TERRORISM

After 9/11 President Bush demanded the extradition of the terrorists who orchestrated the attacks saying "America has a message for the nations of the world: If you harbor terrorists, you are terrorists," certainly a legitimate claim. No matter what warped ideology they serve those who kill civilians for political purposes deserve to be brought to justice as do those who willfully obstruct that process. However if the U.S expects other nations to adhere to this standard then it must do the same.

Although the U.S government has declined to condemn the activities of former CIA agent Luis Possada Carriles the FBI has implicated him in dozens of attacks and the founding of a "terrorist umbrella organization" . He has acknowledged orchestrating a 1997 hotel bombing that killed an Italian tourist and injured 11 other people saying "it is sad that someone is dead, but we can't stop," and both Cuban and Venezuela have demanded his extradition in connection with an attack on a Cuban airliner that left 73 people dead. Posada has found refuge in the U.S where he currently lives in freedom.

A Federal judge denied the extradition request on the grounds that he would face torture and not receive a fair trial, of course he would probably face better treatment than the U.S accords to suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. Possada's flight from justice has led him to the U.S, a country he knows has a double standard when it comes to prosecuting crimes committed by pro-American militants. The government needs to either step up its efforts to extradite this man or try him in the U.S. At a time when the U.S claims to be at war with terrorism Possada's presence in this country is a disgrace, though it is hardly surprising.

"In 1985, when I was the Deputy Director of the Reagan White House Task Force on Terrorism. . .they asked us to come up with a definition of terrorism. . .[w]e produced about six, and each and every case, they were rejected, because careful reading would indicate that our own country had been involved in. . .those activities. . .certainly, you can think of a number of countries that have been involved in such activities. Ours is one of them. Israel is another."

-Former U.S diplomat Edward Peck

THINGS TO LEARN MORE ABOUT

Here's a list of a few topics I'm interested in learning more about. If anyone has any firsthand knowledge/expertise send me an e-mail or leave a comment here so I can get back to you. Also let me know if it would be all right to publish your responses to my questions.

1. Western Sahara

2. Darfur

3. DRC

4. Burma/Karen

5. Indonesia/independence movements

6. Tibet

7. Weegars

8. Tuareg

9. Haiti

10. Global Warming

11. Communism

12. Ethiopia

13. Chechnya

14. Judaism

15. Islam

16. Buddhism

17. Hinduism

18. Iran

19. The U.N

20. Sri Lanka

21. Pakistan

22. Afghanistan

23. Somalia

24. Kurdistan

25. Turkey

26. Serbia/Kosovo/the rest of the Balkans

27. Native Americans

28. The EU

29. U.S intervention in Latin America

30. Blackwater/other U.S mercenaries

NEVER AGAIN?

I Could Not Save a Single Child
by: ELLEN CANTAROW

When I was a child my mother used to cry, “I couldn’t save a single Jewish child.”

Now I am my mother: I cannot save a single child in Gaza.

Not the ones wrapped in green cocoons lying row on row, surrounded by throngs of grieving men. I cannot comfort the fathers who jump up and down in agony, screaming as their children lie dead before them on the ground.

I cannot comfort the mother whose eyes, ravaged and blanked by terror, stare beyond me from the photograph, nor save the little one with bloodied, bruised face who stands beside her, nor the older brother, the only two who survived of six. I cannot say, “Come, we have a big, comfortable basement with a bed for you and the children, and a bath, and plenty of food. We will take you and shelter you.” I cannot welcome them to a home full of calm, of sunlight, with the warmth of potted plants, the refrigerator full of food, the showers waiting to receive them, the warm water streaming down to comfort their bruised and tired bodies.

I cannot save a single Gaza child.

Not the ones I saw on Al-Jazeera lying dead with heads all bloodied, under blankets on the ravaged ground. Not the little one, 2, maybe 3, bloodied bandages covering her bloodied skull and face leaving me her bruised lips and part of one dull and hopeless eye, her helpless bigger sister, surely no more than 4, beside her. I cannot take her, bring her back to normal life, hug her and sing to her, hold her up against my piano and ask her to listen to the strings as I run my fingers over them, watch while her face lights up with pleasure as she spots my cats, hold her, hold her, and hold her….

I cannot save the little girl, maybe 5, who says the soldier stood and looked at her, then shot her hand and then, as she turned to run to her mother, her back: “One bullet went out my back and through my stomach.” Will doctors in a hospital the siege had already drained of medicines and equipment, a hospital where patients must share beds, where the floors are full of the wounded, and the blood pools around them --- will the doctors working quickly, as expertly as they know within the chaos of the terrified families pouring in from the terrified streets of Gaza City, will the doctors working as quickly as they know, but in this wasteland, save her?

I cannot save the newborn Mohammed, monitors on his chest, a respirator over his tiny face, born within the ground-shaking, ear-splitting terror of bombs falling from F16s, into a life from hell, where the smoke of exploding shells and bombs gags the other children, the women, the men, fleeing helpless before the behemoth wielding their “pure arms” to crush these “two-legged cockroaches,” these Palestinians of whom Golda Meir said, “There are no Palestinians,” and whom the Hebron settlers curse in savage scrawled grafitti: ARABS TO THE GAS CHAMBERS. These people concerning whom the Rabbi said, “One Arab is not worth a million Jewish fingernails.” Concerning whom Avigdor Lieberman, that man of the Israeli people, says, drop the atom bomb on them as the Americans did on Japan.

I cannot lift the dark-faced, dark-haired teenaged girl from the stretcher, rock her in my arms and say, “Darling, Shhh, it will be all right,” because it will not be alright. She is already dead, face down on the stretcher where the hopeless cover her body while I watch her image at my computer.

It will not be alright.

It will not be alright.

It will not be alright. I am my mother, and it is 1942 all over again, and this is the Warsaw Ghetto – different, I’ll admit. I’ll admit they aren’t killing everyone. Just some of them. Only 400. Only 600. Only 800. Only 1000. When does “collateral damage” become malice aforethought? When does that malice translate as “deaths?” When do deaths become “a massacre?” How many in a massacre? A holocaust? The shoa Mr. Vilnai wanted?

I cannot save a single child in Gaza. I am my mother, and we are weeping together.

ACCOUNTABILITY

During the campaign many hopefully asked if Barak Obama thought human rights was an issue where a departure from past policy would be appropriate. Today Barak Obama answered them with the appointment of the war criminal Adm. Dennis C. Blair to the post of Director of National Intelligence. From 1999 until his retirement from the Navy in 2002 Blair was commander of the U.S Pacific command, the highest ranking American military official in the region.

In April 1999 pro-Indonesian paramilitary death squads assisted by the Indonesian military went on a rampage at the Catholic church in Liquiçá hacking between 67 and 200 hundred people to death and plastering their flesh to the church walls. That same month a second massacre of civilians occurred at the home of pro-independence campaigner Manuel Carrascalao. Two day after the first massacre Blair met with Gen. Wiranto, head of the Indonesian military, and conveyed the message of continued U.S support and offered increased American military assistance, including aid to the Brimbb death squad that participated in the church massacre. Blair defied orders from the White House to instruct Wiranto to disband the militias. He invited the General to Hawaii as his personal guest. The message was clear, Wiranto continued the policy of terrorizing East Timor. Thousands of civilians died in the subaequnet violence.

Wiranto was charged with war crimes for his role in the violence of East Timor. Admiral Blair must also be held to account. Admiral Blair belongs in court, not in the nation's highest intelligence office. Obama is not naiive. He grew up in Indonesia. He knows exactly what was going on in East Timor with the complicity of Adm. Blair. The message is clear: if Obama ever was concerned about human rights he is now willing to violate them in order to advance perceived American interests.

CEASE FIRE NOW!

There is nothing more to say. There must be an immediate and unconditional cease fire in Gaza.