Because of the holidays and recent uncertainties at school, this blog hasn't had much recent content.
Here's several interesting articles pertaining to the tsunami disaster and the underdevelopement of countries which suffered terribly, American military's new strategies of dealing with the war in Iraq, and a really crazy, detailed story of a former Special Forces veteran who conned his way around Afghanistan for profit and fame.

From the Nation, that fine American liberal media, is this article on the devastation caused by the tsunami, and the initial stingy response by some wealthy Western nations (including but not only the USA). The writer makes good points, comparing the disaster effects wrought by the tsunami to that by a nuclear bomb explosion, and also at the end, contrasting the huge priority given to military spending but little on emergency rescue units "ready to give prompt aid in any large-scale catastrophe".

With the US still no closer to winning the war on the "terrorists" /resistance and establishing real control in Iraq, it is desperately trying new ways to bolster its military ranks which are at near breaking point, such as wooing 17 year olds still in school with monthly salary whilst in school until graduation, This program, called RSP-Recruit Sustainment Program has been restarted nationally with some success. Of couse, it claims to help students by giving them guaranteed money before actual training and laid-back drills where students learn about military life and details from lectures involving polite and friendly drill sergeants.

This program exploits young mainly underpriviliged people who urgently need or want money and opportunites in life. Of course, there are some who will say programs like these benefit young people, especially the underpriviliged by offering them opportunities to earn more money than usual and free training in various fields, as well as travel overseas. However all this is offset by the fact that these young people will then be sent off to places like Iraq to live and fight under extremely hazardrous conditions for a war that their government unjustly started and wages.


In addition to finding new ways to recruit youngsters into their Army, now the US is considering implementing death-squads, specially trained by US Special Forces, to take out insurgents and sympathisers in Iraq. This plan, called the Salvador option because it's based on a plan used in the Central American nation El Salvador during the early 1980s civil war when the US-backed government was losing against leftist-guerillas. Furthermore the US would consider using these squads in neighboring Syria to hunt fleeing insurgents which the US would take charge of.
In the article, they plan to use Shiite and Kurdish fighters to man the squads and their main tagets would be Sunni rebels. That this is so brazenly known in the mainstream media only amplifies the fact of how the US is looking to manipulate tension and conflict between different ethnic groups for their own purposes.

For entertainment purposes, check this out on former Special Forces vet, the infamous J. Idema, who managed to sell video footage and other materials to major media outlets, get media reporter jobs, book contracts, hold and torture prisoners in his own private jail in Kabul and even be the subject of a bestseller on the Afghan campaign hunt for Osama binLaden while conning his way around in Afghanistan.
A side point to the story, besides how ridiculous and incredible the things this man did, is how easy it seems that media organisations were able to be taken in by this man who claimed things he didn't do and wasn't including saying he was Defense secretary Rumsfeld's representative to the Northern Alliance.
We should be more vigilant when viewing news from those places by American media. Many times, things may not be as they seem as in this case and sometimes the whole story is never told or known.