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instablogs
June 05, 2009 Continue reading
Day: June 7, 2009
Confronting the CIA’s Mind Maze By Alfred W. McCoy
By Alfred W. McCoy
TomDispatch
June 7, 2009
America’s Political Paralysis Over Torture
If, like me, you’ve been following America’s torture policies not just for the last few years, but for decades, you can’t help but experience that eerie feeling of déjà vu these days. With the departure of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney from Washington and the arrival of Barack Obama, it may just be back to the future when it comes to torture policy, a turn away from a dark, do-it-yourself ethos and a return to the outsourcing of torture that went on, with the support of both Democrats and Republicans, in the Cold War years.
Like Chile after the regime of General Augusto Pinochet or the Philippines after the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos, Washington after Bush is now trapped in the painful politics of impunity. Unlike anything our allies have experienced, however, for Washington, and so for the rest of us, this may prove a political crisis without end or exit.
Despite dozens of official inquiries in the five years since the Abu Ghraib photos first exposed our abuse of Iraqi detainees, the torture scandal continues to spread like a virus, infecting all who touch it, including now Obama himself. By embracing a specific methodology of torture, covertly developed by the CIA over decades using countless millions of taxpayer dollars and graphically revealed in those Iraqi prison photos, we have condemned ourselves to retreat from whatever promises might be made to end this sort of abuse and are instead already returning to a bipartisan consensus that made torture America’s secret weapon throughout the Cold War.
[…]
via Tomgram: Alfred McCoy, Back to the Future in Torture Policy
From the archives:
George Galloway: We Have To Break That Siege
#1 Galloway calls for 500 U.S. Trucks for Convoy to Gaza 5-26-09
thestrugglevideo
June 04, 2009
The climax of George Galloway’s stirring call for a U.S. convoy to defy the siege of the Gaza Strip. It was part of his speech in Brooklyn, NY, on May 26, 2009.
George Galloway is a member of the UK Parliament. He successfully brought in over 100 trucks full of supplies to Gaza in March.
Obama & Merkel visit Buchenwald concentration camp: We will do everything we can so that something like this never happens again
Propaganda Alert
compiled by Cem Ertür
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
7 June 2009
1) Transcript of the Interview of US President Obama with Justin Webb of the BBC (2 June 2009)
2) Transcript of Foreign Minister Hillary Clinton’s interview on ABC’s ‘This Week’ (7 June 2009)
3) Obama and Merkel visit Buchenwald concentration camp (5 June 2009)
4) UK Prime Minister Brown’s words at the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp (28 April 2009) Continue reading
Why We Can’t Get Single Payer Health Care by Ed Ciaccio
Sent to DS by the author, thanks, Ed.
by Ed Ciaccio
Dandelion Salad
June 7, 2009
It doesn’t matter to “our” supposed representatives in D.C. that a majority of Americans prefer a single payer, all-inclusive health care system, especially once they understand how it works and how it would be better (truly universal, more efficient and more effective) than our current dysfunctional profit care system.
It doesn’t matter that more than 18,000 Americans die each year (that’s SIX 9/11 casualty counts!) due to their lack of health care.
It doesn’t matter that EVERY OTHER Western democracy has its own form of a single payer health care system and that the overwhelming majority of the people in each of those countries, from Taiwan to Canada to Denmark to France to Germany, would NOT change their current systems back to a profit care system such as ours.
Why?
Real-Life Superheroes OR Real-Life Nutbags??
Comedy break, everyone. Enjoy!
leecamp
June 06, 2009
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Cheney, Netanyahu, Permanent War, and Why By Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
by Steven Jonas, MD, MPH
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
crossposted on TPJmagazine
June 7, 2009
As Dick Cheney makes the media rounds attempting to justifying both the War on Iraq and torture, since Bush has virtually gone into hiding he has revealed to the world just who was running the show. He has also revealed its true goals.
Of course the Iraq and torture policies were closely tied together, and not simply because the first reason for doing torture was to try to get some captive to falsely “confess” that Saddam and bin Laden were working together. Cheney wanted the War on Iraq and he also wanted the use of torture to become institutionalized in the United States. But why Iraq? Well, we know that it was not because “Saddam had WMD and was prepared to unleash them within 45 minutes” (courtesy of the lap-dog Tony Blair). We also know that it was not because of any link between Saddam and bin Laden. None existed. If that supposed “meeting in Prague” really did happen, it is overwhelmingly likely that, given Saddam’s well-known hatred for bin Laden, his envoy responded to bin Laden’s messenger asking for aid in two words: “F__k off!”
KBDI Denver Airs 9/11 Press for Truth + 9/11 Press For Truth (2006)
TruthAlliance
June 06, 2009
For more info about this event go to:
http://colorado911visibility.org
http://visibility911.com
http://truthalliance.net
http://wearechangecolorado.orgIt was a big big day at the KBDI Five Points Media center for 9/11 Truth.
Having developed a relationship with the Denver metro area local PBS broadcasting station for over the last 3 years by simply taking donation phones calls, in exchange for a few minutes to talk to the audience about the 9/11 cover up, Colorado Visibility 9/11 has succeeded in making history.
KBDI aired the groundbreaking documentary film 9/11 Press for Truth June 4, 2009 during prime time with well over an hours worth of interviews with film producers Kyle Hence and Ray Nowosielski, and also powerful testimony from Bob McIlvaine.
Station managers and VP were extremely pleased as to how well this documentary was received and should be commend for doing what no other station has done in the nation and air a controversial film exposing the cover up of the 9/11 tragedy by our government.
The station Press Release reflects the excitement and enthusiasm of the Colorado’s 9/11 Truth community hailing this a major step forward and encouraging other stations to air this incredible documentary film.
This is being touted as one of the most successful fund raising events in station history and proves that people are dying for real answers about that day.
Obama Stuck to the Script on the Israeli-Arab Conflict in His Cairo Speech By Jeremy R. Hammond
By Jeremy R. Hammond
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Foreign Policy Journal
June 7, 2009
In his speech in Cairo last Thursday, U.S. President Barack Obama noted that the “situation” between Israel and Palestinians was a “major source of tension” that must be addressed.
His addressing of that issue began with a reemphasis of “America’s strong bonds with Israel”, which “is unbreakable.”
The “aspiration for a Jewish homeland”, he said, “is rooted in a tragic history” of anti-Semitic persecution and the Holocaust that, he correctly noted, cannot be denied.
But the implied logic here is that since the Jewish people suffered so horribly in the past, they therefore were entitled to the state of Israel, which, by logical extension, means they therefore were somehow entitled to unilaterally proclaim Arab lands their own and forcibly expel Arab Palestinians from their homes or terrorize them into fleeing of their own accord.
This is not a new argument. Towards the end of the British Mandate over Palestine, the newly created United Nations established a special commission to examine the question of Palestine. The commission consisted of 11 member nations, none of which was an Arab country.
Leo Panitch: Thoroughly modern Marx Pt. 2
Panitch: Marx’s theories are seeing new light as the debate over bank nationalization continues
5 Americans Detained In Iraq Murder Investigation
June 06, 2009 CNN
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