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Us pilot says hes on terror watch list sues to save job

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Picture: (AFP/DDP/File/Roland Magunia)
British legend Yusuf Islam, formerly known as Cat Stevens, performs during the Live Earth concert in Hamburg in 2007. A flight from London with Yusuf Islam on board was diverted and forced to land in Maine when US officials became aware that Islam was on board. The ACLU says the US government’s terrorist watch list has swollen into a catalogue of a million names in the after 9/11.

A commercial airline pilot and convert to Islam who says his name is on the U.S. government’s secret terrorist watch list has fought back, filing a federal lawsuit against the Homeland Security Department and various other federal agencies.

Erich Scherfen says that unless his name is removed from the list, he faces losing not only his job but the ability to make a living in his chosen profession.

Scherfen told reporters yesterday after his lawyers filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Harrisburg, that "his livelihood depends on being off this list."

He alleges that the government’s actions have violated his and his wife’s constitutional rights. The suit seeks a hearing and a decision before he is scheduled to lose his job on Sept. 1.

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Us imperialism 9 11 the Iraq war

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By Patrick Martin

(source: World Socialist Website.org)

While the American corporate media has given little attention to it, an official British inquiry into the war with Iraq has brought to light damning testimony about the Bush administration’s deliberate launching of an invasion to overthrow the regime of Saddam Hussein and subjugate Iraq to American domination.

Former British diplomats and security officials from the 2001-2003 period began testifying this week under oath before a panel headed by Sir John Chilcot, charged with examining the entire course of the war, from its origins to the final British pullout in June 2009.

More than enough evidence has already been produced to indict top Bush administration leaders, including Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell and Rice, on the same charge for which Nazi leaders were convicted at the 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal—deliberately waging an aggressive war.

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Dear mr president

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Mr. Barack Obama

President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500

By Mirza Yawar Baig

I am sure you know more about the situation with Israel’s attack on the Freedom Flotilla than I do. The question that I and the rest of the world is asking is, ‘What are you going to do?’

We are told that in  1997, a man used to stand outside the White House, your home today,  holding a lighted candle in his hand, a silent protestor against the US sanctions against Iraq. He would turn up there every evening and would stand there for a few hours well into the night. One evening, it was wet, windy and very cold. As usual the man came, wearing a coat with the collar turned up against the bitter cold, and an umbrella to shelter the tiny flame of his candle from the blustery wind.  As he stood there, the guard at the gate, who used to see him every day and occasionally waved to him in friendly camaraderie, came out to him and said, "Man! I know you are committed to this cause. But look at this night! It is so cold and horrible; you are one man, standing here alone, do you think you will change them?"

 The man looked at the guard and smiled. "I don’t do this to change them," he said, "I do this so that they will not change me."

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