Today's Topics
* #OWS Pepper Spray: police brutality at UC Davis
*Genocide of 100,000,000/ 100 million Native Americans
*Sweden's unjust system of justice -indefinite detention
$30k To Get Pepper Sprayed In The Face - What Would Jesus Do?
Published on Sep 26, 2012 by TheYoungTurks
"UC Davis students and alumni who were pepper-sprayed by campus police during a protest 10 months ago were pleased with the nearly $1-million settlement the university system has agreed to pay. Each of the 21 students and alumni will receive $30,000, the University of California announced Wednesday. The agreement, which must still be approved in federal court, also calls for UC to pay a total of $250,000 to the plaintiffs' attorneys and set aside a maximum of $100,000 to pay up to $20,000 to any other individuals who join the class-action lawsuit by proving they were either arrested or directly pepper-sprayed, a university statement said...".* The Young Turks host Cenk Uygur and Jesus Godoy break it down.
Glenn Greenwald points out as illustrated by the arrest of Pirate Bay founder's treatment under the Swedish system of justice why Julian Assange is fearful with good reason to being taken into custody in Sweden since the Swedish system of justice is quite different than other Western and European nations since in Sweden any alleged criminal can be held indefinitely and their basic rights denied ie not allowed to speak to an attorney or to anyone else outside the prison.
Anyway Glenn Greenwald's discussion of this topic brings to mind (though Greenwald doesn't discuss it) that the USA is slowly moving towards the same type of incarceration and tossing out the rights of the accused eventually since President Obama has now made it legal to hold so-called terrorist suspects -which would include Julian Assange if he were extradicted to the USA- indefinitely before being put on trial. Which has been the case dealing with those alleged though mostly innocent detainees being held in Guantanamo Bay prison who as far as the American public, media and government are concerned have no rights and could be executed or freed without a hearing or trail .
As we saw recently the "Child Soldier " who was being held illegaly according to International Law for some ten years and was abused and tortured and told from the get go that if he didn't confess to the alleged crimes he was going to be detained so last year he gave a full confession as required by the Bush/Obama Inquisitors in chief and he was sentence and now released to serve the rest of his sentence in his home country of Canada.
The alleged Whistleblower Bradley manning has now been detained for over two years without a trial and he spent most of that time in solitary confinement or separated from other prisoners and he has been abused in ways tantamout to torture ie sleep-deprivation etc.
Like any such draconian decree there is the real danger that indefinite detention will trickle down to the local police as some would argue torture or what is tantamount to torture can now be found across the USA in hits federal and state run prisons and at the local police department which was highlighted over the past year as we have seen in cases of the arresting of peaceful Occupy protesters exercising their free speech and freedom to assembly and we have seen this especially in the arrest and detention of ill-legal immigrants and just the wide spread abuse by police of alleged criminals using unnecessary force using pepper spray liberally and the now numerous use of tasers as if tasering someone to death were more humane than a bullet to the head.
Sweden detains Pirate Bay founder in oppressive conditions without charges by Glenn Greenwald at Guardian.co, Oct. 1,2012
The case underscores the prime fear long expressed by Assange supporters about the Swedish justice system
My very first week writing regularly at the Guardian generated intense conflict with numerous members of the British media because that happened to be the week when Ecuador granted asylum to Julian Assange (a decision I defended), and - for reasons that warrant sustained study by several academic fields of discipline - very few people generate intense contempt among the British commentariat like Assange does. One of the prime arguments I have always made about the Assange asylum case is that his particular fear of being extradited to Sweden is grounded in that country's very unusual and quite oppressive pre-trial detention powers: ones that permit the state to act with an extreme degree of secrecy and which can even prohibit the accused from any communication with the outside world.
That is what has always led Assange to fear going to Sweden: that those detention procedures could be used to transfer him to the US without any public scrutiny (only the most willfully irrational, given evidence like this, would deny that this is a real threat). And that is the argument on behalf of Assange that has produced the greatest amount of anger: in part because some self-loving westerners find the suggestion inconceivable and offensive that a nice western nation (as opposed to some Muslim or Latin American country) could possibly be oppressive in any real way.
But now we have a case that confirms exactly those claims about Sweden's justice system, and since it has nothing to do with the WikiLeaks founder, one hopes these issues can be viewed more rationally. Gottfrid Svartholm is the founder of the file-sharing Pirate Bay website who has been prosecuted by the Swedish government for enabling copyright infringements. At the behest of Sweden, he was recently arrested in Cambodia and then deported to Stockholm, where he has now also been accused (though not charged) with participating in the hacking of a Swedish company.
Svartholm is now being held under exactly the pretrial conditions that I've long argued (based on condemnations from human rights groups) prevail in Sweden:
"Gottfrid Svartholm will be kept in detention for at least two more weeks on suspicion of hacking into a Swedish IT company connected to the country's tax authorities. According to Prosecutor Henry Olin the extended detention is needed 'to prevent him from having contact with other people.' The Pirate Bay co-founder is not allowed to have visitors and is even being denied access to newspapers and television. . . .
"Since he hasn't been charged officially in the Logica case the Pirate Bay co-founder could only be detained for a few days.
"But, after a request from Prosecutor Henry Olin this term was extended for another two weeks mid-September, and last Friday the District Court decided that Gottfrid could be detained for another two weeks.
"To prevent Gottfrid from interfering with the investigation the Prosecutor believes it's justified to detain him for more than a month without being charged. The Pirate Bay co-founder is not allowed to have visitors and is being refused access to newspapers and television. . . . The Prosecutor hasn't ruled out a request for another extension of Gottfrid's detainment in two weeks, if the investigation is still ongoing."
The claim that produced the most vitriol was that Sweden vests remarkable power in prosecutors and courts to keep accused suspects completely hidden from public view, with no communication or other contact with the outside world, and that this power is exercised with some frequency. Now we have confirmation of that claim from, of all people, the Swedish prosecutor in this case, Henrik Olin, who said in an interview outside the courtroom:
"'According to the Swedish system, when the preliminary investigation is finished, I as prosecutor will decide whether to prosecute him. . . . In the Swedish system it is quite usual for people to be detained on this legal ground, and it gives me the possibility to prevent him from having contact with other people.'"
Unlike in the British system, in which all proceedings, including extradition proceedings, relating to Assange would be publicly scrutinized and almost certainly conducted in open court, the unusual secrecy of Sweden's pre-trial judicial process, particularly the ability to hold the accused incommunicado, poses a real danger that whatever happened to Assange could be effectuated without any public notice. That has always been, and remains, the prime fear for his being extradited to Sweden: a fear that could be, and should be, redressed by negotiations between Ecuador, Sweden and the UK to assure that he can go to Sweden while having his rights protected.
While Obama and his most ardent supporters claim victory in Iraq even though people are being killed everyday in car bomb explosions or in gun battles the country is still in a mess but it is now considered impolite and not politically correct to deem the Iraq invasion and occupation by the USA as a complete and utter disaster for the Iraqi people. Even notable liberals and progressives are day by day convincing themselves that in the end the invasion was good for the Iraqi people and for America's prestige which is utter nonsense. The blowback against the USA and Americans for the Iraqi fiasco will continue for years to come.
And the so -called "good war " in Afghanistan has just earned America even more enemies. Everytime the USA drops bombs from a Drone onto a wedding or funeral or on those people who try to help the survivors of a drone attack (known as double tapping ) a hundred more anti-American terrorists are born.
The American government and its people had no right to invade Iraq and then slaughter 1,000,000 /One Million Iraqis . The so called insurgency was for the most part loyal and or pissed off Iraqis merely defending their country against foreign invaders.
The only victors in Iraq were the corporations such as Dick Cheney's Halliburton and the mercenaries such as Blackwater/XEServices? who benefited by the privatization of the military which in fact became one of the underlying reasons for failure in Iraq other than the wide spread us of torture on tens of thousands of Iraqi for which Bush nor Obama or the US media or the American people care about let alone feel guilt or shame. Like all Empires the USA defends its actions no matter how brutal as being part of the privilege of being a God Ordained and protected Empire.
Afghanistan's Army: Still Unprepared by Joel Brinkley at World Affairs Journal.com, Oct. 02, 2012
The endgame has begun in the Afghan war, but the facts on the ground don’t offer a hopeful picture. Now that all the “surge” troops have left, the Afghan army will have to step up and take more responsibility.
After 11 years of extensive training, they certainly should be ready. But they’re not. Far from it, in fact.
Last month, American and NATO troops announced that they would no longer go on patrol with their Afghan counterparts. The reason, of course, was the spate of so-called green-on-blue killings—Afghan military trainees shooting and killing their teachers. More than 50 US and coalition troops have been killed in insider attacks so far this year, a significant increase. During all of 2011, 35 NATO soldiers were killed.
This change in strategy was widely reported, but a disheartening corollary fact was hardly mentioned: the NATO training mission publicly acknowledged last year that, even after a decade, none of the Afghan military units are ready to fight on their own. Afghan forces, NATO still says, can fight effectively only if US or other NATO troops accompany and advise them.
...Since 2002, the United States has spent $43 billion training the Afghan military and police. It plans to spend $11.2 billion more this fiscal year, and the military has requested another $5.8 billion for 2013.
Going forward, continued military training is expected to cost at least $4 billion a year – far more than the Afghan government can afford. Nearly all of that money will have to come from the US and other outside donors—assuming any of these nations are willing to continue spending money on this troubled war.
GENOCIDE as a descriptive term applies to the Shoah/Holocaust that is the extermination of some 6 million Jews by the NAZIS but Genocide as a descriptive Iraq, Palestine ,Afghanistan & Native Americans. As the author of the article below Stephen Lendman notes the accepted definition of Genocide is no longer just mass murder but the destruction by various means of the culture, language, religion and moving the people away from their traditional lands.
"the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" that corresponds to other terms like "tyrannicide, homicide, infanticide, etc." (It) does not necessarily mean the destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings....It is intended....to signify a coordinated plan (to destroy) the essential foundations of the life of national groups" with the intent to eradicate or substantially weaken or harm them."
So according to this definition of Genocide we can conclude that what Israel is doing to the Palestinians can be regarded as genocide that is killing large numbers while destroying their way of life creating an unhealthy environment where food, clothing, shelter , jobs , schools are all in scarce supply. And if the people of Gaza dare to fight back the Israelis will murder at least 100 Palestinians for each Israeli killed.
Lakota Sioux Nation Leaves America By Stephen Lendman ICH Oct. 01,2012
October 01, 2012 "Information Clearing House" - America betrayed them and all Native Peoples. Throughout US history and earlier, genocide was policy.
Historian Ward Churchill explained four centuries of systematic slaughter. It went on from 1492 - 1892. It continues today against Native culture.
Churchill estimated around 100 million Native People throughout the Americas "hacked apart with axes and swords, burned alive and trampled under horses, hunted as game and fed to dogs, shot, beaten, stabbed, scalped for bounty, hanged on meathooks and thrown over the sides of ships at sea, worked to death as slave laborers, intentionally starved and frozen to death during a multitude of forced marches and internments, and, in an unknown number of instances, deliberately infected with epidemic diseases."
Destruction of their culture continues in new forms. "The American holocaust was and remains unparalleled, in terms of its scope, ferocity, and continuance over time."
Silence and denial suppress what happened and goes on today. Try finding coverage anywhere by America's major media. Virtually nothing is said, let alone explained.
Raphael Lemkin defined genocide as:
"the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group" that corresponds to other terms like "tyrannicide, homicide, infanticide, etc." (It) does not necessarily mean the destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings....It is intended....to signify a coordinated plan (to destroy) the essential foundations of the life of national groups" with the intent to eradicate or substantially weaken or harm them."
"Genocidal plans involve the disintegration....of political and social institutions, culture, language, national feelings, religion, economic existence, personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and" human lives.
The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide Convention defines it legally as:
"any (acts like those above) committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the national, ethnical, racial or religious group (by) killing (its) members; causing (them) serious bodily or mental harm; (or) deliberately inflicting (on them) conditions" that may destroy them in whole or in part.
Destroying peoples' cultures, preventing them from practicing their religion, speaking their language, and/or passing on their traditions to new generations are genocidal acts.
Constitutional provisions don't let government abuse people or deny them their rights. They don't authorize genocide, either within or outside the country. They don't permit theft and occupation of their lands or any others.
Nonetheless, binding principles are spurned. America, Israel, and rogue NATO partners violate them with impunity. Crimes of war, against humanity, and genocide are official policy. Millions of corpses bear testimony.
No comments:
Post a Comment