Milkhouse Mouse

Throwing off the political repression of the "Washington Consensus,"Latin American populist movements are nourishing seeds of democratic justice buried beneath a hard layer of imperial colonialism bequeathed the continent by every US president since John Tyler. Even the Spanish judicial system is inspired by their linguistic heirs--for about three minutes [See 18 April update below.]

Here's an online promo-blurb for a recent documentary The War on Democracy by Australian John Pilger, an award-winning journalist.

John Pilger's 2007 documentary explores the historic and current relationship of Washington with countries such as Venezuela, Bolivia and Chile. Pilger claims that the film "...tells a universal story... analyzing and revealing, through vivid testimony, the story of great power behind its venerable myths. It allows us to understand the true nature of the so-called "war on terror". According to Pilger, the film’s message is that the greed and power of empire is not invincible and that people power is always the "seed beneath the snow".

Pilger interviews several ex-CIA agents who purportedly took part in secret campaigns against democratic countries and who he claims are profiting from the war in Iraq. He investigates the School of the Americas in the U.S. state of Georgia, where General Pinochet’s torture squads were reportedly trained along with tyrants and death-squad leaders in Haiti, El Salvador, Brazil and Argentina.

Watch a two-minute trailer below:



If that vid clip sparked a suspicion that American hight-school--and college--history has been told by the wealthy and elite, the complete 93-minute online film can awakne you from your comfortable sleep. Watch here.

Spanish Justice Upstages American....

Blogger Scott Horton's 13 April Daily Beast report was well-received among readers (increasingly, an American rarity) possessing IQs above room temperature (now widely commonplace):

Spanish prosecutors report they will indict former Bush Attorney General Albert Gonzales and five Bush White House legal cohorts for legal sophistry in sanctioning torture at Guantánamo Bay's Camp Delta. According to Horton

The six defendants—in addition to Gonzales, Federal Appeals Court Judge and former Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee, University of California law professor and former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo, former Defense Department general counsel and current Chevron lawyer William J. Haynes II, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff David Addington, and former Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith—are accused of having given the green light to the torture and mistreatment of prisoners held in U.S. detention in “the war on terror.” The case arises in the context of a pending proceeding before the court involving terrorism charges against five Spaniards formerly held at Guantánamo. A group of human-rights lawyers originally filed a criminal complaint asking the court to look at the possibility of charges against the six American lawyers. Baltasar Garzón Real, the investigating judge, accepted the complaint and referred it to Spanish prosecutors for a view as to whether they would accept the case and press it forward. “The evidence provided was more than sufficient to justify a more comprehensive investigation,” one of the lawyers associated with the prosecution stated.

Now doesn't that breath some fresh air into the notion of "overdue justice."

John Yoo, the primary author of an August 2002 memo legally approving torture for the Bush White House, warrants some special consideration. Currently a professor of law at UC-Berkeley, Yoo in a 2006 even argued Bush was legally justified in crushing the genitals of terrorists' children if the commander-in-chief deemed it necessary, for whatever reason.

Alex Jones blogger Steven Watson--you really didn't think Wolf Blitzer, Tucker Carlson (or even Keither Olbermann, for that matter) deigned to actually cover this story, did you?--preserved this following gem of perverse thinking for what we can only hope will be played again at Yoo's Madrid trial.

During a December 1st debate in Chicago with Notre Dame professor and international human rights scholar Doug Cassel, John Yoo gave the green light for the scope of torture to legally include sexual torture of infants.

Cassel: If the president deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?

Yoo: No treaty.

Cassel: Also no law by Congress; that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo.

Yoo: I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that.

Click here for the audio.

Since he so confidently revealed this special legal twist of mind, I've emailed Professor Yoo a couple of times at his UC-Berkeley office at the law school, fawning over all the legal acumen he has demonstrated in the proud service of for our former Commander-in-Chief.

What follows is my latest "atta boy" email to Yoo titled "How's it hanging, Big John?". (Yes, this email now waits for him in his inbox.)

16 April 2009


John Yoo
Professor of Law
Office: 890 Simon Hall
Tel: 510-643-5089
Fax: 510-642-3728
Email Address: jyoo@law.berkeley.edu

Hey there, Big swingin'John:

You are to post-9/11 American legal education what Bernsetin and Woodward were to the 70s-era study of investigative journalism. What am I talking about here? Well, let me tell you, Big John.

Sir, your 1 December 2006 debate in Chicago with Notre Dame law professor Doug Cassell was one to have unquestionably inspired a raft of kids from America's inner city ghettos to enroll into YMCA night school law classes. I happen to know your words inspired these children to new heights, John.

Yes, I'm talking about your astute legal reasoning on behalf of your old boss George W. Bush--do you guys hang out anymore since Obama moved into the White House?--that gave him legal justification to crush children's genitalia.

Man, you've good a real pair of your own, John; you just didn't give a sh*t what that group of liberal whimps in Chicago thought of your legal acuity. Man, I so admire you, dude.....

And the Brits do, too, man, for, like hey, emulation is the best form of flattery, right? Did you hear about "Binyam Mohamed, a British resident who is currently being held at Guantanamo Bay"? It seems he really did have his genitals sliced with a scapel. (John, just check out http://thinkprogress.org/2009/02/09/mohamed-torture-uk-us/ for the update on how all terrorist charges eventually were dismissed against him.)

I mean, like really wow, dude....you rock the world of Muslims, Big John

I hope when your semsters ends soon there at Berkeley you have opportunity to fly to Europe--I'm thinking Madrid--for a long sit-down with some kindly Spanish prosecutors who, even as I'm sending you this email, are drafting a written invitation (subpoena) to have you over to see them and reveal more of you legal genius rolled up in that gray matter of your brain, pal.

God bless your abiding sense of fairness, parenthood and democracy, Big John.

Forever your admiring buddy,
Moose Kateer

==
18 April 2009 update: The Spanish prosecutors apparently have been leaned up enough for them to drop their torture investigation of Yoo et al. "Torture advocate" Bill O'Reilly of Fox News TV fame has taken credit for the criminally-insane to continue crushing young boys' nuts.

Labels: children's genitalia, Doug Cassell, John Yoo, Spanish prosecuton, torture, war crimes