First Lady Blames Cabinet Member For 118 Deaths in Dangerous Oil Accident.

[NNadir]

http://www.nation.co.ke/News/-/1056/523684/-/u1ukjw/-/index.html">First Lady blames Saitoti for oil spill deaths

“I was saddened by the Nakumatt inferno and now we have the Molo tragedy. Our leaders should wake up and do something.”

The death toll has reached 118 after seven of the 47 victims flown from the scene to Nairobi succumbed to their injuries.

She lamented that most of the dead were young people and school-going children, who had been sent by their parents to scoop oil for sale.

Mrs Kibaki also hit out at MPs whose constituents are dying of hunger.

“You should be ashamed. With your salaries you can feed the whole constituency...why should you let anyone die of hunger?

Imagine, just for a minute - if you have a sense of humor - that these 118 dead had been European and for another minute, that the cause of their death was a radioactive spill.

There would have been an international fetish lasting for decades.

As it is, this is the first lady of Kenya, the land of our President's father, and the spill involved oil and so the world couldn't care less about these people. The decision to not care less about any dangerous fossil fuel deaths, including the millions who die each year from air pollution, is an arbitrary decision, one made in a moral vacuum that in an ethical world would be reprehensible.

[flyarm]

1. US warned on deadly drone attacks

US warned on deadly drone attacks
Source: BBC News

The US has been warned that its use of drones to target suspected terrorists in Afghanistan and Pakistan may violate international law.

UN human rights investigator Philip Alston said the US should explain the legal basis for attacking individuals with the remote-controlled aircraft.

He said the CIA had to show accountability to international laws which ban arbitrary executions.

Drones have killed about 600 people in north-west Pakistan since August 2008.

Read more: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8329412.stm

[flyarm]

2. Mrs Obama tell your husband to stop these deaths!

Amy Goodman:The War Condolences Obama Hasn’t Sent http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/10/28-0

Published on Wednesday, October 28, 2009 by TruthDig.com

The War Condolences Obama Hasn’t Sent
by Amy Goodman

U.S. Army Reserve Spc. Chancellor Keesling died in Iraq on June 19, 2009, from “a non-combat related incident,” according to the Pentagon. Keesling had killed himself. He was just one in what is turning out to be a record year for suicides in the U.S. military.

In August, President Barack Obama addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, saying, “here is nothing more sobering than signing a letter of condolence to the family of serviceman or -woman who has given their life for our country.” To their surprise, Jannett and Gregg Keesling, Chance’s parents, won’t be getting such a letter. Obama does not write condolence letters to loved ones of those who commit suicide in the theater of combat.

Jannett told me: “Chancellor was recruited right out of high school, and this was something he was passionate about, joining the military. I wanted him to go to college, but he said that he wanted to be a soldier.” Gregg added: “We had doubts about him joining. ... When the war broke out in 2003, when many of us were trying to retreat, Chancy decided, ‘This is my duty.’ ... But once he did his first tour ... his marriage broke up during that deployment.”

Chance was very troubled during his first tour of duty in Iraq, although he performed admirably by all accounts. At one point he was put on a suicide watch and had his ammunition taken away for a week. After Iraq, Chance declined a $27,000 reenlistment bonus and transitioned to the U.S. Army Reserves, hoping to avoid another deployment. He sought and was receiving treatment at a Veterans Affairs facility. Gregg said, “We sat down as a family, and we said, ‘President Obama is going to be elected, and President Obama will end this war, and you won’t have to go.’ ” But then his son’s orders to deploy came again.

..more..

[NNadir]

3. Well, since you mention it, not that this is contextually relevant to my point, the war

in Afghanistan uses diverted dangerous fossil fuels to address a war that was justified by a dangerous fossil fuel powered terrorist attack motivated by people who were objecting to dangerous fossil fuel politics.

I never thought this response appropriate, not on September 12, 2001, not 5 years ago, not 5 minutes ago. That said, the President is in a hell of a fix that is not of his own making. Wars are far easier to start than to end.

This President did not start this war and it is not immediately clear to me where the most justice or injustice in this case lies. The Taliban are very vicious people, savages really, philistines of the worst order, even before the United States went to war with them. (To be clear, many of them were funded by the United States when they were fighting the Soviets.)

But my point was not to criticize the President on his Afghan war policy - although I oppose all wars - but to point up that things are acceptable for the dangerous fossil fuel status quo that are specifically not acceptible for nuclear systems, even though the number of nuclear wars observed since 1945 is zero, the same as the number of nuclear terrorist attacks.

My contention, which has little to do with the war in Afghanistan except for its causality, is that the anti-nuke position encourages the status quo through appeals to complacency and fantasy, and thus leads to unnecessary deaths immediately.

[flyarm]

4. we supposedly did not go into this war to stop the Taliban..we went in to stop and capture

those that killed my co-workers..Al Queada.

They are all but abolished or most of the top are captured or dead,.

now it seems our reasons have morphed , have they not?

out now,.or it will be Obama's legacy! and not a good legacy at that.

and the blood will be on his hands!

I thought he was the anti war guy?????

or we were lied to ?????

just asking..

I do not want to pay for another damn death in my name! got it..I am a dem I have fought against this war in Afganistan and Iraq from the get go..I have not changed my spots..have you?

[NNadir]

5. You're being very simplistic.

I really don't have much patience for "we" were "lied to" kind of remarks. "We" seems to be "you," and since I did not have the same expectation that you apparently did it is possible that you misinterpreted the President's remarks.

In any case, I expect a wise ruler to not be bound strictly by promises in a campaign. Rather I am interested in the character of the politician and his or her values.

Do you honestly believe Mr. Obama started this war and that the sole responsibility for it rests on his head?

Give. Me. A. Break.

I did not support Mr. Obama in the primaries, but truth be told, I am glad that my candidate was not nominated. Mr. Obama exceeds my expectations.

As I said, I was against the war in Afghanistan from the beginning, but I did not vote for Obama in the general election expecting him to wave some kind of magic wand and make this war go away. He was quite clear in the debates with McCain and elsewhere that he thought that a problem with the war in Iraq was that it diverted attention from Afghanistan.

Even a rudimentary understanding of the situation in that area of the world - it's not rocket science - recognizes that the Taliban's relationship with Al Queda is not characterized by discrete lines. You seem to believe that the situation is defined by membership cards issued with position analysis.

I do not necessarily agree with the President's policy on the war. In fact, I oppose it. On the other hand the insistence that the President do exactly what I want to do is just stupid, since I could have run for President myself if I insisted that the President do exactly what I wanted or be characterized as a "liar."

You had as much opportunity as anyone, even Dennis Kucinich, to run for President. I would have never voted for you myself though, since I'm not fond of simplistic thinking. But if you think you could be a great President, you could run. After all, nobody would have believed in 2002 that we would be talking of President Obama in 2009.

I do not know that the President will succeed or fail with any of the huge issues placed before him. Frankly I expect him to fail on some things, and succeed on others, just like every President before him. A great President is not one who knows no failure, but is one who grows, sometimes through failure, to pile successes over the failures. That was true of Lincoln, of FDR, of Washington, of Grant. It is very possible for this man that he will do the same.

I do know that I admire the President enormously and trust that like any worthy person, he is doing his best - and a considerable "best" it is - to find a path to justice and peace. He is head and shoulders above the Presidents I have seen in my lifetime and the comparison with the fool who he replaced - who is responsible for the creation of these wars - would be laughable were it not so bitter.