Sunday, March 16, 2008

Adolph Hitler Didn't Smoke on Paddy's Day



Adolf Hitler Didn't smoke on Paddy's Day


The Rockall Times supports Ireland's brave smoking ban
by our woman on the wagon, Miranda Givings

There are those who would claim that our beloved land is tonight
under the threat from a wave of Puritanism so virulent that it is
nothing short of a fatwa, or even a jihad, possibly. At the very least
it's a mini Crusade: a sort of long weekend break of a Holy War but
without Richard the Lionheart.

This crusade of which we speak is, of course, the increasing
tendency towards non-smoking, which — at its most fanatical — leans
towards a literal anti-smoking interpretation of non-smoking. Ireland
has fallen, the panic-mongers say, and it can only be a matter of time
before beloved Albion also succumbs to an age of darkness and despair.

Perhaps you are among those who are reduced to tears by the thought
of the smokeless celidh, the nicotine-free craic and the Dublin theme
bar deserted save a few disconsolate members of the Salvation Army,
supping white cranberry juice and half-heartedly shaking their
tambourines.

Perhaps you are, but have you ever thought about the human cost of
smoking? The 5,000 innocent lives snuffed out each and every year by
other peoples' second-hand toxins?

The anti-smoking lobby tell us that one of these innocent souls dies
in agony every 11 minutes. We'll take their word for that if they take
our word that every 11.2 minutes someone, somewhere, is killed on a
bicycle. Co-incidence? We think not.

While we agree that the terrible human cost of smoking must be addressed, we at the same time demand that all risks to our kiddies' futures be treated equally seriously.

One fervent public health spokescrusader who we didn't actually
contact but who insisted on coming to our offices and shouting loudly
through the letterbox confirmed that smoking-related diseases will in
future be treated at the smoker's own expense. That sounds fair enough
to us. Why should the non-smoker pay? After all, do smokers pay extra
tax to inflict their filthy habit on the rest of us? No.

Ask yourself this: Do kiddie-fiddlers get free board and lodging and
psychiatric treatment at our expense? No they bloody well don't. Making
fag addicts stump up in cash, in advance, for cancer treatment is
exactly the sort of hands-on, direct action we like here at The Rockall Times.
And while we're about it, let's extend this punitive plan. Fat people
would be a good start. We know that the obese deliberately stuff
themselves with crisps, chips, chocolate and oven-ready microwaveable
pizzas so that they can get themselves a fast-track, heart-attack
driven passport to intensive care easy street. Let the fat bastards pay
for their own coronary bypasses.

Obesity causes huge health problems and costs tasty-looking thin
birds like me a fortune in medical insurance. Why don't you fat, ugly
women stop filling your faces with fish suppers and get some bloody
exercise? Or try walking the rug-rats to school instead of driving them
there in your smelly, diesel MPVs? Better still, jog to school and
smoke a couple of fags on the way. That should shed a few pounds.

On the other hand, we were told that jogging can cause knee and
ankle problems, so it seems only fair that conscientious pavement
pounders should pay for any knee and foot repairs themselves. Dangerous
sports are another area long overdue for legislation. Why should you or
I pay for a hip replacement for some rich stockbroker who's fallen base
over apex in a Piste-related accident in Klosters? According to a
recent survey conducted by the Fitter Britain Association,
sports-related injuries cost the UK £106,437,000 every year and result
in roughly 129,437.28 hospital admissions every week. Jesus H. Christ.
And they expect us to pay for that?

After kicking the sports fraternity into touch, we suggest the
Government tackles the thorny problem of history. It's criminally
irresponsible to allow monsters like Winston Churchill to appear in
books. Not only did he chain-smoke obscenely large cigars, he drank
huge amounts of alcohol, was grossly overweight, and never exercised.
And we call this a national hero? Is this any kind of example
to be setting our kids? No, it isn't, so it's out with the airbrush for
Winnie and enter stage right health-conscious Aryan Adolf Hitler. We
can think of no better example of responsible and considerate behaviour
than the slim, non-smoking, teetotal vegetarian with his legendary love
of animals. His personal habits should be an example to us all and his
life a reminder of what a truly healthy lifestyle can achieve.
Remember: Adolf Hitler didn't smoke.

But perhaps the worst example of inconsiderate, self-destructive
behaviour that threatens the health of our nation is the increasing
number of middle-aged men suffering heart attacks during the monthly
execution of their conjugal rights. This must be looked at urgently. If
it's not distasteful enough the idea of lard-arsed proto-wrinklies
poking their shrivelled wives, think about the poor paramedics who have
to go in a clear up the mess. And, once again, it's us who foot the
bill.

Sunbathing is another activity which cannot be allowed to continue;
the skin cancer risk is simply too great. The list goes on, but to
summarise, just imagine this: a middle-aged fat bloke enjoying a
drunken post-coital cigar whilst skiing naked down a sun-kissed piste en route to a tour of the lard factory. Had enough? Us too — it makes our blood boil.

Implementing such sweeping improvements in the health of our
citizens might run into some resistance, but we are confident that —
just as the appointment of a drugs "czar" several years back has
practically wiped out the use of illegal substances — persuading the
nation to voluntarily give up smoking, eating, drinking, skiing,
sunbathing and sex should not prove insurmountable. Especially when
backed by legislation, fines and imprisonment. Forward with Britain.

More of Miranda Givings' campaigning journalism can be found here.





Anniversaries of Mai Lai Massacre and Iraq invasion












Anniversaries of Mai Lai Massacre and Iraq Invasion


I was surprised to find this in the BBC today. There are great reporters working for the BBC but the editors seldom allow material such as this, Israel wants the BBC closed down. The article explains well, the mentality behind massacres at Mai Lai in the Vietnam war and the Haditha massacre, after the Iraq invasion. Strangely the first massacre created an outcry worldide, at that time, today the American media couldn't care less, about covering their war crimes or be bothered to cover the massacres, in Iraq properly. They have also cultivated a care less culture in our modern world to such atrocities.


Perhaps its because the American media has been flooded by CIA undercover agents, working for the media. Since the troubles in Ireland, our media in Ireland, has been inundated with British secret service agents, writing unadulterated black propaganda, in a revision of our history and to potray the liberation struggle, as simply sectarian. The sectarianism as has happened Iraq, is stirred up by the invaders as counter insurgency tactics. These war crimes of creating sectarianism or divide and conquer which the British used all over the world and taught the Americans has now murdered more than
1,185,800 children, women and men in Iraq since the illegal invasion. The sectarian tactics used , whether racist, religous or sexist are taught by the British to the US, after their years of experience with colonial war crimes in the past.


All of this coincides with the assasination of hundreds of honest real journalist worldwide in the last few years, often by hired assassins of the secret services. Anyway the 15th of March, was the anniversary, let us hope that there are still a few human beings left, who are not brainwashed, who still have empathy for the victime of our modern day Holocaust, committed daily by the US government, with more that 3 trillion tax dollars of their citizens money. Their country is almost bankrupt from this madness. They have to pay the Sunni insurgents to stop shooting at them, so that they can potray to their people before the election, that things are getting better ! Like Ireland, this makes young people angry, who then take up arms to defend their families. Is it any wonder young people from the middle-east are so angry about these massacres, being treated as second class citizens in their own country, or the Nuclear weapons the US has given Israel, a tiny rogue state, to bully their neighbours, and threaten their failies withextinction.


It is rather strange that the western media will not try to find the answers, as to why thousands of young people are committng suicide, using their bodies as weapons in the middle-east, when they witness these massacres and injustice. Woiuld you be angry, if your people were murdered and treated like this ? The media meantime controlled by the CIA, M15, M16, are brainwashing us into believing, all of these war crimes and torture are ok !. I will probably be censored soon, as I was already, in the British media, for writing this material. My Lai: Legacy of a massacre

By Celina Dunlop


Forty years on, and "My Lai" is synonymous with "massacre".

Women and children in My Lai, Vietnam, shortly before they were killed by US soldiers
504 people were killed by US soldiers in the My Lai massacre

The killing of Iraqi civilians at Haditha has often been referred to as a modern-day My Lai.

The name is shorthand for slaughter of the defenceless, the benchmark of American wartime atrocity.

The murders of 504 men, women, children and babies happened in a northerly province of South Vietnam on 16 March 1968.

It proved to be a turning point for public opinion about the Vietnam War.

Yet, most of what we know about the event comes from a single, widely publicised court martial in 1970-71.

A young Lieutenant - William Calley - in Charlie Company was tried and
convicted of murdering 22 "oriental human beings" in My Lai on that
sunny morning in 1968.

Forgotten tapes

Media attention on Lt Calley's trial was extensive and the glare of publicity so bright it hid the wider, more awful truth.

Before that trial got under way, the United States army had, behind
closed doors, completed an investigation of its own into the events at
My Lai, and specifically into the possibility that those in authority
had deliberately covered up a massacre.

Convened on 1 December 1969 in the basement of the Pentagon, The
Department of the Army Review of the Preliminary Investigations into
The My Lai Incident, known in abbreviated form as The Peers Inquiry,
was chaired by Lt Gen William 'Ray' Peers.

In just 14 weeks, the Peers Inquiry conducted a comprehensive and wide-ranging investigation into the events of 16 March.

More than 400 witnesses were interviewed, and their testimony was tape-recorded.

When the inquiry concluded on 15 March 1970, those recordings were boxed-up, stored and forgotten.



Bodies of women and children lie in the road leading to the village of My Lai, following the massacre


That day it was just a massacre. Just plain right out, wiping out people

Leonard Gonzales
Testimony to the Peers Inquiry

In 1987, they were shipped to the US National Archives, as one
small portion of a massive group of records of US Army activities in
Vietnam.

There they remained hidden, never catalogued, never investigated, never uncovered - until last year.

I spent many months trying to track down the tapes.

Again and again, I was told they did not exist, but after much
persistence, 48 hours of recordings from the key witnesses were
declassified and made available to me.

And on 15 March, on the eve of the 40th anniversary of the massacre,
some of the most powerful testimony will be broadcast for the first
time, on the Archive Hour on BBC Radio 4.

Some of the interviewees' statements reveal the mentality of the soldiers involved in the massacre.

"I would say that most people in our company didn't consider the
Vietnamese human... A guy would just grab one of the girls there and in
one or two incidents they shot the girls when they got done," said
Dennis Bunning.

"That day it was just a massacre. Just plain right out, wiping out people," said Leonard Gonzales.

"Kill everything"

The wider, more awful truth that Gen Peers uncovered, was that
this was an illegal operation, planned and co-ordinated at Task Force
level by Lt Col Frank Barker.

It wiped out not one but three villages: My Lai, Binh Tay and My Khe.

And not one, but two companies were involved: Bravo and Charlie.

Both of these companies were given the same briefing by their
respective commanding officers, permitting them "to kill everything and
anything."

"It's not just the people of Task Force Barker that are on trial...
It's the Army, it's you and it's me... and it includes our country and
our people in the eyes of the world," said Gen Peers, during his
investigation.

He concluded that 30 senior officers had been negligent in their duty.

After the inquiry, 14 officers were charged with crimes.

Ha Thi Quy, a survivor and witness of the 1968 My Lai massacre, pictured here in September 2007
Ha Thi Quy, a survivor of the massacre, remembers the dead

But the only participant convicted of anything at My Lai was Lt William Calley.

Gen Peers also proposed new methods of training soldiers,
guidelines for the treatment of civilians in wartime and new army
leadership criteria.

His recommendations still influence today's army training manuals.

"The My Lai Tapes" are a record not only of atrocity writ large but also of heroism.

They are a record of how war can bring out not only the worst but also the best in people.

Above all they are a record of lessons learned 40 years ago, in My Lai,
Binh Tay and My Khe - lessons that should not be forgotten.

Celina Dunlop is picture editor of the Economist. The Archive Hour:
The My Lai Tapes will be broadcast on BBC Radio 4 at 2000 GMT on
Saturday, 15 March, 2008. You can also listen online for seven days after that at Radio 4's Listen again page.