Aurora Shooting 7-23-12

23, July 2012 Aurora Shooting

The horrific terrorist attack in Aurora, Colorado should reignite the national debate on gun control. The alleged shooter was able to purchase more than 6,000 rounds of ammunition online and a high-capacity "drum magazine" large enough to hold 100 rounds and capable of firing 50 or 60 rounds per minute – all with a few clicks of a keyboard mouse. How can we allow our highly paid, Rip Van Winkle legislators to stall pending legislation that would have prevented such mayhem? President Obama and president wannabe, Mitt Romney both chose to avoid calls for tighter gun control. Such is the power of the NRA gun lobby who vowed to ' take down any legislator in an election” if they campaigned against the interests of the lobby. The country is awash in guns and assault weapons of every description. According to FBI statistics there are over 200 million privately-owned firearms in the U.S. It is time to jettison the Wild West mentality of our nation and challenge the archaic laws of our nation.  The second amendment of the US Constitution  “A well-regulated militia, . . .  the right to bear arms shall not be infringed. “ is an anachronistic obscenity and must be repealed. We already have well-regulated militias; we call them law enforcement agencies.

Obama’s kill list 6-2-2012

June 2, 2012               Obama’s kill list

A new documentary, ‘Reckoning with Torture’, presents a stark and extremely troubling post 9/11 period – during which the most brutal acts of torture were perpetrated in our name against our alleged enemies, many of whom were found to be completely innocent. It is a travesty that no one has been held accountable for these crimes.

Extrajudicial assassinations have now replaced Bush’s torture policies. President Obama, desperate to portray a ‘get tough’ image in an election year personally approves the targeted killings of suspected terrorists. Victims include US citizens, as well as teenage girls as young as 17. This is certain to degrade our security and provoke hostile reactions. Painstaking interrogation and due process has been bypassed in favor of vigilante assassinations based on CIA input – an agency that is notorious for acquiring faulty intelligence.

Obama’s kill list actions will be conducted in total secrecy, without any due process, without transparency or oversight of any kind. Innocent victims and their bereaved families will be of no consequence and such actions are certain to be kept well hidden from the American public. Remember, secrecy is the enemy of democracy. We have established an extremely dangerous precedent of violating international law and the sovereignty of other nations. It will only be a question of time when hostile nations acquire our drone technology and release its awesome firepower on American cities.

NATO 5-23-2012

23, May 2012                            NATO

NATO has increasingly been used as a US surrogate and serves as a cover for United States military operations, to provide the false belief that there is a united front on all the wars we choose to fight. For example, Austria has only 3 troops in Afghanistan but is nonetheless considered a NATO partner.  NATO is an outmoded military alliance which regards all conflicts and disputes solvable by pounding away with its awesome US led ‘hammer’ power. We have witnessed the utter failure of this approach with our decade old war in Afghanistan. How can the Afghan forces degrade the Taliban resistance fighters with the planned withdrawal of NATO forces in 2014? The small remnant of troops will be extremely vulnerable to the Afghan army who have weak loyalties to the Karzai government and have repeatedly demonstrated their hostility to NATO forces. Furthermore, a Taliban surge is likely to emerge in 2014. The partial withdrawal is largely a political decision to pacify the war hawks and those on the political left. If  Europe is concerned about its enemies it should invest in its own defense and not drain the US currency on futile projects such as the ‘star wars’ missile defense shield in Poland which has unnecessarily provoked a Russian threat of retaliation.  NATO undermines the goal of the United Nations Charter, which seeks to resolve regional disputes non-violently. It is a Cold War relic and has lost any shred of legitimacy.

JP Morgan 5-16-2012

16, May 2012             JP Morgan

It is baffling to understand how JP Morgan CEO Mamie Dimon can still retain his lofty position after he admitted that he and other bank executives repeatedly ignored warnings of extremely risky trades. Doesn’t the buck stop at Dimon’s desk? It seems as Dimon’s moral outrage was a carefully crafted to blunt public criticism. It is also puzzling why President Obama would choose the occasion to remind us that Dimon “is the smartest banker we’ve got’. If that is true, we are in big trouble.

Surely this is a wakeup call for more stringent regulations to rein Wall Street banks who regard investors’ money as their pile of gambling chips. Gambling is a serious addiction and executives are encouraged to place risky bets because their huge bonuses are directly tied to their banks profits. These large, - too big to fail - banks have a huge competitive advantage and pose a systemic risk to taxpayers. Our lawmakers need to legislate ‘anti-trust’ laws to downsize these banks to prevent another financial debacle. Let is bring back Glass-Steagall to separate commerce and investment banking and apply the Volker Rule which mandates more transparency in derivative trading. It is disappointing that JP Morgan stockholders didn’t raise Caine and demand an end to these obscene bonuses. Finally, in the interests of full disclosure, President Obama should have admitted that JP Morgan had given him a nice juicy check of $1 million to aid his re-election.

Afghanistan 5-9-2012

9, May 2012                                Afghanistan

There is little to cheer with the announcement that US troops are planning to stay in Afghanistan until 2024. This is bad for the troops who are yearning to return home from a mission that has been so ill-defined. This is sure to alienate the Afghan people who are war weary of our presence, night raids and drone attacks. Just this week, an Afghan mother and her five children were mistakenly killed and another 14 civilians were killed in another incident in Badghis. A 2011 poll taken by the International Council on Security and Development revealed over 80% opposed the NATO war efforts and viewed them to be detrimental to the Afghan people.  Contrary to President Obama’s assertions, the war is going very badly. See Colonel Davis’ unclassified report in Rolling Stone magazine, entitled “Dereliction of Duty II”, which draws a strong parallel to H.R. Masters’ classic report of Vietnam.

President Obama’s highly publicized visit to Afghanistan may win a few votes at home but will have little outcome on the war itself. We should not be subjecting the people of Afghanistan and US troops as pawns in the high stakes of the US presidential election. How much more blood will be shed on a war without purpose and without end?

Attempt to gag 60 Minutes 4-26-2012

26, April 2012            Attempt to gag 60 Minutes

Well the dirty secret is finally out. In a gross attempt to censor Bob Simon’s 60 Minutes report on Palestinian Christians, Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren called the head of CBS news and made a clumsy attempt to quash the damning expose.

Simon’s report described the brutal displacement of Palestinian Christians and the colonization of their land by the Israeli military. Hitherto, the presence of Palestinians Christians has been carefully hidden from the American public.

We now learn that there are Palestinian Lutherans, Catholics and Episcopalians.

These followers of Christ are subjected to the same humiliating treatment as their Muslim brethren - akin to the treatment of apartheid South African blacks. For example, they have to seek travel permits and pass through numerous military check points for short 7 miles trips which often turn into an all-day ordeals.

60 Minutes showed the Separation Wall looming like a menacing Darth Vader over Palestinian hovels and shows the stark disparity between the living conditions and resources of Palestinians and Jewish settlers. Bethlehem, Jesus’s birthplace, has now been isolated by the wall. 18% of its inhabitants are Christian who complain bitterly that their city has been reduced to an “open-air prison.”

The West Bank now looks like a lump of Swiss cheese, with Israeli colonies grabbing the good land and water resources, and the stateless Palestinians pushed into the dark holes.

Why are our scarce tax dollars propping up this inhumane, apartheid system?

Massive Spying on Americans 4-23-2012

23, April 2012                        Massive Spying on Americans

The Department of Homeland Security is making Americans more and more insecure. Its tentacles reach far and wide into virtually all electronic communications. It is amassing huge amounts of data on Americans. It is extremely troubling that this this mammoth federal bureaucracy is able to conduct its business under the radar of Congressional oversight.

National Security Agency (NSA) whistleblower William Binney revealed that, unbeknownst to most Americans, the NSA is building the largest spy center in the country in Bluffdale, Utah. He reported his findings to reporter, James Bamford, who submitted a featured article of the NSA in Wired Magazine. The Bluffdale database contains virtually all privacy information – emails, cell phone calls, and Internet searches – of all Americans. Nothing can be considered sacred anymore. Most troubling is the high handedness and intimidating tactics used by the NSA when confronting reporters at airport security centers demanding access to their laptops and cell phones.

Federal Regulators have now sanctioned the use of drones to cast an even wider net on domestic surveillance.

Such actions are a gross assault on free speech and privacy which should be fiercely protected by the US Constitution.  Unwarranted searches and seizures of cell phones and laptops are now becoming routine driving a huge stake into our cherished democracy. The potential for abuse is enormous. I urge concerned readers to write to their representatives in Congress and demand an end to these intrusions. Private communications should remain private.

Freedom Riders of Israel 4-17-2012

17, April 2012                        Freedom Riders of Israel

A Stanford ‘alum’ delivered a stirring speech at a recent conference held at Stanford University. Fadi Quran, and fellow Palestinian activists drew inspiration for their new protests from the historic Freedom Riders of the 1960s in the US Deep South in which black Americans boarded all white buses triggering mass arrests accelerating an end to racial segregation. U.S. Civil Rights lawyer Clarence Jones was present and thanked Quran for validating the Freedom Riders efforts and modeling his peaceful protests on their successful legacy. He acknowledged that it would take enormous courage and an unshakable commitment to non-violence to bring about a change of attitude to end the occupation and oppression of the Palestinians whose land is being forcibly annexed at an alarming pace. Quran was arrested for his non-violent activism which fueled an outcry for his release.

Brute force, aided and abetted with billions of US military and economic aid, may make any hope of a two-state solution a fading dream but Jones warned that such an outcome would result in Israel losing its very soul. Enlightened Jewish organizations, such as J Street, are extremely concerned of Israel’s current trajectory and are appealing for an end to the occupation and a return to the universal policies of justice on which Quran has founded his nonviolent movement.

Time magazine hailed Quran as the “the face of the new Middle East.”

US supporting terror group 4-15-2012

15, April 2012               US supporting terror group

Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh, reveals more of the dark side of our foreign policy in an article in the The New Yorker entitled "Our Men in Iran?"

Hersh reports that the U.S. Joint Special Operations Command has been actively engaged in training a shady group of political radicals, Mujahedeen-e-Khalq, or MEK, at a secret site in Nevada since 2005.  The MEK has been linked to violent crimes against Americans to the more recent wave of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists and is designated a terrorist organization by the State Department.

Contrary to our public statements of being a beacon for freedom and democracy, we have perpetuated a cycle of internal chaos and mayhem inside Iran intensifying anger towards the US and Israel which according to Hersh is also supporting the MEK. He reiterates that, after exhaustive fact checking from US and Israeli intelligence, there is absolutely no evidence that Iran is engaged in making nuclear weapons.  There is little doubt that ordinary Iranians will rally around their leadership, which they may regard with utter revulsion - as a direct consequence to our economic sanctions and covert operations. How long are the American people going to tolerate and support these insane policies with their prolonged silence?

It is time we stopped violating the sanctity of other nations and interfering in their internal affairs and halted the constant threats and drumbeat of war.

Rice’s talks on faith 3-30-2012

30 March 2012                       Rice’s talks on faith 

It a pity that Condoleezza Rice’s strong Christian faith did not serve her well during the tumultuous years as President Bush’s Secretary of State. Her warnings of nuclear mushroom clouds descending on US cities, turned out to be carefully crafted hysteria to justify the pre-emptive war on Iraq. The hoodlums who perpetrated the 9-11 attack were Saudi citizens hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan and later in Pakistan – not Iraq.

Condoleezza Rice then used her considerable skills to support President Bush and his inner circle’s decision to attack Afghanistan – another appalling decision. Iraq’s infrastructure has been largely destroyed with the ‘shock and awe’ of our invasion. We have left a terrible legacy. Over a trillion of dollars of our tax money has been squandered. Tens of thousands of Iraqis, Afghanis and US servicemen have lost their lives and many others suffer from horrible injuries. It is hard to believe Jesus would have approved such actions.

It is extremely sad to see such an attractive and talented person fall victim to political pressures and participate in such an appalling war of aggression on Iraq that  was  no threat to the US - no

WMD’s, no 911 and no Al-Qaeda connections.

Her claim to possess an abiding faith should have served as a moral compass to resist such political pressures. The indelible stain of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars cannot be so easily erased and will shadow all of her other accomplishments.

(Los Altos Crier, March 28, 2012)

Dangerous Threat to Obama 3-27-2012

27, March 2012                         Dangerous Threat to Obama

The stunning and shocking silence of the US mainstream media over an incendiary column calling for the assassination of President Obama is difficult to comprehend. The Jewish publisher and editor of the Atlantic Times, Andrew Adler, displeased with Obama’s failure to pledge unconditional support to Israel’s hawkish policies towards Iran, called on the Mossad, Israel’s secret police, to launch a mafia style assassination attack on President Obama. Adler argued that the removal of Obama would be good for Israel because the more –pro-Israel, compliant, Vice-President Joseph Biden, would become president. Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League admitted that Adler’s views are also shared by extremist elements within the Jewish community.

The threat against Obama should be taken seriously given Israel’s penchant for such thuggish activities. Remember the Lavon Affair, a botched up attack on Egyptian, American and British owned businesses in an attempt to shift the blame on the Moslem Brotherhood and create instability in Egypt. In 2005, the surviving Mossad agents were officially honored with a certificate of appreciation by the then Israeli President. More recently, Iranian scientists have been gunned down to derail its nuclear program.

We should heed the advice of foreign policy experts such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, who argued recently on Fareed Zakaria’s GPS program, that US & Israeli interests are not aligned. “We should divorce our special relationship with Israel – this marriage benefits Israel to the detriment of US interests.” 

Cover-Up in Yemen 3-20-12

20, March 2012                      Cover-up in YEMEN

The arrest of Yemini journalist, Abdullah Haider Shaye is a classic case of the messenger of bad tidings being unfairly arrested. Jeremy Scahill, national security correspondent for The Nation magazine reports that that Shaye traveled to the village of al-Majala in southern Yemen on December 17, 2009 to investigate the aftermath of a series of strikes against Al-Qaeda training camps allegedly conducted by the Yemini government.

What he found was the evidence of a massacre of many elderly civilians including 14 women and 21 children – and the unmistakable imprint of US missile strikes. He photographed remnants of Tomahawk cruise missiles and cluster bombs carrying “Made in USA”. The Yemini government, acutely embarrassed by Shaye’s reporting, arrested him on triumphed up charges of terrorism. The trial created international outrage with human rights groups and organizations to protect journalists demanded the immediate and unconditional release of Shaye. International pressure seemed to be working, and a pardon was prepared for then-president Ali Abdullah Saleh’s signature. However, Scahill, and other reporters and bloggers including Salon's Glenn Greenwald, allege that Saleh’s release was rescinded by an urgent call from the Obama White House. This appears to be yet another US missile strike gone awry which resulted in a tragic loss of innocent civilians followed by a clumsy effort on damage control. Meanwhile a courageous reporter languishes in a Yemini dungeon at the behest the Obama White House – another travesty of justice.   

Our Fading Democracy 3-15-12

15, March 2012                      Our fading democracy

Oligarchs seem to be getting a free pass in our criminal justice system. For example, former head of MF Global, Jon Corzine, and his senior executives stole money from their customer accounts just days before it declared bankruptcy. The amount is staggering - $6.2 billion of which $1.6 billion is still missing. The executives of MF Global offer the absurd claim that it was “all a big mistake” and inexplicably federal prosecutors appear to be willing to accept this fiction. This is despite a barrage of damaging MF Global emails urging bosses “to raid customer accounts” to save the company. This follows a number of other high profile cases of egregious fiscal mismanagement, impropriety and outright fraud in which former CEO’s have remained unscathed and escaped long prison terms.  Angelo Mozilo, the former chairman and CEO of Countrywide and Richard Fuld former chairman of Lehman Brothers have escaped indictment and are free men. The sub-prime mortgage fraud which resulted in millions of people losing their homes has not resulted in a single prison term of bank officials.

Many now believe a 2-tier system of justice exists. Those living in super-zip communities – the politically well-connected – often get a free pass. Remember, Corzine, a former governor of New Jersey was big fund raiser for President Obama. 

It is not surprising that the prevailing lack of accountability will only deepen the cynicism people feel about their government. Our democracy is eroding while the oligarchs are rejoicing. 

Massacre in Afghanistan 3-13-12

13 March 2012                       Massacre in Afghanistan

The seething anger triggered by the slaughter of 16 Afghan civilians, mainly women and children, by a U.S. soldier comes amidst outrage over other civilian deaths. Last week violence erupted by the burning of the Koran by U.S. troops. In January American marines were captured on video urinating on dead Taliban militants. A US army ‘kill team’ was also caught on video cutting off dead body parts as souvenir trophies. On February 8th, helicopter gunships slaughtered eight shepherds on a mountainside as they were out grazing their flocks. Just three days later in Kapisa, four civilians were killed, mistaken for insurgents.

Daily night raids and drone attacks continue with an alarming numbers of civilian deaths.

President Karzai’s demands that such attacks stop have been ignored. Whole villages have been burned (NYT, March 13, 2012) eerily similar to the rational given in justifying such atrocities in the Vietnam war and brings forth the ghost of the  My Lai massacre.

Meanwhile hundreds of Afghan children are dying  daily from hunger as we continue to support our illegal occupation robbing our treasury of $2 billion a month. Our hidden agenda appears little to do with nation building (our large scale destruction of Iraq is hardly a good model) but more to do with maintaining a large military presence with 450 bases and protection of the Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline.

It is time to end our occupation now. Period. 

Soaring Gas Prices 2-27-12

27, February 2012 Soaring Gas Prices

A key part of the reason for the sudden spiking of oil prices is the media frenzy over a possible military confrontation with Iran. Our current policy based on strangulation and capitulation of Iran is completely misguided. Have we learned nothing from our failed policy of Iraq? Remember, we imposed crippling sanctions imposed on Iraq caused the death of 500,000 innocent men, women and children – and there was no WMD’s when the Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld cabal tried to convince us otherwise? As Michael Moore so aptly stated, fool us once shame on you, fool us twice, shame on us!

Our media is inundating us with a one-sided debate about Iran. The non-Ron Paul embarrassing cadre of Republicans presidential candidates buttressed by the Liebermann-Graham-McCain is hyperventilating over the big bad wolf – Iran. There is universal repugnance over the autocratic rulers of Iran but let us not add to the woes of the Iranian people who are already being oppressed by their government. There is little doubt that Iranians will rally behind their government if they feel that their country is being unfairly victimized by the international community.

The CIA, the Pentagon, the Israeli internal security agency, the Mossad – have all stated categorically that Iran is not developing a nuclear weapon. Let’s dial back the incendiary rhetoric and demand that our policy makers actively engage with serious dialogue and constructive diplomacy. 

Finally, let’s rein in the trigger happy Israelis and demand that there be no-preemptive strike on Iran.

Yemen 2-22-12

22, February 2012     YEMEN

It is an outrage that the Obama administration continues to defy international law by violating the sovereign air space of foreign countries. A disproportionate number of civilians in Pakistan, Afghanistan and more recently in Yemen are being killed giving rise to mounting anger towards the US. The so called ‘war on terror’ has become ‘a war of terror’ on innocent civilians.
Shrewd and corrupt leaders from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq and now Yemen are capitalizing on our obsessive compulsive behavior of launching endless wars by enriching themselves at the expensive of US taxpayers. 

Jeremy Scahill, the national security correspondent for The Nation reports in a cover story, that the US jihad in Yemen has given rise to an Islamist uprising and pushed the country to the brink of starvation. According to the United Nations Children’s Fund, UNICEF, more than half of Yemen’s 12 million children are chronically malnourished. Unemployment in the country has reached 35 percent. 
Scahill writes that Saleh is “a master chess player, and has milked counterterrorism as his cash cow.” 
He constantly exaggerates the threat of al-Qaeda to ensure an uninterrupted supply of US weapons which he uses to neutralize his political opponents. 

So why are we hosting this brutal dictator at the Ritz-Carlton? One of the protestors outside the hotel was, the Yemeni Nobel Peace Prize winner, Tawakkul Karman, who demanded that President Saleh be tried in the International Criminal Court for war crimes.

Afghanistan 2-12-12

12, February 2012 Afghanistan

A courageous whistleblower, Lt. Col. Daniel L. Davis, offered a stark contrast to the sunny reports issued by General Petraeus who claimed that the Taliban's momentum had been "arrested in much of the country" and that progress was "significant." 

Col. Davis returned from his second yearlong deployment to Afghanistan with a fervent conviction that the war was going from bad to worse and accused the senior military leaders of grossly misleading the American public. Now he is on a one-man crusade exposing the misstatements of the Pentagon and attempting to bring end to the disastrous conflict. 

His outspoken comments have generated a fierce debate on the House floor and within the usually tight-lipped military establishment. 

Predictably, the Pentagon has launched a coordinated smear campaign attempting to undermine Colonel Davis’s reputation and defuse his important message. 

Rolling Stone magazine obtained Colonel Davis’ full unclassified report and posted it online. Its title, “Dereliction of Duty II,” is a reference to H.R. McMasters’ classic report of Vietnam.  He rightly poses the rhetorical question, “How many more men must die in support of a mission that is not succeeding?" Let us raise our collective voices and demand an end to this senseless and immoral war. Let us heed the wise words of Ron Paul who has campaigned unequivocally that we should our temper and jingoistic tendencies to fight wars on foreign lands unless our security is threatened.  

War Drums Getting Louder 2-5-12

5, February 2012 War drums getting louder

Israel continues to huff and puff threatening to launch a preemptive strike on Iran mindless of the potential loss of life and chaos that would follow. Such an irresponsible act of war would undoubtedly expose Israel to massive retaliation. Opposition to the repressive, autocratic Iranian regime would evaporate overnight as all Iranians of whatever political stipe would unite to defend their country. Israel’s increasing belligerence is a testament to our failed Middle East policies where we have allowed Israel’s blatant violations of international law and apartheid policies to escape unchallenged. 

We are committing utter folly by encouraging Israel to embark on these reckless military adventures. Israel’s threat of an early strike is no accident. It is likely to occur when Obama is deeply engaged and preoccupied in his reelection campaign (remember Israel’s massive attack on Gaza occurred just before Obama’s first term inauguration). We cannot and should not allow this to happen.   

Meanwhile Israeli propaganda machine to justify such an action is in overdrive. Moshe Yaalon, Israel’s deputy prime minister and minister for strategic affairs, made the preposterous claim that Iran has developed a missile with a range of 10,000 kilometers. Such statements have been dismissed by US experts as “wildly exaggerated.” 

It’s time for Israel to halt its thuggish actions, assassinating Iranian scientists and launching bombing raids on its neighbors and open its own borders for inspection of its nuclear sites. Failure to do so will further isolate Israel and expose it to charges of monumental hypocrisy.

Haditha Massacre 1-26-12

26, January 2012 Haditha Massacre

Times magazine editor, Tim McGirk, first broke the story of the Haditha massacre in 2006. McGirk reported that a group of marines went on a rampage seeking revenge after the killing of Lance Corporal Miguel Terrazas and slaughtered 24 innocent Iraqi civilians, including a 76 year old man women and children. 

A large trove of documents, many marked “secret” were found among scores of other classified material at a junk yard Baghdad. The documents reveal extremely disturbing testimony that the Haditha killings were not an isolated incident.  McGirk stated that "In some ways, this is one of the most grotesque episodes of the entire war in Iraq. And I’m afraid to say, this is part of our legacy”.  

The tacit impunity that was granted US soldiers was in sharp contrast to the much stricter rules of engagement in Vietnam where scores of US soldiers received heavy sentences for war crimes.  The long shadows cast by the Haditha massacre, the appalling sadistic abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the frequent killings by Blackwater contractor operatives has cast an unflattering image of the US occupation and precipitated in the early expulsion of US forces from Iraq. 

But what is a much greater travesty is the crimes committed by policy makers in Washington who were responsible for sending soldiers in war zones with bogus claims of WMD’s ,‘keeping America safe’,  or condoning terror tactics to justify the nebulous ‘war on terror.’

Guantánamo 1-11-12

11, January 2012 Guantánamo

This week marks the tenth anniversary of the opening of America’s notorious detention camp at Guantánamo Bay.

Many senior military officials now admit that Guantánamo and Bagram Air force Base prison, which has largely escapes media scrutiny, continues to intensify the anger towards the US and increases terrorism.  These prisons were opened following intense pressure from the Bush/Cheney White House who had little regard for the rule of law, international jurisprudence and Habeas Corpus. Many innocent victims were caught in the wide dragnet following the raw emotions of 9/11.  According to data released from the Freedom of Information Act, in 2001 planeloads of leaflets were rained down in Afghanistan offering huge bounties for turning in suspected terrorists. Many villagers collected these bounties to settle family and tribal disputes and enriched themselves beyond their wildest dreams. Incredibly 171 prisoners are still languishing in these prisons.

It is time President Obama and the moribund members of Congress restore “core constitutional values” (Obama’s words) by closing the prisons at Guantanamo and Bagram Air force Base and oppose the Defense 2012 National Defense Authorization Act that Obama signed on New Year's Eve containing a sweeping provision that makes indefinite military detention, a permanent part of American law for the first time in this country's history. This is not just unconstitutional - it's just plain wrong.