The Largest Minority

November 6th, 2007 by Manila Ryce

The commentary on Olbermann’s commentary will be provided by Blue Gal from part of a rant she made on Friday:

Here’s my sense of what is called for in terms of collegiality: if Mukasey or any other suited twit wore his candy cock ring into my senate Judiciary Committee meeting and started spouting trash about the Constitutional provisions that George Bush has thought such an inconvenience, providing my committee patient assurance that, in the legal opinion of many well-regarded blind fascists, the President can legally do whatever the fuck he wants, this is the reception he’d get.

October 27th, 2007 by Manila Ryce

Human rights groups, including the French-based International Federation of Human Rights Leagues (FIDH) and the U.S. Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR), have filed a lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld for authorizing interrogation techniques that led to rights abuses at detention centers in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay when he was defense secretary of the United States.

The Bush administration has been consistent in its claims that it does not torture, claims which have been debunked as complete bullshit. Exposure to extreme temperatures and waterboarding are methods the administration admits to employing under the guise that they are not torture (as well as the “I’m not touching you” technique demonstrated by Rummy in the accompanying picture).

The Abu Ghraib jail in Iraq hit the headlines in April 2004 when details of the physical abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. soldiers were made public, badly damaging the reputation of the U.S. military.

Former prisoners at Guantanamo Bay are suing Rumsfeld and 10 military commanders for alleged torture and violations of their religious rights during their detention there.

The CCR and FIDH have already filed suits in Germany in 2004 and 2006 in a bid to have Rumsfeld tried for rights abuses.

Both were rejected by the courts, though an appeal is due to be heard in the second case next week, the groups said.

The plaintiffs argue that French courts have universal jurisdiction, under the 1984 Convention Against Torture, which allows them to try foreigners in cases which occurred abroad. In a statement posted on the FIDH website, Michael Ratner said, “We will only stop once the American authorities involved in the torture program are brought to justice. Donald Rumsfeld must understand that he has nowhere to hide. A torturer is an enemy of humanity.” The statement went on to say that, “Rumsfeld’s presence on French territory gives the French courts the authority to try him, in that he ordered and authorized torture and other inhuman and degrading treatment on detainees at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and elsewhere.”

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October 26th, 2007 by Manila Ryce

Holy Land Foundation was the largest Muslim charity in the United States, collecting money for humanitarian aid in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, before the US government accused it of providing “material support” to a foreign terrorist organization. The organization was shut down by the US government, and its assets were frozen by the US and European Union.

The case against Holy Land Foundation relied heavily upon Israeli intelligence and disputed documents which claimed the organization was funding Hamas. A mistrial was declared on most of the charges against the Texas-based foundation and five of its former leaders. One juror who spoke to the LA Times said the case had “so many gaps” that prosecution was “a waste of time”.

David Cole is a professor of law at Georgetown University, the co-author of Less Safe, Less Free: Why America is Losing the War on Terror. He joins us from Capitol Hill. Welcome to Democracy Now!, David.

DAVID COLE: Good morning, Amy.

AMY GOODMAN: It’s good to have you with us. Explain exactly what happened in this case. Begin from the beginning. When was the Holy Land Foundation shut down?

DAVID COLE: Well, it was nearly six years ago, in December 2001. All their assets were frozen. All of their records were seized. The entity was shut down without a hearing, without a trial, without even a statement of reasons. And when the group sought to challenge that designation and that freezing in court, the court refused to allow the Holy Land Foundation to introduce evidence in its own defense and relied on secret evidence that the government presented to it behind closed doors, so that the foundation couldn’t respond, and rejected its arguments that this whole process violated due process by depriving it of its property without any meaningful opportunity to defend itself.

AMY GOODMAN: What exactly have you come to understand now at this point was the evidence, the secret evidence? Both US and Israeli?

DAVID COLE: Well, it was US and Israeli, and it was gathered, as you suggested, over a course of fifteen years. But what’s most remarkable is that even though they subjected this group to fifteen years of surveillance, they found not one piece of evidence that showed that this group was funding Hamas itself during the period since 1995, when Hamas — when it was illegal to fund Hamas…

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The bigoted actions of our government at its best folks. Muslim charity? We can’t have that now can we?

October 20th, 2007 by Manila Ryce

We’ve kept a fairly close eye on Arar’s story. If you’re unfamiliar with it, you can find more information by typing his name into the search bar at the top right.

On Thursday, Democratic and Republican legislators apologized to Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was arrested in America and deported for torture. The members of congress then said that President Bush should follow Canada’s lead by admitting the mistake and officially apologizing to Arar. Despite being cleared by the Canadian government for having connections to terrorist groups, the software engineer is still barred from entering the United States. Arar’s only crime seems to be that he was Middle Eastern, yet he is still treated like a torture-worthy criminal by our government.

“The most fundamental question that has not been answered yet is: why did the US government decide to send me to Syria and not to Canada?” he said.

The US government has sought to dismiss Arar’s case on the grounds that it would violate state secrets.

It acknowledges conducting “renditions” or secret international transfers of terrorist suspects, often to countries with dubious human-rights records, saying the programme has prevented further attacks.

Dean Boyd, a US justice department spokesman, said Arar was deported to Syria because he maintained dual citizenship there, and that Syria had assured the US that Arar would not be tortured.

As expected, a White House official stated that there are no plans to issue an apology to Arar. Republican congressman Dana Rohrabacher said the US made a mistake but “has been unwilling to own up to it.” He added, “It reflects an arrogance I don’t like to see in our government.”

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October 18th, 2007 by Manila Ryce

Speaking from an alternate dimension where misinformation and hearsay are as credible as actual information, President Bush warned that a nuclear-armed Iran could lead to World War III. “We’ve got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel,” he said. “So I’ve told people that, if you’re interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon.” Aside from the obvious fact that prevention of such a war starts at home, it should be noted that this rationale is based on something Ahmadinejad never even said.

This declaration came a day after Russia took Iran’s side, opposing the use of Caspian Sea states to launch an attack against Iran. Russian President Vladimir Putin had a more reality-based position, resisting Western pressure to toughen his stance on Iran. Putin said that Tehran has no plans to develop nuclear weapons, and that Russia will continue building the country’s first atomic power plant. This was the first time a Kremlin chief has visited Iran since Stalin in 1943.

President Bush was dumbfounded by the fact that anyone would recognize Iran’s legitimate right to nuclear power. “The thing I’m interested in is whether or not he continues to harbor the same concerns that I do,” Bush said of Putin. “When we were in Australia (in September), he reconfirmed to me that he recognizes it’s not in the world’s interest for Iran to have the capacity to make a nuclear weapon.” Bush now wants a third round of UN sanctions against Iran.

On a related note, “Defense” Secretary Gates told the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs on Monday that the United States could not force Iran to give up its nuclear ambitions by itself. He then called Iran an “ambitious and fanatical theocracy,” and reiterated that “with this regime we must also keep all options on the table”. Yes, that actually happened. An official in the Bush administration warned a right-wing Zionist organization of the evils of theocracy as he made veiled references to a joint military campaign against a non-threatening nation.

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October 17th, 2007 by Manila Ryce

With agreements on 14 joint ventures, including oil refining, nickel production, fishing and tourism, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wrapped up a three-day visit to Cuba. Chavez signed the deals with Raul Castro, Fidel’s younger brother, to signal a determination on both sides to sustain the alliance between countries, which will benefit the communist regime’s chance of retaining power after the death of Fidel Castro.

Chavez has been able to use Venezuela’s vast oil wealth to reduce Washington’s control over Latin America, especially easing the impact of the US embargo on Cuba. “Cuba and Venezuela could easily form a confederation of states, two republics in one, two countries in one. This is no delirium,” said Chavez. The Venezuelan president has had a dream of uniting Latin America along the principles of Simón Bolívar.

Discounted Venezuelan oil and other deals are valued near those of Soviet-era Moscow. Cuba has dispatched thousands of nurses, doctors, and teachers to fellow leftist countries in Latin America as part of the deal. During a weekend meeting with Fidel Castro, Chavez praised him as “the father of all revolutionaries.”

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October 9th, 2007 by Manila Ryce

Like loud rock music to a sleep deprived prisoner at Guantanamo, the torture debate has once again delivered a rude awakening to those Americans naïve enough to believe that our country has any moral high ground over our supposed evil enemies. The Bush administration has been playing its own version of “it depends on what your definition of ‘Is’ is” for several years - only their game of semantics is about torturing defenseless prisoners and not a blowjob. Apparently, the commander-in-chief also has the power to change the definition of our words to fit his own misunderstandings of them.

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October 1st, 2007 by Manila Ryce

No, that’s not the lead singer of AFI in the picture, it’s Debra Cagan, the Deputy Assistant Secretary for Coalition Affairs to the Secretary of Defense. Cagan put her best foot forward on September 11th while talking with British members of parliament during their visit to the Pentagon. The MPs were there to discuss America’s stance on Iran and Iraq, but were shocked when the senior Bush official told them that she hates “all Iranians”. To be fair, if Cagan is as emo as she looks she probably just hates all things.

The MPs say that Cagan’s exact words were, “In any case, I hate all Iranians.” The statement was an aside, but reflected her general attitude towards US relations with Iran. “She seemed more keen on saying she didn’t like Iranians than that the US had no plans to attack Iran,” said one MP. “She did say there were no plans for an attack but the tone did not fit the words.” Another MP said, “I formed the impression that some in America are looking for an excuse to attack Iran. It was very alarming.” Tory Stuart Graham, who was on the ten-day trip, would not discuss Ms Cagan but said that it was “very sobering to hear from the horse’s mouth how the US sees the situation.” When Graham says “horse’s mouth,” boy does he mean it.

The Pentagon, of course, denies that she made the racist comment. However, three of the six members of parliament confirmed privately that she did make the remark, while one declined to comment, and the other two could not be reached. Cagan also accused Britain of “dismantling” the coalition of the willing. She must’ve forgot Poland.

It’s amazing that President Ahmadinejad’s words can be mistranslated into calling for Israel to be “wiped off the map,” and thus as a call for genocide, when our own administration makes much worse threats on a nearly daily basis. If you’re looking for an aggressively racist nuclear power with the intention and ability to wipe an entire country and culture off the map, it’s the American government. Imagine if the word “Iranians” was replaced with “Jews,” and how quick Cagan would be out of a job due to charges of Antisemitism. The administration has done such a good job at dehumanizing Muslims in general that this statement will simply fly under the radar.

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