Thursday, October 04, 2007

FREE BURMA & The Phony Concern over Human Rights in Burma by The Brutal Bush Regime & the Fanatical Neocons




And some newly released video smuggled out of Burma broadcast by CNN:

Burma CNN - Brutal Crackdown of Peaceful Protesters




And more reports from Burma:
Al Jazeera Oct. 3, 2007 Fresh wave of arrests in Myanmar

Myanmar's military government has arrested more people under the cover of darkness just hours after the UN special envoy left the country.

At least eight truckloads of people were taken from central Yangon, the biggest city and the centre of protests against military rule and economic hardship, early on Wednesday witnesses said.

There was no word on where the prisoners were being taken or how many they would join.

Military vehicles patrolled the streets blaring warnings from loudspeakers: "We have photographs. We are going to make arrests!"



Al Jazeera Oct. 3, 2007 Myanmar officer flees crackdown -The officer said that as a Buddhist he could not bring himself to open fire on monks

A senior officer from Myanmar's ruling military is in hiding after defecting from the country saying he could not bear the responsibility of opening fire on anti-government protesters.

'Nay Lin Tun' – not his real name - escaped last Thursday, shortly before the army launched its violent crackdown on protesters and Buddhist monks.

He is the most senior military man to have deserted so far, and says he was forced to flee after being ordered to fire on monks, or face execution...


The odd thing about this report of a general actually standing up for Human Rights & Justice is that some in the West will see him as a Hero while others will view him as a traitor since as a member of any military there are those like Bush & the Neocons who believe all military officers & other personnel owe their allegiance to the government of the day & not some airy-fairy notion human rights - like the Nazi before them they believe one must obey the orders given from on-high & not let their humanity or their feelings get in the way - so if General Petraeus had spoken the truth about the insanity of the Iraqi Occupation & on behalf of his troops & on behalf of the American people & the people of Iraq rather than on behalf of the Bush Regime he would have been labeled a traitor by the Fanatical Neocons in their view the killing of innocent civilians is the price they pay for their extravagant life-style which must be maintained at all costs-Indifference is the road to fascism - as the German people once discovered-

CNN & other media report the story as if the United States or other Western Nations were never involved in such Brutality in recent years and they forget that they have backed Brutal Regimes in the past & in recent years from The Brutal Regime of the Shah in Iran or General Pinochet in Chile , or Puppet Regime in Vietnam during the Vietnam War or the Puppet Brutal Regime in El Salvador , Guatemala , The Brutal anti-Democratic Regime of Marcos in the Philippines or the Anti-Democratic Regime in Saudi Arabia or that of Israel which has Ghettoized the Arabs & Palestinians or the support given for decades to South African White Supremacist Apartheid Regime - so the insincerity & hypocrisy of CNN & the Western Media & the Bush Regime is patently obvious to anyone who has been paying attention over the last four decades or so- meanwhile we have American Neocons & even Democrats lining up to defend the Cowboy style Mercenaries in Iraq like Blackwater as Heroic Americans who kill for a buck - while detainees are being tortured by American personnel as I write this & those who speak out in America are accused of being anti-American & pro-terrorist-

Sami-al Hajj - Reporter for Al Jazeera arrested in 2001 still imprisoned - Typical American Draconian Form of Injustice

For instance why is a journalist for Al Jazeera who was arrested in 2001 still at Quantanamo & now is on hunger strike but CNN does not report this -The Bush Regime's intention is clear & that is fro Al Jazeera or any other Media outlet to stop criticizing American policies & the American Bloody Occupation of Iraq-

By Al Jazeera and Agencies oct.3
Al-Hajj was arrested while working for Al Jazeera during the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001

The health of an Al Jazeera cameraman being held in the US prison at Guantanamo Bay is deteriorating further as he remains on hunger strike, according to a Mauritanian inmate who was recently released.

Ould Sidi Mohammed said Sami al-Hajj had an infection and was not getting sufficient medical treatment.

"The last time I talked to him [Sami al-Hajj] was on the same day when I left, on September 25, Mohammed said. "His health condition is extremely deteriorating. He is losing weight continuously. He suffers from kidney infection and he urinates blood.

"Unfortunately, prisoners do not receive full medical treatment. Prisoners on hunger strike are isolated in special places designated to torture them to hold them back from their objectives."

'Physical pressure'

Mohammed said that he and his fellow inmates had faced harassment by US soldiers while in the jail.

"We have suffered a great deal as we have been under psychological and physical pressure," he said.

"They have used all possible ways to impose psychological and physical pressure on us."

Mohammed said he was attending an Islamic school in Pakistan when he was arrested by Pakistani police in 2002 and then handed over to the US authorities.

He did not know why he was arrested and said he had never had any connection to al-Qaeda. He was returned to Mauritania on September 26 after being cleared for release by a US military review panel.

Al-Hajj has never been charged. Hopes that he would be released at the end of August under the condition that he remain in his country of origin, Sudan proved unfounded
And as for The Blackwater gangs of thugs :

Media With Conscience By MWC NEWS States have an obligation to prosecute perpetrators of war crimes in their courtsoct.2,2007



International law places legal obligations on states in areas under their jurisdiction or control to provide effective legal remedies for persons who have suffered violations of their fundamental rights. This includes state responsibility to investigate and prosecute serious human rights violations and violations of the laws of war by private persons and entities as well as by government officials and military personnel.

In June 2004, two days before the official end of the US military occupation of Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) under Paul Bremer revised CPA Order 17 to provide immunity to foreign contractors from prosecution under Iraqi law. CPA Order 17 states: “Contractors shall be immune from Iraqi legal process with respect to acts performed by them pursuant to the terms and conditions of a Contract or any sub-contract thereto.” Contractors are defined as “non-Iraqi legal entities or individuals not normally resident in Iraq, including their non-Iraqi employees.”

Torture & Private Contractors
Wednesday, October 3, 2007 by Agence France Presse Abu Ghraib Prisoners Accuse US Companies of Torture

WASHINGTON - Two US Army subcontractors accused of torturing prisoners at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib jail go to court Wednesday in a case that highlights the murky legal status of private US companies in Iraq.

Titan and CACI International were hired by the Army to provide interrogators and interpreters at the notorious prison, the scene of well-documented abuses of detainees following the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

One former Iraqi prisoner now living in Sweden says that under the companies’ watch, he was sodomized, nearly strangled with a belt, tied by his genitals to other detainees, and given repeated electric shocks.

“This is probably the most important case still standing against Abu Ghraib because the cases against the government have essentially failed so far,” said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights.

“This case represents our last hope for getting some accountability for the torture in Iraq and getting any compensation for the victims,” said Ratner, whose group has fielded lawyers to assist in the lawsuit.

The case was filed in 2004 by a dozen former prisoners and the family of a man who died in detention, accusing Titan and CACI of conspiring with US officials “to humiliate, torture and abuse persons” at Abu Ghraib.

But US security companies in Iraq occupy a legal gray area, as highlighted by the case of Blackwater USA, which according to a new Congress report has been involved in nearly 200 shootings in Iraq since 2005

And more revelations over the USA torturing detainees :

From The New York Times Secret U.S. Endorsement of Severe Interrogations

Anyway , Before getting too exited over these revelations - one should note the headline does not use the word " torture" as if these techniques are not really or not quite torture which shows how morally bankrupt the American Media has become as they insist on being the Bush Regime's enablers & apologists explaining away any sort of what they see as trivial complaints against the Bush Regime - to many in the media torturing is quite OK by them if their Leader their INFALLIBLE CHANCELLOR that is who is equivalent to the POPE these days if he tells them it is a good thing like the US army Generals they too will obey orders no matter how immoral or inhumane- since following orders is what America now stands for - Like the soldiers at MyLai obeying orders is more important than acting in a civilized manner & how many such massacres have taken place in Iraq who knows & the American people couldn't care less but shed tears over every American killed but Iraqis are just a little less than human so why cry over them !!!

and here is a bit from the article:

by Scott Shane, David Johnston and James Risen.
WASHINGTON, Oct. 3 — When the Justice Department publicly declared torture “abhorrent” in a legal opinion in December 2004, the Bush administration appeared to have abandoned its assertion of nearly unlimited presidential authority to order brutal interrogations.

But soon after Alberto R. Gonzales’s arrival as attorney general in February 2005, the Justice Department issued another opinion, this one in secret. It was a very different document, according to officials briefed on it, an expansive endorsement of the harshest interrogation techniques ever used by the Central Intelligence Agency.

The new opinion, the officials said, for the first time provided explicit authorization to barrage terror suspects with a combination of painful physical and psychological tactics, including head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures.

Mr. Gonzales approved the legal memorandum on “combined effects” over the objections of James B. Comey, the deputy attorney general, who was leaving his job after bruising clashes with the White House. Disagreeing with what he viewed as the opinion’s overreaching legal reasoning, Mr. Comey told colleagues at the department that they would all be “ashamed” when the world eventually learned of it.
And about the use of torture on non-terrorists Detainees -

Amy Goodman from Democracy Now! reporting on torture being used in Chicago Prisons -




This is one of the problems of allowing any form of torture in supposedly some special cases ( the unfounded unsound ticking bomb argument); it creates an environment which allows for the torture whenever some soldier or police officer thinks it might be ok now to torture as the Police did in Chile now the police follow the same sort of rules inside America's prisons -


And concerning the various forms of censorship in Bush's New America which is a lot like the old one here is a disturbing story about Allen Ginsberg's epic poem " HOWL " & how censorship is creeping throughout the media & the schools in America- Note they refer to " provocative language " which is vague enough to apply to almost any criticism of the Bush Regime or their supporters or the US military or State governments or even local police forces or strongly worded critiques of the Radical Evangelicals though Evangelicals can call for war on the rights of Homosexuals or on liberals & secularists & on those who are pro-choice or who actively engage in performing abortions etc.

Censorship Howl

San Francisco Chronicle 'Howl' too hot to hear
50 years after poem ruled not obscene, radio fears to air it Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Staff Writer


Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Fifty years ago today, a San Francisco Municipal Court judge ruled that Allen Ginsberg's Beat-era poem "Howl" was not obscene. Yet today, a New York public broadcasting station decided not to air the poem, fearing that the Federal Communications Commission will find it indecent and crush the network with crippling fines.

Free-speech advocates see tremendous irony in how Ginsberg's epic poem - which lambastes the consumerism and conformism of the 1950s and heralds a budding American counterculture - is, half a century later, chilled by a federal government crackdown on the broadcasting of provocative language.

Take care ,
GORD.

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