Thursday, March 15, 2012

Afghanistan massacre: Lone nut theory?

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2108798,00.html

Afghans expressed doubt Monday that a single U.S. Army soldier could have shot and killed 16 civilians in houses over a mile (2 kilometers) apart and burned the bodies afterward.

"It is not possible for only one American soldier to come out of his base, kill a number of people far away, burn the bodies, go to another house and kill civilians there, then walk at least 2 kilometers and enter another house, kill civilians and burn them," said Ayubi.

Abdul Ghani, a local councilman in Panjwai district, said local villagers reported seeing two groups of soldiers.

"The villagers said they were hearing machine gun fire and pistol fire from different directions," said Ghani.

The statement quoted a 15-year-old survivor named Rafiullah, who was shot in the leg, as telling Karzai in a phone call that "soldiers" broke into his house, woke up his family and began shooting them.

The U.S. military has said there is no indication that more than one soldier carried out the attacks in two villages in Kandahar province before dawn Sunday.


No indication at all, apart from logic, logistics and eyewitness and survivor accounts.

Heavens, things must be bad in Afghanistan if the damage-control cover story - a mass murdering psycopath - is better than whatever the truth might be.

Sunday, March 11, 2012

Guest Post: Legal Experts Destroy Rationale for Obama’s Assassination Policy … And Slam Democrats for Supporting It

Guest Post: Legal Experts Destroy Rationale for Obama’s Assassination Policy … And Slam Democrats for Supporting It:

Obama Expanding Program Started by Cheney

Attorney General Eric Holder announced at Northwestern University law school that the U.S. can assassinate U.S. citizens without any without disclosure of why they are even alleged to be baddies and without any review of any nature whatsoever by any judge, Congress or the American people.
Northwestern University’s law school professor Joseph Margulies said:

Monday, March 05, 2012

James Inhofe Takes the Climate Conspiracy Theory to New Heights, Even as Global Warming Bakes His Home State

James Inhofe Takes the Climate Conspiracy Theory to New Heights, Even as Global Warming Bakes His Home State:

by Chris Mooney, reposted from DeSmogBlog


James Inhofe, Republican Senator from Oklahoma, has a new book out. It is entitled The Greatest Hoax: How the Global Warming Conspiracy Threatens Your Future.


I have not read it yet. So I cannot say much about its contents, but I can say this: The title suggests that Inhofe, like Rick Santorum, is endorsing the global warming conspiracy theory. Indeed, where Santorum only muttered the word “hoax” without a great deal of elaboration, it looks like Inhofe is going to put some real meat onto those paranoid bones.


Let me once again reiterate why the global warming conspiracy theory is, well, just plain ridiculous.


To believe that global warming is a “hoax,” or that there is a “conspiracy,” you must believe in coordinated action on the part of scientists, environmental ministers, politicians, and NGOs around the world. It won’t do just to situate the hoax in the United States and its own scientific and NGO community, because the idea of human-caused global warming is endorsed by scientists, and scientific academies, around the globe.


Any one of these could blow the whistle on the so-called “hoax.” That this has not happened either means there is no hoax, or that the degree of conspiracy and collusion—among people who are notoriously individualistic and non-conformist, by the way—is mindboggling. We’re talking about some serious cat-herding going on.



Oh, and by the way: You also have to believe that the colluding hoaxers have nefarious objectives—basically, they want to kill capitalism and strangle economies. This is even less plausible.


In other words, there is no hoax, and to believe in one is to be a conspiracy theorist. Inhofe himself uses the word “conspiracy” in his subtitle, so I do not think it at all unfair to describe him in this way. Either he is actually right in  his claims—not likely—or else he’s conjuring a conspiracy where none exists. It’s that simple.


I point this out, incidentally, because I am continually amazed that our national discourse basically shrugs at conspiracy theories. That’s saddening evidence that we live in an “anything goes” political culture that has become unmoored from reality.


And how did this happen? Here’s a hint: Inhofe will debut his book on Fox’s Sean Hannity program tonight.


Let me end this post with a dose of reality. Inhofe, the climate conspiracy theorist, not only hails from but represents the state of Oklahoma. Here is what has been happening, climatologically, to Oklahoma lately, according to NOAA and other sources:


* The summer of 2011 was the hottest summer on record for the state. According to the Oklahoma Climatological Survey, “Oklahoma experienced the hottest summer of any state since records began in 1895 with a statewide average of 86.9 degrees.”


* July 2011 was the worst. Says the Oklahoma Climatological Survey: “July’s average temperature was 89.3 degrees, becoming the hottest month for any state on record, besting over 67,000 other months.”


* August also fried Oklahoma, and was the hottest August on record.


* This, of course, caused serious damage and monetary losses: “Agricultural damage alone from the drought and related heat has been estimated as high as $2 billion.”


From the perspective of Inhofe’s constituents—say, an Oklahoma farmer—the global warming conspiracy sounds like an intellectual dalliance that the state simply cannot afford.


– Chris Mooney is Washington correspondent for Seed magazine, senior correspondent for The American Prospect, and author of the bestselling book The Republican War on Science. This piece was originally published at DeSmogBlog. The top graphic is from Grist.


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Summer 2011 Record Statewide Temperatures