Liberals Silent on Iraq Atrocities

exactly. the US government has zero moral authority to lecture any other country about any godda**ed thing.

want to boycott a country that’s perpetrating despicable war crimes in the ME and elsewhere on a daily basis? boycott the US.

There is much more to this than mere cowardice. These liberals are part of the same elite that the mainstream “conservatives” (a much debased term) are. To call the US out on its atrocities is to threaten one of the ideological cornerstones of American imperialism- the idea that the US is always benign- and, by extension, their own power and privilege. Duplicitous, oleaginous, and disingenuous- that about sums up the modern liberal.

It’s misdirection. Look over here and not over there, one of the oldest tricks in the book. They are con men (and women) and thats how they operate. Liberal Socialists and Fascist Conservatives what a great combination. It’s getting harder and harder to tell them apart. They both advocate sticking their noses in everyone’s business here and abroad. What is they say? Absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Peace.

People in glass houses………………….

I’m all for getting our priorities straight, and I agree the Iraq war is worse than “the scuffles” in Tibet. But there’s no reason not to condemn both, and if we never did anything good until we stopped doing everything bad, no good would ever be done. Look, I know everyone’s going to jump on me for saying so, but if stern words and a boycott of the Olympics can stop Chinese human rights abuses, I don’t see much reason not to do it. It’s not like it the war in Iraq would go much worse if we did, and Sapienza’s “waste” comment notwithstanding, there’s plenty of rage to go around.

As long as we continue to pay our taxes without complaint then we will remain the warmonger’s slaves. They know it and no matter how much we protest without substance, they will just keep on doing what they are doing. Most Americans are cowed, afraid of crossing “the man” and they keep their heads buried in the sand.

“No taxation without representation”: That is the spirit that made the country and for all practical purposes the general population no longer has any representation in Washington. It has been given over to the highest bidder long ago…

We have become a nation of whiners.

The real atrocities are happening in Palestine and Iraq and are being commited by Israel/US. The zionist neo-cons want to divert our attention and look for other conflicts which are not our business.

Our educational system, like that of most countries, does its job in thoroughy vaccinating the young with nationalism and collective narcissism. This immunizes most people to acknowledgement of our wrongdoing and creates virulent reactivity to those who do not share our views or bend immediately to our demands. When someone like Reverend Wright or Noam Chomsky dare to point out the glaringly obvious, they elicit an overwhelming inflammatory response. Go back and think of your history classes in school, and how they glossed over slavery, the genocide of the Native Americans, the Spanish-American War and other outrages. For far too long we’ve confused jingoism for patriotism, greed for sound economics, bigotry for religious principles and warmongering for self defense.

We should speak out against wrongs wherever they occur, no matter who the victims or the victimizers are. By all means, our priorities should be to halt the debacle in Iraq. The extent of the killing and our government’s criminal behavior demand it.

That said, the thugs in Beijing are doing what they’ve always done: lording over their helpless subjects. I feel for the people of Tibet. They were dealt a very crappy hand.

Great comments all round (no Tim today :)

Recently my mother-in-law bought some Tibetan flags and gave them to friends and family to display. It got me thinking how trendy it is to support Tibet’s independence, but displaying a Palestinian flag will get you all sorts of trouble thse days (and probably a visit from the lcoal Gestapo). And we rarely get news of Palestinian deaths on mainstream commercial news although they greatly surpass China’s killing of Tibetans, just like the Iraqi deaths get less coverage than some angry monks shouting in Tibet. And speaking of independence, is anyone boldly supporting Iraq’s independence?!?

Thanks for the antiwar website for pointing out the so plainly obvious. Many innocent people died in the recent Tibetan riot, but most of them are ethnic Han and Hui (i.e., Chinese Muslim), including an eight-month old baby. These facts will never be shown on the main-stream Western media, but a few key strokes of search will find some of the details in Google or YouTube… Remind me how the Iraq war is flamed by the same media…

Please also visit the anti-cnn.com website, where all the distortion and mis-information of the western media in reporting the recent Tibetan riot is analyzed and documented by volunteers.

It is a critical historical time. These biased reports on the Tibetan riot, are for the first time, widely accessible to the common Chinese people. Remember, all Chinese students undergoing English education from grade one, and >99% of western media are freely assessable from China. People in China are just shocked by the open hostility that the major western media displayed against China. Ironically, the government propaganda machine has always emphasized on the good wills of the outside world towards China, which is largely true in the rest of the world besides the few countries that have committed the most crimes in war, slavery and injustice in recent human history. It is really a wake up call to the common people in China.

By the way, I was an old activist in the 1989 Chinese student movement. But shortly after a few years of living in US convinced me that China is much better off without the western politicians’ concern and passion for the Chinese “human rights” and “democracy”.

The thoughts of Mr. Sapienza and all of the comments above give me some hope that the people of America can actually think logically. If this webpage could just be shown on every computer in every college and high school in the country, the next generation might turn things around.

Brad Smith says,”Liberal Socialists and Fascist Conservatives what a great combination. It’s getting harder and harder to tell them apart.”

Reminds me of what the late English playwright Joe Orton said, “Scratch a Liberal and you find a fascist.” And correct me if I’m mistaken but weren’t a few of the neo-cons once Liberals, if not outright socialists?

And, of course, Sapienza is quite right about the blatant hypocrisy. When the Olympics Torch Relay goes through San Fran you will of course see the protests. Curiously you won’t see any protests about what the U.S. is doing in Iraq.

Which makes you wonder if ‘freedom’ and ‘human rights’ are the real issues where these protesters are concerned. In my opinion they are not! They never were! The issue is pure, unadulterated racism. Yup, I said it and no apologises…

Their hypocrisy and behaviour says it all…

And how about the longtime and ongoing atrocities carried out by the Israelis but funded and otherwise abetted, enabled, encouraged, and praised by the US Government?

In my observation, pro-war liberals are generally Zionists. And the target of choice is always Islamic. As an example, the crisis in Darfur is presented as the Arabs in Northern Sudan persecuting blacks in Southern Sudan, when it is actually a civil war. Several years ago, an armistice between the two factions was arranged, but the southern faction refused to stop fighting. Of course, our media never really dealt with that disjointed fact, preferring to stick with the old “bad Arab” theme. And, can you imagine a Hollywood fund raiser for the “starving Palestinians”?
I don’t believe that our Congress will generate many resolutions condemning China - a guy deep in debt does not usually spit on his creditors. Probably they will blame Iran for interfering in Tibet.
Zionist control of our media and our Congress is so strong that I doubt anything will change until this whole ediface of lies and deceit comes crashing down around us. You can accelerate this by avoiding paying taxes as much as possible

Why single out liberals? All such hypocrites (left or right) should be described with an appropriate term: interventionists, statists, warmongers, etc.

How about some labels reevaluation?

What’s the point of the accusation? And just what is the authors definition of liberal? I never really had a label until the warmongers dubbed me a liberal and now this piece of tripe!
I’ve been opposing the Iraq war since before it started. 5 years of howling at the moon about the atrocities, writing my congressman, standing on street corners with signs, telling any one who would listen. I’ve lost business over this thing, practically lost my mind in the process and now I’m a hypocrite?

Darfur is trendy ala George Clooney. Tibet is trendy ala Richard Gere. Afghanistan is trendy ala all that heroin. Nothing says Hollywood chic like an Afghan warlord and several thousand kilos of raw opium on it’s way to ‘cookdown kitchen’. After all, those Hollywood trendy types DO love their heroin. They don’t like to talk about it, but they do love to geez it.
Moral authority is vanished from the global stage. Moral authority has rotted away courtesy of war mongering lunatics like George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard, and even Nico the Sark. It WAS sort of trendy how the Sark helped burn the Muslim youth in France. Moral authority has made a greedy transformation into moral expedience. We’ll now hold up the corrupt United Nations as our ‘power point presentation’ on corruption and comprehensive collapse of moral authority. Can we all say U.N. Security Council and irrelevant in the same breath? Israel and Palestine? Annapolis? Farce? Condo Rice and cannibalism?
Most liberals are hypocritical and most conservatives are hypocritical. I use the classic Democrat and Republican phrase in an interchangeable motif. However, the voices of sane leadership are STILL silenced and marginalized. Ron Paul, Bob Barr, Chuck Hagel, and Joe Biden. Biden? Yup, the man does have some fascinating and germane things to say. However, the Biden tends to shoot his own balloons directly off the stage and that’s comical but sad.
The stranglehold on media is what MUST be broken. Without access, ANY message will die of simple neglect.

Tibet is a long term tragedy,with a popular spokesman,the Deli Lama.In Palistine most leaders are murdered or imprisoned.Any outside spokesman is ignored or discredited by being called a terrorist or an antisemite.

Why, outside of a few stickers on newspaper boxes around town, is no significant mention made of what’s going on non-stop in Iraq?

Because propaganda outlets like the NYT, Antiwar.com, CNN, et cetera have spent the last 4 years desperately spinning the hopeless guerrilla war in Iraq into something more palatable.

The deindustrialization of Iraq and the mass murder, ethnic cleansing, death squads, and torture inflicted on the Iraqis for resisting the occupation has been replaced with the fable of noble America virtuously trying to hold the country together and make the savage darkies stop killing each other. This has enabled Americans to cheerfully forget their ongoing atrocities and begin braying for new ones.

I grew up in the sixties, and remember our own gov’t gunning down peaceful college students, Kent State, Orangeburg S,C, and L.A. just to name a few. And they want the U.S. to protest China; get real.. What a nuerotic and forgetful nation we have become.

So appreciate this strong truth-telling from Jeffrey Sapienza above, and I agree with him every inch of the way. Freaking correct is he!

Darfur is just an excuse for a USRael oil grab, and “liberals” with their “Save Darfur” nonsense are playing right into the fascists’ hands. Darfur is a war for resources between nomads (conveniently portrayed by the U.S. Zionist media as “Arabs” when in fact they are ethnically African) and village dwellers.

From antiwar.com itself:

DARFUR’S WAR OF DEFINITIONS
Ramzy Baroud
Antiwar.com
8/26/04

http://www.antiwar.com/orig/baroud.php?articleid=3445

“Alex de Waal is not one of those journalists, but an author recognized in Western media circles as a leading authority on Sudan. He wrote in the Observer on July 25: “Characterizing the Darfur war as ‘Arabs’ versus ‘Africans’ obscures the reality. Darfur’s Arabs are black, indigenous, African Muslims – just like Darfur’s non-Arabs.”"

The USRael government wants eastern (if not all of) Africa, its natural resources, including its water. That’s why *our* government is starting an AfricaCom.

The genocide in Congo is MUCH worse, but we hear nary a peep from the “progressives.”

Perhaps I’m mistaken but it seems to me that certain people are down right obsessed with hating and blaming America and Israel for all of the worlds problems. Therefore, if there is a genocide (and it IS a genocide) in Darfur these folks will acknowledge it but then they will minimize it and say let’s turn our attention back to the evil US of A and Israel. Or they will try to find some way to blame the US for it. I was at a Darfur rally and you’d think they would have posters to criticize the President of Sudan, Mr. Al Bashir. Oh they had a few, but mostly a lot of the protesters just wanted to turn the Darfur rally into a blame Bush hate festival. If there is an ethnic cleansing and deliberate destruction of the Tibeten culture and people at the hands of the ruthless Chinese Communist Party, these folks will again acknowledge it, say its a bad thing too, but again they will minimize it and shift attention back to the big bad and evil USA and Israel. If there terrible atrocities being committed in Burma they will minimize it so they can keep hating America and Israel.

In short, if an atrocity or human rights violation can’t be directly blamed on America or Israel some folks don’t really seem to give a damn about it. But if they can find a way to implicate Israel or America these same folks will have an immediate apoplexy.

At the moment, the U.S. and Israeli governments (and Israel’s fan club) are responsible for much of U.S.’ foreign policy. This extends into their meddling into Africa and Pakistan.

Sudan has huge oil reserves which China and France have already negotiated deals to get access to. Israel wants a piece of that action and with its U.S. supporters, like the late, unlamented, Tom Lantos, manipulated U.S. public opinion, especially on the “left” to generate the “Save Darfur” campaign.

BTW: it turns out that Israel is buying Iran’s oil, this while Israel and its fan club (including the U.S. Zionist controlled media) do their best to manufacture a pretext for war on Iran.

Don’t believe me, here’s the proof (from today’s Democracy Now!)

Report: Israel Is Secretly Importing Iranian Oil

http://www.democracynow.org/2008/4/8/headlines#9

“An Israeli energy newsletter has revealed Israel is secretly buying oil from Iran despite an official boycott. The newsletter EnergiaNews reports Israeli companies get around the boycott by having the oil delivered to European ports, where it is then bought by Israelis. The oil is then imported into Israel by the Eilat-Ashkelon Pipeline Company, which keeps its oil sources secret.”

Americans are suckers. GET ISRAEL AND ITS FAN CLUB OUT OF U.S. FOREIGN POLICY NOW!!!!!

Richard Vajs,

Yes, if you are right and we are responsible for the destruction/occcupation of Iraq and Palestine then we should concern ourselves about it. But as Martin Luther King said, “An injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere.” So why only focus on Iraq/Palestine?
And by the way, the United States does an awful lot of business with China and we gave them “most favored nation” trading status and all sorts of perks, so we are responsible.

Being in part a liberal hippy type myself, I can attest to the youthful idealism of wanting to save the world and to do good. The energy and drive to make a difference can be usurped by evil powers that want to misdirect it as has happened with the Save Darfur fund, ( most likely a CIA mind control program, or maybe a fund by people who profit off mis-channeling the liberal desire to make a positive difference)

This all became clear to me one day while listening to Democracy Now

http://www.democracynow.org/2007/6/4/mahmood_mamdani_on_darfur_the_politics

MAHMOOD MAMDANI: And I’m struck by the innocence of those who are part of the Save Darfur—of the foot soldiers in the Save Darfur Coalition, not the leadership, simply because this is not discussed.

Let me tell you, when I went to Sudan in Khartoum, I had interviews with the UN humanitarian officer, the political officer, etc., and I asked them, I said, “What assistance does the Save Darfur Coalition give?” He said, “Nothing.” I said, “Nothing?” He said, “No.” And I would like to know. The Save Darfur Coalition raises an enormous amount of money in this country. Where does that money go? Does it go to other organizations which are operative in Sudan, or does it go simply to fund the advertising campaign?

AMY GOODMAN: To make people aware of what’s going on in Darfur.

MAHMOOD MAMDANI: To make people aware of what is going on, but people who then, out of awareness, give money not to fuel a commercial campaign, but expecting that this money will go to do something about the pain and suffering of those who are the victims in Darfur, so how much of that money is going to actually—how much of it translates into food or medicine or shelter? And how much of it is being recycled?

US water pipelines are breaking

NEW YORK (Long AP April 8, 2008)- Two hours north of New York City, a mile-long stream and a marsh the size of a football field have mysteriously formed along a country road. They are such a marvel that people come from miles around to drink the crystal-clear water, believing it is bubbling up from a hidden natural spring.

….The water is coming from a cracked 70-year-old tunnel hundreds of feet below ground, scientists say.

The tunnel is leaking up to 36 million gallons a day as it carries drinking water from a reservoir to the big city. It is a powerful warning sign of a larger problem around the country: The infrastructure that delivers water to the nation’s cities is badly aging and in need of repairs.

The Environmental Protection Agency says utilities will need to invest more than $277 billion over the next two decades on repairs and improvements to drinking water systems. Water industry engineers put the figure drastically higher, at about $480 million….

Engineers say this is a crucial era for the nation’s water systems, especially in older cities like New York, where some pipes and tunnels were built in the 1800s and are now nearing the end of their life expectancies….

Catastrophic problems can arise when infrastructure fails. An 84-year-old steam pipe erupted beneath a New York street last year, creating a mammoth geyser that rained mud and debris down on the city.

In Chicago, an 80-year-old cast-iron water main broke earlier this year, spilling thousands of gallons and opening up a 25-foot hole in the street.

In Denver, up to 4 million gallons of water gushed from a ruptured 30-year-old pipeline in February, gouging a sinkhole across three lanes of Interstate 25. The lanes were shut down for nearly two weeks.

Cleveland has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on infrastructure in the past 20 years but still must repair daily breaks. Last month, a break in a 2 1/2-foot-diameter water main turned a downtown square into a watery crater and knocked out other utilities.

The amount of wasted water from these breaches is staggering.

The 36 million gallons a day that leak from the 85-mile Delaware Aqueduct in New York state amounts to more than 1 billion gallons a month. That may be a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds of billions of water consumed in New York City every year, but the daily leak in the tunnel would meet the daily demands of drought-ravaged Raleigh, N.C.

Residents in Wawarsing, about 100 miles from New York City, blame tunnel leaks for the constant flooding in their yards and basements. Department of Environmental Protection engineers are trying to determine whether the aqueduct is really responsible for the soggy mess along Route 209 that has gotten considerably worse over the last 10 years….

New York has spent decades digging a new $6 billion tunnel that will create an alternative source of water delivery and allow for easier inspection and repair of the other tunnels. It is expected to be completed by 2020.

Around the country, water rates are going up to help pay for the repairs, estimated at anywhere between $550 and $7,000 per household during the next three decades.

Augusta, Ga., raised rates 11 percent from 2001 through 2007 for a $300 million program to improve the deteriorating water system. Cleveland gradually increased rates by about 6 percent for more than 15 years to fund a $750 million project to address aging and inefficient pipes. Springfield, Mass., doubled rates for its 250,000 customers. Philadelphia, Kenosha, Wis., Portsmouth, Va., and other cities have followed suit.

Many engineers and water utilities say water bills around the country are too low. In New York City, where a studio apartment can rent for more than $3,000 a month, the cost of water and sewage is about $60 for an entire single-family home….

[excerpted]