The best road to progress is freedom's road. - JFK
Texas
The wisdom of youth
“What I can't work out about this place,” she says, “is whether they're genuinely oblivious to what their policies are doing, whether they're so out of touch that they honestly don't see how much damage it's doing, or whether they just don't care.”
I watched American Sniper the other night and it really is the most puerile propaganda imaginable.
[...]
Reading the US reviews of American Sniper is a good way to remind ourselves not only of the critical role Hollywood plays in popularising lies about the West’s recent history and in sanitising our crimes, but also of the vital role the mainstream media play in giving these simplistic and duplicitous fables an aura of ethical complexity and intellectual respectability.
Ask yourself – when is the last time you saw an anti-war voice, as opposed to a pro-war ‘military’ or ‘security’ expert, asked by the BBC to comment on a Middle East development? Yet the majority of people in this country are against the war.
There is no doubt at all that when you make anti-war or anti-government points on the BBC the whole body language and line of questioning indicates that you are some sort of isolated extremist.
I am also a volunteer visitor with the Gatwick Detainees Welfare Group and support several other organisations which help refugees and asylum seekers. I think the practice of imprisoning refugees or asylum seekers, who have committed no crime, is an obscenity.
... a letter by Richard Forer, a former member of AIPAC, 21 June 2010 (useful reading list at the end).
"If truth is the first victim of war ..."
from the preface to Arrigoni's book
“
If truth is the first victim of war, it is then Israel's absolute priority to assassinate it, before, during and after the conflict. Our duty as activists, and more generally as human beings, is to document and tell the truth for the sake of freedom and justice, and then bring it to the table of world public opinion, and then serve it as a meal, the more difficult to digest the better.
For tomorrow, so as to stay human.
Vittorio Arrigoni
The port (or its rubble)
Gaza City
15th July 2009
”
Arrigoni, Vittorio (2010). Gaza: Stay Human. (trans. Daniela Filippin). Kube Publishing Ltd. ISBN 978-1-84774-019-9.; originally published 2009 in Italian as Gaza: Restiamo Umani
And there was more: there was diplomacy, but it was an American diplomacy marked by broken promises and concessions made by the Russians that were not reciprocated. Let me give the young people in the room an example they probably don’t know about. After the United States was attacked on 9/11, the first world leader to call President Bush was Putin. He said, “George, it’s horrible. We’re with you. Tell us what we can do. We have major military assets in Afghanistan; they’re yours. We have a fighting force. We have terrific intelligence. We have transit bases; it’s all yours.” And since Bush was going to send a land force to dislodge the Taliban, Bush took this. And it cost Putin a lot at home. His security people didn’t like this, but he did it anyway. And Putin saved a lot of American lives in that war. Mark that down. What did he get in return? Trivia question. Within two years I think, Bush had expanded NATO right to Russia’s borders. And, equally fateful, Bush took the United States unilaterally out of what was called the anti-ballistic missile treaty, which had been the most stabilizing nuclear treaty in the history of the world because it prohibited the kinds of missiles that can eliminate the other side’s retaliatory response.
”
"Israel will not sign a peace deal"
I have reformatted and copy edited the following quote for clarity - NSH001
“
For me two things come out clearly from these painful documents (some of them have parallel data in the US embassy cables on Wikileaks). First it is not that the Palestinian officials are traitors but merely (and this is bad enough) mistakenly and passionately going through motions hoping against all odds that by talking and compromising more they could achieve a tiny fraction of what we are entitled to. The second observation is that Israel will not sign a peace deal regardless of how low and ridiculous the concessions on the Palestinian side:
hunt down resisters (abandoning the internationally recognized rights of resistance to occupation even unarmed one),
give up on most settlements built illegally on Palestinian lands,
allow Israel sovereignty over nearly 1/3rd of the occupied old city of Jerusalem,
give up on the refugee rights,
allow Israel to keep looting natural resources in the West Bank,
give Israel the right to control our airspace,
and even assure a statelet devoid of sovereignty. Not even tourism income would be allowed in this emasculated state.
Some critics asked: if, as the documents show, the Palestinian negotiators were willing to accept all of this then WHY did Israeli politicians hold out?
The answer is obvious to anyone who ever faced Zionism. They believe (rightly or wrongly) they can get 100% so why should they settle for 91% or even 99% especially when the ceiling of the Palestinian requests kept dropping in the past 22 years (since they accepted in 1988 to let Israel keep most of the looted parts of Palestine 1948). Today, Israel's three main sources of income are dependent on a continued conflict and occupation: the $6.5 billion military and security exports, the $6 billion US and other western direct aid, and $3 billion from the captive markets in the West Bank and Gaza. All three would be threatened with end of conflict even if Israel gets to keep most of its stolen loot. Israeli officials are keen to keep negotiations going to avoid an anti-Apartheid scenario and for PR and normalization to keep pumping more money and more settlers into the remaining small shrivelling Palestine because it is economically profitable.
But look at the statistics and leaf through the pile of demolition orders lying on the table in front of Abed Kasab, head of the village council in Jiftlik, and it all looks like ethnic cleansing via bureaucracy. Perverse might be the word for the paperwork involved. Obscene appear to be the results.
In nearby al-Jiftlik village, Israel has refused permits to build a school, insisting that families should either move or bus their children more than an hour each way to Tubas. In peaceful response, the teachhers of al-Jiftlik started holding classes in a large village tent. Last year, al-Jiftlik finally constructed a real schoolhouse, which students will use until Israel tears it down.
[...]
About 4,500 Palestinians live in Fasayel and al-Jiftlik combined. That's nearly the total population (6,300) of Israeli settlers in the whole of the Jordan Valley. And yet, that small number of settlers, living in 36 settlements, controls the land where tens of thousands of Palestinians reside. ... Just 4% of the valley remains for its 50,000 Palestinian inhabitants. That includes the city of Jericho and a few built-up Palestinian villages, but leaves next to nothing for agricultural use. This has been devastating for the agriculture-based society and explains the mass exodus of Palestinians even after Israel's overtly violent expulsion tactics ceased.
Baltzer, Anna (2007). Witness in Palestine: A Jewish American Woman in the Occupied Territories. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers. ISBN 978-1-59451-30-7 Check |isbn= value: length (help).
A poem
“
In Gaza, children,
you learn that the sky kills
and that houses hurt.
You learn that your blanket is smoke
and breakfast is dirt.
You learn that cars do somersaults
clothes turn red,
friends become statues,
bakers don’t sell bread.
You learn that the night is a gun,
that toys burn
breath can stop,
it could be your turn.
You learn:
if they send you fire
they couldn’t guess:
not just the soldier dies -
it’s you and the rest.
Nowhere to run,
nowhere to go,
nowhere to hide
in the home you know.
You learn
that death isn’t life,
that air isn’t bread,
the land is for all.
You have the right to be
Not Dead.
You have the right to be
Not Dead.
You have the right to be
Not Dead.
I have dreams.
I know not if it is day or night.
God told me : I do not divide up the land. Whatever their race Hatred and jealousies Will not flourish if divisions Between countries are no more. With Jesus as your guide, He will show you the way.
I have dreams.
I know not if it is day or night.
God told me: Worship and value all that is genuine. and reject insincerity. Whatever their race If anyone needs help Show Compassion. Reject the political sham. With Jesus as your guide He will reveal the inner truth. and see through the veil of deceits.
I have dreams.
I know not if it is day or night.
God told me: In the world there is no illegal immigration. Whatever their race All on earth are sister and brother.
The Voice of Freedom (صوت الحرية), inspiring song from Midan Tahrir in Cairo here.
February 15, 2003 anti-war protest. One of the most inspiring days of my life, to be among around 2 million people (my estimate) doing the right thing. If you want to see a picture of me on this march, buy a copy of this book: Hurndall, Tom. The Only House Left Standing: The Middle East Journals of Tom Hurndall. Trolley Ltd. 2012 ISBN 978-1-904563-51-8.
For your fine edits to the James Miller article which significantly improved the flow, accuracy, and sourcing of the article.Tiamat 10:40, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
The quality of your contributions matters more than quantity. I'm honored to be the first to have taken notice of your attention to detail and fine work. Tiamat 12:26, 28 August 2007 (UTC)
For your contributions to WPMED changing the list structure and performing tidy-ups on the templates. Very useful work, which hasn't gone unnoticed! LT910001 (talk) 03:38, 8 February 2014 (UTC)
Calatrava Medal of Merit
This Calatrava Medal of Merit is awarded to NSH001/002 for creating Template:Districts of Stuttgart and thus participating in Operation Stuttgart. Vami IV (talk) 22:51, 12 April 2016 (UTC)
On February 26, 2010, Did you know? was updated with a fact from the article Mirinda Carfrae, which you created or substantially expanded. You are welcome to check how many hits your article got while on the front page (here's how, quick check ) and add it to DYKSTATS if it got over 5,000. If you know of another interesting fact from a recently created article, then please suggest it on the Did you know? talk page.
Other accounts
I also own an alternative account, NSH002, which is intended to be used for repetitive edits (for example, with AWB) to avoid cluttering up my contributions record on this account.