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Gender-Based Violence in Haiti
by Stephen Lendman
The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) works with grassroots groups there, in America, and the Haitian Diaspora, developing effective human rights advocacy for some of the world's most oppressed, impoverished, and long-suffering people, over 500 years and counting.
In late July, it issued a new report titled, "Our Bodies Are Still Trembling: Haitian Women's Fight Against Rape," a problem Amnesty International (AI) highlighted in March saying:
Obama's Gulf Swim Was Fake
by Stephen Lendman
On August 15, AP reported that Obama gave his "personal assurances of (the) Gulf's safety," saying:
"Beaches all along the Gulf Coast are clean, they are safe, and they are open for business."
He lied.
The same day, Britain's government owned BBC reported:
"Barack Obama has taken a swim in the Gulf of Mexico (to) reassure Americans that the waters are safe despite the recent oil spill."
The Scott Sisters: Victimized by American Injustice
by Stephen Lendman
Their story is shocking, disturbing, yet common - African Americans indicted, prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned despite their innocence. Nearly always society's most vulnerable are affected, including Muslims by the "war on terror" and people of color - Jamie and Gladys Scott's experience explained below.
Updated information on their case and status can be found on Free the Scott Sisters.blogspot.com, accessed through the following link:
http://freethescottsisters.blogspot.com/
The Inevitable Loser is Dumped! Telegraph Punches Obama
by Lyndon H. LaRouche, Jr.
This Monday's London Daily Telegraph piece from correspondent Nile Gardner, is not correct, but Gardner's error is interesting, and timely, nonetheless.[1]
He is right on the spot, in suggesting "The last few weeks have been a nightmare for President Obama, in a summer of discontent in the United States which has deeply unsettled the ruling liberal elites...," but, he is way off the mark in asserting that "the anti-establishment Tea Party movement," a Republican Party front group, "is now a rising and powerful political force to be reckoned with."
Alleged child soldier on trial at Gitmo
Mary Shaw
Canadian citizen Omar Khadr is now facing trial via a U.S. military commission at Guantanamo Bay. Khadr is accused of throwing a hand grenade which killed a U.S. soldier in Afghanistan in 2002 and injured two others. His is the first trial before a military commission under the Obama administration. The trial began during the week of August 9, but is now on hold for 30 days as the defense attorney recovers from a sudden illness.
Khadr was only 15 years old when he was detained and sent to Gitmo, where he was allegedly subjected to harsh interrogations, beatings, and other ill-treatment. Interrogators allegedly threatened to kill Khadr's family if he didn't cooperate. According to IPS News, "there seems to be little or no evidence that Khadr actually threw the grenade that killed the soldier, other than 'confessions' allegedly obtained under suspicious circumstances."
And, notes IPS, "Patrick Parish, the military judge working on the case in Guantanamo, has decided to admit the statements extrapolated during these interrogations into court." This is despite the fact that information obtained under torture and other forms of coercion is known to be unreliable. So the deck is already stacked against him.
Human Rights First (HRF) has identified some additional problems with the case. "The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and international juvenile justice standards require prompt determination of juvenile cases and discourage detainment of juveniles at all except as a last resort," says HRF on its website. "Such standards have not been heeded by the U.S. government in the case of Khadr. Khadr was held for two years prior to being given access to an attorney, waited more than three years prior to being charged before the first military commission, and is now in his eighth year in U.S. custody. During Khadr's time in detainment, he has been held both in solitary confinement as well as with adult detainees, contrary to international standards requiring that children be treated in accordance with their age and segregated from adult detainees."
Additionally, says HRF, "In 2002, the U.S. ratified the Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Involvement of Children in Armed Conflict, which prohibits the use of children under 18 in armed conflict and requires signatories to criminalize such conduct and rehabilitate former child soldiers as well as provide 'all appropriate assistance for their physical and psychological recovery and their social reintegration.' The U.S. has failed to heed these legal obligations in the case of Khadr."
But, of course, it's been a while since the U.S. government has cared about complying with international law and human rights standards.
And today that remains another unkept promise of the Obama administration.
In a statement to the military judge in a pre-trial hearing in July, Khadr had asked, "How can I ask for justice from a process that does not have it?"
That is a very good question.
Unfortunately, the answer is probably not so good.
Mary Shaw is a Philadelphia-based writer and activist. She is a former Philadelphia Area Coordinator for the Nobel-Prize-winning human rights group Amnesty International, and her views on politics, human rights, and social justice issues have appeared in numerous online forums and in newspapers and magazines worldwide. Note that the ideas expressed here are the author's own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Amnesty International or any other organization with which she may be associated. E-mail: mary@maryshawonline.com
Gates to Iraqis - We'll stay, just ask us
A revealing article appeared in Voice of America (VOA) on August 12. Defense Secretary Robert Gates made the following statement:
"I think we have an agreement with the Iraqis that both governments have agreed to, that we will be out of Iraq at the end of 2011," he (Gates) said. "If a new government is formed there and they want to talk about beyond 2011, we're obviously open to that discussion. But that initiative will have to come from the Iraqis." Robert Gates in "US Military Prepares to Leave Iraq, But May Stay If Asked", Voice of America (VOA), Aug 12
At the time of this post, if you do a Google "News" search for the sentence underlined, you will find it only at the VOA source. The article notes that Gates made the statement, "to reporters on his aircraft during a domestic trip on Wednesday." Apparently, it wasn't newsworthy except to the official news agency for the United States government.
President Obama's withdrawal promise has been treated with some skepticism. Now we've got Robert Gates adding a cynical codicil: "if they want to talk … we're obviously open to discussion."
Who's in charge here?
Wake Up Obama
Joel S. Hirschhorn
If the United States is not kaput it is certainly withering away even as a rich upper class enjoys all the things that money buys. There is massive, widespread economic pain inflicting a huge fraction of Americans who are unemployed, underemployed, relying on food stamps, losing their homes, and who are feeling totally insecure financially. This maintains sluggish consumer spending that makes necessary economic growth impossible.
The corporate bigwigs meanwhile are essentially using economic blackmail as they sit on trillions of dollars in cash, refusing to invest their capital and making great profits because they have cut workers and increased productivity. They want even more benefits from government that they think Republicans will give them.
Israeli belligerence prompts fascist support in the West
By Khalid Amayreh, Occupied Jerusalem
Khalid Amayreh
It is one of the paradoxes of Israel that the Jewish state has a lot of support amongst right-wing and fascist groups in the West. The common factor appears to be hostility towards Islam and Muslims; in short, Islamophobia. Israel's belligerence against the Palestinians (the Christians amongst whom are overlooked by the extreme right) is championed.
However, a closer examination suggests that extreme right-wing ideology and extreme interpretations of Zionism go hand in hand. As the government coalition in Israel moves ever more to the right, it is worth considering the residual influence of the Kach Party, banned in Israel in 1988 for its extreme racist views.
Universal Jurisdiction to Hold Israel Accountable
by Stephen Lendman
The well-established universal jurisdiction principle (UJ) holds that certain crimes are too grave to ignore, including genocide, crimes of war and against humanity.
Thus, under UJ, nations may investigate and prosecute foreign nationals when their country of residence or origin won't, can't, or hasn't for any reason. Israel used it to convict and execute Adolph Eichmann. A US court sentenced Chuckie Taylor, son of the former Liberian president, to 97 years in prison for torture.
In March 2003, the Special Court for Sierre Leone (SCSL) indicted his father, Charles Taylor, for crimes of war and against humanity. His trial at The Hague's International Court of Justice (ICC) remains ongoing.
We Hold These Truths...
By Timothy V. Gatto
I was on the Michael Medved show yesterday and we got into a discussion of wealth. I told him that a University of Southern California study by Professor G. William Dumhoff made in 2007 and revised in 2010 showed that 80% of Americans retain only 7% of America’s wealth. He then asked me if we should “steal money away from the rich and give it to the poor”. I replied in the affirmative saying that taxes should be levied on the super-rich, after all, how much do people actually need to live a good life? In the preamble of our Constitution it says;
We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
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