GEERT MAK HOOPT DAT OBAMA WINT
'Het is beter
voor Nederland en de internationale gemeenschap dat Obama de verkiezingen
wint.' Dat stelt Geert Mak, hij schreef het boek 'Reizen zonder John' over zijn
reis door de VS.
Nu de werkelijkheid zoals
beschreven door kritische Amerikanen:
Presidential war
making: Are there any limits to the president’s war powers in the
so-called ‘war on terror’? Contrary to expectations, Obama has broadened the
Bush administration’s view that the congressional resolution authorizing the
pursuit of Al Qaeda after 9/11 gives the president the right to attack any
suspect group in any country as long as there are terrorists—in other words,
forever. That prerogative is said to include the power to kill anyone (including
US citizens) that the president decides poses a terrorist threat to the United
States.
Op zijn beurt schrijft de voormalige New York Times-correspondent en
bestseller auteur Chris Hedges:
Over the past year I and other plaintiffs including
Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg have pressed a lawsuit in the federal courts
to nullify Section 1021(b)(2) of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).
This egregious section, which permits the government to use the military to
detain U.S. citizens, strip them of due process and hold them indefinitely in
military detention centers, could have been easily fixed by Congress. The
Senate and House had the opportunity this month to include in the 2013 version
of the NDAA an unequivocal statement that all U.S. citizens would be exempt
from 1021(b)(2), leaving the section to apply only to foreigners. But restoring
due process for citizens was something the Republicans and the Democrats, along
with the White House, refused to do. The fate of some of our most basic and
important rights—ones enshrined in the Bill of Rights as well as the Fourth and
Fifth amendments of the Constitution—will be decided in the next few months in
the courts. If the courts fail us, a gulag state will be cemented into place.
Tegelijkertijd meldt Amnesty International over de
Obama-regering:
Guantánamo: In his
second term Obama must correct human rights failure
President Barack
Obama must revisit the promise he made in 2009 to close the Guantánamo
detention facility and this time commit the USA to releasing the detainees or
bringing them to fair trial, Amnesty International said ahead of the 11th
anniversary of the first detainee transfers to the US naval base in Cuba and
just days before his re-inauguration as president…
‘The USA’s claim
that it is a champion of human rights cannot survive the Guantánamo detentions,
the military commission trials, or the absence of accountability and remedy for
past abuses by US personnel, including the crimes under international law of
torture and enforced disappearance,’
said Rob Freer, USA researcher at Amnesty International.
After first taking office in January 2009, President Obama
pledged to resolve the Guantánamo detentions and close the facility within a
year.
He also ordered an end to the Central Intelligence
Agency’s use of ‘enhanced’ interrogation techniques and long-term ‘black sites’.
But President Obama adopted the USA’s unilateral and
flawed ‘global war’
paradigm and accepted indefinite detentions under this framework
Then, in 2010, his administration announced that it had
decided that four dozen of the Guantánamo detainees could neither be prosecuted
nor released, but should remain in indefinite military detention without charge
or criminal trial. The administration also imposed a moratorium on repatriation
of Yemeni detainees and said that 30 such detainees would be held in
‘conditional’ detention based on ‘current security
conditions in Yemen’. This moratorium is
still in place.
The Obama administration has blamed its failure to close
the Guantánamo detention facility on Congress, which has repeatedly
blocked the USA from meeting its human rights obligations in this context. On 2
January 2013, President Obama nevertheless signed the National Defense
Authorization Act, while criticizing provisions in the Act which once again
placed obstacles in the way of resolving Guantánamo detainee cases.
Details of where such detainees were held in CIA custody
and how they were treated continues to be classified at the highest levels of
secrecy.
Last month the military judge overseeing the ‘9/11’ trial signed a
protective order to prevent disclosure of such details during proceedings,
purportedly on national security grounds. Information concerning gross violations
of human rights or serious violations of international humanitarian law should
never be kept secret on national security grounds.
Further pre-trial proceedings in all six cases are
scheduled to take place at Guantánamo later this month.
For further information, see:
De onafhankelijke Amerikaanse website AlterNet concludeert:
President Obama now has power that Bush never had.
Foremost is he can (and has) order the killing of U.S. citizens abroad who are
deemed terrorists. Like Bush, he has asked the Justice Department to draft
secret memos authorizing his actions without going before a federal court or
disclosing them. Obama has continued indefinite detentions at Gitmo, but also
brought the policy ashore by signing the National Defense Authorization Act of
2012, which authorizes the military to arrest and indefinitely detain anyone
suspected of assisting terrorists, even citizens.
How Obama Became a Civil Libertarian's Nightmare
Obama has
expanded and fortified many of the Bush administration's worst policies.
When Barack Obama took office, he was the civil
liberties communities’ great hope. Obama, a former constitutional law
professor, pledged to shutter the military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and
run a transparent and open government. But he has become a civil libertarian’s
nightmare: a supposedly liberal president who instead has expanded and
fortified many of the Bush administration’s worst policies, lending bipartisan
support for a more intrusive and authoritarian federal government.
Toch blijft de mainstream in de polder vasthouden aan het beeld van de VS als ‘ordebewaker.’ De grote schrijver Heinrich Heine schijnt ooit
eens het volgendende te hebben opgemerkt: ‘Als het einde van de
wereld gekomen is, ga ik naar Nederland, want daar gebeurt alles 50 jaar
later.’ Maar dat was nog voordat de atoombom was uitgevonden. Omdat ook President Obama ‘crimes under international law of
torture and enforced disappearance,’ sanctioneert en zelfs moord is sprake van regressie. Todorov heeft gelijk wanneer hij
stelt dat
Subjugating a country after bombarding it, killing
thousands, leaving tens of thousands homeless, practicing arbitrary
imprisonment, brutality and torture, are simply ways of exporting ‘Western
values’ that compromise them permanently.
Dit geweld is niet alleen immoreel maar ook contraproductief. Todorov:
Let me remind the reader in a few words of the kind of
treatments inflicted on prisoners that ‘do not amount to torture,’ as reported in the international press. In prisons
scattered throughout countries outside the US, the detainees have been
regularly raped, hung from hooks, immersed in water, burned, attached to
electrodes, deprived of food, water or medicine, attacked by dogs, and beaten
until their bones are broken. On military bases or on US territory, they have
been subjected to sensory deprivation and to other violent sensory treatments –
forced to wear headphones so they cannot hear, hoods so they cannot see,
surgical masks to keep them from smelling and thick gloves that interfere with
the sense of touch. They have been subjected to nonstop ‘white noise’ or to the
irregular alternation of deafening noise and total silence; prevented from
sleeping, either by the use of bright lights or by being subjected to
interrogations that can last 20 hours on end, 48 days in a row; and taken from
extreme cold to extreme heat and vice versa. None of these methods cause ‘the
impairment of bodily function’ but they are known to cause the rapid
destruction of personal identity.
'Het is beter
voor Nederland en de internationale gemeenschap dat Obama de verkiezingen
wint.'
In tegenstelling tot Mak,
schrijft Tzvetan Todorov in Torture and the War on Terror op onze eigen
Europese verantwoordelijkheid door erop te wijzen dat
the leaders of the
European Union cannot consider
that their own responsibility is not implicated in the torture that is more or
less overtly acknowleged by the US government. The secret services of their
countries have actively collaborated with their American counterparts,
delivering information and contacts that lead to arrests and hence eventually
to torture. Such practices, even though they have been proven, have not
elicited the slightest official condemnation from the French, British or
Spanish governments, and the fact is that silence implies consent… And
governments are not the only ones that have responsibility in this matter.
Insofar as you, I, and other citizens of the countries do not speak up against
torture, we become accomplices to its continued use.
En dat geldt zeker voor ‘Amerika-deskundigen’ die de VS
kwalificieren als ‘ordebewaker en
politieagent’ van de international ‘orde,’
maar niet onderzoeken
hoe het mogelijk is dat in een democratie een totalitair instrument als
martelen weer gelegaliseerd is. Dit is des te opmerkelijker omdat we hier niet
te maken hebben met een futiliteit maar met een fundamentele zaak, want
If the state itself
becomes the torturer, how can we believe in the civil order that it claims to
bring or to sanction? Legal torture extends the scope of the destructive action
that it exerts. Instead of stopping with the torturer and the victim, it
spreads to all members of society, since they know that it is being practiced
in their name and yet they avert their eyes and do nothing to put an end to it.
De mainstream opiniemakers in
Nederland trekken zich daar niets van aan, door die terreur niet te onderzoeken en tot een issue te maken, terwijl
these same
democracies can adopt totalitarian attitudes without changing their overall
structure. This cancer doest not eat away at a single individual; its
metastases are found in people who thought they had eradicated it in others and
consider themselves immune.
Uiteindelijk komt de barbarij van
binnenuit en luidt doorgaans de ineenstorting in van een beschaving. Feit is
dat ‘Torture leaves an indelible mark
– not only on the victim but also on the torturer.’ Aangezien wraak het
enige echte motief is van folter verliest een cultuur zijn beschaving en is het
weer oog om oog, het aloude lex talionis. Todorov:
When we terrorize terrorists, we
indicate our willingness to become their image in the mirror and to be even
more determined as terrorists than they have been.
It is in this need to punish the
agents of evil that accounts for the persistence of torture throughout history.
This is the real reason for the torture acknowledged by the US government and
the broader reason for the support mustered among its citizens to engage in the
Iraq War and to embark on a generalized ‘war on terrorism.’
Noam Chomsky wijst erop dat de schendingen van fundamentele mensenrechten onder Obama gewoon doorgaan:
Obama has sharply increased the
global assassination campaign. While it was initiated by Bush, it has expanded
under Obama and it has included American citizens, again with bipartisan
support and very little criticism other than some minor criticism because it
was an American. But then again, why should you have the right to assassinate
anybody? For example, suppose Iran was assassinating members of Congress who
were calling for an attack on Iran. Would we think that’s fine? That would be
much more justified, but of course we’d see that as an act of war. The real
question is, why assassinate anyone? The government has made it very clear that
the assassinations are personally approved by Obama and the criteria for
assassination are very weak. If a group of men are seen somewhere by a drone
who are, say, loading something into a truck, and there is some suspicion that
maybe they are militants, then it’s fine to kill them and they are regarded as
guilty unless, subsequently, they are shown to be innocent. That’s the wording
that the United States used and it is such a gross violation of fundamental
human rights that you can hardly talk about it.
The question of due process actually did arise, since
the US does have a constitution and it says that no person shall be deprived of
their rights without due process of law – again, this goes back to 13th Century
England – so the question arose, ‘What about due process?’ The Obama Justice Department’s Attorney
General, Eric Holder, explained that there was due process in these cases
because they are discussed first at the Executive Branch. That’s not even a bad
joke! The British kings from the 13th Century would have applauded. ‘Sure,
if we talk about it, that’s due process.’
And that, again, passed without controversy.
Chomsky bekritiseert tevens de standrechtelijk liquidatie
van Osama bin Laden:
In fact, we might ask the same
question about the murder of Osama Bin Laden. Notice I use the term ‘murder’.
When heavily armed elite troops capture a suspect, unarmed and defenseless, accompanied
by his wives, and then shoot him, kill him, and dump his body into the ocean
without an autopsy, that’s shear assassination. Also notice that I said ‘suspect’.
The reason is because of another principle of law, that also goes back to the
13th Century – that a man is presumed innocent until proven guilty. Before
that, he’s a suspect. In the case of Osama Bin Laden, the United States had
never formally charged him with 9/11 and part of the reason was that they
didn’t know that he was responsible. In fact, eight months after 9/11 and after
the most intensive inquiry in history, the FBI explained that it suspected that
the 9/11 plot was hatched in Afghanistan, (didn’t mention Bin Laden) and was
implemented in the United Arab Emirates, Germany, and of course the United
States. That’s eight months after the attack and there’s nothing substantive
that they’ve learned since then that does more than increase the suspicion. My
own assumption is that the suspicion is almost certainly correct, but there’s a
big difference between having a very confident belief and showing someone to be
guilty. And even if he’s guilty, he was supposed to be apprehended and brought
before a court. That’s British and American law going back eight centuries.
He’s not supposed to be murdered and have his body dumped without an autopsy,
but support for this is very nearly universal. Actually, I wrote one of the few
critical articles on it and my article was bitterly condemned by commentators
across the spectrum, including the Left, because the assassination was so
obviously just, since we suspected him of committing a crime against us. And
that tells you something about the significant, I would say, ‘moral
degeneration’ running throughout the whole intellectual class. And yes, Obama has
continued this and in some respects extended it, but it hardly comes as a
surprise. The rot is much deeper than that.
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/12/12/an-interview-with-noam-chomsky-on-obamas-human-rights-record/
De democratie in
de Verenigde Staten is snel aan het verdwijnen. Mark Twain had gelijk toen hij
rond 1900 erop wees dat wij er geen imperium op na kunnen houden en
tegelijkertijd een democratie blijven. Die twee sluiten elkaar uit, zoals we
uit de geschiedenis weten. Eerder al, in 1821, zei president John Quincy Adams
dat Amerika niet de wereld in moet trekken om ‘monsters te vernietigen,’ omdat
het zichzelf anders in de nesten zou werken en ‘de dictator van de wereld’
zou kunnen worden en haar verlangen naar vrijheid zou veranderen in het streven
naar macht. En hij had gelijk. Dat wisten de Romeinen al toen hun democratie
veranderde in een dictatuur van de keizers.
In zijn boek Waiting for the Barbarians, schreef
Lapham naar aanleiding van het werk van de Romeinse historicus Gaius Sallustius Crispus:
Sallust's
description of Rome in 80 B.C. -- a government controlled by wealth, a
ruling-class numb to the repetitions of political scandal, a public diverted by
chariot races and gladiatorial shows -- stands as a fair summary of some of our
own circumstances.
Lapham, wiens werk gezien werd als 'an exhilarating point of view in an age of
conformity,' verklaarde in 2006:
Van ons Amerikaanse burgers wordt nu verwacht dat wij
een groot deel van onze vrijheid opgeven en zeker de helderheid van ons denken
in ruil voor het benarde wereldbeeld van die angstige, ellendige oligarchie die
in Washington aan de macht is. Het hele streven achter de oorlog tegen het
terrorisme is niet bedoeld om het Amerikaanse volk tegen een buitenlandse
vijand te beschermen, maar om de Amerikaanse plutocratie te verdedigen tegen de
Amerikaanse democratie. Het juiste woord hiervoor is natuurlijk fascisme, maar
dat woord is in onbruik geraakt omdat het wordt beschouwd als een te beladen
term die geassocieerd wordt met Nazi-Duitsland. Daarom zal ik een citaat geven
van Franklin Roosevelt die in de jaren dertig verklaarde dat ‘de vrijheid van
een democratie niet veilig is als de bevolking de groei tolereert van de
particuliere macht tot het punt waarop het sterker wordt dan de democratische
staat zelf. Dat is in wezen fascisme – het bezit van de regering door een
individu, door een groep of door welke leidende privé macht dan ook.’ De
democraat Roosevelt was zich bewust van de Amerikaanse versie van het fascisme…
een fusie tussen de macht van de staat en die van de grote ondernemingen.
Roosevelt herkende dit soort fascisme in de oppositie van vooraanstaande Amerikaanse
kapitalisten tegen zijn New-Deal beleid. Hij was vooruitziend, want onze
huidige Nationale Veiligheids Staat met zijn toenemende geheimhouding,
beperking van de vrijheid van het individu, voortdurende oorlogen en verregaand
corporatisme is geen democratie meer. Het is het fascisme dat de harten en
geesten heeft veroverd van de generatie die nu in Washington aan de macht is.
De Europeanen zouden er dan ook goed aan doen om een eigen en beter antwoord te
vinden en niet het Amerikaanse model te volgen, maar te leren van onze fouten.
Zie Amerika als het verleden en niet als de toekomst, Europa zal zijn eigen
toekomst moeten opbouwen.
De Amerikanen proberen de toekomst niet te verdienen,
maar te kopen met andermans geld. Daarin zullen ze een tijdje slagen tot het
onherroepelijk fout gaat, want je kunt niet doorgaan met schulden maken. Eind
vorig jaar was die schuld opgelopen tot rond de acht biljoen dollar, dat is
acht maal een miljoen maal een miljoen, omgerekend is dat meer dan 26.000
dollar voor iedere inwoner van de VS. Alleen al aan rente was de Amerikaanse
belastingbetaler in 2004 ruwweg 80 miljard dollar kwijt. De grootste
schuldeisers zijn China en Japan, maar ook van de OPEC-landen in het Midden
Oosten hebben we miljarden geleend. Wij zijn failliet en voeren oorlog. Stel
dat de Arabische landen de olie in euro’s betaald willen krijgen omdat de
dollar in feite niet de waarde heeft die het buitenland ervoor moet betalen.
Saddam wilde dat, Iran doet het nu. Als ze allemaal overstappen op de euro is
dat een ramp voor Amerika. Tot nu toe accepteert men zoveel van ons omdat de
munteenheid in de wereld nog steeds de dollar is en die kunnen alleen wij
drukken. Maar als dat voorbij is…Ik ben al een jaar of tien pessimistisch. Tot
nu toe gaat het nog zijn gangetje en heb ik ‘t bij het verkeerde eind gehad.
Toch zie ik niet dat het op de langere termijn goed kan gaan. Ik zie de
cavalerie niet over de heuvel komen om ons te redden.
Morgen meer over de blindheid
van de mainstream voor de werkelijkheid. Dan ook een kritiek op de volgende
bewering van Geert Mak in een
EO-radioprogramma op 6 november 2012:
Amerikanen, die
moeten niet zoveel van de staat hebben, niet zoveel van publieke werken… men is
zich weer tegen de publieke zaak gaan afzetten.
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