Amnesty slams flawed US penal system

Amnesty International has called attention to the US and its failing human rights record due to its use of flawed detention and execution systems.

On Friday, Amnesty International slammed the US for its indefinite detentions in Afghanistan and at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, as well as its flawed capital punishment system, AFP reported.

"Scores of men remained in indefinite military detention in Guantanamo as [US] President [Barack] Obama's one-year deadline for closure of the facility there came and went," the report recently released by the body said.

The organization's annual global human rights report points to the execution of 46 people over the past year, in which the guilt of several of the defendants remained questionable. Some cases also included unclear proof of legal representation and mental impairment.

According to Amnesty International, of the 173 men currently detained at Guantanamo Bay, only three had been convicted under a military commission system, "which failed to meet international fair trial standards."

"Military commission proceedings were conducted in a handful of cases, and the only Guantanamo detainee so far transferred to the US mainland for prosecution in a federal court was tried and convicted,” the report added.

Upon taking office, President Barack Obama signed an executive order to stop military commissions in order to close down the facility by 2010; however, this has not happened yet.

The organization accuses US authorities of also blocking efforts to “secure accountability and remedy for crimes under international law committed against detainees previously subjected to the USA's secret detention and rendition program.”

As for Afghanistan, the reports criticizes the US for holding “hundreds” at the US airbase in Bagram without due process and for subjecting some to “torture and ill-treatment, including prolonged isolation, sleep deprivation, and exposure to extreme temperatures.”

The report further voiced concern over the “excessive force” used by US law enforcement. The use of Taser guns by police officers led to the death of some 45 people last year.

The country's health care system was also among the matters mentioned in the report. “Hundreds of women continue to die from preventable pregnancy-related complications,” as a result of a lack of proper health care coverage, the report added.

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Israel's shame as Holocaust victims die in poverty

About 80,000 Holocaust survivors emigrated to Israel after WW2. Instead of finding ease and opportunity, many discovered only loneliness and grinding poverty. They accuse Israel of failing to give them the compensation paid by Germany. They say millions of dollars that was meant for them has been used to build the country instead.

The Terrorizing Truth About 9/11: It's Not A Matter of Keeping Secrets, But Maintaining a Grand Myth

The truth about 9/11 is slowly gaining the status of common knowledge, but it's been a real and frustrating decade-long struggle to set the historical record straight. The are still many people who can't believe that the Bush administration, and powerful decision-makers in the U.S. security apparatus could, first of all, pull off such a treacherous fraud, and second, that they were able to keep it a secret from other members of the U.S. government, the media, the American people, and the world for such a long period of time. Such a denial of the truth about the 9/11 attacks can't be attributed to blindness, or the cowardly avoidance of reality, but an underestimation of the power of myths in shaping our lives and our thoughts, and influencing the way we register facts and events in our world.

People who still believe the official 9/11 story often make the mistake in thinking that if the Bush administration really did 9/11 then there would be leaks, or government officials would come forward and speak to the media. Former CIA officer Valerie Plame expressed the widely shared view that 9/11 couldn't be a big lie because the American government can't keep a secret when she was asked at a recent public event in the University of Florida about supporting a new 9/11 investigation. The Gainesville Sun's Nathan Crabbe reported:

Several 9-11 truthers — who believe the fall of the World Trade Towers was a conspiracy — questioned Wilson about whether she supported a new investigation into the event. She dismissed the idea that such a conspiracy could be kept under wraps.

"Having worked for the government, I know it's really, really hard to keep a secret," she said.

The view that America's secretive government can't keep a secret is wrong for so many reasons, especially considering the fact that an even more secretive and criminal cabal is working within the government, doing everything in their power to misinform and bamboozle the American people. Their ability to keep secrets among themselves is well proven. If it wasn't for the courageous and truth-seeking Tillman family and others, we would've never known the truth about the death of Pat Tillman. Top military officials deliberately lied, and kept the truth hidden in order to sell a public myth about Tillman.

This "government can't keep a secret" view overlooks the reality that the Bush administration operated more like a gang than a government. In truth, the U.S. government as we know it didn't attack America and then lie to the world about the event. Instead, 9/11 was done by a few, well-organized individuals who hijacked the White House in 2000, and abused the machinery of government to promote their own evil ends. This small, tight-knit group that was involved in the planning and execution of 9/11 are not interested in revealing the truth, but in keeping secrets. Why would they leak secrets? If they spilled their guts about how they caused and covered up the greatest crime of the century they would be charged, and most likely found guilty, and then killed and/or imprisoned for life.

Individuals who lend their support to heinous and immoral acts like 9/11 most likely believe that such violence and deception is necessary and justifiable in the grand scheme of things. They believe that rulers have god-like status and can kill innocent people. Such violence is committed for a greater purpose in their minds, and to achieve many new changes that previously would've been resisted by both members of the government and the public. The new changes that 9/11 caused is obvious, they include: 1) public support for a global war on terror, and American wars in the Middle East; 2) the acceleration of the destruction of America's constitutional government and the further rise and influence of the National Security State; 3) profit for a few connected corporations and individuals that are close to the military-industrial complex; 4) the creation of new federal departments like Homeland Security that are unconstitutional and function as a police state to repress the American people and keep them from making serious political change; and, 5) 9/11 caused a deep psychological change in the people, making them fear that "terrorism" presents an existential threat to their personal safety, and the safety of their country.

http://disquietreservations.blogspot.com/2011/01/terrorizing-truth-about-911-its-not.html