Direct Transcript From Democracy Now!: Outrage continues to mount over the US military’s first act of war approved by President Obama. Last Friday unmanned US Predator drones fired missiles at houses in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas, or FATA, killing as many as 22 people, including at least 3 children.
The United States has carried out 30 such drone attacks on alleged Al Qaeda targets inside Pakistani territory since last summer, killing some 250 people, according to a tally by Reuters.
Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani told an audience at the World Economic Forum Thursday that US drone attacks were “counterproductive” and ended up uniting local communities with militants.
But Defense Secretary Robert Gates indicated Tuesday at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that such strikes would continue and that Pakistani officials were aware of US policy on this matter.
I've been busy starting classes, so my apologies on the lack of updates during this historic first week of Barack Obama's presidency. As usual though Mr. Fish was able to sum up my thoughts in one of his cartoons.
Since I last posted the empire has inaugurated its new leader, Barrack Hussein Obama. One of Obama's first acts was the closure of the Guantanamo Bay prison, along with other secret CIA prisons throughout the world. Although it only took a number of days to set up these illegal prisons and to take away peoples most basic rights (like be charged for the crime they are being detained for) it is said that it will be a year until the Guantanamo Bay prison officially closes. Two major questions have failed to be asked by the mainstream media, the first being: Why the wait? As Vincent Warren of the Center for Constitutional Rights said "It only took days to put these men in Guantánamo; it shouldn’t take a year to get them out.”
The other question is: "What happens to these prisoners now"? The answer being that many will be shipped off to countries other then their homeland. Many of the inmates now risk persecution upon returning home. By closing Guantanamo is the US ending its policy of taking prisoners without placing charges on them or are we just moving these human rights violations off of US property? For those that will be released free men what will be done for them? The US has done nothing to compensate those whose lives they've destroyed inside the prison, like Sudanese cameraman Sami al-Hajj. al-Hajj was released from Guantanamo in May after spending six years in the prison, without receiving any charges or being given the opportunity to go before a court. Upon release he was put on a plane and shipped to Sudan were he was immediately taken to a hospital for treatment. Will the remaining prisoners in Guantanamo receive similar treatment? Although a good first step, simply closing these prisons is by no means enough action.
There is also the question of military prisons set up inside of Iraq and Afghanistan. Obama has yet to announce any plans of closing said prisons. Will we see a return to the pre-Bush torture policy? Where prisoners are simply taken to other countries were these acts will be committed? And what about the Guantanamo base itself? Will the land remain under US control?
Obama has also ordered that all agencies abide by the army field manuel when handling interrogations. Since many of the acts of torture were being done in secrecy, I don't see how this order will prevent future policy breeches. It is also unclear if this policy will be adhered to at all, on the evening of January twenty first White House counsel Gregory Craig told lawmakers that Obama may still allow interrogation methods other then the nineteen approved for military use. As we saw with the Bush administration what is and is not torture is defined by policy makers.
Here is a report on the release of Sami Al-Hajj from Democracy Now!:
On Saturday bush signed the Peruvian Free Trade Agreement. The decision has come under question due to Peru's need to strengthen labor rights and environmental standards. One of the main points of criticism is a law signed by Peru's president Garcia, that could see 70% of the Amazon destroyed in order to grow bio-fuels.
In one of George Carlin's last routines he stated that he only called George Bush "Gov. Bush" since its highest level of office he was ever elected to. He also stated that he stopped capitalizing his name. Sadly history books won't go this route, instead they will try to gloss over eight of the worst years in America's history. Gov. bush has a few days left in his home, the white house. Before you known it Tuesday will be here, bush will be gone and we will have a whole new set of problems on our hands, one of them being Obama's lack of intreats to prosecute bush and co. for the crimes they committed during his time in office.
Over the next few days I expect to be posting a plethora of pieces pertaining to the past eight years of acknowledged hell that we have collectively experienced from Bagdad to Boston. Here are just a few pieces to help put Bush's exit in perspective.
Paul Craig Roberts was the assistant secretary of the treasury in the Regan administration and is a frequent contributor to Counterpunch. Yesterday he released an excellent piece on the state of the United States economy, its a must read. One of the most unbelievable statements I have reprinted: Noted statistician John Williams (shadowstats.com) reports that biases in measurement have understated the job loss over the last 12 months by 1,150,000 jobs. Williams reports the unemployment rate as it was measured prior to “reforms” designed to minimize the measured rate of unemployment. According to the methodology used in 1980, the US unemployment rate in December 2008 reached 17.5 percent.
As Barack Obama's inauguration nears many have wondered who is fitting the bill for this fifty million dollar extravaganza. An article published in the Wall Street Journal by Christopher Cooper and Brody Mullins uncovers this information. Ten million dollars will be spent using tax payer money while the rest is coming from private donations. The Obama team have said that they are not accepting direct corporate donations, while this is true it doesn't tell the whole story. While their companies may not be allowed to use their funds the CEO's and executives of many of America's biggest corporations have made donations, many of these same companies received government handouts over the past three months. Single donors can make up to fifty thousand dollar contributions, while bundled donations can go up to three hundred thousand dollars. A bundle donation is a donation made by a group of people, more often then not by a companies board of directors. So while the companies themselves aren't giving direct donations they are still contributing to the event. Some of these companies include Goldman Sachs, Citigroup, Microsoft and Dreamworks.
Had Obama truly desired to keep the corporations out of the event (as many who voted for him would have liked) they could have set a much lower maximum donation. I don't see why Obama couldn't have raised this money through small donations from individual citizens. Wall Street Is Big Donor to Inauguration By CHRISTOPHER COOPER and BRODY MULLINS
With Palestinians crammed into the Gaza strip like canned sardines, Israel began bombing the strip on December 27. This was only one day after humanitarian workers were allowed into the Gaza Strip to provide aid. The bombing has been continuos, leading to over four hundred deaths and 2000 injuries, many being innocent civilians. This number is four hundred times greater then the casualties incurred by Israel. The UN has labeled the situation a "critical emergency".
The goal of the Israel army is to wipe out Hamas militants. Hamas has been accused of ending a six month cease fire by sending missiles into Israel territory. One must ask: was this act unprovoked? As you will discover in the articles posted below it most certainly was not. The blockade placed on the Gaza Strip has caused more damage and killed more people then any rocket ever fired by Hamas. While I don't agree with the method of using terrorism to end oppression, these acts were not unprovoked as the media would lead you to believe. Many associate violence or terrorism with the explosion of bombs and bullets. A blockade though is one of the most vicious forms of violence. The blockade placed on Gaza by Israel jeopardizes the lives of over one and a half million people.
To read more about the situation in Israel and Gaza I highly recommend checking out these articles:
This humanitarian crisis is taking place largely due to the support of the United States government. Between 2001 and 2006 the US gave Israel more than 200 million dollars worth of spare plane parts, more then 100 million dollars worth of helicopter parts, 186 million gallons of jet fuel (july 2008), an additional 1.9 billion dollars worth of littoral combat ships and last year the US signed a 1.3 billion dollar contract with Raytheon to transfer to Israel thousands of TOW, Hellfire and bunker buster missiles. (This information comes from the U.S. Campaign to End The Israeli Occupation) Because of the US's finical support to Israel it is the duty of American citizens to tell their government to stop supporting Israel's attack on the Palestinian people.
I encourage you sign this petition to telling Barack Obama to change the US's Israel/Palestine policies.
