South Africa P.I.G.: WAR

More US dollars to corrupt third-world coffers

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAEV6h1JNamVFmoQ1sORsvz_Sqoi6ajPl2_ETOr_mDWWkX1S1pNq3g9CmF8Vldkk1-xW2YYxEI0Dqr_biwRJ_G2DR2i2yxgDf4Ph47zCfXV6zguP82ZqSoa5UuWeUs8NjxvoZp0TNJZgM/s1600-h/bush_meetthefuckers-1.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5242671340937338754" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAEV6h1JNamVFmoQ1sORsvz_Sqoi6ajPl2_ETOr_mDWWkX1S1pNq3g9CmF8Vldkk1-xW2YYxEI0Dqr_biwRJ_G2DR2i2yxgDf4Ph47zCfXV6zguP82ZqSoa5UuWeUs8NjxvoZp0TNJZgM/s400/bush_meetthefuckers-1.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmSdnW7BWHmwAvE0qRvWuBryqdLGvvJHjiXql4JbSMamABm6TKDwIhPOchnyW3PpPCZl6HJn3FO9l2iHcpRK5mION1P7wdvFGeISfV2gv7euIrY_FMx_S7QKw6s2pvaKf8sL6fIaAVONo/s1600-h/Bush-Africa.jpg"></a>Outgoing US President George W. Bush has surprised critics with his approval ratings in Africa. According to the Pew Foundation, Bush has an 80% popularity level in many sub-Saharan countries, even in ones with large Muslim populations. A popular name for newborns in Darfur is George Bush. The Bush Administration has played a critical role in helping many African nations; ending a 20-year civil war in Sudan, raising the alarm about atrocities and organizing multi-lateral humanitarian efforts in Darfur, as well as acting in an important role as mediator in Burundi, Liberia, Northern Uganda, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo after civil wars devastated these countries. The Bush administration quadrupled financial aid to Africa from $1.3 billion in 2001 to more than $5 billion in 2008. This is scheduled to go to $8.7 billion in 2010, principally for education (primary school enrollment in Africa is up 36 percent since 1999), healthcare, building civil society, and protecting fragile environments. Africa has received $3.5 billion in additional funds from Bush’s Millennium Challenge Corporation initiative, which rewards poor countries that encourage economic growth, govern well, and provide social services for their people. The president’s HIV/AIDS program, principally focused on providing Africans with anti-retroviral drugs to treat the disease (1.7 million people are on the therapy), has been such a success that the program has been extended to 2015 at $48 billion. His five-year, $1.2 billion effort to combat malaria has provided 4 million insecticide-treated bed nets and 7 million drug therapies to vulnerable people. The Africa Growth and Opportunity Act, approved in 2000 and reauthorized in expanded form in 2004, provides trade benefits with the United States for 40 African countries that have implemented reforms to encourage economic growth. Since 2001, US exports to Africa have more than doubled to $14 billion a year, while African exports to the United States more than tripled to $67 billion, of which $3.4 billion has been in goods other than oil. Additionally, USAID has provided more than $500 million in trade capacity building for poor countries to access international markets.

More US dollars to corrupt third-world coffers

Outgoing US President George W. Bush has surprised critics with his approval ratings in Africa. According to the Pew Foundation, Bush has an...

1:42 AM

Genocide and Government Mass Murder

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig6YHQXDUYbGjgnG3Yf5ywb1ijcAHOXDjXJuqofHKrt4Z4pXJgzSGKaZI21dC3tIK2H0qLvOP_RFkjRQDagQJw3RwasLDb8n2_v45wPNsQxhqhjp6vuxmCeNVcL0rp8HEQeZDrqCLcw7I/s1600-h/Bodies-by-Noah-Lyon.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5224349297159376418" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEig6YHQXDUYbGjgnG3Yf5ywb1ijcAHOXDjXJuqofHKrt4Z4pXJgzSGKaZI21dC3tIK2H0qLvOP_RFkjRQDagQJw3RwasLDb8n2_v45wPNsQxhqhjp6vuxmCeNVcL0rp8HEQeZDrqCLcw7I/s320/Bodies-by-Noah-Lyon.jpg" style="FLOAT: right; MARGIN: 0px 0px 10px 10px; CURSOR: hand" /></a> Although governments are meant to protect their citizens, secular states in the 20th Century murdered over 169 million of their own citizens! “Power kills; absolute power kills absolutely. The more power a government has, the more it can act arbitrarily according to the whims and desires of the elite, and the more it will make war on others and murder its foreign and domestic subjects. The more constrained the power of governments, the more power is diffused, checked and balanced, the less it will aggress on others and commit Democide… totalitarian Communist governments slaughtered their people by the tens of millions: in contrast, many democracies can barely bring themselves to execute serial murderers.” “In total, during the first 88 years of the 20th Century, almost 170 million men, women and children had been shot, beaten, tortured, knifed, burned, starved, frozen, crushed, or worked to death; buried alive, drowned, hung, burned or killed in any other of the many ways that governments have inflicted death on unarmed, helpless citizens and foreigners. The dead could conceivably be nearly 360 million people… our species has been devastated by a modern black plague…a plague of power, not germs.” “Stalin, by far, leads the list. He ordered the death of millions, knowingly set in train events leading to the deaths of millions others, and as the ultimate dictator, was responsible for still millions more killed by his henchmen…far above all is the Gulag - the Soviet slave labour system created by Lenin and built up under Stalin. In some 70 years it chewed up almost 40 million lives.” “Some 40%, are from Asia and the Middle East.” The highest proportion of any regions population were “from the territory of the former Soviet Union.” The Soviet Union and Red China accounted for most of the deaths by government in the 20th Century. “That Stalin, Lenin and their successors murdered almost 62 million Soviet citizens and foreigners is little comprehended outside of the Soviet Union.” Between 35 million and 105 million people were murdered by the Communist party of China from 1949 to 1987. Some other statistics include that the Japanese in the Second World War murdered 5,890,000 civilians. Tito’s Communist partisans murdered 600,000 in Yugoslavia. Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge killed between 2 to 3 million Cambodians. Ottoman Turkey wiped out 1,7 million between 1909 and 1918. Idi Amin’s regime killed over 300,000 civilians in Uganda between 1971 and 1979. The MPLA wiped out 125,000 civilians in Angola (1975-1987). The Communist regime wiped out 1.5 million people in Poland just between 1945 and 1948. “As the arbitrary power of a regime increases massively…as we move from democratic through authoritarian to totalitarian regimes, the amount of killing jumps by huge multiples.” “Never has there been a war involving violent military action between stable democracies… democracies don’t, or rarely, make war on each other. To this I would add that the less democratic two states are, the more likely it is they will fight each other.” Far from governments being the solution to crime and violence, historically governments have been the prime culprits for crime and violence. Far from governments being the solution, they are more often than not the problem. Most government policies to deal with crime and poverty are counter productive, creating more crime and more poverty. No where is this seen more clearly than in the state attempts to disarm civilians. Every genocide and Democide of the 20th Century was preceded by gun control and disarmament of civilians. Just as criminals prefer unarmed victims, tyrants prefer disarmed citizens. A government that does not trust its citizens with weapons cannot be trusted with power. Freedom is when the government fears the people. Tyranny is when the people fear the government. No government can be trusted with a monopoly of force. Decentralisation of power, the rule of law and armed citizens are essential foundation for freedom. Prof. Rummel’s shocking research is presented in: Death By Government in which he coins the term “Democide” for mass murder by governments.

Genocide and Government Mass Murder

Although governments are meant to protect their citizens, secular states in the 20th Century murdered over 169 million of their own citizens...

6:09 AM

Money raised for Africa 'goes to civil wars'

<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTkCaZvVvT-1Knsu-1xfrEDecxI9IJk809YeLbOhv7dsXL1uYi8xpYf2OtPQoswHyvQcZWV0SHCBblZXRrKdbBERtvjmFMwcrFaqRA_gaShUePX8t9ybYVCGPo0yhptQ4UgPN4QBYv2Es/s1600-h/civil+wars+in+africa.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5238921136355600722" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTkCaZvVvT-1Knsu-1xfrEDecxI9IJk809YeLbOhv7dsXL1uYi8xpYf2OtPQoswHyvQcZWV0SHCBblZXRrKdbBERtvjmFMwcrFaqRA_gaShUePX8t9ybYVCGPo0yhptQ4UgPN4QBYv2Es/s400/civil+wars+in+africa.jpg" style="FLOAT: left; MARGIN: 0px 10px 10px 0px; CURSOR: hand" /></a> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-gRobu8l7DelP7-hSP0OCwf7pOOUpVHs81D4U2VOtCZHNHhgs-8glti63K-o8-v_RyQokOfwEO9-EZd0kuttGqjr_o2GfTtMoW1wbxLnBESd_mC_JvdWkzT3014GBsdoBzUXNEeSdYIBJ/s1600-h/bono.bmp"></a>By Linda Herrick Billions of dollars raised for African famine relief by celebrities Bono and Bob Geldof have instead funded civil war across the continent, says terrorism expert Dr Loretta Napoleoni. London-based Napoleoni, in Auckland to appear at the Writers & Readers Festival, has written two books, Terror Inc: Tracing the Money Behind Global Terrorism and Insurgent Iraq: Al-Zarqawi and the New Generation, on the economics of terrorism. Her latest book, Rogue Economics, studies the destabilising effect of economic globalisation, focusing in part on why more than half a trillion dollars worth of aid sent to Africa since the 1960s failed to reach the intended destination - developing the nations' economies. That huge amount of aid, which includes money from the United Nations and donations generated by Live Aid for Ethiopia, organised by Geldof, and the Live 8 concert in 2005, organised by Bono, has instead "served as a rogue force, notably as an important form of terrorist financing" in countries such as Ethiopia, Somalia, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Tanzania and Kenya. Ethiopia, for example, received $1.8 billion in foreign aid between 1982-85, including a large contribution from Live Aid; $1.6 billion of that, she points out, was spent on buying military equipment. "The money has ended up making Africa poorer and more violent because the money has been diverted towards warlords, weapons and armed invasions," she says. "The problem of Africa is corruption." Napoleoni says there are parallels with Burma in the aftermath of the cyclone as aid organisations appeal for donations. "What is happening in Burma is a good example. You can have the best intentions but getting the money to the people in need is very hard because you have to go through the bureaucracy. The problem is the governance. You also need expertise. What the international relief organisations are saying is, you should send people from our team who know exactly what to do in these circumstances." The cult of celebrity means that people who are famous for nothing more than being pop or movie stars speak out on issues they don't fully understand. "People like Bono and Bob Geldof are not ill-intentioned," she says. "But the simple fact that being a celebrity puts you in a position above everybody else is unacceptable. "These people don't realise they are being manipulated by politicians and others. That is the case in the relationship between Bono and [American economist] Jeffrey Sachs, who is among the people who caused the chaos of the transition of the former communist countries into free-market economics. Sachs has been trying to relaunch himself as a sort of economist celebrity so he has been linking himself to Bono. "Bono is repeating what he has been told about Africa. I am sure Bono hasn't got a clue about economics." Napoleoni, who knows Geldof as a neighbour in the London suburb of Battersea, says he told her the first Live Aid was the "worse experience of his life because he found it very difficult to control where the money went. He suddenly realised it's easy to put famous musicians together to make money but to bring the money to the people in need is another matter." Napoleoni adds that there is a certain amount of hypocrisy among stars linked to good causes. Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Bono and the other members of U2 were last year outed as tax-evaders for diverting their funds to the Netherlands, circumventing their democratic responsibilities to their home country of Ireland. And Brad Pitt, Napoleoni points out, may drive a hybrid car, but he and Angelina Jolie use a private jet. Their trip to Namibia a couple of years ago, she notes, burned up enough fuel to take Pitt's hybrid all the way to the moon. <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/topic/story.cfm?c_id=1500904&objectid=10509966" target="_blank">Source: </a>

Money raised for Africa 'goes to civil wars'

By Linda Herrick Billions of dollars raised for African famine relief by celebrities Bono and Bob Geldof have instead funded civil war acros...

2:46 PM

South Africa P.I.G.

More US dollars to corrupt third-world coffers

Genocide and Government Mass Murder

Money raised for Africa 'goes to civil wars'

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