For half a century we have been arguing about "the Vietnam War." Is it possible that we didn't know what we were talking about? After all that has been written (some 30,000 books and counting), it scarcely seems possible, but such, it turns out, has literally been the case.

Now, in Kill Anything that Moves, Nick Turse has for the first time put together a comprehensive picture, written with mastery and dignity, of what American forces actually were doing in Vietnam. The findings disclose an almost unspeakable truth. Meticulously piecing together newly released classified information, court-martial records, Pentagon reports, and firsthand interviews in Vietnam and the United States, as well as contemporaneous press accounts and secondary literature, Turse discovers that episodes of devastation, murder, massacre, rape, and torture once considered isolated atrocities were in fact the norm, adding up to a continuous stream of atrocity, unfolding, year after year, throughout that country.

It has been Turse's great achievement to see that, thanks to the special character of the war, its prime reality -- an accurate overall picture of what physically was occurring on the ground -- had never been assembled; that with imagination and years of dogged work this could be done; and that even a half-century after the beginning of the war it still should be done. Turse acknowledges that, even now, not enough is known to present this picture in statistical terms. To be sure, he offers plenty of numbers -- for instance the mind-boggling estimates that during the war there were some two million civilians killed and some five million wounded, that the United States flew 3.4 million aircraft sorties, and that it expended 30 billion pounds of munitions, releasing the equivalent in explosive force of 640 Hiroshima bombs.

The War on Self-Sufficiency continues, and this week's victims are small backyard farmers in Michigan.

The "right to farm" in that state no longer exists for those who live on any property where there are 13 homes within one eighth mile or a residence within 250 feet of the property. This means that the folks who have a couple of goats, chickens, beehives, or rabbits living harmoniously in their suburban backyards are at the mercy of their local governments and their neighbors. The "right to farm" laws that are on the books originally came about when city dwellers moved to the country and complained about their rural surroundings - things like smells and animal noises. However, the law has protected many people since then who just want some freedom from the system, whether they have a couple of acres or a suburban backyard.

The issue here is that those of us who supply as much of our own food as possible are a threat to Big Agri.

See no evil? Media mum on inferno details and radical responsibility

Despite clear evidence that the pro-Kiev radicals set Odessa's House of Trade Unions ablaze on Friday killing dozens, the mainstream media is being ambiguous about the causes of the tragedy.

Citing security risks, a Brussels mayor banned a gathering of far-right figures - including controversial French comic Dieudonné - planned for Sunday after some Jewish groups called the meeting an "anti-Semitic hatefest".

The mayor of the Brussels district of Anderlecht banned both the meeting and any street protests planned in connection with it, the Belga news agency reported.

Organisers of the so-called "European Dissidents' Congress" had kept its venue secret until the last moment to try to avoid a ban. The meeting aimed to bring together a string of controversial far-right figures that included comedian Dieudonné M'bala M'bala, who has faced repeated convictions for anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial and incitement to racial hatred in France.

The Belgian League against anti-Semitism, LBCA, on Friday filed a complaint before the Brussels prosecutor against what it warned would be "a day of hate, that would serve as a platform for the worst gathering of anti-Semite authors, theorists and propagandists that our country has seen since the end of World War II".

The Simon Wiesenthal Centre for Holocaust studies and human rights rallied behind the calls for a ban.

"The fact that this hatefest is to be held in Brussels, the capital of Europe, the seat of its Parliament ... is a threat to democracy reminiscent of the 1920s Weimar Republic, which brought Europe to the Nazi abyss," the centre's director for international relations, Shimon Samuels, said in a statement.

Manila (AFP) - Longtime allies the Philippines and the United States start annual, large-scale military exercises on Monday after President Barack Obama vowed "ironclad" backing for Manila as a territorial dispute with China simmers.

The two-week Balikatan or "shoulder-to-shoulder" drills involving 5,500 American and Filipino soldiers begin just days after Obama assured Manila his government was committed to a 1951 mutual defence treaty.

The allies last week bolstered their ties with a new defence agreement signed ahead of a visit by Obama giving American forces greater access to Philippine bases -- part of a US rebalancing of military power towards rising Asia.

"What President Obama said was a reaffirmation of our treaty," Philippine military spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Ramon Zagala said.

U.S. officials blamed Israel's "expropriating land on a large scale" to build colonies "on the territory meant for that [Palestinian] state" as the "primary" reason for the recent negotiations' failure, in a must-read Ynet interview with historic implications. This rare moment of honesty from anonymous officials of the dishonest broker stands in sharp contrast to the collapse of the Barak/Arafat Camp David talks, following which Israel's apologists seized on the Clinton administration's blaming of Arafat to disseminate the Myth of the Generous Offer.

Finally, for the first time in the history of the U.S. being Israel's lawyer, the superpower has copped to one of the fundamental flaws of the peace process: one cannot negotiate over a pizza with a bully while the bully devours the pizza! "What they told me is the closest thing to an official American version of what happened," writes Nahum Barnea. Put more plainly, indigenous people who are being oppressed by a colonial power cannot negotiate with the colonial power while the colonial power continues to steal, ethnically cleanse, and colonize their land.

"Only now, after talks blew up, did we learn that this is also about expropriating land on a large scale,"

A credulous U.S. official complained, going much farther than any comment Sec. Kerry has made either on or off the record. Apparently the unnamed officials haven't been reading Electronic Intifada, Haaretz, +972mag, our site, or any of the other publications that might have informed them of this reality long ago.

"I guess we need another Intifada to create the circumstances that would allow progress,"

One anonymous official asserted, clarifying that while they don't want that to happen, the lack of a 'sense of urgency' necessitates one. Perhaps a way to interpret this comment is the recognition that the current balance of power so drastically favors Israel, that only if the state came under extreme pressure - for example, through a massive popular uprising (let's think Intifada I, which was largely nonviolent) and a huge increase in international support for the BDS Movement - would Israel make the concessions necessary for negotiations to lead anywhere meaningful.

Of course, never did the unnamed U.S. officials speculate that cutting U.S. military aid to Israel might help create a 'sense of urgency,' nor did the U.S. officials acknowledge their own role as a dishonest broker being one of the main causes of the talks' failure.

Despite ongoing sanctions, Russia is about to get a big infusion of cash from the U.S. government.

NASA recently renewed a contract that allows Russia to ferry U.S. astronauts to the International Space Station.The United States is, essentially, cutting Russia a $457.9 million check for its services - six seats on a Russian Soyuz spacecraft, training and launch prep, landing and crew rescue and limited cargo delivery to and from the International Space Station.

This contract also adds additional support at the Russian launch site.NASA has announced it is cutting some contacts with Russia after the country annexed Crimea, including meetings and teleconferences.

The move came after President Barack Obama last month signed an executive order allowing restrictions on dealings with some of Russia's largest sectors, including financial services, energy and defense.

The United States is currently considering additional sanctions against Russia.

But some NASA initiatives just can't be stopped, underscoring the reliance the United States has on Russia for its space program.

The most important is, essentially, the taxi service to the International Space Station.

Although the United States operates the International Space Station, it is dependent on Russia to get astronauts there. When the United States retired the space shuttle, it left NASA with no way to get astronauts to the space station. So it inked a contract with Russia to provide rides to the Space Station, which is 240 miles above Earth.

Acting Sevastopol Governor Sergey Menyailo offered condolences to the families of those killed in the Ukrainian Black Sea port city

The Russian federal city of Sevastopol has declared a three-day mourning for those killed at the Odessa House of Trade Unions. Entertainment events are limited until May 5. The republican flags are lowered half-mast at state administrative buildings throughout the Russian Republic of Crimea.

Acting Sevastopol Governor Sergey Menyailo offered condolences to the families of those killed in the Ukrainian Black Sea port city of Odessa and the main Ukrainian coalmining region Donbas.

Around 150 demonstrators in Odessa, southeastern Ukraine have blocked the regional Department of Interior building in protest against officers' inaction during Friday's bloody clashes, sparked by radicals, which left 46 people dead.

Protesters have threatened to storm the building and are demanding the resignation of Odessa's governor, Vladimir Nemirovsky, who they refer to as "the murderer." Activists want those responsible for the violence to be punished.

Meanwhile, hundreds of residents in the Black Sea port city are flocking to the House of Trade Unions, where dozens of people died in a fire after ultra-nationalists set the building ablaze with pro-autonomy activists inside on Friday. Over 200 people were injured in the blaze. Residents are bringing flowers and candles to commemorate those killed.

The Syrian government stressed that Turkey has regularly facilitated the entry of armed terrorist groups into the Kessab area in Syria's Lattakia province. An Armenian M.P. who visited Syria is calling on the world to wake up to the fact that thousands of extremists have crossed the Turkish- Syrian border and that missiles were fired from the Turkish side of the border. Armenians, who have long been looking at NATO as an ally and partner realize that the war on Syria, including the renewed ethnic cleansing of Armenian Christians in Syria is part of a long-term NATO strategy.

Syria's Minister of Information, Omran al-Zoubi, has denounced the Turkish government of P.M. Recep Tayyip Erdogan for regularly having facilitated the entry of armed terrorist groups into the Kessab area in the Lattakia province of Syria.Omran al-Zoubi stressed that the fighters which are crossing the border are not Syrians, but groups of foreign fighters, armed and trained by by Turkey, Gulf-Arab, and core NATO member states.