The wealth of material available on YouTube is just amazing, all of your favorite songs anytime you want. Have to post more of them. Here's Tom Waits, doing his classic Downtown Train.
American air war in Iraq becoming a reign of terror.
Chris Floyd has an excellent and hard-hitting column on the rapidly increasing air war the US is carrying out in Iraq, which is mostly being directed at civilian populations. The number of air strikes is up 4 times since the beginning of the year. Several cases have been reported in recent weeks about civilian casulties, including many young children, but there have been many, many more that haven't been reported. Check out the complete article over at Glenn Greenwald's Salon blog, or more articles over at Chris' own site, Empire Burlesque.
Monday, the Pentagon acknowledged a long-unspoken truth: that the bombardment of civilian neighborhoods in Iraq is an integral part of the vaunted "counterinsurgency" doctrine of Gen. David Petraeus. The number of airstrikes in the conquered land has risen fivefold since George W. Bush escalated the war in January, as USA Today reports:
"Coalition forces launched 1,140 airstrikes in the first nine months of this year compared with 229 in all of last year, according to military statistics ... In Iraq, the temporary increase of 30,000 U.S. troops ordered by President Bush in January has led to the increase in bombing missions. The U.S. command has moved forces off large bases and into neighborhoods and has launched several large offensives aimed at al-Qaeda ... 'You end up having that many more opportunities for close air support,' said Air Force Brig. Gen. Stephen Mueller, director of the Combined Air Operations Center in Doha, Qatar."
Leaving aside the undigested lump of pure propaganda spewed up by the reporter -- "al-Qaeda" has not been the sole or even the main target of the "offensives" launched into civilian areas -- the military stats reveal the growing centrality of airstrikes in Iraq. What's more, these figures do not include attacks by helicopter gunships, whose fearsome destructive power rivals that of any bomb or missile.
The results of this deliberate strategy have been entirely predictable and deeply horrific: Innocent civilians chewed to pieces by blast force and metal. Innocent civilians dispossessed of homes, cars, goods, all means of survival. Innocent civilians turned into bitter enemies of the United States, as they bury their young, their old, their most beloved ones.
The American air war against the Iraqis has been going on continuously, 24/7 since the war began back in 2003, over 4 years of constant bombardment. It's the most violent and least reported part of this war, and represents the worst of all the many war crimes being perpetuated there.
Wood s Lot. Maybe the most consistently interesting weblog out there. Superb selections on all sorts of topics, especially art and literature. Tons of links too.
Fairvue Central hosts the Bloggies, awards for best weblogs in different categories from all over the world. See the nominees for 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006 (in progress).
