Forgotten: The Second Anniversary Of A Guantánamo Suicide by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
31 May 2009

Today, unnoticed in the Western media (although I can’t vouch for the Arabic world) is the second anniversary of the death at Guantánamo — apparently by suicide — of Abdul Rahman al-Amri, a Saudi prisoner, and a long-term hunger striker, who had admitted that he was a foot soldier for the Taliban, but who went to his death with a ludicrous and unsupported allegation against him that, to this day, is regarded by the Pentagon as “evidence” — a claim that, despite arriving in Afghanistan in September 2001, he became a “mid-level al-Qaeda operative” who “ran al-Qaeda safe houses” in the three months before his capture in December.

The date of al-Amri’s death is always significant for me, because it was in response to his death — and with no interest from the mainstream media — that I wrote my first two articles for my blog (after completing the manuscript for my book The Guantánamo Files), providing some background to his story that would otherwise have been overlooked.

Sri Lanka: ‘20,000’ civilians killed

Dandelion Salad

Warning

This video may contain images depicting the reality and horror of war/violence and should only be viewed by a mature audience.

http://therealnews.com

Twenty thousand civilians were killed in Sri Lanka’s final push against Tamil Tigers, claims UN report

no longer available

Azerbaijan seen as new front in Mideast conflict

Updated: June 2, 2009

Propaganda Alert

compiled by Cem Ertür
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
31 May, 2009

1) Azerbaijan seen as new front in Mideast conflict (30 May 2009)
2) A welcome new stage in Azerbaijani-Israeli ties (1 June 2009)

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-shadow30-2009may30  ,0,2242157.story

excerpts from: Azerbaijan seen as new front in Mideast conflict

by Sebastian Rotella, Los Angeles Times, 30 May 2009

Quote:

Officials say they foiled a plot by Hezbollah and Iran to bomb the Israeli Embassy in revenge for the 2008 slaying of Imad Mughniyah. Anti-terrorism officials fear a new militant hub. It happened in Baku, transforming the capital of Azerbaijan into a battleground in a global shadow war.The prosecution remained largely a secret until this week, when closed court proceedings began for two Lebanese and four Azeris charged with terrorism, espionage and other crimes. […] The choice of Baku last year reflects Iran’s influence, said Matthew Levitt, a former intelligence chief at the U.S. Treasury Department. […] “The Iranians have a history of a presence there. And they wouldn’t mind undermining the country, given Azerbaijan’s Western leanings.”

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http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFu ll&cid=1243872307395

excerpts from: A welcome new stage in Azerbaijani-Israeli ties

by Alexander Murinson, Jerusalem Post, 1 June 2009

Quote:

Relations between Israel, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan serve as a model for cooperation between the Jewish state and Muslim nations. […] Peres is scheduled to visit Azerbaijan near the end of June as a part of his tour of the Muslim republics of the CIS. The visit to Baku will take place “at the highest level and with all honors.” […] [T]he invitation for Peres to visit secular Muslim Azerbaijan, Iran’s northern neighbor, reaffirms the strategic relationship between the two countries. […] The Azerbaijani media […] [quoted] the Iranian Chief of Staff Hasan Firudabadi […] [saying,] “The Shimon Peres visit does not seem like a friendly step in Azerbaijani relations with Iran.”

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related link:

Israel holds drill simulating all-out war

Israel holds drill simulating all-out war (23 May 2009)

https://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2009/02/04/israeli-president-peres-statements-on-turkey-and-iran/

Israeli President Peres’ statements on Turkey and Iran (February 2009)

So who are the terrorists here? by Jason Miller

by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner
May 31, 2009

Julie Leyva recently submitted some questions to the North American Animal Liberation Press Office. Jason Miller wrote the reply.

What is your occupation and for how long?

There are four of us serving as press officers for NAALPO:

Jerry Vlasak is a board certified trauma surgeon, a former vivisector, and a seasoned animal liberation activist who speaks, writes and debates on behalf of nonhuman animals. Jerry co-founded NAALPO and has been a board member of Sea Shepherd and the spokesman for the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine.

Camille Hankins has over 20 years of corporate marketing and management experience; co-founded Win Animal Rights (WAR), a group dedicated to shutting down Huntingdon Life Sciences, in 2004; founded the New York Animal Liberation Front Supporters in 2003; and is heavily involved in outreach to educate the public about the underground animal liberation movement.

Lin Bingham works as a writer and graphic designer. He is a vehement advocate of total liberation, including humans, nonhuman animals and the Earth. He specializes in “propaganda and agitation” and is willing and available to speak anytime one or more persons are willing to listen.

Jason Miller started with NAALPO about two months ago and is the newest press officer. I have worked as a supervisor in a call center for nine years where I’ve cultivated respectable problem-solving, conflict resolution, and communication skills. An ardent and seasoned animal liberation activist, I also founded the notoriously radical blog, Thomas Paine’s Corner, in 2004. TPC has become a popular site for activists to go for education and inspiration and to interact via comment threads. Like Lin, I too am a writer who specializes in “propaganda and agitation.”

Leo Panitch: Thoroughly modern Marx

Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews

Leo Panitch: Marx was a realist; the real romantics think you can have capitalism without great crisis.  Pt 1

Leo Panitch, economist and Professor at York University, talks to Paul Jay about the relevance of Marxist theories in studying today’s global economy. Panitch discusses the ideological crisis of the free market theory and notes that at this time “Marx would not be offering policy advice to governments about what is to be done in the face of this crisis; he would tell people to overcome their social isolation, form new collective organizations and identities, and make a social revolution.”

Thomas Linzey: Challenging Corporations (2005) + Q & A

Dandelion Salad

talkingsticktv
November 10, 2008

Talk by Thomas Linzey, attorney with Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund (CELDF) speaking in Seattle February 10, 2005.

NATO Of The South: Chile, South Africa, Australia, Antarctica by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/39754
May 31, 2009

Two days ago Carolina Toha, spokeswoman for Chilean President Michelle Bachelet, stated that “Chile has developed strategic ties with the United States since long ago” and expressed her government’s eagerness to expand them. [1]

Employing the standard rationale of sharing “more similarity with the Obama administration” than with its predecessor, a pose adopted by world politicians of all stripes since the US presidential election of last November 4th – including conservatives like France’s Nicholas Sarkozy – the Chilean statement could be seen as nothing more than desiring to be on the winning side and to curry favor with the new Planitarchus (lord of the planet), as Greek demonstrators who curtailed a proposed three-day visit to Athens in November of 1999 of Obama’s predecessor once removed, Bill Clinton, described the post of US president.

U.N. Expert On Extrajudicial Killings Calls For Special Prosecutor

Dandelion Salad

American Civil Liberties Union
5/29/2009

Transparency And Accountability Critical To Upholding The Rule Of Law

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
CONTACT: 212 549-2666; media@aclu.org

NEW YORK – The U.N. special rapporteur on extrajudicial killings called for a special prosecutor to investigate the policies and practices that have led to unlawful deaths and other abuses in the United States’ international operations. In a report made public late yesterday, Special Rapporteur Philip Alston said there have been “chronic and deplorable accountability failures with respect to policies, practices and conduct that led to alleged unlawful killings.”

Alston’s report also highlights issues of unlawful deaths within the U.S. for which the government may be responsible, including flaws in the death penalty system that increase the likelihood that innocent people will be executed and deaths in immigration detention.

The following can be attributed to Jamil Dakwar, Director of the American Civil Liberties Union Human Rights Program:

Michael Hudson on the “On the Edge” show with Max Keiser: A sovereign debt crisis?

Dandelion Salad

MaxKeiserTV on May 29, 2009

http://maxkeiser.com
Max Keiser hosts On the Edge
“A sovereign debt crisis?”
Co-presenter Stacy Herbert

Countdown: NO Terrorist Attacks Were Disrupted From The Use Of Torture! + Mancow’s Waterboarding A HOAX? Mancow Responds!

Dandelion Salad

VOTERSTHINKdotORG

http://earth2obama.org/

May 29, 2009 MSNBC Keith Olbermann

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Countdown: NO Terrorist Attacks Were …“, posted with vodpod

***

Mancow’s Waterboarding A HOAX? Mancow Responds!

Vodpod videos no longer available.

more about “Mancow’s Waterboarding A HOAX? Mancow…“, posted with vodpod

see

Countdown: Mancow Interview

Conservative Radio Host Mancow Waterboarded! Says It’s ABSOLUTLY TORTURE!

Countdown: Jesse Ventura Interview

Christopher Hitchens on Torture, and More

Did Erich “Mancow” Muller Fake His Waterboarding for Publicity? By The Cajun Boy

from the archives:

Christopher Hitchens Gets Waterboarded (2008)

President Obama on Cybersecurity + Securing Our Digital Future

Dandelion Salad

whitehouse
May 29, 2009

The President announces his plans for securing America’s digital future. May 29, 2009.

Life After Guantánamo: Lakhdar Boumediene Speaks by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
29 May 2009

So many of the stories relating to Guantánamo are bleak that I thought it was worth mentioning a recent interview with Lakhdar Boumediene, who was released from Guantánamo two weeks ago after seven years and four months of pointless and brutal imprisonment.

I first reported the story of Boumediene and his five compatriots — Algerians who had settled in Bosnia in the 1990s, and who were kidnapped by US agents in January 2002, in connection with a non-existent plot to bomb the US embassy in Sarajevo, and flown to Guantánamo — in my book The Guantánamo Files. I also covered the Supreme Court case which bore Boumediene’s name — and which allowed the Guantánamo prisoners to challenge the basis of their detention in the US courts — last June, and followed up by reporting on the six men’s habeas corpus review last November, which led to the judge ordering the release of five of the men, including Boumediene, because the government had failed to establish a case against them.

Blundering Into Bankruptcy by Ralph Nader

Dandelion Salad

by Ralph Nader
The Nader Page
May 29, 2009

Dear President Obama and GM Chairman Henderson,

The hour is late. You seem bent on an orchestrated bankruptcy for General Motors on June 1, 2009. Before any irreversible moves are made– the GM/task force reorganization plan should be submitted to Congress for deliberative review and decision. There are several major concerns with a precipitous bankruptcy declaration that have emerged over the last several days.

First, the previously understood rationale for bankruptcy—namely obstinate bondholders–no longer applies. Recent developments indicate that GM and the auto task force have revised the proposed allocation of equity in a restructured GM, and reached agreement with at least the most prominent bondholders. Although a June 1 bond payment is due, it certainly seems that that payment could easily be wrapped into the new bondholder offer, as effectively will be the case if GM enters bankruptcy.

Britain: The Depth Of Corruption By John Pilger

Dandelion Salad

By John Pilger
May 28, 2009 “Information Clearing House”

The theft of public money by members of parliament, including government ministers, has given Britons a rare glimpse inside the tent of power and privilege. It is rare because not one political reporter or commentator, those who fill tombstones of column inches and dominate broadcast journalism, revealed a shred of this scandal. It was left to a public relations man to sell the “leak”. Why?

The answer lies in a deeper corruption, which tales of tax evasion and phantom mortgages touch upon but also conceal. Since Margaret Thatcher, British parliamentary democracy has been progressively destroyed as the two main parties have converged into a single-ideology business state, each with almost identical social, economic and foreign policies. This “project” was completed by Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, inspired by the political monoculture of the United States. That so many Labour and Tory politicians are now revealed as personally crooked is no more than a metaphor for the anti-democratic system they have forged together.

Busted, Pentagon – Why The Photos Probably Do Show Detainees Sodomized and Raped By Naomi Wolf

Dandelion Salad

By Naomi Wolf
ICH
May 29, 2009 “Huffington Post”

The Telegraph of London broke the news – because the US press is in a drugged stupor — that the photos Obama is refusing to release of detainee abuse depict, among other sexual tortures, an American soldier raping a female detainee and a male translator raping a male prisoner. The paper claims the photos also show anal rape of prisoners with foreign objects such as wires and lightsticks. Major General Antonio Taguba calls the images `horrific’ and `indecent’ (but absurdly agrees that Obama should not release them – proving once again that the definition of hypocrisy is the assertion that the truth is in poor taste).

Predictably, a few hours later the Pentagon issues a formal denial.