President Obama recently announced an aid package of more than $130 million to fight the narcotraficantes (narco-traffickers) in Central and Latin America. The infusion of money was announced at the Summit of the Americas in April in Cartagena, Colombia, to head off criticism of the “war on drugs”—and spreading calls to declare it a failure and end it.
The White House wants the world to believe drug prohibition works, and to forget the murderous legacy of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) in Central and Latin America.
The CIA and the DEA have been directly involved in drug trafficking in the region for decades. They’ve trained, armed and funded death squads and right-wing paramilitary groups that share control of the lucrative drug trade. Corrupt officials at the highest levels of government and sections of the business class also profit enormously from the illicit drug trade.
Latin America has borne the brunt of the U.S.-led war on drugs that has turned several countries into virtual war zones full of massacres and mayhem. Drug cartels operate with near impunity and assassinate judges, journalists, mayors, police and anyone unlucky enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
No country wants to become the “next Mexico,” where more than 60,000 people have died in gruesome, drug-fueled violence. Over 250,000 have been internally displaced, and kidnapping for ransom is rife. In many parts of Mexico, drug cartels now battle openly with government forces for control of cities and towns.
The effects on the Mexican economy, in particular tourism, have been devastating. In Acapulco last year, 15 decapitated bodies were found on a walkway to a popular beach. Another 12 victims, including two police officers, were killed in the city on the same day. The drug war has turned Mexico into vast killing fields and economic wastelands.
(Source: anticapitalist)
JiM!Loki + Ikol
Experts: UN observers’ credibility dented | News 24
The massacre in the central Syrian town of Houla has dented the UN observer mission’s credibility and may be a turning point in the international community’s response to the regime, analysts say.
UN and Arab League envoy Kofi Annan “placed his bets on the monitors’ presence stemming abuses. But he may have lost his bet, though it may be a little too early to say so,” UN expert Alexandra Novosseloff said.
Over the past month, nearly 300 observers were progressively deployed in 10 Syrian towns to monitor a truce that went into effect on April 12.
But after a relative lull in the first weeks of the ceasefire, the violence raged anew.
Arriving in Houla just hours after the massacre ended, although anti-regime activists first reported an army assault on Friday afternoon, the monitors could do little more than count the bodies of at least 108 victims, among them around 50 children.
Photo: FreedomAlHoula/YoutubeThe pictures and video footage of the dead children which came out this weekend is probably some of the worst, most disturbing content on the face of this planet and I honestly don’t understand how there are pro-Assads left. The UN, on this front, has been an absolute disappointment. What a grotesque and supremely sad situation.
leptiir:theneighbourhoodsuperhero:
[shown above] Ruhal Ahmed, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee, in an interview in which he discusses Omar Khadr. Ahmed stammers,
“I think he was a strong kid.
I think, you know, being much older, much older than him, I did feel that, sometimes, I needed to look out for him and I think so did the other prisoners around him feel the same. But obviously, being in Guantanamo, you can’t really look out for one another.
Uh, it’s, it’s, it’s difficult you know, today I’m here, and I’m, I’m thinking of, thinking of him and he’s still in prison and he’s still, still a kid. I don’t know really what I would say to him. It doesn’t seem, it doesn’t seem fair that he’s still there and, and I’m here.”
Khadr, a Canadian, was taken into US custody at the age of fifteen, tortured and refused medical attention because he wouldn’t attest to being a member of Al Qaeda, even though he was shot three times in the chest and had shrapnel embedded in his eyes and right shoulder. As a result, Khadr’s left eye is now permanently blind, the vision in his right eye is deteriorating, he develops severe pain in his right shoulder when the temperature drops, and he suffers from extreme nightmares.
Ahmed, who was imprisoned in the cell next to him for some time, reported that Khadr would return from interrogations (where he would be tortured) crying and would huddle in a corner of his cell with his blanket over his head.
Shafiq Rasul, another former Guantanamo Bay detainee, stated that although Khadr was forced to mature due to his harsh treatment and torture, he still had the mentality of a child. Guantanamo Bay’s Muslim chaplain James Yee confirmed this by reporting that Khadr had been given a Mickey Mouse book in a surprising act of kindness by one of his interrogators, and that he slept with it clutched to his (injured) chest. Muneer Ahmad, one of Khadr’s first attorneys, reported that at their first meeting at Guantanamo, Khadr asked for nothing other than colouring books, car magazines and pictures of big animals and played with the attorney’s ink pens and digital watch.
Khadr has been incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, and is now 25 years old.
If you want to know more about Omar Khadr, please check this out. Omar has himself said: “… if the world doesn’t see all this, to what world am I being released to? A world of hate … and discrimination.” He’s right, it is a world full of hate & discrimination, a world full of hatred towards everyone who isn’t white, Christian & straight.
honestly, what the fuck.
