{"id":1668,"date":"2006-11-02T15:50:04","date_gmt":"2006-11-02T19:50:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/wordpress\/?p=1668"},"modified":"2006-11-02T15:50:04","modified_gmt":"2006-11-02T19:50:04","slug":"american-notions-of-fairness-and-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/karmalised.com\/?p=1668","title":{"rendered":"American notions of fairness and justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

Brian Concannon of The Institute for Justice in Haiti<\/a> addresses critics<\/a> who were offended by an opinion he put forth in the Institute’s latest action alert<\/a>:<\/p>\n

A few people have contested the comment in yesterday’s action alert that the worst of U.S. foreign policy ?violates fundamental American notions of fairness and justice.” There’s certainly a case to be made that the mistreatment of Haiti and other poor countries for 2 centuries by Republican and Democratic administrations has been consistent and enduring enough to represent a fundamental notion.<\/p>\n

But I talk a lot about US policy to Haiti, to a lot of different audiences, and although many disagree with my take on current events, almost no one disagrees that the overall pattern- from President Jefferson’s refusal to recognize the second independent country in the Americas to the reinstitution of forced labor during the U.S. Occupation (1915-1934) to the support for the Duvalier dictatorships (1957-1986), etc.- is unfair, unjust and unjustifiable. [More<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Speaking of unfair, unjust and unjustifiable:<\/p>\n

Eleventh-Hour Election Meddling in Nicaragua
\nBy Ben Beachy<\/strong><\/p>\n

As Nicaraguans make their way to the polls on Sunday, they must again consider not only ?What will this candidate do for my country if elected?? but also ?What will the United States do to my country if this candidate is elected?? The product of relentless outside interference, this sad reality is profoundly undemocratic. <\/p>\n

In the last week, Nicaraguans have been subjected to warnings by current and former U.S. officials that if they elect Daniel Ortega the United States will cut off the flow of family remittances, U.S. aid, and investment flows.<\/p>\n

Ben Beachy is an educator with Witness for Peace in Nicaragua (www.witnessforpeace.org<\/a>) and a contributor to the IRC Americas program, online at http:\/\/americas.irc-online.org<\/a>. Witness for Peace is a politically independent, grassroots organization that educates U.S. citizens on the impacts of U.S. policies and corporate practices in Latin America and the Caribbean.<\/p>\n

See new IRC article online at<\/strong>:
\nhttp:\/\/americas.irc-online.org\/am\/3658<\/a><\/p>\n

With printer-friendly pdf version at<\/strong>:
\nhttp:\/\/americas.irc-online.org\/pdf\/commentary\/0611meddling.pdf<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Threats to Hugo Chavez As Venezuela’s December Presidential Election Approaches<\/strong>
\nby Stephen Lendman<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

On December 3, 2006 voters in Venezuela will again get to choose who’ll lead them as President for the next six years. There’s no doubt who that will be as the people’s choice is the same man they first elected their leader in December, 1998 with 56% of the vote and reelected him in July, 2000 after the adoption of the Bolivarian Republic’s new Constitution with a 60% total. They then saw him survive three failed US-directed and funded attempts to unseat him beginning with the aborted two-day coup in April, 2002, followed by the 2002-03 crippling oil strike, and then the failed August, 2004 recall referendum. Chavistas must believe the man they revere has at least more six lives and will use one of them in a few weeks to continue in the job the Venezuelan people won’t entrust to anyone else as long as he wants the job.<\/p>\n

They may also hope he has as much good fortune and as many lives as his friend and ally Fidel Castro who in nearly 48 years as Cuba’s leader survived over 5,700 US-directed terror attacks against his country and about 600 US attempts to kill him – an astonishing survival record against a powerful and determined foe still trying to remove him to reinstate oligarchic rule over the island state. The Bush administration has the same fate in mind for Hugo Chavez Frias and won’t sit by quietly allowing Bolivarianism to flourish and spread which it’s doing as more people in the region and beyond are fed up with the old order and want the same benefits Venezuelans have. It’s playing out now in Bolivia, on the streets of Mexico and in the run-up to the December 3 Venezuelan presidential election where the people show up in massive numbers most every time Chavez makes a public campaign appearance. [More<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Gaza civilians strain under weight of Israeli attacks<\/strong>
\nMehdi Lebouachera Agence France Presse<\/em>
\n3 November 2006<\/a> The Daily Star<\/em><\/p>\n

BEIT HANUN, Gaza Strip: Abu Luaye Zaanin and his family have not left their home on the outskirts of Beit Hanun since the Israeli Army launched an incursion into the northern Gaza town early Wednesday. “The Israelis are shooting at anything that moves,” he says.<\/p>\n

They are not alone – most residents of this town have stayed off the streets since the start of “Operation Autumn Clouds.”<\/p>\n

Israeli tanks are posted at all the entrances to the town, whose streets have become battlefields between militants and Israeli soldiers. Only the occasional ambulance drives in and out, sirens wailing, to take victims of the clashes to hospital.<\/p>\n

“For two days we haven’t moved from here,” says Abu Luaye’s wife Fatima, surrounded by her three young daughters. “We all sleep in the living room. We are afraid to go upstairs or to the porch on the other side of the house. We are scared that they’ll see us.”<\/p>\n

Abu Luaye gets up to get a pot of steaming tea.<\/p>\n

“It is one of the most difficult incursions that we’ve seen. During the previous ones, they didn’t occupy the whole city. Today they are everywhere,” he says to the sound of a nearby explosion.<\/p>\n

“This morning they killed one of our neighbors, Diab Bassiuni, on the corner of the street. He went out to get some water and they killed him. He was 70 years old. He wasn’t armed,” Fatima says. [More<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Death toll rises to 14 in 2 days of Gaza raids<\/strong>
\n3 November 2006<\/a> Compiled by Daily Star<\/em> staff<\/p>\n

Israeli troops killed five Palestinians, including three civilians and a female officer, and trapped scores of Palestinian men in Gaza on Thursday, as the death toll from Israel’s latest incursion climbed to 14 in two days. President Mahmoud Abbas called on Israel’s most powerful ally, the United States, to intervene to stop the operation during talks with the visiting US assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs, David Welch.<\/p>\n

During Thursday’s operation, the woman, Mussada al-Huwaihi, a captain in the Palestinian security services, was killed in the early evening outside a mosque where around 60 Palestinian men had taken refuge after the Israeli Army ordered all men between the ages of 16 and 45 to come to a local stadium, the witnesses said.<\/p>\n

Earlier in the day, four other Palestinians, including a 70-year-old man and two militants, were killed by Israeli fire in Beit Hanun. Relatives said the elderly man was shot when he went onto the balcony of his home to bring his disabled son inside.<\/p>\n

During a meeting at his Ramallah office with Welch, Abbas “demanded that the American administration intervene to stop this aggression,” Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erakat told reporters.<\/p>\n

“Military solutions have shown their failure and do nothing but increase the violence in the region,” he quoted Abbas as saying.<\/p>\n

The director of US national intelligence, John Negroponte, was due to meet with Meir Dagan, the head of the Jewish state’s Mossad intelligence agency, after closed-door talks with other Israeli officials, public radio said. [More<\/a>]<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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