Some comments on recent events:
Earlier this week we had the AI report on human rights to give us nightmares. Amnesty points out that the torture, killings and other atrocities committed by US forces are inconsistent with the lofty rhetoric about freedom and such like. According to the miserable failure in this latest press conference, we can just dismiss AI's report as yet more America (freedom/God/Apple Pie)-hating BS:
In terms of the detainees, we've had thousands of people detained. We've investigated every single complaint against the detainees. It seemed like to me they based some of their decisions on the word of -- and the allegations -- by people who were held in detention, people who hate America, people that had been trained in some instances to disassemble -- that means not tell the truth. And so it was an absurd report. It just is. And, you know -- yes, sir.
Yes, they "disassemble" this:
A short aside. Does anyone else think it strange that there is a need to airbrush out TESTICLES when showing torture? Do most people find hairy sacks more shocking than torture? Is a penis more disturbing than people abusing other humans? Another case of Old Europe I suppose.
I need to admit to my shame that I was unaware of the scale of the horror in Africa. Now that sounds truly like TERROR, but do we give a fuck? Thanks to AI for trying to bring all this to the attention of the world
Nancy Pelosi delivered yet another anti Palestinian talk to AIPAC while two senior AIPAC employees are being indicted for espionage against the US. (Why is it that Anti Palestinian does not sound as bad as Anti Semitic - they are Semites too?) My favorite quote? Gotta be this one:
There are those who contend that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is all about Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. This is absolute nonsense. In truth, the history of the conflict is not over occupation, and never has been: it is over the fundamental right of Israel to exist.
It is all about a country's right (what other country makes claim to such a right?) to exist trumping the right of 4 million HUMANS to live free of occupation. Personally I believe people have rights, not countries, but I'm an old European, and therefore no doubt an anti Semite. Incidentally if, as the anti Palestinian crowd insist, criticism of Israeli crimes is anti Semitism, then I'm proud to be labeled as such by them. But they should stand still while I call them racist, colonialist religious supremacists.
1 comment:
Yannis obviously doesn't understand that apple pie is indeed a dangerous substance that makes many of its more powerful devotees somewhat delusional and immune to double standards, to say the least. Kids, don't go for that first slice even if the recruiter reminds you that the first
Re Amnesty's response, I don't think William Schulz needed to say much more than this perfect sentence:
"Twenty years ago, Amnesty International was criticizing
Saddam Hussein's human rights abuses at the same time
Donald Rumsfeld was courting him."
I find it tragic, though, that in the case of Haiti Amnesty recycled so much anti-Aristide crap from the US State Dept funded group the NCHR, said disinfo serving the purposes of BushCorp in its backing of the Feb.29,2004 coup in Haiti. More on NCHR from a National Lawyers Guild report:
g. The Haitian Human Rights Groups
-The Delegation spent time with the directors and legal staff of CARLI (Comite des Avocats pour le Respect des Libertes Individuelles) and NCHR (National Coalition for Haitian Rights), two well-known “human rights” organizations based in Port-au-Prince.
[...]
-NCHR is a well-funded and equipped “human rights” agency that purports to take all cases, regardless of political affiliation.
-NCHR however, could not name a single case in which a Lavalas supporter was a victim.
-NCHR took the delegation into a large meeting room where the wall was adorned with a large “wanted” poster featuring Aristide and his cabinet, in small photos, across the top. It named Aristide a “dictator” guilty of human rights abuses. Among a long list of other charges, it condemned him for the murder of John Dominique and included a large photo of Dominique’s dead body. The poster calls for the arrest and imprisonment of Aristide and his associates.
-The Delegation suggested that NCHR’s neutrality and inclusiveness might be better expressed with additional posters condemning, for example, FRAPH, Jodel Chamblain, Jean “Tatoune” Baptiste, Ti Kenley, etc. While the Director and the staff acknowledged the existence of all of those named, they laughed at the suggestion of adding other wanted posters to the office.
-The Delegation noted that many of the newsletters, “open letters,” and advisories available in the NCHR waiting room refer to Aristide as a “dictator” and that none of them concern abuses against supporters of the elected government or Lavalas.
-NCHR was asked if they would investigate the 1000 bodies dumped and buried by the morgue during the last few weeks at Titanyen, and the alleged malfunctioning of the refrigeration at the morgue. The director and his staff denied ever knowing about these events, laughed, and said none of it was true.
-NCHR was asked if it would investigate the dumped bodies at Piste D’Aviation. The director and his staff laughed and denied that it was true. The Delegation then showed NCHR the photographs we had taken of the ashes and fresh human skeletons. In response, the NCHR director told us that the General Hospital routinely dumps bodies at the Piste D’Aviation…..
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