North America
Montrealers Deliver a Fiery Message to Bush: You Are Persona Non Grata
Submitted by davidswanson on Sun, 2009-10-25 00:13.Toward Freedom Written by Charlotte Dennett, Photos by Robin Lloyd
They threw shoes – so many shoes that hotel staff had to roll out a laundry bin onto the street to pick them all up, and even then, the bin could barely contain them all.
They chanted: "Bush: Assassin! Terroriste! Criminel!" and then, at the appropriate command, hurled more shoes toward the heavily guarded entrance of the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, where George W. Bush was scheduled to speak.
They waved signs: "Don’t Duck!" and "1.3 Million Dead Because of Bush" and "Bread Not Bombs for the Children of Iraq." Some of the signs and chants were directed equally at Bush’s father. "You are a murderer too!"
And toward the end, they burned George W. Bush in effigy.
My friend Robin Lloyd and I were watching most of this noontime spectacle on October 22nd from inside the hotel, where we managed to gain entry flashing our press passes. Lloyd is a member of the Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom and the publisher of Toward Freedom Magazine (now on-line at TowardFreedom.com) which has continued a tradition begun by her father of chronicling Third World resistance to colonialism and now, imperialism. She agreed to accompany me to Montreal to witness what I expected to be a lively example of a growing world wide movement aimed at holding George W. Bush and his top advisors accountable for torture and other high crimes and misdemeanors during his eight-year administration. If we were lucky, we would also witness our former president deliver his speech about "Eight Momentous Years." He was addressing a well-heeled crowd invited by the Montreal Chamber of Commerce.
Welcoming for a War Criminal in Canada; Activists Protest George W. Bush in Edmonton
Submitted by Chip on Fri, 2009-10-23 15:35.
Welcoming for a War Criminal in Canada; Activists Protest George W. Bush in Edmonton | Common Dreams
While former U.S. president George W. Bush talked about democracy inside a downtown Edmonton conference centre on Tuesday, hundreds of protesters were outside exercising their right to free speech with signs, songs and screams.
"Stop the killing, stop the war," the protesters chanted to the beat of a drum. They held signs that said "Bush is a war criminal;" "Bush lied, 1,000s died;" and "Canada is not Bush Country."
Several dozen police officers kept protesters away from the front of the Shaw Conference Centre and as the crowd grew, metal barricades went up between the police and the crowd.
Marilyn Gaa, who holds both American and Canadian citizenship, held a three-metre-tall black-clad Grim Reaper with a sign on his back that said: "GWB I am your biggest fan" and on the front, "Thanks for 8 great years."
"For the eight years that George Bush was president I was profoundly ashamed and alarmed and angry and now it seems so unfair that he's making a world tour trying to share his 'wisdom' and make a lot of money," said Gaa. Read more.
U.S. Gives Shell Green Light For Offshore Oil Drilling In The Arctic
Submitted by Chip on Thu, 2009-10-22 03:44.
Conservationists fear the decision to allow Shell to drill for offshore oil in the Arctic will threaten polar bears and endangered animals. Photograph: Hans Strand/ Hans Strand/Corbis
U.S. gives Shell green light for offshore oil drilling in the Arctic
Conservationists say the decision by the Obama administration to allow drilling in the Beaufort Sea repeats Bush era mistakes
By Ed Pilkington | Guardian.UK
Conservation groups based in Alaska have accused the Obama administration of repeating the mistakes of George Bush after it gave the conditional go-ahead for Shell to begin drilling offshore for oil and natural gas in the environmentally sensitive Beaufort Sea.
The Minerals Management Service, part of the federal Interior Department, yesterday gave Shell the green light to begin exploratory wells off the north coast of Alaska in an Arctic area that is home to large numbers of endangered bowhead whales and polar bears, as well as walruses, ice seals and other species. The permission would run from July to October next year, though Shell has promised to suspend operations from its drill ship from late August when local Inuit people embark on subsistence hunting.
Environmentalists condemned the decision to allow drilling, saying it would generate industrial levels of noise in the water and pollute both the air and surrounding water. Rebecca Noblin, an Alaskan specialist with the conservation group the Centre for Biological Diversity, said: "We're disappointed to see the Obama administration taking decisions that will threaten the Arctic. It might as well have been the Bush administration." Read more.
The Iran Versus U.S.-Israeli-NATO Threats
Submitted by Chip on Wed, 2009-10-21 05:03.The Iran Versus U.S.-Israeli-NATO Threats
by Edward S. Herman and David Peterson | Monthly Review
It is spell-binding to see how the U.S. establishment can inflate the threat of a target, no matter how tiny, remote, and (most often) non-existent that threat may be, and pretend that the real threat posed by its own behavior and policies is somehow defensive and related to that wondrously elastic thing called "national security."
We should recall that this establishment got quite hysterical over the completely non-existent threat from Guatemala in the years 1950-1954, a very small and very poor country, essentially disarmed, helped by a U.S. and "allied" arms boycott, quickly overthrown in June 1954 by a minuscule U.S.-organized proxy force invading from our ally Somoza's Nicaragua.
But a telegram drafted in the name of Eisenhower's Secretary of State John Foster Dulles shortly before the 1954 regime change in Guatemala warned that this country had become a "challenge to Hemisphere security and peace" and was "increasingly [an] instrument of Soviet aggression in this hemisphere" and a "menace to [the] stability of strategic Central America and Caribbean area," so that U.S. policy was "determined [to] prevent further substantial arms shipments from reaching Guatemala."1
And the New York Times featured this terrible threat repeatedly (one favorite, the lying headline of Sidney Gruson's "How Communists Won Control of Guatemala," March 1, 1953), a propaganda campaign dating back to 1950 that extended throughout the media, even reaching The Nation magazine (Ellis Ogle, "Communism in the Caribbean?" March 18, 1950).
Nicaragua under the Sandinistas, even tinier Grenada, the nutmeg capital of the world, and of course Saddam Hussein's "weapons of mass destruction," all posed dire threats that caused the U.S. Free Press to leap into active propaganda service.
So the present intense focus on Iran's supposed nuclear weapons threat is in a great tradition. But it never ceases to amaze the extent to which the media journalists and editors, reliably following the official party line, are able to apply a truly laughable double standard as well as to make another victim into an aggressor and dire threat. It's déjà vu all over again, for the umpteenth time! Read more.
Hazard: Radioactive Rabbit Poop
Submitted by Chip on Sat, 2009-10-17 19:08.The Myth of "America"
Submitted by Chip on Tue, 2009-10-13 20:21.
The Myth of "America"
By Dahr Jamail and Jason Coppola | Truthout
Happy Columbus Day
Columbus sailed the ocean blue in Fourteen Hundred and Ninety Two ...
May the spirit of adventure and discovery always be with you.
Wishing you a great Columbus Day
- Columbus Day greeting card
To mark Columbus Day In 2004, the Medieval and Renaissance Center in UCLA published the final volume of a compendium of Columbus-era documents. Its general editor, Geoffrey Symcox, leaves little room for ambivalence when he says, "This is not your grandfather's Columbus.... While giving the brilliant mariner his due, the collection portrays Columbus as an unrelenting social climber and self-promoter who stopped at nothing - not even exploitation, slavery, or twisting biblical scripture - to advance his ambitions.... Many of the unflattering documents have been known for the last century or more, but nobody paid much attention to them until recently. The fact that Columbus brought slavery, enormous exploitation or devastating diseases to the Americas used to be seen as a minor detail - if it was recognized at all - in light of his role as the great bringer of white man's civilization to the benighted idolatrous American continent. But to historians today this information is very important. It changes our whole view of the enterprise."
But does it? Read more.
Conyers to Holder: Give Us the 215 Info
Submitted by Chip on Thu, 2009-10-08 19:21.Conyers to Holder: Give Us the 215 Info
By: emptywheel | FireDogLake
I guess I'm not the only one who noticed that DOJ is trying to reauthorize Section 215 without leveling with the American people how they're using it. John Conyers, Jerrold Nadler, and Bobby Scott have written Eric Holder, requesting that he make more information on the way Section 215 is used public.
In order to meaningfully consider whether and how to extend the "business records" section of the Act, however, we ask that the Department work to provide additional public information on the use of that provision.
Specifically, at the September 22 hearing, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hinnen testified that orders under Section 215 of the Act, which authorizes compulsory production of "business records," have been used to obtain "transactional information" to support "important and highly sensitive intelligence collection." He explained that some members of the Subcommittee and cleared staff have received some briefings on this topic, and that additional information could be made available to them "in a classified setting."
We have appreciated the information that has been provided, and fully understand the importance of safeguarding our country's national security secrets. Too often in 2007 and 2008, however, crucial information remained unknown to the public and many members of Congress when Congress voted on important surveillance legislation affecting the interests of all Americans. Read more.
G-20 Meetings: Nothing Much Happened in the Suites, and There Was Too Much Punch in the Streets
Submitted by Chip on Fri, 2009-10-02 23:22.Canadian Parliament Notified of Impending Arrival of War Criminals; Arrests Sought
Submitted by Chip on Fri, 2009-10-02 06:10.
To: laytoj@parl.gc.ca, Comartin.J@parl.gc.ca, Dewar.P@parl.gc.ca, Davies.D@parl.gc.ca, Ignatieff.M@parl.gc.ca, Rae.B@parl.gc.ca, Holland.M@parl.gc.ca, Leblanc.D@parl.gc.ca, Bevilacqua.M@parl.gc.ca, Duceppe.G@parl.gc.ca, menarr@parl.gc.ca, menarse@parl.gc.ca, stcyrt@parl.gc.ca, cretep@parl.gc.ca, pm@pm.gc.ca, NichoR@parl.gc.ca, Cannon.L@parl.gc.ca, VanLoan.P@parl.gc.ca, Kenney.J@parl.gc.ca
To the Members of Parliament:
The following war criminals are scheduled to visit Canada:
G. W. Bush will be, on October 22, 2009 at the Fairmont Queen Elizabeth in Montreal PQ to deliver a lunch-time speech at an invitation-only event organized by tinePUBLIC Inc
Tony Blair will be the keynote speaker October 6 2009 at the Surrey Regional Economic Summit, at the Sheraton Vancouver Guilford Hotel, Surrey BC. Blair was invited by Surrey Mayor Dianne Watts
Dick Cheney is booked for a week of fishing at the Silver Hilton Lodge on the Babine River near Smithers BCfrom October 8 to 15 2009.
We demand that Canadian Border Services Agency issue a cross-Canada directive to all entry points ordering that G.W. Bush, Tony Blair and Dick Cheney be barred from Canada and, if found in Canada, be arrested and dealt with according to the law.
Parliament has:
Passed laws enabling Canada to prosecute war crimes and crimes against humanity wherever the crimes occurred and whatever the nationality of the suspected perpetrators and the victims. (e.g. Criminal Code, torture provisions and the Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes Act.) Under the Convention against Torture, when a person suspected of any involvement in torture enters Canada, Canada has a duty to either prosecute that person or extradite him to a state that is willing and able to prosecute.
Passed laws to ensure that Canada will not allow people suspected of war crimes and/or crimes against humanity and/or gross human rights abuses to enter Canada or otherwise provide a safe haven, even temporarily, for people suspected of any involvement in carrying out or acquiescing to war crimes, crimes against humanity or other gross human rights abuses. (e.g. Immigration and Refugee Protection Act).
Obey your laws. Arrest these war criminals.
Susan Harman, Ed.D.
Oakland, CA, USA
Lawmakers Cave to FBI in Patriot Act Debate
Submitted by Chip on Thu, 2009-10-01 22:48.Lawmakers Cave to FBI in Patriot Act Debate
Powerful Senate leaders on Thursday bowed to FBI concerns that adding privacy protections to an expiring provision of the Patriot Act could jeopardize “ongoing” terror investigations.
By David Kravets | Wired
The Patriot Act was adopted six weeks after the 2001 terror attacks, and greatly expanded the government’s power to intrude into the private lives of Americans in the course of anti-terror and criminal investigations. Three provisions are expiring at year’s end.
During a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, Sen. Patrick Leahy, the committee chairman, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) introduced last-minute changes (.pdf) that would strip away some of the privacy protections Leahy had espoused just the week before. The Vermont Democrat said his own, original proposal of last week could jeopardize ongoing terror investigations.
“All of us are mindful that threats against American safety are real and continuing,” Leahy said at the hearing . “I’m trying to introduce balances on both sides.”
He was discussing one of the most controversial provisions of the Patriot Act — Section 215. That allows a secret court — known as the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Court or FISA court — to authorize broad warrants for most any type of records, including those held by banks, libraries and doctors.
The Leahy-Feinstein amendment, which is likely to be adopted by the committee and sent to the full Senate next week, does not require the government show a connection between the items sought under a Section 215 warrant and a suspected terrorist or spy. Read more.
Drones and Dishonor in Central New York
Submitted by Chip on Thu, 2009-10-01 22:01.
Drones and Dishonor in Central New York
By Ed Kinane | Truthout
If war becomes unreal to the citizens of modern democracies, will they care enough to restrain and control the violence exercised in their name? Will they do so, if they and their sons and daughters are spared the hazards of combat?
- Michael Ignatieff, Virtual War (2000)
The drones are coming. Readers of the Syracuse Post-Standard know that the drones (a.k.a. Reapers) are arriving at the local New York Air National Guard Base at Hancock Airport.
These Reapers are a new level of aerial warfare. They are high-flying, sharp-shooting, 36-foot-long robots. They are crewless - remote-controlled - aircraft. Although they are unmanned, drones do have "pilots." Those pilots operate in front of computer screens in ground control rooms far from any target.
Last year the former congressperson for the district, James Walsh (R-New York), hailed the arrival of the Reaper. Not only will it provide a few jobs, but, Walsh said, this killer allows pilots to be "literally fighting a war in Iraq and at the end of their shift be playing with their kids in Camillus" (P-S, 25 June 2008, page A1).
Drone surveillance covers the US/Mexico and US/Canada borders. In Gaza, the Israeli Air Force uses them to assassinate Palestinians. In its various overseas wars, the US military has come to depend on drones to assassinate humans while bombing vehicles and buildings. Drones preying on Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan are piloted from Creech Air Base in Nevada. Beginning this November, Reapers will also be piloted from Central New York. Read more.
Supreme Court To Decide How Far Gun Rights Extend
Submitted by Chip on Wed, 2009-09-30 19:35.Supreme court to decide how far gun rights extend
By James Vicini | Reuters
The U.S. Supreme Court revived the legal battle over gun rights in America, saying it would decide whether the constitutional right of individuals to own firearms trumped state and local laws.
In a brief order on Wednesday, the court said it would settle the question by ruling in a dispute over a strict gun control law in Chicago that bans the ownership of handguns in most cases.
Individuals and gun rights groups had challenged the law.
Eighty percent of Chicago's 510 murders in 2008 were committed with guns -- among them 34 Chicago schoolchildren. Read more.
NLG Observes Improper Use of Force by Law Enforcement at the G-20
Submitted by Chip on Mon, 2009-09-28 04:16.
NLG Observes Improper Use of Force by Law Enforcement at the G-20 | Press Release
PITTSBURGH, PA - September 25 - National Lawyers Guild members witnessed first-hand yesterday the unwarranted display and use of force by police in residential neighborhoods, often far from any protest activity.
Police deployed chemical irritants, including CS gas, and long-range acoustic devices (LRAD) in residential neighborhoods on narrow streets where families and small children were exposed. Scores of riot police formed barricades at many intersections throughout neighborhoods miles away from the downtown area and the David Lawrence Convention Center. Outside the Courtyard Marriott in Shadyside, police deployed smoke bombs in the absence of protest activity, forcing bystanders and hotel residents to flee the area.
Canada Says India Nuclear Deal Imminent
Submitted by Chip on Sun, 2009-09-27 10:19.Canada says India nuclear deal imminent | Reuters
Canada is close to signing a deal with India to sell nuclear technology and materials, Trade Minister Stockwell Day said on Friday, adding he was confident that remaining security concerns would be resolved.
Day made similar comments in May, saying at that time that a deal was imminent.
He told reporters on a conference call that he was now ironing out a few final stumbling blocks.
"I had a telephone meeting just last week with India's national security adviser. We are down to four fine points ... He and I both agree that final agreement is possible within days, if not just a matter of a few weeks," Day told reporters on a conference call from India.
Day said he did not foresee any threat of Canadian materials being diverted to military uses elsewhere in the region because of India's commitment to allow inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency as well as tough transparency and reporting requirements.
"These are very strong provisions," he said.
U.S. Shuts Down Mexico Border Crossing After Shootout
Submitted by Chip on Wed, 2009-09-23 04:22.U.S. Shuts Down Mexico Border Crossing After Shootout | WSJ
U.S. authorities closed the world's busiest land border crossing on Tuesday after a shootout between suspected Mexican human traffickers and U.S. agents, U.S. officials said.
"The port is closed and will remain closed for several hours," U.S. Customs and Border Patrol spokeswoman Angelica Decima said after the shootout at the congested crossing between the Mexican city of Tijuana and San Diego. Read more.
Another Santayana Moment
Submitted by danielifearn on Wed, 2009-09-23 02:55.
22 SEP 1979, 00:53 GMT -- US VELA SATELLITE 6911, SPECIFICALLY DESIGNED TO DETECT NUCLEAR EXPLOSIONS, REPORTS DUAL FLASHES OF LIGHT INDICATING A NUCLEAR DETONATION IN THE SOUTH ATLANTIC.
The Defense Intelligence Agency and its contractors conclude that a nuclear test was conducted jointly by South Africa and Israel.
An ad hoc presidential panel contradicts that analysis and suggests a meteoroid struck the satellite causing it to sound a false alarm.
Which was it? What should've been the U.S. response? Can you decide?
But perhaps the questions we should really be deciding is does Iran have nuclear weapons; and if so, should the U.S. attack Iran and North Korea”.
Obama Taking Wrong Course with Conditionality Approach to Cuba
Submitted by Chip on Tue, 2009-09-15 19:18.Obama Taking Wrong Course with Conditionality Approach to Cuba
By Steve Clemons | Washington Note | Submitted by Michael Munk | www.MichaelMunk.com
President Obama has missed yet another chance to pressure Congress to end the self-inflicted damage of a "unilateral embargo" against Cuba and to take American foreign policy writ large in a new, more constructive direction.
Today, the President officially extended the trade embargo against Cuba for another year -- putting the US at odds again with roughly 183 nations that vote against the embargo each year in the United Nations.
The President's global mystique has been based on a perception that he would shift the Bush era gravitational forces in more constructive directions -- that he would support engagement and exchange as tools of American foreign policy in order to try and get better outcomes in international affairs.
But by continuing an embargo that undermines American interests and even US national security, he chooses the continuity of failure over the opportunity for change and over his own principles. Read more.
Charles Darwin Film 'Too Controversial For Religious America'
Submitted by Chip on Mon, 2009-09-14 18:18.
Charles Darwin film 'too controversial for religious America'
A British film about Charles Darwin has failed to find a US distributor because his theory of evolution is too controversial for American audiences, according to its producer.
By Anita Singh | Telegraph UK
Creation, starring Paul Bettany, details Darwin's "struggle between faith and reason" as he wrote On The Origin of Species. It depicts him as a man who loses faith in God following the death of his beloved 10-year-old daughter, Annie.
Creation: Review, background and the facts
The film was chosen to open the Toronto Film Festival and has its British premiere on Sunday. It has been sold in almost every territory around the world, from Australia to Scandinavia.
However, US distributors have resolutely passed on a film which will prove hugely divisive in a country where, according to a Gallup poll conducted in February, only 39 per cent of Americans believe in the theory of evolution.
Movieguide.org, an influential site which reviews films from a Christian perspective, described Darwin as the father of eugenics and denounced him as "a racist, a bigot and an 1800s naturalist whose legacy is mass murder". His "half-baked theory" directly influenced Adolf Hitler and led to "atrocities, crimes against humanity, cloning and genetic engineering", the site stated.
The film has sparked fierce debate on US Christian websites, with a typical comment dismissing evolution as "a silly theory with a serious lack of evidence to support it despite over a century of trying". Read more.
Americans Grow Cannabis To Beat The Recession
Submitted by Chip on Mon, 2009-09-14 02:33.Americans grow cannabis to beat the recession
By Ed Pilkington | Guardian UK
Some people cancel holidays abroad, others stage yard sales or start shopping at low-cost supermarkets. To that list must now be added a new way to get through economic hard times: grow cannabis.
Law enforcers on the west coast of the US and in the middle states straddled by the foothills of the Appalachian mountains are reporting a common trend. It is boom time for marijuana cultivation, and much of the incentive they say is to beat the recession.
So far this year, police in parts of the country where cannabis is traditionally grown have chopped down plants with a street value of $12bn. The core growing area is in California, Washington and Oregon to the west, but the Appalachian states of Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia are also witnessing an explosion.
More than 600,000 cannabis plants have been cut and burned in those states this summer, reversing a previous decline in production brought about by stringent law enforcement. It is not only the quantity of crop that is on the rise, the nature of the growers is also changing.
Ed Shemelya, who leads the marijuana eradication programme in the Appalachia region, says a new type of grower is emerging wholly different to the family cartels that have cultivated the drug for generations. "We are seeing a lot more individuals who wouldn't normally be growing marijuana. They are not your professionals." Read more.
Request That George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Tony Blair Be Barred From Canada
Submitted by Chip on Fri, 2009-09-11 17:05.
Thursday, September 10, 2009
The Right Honourable Stephen Harper
Office of the Prime Minister
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa ON K1A 0A2
The Honourable Rob Nicholson
Attorney General of Canada
Minister of Justice,
House of Commons
The Honourable Peter Van Loan
Minister of Public Safety,
House of Commons
The Honourable Jason Kenney
Minister of Immigration,
House of Commons
The Honourable Lawrence Cannon
Minister of Foreign Affairs,
House of Commons
Dear Prime Minister, Attorney General & Ministers Nicholson, Van Loan, Kenney and Cannon;
Re: Request that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Tony Blair be barred from Canada
Lawyers Against the War (LAW) is writing to inform you of planned visits to Canada by:
- George W. Bush, former President of the United States of America (U.S.) on October 20, 21 and 22 2009 to Edmonton, Saskatoon and Montreal;[1]
- Dick Cheney, former Vice-President of the U.S. to British Columbia from October 8 to 15, 2009;[2]
- Tony Blair, former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (U.K.) to SurreyBritish Columbia on October 6, 2009.[3]
LAW is writing to request that G. W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Tony Blair each be barred from entering Canada in accordance with the inadmissibility provisions of the Immigration and Refugee Protection Act (IRPA) provisions that bar entry to foreign nationals suspected of human or international rights violations.[4]
Credible Accusations: George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and Tony Blair have each been accused by knowledgeable groups and individuals throughout the world of complicity in war crimes, crimes against humanity and other gross human rights abuses. Accusation of war crimes and crimes against humanity carried out by the Bush administration under the supervision and direction of G.W. Bush as President and Commander in Chief of the U.S. Armed Forces and Dick Cheney as Vice-President are well documented.
For example, Professor Michael Haas, in his book, George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration's Liability for 269 War Crimes, identifies and documents evidence of 269 war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the U.S. under the direction and supervision of Bush and Cheney. Tony Blair has been credibly accused of authorizing, directing or failing to prevent, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed while he was prime minister during the invasion and occupation of Iraq. None of these accusations have been dismissed or confirmed by a court of law. However, the credible inculpatory evidence supporting the accusations is overwhelming and there does not appear to be any credible exculpatory evidence refuting the accusations.
www.VelvetRevolution.us
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