..probably not a good idea to book that Iraq coach tour just yet. Via travel.state.gov where you can read the whole thing.
Travel Warning
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Iraq
January 19, 2012
The Department of State warns U.S. citizens against all but essential travel to Iraq given the dangerous security situation. [More..]
From Moazzam Begg, a British Pakistani who spent two years in Guantanamo Bay without charge:
“You are now the property of the United States and you have no rights” – these were the first words to greet me and other prisoners held in the US prison camp at Guantanamo Bay. Ten years on, little has changed there.
More: Guantanamo remembered: A personal perspective – Opinion – Al Jazeera English.
For more details on Begg’s case, his Wiki is a good place to start.
Lots of things are easy to gloss over when you’re not really paying attention.
Americans often proclaim our nation as a symbol of freedom to the world while dismissing nations such as Cuba and China as categorically unfree. Yet, objectively, we may be only half right. Those countries do lack basic individual rights such as due process, placing them outside any reasonable definition of “free,” but the United States now has much more in common with such regimes than anyone may like to admit.
via 10 reasons the U.S. is no longer the land of the free – The Washington Post.
Well, Duh, move the deer crossing, cuz we all know that deer are among the most avid road sign readers in the world. From a letter to the editor apparently published in a local newspaper:
George Bush won’t likely be visiting soon. From an Amnesty International – Canada press release issued today:
Canada urged to arrest and prosecute George W. Bush
Overview
Amnesty International today urged Canadian authorities to arrest and either prosecute or extradite former US President George W. Bush for his role in torture, ahead of his expected visit to Canada on 20 October. Canada is required by its international obligations to arrest and prosecute former President Bush given his responsibility for crimes under international law including torture. Amnesty International submitted a memorandum to the Canadian authorities on 21 September 2011 outlining the case for his legal responsibilty. The violations took place during the CIA’s secret detention program between 2002 and 2009 – and include torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading-treatment and enforced disappearances. While President, George W. Bush authorized the use of a number of “enhanced interrogation techniques” against detainees held in the secret CIA program.
Full Text
Amnesty International today urged Canadian authorities to arrest and either prosecute or extradite former US President George W. Bush for his role in torture, ahead of his expected visit to Canada on 20 October.
“Canada is required by its international obligations to arrest and prosecute former President Bush given his responsibility for crimes under international law including torture,” said Susan Lee, Americas Director at Amnesty International.
“As the US authorities have, so far, failed to bring former President Bush to justice, the international community must step in. A failure by Canada to take action during his visit would violate the UN Convention against Torture and demonstrate contempt for fundamental human rights.”
Amnesty International submitted a memorandum to the Canadian authorities on 21 September 2011 that makes a substantial case for the former president’s legal responsibility for a series of human rights violations.
The violations took place during the CIA’s secret detention program between 2002 and 2009 – and include torture and other cruel, inhuman and degrading-treatment and enforced disappearances.
While President, George W. Bush authorized the use of a number of “enhanced interrogation techniques” against detainees held in the secret CIA program.
The former President later specifically admitted to authorizing the “waterboarding” of several individuals whose subjection to this torture technique has been confirmed.
Detainees were subjected to waterboarding and a range of other “enhanced interrogation techniques” – including being forced to stay for hours in painful positions and sleep deprivation – during the CIA’s secret detention program, set up under then-President Bush’s authorization.
The CIA Inspector General found that Zayn al Abidin Muhammed Husayn (known as Abu Zubaydah) and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed were subjected, between them, to at least 266 applications of waterboarding while in detention between 2002 and 2003.
Amnesty International’s submission also highlights further evidence of torture and other crimes under international law committed against detainees held under US military custody in Guantánamo, Afghanistan and Iraq.
“This is a crucial moment for Canada to demonstrate it is prepared to live up to its commitments and obligations with respect to human rights,” said Susan Lee. “Canada has been a leader in efforts to strengthen the international justice system and must now demonstrate that when it comes to accountability for human rights violations, no one and no country is above international law.”
photo – Vienna 065 /piran cafe
There was quite a flurry of activity on the Standard & Poor’s wikipedia entry yesterday, 96 revisions in all. As a point of reference, just 17 revisions were recorded from the beginning of July through 5 August.
Because I didn’t feel like washing the dishes this morning, screencaps follow:
From U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders’ FB page on the S&P downgrade:
I find it interesting to see S&P so vigilant today in downgrading the US credit rating. Where were they 4 years ago when they, and other credit rating agencies, helped cause this horrendous recession by providing AAA ratings to worthless sub-prime mortgage securities on behalf of Wall Street investment firms? Where were they last December when Congress and the White House drove up the national debt by $700 billion by extending Bush’s tax breaks for the rich?
For those of you outside the U.S. who aren’t familiar with Sanders: he is the longest serving independent in U.S. Congressional history.
Looks like a tidier version of a Roma Gypsy camp along a highway. The Thirdworldization continues, and few are noticing. Mad Max isn’t too far away.
Great perspective on secrecy in modern times. From an interview with Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on CNN’s In the Arena blog:
Richard Nixon, if he were alive today, might take bittersweet satisfaction to know that he was not the last smart president to prolong unjustifiably a senseless, unwinnable war, at great cost in human life. (And his aide Henry Kissinger was not the last American official to win an undeserved Nobel Peace Prize.)
He would probably also feel vindicated (and envious) that ALL the crimes he committed against me–which forced his resignation facing impeachment – are now legal.
That includes burglarizing my former psychoanalyst’s office (for material to blackmail me into silence), warrantless wiretapping, using the CIA against an American citizen in the US, and authorizing a White House hit squad to “incapacitate me totally” (on the steps of the Capitol on May 3, 1971). All the above were to prevent me from exposing guilty secrets of his own administration that went beyond the Pentagon Papers. But under George W. Bush and Barack Obama, with the PATRIOT Act, the FISA Amendment Act, and (for the hit squad) President Obama’s executive orders. they have all become legal.
There is no further need for present or future presidents to commit obstructions of justice (like Nixon’s bribes to potential witnesses) to conceal such acts. Under the new laws, Nixon would have stayed in office, and the Vietnam War would have continued at least several more years.
Likewise, where Nixon was the first president in history to use the 54-year-old Espionage Act to indict an American (me) for unauthorized disclosures to the American people (it had previously been used, as intended, exclusively against spies), he would be impressed to see that President Obama has now brought five such indictments against leaks, almost twice as many as all previous presidents put together (three).
He could only admire Obama’s boldness in using the same Espionage Act provisions used against me–almost surely unconstitutional used against disclosures to the American press and public in my day, less surely under the current Supreme Court – to indict Thomas Drake, a classic whistleblower who exposed illegality and waste in the NSA.
Drake’s trial begins on June 13, the 40th anniversary of the publication of the Pentagon Papers. If Nixon were alive, he might well choose to attend.
PBS will stream the 2010 documentary, ‘The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers‘, on Monday and Tuesday, 13-14, June.
Hollensturz in Vietnam by Willi Sitte, originally uploaded by pirano.
Eight years old today. How quickly they grow. Here’s a remembrance from a few years ago.
The only thing missing is the Bangles singing Walk Like an Egyptian in the background.
“You’ve no charges against me.”
“Don’t worry. I will have in my own time. I know a witch when I see one.”
Removed from an exhibit on 1 December, that is, after a few conservative Republicans and Fox News commentators saw it as another government-funded assault on Christmas.
The video installation, which was part of the exhibition Hide/See: Difference and Desire in American Portraiture at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, DC, opens with ants crawling over a crucifix, depicting the suffering of an AIDS victim. House Majority leader and John Boehner lapdog Eric Cantor called it “an obvious attempt to offend Christians during the Christmas season”.
From Vanity Fair:
Regarding the video’s graphic nature, exhibition co-curator David C. Ward explained, “That it is violent, disturbing, and hallucinatory precisely replicates the impact of the disease itself on people and a society that could barely comprehend its magnitude.” AIDS, Congressman Cantor should note, is not a seasonal disease that comes and goes with each Christmas. He’s probably thinking of the flu.
Wojnarowicz died from AIDS in 1992. The International Center of Photography in New York will be holding a screening of the video tonight (16 Dec).
