Saturday, August 28, 2021
New video by Unicorn Riot on YouTube - go check it out ;-)
Watch on YouTube here: Water Protectors Blockade Line 3 'Man Camp' for 12 Hours
Via Christian Gasper
Questions With New Reports That US Forces Gunned Down Civilians After Kabul Blast
Listen to a reading of this article:
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A new BBC report shows eyewitnesses at the scene of the deadly Kabul airport explosion on Thursday saying that a significant number of the 170 Afghans killed in the attack actually died from gunfire by the US-led alliance in the chaos following the blast.
“Many we spoke to, including eyewitnesses, said significant numbers of those killed were shot dead by US forces in the panic after the blast,” the BBC’s Secunder Kermani said on Twitter.
New on MoA:
The Never Ending Lies About The War On Afghanistanhttps://t.co/pKoQyem6FT https://t.co/o1vzwc2zTf— Moon of Alabama (@MoonofA) August 28, 2021
Here are some transcript excerpts courtesy of Moon of Alabama’s write-up on this new report:
The correspondent talks to the brother a London taxi driver who was in Kabul to fetch his family:
A: “Somehow I saw American soldiers, Turkish soldiers and the fire was coming from the bridges, from the towers.”
Q: “From the soldiers?”
A: “Yeah, from the soldiers.”
(Side note: Some of the towers around the airport were reportedly manned by members of the CIA’s Afghan death squads.)
Another witness:
Narrator: “Noor Mohamed had had been deployed alongside American forces.”
A man holding up an identity card of a friend talks about his death in English.
A: “The guy has served U.S. army for years. And the reason he lost his life – he wasn’t killed by Taliban, he wasn’t killed by ISIS, he was (unintelligible).”
Q: “How can you be sure?”
A: “Because of the bullet. The bullet went inside of his head. Right here.” (Points to the back of his head.) “He doesn’t have any (other) injury.”The Pentagon did not respond to the BBC‘s request for comments.
"Most victims of #KabulAirportBlast were not killed by the blast but by bullets fired at them by the Americans."
Faisal of Kabul Lovers channel interviewed aid workers at Emergency Hospital in #Kabul and this is what they have to say: pic.twitter.com/vvQETq6uEe
— Sangar | سنګر پیکار (@paykhar) August 28, 2021
There’s another video going around from a popular channel called Kabul Lovers which as of this writing has over 122,000 views. According to a translation posted by Sangar Paykhar of the podcast Afghan Eye, workers at an emergency hospital in Kabul are saying that most of the fatalities from the blast actually died by bullets fired from above, which would track with what the BBC witness said about gunfire coming from the towers where American and Turkish soldiers were.
“Some people have said that victims were shot from behind by Daesh [ISIS],” a man who says he’s a military officer tells Kabul Lovers in the translated subtitles. “However, none of them were shot from behind. All bullet holes came from above. Bullets came from this angle [gesturing to indicate a downward trajectory], striking skulls, necks and chests. No bullet holes from this area below. Which means all these people were pressed against each other. There was no uncovered place for bullets to land, from the chest above. They were all shot by Americans from that area [again gesturing to show a downward trajectory].”
“All victims were killed by American bullets except maybe 20 people out of 100,” the man said.
A Pentagon official says 2 suicide bombers "assessed to have been ISIS fighters" and "ISIS gunmen" killed 12 US service members and injured 15 US service members, and caused many Afghan casualties as well pic.twitter.com/bl6BHHgdqm
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 26, 2021
The Pentagon, which is refusing to answer BBC reporters’ questions about these latest claims, had reported that there was fire from “ISIS gunmen” following detonations by two suicide bombers. Yet as of this writing there don’t appear to be any reports of any bodies of ISIS gunmen having been recovered since the attack.
“The attack on the Abbey Gate was followed by a number of ISIS gunmen who opened fire on civilian and military forces,” CENTCOM’s General Kenneth McKenzie told the press after the incident.
It seems unlikely that ISIS could lead such a gunfire attack on such a heavily defended area and then get away without any of their members getting killed by return fire, which means if there are no bodies of ISIS fighters then the “ISIS gunmen” the Pentagon reported probably never existed. It was probably just military personnel from the US and/or its allies spraying people with bullets in panic and confusion, after which someone made up a convenient story.
Which is just ghastly to think about. We may or may not know more in the coming days as the notoriously secretive US military narrative manages the situation, but the idea that this deadly incident could have been a lot less deadly if people with powerful firearms in their hands had been better trained and thought more clearly is painful.
As violent as western police can get, it’s hard to imagine even them freaking out after an explosion and opening fire into a crowd of people. The armed goon squads we unleash upon people in war zones are on a whole other level than the ones we have to deal with at home, and the fewer of them we have deployed around the world the better.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
source https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/08/28/questions-after-new-reports-that-us-forces-gunned-down-civilians-after-kabul-blast/
Friday, August 27, 2021
Propaganda Is The Source Of All Our Problems: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
Listen to a reading of this article:
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We don’t talk nearly enough about the fact that wealthy and powerful people are constantly pouring vast fortunes into manipulating the way we perceive our world and that this is the ultimate source of all our major problems.
Democracy is a meaningless concept when the primary factor in determining how votes will be cast is the wealth that plutocrats have poured into mass-scale media psyops to manipulate public perception of reality.
People babble about “freedom” in a society where almost everyone’s mind is in a cage built by the powerful. Caged birds singing that they can do whatever they want inside their cage.
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Covid could just as easily have been used to transfer wealth downward as upward. The only reason wealth has shifted to the wealthiest among us instead of the most needful is because we have systems in place which allow money to translate to political influence and policy making.
Without such vast wealth inequality the public would have the money to crowdfund their own political campaigns, legislative initiatives and media outlets. That’s why the rich actively work to keep others poor. It’s not so they can buy one more private jet, it’s to maintain power.
Because money is power and power is relative, the plutocrats have a natural incentive to use their financial clout to shape things so the majority remains poor. We have a system which makes you king if you’re richer than the masses; if everyone’s king then no one is king.
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We’re as angry as we ought to be, but because of careful narrative manipulation our anger is directed at each other instead of the people at the top. People often have more emotionality toward someone expressing the wrong opinion about AOC or ivermectin than they have toward the oligarchy.
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The mass media could just as easily have spent this time framing the Afghanistan withdrawal as a good thing and applauding Biden for doing it, and if they had Biden’s approval would be soaring and everyone would think the withdrawal was great. These people control perception of reality.
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Invade a nation, kill hundreds of thousands of its inhabitants, stay for decades, accomplish nothing besides making war profiteers wealthy, drop everything and leave, then have your armed goon squad take PR photos with local infants so everyone thinks your military is awesome.
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Afghanistan has been captured by a tyrannical violent extremist group and I hear the group that’s replacing them when they complete their withdrawal is pretty bad too.
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The 2021 Nobel Prize in Physics will be split between news media reporters for their breakthrough discovery of the existence of women in Afghanistan.
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My neighbor attacked me when she caught me in her house at night going through her valuables. This proves she’s always wanted to attack me in my home. I need to go fight her over there so I don’t have to fight her here.
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Just in case you were wondering if the mass media had run out of the absolute worst people to consult about US wars:
The future of American power – Henry Kissinger on why America failed in Afghanistan https://t.co/X60m0MTv3Z
— Adam Roberts (@ARobertsjourno) August 25, 2021
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Q: What is free speech?
A: Free speech is when war profiteers are allowed to openly lobby for more wars and the mass media are allowed to brazenly lie to us and corporations are allowed to buy government officials and members of the public are allowed to say whatever they want as long as they say it quietly in the privacy of their own home.
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When poor people claim that spies are attacking their brains with high tech ray guns it’s called paranoid schizophrenia. When government officials say it it’s called Havana Syndrome.
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The US military presence in Australia is an illegitimate occupation that was only made possible by CIA coups and intimidation.
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Saying America’s warmongering has “come home” whenever it abuses its citizenry is a bit dramatic. Get back to me when there are nonstop airstrikes on major US cities and depleted uranium in LA and military blockades on Texas are starving children to death by the thousands.
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Modern mainstream western culture is just mass-produced propaganda for the idea that worldwide human behavior should be driven by consumption and the pursuit of profit.
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The fact that spiritual enlightenment is a real and attainable thing is possibly the most under-discussed and under-appreciated political reality in ourworld, because it has huge, sweeping political implications since it could solve all our problems if collectively realized. But whether we discuss it or not it might happen anyway as humanity approaches its adapt-or-die point.
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My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, or throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
source https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2021/08/28/propaganda-is-the-source-of-all-our-problems-notes-from-the-edge-of-the-narrative-matrix/
Call for Support: Sean Swain Denied Parole
Update on anarchist prisoner Sean Swain’s fight for parole after 30 years inside. To read more about Sean and his case, go here.
This past Wednesday, the Ohio Parole Board denied parole to Sean Swain on the basis of lies and political targeting perpetuated by Trevor Matthew Clark, former ODRC Counsel. Read Sean’s account of what happened and his call for support below.
On August 25, I had my 4th parole hearing.
In 1991, I was convicted of Aggravated Murder in what was a provable case of self defense. The judge sentenced me to 20 years to life, the minimum allowable by law, and said I would be expected to serve 12 years before being paroled. I have now served 30. I was told on Wednesday that I will be expected to serve 5 more.
In their decision, the parole board relied upon their own wildly inaccurate characterizations of my political speech, which they construed as “threats.” They also relied upon contrived misconduct engineered by former ODRC Counsel Trevor Clark, who, in 2013, subjected me to inappropriate sexual touching, and, during an interrogation, revealed to me the home addresses of Ohio lawmakers. I reported both the sexual touching and the violation of lawmakers’ personal privacy, and Clark responded with a years-long campaign of state terror, to include suspension of my communications for years at a time and theft of my incoming legal mail.
In 2018, I filed 2 civil actions (18 CV 004272) that named Trevor Clark. Weeks later, in retaliation, he ordered a minion of his to fabricate the misconduct that the parole board now relies upon to extend my imprisonment for 5 years.
Lauren and I are fortunate to have retained attorney Eric J. Allen, who has successfully litigated against the parole board more than once. He promises to aggressively fight to right this injustice, but we need to raise some loot to pay the cost of the litigation.
Donations can be made via CashApp to $Swainiac1969.
Sample letters and parole board members’ emails are provided below for anyone who wishes to email the parole board on my behalf.
Open in email client | Open in Gmail
SwainiacFest 2021, to raise funds for counsel, is in the planning stages…
by via It's Going Down
Twenty Years of War, Occupation & Counter-Insurgency: A Conversation on Afghanistan
On this episode of the It’s Going Down podcast, we speak with a former veteran and author of a recent piece on CrimethInc. entitled, Afghanistan: The Taliban Victory in a Global Context: An Anti-Imperial Perspective from a Veteran of the US Occupation. We discuss the current situation in Afghanistan with the Taliban’s recent victory, the fall of Kabul, and the devastating impact of twenty years of imperialist occupation. Our guest, who was both a soldier in the army and a contractor, also dives into how massive amounts of lives were bombed, tortured, and destroyed, trillions of dollars were wasted, how counter-insurgency has become privatized through a vast network of corporations, and how the US is simply the latest in a long line of imperial powers to fail against insurgents in Afghanistan.
From CrimethInc.:
For 20 years, we propped up local and regional warlords, giving them weapons, money, and arms so they wouldn’t attack our forces. We green-lit their death squads and called them the Afghan Local Police. Working at senior-echelon levels, I watched both ranking officers and junior soldiers scramble to pad their résumés in hopes of becoming mercenaries for the companies and agencies that were actually running the show. Generals made careers and went on to be employed by those companies or the Department of Defense/Intelligence Community. From Syria and Iraq to Yemen and all across Africa, throughout our 800 military bases, I do not know of a single military mission that is chiefly focused on creating peace and stability.
It took the death of one my soldiers to put it all into perspective. Afterwards, I began to suffer from effects of CPTSD [Complex Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder]. The classic characteristics: drinking and drug use, the loss of relationships, depression, suicidal tendencies. I also began to reach out for help. I joined Iraq Veterans Against the War and connected with current and former service members fighting US imperialism. With information from the GI Rights Hotline, I was able to leave the Army Reserves. I began a process of politicization in which I learned about militarism, imperialism, colonialism, and white supremacy.
Now that the occupation has ended, an entire generation of US military veterans will be forced to question what it was all for. All I can do is ask why it took them so long to arrive at that question. It was always evident, all around us.
We also discuss at length the push by the far-Right to attack refugees, the anti-war movement, private counter-insurgency companies at work in the US (such as TigerSwan at Standing Rock), and much more.
More Info: CrimethInc. article here and Iraq Veterans Against the War
photo: Levi Meir Clancy via Unsplash
by via It's Going Down
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