1972 Anti-war Documentary/Winter Soldier (full video)

Winter Soldier is a 1972 documentary film chronicling the Winter Soldier Investigation which took place in Detroit, Michigan, from January 31 to February 2, 1971. The film documents the accounts of United States soldiers who returned from Vietnam, and participated in this war crimes hearing.

The Winterfilm Collective (listed as Winterfilm, Inc. in the credits to the film Winter Soldier) consisted of: Rusty Sachs, Barbara Kopple, Fred Aranow, Nancy Baker, Joe Bangert, Rhetta Barron, Robert Fiore, David Gillis, David Grubin, Jeff Holstein, Barbara Jarvis, Al Kaupas, Mark Lenix, Michael Lesser, Nancy Miller, Lee Osborne, Lucy Massie Phenix, Roger Phenix, Benay Rubenstein, and Michael Weil.

The film, shot largely in black and white, features testimony by soldiers who participated in or witnessed atrocities in Vietnam, including the killing of civilians, including children; mutilation of bodies; indiscriminate razing of villages; throwing prisoners out of helicopters; and other acts of cruelty towards Vietnamese civilians and combatants. Some participants also claimed that these acts reflected orders from higher-up officers. A number of soldiers are quoted stating that their military training failed to include instruction in the terms of the Geneva Convention, while others state that the dangers they faced as soldiers created an environment in which they regarded all Vietnamese as hostile "gooks" and stopped seeing them as human beings.

In testimony by Joseph Bangert, he describes traveling in a "truckload of grunt Marines" when "there were some Vietnamese children at the gateway of the village and they gave the old finger gesture at us. It was understandable that they picked this up from GIs there. They stopped the trucks -- they didn't stop the truck, they slowed down a little bit, and it was just like response, the guys got up, including the lieutenants, and just blew all the kids away. There were about five or six kids blown away, and then the truck just continued down the hill."

In addition to soldiers' testimony, the film includes color footage and photographic evidence to support some of the testimony.

 Winter Soldier
Posted on January 7, 2016 by willyloman
by Scott Creighton

This is why they don’t want a draft. One reason at least.
When you have a fully volunteer military force, most of the folks who sign up are already of the right mindset for this kind of occupation and invasion, the kind we’ve been perpetrating for decades.

 
You’ll have a few who end up conflicted after learning their initial impressions of modern day warfare aren’t entirely accurate, or that the rightness of our actions overseas isn’t quite so cut and dry as they have been told on CNN and Fox News their entire lives.

Of those you will unfortunately have a number who come home broken, one way or the other, and commit heinous crimes against others or even themselves (suicide) if they are denied proper care as they transition back to the land of the big PX.

And as we all know, until they can effectively privatize such care, it will be denied to our returning soldiers.

When you draft millions of young people to go fight wars of aggression and occupation overseas, you expose the kinds of people to our particular brand of warfare that should probably never be exposed to it because they aren’t easily programmed into the right-think needed to make good soldiers of this kind.

This film details the testimony in the early 70s of just such soldiers returning from Vietnam and telling the stories of the people they killed and the crimes committed in our name.

 
With the recent revelations about the targeting of hospitals, various massacres and our drone program in general, it’s clear our methods have not changed that much. The only difference is the number of those returning soldiers willing to take a stand and recount their personal experiences during the Overseas Contingency Operations as they are called today.

Notice, around the 6 minute mark, yes, that is warmonger John Kerry sympathetically interviewing some of the returning troops. I guess a lifetime in the corporatist congress and a marriage to a billionaire can have a dramatic effect on one’s anti-war stance.

It’s a good documentary and one we should remember. It was released in ’72 and the Vietnam war officially ended in ’75 (though secret bombings continued for years to follow)

 
At the 17 minute mark, you see a soldier named Singer. I think he’s the inspiration for a character named Jacob Singer played by Tim Robbins in the 1990 film Jacob’s Ladder. Just my theory.

Why?!!!

 

USA/N. KOREA: War Mongering...

Peter King says we have the “moral obligation” to pre-emptively attack the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea   by willyloman “If we have good reason to believe there’s going to be an attack, I believe we have the right to take preemptive action to protect ourselves,” Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y “I don’t think we have to wait until Americans are killed or wounded or injured in any way,” King continued. “I’m not saying we should be rushing into war, don’t get me wrong, but if we have solid evidence that North Korea’s going to take action, then I think we have a moral obligation and an absolute right to defend ourselves.”  Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y You can go to Information Clearinghouse to watch the CNN video of King making these remarks.

DPRK’s “State of War” Declaration Is a Faulty Translation: Not an Official Policy Statement from Kim Jung Un

 

By Scott Creighton

Global Research, April 04, 2013

4th Media and Willyloman.wordpress.com

“from that time” becomes “from this time on”  and “from this moment“… little change, big difference.

As much as our leaders would like them to have taken the bait, North Korea has not declared war on the South or the U.S. in response to our unprecedented provocations. So when all else fails, leave it to yellow journalism like this piece of work from the New York Times or this obviously Photoshopped image that came out this past week.

The much touted “state of war” declaration is not a declaration of war from Kim Jung Un but rather a statement of support for whatever decision he has too make from the “the government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK.” It claims only they will declare themselves in a state of war WHEN their leader makes that decision showing they are completely behind him. It is a statement of support from the people and perhaps a warning to the South that the North will not fold under their attack. But not a declaration of war from Kim Jung Un.

There is a campaign of propaganda underway this week in Korea and I will show you that this latest crisis is nothing more than a continuation of that warmongering effort.

It’s being reported across the globe that “North Korea” made these statements in a recent official release via state media Korean Central News Agency : “From this time on, the North-South relations will be entering the state of war and all issues raised between the North and the South will be handled accordingly,”Ria Novoski

“Now that the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK have entered into an actual military action, the inter-Korean relations have naturally entered the state of war,” Huffington Post

“From this time on, the North-South relations will be entering the state of war and all issues raised between the North and the South will be handled accordingly,”Reuters via Prison Planet

As you can see, this rhetoric spans quite a wide political divide from the fake alternative left to the equally fake alternative right and very thing in between. CNN, Fox, NBC News all of them are reporting this crucial development as fact.

Trouble is, it may be another lie. It’s hard to say because no one links to the actual original source of this statement. Also important to note, which is not being covered by most outlets, the statement is NOT from the usual official offices of the North Korean government but rather from “the government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK” and what that means is, it’s not so much a declaration of war as it is a statement to show  the unified resolve of the North Korean people against the aggressive stance and provocations undertaken by the South Koreans and their masters, the United States.

But with that in mind, it may not even be an accurate translation of the statement.

Ria Novosti, to their credit, caught the “mistake” from the AFP and published a retraction calling it a “faulty translation”. A noncommittal way of saying a “lie” I suppose. “Faulty” is right.

Later on Saturday, however, Russian media reported that a faulty translation might have been to blame for this apparent uptick in bellicose rhetoric.

The North Korean original statement apparently stressed that the country would act “in accordance with wartime laws” if attacked, and that “from that time, North-South relations will enter a state of war.” Ria Novosti

What they are saying is if they are attacked they will be ready to enter “the state of war” with the South and their puppet masters the United States.

Seems quite rational when you consider the fact that the Unites States is running practice drills dropping dud tactical nukes on islands off the shores of North Korea. Were the North Koreans to have done that off our shores, Shock and Awe would have already begun. Hell, we claim the “right” to “pre-emptive warfare” on other countries and millions of people are dead and suffering as a result right now.

This interpretation of their quote also blends seamlessly into what appears to be the North Korean’s official position gleaned from several other quotes released on the official media site.

“He declared the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK would react to the U.S. nuclear blackmail with a merciless nuclear attack, and war of aggression with an all-out war of justice.”

“The army and people of the DPRK are full of the spirit to defend the country as was displayed in the 1950s.” KCNA

“The powerful countermeasures of the DPRK to defend the sovereignty are a manifestation of the firm will of its army and people to defend the country and socialism at the cost of their lives from the hostile forces’ aggression moves.” KCNA

“If the enemies finally ignite a war of aggression, they will turn to ashes without having time to regret themselves over not paying due heed to the significant warning issued by the Supreme Command of KPA that they will have hardest time with their destiny at stake the moment they make a provocation.

The strong countermeasures taken by the DPRK are not to threaten others but to defend the dignity and the sovereignty of the country and the nation.

No one on earth can check the people turned out for just cause.” KCNA

In this article, the leadership of North Korea calls on progressives to stand against the U.S.’s globalist expansion of late and in this article the state run news agency points out the fact that the South Korean leadership is attacking their own progressives who are still trying to push the reunification agenda that came so close to succeeding not that long ago.

“A battle to be fought by the DPRK against the U.S. will become a war for national liberation to defend the sovereignty and dignity of the country and, at the same time, a revolutionary war to defend the human cause of independence and the justice of the international community.” KCNA

As to the mystery of the misquote: The AFP quote about the statements made by the North Korean leadership seem to come from a website called North Korean Leadership Watch. They cite the statement as being published by KCNA, but AGAIN, like all the others, NKLW doesn’t provide a link to that KCNA article.

However, they do make this statement: “DPRK state media published a statement (tamhwa) on 30 March (Saturday) from “the government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK.”  Unlike the recent volley of statements, or indeed most communications published and broadcasted in state media, the 30 March 2013 statement was not issued under the name of any specific organization (s).  The statement is not  cited as the work of the DPRK National Defense Commission, the KPA Supreme Command or Ministry of the People’s Armed Forces from the DPRK national security community…” NKLeadershipWatch

According to the origin of the quote, the statement isn’t directly from the government of North Korea and I am having a hell of a time finding the original source. You can find the statement here at Rodong  and a few other sites as well.

Take a look at how it is written in the context of what is said: … The government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK solemnly declare as follows reflecting the final decision made by Kim Jong Un at the operation meeting of the KPA Supreme Command and the unanimous will of all service personnel and people of the DPRK who are waiting for a final order from him.

1.From this moment, the north-south relations will be put at the state of war and all the issues arousing between the north and the south will be dealt with according to the wartime regulations.

The state of neither peace nor war has ended on the Korean Peninsula.

They are declaring they are at a state of war BEFORE given the order from Kim Jong Un?

Now substitute what Ria Novosti thinks is the actual translation: … The government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK solemnly declare as follows reflecting the final decision made by Kim Jong Un at the operation meeting of the KPA Supreme Command and the unanimous will of all service personnel and people of the DPRK who are waiting for a final order from him.

1.from that time, North-South relations will enter a state of war and all the issues arousing between the north and the south will be dealt with according to the wartime regulations.

The state of neither peace nor war has ended on the Korean Peninsula.

If you look at the other statements issued by the official parties of NK  you see a certain pattern. They have not declared war on the South though they fully expect the U.S. to instigate the conflict even more.

They also clearly identify their posture as being in “defense” of their nation and not the aggressor, which given the circumstances, is rational.

This statement which appears to say the North has declared war, is nothing of the sort, even if the Reuters translation is accurate. It is merely a statement of solidarity with their president at a difficult time.

But at worst, this deliberate mistranslation is someone’s opportunistic attempt to create a narrative and a history that mistakenly directs the blame for yet another war on the leadership of North Korea. It is in that sense, blackmail, just of the sort the North Koreans have been complaining about.

And given the fact that the leadership of the organizations signed onto the statement would NEVER openly declare war BEFORE given that order by their president, more than likely the Ria Novosti translation make much more sense.

Therefore, given all of this, I conclude (until such time as I can read the KCNA article myself) that the much touted “state of war” declaration being presented to the American people is in fact a “faulty translation”

The probably mistranslated statement reprinted below.

DPRK state media published a statement (tamhwa) on 30 March (Saturday) from “the government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK.”

The moves of the U.S. imperialists to violate the sovereignty of the DPRK and encroach upon its supreme interests have entered an extremely grave phase. Under this situation, the dear respected Marshal Kim Jong Un, brilliant commander of Mt. Paektu, convened an urgent operation meeting on the performance of duty of the Strategic Rocket Force of the Korean People’s Army for firepower strike and finally examined and ratified a plan for firepower strike.

The important decision made by him is the declaration of a do-or-die battle to provide an epochal occasion for putting an end to the history of the long-standing showdown with the U.S. and opening a new era. It is also a last warning of justice served to the U.S., south Korean group and other anti-reunification hostile forces. The decision reflects the strong will of the army and people of the DPRK to annihilate the enemies.

Now the heroic service personnel and all other people of the DPRK are full of surging anger at the U.S. imperialists’ reckless war provocation moves, and the strong will to turn out as one in the death-defying battle with the enemies and achieve a final victory of the great war for national reunification true to the important decision made by Kim Jong Un.

The Supreme Command of the KPA in its previous statement solemnly declared at home and abroad the will of the army and people of the DPRK to take decisive military counteraction to defend the sovereignty of the country and the dignity of its supreme leadership as regards the war moves of the U.S. and south Korean puppets that have reached the most extreme phase.

Not content with letting B-52 make sorties into the sky over south Korea in succession despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK, the U.S. made B-2A stealth strategic bomber and other ultra-modern strategic strike means fly from the U.S. mainland to south Korea to stage a bombing drill targeting the DPRK. This is an unpardonable and heinous provocation and an open challenge.

By taking advantage of the U.S. reckless campaign for a nuclear war against the DPRK, the south Korean puppets vociferated about “preemptive attack” and “strong counteraction” and even “strike at the commanding forces”, openly revealing the attempt to destroy monuments symbolic of the dignity of the DPRK’s supreme leadership.

This clearly shows that the U.S. brigandish ambition for aggression and the puppets’ attempt to invade the DPRK have gone beyond the limit and their threats have entered the reckless phase of an actual war from the phase of threat and blackmail.

The prevailing grim situation more clearly proves that the Supreme Command of the KPA was just when it made the judgment and decision to decisively settle accounts with the U.S. imperialists and south Korean puppets by dint of the arms of Military-First politics (So’ngun), because time when words could work has passed.

Now they are openly claiming that the B-2A stealth strategic bombers’ drill of dropping nuclear bombs was “not to irritate the north” but “the defensive one”. The U.S. also says the drill is “to defend the interests of its ally”. However, it is nothing but a lame pretext to cover up its aggressive nature, evade the denunciation at home and abroad and escape from the DPRK’s retaliatory blows.

The era when the U.S. resorted to the policy of strength by brandishing nuclear weapons has gone.

It is the resolute answer of the DPRK and its steadfast stand to counter the nuclear blackmail of the U.S. imperialists with merciless nuclear attack and their war of aggression with just all-out war.

They should clearly know that in the era of Marshal Kim Jong Un, the greatest-ever commander, all things are different from what they used to be in the past.

The hostile forces will clearly realize the iron will, matchless grit and extraordinary mettle of the brilliant commander of Mt. Paektu that the earth cannot exist without Military-First  (So’ngun) Korea.

Time has come to stage a do-or-die final battle.

The government, political parties and organizations of the DPRK solemnly declare as follows reflecting the final decision made by Kim Jong Un at the operation meeting of the KPA Supreme Command and the unanimous will of all service personnel and people of the DPRK who are waiting for a final order from him.

1.From this moment, the north-south relations will be put at the state of war and all the issues arousing between the north and the south will be dealt with according to the wartime regulations.

The state of neither peace nor war has ended on the Korean Peninsula.

Now that the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK have entered into an actual military action, the inter-Korean relations have naturally entered the state of war. Accordingly, the DPRK will immediately punish any slightest provocation hurting its dignity and sovereignty with resolute and merciless physical actions without any prior notice.

2. If the U.S. and the south Korean puppet group perpetrate a military provocation for igniting a war against the DPRK in any area including the five islands in the West Sea of Korea or in the area along the Military Demarcation Line, it will not be limited to a local war, but develop into an all-out war, a nuclear war.

It is self-evident that any military conflict on the Korean Peninsula is bound to lead to an all-out war, a nuclear war now that even U.S. nuclear strategic bombers in its military bases in the Pacific including Hawaii and Guam and in its mainland are flying into the sky above south Korea to participate in the madcap DPRK-targeted nuclear war moves.

The first strike of the revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK will blow up the U.S. bases for aggression in its mainland and in the Pacific operational theatres including Hawaii and Guam and reduce not only its military bases in south Korea but the puppets’ ruling institutions including Chongwadae and puppet army’s bases to ashes at once, to say nothing of the aggressors and the provokers.

3. The DPRK will never miss the golden chance to win a final victory in a great war for national reunification.

This war will not be a three day-war but it will be a blitz war through which the KPA will occupy all areas of south Korea including Jeju Island at one strike, not giving the U.S. and the puppet warmongers time to come to their senses, and a three-dimensional war to be fought in the air, land and seas and on the front line and in the rear.

This sacred war of justice will be a nation-wide, all-people resistance involving all Koreans in the north and the south and overseas in which the traitors to the nation including heinous confrontation maniacs, warmongers and human scum will be mercilessly swept away.

No force on earth can break the will of the service personnel and people of the DPRK all out in the just great war for national reunification and of all other Koreans and overpower their might.

Holding in high esteem the peerlessly great men of Mt. Paektu, the Korean people will give vent to the pent-up grudge and realize their cherished desire and thus bring a bright day of national reunification and build the best power on this land without fail.

by Scott Creighton

Related content:

1. From Korean into English, North Korea’s “State of War” Statement may have been the Result of Faulty Translation
MOSCOW, March 30 (RIA Novosti) – Recent media reports that North Korea had declared a “state of war” with South Korea might have been based on a mistranslation, Russian media reported on Saturday. International media reported the North Korean statement,…

2. North Korea accuses US of deploying atomic bombs in South Korea  
SEOUL, Nov 13 (AFP) Nov 13, 2006 North Korea on Monday accused the United States of using South Korea as a nuclear outpost by deploying some 1,000 atomic bombs in the country. The North’s Korean National Peace Committee said the…

3. The US and North Korea are “Legally” Still at War. Another Failed UNSC Resolution against the DPRK The UNSC resolution directed against DPRK on January 22, 2013 reminds us of  two identical previous resolutions (UNSCR: 1718, 1874) in 2006 and 2009. It is also reminiscent of the so-called “No-Fly Zone” Resolution the UNSC passed in March 17,…

Stop war mongering!

IRAN: "The time for diplomacy with Iran is over - bring on the sanctions", so they say...

It would come as a major surprise, even for the most optimistic of commentators, if anything more than yet another date for more negotiations comes out of the Istanbul talks.

 

By Anshel Pfeffer | Jul.03, 2012 | 7:29 PM

The "technical experts" meeting starting today in Istanbul between the representatives of Iran and the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, along with Germany (P5+1) are just a last-gasp attempt to keep the diplomatic channel between the international community and Iran open. Yet the chance that these low to mid-level diplomats will succeed in achieving a breakthrough where the senior negotiators failed in three rounds of well-prepared talks is next to nil. You can blame the intransigence on Iran's determination to build a nuclear weapon or on Barack Obama's election circumstances which wont' allow him any flexibility; it will be a major surprise, even for the most optimistic of commentators, if anything more than yet another date for more negotiations comes out of the Istanbul talks.

That doesn’t mean that the next act in the play is a military strike by the U.S. or Israel on Iran's nuclear facilities. There is one more stage that has to play out before we cry havoc and let slip the dogs of war. As of the beginning of this week, Iran is facing the toughest set of sanctions and embargo regimes yet, and as they continue to cripple the country's increasingly fragile economy, will they finally force Iran to back down? Is there a chance that sanctions will work where diplomacy failed?

I have a big piece in today's Haaretz on the extent of Britain's ongoing economic war against Iran, which while being very low-key, is second only to the American efforts. The British may have lost an empire and given up most of their military capability, but the City of London is still one of the world's main financial hubs and it is the marine insurance capital of the globe, giving the British multiple levers with which to pressure Iran, including cutting off nearly all its foreign banking services and making it extremely hard - not only for Iranian ships, but for the ships of any other country carrying Iranian oil - to get the necessary insurance coverage.

One of the experts and diplomats I interviewed for my piece was Sir Richard Dalton, a former British ambassador to Iran and currently a fellow at Chatham House. Based on his knowledge of Iran, Sir Richard does not believe the sanctions will achieve their goal.

"They are relying too much on sanctions – they overestimate the impact on Iran's bottom line of sanctions. They have to recognize that the only way out of the impasse is the sanctions' suspension. You can't simply bludgeon Iran to give up the position they have held for seven years. They have to find a way to put some substance and reciprocity. The sanctions are being used in an ineffective way because they are not offering Iran any incentive." 

Dimona Nuclear Facility in Israel. 

What goes for the gander, goes also for the goose!

 

My friend, Israeli analyst Amotz Asa-El, has an opposite view. He writes in Marketwatch that the sanctions are not only going to work, but that they will cause upheaval in Iran. He points to two main factors. The first, that while Iran is the world's second-largest producer of oil, cutting them off from the world energy market has not caused the price of gas to rise, it has actually gone down and Iraq's customers are finding it relatively easy to secure alternative suppliers. Not only is Iran exporting now less of its oil, but it is receiving far less income for the oil it is still managing to sell. The second factor is the collapse of the retail sector within Iran, due to the government's shrinking ability to subsidize food prices and the absence of a free economy within Iran that isn't based on petro-dollars. Asa-El predicts that this will lead to hyperinflation very soon and then –

"Watching their money evaporate between their fingers, a growing number of Iranians increasingly ask why they need a leadership whose adventurism’s main cheerleaders are Hugo Chavez and Bashar Assad. Moreover, the millions in Iran who believe the ayatollahs stole their votes three years ago have since seen people power drive other inept Middle East leaders from office.

Between the increasingly restless masses and the economically dilettante ayatollahs, change from within is on its way to Iran, either in the wake of next year’s election or before it, whether peacefully or not."

But will there be sufficient time for that outcome to emerge? The buildup of additional American naval forces in the Persian Gulf and the official announcement that Austere Challenge, the joint U.S-Israel missile defense exercise set to take place this October in Israel, are clear indications that America is putting all the necessary pieces in place, in case Obama decides on an election-eve operation against Iran. In other words, the sanctions have about four months to force Iran to concede, and then its finger on the trigger and shoot when you see the whites of their eyes.

Blogger Comment: Whether Iran is after nuclear capabilities for military or civilian reasons is not the point because they have the right to have such capability. Israel, India, Korea, Pakistan and many other European countries as well as the USA have such capabilities...so why not Iran, Egypt, Morocco, etc. Why should Israel be the only one state in the Middle East who has such capabilities?! Everybody, anybody has the right to being powerful militarily and economically and that also include Israel.

What is happening right now is nothing but hypocrisy incarnate and embodiment of neo-imperialism masked in the form of economical sanctions and financial control to bring a country to down to its knees.

The nasty 

game is afoot again!

USA: The Pillow Biting Alternative Media and the Johns Who Love Them

 

by Scott Creighton

The "obvious humanitarian crisis" is how Hillary Clinton, proven globalist war-monger and neoliberal lick-spittle, recently justified our initial involvement in Libya. This is simply not true. It is eerily reminiscant of her speech on the senate floor in Oct. of 2002 where she quoted every single Bush/Cheney lie to pursuade other democrats to vote for an illegal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq. This was her speech and if anyone claims, "Bush Lied People Died" they better remember Hillary's words as well.

"In the four years since the inspectors left, "intelligence reports" (fabricated by Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans, run by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith) show that Saddam Hussein has worked to rebuild his chemical and biological stockpiles, his missile delivery capability, and his nuclear weapon program. He has also given aid, comfort and sanctuary to terrorists including al Qaeda members. It is clear however, that if left unchecked Saddam will continue to increase his capasity to wage biological and chemical warfare and will keep trying to develop nuclear weapons." Hillary Clinton, in support of the globalist occupation and regime change in Iraq, 2002

What is painfully obvious these days is that alternative media icons are helping spread Clinton's Karl Rovesque hawkish fantasies about Libya, just like they also helped back in the lead-up to Iraq days, in order to help justify more profitable war and the wholesale privatization of Libya which is sure to follow.

Talk about strange bedfellows. Here's a mental picture for you; Bill Kristol going heels to Jesus on Amy Goodman with Juan Cole and John Negroponte playing "touch my wand" in the corner with a disco ball flashing overhead and "Friday" playing on the hi-fi. 

Don't like that image seered into your brain for life? Tough. That's what happens when you work your asses off to support the moderate "Obama agenda". Why not get Arianna and Stewart to do another "Everything is Just Fine... for Some of Us" march on Washington with C3PO and a midget in a robot costume. That'll make you feel better about the Obama betrayal.

Going back over all the MSM and "progressive" left's neocon-like pro-war PR spin, you find one thing is consistent time and time again and that is that each reported "atrocity" comes straight from a rebel "witness" with no video or photographs to back them up.  Or you had real atrocities carried out by people like the "yellow hats" who were clearly not Gadhafi's soldiers or police, but rather rebel supporters in civilian looking clothes but with these silly yellow hard-hats running around beating peaceful protesters in full view of rebel video cameras which had been set up prior to the PR event. Later they used videos of fighting between Gadhafi's police and the "rebels" as "evidence" of the make-believe slaughter, forgetting to mention that any police or military unit is going to defend itself when a small faction of capitalist sponsored thugs attack them in the open with automatic weapons and even heavier equipment.

It's one lie after another lie followed up by a half-truth and then some outright propaganda served up with a heart warming shot of self-ritchous self-satisfaction. A recipe for war promotion dating back to the Greeks and probably back to cave dwellers who' s chief wanted to profit from grabbing the beads of the neighboring tribes.

Remember the two fighter jet attacks on Libyan civilians way-back-when? Never happened. Gates and Mullen said it never happened and suddenly the Obama cheerleaders dropped that bullshit from their justification menu.

Q:  Do you see any evidence that he actually has fired on his own people from the air?  There were reports of it, but do you have independent confirmation?  If so, to what extent?

SEC. GATES:  We’ve seen the press reports, but we have no confirmation of that.

ADM. MULLEN:  That’s correct.  We’ve seen no confirmation whatsoever

Remember the fighter jet that got shot down and was used as "proof" that Gadhafi had violated his promise to cancel military actions? It was staged and they used their own jet. The truth about that came out because the plane rolled too much to the left before crashing and the pre-set video camera caught the full frontal view and it turns out, it wasn't Gadhafi's plane. Oops! The complicit left had to drop that bullshit as well.

Remember when the SAS and MI6 spooks got caught in Libya trying to hand over weapons and make plans with the "rebels"? That's how destabilization campaigns work. Ever hear Juan Cole talk about that?

"The crack troops, armed with guns, ammunition, explosives and false passports, were mistaken for enemy spies, detained and stripped of their mobile phones and satellite communications devices."

And I bet most don't know that there were reports of British and U.S. secret forces landing in Libya to aid the "rebels" as far back as Feb. 24th 2011. Did Amy ever do a big show on that?

"The advisers, including intelligence officers, were dropped from warships and missile boats at the coastal towns of Benghazi and Tobruk Thursday Feb. 24"

I bet they also don't know that Hillary Clinton met with the leader of the "rebels" a week before the U.S. pushed for the passage of the U.N. no-fly zone mandate which was simply cover for the planned regime change.

"In Washington, President Obama again said it was time for Colonel Qaddafi “to leave.”"

They probably also don't know that mandate, aside from giving them universal cover like the "coalition of the willing" did back in 2003, also froze the assets of the nationalized oil company of Libya as well as the state-run central banking system... which is just as much of a target of these globalists as the oil is. Probably more actually.

“The resolution establishes “a ban on all flights in the airspace of the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya” while excluding an occupation force. It also calls for freezing the assets of the Libyan National Oil Corp. and the central bank because of links to Gadhafi.”  MSNBC

(You see what I did there, Juan Cole? I made claims and then supported those claims with actual quotes and links to verify my sources. That's called "journalism" ...  Journ - al- ism... got it? good.)

It's a classic CIA/IMF style destabilization campaign (for corporate and banking interests of course) coupled as it usually is with a complicit corporate MSM.  Only this time, they're pulling out all the stops on the "progressive" or liberal left to give the appearance of credibility to an obviously phony "humanitarian action".  This makes it a unique action, unique at least since the Clintons were given a free-hand to force neoliberalization at gun-point in Kosovo and Bosnia. Nothing sells a "humanitarian effort" like Slick Willy and friends.

Not only do we have the usual fake left suspects singing the praises of this action like Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman (they are both about as "leftist" as Mussolini was) did on the senate floor just before the Shock and Awe of Iraq, but today's unwarranted aggression also seems to enjoy the unquestioning seal of approval of all those so-called anti-war/anti-imperialism stalwarts from the alternative media who rightly exposed the blatant bullshit back in 2002-2003 when 935 lies (and at least one forged document) took us into Iraq, eventually killing over a million of their civilians in that "humanitarian action" which still drags on today. Mind you, that one was also about oil AND control of Iraq's central banking system which was privatized almost immediately after the fall of Baghdad.

As Blues pointed out yesterday, the alternative media is just becoming an alternative for the PR firms like Burson-Marstellar to use to spread more of their propaganda and pro-war lies. She points out that Juan Cole, "progressive" icon of the internet alter-media machine, is putting together his own coalition of the willing in an all out attempt to promote the pending illegal invasion of Libya as the next best thing since carbon taxes, infinite detention, and national ID cards for keeping the world safe for democracy. Just so long as it keeps Obama's agenda rolling, no price is too high.  Isn't that right, Congressman Kucinich?

Juan Cole in his "Big Ten List of Reasons Lord Obama is Justified in his Shock and Awe of Libya" repeatedly uses unsupported claims of those very same "atrocities" I mentioned earlier while citing no references. He cites no references because he knows that everyone he would try to quote, if checked, uses "unnamed sources" or "rebel fighters" as their reference. That would be kind of like asking the "kill team" to give us the official word on all their actions in Afghanistan. And Juan knows it. If he had a legitimate source to pull from, he would have. He's a journalist, and usually a pretty thorough one at that.

"6. No false allegations were made against the Qaddafi regime, of being in league with al-Qaeda or of having a nuclear weapons program. The charge is massacre of peaceful civilian demonstrators and an actual promise to commit more such massacres." Juan Cole

No false allegations, except for that MAIN allegation which Juan offers no supporting evidence for. Just takes it at face value, uncritically, and EXPECTS the rest of the left to follow along.

But Juan is by no means alone in his recent betrayal of not only his professional standards but also his professed ideology. Amy Goodman is turning about to be quite the imperialist cheerleader herself.

I saw a video of her taking to another recent sell-out, the guy who wrote the Blackwater book and then went on to spoon feed us imperialist bullshit the ex-CIA thugs spoon-feed him (he admits that on Democracy Now!, BTW)

"The last thing I’ll say on this is that I’ve spent the past couple of months talking to former CIA people, former Special Operations people, former Defense Intelligence Agency people, who have all worked on Yemen for many, many years. All of them say that al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula does not represent an existential threat to the United States. There are one-off incidents like the underwear bomber, Abdul Farouk Abdulmutallab, who was trained in Yemen. There are connections with Anwar Awlaki and others who have committed acts of terrorism. But we’re talking about three to five hundred people that are on the ground there in Yemen..." Jeremy Scaghill

During the video interview, Amy and the "friend of the spooks" were talking about the situation in Yemen and while "spook mouth-piece" was busy interlacing clear facts about the brutal repression of the Yemeni dictator with back-handed spook justifications (like al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) and down playing both the natural resources angle in Yemen (spook-boy said there isn't much oil in Yemen but failed to mention billions of dollars worth of LNG and a billion dollar pipeline owned and operated by a Texas company) as well as the horrific results of Obama's first sortie of cruise missiles in that country back in 2009 which killed 23 children. 

While spook-boy spun-up that bullshit, Amy was beside herself tossing out unsupported claims of atrocities in Libya, for some damn reason, as if that had anything to do with Yemen.

"We have to go in one minute, but very quickly on the issue of the comparison of the U.S. response to Libya and Yemen. It’s believed thousands of people have been killed in Libya, not clear how many have been killed in Yemen, but what about the U.S. response?" Amy Goodman

Watching that interview was like watching a republican convention in the lead-up to the 2004 election. Like they were battling to see who could suck-up to their naked emperor the most in 12 minutes.  Almost like they get paid bonuses for every spook talking point they hit. If you think about it in terms of product placement in movies and tv shows, you get the picture.

After reading Juan Cole's article and watching Amy and spook-boy duke it out for the "Karl Rove Supreme Lefty Justifier" award, I am left feeling the need to wash the slime mold off my eyes and roto-route my conscience.

There's a thick film of moderate bliss clouding my vision and making me feel that everything is alright and all I need to do is support the agenda of the president cus he must be just setting them up getting ready to spring his trap. After all, he plays 3 dimensional chess while they play with wooden blocks, think-tanks, tanks, fighter jets, depleted uranium, soldiers lives, civilian's lives, Tomahawk missiles, central banking systems, worhtless over the counter derivatives, privatized state property, union busting, constitutional assaults, rigged electronic voting systems, and renditioned "terrorists" who need to "confess" to acts which justify the next great neoliberal structural adjustment nationwide national liquidation sale.  Isn't that how the story goes Congressman Kucinich?

So why is it that all of a sudden Amy Goodman and Juan Cole are in bed with Karl Rove and Joe Lieberman in this repulsive 4-way of sweaty bi-partisan spin-making?  Why are both Goodman and Cole forsaking their journalistic integrity and jumping bare-back into the deceased pool of cross party inbreeding?

The answer is as simple as it is frightening.

All across the world, the "virus" that John McCain referred to the other week is breaking out and running wild just like Al Gore pretended H1N1 was doing a year and a half ago so that his stocks in his pharmaceutical company that held a patent would sky-rocket him to the next level of elite status. The difference is that this virus is real and poses a real time threat to the status quo. The "virus" is democracy and the cure is violence supported by bi-partisan bullshit.

"This virus is spreading," he said. "This, I would argue, is probably the most dangerous period of history in... of our entire involvement in the Middle East, at least in modern times. Israel is in danger of being surrounded by countries that are against the very existence of Israel, or governed by radical organizations." Raw Story

Amy Goodman should change the name of her show to "Democracy Interuptus!"

From Madison to Egypt, from Michigan to Greece, there is a shift taking place. People are infected by the "enough" plague and the elites who see themselves as the owners this planet are going into overdrive to stem the tide of self-determination. "Stability" needs dictators. It's just that simple. There is no way with Egypt on one side and Tunisia on the other that they would possibly allow Libya and her loose-cannon ruler to remain between them like an anti-Western wild-card threatening to lend support to real democracies. So "regime change" in Libya has always been the plan once they lost their efforts to keep Mubarak and Ben Ali in place.

Any discussion about Libya in the alternative sphere that doesn't address this obvious fact is just plain propaganda and that goes for Juan Cole and Amy Goodman and AOL's HuffPuff and GE's MSNBC alike. Arianna knows it, Goodman knows it, Cole knows it.  This is life in the big-time alternative media world... it ain't so alternative. They got big business supporters and Ford Foundation grants to think about. All that money Huffpuff got paid by AOL is just the sterling example for folks like Cole and Goodman.  Just look at how much money got dumped into Democracy Now! over the past year or so. New digs and per deum money to fly Amy and staff where-ever they need to go to get that "big story" to the progressive consumers who hang on her word like the gospel truth spewed over at Glenn Beck's "Blaze".  There's no significant difference other than costumes and hair styles.

The war on YOU is about to go nuclear.  The democracy disease is now airborne and blowing across the Middle East and Europe and America faster than STDs during Fleet Week.

If you've been wondering why I have been making all these lewd sexual innuendos, it's because I am calling Amy Goodman, Juan Cole, and any other alternative media icon who helps spread these putrid lies to justify war, prostitutes. They are all prostitutes. What they are doing is as old as the hills, it is nothing special, nothing admirable. They are selling their integrity for a little attention and continued access to a lifestyle they neither earned nor deserve.

As such, we need to remember, we need to never forget what they reduced themselves to when the shit hit the fan. And we should also remember that everyone knows once you spread you legs for money, each and every time shit gets tough in the future, it gets a little easier for them to assume the position for their corporate johns.  Things aren't going to get easier in this country and as long as the Obama Product is the puppet in chief, we can all expect to see more of the Goodman/Cole peep-show parading around as alternative viewpoints.

My only hope is that eventually, just like the Tea Parties out-grew Glenn Beck and his obvious bullshit, so too will the "progressives" outgrow aging ho's like Goodman and Cole who have so clearly and embarrassingly exposed themselves.

Now, I gotta go wash the sleaze from my eyes and run by the clinic for a check-up before Huffpuff's Andrew Brietbart pays O'Keefe to get it shut down.

The times, they are a changin' folks. When you can't tell the hookers from the heroes, you got bigger problems than reelecting a fraud.  As bad as the prostitutes are, their loyal subscribers are no better. Like a desperate man paying for the illusion of love and telling himself it's real, this can't and won't end well.  Better wake the fuck up now before your wallet's gone and your pissin fire and you spread your clap to the rest of your family on the toilet seat. Because contrary to what John McCain and Hillary Clinton would have you believe, the real disease ain't democracy... it's the bullshit Amy and Juan are infected with.