The Day the Iraq War Came Back to Condemn Tony Blair

It's taken seven years for a British inquiry to render its verdict on Tony Blair, and his role in the Iraq War.

But at last the verdict is in.

It couldn't be more devastating.

Why Nova Scotia Should Stop Honouring a War Criminal

For eighty-five years the statue of Lieutenant General Edward Cornwallis has loomed over a park in Halifax.

To honour him for being the first governor of Nova Scotia, and the founder of Halifax.

In recent years native groups have tried to have the statue taken down and his name removed from other parks, streets and buildings in Nova Scotia.

For his decision in 1749 to issue a bounty for the scalps of Mi’kmaq men, women and children.

But sadly I see that initiative has gone nowhere. 

When the Pentagon Claims that Bombing a Hospital is Not a War Crime

On the night of October 3, 2015 A U.S. AC-130 gunship attacked a hospital in the Afghan city of Kunduz, run by the humanitarian organization Médecins Sans Frontières/Doctors Without Borders.

And despite frantic calls from MSF doctors kept up its attack for half an hour.

Forty two staff members and patients were killed, many of them burned to death in their beds.

But today the Pentagon released a report claiming that murderous assault was not a war crime. 

Are Stephen Harper's Cons Sheltering a Nazi War Criminal?

As the world celebrates V-E Day, on the 70th anniversary of the great victory over the Nazis.

And Stephen Harper uses the occasion to celebrate himself.

A disturbing question must be asked.

Are him and his foul Con regime sheltering a Nazi war criminal? 

John Baird's Con Clown Tour of the Middle East

Whenever one of Stephen Harper's Con clowns leaves the country I shudder, reach for a paper bag to put over my head, and prepare for the worst.

Because I know they will make fools out of themselves, and shame us once again in the eyes of the world.

And in that regard John Baird's just concluded tour of the Middle East couldn't be a better example.

For it was, in descending chronological order, pathetic, humiliating, and shameful.

Happy Birthday Chelsea Manning

It's been five years since the young American soldier now known as Chelsea Manning began downloading hundreds of thousands of Pentagon files.

And in the process not only revealed the horror, the brutality, and the hypocrisy of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the diplomatic world. But also the U.S. intelligence machine's most closely guarded secret.

That in order to spy on their enemies, they would now spy on us ALL.

My Horrible Afternoon With Margaret Thatcher

Gawd. I made a terrible mistake today. I allowed my Dad to drag me off to see the Margaret Thatcher movie The Iron Lady. 

And all I can say is I'm glad he paid for the tickets, because it was absolutely hideous.

Any reasonably aware audience will feel exhausted and discomfited after two hours of this exercise in cinematic navel-gazing. Thatcherism cast a long shadow, and The Iron Lady, in its ever-so-watchable way, does little to illuminate it. Quite the contrary; much like last year’s Nicolas Sarkozy biopic La Conquête, it’s a subtle form of propaganda, asking the audience to see the beauty in the beast.

Well, even if my leftie student days are long over, I can’t abide hypocrisy. I left the theatre mumbling Billy Bragg’s advice in the Thatcher-era song It Says Here: “When you wake to the fact that your paper is Tory, just remember, there are two sides to every story.”

But even that review isn't harsh enough, because the movie totally fails to reflect the pain that Con beast inflicted on the poor in Britain. Declaring that "there is no such thing as society" while mothers and children chanted "Thatcher Thatcher Milk Snatcher."

Or totally ignores the terrible damage she did to a generation of gay kids with her fascist Section 28. 

Bradley Manning and the Horror of Haditha

What perfect timing. Just as the U.S. ends its war in Iraq, not with a bang but a whimper. Bye bye Big Lie. Bye bye Shock and Awe. Bye bye mass murder. Bye bye Abu Ghraib.

In a junkyard near Baghdad, somebody came across the true horror of Haditha.

The 400 pages of interrogations, once closely guarded as secrets of war, were supposed to have been destroyed as the last American troops prepare to leave Iraq. Instead, they were discovered along with reams of other classified documents, including military maps showing helicopter routes and radar capabilities, by a reporter for The New York Times at a junkyard outside Baghdad. An attendant was burning them as fuel to cook a dinner of smoked carp.

The documents — many marked secret — form part of the military’s internal investigation, and confirm much of what happened at Haditha, a Euphrates River town where Marines killed 24 Iraqis, including a 76-year-old man in a wheelchair, women and children, some just toddlers.

To remind us that not ONE of the U.S. soldiers responsible has been convicted. And that just like the war criminals Bush, Cheney, and Blair they all got away. 

Bradley Manning to be Sentenced to Death?

As if they hadn't tortured him enough, now the war criminals at the Pentagon are trying to kill Bradley Manning.

Bradley Manning, the US soldier who has spent 10 months in solitary confinement on suspicion of having transmitted a huge trove of state secrets to WikiLeaks, now faces a possible death penalty

For the crime of "aiding" an enemy with no name.

The charge involves "giving intelligence to the enemy", which is defined as "organised opposing forces in time of war but also other hostile body that our forces may be opposing such as a rebellious mob or a band of renegades". Such an enemy could be civilian or military in nature.

Or you and I. Or any part of any "rebellious mob" that believes that the truth will set us free.

The records allegedly downloaded by Manning revealed clear instances of war crimes committed by U.S. troops in Iraq and Afghanistan, widespread torture committed by the Iraqi authorities with the full knowledge of the U.S. military, previously unknown estimates of the number of Iraqi civilians killed at U.S. military checkpoints, and the massive Iraqi civilian death toll caused by the American invasion.

Pfc. Manning saw this misery and rampant illegality with his own two eyes, and then, online, he discovered more of the same -- much, much more -- and he did something about it, knowing full well the penalty. "I wouldn't mind going to prison for the rest of my life, or being executed so much, if it wasn't for the possibility of having pictures of me plastered all over the world press," he confided to the informant who betrayed him. Manning knew the stakes and the risks when he leaked these documents, but still he loyally performed his duty, both to the United States Army and to his country.

He just did his duty. The Pentagon boss Robert Gates says he did no harm. But still they torture him.

“It’s hard to imagine why prison officials would treat someone who they worry is mentally disturbed by isolating him to the point that, as medical experts have documented, is likely to make him crazy,” said Daphne Eviatar, who investigates and reports on U.S. national security policies and practices for Human Rights First.

For the crime of telling the truth. And embarrassing the rich and the powerful.

You know, Mohamed Bouazizi, the young Tunisian fruit seller who set himself on fire to protest against injustice, is credited with starting the wave of protests that is shaking the world.

But I believe Bradley Manning also inspired a lot of young people, by shining a light into dark and corrupt places . And showing them a world they had never seen before.

Because the truth WILL set us free.

The Obama administration is acting like a totalitarian regime.

If the Pentagon war criminals want a rebellious mob they will get one.

For now we are ALL Bradley Manning...

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