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3,629 thoughts on “Amnesty International Conference on Torture”

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  • Mary

    Two recent pieces on Counterpunch to add to the discussion.

    Weekend Edition February 20-22, 2015
    We Stand on Firm Ground
    There Goes the Guardian, Lying About Ukraine…Again!
    by ERIC DRAITSER
    The western media is busily trying to prop up their failed narrative of “Russian aggression” in Ukraine in a desperate attempt to legitimize their consciously deceitful reporting. To do so, they are now relying not on experts or western intelligence reports, but a discredited blogger and his corporate media chums.
    http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/20/the-guardian-lying-about-ukraine-again/

    February 16, 2015
    The Russian Loan and the IMF’s One-Two Punch
    Ukraine Denouement
    by MICHAEL HUDSON
    The fate of Ukraine is now shifting from the military battlefield back to the arena that counts most: that of international finance. Kiev is broke, having depleted its foreign reserves on waging war that has destroyed its industrial export and coal mining capacity in the Donbass (especially vis-à-vis Russia, which normally has bought 38 percent of Ukraine’s exports). Deeply in debt (with €3 billion falling due on December 20 to Russia), Ukraine faces insolvency if the IMF and Europe do not release new loans next month to pay for new imports as well as Russian and foreign bondholders.
    http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/02/16/ukraine-denouement/

  • Clark

    Mark Golding, 10:56 am:

    “Is it fair to say that America and the IS live off of each other?”

    I think the US hawks, the hawk Zionists, and ISIS all support and justify each others’ resort to conflict, certainly. Some people see fighting as the answer to everything, but those people don’t necessarily regard each other as being on the same side.

    We see the same dynamic here on these threads – once a fight has broken out, all belligerents find further self-justification for their escalations. At least insults don’t cost money, so there are no commercial pressures for escalation.

  • Resident Dissident

    “All the people Yatsenyuk, Poroshenko, Klitschko, Parubiy, Timoshenko, Yarosh and other thugs the US has installed should be removed from office.”

    Shouldn’t be too hard for Parubiy, Timoshenko and Yarosh as they are not in office – thanks to the good sense of the Ukrainian electorate.

  • Resident Dissident

    “All leading Left Commentators Chomsky, Pinter etc,, etc; even unsavory Right people like Kissinger & Marine LePen, recognize the truth of the situation, and those that don’t are either are in denial or are charlatans.”

    What a club – glad I’m not a member. Molotov Ribbentrop Mark 2 with Ukraine playing the part of Poland.

  • Resident Dissident

    BTW Pinter has been dead for 5 years – but I suppose that no longer matters given that Putin could prosecute Sergei Magnitsky after he had been beaten to death by his thugs for daring to reveal the corruption of his regime.

  • Resident Dissident

    “whereas it Russia that has been the only one seeking to resolve the conflict & deescalate the fighting”

    Do you really believe this – or is this just loyalty to the old cause? Either way you really need some help.

  • Macky

    Clark; “You can’t call the government illegitimate if has subsequently been supported by elections.”

    How can any election in a country is which there is a civil war raging be possibly considered valid !!

    @RD, yes thanks, I meant Pilger.

  • Clark

    Macky, 12:19 pm: from Craig’s article:
    https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2014/05/world-domination/

    …Yanukovich’s government had actually, quite independently and voluntarily, negotiated the EU co-operation agreement and were on the point of signing it, when Yanukovich was summoned to Moscow by Putin and informed that if they signed the agreement, the energy supplies to Ukraine would immediately be cut off in mid-winter and debt called in

    Putin’s hands are NOT clean in this matter, and I wouldn’t expect them to be – look at his record.

    Yes, someone fired at both sides. We don’t know who exactly, though we know such action didn’t suit Russia. But this war suits many various parties, many of them commercial rather than national. It could have been covert US forces, but it definitely was not official, declared US foreign policy. Remember that US secret services are thoroughly intertwined with corporate concerns, the latter operating in the secrecy afforded by the former.

  • Simple

    Rifkind resigns from Chairmanship re Intelligence Committee but the shameless al-Ghouta YouTube kibbitzer still remains its member.

  • Resident Dissident

    As for this ethnic Russian/Ukrainian rubbish – when will people understand that this is a part of the world like Yugoslavia where there is very little ethnic purity.

    Similarly those attributing everything in the Ukraine to the US – might just wish to look at Putin’s involvement in Ukraine since he came to power before forming their view about whose interference is legitimate and whose isn’t.

  • Clark

    I now have a visitor. I’ll judge who’s a peacemaker and who’s a belligerent by the argument techniques and language I find recorded on the thread when I return.

  • Ba'al Zevul

    Next UK ambassador to Israel announced, Gould gets lachrymose about the country he loves (not the UK – you guessed?)…

    http://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/130468/foreign-office-announces-david-quarrey-will-be-next-ambassador-israel

    Quarrey scored a CMG in this year’s Prize Day. Previously at the Middle East and North Africa Desk at the FCO, and having appeared before numerous governmental committees to answer questions relating to Israel/Palestine/ Lebanon, there is some hope that his view of the situation is less one-sided than Gould’s. At any rate, in 2009, his view seemed clear:

    In New York, the acting British ambassador to the UN, David Quarrey, reiterated London’s dismay over the continuing settlements expansion during a debate at the Security Council last night. “Such settlements are illegal under international law, and their continued expansion goes against the overwhelming international consensus and indeed the decisions of this Council,” he said. “It creates a further obstacle to the two-state solution, which is the only sustainable response to the aspirations of both parties.”

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/gates-in-plea-to-israel-for-patience-over-iran-1763250.html

    On the other hand, he once worked as a private secretary to Tony Blair.

  • Resident Dissident

    Clark

    Was Neville Chamberlain a peacemaker when he appease Hitler over the Sudetenland?

  • John Goss

    “Do you really believe this – or is this just loyalty to the old cause? Either way you really need some help.”

    Evidence Resident Dissident. I keep calling for it. You cannot find it.
    You’re full of wind and it is not pleasant. Full of puff and puffball dust. But can you provide something solid? I don’t expect that to be pleasant either!

  • Resident Dissident

    “How can any election in a country is which there is a civil war raging be possibly considered valid !!”

    Does this argument apply to referendums? Did it apply to the Russian Federation when there was a civil way in Chechenya?

  • glenn_uk

    Ah, missed this yesterday.

    Habbabkuk:

    “Re “poisoning the well” : let’s say you came across a well and saw that the water was covered with a deep, malodiferous, green scum. Should I really have to sample the content of that well (source) and prive scientifically that it would be better to avoid the water in it or would a quick visual check not be sufficient to discredit said well and water?”

    This is not a direct analogy, sorry. In the original story, Macky said (figuratively, follow me please), “Here is a good drink that I had from that ICH well yonder.”

    Your response was to say, “No, everyone – stay away from that well! It’s poisoned. Don’t even try it.”

    That is a long way from a discussion on whether to sample water drawn from what is fully known to be a poisonous well.

    This is where the “poisoning the well” fallacy comes along – the labelling of a source as such, with the hope that anything from it will be treated with great suspicion, and preferably, that the source will be avoided altogether. Better yet, that person advising others to go and try it may him/herself now be considered suspect.

    While in the meantime, the wholesomeness of the well itself, and this particular batch of water brought from it, is yet to be examined.

    *

    If that’s too tough, consider Macky referring to an article from The Guardian. If the response was not to question the content of the article, not even to ponder the journalistic integrity of The Guardian, but to refer disparagingly to the shop in which Macky purchased it, that would be a “poisoning the well” fallacy. “They sell pornographic magazines, fags and cheap booze in that shop! How can you trust The Guardian article if it came from such a place?”

  • Resident Dissident

    Mr Goss

    The evidence of Russian involvement in the conflict has been present time and time again from many sources. You standard response is just not to accept the evidence and attack the source. We are still awaiting the source for you assurance that Russia is not involved? I suppose a lifetime of support for the Soviet Union and similar causes equips one for such prolonged denial of the truth.

  • John Goss

    Sorry he is second in command to the other Nazi Party, though he heads Right Sector. The other Nazi party is the National Socialists and that is the one renamed Svoboda). These Nazis are all the same to me.

  • John Goss

    I can give you plenty of evidence of what the side you support, the fascists have done.

    rinf.com/alt-news/editorials/obamas-ukrainian-stooges/

  • Macky

    @Clark, If you rely on Craig’s interpretations of events, then no wonder your views are both irrational & counter-intuitive.

    Putin’s hands may indeed not be spotlessly clean, but compared to the others who are up to their necks in blood, this really hardly matters, unless you really believe that this excuses or mitigates the genocidal campaign unleashed by the Junta against it’s own people living in the East.

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