Addressing the military in the audience, this time Ray spoke mostly in English, reminding them that each is individually responsible NOT to obey an illegal order – like to drone-kill other human beings without due process.
published June 15, 2016
(10.5 minutes – Rainer Braun, historian and long-time German peace movement leader, used the first 2.5 minutes to introduce Ray.)
The rubric was: STOPP RAMSTEIN – Menschenkette 2016 – STOP RAMSTEIN – HUMAN-CHAIN 2016).
The role played by Ramstein is critical. Without the U.S. Satellite Relay Station there, those “piloting” computers in Las Vega and elsewhere would be unable to push a button and drone-kill people in Middle East and Africa in less than 3 seconds.
The 5.5-minute speech is in German. If you’d like an English translation, please request one via the email address on this website.
The interview was posted in German on June 11; in English on June 12:
English: http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/48/48504/1.html
German: http://www.heise.de/tp/artikel/48/48472/1.html
One of main issues addressed:
“The key is to lie first:” What does the shoot-down of Malaysian Airlines MH17 on July 14, 2014 have in common with the downing of Korean Airlines KAL-007 by the Soviets on Sept. 1, 1983? Answer: A made-in-heaven (so to speak) opportunity to use highly suspect “evidence” (re MH17), and deliberately falsified evidence (re KAL-007), to blacken the Russians.
In the latter case, Secretary John Kerry’s immediate accusations that Russia and/or “pro-Russian separatists” downed MH17 have worked like a charm. It took little over a week for the Europeans to impose sanctions on Russia (which remain in effect). And Western propaganda blaming the Russians for killing the 298 people aboard MH17 helped greatly to reinforce five months of charges that Russian had “invaded” Ukraine (with hardly a mention of the Western coup in Kiev on Feb. 22, 2014).
Cui bono? The answer to that is easy. Profiting from this kind of escalating tension are those whom Pope Francis correctly called “the blood-drenched arms traders.” Ike was right.
After almost a week in Berlin, Ray spoke on June 10 and 11 in Germany (Kaiserslautern, Landstuhl, and Ramstein) – at workshops and a very large demonstration (June 11) aimed at exposing the essential role played by the U.S. satellite relay station in Ramstein for extrajudicial killings by drone.
Obama CANNOT carry out his self-appointed role of prosecutor, judge, jury, and executioner of “militants” in country A, B, C … (just pick a country that might be harboring a “militant”) without a sniveling German government pretending to see no evil as it allows use of sovereign German territory. Berlin has to claim blindness, because the German Constitution (“Basic Law”) unequivocally bans such killings without involvement of the German courts. (In other words, the Germans cannot get away with the sleight-of-hand used by former Attorney General Eric Holder in claiming that the “due process” clause of the 5th Amendment does not require “judicial” process.
The Stars and Stripes carried this article on Thursday, June 9, 2016
Ray was asked by RT about former Attorney General Eric Holder’s Eureka moment when he said that Ed Snowden “actually performed a public service.” Too bad Holder didn’t remember that his own public service, as the country’s highest law enforcement official, was to honor his oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies foreign and domestic. Instead, he and his boss, President Barack Obama, were serial violators of that supreme oath – and, in Ray’s view, a disgrace to the legal profession.
Ray cites the groveling letter Holder sent to the Russian Minister of Justice, just a month after Secretary Kerry had revoked Snowden’s passport, pleading with him to give up Snowden to the tender mercies of the U.S. Espionage Act. Ray comments that Holder’s cross-my-heart-hope-to-die promise that the Obama government would not kill Snowden – or even torture him – stands as a bizarre manifestation of how deep the law profession has sunk in the U.S.
(7 minutes)
“Why The Clinton Email Scandal Is Not Just a Right Wing Creation”
Rising-Up Host, Sonali Kolhatkar, May 27 interview of Ray (video and podcast)
http://www.risingupwithsonali.
Aired on May 31, this interview follows:
(1) May 23 VIPS Memorandum for the President urging him to encourage quick completion of the FBI investigation https://consortiumnews.com/
“ … order Attorney General Loretta Lynch to instruct the FBI to stop slow-walking the email investigation and release its findings promptly. …”
(2) May 25 release of the State Department Inspector General report
(Despite the most practiced spinners, it could not be spun.)
https://oig.state.gov/reports/
(3) Hillary Clinton’s Imperious Brush-Off of Security Regulations
Ray McGovern, May 25, 2016, commentary on State IG report
https://consortiumnews.com/
(4) May 26 by Washington Post Editorial Board: “Clinton’s inexcusable, willful disregard for the rules”
“She repeatedly ignored warnings not to use private email during her tenure as secretary of state … We urge the FBI to finish its own investigation soon, so all information about this troubling episode will be before the voters.”
It would be good if the people of California knew about all this.
Also discussed: the reasons for and results of Russia’s major intervention in Syria last fall. Nicholas Haggerty conducted the interview.
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/interview-former-cia-analyst-ray-mcgovern