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Headlines : Human RightsObama's Death Squad Chief of Justice Choice
Obama’s administration, more than anything else, is going to convince the world of the insanity of thinking some guy’s okay just because he’s black.
Holder’s associations with Colombian death squads is sure to come as a lovely surprise to Latin America’s leading leftists.
[Posted By microdot]Republished from Counterpunch
It looks like the first African-American President will appoint the first African-American attorney general in the coming days. Eric H. Holder Jr. — a senior Clinton Justice Department official.
What is not being discussed too much is Holder’s key role in defending Chiquita Brand International in a notorious case relating to the company’s funneling money and weapons to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, AUC, the right-wing paramilitary organization on the U.S. State Department’s own list of terrorist organizations.
In 2003, an Organization of American States report showed that Chiquita’s subsidiary in Colombia, Banadex, had helped divert weapons and ammunition to the AUC. The AUC is responsible for hundreds of massacres of primarily peasants throughout the Colombian countryside, where it is believed that at least 4,000 people were killed, a disproportionate amount of those people being black or indigenous.
In 2004, Holder helped negotiate an agreement with the Justice Department for Chiquita that involved the fruit company’s payment of “protection money” to the AUC, in direct violation of U.S. laws prohibiting this kind of transaction.
Holder continues to represent Chiquita in the civil action which grew out of this criminal case.
Posted by microdot
What?
nice one
Ex-CIA Officials Tied to Rendition Program and Faulty Iraq Intel Tapped to Head Obama’s Intelligence Transition Team: John Brennan and Jami Miscik, both former intelligence officials under George Tenet, are leading Barack Obama’s review of intelligence agencies and helping make recommendations to the new administration. Brennan has supported warrantless wiretapping and extraordinary rendition, and Miscik was involved with the politicized intelligence alleging weapons of mass destruction in the lead-up to the war on Iraq. We speak with former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman and Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights.
Robert Gates: As Bad as Rumsfeld? Some Democrats are urging President-elect Obama to retain Defense Secretary Robert Gates, but ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern asks whether Gates is really better than his reviled predecessor.
The rumored appointments of Hillary Clinton at State and Robert Gates at Defense suggest Barack Obama is making the same missteps that tripped up Bill Clinton in his first year, writes Robert Parry.
Against the Militarized Academy: Henry A. Giroux, Truthout: ‘‘While there is an ongoing discussion about what shape the military-industrial complex will take under an Obama presidency, what is often left out of this analysis is the intrusion of the military into higher education. One example of the increasingly intensified and expansive symbiosis between the military-industrial complex and academia was on full display when Robert Gates, the secretary of defense, announced the creation of what he calls a new ‘Minerva Consortium,’ ironically named after the goddess of wisdom, whose purpose is to fund various universities to ‘carry out social-sciences research relevant to national security.’‘’
We have gotten so quick. I don’t think they realize . . .