1. “Memorial Day is not actually a day to pray for U.S. troops who died in action but rather a day set aside by Congress to pray for peace. The 1950 Joint Resolution of Congress which created Memorial Day says: “Requesting the President to issue a proclamation designating May 30, Memorial Day, as a day for a Nation-wide prayer for peace.” (64 Stat.158).”
Take a look at the long list of interventions. It is sickening:
http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2008/05/26/9198/
2. “US Promises to Fully Fund Israeli Missile Defense System, While Cutting Its Own
Even as Secretary of Defense Robert Gates was being raked over the coals in Congress for the decision to cut funding to America’s missile defense systems, Israeli defense officials have revealed that Israel’s own Arrow 3 missile defense system will be “fully funded” by the United States yet again this year.“
3. “How long does it take a mild-mannered, anti-war, black professor of constitutional law, trained as a community organiser on the South Side of Chicago, to become an enthusiastic sponsor of targeted assassinations, ‘decapitation’ strategies and remote-control bombing of mud houses at the far end of the globe?
There’s nothing surprising here. As far back as President Woodrow Wilson, in the early 20th century, American liberalism has been swift to flex its imperial muscle and whistle up the Marines. High-explosive has always been in the hormone shot.“
The New York Times is reporting :
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…
“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.
What justification could their possibly be for refusing someone a trial? Remember, there are well-established procedures for making sure that sensitive information which would actually detrimental to national security if released is kept away from the general public, such as “in camera” hearings (which is legal talk for a hearing held “in chambers”).
Is Obama saying that an American citizen living inside the United States (America is presumably not a legitimate battlefield like Afghanistan – but see this) can be indefinitely detained without trial because Obama considers him a risk to national security?
What would constitute a risk to national security warranting detention? Revealing unlawful actions by the Bush administration? The Obama administration? Criticizing Obama?
Will the former constitutional law professor (Obama) use his knowledge of the law to safeguard the constitution, or – like the authors of the torture memos – to subvert it?“
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/obama-is-considering-doing-something.html
Former Congresswoman and prosecutor Liz Holtzman makes a good point:
The criminal justice system identified and convicted some of those involved in the 1993 World Trade Center attacks. By contrast, not one person has been prosecuted for the 9/11 attacks, although seven and a half years have gone by. Even Khalid Sheik Mohammed, one of the masterminds of 9/11, is unlikely ever to be convicted in US courts because he was repeatedly subjected to torture. Significantly, the cruel and torturous methods used on detainees never yielded enough information to capture Osama Bin Laden or his chief deputy. So much for the claims of torture’s efficacy.
Of course, KSM is only the “alleged” mastermind, and the government’s story has never been verified.
And the FBI had penetrated the cell which carried out the 1993 world trade center bombing, but had — at the last minute — canceled the plan to have its FBI infiltrator substitute fake powder for real explosives, against the infiltrator’s strong wishes (summary version is free; full version is pay-per-view)? See also this TV news report.
But Holtzman’s basic point is a good one.“
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/congresswoman-not-one-person-has-been.html
6. “Russia Dumps Dollar as Reserve Currency – Adopts Euro
Pravda wrote yesterday:
The US dollar is not Russia’s basic reserve currency anymore. The euro-based share of reserve assets of Russia’s Central Bank increased to the level of 47.5 percent as of January 1, 2009 and exceeded the investments in dollar assets, which made up 41.5 percent, The Vedomosti newspaper wrote.
The dollar has thus lost the status of the basic reserve currency for the Russian Central Bank, the annual report, which the bank provided to the State Duma, said…
The change of the structure of the currency portfolio of the Bank of Russia has not affected the official peg of the dual currency basket, which includes $0.55 and 0.45 EUR.
Anyone see a trend?“
http://www.washingtonsblog.com/2009/05/russia-dumps-dollar-as-reserve-currency.html
7. About Obama’s speech this morning:
“Immediately reacting to speeches of this type, as I’ve done here, is always a perilous undertaking, since it generally helps to be able to reflect on what one has heard. It ought to be apparent that my reaction to Obama’s speech was fairly mixed. There were some very well-delivered and well-argued parts — ones that were important. And one sees the potency of the bipartisan political opposition — and the vindictive conniving from some of Washington’s permanent power centers in the intelligence and military community — triggered by even by the mildest of changes, such as the closing of Guantanamo and the release of the OLC memos. Challenging that opposition, even rhetorically, entails political costs and deserves some credit. But I’m always going to assess Obama based on what he does, not on what he says.
Ultimately, what I find most harmful about his embrace of things like preventive detention, concealment of torture evidence, opposition to investigations and the like is that these policies are now no longer just right-wing dogma but also the ideas that many defenders of his – Democrats, liberals, progressives — will defend as well. Even if it’s due to perceived political necessity, the more Obama embraces core Bush terrorism policies and assumptions — we’re fighting a “war on terror”; Presidents have the power to indefinitely and “preventatively” imprison people with no charges; we can create new due-process-abridging tribunals when it suits us; the ”Battlefield” is everywhere; we should conceal evidence when it will make us look bad — the more those premises are transformed from right-wing dogma into the prongs of bipartisan consensus, no longer just advocated by Bush followers but by many Obama defenders as well. The fact that it’s all wrapped up in eloquent rhetoric about the rule of law, our Constitution and our “timeless values” — and the fact that his understanding of those values is more evident than his predecessor’s — only heightens the concern.
So now, we’re going to have huge numbers of people who spent the last eight years vehemently opposing such ideas running around arguing that we’re waging a War against Terrorism, a “War President” must have the power to indefinitely lock people away who allegedly pose a “threat to Americans” but haven’t violated any laws, our normal court system can’t be trusted to decide who is guilty, Terrorists don’t deserve the same rights as Americans, the primary obligation of the President is to “keep us safe,” and — most of all — anyone who objects to or disagrees with any of that is a leftist purist ideologue who doesn’t really care about national security. In other words, arguments and rhetoric that were once confined to Fox News/Bush-following precincts will now become mainstream Democratic argumentation in service of defending what Obama is doing. That’s the most harmful part of this — it trains the other half of the citizenry to now become fervent admirers and defenders of some rather extreme presidential “war powers.”
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
