Friday, September 30, 2011

Death by drone not due process

From the Times today:
'An American drone attack killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a preacher born in the United States and a leading figure in Al Qaeda’s outpost in Yemen, on Friday morning, officials in Washington and Yemen confirmed." blah blah blah. Yeah he was born in the US. Does that, uh, make him a citizen? Duh. I think so. So now the government of the US kills its own citizens without due process, a detail one would have thought our constitutional law "professor" president might have recoiled from. Silly to think so obviously. Silly Us.

At least all those people executed in Texas and other US states did get due process, appeals, the works. Terrorism of course makes it all academic...

Sunday, September 18, 2011

What A Liar!

JTA News Alert 9/18: "The U.N. is not a place where Israel wins praise, but I think that it is important that I go there in order to represent both the State of Israel and the truth -- and the truth is that Israel wants peace and the truth is that the Palestinians are doing everything to torpedo direct peace negotiations," Netanyahu said Sunday.

This is simply Newspeak or maybe Alice in Wonderland. What is he thinking?

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Yet another drug war letter to the Times

In regard to Desperate Guatemalans Embrace An Iron Fist in the Times today, I wonder if anyone in our Government ever acknowledges the culpability of the US in these horrible drug wars--specifically the insatiable demand for drugs in the US--and thinks about why that could be and tries to figure out how our society could be improved so people don't have to drug themselves into oblivion. Rather than warring on drugs, let's war on the root causes. Maybe we're not sure what those are, but surely making it a fairer, kinder society would help. Our Congress, our executive branch, everything conspires to be a model of greed and unfairness. People lead hard lives, untempered by decency from their elected leaders, who seem to confine themselves to egocentric posturing. I guess drugs are the only surcease for a lot of people.