CIA Guilty of Torture and Kidnap – Damages of 1.5 Million Euros
Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr was snatched from a street in Milan
Amazing news today. An Italian court has bravely taken on the leader of the Western World and convicted 22 CIA agents of kidnap and torture. (see CIA agents guilty of Italy kidnap).
The man on the left with the wacky beard and hat, was snatched from the street in Italy, flown to Egypt, and tortured.
America’s great liberal hope, President Obama, and his government, have expressed,
…”disappointment at the convictions”….
This is not surprising to me, given what I wrote here earlier in the year when I realised that after only 100 days in office, Obama thought torture was okay… (contrast this to the optimism shown here and here, for example. Sometimes speaking well just isn’t good enough, especially if your actions are in complete disregard of your own constitution.)
Absent From Trial
The CIA people (including high ranking colonels etc) were all tried in their absence – you see, Italy doesn’t kidnap people! (Interestingly, the CIA, as judge, jury and executioner have just bombed 2 ‘insurgents’ in Pakistan with a drone plane again – “It is not clear if there was any high-value target, We also do not know the identity of the militants” the CIA said; but Insurgents …were pulling bodies out of the rubble… Obama condones all this as drone flights and civilian deaths have wildly escalated under his rule.)
So while Italy is usually thought of as the laughing stock of Europe because of the uncountable number of elections it has and the current buffoon of an incumbent that they keep electing – it’s actually been very brave and done the right thing.
Will America do the same? Will it do the right thing? Will Obama strive to regain the high moral ground that he stood on to be elected and which he espoused so eloquently on Inauguration Day?
No Confidence
I doubt it very much. When 52% of USA citizens think torture is okay and Utah remains a cesspit of corruption and evil business practices, when most Americans don’t care a damn about rising sea levels – and the rest… ..and the rest!!
I doubt it very much indeed.
UK Caught With Pants Down and Hands on the Trigger
Our UK government isn’t any better having colluded in the kidnaps (called extraordinary renditions as a smokescreen to reality) and torture. Are they in Europe or out? Do they agree with “The Hague” or not? Have they signed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights or not?
Answers
Answers to these and other questions can be found in my earlier posts from this year. What a year!
Megrahi and Calley compared and contrasted (in this post, VP Clinton said it was a bad day for justice and law… I just say wah? I also remember the deep embarrassment during the US primaries which all Americans should have felt, but forgot, when she claimed to be bravely dodging bullets and plainly wasn’t when the video surfaced.)
Pfc. Bowe R. Bergdahl, aged 23, of Ketchum, Idaho, is a member of the 1st Battalion, 501st Parachute Infantry Regiment, 4th Brigade Combat Team, 25th Infantry Division, from Fort Richardson, Alaska. He was captured in circumstances that aren’t clear and has appeared in a Taliban video (prev at http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-afghan-soldier20-2009jul20,0,4913063.story), seen world-wide. So far, it appears...
In the above video, shot with a mobile phone and first reported at the beginning of April this year, some blokes, watched by a load of other blokes, whip a young woman for breaking some law. At that time, the Taliban blokes (for it is them) had just come to an agreement with the Pakistan...
Muhammad runs away from Mecca to escape persecution. From this point forward, huge swathes of the globe took up Islam, Islamic empires spread across, Africa, Asia and half of Europe; the legacy of which self-evidently exists today. Okay, there’s huge argument about this, but some people take this as the day. Personally, I don’t know enough about it, but I need something to match the post’s title, and other writers do take this as the day. Wikipedia says this, and who am I to argue?
The Muslim dates are in the Islamic calendar extended back in time. The Western dates are in the Julian calendar. The lunar year is about 300/309 solar year. The Hijra is celebrated annually on 8 Rabi’ I, about 66 days after 1 Muharram, the first day of the Muslim year. Many writers confuse the first day of the year of the Hijra with the Hijra itself, erroneously stating that the Hijra occurred on 1 Muharram AH 1 or 16 July 622.
All dates given above may have occurred about 89 days (three lunar months) earlier. The Muslim dates may be those recorded in the original Arabic calendar and their month names may not have been changed to account for the (probably three) intercalary months inserted during the next nine years until intercalary months were prohibited during the year of Muhammad’s last Hajj (AH 10).
Speaking to 13th century feudal Japan, Nichiren the monk said that the calamities and disasters befalling the people were all due to incorrect lifestyles. He insisted that all people were equal and free, that they should pay heed to people who were obviously skilled in their chosen field, and that they should do their best in the limited lifetime available.
Largely, he was ignored, and so half the country starved because of self-interest and malice.
And this is exactly the place where we find ourselves now across the globe. We live on a world of limited resource, where many people choose to live their life by stealing from others, either as individuals or nations. Nichiren’s words have as much relevance now as they ever did. Here’s part of the writing:
I have pondered the matter carefully with what limited resources I possess, and have looked a little at the scriptures for an answer. The people of today all turn their backs upon what is right; to a person, they give their allegiance to evil. This is the reason that the benevolent deities have abandoned the nation and departed together, that sages leave and do not return. And in their stead devils and demons come, and disasters and calamities occur. I cannot keep silent on this matter. I cannot suppress my fears. – WND, page 7, “On Establishing the Correct Teaching for the Peace of the Land”
Daisaku Ikeda has some similar words about today; he says:
The powerful may appear great, but in reality they are not. Greatest of all are the ordinary people. If those in power lead lives of idle luxury it is because the people are silent. We have to speak out. With impassioned words, we need to resolutely attack abuses of power that cause people suffering. This is fighting on the side of justice. It is wrong to remain silent when confronting injustice. Doing so is tantamount to supporting and condoning evil.
I’ve quoted the above as a direct statement to those companies like Pacific Webworks, people like Jesse Willms and the misguided people of Utah who have misinterpreted their US constitution of freedom and capitalism as a freedom to steal from the needy as a means of amassing capital, all hiding under the umbrella “that it’s god’s work”. If capitalism doesn’t serve the people, then it has no purpose.
Nichiren’s Buddhism is now growing at a phenomenal rate. The time of change is now.
One of the final acts of the Russian revolution occurred with the attempted elimination of all of the monarchy and any aspirants thereto. This act changed history for the 20th century, it’s consequences evident even now by a powerful Russian people, proud of their history, somewhat ambivalent about the exact direction that leadership and authority should take.
On the night of 16/17 July 1918, the royal family was awakened around 2:00 am, told to dress, and led down into a half-basement room at the back of the Ipatiev house; the pretext for this move was the family’s safety – that anti-Bolshevik forces were approaching Ekaterinberg, and the house might be fired upon.
The executioners drew revolvers and the shooting began. Nicholas was the first to die; Yurovsky shot him multiple times in the head and chest. Anastasia, Tatiana, Olga, and Maria survived the first hail of bullets; the sisters were wearing over 1.3 kilograms of diamonds and precious gems sewn into their clothing, which provided some initial protection from the bullets and bayonets. They were stabbed with bayonets and then shot at close range in the head.
Trinity, the first bomb is tested by the US at Alamogordo Air Base in Los Alamos, New Mexico. Within a month, two more bombs had been dropped on Japan, effectively ending World War 2. We, especially in the West, are living this legacy still. It can be argued that the threat of total devastation (the theory of MAD) has made nations with the bomb more proactive in reasoned discussion and less likely to take arms against each other. The converse is that the weapons will one day be used again and it’ll be the end of the world as we know it…
Tyger, tyger, burning bright
Unlike Oppenheimer, who had his own bit of Indian prose in mind, whenever I see the Trinity picture I hear William Blake. It’s a beautiful picture, just as the bomb goes off. What fearful symmetry? In that split second, we see all that was and all that will be.
Tyger, tyger, burning bright
In the forests of the night,
What immortal hand or eye
Could frame thy fearful symmetry?
1969 AD – Man on The Moon
Apollo11 Launch
On this day, mankind set off to stand on a different celestial body. Four days later, we’d done it.
Less than four centuries earlier, over much of our planet, you could be burned or stoned to death for even suggesting that the possibility existed that a “creation of god” could be imperfect or blemished, like the moon is.
Such is the progress we’ve made, yet even now, such events are like a dream within a dream. The misogynist, nationalist, creationist forces are at work, attempting to roll back the clock to a time when they ruled the roost, and their hypocritical word was god .
But for now, we can say that men bravely stood on the Moon.
Man with Black Hat Blames Everyone Else! Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts in Iran who has a black hat, has said that the fingertips of the West are definitely on the ghastly bombing in the south-east Iranian city of Zahedan on Thursday. So it’s all my fault then…? Interestingly, within two...
The pope says sorry for getting it wrong over the holocaust and the nutty bishop The bankers say sorry for getting it wrong with their greedy decisions that lead to the current economic crisis Cricket captains say sorry for losing some games US car maker bosses say sorry for being crap UK Politicians say sorry...
This is the signature tune of a French show which appeared on UK TV in the late 60s. For some interconnected reason, I stumbled on it and realised that I still whistle it now and again when it pops in my head. I have to whistle it as there’s no possible way until the next life that I can hit the notes.
However, I used to be able to sing along with it, and even get the high note, before my voice broke… ;-) I sang it in tune, with the correct expression and the appropriate feeling. Because, as Nichiren said, several times,
The way of attaining Buddhahood is just like this. Though we live in the impure land, our hearts reside in the pure land of Eagle Peak. Merely seeing each other’s face would in itself be insignificant. It is the heart that is important. Someday let us meet at Eagle Peak, where Shakyamuni Buddha dwells.
Masakado was renowned as a brave general who had mastered the art of war, yet he was defeated by the armies under the emperor’s command. Even Fan K’uai and Chang Liang had their failures. It is the heart that is important. No matter how earnestly Nichiren prays for you, if you lack faith, it will be like trying to set fire to wet tinder. Spur yourself to muster the power of faith. Regard your survival as wondrous. Employ the strategy of the Lotus Sutra before any other. “All others who bear you enmity or malice will likewise be wiped out.” These golden words will never prove false. The heart of strategy and swordsmanship derives from the Mystic Law. Have profound faith. A coward cannot have any of his prayers answered.
It’s important to realise that these blue words were written in feudal Japan to a nun, and to a samurai warrior. Nichiren wrote them directly to these people, to encourage them in words most appropriate to them. He did not write them to me. But the core of the meaning is just as important now in the 21st century industrialised West as it was then and I can use them just the same….
“It is the heart that is important” – it really is.
[...] Take these teachings to heart, and always remember that believers in the Lotus Sutra should absolutely be the last to abuse one another. All those who keep faith in the Lotus Sutra are most certainly Buddhas, and one who slanders a Buddha commits a grave offence. When one chants the daimoku bearing in mind...
Buddhism is concerned with the essential nature of humanity. Buddhism is not found somewhere else, separate from such beautiful expressions of humanity as appreciation towards one’s mother and courtesy to others. As Nichiren Daishonin teaches in the Gosho, “behaviour as a human being” that perfectly accords with reason is what constitutes the heart of Buddhism....
Everyone, it seems, both in the East and West, even China, is now aware of the huge forgery that gave last week’s Iranian election result to the cross-eyed one.
Tehran Election Results Demo 2009
However, when talking about the brave people marching through Tehran’s streets, saying “everyone deserves freedom” etc etc, we should cast our minds back only a few months in the UK, when the G20 protests were initially derided until that man Tomlinson died after being whacked by the police.
Cast our minds a little further back to the massive con over the American electorate that was the election of George Bush via his nepotic brother and the hanging chads fiasco. Yet still, even now, recall that USA elections are not fair because of the electronic voting system in place which can be manipulated to put anyone in power that controls the vote …
In light of this, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s re-election does not look so extra-ordinary.
I ask, a recount of what? – Forged and corrupted ballot papers that’s what.
Iraq War Demo 2003
No doubt the Western powers are secretly gleeful about all these events. It’s only for the oil though! Forget all thoughts of people’s right to demonstrate for freedom…. The USA and UK in particular, have a horrible history in Iran that people in that country have never forgotten. For instance, the CIA ran round dishing out money for voters to secure an election, and when he wasn’t suitable, the UK under nice Mr Churchill and the USA conspired to impose the Shah of Iran in his place – which is what happened.
Meanwhile, yesterday in the UK, Prime Minister Gordon Brown announced a secret investigation into the Iraq war (Iran’s neighbour), one founded on false ‘facts’ about weapons of mass destruction. A million people demonstrated in the UK against this war (similar to those on the streets in Tehran yesterday – compare and contrast the two photos) – and yet the war in Iraq still went ahead!
So much for people power…
What chance for a real vote recount in Tehran then?
Man with Black Hat Blames Everyone Else! Ahmad Khatami, a member of the Assembly of Experts in Iran who has a black hat, has said that the fingertips of the West are definitely on the ghastly bombing in the south-east Iranian city of Zahedan on Thursday. So it’s all my fault then…? Interestingly, within two...
Too Little, Too Late, Gordon Brown This morning, PM Gordon Brown told Andrew Marr that he wants to ‘clean up’ parliament. He wants a ‘code of conduct’ for MPs to follow. The thing is, there’s already a code of conduct – it’s called the law! All we, ‘the people’ want, is to have reasonable laws...
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