The Ukrainian war propaganda is a pack of lies

All summer long, we've been subjected to the heaviest barrage of war propaganda since 9/11 ... and it's mostly crap.  None of it, actually, rings true to me.  None of it.

Last week we heard claims of a full-scale invasion of Ukraine by Russian forces.  That claim came from Ukrainian officials who first claimed 1,000 Russian troops crossed the border and then dramatically increased that to 4-5 thousand ground troops backed by columns of tanks and other armored vehicles.  There was no evidence of that, other than a few photos that could have shown anything, really ... but essentially showed nothing at all.  Reminds me of the photos used to "prove" the existence of Saddam Hussein's vast stockpiles of WMD.  They looked like screenshots from a video game.  We're not even getting adult lies; we're getting lies that a child would make.

But here's the thing:  It never happened. It's all bullshit, people, don't buy it this time.  Don't let friends go around selling it.

To their credit, the American military officials admitted they couldn't confirm any of those claims and, over the weekend, President Obama refused to lend any credence to them.  That marks a change, actually, since US officials have been "rubber-stamping" the false claims of the Ukrainian government for months now.

You wonder why you don't hear about the Malaysian Airliner (MH 017) that was allegedly shot down by the Russian surface-to-air missile?  Because it never happened.  That airliner was almost certainly shot down by the Ukrainian government fighter-jet that was detected approaching the plane just before it crashed.  The facts simply don't support the propaganda.

What is most interesting to me is the contrast in the way the Russian government and the US government handled the downing of MH 17 is striking.  The US immediately made unfounded claims it later had to retract after the Intelligence agencies refused to back up Secretary of State John Kerry's claims (which were baseless in fact, in other words, they were lies).

But the Russian government patiently asked for the US to assist them, and called for:

1. the US to use its satellite surveillance videos to verify what the Russians' own intelligence suggested might be a Ukrainian Su-25 ascending at high speed toward the Malaysian jetliner (http://en.itar-tass.com/world/741655)
2. the publishing of the photos and the data captured by US satellites in order to determine the cause of the crash. (never released)
3. an independent investigation of the crash by the International Civil Aviation Organization

The Russians were not the ones attempting to hide the satellite surveillance photos that can reveal the truth about that incident.  The US, at least, has used good sense in backing away from recent Ukrainian government claims that simply aren't verifiable.  In other words, propaganda lies.

All morality is individual

Moral autonomy is having the freedom, and possessing the courage and the will, to make moral decisions on one's own, individually.  It's standing on one's own two feet; and sometimes that requires sacrifice.

Moral autonomy is at the root of what is termed "character."  Character is always individual.  You don't display character by joining a group.  Moral autonomy is the ability to choose the right course of action, by oneself, without any outside pressure or influence.

Look at the lives and example of the men who signed the US Declaration of Independence in 1776.   These were men who were making a moral choice; not because they believed it would profit themselves personally; indeed, the likelihood was that it would cost them everything; two of the signers had British forces camped right next to their estates.  Those two men knew that they stood to lose those estates as soon as they signed the Declaration.  They signed anyway.

All those who signed the Declaration of Independence knew that they were committing an act of high treason; punishable by death. They weren't doing what they knew to be legal; what they were told was their patriotic duty; which was to remain steadfastly loyal to God and to King.  They knew that if they did not win their war of rebellion – and the likelihood of their winning that war was considered remote – they would all be hung as traitors.  They committed their act of treason knowing that to survive they would have to defeat the most powerful army in the world (they did not even yet have an army of their own!), and for years they would stand alone because no other government in the world gave them a chance of succeeding. They signed their Declaration anyway. They endured five years of almost constant defeats, each year looking more hopeless than the last. They fought on anyway.

Character is not based on what is legal, what is condoned by the state, by the law, by the church, or by the society at large.  It is always individual.  It is never coerced. Character cannot develop in an environment in which ethical decisions are forced upon the individual. Character is a product of judgment, discretion, and choice – born from a person's free agency. A decision that is coerced cannot be a moral decision, and thus cannot be a decision of character. Compliance with the law does not, in itself, constitute character.

Character has been defined as the ability to make ethical decisions always on behalf of the common good combined with the discipline and the strength to carry through with those decisions.   Character is the application of moral principles, ethics, in the way we live and act.  Character doesn't change with popular opinion, the political climate, or with a tide of nationalism or emotion. Character is consistent.

Character is having the courage to accept moral responsibility and accountability for one's own actions. 

The core of all character lies in individuality. Character is a moral fact: and, until life is individual, it is not moral. And by individual we mean something single, separate, and alone, that cannot be accounted for from outside, cannot be grouped under any general laws, cannot be extracted out of outside conditions. Its actions must spring from out of itself.  It is this seal of individuality which it sets on everything that comes out from it, which makes it a character. Sometimes it stamps it weakly, and then we say a person has little or no character; or sometimes it stamps it forcibly, and then we say, "That is a man of character."

– Henry Scott Holland, Creed and Character, 1887

Never base a moral choice on its popularity. Always do what you know is right; even if that decision draws hostility from others.   Even if you see no possibility of personal profit from it.  Even if you are forced to stand alone against everyone else you know; do it anyway.

Especially if you must stand alone; that is exactly when you must.  It takes no courage to join a lynch mob.

Ferguson: It's about America's militarized police forces

The story is not about the slaying of Michael Brown, or the protests in the community of Ferguson Missouri ... for that matter, the story is not about the actions of a single cop, or the irresponsibility of those who defended his act of cowardice.

It's about the massive military response to unarmed citizens demonstrating police brutality in their community.  Armored vehicles, helicopters, grenade launchers, assault rifles, bulletproof vests, night vision equipment, and various other sorts of battle gear. With the continuing protests in Ferguson, the militarization of police has become so obvious that even the mainstream media are catching on.

And without Ferguson, and the street protests, we'd never have known about what happened to Michael Brown.  Far too many people simply don't care; and won't, of course, until the cops are in the streets of their community killing their own.  But a growing number of people are beginning to question the police state and, as emotions subside, more and people are beginning to realize that it's not nearly as simple as one white cop killing one unarmed black youth; it's about a massively over-militarized police state that will stand firm on its right to kill anyone it chooses; they'll be the judge of who deserves to die.

The increasing up-armoring of local police with military equipment and, more importantly, its acceptance by a timid frightened public, is a symptom of growing authoritarianism.

Ferguson is a symptom of a seriously authoritarian society.  The military and the police force do not exist to protect individual liberty, or American constitutional rights to privacy, free speech and assembly.  The military and the police exist to protect the State.  And, on a larger scale, national sovereignty.

The first allegiance of the military and the police is always to the State. 

What happened to Seal Team Six ... do you know?

So, what do you think really happened to the 17 members of U.S. Navy SEAL Team 6 who carried out the capture/execution of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan?  Are they around to give testimony about what happened during that mission? 

On August 6, 2011, a US Navy CH-47D Chinook helicopter was allegedly shot down by a Taliban fighter armed with an RPG.  The crash took the lives of all 17 SEALs and five crew members on board, in the worst one-day loss in the history of U.S. naval special operations.  [source]

Just like the high-resolution video from the night-vision helmet cams, and the body of Osama bin Laden; they're all gone; forever. All we have now are the Pentagon files from the raid; its planning and execution .... oops, my bad ... it was a little more than one year ago that US Navy Admiral William McRaven, the naval officer who oversaw the Navy SEAL raid admitted that he ordered all US files on that raid to be purged from Department of Defense computers to the control of the CIA in a move that effectively kept that information secret from the public.  In the hands of the CIA, the files are legally exempted from the Freedom of Information Act and are effectively shielded from ever being made public.

Which explained why, two and a half years ago, the Defense Department was totally unable to produce any of that information in response to Freedom of Information Act requests by the Associated Press.

The Defense Department told the AP in March 2012 it could not locate any photographs or video taken during the raid or showing bin Laden's body. It also said it could not find any images of bin Laden's body on the USS Carl Vinson, the aircraft carrier from which he was buried at sea. The Pentagon also said it could not find any death certificate, autopsy report or results of DNA identification tests for bin Laden, or any pre-raid materials discussing how the government planned to dispose of bin Laden's body if he were killed. It said it searched files at the Pentagon, Special Operations Command headquarters in Tampa, Fla., and the Navy command in San Diego that controls the Carl Vinson.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/07/08/report-bin-laden-raid-files-purged-from-pentagon-computers-sent-to-cia/

In other words, that information essentially went into the proverbial memory hole. No proof of anything, just the official account of what happened. There is no evidence to back up the official story, or to prove that Osama bin Laden was alive at the time of the raid; and that he was killed in the raid.  Remember, the alleged corpse of bin Laden was allegedly flown to Bagram Airfield in Afghanistan for identification, and immediately put on a helicopter which was flown out over the Indian Ocean where the body was dumped into the see because "no country would accept his remains."

French Emperor Bonaparte was right, "History is written by the winners."  The truth, however, isn't susceptible to convenient interpretation.  We know only the history that is being written; we don't know the truth, and we never will.

Two demonstrations of cowardice, contrasted

I hate to comment on any item that's currently in the US news, largely because everything in the US is so politicized, and so emotionalized; there's really little point in trying to refute emotion with logic.

Now that emotions are subsiding somewhat; it is good to see journalists start to comment correctly about the beheading of the American journalist by Sunni militants. When I heard of it, my immediate thoughts were that the executioner did it with his own hands; and that he took full and individual responsibility for his actions.  Barbaric, perhaps, hard to watch, but that's only because it was more "up close and personal" than a missile strike; but effectively no different.Contrast that beheading with the indiscriminate killing of women and children in Pakistan using robots ... which is far more barbaric.  The use of machinery in no way glorifies or sanctifies those murders.  They are every bit as condemnable as the ISIS beheading.  Every bit. And, in the number of innocents killed, far worse.

As Eric Margolis (who has, himself, been a war journalist) said, "We westerners have a charming and quaint  belief that killing people from the air by using bombs, rockets, shells, napalm and cluster munitions – or even nuclear weapons – is somehow not really as bad as ramming a bayonet into an enemy, blowing him to pieces with heavy artillery, or slashing his throat the way sheep are killed Air warfare is clean. Air warfare is the American way of war."

Murder isn't sanctified by the use of technology.  It is sick to even think that way.

Eric also pointed out that at the very same time James Foley is alleged to have been being executed, Saudi Arabia, a close ally of the US, announced it had executed 19 people in public beheadings for various crimes. [source]  One of the victims was beheaded for witchcraft. There was no outcry at all in the US mainstream media over that medieval horror.

Send those young American soldiers back into Iraq, President Obama ... c'mon, I double-dog dare ya! 

200 years ago: August 24, 1814

On August 24, 1814, after soundly defeating the Americans at the Battle of Bladensburg Maryland, a British force led by Major General Robert Ross (pursuing American militia who actually fled in panic through the streets of Washington D.C.) occupied the capital city and set fire to many public buildings. The facilities of the U.S. government, including the White House and U.S. Capitol, were largely destroyed, and there was absolutely no effective American resistance. The British commander gave orders to burn only public buildings and the strict discipline among the British troops ensured that his orders were followed; as a result, the city's private buildings were preserved.

The War of 1812 was a humiliating defeat for the Americans; and that humiliation was felt for years ... but with the passage of time, Americans have claimed the war as a victory.  It wasn't, although it wasn't truly a British victory either, since American aspirations of forcing the British off the continent had already been destroyed ... but for Canadians, it was a huge success; affirming Canadian solidity and sovereignty.  

The real losers, of course, were the American Indians of the upper Mississippi and the Ohio territory; that's another story.

Why the Iraqi people aren't friends of the US

I believe the United States is trying (unsuccessfully) to convince the people who live in Iraq that the US is their savior.  But Iraqis know better.

Before the UN economic sanctions against Iraq that were imposed by the UN Security Council on August 6, 1990, and pushed through almost solely by the US and one of its two remaining allies of consequence (Great Britain and Israel), life for the average Iraqi was far better than it is now. Prior to the sanctions, there was abundant cheap gasoline in the country. There was free health care for all citizens, and there was a modern educational system.

Don't believe me? Check it out for yourself ... please convince me that I'm wrong. 

And you may actually be able to do so; I'd love to be wrong about this, but I don't think you will ever convince the Iraqi populace. Who is responsible for the miserable state of affairs in their country? The US government blamed it almost solely on Saddam Hussein, the Iraqis only know that the economic sanctions of the last decade brought them hunger, disease, ignorance and, eventually ... another war.

Just keep in mind that it doesn't matter if you believe that the Hussein regime is directly responsible for the UN economic sanctions ... it only matters what the Iraqi people believe at this point ... and after the poverty, bloodshed and homelessness left behind by US armed forces, they still haven't been convinced that they're better off for having lost their strongman leader. 

Has "democracy" ever been brought to a nation at the point of a gun?  Does it ever work that way?

...

UNICEF and other International relief and human rights agencies blame the sanctions (not the Hussein regime) for the decline of education in Iraq:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_Iraq

BAGHDAD - Ten years ago, Iraq had one of the best health care systems in the Middle East. Now, that system is in ruin because of UN sanctions:

http://www.irinnews.org/report/97964/war-leaves-lasting-impact-on-healthcare