Wednesday, April 6, 2011

American soldiers kicked severed Iraqi head like soccer ball

From U.S. war deserter tells refugee board of atrocities

TORONTO -- A "trigger-happy" U.S. army squad leader shot the foot off an unarmed Iraqi man and soldiers kicked a severed head around like a soccer ball, a U.S. war deserter told an Immigration and Refugee Board hearing Thursday.

Joshua Key, the first U.S. deserter with combat experience in Iraq to apply for refugee status in Canada, told the board he witnessed numerous atrocities committed by U.S. forces while serving eight months as a combat engineer.

Key, 27, said he was never trained on the Geneva Convention and was told in Iraq by superior officers that the international law guiding humanitarian standards was just a "guideline."

"It's shoot first, ask questions later," Key said of his squad's guiding principles. "Everything's justified."

Key is one of five members of the U.S. armed forces asking for asylum in Canada.

But the Oklahoma native is unique in that he is the only applicant that has combat experience in Iraq, said Key's lawyer, Jeffry House. The other are seeking asylum in Canada to avoid being sent there, he said.

"He has boots-on-the-ground experience about what the actual conduct of the war in Iraq is," House said outside the hearing.

With visible bags under his eyes, Key told the hearing he suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and frequently has nightmares over what he witnessed in Iraq.

He recalled participating in almost nightly raids on homes of suspected insurgents in Ramadi and Fallujah as a member of the 43rd Combat Engineer Company.

He said that while the raids seldom turned up anything of interest, he often saw soldiers ransack the homes and steal jewelry or money, while superior officers looked the other way.

He also said several Iraqis were shot dead, and that they were cases of soldiers "shooting out of fear and inventing reasons afterward."

In Ramadi, Key said he saw the beheaded bodies of four Iraqis beside a shot-up truck and witnessed several members of the Florida National Guard kick a severed head "like a soccer ball."




Key also said he witnessed one of his "trigger happy" platoon's squad sergeants shoot part of an unarmed Iraqi man's foot off in Khaldia, a village between Fallujah and Ramadi. The man was sitting on a chair outside a store and had raised his foot as a sign of disrespect, he said.

Key added he was never questioned about the incident and was not aware of any charges being laid.

Dialogues - Underground


Dialogues -- Underground (Excerpt)
Cartes Flux / Festival of New Media Art
Live performance at Kino Tapiola
Thu 21 Oct 2010

Dialogues Underground is an audiovisual-project by sound artist Oravainen, rap-artist Paleface, VJ Group Random Doctors, producer/mc Blunttech and VJ Klaustrofobia. Live performances are based on improvised interactive dialogue between experimental electronic live music, turntablism, spoken word, rap, poetry and live visuals: video and still footage, motion graphics and live cameras.

Live performance was a part of Paperittomat (Undocumented) Exhibition program (Finissage).

Contains excerpts from Paperittomat (Undocumented) publication (HS Kirjat 2010) by Kaisa Viitanen & Katja Tähjä


Sounds
Paleface
Oravainen
Blunttech

Visuals
VJ Klaustrofobia
VJ Group Random Doctors

Camera
Paul Kabungo
Kalle Kuisma

Editing
Klaustrofobia
rajatonvimma

Some still frame captures from the video:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24264756@N00/sets/72157626265912742/ 

Solidarité avec les sans-papiers!

pax pax pax

We Will Continue Resisting the Occupation - Coalition of Women for Peace

Musical Innerlube: Kraftwerk - Radioactivity

Belizean Grove - A Bohemian Grove For Women

From A Club for the Women Atop the Ladder by Pamela Ryckman, New York Times

On the site of a 17th-century monastery in Cartagena, Colombia, a sort of Illuminati of the business and political worlds gathered in February for their annual winter rites.

Drawn from government, banking, technology and beyond, its members form a rare — and global — power elite. Each has been tapped, in Skull and Bones fashion, by an existing member. Each searches out and grooms new talent — people who can add to this group’s considerable wealth, knowledge and power.

But men need not apply: this exclusive club is women-only.

It is called Belizean Grove, and if you haven’t heard of it, you’re not alone. Founded 12 years ago, it operates mostly under the radar. The first time it received any real public attention was in 2009, when it became known that Sonia Sotomayor, now a Supreme Court justice, was among its 125 or so members. (She has since quit.)

Despite its low profile, Belizean Grove is fast becoming what could be considered the world’s ultimate old girls’ club. Perhaps that’s no surprise, as it is modeled on one of the nation’s most exclusive old boys’ clubs, Bohemian Grove. That hush-hush group, an extension of the 139-year-old Bohemian Club in San Francisco, has counted so many rich and powerful men among its ranks — including the presidents Eisenhower, Carter, Nixon and both Bushes — that it sounds like something out of a Dan Brown novel. Indeed, in 1942, the men of Bohemian Grove, who meet each summer under a canopy of redwoods in Monte Rio, Calif., dreamed up the Manhattan Project.

Some members of Belizean Grove are working on a mission of their own: the White House Project. Its goal is to have a woman elected president.

“Grovers,” as the members are known, tend to be in their 50s and 60s, and though most are not household names, they represent a rare confluence of wealth and influence. They serve as directors of companies including Xerox, Procter & Gamble, NYSE Euronext, Nasdaq, Nordstrom, DSW, PetSmart and REI. Some previously held high-level positions at blue-chip companies but then left to form their own businesses.

Members also include a Canadian senator and the chief operating officer of the Episcopal Church. Many are Americans, but others are from countries including Colombia, Ecuador, Iceland and New Zealand.

Grovers have capitalized on their network by cutting deals, making multimillion-dollar investments and hiring and mentoring up-and-coming businesswomen. Along the way, the group has become a model for a growing number of women’s business networks.

Members say they have worked and invested together and helped one another join corporate boards, but they are hesitant to reveal details of specific deals. Above all, Grovers protect one another’s privacy.


Fall Of The Republic - The Presidency Of Barack H Obama

Fall Of The Republic documents how an offshore corporate cartel is bankrupting the US economy by design. Leaders are now declaring that world government has arrived and that the dollar will be replaced by a new global currency.

President Obama has brazenly violated Article 1 Section 9 of the US Constitution by seating himself at the head of United Nations' Security Council, thus becoming the first US president to chair the world body.

A scientific dictatorship is in its final stages of completion, and laws protecting basic human rights are being abolished worldwide; an iron curtain of high-tech tyranny is now descending over the planet.

A worldwide regime controlled by an unelected corporate elite is implementing a planetary carbon tax system that will dominate all human activity and establish a system of neo-feudal slavery.

The image makers have carefully packaged Obama as the world's savior; he is the Trojan Horse manufactured to pacify the people just long enough for the globalists to complete their master plan.

This film reveals the architecture of the New World Order and what the power elite have in store for humanity. More importantly it communicates how We The People can retake control of our government, turn the criminal tide and bring the tyrants to justice.
http://www.infowars.com/

West Wing disappears behind noisy construction job

Mark Smith's Associated Press report on KIII TV:

The West Wing of the White House is vanishing.

In recent weeks, an expanding and sometimes earsplitting zone of excavation has enveloped the mansion's famous office wing. Heavy equipment and metal-and-concrete superstructures are part of the vast construction project.

The front door and the Marine who guards it have disappeared behind a high green-and-white plywood fence. From Pennsylvania Avenue, all that's visible is a sliver of second-floor roofline.

For years to come, the front yard at 1600 Pennsylvania will remain a noisy building site, say officials in charge of the White House's "Big Dig."

The White House describes the job as an overdue upgrade of underground utilities. That includes water and sewer lines, electrical conduits, pipes for chilled and hot water and steam heat systems, and storm sewers. Heating, air conditioning and fire alarm systems are being replaced. Some systems are getting backups.

A mysterious tunnel is being built, too.

Crews have poured huge concrete pylons, erected retaining walls and brought in truckloads of steel I-beams. The construction site has expanded from in front of the West Wing around to the side and across a parking lot to the next-door Eisenhower Executive Office Building.

Inevitably, the work has fueled speculation that what's really being built is some secret, new underground lair.

Fresh inquiries by The Associated Press to the General Services Administration, which is supervising the work, have elicited denials.

~ more... ~


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image from http://www.spitting-image.net

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