Peace and Justice Post

While Obama talks of saving civilians in Libya, information about innocents killed by U.S. drones is kept secret

The big focus of the Obama administration in the last week has been, in President Obama’s words, “to stop the violence against civilians.” That’s in Libya, of course, where Moammar Gadhafi was threatening to quell a rebellion based in Benghazi.

In this context, it’s particularly striking to read the news from the ACLU — which has been waging a legal battle to wring information from the government about American drone strikes — that the military doesn’t even keep a tally of civilian deaths caused by drones:

The Department of Defense has confirmed that it does not compile statistics about the total number of civilians that have been killed by its unmanned drone aircraft. The DOD disclosed this information in a letter in response to a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union demanding that the government disclose the legal basis for its use of unmanned drones to conduct targeted killings overseas.

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Peter Symonds, wsws.org, April 12, 2011

Yesterday marked one month since the massive March 11 earthquake and tsunami that devastated much of north-eastern Japan and produced the worst nuclear disaster since the 1986 reactor explosion at Chernobyl in the Ukraine. While Japanese politicians, officials and representatives of Tokyo Electric Power Company (TEPCO) marked the occasion with profuse apologies and soothing reassurances, there is no doubt that a concerted operation remains in place to downplay the extent of the catastrophe and the ongoing dangers.

The dissembling of Japanese officials might take a national form, with elaborate acts of contrition, but the underlying reasons for the cover-up are universal in character. Throughout the crisis, the government and TEPCO have been driven, not by concerns about Fukushima residents or the safety of workers at the plant, but a determination to preserve the profitability of TEPCO and the country’s nuclear industry at all costs.

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Bob Johnson, OpEdNews.com, April 11, 2011

Child workers in a coal mine in Pennsylvania by History Palce

The religious right spends a lot of money and energy in their efforts to make rank and file Christians believe that the Bible god is against workers’ rights, unions and social welfare programs. Since the Bible suffers from severe ambiguity, they are able to get away with it. This is why, for example, during the American Civil War the North used the Bible to support its cause while the South used the Bible to support its cause. A book that ambiguous is worthless and has unlimited potential for suffering and misery if it is taken seriously and acted upon.

Just as the religious right is wrong when they promote their false idea that America was founded as a Christian nation, so they are wrong when they claim the Bible god supports unrestrained capitalism.

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Obama professor among 250 experts who have signed letter condemning humiliation of alleged WikiLeaks source

Ed Pilkington in New York, The Guardian, April 10, 2011

 

A man protests about the detention of Bradley Manning. More than 250 legal scholars have signed a letter expressing outrage. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images

More than 250 of America’s most eminent legal scholars have signed a letter protesting against the treatment in military prison of the alleged WikiLeaks source Bradley Manning, contesting that his “degrading and inhumane conditions” are illegal, unconstitutional and could even amount to torture.

The list of signatories includes Laurence Tribe, a Harvard professor who is considered to be America’s foremost liberal authority on constitutional law. He taught constitutional law to Barack Obama and was a key backer of his 2008 presidential campaign.

Tribe joined the Obama administration last year as a legal adviser in the justice department, a post he held until three months ago.

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By Gareth Porter, Consortium News,  April 8, 2011

Editor’s Note: Under pressure from U.S. neoconservatives to continue at least some form of the Iraqi occupation, the Obama administration is signaling that it is willing to maintain a significant military presence there after the scheduled troop departure at the end of this year.

The neocons want this continued toehold in Iraq both for the future projection of U.S. power in the region and to sustain the image of their “surge” victory, but there is strong popular opposition inside Iraq to allowing any American troops to stay, as Gareth Porter reported for the Inter Press Service:

President Barack Obama has given his approval to a Pentagon plan to station U.S. combat troops in Iraq beyond 2011, provided that Iraqi Premier Nouri al-Maliki officially requests it, according to U.S. and Iraqi sources.

But both U.S. and Iraqi officials acknowledge that Maliki may now be reluctant to make the official request. Maliki faces severe political constraints at home, and his government is being forced by recent moves by Saudi Arabia to move even closer to Iran.

And it is no longer taken for granted by U.S. or Iraqi officials that Maliki can survive the rising tide of opposition through the summer.

As early as September 2010, the White House informed the Iraqi government that it was willing to consider keeping between 15,000 and 20,000 troops in Iraq, in addition to thousands of unacknowledged Special Operations Forces. But Obama insisted that it could only happen if Maliki requested it, according to a senior Iraqi intelligence official.

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Thousands of Egyptian activists press ruling military council on promised reforms, justice.

Middle East Online, April 8, 2011

By Samer al-Atrush – CAIRO

Protests have been held regularly since Mubarak was toppled Tens of thousands of Egyptian activists massed in Cairo’s iconic Tahrir Square on Friday to demand that former regime officials be purged and put on trial, including ousted president Hosni Mubarak. Draped in Egyptian flags, Muslims were joined by Christians as they gathered for weekly prayers in a protest dubbed the “Day of Trial and Cleansing” to press the ruling military council on promised reforms and justice. Muslim cleric Safwat al-Higazi, who led the prayer, called for Mubarak to face criminal charges. “We don’t only want to try him for the millions (of dollars) but also for the blood,” he told the crowd. “We want to try him just as he tried the people in state security courts, but we want a popular trial.” Continues >>

AFP – An Egyptian protester shows spent bullets and a blood-stained sheet at Tahrir Square in Cairo on April …

CAIRO (AFP) – Several hundred protesters who held an overnight sit-in in Cairo’s Tahrir square after a deadly military crackdown stayed on on Sunday after the army backed down on a threat to disperse them.

The protesters, who blocked the square with a charred army truck, barbed wire and beams, chanted against military chief Field Marshal Hussein Tantawi, who has been in charge since president Hosni Mubarak’s ouster in February.

“The people demand the toppling of the field marshal,” they chanted, after spending a nervous night waiting for the army to carry out its warning that it would enforce a three-hour pre-dawn curfew.

Soldiers, backed by riot police, had dispersed an overnight protest in the iconic square before dawn on Saturday, with one protester shot dead.

The military later warned that it would clear out remaining protesters, keeping the demonstrators on edge throughout the night as the countdown began for the curfew.

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Tens of thousands of protesters took to the streets of Syria on Friday and were again met by violent crackdowns from security forces, particularly in the city of Daraa where rights groups report forces opening fire into massive crowds of demonstrators.

At least 37 protesters were killed nationwide, and 25 of those in Daraa alone. Several hundred others were also wounded. The toll is the one of the worst since protests began in Syria, but the enormous size of the rallies suggests that each crackdown only strengthens the resolve of the protesters.

On the other hand, Syria’s state-run TV claimed that 19 security forces members were killed by “gunmen” affiliated with the rallies. The government has been accusing the protesters of being “armed gangs” rather than reformists, but this is the first specific claim of police deaths from them.

Though the accuracy of the claims could not be confirmed, it has raised concerns among human rights groups that the sudden announcement will be used as a pretext for even more violent measures against calls for reform. Already early Saturday there were reports of forces firing on funerals for the slain.

International  Solidarity Movement, April 9, 2011

Besieged Gaza, Occupied Palestine.

The latest round of Israeli massacres committed against the people of Gaza has resulted in the brutal killings since Thursday afternoon of sixteen, including a mother and daughter, 4 children and an elderly man. Over the last 5 days, Gaza City has been bombed by Apache helicopters and F16 and E15 fighter planes. These terrible massacres come only one day after a statement issued by the disgraced Ehud Batak, the Israeli Minster of War, in which he calls upon his generals to intensify the attack against Gaza .

The slow motion genocide itself has killed more than 600 patients so far. We condemn in the strongest possible terms these heinous crimes and reiterate our call upon all civil society organizations and freedom loving people to act immediately in any possible way to put pressure on their governments to end diplomatic ties with Apartheid Israel and institute sanctions against it.

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By Dan Wooding, Christian News Today, April 7, 2011

LAHORE, PAKISTAN — Asia Bibi, the 45-year-old Christian mother of five who has been condemned to death under Pakistan’s strict blasphemy law, is gravely ill in her solitary confinement cell in Sheikhupura district jail, and there are growing concerns for her life.

Asia Bibi

According to Jibran Khan, writing for Asia News (www.asianews.it), “The Christian sentenced to death for blasphemy on false evidence is sick with chickenpox, because of the appallingly unhygienic conditions she is being kept in.”

Haroon Barket Masih, president of the Masih Foundation, which is providing legal and financial assistance to Ms. Bibi, has issued a statement which said, “Asia Bibi was diagnosed with chicken pox. She has been kept in solitary confinement for more than three months. We have expressed concern about her health, because she spends 24 hours a day locked in the cell.

“She needs medical care, hygienic and healthy conditions. She fell ill with chickenpox because of the dirty environment, and being unable to clean her room or bed sheets on which she sleeps. Despite her ill health she spends her time fasting and praying for everyone, She neglects her health and prays for everyone else. She is concerned about the current situation in Pakistan. We are trying to arrange a medical examination, and to ensure acceptable hygienic conditions. Until now she has had no medical care.”

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