Profound Quotes

"Neither is it that US foreign policy is cruel because American leaders are cruel. It's that our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign policy establishment; it might as well be written into the job description. People capable of expressing a full human measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless strangers - (let alone American soldiers - do not become president of the United States, or vice president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to." From 'Rogue State: A Guide to the World's Only Superpower' by William Blum

From "9-11, Six Years Later": "If one looks at the credentials of skeptics compared to the credentials of defenders of the official line, it is impossible to dismiss skeptics as kooks. There are many people with strong imaginations on the Internet, but serious skeptics stick to known facts, known violations of standard procedures and the laws of physics. The vast majority of the people who call skeptics "kooks" are themselves ignorant of physics and have little comprehension of the improbability that such an attack could succeed without either the complicity or complete failure of government agencies. " Paul Craig Roberts

"Cowardice asks the question, 'Is it safe?' Expediency asks the question, 'Is it politic?' Vanity asks the question, 'Is it popular? But, conscience asks the question, 'Is it right?' And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular but one must take it because one's conscience tells one that it is right." Martin Luther King, Jr.

Categories

OpEdNews » The Government’s Shameful War on Marijuana Users

History is replete with examples of governmental attempts to modify human behavior by imposing prohibitions. All attempts failed, most of them miserably.
In the 16th century, coffee was banned in Egypt and supplies were burned. Coffee consumption increased rapidly.
In the 17th century, the Tsar of Russia executed people caught using tobacco. Among unexecuted Russian citizens, tobacco [...]

Khaleej Times Online - Americans Divided by Hate Crimes Bill

Susan Fani of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights warns: “The problem in general with hate crimes legislation is that it invites the government to probe way beyond motive. And in instances like this, it trespasses on free speech and religious liberty.”
Although the bill “declares that nothing in this Act shall be construed [...]

Raw Story » Leaked torture photos published in 2006 went largely unseen

By Raw Story

Published: May 15, 2009
Updated 1 day ago
A little over three years ago, SBS Dateline, an Australian television program, released leaked photographs from the U.S. prison in Iraq, Abu Ghraib.
It is believed that the pictures being held back by the Obama administration may include some of these shots that most of the US [...]

Kafka for Dummies: the Absurd Debate over Torture!

Here we go again. After eight horrific years of lies and deceit and war and death, the American public once again has fallen into the abyss of self delusion. Tragically, just as we near the brink of reversal, we are about to abdicate any claim whatsoever to respect or honor anywhere.
Kafka for Dummies: [...]

Raw Story » Report: much of 9/11 Commission’s findings cite intelligence garnered by torture

Much of the material cited in the 9/11 Commission’s findings was derived from terror war detainees during brutal CIA interrogations authorized by the Bush administration, according to a Wednesday report.
“More than one-quarter of all footnotes in the 9/11 Report refer to CIA interrogations of al Qaeda operatives subjected to the now-controversial interrogation techniques,” writes former [...]

OpEdNews » “Sadistic . . . Violent . . . Inhuman”

Original Content at http://www.opednews.com/articles/-Sadistic—-Violent–by-Mike-Malloy-090513-563.html
May 13, 2009
“Sadistic . . . Violent . . . Inhuman”
By Mike Malloy

They must be horrific. So violent, in fact, so obscene, so counter to even the basic tenets of human decency that President Barack Obama sought today to block the release of hundreds of photos showing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan being abused, [...]

OpEdNews » How Americans Think About Torture–and Why

Based on this sampling of polling results, it is easy at first to be surprised and troubled by the degree to which Americans have expressed support for the inhumane treatment and torture of detainees. But public sentiment on such matters does not emerge in a vacuum. Rather, it often reflects the influence of carefully orchestrated [...]

Senators Urge Obama to Block Release of New Detainee Abuse Photos

Civil libertarians were virtually unanimous in their opposition to withholding the photographs.
Gabor Rona, International Legal Director of Human Rights First, told us, ”Sen. Lieberman and Graham’s claims might carry more weight had the US government been consistently honest about the mistreatment it authorized. But as long as the American people are kept in the dark [...]

TPM Editorials: Commentary on “Don Monkerud: ‘The new Americanism: The Eichmann Syndrome’”

“Don Monkerud: ‘The new Americanism: The Eichmann Syndrome‘ Posted on Monday, February 07 @ 10:17:43 EST

By Don Monkerud
The New Americanism: The Eichmann Syndrome
by Don Monkerud — Contributing Author [Email This Story]
As the world mourns the anniversary of the Holocaust, we continue to wonder how one of the most advanced countries in the world could commit [...]

OpEdNews » Nagging Similarities Between JFK Assassination and 9/11

The team linked to the tragedies operated out of a weird flight school in Venice, Florida. It was run by a man from the Netherlands who spent a lot of time in Hamburg, Germany in what looked very much to be CIA type recruiting missions. That is where the alleged assassins of bin [...]