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“CIA claimed to have executed a perfect strike that killed nine militants near Pakistan-Afghanistan border. But British and Pakistani journalists on the ground reported that the strikes killed at least 18, including six innocent civilians.
The CIA in fact said that drone strikes didn’t kill a single civilian in 2011, a claim almost no one believes.”
I don’t know how many times this point needs to be emphasized, but the government lies to us all, and people just sit there lapping up their lies like puppets. get it together people. open your eyes. How many people need to be killed before we put an end to this. You never hear people angry over drone strikes. The media barely even talks about them, unless of course they’ve managed to get one of the “big guys” behind “terrorist operations.” But the moment someone takes away your right to marry or etc and everyone is up in flames with pitchforks. Yeah, those are important causes too, but so is this.
The article goes on to say “The CIA since mid-2008 has executed about 200 strikes, killing roughly 1,300 militants and 30 non-combatants.” According to today’s Times report, another administration official put the number of civilian deaths since Obama took office “in the single digits.”
Complete and utter bullshit.
“The media’s the most powerful entity on earth. They have the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent, and that’s power. Because they control the minds of the masses.” - Malcolm X
(via kernel-with-no-shell)
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U.S. Drone Attack Kills 4 in Pakistan
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) — An American drone fired two missiles at a bakery in northwest Pakistan Saturday, killing four suspected militants, officials said, as the U.S. pushed ahead with its drone campaign despite Pakistani demands to stop. This was the third such strike in the country in less than a week.
Drone attacks in Pakistani tribal areas where Afghan and other militants have found refuge are considered a key tactic by U.S. officials in the war against al-Qaida and its Taliban supporters. But many Pakistanis resent the strikes, which they consider an affront to their sovereignty.
Two Pakistani intelligence officials said the latest attack took place in Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region.
The officials said the victims were buying goods from a bakery when the missiles hit. Residents were still removing the debris, officials said. All of the dead were foreigners, but the officials did not have any information on their identities or nationalities.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The U.S. rarely talks publicly about the covert CIA-run drone program in Pakistan.
Drone strikes have become an increasingly contentious issue between Washington and Pakistan. Pakistan’s parliament has demanded the U.S. end all attacks on its territory.
What drone attacks basically are: US government going “oh let me drop this drone on a target area and *hope* that out of the many that die, one will be a terrorist” The reality: countless amounts of innocent civilians dying for no reason.
From 2004-2011, there have been a total of around 280 attacks. An estimated total of around 2,700 have been killed and 1076 have been injured. Of these, only 302 have been Taliban and 33 have been Al Qaeda (source). President Obama has launched more drone attacks in his term as President than President Bush did. There is a drone attack at least once every four days, but he insists it doesn’t put any innocent men, women and children in danger.
Funny, because around 90% of these deaths have been civilian deaths. But you won’t see numbers like that reported in anything that represents the US. I wrote a term paper on drone strikes last year, and almost every US-based article I came across that reported statistics showed that a very small percentage of those who died were civilians, and that majority were terrorists. Now of course that’s what they’d show, because that would make it seem as if the the drone strikes are effective. But lets face it, who has a better knowledge about the actual deaths, people sitting in offices millions of miles away? Or the people that are actually dying in said country, seeing bodies being torn apart day by day thanks to these drones?
The United Nations Human Rights Council has also agreed that the United States government failed to keep track of civilian casualties of its military operations. (source —>read this for more information on how Drone strikes should be illegal)
“CIA drone strikes have become an almost daily occurrence around the world, but little is known about who is killed and under what circumstances,” said James Ross, legal and policy director at Human Rights Watch. “So long as the US resists public accountability for CIA drone strikes, the agency should not be conducting targeted killings.” (source)
So then I ask, who are the real terrorists here?
(Source: samirakhan)
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During the run up to the invasion of Afghanistan, three burly American classmates jeered at me. They said, “We’re gonna kill Osama.” Presumably, I would be especially aggrieved at Osama’s death, since I am a Muslim, and therefore, an Osama sympathizer if not also a bomb-carrying terrorist. My classmates were full of assurance and triumphalist pride. They said: “We can hit even a coffee mug in a cave.” The cave stood for where I am from, the enemy territory, the blank space on the map, the primitive place that lacked modernity. I couldn’t stop myself from asking how they would know which cave to hit. They said: “If you can bring down the whole mountain, you don’t have to know which cave to hit.” This is how the Empire reveals its darkness: behind the fantasy of technological dominance lies a world of complete violence.
—
Archive Remix II: Empire’s Ways of Knowing - Chapati Mystery.
One of the best essays on CM’s website because of its accuracy.
(via mehreenkasana)
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(Source: cartoonpolitics)
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“America’s health care system is neither healthy, caring, nor a system.” ~ Walter Cronkite
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“Any dictator would admire the uniformity and obedience of the U.S. media.” ~ Noam Chomsky
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47 million Americans without health insurance, over 60% of all personal bankruptcies in the USA caused by the high cost of being ill, 8 people denied coverage, charged a higher rate, or otherwise discriminated against because of a pre‐existing condition by the big insurance companies every minute of every day. What could possibly be wrong with a system like this ? (source)
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America has enough nuclear weapons to destroy the planet several times over and is the only country to have ever used them against civilians. Israel has nuclear weapons it won’t admit to, lots of them, and refuses to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or allow inspection of its weapons of mass destruction by the UN. By contrast, Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, allows UN inspection, and is not believed by the US government, the head of Israel’s Mossad, or UN inspectors to have nuclear weapons or to be actively engaged in trying to develop them. Reference
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every petulant brats dream job ..
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the GOP .. actively campaigning for ways to make your life worse (unless of course you’re rich) (and white) (and not gay) (and not a woman)
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For all the people who:
- make discriminatory/bigoted comments about Islam and/or the Arab people
- support the war in Afghanistan/Iraq, despite the lack of progress and the mass loss and displacement of civilians’ lives
- encourage the unjustified imprisonment of the men/women/children currently held in Guantanamo Bay
- berate Obama for being Muslim (although he’s not) and throw around the word Muslim around as a pejorative
- criticized the notion of an Islamic learning center in New York, because of 9/11
- neglect the fact that terrorism and Islam aren’t inherently linked and many Muslim (here and abroad) have also suffered at the hands of extremists groups
Consider yourself responsible for the hate-induced death of Shaima Alawadi.
You’ve contributed to a culture where Islam and anyone who engages in it is a foreign threat, deserving of harassment and death (in this case) despite being hard working, tax-paying, law-abiding citizens who came to the Americas for a better life, just like you and your ancestors. You’ve enabled a nation to be so irrationally gripped in fear, that it feels permitted to invade many poorer, already disheveled countries and contribute to their destruction. You’ve fostered a hostile environment where others feel justified in ripping off hijabs and burning Qu’Rans.
Your bigotry lays the direct blame.
Co-signed.
(Source: eastafrodite, via mendmyheart)
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references news about NYPD’s long-standing spying on Muslims and liberals and peaceful demonstrators and .. well .. pretty much anyone they felt like ..
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oh well that’s alright then ..
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The USA is a country that loves war and has been almost constantly engaged in killing around the globe for the last 100 years. This is a partial list
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could be either or both, really ..
I spent 45 dollars filling up my tank last week. sigh. #hatetheeconomy
