Bans Lifted

"This is about equal rights, equal justice and saying to the American people, 'if you want to serve this country, if you want to give your life for this country, you may do so regardless of who you love.'" - Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine)

Regardless of whom you kill, for that matter. (That would include oppressed queer brothers and sisters, citizens of countries with which the USA is at war or occupies illegally.) As the Senate voted today to repeal DADT, a federal appeals court has lifted the ban on military recruiting of minors in schools. That means that LBGT youth, who are harassed and abused and bullied in schools (some committing suicide), can sign up to be killed in Obama's wars.

No Justice In The War on Terror

Jeremy Scahill, who's written extensively about the mercenary Blackwater, reported on December 31st that a federal judge has dismissed charges against Blackwater employes for their massacring seventeen people in Iraq. Charges were dismissed because their testimony was taken under duress and could have caused them to lose their jobs.

Here's Craig Murray:

Yet evidence given by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed during hundreds of torture sessions, including over a hundred sessions of waterboarding, is admissible in the US, torture apparently not being duress like the threat of losing your job.

The US is at the same time going through more angst about the underpants bomber. Get this into your heads; people want to kill you because as a nation you behave in a murderous and arrogant way. That does not justify a terrorist in killing innocent civilians; but killing innocent civilians did not seem to bother the Blackwater boys, or the US armed forces who kill innocent civilians every single day.

The work is never over

Paul Fromberg, the rector of St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco and whom I knew briefly when he was rector of a parish in Houston, writes about yesterday's California Supreme Court decision on marriage equality:

"In terms of political organizing, the fight for gay marriage can’t be separated from California’s budget crisis: from our struggles for immigrant rights, education reform, and tax reform that will allow us to provide humane health care and educate all our children. The fight for gay marriage can’t simply involve gays throwing a bit of money at a campaign so we can all have fabulous weddings. It means, as we say in my business, doing the hard work of becoming a community."

Guantanomo inmate to appear before NY court

From Radio Netherlands Worldwide International News

Published Thursday 21 May 2009

For the first time, a suspected terrorist held at the Guantanamo detention centre will be brought before a US civil court. US media report that President Barack Obama will announce on Thursday that Tanzanian Ahmed Ghailani will have to stand trial in New York. He was allegedly involved in the attacks on the US embassies in Tanzania and Kenya in 1998. Ahmed Ghailani was detained in Pakistan in 2004 and later transferred to Guantánamo.

The president will today give a speech in which he will provide further details of his plans to close the infamous detention centre. On Wednesday, the Senate refused to provide funds for closing down Guantanamo. A majority fears some suspected terrorists may be released into the United States or possible escape from US prisons.

According to The New York Times [JayV edit: NYT blatant fear mongering], an undisclosed Pentagon report shows that 74 of the 534 suspected terrorists released from Guantanamo have joined terrorists or other militants. Two hundred-and-forty prisoners are still being held at Guantanamo.