So it seems Dylan wants to start a war. How can you help? Boycott his site!!

http://dylanpetrohilos.wordpress.com/

(it sucks)

So much for "liberating" afghanistan!

"The Taliban Are Well Liked" A Japanese doctor's up-close observations contradict overseas reports

By MUTSUKO MURAKAMI

AsiaWeek, Thursday, October 18, 2001

Japanese doctor Tetsu Nakamura works with leprosy patients and refugees in Afghanistan and Pakistan. It's a job that keeps him in touch with the raw reality of life in that troubled country. And he says that from what he has seen, the Taliban are being wrongly portrayed internationally. "There's something wrong with the media reports," he says. "This talk of the Taliban being vicious and disliked doesn't fit with reality." Nakamura says the fundamentalists have wide support from the population, particularly in rural areas. "Otherwise, how can they rule 95% of the country with only 15,000 soldiers?

"Villagers around Nakamura's Peshawar base hospital and 10 clinics in both northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan were pleased to see peace established under Taliban rule, he says. The Pushtun people, who make up two-thirds of the Afghan population, can accept strict Muslim codes because they have lived by them all their lives, he says. Women are not deprived of education or jobs, as far as he can see. In fact, half the local doctors at his clinics are women.

So why are the people of the capital, Kabul, reportedly hoping to see the Taliban overthrown? "The Taliban may act differently there," he told me when we met recently in Tokyo. "They're obliged to fix the corrupt urban life. The people most vocal in criticizing the Taliban are upper-class Afghans who have been deprived of their privileges." Nakamura's words reminded me of news footage I have seen several times since the attacks on New York and Washington. Shot by French journalists in Afghanistan, it showed Afghan women speaking critically of the Taliban. Significantly, they are dressed in shiny silk-like costumes, with large rings on their fingers.

Nakamura, 55, says the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance are not the freedom fighters some journalists describe them as. Villagers are frightened of them because they are more violent and cruel than the Taliban, he says. They execute innocent people in horrific ways, though not in public as the Taliban do as a warning to others.

Nakamura works for Peshawar – kai Medical Services, a Japanese aid agency based in Fukuoka City that has been operating in the Peshawar district for 17 years. He first visited the area as an alpinist when he was still a medical school student in Fukuoka. Shocked by the lack of medical care in the area, particularly for leprosy patients, he volunteered to work at a local hospital in l984. He says: "I spent most of my time not in straight medical work but in trying to understand my patients, their lifestyles and values -- what makes them weep or what matters most for them. "Luckily, I can eat anything and sleep anywhere," he grins.

Nakamura has seen foreigners visiting Afghanistan and returning home to criticize the Muslim culture -- from a Western perspective. These people may be "heroes or heroines in London or New York," he says, "but they contribute nothing to the welfare of Afghans." As for suggestions the Taliban have cut the country off from the world, Nakamura says the Afghans are perhaps better informed than the Japanese, as they listen daily to BBC radio in their own language.

The doctor's greatest concern is the fate of millions of starving refugees in and around Afghanistan. Over one million of them are suffering from hunger, he says, while up to 40% are bordering on starvation. He thinks 10% could die during the winter. Nakamura and his staff stopped focusing exclusively on leprosy in the l980s as they had so many refugees to deal with, many suffering from malaria, diarrhea, infections and fever. Severe draught in recent years created hundreds of thousands of refugees. And now the American bombing and the fear of an invasion has brought more. His aid agency helps to dig wells not only to provide water but also for irrigation for farms, so that the refugees can return to their villages.

Back home in Japan temporarily and thinking of his base area in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Nakamura says: "It's all like a mirage far off in the desert." He fondly recalls the red-brown soil of Afghanistan fields, the villagers sharing their joy about water from newly dug wells, and the friendly faces of Taliban soldiers helping villagers. "I have one simple question," he says. "What are the big powers trying to defend by attacking this ailing, tiny country?" It's a good question.

Americans are rediculously ignorant!

Does this poll make any sence?

"In a January 2003 CBS poll, 64% of Americans approved of military action against Iraq. 63% wanted President Bush to find a diplomatic solution rather than going to war with Iraq, and 62% believed the threat of terror would increase if war was waged with Iraq."

I know it's outdated...just had to put that out there though

Life in a shelter---"hell"

A few months ago, my friends and I set out on an expedition to understand homelessness in Baltimore, and do our share in helping the problem which thousands struggle with every single day. The situation is worse than most could imagine. In fact, the living conditions of many Homeless are deplorable and show a lack of compassion on society’s part.

The Homeless shelters of Baltimore are filled with disease; Lice outbreaks occur regularly, and recently, scabies spread throughout the Code-Blue shelter, leaving many residents with infections. This entails that pillows and bed sheets are thrown out, leaving hundreds of people sleeping on mats in cold, rat infested rooms. Specific medicine is needed in order to treat scabies, yet the staff only allowed them showers.

Michael Coleman, a resident of the Code-Blue Shelter, described the shelter as “extreme hell.” In an interview we had, he described life in the shelter. He called the food “baby portions,” and commented on the “nasty” staff. “The line to get in, they keep you there so long. Instead of checking your bags and letting you go through, they walk around with their friends and talk a little. They don’t care, and they’ll tell you they don’t care,” he said. “They don’t let you bring food in there. If you go in there, and you bring a sandwich or something…they take it from you and they throw it in the trash. They don’t care about anyone but themselves.” After several minutes of expressing his feelings about the shelter he informed me, “I’m not sleeping there tonight. I already made my decision…I really had it being in there. I don’t want to be in there anymore.”

But what I found most amazing about him, and many other homeless people I have met, is their true optimism and faith in God. After all they have gone through, and after so much suffering, they still retain hope. Mr. Coleman went on to tell me, “Pity is not going to get me off the street. Dealing with God, and doing those things which I know he wants me to do to better myself…that’s going to help me.”

Although testimonies from the residents of Code-Blue seem unbelievable, the stories from the homeless living outside the shelter on the streets are even more shocking. It really says something unfortunate about our society when we have people with so much money not willing to help the 5,000 homeless Baltimoreans living with rats. Every single night, as we sleep in our nice comfortable beds, people are suffering out there. People in our own city live in conditions reminiscent of undeveloped countries in Africa. It is a sad, unfathomable reality that we all must wake up to and acknowledge.

“Dear God, all I ask for is a roof over my head- a kitchen, a bedroom, and a bathroom. That’s all I want.”- Emily, age 73

Operation Iranian Liberation! (OIL)

Each time I watch the news, I grow more and more fearful of what the future conceals. Supposedly, we were first intimidated by their ambition to achieve nuclear arms. But, according to George W Bush, they “halted in 2003”.

But this is not about Iran. It’s not about Iraq either. It is actually about American Policy as a whole. It’s about the countless treaties signed, and then broken. And it’s about our Government’s oppressive policy of intervention. Unfortunately, these are not only factors that impoverish, kill, and starve billions of innocent human beings throughout the world; but ultimately, our domestic and foreign policies will lead to our own destruction. As all other super powers who abused their might, we too will become just another England, Greece, or Rome in the future. We too will see our day of downfall.

Not many people are aware of this, but Iran once had a democracy, or at least a democracy in the makings. But it was America who overthrew their democracy in 1953, and replaced it with the oppressive Shah. So it is no wonder why the Iranians took back the land that was rightfully theirs – which we now refer to as the ‘Iranian Revolution’. They refused to be sold off for cheap oil, and they maintained domination of their own soil, with assistance from the Ayatollah.

In 1979, 52 American diplomats were held for 444 days, due to their scamming of Iran for the sake of oil. And so as two nations are expected to do, the United States went to the talking-table with Iran. They concluded, "The policy of the United States will be not to intervene, directly or indirectly, politically or militarily, in Iran's internal affairs (Algiers Accords, 1981)." But breaking treaties is nothing new for the United States Government. In fact, there has never been a treaty kept by the United States regarding the Native Americans.

And similar to Dick Cheney once stating “It's a quagmire if you go that far and try to take over Iraq," (1994) the words once spoken by our politicians will once again be nothing more than a lie. In fact, the ironic part of it all is that George Bush ran on a non-intervention foreign policy, and we see how far that has taken us! Two wars and no regret, not to mention the chance of invading countless other nations. Similar to so-called O.I.L (Operiation Iraqi Liberation), a war with Iran will prove to be O.I.L in rewind, but this time, so-called Operation Iranian Liberation. (Props to David Rovics for the term)

Chickens

It seems that people have some trouble sympathizing with their animal brethren. Whenever someone says they're vegan or vegetarian because of cruelty to animals, there always seems to be those who think they're nuts for caring so much. After all, human beings have dominion over the world, animals are meant to be food; that's the way its always been. Certainly we aren't anyone's food, are we?

Sorry folks, i've got some bad news: chickens and people have something in common. And its not just chromosomes either.

In our consumer culture, bussinesses and corporations are like farmer john, leading his flock to the slaughterhouse. And us, his resource of spenders and money machines, are too doped up on TV and caffeine to get out of the way. Everywhere you look you'll see your cramped little pen. Look on the corner of your screen, You'll see an advertisement for a bank. Look in your hand, you'll see a coke. Look on your TV, you'll see a beer commercial. Look outside, you'll see a billboard for a cell phone company. Look in your head, you'll seee an endless stream of market jingles, bogus pop culture quips, and subliminal incentives. Something in your head tells you to go to wal-mart, and pick up some paper plates, maybe a toaster, a box of donuts or two and of course your diet pills (can't forget those now, can you?). Then the cashier rings you up, and every wad of cash or piece of plastic slipping out of your hand is like the axe on your neck. Your just another cow up for slaughter, off to market for farmer john to be grilled and gobbled up by some bigwigs up on wall street.

Now look at those dead chickens all in neat little rows in the meat aisle; then look in the mirror. See any difference now?

-Seth

We Can Learn a Good Bit From History

We forget that just forty years ago, the same faces seen today promoting the ‘threat’ our nation faces from global ‘terrorism’ also advocated a ‘threat’ faced by the Soviets in the 70’s. In 1972, the Soviet Union officially disarmed. June 1^st, 1972, Former President Nixon announced that a few days earlier, the Soviet Union signed a treaty with the United States. But a few men quickly arose from the shadows to deny the CIA’s findings that assured the nation that the threat once posed by the Soviets was now a distant nightmare. Instead, they asserted that the Soviet Union was a power-seeking enemy, with the intention to conquer the United States. Who were these men? Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney- the same men we have seen at the frontlines of the ‘war on terror’. The very same people who asserted that Iraq had Weapons of Mass Destruction, and that Iran is a future threat.

These two politicians requested that a private investigation be performed in order to see whether the Russians had truly disarmed. They assigned a man who today advocates war with Iran, Paul Wolfawitz as chairman. Their coalition became known as “Team B”. Together, Cheney, Rumsfled, and Wolfowitz were determined to prove that the Soviets did indeed have nuclear weapons. They found nothing. Instead, they said that the Soviet Union had such advanced technology, that nuclear weapons were untraceable. The whole United States feared a non-existent, imaginary threat.

The CIA accused Team B of believing fantasy. Mistranslation is not only a tool of today, but also, was used as an important propaganda technique in the past. Today, President Ahmadinejad of Iran’s statements are mistranslated. Similarly, Team B convinced the whole nation that the Soviet military manual was titled “The Art of Conquest,” when in reality, the title was “The Art of Winning.” In 1978, after much attempt to conquer countless nations due to the so-called “communist threat,” a “Committee on Present Danger” was founded with Ronald Regan as the head, as a propaganda tool to convince the country of an invisible threat.

But today, the communist “threat” has disappeared. And after invading countless nations, and overthrowing the governments of countless nations, we were left with no valid excuse. So the government invented a new threat- “Global Terrorism”.

Much information taken from The Power of Nightmares: a BBC documentary.