Has world justice been frozen in an upside-down position? The shoe-thrower of Iraq, the man who hurled his shoes at Bush, was condemned to three years in prison. Doesn’t he deserve, instead, a medal? Who is the terrorist? The hurler of shoes or their recipient? Is not the real terrorist the serial killer who, lying, fabricated the Iraq war, massacred a multitude, and legalized and ordered torture? Who are the guilty ones—the people of Atenco, in Mexico, the indigenous Mapuches of Chile, the Kekchies of Guatemala, the landless peasants of Brazil—all being accused of the crime of terrorism for defending their right to their own land? If the earth is sacred, even if the law does not say so, aren’t its defenders sacred too? According to Foreign Policy Magazine, Somalia is the most dangerous place in the world. But who are the pirates? The starving people who attack ships or the speculators of Wall Street who spent years attacking the world and who are now rewarded with many millions of dollars for their pains? Why does the world reward its ransackers? Why is justice a one-eyed blind woman? Wal-Mart, the most powerful corporation on earth, bans trade unions. McDonald’s, too. Why do these corporations violate, with criminal impunity, international law? Is it because in this contemporary world of ours, work is valued as lower than trash and workers’ rights are valued even less? Who are the righteous and who are the villains? If international justice really exists, why are the powerful never judged? The masterminds of the worst butcheries are never sent to prison. Is it because it is these butchers themselves who hold the prison keys? What makes the five nations with veto power in the United Nations inviolable? Is it of a divine origin that veto power of theirs? Can you trust those who profit from war to guard the peace? Is it fair that world peace is in the hands of the very five nations who are also the world’s main producers of weapons? Without implying any disrespect to the drug runners, couldn’t we refer to this arrangement as yet another example of organized crime? Those who clamor, everywhere, for the death penalty are strangely silent about the owners of the world. Even worse, these clamorers forever complain about knife-wielding murderers yet say nothing about missile-wielding arch-murderers. And one asks oneself: Given that these self-righteous world owners are so enamored of killing, why pray don’t they try to aim their murderous proclivities at social injustice? Is it a just world when, every minute, three million dollars are wasted on the military while at the same time fifteen children perish from hunger or curable disease? Against whom is the so-called international community armed to the teeth? Against poverty or against the poor? text taken from here.
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Is justice right side up?
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Children tortured before parents, raped, all covered up by Bush/Cheney
Perhaps the worst incident at Abu Ghraib involved a girl aged 12 or 13 who screamed for help to her brother in an upper cell while stripped naked and beaten. Iraqi journalist Suhaib Badr-Addin al-Baz, who heard the girl’s screams, also witnessed an ill 15-year-old who was forced to run up and down with two heavy cans of water and beaten whenever he stopped. When he finally collapsed, guards stripped and poured cold water on him. Finally, a hooded man was brought in. When unhooded, the boy realized that the man was his father, who doubtless was being intimidated into confessing something upon sight of his brutalized son.
Tuesday, July 14, 2009
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Confidential memo reveals US plan to provoke an invasion of Iraq
A confidential record of a meeting between President Bush and Tony Blair before the invasion of Iraq, outlining their intention to go to war without a second United Nations resolution, will be an explosive issue for the official inquiry into the UK's role in toppling Saddam Hussein. The memo, written on 31 January 2003, almost two months before the invasion and seen by the Observer, confirms that as the two men became increasingly aware UN inspectors would fail to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) they had to contemplate alternative scenarios that might trigger a second resolution legitimising military action. Bush told Blair the US had drawn up a provocative plan "to fly U2 reconnaissance aircraft painted in UN colours over Iraq with fighter cover". Bush said that if Saddam fired at the planes this would put the Iraqi leader in breach of UN resolutions. The president expressed hopes that an Iraqi defector would be "brought out" to give a public presentation on Saddam's WMD or that someone might assassinate the Iraqi leader. However, Bush confirmed even without a second resolution, the US was prepared for military action. The memo said Blair told Bush he was "solidly with the president". The five-page document, written by Blair's foreign policy adviser, Sir David Manning, and copied to Sir Jeremy Greenstock, the UK ambassador to the UN, Jonathan Powell, Blair's chief of staff, the chief of the defence staff, Admiral Lord Boyce, and the UK's ambassador to Washington, Sir Christopher Meyer, outlines how Bush told Blair he had decided on a start date for the war. Text taken from here.
Wednesday, June 3, 2009
How Important is Cheney's Admission that There was NEVER Any Evidence Linking Iraq and 9/11?
Cheney said in an interview on Fox News: "On the question of whether or not Iraq was involved in 9-11, there was never any evidence to prove that," he told the Fox host. "There was "some reporting early on ... but that was never borne out... [President] George [Bush] ... did say and did testify that there was an ongoing relationship between al-Qaeda and Iraq, but no proof that Iraq was involved in 9-11." How important is Cheney's admission? Well, 5 hours after the 9/11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld said "my interest is to hit Saddam". He also said "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not." And at 2:40 p.m. on September 11th, in a memorandum of discussions between top administration officials, several lines below the statement "judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [that is, Saddam Hussein] at same time", is the statement "Hard to get a good case." In other words, top officials knew that there wasn't a good case that Hussein was behind 9/11, but they wanted to use the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to justify war with Iraq anyway. Moreover, "Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the [9/11] attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda". And a Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary issued in February 2002 by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency cast significant doubt on the possibility of a Saddam Hussein-al-Qaeda conspiracy. And yet Bush, Cheney and other top administration officials claimed repeatedly for years that Saddam was behind 9/11. See this analysis. Indeed,Bush administration officials apparently swore in a lawsuit that Saddam was behind 9/11. Moreover, President Bush's March 18, 2003 letter to Congress authorizing the use of force against Iraq, includes the following paragraph: (2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001. Therefore, the Bush administration expressly justified the Iraq war to Congress by representing that Iraq planned, authorized, committed, or aided the 9/11 attacks. See this, this, this and this.
Article taken from here.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Bush's Shocking Biblical Prophecy Emerges: God Wants to "Erase" Mid-East Enemies "Before a New Age Begins"
In 2003 while lobbying leaders to put together the Coalition of the Willing, President Bush spoke to France's President Jacques Chirac. Bush wove a story about how the Biblical creatures Gog and Magog were at work in the Middle East and how they must be defeated. In Genesis and Ezekiel Gog and Magog are forces of the Apocalypse who are prophesied to come out of the north and destroy Israel unless stopped. The Book of Revelation took up the Old Testament prophesy: "And when the thousand years are expired, Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, And shall go out to deceive the nations which are in the four quarters of the earth, Gog and Magog, to gather them together to battle and fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them." Bush believed the time had now come for that battle, telling Chirac: "This confrontation is willed by God, who wants to use this conflict to erase his people's enemies before a New Age begins". The story of the conversation emerged only because the Elyse Palace, baffled by Bush's words, sought advice from Thomas Romer, a professor of theology at the University of Lausanne. Four years later, Romer gave an account in the September 2007 issue of the university's review, Allez savoir. The article apparently went unnoticed, although it was referred to in a French newspaper. The story has now been confirmed by Chirac himself in a new book, published in France in March, by journalist Jean Claude Maurice.Chirac is said to have been stupefied and disturbed by Bush's invocation of Biblical prophesy to justify the war in Iraq and "wondered how someone could be so superficial and fanatical in their beliefs". In the same year he spoke to Chirac, Bush had reportedly said to the Palestinian foreign minister that he was on "a mission from God" in launching the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and was receiving commands from the Lord. There can be little doubt now that President Bush's reason for launching the war in Iraq was, for him, fundamentally religious. He was driven by his belief that the attack on Saddam's Iraq was the fulfilment of a Biblical prophesy in which he had been chosen to serve as the instrument of the Lord. Many thousands of Americans and Iraqis have died in the campaign to defeat Gog and Magog. That the US President saw himself as the vehicle of God whose duty was to prevent the Apocalypse can only inflame suspicions across the Middle East that the United States is on a crusade against Islam. Text taken from here.
Tuesday, April 28, 2009
U.S. SPENDING IN IRAQ
Read further the statistic here.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
"My interest to hit Saddam Hussein"
5 hours after the 9/11 attacks, Donald Rumsfeld said "my interest is to hit Saddam". And yet, the government knew that Al Qaeda and Iraq were not linked. For example, "Ten days after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, President Bush was told in a highly classified briefing that the U.S. intelligence community had no evidence linking the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein to the [9/11] attacks and that there was scant credible evidence that Iraq had any significant collaborative ties with Al Qaeda". And yet Bush, Cheney and other top administration officials claimed and continue to claim that Saddam was behind 9/11. See this analysis. Indeed, Bush administration officials apparently swore in a lawsuit that Saddam was behind 9/11. (2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 is consistent with the United States and other countries continuing to take the necessary actions against international terrorists and terrorist organizations, including those nations, organizations, or persons who planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001.
He also said "Go massive . . . Sweep it all up. Things related and not."
And at 2:40 p.m. on September 11th, in a memorandum of discussions between top administration officials, several lines below the statement "judge whether good enough [to] hit S.H. [that is, Saddam Hussein] at same time", is the statement "Hard to get a good case." In other words, top officials knew that there wasn't a good case that Hussein was behind 9/11, but they wanted to use the 9/11 attacks as an excuse to justify war with Iraq anyway.
And a Defense Intelligence Terrorism Summary issued in February 2002 by the United States Defense Intelligence Agency cast significant doubt on the possibility of a Saddam Hussein-al-Qaeda conspiracy.
Indeed, President Bush's March 18, 2003 letter to Congress authorizing the use of force against Iraq, includes the following paragraph:
Sunday, March 22, 2009
Iraq Occupation -The 6th Year
Meanwhile, for Iraqis, years of homelessness, imprisonment, lack of electricity, lack of medicine, injuries, trauma, lost family members, and poisoned environments are taking their toll. Of 1.2 million killed, 2,000 have been doctors. There are 4.7 million refugees, including 20,000 doctors. Almost a third of Iraq's children suffer from malnutrition, and virtually all Iraqis lack adequate medical services, electricity, and -- in many areas -- drinking water. Cancer and miscarriages have increased dramatically. While violence is down, the same may not be true of deaths and suffering.
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
BUSH WAR CRIMES ARE JEOPARDIZING PUBLIC HEALTH IN AFGHANISTAN AND IRAQ
As commander-in-chief of the military, former President George W. Bush was responsible for U.S. attacks on hospitals in Iraq and Afghanistan, the mistreatment of their personnel and patients, and the denial of medical supplies to them and to the general populations of those nations, an authority on war crimes says.
One of the most egregious of the Bush war crimes, the force-feeding of prisoners, is being continued by the Obama administration even though it is in violation of medical ethics and the first Protocol to the Geneva Conventions of 1977, the authority notes.
In a new book that compiles the war crimes committed by U.S. forces, “George W. Bush, War Criminal?”(Praeger), political scientist/author Michael Haas writes:
“In 2001, the children’s hospital in Kabul was bombed, and the hospital in Herat (both in Afghanistan) was targeted, resulting in about one hundred deaths.. The al-Nouman Hospital in Baghdad was hit in the initial bombing in 2003 resulting in the deaths of five persons” and the Central Health Center in Falluja (Iraq) was bombed in November, 2004, killing 35 patients and 24 hospital employees.
Moreover, the Nazzal Emergency Hospital in Falluja, run by a Saudi Arabian Islamic charity, “was reduced to rubble,” Haas writes, and when U.S. troops entered Falluja’s General Hospital, they forced all hospital employees and patients to lie on the ground and tied their hands behind their backs.”
The above acts violated the Red Cross Convention of 1864, which requires that “ambulances and military hospitals shall be acknowledged to be neutral…and shall be protected and respected by belligerents so long as any sick or wounded may be therein.” The acts also violate the 1929 Geneva Convention that says personnel ministering to the sick “shall be respected and protected under all circumstances.”
What’s more, on March 4, 2007, U.S. marines left the Jalalabad, Afghanistan, battlefield “without attending to those whom they had wounded,” Haas writes, and in July, 2008, U.S. soldiers blocked Afghan villagers from rescuing wounded civilians they sought to take to the hospital. This violates Article 1 of the Geneva Convention of 1949 that states “The wounded and sick shall be collected and cared for.”
Haas also notes that when Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld issued an order denying prisoners the right to see a physician for six weeks from December 2, 2002, to January 15, 2003, even though the Geneva Convention of 1949, Article 15, states, “The Power detaining prisoners of war shall be bound to provide free of charge for their maintenance and for the medical attention required by the state of health.”
Haas writes that prisoners suffering from asthma, diabetes, heart conditions, hepatitis, leg wounds, and other maladies went untreated in the Middle Eastern countries invaded by the U.S. and that doctor visits also have been denied to Guantanamo prisoners “to induce cooperation.”
“Medical facilities, medicines, staff, and supplies were inadequate for the large number of prisoners at Abu Ghraib (Iraq),” Haas writes, and prisoners at Guantanamo were force fed even though the Tokyo Declaration of 1975 prohibits physicians to interfere medically with those who want to stop eating.
And where the Geneva Convention of 1949, Article 55, states, “the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population,” American and British vetoes in the Security Council blocked the release of $500 million in funds from the UN’s Iraqi oil-for-food account. Instead, they diverted the money to the Coalition Provisional Authority(CPA), “which failed to purchase needed supplies,” Haas writes..
And where the Geneva Convention of 1949, Article 56, states “Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties,” on May 23, 2003, the CPA fired top-level Iraqi government employees, including medical personnel. “The best hospital in Baghdad was converted into an American military hospital,” Haas writes, and the health administrator sent by the U.S. Agency for International Development, Dr. Frederick Burkle, was fired after one week “because he lacked political connections..” Haas adds that his replacement “failed to authorize funds for emergency rooms to treat victims of the insurgency, the most important medical problem at the time.”
According to Haas, a Belgian physician that visited 25 medical facilities in April, 2004, concluded, “Nowhere had any new medical material arrived since the end of the war” and that there was no sterile treatment at Al Nour Hospital, “as a result of which all patients with major burns are doomed to die.”
Haas states “the main result of the misoccupation of Iraq is an actual reduction in the state of public health.” He notes U.S. authorities actually “reduced the number of medicines available while occupying the country” and that children continue to be stricken with leukemia because the U.S. military “refuse to use Geiger counters to locate and dispose of ordnance containing depleted uranium despite pleading from the World Health Organization. “In matters of health, the Americans have descended like a plague of locusts on Afghanistan and Iraq,” Haas concluded.
Haas’s book lists 269 separate categories of war crimes for which former President George W. Bush was responsible. The book is arranged so that each category and the applicable war crimes statutes appear together. While those crimes concerning torture and the absence of due process are best known, the Haas book includes a wide range of war crimes violations from the failure to respect the legal framework of the invaded countries to the failure to promptly repatriate prisoners of war to the failure to protect public property.
Article taken from here.
Monday, March 16, 2009
The Oil Factor - Blood for Oil?
Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski explains the locations of America oil bases overseas.
The Middle-East holds 70% of the world's oil reserves while North America and Europe will run out of oil in 2010 at their current rate of production. Current technologies might provide alternatives to oil for energy but not to oil for plastics.
In the wake of Vice-President Dick Cheney's 2001 Energy Task Force, is it a coincidence if George Bush targeted Iraq in its so called "war-on-terror", a country known to possess the second largest oil reserves in the world? Is it another coincidence if U.S. forces in Afghanistan and Central Asia are based near Central Asian oil and natural gas? Was invading Iraq and Afghanistan really meant to reduce terrorist threats against the United States or was it a ploy to guarantee that the average American can go on for a little while consuming 4 times more energy that the average European or 32 times more energy than the average African?
After a year-and-a-half investigation and a three-month trip to Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan, "THE OIL FACTOR" looks at both the human cost and the greater geo-strategic picture of George Bush's "war-on-terror". With solid facts & figures, maps and graphics and original footage shot on location, the doc features such personalities as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Noam Chomsky, The Project for the New American Century Director Gary Schmitt, best-seller "Taliban" author Ahmed Rashid and the Pentagon's Karen Kwiatkowski.
Watch the clip.
Saturday, March 14, 2009
Monday, March 9, 2009
UN General Assembly President Condemns ICC Move Against Bashir
"I am sorry about the decision of the ICC. It is more a decision motivated by political considerations than really for the sake of advancing the cause of justice in the world," the Nicaraguan diplomat said.
It would have preferable to let the ongoing peace negotiations on Darfur continue, rather than turn the issue into an international legal matter, he added.
He said it was "absurd" to have ignored calls by the African Union not to issue the warrant. He indicated that the operation against Sudan was run by a small group, i.e., not all the "genocide" hounds. He said there were "a few people with a very dubious past" who "put themselves on a pedestal of purity and immaculate behaviour" with respect to the situation in Sudan.
"To find the peace we are looking for, it would be important to begin by indicting people from powerful nations, not smaller ones," said d'Escoto, adding that "everyone knows who I am talking about. The biggest atrocity today is the one being committed in Iraq.".
THE POLITICS OF WAR CRIMES
First note that the ICC can now be viewed as a tool of hegemonic U.S. foreign policy, where the weapons deployed by the U.S. and its allies include the accusations of, and indictments for, human rights violations, war crimes and crimes against humanity. To understand this, we can ask why no white man has yet been charged with these or other offenses at the ICC—which now holds five black African “warlords” and seeks to incarcerate and bring to trial another black man, also an Arab, Omar Bashir. Why hasn’t George W. Bush been indicted? Or what about Donald Rumsfeld? Dick Cheney? Henry Kissinger? Ehud Olmert? Tony Blair? Vadim Alperin? John Bredenkamp?
Following on the heals of the announcement that the ICC handed down seven war crimes charges against al-Bashir, a story broadcast over all the Western media system and into every American living room by day’s end, President al-Bashir ordered the expulsion of ten international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) operating in Darfur under the pretense of being purely ‘humanitarian’ organizations.
What has not anywhere in the English press been reported is that the United States of America has just stepped up its ongoing war for control of Sudan and her resources: petroleum, copper, gold, uranium, fertile plantation lands for sugar and gum Arabic (essential to Coke, Pepsi and Ben & Jerry’s ice cream). This war has been playing out on the ground in Darfur through so-called ‘humanitarian’ NGOs, private military companies, ‘peacekeeping’ operations and covert military operations backed by the U.S. and its closest allies.
However, the U.S. war for Sudan has always revolved around ‘humanitarian’ operations—purportedly neutral and presumably concerned only about protecting innocent human lives—that often provide cover for clandestine destabilizing activities and interventions.
Americans need to recognize that the Administration of President Barack Obama has begun to step up war for control of Sudan in keeping with the permanent warfare agenda of both Republicans and Democrats. The current destabilization of Sudan mirrors the illegal covert guerrilla war carried out in Rwanda—also launched and supplied from Uganda—from October 1990 to July 1994. The Rwandan Defense Forces (then called the Rwandan Patriotic Army) led by Major General Paul Kagame achieved the U.S. objective of a coup d’etat in Rwanda through that campaign, and President Kagame has been a key interlocutor in the covert warfare underway in Darfur, Sudan.
During the Presidency of George W. Bush the U.S. Government was involved with the intelligence apparatus of the Government of Sudan (GoS). At the same time, other U.S. political and corporate factions were pressing for a declaration of genocide against the GoS. Now, given the shift of power and the appointment of top Clinton officials formerly involved in covert operations in Rwanda, Uganda, Congo and Sudan during the Clinton years, pressure has been applied to heighten the campaign to destabilize the GoS, portrayed as a ‘terrorist” Arab regime, but an entity operating outside the U.S.-controlled banking system. The former campaign saw overt military action with the U.S. military missile attacks against the Al-Shifa Pharmaceutical factory in Sudan (1998); this was an international war crime by the Clinton Administration and it involved officials now in power.
The complex geopolitical struggle to control Sudan manifests through the flashpoint war for Darfur and it involves such diverse factions as the Lord’s Resistance Army, backed by Khartoum, which is also connected to the wars in the Congo and northern Uganda. Chad is involved, Eritrea and Ethiopia, Germany, the Central African Republic, Libya, France, Israel, China, Taiwan, South Africa and Rwanda. There are U.S. special forces on the ground in the frontline states of Chad, Uganda, Ethiopia, Kenya, and the big questions are: [1] How many of the killings are being committed by U.S. proxy forces and blamed on al-Bashir and the GoS? And [2] who funds, arms and trains the rebel insurgents?
Read also Ex-UN Prosecutor: Bush May Be Next Up for International Criminal Court.
Also Bush may follow Bashir to The Hague.
Monday, February 9, 2009
The Petition of the Religious Leaders for 911 Truth
When faced with actions that conflict with the universal moral principle that we should not do to others what we would not want done to ourselves or our loved ones, members of faith communities have a responsibility to voice their opposition to those actions. Many religious leaders throughout history have publicly challenged morally unacceptable practices---recently, for example, in the civil rights and anti-apartheid movements.
A significant moral challenge has emerged due to glaring discrepancies between the official version of the events of September 11, 2001, and the results of extensive independent research by individuals with relevant scientific or professional expertise.
“Independent” here means independent from the U.S. administration that was in power at the time of the 9/11 attacks. The official reports about 9/11 were not independent in this sense. The 9/11 Commission was run by its executive director, Philip Zelikow, who was closely associated with the Bush administration. The official reports on the World Trade Center were produced by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, which, as an agency of the U.S. Commerce Department, was run by people employed by the Bush administration.
The independent research, which has led to conclusions that differ radically from the official account, has been carried out by scientists and professionals in many relevant fields. It has led to the creation of several professional organizations, including Veterans for 9/11 Truth, S.P.I.N.E.: The Scientific Panel for the Investigation of Nine-Eleven, Pilots for 9/11 Truth, Scholars for 9/11 Truth and Justice, Architects and Engineers for 9/11 Truth, Firefighters for 9/11 Truth, Lawyers for 9/11 Truth, Healthcare Professionals for 9/11 Truth, and Political Leaders for 9/11 Truth.
As a result of this extensive research carried out by scientists and professionals, it can now be seen that the official account of 9/11 is false beyond any reasonable doubt.
This conclusion presents a significant moral challenge because this false account has been used as the pretext for the so-called War on Terror, which has had enormous negative consequences, including:
- the killing and maiming of millions of innocent people;
- the portrayal of Islam as an inherently violent religion, of Muslims as especially likely to be terrorists, and of Muslim nations as devoid of any right not to be attacked;
- the employment of torture, extraordinary rendition, and other practices---including curtailment of the civil liberties of American citizens---that violate the US Constitution, international law, and the moral conscience of the world;
- the expenditure of hundreds of billions of dollars for militaristic, imperialistic purposes; and
- the acceleration of the ecological destruction of our planet, including widespread radioactive poisoning caused by depleted uranium munitions.
Religious leaders from every tradition are encouraged to sign the petition and thereby become members of Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth. "Religious Leaders" are here defined as people who exercise (or have exercised) a leadership role, whether in a lay or professional capacity, in or on behalf of some religious community or organization, or who teach (or have taught) religion from a faith perspective.
Becoming a member of Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth will not necessitate any further action other than signing the petition---although further action to spread 9/11 truth is certainly encouraged.
If you are ready to join Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth and would like to sign the petition, go to the Sign the Petition page and state your name, religious affiliation, and leadership role, along with (optional) anything you would like to say about your reason for signing.
PETITION
WHEREAS religious leaders seek to promote various universal values, including love, justice, and truth; and
WHEREAS religious leaders throughout history have spoken out on moral issues; and
WHEREAS the official account of 9/11 has been shown by scientists and professionals in relevant fields to be false beyond a reasonable doubt; and
WHEREAS the official account of 9/11 has been used as a pretext for wars that have killed and maimed millions of innocent people and caused enormous ecological damage to our planet; and
WHEREAS the official account of 9/11 has been used to increase military spending and thereby to withhold needed spending for health, education, welfare, infrastructure, and the environment; and
WHEREAS the official account of 9/11 has been used to indict Islam as an inherently violent religion and to justify discrimination against Muslims and attacks on Muslim countries; and
WHEREAS the official reports about 9/11 have been produced by individuals closely affiliated with, or even employed by, the Bush administration;
THEREFORE we, the undersigned members of Religious Leaders for 9/11 Truth, ask President Obama to authorize a new, truly independent, investigation into the attacks of 9/11 immediately, because such an investigation is long overdue, being owed to the 9/11 families, the American people, and the peoples of the world - especially the peoples of Afghanistan and Iraq.
Friday, January 30, 2009
Shoe Statue : Iraqi Honoring al-Zeidi
Now the bizarre attack has spawned a real life work of art. A sofa-sized statue of the shoe was unveiled Thursday in Tikrit, the hometown of the former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
Baghdad-based artist Laith al-Amari described the fiberglass-and-copper work as a tribute to the pride of the Iraqi people.
The statue is inscribed with a poem honoring Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the Iraqi journalist who stunned the world when he whipped off his loafers and hurled them at Bush during a press conference on Dec. 14.
In the Arab world, even showing someone the sole of a shoe is considered a sign of disrespect.
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Saturday, January 3, 2009
Thousands of Shoes Thrown on Miami Highway
A protest against President Bush, a reference to his recent shoe-dodging experience in Iraq.
Friday, December 19, 2008
Rice Said: Its all about U.S. geostrategical interest.
"And I’m especially, as a political scientist, not as Secretary of State, not as National Security Advisor, but as somebody who knows that structurally it matters that a geostrategically important country like Iraq is not Saddam Hussein’s Iraq."
Rice’s pride is misplaced. Indeed, leaving aside the fact that the war was predicated on false intelligence, Rice cannot credibly argue as a “political scientist” that invading Iraq was in the interest of the U.S. “geostrategically.”
Indeed, Iraq posed no military threat to the United States in 2003. As Rice herself explained in July of 2001, Saddam Hussein had been unable to reconstitute himself militarily following the 1991 Gulf War.
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
"Aggression Against a President"
Yet the worst that could have happened to Bush was nothing more than a black eye. It would be laughable to try this as a case of attempted murder. Yet the very idea that Iraq is a place where the rule of law exists is nothing but a very bad joke.
"Aggression against a president?" The real "aggression" here was launched by the chief executive of the most powerful nation on earth when he invaded a country that had never attacked us and posed no threat to our territory or legitimate interests. No word yet on whether al-Zeidi is claiming self-defense, but it makes sense to me. After suffering over 1 million dead and wounded and countless others rendered homeless, perhaps the Iraqi people can be forgiven for making al-Zeidi an instant folk hero. No Iraqi jury will ever convict him.
Read further Muntadar al-Zeidi: Hero, Martyr, Symbol of Resistance. Reach for your shoes…
Cheney Admits Authorizing Torture
In a new interview with ABC News, Vice President Cheney claimed that the case for war had nothing to do with whether Saddam Hussein had WMD; America would have invaded anyway. Today on MSNBC’s Hardball, right-wing commentator Frank Gaffney defended Cheney’s remarks, saying that the “real reason” the Bush administration wanted to invade Iraq was because Saddam was a “mortal threat” to the United States.
