Al-Jazeera Journalist Freed From Guantanamo After 6 Years
An Al-Jazeera cameraman was released from U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay and returned home to Sudan early Friday after six years of imprisonment that drew worldwide protests.
Sami al-Haj, who had been on a hunger strike for 16 months, grimaced as he was carried off a U.S. military plane by American personnel in Sudan’s capital, Khartoum. He was put on a stretcher and taken straight to a hospital.
Al-Jazeera showed footage of al-Haj being carried into the hospital, looking feeble and with his eyes closed, but smiling. Some of the men surrounding his stretcher were kissing him on the cheek.
“Thank God … for being free again,” he told Al-Jazeera from his hospital bed. “Our eyes have the right to shed tears after we have spent all those years in prison. … But our joy is not going to be complete until our brothers in Guantanamo Bay are freed,” he added.
“The situation is very bad and getting worse day after day,” he said of conditions in Guantanamo. He claimed guards prevent Muslims from practicing their religion and reading the Quran.
“Some of our brothers live without clothing,” he said.
The U.S. military says it goes to great lengths to respect the religion of detainees, issuing them Qurans, enforcing quiet among guard staff during prayer calls throughout the day. All cells in Guantanamo have an arrow that points toward the holy city of Mecca.
Al-Haj was released along with two other Sudanese from Guantanamo Thursday. He was the only journalist from a major international news organization held at Guantanamo and many of his supporters saw his detention as punishment for a network whose broadcasts angered U.S. officials.
The military alleged he was a courier for a militant Muslim organization, an allegation his lawyers denied.
Al-Haj said he believed he was arrested because of U.S. hostility toward Al-Jazeera and because the media was reporting on U.S. rights violations in Afghanistan.
Al-Haj was detained in December 2001 by Pakistani authorities as he tried to enter Afghanistan to cover the U.S.-led invasion. He was turned over to the U.S. military and taken in January 2002 to Guantanamo Bay, where the United States holds some 275 men suspected of links to al-Qaida and the Taliban, most of them without charges.
Reprieve, the British human rights group that represents 35 Guantanamo prisoners including al-Haj, said Pakistani forces apparently seized al-Haj at the behest of the U.S. authorities who suspected he had interviewed Osama bin Laden.
But that “supposed intelligence” turned out to be false, Reprieve said in a news release.
“This is wonderful news, and long overdue,” said Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve’s director, who has represented al-Haj since 2005. “The U.S. administration has never had any reason for holding Mr. Al Haj, and has, instead, spent six years shamelessly attempting to turn him against his employers at Al-Jazeera.”
Sudanese officials said al-Haj would not face any charges.
The U.S. Embassy in Khartoum issued a brief statement confirming the detainee transfer with Sudan and saying it appreciated Sudan’s cooperation.
Al-Haj’s lawyers said the 38-year-old has been on hunger strike since January 2007 to protest conditions and indefinite confinement at the prison.
Attorney Zachary Katznelson of Reprieve, who met al-Haj at Guantanamo on April 11, said he was “emaciated” because of his hunger strike. and had recently been having problems with his liver and kidneys and had blood in his urine.
“Sami is a poster child for everything that is wrong about Guantanamo Bay: No charges, no trial, constantly shifting allegations, brutal treatment, no visits with family, not even a phone call home,” Katznelson said Thursday.
“Sami was never alleged to have hurt a soul, and was never proven to have committed any crimes. Yet, he had fewer rights than convicted mass murderers or rapists. What has happened to American justice?”
Al-Jazeera is based in Qatar and is funded by the royal family of the Persian Gulf nation. Its Arabic channel has been excoriated by the Bush administration as a mouthpiece for terrorists including Osama bin Laden.
Wadah Khanfar, managing director of Al-Jazeera Arabic, said of al-Haj’s release: “We are overwhelmed with joy.”
Al-Haj was never prosecuted at Guantanamo so the U.S did not make public its full allegations against him. But in a hearing that determined that he was an enemy combatant, U.S. officials alleged that in the 1990s, al-Haj was an executive assistant at a Qatar-based beverage company that provided support to Muslim fighters in Bosnia and Chechnya.
The U.S. claimed he also traveled to Azerbaijan at least eight times to carry money on behalf of his employer to the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, a now defunct charity that U.S. authorities say funded militant groups.
The officials said during this period that he met Mamdouh Mahmud Salim, a senior lieutenant to Osama bin Laden who was arrested in Germany in 1998 and extradited to the United States. Officials did not provide details.
Reprieve identified the two other Sudanese Guantanamo detainees who were released as Amir Yacoub Al Amir and Walid Ali.
Reprieve also said Moroccan detainee Said Boujaadia, 39, was also released. He was flown home on the same plane as al-Haj, which made a stop in Morocco. The group said he was taken into custody in Morocco.
© Copyright 2008 The Associated Press
Jailed six years without a trial, conviction, or really any legal process at all in evidence! Congratulations, America! How proud we must all feel in this ‘Land of Laws’!
I’m sure glad America suspended habeas corpus due to national security concerns over a low level cameraman.
-James
www.thepoliticus.org
And how proud we must all feel in the Great USA for our government’s terrorist attack yesterday in Somalia!
This administration rightly fears a free press which may challenge its criminal behavior, illegal wars, aggression in the Middle East to control its oil.
The damage done in trying to cover up their crimes should give us an idea of the extent of those crimes.
Happily, Sami al-Haj has survived, but not with his health and well-being. And his thoughts are for others still suffering at Guantanamo.
This is such an outrage, and it’s all the more outrageous because not a damn thing will happen to the bastards who did this to this poor man. Where is the international community? When will someone speak up against the crimes that this country is committing? Isn’t there anything that can be done to stop this?
First they came for the Muslims and I did nothing; then they came for the immigrants and I did nothing; then they came for the patriotic,protestors and I did nothing; then they came for the citizens that did not have a national I.D.card and I did nothing; then they came for me and it was TOO LATE TO DO ANYTHING!
Peace activist Dr. Sami Al Arian is still being tortured in USA prison and he did have a trial and was not found guilty and the government is double crossing the Courts right here in the USA.
Any brave souls willing to help, we need more to free Sami too.
I just sent this letter to the Justice Dept yesterday: Please join us and email ASKDOJ@usdoj.gov
———–
“Mr Attorney General, Michael Mukasey,
I saw you being questioned by Congress on why you did nothing about your own FBI agents reporting the CIA was using torture at US detention facilities.
Dr Al Arian is not in a CIA facility but he is being psychologically and close to Physically tortured under your jurisdiction now.
Is President Bush behind ordering this inhumane treatment?
I believe if you don’t start fighting terrorism with Justice, you may have to be tried someday just as president Bush may be tried for his illegal acts amounting to War Crimes.
Please keep your Oath if you ever made one to uphold and protect the constitution and human rights and see that Sami Al Arian is released for deportation so he can join his family now.
It would also be a sorely needed American act of good will to people all over the planet.
Shalom,
Jim Glover”
——-
find out more how to help at http://www.freesamialarian.com/help.html
Chickens WILL come home to roost. Be careful AmeriKKKa, it’s going to be a long “war”.
I haven’t read the article yet, but also believe that it’s not necessary in order to state what’s obvious.
Releasing the cameraman is good, but the whole of what this is about tells me that it entirely has been to “temporarily” remove and obstacle. Iow, this is concrete (en masse) proof that the Bush adm. knew, all along, that there were NO legitimate reasons for detaining this cameraman; although also true with respect to many others detained by this administration of hell’s making.
Fidel Castro? “History will absolve him.”
Gitmo Prisoners? “History will absolve them.”
US Imperialists? “History will DISSOLVE them.”
What happened to Sami al Hajj is a real travesty. The whole point of having a functional legal system is to prevent people from being picked up and tortured at length without access to lawyers and legal access. The problem is not the US legal system itself but the way in which it has been conveniently bypassed in the case of individuals like Sami al Hajj - as well as the rest of the Guantanamo inmaters.
But, see, according to Justice Scalia, ill treatment before trial is not punishment. So if you never get a trial, you never were punished. Ding, ding, ding….
What Scalia said is that if I am torturing you to get information from you, it is not punishment - what am I punishing you for? That statement woke me up to the illegitimacy of our supposed three branches of government - our Supreme Court, which is supposed to uphold our laws - if Scalia is allowed to make such a ludicrous statement and not be held accountable - who can hold a Supreme Court Justice accountable? - then we are all screwed. The bastards only care about one thing - maintaining the status quo and keeping the ruling class in power.
As each day passes and these illegal wars wage on, as our system becomes ever more apparent to me, as our economy collapses, and the actions of a few who have illegally seized control of our government threaten the survival of our planet, I become more and more ashamed to be called an American. Michelle Obama may be proud for the first time in her life, but I doubt that I can ever again say I am proud of anything about this country. The sham is being exposed.
God Bless America? No, no, no, no — not God Bless America, God Damn America!!! I think that was/is the point. “A country is not what it does, but also what it tolerates.”
Mr. Kaznelson questions American justice. I am sad to tell him that there is no such thing as Amrtican justice. It has been systematically destroyed over the last years ever since Reagan took over the presidency for the corporations. The US citizens are all at risk of being arrested at the whim of a president or vice president who have no morals or consciences.
Six years incarceration; no charges; no compensation. All in the land of the Free.
My country, the UK, is a mere lapdog to these fascist hyenas. Odd how the snarling talk of those cold war enemies now ring true, eh!
The USA and ourselves are surely going to pay a HUGE price and rightly so for this vile and vicious aberrant behaviour done in the name of Democracy. Orwellian newspeak. Well stated earlier here too by Paul Revere….unless ACTION is taken we will all be hostage to the corporatists!
Why disrupt the Olympic torch relay in a make believe protest over chickenshit Tibet , when your Americans (white) & Europeans have that hell in Guantanamo ?
What moral grounds do you in the west (USA & E U ) have to protest against a China that is the beacon of everything that is good and decent in this upside down world that is corrupted by the USA & EU.
our so called leaders should have to pay,war crimes,spend the rest of their lifes in prison,with out a trial.
I listened to a npr interview with one of the people on his al jazeera camera crew. He said their initial reaction to his detention was: “If the Americans picked him up, he must have done something really bad!”
Even islamic members of a mostly Arab camera crew trusted the motives of the US government as late as 2001. How quickly the neocons have ruined everything, including America’s reputation abroad.
Only 8 months!
Hey Yap:
What do they put in Chinese Kool-Aid? Fake heparin? Gluten adulerated with plastic? Whatever, you better stop drinking it.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Guantanamo, etc. is really screwed up, but China ain’t no beacon, either.
Peace be with you.
See…they told you that Gitmo held the “worst of the Worst”!
Now, how about those other 195 the Bush administration has made it clear they no plans to try? Why aren’t they freed? My hunch is that some, perhaps many, of the other 80 are also innocent.
I am very happy Sami is finally out. I am not at all happy about the maybe 30,000 other innocents in our widely scattered and mostly secret gulag- 2 prisons we can name in Iraq, Bagram in Afghanistan, Diego Garcia and 2 prison ships. then there are the cia black sites of which we know nothing.
This has been going on with almost no press, no media.
but back to Sami- he was being held in prison why? because they thought he had once committed journalism with Osama? yes and so if he had? then he’d still be in jail, right?
paul revere- good point. and truer than many may want to believe. under the military commissions act, “enemy combatant” can be defined as anyone bush or any of his minions so designates.
I make a point of looking at Aljazeera web site 2 or 3 times a week.
Aside from the deeply troubling moral, ethical and legal aspects of this case, there is a horrific tactical downside in the so-called War on Terror. Mr al Haj’s unjust treatment will generate more hatred and drive more youth into the ranks of anti-American terrorists than almost anything else. We cannot deploy enough soldiers, borrow enough from the Chinese to buy costly weapons, unlawfully intercept enough communications or create enough kangaroo courts to offset the damage we are doing. The strategies and tactics we are using, devised by what pass for intellectuals on the right, generate a hundredfold more problems than they solve.
Apologies are weak, but apologies are required. We have no control over our government. It is a totally out of hand insane berzerker.
What can we do to end this nightmare? Strike, boycott, mourn, protest, sue, fight in every way we can every time we can.
Tomorrow many people in New York will be wearing all black and not spending any money to protest the murder of Sean Bell on the day before his wedding, and the fact that every shooter was acquitted.
My mourning clothes will also be for democracy and for those who have disappeared into Guantanamo and our network of secret prisons.
We need help. Where is the international community?
Actually, as bad as it was, Sami al-Haj got the red carpet treatment compared to a lot of others. The US military often just kills them, and a bunch of others too.
There is nothing like the Bill of Rights in the US Constitution to protect a person. Except, Sami was a foreigner, so it doesn’t count. Except, it doesn’t say so anywhere in the US Constitution that citizenship makes any difference except for voting and the right to hold certain offices. Where does that leave 300 million in the US?
April 2004, Bush Jr and Tony Blair met over the Bush administration’s desire to bomb Al Jazeera’s HQ in Qatar, remember.
Not wholly related, but I think more than enough, are the following articles.
“American Culture and the Demise of Empire
Cultural Decay and Motivating Empire. The Grand Chessboard Part 2
by Brent Jessop
Global Research, May 1, 2008
Knowledge Driven Revolution.com - 2007-10-08″
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8863
It’s about Zbigniew Brzezinski’s book on his view of what the USA needs to do to establish … like permanent world supremacy through the UN and diminishing democracy, to curb the popular kind, specifically in the USA; arguing that popular democracies have never been able to achieve supremacy. Conquest and domination over the world and making it undemocratic, iow. The UNSC effectively works out to be just this, as a “rule”, or reality of power; often, if not always, concluding in terms that rule against the UN’s charter.
And then the Constitution of the USA also was effectively suspended in 2007 with presidential order NSPD 51; real, just not spoken of by the administration. Effectively suspended, and the related planning also begun by Cheney and Rumsfeld under the Reagan administration, if not earlier.
“Congress, the Bush Administration and Continuity of Government Planning–The Showdown
by Prof. Peter Dale Scott
Global Research, May 1, 2008
… - 2008-03-31″
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=8864
Hi brr 001 ! Our people’s Republic of China can and will stand on our MORAL HIGH GROUND; we do not run no Abu Graibh, we PRC do not do RENDITION ! We PRC do not domtroture nad by the way your President Bush has admitted that the USA do torture, our glorious PRC do not FEED THE WORLD FOOD GRAIN INTO THE GAS TANK OF AN SVU. Our PRC has for umtinth year been feeding the North Korenas and stave off starvation. Our PRC has brought enlightenment to all of AFRICA and we have worked with the Africans as our equals, as our brothers to open up their country.
The People’s Republic of China is the nation of the 21st CENTURY, and the USA is the nation of a left over feudal dark ages; YOU AMERICANS DO EVERYTHING THAT THE DEVIL THINKS IS COOL ! Uh ! RIGHT ?
And by the way brr-001 The quote in Australia is “TWO WONGS DO NOT MAKE A WHITE” Welll I think the Aussies now think differently, now that China is their biggest trade partner instead of the USA as of old !
SO YOU SEE BRR- 001, it is not two wrongs do not make a right ! rather it is two Wongs do not make a white ! There you go! one Wong today DOES MAKE THE EQUAL OF ONE WHITE; and to-morrow ? Yah, I read just this morning an opinion by the “INCOMING WORLD BANK CHIEF ECONOMIST” (a China-man) that by the year 2030 China’s economy will become 2.5 times the size of the USA economy. You will not like it but we saw this way back before 1970 and by the prediction of our famous Prime Minister of Singapore Mr Lee Kuan Yew, but he only saw China overtaking the USA by 2030 but he did not see the possibility of China going “up on the USA by 2.5 times, who would have ?).
COMPENSATE!!!
Hi yap:
When I was a kid at summer camp many years ago, someone did a campfire skit about a Chinese laundry. (In the US, many Chinese own laundries.) A fellow takes a badly stained white shirt to Wong’s Laundry. After several tries, including Camp Ockanicon peanut butter and “Seven-Up” soda, Mr. and Mrs. Wong give up and return the shirt. The punchline was “Two Wongs can’t make a white!” I never realized it was an ethnic slur.
I hope you guys buy a lot of garage door openers, feezers, fancy cutlery…because American companies are moving production of all this stuff to China. We are all losing our jobs and going broke, and our government is printing funny money, so we won’t be buying this stuff much longer.
I hope you realize the Chinese are being screwed by the American companies just as much as the Americans are. They aren’t moving to China for the expanding market. They are moving there for the cheap labor and lack of regulation so they can squeeze a few more bucks out of stuff they sell in America.
American arrogance abroad is nothing new. There was a book “The Ugly American” written before the Vietnam war. One illustration was a Vietnames contractor forced to buy a worthless old Cadillac for thousands of dollars to close out a deal with an American company. The fellow was so pissed off that he had his workers drop the car down an abandoned well in front of the entire village as he was paying the American.
The Bush administration has taken this attitude to new heights with its premptive wars, rendition, etc. If you are reading the posts here on CD, you must agree that we condemn all of this. We don’t like a lot of things China does either, or a lot of other countries, and we realize the US is far from perfect. Japan harvests whales, but the US Navy hurts whales with high powered sonar… Both are wrong.
Are you sure you want China to be the number one economy in the world? With it comes number one in pollution and number one in greenhouse gases. I read Beijing is no longer near the desert. Its IN the desert. Whose glaciers are going to melt first? Whose coastal cities are going to be under water first? Its a tie. Everyone’s!
Good news/bad news in 2030: Good news - China is number one. Bad news - We all die from climate change.
Six years to discover this man was not an “evil doer”. Six years of hell in a concentration camp (lets not delude ourselves, Gitmo IS a concentration camp).
Does anyone else find it ironic that the beacon of freedom, America, operates the only concentration camp on Cuban soil? Gitmo - the American version of Siberia.
This is why I have come to believe Guantanamo Bay is little more than a Gulag where political prisoners go to disappear! Most aren’t guilty of anything but getting on the wrong side of the Bush Administration. It should be clear by now this has been the policy of our corrupt President from day one! How many like this man have been released over the last few years with no charges ever being made?????? This should tell all the right wing fringe lunatics something about the government they have installed and support wholeheartedly. But, sadly enough I think most of them have been so brain washed with the right wing ideology they don’t see right from wrong anymore. And that’s frightening when we have an element in this country that controls everything that doesn’t have a glimmer of a conscious. I don’t know what it’s going to take to get this country back to the values we once possessed? I can only hope some of these people eventually get an attack of conscious. I won’t hold my breath until it happens, but one can only hope!
I saw a reporter on Democracy Now talking about released prisoners at Guantanomo. He said the these “terrorists” were released as follows; first, the Europeans whose countries raised hell about their detention. Then the Saudis, cause they have the oil Americans are addicted to. I forget the rest, but he said that the remainder were mostly Sudanese, because their government is willing to let them rot.
So, according to the rationale of the Bush administration and the brain dead idiots who support them, all the worst terrorists in the world happen to come from Sudan. What a strange coincidence.
I also saw another lawyer talking on Democracy Now. She said that there was a prison in Afghanistan called the dark prison, or something like that. She said that people are shackled in total darkness, but not silence. Rap music and heavy metal are played at ear splitting levels 24 hours a day. The only time it stops is when they change the tape, and then the prisoners can hear the moans and screams of the others.
This is our country. I, too, am ashamed.
bbr-001 Hi there ! China had been the centre of the civilized world for most of world history, the USA only came into existence since 1774, where is the comparison. It took the USA for more than 200 years to get to No. 1 spot in manufacturing; BUT IT TOOK US THE PRC. JUST A MERE 20 YEARS TO CATCH UP TO YOU. You will say that we are second to you but I say we are even better. All the funny jokes are just that. Do we want to be No. ! Yes ! The world will come to an end only because the USA bombs every other nation that does not agree with you.
China is cheap labour ? That is what you would say, but consider this did not the USA forced the Chinese to REVALUE THE YUAN ? Yes to be sure our exports to the USA does not form 5 % of our total export. Why make the USA as the only export market of our Chinese goods ? The reason why the USA is so UNCOMPETITIVE IS BECAUSE, you think all the world are stupid, so you pay your workers with the grossly INFLATED WAGE AND NOW YOU FIND THAT THAT WAS A BAD IDEA. We are Chinese and we are not in any hurry to beat anyone; but we are just bloody good ! wHAT CAN i SAY ? wE cHIONESE ARE JUST TOO GOOD.
HOW GOOD ARE THE CHINESE ? Consider this and blush ! In 1978 the year of my daughter’s graducation, China started our industrial might by buying obsolete factory from Germany ( I remember it was the “NSU” scooter factory); the germans wanted to scrape the factory and let it out to tender to sell for scrape metal. The Chinese bought that factory ‘For A SONG”. Our folks then sent in a team of engineers who went about catalogueing every section of the components of the factory. The parts were shipped back to China and put back together like Humpty dumpty. There we have a factory that you scraped for demolition and we could make better use of it. I had a good laugh when I read that story. THAT WAS HOW WE BEGAN.
For you “WHITES” you want to laugh at us for buying scrape when you only take the most modern. Therein lies our differences. we want to get everything for free if we can but you want to spend a lot because that will make you feel rich. Whose attitude is the better ? Therein again lies our differences, we save & hoard and we are cashed up to our gills ! While you are in debts up to your eyeballs. Who is the more respectable ? Of course today we Chinese now go for only the best and most of the world want a piece of China. Air-bus wants in and are willing to go joint venture with China and it is estimated by Air-bus that China over the next 5 years to 10 years will need 2,800 air plane of the A 320 version. Air-bus has just over the lst 6 months nominated China’s A-VIC plane manufacturer their suppliers. Boeing do get some sales but not like the old days when Boeing was our main supplier.
Is it important that China becomes No. 1, not imporatnt but we just do our thing and we get there because we are just so good ! Japan is drawing close to China and with the “return of Taiwan”; the new found common purpose by the 3 strategic partners of the Koreas, Japan and China “one country two systems with Taiwan IS AN UNBEATABLE PARTNERSHIP. It is very understandable that the west have gone out of their way to DIMINISH the grandeur of thwe Beijing Olympics by the USA and their GREE-EYED partners.
Let me tell you Americans why the USA is in such deep shit ! It is because all those small nations like Venezuella, India, Japan, Taiwan, South Africa and such second ranked powers are begining to peel off on their own. Iran, Russia & Venezuela are all pricing their oil in the Yen or Euros; that is why the USA green back has no demand and with loss of demand the USA is spinning in a spiral DOWNWARDS.
AMERICA IS GOING BROKE !
Naomi Wolf’s “The End of America: Letters to a Young Patriot”, describes in detail the ten steps to convert any country (including a democracy) into a fascist dictatorship (summary version available at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2007/apr/24/usa.comment) —
Step #6 — Engage in arbitrary detention and release
Please check this out and decide for yourself if the treatment of Sami al-Haj serves as an example of #6 above.
Comments?
Nothing against the Chinese but they have a way to go as a nation also. I see when someone refers to the ‘glorious’ PRC that they may be as smitten with bullshit as some Americans are with their own line of hunter written history. As nations the USA and China are both fucked up. It’s the people that matter.
Don’t I recall that after the first uproar about Guantanamo some 300, or 500, or 800 prisoners were summarily releaased, without expalnation or apology, leaving only the “worst of the worst” in the can (thanks, MeAlsoToo for the reminder). So this guy is an example of the worst actors we have in custody? This proves not only is Guantanamo a horrible farce, but our entire military operation in the Middle East is as well if this is the best we can do in bringing to “justice” the supposed perpetrators of 9/11.
Yap, I don’t know where you came from all of a sudden, but unapologetic Chinese nationalism is as vacuous as unapologetic American nationalism. The PRC has a LONG way to go before it takes ANY moral high ground. Step back and realize your government is as crooked and self-serving as any, and more than most. See that your government cares little for the rights of its own citizens. Success measured in money is the old world order - do not assume Chinese economic success is a positive step. Fight for a better China and join us in the fight for a better world.
Gee, they “detained” him for being on the side of the Bosnians? Whose side were we on? The Genetic-Cleansing Serbs??
wcdevins: Chinese Neocons! Ahhhh!
wcdevin !
We Chinese already got a fine government. You read & listen to too many American & Western propaganda. We are doing very well ans thank you for your kkind concern. You should listen to yourself speak sometime, just crap !
Hey Yap:
China was on its way to good government once Mao realized Stalin was a racist and considered China just another East Germany - a mere sattelite state of the Soviet Empire. China has a long way to go, but at least you haven’t been going backwards like the US under Dubya and company.
China, India, Russia, the EU, the US, Japan and the smaller Asian “tiger” economies need to work together for sustainable energy sources before global warming gets us all. The old model of competition at unsustainable cost to the environment has to go.
If China wants to kick some behind, why doesn’t do the world a favor and get that nutcase in North Korea under control?
Hi bbr-001 ! Dear Leader Kim Jong ILL is a friend of China and we will brook no insults on dear leader.
All the worst faults that dog mankind today comes from the USA. You are unmitigated and serial global aggressors and the USA lies through both ends of your mouths. Yes China had our differences with the USSR but today we are brothers and we see things through the same glasses and we are strategic partners. To put a bit of green in your eyes, think Japan will get to be close, which means that there will be shared commonality among the Koreas, Japan & China. Three of the biggest powers coming togather. I am thinking not of military powers, but more as “founding” partners in a coming East Asia Co-prosperity ASIAN COMMUNITY. The Japanese had that in their head in the 2nd world war and I am sure this will bring back memories of an almost GOLDEN PAST.
You know bbr. I had written about this development some 5 years ago, but I am no hot shot writer, so you can find my article in www.sinopolitics.com.
This development is so obvious and I believe that it will come about; even if the americans will like to throw in their spanners.
Hey yap: Getting raped and pillaged by the Japs was a golden past? Now that’s revisionist!
If Kim Il Jong is China’s great friend, then he doesn’t need to be messing around with nuclear weapons.
Spanners! The English say spanners! Its “Monkey Wrench”! First you’re a neocon, now your a Limey! Just kidding.
We Americans do have a “rude awakening” coming when the dollar bubble bursts, but we do grow a lot of food here. We’ll be poorer, but we’ll do just fine.
What is your position on greenhouse gases and global warming? The glaciers that feed your rivers are disappearing! Do you think its a spanner? Just hype?