Year of Democracy in the Middle East?

Protesting for human and political rights is becoming all the rage across the Middle East. After nearly three weeks of Egyptian demonstrations to oust the dictator President Mubarak and gain more individual freedoms, 400 Algerian demonstrators were reportedly arrested out of the thousands of people who defied government ban on such demonstrations. The Algerian people are demanding democracy. This demonstration is the latest in a ‘people’s revolution’ that started in neighboring Tunisia on January 14.

Ali Yahia Abdenour, head of the Algerian League for the Defense of Human Rights, said women and foreign journalists were among those arrested following the demonstration.

After the Egyptian people showed the world that protesting can have positive effects, the Algerian people decided they want some too.

An estimated crowd size of 10,000 skirmished with riot police while chanting slogans like "No to the police state" and "Boutefika out". Officials put the crowd size at 1,500 but isn't that just like officials to downplay what is truly happening?

Don't the leaders and their puppet police know that people want basic freedoms that give them a say in how their lives are run? The day of Kings and dictatorships are numbered and its about time. People everywhere are also tired of their leaders living in luxury while they suffer from lack of employment and decent housing. This is not the Dark Ages, the fear is gone. People are waking up out of their forced enslavement and demanding their rightful stake in controlling their own destiny.

The army's decision to cancel Algeria's first multiparty legislative elections in January 1992 to thwart a likely victory by a Muslim fundamentalist party set off the insurgency. Scattered violence continues.

Why Doesn’t Obama Care About Freedom?

clipped from www.aim.org If you recognize that Obama failed to vigorously and immediately support the pro-freedom demonstrators in Iran, take a look at his attitude toward those suffering under the Castro dictatorship. An extraordinary editorial ran in the liberal Washington Post on Thursday, June 25, about the indifference of the Obama White House to the plight of those who believe in freedom just 90 miles from our shores The editorial, "A Dissident Deflected," told the story of how the Obama Administration wouldn't issue a statement recognizing the plight of five human rights activists in Cuba until the Post itself inquired about the matter The Washington Post editorial on Cuba only scratched the surface of the dangers we face from this White House. Ultimately, the question that has to be seriously addressed by the Post and other media is: What should we do about the fact that the President of the United States is allied with those forces that want to bury us?

This clip comes from Accuracy In Media a presents a biting commentary on how Obama’s indifference toward Cuban freedom fighters. This, in light of his recent apparent reticence to support Iran’s pro-freedom demonstrators, paints an ugly picture of the leader of the most powerful democracy on the planet aligning himself not with those brave souls fighting for freedom but more with their oppressors.

Given Obama’s association with people such as Communist Frank Marshall Davis, his mentor and father-figure, and anti-American crackpot Miguel D'Escoto, the U.N. General Assembly President, Obama is beginning to appear more as a revolutionary Marxist who sympathizes not with those being oppressed by anti-American governments but with the governments themselves.

He is walking a very thin line between facilitating peace among opposing nations and helping to cement the UN’s idea of a world government financed by global taxes.

According to the author he appears to be leaning heavily towards socialism. I am inclined to agree.

Human Rights, Democracy and Fascism

Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s president, made the statement that Zimbabwe was his. His ‘dictatorship in democracy clothing’ is showing through, again.

The world sat back and watched as Mugabe systematically evicted white landowners off of their farms, which led to the downfall of the entire economy.

The world sat back and watched as Mugabe’s military coerced the people of Zimbabwe through violence to vote for him.

The world sat back and watched as Mugabe closed down hospitals amidst the worst outbreak of cholera in recent memory. He claims the cholera epidemic is over even while thousands overflowed into neighboring countries desperate for medical help they were denied in their home country. He is silencing health workers and restricting access to the huge number of death certificates that give the same cause of death in order to cover up the true numbers.

He does all this while hanging onto the claim that he is running a democratic state.

All we have heard from the U.S. on these matters is a disagreement to Robert Mugabe claiming Zimbabwe as his.

State Department spokesperson Sean McCormack told reporters "He (Mugabe) thinks that the state of Zimbabwe and the people of Zimbabwe are there only to serve his interest. It's the other way around - or it should be the other way around."

This is a true statement, but when it comes from a representative of an administration that has repeatedly gone against the wishes of the vast majority of American people and stepped on their constitutional rights in the process, it is a hypocritical statement.

He went on to say "Those who govern should govern in the interest of the governed. The governed should be able to determine who governs them and in what manner."

Saddam Hussein came into power as a result of a coup and ruled Iraq with an iron fist but the Iraqi people boasted a strong economy building new schools, universities, hospitals, and factories. Any internal opposition to his rule was quickly and brutally squashed.

China’s leadership is appointed by party officials and controls its people through censorship of political speech in the interest of social stability. Widespread civil rights violations are well known, such as, systematic use of lengthy detention without trial, forced confessions, torture, mistreatment of prisoners, restrictions of freedom of speech, assembly, association, religion, the press, and labor rights. In order to host the 2008 Summer Olympics, China promised to issue permits allowing people to protest in so-called 'protest parks' during the Games, but it was reported that of 77 applications, 74 were withdrawn, two suspended and one vetoed.

The military junta in Burma (Myanmar) came into power as the result of a coup and, after a brief attempt at democracy, became one of the world's most repressive and abusive regimes. The military tightly controls the judiciary, rules by decree, suppresses all basic rights, and commits human rights abuses with impunity. Official corruption is reportedly rampant both at the higher and local levels.

Robert Mugabe was given control of Zimbabwe in 1980 by British authorities decolonizing their holdings in Africa. Since then, he has systematically taken away the rights to shelter, food, freedom of movement and residence, freedom of assembly, and the protection of the law. There are assaults on the media, political opposition, civil society activists, and human rights defenders.

George W Bush was given the presidential office in 2000 by the electorate not the popular vote. Al Gore received more popular votes than did George W Bush and still lost the election due to electoral votes. Since then he has stepped on constitutional rights through domestic spying and created Homeland Security which only cements the federal governments control over its citizenry.

The record of human rights violations of these nations, as well as many others, are documented and well known to the international community.

The U.S. claims to hold the protection of human rights as a cornerstone of democracy, and may actually voice its opinion condemning those leaders whose actions corrupt this idea. But, if the offending country has valuable resources, as does Iraq, and it is calculated that the U.S. military can quickly overthrow that government and gain access to those resources our leadership will resort to lies in order to do so.

China is of course too powerful for America to repeat what it did to Iraq, so we just put on the show of protesting their practices while at the same time helping to prop up their economy with billions of dollars a year for their goods.

In Burma, well America could kick their butts in a heart beat but, U.S. based companies already have an inroad to their resources so the U.S. government only occasionally and mildly protests that junta’s treatment of its citizens and continue to support them by purchasing the products exported by those same American companies. Americans ignore the fact that the impoverished people of Burma are forced into slave labor, raped, murdered and jailed for speaking out as long as they get access to their resources.

Zimbabwe does not have any resources that the U.S. wants so the U.S. basically ignores them until the international cry gets so loud that turning a blind eye is no longer an option. And in the end what does the U.S. object to? Mugabe’s rhetoric in claiming Zimbabwe as his.

You think maybe America’s priorities are a just a bit skewed?

While it is true that we in America have the right to vote without the threat of violence, we have very little sway over who really gets chosen run or over what the elected official does once they are in office. As illustrated when President Bush (owner of the lowest popularity ranking of any American president in history) reneged on many of his campaign promises, which is truly the only thing we voters have to base our decision on.

American democracy in many respects is a sham which can easily by manipulated by ‘masters of the game’. America was manipulated into going to war with Iraq, against the will of the American people, through the use of strategically released misinformation concerning Iraq’s intentions to use WMD’s against the American people. Saddam was deemed a threat to a nation much stronger than his. His refusal to be bullied into opening his borders to foreign inspectors gave the Bush administration the stage from which to launch a plan to build military bases within Iraq’s borders and to gain access to its oil reserves. An entire bureaucracy, Homeland Security, has been created out of the fear of a repeat of September 11, 2001.

Democracy has been stepped on and constitutional guarantees tossed aside by an administration legally bound to uphold American citizens rights when it conducted secret surveillance on American citizens on American soil under the claim of protecting us against terrorism. The only terrorist attacks so far have come from this administration on our civil rights.

Long standing adherence to human rights were suspended when “enemy combatants” were thrown into Guantanamo and held without the right to trial and then tortured. You can label waterboarding by its sanitized description of “aggressive interrogation techniques” if you want but it is still torture, something the American people abhor and, before George W Bush, never thought our government would stoop to.

Our airports have become mini-fascist states. Just ask Australian-born U.S. citizen Anne Summers of her recent experiences with armed agents at LAX. She, like many others, has fallen victim to an overly-suspicious, power-mad agents’ interrogation for ‘your own protection’. I understand the need for vigilance but courtesy and respect for human dignity should not be tossed aside when an agent is given a badge. Reports are rampant of condescending agents exhibiting intimidation, animosity and complete disdain for having to be bothered to deal with what they consider a possible terrorist suspect. Here’s an account of a passenger arriving at JFK Airport from Syria who received inexcusable treatment in the name of national security.

In our zeal to expose a terrorist plot behind every anti-war protest, every person crossing our border, and every passenger who forgets to empty his/her water bottle before entering a security checkpoint, we are turning our country into a fascist state. Or rather, the Bush administration has taken advantage of fear of another terrorist attack in order to do so. But then that’s how fascism spreads, isn’t it? When the World Trade Center was attacked on September 11, 2001 the ‘terrorist’ accomplished their goal to put America on alert that they will not tolerate the disrespectful treatment westerners have shown the rest of the world. With this single act they now only have to threaten the U.S. to get us to react. They don’t have to actually conduct an attack on U.S. soil because they have already shown they are willing to do so.

Fear and Fascism go hand in hand. The measures that are being forced onto us in the name of protection is a response to fear and they are eroding our rights and freedoms.

Fascists invoke an external and internal threat in order to convince the population to grant their rulers extraordinary powers. In the case of George W Bush, he evoked these extraordinary powers through the use of presidential decrees. Much as Burma’s ruling Junta does.

They establish secret prisons that practice torture, prisons that are initially few in number and only incarcerate social pariahs, but that quickly multiply and soon imprison "opposition leaders, outspoken clergy, union leaders, well-known performers, publishers, and journalists."

They develop a paramilitary force that operates without legal restraint. Blackwater International is just such a force.

They set up a system of intense domestic surveillance that gathers information for the purposes of intimidating and blackmailing citizens. If domestic surveillance continues unabated who can honestly say it will not be used for the purposes of intimidating and blackmailing citizens?

They infiltrate, monitor, and disorganize citizens' groups.

They arbitrarily detain and release citizens, especially at borders.

They target key individuals like civil servants, academics, and artists in order to ensure their complicity or silence.
Dismissal of eight U.S. attorneys for political reasons.
eight U.S. attorneys

They take control of the press. The Committee to Protect Journalists says arrests of US journalists are at an all-time high: Josh Wolf, a blogger in San Francisco, has been put in jail for a year for refusing to turn over video of an anti-war demonstration; Homeland Security brought a criminal complaint against reporter Greg Palast, claiming he threatened "critical infrastructure" when he and a TV producer were filming victims of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. Palast had written a bestseller critical of the Bush administration.

The Committee to Protect Journalists has documented multiple accounts of the US military in Iraq firing upon or threatening to fire upon unembedded (meaning independent) reporters and camera operators from organizations ranging from al-Jazeera to the BBC.

You won't have a shutdown of news in modern America - it is not possible. But you can have, as Frank Rich and Sidney Blumenthal have pointed out, a steady stream of lies polluting the news well. What you already have is a White House directing a stream of false information that is so relentless that it is increasingly hard to sort out truth from untruth. In a fascist system, it's not the lies that count but the muddying. When citizens can't tell real news from fake, they give up their demands for accountability bit by bit.

They publicly equate dissent with treason. Most Americans do not realize that when Congress wrongly, foolishly, passed the Military Commissions Act of 2006 the president has the power to call any US citizen an "enemy combatant". He has the power to define what "enemy combatant" means. The president can also delegate to anyone he chooses in the executive branch the right to define "enemy combatant" any way he or she wants and then seize Americans accordingly.

They suspend the rule of law. The John Warner Defense Authorization Act of 2007 gave the president new powers over the national guard. This means that in a national emergency - which the president now has enhanced powers to declare - he can send Michigan's militia to enforce a state of emergency that he has declared in Oregon, over the objections of the state's governor and its citizens.

A disturbing recent phenomenon in Washington is that laws that strike to the heart of American democracy have been passed in the dead of night. Beyond actual insurrection, the president may now use military troops as a domestic police force in response to a natural disaster, a disease outbreak, terrorist attack or any 'other condition’. And the Pentagon is currently reserving 20,000 troops for domestic emergencies.

All of these strategies are being employed in America today.

America only cares about human rights when it is convenient or advantageous to do so. Only when everything that has happened in recent years are taken together can we see the path that America is headed down.

Right now, only a handful of patriots are trying to hold back the tide of tyranny for the rest of us - staff at the Center for Constitutional Rights, who faced death threats for representing Guantanamo detainees yet persisted all the way to the Supreme Court; activists at the American Civil Liberties Union; and prominent conservatives trying to roll back corrosive new laws, under the banner of a new group called the American Freedom Agenda. This small, disparate collection of people needs everybody's help, including that of Europeans and others internationally who are willing to put pressure on the administration because they can see what a US unrestrained by real democracy at home can mean for the rest of the world.



Further reading
CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons
U.S. Secret Prison Ships Hold Untold Number of Detainees
America is going Fascist
Watching out for an American paramilitary
FBI Spied on Peace Group Because os Antiwar Views
U.S. Government Spying and Infiltration
Homeland Security? Abuses by Border Patrol in Arizona
Nightmare at Reagan National Airport
Fired U.S. Attorneys

Power to the People, not under this administration

After Benazir Bhutto was brutally murdered last week, the Pakistan People's Party was left without a leader.

She had named her husband Asif Ali Zardari to head the Pakistan People's Party in her will, which was read on Sunday, but he handed over the position to the couple's son, PPP official Makhdoom Amin Faheem said.

How can you ‘will’ political power to another person? And how can you just ‘hand it over’ to another person? This is not the way of true democracy.

Blood is not a deciding factor on the ability of a person to run a country. But, then again, neither is a democratically held election.

I suppose one could say that if the party accepts the person presented as the leader then democracy, in its truest sense, does exist.

This sense of true democracy is struggling in the U.S.

Bush and Cheney have created a stronger presidential office much to the detriment of democratic freedoms. Their own reasoning for their actions, of course, is to protect those same freedoms, but those freedoms are not in danger from anyone other than these two power hungry old men. This is a case of where their egos got in the way of doing what is right for this country. They have lost faith in Democracy and decided they know better than our forefathers on how to maintain and nurture democracy.

In their zeal to appear as if they were putting this nations’ security first, they grabbed a bunch of people of Arabic dissent without solid evidence of any clear terrorist ties and then held them for six years under the guise of guilt. Their guilt has never proven and habeas corpus suffered because these two old men refused to admit they could have made a mistake.

This administration has condoned torture. Sure it cannot be proven in a court of law because the very people we need as witnesses are all involved. But citizens of this country and of the world know the U.S. participated in it and perpetrated it.

I present this question to the world: which is worse, Saddam Hussein, who we all despised for his use of torture to control his citizens and ensure his reign of power, or a democratically elected president, by the way that election was disputed and not decided by the public, who looks the other way as long as torture is used for our purposes?

If any other country took American citizens and held them in prison as “enemy combatants” without proof, without any clear date set for prosecution, and used torture to extract information from them, would the American government sit back and not do anything?

This president and vice president have seen fit to set up an illegal spy network on its own citizens that reflects the FBI era of J. Edgar Hoover. This was done in the name of ‘protecting’ our freedom. As U.S. citizens learned they had their privacy invaded by this illegal network and wiretapping practice, lawsuits were filed against the communications companies that this administration used to realize their plan. The response from the administration is to change legislation to protect the communications companies! Unbelievable, but typical, Bush/Cheney tactics.

If we extend the Bush/Cheney ‘reasoning’ for warrantless wiretapping to every law enforcement entity in this country there would be spying taking place on every U.S. citizen based on whatever reason law enforcement would choose. A giant leap towards George Orwell’s 1984.

People who believe in the ‘freedom’ that our forefathers granted us should be outraged that these practices are taking place and even more outraged that they are not being stopped.

The expectation of freedom in this country has diminished greatly since these two took office.

The main danger with granting power to someone is that they don’t want to give it up. The main danger of granting power to egotistical, delusional madmen increases the danger of us losing even more of those freedoms that we have cherished for so long.

Given the general trend that this country seems to be following, that being that people are becoming more unethical, more immoral and more willing to do whatever it takes to get what they want and to hell with everyone else, will only solidify the bleak Orwellian prediction and may very well place George Orwell as a greater prophet than Nostradamus.

Musharraf and Bush: puppets and war profiteers

Musharraf would go for the U.S. brand of democracy if he would only understand what it means for all politicians. Politicians could tax the hell out of the working force to pay for their rich lifestyle, their parties, their opportunities for ‘money under the table’ in backrooms where deals are made to pass bills and laws that help make themselves and their buddies richer. To pay for their own retirement benefits and their own health insurance while not having to share anything with the very people who put them in power. But Musharraf doesn't want to share with all politicians. He wants to ensure that only he and his buddies get to ride the gravy train and since he is in a position to prevent all opposition to his rule and is acting on that position to his benefit, this has made him George W. Bush’s hero.

This is why King George refuses to stop supporting the little dictator, they are brothers. Bush is simply spreading the wealth garnered from his illegal, propaganda-inflamed ‘war-against-terrorism’ scheme. If Bush allows Musharraf to be put out of office then all of Bush’s oil company buddies and his war machine cronies would take a direct hit in their fiscal bottom line. In Bush’s world of ‘steal from the poor and give to the rich’ such a mistake would be devastating. His ego would not be able to withstand such a let down to his club brothers.

Musharraf is dispensable if democracy is what Bush truly wants in Pakistan. In fact, it is necessary that Musharraf be relieved of power as soon as possible if democracy stands a chance of taking hold in Pakistan. Bush’s actions clearly show that democracy is not what Bush is after here. Bhutto wants democracy. Musharraf has clearly shown he only wants democracy if democracy wants him. Bush and Musharraf are too much alike to allow Musharraf to remain in power. He will destroy Pakistan just as Bush is destroying the U.S.

Wake up America, Musharraf still has ties with the Taliban. The Taliban propped him up as leader of Pakistan and he faked allegiance with America in order to slow America’s war against the Taliban. When Musharraf signed a peace deal with Islamic militants while claiming to fight alongside America to ferret out all militants proves he is just a scared puppy dog trying to hang on to power by promising to follow everybody’s direction. Now that he is faced with not being in power he arrests all lawmakers in an attempt to keep himself in power. This makes Musharraf a very untrustworthy and therefore very dangerous man.

Musharraf and Bush have both made it clear that democracy can take a back seat so they can stay in power and continue to profit from this illegal, immoral war at the expense of innocent lives.