June 15 Marks 6,000 Days of Guantánamo: Rights Groups Tell Donald Trump to Close the Prison, Say “Not One Day More!”
Today, June 15, 2018, is a depressing milestone in the long history of U.S. detention at Guantánamo Bay. Today the Guantánamo prison, set up after the 9/11 attacks, has been open for 6,000 days.
Most of the men held at Guantánamo over the last 6,000 days (16 years, five months and four days) have been held without charge or trial, in defiance of international laws and treaties governing the treatment of prisoners. There are only two acceptable ways to deprive an individual of their liberty: either as a criminal suspect, to be tried in a federal court; or as a prisoner of war, held unmolested until the end of hostilities. The men at Guantánamo are neither. Instead, after 9/11, the Bush administration conceived of a novel category of prisoner — one without any rights whatsoever — and implemented this at Guantánamo.
U.S. House of Representatives Rejects President's Designs on Iran
Last week's unanimous vote against war with Iran was good news, largely ignored by the press. Many questioned the veracity of the story. It's up to us to substantiate Congressional admonition for peace with demonstrations of resistance to U.S. military intervention. Let's work to create the kind of political situation that forces an end to the Trump/Pence war on humanity.
BE the Trump Resistance
"I'll never forgive Trump and I won't stop talking about it," says Mike Mills, founding member of the alternative rock band R.E.M. "It's not just who he is and what he represents... It's what he's done to the American political process. He has allowed stupidity to be the coin of the realm, he has allowed thinking that has been and should always be marginalised and on the edges to become almost part of the mainstream...
Protest Franklin Graham's Fascist America
This week, Franklin Graham, son of the late Billy Graham, brings his "Decision America" tour to Berkeley to take a stand against California's "blue wall." Billed as religious "revivals", Graham's campaign-style rallies across California and the Pacific Northwest advance opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage.
Join Refuse Fascism
Friday June 1, 6:00 pm
University Ave & Sixth Street
Berkeley
Graham's sponsorship of Donald Trump's program of white supremacy, misogyny and xenophobia is billed as a religious revival, but make no mistake: "Decision America" is about mobilizing a blind, obedient, and fervent fascist base for the Trump/Pence regime.
Thanks to U.S. Senate, Torture Is 'Legal'
The Senate Intelligence Committee voted 10-5 to support Gina Haspel's nomination for CIA director Wednesday. Haspel's defense of torture practices she facilitated at a CIA black site in Thailand in 2002 -- that they were "legal" at the time -- disqualifies her from assuming the role of CIA director, argues professor emerita Marjorie Cohn. Failure to condemn the rescinded opinions of John Yoo invites a repetition of the brutality the professor authorized. Haspel provides little assurance that she wouldn't, like former vice president Dick Cheney says, "do it again."
Why “Torture Doesn’t Work”
Intro., by Patrice Greanville: The appointment by Donald Trump of Gina Haspel, a CIA official directly involved in supervising torture, as head of the agency, has thrown the world of liberal pretensions and their mouthpieces into turmoil. Liberals do not mind imperialist crimes as bloody and vicious as they come, provided that a mask of civility and deniability is maintained by the exceptional nation, something impossible in the case of Haspel, whom even some former colleagues find a questionable choice and whose offences remain a matter of record. This is nothing new, of course. This kind of pickle is inherent in the US empire, which requires refined hypocrisy and massive public ignorance—abetted confusion would be a more appropriate term— to conduct its criminal plutocratic agenda. We are being literal here. Most American politicians earn their epaulettes by learning the craft of imposture, Obama being the most recent example of true mastery of this devious art, but Trump, a non-professional politician, and a clumsy oaf by nature, is incapable of delivering in that regard, his regime inevitably defined by coarse impulsiveness, pervasive chaos, and petulant recklessness, where the true, ugly and sociopathic face of imperial power is often revealed.
The Dangers of Mike Pence
The call to impeach Trump has been stated by many, but impeaching Trump means that Mike Pence would become the next president. To some, this is an even scarier option than Trump: not only because of his conservative beliefs, but because of his prior political experience and the controversial laws he has signed into effect.
Gina Haspel Should be Prosecuted, Not Confirmed to Run the CIA
The CIA nominee supervised detainee torture at a “black site” in Thailand
Gina Haspel arrived to run “Detention Site Green” in late October 2002, after the harsh interrogation of Abu Zubeydah that reportedly reduced attendant personnel to tears.
She supervised the interrogation of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who was subjected to enhanced interrogation techniques during at least four separate periods.
Interrogators at the site sought to make terror suspects talk by slamming them against walls, keeping them from sleeping, holding them in coffin-sized boxes and forcing water down their throats — a technique called waterboarding.
This Nightmare Must End: The Trump/Pence Regime Must Go!
In the Name of Humanity,
We REFUSE to Accept a Fascist America
We are horrified and angered at the shocking damage already done to lives here and around the world by the Trump/Pence regime. We recognize that they are poised to do far worse, including threatening WAR, even nuclear war. Through an unrelenting barrage of daily outrages and twitter outbursts, the Trump/Pence regime is radically remaking society – step by step hammering into place a vicious American fascism. This is not insult or exaggeration, it is what they are doing.
'This Is Not America. This Is Not Who We Are.' Except It Is.
The U.S. "War on Terror" has always been about persecuting Muslims, torture being the modus operandi of a cruel system of institutionalized Islamophobia. The nomination of Gina Haspel to head the Central Intelligence Agency confirmed what we already knew: political impunity thrives in an authoritarian environment. And blaming the subjects of abuse endears you to white supremacists.
NO BAN, NO WALL IV
One of my readers recently remarked that, by addressing themes of immigration, and immigrant detention and deportation, this newsletter seemed to be wandering off topic. I hereby remind readers that the issue continues and will always be personal to me: much of my childhood misery originates from my Mexican father’s undocumented status. In the years before my birth, the U. S. suffered one of its periodic attacks of xenophobia, deporting up to 2,000,000 Mexicans. My father had every good reason to live in fear—despite his many advanced degrees, despite his exceptional linguistic abilities. But more centrally, the overarching topic is and always has been the total oppression which subsumes all other issues, and to which all other issues are related.
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