...the heart of this matter is the Government’s “alleged” right (the President of the United States’ actually) to use the so-called “state secrets privilege” to keep victims of alleged torture from ever even having a day in court — even when one of those victims, as in this case, charges that his torture included “cutting his penis and other body parts with a scalpel and then pouring stinging liquid on the wounds.”From: "Sick: Court Sides With Bush/Obama in Favor of Torture, Secrecy, Against Rule of Law by bradfriedman ,Bradblog via Alternet.org, Sept. 9, 2010
Good thing none of this was done by Iran. We’d be outraged…
UPDATE: a small victory of sorts with the stopping of the "Burn the Qur'an Day" event while continuing to punish the world's Muslim population.
9/11 Quran Burning Cancelled by Pastor Terry Jones
The Young Turks Cenk Uygur
But the stopping of the Qur'an burning event may have been too late to prevent violence and outrage among the world's Muslim population.
Terry Jones: Bonfire of one man's vanity Pastor abandons Koran-burning stunt, but too late to stop worldwide fury - and bloodshed By Stephen Foley and David Usborne The Independent ,Sept. 10,2010
The fundamentalist pastor who promised to mark the anniversary of the September 11 attacks by burning hundreds of copies of the Koran pulled the plug on his stunt last night, in the face of blanket condemnation from world leaders and a warning from Interpol that Christians around the world were at risk of violent revenge attacks.
As anger mounted against the obscure Florida church, called the Dove World Outreach Centre, Pastor Terry Jones said he was changing his plan, following a meeting with local Muslim leaders.
While Cenk is quite pleased that so-called American values won out over such insensitive and dangerous bigotry this does not wipe away magically the War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity committed by the USA in Iraq and Afghanistan and Gitmo and a hundred other US installations used to abuse and torture POWS .
And even now it appears nothing has changed in the way the War on Terror is being conducted as the Drone Wars continue in Pakistan and one massacre by US or NATO forces follows another. At the same time after the massive flooding in Pakistan America has refused to give Pakistan the aid it needs in the face of this natural disaster. Once again America is punishing all Muslims by with holding aid to Pakistan and possibly by passivity and indifference adding to the suffering of Pakistanis . In part this seems to be the policy given the recent leeks that Pakistan has been undermining its political and military operations in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
President Obama doesn't like the idea of burning copies of the Holy Qur'an yet he doesn't apologize for the one to 2 million dead Iraqis who were killed in an illegal, immoral war. The war was based upon lies and propaganda.
No matter what Fox News or the Washington Post or New York Times or Glenn Beck or Karl Rove say the reasons for the war were made up - they were just part of an elaborate Media & US government Propaganda campaign to fool the American people and the world so America could get its revenge its pound of flesh.
The Neocons saw it as an opportunity to test their Grand Theories with little regard to the lives of Iraqis or American soldiers. Instead the Neocons should have been sent to Iraq and put on night patrol for the length of the war .
Saddam was not an imminent threat to the USA.
Saddam had no Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Saddam had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks
Iraq by 2003 was a basket case after some ten years of sanctions and was not much of a threat to any nation.
If the Americans had been sincere in their desire to hunt down the Terrorists that is Al Qaeda it could have been done as a world wide policing action ala Interpol and co-operation of as many nations as possible. Many nations immediately after the 9/11 attacks offered help to the USA but Bush, Cheney et al decided they didn't need the help of other nations they could do it themselves- so how did that work out???
Many nations including Arab and Muslim countries were at first willing to help til it became clear that America's agenda went much further than tracking down a few thousand terrorists. They used the Terrorists Attacks as an excuse to begin their Neoconservative inspired Master Plan in the Middle East.
This strategy cost America only 5,000 lives while a million or more Iraqis were killed.
The exact figures of killed Iraqis is not really accurate . So maybe Obama should forming an independent inquiry to quantify the number of Iraqis wounded or killed or tortured. For all his blather he's no more interested in the numbers than Bush or Cheney were. Cause those folks are not Americans.
Meanwhile because of the War Effort and the Privatization of the War a number of American and International corporations such as KBR, Brown&Root and Halliburton and Blackwater/XE made their own killing making unimaginable profits off of this ill-conceived immoral war.
The War on Terror is just an elaborate Mechanized Killing Machine as part of a "Blood Feud".
In a "blood feud" when someone from a different tribe or clan or nation or ethnic or religious group kills someone in the group you belong to it is necessary to get revenge and to satisfy the Honor of One's Group and so one need only kill a member of the other group that is any member of the group and not necessarily the one who committed the crime or offense .
So the attackers on 9/1 were Muslims and Arabs the Americans in this "Blood Feud" could go after any Muslims or Arabs whether they were connected with the 9/11 terrorist attacks or not. Therefore any Muslim or Arab dominated nation could be attacked. As in any "Blood Feud" one may choose to go after the weakest members of the enemy camp rather than the strongest so America decided to hit Iraq which had been weakened by the first Iraqi war and a decade of sanctions . This would then satisfy America's sense of honor or to restore its honor. In such an atavistic frenzy the superficial veneer of so called "Civilization" is stripped away and abandoned as inhibiting the natural sense of outrage and desire for revenge.
The problem with such Feuds is that there is no end to them . For every reprisal for an offense another killing is then needed .
So America has by this reasoning committed over 1 million HONOR KILLINGS.
If we add in the period of the draconian immoral inhumane sanctions of Iraq before the invasion by the American Empire the number rises closer to 2 Million HONOR KILLINGS.
Abuse and torture of POWs doesn't suddenly stop being a crime by merely redefining POWs as Enemy Combatants or as evil terrorists.
Yet like George W. Bush Obama sees nothing amiss in treating prisoners inhumanely or keeping them in "indefinite detention" even if there is no solid substantive evidence of their guilt as "terrorists". The logic is if someone is picked up by US agents military or CIA or Special Forces then it follows that the individual is guilty . Besides with enough abuse and torture they will confess to burning down the Reichstag.
So much for positive change.
"Sick: Court Sides With Bush/Obama in Favor of Torture, Secrecy, Against Rule of Law by bradfriedman ,Bradblog via Alternet.org, Sept. 9, 2010
A sharply divided federal appeals court on Wednesday dismissed a lawsuit involving the Central Intelligence Agency’s practice of seizing terrorism suspects and transferring them to other countries for imprisonment and interrogation. The ruling handed a major victory to the Obama administration in its effort to advance a sweeping view of executive secrecy power.
Gosh. Can’t understand why Obama’s approval ratings keep falling.
In any case, the heart of this matter is the Government’s “alleged” right (the President of the United States’ actually) to use the so-called “state secrets privilege” to keep victims of alleged torture from ever even having a day in court — even when one of those victims, as in this case, charges that his torture included “cutting his penis and other body parts with a scalpel and then pouring stinging liquid on the wounds.”
Good thing none of this was done by Iran. We’d be outraged…
“To this date, not a single victim of the Bush administration’s torture program has had his day in court,” [the ACLU's Ben] Wizner said. “That makes this a sad day not only for the torture survivors who are seeking justice in this case, but for all Americans who care about the rule of law and our nation’s reputation in the world. If this decision stands, the United States will have closed it courts to torture victims while providing complete immunity to their torturers.“
To the Times‘ credit (for a change, no doubt thanks to the excellent reporting of the estimable Savage), the article highlights the change between Obama’s campaign positions and those of his actual administration:
The decision bolstered an array of ways in which the Obama administration has pressed forward with broad counter-terrorism policies after taking over from the Bush team, a degree of continuity that has departed from the expectations fostered by President Obama’s campaign rhetoric, which was often sharply critical of President Bush’s approach.Among other policies, the Obama team has also placed a United States citizen on a targeted-killings list without a trial, blocked efforts by detainees in Afghanistan to bring habeas-corpus lawsuits challenging their indefinite imprisonment, and continued the C.I.A. rendition program…
…
As a senator and candidate for the White House, President Obama had criticized the Bush administration’s frequent use of the state-secrets privilege. In February 2009, when his weeks-old administration reaffirmed the Bush administration’s view on the case, civil libertarian groups that had supported his campaign expressed shock and dismay.
With this hysterical anti-Islam, Anti-Muslim campaign by the Tea Party, GOP and Professional Islamophobes they won't be content until the Muslim American community is completely marginalized and are denied equal rights in America.
One wonders if they would like to see more violence being committed against Muslim Americans and those who dare to defend Muslim-American's rights and freedoms.
Meanwhile there have been attacks on Mosques across America and protest against the building of Mosques anywhere in America.
Keith Olbermann discusses issues over Mosque being located in Kentucky
Christians Successfully Block Mosque from BuildingFrom: OnKneesforJesus August 25, 2010 Bible Belt Kentucky
USA American Christians say there will be no Mosques in their neighborhoods because Muslims are violent and Islam is not a "Real Religion".
So what's next Pogroms or kicking Muslims out of certain neighborhoods & telling Muslim-Americans where they can and cannot live.
Christian Americans show their true colors as they spew hate against all Muslim -Americans.
Bible Belt Town Protests Mosque Murfreesboro Tennessee
Chris Mathews interviews Pastor Terry Jones on Burn Qur'an Day.
Pastor Jones fears Muslim Americans want to impose Sharia Law on All Americans.
But where did he get this idea from-umm let's see from Pam Geller , Robert Spencer Bat Y'eor and other Hysterical Islamophobes- the Islamophobes as we have discussed before have created a whole cottage industry worth hundreds of millions in spreading hate against all Muslims . They write best sellers and get paid well on their speaking tours and sell various anti-Islamic paraphernalia such as T Shirts, Banners, Bumper stickers coffee mugs and so on.
'Burn a Quran' Day on 9/11 -: Florida Church Pastor Terry Jones
Michael Savage's tirade against Islam , Jon Stewart, Mayor Bloomberg, Imam Rauf
As Savage has often said he hates Muslims and they should all be sent back to wherever they came from.
He says no Mosques should be built anywhere near "Ground Zero"
Cordoba House was from the beginning to be a Community Center with a Mosque as part of it. Savage erroneously claims that only after people protested it was then referred to as a "Community Center" by its builders.
Part of the financing comes from a Saudi who also helps finance Media Corp. which owns Fox News.
Michael Savage Attacks Bloomberg, Jon Stewart, Imam Rauf, Ground Zero Mosque Supporters - (8/27/10)
August 27, 2010
Aired on August 27, 2010 --- http://www.michaelsavage.com
Laura Ingraham continues to promote anti-Muslim bigotry.
She ignores or dismisses violent acts which have been committed against Muslim-Americans.
It also should be noted she defends the racist Tea Party movement and the hysterical Professional Islamophobic agitators such as Pam Geller, Robert Spencer, Daniel Pipe , Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Glenn Beck, Sean Hannity, John McCain, Fox News , Roger Ailes & Rupert Murdoch .
According to their logic all Muslims should be treated as untrustworthy because all Muslims have a political and legal agenda to conquer America in the name of Islam.
Ingraham and her gang of opportunist thugs want Americans to believe that for instance the invasion of Iraq by the USA was necessary .
She ignores the fact that the invasion and blockade and sanctions on Iraq led to the deaths of almost 2,000,000 that is TWO MILLION Muslim Iraqis whereas the Al Qaeda attack on 9/11 NY led to the deaths of 3,000 Americans including Muslim Americans.
The response to 9/11 attacks has been an unmitigated disaster which has only created more so called Insurgents and terrorists.
The Christian American belief is that they can attack any country they want to in order to quench as I have argued above their desire for revenge and blood and as a point of Honor.
So the USA has committed somewhere between 1 million to 2 million HONOR KILLINGS.
Laura Ingraham Thinks It's "Important" To Use Inflammatory Rhetoric Re "Ground Zero Mosque"
cheldemedo August 26, 2010
8/25/10 Laura Ingraham not only rejects a request to "tone down" her inflammatory rhetoric about the so-called ground zero mosque, she unleashes her inner banshee (h/t Stephen Colbert) to deliberately turn up the flame. How many more acts of violence have to occur before Fox News decides to stop sounding like Radio Rwanda?
xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Obama Ignoring the Will of the Americans on Ground Zero Mosque
What is troubling is the notion that the majority always rules. If the majority of Americans refuse Jews the right to build synagogue then the reasoning goes that Jews should not be given the same rights and freedoms as other Americans.
Sometimes it is up to the country's leaders to take a moral stand and insists that all of the country's citizens have the same rights and freedoms. Obama did this recently and then backtracked.
For instance a majority of Southerners were in favor of segregation and of lynchings but what these people defended was immoral and went against America's basic principles of individual and collective freedoms and rights. For a hundred years after the Civil War and the abolishing of slavery most black Americans still did not have equal rights with White Americans.
According to Uberconservatives such as Glenn Beck and Newt Gingrich et al this is the point at which America went in the wrong direction. Ah the good old days when minorities they argue knew their place and didn't demand equality and equal rights and that they too should be treated with dignity.
Barber4Congress | May 23, 2010
America has become too tolerant of the threats our nation is facing...the latest example of this is the Mosque proposed across from Ground Zero in New York City...slated to open on 9/11/2011.
Fox News ginning up the Faux Controversy -the controversy arose because for the most part by Professional Islamophobes such as Brigitte Gabriel who is originally from Lebanon and is infamous for the lies she has made up about her family and life in Lebanon . Her family belonged to the extremist Christian Fascist group the Phalangist Party who 's agenda was to wipe out the Muslims in Labanon and started what became a brutal war in that country.
Brigitte Gabriel even injects the specious argument that Islam is involved in a hundred year plan to take over the West- This is similar to the anti-Semitic conspiracy theory promulgated by anti-semites based upon the fraudulent and infamous book the Protocols of the Elders of Zion which was composed by the Russian Secret police circa 1901.
In the book Jewish leaders meet from around the world in a graveyard after midnight to discuss their evil agenda. Anti-Semites claim the book to be a genuine expose of the International Jews agenda. This helped to stir up anti-semitism and became a guide for Hitler and his Nazi anti-semitism.
9/11 Site Mosque - You couldn't make it up.
wilderssupport | May 27, 2010
Is a giant mosque planted on the site of the 9/11 murder spree their way of giving the knife another good twist?
Fox News & News Corp
TYT Cenk Uygur
Islamic Center Controversy
OfficialACLJ | August 05, 2010
Chief Counsel Jay Sekulow and Rabbi Arthur Waskow engaged in a vigorous debate on the appropriateness of building a Mosque at Ground Zero on MSNBC.
Note that Rabbi Arthur Waskow gets upset when Cenk calls him out on his comparing all Muslims to Japanese Kamakaze pilots. He also is unaware that at Honolulu in Hawaii there is in fact a Japanese cultural center which was built after WWII.
He also makes an oblique reference to the historical name Cordoba as if this is a negative reference to Islamic controlled Spain-when in fact Al Andulusia was a safer place for Jews to live in in comparison to the rest of Christian Europe /Christendom. In European Christendom for the most part the Jews had fewer or no real rights than they had in Islamic Spain.
According to most historians the name Cordoba refers to the centuries during which in Al Andalusia Muslims , Christians and Jews lived together with more tolerance for each other than was to be found in the rest of Europe or Christendom. No it was not perfect but the conditions for Jews was better over all. As for Muslims they were not even permitted to live in most of Europe . As for the Dhimmi status of Christians and Jews this was not as harsh as some make it out to be since many Jews and Christians did manage to rise up into the upper stratum of Islamic society. Laws that were on the books as it were were quite often not being enforced especially after centuries of occupying the land.
He sounds like he's been reading the books of Robert Spencer, David Horowitz and Daniel Pipes who have developed a revisionist anti-Muslim history of the Islamic controlled Spain.-from about 800 AD to 1500 AD. When the Spanish Isabella and Ferdinand in their so-called Reconquista retook the area of Al Andulusia they kicked out any Muslims or Jews who refused to convert to Christianity. (Even after some five centuries or more they claimed the area was Spanish territory. By that logic La Raza would have every right to reconquer land stolen from Mexico or Native Americans by the USA that is from Texas up into Northern California. And other Native/Aboriginal/First Nations could make a valid case for taking back what is now the USA and Canada. It would also mean that the Palestinians and other Arabs etc. forced off their land especially during the Six Day War in 1967 should be able to reconquer what is now the illegal state of Greater Israel if one follows this logic. But as we know such logic only applies for some peoples especially Christians and Jews and not others .
Should the Celts be permitted to retake all of the United Kingdom and much of Northern Europe and down through to Northern India which their loosely formed Empire occupied ???
This was later followed by the Spanish inquisition which was out to expose the Conversos who might be still practicing Judaism in secret. Often as not under torture they confessed and then were either sent into exile or executed by burning alive, or drawn and quartered etc. Civilized Europeans indeed.
as many have pointed out :One of the biggest contributors to the Mosque is Saudi Prince Al Waleed Bin Talal Al Saud who is also the second largest shareholder in News Corp., the parent company of Fox News..........
also see: Religion and Politics Mix at Ground Zero
Islamophobia For Dummies from MuhaddithDotOrg September 05, 2010 Ground Zero Mosque Part1 link to YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUpxQSHQ3qA&feature=related
and just for the fun of it here's Dennis Miller who has become an integral part of the Fox News propaganda Machine.
Dennis Miller spewing his anti-Islam hate- this is not funny -anymore than racist jokes about black Americans or Jewish Americans.
Odd how even racist stand-up comics are seen as funny and get a free pass from the media and the public.He never sees how hateful his remarks are. Or he doesn't care. He seems pissed off because a black man is president . He appears to believe white people in America are somehow oppressed- by Whom?
He's also an angry racist who stereotypes all non-whites and views immigrants as subhuman- he too like Gov. Brewer and Glenn Beck and Fox News is spreading lies and propaganda about immigrant lawlessness in Arizona. Crime has been going down steadily in Arizona but for Miller there's no jokes in the actual facts and reality.
He should go and see if he can find the thousands killed on the Arizona side of the border. He sees all immigrants as drug addicts or drug lords and murderers and rapist etc. ala Lou Dobbs .
Dennis Miller : Build A Long Skinny Mosque Along Arizona Border !!!
Bill O'Reilly interviews Dennis Miller and gets his views about the Mosque on Ground Zero and Lady Gaga.
and so it goes ,
GORD.
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