All posts tagged: war

Private Snafu: The World War II Propaganda Cartoons Created by Dr. Seuss, Frank Capra & Mel Blanc

Private Snafu: The World War II Propaganda Cartoons Created by Dr. Seuss, Frank Capra & Mel Blanc

Published by José

Pri­vate Sna­fu was the U.S. Army’s worst sol­dier. He was slop­py, lazy and prone to shoot­ing off his mouth to Nazi agents. And he was huge­ly pop­u­lar with his fel­low GIs. Pri­vate Sna­fu was, of course, an ani­mat­ed car­toon char­ac­ter designed for the mil­i­tary recruits. He was an adorable dolt who sound­ed like Bugs Bun­ny and looked a bit like Elmer Fudd. And in every episode, he taught sol­diers what not to do, from blab­bing about troop move­ments to not tak­ing malar­ia med­ica­tion. The idea for the series report­ed­ly came from Frank Capra — the Oscar-win­ning direc­tor of It’s a Won­der­ful Life and Mr. Smith Goes to Wash­ing­ton and, dur­ing WWII, the chair­man of the U.S. Army Air Force First Motion Pic­ture Unit. He want­ed to cre­ate a car­toon series for new recruits, many of whom were young, unworld­ly and in some cas­es illit­er­ate. Capra gave Dis­ney first shot at devel­op­ing the idea but Warn­er Bros’ Leon Schlesinger, a man who was as famous for his hard-dri­ving busi­ness acu­men as he was for wear­ing exces­sive …

Israel Strikes Lebanon’s Northernmost City For First Time Of War

Israel Strikes Lebanon’s Northernmost City For First Time Of War

Published by skeptic

An Israeli drone bombed a Palestinian refugee camp in the Lebanese city of Tripoli, killing a Hamas leader and three members of his family in the early hours of Saturday. Al-Jadeed TV channel reported that “an Israeli drone targeted a residential apartment in the vicinity of Khalil al-Rahman Mosque in the Beddawi camp in Tripoli,” killing four people and injuring others who were transported to the Hilal Hospital inside the camp. Tripoli, Lebanon. File image. Hamas issued a statement announcing the death of Qassam Brigades commander, Saeed Atallah Ali, his wife Shaima Khalil Azzam, and his two young daughters, Zainab and Fatima, who were killed as a result of the airstrike. The Hamas statement added that “the Qassam Brigades, in light of the ongoing and escalating massacres of the occupation in the steadfast Gaza Strip, our proud West Bank, and our camps, the fortresses of our return, pledge to our people to avenge the pure blood that was shed and is still being shed.” According to Al-Jadeed, the Israeli bombing was the first of its kind in northern Lebanon …

White House warned of risk of Israeli war crimes days after Oct 7: Report | Israel-Palestine conflict News

White House warned of risk of Israeli war crimes days after Oct 7: Report | Israel-Palestine conflict News

Published by Sam

Senior Pentagon and Department of State officials warned US President Joe Biden’s administration of potential Israeli war crimes days after the start of the October 7, 2023, war on Gaza, an investigation by the Reuters news agency finds. Reuters reported on Friday that after reviewing three sets of email exchanges between senior US administration officials, dated between October 11 and 14, officials had sounded the alarm that a rising death toll in Gaza could violate international law and affect US ties to the Arab world. “The messages also show internal pressure in the Biden administration to shift its messaging from showing solidarity with Israel to including sympathy for Palestinians and the need to allow more humanitarian aid into Gaza,” the investigation found. In an email sent on October 11 – five days after Hamas’s attack on Israel and the start of the offensive in Gaza – the US State Department’s top public diplomacy official, Bill Russo, told senior officials that the US was “losing credibility among Arabic-speaking audiences” by not addressing the unfolding humanitarian crisis …

Hezbollah’s four decades of war with Israel

Hezbollah’s four decades of war with Israel

Published by Sam

Hassan Nasrallah, then secretary general of Hezbollah, at a ceremony held one year after Israel’s Operation Accountability in southern Lebanon, in Beirut, July 24, 1994. AHMED AZAKIR / AP There were 200 of them, maybe 300. Just as Yasser Arafat and the fighters of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) came under fire in the Israeli army’s siege of West Beirut in the summer of 1982, a group of young men, all Shiites and religious, were being trained to handle weapons in the Beqaa Valley under the secret supervision of Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Among them was a 22-year-old student of religion, Hassan Nasrallah, who had just completed his second cycle of studies to become a cleric. Forty-two years later, the man who had become Hezbollah’s emblematic secretary general died under tons of bombs dropped by the Israeli air force on his headquarters in the southern suburbs of Beirut. He left behind a sprawling organization, hegemonic in Lebanon and Israel’s number 1 enemy. Read more Subscribers only After series of setbacks, Hezbollah declares it is ‘ready’ to …

Hezbollah’s Long War Is With America Too

Hezbollah’s Long War Is With America Too

Published by José

In the summer of 2006, I participated in the evacuation of American citizens from Lebanon. Israel had invaded after Hezbollah abducted two of its soldiers in a cross-border raid. I was a Marine Corps officer, and our platoon was embarked on the USS Iwo Jima, an amphibious ship, for a routine deployment in the Mediterranean. My unit, the First Battalion of the Eighth Marine Regiment—“1/8,” for short—had history in Lebanon. It was known as the “Beirut Battalion,” because on the morning of October 23, 1983, Hezbollah detonated a truck bomb that killed 238 Marines and sailors from 1/8. In 2006, when we were unexpectedly sent to Lebanon, it was the first time Marines had returned since 1983. That it was our battalion was purely a coincidence. It was a strange deployment for us. We had just returned from Iraq, where the entire Marine Corps had its focus, and my next deployment would be to Afghanistan. Those were our major wars. After a day of evacuation operations during our interlude in Lebanon, I would climb onto …

Lebanon: Memories of War

Lebanon: Memories of War

Published by skeptic

It took a while for people to grasp what was happening as thousands of pagers beeped then detonated across Lebanon last week: in pockets, hands, and in front of faces; on streets, in cars, at homes; in grocery stores, schools, and offices. “I reported the news as it emerged but did not understand what I […] Source link

Israel’s War Cabinet Greenlights Offensive War Against Hezbollah, Sends Elite Brigade North

Israel’s War Cabinet Greenlights Offensive War Against Hezbollah, Sends Elite Brigade North

Published by skeptic

Update(1544): As many suspected and feared, this deadly two-day Israeli covert operation to blow up Hezbollah pagers, walkie-talkies, and small electronic devices was but preparation for a likely Israeli military ground operation in southern Lebanon. It appears war is here. According to breaking news wires: Israeli cabinet has given PM Netanyahu and Defence Minister Gallant the authorization to undertake military action against Hezbollah — even if it leads to an all-out war. So far the second day of explosions across Beirut and Lebanon have led to 20 killed and 450 wounded, but the casualty toll could be much higher. Defense Minister Gallant has also declared a “new phase” of operations against Hezbollah along northern Israel: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Defense Minister Yoav Gallant, IDF chief Herzi Halevi and other officials all issued statements Wednesday evening which appeared to suggest a full-on war with Hezbollah was brewing, hours after a wave of explosions of walkie-talkies and other communications devices used by Hezbollah members across Lebanon caused widespread casualties, echoing a similar attack a day earlier that targeted Hezbollah-issued pagers. …

Just War Theory and The Russia-Ukraine War

Just War Theory and The Russia-Ukraine War

Published by skeptic

1. War, Unjust War, and Just War There are three wars currently in progress in Ukraine: the war between Russia and Ukraine, the Russian war against Ukraine, and the Ukrainian war against Russia. It is necessary for the purpose of evaluation to make these distinctions, for the first of these wars is, like the Second World War (understood as a war between allied and axis powers), neither just nor unjust. Only a war fought by one or more belligerents against an opponent can be just or unjust. Many or most of what we refer to as wars consist of a just war on one side and an unjust war on the other—or, to be more precise, a war with predominantly just aims on one side and a war with predominantly unjust aims on the other. There is no credible understanding of a just war according to which the Russian war against Ukraine is a just war. It is a wholly unprovoked war of aggression intended by those who initiated it—primarily Putin—to conquer Ukraine, annex its …

Sudanese Anglican cathedral is now a graveyard for civil war victims, archbishop says

Sudanese Anglican cathedral is now a graveyard for civil war victims, archbishop says

Published by skeptic

NAIROBI, Kenya (RNS) — Despite the Sudanese civil war that’s devastated the region, the All Saints Anglican Cathedral in Khartoum is still standing. But its compound is now a graveyard, with a vandalized altar and missing pews, which have been chopped by soldiers for firewood, according to Archbishop Ezekiel Kondo. At the start of the war in April 2023, the cathedral was the seat of Kondo, the 67-year-old primate of the Episcopal (Anglican) Church of Sudan. On April 15, 2023, fighters from the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces quickly seized the compound, flipping it into an operation base while Kondo and his family remained inside.  “It happened very abruptly. Nobody expected it,” Kondo recalled, speaking to RNS from Port Sudan, a city on the Red Sea where he has sought refuge since June of last year. “It was Saturday when we were in the office preparing for the Sunday service, after the first week of Easter Sunday. We heard a very heavy sound of gunfire, only to get out and find heavy smoke billowing nearby.” The …

How Audrey Hepburn Risked Death to Help the Dutch Resistance in World War II

How Audrey Hepburn Risked Death to Help the Dutch Resistance in World War II

Published by José

Audrey Hep­burn may not have had the most pro­lif­ic Hol­ly­wood career, but a fair few of her char­ac­ters still feel today like roles she was born to play. Per­haps the same could have been true of the part of Anne Frank, had she not refused to take it up. When Anne’s father Otto Frank inquired about it, one might imag­ine that Hep­burn felt like she did­n’t have the right expe­ri­ence to play that young woman, now long regard­ed as the embod­i­ment of the vic­tims of the Holo­caust. In fact, for the actress who would be remem­bered as Princess Ann and Hol­ly Golight­ly, it was too close to home: Hep­burn could remem­ber all too well her own har­row­ing wartime expe­ri­ence in the Nether­lands, com­ing to the point of star­va­tion while hid­ing from the Nazis. Born in Bel­gium, the young Hep­burn went to board­ing school in Eng­land in the mid-nine­teen-thir­ties. At the end of that decade, with the out­break of the war, she went with her moth­er to live in the Nether­lands. A stu­dent of bal­let, she …