War crimes 3-31-2013

31, March 2013                      War crimes

A new report by the London Guardian and BBC provides shocking details of how our military armed and trained Iraqi death squads that ran torture centers. The chief architect of these horrific death squads was Colonel James Steel. A documentary  "James Steele: America’s Mystery Man in Iraq," exposes the role of Steele – a veteran of the dirty wars in El Salvador and  Nicaragua – played in training Iraqi death squads to trigger sectarian conflict between Sunnis and Shiites. The investigation was initiated by access to the War Logs released by WikiLeaks. They described how our tax dollars were used to set up torture centers to fight the insurgency. Prior to the US invasion Sunni and Shiites were closely inter-related by marriage and often referred to as “Sushis”. The War Logs incriminate General Petraeus and the highest echelons of the Bush Administration who approved the ‘Salvadorian model’ to resist the insurgency. Bradley Manning deserves credit for exposing the massive deceit that was perpetrated on the American people and the war crimes heaped on the Iraqi people. To finger point at other nation’s human rights abuses opens us to monumental hypocrisy. No one has been held accountable for these war crimes and tragically the whistleblowers like Bradley Manning are being punished for revealing these dark, sordid secrets. This is a travesty. God have mercy on our souls.  

North Korea 3-31-2013

31, March 2013                              North Korea

Did we really need to launch a mock bombing attack on North Korea – B-52 stealth bombers equipped to drop nuclear bombs? This action was highly provocative and unnecessary. Earlier, North Korea acted in response to war maneuvers that we carried out with South Korea – another unnecessary action. The North Koreans might be closeted and isolated but are well aware of our military capabilities. Older Koreans may still remember the carpet bombing of their country which obliterated their nation back to the Stone Age. More than 5 million Koreans perished.Following the armistice, South Korea was hardly a paragon of democracy – it was ruled by brutal dictators for decades. With the massive PR machine of the Pentagon wars are so easily launched. We have squandered $2 trillion dollars on wars in the past decade with trillions more to be spent on caring for our veterans.Each B-2 mock bombing cost approximately $5.5 million, according to Foreign Policy magazine. We have created a huge albatross of defense spending and national security. I wonder how the US would react if North Korea sent nuclear-capable bombers close to our shores and dropped inert bombs as part of a “war game. “Let’s not add North Korea to our long list of military misadventures – Iran (1953 the CIA overthrew the democratically elected leader Mosaddeq) Panama (1967), Vietnam (1955-75), Iraq (2003-12) . . .  If President Nixon could initiate constructive engagement with China (our former adversary), surely we could do the same with North Korea. 

GM Recall 3-13-13

13, March 2013

GM RECALL 

It took 13 deaths and hundreds of complaints for the Justice Department to finally launch a criminal investigation into why the largest automaker, General Motors, ignored deadly safety defects in its compact cars Contrary to earlier assertions that the problem was first discovered in 2003,  GM  now admits that the ignition switch on its Saturn Ion stalled in 2001. The faulty ignition switch suddenly cuts off power leaving bewildered drivers with no engine power, no     power steering, no breaks and no air bags. Six GM models made from 2001 to 2007 are affected. Federal regulators also failed to take action despite receiving hundreds of complaints from angry drivers. Last month GM finally announced a massive recall of 1.6 million vehicles.  Long time consumer advocate, Ralph Nader commented that “timidity exists in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration”, which encourages a laissez-faire culture. It is also grossly underfunded - $45 million a year, compared to, say, $650 million a year that taxpayers pay for guarding the embassy in Baghdad. Another key factor that contributed to GM’s apparent lack of concern was its bankruptcy and subsequent tax-payer bailout in 2009 which immunized it from all product liability lawsuits. It is tragic that it took so many deaths and near fatalities for GM to respond. It seems once again profits take precedence over peoples’ lives. 

GM Recall 3-13-13

13, March 2013

GM RECALL 

It took 13 deaths and hundreds of complaints for the Justice Department to finally launch a criminal investigation into why the largest automaker, General Motors, ignored deadly safety defects in its compact cars Contrary to earlier assertions that the problem was first discovered in 2003,  GM  now admits that the ignition switch on its Saturn Ion stalled in 2001. The faulty ignition switch suddenly cuts off power leaving bewildered drivers with no engine power, no     power steering, no breaks and no air bags. Six GM models made from 2001 to 2007 are affected. Federal regulators also failed to take action despite receiving hundreds of complaints from angry drivers. Last month GM finally announced a massive recall of 1.6 million vehicles.  Long time consumer advocate, Ralph Nader commented that “timidity exists in the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration”, which encourages a laissez-faire culture. It is also grossly underfunded - $45 million a year, compared to, say, $650 million a year that taxpayers pay for guarding the embassy in Baghdad. Another key factor that contributed to GM’s apparent lack of concern was its bankruptcy and subsequent tax-payer bailout in 2009 which immunized it from all product liability lawsuits. It is tragic that it took so many deaths and near fatalities for GM to respond. It seems once again profits take precedence over peoples’ lives. 

Iran 3-6-13

6, March 2013 IRAN

Haven’t we been snookered enough by bogus threats to our national security?

Author Nick Turse, “Kill Anything That Moves” reminds us that the sad saga of the Vietnam War was started on the false accusation that the North Vietnamese fired on our naval ship in the Gulf of Tonkin. He reports serious war crimes were committed in the killings of large number of civilians at the behest of the power elite in Washington who used body counts to measure progress. 

Fast forward to 2003 when former President Bush- Cheney- Rumsfeld-Condoleezza Rice snookered us into another war based on the bogus testimony of a thoroughly unreliable ‘Alice in Wonderland’ fortune hunter called ‘Curveball.’ His doodling on a scrap piece of paper was the basis for General Powell’s proof that Saddam Hussein’s was manufacturing WMD’s.

And now, Prime Minister Netanyahu, who has been vigorously denounced by six former leaders of his own security agency, the Shin Bet, (see the documentary, ‘The Gatekeepers”), is trying to goad us into another conflict with Iran based on bogus allegations of the impending Iranian nuclear bomb. Israel continues to act coyly on its own huge arsenal of nuclear weapons. It is time to stop threatening Iran with bombs and bombast and start a respectful dialog however distasteful the Iranian regime might be.

John Brennan and Drone Warfare 2-19-13

19, February 2013

Dear Editor, John Brennan and drone warfare

The confirmation hearings of John Brennan to head the CIA were profoundly disappointing. There was no discussion of the so-called signature strikes which has resulted in the death of so many innocent victims. Jeremy Scahill, of the Nation magazine, recently returned from a visit to Yemen and reported the massacre of 40 villagers, including many women and children with U.S. cluster bombs. A US independent fact finding mission visiting Pakistan reported horrific killings by US drones. The study conducted by NYU and Stanford Law School, ‘Living Under Terror –Under Drones’, highlights the terror inflicted on entire populations being exposed to drones buzzing overhead 24 hours a day disrupting entire communities and according to General McCrystal” unleashing visceral hatred of the U.S.” The entire Senate Intelligence Committee has abdicated its responsibility by failing to demand an oversight role and has allowed the CIA to become a ‘007 license to kill’ death squad. The checks and balances of our government have been seriously eroded.

President Obama would do well to reflect on his earlier speech in 2000 – “the Bush policies failed to rely on our legal traditions and our time-tested institutions and have failed to use our values as a moral compass.”  The White House should do some soul searching and re-calibrate its own moral compass. Contrary to Obama’s earlier promise to be ‘the most open administration in U.S. history’, the White House is shrouded with unprecedented secrecy which is the enemy of an open democratic society.

Israel-Palestinian Conflict 2-16-13

16, February 2013 Israel

Three great documentaries shed new light on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
"The Gatekeepers" is a collective narrative of six former heads of Israel’s internal security who voice their frustration with successive Israeli government policies. All six heads are now critical of the methods they were assigned to use and they warned that successive governments have undermined Israel’s future by refusing to make peace. A former head, Carmi Gillon, admits that “We are making the lives of millions unbearable, into prolonged human suffering. Another -  Avraham Shalom adds, “ we have become a brutal occupation force.  “Five Broken Cameras”  - tells the story of Emad Burnat, a Palestinian farmer, who partnered with an Israeli film maker Guy Emad to chronicle Emad’s life in his village, Bil’in. Israeli Defense Forces tried to halt the filming by breaking a number of cameras – hence the title. This is now available from Netflix.  Finally, an American Jew, Anna Baltzer, the granddaughter of Holocaust refugees, and an award-winning lecturer and author (http://vimeo.com/6977999), traveled to Israel to capture the lives of ordinary Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. She has appeared on ‘The Daily Show with Jon Stewart’, and  lectured at more than 500 universities, schools, religious institutions, and policy institutes around the world with her acclaimed presentation, "Life in Occupied Palestine: Eyewitness Stories & Photos." I urge readers to see all three documentaries to broaden their understanding of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.