prisoner of war

Nguyễn Văn Lém (referred to as Captain Bảy Lốp) (died 1 February 1968 in Saigon) was a member of the Viet Cong who was summarily executed in Saigon during the Tet Offensive. The execution was captured on film by photojournalist Eddie Adams, and the momentous image became a symbol of the inhumanity of war.

On the second day of Tet, amid fierce street fighting, Lém was captured and brought to Brigadier General Nguyễn Ngọc Loan, then Chief of the Republic of Vietnam National Police. Using his personal sidearm, General Loan summarily executed Lém in front of AP photographer Eddie Adams and NBC television cameraman Vo Suu. The photograph and footage were broadcast worldwide, galvanizing the anti-war movement; Adams won a 1969 Pulitzer Prize for his photograph. (read more)

the highway

50 years ago today - zapruder

An official investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), conducted from 1976 to 1979, concluded that Oswald shot President Kennedy as a result of a probable conspiracy. This conclusion of a likely conspiracy contrasts with the earlier conclusion by the Warren Commission that the President was assassinated by a lone gunman.

In the ensuing four decades since the assassination, theories have been proposed or published that detail organized conspiracies to kill the President. These theories implicate, among others, Cuban President Fidel Castro, the anti-Castro Cuban community, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Mafia, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), E. Howard Hunt, and the Eastern Bloc – or perhaps some combination of these.

Others claim that Oswald was not involved at all. Shortly after his arrest, Oswald insisted he was a "patsy". Oswald never admitted any participation in the assassination and was murdered two days after being taken into police custody.

Many researchers have found fault with the official Warren Commission version of events, identifying what they say are inconsistencies and errors in the panel's findings. Some of the authors include Mark Lane, Penn Jones, Jr., Jim Garrison, Jim Marrs, David S. Lifton, Gerald McKnight, Henry Hurt, Michael L. Kurtz, and David Kaiser.

Penn Jones, Jim Marrs and Ralph Schuster have suggested that the number of deaths of people connected with the investigation of the assassination is suspiciously large. Polls have indicated that large numbers of Americans believe there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. These same polls also show that there is no agreement on who else may have been involved. A 2003, Gallup poll reported that 75% of Americans do not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. (read more) (zapruder film) (murder solved)

just a coincidence

Rulers Of The World

act of killing

what a wonderful world

treason

Norman Mineta Testifies About Dick Cheney On 9/11

Assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Martin Luther King, Jr., a prominent American leader of the African-American civil rights movement and Nobel Peace Prize laureate, was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee, on April 4, 1968, at the age of 39. (read more)

Trayvon Martin

On his way from a convenience store with an ice tea and a bag of skittles, Trayvon Martin was headed to his fathers girlfriends apartment when George Zimmerman followed and questioned Trayvon, what happened next was an example of suspicion, fear and racism followed by the killing of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year old kid. (read more)

midnight canoeist

This summary is not available. Please click here to view the post.

James Forrestal

James Vincent Forrestal (February 15, 1892 – May 22, 1949) was the last Cabinet-level United States Secretary of the Navy and the first United States Secretary of Defense.

Forrestal was a supporter of naval battle groups centered on aircraft carriers. In 1954, the world's first supercarrier was named USS Forrestal in his honor, as is the headquarters of the United States Department of Energy. He is also the namesake of the Forrestal Lecture Series at the United States Naval Academy, which brings prominent military and civilian leaders to speak to the Brigade of Midshipmen, and of the James Forrestal Campus of Princeton University in Plainsboro Township, New Jersey.

Forrestal observed a famously punishing work schedule in the last years of his life, and rumors had circulated in the press as to his health. President Truman's decision to dismiss him as Secretary of Defense on March 31, 1949 is said to have caused him to suffer a "nervous breakdown", a charge denied by Forrestal's brother. Forrestal was hospitalized on April 2, 1949. On May 22, 1949 he was found dead on the roof of a covered walkway below the window of a kitchen across the hall from his 16th floor room at the National Naval Medical Center (NNMC, commonly known as the Bethesda Naval Hospital), a bathrobe sash knotted tightly around his neck. This happened on the day Forrestal was to be discharged from the hospital. The news media reported that he had committed suicide, and the local coroner and U.S. Navy officials agreed. The circumstances of the death were reviewed, however, by a committee convened by Rear Admiral Morton D. Willcutts, the head of NNMC (1948–1951). The committee released only a brief list of conclusions several months after it had completed its work. The conclusions noted only that Forrestal "died following a fall" and that the fall caused his death. The board did not speculate as to what might have caused the fall.

The committee's full report was not released until 2004. In a review of the board's evidence and findings—solicited by the Navy and kept secret with the report until 2004—Chairman of the American Psychiatric Association Dr. Winfred Overholser concluded that Forrestal "came to his death by suicide while in a state of mental depression," but the report's own conclusions were seen to have been accurately reported 55 years earlier, that is simply that Forrestal died from the fall. Debate over the exact circumstances of Forrestal's unusual death continues today, with some critics citing the U.S. government's withholding of the official report and autopsy results as well as possible signs of struggle in evidence photos as indicating foul play.

There were unsubstantiated reports in the press of paranoia and of involuntary commitment to the hospital, as well as suspicions about the detailed circumstances of his death, which have fed a variety of conspiracy theories as well as legitimate questions. For example, among the discrepancies between the report and the accounts given in the principal Forrestal biographies are that the transcription of the poem by Sophocles appears to David Martin, author of the six-part series Who Killed James Forrestal? to have been written in a hand other than Forrestal's. If Forrestal's, according to some intelligence sources, then he could not scribble the word "nightingale" in the poem because it was the code name of the Ukrainian Nazi elite unit Nachtigall Brigade which Forrestal had helped to smuggle to the United States to supplant Kim Philby's failed ABN (Anti Bolshevik Nationals), an MI6 Soviet émigré fascist group. There was also broken glass found on Forrestal's bed, a fact that had not been previously reported. Theories as to who might have murdered Forrestal range from Soviet agents, to U.S. government operatives sent to silence him for his knowledge of UFOs. (read more)

The Death of James Forrestal

death without due process

The United States has reportedly initiated a targeted killing program under which the CIA and the military have the authority to hunt and kill individuals, including U.S. citizens, far away from the battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan and even the Pakistani border regions, and potentially anywhere in the world. The program operates without any checks and balances; all of the essential details about the program remain secret. We do not know what criteria are used to put people on the "kill lists" maintained by the CIA and military, how much evidence is required to add a person to the lists, or whether there are any geographical limits on where individuals can be targeted. The President has, in effect, claimed the unchecked authority to put the names of citizens and others on "kill lists" on the basis of a secret determination, based on secret evidence, that a person meets a secret definition of the enemy.

We are all familiar with how the death penalty works. A crime (usually murder) is committed. It's investigated by law enforcement. A suspect is arrested, charged with the crime, and goes to trial. The government shows the judge or jury the evidence against the accused. The accused can defend against the accusations. The jury delivers a verdict. If it's a guilty verdict, the defendant might be sentenced to death.

The process, from arrest to sentencing, is the Fifth Amendment in action, the part that states: "no person…shall be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process of law."

The Constitution protects all Americans' right to life, whether they're living at home or abroad. If the government thinks you should be dead, it should at least tell you why. The fact that the standard that puts Americans on the "kill list" is a secret is itself unconstitutional. As our complaint states, "U.S. citizens have a right to know what conduct may subject them to execution at the hands of their own government. Due process requires, at a minimum, that citizens be put on notice of what may cause them to be put to death by the state."

(ACLU: Targeted Killings) (ACLU: blog)

Bradley Manning

Bradley E. Manning (born December 17, 1987) is a United States Army soldier who was charged in July 2010 with the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. He is being held in "maximum custody" at the Marine Corps Brig, Quantico, Virginia, and is expected to face a pre-trial hearing in May 2011 to determine whether he should be court-martialed.

Manning was assigned to a support battalion with the 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 10th Mountain Division, based at Contingency Operating Station Hammer, Iraq, which gave him access to SIPRNet—the Secret Internet Protocol Router Network—used by the U.S. Department of Defense and Department of State to transmit classified information. He was arrested in May 2010 after Adrian Lamo, a former computer hacker, reported to authorities that Manning had told him during an online chat that he had downloaded material from SIPRNet and passed it to WikiLeaks. The material included the so-called "Collateral Murder" video—the video of a July 2007 helicopter airstrike in Baghdad—which WikiLeaks published in April 2010; a video of the Granai airstrike in Afghanistan; and a large number of diplomatic cables.

On July 5, 2010 Manning was charged under the Uniform Code of Military Justice for transferring classified data onto his personal computer and communicating national defense information to an unauthorized source between November 19, 2009 and May 27, 2010.

On May 21, 2010, Manning is alleged to have gone online to chat with Adrian Lamo, a former hacker. Lamo had been profiled the day before by Kevin Poulsen in Wired magazine, after being hospitalized and diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome. According to The Washington Post, Manning subsequently e-mailed Lamo, introducing himself as "an army intelligence analyst, deployed to eastern baghdad, pending discharge for 'adjustment disorder.'"

In a series of chats over a period of a week, he told Lamo what he had done. He asked Lamo: "If you had unprecedented access to classified networks 14 hours a day 7 days a week for 8+ months, what would you do?" He told Lamo that he felt isolated and ignored at work, and was angered by some of the classified material he had read. He said he was a "wreck": "Ive been isolated so long ... i just wanted to figure out ways to survive ... smart enough to know whats going on, but helpless to do anything ... no-one took any notice of me," he wrote. He said he had been leaking files to a "white haired aussie," Julian Assange of WikiLeaks. He said: "i'm exhausted ... in desperation to get somewhere in life ... i joined the army ... and that's proven to be a disaster now ... and now i'm quite possibly on the verge of being the most notorious 'hacktivist' or whatever you want to call it ... its all a big mess i've created."

On May 25, according to the chat log, he told Lamo he had taken CD-RWs containing music to work, erased them and rewrote them with the downloaded documents. According to Wired, he wrote that he "listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga's 'Telephone' while exfiltrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history ... pretty simple, and unglamorous ..." Of the security he wrote: "it was vulnerable as fuck ... no-one suspected a thing ... kind of sad ... weak servers, weak logging, weak physical security, weak counter-intelligence, inattentive signal analysis... a perfect storm ". He asked Lamo "I mean what if I were someone more malicious," writing that he could have sold the material to Russia or China. When asked why he had not done that, he wrote: "it belongs in the public domain ... information should be free."

The chat logs partially released by Lamo said Manning had leaked the Baghdad airstrike video, a video of the Granai airstrike, and 260,000 diplomatic cables, and hoped the release of the material would lead to "worldwide discussion, debates, and reforms ... if not ... than [sic] we’re doomed ... as a species ... I will officially give up on the society we have if nothing happens." He told Lamo he felt encouraged by the response to the Baghdad airstrike video: "the reaction to the video gave me immense hope ... CNN’s iReport was overwhelmed ... Twitter exploded ..." He said Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and several thousand diplomats were "going to have a heart attack" when they discovered that an "entire repository of classified foreign policy is available, in searchable format to the public ... everywhere there's a US post ... there's a diplomatic scandal that will be revealed." He wrote: "I want people to see the truth regardless of who they are because without information, you cannot make informed decisions as a public."
(read more)

LYING MURDERING BASTARDS!

LIES, LIES, LIES

MURDERERS!

LAND OF THE FREE?

HOME OF THE BRAVE?

GET UP OFF YOU ARSES

AND

STOP THIS

WHO DO YOU THINK THESE TROOPS ARE BEING TRAINED TO RAIN

"HELLFIRE" ON

YOU!!!

YOU,

YOU CHUMPS

frame 313

(murder solved)

the first man killed on live television

An official investigation by the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA), conducted from 1976 to 1979, concluded that Oswald shot President Kennedy as a result of a probable conspiracy. This conclusion of a likely conspiracy contrasts with the earlier conclusion by the Warren Commission that the President was assassinated by a lone gunman.

In the ensuing four decades since the assassination, theories have been proposed or published that detail organized conspiracies to kill the President. These theories implicate, among others, Cuban President Fidel Castro, the anti-Castro Cuban community, Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson, the Mafia, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), E. Howard Hunt, and the Eastern Bloc – or perhaps some combination of these.

Others claim that Oswald was not involved at all. Shortly after his arrest, Oswald insisted he was a "patsy". Oswald never admitted any participation in the assassination and was murdered two days after being taken into police custody.

Many researchers have found fault with the official Warren Commission version of events, identifying what they say are inconsistencies and errors in the panel's findings. Some of the authors include Mark Lane, Penn Jones, Jr., Jim Garrison, Jim Marrs, David S. Lifton, Gerald McKnight, Henry Hurt, Michael L. Kurtz, and David Kaiser.

Penn Jones, Jim Marrs and Ralph Schuster have suggested that the number of deaths of people connected with the investigation of the assassination is suspiciously large. Polls have indicated that large numbers of Americans believe there was a conspiracy to kill President Kennedy. These same polls also show that there is no agreement on who else may have been involved. A 2003, Gallup poll reported that 75% of Americans do not believe that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. (read more) (zapruder film) (murder solved)

Pablo Picasso - "Guernica"

"Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth"

...Pablo Picasso...

Arguably Picasso’s most famous work is his depiction of the German bombing of Guernica during the Spanish Civil War—Guernica. This large canvas embodies for many the inhumanity, brutality and hopelessness of war. Asked to explain its symbolism, Picasso said, "It isn’t up to the painter to define the symbols. Otherwise it would be better if he wrote them out in so many words! The public who look at the picture must interpret the symbols as they understand them."

Haiti Protesters Shot Dead

Haiti remains tense in the wake of Monday’s violent clashes between protesters and United Nations troops that left at least two dead and 16 wounded in Cap-Haitien, the country’s second largest city.

The port city, approximately 300 kilometers north of the capital of Port-au-Prince, was still largely paralyzed on Tuesday, with schools, public offices and businesses shut, streets blocked by barricades of burning tires and sporadic gunfire reported. The bridge leading to the city’s airport was blocked with welded metal barriers.

The United Nations sent a contingent of Spanish troops to reinforce its garrison in Cap-Haitien.

Violence erupted on Monday after thousands of demonstrators took to the city’s streets to protest against the UN occupation force (known as MINUSTAH, for United Nations Stabilization Mission In Haiti), which many blame for the cholera epidemic that has now claimed more than 1,000 lives, and to denounce the government of Prime Minister Rene Preval for failing to adequately confront the spread of the disease.

The UN troops and Haitian police attempted to disperse the crowd with tear gas, setting off a stampede in which several people were injured. Demonstrators responded with a hail of rocks and, according to UN officials, gunfire. The troops fired on the crowd, killing one youth with a bullet through the back in Quartier Morin, just outside the city. Another man was shot to death in Cap-Haitien. The number of wounded was reportedly as high as 16, with several in serious condition.......

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