{"id":45680,"date":"2013-06-27T08:20:36","date_gmt":"2013-06-27T07:20:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/challenging-us-lawlessness\/45680\/"},"modified":"2013-06-27T08:20:36","modified_gmt":"2013-06-27T07:20:36","slug":"challenging-us-lawlessness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/breaking-news\/challenging-us-lawlessness\/","title":{"rendered":"Challenging US Lawlessness"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\nChallenging US Lawlessness<\/b><\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nby Stephen Lendman<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIt’s vital today more than ever. America’s a rogue terror state. It’s ruthlessly out-of-control. It spurns rule of law principles. It mocks democratic rights. It honors its worst. It persecutes its best.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIt acts unconscionably. It threatens freedom. It menaces world peace. It endangers humanity. It’s guilty of worldwide espionage on a massive, unprecedented scale.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nEdward Snowden revealed it. Everyone needs to know. He did it heroically. He accepted great risks. He acted responsibly. He did so \u00a0because it matters. He’s a role model for others. Hopefully he’ll embolden others to come forward.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nPolitical Washington vilified him. He’s excoriated for doing the right thing. Media scoundrels piled on. They’re unprincipled. They’re vicious. They’re unrelenting. They front for power. They support America’s worst crimes. They mock legitimate journalism doing so.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nSnowden has millions of world supporters. Important nations respect him. His legitimate rights matter. Russia, China, Ecuador, Venezuela, and other countries stand tall.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThey’ve done so in his behalf. Hopefully they’ll keep doing it. Perhaps others will join them.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nSnowden flew to Moscow. He’s in Sheremetyevo Airport’s transit area. He hasn’t crossed Russia’s border. Doing so requires clearing customs. Moscow has no extradition treaty with Washington.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIt’s justifiably critical of US extradition policies. Viktor Bout’s case made headlines. He’s a Russian citizen. Washington wrongfully convicted him.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAmerica notoriously manufactures spurious “evidence.” It does so to groundlessly indict, prosecute, convict, and imprison. When evidence doesn’t exist, it’s invented.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAmerica’s gulag is filled with thousands of wrongfully incarcerated victims. Washington called Bout the “Merchant of Death” and “Lord of War.”<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nHyperbole substitutes for facts. Juries are intimidated to convict. Right-wing judges go along. America’s criminal justice system’s corrupted. Targeted victims haven’t a chance.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nIn Bout’s case, there was no plot, no crime or intent to commit one. He was lawlessly entrapped to make it look that way. In November 2011, he was groundlessly convicted of conspiring to sell weapons to Colombia’s FARC-EP.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nObama’s Justice Department lied. It said “(h)e aimed to sell weapons to terrorists for the purpose of killing Americans.”<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nBout ran a legitimate air cargo business. He operated legally. Charges against him were fabricated. He never had a chance. Snowden faces the same challenge. When America wants someone convicted, injustice triumphs.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nRussia called charges against Bout “baseless and biased.” Complaints lodged fell on deaf ears. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said at the time:<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n“Despite insufficient evidence and the unlawful nature of (Bout’s) arrest in Thailand, which involved agents of US security services, and his subsequent extradition, the US justice system, acting clearly on political orders, ignored defense attorneys’ arguments and numerous appeals from different levels in defense of a Russian citizen.”<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nShe added that Moscow would make “every possible effort” to free him. He remains unjustifiably imprisoned. He’s locked in America’s gulag.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nRussia accused Washington of lawlessly kidnapping Konstantin Yaroshenko. He’s a Russian pilot. He was suspected of attempting to bribe Liberian officials and smuggle cocaine.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nUS special forces detained him. They did so in Monrovia. They did it lawlessly. They kidnapped him. They took him to New York. They did so extrajudicially.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAt the time, Russia’s Foreign Ministry called it “unacceptable that the Russian side had not received proper notification on the arrest of our fellow citizen as is prescribed by the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and the bilateral consular convention.”<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nRussia’s New York Consul General, Andrey Yushmanov, added:<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n“We were also notified that the conditions in which our citizen was held were beyond all ethical norms and were unacceptable.”<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nAccording to his lawyer, Yaroshenko’s innocent of all charges. He was denied food and water for two days. He was beaten. He was forced to sign papers.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nThese actions reflect cruel and unusual punishment. It’s common US practice. Torture is official American policy. No holds barred cruelty reflects it.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nVenezuela’s the latest nation to extend Snowden support. President Nicolas Maduro may offer him asylum.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n“We would consider it,” he said, “because the asylum is a measure of humanitarian protection and is a mechanism of the international humanitarian law, which is popular in Latin America and was always used to protect helpless.”<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n“No one has the right to spy after someone else and this youngster (Snowden), who told the world about it, deserves humanitarian protection.”<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nHe added that Snowden so far hasn’t requested it. International law protects refugees and asylum seekers.\u00a0<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nArticle I of the 1951 UN Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees calls them:<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\n“A person who owing to a well-founded fear of being persecuted for reasons of race, religion, nationality, membership of a particular social group or political opinion, is outside the country of their nationality, and is unable to or, owing to such fear, is unwilling to avail him\/herself of the protection of that country.”<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nPost-WW II, the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) was established to help them.<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n
\nTo gain legal protection, they must:<\/div>\n
\n<\/div>\n