by Len Hart, The Existentialist CowboyIn a paper called "In Defense of Humanity", the 46 deputies representing of the Russian Federation Communist Party have denounced what they've termed "Guantanomo's shame" and have demanded that the U.S. detention center in Cuba be closed. 400 intellectuals from 30 countries signed a formal document calling for the closure.
The signatories include Guennadi Ziuganov, president of the Russian Federation Communist Party, Nobel Prizewinner Zhores Alfiorov, Deputy President of the Law Camera Valentin Kupsov, President of the parliamentary group of friendship with Cuba Vitali Sebastianov, Cosmonaut Svietlana Savitskaya and General Director of the Russian paper "Sovietskaya" Rossia Valentin Chiquin. They have unanimously accused the Bush administration and U.S. Euroopean allies of working to prevent the Human Rights Commission in Geneva from formally condemning violations of human rights by the United States at Guantanamo.
The paper has charged the governments of the European Union with refusing to admit evidence of torture and other human rights violations by the United States.
According to the Latin American news agency, Presna Latina, the 62nd Session of the UN Commission on Human Rights is set to convene in Geneva on March 20th. By that time, it is expected that world media will have broadcast new video footage of the U.S. military torturing Iraqi prisoners.
Following closely on the heels of the Russian action, the New York Times reports that torture continued both before and after the closure of Abu Ghraib.
In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball. Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.Signatories to "In Defense of Humanity" have meanwhile called on "world intellectuals, social organizations and anyone of good will" to demand that the United Nations order the closure of the U.S. base in Cuba.
18 comments:
Now, even Blair has joined in the "close Guantanamo" fray, however reluctantly, and has also made it clear that Britain won't participate in a war on Iran.
This must be a heavy blow —even to Bush.
As Limbaugh would say: "It's just "Club Gitmo" where you get a rifle butt to the jaw and a nice, electric shock to your genitalia.
The bloodthirsty cries of the neocon crowd makes me sick.
"By that time, it is expected that world media will have broadcast new video footage of the U.S. military torturing Iraqi prisoners."
Indeed - Salon.com has done just that.
You know, Len, I was thinking: the United States spent 13 billions for the Iraqi reconstruction program. Meantime, we have already spent roughly $1200 billion (3 times 400 Billions) into this war.
To promote his agenda of democracy building in the middle-East, Bush loves to bring the example of post world war Europe (Rummy did the same thing today).
Now, one’s got to ask oneself, what would have become of Europe if, instead of a Marshall plan, the United States would have spent the same amount of money (value adjusted) toward the European reconstruction as the ridiculous amount it has spent on Iraq?
In the morrow of WWII, in France, the communist party was enormous, organized, very anti-American, and ready to take the country over. Ditto in Germany. On the other hand, other fascist groups, like the French’s FFI, had also their feet on the starting block, ready to race toward the top of the west European peaking order.
But thank to the United States very generous grant – even if this thought came solely from their staunch anti-communistic values... and the need to create custommers for American goods - European countries such as France, England and Germany rebuilt into 30 years of prosperity in friendly democracies; to the point that even France and Germany, after a century of lethal feuds, strangely became the best pals in the world.
Germany, which had been thoroughly destroyed by the United States, even became... one of the best United States ally! Now, that's a historical achievement.
Thus, when crazy Bush brings the history of Europe as “the” standard to follow in the Iraqi adventure, he is, once again, full of shit.
If the Bush administration was so eager to create a stable democracy in Iraq, we would have come up with a real Marshall plan, of, say, a one time $250 billion (that is still cheaper than 3 years of military deployment!), with a billion allocated solely toward a sole entity in charge of making sure the money is well spent –perhaps with the oversight of the UN or the World bank. With this kind of money, we would have rebuilt the entire infrastructure already, all the power plants, and the whole water distribution system. With such blessing falling from the sky, even shortly after the last American bomb has stopped, The Iraqi people would have found it weird to support any insurgency against such a generous friend. Again, see Germany, circa 1947~50.
Can you imagine the faces of millions of other middle-eastern folks witnessing, on Al-Jaazira, such American generosity toward an Arab country? America could have created, (like post WWII Europe facing the Soviet Union, and the rise of communism), a real friend in the Middle East; many friends among the Iraqi Neighbors (to the equal dismay of Iran and Israel of course!)
But you know how it goes. America has not been able to create a single friend since WWII. Instead we have spent the last half century in creating enemies. It makes sense. Without a permanent war to protect the western world against the “enemy of our civilization”, America would become irrelevant on the world stage and would disappear from the world stock exchanges altogether.
You're right, Rurikid. Nor should Britain attack Iran! On the best estimates they are 5 - 10 years away from a nuclear bomb with no delivery missiles. Whatever their anti-Israeli rhetoric they are still signatories to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (unlike the US which has never signed)and they are fulfilling the provisions.
The current US policy in regard to Iran is a total beat up and distracts from the dangerous policy initiatives being undertaken by the US elsewhere:
(1) Support for Indian civil nuclear programs allows India to transfer their current nuclear materials straight into their weapons program.
(2) The US has decided to 'upgrade' its nuclear arsenal with the latest technology. Why? The current ones will function for thirty more years. And, more importantly, there is absolutely no recognition in this of the environmental lunacy of exploding nuclear weapons.
(3) The Pentagon's Strategic Command STRATCOM has developed CONPLAN 8022, a strike plan which lowers the threshold on nuclear use, under the false belief that 'low yield' nuclear weapons can be safely used against specific high value targets in a number of countries seen to be obstructing US policy. These are fully developed contingency plans involving selected bombers, ICBMs and SSBNs and the program was succesfully exercised in Global Lightning 06 in Nov 2005 . This is the active wargaming of nuclear weapons usage that is seen as not only liveable but necessary, perhaps even desirable. (>> )
(4) Part of the charter given to STRATCOM in Aug 2005 was to develop a nuclear strike plan against Iran as a response to any 9/11type terrorist action in the US. Importantly, this response was to be regardless of any demonstrated Iranian involvement.
As you've already shown Len, the mindset of the US military is not up to handling the politics involved. As for the Bush administration: the same incompetence that marked Katrina, the US economy and Iraq is now going nuclear.
Dante Lee's point about spending all this defence money on human enterprises is right on. But that would require some kind of vision other than being the biggest and most dangerous terrorist on the planet.
where do we get such men?
http://damien911.blogspot.com/2006/02/terrorist-pilots.html
"But that would require some kind of vision other than being the biggest and most dangerous terrorist on the planet."
... A vision that a democratic presidential candidate can argue before American citizens. Has Hillary got any balls?
She's not going to make it, Dante (imo). Events will overtake her. Feingold is looking good.
By the way, after the Pakistan earthquake the US military won popular support in Pakistan by helping the victims. When the mullas denounced the US in the mosques the people shouted them down. Then the US killed off a family in a missile attack against Zarqawi (does he still exist?). Suddenly all that good will was lost. Which goes to support exactly your point. A policy of kindness to ME peoples will totally defeat islamic militancy. But, no, we need to pursue the inhuman, dumb, violent and ineffectual policy of killing any 'raghead' who stands in our way (or stands up for their rights). What are the US leaders in this but absolute fuckwits?!!!
(Sorry about the bad language - I've been looking over the stats and photos of the iraqi economic sanctions. This stuff stuff screams out for trials at the Hague. They did this and this and this and this and this.")
I saw those horrendous pics earlier today. But, hey, who gives a damn, uh? We did not sign the treaty for an international court. We're untouchable: http://www.chris-floyd.com/march/
I can't pass on this one. It seems "the same highly-placed neoconservatives who have been crying wolf over Iran’s non-existent nuclear weapons appear to have been deeply—and lucratively—involved in the trafficking of restricted and forbidden weapons technology into Turkey." A great read for those who are interested! (>>)
Damien - I agree that Feingold looks good. In fact, he looks like he's the only one (apart from lackluster and charismaless Kucinich and good old Conyers) with any honesty, vision, integrity and cojones, plus he has the looks, demeanor and charisma necessary for that position. I'm all for Feingold in 2008.
Off topic, for Damien. I posted your "terrorist pilots" on a small discussion board (here) under the handle "Santhoshi", because there's a pilot who posts there too. He's not a commercial airliner pilot, but owns and flies a small private plane. He posted a partial point-by-point rebuttal here, and I thought you might be interested in his response. Feel free to post there under any handle you wish, if you feel inspired to.
Rurikid, thanks for the link. This obviously needs discussion elsewhere but I only found two items of Santoshi to agree with and neither of those were central to the main idea of the original article. Santoshi's flight engineering coments are laughable and his 'explanations' re the Pentagon are superficial and inaccurate (There are plenty of detailed sites on the Pentagon evidence). The issues deserve accurate treatment. I will do some research and post rebuttals at my blog in a week or so. Sorry I can't do that immediately (real life chewing up my time). I stand by the original article and I will respond when I can. Thanks.
Damien, you confuse 12R with Santhoshi. :) I'm the one posting under the handle of Santhoshi, 12R is the pilot rebutting the article I copy/pasted from your blog.
Sorry about the "word verification" stuff, guys and gals. I didn't want to do this...but it's purpose is to put a stop to that spammer —probably just a machine.
Rurikid, apologies for my confusion. There are clearly some unsatisfactory aspects to the Sagadevan article. But I'm not convinced that the main aspects are incorrect. I will post some evidence and links at my blog site for you to review - and, perhaps, post at the site of the critical comments (as soon as I can get free of some distractions.) That would be a more appropriate. Cheers!
That's okay, Len (the word verification thing). It's not really a bother, and sometimes the letters almost form funny or even rude words!
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