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Views of Pakistanis
Politico reports: "The White House backed away Monday evening from key details in its narrative about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, including claims by senior U.S. officials that the Al Qaeda leader had a weapon and may have fired it during a gun battle with U.S. forces.
"Officials also retreated from claims that one of bin Laden's wives was killed in the raid and that bin Laden was using her as a human shield before she was shot by U.S. forces."
WASHINGTON
Politico reports: "The White House backed away Monday evening from key details in its narrative about the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, including claims by senior U.S. officials that the Al Qaeda leader had a weapon and may have fired it during a gun battle with U.S. forces.
"Officials also retreated from claims that one of bin Laden's wives was killed in the raid and that bin Laden was using her as a human shield before she was shot by U.S. forces."
PERVEZ HOODBHOY, hoodbhoy at lns.mit.edu
Hoodbhoy is professor of physics at Quaid-i-Azam University and just wrote the piece "The curious case of Osama bin Laden."
JUNAID AHMAD, junaidsahmad at gmail.com
Ahmad is assistant professor of law at Lahore University of Management Sciences in Pakistan. He said today: "Bin Laden was was not the cause of the radical escalation of American militarism after 9/11, simply the pretext. ... The Pakistani military and the U.S. have been playing a cat and mouse game at least since the Raymond Davis affair, and this is a part of it. ... All the propaganda coming from the account: He lived in a mansion, he used women as human shields etc. is meant to discredit him and show his remaining followers that he lived as a king while he sent others to die."
SAMEER DOSSANI, sameer.dossani at gmail.com
Asia policy coordinator at ActionAid International, Dossani is now traveling in Asia. He said today: "I doubt this will be a blow for jihadism. This [Afghanistan] is a tribal conflict. When one side scores a blow, the other will seek to take revenge ten times over. Without some kind of mediation process between Pashto and non-Pashto Afghans, this is going to get worse before it gets better."
A nationwide consortium, the Institute for Public Accuracy (IPA) represents an unprecedented effort to bring other voices to the mass-media table often dominated by a few major think tanks. IPA works to broaden public discourse in mainstream media, while building communication with alternative media outlets and grassroots activists.
LATEST NEWS
'Historic Victory': After 3 Days on Strike, New York Nurses Win Deal With Hospitals
"Today, we can return to work with our heads held high, knowing that our victory means safer care for our patients and more sustainable jobs for our profession."
Jan 12, 2023
New York City nurses and two major hospitals reached a tentative agreement on Thursday that the healthcare workers' union celebrated as a "historic victory" after three days of striking for a fair contract.
The more than 7,000 striking nurses agreed to return to work Thursday at Mount Sinai Hospital and Montefiore Medical Center, privately owned hospitals whose management previously refused to accept the nurses' central demand for safer staffing requirements—pushing the New York State Nurses Association (NYSNA) to leverage the power of collective action.
"NYSNA nurses have done the impossible, saving lives night and day, throughout the Covid-19 pandemic, and now we've again shown that nothing is impossible for nurse heroes," said Nancy Hagans, RN, the president of the union. "Through our unity and by putting it all on the line, we won enforceable safe staffing ratios at both Montefiore and Mount Sinai where nurses went on strike for patient care. Today, we can return to work with our heads held high, knowing that our victory means safer care for our patients and more sustainable jobs for our profession."
According to NYSNA, the tentative deal includes "wall-to-wall safe staffing ratios for all inpatient units with firm enforcement so that there will always be enough nurses at the bedside to provide safe patient care, not just on paper."
"New staffing ratios take effect immediately in a historic breakthrough for hospitals that refused to consider ratios that nurses have been demanding for decades," the union said. "At Montefiore, nurses will also return to work this morning after winning new safe staffing ratios in the Emergency Department, with new staffing language and financial penalties for failing to comply with safe staffing levels in all units. Nurses also won community health improvements and nurse-student partnerships to recruit local Bronx nurses to stay as union nurses at Montefiore for the long run."
\u201cBREAKING: NYC nurses strike to end this morning in historic victory as tentative deals were reached with both @MontefioreNYC and @MountSinaiNYC Hospital. Nurses won concrete enforceable safe staffing ratios in both deals and will be back on the job.\n\n\ud83d\udd17: https://t.co/oD5QvxBQIy\u201d— NYSNA (@NYSNA) 1673520783
The nurses' fight for safe staffing measures and other changes drew national attention to Mount Sinai Hospital and Montefiore's business practices, including their lavish compensation of executives.
"While Montefiore and Mount Sinai are technically nonprofits, they frequently act like large corporations—with massive investments on Wall Street and overseas, and providers sidelined from essential care decisionmaking," The Lever's Matthew Cunningham-Cook reported earlier this week. "These nonprofit hospitals also boast huge executive salaries. Mount Sinai CEO Kenneth Davis made $5.6 million in 2019, the last year for which complete tax records are available. Montefiore CEO Philip Ozuah made $7.4 million in 2020. Montefiore disclosed providing an unnamed executive (or executives) with a chauffeur and first-class airfare in 2020."
"In filings with the IRS, Mount Sinai disclosed that 15 executives made more than $1 million annually in 2019," Cunningham-Cook added. "Montefiore disclosed ten in 2020, with all making more than $1.5 million."
On the picket line with striking nurses on Monday, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) said he was "tired of living in the wealthiest country in the history of the world, but we never have enough money for our workers."
"If CEOs can double their pay," Bowman declared, "we can give workers a fair contract."
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Omar Leads 70+ US and Brazilian Lawmakers in Denouncing Coordinated 'Ultra-Right' Attacks
"Just as far-right extremists are coordinating their efforts to undermine democracy, we must stand united in our efforts to protect it."
Jan 12, 2023
Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar on Wednesday led a coalition of more than 70 lawmakers from the United States and Brazil in denouncing right-wing extremists—led by defeated ex-Presidents Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro—for spurring violent insurrections aimed at overturning legitimate election results and toppling democracy in the two countries.
"As lawmakers in Brazil and the United States, we stand united against the efforts by authoritarian, anti-democratic far-right actors to overturn legitimate election results and overthrow our democracies, including the recent January 8, 2023 attacks on the Brazilian presidential palace, Congress, and Supreme Court as well as the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol," the legislators said in a joint statement.
"It is no secret that ultra-right agitators in Brazil and the United States are coordinating efforts," the lawmakers continued. "In the wake of the October 30th Brazilian elections, Brazilian Congressman Eduardo Bolsonaro met directly with former President Trump, along with former Trump aides Jason Miller and Steve Bannon, who encouraged Bolsonaro to contest the election results in Brazil. Bannon was recently convicted of two criminal charges for failing to comply with a subpoena for his role in the January 6th insurrection. Soon after the meetings, Bolsonaro's party sought to invalidate thousands of votes. All involved must be held accountable."
The statement was signed by prominent progressive members of Congress in the U.S. including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.), Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.), Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), as well as Brazilian lawmakers Rodrigo Agostinho, Chico Alencar, Tabata Amaral, Sâmia Bomfim, Guilherme Boulos, and Camilo Capiberibe.
"Democracies rely on the peaceful transfer of power," the lawmakers said. "Just as far-right extremists are coordinating their efforts to undermine democracy, we must stand united in our efforts to protect it. In order to save democracy in our two countries and around the world, we urge all elected officials in our two countries, regardless of party, to join our calls."
\u201cToday, we led over 70 elected officials from the United States and Brazil in condemning recent insurrections in our countries and the coordination between far-right agitators. Here\u2019s what we said: https://t.co/e1BwKuI49a\u201d— Rep. Ilhan Omar (@Rep. Ilhan Omar) 1673482458
The statement came as authorities in both countries continued to investigate the anti-democratic assaults, both sparked by Trump and Bolsonaro's incessant lies about election fraud.
Reutersreported Thursday that U.S. and Brazilian lawmakers are "looking for ways to cooperate on an investigation" into the violence in Brazil on Sunday, "sharing lessons from inquiries into the attack on the U.S. Capitol."
"U.S. Representative Bennie Thompson, chairman of the recently dissolved House committee that investigated the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, is one lawmaker whose office is discussing collaboration," Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources familiar with the ongoing discussions. "Brazil's Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco has also discussed the idea of such an exchange with the top U.S. diplomat in BrasÃlia."
More than two years after the January 6 insurrection, Trump has yet to face criminal charges over his role in the attempted coup as a U.S. Justice Department investigation continues.
Bolsonaro, meanwhile, is still in Florida, where he traveled days before the inauguration of leftist Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Like Trump, Bolsonaro refused to concede defeat and attempted—unsuccessfully—to challenge his election loss in court.
Facing mounting extradition demands by U.S. lawmakers, Bolsonaro toldCNN Brasil on Wednesday that he intends to return to his home country soon as Brazilian authorities moved to freeze his assets and issued arrest warrants for pro-Bolsonaro officials accused of aiding Sunday's attacks on government buildings.
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'21 Years Is 21 Too Many': 150+ Groups Urge Biden to Close Guantánamo
"We should not be marking another year in the life of this ignominious product of U.S. imperialism and racism as we have every January since the first anniversary of its opening in 2002," said one of the letter's signers. "Yet we will succeed in shutting it down."
Jan 11, 2023
Twenty-one years after the George W. Bush administration opened the U.S. military prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba—and 13 years after then-President Barack Obama signed an executive order for its closure—more than 150 groups on Wednesday implored the Biden administration to "act without delay" to close the notorious lockup.
"Among a broad range of human rights violations perpetrated against predominantly Muslim communities over the last two decades, the Guantánamo detention facility—built on the same military base where the United States unconstitutionally detained Haitian refugees in deplorable conditions in the early 1990s—is the iconic example of the abandonment of the rule of law," the groups said in a letter to President Joe Biden. "The Guantánamo detention facility was designed specifically to evade legal constraints, and Bush administration officials incubated torture there."
\u201cWe\u2019re proud to join 150+ organizations globally demanding Biden #CloseGuantanamo. \n\n21 years is 21 too many. As long as the US continues to cage and dehumanize people there, we\u2019ll keep fighting to shut it down.\u201d— CODEPINK (@CODEPINK) 1673450992
Since 2002, 779 men and boys have been held at Guantanamo, many of them tortured, and nearly all without ever being charged or tried. According to retired U.S. Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson—who served as chief of staff to Bush-era Secretary of State Colin Powell—Bush, along with his vice president and defense secretary, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, knew that most of the Gitmo prisoners were innocent, but kept them locked up for political reasons.
Obama—whose vice president was Biden—issued executive orders after entering the White House in 2009 that were meant to end torture and close Gitmo. However, Obama—who was blocked by Congress from implementing the prison's closure—broke a campaign promise and the law by actively shielding Bush-era officials from accountability while torture continued at Gitmo.
"Thirty-five remain there today, at the astronomical cost of $540 million per year, making Guantánamo the most expensive detention facility in the world," the groups' new letter states. "Guantánamo embodies the fact that the United States government has long viewed communities of color—citizens and noncitizens alike—as a security threat, to devastating consequences."
"This is not a problem of the past," the signers stressed. "Guantánamo continues to cause escalating and profound damage to the aging and increasingly ill men still detained indefinitely there, most without charge and none having received a fair trial. It has also devastated their families and communities. The approach Guantánamo exemplifies continues to fuel and justify bigotry, stereotyping, and stigma. Guantánamo entrenches racial divisions and racism more broadly, and risks facilitating additional rights violations."
\u201cAs we mark 21 years since the Guant\u00e1namo Bay prison was opened as part of the so-called global \u201cWar on Terror,\u201d we remember the 35 men who remain detained. \n\nRead the statement we released at: \nhttps://t.co/OJ9248zdDR\u201d— The CCR (@The CCR) 1673453843
The New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, which represents three of the 21 Guantánamo prisoners who have been cleared for release and which signed the letter, said in a statement:
We should not be marking another year in the life of this ignominious product of U.S. imperialism and racism as we have every January since the first anniversary of its opening in 2002. Yet we will succeed in shutting it down. Despite the lack of will of presidents who have claimed to support closure and the express desire of some political leaders to keep the prison open forever, the prison population has shrunk by 95% from its peak—the result of pressure from a broad coalition from around the globe, including the imprisoned men themselves, their families, and Guantánamo survivors who have been released.
Asked shortly after taking office whether the Biden administration will move to close Gitmo, then-White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said "that certainly is our goal and our intention."
However, the Biden administration has taken few steps toward that goal, while spending millions of dollars on a new secret courtroom at the prison.
\u201cIt's now 21 years since the Guantanamo Bay detention camp opened. A centerpiece of a war @POTUS declared over, it looms as a symbol of racial injustice and human rights abuses, while violating the U.S. Constitution and international law. #CloseGuantanamo https://t.co/i8fxDRozbW\u201d— FCNL (Quakers) (@FCNL (Quakers)) 1673467282
Last year, the administration released four Guantánamo prisoners, including 75-year-old Saifullah Abdullah Paracha, the oldest person ever imprisoned there.
"It is long past time for both a sea change in the United States' approach to national and human security and a meaningful reckoning with the full scope of damage that the post-9/11 approach has caused," the groups' letter argues. "Closing the Guantánamo detention facility, ending indefinite military detention of those held there, and never again using the military base for unlawful mass detention of any group of people are necessary steps towards those ends."
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