The hidden massacre: Sri Lanka’s final offensive against Tamil Tigers

More than 20,000 Tamil civilians were killed in the final throes of the Sri Lankan civil war, most as a result of government shelling, an investigation by The Times has revealed.



The number of casualties is three times the official figure.

plastics in baby bottles may be scrambling children's brains

The plastics in our baby bottles and canned goods -- or more specifically, a chemical that hardens those plastics called bisphenol A -- may be scrambling children's brains and screwing up their hormonal systems.

peAce...
topbop!

read more | digg story

Emmett Till 1955=Martin Lee Anderson 2006

Emmett Till was a fourteen year old African-American boy from Chicago, Illinois brutally murdered in Money, Mississippi, in 1955. His death mobilized the civil rights movement. Martin Lee Anderson died in January 2006 after he collapsed during forced exercise and was hit by guards at a boot camp for juvenile delinquents in Panama City, Florida.



What has the 2006 death of Martin Lee Anderson brought out into the light? Same thing still happening 20+ years later... A process takes time to unfold...

...and now this... "Guards acquitted in teenager's 'boot camp' death"


peAce...someday...we pray...
topbop!

Blackwater = U.S. terrorists?

Blackwater is a private security contractor working for the U.S. government in Iraq and Afghanistan. The record of their actions, if performed by a group that was not employed by the U.S., would be labeled as "terrorism". By extension, the U.S. State Department would be a government that "supports terrorism".

In a document published by the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform, the Committee writes the following:

"Blackwater Shootíng Incídents. Incident reports compiled by Blackwater reveal that Blackwater has been involved in at least 195 "escalation of force" incidents in Iraq since 2005 that involved the firing of shots by Blackwater forces. This is an average of 1.4 shooting incidents per week. Blackwater's contract to provide protective services to the State Department provides that Blackwater can engage in only defensive use of force. In over 80% of the shooting incidents, however, Blackwater reports that its forces fired the first shots. In the vast majority of instances in which Blackwater fires shots, Blackwater is firing from a moving vehicle and does not remain at the scene to determine if the shots resulted in casualties. Even so, Blackwater's own incident reports document 16 Iraqi casualties and 162 incidents with property damage, primarily to vehicles owned by lraqis. In over 80% of the escalation of force incidents since 2005, Blackwater's own reports document either casualties or property damage."

"The reports describe multiple Blackwater incidents involving Iraqi casualties that have not previously been reported. In one of these incidents, Blackwater forces shot a civilian bystander in the head. In another, State Department officials report that Blackwater sought to cover up a shooting that killed an apparently innocent bystander. In a third, Blackwater provided no assistance after a traffic accident caused by its "counter-flow" driving left an Iraqi vehicle in "a ball of flames." Blackwater also reports engaging in tactical military operations with U.S. forces."

"In addition to Blackwater, two other private military contractors, DynCorp International and Triple Canopy, provide protective services to the State Department. Blackwater reports more shooting incidents than the other two contractors combined. Blackwater also has the highest incidence of shooting first, although all three companies shoot first in more than half of all escalation of forces incidents.

State Department Responses. Documents provided by the State Department raise serious questions about how State Department officials responded to reports of Blackwater killings of Iraqis. In a high-profile incident in December 2006, a drunken Blackwater contractor killed the guard of Iraqi Vice President Adil Abd-al-Mahdi. Within 36 hours after the shooting, the State Department had allowed Blackwater to transport the Blackwater contractor out of Iraq. The State Department Charge d'Affaires recommended that Blackwater make a "sizeable payment" and an "apology" to "avoid this whole thing becoming even worse." The Charge d'Affaires suggested a $250,000 payment to the guard's family, but the Department's Diplomatic Security Service said this was too much and could cause Iraqis to "iry to get killed." In the end, the State Department and Blackwater agreed on a $15,000 payment. One State Department offrcial wrote:
"We would like to help them resolve this so we can continue with our protective mission. "The State Department took a similar approach upon receiving reports that Blackwater shooters killed an innocent Iraqi, except that in this case, the State Department requested only a $5,000 payment to "put this unfortunate matter behind us quickly." There is no evidence in the documents that the Committee has reviewed that the State Department sought to restrain Blackwater's actions, raised concems about the number of shooting incidents involving Blackwater or the company's high rate of shooting first, or detained Blackwater contractors for investigation."



If these actions were done by those opposing the will of the United States, the perpetrators would be labeled "terrorists" and hunted down to be "killed or captured". Their demise would be reported with great fanfare on Fox News and CNN. Please look at what this administration is doing in YOUR name...


peAce...now!
topbop!

more guns, more guns...

Iraqis to Pay China $100 Million for Weapons for Police...

"Iraq has ordered $100 million worth of light military equipment from China for its police force, contending that the United States was unable to provide the materiel and is too slow to deliver arms shipments, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani said yesterday.

The China deal, not previously made public, has alarmed military analysts who note that Iraq's security forces already are unable to account for more than 190,000 weapons supplied by the United States, many of which are believed to be in the hands of Shiite and Sunni militias, insurgents and other forces seeking to destabilize Iraq and target U.S. troops."

"In 2004 and 2005, the United States bought 185,000 AK-47s from an Eastern European country -- after Iraqis rejected U.S.-made M-16 assault rifles -- as part of a $2.8 billion program to deliver military equipment to Iraq. But a recent Government Accountability Office report said that 110,000 of them were unaccounted for, with about 30 percent of all arms distributed to Iraqi forces by the United States since 2004 missing."

This will certainly assist with the police state being created in Iraq.


full story here...





peAce...
topbop!

...whose country is this anyway?

According to a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll, "Only about 25 percent of Americans support the administration's $190 billion war funding request; 70 percent want the proposed allocation reduced..."

Did anybody else have a class called "Civics" when they were in school? If I remember my lessons from that class correctly, I would say our democracy is dysfunctional, no, worse, it has been hijacked.

"Overall, 55 percent of Americans want congressional Democrats to do more to challenge the president's Iraq policies, while a third think the Democrats have gone too far. The level of agitation for more action in opposition to the war has not dissipated since August 2005, when Democrats were the minority party in Congress."


...read more here...

...the article @ washingtonpost.com



pay attention America!!!

peAce.... is better...
topbop!

...don't diplomats do diplomacy anymore?

"Former US ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton told Tory delegates in Britain Sunday that efforts by the UK and the EU to negotiate with Iran had failed and that he saw no alternative to a pre-emptive strike on suspected nuclear facilities in the country."

"If we were to strike Iran it should be accompanied by an effort at regime change ... The US once had the capability to engineer the clandestine overthrow of governments. I wish we could get it back," he said.


...more lunacy from the lunatics...

read story here...



how about we try peAce...?
topbop!

State Department Inspector General target of congressional probe

According to seven current and former officials, State Department Inspector General Howard Krongard, pictured to the right, has repeatedly interfered with on-going investigations to protect the State Department and the White House from political embarrassment.

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chairman Henry A. Waxman, D-CA wrote a letter to Mr. Krongard describing the allegations and asking for his cooperation in the Committee’s investigation. According to the letter:

"Since your testimony at the Committee’s hearing on July 26, 2007, current and former employees of the Office of Inspector General have contacted my staff with allegations that you interfered with on-going investigations to protect the State Department and the White House from political embarrassment...

The allegations made by these officials are not limited to a single unit or project within your office. Instead, they span all three major divisions of the Office of Inspector General — investigations, audits, and inspections. The allegations were made by employees of varied rank, ranging from line staff to upper management..."

Some of the specific allegations include the following (from oversight.house.gov):

- Although the State Department has expended over $3.6 billion on contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan, you refused to send any investigators to those countries to pursue investigations into wasteful spending or procurement fraud and have concluded no fraud investigations relating to the contracts.
- You prevented your investigators from cooperating with a Justice Department investigation into waste, fraud, and abuse relating to the new U.S. Embassy in Iraq and followed highly irregular procedures in exonerating the prime contractor, First Kuwaiti Trading Company, of charges of labor trafficking.
- You prevented your investigators from seizing evidence that they believed would have implicated a large State Department contractor in procurement fraud in Afghanistan.
- You impeded efforts by your investigators to cooperate with a Justice Department probe into allegations that a large private security contractor was smuggling weapons into Iraq.
- You interfered with an on-going investigation into the conduct of Kenneth Tomlinson, the head of Voice of America and a close associate of Karl Rove, by passing information about the inquiry to Mr. Tomlinson.
- You censored portions of inspection reports on embassies so that critical information on security vulnerabilities was dropped from classified annexes and not disclosed to Congress.
- You rejected audits of the State Department’s financial statements that documented accounting concerns and refused to publish them until points critical of the Department had been removed.


more here...
and here...



peAce...
topbop!

Sally Field Censored At EMMYS by FOX News...

Above is the uncensored video. What is so offensive in the words Sally said that FOX News deemed something was not suitable to broadcast...? And why did they want to cut out the expression of a pro-peAce point of view? Wake up America...!



...and here is the version that FOX News "sanitized" in the service of their objectives...


peAce...
topbop!

Martial Law: 190 Arrested at D.C. Protest

"We're occupying a people who do not want us there..."



"The protesters gathered earlier Saturday near the White House in Lafayette Park with signs saying "End the war now" and calling for President Bush's impeachment."



"Members of the Answer Coalition, the umbrella organization of activist groups behind the demonstration, are demanding an immediate troop withdrawal. Some of the protesters called for Mr. Bush’s impeachment. Speakers at the rally included familiar political and antiwar activists, among them Cindy Sheehan, Ralph Nader and Ramsey Clark.

Brian Becker, a national coordinator for the coalition, said in a statement: “What Bush really intends is to keep U.S. troops in Iraq for years or decades to come. He plans to move forward with a policy that will continue to kill thousands of U.S. service members and hundreds of the thousands of Iraqis.”

Several marchers said they were demonstrating against what they called the Bush administration’s false assertions about Iraq. Kim Druist, 39, a nurse from Plainsboro, N.J., who wore a camouflage shirt to represent solidarity with American troops, said she intended to be arrested to protest the testimony by Gen. David H. Petraeus earlier in the week in which he said there had been progress in Iraq. Ms. Druist referred to the statement as propaganda."

read story here...
more here...
and here.


let's give...
peAce...a chance!

topbop!

Martial Law: 9/11 Rise of the Police State

Well all I can say about this fire-hose of information is...you be the judge...is Alex Jones the quintessential investigative reporter? ...or a whacko? ...you be the judge...



AEJ Productions
2 hr 35 min 42 sec - Feb 14, 2006
www.infowars.com

Martial Law: 9/11 Rise of the Police State was filmed primarily during the Republican Party's 2004 national convention in New York City. The Republican Party's choice to hold the event there drew both strong praise and strong criticism. Alex Jones' clear intent was that the people who were truly guilty of planning and carrying out the events of September 11, 2001 were coming back to the scene of the crime. In the film, Jones shows what he believes are signs of a growing police state: constant surveillance, a defined military presence, a militarized civilian police force, mass roundups and arrests of protesters, detention in a makeshift facility laden with asbestos which one interviewee called a "concentration camp", and threats of arrest for constitutionally legal activities. Many different views are presented, including one semi-humorous confrontation with a group of American communists.

This video is copyrighted, but Alex Jones has permitted and encourged the distribution of these videos for non-profit, educational purposes. If you would like to help Alex Jones and/or have a hard copy, buy one from him by going through his website. It can be done online or through his office.


peAce...out...
topbop!

“We made a decision to arm guys who wanted to fight for their country,” General Petraeus said.

"Several federal agencies are investigating a widening network of criminal cases involving the purchase and delivery of billions of dollars of weapons, supplies and other matériel to Iraqi and American forces, according to American officials. The officials said it amounted to the largest ring of fraud and kickbacks uncovered in the conflict here."



..full story here.


"Operation Iraqi Freedom, it turns out, was never a war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq. It was an invasion of the federal budget, and no occupying force in history has ever been this efficient. George W. Bush's war in the Mesopotamian desert was an experiment of sorts, a crude first take at his vision of a fully privatized American government. In Iraq the lines between essential government services and for-profit enterprises have been blurred to the point of absurdity -- to the point where wounded soldiers have to pay retail prices for fresh underwear, where modern-day chattel are imported from the Third World at slave wages to peel the potatoes we once assigned to grunts in KP, where private companies are guaranteed huge profits no matter how badly they fuck things up."

--- Matt Taibbi, RollingStone.com
more...





peAce...not war profits...
topbop!

...remember 9/11/2001

...like the bumper stickers say,
       "Never Forget!!!"







peAce...
... is a better idea


topbop!

US citizen found guilty of aiding terror groups...

Jose Padilla and captors...

Rather than face an embarrassing Supreme Court review of his incarceration in 2005, the Bush administration hastily charged Padilla and co-conspirators Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi in a federal court. The trio was charged with conspiring to murder, kidnap and support terrorism overseas and two counts of providing material support to terrorists.

The verdicts did not address the allegation by then-attorney general John Ashcroft, who accused Padilla of planning a radiological attack on the United States, for which he was held without charges in almost complete isolation for 43 months.

Padilla’s defense lawyers claimed that three-and-a-half years of military detention, interrogation and alleged torture have left the 35-year-old unfit to stand trial. Judge Marcia Cooke ruled that the defendant was competent despite claims that Padilla – who was isolated and put under 24-hour surveillance – suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder. Although his mental health may no longer be in question, 72 hours of video footage containing Padilla’s final interrogation went "missing". The lawyers say Padilla was subject to 24-hour video surveillance during his entire military detention – except for 72 hours of missing tape.

"What could have been done to Mr. Padilla in those seventy-two, or so, hours that the government turned off the camera when for almost four years every one of Mr. Padilla's bowel movements were videotaped?"

-- Anthony Natale, assistant federal public defender for Padilla



Padilla's defense called no witnesses on his behalf and introduced no evidence. His lawyers adopted the risky strategy of suggesting to the jurors that prosecutors failed to prove he conspired with the others or provided material support to terrorists.

Failure to achieve a conviction would have been a major embarrassment for the Bush administration, given its portrayal of Padilla over the last five years as an extremely dangerous terrorist.

"We commend the jury for its work in this trial and thank it for upholding a core American principle of impartial justice for all. Jose Padilla received a fair trial and a just verdict."

-- Gordon Johndroe, a spokesman for the National Security Council

"You need to understand, this is a Republican city. I'm not surprised of anything in this place any more."

-- Estela Lebron, Padilla's mother



peAce...
topbop!

CIA, FBI computers used for Wikipedia edits

"People using CIA and FBI computers have edited entries in the online encyclopedia Wikipedia on topics including the Iraq war and the Guantanamo prison, according to a new tracing program."

ABC News story...


In 1949, George Orwell told us there would be days like this...





peAce...
topbop!

Neo-Conned speech, Congressman Ron Paul...

This speech was given in Congress on July 10, 2003. Form your own opinion on his analysis of what forces are behind the major initiatives of our government....







peAce...
topbop!

Dick Cheney on why America shouldn't invade Iraq (1994)

peAce...
topbop!

Ford's 200-mph, 770-hp Hydrogen Fuel Cell Record Breaker: How It Works

Expected to reach speeds in excess of 200 mph, the Fusion 999 is a joint venture between Ford’s Sustainable Mobility Technologies Group, Ballard Power Systems (fuel cell manufacturers), Ohio State University and its team of young Bonneville racers, and Roush Racing.

read more | digg story

peAce...
topbop!

...Marine murder charges dropped...

"Where the enemy disregards any attempt to comply with ethical norms of warfare, we exercise discipline and restraint to protect the innocent caught on the battlefield..."






read more...




peAce...okay?
topbop!

...Americas own suicide protest...

"We have become worse than the imagined enemy - killing civilians and calling it 'collateral damage', torturing and trampling human rights inside and outside our own borders."

To motorists on Chicago's Kennedy expressway on the morning of November 3, 2006, the fire was just an annoyance, slowing their journey into work. It appeared as if someone had set the city's sculpture of a giant flame, which stands by the road, on fire. Most of those commuters didn't hear for some time that it wasn't the sculpture on fire, but a 52-year-old anti-war protester, Malachi Ritscher. Many probably never heard about it.

...more here...



...what will it take before we choose...
peAce?

topbop!