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Cheers!

Harry Belafonte, at 84 years old, is still making headlines.

On Thursday, CNN talked with the actor/humanitarian/activist at the Television Critics Association Tour in Beverly Hills. He was there to promote his upcoming HBO documentary “Sing Your Song," which chronicles his longstanding career and work alongside many notable civil rights activists.

But what caught our attention during the interview were his outspoken words on President Obama and the current budget impasse.

WikiLeaks

Discover the truth

of the unjust, illegitimate war in Iraq and Afghanistan: WikiLeaks releases hundreds of thousands of military records revealing thousands of civilian deaths, execution squads,
other war crimes.

The Guantánamo Files

documenting torture, abuse, and years of unjust imprisonment.

Watch "Collateral Murder"

The military's own video documenting the killing of 12 Iraqis from a helicopter circling above

Help Stop these Crimes: Collateral Murder Video Showings and more...

Support Bradley Manning

The young soldier accused of releasing the US military records.
Find out more.

NATO Summit Protests

Chicago Spring:
Protest the War Criminal (NATO) Summit!

The "North Atlantic Treaty Organization" (NATO) promotes its mission as “security, cooperation among nations, and peace keeping.”
In fact,it is an organization led and dominated by the world's best-armed war criminals, led by the United States.
Join us in protesting NATO
in Chicago May 20/21!

Stop the Drones

Drone Wars

The use of Predator drones (unmanned flying vehicles
that are often armed with video-guided missiles) by the
US military and CIA is a largely untold story of the "Global
War on Terror / Global Contingency Operation" - yet has caused thousands of deaths in Pakistan and Afghanistan, many of whom are women and children.
Find out more and take action to stop the drones.

Guantanamo Prisoner Denounces Kangaroo Proceedings

Wednesday, 14 July 2010 15:13

By Kenneth J. Theisen

On Monday, July 12^th Omar Khadr defiantly rejected the kangaroo proceedings taking place against him at Guantanamo Bay. Omar refused a U.S. offered plea bargain and fired his U.S. military defense team. He denounced the military tribunal as a sham.

Omar, who is now 23 and a Canadian citizen, is an early prisoner of the U.S. war of terror. He was captured in July of 2002 in Afghanistan when he was only 15. He has been held at Gitmo for eight years. Like many prisoners of the U.S. he has been subjected to torture and abuse and denied fundamental human and legal rights.

But he has not been broken as Monday’s defiance shows. According to Omar’s Canadian attorney, Dennis Edney, the plea deal he turned down would have required Omar to falsely admit he had committed war crimes and then he would have to serve five years of a 30-year sentence in Guantanamo. Edney stated, "Mr Khadr could not admit to something he did not do. He did not kill anybody.”

U.S. prosecutors contend that Omar killed a US soldier with a grenade. He was the sole survivor of a four-hour U.S. bombardment. Omar told the military commission trying him that, “I will not take any of the offers because it will give the U.S. government an excuse for torturing me and abusing me when I was a child. I will not willingly let the U.S. government use me to fulfill its goal. I have been used too many times when I was a child, and that is why I am here, taking blame and paying for things I did not have a choice in doing but was told to do by elders. It's going to be the same thing with lawyers or without lawyers. It is going to be life sentence."

Since he rejected the deal a new hearing will take place on August 9 for Omar, and the kangaroo trial is to start at Gitmo on August 10. The presiding judge told Omar he must be present in court to represent himself on August 9. He then defiantly told the judge, "I might be present, but I will not be participating." The judge then ordered the American military defense lawyer to remain on the case against Omar's wishes. Military tribunal rules at Gitmo require that Canadian lawyers cannot represent Omar without U.S. attorneys also being on the legal team.

This is just one of the rules of the tribunals meant to guarantee convictions in these so-called “terrorism” cases. The entire system is rigged in favor of the prosecution and due process is virtually ignored in these kangaroo proceedings. Despite Obama’s promises to close Gitmo, the hellhole there still incarcerates prisoners of the U.S. war of terror and now it is being used to railroad the prisoners into further incarceration. The entire operation of Gitmo was a crime under the Bush regime and it remains so under Obama.