"Violence finds its only refuge in falsehood, falsehood its only support in violence."
Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn 1970

"...the UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, and we recommend that the Government does not rely on such assurances in the future."
British House of Commons, July 9, 2008

The subject of "torture" is probably not on your list of weekend reflections, but maybe it should be.

Remember that old "Axis of Evil" thingie concocted by Bush and Co.? Here's a refresher (emphasis added):

For decades, those who work to alleviate horrific living conditions faced by Palestinians both in the occupied territories of the West Bank and Gaza and in refugee camps scattered throughout the Middle East have witnessed barbaric acts of violence by Israeli settlers against Palestinian Arabs. Complaints are futile because the law is always on the side of the settlers.

In an astounding realization of Sir Francis Galton’s (cousin of Charles Darwin and himself a noted African explorer) idea to "tame" Africa:

"My proposal is to make the encouragement of Chinese settlements of Africa a part of our national policy, in the belief that the Chinese immigrants would not only maintain their position, but that they would multiply and their descendants supplant the inferior Negro race."

"I should expect that the African seaboard, now sparsely occupied by lazy, palavering savages, might in a few years be tenanted by industrious, order-loving Chinese, living either as a semidetached dependency of China, or else in perfect freedom under their own law."

China is advancing a systematic and sweeping colonization and exploitation of the continent of Africa, while arming and instigating tribal warfare among Africans in the process.

Remember this little tidbit of news (via here) from last month? Here's a refresher:

While we are getting excited about Sen. Obama’s world tour and what it means to our chances of repairing relationships with the countries of the world that we have alienated, it is good to remember how we got here. Our unilateral decision to invade Iraq was bad enough, but we did have some allies from the rest of the world with us to give it that patina of respectability.  The major one of these allies in the so called "Coalition of the Willing" is the United Kingdom. Not only did they send a significant number of troops, but they were willing to stay there with us for the first four years of the occupation, with little or no difference in our policies.

A video published today by the B'Tselem human rights organisation shows an unarmed, handcuffed and blindfolded Palestinian being shot by an Israeli soldier at very close range with a rubber-coated steel bullet (not, as some would have it, a "rubber bullet").

Today, the former president of South Africa turns 90!

America: land of innovation, of the can-do spirit, of Yankee ingenuity.

Americans were the first people in the world to declare independence from an empire -- and get away with it. Americans dug the Erie Canal, reversed the flow of rivers, invented powered flight and the skyscraper, harnessed the power of the atom, sent men to the moon and brought them back alive. We supplied the world with an abundance of food and high-quality manufactured goods. We defeated fascism, take credit for having defeated communism, co-founded the United Nations, absorbed tens of millions of immigrants and made a single people out of many. We are one goddamn amazing country.

Or at any rate, we were. Something happened to us around 30 years ago. Suddenly, things seemed so awfully difficult. Preposterous, even. Reducing poverty? Building a 200-mpg automobile engine? Signing the Kyoto Protocols? Manufacturing consumer goods domestically? Fighting crime and terrorism without recklessly abrogating civil liberties? Forget it. It's too hard. Too inconvenient. Too unprofitable. Too much of a hassle. Or it might mean that we had to follow the same rules as every other country, that our specialness didn't render us exempt.

We've turned into Emo Nation, for crying out loud.

Thomas Friedman's column today, "So Popular and So Spineless", bashes Europe and other parts of the world for no longer liking the United States so much thanks to the tender Presidential mercies of George W. Bush.  That is not the part I agree with: I think that after bigfooting in the Middle East, claiming the right to torture, blocking treaties on land mines and global warming, and cheerfully signing off from G-8 as "the biggest polluter in the world," we're not exactly in a position right now to demand that the rest of the world like us.  If Obama wins, we can start to move in that direction; if not, probably not.

The part I do agree with is that the world won't like a world where China and Russia are the ascendant powers.  Friedman provides the example of the Security Council resolution in Zimbabwe.  And, about that, he's right.

I don't know who I'm more angry at.  My government who has told us that this Canadian teenager was being treated "well" at Guantanamo Bay or the American government who keeps pushing my level of disrespect to further lows.

What in the name of God is this once 15 year old doing in a place like Gitmo?!!  Take a look at this footage from an interrogation video that has been released and then tell me that he is being treated "well".  

In parts of the video I believe he's actually begging someone to kill him.

As a Canadian living a country that supposedly holds human rights in such high regard, I am outraged beyond belief!  This video will release a floodgate of this sentiment from my fellow Canadians, I am sure.  Christ, this might even take down the minority conservative government we have in power.

I just can't believe this!

Wow, this is rich...

In the continuing saga of the intrepid TN GOP Chair, Robin "Some of my best friends are black" Smith, we hear that she feels deeply offended - yes, even "grossly disappointed" - with the attitude of some who feel that she should not be re-appointed as a member of the TN Human Rights Commission.

Yes, that's right, Robin Smith, whose TN Republican Party has issued a video that attacked Michelle Obama's love for her country after insinuating that Barack Obama is a closet anti-Semite, feels hurt and misunderstood.

More after the jump...

Israel has been staunchly defended against all potential enemies, such as, say Iran, by the United States, as we heard lately from Condoleeza, who along with most neocon-oriented folks, believes that defense should know no boundaries, even all-out war. But few dare question why a nation that receives 23 times the aid given to Palestine should even need to use the strongarm tactics against Palestinians and others that it does. Who even dares to ask why they should bring their thugs on a prize-winning journalist?

Dahr Jamail tells of this harrowing experience suffered by Muhammad Omer, a Palestinian journalist who, along with Dahr Jamail, received the Martha Gellhorn Prizefor Journalism in London on 16 June (1).

The Chinese Government announced today that it has killed five Uighurs suspected of being terrorists, confirming that it had arrested at least 100 since the start of the year.  Their crime, most likely, was a combination of being Muslim and unhappy with Chinese authoritarian rule.  The crackdown comes as we stand less than a month from the start of the Olympics.  

The games will go on.

Other religious dissidents are also suffering, with claims of 8,000 arrested Falun Gong practitioners since December 2007.

And certainly the games will go on.

The PRC has also begun clearing ethnic Tibetans out of Beijing.

Overseas Tibetan advocacy groups said residents of Beijing were targets simply because of their ethnicity. "There's an unprecedented security sweep at the moment in Beijing due to the Olympics," said Kate Saunders, of the International Campaign for Tibet. "It seems as though almost every Tibetan in Beijing is potentially under suspicion."

But let the games go on.

Last week, the Second Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Maher Arar’s lawsuit against John Ashcroft, Robert Mueller and others.  Arar sued these officials for kidnapping him at JFK airport and shipping him off to Syria to be tortured – a process known as extraordinary rendition.  My new book, Justice Across Borders (Cambridge University Press 2008) exposes efforts by victims like Arar to hold accountable those who violate fundamental human rights.  It demonstrates the heroic work of human rights advocates in pioneering new remedies for these victims and it demonstrates efforts by the Bush Administration and large corporations to eradicate these cases.  It all started with Filártiga v. Peña-Irala . . .

If you remember back 8 years ago, "serious" national security "experts" like Dick Cheney tut-tutted about the Clinton Administration's silly obsession with Osama Bin Ladin when Communist China stood as the next threat for the US.  The right, of course, needs an enemy, and a rag-tag bunch of terrorists hiding in caves in Afghanistan could not then have justified trillion dollar increases in military spending. The only possible enemy out there was China.  China fit the bill -- it was at least nominally communist, had a horrible human rights record, and was growing both economically and military at a pace that made it a potential rival.  

The anti-china rhetoric heated up, and the (justifiable) criticism of its human rights record intensified. Then Bin Ladin proved a worthy rival after all, and China became not a competitor, but a regime to emulate.

We adopted Chinese torture techniques, and not only held alleged enemies of the state without due process, but, in several instances, we did it on China's say-so.  I think its worth looking back at this, to see where Bush - Cheney (McCain) has taken to us.

"We should reduce the number of abortions"
"Abortion should be safe, legal and rare"
"Teens in Gloucester made a responsible decision when they decided to keep their babies"
"Nobody likes abortion"

The Right has done it again. True, they’ve not yet achieved everything they want legislatively; abortion is still legal and available – in some places under some circumstances (although they have been appallingly successful at whittling away at both availability and legality). But, they have successfully changed the discourse – and the moral climate -- even within much of the pro-choice community.

Thirty years ago abortion was seen as a positive advancement – medically, socially, and religiously...

Most of us don't really need any more examples to know how far our media has strayed from it's traditional role of informing the public and acting as the public's watchdog because we've already seen far too many examples of that fact. But for me, A Media Tale of Two Generals is about a subject far too important for me to let it go without comment.