There is no way that the carnage and waste will end before the Bush Aministration leaves office at the end of 2008 unless Congress comes up with the courage to impeach both President and Vice President and let the Speaker withdraw troops from the civilian fighting and post them along the borders of Iraq to keep al Qaida fighters from coming into the country.
The mistake to invade Iraq is so huge and horrendous that it would take people with ultimate honor to admit the tragedy they have caused and then try to correct the situation.  At the present rate we face the loss of at least another 500 Billion dollars, another 100 thousand Iraqi lives and saddest of all over another 1000 US servicemen sacrificed.
What has happened to honor and courage in our great country?  Have we sent it all overseas to fight in the middle east?

John McCain visited Iraq and reports that we are succeeding! The press reported 6 US deaths, 15 soldiers wounded, and a total of 4 Iraqi deaths and 7 wounded during the short time of his visit. Is this is our idea of success?
It is great to see a dramatic decrease in Iraqi casualties for this short period of time (the toll was up again right after the visit for both US and Iraquis)but McCain’s cautious assessment of our success in Iraq does not sound like a very strong argument for continuing this fool’s errand for another five to ten years as the Bush Administration has predicted.

The President’s hollow charge that Congress is trying to take the management of the Iraq war out of the hands of the Military is more foolish garbage coming from the White House.  Listen to the retired Generals who have been managed by the Bush Administration since the occupation with political restrictions and inferior equipment and insufficient numbers of troops that caused the many mistakes made and the failure to succeed. Never before in history have so many high ranking military officers been so critical of the Commander in Chief. Our only hope is to have Congress take over to give the troops the support they need and bring them home.

bradley:

sounds like you are doing some good work to raise consciousness in the desert. i assume your question to be honest, so i’ll share my 2 cents:

1) to define us (you, me, friends, family, etc) as consumers first is to turn us into cogs in a corporate machine.

2) we are first and foremost human, and thus are guaranteed by birth (and the UN declaration of Human Rights) a series of Human Rights

3) These rights are generallly neither recognized nor respected by the US government, and much-less by US-based corporations, and are only achieved when demanded from the bottom-up!

4) I have never lived in Arizona, but would wonder if the campaign could include a broad code-of-conduct that I know other universities have implemented, that sets priorities on where their products are purchased, how workers are treated (including ASU workers, who should be part of the discussion)... and from ASU apparel to other things, such as bananas, coffee, and chocolate.  It would involve some research, but I’m guessing there are more sustainable goods that could be made available to the ASU student body.  (We eat lots of bananas in part cause, well, they’re yummy, cheap, healthy, and avaialble… but in part b/c Chiquita has been telling us to forever… what else is out there?)

5) This change, as with all change, will never come from the top down, and something as broad as a University-wide code-of-conduct must come from the students and workers, as you well know.

GOOD LUCK!

Hey other Patrick, we need progress when and where we can get it.  I don’t mean “progress” like voting for a Clinton (clearly not progress), but economic and environmental sanity here and there are some concrete ways to support progress while we strive for something better.

In April Amy will be talking with Chomsky and Michael Albert in Boston about a true alternative to Capitalism.  There’s your Leftist street cred.  Cut her some slack, she’s a fighter.

Even if it may be true of the extortion used on the company and its employees may be true or not it is definitely a practice that terrorism may really use and may be more widespread than we think.
There may be other companies that have fallen to this peril of the prey which shows that anyone or entity could be a victim to terrorism. Terrorism I believe has no friend or mercy and can take any one of us through out the world without warning.

I want to thank Amy for her story and credit “Patrick” on an excellent comment. However, before I start a campaign at ASU to only sell Fair Trade products where available, I want to ask him a serious question.

In response to Comment #60775 by “patrick”- How do CONSUMERS in the Sonoran Desert of Phoenix Arizona- who are going to buy bananas, chocolate, and coffee whether we want them to or not- get them sustainably- or even just locally (which could obviously not be sustainable in this desert)?!?

Bravo to Comment #60174 by Nangey
I am a combat veteran of WWII and was in the Ready Reserve during Vietnam.  I didn’t think that my country could be wrong on anything.  This Bush/Cheney Administration has shown me that our leadership can be and is dead wrong (and they were wrong on Vietnam) and it is the responsibility of each citizen to be informed and support the leadership when they are right and oppose the leadership when they are wrong.  Be thankful for a free press and loyal citizens like Amy Goodman.
I would like to support the fighter pilot from Israel and the soldier from Palestine who have organized “Veterans for Peace.” They have shown real courage! Any info on this organization will be greatly appreciated.

Dear Amy:

Once again, you’ve done a great job with the Chiquita & Colombia piece in pulling a hidden truth into the light.

BUT… holding up fair trade as the “solution”?
Wow, you really dropped the ball here. Your public expects a lot more from you Amy!!!

Why is this a concern?

1)The “hero” in this solution is, once again, the US-based consumer.

2) The “heroic act”?
Purchasing a banana (c’mon, really? This is all we gotta do? (NO!))

3) The understood “alternative” is fair trade, a system based on the exact same patterns as our current one: market-based “solutions” that re-create systems of south-north dependency, and ignore the idea of local-production for local-consumption in the global south.

4) Lastly, the “solution” allows for the same exploitation to continue. Rather than challenge the fundamental crisis here w/policy-change, legal action, bottom-up pressure, direct action, international boycotts, shareholder resolutions, etc, the “answer” Amy provides allows for the creation of new markets, in essence distracting the attention of those who might organize to change the fundamental problem.

(kinda like if all concerned parents who are active in schools take all their kids to private schools, who is left to organize to improve the problems w/public schools?!?!?).

Amy, your solution is quite comfortable within the current system of capitalist exploitation… you can do better!!!

I’m glad to hear that one of these murderous corporation is losing “it’s appeal.” I hope more will follow.

This is one of my favorite quotes:

“I am not a great believer in the death penalty for people, but I am a great believer in the death penalty for corporations.” Caller on KPFA Radio, summer 2006.

I boycott all Coke and Pepsi products despite my addiction to caffinated cola. Both are responsible for murder in Latin America. I think Pepsi, in particular, should be held accountable for helping to spearhead the bloody regime change in Chile vis-a-vis Nixon and Kissinger. (Recommended viewing: The Trials of Henry Kissinger, available at Netflix).

The Bible says the Truth will set you free.
Thank you Amy for allowing that to happen.
Great work!

to Comment #60547 by Pieter Van Loon, a think that’s the point of posting ?? sorry your offended to be honest i believe every think i write passionately otherwise i wouldn’t waste my time ??? so I’m no parrot !! any more than any human is a sum of his experiences is a parrot ??

Hey Now,

  Yes, Americans murder for bananas. While WTO rules force free banana growers out of business.

The comments are counter productive for those who are interested in the truth. Valuable statements are mixed with rubbish in a way that they cannot be separated. Everybody parrots lines from statements made somewhere by others. As a result of this the reader becomes overwhelmed and stops reading altogether. Just stop this nonsense and let these opiniated people write their own book. When they are as good as the think they are, they might be able to realize the american dream.

Very clever title, Amy. 

Good ending, too.

Shouldn’t we start a formal boycott?  It worked with grapes.  I still don’t shop at Safeway 30+ years later.

Only problem is they might just change the company name (again).

You are right.  Go organic and Fair Trade and then they may not be able to compete.

My week is incomplete till I read your column Amy, and watch your DN.org ‘W&P report’ five days a week. Was going to write about one of last week’s broadcasts on which I first witnessed the allegations of malfeasance against Chiquita; had heard something decades ago, but like all of us living busy lives, it was soon forgotten….

..but not now. Thanks for your exposure of this issue; one which we would never get to see or hear unless it was a completely opposite spin.

Write on…

amy is doing a tremendous jog informing/educating folks; she should have a global audience; i hope to be on her show AGAIN on april 9 0R 10 AT THE firehouse in new york city,  DENNIS BRUTUS

This is my first attempt at making a “public” commentary. Actually, what follows is not mine, but an excerpt from a speech delivered in 1933 by Major General Smedley Butler, US Marine Corps.  Part of what makes his remarks so cogent and credible is the fact that Butler was the recipient of two Congressional Medals of Honor.  If anyone wants to learn more about his life and “conversion”, google Smedley Butler. Another good source is a book called “Maverick Marine” by Hans Schmidt. I hope that Butler’s definition of war as a “racket” will open a lot of people’s eyes and minds and provide a down-to-earth context for interpreting world events—much of which involve warfare of one kind or another.  Here’s Butler’s take on war (and the military).

“War is a racket. A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of people.  Only a small inside group knows what it is about.  It is conducted for the benefit of the very few at the expense of the masses.

“I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else.  If a nation comes over here to fight, then we’ll fight.  The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns six percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100%. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

“I wouldn’t go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for.  One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

” There isn’t a trick in the racketeering bag that the military gang is blind to.  It has its ‘finger men’ to point out enemies, its muscle men to destroy enemies, its ‘brain men’ to plan war preparations, and a ‘Big Boss’ Super-Nationalistic-Capitalism.

“It may seem odd for me, a military man, to adopt such a comparison.  Truthfulness compels me to.  I spent 33 years and four months in active military service as a member of this country’s most agile military force, the Marine Corps.  I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major General.  And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

“I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it.  Like all members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service.  My mental faculties remained in suspended animation, while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups.  This is typical with everyone in the military service.

“I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American Oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in.  I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street.  The record of racketeering is long.  I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (Where have I heard that name before?) I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916.  In China, I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

“During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket.  Looking back on it, I feel I could have given Al Capone a few hints.  The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts [of Chicago]. I operated on three continents.”

Thanks for listening.  Stay tuned.

Great article Amy! It seems to me Americans in general and perhaps to no fault of their own have no idea what role history plays when it comes to American special interests around the world or the pain and suffering we have inflicted on countless occasions, all in the name of “democracy”. In fact what we see today(as you point out) in Colombia and other Latin American nations is merely a continuation of the same old corporate agenda that has been going on for more than a century.

I was reading an article recently from PBS. It was about the History of the CIA, starting with Kermit Roosevelt and the CIA backed toppling of a freely elected government in Iran, then subsequently replacing it with a harsh puppet dictatorship under the thumb of the Shah and all for the sake of British Petroleum. That action in itself enabled Islamic fundamentalism to ultimately take control over what was once a democratic and secular government that had a long lasting, peaceful relationship with the United States.

As for Dulles, his brother as you mentioned worked for the CIA and his other brother was on the board of the American Fruit Company. Guatamala had just freely elected Jacobo Arbens whose only “crime” was to offer to buy back land the American Fruit Company was not using at a value the American Fruit Company itself placed on this unused land for tax purposes(to rip off the Guatamalan government). He wanted to help the poor in his country acquire land to grow food on and feed themselves. The result, thousands of dead, continued slave labor, oppressive government. But the good old boys of the American Fruit Company laughed all the way to the bank. I guess when it comes to American relationships around the world Dulles himself summed it up by saying,” America does not have friends, we have interests!” How true! What is also true is that regardless of the fact that many American citizens haven’t got a clue about the unsavory actions we perpetuate around the world, the victims of those action know it all to well. Perhaps that is why people like Hugo Chavez are so popular in Latin America and why a plan is in the works to create a United Latin America not unlike the EU. In closing I’d like to add one more statement from that old PBS article that perhaps sums it up the best, “Democracy is at its peak when money flows into pockets of the American super rich!”

To say My Country Right or Wrong, to me is tantamount to treason. This is saying, I support my country if it is wrong. Thomas Jefferson said that the price of liberty is eternal vigilance, and thus, righting wrong is the way of the patriot, not acquiescing and supporting a government that is wrong. I heard this mindless dribble in my youth, when I took a stand with millions of other Americans in 1970, and protested the illegal bombing of Cambodia. The route the moratorium took in my town was lined with “good Americans” expressing this very sentiment…Nixon’s “Moral Majority” saying they stand behind their country when it is wrong. Immoral minority is more the name of that tune.

Mssr. Badura’s comments say “My Country Right or Wrong” every time he posts. Hate American corporations? No. Hate what American corporations do in their mindless drive for profit over all things, yes. Hate American corporations when they bankroll death squads and pyschopathic right wing paramilitary goons to put down local revolts by indigenous people that threaten their product, yes.

Corporations are no different than anything else, some are good, some are bad…and all American companies are both of these things. And the CIA, being the President’s private army, invariably comes to the aid of corporations that pay them for their services, from Mossadeg in Iran in 1953, Arbenz in Guatamala in 1954, Diem in Vietnam in 1963, followed 20 days later by JFK, Allende in Chile in 1974…each a democracy which took it’s own unique path, subsequently crushed by the CIA. The CIA are the Secret Police that make impossible things happen for American business. And they are very very good at what they do.

I read a quote a long long time ago, in a political article in Rolling Stone magazine. The quote was from Kennedy, and while I don’t recall it exactly, the memory I retain goes like this, he wanted to destroy the CIA and cast it to the four winds. He was murdered shortly after making that statement. Assuming this quote is true, which I do not necessarily assume, what was it that JFK had found out in regards to the CIA that made him want it destroyed? Curious question.

I don’t understand - why isn’t ‘chiquita’ being shuttered and its policy makers & board members serving long, long prison sentences?

tyler

winning the war means having Islamic Radicalism, not thought of as plausible future for the children of the Middle East!! its having somewhat Democratic, struggling democracies, in the Middle East battling radical Islam: the Muslim extremists, who believe all humanity must convert, or die !! its a very daunting tasks, that will take resolve, and time, but if not done, if ignored, the religious zealots praying for death in martyrdom, with time, just might take out one of our cities with a suicide WMD !!! several could wreak havoc on our nation, and as we saw in New Orleans, anarchy could ensue?? we have to fight Islamic extremism, until its no longer a threat on the world stage !! we cannot ignore the Islamic’s, suicide-cult, that is waging this religious war!! (9/11)

illgramaticus knee o’kaun

to jeff badura:

You’re ignorance is quite remarkable.  Your scoffing at everything that differs from your own dillusions plainly exposes that and your insecurity.  One question: What exactly does ‘winning the war’ mean?  Please enlighten us.

I remember George Bush saying he was going after terrorists and those who gave aid to or sheltered terrorists.  Then he labeled the Abu Sayyef guerrillas in the Philipinnes a terrorist organization and gave them $200,0000.  Last year the Republicans, reportedly at Bush’s request, posted on a public website Iraq’s pre-1991 plans for developing WMD, including the processes for Sarin gas and a nuclear bomb.  The UN asked that the Sarin gas papers be removed because they were of use to terrorists.  The processes for developing a nuclear weapon remained on the website until the New York Times reported it and six Arab nations notified the UN that they were developing nuclear programs.  Now Chiquita executives have given money to terrorists.  Some US civilians have been jailed for unknowningly giving money to charities that also supported some terrorist groups.

Any guess as to how many in the Bush administration, or the Republican congress or Chiquita executives will go to jail for aiding terrorists?

To the Comment #60060 by fiskhus jim, I really don’t care what Jesus would do to be honest!! Me thinks? if there was a Jesus he probably was an alien???  ha ha ha ha!!! anyway back to real world, Chavez is a despot, don’t believe the lib hype, any thing he does is for himself not his people!! He’s doing such a piss-poor job that poverty is like at 80% under his rule!!  I know its cool in these parts to hate American corporations but I don’t follow those rules, so ill buy American when ever possible!!

illgramaticus knee o’kaun

Hey Badura -

regardless of your personal animosity toward Chavez, you really should use Citgo to the exclusion of ExxonMobil…

You can even justify it on the basis of Christianity - ExxonMobil gave their retiring CEO $400M cash, while Citgo made discount heating oil available to poor people right here in the US.

Which Oil Company do you think Jesus would fuel up from?

or; chiquita just paid $25 million to a criminal cartel to keep the protection scam going.

what price potassium? this revelation has as much weight as Khalid Sheikh Mohammed confessing to the lindbergh kidnapping. chiquita’s extra legal affairs pale in comparison to those of the john foster dulles and he had an airport named after him. speaking of gangsters, i just adied the rebels’ cause with raisins and kashi in soy milk.
anyone who ever bought produce on the eastern seaboard or fish at the fulton market was abetting the mafia. recycling profits the russian mob. the purchase of most any kitchen appliance is funding the military/industrial complex vis a vis raytheon. it could be argued and convincingly that paying taxes to this goverment is offering aid to villainous thugs.
this is the way business was, is and will always be done. outlaw bananas and only outlaws will enjoy breakfast.

It’s often mentioned that “bin laden / al Qaida was funded by the CIA” as in posts below & even by some of the guests on Democracy Now! (Jeremy Scahill is one example).

This is not true. Pakistan only allowed Afghan Mufaheeden support (CIA money ) through Pakistan/ISI, not directly.

The CIA had essentially no contact with bin Laden during the anti-Soviet times in Afghanistan. Read “Charlie Wilson’s War” by George Crile.

bin Laden financed himself in Afghanistan. He got his money the old-fashioned way - inheritance.

Regarding Comment #59713 by Jeff Badura:

Hugo Chavez is a reason TO fuel up at Citgo, not to boycott it.  Comparing Hugo Chavez to Chiquita is absurd.  It’s socialism and capitalism, oil and water, apples and oranges (or bananas, I suppose).

to the Comment #59820 by tyler,
      tyler, the Guardian has about as much credibility as the Star or the Inquirer !!! as a policy the USA does not torture, but then again, libs believe asking a guy a question more than once without giving him a smoke or cookie is torture??  so, there you go, we disagree on “what torture is” as far as kidnapping and rendition goes ??? well, there’s a war going on, so if we grab a bad guy in the middle of the night you call it kidnapping, and i call it apprehending the enemy, and of coarse like most war-time actions we try to keep it secret !!! even joking about such things in war gives aid and comfort to our enemy’s!!  everyone on this posts says such slander all the time there’s a echo factor going on and you might be joking but the goober in the next village reads your slanderous barbs and believes your speaking truth and then you have a small portion of the nation (the ultra-lib nut-roots) believing all this garbage we read on these slanderous, treasonous, posts !!! yes, its you constitutional right to say so, but that doesn’t make it admirable !! we are war Tyler, do you want us to win or lose ??? the war of idea’s is just as important as the one with bombs !! that’s the main reason i post here, to fight the treason that many take so casually like its nothing, like its a joke, or smart. to call Bush a Hitler ???

illgramaticus knee o’kaun

PS- Ive learned volumes reading this sight and a few other lib sights ??? Ive learned that the far-left in our nation is completely clueless !! treason is fashionable! (like your joke)  the more i read theses post the more resolved i become !! for it just proves to me I’m in the right!!

Condĩ Rice proposed $85 million to support the Revolutionary Front inside Iran could be considered a close ally to Bin Laden and Chiquita bananas.

As does Chiquita in Columbia, so does Coca-Cola in Columbia as well.

The opening line of Goodman’s article re-re-re-re-suggests that Osama exemplifies terrorism, as if it’s still possible to believe the official government conspiracy theory of 9/11 when, in fact, it is not.

There are ample pieces of evidence which make it IMPOSSIBLE to go on blaming “Muslim hijackers” for 9/11, and Amy Goodman is one of the wolves in sheepdog’s clothing who is hiding (keeping) that truth from her audiences.

Consider, for instance, that the government’s own evidence of what hit the Pentagon reveals that, whatever they’re peddling, it was too small to be a 757 and thus could not possibly have been “Flight 77”.

Or how about the evidence of widespread molecular dissociation (ie, disintegration) having occurred at the aptly-named Ground Zero?  We know what causes that:  exotic weaponry, including tactical nuclear weapons.  (There were too many otherwise-unexplainable nanoparticles in all that anomalous WTC “dust”; “pulverization” cannot begin to account for this phenomenon.)

Heck, the only thing stupider than Bush letting slip that he was, via video, in the loop on the very beginning of the ‘secret’ attacks is the fact that Democrats pretend he didn’t.  And the only thing stupider that that is We The People not noticing because the likes of Amy Goodman and Alex Jones haven’t told us!

What “everybody knows” about 9/11 is just as wrong now as back when “everybody knew” that the Earth was flat!  As proof that we as a species are no more resistant to all believing the same fallacy now than we were then, consider that we have far more, better, more varied, more direct, more tangible evidence that 9/11 was prime U.S.A. inwardly-directed synthetic terrorism than Galileo and Copernicus had that the Earth was not flat.

Welcome to 911Gate!  This is your wake-up call.  Time for everyone to deprogram themselves…

There’s a direct connection between the Bush family and United Fruit, aka Chiquita, through HW’s company Zapata Offshore. This was a company founded by George H.W. Bush, which was originally bankrolled by Brown Brothers Harriman, who just happened to be partners with Prescott Bush, all of whom, in October 1942, had ALL of their financial assets seized for violating the Trading With The Enemies Act (they were bankers to the Nazi’s through half of WW2. They were responsible for, among other things, providing loans and financial support to the Nazi party in their buildup to WW2. Their financing paid for a vast amount of the raw materials needed for Hitler’s war machine). In 1969, three years after HW sold his shares in Zapata, that company purchased United Fruit.

Zapata is well known to have been a CIA front company from the getgo. And the CIA is now known to have conspired to protect countless Nazi “assets”, aka war criminals, by bringing them to the United States and giving them jobs in the US Intelligence community. It didn’t matter to the CIA that many of these Nazi’s were mass murderers, they only cared that these psychopaths might provide help in establishing the Cold War, and of course, the arms race that fed the ravenous military-industrial complex ever since. In other words, there is a direct connection between the Nazi’s, the CIA, the Bush family and United Fruit, in that chronological order. So, next time you eat a Chiquita banana, shout sieg heil!

The 3rd Reich may have died in 1945, but it’s surviving remnants rapidly morphed into the 4th Reich, aka the CIA and of course, the illustrious Republican party that supported every evil thing that they’ve done since. It is my theory, that the original military-industrial complex (version 1.0) was planned by the likes of Brown Brothers Harriman and Prescott Bush, after they made their initial contacts with Hitler in the 20’s. Hitler certainly would have been a fan of eugenics, and so was Prescott Bush, and his business partners. With their theories of a master race through eugenic breeding (and of course, sterilization of the unclean and imperfect) it would have been an easy jump to the pyschopathy of building a massive military-industrial fascist state to enforce that principle, and make a hefty profit while doing it. Wiping out Jews, Gypsies and all of the races they considered inferior, just icing on the blood soaked cake.

When the Cold War was firmly established, and the Pentagon was NOT turned into the warehouse it was intended to be after the war, the military-industrial complex version 2.0 became a permanent part of American life. And the rest is history. Perhaps the Nazi experiment was just a shake-down of the concept and techniques, and in the end, infiltrating the US government and essentially taking it over from within, was the goal? It would take a lot of research, and a considerable amount of personal risk, for anyone to ever dig up the dirt on this one however. All just theories…but compelling when you start poking around and connecting the dots from what’s actually on the record. United Fruit/Chiquita is just the tip of a very very deep ocean of blood and viscera.

And this is only about the Germans…you don’t want to look at the “assets” the CIA got from Japan. Don’t look up the name Shiro Ishii and Unit 731 at Pingfang. This man was a nightmare. This history is a nightmare…and one more connection to the CIA, Fort Detrick and the post WW2 reconfiguration to a Cold War footing. No level of criminality, brutality and savagery was too much for the CIA to “overlook”, if they felt it was in their interests, and if there was profit to be made. Ishii was one of the most vile human beings to have ever been born…and he died peacefully in his bed in 1959. Ironically, if China or Russia had ever gotten their hands on these criminals, they would have put them to death without question.

http://www.centurychina.com/wiihist/germwar/731rev.htm

to jeff badura:

Glad to see i have a little puppy dog following me around the site now!  Tag along jeff, you seem to be good at that, and hey, you might just learn something.

To answer your first question, there are a number of ‘satellite prisons’ all over the world, from central america, to southeast asia, to europe, and of course the middle east.  You can read about how the US govt illegally moved suspects around the world (which would be considered kidnapping) for questioning.  There are many, many news articles to support this, one of my faves is in The Gaurdian, a british publication, written by Jason Burke.  Check it out at http://observer.gaurdian.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,12337589,00.html

As for the torture and rape, take your pick of soundbites from either dick cheney, or alberto gonzales, on their take on torture.  They suggest the ‘partial’ lifting of the geneva convention to make torture an OK means of interogation, ie. waterboarding.  Gonzales talked about it in front of the senate, so it shouldn’t be to hard for you to dig that up.  And the rape, well I don’t know if you’ve heard of a place called Abu Ghraib, but if you google it, you’ll find approx 1.86 million things to read about it.  I can’t say that that there were actual rapes going on, but the attrocities and violations that took place are definately in the same ball park.

The statement I made was mostly in jest, but you asked, so there you go.

Did you know bananas were the original filling in the Twinkee? But due to shortages in WW2 they switched to a cream filling.

“Twinkees the food of terror.”

Amy is doing good work here though she fails to mention that Bin Laden and Al Qaida are old CIA assets going back to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. There is no essential difference between the CIA funded thugs in Colombia murdering indigenous people, the CIA backed mercenaries in Venezuela killing locals over oil or the CIA designed special ops and psyops creating chaos in the Middle East. In each case, a very wealthy corporation is getting much wealthier as the result of the CIA’s assistance. That’s who they work for.

Some say the Bush crime family has long been heavily invested in United Fruit, too.  Their Carlisle Group partnership with the Bin Ladens isn’t even sub-rosa.  Maybe Osama has used some of the family fortune to “finance terrorists,” but Ms. Goodman seems uncharacteristically here to just parrot the party-line about that, with nothing apart from vested-interest assertions and repetitions to “support” the claim.

She doesn’t mention at all, either, that CIA-sponsored Al Quaeda activities against the USSR in Afghanistan are known to’ve provided Osama and his group with substantial sums of cash, along with arms and intelligence. 
Then again, her linking of Osama and Chiquita here might actually be a subtle way of reminding us of the Bush/Bin Laden connection so obviously instrumental to the ushering-in of the current reign of terror under which so many Americans cringe and whimper nowadays….a little too subtle, though, maybe? 

Ms. Goodman definitely performs the helpful service of pointing out that, for hundreds of millions of people in the “third-world” stomping grounds of Anglo/American capitalism, this hideous regime has been getting its bloody fingerprints all over their lives for a very long time.  With the U.S. Army and Marines at their beck-and-call, these murderous privateers have had no incentive, really, to change their basic “business plan” right up to this very day.

As for the “$25 million fine,” U.S. taxpayers and consumers will pick up the tab….and pay a substantial additional premium for the privilege.  The gangsters rule, and fear has turned the public into patsies.

HokaHey!

Most Latin American countries were called “Banana Republics”—that is, politically unstable countries, dependent on limited agriculture, and ruled by a small, self-elected, wealthy and corrupt cabal.

There is always a tiny group in total control, and a huge population of poorly educated and poorly paid peons.  Just wait a bit; corporations will work their magic, and transform the U.S. into the next banana republic.

I am surprised this hasn’t triggered more outrage.  I guess no one wants to look for a different source for bananas. I certainly am going to boycott them. They have an over 60 year history of repression in South and Central America.  Interesting if you fund terrorists from corporate Ohio in Latin America it’s only a slap on the wrist.  If you fund Middle Eastern terrorists from an Islamic charity in Queens you might end up in dentention aka limbo

Yes, we have no bananas.

Despotism & Democracy

Encyclopaedia Britannica Films - 1946
YouTube 9:56 mins

Harold D. Lasswell Ph.d Yale

Measures how a society ranks on a spectrum stretching from democracy to despotism. Explains how societies and nations can be measured by the degree that power is concentrated and respect for the individual is restricted. (< that’s no bananas!)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yfrQalpmdqk...

Did someone mention the need for names in regards to the brutal and sadistic methods the Bush/Cheney mob uses when torturing its victims?  Read below.

The New York Times yesterday reported that the military intelligence brigade that took control of the interrogation centre was deployed direct from Afghanistan and brought with it harsh procedures it had developed there. The US military deems US military prisons in Afghanistan to be outside the jurisdiction of the Geneva conventions because it defines al-Qaida and Taliban fighters as “unlawful combatants”.

In the Washington Post report, one detainee, Kasim Hilas, describes the rape of an Iraqi boy by a man in uniform, whose name has been blacked out of the statement, but who appears to be a translator working for the army.

“I saw [name blacked out] fucking a kid, his age would be about 15-18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard the screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [blacked out], who was wearing the military uniform putting his dick in the little kid’s ass,” Mr Hilas told military investigators. “I couldn’t see the face of the kid because his face wasn’t in front of the door. And the female soldier was taking pictures.”

Another inmate, Thaar Dawod, describes more abuse of teenage Iraqis. “They came with two boys naked and they were cuffed together face to face and Grainer [Corporal Charles Graner, one of the military policemen facing court martial] was beating them and a group of guards were watching and taking pictures from top and bottom and there was three female soldiers laughing at the prisoners,” he said.

According to most inmate statements, Cpl Graner ran the night shift at Abu Ghraib’s interrogation wing, and dealt out the worst of the abuse.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1222348,00.html

Greg Bacon
Ava, MO

US Army 82nd Airborne 1971-72

just as i never fuel up at Citgo due to Chavez, i now will never buy Chiquita again !!

To Tyler, Comment #59604,

who has the Bush administration kidnapped tortured and rapped ?? and if they did (and i don’t believe it) but if they did, it was to protect you, not oil fields !!  drink some more kool-aid !! names, tyler, give your sources, names, dates, and places, were did you get this slanderous unpatriotic pro Bin Ladden propaganda from ???

illgramaticus knee o’kaun

Yo, Ian Lowson, if you are not the one financed (whew), we should not bicker.  We then both love Amie.  Of course, she is harried by people like myself, who have looked at the 9/ll coverup.  She has also looked at it, unlike yourself.  What she is doing, is getting more ground inside the idiotic coporate media.  Those who have been looking at the coverup, are impatient with her.  She is hoping at this point to not be publicized as crazy etc.  Yeah, maybe we are too impatient with her.  But you, sir, should take courage, and take a look.  Just see the technical stuff, the physical matter.  Whew.

...Chiquita has had a long history of criminal behavior ? Oh, so was Alberto Gonzales with firings U.S. Attorneys due to political differences ! Animal has handshakes with it beast.

“Among its standard tactics are kidnapping, torture, dissapearance, rape, murder, beatings, extortion and drug trafficking.”  Sounds kinda like the bush administration.  I guess because they’re protecting oil fields and not banana fields its ok.