Obama And The Deadline For Closing Guantánamo: It’s Worse Than You Think by Andy Worthington

by Andy Worthington
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
www.andyworthington.co.uk
27 July 2009

When the Obama administration’s Detention Policy Task Force, established by Executive Order on the President’s second day in office, conceded last week that it would miss its six-month deadline to issue its recommendations about how to close Guantánamo, many observers focused on whether this meant that Obama would fail to meet his deadline of Jan 21, 2010 for the closure of the prison, and missed the bigger story, which was only revealed through close scrutiny of the Task Force’s five-page interim report (PDF).

Disturbingly, this document revealed that the Task Force envisages three options for dealing with the prisoners who will not be released from Guantánamo: trials in federal courts, trials by Military Commission (the “terror trials” introduced by former Vice President Dick Cheney in November 2001, and revived by Congress in 2006 after the Supreme Court ruled them illegal), and indefinite detention without charge or trial.

Murdoch: A Cultural Chernobyl, by John Pilger

Dandelion Salad

By John Pilger
Information Clearing House
July 27, 2009

I met Eddie Spearritt in the Philharmonic pub, overlooking Liverpool. It was a few years after 96 Liverpool football fans had been crushed to death at Hillsborough Stadium, Sheffield, on 15 April 1989. Eddie’s son, Adam, aged 14, died in his arms. The “main reason for the disaster”, Lord Justice Taylor subsequently reported, was the “failure” of the police, who had herded fans into a lethal pen.

“As I lay in my hospital bed,” Eddie said, “the hospital staff kept the Sun away from me. It’s bad enough when you lose your 14-year-old son because you’re treating him to a football match. Nothing can be worse than that. But since then I’ve had to defend him against all the rubbish printed by the Sun about everyone there being a hooligan and drinking. There was no hooliganism. During 31 days of Lord Justice Taylor’s inquiry, no blame was attributed because of alcohol. Adam never touched it in his life.”

Glen Ford: Health reform: dead or alive?

Dandelion Salad

TheRealNews
July 27, 2009

Ford: By excluding single payer plan, Obama allowed the right to dominate the reform debate

“Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order” Part II by Stephen Lendman

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by Stephen Lendman
Global Research, July 27, 2009

A Review of F. William Engdahl’s Book

For over 30 years, F. William Engdahl has been a leading researcher, economist, and analyst of the New World Order with extensive writing to his credit on energy, politics, and economics. His newest book is titled “Full Strectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order.”

Part I was reviewed earlier. Part II continues the story of America’s quest for global dominance and why its own internal rot may defeat it.

The Significance of Darfur in Sudan

In a word – oil in the form of huge potential reserves with Chinese companies involved in discovering them. Washington’s genocide claim is a hoax. Yet it’s trumpeted by the media and foolhardy celebrities used as props for the charade. By 2007, China was getting up to 30% of its oil from Africa prompting its “extraordinary series of diplomatic initiatives that left Washington furious” and determined to respond.

Iran: Whose side are you on? By William Bowles

By William Bowles
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Creative-i
27 July 2009

I have been reading, with much despair and a deal of consternation, the torrent of ‘analysis’ coming out of ‘left’ field about which, if any, side to support in the ongoing struggles in Iran and, at the end of the day, a good deal more is revealed about the ‘left’ in the West than the situation in Iran.

Typically, the ‘left’ has much ‘advice’ to offer Iran, yet the real issue for us, here in the ‘developed’ world is what are we going to do about our governments. Yet such arrogance is not new, it has its roots in the ideology of racism which unfortunately permeates all of us here in the so-called developed world. We look outward instead of inward, where the issues we really need to confront, reside. Let the Iranian people get on with sorting out their own ruling class, they don’t need us to ‘guide’ them.

It is imperative to separate the issue of Western involvement in events from the distinctly Iranian issues of class, religion, gender and so forth, that regardless, have their causes (and solutions) in Iran. This is not say that Western involvement/interference doesn’t affect events and end up being part of the process, but then this is precisely the problem we in the West have to confront: How to separate out the effects of our incessant meddling in other countries’ affairs from the indigenous processes? So, whatever happened to analysis, class, economic, social and otherwise?

The election

Martial Law and the Militarization of Public Health: The Worldwide H1N1 Flu Vaccination Program by Michel Chossudovsky

Dandelion Salad

by Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, July 26, 2009

“The flu season is upon us. Which type will we worry about this year, and what kind of shots will we be told to take? Remember the swine flu scare of 1976? That was the year the U.S. government told us all that swine flu could turn out to be a killer that could spread across the nation, and Washington decided that every man, woman and child in the nation should get a shot to prevent a nation-wide outbreak, a pandemic.” (Mike Wallace, CBS, 60 Minutes, November 4, 1979)

“The federal officials and industry representatives had assembled to discuss a disturbing new study that raised alarming questions about the safety of a host of common childhood vaccines administered to infants and young children. According to a CDC epidemiologist named Tom Verstraeten, who had analyzed the agency’s massive database containing the medical records of 100,000 children, a mercury-based preservative in the vaccines — thimerosal — appeared to be responsible for a dramatic increase in autism and a host of other neurological disorders among children….

Happiness Consultants Won’t Stop a Depression, by Chris Hedges

by Chris Hedges
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Truthdig
July 27, 2009

In the face of unspeakable evil, is it even possible for me to go too far? by Jason Miller

by Jason Miller
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Thomas Paine’s Corner
July 27, 2009

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated, allied, aligned, or connected with the Transformative Studies Institute, the Institute for Critical Animal Studies, Anthony Nocella II, or Richard Kahn. While I am a press officer for the North American Animal Liberation Press Office and am an associate of Jerry Vlasak and Steve Best, I am penning this piece independently of NAALPO and all of my allies. This essay is philosophical in nature and is not intended to incite or encourage illegal or violent acts.

Immersion in an emotionally intense experience impacts the human psyche in a poignant and profound way. Marginalized as we are by the war my fellow activists and I are waging against the dominant culture, it’s an elating and uplifting experience to meet and engage those fellow activists, comrades, and allies. My six days of nearly constant interaction with similar-minded individuals and the chanting, shouting, and raging at primate torturers and their enablers at the nexus of the UCLA vivisection wars in a raucous, vociferous, militant demonstration served both as a cathartic outlet and a source of potent spiritual and intellectual inspiration.

Cuba: How the workers and peasants made the revolution by Chris Slee

Dandelion Salad

Posted with permission from Green Left Weekly

by Chris Slee
Green Left
24 July 2009

July 26 also marks the anniversary of the attack on the Moncada military barracks by revolutionaries led by Fidel Castro in 1953, viewed by Cubans as the start of the revolution.

Chris Slee looks at how the revolution was made and defended by Cuba’s oppressed working people.

* * *

Workers, peasants and students played an active role before, during and after the insurrection that destroyed the brutal and corrupt Fulgencio Batista dictatorship in January 1959.

Batista seized power in a coup in March 1952. The coup initially met little resistance. The Confederation of Cuban Workers (CTC) called a general strike in protest at the coup, but the corrupt CTC leadership soon called it off.

CTC leader Eusebio Mujal became one of Batista’s closest collaborators, helping to suppress opposition to the dictatorship within the unions.

Secrets of CIA ‘ghost flights’ to be revealed

Dandelion Salad

Jamie Doward, home affairs editor
The Observer
Sunday 26 July 2009

Guantánamo detainee’s lawyers hail UK air firm’s U-turn that allows rendition case to go to court

Confidential documents showing the flight plans of a CIA “ghost plane” allegedly used to transfer a British resident to secret interrogation sites around the world are to be made public. The move comes after a Sussex-based company accused of involvement in extraordinary rendition dropped its opposition to a case against it being heard in court.

Lawyers bringing the case against Jeppesen UK on behalf of the former Guantánamo Bay detainee, Binyam Mohamed, claimed last night the climbdown had wide-ranging legal implications that could help expose which countries and governments knew the CIA was using their air bases to spirit terrorist suspects around the world.

[…]

via Secrets of CIA ‘ghost flights’ to be revealed | World news | The Observer

h/t: CLG

see

from the archives:

Revealed: Identity Of Guantánamo Torture Victim Rendered Through Diego Garcia by Andy Worthington

Did Hillary Clinton Threaten UK Over Binyam Mohamed Torture Disclosure? by Andy Worthington

Spies, Lies and Threats in Binyam Mohamed’s Case by Andy Worthington

Dick Cheney And The Death Of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi by Andy Worthington

Exclusive: Venezuela – In Great Danger from US Imperialism by Gary Sudborough

by Gary Sudborough
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
26 July 2009

Venezuela may be the world’s best hope for a brighter future. Do you know they have a children’s orchestra formed by taking poor children from the slums and teaching them music? They are so excellent at playing their instruments that this orchestra is world famous. They are taking unused farmland, owned by the rich landlords, and distributing it among the peasants to farm. They have built schools and educated the poor, provided them with health care, built them better homes, built sewage treatment plants and done things for the poor that only one other country in Latin America has done (although a few others are trying) and that is Cuba. They have nationalized factories and increased wages. Venezuela has brought in many Cuban doctors and poor people in rural areas who never had medical care before are now getting it. They certainly don’t deserve to be invaded by the United States under some pretext like running drugs, supporting the FARC or some other filthy excuse to rid us of our only hope in this world and that is socialism. The United States is evidently preparing for an invasion by getting their patsies in Colombia to provide 5 new military bases for US forces.

Venezuela: Class struggle heats up over battle for workers’ control by Federico Fuentes

Dandelion Salad

Posted with permission from Green Left Weekly

by Federico Fuentes
Green Left Weekly
Caracas
25 July 2009

On July 22, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez again declared his complete support for the proposal by industrial workers for a new model of production based on workers’ control.

This push from Chavez, part of the socialist revolution, aims at transforming Venezuela’s basic industry. However, it faces resistance from within the state bureaucracy and the revolutionary movement.

Presenting his government’s “Plan Socialist Guayana 2009-2019”, Chavez said the state-owned companies in basic industry have to be transformed into “socialist companies”.

The plan was the result of several weeks of intense discussion among revolutionary workers from the Venezuelan Corporation of Guayana (CVG). The CVG includes 15 state-owned companies in the industrial Guayana region involved in steel, iron ore, mineral and aluminium production.

The workers’ roundtables were established after a May 21 workshop, where industrial workers raised radical proposals for the socialist transformation of basic industry.

Chavez addressed the workshop in support of many of the proposals.

Afghan War: NATO Trains Finland, Sweden For Conflict With Russia by Rick Rozoff

by Rick Rozoff
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
Stop NATO
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/stopnato/message/40911
July 26, 2009

A Swedish newspaper reported on July 24 that approximately 50 troops from the country serving under NATO in the so-called International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) had engaged in a fierce firefight in Northern Afghanistan and had killed three and wounded two attackers.

The report detailed that the Swedish troops were traveling in armored vehicles and “later received reinforcements from several soldiers in a Combat Vehicle 90.” [1]

The world has become so inured to war around the world and seemingly without end that Swedish soldiers engaging in deadly combat as part of a belligerent force for the first time since the early 1800s – and that in another continent thousands of kilometers from their homeland – has passed virtually without notice.

A Finnish news story of the preceding day, possibly about the same incident but not necessarily, reported that “A Finnish-Swedish patrol, part of the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), came under fire in northern Afghanistan” on July 23rd. [2]

Chavez: US plans to invade Venezuela through Colombia

compiled by Cem Ertür
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
30 June 2009

US military presence in the Americas (2009) by David Vine

1) Venezuela Prepares Defense Against Potential U.S. Aggression from Colombia (24 July 2009)

Zelaya Follower Tortured & Assassinated By Coup Regime In Honduras

Dandelion Salad

by Eva Golinger
Postcards from the Revolution
Saturday, July 25, 2009

During the protests yesterday against the coup regime in Honduras, a curfew was imposed at noon that remains in place throughout the day and night today, Saturday. A large group of hundreds of protesters was detained in the El Paraiso region by armed forces under orders of the coup regime and prevented from reaching the border with Nicaragua, where President Manuel Zelaya was attempting his second entry into the country since his ouster one month ago.

The police and army repressing the people in El Paraiso fired tear gas, bullets and detained dozens of protesters. Violence erupted during the protests in reaction to the brutal force imposed by the coup regime. There are reports from the protesters in El Paraíso that the coup forces are preparing a nearby stadium to use for large-scale detentions. This would be reminiscent of the dictatorships in Chile, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay in the 1970s that used stadiums to detain, disappear, torture and execute tens of thousands of leftists.

[…]

via Postcards from the Revolution: ZELAYA FOLLOWER TORTURED & ASSASSINATED BY COUP REGIME IN HONDURAS

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see also

Postcards from the Revolution: UPDATE, SATURDAY 3PM: ZELAYA AT HONDURAN BORDER AGAIN; CLINTON SAYS HE’S “RECKLESS”

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Warning

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

Zelaya supporters claim second protester killed – 26 Jul 09