I hope it's not just me

Islamist cleric Anwar Awlaki killed in Yemen

"US-born radical Islamist cleric Anwar al-Awlaki, a key al-Qaeda leader, has been killed in Yemen, the country's defence ministry said."

Does anyone else have a problem with the American military bouncing around all over the world firing missles and sending military excursions into the sovereign territory of other countries? For the most part it's happening in the Middle East, but if they feel threatened, where will it end? And who appointed them the world's police anyway?

They're not the richest country in the world anymore, and arguments can be made that they're no longer the most powerful. I started worrying when I saw on the news one time that the F.B.I. came into Canada and took over an investigation simply because it affected the U.S.. What authority do they have to do this? It happened in Canada to Canadians, but no, they have to be in charge.

I think they're running on their past glory...

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The real question isn't being asked

White House Weighs Limits of Terror Fight

The question not being asked seems to be whether or not the United States has any legal right to enter a sovereign nation either with people or weapons or both, kill people in that nation, and not be held responsible for, what would be the situation any other time, an act of war?

Could another country, at risk from terrorists from the U.S., enter the United States on their own and kill those people without the U.S. Government taking umbrage? I would expect not. But they seem to think that they have the ability to do it in other countries...

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It's immediate

Violence and Memory

"We glimpse mediated justice in the act of happening."

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As usual...

Some Final Thoughts on the Death of Osama bin Laden

...a rather good article by Michael Moore...

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A wise man once said...

And the bin Laden Reverb Continues

Mr. Shea touches on the sad spectacle of the rejoicing about bin Laden's death, the conspiracy theorists and the official story and information output, and our non-Christian culture of death, with some wise words...

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How good of them

US 'deeply' regrets Afghan deaths

How do you fight a 'war' without many, many civilian deaths? I think their regret is tempered strongly with a belief that 'stuff happens'...

Oh, come on!

The state knows what's right for you. And the state's always right! (These darn activists... Oh, this is a democracy? How can you tell?)

Nuns shocked police labeled them suspected terrorists

I wouldn't be surprised that any of us Canadians who picketed in anti-war demonstrations in the '60's and '70's, who rallied or marched in protest of the Gulf War or the current wars, or who protested and were active in the anit-nuclear movement, all have a file with the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) and earlier (and perhaps still) with the RCMP. These security people all believe that the freedom to have rights must be defended, oddly, by the removal of rights and freedoms...

"For if we do not fear Everything then Terror will already have won."

The War on Liquids

Yes! Fear the world! Can I hear you say 'Amen'? Louder!

A blogger I wouldn't have expected

to post against the war in Iraq does so.

Old Hippie song

Being an old hippie, and an old hippie fan of Phil Ochs, (and not being a member of the NRA just 'cus we don't have the NRA in Canada), I appreciated his words and the sentiments.

God bless him. Sometimes, when you least expect it...

Quotation

"What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary." - Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan, in his new book, What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception, in which he describes the administration as "manipulating sources of public opinion" and "downplaying the major reason for going to war."

From the most recent SojoMail from Sojourners - an intelligent, faith-filled, alternative voice...

Civilians

These are civilians that are disabled, not combatants!

War disabled the most marginalised in Iraq

"According to a recent study, more than a million people have been disabled on account of the war. The government and civil society are not taking care of them, with serious psychological consequences and tensions within families."

The collateral damage of this illegal war.

Mercy!

Wow!

I just heard a U.S. politician on the news commenting that the war in Iraq is now costing the U.S. government (and, in reality, the U.S. taxpayer) $5,000.00 per SECOND! Day and night, 24 hours/day, 7 days/week. I can't picture numbers that large!

(We're paying less for our current involvement in Afghanistan, I'm sure. That doesn't justify it, though...)

This is a man...

...who lives in a world of his own...

Bush speech to mark 5 years of Iraq war

"Five years after launching the U.S. invasion of Iraq, President Bush is making some of his most expansive claims of success in the fighting there."

The Other War

The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness

"Over the past several months The Nation has interviewed fifty combat veterans of the Iraq War from around the United States in an effort to investigate the effects of the four-year-old occupation on average Iraqi civilians."

More revelations

about the disgusting behaviour of the Bushites.

General Says Prison Inquiry Led to His Forced Retirement

More fodder

Army Reservists ordered for screenings

Nope, we're not planning to send them to Iraq. Nope, not us. Uh-uh. *Nudge, nudge, wink wink.*

I admire

the judge that would stand up to President Bush's attempts to subvert justice as he has. This, however, now puts the case of Omar Khadr in some sort of limbo. I'm not attempting to paint Mr. Khadr as anything but a combatant in Iraq, but President Bush's attempts to label anyone and anything as 'terrorist' and then impose a different justice, one without due process, is criminal in itself.

Dropped charges in 2 cases puts U.S. terror trials in limbo

Very difficult

A Soldier’s Sacrifice

"‘No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’ Catholics remember Sgt. Tollett and all those who died for us."

I feel nothing but disgust and horror at the U.S. war machine, as it started a war based on admitted lies by the President of the country, but I also feel nothing but the utmost respect for the people who are having to fight in the war and nothing but sorrow for the loss of life on both sides. Requiescat in Pace.

Are we surprised?

Bush vetoes Iraq withdrawal bill

Somehow he thinks that withdrawing from Iraq will demoralize the people more than bombing and shooting them does. Hmmmmmm... OK.

And who is pocketing the money?

Iraq reconstruction 'not working'

"Six out of eight Iraqi reconstruction projects hailed as successes by the US government are in fact failures, a US federal investigation has found."