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January 10th, 2009:

A Second Look: Gates Plan to Close Gitmo, Victory for Constitutional Rights and more

Jan 10th, 2009
by Tom.
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ACLU Online wrote:

Gates Plan to Close Gitmo, Victory for Constitutional Rights and more


From: ACLU Online [ACLUOnline@aclu.org]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 1:03 PM
Subject: Gates Plan to Close Gitmo, Victory for Constitutional Rights and more
Gates Plan to Close Down Guantánamo an Important First Step

Last month, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that he had ordered aides to draw up plans for closing down the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, an important first step toward turning the page on eight years of shameful policies that allowed torture and violations of domestic and international law.

Not enough! Must. Close. Prisons. in. Iraq.

From: The International Herald Tribune:

American advisers say Iraq’s nascent justice system does not have enough prison beds, investigative judges or lawyers to absorb the thousands of suspects detained since last summer by the augmented U.S. and Iraqi security forces. More than half of the 26,000 prisoners are still awaiting trial, and some have languished for years, U.S. officials said Wednesday.

Some have languished for years with no charges filed. They are just held with no rights.

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A Second Look: Just Foreign Policy News, January 9, 2008

Jan 10th, 2009
by Tom.
No comments yet

Just Foreign Policy wrote:

Just Foreign Policy News, January 9, 2008


From: Just Foreign Policy [info@justforeignpolicy.org]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 4:09 PM
To: Tom Chambless
Subject: Just Foreign Policy News, January 9, 2008
Israel and Hamas rebuffed a UN call for a cease-fire in the Gaza war, the New York Times reports. Gaza health officials said that the overall death toll passed 784 on Friday, according to Reuters, with women and children making up about 40 percent of the dead. The Israeli death toll reached 13, including ten soldiers and three civilians.

Hamas militants preparing rockets

Can anyone besides myself see anything wrong with this situation? All those rockets from Hamas that are reportedly causing such havoc and they have only managed to kill 3? And then here comes the mighty Israeli Army killing civilians by the score. Is there anyone else out there who sees anything wrong here ?

Sources close to the Obama transition team say the incoming administration is prepared to abandon Bush’s doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organization, the Guardian reports. There is no talk of Obama approving direct diplomatic negotiations with Hamas early on, but he is being urged by advisers to initiate low-level or clandestine approaches, and there is growing recognition in Washington that the policy of ostracising Hamas is counter-productive, the Guardian says. Richard Haass, who was named by news organisations as Obama’s choice for Middle East envoy, supports low-level contacts with Hamas provided there is a ceasefire in place and a Hamas-Fatah reconciliation emerges.

Okay. What about this instead: “the incoming administration is prepared to abandon all of Bush’s doctrines”. Better? I thought so.

It is about high time that we begin talks with Hamas. The meme about “we don’t negotiate with terrorists” is just a right-wing talking point and absolutely untrue. During a bank robbery/hostage situation, who’s the first guy the cops call? The negotiator.

In this case, Israel might be better suited if our negotiator settles the issues with Fatah v. Hamas first. Israel should withdraw back to its borders to enable the negotiations to happen, then plans should be made for a new election.

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A Second Look: Media Matters: Conservative media peddle a raw deal

Jan 10th, 2009
by Tom.
No comments yet

Media Matters for America wrote:

Media Matters: Conservative media peddle a raw deal


From: Media Matters for America [action@mediamatters.org]
Sent: Friday, January 09, 2009 5:44 PM
To: tomc2322
Subject: Media Matters: Conservative media peddle a raw deal

The conservative punditocracy that has spent the past eight years propping up a president who gave us an illegitimate war and leaves us with an almost unimaginably bad economic crisis apparently grows weary of defending this spectacular failure of a president. And so they have begun to shift their efforts to an easier task: trying to turn Americans against the president who ended the Great Depression, initiated the minimum wage, created Social Security, and helped defeat the Nazis.

Here we go again, more misdirection. The corprate media is still drinking the Bush Milkshake, one that has turned to sour curds long ago.

Brit Hume

On Fox News, for example, Brit Hume insisted this week that “everybody agrees, I think, on both sides of the spectrum now, that the New Deal failed.”

Economist Paul Krugman, for example, disagrees.

Paul Krugman

Krugman may not have the gravitas that comes with being Washington managing editor of Fox News, but he does hold the most recent Nobel Prize in economics. Krugman says the New Deal included “long-run achievements” that “remain the bedrock of our nation’s economic stability” and “brought real relief to most Americans” and notes that “[b]y 1937, things were a lot better than they were in 1933.” According to Krugman, the New Deal would have been even more successful had Roosevelt not been “eager to return to conservative budget principles.”

Let’s see, Democrats have gained an even larger majority in the House, increased their majority in the Senate to almost cloture-proof (59), and now there is a Democratic President. It looks like the nation has fully embraced these conservative budget principles. NOT!

There is instead a wholesale rejection of “conservative budget principles”. We need to expand the New Deal because of it’s success.

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