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Islamabad — This past June I posted an article by Anatol Lieven on Facebook. For those who are not familiar with his name, Anatol is from the UK and numbers among the few journalists whom I always enjoy reading. I have met Anatol a few times and he is the kind of person who likes to get acquainted with the psycho-social environment of the people he writes about. Written in the wake of Osama bin Laden’s execution, Anatol’s article was critical of the US approach to the region, particularly Pakistan.

Among those responding to this post was an American whom I would rather not embarrass by naming; so let’s just call him X. Admitting that he hadn’t read through Anatol’s article and was judging its contents by earlier articles of the author, he went on to add, “let me put this as simply as possible, for you to understand. The US has concluded that the Pakistan army is part of the problem, not the solution; and that the interests of the Pakistan army are not identical with those of Pakistan. Consequently, the US has decided that the Pakistan army has to be cut to size and, if in the process of doing so, the Pakistan army is destroyed, so be it. And, I agree”.

The first thing that hit me was the arrogance of his statement. The “US has decided (on behalf of, and for, the people of Pakistan) that its army’s interests and theirs are not identical”, and will, on behalf of, and for Pakistan, cut its army to size! Typical arrogance expected of the American establishment. The only issue was that this American had hitherto seemed pretty level-headed and very far from arrogant. Nor was he a Mansoor Ijaz or even an expatriate American. I commented on the arrogance of his words, to which he chose not to respond. However, I did not take the contents of his comment very seriously; not at that time.

The “Memo-gate” Scandal

Most readers will be familiar with this scandal, so I will cover just the bare outline of the incident from my perspective. On October 10th, Mansoor Ijaz, a multi millionaire American of Pakistani origin, wrote an op-ed for the Financial Times which, as it was expected to do, set Pakistan’s political landscape on fire.

His op-ed titled, “Time to take on Pakistan’s Jihadist spies”, as the title indicates, ostensibly seemed to target the ISI and the Pakistan military for maintaining ties with Jihadists. However, it mentioned the fact that in the aftermath of Osama bin Laden’s execution, he was contacted by a “senior diplomat”, who was known to be close to Pakistani President, Zardari. Apparently, Zardari feared the possibility of a military coup. Everybody knew that the senior Pakistani diplomat referred to Hussain Haqqani, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US.

Smoldering ruin of a border outpost inside Pakistan attacked by US helicopter gunships. 24 Pakistani soldiers were slaughtered here and at a second mountaintop outpost in an unprovoked and clearly coordinated US massacre

Scroll to the bottom of the news articles on the home page, and you’ll find a Google site search window, where you can enter search words, separated by commas, to locate older articles on the site quickly. Enter a word from an article, from a headline, and/or a writer’s byline. As with Google searches, you can also include phrases, enclosed in quotation marks.

At the beginning of the twentieth century the United States was engaged in a long and brutal war of aggression against the Philippines, which led to between 200,000 and 1.5 million civilian deaths. It was a colonial war against independence fought by the US with patriotic zeal and of course, the claim that God was on our side.  To be against the war in that jingoistic era was considered tantamount to treason.  Hence it was a brazen act of effrontery for author Mark Twain to have made a statement denouncing the acts of brutality that accompanied this war.  In his short story, The War Prayer, he portrayed a priest who, with  fervor, called upon God to bring victory to a supposedly just cause,  irrespective of the horror inflicted on the “enemy,” a poor and downtrodden people trying only to assert their freedom after centuries of colonial oppression.

David Lindorff, Sr. was a Marine staff sergeant in World War II

This article originally appeared in The Pitch, a Kansas City alternative newspaper. ThisCantBeHappening! normally does not reprint other publications’ material, but this story about Kristi Neuhaus, a heroic doctor who has fought for women’s right to abortion in one of the most cynically benighted regions of the country for decades, together with her journalist/private investigator husband Mike Cadell, a lifelong prairie radical who puts the truth in front of Kansans in his newspaper, the Fightin’ Cock Flyer, and on his radio program Radio Free Kansas, has to be told to as wide an audience as possible. We’re proud to run it here:
 

There isn’t an address on the paint-chipped farmhouse in Nortonville, about 30 miles north of Lawrence. Across from it on this country road, the mailbox hangs limp. A muddy driveway leads past a beat-up pickup truck to a garage. An approaching car sends cats scattering.

It’s the only place that Ann Kristin Neuhaus and Mike Caddell have ever owned. She describes the place as something out of Cormac McCarthy’s post-apocalyptic novel The Road. Caddell calls it “a money pit.”

“Do we look rich?” Neuhaus asks. “We’re very broke all of the time. Our house is falling down.”

She turns on the water each time she wants to flush the toilet, but this is home for Neuhaus and Caddell. They’ve been married 26 years, and they have a 14-year-old son, Tristan. Six chickens, five cats, four dogs, three horses, two roosters and a goat roam the family’s 10 acres.

Neuhaus and Caddell bought the place 15 years ago, when she was making a little money. Now they’re struggling to survive. About a year ago, the house nearly faced foreclosure. During an interview with The Pitch in September, Neuhaus was on her way to apply for a payday loan. Then in October, the utilities were almost shut off.

“It’s just literally month by month that we’re holding onto the place,” says Caddell, host of the Radio Free Kansas online radio show. “We’ve been living on $30,000 a year for about two and a half years now.” That money came from a research stipend that has since expired. Neuhaus is now working as a research instructor at the University of Kansas Medical Center’s Department of Family Medicine.

Out here, they say, the neighbors are protective. One, fearing for Neuhaus’ safety, offered to loan her an AK-47. That’s life on the front line of Kansas’ abortion war.

Neuhaus is one of the last links to Wichita abortion provider George Tiller, who was murdered in May 2009 while attending a Sunday church service. From 1999 to 2006, Neuhaus provided second-opinion mental-health exams to determine whether the late-term abortions that some women sought at Tiller’s clinic were medically necessary. That step was required by Kansas law.

Three Kansas attorneys general tried to prosecute Tiller for his arrangement with Neuhaus. Tiller eventually was charged with having an improper financial relationship with Neuhaus. He was acquitted of the misdemeanor in March 2009. The doctor was assassinated two months later by Scott Roeder, who had attended Tiller’s trial and was seen sitting next to Operation Rescue president Troy Newman.
Ann Kristin Neuhaus, under attack for years by cynical right-wing politicians, and standing her ground in Kansas (photos by Angela C. Bond)

You say you feel my pain
But
You don’t even know what pain is.

– Untitled final poem by Street Poet
 

Oklahoma City — After spending the last three weeks in Oklahoma City covering the Occupy OKC encampment, I was shocked to learn of Street Poet’s passing yesterday. It just didn’t seem possible that this talented, loving young man whom I had known for just ten days could be taken away so suddenly.

The man we all called “Street Poet” was about 18 years old and homeless. He said he had spent a lot of time in foster care growing up. In his final days, he had complained about asthma attacks in the morning. He showed no other signs of physical or mental health problems, drug addiction, or suicidal tendencies. He was a joyous presence in Occupy OKC.

Gone but not forgotten, Street Poet died, apparently in his sleep, at the Oklahoma City occupation (photos courtesy Occupy OKC official Facebook page)

Street Poet was discovered unresponsive in his tent by another camper around 2:45 on the afternoon of Halloween. There was no blood, or signs of trauma. No alcohol, street drugs or drug paraphernalia by his bedside. It is generally believed that Street Poet passed sometime during the night, as rigor mortis had already set in by the time his body was found.

___________________________________________________________________
UPDATE:
Street Poet’s family has been identified and located, so we can finally release his name: Louis Cameron Rodriguez, age 18.

His mother and sister live in Clarksville, TN and want to fly to OKC to claim his body. Occupy OKC is trying to raise donations for Louis’ family, who cannot afford airfare. Please spread the word.

Anyone out there who wants to donate either frequent flier miles or cash can contact Occupy OKC. Beth Isbell is coordinating this effort. Her email is roxybeast@hotmail.com. Local readers can just drop by the camp in Kerr Park to donate in person.
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Spies and Provocateurs: Police Spying on Occupy Movement not Likely Limited to Los Angeles
The spies and provocateurs sent into the Occupy encampment in Los Angeles by the LAPD are certainly just the tip of the iceberg, says Dave. We need to find the rest of them. It seems likely most of any violence coming from Occupiers was actually the work of those police provocateurs.

You people who have been reading our reporting over the last year and a half know what we are doing. Now we need you to support it.

Project Censored has announced that ThisCantBeHappening! has won one of the top 25 awards this year given out for news coverage of events or issues that the mainstream media have largely or completely ignored.
Founded in 1976, Project Censored has been challenging the propaganda of the corporate media now for 35 years

Check out this cartoon by Portland, Ore. film company Softbox of Dave Lindorff being interviewed by Flashpoints host Dennis Bernstein on how the US spends 53% of the annual budget on war and the military.

Tax Dollars at War

Check it out on Radio Free Kansas