North America
U.S. Iraq War resister and Veteran Rodney Watson speaks from sanctuary in Vancouver, B.C.
Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2009-11-17 01:42.Illinois Prison Top Contender to House Gitmo Detainees, Official Says
Submitted by Chip on Sun, 2009-11-15 17:54.Illinois prison top contender to house Gitmo detainees, official says
By Jessica Yellin | CNN
If the Bureau of Prisons purchases the 1,600-cell site, it would operate primarily as a federal prison and lease a portion of it to the Defense Department to house a limited number of Guantanamo detainees, one Obama administration official said.
There are about 215 men held by the U.S. military at the Guantanamo prison camp. Among the detainees are five suspects with alleged ties to the 9/11 conspiracy, including accused mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who will be transferred to New York to go on trial in civilian court, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Friday.
A prison in northern Illinois is the leading contender to house some detainees transferred from the federal facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, two Obama administration officials told CNN Saturday.
Officials from the department of Defense, Justice and Homeland Security and federal Bureau of Prisons will be will be visiting the maximum-security Thomson Correctional Center, about 150 miles west of Chicago, on Monday, the officials said.
Earlier Saturday, a statement from Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn's office said senior Obama administration officials would be visiting the Thomson prison to see whether the "virtually vacant, state of the art facility" could be of use to the Bureau of Prisons. Read more.
Mexican Business Groups Call for U.N. Troops
Submitted by Chip on Thu, 2009-11-12 17:07.Mexican business groups call for U.N. troops
5,000 soldiers aren't enough protection, Ciudad Juarez business owners say
By Associated Press | MSNBC
"What we are asking for with the blue helmets (U.N. peacekeepers) is that we know they are the army of peace, so we could use not only the strategies they have developed in other countries ... but they also have technology," Maynez said....Maynez said the United States could also contribute to the solution, adding that the U.S. might be forced to in its own interests. "We know that sooner or later, the violence will spill over into our sister city of El Paso, Texas," he said.
Business groups in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez said Wednesday they are calling for United Nations peacekeepers to quell the drug-related violence that has given their city one of the highest homicide rates in the world.
Groups representing assembly plants, retailers and other businesses said they will submit a request to the Mexican government and the Inter American Human Rights Commission to ask the U.N. to send help.
"This is a proposal ... for international forces to come here to help out the domestic (security) forces," said Daniel Murguia, president of the Ciudad Juarez chapter of the National Chamber of Commerce, Services and Tourism. "There is a lot of extortions and robberies of businesses. Many businesses are closing." Read more.
Justice Denied After Seven Years of Pain and Struggle Officials Not Responsible For Kidnapping And Torture
Submitted by Chip on Sat, 2009-11-07 18:09.
Justice Denied After Seven Years of Pain and Struggle
By Stephen Rohde | Bill of Rights Defense Committee
Imagine it’s September 2002 and you are at JFK Airport changing planes on your way home to Canada, after a vacation in Tunisia. To your surprise, you are detained by U.S. authorities and interrogated for…13 days. The Bush administration labels you a suspected member of Al Qaeda and sends you against your will to Syrian intelligence authorities renowned for torture. You are tortured, interrogated and detained in a tiny underground cell for nearly a year before the Syrian government releases you, stating they had found no connection to any criminal or terrorist organization or activity. An exhaustive investigation by the Canadian government finds you innocent of terrorism or other wrongdoing and that government apologizes for its minor role. Arar v. Ashcroft, No 06-4216-cv. Wouldn’t you expect American law to afford you due process and a judicial forum in which to hold those who committed these outrageous violations of your constitutional rights fully accountable?
That’s what Maher Arar, a 39-year old Canadian citizen, expected when he was subjected to these outrages. But as of this week, the doors of American justice have been slammed in Arar’s face.
On Monday, a sharply divided federal Court of Appeals, by a vote of 7 to 4, dismissed Arar’s case, concluding that it raised too many sensitive foreign policy and secrecy issues to permit any relief. Read more.
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”.
www.VelvetRevolution.us
Recent comments
5 hours 10 min ago
1 day 2 hours ago
1 day 11 hours ago
1 day 21 hours ago
1 day 22 hours ago
2 days 1 hour ago
2 days 1 hour ago
2 days 2 hours ago
2 days 16 hours ago
3 days 4 hours ago