Silence is betrayal – impeach Bush 4029-2008

April 29, 2008                        Silence is betrayal – impeach Bush

In an unguarded moment, the Nation’s chief executive, George Bush, told millions of viewers on ABC News that he had approved torture of US detainees – including waterboarding. In his interview, Bush freely admitted that Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and George Tenet collectively approved the decision and by doing so, had committed high crimes – for which there is one Constitutional remedy – impeachment. This stunning admission flies in the face of previous public statements. There is no longer any need for an investigation following Bush’s admission of guilt. This finally clears the way for a senate vote for removal of Bush and Cheney and prosecution of Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and George Tenet who have violated their oath of office to uphold the Constitution. Our Nation is in urgent need to remove these lawbreakers from high office before they commit our Nation to more reckless adventures. Finally, we should heed the wise words of Dr. Martin Luther King who famously said, "A time comes when silence is betrayal.”

General Petraeus 4-25-2008

25, April 2008                           General Petraeus


Predictably, General Petraeus’s appearance before Congress offered nothing new, just more of the same rhetoric couched in muddled language which the late night comedians picked up and scorned with abandon. Petraeus dutifully delivered the White House scripted version allowing Bush to play for time until the end of his disastrous presidency. Bush vigorously supported what was essentially the White House strategy of, ‘staying the course’, assuring Petraeus that he had all the time in world to achieve a mythical victory. The Congressional hearings were largely for public consumption and accomplished little. This charade turned out to be another victory selling the war on a six month installment plan but a monumental failure for the American people, US soldiers mired in a quagmire and the Iraqi people who have lost so many loved ones in this illegal war of occupation. Meanwhile, the future for Americans is extremely gloomy. According to a BBC report large numbers of US citizens are seeking refuge in Canada. Tent cities have now been established in major metropolitan cities to accommodate US economic refugees. Every day brings us closer to our eventual demise and the Day of Judgment before our common Creator. I wonder how all those neocons, who have committed war crimes, in our name, will be judged.  

Monsanto’s corporate bullying 4-21-2008

21, April 2008                         Monsanto’s corporate bullying

While food shortages and costs continue to climb, agricultural companies, like Monsanto, post record profits.  Like their oil company cousins, Monsanto has quickly learned that scarcity can generate high profits. The stock has risen 95% percent during the past 12 months and a staggering 1,600 percent over the past five years. What is extremely troubling is Monsanto’s corporate bullying of local farmers and opposition to warning labels on milk cartons. Vanity Fair exposes these predatory practices in its recent article, “Monsanto’s Harvest of Fear.” The company forbids farmers from storing and recycling their seeds which they have done for millennia and insists they buy fresh seeds every year to ensure the company’s high profitability. 

To increase milk production, ‘Monsanto cows’ are injected with an artificial hormone which may prove to be a health hazard.. There seems to be little doubt that most consumers would prefer to drink the old-fashioned milk. I urge concerned readers to write to the lawmakers and insist such ‘tainted’ products be clearly identified. Our nation is going through an epidemic health crisis and can no longer trust corporations to serve our best interests. In the meantime, I suggest concerned shoppers purchase milk cartons labeled, “No RBGH,” which means “no bovine growth hormone.”  Finally, ‘little David’, Ben and Jerry’, deserve credit for challenging Goliath Monsanto to label their products free of the growth hormone.

Torture 4-9-2008

9, April 2008                          Torture                                                                                                          
The brutal treatment of prisoners is again in the public spotlight with the declassification of the 2003 torture memo.

According to British attorney Philippe Sands’s article in Vanity Fair (“The Green Light”), John Yoo and other high-ranking administration attorneys helped craft interrogation methods used at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and secret CIA prisons. Pentagon attorney Diane Beaver, stated that the interrogation techniques used were modeled on the TV program ‘24’.
It is extremely disturbing that John Yoo, a passionate advocate of torture, should be allowed to teach at students UC Berkeley. He should be fired, disbarred and tried on war crimes.
Many prisoners may well be innocent of any crimes such as German born who was kidnapped and brutally tortured (see March 31 ‘60’ Minutes).   Bent on retribution, and ignoring the FBI and German intelligence who found Kurnaz innocent, this Darth Vadar administration tortured him and robbed him of 5 years of his life  


The administration, recognizing the potential war crimes charges it could face, hastily adopted legislation in the Military Commissions Act granting immunity to those engaged in torture. Also, buried deep inside a bill currently before Congress, is a startling provision which would grant Bush and other members of his administration retroactive immunity from war crimes (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHQ7Prwh7Gc).

Divide & Conquer Policies 3-25-2008

 25 March 2008          Divide & Conquer Policies

 Email to Senator Feinstein,

I am most troubled by your recent email. I would respectively like to remind you that, contrary to your assertions, there weren’t long simmering sectarian conflicts between Sunnis and Shia’s prior to our illegal and immoral intervention in Iraq. Our unwanted presence fueled this conflict and our military strategy followed the old ‘divide and conquer policies’ which have been used by other imperial powers to weaken and pacify the local population.

Many Iraqi expatriates have challenged the fallacy of such statements reminding us of integrated neighborhoods and families prior to our ill-fated invasion. I sincerely hope you have heard the testimonies of US soldiers and veterans who barred the souls and spoke of committing the most horrific crimes against innocent Iraqis at the ‘Winter Soldiers’ meeting earlier this month – an event that was unreported by the local US mainstream corporate media but widely reported in over 80 countries around the world.

Our invasion has unleashed a war of terror, disdain and racially motivated crimes against the Iraqi people by the US military who freely admit that there was a complete absence of ‘rules of engagement’ which generated extremely hostile reactions. Tragically, they reported that the racist attitudes occurred at all levels of the US military.  Iraqis and brown skinned foreign workers are commonly addressed by the demeaning epithet as ‘Hajis’. I ask that you direct your energies to bringing about an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of all combat US forces and private mercenaries (contractors) from Iraq. Finally, I ask that you demand the removal of the US embassy in Baghdad (largest embassy in the world) and US military bases which are an unwanted symbol of imperial power. Failure to take these steps will ensure a continuation of hostilities and further erosion of US influence and power. The Iraqis have suffered enough by our presence and must be granted billions of dollars in reparations for the destruction of their country and the death and injuries of millions of their people

ISRAEL 3-23-2008

23, March 2008                      ISRAEL (Response to local letter writer) 

         

In his letter of March 22, Desmond Tuck, offers some skewed statistics which demand a response. It is not surprising that the majority of Palestinians support their democratically elected government’s anger over the wanton killing of its innocent civilians. Overwhelming force, with the latest U.S. high-tech weapons, has been used to kill and maim hundreds of Palestinian civilians. In the past two-week Israeli forces invaded Gaza by land and air killing 126 people, mostly civilians including 24 children. Tuck, and other letter writers supporting Israel, are very loose and selective on using the word ‘terrorism’.

Theft of Palestinian land, demolitions of their homes, destruction of hundreds of olive trees, denying Palestinian free access to schools and clinics are all acts of terrorism. The destruction of the basic infrastructure of Gaza was an act of terrorism. Halting food supplies to starving Palestinians, withholding electricity and fuel shipments are acts of terrorism. Aerial arracks killing innocent civilians are acts of terrorism. Arbitrary arrests of innocent civilians, torturing them and tossing them into medieval dungeons are acts of terrorism. 

Hard liners such as Rabbi David Shalem, director of the Institute of Talmud Studies at the Mercaz Harav yeshiva in Jerusalem, called for the Ehud Olmert government to attack Palestinians “everywhere, in Gaza, and the north and inside.” 

This yeshiva vigorously opposes any form of Palestinian sovereignty and seeks the theft of Palestinian land by terrorizing or killing its rightful occupants.

Footnotes:

Gideon Levy, columnist of Haaretz wrote a stinging indictment of Mercaz Harav in his March 10 article in Haaretz.  

This yeshiva vigorously opposes any form of Palestinian sovereignty and seeks the theft of Palestinian land by terrorizing or killing its rightful occupants. Thus, a creeping annexation (a term used by Gen. Moshe Dayan) has been an official Israeli policy since its founding.
With complete disdain for international law, Israel announced plans to expand yet another settlement, Givat Ze’ev, five miles from central Jerusalem, which invoked a strong rebuke from Condeleeza Rice. 

IRAQ 3-18-2008

18, March 2008                      IRAQ
         
As we approach the fifth anniversary of our occupation of Iraq (March 19) and close to 4,000 US fatalities, there is an urgent need to beat the drums for an immediate withdrawal. The war has been an unrelenting nightmare for the US and Iraq. Renowned economists, Joseph Stieglitz and Linda Bilmes, have conservatively estimated the war costs to be in excess of three trillion dollars. It has drained our economy and caused a free fall of our currency. The politically well-connected war profiteers such as Halliburton, and Blackwater have enriched themselves at the expense of working class youth, many of whom volunteered to join the army out of economic necessity. Our president and many of our lawmakers have embraced the medieval practice of torture and totally abandoned the teachings of Jesus Christ whom they claim to revere. Our public discourse regarding abortion reeks of hypocrisy. Our oil intoxicated politicians have aborted the lives of thousands of US soldiers and millions of Iraqis and still cling to the grotesque notion of ‘victory’. 


Over 1 million Iraqis have been killed and hundreds of thousands maimed. Sectarian fighting, absent prior to the occupation —makes daily life a living hell. Last week, former and current US soldiers bared their souls and provided testimony of war crimes they committed against innocent Iraqi civilians at the ‘Winter Soldier’ hearings. This important news was ignored by the US media but was widely reported in over 80 countries around the world.