Shootthatarrow … precisely!

This goes on daily – air attacks on residential neighborhoods in Iraq … neighbors frantically digging out children and loved ones ..

we just don’t report it

We’re doing it in Afghanistan as well.

And it is a war crime – plain and simple. You are not allowed to attack civilians.

Siun and shootthatarrow @ 98– exactly spot on!

This needs to be pummelled into every American brain over and over and over again.

Taxpayer funded sky terror is what it is.

;(

Thank you for this post, Siun, and many thanks to GorillasGuides for everything.

“…sources in Southern Iraq are now reporting that 50% of the oil produced in the last few months is being smuggled to “some countries and major international companies.”

should dig into the BAE scandal.

In 1985, the Margaret Thatcher-led British government, signed a long-term agreement with the Saudi Arabian monarchy, under which the British arms cartel, BAE Systems, provided fighter jets and other military equipment and services, in return for vast quantities of Saudi oil. The barter agreement, known as “Al-Yamamah” (the Arabic word for “the dove”) has remained in force up to the present day. Under Al-Yamamah, a tightly interlocking consortium of Anglo-Dutch and Anglo-American cartels—including BAE, BP, Royal Dutch Shell, Lazard Bank, HSBC (formerly the British East India Company’s Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation), and the Carlyle Group—has amassed an estimated $80-100 billion in off-budget, hidden funds, which have been utilized for covert operations and gun-running on a global scale—totally outside the jurisdiction and oversight of any government. This massive offshore fund is at the center of the power of the Anglo-Dutch financial oligarchy, which has promoted globalization and perpetual war for the last three decades and longer.

Under the Al-Yamamah agreements, which have been perpetuated by every British government, from Thatcher through John Major, to outgoing “New Labour” Prime Minister Tony Blair, Saudi Arabia has provided 600,000 barrels of crude oil to BAE every day since September 1985. According to the authorized biography of Saudi Prince Bandar bin-Sultan, the architect of the Al-Yamamah deal on the Saudi side, and a long-suspected recruit of Britain’s MI6, working through BP and Royal Dutch Shell, BAE has sold this oil on the international retail markets. According to BP’s own data base on world oil prices, the value of the cumulative oil sales, in current U.S. dollars, is an estimated $160 billion. The military equipment and services provided to Saudi Arabia in return for the oil, over the past 22 years of Al-Yamamah, is estimated at $40 billion—before the prices were boosted by a reported 30-40%, to provide for “commissions” and other payoffs, including $2 billion to Prince Bandar.

The question to be raised: What happened to the rest of the money? Evidence suggests that tens of billions of dollars went to the black market purchase of weapons, to fuel wars from Afghanistan, to Africa, to Central America. Bandar’s biographer William Simpson described it as “a backdoor method of covertly buying U.S. arms … military purchases that would not be visible to Congress.”

(emphasis added)

Hahahahahahaha! You kidder!

I would expect that the Democrats will win a substantial political victory in Nov. 2008. But I’m afraid that at heart, it will be business as usual in the nation’s capital. The Democrats, I fear, will not truly seek any serious accountability from the Bush-Cheney cabal.

There will be no serious investigations. We will never learn how many civilians casualties because the Senate and House will not dig that deep. They will be too busy securing their elections-to-come in two or four or six. There won’t be the will to have serious inquiries.

No one will pay. Not Bush. Not Cheney. None of them.

Has anybody resurrected the “Bomb them back to the Stone Age” chestnut yet, referring to Iraq and not Viet Nam?

That’s usually one of the reactions to frustration among the military-minded.

I’ve been looking through the history of Sumer, Ur, the events about 2000 B.C. and before, and I would think that we would take off our shoes out of respect when over there: it should be holy ground for anyone interested in civilizations, certainly not a bombing range.

Interesting (if depressing) today was an unsolicited comment of of the veterans made to me (see my #99):

“We need to get our guys outa there and bomb the place to the ground.”

That’s usually one of the reactions to frustration among the military-minded.

I’ve been looking through the history of Sumer, Ur, the events about 2000 B.C. and before, and I would think that we would take off our shoes out of respect when over there: it should be holy ground for anyone interested in civilizations, certainly not a bombing range.