Why Is the Military Spending Millions on Christian Contractors Bent on Evangelizing US Soldiers?
August 23rd, 2011 § 1 Comment
Chris Rodda writes at AlterNet:
When the average American thinks of military spending on religion, they probably think only of the money spent on chaplains and chapels. And, yes, the Department of Defense (DoD) does spend a hell of a lot of money on these basic religious accommodations to provide our troops with the opportunity to exercise their religion while serving our country. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the DoD’s funding of religion. Also paid for with taxpayer dollars are a plethora of events, programs, and schemes that violate not only the Constitution, but, in many cases, the regulations on federal government contractors, specifically the regulation prohibiting federal government contractors receiving over $10,000 in contracts a year from discriminating based on religion in their hiring practices.
About a year ago, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) began an investigation into just how much money the DoD spends on promoting religion to military personnel and their families. What prompted this interest in DoD spending on religion was finding out what the DoD was spending on certain individual events and programs, such as the $125 million spent on the Army’s Comprehensive Soldier Fitness program and its controversial “Spiritual Fitness” test, a mandatory test that must be taken by all soldiers. The Army insists that this test is not religious, but the countless complaints from soldiers who have failed this “fitness” test tell a different story. The experience of one group of soldiers who weren’t “spiritual” enough for the Army can be read here. But the term “Spiritual Fitness is not limited to this one test. The military began using this term to describe a variety of initiatives and events towards the end of 2006, and this `code phrase’ for promoting religion was heavily in use by all branches of the military by 2007.
Watch the Libyan Revolution on Al Jazeera
August 22nd, 2011 § 3 Comments
Muammar Gaddafi’s dictatorship in Libya is in its last days with the capturing of the ruler’s son Saif al-Islam and the capital city of Tripoli by anti-Gaddafi forces. The Libyan people’s jubilation is booming throughout the entire country. So many have sacrificed their lives and experienced the loss of their loved ones since the revolution began in February and during decades of Gaddafi’s brutal rule.
Watch Al Jazeera’s live feed for excellent coverage from Tripoli and Benghazi and its Libya Live Blog for regular updates.
For Arabic speakers, below is a video of Mohammed Gaddafi (Muammar’s eldest son) speaking to Al Jazeera Arabic before the line goes dead after gunfire is heard inside his house (near the end) and he begins reciting the Shahada. Al Jazeera’s Ahmed Shihab-Eldin tweets that Mohammed took a “apologetic tone and says its lack of wisdom caused revolution and crisis in #Libya.” He and his family are reportedly still alive and safe.
Victory in Tripoli
August 21st, 2011 § 4 Comments
After six months of struggle, the Libyan revolution has arrived (again) in Tripoli. There may still be a trick or two up the megalomaniac’s sleeve, but the news coming in at the moment suggests a precipitous collapse. Saif-ul-Islam al-Qaddafi has been arrested. The tyrant’s daughter Aisha’s house is under the revolutionaries’ control, as is the military base of the formerly feared Khamis Brigade. The brigade in charge of protecting Qaddafi himself has surrendered. (The foreign supporters of Qaddafi and his supposedly ‘loyal’ subjects must be feeling rather silly now). Inhabitants of Tripoli’s neighbourhoods are pouring into their streets to greet the revolutionary forces.
Much of the credit for this victory must go to the revolutionaries of Misrata and the Jebel Nafusa. While the Transitional Council in Benghazi was busy fighting itself, the people of Misrata fought their way out of Qaddafi’s siege and then liberated Zlitan. The fighters of the Jebel Nafusa broke the siege around their mountains and then liberated Zawiya – which has suffered so much – and moved towards the capital. Last night revolutionaries in Tripoli, who have been launching small-scale operations nightly for months, rose in Fashloom, Souq al-Juma’a and other areas. Today they were met by their comrades arriving from the west and east.
The Revolution Takes On Zionism
August 21st, 2011 § 3 Comments
A few days ago a well-planned resistance operation killed eight Israelis. Israel has no idea who carried out the operation, except that they were probably Arabs, so it has responded in its usual way – by randomly murdering Arabs. Fifteen have been killed so far in the Gaza ghetto, and six Egyptian soldiers were killed when Zionist forces violated Egypt’s sovereign border. Before the revolution there was no response to this kind of arrogant aggression. This time the Zionist government has been forced to apologise to Egypt. That’s not enough, of course, so the Egyptian people have taken matters into their own hands. In this film, the Zionist flag falls in Cairo. This was last night. The demonstration outside the Zionist embassy continues today. People are firing fireworks at the occupied building.
The Wrong Side of History
August 20th, 2011 § 3 Comments
impeccable
An interesting article in the Asia Times (republished in full after the break) states that “in recent weeks more and more former Iranian officials and academics have begun to speak out against the lack of complexity and nuance in Iran’s policy vis-a-vis the perceived deteriorating situation inside Syria.” The article also suggests that Hizbullah is rethinking its position. About time too.
The Asia Times continues: “talking to Iranian officials it appears that there is deep unease about the methods employed by the Syrian security forces which have allegedly killed up to 2,000 people since protests and violence erupted in March. In private, Iranian officials draw a comparison to how professionally Iranian security forces responded to widespread rioting and disorder in the wake of the disputed presidential elections of June 2009. They claim (with some justification) that the disorder was quelled with minimum loss of life.”
The article goes on to list reasons why Iran’s rulers expect the Asad regime to come out of the current unrest intact. Beyond an appreciation of the ruthlessness of regime violence, these include: “the divided nature of the Syrian opposition, the majority of whom hail from a Sunni Islamist pedigree. But deep down Iranian officials believe that Assad will survive because owing to his foreign policy posture and his impeccable anti-Zionist credentials, his regime is somehow more ‘connected’ to the deepest aspirations of his people, indeed the people of the region as a whole.”
The Nisoor Square Shootings: an interactive comic by Dan Archer
August 20th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
Following the 2009 coup in Honduras, comics journalist Dan Archer embarked on a three-part graphic history of the event, which we posted at PULSE.
Archer has recently put together an interactive comic on the subject of the 2007 Nisoor Square Shootings in Baghdad, for which he provides the following background:
“In late 2007, 17 Iraqi civilians were killed and at least 24 wounded after a convoy of Blackwater (the US military contractor) vehicles opened fire in Nisoor square, claiming their convoy had come under attack.
Charges were brought against the men, but subsequently—and controversially—dismissed. The case was re-opened in January 2011.”
Visit the Cartoon Movement website to view more background in comic form and for simple instructions on participating in Archer’s interactive timeline of the event—an innovative creation that incorporates various eyewitness testimony as well as other reports.
Click here to visit Archer’s website.
T.R.I.A.G.E.
August 19th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
John Butler, the genius behind The Ethical Governor, brings you T.R.I.A.G.E.
A sick and failing area is swiftly restored to sound financial health.
The Straight Line from the Seminole Wars to the War on Terror
August 19th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
from Indian Country Today Media Network, via Antiwar.com
Did the GWOT start with him?
by Gale Courey Toensing
Andrew Jackson’s illegal and heavily censured actions during the First Seminole War in 1817 were cited recently during the military trial of a Guantanamo prisoner and was used as a precedent for the $690 billion defense authorization bill recently passed by Congress that would give the president unilateral authority to wage war at home or abroad and detain anyone suspected of terrorism or “providing material aid to terrorism” anywhere in the world, indefinitely and without trial. Although there is no direct connection between the Guantanamo case and that legislation, the right of free speech is threatened by both and raises fears that the legislation could be used to squelch any kind of dissension or resistance to government policies or actions. And coming on the heels of the government’s use of “Geronimo” as the code name for Osama bin Laden, the man who epitomized global terrorism, indigenous peoples fear that the legislation could be used against them for asserting their right to self determination, sovereignty and the protection of their lands and resources against exploitation by governments or corporations.
Alan Duncan visits Occupied Palestinian Territories
August 19th, 2011 § 3 Comments
In July 2011, Alan Duncan, the Conservative MP who is also the Minister for International Development, visited the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Predictably, he is under assault from the Israel lobby. He is a courageous man who, according to Wikileaks, has already been the target of spying by the US intelligence apparetus. Please do not hesitate to send him a note of support.
The Islamo-Bolivarian threat
August 17th, 2011 § Leave a Comment
(EPA)
The following is my latest piece for Al Jazeera:
In early July, the US Congressional Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Intelligence held a hearing entitled “Hezbollah in Latin America - Implications for US Homeland Security“.
The line-up of witnesses consisted of Roger Noriega, visiting fellow at the neoconservative American Enterprise Institute; Douglas Farah, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center; Ilan Berman, vice president of the American Foreign Policy Council and journal editor for the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs; and Brown University professor Dr. Melani Cammett, the only testifier who bothered to provide an accurate history of Hezbollah and to refrain from referring to the Lebanese political party and resistance movement as a terrorist organisation directed by Iran.
Cammett’s co-witnesses more than made up for her dearth of creativity. Given the quality of what is consistently allowed to pass as evidence of the threat posed to the US by the supposed love affair between Iran and leftist Latin American regimes, it is perhaps only surprising that the first three expert-propagandists did not invoke Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s joke in the Oliver Stone documentary “South of the Border” – in reference to a corn-processing facility – that, “This is where we build the Iranian atomic bomb.”
Stripped of its facetious intent, the comment would have proved an able companion to the clique’s existing arsenal of justifications for increased US militarisation of Latin America as well as potential military manoeuvrings against Iran.
