Serbian War Criminal Ratko Mladic arrested

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Thursday May 26, 2011 · 4:18 AM PDT

2011/05/26 · 04:18

This is great news: Ratko Mladic was arrested in Serbia today. He was a main perpetrator of war crimes during the BOsnia War

Mladic will be tranferred to the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia. This would be a great day for the U.S. to finally come on board and to declare the full support for the International Criminal Court. Without International criminal justice, there would still be impunity for war criminals in public office.

Great! Gays are now allowed to die in illegal wars, too!

jandsm

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Saturday December 18, 2010 · 9:53 AM PST

2010/12/18 · 09:53

Apparently DADT will be repealed today. This is very good news for gays and lesbians who want to serve in the military or are actually serving in the military. But now what?

The end of DADT as well as the fight for gay marriage in my view are not the end but the means by which the gay and lesbian community can achieve anti-discrimination and acceptance by the society at large. The GLBT movement in my view made a stragically right decision to chose to conservative instituions, the military and the monogamic marriage as two starting points to gain greater acceptance. The problem is that due to its whole structure the military will never be a progressive force in society.

jandsm

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Sunday July 27, 2008 · 8:15 AM PDT

2008/07/27 · 08:15

McCain's campaign spokesman just made a new very self-humiliating comment in a statement to The Nation. This time about the visitors to the Berlin speech of Barack Obama:

...failed to recognize the need to visit wounded combat troops, instead choosing to continue on with a schedule that included meeting with international leaders and fawning Germans.

Emphasis mine.

Seriously, if you are running a campaign based on experience in foreign affairs, you should be able to control your own spokespeople. I attended the Berlin speech and people were not fawning there. It was a success, yes, but there was no uncritical reception. What I noticed afterwards was that people actually started a serious debate on the different topics raised and there was no total agreement.

jandsm

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Thursday July 24, 2008 · 4:52 AM PDT

2008/07/24 · 04:52

Barack Obama has arrived in Berlin and is greated with the most astonishing amount of excitement since the fall of the Berlin wall. My guess is that the demonstration today will be in the range of the 200.000 people who came together on September 14, 2001 to show their solidarity after the attacks of 9/11.

I myself will jump on the train in a few hours to go to Berlin. I am really excited about watching the speech and as a German, I am interested to hear what he has to say and I am going to write an update later.

In any case, German media is going nuts: all news channels are having a constant coverage.

For some impressions of Barack Obama in Berlin, check the FAZ Please note the modern art in the chancellery. I think it is nice

And the frontpages of German Newspapers: here My favorite one is the taz (image nr.3).

So what do you expect?

jandsm

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Friday July 18, 2008 · 6:14 AM PDT

2008/07/18 · 06:14

Apparently, Barack Obama will hold a campaign ralley in the German capital Berlin. As most of you know there was a debate whether he should be allowed to give a speech in front of the Brandenburg gate right on the newly finished Pariser Platz. Charles Krauthammer, as BarbinMd correctly pointed out, turned the Brandenburg gate into a holy shrine, which "you earn".

Well, as a German, let me point out: it is a holy shrine. Which is why had it wrapped for 4 years with t-mobile advertisment only to have it repoend by Bill Clinton in front of 200.000 celebrating Berlin citizens. But anyway, anybody who has lived to see the Berlin wall, anybody who has been to West Berlin while is was an island of hope in an ocean of oppression, knows what it means to be able to walk through it and why it was there that on the night of November 9th, 1989 people stormed the wall. And it was not because of Ronald Reagan, whose speech is not part of the collective German memory.

jandsm

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Friday February 22, 2008 · 7:52 AM PST

2008/02/22 · 07:52

Hillary Clintons remarks "whatever happens, we will be fine" can be interpreted in a lot of ways. I prefer to frame it this way: She is beginning to gracefully bow out of the race. But any exit of such an alpha-candidate needs a soundtrack, so I searched Youtube to find some examples, and I would like to know what you think about it.

I also can't stop thinking that it is about time she xeroxes herself into the history books - unfortunately we will never finde out who she really was.

Poll

73 votes Show Results

What is the best farewell song for the Clinton campaign?

73 votes Vote Now!

What is the best farewell song for the Clinton campaign?

Time to say goodbye (Andrea Bocelli)

11 votes

It's the end of the world as we know it (REM)

11 votes

My way (Frank Sinatra)

12 votes

Goodbye (Spice Girls)

8 votes

It's over (Roy Orbinson)

20 votes

Other (name it)

11 votes

Kosovo declares independence

jandsm

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Sunday February 17, 2008 · 7:17 AM PST

2008/02/17 · 07:17

Here in Hanover, Germany, Albanians are celebrating by driving through the city, waving their flags. I just hope we are witnessing the last act of the Balkan crisis and not the first shots of the nexe Balkan war.

From BBC:

Kosovo's parliament has unanimously endorsed a declaration of independence from Serbia, in an historic session.The declaration, read by Prime Minister Hashim Thaci, said Kosovo would be a democratic country that respected the rights of all ethnic communities. The US and a number of EU countries are expected to recognise Kosovo on Monday.Serbia has threatened Kosovo with diplomatic and economic sanctions, but not force. Its ally, Russia, also opposes Kosovan independence.

Lloyd Bridges for president: A dead man who can win!

jandsm

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Saturday September 22, 2007 · 3:15 AM PDT

2007/09/22 · 03:15

The American politcal culture has become a part of our European Entertainment industry. In an age in which the best remembered presidential speech has been delivered by fictional president Whitmore on the eve of an imminent alien invasion, I as a European wondered for a long time whether it is time from an outside viewer to weigh in on the Democrats complicated process in picking a presidential nominee. For most of the last months, I switched to tv-shopping channels instead of getting re-involved in American presidential politics.

But this time is over: After waching the dismal performance of Democrats in the face of Bill Maher questioning, and after learning that the GOP is already casting a professional actor, I want to raise the independent viewers voice.

jandsm

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Saturday July 28, 2007 · 11:34 AM PDT

2007/07/28 · 11:34

Seeing Iraqia celebration of the football victory and the carnage that happend when militias decided to bomb them, I got remembered on a fact I nearly forgot about the U.S. militarys planning for the war in Iraq: the two tons of frisbees the 1st marine division ordered for distribution among Iraqis, who were supposed to celebrate the U.S. soldiers as liberators.

On those frisbees, the word 'friendship' was printed in English and Arabic: hoe naive, absurd and uninformed... Iraq never turned out to be a frisbee country anyway, if anything it became a boomerang.

As a source for this story, I have to use a diary I wrote in April 2004, citing a George Will column and a quote from Spirit of America blog, which are no longer online.

I figured that - all the tragic beside - that was the absurdest decision in the preparation for this ill-fated war... the 1st marine division should have brought body armor instead.

CIA Torture Victim Becomes Arsonist

jandsm

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Thursday May 17, 2007 · 10:17 AM PDT

2007/05/17 · 10:17

Khalid El-Masri was an ordinary German with Lebanese roots. He lived a rather low profile life until the end of 2003 when he was illegally abducted by the CIA in Skopje as part of the U.S. rendition programme.

What happend then was traumatizing for him and today he was send into a mental health facility after trying to burn down a supermarket in Southern Germany.

His case is a classic example how the policy of rendition and torture the Bush administration so entdusiastically persuit, failed.

jandsm

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Monday October 02, 2006 · 7:45 AM PDT

2006/10/02 · 07:45

So far this year, I abstained from blogging most of the time. I did something better: I got myself elected to my first public office. And I still can't believe it...

I had been quite active on blogs after I watched Howard Dean's speech to the Democratic National Committee Winter meeting in February 2003 out of curiosity. Even thogh his voice came out of completely different political context, they shook me. It was the 5th year of red-green and Gerhard Schröder in Germany and I was a frustrated German Social Democrat with a ten year membership record on all levels of the youth organization Jusos and on local to state-wide levels of the SPD.

I think following Dean's campaign closely and in this process signing on to this site in November 2003 was an act of political escapism and a good lesson. After he was brought down in a concerted attack of the other candidates and mainstream American media, I felt, I had to move on and had to do something new. Read More

Bush on Hitler: A view from Germany

jandsm

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Friday September 01, 2006 · 12:55 AM PDT

2006/09/01 · 00:55

For the record: I am a German citizen and history student and have been contributing at dailykos since November 2003. As far as I know, no member of my family was involved in war crimes or crimes against humanity. In fact, my grandfather was incarcarated by the Nazis in various prisons and concentration camps from 1933 to 1945. I am living in a city which was 85 percent destroyed at end of the war and just 30 km away from one of the most notorious concentration camps of the Hitler era: Bergen Belsen. I have been volunteering in memorial centers at concentration camps sites and I hate National Socialism as much as I am able to hate a polical movement.

I am sick and tired of the disgusting comments by president Bush and other members of administration trying to frame the 2006 election along the line: "are you for or against for or against fighting Hitler?".
Read More

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Serbian War Criminal Ratko Mladic arrested

Great! Gays are now allowed to die in illegal wars, too!

This is from a "fawning German" for you Sen. McCain

Obama in Berlin + Back from Berlin update

Obama in Berlin - Some thoughts from a German

Time to say goodbye, Hillary (with music and poll)

Kosovo declares independence

Lloyd Bridges for president: A dead man who can win!

Do you remember the frisbees they sent to Iraq?

CIA Torture Victim Becomes Arsonist

How I won my first public office

Bush on Hitler: A view from Germany