63
   

House of Reps. member Giffords shot in Arizona today

 
 
JTT
 
  -1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2011 03:15 pm
@OmSigDAVID,
OmSig, can you confirm or deny the following?

Quote:
Being American Means Never Having to Say You're Sorry

From the book Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower


Cuba

Cuba, said US District Judge James Lawrence King on December

17, 1997, "in outrageous contempt for international law and

basic human rights, murdered four human beings in international

airspace." He then proceeded to award $187.6 million to

the families of the Florida-based Cuban pilots who had been shot

down in February 1996 by Cuban jets while on an air mission,

destination Cuba.{2} (In actuality, the Cuban government had

done no more than any government in the world would have done

under the same circumstances. Havana regarded the planes as

within Cuban airspace, of serious hostile intent, and gave the

pilots explicit warning: "You are taking a risk." Planes from the

same organization had gone even further into Cuban territory on

earlier occasions and had been warned by Cuba not to return.)

In November 1996, the federal government gave each of the families

a down payment of $300,000 on the award, the money coming out of frozen

Cuban assets.{3}


Such was justice, anti-communist style.

Totally ignored by the American government, however,

was Cuba's lawsuit of May 31, 1999, filed in a Havana court

demanding $181.1 billion in US compensation for death and injury

suffered by Cuban citizens in four decades of "war" by Washington

against Cuba. The document outlined American "aggression", ranging from

backing for armed rebel groups within Cuba and the Bay of Pigs invasion

in

1961, to subversion attempts from the US naval base of Guantanamo and

the

planting of epidemics on the island.

Cuba said it was demanding $30 million in direct

compensation for each of the 3,478 people it said were killed

by US actions and $15 million each for the 2,099 injured. It

was also asking $10 million each for the people killed, and $5

million each for the injured, to repay Cuban society for

the costs it has had to assume on their behalf. That was

"substantially less" than the amount per person fixed by US

Judge King in the pilots' case, the document pointed out.

Cuban officials delivered the papers for the suit to the

US Interests Section in Havana. The Americans refused to

accept them. The Cuban government subsequently announced plans to take

the lawsuit to an international forum.{4}


Vietnam

On January 27, 1973, in Paris, the United States signed

the "Agreement on Ending the War and Restoring Peace in Vietnam".

Among the principles to which the United States agreed was

the one stated in Article 21: "In pursuance of its traditional

policy [sic], the United States will contribute to healing the wounds

of war and to postwar reconstruction of the Democratic Republic

of Vietnam [North Vietnam] and throughout Indochina."

Five days later, President Nixon sent a message to the

Prime Minister of North Vietnam in which he stipulated the

following:

"(1)The Government of the United States of America will

contribute to postwar reconstruction in North Vietnam without

any political conditions. (2)Preliminary United States studies

indicate that the appropriate programs for the United States

contribution to postwar reconstruction will fall in the range

of $3.25 billion of grant aid over 5 years."{5}

Nothing of the promised reconstruction aid was ever paid.

Or ever will be.

However -- deep breath here -- Vietnam has been compensating

the United States. In 1997 it began to pay off about $145

million in debts left by the defeated South Vietnamese

government for American food and infrastructure aid. Thus, Hanoi is

reimbursing the United States for part of the cost of the

war waged against it.{6}

How can this be? The proper legal term is "extortion". The

enforcers employed by Washington included the World Bank, the

International Monetary Fund, the Export-Import Bank, the Paris

Club, and the rest of the international financial mafia. The

Vietnamese were made an offer they couldn't refuse: Pay up or

subject yourself to exquisite forms of economic torture, even

worse than the considerable maiming you've already experienced

at the hands of our godfathers.{7}

At the Vietnamese embassy in Washington (a small office

in an office building), the First Secretary for Press Affairs,

Mr. Le Dzung, told the author in 1997 that this matter, as well

as Nixon's unpaid billions, are rather emotional issues in

Vietnam, but the government is powerless to change the way the

world works.



Nicaragua

Under siege by the United States and its Contra proxy army

for several years, Nicaragua filed suit in 1984 in the World

Court (International Court of Justice), the principal judicial organ

of the United Nations, located in The Hague, Netherlands, for relief from

the constant onslaught, which included mining its

harbors. The Court ruled in 1986 that the US was in violation of

international law for a host of reasons, stated that Washington

"is under a duty immediately to cease and to refrain from all

such acts [of hostility]" and "is under an obligation to make

reparation to the Republic of Nicaragua for all injury".

Anticipating the suit, the Reagan administration had

done the decent and right thing: It announced, on April 6, 1984,

three days before Nicaragua's filing, that the US would not

recognize the World Court's jurisdiction in matters concerning

Central America for a two-year period.

Apart from the awesome arbitrariness of this proclamation,

the court's ruling of June 27, 1986 actually came after the

two-year period had expired, but the United States ignored it

anyway. Washington did not slow down its hostile acts against

Nicaragua, nor did it ever pay a penny in reparation.{8}



Libya

The April 1986 American bombing of Libya took the lives of scores

of people and wounded another hundred or so. The dead included

Libyan leader Moammar Qaddafi's young daughter; all of Qaddafi's

other seven children as well as his wife were hospitalized,

suffering from shock and various injuries. A year later, 65

claims were filed with the White House and the Department of

Defense under the Federal Tort Claims Act and the Foreign Claims

Act, on behalf of those killed or injured. The claimants, who

were asking for up to $5 million for each wrongful death,

included Libyans, Greeks, Egyptians, Yugoslavs and Lebanese.{9}

Before long, the number of claimants reached to about 340, but

none of their claims got anywhere in the American judicial

system, with the Supreme Court declining to hear the case.{10}



Panama

For several years following the American invasion of 1989, with

its highly destructive bombing and ground combat, many individual

Panamanians tried in various ways to receive compensation for

the death or injury of themselves or family members, or the

wreckage of their home or business. But their legal claims and suits

were met by an implacable US government. One American law firm filed

claims on behalf of some 200 Panamanians (all non-combatants), first

in

Panama with US military officials -- under provisions of the Panama

Canal treaty -- who rejected the claims; then in two suits filed in US

courts, all the way up to the Supreme

Court, with each of the courts declining to hear the cases.{11}

During the years 1990 to 1993, some 300 Panamanians petitioned the

Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the Organization of

American States (OAS) for a finding that the United States had

violated

many of their rights and was liable for "just compensation". In 1993,

the Commission ruled the petition "admissible". But as of Fall 1999,

it

was still pending as to its "merits", which were being "studied".{12}

It should be born in mind that over the years, the United States has

wielded inordinate influence in the OAS, far more than any other

member.

Witness Washington's success in getting Cuba suspended from the

organization in 1962 and kept out to the present time despite

repeated,

growing, and publicly-expressed support for

Cuba's reinstatement by other OAS members.

There was a report some years ago that a few small payments

-- seemingly somewhat arbitrary -- had been made "on the ground"

by US officials to Panamanians in Panama. But in December

1999, the State Department Press Office dealing with Panama stated

that "the United States has not paid any compensation for

combat-related

deaths or injuries or property damage due to Operation Just

Cause" (this being the not-tongue-in-cheek name given to the

American invasion and bombing).{13} Some of the American aid

given to Panama since 1989, the State Department added, has been

used by Panama for such purposes. The State Department puts

the matter thusly, it would appear, to make it clear to the world

that they do not feel any guilt or responsibility for what they

did to the people of Panama and will not succumb to any kind of

coercion to pay any compensation.

On December 20, 1999, the tenth anniversary of the American

invasion, hundreds of Panamanians took to the street to demand

once again that the US pay damages to civilian victims of the

bombing.



Sudan

The El-Shifa pharmaceutical plant had raised Sudanese medicinal

self-sufficiency from less than five percent to more than 50

percent, while producing about 90 percent of the drugs used to

treat the most deadly illnesses in this desperately poor country.

But on August 20, 1998, the United States saw fit to send more

than a dozen Tomahawk cruise missiles screaming into the plant,

in an instant depriving the people of Sudan of their achievement.

Based on a covertly acquired soil sample, Washington claimed

that the plant was producing chemical weapons. At the same time

the US gave the world the clear impression that the factory's

owner, Saleh Idris, was a close associate of terrorists and was

involved in money laundering. Washington proceeded to freeze $24

million in Idris's London bank accounts. But the US was never able

to prove any of its assertions, while every piece of evidence and

every expert testimony that surfaced categorically contradicted

the claim about chemical weapons.{14} The case fell apart

completely, and in the meantime, Idris sued to recover his money

as well as compensation for his pulverized plant.

Finally, in May 1999, the United States unfroze Idris's

accounts rather than contest his suit because they knew they

had no case. But as of the end of that year, the US had yet

to apologize to Sudan or to Idris for the plant's destruction,

or for the serious harm done to his reputation, and had yet

to compensate him for the loss of the plant and the loss of

business; nor the plant's employees for the loss of their jobs

and income, or the ten people who were injured. The degree of

Washington's arrogance in the whole matter was stunning, from

the initial act on. "Never before," observed former CIA

official Milt Bearden, "has a single soil sample prompted an act of

war

against a sovereign state."{15}



Iraq

The American government and media had a lot of fun with an obvious

piece

of Iraqi propaganda -- the claim that a biological

warfare facility, bombed during the Gulf War in 1991, had actually

been

a baby food factory. But it turned out that the government of New

Zealand, whose technicians had visited the site

repeatedly, and various other business people from New Zealand

who had had intimate contact with the factory, categorically

confirmed that it had indeed been a baby food factory. The

French contractor who had built the place said the same. But

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, insisted:

"It was a biological weapons facility, of that we are sure."{16}

As to American compensation ... this stood as much chance as

a ground war with Russia in the wintertime.



China

An exception? After the United States bombed the Chinese embassy

in Belgrade in May 1999, Washington apologized profusely to

Beijing, blaming outdated maps and such. But this, it appears,

was just a cover for the fact that the bombing wasn't actually

an accident. Two reports in The Observer of London in October and

November, based on NATO and US military and intelligence sources,

revealed that the embassy had been targeted after NATO discovered

that it was being used to transmit Yugoslav army communications.

The Chinese were doing this after NATO jets had successfully

silenced the Yugoslav government's own transmitters.{17}

Over and above the military need, there may have been a

political purpose served. China is clearly the principal barrier

to US hegemony in Asia. The bombing of the embassy was perhaps

Washington's charming way of telling Beijing that this is only

a small sample of what can happen to you if you have any ideas

of resisting the American juggernaut. Being able to have a much

better than usual "plausible denial" for carrying out such a

bombing may have been irresistible to American leaders. The

chance would never come again.

All of US/NATO's other bombing "mistakes" in Yugoslavia

were typically followed by their spokesman telling the world:

"We regret the loss of life." These same words were used by the

IRA in Northern Ireland on a number of occasions over the years

following one of their bombings which appeared to have struck

the wrong target. But their actions were invariably called

"terrorist".



Guatemala

On March 10, 1999, in a talk delivered in Guatemala City, President

Clinton said that US support for repressive forces in

Guatemala "was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that

mistake." But the word "sorry" did not cross the president's

lips, nor did the word "apologize", nor the word "compensation".{18}

Forty years of unholy cruelty to a people for which the United States

was preeminently responsible was not worth a right word or a penny.

This was the first visit by an American president to Guatemala

since Lyndon Johnson went there in 1968, during the height of the

oppression by Washington's client-state government. Johnson did not of

course say that the current US policy in Guatemala was wrong, when it

would have meant a lot more than Clinton saying so 31 years later. LBJ

did, however, inform his audience that he had heard that Guatemala was

called "the land of eternal spring".{19}



Greece

Clinton's visit to Greece in November 1999 brought out large and

fiery anti-American demonstrations, protesting the recent American

bombing of Yugoslavia and the indispensable US support for the

torturers

par excellence of the 1967-74 Greek junta. During his one-day stop,

the president found time to address a private group -- "When the junta

took over in 1967 here," he told his audience, "the United States allowed

its interests in prosecuting the Cold War to prevail over its interest --

I should say its obligation -- to support democracy, which was, after

all, the cause for which we fought the Cold War. It is important that we

acknowledge that." National Security Council spokesman David Leavey

was quick to point out that the president's statement about the former

junta was "not intended as an apology."{20}

Questions arise. How can it be that the US fought the Cold

War to "support democracy" and wound up supporting not only the

Greek dictators but dozens of other tyrannies? Were they all

simply "wrong" actions, all "mistakes", like in Guatemala? At

what point do we conclude that a consistent sequence of "mistakes"

demonstrates intended actions and policy? Moreover, if US "interests"

in the Cold War "prevailed" over the cause of

democracy, we must ask: What are these "interests" that are in

conflict, or at least not harmonious, with democracy, these

"interests" which are routinely invoked by American statesmen,

but never given a proper name? (Hint: follow the money.) Finally, we

have the words of President Clinton spoken in Uganda in March 1998:

During the cold war when we were so concerned about being in

competition with the Soviet Union, very often we dealt with

countries in Africa and in other parts of the world based more

on how they stood in the struggle between the United States

and the Soviet Union than how they stood in the struggle for

their own people's aspirations to live up to the fullest of

their God-given abilities.{21}



What is going on here? Guatemala, Greece, Africa, other parts of

the world ... Is the president disowning a half-century of American

foreign policy? Is he saying that the United States brought all that

death, destruction, torture and suffering to the world's multitudes

for no good reason? That all we were diligently taught about the nobility

of the fight against the thing called "communism" was a fraud?

We'll never know what William Clinton really thinks about

these things. He probably doesn't know himself. But we do know

what he does. As discussed in the Introduction and in Interventions,

we know that he has continued the very same kind of policies he now

repudiates. And some day a future American president may acknowledge

that what Clinton did in Iraq, Colombia, Mexico, Yugoslavia and

elsewhere was "wrong" or "mistaken". But that future president, even

while the words cross his lips, will be doing the "wrong" thing

himself in one corner of the world or another. And for the same

"interests".

http://www.islamawareness.net/WarCrimes/American/sorry.html




BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Wed 23 Mar, 2011 07:56 pm
@JTT,
On never having to say you sorry............

There where once was a foreign king who told a Roman Ambassador that he would get back to him on some question or other of concern to Rome.

The Ambassador then used his walking stick to draw a small circle around the King and order him not to leave the circle until he had an answer to the question.

There was once a President of the US who told a foreign head of state that he had 48 hours to leave his country along with his two sons.

Rome did not need to said sorry nor does the US and for the same reasons.

Or to put it another way JTT we are the ones who get to draw the circles............
spendius
 
  0  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 04:32 am
@BillRM,
You presumably mean Bill that the meek will not inherit the earth? That bullying is the adaptive mechanism? Spiro Agnew's position I think. The Old Testament was correct eh? Jesus deserved his fate.

Is that what you mean? That there's no mending us.
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 05:02 am
@spendius,
I mean that you do not judge Rome as Rome is the judge and it were in fact proven very unwise to even complain to Rome about fairness as they would normally double the amount owing to them for you daring to question them.

The US courts ruling concerning Cuba carry the weight of the US and all it power behind it the rulings of a Cuba court is not worth the paper it is printed on.

Whining and stating it should be otherwise is a pointless exercise.

The one thing that we did wrong was not landing US Marines right behind the Cuban landing forces at the Bay of Pig and exercising our rights under the Cuban Constitution, the Monroe Doctrine and common sense.

That lack resulted in one hell of poor lives for two to three generations of Cubans and almost resulted in a nuclear war.


spendius
 
  0  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 06:34 am
@BillRM,
It's okay Bill. I understand the might is right argument. It's perfectly respectable. It's the essence of the Darwinian case.

What should or should not have happened in Cuba and what consequences either would have had is pure speculation. It is neither here nor there.

You made a moral case for might is right. That's all I was pointing out. That you are the ones "who get to draw the circles" because you have the might. A2Kers have the right, I think, to know where you stand on the matter.

0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  -1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 09:52 am
@BillRM,
Quote:
Or to put it another way JTT we are the ones who get to draw the circles............


Or to put it another way, the US is the new Hitler, [except that the US was Hitler before Hitler existed] free to dispense with any group of people it sees fit and, make no mistake, it has done so, just like Hitler, but with more sleight of hand.
0 Replies
 
cicerone imposter
 
  2  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 10:31 am
@BillRM,
I was thinking the same thing; the contradictions on how we treat Cuba vs two other communist countries; Russia and China. China owns more US treasury bond than any other country, and our trade deficit gets worse. We have active trade with both countries, and little Cuba is treated with disdain as if they're they biggest threat to our country. What a laugh!

Our country's foreign policy is so screwed up, there's no rational thought to them. We only make the average Cuban life harder for the stupid rules our country has against Cuba. We then have the gall to attack Libya who posed no threat to our country.
0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  -1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 10:51 am
@BillRM,
Quote:
The one thing that we did wrong was not landing US Marines right behind the Cuban landing forces at the Bay of Pig and exercising our rights under the Cuban Constitution, the Monroe Doctrine and common sense.


No, the multiple things that you have done wrong include, but are not limited to: perpetrating numerous acts of terrorism against a sovereign country = crimes against humanity; attempting to invade a sovereign nation = war crimes; an illegal and immoral embargo = crimes against humanity; preventing US citizens, supposedly the freest people on the planet from travelling to the countries of their choice = no war crime this time but stupidity on the grandest of scales; ... .

The Monroe Doctrine is actually,

The Monroe Doctrine - A plan to ensure that the US is unimpeded in its rape of poor, innocent countries

The "common sense" you describe is simply a euphemism for crimes against humanity. And you have to admit, Bill, that yours is a completely fatuous argument from beginning to end because you have gone from denying the US is a butcher/terrorist nation/perpetrator of war crimes & crimes against humanity to being a defender of these evil deeds based on the ludicrous notion that the US is powerful enough to carry them out.

What you are doing is stating, categorically, that the US is the equivalent of Nazi Germany.
0 Replies
 
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 01:00 pm
@BillRM,
It I would go out of my home right now and round up a thousand Cubans at random I would bet one hell of a lot of money that at least 999 of them would agree with me.

As the island is a large scale prison no such survey would be allow but there is little question in my mind that the vast majority of Cubans on the island would feel the same way.

Yes we should hang our heads in shame for allow a dictatorship of that kind to exist 90 miles off our shores for longer then it would take to load up the marines onto ships.

Take note that no one on this website is posting from Cuba.
RABEL222
 
  2  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 01:08 pm
@BillRM,
I can remember when the Mafia controlled the Cuban government and I am not convinced that they are worse off now than they were than, except that the U.S has kept them down rather than help then become a democracy. War and invasion isent the way to go.
OmSigDAVID
 
  -1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 01:13 pm
@BillRM,
Ike was very rong
to have allowed the commies to take Cuba.
He coud have n shoud have prevented it by supporting Batista.
I disapproved of it then; I disapprove of it now.

R u from Cuba, Bill ?





David
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 01:29 pm
@OmSigDAVID,
Quote:
R u from Cuba, Bill ?


No I live in Miami for thirty years surrounded with a million plus Cubans including one who was my best man at my wedding.

And it was JFK fault not Ike as he was the one who placed troops on the beach and then broke promises for air support and naval support.
OmSigDAVID
 
  -1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 01:44 pm
@BillRM,
David wrote:
R u from Cuba, Bill ?
BillRM wrote:
No I live in Miami for thirty years surrounded with a million plus Cubans including one who was my best man at my wedding.
Yeah; I tend to like the Cubans, and I feel sorry for them; GUILTY about it.

BillRM wrote:
And it was JFK fault not Ike as he was the one who placed troops
on the beach and then broke promises for air support and naval support.
I held Kennedy in abhorence and I worked against his election as well as I possibly coud.
I voted for Nixon, but in fairness, the communists came to power in Cuba during Ike 's Administration.

I agree with u about Kennedy's betrayal, stabbing our friends
in the back after promising them air cover and then withholding it,
to please Stevenson in the UN. That was despicable, or worse.

Where were u born (if u don 't mind my asking) ?





David
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 01:46 pm
@OmSigDAVID,
Quote:
Where were u born (if u don 't mind my asking)
?

A small town in the Key stone state/commonwealth.


OmSigDAVID
 
  -1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 01:49 pm
@BillRM,
Is that Pennsylvania ?
JTT
 
  -1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 02:03 pm
@BillRM,
Why would a country like Cuba, where the people were brutally oppressed by a US planted maniac want to have anything to do with the US. Well, to their credit, they do. They have made numerous entreaties to have the US act like a real country, a country that respects the rule of law, a country that, instead of mouthing platitudes and propaganda about terrorism, actually stops engaging in terrorism.

Wouldn't that be nice?

Instead, you and Om keep wishing for the US to actually act like the Rogue State that it is and crush Cuba, install another brutal dictator, kill countless innocents like what happened during the time the greedy US had it stinking paws on Cuba.

You should hang your head in shame for all you've done to a country that just wanted to be free of foreign domination. You remember, the American revolution and all, don't you, Bill?

You should hang your head in shame for the sixty years of terrorist activities that have been directed against Cuba. Are you a rule of law country or a banana republic?

You should hang your head in shame for the war crimes committed against Cuba that are now coming to light.

You should hang your head in shame for coming to a public forum and shaming yourself and your country.
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 02:04 pm
@OmSigDAVID,
Quote:
Is that Pennsylvania ?


Yes................
0 Replies
 
BillRM
 
  1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 02:12 pm
@JTT,
Maybe you could get some support for your stand from the Cubans on this website.

Oh I forget they are not allow to have access to the internet.
JTT
 
  -1  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 02:21 pm
@RABEL222,
A fair statement, Rabel, though it's somewhat understated.
0 Replies
 
JTT
 
  0  
Reply Thu 24 Mar, 2011 02:25 pm
@BillRM,
A not insubstantial portion of you Americans really do have enormous difficulties in addressing the facts.

As I mentioned, a moral person would be deeply ashamed to be providing cover for the immoral terrorist actions perpetrated by their government upon innocents.

You, Bill, seem to revel in it.
 

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