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Rendition is a Horrible, Violent Crime in Any Form -- It Should Not Be U.S. Policy
Marjorie Cohn
A Call to End All Renditions: The U.S. government should disclose the names, fate, and whereabouts of all persons rendered by the CIA since 2001.
Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian residing in Britain, said he was tortured after being sent to Morocco and Afghanistan in 2002 by the U.S. government. Mohamed was transferred to Guantánamo in 2004 and all terrorism charges against him were dismissed last year. Mohamed was a victim of extraordinary rendition, in which a person is abducted without any legal proceedings and transferred to a foreign country for detention and interrogation, often tortured.
Mohamed and four other plaintiffs are accusing Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen Dataplan, Inc. of flying them to other countries and secret CIA camps where they were tortured. In Mohamed’s case, two British justices accused the Bush administration of pressuring the British government to block the release of evidence that was “relevant to allegations of torture” of Mohamed.
Twenty-five lines edited out of the court documents included details about how Mohamed’s genitals were sliced with a scalpel as well as other torture methods so extreme that waterboarding “is very far down the list of things they did,” according to a British official quoted by the Telegraph (UK).
“We Israelis control America”
Paul J. Balles
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Paul J. Balles argues that decent Americans need to reconsider their willing support of Israeli pathological murderers currently in control of the US – people who openly describe Palestinian civilians as “human animals” that should be slaughtered.
| The Israelis control the policy in the Congress and the Senate. – Senator Fullbright, Chair of Senate Foreign Relations Committee |
What kind of thinking explains why it is so easy for Israelis to slaughter 3500 civilians in Gaza, 40 per cent of whom were children? The Israeli murderers were fully aware of their incomparably strong armaments. They launched at least 2500 air-raids on Gaza, dropping more than 1000 tons of explosives, including phosphorous bombs, against a relatively helpless population.
Enough Bad Banks; We Need Good Ones in a New System
John Hoefle
We have said, repeatedly, that the attempts to bail out the global banking system, including the U.S. banks, are not working, will not work, and can not work. Not only will they not restore the banking system to solvency, but they are actually making the economic crisis worse.
There are several problems with the bailout process. One is that the global financial system, with its quadrillion dollars-plus derivatives bets and hundreds of trillions of dollars of worthless securities and unpayable debts, is hopelessly insolvent. This is, and has been from the beginning, a full-blown banking crisis; the widely touted "subprime crisis" and "credit crunch" were marketing slogans created for the purpose of hiding the true nature of the problem, and positioning the banks to lobby for a public bailout under the guise of protecting the so-called "little guy."
US occupation of Iraq: An ongoing criminal enterprise
Bill Van Auken
[PHOTO: U.S. occupation soldiers try to free a body trapped inside an armored vehicle with a body of a puppet ( quisling ) Iraq soldier in the foreground near the city of Baqouba, 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2007 after the occupation army unit hit an improvised explosive device. Photo: AP/Karel Prinsloo.]
Recent media reports on the mounting evidence of wholesale corruption in US reconstruction efforts in Iraq are symptomatic of the criminal nature of Washington’s war and occupation from their inception nearly six years ago. These crimes are continuing under the Obama administration, with no end in sight.
To Protect and Serve
I wish I was a graphic artist, 'cuz I just designed (in my muddled head) a great new Nobama T-shirt. All I can do is describe it . . .
Background: the popular headshot image of the prez, but not in the colors that remind me of a bruise I developed on my shoulder in 1968, the result of a just-missed-my-noggin swing of a riot stick by a cop who took exception to my use of the word "pig" in reference to his ugly self. No, the colors are shades of gray - nothing quite white, nothing quite black. Perfect.
Choose life! To Life, To Life, Lechaim!!!
Deb Reich / Abu Ghosh
The following essay was written by a very dear friend. She has been involved in solidarity work involving Palestinians and Israelis for many years…. she speaks from the heart. [Steve Amsel]
Most people will say I’m delusional; that’s okay. I will say what I have to say anyway. When your opinion is way out on the periphery, it may mean you are delusional - or it may just mean that the so-called center has gradually drifted closer and closer to a very high cliff, and finally fallen off the edge, while the majority of the population follows along like a horde of doomed lemmings. In that scenario, someone needs to stake out a position at the other extreme and drag the locus of the center back from oblivion. So here goes.
WE ARE SCREWED NO MATTER WHO FORMS THE NEW ISRAELI GOVERNMENT
Steve Amsel
The ballots have been counted…… yet there is no government. This has been the norm in Israel since Menachem Begin stepped down as Prime Minister in 1983. There have been ‘rotations’, coalitions, but no real governing body.
As I write this the two leading Parties, Kadima and Likud, are desperately seeking ways to form a coalition with those Parties willing to work with them. Common denominator being the continuation of the occupation, the expansion of illegal settlements, and the draining of resources belonging to other countries.
A Day of Reckoning for the USA
Norm Lowry
“The foundation of all Mental Illness is the unwillingness to experience legitimate suffering.” Carl Jung
Lately, I have been inordinately baffled. The combined government & media sources of the world tell the tale of whole countries sitting on the edge of fiscal insolvency; civil unrest now becoming commonplace; starvation & suicide deaths soaring; staggering rises in unemployment; food shortages; rising threats & escalating wars. In my country (USA), the stories are the same…maybe 46 of 50 States, 80% of US cities & 2 of 3 US banks are fiscally insolvent; likely 1 of 5 workers unemployed or working part-time (due to lack of suitable employment); home foreclosures up 80% in 2008 (worse yet expected in 2009).
Toxic Plans for Toxic Assets
Stephen Lendman
Exit Paulson, enter Geithner with the latest "no banker left behind plan" - aka whatever Wall Street wants, Wall Street gets. Yet, the reception was underwhelming. The Dow plummeted 382 points while investors took shelter in bonds and gold. AP reported that "the new bank rescue plan landed with a thud on Wall Street" as investors worried that no end to the crisis is in sight. Editorial and op-ed commentaries were near unanimously negative and some especially critical.
At a February 9 congressional briefing, lawmakers greeted Geithner with laughter and sarcasm, but most of it is just politics. Bailout opponent Brad Sherman (D, California) asked for details and a dollar amount, but instead got generalities about what he announced the next day - a plan to:
PROMISES, PROMISES AND OBAMESE SEDUCTION
Gaither Stewart
“To seduce also means to destroy”
I ran into a reference to The Fable of the Bees: or, Private Vices, Publick Benefits and found the suggestive old poem extensively reproduced and commented on line. The work consists of a poem, The Grumbling Hive, or Knaves Turn'd Honest, and an extensive prose commentary. The poem which first appeared in 1705 was intended as a commentary on England, as the Dutch Englishman, Bernard de Mandeville, saw it. Here is a stanza:
-
A Spacious Hive well stock'd with Bees,
That lived in Luxury and Ease;
And yet as fam'd for Laws and Arms,
As yielding large and early Swarms;
Was counted the great Nursery
Of Sciences and Industry.
No Bees had better Government,
More Fickleness, or less Content.
They were not Slaves to Tyranny,
Nor ruled by wild Democracy;
But Kings, that could not wrong, because
Their Power was circumscrib'd by Laws.
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