Newshog 12-01-2005

Today we have a special edition of Newshog news brief entirely compiled by my good friend Shadows, a lady of learning, compassion and courage as well as a tireless campaigner for peace. Good work, Shadows.

• The hypocritical contrast between the refusal to count Iraqi civilians killed by the occupation and Bush's prayers for the unknown dead of the tsunami disaster leave a sour taste.
  
  
• The other, man-made, tsunami: while first world leaders spout platitudes over a natural disaster, they continue to sell arms and deny aid to third world countries, notching up a far higher toll of suffering and death.
  
  
• In Good Conscience: A soldier who served with the 320th Military Police Company at Abu Ghraib speaks out about the atrocities he witnessed.
  
  
• Douglas Herman has a good hard look at the one factor that may eventually halt American empire-building - the poor, unloved and mis-used footsoldier.
  
  
• An ex-marine veteran of Vietnam compares that war with Iraq and finds many disturbing similiarities. Is it a case of the jungle in the desert?
  
  
• The U.S. has threatened to nuke the Muslim holy city of Mecca should the terror leader strike America again, says one intelligence insider. I find it harder to imagine an atrocity more likely to bring about the christian mad-right's vision of the Last Days.
  
  
• From the French "We are all Americans now" to massive worldwide distrust, even loathing, in just three years. Blame the ugliest American, George Bush.
  
  
• Americans overestimate the power and reach of their military, at great cost to America and the world.
  
  
• Armstrong Williams being paid to promote Bush administration policies in his columns is just one part of the behemoth marketing effort that the right wing has perfected.
  
  
• Here is a quick resume of the security blanket of paranoia that will surround Bush's inauguration at an estimated cost of $30-40 million.
  
  
• The UK Guardian newspaper has a special report on Fallujah, the City of Ghosts, by Iraqi doctor Ali Fadhil who compiled the first independent reports from the devastated city, where he found scores of unburied corpses, rabid dogs - and a dangerously embittered population.
  
  
• Oppose the draft? It's already here. While most pollsters would agree that there is almost no discernable support for reinstating the military draft, why should the public support the military's policy of forcing exhausted those who already have fulfilled their contractual obligation to serve into an open-ended term of indentured, potentially fatal, military servitude?
  
  
• Veterans returning from Iraq are greeted by police with warrants, mostly for traffic and parking tickets left unpaid while off fighting the war. One veteran, who is now homeless, asks for a little more respect.
  

Quote of the Day:

Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
Harry S. Truman