lying American & British governments (and almost all of their respective media), were/are once again only too willing and eager to create and to perpetuate, yet one more myth.
What has lately happened to the once so credible/reliable and well respected BBC, is not only sickeningly shameful, it’s downright sodding scary.
A long, long time ago before he was ever honoured with a knighthood, we very briefly met and spoke to Gerald Kaufman. (But that’s not really relevant to the rest of this tremendously, refreshingly, revealing report. Probably just a bit of vanity, posing and/or name dropping on our part, eh? Well, none of us are perfect are we? Except maybe mad members of certain self proclaimed, ‘master races’, eh?)
No matter.
This video of Sir Gerald Kaufman delivering an emotional, open, brave, honest and true speech in our old Brit houses of parliament, is a “must NOT miss” sight for sore eyes.
You’d better believe us.
We salute you, Sir Gerald.
[Huge hat-tip to our old fellow blogger friend “Gert” for finding this extra special, recent, unmissable video, btw.]
The deadliest war since Adolf Hitler marched across Europe is starting again – and you are almost certainly carrying a blood-soaked chunk of the slaughter in your pocket. When we glance at the holocaust in Congo, with 5.4 million dead, the clichés of Africa reporting tumble out: this is a “tribal conflict” in “the Heart of Darkness”. It isn’t. The United Nations investigation found it was a war led by “armies of business” to seize the metals that make our 21st-century society zing and bling. The war in Congo is a war about you.
Every day I think about the people I met in the war zones of eastern Congo when I reported from there. The wards were filled with women who had been gang-raped by the militias and shot in the vagina. The battalions of child soldiers – drugged, dazed 13-year-olds who had been made to kill members of their own families so they couldn’t try to escape and go home.
There are two stories about how this war began – the official story, and the true story. The official story is that after the Rwandan genocide, the Hutu mass murderers fled across the border into Congo. The Rwandan government chased after them. But it’s a lie. How do we know? The Rwandan government didn’t go to where the Hutu genocidaires were, at least not at first. They went to where Congo’s natural resources were – and began to pillage them. They even told their troops to work with any Hutus they came across. Congo is the richest country in the world for gold, diamonds, coltan, cassiterite, and more. Everybody wanted a slice – so six other countries invaded.
These resources were not being stolen to for use in Africa. They were seized so they could be sold on to us. The more we bought, the more the invaders stole – and slaughtered. The rise of mobile phones caused a surge in deaths, because the coltan they contain is found primarily in Congo. The UN named the international corporations it believed were involved: Anglo-America, Standard Chartered Bank, De Beers and more than 100 others. (They all deny the charges.) But instead of stopping these corporations, our governments demanded that the UN stop criticising them.
Despite five years of training and equipping, the Iraqi military is still heavily dependent on U.S. operational support. A Defense Department report said less than 10 percent of Iraq Army battalions were capable of planning and executing counter-insurgency operations. The rest of the army combat battalions required anywhere from partial to significant support from the U.S. military and its coalition partners.
Nevertheless, the Pentagon still plans to withdraw within 16 months. Obama promised a withdrawal within that time frame during the election campaign, and in any case the status of forces agreement negotiated by the Bush administration greatly restricts American military operations and mandates a complete withdrawal within 36 months. –g
