Peace activist Carlos Arredondo has come to be known as "the man in the hat" and widely described as a hero for a viral image of him in a cowboy hat pinching the severed artery of a bloodied, wheelchair-bound victim in the aftermath of the Boston Marathon bombings. Arredondo is no stranger to tragedy: He became a prominent opponent of the Iraq War after his son, Lance Cpl. Alexander Arredondo, was killed in Iraq in 2004. His surviving son, Brian, committed suicide in 2011. Carlos and his wife Mélida, join DemocracyNow! to describe witnessing the Boston Marathon bombings and the immediate response to aid the victims.

Carlos Arredondo:

"I just concentrate in removing the fence to help everybody coming to the scene. And then I concentrate on a young man who lost both of the limbs. I ripped up a T-shirt, and another gentleman helped me out, and we put this tourniquet on the legs. And then the first wheelchair that arrived, you know, I picked him up and put him in the wheelchair, and I dragged him out of there, because only I can do at the time."

When Marines came to Carlos Arredondo’s home in 2004 to inform him that his son had been killed in Iraq, he destroyed their van in a frenzy and accidentally set it, as well as himself, on fire, burning 30% of his body. After his recovery, Carlos Arredondo began his mission of peace by heading to Washington D.C. to join protesters at "Camp Democracy."

Former FBI agent Jack Cloonan, psychiatrist Dr. Janet Taylor, and Yahoo! News senior editor Beth Fouhy join “Say Anything!” host Joy Behar to reflect on the aftermath of the bombing at the finish line of the 2013 Boston Marathon.

“We should be concerned because we don’t know if this is the beginning of a new front,” Cloonan says. “We’re 10 years out from 9/11. There’s been 50-odd attempts to bomb the United States. Some would say almost 60. This is the first one that happened. That means the zero-sum game is over. We’re starting a new phase. What went wrong here?”

“We are vulnerable. No matter what we do, this is a war of attrition, and who’s going to blink first and who’s going to blink most often,” Cloonan continues.

"New York Hearts Boston" projection by The Illuminator. Image via imgur.com.

The Boston Marathon tragedy has been met with unbelievable acts of kindness. From Buzzfeed, these Bostonians will restore your faith in humanity.

In the wake of Monday's awful tragedy in Boston, you may be wondering what you can do to help, so...How You Can Help:

Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick and Boston Mayor Tom Menino have formed The One Fund Boston, Inc. to help the people most affected by the Boston Marathon tragedy. Find out how you can get involved here.

Cell phone service has been shut down in the city. If you're looking for information on someone who was running the Marathon, Google has set up a People Finder -- you can also use it to submit information about a person. Families of victims can also use the Mayor's Hotline for information: 617-635-4500. Or use the Red Cross site, see below.

The American Red Cross of Eastern Massachusetts has opened a disaster operation center and is asking locals to notify loved ones of their whereabouts on the organization’s website.

The Red Cross says the best way to help right now is to get in touch with loved ones through its Safe And Well Listings. The organization is not asking for blood donations at this time thanks to many donations from people seeking to help. But check their website often in case this changes.

The Salvation Army has deployed four mobile feeding kitchens and more than 30 volunteers to dispense food, drinks and emotional support in Boston. One canteen is stationed at the Family Assistance Center at the Park Plaza Castle where survivors and first responders are congregating. Find out how you can get involved here.

Some marathon runners are stranded in Boston and in need of places to stay. Boston.com reports that they'll be setting up a Google doc where runners who need a place to stay can find lodging, and those who have lodging available can post details. Check back on their site for more information soon. Update: The Google doc is now live. Find out how you can offer housing here.

Boston Police are looking for tips, anyone with info about the incident can call 617-635-4500 or 1-800-494-TIPS.

Our thoughts are with everyone in Boston right now, stay safe. Cheers to the first responders who did an amazing job of responding to the call to duty.

Most businesses will be open in the area, although the JFK Library will be closed Tuesday, April 16.

The boy who was killed in the Boston Marathon bombings was remembered by neighbors Tuesday as a vivacious 8-year-old who loved to run and climb. Martin Richard was among the three people killed in the explosions Monday. His mother and little sister were catastrophically injured.Martin's father issued a statement on Tuesday:

"My dear son Martin has died from injuries sustained in the attack on Boston. My wife and daughter are both recovering from serious injuries. We thank our family and friends, those we know and those we have never met, for their thoughts and prayers. I ask that you continue to pray for my family as we remember Martin. We also ask for your patience and for privacy as we work to simultaneously grieve and recover. Thank you."

[This video contains graphic images of war casualties. Viewer discretion is advised.]

I just received this video from Andrew Golis of Frontline, and he adds "This is what it looks like when a government drops bombs on its own people."

When Frontline filmmaker Olly Lambert sat to interview Jamal Maarouf, a Syrian rebel commander, he did not anticipate that bombs from government jets would begin to fall just 300 meters away. Though the first blast knocked him to the ground, Lambert kept his camera rolling. He spent the next hour documenting the impacts of the Oct. 28, 2012 bombing of al-Bara, a village in Idlib province an hour south of Aleppo. The result is a rare, immersive portrait of the immediate aftermath of Syrian government air strikes on a civilian population.

Frontline has condensed the footage into this 36-minute digital feature, vividly narrated by Lambert. It captures the chaos on the ground as villagers try to rescue family and friends trapped under the rubble, the bombing’s effect on ordinary civilians whose lives literally have just been blown apart, the terrible fear when the government jets return for a second bombing run, and the ensuing calls for revenge that illustrate the country’s descent into a no man’s land of hatred, suspicion and terror.

“It’s only when you see things like this that you realize the real impact of civilian casualties in a civil war,” Lambert says about the scenes he witnessed. “When I first arrived in Syria, people would often say to me, ‘Here your life can end in a moment. Any minute now you could be dead.’ And at first I didn’t believe them, but certainly after an experience like this, it’s hard not to feel that they’ve got a point.”

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It was a Bloody Sunday, indeed for Iraqis as bombs and small arms attacks claimed at least 75 lives and left another 285 wounded in a series of attacks that targeted the country’s security forces. The onslaught by insurgents struck a dozen cities and an outpost of the Iraqi Army. Ten soldiers were killed in that assault, and 8 more were wounded. A brigadier general and 7 police recruits were killed when a bomb exploded in the city of Kirkuk, and 2 more car bombs detonated outside the French Consulate in Nasiriyah. Explosives went off in a number of other cities, including Baghdad. No group claimed immediate responsibility for the violence.

Via:

"What kind of life is this?" said Safeen Qadir, 26, a university student in Kirkuk. He described dead bodies and weeping, shouting relatives at bombing scenes in Kirkuk, where three midmorning explosions killed seven and wounded about 70.

"Because of the daily explosions, we must write our wills before go out of home," Qadir said. "The death exists in every inch of the city of Kirkuk, and no one is spared from the crime of terrorism."

Via:

Journalist Ahmed Rushdi, reporting from Baghdad, told Al Jazeera that, according to him, it was not only al-Qaeda that was behind the attacks.

"It is also the insurgency against the government and the political parties, because there is a major political dispute between al Maliki and his opponents," Rushdi said.

"It is another day in the major failure of the security forces in Iraq. The people here are asking themselves; what is the government doing to regain control of the situation? There seems to be no real intelligence data concerning these attacks."

As the attacks were sweeping across Iraq on Sunday, a Baghdad criminal court sentenced Iraq's Sunni vice president to death after finding him guilty of masterminding the killing of two people. The sentence was handed down in absentia.

Hashemi fled the country after Iraq's Shia-led government authorities had accused him in December of running a death squad, as the last US troops were withdrawing from the country.

Via OccupyWallSt:

(un)Occupy Albuquerque and allies are organizing a civil disobedience action on Hiroshima Day, August 6th, in Los Alamos as part of the wider three-day events planned by the Occupy Santa Fe Nuke Free Now Coalition. See here for a full events list for August 3-6 in Santa Fe and Los Alamos.

There is no single institution on earth that undermines the well-being of the world more than the Los Alamos National Laboratory in Northern New Mexico.

NUCLEAR WAR
As a tool of the U.S. empire, Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) developed the only nuclear bombs to be used as weapons of war—in Hiroshima on August 6, 1945 and three days later in Nagasaki. At least 225,000 civilians were killed. Hundreds of thousands died later of cancers, and thousands more inherited birth defects. Today, the U.S. nuclear stockpile contains enough warheads to destroy 159,000 Hiroshimas. With threats of a U.S. strike against Iran and Israel’s U.S.-backed hegemony in the Middle East, it is time to shut down the war machine.

TOXIC EARTH
The development and maintenance of nuclear weapons displaces indigenous people, pollutes air, water, and land & degrades the health of all life on Earth. The U. S. has exploded over 1100 nuclear weapons in tests above and underground and in the ocean, exposing millions of unsuspecting humans and animals to damaging radiation. LANL is built on and is contaminating indigenous land “borrowed” by the U.S. government and never returned.

CORPORATE GREED
Los Alamos is NO LONGER operated by the U.S. government. In an egregious breach of world security, U.S. nuclear weapons industry operations have been managed by private, for-profit corporations since 2007. Among the largest of these, Bechtel Corporation—the engineering firm that built almost half of the nuclear plants in the world as well as the oil infrastructure of Saudi Arabia—now runs daily operations at LANL, and last year was awarded more than $55 million in pure profit for LANL management alone.

LOST EXPERTISE
The resources and scientific expertise devoted to nuclear bombs are critically needed to address such pressing issues as global warming, declining fossil fuel supply, overpopulation, species extinction, and poverty.

Join us in Los Alamos, NM Aug. 6, 2012 to put the Empire on notice:
No more nuclear weapons!
No more corporate greed! No more war!
!Ya Basta U.S. global domination!

Some facts on the U.S. nuclear weapons system, via the Environmental Solidarity Working Group at Occupy Wall Street:

* The U.S. maintains more than 10,000 nuclear warheads.
* Obama's FY 2012 budget request designates over $7.6 billion to programs directly related to nuclear warheads. This is an 8.9% increase from the previous year. The increase will be sustained and then increased further "in the later out years."
* Accord to a White House fact sheet: "The plan includes investments of $80 billion to sustain and modernize the nuclear weapons complex" ... and "well over $100 billion in nuclear delivery systems to sustain existing capabilities and modernize some strategic systems" by the year 2020.
*Federal spending for nuclear weapons between 1940 and 2007 was about $7.2 trillion, exceeding "the combined total federal spending for education; training, employment, and social services; agriculture; natural resources and the environment; general science, space, and technology; community and regional development, including disaster relief; law enforcement; and energy production and regulation."
*Nuclear weapons' relationship to human security was put on display in Japan 67 years ago. We know what they do.

For even more facts about nuclear weapons, see NukeFreeNow.org:

Every facet of the nuclear industry poisons our planet. The nuclear business is wildly profitable, yet it collects billions in taxpayer subsidies.

Nuclear subsides go beyond mere money. The biosphere and creatures who depend on a living planet pay the largest subsidy through illness and premature death.

Nuclear weapons manufacturing and testing has poisoned millions, but secrecy has keep us misinformed. Secrecy has blocked accurate measures of how much radiation we have been exposed to. Misinformation has allowed downwinders, uranium miners, defense workers and the subjects of secret tests to suffer and die without medical attention or compensation. The lack of medical care given to nuclear victims has impeded scientific study of the long-term effects of weapons development and testing.

In spite of this neglect, scientists do know that exposure to the fallout from nuclear weapons testing causes cancers, tumors, genetic damage, infertility, birth defects and death.

Plutonium is so poisonous that one inhaled microscopic particle can cause lung cancer.

A few reap billions in profits, while we, the 99%, have diminished futures. There is always money for more bombs and new wars, but we’re told there isn’t enough for healthcare, education, housing, pensions. Sustainable-energy projects languish. We live with the nightmare of nuclear war.

A major nuclear war — between the US and Russia —would leave Earth virtually uninhabitable. A regional war — limited to India and Pakistan would cause a global famine that would kill one billion people, according to Alan Robock and Brian Toon, two of the foremost experts on the climatic impact of nuclear war.

It’s time. We must make this end. Read the rest at NukeFreeNow.org

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From the video, Marvine Cole reports:

Shi-ite pilgrims have been targeted in Iraq, with at least 56 dead maybe more and dozens being injured. The death toll is expected to rise. This time the target was the annual pilgrimage marking the 8th century death of al-Kadhim, one of the 12 principal Shiite saints, who is said to be buried in a shrine in Baghdad.

This is the wreckage of the car bomb and the devastation at the scene of the blast in central Baghdad. People trying to clean up the mess left behind with others clearly still in shock about the damage caused to their businesses.

In all there were four co-ordinated & simultaneous explosions in yet another wave of violence fueled by sectarianism. This apparently is the Kurdish Democratic Party's HQ in Kirkuk in the north: fire-fighters struggling to quell a blaze here and the car which apparently blew up right outside it. One local man condemning the fact that - in the current climate - offices of political parties were allowed to be situated in residential areas.

Here in Hilla, in the south of Baghdad, the front of this restaurant on the street corner's been blown clean out by two car bombs exploding within minutes of each other. It's a place apparently where police officers liked to go for breakfast. Emergency services wash blood and debris away from the scene as what's left of damaged vehicles nearby are taken away.

Iraq's interior ministry made a statement saying they'd be stepping up security across the city in expectation of more violence.