Clipmarks | War Clips

Advance To The Rear!

Fri, 13 Nov 2009 02:53:39 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: (Well, in fairness, even if the president did declare back in 2008 this war was a vital national security interest, and he did signal last spring he was on board with counterinsurgency, and even if he did appoint Gen. Stanley McChrystal to get the job done in May, the general’s recommendations only arrived in August, and the president didn’t look at them until, what, late September, and he’s been really busy this whole time letting Congress bollix his health-care initiative, throwing Eastern Europe under the bus and flying to Copenhagen, that kind of thing, so he’s only been able to squeeze in seven high-level national security meetings, or is it eight? Is it so unreasonable to ask for new options on top of the new options that he asked for on top of the new options that McChrystal gave him? Meanwhile, China’s ass wants kissing and then we’re into the holidays … )

OK, I get that the political piece is vitally important, and for Eikenberry, up to his armpits in scheming

Clip Source: www.julescrittenden.com

But the president raised questions at a war council meeting Wednesday that could alter the dynamic of both how many additional troops are sent to Afghanistan and what the timeline would be for their presence in the war zone, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss Obama’s thinking.

Never mind whether he’s going to commit more troops. He isn’t ready to commit to whether he’ll commit to commiting more troops. This part is fun:

Military officials said Obama has asked for a rewrite before and resisted what one official called a one-way highway toward war commander Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s recommendations for more troops. The sense that he was being rushed and railroaded has stiffened Obama’s resolve to seek information and options beyond military planning, officials said, though a substantial troop increase is still likely.

ha, his resolve to keep dithering has been stiffened! Good one. AP scribbler with a keen sense of irony or AP scribbler without a clue?

Tags: afghanistan, ambassador karl eikenberry says no, general mcchrystal, president karzai

The Long War: The US and al-Qaeda

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 23:10:14 GMT

clipped by: nosebleedlouie

Clip Source: english.aljazeera.net

The Long War: The US and al-Qaeda

[Video]

The voice of broken soldiers

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 20:27:03 GMT

clipped by: gppixelworks

Clip Source: russiatoday.com

The voice of broken soldiers

In 2006, British soldier Martin Webster hit the headlines after being involved in a media scandal when he filmed British troops in Iraq beating up Iraqi youths

“Once the children started using grenades and firing RPGs, they certainly became a threat to our lives. Our underlying issue as infantry soldiers is to preserve life – our lives and civilians around. So once you pick up a weapon and you are going to use it – you become a target for us to either be captured, arrested or killed.”

“When video cameras became widely available I do not think that the [British] government accounted for the fact that the public is going to see how horrific the war is,” remembers Webster. “You’re fighting kids [in Iraq]. People find it very hard that their Western boys are fighting children. That is the horrible fact of war. Those bombers were in their teens.” He added that the notorious clip with British soldiers beating up Iraqi youth destroyed his life.

Tags: soldiers, war, iraq, children, rpg, grenades, teens, weapons, video

Dogs greet those returning from war

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 19:33:11 GMT

clipped by: jkrabbit

Clip Source: weblogs.baltimoresun.com

Happy Vets Day: Dogs greet those returning from war

In honor of Veterans Day, the Mental Floss blog posted a series of videos showing servicemen and women returning from Afghanistan and Iraq being greeted (extremely enthusiastically) by their dogs who missed them. Here's one. Find more here. Get your tissues ready....

[Video]

Tags: k9, vets, troops

Vietnam War Songs, Timeline

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 14:18:54 GMT

clipped by: jkrabbit

Clip Source: vietnamwarmusicguide.com

Vietnam War Music

Vietnam War Songs, Timeline

Tags: vietnam, music

Ernest Hemingway on War

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:35:40 GMT

clipped by: zizzy
clipper's remarks: Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

Clip Source: www.brainyquote.com

I know war as few other men now living know it, and nothing to me is more revolting. I have long advocated its complete abolition, as its very destructiveness on both friend and foe has rendered it useless as a method of settling international disputes.

In modern war... you will die like a dog for no good reason.

Clip Source: www.brainyquote.com

No weapon has ever settled a moral problem. It can impose a solution but it cannot guarantee it to be a just one.

Once we have a war there is only one thing to do. It must be won. For defeat brings worse things than any that can ever happen in war.

Never think that war, no matter how necessary, nor how justified, is not a crime.

Clip Source: www.brainyquote.com

Wars are caused by undefended wealth.

Clip Source: www.brainyquote.com

You can wipe out your opponents. But if you do it unjustly you become eligible for being wiped out yourself.

Tags: ernest hemingway, quotes, war

Lee Sandlin: Losing the War

Thu, 12 Nov 2009 02:54:43 GMT

clipped by: Lexica
clipper's remarks: Quite long – click through for the full essay.

More:

I figured people had to know the basics -- World War II isn't exactly easy to miss. It was the largest war ever fought, the largest single event in history. Other than the black death of the Middle Ages, it's the worst thing we know of that has ever happened to the human race. Its aftereffects surround us in countless intertwining ways…

So what did the people I asked know about the war? Nobody could tell me the first thing about it. Once they got past who won they almost drew a blank. All they knew were those big totemic names -- Pearl Harbor, D day, Auschwitz, Hiroshima -- whose unfathomable reaches of experience had been boiled down to an abstract atrocity. The rest was gone…

I think what my little survey really demonstrates is how vast the gap is between the experience of war and the experience of peace.

Clip Source: www.leesandlin.com

People my age and younger who've grown up in the American heartland can't help but take for granted that war is unnatural. We think of the limitless peace around us as the baseline condition of life.

But there've been places and times where people have thought of war as the given and peace the perversion. The Greeks of Homer's time, for instance, saw war as the one enduring constant underlying the petty affairs of humanity, as routine and all-consuming as the cycle of the seasons

In our own culture the people who know what war is like find it almost impossible to communicate with the children of peace. In the last election Bob Dole was defeated in large part because of World War II -- what he thought it meant, and what he didn't see it meant to people of a later generation.

Out of idle curiosity, I've been asking friends, people my age and younger, what they know about war

To give everybody a big enough target I asked about World War II.

Tags: war, peace, history, experience, generations, forgetting

Honoring All Who Served

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 21:45:44 GMT

clipped by: nosebleedlouie

Clip Source: cornwood.blogspot.com

Honoring All Who Served

World War I – known at the time as “The Great War” - officially ended when the Treaty of Versailles was signed on June 28, 1919, in the Palace of Versailles outside the town of Versailles, France. However, fighting ceased seven months earlier when an armistice, or temporary cessation of hostilities, between the Allied nations and Germany went into effect on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month. For that reason, November 11, 1918, is generally regarded as the end of “the war to end all wars.”

Veterans Day
Wars From The Past
Recollections at 30
1956

	Recollections at 30 - Veterans Day - Wars From The Past .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

Brice Fuqua
Veterans day
Music From 100 Years Ago

	Brice Fuqua - Veterans day .mp3

	Found at bee mp3 search engine

800,000 Americans Busted Annually for Pot

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 20:30:09 GMT

clipped by: foxyarse
clipper's remarks: They argue the drug war “is doing far more harm than marijuana itself ever will,” because

* it diverts hundreds of thousands of police agents from serious crimes “to the pursuit of harmless tokers”;
* it costs taxpayers at minimum $10 billion a year to catch, prosecute, and incarcerate marijuana users and sellers;
* it enables government to snatch the cars, money, computers and other properties of people caught up in drug raids even if they have had no charges filed against them; and
* it allows “police agents at all levels to trample our Bill of Rights in their eagerness to nab pot consumers.”

The drug war has also unleashed a torrent of racism in the form of unjust sentencing, which confines crack-cocaine users who are mostly black to prison for longer terms than powder snorters, who are mostly white.

Hightower and Frazer say authorities have perverted the infamous “Patriot Act” of 2001 for use in non-terrorism cases, allowing “sneak-and-peak” search warra

Clip Source: www.laprogressive.com

800,000 Americans Busted Annually for Pot

Seven million Americans have been arrested since 1995 on marijuana charges and 41,000 of them are rotting in federal and State prisons — but the public is starting to rebel against “the preposterous war on pot,” two political scientists say. Thousands of other pot users and sellers are confined in local jails as well.

“People convicted of possessing even one ounce of marijuana can face a mandatory minimum sentence of a year in jail, and having even one plant in your yard is a federal felony,” progressive organizer Jim Hightower and co-author Phillip Frazer point out in the November issue of “The Hightower Lowdown.”

Police arrest someone in America every 36 seconds on marijuana charges, with a record 872,000 arrests made in 2007, “more than for all violent crimes combined,” Hightower and Frazer point out. They note that 89 per cent of all marijuana arrests “are for simple possession of the weed, not for producing or selling it.”

Tags: drug addiction, 800, 000 americans busted annually for pot

OBAMA and the NOBEL PRIZE

Wed, 11 Nov 2009 00:48:21 GMT

clipped by: mountainpalm
clipper's remarks: Granting the Nobel Peace Prize to Barack Obama provides legitimacy to the illegal practices of war, to the military occupation of foreign lands, to the relentless killings of civilians in the name of "democracy".

Clip Source: www.globalresearch.ca

Obama and the Nobel Prize: When War becomes Peace, When the Lie becomes the Truth

by Michel Chossudovsky

When war becomes peace,

When concepts and realities are turned upside down,

When fiction becomes truth and truth becomes fiction.

When a global military agenda is heralded as a humanitarian endeavor,

When the killing of civilians is upheld as "collateral damage",

When those who resist the US-NATO led invasion of their homeland are categorized as "insurgents" or "terrorists".

When preemptive nuclear war is upheld as self defense.

When advanced torture and "interrogation" techniques are routinely used to "protect peacekeeping operations",

When tactical nuclear weapons are heralded by the Pentagon as "harmless to the surrounding civilian population"

When three quarters of US personal federal income tax revenues are allocated to financing what is euphemistically referred to as "national defense"

When the Lie becomes the Truth.

The Babies airlifted out of Saigon

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 17:10:00 GMT

clipped by: wiganfootie

Clip Source: news.bbc.co.uk

Viktoria Cowley, centre, during the airlift

Viktoria Cowley was just a toddler when she was airlifted out of Vietnam, one of 99 children plucked from the war-torn country by the Daily Mail. Now she is trying to reunite the scattered evacuees.

Viktoria Cowley doesn't know how old she is, but she thinks about 36. Orphaned at a young age during the Vietnam War, she doesn't even know her parents' names.

Her earliest documented experience dates from April 1975, when she appeared on the front page of the Daily Mail, aged about two. She was one of 99 babies and children airlifted out of Saigon in the newspaper's mercy mission as the Vietcong advanced at the end of the war.

Vikki spots herself in the Mail's 1975 report on the airlift

Now, three decades after her arrival in Britain, Viktoria, known as Vikki, of Eastbourne, has recently embarked on a mission of her own - to reunite her fellow travellers. She has made contact with 15 so far.

An infant Vikki at her orphanage

How war profiteers are raping Iraq

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 01:18:01 GMT

clipped by: aperiozar
clipper's remarks: First invade them, kill more than 100 000 of their civilians, then profit from all the killings...

Clip Source: www.businesspundit.com

The 25 Most Vicious Iraq War Profiteers

Clip Source: www.businesspundit.com

The Iraq war is many things to different people. It is called a strategic blunder and a monstrous injustice and sometimes even a patriotic mission, much to the chagrin of rational human beings. For many big companies, however, the war is something far different: a lucrative cash-cow. The years-long, ongoing military effort has resurrected fears of the so-called “military-industrial complex.” Media pundits are outraged at private companies scooping up huge, no-questions-asked contracts to manufacture weapons, rebuild infrastructure, or anything else the government deems necessary to win (or plant its flag in Iraq). No matter what your stance on the war, it pays to know where your tax dollars are being spent.

Following is a detailed rundown of the 25 companies squeezing the most profit from this controversial conflict.

1. Halliburton

2. Veritas Capital Fund/DynCorp

3. Washington Group International

4. Environmental Chemical

5. Aegis

Interesting Facts about The World War 2

Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:59:26 GMT

clipped by: Stumblerz
clipper's remarks: great fun facts about the WW2

Clip Source: www.stumblerz.com

Interesting Facts about The World War 2

It has been a very historical weekend, to commemorate it, here are some facts about the WW2.

-From 1939 till the end of the war, the Allies dropped 3.4 million tons of bomb, mostly in industrial German cities.

-For each man killed on battle, four others were wounded.

-40,000 men served the U-Boats but 30,000 never returned.

-Japanese Pilot, Hiroyoshi Nishiwaza, was probably the best dogfighter in the air. He took down 80 planes in his time and died when he was on a cargo plane. 80 planes are pretty good when the chances of your death are at 74%.

-When the Allies reached the Rhine, one of Germans most important source of clean water. They pee’d on it, including Churchill himself.

-40 to 45 % of German planes were destroyed by accidents.

-Hitler executed 84 of his generals, for various reasons.

-When the Canadians and Americans troops reached the island of Kiska, 21 person died in a fire fight….between the American and Canadian.

Tags: fun, facts, world war

pointless to follow the news of the war(s)

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 16:06:46 GMT

clipped by: fudomyoo

Clip Source: stuartbuck.blogspot.com

C.S. Lewis on Wartime News and Newspapers in General

to strive to master what will be contradicted the next day, to fear and hope intensely on shaky evidence, is surely an ill use of the mind.

Most of what he remembers he will therefore have to unlearn;

Tags: c.s. lewis, war, news

Israeli Activists Criticize US House

Mon, 09 Nov 2009 12:28:52 GMT

clipped by: tabsey
clipper's remarks: Transcript at the source, has more detail.

Clip Source: www.democracynow.org

Israeli Activists Criticize US House for Considering Resolution Condemning Goldstone Report on Israeli War Crimes in Gaza

The House is expected to overwhelmingly vote today to condemn a UN inquiry that found Israel committed scores of war crimes in its three-week assault on the Gaza Strip. Headed by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone, the inquiry also accused Hamas of war crimes and said both sides should investigate the allegations or face international prosecution. Over 1,300 Palestinians were killed in the Israeli attack, a majority of them civilians. Nine Israelis were killed by Palestinians and another four by so-called friendly fire. The bipartisan, non-binding House measure calls the Goldstone inquiry “irredeemably biased and unworthy of further consideration or legitimacy.” The vote comes one day before the United Nations General Assembly is expected to take up the inquiry’s findings. [includes rush transcript]

Tags: politics