military

Is it "kidnapping" if they are taken away instead of sent back to Australia as AU citizens have requested - "return us to shore in Australia and then remove yourself from our waters"? - Traveling fr one side of globe to the other, armed"Gov. of Japan" ship detains 3 AU citizens while Taiji detains 5 CoveGuardians - Jan. 7, 2012: 14 miles off Australian coast (at the doorstep of their own homeland, of their own country's territory, within the Australian EEZ waters), three Australian citizens from Forest Rescue - Geoffrey Owen Tuxworth (47) of Perth, Simon Peterffy (44) of Bunbury, and Glen Pendlebury (27) of Fremantle - are now detained as prisoners on an armed Japanese ship "Government of Japan" with military personnel in Australian territorial waters. Per Forest Rescue statement - Simon Peterffy said: “We are onboard this ship because our government has failed to uphold its pre-election promise to end whaling in the Southern Ocean”, which sounds quite contrary to what the Chilean government is determined to do (though both Australia and Chile have declared sanctuaries, where whaling is prohibited) -  read more »

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Iran is not Iraq in terms of size as a nation -
Iran - population: 75 million (17th); area: 1,648,195 km2 (18th)
Iraq - population: 30 million (36th); area: 438,317 km2 (50th)

Iran is not Iraq considering their geographic neighbors –
Iran borders with Russia and Kazakhstan, Pakistan and Afghanistan, Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan.
Iraq borders with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, Jordan, Syria, and Turkey.

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Persian Gulf tensions mount as U.S. engages Israel on Iran: Israel has not ruled out a unilateral strike on Iran

January 2, 2012 Huffington Post: The United States will have spent a total of $3.7 trillion on wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, costing 225,000 lives and creating 7.8 million refugees, by the time the conflicts end, according to a report released on Wednesday by Brown University.  read more »

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At 11 o'clock in the morning of the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918, the First World War - known at the time as the Great War - comes to an end.

By the end of autumn 1918, the alliance of the Central Powers was unraveling in its war effort against the better supplied and coordinated Allied powers. Facing exhausted resources on the battlefield, turmoil on the home front and the surrender of its weaker allies, Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria and the Ottoman Empire, Germany was finally forced to seek an armistice with the Allies in the early days of November 1918. On November 7, the German chancellor, Prince Max von Baden, sent delegates to Compiegne, France, to negotiate the agreement; it was signed at 5:10 a.m. on the morning of November 11.  read more »

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Soldier’s Engagement Ring
by LuCxeed

I’ll be gone to the battlefield
Don’t cry, my darling
Just return to me our engagement ring

I’ll be gone to the battlefield
Don’t cry. Don’t cry, my darling
Just return to me our engagement ring

From pages 53 & 54 of the book: Love’s Footsteps ~ dedicated to a Bridge for Wisdom to Walk on

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Egypt protest - one against an army.

An anti-Hosni Mubarak protester lies down in the streets to prevent an Egyptian tank from entering Liberation Square in Cairo, Egypt, on Thursday and knocking down one the the barricades set up by the protesters to keep back pro-Mubarak forces.

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Images courtesy of asia blues / Flickr / thenextweb.com and NewsObserver

Top: 15 August 1945. American servicemen and women gather in front of "Rainbow Corner" Red Cross club in Paris to celebrate the unconditional surrender of the Japanese. Bottom: 14 August 1945. Residents of Oak Ridge (one of the three main sites of the Manhattan Project), TN, fill Jackson Square to celebrate the surrender of Japan.

Surrender of Japan, Tokyo Bay, 2 September 1945: Japanese representatives on board USS Missouri (BB-63) during the surrender ceremonies. Standing in front are: Foreign Minister Mamoru Shigemitsu (wearing top hat) and General Yoshijiro Umezu, Chief of the Army General Staff.

The U.S. nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS George Washington leaves for joint naval and air drills with South Korea at a naval port in Busan, South Korea, July 25, 2010. South Korea and the United States on Sunday began their large-scale joint military drills off the east coast of the Korean Peninsula as scheduled.

Tensions between North and South Korea are boiling.  read more »