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| 7/15 |
| 2005/2/28-3/2 [Politics/Domestic/President/Bush, Politics/Domestic/911] UID:36457 Activity:moderate |
2/28 Alexf, Can you please answer this? Condemning the whole organization
over Mumia seems ... overzealous:
(from yesterday)
\_ Hey, I got no problem with the concept, but once they start
defending terrorists and cop killers, the implementation is,
in my book, obviously hopeless. -pp
\_ To what are you refering? You're claiming something I
can't find any reference for. Please give some context.
</yesterday>
\_ (FWIW, I don't check the motd nearly often enough to have
time to respond before these threads get purged). Anyway,
how's this quick selection for a start:
Re Mumia:
http://www.danielfaulkner.com/Pages/amnesty.html
AI supporting the Jenin myths:
http://csua.org/u/b7d (honestreporting.com)
AI promoting ludicrous notions of moral equivalence:
http://csua.org/u/b7e (ibid.)
As far as what the rest of the thread brought up -- I
don't think them particularly in the wrong on Abu
Ghraib (the media has, though, blown it far out of
proportion IMHO), and am rather ambivalent in regard
to their involvement in the Gitmo stuff. I'll readily
admit that they've done a lot of good work in the
past, but many of the things they do now, and, yes,
the Mumia case is the most disgusting behavior of
theirs in my book, color my perception to the point
that I definitely think the world would be better off
without them (or with a monumental change in their
leadership and culture). I don't intend to continue
this debate on the motd. If you really want further
responses from me, email or better yet come to Soda
in person. -alexf
\_ ob group masturbation of hooded prisoners at abu ghraib
video; also: "I went down to Tier 1 (the cellblock where
much of the abuse is said to have occurred) and when I
looked down the corridor, I saw two naked detainees, one
masturbating to another kneeling with its mouth open," he
is quoted as saying. "I thought I should just get out of
there. I didn't think it was right, as it seemed like the
wrong thing to do. I saw Staff Sergeant Frederick walking
towards me, and he said, `Look what these animals do when
you leave them alone for two seconds.'"
\_ AlexF, I understand you want to provide a more balanced
view of the cases cited, but do you really think citing
a website devoted to avenging Daniel Faulkner and a
website devoted to denigrating any criticism of Israel
balances things in any meaningful way?
\_ Maybe they were the first things up on Google. In
any case, I hope we can all agree that the far left
has been taken for a ride on the whole Mumia thing,
and should really just let it go.
\_ "Mumia probably killed that guy. There, I said it.
...the efforts to defend him may have overlooked the
fact that he did indeed kill that cop. ...He probably
did kill that guy." -Michael Moore, from "Dude,
Where's My Country"(2003), page 189.
\_ I don't know about that. You have to remember
that the Philly police bombed a whole city block
and killed something like a dozen people to
eliminate the MOVE crowd. It was the Waco of the
80s but since it was a bunch of black people, not
that many people got upset about it. Mumia
was a good spokesperson for their efforts. This
is all tangential to his actual guilt or innocence
I know, but in the real world, this is the way
politics works.
\_ Repost the link, some ass deleted it.
\_ There was no link. Mumia is the only thing I could think of
that he could have been talking about.
\_ Amnesty International = Evil, Torturing Innocents At Gitmo = Good
\_ There are no innocents in Gitmo! They're all very bad people,
and we're not cutting off people's fingers or feeding them into
the woodchipper feet-first like Saddam.
Anyway, even if there's 1 or 2 people in Gitmo who weren't
planning an attack on the U.S., they were at least doing
something that they shouldn't have been; otherwise, they wouldn't
be in Gitmo!
If a Democrat were in charge the terrorists would be blowing us
all up by now! -typical Dubya voter who p0wn3d u liberals
\_ You forgot at least one reference to God, and your faith in
His wisdom, etc, etc. |
| 7/15 |
|
| www.danielfaulkner.com/Pages/amnesty.html AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL'S PROP AGANDA PIECE FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL BY MICHAEL SMERCONISH, ESQ. AND PAUL PALKOVIC The self-styled guardian of international justice, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), has come down heavily on the side of convicted murderer Mum ia Abu-Jamal. Their web site features a "report" on Jamal and his trial, done in a tone that is meant to convince the reader that AIUSA is an ob jective, unbiased observer rather than a biased advocate with an agenda. That's just the first lie in this one-sided piece of propaganda. In The Introduction, despite the fact that no attempt was made to contact the Philadelphia District Attorney's Officer or the Philadelphia Police Department, AIUSA states that it has performed an "impartial" and "thor ough study" of Jamal's case. Based on this one sided "study" they allege that the proceedings "were in violation of minimum international standa rds that govern fair trial procedures." Lets recall that this case was reviewed on direct appeal by the Pennsylva nia Supreme Court in 1989, by the United States Supreme Court on a petit ion for certiorari in 1990, was the subject of extensive "post convictio n review" hearings in 1995, 1996, and 1997, was reviewed again by the Pe nnsylvania Supreme Court in 1998, and was finally rejected for certiorar i by the United States Supreme Court in 1999. Perhaps AIUSA would have u s believe that all those courts don't understand the "minimum internatio nal standards" for a fair trial. But it's hard to believe that these cou rts do not know the "minimum USA standards" for a fair trial. It's even harder to believe that the rest of the world in general -- which include s places like Iraq -- has better "standards" than we do here in the Unit ed States. In France, for example, where Jamal enjoys considerable suppo rt, one is guilty until proven innocent, and there is no right against s elf-incrimination as there is in the US system. By comparison, the "mini mum" standards in any American court make the maximum standards of some of our most allegedly advanced and enlightened international neighbors l ook downright shabby. Well, all right, maybe the folks at AIUSA know more than the combined six teen Justices of the Supreme Court of the United States and the Pennsylv ania Supreme Court. That's a fancy term for an argument tha t, instead of dealing with relevant facts and issues, attempts to distra ct attention from those issues by attacking someone or something. It's a n appeal to emotion rather than reason, and it's cheap. It's something p eople do when they're trying to convince you of something they know you just won't buy if they give you time to think about the relevant issues. This case is about the murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner. But AIUSA 's "backdrop" piece says, in essence, that the Philadelphia police in th e 1970's were a bunch of homicidal maniacs. For example, AIUSA points to Mayor Frank Rizzo telling police in 1978, "Even when you're wrong, I'm going to back you." According to AIUSA's interpretation, this means that Rizzo "appeared to tolerate police misconduct." Could Mayor Rizzo have been telling his police force, a force th at was working in an extremely difficult environment, that he would not abandon them over mere errors of judgment, while at the same time not "t olerating misconduct"? After all, Mayor Rizzo didn't say "I'll back you even when you commit misconduct." That interpretation -- which seems muc h more reasonable than the one AI comes up with -- doesn't seem to have occurred to AIUSA. More important, what does any of the information contained in "The Backdr op" have to do with this case? Is AIUSA claiming that the police officer s that handled this case were all "lawless" and corrupt? Does AIUSA address anything that specific officers did to make Jamal's trial unfair? What AIUSA is saying, is that all of us should dislike and mistrust the police department of that era because of their reputat ion, and thus, we should conclude that Jamal's trial was unfair. That th ere's simply no connection between the premise and the conclusion they w ant you to draw, seems to cause AIUSA no distress. Here's another one -- AIUSA says the police clashed with the radical grou p MOVE in 1978; Jamal was "closely involved with" MOVE and had MOVE-styl e hair; But it sure helps you to get a good hate going against the poli ce, doesn't it? Propagandi sts for Jamal don't like to discuss the details of the crime, such as th e testimony of the four eyewitnesses who saw Jamal shoot Officer Faulkne r to death. Sure enough, AIUSA's discussion of "the crime" is remarkably brief. Whereas at trial, over a period of several days, four eyewitness es to the shooting described Jamal -- three of them specifically identif ied him as the gunman, two did so at the scene, while the fourth describ ed him in such a way as to leave no doubt it was Jamal -- running across the street, shooting the officer in the back, and then shooting him in the face as he lay face-up on the ground. But AIUSA chooses to skip over all of the testimony regarding the shooting and instead says there was a "struggle" between Officer Faulkner and Jamal's brother, William Cook, and then says that "police officers arrived on the scene to find" the o fficer dead and Jamal "sitting nearby wounded in the chest by a bullet f rom the police officer's gun." AIUSA acts as if ther e wasn't a mountain of credible testimony to allow us to know. JAMAL WAS FOUND ROUGHLY 10 FEET FROM FAULKNER'S DEAD BODY JUST 40 SECONDS AFTER THE FATAL SHOT WAS FIRED. JAMAL WAS WEARING AN EMPTY SHOULDER HOL STER AND HAD AN EMPTIED GUN LYING AT HIS SIDE. FOUR PEOPLE, EACH OF WHOM WAS LESS THAN 60 FEET FROM THE SHOOTING, SAW JAMAL SHOOT OFFICER FAULKN ER AND THREE OF THEM PHYSICALLY IDENTIFIED JAMAL AS THE KILLER AT THE CR IME SCENE. LESS THAN ONE HOUR AFTER THE SHOOTING, EACH EYEWITNESS GAVE A SIGNED WRITTEN STATEMENT DESCRIBING WHAT THEY HAD SEEN, TO FOUR DIFFERE NT OFFICERS, AT FOUR DIFFERENT LOCATIONS. But it's annoying when some self-importan t organization with an anti Death Penalty agenda ignores the glaring fac ts while pretending to be "thorough" and "objective". Let's not forget that there was ballistics evidence too. The results of e xtensive formal ballistics tests that were entered into evidence at the 1982 trial verified that the fatal bullet was the same caliber as Jamal' s gun. It had the same rifling marks etched into its outer edge as are f ound in the barrel of Jamal's gun. It was the same unique type of ammuni tion -- Federal brand hollow based +P -- as the shells found in Jamal's gun. Jamal's five shot revolver, which was registered to him, contained five shells, all of which had been fired. Jamal and his attorneys have never even attempted to refute any of these ballistics findings with alternative ballistics findings of their own. Y et, AIUSA conveniently chooses to omit this incriminating chain of facts in the section of their report which purports to display the pertinent information regarding "the crime" for the unknowing reader. Suppose you're just out mi nding your own business, sitting in a parking lot at 4 AM, and right in front of you somebody shoots a police officer in the face and runs away. They're looking at y ou kind of funny and they're pointing their guns and shouting at you as you lay wounded on the ground. He's standing just a few feet away and he's witnessed the entire e pisode. And yet when police approach him, he doesn't even mention that y ou didn't shoot anybody or that the "real killer" is getting away. Inste ad, he just says to the police as they arrive on the scene, "I ain't got nothing to do with this." Then, would you decide to say nothing about the incident until you get to the hospital, and then say "I SHOT THE M----- F----- AND I HOPE HE DI ES," like Jamal did? And then, even though you're innocent, at your tria l, your brother doesn't testify on your behalf about what really happene d, and neither do you. In fact, you go NINETEEN YEARS without EVER telli ng ANYBODY what "really" happened, including your attorney and dozens of reporters from around the world who have interviewed y... |
| csua.org/u/b7d -> www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Jenin_Again!$.asp With the dissolution of Israels governing coalition, the media dredges up the Jenin libel. With the dissolution of Israel's governing coalition, the media has had a field day promoting all sorts of sensationalist ideas. The primary target is new Israeli Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz, who Reute rs describes as "known for harsh tactics" and "his readiness to use crus hing military force" against Palestinians. com makes it sound as if the appointment of Mofaz is a nail in the coffin of the peace process, and ruinous for American foreign policy: "Mofaz, known for his hawkish views, had angered Palestinians with his to ugh policies and supported exiling Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. Pal estinians have expressed alarm that an Israeli government dominated by r ight-wing nationalists would be ideologically opposed to a state they se ek and would use harsher methods to crush their uprising in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip." MSNBC states that Sharon's actions have "broad repercussions for Mideast peace efforts and Washington's goal of toppling Iraq's leadership," and that "In this way, a staunchly right-wing government might also disrupt US efforts to tamp down Middle East violence as it seeks Arab support for a possible campaign to disarm Iraq." Last week, HonestReporting member Darryl L complained that BBC wrote, in referring to Mofaz: "He directed some of Israel's most controversial military operations in t he West Bank earlier this year, including Jenin -- where Palestinians cl aim a massacre took place -- and Ramallah." After complaints, BBC changed the sentence to read: "He directed some of Israel's most controversial military operations in t he West Bank earlier this year, including Jenin -- where a Palestinian r efugee camp was all but demolished -- and Ramallah." To suggest that the Jenin camp "was all but demolished" is inaccurate. Consider the facts: The refugee camp at Jenin is 3,500 square meters, but fighting only took place in a 200-square-meter area (about 6% of the total area of the camp ). The camp at Jenin had 1,100 houses, yet only 95 booby-trapped houses were demolished by the IDF (about 8% of the total number of homes). story=34781 9 Coincidentally, Amnesty International issued a 76-page report this week o n Israel's Operation Defensive Shield in Jenin and Nablus that accuses t he IDF of war crimes. But according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, 96 civilians (plus 35 soldiers) were k illed in terror attacks in March. In response to the Amnesty report, the IDF said: "As part of its adherence to the rules of the conduct of war, the IDF goe s to great lengths to avoid harming civilians, especially children. This concern is an integral part of soldier training, of the regulations gov erning when to open fire, of orders issued by commanders, of operational plans, and of the message conveyed by the highest-ranking officers. "Regrettably, while some civilians have been injured during the fighting against the Palestinian terrorist groups, in no case were these injuries intentional. Those hurt were either individuals involved in Palestinian terrorist activity, or civilians who were unintentionally hurt when the y entered a live-fire zone. The terrorist factions have transformed Pale stinian civilian population centers into terrorist activity headquarters ." stm * * * The rest of Israel's government was a media target as well. The Guardian makes a crazy comparison, trying to equate Israeli democracy to Palestin ian thugacracy: "Now, given the disarray in the Knesset, the Palestinians may reasonably ask, as the Israelis frequently do, who are they to negotiate with? The Baltimore Sun and others reported Sharon as saying that a nyone who joins his government would have to conform to practices put in place by his former, more moderate Labor Party partners and agree to th e eventual formation of a Palestinian state. "Policy lines will remain e xactly the same: war on terror, renewing political negotiations, and rea ching an agreement," Sharon told Maariv. The sentiment was echoed in a m essage delivered to the White House. com) reports tha t Canada continues to allow fundraising operations for Hizbullah, and th at Hizbullah has laundered tens of thousands of dollars through Canadian banks while drawing on the accounts to shop for military equipment. Hizbullah is not included in a list of terrorist groups that are banned u nder Canadian anti-terror legislation. Another Canadian law lists only t he military wing of Hizbullah as a terrorist entity. Yet is there really a distinction between Hizbullah's military, social an d political wings? The Post reports that a Hizbullah agent, Mohamed Huss ein Al Husseini, told Canadian Security Intelligence Service investigato rs that the three branches of Hizbullah were all engaged in terror and a ll controlled by the same man. "Hizbullah is considered an apparatus -- a military, organizational and popular apparatus," Al Husseini, an alleg ed Hizbullah hijacker who lived off welfare in Montreal, said during int errogations following his capture in Canada in 1993. "These three units constitute Hizbullah's protection and carry out its po licies. The orders for these three units come from Iran, but final appro val is obtained from Hassan Nasrallah and Sayed Fadlallah," Al Husseini said. "Hassan Nasrallah has personal contact with these three units." He went on to say that all three branches of Hizbullah were "involved in s ecurity activities, that is, hostage taking and explosives... Jean Chretien, the Canadian Prime Minister, stirred controversy two weeks ago when he attended a summit in Beirut with Hizbullah leader Hassan Na srallah and then brushed off the incident. za ===== CLARIFICATION ===== A recent newspaper commentary about American businesses advertising on Hi zbullah's Al-Manar TV station was authored by Avi J Jorisch of the Wash ington Institute for Near East Policy. |
| csua.org/u/b7e -> www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Children_Under_Fire.asp Children Under Fire Palestinian children are back on the front lines, throwing rocks and bomb s Amnesty International asks: Who's to blame? The media is awash in moral equivalence, thanks to Amnesty International' s new report: "Killing the Future: Children in the Line of Fire," which details how children on both sides have been victims of recent Mideast v iolence. Many media reports blanketly compared Israeli children who were intention ally targeted (eg the Tel Aviv Dolphinarium disco), with children who were unintentional collateral damage (eg killed with Hamas leader Sala h Shehadeh). Typical of the coverage was this short article by CBC (Canadian televisio n), which simply reports: "Amnesty says both the Israeli Defence Force a nd armed Palestinian groups show an utter disregard for the lives of chi ldren and other civilians." il/ HonestReporting wishes to single out The Los Angeles Times for its care i n making distinctions between the intentional murder of civilians and co llateral damage. Correspondent Mitchell Landsberg noted that Israeli off icials expressed regret over the deaths of Palestinian children, but the y drew a distinction between those deaths, which they said were accident al, and those of Israeli children, who they say are deliberately targete d by suicide bombers and other assailants. equated attacks against Israeli civilians with attacks against Palestinian civilians. But there is no moral equivalence between Israel' s strikes on terrorist leaders that sometimes kill other Palestinians in the area and the suicide bombers who enter a pizza parlor or vegetable market intending to kill and maim as many Israeli men, women and childre n as possible in order to spread terror." com HonestReporting encourages members to monitor your local media to see how they are covering the Amnesty International report, and the issue of ch ild casualties in general. com, a website de dicated to stopping abuse of children in the Mideast conflict. Thank you for your ongoing involvement in the battle against media bias. com ===== PALESTINIAN CHILDREN ON THE FRONT LINES ===== Justus Weiner has authored a comprehensive issue brief entailed, "The Rec ruitment of Children in Current Palestinian Strategy." org) Weiner cites recent examples of how Palestinian children and teenagers ha ve assumed an integral role in the murder of Israeli civilians: - February 2002 - Nora Shalhoob, a 16-year-old Palestinian girl, was kill ed while charging a group of Israeli soldiers at a military checkpoint w ith a knife in her hand. May 2002 - A 16-year-old Palestinian boy was arrested in a taxi near Jeni n with a suicide bomb on his body. Early in the current intifada, Weiner notes, children acted as decoys, bu rning tires and shooting slingshots to attract TV cameras while making i t harder for the world to identify the gunmen lying in ambush. Knowing t hat Israeli soldiers are ordered not to shoot live ammunition at childre n, Palestinian snipers hide among groups of youngsters, on rooftops or i n alleys, often using kids as shields when aiming at exposed IDF soldier s On some occasions, these gunmen apparently have inadvertently shot Pa lestinian children from behind. USA Today correspondent Jack Kelley reported: "Children serve as infantry in the confrontations between Israeli and Pal estinian soldiers. In scenes reminiscent of Iranian children sent to the Iraqi front equipped with plastic keys to heaven, Palestinian children are sent close to Israeli positions with rocks and Molotov cocktails, wh ile the gunmen and snipers fire from positions hundreds of yards back." They received five Israeli shekel s (about one US dollar) for throwing them." gif) The Palestinian Authority has provided children with military training. T he New York Times reports that 25,000 children were trained in the summe r 2000 in PA camps in the use of firearms, the making of Molotov cocktai ls, the methods of kidnapping Israeli leaders, and conducting ambushes. In June 1982, the PLO issued a military call-up order for all boys aged 12 and older whose fathers served in Fatah units. The children were promised $80 a month and were attached to regular PLO batt alions, each serving in his father's company. Sam Kiley describes in The London Times: "Since birth, Palestinian children have been pumped full of religious fun damentalism which promises paradise for those who die for the cause of f ree Palestine... Approving or not, the Palestinian authorities have done nothing to stop children playing with their lives. Reporter s assume that if Palestinian children are being killed, it can only be I srael's fault. Yet as Arafat adviser Bassam Abu Sharif told Time magazine: "If he knows he will achieve a political point that will get him closer to independen ce and if that will cost him 10,000 killed, he wouldn't mind." Indeed, fault for most of these casualties lies strictly with the PA. Sal ah Shehadeh operated from a heavily populated neighborhood, precisely be cause he knew the civilians would serve as a human shield against any Is raeli attempt to assassinate him. Writing in the NY Post, John Podhoretz explains: "The Fourth Geneva Convention goes into great and elaborate detail about how to assign fault when military activities take place in civilian area s.. To prevent such a thing from happening, international law explicitly gives Israel the ri ght to conduct military operations against military targets under these circumstances." htm Speaking about another region of the world, US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said: "Let there be no doubt, the responsibility for every casualty of this war , lies with the Taliban. They use civilians as human shields, and place their arsenal among their homes. We did not look to commence this confli ct -- the war was thrown at us, and we are defending ourselves." jpg The Palestinian media is a primary vehicle used to promote the martyrdom of children. In the clip, a child wr ites a farewell letter to his parents, glorifying his desire to die, and then places himself in front of Israeli soldiers during a violent riot where he is shot and dies, achieving his goal. The words are sung: " For my country, I shall sacrifice myself... He is saying, "I am not waving goodbye, I am waving to tell you to follow in my footsteps." On the accompanying soundtrack, a song plays, "How pleasant is the smell of martyrs, how ple asant the smell of land, the land enriched by the blood, the blood pouri ng out of a fresh body." Religious leaders also encourage the martyrdom of children. Sheik 'Ikrimi Sabri, the Palestinian Authority-appointed mufti of Jerusalem, declared : "I feel the martyr is lucky because the angels usher him to his weddin g in heaven... The younger the martyr, the greater and the more I respec t him." "Al-Ayyam" newspaper quotes a mother who encouraged her s ons to sacrifice themselves for Palestinian beliefs: "The danger of injury to the boy Tzabar Ashkaram, 18, paralysis and perma nent disability, just added to his mother's determination to encourage h er sons to participate in the intifada riots... the fact of his injury b y a live bullet did not cause her to mourn. BBC broadcast a video of a proud Palestinian mother embracing her son and sends him proudly on his way to kill Jews. "May every bullet hit its target, and may God give you mar tyrdom. asp (All this makes one wonder about the sanctimonious pronouncements of Pale stinian spokeswoman Hanan Ashrawi who, when asked about the Palestinian Authority dispatching children into battle with Israeli soldiers, angril y turned on her interviewer: "They're telling us we are -- we have no feelings for our children? I sometimes I say I don't want to sink to the level of responding, or proving I'm human. Mahmoud M Abu Marzoug remind ed a group of 10th grade girls in Gaza City that "as a martyr, you will be alive in Heaven." After the address, a group of these girls lined up to assure a Washington Post reporter that they would be happy to carry o ut suicide bombings or other actions ending in their deaths. Suicide bombin g is considered a source of neighborhood pride, as streets are named aft er the perpe... |