[NYTr] Lunatic News: Bush Claims Cuba engages in "Human Trafficking"
 
Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2007 04:42:33 -0500 (CDT)

Via NY Transfer News Collective  *  All the News that Doesn't Fit
 
[This is so outrageous it's really comic.  The Bush Regime has
apparently re-defined "human trafficking," as it has sovereignty,
freedom, torture, etc. Or maybe Bush meant to say "Miami" and it came 
out "Cuba." 

In Myanmar, slave labor is a reality, but to find out how much human
trafficking is a problem, it might be better to consult UN reports. 
This article mentions several countries where actual human trafficking
is a real problem in the middle east, but as these countries are
allies of the Bush Reich, they have been given a pass. 

Some other countries where human trafficking is a major problem are in
Eastern Europe -- those "liberated" formerly "captive nations," as well
as some parts of Asia, Africa and Latin America where children are
kidnapped and sold, or where young women are duped by prostitution
rings with the promise of jobs and legal status in Disneylandia. 

But unless you define "human trafficking" as sending teams of medical
and literacy workers to foreign countries, Cuba has nothing to do with
human trafficking.  The Cubans who do are all counterrevolutionaries in
Miami, with their overloaded fast boats and their $10,000-a-head price
tags for smuggling people out of the country in the dead of night. How
exactly Bush intends to add any more "penalties" to its illegal blockade
against Cuba is difficult to imagine, in any case. 

It's hard to imagine how the White House press corps manages to keep
a straight face at these briefings and press conferences, which sound
more and more like the ravings of a gang of deranged lunatics on very
bad acid. -NY Transfer]

AP via The Washington Post - Oct 18, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/18/AR2007101801955.html

Bush Penalizes Countries for Trafficking

By Anne Gearan and Ben Feller
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON -- President Bush on Thursday punished two perennial
adversaries -- Myanmar and Cuba -- for alleged "human trafficking," the
forced labor and prostitution that the United States calls a modern-day
form of slavery.

Bush chose not to come down hard on several other countries where the
State Department found serious trafficking problems, including
important Middle East allies such as Saudi Arabia. He approved partial
punishment, in the form of financial sanctions, against Iran and other
nations where the United States holds out hope that limited cultural or
educational outreach may deter abuses.

The Bush administration also lifted the immediate threat of sanctions
from two nations that had made progress in the months since the State
Department issued a preliminary assessment of worldwide trafficking
abuses in June.

Notably, the administration chose to change its assessment of Kuwait, a
key Mideast ally, because Kuwait recently opened a long-promised
shelter for abuse victims, often Asian women forced to work as virtual
house slaves in the homes of wealthy Kuwaitis.

"It's a nascent effort, but we made a conclusion that Kuwait had taken
steps that merited an upgrade," said Mark Lagoon, head of a State
Department office that compiled the annual list required by Congress.

The State Department gives countries listed as serious violators a
chance to address the problems before the White House issues its
findings and applies sanctions. In the case of Kuwait and equatorial
Guinea, the governments made enough gains to merit an upgrade, Lagon
said.

Countries on the list are subject to sanctions for not doing enough to
stop the yearly flow of some 800,000 people across international
borders for the sex trade and other forms of forced and indentured
labor. About 80 percent of those people are female, and up to half of
them are children.

The Bush administration determined that Myanmar, also known as Burma,
is ineligible for U.S. aid for failing to meet the minimum standards of
fighting trafficking or make significant efforts to do so. On the same
grounds, Cuba's officials and employees will not be eligible for
educational and cultural exchange programs.  [Not that are, anyway.]

Those are the same two countries that suffered sanctions for human
trafficking last year.

Bush also declared Syria, Venezuela, North Korea and Iran in line for
full sanctions.

But in each of those cases, Bush invoked his waiver authority to
continue providing some U.S. aid to those countries, such as for
cultural exchanges or for programs that help victims of trafficking.
The White House determined that continuing the flow of money is in the
national interest of the United States.

Bush waived all sanctions against eight countries: Algeria, Bahrain,
Malaysia, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Sudan and Uzbekistan -- all on the
same grounds that doing so would serve the United States' strategic
interests with these countries.
                                 *
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