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The Saker
A bird's eye view of the vineyard

offsite link Alternative Copy of thesaker.is site is available Thu May 25, 2023 14:38 | Ice-Saker-V6bKu3nz
Alternative site: https://thesaker.si/saker-a... Site was created using the downloads provided Regards Herb

offsite link The Saker blog is now frozen Tue Feb 28, 2023 23:55 | The Saker
Dear friends As I have previously announced, we are now “freezing” the blog.? We are also making archives of the blog available for free download in various formats (see below).?

offsite link What do you make of the Russia and China Partnership? Tue Feb 28, 2023 16:26 | The Saker
by Mr. Allen for the Saker blog Over the last few years, we hear leaders from both Russia and China pronouncing that they have formed a relationship where there are

offsite link Moveable Feast Cafe 2023/02/27 ? Open Thread Mon Feb 27, 2023 19:00 | cafe-uploader
2023/02/27 19:00:02Welcome to the ‘Moveable Feast Cafe’. The ‘Moveable Feast’ is an open thread where readers can post wide ranging observations, articles, rants, off topic and have animate discussions of

offsite link The stage is set for Hybrid World War III Mon Feb 27, 2023 15:50 | The Saker
Pepe Escobar for the Saker blog A powerful feeling rhythms your skin and drums up your soul as you?re immersed in a long walk under persistent snow flurries, pinpointed by

The Saker >>

Public Inquiry
Interested in maladministration. Estd. 2005

offsite link RTEs Sarah McInerney ? Fianna Fail?supporter? Anthony

offsite link Joe Duffy is dishonest and untrustworthy Anthony

offsite link Robert Watt complaint: Time for decision by SIPO Anthony

offsite link RTE in breach of its own editorial principles Anthony

offsite link Waiting for SIPO Anthony

Public Inquiry >>

Human Rights in Ireland
Promoting Human Rights in Ireland

Human Rights in Ireland >>

Lockdown Skeptics

The Daily Sceptic

offsite link The Right vs the Woke State Mon Dec 30, 2024 19:00 | Richard Eldred
How should conservatives approach our woke institutions? Why, as all of public life has become politicised, is Parliament itself increasingly toothless? Watch Niall Gooch on all that and more.
The post The Right vs the Woke State appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Is Data Always the ?Absolute Truth?? Mon Dec 30, 2024 17:12 | Joanna Gray
"Data is the absolute truth," said Nigel Farage recently. "Oh Nige," says Joanna Gray, "don?t be so gullible." Data is like the kitchen drawer: an incoherent mass of things that seemed useful. What we need are principles.
The post Is Data Always the “Absolute Truth”? appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Thousands of Council Staff Allowed to ?Work From Beach? Mon Dec 30, 2024 15:00 | Will Jones
Thousands of council staff have been allowed to work from the beach in locations such as Barbados, South Africa and Thailand since the pandemic despite six authorities?declaring bankruptcy in that time.
The post Thousands of Council Staff Allowed to ‘Work From Beach’ appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link Asymptomatic Spread is Still a Myth Mon Dec 30, 2024 13:00 | Dr Clare Craig
In 2020 anyone claiming Covid was like influenza was branded a conspiracy theorist. Yet now we hear demands for masks and social distancing for flu. But asymptomatic spread is a myth for flu as well, says Dr Clare Craig.
The post Asymptomatic Spread is Still a Myth appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

offsite link ?Green? Scottish Ferry Emits Far More CO2 Than Old Diesel Ship Mon Dec 30, 2024 11:11 | Will Jones
The CO2 emissions of a long-delayed and over-budget 'green' Scottish ferry will be far larger than that of the old diesel ship it is set to replace. Once again the benefits of a 'green' technology are hugely oversold.
The post ‘Green’ Scottish Ferry Emits Far More CO2 Than Old Diesel Ship appeared first on The Daily Sceptic.

Lockdown Skeptics >>

US Soldiers Go On A Drunken Murder Rampage In Afghanistan And Then Burn The Bodies

category international | anti-war / imperialism | news report author Sunday March 11, 2012 20:49author by lefty Report this post to the editors

Western forces shot dead 16 civilians including nine children in southern Kandahar province on Sunday, Afghan officials said, in a rampage that witnesses said was carried out by American soldiers who were laughing and appeared drunk. Media are trying to spin the incident and limit the damage by claiming just one soldier was responsible. The old "one bad apple" excuse. But The whole corrupt applecart is in danger of being overturned as a result of this latest atrocity, in the wake of the "Koran burning" incident which so far has led to 23 deaths (guardian)
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According to Reuters news agency: One Afghan father who said his children were killed in the shooting spree accused soldiers of later burning the bodies. Witnesses told Reuters they saw a group of U.S. soldiers arrive at their village in Kandahar's Panjwayi district at around 2 am, enter homes and open fire. The incident, one of the worst of its kind since the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, is likely to deepen the divide between Washington and Kabul. The U.S. embassy in Kabul said an American soldier had been detained over the shooting. It added that anti-U.S. reprisals were possible following the killings, which come just weeks after U.S. soldiers burned copies of the Koran at a NATO base, triggering widespread anti-Western protests.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai condemned the rampage as "intentional murders" and demanded an explanation from the United States. His office said the dead included nine children and three women.

An Afghan minister earlier told Reuters that a lone U.S. soldier had killed up to 16 people when he burst into homes in villages near his base in the middle of the night.

Panjwayi district is about 35 km (22 miles) west of the provincial capital Kandahar city. The district is considered the spiritual home of the Taliban and is believed to be a hive of insurgent activity.

Haji Samad said 11 of his relatives were killed in one house, including his children. Pictures showed blood-splattered walls where the children were killed.

"They (Americans) poured chemicals over their dead bodies and burned them," a weeping Samad told Reuters at the scene.

[Full story here.....]

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author by Tpublication date Mon Mar 12, 2012 10:47author address author phone Report this post to the editors

It has long be known that soldiers before and during deployment are subjected to a barrage of propaganda designed to help them hate the enemy and work them up so much that they easily go about their mission of killing people. In this propaganda the message is relentlessly drilled into them that the locals are all terrorists and are evil but not only that they are sub-human. This is exactly the sort of stuff from the Nazi SS era and it is used because it works. Place that in the context of soldiers on daily patrols, under fire regularly and perhaps seen some of the mates killed or injured and you have a very volatile mix.

We should also remember that the kill ratio between the occupying force and the locals is about 1 to 300 or 400 people. In other words for every US/UK/NATO soldier killed, about 300 to 400 Afghans are killed. This means that many of the combat soldiers (which are less than half of total deployment) have already shot and killed people. This will have profound and deep confusing and emotional trauma and effects on their minds especially considering they like most people will have grown up in a place where all their life they are taught killing is wrong and has penal consequences, yet whilst on duty, there appears to be none and they are very likely rewarded in some form either through bravado from superior officers or dishing out of medals and 'honors'.

Finally, the media is now pushing the lone gunman theory even though Reuters initial report said the shooting was conducted by a group of U.S. soldiers. Surely it is quite odd that everything that happens with regard to the US is always the lone gunman whether it is presidential assassinations or many of the other similar shootings in Afghanistan or Iraq or even the torture abuses in Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq. The beauty of the lone gunman is simply to take away any responsibility of these things from larger structures of military forces, institutes, actual policies and the government itself. That is its purpose.

author by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite partypublication date Mon Mar 12, 2012 11:10author address author phone Report this post to the editors

And for example of the chain of command behind the pattern no better illustration than the uncannily parallel current slaughter in Gaza by the Israeli cuckoo state...

At the heart of the problem is the obsolete warrior culture based on tribal aggression(and counter necessity of defence from external aggression), elevated now into the super-tribalisms of nationalism and coallitions of willing abettors.
We are implicated collectively ourselves, throught he mercenary facilitation of these atrocities through Shannon.

Its worth noting that the BBC World Service was quoting locals as saying this was not a lone lunatic but a squad hit.

It goes all the way back to playstation war-game aggression-promoting in kids transferring into adolescent recruits controlling drones from upstate NY to take out villages in Pakistan...no doubt keeping score and placing bets on 'kill-rates', an actual term used in the weapons sales-manuals.

Deeply psychologically sick. And well embedded in our double-think societies weaned on centuries of imperial glory...even down to Irish schitzophrenia on the issue due to our colonised identity being subsumed under the Anglo-dominant paradigm. No wonder we drink, and seem bound for Mexican style drug-driven violence rather than the half-disciplined armed reaction of the last half-century up north.

Prognosis?Terminal. But as Sam said..we'll go on..

author by Union Jackpublication date Fri Mar 16, 2012 04:55author address author phone Report this post to the editors

Please don't lose the fact that these U.S. Soldiers are war criminals, and engaged in the planning and doing of Aggressive war which the Nuremberg Trials on behalf of the anti-fascist fighters, puts into international law, that the planning and doing of Agressive war is the SUPREME INTERNATIONAL CRIME ON THE PLANET. U.S. Judge Jackson who chaired the Trials (1945-46) further says it is the supreme international crime whether Germany does it or the U.S.A. does it.

It is interesting to note that the N. Trials also says that no soldier can follow unjust orders of superiors, as each soldier is not to follow unjust orders or illegal violence. This international law was put in place because the German War Criminals were constantly saying we were only following orders, as if that excuses them from doing worst sort war crimes.

These U.S. soldiers are guilty of the worst war crimes possible on the planet earth. Geneva Conventions of war (1949) says clearly, that targeting and killing civilians is a war crime and that is the global international law that Imperialist U.s.A. is planning and doing globally. Probably justifying that which cannot be justified by the British Fascist Finance Capitalist Malthous, who wrote that the workers have overpopulated, and should be genetically exterminated (GMO'd) if they do not have money to raise a family. Only the rich survive.

To most people it is the most cowardly act, as these U.S. soldiers had previously occupied the area and took away all the arms of defence in the village, before hand to make sure that during their massacre of the Afghan innocent civilians, they wouldn't be able to shoot back in legitimate self-defense.

End pollution wars, not endless wars for more and more pollution. Workers of the world, unite!! You yet have a world to win!!

author by Serfpublication date Mon Mar 26, 2012 07:30author address author phone Report this post to the editors

In the days following the rogue US soldier’s shooting spree in Kandahar, most of the media, us included, focused on the “backlash” and how it might further strain the relations with the US.

Many mainstream media outlets channelled a significant amount of  energy into uncovering the slightest detail about the accused soldier – now identified as Staff Sergeant Robert Bales. We even know where his wife wanted to go for vacation, or what she said on her personal blog.

But the victims became a footnote, an anonymous footnote. Just the number 16. No one bothered to ask their ages, their hobbies, their aspirations. Worst of all, no one bothered to ask their names.

In honoring their memory, I write their names below, and the little we know about them: that nine of them were children, three were women.

The dead:
Mohamed Dawood son of  Abdullah
Khudaydad son of Mohamed Juma
Nazar Mohamed
Payendo
Robeena
Shatarina daughter of Sultan Mohamed
Zahra daughter of Abdul Hamid
Nazia daughter of Dost Mohamed
Masooma daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Farida daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Palwasha daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Nabia daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Esmatullah daughter of Mohamed Wazir
Faizullah son of Mohamed Wazir
Essa Mohamed son of Mohamed Hussain
Akhtar Mohamed son of Murrad Ali
 
The wounded:
Haji Mohamed Naim son of Haji Sakhawat
Mohamed Sediq son of Mohamed Naim
Parween
Rafiullah
Zardana
Zulheja

author by Serfpublication date Mon Mar 26, 2012 07:43author address author phone Report this post to the editors

As the US media struggle to understand Bale's "reasons" for killing these people, his fragile mental state, his brain injury, any excuse they can find to humanise him and let him off the hook for this sadistic massacre, it turns out he was a con man stockbroker before enlisting and managed to swindle an elderly couple out of $1 million dollars before he came under investigation, which probably explains his choice to head off where they couldn't get him.

Not really surprising news when you consider the fact that the prevalence of sociopaths is much greater in these kinds of financial professions than in the general populace.

The reality seems to be that he has a lot more in common with the character played by Christian bale in "American psycho" than he has with the actor whose name he almost shares. Those who saw the film will remember that the character was a stockbroker as well as a psychopathic killer.

 
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