Peace and Justice Post

Information Clearing House

By William Blum

10/02/07 “ICH” — — I used to give thought to what historical time and place I would like to have lived in. Europe in the 1930s was usually my first choice. As the war clouds darkened, I’d be surrounded by intrigue, spies omnipresent, matters of life and death pressing down, the opportunity to be courageous and principled. I pictured myself helping desperate people escape to America. It was real Hollywood stuff; think “Casablanca”. And when the Spanish Republic fell to Franco and his fascist forces, aided by the German and Italian fascists (while the United States and Britain stood aside, when not actually aiding the fascists), everything in my imaginary scenario would have heightened — the fate of Europe hung in the balance. Then the Nazis marched into Austria, then Czechoslovakia, then Poland … one could have devoted one’s life to working against all this, trying to hold back the fascist tide; what could be more thrilling, more noble?

Miracle of miracles, miracle of time machines, I’m actually living in this imagined period, watching as the Bush fascists march into Afghanistan, bombing it into a “failed state”; then Iraq: death, destruction, and utterly ruined lives for 24 million human beings; threatening more of the same endless night of hell for the people of Iran; overthrowing Jean-Bertrand Aristide in Haiti; bombing helpless refugees in Somalia; relentless attempts to destabilize and punish Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Gaza, and other non-believers in the empire’s god-given mission. Sadly, my most common reaction to this real-life scenario, daily in fact, is less heroic and more feeling scared or depressed; not for myself personally but for our one and only world. The news every day, which I consume in large portions, slashes away at my joie de vivre; it’s not just the horror stories of American military power run amok abroad and the injustices of the ever-expanding police state at home, but all the lies and stupidity which drive me up the wall. I’m constantly changing stations, turning the TV or radio off, turning the newspaper page, to escape the words of the King of Lies and the King of Stupidity — those two twisted creatures who happen to occupy the same humanoid body — and a hundred minions.

Continued . . .

This Can’t Be Happening! Fri, 10/05/2007

By Dave Lindorff

President Bush says America “doesn’t torture people.”

He has said this before. The last time it was when Congress had been confronted with the atrocities at the US military-run Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, and was passing legislation that would outlaw torture.

That was when we learned for the first time about the president’s unique and un-Constitutional practice of issuing a “signing statement” upon signing a bill into law, declaring quietly that since he is commander in chief in the so-called “war” on terror, he doesn’t have to enact laws passed by Congress. He issued one of those little addenda to the torture bill, recall, in which he said he wouldn’t be bound by it.

At the same time, he assured Congress and all Americans that he was repulsed by torture, and that America would never torture.

Turns out that was a flat-out lie. At the urging of über-President Dick Cheney, Bush’s new Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, in 2005, wrote up a memo authorizing all the worst torture abuses—simulated drowning, slapping around and sleep deprivation, for example—which Congress had specifically banned.

Keep reading . . .

The New York Times

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

Published: October 6, 2007

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 — President Bush, reacting to a Congressional uproar over the disclosure of secret Justice Department legal opinions permitting the harsh interrogation of terrorism suspects, defended the methods on Friday, declaring, “This government does not torture people.”

Ron Edmonds/Associated Press

President Bush addressed reporters in the Oval Office Friday on the economy, then discussed the C.I.A.’s questioning of detainees. “This government does not torture people,” he said.

The remarks, Mr. Bush’s first public comments on the memorandums, came at a hastily arranged Oval Office appearance before reporters. It was billed as a talk on the economy, but after heralding new job statistics, Mr. Bush shifted course to a subject he does not often publicly discuss: a once-secret Central Intelligence Agency program to detain and interrogate high-profile terror suspects.

“I have put this program in place for a reason, and that is to better protect the American people,” the president said, without mentioning the C.I.A. by name. “And when we find somebody who may have information regarding a potential attack on America, you bet we’re going to detain them, and you bet we’re going to question them, because the American people expect us to find out information — actionable intelligence so we can help protect them. That’s our job.”

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Information Clearing House

By Cecilie Surasky

10/04/07 “ICH ” — – Last year, I agreed to speak to a Jewish youth group about my organization, Jewish Voice for Peace, and our opposition to Israel’s occupation. My talk was to follow one from a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which calls itself “America’s pro-Israel Lobby.”

A week before, a shaken program leader said the AIPAC staffer had threatened to get the entire youth program’s funding canceled if I was allowed in the door. The threat worked, and in disgust, they canceled the whole talk.

Pundits will surely argue for years about professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s explosive new book, The Israel Lobby, which blames poor U.S. policy in the Middle East on a loose network of individuals and pro-Israel advocacy groups.

But the book, and the response to it, opens up another controversy: the stifling of debate about unconditional U.S. support for Israeli policies.

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The Independent,October 5, 2007

By Jules Stevens in Ville Grande

Tens of thousands of disciples of the revolutionary leader Che Guevara made the pilgrimage to Ville Grande in the Bolivian jungle yesterday – the spot where he was executed exactly 40 years ago. And in a sign of the political sympathies of the hordes of students, tourists and revolutionaries setting up camp for the five-day World Che Festival, hundreds of multi-coloured chequered flags, the banner of the Campesinos – the oppressed indigenous people of the Andes – were being hoisted into the air.

Daniela Torrico, organiser of the Che festival, said: “He is like a saint to us because he fought for the Campesino people and he died for his ideals.”

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New York Times, October 4, 2007

Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations

This article is by Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

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Global Research, October 3, 2007

By Robert Perry

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George W. Bush has transformed elite units of the U.S. military – including Special Forces and highly trained sniper teams – into “death squads” with a license to kill unarmed targets on the suspicion that they are a threat to American military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to evidence from recent court cases.

Though this reality has been the subject of whispers within the U.S. intelligence community for several years, it has now emerged into public view with two attempted prosecutions of American soldiers whose defense attorneys cited “rules of engagement” that permit the killing of suspected insurgents.

One case involved Army sniper Jorge G. Sandoval Jr. who was acquitted by a U.S. military court in Baghdad on Sept. 28 in the murders of two unarmed Iraqi men – one on April 27 and the other on May 11 – because the jury accepted defense arguments that the killings were within the approved rules.

The Sandoval case also revealed a classified program in which the Pentagon’s Asymmetric Warfare Group encouraged U.S. military snipers in Iraq to drop “bait” – such as electrical cords and ammunition – and then shoot Iraqis who pick up the items, according to evidence in the Sandoval case. [Washington Post, Sept. 24, 2007]

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Socialist Worker, October 5, 2007

DAVID WHITEHOUSE analyzes the impact of Pervez Musharraf’s expected re-election.

PAKISTAN’S PRESIDENT Gen. Pervez Musharraf appears to have the votes lined up to assure victory in an October 6 vote, but opposition to his rule is building to a new crescendo following six months of political crisis.

The military dictator–and partner in the U.S. “war on terror”–has jailed hundreds of opponents in recent weeks and thwarted the political return of Nawaz Sharif, the civilian prime minister he overthrew seven years ago. The capital of Islamabad is on virtual lockdown, with all traffic in and out controlled by army checkpoints and assemblies of more than five are banned.

At the end of September, thousands of security forces, including Army Rangers, thrashed and tear-gassed a crowd of hundreds in Islamabad protesting the election commission’s decision to let Musharraf campaign for president while still holding the post of army chief. Those injured and arrested included lawyers, journalists, opposition members of parliament and passersby.

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Counterpunch, October 2, 2007

The Right to exist — States or People?

By Sonja Karkar

It is a curious phrase this “right to exist”. Israel wants the world to accept its “right to exist” as a state, but it denies the indigenous Palestinians their right to exist as a people in their own land. International relations only acknowledges the rights of people, not states. [1] States exist because of the formal recognition afforded them by other states, and now that Israel is recognised as a state, it in fact exists. It makes no sense to demand that a political party recognise Israel’s “right to exist”, much less punish 4 million Palestinians because a majority voted the Hamas Party into government. Yet, these are the very words that are holding the Palestinians, particularly those in Gaza, to an impossible ransom.

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