Laurie Calhoun joins Philip Maldari on The Sunday Show on KPFA 94.1 in Berkeley to discuss the recent history of war crimes, including the 1999 Kosovo intervention, the 2003 War on Iraq, the 2011 Bombing of Libya, and the current military conflict in Ukraine. Also covered are drone assassination and the Global War on Terror, NATO, the distinction between the USSR and Russia, red lines, Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Vietnam, Operation Desert Storm (the 1991 Gulf War), Afghanistan, and the spectre of nuclear conflict between the United States and Russia. The recorded discussion took place on March...
“War Criminals Past and Present,” on KPFA 94.1 Flashpoints, Pacifica Radio
Laurie Calhoun joins Dennis J. Bernstein on Flashpoints, a program of KPFA 94.1, Pacifica Radio, to discuss War Criminals Past and Present. The discussion begins about 34 minutes into the hour-long program, which was recorded on March 24, 2022. https://thedroneage.wordpress.com/2022/03/25/kfpa-94-1-flashpointspacifica-radio-war-criminals-past-and-present/
RIP Madeleine Albright
And while we're on the topic of war criminals: https://accuracy.org/release/bush-rumsfeld-war-criminals/
Whatever Happened to Medical Ethics?
I recall being shown in grade school a series of short films about the danger of seemingly friendly men who drove popsicle trucks and tried to lure young children into accepting free treats. We were sternly instructed to stay far, far away from such people. How the world has changed. Today we have political leaders with no knowledge of our personal health situation asking us to accept injections of experimental substances for the simple reason that they have been told by their advisers (also ignorant of our circumstances) that it would be good for us to do. It is a bizarre, even absurd idea,...
Lessons from Fentanyl
The use of drugs is sometimes characterized as a victimless crime, since the person who ingests them will bear the negative consequences should something go awry. Supporters of prohibition, who wish for the government to regulate and limit sales and distribution, are typically concerned with not only the moral effects on individuals themselves but also what might be called the “collateral damage”: the family and community members affected by the user who succumbs and loses “the plot” of his life, so to speak. This concern with “collateral damage,” however, applies to drug (including alcohol)...
The Pharma Revolution Is Being Televised
Marketing is essentially the art of persuading people to buy what they would not have bought, left to their own devices. This is achieved through manipulating either desires or perceptions of need. People who do not watch television are exposed to much less advertising of consumer products than are people who do. Similarly, the less time one spends surfing the internet, expressing either explicit or implicit interest in buying possible products, the fewer items there will likely be in one’s various shopping carts, not only because marketers now target people with ads catering to their...
Your federal tax dollars hard at work…
Courageously protecting the world from people who drive white Toyota Corollas and move stuff around town. https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/19/politics/military-releases-videos-august-drone-strike-killed-civilians/index.html
From GITMO to the ‘Killing Machine’
Twenty years ago, on January 11, 2002, the prison at Guantánamo Bay (GITMO) admitted its first round of post-9/11 terrorist suspects. Two recent films, The Mauritanian (2021) and The Forever Prisoner (2021), chart parts of the ugly history of the facility, during which acts of torture were rebranded by officials as “enhanced interrogation techniques” (EIT) and inflicted on at least 119 of the 780 men held at GITMO over the course of the Global War on Terror. The story of Mohamedou Ould Slahi, who was cleared for release in 2010 but remained incarcerated for another seven years as the Obama...