x wrote: Wow, so you tell your Canadian neighbors that the reason their lives were so messed up in Algeria is because of America? Syrian lives are messed up because of America? What's the basis? cyrano: nope , I dont always blame to US, depends on the shit disturbers involved, its like we say: "`a chacun sa merde" which translate : to everyone its own shit... cyrano: give you an example, I once was celebrating Canada day here in Toronto, our shows were multicultural, we had people displaying their folklore.. a filino group of vocalist explain that they use only vocals because they are from the poorest slums of the Filipines.. cyrano: now i was offended because they did not explain why they are poor in their countries..( ie they did not blame the US) cyrano: And so even If it was Canada Day the Music played was mostly american, it even included Welcome to Alabama...now I don't really relates to Alabama as a Canadian, thus I object, I don't even like cowboys..this was a cultural intrusion I dint like. I dont mind Americans immigrants as long as they are black, latinos, non cowboys, or white 'provided' that they are anti- war or that they have a socialist ideology, are committed to reform their country,. I like them because they speak a more human language. In the case of the ME, its right, its a/your citizen duty for people to blame and decry the US. I teach software with a few political outbursts here and there; i only stop my speeches when and if the listener has become pissed at the US.

Wow, so you tell your Canadian neighbors that the reason their lives were so messed up in Algeria is because of America?  Syrian lives are messed up because of America?  What's the basis? 

Tell me, what in the world does such a bright young(?) man such as yourself do for a living? 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5Kngf803dQ (this is funny)

Thanks to suyi who provided a link on the democrate debates,, I also found a link and excerpts on Buying the war..

sure did, they blame the US as they should. their country sucks because of american and western interference.. some don't blame the US, I just make sure they do at the end of debate.I wnat them to protest, I want them to revolt. X, you should see what I tell latinos of the americas.. ( trust me am also ashamed of our canadian political leaders)

Good job cyrano, you're surrounded by moderate Arabs but you feel it necessary to tell them how unjust the world is and help to turn them radical.  Thanks.  Ever ask them how bad their land sucked and why they came to Canada?

Mr X, after revision, yep I made a false claim based on bias, but I can now suggest latinos and black were replaced with Iraqis by the US army in this war..http://icasualties.org/oif/default.aspx The charts shows you how hateful and how much contempt your administration is having for Iraqis folk whom have lost their income.;; Iraqis have to be desperate enough to collaborate with an occupier against their own people.. all of this while 82% of Iraqis want U to go home, would spit on u for destroying their country or just spit on u cause you deserve it.. The US army changed whom were to die first when it deserted its criminal duty by creating a - sold out Iraqi- force. do You call this this american heroism ? is this heroism to have other (their victims ?) fight their war ? you should be ashame. I wonder if this is what your administration call success.. IMO Iraqis soldier should get a US pension on top of what they will get from Iraq , if they ever get something..

Helen K nobody can post under "Anonymous" (this was explained a while back) but you wrote a bunch so I went out of the system and came back as a non-registered participant and was able to post it in your name. Basically if you are not registered you have to do 3 or 4 image verifications ("captcha validations")...that is apparently how people get in with "(not verified)" after their "names." People are going to have to use a name or get deleted (I don't know what happened to Mr. X's comment...really don't...he can repost if he saved) But Helen K you are setting up false dichotomies as far as I'm concerned. One can simultaneously acknowledge Palestinian oppression and the pain of people suffering under...say the heavily U.S.-supported/supplied Saudi regime, which is perhaps the most repressive regime on earth...a totalitarian state and of course a key U.S. ally. Martin Luther King Jr used to say that "an injustice anywhere is an injustice everywhere" and the "my victims are more worthy than your victims" gets tiresome after a while. One legitemate criteria of comparison is frankly sheer numbers. This post is mainly about a topic linked of course to the illegal U.S. invasion of Iraq. "Our" policymakers and media weep buckets over 3300 dead U.S. soliders but can't even acknowledge (with rare exceptions like Kucinich in the Democratic presidential debate last night)700,000 dead Iraqi civilians...killed by Operation Iraqi Freedom. One can also simultaneously acknowledge (a) that oppression in the Arab world did not begin with Western intervention and that (b) that intervention has deeply worsened the situation of people in the Arab World...with the U.S. playing the leading negative outside/imperial ("Western") role since World War II. This is true in other worodl regions as well of course. And then of course there's the avoidance of specific issues in the post. I notice that blog commenting sections are afflicted with some version of "ADD", which makes sense. cyrano can accuse Mr. X of diverting but he sent folks off (including the host) the rather odd claim that Latinos were the main ethnocutlural casualty group among U.S. Iraq casualties.

Speaking of Arab children do you know how many of them got abandoned and end up begging or turning tricks in the streets of the wealthy Gulf states simply because they were born out of wedlock? Nobody will take them in because they are regarded "unclean".

Slavery was abolished officially in Saudi Arabia only in 1965 mostly because of international pressure and PR considerations, but semioffically the practice is alive and well in the Arab world. In 2007 Islamic scholars are still debating whether it is Islamic to keep slaves.

In addition to the genocide in Darfur, the Islamic fundamentalist regime in Sudan is steeped in the slave trade. It still uses crucifixion as a way of execution. To call it "fascist" is a vast understatement. That doesn't stop David Peterson to push the notion that Darfur is a Western smear job.

"Arab children" only get the sympathy of the extreme left if they are Palestinians or in other ways that can be used as propaganda against the West. If I am a "Fascist" at least I am consistent, your double standard is quite appalling.

It is simply false to attribute the inhumanities that prevade the Arab world to Western interventions. The West has its measure of responsibility but it is a comic book version of history to suggest that everything would be fine only if the West gets out. There are corrupt dictators in the Arab world who deal with the West from time to time, but it is vast simpification to think that they owe their existence to Western support. The Saudi Royal family is a political survivor which has been there in other incarnations before the British showed up and will likely be there after the Americans are gone. Study the history of the region and don't just see it through the Western eye. You never understand a region unless you approach its history on its own terms, for that the ahistorical accounts of much of leftist literature are not very helpful.

The Arabs are not just puppets of the West, they have their own minds too. It is patronizing and condescending to say that it is all the West's fault as if the Arabs don't have a mind of their own.

 

 

Helen K

apul, I dont get PBS, i looked on my cable programming the nite it was aired.. I guess , I'll have to wait for a free download.. mr x, you should keep on topic..

nope i Love people who have ideas and want to form an equal community for all.. It had nothing to do with love, it have all to do with stopping profiteer wars and yes, I like arabs better, there a neighbor's kid whom I nickname saladin and our favorite game is war against land thief and crusaders.. I am a french canadian in middles of moderate arabs and , I like to explain them the wrongs the west commit against them. most people here recognizes Israel some right to exist , I am not sure I am this generous. The way israel abuse arabs and the land expansion it illegally acquired deny israel this right .

Here is a story from today's New York Times: April 24, 2007 Pentagon Challenged on Lynch and Tillman By JOHN HOLUSHA Military and other administration officials created a heroic story about the death of Cpl. Pat Tillman to distract attention from setbacks in Iraq and the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the slain man's younger brother, Kevin Tillman, said today. Testifying before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, Mr. Tillman said the military knew almost immediately that Corporal Tillman, an Army Ranger who left a career as a pro football player to enlist, had been killed accidentally in Afghanistan in April 2004 by fire from his own unit. But officials chose to put a “patriotic glow” on his death, he said. Mr. Tillman said the decision to award his brother a Silver Star and to say that he died heroically fighting the enemy was “utter fiction” that was intended to “exploit Pat's death.” Former Pvt. Jessica Lynch leveled similar criticism today at the hearing about the initial accounts given by the Army of her capture in Iraq. Ms. Lynch was rescued from an Iraqi hospital in dramatic fashion by American troops after she suffered serious injuries and was captured in an ambush of her truck convoy in March 2003. In her testimony this morning, she said she did not understand why the Army put out a story that she went down firing at the enemy. “I'm confused why they lied,” she said. Mr. Tillman and Ms. Lynch appeared at a hearing called to examine why “inaccurate accounts of these two incidents” were put out by the administration. Today's session was part of the Democratically-controlled Congress's effort to hold the Bush Administration accountable for its conduct of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and other issues. Ms. Lynch said she could not know why she was depicted as a “Rambo from West Virginia,” when in fact she was riding in a truck, not fighting, when she was injured. Dr. Gene Bolles, a doctor who treated Ms. Lynch at a hospital in Germany after she was rescued, said that her injuries, while extensive, were not the result of bullet wounds, as first described. Mr. Tillman's tone was more bitter than Ms. Lynch's. He described the early accounts of his brother's death as “deliberate and calculated lies” and “deliberate acts of deceit,” rather than the result of confusion or innocent error. For her part, Ms. Lynch said in her testimony that other members of her unit had acted with genuine heroism that deserved the attention she received. “The bottom line is the American people are capable of determining their own ideas of heroes, and they don't need to be told elaborate tales,” she said. Representative Henry Waxman, Democrat of California, the chairman of the committee, said the hearings were intended to determine the “sources and motivations” for the erroneous accounts and to see whether Administration officials had been held accountable for them. END OF STORY Street Comment: there's so much terribly sad about this story, including, sad to say, Jessica Lynch's comment that "I am confused why they lied." For anyone who pays modestly informed attention to U.S. history and foreign policy and current events, there's just no mystery why they lied. None. Zero. The White House and Pentagon were trying to sell the criminal invasion of a weak, marginal, defenseless, and heavily impoverished yet (just coincidentally...right) oil rich nation as a noble and heroic campaign to save the American people and the world from a non-existent threat. The invasion was based on massive, highly organized, and criminally fraudulent deception, broken down in impressive detail by former federal prosecutor Elizabeth de la Vega's excellent book United States V. George Bush (New York: Seven Stories, 2006). Ms. de la Vega's literal if technically fictional federal Indictment against Bush, Dick Cheney, Condaleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld and Colin Powell itemizes Bush et al.'s campaign to deceive the U.S. public and Congress into supporting the monumentally illegal and immoral invasion (whose terrible consequences were significantly foreseen by many Establishment commentators and experts) with a number of false justifications "including but not limited to: * The alleged connection between Saddam Hussein and the attacks of September 121, 2001; * The alleged connection between Iraq and al Qaeda; * The alleged connection between Saddam Hussein and any terrorists wose primary animums was directed towards the United States; *Saddam Hussein's alleged intent to attack the United States in any way; *Saddam Hussein's possession of nuclear weapons and the status of any alleged ongoing nuclear weapons system; *The lack of any reasonable basis for asserting with certainty that Saddam Hussein was actively manufacturing chemical and biological weapons; and * the alleged urgency of any threat posed to the United states by Saddam Hussein" (de la Vega, p. 41). As de la Vega shows in relentless yet highly readable detail, the U.S. war on Iraq (of which the Lynch and Tillman incidents are small episodes) was largely the result of a gigantic and technically (and highly) illegal (under 18 U.S.C. Section 371) campaign to trick the nation into war. The whole invasion was and is based on lies, half-truths, selective deletions and the like. And in fact since 2005 the majority of Americans polled have said that Bush deliberately misrepresented prewar intelligence. It wasn't, most Americans know, about "bad intelligence;" it was about cooked intelligence. More Americans are like Kevin Tillman (see above) than Ms. Lynch about what's been going down; they know the score. So surely we must be on the brink of a major indictment and impeachment and removal proceedings, especially now that Democrats are in the majority in Congress, yes? No, most of us are being like "Kitty Genovese's neighbors...passive bystanders" (de la Vega, p. 18). We are convinced that our judgements and disgust are irrelevant and that nobody in a position of power will move forward to actually remove and punish the perpetrators. Kitty Genovese was the woman killed in NYC in the (I think) early 1960s - the one whose screams were clearly audible to a large number of her neighborhood's residents. None of those residents intervened to stop the killing and few if any even bothered to call the police. They sat or stood and listened paralyzed to the murderous madness right outside their doors, thinking that someone else must be taking care of it or that that there was nothing they could do. We are now supposed to "Move On" and invest our energies in the distant next quadrennial presidential election (the "realistic" political logic of which supposedly militates against serious Democratic efforts to take Bush down and out). Does anyone besdes me wonder if looking the other way at the current president's monumental arch-criminality gives a green light for similar conduct on the part of the next White House? According to de la Vega, "the proposition that it is not good political strategy to insist that government officials obey the law is highly debatable. More important, strategizing in the face of an ongoing crime is wrong. Ask any legislator whether he would strategize about possible political fallout before intervening to stop a crime that was occurring in front of his eyes and the response would be 'Of course not.' But that's exactly what's happening right now" (de la Vega, p. 19). Ms. de la Vega wrote that in 2006, before the Democrats rode the waves of popular antiwar sentiment into a Congressional majority, and (sad to say) her comment is just as - no even more - relevant today, as a Democratic-run Congress prepare to send Bush an Iraq war funding bill that gives the White House more money ($124 billion) than it requested. We the people need to discover some moral courage and not drop the impeachment issue (should we form a group called "Don'tMoveOn.org"?); we also need to revisit the primary and second school curriculums and the highly ideological media content that encourage so many Americans to be so tragically and unnecessarily confused about what the White House and the Pentagon are doing in the world. And on that note, a comrade just sent me the following: "Please read, post and spread widely--it is important!" " 'Devastating' Moyers Probe of Press and Iraq Coming" "By Greg Mitchell" April 19, 2007 9:00 PM ET "The most powerful indictment of the news media for falling down in its duties in the run-up to the war in Iraq will appear next Wednesday, a 90-minute PBS broadcast called 'Buying the War, which marks the return of 'Bill Moyers Journal. E&P was sent a preview DVD and a draft transcript for the program this week. While much of the evidence of the media's role as cheerleaders for the war presented here is not new, it is skillfully assembled, with many fresh quotes from interviews..." I can't paste the whole note in. I assume the Wednesday meant here is tomorrow. So look in your television listings under PBS and set the time aside the time to see "Buying the War."

Man, you really do love little Arab children more than anything else in the world don't you? 

You should travel to the middle east and experience those countries that you so blindly support first hand.  Otherwise, you will remain an ignoramus who can't put together a cogent sentence. 

Tell us though, what did you read to get the brilliant notion that Israel is a "pseudo-state?"  What book, what website, what pamphlet?  Or, did you come up with that all by yourself?

You bare some responsibility for what your government, your country does another. Hamas does not look like it exceed the number of kidnappings the pseudo-state of Israel does.

"and remember that each arab children that died is a lot of your fault because you didn't do enough to spare them."

 Huh? What are you talking about? Are you an arabphile?

Are you aware of the number of kidnappings Hamas is responsible for in the last month alone?

Are you aware of the dictators that sit in desert palaces while their tribesmen sit in squalor?

 And it is my fault?  You truely are an emotional basketcase.

Mr X too bad you don't blame the US administration for same for their inability to use logic and reason as you do with me and at the very least with me, you did not see witness the bombing innocent people under the must extreme bad faith like it happened from your Washington leaders. Also the difference between you and me and the like of -you- and the administration circus you - cherish - , I may have some ability to correct my errors when confronted. You and the administration you support cannot account or repairs the lives of the ones the innocent that have died and repairs the life of the ones that have been shattered because of your fucked up policies.. Instead of researching, try to find your soul somewhere if it exist..and remember that each arab children that died is a lot of your fault because you didn't do enough to spare them.

Cyrano says: On positive note, I am unable to use logic and reason to arrive at a position, but am able to use faulty research and emotion! 

There is no "anonymous" posting here; this was explained a while back and is part of a change that has been introduced in many parts of the blogosphere.

paul on a positive note and at the very least, these young blacks are not sent to an illegal war..

okay - check the link though. Latinos coming in second would fit ethnic/race trends in US Census and subsequent American Community Survey data. Latino population is a a heavily working-class population and the U.S. Armed Forces rely heavily on the working class. One thing that is a factor is that the criminal justice system has now marked so many black males with a felony record (1 in 3 black males possesses a felony record thanks largely to the racially disparate enforcement of the insane homeland War on Drugs [war on yong black males]) that may be keeping a fair amount of African-American males out of the recruitment base.

yep I have been lazy... http://icasualties.org/oif/ETHNICITY.aspx latinos come second after the white in casualities.. here is the pie chart, sorry , i should had verified before makin a statement..

sorry.

It's really time to significantly elevate the level of your information and research. I continue to wonder if the Internet is doing more harm than good.

as long as helen is not fascist, apologies to helen. the latino demographics were claimed in this animation, the rest is my own bias. http://www.abcolombia.com/ I email the author cause i wanna see the author sources..

Latino casualties are quite pronounced in current campaigns/wars (more pronounced than ever before...not surprising given recent demographic developments) but there are plenty of white soldiers and black soldiers dying...Latinos are not "the main fatality." I don't think the casualties have been significantly disproportionate toward any ethnocultural group, though I could be wrong. I think you are unfair to Helen K. - may have misread her comments to date. "Letsroll" is some kind of fascist...very odd.

I had report that US army main fatality in Iraq and Afghanistan are latinos whom enrolled in the illegal wars. there is a big lack of white anglo soldiers and its like the insurgents claims, they don't want to go out.. This may be the underlying reason why the media have to fabricates american heroism and the truth about this heroism is shooting civilians pretending they are insurgents.. in the other hand the US is filled of pseudo american heroes, like Letsroll, Rudy, Helen K who kiss any of the establisment ass. Thanks for the link Paul, ill try to tune to PBS at 9 pm. I aint sure i have this channel, i hooked cable tv only recently( its gonna go off again soon as we are not happy with the programming..)

Thanks for checking in and engaging substantive issues raised in the blog "Letsroll." Such nonsense aside, I appreciate some recent comments on the blog. Happy to see quantity fall quite low as long as quality rises. As "Letsroll"'s comment suggests, it's sometimes best to say nothing.

Here's link on PBS/Moyers' "Buying the War" 

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/blog/2007/04/preview_buying_the_war.html

I'll have to watch it of course but it seems to me dominant media's biggest sin was Selling the war.

You are still a Zionist 9/11 coward.