The White House and the Western establishment are pulling all of the stops as a means to justify a possible military strike against Syria. The Western elite accuse Assad of utilizing chemical weapons in an attack of civilians in August of 2013. They use this accusation (which the Syrian government strongly denies) as a background to have a military strike against Syria. Yet, the West planned military responses against Syria long before the Syrian civil war. came about. Some in the U.S. Congress are being lined up for a drive for war against Syria. Some in the U.S. Congress have declared their support for President Barack Obama's proposed resolutions for enabling the use of force against Syria. This unpopular proposed military strike is based on lies and hypocrisy. This move to get Congressional authorization is aimed at providing a fig leaf of legitimacy to an unpopular war that is based on lies. It is very similar to the 2001 Authorization of Use of Military Force, which became the rationale for sweeping military attacks and domestic repression. Following a closed-door meeting between Obama and leading members of Congress Tuesday morning, Republican House Speaker John Boehner declared that he would “support the president’s call to action.” He added, “This is something that the United States, as a country, needs to do. ... I believe that my colleagues should support this call for action.” House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi added her support, saying, “from a national security standpoint, we have to send a very clear message to those who have weapons of mass destruction of any variety that they should forget about using them,” adding that “It is really something that, from a humanitarian standpoint, cannot be ignored, or else we cannot say never again.” Many Congress people from both political parties accept the lies as advanced by the Obama administration. One of them was the claim that the planned action in Syria will be "limited." Before the meeting with Boehner and Pelosi, the President said that the plan is not like Iraq or Afghanistan and that there will be not boots on the ground. Yet, any military strike in Syria is an act of war of Syria, which violates international law. This will cause Iran and possible Iran to jump into it. Secretary of State John Kerry, Secretary of Defense Charles Hagel, and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Martin Dempsey made the case for bombing Syria by making the claim that Assad used chemical weapons against civilians. Kerry opened his remarks by saying “some people here and there, amazingly, have questioned the evidence of this assault on conscience. I repeat here again today that only the most willful desire to avoid reality can assert that this did not occur as described or that the regime did not do it. It did happen, and the Assad regime did it.” Their evidence is vague and unsubstantiated. In the Senate testimony, Kerry himself outlined a scenario in which US troops invade Syria on the pretext of securing chemical weapons supplies as the country “imploded.” He said it would be “preferable not to” have a prohibition on ground troops. Kerry latter backtracked and he said that the administration was comfortable with a resolution that did not authorize ground troops. “There will not be boots on the ground with respect to the civil war,” he said, in carefully worded language that avoided mention of what would happen afterward. The Senate Foreign Relations Committee approved a military strike in Syria. There has been no verifiable evidence that the Syrian government was directly responsible for the chemical attack in August 21 outside of Damascus. We do have evidence that the rebels are committing war crimes against men, women, and even children. It is a shame that folks like Rand Paul are having a clearer head on this issue than many establishment liberals. Obviously, the West wants more access to Syrian pipelines, which is one reason why they are targeting Syria. America and other Western nations have used chemical warfare for centuries, but now they try to equate Assad to Hitler. Syrian civilians suffering and dying from chemical nerve gas is tragic and immoral. We all decry that, but that does not merit a military strike (which can inflame the region further). As human beings, we should never endorse unilateral militaristic aggression that violates international law. It is not true that the Syrian government prevented United Nations weapons inspectors from going to Ghouta, the site of the purported chemical weapons attack. The Syrian government gave permission for an inspection within 24 hours of the event. Initial delays were caused by the UN wanting to first guarantee the safety of its staff. This criminal exercise of power by these imperialists is disgraceful. We ought to not have military strikes and continue with peaceful diplomatic efforts as a means to make a peaceful conclusion to the Syrian civil war. This has nothing to do with national security, but for Western geopolitical interests. These strikes will cause a response most probably. An attack like this on Syria is an act of war on Syria.
There is no question that the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were immoral, illegal, and abhorrent. As time as gone on, more human beings have seen that. The atom bomb is a barbarous weapon of mass destruction. Tons of Japanese civilian populations of the cities of Hiroshima and of Nagasaki died on August 6, and on August 9, 1945, the United States was on the wrong side of history. Even General Dwight D. Eisenhower (who was the Supreme Commander of the Allied Forces in Europe during WWII and was the 34th U.S. President from 1952 to 1960) said it in so many words: “…the Japanese were ready to surrender and it wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” (Newsweek, November 11, 1963). Between 90,000 and 120,000 people died in Hiroshima and between 60,000 and 80,000 died in Nagasaki, for a grand total of between 150,000 and 200,000 most cruel deaths. So, it appears on that issue Eisenhower (who was a military man) had more truth on that issue than the Freemason and small town politician Harry S. Truman regarding the fateful decision. The United States is the first country in human history to use nuclear weapons against civilian populations. That is a direct violation of internationally accepted principles of war, because that action involves the wholesale and indiscriminate destruction of populations. So, August of 1945 outlines a moral step backward in the acts of humanity. It started an ominous, evil precedent for future wars and conflicts in the world. So, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki (which killed thousands of innocent Japanese civilian populations) were historic crimes against humanity. Then President Harry S. Truman lied to the American people about the whole affair. It took Japan until September 2 for them to officially surrender in the signings of the Japanese Instrument of Surrender. Nazi Germany had capitulated on May 8, 1945 and World War II was already over in Europe. There was also the diplomatic fear that the Soviet Red Army could have invaded Japan, as they had done in Berlin, thus depriving the United States of a hard fought clear-cut victory against Japan. Some believe that the atomic weapons were done as a means to save American lives and for making Japan to experience a quick surrender. Many military experts though admitted that the Japanese apparatus had been de facto defeated. The militarist Japanese Supreme Council for the Direction of the War was stalling with the aim of getting better capitulation terms hoping for a negotiated settlement, especially regarding the future role of their Emperor Hirohito as formal head of state. The Nazis accepted surrender without nuclear weapons exploited in their territories. The enormity of the deaths of massive human life negates the pretext of rushing surrender. Targeting entire cities via nuclear weapons is blatantly immoral and has caused huge damage in the world. Truman seems to have no moral considerations in the most inhuman decision of these attacks. August 1945 begin a new error where we still have a nuclear arms race. We should continue to fight for peace.
The killings in Soweto will always be remembered by me as a black man. It happened in June 16, 1976. This action of the students came about via a series of protests led by high school students in South Africa. Many Sowetan schools united as a means to protest the introduction of the Afrikaans as the medium of instruction in local schools. As high as 20,000 students took part in the protests. A range between 176 to 700 human beings died from the actions of protests. That is why June 16 is a public holiday in South Africa called Youth Day. It is utilized as a means to remember the events of 1976. The black high school students protested the Afrikaans Medium Decree of 1974, which forced all black schools to use Afrikaans and English in a 50-50 mix as languages of instruction. The Regional Director of Bantu Education (Northern Transvaal Region), J.G. Erasmus, told Circuit Inspectors and Principals of Schools that from January 1, 1975, Afrikaans had to be used for mathematics, arithmetic, and social studies from standard five (7th grade), according to the Afrikaans Medium Decree; English would be the medium of instruction for general science and practical subjects (homecraft, needlework, woodwork, metalwork, art, agricultural science). This unjust decree would only use indigenous languages being used for religion instruction, music, and physical culture. In the 1960's and the 1970's, black South Africans continued to fight back. There was the ending of overt colonialism in Africa, the rise of the Black Power movement in America (as us or Diaspora Black inspired Africans and the Africans inspired us Diaspora Blacks indeed too). The Afrikaaner oppressor wanted to force black human beings to exist under cultural colonialism. Teacher organizations such as the African Teachers Association of South Africa objected to the decree. In April 30, 1976, children from Orlando West Junior School in Soweto went on strike. They refused to go to school under a legitimate grievance. The students wanted to be taught equally as white South Africans. A mass rally was planned in June 13 to allow their voices to be heard. The protest was intended to be peaceful and had been carefully planned by the Soweto Students’ Representative Council’s (SSRC) Action Committee with the wider Black Consciousness Movement. Tsietsi Mashinini united other high school students from other locations to join in the protests. The Bureau of State Security (BOSS), which was in charge of South Africa's internal security, was caught unaware. A police squad was sent in to form a line in front of the marchers. They ordered the crowd to disperse. When they refused, police dogs were released, and then teargas was fired. Students responded by throwing stones and bottles at the police. Journalists later reported seeing a policeman draw his revolver and shoot without warning into the crowd. Other policemen also started shooting. Colonel Kleingeld said that students were throwing stones and other students were marching peacefully. When he fired a shoot, panic and chaos happened. Students screamed and ran. More gunshots were fired killing innocent children. The police loosed their dogs on the children. Some dogs were stoned to death in self-defense. Then, the police began to shoot directly at the children. One of the first students to be shot dead was 13 year old Hector Pieterson. He was shot at Orlando West High School and became the symbol of the Soweto uprising. 23 young human beings died including 2 white people (as part of as high as 700 human deaths). Both sides made errors in their conduct, yet the children suffered worst in the uprising. The police had no moral right to prevent young South Africans from protesting their legitimate grievances in society at all. The aftermath of the Soweto Uprising was that it galvanized more human beings to oppose the apartheid regime. Many white South African citizens were outraged at the government's actions in Soweto, and about 300 white students from the University of the Witwatersrand marched through Johannesburg's city center in protest of the killing of children. Black workers went on strike as well and joined them as the campaign progressed. Riots also broke out in the black townships of other cities in South Africa. Many student organizations organized nonviolent protests in South Africa. The United Nations Security Council passed Resolution 392 to condemn the Soweto incident and the apartheid regime. When you witness innocent black children being killed by militarized brutes in the Soweto incident, then that certainly inspires us to fight even more for Justice.
Even WEB Dubois before he died work up. He began to see what the great hero Marcus Garvey was trying to tell him (that we can never be free unless we ally ourselves with Africans culturally, psychologically, economically, politically, and mentally). There was a time when WEB DuBois was more moderate and then he opened his eyes and awakened to the fact that black liberation can never run by allying with the 2 party system of America, but by working with independent black institutions that are dedicated to the proposition that freedom for all Africans in the world is a great, audacity goal to achieve. Ironically, he died before Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. gave his historic I Have a Dream speech in 1963. He was almost 100 years old, which a long time (even great for his time period). He was 95 when he passed away. We are still fighting for our liberation and human dignity. Even Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. realized the great value of WEB Dubois in our struggle for liberation. Dr. King said, “History cannot ignore W.E.B. Du Bois because history has to reflect truth and Dr. Du Bois was a tireless explorer and a gifted discoverer of social truths. His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people. There were very few scholars who concerned themselves with honest study of the Black man and he sought to fill this immense void. The degree to which he succeeded disclosed the great dimensions of the man.” It is ironic also to see that DuBois worked in the pan Africanist movement, became an integrationist, and finally died in the pan-Africanist movement when he truly woke up. When DuBois was in the NAACP, he clashed with white moderates like Oswald Villard (he wanted to show a list of Black crimes instead of solely showing the monthly lynchings of innocent Black men, women, and children in America). DuBois wrote his masterpiece about John Brown. Even WEB DuBois understood that despite his ideological differences with Booker T. Washington, Booker T. Washington was never the enemy of all black people (he just had some disagreements with Booker T. Washington). When Dr. Du Bois weighed in on his disagreement with Booker T. Washington, he said “Neither I nor Booker Washington understood the nature of capitalistic exploitation of labor, and the necessity of a direct attack on the principle of exploitation as the beginning of labor uplift.” Even one of the major points of the March on Washington was the seeking of jobs not just human equality. We as human beings of African descent should advance the dignity of labor since our ancestors suffered economic exploitation in the cotton and tobacco plantations for centuries in America. Today, we are even exploited more sophisticatedly via Corporate Western society from sports to politics. WEB DuBois had his passport confiscated by the U.S. State Department at the age of 83 even. Many of our heroes condemned Western imperialism like the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey with his submission to the League of Nations in 1923 entitled “The Soul of White America," DuBois' submission of the Appeal to the World in 1947, and Malcolm X plans to take America to trial for its treatment of black Americans via the United Nations. WEB DuBois worked in Pan African Congresses in the number of five from 1900 to 1945. He joined the Council of African Affairs in 1948. Today, Mother Africa is being attack by US-NATO forces in a variety of means (from military harm to economic exploitation. One example was when NATO barbarically attacked Libya and allowed rebels to lynch black Libyan men, women, and children). We know about how the Honorable Marcus Mosiah Garvey and Dr. WEB DuBois paved the way for Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. to condemn U.S. imperialism in the war on Vietnam. Before DuBois died, he was working on his Encyclopedia Africana. Those of us of black African descent should always inspired by our Brothers and Sisters who sought liberation and truth. Even today, there are tons of Brothers and Sisters that are legitimately fighting for black African liberation.
Adult stem cell can imitate the human brain. This is hope for researchers and scientists to help solve the issue of neurological disorders. A study published last week has shown that adult stem cells derived from ethical sources can be used to create living tissues that imitate the developing human brain. They found this out and their findings are published in the science journal called Nature. These researchers mentioned that by using human stem cells derived form skills; they were able to assemble brain like pieces of living tissue. These stem cells can be an invaluable resource for the study and treatment of various neuro-developmental disorders. The researchers did an unique procedure. They formed complex neural tissue clumps by first growing the stem cells on a synthetic gel that resembled connective tissues found in the brain and elsewhere in the human body. They infused the tissue clumps with nutrients and oxygen. Scientists had previously used human stem cells to grow structures resembling the eye and even tissue layers similar to the brain's cortex. The big surprise was that it worked,” says Juergen Knoblich, a developmental biologist at the Institute of Molecular Biotechnology in Vienna and one of the researchers behind the study. The chumps of tissue grew to resemble the brains of unborn human babies at about nine weeks gestation. Dr. Knoblich also said that the tissue structure is not the same as that of an intact brain. He added that the normal brain maturation in an embryo is most likely guided by growth signals from other part of the human body. The tissue also lacks blood vessels, which could be one reason that the tissue only grew to be 3-4 millimeters in diameter. The researchers behind the study used the system to model key aspects of microcephaly. Microcephaly is a neurological condition that causes stunted brain growth and cognitive impairment. It can be caused by many genetic and environmental factors, but there are currently no treatments. According to the research team, tissue masses cultured from stem cells derived from the skin of a person with microcephaly did not grow to be as large as those stem cells derived from a healthy person. The research team hypothesizes that this is due to the premature differentiation of neural stem cells inside the microcephalic tissue chunks which diminishes the population of progenitor cells that fuels normal brain growth.
By Timothy
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