Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pakistan. Show all posts

Friday, May 24, 2013

Obama Heckled About Drones, Guantanamo, Muslim Murder, War On Terror

From Yahoo! News :

Obama was heckled at length by Medea Benjamin, co-founder of the anti-war group Code Pink and a leading (and highly recognizable) critic of the so-called war on terrorism.

"Can you tell the Muslim people their lives are as precious as our lives?" she shouted as she was finally ushered from the hall. "Will you apologize to the thousands of Muslims that you have killed? Will you compensate the innocent family victims? That will make us safer!"

After trying and failing several times to get her to sit quietly, Obama went off script and enlisted her protest to reinforce his message about the need to close the Guantanamo facility.

"The voice of that woman is worth paying attention to," the president said, to applause. "Obviously, I do not agree with much of what she said. And obviously she wasn’t listening to me and much of what I said. But these are tough issues. And the suggestion that we can gloss over them is wrong."

Leading up to President Barack Obama's formal address on the drone war, it was revealed that President Obama has used drones to kill at least four Americans.

Ms. Benjamin, in her remarks made later to AOL/Huffington Post, said that the Obama administration has been playing prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner.

One of the demands Ms. Benjamin made was to call for the removal of the controversial drone program from the secret operations of the Central Intelligence Agency.

2013-05-22 Eric Holder AG Congress Letter Drones by Connaissable

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Assassination of Salman Taseer

Militants Set The Agenda

Salman Taseer, the governor of Punjab Province in Pakistan, was murdered earlier today by one of his police guards. The New York Times reported that today's killing has exposed that Pakistan is experiencing a political crisis.

In a past article, The Times reported that, ''officially,'' the U.S. did not want to be seen ''taking sides in Pakistan’s already chaotic internal politics.'' Yet, in the time leading up to Governor Taseer's assassination, The Times reported that the U.S. was having a greater public role in the affairs of Pakistan.

''Obama administration officials worry that even if Pakistan’s government survives the upheaval — which they believe it might, for a while — the turmoil could kill any chance for political and economic reforms. The assassination, one official said, leaves not only the repeal of the blasphemy laws in doubt, but also possible reforms to increase tax collection. Under pressure from Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and other American officials, the Pakistani government submitted a new tax law in Parliament. But it may abandon the push as a way to lure back coalition partners.''

At the end of the day, it's hard to tell if the U.S. is ''officially'' involved or uninvolved in the direction of Pakistan's government. And for the second time, since the spectacular security failure that lead to Benazir Bhutto's assassination, an investigation needs to be made to review those ''officially'' or ''unofficially'' responsible for providing security to key government leaders in Pakistan.