Pope condemns child abuse by priests

The Obama administration’s failure to speak out more boldly against human rights abuses is a poor moral and a political choice.

The Obama administration’s record on human rights has been a major disappointment.

In part because the Bush administration abused the promotion of democracy and human rights to rationalize its militaristic policies in the Middle East and elsewhere, the Obama administration has at times been reluctant to be a forceful advocate for those struggling against oppression. For example, Obama was cautious in supporting the ongoing freedom struggle in Iran, in part because he believes that more overt advocacy could set back what he sees as the more critical issue of curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. He is also aware of how the history of U.S. interventionism in that country, overt threats of “regime change” by the previous administration, and the U.S. invasion of two neighboring countries in the name of promoting democracy could lead to a nationalist reaction to such grandstanding. (Despite this caution, however, the Iranian regime has falsely accused Obama of guiding the massive pro-democracy movement that is challenging the increasingly repressive rule in that country.)

Harder to defend is Obama’s continuation of the Bush administration’s policy of arming and training security forces in Saudi Arabia, Oman, Egypt, Jordan and other dictatorial regimes in the region.

During his highly anticipated address in Cairo last June, Obama failed to praise his autocratic host, Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak. He also invited leading critics of the regime, including secular liberals and moderate Islamists, to witness his speech. On the other hand, he refused to criticize the Mubarak regime, acknowledge its autocratic nature, or address any concern over its thousands of political prisoners — even when pushed to do so in a BBC interview. Indeed, Egyptian grassroots pro-democracy group Kefaya chose to boycott the speech, demanding that Obama show his commitment to democracy in deeds, not just words. Obama’s foreign aid budget includes over $1.5 billion in unconditional aid to the Mubarak dictatorship. And Washington didn’t publicly express concern when Egyptian police attacked American human rights activists attempting to deliver relief supplies to the besieged Gaza Strip last month.

Most of the opposition to Obama’s escalation of the war in Afghanistan has been based on cost and the dubious prospects of victory. But there is concern that the government for which Americans are expected to fight and die is a serious abuser of human rights. Not only did U.S.-backed Hamid Karzai steal the most recent presidential election, but his cabinet includes a number of notorious warlords who have engaged in serious crimes against humanity. Furthermore, U.S.-backed Afghan security forces have engaged in gross and systematic human rights violations, and U.S. bomb and missile attacks killed hundreds of civilians in Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan since Obama assumed office.

Similarly, U.S. forces remain in Iraq, and billions of dollars support the sectarian regime despite ongoing violations of human rights by Baghdad’s rulers. The recent dismissal of charges against U.S. Blackwater mercenaries, who massacred 17 unarmed civilians in Baghdad’s Al-Nusur Square, and the Obama administration’s refusal to extradite them to face justice have also raised concerns regarding the U.S. commitment to basic human rights.

Elsewhere in the Middle East, the Obama administration rejected calls by Amnesty International and other human rights groups to suspend military aid to Israel following its use of U.S. weaponry against civilian targets in last year’s war on the Gaza Strip, which resulted in more than 700 civilian deaths, over 300 of whom were children. Even worse, Obama has pledged to increase military aid over and above the more than $10 billion provided to the Israelis by the Bush administration. The Obama administration called on Israel to freeze expansion of its colonization efforts in the occupied West Bank and threatened to cut planned loan guarantees to the Israeli government if it continues to refuse. But Obama still rejects conditioning direct aid and has similarly refused to call on Israel to withdraw from the its illegal settlements, as required under international humanitarian law and confirmed through a series of UN Security Council resolutions.

When the UN Human Rights Council investigation led by Richard Goldstone documented war crimes by both Hamas and the Israeli government — confirming previous investigations by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and others — the Obama administration rejected the commission’s findings, calling them “deeply flawed.”  Rather than challenge the content of the meticulously documented 575-page report, U.S. officials instead issued strong but vague critiques. U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice was particularly critical of the report’s recommendation that Palestinians and Israelis suspected of war crimes should be tried before the International Criminal Court. “Our view is that we need to be focused on the future,” she argued.

The human rights community was initially pleased when Obama appointed Michael Posner, cofounder and director of Human Rights First, as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights. However, Posner took the lead in quashing the Goldstone Commission report, insisting it “should not be used as a mechanism to add impediments to getting back to the peace process.” Ironically, just weeks earlier, the Obama administration argued during a UN debate on Darfur that war crimes charges should never be sacrificed for political reasons.

The Obama administration has shown a lack of concern for democracy and human rights outside the Middle East as well. Washington initially raised objections to the coup in Honduras that ousted democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya. But then Obama — in opposition to virtually the entire hemisphere — recognized the November elections that took place under a censured media, widespread political repression, and a boycott by pro-democracy forces. The administration also pledged to continue sending over half a billion dollars of aid annually to the Colombian regime, despite its notoriously poor human rights record. It even signed an agreement that allows U.S. forces to be stationed at seven military bases across that country. Though ostensibly the focus is to curb the drug trade, such aid has also been used in broader counterinsurgency efforts that have serious human rights consequences.

Rejecting calls by liberal Democratic members of Congress, leading human rights groups, Pope Benedict XVI, and most of the international community to participate, the Obama administration decided to boycott the UN Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance in Geneva. And most disturbingly, the Obama administration decided to continue the Bush administration’s policy of remaining one of the few nations in the world to refuse to sign the international treaty banning landmines, completing its review process in secret without allowing for any input from human rights organizations.

Despite all this, there have been some gestures in support of individual human rights activists. For example, in an unprecedented move, the White House hosted the 2009 Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Award, with Obama personally honoring this year’s recipients, Women of Zimbabwe Arise, who have been struggling for human rights under the repressive Mugabe regime. The White House also intervened on behalf of the 2008 winner, Western Saharan nonviolent activist Aminatou Haidar, as she verged on death from a hunger strike following expulsion from her country by Moroccan occupation authorities. The Obama administration has failed, however, to demand that Morocco honor a series of UN Security Council resolutions and a World Court ruling allowing the people of Western Sahara the right of self-determination.

To Obama’s credit, there is now a subtle but important shift in the U.S. government’s discourse on human rights. The Bush administration pushed a rather superficial structuralist view of human rights. It focused, for instance, on elections — which can easily be rigged and manipulated in many cases — in order to change certain governments for purposes of expanding U.S. power and influence. Obama has taken more of an agency view of human rights, emphasizing the rights of free expression, particularly the right of protest, and recognizing that human rights reform can only come from below and not through imposed means.

In the short term, however, Obama’s failure to more boldly address human rights concerns have alienated much of Obama’s progressive base of support. The right wing, meanwhile, disingenuously portrays Obama as retreating from his predecessor’s supposed support for democracy and human rights. Although the Bush administration provided even more assistance to governments engaged in human rights abuses and used pro-democracy rhetoric largely as a ruse for empire, Obama’s lukewarm support for human rights has enabled right-wingers to seize the moral high ground. As a result, the perceived weakness of the Obama administration’s human rights record raises important ethical and political questions.

Source: http://www.ips-dc.org/articles/human_rights_c

Brainwashing America’s Youth: Obama Uses Public Schools To Indoctrinate Students; Required Reading: Alinsky’s “Rules for Radicals”

by Liz Blaine

Like all radicals in positions of power, President Obama’s army of citizen volunteers, Organizing for America, is recruiting high school students as interns to organize the President’s agenda in the 2010 election cycle. I quote,

“Organizing for America, the successor organization to Obama for America, is building on the movement that elected President Obama by empowering students across the country to help us bring about our agenda”

Pam Geller at Atlas Shrugs reports on students at Perry Local High School  in Massillon, Ohio who were given propaganda recruiting papers in government class to enlist students to sign up as interns for Obama’s Organizing for America.

With weekly curricula titled “Strategizing for Effective Change,” “Managing Events,” and “Working With The Media” one wonders exactly what training the students will receive. But you needn’t wonder much further than the next page of the application.

The shocking list of recommended reading during the internship includes

Ritual Abuse: Lawsuit Against Convicted Satanic Catholic Priest Dismissed because ‘Survivor Doe’ Filing is too Late, Judge Rules

A lawsuit alleging sexual abuse by Gerald Robinson, left, and others was dismissed by Common Pleas Judge Ruth Ann Franks.

By DAVID YONKE
TOLEDO BLADE | January 15, 2010

A lawsuit against Toledo priest Gerald Robinson, who was convicted in 2006 of murdering a nun, has been thrown out for being filed too late.

Judge Ruth Ann Franks of Lucas County Common Pleas Court said a Toledo woman’s civil suit, alleging that she was abused by Robinson and others in satanic rituals when she was a child, was not filed within Ohio’s statute of limitations, which in most cases is 12 years after the person turns 18.

The woman, now in her mid-40s, filed anonymously in 2005 as Survivor Doe along with her husband Spouse Doe, claiming that she could not have sued Robinson earlier because she did not know his identity until she saw him on television after his 2004 arrest for murder.

Mark Davis, the woman’s attorney, said he plans to appeal the ruling.

Judge Franks said in her 27-page decision, dated Tuesday, that while Survivor Doe did not know Robinson’s identity, she knew at least four people involved in the abuse and therefore could have attempted to learn the other abusers’ identities before the time limitations expired.

Judge Franks said child abuse may be the most “vile and vicious act that can be inflicted by a human” and that it stirs “very profound emotions,” but “the law does not allow the court to operate on emotion.”

She said Survivor Doe “could have sought assistance from law enforcement, and she could have attempted to act through other trusted individuals such as her husband” before the statute ex-pired.

Also named in the now-dismissed lawsuit were Gerald Mazuchowski, a Toledo lay Catholic; the Toledo Catholic Diocese, and St. Adalbert Parish and school, where some abuses allegedly occurred.

Survivor Doe claimed in the suit that she was sexually abused by the satanic cult between 1968 and 1975, and that her abusers included a hooded man “with evil eyes” and a hooded “fat” man who told other cult members what to do.

Judge Franks cited Survivor Doe as saying that she witnessed “her mother’s participation in the ritual-type murder of a child during the satanic rituals and of her brother sexually assaulting her with a snake at someone’s direction, also related to the satanic ritual abuse.”

The judge said the Toledo woman began to remember the satanic rituals in 1994, kept detailed journals she calls her “life’s work,” and sought assistance from an attorney in 1994 about possibly suing her uncle for child abuse in a separate matter.

Mr. Davis, Survivor Doe’s attorney, said he is convinced that “our case is even stronger this time … because the evidence is overwhelming that what she described is what actually happened.”

He said he believes an appeals court will side with Survivor Doe’s contention that the statute of limitations countdown should not have begun ticking until she recognized her alleged perpetrators.

Robinson’s attorney, John Donahue, said yesterday that he was “very pleased” with Judge Franks’ decision, calling it “sensitive to the concerns of child abuse victims” while also upholding the law – “that justice delayed is justice denied.”

Robinson, 71, is serving a 15-years-to-life sentence at Hocking Correctional Facility in southern Ohio for the 1980 murder of Sister Margaret Ann Pahl. He was barred from ministry and has retired from the diocese but remains a priest because he has not been laicized by the Vatican.

Sister Margaret Ann’s body was found, choked and stabbed 32 times, on the morning of April 5, 1980 – Holy Saturday – in the sacristy of the former Mercy Hospital.

Robinson was arrested by cold-case detectives in April, 2004, and found guilty of murder in Lucas County Common Pleas Court in May, 2006.

His legal appeals have been rejected by the Ohio 6th District Court of Appeals, the Ohio Supreme Court, and the U.S. Supreme Court. A petition for postconviction relief is pending before Judge Gene Zmuda in Lucas County Common Pleas Court, with a hearing scheduled for Jan. 22.

Source: http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100115/NEWS02/1150375

Israeli cult leader Goel Ratzon arrested for allegedly keeping harem of women and fathering dozens

BY Diane Moy Schaefer
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Israeli police arrested a suspected cult leader in Tel Aviv believed to have kept a harem of  women and fathered dozens of children with them.

Goel Ratzon, 59, is being held on suspicion of rape, slavery and incest. Police believe the self-styled healer, who had flowing white hair and a beard, brainwashed the women into staying with him in squalid, overcrowded apartments.

Following a seven-month undercover investigation, police raided three apartments where they found 17 women and 39 children, according to the London Daily Telegraph.

The women in the group were not allowed to be with men, eat meat, smoke, drink alcohol or dress immodestly, according to a rulebook found in one of the living quarters. They would be fined if they argued, gossiped or asked Ratzon where he was going. The children, who all bear Ratzon’s first name, which means “savior” in Hebrew, were expected to kiss his feet when he visited, according to the Telegraph.

His emotional hold on his women was reported to be firm. Police have kept him away from TV cameras for fear that he might send secret messages, ordering the women to hurt themselves. Two women were arrested along with Ratzon on suspicion they cooperated with him or witnessed his alleged crimes.

The other 15 women were taken to homes for abused women, along with all their children.

Ratzon made no secret of his unusual living arrangements, and was featured in a documentary broadcast last year, where he claimed to have fathered 89 children by more than 30 women.

In the documentary, the women were seen to be wearing tattoos of Ratzon’s name and face. When asked why young, attractive women would be part of his group, he replied, “I am perfect. I have all the characteristics that a woman wants.”

A police spokesman told the Telegraph that detectives were trying to piece together the nature of the family relationships, and were determining whether or not the children were subjected to sexual abuse.