1. “I have been hearing about the National Geographic documentary Restrepo for some time, though I only had a chance to view it last week.
…
This is what I took away from the film and this is why I think that Restrepo, by virtue of its dispassionate presentation of a terrible reality, demonstrates that the United States will never succeed at anything in Afghanistan and that continued presence there will only guarantee more killing and instability. That makes it one of the best antiwar films that I have ever seen, a complete indictment of a failed and ruinous policy without having to hammer the pulpit to get its message across. One wonders if Barack Obama has seen it and, if so, what he thought of it.”
http://original.antiwar.com/giraldi/2011/01/12/a-look-on-the-wild-side/
2. “The Chinese Communists: The New Official Enemy?
proponents of American imperialism and militarism know that if they’re forced to exit Afghanistan and Iraq, the terrorist threat will dissipate. Thus, it’s never too soon to begin preparing plans for a new official enemy, one that can be used to justify the continued, ever-growing expansion of America’s warfare state. The Chinese communists can fit the bill. Just ask Admiral Lyons.”
http://www.fff.org/blog/jghblog2011-01-12.asp
3. “Palin Borrows ‘Blood Libel’ from Israeli Far Right
Sarah Palin in her response to the controversy over her violent political imagery and that of the US right wing in general in the wake of the Tucson massacre, provoked a new controversy when she said,
“Journalists and pundits should not manufacture a blood libel that serves only to incite the very hatred and violence they purport to condemn. That is reprehensible.”
The “blood libel” was the false and outrageous accusation launched against Jews in medieval and early modern Europe by Christians that they stole Christian babies and used their blood in secret rituals. This bizarre obsession of European Christians resulted in attacks on and pogroms against the poor Jews on many occasions.
…
In this anonymous pro-squatter screed, opposition to the ethnic cleansing of millions of innocent Palestinians is equivalent to pogroms against Jewry.
The misuse of the ‘blood libel’ defense reached a crescendo of absurdity in early 2010, when a rabbi accused of sexual indiscretions dismissed the charges as… you guessed it… ‘a blood libel.’
Palin took the long-standing American right wing populist use of the Israelis as a symbol of white biblical riposte to the siege of pagan brown peoples a step further on Wednesday. She actually identified her followers as themselves a sort of tribe of Israel, and thus open to the same kind of persecution that the children of Israel have long suffered from. This extreme identification with the themes of the Likud and Shas Parties in Israel is an extension of the long-standing tradition of Christian Zionism. Whether Palin’s diction goes beyond that movement to suggest a strain of British Israelism is unclear.
The parallels to the right wing in Israel are exact. Just as its leaders complain that restraints on Israeli freedom of action in killing civilians during wars, or pressure on Israel to accept peaceful co-existence with the Palestinians, are a ‘blood libel,’ so any criticism of Palin for deploying a rhetoric of violence and warfare in civilian politics is likewise a blood libel.
The bully, afflicted by an inferiority complex, sees all opposition as unfair persecution.”
http://www.juancole.com/2011/01/palin-borrows-blood-libel-from-israeli-far-right.html
4. “What Eisenhower Got Wrong
In the same speech in which Eisenhower spoke of the theft from those who hunger, he claimed eternal innocence for the United States in foreign affairs. The United States had never been an aggressor; that was the Soviet Union‘s role. The United States relied on “trust and mutual aid” while the USSR relied on “force: huge armies, subversion, rule of neighbor nations.” Why did we have to steal from the hungry in order to build weapons?
…
Tinkering with a self-destructive system will not save us. We need what Martin Luther King, Jr., whose holiday is also celebrated on Monday, called a revaluation of values. We need to outgrow the idea that there can be a good or just war any more than there can be a good slavery or a just rape. We need to confront the root of the militaristic ideology that even Eisenhower pushed on us: the lies about World War II. Yes, Franklin Roosevelt campaigned for office promising to stay out of a war he was already working to maneuver the United States into, and for all the wrong reasons, and he lied about German attacks and plans for conquest, and he lied about Pearl Harbor. “
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=22776
