The war vs. us all

Immortal Technique - The War Vs. Us All feat Mumia Abu Jamal

The war against us all

This war in Iraq isn't the end; it's the beginning of Wars to come

all around the world at the whim of the Neo-Cons in the White House

This is the Bush Doctrine come to life; War, war and more war!

War brought to you by the big corporate-masters who run the show

This isn't just a War on Iraqis or Afghanis or Arabs, or even Muslims

It is ultimately a War on us all!

That's because the billions and billions that are being spent on this War

the cost of tanks, rocketry, bullets and yes even salaries

for the 125,000 plus troops, is money that will never be spent on;

education, on healthcare, on the reconstruction of crumbling public housing

or to train and place the millions of workers

who have lost manufacturing jobs in the past three years alone

The War in Iraq is in reality; a war against the nations' workers and the poor

who are getting less and less

while the big Defense industries and making a killing literally!

What's next Iran, Syria, North Korea, Venezuela?

We've already seen the corporate media

play megaphone to the White House, to build and promote a War based on lies

War is utilized by the imperialists first and foremost, to crush internal enemies

We're seeing the truth of its insight

when we see the sad state of American education

the rush of seniors to buy affordable medications from the Canadians

because American drugs are just too expensive

the threat of privatization of Social Security

and the wave of repression that comes with an increasing Militarized Police;

this is a War on all of us

And the struggle against War is really a struggle for a better life

for the millions of folks who are in need here in this country!

The fight against the War is really to fight for your own interest

not the false interests of the Defense Industry

or the corporate media or the White House

Down with the Wars for empire!

From Death row this is Mumia Abu Jamal...

Rethink Afghanistan War

Rethink Afghanistan War - Part 2
Rethink Afghanistan War - Part 3
Rethink Afghanistan War - Part 4
Rethink Afghanistan War - Part 5
Rethink Afghanistan War - Part 6

In the 2009 documentary “Rethink Afghanistan“, several other former U.S. intelligence officials and experts on Afghanistan also contend that the war in Afghanistan does nothing to protect the safety of American people, but, on the contrary, only threatens the safety and security of Americans, both in the U.S. and abroad:

"Both wars have made the Middle East and the world much more dangerous for Americans and for any American presence overseas. It's creating much greater hostility towards the U.S. and creating a whole lot more people that would be happy to kill Americans or join in some kind of terrorist operation." - Graham Fuller, former CIA station chief in Kabul, in "Rethink Afghanistan".

The war in Afghanistan began on October 7, 2001 as U.S government claimed that aim of their invasion was to find Osama bin Laden and other high-ranking Al-Qaeda members to be put on trial, and to destroy the organization of Al-Qaeda in response to the 11 September attck on US. The war was launched, along with the British army and working with the Afghan opposition forces of the Northern Alliance, quickly ousted the Taliban regime.

One day before the 11 September, 2001 attacks, the Bush administration agreed on a plan to oust the Taliban regime in Afghanistan by force if it refused to hand over Osama bin Laden. The plan involved using escalating methods of applying pressure over a three year period. At that September 10 meeting of the Bush administration's top national security officials, it was agreed that the Taliban would be presented with a final ultimatum to hand over Osama bin Laden. If the Taliban refused, covert military aid would be channeled by the U.S. to anti-Taliban groups. If both those options failed, "the deputies agreed that the United States would seek to overthrow the Taliban regime through more direct action.

Opponents of the war have long claimed that the attack on Afghanistan was illegal under international law, constituted unjustified aggression and would lead to the deaths of many civilians through the bombing campaign and by preventing humanitarian aid workers from bringing food into the country.

"The US is trying to show its muscle, score a victory and scare everyone in the world. They don't care about the suffering of the Afghans or how many people we will lose. And we don't like that. Because Afghans are now being made to suffer for these Arab fanatics, but we all know who brought these Arabs to Afghanistan in the 1980s, armed them and gave them a base. It was the Americans and the CIA. And the Americans who did this all got medals and good careers, while all these years Afghans suffered from these Arabs and their allies. Now, when America is attacked, instead of punishing the Americans who did this, it punishes the Afghans." - Abdul Haq, anti-Taliban Pashtun leader, October–November 2001, days before he was killed.

Despite U.S government claimed that invasion on Afghanistan ground is to destroy terrorist base, it had actualy create more difficult situation as suicide bombattacks became common after the US invasion and the increase number of insurgent. Suicide bombattacks were virtually unheard of in Afghanistan prior to the U.S. invasion in 2001, and both the use of suicide attacks and the use of improvised explosive devices (IED) as roadside bombs were relatively uncommon in Afghanistan until mid-2005.

According to a UN report on suicide attacks in Afghanistan: "During the ravages of the Soviet occupation, the warlords' struggle for domination, and even during the Taliban period, Afghans never undertook such operations." Despite thirty years of warfare, suicide attacks were not carried out by any Afghans until after mid-2003, and only came into prominence in mid-2005 when they began to escalate drastically.

Wikileaks

At 5pm EST Friday 22nd October 2010 WikiLeaks released the largest classified military leak in history. The 391,832 reports ('The Iraq War Logs'), document the war and occupation in Iraq, from 1st January 2004 to 31st December 2009 (except for the months of May 2004 and March 2009) as told by soldiers in the United States Army. Each is a 'SIGACT' or Significant Action in the war. They detail events as seen and heard by the US military troops on the ground in Iraq and are the first real glimpse into the secret history of the war that the United States government has been privy to throughout.

The reports detail 109,032 deaths in Iraq, comprised of 66,081 'civilians'; 23,984 'enemy' (those labeled as insurgents); 15,196 'host nation' (Iraqi government forces) and 3,771 'friendly' (coalition forces). The majority of the deaths (66,000, over 60%) of these are civilian deaths.That is 31 civilians dying every day during the six year period. For comparison, the 'Afghan War Diaries', previously released by WikiLeaks, covering the same period, detail the deaths of some 20,000 people. Iraq during the same period, was five times as lethal with equivalent population size.

Agent Orange

Agent Orange is the code name for one of the herbicides (is a type of pestice used to kill unwanted plants) and defoliants (is any chemical sprayed or dusted on plants to cause its leaves to fall off) used by the U.S military as part of its chemical warfare (CW) involves using the toxic properties of chemical substances as weapons during the Vietnam War from 1961 to 1971.

It was manufactured for the U.S Department of Defence primarily by Monsanto Corporation and Dow Chemical. The herbicides used to produce Agent Orange were later discovered to be contaminated with 2,3,7,8-Tetrachlorodibenzodioxin, an extremely toxic dioxin compound. It was given its name from the color of the orange-striped 55 US gallons (210 L) barrels in which it was shipped.

During the Vietnam war, between 1962 and 1971, the United States military sprayed 20,000,000 US gallons (80,000,000 L) of chemical herbicides and defoliants in Vietnam, eastern Laos and parts of Cambodia, as part of Operation Ranch Hand. The program's goal was to defoliate forested and rural land, depriving guerrillas of cover; another goal was to induce forced draft urbanization, destroying the ability of peasants to support themselves in the countryside, and forcing them to flee to the U.S. dominated cities, thus depriving the guerrillas of their rural support base and food supply. In South Vietnam alone, an estimated 10 million hectares of agricultural land were ultimately destroyed.

The Vietnam Red Cross reports that as many as 3 million Vietnamese people have been affected by Agent Orange including at least 150,000 children born with birth defects, while according to Vietnamese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 people being killed or maimed, and 500,000 children born with birth defects.

Children in the areas where Agent Orange was used have been affected and have multiple health problems including cleft palate, mental disabilities, hernias, extra fingers and toes. In the 1970s, high levels of dioxin were found in the breast milk of South Vietnamese women, and in the blood of U.S. soldiers who had served in Vietnam.