U.S. pushes ‘rule of law’ and accountability in Africa as Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, etc. enjoy the sunshine; U.S. bribed Afghan witnesses against teenager detainee; Afghans protests most recent U.S. air raid which killed three children; Ha’aretz calls out Israel’s morality for stealing Palestinian homes; Goldman Sachs has a second consecutive quarter of record-setting profits on the back of the rest of us; and more…
U.S SECY. OF STATE HILLARY CLINTON ‘DEMANDS ACCOUNTABILITY FOR WAR CRIMES… in Kenya. “Those Kenyans apparently fail to understand that if you immunize high political officials when they commit crimes, that creates a ‘culture of impunity’ — I love that phrase — which ensures future rampant criminality in the political class,” writes Glenn Greenwald (Salon). “Clinton’s sentiments echoed what Obama told Africans when he spoke in Ghana last month, when he demanded that they apply ‘the rule of law, which ensures the equal administration of justice’ and vowed that ‘we will stand behind efforts to hold war criminals accountable’ — meaning African war criminals. As we send murderous, crusading civilian units around the world to accompany our invading armies — while ushering a regime of torture wherever we go — and then announce we will only Look to the Future, Not the Past, when their crimes are exposed (despite our best efforts to keep them concealed), do we actually expect anyone to take these sermons seriously?”
U.S. military lawyer claims the U.S. Justice Department (DoJ) bribed Afghans for testimony against teenager Mohammed Jawad, 12-years-old when kidnapped by the U.S. and in his seventh year in custody, reports Daphne Eviatar. A federal jedge has cleared Mr. Jawad from release, the DoJ is forced to throw out his confessions as they were all a result of torture.
An air raid (most likely led by the U.S.) killed the wife and father-in-law of Pakistani Taliban (TeT) leader Baitullah Mehsud Four children were also injured (AJE).
Afghans protested an overnight U.S. air strike that killed four civilians, including three children, in the Kandahar Province (AntiWar.com).
“Israel must allow evicted Arab families to return home”, reads the title of today’s Israel daily Ha’aretz editorial. “A democratic state that strives for peace and justice simply has no right to uproot families who became refugees in 1948…. No thinking person will be persuaded that Jews have a sweeping right to return to their homes in East Jerusalem as long as Israeli law not only bars Palestinians from returning to their homes in West Jerusalem, but even evicts them from the houses where they have lived for the last 60 years.”
Goldman Sachs reported it made more than $100m on each of a record 46 days and losing money on only two during its second quarter of $2.7bn in profits (FT). This beat the previous record of 34 days… set by Goldman Sachs… in the first quarter of this year (Bloomberg). Read more in Little Alex’s post earlier this week, “Wall Street Reaping Outsized Profits Trading With the FED“.
“Inflation is tantamount to generational theft,” writes the FT “Lex” team. “Young people with large fixed mortgages and much of their meagre savings in equities would benefit, while those near retirement with little mortgage debt and more substantial savings in bonds and annuities suffer. If this crisis has taught anything it should be that there are no free lunches.”
‘The U.S. will never recognize the sovereignty of the republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia and will urge other countries to do the same,’ U.S. Asst. SecDef. Alexander Vershbow said in a Senate hearing on aid to Georgia (RT). The U.S. is pledging $1bn to Georgia a year after it attacked the two republics which Russia defended, leading to the Five Day War (2:04):
Edgar Rodriguez and his preganant daughter were tasered at his granddaughter’s baptism party so police could “successfully arrest” him for ‘resisting arrest’ for ‘public drunkenness in his own backyard. Read more at Jonathan Turley’s blog here.
News Corp.’s MarketWatch confirms that CEO Rupert Murdoch intends to begin charging for web content. People focus on FOX, WSJ, and the tabloids, but we will miss using the Telegraph as a source.
Little Alex in Wonderland 