Who are the criminals and fascists? Donald Trump’s decision to pardon four Blackwater contractors involved in the 2007 slaughter of Iraqi civilians was met with a tsunami of anger and resentment online from people calling it a travesty of justice. President Donald Trump announced on Tuesday evening that he is issuing 15 full pardons and commuting the punishments of five convicts to time served. Four of the people given clemency were former employees of the infamous private military company Blackwater.
They were serving lengthy prison terms, including a life sentence in one case, for the Nisour Square massacre, one of the most notorious episodes in the US’ military engagement in Iraq. Seventeen Iraqi civilians, including one child, were killed in the crowded Baghdad square in September 2007, after the US contractors opened fire on people with machine guns, sniper rifles, and grenade launchers.
The investigation concluded that at least 14 of them were killed without any reason. The unprovoked attack was carried out by Blackwater guards who were escorting a US Embassy convoy and allegedly thought they had been ambushed. After a protracted legal process, four people were sentenced to various prison terms. Nicholas Slatten, who was accused of opening fire first and triggering the attack on civilians, received a life sentence.
The news that all four convicts will now walk free, their punishments considered enough, was met with much anger, as public figures and ordinary commenters lashed out at Trump’s decision. Glenn Kirschner, a former US Army prosecutor who is now a legal analyst with MSNBC, said the president “killed justice” with his pardons.
Mark Hertling, a retired general who was involved in the 2007-08 troop surge, called the move “the most egregious and disgusting” of Trump’s actions. Politician Richard Ojeda, a retired mayor, said Blackwater contractors in Iraq were a bunch of “cowboys” who “caused trouble for us, active duty troops.” Representative Ilhan Omar called the pardoned contractors “mercenaries” and “war criminals,” whose release “will leave a dark mark on the history of presidential pardons.”
Others pointed out that securing the convictions of the four perpetrators was a difficult challenge for the justice system, and that the efforts were apparently wasted by the pardons. Some said that while Trump’s pardon was appalling, people should keep in mind that he was not the one who launched the 2003 Iraq invasion in the first place.
George W. Bush and other architects of the war are now a respectable part of the bipartisan establishment in the US. Supporters of the former contractors had been arguing that the men had been excessively punished and that their prosecution was tainted. “Paul Slough and his colleagues didn’t deserve to spend one minute in prison,” Brian Heberlig, a lawyer for one of the four pardoned defendants, said of the news. “I am overwhelmed with emotion at this fantastic news.”
In 2007, Blackwater was headed by Eric Prince, the brother of Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy DeVos. He resigned and divested from the firm after the scandal over the massacre erupted. The company itself went through a series of re-brandings. Last year, Prince lobbied the Trump administration to replace US troops in Afghanistan with thousands of mercenaries.
Ali was sitting in the back seat of his father’s SUV with two of his cousins. Blackwater riddled the car with bullets. Ali’s father was driving. When the shooting stopped they thought they had experienced a miracle that they were safe.
One of Ali’s cousins said that Ali had been shot. His father opened the door after seeing blood on the window – and Ali’s brain fell out onto the pavement between his father’s feet.
“Man up” may seem like a harmless way to tell a man to step up to his responsibilities, to be strong, or to show fewer emotions, but the phrase itself implies that doing any of these things is gender-specific.
Being a man myself, I’ve been told all of the stuff mentioned above. My mom said that I shouldn’t cry because “It’s not man-like”. Unfortunately, like my mom, most parents fail to understand the consequences of teaching children things like that.
Because I was told to be a man since I can remember, I realized that I kept telling myself to refrain from displaying emotions for most of my life. I kept myself from crying or even acting hurt when something wrong would happen. Keeping all of those things inside takes a real toll on you, your mental and physical health.
Tener como patrimonio una filosofía «fascista», y hacer de ella un regocijo en pleno siglo XXI, sentirse halagado cuando se le califica como el «Trump del trópico», desafiar la inteligencia humana y apostar por lo irracional, son cualidades del actual presidente brasileño, Jair #Bolsonaro
Tener como patrimonio una filosofía «fascista», y hacer de ella un regocijo en pleno siglo XXI, sentirse halagado cuando se le califica como el «Trump del trópico», desafiar la inteligencia humana y apostar por lo irracional, son cualidades del actual presidente brasileño, Jair Bolsonaro.
Incluso, este mismo viernes, al referirse a la vacuna de Pfizer contra la COVID-19, que debe aplicarse en su país, dijo al pueblo que los vacunados «pueden convertirte en monos o en cocodrilos».
Pero lo más grave de todo es que ese sea el presidente del mayor país de América Latina.
Me dirán entonces: bueno, si Donald Trump es presidente de Estados…
As you all probably know, many antifascist and anarchist platforms were banned from Facebook earlier this year. Enough 14 was banned as well, and decided not to use Instagram anymore. Instagram is owned by Facebook and we decided to focus on our Mastodon account and our Telegram channel. On December 19 Instagram banned CrimethInc.
In the early hours of Saturday, December 19, one day before their new terms of service took effect, Instagram shut down a page associated with CrimethInc. with no explanation or justification. The account had never been suspended before, nor received so much as a warning. Well over 40,000 people were following it. The issue was not a violation of the terms of service—rather, this is a political measure to suppress the voices of dissidents, expanding Facebook’s August 2020 decision to ban an array of pages associated with anarchist journalists and publishers.
This comes at the same time that Instagram is suppressing the voices of sex workers and their supporters, among other groups. These are not isolated incidents, but steps in a systematic crackdown intended to exclude millions of voices from public discourse in order to render the communities that these platforms serve more vulnerable to other forms of repression.
18:05, Dec 18 2020 .-. Nicole said this latest natural disaster shows the “harsh consequences” of climate inaction. “It’s past time for world leaders to step up their commitments in this climate emergency.”
At least two people have been killed and entire villages reportedly destroyed after Tropical Cyclone Yasa smashed through Fiji overnight.
One man is reported to have died when he was crushed under a wall of his house. Fijian Broadcasting Corporation reported the 46-year-old farmer, his wife and two sons were sheltering in their house near Labasa – the largest town on the island of Vanua Levu – when the building collapsed.
The man’s eldest son was also trapped under the wall and was injured.
Vasiti Soko, the director of the National Disaster Management Office (NDMO), confirmed the fatalities were in the Western and Northern Divisions, The Fiji Times reported.
The category 5 cyclone made landfall in Bua on the island of Vanua Levu at 6pm Thursday (7pm Thursday NZT), a state of natural disaster was declared and a curfew put in place overnight.Post by Fiji NDMO.
This week’s photo shows the Mendoza Legislature burning with powerlessness and anger over a new victim of sexist violence and state neglect.
Florencia, a 14-year-old girl, was murdered in the city of Maipú, Mendoza. She had been missing since Saturday, December 12, and her body appeared lifeless on Thursday, December 17, with signs of having suffered extreme violence.
The young woman had defended herself with her screams and a neighbor who heard her called 911, but the police who attended her not only did not give her help, but also cut her call.
This situation reveals the little preparation that the police forces have in matters of gender violence. It also expresses the need for the State to make urgent political decisions in the face of the scourge that women and dissidents experience in this macho-patriarchal-violent culture entrenched in the prevailing capitalist system.
According to the MuMaLá observatory, a total of 241 femicides, linked femicides and trans-transvesticides had been registered as of November 31. From these numbers, the horrifying statistics of one femicide every 32 hours can be deduced. in the country.
Madrid. Spanish territory. Analysis of the appropriation of the protest by the far-right and the discourses that the left articulates about it. Anarchist claim to different conflict situations on the streets during the last months.
At dawn on November 1 at 00:00, the curfew started in the Spanish state. At the same time there were calls in the streets to challenge this restriction. The protests had an international echo, as they ended with clashes against the police, smashed shop windows, barricades and sporadic looting.
The left soon put the call to the skies, pointing to the far-right, which was largely behind the calls that night. Unfortunately, it was not easy to join the protests that night and not meet up with a bunch of Nazis, at least in Madrid. But there were many other people who took to the streets that day, many not even right-wing, and there was probably more than one youth without papers, the kind of people that Nazis like so much. [1]
The Free 