Category: War
Israel-Gaza Conflict Intimately Displayed Through Instagram Photos
Instagram may be the world’s newest form of war reporting.
The Huffington Post | By Britney Fitzgerald Posted: 11/16/2012 2:04 pm EST Updated: 11/16/2012 2:04 pm EST
Recent uploads to the photo-sharing app are being used to document the escalating hostilities between Israel and Palestinian militants. Men and women in the region are offering intimate snapshots of young soldiers posing with weapons, smoke billowing above otherwise peaceful cityscapes, bloody civilians and other striking scenes. Continue reading “Israel-Gaza Conflict Intimately Displayed Through Instagram Photos”
A view from the other side of the Iran story
By Satish Sharma
The demonisation of the other to create an enemy you can then fight is a reality few can deny. Over the years I have watched the demonisation of Iran by the free press of the free West, with utter disbelief.
I was in Tehran when the most repeated propaganda ?about the Iranian threat to “wipe Israel off the map” started. I knew the New York Times reporter ?whose “mistranslation’ (to ?put it politely) of a speech began the?demonistaion/?propanganda push. That lie, which is what it really is, is still repeated by lying leaders and media who should, and actually do, know better.
I was in Iran when the move to invade Iraq began. I watched the War ?and learnt ?about how it was just the beginning of a new great game. ?”The real men” -among the diplomats and soldiers- I was often told, ? ” were waiting to go to Iran” ?They are still waiting. Iran is still the ?Big Prize. ?The Big Plunder waiting to happen.
I was in Iran when the move to invade Iraq began. I watched the War ?and learnt ?about how it was just the beginning of a new great game. ?”The real men” -among the diplomats and soldiers- I was often told, ? ” were waiting to go to Iran” ?They are still waiting. Iran is still the ?Big Prize. ?The Big Plunder waiting to happen.
In a concerted and mischievous attempt, the world?s mainstream media have started to pull out all the stops in order to portray Iran a dangerous, abnormal, weird and horrible country which is seeking to develop nuclear weapons in order to annihilate Israel. Iranians are brazenly depicted as fanatics, terrorists and uncivilized people and the whole Iran is shown as an out-of-the-way desert in which no trace of civilization, urban life and modernity can be found.
Demonizing and isolating Iran can be seen as part of a comprehensive and multifaceted campaign of ostracizing and vilifying the Muslim world which has been intensified since the 9/11 attacks which were blamed on the Muslims and set in motion the Global War on Terror.
Before coming to Iran, every foreign tourist fears that he might be killed, or at least arrested as a spy. They perceive Iran in terms of the stereotypes and clich?s which the mainstream media present to them, and many of them are even unaware of the fact that Iranians are the same Persians who lived in the Ancient Persia for more than 7,500 years.
There are some famous myths about Iran which many people across the world have come to believe, and I would like to rebuff them here as best as I can:
??I: Nonintervention In Iranian Affairs 1. The United States pledges that it is and from now on will be the policy of the United States not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran ‘s internal affairs.?
Since its very inception, the United States has violated this bilateral agreement.? It has continued its relentless propaganda into Iran through the Voice of America, Radio Farda, and other State-funded media outlets such as?BBC Persian which receives significant funding from the US government?.?? Launched in early 2009, the BBC Persian as well as Voice of America played a significant role in instigating violence post 2009 Iranian Presidential elections.
It is abundantly clear that America is not a ?Good Samaritan’ State, and its policies are not driven by compassion.?? Ironically, with?drones spying on Americans?,??network neutrality undermined?, and?internet censorship?abound at home, the Obama administration demands that Iran open itself to further sabotage and subversion guised as compassion. ??In other words, embrace the implementation of?Donald Rumsfeld’s Information Operations Roadmap?? namely, computer network attacks, psychological operations, “maximum control of the entire electromagnetic spectrum”, and US ability to ?”disrupt or destroy the full spectrum of globally emerging communications systems, sensors, and weapons systems dependent on the electromagnetic spectrum”. ??
One would be hard-pressed to believe that the newly imposed sanctions on Iran are a reflection of care and concern for the Iranian people, but rather, they are punishment for resisting the net war. ?Edmund Burke was quite right to say that ?As People crushed by laws, have no hope but to evade power. If the laws are their enemies, they will be enemies to the law; and those who have must to hope and nothing to lose will always be dangerous.?
Satish Sharma is a photographer writer and blogger based in Nepal. He was one of the early tutors of Pathshala.
The Ugly Truth
The Bombs-Away?Election
Many Americans are rightly disgusted by the non-choice they are offered in the presidential race every four years. This year is no different despite the serious problems that the United States faces at home and abroad. Mitt Romney has no actual plan to fix the economy, and the record of President Barack Obama over the past four years speaks for itself. Romney is a big-government Republican, while Obama is an even-bigger-government Democrat. Either will increase the deficit to the bankruptcy point; Romney through more spending on arms, soldiers, and wars, Obama with a sorely needed health-care program that will break the bank because it was created in collusion with the health-care and insurance industries and makes no effort to limit costs. Continue reading “The Ugly Truth”
When Everything You Know Is Not True
Miko Peled Debunking Jewish Myths
“If Anybody here, came hoping to hear a balanced presentation, then they are going to be sorely disappointed. I say this, because a lot of the things that you are about to hear to night are difficult to hear.”
?Miko Peled is a peace activist who dares to say in public what others still choose to deny. He has credibility, so when he debunks myths that Jews around the world hold with blind loyalty, people listen. Miko was born in Jerusalem in 1961 into a well known Zionist family. His grandfather, Dr. Avraham Katsnelson was a Zionist leader and signer on the Israeli Declaration of Independence. His father, Matti Peled was a young officer in the war of 1948 and a general in the war of 1967 when Israel conquered the West Bank, Gaza, Golan Heights and the Sinai.
Miko Peled, author of The General?s Son, whose father was the renowned Israeli general Matti Peled, speaking in Seattle, October 1, 2012.
Video Posted October 13, 2012
Related piece on use of images by Israeli government for disinformation in Satish Sharma’s blog Rotigraphy
extract:?The art of the past no longer exists as it once did. It’s authority is lost. In its place there is a language of images. What matters now is who uses that language for what purpose.” ~ John Berger
The image supplies little in itself. What counts is its use and the power to fix a particular interpretation of the events, objects or people depicted. Some people, and especially some institutions, have much more clout in this process than others do.” ~ Steve Edwards
Would you know my name?
The world celebrated International Day of the Girl this week.
Many celebrated by keeping vigil for Malala Yousufzai.
Malala is the 14-year-old girl who was an outspoken advocate for girls? rights. She blogged from her home in Pakistan. She lived in the Swat Valley, an area near the border with Afghanistan that is heavily influenced by Islamic fundamentalism. Her activism focused on education and on girls? rights to learn.
She directly challenged the Taliban. She confronted their views that girls should not be educated. She defied their beliefs through her advocacy and her actions.
For this, she became the Taliban?s target. She was shot Oct. 9 by a Taliban assassin. She remains in a hospital, in critical condition after surgery to remove the bullet that struck her in the head.
I too keep vigil for this brave girl and abhor the attempt to kill her.
But where is the outrage for the thousands of Malalas who are regularly being slaughtered because a US president deems it within his right to do so?
Retreat at #stopdronenow
Malala is the 14-year-old girl who was an outspoken advocate for girls? rights. She blogged from her home in Pakistan. She lived in the Swat Valley, an area near the border with Afghanistan that is heavily influenced by Islamic fundamentalism. Her activism focused on education and on girls? rights to learn.
She directly challenged the Taliban. She confronted their views that girls should not be educated. She defied their beliefs through her advocacy and her actions.
For this, she became the Taliban?s target. She was shot Oct. 9 by a Taliban assassin. She remains in a hospital, in critical condition after surgery to remove the bullet that struck her in the head.
I too keep vigil for this brave girl and abhor the attempt to kill her.
But where is the outrage for the thousands of Malalas who are regularly being slaughtered because a US president deems it within his right to do so?
Retreat at #stopdronenow
?The Most Dangerous Moment,? 50 Years Later
by Noam Chomsky and Tom Engelhardt, October 16, 2012
Here was the oddest thing: within weeks of the United States dropping an atomic bomb on a second Japanese city on August 9, 1945, and so obliterating it, Americans were already immersed in new scenarios of nuclear destruction. As the late Paul Boyer so vividly described in his classic book?By the Bomb?s Early Light, it took no time at all ? at a moment when no other nation had such potentially Earth-destroying weaponry ? for an America triumphant to begin to imagine itself in ruins, and for its newspapers and magazines to start drawing concentric circles of death and destruction around American cities while consigning their future country to the stewardship of the roaches.
As early as October 1945, the military editor of?Reader?s Digest?would declare the first atomic bomb ?dated,? and write, ?It is now in the power of the atom-smashers to blot out New York with a single bomb? Such a bomb can burn up in an instant every creature, can fuse the steel buildings and smash the concrete into flying shrapnel.? By 1947, in ?Mist of Death Over New York,? that staid magazine would have a description in ?realistic detail? of an atomic explosion in New York harbor. (?Within six weeks, 389,101 New Yorkers were dead or missing.?) In November 1945, in the ?36-Hour War,??Life?would feature a mushroom cloud rising over Washington in a surprise attack slaughtering 10 million Americans. That December, the?Wall Street Journalwould run a feature article imagining ?an attack by planes and missiles that could wipe out 98% of the population of the United States.? Continue reading “?The Most Dangerous Moment,? 50 Years Later”
America?s Inevitable Retreat From the Middle East
By PANKAJ MISHRA
Published in New York Times: September 23, 2012
THE murder of four Americans in Libya and mob assaults on the United States? embassies across the Muslim world this month have reminded many of 1979, when radical Islamists seized the American mission in Tehran. There, too, extremists running wild after the fall of a pro-American tyrant had found a cheap way of empowering themselves.
But the obsession with radical Islam misses a more meaningful analogy for the current state of siege in the Middle East and Afghanistan: the helicopters hovering above the roof of the American Embassy in Saigon in 1975 as North Vietnamese tanks rolled into the city.
That hasty departure ended America?s long and costly involvement in Indochina, which, like the Middle East today, the United States had inherited from defunct European empires. Of course, Southeast Asia had no natural resources to tempt the United States and no ally like Israel to defend. But it appeared to be at the front line of the worldwide battle against Communism, and American policy makers had unsuccessfully tried both proxy despots and military firepower to make the locals advance their strategic interests. Continue reading “America?s Inevitable Retreat From the Middle East”
Warrior Netanyahu and Worrier Obama
Israelis assert the United States should not wait for Iran to decide on building a nuclear weapon before it considers military action. Dan Meridor, deputy Israeli prime minister, says: When is the point at which it should be stopped? Just when the bomb is assembled on the tip of the missile and is ready for launch? This demands clarification, to my mind, to make clear that even an Iran that is a decision away from nuclear weaponry, be it within days or weeks, is a nuclear-armed Iran. Iran could reach stage of nuclear development which would allow it to make a warhead quickly years in the future when the world's guard was down. Hermann Goering used to say the people don't want war, but they can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and for exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country. http://venitism.blogspot.com Continue reading "Warrior Netanyahu and Worrier Obama"
Days Later: US Newspapers Run Graphic Photos Of Libya Ambassador
Posted by?Alexander Higgins?- September 13, 2012 at 9:59 am -?Permalink?-?Source?via?Alexander Higgins Blog
Newspapers across the U.S. run graphic photos of the murdered U.S. Ambassador to Libya who was reportedly raped and lynched by Islamic extremists.
As the violence continues to flare in the Middle East news outlets that originally paid little attention to the murder of U.S. Ambassador Stephens is now the top headline nationwide. Continue reading “Days Later: US Newspapers Run Graphic Photos Of Libya Ambassador”
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