BartBlog

Author’s note:
This one where you really should go to the source in the link at the bottom. There is an embedded video from SBS Dateline in Australia that tells an entirely different story than the one we are getting from corporate media. An Afghan-born Austalian journalist, Yalda Hakim, was the first western journalist to interview survivors and witnesses. SHe also interviews Harmad Karzai in the clip. The embedded version to the left can be found on You Tube, but there is a link to the original in the article. Check it out and ask yourself, who’s telling the truth?

Excerpt:
John Henry Browne, the defense attorney representing Staff Sergeant Robert Bales who is accused of killing 17 Afghan civilians in Kandahar earlier this month, says he cannot interview witnesses and prosecutors will not cooperate with his team’s investigation.

“We are facing an almost complete information blackout from the government, which is having a devastating effect on our ability to investigate the charges preferred against our client,” Browne said in a statement released on Friday.

According to a Reuters report, Browne claims U.S. forces in Afghanistan obstructed him and his associates from reaching the injured civilians at a hospital in Kandahar province to interview them about the incident:

When we tried to interview the injured civilians being treated at Kandahar Hospital we were denied access and told to coordinate with the prosecution team. The next day the prosecution team interviewed the civilians injured. We found out shortly after the prosecution interviews of the injured civilians that the civilians were all released from the hospital and there was no contact information for them.

That means potential witnesses will scatter and could prove unreachable, making it virtually impossible to track them down. Thus far Bales’ defense has only managed to talk to U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan, but not victims or actual witnesses of the attack.

Browne explains that the military prosecutors who filed the charges against Bales have possibly been unwilling to cooperate because “they are concerned about the strength of their case.”

Browne’s statements raise questions about whether the U.S. military really wants to punish the guilty party to the fullest extent of the law and raise suspicions that the U.S. government is concealing some ugly truth about the Kandahar massacre. In the days immediately following the incident, reports about the events in U.S. media sources widely varied from those in overseas sources.

US officials still insist that only one soldier was involved in the shootings. They showed their Afghan counterparts images captured by a surveillance camera on a blimp above the base, which allegedly shows Bales returning after the shooting. But the investigators, for some reason, withheld the surveillance video from Bales’ lawyer.

A journalist for SBS Dateline in Australia, Yalda Hakim, provides yet another account. Hakim was born in Afghanistan and as a child, immigrated to Australia. Hakim also said American investigators tried to prevent her from interviewing the children, saying her questions could traumatize them.

After appealing to village leaders, interviews were arranged. Hakim and cameraman Ryan Sheridan were granted rare access to President Hamid Karzai’s chief investigator, to survivors and their relatives, and to the area where the attacks took place. She is, perhaps, the first international journalist to interview the surviving witnesses.

In a video aired by SBS Dateline, children who witnessed the events told Hakim that other Americans were present during the massacre, holding flashlights in the yard. “One man entered the room and the others were standing in the yard, holding lights,” an eight year-old named Noorbinak told Hakim. (Note: Above link is to original video, embedded video to left was found on You Tube).

Noorbinak says in the video that the shooter first shot her father’s dog. Then she says he shot her father in the foot and dragged her mother by the hair. When her father started screaming, he shot her father again. Then he turned the gun on Noorbinak and shot her in the leg.

A brother of one victim told Hakim that his brother’s children mentioned more than one soldier wearing a headlamp. They also had lights at the end of their guns, he said. “They don’t know whether there were 15 or 20, however many there were,” he said in the video.

In all probability, the American people will never be informed of all of the details behind what really happened on March 11 in Afghanistan. It is also quite possible that Bales’ attorney will never get all of the facts. What few facts that are released will be released slowly, over time. That, unfortunately, is the norm with incidents that occur in war zones shrouded in secrecy.

Whether or not Staff Sergeant Bates acted alone, the blame will almost certainly fall on him and for that he may face the death penalty. Blaming one man, however, not only suppresses the horror of what routinely happens in all wars, but also mitigates the responsibility of those all the way up the chain of command to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Panetta, and President Obama.

Read more, get links, and video here: Madison Independent Examiner – U.S. obstruction of Afghan massacre investigation alleged

Author’s note:
Paul Ryan must be an Ayn Rand fan.

Excerpt:
The House of Representatives on Thursday approved House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan’s proposed $3.5 trillion budget resolution on a 228 to 191 vote, largely along party lines.

If Ryan (R-WI) has his way with his proposed budget resolution, Medicare will be privatized and Medicaid, food stamps and many other federal entitlement programs will be eliminated. The cuts under Ryan’s budget proposal, if implemented, would drastically increase income inequality and poverty.

Ezra Klein of the Washington Post sums up Ryan’s budget plan in one sentence:

Ryan’s budget funds trillions of dollars in tax cuts, defense spending and deficit reduction by cutting deeply into health-care programs and income supports for the poor.

Ryan’s budget resolution is part of a bipartisan campaign to slash spending on social programs. All Democrats, however, voted against the resolution, while offering their own proposals that called for somewhat less drastic cuts in spending and token tax increases on the wealthy. All but ten of the Republican majority in the House backed the resolution and those ten wanted even bigger cuts.

Last year, Ryan offered the first-ever proposal for the complete abolition of Medicare. It passed the House but not the Senate. His resolution this year is even more drastic and reactionary. The major spending cuts are focused on programs for the poor and the lower-paid sections of the working class.

In negotiations with House Republicans last August, the White House agreed to significant cuts in discretionary spending for the 2012 and 2013 fiscal years in return for an increase in the federal debt ceiling. The Ryan budget resolution reneges on that agreement by failing to adhere to the spending levels set in that deal.

While Democrats accepted the budget cuts endorsed by Obama last year, Republicans refused to do so, which raises the possibility of a new legislative deadlock over the adoption of appropriations bills for fiscal year 2013. That could lead to a partial shutdown of the federal government October 1, just prior to the presidential and congressional elections.

According to a study by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP), Ryan’s proposal calls for $5.3 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade. 62 percent of the $5.3 trillion in spending cuts come from “programs that serve people of limited means.” Many low-income working families would actually see an increase in their tax burdens under the Ryan plan.

Another CBPP analysis found the budget provides for $800 billion in cuts for Medicaid, $1.6 trillion from repealing the expansion of Medicaid and subsidies for low- and moderate-income people, $134 billion in cuts from food stamps, and $463 billion from other programs for low-income individuals and families, including an estimated $166 billion from Pell Grants for low-income college students. (See slideshow for a detailed look at the CBPP’s and other statistics).

An analysis by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC) finds that people earning more than $1 million a year would receive $265,000 apiece in new tax cuts, on average, on top of the $129,000 they would receive from the Ryan budget’s extension of President Bush’s tax cuts.

According to the New York Times, White House officials said the budget plan would cut 200,000 children from Head Start, deny food stamps or WIC food commodities to 1.8 million infants, children and pregnant or nursing women, cut transportation financing by up to $50 billion, and cut unspecified billions from federal employee pensions.

Ryan’s plan, essentially, would negate over a half century of progress with federal social programs for the poor and the working class. It would cap federal spending programs at about 19% of the gross domestic product, levels not seen since the 1950’s before the establishment of Medicare and other social welfare programs by the Johnson administration.

While Ryan’s plan is unlikely to pass in an upcoming Senate vote, a bipartisan measure is likely to be reached in a deal before the end of this year, quite possibly after the November elections.

Regardless of which of the two parties control the White House and Congress after the pretense of electing politicians that truly represent the majority of Americans, any budget proposal is likely to slash spending on programs that benefit 99%, while spending billions on increasingly unpopular wars and preserving the majority of the enormous tax breaks for the wealthy 1%.

This will be presented to the American people by our “leaders” under the guise of “equal sacrifice” or “shared responsibility” for the fiscal crisis of the federal government.

Read more, get links, video and a slideshow here: Madison Independent Examiner – Paul Ryan: Privatize Medicare, eliminate Medicaid and food stamps

Author’s note:
You may have heard of the characteristics of fascism because they were published in 2003. They were in several critiques of the Bush administration. In applying them to the U.S. today, it saddened me that many still apply with a Democrat in office. In fact, if anything has changed, new legislation and the most recent executive order have made the poltical climate in the U.S. even more oppressive. I encourage readers to take a close look at America today in light of the 14 tenets of fascism and ask yourselves, do we really live in a democracy? I will post the first four, please use the link below to review the other 10.

Excerpt:
In the spring of 2003, ex-corporate executive and political scientist Lawrence W. Britt published an essay in Free Inquiry magazine entitled “Fascism Anyone?” In his work, Britt examined the traits of the two governments that formed the original historical model for fascism, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, and five other protofascist regimes that imitated that model, Franco’s Spain, Salazar’s Portugal, Papadopoulos’s Greece, Pinochet’s Chile, and Suharto’s Indonesia. He identified 14 characteristics that were common to all of them. These traits have since been widely accepted as the 14 defining characteristics of fascism.

Nearly three generations removed from the horrors of Nazi Germany, all of these regimes have been overthrown, but fascism’s principles can still be found in many nations. History tends to repeat itself because many leaders and nations fail to learn from history, or draw the wrong conclusions. Sadly, historical amnesia is the norm in the world today.

In the U.S., leaders, teachers, media and citizens proudly claim that America is a democratic society with certain freedoms and rights guaranteed to all citizens by the constitution, bill of rights and rule of law. But is that really the case? A close look at the 14 characteristics of fascism in light of what has changed in America in the past few years may raise some questions as to whether or not Americans truly live in a democratic society.

1. Powerful and continuing expressions of nationalism. From the prominent displays of flags and bunting to the ubiquitous lapel pins, the fervor to show patriotic nationalism, both on the part of the regime itself and of citizens caught up in its frenzy, was always obvious. Catchy slogans, pride in the military, and demands for unity were common themes in expressing this nationalism. It was usually coupled with a suspicion of things foreign that often bordered on xenophobia.

Drive down any street in suburban or small-town America and witness the amount of flags flying, flag stickers on mailboxes, ribbon stickers on vehicles and patriotic tee shirts. Then-Senator Obama was criticized during his 2007 campaign for not wearing the ubiquitous flag lapel pin that many politicians wear. Nearly everyone has heard catchy slogans such as “Freedom isn’t Free,” “God Bless America” and “Support the Troops.” Borderline xenophobia is exemplified when french fries were renamed “freedom fries” in D.C. cafeterias. The fear of “illegals” taking scarce jobs has been written into legislation in states such as Arizona, where failure to carry immigration documents is a crime. Your papers, please?

This characteristic may be the most innocuous one of the 14. Americans have always had a strong sense of patriotic nationalism and there is nothing inherently wrong with that. But patriotic symbolism and nationalistic legislation have been taken to a new level in the years since the first Gulf war when the first yellow ribbons were placed on trees.

2. Disdain for the importance of human rights. The regimes themselves viewed human rights as of little value and a hindrance to realizing the objectives of the ruling elite. Through clever use of propaganda, the population was brought to accept these human rights abuses by marginalizing, even demonizing, those being targeted. When abuse was egregious, the tactic was to use secrecy, denial, and disinformation.

The use of extraordinary rendition, military tribunals instead of public trials, the refusal to close the prison at Guantanamo Bay, waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques” are good examples of human rights violations. Many were done in secrecy until the information was leaked to the press. Capturing people and imprisoning them without charges is repeatedly called “extraordinary rendition” in the media, simulated drowning is called “waterboarding,” refusing the right to a fair trial a “military tribunal” and torture “enhanced interrogation.” All are good examples of the use of propaganda to make these practices palatable to the American people.

Disdain for human rights in the U.S. has never been more apparent than in recent years. The rights of free speech and assembly obviously do not apply to the over 6700 citizens that have been arrested and the many that have been beaten and pepper-sprayed since the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) movement began last September.

The National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 (NDAA), signed into law by President Obama in December 2011, gives the government the power to indefinitely detain, imprison, torture and murder anyone, anywhere if he or she is considered a suspect of anything the US government wants to make up. The detention, imprisonment, torture and murder can occur without the person having been charged and without a trial.

These practices would probably have caused public outrage at any time in U.S. history before the new millennium, but now are accepted by many Americans as necessary tools in the “War on Terror,” (itself a slogan). Ask anyone present at recent OWS demonstrations how “free” they think Americans are now.

3. Identification of enemies/scapegoats as a unifying cause. The most significant common thread among these regimes was the use of scapegoating as a means to divert the people’s attention from other problems, to shift blame for failures, and to channel frustration in controlled directions. The methods of choice—relentless propaganda and disinformation—were usually effective. Often the regimes would incite ‘spontaneous’ acts against the target scapegoats, usually communists, socialists, liberals, Jews, ethnic and racial minorities, traditional national enemies, members of other religions, secularists, homosexuals, and ‘terrorists.’ Active opponents of these regimes were inevitably labeled as terrorists and dealt with accordingly.

The most readily identifiable scapegoats for Americans now are Muslims. Saddam Hussein was the ultimate scapegoat. It was easy for the Bush administration to rally the American people behind the invasion and occupation of Iraq by suggesting Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaida, which Bush later denied, and by repeatedly stating that Iraq had WMDs, which were never found.

There is a difference, however, between fascism today and the right-wing ideology that it embodied under Hitler and Mussolini. Modern fascism uses the left-right dialectic to maintain control over a divided populace. American politicians, citizens and media on both sides of the political spectrum continually use scapegoats to shift blame for failures and misdirect anger: liberals, conservatives, socialists, capitalists, bible-thumpers, atheists, blacks, welfare queens, tree-huggers, etc., etc. The list of labels used in name-calling and blaming goes on and on. Meanwhile, few if any real solutions are offered for problems such as unemployment, inflation, corruption on Wall Street and government spending.

4. The supremacy of the military/avid militarism. Ruling elites always identified closely with the military and the industrial infrastructure that supported it. A disproportionate share of national resources was allocated to the military, even when domestic needs were acute. The military was seen as an expression of nationalism, and was used whenever possible to assert national goals, intimidate other nations, and increase the power and prestige of the ruling elite.

The U.S. government spends more on defense than anything else and more than the next 14 largest defense-spending nations combined. When the need for budget cuts are debated, politicians usually take aim at “entitlement” programs and social programs, while expressing concern that “military spending cuts are a risk to our national security.”

The U.S. government has allocated $851 billion for defense spending in fiscal year 2013. Defense spending accounts for more than two-thirds of all discretionary spending and accounts for about 22.4% of all federal spending – more than the allotments for Medicare or Social Security. Military manufacturing increased by 123% between 2000 and 2009 while the rest of the manufacturing sector decreased.

While Americans pay for the military to invade and occupy sovereign nations, millions of Americans lack access to affordable healthcare. The U.S. is the only country in the “developed” world that does not have a tax-payer funded healthcare system. Infrastructure is literally crumbling. Students in other industrial nations are outperforming U.S. students in math, science and reading. Yet all other departments, including Health and Human Services ($71.7 billion), the Department of Education ($69.8 billion), and Housing and Urban Development ($35.3 billion), must operate with the remaining $410 billion of discretionary spending.

Read about the other 10, get links, video and sources here: Madison Independent Examiner – 14 defining characteristics of fascism: The U.S. in 2012

Author’s note:

I have compiled over a dozen overseas media sources, as well as U.S. media sources, and provides quotes and links in this article. There is a lot of information out there that paints two very different pictures of what happened in Afghanistan. It’s up to you, the reader, to decide what to believe. I encourage you to read the full version.

Excerpt:
In the early morning hours of March 11 in the volatile Panjwai district of Kandahar Province, 16 Afghan civilians, 9 of them children, were shot or stabbed to death by at least one American soldier. Some of the bodies were burned. While both U.S. media and overseas media reports agree on that, the reports vary widely concerning information beyond those basic facts.

U.S. Media Reports

Every major U.S. network, cable and print media outlet report that the killings were done by a single U.S. soldier who left a small combat outpost and walked into two nearby villages. After a six-day blackout of public information about the shooter, he was identified as Staff Sergeant Robert Bales of the 3rd Stryker Brigade based out of Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington State. A surveillance video was produced that shows Bales surrendering to guards at the base in Afghanistan. No need to quote sources or post links – all of the above is common knowledge to anyone following the story in the U.S. The reports echo President Obama’s statement on March 12: “It appeared you had a lone gunman who acted on his own.”

Foreign Media Reports

While the Afghan and U.S. government may be on the same page publicly, that may not be the case privately, according to overseas media reports. One thing is certain, the U.S. media and foreign media are not on the same page.

In Afghanistan another version of the story is developing that the U.S. corporate media fails to even acknowledge. According to several overseas media sources, Afghanistan President Karzai accuses the US government of covering up the truth about the killings and Afghanistan Parliament members, investigators and local witnesses have a compiled a mountain of corroborating evidence that shows that as many as 20 U.S. soldiers were involved in a coordinated, execution-type operation in the two villages that night. (See video in link).

The parliamentary probe report was picked up by many foreign media outlets, including IRIB in Iran, Russia Today, DeMorgen.be in Belgium, Mondoweiss in Israel and Reuters UK edition. DeMorgen.be quoted Karzai saying “According to our people, the act is not performed by a single man and it was a conscious and deliberate act.”

The account of President Karzai’s reaction to the massacre is very different in foreign media as well. The Morning Star in the UK reports: (See slideshow in link).

Afghan President Hamid Karzai…backed claims that more than one person had conducted the massacre of 16 civilians which US forces have blamed on a single soldier.

At a meeting with relatives of the nine children, four men and three women who were slain Mr Karzai said villagers’ accounts of the atrocity were “widely different” from the scenario depicted by US military officials.

The president pointed to a villager at the meeting and said: “In his family people were killed in four rooms and then they were brought together in one room and set on fire. That one man cannot do.”

He also blasted the US for refusing to share information from its investigation into the outrage, which was conducted in two separate villages.

A government delegation sent to Kandahar to investigate had “not received the expected co-operation of the United States,” he said, adding that he would raise the issue with the occupying army “very loudly.”

Russia Today corroborated the above report and added that “the relatives of the victims told President Karzai that the counterinsurgency operation had received air support. They also claim the killers were brought in by military helicopters.”

Sifting Through the Reports

Sifting through the reports raises many questions. How was one man able to evade the tight security that is found at forward operating bases (FOBs) while carrying enough weapons, ammunition and fuel to carry out the killings and burn bodies? How was Sgt. Bates able to travel 1.5 kilometer to the first village on foot (one of which is missing a part), then 2 kilometers to the next village and back to the base in about an hour? Are the time frame and distances accurate? Are the Afghani witnesses reliable? Will they be willing and/or allowed to testify? Will Staff Sergeant Bates be able to testify if he is suffering from memory loss? Will there even be a trial? Is President Karzai playing both sides of the fence by telling both President Obama and his own people what he thinks they want to hear? These questions are only the beginning. There will be many, many more.

Whether or not Staff Sergeant Bates acted alone, the blame will almost certainly fall on him and for that he may face the death penalty. Blaming one man, however, not only suppresses the horror of what routinely happens in all wars, but also mitigates the responsibility of those all the way up the chain of command to the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Secretary Panetta, and President Obama. Calling this an isolated incident dismisses the pain and suffering of surviving family members, relatives, friends, and everyone victimized in wars by disregarding the fact that nothing can compensate for their loss. Prolonging this war ensures more loss and suffering not only for civilian families, but also for the many honorable soldiers that will inevitably make the ultimate sacrifice.

Yet nearly 11 years after the start of the Afghan war, as a result of political and economic powers that compel them, U.S. servicemen and women remain there, bombing villages, breaking down doors in the middle of the night, terrorizing innocent villagers, killing “suspected terrorists,” contributing in one way or another to a deepening humanitarian crisis, leaving in their wake untold numbers of casualties, and as a result of their actions, creating ever more enemies.

It is time to end this insanity and bring our troops home.

Read more, get links to more sources, video and a slideshow here: Madison Independent Examiner – Reports in U.S. and overseas media vastly different

With gasoline prices approaching $4 per gallon in Madison, there are many factors that have been blamed by politicians and so-called analysts in the corporate media. Among those are tensions in the Middle East, supply and demand, OPEC policies, the Obama administration’s policies, etc.

While many factors can be considered in placing the blame for rising gasoline prices, the primary cause of the price increase is rarely mentioned – speculation on Wall Street. Wall Street is betting on higher oil prices in the future and that betting is causing prices to rise.

A recent article by Robert Lenzner, writing for Forbes, concludes that speculation adds $23.39 to the price of a barrel of crude oil, which translates to a $.56 increase in the price of gasoline at the pumps for Americans. In other words, relatively few players in the Wall Street casino with very deep pockets are placing huge bets on oil – and you are paying.

Another factor that is causing rising oil and gasoline prices can also be attributed to Wall Street and the private central bank, the Federal Reserve. In order to compensate for the billions of dollars in losses by the big banks on Wall Street since 2008, the Federal Reserve has been flooding the market with newly printed money and borrowing it to Wall Street banks at low interest – a policy known as “easy money.” That reduces the purchasing power of the dollar by creating inflation. Since most oil is traded in petro-dollars, that means it takes more dollars to purchase a barrel of oil, which accounts for part of the price increase.

Free market fundamentalists who insist that gasoline prices are on the rise due to supply and demand are overlooking some simple facts. Demand for crude oil is decreasing and supply is adequate. According to Robert Reich, who has served in three national administrations, over 80 percent of America’s energy needs are now being satisfied by domestic supplies. In fact, the U.S. is starting to become an energy exporter.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) reports that the world oil supply rose by 1.3 million barrels a day in the last three months of 2011 while world demand increased by just over half that during that same time period. Gasoline usage is down in the US by 8%, Europe by 22% and has even fallen in China. Recession across much of the European Union, a deepening recession in the United States and slowdown in Japan have reduced global oil demand while new discoveries are coming almost daily. Countries like Iraq are increasing supply after years of war. A brief spike in China’s oil purchases in January and February had to do with a decision last December to build their Strategic Petroleum Reserve and is expected to return to more normal import levels by the end of this month.

While the Obama administration’s energy policy is not to blame for rising gas prices, part of the blame for failure to effectively regulate the oil commodity market can be placed on both the current administration and Congress. In recent years, a Wall Street-friendly (and Wall Street financed) U.S. Congress has passed several laws to help the banks that were interested in trading oil futures.

The bottom line is that consumers are paying more at the gas pump because of futures trading on Wall Street, inadequate regulation of the oil market and the ability of speculators to drive gasoline prices up every time the drums of war beat in the Middle East. With access to “easy oil” supplies dwindling and new supply sources becoming increasingly more difficult and costly to extract, all possible measures must be taken immediately to keep prices down.

The moment it becomes clear that the Obama administration is serious about market reforms and acts to prevent wars in the Middle East by pursuing diplomatic channels, the price of oil will plunge. Until then, the top 1% will be laughing all the way to the bank at the expense of the other 99%.

Read more, get quotes, links and video here: Madison Independent Examiner – The real reasons for high gasoline prices.

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When the Right says…
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“Oh, my God! Gretchen Carlson can’t hear herself talking about this, that’s so bad… for Gretchen Carlson.”- John Stewart

“Even earplugs shrivel when listening to some of the talking head shills on the Right. Even she who has no right to the term ‘news anchor.’”- Scribe