Dr. Aafia Siddiqui Case: My Honor Is Not For Sale, Not For a Lie By GORDON DUFF

VETERANS Today Editors, Jeff Gates, Raja Mujtaba and I were in the AF-Pak region over the last couple of weeks. Jeff and I are Vietnam veterans, Raja a decorated combat veteran, tank commander, from the India/Pakistan war. We met dozens of Pakistani military, including nearly all of their highest ranking retired officers, from Admiral Sirohey, Chairman of their Joint Chiefs of Staff to General Alsam Beg, Head of the Army to Lt. General Hamid Gul, former head of the ISI. In our party were our other Veterans Today contributors, BG Asif Haroon Raja and BG Raza Ali, of “Charlie Wilson’s War” fame.

Today, I received an email from Admiral Sirohey. His office is lined with memorabilia from a long career of service, service as an ally and friend of the United States. Sirohey and the rest were America’s most stalwart allies during the Cold War. These were the real allies that helped us bring about the downfall of the Soviet Union. I was honored to be among them. Today Admiral Sirohey is scheduled to attend a rally protesting the illegal kidnapping, brutalizing and conviction of Dr. Affia Siddiqui. America’s best friends in Asia, the finest soldiers in the world are horrified at what we have done.

Can it be that bad?

The Bush administration, when it saw its “War on Terror” wasn’t getting enough suspects, hired drug cartel members and criminal elements to kidnap innocent civilians to fill our secret prisons. Yes, we actually did this. In this case, we kidnapped a mother with 3 children, tortured her for years, murdered a small child and then charged her with attempting to murder her captors after years in a secret prison on Bagram Air Force Base.

Every soldier on that base, everyone who has served there has to live with the dishonor of this act until something is done. Remember when America, after World War II painted the people of Germany with the stain of guilt for not knowing about the death camps? Tell me what is different here? We didn’t know that druglords and gangsters were stealing people off the street to fill our prisons with “terror suspects” so Bush/Ashcroft and Cheney could crow about their successes?

If you didn’t know before, this is what all the secret “torture memos” were all about, not real terrorists, but innocent people we “bought” as though we were slave runners of old.

A few years after we bought our phony terror suspects, tortured, raped and brutalized them, most were released. They had committed no crime other than to be standing on the wrong dark street corner when the druglords working for Bush were out hunting “meat” for America’s gulags.

Dr. Aafia had to be convicted, had to be jailed and silenced. The crimes against her and her children were so heinous, only a kangaroo court in America, a country whose news is orchestrated by the Islam hating MSM/Corporate media and powerful Israeli/AIPAC lobby would have the audiacity to bring her to trial.

Do we need to review the case? Remember the OJ case? He was released because of a glove not fitting. Dr. Aafia was shot by the “translator” during her “debriefing.”

She has a Doctorate from an American university. She comes from a country where everyone speaks English. “If the translator doesn’t fit, you must acquit!”

Do we now call a person with a cattle prod a “translator?”

When the My Lai massacre happened, I was with a Marine unit less than 50 miles away. All of us who were there then, not so many are around any more, carry the stain of that dishonor and have for decades. I can talk of honor or service but all people see is babies and their mothers, shot to death, lining the bottom of a ditch.

It is a matter of honor.

There are no “secret prisons” and nobody is tortured without someone knowing about it. We are all responsible, I don’t care if you are serving in Iraq or Afghanistan or anywhere around the world, active duty, reserve, National Guard, retiree or veteran. We are nearly 30 million strong. Many of us don’t have much, memories, wounds, a small pension and our honor.
Our silence strips our honor away.

Dr. Aafia Siddiqui was not a terrorist. The newspapers lied, we all know why. Either she is guilty or we all are. Better to destroy her than to arrest those guilty of real crimes, arrest people some of us voted into high office.
“We were just taking orders.”

Where have we heard that before, Nuremberg? It isn’t just this one life. We already killed over a million people in our ill fated invasion of Iraq.
Fog of War. We know better, everyone with eyes to see knows better, know it now. Then why are we still acting like criminals? No more lies. We are at war, a war with real enemies. We have so little, our short lives, our families and what we believe in.

Did a tiny crippled woman, illegally imprisoned for years try to murder a room of FBI, Special Forces and Blackwater/CIA operatives?

I can tell you this: If I get my butt kicked by a 100 pound woman in a wheel chair, you won’t see me in front of a jury in New York City crying for my mama.

The only possible answer is that everyone involved in the trial of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui is a liar. Nothing else is possible. I know why they lied, they were ordered to “for the good of the service.” Was there something in the oath involving “protect and defend the Constitution of the United States of America unless told to lie for the good of the service?”

What are we protecting?

Once the public learns that we are buying phony terror suspects from the worlds largest drug dealers, people we are protecting, people flooding our streets with narcotics, there might be problems. Best not let the public know why we never found those weapons of mass destruction, that yellow cake uranium, those mobile bio-weapons labs or why our continual search for Osama bin Laden keeps failing.

The deal of the century, destroying an innocent life and earning the hate of a valued ally, all to stand behind the lies and rhetoric of America’s “dark age.” We would be lucky if it were only every citizen of Pakistan that was enraged at us for this travesty. It is worse, far worse.

Who are the real terrorists? In Pakistan, Admiral Sirohey, friend to half a dozen American Presidents is heading to a peaceful protest. What can we, Americans, claim? If kidnapping, torture, rape and covering it up by letting the victim rot in prison isn’t terrorism, I don’t know what is.

We should be thankful for that seat on the UN Security Council. We may need it for more than covering up for Israel. The next nation facing sanctions for international crimes may be us. All that stands between us and being cut off from the world is our veto. All that is keeping an entire administration from War Crimes trials is the Bush administrations withdrawal from the International Criminal Court at the Hague.
Why is President Obama allowing the outrages of the Bush administration to continue?

SOURCE: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2010/03/03/gordon-duff-freeing-dr-aafia-a-matter-of-honor/#respond

Controversies regarding Obama’s visit to Golden Temple

Ishaal Zehra

According to the New York Times, US President Barack Obama has cancelled a visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar — Sikhism’s holiest shrine — where he would be required to cover his head in line with the religion’s practices.

During his state visit to India early next month, Obama was scheduled to tour the Golden temple in India, which is supposed to be cancelled over apparent (rather weird) concerns that photos of him with his head covered would revive claims he is a Muslim.

The Golden Temple in Amritsar, India

The Golden Temple of Amritsar got the world wide fame after the 1984 Sikh Massacre by the then government of India headed by Ms Indira Gandhi. This golden temple issue along with the 16th-century Babri Mosque’s demolition (which was once famous for its Mughal architecture) followed by huge Muslim massacre back in 1992, are the nastiest jewels in the crown of Indian democracy. Not very far behind them is the unforgettable anti Christian violence in Orrisa back in 2008.

For Mr. Obama, who seems to be seeking to cement the crucial but sometimes testy relationship between two of the world’s biggest democracies, the temple and the Babri mosque in Ayodhiya could supposedly be two of few possible milieu that could be intended to convey America’s kinship with India’s minorities.

The President's visit to India in November has been marked with heightened jubilation, especially from the Sikh community but to the dismay of Sikhs in Amritsar, according to informed sources, though the American leader’s programme in India was still being finalised, he was unlikely to visit Amrtisar.

The Sikh community in India, on the other hand, expressed disappointment.

“We do expect people to cover their heads. Obama is welcome inside the temple. He could just wear a cap,” said Gurubachan Singh, a senior official from the Golden Temple management trust.

As per the recent press release of UNITED SIKHS, Avtar Singh Makkar, President of Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee (SGPC), told the President of UNITED SIKHS, Kuldip Singh, that they imposed no restrictions on how President Obama could cover his head.

Mr. Makkar further stated that: "The only requirement is that his head is covered and that his shoes are removed inside the Darbar Sahib complex, as is the custom for all visitors. It is to remember that most tourists use simple squares of cloth sold outside the temple.

The Sikh community in India believes President Obama not visiting Harmandar Sahib would be a missed opportunity to educate the world community about rights of minorities generally, and specifically, the distinctiveness of the Sikh identity. In the past, both the Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Queen of England covered their heads while visiting Harmandar Sahib.

Moreover, the rampant misinformation is in direct contrast to the President's actions of championing religious tolerance and diversity. For example, President Obama has always been comfortable and respected the customs of other faith traditions, as exhibited by his trip to the Wailing Wall in Israel where he wore a yarmulke. Thus, the recent news must be viewed with some skepticism.

During his visit to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem, President Obama wearing a yarmulke.

Earlier, the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, SGPC made it clear that US President Barack Obama may sport anything on his head, a golf cap if he likes, as and when he enters the Golden Temple.

For a religious minority group that has often remained invisible to the world, the Sikh community in India had the enviable opportunity to welcome for the first time a head of state from the United States, which is now seems to get impossible. But the question is why this cap issue is being taken so seriously? If president Obama can wear a yarmulke which more or less looks like a cap then what is the issue of covering head with a piece of cloth or something? Or is it really the Indian government who does not want their cruel face to be shown to the president hence avoiding his trip to the golden temple and not having a trip to the 16th century Babri mosque residue left after its demolition by the fanatic Hindus in 1992. Or may be the Indian government is keen to the idea of declaiming ‘All is Well’ again and again with closed eyes hence does not want the president Obama open the grey chapters of Indian history by visiting such controversial places.

Americans are likely to inform the Indian side about a change in the President’s plan when the US Under Secretary of State William Burns and chief point person for South Asia Robert Blake visit New Delhi for a final round of talks to set the agenda for Obama’s visit. But a solemn request to the president Obama is that when Obama, who is likely to arrive in Mumbai on November 6, is supposed to stay at the Taj Hotel, which was one of the places attacked on November 26, 2008 and is also scheduled to visit other spots that were attacked by the terrorists that night, apparently to express solidarity with India in its fight against terrorism, then why cant he express harmony to the Indian minorities of Sikhs and Muslims by visiting their Holy places, none the less they make a part of India too.