ObAma SuPpOrTs tOrTuRe

(update4/13/09)
Just read this article that hit me in the gut. After reading it I am sad to be a human being, and to be an America. No matter who we are at war with, no matter how tough the battle we cannot lose our soul. A great quote i once read said if our country is not strong enough to win a war without resorting to breaking the law, than our country is not worth saving. Now read the story below, about what we do to people suspected of terror activities, and keep in mind this man was never told his charges, and is probably innocent. For gods sake try these people in a court of law or let them free. We treated the Nazi's at Nuremberg better. If you can read this and still be proud to be an American, or a human being there is something wrong with you.

Binyam Mohamed was born in Ethiopia and came to Britain in 1994, where he lived for seven years, sought political asylum and was given leave to remain while his case was resolved.

While travelling in Pakistan, Binyam was arrested on a visa violation and turned over to the US authorities. When they refused to let him go, he asked what crime he had committed, and insisted on having a lawyer if he was going to be interrogated. The FBI told him, ‘The rules have changed. You don’t get a lawyer.’

Binyam refused to speak to them. British agents then confirmed his identity to the US authorities and he was warned that he would be taken to a Middle Eastern country for harsh treatment.

On 21 July 2002, Binyam was rendered to Morocco on a CIA plane. He was held there for 18 months in appalling conditions. To ensure his confession, his Moroccan captors tortured him, stripping him naked and cutting him with a scalpel on his chest and penis. Despite this, Binyam said that his lowest point came when his interrogators asked him questions about his life in London, which he realized could only have been provided by the British intelligence services, and he realized that he had been betrayed by the country in which he had sought asylum.

Binyam’s ordeal in Morocco continued for about 18 months until January 2004, when he was transferred to the ‘Dark Prison’ near Kabul, Afghanistan, a secret prison run by the CIA, which resembled a medieval dungeon with the addition of extremely loud 24-hour music and noise.

Speaking of his time in the ‘Dark Prison’, Binyam said:

“It was pitch black, no lights on in the rooms for most of the time. They hung me up for two days. My legs had swollen. My wrists and hands had gone numb. There was loud music, Slim Shady [by Eminem] and Dr. Dre for 20 days. Then they changed the sounds to horrible ghost laughter and Halloween sounds. At one point, I was chained to the rails for a fortnight. The CIA worked on people, including me, day and night. Plenty lost their minds. I could hear people knocking their heads against the walls and the doors, screaming their heads off.”

From there he was taken to the US military prison at Bagram airbase, and finally, in September 2004, to Guantánamo Bay, where he remains.
http://www.reprieve.org.uk/casework_binyammohammed.htm

oh and why did i mention that our new President supports torture? Because so far while promising to close Guantanamo he has promised to continue to use the illegal practice of rendition. If you forgot rendition is when our CIA will fly you to a country where you are pretty much guaranteed to be tortured.

President Obama has also instructed his justice department to defend lawsuits by Jose Padilla, who is suing individuals such as, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz and former Attorney General John Ashcroft, and the infamous John Yoo because he is an american citizen that was arrested and thrown into Gauntanamo bay without a lawyer, and without being told of his right, and without a fair and speedy trial which is against the constitution of the United States of America.

Obama has also sided with the bush administration in a lawsuit over the illegal electronic eavesdropping program.

Now i think i should have voted for MCcain, at least he told us what he planned to do, Obama lied!

Update
Now that Leon Pinetta has become the director of the CIA and he has put together his team, it seems clear, according to Chris Floyd, who quotes an article from Harpers magazine, that Pinetta has chosen as his number two and three man at the CIA, two men who were heavily involved as top directors in the cia for the detention programs under Bush. Programs which the International Committee of the REd Cross have called torture, in a new report.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2009-04-08/the-cia-torture-cover-up/

oBaMa'S fIrSt BaTtLe

President Obama's first legislative battle is over his economic stimulus plan. The economy is in trouble, banks have 5.6 trillion in toxic assets(goldman sachs estimate) that must be cleaned up, and in January the country lost 560,000 jobs. Everyone says we need a bill to stimulate the economy.Even though the democrats controll The House of Representatives, =The Senate and the White House the Republicans have filibuster power in the senate. Meaning that the Democrats are 2 votes short in the senate of passing whatever laws and stimulus packages they want without any republican compromise.




Even with this advantage president still chose to have numerous meetings in the oval office with republican leadership to build a bipartisanship bill. In the eyes of many Democrats this compromise was not needed. In fact many progressives thought it should not have happened. The progressives are arguing that the American public has voted for a Democratic stimulus by the way they elected a Democratic Senate, Congress, and President. Not only that but the fact that this election has never been more clear cut. A vote for Mccain meant the country wanted a Reagon style economy. Tax cuts to the wealthy, the corporate, the street on wall. While a vote for Obama meant tax cuts for the poor and middle class. Many republicans framed the election so strongly by calling Obama's policies a socialistic redistribution of wealth. And guess what GOP, Americans chose socialistic wealth redistribution.



But in a spirit of bipartisanship, or some might call it Democratic spinelessness, President Obama still chose to work with his opposition. Yet when the bill came up for a vote in the House of Representatives not one Republican voted for the bill. To me and many progressives this was seen as a stab in the back to President Obama. Yet Greg Palast just wrote an article that was hard to see where he was coming from because of the high level of sarcasm. But I think his point was about President Obama stabbing the republicans in the back by inviting them to the white house to build a bill together, than when they left he created a democratic bill that they would not support. So I guess it depends on what side of the aisle you are on.

So whats in the bill. The Democratic version of the bill is around 800 billion dollars being spent on medicare, unemployment, a huge increase in education, money going to states to help balance their budget deficits, and money going to rebuild the national infrastructure, with some tax cuts for the middle class.


The Democrats are framing their plan as a way to stimulate the economy and create jobs. The president promises the bill will create 3-4 million jobs. Economist Dean Baker believes government spending will create jobs even though the new Chairman of the Republican National Committee Steele argued last week that never in all of history has the government created on job. (Than he rephrased saying all the public school teachers, all the public hospital workers, all the people working in the department of defense and every other government office dont count as government workers). Anyway Baker argues

"The whole point is that the economy has a vast amount of idle labor and capital right now. If the government doesn't spend the money no one will spend it."

The Republicans are framing the democratic plan as a giveaway to reward all the interests that backed the Democratic election win of 2008. Yet the plan offered by the republicans is nothing more than a carbon copy of Bush's failed policies. More tax cuts for the rich, and to cut taxes completely on capitol gains. We just had 8 years of Republican tax cuts how has that worked out in stimulating the economy?



It seems like thats the only economic theories they have. Times are good, lets cut taxes. Times are bad, i know, lets cut taxes. I also find it quite funny to see Republican Senator Lindsey Graham complain that republicans have been shut out of the process when A) thats what he did when bush ran things and B) Obama met more with republcans than democrats on this piece of legislation.


Others are saying that right now, what we need to completely revamp the system. That our fundamentals are broken. We buy more from the world than we sell. Our Federal government and our citizens survive on credit. Our banking system is highly leveraged. Our government does not print its own money it borrows it from the private federal reserve bank and pays interest. And the bottom line is we just dont make anything here anymore.


An easy way to make major changes is to attach strings to the 800 billion dollars in cash to be handed out. Fundamental changes to our country like labour laws. To stop rewarding factories that move overseas with tax brakes. To create more transparency and regulation on wall street. To deal with mortgages that people cannot pay.



How about attaching a string like, if you take stimulus package money from the governement to use to build a new road you must buy your concrete from an envirnmentally friendly company. You must not use workers who have come to this country through illegal means.


Another area in our national budget where money can be found is the defense department. Lets cut defense spending. Yes i said it. We don't really need to spend more on our defense than the whole world combined. There are officially 192 countries in the world, do we need to have 4x this amount of military bases? Do we need to allow the defense department to get away with 300 billion dollars in cost overuns every year? I heard someone argue, wont military spending cuts mean job loss? But we had an increase in military spending since 2001 that has barely been felt by our economy.


Another aspect involed in the debate has to do with the Buy America amendment. The amendment forces, in cases where its an option, companies receiving money via the economic stimulus bill to spend the money on american companies. For example if the stimulus bill gives money to a town to build a bridge the material must be american, when available. The goal is to have the stimulus money remain in the country. Lets face it, we are not try to stimulate china, if you know what i mean.



But for some odd reason their has been resistance to this amendment. On the surface one must wonder why. America needs jobs, so lets only spend the money in America, right? Well since the rise of globalization and free trade philosophy many American companies have moved their factories overseas. The reasons for this move is to save money. Labor costs less in Africa and China, and there are less regulations relating to pollution and Unions. So American firms who wish to cash in on the stimulus would be stopped by this amendment, and we all know how much pressure Corporations can apply to our elected leaders.


Even some European leaders have publicly warned the US to be careful in debating the passage of protectionist policy. Saying that the world follows the US's lead and if we begin protectionism so will the rest of the world until the global network of economic trade will grind to a halt.


David Sirota has a great point in his open left blog, where he thinks ideas of a trade war are just hypotheticals. He convincingly argues that the word protectionism has been redefined by those seeking to stop the Buy America amendment. David goes on to say that for the past 25 years protectionist practices meant tariffs, so by calling a law requiring companies to buy american protectionism, is to invoke an image in the voters mind that is not truthful. This is not a new strategy. Politicians are well versed in invoking images and ideas of the past to win support for legislation, where the ideas invoked really have nothing to do with the legistlation.


For example, a few years ago there was a push to end the estate tax, which was a tax on very wealthy estates that were handed down to children when wealthy parents passed on. The tax was created to stop the developement of dynasty's in this country that dominated Europe for centuries. So if you inherited over ten million dollars, or some very large some from your deceased parents you were taxed. Rich people didn't like this and tried to change it. But how do you convince the public to change a law that will hurt them, while helping the tiny few who are beyond wealthy. It came down to framing the debate. The word estate was changed to death, and the movement to revoke the death tax began. Now every middle class citizen felt effected by the death tax, even though it would not effect them. Very clever.


And to top it all off President Obama has come out against the Buy America bill that he campaigned on. He might have even won states based on this issue alone(according to David Sirota).



An idea floated by Sara Robinson from the ourfuture.org blog is to think big. She lists a few.

1.It would have been cheaper to buy the banks outright than continue to pump them full of money.


2. Reinstitute a stock transfer tax that would bring in a lot of revenue and also penalize sellers who buy large and sell fast, thus moving wall street back to its original intent, to fund companies while investors could earn a little, and not the high flying casino type atmoshphere of present. In fact the IRS just released a report on the top 400 wealthiest American tax returns, and 2/3 rds of their salaries came from the sale of capitol gains. And since the President and the public both believe executives are getting paid too much why not tax it?


3. Closing prisons would bring in a lot of money. Many researchers have noted that while crime is down 15 years straight to a 40 year low, we continue to build more prisons. Sara quotes a CAF Research Director:


The sacrifices we make to build these prisons are astonishing. Between 1987 and 2007, state spending on prisons increased by 40 percent (as a percent of the general fund). State spending on higher education decreased by 30 percent. We are financing our prisons by cutting our colleges.


4. And lastly, every one pays a social security tax, but it is only taxed on the first 90,000 dollars anyone makes. Sara beleives and i agree, that we should tax every day up to infinite. This would bring in huge sums of money

Paul Krugman, columnist for the new york times, also argues that 800 billion is not enough to jump start the economy. He shows that the congressional budget office sees a 2.9 trillion dollar whole in the economy over the next three years. Right now the plan of pumpin in 400 billion a year (the 800 billion dollar plan is over two years.) would be less than half the losses incured.

The Democratic senate needed a few Republicans to break ranks and vote for the stimulus for it to pass. They did get them but they had to cut some spending out of the bill and add some tax cuts. But it seems the most important parts were cut out. Like money going to states to help balance their budgets, money going to help with unemployment and healthcare for unemployed. Economist Robert Reich and Paul Krugman point out that what was cut out of the bill would have the strongest and most immediate impact on the economy. They argue that research shows that money going to unemployment and to states would have been spent immediately.

The daily beast website points out an interesting part of the internal bargaining that went on,

"Krugman lays the blame at the feet of President Obama, who talked a lot about post-partisanship while allowing conservatives to define the debate. “Mr. Obama was reduced to bargaining for the votes of those centrists. And the centrists, predictably, extracted a pound of flesh."

Another interesting note is that the US Chamber of Commerce has come out in support of the bill with Nelson ammendment.(the one that cut out a lot of state funding, healthcare for the unemployed, unemployment funding, education spending.) This is a telling sign because the US Chamber of Commerce, while it has a respectable name does the bidding of their corporate lobbiests. And the legistlation corporate American pushes for, usually does not benefit the rest of America.

Another note is that some are saying that the reason the Republicans are not voting for this stimulus is because they are postering for the 2010 congressional election. This way the bill either passes smaller than required or passes too late to have a real effect on the economy. So Republicans will have strong talking points for their 2010 congressional races by arguing "We told you the democrats could not fix things, vote for us".

To me this action, putting politics above our national interest is unamerican and just as wrong as you could get. I know the Democrats would do the same thing. We need some fundamental changes to our country.

Gaza theory

I have a new theory. Israel and the US plan to eventually start a war in the middle east that will attack Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Hezballah, and any Arab nation not in our pocket, one large war. But the one item in the way is the palestinians living in Israel. Israel will always be vulnurable as long as Iran has friends living in Israel, and be able to attack israel. The Israeli strategy toward the Palestinians, particularly the Gazan's will be the same strategy in the US/Israeli lead war. Encircle, imprison, starve, attack. But that population in Gaza is like a trojan horse. 

Bullshit of the day

One of my favorite political authors of late has an article about trade and i cant help but mention a line he quotes. The line was written by nicholas kristoff for the new york times. 

"But while it shocks Americans to hear it, the central challenge in the poorest countries is not that sweatshops exploit too many people, but that they don't exploit enough..."

 "Yet sweatshops are only a symptom of poverty, not a cause, and banning them closes off one route out of poverty..."

"When I defend sweatshops, people always ask me: But would you want to work in a sweatshop? No, of course not. But I would want even less to pull a rickshaw. In the hierarchy of jobs in poor countries, sweltering at a sewing machine isn't the bottom."

Wow. This is not made up. This goes in my hall of fame of stupid things to say. Also in that hall of fame.

Barbara Bush talking about Hurricane Katrina and all the people who fled their homes and were huddling in the super-dome, " they never had it so good,"

And lets not forget the ruling government of Sudan who bombed tribal villages to clear the land for oil drilling companies and tried to explain the high level of tribes fleeing their homes, when they said "No No No, they are not fleeing bombs, they are nomads, who naturally move around" 

Sure they are.

And most recently when George W Bush was asked about regrets during his administration, and he mentioned the Iraq war and how he regretted that they didn't find weapons of mass destruction. NO regrets about all the destruction they caused to a nation that never threatened nor attacked us. No regret about all the US soldiers dead and wounded for basically no real reason. No regrets about lying to get us into the war. He just regretted that they didn't find the things that didn't exist, that would have made his fabrications true. Ya mean we couldn't find those things we made up? shoot.

SOFA

A great day for Iraq a few weeks ago the Iraq forces took over in patrolling the green zone, from the US military. Meaning the US military has no right to arrest or shoot anyone in the Green Zone, its all on the Iraqi's.

But of course the US could not sit still. Antiwarblog.com is reporting that hours after the agreement was signed the US military shot a women who would not stop when they told her too. So she must have been Bin Laden's right hand women right? Well actually she was deaf. 

IsRaEl

I am jewish. Up until my second year of college, at SUNY Albany, I supported Israeli in their treatment of the Palestinians. I was engrained with the view that Israel had to protect itself from terrorists. Than a friend of my mentioned another point of view on the subject in the form of some articles written on a progressive website that I still frequent, Common Dreams.org

This article showed another perspective. Forgetting what group you belong to. Forgetting what your holy book of preference is. I saw a people being mistreated. A majority of a nation abusing the minority. I saw a people who were up there as some of the most abused cultures of the century, abusing another culture. 

Being someone who has always found it easy to put myself in another's shoes I felt for the Palestinian people. If you are a human, in my view, its hard not too. And as a Jew I cannot comprehend that my culture would treat another with anything except the utmost humanity.  If i am bullied in school I know the feeling of being abused, thus making it hard for me to abuse another. But to me, that is what is happening. 

Both sides have an argument.  And if you grew up in either culture you would relate. 

If you grew up hearing stories about how your native lands for thousands of years was taken by western superpowers and given to another culture, and when your culture fought to take it back you were beaten by western military technology, how can you not be upset. 

If  walls encircle your neighborhood you should be upset. If you must pass military checkpoints to move freely and you spend half a day to go places that used to take a few minutes you should be upset.  If you relied on UN food deliveries in order to survive it has got to hurt. As a man your pride has got to be hurting. And now imagine deliveries are no longer allowed to enter, food resources, medical resources, electricity, basic components of life are taken from you, how mad would you be. Very is an understatement. 

Look at Greece. Rioting for weeks. Malatof cocktails thrown and hitting police. All because a 15 was shot and killed by the police and the town is fed up. Well right now the Palestinian people are being starved. They are firing rockets into Israel. Israeli's response is to hold back more food and more medical products.

What's the answer, I don't know. Is peace possible? Always. Are there some Palestinians and Israeli's who would never tolerate a peace, absolutely.

From the Israeli perspective, your towns are being rocketed daily. And in the late 90's during Arafats tenure and the intafada public transportation bus's were being suicide bombed on the regular. This has to infuriate israeli's. I started this by saying how can an abused culture abuse another? Some defend Israel's aggressive stance by saying they must take these actions in order to prevent another holocaust. 

But to me the answer is not to decimate an entire culture. It's not to starve an entire culture. In Iraq we only made progress by talking to our enemies. In Afghanistan, president Karzai is talking to his enemies. After WWII we helped rebuild Germany and Japan. Its the only answer in my view. Yet no one really gave the democratically elected government of Hamas a chance. 

They were elected for some reason. Meaning they have the support of the people. One argument goes, the palestinians do not want peace, Arafat was given a chance at peace and he turned it down. Well remember that Arafat represented one Palestinian faction, the PLO. Why not try with Hamas. 

But wait a minute, the palestinians only want to kill every last Jew. Really? People really believe this.  Maybe they want to but they wouldnt actually do it. I bet during the 60's in the southern USA when blacks were being lynched hourly, I bet many blacks wanted to kill every last white man. Every last christian. 

What if what we have in israel is a handful of disgruntled Palestinians who are firing the rockets, why do we need to make the entire Palestinian culture suffer? Do we in the USA solve gang violence in south central L.A. or in the Bronx by putting up a wall around the community, and eventually calling in the air-force to level the place. Why dont we? Because its wrong? Because killing 10,000 to stop 50 is not the right approach? So why is this behavior tolerated in Gaza.

All I am saying is people do strange things when you cage them, and take away their pride, hurt their family, starve them, and strip them of the bare essentials life has to offer. Think how you would act in such a situation. Imagine America was occupied by a foriegn power, colonized.  Would we revolt? Would we suicide bombs? How far would you go to ensure your family was not abused? How far would you go to feed your family?

Now start asking yourself new questions. Why does the world stand for israel but against saddam? And what i mean by that is why does Israel have the most UN resolutions condemning their actions than any other nation, but no nation has acted to stop their abusive nature, while on the other hand the world unites to topple saddam after a few UN resolutions? 

Why does the world know about south ossetia, which made the evening news regularly for a week straight while a genocide is occurring on the African continent in the Congo that some have called the first african world war, and nothing is on the tv?

These questions might lead you down a path you don't want answers for. It might change who you are as a person. Maybe the world and the people running it and the United States are not as rosey as you read about in grade school. 

But than again,maybe its me who is way off base.

eLeCtIoN fRaUd

We have all heard the theory that Karl Rove stole the presidential election for President W. in 2000 and in 2004.  We heard it was all done electronically. Where a computer program was made for the electronic voting machines that would trigger a vote for Bush when someone voted for the democratic candidate.  Now we here Karl Roves IT guru who happened to be in Florida for the 2000 election and in Ohio for 2004 was about to talk to US attorneys investigating election fraud when his plane mysteriously crashed killing him.

http://www.alternet.org/rights/114674/rove%27s_it_guru_warned_of_sabotage_before_fatal_plane_crash%3B_was_set_to_testify/?page=1