Clipmarks | Kauaiguy's 'national security' clips

Why The American Prison System Is A Failure

Sun, 20 Jul 2008 20:19:10 GMT

clipped by: Kauaiguy
clipper's remarks: More punitive policies and the war on drugs provide perverse incentives to a private corrections industry with an interest in bilking public funds.

Clip Source: realcostofprisons.org

The Failing American Prison System

"Just as national security planners faked a "missile gap" in order to justify extravagant expenditures for defense, criminal justice policy makers are currently faking a "crime gap" in order to justify similar expenditures on prisons. Just as the military- industrial complex is a means of exercising international control so is the prison-industrial complex a means of exercising domestic control. This system is less about keeping the streets safe or rehabilitating criminals and more about serving a dual role in social management. Prisons are used to warehouse members of the unwanted social groups. Simultaneously, the job creation from the expansion of the prison system serves as a means of partially compensating and pacifying elements of the population negatively affected by outsourcing, automation, and farm failure."

Tags: prison, crime, justice, america, drugs

The Guatemala Genicide Case

Thu, 03 Jul 2008 17:35:41 GMT

clipped by: Kauaiguy
clipper's remarks: Among the witnesses was Jesus Tecú Osorio, survivor of the Río Negro massacre and winner of the Reebok Human Rights Award. Tecú was a child when the military began attacking the communities of Rabinal with increasing intensity during 1981 and into 1982. He was ten years old when he watched the Army and civil patrols (PAC) enter his village of Río Negro on March 13, 1982, and carry out the massacre that left 70 woman and 107 children dead, including his own mother and infant brother.

Clip Source: www.gwu.edu

The Guatemala Genocide Case

The investigative phase of the international human rights case charging three Guatemalan former military presidents and five senior army and police officials with genocide, state terrorism, torture and other crimes against humanity opened a second round of hearings on May 26, 2008, in Madrid, Spain. Judge Santiago Pedraz presided in his chambers at the Audiencia Nacional (Spain’s federal court) as five survivors and four expert witnesses described the scorched earth operations that decimated hundreds of Mayan communities in the department of Quiché in Guatemala’s highlands during the early 1980s, as well as issues relating to ethnicity and racism that have bearing on the case.

Tags: genocide, national security, war

Physicians For A National Health Program

Mon, 10 Mar 2008 20:06:52 GMT

clipped by: Kauaiguy
clipper's remarks: This site is the best on the net for analysis and answers to the ills of our non-healthcare system.

Clip Source: www.pnhp.org

The U.S. spends twice as much as other industrialized nations on health care, $7,129 per capita. Yet our system performs poorly in comparison and still leaves 47 million without health coverage and millions more inadequately covered.

This is because private insurance bureaucracy and paperwork consume one-third (31 percent) of every health care dollar. Streamlining payment through a single nonprofit payer would save more than $350 billion per year, enough to provide comprehensive, high-quality coverage for all Americans.

Tags: healthcare, single payer, health, national security

New Evidence on the Origins of Overkill

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 19:06:08 GMT

clipped by: Kauaiguy
clipper's remarks: “The SAC people never seemed to be satisfied that to kill once was enough. They want to kill, overkill, overkill, because all of this has built up the prestige of SAC, it created the need for more forces, for a larger budget. …. That’s the way their thinking went.”

Clip Source: www.gwu.edu

Washington DC, November 22, 2007 - The first comprehensive U.S. nuclear war plan, produced in 1960, was controversial within the U.S. government because top commanders and White House scientists objected to its massive destructiveness—the “high level of damage and population casualties”—according to newly declassified histories published today by the National Security Archive. The war plan also appalled Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who wanted to find ways to curb its overkill, but the first nuclear plan revised on his watch remained massively destructive.

Tags: weapons, nuclear weapons, government, military, national security

Former Peruvian President Tyied To Summary Executions

Mon, 10 Dec 2007 18:51:51 GMT

clipped by: Kauaiguy
clipper's remarks: The reason these butchers can get away with such atrocities is because they have plenty of police and military personnel to carry them out. These collaborators should be pursued to the ends of the earth as well.

Clip Source: www.gwu.edu

Washington, DC, December 10, 2007 : As disgraced former president Alberto Fujimori goes on trial in Lima, Peru, for human rights atrocities, the National Security Archive posted a declassified Defense Intelligence Agency cable tying him directly to the executions of unarmed rebels who had surrendered after the seizure of the residence of Japanese ambassador in 1997. “President Fujimori issued the order to ‘take no prisoners,’” states the secret “roger channel” intelligence cable. “Because of this even MRTA [Tupac Amaru Revolutionary Movement members] who were taken alive did not survive the rescue operation.”

Tags: human rights, torture, murder, national security

Showdown With Iran

Wed, 24 Oct 2007 18:53:16 GMT

clipped by: Kauaiguy
clipper's remarks: Go to:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/showdown/ to watch the full program.

Clip Source: www.pbs.org

As the United States and Iran are locked in a battle for power and influence across the Middle East—with the fear of an Iranian nuclear weapon looming in the background—FRONTLINE gains unprecedented access to Iranian hard-liners shaping government policy, including parliament leader Hamid Reza Hajibabaei, National Security Council member Mohammad Jafari and state newspaper editor Hossein Shariatmadari. In this report, FRONTLINE examines how U.S. efforts to install democracy in Iraq have served to strengthen Iran's position as an emerging power in the Middle East. (more »)

Tags: iran, iraq, israel, us policy, shia, sunni