Dublin: Noam Chomsky to deliver Annual Amnesty Lecture

by bart Wed Jan 18, 2006 18:26

sideshowbob wrote " i do not think the gov. knew about them or aided them."

Lets look at the facts.

1)There were a number of criminal complaints lodged over the past few years at Shannon Garda station that have been ignored. Why?

2) The government is refusing the release certain information on the subject. Why?

3) Why was there a secret treaty between the Irish government and the US that Dermot Ahern denied existed and did not put before the Dail as is what the constitution demands? http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=73761

4) The onus is on independent nation to stand tall and not to take "diplomatic assurances". They are not enough in the case of torture.

As the Irish Human Rights Commission (IHRC) said, the Government had "a positive obligation" to ensure that prisoners were not being illegally transported, or else face the risk of breaching international human rights law.

5) A document dated January 22, 2003, proves that EU officials agreed to allow access to their airports for the United States, and also indicate that the EU was well aware that such an agreement made them complicit in possible war crimes. It was recently obtained by Statewatch. http://www.statewatch.org/

This story is unfolding and the facts are revealing themselves gradually. There's a red stain flowing from government offices and it ain't Bertie's "socialism" spreading.

by Sideshowbob Wed Jan 18, 2006 15:51

As much as i cannot deny the existence of these dodgy flights, there are still no hard facts on them but it can be pretty much assumed that they go on as the US believe everything they do is "good"!! However, i do not think the gov. knew about them or aided them. What will happen now is the EU as a whole will look for inspections to make sure rendition is not taking place on their soil so this matter will soon be dealt with and this country or gov. cannot be accused of aiding torture.....

by bart Wed Jan 18, 2006 13:25

sideshowbob: In ratifying the UN Convention Against Torture in 2000, Ireland undertook to “take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture”.

This has not happened at Shannon. And so people such as Dermot Ahern, Brian Cowen and civil servants in the Dept Foreign Affairs, Dept Transport are complicit in torture for their various roles in allowing the US flights through. They will carry this shameful fact to their graves.

Economic arguments can never overrule morals.

by Sideshowbob Wed Jan 18, 2006 10:11

This dude may have some valid points but he is wrong when he says does bertie ahern listen to the will of the Irish people or washington. I think irish people would not stop the US using shannon if it was put to a vote cause they would realise the damage it would do to thise countrys relationship with the US and the subsequent knock on effects both politically and economically.. Bertie is just shrewd.. Afterall its only a bloody juice stopover which can be done anywhere so will people get off their high horse and stop moaning..

by listener Wed Jan 18, 2006 09:37

Anyone know if this is being broadcast on the web?

by redjade Sat Dec 24, 2005 11:28

Geov Parrish interviews Noam Chomsky....

The fact of the matter is that there is no War on Terror. It's a minor consideration. So invading Iraq and taking control of the world's energy resources was way more important than the threat of terror. And the same with other things. Take, say, nuclear terror. The American intelligence systems estimate that the likelihood of a "dirty bomb," a dirty nuclear bomb attack in the United States in the next ten years, is about 50 percent. Well, that's pretty high. Are they doing anything about it? Yeah. They're increasing the threat, by increasing nuclear proliferation, by compelling potential adversaries to take very dangerous measures to try to counter rising American threats.

This is even sometimes discussed. You can find it in the strategic analysis literature. Take, say, the invasion of Iraq again. We're told that they didn't find weapons of mass destruction. Well, that's not exactly correct. They did find weapons of mass destruction, namely, the ones that had been sent to Saddam by the United States, Britain, and others through the 1980s. A lot of them were still there. They were under control of U.N. inspectors and were being dismantled. But many were still there. When the U.S. invaded, the inspectors were kicked out, and Rumsfeld and Cheney didn't tell their troops to guard the sites. So the sites were left unguarded, and they were systematically looted. The U.N. inspectors did continue their work by satellite and they identified over 100 sites that were systematically looted, like, not somebody going in and stealing something, but carefully, systematically looted.


read the whole interview....
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?ItemID=20106

by redjade - [meant to add these too] Wed Nov 23, 2005 00:37

http://www.chomskytorrents.org

http://www.chomsky.info