One Man's Opinion

A Sudanese man who was held at the Guantánamo detention center for 10 years has been allowed to go back to his country. The real story is that he pleaded guilty just two years ago, which means that he was illegally detained for eight years.  So, one has to wonder about the possibility that he just gave up and pleaded guilty, so that he would have some sort of a chance to end his indefinite incarceration at the hands of the Americans. This is precisely why the Kafkaesque system that the U.S. has unilaterally and illegally put in place in their "war on terrorism" is, in itself, terrorist. We will never now for certain if those people who have been detained for so long were really guilty or not guilty, not only due to the secrecy with which they have been held, but also because they were brought to the breaking point at which any human being will confess to anything.

If campaign contributions are any significant indication of electoral support, then Obama is in trouble against Romney. The GOP candidate is raising more money than the President, something which should come as no surprise, given the fact that the Republicans are the party of the rich and the super-rich. Romney represents the kind of government that will serve the interests of the wealthy and the private sector at its highest level. Thus their campaign aimed at painting Obama as a "socialist", a ludicrous statement if there ever was one. But, this is class warfare, and anything and everything is valid in war. In the land of the Almighty dollar, he who has more dollars wins.

The scandal of the Legion of Christ in Mexico has another chapter in Rhode Island, at a school for would-be nuns that employed Gestapo-like tactics on very young girls. Once again, the Catholic Church has been caught in a pattern of abuse and cover up. In a cult-like environment and experience, these teenagers were subjected to outrageous psychological practices justified by claiming to be God's will. Now, that they have been exposed, they claim that the system has been reformed. But, even if that were true, this doesn't erase years of abuse and permanent emotional and mental damage done to those young girls who attended the school during the last 20 years. To think that Pope John Paul II regarded the Legion of Christ founder as a "saint", while the Vatican was aware of all his sins! Which goes to show you how rotten to the core the Catholic Church has become.

American military presence throughout the world has often been marked by abuses against the local population. It's only natural; they are the conquerors or invaders, with the upper hand over everything. U.S. bases are the foci of resentment over the arrogance of power. The latest incident -- this time in South Korea -- is typical. American military personnel intervened with three South Koreans in relation to a parking violation outside the base and ended up handcuffing them . This clearly shows that the Americans think that they have jurisdiction over the whole of South Korea, a country that has been beholden to the U.S. for the past 60 years, and whose sovereignty is questionable, at best. The U.S. commander has apologized and suspended the soldiers involved. But, as long as that base and others like it remain there and elsewhere, American soldiers will continue to do do as they damn well please, and nothing will come of it.

The "Official Story" has been replaced with the "True Story." The guilty verdict in the case of two former Argentine dictators in whose regimes the systematic theft and kidnapping of babies was carried out as part of the so-called "dirty war" against the Left finally brings some sort of closure to a tragedy that has haunted Argentina for almost 40 years. That someone would not only kill or "disappear" political adversaries, and then take their babies and give or sell them to couples sympathetic to the regime is unimaginably evil. There has to be an unfathomable amount of hate and a total lack of sensitivity in order to go that far in combating your "enemies." It has taken a long time, but justice has been served.

Finally, the U.S. had to "cry uncle", in order to get Pakistan to let it go through their land routes to Afghanistan in the fight against the Taliban. The Americans and the Pakistanis had been arm-wrestling over the question of an apology for the multiple civilian and innocent deaths caused by the drone attacks. The U.S., arrogant as ever, refused to apologize. But, in the end, Pakistan's strategic value weighed more than the Americans' bruised ego. I suppose that bombing and invading Pakistan was out of the question... for now. Of course, it was a half-hearted apology, in which the U.S. only accepted part of the blame, claiming that Pakistan was also at fault. But, still, anytime the Americans recognize that they are wrong about anything is a shocker.

The Nazi ideology lives on in Germany and elsewhere, where the so-called Neo-Nazi movement rears its ugly head. It seems that, in some quarters, there is sympathy for its agenda and propaganda, the German intelligence agency being one of them. It appears that its bumbling handling of the investigation of a terrorist group which targeted immigrant businessmen, especially Turkish ones, was the result not of incompetence, but of a benign neglect aimed at aiding and abetting the group's illegal activities. There is evidence that information that would have led to the capture of those individuals was either suppressed or just ignored, allowing them to continue to operate for about ten years. The end result is that Heinz Fromm, the head of the intelligence agency has resigned. But, will it be the end of this complicity with evil?

The pharmaceutical industry continues to be discredited by its admissions of guilt and wrongdoing in putting out medication that is either unsafe or useless. This time it has to do with advertising and promoting several drugs for uses that have not been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. Furthermore, it engaged in kickbacks with health professionals that would prescribe those drugs in exchange for all kinds of benefits from the drug company. GlaxoSmithKline will plead guilty and pay a fine of $3 billion . This is the second major case of this nature in recent history, the Abbott Laboratories one being the first. These are prime examples of how corrupt the private sector really is, having no social conscience nor responsibility, all that public relations about corporate responsibility notwithstanding.

The more we find out about what went on at Penn State University regarding the sexual abuse of children and juveniles by Jerry Sandusky, the more we realize just how insane the top university people are about football. It's now very clear that they were extremely reluctant to do the obviously right thing: call the cops and let them and the prosecuting attorneys take over. It is never incumbent upon someone who has witnessed a possible crime to do anything else. One doesn't talk things over with the perpetrator or engage in any sort of calculation in order to decide if the police should be notified. Unless -- and this seems to be the case -- you value other things more than the damage that the criminal has done. Obviously, the President of PSU and some of his staff thought that the football program was more important than the fact that one of its coaches was sexually abusing kids. That is just as sick or sicker than what Sandusky did. Sports are wonderful, and they add a great