Alun Lewis: Raiders' Dawn

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Russian cadets rest in the dance hall at the Presidential Cadet School of the Internal Troops of Russia in Moscow, an institution created by President Vladimir V. Putin: photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/European Pressphoto Agency, 17 February 2015

Russian cadets rest in the dance hall at the Presidential Cadet School of the Internal Troops of Russia in Moscow, an institution created by President Vladimir V. Putin: photo by Sergei Ilnitsky/European Pressphoto Agency, 17 February 2015

Softly the civilized
Centuries fall,
Paper on paper,
Peter on Paul.

And lovers walking
From the night --
Eternity’s masters,
Slaves of Time --
Recognize only
The drifting white
Fall of small faces  
In pits of lime.

Blue necklace left
On a charred chair
Tells that Beauty
Was startled there.

Alun Lewis (1915-1944): Raiders' Dawn, from Raiders' Dawn and Other Poems, 1942

Supporters of leading opposition leader and presidential candidate Kizza Besigye cower in a shop doorway after riot police fired tear gas at them and Besigye when they attempted to walk along a street in downtown Kampala, Uganda: photo by Ben Curtis/AP, 15 February 2016

Protesters struggle to assist one another after the police fired tear gas near Artvin, in northeastern Turkey, to stop a demonstration against a gold mine planned nearby: photo by Yasin Akgul/Agence France-Press, 17 February 2016

An investor checks stock prices at a terminal in a securities company in Beijing: photo by Greg Baker/AFP, 17 February 2016

A series of craters caused by the US bombardments in Ban Khay, Xieng Khouang province. Hundreds of craters still dot the landscape of the area: photo by Matilde Gattoni/Tandem Reportage via The Observer, 31 January 2015



Lady Gaga performs a tribute to Davie Bowie at the Grammys: photo by Mario Anzuoni/Reuters, 16 February 2016

Buan Kham lost her lower right leg when a 500lb bomb her husband had stored beneath the house exploded: photo by Matilde Gattoni/Tandem Reportage via The Observer, 31 January 2015

Chan Duong Ly, 85, a monk at the Wat Phia Wat monastery in Muang Khoun, the former capital of Xieng Khouang province. The city was extensively bombed during the war and almost totally abandoned in 1975. The monastery, which dates back to 1322, was bombed by the US in 1966 because it was suspected of having been converted into a food storage area used by the North Vietnamese. The blackened and scarred Buddha statue in the monastery courtyard is among the few remains of the pre-war period: photo by Matilde Gattoni/Tandem Reportage via The Observer, 31 January 2015

Tham Piu cave, on the outskirts of Muang Khoun. Laos. Here, on 24 November 1968, a US strike killed 374 civilians who were sheltering in the cave in order to find refuge from the American bombardments: photo by Matilde Gattoni/Tandem Reportage via The Observer, 31 January 2015

Kampuang Dalaseng lies on the ground demonstrating how he would hide from the bombs during the Secret War in Laos. ‘I hate Americans to this date. They bombed, burned and destroyed everything. If their president was here, I would slap him in the face.’ A former professor of French, 84-year-old Kampuang lived under the American bombardments for five years: photo by Matilde Gattoni/Tandem Reportage via The Observer, 31 January 2015.

Nyoua Yang, 16, from Nam Kha, lost her right eye one afternoon in 2009, when the hoe she was using to clear the grass from her family’s rice field hit a cluster bomb. ‘ I just remember a small explosion, then a piece of shrapnel went into my eye.’ Yang, who was 11 at that time, lost her eye after a doctor refused to operate on her because she was too young.: photo by Matilde Gattoni/Tandem Reportage via The Observer, 31 January 2015

Hillary Clinton has long invoked Henry Kissinger as a mentor -- her infamous emails show that they corresponded with some frequency when she was secretary of state. Kissinger, architect of the "Operation Menu"  covert bombing campaign in Laos and Cambodia in 1969-70, is widely perceived as a war criminal. He also won a Nobel Peace Prize: photo by Dirck Halstead via The Guardian, 13 February 2016

Prosthetic arms on display at the COPE Visitor Centre, Vientiane. COPE is a local not-for-profit organisation providing access to prosthetic devices and rehabilitation services to people with disabilities. One third of its patients are UXO-related victims: photo by Matilde Gattoni/Tandem Reportage via The Observer, 31 January 2015

Glad to see people aren't letting his crimes go unnoticed. If the U.S. cares about war crimes, start with #Kissinger: image via Matthew Yoder @MrMarbless92, 10 February 2015

 

[By 8 December 1970] U.S. efforts to interdict the trail were in full swing with the USAF's Operation Igloo White. Electronic surveillance devices were dropped to monitor vehicle-and-troop movement in Laos, and a constant orbit of manned and drone planes relayed the signals from under the jungle blanket to the Infiltration Surveillance Center in Thailand. There, two computers processed high-speed printouts showing which sensors had been activated, how often, and when. Other computers fed this information to an Airborne Battlefield Command and Control aircraft which then called in appropriate air power. A typical day over Laos saw the Ho Chi Minh Trail hit by thirty B52 bomber strikes and three hundred USAF, USN, and USMC aircraft. C130 transport planes, mounted with Gatling mini-guns, flew night and day to strafe convoys and troop marches. Bombs mounted with lasers and televisions were sent against cave entrances. Cluster bombs were sowed over Binh Trams. Mines and booby-traps were airdropped, some designed to demolish trucks, others to mangle a man's foot so he became a burden to his comrades. The destruction was staggering...

Keith William Nolan: from Into Laos: The Story of Dewey Canyon II/Lam Son 719, Vietnam 1971

A man sells key-chains in the shape of Pope Francis in downtown Morelia, in the Mexican state of Michoacan: photo by Tomas Bravo/Reuters, 16 February 2016

#PhotoOfTheYear #CodePink making #CitizensArrest of #WarCriminal #Kissinger #JustBrilliant #IWishIWasThere: image via Ruthanasia #BDS @Ruthanasia, 2 February 2015