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Cheers!

Dr. Cornel West (one of thousands of signatories to World Can't Wait's Crimes Are Crimes statement) was interviewed in The New York Times Magazine Sunday July 24, 2011. He said in part:

You have 30 seconds of private time with the president — what do you say to him?
I would say: “Look at that bust of Martin Luther King Jr. in the Oval Office and recognize that tears are flowing when you let Geithner and others shape your economic policy, when you refuse to focus on poor and working people or when you drop the drone bombs that kill innocent civilians. Tim Geithner does not represent the legacy of Martin King.”

WikiLeaks

Discover the truth

of the unjust, illegitimate war in Iraq and Afghanistan: WikiLeaks releases hundreds of thousands of military records revealing thousands of civilian deaths, execution squads,
other war crimes.

The Guantánamo Files

documenting torture, abuse, and years of unjust imprisonment.

Watch "Collateral Murder"

The military's own video documenting the killing of 12 Iraqis from a helicopter circling above

Help Stop these Crimes: Collateral Murder Video Showings and more...

Support Bradley Manning

The young soldier accused of releasing the US military records.
Find out more.

NATO Summit Protests

Chicago Spring:
Protest the War Criminal (NATO) Summit!

The "North Atlantic Treaty Organization" (NATO) promotes its mission as “security, cooperation among nations, and peace keeping.”
In fact,it is an organization led and dominated by the world's best-armed war criminals, led by the United States.
Join us in protesting NATO
in Chicago May 20/21!

Stop the Drones

Drone Wars

The use of Predator drones (unmanned flying vehicles
that are often armed with video-guided missiles) by the
US military and CIA is a largely untold story of the "Global
War on Terror / Global Contingency Operation" - yet has caused thousands of deaths in Pakistan and Afghanistan, many of whom are women and children.
Find out more and take action to stop the drones.

Operation “New Dawn”

Friday, 19 February 2010 21:31

By Cindy Sheehan

"The very word 'war', therefore, has become misleading. It would probably be accurate to say that by becoming continuous war has ceased to exist. ... War is Peace."

George Orwell, 1984

If I forget everything else in my life, I will never forget the night I walked in my front door with my dogs, Buster and Chewy, and saw the three military officers standing in my living room.

I knew the moment I saw them that Casey was dead. It doesn’t take a genius to put that equation together. On one side of the equal sign is your recently deployed soldier-son, and on the other side are three Army officers standing in your house looking like they would rather be just about anywhere else.

I didn’t go to sleep that night, or indeed for a few nights. I didn’t want to go to sleep and have to wake up after brief oblivion to the realization that my oldest son was dead: Killed in a war that, like most wars, never should have been fought in the first place. Casey’s number came up and he became just one more in a long-line of humans killed for profit. Casey certainly wasn't the first, and he certainly won't be the last, but my first-born preceded his parents and three of his grandparents in death.

It seemed like within minutes of the notification at 9pm on 04 April, 2004, our house was filled with friends and the tears, screams, questions and memories flowed freely. Around 6am, I went outside to sit on the porch on my porch swing. Through my tears, shock and grief, I could see my neighborhood begin to awaken. People coming outside to pick up their papers, or head for work. I wanted to scream at them: “Don’t you know my son is dead? How can you pretend like the world is normal?” The world has never been “normal,” but I have lived in an even more surreal version since Casey was killed.

Today, I found out that the “operation” that killed my son is over. “Operation Iraqi Freedom” got its name after the “great” Powers That Be figured out that “Operation Iraqi Liberation” stood for “OIL.” Now, Obama’s SecDef, Robert Gates, has changed that benign name to an even more New-Agey, Sweeter-than-Honey name: “Operation New Dawn.” Doesn’t that sound nice? Who doesn’t like New Dawns? Except perhaps the people of Falluja who were brutalized in a Marine siege back in 2004 that was inappropriately entitled, Operation New Dawn.

When Obama first took over the trappings of Empire, he changed the name of the “Global War on Terror” the GWOT to: OCO, or Overseas Contingency Operation—doesn’t that sound benevolent, too? Like the U.S. Empire is involved in Overseas Aid. You have a need for “Aid?” We have a “contingency” for you!

Illegal invasions and occupations are now called: “Interventions” as if the U.S. and its allies, are sweeping in and saving a country or society from a drug or alcohol problem, when clearly it is The Empire that is suffering from an addiction to mass murder and pillage.

It doesn’t matter what the U.S. decides to call its “Operations:” part of us will reject the propaganda, and part of us will embrace it wanting very desperately to believe that our country is not a rogue state and/or that Obama is not as bad, or worse, than Bush.

Innocent people still die and our soldiers are still victims, whether they come home dead or alive, whatever the war criminals in DC decide to label their crimes as.

It doesn’t matter for me either. One day, whether voluntarily, or by force, these “Operations,” “Contingencies,” “Interventions,” or “Crimes against humanity” will eventually end, but my oldest son will be always be dead. There’s absolutely no way in hell for The Empire to euphemize that reality to make it any less painful or easier for me to bear.

Accountability for Casey's death won't make the pain go away, either, but it may prevent other mothers and families from having to suffer from our nation's continuous wars.