This cartoon makes a serious point… people are being picked up outside of the USA, outside of the reach of its laws, brought to US territory, then, held for an indefinite period without any legal representation. Did you see where American kangaroo courts are sentencing drivers (!)… Erich Kempka, Hitler’s driver, wasn’t charged before a court… it shows you the callous barbarity and godless inhumanity of the GOP mindset.
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Barack Obama promised to close the prison at Guantánamo immediately after taking office. However, he has faced very stubborn opposition…
The detainees held at the American prison at Guantánamo Bay (Cuba) are hostages to the domestic political turmoil in the USA. There was a vote in the House of Representatives; the majority approved a bill prohibiting the closing of the prison in 2011, as President Obama promised. This action dealt another blow to Mr Obama’s attempts to close this special prison… it has blemished America’s reputation. According to human rights advocates, as well as the testimony of former Guantánamo detainees themselves, the Bush administration authorised and used torture, including simulated drowning, sleep deprivation, and exposure to loud noises. More than 775 foreign captives passed through this prison. What is more, most of them were not even formally charged. Immediately after taking office, President Obama signed an executive order to close the prison at Guantánamo Bay within a year. However, his administration has failed to carry this order out, mainly due to resistance from the opposition Republican Party. Characteristically, on the eve of a vote in the House of Representatives, a report prepared by the unit director of national intelligence, James Clapper, claimed that many former Guantánamo prisoners returned to terrorist activities.
VOR interviewed Viktor Kremenyuk, the Deputy Director of the Institute of the USA and Canada, who said, “This gave additional trump cards to Mr Obama’s opponents in Congress. Originally, the president wanted to clean out the Augean stable left by the Bush administration. He wanted to bring clarity, a certain honesty, and transparency to American foreign policy in order to prove that the United States is still a responsible major power that follows the accepted norms, with which one can cooperate. In this respect, of course, there are a lot of people in the US Congress, and many others besides, that don’t like that very much. They want just the opposite… they want the USA to act as a power that everyone else should fear. Therefore, President Barack Obama has faced and will face very stubborn opposition. Will he manage to overcome it? Only time will tell”.
In any case, it’s obvious that the pattern of flagrant and gross violations of human rights and international law by the USA, exemplified by its prison at Guantánamo Bay, must stop. Human rights activists and politicians from different countries, including America’s closest European allies in NATO, demand this.
9 December 2010
Vyacheslav Solovyov
Voice of Russia World Service
http://rus.ruvr.ru/2010/12/09/36505074.html
Editor’s Note:
The Republican Party approves of torture. It set up secret torture facilities in Romania, the Ukraine, Lithuania, and Bulgaria. The Republican Party approves of indefinite detention without trial. We see that at the GOP GULag at Guantánamo Bay. The Republican Party approves of attacking sleeping civilians without warning or a declaration of war. We saw this in the American sponsored war in South Ossetia.
By the way, these were among the reasons why the USA went to war against Nazi Germany. I seem to think that the USA has degenerated in its commitment to moral principles since 1941… but the Left was NOT the cause of it… warmongering and money-grubbing by wingnut right-wing Republicans caused the lot of it. It’s causing many honest people to leave the Republican Party in disgust (or, at least, to cease supporting it). Here’s a partial list:
- Frank Schaeffer
- C C Goldwater
- Julie Nixon Eisenhower
- Christopher Buckley
- Wick Allison
I have joined this list (obviously, as a rather lowly ranker, but I’m there). I also note that nasty konvertsy once placed a lying little note in the OrthoWiki article on Mr Schaeffer claiming that his Orthodoxy was suspect… it disappeared, as well it should have! The konvertsy are out of step with the Church, not Frank Schaeffer!
Ye cannot serve both God and Mammon…
Our Lord Christ said that… I didn’t. Either you can follow Christ, by following His servants, such as His Holiness Patriarch Kirill, or, you can bow before Mammon, by listening to Satan’s servants such as Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and Sarah Palin… who tempt you by putting visions of unearned wealth and untrammelled power in your heads.
Don’t be foolish… choose Christ… choose His Holiness… reject Satan and his Unholy Three Stooges. Then, we can close the GULag at Guantánamo, we can stop aiding Neo-Nazis in Croatia, Kosovo, and the Baltic States, we can stop propping up Islamofascists in Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia, and we can seek justice for the Palestinians… then, we’ll have a REAL peace, and we won’t need cameras on every street corner, guards in every government building, or have a “need” to “touch his junk”.
Think on it.
BMD
