Death Race 2015 195


Just between 2003-5, US forces killed 15 journalists in Iraq, the majority either Westerners or working for Western news agencies. The figure is from the mainstream American Journalism Review. 94 aid workers died in the Iraq conflict, according to Reuters. I don’t have a figure for how many of those were killed by the US forces, but many. Journalists and aid workers have been among the 2,540 people killed in “collateral damage” of drone strikes since Obama became President. Now the US has just killed medical staff and aid workers in Kunduz.

I do not want to downplay the horror and cold-heartedness of the grisly ISIL executions. But the United States military has killed more journalists and NGO employees than ISIL ever will. An inconvenient fact you will never see reported in the mainstream media.

Some of those US killings of journalists were not deliberate targeting. That is of little comfort to the dead people and their loved ones. Some were not accidental.


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195 thoughts on “Death Race 2015

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  • fedup

    What is called humanism is often just another attempt to remove all traces of conscience and morality from politics.

    Very true, the system is being gamed by the psychopaths who promote misanthropy in the guise of “sustained growth” and “protecting the environment”!

    Today we have yet again another regulation and more taxes on the poor! Five pence a bag for a low income individual is a lot, but that is in the aid of “protecting the environment”!!!

    Why the legislation was not in the direction of biodegradable and quick decaying plastic bags? Protecting the profits of the giant grocery empires through a cartel to charge for the bags is the only other option!

    Religion is the last vestiges of people power left at the disposal of the punters!

  • Mary

    Edward Snowden. Interview in Moscow.
    ‘Spies, Terrorists and the Law’
    BBC 1 Panorama tonight 8.30pm

    A first on the BBC!

  • Mary

    This morning on TV a prosperous looking farmer turned Con MP had no sympathy for a single mother working 16 hrs a week for the minimum wage. Her income is £400 odd monthly and £350 in working tax credits give her just enough to get by. The loss of the tax credits will mean desperation. She had already said her employer could not afford a higher pay rate or more hours but all he could say was to ‘get a different job’.

    He was as hard as nails. I looked him up on TWFY. Recipient of many donations in £thousands, a directorship in the family farm plus income therefrom, ownership of land and property, etc. etc.

    This was on the Victoria Derbyshire programme.

  • Sensitive Soul

    Hey Clark, I am feeling jealous, you must be wired very close to Gaia to feel His current despondency – He is drawing you closer , early morning prayer is the medicine.

  • Fwl

    Had intended to post a facetious aside as to whether Matthew Syed’s footie piece in the Times today (“Mourinho is a cultural terrorist who is too immature to create a dynasty”, which criticised his siege mentality of permanent crisis and manufactured conspiracies) was an allegory, but reading this afternoon’s news on Syria and NATO’s warning to Russia and I suspect that we really do have a crisis on our hands. Its not a terrorist crisis, but an old school one after all.

  • nevermind

    “Please note that this is not an entertainment, nor intellectual stimulation. If understood, by listening through the inner ear, it could change your brain-wiring.”

    See what I mean?

    now here is more of this tosh

    The Hare Krishna mantra, also referred to reverentially as the Maha Mantra (“Great Mantra”), is a 16 word Vaishnava mantra which is mentioned in the Kali-Santarana Upanishad, and which from the 15th century rose to importance in the Bhakti movement following the teachings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.This Mantra is composed …

    from pure consciousness and a little bit of sugar.
    http://gaudiyahistory.com/a-c-bhaktivedanta-swami-prabhupada/

    nest stop a nice long lecture from good ol’ George Guirdjieff and maybe some mystic advice from Prof Aliya…..

  • Fwl

    On the religious posts above: is religion something you do alone or with others? In both case why and what is it that you are doing?

  • Fwl

    And again on a religious note, even the canonical works are not without their words of wisdom, for eg Mark: 13 33-37

    [33] Take heed, watch; for you do not know when the time will come.
    [34] It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts his servants in charge, each with his work, and commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch.
    [35] Watch therefore — for you do not know when the master of the house will come, in the evening, or at midnight, or at cockcrow, or in the morning —
    [36] lest he come suddenly and find you asleep.
    [37] And what I say to you I say to all: Watch.”

    What is meant by master, sleep and Watch?

  • Wtf Wtf Wtf

    Its incredible, NATO has just done a satanyahu and glared at the whole world, an Emperor with no clothes is telling us if I am naked you can as well kiss my ass !!

    The Russians have to stop bombing ISIL and al-nusra !!? Are they bewitched? The order to sapeak has of course come from the great satan hiding behind the scenes at the Pentagon.

  • Fwl

    Nevermind: schoolboy music and physics illustrate how a sound resonates and sets off that which is in accord with it i.e. one octave away. So chanting may have some effect on some people but not on others who are not attuned to that particular chant. fasting is said to be a means to attune to a chant or prayer. If I play say the note e on a piano and depress the sustaining pedal other e’s will sound, but the other notes will not resonate. Strip away the mystique and keep stripping away but eventually you will still be left with mystery.

    In a nutshell, or in an acorn, the question is do you believe in meaning or just in facts and accidents? Do you believe that an idea, an image, a sound, or an archetype might have a causative effect on the energy packet that you call yourself.

    Yours

    A Hippy

  • Alcyone

    ingo, apparently you didn’t like that because it assumes you have a brain! Nevermind, carry on with your display of ignorance at full throttle. Global Type Zero Civilisation Medieval Man [GTZCMM].

  • giyane

    Religion according to CM blog contributors:
    psychopath; excuses for evil; derivative; traumatic head injury; psychologicallly imprisoned.

    Looked at from your point of view, why shouldn’t John McCain recruit the world’s criminals to form a caliphate? why shouldn’t Gordon Brown recruit the world’s gangsters to run the city of London? They are the perfect applicants for the job description specified.

  • Fwl

    Giyane: the first page of Steel Bonnets – the History of the Border Reivers by Flashman author the late Goerge MacDonald Fraser is right up your street.

  • Jon

    Nevermind – I understand that what Fwl mentions in relation to rhythm may have some scientific basis, which perhaps is why we experience music at such a subconscious level. I had a friend relate to me an experience of something called “tapping”, which sounded like a sort of rhythmic acupuncture, and apparently it has the capacity to bring people to tears. It is possible the response is just the hysteria of someone expecting an overwhelming emotional reaction, but I’m also minded to say that there’s lots about brain operation we don’t yet know.

    A quick search for “tapping” suggests it might be related to something called EFT, which Wikipedia reports as a pseudo-science. I don’t know if it’s related, and I’ve not looked into it much. I’d certainly concur that we should be cautious about whatever religion or famous speaker or new unifying spiritual theory, but nevertheless we should be open to ideas that science currently finds surprising.

  • Alcyone

    ““Please note that this is not an entertainment, nor intellectual stimulation. If understood, by listening through the inner ear, it could change your brain-wiring.”

    See what I mean?

    now here is more of this tosh

    The Hare Krishna mantra, also referred to reverentially as the Maha Mantra (“Great Mantra”), is a 16 word Vaishnava mantra which is mentioned in the Kali-Santarana Upanishad, and which from the 15th century rose to importance in the Bhakti movement following the teachings of Chaitanya Mahaprabhu.This Mantra is composed …

    from pure consciousness and a little bit of sugar.
    http://gaudiyahistory.com/a-c-bhaktivedanta-swami-prabhupada/

    nest stop a nice long lecture from good ol’ George Guirdjieff and maybe some mystic advice from Prof Aliya…..”
    __________________
    Ingorant or Ignorant or both?

  • Alcyone

    “which perhaps is why we experience music at such a subconscious level.”

    and

    ” I’d certainly concur that we should be cautious”
    ___________
    Sorry, Jon, I don’t mean to wake you up. Isn’t it time yet for your escape into single malt?

    Btw, I happen to listen to my music regularly, everyday in full awareness and consciousness. Try reading Einstein, including on the subject of religion.

  • Tony M

    Isn’t it the case that if you get enough harmonics of an octave or multiples away you’ll eventually get an unpleasant sine wave. I would say the religious texts got there first with some homely home truths and pithy sayings, the bastards, leaving us scrabbling around trying to catch up with these epic Palestinian Soap-Operas. Being the first of anything such as with the first Big Book of Obscure Jibberish Open to Interpretation in an Infinite Number of Ways, is a sure recipe for a certain initial success, if you can only find a snappier title and a suitably impressive wood-cut for the front cover that’ll catch the punters eye down the bazzar.

  • BrianFujisan

    I can Barely Think..

    Clark,

    i wonder if i could use my own Pain – i Know it’s different Circumstance’s – but when everyone was telling me time will heal.. i thought just impossible.. it did take a Long time though. with help, and some dark poetry

    I remember walking through the DTRH site with you a few weeks ago, and the joys in our hearts with it all.. If we could Bottle a Mood, Feeling like that.

    With a heavy heart, wishes and Hope.

  • Alcyone

    Yes Mary, of course, please, anytime. Though I prefer to call him GTZCMM in the spirit of 21C acronyms, Ingorant best describes what he does, and is therefore also very honest.

  • RobG

    Amazing crowds at Manchester Cathedral this evening. There were thousands outside who couldn’t get in, and Corbyn spoke to them first. This is the last bit of his speech:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hTnKde2Bmzs

    And Clark, if you’re tuning in, in the age-old battle we need all hands to the wheel, and that includes you.

  • Ben-Humps the anti-hemp Nations

    Blogs generally do little to soothe the savage human condition. Hostility and acrimony seem common. Few graciously accept other opinions as having some validity. Much competition for recognition frequently results in hard feelings over the slightest shade of differing nuance in what is said or imagined to be said. Some commentators seem to be more sensitive to implied rejection (often overt in nature) and I don’t think that is taken into account often enough. Let’s try harder.

  • Suhayl Saadi

    And while some journalists put their lives on the line and sometimes lose their lives, others are sycophantic to the core.

    From the slavering BBC Radio 4 6pm News report on George Osborne’s very run-of-the-mill speech, you’d think the Chancellor was a latter-day Cicero. Nauseating. Compare this with the way anything Jeremy Corbyn says or does is reported (or rather, not reported).

  • John Goss

    Clark’s decision to stay away from blogs for a while may be for the best. He needs a break. Of this I am sure. Everybody should try and get their metaphorical ‘house in order’. Then a reassessment might demonstrate how precious life is, his life, your life, my life, our lives.

    I see his blog as a cry for help but I think Clark, a bright man by any measure, needs a break to analyse his personal situation. Depression can be devastating.

    “. . . each man kills the thing he loves . . .”

    We are all guilty of having treated others in a disrespectful way at some times in our life. This is our baggage, like the chains of Jacob Marley. You can call it sin or guilt but it weighs us down. I truly hope, and pray, Clark can turn things around.

    If anything I have said has offended him, outside of any general debate where we have disagreed, I apologise. When I first posted comments on this blog I think he and Jon were the moderators. If he never returns to any blog but sorts himself out that will be a good thing and I will be happy for him. Yes, he will be missed, but if he is happy that is most important.

  • Jon

    Ben-Humps, agreed. The Left has much more scope for disagreement, since organising for the common good is always harder than taking action purely for the benefit of oneself. Also, the political centre is set to the Right anyway, so the Left has much further to travel.

  • Mary

    Suhayl. The headline on the front page of tomorrow’s Mirror is ‘We’ll make poor Brits work like the Chinese’.

    Tomorrow Theresa will call for cuts in immigration ‘to fix society’. ?!?!

    The Con hearts are made of stone.

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