Welcome! "What's Happenin'?" is a casual community diary (a daily series, 8:30 AM Eastern on weekdays, 10 AM on weekends and holidays) where we hang out and talk about the goings on here and everywhere.
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Good Morning!
August, 2012 by joanneleon
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.”
~ Martin Luther King Jr
Bruce springsteen - Blinded by the light
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News
The story is that they were killed in transport after they left the embassy -- was Blackwater providing security for them? Where are the Libyan war cheerleaders now?
WRAPUP 1-U.S. ambassador to Libya killed in Benghazi attack
Gunmen had attacked and burned the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, a centre of last year's uprising against Muammar Gaddafi, late on Tuesday evening, killing one U.S. consular official. The building was evacuated.
The Libyan official said the ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was being driven from the consulate building to a safer location when gunmen opened fire.
"The American ambassador and three staff members were killed when gunmen fired rockets at them," the official in Benghazi told Reuters.
There was no immediate comment from the State Department in Washington. U.S. ambassadors in such volatile countries are accompanied by tight security, usually travelling in well-protected convoys. Security officials will be considering whether the two attacks were coordinated.
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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in a statement late on Tuesday, confirmed the death of the U.S. consular diplomat in Libya, who was not identified, and condemned the attack there; but she made no mention of an attack on the Ambassador's car.
They don't even mention the other three people killed (so far) in the headlines. Nice.
U.S. Envoy to Libya Is Killed in Attack
In a statement confirming the four fatalities, President Obama said he strongly condemned the killing — the first death of an American envoy abroad in more than two decades — and had ordered increased security at American diplomatic posts around the world.
The attack at the compound in Benghazi was far more deadly than administration officials first announced on Tuesday night, when Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said one American had been killed and one injured.
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The news of his death emerged on Wednesday after violence spilled over the American consulate in Benghazi and demonstrators stormed the fortified walls of the United States Embassy in Cairo.
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The trailer was uploaded to YouTube by Sam Bacile, whom The Wall Street Journal Web site identified as a 52-year old Israeli-American real estate developer in California. He told the Web site he had raised $5 million from 100 Jewish donors to make the film. “Islam is a cancer,” Mr. Bacile was quoted as saying.
The video gained international attention when a Florida pastor began promoting it along with his own proclamation of Sept. 11 as “International Judge Muhammad Day.”
The story is changing now? Not anger against the film but revenge by Gaddafi supporters? The spin begins?
Libya official says Gaddafi loyalists killed U.S. diplomats
He suggested that the attackers could have been acting in revenge for the extradition from Mauritania this month of Gaddafi's former intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senoussi.
How about that other country that we spread freedom and democracy to? How are they doing?
We Are at War
Eleven years later, we are still at war. Bullets, mortars and drones are still extracting payment. Thousands, tens of thousands, millions have paid in full. Children and even those yet to be born will continue to pay for decades to come.
On a single day in Iraq last week there were 29 bombing attacks in 19 cities, killing 111 civilians and wounding another 235. On Sept 9th, reports indicate 88 people were killed and another 270 injured in 30 attacks all across the country. Iraq continues in a seemingly endless death spiral into chaos. In his acceptance speech for the Democratic nomination for President, Obama claimed he ended the war in Iraq, well… not quite.
The city of Fallujah remains under siege. Not from U.S. troops, but from a deluge of birth defects that have plagued families since the use of depleted uranium and white phosphorus by U.S. forces in 2004. No government studies have provided a direct link to the use of these weapons because no government studies have been undertaken, and none are contemplated.
Dr. Samira Alani, a pediatric specialist at Fallujah General Hospital, told Al Jazeera,
“We have all kinds of defects now, ranging from congenital heart disease to severe physical abnormalities, both in numbers you cannot imagine. There are not even medical terms to describe some of these conditions because we’ve never seen them until now.” The photographs are available on line if you can bear to look at what we have wrought. George W. Bush will loudly proclaim his “Pro-life” bona fides, and he’ll tell you he believes “that every child, born and unborn, ought to be protected in law and welcomed into life.” Apparently, “every child” doesn’t apply to the children of Fallujah, and the “law” doesn’t apply to George W. Bush.
Iraq execution spree under the spotlight
Spate of executions, mass detentions and alleged torture raise concerns over country's human rights situation.
As Iraq's political tension ratchets up following the death sentence imposed on its fugitive vice president, human rights groups have expressed fears the Shia-led government may be using state-sanctioned executions to eliminate opponents held in prison.
Stories of torture are also coming from released prisoners and human rights investigators, which directly contradict the claims of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's government.
A spate of executions were carried out last month. Three women were among 21 prisoners executed on August 27 alone. Two days later, five more detainees were put to death. For its part, the government continues the ongoing trend of providing few details about the identity of executed prisoners, or the charges against them.
Meanwhile, in Afghanistan...
Rockets destroy NATO helicopter, kill 3 Afghans hours after Bagram handover
Updated at 8:10 a.m. ET: KABUL, Afghanistan -- Four rockets hit Afghanistan's Bagram airfield, destroying a helicopter belonging to the NATO-led forces and killing three Afghan personnel inside, a spokesman for the coalition said Tuesday.
The attack, which took place at around 10 p.m. local time on Monday (1:30 p.m. ET Monday), came on the eve of the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. Security across the capital, Kabul, was intensified.
Two personnel belonging to NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), who were also in the helicopter, were wounded, the spokesman said.
Since things are going so well, Israel wants yet another war.
MI6 makes plea to Israel over Iran
The Haaretz newspaper in Jerusalem yesterday quoted an unnamed Israeli source as saying that a high-ranking British special envoy had paid a secret visit to meet Mr Netanyahu and defence minister Ehud Barak, as well as a number of security and diplomatic officials, and deliver a “stern message” from Mr Cameron.
The source said the envoy warned against “an unco-ordinated Israeli strike on Iran at this time” and stressed that Britain believes there is still time for diplomatic measures to work.
The envoy — identified by the Mail as Sir John — reportedly suggested that economic and diplomatic sanctions on Iran could be toughened up if it continues to resist international pressure.
The unnamed source said British fears about an imminent strike had been heightened by Mr Netanyahu’s failure, during a phone conversation in July, to provide clear answers to Mr Cameron’s questions about his intentions towards Iran.
Living in “The Greatest Nation on Earth”
These are indications of the real state of affairs in this country 11 years after they attacked us because they “hated our freedoms.” Now, on September 11, 2012, the national security complex is, as Van Buren indicates, beyond accountability for any crimes it may commit. It exists in a post-legal America not available to 99% of us.
As for our freedoms, a lack of the slightest urge to prosecute anyone who committed a crime on Washington time means that our governmental officials now have extraordinary new freedoms -- more license than 007 ever did -- to kidnap, torture, abuse, murder, surveil, and assassinate (including American citizens). That’s a record to ponder as another September 11th rolls around and, living in the greatest nation on earth, you ask yourself: Who really won, them or us?
The Chicago Strike Is Typical of American Politicians' War on Teachers
Teachers were once revered, with cops and firefighters. Now, the bipartisan consensus says bullying their unions is good politics
The Chicago teachers' strike is barely a day old, and the teacher-bashing is already well underway with great gusto.
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Looking back, this is remarkable. There was a time when teachers were lauded as local heroes: overworked, underpaid pillars of the community who could – with their credentials – earn more elsewhere, but chose to pursue a career sharing the joys of learning with kids. Politically, they were untouchable, up there with cops and firefighters. Endorsements by their unions were prized by politicians hoping to run as "the education candidate".
Then, at a certain point, teachers' unions woke up to find their favorability rating hovering somewhere between al-Qaida's and herpes. This didn't happen overnight, but a confluence of state budget crises, urban blight and suburban flight, a well-funded school reform movement and private charter school industry created the need for a scapegoat for bad public schools. Could it be their financing structure, dependent locally on grossly unequal property tax revenues? Or their unaccountable school boards, such as the one appointed by Rahm Emanuel? Might poverty and unemployment not be to blame? The drug economy? Poor parenting?
Blog Posts of Interest
The Evening Blues - 9-11-12 by joe shikspack
We are like birds by rserven
Janice Rogers Brown and Our Failed Justice System Killed Adnan Farhan abd al Latif by emptywheel
Bruce Springsteen - Lost in the flood
We are ready for some serious change. We are ready to take up the tools of a free and analytic press to peacefully undermine the stranglehold of the kleptocrats on our battered democracy. We are ready to expose and publicize their greed, lies and illegal machinations and hold their enablers in government and the media to account. Are you in?
"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has."
~ Margaret Mead
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