Our laws dealing with torture and other crimes don't apply to US Presidents or friends of Stephen Harper
When it comes to America we are a nation of cowards
More on Cheney's Lies and Propaganda
Dear Cheney Iraq is not better off after six years of occupation
One Million dead Iraqis, a failed economy
Majority of Iraqis want US Troops to leave now
Women in Iraq worse off after US invasion
By welcoming Bush does this mean that Canadians and the Canadian government under Stephen Harper approves of George Bush's policies on torture and the abuse of POWs and his illegal use of surveillance on US citizens and his economic policies which have led to an economic crisis .
Do Canadians also believe abortion should be banned and that support for the troops means claiming that one supports the troops while underpaying soldiers and treating them with dishonor by not taking care of their medical and psychological needs or of their families when they return from the battlefield. Does Canada also hold to the attitude that soldiers suffering from Post Traumatic Stress disorder are just just cowards and weaklings who should be tossed out into the streets to fend for themselves.
Do Canadians also think there's nothing wrong with recruiting soldiers who are White Supremacists and Neo-Nazis or just a little bit psychotic which the US military has been doing these last eight years or so.
Do we as Canadians also believe that soldiers should be permitted to let off steam by abusing and torturing POWs or raping 14 year old Iraqi or Afghan girls or raping and abusing their fellow female soldiers which are issues Americans in general do not see as at all important. Americans seem to believe that what their military and its soldiers do is their own business since no foreign Nation they believe has any right to judge American soldiers or America's actions in general.
Does Canada now believe that we should be allowed to use Cluster Bombs and White Phosphorous (Napalm )on civilian populations to keep them under control and to teach them not to disrespect our soldiers ie in Afghanistan. Does it also mean that it would be ok for our military to target human rights organizations and humanitarian aid organizations and hospitals and ambulances and medics and MDs and journalists as the US military has done again and again.
In our arrogance and self-righteousness it appears Canadians like the Americans and British believe that we can do no wrong because we are the " Good Guys " after all and everybody else in the world we have come to believe are the " Bad Guys " especially these days if they are Arabs or Muslims.
Our solution to every problem it seems is just more troops and good old Gun Boat diplomacy.
Keith asks if Bush could be arrested in any other country.
He forgets to mention that Stephen Harper is considered a Neoconservative like the members of the Bush administration. Harper is also an Evangelical Christian like Bush. By Canadian standards Harper is to the far right but does not have a clear majority so he can't push through a lot of legislation he would like to. He is though Gung-Ho about sending more troops to Afghanistan and wishes we had gone into Iraq. With Tony Blair and Bush out of power Stephen Harper is the last standing Neoconservative.
Bush's Canada Trip Today- Keith Olbermann- March 17, 2009
Could Bush be arrested in Canada? -Olbermann March 16, 2009
Arianna Huffinton like Bill Moyers confuses Infotainment News with some sort old fashioned notion of journalism ie journalists seek the truth and not merely panderers of the status quo or Quisling's for the rich and powerful. She forgets that TV is all about a perceived reality in which the Jack Bauer of 24 come to the rescue and do what they have to do to protect the innocent know nothing naive citizenry. The public is presented with public figures in policies as equivalent to pop stars in Hollywood or in the field of music. Hanna Montana /Myly Cyrus is of the same importance the Networks tell us as Dick Cheney. Bush, or Obama. It's all just a show. It is an entertaining circus for the apathetic viewers or just more eye candy.
Our society just wants everything reduced to simplistic terms the average viewer can understand in a five minute news bite. Just by giving Dick Cheney an hour on TV gives the viewer the impression that what Cheney has to say is really important and must be the truth.
Part of the problem is that the longer Obama delays taking legal action against Bush and Cheney and various members of their administration who committed criminal acts the more emboldened the Republicans, the Neocons and the Religious Right are able to act and to convince the American public that they did no wrong and in fact they represent the best that America has to offer.
What If Jon Stewart, Instead of John King, Interviewed Dick Cheney by arianna Huffington at huffington Post March 16, 2009
Jon Stewart's Jim Cramer interview was a pivotal moment -- not just for Stewart, Cramer, and CNBC but also for journalism. It was a bracing reminder of what great research and a journalist more committed to getting to the truth than to landing the big get -- and keeping the big get happy, and ensuring future big gets -- can accomplish.
Stewart kept popping into my head as I watched John King interview Dick Cheney on Sunday. Each time King let Cheney get away with spouting gross inaccuracies and revisionist history, I kept thinking how different things would have been had Stewart been asking the questions. Stewart without the comedy and without the outrage -- just armed with the facts and the willingness to ask tough questions.
More on Cheney's Lies and Propaganda
"Cheney's Mission Accomplished" By Juan Cole "Information Clearing House" March 17, 2007
-- -Dick Cheney: "I guess my general sense of where we are with respect to Iraq and at the end of now, what, nearly six years, is that we've accomplished nearly everything we set out to do...."
What has Dick Cheney really accomplished in Iraq?
For instance the article mentions:
# An estimated 4 million Iraqis, out of 27 million, have been displaced from their homes...
The Lancet study suggested that the US was directly responsible for a third of all violent deaths since 2003. That would be as much as 300,000 that we killed...
# Arab-Kurdish violence is spiking in the north...
Hundreds of thousands of Iraqi women have been widowed by the war and its effects...
# $32 billion were wasted on Iraq reconstruction...
Political power is being fragmented in Iraq...
The Iraqi economy is devastated...
and the article concludes :
Cheney avoids mentioning all the human suffering he has caused, on a cosmic scale, and focuses on procedural matters like elections (which he confuses with democracy-- given 2000 in this country, you can understand why). Or he lies, as when he says that Iran's influence in Iraq has been blocked. Another lie is that there was that the US was fighting "al-Qaeda" in Iraq as opposed to just Iraqis. He and Bush even claim that they made Iraqi womens' lives better.
The real question is whether anyone will have the gumption to put Cheney on trial for treason and crimes against humanity.
The reason one suspects that Cheney doesn't bother to talk about the suffering of the Iraqi people besides that it spoils his Talking Points about how great things are going in Iraq is rather that such human suffering is meaningless to Cheney and those who surrounded him in the Bush Whitehouse.
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The situation for Iraqi women did not improve after the US invasion of Iraq in fact the situation worsened and the US forces did nothing to help Iraqi women since it was not a priority of the US military or the Bush/Cheney Regime. What gains in human rights women had gained in Iraq were lost after within months of the US invasion.
by American Forum
Iraqi Women Want US Out by Yifat Susskind, American Forum March 17, 2009 at CommonDreams.org
If you haven't thought about the Iraq war as a story of U.S. allies systematically torturing and executing women, you're not alone. Likewise if you were under the impression that Iraqi women were somehow better off under their new, U.S.-sponsored government.
In the spring of 2003, Fatin was a student of architecture at Baghdad University. Her days were filled with classes and hanging out in her favorite of Baghdad's many cafes, where she and her friends studied, shared music, and spun big plans for successful careers, happy marriages, and eventually kids.
Today, Fatin says that those feel like someone else's dreams.
Soon after the U.S. invasion, Fatin began seeing groups of bearded young Iraqi men patrolling the streets of Baghdad. They were looking for women like her, who wore modern clothes or were heading to professional jobs. The men screamed terrible insults at the women and sometimes beat them.
By the fall, ordinary aspects of Fatin's life had become punishable by death. The "misery gangs," as Fatin calls them, were routinely killing women for wearing pants, appearing in public without a headscarf, or shaking hands and socializing with men.
As the occupying power, the U.S. was legally obligated to stop these attacks. But the Pentagon, preoccupied with battling the Iraqi insurgency, simply ignored the militias' reign of terror.
In fact, some of the most treacherous armed groups belonged to the very political parties that the U.S. had brought to power. By 2005, the Pentagon was giving weapons, money and military training to these Shiite militias, in the hope that they would help combat the Sunni-led insurgency.
...While the Pentagon was arming militias bent on brutally ousting Iraqi women from public life, the U.S. State Department was busy brokering the new Iraqi Constitution. Hailed as "progressive" and "democratic" in Washington, the new Constitution designates religious law, which discriminates against women, as the basis of all legislation. It also restricts women's rights by upending one of the most progressive family status laws in the Middle East -- a law that Iraqi women fought for and won in 1959, before Saddam Hussein took power.
...So what are Iraqi women saying on the sixth anniversary of the U.S. invasion? The same thing they've been saying since 2003: End the occupation. Polls consistently show that a majority of Iraqis want U.S. troops out.
We've been told that if the U.S. withdraws, violence would again soar in Iraq. That's a compelling argument for those of us who care about the suffering that the U.S. has already visited on Iraqi women and their families. But Iraqis themselves, who have the best grasp of their security situation, say that U.S. troops are causing, not confronting, violence. In multiple polls, most Iraqis say they would feel much safer without U.S. troops.
Who can blame them? Since the invasion, over a million Iraqis have died violently and 4 million have been driven from their homes. The resources that women need to care for their families -- electricity, water, food, fuel, and medical care -- have become dangerously scarce, sometimes totally unavailable.
Meanwhile in Iraq:
Iraq forces can cope after US pullout: Maliki AP March 12, 2009
Security forces in Iraq will be able to control the country when US forces withdraw, Iraq Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki said on Thursday, despite successive bombings which killed scores of people this week.
US President Barack Obama said last month the United States will withdraw all combat troops from Iraq by the end of August next year, leaving a force of up to about 50,000 to advise and train Iraq's own security forces through 2011.
Maliki's comments contradicted those of Iraqi Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi, who told Reuters in an interview in Baghdad on Wednesday he was worried Iraqi security forces may not be ready to meet Obama's withdrawal dates. Two bombings which shattered months of recent calm, killing at least 60 people, also raised fresh fears about the ability of Iraqi forces to quell insurgents when the Americans leave.
"When it comes to the withdrawal of American forces, I believe that the Iraqis will be capable of taking the whole situation in their hands," Maliki said in Canberra after trade and security talks with his Australian counterpart Kevin Rudd.
Maliki said the abilities of Iraqi forces in both combat operations and intelligence gathering had been steadily improving through close cooperation with local communities. "Notwithstanding the gruesome operations that took place and the large number of victims, al Qaeda, extremists and terrorists in Iraq have lost their capabilities of confronting and challenging the security forces in Iraq," he said
and so it goes,
GORD.
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