Russian President Vladimir Putin scores yet another one against American President Barack Obama. First, President Putin outmaneuvered President Obama in America’s attempt to wage war against Syria by getting Syria to agree to destroy its chemical weapons stockpile, thereby diffusing the political situation and preventing war. Then President Putin brokered the deal for Iran to end any development of weapons grade uranium, and open some nuclear facilities to UN inspectors, and in a master stroke, to limit nuclear buildup in the Middle East, scale down the United States economic embargo against Iran, and hush the U.S. war drums being beaten towards Iran. Presently, President Putin and Russian Parliament passed a new amnesty law that has set free all political prisoners in the country before the arrival of the Olympic Games to Russia, hence silencing the calls for a boycott of the Olympics due to Russia’s practice of imprisoning political activists that protest over the ecology, gay rights, and government corruption. The score, 3-0 President Putin’s way.
Meanwhile, back in the United States of America, under the leadership of Nobel Peace Prize Award winner, President Barack Obama, about 1,000 political prisoners languish in U.S. federal and state prisons across the country, many of whom have been in prison for over 35 years, often held in indefinite solitary confinement and control units, most notably 1960s and 70s political prisoners Russell Maroon Shoatz, Joseph “Joe-Joe” Bowen, David Gilbert, Sundiata Acoli, Leonard Peltier, Mutulu Shakur and Jalil Muntaqin. Where are the presidential pardons for these men? America also has the most respected and famous political prisoners, with the likes of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Cuban Five and the human rights attorney Lynn Stewart, moreover, about 1,000 Occupy Wall Street protesters were arrested and imprisoned in over 100 U.S. cities, from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, to Oakland, California, for exercising their civil rights and protesting Wall Street’s milking the American people for trillions of dollars with the tacit permission and assistance of the federal government. If America is the leader of the free world, then why haven’t the United States passed an amnesty law and set free its political prisoners held in federal and state prisons. By Kerry Shakaboona Marshall.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
