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Veterans symbolically discard service medals at anti-NATO rally
Veterans symbolically discard service medals at anti-NATO rally
(Source: Reuters)
CHICAGO (Reuters) – Nearly 50 U.S. military veterans at an anti-NATO rally in Chicago threw their service medals into the street on Sunday, an action they said symbolized their rejection of the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Some of the veterans, many wearing military uniform shirts over black anti-war t-shirts, choked back tears as they explained their actions. Others folded an American flag while a bugle played “Taps,” which is typically performed at U.S. military funerals.
“The medals are supposed to be for acts of heroism. I don’t feel like a hero. I don’t feel like I deserve them,” said Zach LaPorte, who served in Iraq in 2005 and 2006.
LaPorte, a 28-year-old mechanical engineer from Milwaukee, said he enlisted in the Army at 19 because he felt there were few other options. At the time, he could not afford to stay in college.
“I witnessed civilian casualties and civilians being arrested in what I consider an illegal occupation of a sovereign nation,” LaPorte said.
He said he was glad the United States had withdrawn its combat troops from Iraq, but said he did not believe the NATO military alliance was going to leave Afghanistan.
On Sunday, NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen opened the two-day summit of the 26-member alliance saying there would be no hasty exit from Afghanistan.
A veteran from New York who only gave his name as Jerry said: “I don’t want any part of this anymore. I chose human life over war, militarism and imperialism.”
The veterans had hoped to present their medals to a NATO representative. The closest they could get was the fence ringing the McCormick Place convention center about a block from where U.S. President Barack Obama and other leaders were meeting. The veterans threw their medals toward the convention center.
Matt Howard, 29, who served in the Marines from 2001 to 2006, said the rate of suicides among veterans returning from the wars is high.
“These medals are not worth the cloth and steel they’re printed on. They’re representative of failed policies,” said Howard, a spokesman for Iraq Veterans Against the War.
Former U.S. Army Sergeant Alejandro Villatoro, 29, of Chicago, served during the Iraq 2003 invasion and in Afghanistan in 2011.
He said he suffers from post-traumatic stress syndrome and depression and gave back three medals – one “War on Terrorism” medal, one for participating in the Iraq war and a NATO medal from the Afghanistan war. He said he wants the war in Afghanistan to end.
“There’s no honor in these wars,” said Villatoro, before he threw away his medals. “There’s just shame.”
(Editing by Greg McCune and Stacey Joyce)
Maoists in Nepal are rumored to be on the verge of another split
Maoists in Nepal are rumored to be on the verge of another split
(new-power.org)
The UCPN(Maoist) led a people’s war in Nepal. The people’s war ended in 2006 with negotiated settlement with the imperialists and their agents. The New Power that was built was exchanged for a seat at the table with the Old Power. The movement there was a classic case of armed revisionism. This underscores the point that being armed and having a red flag does not make a movement communist. The Maoist movement there has gone through several left splits that advocate a return to the people’s war — even though the revisionists had jailed and disarmed their people’s army. Recently, rumors have been circulating that the movement is on the verge of another split. The media reports:
“The hardline faction of the UCPN (Maoist) party, led by Mohan Baidya has announced that it will organize protest programs until May 27 and then split from the leadership faction after the tenure of the Constituent Assembly expires. The Baidya faction has also condemned the recent agreement signed by major political parties regarding the disputed issues in the new constitution. Leaders from the hardline faction informed the media that they will organize different protest programs across the country from May 23 to May 27.
The hardline faction plans to organize protests in the streets and in the parliament until May 27 and then formally split from the party after the promulgation of the new constitution. The Baidya faction has stated that the new constitution will not meet the demands of the oppressed and marginalized communities. Maoist leaders close to the faction have also decided to ignore the party’s directives during the voting in the CA for the disputed issues in the new constitution.
The Baidya faction has also formed alliance with various ethnic groups and marginalized communities to fight against the Maoist leadership. According to Maoist sources, 75 Maoist CA members out of the total 237 belong to the Baidya faction. The Baidya faction has accused the UCPN chairman, Puspha Kamal Dahal of compromising with other political parties and humiliating the PLA soldiers.”
This underscores the importance of having true revolutionary science, Leading Light Communism, at the helm. This underscores the necessity of drawing the correct conclusions from the past, including the laws that “without a people’s army, the people have nothing” and “one cannot turn a people’s war on and off” and “never surrender.” Real revolutions, Leading Light Communist revolution, is about building New Power, not using armed struggle as a high-stakes reformist struggle to gain concessions from Old Power. Let’s hope a real revolutionary movement arises in Nepal, a Leading Light Communist movement.
Source:
1. Katmandu Post http://www.parakhi.com/news/2012/05/17/maoist-hardline-faction-to-split-after-may-27
May 19, a day of heroes
May 19, a day of heroes
(new-power.org)
Today, May 19th, we celebrate the lives of two heroes of the anti-imperialist struggle. We celebrate the birth of Malcolm X, one of the greatest leaders of the Black liberation struggle against the United States. Although not a communist, Malcolm X was an important freedom fighter who stood with oppressed peoples everywhere in their struggle against imperialism. His life was tragically cut short by an assassin’s bullet. His words, his example, inspired and continues to inspire the Black liberation movement to this day. He was an important figure in the development of later movements, including the Black Panther Party in the 1960s.
Today is also the birth day of Ho Chi Minh, “Uncle Ho.” Ho Chi Minh was the communist leader of the Vietnamese communist and anti-imperialist struggle. His struggle inspired the whole world. Che Guevara, the great Latin American internationalist and communist, pointed to the importance of the Vietnamese struggle as an example for the whole world when he called for “two, three, many Vietnamese.” Lin Biao, the great Chinese communist, also pointed to their heroic struggle. People everywhere saw how the people power of the Vietnamese overcame the technological terror and financial might of the United States as the imperialists waged their unsuccessful genocide against the people of Indochina. Their victory against imperialism reminded humanity that the dawn follows even the darkest night, as Ho Chi Minh reminds that “after sorrow comes joy”:
Everything changes, the wheel of the law turns without pause.
After the rain, good weather.
In the wink of an eye
The universe throws off its muddy cloths.
For ten thousand miles the landscape
Spreads out like a beautiful brocade.
Gentle sunshine. Light breezes. Smiling flowers,
Hang in the trees, amongst the sparkling leaves, All the birds sing at once.
Men and animals rise up reborn.
What could be more natural?
After sorrow comes joy.
Great days are ahead of us, comrades. We are a movement of heroes. Our journey is long and hard, but with each day, we accomplish small victories. Do not let the flies bother us. Keep marching. The future is ours. Long live the Leading Light!
A Global Crime Spree — What’s NATO Ever Done?
A Global Crime Spree
What’s NATO Ever Done?
by JOHN LaFORGE
(Source: Counterpunch)
Wondering why anyone would confront NATO’s summit in Chicago this month? A look at some of its more well-known crimes might spark some indignation.
Desecration of corpses, indiscriminate attacks, bombing of allied troops, torture of prisoners and unaccountable drone war are a few of NATO’s outrages in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen and elsewhere. On March 20, 2012 Pakistani lawmakers demanded an end to all NATO/CIA drone strikes against their territory. As reported in The New York Times, Pakistan’s foreign secretary Jalil Jilani said April 26, 2012, “We consider drones illegal, counter-productive and accordingly, unacceptable.” On May 31 last year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai gave what he called his “last” warning against NATO’s bombing of Afghani homes, saying “If they continue their attacks on our houses … history shows what Afghans do with trespassers and with occupiers.”
While bombing Libya last March, NATO refused to aid a group of 72 migrants adrift in the Mediterranean. Only nine people on board survived. The refusal was condemned as criminal by the Council of Europe, a human rights watchdog.
NATO jets bombed and rocketed a Pakistani military base for two hours Nov. 26, 2011—the Salala Incident— killing 26 Pakistani soldiers and wounding dozens more. NATO refuses to apologize, so the Pakistani regime has kept military supply routes into Afghanistan closed since November.
The British medical journal Lancet reported that the US-led unprovoked 2003 bombing, invasion and military take-over of Iraq—which NATO officially joined in 2004 in a ‘training’ capacity—had resulted in over 665,000 civilian deaths by 2006, and 200,000 in the UN-authorized, 1991 Desert Storm massacre led primarily by the US with several NATO allies.
On April 12, 1999, NATO attacked the railway bridge over the Grdelica Gorge and Juzna Morava River with two laser-guided bombs. At the time, a five-car civilian passenger train was crossing the bridge and was hit by both bombs. Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch accused NATO of violating binding laws that require distinction, discrimination and proportionality.
NATO rocketed the central studio of Radio Televisija Srbije (TRS) in Belgrade, the state-owned broadcasting corporation, on April 23, 1999 during the Kosovo war. Sixteen civilian employees of RTS were killed and 16 wounded when NATO destroyed the building. Amnesty Int’l reported that the building could not be considered military, that NATO had violated the prohibition on attacking civilian objects and had therefore committed a war crime.
Headlines chronicle NATO’s crime spree
“U.S. troops posed with body parts of Afghan bombers.” Los Angeles Times, April 18, 2012
“Drones At Issue…: Raids Disrupt Militants, but Civilian Deaths Stir Outrage.” New York Times, March 18, 2012
“G.I. Kills 16 Afghans, Including 9 Children In Attacks on Homes.” New York Times, March 12, 2012
“NATO Admits Airstrike Killed 8 Young Afghans, but Contends They Were Armed.” New York Times, Feb. 16, 2012
“Informer Misled NATO in Airstrike That Killed 8 Civilians, Afghans Say.” (Seven shepherd boys under 14.) New York Times, Feb. 10, 2012
“Video [of U.S. Marines urinating on dead Taliban fighters] Inflames a Delicate Moment for U.S. in Afghanistan.” New York Times, Jan. 12, 2012
“Commission alleges U.S. detainee abuse.” Minneapolis StarTribune, Jan. 8, 2012
“Six Children Are Killed by NATO Airstrike in Afghanistan.” New York Times, Nov. 25, 2011
“American Soldier Is Convicted of Killing Afghan Civilians for Sport.” New York Times, Nov. 11, 2011
“Pakistan: U.S. Drone Strike Kills Brother of a Taliban Commander.” New York Times, Oct. 28, 2011
“Afghanistan officials ‘systematically tortured’ detainees, UN report says.” Guardian, & BBC Oct. 10; Washington Post, Oct. 11, 2011
“G.I. Killed Afghan Journalist, NATO Says.” New York Times, Sept. 9, 2011
“Cable Implicates Americans in Deaths of Iraqi Civilians.” New York Times, Sept. 2, 2011
“Civilians Die in a Raid by Americans and Iraqis.” New York Times, Aug. 7, 2011
“NATO Strikes Libyan State TV Transmitters.” New York Times, July 31, 2011
“NATO admits raid probably killed nine in Tripoli.” St. Paul Pioneer Press, June 20, 2011
“U.S. Expands Its Drone War to Take On Somali Militants.” New York Times, July 2, 2011
“NATO airstrike blamed in 14 civilian deaths.” St. Paul Pioneer Press, May 30, 2011
“Libya Effort Is Called Violation of War Act.” New York Times, May 26, 2011
“Raid on Wrong House Kills Afghan Girl, 12.” New York Times, May 12, 2011
“Yemen: 2 Killed in Missile Strike.” Associated Press, May 5, 2011
“NATO Accused of Going Too Far With Libya Strikes.” New York Times, May 2, 2011
“Disposal of Bin Laden’s remains violated Islamic principles, clerics say.” Associated Press, May 2, 2011
“Photos of atrocities seen as threat to Afghan relations.” St. Paul Pioneer Press, March 22, 2011
“Missiles Kill 26 in Pakistan” (“most of them civilians”) New York Times, March 18, 2011
“Afgans Say NATO Troops Killed 8 Civilians in Raid.” New York Times, Aug. 24, 2010
“A dozen or more” Afghan civilians were killed during a nighttime raid August 5, 2010 in eastern Afghanistan, NATO’s officers said. Chicago Tribune, Aug. 6, 2010
“Afghans Say Attack Killed 52 Civilians; NATO Differs.” New York Times, July 27, 2010
In June 2008, NATO bombers attacked a Pakistani paramilitary force called the Frontier Corps killing 11 of its soldiers. New York Times, Nov. 27, 2011
“Afghans Die in Bombing, As Toll Rises for Civilians.” New York Times, May 3, 2010
John LaForge works for Nukewatch, a nuclear watchdog and anti-war group in Wisconsin and edits its Quarterly.
Wrong man was executed in Texas, probe says
Wrong man was executed in Texas, probe says
(Source: AFP)
He was the spitting image of the killer, had the same first name and was near the scene of the crime at the fateful hour: Carlos DeLuna paid the ultimate price and was executed in place of someone else in Texas in 1989, a report out Tuesday found.
Even “all the relatives of both Carloses mistook them,” and DeLuna was sentenced to death and executed based only on eyewitness accounts despite a range of signs he was not a guilty man, said law professor James Liebman.
Liebman and five of his students at Columbia School of Law spent almost five years poring over details of a case that he says is “emblematic” of legal system failure.
DeLuna, 27, was put to death after “a very incomplete investigation. No question that the investigation is a failure,” Liebman said.
The report’s authors found “numerous missteps, missed clues and missed opportunities that let authorities prosecute Carlos DeLuna for the crime of murder, despite evidence not only that he did not commit the crime but that another individual, Carlos Hernandez, did,” the 780-page investigation found.
The report, entitled “Los Tocayos Carlos: Anatomy of a Wrongful Execution,” traces the facts surrounding the February 1983 murder of Wanda Lopez, a single mother who was stabbed in the gas station where she worked in a quiet corner of the Texas coastal city of Corpus Christi.
“Everything went wrong in this case,” Liebman said.
That night Lopez called police for help twice to protect her from an individual with a switchblade.
“They could have saved her, they said ‘we made this arrest immediately’ to overcome the embarrassment,” Liebman said.
Forty minutes after the crime Carlos DeLuna was arrested not far from the gas station.
He was identified by only one eyewitness who saw a Hispanic male running from the gas station. But DeLuna had just shaved and was wearing a white dress shirt — unlike the killer, who an eyewitness said had a mustache and was wearing a grey flannel shirt.
Even though witnesses accounts were contradictory — the killer was seen fleeing towards the north, while DeLuna was caught in the east — DeLuna was arrested.
“I didn’t do it, but I know who did,” DeLuna said at the time, saying that he saw Carlos Hernandez entering the service station.
DeLuna said he ran from police because he was on parole and had been drinking.
Hernandez, known for using a blade in his attacks, was later jailed for murdering a woman with the same knife. But in the trial, the lead prosecutor told the jury that Hernandez was nothing but a “phantom” of DeLuna’s imagination.
DeLuna’s budget attorney even said that it was probable that Carlos Hernandez never existed.
However in 1986 a local newspaper published a photograph of Hernandez in an article on the DeLuna case, Liebman said.
Following hasty trial DeLuna was executed by lethal injection in 1989.
Up to the day he died in prison of cirrhosis of the liver, Hernandez repeatedly admitted to murdering Wanda Lopez, Liebman said.
“Unfortunately, the flaws in the system that wrongfully convicted and executed DeLuna — faulty eyewitness testimony, shoddy legal representation and prosecutorial misconduct — continue to send innocent men to their death today,” read a statement that accompanies the report.
Peru says 5,000 birds, nearly 900 dolphins dead
[Capitalism not only exploits the vast majority of humanity in the Third World, it also exploits future generations, our Earth. First World privilege is not only based on exploitation, but it is not sustainable. Exploitation of people and the Earth is poisoning the ecosystem and wreaking havoc on weather patterns. This recently resulted in the death of Peru's wild life. --MSH]
Peru says 5,000 birds, nearly 900 dolphins dead
(Source: AFP)
LIMA — The Peruvian government said Wednesday that 5,000 birds, mostly pelicans, and nearly 900 dolphins have died off the country’s northern coast, possibly due to rising temperatures in Pacific waters.
The country’s northern beaches were earlier this week declared off-limits as scientists scrambled to pin down what was causing such a massive toll, with non-government organizations blaming oil exploration work.
But Peru’s deputy environment minister Gabriel Quijandria, disputed this and said warming waters, which disturbs species’ food supplies, was a possible cause.
He said that although tests conducted on 877 dolphins found dead on the coast had not been completed, contamination from heavy metals or the presence of bacterial infections was not responsible.
It is probable that the phenomenon “will extend to other coastal areas,” Quijandria said, noting that there could be a resulting increase in the numbers of birds and other sea life killed.
The South American nation’s health ministry declared an alert at the weekend, urging the public to stay away from the beaches around Lima and on the northern coast until the cause of death of marine life is known.
One non-government conservation organization, known as ORCA, has blamed the dolphin deaths on oil exploration activities in the area, which it claims produces noises which are having an acoustic impact on the mammals.
A representative from the group, Carlos Yaipen, said Wednesday it had tested 30 dead specimens and found broken ears and damaged organs consistent with the victims suffering “the bends,” also known as decompression sickness.
Weather expert Abraham Levy told AFP on Tuesday that the warming of the Pacific waters due to El Nino could be to blame.
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