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.
If it is not yet, the apartheid self-acclaimed state of Israel, should be on its way out. On blogs I read, well away from the Zionist media, there are children being killed regularly on their way to school, by Israeli snipers. That’s children!
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/middle-east/21437-netanyahu-to-increase-assaults-against-palestinians
Mary, agreed.
“Ingorant or Ignorant or both?”
elephant if you want to and do have a great evening .
@Jon
Is this every Sufis cafe, every perverted religions refuge?
Viva Humanity, think for yourself if you dare, keep it simple and basic to your needs, and, there is no god, there is only humanity ,incredibly fed and looked after by a global ecosystem, it is much abused in peril. Down to our unsustainability, our perceived needs for guidance, for morals and righteousness and easy living, no regards for the next generation, assumptions are made as to our children’s needs and that of their children.
There is not one religion that cares for poor humanity, so what is this rich mans mysticism all about, what is it that has not been copied or penned from others thoughts?
Who dares to show that commonalities existed long before the Greeks and their gods, the poster boys for western ideologists and thinkers, Humanity accepted a common good due to its needs, no gods and no rulers were apparent in the ruins, but there grain silos and water reservoirs, 3000 years before the greeks made come dancing they knew that if they all stuck together and build a town with walls they would not get robbed and survived. As long as they were able to grow and store grains and water, they knew that they could survive.
Charlatans have perverted humanity to create control and order, well, their kind of order, if that took some creative thinking and writing so be it.
Science says something far more amazing than religion ever could and it evolves unlike religion, just as nature and the planet does, so please don’t bore me with any more religious insecurity proses, false prophets and or holy water, stick to profiling the psychopath that run this asylum.
John, in that photo, you look like a Prog Rock fan. 🙂 That’s good, btw.
@Alcyone
“For anyone with an interest in Life and Physics…”
“dialogues with David Bohm” Yes I remember them. Wonderful incites.
I also remember David Bohm having a brilliant zen sense of humour.
He was also at the same Physics lab as myself at Bristol were he discovered with
Aharonov,the Aharonov Bohm effect.
Jon; The Left has always been their own worst enemy. We can’t seem to agree what the price of butter should be while the price spirals due to disarray within the ranks of socialist paragons of virtue. We don’t congratulate ourselves enough for this virtue.
Brian….
I didn’t see your sagacious comment till now. DOOD. You are the good King of the Hebrides. 🙂
Tony M, yes thanks, made me laugh a little about the bin-carts, or whatever. 🙂
They can go a lot closer than that. I’ve heard they can see the Queen’s head on a sixpence. 🙂
Apparently some kids in Russia are sending a micro-satellite to see if there are any footprints, flags and re-launch debris from when the USA colonised the moon. 🙂 I do hope they find some because that is one thing I always believed in as a teenager. 🙂 If not I bet NASA are shitting themselves. Does Russia know something? Their radar would apparently have been tracking the moon landing. Hmm.
The author of the ‘make them work like the Chinese…’ is one Jeremy Hunt currently i/c of dismantling OUR NHS. When it’s gone, it’s gone.
He made ÂŁ960k from his share in Hotcourses last year and would have netted ÂŁ17m if a sale of the company had proceeded.
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/markets/article-3084543/Health-Secretary-Jeremy-Hunt-picks-960-000-windfall-educational-listings-firm-Hotcourses.html
Hunt’s family connections to Virginia Bottomley. He inherited her parliamentary seat too. SW Surrey.
REVEALED AT LAST: The Hunt-Bottomley link
By John Ward October 10, 2012
A culture of nepotism
The ruling elite continues to award itself a monopoly of power
The one-word secret of Hunt’s success: Nepotism https://hat4uk.wordpress.com/2012/10/10/revealed-at-last-the-hunt-bottomley-link/
Suhayl at 10:26
Thanks. People are telling me I am starting to look younger. No, though, my hair is becoming more becoming and gaining some of its original colour. I put it down to the cycling. Might be wrong. 🙂
Have you seen this John Goss?
16,000 Ukrainian troops defect Donbas, many with weapons
KIEV, October 5. /TASS/. Some 16,000 Ukrainian soldiers have defected from the zone of military operations in conflict-riven eastern Donbas – many carrying weapons, the country’s chief military prosecutor said on Monday.
“We have investigated 16,000 criminal cases regarding defectors who have left the zone of military operations, and a significant part of them defected with weapons,” Anatoly Matios told reporters.
The Interior Ministry has launched a search for all those missing, but no more than 1,000 had been located over the past year, he said.
Deputy head of Ukraine’s armed forces mobilization department Colonel Alexander Pravdivets has reported that during a sixth wave of call-up almost 27,000 conscripts, around 50% of the total, had dodged army service.
http://tass.ru/en/world/826234
Mary thanks. Yes I knew this was happening. It is still a numbers game. Let’s face it, what are you going to do if confronted with the proposition of killing your fellow Ukrainians or going AWOL?
There was a lot of desertion from the Confederate Army during the last months of the American Civil War. A harbinger of defeat.
Russia is trying to wipe out ISIL. The USA wants that too, it says. Russia seems to have done a more proper job in less than a week than the USA did in more than a year. The question I ask is does the USA have any means of combating an enemy? It does not seem to have the means of stopping lone shooters in schools.
What makes me smile most is that Mary’s TASS report is something that those with their ear to the ground and eyes front have long known about. It is why I rarely watch the BBC anymore (I used to trust them) or other MSM channels.
John Goss you hippy bastard!!! 🙂
Mate it is not the biking it is something to do with your hair, and your diet! I know of this hard smoking couch potato whose hair is as good as when he was thirty!
BTW what sort of a bike do you have?
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Nevermind your houmour is wasted mate, it will right above the head.
Agreed on
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Mary look around you, they already have done that! No need for the oligarch owned media to confirm it. The wealth gap has the most disgusting asymmetry in Europe and it is getting worse.
The only way is down baby
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Jon these days Hitler is considered a communist and bleeding heart liberal! He had “socialist” in his party’s name you know!
BTW Jon going into the field of Cabala and the voodoo/mambo jumbo thereof is not going to address the social etiquette/justice/cohesion/empowerment/etc that religion seeks to instill albeit thorough the higher authority of God. However chanting tapping etc are solipsist indulgences to make the chanter feel better. Really whatever rocks the boat but promotion of such proclivities are attempts in fostering a pernicious subculture that is neither use or ornament.
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This is a pretty sensitive time for Clark, I don’t know how to deal with Clark’s situation, let’s hope others whom know him better can help him.
Why is the avatar intermittent? Checked the email address. All is well. But for some reason……
Dear Clark, May I, who have only recently started visiting this blog, although I rarely post a comment, offer my warmest wishes. Perhaps there is a time of day when you feel a little more at peace with yourself, in which case treasure that time each day. Maybe something as trivial as feeding the wild birds will fleetingly lighten your sadness, although, as I don’t know you, this may seem a ridiculous suggestion! Celebrate your smallest achievements, discover beautiful places you have never visited, even just in your next parish.
Just a few, very personal, tips for reaching a happier time in your life, one very small step at a time.
Warmest, warmest wishes to you Clark
Proof that our (we the people) economy has sweet fa to do with the stock market;
Guardian
The same carries the story about Germany expecting one and one half of a million refugees (it calls asylum seekers).
On the other hand DM caries the story that German interior minster has warned the numbers of immigrants to have a limit.
Must hand it to Germans despite the British MIx instigated Pegida etc (as per the resealed archive papers indicating has been the case in the past) they are steadfastly rising to the occasion and helping their fellow human beings.
Over here Teresa of terse is to announce she will be hanging and quartering the next 100th entering immigrant walking through the gates. Whilst other Tory ministers are chastising the police for not intervening to stop the sexist remarks of the protesters to some woman hanging around the Troy conference!!!!
Would you believe those “sexist pigs” there should be a law against that, and if there is not there should be one made up tomorrow dammit!! Can they not just use the terror laws and send the bally lot of the protesters to Gitmo?
Clark–I am sorry that you are suffering. You matter to people.
Clark
Spiritual growth hurts like hell. You don’t have to reply to anyone. Hope you feel better soon.
And remember Giuliana Sgrena, an Italian journalist working for a ‘Communist’ Italian paper, ‘accidentally’ shot by US troops after being released from Iraqi hostage-takers; she survived, but her Italian rescuer was killed.
Fedup. Yes. I saw this yesterday.
For fear of losing their s**t zero hours jobs., sick people are going in to work.
Sports Direct site ‘called ambulances dozens of times’
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-34178412
The owner. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mike_Ashley_(businessman)
http://sz-n.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/mike-ashley.jpg
RD –
More crap from our Russian imperialist and serial supporter of murdering thugs…
Maybe, but don’t forget the US was formerly happy to rendition prisoners to Damascus where they tortured the parts Al-Ghraib couldn’t reach. And right now, I don’t suppose the US even knows who’s claiming to be on the side of freedomndemocracy, who’s selling their US-supplied weaponry to IS, and who’s purely a salafist supremacist by another name.
The chickenhawk politicians want to remove IS, Assad and Russian bases in the Med…they’re too fucking stupid to realise that IS is the priority, and it’s completely insane to fight a war on three fronts. Fortunately wiser voices seem to be prevailing – whether they’ll succeed is another matter, but there’s a definite recognition that the Russians have to be accommodated, in the case of Syria if nowhere else.
I’m expecting some sort of pincer move between Iran and Russia, Ba’al, ground troops included and with the support of Assad. This might also move Hezbollah into a position to attack the southern fringes inhabited by ISIL, cleanse the Golan of its criminals, mind not all of them, those rogues who are trying to steal oil from the Golan are OK, they have protection from the US, or have they?
Fedup
I’ve got two bikes, a Dawes Discovery 501, which I use for going around town and carrying stuff in the pannier bag, and a cheapo Carrero, which I use for training. The Carrero is about 5 miles an hour faster. I’m saving up for something better. 🙂
Miriam
Thank you for that link earlier which was a bit of an eye-opener on how cavalier the attitude appears to be!
All good wishes
I imagine Iran will be only too keen to clean up its border with Iraq, where for decades Kurds have been assisted by the West (and Israel) in the task of destabilising it. It might even try to pinch off some more land there. Turkey would probably cheer it on. However, if it tries to go much further, it will need an enormous operation, through 100’s of Km of uniformly hostile ground: it’s not unlikely that Saudi would join in openly to help its proxies. I’d say Iran will restrict itself to sending specialist troops and equipment to Assad, and wouldn’t rule out its doing so through Turkey. The objective is probably limited to Syria’s statutory borders. Re. Golan, I very much doubt that anyone will want to have a go at it. There’s enough to deal with without providing an immediate casus belli with the Bastards of the Med.
Hmm, but Turkey also wants rid of Assad, not just the ‘Kurdish problem’.
The latter are being used as canon fodder, one of the most conscientious fighting groups present there today. I have a lot of sympathy for the Kurds who are being shoved from one mountainous country to the other, they do need a homeland/region somewhere after this all ends.
will it end?
The fact that the corporate media has been heavily infiltrated by the secret services of both the US and the UK puts journalists even more at risk as it gives countries an excuse to arrest, torture and kill any journalist they accuse of being a spy. I feel it is a deliberate attempt to make the job even more risky fewer journalists will want to put themselves in situations where they become sitting ducks for all sides in any conflict.