Zla imperija...ubijanje civila i tako to...

[vbo man]

Al Jazeera English - Americas - Iraq to take Blackwater to court

    Iraq will file lawsuits in US and Iraqi courts against Blackwater, a private security firm, after an American court threw out charges against five of its guards accused of killing 14 civilians in Baghdad.

    Making the announcement, Nuri al-Maliki, Iraq's prime minister, in a statement on Monday said his government "rejects the ruling issued by the American court acquitting the company of the crime of killing a number of citizens".

    Last week, a US federal judge threw out the murder charges against the guards, saying prosecutors violated the defendants' rights by using incriminating statements they had made under immunity during a US State Department probe.

    The guards, who had been part of a convoy of armoured vehicles, had been charged with killing 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounding 18 others in September 2007 at a busy Baghdad roundabout using guns and grenades.

Zapeli za 14 civila...

[vbo man]

America needs it, and I appreciate very much David Swanson's righteous moral anger against our obscene war on Afghanistan:

    The occupied government of Afghanistan and the United Nations have both concluded that U.S.-led troops recently dragged eight sleeping children out of their beds, handcuffed some of them, and shot them all dead.

(Swanson provides all the mainstream media news sources to back up the above.)

    No one so much as blinks at the CIA's avowal of vengeance for the recent suicide attack, never mind the illegality, because the entire illegal war on Afghanistan/Pakistan was launched and is still maintained as a pretended act of revenge for the crimes of 9-11. Of course, we're not bombing the flight schools or the German and Spanish hotels. Of course , we admit that there are fewer than 100 members of Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. Of course we openly seek massive permanent bases and an oil pipeline. . . . Of course, revenge would not be a legal justification for war even if we could persuade ourselves it was a sane one. But the war is publicly understood as revenge, the resistance by its victims is understood as revenge, the escalation is understood as revenge for the resistance, and an eye for an eye slowly makes the whole world blind.

This is what an antiwar movement should sound like. Moral outrage, but not just at the bosses or Congress or Obama, at everyone carrying out the war (emphasis added):

    I know many soldiers and mercenaries had few other options, given our failure to invest in any other industries. I know they've been lied to. I know they're scared and tired. But they wouldn't be there if we brought them home. And I support a full investment in their physical and mental and economic recovery. What I don't support is anyone participating in these wars, and that includes every single American who is not putting every spare moment into demanding that Congress stop forking over the money.

Okay, there was a little too much 'support our troops' and 'American lives are precious' emoting there. In fact, almost all soldiers and mercenaries have other options, class-wise they are almost never from the very bottom, but those options don't provide the benefits and job security (and big money for mercenaries) that professional killer positions do. Yes, many are scared and tired, but not nearly as scared as they would be if they fought legally, prioritizing the risk to civilians over the risk to their military lives. Finally, compared to the nothing invested in the young working and lower-middle-class people who do the right thing and don't join the military, there already is a massive over-investment in the physical and economic lives of 'retired' U.S. killers for the empire.

But, at least, Swanson comes right out and says it: "what I don't support is anyone participating in these wars." Everyone antiwar needs to start saying that, loudly! The antiwar movement needs to tell soldiers their killing is wrong both morally and war-crime-wise and needs to stop, and we need to say the same to potential military recruits along with exposing them to the censored reality, photographs of how their victims will look when they're killed and wounded.