War Handwavium

here:

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/12/200912212640413208.html

Visualizing empires decline from Pedro M Cruz on Vimeo.

by Pedro M Cruz from here:

http://vimeo.com/6437816

Tricked On Halloween – Watch more Funny Videos

To the veterans and their families, thank you.

Israel has been tearing down Palestinian homes in East Jeruselem.

Israel says the buildings didn’t have the proper “permits”. East Jeruselem is Palsetinian territory. Israel is occupying it militarily. So, the Palestinians and their government should be the ones to decide whether the buildings meet the local building codes, not Israel.

Meanwhile, Israel is demolishing Palestinian homes in Palestinian land so Israel can build more Jewish settlements on that Palestinian land and claim it as Israeli territory that cannot be part of a Palestinian state. These Jewish settlements have been consistently ruled illegal by the international community.

So, Isreal is tearing down Palestinian homes on Palestinian land because Israel says they are “illegal”, and then Israel uses that land to build Jewish settlements on Palestinian land that violates international law.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/10/200910282211496109.html

Even if he isn’t there.

In a speech to the UN, Netanyahu criticized the UN’s Goldstone report on Israel’s actions during Operation Cast Lead. Netanyahu said: “Rather than condemn terrorism, some at the UN are condemning its victims”

Ah, yeah, about that. In the entire year of 2008, Palestinian militants killed 17 Israeli civilians. In response, Israel bombarded and invaded Gaza killing about 1,000 Palestinian civilians.

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/09/20099241860875369.html

A 90-year-old former German army commander was convicted of war crimes for ordering the killing of 14 civilians. He was sentenced to life in prison 65 years after the crime happened.

I wonder how long it will take the United States to start convicting its own war criminals who ordered the torture of thousands of prisoners and resulted in at least 100 deaths in US custody.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20090811/wl_afp/germanyitalyhistorytrialwarcrimes

Glenn Greenwald found this bit about a skit that took place on Jon Stewart’s “The Daily Show” show back in 2004. It isn’t specifically about language misdescribing violence, but it’s close.

I’m a reporter, Jon, and my job is to spend half the time repeating what one side says, and half the time repeating the other. Little thing called “objectivity” — �might want to look it up some day.

News “Reporters” have found it easier to simply parrot what the politicians babble than to take down their words, investigate the claims objectively, and call them on their lies. If you call politicians on their lies, they might not give you “access” any more, and many news “reporters” have given high priority to “access” than to truth, honesty, or integrity.

So, the short of it is this: any newsperson who takes down what people say and then mindlessly parrots those words and pretends that’s “objective” news, those people are NOT reporters, they’re stenographers.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/07/02/npr/index.html

http://www.fair.org/extra/0411/stenographers.html

17 Chinese prisoners held in Guantanamo for years, having been declared innocent by the American military’s own review system back in 2005, were finally released to the island nation of Palau in 2009.

The prisoners were Uighur (Uhghur), an ethnic group in central Asia. The Chinese government has often referred to Uyghur nationalists as “terrorists”. None of the Uyghurs wanted to be returned to China for fear of being executed. The United States declined to grant the Uyghurs political asylum, or to allow them parole, and instead continued to imprison them at Guantanamo for years after declaring them innocent. The US had transferred some Uighur’s to Albania. But China threatened Albania and Albania said it would not take any more Uighurs.

So the United States promised the tiny island nation of Palau a lot of money 200 million dollars in exchange for Palau taking 17 of the Uighur from Guantanamo. The entire population of Palau is 20,000 people. Two hundred million dollars is a lot of money for a country that small. Not surprisingly, on 10 June 2009, Palau agreed to take the Uighurs.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_captives_in_Guantanamo

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/06/2009610224138374759.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_people

A map that shows who has controlled the middle east throughout history.

From http://www.mapsofwar.com/