Robert Fisk: Police state is the wrong venue for Obama's speech »
Posted By dissent 6 months, 3 weeks ago in News
Maybe Barack Obama chose Egypt for his "great message" to Muslims tomorrow because it contains a quarter of the world's Arab population, but he is also coming to one of the region's most repressed, undemocratic and ruthless police states. Egyptian human rights groups - when they are not themselves being harassed or closed down by the authorities - have recorded a breathtaking list of police torture, extra-judicial killings, political imprisonments and state-sanctioned assaults on opposition figures that continues to this day.
The sad truth is that so far did the US descend in moral power under George W Bush that Obama would probably have to deliver his lecture in the occupied West Bank, even Gaza, to change the deep resentment and fury that has built up among Muslims over the past eight years. This, of course, Obama will not do. So Egypt, sadly, it has to be, though he will see nothing of the squalor and fear in which Egyptians live.
Read Full Story at independent.co.uk »
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dissent
we live in a culture of war.
let's make it a culture of peace.
"my country is the world. and my religion is to ...
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alamintalib6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Honestly, there is no correct choice. That fact can discourage people from continuing any effort. Criticism will come from every angle regardless of the country.
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I have been to these countries and my feet stand on one right now as we speak and I still could not recommend where for him to start a dialog. .......sometimes.........you just have to start-
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hyperbola6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Yes, but it has to be much more than pretty words which are as much for US domestic consumption as for moslems. So far many of Obama's actions belie his pretty words.
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Comments for War With Iran: Has It Already Begun?
... Obama, with his peace overtures, serves as the smiley-face mask for some pretty loathsome activities. The U.S. government claims to be fighting terrorism, yet is sponsoring groups that plant bombs in mosques, kidnap tourists as well as Iranian policemen, and fund their activities with drug-running in addition to covert subsidies courtesy of the U.S. taxpayers. The recent suicide bombing in Zahedan was the work of Jundallah. These are war crimes, carried out with the full knowledge of the leaders of both parties in Congress, paid for by you and me, and conducted in our name....
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/06/03/war-with... -
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hyperbola6 months, 3 weeks ago
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McChrystal Choice Suggests Death Squads in Afghanistan
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...McChrystal’s nomination to become director of the Joint Staff at the Pentagon in May 2008 was held up for months while the Senate Armed Services Committee investigated a pattern of abuse of detainees by military personnel under his command. Sixty-four service personnel assigned or attached to Special Operations units were disciplined for detainee abuse between early 2004 and the end of 2007..... He was never held accountable for those abuses, supposedly because of the secrecy of the operation of JSOC.
Although he has been linked with detainee abuses and raids that kill numbers of civilians, McChrystal has not had any direct experience with the non-military elements of such a strategy.
The choice of McChrystal certainly appears to signal the administration’s readiness to continue Special Operations forces raids and airstrikes that are generating growing opposition by Afghans to the U.S. military presence.
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/05/14/mcchryst...
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berkeley6 months, 3 weeks ago
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we've given egypt piles of money for decades. has that helped the people of egypt? there is little evidence that it has, and a lot that argues the other way.
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the changes needed in our entire foreign policy are immense. egypt is on that list, so obama is maintaining continuity, still. nothing new yet. -
2003volkswagenComment removed: Hard Banned2 Replies
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hyperbola6 months, 3 weeks ago
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A more accurate description might be that we were able to buy another corrupt local puppet dictator (Mubarak) who does Washington's bidding. This is a direct result of the israel-first, ultra-zionist traitors in our government, who have been running our mideast foreign policy for several decades.
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Cheney says US Support of Zionism Causes Terror
If we hear in the coming days that former Vice President Dick Cheney has fired one of his speechwriters — or perhaps grounded Lynne or Liz — it will be clear why. Oozing out of the sleazy speech he gave Thursday at the American Enterprise Institute was an inadvertent truth regarding the Israeli albatross hanging around the neck of U.S. policy in the Middle East... our support for Israel… — these are the true sources of resentment…”
Cheney is not alone. In the “Recommendations” section of its final report, the 9/11 Commission suggested:
“America’s policy choices have consequences. Right or wrong, it is simply a fact that American policy regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and American actions in Iraq are dominant staples of popular commentary across the Arab and Muslim world. … Neither Israel nor the new Iraq will be safer if worldwide Islamist terrorism grows stronger.” (pp 376-377)
These observations seemed to strike my radio interlocutors as unfit for the airwaves. When the shouts of protest died down, there was an opportunity to offer additional evidence, so I threw in what a prestigious board appointed by the Pentagon had to say about all this over four years ago.
Are you ready for a scoop that is not a scoop, but that almost no one knows about?
It has to do with an unclassified study published, not by some “liberal” think-tank, but by the Pentagon-appointed U.S. Defense Science Board just two months after the 9/11 Commission Report. That report directly contradicted what Cheney and President Bush had been saying about “why they hate us,” letting the elephant out of the bag and into the room, so to speak:
“Muslims do not ‘hate our freedom,’ but rather, they hate our policies. The overwhelming majority voice their objections to what they see as one-sided support in favor of Israel and against Palestinian rights, and the longstanding, even increasing support for what Muslims collectively see as tyrannies, most notably Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and the Gulf States. Thus, when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy.”
...Wading through the drivel in the FCM’s Times and Washington Post on Friday morning, I am hardly surprised that they missed Cheney’s slip about U.S. policy toward Israel being one of the terrorists’ “true sources of resentment.”
Ray McGovern was an Army officer and CIA analyst for almost 30 years
http://www.propeller.com/story/2009/05/22/cheney-s...
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Ratskii6 months, 3 weeks ago
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Robert Fisk has lived much of his life in the Middle East and done incredible amounts of research into its history and politics. What is more, he has never been afraid to call the apples where they fall -- including in Israel/Palestine situation.
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While I think Obama needs to give a major speech in the Middle East, if I'd been advising him, I think I'd have recommended Jordan or possibly Kuwait (4 women were recently elected to its congress). There aren't any great possibilities, but some are better than others.
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