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Hi Kel,
I would change that to refer instead only to this
administration and not to the U.S.as a country. We
have a proverb in Fulani which says; "A monkey knows
fully well where to sit its bare ass". You mentioned
North Korea, and I can tell you despite all the noice
comming from this administration, that country is a
no-go for the administration. The risks and the stakes
are too high and moreover,that is a country that has
real hostility towards the U.S. and are all too
willing and ready to give America a black eye and any
response from America can incite dangerous military
confrontation that will destabilize the world for
decades to come.
We know that Iraq as a enemy of the U.S. was a mere
farbication by this administration and they have
harped on it so much that the American public now
believe it.
Bad as Saddam is, attacking America with weapons of
mass destruction was the very, very, last thing on his
mind. It would never have happened in a million years,
yet now the ignorance of the American public has been
exploited to make a case for war.
So do not expect anything against North Korea like
what happened Iraq, particularly if China does not
want it to happen. We know for a that N. Korea's
dangerous weapons are making their way to Africa and
other developing countries.
What the administration is doing to Ghana is a form of
bullying and intimidation and no administration has
ever used its power to threaten other countries so
blatantly as this one.
It does not surprise me because this administration
cannot take no for an answer. They call the democrats
unpatriotic and the more radical democrats have been
labelled as "haters of America" even though many have
fought in foreign wars for this country. The extreme
right-wing elements are terrorising ordinary Americans
who are exercising their constitutional rights to
dissent and they are willing to employ the very same
intimidation methods that Al Quida is using even if
means taking human life. This form of extremism is
responsible for all the terrorism we had around the
world since the early sixties.
--- Kelechi Eke <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> With all due respect to the US, please pick on
> somebody of your own size! "That's all I have to
> say about that. The world is like a box of
> chocolate, you never know what you gonna get." Can
> somebody tell me why North Korea is not being
> "disarmed"? Oh, they are not descendants of Adam
> and Eve :-)
>
> - Kelechi
>
>
>
> Dzigbodi Akyea <[log in to unmask]>
> wrote:
> ** Visit AAM's new website!
> http://www.africanassociation.org **
>
> General News of Thursday, 07 August 2003
>
> USA Threatens Ghana
> The US government has given Ghana up to November 1,
> 2003, to ratify its
> Bilateral Non-Surrender Agreement (BNSA) or risk
> being cut off from US
> military assistance.
>
> The ultimatum to Ghana is part of a world-wide
> campaign being waged by
> Washington to compel countries with little or no
> backbone to accept its fiat
> to grant blanket immunity to all US service
> personnel from prosecution under
> the International Criminal Court for war crimes or
> crimes against humanity.
>
> Information reaching The Heritage from the
> Parliamentarians for Global
> Action (PGA), a network of over 1,350 Members of
> Parliament from 105 elected
> national legislatures, indicate that the cut-off in
> military assistance from
> the US is the penalty being applied by Washington to
> states rejecting the
> BNSA.
>
> The agreement, which under the US law is called
> American Service Members
> Protection Act (Article 98) of August 2, 2002, also
> allows the US President
> to issue waivers to countries that are allied with
> the US or countries for
> which the national interest of the US could be at
> stake.
>
> The PGA, citing White House memo dated July 1, 2003,
> said Ghana received a
> presidential waiver for "reasons of national
> interest" on that date valid
> until November 1, 2003.
>
> According to the PGA, if the Parliament of Ghana
> fails to ratify the
> agreement by that date, she might be sanctioned with
> a cut-off in US
> military assistance, unless otherwise determined by
> the US President.
>
> The authoritative French News Agency, Agence France
> Press (AFP) disseminated
> information on May 2, 2003 that the BNSA agreement
> had been signed between
> Ghana and the US in early May.
>
> It said in early May 2003, other news agencies were
> reporting that the US
> State Department had communicated to the media a
> list of countries that had
> signed the BNSA against the ICC. The list, according
> to the AFP, included
> Ghana.
>
> "We inferred that the signature of such an agreement
> has been done silently
> - almost secretly - maybe because Ghana was the
> fifth nation of the world to
> join the 'ICC Club' of the law-abiding states in
> 1999 through a Bipartisan
> Agreement", the PGA stated in documents sent to The
> Heritage.
>
> It added that, "the Government of Ghana might have
> therefore feared the
> shameful effect of a public declaration that Ghana
> caved in to US pressures
> against the court".
>
> The PGA, which is engaged in a wide range of
> action-oriented initiatives
> that promote democracy, peace, justice and
> development throughout the world,
> disclosed that on July 1 this year, the US suspended
> more than $47 million
> in military aid to 35 countries for their failure or
> refusal to give US
> citizens immunity from prosecution by the tribunal,
> which Washington
> vehemently opposes.
>
> It said the US fears the ICC - the world's first
> permanent international
> court to try cases of war crimes, crimes against
> humanity and genocide -
> could become a forum for politically-motivated
> prosecutions of US citizens.
>
> "Because the agreements are controversial, eight
> countries including Ghana,
> have asked that they be kept secret", according to
> the PGA documents.
>
> Ghanaian authorities have been tight-lipped over the
> deal. When contacted,
> an official at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said
> the sector Minister had
> instructed that all inquiries on the subject must be
> re-directed to the
> Defence Minister. This was after The Heritage had
> made marathon phone calls
> over a two-day period to the Ministry of Foreign
> Affairs.
>
> A questionnaire subsequently sent to and duly
> received at the Ministry of
> Defence was said to have mysteriously vanished at
> the office of the Minister
> of Defence at Burma Camp.
>
> Meanwhile, International Relations experts stress
> that the BNSA agreement,
> if ratified, will have far-reaching implications for
> both Ghana and the ICC.
>
> According to them, the ratification of such a
> bilateral agreement may limit
> the court's effectiveness, which might lead to
> states neglecting their
> responsibility to co-operate fully with it.
>
> For Ghana, it means one of the first countries to
> sign the Rome Treaty that
> set up the ICC and has "Freedom and Justice" as her
> national motto, would
> have reneged on her international obligations to
> ensure justice.
>
> Source: The Heritage
>
>
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