This is a lawless world which didn't begin with George Bush, but not in my memory and my lifetime has there been so much of it. Who says it can't happen here? It can and does. The travesty of injustice is the obvious abuse and disregard for the truth.
"President Bush jr. -- who, unlike many American politicians, has no training in the law -- has repeatedly demonstrated that he has no concept of (and little interest in) the letter of the law, so his misunderstandings come as no surprise; unfortunately, he does not appear to have legal advisers willing to correct his go-by-the-gut pronouncements -and, instead, twist things around beyond what most lawyers would deem reasonable in an effort to provide support for them." Complete-Review.Com
It is "as-if" the powerful don't care anymore who knows what they intend to do to keep inequality the status quo and injustice the standard. And it is also astonishingly obvious that so many people are either oblivious and duped into going along with their own oppression and the ruling classes' disregard for international law, or they are simply willing to become followers and at times even willing to disregard the flagrant misconduct of their leaders, like those "good Germans" who went along with the lawlessness of the Third Reich.
"You can fool some of the people all the time,
and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."
-George W. Bush-
Here is what Pudge says about it:
(Quote)
He is not Barack Obama. He is The Obama.
I believe that if it were proposed to make Obama the King of America, more than a third of the country would vote for it, along with more than two-thirds of the news media. Perhaps not. But I am absolutely convinced that the media, and many on the left, simply believe that they -- or their candidate, at least -- well, OK, themselves too -- are simply better, and therefore the same rules don't apply.
I don't know about you, but that attitude really scares me. It alone is almost enough reason to try to make sure he doesn't win, because it is an inherent danger to liberty. There are various threats to liberty that our founders warned us about, and war is one of them, as the left likes to remind us. Another was a charismatic leader who would by, force of personality, convince us to give up our liberty. This is what is being created before our eyes, and it is damned scary.
The news media is totally in the tank for Obama. Is the election over before it begins, just because there is apparently no chance that they will have the slightest amount of fairness in covering the race?
(End Quote)
"The idea that theirs was an empire of liberty (for white men) enabled Americans to ignore some unpleasant truths about westward expansion. for one thing, the continent was not , in fact, empty. For centuries, the West had been a meeting ground of peoples whose relationships were shaped by conquest as much as free choice. It was also, therefore, the site of clashing definitions of liberty. `The life my people want is a life of freedom,' the great leader of the Lakota Sioux, Sitting Bull, would later proclaim. The Native American idea of freedom, however, which centered on preserving their cultural and political autonomy and retaining control of ancestral lands, as incompatible with that of western settlers, for whom freedom entailed the right to expand across the continent and establish farms, ranches, and mines on land that Indians considered their own. Indian removal--accomplished by fraud, intimidation, and violence---was indispensable to the triumph of manifest destiny and the American mission of spreading freedom." (Eric Foner, The Story of American Freedom, 1998)
"Before embarking on international travels, David Addington and others who are said to be closely associated with the crafting of the Bush administration's policy on the interrogation of detainees would do well to reflect on the fate of Augusto Pinochet." (* Phillipe Sands, "Policymakers on torture take note: remember Pinochet" and author of a new book, Lawless World - Sunday, 13, 2005 - SFGate.Com
"The Chilean senator and former head of state was unexpectedly arrested during a visit to London on Oct. 16, 1998, at the request of a Spanish judge who sought his extradition on various charges of international criminality, including torture."
"The House of Lords -- Britain's upper house -- ruled that the 1984 convention prohibiting torture removed any right he might have to claim immunity from the English courts and gave a green light to the continuation of extradition proceedings."
"As counsel for Human Rights Watch, I participated in that case. This allowed me to witness the case firsthand. It also gave me the opportunity to chat with Pinochet's advisers, and one conversation in particular has remained vividly at the forefront of my mind."
"It never occurred to us that the torture convention would be used to detain the senator," remarked the human rights adviser who had been involved in the decision by Pinochet and Chile to ratify the Convention Against Torture in 1988."
"The adviser's words came back to me recently, during a debate with Professor John Yoo at the World Affairs Council of San Francisco."
"Yoo, a UC Berkeley law professor, is the author of legal advice that rode roughshod over the torture convention, and contributed to at least one opinion that ignored the well-established international definition of torture."
Sands goes on to suggest the legal opinions of these lawyers advising the Bush administration have been very clearly "inconsistent" with what is stipulated and required by international law disallowing a more aggressive interrogation on detainees. Those with a connection to the Bush administration who may have had a hand in crafting the torture policy would be well advised not to travel far from the protection of the boundaries of the United States or they could find themselves arrested, extradited and tried in an international or national court of criminal justice for war crimes.
The international torture convention also establishes the mechanism for enforcement and the U.S. and more than 140 other countries who have adopted and joined the convention agreed to take these actions; in fact they must, if "any person who has committed torture is found on their territory."
"Such a person is to be investigated, and if the facts warrant, must either be prosecuted for the crime of torture or extradited to another country that will prosecute." (ibid)
"Until recently, the possibility that the United States was responsible for war crimes seemed unthinkable to most Americans. But as previously suppressed information has started to emerge, reports of U.S. attacks on Iraqi hospitals, mosques, and residential neighborhoods, accounts of secret war-planning meetings held long before the invasion, photographs from Abu Ghraib prison -- Americans have begun an agonizing reappraisal of the Iraq war and the way in which their government has conducted it." - In the Name of Democracy: American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond, By Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler, and Brendan Smith - [American Empire Project]
There must be NO safe havens in the growing reach of international criminal law. This became infinitely clear with Pinochet when he was arrested in England - even though he was eventually released (but he was held in house arrest for well over a year and was only released because of failing health). Not only are those who gave advice for the use of torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere, George W. Bush is also subject to prosecution and he is at risk if he travels when he is no longer the president.
US official documents that have been recently been declassified show that, between October 1960 and April 1961, the CIA smuggled in 75 tons of explosives into Cuba during 30 clandestine air operations, and infiltrated 45 tons of weapons and explosives during 31 sea incursions. Also during that short seven-month time span, the CIA carried out 110 attacks with dynamite, planted 200 bombs, derailed six trains and burned 150 factories and 800 plantations.
Between 1959 and 1997, the United States carried out 5,780 terrorist actions against Cuba – 804 of them considered as terrorist attacks of significant magnitude, including 78 bombings against the civil population that caused thousands of victims.
Terrorist attacks against Cuba have cost 3,478 lives and have left 2,099 people permanently disabled. Between 1959 and 2003, there were 61 hijackings of planes or boats. Between 1961 and 1996, there were 58 attacks from the sea against 67 economic targets and the population.
The CIA has directed and supported over 4,000 individuals in 299 paramilitary groups. They are responsible for 549 murders and thousands of people wounded.
In 1971, after a biological attack, half a million pigs had to be killed to prevent the spreading of swine fever. In 1981, the introduction of dengue fever caused 344,203 victims killing 158 of whom 101 were children. On July 6th, 1982, 11,400 cases were registered in one day alone.
Most of these aggressions were prepared in Florida by the CIA-trained and financed extreme right wing of Cuban origin.
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Today is Friday November 21, 2008