MSNBC Host Defends Liberals Who Trust Obama With Drones: Would You Trust Bush With Nuclear Codes?
No I would not trust George W. Bush with nuclear codes nor would I trust Obama or anyone else in power with these codes. America should dismantled most of its nuclear defense system and move towards a nuclear weapons free world .
The MSNBC host presents a false choice as if we are supposed to be in favor of Drones if we could just learn to idealize and trust saintly Obama compared to Bush.
Maybe drones and targeted assassinations and other policies of Pres. Obama are just plain wrong or wrong or immoral.
Israel has some 150 to 300 nukes as do Pakistan, India, Britain, France Russia and now North Korea is building its own stock pile. There is no way to predict that one day in the future some leader of any of these nations might think it appropriate to use nukes which could all too easily lead to a Global Nuclear War destroying most of the population and most of the planet.
In a similar fashion Pres. Obama can no more be trusted using drones combined with his hit list for targeted assassinations. Already over 2000 civilians have been murdered by drone attacks which are not as surgical as many believe.
The main reason Obama uses drones and that they are approved by many Americans is because it means fewer deaths of US troops but the advocates of drones do not give a shit about the so-called collateral damage meaning dead civilians, dead infants, dead children, dead women, dead old people, dead teenagers, dead men who had nothing to do with the so-called terrorists. An infant killed by a US drone is just collateral damage but an infant killed by those citizens who rise up against the American aggressors and invaders is labelled as a barbaric terrorist tactic.
And it is disturbing that so many self-proclaimed liberals and progressives are unable to understand the immorality let alone the danger of blow back from the use of drones.
Every village, every wedding , every funeral or religious gathering or clan gathering hit by a drone pushes more people in those targeted areas to hate the USA and to join the insurgency or even terrorists in order to defend their homes and families and ultimately their country against these as far as they are concerned self-righteous, heartless, power mad, foreign terrorists from the USA . In using such tactics along with prisoner abuse and torture and propping up anti-democratic corrupt governments the USA and the West become the terrorists.
And why trust Obama when he has insisted that massive unwarranted wiretapping and surveillance on the internet and indefinite detention , targeted assassinations , the use of some torture techniques are justifiable along with militarizing US police forces and then unleashing them on peaceful protesters all in the name of National Security.
Obama like George W. Bush has also decided that international laws no longer apply to the USA but only to other nations.
It seems hypocritical and disturbing that President Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry give unconditional support to the Wahabbi Islamic Kingdom Of Saudi Arabia which uses the legal system based in Sharia Law and are guilty of numerous human rights violations.
The Saudi government refuses to grant equal rights and freedoms to Saudi women though this is ignored as the USA attacks Iran and the Afghan Taliban for not granting women equal rights.
Saudi Arabia does not have freedom of speech, or freedom of the press, or freedom of assembly or freedom to protest.
Saudi Arabia is also intolerant and even persecutes members of religions other than Islam.
Saudis persecute Christians and those of other religious beliefs .
Saudi Arabia justice system is not merely flawed but rather to a great extent a mere sham as we see in the video regarding foreign Domestic workers and other foreign workers and in the case of the hapless Iranian fishermen who because of a storm were pushed into Saudi Arabia's waters and were charged with drug trafficking and some beheaded and the rest waiting to be executed.
Saudi Arabia despite its wealth only the elite get to own that wealth while many Saudi are poor or near to a subsistence level.
Here's a little video on Saudi Arabia's claims to be on track with reforms is nonsense and just Propaganda to appease the Americans and other more naive or blind nations in the West.
They have made into a talking point that Saudi Arabia is a friend and ally which supports Democratic Reforms and is by standards of human rights and civil rights and equality of the sexes is superior to Iran.
This is just more propaganda being fed to the American citizens and citizens throughout the West in perpetration of the coming war with Iran.
Kerry while in Saudi Arabia gave another ominous warning to Iran . And no matter what the facts on the ground are Obama and Kerry don't care they want Regime change and more than likely to turn Iran into what Libya and Syria have become that is ravaged by war with the USA and NATO and proxy Islamic extremists and mercenaries.
The destruction of Iran is just another item to check off in the Neo-liberal and Neocon playbook to ensure Israel's security supposedly and to maintain or increase America's control over the entire region.
The last thing Obama wants is a strong stable and more democratic Iran because it flies in the face of their ultimate agenda.
This is of course also why Obama gave the Saudis to send their military into Bahrain to put a stop to the pro-reform pro-parliamentary democracy on going massive protests in Bahrain.
Instead they blame Iran for the protests in Bahrain .
Obama And Kerry Support Autocratic Brutal Anti-Democratic Saudi Arabia
Another example of Pres. Obama's flaunting and dismissive attitude of International Law has been his refusal to prosecute alleged War Criminals who were part of the Bush administration .
There were other nations which had begun proceedings to prosecute these war criminals but the US bullied them and intimidated these sovereign nations to the degree that they stopped all such legal proceedings.
This behavior is just typical of America going back decades at least in forcing its will on other nations by bullying and intimidation and threats. America has become a rogue state using terrorists tactics to get what it wants and to do as it pleases ignoring the sovereignty of other nations.
UN Demands Prosecution of Bush-era CIA Crimes By RT March 04, 2013 via"Information Clearing House"
-- A United Nations investigator has demanded that the US publish classified documents regarding the CIA’s human rights violations under former President George W. Bush, with hopes that the documents will lead to the prosecution of public officials.
Documents about the CIA’s program of rendition and secret detention of suspected terrorists have remained classified, even though President Obama’s administration has publicly condemned the use of these “enhanced interrogation techniques”. The US has not prosecuted any of its agents for human rights violations.
UN investigator Ben Emmerson, the UN special rapporteur on the promotion and protection of human rights while countering terrorism, said that the classified documents protect the names of individuals who are responsible for serious human rights violations.
“Despite this clear repudiation of the unlawful actions carried out by the Bush-era CIA, many of the facts remain classified, and no public official has so far been brought to justice in the United States,” Emmerson said in a report to the UN Human Rights Council, according to Reuters.
Kept in secret prisons around the world, the CIA’s detainees were subjected to torture including waterboarding, sleep deprivation and various other interrogation techniques that violate human rights. The detainees were often subjected to clandestine transfers to secret prisons known as CIA ‘black sites’.
“There is now credible evidence to show that CIA ‘black sites’ were located on the territory of Lithuania, Morocco, Poland, Romania and Thailand, and that the officials of at least 49 other states allowed their airspace or airports to be used for rendition flights,” Emmerson said, describing how suspected terrorists were often detained without being charged for any crimes, receiving extradition procedures or having access to lawyers.
Emmerson has urged the US to prosecute any public official who was involved in setting up the CIA "black sites" at which human rights or legal violations occurred. Even though the Obama administration has condemned those who promoted the use of such facilities for inhumane procedures, the administration has taken no steps to punish any of its public officials. Attorney General Eric Holder has said that the Justice Department would not take legal actions against those who "acted in good faith" and followed the guidelines provided by the Office of Legal Counsel during the Bush era.
But without names and details about the involvement of US officials at CIA black sites, the government is maintaining a level of secrecy and “perpetuating impunity for the public officials implicated in these crimes,” Emmerson said. A Senate committee led by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) previously investigated the CIA’s interrogation program and may have had complete access to classified information about it.
Emmerson has called for this information to be published “without delay, and to the fullest extent possible.”
While the UN special rapporteur lacks the power to force the Obama administration to release this information, his report puts further pressure on the US government to expose a practice it publicly condemns, but continues to keep secret.
US hiding hunger strike in Guantanamo / US News National Turk.com, March 3, 2013
USA’s infamous Guantanamo prison in Cuba has reportedly become the scene of a widespread hunger strike now in its third week.
The lawyers for the prisoners said in a letter to the prison commander, that “all but a few men” are on hunger strike and that their condition “appears to be rapidly deteriorating and reaching a potentially critical level.”
The protest can best be summed up with a statement that the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) has sent to military officials. They wrote that “since approximately February 6, 2013, camp authorities have been confiscating detainees’ personal items, including blankets, sheets, towels, mats, razors, toothbrushes, books, family photos, religious CDs, and letters, including legal mail; and restricting their exercise, seemingly without provocation or cause.” Moreover, “Arabic interpreters employed by the prison have been searching the men’s Qur’ans in ways that constitute desecration according to their religious beliefs, and that guards have been disrespectful during prayer times.”
As days turned into weeks, there have been reports of men coughing up blood, losing consciousness and having to be moved to other wings of the facility for observation. However, the actual facts and figures remain shrouded in mystery, while more controversy surfaced after Guantanamo officials gave their response to the accusations.
A prison spokesman has said that the Department of Justice will address the lawyers’ letter of complaint, he also claimed that there had only been six people on strike for a year now. Other detainees simply didn’t skip enough meals to be considered on strike at all, according to military rules. The spokesman, Navy Capt. Robert Durand, said that “some detainees have attempted to coordinate a hunger strike and have refused meal deliveries. Most detainees are not participating.” He tried to describe the reasons the inmates had for going on strike as blown out of proportion, claiming that they “have chosen one routine search in early February as the rallying point for their grievances.”
Meanwhile, the prisoners have outlined a few simple conditions for the authorities to consider if they want the strike to end instantly: firstly, the right to willingly surrender the Qurans, so as not to incur the book’s forceful desecration at the hands of a prison guard. And secondly – to provide the Quran on an electronic reader; that way, no notes can be passed in a book and no further religious violations need to take place.
Guantanamo Bay holds around 170 inmates. There had been a few strikes since 2002, but while some served to change the prison dynamic and gave the prisoners the sense that they could stand their ground on certain matters, the strike of 2005 effectively ended this. It involved a large portion of that population, but didn’t achieve success, as the military began tying people down and force-feeding them liquid nutrients through tubes to prevent starvation.
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