The Proper Handling of Torturers

Many Americans easily forget that torture is outlawed by all UN member nations. The Administration went to great lengths to hide and then to excuse its acts of torture. The US officials issued orders to shield government workers from prosecution for crimes against humanity.
Article 4 of the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights forbids torture in all its forms. To gain admission to the UN, the US Congress had to ratify the Declaration. This made the Articles a part of the US body of law.
There is no need for an investigation of the atrocities committed. The new President has the authority under NSPD51 to incarcerate anyone for taking part in the torture as an enemy combatant. This should include judges, bureaucrats, Administration officials and Congressmen who served during the torture era. They should co-operate with the prosecution of their cohorts in torture.
These same culprits developed no fly lists that included over one million Americans also slated for imprisonment and torture.After WWII the Allies freed 153,000 thugs who had operated the Nazi death camps. The murderers went home their vile ideology intact. This is one of the reasons Germany leads Europe in human rights violations.

Using Executive Orders to Good Purpose

There are many unresolved questions involved with the Bush Administration. They range from who took out the World Trade Center through the current bail out of the banking industry. Our history is cover-up rather than disclosure.
The recent public vote indicated we are unhappy with governmental ineptitude and criminality. We realize few, if any, evil-doers will ever sit in prison. Newcomers to politics will learn crime pays handsomely with little chance at prosecution.
Why can't we imprison suspects as enemy combatants? They could earn a pardon by informing on their cohorts. Our nuclear secrets passed through the FBI and the State Department. The Turks sold them to Pakistan. Somewhere, somebody knows something.
Hiding worthless subprime mortgages in piles of collateralized debt obligations is a crime. Bribing the rating firms to upgrade these instruments from BBB to AAA is also criminal. The bankers who bought them knew better. Any legislator who voted to bail out the banks should also sit in prison.

Fear Right and Left

Fear Right and Left

The Republicans fear massive arrests and executions for crimes against humanity and murder. Three preemptive wars have killed over six millions Asians and tens of thousands of Americans. Ironically, the Republicans have constructed an 'injustice' system geared to put them to death without trial.

Democratic officials are largely aboard this sinking Ship of Fools. They accepted bribes at similar watering holes. They stood by while the FBI sold our nuclear secrets to Muslim powers. They joined the bankers in the looting of America. They voted to fund the three wars and supported the perpetrators when they were discovered.

The Patriot and Military Commisions Acts can define the majority of Democrats as enemy combatants. As such, they can rot in prison without trial with the Republicans totally f**ked.

Unfortunately, this concept is beyond the Pale for most brain washed Americans. They will muddle through until the backlash from one of their preemptive wars puts them out of their misery.

by Jason Paz

Mutually Assured Destruction May not Deter USA

There is no MAD for America

As reflected in their entertainments and actions, Americans are bullies. Their choice of weapon is the cluster bomb, which maims and kills from a great height. God forbid we face the enemy.

Our leaders prize defenseless children and willing slaves as sexual partners. They prey on helpless employees such as the young women in the military. The CIA buys children to brain wash them for use as Agents, sex slaves and newscasters. They torture prisoners to make them submit.

Bullies can not tolerate the slightest resistance. Whistle blowers must be crushed. Borrowing a library book can earn big punishment.

A punch in the nose [such as 911] can send a bully into a tailspin. Fearful, he will submit to any authority to prevent another attack.

MAD worked with the Warsaw Pact nations because they could deliver a punch in the nose and much more.

by jbpaz, comment for OpEdNews.com

One Cowboy Can Devastate His Country

One Cowboy Away from Devastation

By Ed Tubbs, OpEdNews

If we invade Iran this year it will be done using hundreds of sorties by carrier based aircraft already stationed in the Persian Gulf and from land based aircraft located in Iraq and Qatar. They will strike the known nuclear facilities located in and around Tehran and the rest of the country as well as bases containing major units of the Iranian military, anti-aircraft installations and units of the Revolutionary Guard (a separate and potent Iranian para-military organization).

Will this military action stop Iran’s efforts to develop nuclear weapons? Probably not. It will probably not even destroy all of their nuclear research facilities, the most sensitive of which are known to be underground, protected by tons of earth and reinforced concrete and steel designed to survive almost all attacks using conventional munitions. The Iranian military and Revolutionary Guard will most likely survive as well, although they will suffer significant casualties and major bases and command centers will undoubtedly be destroyed. However, since Iran has both a functioning Air Force, Navy (including submarines) and modern anti-aircraft capabilities, U.S. fighter-bombers will suffer casualties as well. This will not be a "Cake Walk" as with the U.S. led invasion of Iraq in 2003 when the Iraqi Army simply melted away and the Iraqi Air Force never even launched a single aircraft.

attacks Iran either this summer or this fall, the American people had better be prepared for a shock that may perhaps be even greater to the national psyche (and economy) than 9/11. First of all, there will be significant U.S. casualties in the initial invasion. American jets will be shot down and the American pilots who are not killed will be taken prisoner - including female pilots. Iranian Yakhonts 26, Sunburn 22 and Exocet missiles will seek out and strike U.S. naval battle groups bottled up in the narrow waters of the Persian Gulf with very deadly results. American sailors will be killed and U.S. ships will be badly damaged and perhaps sunk. We may even witness the first attack on an American Aircraft carrier since World War II.

War on Torture

The Justice Department has released a 370-page report on the government’s use of torture. It gives credence to many reports made by sources outside the Main Stream Media. The FBI has expressed outrage at the torture techniques employed particularly because they have proven ineffective.

Why have the Agencies waited a decade to report this? For the first time there is a possibility many of their employees will face prosecution for crimes against humanity and murder.

Previously, they had operated without fear of punishment. President Bush has issued many directives to define torture to his lights and to absolve potential perpetrators from guilt. After the Supreme Court failed to back up the various bans that make torture illegal, it ceased to protect ordinary citizens from this abuse.

Many media workers also knew the massive and widespread nature of the crimes, but chose to sanitize them or to cover them completely. The media supports the claim that torture is effective. They maintain those who resist torture as a national policy are anti-American maybe even traitors.

This spin on torture has infected many US voters. The Republican nominee is an advocate of torture.

Even the FBI is Outraged over US Torture

By Robert Scheer, Truthdig. Posted May 29, 2008.

The Justice Department has issued a report on torture, citing testimony by scores of FBI officials outraged over our treatment of prisoners.

Are we Americans truly savages or merely tone-deaf in matters of morality, and therefore more guilty of terminal indifference than venality? It's a question demanding an answer in response to the publication of the detailed 370-page report on U.S. complicity in torture, issued last week by the Justice Department's inspector general.

Because the report was widely cited in the media and easily accessed as a pdf file on the Internet, it is fair to assume that those of our citizens who remain ignorant of the extent of their government's commitment to torture as an official policy have made a choice not to be informed. A less appealing conclusion would be that they are aware of the heinous acts fully authorized by our president but conclude that such barbarism is not inconsistent with that American way of life that we celebrate.

But that troubling assessment of moral indifference is contradicted by the scores of law enforcement officers, mostly from the FBI, who were so appalled by what they observed as routine official practice in the treatment of prisoners by the United States in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo that they risked their careers to officially complain. A few brave souls from the FBI even compiled a "war crimes file," suggesting the unthinkable -- that we might come to be judged as guilty by the standard we have imposed on others. Superiors in the Justice Department soon put a stop to such FBI efforts to hold CIA agents and other U.S. officials accountable for the crimes they committed.

That this systematic torture was carried out not by a few conveniently described "bad apples" but rather represented official policy condoned at the highest level of government was captured in one of those rare media reports that remind us why the Founding Fathers signed off on the First Amendment.

"These were not random acts," The New York Times editorialized. "It is clear from the inspector general's report that this was organized behavior by both civilian and military interrogators following the specific orders of top officials. The report shows what happens when an American president, his secretary of defense, his Justice Department and other top officials corrupt American law to rationalize and authorize the abuse, humiliation and torture of prisoners."

One of those top officials, who stands revealed in the inspector general's report as approving the torture policy, is Condoleezza Rice, who in her capacity as White House national security adviser turned away the concerns of then-Attorney General John D. Ashcroft as to the severe interrogation measures being employed. Rice, as ABC-TV reported in April, chaired the top-level meetings in 2002 in the White House Situation Room that signed off on the CIA treatment of prisoners -- "whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called water boarding. ..." According to the report, the former academic provost of Stanford University came down on the side of simulated drowning.

As further proof that women are not necessarily more squeamish than men in condoning such practices, the report offers examples of sexual and religious denigration of the mostly Muslim prisoners by female interrogators carrying out an official policy of "invasion of space by a female." In one recorded instance observed by startled FBI agents, a female interrogator was seen with a prisoner "bending his thumbs back and grabbing his genitals ... to cause him pain." One of the agents testified that this was not "a case of a rogue interrogator acting on her own." He said he witnessed a "pep rally" meeting conducted by a top Defense Department official "in which the interrogators were encouraged to get as close to the torture statute line as possible."

That was evidently the norm, according to FBI agents who witnessed the interrogations. As The New York Times reported, "One bureau memorandum spoke of 'torture techniques' used by military interrogators. Agents described seeing things like inmates handcuffed in a fetal position for up to 24 hours, left to defecate on themselves, intimidated by dogs, made to wear women's underwear and subjected to strobe lights and extreme heat and cold."

In the end, what seems to have most outraged the hundreds of FBI agents interviewed for the report is that the interrogation tactics were counterproductive. Evidently the FBI's long history in such matters had led to a protocol that stressed gaining the confidence of witnesses rather than terrorizing them into madness. But an insane prisoner is the one most likely to tell this president of the United States what he wants to hear: They hate us for our values.

Jeha's Nail

Global Voices

Jeha’s Nail makes the point of differentiating between “talks” and “dialogue” among other things:

There has been much talk about talk in the news lately, and our insignificant little slice of the Middle East has been the center of much of it, even some ominous talk and “interesting” moves…
Yet for all the useless attention we’re getting, most are missing this little truth;
There’s talk, and then there’s dialogue
The two are not necessarily the same. Such a distinction evades otherwise smart politician. He should take heed from those “leaders” of ours, now in Qatar to continue talking past one another as they had been talking forever. Their talks serve no function other than provide underpaid journalists with a much needed excuse to window shop in Qatar. Yes, Beirut would be more fun, but the yellow rose of downtown has yet to unpack her UNHCR tent.
All this talk about talk misunderstands the real dynamics of the conversation between the United States and the Persians. Before mouthing off about engagement, those “realists” need to consider the persons they are engaging.

How the Government Passes Secret Laws

Sean Gonsalves, AlterNet

Once upon a time, a team of federal attorneys went before the Supreme Court only to discover that their entire case was based on a revoked executive order and therefore moot.

True story. Look it up. Panama Refining Company v. Ryan. The revoked presidential order was understandably missed by the attorneys. The revocation had never been made public -- an example of what legal scholars refer to as "secret law."

Cases like that caused Congress, in the '30s and '40s, to pen legislation aimed at bringing order to the dissemination of vital government information, amid the chaotic complexity of state administrative laws and downright shoddy record-keeping. Congress also established statutes to keep a growing body of secret law in check.

That's how we got the Federal Register Act of 1935, the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946 and the golden key to open government (and investigative reporting) -- the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA).

Those legislative acts exemplify one of the defining features of American government -- the publicizing of laws and regulations. The political philosophy isn't hard to understand. Secret laws are the antithesis of a free and open society, which explains why the first U.S. Congress mandated that every "law, order, resolution, and vote (shall) be published in at least three of the public newspapers printing within the United States."

But, never mind -- for the moment -- the decline of newspapers, and the harmful implications it has for democratic governance. Even more alarming is the underreported increase of unpublicized "secret laws," clandestinely cultivated in recent years.

We're talking everything from secret interpretations of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and opinions from the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) to secret Presidential directives and transportation security orders.

And don't let the word "opinion" throw you off. If, for example, they're "opinions" issued by the OLC -- like the now infamous Yoo torture memos -- those kind of "opinions" are binding on the executive branch.

So, while the Washington press heavy-hitters were analyzing flag pins and pastors, a Judiciary subcommittee hearing was held on "Secret Law and the Threat to Democratic and Accountable Government".

Among the half-dozen or so witnesses to testify was the director of the Project on Government Secrecy at the Federation of American Scientists, Steven Aftergood -- one of the nation's preeminent authorities on secret law. What should have been a top-story across the country was rendered invisible by a tsunami of triviality.

Here's some testimony you probably missed:

"There has been a discernible increase in secret law and regulation in recent years" to the point where "legislative intervention" is required to "reverse the growth."

Unsurprisingly, secret law really became entwined with the government during the Cold War. But today, "secrecy not only persists, it is growing. Worse, it is implicated in fundamental political controversies over domestic surveillance, torture, and many other issues directly affecting the lives and interests of Americans."

The law that governs espionage activity has been re-interpreted by the FISA Court, the specific nature of which has not been disclosed to the public?

In August 2007, the American Civil Liberties Union petitioned the court on First Amendment grounds to make public those legal rulings, after redacting classified information. The court denied the ACLU petition, claiming it didn't have the expertise to decide what information should be redacted.

The denial was issued despite it being evident "that there is a body of common law derived from the decisions of the (FISA court) that potentially implicates the privacy interests of all Americans. Yet knowledge of that law is deliberately withheld from the public. In this way, secret law has been normalized to a previously unknown extent and to the detriment, I believe, of American democracy," Aftergood testified.

Other areas of concern: "there appears to be a precipitous decline in publication of OLC opinions in recent years ... In 1995, there were 30 published opinions, but in 2005 there were 13. In 1996, there were 48 published opinions, but in 2006 only 1. And in 1997 there were 29 published opinions, but only 9 in 2007."

"One secret OLC opinion of particular significance, identified last year by Sen. Whitehouse, holds that executive orders, which are binding on executive branch agencies and are published in the Federal Register, can be unilaterally abrogated by the President without public notice."

Such orders mean "Congress is left with no opportunity to respond to the change and to exercise its own authority as it sees fit. Worse, the OLC policy ... implies a right to actively mislead Congress and the public."

Here's something else that's been waaaay underreported. As of January 2008, the Bush administration has issued 56 National Security Presidential Directives on a range of national security issues. Most of those directives have not been disclosed. "Texts of the directives or descriptive fact sheets have been obtained for about a third of them (19)," Aftergood testified. Only the titles have been obtained on 8 of the directives and absolutely no information is available for 10.

Congress has also gotten in on the action, having "participated in the propagation of secret law through the adoption of classified annexes to intelligence authorization of bills, for example."

Aftergood concluded his testimony, rightly observing that "it should be possible to identify a consensual middle ground that preserves the security of genuinely sensitive national security information while reversing the growth of secret laws."

That's why he's pushing for the passage of the State Secrets Protection Act -- S. 2533 -- which aims to balance conflicting interests of secrecy and public disclosure.

"The rule of law, after all, is one of the fundamental principles that unites us all, and one of the things we are committed to protect. Secret law is inconsistent with that commitment."

Of course, whenever someone points out how civil liberties have taken a back-seat in the name of "national security" under Bush, what's the typical response of true believers?

They call talk radio, blog and write letters-to-the-editor about how "liberals" and "leftists" aid and abet terrorists with a naive insistence that America's political leaders adhere to quaint luxuries like long-established Constitutional freedoms.

The old saw -- "loose lips sinks ships" -- has been replaced by another now familiar brain-dead mantra: "if you're doing nothing wrong, you have nothing to worry about." But the metastasizing growth of secret law pulls the rug out from underneath that flimsy argument. And for obvious reason: you can't know what you don't know.

A Promise to the Dead

A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman is an indictment of torture and a powerful study of individual and collective memory.

Chile Under Pinochet and the Post-9/11 "War on Terror"

By Sophia A. McClennen, AlterNet.

Torture, the suspension of democracy and civil rights, illegal surveillance, forced displacement, and a culture of fear led by a despot who gains power through an act of violence committed on September 11. Sound familiar? Canadian director Peter Raymont's new documentary, A Promise to the Dead: The Exile Journey of Ariel Dorfman, covers familiar ground but in less familiar territory as he intertwines the life of Chilean writer Ariel Dorfman with the history of Chile and with the events of 9/11 in both Chile and the United States. Author of the award-winning play Death and the Maiden, Dorfman is a novelist, playwright, poet, essayist, journalist, and human rights activist. Born in Argentina in 1942, his family was forced to move to the United States in 1945 only to then become the victims of McCarthyism in 1954. They next fled to Chile, where Dorfman eventually gained citizenship. Exiled again from Chile in 1973, Dorfman has lived since the 1980s in Durham, North Carolina where he teaches at Duke University. Tracing the Dorfman family's multiple displacements, the documentary is an exploration of exile and loss, but it is equally the story of persistent hope, the survival of collective ties, and the triumph of memory.

Dorfman should have died on September 11, 1973 when a military coup led by Augusto Pinochet ousted the democratically-elected Socialist President of Chile, Salvador Allende. Dorfman served at the time as Allende's cultural advisor and his name was included on a list of government officials that would be called in the event of an attack. But he wasn't called. Rather than die alongside his friends and comrades, he lived -- and lived to tell the story. Or, as he tells readers of his memoir, Heading South, Looking North, which served as the basis for the film, "If it is not true that this was why I was saved, I have tried to make it true. In every story I tell. Haunted by the certainty that I have been keeping a promise to the dead."

The haunting presence of the dead and the even more haunting ways that the living hold radically contradictory memories of the dead form some of the central questions that guide Raymont's film. What does it mean to keep a promise to the dead? For Dorfman it means first and foremost telling the story of the thousands of Chileans who were tortured, disappeared, and exiled during the Pinochet years. It means using literature and the power of words to rescue stories that history would like us to forget. It also means being a voice for those that survived but suffered the trauma of losing loved ones. In one especially moving scene Dorfman accompanies Aleida, the daughter of Sergio Leiva, to a Chilean courthouse where he signs an affidavit confirming that he saw her father shot by a sniper while he was a refugee in the Argentine embassy. Until Dorfman's words provided a challenge to official history, she had suffered the trauma of not only losing her father but having his death completely erased from public memory.

Viewed in the current context of extraordinary renditions, secret prisons, and enemy combatants, where bodies disappear and die with no public record, Dorfman's story is both inspiring and chilling. During exile, Dorfman dedicated himself to advancing the cause of the Chilean resistance. His perfect bilingualism, due to having lived in the United States and in South America as a young man, and his skills as a writer uniquely positioned him to tell the story of the dictatorship. But, even though the exile years were spent tirelessly struggling for the return of democracy, those long years also served to distance him irremediably from Chile. This distance became painfully clear when his play, Death and the Maiden, about a torture survivor who confronts her torturer, opened in Chile to less than enthusiastic reviews. Yet it is arguably the most internationally significant play authored by a Latin American writer and has been staged across the globe -- to resounding success. After receiving an Olivier Award for its production in London, it opened on Broadway with Gene Hackman, Glenn Close, and Richard Dreyfus and was later made into a film directed by Roman Polanski and starring Sigourney Weaver, Ben Kingsley, and Stuart Wilson. But it has yet to fully reach Dorfman's intended audience. Dorfman's most internationally successful work brought the story of Chile closer to the world but left him even farther away. Rather than focus merely on Dorfman's successes as a writer, the documentary explores this gap when he has dinner with the actor, Paula Sharim, who diplomatically characterizes the play as "putting a finger in a wound."

Another scene in A Promise to the Dead presses the point of his outsider status when Dorfman appears on a television talk show with a Pinochet supporter shortly after the general's death. The debate is whether Pinochet deserves to have a military burial. Dorfman adamantly opposes the idea, arguing that a man who denies his enemies the ability to bury their dead has violated military codes of conduct. He then directly asks the program's host when he first knew about the torture conducted under Pinochet. The simple truth of Dorfman's words shocks the host and the viewer is left savoring one of those few moments when they have seen someone absolutely refuse to self-censor. It's a moment reminiscent of Stephen Colbert's speech in front of George W. Bush at the correspondent's dinner, except in this case Dorfman was dead serious.

The documentary does an excellent job of balancing between Dorfman's life and the events he has witnessed, but the real success of Raymont's film lies in the way that it captures essential features of Dorfman's aesthetic approach to writing his memoir. The memoir moves back and forth through time and across nations as it recalls the events of the coup in chapters that alternate with memories of Dorfman's life before the coup. Similarly, the film gracefully moves across time and space showing the ways that memory structures not only our sense of the past but also our dreams for the future. Memory is messy, it is flawed, it can confuse us and haunt us. A first-time visit to Dorfman's grandmother's grave reveals that she has been moved to a common unmarked burial ground. Dorfman, running from the loss of her death, had refused to remember her.

Yet memory also is what gives him strength, what inspires his writing, and what allows him to relive the extraordinary camaraderie of the Allende years. In a brilliant scene that reveals both the limits and the resilience of memory, Dorfman meets up with old friends and they reenact a pro-Allende victory march. Linked arm and arm the three men in their 60s erupt in song. When it comes time to turn, they move in opposite directions, having forgotten the actual route they used to take. As they break into laughter over the misstep, the message is clear: Some forgetting is inevitable. Some forgetting is willful. And some forgetting is criminal. When a nation has suffered radical trauma its greatest challenge is over which memories will survive, which will be suppressed, which will be fabricated, and which will be punished.

Pinochet's systematic denial of the dead, the tortured, and the exiled has drastically scarred Chile. It is impossible to watch this film and not feel deep connections between the story of Chile under Pinochet and the post 9/11/2001 world of the war on terror. At one point, Dorfman speaks about all the people who had to have known about the torture -- not just the government and the torturers, but also the people who cleaned the rooms, who cooked for the torturers, and who worked in the myriad jobs that were required to sustain them. Dorfman asks viewers to think about all of the people who knew something horrible was happening to their country and said nothing. He also visits Ground Zero in New York where the tragedy of the attacks and of the response to the attacks resonates eerily with his own memories of Chile.

Measured against these bleak experiences Raymont's film tells another story. It is a story of extraordinary hope. It is the story of the jubilance of the Allende years and the exhilaration of the vote to oust Pinochet. We watch democracy in action: first voting in a Socialist President and then removing a dictator from power. Ballots slip into a box and we think of other elections to come, other opportunities for change, other ways to keep a promise to the dead.

"A Promise to the Dead" will be shown on June 12th at the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in New York. Go here for a full schedule.

Re: NAFTA. Nobody Will Admit Fatherhood

Somewhere, there are 10,000 pencil pushers at work to define the specifics of the New American Century. The protocol makes Big Brother appear the kindly old uncle.
The monster raises his head from the murky depths rarely. Usually called NAFTA, he strikes terror into the hearts of the great unwashed [us]. It has gotten so bad that his recent manifestations are virtually a secret such as NSPD51.
NAFTA introduces slavery to three countries. Without habeas corpus and human rights liberty ends. What politician would publicly espouse that? What citizen would vote to be a slave?
To establish the European Union Codes, they sent the new laws in packets to the Parliament to be rubber-stamped without discussion.
The North Americans will get NAFTA in one big lump, as an accomplished fact.

Preemptive War is an Unlawful Act

Letter to the Editor: Opednews.com

Preemptive War is an Unlawful Act

Preemptive war is a violation of the UN Charter and of our Constitution. The guilty parties include those who promulgated it, voted to fund it or acted to obscure the wrongdoing involved.

The charges should be extended to those above a level of responsibility [GS15 for example] across the three branches of government. There is no reason for them to remain in their posts while the judicial process continues.

For their protection [from angry mobs etc] they should be incarcerated until they can be proven innocent.

I welcome any lawful program suggestions to end preemptive war as a policy alternative.
-- Jason Paz

The Daily Kos Strike and the NSPD 51

Some Hillary supporters at the Daily Kos are angered by management’s seeming disapproval of their candidate.

Here’s what Alegre writes in a HuffPost excerpt.

“Sadly, the majority of the administrators have allowed this hostile environment to develop in our online community for anyone who isn’t planted firmly in the Obama camp. They've routinely ignored personal attacks and allowed disruptive, spam-like posts to go unchecked whenever anyone expresses support for Hillary or challenges something their candidate has said or done. There are however several front-pagers who have managed to avoid taking part in the attacks on Hillary and for that I’m grateful. But the site has grown to the point where they simply can’t – or won’t monitor it.

As a result, our community has become little more than an echo chamber with an attitude that harkens back to the early days of Dubbya’s administration - yer either with us or yer a’gin us, heh! The attackers and disrupters are no better than Chris Matthews with their sexism, hate, lies, and obsession with bashing - all – things – Hillary.”

Humbly, I urge all decent Americans to consider the alternative. Our country is bordering on Martial Law and the suspension of elections. We risk a coup d’etat, which will crush our liberties and enslave us under a despot.

Our teachers warn. If we fail to educate one generation of students properly, we will lose our civilization forever.

Well, we proved we were a bit tougher than that.

The merchants of tyranny have been trumpeting fear, hatred, racism and bigotry for three generations. Since 1947 they have been bashing our protective walls our Constitution, our human rights and our checks and balances. We lack conscientious legislators, judges and administrators.

Nobody in authority dares to discuss the implications of NSPD 51.

Nobody in law enforcement dares to challenge the sale of our nuclear secrets to potential enemies.

Almost everyone saluted the Patriot and Military Commissions Acts.

We discussed Hillary’s asbestos pants suits and Barack’s floppy ears.

My advice to voters and to Daily Kos writers is to get a meaningful life and then to fight for your life in order to have one.

Good night and good luck.

Working Top Down

My cousin was one of the pioneers in television manufacture. They built the first model to be the best. To make it cheaper for the consumer they removed parts until the set ceased to function.

Clearly, the auto manufacturers, the oil barons, the military industrial complex, the health insurers and the Federal Government do not function in the best interest of the country.
The current mess was at least 60 years in the making and the components are too entrenched to reform them.
Under current laws, we can declare the top leaders as enemy combatants for swift removal. Moving down the chain of command, we will find the managers who can function in a socially productive way.

After Vietnam We Never Thought to Repeat

After Vietnam We Never Thought

In the Vietnam Era my Army Reserve Battalion Commander railed at me. “You have to be here once a week anyway. Why don’t you try to make a go of it?”

My unit had been trained to control angry [American] mobs. On the day they ordered us to quell the mob, I had been in it demonstrating with my fellow leftists.

The penalty for this was 333 days in Vietnam. I thought this punishment was counter-productive to the war effort. Who would want me in the same foxhole?

Well, they couldn’t find a slot for me. They transferred me to a unit already listed to go overseas. Fate intervened. My new battalion was not combat ready and stayed at home. To my utter delight, my old unit shipped out for a year’s tour. Waving a small flag, I saw them off.

Always reluctant to pistol-whip a demonstrator, on that day I became a non-interventionist.

Lacking my experience, most Americans remained as dead leaves blown from gutter to gutter. They rode with the wind from war to war.

They learned nothing.

The three branches of government were so corrupt they didn’t notice the Constitution fluttering to the ground for the mulching machine. The Sons of Liberty became orphans. The Patriot and Military Commissions Acts were obscene obituaries for the fallen founding fathers.

Who Remembers Liberty?

Destroying Liberty for 60 Years, How Long Before it Returns?

Good luck to all of you, but I think Mr Haigh suggests a good hold on our expectations. It took three generations to lose our Republic and to tie with Tonga at #53 for freedom of the press.

We lead the world in incarceration and in information control. Our military expenditures top the rest of the world combined. We've so dummied down three generations of kids few of them can figure out why we are universally feared.

What stops Mr Bush from staging a false flags incident, declaring Martial Law and suspending the elections? The outcome finds expression in NSPD 51.

Returning to Life in Baghdad

Returning to Life in Baghdad

“It’s Good It Wasn’t a Car Bomb.”

Salam Adil, Global Voices

What better, after a short break, than to give my audience what they really want to read - words from the street in Baghdad and Mosul. And there is no better time as Chikitita is back blogging from Baghdad giving her impression of a city that she has been away from for many months and Neurotic Wife, takes a tour through the ‘red zone‘. While Baghdad Dentist returns to Mosul after a break in Baghdad and tells us about the difference.

Baghdad Central Train Station by Neurotic Wife

In Baghdad

They say Baghdad has become safer - almost back to normal. And in a way it is true but the issue is one of perception and it is all relative. Chikitita is back in Iraq, visiting her home. She writes:

I sensed some kind of progress in the air; a cab driving through a once Al-Qaida-infested area on its way to a still Badr-controlled one. Last time I was home, this was unheard of! I was amazed by the new changes; all checkpoints have tacky artificial plants as if to divert the beholders’ attention from the camouflage and rifles to the fact that the young servicemen mean no harm.

… As I was promised, … a cruise across the Tigris. It was BREATH-TAKING! For the first time in my life, I was able to take pictures inside my city, on a boat though, pictures that scream I WAS IN BAGHDAD!

The last stop is my favourite place Kadhimiya marketplace, which seemed to have survived. No rip-offs, cheery faces and the good old Iraqi spirit seem to be buzzing with life.

Saddam's Mosque in Mansour (still standing) by Neurotic Wife

But after a few days the reality strikes her:

I seemed to have counted my chickens way too early in my previous post. A fellow commuter, barely catching his breath and checking his trousers for traces of dust, said he survived a bombing by a miracle… the IED tore through the very same childhood neighbourhood of mine. What confused me about this young commuter was the fact that he was smiling as he was running at full speed to catch the bus and his funny comment “it’s good it wasn’t a car bomb!” Aren't we lucky!

Neurotic Wife leaves the Green Zone to take a rare drive through the streets of Baghdad and goes out for a meal in a local restuarant. She says:

That place was crammed. People were coming in and then leaving because there arent any free tables around. I looked at the people, they were happy people. Young ladies dressed in the latest fashion with make up, large fashionable sun glasses over their heads shielding the hairs from their eyes and large hoop earrings dangling from their ears. Everything and everyone around me looked so colourful, so lively. And most importantly, so NORMAL!!!

I had the urge of taking my cam out and snap hundreds upon hundreds of pictures. I wanted everyone in the world to see that no matter what happens to Iraq, the rockets, the bombings, the assassinations, the kidnappings, there is Always Life. ALWAYS.

Some shops in Baghdad by Neurotic Wife

Maybe one of the reasons for the glowing reports of stability in Baghdad come from the wishful thinking of its residents. Chikitita, having seen the world outside of Baghdad, looks at her friend's optimism in a new light. She writes:

I have ceased to look at bright sides in Iraq and given up hope on positive changes, but [my friend] hasn’t. She was so eager to show me life through her eyes, just anything that could give me a false sense of peace and co-existence. She failed. She was right about shops opening after 5:00 p.m., but they close down at 7:00, I couldn’t see any progress there… mosques are still protected by barbed wires, a proof of ongoing mistrust. I heard commuters exchange sectarian insults with each other, not a good sign either and it was her own mother who told me about a private school for girls next door that received threats by militias to expel the qualified senior male teachers or else they blow up the whole school premises.

And Mosul

Baghdad Dentistem returns to work in Mosul after a holiday at home in Baghdad. He gives a picture of life for the single young professional in that city:

it's too dangerous to live in my home because when the national guards or the american soldiers find a young man living alone he'll be considered as a terrorist and will be detained. … [my] neighbours were afraid and hesitated to talk about the situation and they didnt give me a clear answer . …

i met my friends whom i missed and new rotator dentists were there … by night we were laughing and chatting and the sleeping song was 3 blasts and some shooting. … Friday, the alarm was a horrible sound of explosion that woke us up and we were looking at each other to check if some one was injured.

Even the universities and the students cannot escape the violence in that city. Aunt Najma writes:

Today the situation was tense, there was an assassination attempt to kill the university's vice president, and there were many security measurements inside the university.

We discovered today that a dear classmate, M, was shot few days ago. They told me it hit him in the leg and he's okay. I was shocked to hear the news, nobody has told us, as if we do not care.

Toys in a shop window by Neurotic Wife

And finally:

Even if you are stuck at home Marshmallow26 finds a way travel the world from her armchair in Baghdad:

Yes, I was sitting on my chair, enjoying the delicious flavor of my red apple. I visited Austria - Pfaenderhang, Japan, antique shop in Europe. super market at night, and a city square do not know even where…

Every thing is possible when it comes to Google search, I was reading in one of the technological websites, and found a trick word, a mantra that you write in Google's search bar and you get all live cameras around the world…the word is: liveapplet.

You get to see airports, metros, New York times square, factories, Zoos, and you get the picture!

Although I have not been on a plane nor to any other country except Syria, I feel as if I went to all those places which I searched through Google…I always say it, I LOVE TECHNOLOGY.

US Justice is to Justice What NORAD is to Air Defense

The article on the prosecution of Dr. Al Arial prompted some fruitful discussion. It sharpened at least my perception of his travail.

Our officials spent $50 millions to persuade two jurors [of 12] the man was guilty of anything at all. The end was in effect a plea bargain unacceptable to both sides.

At this rate we could spend up to $3 billions to try other members of the Arab/American community who may or may not share Dr. Al Arian’s opinions.

There is an additional expenditure involved. The Federal employees dealing with the Al Arian matter have violated eleven of his human rights [presented below].

From the 1948 UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Whereas it is essential, if man is not to be compelled to have recourse, as a last resort, to rebellion against tyranny and oppression, that human rights should be protected by the rule of law,

Article 1

All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

Article 3

Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.

Article 5

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Article 6

Everyone has the right to recognition everywhere as a person before the law.

Article 7

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law. All are entitled to equal protection against any discrimination in violation of this Declaration and against any incitement to such discrimination.

Article 8

Everyone has the right to an effective remedy by the competent national tribunals for acts violating the fundamental rights granted him by the constitution or by law.

Article 9

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

Article 10

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him.

Article 11

1. Everyone charged with a penal offence has the right to be presumed innocent until proved guilty according to law in a public trial at which he has had all the guarantees necessary for his defence.
2. No one shall be held guilty of any penal offence on account of any act or omission which did not constitute a penal offence, under national or international law, at the time when it was committed. Nor shall a heavier penalty be imposed than the one that was applicable at the time the penal offence was committed.

Article 12

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Not Guilty, Sentenced to Five Years in Prison

By Chris Hedges, Alternet

The Palestinian activist Dr. Sami Amin Al-Arian, imprisoned for five years despite a jury's failure to return a single guilty verdict against him, has gone on a hunger strike in Northern Neck Regional Jail in Warsaw, Va. Al-Arian, who has abstained from food and water since March 3rd, began his hunger strike after being informed he would be called before a third grand jury. He has lost 15 pounds and has been moved to the jail's medical unit.

"A great nation is ultimately defined and judged by its system of justice," Al-Arian said in a statement released through his family. "When the system is manipulated by the powerful and tolerates abuses against the minorities or the weak members of society, the government not only loses its moral authority and betrays future generations, but will also be condemned by history."

The hunger strike is the third by the Palestinian activist, who was to have been released in April and deported. During his first hunger strike, which lasted 140 days, he took liquid nutrients and lost 45 pounds. During his hunger strike last year, which lasted 60 days, he drank only water and lost 55 pounds. Al-Arian is a diabetic.

"We are very worried about his health, but we understand why he's doing this," said his daughter, Laila Al-Arian. "The U.S. government, through its vindictive and politically motivated behavior, has given our family no other option."

The recent documentary, USA vs Al-Arian, detailed the absurdity of the show trial held in Florida and the hollowness of the government's case against Al-Arian. When the film was awarded Best Nordic Documentary at the Nordic Panorama in Finland the jury wrote: "The film shows precisely how a common man becomes a victim of the situation in the contemporary world, where the Big Brother is watching you even when you're ordering pizza."

The decision to call Al-Arian before the grand jury was made although Al-Arian had signed a "no-cooperation" agreement. The agreement stipulated that he would not be required to cooperate with the government in other cases. The government's attempt to force him to testify, despite the agreement, came a month before his scheduled release. It is seen by his lawyers and his family as an effort by the government to keep the activist in jail indefinitely.

Al-Arian endured a six-month show trial in Florida that saw the government's case collapse. The Justice Department spent an estimated $50 million and several years investigating and prosecuting Al-Arian. The government called 80 witnesses and subjected the jury to hundreds of hours of often absurd phone transcriptions and recordings made over a 10-year period, which the jury dismissed as "gossip." Out of the 94 charges made against the four defendants, there were no convictions. Of the 17 charges against Al-Arian -- including "conspiracy to murder and maim persons abroad'' -- the jury acquitted him of eight and was hung on the rest. The jurors disagreed on the remaining charges, with 10 of the 12 jurors favoring his full acquittal. Two others in the case, Ghassan Ballut and Sameeh Hammoudeh, were acquitted of all charges, dealing another body blow to the government's case.

Following the acquittal, a disaster for the government, especially because then-Attorney General John Ashcroft had announced the indictment, prosecutors threatened to retry Al-Arian. The Palestinian professor, under duress, accepted a plea bargain agreement that would spare him a second trial, saying in his agreement that he had helped people associated with Palestinian Islamic Jihad with immigration matters. It was a tepid charge given the high profile of the case. The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Middle District of Florida and the counter-terrorism section of the Justice Department agreed to recommend to the judge the minimum sentence of 46 months.

But U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. sentenced Dr. Al-Arian to the maximum 57 months. In referring to Al-Arian's contention that he had only raised money for Palestinian Islamic Jihad's charity for widows and orphans, the judge said acidly to the professor that "your only connection to orphans and widows is that you create them."

America Needs Targets; Uncle Sam Wants You

Posted by: Gretchen360 on Mar 11, 2008 7:07 AM Alternet
Current rating: Not yet rated

For the past 60 years or so, the American military/industrial complex has needed villains to fight. It requires perpetual war to maintain profit levels.
The CIA controls information fed the public through the mass media. With hatred, bigotry and racism at fever pitch, Americans can shift enemies with ease. They can't find the new foe on a map, but they are sure the US Air Force can bomb him into the Stone Age.
It is no wonder that citizens throughout the world are peace loving. Who wants to be a cinder?
Yet, they permit their leaders to whip up crowds in a nationalistic or religious frenzy against the USA. Presidents such as Ahmadinejad and Chavez travel to the UN to badmouth Emperor Bush. Why don't they dig a hole in the garden, jump in and take cyanide? They would be more productive. At least their bodies would become plant food.
The Americans can be duped into war with anyone. Why do many nations provoke them?