Cyprus-Forum.com

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A Year With Obama – and US Foreign Relations Have Only Worsened

"Who would have thought a year ago that most of the issues of conflict in America’s foreign relations would be made worse during the first year following Barack Obama’s election as U.S. president?

Even those disputes or differences that were appeased or quiet a year ago are now worse. On Iraq, the new president has faithfully followed the policy of George W. Bush, and now Iraq threatens breakdown."

http://original.antiwar.com/pfaff/2009/ ... ith-obama/

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U.S. is doing no good in Afghanistan

“As an Afghan woman who was elected to Parliament, I am in the United States to ask President Barack Obama to immediately end the occupation of my country.

Eight years ago, women's rights were used as one of the excuses to start this war. But today, Afghanistan is still facing a women's rights catastrophe. Life for most Afghan women resembles a type of hell that is never reflected in the Western mainstream media.”

http://www.mercurynews.com/opinion/ci_1 ... ck_check=1

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Major Hasan Sought 'War Crimes' Prosecution of U.S. Soldiers

Major Nidal Malik Hasan's military superiors repeatedly ignored or rebuffed his efforts to open criminal prosecutions of soldiers he claimed had confessed to "war crimes" during psychiatric counseling, according to investigative reports circulated among federal law enforcement officials.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/officials ... id=9019904

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CIA Secret 'Torture' Prison Found at Fancy Horseback Riding Academy

The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week.

http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/cia-secre ... id=9115978

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American War Crimes flooding in…

Soldier defends decision to reveal murders of Iraqi detainees

A former Army sergeant who revealed the murders of four Iraqis at a canal in 2007 says he has no regrets about breaking his silence.

"I did the right thing," Jess Cunningham told CNN's "AC360°." "I'm not going to hide behind false brotherhood."

Nine months after the March 2007 murders, Cunningham told his Army lawyer what had happened at the canal. Eventually, three sergeants would be convicted of premeditated murder and conspiracy to commit premeditated murder.

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/11/19/army.t ... index.html

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US trained butchers of Timor

Exclusive: Washington trained death squads in secret while Britain has spent £1m helping Indonesian army

Indonesian military forces linked to the carnage in East Timor were trained in the United States under a covert programme sponsored by the Clinton Administration which continued until last year.

The Observer can also disclose that the Government has spent about £1 million in training more than 50 members of the Indonesian military in Britain since it came to power. Human rights campaigners claim a number of these are likely to have links with those complicit in the attrocities.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/1999/se ... easttimor1

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Why They Hate Us on military occupation

One of the many barriers to developing a saner U.S. foreign policy is our collective failure to appreciate why military occupations generate so much hatred, resentment, and resistance, and why we should therefore go to enormous lengths to avoid getting mired in them. Costly occupations are an activity you hope your adversaries undertake, especially in areas of little intrinsic strategic value. We blundered into Somalia in the early 1990s without realizing that we weren't welcome; we invaded Iraq thinking we would be greeted as liberators, and we still don't fully understand why many Afghans resent our presence and why some are driven to take up arms against us.

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/200 ... occupation

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Obama Quietly Backs PATRIOT Act Provisions

With the health care debate preoccupying the mainstream media, it has gone virtually unreported that the Barack Obama administration is quietly supporting renewal of provisions of the George W. Bush-era USA PATRIOT Act that civil libertarians say infringe on basic freedoms.

http://original.antiwar.com/fisher/2009 ... rovisions/

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Subtle little clues that indicate a war criminal…

Obama administration will not sign land mine ban

The Obama administration has decided not to sign an international convention banning land mines.

State Department spokesman Ian Kelly said Tuesday that the administration recently completed a review and decided not to change the Bush-era policy.
"We decided that our land mine policy remains in effect," he said.

More than 150 countries have agreed to the Mine Ban Treaty's provisions to end the production, use, stockpiling and trade in mines. Besides the United States, holdouts include: China, India, Pakistan, Myanmar and Russia.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... 403S69.DTL

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The 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner loves Landmines!

Groups Denounce Obama Rejection of Landmine Treaty

Human rights and disarmament activists reacted bitterly Wednesday to the decision by the administration of President Barack Obama, who will receive the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize next month, not to sign the 10-year-old treaty banning anti-personnel landmines.

The U.S. Campaign to Ban Landmines (USCBL), a coalition of scores of activist groups, called the administration’s decision "shocking," while Human Rights Watch (HRW), one of the Campaign’s most influential members, described it as "reprehensible."

http://original.antiwar.com/lobe/2009/1 ... ne-treaty/