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We've come a long way from the Magna Carta to legalizing torture and "kill lists"!
Friday June 15, 2012, happened to be the 797th anniversary of the day certain feudal barons in England confronted King John and asked him to guarantee a "charter of liberties" which eventually became the Magna Carta. So it was an appropriate day in June 2012: Torture Awareness Month, to think about the legal issues that have emerged with Eric Holder's and other Obama lawyers' equating of "due process" with the latest CIA and Pentagon "baseball cards kill list". Passers-by marked the Magna Carta anniversary from 11 am to 1 pm outside the Federal Courthouse in Minneapolis by taking a look at our well-footnoted display of visual panels tracing this once-proud history and contemplating some of the hard legal questions that naturally arise.
The ACLU has brought an active FOIA lawsuit seeking release of the recent Office of Legal Counsel memo that, according to Attorney General Holder, somehow gamely opines that "due process" can be any process that we do. It does not have to be "judicial process" but can instead be a CIA or Pentagon Power-Point as long as it's carefully and secretly compiled and put on glossy baseball cards. But some of us who didn't go to Harvard or Yale might question the soundness of this new-fangled targeted killing doctrine that seems to turn the Magna Carta on its head!
http://dl.dropbox.com/u/49024523/120611%20TORTURE-TIMELINE-COMPLETE-LARGE-FILE.pdf
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The whole history of civil laws in class deformed civil societies has been a war between social, inclusive rights, and class, exclusive, limited rights that corrupts into CLASS LAWS, selectively enforced, and in times of crisis, rejected wholesale for totalitarianism, Fascism. Just look at how corrupted the legal systems of the West have become. Glenn Greenwald has gone after the FASCIST JUDICIAL NAZIS, who justify totaltitarianism, torture, renditions, kidnappings, illegal covert and drone wars and capitualte to the FASCIST CONGRESS, FASCIST EXECUTIVE FUERER PRINCIPLE OF EMPIRE PRESIDENTS.
This class corruption has rotted out all 4 branches of government, if you include the rottern corporate media liars. Just look at how the corrupt legal systems in Egypt, in Amerika appease, corrupt justice for Empire Fascism, military fascism, as the Supreme Court recently refused to hear the habeus corpus cases of tortured prisoners,almost 95 percent of them innocent, doing one WORSE than Bush 's Fascism, rejecting the Habeus corpus principle by simply ALLOWING TORTURE, FASCISM, by refusing to hear the cases. Similarly, the Egyptian court system voided out the elections, the Parliament, and handed FACIST POLICE POWER TO THE MILITARY AND POLICE NAZIS, just as it was done in Germany through the corrupt social democrats and their emergency laws, or OBAMA and his states secrets laws, or Egypt judicial Nazis all involved in defending ascist foreign policies, fascist Empire, fascist austerity, fascist Capitalism, with the help of JUDICIAL THUGS.
Now it seems it is not enough to corrupt the Legisative branch, the Executive Branch, the Judical Branch, the corporate media, but even the class corruption of the U.N. through the Western monopoly control in the Security Council, or corruption of the U.N. nuclear agencey, the I.A.E.A., THEIR CORRUPT PUPPETS, can lie through their teeth regarding massacres or non existing nuclear weapons program, through Amano, the Japanese pawn for Fascist U.S. Now even the fascist Democrats have corrupted, co opted, substituted, falsely conflated HUMAN RIGHTS, with WESTERN CLASS/EMPIRE THUGGERY, by corrupting Human rights organizations through the mercenary roles of class hierarchies that serves class power, Empire fascism. THESE ARE DANGEROUS, CORRUPT GAMES, THAT CAN LEAD TO GLOBAL WAR AGAINST WESTERN FASCISM:
Dangerous Games in Syria
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2012/06/17-0
EXCERPT:
"Last week, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose presidential ambitions are increasingly evident, accused Russia of selling MI-24 helicopter gunships to Syria. Russia angrily denied the charge and asserted that US anti-riot gear was being used against demonstrators across the Mideast.
Washington scourged Syria for attacking civilian targets. Talk about the pot calling the kettle black. The same week, the US-installed president of Afghanistan pleaded with Washington to stop its air strikes that are killing many civilians. Pakistan’s feeble government begged Washington to halt its drone attacks.
The angry Russians could have added that the US has been buying rocket-armed Russian-made MI-17 combat helicopters from them for use by Afghan government forces, and using helicopter and AC-130 gunships in Afghanistan. Or citing US sales of advanced Apache attack helicopters to Israel that were used to attack civilian targets in Gaza.
Syria has long been a close ally of Moscow. US attempts to overthrow the Assad regime were sure to infuriate and alarm Moscow, which sees US plots everywhere to undermine Russia. The Kremlin must find a way to answer the US challenge or lose face.
Meanwhile, another US-Russia fracas is brewing up in the Caucasus. Relations between the two great powers are still raw due to the 2008 mini-war between Georgia and Russia over South Ossetia. Washington helped overthrow the former Georgian government of Eduard Shevardnadze in the so-called “Rose Revolution,” replacing him with close US ally, Mikhail Shakashvilli.
The new Georgian leader quickly turned his small Caucasian nation into a base for US and Israel intelligence and military operations. In 2008, Shakashvilli foolishly picked a fight with Russia. US warships were moved into the Black Sea, setting of a war scare in the region before tempers cooled.
Now, the US is back playing the Great Game in the Caucasus while the Georgia feud still simmers. This time it’s in oil-rich Azerbaijan, which has become a key American and Israeli ally. The Baku regime just bought $1.6 billion worth of Israeli arms.
Azerbaijan and Armenia, a close Russian ally, have been warring for a decade over disputed Nagorno-Karabakh. This obscure conflict is heating up again as Russia and the US back opposite sides.
CIA has been busy for some time trying to stir up Azeri separatists in northern Iran. The US and Israel might use Azerbaijan as a base to attack Iran.
As if Russo-American relations were not bad enough, US Republicans demand President Barack Obama “get tough” with Moscow. Threats fly back and forth over the planned US missile defense shield in Eastern Europe that enrages the Kremlin.
Provoking or antagonizing Russia over areas that are of no vital US strategic interest is dangerous and childish. Moscow and Washington should be seeking peaceful resolutions in Syria and the Caucasus, not playing silly Cold War games...."
THESE DEMOCRATIC FASCISTS ARE JUST AS BAD , EVEN WORSE THAN BUSH FASCISTS.....NOW A READER AND COMMENTER POINTS OUT THAT THEY HAVE PUT IN SUSAN NOZZEL, A FORMER AIDE TO THE EMPIRE WHORE AND THUG , HILLARY INTO AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL , A HUMAN RIGHTS ORGANIZATION, GLORIFYING NATO NAZIS:
SICK WESTERN CORRUPTION LEADS TO FASCIST TOTALITARIAN DEMOCRATS, REPUBLICANS, WESTERN/NATO THUGS