Chris Hedges Interviewed by Rob Kall

Source:
www.opednews.com

Senator Lieberman Goes Orwellian

Sen. Lieberman: “If We Don’t Act Preemptively, Yemen Will Be Tomorrow’s War”

Appearing on Fox News Sunday, independent Senator Joseph Lieberman suggested the United States should preemptively attack Yemen in light of the failed airline bombing.

Sen. Lieberman: “I was in Yemen in August. And we have a growing presence there, and we have to, of Special Operations, Green Berets, intelligence. We’re working well with the government of President Saleh there. I leave you with this thought that somebody in our government said to me in Sana’a, the capital of Yemen. Iraq was yesterday’s war. Afghanistan is today’s war. If we don’t act preemptively, Yemen will be tomorrow’s war.”

So, according to the Senator, unless we go to war - that is, engage in unlawful state aggression - we'll have to go to war.

Well, Senator, talking shite seems to have worked for your efforts to protect the massive insurance companies you serve from adverse affects of health care reform. Perhaps your military/industrial masters will reward you for similarly boosting their bottom line at the expense of the American and Yemeni people.

McCain Lies About Lobbyists

John McCain, the Presumptive (or is that ‘consumptive’?) Nominee of the Republican Party (PNRP) in an interview with Chris Wallace on Faux News was asked to respond to a comment regarding his continued ties to lobbyists made by David Axelrod, a reporter, media consultant and advisor to Senator Obama.

Chris Wallace asked, “David Axelrod said you talked in your speech today about changing the way Washington does business but your campaign is run by two of the biggest lobbyists in Washington. How do you respond to that?”

Johnny Mac’s response?

First, he met the query with the stunned silence of disbelief. He sat frozen like a deer in the headlights for three full counts – a seeming eternity in the rapid-fire, sound-bite orgy that is Faux Gnus’s typical pace.

Then the ‘Straight-talker’ stammered his answer.

“I’d, uh, duh, look, uh-uh-uh, those uh, they are not lobbyists but, uh, the f-f-fact is Americans care about my vision and plan of action for the future – that I can unite the country, that I can take on the challenges (gasp) that are facing them now which are enormous and that’s what elections are going to be about and I’ll look forward to a great debate – a great debate across this country between myself and Senator Obama… he has a very, very liberal, mm-mm, down-the-line Democrat voting record… I have a record of working with all Americans, uh… to bring this nation back to its future greatness and I believe we will.”

Say wha’?

The first caller who can properly diagram that sentence wins a chronic migraine. That last bit of time-traveling sophistry,”… to bring this nation back to its future greatness…” makes the malapropisms of Dan Quayle pale in comparison.

Alright, run-on, syntactically fractured, solecistic sentence structure aside, McCain’s answer to Chris Wallace’s question was a flat-out-and-out, bald-faced lie.

Does Johnny Mac think he can hoodwink the American people by muttering such a crass falsehood between clenched teeth and then slime his way out of an ethical corner by blabbering on with jingoistic campaign boiler-plate? Does he think all Americans are that stupid and uninformed or just the viewers of Faux Gnus?

As is well-documented and relatively well-publicized, McCain’s inner circle is chock full o’ lobbyists of the kind he claims to shun:

• Charlie Black, Chief Campaign Advisor,
• Doug Goodyear, Convention CEO,
• Rick Davis, Campaign Manager,
• Randy Scheunemann, Top Foreign Policy Advisor
• Frank Donatelli, RNC Deputy Chairman, Campaign liaison

According to McCainSource.com, Johnny, the straight-talker has 134 lobbyists running his campaign and raising money for him. (Remember how he nearly ran out of money during the republican primaries when up against the deep pockets of Mitt Romney, et al? He solved that cash-flow problem it seems.) A complete list of the lobbyists and the clients they have represented can be read here: http://mccainsource.com/corruption?id=0006

Need more proof that ‘Straight-talking McCain’ got caught telling a whopper? Google the growing number of stories about his Lobby-gate Scandal for yourself.

McCain has sold his soul to the denizens of K Street and their keepers. The ‘Maverick’ has been broken, branded and hobbled.

Pathetic.

http://democrats.org/a/2008/06/mccains_lobbyis_4.php

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/dnc-releases-new-video-mccains-lobbyist-friends/

http://dandelionsalad.wordpress.com/2008/05/19/john-mccain%e2%80%99s-lobbyists/

US & Somalia Tied for Last Place

To hear some, the USA is the champion of the down-trodden, and the oppressed, the Johnny Appleseed of Democracy. The truth precludes such prideful bumptiousness. In fact, the US is one of the last two states out of 192 to ratify the UN Convention of the Rights of the Child. (The other is Somalia.)

The United States has, however, signed two optional protocols on trafficking in children and on children in armed conflict. Very noble of us.

Furthermore, having signed the optional protocols of the Convention, the US has expressed its intention to eventually adopt it completely. Eventually.

What’s stopping the Bushites or the Congress from ratifying this convention? This is a no-brainer. Or should be, even for the half-wits running this farcical fiasco.

According to the Unicef site the Convention is summarized as follows:

“The Convention on the Rights of the Child is the first legally binding international instrument to incorporate the full range of human rights—civil, cultural, economic, political and social rights.”

“The Convention sets out these rights in 54 articles and two Optional Protocols. It spells out the basic human rights that children everywhere have:

1. the right to survival;

2. to develop to the fullest;

3. to protection from harmful influences,

4. abuse and exploitation;

5. the right to participate fully in family, cultural and social life.

The four core principles of the Convention are:

1. non-discrimination;

2. devotion to the best interests of the child;

3. the right to life, survival and development;

4. and respect for the views of the child.

Every right spelled out in the Convention is inherent to the human dignity and harmonious development of every child. The Convention protects children's rights by setting standards in health care; education; and legal, civil and social services.”

“By agreeing to undertake the obligations of the Convention (by ratifying or acceding to it), national governments have committed themselves to protecting and ensuring children's rights and they have agreed to hold themselves accountable for this commitment before the international community.”

This seems straightforward, proper, just and right. It is the expression of an ideal, one would think, of which all people, Christian, Buddhist, Hindu, Moslem, Jew, Animist or Atheist would approve.

Obviously.

190 out 192 nations have ratified it.

What’s stopping the US from ratifying this convention?

Could be that the thousands of youths who have been jailed in US prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo might pose a tough issue to spin-doctor into anything close to resembling sentiments and opinions acceptable to anyone outside the Oval Office or Fox News.

The ‘Real World’, in other words.

Since the March 2003 invasion, the United States has detained 2,400 children under the age of 18 in Iraq, including some as young as 10. Human Rights Watch said as of May 12, U.S. military authorities were holding 513 Iraqi children as "imperative threats to security".

The upside is that youths charged under Iraqi law receive access to legal counsel.

The downside? Read on…

"Those who are not referred to the Iraqi criminal courts do not have legal counsel because they are not charged with a crime," said Major Matthew Morgan, a spokesman for U.S. detention facilities in Iraq.

Not charged with a crime but imprisoned nevertheless.

Sandra Hodgkinson, deputy assistant secretary for Detainee Affairs in the U.S. Department of Defense, told reporters in Geneva "There is nothing in the optional protocol that prevents the detention of individuals under the age of 18, so the United States is in full compliance with its treaty obligations."

So, imprisoning children without charging them with a crime, without the basic legal rights of Habeas Corpus, due process or legal representation is acceptable to the Neo-Con-men in Washington. This is the level to which the United States has sunk under the stewardship of the Bush Administrations.

Tied with Somalia for last place.

http://www.reuters.com/article/featuredCrisis/idUSL21923136

http://www.everychildmatters.gov.uk/_files/C8CDC017719763AE4393C90EEC4E6602.pdf

http://www.unicef.org/crc/