What? Did you miss this in the US corporate news? So did I… Imagine that? See the Washington Times report about this world news…Newspaper says Poland’s ex-intelligence chief charged in alleged torture at secret CIA prison
Solitary confinement is the favorite manner that the US tortures people with and the State of Colorado has just admitted to torturing people in this manner to the federal government, yet the Obama Administration will not begin to punish the governments in Colorado that use this torture method on prisoners held, since the Federal government uses it, too. The Obama Administration did ask that the State of Colorado not use it to torture TOO many prisoners with though. How nice. See Colorado to move 321 inmates out of solitary
Said, in different words, that the illegal conquest Iraqi Oilfields and National Prison-camp Ghetto Rebuilding has been secured and that the Iraqi Puppet Army and Police are sufficiently trained in Western Style Police Brutality.
What a victory for Righteousness and Decency!
Strange that they never found all those WMDs, though, ain’t it? Meanwhile neighboring Syria and Iran are targeted and Guess Which Really Stupid Lie They’re Telling Us to justify that? Go on, guess…
Ok I’ll tell you. WMDs. Apparently a nation like the U.S. which employs torture and assassinations that have historically killed about twenty times as many non-combatants as they do “terrorists” and many of whose political leaders believe they should establish a fundamentalist religious dictatorship worldwide, is the only nation morally fit to have WMDs. Add in that the U.S., which has more of every class of weapon than the entire rest of the world combined, is also the only nation to have used all three classes of WMD, Biological, Nuclear and Chemical.
And routinely uses gas and is experimenting with mass Pain weapons against “their own” citizens. Sort of a high-tech version of what they accuse Gadafi and Hussein of doing.
And make no mistake, the American Cop or Soldier using torture or killing anybody anywhere in the world, gets just as big a sadistic thrill from his use of violence as any of Saddam or Moammar’s worst Gestapo-esque Goon Squad member.
They get a bigger thrill when the victim is a Child, elderly or disabled.
Yeah. Even the CSPD. I bet they show the Explorers videos of their torture sessions to weed out those who aren’t as depraved as Real Cops.
There’s also the matter of Afghanistan….
And leave us not forget Pakistan. Which General Betray-us has in his sights now that he’s the chief of the Central Global Intelligence Agency.
The military and Intelligence services have united, wholeheartedly, behind the Conquest of The World for the profit of the 1%.
Afghanistan, which they cheerfully predicted would be a cakewalk, like Iraq, which neither of them actually WAS a “cakewalk”… because of their relative poverty, really small populations and lack of actual Weapons of Any Destruction…
Afghanistan was ranked the poorest country on earth, had 5 aircraft in the entire country which were destroyed within the first several minutes of the intensive bombing.
The second and subsequent waves of bombing were, as one analyst boasted, “stirring up the rubble from the first”. I’m not going to apologize for saying this, if any of the Right Wing Trolls who read this haven’t figured that out, too damn bad, but Aerial Bombardment is Babykilling and always has been. What the U.S.A.F. has done in Afghanistan and Iraq and Libya is morally equivalent to what the Italian, Spanish and Luftwaffe “volunteers” did in Guernica and Ethiopia.
Now some of the Educated Morons in the State Department and Military are making plans Open Threats to do the same to Pakistan and Iran.
Let’s do some comparison figures to show the accuracy of my next statement shall we?
Iraq (by CIA estimates) 30 million.
Oklahoma (approximate equivalent geographic size) 3 million
Most of Iraqi population concentrated in three cities.
Afghanistan, 29 million.
Iran 72.9 million.
Whoa now, that’s 120% of the combined populations of Iraq, Afghanistan.
Y’all MightMakesRight Wingnuts still following that, or do actual and correct numbers frighten you? Like they do with Gun Death statistics in America or the percentage of White people on welfare…
Pakistan 170 million.
and Pakistan actually HAS nuclear weapons, developed and deployed using American foreign aid (buy the countries guns instead of butter)
Libya built hospitals throughout Africa with their “socialist” nationalized oil money. The U.S. sent in guns and military “advisers” aka “Provincial governors”. Same with Chavez/Castro in the Americas. They built medical schools, sent in doctors… and the U.S. spent trillions propping up puppet Corporate Dictatorships like Panama and Costa Rica.
U.S. supplied rifles and ammunition are being used to assassinate labor leaders and doctors in Panama and Costa Rica even as I write this, and the people targeted for death, their identities and locations were provided to the Panamanian and Costa Rican Dictators by U.S. Military and CIA “advisors”.
So, here’s that statement I mentioned the Population Comparisons would bear out the truth thereof…
The scenario for conquering Iran and Pakistan involves a nuclear exchange. U.S. bases in the region, including the soldiers who were NOT pulled out of Iraq, (only combat soldiers were, there’s still U.S. Air Force and Army bases there… once we take a country we don’t voluntarily give it back) to back up the Puppet Regime.
All U.S. bases in the region will be placed in direct line of retaliatory strikes.
And it would take nuclear strikes on the part of the Koalition of The Killing (U.S., U.K., the rest of NATO) to neutralize Iran and Pakistan.
Oh, and did I mention, at least in this post, that three other Nuclear Armed states adjoin Iraq and Pakistan.
China, India and (I’m counting it like it was still Soviet) Russia.
The scenario the Pentagon describes is in the “Best Case” annihilation of Pakistan and Iran before there can be a retaliatory strike and hopefully before Iranians and Pakistani soldiers and militia swarm over the porous borders of Iraq and Afghanistan to avenge the (projected) U.S. led murders of their countrymen.
Teheran would have to be “sacrificed”, undoubtedly. 8 million people and the fast read of the population reports don’t show how many kids that is. Doesn’t matter though because the Bomber Boys enjoy the prospect of Killing More Babies. Doesn’t bother them a bit.
The worst case scenario is one of global nuclear holocaust.
A temper tantrum by the Corporate Empire based on “If we can’t have it, nobody can!”
Yep, the war is over.
So there was a recent Letter To The Editor of the Denver Post pissing and moaning about the Denver cops being sued just because they killed a guy with their tasers.
“Stop being such crybabies, sure they killed him so what? They obviously didn’t intend to kill him because they used tasers instead of guns to do it!”
So, a matter of degree in HOW lethal a Deadly Weapon is?
Taser deaths have steadily climbed. There were two Colorado Springs robberies I can immediately recall using tasers, both carried the “charge” (little electric joke) of Armed Robbery WITH A DEADLY WEAPON.
If it’s good enough for the cops to call tasers a deadly weapon in one context, why not consider it likely to be a deadly weapon in others?
Audie Murphy was shot a few times, by people carrying military grade firearms (cause they were in an Army) but didn’t die from the wounds.
Is a military firearm, then, LESS or MORE lethal than a taser? The argument that a taser is not deadly when used by “trained professionals”? Bullshit.
Taser deaths have been overwhelmingly the results of attacks by “Trained Professionals”.
In fact, that kind of Back The Badge claim has a disturbing back-end, if they’re trained not to murder people with a taser, then the deaths must be deliberate.
Nice try, DP LTTE writer. You might want a doctor to check out that leg, your knee jerked to the Right so fast it must have hurt.
Tasers are, by the way, according to the manufacturers safe to use on children as young as 2 years.
Which means either they’re telling an outright lie or, the Taser company actually tested it by torturing Human Babies with it.
“She wet herself! Taze her again!”
Now, the babies they used for testing were undoubtedly in Third World countries so it wouldn’t be nearly as heinous as torturing American kids, righ… ok so I can’t force myself to write it all the way…
What kind of sick bastard Demon Spawn finds it prudent or necessary to taser BABIES?
Just a guess, here, but maybe somebody who believes and states in writing to a prominent newspaper like the Denver Post the belief that failure to instantly comply with his Police State Masters should carry a sentence of “Death by Torture”.
So I guess Killing Civilians isn’t either.
Naturally it was the fault of the civilians themselves for living in the middle of a War Zone, obviously they asked God or Allah or the Great Gazzoo beforehand to be born into the poorest place on earth and the middle of a land coveted for millennia by so many Empires for its strategic location.
I bet it will make the usual War-Mongers in town, the ones who say they gave me the right to say this so I’d “goddam better shut my pie hole about it” Really Happy to know that some of the “Terrorists” executed without trial or even charges in this airstrike were Kids.
All Hail the Empire! The Emperor Knows Best!
And according to a “liberal” friend from Arizona it’s “Crazy” to say anything different.
They’re sponsoring Call of Duty:whateverthehellnumber : BlackOps.
In the Jeep commercial they show screenshots of a Black Jeep SUV in some tropical location that exists only in the imaginations of the designers of the game, who never got closer to actual war than speeding up as they passed the Army Recruiter’s office on their way to a College Republicans meeting.
Call of “Duty”? BlackOps is not very discrete code for Murder, Kidnap and Torture, in other words, REAL terrorism funded and backed by a massive military industrial complex. Of which the manufacturers of Jeep are a proud member-group.
BlackOps is not anybody’s “Duty” it’s a pleasure romp for people who enjoy killing and enjoy torture and enjoy the feeling of helpless victims fearing them. The sick bastards who play the game on their computers in their Moms’ basements and fantasize killing are only slightly less sick than the ones who go out and commit the actual Murders, kidnaps and tortures. Or the political bastards who order the Terroristic BlackOps strikes.
Games like that destroy your own capacity to think rationally, it’s a downward spiral into being the formerly human equivalent of a mechanical drone. THEY push your launch buttons and aim you toward their target, as intelligent and free and human as a simple bullet.
Kiefer Sutherland strokes again. Strokes that Cheney Fantasy about how Torture is Good (for something other than a quick orgasm)
Maybe he ought to be strapped into a chair and punched in the middle of his Smug face, just to give him a little tiny taste of the bullshit his Terrorist Heroes, the ones he and his co-“stars” portray, put REAL Men through. MEN whose butts he’s not worthy to kiss.
He’s smart enough and educated enough to realize that what he’s doing is LYING, and that the LIES he portrays on-screen keep the Hate-and-War Murder Machine rolling for his Masters. He’s the lowest form of Babykiller and he God-damn knows it.
His Sanity Challenged Fans who watch “24” MIGHT not be smart enough to recognize it.
They might actually BELIEVE that somehow every week at whatever time the ShitShow is on, a Torture Freak named Jack Bow-wow (or MeeHoff?) saves New York City from nuclear armed Terrorists.
Maybe they’re really aware of what LIES they tell to get their War-Gasm going., and like him and Cheney and Bush and Rove and the rest of their Murdering Accomplices, they just don’t give a shit.
How about it, War Pigs? Chime in, tell the truth for the first time in your nasty little pathetic cowardly lives… Are you, indeed, aware that you’re Murdering Sick Bastards, or are you just too God-damn retarded to tell the difference?
AFTER it was reported that none of the three, either the PIGS or the shooter, suffered life threatening injuries. They’re probably hustling him off to a USMC or USAF or CIA Torture Center, where the Torture Freak PERVERTS can have their sick sadistic way with him indefinitely and without him ever having Habeus Corpus, a trial, anything like that.
The Sickest part of that is some of our Local Right Wing “Back the Badge” piglovers are going to say “so what? Anybody who rebels against the Empire DESERVES to be tortured!”
They’ll probably wrap it with Bible quotations so they can go to church Sunday and pretend to be Godly, too. Too bad the Pentagon PIGS didn’t die. They’d be in HELL where they belong.
I can easily see how somebody who has “enjoyed the hospitality” of the Police State Goon Squads would want to bust a cap through one of their Snouts. Something about being beaten and tasered while handcuffed could bring out that reaction in the most saintly of us.
Some of the sanctimonious Hypocrites will criticize me even mentioning that. “Give place, for we are holier than thou”.
Then the Smug “christian” bastards will turn their Pig Minions loose to commit further Hate Crimes, all without any kind of actual judicial review. The Pig Chaplains and the Army Chaplains will be the worst of the lot, they sell not only their own souls to the god of War in the name of “serving” the God who made us all, but the souls over whom the Antichrist Army gives them leadership.
It’s why I don’t attend Church. Because I know that the Churches in this town or any other will worship the Pigs as though they were angels from heaven instead of, as they actually are, Demons in human form.
The worst part of it would be after the service, when some PIG would want to shake my hand and pretend that he considers himself to be my Brother In Christ… when any other hour of the week he would cheerfully beat me down while I’m handcuffed. (I speak from experience here) and every Pious Hypocrite from the Pastor on down would back him up on it.
I’ll not match their hypocrisy with hypocrisy on my part. I’ll not pretend to believe that they have any kind of Christian love or brotherhood about them.
They devour the houses of widows and orphans, and for a pretense make long prayers.
(and want to shake your hand and pretend they love you as a brother)
Then why does one of our major partners and Torture Contractors, Egypt, pull stunts like this?
They’re trying a blogger in a military tribunal, with a chance at one of those indefinite sentences like the Bush Administration first imposed in their War Of Terror, complete with Torture. Since the law they’re using is a direct copy from the so-called “patriot” act. And that Egypt was our primary source of Torturers until the Bush Regime identified and hired enough Sick Bastard PedoNecroSadoPhiles to staff our own torture centers like Bagram AFB, Abu Ghraib, and of course Guantanamo.
Actually the reason the War Proponents say that war ended Fascism, Communism, Slavery, etc etc..
Is because they’re liars as well as cowards. It’s kind of like when the British,French, Dutch, Russian and Belgian EMPIRES declared early in World War One that they were fighting to end Imperialism.
Using State Sponsored Terrorism to “combat terror”. Yeah. Right.
Fight Fascism by becoming fascists.
Remember, he’s the one who said he couldn’t enlist in the Army because of his missionary duty. Lying puke. His sons, in his campaign, said they had more important things to do, like getting Daddy elected. When he didn’t even get the nomination, they didn’t join the Babykilling War For Profit that Mr Bush started and they and their Coward Ass Daddy promoted.
Like Coward-ass Father, Like Coward-ass sons.
Mormon ChickenHawk also said that only the Private Corporations who pay his bribes can save America.
The one that was supposedly broken by U.S. Customs on one side of the border and the RCMP on the others.
That would be Customs before they became the Terrorist acronym “ICE”, under the Liberal Bill Clinton, and the Canadian Cops, who, according to the Right Wing Screaming Club, are wimps whose idea of Torture is serving the tea with 2 sugars instead of3 a tad cooler than it’s supposed to be served and forgetting to begin and end a sentence with the word “Sir”.
Seems the Rush Limbaugh “professional torturers” who know all there is to know about the Law, the Constitution that is the basis of that Law and how to interrogate people, wanted to have instead of a usual method of arresting, booking, and charging a Human Being with a felony, wanted to skip straight to the pulling out of fingernails, waterboarding and Crucifixion.
Seriously, Right wing freaks, listen up… Torture is a sex crime, a violent rape. The persons who engage in torture are in fact Rapists. You would commit our national security into the hands of Perverted Assholes who get sexually aroused by human beings screaming in pain. They need a check-up from the neck-up, not a cushy government job, not guaranteed unlimited immunity from prosecution from their Violent Sexual Predator Rapes.
And the MORONS who support these policies of allowing Torture Freak Sadist Rapists to hold the lives and deaths not only their bound and helpless victims but also the lives and deaths of Americans everywhere who are put at risk because they’re wasting their time and our money Getting Their Pathetic Little Rocks Off. If you’re Stupid enough or Insane Enough to trust YOUR safety, and of course mine, to people who are that Mentally Off-Balance that they enjoy, sexually, the pain of others then you also need a Check-up from the Neck-up.
Is the difference between a Militia Group (like those commanded by Washington) and the VietMinh or the Taliban “Insurgents” A matter of Semantic Perspective that’s vital to propagandists, espicially if the Propagandists don’t have anything better.
It’s the so-called “difference” between “conqueror” and “liberator” ,
USAF Bomber v Suicide Bomber
Decapitation with a sword and decapitation with a .50 caliber round fired frim a Vulcan electric motorized Gatling gun.
Waterboarding as War Crime when practiced by the Imperial Japanese Army and waterboarding as “enhanced interrogation” when done by the Imperial American USMC, CIA and DHS.
Tianmen Square and the Boston “massacre” or the Honduran “counterinsurgency”.
The Anschluss and “Regime Change”.
Genocide against European minority groups and Genocide against American Indians.
The list goes on, but the main difference is that Land Mines are forbidden for deployment and the Terrorist States who deployed them mandated to clean them out, destroy them and compensate the Mostly Civilian Child victims of their monstrous use (or their families).
In a treaty that the former ChickenHawk President refused to sign on the ridiculous notion that it violated U.S. Sovereignty…. even though the United States doesn’t actually deploy land mines or, (as in the case of the terroristic bombing and mining of The DR VietNam, which one of the Major Party presidential candidates from the last election was doing when he was captured) on territory that’s recognized as United States Territory.
Other than in the Insane Delusional definitions of the U.S. “nationalists” like Bush and his demented disciples. (Special “shout out” to our Homeboys Bob Newman, Dobson and Haggard on that)
There are two major parties in our Corporate Dictatorship, one votes as a bloc, no exceptions, and anybody who breaks ranks is called a traitor and shown the door. The “Other Party” currently in the majority in the House, Senate and Executive branch has enough Right Wing extremists, only the Republican Press calls them “moderate democrats” to sway any ratification of the treaty to either vote it down, or have it watered down to a Null Argument, or worse, charge the Children of Afghanistan and VietNam with crimes for destroying United States Government Property by exploding “our” Land Mines.
I bet Dobson and Haggard and “Gunny” Bob would love that option.
They probably have pictures of little kids with various parts blown off that they use for Porn. “Gunny” Bob is allegedly a Vet, I don’t know if he has a collection of human hands harvested from the kids he killed during his “service” but he strikes me as That Type.
Yeah, that’s confrontational. So is calling the Quakers “Terrorists” because they dared to ask His Royal Lowness to stop lying, and published detailed lists of “Gunny” Bobs lies.
A paid Right Wing Propagandist like him would appreciate the “Difference” between a Land Mine and an IED.
They want war crimes trials, then book ’em. Senators John Cornyn, Lamar Smith, Joe Lieberman, Jim Webb and John McCain have mouthed off against bringing accused 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to trial in US civilian courts. They want Mohammed and his fellow detainees tried by military tribunals, which have already been condemned as violations of international law. So has voting to support the attack on Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo, secret prisons, etc.
Forget the presumption of innocence. Said Cornyn:
“These terrorists planned and executed the mass murder of thousands of innocent Americans. Treating them like common criminals is unconscionable.”
Added Lieberman, they–
“are war criminals, not common criminals … not American citizens entitled to all the constitutional rights American citizens have in our federal courts.”
Nope, sorry it doesn’t work that way. Our constitution protects the rights of everyone under US jurisdiction. Not to mention the detainees are “alleged” criminals as well.
The senators are perhaps influenced by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s media monicker: the self proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks. That’s a rather inflated attribution based on a confession extracted after an apparently record setting series of water boarding torture sessions.
Unless Attorney General Eric Holder plans to conduct the 9/11 trials under wraps, with the sound off like the kangaroo court lynching of Saddam Hussein, this news could be the most significant development the 9/11 Truth Movement will ever get.
Next step, join the ACLU in urging Holder to try all War on Terror detainees in US civilian courts. This isn’t about keeping American citizens safe. As the Senators rightly miserly point out, this is about according the detainees sufficient rights that they might win an inconveniently fair trial.
Since the damning UN Goldstone Report about Gaza, Israel has intensified its US PR speaking engagements, but social justice activists have risen to the challenge: in London, the Israeli Ambassador had to flee a citizens arrest, the ambassador to Turkey was pelted with eggs, while another minister met similar trouble at a university in Holland. No wonder last week’s appearances by Uzi Landau at CU-Denver and Nir Barkat at DU were conducted behind rows of policemen. This week Colorado Springs gets a chance to confront an Israeli lecture circuit propagandist. On Thursday November 12 at noon, Israel Consul General Jacob Dayan visits Colorado College Gaylord Hall, to speak on “Israel Today.”
I do not know enough about Jacob Dayan to accuse him of war crimes, although before his current appointment he served as Chief of Staff for Tzipi Livni, who does stand accused of crimes against humanity. By his own words, Dayan is a genocide denier and an advocate of illegal acts.
Being Consul General to Los Angeles is no small assignment; the city’s population represents the largest Jewish community outside of Tel Aviv. Jacob Dayan is responsible for shoring up vital US support for Israel’s unpopular actions. While the subject of Thursday’s presentation sounds bucolic –you might think CC schedules periodic “(Countryname) Today” updates for all its homesick students– a survey of Mr Dayan’s current campus addresses points to an agenda much less agreeable.
First of all, Jacob Dayan’s appearance is sponsored by the same organizations which hosted Landau and Barkat in Denver, both of whom are actively engaged in violations of international law. The underwriters are the Institute for the Study of Israel in the Middle East, the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, the University of Denver, and Hillel.
(Last week, DU’s Hillel members serenaded Pro-Palestinian demonstrators with an endless stream of songs in Hebrew, while holding signs which read REMEMBER 9/11 and AMERICANS AGAINST TERRORISM.)
According to Jacob Dayan’s bio, his main themes stress the significance of the Israel Christian friendship. He most recently collected American rabbis from all extremes of the Jewish community, to send them as a delegation to Israel, so
that they will stand in the front lines of their communities and will strongly tell the true story of the state of Israel and of a democracy that is defending itself … And by standing on the front lines in the fight against extremism, they are defending the entire enlightened world and showing what a strong ally the state of Israel has with the U.S.”
Dayan’s current talking points are more focused: Iran is greatest threat to Western Civilization, All terrorists believe in fundamentalist Islam, and, paraphrased at UCLA:
The recent conflict in Gaza wasn’t a war between Israelis and Palestinians, nor between Israelis and Arabs, but a clash of civilizations pitting Israel against Iran and extremist groups supported by the Islamic state.
COME THURSDAY, AT NOON OR BEFORE, to give this Jacob Dayan a war propagandist reception. Colorado Springs needn’t always be counted on for stupidly following the call for war. We’re jingoists, most of us, and Christian Zionists many, but that shouldn’t translate to occupier oppressor. We’re American racists in our own right, we can leave semitic racism to the Israeli Zionists.
Let’s echo the international calls to Boycott Israel. Follow university campuses across the world to call for Boycott, Sanctions and Divestiture of Israel, until the Palestinian people are returned their human rights. Until Israel ceases its blockaid of Gaza, ceases its illegal collective punishment, its extrajudicial executions, its torture, and disproportionate use of military force.
Zionists accuse their critics of anti-Semitism because America and Britain commit these crimes too. So of course activists must not ignore that we have blood on their own hands. But that doesn’t grant Israel carte rouge.
As long as Israel sends envoys to urge American support for an attack on Iran, antiwar activists must protest. COLORADANS FOR PEACE URGES YOU: Send Jacob Dayan packing. We can protest his arrival outside, and lambaste him with ridicule inside. If his lecture-circuit colleagues are any indication, Dayan’s message is a sitting duck for critical thought.
Fishermen have always called it the Slimehead fish. It’s sorta-scientific name is Darwin’s Slimehead. But when bottom-of-the-barrel scraping began for the ocean’s remaining fisheries, fishmongers created a market for the never-thought-palatable deep bottom feeder by renaming it the Orange Roughy.
That much you’ve probably heard before.
Really, what’s in a name? A fish by any other name will smell too. Is there a fish story without hyperbole, that does not smell fishy? The idiom comes from the experience-honed doubt that the fishmonger’s catch is not fresh. People know steak is dead cow, so does it matter that Orange Roughy is Slimehead, Monkfish is Goosefish, Rock Salmon is Spiny Dogfish, or Tilapia is Mouthbrooder?
Actually Israeli exporters wanted to give Tilapia a biblical makeover, asserting the Tilapia from the Sea of Galilee, should be called St. Peter’s Fish, but US regulators intervened. In the Gospel of Matthew 17:27, apostle Peter tells tax collectors where they can go. In more than that many words he tells them to go fish, and from the mouth of the “first fish they catch,” they will find the four drachmas he owes them. The FDA didn’t buy it either. By the way, if you doubt Wikipedia has Zionist preoccupations, sniff the first paragraph of their entry for Tilapia. Maybe we are about to see whether Wiki momentum can surfeit the vernacular.
The US government also intervened when fish wholesalers wanted to rename the Patagonian Toothfish as Chilean Sea Bass. It’s not a Bass. And the poor Teethfish, like the Slimehead, are now endangered.
Because man’s traditional food fishes have become depleted, we’re having now to make meals of the dregs. And the populations of these deep sea dwellers have less resiliency than the coastal stocks. In the case of the Toothfish and the Slimehead, it’s because they grow very slowly. The Slimehead can grow to be 150 years old. They don’t become sexually reproductive until they are 33, and that’s not in dogfish years. Fishing operations which harvest entire sea mounts decimate every generation at once, leaving none who can spawn.
Would it give you an unsettled feeling to consume something so ancient? If we’re talking a pre-Phylloxera wine, it could be a great thing. But a fish that old has been absorbing mercury from the height of the industrial revolution onwards. So there might be a health benefit for showing deference to your fish elders.
It recently upset me to learn that with modern agriculture we eat cattle before they’re two, when they’re barely adolescent. Now I wonder what’s too old. We revere elephants and tortoises for their longevity, such ancient beings we don’t eat.
I’m old enough to remember learning about the old carp in the fountains of Paris, who also lived quite long. French schoolchildren could marvel that some carp still lived who might have glimpsed Napoleon.
A Slimehead Orange Roughy caught today could have lived in the time of Lincoln. Certainly those fish drag-netted in the 1970s, when the Orange Roughy exotic star was contrived to rise, were contemporaries of John Wilkes Booth. Though swimming many thousand feet below sea level, Roughy might have encountered a fresh shipwreck of Lincoln’s era, carrying gold sent from the west coast to finance the Civil War.
Today finds Americans awaiting their and their fellow man’s emancipation from war, torture, illegal detention, economic enslavement, usury, exploitation, impoverishment, enfeeblement and poisoning. Since just the new millennium Americans learned quick to participate again in their political system. They elected what many thought impossible, an African American president. The voters placed all their hope in Barack Obama, and their faith in party politics foretold that Obama’s majority would deliver the mandate he was given. Obama’s first days were anticipated to rival FDRs. Obama’s legacy could already be measured for laurels because it meant simply reversing the calamity of his predecessor. By such a deliverance alone, it was visualized, Obama would stand beside Abraham Lincoln, America’s greatest president.
Abraham Obama may be an unjustly loft comparison, as wanting to believe Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize. But what else was an expectant public to do? They put him in office, they believed his promises. He spoke of change, they wanted change. What swiftly Bush had done, they wanted undone. And Obama assured all that he heard them.
And has it worked out that way? Obama’s speeches begin where the last one ends. They’re long, they’re reasoned, but where at first Americans reveled at a suddenly well-spoken president, now they wish he’d stop talking and start doing. Apparently “yes we can” meant “you can wait” –more likely “hi Mom” or “cheese.” Now the hand which Obama raises so famously to give assurance, is looking more like just the hand.
It may be dawning on many that this junior senator from Illinois didn’t have to debate Frederick Douglas, build a log cabin, read Aristotle by candlelight, or climb a long leadership ladder to get to Washington DC. It may be occurring to them that Obama’s speech at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, was the only accomplishment they’d seen of this unknown senator from the land of Lincoln.
An Orange Roughy served on fine porcelain may turn out to be the only thing our President Obama shares with Abraham Lincoln.
And very likely, you ate one too. So if stone-carvers are already bidding on the project to add someone’s face to Mount Rushmore, your likeness may be as appropriate as any.
So who was the Fort Hood shooter, do we know? The media’s got the back story all lined up for it to be Nidal Malik Hasan, he has three names like all assassins (and sound bites), and now the Army is trotting out witnesses to point their fingers at the Muslim Major. Addressing reports of multiple gunmen, the Army says “there was only one shooter.” Although five of the victims may have fallen to friendly fire. So there was a “friendly shooter?” Which one was Hasan?
I’m thinking the multiple shooter stories came out of the Army deciding the shooter was Hasan, but witnesses insisting it was another soldier. Sooner than contradict what they’d seen with their own eyes, Investigators and victims agree to disagree, until a uniform narrative can be worked out.
With a mess of dead soldiers, all dead by PTSD, who the hell cares which killed which? But poor Major Hasan’s name had the right evildoer pedigree, with an Abu Nidal ring to it, which could bring Americans to a boil.
What’s going on right now, by the way, big picture wise? Is the American public vacillating about sending more troops to Afghanistan? It took a 9/11 surge of Muslim-hating to send our invaders off in the first place.
The Army must have shit bricks when it turned out that Hasan was still alive. The fall guy they’d chosen wasn’t dead. It’s hard to pin the tale on someone who can still tell. But who am I kidding? Either we’re going to see a Jack Ruby pay a visit to Hasan in the hospital, the end, or the military’s going to control Mr. Hasan with its usual heavy hand. And that’s the New World Order MO. I can already see Jose Padilla being shuttled between tortures and deprivations, losing his mind as the government confounds him with accusations.
Hasan is already as cooked as Padilla. No matter what happened, we’ll see confusion and confession and absolutely no access to civilian lawyers or the press. Hasan is this year’s American Taliban, the caricature John Walker Lind painted as America-hating wuss.
The Army’s having nobody think this is PTSD. Did you see the JAG lawyer on CNN, ruling out PTSD because Hasan was an officer?
Antiwarriors can laud the shooting as “fragging” but it’s not. Fragging means to kill your superior officer. At Fort Hood, the only dead were grunts.
Antifada antiwarriors can hope this was Islam striking back, hitting Americans with their own MO. But where was the collateral damage? Where were the wives and children, the innocents among the dead soldiers? Nope, none of those. The evidence indeed points to a principled Mujahadeen who wanted to kill only the US killers, or the soon to be deployed killers.
The Fort Hood shooter might have been sparing the readying soldiers the horrors of Afghanistan, and the DU poison they’d bring back to their families.
The real story is that this is what PTSD looks like, and it may have played out as Russian Roulette, it wouldn’t matter who pulled the trigger. But of course the big worry for the Pentagon is that this sort of thing could be infectious. The expression “going postal” doesn’t have to morph very far to become going PTSD.
In Vietnam, the GIs started fragging their lieutenants. In Afghanistan and Iraq, in the age of the suicide bombers, the American rebel is killing himself.
In writing about the recent PPSBN Sustainability conference, I failed miserably to highlight the keynote speaker Nancy Tuor, who represented CH2M Hill as a model green corporate citizen. Ms Tuor, the “Group President and Executive Sponsor for Sustainability” at CH2M Hill, had headliner status at the conference because she is Program Manager on the MASDAR ‘Green’ City development in the United Arab Emirates, a smoke and mirrors project if ever there was, and it’s smoke from burning oil.
According to the program for this week’s conference in Colorado Springs:
CH2M HILL is the delivery partner for the first phase of the MASDAR development, a carbon-neutral and zero-waste sustainable city nestled in the heart of Abu Dhabi—the first major hydrocarbon producing nation.
First, a sustainable city built on income generated by fossil fuel is an oxymoron. Second, UAE’s efforts appear to be centered on securing the technological rights to new sources and practices before their monopoly on oil expires.
MASDAR is a comprehensive Abu Dhabi government program to address the issues of sustainable energy sources and environmental practices. The program is focused on developing and commercializing advanced and innovative technologies in renewable, alternative, and sustainable energies.
In other words, their definition of sustainable is much like the military’s, they want to sustain their profits.
Minneapolis Confidential‘s Ken Avidor contacted NMT about another outlandish aspect of CH2M’s green charade in Masdar. It relates to an announcement which Nancy Tuor made at the conference:
MIST delays impact PRT schedule. At a sustainability conference in Colorado Springs on November 3, 2009, Nancy Tuor, CH2M Hill’s program manager for the MASDAR ‘Green City’ in the United Arab Emirates, announced that the personal rapid transit (PRT) system will open to public use in about six months.
It seems a central showpiece of the Masdar development is a Personal Rapid Transit system which always fails to materialize. As Avidor writes:
You may have seen blog posts and news stories about a “sustainable” city in the United Arab Emirates called Masdar. One of the supposed “green” features of the Masdar project is a “Personal Rapid Transit” (PRT) system. It turns out the PRT system is a joke… but what do expect from a country where a prominent royal family member tortures people and has it all documented on video.
One of Avidor’s astute readers makes the point that the US tortures people, and documents it on video as well. So much for that dig at UAE, but Avidor’s central criticism stands. PRT projects worldwide are being lauded with out merit, but of critical relevance, PRTs are being used as stalking horses to thwart the finite budgets which metropolitan regions have for mass transit.
Interestingly, Avidor’s blog posts are being dogged by two detractors who can’t sing praises enough for PRTs. Maybe they’re new technology freaks who want to see Jetsons fantasies in their lifetimes. Maybe they believe the argument against mass transit, that contemporary man doesn’t want a community experience when he commutes. If they aren’t PRT industry shills, they should at least concede that no number of personal pods will accommodate the masses. They’re luxury hogs who don’t want to share the ride.
As cars sank the trolleys, so could PRT smoke and mirrors sink trains and subways. But the rich man has no need for mass transit. Why not get the taxpayers to fund something that will be available to only he: personal transit. Where there’s no room for the masses. It’s the same strategy the rich use to fund their charter schools at the expense of public schools.
Where the rich are fleecing the needy, you can always count on Colorado Springs to sign on.
Energy policy. Specifically the Oil Companies being asked to pay back a tiny fraction of the money they’ve stolen from America. And their related group of Thieves the Coal Industry.
Saying that a tax hike on the very Wealthiest is going to be passed along to the consumers.
Forgetting entirely the price fixing scheme that drove gasoline up to $5 and more at the pump recently, and the gouging that’s going on now.
Forgetting entirely about the TRILLIONS of bailout money Bush and Cheney and their horde of Thieves gave to the Richest Corporations in the Entire World via Operation Iraqi Conquest, Subjugation, Torture, Murder and Pillage errrr I mean “freedom”.
Do the DoucheBaggers cry foul about any of that? No, they do not.
One might ask WHY they do not, but anybody curious enough to ask already knows WHY… it’s because the Tea Party “patriot” leaders and propagandists make money off every death in Iraq, either of the occupying Army or a Pentagoon-defined ‘terror suspect’ or an Iraqi Baby. Doesn’t matter to them, they make money off human death and suffering and then prance around in their silly-ass costumes Bitching about “tyranny!” the same way they Bitch about “socialist” health care being proposed, LIE about “death panels” and meanwhile give the BiggPigg Corporate Overlords a free pass on denying (by industry admission) 500,000 claims every DAY.
Why do I use the Term “Bitching”? It’s because they’re true bitches, like a dog in heat willing to be butt-raped by every Corporation in the world, perhaps spiced in with their own innate Cowardice.
Comparing them to bitches in heat is insulting to dogs, I know. So is calling them “pussies” an insult to cats and vaginas. It’s just those terms are the only ones they understand or react to anymore. Pointing out that they MURDER people with supporting the Imperial Wars, and MURDER people by denying us Health Care (even a half million every day who actually paid into their ‘insurance’ Scam) and MURDER Iraqi and Afghani BABIES every day in their War, that has no effect on them. They’re actually PROUD of being Baby-killers.
Far removed from any possibility that they would feel any guilt over their massive Thefts.
Or Lying. They don’t give a damn that the bullshit they spread isn’t true in any way.
So Pussies and Bitches has to suffice, for now.
Found this on the web, will try to retrace provenance, worth a read: The United States have a well known history of providing military support to countries in need. But from time to time, the US Government has provided secret forces. While many are successful, there have also been a number of failures. This is a list of the ten top secret armies of the CIA.
1. Ukrainian Partisans
From 1945 to 1952 the CIA trained and aerially supplied Ukranian partisan units which had originally been organised by he Germans to fight the Soviets during WWII. For seven years, the partisans, operating in the Carpathian Mountains, made sporadic attacks. Finally in 1952, a massive Soviet military force wiped them out.2. Chinese Brigade in Burma
After the Communist victory in China, Nationalist Chinese soldiers fled into northern Burma. During the early 1950s, the CIA used these soldiers to create a 12,000 man brigade which made raids into Red China. However, the Nationalist soldiers found it more profitable to monopolise the local opium trade.3. Guatemalan Rebel Army
After Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz legalised that country’s communist party and expropriated 400,000 acres of United Fruit banana plantations, the CIA decided to overthrow his government. Guatemalan rebels were trained in Honduras and backed up with a CIA air contingent of bombers and fighter planes. This army invaded Guatemala in 1954, promptly toppling Arbenz’s regine.4. Sumatran Rebels
In an attempt to overthrow Indonesian president Sukarno in 1958, the CIA sent paramilitary experts and radio operators to the island of Sumatra to organise a revolt. With CIA air support, the rebel army attacked but was quickly defeated. The American government denied involvement even after a CIA b-26 was shot down and its CIA pilot, Allen Pope, was captured.5. Khamba Horsemen
After the 1950 Chinese invasion of Tibet, the CIA began recruiting Khamba horsemen – fierce warriors who supported Tibet’s religious leader, the Dalai Lama – as they escaped into India in 1959. These Khambas were trained in modern warfare at Camp Hale, high in the rocky mountains near Leadville, Colorado. Transported back to Tibet by the CIA operated Air American, the Khambas organised an army number at its peak some 14,000. By the mid-1960s the Khambas had been abandoned by the CIA but they fought on alone until 1970.6. Bay of Pigs Invasion Force
In 1960, CIA operatives recruited 1,500 Cuban refugees living in Miami and staged a surprise attack on Fidel Castro’s Cuba. Trained at a base in Guatemala, this small army – complete with an air force consisting of B-26 bombers – landed at the Bay of Pigs on April 19, 1961. The ill-conceived, poorly planned operation ended in disaster, since all but 150 men of the force were either killed or captured within three days.7. L’armee Clandestine
In 1962, CIA agents recruited Meo tribesmen living in the mountains of Laos to fight as guerrillas against Communist Pathet Lao forces. Called l’armee Clandestine, this unit – paid, trained, and supplied by the CIA – grew into a 30,000 man force. By 1975 the Meos – who had numbers a quarter million in 1962 – had been reduced to 10,000 refugees fleeing into Thailand.8. Nung Mercenaries
A Chinese hill people living in Vietname, the Nungs were hired and organised by the CIA as a mercenary force, during the Vietnam war. Fearsome and brutal fighters, the Nungs were employed throughout Vietnam and along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The Nungs proved costly since they refused to fight unless constantly supplied with beer and prostitutes.9. Peruvian Regiment
Unable to quell guerrilla forces in its eastern Amazonian provinces, Peru called on the US for help in the mid-1960s. The CIA responded by establishing a fortified camp in the area and hiring local Peruvians who were trained by Green Beret personnel on loan from the US army. After crushing the guerrillas, the elite unit was disbanded because of fears it might stage a coup against the government.10. Congo Mercenary Force
In 1964, during the Congolese Civil War, the CIA established an army in the Congo to back pro-Western leaders Cyril Adoula and Joseph Mobutu. The CIA imported European mercenaries and Cuban pilots – exiles from Cuba – to pilot the CIA air force, composed of transports and B-26 Bombers.11. The Cambodian Coup
For over 15 years, the CIA had tried various unsuccessful means of deposing Cambodia’s left-leaning Prince Norodom Sihanouk, including assassination attempts. However, in March, 1970, a CIA-backed coup finally did the job. Funded by US tax dollars, armed with US weapons, and trained by American Green Berets, anti-Sihanouk forces called Kampuchea Khmer Krom (KKK) overran the capital of Phnom Penh and took control of the government. With the blessing of the CIA and the Nixon administration, control of Cambodia was placed in the hands of Lon Nol, who would later distinguish himself by dispatching soldiers to butcher tens of thousands of civilians.12. Kurd Rebels
During the early 1970s the CIA moved into eastern Iraq to organize and supply the Kurds of that area, who were rebelling against the pro-Soviet Iraqi government. The real purpose behind this action was to help the shah of Iran settle a border dispute with Iraq favourably. After an Iranian-Iraq settlement was reached, the CIA withdrew its support from the Kurds, who were then crushed by the Iraqi Army.13. Angola Mercenary Force
In 1975, after years of bloody fighting and civil unrest in Angola, Portugal resolved to relinquish its hold on the last of its African colonies. The transition was to take place on November 11, with control of the country going to whichever political faction controlled the capital city of Luanda on that date. In the months preceding the change, three groups vied for power: the Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA), the National Front for the Liberation of Angola (FNLA) and the National Union for the Total Independence of Angola (UNITA). By July 1975, the Marxist MPLA had ousted the moderate FNLA and UNITA from Luanda, so the CIA decided to intervene covertly. Over $30 million was spent on the Angolan operation, the bulk of the money going to buy arms and pay French and South African mercenaries, who aided the FNLA and UNITA in their fight. Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, US officials categorically denied any involvement in the Angolan conflict. In the end, it was a fruitless military adventure, for the MPLA assumed power and controls Angola to this day.14. Afghan Mujaheedin
Covert support for the groups fighting against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan began under President Jimmy Carter in 1979, and was stepped up during the administration of Ronald Reagan. The operation succeeded in its initial goal, as the Soviets were forced to begin withdrawing their forces in 1987. Unfortunately, once the Soviets left, the US essentially ignored Afghanistan as it collapsed into a five-year civil war followed by the rise of the ultra-fundamentalist Taliban. The Taliban provided a haven for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, the perpetrators of the 9/11 terrorist attacks in 2001.15. Salvadoran Death Squads
As far back as 1964, the CIA helped form ORDEN and ANSESAL, two paramilitary intelligence networks that developed into the Salvadoran death squads. The CIA trained ORDEN leaders in the use of automatic weapons and surveillance techniques, and placed several leaders on the CIA payroll. The CIA also provided detailed intelligence on Salvadoran individuals later murdered by the death squads. During the civil war in El Salvador from 1980 to 1992, the death squads were responsible for 40,000 killings. Even after a public outcry forced President Reagan to denounce the death squads in 1984, CIA support continued.16. Nicaraguan Contras
On November 23, 1981, President Ronald Reagan signed a top secret National Security Directive authorising the CIA to spend $19 million to recruit and support the Contras, opponents of Nicaragua’s Sandinista government. In supporting the Contras, the CIA carried out several acts of sabotage without the Congressional intelligence committees giving consent – or even being informed beforehand. In response, Congress passed the Boland Amendment, prohibiting the CIA from providing aid to the Contras. Attempts to find alternate sources of funds led to the Iran-Contra scandal. It may also have led the CIA and the Contras to become actively involved in drug smuggling. In 1988, the Senate Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism, and International Operations concluded that individuals in the Contra movement engaged in drug trafficking; that known drug traffickers provided assistance to the Contras; and that ‘there are some serious questions as to whether or not US officials involved in Central America failed to address the drug issue for fear of jeopardizing the war effort against Nicaragua’.17. Haitian Coup
In 1988, the CIA attempted to intervene in Haiti’s elections with a ‘covert action program’ to undermine the campaign of the eventual winner, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Three years later, Aristide was overthrown in a bloody coup that killed more than 4,000 civilians. Many of the leaders of the coup had been on the CIA payroll since the mid-1980s. For example, Emmanuel ‘Toto’ Constant, the head of FRAPH, a brutal gang of thugs known for murder, torture, and beatings, admitted to being a paid agent of the CIA. Similarly, the CIA-created Haitian National Intelligence Service (NIS), supposedly created to combat drugs, functioned during the coup as a ‘political intimidation and assassination squad.’ In 1994, an American force of 20,000 was sent to Haiti to allow Aristide to return. Ironically, even after this, the CIA continued working with FRAPH and the NIS. In 2004, Aristide was overthrown once again, with Aristide claiming that US forces had kidnapped him.18. Venezuelan Coup Attempt
On April 11, 2002, Venezuelan military leaders attempted to overthrow the country’s democratically-elected left-wing president, Hugo Chavez. The coup collapsed after two days as hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets and as units of the military joined with the protestors. The administration of George W. Bush was the only democracy in the Western Hemisphere not to condemn the coup attempt. According to intelligence analyst Wayne Madsen, the CIA had actively organised the coup: ‘The CIA provided Special Operations Group personnel, headed by a lieutenant colonel on loan from the US Special Operations Command at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, to help organise the coup against Chavez.
Then our Nobel Laureate can restore Habeas Corpus, stop rendition and torture, repeal the Patriot Act, confess to illegal wars, war crimes and crimes against humanity, end all occupations, smash the weapons trade, pursue antitrust action against banks and multinational monopolies, abolish the Fed, IMF, World Bank and WTO, renounce globalism and free trade neoliberalism, own up to climate change and third world plunder, initiate restitution for US misrule, and #prosecutebushnowgoddamnit!
Critics on both sides of Barack Obama’s premature Nobel Prize peddle the same cynical caricature of our new president, as messiah figure likely overburdened by our expectations. It’s a self-defeating setup that didn’t fool the Nobel panel. Obama is not Jesus, he’s Caesar.
I don’t mean to belittle the Son of God, but Obama’s throne has a far greater vantage point to deliver this world from the yoke of the evil empire. This year’s Nobel Peace Prize is a sort of Pay It Forward award to the man who holds the fate of so many in his hands.
You don’t have to believe Obama is the Second Coming, nor even that he’s a good man. So far he’s played Dubya’s apprentice to a tee. But what can you do? Obama’s vainglourious Basterds have everyone by the throat. The Afghans, the Iraqis, the Pakistanis, live but by the grace of his drones, or the whim of his rendition interrogator-torturers. American activists abut his militarized police, American sick expire while on hold with his third party death panels.
The Nobel Prize could be another medal to pretend this American Emperor heralds a break from injustice as the US redoubles wreaking havoc. Or, it could be mankind’s last best only hope to appeal, if not to Obama’s sense of humanity, to his vanity. Is the 2009 Nobel Laureate going to escalate killings and predations on the poor? The choice is Obama’s.
The growing criticism of Barack Obama’s record of inaction furthers the misconception that Obama is a mere figurehead, an affirmative action spokesman to give the US a kinder, gentler image. In fact, Obama sits in the little dictator’s seat. It’s lost no power since the days of Bush.
You might argue that Bush was mere Howdy Doody to powerful oligarchs behind the scenes. Obama may be pulled by the same strings. But unless the puppet masters choose to reveal themselves, a puppet can pretend they don’t exist. And a real flesh and blood man puppet can utterly efface them. I believe the Nobel committee is hoping to appeal to just that man.
Obama doesn’t need Congress, majority or no, nor the American People, nor the corporate media, to decide what he wants to do. He’s not stuck to overturning the tables of the money-changers, or leading by example by dying for us on a cross. Obama doesn’t have to render unto Caesar, he is Caesar. The most powerful there ever was, although I can’t think now if there ever was a good one. The Norse were in no position then to bait one with a peace prize. Here’s hoping.
ADDENDUM:
Barack and Michelle Obama sent out this response to the surprise honor, trying a little false flattery of their own. Here’s the last paragraph:
This award — and the call to action that comes with it — does not belong simply to me or my administration; it belongs to all people around the world who have fought for justice and for peace. And most of all, it belongs to you, the men and women of America, who have dared to hope and have worked so hard to make our world a little better.
Most of all, the men and women of America? Oh My Gosh Honey, Obama is talking about you and me.
DumFox Noose and their Demented Minions (selectively) Strike Again!?
Now, I used to work for ACORN. Twice. Once in Texas and registering votes in 2004.?
Since Fox “investigators” tried many times to set-up the ACORN people before finding ONE who would bite, it jogged the ol’ Memory Cache and out popped this notion… ACORN does NOT do background checks on their workers. This is NOT a bad thing. The Pentagon does background checks and look who they hired… George Bush for instance. General Betrays-Us. Lt Calley. Ronald Reagan and John Wayne (to do Pro-War propaganda films). ?All the Torturers at Gitmo, Khandahar, Bagram and Abu Ghraib. “Civilian Contractors” in Egypt and a few rather unsavory NATO countries…
On the other hand, What If DumFox Instigators (my what a difference three little letters makes!), tiring of their attempts to get somebody, anybody, to give them the “goods”, what if they simply had one of their people planted in ACORN?
I mean, it’s not like they’re ABOVE dishonesty in any way.
They lie, steal, cheat, blaspheme and (get other people to) Murder (for them because it violates their Cowardice Policy to do it themselves) all day every day.
Let’s Investigate the Instigators. Who are they, what exact methods did they use to attack ACORN and by association, every decent person in America? Meaning, those of us who don’t take orders from Rupert Murdoch and his Ministry of Lies.
ACORN doesn’t need defending, Fox needs being ATTACKED, using their rules, just not their Lying Tactics.
At first glance the trade betrayed a racist inequity. This week Israel agreed to release twenty Palestinian women in exchange for one Israeli held captive by Hamas. Not for the release of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit, just for proof that he was still alive.
What is the worth of one Israeli? At first his captors demanded the release of all Palestinian women and girls. Later they asked for the release of 1,000 detainees. But the relative values are reversed. Shalit is the lone POW held by Palestine. Israel incarcerates an estimated 11,000, most detained for obstructing the construction of the Apartheid Wall. Exchanging Shalit would represent a trade of 100% for 9%. Don’t worry, Israel’s occupation forces can always capture more.
Gilad Shalit is the first IDF soldier captured by the Palestinians since 1994. Israel on the other hand, with the collaboration of Fatah, can arrest civilians whenever they choose.
Shalit’s capture is an interesting story. Israel claims to have received warning of the eminent kidnap attempt. The day before, IDF soldiers raided a house belonging to a suspected Hamas militant. They arrested his two sons, a doctor and a lawyer. Their torture allegedly extracted details of a cross-border raid. As a result, technically I suppose you could say, their intelligence officers “received warning.” However Israel was unable to thwart the tank operator’s capture.
Shalit has served as the pretext for many ensuing incursions into Gaza, at a great cost to Palestinian lives. Draw your own conclusions.
Israel propagates this story to assert that Gilad Shalit was “kidnapped,” invoking a litany of international laws which Israel wields against Hamas. With shameless hypocrisy, Israelis protest the inhumanities suffered by Shalit, ignoring the documentation of thousands of imprisoned Palestinian subjected to worse. The irony of Israel’s complaints becomes tedious: lack of International Red Cross access, parental visitation, regular correspondence, information of his exact whereabouts, etc. This in light of Israel’s refusal to permit oversight of its Palestinian detainees, or to denounce its tortures. What gall to decry the fate of one soldier, taken prisoner while on duty, with Israel’s demonstrated eagerness to expend ordnance and harass Palestinian civilians at whim.
Shalit has prompted Israel to launch aerial bombardments, and restrict border checkpoints in the effort to extort his release, or to pit Palestinian sentiments against Hamas, who refuse to release Shalit in spite of the collective punishment meted to its people.
The Israelis had reason to doubt that Gilad Shalit, captured by Hamas in 2006, was not dead. After all, the IDF was confident that their January incursion into Gaza had destroyed all known Hamas hiding places.
President Obama came into office with quite a checklist:
Stop war-making,
Close Guantanamo,
End renditions/torture,
Rescind the Patriot Act,
Restore the rule of law,
Address global warming,
Reform US health care,
Re-regulate bankers,
Talk to Iran, and doubtless many other items, including
Secure the 2016 Olympics for Chicago.
Are his handlers staking the measure of his success on the last one?
I’d like to revisit photographs of George Bush. On everyone pictured standing next to him, I’ll stamp “NOT AL-ZAIDI,” meaning, NOT A HERO. The tag would apply to all of us of course, but in particular, to those who had a chance -but didn’t- to confront the naked emperor. The single bravest man in the world, Muntadhar al Zaidi, was released from prison this week, to recount the torture he endured for his act. Is your courage bolstered or tempered by his example? We are inspired by the unbroken Al Zaidi, but his keepers, our governments, know how to repress our audacity. We’re let to celebrate Al Zaidi as a hero, but he has also been made an example, for rule by state terrorism.
Said al Zaidi: “What provoked me to a confrontation was the injustice that has befallen my people, and the way in which the occupation wanted to humiliate my country by placing it and its people—the elderly, women, children and men—under its boot. At the time the Iraqi prime minister appeared on satellite channels saying he would not sleep until he was assured of Bush’s safety, I found ample bedding and cover. As the prime minister was speaking, I was being tortured in the most cruel manner, being electrocuted, beaten with cables, beaten with metal rods.”