lol Ned. Delete the Darth Vader bookmark.

@ Chris: NOOOOOOOOOOO!

Statement on the election of Barack Obama

From Donna Marsh O’Connor
November 9, 2008

First let me say, after years of skepticism re the Democratic Party, I am a Progressive Democrat and so my comments reflect that. Someday perhaps someone more powerful than I will be able to dismantle the two party system, and make more genuine choice possible in this country. Right now, there are two parties.

For eight years George W. Bush and Dick Cheney impostered as Republicans. I have said before and will say again, they would not have fit into my party and of this I am proud. They led a band of rogues that brought this country to the brink of absolute despotism. Let the Republicans worry about that mess. I remember telling my students long ago, I didn’t vote for Bill Clinton for what he would do, I voted for Bill Clinton for what he said, for the values he espoused, for the way his insistence on social justice resonated. After his election, his actions were, indeed, another matter.

The good news: Barack Obama seems to be a decent man, tough enough to steer this nation in the left direction, confident enough to know he will succeed, smart enough to know that the powerful right still has the means to inflict great pain and re-enter greater and stronger. His election has elated many, particularly me, for a whole host of reasons, but for our purposes the following two:

The reign of Bush/Cheney/Rove (given a peaceful transition) is over.

Though I don’t believe that this election cycle was completely fair and free of vote tampering, we did remove Bush from office.

We don’t know how Obama will govern. He says he will govern to the center and there is some clear evidence of that. But I believe there is no person in government with living brain cells who really believes that the narrative constructed by the Bush/Cheney administration regarding 9/11 is entirely plausible, and so there may be rapid changes to some of the laws that have made the argument for an investigation impossible.

The bad news: We won’t see Bush, Cheney, Rove or Rumsfeld, et al steered out in handcuffs anytime soon. No one in the Democratic Party will steer us toward an investigation anytime soon. 9/11 Truth will be an argument that falls on deaf ears across this nation for a very long time. People will feel that there is no need to bring pain where jubilation sits. Many people don’t grasp what the German citizens do so palpably because only some of us knew we sat at the door of fascism.

We, ultimately, don’t know what changes will come under Barack Obama–how much of the violence (to citizens of the world and to the Constitution of the United States) of the Bush administration will end. We don’t know (though there is clear reason to worry) whether Obama’s idea of centrist government is synonymous with Pelosi’s.

We do know we need to prevent another 9/11 and we do need to have some access to data that will help us to hold accountable those who allowed or facilitated the events of that day.

Some things we should press on immediately:

Obama’s promise to end the Iraq War and to allow the Iraqi people freedom to self-govern.

An immediate end to the Patriot Act.

An immediate end to warrantless wiretapping.

The immediate closing of Guantanamo Bay.

The appointment of a scientist as the head of NIST (perhaps the most important).

A reconfiguration of Homeland Security that re-evaluates its mission and methods as well as its appointed head.

Finally, we need to remind President-Elect Obama that for eight years, whether they know it now or not, the people of this country, the people of the world, were endangered by the Bush administration. Though Bush was enabled primarily by the Republican Party, he was also enabled by the Democratic Party. It was the individual citizens to the left and far left who suffered most under Bush/Cheney rule because we saw it. Governing to the center should not include every policy and every issue. Some, as a matter of the most common sense, need to be changed expediently.

It is imperative that those who fought for our collective integrity the hardest, who fought for his election with the most energy and fervor, be given some hope now. It is one thing to hear the voices of the entire population, another to ignore the voice of reason, particularly when we’ve seen so clearly what can happen in reason’s absence.

Who is Donna Marsh O’Connor? This is who she is…
Donna Marsh O’Connor on C-Span at the National Press Club in Washington, DC:
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x1drdn_911-truth-donna-marsh-oconnor-cspan_news

Informative post, Mary. When we all look at the prospect of the US or Israel attacking Iran, based on nothing once again, we should all focus on what the hell got us into Iraq. All too often, people just want to brush that fateful day which spurred the terror frenzy under the rug. But not this Princeton Professor who currently works at the UN as a council member.

Talk about balls. Good for him.

This article is from a Scottish newspaper, funded/produced by young Scottish journalists:

More than Meets the Eye
by Richard Falk, Princeton Professor, UN Council Member
Sunday 09 November 2008, The Journal Issue 13
Show 19 comments

Every so often attention is called anew to the doubts surrounding the true character of the events surrounding the 9/11 attacks. Recently, the report of the collapse of Building 7 represented such an occasion. Any close student of 9/11 is aware of the many serious discrepancies between the official version of what took place and the actual happenings on that fateful day in 2001. David Ray Griffin and others have analyzed and assessed these discrepancies in such an objective and compelling fashion that only wilful ignorance can maintain that the 9/11 narrative should be treated as a closed book, and that the public should move on to address the problems of the day.

To accept such a view is to acquiesce in what can be described at best as governmental evasiveness and irresponsibility, a resolve to leave the discrepancies unexplained. It is not paranoid under such circumstances to assume that the established elites of the American governmental structure have something to hide, and much to explain. What has not been established by the “9/11 Truth Movement” is a convincing counter-narrative – that is, an alternate version of the events that clears up to what degree, if at all, the attacks resulted from incompetence, deliberate inaction, and outright complicity.

For democratic government to work, citizens must never refrain from seeking answers to the most difficult questions. Here, what is at stake is enormous. It is not only the memory of those killed and deprived by the attacks, but also the fashioning of a climate of opinion that gave rise to international wars, as well as led to widespread denial of rights under the pretext of “homeland security” and counter-terrorism. There is also a profound challenge to the legitimacy of a governing process that stands accused of letting such crimes take place, if not aiding and abetting their commission and subsequent cover-up.

read the rest here…
http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/5056-911-more-than-meets-the-eye

*****************************************
About Scotland’s Journal Newspaper
The Journal was established in 2007 by Scotland’s leading young journalists.

It is a 32-page, mini-Berliner format newspaper that is published on a fortnightly basis and is distributed to all five of Edinburgh’s higher education institutions, reaching a total readership of approximately 60,000 students.

The Journal’s main focus is to cover news and current affairs in a way that is both interesting and useful to students. It aims to offer expert analysis and in-depth features that students will value. Additionally, The Journal offers full journalistic training for budding writers, photographers, illustrators and designers: an experience that is unmatched anywhere else in the city.

The Journal is entirely financially and editorially independent of any outside institution, university or students’ association. It is published by The Edinburgh Journal Ltd.

“…the election of Barack Obama as the new American president was a global event, and not just a national election. But what should be obvious is that the 9/11 experience has been relied upon to wage bloody wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and to underwrite a disastrously conceived “war on terror” that should be concern of everyone on the planet.

From this perspective, and given the dark cloud of doubt that lingers over the official 9/11 narrative, why was the issue not even discussed during the many months of presidential campaigning? As far as I know it was never mentioned. And the explanation is not the urgency associated with the widening economic crisis or the tactical interest of the Democrats to avoid offending Republicans in their search for support across party lines. The truth is deeper, and far more disturbing.

As far as I can tell, the real explanation is a widely shared fear of what sinister forces might lay beneath the unturned stones of a full and honest investigation of 9/11. Ever since the assassinations in the 1960s of John F. Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and Malcolm X there has been waged a powerful campaign against “conspiracy theory” that has made anyone who dares question the official story to be branded as a kook or some kind of unhinged troublemaker. In this climate of opinion, any political candidate for high office who dared raise doubts about the official version of 9/11 would immediately be branded as unfit, and would lose all political credibility. It is impossible to compete in any public arena in the United States if a person comes across as a “9/11 doubter.”

A few talk show hosts, investigative citizens, and publishers have kept a low flame of controversy burning sufficiently to sustain a large and growing grassroots constituency that shares the view that the truth about the 9/11 events is not yet known, or more radically, that the truth is known but being actively suppressed. These doubters are determined to continue their difficult quest for truth, and this could possibly result in disclosures at some point that are sufficiently dramatic to force the issue onto the public stage – where it belongs.

The persisting inability to resolve this fundamental controversy about 9/11 subtly taints the legitimacy of the American government. It can only be removed by a willingness, however belated, to reconstruct the truth of that day, and to reveal the story behind its prolonged suppression. What exactly that truth would be is certainly unknowable at present, and even an honest, collaborative effort might never altogether remove doubts. But that honest effort is just what should be demanded and expected by persons of good will everywhere.”

http://www.journal-online.co.uk/article/5056-911-more-than-meets-the-eye
****************************************************

Richard A. Falk is Professor of International Law and Practice at Princeton University, and an appointee to two United Nations positions on the Palestinian territories

….And in the other non-election news of the day of Nov. 4, the president of Afghanistan urged President-elect Obama to stop U.S. raids on civilians. He said an air strike by U.S. coalition forces this week killed 40 civilians.

Villagers said bombs hit a wedding party Monday in Kandahar province. They said nearly all of the victims were women and children. The U.S. military said it’s investigating.

In Kabul, President Karzai insisted bombing is not the answer.

HAMID KARZAI, president of Afghanistan (through translator): “Our demand is that there be no civilian casualties in Afghanistan. We cannot win the fight against terrorism with air strikes and battles in Afghanistan’s villages. This is our first and main demand, to stop civilian casualties.”

JIM LEHRER: Scores of Afghans have died in U.S. air strikes this year, as fighting with Taliban forces escalated.

Obama wants to amp up these attacks in Afghanistan. Sounds like the same shit as the “old boss” GW.

what a big “change” - move some soldiers from iraq to afghanistan.
how about remove all of our troops from the middle east because the war on terror is based 100 percent on lies, deceit and propaganda! we need to put serious heat on our new walk-on-water president to slam the brakes on the foreign policy of old and see a) what brought us to this point and b) make sure it never happens again.

maybe that level of accountability is impossible, since obama also voted for the bailouts which are being scattered around credit card companies now showing how good in nature they really are. sickening.

does nyu local care that its government continues to bomb women and children in the middle east? HOW MANY CIVILIANS IN IRAQ AND IRAN HAVE BEEN KILLED BECAUSE OF OUR ILLEGAL OCCUPATION OF IRAQ AND THE MIDDLE EAST?
we sure know how many yanks have died. johns hopkins u. has the iraq body count at 1 million.

i would have liked to have found these articles on nyu local, since you guys are posting other, less important information related to the recent election and current global events which DO affect the nyu community.

war reaches us all, though we americans don’t see - or seem to care - about these stories, these faceless people.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/us-warplanes-bomb-afghan-wedding-party-994922.html

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/11/06/2411487.htm?section=world

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/06/world/asia/06afghan.html?_r=1&scp=2&sq=wedding%20party%20bombed%20nov.%204&st=cse&oref=slogin

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/10/AR2006101001442.html

Study Claims Iraq’s ‘Excess’ Death Toll Has Reached 655,000

By David Brown
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 11, 2006; Page A12

A team of American and Iraqi epidemiologists estimates that 655,000 more people have died in Iraq since coalition forces arrived in March 2003 than would have died if the invasion had not occurred.

The estimate, produced by interviewing residents during a random sampling of households throughout the country, is far higher than ones produced by other groups, including Iraq’s government.

It is more than 20 times the estimate of 30,000 civilian deaths that President Bush gave in a speech in December. It is more than 10 times the estimate of roughly 50,000 civilian deaths made by the British-based Iraq Body Count research group.

The surveyors said they found a steady increase in mortality since the invasion, with a steeper rise in the last year that appears to reflect a worsening of violence as reported by the U.S. military, the news media and civilian groups. In the year ending in June, the team calculated Iraq’s mortality rate to be roughly four times what it was the year before the war.

Of the total 655,000 estimated “excess deaths,” 601,000 resulted from violence and the rest from disease and other causes, according to the study. This is about 500 unexpected violent deaths per day throughout the country.

Iraq’s Cabinet to vote on security pact with US
By HAMZA HENDAWI and QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA, Associated Press Writer Hamza Hendawi And Qassim Abdul-zahra, Associated Press Writer
1 hr 31 mins ago

BAGHDAD – Iraq’s Cabinet will vote Sunday on a security pact with Washington that would keep U.S. forces in the country for another three years, a major step in efforts to balance Iraqi demands for national sovereignty with the security concerns of the two allies.

In a bid to secure support for the agreement from the country’s top Shiite cleric, Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Saturday dispatched two senior lawmakers to see Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani in the holy city of Najaf, south of Baghdad, with a copy of the pact’s final draft.

A senior official at al-Sistani’s office said the cleric told the two legislators — Khalid al-Attiyah and Ali al-Adeeb — that the document represented “the best available option” for Iraq, signaling that he would not object to it if the Cabinet and later parliament approve it.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said al-Sistani indicated to al-Attiyah and al-Adeeb that he wanted the agreement to pass by a comfortable majority in the 275-seat parliament.

Al-Sistani commands enormous influence with Iraq’s majority Shiites. The Iranian-born cleric does not speak to reporters, communicating his views through edicts or leaks from his office. His public silence on a major policy decision is often taken to mean he has no objections.

Al-Attiyah said al-Sistani had stressed the need for “national accord” over the agreement. Al-Adeeb said “His eminence, al-Sistani, is comforted by the thoroughness of Iraqi officials who shoulder the responsibility of safeguarding national interests.”

The U.N. mandate covering the presence of U.S. and other foreign forces in Iraq expires Dec. 31, and failure to pass the agreement would leave Iraq with little choice but to seek a renewal of the mandate.

@Kay, if you have so much to say, why don’t you write a full length article and submit it to the site to be posted. It would do your arguments some good to be structured and actually sufficiently explained.

Good note, Chris.

Stil, not to throw her under the bus completely, I think all of the postings above are informative, I checked the links out, they are not junk spam.

But she should have formulated a two story idea to you guys which could have been layed out better. Maybe she’s a rookie.

Soooo… can NYU local run something on the Iraq and Afghanistan civilian body count, as it relates to US occupation and war in those countries?

Whether it’s Kay Young advocating for coverage on it or whomever, something must be said for the loss of discourse on this topic in the U.S., because I don’t hear anyone talking about it in any of my classes here, nor do I hear anyone talking about it on Faux News, ABC, NBC or CBS.

Why is that? Are we conditioned not to care about the people of these countries, because we don’t see video and photographs of the impact of our occupations? That would be my guess.

If there’s some piece of news you’d like to see written up in the National section, my email inbox is always open. That being said, please try to stay on topic in the comments.

Also, when you comment, don’t just copy and paste articles from other locations. Not only is that a waste of space when you could just link to the articles, but it’s also legally suspect. The Associated Press in particular tends to fine people when they quote more than four words from any of their articles.

I don’t think Donna Marsh O’Connor or that student paper of Scotland are going to be filing a suit against NYU local anytime soon. I know a thing or two about media ethics. O’Connor’s is an open ended letter for all press, the other doesn’t have much water to it. in fact, i think they would be grateful for the press. the AP or another wire service, national media org. or serious ad revenue generating paper, that’s another story.

regardless, it’s sad that no one responded about the wedding party that was bombed in afghanistan, and the hundreds of thousands of dead innocent civilians that have been killed in iraq in the name of huntin’ those “terrrorizers”. what a clusterf**k of bull s**t we have all be sold here in the good ‘ol US of A, and even obama staying the course about iran and amping up the volume in afghanistan is proof that he’s definitely serving folks other than the citizens of this country. so many fellow students are so insensitive and totally oblivious to what the US is doing to people around the world in the name of terrorism, so I applaud ANYONE who posts news in pertinent areas of blogs as they relate to the topic, as all of these notes, albeit long posts, are important methods of information sharing. isn’t that the crux of this pajama journalism blog system is all about? we can share information that might slip through the cracks and not be edited by big brother (i.e. corporate media)?

Bin Laden was our puppet, we armed and trained him and his boys, his family was on the only jet cleared for air travel in the hours following 9-11, the writing’s on the wall here folks of what has happened and what is going on. we’ve been duped, most folks are hip to that, at the bare minimum, and we continue to be taken for a ride, all in the name of terror, all stemming from the shock and awe of that horrible day 7 years ago. when will people say enough is enough and stop the torture, the illegal wars, and hold our leaders accountable for their crimes against humanity.

if we can’t throw bush and cheney in jail, we have ZERO right to tell any other leader they have a moral responsibility to other nation such as iran to hault nuclear creation, since the U.S. does not allow for its leaders to be held accountable when they mis-lead and take us all down a path of destruction and zero discourse.

According to the AP, there are currently 151,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, and 32,000 in Afghanistan, including 14,500 with the NATO-led coalition, and 17,500 who are fighting insurgents and training Afghan forces.