Tag: Spain

According to RawStory this morning:

A Spanish judge has decided to go ahead with the prosecution of six Bush administration lawyers – including former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales – who were the architects of the legal framework for President George W. Bush “enhanced interrogation” program, according to a report in the Spanish newspaper Publico. (Original article here; Google translation here.)

The six Bush administration alumni targeted in the prosecution are former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; John Yoo, author of the “torture memos”; Douglas Feith, then a deputy defense secretary; Pentagon lawyer William Haynes II; former assistant attorney general Jay Bybee; and David Addington, a former chief of staff to then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

According to Andy Worthington at AfterDowningStreet.org, Judge Baltasar Garzon has rejected prosecutors’ request, made last April, to throw the case out. Prosecutors had argued the case was politically motivated.

“Latin America’s Document-Driven Revolutions” is an interesting article at the Washington Post – interesting because of the subject and because of how ripe it is with pro-American imperialism propaganda with no sense of irony.

From the introductory paragraph:

Once a product of armed rebellion, the revolution in Latin America today is taking place on paper in the form of new constitutions, a mostly peaceful process influenced by the work of European legal scholars who have played a behind-the-scenes role in drafting the populist documents.

The U.S. has long meddled in Latin America and has backed those violent means of change. While Europeans have opted to contribute to a more peaceful path. Of course, Europe has a violent history in Latin America too… it goes back a bit father than the Monroe Doctrine.

What was done?

cross posted at The Dream Antilles

This morning’s New York Times reports that Spain will investigate whether a previous government permitted Spanish territory to be used in transporting prisoners to Gitmo.  One thing is obvious.  Yes, Spain permitted its territory to be used to transport prisoners.

According to The Times

Spain will investigate whether a previous government allowed Spanish territory to be used to transport captured terrorism suspects to Guantanamo Bay, the Foreign Ministry said Sunday.

The ministry said in a statement it had not been informed whether the government of Jose Maria Aznar, in power from 1996 to 2004, allowed CIA flights carrying captured foreigners to use Spanish air space or runways.

The newspaper El Pais said in a report Sunday that it had obtained a government document showing that a U.S. official asked the Foreign Ministry for such access in January 2002. El Pais published the document — labeled MUY SECRETO, or top secret — in its paper and Web site editions.

The request was communicated to Josep Pique, who was foreign minister, hours before a CIA flight landed at Moron air base in southwest Spain, the El Pais report said.

cross posted from The Dream Antilles



La Bloguera Yoani Sanchez

Well, to no one’s surprise, Cuba wouldn’t relent and permit Yoani Sanchez to travel to Spain to receive the Ortega y Gasset prize, despite my post yesterday urging Raul Castro to permit her to go.

AP reports:

A Cuban woman who gained worldwide acclaim for a blog that offers stinging criticism of the Communist regime was honored Wednesday with a Spanish journalism award – in absentia.

Cuban authorities did not approve Yoani Sanchez’s request to travel to Madrid for the award ceremony. But the 32-year-old woman was still able to make some points.

“Nothing of what I have written in these 13 months speaks as loudly as my absence from this ceremony,” Sanchez said in a tape recording.

She said the fact she had to address the group through a recording was “the clearest evidence of the defenselessness of the Cuban people with respect to the state.”

Meanwhile, her blog receives more than 1 million hits a month (my blog receives less than 1 thousand).  And it continues to voice opposition to repression in Cuba.  It’s gotten some attention from Andrew Sullivan, but in general, there hasn’t been much of an uproar, or support in Blogtopia for her right to travel or for her right to express herself without being penalized or calling for her to be allowed to leave Cuba long enough to visit Spain.

Why is that?  What exactly does it take to have bloggers advocate for freedom of expression across the entire Internet?  When are we going to understand the connections between all of us in the typing class?  When are we going to support freedom of speech, even if we don’t agree with the politics or content of what is being written?

I’m asking because I remember Martin Niemoeller.