Citizen's Arrest

It's a case of journalists acting as citizens.

Remember back in 2004 when RTE (Irish television) journalist Carole Coleman asked George Bush tough questions about the death toll in Iraq and European opposition to the invasion? This week, another Irish journalist - David Cronin - went further than Coleman.

On Monday, Tony Blair, Bush's lackey and "Middle East Peace Envoy," was in Brussels to report to MEPs about his current role in the Middle East. Cronin was close by Blair and rather than ask questions, he arrested him for "crimes against peace and the crimes of aggression." Radio Netherlands correspondent Vanessa Mock asked Cronin why he confronted Blair. It was no publicity stunt.

Bush motivates protests in Montreal yesterday...

Via CTV.ca:

"He has nothing to offer," said Helen Hannah, a colourfully dressed member of the Raging Grannies.

"He stands for modes of torture, modes of warfare and modes of lying that don't represent the way most Americans and most Canadians want to face the world -- we don't believe in those things."

Andre Gravel said Bush was a bad president who was incompetent on many levels, including his handling of the environment, the wars in the Middle East and the economy.

The conflicts Bush waged in Afghanistan and Iraq have destabilized world peace, he added.

"I am in favour of (his) right to speak," Gravel said.

"But we have the right to protest against him.

"Everything he did was negative."

Roman Catholic Hypocrisy

Regarding the tiff over Obama's honorary doctorate from the University of Notre Dame.

Every good Catholic knows that the church is strictly opposed to capital punishment. Since Bush set records for carrying out death sentences when he was governor of Texas, you would think that the same guardians of virtue that are protesting Obama, who has never personally signed an abortion certificate, would have been out in force for a man who presided over 152 executions. But there was nary a peep. There were no bishops signing petitions opposing Bush’s appearance. There were no protests on campus. There were no students refusing to participate in graduation ceremonies. And there were no cameras from national news networks circling like buzzards.

If these Catholic Crusaders are truly interested in demonstrating their piety without prejudice, they should immediately call for Notre Dame to revoke Bush’s honorary degree. If the press is honestly endeavoring to be objective, they should pose this question to the protesters.

Politics and Torture

TORTURED FOR READING SATIRE

"I have been through an experience that I never thought to encounter in my darkest nightmares. Before this ordeal, 'torture' was an abstract word to me. I could never have imagined that I would be its victim. It is still difficult for me to believe that I was abducted, hauled from one country to the next, and tortured in medieval ways – all orchestrated by the United States government." - Binyam Mohamed in his statement after his release

"Binyam Mohamed was kidnapped, tortured, mutilated and locked up in Kabul, Bagram, and Guantanamo Bay for almost seven years because he read a satirical article on the internet."

And that satirical piece was written in 1979 by Barbara Ehrenreich, who writes in the Guardian,

With such stringent journalistic ethics in place, I was shocked to read online a Mail on Sunday article headed "Food writer's online guide to building an H-bomb ... the 'evidence' that put this man in Guantánamo." The "food writer" was identified as me, and the story began: "A British 'resident' held at Guantánamo Bay was identified as a terrorist after confessing he had visited a 'joke' website on how to build a nuclear weapon, it was revealed last night.

While I am not, and have never been, a "food writer", other details about the "joke" rang true, such as the names of my co-authors, Peter Biskind and physicist Michio Kaku. Rewind to 1979, when Peter and I were working for a now-defunct leftwing magazine named Seven Days. The government had just suppressed the publication of another magazine, the Progressive, for attempting to print an article called "The H-Bomb Secret". I don't remember that article and the current editor of the Progressive recalls only that it contained a lot of physics and was "Greek to me". Both in solidarity with The Progressive and in defence of free speech, we at Seven Days decided to do a satirical article entitled "How to Make Your Own H-Bomb," offering step-by-step instructions for assembling a bomb using equipment available in one's own home.

As if that were not enough for a satirist to have on her conscience, the US seems to have attributed Mohamed's presumed nuclear ambitions to a second man, an American citizen named Jose Padilla, aka the "dirty bomber". The apparent evidence? Padilla had been scheduled to fly on the same flight out of Karachi that Mohamed had a ticket for, so obviously they must have been confederates. Commenting on Padilla's apprehension in 2002, the Chicago Sun-Times editorialised: "We castigate ourselves for failing to grasp the reality of what [the alleged terrorists] are trying to do, but perhaps that is a good thing. We should have difficulty staring evil in the face."

I am not histrionic enough to imagine myself in any way responsible for the torments suffered by Mohamed and Padilla - at least no more responsible than any other American who failed to rise up in revolutionary anger against the Bush terror regime. No, I'm too busy seething over another irony: whenever I've complained about my country's torturings, renderings, detentions, etc, there's always been some smug bastard ready to respond that these measures are what guarantee smart-alecky writers like myself our freedom of speech. Well, we had a government so vicious and impenetrably stupid that it managed to take my freedom of speech and turn it into someone else's living hell.

And please note, despite what Obama has said, the administration has not undertaken measures to prevent these horrors from continuing.

SIGN THE WAR CRIMES PETITION ALREADY!

Sign The War Crimes Petition Already!
Edger at Docudharma, Saturday, January 03, 2009


Don't expect me to or even ask me to tell you why you should sign the petition.

You already know why you should sign the petition. You don't need me or anyone else to tell you why you should sign the petition.

	Click the Badge to read and sign the Formal Petition to Attorney General-Designate Eric Holder to appoint a Special Prosecutor to investigate and prosecute any and all government officials who have participated in War Crimes.
	Click "Get Badge" to get the html code and post the badge on your blog or website so other people can find and sign the petition too.

There is no more debate on these matters. The only people who want to continue debating these matters are war criminals who want to be let off the hook and supporters of letting war criminals off the hook. [Read all of Edger's post here.]

Docudharma Tag: petition for a special prosecutor
If you wish to repost this essay you can download a .txt file of the html here (right click and save). Permission granted.

AL-ZAIDI TORTURED BEFORE HE APOLOGISED FOR THROWING SHOES

The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George Bush was tortured into writing a letter of apology, his brother said today.