Glenn Greenwald on Obama’s lawless presidency.
America’s Lawless Empire: The Constitutional Crimes of Bush and Obama
Ralph Nader ’58 and Bruce Fein ’72 visited Harvard Law School for a talk sponsored by the HLS Forum and the Harvard Law Record. At the event, “America’s Lawless Empire: The Constitutional Crimes of Bush and Obama,” both men discussed what they called lawless, violent practices by the White House and its agencies that have become institutionalized by both political parties.
Cold, Cold Heart
by Kathy Kelly
It’s Valentine’s Day, and opening the little cartoon on the Google page brings up a sentimental animation with Tony Bennett singing “why can’t I free your doubtful mind and melt your cold, cold heart.”
Here in Dubai, where I’m awaiting a visa to visit Afghanistan, the weather is already warm and humid. But my bags are packed with sweaters because Kabul is still reeling from the coldest winter on record. Two weeks ago, eight children under age five froze to death there in one of the sprawling refugee camps inhabited by so many who have fled from the battles in other provinces. Since January 15, at least 23 children under 5 have frozen to death in the camps.
And just over a week ago, eight young shepherds, all but one under 14 years of age, lit a fire for warmth on the snowy Afghan mountainside in Kapisa Province where they were helping support their families by grazing sheep. French troops saw the fire, and acted on faulty information, and the boys were all killed in two successive NATO airstrikes. The usual denunciations from local authorities, and Western apologies, followed. (Trend News, February 10, 2012).
Counter-terrorism?
Our friend Paul Woodward of the indispensable War in Context asks some pertinent questions about the attacks on Israeli diplomats in India and Georgia:
Have we reached a quite predictable moment where counter-terrorism needs redefining? In other words, that when car bombings initiated by one state-sponsor of terrorism provoke a counter-attack of the same kind, that we should call such an attack an act of counter-terrorism?
Only last week there was confirmation from U.S. government officials that Israel is a state-sponsor of terrorism, having trained and deployed Iranian dissidents to conduct car bombings killing civilians in Iran. By internationally accepted definitions of terrorism and state-sponsored terrorism, there’s no question these were acts of terrorism and Israel’s role in instigating them makes it a state-sponsor of terrorism.
Now it would appear that Israel is reaping the reward for its own actions as Israeli diplomats have been targeted in India and Georgia. The attack in Delhi appears to have involved the use of the same method favored by Mossad — a magnetic bomb attached to the Israelis’ car by a passing motorcyclist.
Syrian People’s Army
Some members of the Syrian army are beginning to do what their service oath mandates: to protect the Syrian people.
One of the soldiers, Fayez al-Abdullah, spoke to Al Jazeera earlier:
Palestinian Intellectuals to Syrian Regime: Not in Our Name!
This is an English translation, courtesy of Wadiqratiya, of a joint statement by Palestinian intellectuals offering their solidarity to the Syrian people and applying for membership to the newly established Syrian Writers Union. (Also check out the great Palestinian rights organization Adalah’s condemnation of the Syrian regime.)
It is our honor, as Palestinian writers and signatories to this statement, to request as a group to be inducted into the Syrian Writers Union, which has been recently established by the free Syrian writers and intellectuals who stand with the people as they climb the ladder of freedom which has been smeared with blood by the hand of the tyrant. The establishment of the Syrian Writers Union constitutes an essential pillar of the Syrian revolution and places the true intellectual in his or her rightful place beside the people as an effective partner in building a new Syria free of dynastic authoritarianism–a diverse, democratic, civil system based on the rights of the citizen, one that embraces the rights of expression and creation, a system incapable of falsifying the free Syrian intellectual’s will through hollow structures that arrogate the potentials of culture, usurp the role of the intellectual and falsify his or her will, always a device in the hand of the tyrant and his apparatuses.
Now more than ever, Syria needs a mature voice that speaks from its very heart, a voice which strengthens national unity and derives strength from the diversity and richness of Syrian society […] [which will serve as] the basis for building a democracy.
Continue reading “Palestinian Intellectuals to Syrian Regime: Not in Our Name!”
The Trouble with Tolstoy: In Search of Happiness
This is part two of the BBC documentary about the greatest writer that ever lived. (Part 1 is here.)
Alan Yentob continues his train ride through Tolstoy’s Russia, examining how Russia’s great novelist became her great troublemaker.
Continue reading “The Trouble with Tolstoy: In Search of Happiness”
The Trouble with Tolstoy: At War with Himself
This is part one of a must see BBC documentary on the world’s greatest writer, Lev Tolstoy. (Part 2 is here.)
Alan Yentob takes an epic train ride through Tolstoy’s Russia, examining how Russia’s great novelist became her great troublemaker.
Continue reading “The Trouble with Tolstoy: At War with Himself”
Pakistani FM on the regional crises
Pakistani foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar speaks about drones, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria and more.
American drones hitting targets on Pakistani territory is illegal, and involvement of the Pakistani spy agencies with Taliban not even worthy of comment, said Hina Rabbani Khar, Pakistan’s Foreign Minister, exclusively to RT.
Homs under siege
Also see Jane Ferguson’s courageous reporting on the conditions inside Homs.
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