What Happened to Canada? January 30, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Uncategorized.Tags: Canada, canada dissent, canada government, canada pipelines, canada politics, Canada Tories, chris hedges, keystone xl, kyoto accords, leah henderson, roger hollander, Stephen Harper, tar sands, toronto g-20
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Roger’s note: this is not really news to us Canadians or anyone else who has been paying attention.
Police confront protesters outside 2010′s G-20 meeting in Toronto, Canada, June 25, 2010. (Photo: G20 Protest Photos)
What happened to Canada? It used to be the country we would flee to if life in the United States became unpalatable. No nuclear weapons. No huge military-industrial complex. Universal health care. Funding for the arts. A good record on the environment.
But that was the old Canada. I was in Montreal on Friday and Saturday and saw the familiar and disturbing tentacles of the security and surveillance state. Canada has withdrawn from the Kyoto Accords so it can dig up the Alberta tar sands in an orgy of environmental degradation. It carried out the largest mass arrests of demonstrators in Canadian history at 2010’s G-8 and G-20 meetings, rounding up more than 1,000 people. It sends undercover police into indigenous communities and activist groups and is handing out stiff prison terms to dissenters. And Canada’s Prime Minister Stephen Harper is a diminished version of George W. Bush. He champions the rabid right wing in Israel, bows to the whims of global financiers and is a Christian fundamentalist.
The voices of dissent sound like our own. And the forms of persecution are familiar. This is not an accident. We are fighting the same corporate leviathan.
“I want to tell you that I was arrested because I am seen as a threat,” Canadian activist Leah Henderson wrote to fellow dissidents before being sent to Vanier prison in Milton, Ontario, to serve a 10-month sentence. “I want to tell you that you might be too. I want to tell you that this is something we need to prepare for. I want to tell you that the risk of incarceration alone should not determine our organizing.”
“My skills and experience—as a facilitator, as a trainer, as a legal professional and as someone linking different communities and movements—were all targeted in this case, with the state trying to depict me as a ‘brainwasher’ and as a mastermind of mayhem, violence and destruction,” she went on. “During the week of the G8 & G20 summits, the police targeted legal observers, street medics and independent media. It is clear that the skills that make us strong, the alternatives that reduce our reliance on their systems and prefigure a new world, are the very things that they are most afraid of.”
The decay of Canada illustrates two things. Corporate power is global, and resistance to it cannot be restricted by national boundaries. Corporations have no regard for nation-states. They assert their power to exploit the land and the people everywhere. They play worker off of worker and nation off of nation. They control the political elites in Ottawa as they do in London, Paris and Washington. This, I suspect, is why the tactics to crush the Occupy movement around the globe have an eerie similarity—infiltrations, surveillance, the denial of public assembly, physical attempts to eradicate encampments, the use of propaganda and the press to demonize the movement, new draconian laws stripping citizens of basic rights, and increasingly harsh terms of incarceration.
Our solidarity should be with activists who march on Tahrir Square in Cairo or set up encampamentos in Madrid. These are our true compatriots. The more we shed ourselves of national identity in this fight, the more we grasp that our true allies may not speak our language or embrace our religious and cultural traditions, the more powerful we will become.
Those who seek to discredit this movement employ the language of nationalism and attempt to make us fearful of the other. Wave the flag. Sing the national anthem. Swell with national hubris. Be vigilant of the hidden terrorist. Canada’s Minister of Natural Resources Joe Oliver, responding to the growing opposition to the Keystone XL and the Northern Gateway pipelines, wrote in an open letter that “environmental and other radical groups” were trying to “hijack our regulatory system to achieve their radical ideological agenda.” He accused pipeline opponents of receiving funding from foreign special interest groups and said that “if all other avenues have failed, they will take a quintessential American approach: sue everyone and anyone to delay the project even further.”
No matter that in both Canada and the United States suing the government to seek redress is the right of every citizen. No matter that the opposition to the Keystone XL and Northern Gateway pipelines has its roots in Canada. No matter that the effort by citizens in the U.S. and in Canada to fight climate change is about self-preservation. The minister, in the pocket of the fossil fuel industry like the energy czars in most of the other industrialized nations, seeks to pit “loyal” Canadians against “disloyal” Canadians. Those with whom we will build this movement of resistance will not in some cases be our own. They may speak Arabic, pray five times a day toward Mecca and be holding off the police thugs in the center of Cairo. Or they may be generously pierced and tattooed and speak Danish or they may be Mandarin-speaking workers battling China’s totalitarian capitalism. These are differences that make no difference.
“My country right or wrong,” G.K. Chesterton once wrote, is on the same level as “My mother, drunk or sober.”
Our most dangerous opponents, in fact, look and speak like us. They hijack familiar and comforting iconography and slogans to paint themselves as true patriots. They claim to love Jesus. But they cynically serve the function a native bureaucracy serves for any foreign colonizer. The British and the French, and earlier the Romans, were masters of this game. They recruited local quislings to carry out policies and repression that were determined in London or Paris or Rome. Popular anger was vented against these personages, and native group vied with native group in battles for scraps of influence. And when one native ruler was overthrown or, more rarely, voted out of power, these imperial machines recruited a new face. The actual centers of power did not change. The pillage continued. Global financiers are the new colonizers. They make the rules. They pull the strings. They offer the illusion of choice in our carnivals of political theater. But corporate power remains constant and unimpeded. Barack Obama serves the same role Herod did in imperial Rome.
This is why the Occupy Wall Street movement is important. It targets the center of power—global financial institutions. It deflects attention from the empty posturing in the legislative and executive offices in Washington or London or Paris. The Occupy movement reminds us that until the corporate superstructure is dismantled it does not matter which member of the native elite is elected or anointed to rule. The Canadian prime minister is as much a servant of corporate power as the American president. And replacing either will not alter corporate domination. As the corporate mechanisms of control become apparent to wider segments of the population, discontent will grow further. So will the force employed by our corporate overlords. It will be a long road for us. But we are not alone. There are struggles and brush fires everywhere. Leah Henderson is not only right. She is my compatriot.
A Super Bowl of Struggle? The NFLPA’s Demaurice Smith on Opposing Indiana’s ‘Right to Work’ Agenda January 30, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Labor, Sports, Indiana.Tags: labor, labour, unions, workers rights, roger hollander, anti-union, organized labor, nfl, indiana, dave zirinon, super bowl, players association, right to work, nflpa, demaurice smith, labor law, professional sports, professional football
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Roger’s note: given the outrageous and obscene salaries that some elite athletes make, it might be tempting to dismiss the concerns of sports professional from a labor point of view. This would be an error. The vast majority do not make those multi million dollar salaries, and even if the average player is well paid in comparison with other classes of workers, the same issues are involved with respect to working conditions, benefits, etc. And one should not forget the physical beating that professional athletes take and pay for the rest of their lives. In other words, the principle of worker rights is most definitely in play with respect to professional sports. The NFLPA executive director put it most succinctly: “First and foremost, it’s important that our young men understand that they are just like every man and woman in America who works for a living. The minute that any sports player believes for whatever reason that they are outside the management-labor paradigm, I guarantee you that the minute you start thinking that way is the day you will start to lose ground.”
DeMaurice Smith: First and foremost, it’s important that our young men understand that they are just like every man and woman in America who works for a living. The minute that any sports player believes for whatever reason that they are outside the management-labor paradigm, I guarantee you that the minute you start thinking that way is the day you will start to lose ground. Our guys get their fingers broken, their backs broken, their heads concussed and their knees torn up because they actually put their hands into the ground and work for a living, and I would much rather have them understand and appreciate and frankly embrace the beauty of what it is to work and provide for their family.
[On this issue] we are in lock-step with organized labor. I’m proud to sit on the executive council of the AFL-CIO. Why? Because we share all the same issues that the American people share. We want decent wages. We want a fair pension. We want to be taken care of when we get hurt. We want a decent and safe working environment. So when you look at proposed legislation in a place like Indiana that wants to call it something like “Right to Work,” I mean, let’s just put the hammer on the nail. It’s untrue. This bill has nothing to do with a “right to work.” If folks in Indiana and that great legislature want to pass a bill that really is something called “Right to Work,” have a constitutional amendment that guarantees every citizen a job, that’s a “right to work.” What this is instead is a right to ensure that ordinary working citizens can’t get together as a team, can’t organize, can’t stand together and can’t fight management on an even playing field. From a sports union, our union, our men and their families understand the power of management and understand how much power management can wield over an individual person. So don’t call it a “right to work.” If you want to have an intelligent discussion about what the bill is, call it what it is. Call it an anti-organizing bill. Fine. If that’s what the people want to do in order to put a bill out there, let’s cast a vote on whether or not ordinary workers can get together and represent themselves, and let’s have a real referendum.
DZ: What would you say to someone who says, ‘Well, people who support this type of right to work legislation, they are just doing it to protect unions. They don’t care about the majority of workers who aren’t in unions”?
DS: Well take a look over the last 100 years. I used to say that we have forgotten a lot of the lessons from organized labor over the last 100 years, but I’m now convinced that we never learned them. Whether your talking about fire escapes outside of buildings or sprinkler systems inside of buildings, fair wages for a days work, laws that prevent child labor, things that led to the abolishing of sweatshops in America, let alone management contributing to healthcare plans or a decent pension… all those things over the last 100 years were not gifts from management. Someone in a corporate suite didn’t decide one day that they would bestow that wonderful right upon a working person. The way those rights were achieved was through the collective will of a group of workers who stood together and said, ‘This is what we believe is fair, and we are all going to stand together and demand that those things be provided to us. We’ll do it as a collective group. You may be able to pick off one of us or two of us or five of us, but you will not be able to pick off all of us.’ When you look at legislation that is designed to tear apart that ability to work as a team… that is not just anti-union. That is anti–working man and woman, and that’s why we weighed in on this one.
DZ: When you put out a statement like this, does it also goes out to every player so they’re aware of this campaign?
DS: It goes out to the players, the board, and the executive committee, and here in this case, we actually reached out to former Indianapolis Colts, former players who went to college in Indiana, and those players who live in Indiana, and asked them if they’d want to sign on. So we have a very impressive list of players. Rex Grossman is a local player who signed on. Jeff George, former quarterback for [among other teams] the Indianapolis Colts, also signed on. I’m proud of our guys who signed off on this because I do think that they appreciate and understand that in the same way that those things that we were talking about things that have been changes for good for ordinary workers in America, there isn’t a player in the National Football League who shouldn’t understand that every benefit that we have in the collective bargaining agreement is one that was negotiated by a collective of players standing together. Coming out of this lockout, perhaps it was the first time some of our young men understood what the collective bargaining agreement is all about. [Author’s note: De Smith said after the interview that Tim Tebow was behind the NFLPA 100 percent during the lockout. Given some of my own critiques of Tebow’s politics, I felt obliged to include that nugget.]
DZ: The news this week was that this bill was rammed through committee, so it is advancing through the Indiana State House. Has there been any talk about what else the NFLPA might do? Any follow up to the statement that you put out?
DS: I wrote an op-ed that has been placed in the main Indianapolis newspaper. If the issue is still percolating by the time of Super Bowl, I can promise you that the players of the National Football League and their union will be up front about what we think about this and why. Look, we have players who played in Indianapolis obviously, but I made no secret coming into this fight that the lockout, organized and implemented by a group of owners, was not only designed to hurt players but all of the people who work in and around our stadium: the hospitality network, the network of restaurants, bars, all of those things that are connected and touch our business were affected by the lockout that we frankly did not want to happen. So there is never going to be a day where players are going to divorce themselves from the ordinary people who work around their sports, and we’re sure as heck not going to divorce ourselves from the fans who dig our game.
DZ: If the legislation is still percolating, there will be people who will be doing legal, nonviolent protests around the Super Bowl game to try to leverage the spotlight of the Super Bowl to raise the issue for a national audience, and I know that they’re getting various union endorsements to do so. Is that something the NFLPA would support, the idea of a demonstration, a legal, nonviolent demonstration outside the Super Bowl?
DS: Yeah, possibly. We’ve been on picket lines in Indianapolis already with hotel workers who were basically pushed to the point of breaking on the hotel rooms that they had to clean because they were not union workers. We’ve been on picket lines in Boston and San Antonio. So, the idea of participating in a legal protest is something that we’ve done before.
We’ll have to see what is going to go on when we’re there, but issues like this are incredibly important to us. If we can be in a position just to make sure that we raise the level of the debate to the point where it is a fair and balanced discussion about the issues, I think that is something that our players can help do. Obviously, players have a very high profile, and I think its important for them to take on issues which are important to them and be in a position to talk about them, raise the level of consciousness about them.
If we do one thing by making this statement, and it is raising the level of the debate, and to have real people ask real questions about it, we’ve served our purpose.
Dismantling the Master’s House: Psychologists and Torture January 29, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Health, Human Rights, Torture.Tags: roger hollander, Guantanamo, human rights, torture, military psychologists, apa, psychologists, ethics, roy eidelson, pens, psychology ethics, bsct
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Roger’s note: The US military has extended its corrupt tentacles into high schools, universities, reasearch institutions, and — now we learn — into the major governing organization of professional psychology. The APA’s official stamp of approval of the CIA torture regime is a scandalous blight on its independence and integrity. Please sign the petition.
Amid disturbing reports that psychologists were involved in the abuse and torture of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, the American Psychological Association (APA) Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS) met in the summer of 2005. Over two days they considered whether the Bush Administration’s no-holds-barred “enhanced interrogation” policies crossed ethical boundaries for military psychologists. Six of the nine voting Task Force members were on the payroll of the military/intelligence establishment, and several of them worked in the chains of command when and where instances of abuse and torture had reportedly occurred. So we should not be surprised by the Task Force’s conclusion that psychologists play an important role in keeping detainee interrogations “safe, legal, ethical, and effective.” This assessment affirmed, nearly verbatim, the military’s own description of Behavioral Science Consultation Team (BSCT) psychologists — a description that had been provided to the Task Force in writing before their deliberations even began.
The Coalition for an Ethical Psychology is dedicated to putting psychology on a firm ethical foundation in support of social justice and human rights. The Coalition has been in the lead of efforts to remove psychologists from torture and abusive interrogations. http://ethicalpsychology.org/
Professional psychology has made valuable contributions to national security through collaborative efforts with government agencies — and it will undoubtedly continue to do so. But does anyone truly believe that crucial determinations about psychological ethics should ever be guided by the views and agenda of the Secretary of Defense or the Director of the CIA? The many glaring flaws associated with the PENS Report are especially revealing since the APA is, after all, an organization of psychologists. It’s therefore very unlikely that the Task Force organizers were somehow unaware of the potent psychological influences of power differentials on group dynamics; of authority structures and conformity pressures on independent decision-making; and of self-interest on objective, unbiased analysis. It’s far more likely the organizers knew exactly how to create the conditions that would reliably produce the outcome they sought.
Today, a grassroots campaign is underway calling on the APA to annul the PENS Report. This call for annulment is ultimately inseparable from important issues of accountability and transparency. Audre Lorde’s reminder that “the master’s tools will never dismantle the master’s house” is helpful in describing the challenge. The key leadership of the APA today includes several high-level staff members who were central figures in the PENS Task Force fiasco. Similarly, two current Board members were also on the Board in 2005 when it approved the PENS Report in an emergency session. At a time when the destructive and corrupting consequences of too much power in too few hands have never been more apparent in corporate boardrooms on Wall Street (and elsewhere), how much different is the situation at APA headquarters?
In the six years since the PENS Report was issued, APA leadership has never encouraged a thorough reconsideration of the Task Force’s deliberations or the Report’s conclusions. And they have never, even in hindsight, expressed regret for any decisions made — despite the fact that the passage of time has repeatedly brought to light further evidence that psychologists acted as planners, consultants, researchers, and overseers to abusive and torturous detainee interrogations. Sadly, APA instead has relied on stonewalling and obfuscation. Why was the PENS Report put to an “emergency” vote of the Board alone, rather than bringing it before the Council of Representatives which, according to the APA, “has sole authority to set policy”? Why was the head of the Practice Directorate given a lead role in the PENS proceedings even though his spouse had been one of the psychologists at the Guantanamo Bay Detention Center? Were representatives of the military/intelligence sector involved in the actual selection of members for the APA Task Force? Why were the identities of Task Force members not included in the Report itself and not made readily available to the press or to APA’s membership? And so on. Even at this late date, official answers to these and other longstanding questions would be welcome.
It’s crucial to recognize that the PENS Report remains a highly influential and authoritative policy document today. The Report is used by the Department of Defense as guidance for BSCT psychologists; by military psychologists seeking to advance “operational psychology” as an area of specialization that includes aggressive counterintelligence and counterterrorism operations; and by the APA Ethics Committee as a guide to ethical behavior in national security settings. The importance and urgency of annulment are made even clearer by current moves in Congress to restore and legalize the use of torturous interrogation techniques. If these efforts succeed, in all likelihood psychologists will be called upon again to oversee and implement morally repugnant practices.
Meanwhile, the annulment campaign is drawing broad support. To date, 29 psychology and human rights organizations have officially endorsed the call, and almost 1,500 individuals have stepped forward to sign the annulment petition online (www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens). Among the organizational endorsers are Physicians for Human Rights, the American Civil Liberties Union, the National Religious Campaign Against Torture, the National Lawyers Guild, Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, and the Center for Constitutional Rights. Among the petition signers are psychiatrists such as Robert Jay Lifton (author of The Nazi Doctors) and Stephen Xenakis (retired Brigadier General, U.S. Army), scholar-activists such as Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, attorneys who have represented Guantanamo detainees, former members of the intelligence community, and other psychologists, military members, and human rights advocates.
Interested psychologists and non-psychologists alike can join this effort by signing the online annulment petition at www.ethicalpsychology.org/pens. Please consider doing so.
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Roy Eidelson is a clinical psychologist and the president of Eidelson Consulting, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizational, and group conflict settings. He is past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, associate director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College, and a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology. Roy can be reached at reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com.
Huge Protest in Pakistan Against US Drone Attacks January 29, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Pakistan, War, War on Terror.Tags: roger hollander, pakistan, imperialism, u.s. military, pakistan government, drone missiles, predator missiles, drones, Yousuf Raza Gilani
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‘Drones are counter-productive’
Over 100,000 Pakistanis rallied in Karachi Friday afternoon to protest US drone strikes on their country. The demonstrators also demanded that the Pakistani government continue the blockade on the NATO supply route to Afghanistan.

Over 100,000 Pakistanis rallied in Karachi Friday afternoon to protest US drone strikes on their country. The Times of India reports:
DAVOS — Pakistan’s prime minister said today that there was “a trust deficit” between Islamabad and Washington as he criticized the resumption of US drone strikes on his country’s tribal belt.
Speaking the day after over 100,000 people massed in Karachi to protest the strikes, Yousuf Raza Gilani said they only served to bolster militants.
“Drones are counter-productive. We have very ably isolated militants from the local tribes. When there are drone attacks that creates sympathy for them again,” Gilani told reporters at the Davos forum.
“It makes the job of the political leadership and the military very difficult. We have never allowed the drone attacks and we have always maintained that they are unacceptable, illegal and counterproductive.”
Relations between the United States and Pakistan have deteriorated sharply over the last year, with Islamabad furious about the surprise deadly raid on al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden’s hideout in Abbottabad last year. [...]
In public, Pakistani leaders always insist they are against drone strikes, which are deeply unpopular in the country, but US officials insist that they privately cooperate with the program.
Agence France-Presse reports:
“We are being forced to become extremists. When you and your religion are humiliated in Guantanamo Bay detention center and your children are being crushed under tanks, then what the victims will ultimately do? They’ll counter your extremism with extremism.”[...] “We are not the enemies of the people of the West and the United States, but we reject the Americans’ attitude by which they always demand of a servile obedience from us,” JUI leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman told the crowd in Pakistan’s financial capital.
The party was not against the talks between Pakistan and the US, “but it should be between two equal sides,” the leader of the country’s most influential religous party said, kicking off campaigning ahead of general elections scheduled next year.
Senior police official Ahsan Zulfiqar said more than 100,000 people attended the gathering in front of the mausoleum of the country’s founder Mohammad Ali Jinnah.
Rehman said communism vanished after the fall of Soviet Union and a similar fate was beckoning the West, with the US staring at an “imminent defeat” in Afghanistan.
“Movements like Occupy Wall Street are just the beginning of the end of the imperialism of America and its Western allies,” he said.
“We are being forced to become extremists. When you and your religion are humiliated in Guantanamo Bay detention center and your children are being crushed under tanks, then what the victims will ultimately do? They’ll counter your extremism with extremism.”
What We Learned From One Year Of Mitt Romney’s Taxes January 28, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in 2012 Election, Economic Crisis, LGBT.Tags: george romney, judd legum, middle class, mitt romney, republicans, roger hollander, tax evasion, tax shelters, taxes
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By Judd Legum on Jan 26, 2012 at 3:25 pm, www.thinkprogress.org
After resisting for months, Mitt Romney finally released one year of his tax returns this week. Here’s what we learned (click to enlarge):
Mitt Romney’s father George released 12 years of his taxes when he ran for president in 1968, stating, “One year could be a fluke, perhaps done for show.” Please sign our petition and help us put the pressure on Romney to follow his father’s example.
Guatemala Dictator Efrain Rios Montt Faces Genocide Allegations, Lawyer Disputes Charges January 28, 2012
Posted by rogerhollander in Latin America, Human Rights, Genocide, Guatemala.Tags: roger hollander, Latin America, human rights, guatemala, genocide, rigoberta menchu, rios-montt, romina ruiz-foiriena, montt, guatemala civil war, guatemala dictatorship, carol patricia flores, sury rios, cirmes against humanity, oscar perez molina
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Guatemala’s former dictator Efrain Rios Montt, center, sits between his lawyers as they listen to prosecutors in a courtroom in Guatemala City on Thursday, Jan. 26, 2012. (AP Photo/Rodrigo Abd)
Roger’s note: I am reminded of those four words that contain almost everything one need’s to know to understand our crazy world: No Justice, No Peace. The charges against Montt are a good precedent, there are many others who should be facing the same justice, including Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld and the rest of the American war criminals. And need I mention that the brutal Guatemalan dictatorship not only had the full support of the United States government but was in fact heir to power in Guatemala as a result of the CIA directed coup d’etat in the mid fifties that deposed a progressive elected president (as with Pinochet in Chile, etc.)?
By ROMINA RUIZ-GOIRIENA , www.huffingtonpost.com, January 27, 2012
GUATEMALA CITY — The defense lawyer for former dictator Efrain Rios Montt said Friday that a judge violated due process when she issued
unprecedented genocide charges against Rios Montt for conduct during Guatemala’s bloody civil war.
Danilo Rodriguez Galvez said Judge Carol Patricia Flores was supposed to issue her decision only after hearing testimony on allegations that Rios Montt was involved in hundreds of murders, human violations and the displacement of 29,000 people during the three-decade war.
Flores charged Rios Montt with genocide and crimes against humanity late Thursday, hours after he appeared in court but refused to testify about the allegations.
It’s the first time a Latin American court has charged former president with genocide.
Flores first lectured Rios Montt for an hour on the allegations, citing witness testimony, before issuing her decision, Rodriguez said. He said that her conduct resembled a conviction and that he would file a formal complaint next week.
“The judge’s duty was to report the resolution. The fact is that she talked for an hour as if the case had already been prosecuted,” Rodriguez said.
Flores said Friday she would not comment because the complaint had yet to be formally filed.
Rios Montt, who ruled Guatemala in 1982-83 after a military coup, is accused in 266 incidents that resulted in 1,771 deaths, 1,400 human rights violations and the displacement of 29,000 indigenous Guatemalans.
The war ended in 1996 with the signing of a peace accord between the government and leftist guerrillas. The conflict left more than 200,000 dead and missing, 93 percent of them by state forces and paramilitary groups, according to a U.N. report. Hundreds of Mayan villages were largely wiped away.
“I understand what the prosecution is saying and I won’t respond,” Rios Montt said before the judge, later adding: “The point is to do justice, not vengeance.”
He had immunity from prosecution as a member of congress, but it expired Jan. 14.
After hearing daylong testimony, some by victims and witnesses of atrocities, Flores deliberated for three hours before issuing her decision. Rios Montt faces prosecution on charges he was the mastermind of the abuses in his roles as head of the military and Guatemala’s equivalent of the secret service.
“Unfortunately there are cases like this where people have been waiting 29 years for justice,” Flores said during the testimony.
The next step is for the prosecution to present the formal case against Rios Montt before the court.
He was ordered to be held under house arrest and to pay a $64,000 bond.
The former dictator was also told not to communicate with others accused in the case, which also involves country’s first genocide charges against retired generals Mauricio Rodriguez Sanchez and Hector Mario Lopez Fuentes, the army chief of staff under Rios Montt.
Crimes against humanity charges were suspended earlier this month for retired Gen. Oscar Humberto Mejia, the defense minister for Rios Montt who later deposed him to take over the presidency. The court determined Mejia doesn’t have the physical or mental faculties to go to trial.
Rodriguez and Lopez have also claimed health conditions have kept them from court proceedings. All are in their 80s.
Prosecutors argued Thursday that as de facto president, Rios Montt was responsible for the army’s “scorched earth” policy in communities where there was potential support for the leftist rebels.
Prosecutor Manuel Vasquez also accused him of authorizing massacres of ethnic Ixil Maya as well as sexual assaults on the women.
“The politics that caused the massacres started in 1965 and continued throughout,” Rodriguez argued on behalf of Rios Montt. “You can’t ascribe authorship of that long-term political policy to Rios Montt.”
Zury Rios, the former leader’s daughter who heads the Guatemala Republican Front political party, said the case against her father came from outside interests.
It was first brought in 2000 by the Center for Legal Action for Human Rights based on testimony of victims and their families.
Guatemala’s 1992 Nobel Peace Prize laureate, Rigoberta Menchu, also has accused Rios Montt of genocide in a Spanish court.
The country’s recently inaugurated president, Otto Perez Molina, was a top military officer during the war and has long insisted there were no massacres, human rights violations or genocide in the conflict.
But his close advisers have said he supports meeting the conditions set by various U.S. congressional appropriations acts for restoring aid that was first eliminated in 1978 halfway through the civil war. Among the required steps is reforming a weak justice system that has failed to bring those responsible for wartime abuses to justice.
The unprecedented genocide trial has continued since Perez took office earlier this month.




In answering, Obama argued that “first of all, drones have not caused a great number of civilian casualties.” A claim that belies evidence. The question came from a young man named, Evan, from Brooklyn, New York, who said: “Mr. President, since you took office you’ve ordered more drone attacks in your first year than your predecessor did in his entire term. These drone attacks cause a lot of civilian casualties. I’m curious to know how you feel they help the nation and whether you think they’re worth it.”








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“a drone can circle and study a target for hours before it strikes”
Only because the people down below lack anti-aircraft weapons (a pretty good sign that they are actually civilians).
Or, if not civilians, then no threat whatsoever to US citizens minding their own business within their borders.
The Americans have been fighting cowardly wars ever since the end of world war 11. They only go after poor third world countries dropping their bombs from on high on innocent civilians. I remember their massive slaughter of the Vietnamese using napalm and cluster bombs. They are so vicious and dumb that killing poor people that have done nothing against them makes them feel good and they hate foreigners so much they don’t even bother to count the number they kill because it might remind people how uneven their wars are.
Amerikans/ Europeans have been slaughtering/ carrying out terrorist atrocities, aka wars; since 1492 ! Manifest Destiny, amerikan imperialism, terrorism, all deadly semantics; all have come Full Circle…..the fascist amerikan empire IS sliding into the abyss !!!
“The ancient Greeks, unlike the Jews or the Christians, invested their gods with human failings. Divine judgment, they believed, was neither flawless nor dispassionate; it was warped by lust, vengeance and self-interest. In the hands of Zeus, the thunderbolt was both an instrument of justice and a weapon of jealousy and revenge.”–George Monbiot ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “unlike the jews or christians”? i find that curious, george, because somewhere in the old testament we learn that g_d is a jealous g_d.
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ “Yet, as fatalistic as the ancient Greeks, we drift into this with scarcely a murmur of debate, leaving the gods to decide.”–George Monbiot ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
good point! i find it amazing that people continue to expect the elect of mount olympus d.c. to solve all problems. we might blame that “faith” in the ruling class on the greeks, too. plato, realising that certain humans among us have such extraordinary qualities of leadership, intellectually wise and morally superior that they most naturally should be entrusted to manage all our affairs. why to even the landed gentry, is tantamount to questioning the gods themselves!
plato went on to say that these most exalted ones know best which sciences a government supports and which sciences waste time and money. the sciences which lead to more magnificent weaponry should get the lion’s share for should another society attempt to wrest the g_d given (*see divine right of kings) land always makes weaponry top priority. we immoral, mortal commoners who glory in our leader’s success must see their altruism for what it is. they protect and manage the wealth for all of us.
The first, the original, meaning of “jealous” was “watchful” or “careful.” This is the sense in which the translators of the King James Bible used it.
Since you raise the point, Rainborowe, I’ve often wondered why the term “jealous” has gotten muddled in popular usage.
In addition to the synonyms you present, the original pejorative sense of jealous meant, and still sometimes means, “protective” or “possessive” (to a fault). But in modern usage it’s also a synonym for “envious” or “covetous”, which isn’t really the same thing.
‘Tis a semantic puzzle.
“god bless america…..and nobody else!”
“patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels!” –dr. samuel johnson
When was the last time the U.S. actually won a war?
Reminds me of the late Bill Hicks’ view on the first Gulf slaughter;
“War? Well, a war is when *two* armies are fighting.”
When a war “ends”, so does the revenue stream for the banksters and their military industrial complex. No US war will ever end as long as the banksters own the US Government.
This is drivel, for two reasons:
Using drones is no more dastardly than using suicide bombers – both are indiscriminate and presume ‘collateral’ damage.
In the larger picture, all war is a crime. attempting to parse discrete levels of culpability is absurd prima facie.
Except suicide-bombing arises only as a desperate measure by a vastly out-gunned people trying futilely to defend themselves against an invader and occupier. Stop the invasions and occupations and the suicide-bombings will stop. Alternatvely, if the defenders were given the same advanced weaponry as the invader, they would discard their inaccurate suicide bombs too.
Also, with all the atrocities being done in our name by our governent, which are precipitating the suicide bombings to begin with, and all the work to be done resisting them, I frankly don’t have the indignation left to invest in the suicide bomber’s actions. So, the symmetry you are trying to draw is no quite correct. There is no symmetry between effect and casue – at the macroscopic non-quantum level anyway.
What is really absurd is failure to distinguish between the culpability of those who seek to impose imperial tyranny and those who attempt to defend their homes and families against it.
As some Palestinian once said, give us planes and tanks so we don’t have to use suicide/human bombers.
I appreciate Mr. Monbiot’s use of Greek mythology. His initial point was to show that the deities of Olympus have critical flaws unlike the premise of a more perfect God, one alone who is flawless, and governs our world as the sovereign ruler.
I take issue, however, with Mr. Monbiot’s conclusion:
“Yet, as fatalistic as the ancient Greeks, we drift into this with scarcely a murmur of debate, leaving the gods to decide. “
The MIC acts like a stand-in for Divine authority as it sees no need to take input from citizens. It is this Luciferic force, masquerading as a god of indiscriminate death, that makes the decisions that eliminate all debate. It is not the citizenry, particularly those who advocate FOR world peace and see through the law-defying rationales of the “War on Terror,” who choose these outcomes!
WE is a dangerous notion when decisions are taken by a few (very damaged souls) on alleged behalf of all others.
this guy monbiot is an odd guy – i saw him last month “debating” helen calddicott about nuclear energy – he was shilling for the industry and his disrespect for this world renown expert was offensive
he’s one of these guys who says a little radiation is “good” for you – it ain’t
as far as the drones go – trying to make this sound like a man up situation is very macho on his part but i’ll bet 20 bucks he has never been under fire
as much as i hate our current military situation around the world i don’t want to see another one of our men or women injured or killed, not even one more
4800 dead – hundreds of thousands wounded emotionally and physically is quite enough
we need to stand down the war machine manned and unmanned and stop all this killing
our soldiers are not cowards but the likes of obummer, cheney, bush baby and mittens oromney who put them in harm’s way – they are truly cowards and when it was time for them to serve they had “other priorities” as cowards often do…
I really think you need some lessons in civility in the way you write your posts. You write like an arrogant asshole.
Monbiot, as I do, regard the catastrophic consequences of AGW to be a far more dire issue than nuclear power plant safety issues – which are manifestly exaggerated by oppnents compared to any other industrial process – especially the mining and burning of coal. The facts are, when a nuclear power plant is closed, it is replaced with a coal-burning one. And even if it were replaced with renewables, it means that a coal power plant somewhere could have, but will not, be replaced with renewables. As Monbiot has noted, this is madness.
i think that shilling for nuclear power exposes your ignorance of the dangers of nuclear energy its either willful ignorance or you work in the industry
go and live near one and count the days until your tumors arrive
death count from chernobyl – 1 million
fuskushima: well that is being written – the prefecture where that monstrosity sits is now uninhabitable for the half life of the isotopes being released – around 30,000 years or so
3 mile island – oh yeah we didn’t even measure that one
shill on bro – ignorant one – each to his own
If nuclear power plants are safe, let the commerical insurance industry insure them – they don’t and won’t and for good reason
shill on bro shill on
Regarding Mr. Monbiot, I believe he was against nuclear power before he was for it. He now displays the passion of a convert.
Man, If you don’t wear metaphorical boots while posting on this site, one is likely to step in a pile of dung. PJD is lecturing med on civility at the same time calling him or her an “arrogant asshole.” (Pot calling the Kettle black.)
Since when did CD establish etiquette laws?
But having a bunch of limp-wristed gays in the military now makes it okay for us to be cowardly and wimpish in the way we fight our manly wars of aggression. ;~)
Border
n. 2. Archaic A line separating two political or geographical areas, esp. countries.
“With Its Deadly Drones, the US is Fighting a Coward’s War”
“With these unmanned craft, governments can fight a coward’s war, a god’s war, harming only the unnamed.” ________________________
I get the point, but I think conceptualizing technobarbaric warfare as “cowardly” is unfortunate in one respect: it’s susceptible to the inference that manunkind was better off when warmongers initiated good old-fashioned brave, heroic, glorious wars– wars against “named” targets, give or take a bunch of innocent bystanders.
You know, a MANLY war.