Sri Lankan Government War Crimes :Bombing Civilians, Assassinations, Death Squads, Torture - The New Face of War

UPDATE: 11:37 AM , April 6, 2009

Is Everything and anything permissible in The War on Terror ?
Sri Lanka Genocide or just collateral Damage
Abductions by Death Squads - the Disappeared
Torture, abuse, rape - Sri Lankan Government terrorizing the Tamil population
Intimidation of human rights activists and the press-
Gov't claims that Tamil Rebels are using civilians as Human Shields-
Sri Lankan government actions similar to those of the US in Iraq, or Israel in Gaza and the West Bank or the Burmese Gov't against its own people or the Chinese in Tibet
Gaza & Israel
As America aided and abetted Israel's War Crimes so India aids and abets Sri Lankan War Crimes-
Iraq-The US Shock & Awe - Fallujah Bombing Civilians
Drones Killing civilians in Pakistan
Bombing convoy in Sudan arms supply or Migrants

SRILANKA

Genocide in Sri Lanka - Sri Lanka government claiming it only wants to get rid of the terrorists Tamil Tigers and so is using the New All Purpose excuse for bombing civilians. As Israel was permitted by the US, Britain and Canada to bomb the hell out of Gaza and to ignore the deaths of innocent civilians in its desire to destroy Hamas. We now have this new Template for massive bombings of non-military targets including schools and hospitals and even UN facilities .

But Israel did not create this new template for mass murder. If anything the US in its attack on Iraq of Shock and Awe created this new template. The American forces bombed highways , bridges, police stations, hospitals, schools , buildings which housed government departments except for the oil ministry but they also bombed apartment buildings, suburbs , power stations , water and sewage treatment plants all non military targets destroying Iraq's infrastructure which has still not been repaired after six years of US occupation. The so called Shock & Awe was more like the NAZI Blitzkrieg attacks of WWII .

So all a nation has to do is call a group terrorists and therefore the government can use any tactics it wishes to in order to defeat the " Terrorists" and the deaths of non-combatants is considered a non-issue. Just kill them all and let God sort them out.
Civilian killings in Sri Lanka discussed in UN, leaked documents and double standards- April 2, 2009

Arundhati Roy says about Srilankan Genocide( on Tamils ) thanks BBC RADIO



Arundhati Roy says about Srilankan Genocide( on Tamils )




Sri Lanka has no intention of providing political solution - Human Rights Watch at the US senate hearing - 3-March-2009



Like Israel and the United States when they have been accused of War Crimes or Human Rights Violations the Sri Lankan government has accused the Human Rights UN Rapporteur & other Human Rights groups of being unprofessional and biased and therefore "Pro-Terrorists" etc.

UN fears Sri Lanka 'war crimes'- March 16, 2009



and some more background on a conflict which has been going on for some thirty years. The Tamil Tigers LTTE may commit actions which are abhorrent but that does not mean that the government and military of Sri Lanka has a right to do whatever it wishes to while ignoring basic human rights, the Geneva Conventions and other International Agreements. The abductions of innocent people who are then disappeared or who are abused, raped or killed these things are not justifiable. But it is difficult to get the International Community to act when it has done little to punish similar actions committed by the Israelis, the Americans and the British and their allies in the so-called War on Terror.

The message and example from the United States and Israel is that any action taken against alleged terrorists or their loved ones relatives , their friends or anyone alleged to have helped terrorists or anyone critical of the government is by definition an enemy of the state who can be abducted as in renditions and imprisoned, tortured or killed by way of assassinations or death squads all we are told is permissible and is done with impunity by their own government or those acting on behalf of that government. This is the sort of mind-set which has been created since 9/11 and the so called War on Terror. So why should the Israeli Government and IDF or the Sri Lankan government or the Chinese Government or Burmese governments be expected to act any differently. And of course anyone speaking out on behalf of those treated in this way are themselves to be treated no differently than the actual so-called terrorists.

The Sri Lankan government does not just target the Tamil Insurgents or Guerrillas or Terrorists but the Tamil population in the same way that Israel has targeted all Palestinians and not just the fighters of Hamas. The Americans in Iraq and their Iraqi collaborators also targeted anyone they wished to in Iraq through assassinations, death squads, massive bombings of civilian areas , massive round ups of suspected terrorists and their families and their neighbors most of whom were not terrorists or insurgents , then they were systematically abused and or tortured or killed all in the name of Freedom, Democracy, Christendom and the American Way.

Sri Lankan State Security Forces responsible for TAMIL'S disappearances
Human Rights Watch



These ongoing abductions of Sri Lankans by the Sri Lankan government and local militias sound similar to what American backed Death Squads did for instance in El Salvador , Chile etc.And now with the excuse of the War on Terror Sri Lankan government gets tacit backing from Western Nations
White van abductions [Sri Lankan Military sponsored]

Abductions carried out by armed men riding in white vans are common in Northern/Eastern Sri Lanka. These Tamil civilians are later found brutally killed or amputated within a week. These atrocities are carried out with the help of Sri Lankan military. March 30, 2007



also see:

" Sri Lankan civilians in firing line as military 'annihilates' Tamil Tigers " "Telegraph.co.uk , April 5, 2009

Sri Lanka reported the deaths of 420 Tamil Tiger fighters yesterday after three days of heavy fighting forced the group to seek refuge in a seven-square mile "no-fire zone" packed with up to 190,000 refugees.

A spokesman for the military said operations against the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) had commenced within the zone, fuelling concerns over the safety of civilians trapped between the warring parties.

The rebels have set up big guns and bunkers among encampments of refugees in the enclave on the island's north-east coast. Thousands have already been killed or maimed by shells falling in the area.

...The United Nations secretary-general Ban Ki-moon yesterday urged rebel leaders to allow trapped civilians to move freely out of the conflict area, and pointedly reminded the Sri Lankan government of its responsibility to protect civilians.

The army has rejected all calls for a ceasefire but has not explained how it can fight the surviving Tigers without causing massive civilian casualties.

Since February the Sri Lankan Army has besieged the Tigers in a shrinking area of jungle and coconut plantation.

Conditions have steadily worsened. In the last fortnight supplies of food and medicine have run low. Medical facilities are primitive, and most families have no shelter except plastic sheeting as monsoon rains lash down.

Traumatised Tamils live in fear of new crackdown in Sri Lanka by Annie Kelly, guardian.co.uk April 5, 2009

The Sri Lankan army is on the verge of wiping out the rebel Tamil Tiger forces. But, as Annie Kelly reports, there is concern that the displaced civilian population is suffering a fresh wave of human rights violations including arbitrary arrests and abductions

...The wave of disappearances and arbitrary arrests has led a host of human rights organisations to sound the alarm. Chris Chapman, conflict prevention officer at Minority Rights International, said: "We are extremely concerned about the situation faced by minorities in Sri Lanka's conflict area. Apart from the humanitarian catastrophe in the battle zone, there is also evidence of rising incidents of human rights violations.

"We are getting reports of arbitrary arrests, abductions and disappearances among Tamils fleeing the fighting. These violations are also happening in other parts of the country. Whatever the military outcome is, we see no evidence that this pattern of human rights violations will stop.

"There needs to be serious international pressure on the Sri Lankan government to put in place a human rights mechanism to ensure that the large number of incidents of abductions and enforced disappearances in the north and east are stopped and the perpetrators brought to justice."

Anna Neistat, senior emergency co-ordinator at Human Rights Watch, said: "This isn't about the conflict; it is about the government doing nothing to acknowledge the current human rights violations being committed against Tamil civilians. We are extremely concerned about the humanitarian crisis faced by thousands still trapped by fighting in the north, and these kinds of violations look set to continue. Continued intimidation of the independent press and human rights activists also continue unchecked."

also see website: TamilNation.org

On the complicity of the Indian government in the War Crimes of the Sri Lankan government see:

UN urged to use the R2P doctrine against Sri Lanka Sangeetha Neeraja : 01 Apr 2009

and on War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity being committed by the Sri Lankan government see:

Humanitarian Situation in the NorthEast of the Island of Sri Lanka - Mr. Arjunan Ethirveerasingam


and so it goes,
GORD.

George Galloway Banned From Canada, Gitmo Lawyer Faces Charges For Writing Letter to Obama , Dr. Sami Al-Arian

" ...The case against Al-Arian, in the eyes of the grand inquisitors like Kromberg, is a battle against a culture and a religion that they openly denigrate and despise. This racism, the driving engine behind the campaign against Al-Arian, mocks the integrity of the American judicial system. Let us hope that in a few weeks we will witness a new era. Justice delayed is better than justice denied. We owe Dr. Al-Arian, and ourselves, a return to the rule of law."

...The trial of Al-Arian is a cause célèbre in the Muslim world. A documentary film was made about the case in Europe. He has become the poster child for judicial abuse and persecution of Muslims in the United States by the Bush administration. The facts surrounding the trial and imprisonment of the former university professor have severely tarnished the integrity of the American judicial system and made the government's vaunted campaign against terrorism look capricious, inept and overtly racist.

Chris hedges commenting on the case of the American Dr.Sami Al-Arian who spent 5 and a half years in prison & is now under house arrest. See below.

From the United States to Canada and Britain there have been many cases of injustice which have become part of the Global War on Terror as crafted by the Bush Regime and Tony Blair . Various countries around the world have used the War on Terror as cover for their own otherwise unjustifiable actions i.e. Israel in Gaza in which Israel used the presence of terrorists to justify massive bombings of civilian populations ; India against its own Muslim citizens to Sri Lankas actions against the Tamil Tigers in which the government is accused of wide spread human rights violations and even War Crimes; or the Chinese governments attempts to justify its on going repression in China and its brutal and criminal actions in Tibet which human rights groups have referred to as at the least Cultural Genocide and the list goes on.

The peculiar case of George Galloway MP being refused entrance to Canada by our government is another case in the hysteria of the War on Terror that makes little sense. The Canadian government claims Galloway is a security risk because he led an aid convoy to Gaza from Britain through Europe and finally into Gaza delivering humanitarian aid . In Gaza Galloway turned the aid supplies and some money over to Hamas which is the party elected democratically to represent the people of Gaza. The thing of it is that the Canadian government has Hamas listed as a terrorist organization. In other words the Canadian government has banned Galloway from speaking in Canada because he has been an outspoken critic of the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and has criticized Israel's invasion and slaughter in Gaza. Yet he is still permitted to sit in the British House of Commons and is allowed to go on a speaking tour in the United States.

George Galloway on The Hour with George Stroumboulopoulos-April 3, 2009
THE HOUR AT CBC



Here's another bit of the insanity which has become part of America's War On Terror : A lawyer on his client's behalf writes a letter to President Obama and because he talks about his client being tortured the lawyer could be charged and imprisoned. So how is the lawyer supposed to get justice for his client. By making everything a matter of security or as a state secret even talking about this case by a media outlet they too might be breaking some obscure law or legalese written under the Bush Regime and now being enforced by President Obama.

" Famed Gitmo Lawyer Facing Six Months in Prison For Writing Letter to Obama Detailing Torture of Client "Comment Is Free. Posted April 2, 2009( AlterNet.org).

Clive Stafford Smith is accused of 'unprofessional conduct' by Pentagon officials who monitor communication between Gitmo prisoners and their lawyers.

Lawyers for Binyam Mohamed face the incredible prospect of a six-month jail sentence in America after writing a letter to President Obama detailing their client's allegations of torture by U.S. agents.

The privilege review team -- officials from the U.S. Department of Defense who monitor and censor communication between Guantánamo prisoners and their lawyers -- have previously been accused of using their powers to suppress evidence of the abuse and mistreatment of detainees.

Clive Stafford Smith, director of legal charity Reprieve, and his colleague Ahmed Ghappour have been summoned to appear before a Washington court on May 11 after a complaint was made by the privilege review team.

Stafford Smith had written to the president after judges in the UK ruled against the release of U.S. evidence detailing Mohamed's alleged torture at Guantánamo. The letter asked the president to reconsider the U.S. position and urged him to release the evidence into the public domain. He attached a memo summarizing the case because his US security clearance gives him access to the classified material. In order to comply with classification guidelines, the memo did not identify individual officers by name or specify locations of the abuse.

Police to probe MI5 torture claims-March 28, 2009

Scotland Yard is to investigate claims that former MI5 officers were complicit in the interrogation and torture of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Binyam Mohamed, it has been announced.

The Attorney General Baroness Scotland said that she had asked the Metropolitan Police to carry an investigation "as expeditiously as possible given the seriousness and sensitivity of the issues involved".

Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "I have always made clear that when serious allegations are made they have got to be investigated. I have also been clear that this government does not tolerate or endorse torture."

Mr Mohamed alleges that an MI5 officer supplied questions to his interrogators when he was held and tortured at a secret site in Morocco following his arrest in Pakistan in 2002.




And so much for Britain and America's wonderful ally Pakistan which is also not so democratic or free after all. But surely just about everyone knows this and one can only conclude that the British and the United States have gone out of their way to cover up human rights abuses including torture taking place in Pakistan with the permission and or guidance of the government of Pakistan.

Three more cases revealed by Reprieve of British citizens tortured abroad
March 18, 2009- British Citizens tortured in Pakistan

Three more cases of torture involving British citizens were revealed in London on Tuesday. The Hussain family, involved in a messy land dispute in Pakistan, said they were arrested and tortured by corrupt Pakistani police and that the British Foreign Office turned a blind eye to the situation. Fareena Alam reports.



Then there is the case of Dr. Al-Arian in the United States who was arrested as a " terrorists " and yet all charges were dropped against him though he spent 5 and a half years in jail and though released last September is now under house arrest. Here is a case where Obama could step in and do what's necessary to get this injustice ended and to have those involved investigated rather than letting them all get out of this without any consequences for their actions. Was it the FBIs fault or the Homeland Security or the Department of Justice or JAG or the Bush administration itself.

There are those who argue quite plausibly that "The real reason Al-Arian was arrested and kept in prison was because he dared to speak out against the War in Iraq. He claimed the conflict was being urged by the Neoconservatives ."

Dr. Sami Al-Arian 2002 anti-war appeal (interview)

Prof. Al-Arian exposed the neo-con cabal and the lies they were concocting to create the 'Clash of Civilizations' and sell the invasion of Iraq. For the crime of pointing out the Zionist agenda, he was indicted and prosecuted, but acquitted; and yet remains in prison. Snowshoefilms interview of Oct. 2002, Washington D.C.



Simply Unbelievable!! Dr. Sami Al-Arian's Struggle for Justice-April 1, 2008

Visit http://petition.freesaminow.com to make your voice heard. Shocking tale of the first major test-case of the PATRIOT Act. An embarrassed Justice Department is still trying to keep Dr. Sami Al-Arian in jail despite being acquitted of charges.



Sami Al-Arian Released After 5.5 Years in Prison-Democracy Now!September 3, 2008

After more than five-and-a-half years behind bars, Palestinian professor and activist, Sami Al-Arian, has been released from prison. Immigration authorities released him on bail on Tuesday after they failed to explain his continued detention pending a trial for refusing to testify before a grand jury about a cluster of Muslim organizations in northern Virginia. But while he is out of prison, Sami Al-Arian is not free. He must remain under house detention at his daughter Laila's residence in Virginia, pending trial. Laila Al-Arian joins us from Virginia.



As Chris Hedges explains in this article about Dr. Sami Al-Arian that the whole case is one of a miscarriage of justice and is tainted by racism and a deep seated hatred and misunderstanding of Islam. But these days there are many in our society claim to be anti-racists and in favor of tolerance and pluralism except when it comes to Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians, Afghans etc. Somehow they are all suspect and all are guilty to a greater or lesser degree of the acts committed on 9/11 or thos committed against US soldiers in Iraq or Afghanistan or of terrorists actions committed against America's allies esp. Israel.

Obstruction of Justice By Chris Hedges "TruthDig"March 31, 2009

U.S. District Judge Leonie M. Brinkema is scheduled to issue a ruling in the Eastern District of Virginia at the end of April in a case that will send a signal to the Muslim world and beyond whether the American judicial system has regained its independence after eight years of flagrant manipulation and intimidation by the Bush administration. Brinkema will decide whether the Palestinian activist Dr. Sami Amin Al-Arian, held for over six years in prison and under house arrest in Virginia since Sept 2, is guilty or innocent of two counts of criminal contempt.

Brinkema's ruling will have ramifications that will extend far beyond Virginia and the United States. The trial of Al-Arian is a cause célèbre in the Muslim world. A documentary film was made about the case in Europe. He has become the poster child for judicial abuse and persecution of Muslims in the United States by the Bush administration. The facts surrounding the trial and imprisonment of the former university professor have severely tarnished the integrity of the American judicial system and made the government's vaunted campaign against terrorism look capricious, inept and overtly racist.

Government lawyers made wild assertions that showed a profound ignorance of the Middle East and exposed a gross stereotyping of the Muslim world. It called on the FBI case agent, for example, who testified as an expert witness that Islamic terrorists were routinely smuggled over the border from Iran into Syria, apparently unaware that Syria is separated from Iran by a large land mass called Iraq. The transcripts of the case against Al-Arian-which read like a bad Gilbert and Sullivan opera-are stupefying in their idiocy. The government wiretaps picked up nothing of substance; taxpayer dollars were used to record and transcribe 21,000 hours of banal chatter, including members of the Al-Arian household ordering pizza delivery. During the trial the government called 80 witnesses and subjected the jury to inane phone transcriptions and recordings, made over a 10-year period, which the jury curtly dismissed as "gossip." It would be comical if the consequences were not so dire for the defendant.

A jury, on Dec. 6, 2005, acquitted Dr. Al-Arian on eight of the counts in the superseding indictment after a six-month trial in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida. On the 94 charges made against the four defendants, there were no convictions. Of the 17 charges against Al-Arian-including "conspiracy to murder and maim persons abroad"-the jury acquitted him of eight and was hung on the rest. The jurors, who voted 10 to 2 to acquit on the remaining charges, could not reach a unanimous decision calling for his full acquittal. Two others in the case, Ghassan Ballut and Sameeh Hammoudeh, were acquitted of all charges.

and he concludes :

Kromberg, like many involved in the case, has also repeatedly made derogatory and insulting comments about Muslims. When Al-Arian's lawyers asked Kromberg to delay the transfer of the professor to Virginia, for example, because of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, they were told "if they can kill each other during Ramadan they can appear before the grand jury." Kromberg, according to an affidavit signed by Al-Arian's attorney, Jack Fernandez, also said: "I am not going to put off Dr. Al-Arian's grand jury appearance just to assist in what is becoming the Islamization of America."

Judge Brinkema, in one of the rare examples of judicial courage during this saga, defied the government to allow Al-Arian out on bail.

The case against Al-Arian, in the eyes of the grand inquisitors like Kromberg, is a battle against a culture and a religion that they openly denigrate and despise. This racism, the driving engine behind the campaign against Al-Arian, mocks the integrity of the American judicial system. Let us hope that in a few weeks we will witness a new era. Justice delayed is better than justice denied. We owe Dr. Al-Arian, and ourselves, a return to the rule of law.

And from the website of Norman G. Finkelstein :Updates on Dr. Al-Arian Sami Al-Arian Subjected to Worst Prison Conditions since Florida 07.27.2008 | FreeSamiNow.com

Despite grant of bail, government continues to hold him

Hanover, VA - July 27, 2008 - More than two weeks after being granted bond by a federal judge, Sami Al-Arian is still being held in prison. In fact, Dr. Al-Arian is now being subjected to the worst treatment by prison officials since his stay in Coleman Federal Penitentiary in Florida three years ago.

On July 12th, Judge Leonie Brinkema pronounced that Dr. Al-Arian was not a danger to the community nor a flight risk, and accordingly granted him bail before his scheduled August 13th trial. Nevertheless, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) invoked the jurisdiction it has held over Dr. Al-Arian since his official sentence ended last April to keep him from leaving prison. The ICE is ostensibly holding Dr. Al-Arian to complete deportation procedures but, given that Dr. Al-Arian’s trial will take place in less than three weeks, it would seem somewhat unlikely that the ICE will follow through with such procedures in the near future.

Not content to merely keep Dr. Al-Arian from enjoying even a very limited stint of freedom, the government is using all available means to try to psychologically break him. Instead of keeping him in a prison close to the Washington DC area where his two oldest children live, the ICE has moved him to Pamunkey Regional Jail in Hanover, VA, more than one hundred miles from the capital. Regardless, even when Dr. Al-Arian was relatively close to his children, they were repeatedly denied visitation requests.

More critically, this distance makes it extremely difficult for Dr. Al-Arian to meet with his attorneys in the final weeks before his upcoming trial. This is the same tactic employed by the government in 2005 to try to prevent Dr. Al-Arian from being able to prepare a full defense.

also see website : FREE SAMI AL-ARIAN: Political Prisoner Since Feb. 20, 2003

and so it goes,
GORD.

Obama's Afghanistan Problem & Women's Rights in Afghanistan & Neocons Re-Branding Efforts

UPDATE: 11:59 AM & 12:35 PM, April 4, 2009

Neocons rebranding: Rachel Maddow
Neocons support Obama's foreign policy ??? ; is this a reason to be concerned ???
Is a Neocon endorsement the kiss of death or are they just being their old cynical selves???
Obama's Afghanistan problem
Obama ignoring Bush, Cheney, Tony Blair War Crimes
Is this tacit approval ?

One of the reasons given for invading and occupying Afghanistan has been to improve women's rights in that country since under the Taliban women denied equal rights . Women were not permitted any sort of independent life outside the household of their family and were considered the property of their father and once married they became the property of their husbands. They in effect had no real rights . Now it appears the current government in Afghanistan wants to pass legislation so that Afghan women will once again lose their rights and return them to the status of second class citizens which they had under the former Taliban. So how can the Canadian government reconcile its goals in Afghanistan with the aims of the current government in Afghanistan.

First the CBC item on women's rights in Afghanistan:

April 2, 2009- CBC
New Afghan rape law against women's rights



And so why is Canada and the US and NATO in Afghanistan to hunt down Al Qaeda or to bring Democracy and Freedom to Afghanistan , for Women's Rights or is a matter of revenge and blood lust or just about the OIL.

If it was all about Al Qaeda why did the US redirect its focus , its energy its military might to Iraq which had nothing to to do with Al Qaeda . We are told by those in the know that the US had Al Qaeda forces surrounded in Afghanistan in October of 2001 and yet Cheney, Rumsfeld and the gang did nothing to capture or to wipe them out. What sort of game have these so called wonderful and ingenious leaders been playing at over the last nine years or more. Is what is going on at the present even under Obama just more of the same game playing in order to take control of the region just to maintain supply lines to the West while the peoples in these areas are just treated as Collateral Damage since in the end the West in its self-serving interests has little interest or concern with the lives of the peoples inhabiting these regions- their lives are meaningless to us .

We - Arundhati Roy - The Unocal pipeline



Arudhati Roy spoke out to get the US leaders and the American people to examine the recent history of Afghanistan before sending in a massive army to invade Afghanistan.
"The Algebra of Infinite Justice " by Arundhati Roy, Guardian UK, September 29, 2001

In America there has been rough talk of "bombing Afghanistan back to the stone age". Someone please break the news that Afghanistan is already there. And if it's any consolation, America played no small part in helping it on its way. The American people may be a little fuzzy about where exactly Afghanistan is (we hear reports that there's a run on maps of the country), but the US government and Afghanistan are old friends.

In 1979, after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the CIA and Pakistan's ISI (Inter Services Intelligence) launched the largest covert operation in the history of the CIA. Their purpose was to harness the energy of Afghan resistance to the Soviets and expand it into a holy war, an Islamic jihad, which would turn Muslim countries within the Soviet Union against the communist regime and eventually destabilize it. When it began, it was meant to be the Soviet Union's Vietnam. It turned out to be much more than that. Over the years, through the ISI, the CIA funded and recruited almost 100,000 radical mojahedin from 40 Islamic countries as soldiers for America's proxy war. The rank and file of the mojahedin were unaware that their jihad was actually being fought on behalf of Uncle Sam. (The irony is that America was equally unaware that it was financing a future war against itself.)

In 1989, after being bloodied by 10 years of relentless conflict, the Russians withdrew, leaving behind a civilization reduced to rubble.

Civil war in Afghanistan raged on. The jihad spread to Chechnya, Kosovo and eventually to Kashmir. The CIA continued to pour in money and military equipment, but the overheads had become immense, and more money was needed. The mojahedin ordered farmers to plant opium as a "revolutionary tax". The ISI set up hundreds of heroin laboratories across Afghanistan. Within two years of the CIA's arrival, the Pakistan-Afghanistan borderland had become the biggest producer of heroin in the world, and the single biggest source of the heroin on American streets. The annual profits, said to be between $100bn and $200bn, were ploughed back into training and arming militants.

In 1995, the Taliban - then a marginal sect of dangerous, hardline fundamentalists - fought its way to power in Afghanistan. It was funded by the ISI, that old cohort of the CIA, and supported by many political parties in Pakistan. The Taliban unleashed a regime of terror. Its first victims were its own people, particularly women. It closed down girls' schools, dismissed women from government jobs, and enforced sharia laws under which women deemed to be "immoral" are stoned to death, and widows guilty of being adulterous are buried alive. Given the Taliban government's human rights track record, it seems unlikely that it will in any way be intimidated or swerved from its purpose by the prospect of war, or the threat to the lives of its civilians.

Rachel Maddow: The Neoneocons
By Heather Wednesday Apr 01, 2009 6:00pm
http://www.foreignpolicyi.org/
http://wonkroom.thinkprogress.org/200...

Neocons never die. They just keep giving themselves new names. After claiming "mission accomplished" in Iraq, it seems the PNAC crowd has done just that with their latest attempt at re-branding, The Foreign Policy Initiative. Rachel Maddow brings in Matt Duss from Think Progress to fill us in on their recent make-over. You can read more about this group in Matt's post over at the Wonk Room: Foreign Policy Initiative: Housebroken Neocons? From the article:

If the Neocons approve of Obama's foreign policy is it time to despair of any real changes in Obama's foreign policy since it appears a change in Presidents and in parties signals little change if any. Is Obama going to continue the slaughter in Afghanistan and Pakistan . Is Obama as addicted to War as most Americans appear to be. Do Americans need War as a way to feel superiour ; is War America's aphrodisiac is just bred in the bone or have they just become unhinged after 9/11 as I have suggested previously is America still suffering from a collective form of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Are they just in need of a lot of therapy or do they need drug therapy or possible institutionalization. In the real world this could mean de-fanging Americans or put them in Isolation or quarantine ???.



Top Neocon Max Boot: Obama 'Continuing and Expanding' Bush's Foreign Policy by Jeremy Scahill, AlterNet March 30, 2009.

In his latest love letter to Obama, Boot calls his Afghanistan plan "all that supporters of the war effort could have asked for."

I feel like this story can be written pretty much any time President Obama makes any major foreign policy announcement. It happened shortly after the election when Obama unveiled his foreign policy team and the neocons and other Republicans sang his praises. It happened with his Iraq plan, when some of his most vocal fans were the likes of John McCain and Mitch McConnell. Now, Obama’s Afghanistan surge is the subject of a love letter from neocon heavy-hitter and former McCain adviser Max Boot. Writing for Commentary, Boot said Obama’s Afghanistan approach “was pretty much all that supporters of the war effort could have asked for, and probably pretty similar to what a President McCain would have decided on.”

Boot wrote:

It would be nice if Obama had spoken a bit more positively about the outcome in Iraq now that that it has become, like Afghanistan, “his” war.

But that’s a minor quibble about rhetoric. The substance of policy is more important, and on that ground Obama is solid.

The big news -- though it had been apparent for some time -- is that Obama is eschewing those who argue for a major downsizing of our efforts to focus on a narrow counter-terrorism strategy of simply picking off individual bad guys. Instead, Obama is embracing a more wide-ranging counterinsurgency strategy focused on enhancing “the military, governance, and economic capacity of Afghanistan and Pakistan.”

To cap it all off, Boot said Obama is “essentially continuing and expanding [Bush’s foreign] policy.”

In another recent post about Obama’s dropping of the term “Global War on Terror,” Boot wrote, “the Obama administration’s change of nomenclature for the Global War on Terrorism is less important than its willingness to continue most of the actions the Bush administration took to fight the terrorists.”

As I have said before, it really seems like the most substantive foreign policy changes we are seeing under Obama, unfortunately, are the words he uses to define his belligerent, Bush-esque policies.

also see; " Foreign Policy Initiative: Housebroken Neocons? " by Matt Duss at Thinkprogress ,March 31, 2009

Attending the Foreign Policy Initiative’s inaugural conference on Afghanistan today at the Mayflower Hotel, I was struck by how very little that was said was controversial. And that’s really the point — in the wake of Iraq debacle, for which the neocons are widely and rightly held responsible, it simply won’t do to bang the drum for American military maximalism. One has to be a bit slicker than that. And these guys are nothing if not slick.

Obama's Gutsy Decision on Afghanistan Kagan at PostPartisan, March 27, 2009

Hats off to President Obama for making a gutsy and correct decision on Afghanistan. With many of his supporters, and some of his own advisers, calling either for a rapid exit or a “minimal” counterterrorist strategy in Afghanistan, the president announced today that he will instead expand and deepen the American commitment. He clearly believes that an effective counterterrorism approach requires an effective counterinsurgency strategy, aimed not only at killing bad guys but at strengthening Afghan civil society and governing structures, providing the necessary security to the population so that it can resist pressures from the Taliban, and significantly increasing the much-derided “nation-building” element of the strategy. The United States, he argues, has to help the Afghan people fulfill “the promise of a better future,” by rooting out government corruption, helping the elected government provide basic services, fighting the narcotics trade, and, in general, advancing “security, opportunity, and justice.” This is the opposite of a “minimal” approach.

By not insisting on investigations and indictments where necessary of members of the Bush.Cheney Regime for War Crimes and Crimes against humanity has Obama bought into the Neocon rationalizations for the War in Iraq- the invasion & occupation by the United States under false pretenses . Has Obama by in action given tacit approval of the crimes committed by the Bush/Cheney Regimes that is of the abuse and inhumane treatment of over a hundred thousand Iraqis and the deaths of over one million Iraqi citicens , their homes invade , their villages , towns and cities turned to rubble the use of cluster bombs & phosphorus bombs on civilian areas . The Neocons in the media are triumphant now calling Iraq a success story and they want Obama to continue the same policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan and maybe a few other disobedient countries who dare to stand up to American and Western Imperialism.

John Pilger argues that it is quite possible if there is the political will to bring Tony Blair, George W. Bush , Dick Cheney and all to justice for their horrendous and outrageous crimes against humanity. But of course this sounds good but it will probably not happen as those in power tend to defend and protect those whom they see as their peers. As the Americans for years tried to protect the brutal dictator Pinochet we can expect that the Obama administration and that of Prime Minister Gordon will do all they can to protect the members of their class that is Bush & Blair respectively. To do otherwise would be to admit that we in the West are not morally superior to the rest of the world and that our governments are capable of committing evil acts for which we are culpable and therefore must pay for. From the savagery and barbarity of the fire-bombing of Dresden and other German cities in order to kill as many civilians as possible as revenge for the bombing of British cities to the unnecessary dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki which were not legitimate military targets - were they dropped for revenge , as part of a scientific experiment to see what the Atomic blast would do to human beings - or even though the Japanese were ready to surrender even before the Atomic Bombs were dropped-to the mass murder of some two million Vietnamese and 600,000 Cambodians to the War Crime committed of the so-called "Highway of Death" in the first Gulf War to a million dead Iraqis to Gitmo, Abu Ghraib, and Bagram and a hundred other prisons run by the Americans and British . We in the West often get a way with murder and massacres of the Innocent.

Fake Faith and Epic Crimes By John Pilger April 02, 2009 "Information Clearing House"

--- These are extraordinary times. With the United States and Britain on the verge of bankruptcy and committing to an endless colonial war, pressure is building for their crimes to be prosecuted at a tribunal similar to that which tried the Nazis at Nuremberg. This defined rapacious invasion as "the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole." International law would be mere farce, said the chief US chief prosecutor at Nuremberg, Supreme Court justice Robert Jackson, "if, in future, we do not apply its principles to ourselves."

That is now happening. Spain, Germany, Belgium, France and Britain have long had "universal jurisdiction" statutes, which allow their national courts to pursue and prosecute prima facie war criminals. What has changed is an unspoken rule never to use international law against "ourselves," or "our" allies or clients. In 1998, Spain, supported by France, Switzerland and Belgium, indicted the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, client and executioner of the West, and sought his extradition from Britain, where he happened to be at the time. Had he been sent for trial he almost certainly would have implicated at least one British prime minister and two US presidents in crimes against humanity. Home Secretary Jack Straw let him escape back to Chile.

The Pinochet case was the ignition. On 19 January last, the George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley compared the status of George W. Bush with that of Pinochet. "Outside [the United States] there is not the ambiguity about what to do about a war crime," he said. "So if you try to travel, most people abroad are going to view you not as ‘former President George Bush’ [but] as a current war criminal." For this reason, Bush’s former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who demanded an invasion of Iraq in 2001 and personally approved torture techniques in Iraq and at Guantanamo Bay, no longer travels. Rumsfeld has twice been indicted for war crimes in Germany. On 26 January, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Manfred Nowak, said, "We have clear evidence that Mr. Rumsfeld knew what he was doing but nevertheless he ordered torture."

The Spanish high court is currently investigating a former Israeli defence minister and six other top Israeli officials for their role in the killing of civilians, mostly children, in Gaza. Henry Kissinger, who was largely responsible for bombing to death 600,000 peasants in Cambodia in 1969-73, is wanted for questioning in France, Chile and Argentina. Yet, on 8 February, as if demonstrating the continuity of American power, President Barack Obama’s national security adviser, James Jones, said, "I take my daily orders from Dr. Kissinger."

Like them, Tony Blair may soon be a fugitive. The International Criminal Court, to which Britain is a signatory, has received a record number of petitions related to Blair’s wars. Spain’s celebrated Judge Baltasar Garzon, who indicted Pinochet and the leaders of the Argentinian military junta, has called for George W. Bush, Blair and former Spanish prime minister Jose Maria Aznar to be prosecuted for the invasion of Iraq — "one of the most sordid and unjustifiable episodes in recent human history: a devastating attack on the rule of law" that had left the UN "in tatters." He said, "There is enough of an argument in 650,000 deaths for this investigation to start without delay."

...These are extraordinary times. Blair, a perpetrator of the epic crime of the 21st century, shares a "prayer breakfast" with President Obama, the yes-we-can-man now launching more war. "We pray," said Blair, "that in acting we do God’s work and follow God’s will." To decent people, such pronouncements about Blair’s "faith" represent a contortion of morality and intellect that is a profananation on the basic teachings of Christianity. Those who aided and abetted his great crime and now wish the rest of us to forget their part — or, like Alistair Campbell, his "communications director," offer their bloody notoriety for the vicarious pleasure of some — might read the first indictment proposed by the Blair War Crimes Foundation: "Deceit and conspiracy for war, and providing false news to incite passions for war, causing in the order of one million deaths, 4 million refugees, countless maiming and traumas."

As for Afghanistan is Obama going to continue with more troops deployments or a different sort of military and diplomatic engagement. The current government in Afghanistan seems to be moving further to the right and accomadating Taliban style of government and justice.

"The Rise and Rise of the Neo-Taliban" By Syed Saleem Shahzad "Asia Times" , April 3, 2009--

-KARACHI - With the number of international soldiers in Afghanistan at an all-time high, they are prepared for their toughest season yet of fighting the Taliban-led insurgency that has grown beyond recognition in the past seven-plus years.

This year, though, the 70,000 troops - 38,000 of them American - face a new and ominous challenge in the form of the neo-Taliban, a new generation of Pakistani, Afghan, al-Qaeda and Kashmiri fighters who have adopted al-Qaeda's ideology, and who plan new tactics, according to Asia Times Online investigations.

The neo-Taliban's efforts will complement the traditional guerrilla war of the Kandahari clan in southwestern Afghanistan and suicide operations in and around Kabul and in southeastern Afghanistan.

See video Afghan-Pakistan situation dire; more troops may be needed: McClatchy Foreign Editor Roy Gutman speaks about Afghanistan." The Real News Network & McClatchy Newspapers, April, 1, 2009

and see: "Afghan-Pakistan situation dire; more troops may be needed" By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers, April 1, 2009

WASHINGTON — The situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan is "increasingly dire," top defense officials told Congress Wednesday, and they said that President Barack Obama may have to send another 10,000 troops beyond the 21,500 he's announced since taking office.

Michele Flournoy, the undersecretary of defense for policy, said the administration hasn't yet developed benchmarks to measure progress, but she predicted high human and financial costs for the U.S. in the campaign against Islamic militants in the two countries.

Adding to the bleak picture, Army Gen. David Petraeus, the commander of the U.S. Central Command, expressed doubts about the reliability of Pakistani security forces in supporting the U.S. effort to curb the spread of Islamic extremism in South Asia.

Petraeus conceded that the Pakistanis have betrayed America's trust in the past. He said, however, that the U.S. must show its commitment to the region, saying: "It is important the U.S. be seen as a reliable ally." He said the military may need to send 10,000 more troops than the number Obama already has announced, and a decision must be made in the fall.

Although the administration has identified Pakistan, where al Qaida's top leaders are thought to be hiding, as key to its strategy, that strategy consists largely of encouraging the Pakistanis to take more aggressive action against the militants, which they've been loathe to do.

and what is seen as a change in strategy that might pay-off is that :

...To succeed, the administration's strategy not only must quell increased violence in Afghanistan, but also address the rampant corruption of Afghan President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed regime and the growing Islamic militancy in neighboring, nuclear-armed Pakistan, which is a source of supplies, shelter and training for Afghan militants.

Beside more forces, the new strategy calls for a "surge" of hundreds diplomats and civilian specialists to help run elections and fight corruption and narcotics trafficking. It also calls for tripling economic aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year over five years.

as for human rights in Afghanistan is the Obama administration going to make it a top prority or like Bush & Co. merely use it as a way to justify more killing in Afghanistan and the expansion of the US Empire.

Silence Meets Despair of Afghan Women By Marie Cocco, Truthdig, April 2, 2009

" Afghanistan’s women are no longer in vogue."

It was only a few years ago that Laura Bush, who normally shied from causes that could be considered controversial, took up their banner. “The brutal oppression of women is a central goal of the terrorists,” the first lady said in a radio address shortly after President Bush launched the U.S-led invasion to overthrow the Taliban following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “The plight of women and children in Afghanistan is a matter of deliberate human cruelty, carried out by those who seek to intimidate and control.”

That was then. This is now: Afghan President Hamid Karzai has just signed a law that forces women to obey their husbands’ sexual demands, keeps women from leaving the house—even for work or school—without a husband’s permission, automatically grants child custody rights to fathers and grandfathers before mothers, and favors men in inheritance disputes and other legal matters. In short, the law again consigns Afghan women to lives of brutal repression.

“This is really, really dangerous for everybody in Afghanistan,” Soraya Sobhrang of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission said in a telephone interview from Kabul. Noting that violence against women already is rampant, Sobhrang said the new law effectively “legalizes all violence against women in Afghanistan.”

The legislation zoomed through Afghanistan’s parliament. Karzai, who faces elections in August, signed it in an apparent effort to placate conservative religious forces that are said to hold the balance of power in his re-election bid. The United Nations Development Fund for Women is still analyzing a final version of the legislation but says it is “seriously concerned.” The law appears to contradict both the Afghan constitution, which guarantees equal rights for men and women, and international conventions on human rights.

The U.S. State Department has had no comment.

Afghanistan’s women are, apparently, the latest casualty of the Obama administration’s tilt toward realpolitik: ignore human rights violations—whether they’re in China or Russia or in the quiet misery of an Afghan villager’s home—in pursuit of larger foreign policy goals.

This contradiction between political rhetoric and policy reality has often been the American way. But now we have Hillary Rodham Clinton as secretary of state. When she was first lady, she championed the rights of women oppressed by the Taliban long before most Americans had ever heard of that radical regime. Clinton took the helm of the State Department vowing to elevate the cause of human and economic rights for women and girls—a pledge she made again in The Hague this week at the end of a major conference on Afghanistan that was aimed at securing greater international cooperation on the desperate and disparate crises there.

“My message is very clear. Women’s rights are a central part of American foreign policy in the Obama administration; they are not marginal, they are not an add-on or an afterthought,” Clinton said in response to a general question about the situation confronting women in Afghan society. “You cannot expect a country to develop if half its population [is] underfed, undereducated, under-cared-for, oppressed, and left on the sidelines.”

and so it goes,
GORD.

Glenn Beck Compares Obama to Hitler & Obama's Bold Move Fires GM CEO & Reverses US Policies On Cuba

Glenn Beck calls Obama a Fascist compares Obama to Hitler
Stephen Colbert takes on Glenn Beck

Good News :
Obama fires GM CEO - Michael Moore is pleased
Obama wants Trade & travel restrictions to Cuba be overturned

Obama's mixed message on detainees / POWS/ Bagram etc.

And now for more insanity from Glenn Beck and his call for a peaceful uprising against in his opinion the Fascist Obama Administration.Odd he never spoke out against the Bush administration when it passed the Patriot Act or other draconian legislation. It never bothered him that some of those terrorist suspects detained at Guantanamo or elsewhere were in fact innocent. No like his buddies Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly ,Sean Hannity etc. he called American citizens disloyal and traitors if they publicly voiced their objections to the War in Iraq or other policies of the Bush Regime.

FOX's Glenn Beck compares Obama to the Nazis in Germany




Colbert takes on Glenn Beck-March 31, 2009



and here's the always insane hate monger Michael Savage on his radio show comparing Obama to Hitler are he and Glenn Beck reading from the same script from Karl Rove or what.
Michael Savage: Obama appointees actually have almost the same exact policies as the Nazi Party did




And here's an example of the type of thinking to be found on the Conservative/Far Right website Townhall.com. They the Republicans and conservatives still don't get it that their ideology and mean-spiritedness was rejected by the American people when they voted for Barack Obama and the Democrats.

The Republican Party: Lost in the Wilderness by Matt Barber at Townhall.com, April1, 2009

Much of the party leadership has become emotionally addicted to the placebo of political pragmatism, swallowing the media-driven misconception that, to voters, ideological “moderation” is somehow the political gold standard.

So, the Grand Old Party has become the Bland Old Party, suffering a largely self-inflicted electoral thumping at the ballot box two election cycles running.

... Despite the party platform explicitly affirming unborn children's “right to life which cannot be infringed,” current RNC Chairman Michael Steele recently chose to parrot the DNC’s pro-abortion talking points.

When asked about “abortion rights” in an interview with GQ magazine, Steele said: “I think that's an individual choice.” A clearly stunned interviewer followed up: “Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?” Steele: “Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice. … Yeah. Absolutely.”

But the enigmatic Steele didn’t stop there. While addressing the highly polarizing issue of homosexuality, he flippantly cast aside the GOP’s moral values banner, sounding off like a spokesman for the “gay” activist Human Rights Campaign.

Taking a jab at the untold thousands of ex-“gay” Americans who have found freedom from the homosexual lifestyle, he opined, “I don't think I've ever really subscribed to that view that you can turn it on and off like a water tap. You just can't simply say, oh, like, ‘Tomorrow morning I'm gonna stop being gay.’”

...If the GOP ever wishes to reverse its spiral into the abyss of irrelevancy, it must, in word and deed, make a bold, unapologetic return to the fiscally conservative and socially conservative policies that fueled the Reagan revolution



Obama Good News:

"We the People" to "King of the World": "YOU'RE FIRED!" Micheal Moore.com, April 1, 2009 (TruthOut)

Friends,

Nothing like it has ever happened. The President of the United States, the elected representative of the people, has just told the head of General Motors -- a company that's spent more years at #1 on the Fortune 500 list than anyone else -- "You're fired!"

I simply can't believe it. This stunning, unprecedented action has left me speechless for the past two days. I keep saying, "Did Obama really fire the chairman of General Motors? The wealthiest and most powerful corporation of the 20th century? Can he do that? Really? Well, damn! What else can he do?!"

This bold move has sent the heads of corporate America spinning and spewing pea soup. Obama has issued this edict: The government of, by, and for the people is in charge here, not big business. John McCain got it. On the floor of the Senate he asked, "What does this signal send to other corporations and financial institutions about whether the federal government will fire them as well?" Senator Bob Corker said it "should send a chill through all Americans who believe in free enterprise." The stock market plunged as the masters of the universe asked themselves, "Am I next?" And they whispered to each other, "What are we going to do about this Obama?"

Not much, fellows. He has the massive will of the American people behind him -- and he has been granted permission by us to do what he sees fit. If you liked this week's all-net 3-pointer, stay tuned...

Ban on travel to Cuba may be lifted
A bipartisan group of senators says Congress is ready to pass legislation to allow all Americans to visit Cuba. Supporters say the move would create thousands of jobs. By William E. Gibson los Angeles Times ,April 1, 2009 (TruthOut)

" Obama has ordered a review of U.S. policy on Cuba and last month loosened restrictions to let Cuban Americans visit relatives. Journalists can travel to Cuba, as can people on humanitarian missions."

-- A bipartisan group of senators predicted Tuesday that Congress was ready to pass legislation to allow all Americans to travel to Cuba.

Removing the travel ban would produce a burst of tourism, create thousands of jobs and generate as much as $1.6 billion in business a year, an independent research group said.

A Senate news conference Tuesday and one in the House set for Thursday reflect new attempts to lift the travel ban, a key part of the U.S. trade embargo imposed after Fidel Castro took power in Havana in 1959. The broader trade embargo would remain in place.

Sponsors said the bill would free Americans to travel to the one place in the world they can't go and encourage Cubans to push for democratic reforms by exposing them to new people and information.

"Punishing the American people in our effort to somehow deal a blow to the Castro government has not made any sense at all," said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.). "At long last, this policy, which has been in place for 50 years and has not worked, will finally be removed."

Sometimes it seems President Obama does not understand or he underestimates the political capitol he has with the American voters and may be squandering it .

So here's a bit concerning Obama's mixed message on the status of prisoners held in Bagram and other US facilities:

Is Obama just not thinking straight when it comes to so called terrorists being held in US run facilities or those run in cooperation with the US government or military. Why does Obama want to continue with the draconian Bush/Cheney policies in regard to " detainees"/ POWS. Is Obama playing some sort of elaborate political game ie sounding tough then hoping the DOJ will bring to his senses and therefore he gets to admit to mistakes and yet the policy is changed for him by a more independent and honest Department of Justice. Or does he just not realize that many of the people held in theses prisons are being held without any real evidence against them except those confessions brought about by harsh and abusive treatment and a little torture and threats on the side.

President Obama claimed his administration was going to abide by the Geneva Conventions and other International agreements - maybe he needs to re-read them . He will find that torture and abuse of prisoners is not tolerated and are not defined in the narrow sense that they are by Bush/Cheney, the Neocons or even Fox News or CNN or Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity or Ann Coulter et al. America does not have the right to define torture anyway it feels or in ways that will protect those Americans who have permitted the use of abusive, harsh techniques which under international law and which historically have been determined to be torture. Obama is either committed to abiding by International Laws or he is not there is no wiggle room . That's what Bush, Cheney , John Yoo and Condoleeza Rice et al did when they chipped away at the definition of abuse and torture to the point that only techniques which are life threatening or may lead to organ failure are considered torture. This would mean that ripping out someone's finger nails or shoving strips of bamboo under someone's finger nails would not constitute torture.

As for abuse the neocon thugs see even now nothing wrong with what they consider to be harmless pranks and a bit of horseplay or just goofing around so leading a naked man around on a dog leash or conducting mock executions or sleep deprivation or sensory deprivation or sensory overload or threatening a detainee's family if they didn't confess was ok. Are these things ok for Obama's administration to do. Under the normal rules of law any statement or confession made under these circumstances ie abuse, torture or duress are unreliable and are inadmissible to a real court of law as opposed to the kangaroo courts set up by the former Bush Regime. One wonders if Obama is truly committed to treating prisoners according to international standards and giving them access to legal counsel and allow some communication with their families and are given their day in court as soon as possible . Is Obama willing to break away from the illegal , immoral policies of the Bush Regime and its supporters.

Unfortunately he has a lot of Neocons and Hawks in his administration or outside of it giving him advice. This is creating problems with his Wall Street deals and with his foreign policy ie Iraq, Afghanistan , Israel, Palestine etc. Time for him to ignore them or toss them out and do the right thing rather than follow the same old disastrous policies which American presidents have been pursuing for the past forty or more years.

Federal Judge to Obama DOJ: You're Wrong, Bagram Prisoners Do Have Rights by Liliana Segura, AlterNet ,April 2, 2009.

Issuing a stern warning on executive power, Judge John D. Bates has granted three prisoners in Afghanistan the right to challenge their detention.

Nevertheless, Prof. Ramzi Kassem, an attorney for one of the detainees called it "a great day for American justice."

"Today, a U.S. federal judge ruled that our government cannot simply kidnap people and hold them beyond the law. Amin Al Bakri and his family can now rest assured that an impartial judge will give them their day in court."

...Barack Obama's Department of Justice made headlines in late February when it adopted the Bush administration's notoriously unconstitutional stance on prisoners at Bagram Air Base, claiming that such "detainees" have no right to challenge their detention. As the Independent UK reported at the time, "less than a month after signing an executive order to close the Guantanamo Bay prison camp, President Barack Obama has quietly agreed to keep denying the right to trial to hundreds more terror suspects held at a makeshift camp in Afghanistan that human rights lawyers have dubbed 'Obama's Guantanamo.'"

Four prisoners at Bagram, however, have been challenging this position in court since before Obama took office -- and today, three of them won a major victory.

In a momentous, 53-page decision by Judge John D. Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, a U.S. court concluded "for the first time," according to the International Justice Network, "that detainees held indefinitely without charge in U.S. custody in Afghanistan are entitled to challenge their detentions in U.S. courts."

Judge Bates wrote that "Bagram detainees who are not Afghan citizens, who were not captured in Afghanistan, and who have been held for an unreasonable amount of time" are entitled to the right of habeas corpus -- a smackdown of the Obama administration's claim to the contrary.

Obama lawyers have argued that, because Afghanistan (unlike Gitmo) is located in an active "war zone," prisoners held their may be subjected to indefinite detention. But Judge Bates didn't buy it.

"Although the site of detention at Bagram is not identical to that at Guantanamo Bay, the 'objective degree of control' asserted by the U.S. … is not appreciably different than at Guantanamo," Bates wrote.

Moreover, the right of habeas corpus was "forged to guard against" executive abuses like the "arbitrary exercise of the government's power to detain," he warned. Quoting the Supreme Court's landmark decision in Boumediene v. Bush, which granted prisoners at Guantanamo habeas rights, Bates wrote, "the Executive does not have "the power to decide when and where [the Constitution's] terms apply."
.

and so it goes,
GORD.

Is Mean-Spirited Arrogant Former VP Dick Cheney Out To Sabotage Obama's Presidency

Cheney's attacks on President Obama.
Cheney encouraged Israel to attack Gaza
Obama convinced Israel to withdraw from Gaza in January
Cheney says Obama has made America less secure
Cheney and his supporters still defend invasion of Iraq
Neocons Cliff May & John Hannah defends Cheney and the Bush administration


Note in the clip below with Chris Mathews & Cliff May of the Conservative think-tank- Foundation for Defense of Democracies (see more below)- as a defender of Cheney avoids the issue of the reasonableness or legality of invading Iraq or of abuse and torture of detainees. He claims only Waterboarding is torture (which is Cheney's line) and that it was used correctly on the right people.(as we have seen this is blatantly false-torture does not give one actionable or worthwhile intel) Which shows he and the Bush supporters have learned nothing from the Bush era. He even goes back to the Talking Point that there were no major attacks on the US after 9/11 which was due to the use of torture and other harsh methods on detainees combined with the use of renditions and the invasion of Iraq & the use of warrantless wiretaps.

Cliff May next claims that Al-Qaeda was defeated in Iraq. First off there was no Al-Qaeda in Iraq before the US invasion. Secondly the group in Iraq was not part of Al Qaeda but was called for PR reasons Al-Qaeda in Iraq. He also does not bother to mention that the insurgent problem in Iraq was mainly the product of the US invasion and occupation which were mismanaged and was a Public Relations disaster in Iraq and the Muslim and Arab world. Thirdly he doesn't bother to address the issue that over a million Iraqis have been killed and that the US destroyed Iraq's infrastructure which is still unrepaired which the Americans were responsible for under International Law.

He further attacks Sy Hersh as being a conspiracy theory nut-job and so shouldn't be taken seriously.Yet Sy Hersh is a well respected investigative journalists ie a real journalists which of course Neocons and conservatives hate they prefer the sort of Faux Journalists on CNN and FOX NEWS who spout the days conservative Talking Points which used to be issued by Cheney Bush and Karl Rove. Now at times these journalists are not sure what to think since they were not given the game plan for the day.

Cheney back in spotlight again -March 30, 2009- Hardball MSNBC



"Cheney disparaged Obama as someone who would not make it into the major leagues" & he claimed Obama is Pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel

Well it seems by becoming president of the United States he is in the major leagues. Otherwise what would be the major Leagues - Emperor of the Universe who knows.

Cheney encouraged Israel to attack Gaza and to continue it beyond the inauguration of President Obama. Obama on the other hand it is believed put pressure on Israel to end its invasion of Iraq. Kudos to Obama if this is true .
Cheney was trying to undermine the Obama administration from the very beginning.


Maddow on Cheney
Cheney attacks Obama to the Israelis over Gaza




OLbermann -Cheney sought to undermine Obama regarding Israel-March 30, 2009



CNN STILL DEFENDING BUSH & CHENEY- More Cheney style obfuscation , legalese , parsing etc.

Neocon Cheney supporter John Hannah surprise! Surprise! defends Dick Cheney- CNN April 1, 2009 ( for more on John Hannah see below)

03-30-09 John Hannah comes to the defense of Dick Cheney who is accused of undermining the current president by talking to Israel and casting doubt on Obama ability to defend



also see on Seymour Hersh revelations: " Seymour Hersh: Secret U.S. Forces Carried Out Assassinations in 'a Lot of' Countries, Including in Latin America ">

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!. (AlterNet) March 31, 2009.

The investigative journalist for The New Yorker explains his recent bombshell revelation about Dick Cheney's "executive assassination" squads.

For more on Cliff May and the Foundation for Defense of Democracies here's an excerpt from Right Web online which characterizes him as a Neocon & connected with Far Right individuals and organizations.

Clifford May, a former correspondent for the New York Times and a vociferous advocate of neoconservative-driven foreign policies, is the president of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD), one of a collection of advocacy outfits that emerged in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks to push for an expansive "war on terror" targeting various Islamic countries. Others of the same ilk included Americans for Victory over Terrorism, Family Security Matters, the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, the Coalition for Democracy in Iran, and the Committee on the Present Danger.

May frequently writes on threats from so-called Islamic fascists (a term also promoted by Norman Podhoretz, Frank Gaffney, and Daniel Pipes), pushing militaristic strategies to topple them, especially in countries like Iran and Syria. After the New York Times reported in early December 2007 on the release of a new U.S. National Intelligence Estimate that contradicted earlier intelligence claims (as well as the claims of many hardliners associated with Vice President Dick Cheney) by concluding that Iran had abandoned efforts to develop a nuclear weapons program, May was one of the first to lambaste the report. In the National Review blog "The Corner," May opined succinctly: "The purpose of this NIE is to prevent Bush from using military force during the remainder of his term to destroy Iran's nuclear weapons program" ("Re: Iranian Nukes," December 3, 2007).

May was one of several right-wing voices to sign on to a September 2007 declaration sponsored by the Forgotten American Coalition condemning the idea of withdrawal from Iraq. The coalition, spearheaded by Gary Bauer, is a letterhead organization that also hypes the threat from Iran and Syria. In July 2007, May was a panelist at the Washington, DC, summit of Christians United for Israel, which he described as focusing on Israeli security and "Islamic imperialists and supremacists" (Moyers, October 5, 2007).

In November 2006, May was one of the inaugural members of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion (ACPD). His initial appointment was for two years. Paula Dobriansky, undersecretary of state, is executive director of the committee; other committee members include Carl Gershman and Vin Weber of the National Endowment for Democracy, Michael Novak of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), and Jennifer Windsor of Freedom House (see "Inaugural Meeting," November 3, 2006). In September 2007, Media Matters criticized May for failing to disclose his government ties, and those of the FDD: "[May] has appeared in the media several times to defend the administration's conduct of the Iraq war. ... However, in none of his columns or on-air appearances has May disclosed that FDD has received at least $1.2 million in State Department grants since 2004, or that May himself is a member of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's Advisory Committee on Democracy Promotion" (Media Matters, September 10, 2007).

also see: " Cliff May: McCain was right about Iran and al Qaeda!!! " at Crooks and Liars March 22, 2008

also see:
" Cliff May's Defense of Cheney: Maybe Sy Hersh's Reporting is Wrong" By Heather at Video Cafe/ Crooks and Liars Mar 31, 2009

and:

" Neocon War Dance : response to "An Old Fashioned War" By Clifford May" at The Tom DeSabla Show, Jan. 7, 2006

Clifford May's "An old-fashioned war" (Jan. 1) is interesting, however, I believe his war-centric, apocalyptic analysis is fatally flawed. Similar views have become more popular in media and government after Samuel Huntington's "Clash of the Civilizations" was published. The events of September 11, 2001 have led to an American response largely based on this world view. The results are visible. Security and searches have increased, on planes and in many other areas of domestic life. Internationally, we have entered what we are frankly told is an endless state of war.

Now comes Mr. May to soothe us by saying that war is inevitable and is a perfectly normal state of humanity. "We are the historical oddballs," he says, presumably because some of us naive Westerners are squeamish about going to war. Apparently, Mr. May thinks we suffer from an appalling lack of desire to dominate the world. Is he saying that we should emulate Genghis Khan and pursue our enemies, take their property, and then their wives and daughters? Take a little joy in our conquests? Get jiggy with it? I'm hoping I misunderstood him.

Mr. May seems to forget who starts wars. It isn't the people. It's the governments who have an historic propensity to war. People tend to co-exist peacefully if no government incites them, oppresses them or plays favorites. Just because governments have never refrained from doing this does not equate to a genetic human desire to kill and subjugate our fellow man. He talks about Napoleon and the Nazis, conveniently forgetting that the people of France and Germany didn't plot to take over the world; their state leaders came up with the idea.

On John Hannah see Right Web Profile: John Hannah

Since October 2005, John P. Hannah has held the position of assistant for national security affairs to Vice President Dick Cheney. Prior to this appointment, Hannah was part of the vice president's national security staff for more than four years and played a major role in corralling intelligence that the Bush administration used to justify its 2003 invasion of Iraq. He previously served in the State Department's Office of Arms Control and International Security, alongside Undersecretary John Bolton, and in the State Department during the presidency of Bill Clinton.

Cheney promoted Hannah to his current role following the indictment and resignation of I. Lewis Libby, the vice president's former chief of staff, with whom Hannah worked closely. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald interviewed Hannah as part of the investigation that led to Libby's resignation, but despite speculation that he was involved in the outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame, Hannah was not charged with any crime. Hannah's promotion in the aftermath of the Plame scandal disappointed reform-minded Democrats who complained that Hannah was too closely linked to Libby. "Instead of cleaning house, you simply rearranged some of the furniture," Senate Democrats wrote Cheney, regarding Hannah's appointment (New York Times, November 4, 2005).

Soon after his promotion, Hannah, along with Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns, Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte, and National Security Council Deputy Adviser Elliott Abrams, conducted high-level, strategic meetings with Israeli officials regarding "the Iranian government's growing radicalization and its irresponsible policy on nuclear issues" (State Department, November 29, 2005). Hannah is among the hardliners on Iran within the vice president's office. When Tehran refused to suspend its uranium enrichment operations in August 2006, Hannah insisted on a firm U.S. response, arguing that anything less risked "allowing Iran's response to appear reasonable" (New York Times, August 25, 2006).

and so it goes,
GORD.

Bush and Cheney Lied About the Importance of Tortured Detainee Abu Zabaida Who's Confessions Were Mere Fabrications

Jack Bauer Torture Myths Still Promoted By Main Stream Media
High Profile Detainee's Confessions under torture mere fabrications
Bush, Cheney et al guilty of War Crimes etc.
Obama still unmoved by the mounting evidence and calls for investigations and indictments
Is Obama culpable if he helps to cover up these criminal activities or obstructs calls for justice
More on Spain's attempts to bring members of Bush Regime to justice

Anyway recently it was revealed in an article in the Washington Post that Cheney and Bush etc. were lying about the high profile case of alleged terrorist and Al Qaeda mastermind Abu Zubaida who was held in Guantanamo. Abu Zubaida was tortured and Bush and Cheney have claimed time and again that the information extracted from him was invaluable and this information was used to prevent several terrorists attacks on the United States and led to the arrests of other high profile Al Qaeda members. But it appears Abu Zubaida according to the Washington Post article was not a member of Al Qaeda before the 9/11 attacks and the Intel he provided was useless as the Post article points out :

" within weeks of his capture, US officials had gained evidence that made clear they had misjudged Abu Zubaida. President Bush had publicly described him as "Al Qaeda's chief of operations," and other top officials called him a "trusted associate" of Osama bin Laden and a major figure in the planning of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. None of that was accurate, the new evidence showed. "


and in fact the Washington Post points out that :


" Abu Zubaida was not even an official member of Al Qaeda, according to a portrait of the man that emerges from court documents and interviews with current and former intelligence, law enforcement, and military sources. Rather, he was a "fixer" for radical Muslim ideologues, and he ended up working directly with Al Qaeda only after Sept. 11 - and that was because the United States stood ready to invade Afghanistan. "

also see article by Abu Zubaydah's lawyer Brent Mickum who suggest that his client even now under the Obama administration is unable to get a fair hearing because there are those who are still in positions of power and authority who are afraid of all the facts in this case coming to light because they have taken part in or are complicit in War Crimes for which they might be prosecuted .Mickum also points out that the forced confessions of his client cast doubts about a number of other people who were detained based in whole or in part upon those confessions or who then made false confessions while being tortured concerning the role of Abu Zubaydah in terrorist activities.

"The truth about Abu Zubaydah:The Bush administration's false claim that my client was a top al-Qaida official has led to his imprisonment and torture " by Brent Mickum, Guardian.co.uk, March 30, 2009

Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Husayn, more commonly known as Abu Zubaydah, is my client. After being extensively tortured by the CIA and imprisoned in various black sites around the world, Zayn may finally be approaching his day in court. I and my co-counsel welcome that day. But what if we are successful and establish that Zayn is not an enemy combatant? Would any country agree to take our client? The Bush administration's misrepresentations about Zayn make that virtually impossible unless I am allowed to tell his side of the story. This article is the first step in that reclamation process.

...The Senate armed services committee recently released a public report that establishes that almost immediately after Zayn's capture, a group of some of the highest-ranking government officials in the land met in the White House to orchestrate and oversee his torture, months before the now-infamous torture memoranda were issued in August 2002. The individuals involved in this activity included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, former Attorney General for the Department of Justice John Ashcroft, and former Secretary of State Colin Powell. Aghast at the enormity of the government's willingness to approve torture, Ashcroft has been quoted as saying: "Why are we discussing this here? History will not judge us kindly."

[...] but the public is prevented from seeing them due to policies of the administration that have nothing do with national security; instead they have everything to do with preventing embarrassment and shielding individuals from potential war crimes charges. Why is our client not allowed to tell his story? The government has admitted to waterboarding him, [...]. The government's description of what that entailed is categorically false, like so many statements about our client.

...As with the weapons of mass destruction and the need for war in Iraq, it is no longer shocking to find that the Bush administration got it all wrong. Abu Zubaydah's supposed relationship with al-Qaida is a complete myth. In an ever-growing litany of horrors, the Bush administration tortured the wrong guy, just as it tortured my former clients, British residents Bisher al-Rawi and Jamil el-Banna and British citizen Martin Mubanga, who were returned to England without charge. But what additional evidence exists to support the assertion that Abu Zubaydah was never with al-Qaida?

...What becomes of Zayn depends on whether the truth can be revealed to the public. Consistent with its position on other prisoners who were seized in error, such as the Canadian citizen Maher Arar, who was mistakenly arrested and sent to Syria for torture; the German citizen Khaled el-Masri, who was tortured in Afghanistan at a prison called the "Salt Pit" and eventually dumped alone on a road in Albania and left to make it back to his wife and home; the Bush administration never admitted to making any mistakes. Doing so would have opened it to criticism for not affording prisoners some legal process to argue their innocence before they were tortured. It was much easier simply to assert over and over again that only the "worst of the worst" were housed at Guantanamo.

History will look back at Guantanamo and find precious little to justify that charge. My best guess is that at the end of the entire process, not more than 25-30 actual trials will take place, out of the more than 1000 prisoners who have made their way through the prison camp.

Unlike Maher Arar and Khaled el-Masri, whose countries championed their return, no country is extending a hand to help a stateless Palestinian, given the administration's public statements about him. Unless the Obama administration allows me to negotiate openly on his behalf and provide officials with an actual account of his activity, he will continue to fade from view, which is, I fear, exactly what the administration wants.

Intel Officials Admit Torture Did Not Work At All-March 30, 2009 Cenk Uygur -The Young Turks

Watch more at http://www.theyoungturks.com



Note even Cenk Uygur seems to accept some of the allegations made against Abu Zubaydah which may in fact prove to be manufactured in order for those involved in this miscarriage of justice to cover their tracks. We must always take into account that we are dealing with a rather cynical group of Machiavellians that is Bush, Cheney, Gonzales, Yoo, Rice ,Rumsfeld et al. & we should give honorable mention at the least to the Main Stream Media in the US which acted as mere propagandists for the Bush/Cheney Regime and even now do their best to paint the Bush era in the best light possible no matter how far from the actual truth.

also see: " Officials: Torture Confessions Not Proven Useful: White House pressured CIA to extract plots " By Peter Finn and Joby Warrick Washington Post,March 30, 2009


" Ex-State Dept. lawyer decries torture at Gitmo Former counsel says Bush administration overreacted after 9/11" AP March 27, 2009

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico - A former State Department lawyer responsible for Guantanamo-related cases said Friday that the Bush administration overreacted after 9/11 and set up a system in which torture occurred.

Vijay Padmanabhan is at least the second former Bush administration official to publicly label “enhanced interrogation techniques” as torture. He said the administration was wrong in its entire approach when it sent detainees to the remote Navy base and declared it out of reach of any court.

“I think Guantanamo was one of the worst overreactions of the Bush administration,” Padmanabhan told The Associated Press. He said other overreactions included extraordinary renditions, waterboarding that occurred at secret CIA prisons and “other enhanced interrogation techniques that would constitute torture.”

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Rachel Maddow discusses the issues raised by having a Spanish Judge investigating members of the Bush Regime of being complicit in illegal actions of torture. She also discusses the Abu Zubaida case inwhich he was torured and the intel received turned out to be useless.

Rachel Maddow Show - Protector of the flame of American Justice: Spain. Wait... Spain? 03_30_09 visit: http://firedoglake.com



Bill O'Reilly claims Spain is not a true friend of America. His main beef that Spain is insulting America. But this is not quite true . The Spanish judge is not going after America but members of the former Bush Regime for specific illegal actions. Once again O'Reilly like many in the US media conflate or equate the former Bush administration and its employees with America.It is odd how conservatives claim that the former Bush administration is to be equated with America and the American people and yet they claim President Obama's administration does not represent Real America .It is like Louis the 14 th claiming Iam the state and the state is me.

Bill O'Reilly Threatens To Not Travel To Spain Anymore-March 31, 2009

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/03...

Oh, snap, y'all! Fox News' Bill O'Reilly is WARRING, people! And not just with tearful towheaded turf taker Glenn Beck. No, no! O'Reilly has heard the latest news from Spain, and is just mad indignant over it all. So during last night's "Talking Points" section, he gave Spain a hot mug of SUCK IT.

So it appears that Waterboarding and other so called harsh techniques do not qualify as torture when they are used by US personnel or America's friends but are torture when done by governments who are not liked by the Americans. As Jason Linkins points out in this article at the Huffington Post:

Washington Post Finally Describes Waterboarding As Torture (When Someone Else Does It) by Jason Linkins,Huffington Post, March 31, 2009

Here's some unique writing from the Washington Post, in an article about a man named Kaing Khek Lev, or "Duch," a notorious genocidaire of the Khmer Rouge, who this week took responsibility for his crimes, namely running "the Khmer Rouge's most notorious torture center, Tuol Sleng in Phnom Penh," where an "estimated 16,000 men, women and children died." Now, we've read a lot of descriptions of torture in the Washington Post, but some editor allowed reporter Tim Johnston to file an extraordinary rendition:

The prosecution described a chain of death operated by Duch. His victims -- most of whom were either disgraced members of the Khmer Rouge or their families -- were tortured with electric shocks, waterboarding or beating to extract a confession, which would implicate new victims. After confessing, the victims would be killed, most often by a sharp blow to the back of the head.


"There were autopsies carried out on live persons, there was medical experimentation, and people were bled to death: These were all crimes against humanity admitted by Duch," the prosecutors charged in the indictment. Among the four forms of torture he officially condoned, they said, was pouring water up victims' noses.

Wow. You see what Johnston did there, right? He called waterboarding "torture." He specifically called "pouring water up victims' noses"...torture.

It's a break from typical media traditions, obviously. See, when outfits like the WaPo typically talk about waterboarding, it's referred to as "a form of simulated drowning that U.S. officials had previously deemed a crime" or "harsh interrogation tactics" or an "interrogation tactic" or "harsh interrogation practices" or "a practice that years later would be condemned as torture by Democrats and some Republicans on Capitol Hill." But unless you are in possession of whatever gland produces honesty, like Dan Froomkin, you never, never, ever just come right out and say that waterboarding is torture.

I guess it becomes "torture" when it's being done by genocidal Communist madmen, whose political ideology lacks the beautiful exceptionalism that normally transforms an abhorrent and inhumane act into a patriotic gesture. At least I think that's the equation. I'm willing to revisit this position if, say, Ruth Marcus puts on her Inanity Cap and pens a piece about how we should give Duch a break because SURELY, when he was torturing and killing people in Phnom Penh, he was acting "not with criminal intent, but in the belief that they had grants of authority reaching to the highest levels of government."

and so it goes,
GORD.