Freedom Of Speech as per usual is only granted to those who do not criticize America???
WikiLeaks Down After Getting Kicked Off Amazon By Tana Ganeva | Sourced from AlterNet
Posted at December 1, 2010, 12:19 pm
After a hacker attack knocked WikiLeaks offline hours before they released the U.S. embassy cables, the whistleblower moved the documents to Amazon's servers, gaining better cover from future attacks. But not from corporate cowardice in the face of likely political intimidation and the threat of bad p.r.! The site has been down most of the day, and the AP reported earlier that WikiLeaks was no longer being hosted on Amazon. Then, Joe Lieberman gloated that Amazon, which has yet to release a statement, told him they had dropped WikiLeaks from their servers:
This morning Amazon informed my staff that it has ceased to host the Wikileaks website. I wish that Amazon had taken this action earlier based on Wikileaks’ previous publication of classified material.
WikiLeaks has moved to a Swedish provider.
UPDATE: 1:46 PM, Dec. 1, 2010.
The Obama administration is no more interested in transparency and accountability than the Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld Regime was. So Obama has even attacked Wikileaks publicly when what had been hoped for by his supporters was that he would be passing stronger legislation to protect "Whistleblowers" instead like Bush he is gunning for them under the guise of "National Security" and the right of the state to decide what is to be kept secret and what is not.
Despite criminal investigations by the US and other governments, it is not clear that media organizations like Wikileaks can be prosecuted in the US in light of First Amendment. Recall that the First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”from: Why Wikileaks is Good for Democracy by Bill Quigley via Commondreams.org, Nov. 30, 2010
Information is the currency of democracy. --Thomas Jefferson.
The Obama administration supported and aided the unjustified 2009 coup in Honduras .
When it comes to American foreign policies it appears that the Obama administration continues with the same old American traditions of being anti-Democratic and against real reform in various nations such as Honduras. The Neo-Liberals attitude to democracy in other nations is rather superficial and merely symbolic. Like other American Regimes the belief is that if people are permitted to take part in an election no matter how flawed then they will call it democracy. And as long as the results of such flawed elections puts in power governments America and American business interests approve of then the results are applauded. But if the the voters put into power representatives America does not approve of then the US government will claim the election was flawed or corrupt. At the end of the day the wishes of the people and their desire for real democracy and real reform is ignored if they vote into power those not approved of by the US government. Obama like Bush we now know got elected by presenting himself as an agent of change and like Bush there is little sign of real change especially in the area of National Security and the illogical disastrous War on Terror. For some reason the USA and Obama and former President Bush are under the false impression that terrorism only started on 9/11 or only after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. But there were terrorists or insurgents who were fighting against the Roman Occupation in Judea around the year 100 BC to 65 AD. These insurgents were the Jews of Judea who were finally crushed by the Roman Empire and the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem which led to the diaspora.
Once Rome became a Christian Empire those who dared to hold onto their own beliefs and religions were deemed not just heretics or heathens but also as enemies of the STATE. So the Romanized Christians destroyed the temples and shrines of non Christians and killed hundreds of thousands of those who refused to convert to Christianity. So insurgency and terrorists have existed for at a couple of thousand years and those in authority any who dare to believe what is not sanctioned by the state are demonized and labeled enemies of the state.
To the Americans any Iraqi or Afghan or Honduran who rise up against American troops who have invaded their nations or against one of America's many puppet regimes are then described as "Terrorists" , "Insurgents"
Democracy Now Amy Goodman interviews Noam Chomsky re: wikileaks & the Pentagon Papers
November 30, 2010 by Democracy Now!
Noam Chomsky: WikiLeaks Cables Reveal "Profound Hatred for Democracy on the Part of Our Political Leadership"
In a national broadcast exclusive interview, we speak with world-renowned political dissident and linguist Noam Chomsky about the release of more than 250,000 secret U.S. State Department cables by WikiLeaks. In 1971, Chomsky helped government whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg release the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret internal U.S. account of the Vietnam War. Commenting on the revelations that several Arab leaders are urging the United States to attack Iran, Chomsky says, "latest polls show] Arab opinion holds that the major threat in the region is Israel, that's 80 percent; the second threat is the United States, that's 77 percent. Iran is listed as a threat by 10 percent," Chomsky says. "This may not be reported in the newspapers, but it's certainly familiar to the Israeli and U.S. governments and the ambassadors. What this reveals is the profound hatred for democracy on the part of our political leadership." [Rush transcript below
And it comes as no surprise that the USA under Hilary Clinton, Biden & Obama
supported and aided the unjustified coup in Honduras in 2009. The "Ugly American" rears its monstrous anti-democracy head. According to most Americans its own sovereignty is sacred but the Sovereignty of other nations is meaningless to America especially when it comes to American interests. The arrogance of the American Empire knows no bounds. Other nations and other peoples around the globe are mere pawns in the ongoing expansionism and imperialism of the American Empire.
WikiLeaks Honduras: State Department Busted on Support of Coup
Tuesday 30 November 2010 by: Robert Naiman, t r u t h o u t | News Analysis
By July 24, 2009, the US government was totally clear about the basic facts of what took place in Honduras on June 28, 2009. The US embassy in Tegucigalpa sent a cable to Washington with the subject, "Open and Shut: The Case of the Honduran Coup," asserting that "there is no doubt" that the events of June 28 "constituted an illegal and unconstitutional coup." The embassy listed arguments being made by supporters of the coup to claim its legality, and dismissed them thus: "None ... has any substantive validity under the Honduran constitution." The Honduran military clearly had no legal authority to remove President Manuel Zelaya from office or from Honduras, the embassy said, and their action - the embassy described it as an "abduction" and "kidnapping" - was clearly unconstitutional.
It is inconceivable that any top US official responsible for US policy in Honduras was not familiar with the contents of the July 24 cable, which summarized the assessment of the US embassy in Honduras on key facts that were politically disputed by supporters of the coup regime. The cable was addressed to Tom Shannon, then assistant secretary of state for western hemisphere affairs; Harold Koh, the State Department's legal adviser; and Dan Restrepo, senior director for western hemisphere affairs at the National Security Council. The cable was sent to the White House and to Secretary of State Clinton.
But despite the fact that the US government was crystal clear on what had transpired, the US did not immediately cut off all aid to Honduras except "democracy assistance," as required by US law.
Instead, a month after this cable was sent, the State Department, in its public pronouncements, pretended that the events of June 28 - in particular, "who did what to whom" and the constitutionality of these actions - were murky and needed further study by State Department lawyers, despite the fact that the State Department's top lawyer, Harold Koh, knew exactly "who did what to whom" and that these actions were unconstitutional at least one month earlier. The State Department, to justify its delay in carrying out US law, invented a legal distinction between a "coup" and a "military coup," claiming that the State Department's lawyers had to determine whether a "military coup" took place, because only that determination would meet the legal threshold for the aid cutoff.
Last week, Bolivian President Evo Morales called out the US for its recent history of supporting coups in the region.
AP's treatment of President Morales' remarks was instructive:
Morales also alleged US involvement in coup attempts or political upheaval in Venezuela in 2002, Honduras in 2009 and Ecuador in 2010.
"The empire of the United States won," in Honduras, Morales said, a reference to the allegations of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya that the US was behind his ouster.
"The people of the Americas in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, we won," Morales continued. "We are three to one with the United States. Let's see what the future brings."
US officials have repeatedly denied involvement in all of those cases and critics of the United States have produced no clear evidence. [my emphasis]
It's certainly true that critics have produced "no clear evidence" of US "involvement" in any of these cases - if your standard for "clear evidence" of US "involvement" is a US government document that dictated in advance everything that subsequently happened. But this would be like saying that critics have produced "no clear evidence" for the Armenian genocide because researchers haven't yet found a Turkish Mein Kampf. [Some who dispute that there was an "Armenian genocide" do actually claim something like this - "there is no proof of a plan" - but claims like this are generally not taken seriously by US media - except when the US government is an author of the crime, and the crime is recent.]
In the case of the coup in Venezuela in 2002, we know the following:
- Groups in Venezuela that participated in the coup had been supported financially and politically by the US.
- The CIA had advance knowledge of the plans for a coup, and did nothing to warn the Venezuelan government, nor did the US do anything meaningful to try to stop the coup.
- although the US knew in advance about the plans for a coup, when these events played out, the US tried to claim that there was no coup.
- the US pushed for international recognition of the coup government.
- the International Monetary Fund, which would not take such action without advance approval from the United States, announced its willingness to support the coup government a few hours after the coup took place.
These facts about US government "involvement" in the coup in Venezuela are documented in Oliver Stone's recent movie, South of the Border. This is why it's so important for as many Americans as possible to see this movie: because there are basic facts about the relationship of actual US government policies - as opposed to rhetoric - to democracy in Latin America that major US media simply cannot be counted upon to report straight. In order to successfully agitate for meaningful reform of US government policy in Latin America, Americans have to know what the actual policy of the US government has been.
And this is why Just Foreign Policy is urging Americans to organize house parties on December 10 - Human Rights Day - to watch South of the Border. You can sign up to host a screening here.
Here is a clip from South of the Border, in which Scott Wilson, formerly foreign editor of the Washington Post, describes the "involvement" of the US in the coup in Venezuela:
And here is a clip from South of the Border in which President Morales talks with Oliver Stone about the role of the media:
Oliver Stone: "Now [Morales] joining the Hugo ranks, becoming more the 'bad left' in the American media."
President Morales: "The media will always try to criminalize the fight against neoliberalism, colonialism, and imperialism. It's almost normal. The worst enemy I have is the media."South of the Border Clip #2 from Cinema Libre Studio on Vimeo.
And the so-called reformers that is the Democrats in the US government are just as concerned about keeping whatever they can secret from the electorate. Basically this is just another form of a cover-up because the public otherwise discovers the lies and deceit which are part of the everyday operations of the government.
Obama spreads BS about the triumph and progress in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and continues to mislead the world about his governments involvement in the unjustified illegal coup in Honduras while also BSing about the BP oil spill disaster and its long term consequences while he makes nice with GOP fanatics as he defends their rhetoric and extremism as being rational and therefore taken into serious consideration. So Obama backs down again and again on issues such as abuse of POWs and indicting members of the Bush administration for War Crimes and crimes against humanity and even treasonous actions . He has also been wavering on issues such as DADT . You would think by now he would have got the message that the GOP hates his policies and will obstruct him at every turn.
Why Wikileaks is Good for Democracy by Bill Quigley via Commondreams.org, Nov. 30. 2010
Information is the currency of democracy. --Thomas Jefferson.
Despite criminal investigations by the US and other governments, it is not clear that media organizations like Wikileaks can be prosecuted in the US in light of First Amendment. Recall that the First Amendment says: “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or of the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”
Outraged politicians are claiming that the release of government information is the criminal equivalent of terrorism and puts innocent people’s lives at risk. Many of those same politicians authorized the modern equivalent of carpet bombing of Baghdad and other Iraqi cities, the sacrifice of thousands of lives of soldiers and civilians, and drone assaults on civilian areas in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. Their anger at a document dump, no matter how extensive, is more than a little suspect.
Everyone, including Wikileaks and the other media reporting the documents, hopes that no lives will be lost because of this. So far, that appears to be the case as McClatchey Newspapers reported November 28, 2010, that ‘US officials conceded that they have no evidence to date that the [prior] release of documents led to anyone’s death.”
The US has been going in the wrong direction for years by classifying millions of documents as secrets. Wikileaks and other media which report these so called secrets will embarrass people yes. Wikileaks and other media will make leaders uncomfortable yes. But embarrassment and discomfort are small prices to pay for a healthier democracy.
Wikileaks has the potential to make transparency and accountability more robust in the US. That is good for democracy.
and so it goes,
GORD.
No comments:
Post a Comment