A mistaken and illegal war: US soldier refuses to go to AFGHANISTAN

By aporrea.org, RNV Published 14 AUG 09

Sergeant Travis Bishop, from Fort Hood, Texas 15 AUG 2009 - A US Sergeant refused to go to Afghanistan, because he considers it a mistaken and illegal war. Sergeant Travis Bishop, from Fort Hood, Texas, joined another soldier of the same rank who refused to go to Afghanistan. Bishop, who spent 13 months in Iraq, was inspired by Sergeant Víctor Agosto, who previously had refused to go to that war in the central Asian nation. "The morale of our troops is low; many soldiers go to war because of money or being forced to do so, but not because of patriotism," Sergeant Bishop said. James Branum, the lawyer defending these soldiers, also stated his position and indicated that the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan is immoral and illegal. According to US Department of Defense figures, desertions in the US armed forces have increased by 80% in recent years.

Remember Hiroshima, Remember Vietnam: Democratic Party, we know which side you're on!

The key to understanding contemporary "leftist" politicians like the contemptible thug Chavez or his fellow pro-capitalist "progressives," like Lula or Evo Morales, is grasping the truth that those clowns are in power to prevent fundamental social change, not lead it. This is immediately obvious in Venezuela, where Chavez has been in power for over ten years, and the country is *still* a market economy, still a place where impoverished workers are exploited by fat cats, just as they are in Brazil and Bolivia.

The election of charlatans like Chavez, or our own two-faced liar Obama, who campaigned against "Don't ask, don't tell" and against the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), but, as President, sends his "Justice" Department lawyers to intervene in defense of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and DOMA, shows that "democratic" elections under capitalist rule are meaningless: working people vote for "progressives" or "leftists" who, once in power, invariably, and usually immediately, betray those that supported them.

A corollary of this truth is that, in the US, at least, all existing "social movememts" are simply extensions of the Democratic Party, and the real purpose of those "movements" is **not** fundamental change, but merely guaranteeing the re-election of Democratic Party hacks. An outfit called MERI, allegedly in favor of marriage equality for gay people in Rhode Island, recently used its blog to praise Bill Clinton, the Democratic Party politician who instituted "Don't ask, don't tell" and signed DOMA into law, and then boasted about that on Christian radio.

If MERI really wanted to win marriage equality, it would have to confront the homophobic Democratic Party of Bill Clinton, John Kerry, John Edwards, Obama (all of them opposed to gay marriage) and their fellow bigoted hacks; in the same way, if the "antiwar" movement were really about ending US aggression in the Middle East, that "movement," which disappears every other year, so as not to get in the way of Obama and the other pro-war Democrat multi-millionaires, would have oppose the Congressional Democrats, who go on appropriating tens of billions to ensure that the US military can continue to slaughter vast numbers of Muslims in the Mid-East. Of course, the "anti-war" "movement," being completely invertebrate, and utterly subservient to its masters in the Democratic Party, will never confront anything. It's just there to raise money for Democrat politicians and provide them with a platform for their lies, like Obama's promise to withdraw from Iraq. The bottom line is, the Democrats are an awful big part of the reason why there is never fundamental change in the US.

The only thing that counts is class struggle, independent action by workers in our own interests. Everything else, like elections or the 100% bullshit, Democrat-owned "movements" is just a swindle and a trap for hard-working proles like us. -- Yosef M

U.S. loses equivalent of every job created in decade

[More change under Obama -- YM]

U.S. loses equivalent of every job created in decade

By Alia McMullen, Financial Post

Published: Thursday, July 02, 2009

The U.S. economy has lost the equivalent of every job created in the past nine years.

All job growth since the final year of the dot-com bubble, its recovery from the bust, and the ensuing six years of consumer-driven boom is now gone, leading some economists to fear an outright decline in wages will be next. Others believe the United States is on track for a painful "jobless recovery."

"This is the only recession since the Great Depression to wipe out all jobs growth from the previous business cycle, a testament both to the enormity of the current crisis and to the extreme weakness of jobs growth over the business cycle from 2000 to 2007," said Heidi Shierholz, an economist at Washington-based think tank The Economic Policy Institute. "It is apparent that, despite the substantial positive impact of the February recovery package, the economy's dramatic deterioration from November to March was even greater than anticipated."

Non-farm employment fell for the 18th consecutive month in June, dropping by a worse-than-expected 467,000, U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics figures showed Thursday. The decline marked the longest run of job destruction in the post World War II period.

Since the recession began in December 2007, the jobs market has shrunk by 6.5 million positions, pushing the unemployment rate up 4.6 percentage points to 9.5% -- the highest rate since 1981. Nine million part-time workers are in want of full-time jobs, and a record 29% of unemployed have been jobless for more than six months ....

Read the whole story at <http://www.financialpost.com/working/story.html?id=1752178>

Milwaukee USA— College students support UE strikers

[From Fight Back News]

Milwaukee students support UE strikers

Members of Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) demonstrated June 23 in front of the downtown Wells Fargo building after UE Workers at Quad City Die Casting in Moline, Illinois called for a national day of action to be held outside Wells Fargo banks nationwide.

Kas Schwerdtferger, an SDS member at the rally, said, "As students, we know it's important to show support for workers fighting for their jobs. We're in this economic crisis together and are ready to do whatever it takes to fight back against unjust cuts."

Milwaukee SDS is prepared to support these workers in whatever actions are called.

Union supporters take anti-corporate action in CHICAGO

NEXT REPUBLIC: Solidarity with UE Workers at Quad City Die Casting
June 23, 2009

Over 75 supporters of UE members at QCDC marched on Wells Fargo Home Mortgage on North Avenue in Chicago, IL. Protesters cordoned off the area with crime scene tape, accusing Wells Fargo of JOBicide and HOMEicide. Wells Fargo, in addition to foreclosing on the homes of thousands of families nation-wide, is cutting financing to small businesses like Quad City Die Casting, leaving hundreds of workers unemployed. Protesters drew chalk outlines of workers affected by the bank's actions. Union members from SEIU Local 73, Teamsters Local 743, UFCW Local 881, The Graduate Employee Organization at UIC, AFSCME DC 31 and others came out to show support. Support also came from Chicago Jobs With Justice, ARISE Chicago, Interfaith Worker Justice, South Austin Coalition, Immigrant Solidarity DuPage and many others.

Photos of the union backers' action against Wells Fargo are at:

http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/album.php?aid=89024&id=90707982093&ref=nf

Shout it from the rooftops! Workers in IRAN support the mass movement against Ahmadinejad!!

Reports on the web indicate that on Thursday, June 18, the Vahed Bus Drivers union, representing one of the most combative groups in the workers' movement in Iran, issued a statement in support of the mass movement. This union statement recognizes “the magnificent demonstration of millions of people from all ages, genders, and national and religious minorities in Iran” and states clearly that “the Syndicate of Workers of Tehran and Suburbs Vahed Bus Company fully supports this movement of Iranian people to build a free and independent civil society and condemns any violence and oppression.”

In addition, workers at the gigantic Khodro auto factory, the biggest in the Middle East, having almost 100,000 workers, took action on Thursday, June 18, in support of the mass movement. The striking autoworkers' statement follows:

“We declare our solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran.

“Autoworker, Fellow Laborers (Laborer Friends): What we witness today, is an insult to the intelligence of the people, and disregard for their votes, the trampling of the principles of the Constitution by the government. It is our duty to join this people's movement.

“We the workers of Iran Khodro, Thursday 28/3/88 in each working shift will stop working for half an hour to protest the suppression of students, workers, women, and the Constitution and declare our solidarity with the movement of the people of Iran. The morning and afternoon shifts from 10 to 10:30. The night shift from 3 to 3:30.

“Laborers of Iran Khodro”

Thus, class-consicous workers in Iran have answered all those who claim the heroic mass movement in that country is somehow a result of imperialist manipulation. -- Yosef M

Once again, Chávez embraces Ahmadinejad

[From www.presstv.ir]

Chavez congratulates Ahmadinejad

Sat, 13 Jun 2009 07:22:33 GMT

Font size :

File photo of the Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez (L) and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has congratulated his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad for the success of his re-election bid, in yesterday's poll.

In a telephone conversation with the Iranian president, Chavez said, "The victory of Dr. Ahmadinejad in the recent election is a win for all people in the world and free nations against global arrogance," Iran's Presidential Office reported. Chavez usually uses the term "global arrogance" to refer to Venezuela's arch-foe the United States.

The call came after preliminary results were announced by the Interior Ministry saying that Iran's incumbent president has won a landslide victory, gaining more than 64 percent of the votes.

Chavez also noted that the Venezuelan people and government always stand behind the Iranians.

In his reply, Ahmadinejad said that, "Despite all pressures, the nation of Iran had completely won (the election) and indeed this victory shows the clear road for the future.”

Before the start of the election too, the socialist leader had wished Ahmadinejad good luck in his re-election bid.

Speaking to supporters Thursday, Chavez called the Iranian president "a courageous fighter for the Islamic Revolution, the defense of the Third World, and in the struggle against imperialism.”

Obama --Little real change from Bush assault on Constitution

[The Center for Constitutional Rights has issued an alarming assesment of Obama's first hundred days, at <http://ccrjustice.org/100daysassessment>. It is abundantly clear that defending democratic liberties is completely in the interests of our class, so the following excerpts from the report may be of some interest to comrades.]

The First 100 Days of the Obama Administration: Small Glimmers of Hope, but Little Real Change

... despite several strong steps, the Obama presidency has failed to live up to its promises in many areas of critical importance, including human rights, torture, rendition, secrecy and surveillance.

In the 2008 elections, the people of the United States resoundingly rejected the Bush administration legacy of torture, warrantless surveillance and a seemingly endless expansion of executive power under the rubric of the “war on terror.” What remained to be seen, however, was the political willingness and commitment of the Obama administration to not only promise hope and change, but to take concrete action ....

In its first 100 days, the Obama administration has not lived up to its promises of hope and change....

... most public statements by President Obama and other administration officials have focused on “moving forwards” and avoiding “retribution.” The vast amount of public information pointing to criminal activity committed by high level government officials compels the Obama administration to fully and transparently investigate and hold those responsible accountable to the fullest extent of the law – not to put the issue aside....

... the persistence of Bush-era torture techniques added to the Army Field Manual in Appendix M, make ending torture an unfinished promise....

[On unlawful detention] ... an Obama administration detention policy that has, in practice, too frequently has resembled that of the Bush administration. In practice, the men at Guantánamo have remained imprisoned, often under inhumane conditions, and the Obama administration has defended in court the use of Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan as a new prison outside the reach of law....

... The Obama administration has been largely silent on the issue of preventive detention – particularly the existing domestic preventive detention regimes that have caused vast harm to many people who would never be charged at all or charge only with minor immigration violations without relation to criminal conduct. Preventive detention is a threat to due process, the rule of law and, most directly, to those targeted in “preventive” dragnets....

[On Federal prosecutions against animal rights' and environmental activists for "terrorism"] ...The escalation of “Green Scare” prosecutions in the first 100 days of the Obama administration demonstrate not only the need for action from the Obama administration but an end to complacency among activists about attacks on the right to dissent....

[And so on and so forth. The whole report deserves to be read, to appreciate how little Obama has done in defense of our much-assaulted, battered, constitutional rights. -- YM]

What US imperialism did to IRAN in 1953

President Admits to US "Role in the Overthrow of a Democratically Elected Iranian Government"

[From: news.antiwar.com ][This is not to be construed as any endorsement of Obama, who, as an Illinois State Senator, advocated bombing Iran. -- YM]

by Jason Ditz, June 04, 2009

While far from the focus of his historic Cairo speech today, President Barack Obama’s comments on America’s history with Iran have caused something of a stir, as he became the first sitting US president to publicly admit to America’s role in the 1953 coup in Iran.

“In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government,” Obama admitted, referring to the CIA’s role in the coup against Prime Minister Mohammad Mosaddeq after he nationalized the Iranian oil industry.

The US and British governments supported a coup d’etat in 1953 to ensure Western control over Iranian oil production. Iran remained under the control of the Shahist government until the 1979 Iranian Revolution, in which the current government ceased power.

In the 30 years since the revolution, the US and Iran have had a hostile relationship. In the 1980s this led to the US and Britain supporting the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein as a regional opponent to Iran. The US provided Iraq with considerable support during the eight year long Iran-Iraq War.

This culminated on July 3, 1988, when a US warship attacked an Iranian civilian jetliner which it claims to have mistaken for an F14 fighter plane. The attack killed all 290 passengers aboard Iran Air Flight 655. Admiral Crowe, the Joint Chiefs chairman at the time, said the US “deeply regretted” the killings.

As Iran faces a hotly contested presidential election this month, the prospect of improved ties with the US looms large, if somewhat tempered by a long history of distrust and repeated comments from US officials saying they don’t really except negotiations with Iran to settle anything. Still, for the first time in 30 years the possibility of somewhat normalized relations seems real.

Cuba -- OAS, an "historic" decision?

From: <http://www.ft-ci.org/>
La Verdad Obrera 328
Thursday, June 4, 2009
CUBA - OAS An "historic" decision?

The recent vote in the Organization of American States (OAS) lifts the obstacles that prevented Cuba's participation in this organization. In the context of the world crisis, the US is trying a policy of diplomatic détente towards Latin America, compared with Bush's old prescriptions. The statement approved unanimously by the 34 countries, with the support of the US, had the governments of Lula of Brazil and the Kirchners of Argentina, together with Mexico, as its main creators. What is presented as an "historic" event served, however, to promote the survival of a reactionary organization like the OAS, very challenged, and through which the US has always implemented its policy of domination in the region. The progressive governments, which replaced the neo-liberals, are giving cover to this imperial relocation, faced with its crisis of hegemony. The declaration says, "the participation of Cuba in the OAS will be the result of a process of dialogue begun at the request of the government of Cuba and of agreement with the practices, purposes and principles of the OAS," that demands respect for "freedom of expression," "human rights," and "freedom of parties." That is, a platform on which the US seeks to open negotiations that will permit it to push for a "democratic" way to capitalist restoration on the island.

Obama embraces environmental devastation

Environmentalists feel betrayed by the EPA's decision not to block new mountaintop mining projects.

By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten May 31, 2009

Reporting from Washington -- With the election of President Obama, environmentalists had expected to see the end of the "Appalachian apocalypse," their name for exposing coal deposits by blowing the tops off whole mountains.

But in recent weeks, the administration has quietly made a decision to open the way for at least two dozen more mountaintop removals. In a letter this month to a coal ally, Rep. Nick J. Rahall II (D-W.Va.), the Environmental Protection Agency said it would not block dozens of "surface mining" projects. The list included some controversial mountaintop mines.

The industry says the practice of using explosives to blast away a peak is safer and more efficient than traditional shaft mining. But critics say the process scars the landscape and dumps tons of waste -- some of it toxic -- into streams and valleys.

The administration's decision is not the final word on the projects or the future of mountaintop removal. But the letter, coupled with the light it sheds on relations between the mining industry and the Obama White House, has disappointed environmentalists. Some say they feel betrayed by a president they thought would end or sharply limit the practice.

The issue is politically sensitive because environmentalists were an active force behind Obama's election, and the president's standing is tenuous among Democratic voters in coal states. West Virginia, for example, voted for George W. Bush in the 2000 presidential election largely because Democrat Al Gore was critical of the coal industry.

Moreover, Obama needs support from local lawmakers for an energy agenda that would further regulate home-state industries, but halting mountaintop mining could eliminate jobs and put upward pressure on energy prices in a time of economic hardship.

Coal advocates have solicited help from officials as high up as White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel. And the issue has sparked contentious debates within the administration, including one shouting match in which top officials from two government agencies were heard pounding their fists on the table, according to sources briefed on the meeting who requested anonymity when discussing White House dealings.

The White House is "searching for a way to walk this tightrope," said Phil Smith, a spokesman for the United Mine Workers of America. "They have a large constituency of people who want to see an immediate end to mountaintop removal, and an equally large constituency . . . whose communities depend on those jobs."

Shortly after his inauguration, Obama won praise from the green lobby for taking a skeptical view of the mining process. And in March the EPA announced it would review the mountaintop projects, breaking from the Bush administration's practice of granting permits with little or no scrutiny.

The EPA has the authority to block mountaintop removal under the Clean Water Act. But if the agency raises no objections, the final decision on projects is made by the Army Corps of Engineers, which historically has approved mountaintop mining. The corps previously had indicated its intention to approve 48 pending permits.

Although environmentalists had expected the new administration to put the brakes on mountaintop removal, Rahall and other mining advocates have pointed out that Obama did not promise to end the practice and was more open to it than his Republican opponent, Arizona Sen. John McCain.

A review of Obama's campaign statements show that he had expressed concern about the practice without promising to end it. On a West Virginia visit, when asked about the impact of the mining on the state's streams, he said he wanted "strong enforcement of the Clean Water Act," adding: "I will make sure the head of the Environmental Protection Agency believes in the environment."

And his EPA administrator, Lisa Jackson, has said that the agency had "considerable concern regarding the environmental impact these projects would have on fragile habitats and streams." She pledged that the agency would "use the best science and follow the letter of the law in ensuring we are protecting our environment."

Soon afterward, the agency in effect blocked six major pending mountaintop removal projects in West Virginia, Kentucky and Ohio.

But this month, after a series of White House meetings with coal companies and advocates including Rahall and Democratic West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III, the EPA released the little-noticed letter giving the green light to at least two dozen projects.

"It was a big disappointment," said Joan Mulhern, a lawyer for Earthjustice, an environmental law firm that has led court challenges to mountaintop removal. "It's disturbing and surprising that this administration, headed by a president who has expressed concern about mountaintop removal, would let such a large number of permits go forward without explanation."

Mulhern charged that the EPA "blew off" Jackson's earlier promises that the agency would adhere to science and would conduct an open process.

Ed Hopkins, a top Sierra Club official, said some of the projects that have now obtained the EPA's blessing "are as large and potentially destructive as the ones they objected to.""It makes us wonder what standards -- if any -- the administration is using," Hopkins said.

EPA and White House officials say that about 200 proposed mining projects are under review and that the administration already had taken steps to break from Bush-era policies.

"We want to make informed decisions guided by science and the law, and a change in such a practice is not something that happens overnight," said Christine Glunz, a spokeswoman for the White House Council on Environmental Quality.

But after the EPA's initial announcement in March that it would conduct aggressive reviews, Manchin and Rahall took the coal industry's concerns to White House officials, including Emanuel and Nancy Sutley, who heads the Council on Environmental Quality.

Manchin said he told the White House that "we are looking for a balance between the environment and the economy, and they assured me that they will work with us to find that balance."

Environmentalists were stunned to learn from Rahall's office May 15 that the EPA had given its blessing to 42 out of the 48 mine projects it had reviewed so far -- including two dozen mountaintop removals.

The news came in a letter to Rahall from Michael Shapiro, the EPA's acting assistant administrator, who wrote, "I understand the importance of coal mining in Appalachia for jobs, the economy, and meeting the nation's energy needs."

[From the Los Angeles Times, May 31, 2009]

US--Ghastly news: Abortion provider murdered while in church

Full: <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/us/01tiller.html?_r=4&hp>

By JOE STUMPE and MONICA DAVEY Published: May 31, 2009

WICHITA, Kan. — George Tiller, one of only a few doctors in the nation who performed abortions late in pregnancy, was shot to death here on Sunday morning in the foyer of his longtime church as he handed out the church bulletin.

Dr. George Tiller, one of the nation's few late-term-abortion providers, was killed Sunday in church. Late Sunday, the authorities said they had taken into custody a 51-year-old man from Merriam, a Kansas City suburb, whom they said they expected to charge with murder on Monday.

The Wichita police said there were several witnesses to the killing, but the law enforcement officials would not say what had been said, if anything, inside the foyer. Officials offered little insight into the motive behind the killing, saying that they believed it was “the act of an isolated individual” but that they were also looking into “his history, his family, his associates.”

In more than three decades of providing abortions, Dr. Tiller, 67, had become a focal point for those opposed to abortion around the country. In addition to regular protests outside his clinic, his house and his church, Dr. Tiller had once seen his clinic bombed; in 1993, an abortion opponent shot him in both arms. He was also the defendant in a series of legal challenges intended to shut down his operations, including two grand juries that were convened after citizen-led petition drives.

On Sunday morning, moments after services had begun at Reformation Lutheran Church, on this city’s East Side, Dr. Tiller, who was acting as an usher, was shot once with a handgun, the authorities said. As many as a dozen other churchgoers were standing in the foyer near him when he was shot, the police said. The gunman pointed the weapon at two people who tried to stop him, the police said, then fled the church and drove off in a powder blue Taurus. Dr. Tiller’s wife, Jeanne, a member of the church choir, was inside the sanctuary at the time of the shooting.
The Associated Press reported that a sheriff’s official from Johnson County, Kan., identified the detained man as Scott Roeder....

Dr. Tiller had long been at the center of the abortion debate here, one that rarely seemed to quiet much in this southern Kansas city of about 358,000.

In 1993, Rachelle Shannon, from rural Oregon, shot Dr. Tiller in both arms; she is in prison. Two years earlier, during Operation Rescue’s “Summer of Mercy” protests, thousands of anti-abortion protesters had tried to block off the clinic, which had been the focus of a bombing in 1986. Friends of Dr. Tiller also described regular incidents of vandalism of the clinic, and a barrage of threats to him and his family — threats they say concerned him deeply and had for years.

Family members, including 4 children and 10 grandchildren, issued a statement through Dr. Tiller’s lawyer, which read, in part: “George dedicated his life to providing women with high-quality health care despite frequent threats and violence. We ask that he be remembered as a good husband, father and grandfather and a dedicated servant on behalf of the rights of women everywhere” ....

Obama's real theme: US domination of the world (a great column by John Pilger)

[From johnpilger.com] [This is a wonderfully clear-sighted view of Obama, from a distance. Emphases added. -- YM]

Obama's 100 days - the mad men did well
30 Apr 2009

In his latest column for the New Statesman, John Pilger describes the power of advertising - from the effects of smoking to politics - as he reaches behind the facade of of the first 100 days President Barack Obama.

The BBC's American television soap Mad Men offers a rare glimpse of the power of corporate advertising. The promotion of smoking half a century ago by the “smart” people of Madison Avenue, who knew the truth, led to countless deaths. Advertising and its twin, public relations, became a way of deceiving dreamt up by those who had read Freud and applied mass psychology to anything from cigarettes to politics. Just as Marlboro Man was virility itself, so politicians could be branded, packaged and sold.

It is more than 100 days since Barack Obama was elected president of the United States. The “Obama brand” has been named “Advertising Age’s marketer of the year for 2008”, easily beating Apple computers. David Fenton of MoveOn.org describes Obama’s election campaign as “an institutionalised mass-level automated technological community organising that has never existed before and is a very, very powerful force”. Deploying the internet and a slogan plagiarised from the Latino union organiser César Chávez – “Sí, se puede!” or “Yes, we can” – the mass-level automated technological community marketed its brand to victory in a country desperate to be rid of George W Bush.

No one knew what the new brand actually stood for. So accomplished was the advertising (a record $75m was spent on television commercials alone) that many Americans actually believed Obama shared their opposition to Bush’s wars. In fact, he had repeatedly backed Bush’s warmongering and its congressional funding. Many Americans also believed he was the heir to Martin Luther King’s legacy of anti-colonialism. Yet if Obama had a theme at all, apart from the vacuous “Change you can believe in”, it was the renewal of America as a dominant, avaricious bully. “We will be the most powerful,” he often declared.

Perhaps the Obama brand’s most effective advertising was supplied free of charge by those journalists who, as courtiers of a rapacious system, promote shining knights. They depoliticised him, spinning his platitudinous speeches as “adroit literary creations, rich, like those Doric columns, with allusion...” (Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian). The San Francisco Chronicle columnist Mark Morford wrote: “Many spiritually advanced people I know... identify Obama as a Lightworker, that rare kind of attuned being who... can actually help usher in a new way of being on the planet.”

In his first 100 days, Obama has excused torture, opposed habeas corpus and demanded more secret government. He has kept Bush’s gulag intact and at least 17,000 prisoners beyond the reach of justice. On 24 April, his lawyers won an appeal that ruled Guantanamo Bay prisoners were not “persons”, and therefore had no right not to be tortured. His national intelligence director, Admiral Dennis Blair, says he believes torture works. One of his senior US intelligence officials in Latin America is accused of covering up the torture of an American nun in Guatemala in 1989; another is a Pinochet apologist. As Daniel Ellsberg has pointed out, the US experienced a military coup under Bush, whose secretary of “defence”, Robert Gates, along with the same warmaking officials, has been retained by Obama.

All over the world, America’s violent assault on innocent people, directly or by agents, has been stepped up. During the recent massacre in Gaza, reports Seymour Hersh, “the Obama team let it be known that it would not object to the planned resupply of ‘smart bombs’ and other hi-tech ordnance that was already flowing to Israel” and being used to slaughter mostly women and children. In Pakistan, the number of civilians killed by US missiles called drones has more than doubled since Obama took office.

In Afghanistan, the US “strategy” of killing Pashtun tribespeople (the “Taliban”) has been extended by Obama to give the Pentagon time to build a series of permanent bases right across the devastated country where, says Secretary Gates, the US military will remain indefinitely. Obama’s policy, one unchanged since the Cold War, is to intimidate Russia and China, now an imperial rival. He is proceeding with Bush’s provocation of placing missiles on Russia’s western border, justifying it as a counter to Iran, which he accuses, absurdly, of posing “a real threat” to Europe and the US. On 5 April in Prague, he made a speech reported as “anti-nuclear”. It was nothing of the kind. Under the Pentagon’s Reliable Replacement Warhead programme, the US is building new “tactical” nuclear weapons designed to blur the distinction between nuclear and conventional war.

Perhaps the biggest lie – the equivalent of smoking is good for you – is Obama’s announcement that the US is leaving Iraq, the country it has reduced to a river of blood. According to unabashed US army planners, as many as 70,000 troops will remain “for the next 15 to 20 years”. On 25 April, his secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, alluded to this. It is not surprising that the polls are showing that a growing number of Americans believe they have been suckered – especially as the nation’s economy has been entrusted to the same fraudsters who destroyed it. Lawrence Summers, Obama’s principal economic adviser, is throwing $3trn at the same banks that paid him more than $8m last year, including $135,000 for one speech. Change you can believe in.

Much of the American establishment loathed Bush and Cheney for exposing, and threatening, the onward march of America’s “grand design”, as Henry Kissinger, war criminal and now Obama adviser, calls it. In advertising terms, Bush was a “brand collapse” whereas Obama, with his toothpaste advertisement smile and righteous clichés, is a godsend. At a stroke, he has seen off serious domestic dissent to war, and he brings tears to the eyes, from Washington to Whitehall. He is the BBC’s man, and CNN’s man, and Murdoch’s man, and Wall Street’s man, and the CIA’s man. The Madmen did well.

[Source <http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partid=530>]

US--Watching Obama change into Dick Cheney

[From original.antiwar.com]

Watching Obama Morph Into Dick Cheney

by Paul Craig Roberts, May 21, 2009

America has lost her soul, and so has her president.

A despairing country elected a president who promised change. Americans arrived from every state to witness in bitter cold Obama’s swearing-in ceremony. The mall was packed in a way that it has never been for any other president.

The people’s good will toward Obama and the expectations they had for him were sufficient for Obama to end the gratuitous wars and enact major reforms. But Obama has deserted the people for the interests. He is relying on his non-threatening demeanor and rhetoric to convince the people that change is underway.

The change that we are witnessing is in Obama, not in policies. Obama is morphing into Dick Cheney.

Obama has not been in office four months and already a book could be written about his broken promises.

Obama said he would close the torture prison, Guantanamo, and abolish the kangaroo courts known as military tribunals. But now he says he is going to reform the tribunals and continue the process, but without confessions obtained with torture. Getting behind Obama’s validation of the Bush/Cheney policy, House Democrats pulled the budget funding that was to be used for closing Guantanamo.

The policy of kidnapping people (usually on the basis of disinformation supplied by their enemies) and whisking them off to Third World prisons to be interrogated is to be continued. Again, Obama has substituted a "reform" for his promise to abolish an illegal policy. Rendition, Obama says, has also been reformed and will no longer involve torture. How would anyone know? Is Obama going to assign a U.S. government agent to watch over the treatment given to disappeared people by Third World thugs? Given the proclivity of American police to brutalize U.S. citizens, nothing can save the victims of rendition from torture.

Obama has defended the Bush/Cheney warrantless wiretapping program run by the National Security Agency and broadened the government’s legal argument that "sovereign immunity" protects government officials from prosecution and civil suits when they violate U.S. law and constitutional protections of citizens. Obama’s Justice Department has taken up the defense of Donald Rumsfeld against a case brought by detainees whose rights Rumsfeld violated.

In a signing statement this month, Obama abandoned his promise to protect whistleblowers who give information of executive branch illegality to Congress.

Obama is making even more expansive claims of executive power than Bush. As Bruce Fein puts it: "In principle, President Obama is maintaining that victims of constitutional wrongdoing by the U.S. government should be denied a remedy in order to prevent the American people and the world at large from learning of the lawlessness perpetrated in the name of national security and exacting political and legal accountability."

Obama, in other words, is committed to covering up the Bush regime’s crimes and to ensuring that his own regime can continue to operate in the same illegal and unconstitutional ways.

Obama is fighting the release of the latest batch of horrific torture photos that have come to light. Obama claims that release of the photos would anger insurgents and cause them to kill our troops. That, of course, is nonsense. Those resisting occupation of their land by U.S. troops and NATO mercenaries are already dedicated to killing our troops, and they know that Americans torture whomever they capture. Obama is fighting the release of the photos because he knows the barbaric image that the photos present of the U.S. military will undermine the public’s support for the wars that enrich the military/security complex, appease the Israel Lobby, and repay the campaign contributions that elect the U.S. government.

As for bringing the troops home from Iraq, this promise, too, has been reformed. To the consternation of his supporters, Obama is leaving 50,000 U.S. soldiers in Iraq. The others are being sent to Afghanistan and to Pakistan, where on Obama’s watch war has broken out big time with already one million refugees from the indiscriminate bombing of civilians.

Meanwhile, war with Iran remains a possibility, and at Washington’s insistence, NATO is conducting war games on former Soviet territory, thus laying the groundwork for future enrichment of the U.S. military/security complex. The steeply rising U.S. unemployment rate will provide the needed troops for Obama’s expanding wars.

Obama can give a great speech without mangling the language. He can smile and make people believe his rhetoric. The world, or much of it, seems to be content with the soft words that now drape Dick Cheney’s policies in pursuit of executive supremacy and U.S. hegemony.

Despite promises, NATO goes on killing civilians in AFGHANISTAN

[From news.antiwar.com]

Despite Pledges, NATO Air Strikes Continue to Kill Afghan Civilians
Innocent Farmer Exonerated, After Being Killed in Air Strike
by Jason Ditz, May 24, 2009

On Wednesday, NATO forces launched an air strike in Afghanistan Paktika Province, targeting a farmer along the road. The farmer was wounded, and later died of his wounds. NATO later admitted that “a subsequent investigation has determined that the individual was not emplacing improvised explosive devices, as originally suspected.”

On Friday, NATO forces launched an air strike against a garden in Wardak Province, hitting a road construction crew. One of the workers was killed and 18 others were injured. According to the head of the provincial council, five of the wounded are in critical condition.

Such stories are virtually routine in Afghanistan, just weeks after a US air strike in the Farah Province killed 140 civilians. As is so often the case, promises were made that the international forces which have occupied Afghanistan since 2001 would change their procedures and stop killing civilians. Yet with the resentment against the Farah strike still fresh in the minds of the Afghan public, civilian deaths are occurring with alarming regularity.

Rights groups like Human Rights Watch have been critical of the US military and the rest of the international forces for not taking appropriate measures to safeguard civilians caught in the middle of the seemingly endless war, and with the ubiquitous killings continuing its hard to argue with them. The Afghan government has been pressing for an end to the attacks, but there appears to be little traction among those responsible for the attacks for cutting back on the violence, particularly as they lose more and more control of the country to the Taliban

Just like Bush, Obama keeps open the "option" of attacking Iran

[From news.antiwar.com] [Obama reminds me of Bill Clinton: neither ever did five seconds in uniform, and both have been eager to unleash wars in distant places. Had Clinton not been dissuaded by African leaders, he would have sent US GI's into a conflict in Central Africa. As it was, Clinton had his bombing campaign against Serbia, a country where, during WW2, the people sheltered downed US military personnel and helped them survive, and, of course, Obama is an eager militarist in continuing and expanding US aggression against the peoples of Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Pakistan. As someone remarked recently on CounterPunch, US Presidents are a bloodthirsty lot. -- YM]

Obama Orders Update to Iran Attack Plan
Gates Says "All Options Are On the Table"
by Jason Ditz, May 22, 2009

On NBC’s Today Show this morning, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said that President Obama has ordered him to update the plans for a US attack on Iran, plans which were last updating during the Bush Administration. Gates says the plans are “refreshed” and insists that “all options are on the table” with respect to the potential attack.

It was only a month ago that Secretary Gates was warning vigorously against the potential attack, saying that it would create a “disastrous backlash” against the United States to hit Iran’s civilian nuclear facilities. The Obama Administration has insisted it is intending to pursue the matter diplomatically with Iran, but Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has repeatedly said the administration doesn’t expect diplomacy to work, and the effort seems to be primarily to rally international support for more measures against Iran.

The US has also been sending secret missions to Israel in recent days, reportedly to caution them against launching any surprise military attacks against Iran of their own. It was unclear how successful the warnings were: Prime Minister Netanyahu said he remained confident that the US would respect Israel’s right to attack Iran.

It is unclear whether Gates’ revelation portends a serious potential for an imminent US attack on Iran, or whether the move is more international posturing. Still, it seems unlikely the news will be greeted warmly in Iran, which is in the middle of an election campaign in which potential US talks are a major issue.

US--Help Connecticut ABOLISH THE DEATH PENALTY!

[Dear friends: The following message comes to us courtesy of the good people at "Causes" on facebook, I always knew that facebook account would be good for something! -- YM]

Connecticut Votes to Abolish the Death Penalty!
Re-posting an important message from Abraham J. Bonowitz, Director of Affiliate Support at NCADP.
-------------------------------- ---------
Dear Fellow Abolitionists,

Just after 4 a.m. this morning, the Connecticut Senate voted 19 to 17 to repeal that state's death penalty. This follows on the heals of the unexpectedly overwhelming 90-56 vote in the House last week.

The bill is now on its way to the desk of Connecticut Governor Jodi Rell, who in media reports is saying that she still supports the death penalty and is suggesting that she may veto the bill.

There is no time to lose!

If you live in Connecticut, please call and e-mail Governor Rell.

If you live elsewhere, please think about who you know who lives in Connecticut and forward this action request to them. Then call them to alert them to your e-mail and ask them to both call and e-mail Governor Rell immediately with the message that:

"I live in Connecticut and I am very happy the legislature passed a bill to repeal the death penalty. Please sign that bill."

The phone is 860-566-4840.

The email: Governor.Rell@ct.gov

Letters, blog posts and comments expressing a similar sentiment on the web pages of Connecticut newspapers would be useful as well.

TODAY is the day that you can help make all the difference. Please take action now!

------------------------------

Do NOT hesitate - if you live outside of Connecticut - to email Governor Rell and let her know that the world is watching and expecting Connecticut to follow New Mexico in the abolition of the death penalty!

Thank you all!
Gilles Denizot
Cause Admin

Obama embraces "preventive detention" -- no protection through habeas corpus, apparently

[From http://www.marxmail.org/msg62061.html]

[Read the story below and you will see that the President really is on the verge of proposing totalitarian stuff, a US version of something like "banning" in apartheid-era South Africa, or the "ASBO's," anti-social banning orders, from Tony Blair's increasingly authoritarian Labour-governed Britain, or the ghastly treatment of human rights advocates in military-run Myanmar. It seems likely the Head of State is preparing to meet a period of increased social struggle in this country with even more social control and containment by the state. Obama combines a liberal's enthusiasm for state action with a strategy to pre-empt the Republicans by supporting lots of things the GOP likes, such as ever-expanding aggression overseas and increased repression in the US. In terms of attacking our rights, the law professor in the Oval Office is breaking new ground; somewhere Joe McCarthy must be smiling. -- YM]

NY Times, May 21, 2009

Obama Is Said to Consider Preventive Detention Plan

By SHERYL GAY STOLBERG

WASHINGTON — President Obama told human rights advocates at the White House on Wednesday that he was mulling the need for a “preventive detention” system that would establish a legal basis for the United States to incarcerate terrorism suspects who are deemed a threat to national security but cannot be tried, two participants in the private session said....

The two participants, outsiders who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the session was intended to be off the record, said they left the meeting dismayed.

They said Mr. Obama told them he was thinking about “the long game” — how to establish a legal system that would endure for future presidents. He raised the issue of preventive detention himself, but made clear that he had not made a decision on it. Several senior White House officials did not respond to requests for comment on the outsiders’ accounts.

“He was almost ruminating over the need for statutory change to the laws so that we can deal with individuals who we can’t charge and detain,” one participant said. “We’ve known this is on the horizon for many years, but we were able to hold it off with George Bush. The idea that we might find ourselves fighting with the Obama administration over these powers is really stunning.”

The other participant said Mr. Obama did not seem to be thinking about preventive detention for terrorism suspects now held at Guantánamo Bay, but rather for those captured in the future, in settings other than a legitimate battlefield like Afghanistan. “The issue is,” the participant said, “What are the options left open to a future president?” ...

Congressional Democrats to keep Guantánamo open--Obama for more tribunals

[From http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104304003] [One wonders, how much torture, how much repression, will be enough for Obama and the Democrats? -- YM]

Senate Democrats Pull Funds To Close Guantanamo
by David Welna

NPR.org, May 19, 2009 · Funding for closing down the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba is being removed from the 2009 supplemental appropriations bill, a senior Senate Democratic leadership aide has confirmed to NPR.

The Senate Appropriations Committee had included $50 million in the supplemental bill last week for the Guantanamo shutdown, while stipulating that such funding would become available only once President Obama had submitted a detailed plan for closing the facility and relocating inmates.

Senate Republicans have made the lack of a plan for closing Guantanamo and the prospect of inmates being sent to the U.S. a major point of attack over the past month.

Senate Democrats themselves are divided over whether any prisoners should be sent to the U.S. Their decision to pull the funding just as the Senate was set to begin debate on the supplemental bill reflects a desire to avoid a floor fight over an issue that Republicans have successfully used as a wedge among Democrats and between Congress and the Obama administration.

The House did not include any of the $80 million that Obama requested for closing down Guantanamo in the House-approved version of the supplemental bill.

The decision to pull the funding leaves Obama with three choices. He can veto the supplemental bill to pressure Congress to reverse its position; he can try to move ahead with his goal of closing Guanatanamo by Jan. 22, 2010, using funds from other sources; or he can reverse his decision to close the facility.

* * *

[http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=104196339][Candidate Obama campaigned against the tribunals; President Obama is for them. Obama, as a lawyer, surely knows that bait and switch is illegal. The last paragraph of the story gives the game away: Guantánamo will remain open, so that the new, improved kangaroo-court tribunals can continue. -- YM]

Obama Revives Guantanamo Tribunals
by Jackie Northam

All Things Considered, May 15, 2009 · The White House announced Friday that it is reviving Bush-era military tribunals to prosecute about 13 of the roughly 240 detainees remaining at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

But the tribunals will include new legal protections for terror suspects, President Obama said in a three-paragraph statement. "This is the best way to protect our country, while upholding our deeply held values," he said.

The new tribunals will apply only to about 13 of the detainees whose cases are under way. Several suspects in the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks could be among them, including Khaled Sheik Mohammed, who is accused of planning the attacks. Proceedings are expected to resume by the fall to allow time for the new rules to be put in place.

A System Plagued With Problems

The tribunals have been plagued with problems since they were introduced at Guantanamo Bay five years ago.

Some human rights activists and legal scholars say it is unclear whether those problems will disappear now that the tribunals are being brought back.

When Obama announced earlier this year that the Guantanamo detention camp would close by January 2010, he also froze the trials of detainees while the new administration reviewed the legal proceedings.

The tribunals — known as military commissions — were drawn up solely to prosecute Guantanamo prisoners and have been the target of lawsuits claming that detainees have been denied legal rights and should instead be tried in federal courts.

Reviving the tribunals for just a few of the cases does not resolve the question of what to do with other Guantanamo detainees. Administration officials say they could be transferred to another country or tried in federal court. Some could be held indefinitely.

Changing The Rules Of Allowable Evidence

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the new tribunals are designed to provide detainees better protections in court than the earlier commissions. He said the new tribunals "represent a far different system" than the earlier commissions under the Bush administration.

Among the new rules: restrictions on hearsay evidence; any evidence collected through torture or abuse will be banned; detainees can change their military lawyers; and detainees won't be sanctioned if they refuse to testify.

The tribunal system was created after U.S. forces began capturing and detaining suspects in Afghanistan following the Sept. 11 terror attacks. The White House said Friday it will seek further rule changes in the next few months as it asks Congress to change the 2006 law that gave detainees additional rights under the tribunals.

Madeline Morris, director of Duke Law School's Guantanamo Defense Clinic, says repealing the more contentious rules is good, but she says it won't solve the problems surrounding the commissions.

"The military commissions system is brand new. It's been made up from whole cloth and is untested. And military commissions were never envisioned as handling these very complex cases," she said.

It is unclear where the new commissions will be held. There are facilities already in place at Guantanamo Bay, but it's unlikely that the new tribunals will be completed by the time the prison camp is due to close in January.

A good antiwar article at counterpunch.org

Mike Whitney is antiwar, and he has got Barack Obama's number. You owe it to yourself to read Whitney's column in Counter Punch. <http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney05152009.html>
Among the subjects covered are:

The massacre (ca. 150 civilians killed, as a result of US aerial bombardment) in Farah Province, Afghanistan:

"... The facts have since been verified by senior government officials, high-ranking members of the Afghan military and representatives of the Red Cross. The United States military killed 143 unarmed villagers and then they tried to cover it up with a lie. None of the victims were fighters. After the bombing, the villagers loaded body parts onto carts and took them to the office of the regional governor who confirmed the deaths. The photos of grief-stricken Afghans burying their dead have been widely circulated on the Internet. "

Another topic:

"OBAMA PICKS A GENERAL: Enter the assassination squads

"This week, General David McKiernan was replaced by Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal as Commander of US Forces in Afghanistan. Here's how the Washington Post summarized McChrystal's qualifications for the job:

'McChrystal kills people. Has he ever worked in the counterinsurgency environment? Not really,' said Roger Carstens, a senior nonresident fellow at the Center for a New American Security and a former Special Forces officer....

'Lt. Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the former Special Operations chief who is President Obama's new choice to lead the war in Afghanistan, rose to military prominence because of his single-minded success in a narrow but critical mission: manhunting. As commander of the military's secretive Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) for nearly five years starting in 2003, McChrystal masterminded a campaign to perfect the art of tracking down enemies, and then capturing or killing them. He built a sophisticated network of soldiers and intelligence operatives who proceeded to decapitate the Sunni insurgent group al-Qaeda in Iraq and kill its most notorious leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. ("High-value-target hunter takes on Afghan war," Washington Post)

"Obama chose McChrystal because of his black ops' pedigree, which suggests that the conflict in Afghanistan is about to take a very ugly turn. According to Pulitzer Prize–winning investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, McChrystal ran the 'executive assassination wing' of the military's joint special-operations command.(JSOC) ...

"McChrystal's appointment suggests that Obama supports the idea that hunter-killer units and targeted assassinations are an acceptable means of achieving US foreign policy objectives. Obama supporters should pay close attention; this is a continuation of the Rumsfeld policy with one slight difference, a more persuasive and charismatic pitchman promoting the policy. Other than that, there's no difference ...

"FROM MY LAI TO BALA BALUK

.... "Obama believes that civilian casualties are an unavoidable part of achieving one's policy goals. The end justifies the means. He has strengthened the Bush policy, not repudiated it. So much for 'change.'"

US--Tolerance is on the march: 6 states now back gay marriage

[New Hampshire is a very conservative state, while its neighbor Vermont is known for being extremely liberal. I certainly never expected New Hampshire to allow marriage equality for everyone. The difference between civil unions, a feature of state law, and marriage, which gives access to about a thousand distinct rights on the federal level, is significant. That New England, a largely conservative region, and Iowa, in the Republican farm belt, find themselves able to live with marriage equality is both astonishing and encouraging. This development probably owes a lot to savvy lawyers and decades of demonstrations organized by gay activists, as well as the fact that several years of gay weddings in Massachusetts have not led to a general social breakdown. Lesbians have made a significant contribution by being model spouses. There are few things more impressive than lesbian couples that have been together for a couple of decades, raising a child and providing a healthy, loving, home life. So mazl tov, "congratulations," to everyone who helped prepare the ground for this advance in democratic rights. The next big struggle for tolerance will mean doing something about the heartbreaking suicide rate among gay youth, who face violence not just at school, but, in many cases, at home. -- Yosef M ]

New Hampshire governor backs gay marriage

By NORMA LOVE, Associated Press Writer Norma Love, Associated Press Writer – Thu May 14, 5:57 pm ET

CONCORD, N.H. – Gov. John Lynch said Thursday he will sign a bill to make his state the sixth to legalize gay marriage as soon as the Legislature makes some changes, which legislative leaders immediately said they would back.

Lynch asked that the already-approved legislation be revised to better protect churches and their employees against lawsuits if their beliefs preclude them from marrying gays. Gay marriage supporters said they do not object....

Lynch said he personally opposes gay marriage, but decided to view the issue "through a broader lens."

A gay marriage bill and companion legislation were adopted last week, but had yet to make it the governor's desk. Now, they will be held until the changes proposed by Lynch are approved, said Senate President Sylvia Larsen.

Larsen and House Speaker Terie Norelli predicted the Legislature would act quickly to adopt the changes, perhaps as early as next week....

The bill's main sponsor, state Rep. Jim Splaine, said the bottom line is that Lynch supports marriage equality for gays.

Mo Baxley, executive director of New Hampshire Freedom to Marry Coalition, a group supporting gay marriage, approved of Lynch's proposed changes....

Four other New England states — Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts and Vermont — recognize same-sex marriage. Iowa is the other state to legalize gay marriage.

Lynch said he wanted the law modeled on Connecticut's, which he said contains better protections than the proposal adopted by the New Hampshire Legislature. For example, Lynch wants to be sure an organist employed by a church opposed to gay marriage could legally refuse to perform at a gay wedding....

New frontiers in cynicism: Obama names polluters' lawyer to big environmental post

[From marxmail.org]

http://thinkprogress.org/2009/05/15/ignacia-moreno-superfund/

Obama Nominates Superfund Polluter Lawyer To Run DOJ Environment Division

President Barack Obama has nominated a lawyer for the nation’s largest toxic polluters to run the enforcement of the nation’s environmental laws. On Tuesday, Obama “announced his intent to nominate” Ignacia S. Moreno to be Assistant Attorney General for the Environment and Natural Resources Division in the Department of Justice. Moreno, general counsel for that department during the Clinton administration, is now the corporate environmental counsel for General Electric, “America’s #1 Superfund Polluter“:

Number five in the Fortune 500 with revenues of $89.3 billion and earnings of $8.2 billion in 1997, General Electric has been a leader in the effort to roll back the Superfund law and stave off any requirements for full cleanup and restoration of sites they helped create.

This February, General Electric lost an eight-year battle to “prove that parts of the Superfund law are unconstitutional.” One of the 600-person DOJ environmental division’s “primary responsibilities is to enforce federal civil and criminal environmental laws such as” the Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, the Safe Drinking Water Act, and the Superfund.

Before General Electric, Moreno worked as a corporate attorney at Spriggs and Hollingsworth. Moreno’s name is found in the Westlaw database as an attorney defending General Motors in another Superfund case, the GM Powertrain facility in Bedford, Indiana:

Historical uses and management of PCB containing hydraulic oils and PCB impacted materials has contaminated on-site areas as well as the sediment and floodplain soil within Bailey’s Branch and the Pleasant Run Creek watershed.

Although General Motors entered into an agreement in 2001 with the EPA to clean up the site, a number of local residents whose land has been contaminated by polychorinated biphenyls (PCBs) have sued for damages in Allgood v. GM (now Barlow v. GM), in a contentious and caustic dispute over cleanup, monitoring, and lost property values.

During the Clinton administration, Moreno was involved in another controversial case, unsuccessfully defending the Secretary of Commerce’s decision to weaken the dolphin-safe tuna standard. In Brower v. Daley, Earth Island Institute, The Humane Society of the United States, and other individuals and organizations brought suit against the United States government for actions that were “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, and contrary to law,” winning their case in 2000.

Villagers testify: US *does* use white phosphorus in AFGHANISTAN

Doctors Raise Phosphorus Concerns After US Strikes in Afghanistan
Sunday 10 May 2009
by: Jon Boone, from: The Guardian UK, via truthout and facebook.com

Kabul - Afghanistan's leading human rights organisation is investigating claims that white phosphorus was used during a deadly battle between US forces and the Taliban last week in which scores of civilians may have died.

Nader Nadery, a senior officer at the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said the organisation was concerned that the chemical, which can cause severe burns, might have been used in the firefight in Bala Baluk, a district in the western province of Farah.

Dr Mohammad Aref Jalali, the head of an internationally funded burns hospital in Herat, said villagers taken to hospital after the incident had "highly unusual burns" on their hands and feet that he had not seen before. "We cannot be 100% sure what type of chemical it was and we do not have the equipment here to find out. One of the women who came here told us that 22 members of her family were totally burned. She said a bomb distributed white power that caught fire and then set people's clothes alight."

US forces in Afghanistan denied they had used the chemical, and have also said claims that up to 147 civilians were killed were grossly exaggerated.

As with previous such tragedies, both sides have made wildly different claims, with Taliban spokesmen seeking to exploit popular fury and US officials attempting to limit the damage and pin the blame on the Taliban for allegedly using civilians as human shields.

But members of the human rights department at the UN mission in Afghanistan have been appalled by witness testimony from people in the village, according to one official in Kabul who talked anonymously to the Guardian.

He said bombs were dropped after militants had quit the battlefield, which appeared to be backed up by the US air force's own daily report, which is published online.

"The stories that are emerging are quite frankly horrifying," the official said. "It is quite apparent that the large bulk of civilian casualties were called in after the initial fighting had subsided and both the troops and the Taliban had withdrawn.

"Local villagers went to the mosque to pray for peace. Shortly after evening prayers the air strikes were called in, and they continued for a couple of hours whilst the villagers were frantically calling the local governor to get him to call off the air strikes."

He said that women and children hid inside their homes while their men went on to the roofs with guns. US forces say these men were militants, but the UN official said they were simply villagers and "it is totally normal for them to have guns". Also contested is an incident immediately after the battle when people from the village took piles of corpses to the governor's compound in the provincial capital.

The UN official says their willingness to ignore the Islamic custom of organising burial within 24 hours of death showed the level of anger.

A statement by US forces said insurgents forced tribal elders to parade the corpses through neighbouring villages to "incite outrage among villagers".

It said that a joint US-Afghan investigation team confirmed that "a number of civilians were killed in the course of the fighting but is unable to determine with certainty which of those causalities were Taliban fighters and which were non-combatants".

Last week Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, called for all air strikes in villages to be stopped, a view privately backed by many in the UN.

PAKISTAN: US Drone Kills at Least 10, maybe 45, in South Waziristan high school

[From news.antiwar.com]

US Drone Kills at Least 10 in South Waziristan
Locals Report as Many as 45 May Be Dead in Latest Strike
by Jason Ditz, May 09, 2009

Putting to rest the reports that the Obama Administration was considering halting the drone strikes onto Pakistani soil, US drones fired a missile at a village in the Sararogha district of the South Waziristan Agency, killing a minimum of 10 people and injuring at least 11 others.

Officials admit, however, that the toll is likely to rise, and local residents say the building hit - the village high school, had a large number of people in it at the time. They are claiming that as many as 45 people, including women and children, were killed in the attack.

South Waziristan has recently seen rising violence between the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) faction of Baitullah Mehsud and the Pakistani military. The two sides had a brief ceasefire, but the TTP ended it last month in protest of a previous US drone attack. At least 19 people were killed in the agency’s principle city of Wana today in those clashes.

AFGHANISTAN: US military slaughters 147 civilians in Farah Province

[From news.antiwar.com]

Afghans riot over air-strike atrocity: Witnesses say deaths of 147 people in three villages came after a sustained bombardment by American aircraft. Patrick Cockburn, in Herat, reports Friday, 8 May 2009

Shouting "Death to America" and "Death to the Government", thousands of Afghan villagers hurled stones at police yesterday as they vented their fury at American air strikes that local officials claim killed 147 civilians.

The riot started when people from three villages struck by US bombers in the early hours of Tuesday, brought 15 newly-discovered bodies in a truck to the house of the provincial governor. As the crowd pressed forward in Farah, police opened fire, wounding four protesters. Traders in the rest of Farah city, the capital of the province of the same name where the bombing took place, closed their shops, vowing they would not reopen them until there is an investigation.

A local official Abdul Basir Khan said yesterday that he had collected the names of 147 people who had died, making it the worst such incident since the US intervened in Afghanistan started in 2001. A phone call from the governor of Farah province, Rohul Amin, in which he said that 130 people had died, was played over the loudspeaker in the Afghan parliament in Kabul, sparking demands for more control over US operations.

Obama's "Peace": The troops are *not* coming home

"Obama's Peace" is a youtube video made by Tina Richards, a plea for US withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan, depicting the deadly consequences for civilians of US military action in those unfortunate countries. This is a video well worth seeing:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=88rxA7sUUsI

The video makes the point that by September, 2009, Obama, the "peace candidate" in the last election, will have have sent more troops into combat than G.W. Bush.

The following story by Aaron Glantz, from examiner.com, is the basis for that claim (from the text, it seems that, factually, Obama will be commanding more troops than Bush did, after Obama escalates in Afghanistan and Pakistan, with a large US occupation force still in Iraq).

The Troops Aren’t Coming Home [March 30, 2009]

It may seem counter-intuitive but by September of this year dovish Democrat Barack Obama will have actually sent more troops into combat than his hawkish predecessor George W. Bush.
How can this be?

After all, Barack Obama announced this month a phased withdrawal of all combat troops from Iraq by August 2010. (After the drawdown, a large force of as many as 50,000 troops — about one-third of what is there now — will remain with a new, noncombat mission: train Iraqis, protect U.S. assets and personnel and conduct anti-terror operations.)

But the time-line of the drawdown is back-loaded with the first US troops not scheduled to come home until this September – and even then our force in Iraq will only be reduced by 12,000.

At that point, approximately 135,000 US troops will still occupy the country. That’s the same number that invaded Iraq back in March 2003.

At the same time, Obama announced Friday he’s sending 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan and Pakistan – 17,000 combat troops plus another 4,000 to train Afghan forces and advise the Afghan government.

What this means is that under President Barack Obama the Global War on Terror is not winding down as many people expected. It is escalating.

Stanford University alumni, students, call for Condi War Crimes Probe

[From mrzine.monthlyreview.org, courtesy of marxmail.org][All I can say is, it is about phreaking time someone called for indicting Condi. She lied, and lied, and lied, and then she lied some more, and they made her Secretary of State! Yet another proof that bourgeois politics in the US reeks of blood. -- YM]

Stanford Anti-War Alumni, Students Call for Condi War Crimes Probe, by Marjorie Cohn [May 6, 2009]

During the Vietnam War, Stanford students succeeded in banning secret military research from campus. Last weekend, 150 activist alumni and present Stanford students targeted Condoleezza Rice for authorizing torture and misleading Americans into the illegal Iraq War.

Veterans of the Stanford anti-Vietnam War movement had gathered for a 40th anniversary reunion during the weekend. The gathering featured panels on foreign policy, the economy, political and social movements, science and technology, media, energy and the environment, and strategies for aging activists.

On Sunday, surrounded by alumni and students, Lenny Siegel and I nailed a petition to the University President's office door. The petition, circulated by Stanford Says No to War, reads:

"We the undersigned students, faculty, staff, alumni, and other concerned members of the Stanford community, believe that high officials of the U.S. Government, including our former Provost, current Political Science Professor, and Hoover Institution Senior Fellow, Condoleezza Rice, should be held accountable for any serious violations of the Law (included ratified treaties, statutes, and/or the U.S. Constitution) through investigation and, if the facts warrant, prosecution, by appropriate legal authorities."

I stated, "By nailing this petition to the door of the President's office, we are telling Stanford that the university should not have war criminals on its faculty. There is prima facie evidence that Rice approved torture and misled the country into the Iraq War. Stanford has an obligation to investigate those charges."

After the petition nailing, I cited the law and evidence of Condoleezza Rice's responsibility for war crimes -- including torture -- and for selling the illegal Iraq War:

As National Security Advisor, Rice authorized waterboarding in July 2002, according to a newly released report of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Less than two months later, she hyped the impending U.S. invasion of Iraq, saying, "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Her ominous warning was part of the Bush administration's campaign to sell the Iraq war, in spite of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency's assurances that Saddam Hussein did not possess nuclear weapons.

A week before the nailing of the petition, Rice made some Nixonian admissions in response to questions from Stanford students during a campus dinner designed to burnish Rice's image on campus.

In October 1968, Stanford anti-war activists had nailed a document to the door of the trustees' office which demanded that Stanford "halt all military and economic projects concerned with Southeast Asia."

Marjorie Cohn is a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law and president of the National Lawyers Guild. She is the author of Cowboy Republic: Six Ways the Bush Gang Has Defied the Law and co-author of Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent. Read her articles at http://www.marjoriecohn.com/.

US--49% of us think gay marriage is peachy-keen :o)

[From: www.firstread.msnbc.msn.com] [A little good news: If the ABC/Washington Post poll is to be believed, tolerant people now comprise a plurality in the US. AND, according to the same poll, a majority, 53%, believe their state should recognize gay marriages performed in other states! It may be that the social support that gay relationships deserve, which has been denied for so long, is drawing nearer. -- YM]

Poll shows support for gay marriage
Posted: Thursday, April 30, 2009 6:50 PM
by Domenico Montanaro

From NBC's Harry Enten

For the first time in a nationwide survey, more Americans say they support gay marriage (49%) than oppose it (46%), according to the latest Washington Post/ABC poll.

That 49% supporting gay marriage, in fact, is a significant jump from 2004, when the Post/ABC poll found just 32% in favor.

This surge within the past month suggests that any backlash against the recent moves across the country to legalize gay marriage has yet to emerge.

Also in the new survey, a majority of Americans (53%) believe that their state should recognize gay marriages from other states.

Other recent polls have shown a similar increase in support for gay unions nationwide. The New York Times/CBS News poll released this week showed 42% of Americans supporting gay marriage -- the highest number ever recorded in that poll. This week's Quinnipiac poll, which found a majority (55%) against gay marriage, also showed 57% of Americans support civil unions.

1999--When NATO, i.e., the US military, murdered journalists

[The year was 1999: Democrat Bill Clinton, he of Monica Lewinsky fame, was US President. US General Wesley Clark, a Knight Commander of the British Empire (the medal for which reads, "For God and the Empire"), West Point Valedictorian, NATO Commander of the bombing of Yugoslavia, and, as such, was and is responsible for the deaths of 16 Yugoslav media workers, in the destruction by NATO of the Serbian television and radio center, described in the following dispatch. Clark went on to run, as an "antiwar" liberal, in the Democratic Party Presidential Primaries of 2004. It is amazing how everything in bourgeois party politics in the US, is drenched in blood. -- YM]

BELGRADE, April 23 [1999] (Reuters) - NATO air strikes blasted Serbian state television off the air on Friday, just hours after Belgrade offered a peace proposal to allow an "international presence" in war-torn Kosovo under U.N. auspices. Belgrade residents reported hearing a "huge explosion" at 2:04 a.m. (0004 GMT) and said NATO had hit the RTS television building, taking all channels off the air. "The RTS building has been hit," said one witness. "There is smoke everywhere and there are people inside the building."

Nato was purposely targeting the building filled with people - and NOT the relay tower standing next to it. It was a murder - plain and simple.

Dragan Covic, head of Belgrade's Civil Defence, told Belgrade television station Studio B, situated elsewhere in the capital, that there were injured people. "We are working to save anyone we can," he said.

Witnesses said the newer of two RTS buildings was hit. They added there were no flames but thick smoke was billowing from the premises. RTS was showing a re-run of an interview by Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic with a U.S. television station when screens went dead.

NATO commanders warned earlier this month that they considered the television a legitimate target in their air strike campaign, now almost a month old. They accused it of broadcasting hatred and lies. It was the third night running that NATO had struck at a nerve centre of Serb power [sic!]. On Thursday it bombed a Milosevic residence -- unoccupied at the time -- and on Wednesday it destroyed the headquarters of his Serbian Socialist Party. Friday's attack was an uncompromising response to Milosevic's apparent peace feeler on Thursday evening, on the eve of a NATO summit in Washington.

How NAFTA and capitalist greed gave the world swine flu

[From http://www.narconews.com/Issue57/article3512.html -- Note: The description of the conditions for animals in the Smithfield Farms facility in Mexico, in the twelfth paragraph, is not for the faint-hearted.]

How “The NAFTA Flu” Exploded
Smithfield Farms Fled US Environmental Laws to Open a Gigantic Pig Farm in Mexico, and All We Got Was this Lousy Swine Flu
By Al Giordano
Special to The Narco News Bulletin
April 29, 2009

US and Mexico authorities claim that neither knew about the “swine flu” outbreak until April 24. But after hundreds of residents of a town in Veracruz, Mexico, came down with its symptoms, the story had already hit the Mexican national press by April 5. The daily La Jornada reported:

Clouds of flies emanate from the rusty lagoons where the Carroll Ranches business tosses the fecal wastes of its pig farms, and the open-air contamination is already generating an epidemic of respiratory infections in the town of La Gloria, in the Perote Valley, according to Town Administrator Bertha Crisóstomo López.

The town has 3,000 inhabitants, hundreds of whom reported severe flu symptoms in March.

CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta, reporting from Mexico, has identified a La Gloria child who contracted the first case of identified “swine flu” in February as “patient zero,” five-year-old Edgar Hernández, now a survivor of the disease.

By April 15 – nine days before Mexican federal authorities of the regime of President Felipe Calderon acknowledged any problem at all – the local daily newspaper, Marcha, reported that a company called Carroll Ranches was “the cause of the epidemic.”

La Jornada columnist Julio Hernández López connects the corporate dots to explain how the Virginia-based Smithfield Farms came to Mexico: In 1985, Smithfield Farms received what was, at the time, the most expensive fine in history – $12.6 million – for violating the US Clean Water Act at its pig facilities near the Pagan River in Smithfield, Virginia, a tributary that flows into the Chesapeake Bay. The company, according to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) dumped hog waste into the river.

It was a case in which US environmental law succeeded in forcing a polluter, Smithfield Farms, to construct a sewage treatment plant at that facility after decades of using the river as a mega-toilet. But “free trade” opened a path for Smithfield Farms to simply move its harmful practices next door into Mexico so that it could evade the tougher US regulators.

The North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) came into effect on January 1, 1994. That very same year Smithfield Farms opened the “Carroll Ranches” in the Mexican state of Veracruz through a new subsidiary corporation, “Agroindustrias de México.”

Unlike what law enforcers forced upon Smithfield Farms in the US, the new Mexican facility – processing 800,000 pigs into bacon and other products per year – does not have a sewage treatment plant.

According to Rolling Stone magazine, Smithfield slaughters an estimated 27 million hogs a year to produce more than six billion pounds of packaged pork products. (The Veracruz facility thus constitutes about three percent of its total production.)

Reporter Jeff Teitz reported in 2006 on the conditions in Smithfield’s US facilities (remember: what you are about to read describes conditions that are more sanitary and regulated than those in Mexico):

[Paragraph twelve follows:]

Smithfield’s pigs live by the hundreds or thousands in warehouse-like barns, in rows of wall-to-wall pens. Sows are artificially inseminated and fed and delivered of their piglets in cages so small they cannot turn around. Forty fully grown 250-pound male hogs often occupy a pen the size of a tiny apartment. They trample each other to death. There is no sunlight, straw, fresh air or earth. The floors are slatted to allow excrement to fall into a catchment pit under the pens, but many things besides excrement can wind up in the pits: afterbirths, piglets accidentally crushed by their mothers, old batteries, broken bottles of insecticide, antibiotic syringes, stillborn pigs ­anything small enough to fit through the foot-wide pipes that drain the pits. The pipes remain closed until enough sewage accumulates in the pits to create good expulsion pressure; then the pipes are opened and everything bursts out into a large holding pond.

The temperature inside hog houses is often hotter than ninety degrees. The air, saturated almost to the point of precipitation with gases from shit and chemicals, can be lethal to the pigs. Enormous exhaust fans run twenty-four hours a day. The ventilation systems function like the ventilators of terminal patients: If they break down for any length of time, pigs start dying.

Consider what happens when such forms of massive pork production move to unregulated territory where Mexican authorities allow wealthy interests to do business without adequate oversight, abusing workers and the environment both. And there it is: The violence wrought by NAFTA in clear and understandable human terms.

The so-called “swine flu” exploded because an environmental disaster simply moved (and with it, took jobs from US workers) to Mexico where environmental and worker safety laws, if they exist, are not enforced against powerful multinational corporations.

False mental constructs of borders – the kind that cause US and Mexican citizens alike to imagine a flu strain like this one invading their nations from other lands – are taking a long overdue hit by the current “swine flu” media frenzy. In this case, US-Mexico trade policy created a time bomb in Veracruz that has already murdered more than 150 Mexican citizens, and at least one child in the US, by creating a gigantic Petri dish in the form pig farms to generate bacon and ham for international sale.

None of that indicates that this flu strain was born in Mexico, but, rather, that the North American Free Trade Agreement created the optimal conditions for the flu to gestate and become, at minimum, epidemic in La Gloria and, now, Mexico City, and threatens to become international pandemic.

Welcome to the aftermath of “free trade.” Authorities now want you to grab a hospital facemask and avoid human contact until the outbreak hopefully blows over. And if you start to feel dizzy, or a flush with fever, or other symptoms begin to molest you or your children, remember this:

The real name of this infirmity is “The NAFTA Flu,” the first of what may well emerge as many new illnesses to emerge internationally as the direct result of “free trade” agreements that allow companies like Smithfield Farms to escape health, safety and environmental laws.