Finkelstein on Gaza

Norman Finkelstein in Austin: “Gaza and Peace, April 28, 2009.”

Here's ... Condi

Update: Post reports on 4th-Grader Questioning Rice on Waterboarding, she said it's legal.

Pathetic.

Said Condi last week at Stanford (April 27): Trust us; and the president says it's legal, then it's legal; and "We did not torture anyone" at Git-mo. No reason to doubt her integrity.

Here's the video of Condi answering questions at Stanford:

Obama Is Failing on Civil Liberties Reforms

Another major civil rights organization hits the Obama administration today.

The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) gives Barack Obama a harsh assessment on the administration's 100 day in office.

Concludes CCR:

The first 100 days of the Obama administration presented a historic opportunity to restore the Constitution after the Bush administration’s systematic attempts to dismantle it, right by right, while ignoring international human rights standards. Yet, 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

CCR joins the recently released Brennan Center for Justice's report card that reaches similar conclusions.

The CCR report reflects a growing sense of betrayal felt among many in the civil rights community who are wondering what's the hold-up on implementing fundamental democratic reforms. Coming from CCR, which grew out of the 1960s civil rights movement, the Obama administration's posture of having to be dragged kicking and screaming into reforming the Bush/Cheney constitutional abuses is mystifying.

The Center for Constitutional Rights is dedicated to advancing and protecting the rights guaranteed by the United States Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Founded in 1966 by attorneys who represented civil rights movements in the South, CCR is a non-profit legal and educational organization committed to the creative use of law as a positive force for social change.

I half expect to go to my In Box and read that Obama is calling for Real Voter ID, for Christ's sakes. C'mon!

ACLU Marks 60th Anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Not exactly something you'll find on American network television:

ACLU Marks 60th Anniversary Of Landmark Human Rights Document
New Administration Should Recommit To Principles Laid Out In The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights, Says Group

WASHINGTON - December 10 - On the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), the American Civil Liberties Union is calling on the incoming Obama administration to recommit to the rights and principles laid out in the document and use it as a guidepost for setting policy at home and abroad.

The UDHR was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948 to codify the basic human rights of all people, and is widely considered to be the founding document of the modern human rights movement. "The passage of the UDHR brought worldwide awareness of the basic rights and protections all people should enjoy," said Jamil Dakwar, Director of the ACLU Human Rights Program. "Sadly, eight years of disastrous policy by the Bush administration have put the very rights embodied by the UDHR in jeopardy. It is time to fix the damage that has been done and restore our nation's commitment to upholding and protecting human rights."

Following the horrors of World War II, the U.N. Commission on Human Rights, chaired by Eleanor Roosevelt, devoted itself exclusively to drafting the UDHR. The document, which was influenced by the U.S. Bill of Rights, contains 30 articles that detail specific rights that belong to all human beings everywhere, including civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights.

"Despite the prominent role the United States played in drafting the UDHR, we have failed to live up to our commitment to human rights at home and abroad," said Dakwar. "President-elect Obama and Congress can reestablish America as a leader on human rights at home and abroad by making policies that reaffirm our dedication to the principles laid out in the UDHR."
...

A full list of events is available online at: www.udhr60.org/udhr_events.html

More information about the UDHR, including a new publication by the ACLU, "Human Rights Begin at Home: Celebrating the 60th Anniversary of the UDHR," and a petition urging Congress and President-elect Obama to recommit the U.S. to the principles of the UDHR, is available online at: www.udhr60.org

"Nam, Nehnu Nastatyeh!" Is Arabic for "Yes, We Can!"

Update: Protest boat arrives in Gaza, despite Israel's vow to block it (Barak Ravid, Haaretz)

The Palestinians in Gaza will not stop believing that they are human beings.

By Ramzi Kysia

GAZA CITY, FREE PALESTINE (29 October 2008) - This morning I walked to the Indian Ocean and made salt in defiance of the British Occupation of India.

This morning I marched in Selma, I stood down tanks in Tiananmen Square, and I helped tear down the Berlin Wall.

This morning I became a Freedom Rider.

The Freedom Riders of the 21st Century are sailing small boats into the Gaza Strip in open defiance of the Israeli Occupation and blockade.

This morning I arrived in Gaza aboard the SS Dignity, part of a Free Gaza Movement delegation of twenty seven doctors, lawyers, teachers, and human rights activists from across the world, including Mairead Maguire - the 1976 Nobel Peace Prize laureate.

When I close my eyes, I still hear the crash of ocean waves, I still feel the warm sun on my face, and I still taste salt from the sea spray. When I close my eyes, I can still see the Israeli warship that tried to intimidate us when we reached the twenty-mile line outside Gaza, and I can still see a thousand cheering people crowding around our ship when we refused to be intimidated and finally reached port in Gaza City.

Today, the proudest boast in the free world is truly, "Nam, Nehnu Nastatyeh!" - "Yes, We Can!"

Dr. Mustafa Barghouti, an independent member of the Palestinian Legislative Council, sailed aboard the Dignity, along with six other Palestinians from the West Bank, from 1948/inside the Green Line, and from countries in Europe. What should have been a ninety-minute drive from Ramallah to Gaza City became a three day odyssey as he travelled from the West Bank to Jordan, then flew to Cyprus, before finally coming aboard the Dignity for the fifteen hour sea voyage to Gaza.

"We're challenging Israel in a manner that is unprecedented, " said Dr. Barghouti. "Israel has prevented me from visiting Gaza for more than two years now. I am so pleased that we managed to defy Israel's injustice so that I can see all the people I love and work with in Gaza. Israel's measures are meant to divide us, but it is our defiance and resistance which unite us. "

This is a resistance which can and should light the fire of all our imaginations, and bring hope not just to Palestinians, but to peoples suffering the terrible tides of oppression and injustice the world around.

After watching the Dignity's arrival, Fida Qishta, the local coordinator for the International Solidarity Movement (ISM) in the Gaza Strip, said "If Gaza is free then it's our right to invite whomsoever we wish to visit us. It's our land and it's our sea. Now more groups must come, not only by sea but also the crossings at Erez and Rafah must be opened as well. This second breaking of the siege means a lot, actually. It's the second time in two months that people have come to Gaza without Israel's permission, and that tells us that Gaza will be free."

For over forty years, Israel has occupied the Gaza Strip. Despite the so-called "Disengagement " in 2005, when they shut down their illegal settlements here, Israel maintains absolute control over Gaza's borders and airspace, severely limiting the free movement of goods, services, and travel. Israel is still an occupying power.

For over two years, Israel has maintained a brutal blockade of Gaza. Less than twenty percent of the supplies needed (as compared to 2005) are allowed in. This has forced ninety-five percent of local industries to shut down, resulting in massively increased unemployment and poverty rates. Childhood malnutrition has skyrocketed, and eighty percent of families are now dependent on international food aid just to be able to eat. An hour after we arrived, I watched a teenage boy digging through the garbage, looking for something he could use.
Israel's siege isn't simply illegal - it's intolerable.

Renowned human rights activist Caoimhe Butterly also sailed aboard the Dignity, and will remain in Gaza for several weeks as Project Coordinator for the Free Gaza Movement. But, said Butterly, "My feelings are bittersweet. Although we're overjoyed at reaching Gaza a second time, that joy is tempered by the fact that the conscience of the world has been reduced to a small boat and 27 seasick activists. This mission is a reminder of not only the efficacy of non-violent direct action, but also of the deafening silence of the international community."

Our first voyage in August, the first voyage of any international ship to Gaza in over forty years, showed that it was possible to freely travel. This second voyage shows that it is repeatable, and this sets a precedent: The Siege of Gaza can be overcome through non-violent resistance and direct action.

Today, the Free Gaza Movement has a simple message for the rest of the world: What are you waiting for?
-------
Ramzi Kysia is an Arab-American writer and activist, and one of the organizers of the Free Gaza Movement.

To find out more about Free Gaza and what you can do to help support their work, please visit http://www.freegaza.org/

Human Rights

Bush does torture.

- AP: Exams prove abuse, torture in Iraq, Gitmo

- General who probed Abu Ghraib says Bush officials committed war crimes

- The U.S. isn't likely to try Bush administration officials for war crimes-but it's likely that a European country will.

- Torture from the Top Down

- CIA Played Larger Role in Advising Pentagon Torture

Human Rights Groups and Documents

- United States Constitution
- Fourth Geneva Convention (full text)
- Human Rights First
- Universal Declaration of Human Rights

Nuremberg and Guantánamo Bay

“That four great nations, flushed with victory and stung with injury stay the hand of vengeance and voluntarily submit their captive enemies to the judgment of the law is one of the most significant tributes that Power has ever paid to Reason.”
— Justice Robert H. Jackson's Opening Statement before the International Military Tribunal, November 21, 1945, at Nuremberg, Germany in Case No. 1: The United States of America, the French Republic, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics v. Hermann Wilhelm Göring, et al.

This summer, the world will see how profoundly the United States has fallen when the administration's military tribunal-'kangaroo court' spectacle tries six 9/11 mass murderers using confession-obtained-by-torture evidence, secret evidence, and severely diminished due process in a judicial pretence so appalling that the Pentagon's own chief prosecutor, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, and two other prosecutors resigned in protest, as the administration has arranged for a rigged political show trial at which the world will be dismayed.

NYT: Fear of Exposure to Public Drove Suppression of CIA Torture Tapes

The 2,060 piece in today's New York Times tells the American public the essential story of the truly immoral regime that is the Bush administration.

See SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI's piece that one hopes leads to denunciations across the globe.

Not only did the CIA under Bush torture human beings, but they concealed and destroyed the taped evidence of torture for fear that the American public and Muslims would object. All the time, Bush and his drones blared: "We do not torture."

This contempt for democratic accountability makes the political illegitimacy of the Bush regime plain for all to see. Its contempt for human rights makes the Bush regime war criminals who ought to face trial.

From the Times:

But interviews with two dozen current and former officials, most of whom would speak about the classified program only on the condition of anonymity, revealed new details about why the tapes were made and then eliminated. Their accounts show how political and legal considerations competed with intelligence concerns in the handling of the tapes. ...

The discussion about the tapes took place in Congressional briefings and secret deliberations among top White House lawyers, including a meeting in May 2004 just days after photographs of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq had reminded the administration of the power of such images. The debate stretched over the tenure of two C.I.A. chiefs and became entangled in a feud between the agency’s top lawyers and its inspector general. The tapes documented a program so closely guarded that President Bush himself had agreed with the advice of intelligence officials that he not be told the locations of the secret C.I.A. prisons. Had there been no political or security considerations, videotaping every interrogation and preserving the tapes would make sense, according to several intelligence officials. ...

The investigations over the tapes frustrate some C.I.A. veterans, who say they believe that the agency is being unfairly blamed for policies of coercive interrogation approved at the top of the Bush administration and by some Congressional leaders. Intelligence officers are divided over the use of such methods as waterboarding.

###