Well-known English playwright, Harold Pinter, was recently awarded an honorary degree by Turin University. In the course of his address of acceptance at the University he said:
"Earlier this year I had a major operation for cancer. The operation and its after-effects were something of a nightmare. I felt I was a man unable to swim bobbing about under water in a deep dark endless ocean. But I did not drown and I am very glad to be alive. However, I found that to emerge from a personal nightmare was to enter an infinitely more pervasive public nightmare - the nightmare of American hysteria, ignorance, arrogance, stupidity and belligerence; the most powerful nation the world has ever known effectively waging war against the rest of the world. "If you are not with us you are against us" President Bush has said. He has also said "We will not allow the world's worst weapons to remain in the hands of the world's worst leaders". Quite right. Look in the mirror chum. That's you.
The US is at this moment developing advanced systems of "weapons of mass destruction" and it prepared to use them where it sees fit. It has more of them than the rest of the world put together. It has walked away from international agreements on biological and chemical weapons, refusing to allow inspection of its own factories. The hypocrisy behind its public declarations and its own actions is almost a joke."
That part of Pinter's talk available on Information Clearing House is more than just a catalogue of the wrongs of this world but a warning of things to come if the world doesn't wake up to itself. Read the full piece here.
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Israel's last chance
Writing in Counterpoint Gabriel Kolko [leading historian and author of many books on war] says:
"The United States has given Israel $51.3 billion in military grants since 1949, most of it after 1974- more than any other country in the post-1945 era. Israel has also received $11.2 billion in loans for military equipment, plus $31 billion in economic grants, not to mention loan guarantees, joint military projects like the Arrow missile, and such. But major conditions on these military grants have meant that 74 percent of it has remained in the U.S. to purchase American arms. Since it creates jobs and profits in many districts, Congress is more than ready to respond to the cajoling of the Israel lobby. This vast sum, especially when calculated on a per capita basis, has both enabled and forced Israel to prepare to fight American-style war. But the US has spent immense sums of money since 1950 and it has failed to win any of its big wars.
In early 2005 the new chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force, Dan Halutz, embarked on the most extensive reorganization in the history of IDF. Halutz is an Air Force general and enamored with the doctrines that justify the ultra-modern equipment the Americans showered upon the Israelis. Attack helicopters, unmanned aircraft, advanced long-range intelligence and communications, and the like were at the top of his agenda. His was merely a variation of Donald Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" concepts. [H, 02/26/07; Bard, "U. S. Aid to Israel;" Dec 28, 98, BESA Seminar, Bar-Ilan U.]"
In this lengthy piece Kolko analyses where Israel is at, both militarily and politically. As Kolko says:
"Israel has ignored Washington on at least four very important issues, starting with the Sinai campaign in 1956, and acted in its own self-interest. The Americans were Olmert's alibi but he can use them no more. [H, March 3] There are other crucial issues, such as the Saudi plan for the resolution of the Palestine question as well, and never has Israel had a greater need for peace than at the present. Instead, like the US, its head of state may be the worst in its history, motivated by short-term political advantage and a consummate desire to retain power.
But the Syrian option is there for the taking. If there is war then the brain drain out will accelerate and migration in will fall; demography will take over. Israel will then become the only place in the world a Jew is in danger precisely because he or she is a Jew. If this opportunity is lost there will eventually be a mutually destructive war that no one will win-the Lebanon War proved that Israel must now confront the fact that its neighbors are becoming its military equals and US aid cannot save it.
Indeed, America's free gifts caused Israel to begin a war last July with illusions identical to those that caused the Bush Administration to embark on its Iraq folly."
"The United States has given Israel $51.3 billion in military grants since 1949, most of it after 1974- more than any other country in the post-1945 era. Israel has also received $11.2 billion in loans for military equipment, plus $31 billion in economic grants, not to mention loan guarantees, joint military projects like the Arrow missile, and such. But major conditions on these military grants have meant that 74 percent of it has remained in the U.S. to purchase American arms. Since it creates jobs and profits in many districts, Congress is more than ready to respond to the cajoling of the Israel lobby. This vast sum, especially when calculated on a per capita basis, has both enabled and forced Israel to prepare to fight American-style war. But the US has spent immense sums of money since 1950 and it has failed to win any of its big wars.
In early 2005 the new chief of staff of the Israel Defense Force, Dan Halutz, embarked on the most extensive reorganization in the history of IDF. Halutz is an Air Force general and enamored with the doctrines that justify the ultra-modern equipment the Americans showered upon the Israelis. Attack helicopters, unmanned aircraft, advanced long-range intelligence and communications, and the like were at the top of his agenda. His was merely a variation of Donald Rumsfeld's "shock and awe" concepts. [H, 02/26/07; Bard, "U. S. Aid to Israel;" Dec 28, 98, BESA Seminar, Bar-Ilan U.]"
In this lengthy piece Kolko analyses where Israel is at, both militarily and politically. As Kolko says:
"Israel has ignored Washington on at least four very important issues, starting with the Sinai campaign in 1956, and acted in its own self-interest. The Americans were Olmert's alibi but he can use them no more. [H, March 3] There are other crucial issues, such as the Saudi plan for the resolution of the Palestine question as well, and never has Israel had a greater need for peace than at the present. Instead, like the US, its head of state may be the worst in its history, motivated by short-term political advantage and a consummate desire to retain power.
But the Syrian option is there for the taking. If there is war then the brain drain out will accelerate and migration in will fall; demography will take over. Israel will then become the only place in the world a Jew is in danger precisely because he or she is a Jew. If this opportunity is lost there will eventually be a mutually destructive war that no one will win-the Lebanon War proved that Israel must now confront the fact that its neighbors are becoming its military equals and US aid cannot save it.
Indeed, America's free gifts caused Israel to begin a war last July with illusions identical to those that caused the Bush Administration to embark on its Iraq folly."
The 3 R's + creativity
Yesterday morning [at the ungodly hour of 6.45 am] the ABC Radio National program had a most interesting interview:
"Fostering creativity and innovation in education and business is important.
UK education guru Sir Ken Robinson says it's absolutely essential in a modern, fast-changing world. It is as important as literacy and numeracy. But he says our schools and universities continue to stifle creativity.
Sir Ken Robinson is now a senior adviser to the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles. He's in Australia this week talking at a series of seminars."
Hear the interview here - and reflect on how those 3 R's rate in the overall scheme of things.
"Fostering creativity and innovation in education and business is important.
UK education guru Sir Ken Robinson says it's absolutely essential in a modern, fast-changing world. It is as important as literacy and numeracy. But he says our schools and universities continue to stifle creativity.
Sir Ken Robinson is now a senior adviser to the J. Paul Getty Trust in Los Angeles. He's in Australia this week talking at a series of seminars."
Hear the interview here - and reflect on how those 3 R's rate in the overall scheme of things.
Who are they kidding?
The SMH is reporting this morning on the wrap-up of the David Hicks "trial" - still not concluded at the time of writing this. It all seems rather too pat.
Most disturbing is this:
"He also agreed that he had "never been illegally treated by any persons in the control or custody of the United States".
Now, why would the Americans, and the Australian Government, have almost certainly insisted on this statement by Hicks? Will anyone really believe it, given that Hicks has alleged how he has been mistreated over the years - as has every other person taken into custody by the Americans.
Another dimension to the Hicks fiasco and disgrace is raised by Mike Carlton in his weekly column in the SMH:
"But a question hangs in the air. If Hicks is guilty of providing material support to terrorism, where does this leave those gun-toting executives of the wheat export monopoly AWB who so cheerfully shovelled $300 million of sanction-busting bribes into the coffers of the Saddam Hussein regime? Thanking their lucky stars, I imagine."
As Carlton reminds us - which makes the above statement by Hicks even more questionable:
"Naturally, this travesty has been greeted with smug triumphalism by the Howard Government and the toadying bloviators. It is so convenient. Hicks's guilty plea means he cannot now testify under oath to the brutality inflicted upon him in captivity, acts of violence and sadism which, he has said in written statements, included bashings, the forcible injection of drugs, constant sleep deprivation and, in one instance, the insertion of a plastic object into his anus."
PM Update: The SMH brings things up to date, including the "sentence" meted out to Hicks. As the piece says, it appears to all have been "designed" with an eye to the political scene in Australia. How cynical! Look to for Hicks' dad's comment about the "paper" the US wanted him to sign [see above].
Most disturbing is this:
"He also agreed that he had "never been illegally treated by any persons in the control or custody of the United States".
Now, why would the Americans, and the Australian Government, have almost certainly insisted on this statement by Hicks? Will anyone really believe it, given that Hicks has alleged how he has been mistreated over the years - as has every other person taken into custody by the Americans.
Another dimension to the Hicks fiasco and disgrace is raised by Mike Carlton in his weekly column in the SMH:
"But a question hangs in the air. If Hicks is guilty of providing material support to terrorism, where does this leave those gun-toting executives of the wheat export monopoly AWB who so cheerfully shovelled $300 million of sanction-busting bribes into the coffers of the Saddam Hussein regime? Thanking their lucky stars, I imagine."
As Carlton reminds us - which makes the above statement by Hicks even more questionable:
"Naturally, this travesty has been greeted with smug triumphalism by the Howard Government and the toadying bloviators. It is so convenient. Hicks's guilty plea means he cannot now testify under oath to the brutality inflicted upon him in captivity, acts of violence and sadism which, he has said in written statements, included bashings, the forcible injection of drugs, constant sleep deprivation and, in one instance, the insertion of a plastic object into his anus."
PM Update: The SMH brings things up to date, including the "sentence" meted out to Hicks. As the piece says, it appears to all have been "designed" with an eye to the political scene in Australia. How cynical! Look to for Hicks' dad's comment about the "paper" the US wanted him to sign [see above].
Beijing Olympics 2008 - ready or not?
"Less than a decade ago, this city was an industrial wasteland. The sky could be seen from Beijing's ancient monuments less than a third of the year. Nearby lakes were so contaminated that they couldn't be used to water crops. And children were warned not to play outside in the noxious air.
So when China applied to host the 2008 Olympics, it encountered deep skepticism about its ability to pull off the feat in one of the world's most populous and polluted cities. There was real concern about athletes choking on chemical-laden air as they ran the 100-meter dash.
Seven years and $40 billion later, the Chinese have had remarkable success on many fronts. Practically every construction project is running ahead of schedule. The Chinese can brag of heroic feats of logistics and engineering: the "bird's nest" latticework of the 91,000-seat Olympic Stadium, the shimmering blue skin of the Water Cube aquatics center, a 70-mile high-speed railway, four new subway lines, an energy-efficient airport terminal."
It looks like something akin to heaven and earth is being moved in Beijing to be ready for the Olympics, now only one year away. The fall-out of all of what Beijing is, and will have, wrought remains to be seen. Pollution seems to be #1 issue despite all attempts to curb it. Read the full piece here, from the Washington Post, of an insight into what's happening in Beijing.
So when China applied to host the 2008 Olympics, it encountered deep skepticism about its ability to pull off the feat in one of the world's most populous and polluted cities. There was real concern about athletes choking on chemical-laden air as they ran the 100-meter dash.
Seven years and $40 billion later, the Chinese have had remarkable success on many fronts. Practically every construction project is running ahead of schedule. The Chinese can brag of heroic feats of logistics and engineering: the "bird's nest" latticework of the 91,000-seat Olympic Stadium, the shimmering blue skin of the Water Cube aquatics center, a 70-mile high-speed railway, four new subway lines, an energy-efficient airport terminal."
It looks like something akin to heaven and earth is being moved in Beijing to be ready for the Olympics, now only one year away. The fall-out of all of what Beijing is, and will have, wrought remains to be seen. Pollution seems to be #1 issue despite all attempts to curb it. Read the full piece here, from the Washington Post, of an insight into what's happening in Beijing.
Friday, March 30, 2007
Going, going....Gone!
It seems whatever support George Bush ever had is rapidly diminishing. His ratings in the polls are way down, sleaze is the buzz-word in Washington, the Iraq war is going from bad to worse - and now even the National Review magazine [a conservative publication and one-time supporter] says it as it sees things:
"That “competence” would become a buzzword, not of Bush supporters but of his critics, is an unexpected turnabout from when the president entered office six years ago. Then, it was common to note the experience and gravitas of the Bush team. Now, the incompetence charge has gained such traction that even many Republicans buy it."
The article on Bush in the latest issue of the magazine isn't available on line [unless a subscriber] but if you want to see the unflattering cover of the issue where the article appears, click here.
"That “competence” would become a buzzword, not of Bush supporters but of his critics, is an unexpected turnabout from when the president entered office six years ago. Then, it was common to note the experience and gravitas of the Bush team. Now, the incompetence charge has gained such traction that even many Republicans buy it."
The article on Bush in the latest issue of the magazine isn't available on line [unless a subscriber] but if you want to see the unflattering cover of the issue where the article appears, click here.
Media in the spotlight
This piece on AlterNet will confirm what those who observe the media, critically, have been saying all along. The media does not serve its readers well because it doesn't "do" what it is supposed to - that is, journalists seem to have forgotten that they are supposed to be watchdogs, not cheerleaders of government corruption.
"For six years, conservative domination of Washington created a drought of oversight and accountability. Now, as Congress finally begins to take action and shed light on the executive branch, establishment media figures are aghast. In recent weeks, reporters and editorial boards have repeatedly criticized members of Congress for investigating the White House or acting as counterweights to President Bush. As Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald noted, "Journalists are supposed to be, by definition, eager for investigations of government misconduct. That is supposed to be their purpose, embedded in their DNA." Yet time and again, media figures have ignored public opinion data and claimed that members of Congress risk severe political damage by carrying out their constitutional oversight responsibilities. Journalists have a critical responsibility to not be complicit in corruption, government malfeasance, and possible criminality. They shouldn't be mocking or criticizing efforts to hold the White House accountable; they should be furthering them."
"For six years, conservative domination of Washington created a drought of oversight and accountability. Now, as Congress finally begins to take action and shed light on the executive branch, establishment media figures are aghast. In recent weeks, reporters and editorial boards have repeatedly criticized members of Congress for investigating the White House or acting as counterweights to President Bush. As Salon.com's Glenn Greenwald noted, "Journalists are supposed to be, by definition, eager for investigations of government misconduct. That is supposed to be their purpose, embedded in their DNA." Yet time and again, media figures have ignored public opinion data and claimed that members of Congress risk severe political damage by carrying out their constitutional oversight responsibilities. Journalists have a critical responsibility to not be complicit in corruption, government malfeasance, and possible criminality. They shouldn't be mocking or criticizing efforts to hold the White House accountable; they should be furthering them."
David Hicks - and Kangaroos
The "trial" of David Hicks resumes tonight Australian time. The media is full of speculation about the outcome of Hicks' guilty plea. Of course, those who posture as experts about matters legal - and know nothing! - like Gerard Henderson and Miranda Devine [in the SMH - and nauseating to boot!] have expressed their views about the whole topic.
Whilst the interest in Hicks in Australia is considerable, it has also being the subject of intense interest around the world.
Amy Goodman [veteran journalist] writing in truthdig.com:
"It is appropriate that a person from Australia, home of the kangaroo, should be the first one dragged before the kangaroo court at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. David Hicks, imprisoned there for more than five years, pleaded guilty Monday to providing material support for terrorism.
The case of Hicks offers us a glimpse into the Kafkaesque netherworld of detentions, kidnappings, torture and show trials that is now, internationally, the shameful signature of the Bush administration. Hicks’ passage through this sham process affords us all an opportunity to demand the closure of Guantanamo and an end to these heinous policies. Conditions may soon exist to shutter the prison, with George Bush’s lame-duck status, the Democratic takeover of Congress, the possible departure of Guantanamo’s archdefender and architect, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and, if recent reports are true, a desire to close the prison on the part of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. These bogus military commission trials amplify global contempt for the Guantanamo prison."
Whilst the interest in Hicks in Australia is considerable, it has also being the subject of intense interest around the world.
Amy Goodman [veteran journalist] writing in truthdig.com:
"It is appropriate that a person from Australia, home of the kangaroo, should be the first one dragged before the kangaroo court at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay. David Hicks, imprisoned there for more than five years, pleaded guilty Monday to providing material support for terrorism.
The case of Hicks offers us a glimpse into the Kafkaesque netherworld of detentions, kidnappings, torture and show trials that is now, internationally, the shameful signature of the Bush administration. Hicks’ passage through this sham process affords us all an opportunity to demand the closure of Guantanamo and an end to these heinous policies. Conditions may soon exist to shutter the prison, with George Bush’s lame-duck status, the Democratic takeover of Congress, the possible departure of Guantanamo’s archdefender and architect, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and, if recent reports are true, a desire to close the prison on the part of Secretary of Defense Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. These bogus military commission trials amplify global contempt for the Guantanamo prison."
Ghost Prisons and Ghost Courtrooms
Village Voice reports on those "secret" prisons around the world:
"On September 17, 2001, the president told the National Security Council that, at the advice of then CIA director George Tenet (who was later awarded the Medal of Freedom by the president) he was going to issue a classified Memorandum of Notification that would give the CIA permission to use "special authorities to detain Al Qaeda operatives worldwide."
Without consulting Congress or any court, Bush had given the CIA the power to ignore American laws and our international treaty obligations to—among other war crimes under the Geneva Conventions—create its own secret prisons around the world. The CIA could also continue to conduct "renditions" to kidnap terrorism suspects to be interrogated in countries known for torturing their prisoners."
And interesting to reflect on:
"You need to have a president who understands you can't win this war with legal papers. We've got to use every tool at our disposal."
George W. Bush, Nightline, May 13, 2004
"What are we going to do with these people when we're finished . . . with them? Are they going to disappear?"
Jack Cloonan, senior FBI agent on the Bin Laden Squad, speaking of the terrorism suspects hidden in CIA secret cells, Nightline, May 13, 2004
"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [resisting interrogation in a CIA secret prison] was strapped down, forcibly pushed under the water, and made to believe he might drown."
The New York Times, May 13, 2004
"On September 17, 2001, the president told the National Security Council that, at the advice of then CIA director George Tenet (who was later awarded the Medal of Freedom by the president) he was going to issue a classified Memorandum of Notification that would give the CIA permission to use "special authorities to detain Al Qaeda operatives worldwide."
Without consulting Congress or any court, Bush had given the CIA the power to ignore American laws and our international treaty obligations to—among other war crimes under the Geneva Conventions—create its own secret prisons around the world. The CIA could also continue to conduct "renditions" to kidnap terrorism suspects to be interrogated in countries known for torturing their prisoners."
And interesting to reflect on:
"You need to have a president who understands you can't win this war with legal papers. We've got to use every tool at our disposal."
George W. Bush, Nightline, May 13, 2004
"What are we going to do with these people when we're finished . . . with them? Are they going to disappear?"
Jack Cloonan, senior FBI agent on the Bin Laden Squad, speaking of the terrorism suspects hidden in CIA secret cells, Nightline, May 13, 2004
"Khalid Sheikh Mohammed [resisting interrogation in a CIA secret prison] was strapped down, forcibly pushed under the water, and made to believe he might drown."
The New York Times, May 13, 2004
Thursday, March 29, 2007
She's back.....
That woman [no, not Bill Clinton's!] who, remember, was a Liberal candidate until un-endorsed, and who then had her policies "stolen" / adopted by John Howard is back.......none other than Pauline Hanson.
Ms Hanson was interviewed on the Breakfast program on ABC Radio National this morning:
"It's more than ten-and-a-half years since Pauline Hanson gave her now infamous maiden speech. It set off an avalanche which recast Australia's political landscape.
Although the media's immediate response to her speech was muted, talk-back radio shows registered the shockwave which would become known as 'Hansonism'.
But for the girl from Ipswich, life hasn't always been easy; nor was her political career.
Now she has recounted her story in a new autobiography to be published today called Untamed and Unashamed."
Listen to the interview, with Fran Kelly, here - and listen out for Ms Hanson's reference to "Christian Muslims". Eh?
Ms Hanson was interviewed on the Breakfast program on ABC Radio National this morning:
"It's more than ten-and-a-half years since Pauline Hanson gave her now infamous maiden speech. It set off an avalanche which recast Australia's political landscape.
Although the media's immediate response to her speech was muted, talk-back radio shows registered the shockwave which would become known as 'Hansonism'.
But for the girl from Ipswich, life hasn't always been easy; nor was her political career.
Now she has recounted her story in a new autobiography to be published today called Untamed and Unashamed."
Listen to the interview, with Fran Kelly, here - and listen out for Ms Hanson's reference to "Christian Muslims". Eh?
Comical if it weren't so serious
Keep a straight face as you read this piece from CommonDreams:
"The FBI didn’t deliberately break the law by improperly obtaining thousands of Americans’ phone, e-mail and financial records, Bureau Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
That was the good news. But then came the bad:
It happened, Mueller said, because of “mistakes, carelessness, confusion, lack of training, lack of guidance and lack of adequate oversight.”
Then came this line, which senators didn’t find reassuring either:
The FBI’s use of inaccurate information to obtain secret search warrants? The problem was “very lengthy documents . . . with thousands of facts.”
Mueller didn’t mention how the bureau also managed to lose weapons and laptop computers.
He was addressing a series of recent reports of FBI bungling - making the agency seem sort of like Homer Simpson, but with guns - notably an inspector general’s conclusion that the bureau had improperly used so-called “national security letters” that allow investigators to obtain private information without a judge’s approval."
"The FBI didn’t deliberately break the law by improperly obtaining thousands of Americans’ phone, e-mail and financial records, Bureau Director Robert Mueller told the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.
That was the good news. But then came the bad:
It happened, Mueller said, because of “mistakes, carelessness, confusion, lack of training, lack of guidance and lack of adequate oversight.”
Then came this line, which senators didn’t find reassuring either:
The FBI’s use of inaccurate information to obtain secret search warrants? The problem was “very lengthy documents . . . with thousands of facts.”
Mueller didn’t mention how the bureau also managed to lose weapons and laptop computers.
He was addressing a series of recent reports of FBI bungling - making the agency seem sort of like Homer Simpson, but with guns - notably an inspector general’s conclusion that the bureau had improperly used so-called “national security letters” that allow investigators to obtain private information without a judge’s approval."
A death in Destrehan
"On the afternoon of Oct. 7, 1974, a mob of 200 enraged whites, many of them students, closed in on a bus filled with black students that was trying to pull away from the local high school. The people in the mob were in a high-pitched frenzy. They screamed racial epithets and bombarded the bus with rocks and bottles. The students on the bus were terrified.
When a shot was heard, the kids on the bus dived for cover. But it was a 13-year-old white boy standing near the bus, not far from his mother, who toppled to the ground with a bullet wound in his head. The boy, a freshman named Timothy Weber, died a few hours later.
That single shot in this rural town about 25 miles up the Mississippi River from New Orleans set in motion a tale of appalling injustice that has lasted to the present day."
So begins a piece by Bob Herbert in the NY Times dealing with a convicted murderer Gary Tyler. Tyler is to be executed next month. But not untypically in the USA, a range of critical questions surround his conviction. Amnesty International, alngside many others, has taken up Tyler's cause as part of a Free Gary Tyler movement. Read the full Herbert piece here and also go to the links.
When a shot was heard, the kids on the bus dived for cover. But it was a 13-year-old white boy standing near the bus, not far from his mother, who toppled to the ground with a bullet wound in his head. The boy, a freshman named Timothy Weber, died a few hours later.
That single shot in this rural town about 25 miles up the Mississippi River from New Orleans set in motion a tale of appalling injustice that has lasted to the present day."
So begins a piece by Bob Herbert in the NY Times dealing with a convicted murderer Gary Tyler. Tyler is to be executed next month. But not untypically in the USA, a range of critical questions surround his conviction. Amnesty International, alngside many others, has taken up Tyler's cause as part of a Free Gary Tyler movement. Read the full Herbert piece here and also go to the links.
"Justice" at work down in Gitmo
As might have been expected the Hicks "trial" even attracted considerable attention in the US.
H. Candace Gorman, writing on The Huffington Post, amongst other observations says:
"The other thing you should know is what was clear to anyone paying attention: there was never going to be a hearing. The most recent evidence of that was when Hicks stepped into his arraignment yesterday and the first thing that happened was that two of his three attorneys were removed from representing him. Hicks' civilian attorney was removed because he refused to sign a statement agreeing to abide by military rules that had not yet been drafted and another attorney was removed because she supposedly did not have the correct credentials for the commission. That left Hicks with only one attorney, his military attorney, Dan Mori. Although Mori has been doing an exemplary job for Hicks, there was a little cloud hanging over Mori: the prosecuting attorney has suggested that Mori should be brought up on charges of misconduct for his zealous defense of Hicks. Mori was still trying to figure out how that threat by the prosecuting attorney would affect his representation of Hicks. Mori sought a short continuance to get legal counsel on this issue but that request was denied."
Read the full piece here.
H. Candace Gorman, writing on The Huffington Post, amongst other observations says:
"The other thing you should know is what was clear to anyone paying attention: there was never going to be a hearing. The most recent evidence of that was when Hicks stepped into his arraignment yesterday and the first thing that happened was that two of his three attorneys were removed from representing him. Hicks' civilian attorney was removed because he refused to sign a statement agreeing to abide by military rules that had not yet been drafted and another attorney was removed because she supposedly did not have the correct credentials for the commission. That left Hicks with only one attorney, his military attorney, Dan Mori. Although Mori has been doing an exemplary job for Hicks, there was a little cloud hanging over Mori: the prosecuting attorney has suggested that Mori should be brought up on charges of misconduct for his zealous defense of Hicks. Mori was still trying to figure out how that threat by the prosecuting attorney would affect his representation of Hicks. Mori sought a short continuance to get legal counsel on this issue but that request was denied."
Read the full piece here.
The buck doesn't stop here....
As the media "covers" the entire David Hicks affair - notably his treatment over the years and to what extent that reflected itself in his pleading guilty - an interesting report pops up on iwon.News on a proceeding brought against Donald Rumsfeld by nine former detainees under the US administration:
"Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cannot be tried on allegations of torture in overseas military prisons, a federal judge said Tuesday in a case he described as "lamentable."
U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan threw out a lawsuit brought on behalf of nine former prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said Rumsfeld cannot be held personally responsible for actions taken in connection with his government job.
The lawsuit contends the prisoners were beaten, suspended upside down from the ceiling by chains, urinated on, shocked, sexually humiliated, burned, locked inside boxes and subjected to mock executions.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First had argued that Rumsfeld and top military officials disregarded warnings about the abuse and authorized the use of illegal interrogation tactics that violated the constitutional and human rights of prisoners.
Hogan appeared conflicted during arguments last year. On one hand, he said he was hesitant to allow allegations of torture to go unheard. On the other hand, he said the case was unprecedented.
"This is a lamentable case," Hogan began his 58-page opinion Tuesday.
No matter how appealing it might seem to use the courts to correct allegations of severe abuses of power, Hogan wrote, government officials are immune from such lawsuits.
Additionally, foreigners held overseas are not normally afforded U.S. constitutional rights.
"Despite the horrifying torture allegations," Hogan said, he could find no case law supporting the lawsuit, which he previously had described as unprecedented."
The BBC also reports on the case here - with graphic details of the sort of "coercion" [aka torture in anyone's language] to which the plaintiffs in the dismissed proceeding were subjected.
So there you go. Sit where the buck ought to stop and then still not be responsible for your actions or directions. American justice at work......
"Former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld cannot be tried on allegations of torture in overseas military prisons, a federal judge said Tuesday in a case he described as "lamentable."
U.S. District Judge Thomas F. Hogan threw out a lawsuit brought on behalf of nine former prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan. He said Rumsfeld cannot be held personally responsible for actions taken in connection with his government job.
The lawsuit contends the prisoners were beaten, suspended upside down from the ceiling by chains, urinated on, shocked, sexually humiliated, burned, locked inside boxes and subjected to mock executions.
Lawyers for the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First had argued that Rumsfeld and top military officials disregarded warnings about the abuse and authorized the use of illegal interrogation tactics that violated the constitutional and human rights of prisoners.
Hogan appeared conflicted during arguments last year. On one hand, he said he was hesitant to allow allegations of torture to go unheard. On the other hand, he said the case was unprecedented.
"This is a lamentable case," Hogan began his 58-page opinion Tuesday.
No matter how appealing it might seem to use the courts to correct allegations of severe abuses of power, Hogan wrote, government officials are immune from such lawsuits.
Additionally, foreigners held overseas are not normally afforded U.S. constitutional rights.
"Despite the horrifying torture allegations," Hogan said, he could find no case law supporting the lawsuit, which he previously had described as unprecedented."
The BBC also reports on the case here - with graphic details of the sort of "coercion" [aka torture in anyone's language] to which the plaintiffs in the dismissed proceeding were subjected.
So there you go. Sit where the buck ought to stop and then still not be responsible for your actions or directions. American justice at work......
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Whistleblow at your peril!
PM Howard and Co. are always going on about democratic values and like topics. The fact that this Government has done more to curtail access to Government and policy decisions hasn't been lost on those who follow these things. FOI has almost become a joke - especially if the Government is prepared to spend thousands of dollars to protect itself from anything which it doesn't want you and me to either know about or see.
Whistleblowers are certainly an endangered species, as this editorial, perhaps surprisingly, in The Australian clearly explains:
"The pernicious prosecution of retired customs officer Allan Robert Kessing for allegedly blowing the whistle on the poor state of security at Australian airports is a distressing reminder that the Howard Government's words and deeds are worlds apart when it comes to free speech and the public interest. Mr Kessing has been convicted of making public a classified report that formed the basis of a series of reports in The Australian which led to a $212 million upgrade of national airport security. The classified report detailed a situation of near-anarchy at Sydney airport, which had been infiltrated by corrupt baggage handlers, many with criminal convictions. Mr Kessing now faces up to two years in prison, with the commonwealth saying it will argue for a custodial sentence. The Australian's reporters Martin Chulov and Jonathan Porter have never revealed the source of the information. The Government's first reaction was to downplay its significance, describing it as a "background paper", not a report intended for release. But behind the scenes it set about finding someone to punish for having left it exposed. The report subsequently led to more than $200 million worth of reforms. Such a costly response is clear testament to the report's veracity and worth.
Ironically, Mr Kessing's plight comes as state attorneys-general prepare to meet to approve shield laws proposed by commonwealth Attorney-General Philip Ruddock to protect journalists from having to reveal their sources. The commonwealth has appealed for leniency in the case of News Ltd journalists Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus, who are awaiting sentence after pleading guilty to contempt of court for refusing to name a source in the federal public service. As the Kessing case shows, the Government's professed support for journalists is meaningless while it continues to root out and punish whistleblowers who leak information in the public interest."
Whistleblowers are certainly an endangered species, as this editorial, perhaps surprisingly, in The Australian clearly explains:
"The pernicious prosecution of retired customs officer Allan Robert Kessing for allegedly blowing the whistle on the poor state of security at Australian airports is a distressing reminder that the Howard Government's words and deeds are worlds apart when it comes to free speech and the public interest. Mr Kessing has been convicted of making public a classified report that formed the basis of a series of reports in The Australian which led to a $212 million upgrade of national airport security. The classified report detailed a situation of near-anarchy at Sydney airport, which had been infiltrated by corrupt baggage handlers, many with criminal convictions. Mr Kessing now faces up to two years in prison, with the commonwealth saying it will argue for a custodial sentence. The Australian's reporters Martin Chulov and Jonathan Porter have never revealed the source of the information. The Government's first reaction was to downplay its significance, describing it as a "background paper", not a report intended for release. But behind the scenes it set about finding someone to punish for having left it exposed. The report subsequently led to more than $200 million worth of reforms. Such a costly response is clear testament to the report's veracity and worth.
Ironically, Mr Kessing's plight comes as state attorneys-general prepare to meet to approve shield laws proposed by commonwealth Attorney-General Philip Ruddock to protect journalists from having to reveal their sources. The commonwealth has appealed for leniency in the case of News Ltd journalists Michael Harvey and Gerard McManus, who are awaiting sentence after pleading guilty to contempt of court for refusing to name a source in the federal public service. As the Kessing case shows, the Government's professed support for journalists is meaningless while it continues to root out and punish whistleblowers who leak information in the public interest."
Not Happy John......
This self-explanatory letter to the editor appears in today's SMH:
"I saw John Howard speaking on the industrial relations laws, saying he had met no one affected. Well, let me introduce myself, Mr Howard. Last year I was working for a company that paid me an extra $5 an hour for working nights and weekends, and I was able to spend a family fun day with the kids.
I then got fired for complaining to my boss over a racist comment she made. Left me high and dry. I had a full-time job one day and was fired the next after working there loyally for two years.
I now have a new job. No penalty rates for working nights or weekends, which run from 7pm Friday to midnight Sunday. I work a total of 27 of those hours, which is more than half the weekend, with no extra compensation.
The family fun day has died a sad death. My two daughters do not understand why Daddy no longer spends time with them. I work all weekend for less money and less family time, and I feel depressed that all I seem to do is work and sleep, and the kids are growing up without their father's guidance.
All this so my company can send its executives on overseas trips or spend more on fancy advertising or whatever it has done with the extra $250 a week that I previously could have expected for working such hours.
Mr Howard, do you take my $250 a week in company tax and put it towards your re-election ads? Every time I see one of them I will think of how my family fun day was taken away from me so you can play those ads on my TV in the house that I will be renting for the rest of my life because houses are a rich person's pleasure now and that dream has also been stripped from hard-working Aussies like me.
That's me, Mr Howard. Glad to finally meet you. Sadly, I am afraid to leave my name as my company would fire me if it knew I'd complained about my wages."
"I saw John Howard speaking on the industrial relations laws, saying he had met no one affected. Well, let me introduce myself, Mr Howard. Last year I was working for a company that paid me an extra $5 an hour for working nights and weekends, and I was able to spend a family fun day with the kids.
I then got fired for complaining to my boss over a racist comment she made. Left me high and dry. I had a full-time job one day and was fired the next after working there loyally for two years.
I now have a new job. No penalty rates for working nights or weekends, which run from 7pm Friday to midnight Sunday. I work a total of 27 of those hours, which is more than half the weekend, with no extra compensation.
The family fun day has died a sad death. My two daughters do not understand why Daddy no longer spends time with them. I work all weekend for less money and less family time, and I feel depressed that all I seem to do is work and sleep, and the kids are growing up without their father's guidance.
All this so my company can send its executives on overseas trips or spend more on fancy advertising or whatever it has done with the extra $250 a week that I previously could have expected for working such hours.
Mr Howard, do you take my $250 a week in company tax and put it towards your re-election ads? Every time I see one of them I will think of how my family fun day was taken away from me so you can play those ads on my TV in the house that I will be renting for the rest of my life because houses are a rich person's pleasure now and that dream has also been stripped from hard-working Aussies like me.
That's me, Mr Howard. Glad to finally meet you. Sadly, I am afraid to leave my name as my company would fire me if it knew I'd complained about my wages."
A growing chorus....
The voices are getting louder about the whole David Hicks "process" and his now having pleaded guilty.
As The Age reports:
"A extraordinary chorus of jurists has expressed doubt as to whether David Hicks' plea was a free admission of guilt rather than simply a desperate response to coercion.
Representatives from the Law Council of Australia, the Law Institute of Victoria, civil liberties group Liberty Victoria, the International Commission of Jurists, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, Monash University and the University of NSW said that Hicks had been subjected to exceptional pressures.
The most damning interpretation of the plea was delivered by Liberty Victoria president Brian Walters, SC, who described it as "a result not of a free choice, but of no choice".
"After five years in shocking conditions, with no right to see his family … any ray of light showing a way out would be taken, and it has been."
Mr Walters estimated it would have taken Hicks at least two more years to beat the charges if contested, and described yesterday as a "day of deep shame" for Australia.
"This does not get the Australian Government off the hook. This shows how far they have sunk from upholding human rights," Mr Walters said."
Meanwhile, Andrew Lynch, director of the terrorism and law project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW writing in the SMH under the banner "Little comfort from guilty plea" says this morning:
"The public will be curious as to what happens now to Hicks and may be appeased by the Government's assurances that he will be able to serve his sentence in Australia. The Government will welcome news of his guilty plea and hope that this will deflate the issue significantly by the federal election.
But arguably the damage has been done, and not just to Hicks. Dissatisfaction with the way the Government abandoned one of its citizens to a foreign system as mired in controversy and delay as that of the US military commissions may linger.
Hicks's conviction will owe nothing to the speedy and impartial application of justice. As a result, even those convinced of his guilt can draw little comfort from this development."
As The Age reports:
"A extraordinary chorus of jurists has expressed doubt as to whether David Hicks' plea was a free admission of guilt rather than simply a desperate response to coercion.
Representatives from the Law Council of Australia, the Law Institute of Victoria, civil liberties group Liberty Victoria, the International Commission of Jurists, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, Monash University and the University of NSW said that Hicks had been subjected to exceptional pressures.
The most damning interpretation of the plea was delivered by Liberty Victoria president Brian Walters, SC, who described it as "a result not of a free choice, but of no choice".
"After five years in shocking conditions, with no right to see his family … any ray of light showing a way out would be taken, and it has been."
Mr Walters estimated it would have taken Hicks at least two more years to beat the charges if contested, and described yesterday as a "day of deep shame" for Australia.
"This does not get the Australian Government off the hook. This shows how far they have sunk from upholding human rights," Mr Walters said."
Meanwhile, Andrew Lynch, director of the terrorism and law project at the Gilbert + Tobin Centre of Public Law, UNSW writing in the SMH under the banner "Little comfort from guilty plea" says this morning:
"The public will be curious as to what happens now to Hicks and may be appeased by the Government's assurances that he will be able to serve his sentence in Australia. The Government will welcome news of his guilty plea and hope that this will deflate the issue significantly by the federal election.
But arguably the damage has been done, and not just to Hicks. Dissatisfaction with the way the Government abandoned one of its citizens to a foreign system as mired in controversy and delay as that of the US military commissions may linger.
Hicks's conviction will owe nothing to the speedy and impartial application of justice. As a result, even those convinced of his guilt can draw little comfort from this development."
You too can be a banker to the poor
Nicholas Kristof, columnist in the NY Times, has this interesting column [not available unless a subscriber to the NY Times]:
"For those readers who ask me what they can do to help fight poverty, one option is to sit down at your computer and become a microfinancier.
That’s what I did recently. From my laptop in New York, I lent $25 each to the owner of a TV repair shop in Afghanistan, a baker in Afghanistan, and a single mother running a clothing shop in the Dominican Republic. I did this through www.kiva.org, a Web site that provides information about entrepreneurs in poor countries — their photos, loan proposals and credit history — and allows people to make direct loans to them.
So on my arrival here in Afghanistan, I visited my new business partners to see how they were doing.
On a muddy street in Kabul, Abdul Satar, a bushy-bearded man of 64, was sitting in the window of his bakery selling loaves for 12 cents each. He was astonished when I introduced myself as his banker, but he allowed me to analyze his business plan by sampling his bread: It was delicious.
Mr. Abdul Satar had borrowed a total of $425 from a variety of lenders on Kiva.org, who besides me included Nathan in San Francisco, David in Rochester, N.Y., Sarah in Waltham, Mass., Nate in Fort Collins, Colo.; Cindy in Houston, and “Emily’s family” in Santa Barbara, Calif.
With the loan, Mr. Abdul Satar opened a second bakery nearby, with four employees, and he now benefits from economies of scale when he buys flour and firewood for his oven. “If you come back in 10 years, maybe I will have six more bakeries,” he said.
Mr. Abdul Satar said he didn’t know what the Internet was, and he had certainly never been online. But Kiva works with a local lender affiliated with Mercy Corps, and that group finds borrowers and vets them.
The local group, Ariana Financial Services, has only Afghan employees and is run by Storai Sadat, a dynamic young woman who was in her second year of medical school when the Taliban came to power and ended education for women. She ended up working for Mercy Corps and becoming a first-rate financier; some day she may take over Citigroup.
“Being a finance person is better than being a doctor,” Ms. Sadat said. “You can cure the whole family, not just one person. And it’s good medicine — you can see them get better day by day.”
Small loans to entrepreneurs are now widely recognized as an important tool against poverty. Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his pioneering work with microfinance in Bangladesh.
In poor countries, commercial money lenders routinely charge interest rates of several hundred percent per year. Thus people tend to borrow for health emergencies rather than to finance a new business. And partly because poor people tend to have no access to banks, they also often can’t save money securely.
Microfinance institutions typically focusing on lending to women, to give them more status and more opportunities. Ms. Sadat’s group does lend mostly to women, but it’s been difficult to connect some female borrowers with donors on Kiva — because many Afghans would be horrified at the thought of taking a woman’s photograph, let alone posting on the Internet.
My other partner in Kabul is Abdul Saboor, who runs a small TV repair business. He used the loan to open a second shop, employing two people, and to increase his inventory of spare parts. “I used to have to go to the market every day to buy parts,” he said, adding that it was a two-and-a-half-hour round trip. “Now I go once every two weeks.”
Web sites like Kiva are useful partly because they connect the donor directly to the beneficiary, without going through a bureaucratic and expensive layer of aid groups in between. Another terrific Web site in this area is www.globalgiving.com, which connects donors to would-be recipients. The main difference is that GlobalGiving is for donations, while Kiva is for loans.
A young American couple, Matthew and Jessica Flannery, founded Kiva after they worked in Africa and realized that a major impediment to economic development was the unavailability of credit at any reasonable cost.
“I believe the real solutions to poverty alleviation hinge on bringing capitalism and business to areas where there wasn’t business or where it wasn’t efficient,” Mr. Flannery said. He added: “This doesn’t have to be charity. You can partner with someone who’s halfway around the world.”
"For those readers who ask me what they can do to help fight poverty, one option is to sit down at your computer and become a microfinancier.
That’s what I did recently. From my laptop in New York, I lent $25 each to the owner of a TV repair shop in Afghanistan, a baker in Afghanistan, and a single mother running a clothing shop in the Dominican Republic. I did this through www.kiva.org, a Web site that provides information about entrepreneurs in poor countries — their photos, loan proposals and credit history — and allows people to make direct loans to them.
So on my arrival here in Afghanistan, I visited my new business partners to see how they were doing.
On a muddy street in Kabul, Abdul Satar, a bushy-bearded man of 64, was sitting in the window of his bakery selling loaves for 12 cents each. He was astonished when I introduced myself as his banker, but he allowed me to analyze his business plan by sampling his bread: It was delicious.
Mr. Abdul Satar had borrowed a total of $425 from a variety of lenders on Kiva.org, who besides me included Nathan in San Francisco, David in Rochester, N.Y., Sarah in Waltham, Mass., Nate in Fort Collins, Colo.; Cindy in Houston, and “Emily’s family” in Santa Barbara, Calif.
With the loan, Mr. Abdul Satar opened a second bakery nearby, with four employees, and he now benefits from economies of scale when he buys flour and firewood for his oven. “If you come back in 10 years, maybe I will have six more bakeries,” he said.
Mr. Abdul Satar said he didn’t know what the Internet was, and he had certainly never been online. But Kiva works with a local lender affiliated with Mercy Corps, and that group finds borrowers and vets them.
The local group, Ariana Financial Services, has only Afghan employees and is run by Storai Sadat, a dynamic young woman who was in her second year of medical school when the Taliban came to power and ended education for women. She ended up working for Mercy Corps and becoming a first-rate financier; some day she may take over Citigroup.
“Being a finance person is better than being a doctor,” Ms. Sadat said. “You can cure the whole family, not just one person. And it’s good medicine — you can see them get better day by day.”
Small loans to entrepreneurs are now widely recognized as an important tool against poverty. Muhammad Yunus won the Nobel Peace Prize last year for his pioneering work with microfinance in Bangladesh.
In poor countries, commercial money lenders routinely charge interest rates of several hundred percent per year. Thus people tend to borrow for health emergencies rather than to finance a new business. And partly because poor people tend to have no access to banks, they also often can’t save money securely.
Microfinance institutions typically focusing on lending to women, to give them more status and more opportunities. Ms. Sadat’s group does lend mostly to women, but it’s been difficult to connect some female borrowers with donors on Kiva — because many Afghans would be horrified at the thought of taking a woman’s photograph, let alone posting on the Internet.
My other partner in Kabul is Abdul Saboor, who runs a small TV repair business. He used the loan to open a second shop, employing two people, and to increase his inventory of spare parts. “I used to have to go to the market every day to buy parts,” he said, adding that it was a two-and-a-half-hour round trip. “Now I go once every two weeks.”
Web sites like Kiva are useful partly because they connect the donor directly to the beneficiary, without going through a bureaucratic and expensive layer of aid groups in between. Another terrific Web site in this area is www.globalgiving.com, which connects donors to would-be recipients. The main difference is that GlobalGiving is for donations, while Kiva is for loans.
A young American couple, Matthew and Jessica Flannery, founded Kiva after they worked in Africa and realized that a major impediment to economic development was the unavailability of credit at any reasonable cost.
“I believe the real solutions to poverty alleviation hinge on bringing capitalism and business to areas where there wasn’t business or where it wasn’t efficient,” Mr. Flannery said. He added: “This doesn’t have to be charity. You can partner with someone who’s halfway around the world.”
David Hicks - and Donald Rumsfled
As speculation swirls around the outcome of the David Hicks' guilty plea - and many rightly say Hicks would not have brought a free-will to his decision given his 5 year incarceration at Gitmo and his treatment all up - it is worth bearing in mind the words of former Defence Secretary Rumsfeld:
"Interrogations must always be planned deliberate actions to take into account the detainees' physical strengths and weaknesses". Then he went onto say, "Interrogation approaches are designed to manipulate the detainee’s emotions and weakness, to gain his willing cooperation".
The SMH reports :
"David Hicks' father Terry says the Australian government put pressure on his son to plead guilty to the charge of providing support for terrorism.
Adelaide-born Hicks could be back in Australia by the end of the year after the shock plea in front of the US military commission at Guantanamo Bay.
"The Australian government, I believe, are the ones that put the pressure on David," Terry Hicks said in an interview in Washington DC, aired on the Nine Network.
"They demonised him, they pre-judged him for five years.
"I suppose Mr Howard would be throwing his hands up with glee at the moment but as far as I'm concerned this was a way out for David regardless of whether he was guilty or innocent, we'll never ever know now."
Meanwhile, Colonel Mo Davis [the prosecutor in the Hicks "trial"] on the ABC Radio National Breakfast program this morning in answer to a question on why Hicks had to spend 5 years at Gitmo when he could have been dealt with in American's civil courts much sooner, Davis asserted that the Vietnamese had detained Americans for years on end, without trial, during the Vietnam War. So, now we equate our standards of justice and fairness to those nasty Communist people in Vietnam?
"Interrogations must always be planned deliberate actions to take into account the detainees' physical strengths and weaknesses". Then he went onto say, "Interrogation approaches are designed to manipulate the detainee’s emotions and weakness, to gain his willing cooperation".
The SMH reports :
"David Hicks' father Terry says the Australian government put pressure on his son to plead guilty to the charge of providing support for terrorism.
Adelaide-born Hicks could be back in Australia by the end of the year after the shock plea in front of the US military commission at Guantanamo Bay.
"The Australian government, I believe, are the ones that put the pressure on David," Terry Hicks said in an interview in Washington DC, aired on the Nine Network.
"They demonised him, they pre-judged him for five years.
"I suppose Mr Howard would be throwing his hands up with glee at the moment but as far as I'm concerned this was a way out for David regardless of whether he was guilty or innocent, we'll never ever know now."
Meanwhile, Colonel Mo Davis [the prosecutor in the Hicks "trial"] on the ABC Radio National Breakfast program this morning in answer to a question on why Hicks had to spend 5 years at Gitmo when he could have been dealt with in American's civil courts much sooner, Davis asserted that the Vietnamese had detained Americans for years on end, without trial, during the Vietnam War. So, now we equate our standards of justice and fairness to those nasty Communist people in Vietnam?
Tuesday, March 27, 2007
The President's prison
The New York Times editorialises about George Bush under the heading "The President's prison" in a fashion one might not have expected from the newspaper:
"George Bush does not want to be rescued.
The president has been told countless times, by a secretary of state, by members of Congress, by heads of friendly governments — and by the American public — that the Guantánamo Bay detention camp has profoundly damaged this nation’s credibility as a champion of justice and human rights. But Mr. Bush ignored those voices — and now it seems he has done the same to his new defense secretary, Robert Gates, the man Mr. Bush brought in to clean up Donald Rumsfeld’s mess.
Thom Shanker and David Sanger reported in Friday’s Times that in his first weeks on the job, Mr. Gates told Mr. Bush that the world would never consider trials at Guantánamo to be legitimate. He said that the camp should be shut, and that inmates who should stand trial should be brought to the United States and taken to real military courts.
Mr. Bush rejected that sound advice, heeding instead the chief enablers of his worst instincts, Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Their opposition was no surprise. The Guantánamo operation was central to Mr. Cheney’s drive to expand the powers of the presidency at the expense of Congress and the courts, and Mr. Gonzales was one of the chief architects of the policies underpinning the detainee system. Mr. Bush and his inner circle are clearly afraid that if Guantánamo detainees are tried under the actual rule of law, many of the cases will collapse because they are based on illegal detention, torture and abuse — or that American officials could someday be held criminally liable for their mistreatment of detainees."
"George Bush does not want to be rescued.
The president has been told countless times, by a secretary of state, by members of Congress, by heads of friendly governments — and by the American public — that the Guantánamo Bay detention camp has profoundly damaged this nation’s credibility as a champion of justice and human rights. But Mr. Bush ignored those voices — and now it seems he has done the same to his new defense secretary, Robert Gates, the man Mr. Bush brought in to clean up Donald Rumsfeld’s mess.
Thom Shanker and David Sanger reported in Friday’s Times that in his first weeks on the job, Mr. Gates told Mr. Bush that the world would never consider trials at Guantánamo to be legitimate. He said that the camp should be shut, and that inmates who should stand trial should be brought to the United States and taken to real military courts.
Mr. Bush rejected that sound advice, heeding instead the chief enablers of his worst instincts, Vice President Dick Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales. Their opposition was no surprise. The Guantánamo operation was central to Mr. Cheney’s drive to expand the powers of the presidency at the expense of Congress and the courts, and Mr. Gonzales was one of the chief architects of the policies underpinning the detainee system. Mr. Bush and his inner circle are clearly afraid that if Guantánamo detainees are tried under the actual rule of law, many of the cases will collapse because they are based on illegal detention, torture and abuse — or that American officials could someday be held criminally liable for their mistreatment of detainees."
Reflecting on that Hicks guilty plea.....
It has just been reported that David Hicks has pleaded guilty. See the report in the SMH here. No doubt a sigh of relief can be heard from Canberra all the way up to Washington. But the question which must be asked is whether he has brought his own free will to the decision. After 5 years in the hell-hole of Gitmo and having been physically and mentally "battered" and tortured who wouldn't jump at the chance of getting out of Gitmo? - whether pleading guilty or not!
The Executive Director of GetUp, writing in Crikey on Hicks' guilty plea says:
"After the legal drama in his initial hearing today, David Hicks surely would have reflected on the fact that years after his initial plea of innocence, he was still locked in a cell 1.8m². Any normal Australian, facing a system weighted so heavily against them and broken by five years of unimaginable privation, is likely to have signed a document that would get them out of Guantanamo – regardless of their guilt or innocence.
David Hicks’ guilty plea is not justice served, nor does it necessarily reflect Hicks’ guilt – it is simply further evidence of a rank system, and Australians can smell it from afar.
Almost every eminent jurist and legal body in the country has condemned a tribunal that has more in common with a circus than justice. Australian and international jurists agree this system was designed to guarantee convictions. It should come as no surprise, then, that it has. It reflects a system that is no more than justice on the make – offending basic legal principles of independence and impartiality".
On another level, that appalling A-G Ruddock said yesterday [seriously!] on the ABC radio program PM that the delay in Hicks coming to trial would "benefit" him because with the passage of time the recollection of prosecution witnesses would have been diminished. There you go.....David Hicks has been advantaged by what has happened to him! Ruddock deserves to be sacked from his position as Attorney-General. He isn't worthy of the office.
The Executive Director of GetUp, writing in Crikey on Hicks' guilty plea says:
"After the legal drama in his initial hearing today, David Hicks surely would have reflected on the fact that years after his initial plea of innocence, he was still locked in a cell 1.8m². Any normal Australian, facing a system weighted so heavily against them and broken by five years of unimaginable privation, is likely to have signed a document that would get them out of Guantanamo – regardless of their guilt or innocence.
David Hicks’ guilty plea is not justice served, nor does it necessarily reflect Hicks’ guilt – it is simply further evidence of a rank system, and Australians can smell it from afar.
Almost every eminent jurist and legal body in the country has condemned a tribunal that has more in common with a circus than justice. Australian and international jurists agree this system was designed to guarantee convictions. It should come as no surprise, then, that it has. It reflects a system that is no more than justice on the make – offending basic legal principles of independence and impartiality".
On another level, that appalling A-G Ruddock said yesterday [seriously!] on the ABC radio program PM that the delay in Hicks coming to trial would "benefit" him because with the passage of time the recollection of prosecution witnesses would have been diminished. There you go.....David Hicks has been advantaged by what has happened to him! Ruddock deserves to be sacked from his position as Attorney-General. He isn't worthy of the office.
A more than justified rage...
Tom Stoppard is a well known British playwrite. On this occasion, however, his writing is in a piece in The Independent directed to an anger about the ongoing situation in Darfur - and the world sitting on its hands:
"If not now, when? If not we, who? News of murder, rape, arson and dispossession in Darfur has been coming in for something like four years, stopping and starting and stuttering, scaling up into horrifying film footage that blanks out the political story, and also down into declarations, resolutions and soundbites that veil the horror of what's really happening in a war so remote and so obscured that the numbers of dead arrive rounded to the nearest hundred thousand.
Is it 200,000 or 300,000?
Both figures keep popping up in the Darfur story in reproachable documentation and all you can think is that the sub-text "enough is enough" of Tony Blair's reported message to Angela Merkel the other day had an even darker meaning than the phrase was intended to carry."
"If not now, when? If not we, who? News of murder, rape, arson and dispossession in Darfur has been coming in for something like four years, stopping and starting and stuttering, scaling up into horrifying film footage that blanks out the political story, and also down into declarations, resolutions and soundbites that veil the horror of what's really happening in a war so remote and so obscured that the numbers of dead arrive rounded to the nearest hundred thousand.
Is it 200,000 or 300,000?
Both figures keep popping up in the Darfur story in reproachable documentation and all you can think is that the sub-text "enough is enough" of Tony Blair's reported message to Angela Merkel the other day had an even darker meaning than the phrase was intended to carry."
Monday, March 26, 2007
Whatever it is, it isn't a confession
As this op-ed piece in the the NY Times by Slavoj Zizek , the international director of the Birkbeck Institute for the Humanities, puts it:
"Since the release of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s dramatic confessions, moral outrage at the extent of his crimes has been mixed with doubts. Can his claims be trusted? What if he confessed to more than he really did, either because of a vain desire to be remembered as the big terrorist mastermind, or because he was ready to confess anything in order to stop the water boarding and other “enhanced interrogation techniques”?
If there was one surprising aspect to this situation it has less to do with the confessions themselves than with the fact that for the first time in a great many years, torture was normalized — presented as something acceptable. The ethical consequences of it should worry us all.
While the scope of Mr. Mohammed’s crimes is clear and horrifying, it is worth noting that the United States seems incapable of treating him even as it would the hardest criminal — in the civilized Western world, even the most depraved child murderer gets judged and punished. But any legal trial and punishment of Mr. Mohammed is now impossible — no court that operates within the frames of Western legal systems can deal with illegal detentions, confessions obtained by torture and the like. (And this conforms, perversely, to Mr. Mohammed’s desire to be treated as an enemy rather than a criminal.)"
If there was one surprising aspect to this situation it has less to do with the confessions themselves than with the fact that for the first time in a great many years, torture was normalized — presented as something acceptable. The ethical consequences of it should worry us all.
While the scope of Mr. Mohammed’s crimes is clear and horrifying, it is worth noting that the United States seems incapable of treating him even as it would the hardest criminal — in the civilized Western world, even the most depraved child murderer gets judged and punished. But any legal trial and punishment of Mr. Mohammed is now impossible — no court that operates within the frames of Western legal systems can deal with illegal detentions, confessions obtained by torture and the like. (And this conforms, perversely, to Mr. Mohammed’s desire to be treated as an enemy rather than a criminal.)"
A dangerous masked ball
Condi Rice is yet again traipsing around the Middle East allegedly attempting, yet again, to get a settlement of the ongoing Palestinian-Israeli dispute up and running. It is said to be her 8th visit to the region. It all seems a waste of time as the US doesn't even recognise the Palestinian government whether it be the unity one recently agreed to or its predecessor. This is the very telling point Gideon Levy makes in his op-ed piece in Haaretz:
"The rules of decorum are binding: Welcome - to the U.S. Secretary of State and United Nations secretary-general, who have come here, and to the German chancellor, who is due next week. But the rules of logic are no less binding, and we must ask: So, why have you come?
All three have declared that they are coming here to further a solution. But this whole show, we must tell them, is no more than a ridiculous masked ball: In their pointless and fruitless visits, they only perpetuate and entrench the conflict that most threatens world peace.
The fact that all three boycott the elected Palestinian prime minister predetermines that there is no chance for progress. This blind trio is looking in the wrong place. If they really wished to contribute, they would have to do two things: meet with Ismail Haniyeh and pressure him to recognize Israel, and meet with Ehud Olmert and pressure him to put an end to the occupation. Without these two elements - nothing will move forward."
"The rules of decorum are binding: Welcome - to the U.S. Secretary of State and United Nations secretary-general, who have come here, and to the German chancellor, who is due next week. But the rules of logic are no less binding, and we must ask: So, why have you come?
All three have declared that they are coming here to further a solution. But this whole show, we must tell them, is no more than a ridiculous masked ball: In their pointless and fruitless visits, they only perpetuate and entrench the conflict that most threatens world peace.
The fact that all three boycott the elected Palestinian prime minister predetermines that there is no chance for progress. This blind trio is looking in the wrong place. If they really wished to contribute, they would have to do two things: meet with Ismail Haniyeh and pressure him to recognize Israel, and meet with Ehud Olmert and pressure him to put an end to the occupation. Without these two elements - nothing will move forward."
Worlds apart
Robert Fisk, writing in The Independent, reflects on two worlds - that which he encountered when lecturing in Cairo and giving the same lecture a few days later in the US:
"There's a helluva difference between Cairo University and the campus of Valdosta in the Deep South of the United States. I visited both this week and I feel like I've been travelling on a gloomy spaceship - or maybe a time machine - with just two distant constellations to guide my journey. One is clearly named Iraq; the other is Fear. They have a lot in common."
Read Fisk's full piece here.
"There's a helluva difference between Cairo University and the campus of Valdosta in the Deep South of the United States. I visited both this week and I feel like I've been travelling on a gloomy spaceship - or maybe a time machine - with just two distant constellations to guide my journey. One is clearly named Iraq; the other is Fear. They have a lot in common."
Read Fisk's full piece here.
An open letter to George Bush & Co.
"You Misters Bush and Cheney; you Ms. Rice are villainously and criminally obscene people, obscene human beings, incompetent even to fulfill your own self-serving agenda, while tragically neglectful and destructive of ours and our country's. And I got a question for your daughters Mr. Bush. They're not children anymore. Do they support your policy in Iraq? If they do, how dare they not be in uniform, while the children of the poor; black, white, Asian, Hispanic, and all the other American working men and women are slaughtered, maimed and flown back into this country under cover of darkness."
Strong words! Written by some radical leftie leaning rabble-rouser? Nope! Sean Penn, well-known actor has written an open letter to Bush and Co.
Penn goes to write [read the whole letter published on Information Clearing House here]:
"Now, because I've been on the streets of Baghdad during this occupational war, outside the Green Zone, without security, and you haven't; I've met children there. In that country of 25 million, these children have now suffered minimally, a rainstorm of civilian death around and among them totaling the equivalent of two hundred September 11ths in just four years of war. Two hundred 9/11s. Two hundred 9/11s.
You want to rattle sabers toward Iran now? Let me tell you something about Iran, because I've been there and you haven't. Iran is a great country. A great country. Does it have its haters? You bet. Just like the United States has its haters. Does it have a corrupt regime? You bet. Just like the United States has a corrupt regime. Does it want a nuclear weapon? Maybe. Do we have one? You bet. But the people of Iran are great people. And if we give that corrupt leadership, (by attacking Iran militarily) the opportunity to unify that great country in hatred against us, we'll have been giving up one of our most promising future allies in decades. If you really know anything about Iran, you know exactly what I'm referring to. Of course your administration belittles diplomatic potential there, as those options rely on a credibility and geopolitical influence that you have aggressively squandered worldwide."
Strong words! Written by some radical leftie leaning rabble-rouser? Nope! Sean Penn, well-known actor has written an open letter to Bush and Co.
Penn goes to write [read the whole letter published on Information Clearing House here]:
"Now, because I've been on the streets of Baghdad during this occupational war, outside the Green Zone, without security, and you haven't; I've met children there. In that country of 25 million, these children have now suffered minimally, a rainstorm of civilian death around and among them totaling the equivalent of two hundred September 11ths in just four years of war. Two hundred 9/11s. Two hundred 9/11s.
You want to rattle sabers toward Iran now? Let me tell you something about Iran, because I've been there and you haven't. Iran is a great country. A great country. Does it have its haters? You bet. Just like the United States has its haters. Does it have a corrupt regime? You bet. Just like the United States has a corrupt regime. Does it want a nuclear weapon? Maybe. Do we have one? You bet. But the people of Iran are great people. And if we give that corrupt leadership, (by attacking Iran militarily) the opportunity to unify that great country in hatred against us, we'll have been giving up one of our most promising future allies in decades. If you really know anything about Iran, you know exactly what I'm referring to. Of course your administration belittles diplomatic potential there, as those options rely on a credibility and geopolitical influence that you have aggressively squandered worldwide."
The watchers need watching
Since 9/11 governments have taken various steps to allegedly protect us all from terrorism. Just reflect on how many Ministers or public officials now respond to a question that they are unable to answer it on the grounds of security reasons.
The Washington Post reports on the American scene:
"Each day, thousands of pieces of intelligence information from around the world -- field reports, captured documents, news from foreign allies and sometimes idle gossip -- arrive in a computer-filled office in McLean, where analysts feed them into the nation's central list of terrorists and terrorism suspects.
Called TIDE, for Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, the list is a storehouse for data about individuals that the intelligence community believes might harm the United States. It is the wellspring for watch lists distributed to airlines, law enforcement, border posts and U.S. consulates, created to close one of the key intelligence gaps revealed after Sept. 11, 2001: the failure of federal agencies to share what they knew about al-Qaeda operatives.
But in addressing one problem, TIDE has spawned others. Ballooning from fewer than 100,000 files in 2003 to about 435,000, the growing database threatens to overwhelm the people who manage it. "The single biggest worry that I have is long-term quality control," said Russ Travers, in charge of TIDE at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean."
Troubling and of concern! Coincidentally this week sees the release in Australia of the Academy award-winning movie "The Lives of Others". A "story" dealing with the ramifications of the infamous Stasi regime in East Germany in the 1980's it is not only a must-see film but a moving and powerful portrait of how a "security" apparatus can get totally out of hand - and with all that entails. Read about the movie in this piece in The New Yorker.
The Washington Post reports on the American scene:
"Each day, thousands of pieces of intelligence information from around the world -- field reports, captured documents, news from foreign allies and sometimes idle gossip -- arrive in a computer-filled office in McLean, where analysts feed them into the nation's central list of terrorists and terrorism suspects.
Called TIDE, for Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, the list is a storehouse for data about individuals that the intelligence community believes might harm the United States. It is the wellspring for watch lists distributed to airlines, law enforcement, border posts and U.S. consulates, created to close one of the key intelligence gaps revealed after Sept. 11, 2001: the failure of federal agencies to share what they knew about al-Qaeda operatives.
But in addressing one problem, TIDE has spawned others. Ballooning from fewer than 100,000 files in 2003 to about 435,000, the growing database threatens to overwhelm the people who manage it. "The single biggest worry that I have is long-term quality control," said Russ Travers, in charge of TIDE at the National Counterterrorism Center in McLean."
Troubling and of concern! Coincidentally this week sees the release in Australia of the Academy award-winning movie "The Lives of Others". A "story" dealing with the ramifications of the infamous Stasi regime in East Germany in the 1980's it is not only a must-see film but a moving and powerful portrait of how a "security" apparatus can get totally out of hand - and with all that entails. Read about the movie in this piece in The New Yorker.
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Extinction looms in 5 years time.....
This is truly horrifying:
"The UN's environment programme report, 'The Last Stand of the Orang Utan: State of Emergency', says natural rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia are being cleared so rapidly that up to 98 per cent may be destroyed by 2022, and the lowland forest strongholds of orang utans much sooner, unless urgent action is taken. This is a full decade earlier than the previous report estimated when it was published five years ago. Overall the loss of orang utan habitat is happening 30 per cent more rapidly than had previously been thought.
Responding to the findings, the Borneo Orang Utan Survival Foundation UK, a charity which works to rescue, rehabilitate and release the animals into protected forest, warned that at the current rate of deforestation by the palm oil industry, orang utans in the wild could be close to extinction by 2012.
Sir David Attenborough, the broadcaster and naturalist, told The Observer: 'Every bit of the rainforest that is knocked down is less space for orangs. They have been reduced very seriously in the past decade. Western governments and companies need to be proactive.'
Satellite images reveal that illegal logging is now taking place in 37 out of 41 national parks in Indonesia and is probably still on the increase. The report says: 'At current rates of intrusions, it is likely that some parks may become severely degraded in as little as three to five years, that is by 2012.'"
Read the complete piece in The Observer /Guardian here. Something needs to be done URGENTLY!
"The UN's environment programme report, 'The Last Stand of the Orang Utan: State of Emergency', says natural rainforests of Indonesia and Malaysia are being cleared so rapidly that up to 98 per cent may be destroyed by 2022, and the lowland forest strongholds of orang utans much sooner, unless urgent action is taken. This is a full decade earlier than the previous report estimated when it was published five years ago. Overall the loss of orang utan habitat is happening 30 per cent more rapidly than had previously been thought.
Responding to the findings, the Borneo Orang Utan Survival Foundation UK, a charity which works to rescue, rehabilitate and release the animals into protected forest, warned that at the current rate of deforestation by the palm oil industry, orang utans in the wild could be close to extinction by 2012.
Sir David Attenborough, the broadcaster and naturalist, told The Observer: 'Every bit of the rainforest that is knocked down is less space for orangs. They have been reduced very seriously in the past decade. Western governments and companies need to be proactive.'
Satellite images reveal that illegal logging is now taking place in 37 out of 41 national parks in Indonesia and is probably still on the increase. The report says: 'At current rates of intrusions, it is likely that some parks may become severely degraded in as little as three to five years, that is by 2012.'"
Read the complete piece in The Observer /Guardian here. Something needs to be done URGENTLY!
How Howard's "biter" gets bit!
Adele Horin writing in the SMH today puts the point well and succinctly:
"When moralisers fall from grace, it is hard to resist the urge to rub the salt in. The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, asks us to show compassion to Senator Santo Santoro now that he is undone by his undisclosed share dealings.
But Santoro was not just any minister in the Howard Government. He was the holier-than-thou patriot and right-wing Christian who mercilessly harassed the national broadcaster for its alleged political bias, imagined anti-Christian bias and lack of patriotism. He was the Government's chief attack dog in the quest to shackle and intimidate the ABC. The ABC has come through rather better than Santoro. It was Santoro who didn't do the right and proper thing, not the ABC."
Read the full piece here. One can only say good-riddance. It also makes one wonder about the PM and the sort of people he his happy to surround himself with. Then again think of the Mad Monk etc.....
"When moralisers fall from grace, it is hard to resist the urge to rub the salt in. The Foreign Affairs Minister, Alexander Downer, asks us to show compassion to Senator Santo Santoro now that he is undone by his undisclosed share dealings.
But Santoro was not just any minister in the Howard Government. He was the holier-than-thou patriot and right-wing Christian who mercilessly harassed the national broadcaster for its alleged political bias, imagined anti-Christian bias and lack of patriotism. He was the Government's chief attack dog in the quest to shackle and intimidate the ABC. The ABC has come through rather better than Santoro. It was Santoro who didn't do the right and proper thing, not the ABC."
Read the full piece here. One can only say good-riddance. It also makes one wonder about the PM and the sort of people he his happy to surround himself with. Then again think of the Mad Monk etc.....
Whither Europe?
As Europe this weekend celebrates 50 years of its existence under the EU banner - having grown to embrace 28 countries including countries one would never have thought of even only a a few years ago - Roger Cohen writing in the IHT reflects on what this all means.....
"It is not easy to think of Spain as Poland. Stroll around this southern city at dusk, beneath the palms, beside the handsome bridges on the Guadalquivir River, past the chic boutiques and the Häagen-Dazs outlet, the Gothic cathedral and the Moorish palace, and it is scarcely Warsaw that comes to mind.
But, insisted Adam Michnik, the Polish writer, "Poland is the new Spain, absolutely." He continued: "Spain was a poor country when it joined the European Union 21 years ago. It no longer is. We will see the same results in Poland."
If history is prologue, Michnik is likely to be right. The EU, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding treaty this weekend, is more often associated with Brussels bureaucrats setting the maximum curvature of cucumbers than with transformational power. But step by step, stipulation by stipulation, Europe has been remade."
"It is not easy to think of Spain as Poland. Stroll around this southern city at dusk, beneath the palms, beside the handsome bridges on the Guadalquivir River, past the chic boutiques and the Häagen-Dazs outlet, the Gothic cathedral and the Moorish palace, and it is scarcely Warsaw that comes to mind.
But, insisted Adam Michnik, the Polish writer, "Poland is the new Spain, absolutely." He continued: "Spain was a poor country when it joined the European Union 21 years ago. It no longer is. We will see the same results in Poland."
If history is prologue, Michnik is likely to be right. The EU, which celebrates the 50th anniversary of its founding treaty this weekend, is more often associated with Brussels bureaucrats setting the maximum curvature of cucumbers than with transformational power. But step by step, stipulation by stipulation, Europe has been remade."
Oh Oh! Now its health savvy wonder foods....
BusinessWeek reports on yet another new trend in so-called health-maintenance. Just wait.....in a few years time this new alleged health "fix" will be condemned for some side-effect or other no one thought about. Perhaps we are all fiddling with and trying all too hard to stop what we all know are certainties - taxes, aging and death.
"Food makers are capitalizing on our fear of aging and love of technology with new "phoods" and "bepherages" aimed at remedying health woes
We all know you can zap your wrinkles with a shot of botox and fix your vision with a laser beam. Now the European food giant Unilever (UL) hopes to lower your cholesterol with a shot of yogurt. The tiny 3 oz. container is called the Promise Activ Supershot and will be launched in May.
The supershot is only one taste of the recent foods and beverages hitting store shelves that claim to provide nutrition, energy, and medicinal benefits, often in small bite-size packs and containers. The upshot: Americans are clearly comforted by the promise of better health through fortified foods. "Nutrition in the new millennium is dramatically different than it was in the 20th century," says Clare Hassler, director of the Functional Foods for Health Program at the University of Illinois."
"Food makers are capitalizing on our fear of aging and love of technology with new "phoods" and "bepherages" aimed at remedying health woes
We all know you can zap your wrinkles with a shot of botox and fix your vision with a laser beam. Now the European food giant Unilever (UL) hopes to lower your cholesterol with a shot of yogurt. The tiny 3 oz. container is called the Promise Activ Supershot and will be launched in May.
The supershot is only one taste of the recent foods and beverages hitting store shelves that claim to provide nutrition, energy, and medicinal benefits, often in small bite-size packs and containers. The upshot: Americans are clearly comforted by the promise of better health through fortified foods. "Nutrition in the new millennium is dramatically different than it was in the 20th century," says Clare Hassler, director of the Functional Foods for Health Program at the University of Illinois."
Saturday, March 24, 2007
David Hicks: A continuing disgrace
As David Hicks this coming Monday faces his first appearance before what can only be described as a kangaroo court [claimed to be some sort of military tribunal], Amnesty International has this web site in relation to his continued incarceration and treatment.
By the way, Philip Ruddock, who wears an AI badge all the time and ought to be thrown out as a member of Amnesty International, on the SBS Insight program a while back dealing with David Hicks described himself as the "principal law officer" in Australia. He might be so in title - but he brings no credit to the office by his continued presence in it.
Meanwhile, this, on the military tribunal set up to hear the Hicks matter, as reported in The Age today. Well, A-G Ruddock, do we hear you?
By the way, Philip Ruddock, who wears an AI badge all the time and ought to be thrown out as a member of Amnesty International, on the SBS Insight program a while back dealing with David Hicks described himself as the "principal law officer" in Australia. He might be so in title - but he brings no credit to the office by his continued presence in it.
Meanwhile, this, on the military tribunal set up to hear the Hicks matter, as reported in The Age today. Well, A-G Ruddock, do we hear you?
So what do those copy editors do?
The NY Times has an interesting section where various senior people at the Times answer questions about the "operations" of the newspaper.
Here the Director of Copy Desks answers the critical question - what do copy desk editors do?:
"Copy editors are the final gatekeepers before an article reaches you, the reader. To start with, they want to be sure that the spelling and grammar are correct, following our stylebook, of course. But they also want to be sure that they, and thus you the reader, aren't left with a sense that they've come into the middle of a movie, or that they don't understand how something works, or that they're wondering what comes next or what this development means for them, er, you. They have great instincts for sniffing out suspicious or incorrect facts or things that just don't make sense in context. They are also our final line of protection against libel, unfairness and imbalance in an article. If they stumble over anything, they're going to work with the writer or the assigning editor (we call them backfield editors) to make adjustments so you don't stumble. That often involves intensive substantive work on an article. In addition, copy editors write the headlines, captions and other display elements for the articles, edit the article for the space available to it (that usually means trims, for the printed paper) and read the proofs of the printed pages in case something slipped by.
All of this, I might add, is done under crushing deadlines. For breaking news, a copy editor may have less than an hour to read 1,000 words and do everything the article needs. (It can be even less!) We like to get longer articles farther ahead of time, when we can spend a few hours or even a day to be sure it's perfect, but our goal is to get the information TO you, not keep it FROM you, so speed is of the essence.
We've got more than 150 copy editors here — in fact, it's the largest newsroom department — on 14 different copy desks, just about one desk for every section of the news report."
Here the Director of Copy Desks answers the critical question - what do copy desk editors do?:
"Copy editors are the final gatekeepers before an article reaches you, the reader. To start with, they want to be sure that the spelling and grammar are correct, following our stylebook, of course. But they also want to be sure that they, and thus you the reader, aren't left with a sense that they've come into the middle of a movie, or that they don't understand how something works, or that they're wondering what comes next or what this development means for them, er, you. They have great instincts for sniffing out suspicious or incorrect facts or things that just don't make sense in context. They are also our final line of protection against libel, unfairness and imbalance in an article. If they stumble over anything, they're going to work with the writer or the assigning editor (we call them backfield editors) to make adjustments so you don't stumble. That often involves intensive substantive work on an article. In addition, copy editors write the headlines, captions and other display elements for the articles, edit the article for the space available to it (that usually means trims, for the printed paper) and read the proofs of the printed pages in case something slipped by.
All of this, I might add, is done under crushing deadlines. For breaking news, a copy editor may have less than an hour to read 1,000 words and do everything the article needs. (It can be even less!) We like to get longer articles farther ahead of time, when we can spend a few hours or even a day to be sure it's perfect, but our goal is to get the information TO you, not keep it FROM you, so speed is of the essence.
We've got more than 150 copy editors here — in fact, it's the largest newsroom department — on 14 different copy desks, just about one desk for every section of the news report."
Thrown to the assassins
Another dimension to the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent war is revealed in this piece in Mother Jones. The Coalition of the Willing were obviously totally clueless when they entered into this fiasco - leaving aside the lie which precipitated it all - but their actions have done nothing for Iraq and its people. How this is all supposed to win the hearts and mind of the populace let alone get the country back on its feet is seemingly imponderable at the moment - "surge" notwithstanding!
"On the day the American tanks rolled into Baghdad, Abather Abdul Hussein and his wife, Balqes Abdel Mohammed, threw flowers. Literally. After a lifetime of turmoil and tyranny, the couple fervently believed the invasion would bring peace. Abather joined U.S. "democratization" efforts, such as a project to create a governing council for his neighborhood, and he occasionally ended up in the good-news Iraq stories that still seemed plausible in those days; one U.S. paper ran a five-column photo of him perched on a classroom chair surrounded by American soldiers, with a story about the "new Iraq."
These days, Abather and his young family are among the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled in fear for their lives. After months spent dodging insurgents who had targeted them for supporting the Americans, he and Balqes are relieved to have escaped—and bitter, like thousands of fellow refugees, that the superpower for which they risked their lives has abandoned them."
"On the day the American tanks rolled into Baghdad, Abather Abdul Hussein and his wife, Balqes Abdel Mohammed, threw flowers. Literally. After a lifetime of turmoil and tyranny, the couple fervently believed the invasion would bring peace. Abather joined U.S. "democratization" efforts, such as a project to create a governing council for his neighborhood, and he occasionally ended up in the good-news Iraq stories that still seemed plausible in those days; one U.S. paper ran a five-column photo of him perched on a classroom chair surrounded by American soldiers, with a story about the "new Iraq."
These days, Abather and his young family are among the hundreds of thousands of Iraqis who have fled in fear for their lives. After months spent dodging insurgents who had targeted them for supporting the Americans, he and Balqes are relieved to have escaped—and bitter, like thousands of fellow refugees, that the superpower for which they risked their lives has abandoned them."
An overlooked people in our midst
From time to time the odd newsworthy item about the aboriginal people of Australia breaks out in the media. Sadly, all too often it is a negative "story" of petrol-sniffing or some other item - like the poor health of aboriginals especially in the outback - dealing with the plight of the Kori people.
It is fair to say that the treatment of Australia's aboriginal population is a blight on the country and its leadership over the years. The present PM, even in these so-called enlightened days, has done little to enhance the position of aboriginal communities around the country or to foster good relations with indiginous people.
This piece by Muriel Bamblett in The Age is therefore timely in that it reminds us that it is 40 years ago this year when aboriginals were first granted the vote in Australia.
"The 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum that gave the Federal Government the right to make laws for Aboriginal people and counted us in the census for the first time is an important event, not only for indigenous people but also for non-indigenous people.
It makes me ask when we began as an Australian nation?
Not in 1788, because we were brutalised by invasion.
Not in 1901, the time of Federation, because we weren't part of it. In fact, the constitution's only mention of Aboriginal people specifically excluded us from being counted as citizens. And worse than that — one of the early acts of Federal Parliament in 1902 denied indigenous people voting rights.
For me, 1967 marks the time when becoming a nation became possible. At least we counted, and we were counted in the census.
We became de facto citizens of the land that has been ours for time immemorial, a land that claims us and that we have been given divine duty to protect.
On May 27, many Aboriginal people, including me, will turn 40. That is, 40 years of being citizens, even though some of us are chronologically slightly older than that. But we are still only at the stage of promising to become a nation.
How can we be a nation if to be Aboriginal is bad for your health, if our deaths come 20 years sooner than for other Australians?"
It is fair to say that the treatment of Australia's aboriginal population is a blight on the country and its leadership over the years. The present PM, even in these so-called enlightened days, has done little to enhance the position of aboriginal communities around the country or to foster good relations with indiginous people.
This piece by Muriel Bamblett in The Age is therefore timely in that it reminds us that it is 40 years ago this year when aboriginals were first granted the vote in Australia.
"The 40th anniversary of the 1967 referendum that gave the Federal Government the right to make laws for Aboriginal people and counted us in the census for the first time is an important event, not only for indigenous people but also for non-indigenous people.
It makes me ask when we began as an Australian nation?
Not in 1788, because we were brutalised by invasion.
Not in 1901, the time of Federation, because we weren't part of it. In fact, the constitution's only mention of Aboriginal people specifically excluded us from being counted as citizens. And worse than that — one of the early acts of Federal Parliament in 1902 denied indigenous people voting rights.
For me, 1967 marks the time when becoming a nation became possible. At least we counted, and we were counted in the census.
We became de facto citizens of the land that has been ours for time immemorial, a land that claims us and that we have been given divine duty to protect.
On May 27, many Aboriginal people, including me, will turn 40. That is, 40 years of being citizens, even though some of us are chronologically slightly older than that. But we are still only at the stage of promising to become a nation.
How can we be a nation if to be Aboriginal is bad for your health, if our deaths come 20 years sooner than for other Australians?"
Friday, March 23, 2007
Does Saddam end up with the last laugh?
Who can forget those images of Saddam's statute being toppled and the weight-lifter literally belting into it?
Well, the mallet-swinging fellow has spoken......and it may well be that Saddam has had the last laugh!
"Yep, you did it, George—mission impossible accomplished. Unbelievably, four years of a bungled occupation have managed to make Saddam Hussein’s tyranny look good in comparison with “liberated Iraq.”
At least, that is the view of the Iraqi weightlifter made famous through a video of him taking a sledgehammer to Saddam Hussein’s statue. “I really regret bringing down the statue,” Kadhim al-Jubouri said on British television this week. “The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day.”
That’s the judgment of a man who spent nine years in Hussein’s jails, and, unfortunately, it is one shared by a majority of his countrymen, according to an authoritative poll sponsored jointly by ABC, BBC and USA Today: Only 38 percent of Iraqis believe that the country is better off today than under Hussein, while nearly four out of five oppose the presence of coalition forces in Iraq.
Even more disturbing is that 51 percent of Iraqis think it is OK to attack coalition troops—triple the number that thought that way in a 2004 survey. Square that with our president’s assurances, offered since the first month of this unnecessary adventure, that the insurgency represents a small handful of terrorists. While most of the antipathy is registered among Sunnis, 94 percent of whom favor attacks on coalition forces, and by only 7 percent of Kurds, a surprising 35 percent of Shiites endorse that sort of violence."
Read Robert Scheer's full piece in truthdig.com here.
Well, the mallet-swinging fellow has spoken......and it may well be that Saddam has had the last laugh!
"Yep, you did it, George—mission impossible accomplished. Unbelievably, four years of a bungled occupation have managed to make Saddam Hussein’s tyranny look good in comparison with “liberated Iraq.”
At least, that is the view of the Iraqi weightlifter made famous through a video of him taking a sledgehammer to Saddam Hussein’s statue. “I really regret bringing down the statue,” Kadhim al-Jubouri said on British television this week. “The Americans are worse than the dictatorship. Every day is worse than the previous day.”
That’s the judgment of a man who spent nine years in Hussein’s jails, and, unfortunately, it is one shared by a majority of his countrymen, according to an authoritative poll sponsored jointly by ABC, BBC and USA Today: Only 38 percent of Iraqis believe that the country is better off today than under Hussein, while nearly four out of five oppose the presence of coalition forces in Iraq.
Even more disturbing is that 51 percent of Iraqis think it is OK to attack coalition troops—triple the number that thought that way in a 2004 survey. Square that with our president’s assurances, offered since the first month of this unnecessary adventure, that the insurgency represents a small handful of terrorists. While most of the antipathy is registered among Sunnis, 94 percent of whom favor attacks on coalition forces, and by only 7 percent of Kurds, a surprising 35 percent of Shiites endorse that sort of violence."
Read Robert Scheer's full piece in truthdig.com here.
Totally misguided pride
It is nothing new to say that former US ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, did nothing to enhance America's image and reputation around the world especially in the Middle East. His pride, as reported in EARTHtimes.com, in not stepping in to see a cease fire in the Israel-Lebanon war says it all. Never mind the death and destruction of people on both sides of the conflict. Extraordinary that any human being, let alone a so-called diplomat, should be prepared to even articulate what Bolton has.....
"The United States resisted calls for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon last summer, former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said.
Washington first wanted Israel to eliminate Hezbollah's military might, Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told BBC in an interview for a documentary next month.
The war began when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and the fighting quickly escalated into a full-blown conflict causing widespread destruction in southern Lebanon and numerous rocket attacks from Lebanon into Israel.
U.S. officials decided to join efforts to end the conflict when it became evident Israel's military campaign was not working, he said.
Bolton calls it "perfectly legitimate and good politics" for the Israelis to try to defeat their enemy militarily as it was acting in its own self-defense. He said he was "damned proud of what we did" in preventing an early cease-fire."
"The United States resisted calls for an immediate cease-fire between Israel and Lebanon last summer, former U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said.
Washington first wanted Israel to eliminate Hezbollah's military might, Bolton, the former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told BBC in an interview for a documentary next month.
The war began when Hezbollah captured two Israeli soldiers and the fighting quickly escalated into a full-blown conflict causing widespread destruction in southern Lebanon and numerous rocket attacks from Lebanon into Israel.
U.S. officials decided to join efforts to end the conflict when it became evident Israel's military campaign was not working, he said.
Bolton calls it "perfectly legitimate and good politics" for the Israelis to try to defeat their enemy militarily as it was acting in its own self-defense. He said he was "damned proud of what we did" in preventing an early cease-fire."
The pull of the Promised Land
Linda Morris writing in the SMH on the current debate and discussion underway in Australia, and overseas, about members of the Jewish community challenging Israel's policies:
"Since the creation of the modern state of Israel, almost 3 million Jews, 10,000 of them from Australia, have made a new life there. They have been driven by a yearning to become part of the Jewish homeland, a dream inculcated at the family dinner table, reinforced by private Jewish education, and realised in short- and long-term visits to Israel.
The process of migration has a name - aliyah, which in Hebrew means to ascend - and it represents the highest ideal of the Zionist movement in fulfilling its commitment to re-establish and protect the ancient Jewish homeland.
The Zionist Federation of Australia, whose job it is to assist the settlement and integration of migrants to Israel, says that Australia has one of the highest per capita rates of aliyah in the Western world.
To outsiders it might be perplexing that Jewish Australians should swap suburban security for life in a foreign land that more often than not makes the television news with images of terrorism and violence. The willingness to uproot grows out of a deep psychological and ideological attachment which lies at the heart of the community's cultural and ethno-religious identity.
But has unswerving loyalty to the Jewish homeland resulted in an allegiance to ensuring Israel's security at all costs? And has it served to impoverish debate in the Jewish community about the rights and wrongs of Israeli foreign and domestic policy?"
"Since the creation of the modern state of Israel, almost 3 million Jews, 10,000 of them from Australia, have made a new life there. They have been driven by a yearning to become part of the Jewish homeland, a dream inculcated at the family dinner table, reinforced by private Jewish education, and realised in short- and long-term visits to Israel.
The process of migration has a name - aliyah, which in Hebrew means to ascend - and it represents the highest ideal of the Zionist movement in fulfilling its commitment to re-establish and protect the ancient Jewish homeland.
The Zionist Federation of Australia, whose job it is to assist the settlement and integration of migrants to Israel, says that Australia has one of the highest per capita rates of aliyah in the Western world.
To outsiders it might be perplexing that Jewish Australians should swap suburban security for life in a foreign land that more often than not makes the television news with images of terrorism and violence. The willingness to uproot grows out of a deep psychological and ideological attachment which lies at the heart of the community's cultural and ethno-religious identity.
But has unswerving loyalty to the Jewish homeland resulted in an allegiance to ensuring Israel's security at all costs? And has it served to impoverish debate in the Jewish community about the rights and wrongs of Israeli foreign and domestic policy?"
Another case of White House interference?
"The leader of the Justice Department team that prosecuted a landmark lawsuit against tobacco companies said yesterday that Bush administration political appointees repeatedly ordered her to take steps that weakened the government's racketeering case.
Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.
She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.
"The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we said," Eubanks said. "And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public."
This interesting piece in The Washington Post again highlights the actions of the White House in interfering in the judicial system. An additional "interest" is that the probes into this whole affair involves the present US ambassador to Australia - whose probity has previosuly been the subject of invesitigation.
Sharon Y. Eubanks said Bush loyalists in Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales's office began micromanaging the team's strategy in the final weeks of the 2005 trial, to the detriment of the government's claim that the industry had conspired to lie to U.S. smokers.
She said a supervisor demanded that she and her trial team drop recommendations that tobacco executives be removed from their corporate positions as a possible penalty. He and two others instructed her to tell key witnesses to change their testimony. And they ordered Eubanks to read verbatim a closing argument they had rewritten for her, she said.
"The political people were pushing the buttons and ordering us to say what we said," Eubanks said. "And because of that, we failed to zealously represent the interests of the American public."
This interesting piece in The Washington Post again highlights the actions of the White House in interfering in the judicial system. An additional "interest" is that the probes into this whole affair involves the present US ambassador to Australia - whose probity has previosuly been the subject of invesitigation.
Pursuing a worthwhile Arab initiative....
"The Arab summit meeting in Riyadh this month promises a unique opportunity to invigorate the quest for peace. The gaps between Israel and the Arabs have never been narrower. The international Quartet — the United States, European Union, Russia and the United Nations — must seize the moment and act swiftly to make a breakthrough.
With the threat of sectarian conflict spreading beyond Iraq, Palestinian infighting and political stalemate in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia has been galvanized into action. Following deft diplomacy on all three fronts, the Saudis intend to use the meeting to re-launch the Arab Peace Initiative, first developed at the Beirut summit in 2002."
These are not the words of what some might describe as the "usual suspects." They are part of an op-ed piece in the IHT written by Rosemary Hollis, director of research at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London and Daniel Kurtzer onetime U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel and a professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.
Just perhaps something might come from the upcoming conference although the signs aren't all that encouraging. Each party, be it it the Israelis or the Arabs, has its own issues to address.
With the threat of sectarian conflict spreading beyond Iraq, Palestinian infighting and political stalemate in Lebanon, Saudi Arabia has been galvanized into action. Following deft diplomacy on all three fronts, the Saudis intend to use the meeting to re-launch the Arab Peace Initiative, first developed at the Beirut summit in 2002."
These are not the words of what some might describe as the "usual suspects." They are part of an op-ed piece in the IHT written by Rosemary Hollis, director of research at Chatham House, the Royal Institute of International Affairs, London and Daniel Kurtzer onetime U.S. ambassador to Egypt and Israel and a professor of Middle East policy studies at Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School.
Just perhaps something might come from the upcoming conference although the signs aren't all that encouraging. Each party, be it it the Israelis or the Arabs, has its own issues to address.
Thursday, March 22, 2007
The media - and what to know and believe?
FAIR [Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting] tackles the hard topic of how the media "operates" - and what you and I get to read. No less importantly, FAIR critically examines the biases in the media.
The reporting of the Iraq war has raised a host of concerns of how the media reported the whole thing - from what emanated from the White House right to the men in the field. Remember, the IraqWar brought us "embedded reporters".
"It's hardly controversial to suggest that the mainstream media's performance in the lead-up to the Iraq War was a disaster. In retrospect, many journalists and pundits wish they had been more skeptical of the White House's claims about Iraq, particularly its allegations about weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, though, media apologists suggest that the press could not have done much better, since "everyone" was in agreement on the intelligence regarding Iraq's weapons threat. This was never the case. Critical journalists and analysts raised serious questions at the time about what the White House was saying. Often, however, their warnings were ignored by the bulk of the corporate press.
This timeline is an attempt to recall some of the worst moments in journalism, from the fall of 2002 and into the early weeks of the Iraq War. It is not an exhaustive catalog, but a useful reference point for understanding the media's performance. The timeline also points to missed opportunities, when courageous journalists—working inside the mainstream and the alternative media—uncovered stories that should have made the front pages of daily newspapers, or provided fodder for TV talk shows. By reading mainstream media critically and tuning into the alternative press, citizens can see that the notion that "everyone" was wrong about Iraq was—and is—just another deception."
Read the full FAIR piece here.
The reporting of the Iraq war has raised a host of concerns of how the media reported the whole thing - from what emanated from the White House right to the men in the field. Remember, the IraqWar brought us "embedded reporters".
"It's hardly controversial to suggest that the mainstream media's performance in the lead-up to the Iraq War was a disaster. In retrospect, many journalists and pundits wish they had been more skeptical of the White House's claims about Iraq, particularly its allegations about weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, though, media apologists suggest that the press could not have done much better, since "everyone" was in agreement on the intelligence regarding Iraq's weapons threat. This was never the case. Critical journalists and analysts raised serious questions at the time about what the White House was saying. Often, however, their warnings were ignored by the bulk of the corporate press.
This timeline is an attempt to recall some of the worst moments in journalism, from the fall of 2002 and into the early weeks of the Iraq War. It is not an exhaustive catalog, but a useful reference point for understanding the media's performance. The timeline also points to missed opportunities, when courageous journalists—working inside the mainstream and the alternative media—uncovered stories that should have made the front pages of daily newspapers, or provided fodder for TV talk shows. By reading mainstream media critically and tuning into the alternative press, citizens can see that the notion that "everyone" was wrong about Iraq was—and is—just another deception."
Read the full FAIR piece here.
Taming leviathan
"This week saw yet another reminder of the awesome power of “the lobby”. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) brought more than 6,000 activists to Washington for its annual policy conference. And they proceeded to live up to their critics' darkest fears.
They heard from the four most powerful people on Capitol Hill—Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner from the House, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell from the Senate—as well as the vice-president (who called his talk “The United States and Israel: United We Stand”) and sundry other power-brokers. Several first-division presidential candidates held receptions.
The display of muscle was almost equalled by the display of unnerving efficiency. There were booths for “congressional check-in”, booths for “delegate banquet troubleshooting”, and booths full of helpful young people. The only discordant note was sounded by a group of a dozen protesters—Orthodox Jews in beards, side-curls and heavy black coats—holding up signs saying “Stop AIPAC”, “Torah forbids Jews dictating foreign policy”, and “Judaism rejects the state of Israel”."
So reports The Economist, here, as voices grow louder critical of the so-called Israel Lobby in America and the way it seeks, mostly successfully, to shape US foreign policy. Things are changing though, like in Australia, with the establishment of the IAJV. See also the posting here on MPS on 18 March of the piece by Nicholas Kristof in the NY Times.
They heard from the four most powerful people on Capitol Hill—Nancy Pelosi and John Boehner from the House, Harry Reid and Mitch McConnell from the Senate—as well as the vice-president (who called his talk “The United States and Israel: United We Stand”) and sundry other power-brokers. Several first-division presidential candidates held receptions.
The display of muscle was almost equalled by the display of unnerving efficiency. There were booths for “congressional check-in”, booths for “delegate banquet troubleshooting”, and booths full of helpful young people. The only discordant note was sounded by a group of a dozen protesters—Orthodox Jews in beards, side-curls and heavy black coats—holding up signs saying “Stop AIPAC”, “Torah forbids Jews dictating foreign policy”, and “Judaism rejects the state of Israel”."
So reports The Economist, here, as voices grow louder critical of the so-called Israel Lobby in America and the way it seeks, mostly successfully, to shape US foreign policy. Things are changing though, like in Australia, with the establishment of the IAJV. See also the posting here on MPS on 18 March of the piece by Nicholas Kristof in the NY Times.
50 reasons to love the EU
The Independent marks 50 years of the Treaty of Rome - the foundation for the European Union - this coming weekend by putting forward 50 reasons why at least the British should love the EU:
"1 The end of war between European nations
2 Democracy is now flourishing in 27 countries
3 Once-poor countries, such as Ireland, Greece and Portugal, are prospering
4 The creation of the world's largest internal trading market
5 Unparalleled rights for European consumers
6 Co-operation on continent-wide immigration policy
7 Co-operation on crime, through Europol
8 Laws that make it easier for British people to buy property in Europe
9 Cleaner beaches and rivers throughout Europe
10 Four weeks statutory paid holiday a year for workers in Europe."
The remaining 40 reasons are........here.
"1 The end of war between European nations
2 Democracy is now flourishing in 27 countries
3 Once-poor countries, such as Ireland, Greece and Portugal, are prospering
4 The creation of the world's largest internal trading market
5 Unparalleled rights for European consumers
6 Co-operation on continent-wide immigration policy
7 Co-operation on crime, through Europol
8 Laws that make it easier for British people to buy property in Europe
9 Cleaner beaches and rivers throughout Europe
10 Four weeks statutory paid holiday a year for workers in Europe."
The remaining 40 reasons are........here.
When a poll isn't a poll
Arianna Huffington on The Huffington Post writes:
"On Scarborough last night I was asked repeatedly about a new poll by a British polling company, Opinion Research Business, that showed "an unexpected level of optimism" among the 5,019 Iraqis interviewed. It sounded even more preposterous than the usual polling results, and was contradicted by multiple other polls. So I sent an email to my good friend and HuffPost blogger Simon Jenkins, who had been the editor of the Evening Standard and The Times of London, and who I assumed would know something about the polling firm."
The response mght not come as a real surprise to anyone - here.
"On Scarborough last night I was asked repeatedly about a new poll by a British polling company, Opinion Research Business, that showed "an unexpected level of optimism" among the 5,019 Iraqis interviewed. It sounded even more preposterous than the usual polling results, and was contradicted by multiple other polls. So I sent an email to my good friend and HuffPost blogger Simon Jenkins, who had been the editor of the Evening Standard and The Times of London, and who I assumed would know something about the polling firm."
The response mght not come as a real surprise to anyone - here.
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
George Soros on an "endangered" Israel
George Soros is well known as a seriously wealthy man. He has also been the butt of strong anti-semitic attacks by the former PM of Malaysia. However, on this occasion Soros has chosen to speak out about Israel and the role of AIPAC in the US in a piece in The New York Review of Books:
"I am not a Zionist, nor am I am a practicing Jew but I have a great deal of sympathy for my fellow Jews and a deep concer for the survival of Israel. I did not want to provide fodder to the enemies o Israel. I rationalized my position by saying that if I wanted to voice critica views, I ought to move to Israel. But since there were many Israelis wh held such views my voice was not needed, and I had many other battles t fight
But now I have to ask the question: How did Israel become so endangered? I cannot exempt AIPAC from its share of the responsibility. I am a fervent advocate of critical thinking. I have supported dissidents in many countries. I took a stand against President Bush when he said that those who don't support his policies are supporting the terrorists. I cannot remain silent now when the pro-Israel lobby is one of the last unexposed redoubts of this dogmatic way of thinking. I speak out with some trepidation because I am exposing myself to further attacks that are likely to render me less effective in pursuing many other causes in which I am engaged; but dissidents I have supported have taken far greater risks."
Read the complete piece here.
"I am not a Zionist, nor am I am a practicing Jew but I have a great deal of sympathy for my fellow Jews and a deep concer for the survival of Israel. I did not want to provide fodder to the enemies o Israel. I rationalized my position by saying that if I wanted to voice critica views, I ought to move to Israel. But since there were many Israelis wh held such views my voice was not needed, and I had many other battles t fight
But now I have to ask the question: How did Israel become so endangered? I cannot exempt AIPAC from its share of the responsibility. I am a fervent advocate of critical thinking. I have supported dissidents in many countries. I took a stand against President Bush when he said that those who don't support his policies are supporting the terrorists. I cannot remain silent now when the pro-Israel lobby is one of the last unexposed redoubts of this dogmatic way of thinking. I speak out with some trepidation because I am exposing myself to further attacks that are likely to render me less effective in pursuing many other causes in which I am engaged; but dissidents I have supported have taken far greater risks."
Read the complete piece here.
A real whopper
"So big it could hold 44 million ping-pong balls or 10 squash courts. Not only that, the airline says, but it weighs as much as 100 elephants, or at least 100 elephants that tip the scales at a combined 1 million pounds or so. And its generators are capable of churning out enough power to provide electrical heating for 800 single-family homes."
What are we talking about here? The new A380 airplane. It flew from Frankfurt to New York a couple of days ago with passengers on board to introduce the aircraft to the Americans. It seems it was quite an "experience" if this piece in the LA Times is anything to go by.
What are we talking about here? The new A380 airplane. It flew from Frankfurt to New York a couple of days ago with passengers on board to introduce the aircraft to the Americans. It seems it was quite an "experience" if this piece in the LA Times is anything to go by.
Noam Chomsky pays tribute to Tanya Reinhart
Noam Chomsky, writing in Counterpoint, pays a moving tribute to Tanya Reinhart - who died of a stroke in her sleep in New York over the weekend:
"Her numerous articles and books drew away the veil that concealed criminal and outrageous actions, and shone a searing light on the reality that was obscured, all of immense value to those who sought to understand and to react in a decent way. Her activism was not limited to words, important as these were. She was on the front line of direct resistance to intolerable actions, an organizer and a participant, a stance that one cannot respect too highly. She will be remembered not only as a resolute and honorable defender of the rights of Palestinians, but also as one of those who have struggled to defend the moral integrity of her own Israeli society, and its hope for decent survival."
Women for Palestine in Australia in their tribute say:
"Tanya Reinhart was one of those rare people who looked beyond ethnic,
political and sectarian loyalties and saw the human being. For the
Palestinians, long used to being demonised and even caricatured as beasts by
their Israeli antagonists, Tanya’s mirror on their lives gave the
Palestinians a chance to be seen as a people who are being brutalised,
penalised and traumatised by the very state of which Tanya was a citizen.
For daring to do that, Tanya was ostracised by many of her own people in
Israel and also by the pro-Zionist lobby groups around the world. Her stance
required a special kind of courage that few have because it put Tanya
outside the world that would ordinarily have feted her achievements and
would have elevated her to the ranks of Israel’s intellectual elite."
"Her numerous articles and books drew away the veil that concealed criminal and outrageous actions, and shone a searing light on the reality that was obscured, all of immense value to those who sought to understand and to react in a decent way. Her activism was not limited to words, important as these were. She was on the front line of direct resistance to intolerable actions, an organizer and a participant, a stance that one cannot respect too highly. She will be remembered not only as a resolute and honorable defender of the rights of Palestinians, but also as one of those who have struggled to defend the moral integrity of her own Israeli society, and its hope for decent survival."
Women for Palestine in Australia in their tribute say:
"Tanya Reinhart was one of those rare people who looked beyond ethnic,
political and sectarian loyalties and saw the human being. For the
Palestinians, long used to being demonised and even caricatured as beasts by
their Israeli antagonists, Tanya’s mirror on their lives gave the
Palestinians a chance to be seen as a people who are being brutalised,
penalised and traumatised by the very state of which Tanya was a citizen.
For daring to do that, Tanya was ostracised by many of her own people in
Israel and also by the pro-Zionist lobby groups around the world. Her stance
required a special kind of courage that few have because it put Tanya
outside the world that would ordinarily have feted her achievements and
would have elevated her to the ranks of Israel’s intellectual elite."
Iraq: Stark facts 4 years on....
Reuters reports on the stark facts [revealed by the UNHRC] on how the invasion of Iraq and the subsequent war - now raging for 4 years and with no end in sight - has affected ordinary Iraqis both in Iraq itself and in neighbouring countries:
"Some 2 million Iraqis are now in neighbouring countries in the region, many of whom were uprooted prior to 2003, he said. Syria has more than 1 million Iraqis and Jordan an estimated 750,000. Both countries have carried an enormous burden and deserved more support from the international community, Redmond said.
Much more humanitarian help also had to be focused on the estimated 1.9 million Iraqis who remain displaced inside their own country, many of them in increasingly desperate conditions.
"While many were also displaced before 2003, we estimate that just since the beginning of last year – and particularly since the Samara bombing of February 2006 – nearly 730,000 Iraqis have become newly displaced by sectarian violence," Redmond said. "They and millions more Iraqis are facing severe hardship."
The UN Assistance Mission in Iraq estimates that more than 15 million Iraqis are now considered extremely vulnerable – including refugees, displaced people, those facing food insecurity, widows, disabled people and others. Reaching help and safety in neighbouring countries is becoming increasingly difficult, he said. Many of those who have fled to other parts of Iraq have run out of resources, and host communities are also struggling to absorb increasing numbers of displaced.
An estimated 4 million Iraqis are dependent on food assistance. Only 60 percent have access to the public food distribution system. The chronic child malnutrition rate is at 23 percent. Some 70 percent of the Iraqi population lack access to adequate water supplies, while 80 percent lack effective sanitation. The unemployment rate is over 50 percent."
Meanwhile, The Independent, in an article under the heading "In a Country Drenched in Blood" marking the 4th anniversary of the Iraqi invasion, writes:
"The invasion four years ago failed. It overthrew Saddam but did nothing more. It destabilised the Middle East. It tore apart Iraq. It was meant to show the world that the US was the world's only superpower that could do what it wanted. In fact it demonstrated that the US was weaker than the world supposed. The longer the US refuses to admit failure the longer the war will go on."
"Some 2 million Iraqis are now in neighbouring countries in the region, many of whom were uprooted prior to 2003, he said. Syria has more than 1 million Iraqis and Jordan an estimated 750,000. Both countries have carried an enormous burden and deserved more support from the international community, Redmond said.
Much more humanitarian help also had to be focused on the estimated 1.9 million Iraqis who remain displaced inside their own country, many of them in increasingly desperate conditions.
"While many were also displaced before 2003, we estimate that just since the beginning of last year – and particularly since the Samara bombing of February 2006 – nearly 730,000 Iraqis have become newly displaced by sectarian violence," Redmond said. "They and millions more Iraqis are facing severe hardship."
The UN Assistance Mission in Iraq estimates that more than 15 million Iraqis are now considered extremely vulnerable – including refugees, displaced people, those facing food insecurity, widows, disabled people and others. Reaching help and safety in neighbouring countries is becoming increasingly difficult, he said. Many of those who have fled to other parts of Iraq have run out of resources, and host communities are also struggling to absorb increasing numbers of displaced.
An estimated 4 million Iraqis are dependent on food assistance. Only 60 percent have access to the public food distribution system. The chronic child malnutrition rate is at 23 percent. Some 70 percent of the Iraqi population lack access to adequate water supplies, while 80 percent lack effective sanitation. The unemployment rate is over 50 percent."
Meanwhile, The Independent, in an article under the heading "In a Country Drenched in Blood" marking the 4th anniversary of the Iraqi invasion, writes:
"The invasion four years ago failed. It overthrew Saddam but did nothing more. It destabilised the Middle East. It tore apart Iraq. It was meant to show the world that the US was the world's only superpower that could do what it wanted. In fact it demonstrated that the US was weaker than the world supposed. The longer the US refuses to admit failure the longer the war will go on."
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
Hicks abuse detailed in the NY Times
Perhaps it's the anti-war climate in America, but whatever the reason it is interesting that the NY Times features an article on the abuse David Hicks alleges he has suffered at the hands of the Americans since being detained by them back in 2001. The allegations have surfaced in a proceeding in the UK.
"David Hicks, the first detainee to be formally charged under the new military tribunal rules at Guantánamo Bay, has alleged in a court document filed here that during more than five years in American custody he was beaten several times during interrogations and witnessed the abuse of other prisoners.
In an affidavit supporting his request for British citizenship, Mr. Hicks contends that before he arrived at Guantánamo, his American captors threw him and other detainees on the ground, walked on them, stripped him naked, shaved all his body hair and inserted a plastic object in his rectum.
The abuse, Mr. Hicks asserts, began during interrogations in Afghanistan, where he was captured in late 2001. It then continued while he was shuttled between American naval ships, aircraft, unknown buildings and Kandahar before he was taken to the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in early 2002, according to the affidavit."
"David Hicks, the first detainee to be formally charged under the new military tribunal rules at Guantánamo Bay, has alleged in a court document filed here that during more than five years in American custody he was beaten several times during interrogations and witnessed the abuse of other prisoners.
In an affidavit supporting his request for British citizenship, Mr. Hicks contends that before he arrived at Guantánamo, his American captors threw him and other detainees on the ground, walked on them, stripped him naked, shaved all his body hair and inserted a plastic object in his rectum.
The abuse, Mr. Hicks asserts, began during interrogations in Afghanistan, where he was captured in late 2001. It then continued while he was shuttled between American naval ships, aircraft, unknown buildings and Kandahar before he was taken to the military detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, in early 2002, according to the affidavit."
Napoleon, the Jews and French Muslims
It might all seem rather odd but not everything today is necessarily new - as this article from IHT [originally in the NY Times] reports:
"Not all stories from the past have relevance today. But here is one not very well-known story about the Jews in Napoleonic France that has much relevance to French Muslims in our own time."
Two hundred years ago, in one of his lesser-known demonstrations of meglomania, Napoleon, who had morphed in a few short years from a servant of the French Republic to emperor, reconvened what he called the Great Sanhedrin — a name taken from the governing body of the Jewish community under the Roman Empire. This council of French Jewish leaders was summoned to resolve a series of issues left unsettled since the French Revolution."
"Not all stories from the past have relevance today. But here is one not very well-known story about the Jews in Napoleonic France that has much relevance to French Muslims in our own time."
Two hundred years ago, in one of his lesser-known demonstrations of meglomania, Napoleon, who had morphed in a few short years from a servant of the French Republic to emperor, reconvened what he called the Great Sanhedrin — a name taken from the governing body of the Jewish community under the Roman Empire. This council of French Jewish leaders was summoned to resolve a series of issues left unsettled since the French Revolution."
Germany: Grim past - and "criminals" - still being revealed
The Jewish News Weekly of Northern California reports:
"Despite all the books and articles that have been written about the Holocaust, even more stories yet to be told have been hidden away in Bad Arolsen, Germany.
It’s taken 60 years for 11 nations to agree that records there should be revealed. Until now these secret documents were available only to survivors and their nuclear families who were tracing the whereabouts of loved ones. But even then the survivors has to go through years of heartbreaking persistence before seeing the files.
The archive is being opened now only because intense pressure — much of it originating from the U.S. Holocaust Museum and Memorial — managed to force an agreement among the 11-nation commission that owns the archive. It’s housed at the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen.
Those countries are the United States, France, England, Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland and Israel, plus the two former Axis powers, Italy and Germany. The International Red Cross was given custody and control of the archive, but only pursuant to the agreement.
Parts of the archive are expected to be available to the public sometime this year. But the entire archive might not be digitized until 2008 or later.
So what’s in this secret archive?
Only an estimated 25 percent of the prodigious collection relates to Jews. The remainder covers the fate of Gypsies, Poles, Dutch, and other groups targeted for oppression and destruction. Taken as a whole, the documents provide details of how the Nazis masterminded the elimination of European Jewry and other enemies of the Third Reich.
It offers vast additional proof of IBM’s minute-to-minute involvement in the 12-year Holocaust, new insights into the corporate beneficiaries of Germany’s slave and forced labor programs, an explosion of evidence that insurance companies participated in and benefited from the decimation of the Jews, and the dark details of persecution suffered by millions of individuals who would have otherwise disappeared into the bleak vastness of Hitler’s war against humanity."
"Despite all the books and articles that have been written about the Holocaust, even more stories yet to be told have been hidden away in Bad Arolsen, Germany.
It’s taken 60 years for 11 nations to agree that records there should be revealed. Until now these secret documents were available only to survivors and their nuclear families who were tracing the whereabouts of loved ones. But even then the survivors has to go through years of heartbreaking persistence before seeing the files.
The archive is being opened now only because intense pressure — much of it originating from the U.S. Holocaust Museum and Memorial — managed to force an agreement among the 11-nation commission that owns the archive. It’s housed at the International Tracing Service (ITS) in Bad Arolsen.
Those countries are the United States, France, England, Belgium, Greece, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Poland and Israel, plus the two former Axis powers, Italy and Germany. The International Red Cross was given custody and control of the archive, but only pursuant to the agreement.
Parts of the archive are expected to be available to the public sometime this year. But the entire archive might not be digitized until 2008 or later.
So what’s in this secret archive?
Only an estimated 25 percent of the prodigious collection relates to Jews. The remainder covers the fate of Gypsies, Poles, Dutch, and other groups targeted for oppression and destruction. Taken as a whole, the documents provide details of how the Nazis masterminded the elimination of European Jewry and other enemies of the Third Reich.
It offers vast additional proof of IBM’s minute-to-minute involvement in the 12-year Holocaust, new insights into the corporate beneficiaries of Germany’s slave and forced labor programs, an explosion of evidence that insurance companies participated in and benefited from the decimation of the Jews, and the dark details of persecution suffered by millions of individuals who would have otherwise disappeared into the bleak vastness of Hitler’s war against humanity."
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