Creepy

U.S. Supreme Court Upholds State Medical Marijuana Laws

(ChattahBox)—The U.S. Supreme court on Monday, upheld the right of states to implement and administer their own medical marijuana laws, affirming the long held position that federal law does not preempt state medical marijuana laws. The Supreme Court refused to hear San Diego's case against California, where it claimed it wasn't required to issue state mandated medical marijuana IDs, because the federal ban on marijuana trumped California's law.

This decision today comes as great news to the thousands of patients in California suffering from chronic pain and various medical conditions, who can now benefit from the use of medical marijuana. Ten California conservative holdout counties have been fighting the state's medical marijuana ID law since 2004, stubbornly refusing to issue the IDs with a doctor's approval to patients requesting them.

The state IDs are required for a patient to enter medical marijuana dispensaries and are needed to show to police to prove the right to possess the drug.

Today's decision removes the last barrier to full implementation of California's medical marijuana laws on a statewide basis. The conservative holdout counties no longer can refuse to comply with state law, based on their faulty federal preemption argument.

This ruling also has positive implications for other states that are planning to enact medical marijuana legislation. To date, thirteen states have enacted laws permitting the use of marijuana for medical purposes with a doctor's approval. The states of Illinois, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New Jersey and New York are also considering medical marijuana laws.

http://chattahbox.com/us/2009/05/18/us-supreme-court-upholds-state-medical-marijuana-laws/

Suu Kyi trial a 'mockery,' laureates say

YANGON, Myanmar, May 19 (UPI) -- The trial of Myanmar opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi and a U.S. citizen moved into its second day Tuesday, with nine Nobel laureates calling it a "mockery."

Prosecutors indicated they plan to call 22 witnesses against the Nobel Peace Prize winner, who has been under house arrest for 13 of the last 19 years.

She is on trial with Amerinca John Yettaw, who is charged with violating the conditions of Suu Kyi's house arrest, CNN reported.

The woman's supporters maintain the charges are an excuse by the military junta of the country formerly known as Burma to extend her house arrest.

"The trial is a mockery," nine Nobel Peace prize winners said in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon Monday, urging his intervention. Signatories included Costa Rican President Oscar Arias and Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa.

"There is no judicial system in Burma," the letter said. "It is clear that this is an excuse by the military junta to add trumped-up charges at a time when Daw (an honorific recognition) Aung San Suu Kyi's unlawful detention was scheduled to end May 27, 2009."

The charges stem from May 3, when Yettaw allegedly swam almost two miles across a lake behind Suu Kyi's home and stayed for two days.

http://www.upi.com/Top_News/2009/05/19/Suu-Kyi-trial-a-mockery-laureates-say/UPI-21611242732011/

Quarrel on the Titanic

by Uri Avnery

 

ONE OF THE HAPPIEST moments in my life occurred in a restaurant.

It happened before the second intifada. I had invited Rachel to celebrate her birthday with dinner at a famous restaurant in Ramallah.

We were sitting in the garden under strings of colorful lights, the air was fragrant with the perfume of flowers and the waiters were hurrying back and forth with laden trays. We ate Mussakhan, the Palestinian national dish (chicken with tahini baked on pita bread), and I drank arak. Our waiter, who had overheard us talking, took our order in Hebrew. We were the only Israelis there. At the nearby tables, Arab families with the children in their best clothes, as well as a bride and groom with their wedding guests. Bursts of laughter punctuated the murmur of Arabic conversations, and spirits were high.

I was happy, and a sigh escaped me: "How wonderful this country could be, if only we had peace!"

I THINK of that moment every time I hear sad news from Ramallah. The news is depressing, but the memory helps me to keep alive my hope that things could be different.

The most depressing news concerns the split between the Palestinians themselves. This split is a disaster for them, and, I believe, also for Israel and the world at large. That's why I dare to comment on a matter that seemingly does not concern us Israelis. It does.

It is easy to blame Israel. Easy and also justified. In their struggle against the national aspirations of the Palestinians, successive Israeli governments have applied the old Roman maxim divide et impera, divide and rule.

Since the Oslo agreement, the central component of this policy has been the physical separation between the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

Article IV of the Oslo Agreement of September 1993 says: "The two sides view the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as a single territorial unit, whose integrity will be preserved".

Article X of Annex 1 of the Interim Agreement of September 1995 says: "There shall be a safe passage connecting the West Bank with the Gaza Strip for movement of persons, vehicles and goods…Israel will ensure safe passage for persons and transportation during daylight hours…in any event not less than 10 hours a day."

In practice, the safe passage was never opened. Among all the blatant violations of the Oslo agreements, this was the most severe. Its consequences have been disastrous for both sides.

True, there was a lot of talking about the passage. Ehud Barak once fantasized about constructing a giant bridge between the West Bank and the Strip, after seeing such a 40 km long bridge somewhere abroad. Others spoke about a tunnel underneath Israeli territory. Yet others proposed an extraterritorial highway or railway. None of these ideas was ever implemented. On the contrary, while before Oslo there had been free movement for all, including the inhabitants of the occupied territories, after Oslo this freedom was abolished.

THE PRETEXT was – as always – security: convoys of murderers and terrorists would pack the safe passage, trucks loaded with Palestinian rockets would drive to and fro. But the consequences disclose the true aim: what remained of Palestine was cut into two disconnected parts.

One cannot rule a territory without physical contact with it. That was proven in Pakistan, which was founded as a state with two disconnected parts separated by Indian territory. Soon enough, war between the two broke out and the Eastern part became the independent state of Bangladesh.

According to the latest Palestinian statistics, which seem reliable, there are now 2.42 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and 1.46 million in the Gaza Strip (in addition to 379 thousand in East Jerusalem). From Yasser Arafat I once heard that more than half of the Palestinian Authority's resources were being devoted to the Gaza Strip, in spite of the fact that the Strip amounted to only 6% (one sixteenth) of the Palestinian territories.

Now there exist in practice two Palestinian entities: the West Bank, whose actual capital is now Ramallah, and the Gaza Strip, with its capital Gaza city. From the political, economic and ideological points of view, the distance between them is growing.

And from the point of view of the Israeli occupation policy, that is a great victory.

THE ISRAELI government conducts different strategies against the two Palestinian entities.

Against Gaza, the policy is simple and brutal: to overthrow the Hamas government by turning the life of those 1,460,000 men and woman, old people and children, into hell. They are allowed to bring in only the most basic foodstuffs. There was an international outcry when Senator John Kerry discovered the import of noodles is prohibited, because pasta is apparently a luxury. "We shall not give them chocolate when Gilad Shalit is not getting chocolate," an army officer declared this week. It would be interesting to know how much chocolate the 11 thousand Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are getting.

http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1242507243/

Happy ‘Whitey Tape’ Eve!

by David Weigel

One year ago tomorrow—May 16, 2008—former CIA analyst and current security consultant Larry Johnson put up this blog post at his site "No Quarter."

I now have it from two sources that there is video dynamite–Michelle Obama railing against "whitey" at Jeremiah Wright's church. Republicans may have a lousy record when it comes to the economy and the management of the war in Iraq, but they are hell on wheels when it comes to opposition research. Someone took the chance and started reviewing the recordings from services at Jeremiah Wright's United Church of Christ. Holy smoke!! I am told there is a clip that is being held for the fall to drop at the appropriate time. The last thing Barack and Michelle need is a new clip that raises further questions about her judgment and temperament.

Johnson posted a video of a then-current Tennessee Republican ad attacking Michelle Obama, then continued his argument.

When the ugly video tapes about Jeremiah Wright's racist ravings first broke Barack Obama told us he could no more disown Jeremiah Wright than his own Grandmother. Well, we all know how that turned out. So will Barack stand by Michelle when the tape emerges of her verbally attacking "whitey?" Republicans, who are otherwise gloomy about prospects in November, recognize that this recording will create real problems for Barack and give them a shot at the White House. It is their October surprise.

Does Barack have an obligation to tell the Democrats, super delegates in particular, about this tape? Did Barack and his campaign do their basic homework and identify this tape as a potential problem? And, more importantly, do they have a copy? Probably better to deal with this issue before the convention rather than wait for October. What do you think?

The post drew more than 600 comments and kicked off three heated weeks of blog-driven rumormongering which I recapped at the time for The American Prospect. One year later, no such tape has ever surfaced.

http://washingtonindependent.com/43284/happy-whitey-tape-eve

Pizza Vending Machine

WE'RE LIVING IN THE FUTURE!! If we've accomplished this, I can barely imagine what's next. Pizza pills? Pizza trees? Pizzas that cure cancer? Pizzas that can fly us to the Moon? What a great time to be alive.

 

See more funny videos and Technology Videos at Today's Big Thing.

 

http://bit.ly/DEOZa

 

The Ugly Truth Behind Organic Food | Environment

The organic labeling standards do nothing to denote how farms treat their workers. Is your organic food a humanitarian nightmare?

By Sarah Newman

Is it time for a strawberry to make a political statement, again?

I'm standing on a farm south of San Francisco that is unremarkable in that it, like all of the other farms in the area, is a golden canvas of brilliant yellow flowers with the occasional patchwork of verdant greens, early signs of this year's season sprouting up.

It's a slice of California's multibillion-dollar agricultural region that spreads east through the state's Central Valley, down the coast toward Salinas -- America's salad bowl -- all the way to the Mexican border and north toward Oregon. While still a small minority, a growing number of these farms are now organic.

Plenty of people, including me, prefer organic produce because it is healthier and safer. But this certification does nothing to ensure that it was produced with sustainable agricultural practices.

The little strawberry I'm munching is part of a bigger story that begins in the fields and ends on your plate. It's the story of a lucrative industry that offers consumers a commodity at a low-cost but with high consequences.

Forming the backbone of this industry are the oft-forgotten armies of farmworkers who travel California's freeway arteries to plant and harvest crops in every corner of this region. The policies that oppress the 2 million people who grow our food betray its true costs.

Food writer and activist Eric Schlosser, speaking at the Slow Food Nation conference in San Francisco last fall, said that he would rather eat a conventional tomato picked by well-treated workers than a local heirloom variety harvested by oppressed workers.

The strawberry I've just plucked from a neatly lined row of plants was grown at Swanton Berry Farm, the first organic berry farm in California and the first organic unionized farm in the nation.

The Golden State has nearly 1,800 organic growers, according to 2005 agricultural records -- 30 percent of all of the state's farms. And Swanton Berry is in a class by itself, a renegade operation that is bucking the corporate trends of many of its counterparts.

It's a small farm operating on 200 leased acres with 50 staff during peak season. Its products are sold on farm stands, at regional farmers markets stands and some Whole Foods Markets. At first glance, it looks like all of the other picturesque farms in the area, with weathered handmade signs that invite passers-by to pick their own or buy fresh produce, pies and jams from the farm stand.

But inside the farm's store and visitor lounge, the scene is markedly different from neighboring operations. Delicate glass shelves, lined with fresh berry pies, strawberry chocolate truffles, homemade jams and T-shirts (all for sale through an honor-system cash register), also include photos of United Farm Workers Founder Cesar Chavez. Memorialized near the door is the story of the farm's unionization process in 1998. Farm Manager Forrest Cook sits at his computer in a corner below an enormous photograph of Chavez.

And it struck me, why is this place such an anomaly in the organic movement?

http://www.alternet.org/environment/140001/the_ugly_truth_behind_organic_food/

Court Orders Parents to Poison Their 13-Year-Old Child with Chemotherapy

 

by Mike Adams the Health Ranger

Against the wishes of both the parents and the 13-year-old patient in question, a Minnesota judge has ruled that Daniel Hauser must undergo conventional chemotherapy treatments, which are characterized by the mass-poisoning of the patient with toxic chemicals.

For opting to explore alternative and natural remedies rather than chemotherapy for their son, the parents were accused of medical neglect and now face having their son taken away from them by Child Protective Services (CPS). They may also face prison time if they refuse to follow the judge's orders.

Daniel was diagnosed with Hodgkin's Lymphoma, a health condition that is widely known by alternative cancer practitioners to be reversible (curable), especially in younger patients. Conventional medical doctors have told the courts that unless Daniel is subjected to toxic chemotherapy treatments, he has a 95% chance of dying.

That statistics is an outright lie. It is one of the many deceptive statistics put forth by the cancer industry in order to scare patients into submitting to extremely toxic protocols that cause far more harm than good.

There is not a single cancer patient that has ever been cured by chemotherapy. Zero. They don't exist. Not a single documented case in the history of western medicine.

And why is that? Because conventional medicine operates from the false belief that there is no cure for cancer! Thus, anyone offering a cure (or assisting in the body's own natural reversal of the disease) is immediately dismissed as a quack. Meanwhile, the real quackery is found in the pushing of toxic chemotherapy chemicals that are injected into the bodies of patients and called "treatment" when they should really be called "torture." (Nancy Pelosi, by the way, was never briefed on the fact that chemotherapy is torture...)

What's most disturbing in all of this, of course, is that the state is now forcing parents to poison their own children, requiring they hand over money to Big Pharma and conventional cancer treatment centers. The concept of freedom of choice has been stolen away from parents. The idea of protecting your children from toxic chemicals has been not just nullified, but made illegal!

Furthermore, the whole universe of natural cancer cures that really work has been sidelined by this Minnesota judge who is, no doubt, completely ignorant on cancer and human physiology. All these were utterly ignored: Vitamin D (http://www.naturalnews.com/008567.html), selenium, oxygen therapy, medicinal mushrooms, microalgae, Amazon rainforest herbs, Chinese Medicine herbs, high-dose vitamin C, raw foods juicing, wild foods extracts, superfood powders, raw cacao, broccoli sprouts and a thousand other things that we know help the body reverse various cancers.

All these things were apparently thrown out of the courtroom and almost certainly disparaged by drug-pushing doctors who claim that only their own chemicals can treat this disease.

http://www.naturalnews.com/026283.html

Guatemala Protests: Eyewitness Cellphone Video from Twitterers

by Xeni Jardin

(Download / Watch on YouTube)

This past Sunday in Guatemala, tens of thousands of people gathered in the capital city to protest the assassination of an attorney who blamed president Álvaro Colom for his imminent murder in a posthumously-released YouTube Video.

Boing Boing Video viewer (and BB blog reader) Maria Figueroa (@thevenemousone on Twitter) was there with friends, and she sent us this eyewitness report captured on her cellphone.

Twitter has played a central role in this still-unfolding crisis: protests have been organized on this and other social networks, and Twitter user Jean "@jeanfer" Anleu went to jail last week for having posted a tweet related to the scandal. Authorities released him to house arrest, and he was forced to pay a $6,500 fine (for which he is now in debt).

The video featured here was shot on Maria's phone just as the protest was assembling. Her photos from Sunday's protest are here on Flickr. Here are more video clips documenting the protests.

http://www.boingboing.net/2009/05/18/bb-video---guate-pro.html

Avoiding Gripes About Your Gripe (or Parody) Site

 

Here's a story we hear a lot at EFF: You think BadCo, Inc. is a bad actor and you've developed a really cool site to tell the world why. Maybe just by griping about them or maybe through a bit of parody. Fast forward two weeks: you're basking in the pleasure of calling BadCo out when bam! You find out your site's been shut down. You call your internet service provider to find out what's going on. After way too much time climbing phone trees and sitting on hold you get an answer — BadCo has claimed that your site violates its intellectual property rights.

The above scenario is all too common — and, often, could have been avoided (or at least discouraged) by a few simple measures. Below, we'll give you some tips for warding off complaints about your gripe or parody site. But first, some background on common claims and defenses.

Trademark

Also available as a PDF

Many trademark owners are not happy when they see their marks (e.g., the name of the company [like McDonald's], logos [like Nike's swoosh] and or trademarked phrases [like "Let's Get Ready to Rumble!"]) on their critics' websites or in a domain name. They may argue (to the site owner or webhost) that these uses infringe their trademarks, dilute their trademarks, and/or constitute cybersquatting. Infringement means using a mark in such a way as to cause a likelihood of confusion as to the source of good or services; dilution means using a nationally famous mark (like Coca-Cola) in a way that tarnishes the mark or blurs the connection in the consumer's mind between the mark and the mark-owner's goods or services; cybersquatting means using a domain name with a bad faith intent to profit from the goodwill associated with someone's trademark.

However, several courts have held that U.S. trademark law does not reach entirely noncommercial uses. In addition, your use may be a nominative fair use if:

1. It's not easy to identify the product/company without using a mark (e.g., using the term "Chicago Bulls" instead of "the basketball team that plays in Chicago");
2. Only so much is used as is necessary to identify the product/company and accomplish your purpose; and
3. You do nothing to suggest the mark-owner has endorsed or sponsored your site.

Finally, your use may be protected by the First Amendment — if use of the mark is part of your message, courts will consider whether the First Amendment interest in free expression outweighs the public interest in preventing consumer confusion.

A trademark claim will normally start with a cease and desist letter sent to you or your service provider. This kind of letter is designed to accomplish the mark-owner's objectives relatively cheaply, i.e., without the expense of going to court. If you or your service provider refuse to comply, the mark-owner may let the matter go, may sue, or, if it is primarily interested in your domain name, may seek to have the domain name transferred under the Uniform Domain Name Dispute Resolution Policy (UDRP). According to the UDRP, a mark-owner who believes a domain name was registered and is being used in bad faith may demand an arbitrator be assigned to assess the matter. If so, you'll have a chance to explain your position to the arbitrator. If the arbitrator nonetheless orders a transfer (note that URDP decisions overwhelmingly tend to favor established mark-owners), you can ask a U.S. court to intervene.

Copyright

Some complaints we've seen are based on alleged copyright violations, i.e., a claim that the website infringes original creative material owned by the complaining party. Usually this will take the form of a Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) notice to you or your service provider. In 1998, Congress granted online service providers (like hosting services) certain protections from copyright infringement liability, so long as they meet certain requirements. One requirement of this "DMCA safe harbor" is that online service providers must implement a "notice-and-takedown" system. Under this system, your provider has strong incentives to take down your site as long as the notice it receives complies with the DMCA. However, if you believe your copying, if any, was a fair use (or otherwise noninfringing), you can submit a counter-notice and call the copyright owner's bluff. If the copyright owner does not file suit in federal court within 10-14 business days, your site should go back up.

How do you decide whether your use is fair? In evaluating whether something is a fair use, courts generally consider four factors:

1. The nature of your use (transformative works are more likely to be fair uses, as are noncommercial works);
2. The nature of the copyrighted work (you have more fair use leeway with factual works like news stories than purely creative works);
3. The amount taken from the copyrighted work (this is both a quantitative and qualitative inquiry); and
4. The effect on the market for or value of the work.

No one factor is dispositive, and the cases say that all the issues need to be considered together, rather than simply calculating a win-loss record on the four factors.

Fair use is a big topic. Fortunately, there are excellent resources online that explain it in more detail (e.g., Stanford's Copyright and Fair Use Center and Chilling Effects). For a comparison of copyright and trademark fair use, and lots of information about protecting speech online, check out Public Citizen's Legal Perils and Legal Rights of Internet Speakers. You may also want to explore EFF's own Blogger's Legal Guide.

It is not always easy to figure out the exact basis of a complaint — copyright, trademark, or something else. If the complaint went to your service provider, ask them to tell you the exact basis for the complaint and give you a copy of any documents they have received.

Avoiding Trouble in the First Place

Whatever the nature of the complaint, dealing with it can be time-consuming, intimidating and interfere with your ability to accomplish your main purpose: legitimate criticism. Fortunately, there are some simple things you can do in advance to either stave off complaints, or give yourself some tools to nip them in the bud:

1. Be noncommercial — no ads, no links to commercial sites, no affiliate links, no Café Press T-shirt sales, no fundraising if you can help it. Several court rulings have held that noncommercial uses fall entirely outside the reach of federal trademark laws, and lack of commerciality can weigh in your favor under copyright law as well.
2. Don't use the target's name alone in the domain name — adding "sucks" is good, but you can be creative. Point is, www.badco.com is more likely to be perceived by a trademark owner as confusing than www.ihatebadco.com. And remember, if your content is good and people link to it, your site will likely come up in Google searches for your topic, no matter what your domain name is. Often, the domain name isn't worth the trouble.
3. Have a prominent disclaimer that explains that your target is neither affiliated with nor endorses your site.
4. Find a service provider with backbone. All too often, internet service providers will choose to take your site down simply because it's cheaper to do so than to pay a lawyer to evaluate whether your target's claims have merit. Services that have stood up for their customers' free speech rights in the past are Computer Tyme, MayFirst and Project DoD. A list of other service providers that reportedly "won't dump you at the first sign of controversy" can be found online.
5. If you borrow from the target's own materials, such as text or images from the target's own websites, be selective. Make sure that you have taken no more than necessary to accomplish your purpose. Consider altering them in such a way that no one could possibly be confused about endorsement or sponsorship.
6. If a mark-owner challenges your use of a mark in a domain name, don't offer to sell it to the mark-owner without the assistance of legal counsel. An offer to sell, particularly at an apparently inflated price, could be seen by a UDRP arbitrator (and possibly a U.S. court) as evidence that you are a cybersquatter.

To be clear: You don't need to follow any of these suggestions to have a perfectly legal site. On the flip side, following them won't guarantee you won't get complaints. But it should help minimize your legal risk, so you can focus on the primary task — raising public awareness about the issues that are important to you.

http://www.eff.org/wp/gripe-or-parody-sites

 

The myth of the parasitical bloggers

by Glenn Greenwald

Maureen Dowd's wholesale, uncredited copying of a paragraph written by Josh Marshall (an act Dowd has now admitted) -- for what I yesterday called her "uncharacteristically cogent and substantive column"-- highlights a point I've been meaning to make for awhile.  One of the favorite accusations that many journalists spout, especially now that they're searching for reasons why newspapers and print magazines are dying, is that bloggers and other online writers are "parasites" on their work -- that their organizations bear the cost of producing content and others (bloggers and companies such as Google) then unfairly exploit it for free.

The reality has always been far more mixed than that, and the relationship far more symbiotic than parasitical.  Especially now that online traffic is such an important part of the business model of newspapers and print magazines, traffic generated by links from online venues and bloggers is of great value to them.  That's why they engage in substantial promotional activities to encourage bloggers to link to and write about what they produce.  Beyond that, it is also very common -- as the Dowd/Marshall episode illustrates -- for traditional media outlets and establishment journalists to use and even copy content produced online and then present it as their own, typically without credit.  Many, many reporters, television news producers and the like read online political commentary and blogs and routinely take things they find there.

Typically, the uncredited use of online commentary doesn't rise to the level of blatant copying -- plagiarism -- that Maureen Dowd engaged in.  It's often not even an ethical breach at all.  Instead, traditional media outlets simply take stories, ideas and research they find online and pass it off as their own.  In other words -- to use their phraseology -- they act parasitically on blogs by taking content and exploiting it for their benefit.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/18/parasites/

Remix Culture: Fair Use Is Your Friend

Montreal cop cuffs, busts and fines student $450 for not holding escalator rail in subway

by LES PERREAUX

MONTREAL — Anyone who has ridden an escalator and bothered to pay attention has seen – and likely ignored – little signs suggesting riders hold the grimy handrail.

In Montreal's subway system, the friendly advice seems to have taken on the force of law, backed by a $100 fine.

Bela Kosoian, a 38-year-old mother of two, says when she didn't hold the handrail Wednesday she was cuffed, dragged into a small holding cell and fined.

"It was horrible, disgusting behaviour [by police]," said Ms. Kosoian, a 38-year-old student of international law. "I did nothing wrong. They should go find the guys who stole my tires off the balcony."

Ms. Kosoian, who studies at the Université du Québec à Montreal, was riding an escalator down to catch a 5:30 p.m. subway from the suburb of Laval to an evening class downtown when she started rifling through her backpack looking for a fare.

Ms. Kosoian, who grew up in Georgia when it was still part of the Soviet Union, says she didn't catch the officer's instruction to hold the rail when he first approached.

When he told her again to hang on, she says she replied, "I don't have three hands." Besides, she had been sick and feared catching a new bug.

That's when the officer demanded identification so he could write her ticket, she said.

Ms. Kosoian started arguing. The officers handcuffed her and threw her into a small holding cell. The officers searched her bag and gave her a $100 ticket for failing to hold the banister and another $320 ticket for obstruction.

The handcuffs bruised Ms. Kosoian's wrists and an officer's boot scraped skin off the top of her foot.

She intends to fight the tickets.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090515.wescalator16/BNStory/National/home

 

US journo claims Bhutto was killed on Cheney’s orders

New York, May 18 (ANI): A special death squad assassinated Pakistan's former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto on the orders of former US Vice-President Dick Cheney, an Arab TV channel has reported.

"Cheney was the chief of the Joint Special Operation Command and he cleared the way for the US by exterminating opponents through the unit and the CIA. General Stanley was the in-charge of the unit," The Nation quoted US columnist Seymour Hersh, as saying.

The US death unit killed Bhutto because she had told Al-Jazeera TV about the assassination of Osama Bin Laden, Hersh said.

The US leadership did not want Osama to be declared dead. It would have raised questions about the US Army's presence in Afghanistan, he claimed.

According to Hersh, the former Lebanese PM Rafique Al Hariri and the army chief were murdered for not safeguarding US interests and for refusing to set up US military bases in Lebanon.

Ariel Sharon, the then prime minister of Israel, was also a key man in the plot, he said.

http://www.thaindian.com/newsportal/south-asia/us-journo-claims-bhutto-was-killed-on-cheneys-orders_100194038.html

Lofty principles