Gov Watch
Republican Congressman Slams Bush On Militarized Police State Preparation
Added: 10/14/05. Source: Prison Planet.
Congressman Ron Paul has accused the Bush administration of attempting to set in motion a militarized police state in America by enacting gun confiscation martial law provisions in the event of an avian flu pandemic. Paul also slammed as delusional and dangerous plans to invade Iran, Syria, North Korea and China. On the subject of the police state, Paul stated, "If we don't change our ways we will go the way of Rome and I see that as rather sad. "It's really hard to believe it's happening right in front of us. Whether it's the torture or the process of denying habeas corpus to an American citizen."
Paul responded to President Bush's announcement last week that he would order the use of military assets to police America in the event of an avian flu outbreak. "To me it's so strange that the President can make these proposals and it's even plausible. When he talks about martial law dealing with some epidemic that might come later on and having forced quarantines, doing away with Posse Comitatus in order to deal with natural disasters, and hardly anybody says anything. People must be scared to death." Paul, himself a medical doctor, agreed that the bird flu threat was empty fearmongering.
My first reaction going from my political and medical background is that it's way overly hyped and to think that they have gone this far with it, without a single case in the whole country and they're willing to change the law and turn it into a military state? That is unbelievable! They're determined to have martial law." Paul opined that the government was on a delusional power trip that threatened the country.
"These guys are ready to start a war with Iran, Syria, North Korea or China. They can't possibly do that, it's so insane, we don't have the money, we don't have the troops, we probably don't even have the ammunition." Paul expressed his hope that finally some conservatives are waking up to the fact that the Bush administration is a trojan horse, especially after arch-liberal Harriet Miers was chosen by Bush to supposedly move the Supreme Court to the right, even though her record is atrocious and she has been involved in the past covering up for the Bush crime family's activities.
Bush will veto anti-torture law after Senate revolt
Added: 10/14/05. Source: UK Telegraph.
The Bush administration pledged yesterday to veto legislation banning the torture of prisoners by US troops after an overwhelming and almost unprecedented revolt by loyalist congressmen. marked a key moment in Congress's campaign to curtail the huge powers it has granted the White House since 2001 in its war against terrorism. The late-night Senate vote saw the measure forbidding torture passed by 90 to nine, with most Republicans backing the measure.
The administration's extraordinary isolation was underlined when the Senate Republican majority leader, Bill Frist, supported the amendment. The man behind the legislation, Republican Senator John McCain, who was tortured as a prisoner in Vietnam, said the move was backed by American soldiers. His amendment would prohibit the "cruel, inhumane or degrading" treatment of prisoners in the custody of America's defence department.
The vote was one of the largest and best supported congressional revolts during President George W Bush's five years in office and shocked the White House.
UN Human Rights Body to Scrutinize U.S. Abuses
Added: 9/23/05. Source: Inter Press Service News Agency.
The U.N. Human Rights Committee, scheduled to meet in Geneva next month, has written to non-governmental organisations (NGOs) calling for any available evidence of human rights abuses by the United States -- particularly in the aftermath of its global war on terrorism. The 18-member committee, comprising of independent human rights experts, will take up "issues of specific concerns relating to the effect of measures taken (by the administration of President George W. Bush) in the fight against terrorism following the events of 11 September 2001," the day the United States was subject to terrorist attacks.
The primary focus will be "on the implications of the USA Patriot Act on nationals and non-nationals, as well as problems relating to the legal status and treatment of persons detained in Afghanistan, Guantanamo, Iraq and other places of detention outside the USA." "The USA Patriot Act was destined to foster abuses, as it weakened the system of checks and balances on law enforcement while setting aside due process safeguards under the law," says Jumana Musa, advocacy director at Amnesty International USA.
Alarmingly, Musa added, the Patriot Act has inspired a proliferation of copycat laws worldwide, prompting abuses that the United States has officially pledged to counter. "The boast that the United States is now the world's only superpower has a grim undertow in the area of human rights; no one can tell Washington what to do or not do, no matter how egregious its cruelties," says Norman Solomon, executive director of the Washington-based Institute for Public Accuracy.
The U.S.-based Meiklejohn Civil Liberties Institute at the University of California in Berkeley has detailed some 180 alleged human rights violations by the United States, including 11 types of violations of individual rights and 19 types of violations of government duties. These violations include enforcement of the Patriot Act, and also allegations of killings, torture, detentions and other "inhuman treatment" in Afghanistan and Iraq, and at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad and the U.S. detention centre in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Solomon of the Institute for Public Accuracy pointed out that for a long time, officials in Washington have been dismissive of the human rights pretensions of regimes that clearly are human rights violators, while much of what Washington does to violate human rights is "coated with a veneer of righteousness". "But the U.S. record, as assessed by independent organisations like Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, is reprehensible," Solomon noted.
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