Who built this?

"War is a racket."

There are 40,000,000 men under arms in the world today, and our statesmen and diplomats have the temerity to say that war is not in the making.

Hell's bells! Are these 40,000,000 men being trained to be dancers?

Not in Italy, to be sure. Premier Mussolini knows what they are being trained for. He, at least, is frank enough to speak out. Only the other day, Il Duce in "International Conciliation," the publication of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, said:

"And above all, Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and the development of humanity quite apart from political considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace... War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the people who have the courage to meet it."

........

The professional soldiers and sailors don't want to disarm. No admiral wants to be without a ship. No general wants to be without a command. Both mean men without jobs. They are not for disarmament. They cannot be for limitations of arms. And at all these conferences, lurking in the background but all-powerful, just the same, are the sinister agents of those who profit by war. They see to it that these conferences do not disarm or seriously limit armaments.

War Is A Racket        
A speech delivered in 1933, by Major General Smedley Butler, USMC.

Butler was one of the few people to win the Congressional Medal of Honor twice.

"Ambassador Ryan Crocker named Yale’s first Kissinger Senior Fellow"

The headline is a summary of American foreign policy disasters for decades. It's beyond satire.  Of course, that's nothing new.  

Tom Lehrer: I don't know how that got started. I've said that political satire became obsolete when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Prize. 

"The Johnson Center for the Study of American Diplomacy is a program of the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs in collaboration with International Security Studies and the Brady-Johnson Program in Grand Strategy. The center brings prominent statesmen and academics to campus as Kissinger Senior Fellows and Kissinger Visiting Scholars, and also hosts an annual conference and a variety of other events relating to international affairs. The Johnson Center was made possible by former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger’s recent donation of his papers to Yale and a gift from Charles B. Johnson ’54 and Nicholas F. Brady ’52. Read more about the center.

“I am so pleased to learn that Ambassador Crocker will teach at Yale,” said Kissinger. “He has been a remarkable diplomat, and he has served the United States with great distinction in some of the most challenging assignments in the entire Foreign Service.”

Crocker will teach a three-week module on Afghanistan in Yale’s “Gateway to Global Affairs” undergraduate lecture course this fall, as well two additional seminars for undergraduate and graduate students in the spring semester. He is currently on leave of absence from Texas A&M University, where he serves as the dean of the Bush School of Government and Public Service.

"That exception was of course Vietnam, which Crocker does not even allude to even though his foreign service career began there just as the U.S. war there was drawing to its dismal end. He might well have said that taking over Iraq and Afghanistan flew in the face of lessons that Vietnam should already have taught. But serious Vietnam lessons—those that are well grounded historically—remain radioactive. Political leaders and the foreign policy establishment don’t want to get close. They have many ambitions but glowing in the dark seems not one of them."

Michael H. Hunt: Ryan Crocker and the Imperial Reckoning

Posted by MHHunt on 31 July 2012, 3:12 pm

Ambassador Crocker arrested for hit and run, DUI

Maybe there's a price for denial.

Yogi Berra and the New York Times

"The optics aren't what they look like."

   (New York Times Managing Editor Dean Baquet quoted by Politico)

The Times got to a fork in the road and took it.

Canadian Torture Lite

Ottawa allows RCMP, border agency to use torture-tainted information 

The Canadian Press Published Friday, Aug. 24 2012, 4:18 PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Aug. 24 2012, 5:15 PM EDT

Article 2

1. Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.

2. NO exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.

3. An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

Article 3

1. No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

2. For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

Article 4

1. Each State Party shall ensure that all acts of torture are offences under its criminal law. The same shall apply to an attempt to commit torture and to an act by any person which constitutes complicity or participation in torture.




Criminal Code of Canada

• 269.1 (1) Every official, or every person acting at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of an official, who inflicts torture on any other person is guilty of an indictable offence and liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding fourteen years.

• Marginal note:Definitions

  (2) For the purposes of this section,

  “official”

  « fonctionnaire »

  “official” means

  • (a) a peace officer,
  • (b) a public officer,
  • (c) a member of the Canadian Forces, or
  • (d) any person who may exercise powers, pursuant to a law in force in a foreign state, that would, in Canada, be exercised by a person referred to in paragraph (a), (b), or (c),

  whether the person exercises powers in Canada or outside Canada;

  “torture”

  « torture »

  “torture” means any act or omission by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person

  • (a) for a purpose including
    • (i) obtaining from the person or from a third person information or a statement,
    • (ii) punishing the person for an act that the person or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, and
    • (iii) intimidating or coercing the person or a third person, or
  • (b) for any reason based on discrimination of any kind,

  but does not include any act or omission arising only from, inherent in or incidental to lawful sanctions.

• Marginal note:No defence

  (3) It is no defence to a charge under this section that the accused was ordered by a superior or a public authority to perform the act or omission that forms the subject-matter of the charge or that the act or omission is alleged to have been justified by exceptional circumstances, including a state of war, a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency.

• Marginal note:Evidence

  (4) In any proceedings over which Parliament has jurisdiction, any statement obtained as a result of the commission of an offence under this section is inadmissible in evidence, except as evidence that the statement was so obtained.

• R.S., 1985, c. 10 (3rd Supp.), s. 2.

[Emphases added]

STATUS AS AT : 23-08-2012 10:12:34 EDT CHAPTER IV HUMAN RIGHTS 9 . Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment New York, 10 December 1984 Entry into force : 26 June 1987, in accordance with article 27(1). 1 Registration : 26 June 1987, No. 24841 Status : Signatories : 78. Parties : 151 Text : United Nations,  Treaty Series , vol. 1465, p. 85. Note : The Convention, of which the Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts are equally authentic, was adopted by resolution 39/462of 10 December 1984 at the thirty-ninth session of the General Assembly of the United Nations.  The Convention is open for signature by all States, in accordance with its article 25.

Participant 3 Signature Ratification, Accession(a), Succession(d) Afghanistan  4 Feb 1985  1 Apr 1987 Albania 11 May 1994 a Algeria 26 Nov 1985 12 Sep 1989 Andorra  5 Aug 2002 22 Sep 2006 Antigua and Barbuda 19 Jul 1993 a Argentina  4 Feb 1985 24 Sep 1986 Armenia 13 Sep 1993 a Australia 10 Dec 1985  8 Aug 1989 Austria 14 Mar 1985 29 Jul 1987 Azerbaijan 16 Aug 1996 a Bahamas 16 Dec 2008 Bahrain  6 Mar 1998 a Bangladesh  5 Oct 1998 a Belarus 19 Dec 1985 13 Mar 1987 Belgium  4 Feb 1985 25 Jun 1999 Belize 17 Mar 1986 a Benin 12 Mar 1992 a Bolivia (Plurinational State of)  4 Feb 1985 12 Apr 1999 Bosnia and Herzegovina 4  1 Sep 1993 d Botswana  8 Sep 2000  8 Sep 2000 Brazil 23 Sep 1985 28 Sep 1989 Bulgaria 10 Jun 1986 16 Dec 1986 Burkina Faso  4 Jan 1999 a Burundi 18 Feb 1993 a Cambodia 15 Oct 1992 a Cameroon 19 Dec 1986 a Canada 23 Aug 1985 24 Jun 1987

United States of America 1

18 Apr 1988

21 Oct 1994

12.On 3 June 1994, the Secretary-General received a communication from the Government of the United States of America requesting, in compliance with a condition set forth by the Senate of the United States of America, in giving advice and consent to the ratification of the Convention, and in contemplation of the deposit of an instrument of ratification of the Convention by the Government of the United States of America, that a notification should be made to all present and prospective ratifying Parties to the Convention to the effect that: "... nothing in this Convention requires or authorizes legislation, or other action, by the United States of America prohibited by the Constitution of the United States as interpreted by the United States."

Is this a doorknob I see before me?

From a normal Canadian point of view, the Romney-Ryan/Gekko-Galt ticket looks like a no-brainer.  It's crazy.  Candidates are going out of their way to savage international law and trash the American Constitution.  Meanwhile Obama, the great black hope, is way ahead of the game, arrogating power normally attributed to God, any God, to strike people dead without reference to any law, principle, ethic, or common sense.

It's a tough choice.

There should be third alternative.  Unfortunately, this does not seem possible.  Ralph Nader has been running for years on a platform of  law, principle, ethics and common sense, but he is clearly way out in left field, not a Serious Person, and he can be safely ignored.  Except that he's probably right and everybody else wrong.

Guantánamo shuanggui

Somewhere in outback China, beyond the reach of due process

Somewhere in outback Cuba, beyond the reach of due process