Twelfth Bough

about the Winter Soldier testimony in Washington, DC this past weekend, here’s a little roundup. Live blogging by Winter Patriot Chris Floyd Online podcasts from KPFA radio Antiwar.com Photo essay by Nina Berman Yesterday on the radio I heard Sy Hersh telling a story about how he tracked down one of the soldiers involved in Mi Lai. The kid had lost part of a leg and was back here in the US. Hersh finally found him on the chicken farm where he grew up. The kids mother, a poor old woman, told Hersh, “I gave them a good boy, and they sent me back a murderer.” The military trains people to kill other people, and they do a good job with that training. The problems is they have to mortally wound the soldiers first, on the inside, to free them up to kill other human beings. The military has many creative ways of doing this - the secrets of their culture, rah rah. Surviving soldiers get the lucky fortune of dragging around their mortally wounded souls for the rest of their God-forsaken...

It'll seem obvious to many, but a sheepdog should move around sheep without disturbing them unduly. He should have the "power" to bring or drive them wherever you want him to without unduly stressing or damaging them in any way. - The Working Sheepdog Website This past weekend hundreds of journalists gathered in Boston for The Nieman Conference for Narrative Journalism. I consume a lot of news. I frequently mutter things like, "Are these people for real? Do they believe this shit? How can they not see what's going on?" and things like that. I feel like a bitchy restaurant critic ripping apart the Chicken Marsala at one place and the Steak au Poivre at the next. So I confess that I have really been wondering about the journalists who churn this stuff out. This weekend I walked among them with my "freelancer" badge hanging off my shirt, learning about their craft and learning about them. I'm not a journalist now, never was one, didn't go to s...

This opinion piece by Steven Kinzer ran in the Boston Globe today. It’s all about how we should be talking to Iran because we share many common interests. IF THE next American president wisely applies time-honored techniques of diplomacy, the United States may within a few years have a new long-term strategic partner in the Middle East: Iran. Not only are these two countries not fated to be enemies forever, they have profound strategic interests in common. Iran is the one country in the world that offers the United States a chance to reshape the global order with a single bold stroke, in a way that could decisively advance American interests. The United States has more to gain from partnering with Iran than from a partnership with any other country in the Muslim Middle East. I don’t disagree at all with using diplomacy. By all means, we should be using diplomacy. But why now? Why do we hear about all of Iran’s wonderful qualities now? For months and months the American people have...

Speculation continues to run rampant about l’affair Fallon. On the outside it looks like Bush canned him for insubordination . He just can’t tolerate people who don’t grovel. This has the advantage of ringing true with Bush’s psychological deficits, which everybody knows are real and enormous. Holding aside all the kabuki about why Fallon would be so stupid as to continue poking Bush in the eye, on some level this does boil down to men and their egos. Maybe Fallon enjoyed pissing Bush off, and maybe Bush really enjoyed making him resign. And really, it just goes on and on and on from there. I have read all kinds of theories in the past couple of days about this. Frankly, it says so much about our current system that nobody seems able to nail it down. Everything important that happens in the world, things that affect millions and billions of people, are essentially kept secret. They force us to speculate over and over again. We have to make our decisions in the dark and in the confusi...

It’s all starting to make more sense, at least to me. The war with Iran is a virtual certainty. First of all, Fallon said the war would not happen on his watch. After thinking and reading many takes on his resignation, I think the most likely conclusion is that the decision to go to war has been made. Since he wants no part of it, Fallon resigned. Fallon’s characterization of Barnett’s article in Esquire as some kind of hit piece, though it was totally fawning, makes sense in one light. Figuring that Fallon’s dissent had been long under the radar, he has been able to forestall the war. By bringing it into the mainstream via Esquire, the Barnett piece forced the confrontation between Fallon and Bush, a confrontation which of course Fallon would lose. So in that sense, the decision to publish Barnett’s piece had a predictable consequence - Fallon would have to resign - and therefore it can be considered a hit piece. Barnett, who is in all likelihood genuinely blown away by Fallon, ser...

In light of the spectacular 9/11 video analysis here , I found it very interesting to read via Winter Patriot that Eliot Spitzer is friendly with Larry Silverstein and Jerome Hauer. Spitzer intervened on behalf of Silverstein, helping him collect a $4.5B settlement for the destruction of the WTC. Silverstein and Hauer, along with Giuliani, were at the epicenter of the 9/11 hoax. So if Spitzer considers them friends, even to the extent of using his authority to help Silverstein collect huge bucks , then he’s a piece of shit just like them. Arthur Silber takes him apart here , basically concluding that he’s an arrogant authoritarian who got exactly what he deserved. You know, I’m good with that. As for Hauer, he’s up to his eyeballs in complicity. Go to WP and click through the links. You can hear Jerome Hauer’s comments on 9/11 on this video, a video which was removed from Google Video and YouTube just days after showing some legs. As for the picture on WP, take a piece of paper and...

This video on 9/11 gives new meaning to the phrase “hung by one’s own petard”. This is just great analysis of the currency of our times: the video and soundtrack of this terrorist attack. It’s also wonderful that the researcher has made the information publicly available, since so many of the 9/11 documentaries now need to be purchased. I thank him. Six and one half years have passed. Look back at the behavior of our media darlings. What seemed merely honest confusion in the heat of the night now reveals itself to be outright deception in the cold light of day. None of this would have been possible without their help. Think of all the lives they helped sacrifice by telling this big lie. Imagine how terrified they must be that people are putting it all together, piece by sordid piece. Think how strenuously they will deny everything and discredit anyone who challenges the official account. They are guilty of mass murder, and they don’t ever want anyone to know. They have their own secr...