====
Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Henri Barbusse: Selections on war
====
Henri Barbusse
From Chains (1924)
Translated by Stephen Haden Guest

My bad! Yesterday, I had swore off blogging for one day. Gotta take a break ya know?Yet, here I am. What was it that pushed me here today?  An article too relevant, too timely, for me to take a pass on.

Al-Manar | August 1, 2013

Under the headline “Bir Al-Abed Explosion: A 130 Kg Voice Message to Hezbollah!” Al-Akhbar newspaper published an article in which it highlighted Saudi Arabia, in cooperation with the CIA’s central role in the Southern Suburb of Beirut blast which left only material damage behind.

Above: U.S. soldiers stuck in sand in Southern Afghanistan. (Photo by U.S. military)

By Michael McGehee | NYTX | August 1, 2013

Saudi Arabia responsible for Syria bloodshed
Saudi arms are already in the hands of al-Qaeda-linked groups and they are committing massacres and all kind of crimes in Syria with them

When Argentina defaulted on its national debt in 2001, US hedge funds swooped in to buy the nation’s bonds at pennies on the dollar, confident they would eventually prevail in the US legal system and force the country to pay out in full. That battle is set to reach the Supreme Court later this year, […]

The Washington Post editorial page under Fred Hiatt has long been a neoconservative bastion rivaling the Wall Street Journal, supporting every war to come down the pike while justifying every intrusion on personal rights as long as it might plausibly be justified on grounds of national security. On July 23rd, the paper’s op-ed page delivered […]

Last week, Justin Amash, the two-term libertarian Republican congressman from Michigan, joined with John Conyers, the 25-term liberal Democratic congressman from the same state, to offer an amendment to legislation funding the National Security Agency (NSA). If enacted, the Amash-Conyers amendment would have forced the government’s domestic spies when seeking search warrants to capture Americans’ […]

As you probably know, Blue America has endorsed Nick Ruiz, a professor, a surfer and a former Green Party candidate running as a progressive Democrat now, against anti-environmental corporate stooge John Mica in a central Florida district next to Alan Grayson's.

The number of seemingly random attacks was high again today. In them, at least 49 people were killed and 83 more were wounded.

Royal Thai Navy personnel work to clean up the oil spill on Ao Phrao Beach on the island of Koh Samet on July 30.

Reviving the Israel-Palestine Negotiations: The Indyk Appointment
 
Paul J. Richards/AFP-Getty Images.
 
by Richard Falk
Appointing Martin Indyk as Special Envoy to the upcoming peace talks was to be expected. It was signaled in advance. And yet it is revealing and distressing.

RT | July 31, 2013

A ruling this week in a United States appeals court means officers of the law can legally and physically track down suspects based off of cell phone data without ever obtaining a warrant.
A 2-1 decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit on Tuesday means law enforcement needn’t prove probable cause when asking a telecom company for location data that could be used to pinpoint suspected criminals.

By Mozhgan Savabieasfahani | July 30, 2013

To the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Iraqi Ministry of Health: (New signatures added)  
The back-breaking burden of cancers and birth defects continues to weigh heavily on the Iraqi people. 
The joint WHO and Iraqi Ministry of Health Report on cancers and birth defect in Iraq was originally due to be released in November 2012. It has been delayed repeatedly and now has no release date whatsoever. 

RT | July 31, 2013

Syria has agreed to let three sites undergo investigation by a team of UN chemical weapons experts to assess whether the accusations that the country employed the devices during the country’s two year civil war carried any weight.
“The Mission will travel to Syria as soon as possible to contemporaneously investigate three of the reported incidents, including Khan al-Asal,” U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s press office told Reuters in a statement.

The American face of Europe's failed Austerity AgendaMichael Tomasky is a pretty sharp guy-- and not some kind of Beltway shill. So when he professes that Obama might be going in a progressive direction, I thought it would be worth at least hearing him out. In the Daily Beast Monday he warned Obama not to blow his moment.

By Malik Samara | Al-Akhbar | July 31, 2013

Qalandiya, a village on the outskirts of occupied Jerusalem, has become a stark example of the crimes of the Israeli occupation. In the name of “security needs,” Israel has bisected the village, dividing both land and people, even splitting one family in two.

  Israeli settlers torch Hebron family’s property for eighth time
Flames tear through one of Abu Haikel’s oldest olive trees (Photo by Christian Peacemaker Teams)
 

Noting Rosie Gray’s ridiculously smug piece in that learned journal of policy wonkdom known as Buzzfeed, our own Lucy Steigerwald reflects on the burning question of why Sen. Rand Paul and Rep.  Justin Amash, “should-be friends to the whistleblower  remained oddly quiet” on the subject of Bradley Manning’s recent conviction on espionage charges.

See my latest piece at The Huffington Post: Bradley Manning Revealed Crimes Far Worse Than the Ones He Supposedly Committed.

Here’s a riddle: How do you make it easier to push through legislation in Congress that is overwhelmingly opposed in the public without any political consequences?
Answer: Keep the votes secret.

Stars and Stripes
July 30, 2013
US deploying jets around Asia to keep China surrounded
By John Reed
WASHINGTON:The United States Air Force will dramatically expand its military presence across the Pacific this year, sending jets to Thailand, India, Singapore and Australia, according to the service’s top general in the region.

By Rob Hager | Black Agenda Report | July 31, 2013

By Noel Brinkerhoff and Danny Biederman | AllGov | July 31, 2013

A former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer has gone public with claims that the George W. Bush administration agreed to an Italian trial of CIA officials for abducting an Islamic cleric in 2003, so that the president and other senior leaders would be protected from prosecution.

The partner to this post is Iraq, Libya, Pakistan Prison Breaks that advance the NATO war agenda These two posts work together, best.

The partner to this post is Syrian "rebels" play politics at UN & massacre civilians. Israel to counter "ship killers" They work best together. I feel this is a post that is overdue. In a perfect world this would have been up on Monday or Tuesday at the latest. But then, this is not a perfect world and time is not always on my side.Let’s talk prison breaks.  Because prisoners are breaking out all over the place.

The GOP leadership is engaged in rank ideological policing. Increasing numbers of Republicans are deviating from the neo-conservative platform and Rand Paul is at the top of the naughty list.

Hanabusa and the crooked husband have their sites set on the U.S. SenateTuesday afternoon we looked at what a mistake it is to compromise ideals with craven corporate interests and the political hacks they finance.

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford | July 31, 2013

Al Arabiya
July 31, 2013
NATO says it is keeping close eye on Egypt, plans no action
NATO is keeping a close eye on Egypt and watching how the crisis there affects its “partners,” the alliance’s top military commander has said , according to Reuters.

A UN report documents 1,319 civilian deaths and 2,533 injuries in Afghanistan in the first six months of 2013, a 23 percent increase over the same period in 2012. The study finds “a 14 percent increase in deaths, 28 percent increase in injuries and 23 percent increase in total civilian casualties.”

For over two years now, I have been periodically filing reports at this blog concerning the still ongoing situation at Fukushima Japan.   Few people have noticed with all the MSM crap news focused elsewhere in this sick world, that the Fukushima nuclear disaster with at least 3 nuclear reactors in full meltdown, is still going on and in fact the situation is still very much out of control!  Personally, I have felt over the last while that since I was one of few people brave enough to continue to file reports about this situation, that I was basically "beating a dead horse", and few people a

In my previous article, the question was asked as to why the hell this nation, Canada, bends over backwards to support the criminal and terrorist entity known as "Israel".   The original article from the Redress Information and Analysis website both asked the question and tried to explain the reasoning for Canada's undying love for a criminal state.  I also gave my own explanation as to WHY this nation supports such an evil country....Now it appears that the Redress site has done a followup to their original article that tries to explain why this nation gives its undying love to Israel...

Khan al-Assal Massacre to Cover-up Chemical Weapons Use by Jabhat al-Nusrah
A new massacre in the Khan al-Assal district of Aleppo has claimed the lives of 123 while many are still reported missing.
by Christof Lehmann 

Fukushima radiation millions of times over safe limit- WSJ reported the other day....The radiation is millions of times higher than Japan's acceptable limit under normal circumstances.

Press TV
July 31, 2013
‘US expects Karzai to kill Afghans’
AUDIO
The United States expects the Afghan government to kill Afghan citizens, says Rick Rozoff, the manager of the organization Stop NATO International.

By now you're probably well aware that GOP presidential rivals Chris Christie and Rand Paul are already slugging it out-- over national security and governing philosophy. It looks to be pretty ugly, as anything Christie gets involved in always turns out to be. But their disputes aren't just a matter of two ambitious Republicans trying to knock each other out of presidential contention.

====
Anti-war essays, poems, short stories and literary excerpts
Roger Martin du Gard: Selections on war
====
Roger Martin du Gard
From Epilogue to Les Thibault (1940)
Translated by Stuart Gilbert

In “The Epidemic of Mental Illness: Why?” (New York Review of Books, 2011), Marcia Angell, former editor-in-chief of the New England Journal of Medicine, discusses over-diagnosis of psychiatric disorders, pathologizing of normal behaviors, Big Pharma corruption of psychiatry, and the adverse effects of psychiatric medications.

IMEMC & Agencies | July 30, 2013

Witnesses reported that Israeli forces raided the Cremisan Monastery in Bethlehem late on Sunday [July 28]. The witnesses told the Palestinian News and Info Agency (WAFA) that Israeli soldiers broke into the monastery, held the people who were inside, and inspected their personal documents.

By Stuart Littlewood | Palestine Chronicle | July 30, 2013

Why, after 65 years, is the Palestinian homeland still under foreign military occupation and total blockade when international law and the United Nations say it shouldn’t be?
And why have the Palestinians been pressured – yet again – to submit to ‘direct negotiations’, lamb versus voracious wolf, to haggle and plead for their freedom?

RT | July 30, 2013

Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin has praised Russian authorities for not caving in to pressure from abroad, saying granting asylum to US whistleblower Edward Snowden would help prevent the establishment of a ‘global electronic prison camp’.
“It is encouraging news that Russia is demonstrating its independence in this case as it has in many others, despite the pressure” said the head of the Holy Synod’s Department for Relations between the Church and Society.

On Tuesday, Pfc.

Within days of the inauguration of Hassan Rouhani as Iran’s new president, both Tehran and Washington appear to be sending positive signals to each other. The latest came Monday in a flurry of reports from Iran that its former ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Javad Zarif, is Rouhani’s pick as his foreign minister. “If […]

In the 30 years, since President Ronald Reagan created his expensive pie-in-the-sky Strategic Defense Initiative – quickly and appropriately named "Star Wars" by critics and journalists alike – the United States has spent a whopping $250 billion on trying to shoot down fast intercontinental ballistic missiles, such as those that might someday be fielded by [...]

Newly published recollections by the former French ambassador to Iran suggest that Iran was not running a covert nuclear weapons programme that it then decided to halt in late 2003, as concluded by U.S. intelligence in 2007. Ambassador Francois Nicoullaud recounted conversations with high-ranking Iranian officials indicating that Tehran’s then nuclear policy chief – and [...]

Asked about the national debate unleashed by the Snowden revelations, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie declared war on libertarians: “As a former prosecutor who was appointed by President George W. Bush on Sept. 10, 2001, I just want us to be really cautious, because this strain of libertarianism that’s going through both parties right now [...]

The sun rose with a moral verdict on Bradley Manning well before the military judge could proclaim his guilt. The human verdict would necessarily clash with the proclamation from the judicial bench. In lockstep with administrators of the nation’s war services, judgment day arrived on Tuesday to exact official retribution. After unforgiveable actions, the defendant’s [...]

"This is the worst coverage of a religious story I have seen to date."-- Father Jonathan Morris, in "What Pope Francis reallysaid about gays -- and no, it's not new," on foxnews.com"I wasn't great at judging homosexuals my first year in the job, either.