War and Peace

It’s a Sad Day in America When the Navy Launches a San Diego-Built Drone off a Carrier

May 17, 2013 by Frank Gormlie
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It’s a sad day in America. The US Navy launched the first carrier-based drone off its deck the other day, off the coast of Virginia. It’s an even sadder day for us in San Diego, as the drone was manufactured – in part, at least – by plants and engineers right here in our own city.

The launching of the drone off that deck demonstrates clearly that as drones become more and more integrated into becoming the armament of the nation’s military, they are becoming more and more accepted – here domestically, back in the good ol’ US of A.

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Sex in San Diego: Pentagon Study Finds 26,000 Military Sexual Assaults Last Year, Over 70 Sex Crimes Per Day

May 9, 2013 by Source
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Editor: The following is a transcript of Amy Goodman’s program on Democracy Now from yesterday, May 8, that aired highlights from Tuesday’s Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on military sexual assaults . We also include the video – see below. Democracy Now!

NERMEEN SHAIKH: A shocking new report by the Pentagon has found that 70 sexual assaults may be taking place within the U.S. military every day. The report estimated there were 26,000 sex crimes committed in 2012, a jump of 37 percent since 2010. Most of the incidents were never reported.

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Dirty Wars and Drones: Real National Security?

May 5, 2013 by Source

Jeremy Scahill
Author Jeremy Scahill Examines the Ugly Reality
By Jay Powell / San Diego Free Press

Thursday night, Jeremy Scahill, author of “Blackwater” gave a preview of his new book “Dirty Wars” to a full house at Hoover High School auditorium in City Heights a community that is home to many refugees from countries torn by war.

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Why Bomb the Boston Marathon?

April 25, 2013 by Source

Islamic Totalitarians, the Apocalypse, and Terrorism

By Chip Berlet / Talk to Action

E 43.tifWalk a mile in the shoes of those who claim to honor God and yet cheer the bombing of the Boston Marathon. They represent only a tiny fraction of the Muslims on our planet, yet they see themselves as carrying out the will of God. Fanatics such as these can be found in many of the World’s religions. They shoot abortion providers in the United States; blast apart buses in Israel; and murder Muslims in India (and vice versa).

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OB Rag Poll on the Use of Drones: 82% Oppose Drones in the U.S.

April 8, 2013 by Frank Gormlie

Recently, the OB Rag ran a readers’ poll on the use of drones by the US government either in America and/or abroad. The results of the week-long poll are in: 82% of respondents oppose the use of drones in the United States.

36% of the respondents replied that they are okay with the use of the unmanned flying vessels in other countries by our government. 17% indicated that they are okay with their use in America.

45% of the 108 readers who responded specifically feel that the use of drones in America is unconstitutional or that they should not be used in our country. Another 37% replied that they specifically opposed their use overseas as well.

26% said that their use in America is “absolutely unconstitutional”. Another 19% were okay with their use in hunting down terrorists abroad, but opposed their deployment here in this country.

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The Last Letter – A Message to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney From a Dying Veteran

March 21, 2013 by Source

To: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney
From: Tomas Young

Originally posted at Truthdig.com

10th aniv iraqI write this letter on the 10th anniversary of the Iraq War on behalf of my fellow Iraq War veterans. I write this letter on behalf of the 4,488 soldiers and Marines who died in Iraq. I write this letter on behalf of the hundreds of thousands of veterans who have been wounded and on behalf of those whose wounds, physical and psychological, have destroyed their lives. I am one of those gravely wounded. I was paralyzed in an insurgent ambush in 2004 in Sadr City. My life is coming to an end. I am living under hospice care.

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Did Richard Nixon Commit Treason By Sabotaging Vietnam Peace Talks?

March 20, 2013 by Source
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Newly-released tapes record LBJ saying Nixon committed treason.

By Eric Brown / International Business Times / March 17 2013

Newly released tapes recorded during Lyndon B. Johnson’s presidency have confirmed long-held rumors that in 1968, then-presidential candidate Richard M. Nixon worked to sabotage Vietnam War peace talks.

The LBJ tapes were recently declassified and released by the Johnson library in Austin, Texas. According to the BBC’s summary of the tapes, not only did Nixon possibly commit treason, but LBJ knew about it and decided not to expose him in the closing days of an election that Nixon barely won.

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Dumb Wars – Now and Forever

March 20, 2013 by Source
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By Robert Scheer / truthdig – Nation of Change / March 20, 2013

It is a staple of our widely trumpeted Judeo-Christian heritage that the acknowledgment of sin is a prelude to redemption. So how is it that there is no palpable sense of soul searching associated with the 10th anniversary of a war based on officially concocted lies and a policy of torture? It is because the presumption of a unique American claim to an original and enduring innocence perseveres, no matter the death and destruction.

Indeed, some of our most celebrated publicists defined moral deceit as virtue in justifying the Iraq War. “As far as I am concerned, we do not need to find any weapons of mass destruction to justify this war,” New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman wrote in April 2003, when U.N. inspectors had clearly established that the proclaimed basis for invading Iraq was a lie. “Mr. Bush doesn’t owe the world any explanation for missing chemical weapons (even if it turns out that the White House hyped this issue).”

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A War of Aggression

March 19, 2013 by Source
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From “Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law”

By Marjorie Cohn, 2007

According to sources inside the administration, George W. Bush was planning to invade Iraq and remove its government well before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Such an invasion violates the UN Charter, which the United States signed in 1945 after the bloodiest conflict in history. The Charter permits countries to use military force against another country only in self-defense or with Security Council permission. But the evidence indicates that the U.S.-led invasion satisfied neither condition and is therefore a war of aggression, which constitutes a Crime Against Peace – exactly the kind of war the Charter was meant to prevent.

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Old Military Shell Found in Ocean Beach Garden

March 5, 2013 by Source

NBC San Diego / March 5, 2013

An old military artillery shell was discovered in the backyard of an Ocean Beach resident Monday night [March 4].

A woman working in the garden of her new home at Saratoga Avenue and Santa Barbara discovered what looked like an explosive device and called 911.

When bomb experts arrived just after 6:30 p.m., they found the shell in the dirt outside the home.

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Justice Department memo reveals legal case for drone strikes on Americans

February 5, 2013 by Source
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By Michael Isikoff, National Investigative Correspondent / NBC News / February 5, 2013

A confidential Justice Department memo concludes that the U.S. government can order the killing of American citizens if they are believed to be “senior operational leaders” of al-Qaida or “an associated force” — even if there is no intelligence indicating they are engaged in an active plot to attack the U.S.

Read the entire ‘white paper‘ on drone strikes on Americans

The 16-page memo, a copy of which was obtained by NBC News, provides new details about the legal reasoning behind one of the Obama administration’s most secretive and controversial polices: its dramatically increased use of drone strikes against al-Qaida suspects abroad, including those aimed at American citizens, s

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Amy Goodman: Documentary “Dirty Wars” Is an Antidote to Zero Dark Thirty Heroics

February 5, 2013 by Source
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Dirty Wars: Jeremy Scahill’s antidote to Zero Dark Thirty’s heroic narrative

By Amy Goodman / The Guardian

In this new documentary, the Nation’s investigative reporter lifts the lid on the ugly reality of US counter-terror operations

As President Barack Obama prepared to be sworn in for his second term as the 44th president of the United States, two courageous journalists premiered a documentary at the annual Sundance Film Festival. Dirty Wars: The World is a Battlefield reaffirms the critical role played by independent journalists like the film’s director, Rick Rowley, and its narrator and central figure, Jeremy Scahill.

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Torture, Compromise, Revenge: Hollywood Reflects a Divided America

February 5, 2013 by Source
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By Frank Rich / RSN – New York Magazine / February 4, 2013

Not long after President Obama delivers his State of the Union address this month, Hollywood will offer its own annual summation of the national Zeitgeist, the Oscars.

They’ve lately been an irrelevancy: Best Pictures like The King’s Speech and The Artist have been footnotes, nostalgic European footnotes at that, to America’s kinetic pop culture in the day of Homeland.

Not this year.

Whatever the explanation – and little in show business happens by design – the movie industry has reconnected with the country.

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Noam Chomsky: The Paranoia of the Superrich and Superpowerful

February 5, 2013 by Source
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By Noam Chomsky, David Barsamian / RSN – TomDispatch / Feb 4, 2013

This piece is adapted from “Uprisings,” a chapter in Power Systems: Conversations on Global Democratic Uprisings and the New Challenges to U.S. Empire, Noam Chomsky’s new interview book with David Barsamian (with thanks to the publisher, Metropolitan Books). T
________

Does the United States still have the same level of control over the energy resources of the Middle East as it once had?

The major energy-producing countries are still firmly under the control of the Western-backed dictatorships. So, actually, the progress made by the Arab Spring is limited, but it’s not insignificant. The Western-controlled dictatorial system is eroding. In fact, it’s been eroding for some time.

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Ocean Beach Antique Shop Owner’s Wounded Nephew Gets Visit from President Obama for being “Hero”.

December 27, 2012 by Frank Gormlie
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Teresa Mallory’s nephew Quinn Rogan receives surprise visit after saving lives in Afghanistan

The owner of an antique store in Ocean Beach has her nephew’s photo propped up in her consignment shop on Newport Avenue. The picture has her nephew, Quinn Rogan – wounded in Afghanistan when he blocked suicide bombers from attacking his base – along with the President – who made him a surprise visit recently at Walter Reed Army hospital.

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Romney’s Job Creation Plan That No One Is Talking About

October 29, 2012 by Source

By John Lawrence / San Diego Free Press / Oct. 27, 2012

Mitt Romney has a jobs creation plan if he becomes President, alright. But no one, including Mitt Romney himself, is talking about it.

Remember the $2 trillion he wants to spend on the military? That $2 trillion he wants to spend on the military which the Pentagon doesn’t even want (but Defense contractors certainly do) translates into a huge jobs program.

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Occupy San Diego: A Year Later

October 9, 2012 by Source
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By Nadin Abbott

Occupy San Diego reached an important milestone this weekend. Occupy San Diego is now one year old, and like all children, it has learned a lot this year, but also achieved quite a bit.

The weekend saw a series of events, some low key, some going back to it’s roots in the streets, celebrating the fact that OSD is still here. The first event was at Balboa Park on Saturday afternoon.

When I reached the Park I was no longer surprised to see San Diego Police coming in to talk to an Occupier. Well, so what is new? Same old, same old – right? This time, the officers had cause. No, not the usual we saw over the course of last year. They had a call, from another occupier, reporting what can best be described as a domestic dispute. Given the Occupier in question wore a Guy Fawkes costume with knives (which I could not tell at a distance were plastic either), the cops showed up in force. This is standard.

Moreover, while the Police kept an eye on Occupy, like they do on every demonstration that happens in this town, they also kept their actual contact to a minimum, and kept their distance.

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The Maimed – On Eleven Years of War In Afghanistan

October 8, 2012 by Source
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Chris Hedges gave this talk Sunday night – October 7th – in New York City at a protest denouncing the 11th anniversary of the war in Afghanistan. The event, at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, was led by Veterans for Peace.

By Chris Hedges

Many of us who are here carry within us death. The smell of decayed and bloated corpses. The cries of the wounded. The shrieks of children. The sound of gunfire. The deafening blasts. The fear. The stench of cordite. The humiliation that comes when you surrender to terror and beg for life. The loss of comrades and friends. And then the aftermath. The long alienation. The numbness. The nightmares. The lack of sleep. The inability to connect to all living things, even to those we love the most. The regret. The repugnant lies mouthed around us about honor and heroism and glory. The absurdity. The waste. The futility.

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Time for Oversight of Predator Drones – Made in San Diego

September 14, 2012 by Source
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Unmanned predator drones are now used for surveillance here in the U.S. and abroad

By Dave Patterson / East County Magazine / September 12, 2012

September 12, 2012 (Poway)–Every Thursday afternoon one can see a demonstration at the General Atomics plant in Poway, home of the Predator drone. The demonstrators are from the San Diego Veterans For Peace and their supporters, with the goal of enlightening the public on the desperate need for oversight regarding drone technology.

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Federal Judge Rules NDAA’s Indefinite Detention Unconstitutional and Issues Permanent Injunction Against It

September 13, 2012 by Source
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Ruling Backed By Civil Liberties Groups Who Urge Obama to Give Up Defending Indefinite Detention

By Michael McAuliff / Huffington Post / September 13, 2012
Civil liberties groups are asking the Obama administration to stand down and give up defending America’s law allowing the indefinite detention of terrorism suspects after a judge Wednesday issued a permanent injunction against it. The indefinite detention law — contained in the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012 —

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NY Times: New Research Shows Bush White House Downplayed CIA Warnings About “Immiment” al Qaeda Strikes

September 11, 2012 by Source

The Deafness Before the Storm

By Kurt Eichenwald / New York Times/ September 10, 2012

On Aug. 6, 2001, President George W. Bush received a classified review of the threats posed by Osama bin Laden and his terrorist network, Al Qaeda. That morning’s “presidential daily brief” — the top-secret document prepared by America’s intelligence agencies — featured the now-infamous heading: “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” A few weeks later, on 9/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal.

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Michael Moore and Oliver Stone Speak Out on WikiLeaks, Julian Assange, and Free Speech

August 21, 2012 by Source
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By Michael Moore and Oliver Stone / New York Times / August 20, 2012

WE have spent our careers as filmmakers making the case that the news media in the United States often fail to inform Americans about the uglier actions of our own government. We therefore have been deeply grateful for the accomplishments of WikiLeaks, and applaud Ecuador’s decision to grant diplomatic asylum to its founder, Julian Assange, who is now living in the Ecuadorean Embassy in London.

Ecuador has acted in accordance with important principles of international human rights.

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Hiroshima / Nagasaki Remembered by Veterans for Peace

August 6, 2012 by Source

By Barry Ladendorf
In many parts of the world, people will pause to commemorate what happened 67 years ago on August 6, 1945, when the United States unleashed the most diabolical weapon in the history of mankind on the city of Hiroshima, Japan. Three days later on August 9th, the same hellish fire consumed the city of Nagasaki. It is estimated that 250,000 people died as a result of the bombs.

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The Starting Line — Three Things the UT-San Diego Doesn’t Want You to Know

August 1, 2012 by Doug Porter

Welcome to August, San Diego. Let’s start the month off right by cutting through the crap that publisher UT-San Diego Doug Manchester and his motley crews of spinmeisters are trying to pass off as reality. Sometimes they simply ignore news that has importance to wide swaths of the population, sometimes they simply twist the truth, and sometimes they simply lie. We’ve got great examples of all these ‘truth bending’ techniques, and hope you’ll come along for the ride. There are “lie-sickness’ bags available for those of you who feel may feel ill as we proceed along on our journey, please feel free to use them….

If you read today’s daily newspaper for our fair city you wouldn’t know that today is a momentous day for an estimated 47 million women in the United States. If you merely browsed the front page (or heard Carl DeMaio doing his ‘victory lap’ on the local electronic media), you might be under the impression that all systems were “go” for an overhaul of the City’s pension system. And if you were a regular reader, you might be under the impression that our region’s economic security was endangered by looming cuts in the defense budget, cuts that certainly must be the fault of our current Commander in Chief. Let’s start with the biggie…

August 1st marks the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) provisions that affect women in this country over the course of the coming year. Every health insurance policy provided by employers must now include a package of preventive and diagnostic care for women without co-pays or deductibles.

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Early OB Rag – ‘underground newspaper’ for OB – where the surf meets the hip

July 17, 2012 by Staff
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Originally posted September 29, 2009

Editor: This is part of a irregular continuing series about Ocean Beach since the late Sixties and the early history of the first OB Rag.

1968: The Rowdy College-Surf Town Morphs Into Hippie Haven

OB was already well-known for its rowdy and irreverent culture of beach, surf & beer; but by 1968, it began its transformation into something more. Bleach blond long-haired surfers lived next door to long-haired hippies, and soon you couldn’t tell them apart. It became official: Ocean Beach had become the hippie mecca. Since the late sixties, Ocean Beach had morphed into the hippie hangout for the entire city. OB had become the Haight-Ashbury of San Diego, shadowing the more famous early birthplace of hippie-ism. But if you were young and a hippie in San Diego, you ended up in OB.

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Memorial Day 2012

May 28, 2012 by Frank Gormlie
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(originally posted May 26, 2008.)

Editor: As the text within the graphic above states this was produced in 1963 by Dana Junior High School students who were in print shop. It is interesting to note that Steve Zivolich and Frank Gormlie were both involved in the anti-Viet Nam war movement at their respective college campuses back in the late sixties and early seventies.

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