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Sign On: Crimes Are Crimes – No Matter Who Does Them
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In the past few weeks, it has become common knowledge that Barack Obama has openly ordered the assassination of an American citizen, Anwar al-Awlaki, because he is suspected of participating in plots by Al Qaeda. Al-Awlaki denies these charges. No matter. Without trial or other judicial proceeding, the administration has simply put him on the to-be-killed list.
During this same period, a video leaked by whistleblowers in the military showing U.S. troops firing on an unarmed party of Iraqis in 2007, including two journalists, and then firing on those who attempted to rescue them – including two children – became public. As ugly as this video of the killing of 12 Iraqis was, the chatter recorded from the helicopter cockpit was even more chilling and monstrous. Yet the Pentagon said that there would be no charges against these soldiers; and the media focused on absolving them of blame – “they were under stress,” the story went, “and after all our brave men and women must be supported.” Meanwhile, those who leaked and publicized the video came under government surveillance and are targeted as “national security” threats.
Also during this period, the Pentagon acknowledged, after denials, a massacre near the city of Gardez, Afghanistan, on February 12, 2010, in which 5 people were killed, including two pregnant women, leaving 16 children motherless. The U.S. military first said the two men killed were insurgents, and the women, victims of a family “honor killing.” The Afghan government has accepted the eyewitness reports that U.S. Special Forces killed the men, (a police officer and lawyer) and the women, and then dug their own bullets out of the women’s bodies to destroy evidence. Top U.S. military officials have now admitted that U.S. soldiers killed the family in their house.
Just weeks earlier, a story broken in Harper’s by Scott Horton carried news that three supposed suicides of detainees in Guantánamo in 2006 were not actual suicides, but homicides carried out by American personnel. This passed almost without comment.
In some respects, this is worse than Bush. First, because Obama has claimed the right to assassinate American citizens whom he suspects of “terrorism,” merely on the grounds of his own suspicion or that of the CIA, something Bush never claimed publicly. Second, Obama says that the government can detain you indefinitely, even if you have been exonerated in a trial, and he has publicly floated the idea of “preventive detention." Third, the Obama administration, in expanding the use of unmanned drone attacks, argues that the U.S. has the authority under international law to use such lethal force and extrajudicial killing in sovereign countries with which it is not at war.
Such measures by Bush were widely considered by liberals and progressives to be outrages and were roundly, and correctly, protested. But those acts which may have been construed (wishfully or not) as anomalies under the Bush regime, have now been consecrated into “standard operating procedure” by Obama, who claims, as did Bush, executive privilege and state secrecy in defending the crime of aggressive war.
Unsurprisingly, the Obama administration has refused to prosecute any members of the Bush regime who are responsible for war crimes, including some who admitted to waterboarding and other forms of torture, thereby making their actions acceptable for him or any future president, Democrat or Republican.
We must end the complicity of silence and say loud and clear:
The things that were crimes under Bush are crimes under Obama.
Outrages under Bush are outrages under Obama.
All this MUST STOP.
And all this MUST BE RESISTED by anyone who claims a shred of conscience or integrity.
Add your name here to growing list of signers of this statement.
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When all three branches, and if you include the corrupt corporate media, the fourth branch, are defending both the selective double standard of class laws, that now, have degenerated into legalizing fascism, criminality, and the complete BREAKDOWN OF THE RULE OF LAWS, you are promoting FASCISM. The routine failure to uphold international, constitutional principles, inherent human rights is being appeased by Liberal class whores, conservative class thugs, and cheered on by the corrupt corporate media.
Such a massive failure in civil society, means we are marching towards Fascism, class tyranny, and dictatorship:
Chomsky Warns of Risk of Fascism in America
http://www.progressive.org/wx041210.html
"He cited a statistic from a recent poll showing that half the unaffiliated voters say the average tea party member is closer to them than anyone else.
“Ridiculing the tea party shenanigans is a serious error,” Chomsky said.
Their attitudes “are understandable,” he said. “For over 30 years, real incomes have stagnated or declined. This is in large part the consequence of the decision in the 1970s to financialize the economy.”
There is class resentment, he noted. “The bankers, who are primarily responsible for the crisis, are now reveling in record bonuses while official unemployment is around 10 percent and unemployment in the manufacturing sector is at Depression-era levels,” he said.
And Obama is linked to the bankers, Chomsky explained.
“The financial industry preferred Obama to McCain,” he said. “They expected to be rewarded and they were. Then Obama began to criticize greedy bankers and proposed measures to regulate them. And the punishment for this was very swift: They were going to shift their money to the Republicans. So Obama said bankers are “fine guys” and assured the business world: ‘I, like most of the American people, don't begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free-market system.’
People see that and are not happy about it.”
SAY SIEG HEIL TO THE CORPORATE, IMPERIAL APPEASER, FASCIST APPEASER....OBAMA. He has paralyzed the opposition, with his MANY betrayals, allowing the know nothings, racists, fascists, scapegoaters of Muslims, immigrants to open the back door, that will ultimately open the front door, from inside, to a class tyrant.....who is even more criminal and corrupt than Obama and Bush.
Take a look at this....Between American Empire and NATO NAZIS.......they now are corrupting, funding Pakistan military fascists who just murdered dozens more civilians, with American missles killing another 13 civilians.
THESE CRIMINAL FASCIST PIGS, AND THEIR FASCIST MILITARY ALLIANCES....will force the world to take on their NAZI CORPORATE, MILITARY SHITS.........
Around the world people will vote against EVERY CLASS PARTY, EVERY CORPORATE PARTY, EVERY MILITARY NAZI SHIT, EVERY LIBERAL WHORING, CONSERVATIVE ELITE AND THUG.......
AND SMASH THESE WESTERN CRIMINAL ALLIANCES AND THEIR FASCISM:
Pakistan Airstrike Kills 71 Civilians: Official
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/04/13-5
EXCERPT:
"Up to 71 civilians were killed in a weekend strike by Pakistani jets near the Afghan border, survivors and a government official said Tuesday — a rare confirmation of civilian casualties that risks undercutting public support for the fight against militants.
Pakistani tribal elders gathered on Monday, April 12, 2010 in Khyber, Pakistan to discuss the situation raised after Pakistan army jets's air strikes on alleged suspected insurgents in Pakistani tribal area along Afghanistan border. More than 200,000 people have fled Pakistan's latest offensive against Taliban militants in the northwest, the United Nations said Monday, as fresh clashes in the remote region killed 41 insurgents and two soldiers. (AP Photo/Qazi Rauf)The government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said authorities had already handed out the equivalent of $125,000 in compensation to families of the victims in a remote village in the Khyber tribal area.
Also Tuesday, a village elder claimed 13 civilians had been killed in U.S. missile strike on Monday night elsewhere in the northwest, contesting accounts by Pakistani security officials that four militants were killed.
Pakistan's tribal regions are largely out of bounds for reporters and dangerous to visit because of the likelihood of being abducted by militants, who still control much of the area, making it very difficult to verify casualty figures.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas on Monday denied that any of the dead in the Pakistani air force attack were civilians, saying the army had intelligence that militants were gathering at the site of the strike. The victims were initially reported to be suspected militants."
THERE IS THAT ORWELLIAN, TOTALITARIAN TERMINOLOGY AGAIN:
"SUSPECTED" MILITANTS....WHERE ALL CIVILIANS ARE MURDERED BY WESTERN NAZI INTELLIGENCE...MOST LIKELY AMERICAN FASCISTS.
IF THIS KEEPS UP, THE PEOPLE IN PAKISTAN, WILL TAKE DOWN THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT....THANKS TO THE FASCIST APPEASING LIBERAL WHORES, IMPERIAL WHORES OF AMERICAN EMPIRE. OBAMA IS SMASHING UP THE WORLD, BUT THE WORLD WILL SMASH HIS CRIMINAL EMPIRE.
So Obama is involved in War crimes within American Empire, but is also involved in the complicit crimes of Zionist fascists, allies of liberal appeasing fascist whores, like Obama and democrats........and of Neocon fascists for Zionist fascists in Israel:
Palestinians Condemn Israeli Order (video)
http://www.commondreams.org/video/2010/04/13-1
Will Obama reject the fascist criminalty of Zionism??? Hardly.... he supports the fascist criminality of American Empire and fascist Zionists!!! Two fascist, Western peas in the POD.
Whistleblowing Israeli Journalist Treated as "Fugitive Felon"
Mossad Operation Threatened Against Reporter
http://www.counterpunch.org/cook04132010.html
Israel loves American Fascism....and American Empire love Zionist Fascism......Western criminal alliances, fascist alliances by Obama the liberal class whore, and Bush the conservaitve class thug.......BOTH CRIMINAL ALLIANCES.
THESE F******CKING NAZI ZIONISTS HAVE, LIKE AMERICAN FASCISTS NOT LEARNED ANYTHING FROM NAZISIM/FASCISM..........THEY HAVE LEARNED TO BECOME NAZIS, THEMSELVES....SCREW THESE FASCIST, CRIMIINAL ZIONIST SHITS, AND THEIR COMPLICIT CRIMIINAL WHORES, DEMOCRATIC APPEASING FASCIST SHITS, OBAMA AND THE DEMOCRATIC WHORES.
IF THEY KIDNAP THIS JOURNALIST, AND PROSECUTE, IMPRISON HIM/HER......KILL HIM/HER......MAY THESE ZIONIST NAZIS HANG LIKE THE GERMAN NAZIS FOR THESE CRIMES......SIEG HEIL