WHY DO PEOPLE HATE AMERICA(ns)?

WHY DO PEOPLE HATE AMERICA(ns)?

By Kevin Stoda

I have been following this story on DN:

Federal Court Dismisses Lawsuit Against Boeing in CIA “Torture Flight” Program





A federal appeals court has dismissed a lawsuit about the CIA’s “extraordinary rendition” program under President Bush, which sent terrorism suspects abroad to be tortured. In a ruling issued Wednesday, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Obama administration’s argument that the rendition program constitutes a state secret and its legality cannot be decided by courts. The lawsuit was brought against Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen DataPlan, Inc.





http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/9/federal_court_dismisses_lawsuit_against_boeing

This is an outrageous court decision. Ben Wizner, a staff attorney with the ACLU’s National Security Project, was on DN this past week and stated,

“We need to look at the broader context in which this case is not being allowed to go forward. We are now almost two years into the Obama administration. Not a single victim of the Bush administration’s torture regime has yet had his day in court. And that’s because both the Bush administration and the Obama administration have thrown up one after another procedural roadblock to make sure that these claims won’t be heard and to make sure that no court will be able to say what happened here was illegal, what happened to these people was a crime.”

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/9/federal_court_dismisses_lawsuit_against_boeing

Wizner continued, “In this case, as you said in the lead in, the particular device that the administration used was the state secrets privilege. But although this may be viewed in the United States as an arcane dispute about an evidentiary privilege, we need to look at how the rest of the world sees this. And the rest of the world wants to know whether there will be any possibility in US courts for torture victims to have redress. And if the answer is no, if this decision is allowed to stand, we’re going to see the foreign prosecutors, magistrates, the Garzóns, the Spataros of the world, who have been on this program, we’re going to see those people reinvigorating their investigations into the Bush administration’s torture regime, because America can’t clean up its own mess.”

WHY DO PEOPLE HATE AMERICA?




This court announcement on American state secrets trumping access to the courts in America comes in the same period that this story is hitting the global press:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/sep/09/us-soldiers-afghan-civilians-fingers

http://www.irandefence.net/showthread.php?p=907428

http://www.allvoices.com/contributed-news/6726473-how-does-the-us-soldiers-justify-afghan-civilians-murders

US Soldiers Accused of Killing Afghans for Sport, Collecting Body Parts





New details have emerged in the case against twelve US soldiers over the killings of unarmed civilians in Afghanistan. Five of the soldiers are accused of killing three Afghan men for sport and then collecting their fingers as trophies. Seven other soldiers are charged with covering up the killings and assaulting a new recruit who helped bring them to light. The Afghans were killed after the soldiers allegedly decided to form a “kill team” to carry out deadly attacks.



http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/9/headlines#4

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/9/10/headlines#2

Even if the allegations of murder are not true, I’m sure that we have seen enough horror in Afghanistan to justify leaving the country and our bad memories behind.

See the list of past and coming horrors below:

http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Central_Asia_watch/Truth_Afghanistan.html

http://www.hrw.org/asia/afghanistan

http://www.pbs.org/pov/afghanistanyear1380/legacy_feature02.php

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/soldiers-reveal-horror-of-afghan-campaign-415759.html

http://www.globalwatchgroup.org/projects/afghanBackground10.html

http://hoqoqbashar-en.blogspot.com/2009_04_01_archive.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amnesty-international/war-crimes-in-afghanistan_b_238008.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/amnesty-international/war-crimes-in-afghanistan_b_238008.html

www.afghanistanjusticeproject.org/warcrimesandcrimesagainsthumanity19782001.pdf

http://www.counterpunch.org/ruder10262005.html

http://agonist.org/nat_wilson_turner/20090710/bush_admin_covered_up_war_crimes_in_afghanistan

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2001/dec2001/pows-d13.shtml

http://www.google.com.tw/search?q=war+crimes+afghanistan&hl=zh-TW&prmd=v&source=univ&tbs=vid:1&tbo=u&ei=tkmMTIbjNI_RcYzqlcYE&sa=X&oi=video_result_group&ct=title&resnum=9&ved=0CFkQqwQwCA

IN THE MEANTIME, I DON’T ASK WHY THE USA EMBASSY IS SENDING OUT WARNINGS ALMOST EVERY MONTH TO ME (AND OTHER AMERICANS ABROAD) TO BE WARY WHILE TRAVELING AND WORKING ABROAD AS AN AMERICAN.