Troops Oops

An oldie but a goodie.

I finally figured out why the U.S. is occupying Iraq

It's to rid the world of those gay little boy terrorists.

So this guy I kind of know was on a train last week...

and got arrested for making terroristic threats on his cell phone. While wearing a blanket. He's also black. Check it:

LA JUNTA, Colo. -- An Amtrak passenger who alarmed fellow passengers by talking about terrorist threats on a cell phone was pulled from a Chicago-bound train and is being held in Colorado.

The 64-year-old man from Elizabeth, N.J. was arrested Tuesday on a train from Los Angeles to Chicago. Passengers alerted authorities after hearing the man mention al-Qaida and make threats in a cell phone conversation.

Police said in an affidavit that passengers overheard the man saying he hadn't killed anyone yet and talking about going to jail.

Passengers say the man said, "We have to work in small groups. They can hold you for 18 months. Do they have security on these trains? Are you with me or not?"

One passenger said he heard the man mention al-Qaida, saying, "17th century tactics won't work, we have 21st century tactics."

The conductor said the man had a tan blanket over his entire body so the conductor could not see what he was doing.

The man was taken into custody at the La Junta train station in southeastern Colorado. Police said he was not armed or carrying explosives. He was carrying propaganda for an anarchist group called Afrikan Liberation Army.

The man is being held in lieu of bond in Otero County.

-- Associated Press

A week later, the District Attorney dropped all charges. There seems to be no one who can testify that he actually said or did anything out of the ordinary, including the original complainant. I don't think this was a case of police intimidating "witnesses" into silence. Here are the laugh a minute pages regarding that (click to view the images if they don't load properly in your browser):

Whoops! Sorry guy, you were just black and had a blanket on! Free to go now!

I fucking hate this country, pt. 2

You're gonna need more than "Obama's help."

Here you have the SHAC people in prison for some organized crime bullshit with a "terrorism" enhancement for trying to shut down an animal testing corporation, but those fascistic, woman-hating hicks who kill people, they don't go to prison until they kill/try to kill someone.

There is undoubtedly a long history of organized terrorism, as in actual terrorism, as in trying to intimidate and coerce people into changing what they do through threats and practices of extreme violence and death, when it comes to anti-choice people and groups. These people have their little "activist" organizations, loads of websites, prisoner support groups, and endless protests. Clearly, they have an agenda, one that has long included premeditated murder.

But the government doesn't do much about that one, do they? They bust people after they kill. They don't try to silence Operation Rescue or others like them, who clearly and adamantly promote an agenda of fear, violence and death, even having the audacity to openly celebrate the murders of doctors. Their intimidation goes unchecked, and not just by the government - we let them have their ways, we let them push people around. I think if they faced some of the same, they wouldn't be nearly so bold.

No, they go after SHAC, a bunch of people accused of running a website. That's who the state says terrorists are. Or people who try to get in the way of industry gone wild. And of course the standard religious targets. A succinct summary of today's perceived terrorists:

1. Muslims
2. People who come in between business and profit.

Why not prosecute the anti-choice thugs? It's not for lack of feasibility. There's obviously ample evidence and ability, at least judging by the government's success in going after SHAC and people involved with the Animal Liberation Front and Earth Liberation Front. I see a few reasons why they don't go after God's Army Of Loving Christ Crusaders For The Cross Of The Baby Most Holy In Jesus' Name - one, the people who run this country are and have always been varying degrees of sexist, misogynistic and male-centric. Abortion is a "woman's issue." Another is that people in this country are, by and large, religious and socially/politically conservative, so there is not a whole lot of support for abortion rights, at least not in comparison to something like support for gun rights. Finally, and this is a huge one in my eyes, that abortion doesn't generate a lot of money, and certainly not in a concentrated way. Animal exploitation industries, on the other hand, those are huge money makers, along with other ALF/ELF targets, like the timber industry, luxury home construction industry and producing genetically modified crops. There is no real abortion industry lobby to fill politicians' coffers. If abortion were to be outlawed tomorrow, the economy would not suffer a substantial loss and no CEO would lose his job.

As an addendum, I would add that this war on choice helps to promote the chaos of daily life, making it essentially impossible for people to focus on and unite against their common oppression under capital and industry, and also does some of the ugly groundwork necessary to keep women subjugated, anxious, afraid and marginalized. The government could absolutely ameliorate this ridiculous tide of fear and violence, but they won't.

Misery Hangs Over Gaza Despite Pledges of Help

Gaza is fucked. Thanks to the New York Times for this profound insight:

Dozens of families still live in tents amid collapsed buildings and rusting pipes. With construction materials barred, a few are building mud-brick homes. Everything but food and medicine has to be smuggled through desert tunnels from Egypt...

Four months after Israel waged a war here to stop Hamas rocket fire and two years after Hamas took full control of this coastal strip, Gaza is like an island adrift. Squeezed from without by an Israeli and Egyptian boycott and from within by their
Islamist rulers, the 1.5 million people here are cut off from any productivity or hope...
There are tens of thousands of educated and ambitious people here, teachers, engineers, translators, business managers, who have nothing to do but grow frustrated. They cannot practice their professions and they cannot leave. They collect welfare and smoke in cafes. A United Nations survey shows a spike in domestic violence...

Many here are especially worried about the young. At a program aimed at helping those traumatized by the January war, teenagers are offered colored markers to draw anything they like, says Farah Abu Qasem, 20, a student of English translation who volunteers at the program.

“They seem only to choose black and to draw things like tanks,” she said. “And when we ask them to draw something that represents the future, they leave the paper blank.”

No surprises there, and I'm not really sure why this story has been deemed headline worthy. I don't think it would have occurred to me to mention it, were it not for the deep irony in the juxtapostion of headlines.

Consider the New York Times headline, above, with this one from the same day - "Despite No Links to Violence, Founders of Muslim Charity Sentenced to Lengthy Terms for Donations to Needy Palestinians in Occupied Territories." That one is from Democracy Now!, a long-running and well-regarded independent media outlet from New York. Here's a synopsis of what happened:

Five founders of the Holy Land Foundation, once the nation’s largest Muslim charity, have received prison terms of up to sixty-five years on charges of supporting the Palestinian group Hamas. The five were never accused of supporting violence and were convicted for funding charities that aided needy Palestinians. The government’s case relied on Israeli intelligence as well as disputed documents and electronic surveillance gathered by the FBI over a span of fifteen years.

I think that might be part of the reason that, as a Palestinian man stuck living in Gaza said, “Right after the war, everybody came — journalists, foreign governments and charities promising to help,” said Hashem Dardona, 47, who is unemployed. “Now, nobody comes.” It's hard when they're shut down and locked up. That type of persecution sets a heavy example for others who would wish to do the same things.

Of course, we can never neglect to remember the fact that Israel is a piece of shit terror state run by fanatics with hardons for war: "in an effort to squeeze Hamas, Israel rations aid daily, allowing in about 100 trucks of food and medicine. Military officers in Tel Aviv count the calories to avoid a disaster." Brilliant. The pig fucks count calories of food rations going into Gaza so that not too many Palestinians starve or suffer malnutrition. I'm sure they thank their Israeli masters for that every day. I know I would.

Let's make that very plain: Israeli military commanders decide how much food people in Gaza are allowed to have. They decide when they can have it, and what kinds. Were they in such a mood, they could decide that Gazans get no food. What would happen? People would starve. Israel would face "international diplomatic pressure." The Israeli government would show no remorse or compunction and would surely blame those who died. In short, nothing would change. I wonder where "terrorism" comes from.

In Gaza, you have no control. You are controlled by shitbags of all stripes above you. And they pull those strings tight.

Two ex-Gitmo detainees join al-Qaida: report

Big surprise. I'd probably join Al Qaeda too if some sadistic fucks locked me up for nothing for about five years.

As with most other Guantánamo returnees, the Saudis did not have evidence of criminal wrongdoing against Shihri. In such cases, Turki says, the men were charged with the minor violation of traveling to Afghanistan, a country Saudi passport holders are barred from visiting.

America to the world: "Fuck you"

Hey look, we can still do whatever we want!!

Attorney General Michael B. Mukasey [whose nomination as attorney general last year was threatened by his refusal to say whether he considered waterboarding to be torture] said Wednesday that he saw no need for President Bush to issue blanket pardons of officials involved in some of the administration’s most controversial counterterrorism policies.

Mr. Mukasey told reporters that there was “absolutely no evidence” that anyone involved in developing the policies “did so for any reason other than to protect the security in the country and in the belief that he or she was doing something lawful.”

The comments appeared aimed at tamping down speculation that Mr. Bush, before leaving the White House next month, might issue pre-emptive pardons to protect counterterrorism officials from legal jeopardy in the face of possible criminal investigations by the new Democratic administration.

Yeah. The torture-loving Attorney General made sure to let everyone know that the people running this country hold all their atrocities to be perfectly legal. Waterboarding, nudity, dogs, extreme temperatures, sensory deprivation, whatever. It's all in the rules, they say. Someone's gonna blow something else up, and the people running this country and the ones who put them there will be responsible. They won't tell themselves that though. And lots of other people will be responsible for not removing them from power, for letting them rule and for following their orders.