Still, there's something particularly revealing about the US demanding that the governments of Afghanistan and Iraq abandon any commitment they are attempting to develop (albeit quite selectively) to basic due process rights and instead imprison anyone the US wants imprisoned - even in the absence of evidence of their guilt and even in the face of judicial findings that their detention is without evidence and unlawful. As it turns out after all, the US is indeed spreading its core values to those two nations, though those values have nothing to do with freedom and democracy except to the extent that they are the primary impediments to achieving it.
...It is ironic indeed that the US is demanding that the practice of due-process-free indefinite detention be continued in Afghanistan and Iraq, two countries it invaded and then occupied while claiming it wanted to bring freedom and democracy there. But on one level, this is the only outcome that makes sense, as a denial of basic due process is now a core, defining US policy in general.
Above quote from Glenn Greenwald's recent article which is a scathing though fair critique of Obama's foreign policies US Battles Iraq and Afghanistan Over Detention Without Charges The Obama administration fights to spread its own values on the core, fundamental right of due process By Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian via Information Clearing House, Nov. 23, 2012
In the two articles below from FAIR: Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting we get examples of the American and Western Mainstream Media's standard cliched and erroneous reporting on the on going conflict between Israel and Gaza in which the Media ignores that the suffering of the people of Gaza is a hundred times worse than what Israeli citizens are suffering. Once again the media ignores the criminal and inhumane and immoral treatment of 1.7 million civilians in Gaza. The Media is once again in rewriting even recent history to fit their biased narrative about Israel as the "Victim" The Media fails in its duty to honestly present the facts and not just the propaganda that spews out of Washington and Tel Aviv.
The media has an obligation to tell the truth about the Israeli blockade of Gaza which has turned Gaza into a MegaGhetto or open air prison . What Israel has been doing to the Palestinians is unconscionable and yet President Obama defends Israel and ignores the suffering of the civilians of Gaza because he does not have a sense of justice and fairness which he claims to have. Is this just part of being a real American to speak about injustice but do nothing about it.
Video: Israeli forces fire shots to disperse Palestinians by Anup Kaphle Washington Post, November 23, 2012
So is this now what President Obama and his administration and his supporters believe in that the Israeli Apartheid system is a good thing and that all Arabs should be treated like dogs . Obama is great with giving speeches but basic human rights for all no way . Whether it is the Palestinians or the Occupy Movement Obama says nothing in their defense . His Cairo speech in 2009 he has once again proving to be just an act something to tell the natives when they really get restless and stat demanding equal rights and justice. The African Americans live under various forms of segregation for a hundred years which had been preceded by centuries of slavery and so anyone who cares about human rights and justice should be outraged at how Israel treats the Palestinians in the Occupied territories or in the Gaza Ghetto.
It seems that if tomorrow the Israeli government were to drop nuclear bombs on Gaza President Obama would come up with some justification for the action so he would not be seen criticizing Israel.
Cruelty At Israeli Apartheid's Racist Checkpoints
"Animals. Animals. Like the Discovery Channel. All of Ramallah is a jungle. There are monkeys, dogs, gorillas. The problem is that the animals are locked they can't come out. We're humans. They're animals. They aren't humans we are."
- Israeli border police (you can find at 5:03 of this video)
"We let them suffer, in the sun, in the rain, that's it. That's what I wanted to say. Let the whole world know."
- Israeli border police
"When the Palestinians come...we put on our show."
- Israeli border police
"Nobody knows about us here. Nobody in the world." - Palestinian businessman
False Balance and Civilian Suffering in Gaza Crisis by Peter Hart, FAIR : Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting , Nov. 20, 2012
People who follow media criticism are likely aware of the term "false balance," used to describe coverage that presents "both sides" of an issue as if they are equivalent–when they are anything but. Does that label apply to coverage of the current Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip?
A November 15 Washington Post headline read, "Civilians in Gaza, Israel Suffer Amid Conflict." The piece would appear to want to give readers the sense that comparable suffering is occurring on both sides. But reality tells a different story–one that is not so symmetrical.
The piece begins in a Gaza hospital, where an eight-month-old with a shrapnel wound to the head is being treated. She does not survive, and becomes at that point the 16th Palestinian to die in the current violence. But the Post nonetheless tries to stick to the formula:
As the Israeli military assault ramped up and militants retaliated with rockets, civilians on both sides faced painful but all-too-familiar scenes.
On the Israeli side, three have died from rockets fired from Gaza. And these deaths, Israeli officials argue, were preventable:
Israel's minister for civil defense, Avi Dichter, told reporters that the three would not have died had they followed instructions and stayed in a shelter or in the rear of their apartment.
Few in Gaza can hide in bomb shelters or rely on air raid sirens to warn of incoming attacks. But the media desire to make the suffering seem proportional could be seen elsewhere. In the Los Angeles Times (11/17/12), Edmund Sanders reported:
Back-and-forth violence between Israel and Hamas left civilians on both sides digging out of rubble and broken glass Saturday as the conflict entered its fourth day.
At that point, 38 Palestinians had died. In Israel, meanwhile:
In Israel, three people were injured Saturday by rockets fired into southern Israel.
The military released a photo of one house in Ashdod, where window frames and glass shards blanketed one home's living room.
No one should minimize the fear of living anywhere where bombs or rockets are falling. But given the one-sided death toll of the attacks on Gaza–three Israeli deaths and over 120 Palestinians–media accounts that try to paint a "balanced" picture do a great disservice to reality.
What's Missing from CBS's Gaza History? by Peter Hart, FAIR : Fairness and Accuracy In Reporting ,Nov. 21,2012
Giving viewers a quick sense of context and history is important in any story, but especially in the Israel/Palestine conflict. Doing a bad job of it is perhaps worse than not doing it at all.
CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley gave this summary on November 19:
We wanted to remind you tonight of what Gaza is and how it came to be. The Gaza Strip was laid out in 1949 after the war that created Israel. It's home to Palestinians displaced in that war and to the generations that followed. Only 25 miles long, roughly ten miles wide, Gaza's population is 1.7 million, most of them living in poverty. Israel captured Gaza in 1967 and occupied it until 2005. One year later, the Hamas political party won the election there. The U.S. says the Hamas military wing is a terrorist organization.
Rocket attacks from Gaza have been frequent for years. Israel says the goal of this military operation is to destroy those rockets, missiles, and their launchers.
To summarize: Gaza is a poor place run by terrorists who frequently fire rockets at Israel.
The following night, nearly the same story (11/20/12):
Now, we want to remind you what Gaza is and how it came to be. The Gaza Strip was laid out in 1949 after the war that created Israel. It's home to Palestinians displaced in that war. 25 miles long and roughly ten miles wide, Gaza's population is 1.7 million. Israel occupied it until 2005. A year later the Hamas political party won the election there. The U.S. says the Hamas military wing is a terrorist organization.
All of this started when Israel retaliated after weeks of rocket attacks from Gaza.
So basically the same again, only this time we're told Israel's attack is in retaliation for weeks of rockets. (This is, to put it mildly, misleading.)
What's missing from both these brief histories? The previous Israeli military attack on Gaza, 2008-09's Operation Cast Lead, which killed about 1,400 Palestinians, including 344 children, and did extensive damage to the Gaza's civilian infrastructure. The assault was the subject of widespread international condemnation.
Most people in Gaza living under the current Israeli bombardment are probably thinking about Cast Lead, wondering if this round of violence will be as bad. But to CBS Evening News, when they tell viewers they want to "remind you what Gaza is," this history is not worth mentioning.
US Battles Iraq and Afghanistan Over Detention Without Charges The Obama administration fights to spread its own values on the core, fundamental right of due process By Glenn Greenwald at The Guardian via Information Clearing House, Nov. 23, 2012
In Afghanistan and Iraq, the US government is engaged in a fierce and protracted battle over the fundamental right to be free of indefinite detention. Specifically, the US is demanding that the governments of those two nations cease extending this right to their citizens. As a Washington Post article this morning details, Afghan President Hamid Karzai is insisting that the US fulfill its commitment to turn over all prisons, including the notorious facility at Bagram, to Afghan control, but here is one major impediment [emphasis added]:
"Afghan and U.S. officials have also disagreed on the issue of detention without trial. Washington wants the Afghan government to continue holding certain prisoners it views as dangerous, even if there is not enough evidence to try them.
"Aimal Faizi, the chief spokesman for Karzai, told reporters Monday that detention without trial is illegal in Afghanistan and that more than 50 Afghans are still being held in U.S. custody at Bagram, 35 miles northeast of Kabul, even though they have been ordered released by Afghan courts."
...As is true in Afghanistan, this battle over basic due process rights has a long history over the course of the US occupation of Iraq. In 2008, the US refused to release imprisoned Reuters photojournalist Ibrahim Jassam despite a ruling from an Iraqi court many months earlier that there was no evidence to justify his detention and that his release was therefore compelled. For two years, the US imprisoned AP journalist Bilal Hussein, an Iraqi citizen, without charges of any kind until a four-judge Iraqi judicial panel found his detention in violation of the law and ordered him immediately released.
It is ironic indeed that the US is demanding that the practice of due-process-free indefinite detention be continued in Afghanistan and Iraq, two countries it invaded and then occupied while claiming it wanted to bring freedom and democracy there. But on one level, this is the only outcome that makes sense, as a denial of basic due process is now a core, defining US policy in general.
The Obama administration not only continues to imprison people without charges of any kind, but intended from the start to do so even if their plan to relocate Guantanamo onto US soil had not been thwarted by Congress. At the end of 2011, President Obama signed into law the National Defense Authorization Act which codifies the power of indefinite detention even for US citizens, and - after an Obama-appointed federal judge struck it down as unconstitutional - continues vigorously to fight for that law. And, of course, the power to assassinate even its own citizens without a whiff of due process or transparency - the policy that so upset Afghan officials when it was proposed for their country - is a crowning achievement of the Obama legacy.
It's hardly unusual, of course, for the US government self-righteously to impose principles on the world which it so flamboyantly violates. Indeed, such behavior is so common as to barely be worth noting.
Just this week, President Obama managed with a straight face to defend Israel's attacks on Gaza with this decree: "there's no country on Earth that would tolerate missiles raining down on its citizens from outside its borders." As Liliana Segura, Jemima Khan and Reason's Mike Riggs all quickly noted, this pronouncement came from the same man who has continuously rained down missiles on the citizens of Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and other countries. Meanwhile, UN Ambassador Susan Rice took to Twitter last night to denounce changes to a draft UN resolution that condemns "extrajudicial killing" - even as her own nation and its closest Middle East ally continue as the global leaders of this practice.
President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan is fighting with the Obama administration insisting contrary to Obama administration that all detainees/prisoners be no longer held indefinitely and that all should be charged with offenses and have their day in court or just released. The irony here in this case is quite shocking given America's claim to fight on behalf of freedom, democracy and the rule of law as Glenn Greenwald in his article has justly pointed out.
Karzai orders ‘full Afghanization’ of U.S.-run Bagram prison by Pamela Constable Washington Post , Nov. 2012
KABUL — President Hamid Karzai has ordered his aides to institute the “full Afghanization” of the U.S.-run prison at Bagram air base, charging that American forces are continuing to detain Afghans despite a bilateral agreement in March to transfer all prisoners to Afghan authorities.
In a Pashto-language statement tweeted from the presidential palace late Sunday after Karzai met with his top security officials, the president complained that some prisoners ordered released by Afghan courts are still being held by U.S. forces...
and so it goes,
GORD.
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