"Two months ago, I took a stand that changed my life forever. As a Soldier, a JVB Protective Service Agent, and a Sniper with the Army who had been in Iraq for a year (running over 250 combat missions), I refused to continue to be a part of the occupation. I regret nothing. This is my story. Currently, as I write this I am sitting in Kuwait, on "stand-by" to return to the States sometime hopefully this week. After getting out of the brig last week, I’m now scheduled to be discharged from the Army within the month. I'm looking forward to joining forces with anti-Iraq-War movements, such as Courage to Resist and Iraq Veterans Against the War.
What led me to this place in my life?"
So begins "My Story" - by Eleonai "Eli" Israel, on "Courage to Resist" and reproduced on Information Clearing House. It's an insight into what has led a US soldier to take the stand he has. Read it all here.
Friday, August 31, 2007
Justice....at last!
Justice, just at the last minute, has been done! Kenneth Foster's death penalty has been commuted to a life sentence by the Governor of Texas. The background to the Kenneth Foster "story" can be found in a MPS posting, yesterday, Execution of a non-murderer.
Meanwhile, The Nation addresses the whole issue in a piece "Evolution in Texas":
"There are many Americans who do not believe in evolution. And it is probably fair to say that a disproportionate number of them reside in Texas.
But it is from Texas that we gain confirmation of the absolute certainty that human evolution is a reality.
When George Bush was governor of Texas in the 1990s, he approved executions with impunity, sending to death those who might have been innocent and those who might have been guilty, those who had repented and those who had not, those who had adequate representation and those whose lawyers slept through the trials, those who had the mental capacity to understand their crimes, those whose mental state would have barred even a trial in more civilized jurisdictions.
In all, Bush signed more 150 execution orders as governor, a record for the state and nation. The world press recognized him as the "Texecutioner" or, in the slightly less volatile phrasing of London's Independent newspaper: "a death penalty enthusiast."
Meanwhile, The Nation addresses the whole issue in a piece "Evolution in Texas":
"There are many Americans who do not believe in evolution. And it is probably fair to say that a disproportionate number of them reside in Texas.
But it is from Texas that we gain confirmation of the absolute certainty that human evolution is a reality.
When George Bush was governor of Texas in the 1990s, he approved executions with impunity, sending to death those who might have been innocent and those who might have been guilty, those who had repented and those who had not, those who had adequate representation and those whose lawyers slept through the trials, those who had the mental capacity to understand their crimes, those whose mental state would have barred even a trial in more civilized jurisdictions.
In all, Bush signed more 150 execution orders as governor, a record for the state and nation. The world press recognized him as the "Texecutioner" or, in the slightly less volatile phrasing of London's Independent newspaper: "a death penalty enthusiast."
Thursday, August 30, 2007
More Shame, More Sorrow
"In the administration of George W. Bush, the Republican Party has achieved the greatest combination of idiocy and evil in human history.
The Republicans have bogged America down in a gratuitous and illegal war. The war has destroyed Iraq, killed between 650,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians, displaced 4,000,000 Iraqis, and littered the country with depleted uranium. Bush’s war remains unwon despite its five year duration and $1 trillion in out-of-pocket and incurred future costs.
Bush’s invasion of Iraq is a war crime under the Nuremberg standard, a direct counterpart to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Both were based on lies and deception, and the declared reasons for both were masks for secret agendas.
Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, his planned attack on Iran [http://www.rawstory.com/images/other/IranStudy082807a.pdf], and his support for Israel’s attack on Lebanon and genocidal policies toward the Palestinians have radicalized the Middle East and Muslims worldwide. American [http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifd] Israeli aggression have vindicated Osama bin Laden’s propaganda, produced massive recruits for Al Qaeda, and unleashed destabilizing forces throughout the Middle East.
Bush’s wars are strengthening Islam. Abdullah Gul has just been elected president of Turkey. Gul is described by the American media as “former Islamist.” Gul is supported by the ruling political party of prime minister Erdogan, another “former Islamist.”
The Republicans have bogged America down in a gratuitous and illegal war. The war has destroyed Iraq, killed between 650,000 and 1,000,000 Iraqi civilians, displaced 4,000,000 Iraqis, and littered the country with depleted uranium. Bush’s war remains unwon despite its five year duration and $1 trillion in out-of-pocket and incurred future costs.
Bush’s invasion of Iraq is a war crime under the Nuremberg standard, a direct counterpart to Hitler’s invasion of Poland. Both were based on lies and deception, and the declared reasons for both were masks for secret agendas.
Bush’s invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, his planned attack on Iran [http://www.rawstory.com/images/other/IranStudy082807a.pdf], and his support for Israel’s attack on Lebanon and genocidal policies toward the Palestinians have radicalized the Middle East and Muslims worldwide. American [http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifd] Israeli aggression have vindicated Osama bin Laden’s propaganda, produced massive recruits for Al Qaeda, and unleashed destabilizing forces throughout the Middle East.
Bush’s wars are strengthening Islam. Abdullah Gul has just been elected president of Turkey. Gul is described by the American media as “former Islamist.” Gul is supported by the ruling political party of prime minister Erdogan, another “former Islamist.”
So writes Paul Craig Roberts former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was one time Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is co-author of the book The Tyranny of Good Intentions. Roberts can hardly be characterised as rabid or of a liberal background. His piece, "More Shame, More Sorrow" is on Information Clearing House - the full text of which iw well worth reading.
Execution for a non-murderer
The US legal system, so called, is often totally unjust and bizarre. The laws of the State of Texas are quite extraordinary, as the case of Kenneth Foster - a non-murderer who is due to be executed today - shows. The Independent explains a law which on any statute book of a country other than the US would be condemned as backward, outrageous and against all tenets of anything remotely according to notions of justice.
"A 30-year old man, Kenneth Foster, is set to be executed today for a murder which he not only did not commit, but which the authorities in Texas accept was carried out by another man in 1996.
The trial judge, the prosecutor, and the jury that sentenced Mr Foster to die admit that he did not murder the victim Michael LaHood. But, under a controversial "law of parties", in Texas an associate of a perpetrator can be found co-responsible in a capital case. The law imposes the death penalty on anybody involved in a crime where a murder occurred.
This is how Foster, a black man out on a crime spree with some friends, came to be convicted of murdering Mr LaHood, a white man and the son of a prominent lawyer . The killer, Mauriceo Brown, was executed last year."
"A 30-year old man, Kenneth Foster, is set to be executed today for a murder which he not only did not commit, but which the authorities in Texas accept was carried out by another man in 1996.
The trial judge, the prosecutor, and the jury that sentenced Mr Foster to die admit that he did not murder the victim Michael LaHood. But, under a controversial "law of parties", in Texas an associate of a perpetrator can be found co-responsible in a capital case. The law imposes the death penalty on anybody involved in a crime where a murder occurred.
This is how Foster, a black man out on a crime spree with some friends, came to be convicted of murdering Mr LaHood, a white man and the son of a prominent lawyer . The killer, Mauriceo Brown, was executed last year."
Untold devastation and dislocation
The immediately previous posting relating to the Israelis counselling the Americans not to attack Iraq was probably prescient - although the Israelis doubtlessly had their own agenda - but the consequences of the Iraq War have been horrendous.
Agency France Presse [reproduced on Common Dreams] puts the human devastation and dislocation caused by the Iraqi War into graphic context:
More than four million Iraqis have fled their homes because of sectarian violence, the largest population movement in the Middle East since Palestinians left the new state of Israel, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.
“An estimated 4.2 million Iraqis have been uprooted from their homes, with the monthly rate of displacement climbing to over 60,000 people compared to 50,000 previously,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis told journalists.
More than two million Iraqis are displaced within their own country, with around half being uprooted following the February 2006 Samarra bombings, seen as the catalyst for the latest wave of sectarian conflict, the UNHCR said.
“Many are barely surviving in makeshift camps, inaccessible to aid workers for security reasons,” Pagonis warned.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in sectarian conflict between Shiites and Sunnis, and Pagonis said many families were “choosing to leave ethnically mixed areas before they are forced to do so.”
More than 1.4 million have crossed into neighbouring Syria with between 500,000 and 750,000 heading into Jordan, the UNHCR said.
The UNHCR and UN children’s agency UNICEF have jointly appealed for help in paying for the education of 155,000 Iraqi refugee children, putting forward a figure of 129 million dollars to get them into schools for the 2007-2008 academic years.
This would allow 100,000 to go to school in Syria, 50,000 in Jordan, 2,000 in Egypt, 1,500 in Lebanon and 1,500 in other regional countries."
One can only wonder what the leaders of the Coalition of the Willing think of all of this - especially given the Christian values they espouse and repeated claim to have brought justice and freedom to Iraq and Iraqis.
Agency France Presse [reproduced on Common Dreams] puts the human devastation and dislocation caused by the Iraqi War into graphic context:
More than four million Iraqis have fled their homes because of sectarian violence, the largest population movement in the Middle East since Palestinians left the new state of Israel, the United Nations refugee agency said on Tuesday.
“An estimated 4.2 million Iraqis have been uprooted from their homes, with the monthly rate of displacement climbing to over 60,000 people compared to 50,000 previously,” UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) spokeswoman Jennifer Pagonis told journalists.
More than two million Iraqis are displaced within their own country, with around half being uprooted following the February 2006 Samarra bombings, seen as the catalyst for the latest wave of sectarian conflict, the UNHCR said.
“Many are barely surviving in makeshift camps, inaccessible to aid workers for security reasons,” Pagonis warned.
Tens of thousands of Iraqis have been killed in sectarian conflict between Shiites and Sunnis, and Pagonis said many families were “choosing to leave ethnically mixed areas before they are forced to do so.”
More than 1.4 million have crossed into neighbouring Syria with between 500,000 and 750,000 heading into Jordan, the UNHCR said.
The UNHCR and UN children’s agency UNICEF have jointly appealed for help in paying for the education of 155,000 Iraqi refugee children, putting forward a figure of 129 million dollars to get them into schools for the 2007-2008 academic years.
This would allow 100,000 to go to school in Syria, 50,000 in Jordan, 2,000 in Egypt, 1,500 in Lebanon and 1,500 in other regional countries."
One can only wonder what the leaders of the Coalition of the Willing think of all of this - especially given the Christian values they espouse and repeated claim to have brought justice and freedom to Iraq and Iraqis.
A warning and counsel ignored.....
While George Bush & Co ramp up the anti-Iran rhetoric - which all sounds ominous and all too familiar to what was being articulated pre the Iraq War - today comes news that Israel counselled the US not to attack Iraq and rather concentrate on Iran.
IPS reports:
"Israeli officials warned the George W. Bush administration that an invasion of Iraq would be destabilising to the region and urged the United States to instead target Iran as the primary enemy, according to former administration official Lawrence Wilkerson.
Wilkerson, then a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and later chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, recalled in an interview with IPS that the Israelis reacted immediately to indications that the Bush administration was thinking of war against Iraq. After the Israeli government picked up the first signs of that intention, Wilkerson says, "The Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy -- Iran is the enemy."
Wilkerson describes the Israeli message to the Bush administration in early 2002 as being, "If you are going to destabilise the balance of power, do it against the main enemy."
The warning against an invasion of Iraq was "pervasive" in Israeli communications with the administration, Wilkerson recalls. It was conveyed to the administration by a wide range of Israeli sources, including political figures, intelligence and private citizens.
Wilkerson notes that the main point of their communications was not that the United States should immediately attack Iran, but that "it should not be distracted by Iraq and Saddam Hussein" from a focus on the threat from Iran.
The Israeli advice against using military force against Iraq was apparently triggered by reports reaching Israeli officials in December 2001 that the Bush administration was beginning serious planning for an attack on Iraq. Journalist Bob Woodward revealed in "Plan of Attack" that on Dec. 1, 2001, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld had ordered the Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks to come up with the first formal briefing on a new war plan for Iraq on Dec. 4. That started a period of intense discussions of war planning between Rumsfeld and Franks."
IPS reports:
"Israeli officials warned the George W. Bush administration that an invasion of Iraq would be destabilising to the region and urged the United States to instead target Iran as the primary enemy, according to former administration official Lawrence Wilkerson.
Wilkerson, then a member of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff and later chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, recalled in an interview with IPS that the Israelis reacted immediately to indications that the Bush administration was thinking of war against Iraq. After the Israeli government picked up the first signs of that intention, Wilkerson says, "The Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy -- Iran is the enemy."
Wilkerson describes the Israeli message to the Bush administration in early 2002 as being, "If you are going to destabilise the balance of power, do it against the main enemy."
The warning against an invasion of Iraq was "pervasive" in Israeli communications with the administration, Wilkerson recalls. It was conveyed to the administration by a wide range of Israeli sources, including political figures, intelligence and private citizens.
Wilkerson notes that the main point of their communications was not that the United States should immediately attack Iran, but that "it should not be distracted by Iraq and Saddam Hussein" from a focus on the threat from Iran.
The Israeli advice against using military force against Iraq was apparently triggered by reports reaching Israeli officials in December 2001 that the Bush administration was beginning serious planning for an attack on Iraq. Journalist Bob Woodward revealed in "Plan of Attack" that on Dec. 1, 2001, Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld had ordered the Central Command chief Gen. Tommy Franks to come up with the first formal briefing on a new war plan for Iraq on Dec. 4. That started a period of intense discussions of war planning between Rumsfeld and Franks."
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
High-tech tyranny
It's being described as high-tech tyranny. Two internet search giants, Yahoo and MSN, have signed up to the latest attempts by China to censor and control the blogs of online users.
They've also agreed to provide hardware to make it easier for government surveillance online.
It's not the first time Yahoo has collaborated with the Chinese government.
Yahoo has admitted it's been handing online users' information over to Beijing for years.
Rights groups say China then uses that information to imprison and torture scores of dissidents.
Yahoo says it is just obeying local laws.
That doesn't wash with the World Organisation for Human Rights (USA). It's now suing Yahoo on behalf of jailed Chinese dissidents.
Morton Sklar heads the organisation's American office. He spoke with Fran Kelly, presenter of ABC Radio National's Breakfast program, from Washington this morning - here.
Meanwhile, an article backgrounding the issue can be read, here, on the organisation's web site.
They've also agreed to provide hardware to make it easier for government surveillance online.
It's not the first time Yahoo has collaborated with the Chinese government.
Yahoo has admitted it's been handing online users' information over to Beijing for years.
Rights groups say China then uses that information to imprison and torture scores of dissidents.
Yahoo says it is just obeying local laws.
That doesn't wash with the World Organisation for Human Rights (USA). It's now suing Yahoo on behalf of jailed Chinese dissidents.
Morton Sklar heads the organisation's American office. He spoke with Fran Kelly, presenter of ABC Radio National's Breakfast program, from Washington this morning - here.
Meanwhile, an article backgrounding the issue can be read, here, on the organisation's web site.
John Howard losing on all fronts
Crikey reveals something not widely picked up by the mainstream media - John Howard isn't seen as the best economic manager of the Oz economy:
"It’s barely had a run, but a fascinating Ipsos Mackay poll for Meet the Press released on Sunday put Labor in front as better economic managers.
The ALP hasn’t stolen John Howard’s crown yet. The polls found more voters believe federal Labor would be the better economic manager -- 39% to 36%. A high 25% of voters remain undecided.
Where their votes fall will be crucial -- but the Government can’t draw much encouragement from a second Ipsos poll which found 24% of voters saying they were more likely to vote Labor as a result of the rate rise.
Yesterday, Galaxy found that only 32% of voters believe that the $17.3 billion surplus announced last week is a product of "good financial management" – instead, 51% believe the Government has "mainly achieved this surplus through tax rates being too high".
And the news just gets worse and worse for the PM. A third poll, from Burson-Marsteller, asks punters if they have firmly decided who they will vote for. Seventy-seven per cent say yes – 56% of these for Labor and only 34% for the Coalition."
"It’s barely had a run, but a fascinating Ipsos Mackay poll for Meet the Press released on Sunday put Labor in front as better economic managers.
The ALP hasn’t stolen John Howard’s crown yet. The polls found more voters believe federal Labor would be the better economic manager -- 39% to 36%. A high 25% of voters remain undecided.
Where their votes fall will be crucial -- but the Government can’t draw much encouragement from a second Ipsos poll which found 24% of voters saying they were more likely to vote Labor as a result of the rate rise.
Yesterday, Galaxy found that only 32% of voters believe that the $17.3 billion surplus announced last week is a product of "good financial management" – instead, 51% believe the Government has "mainly achieved this surplus through tax rates being too high".
And the news just gets worse and worse for the PM. A third poll, from Burson-Marsteller, asks punters if they have firmly decided who they will vote for. Seventy-seven per cent say yes – 56% of these for Labor and only 34% for the Coalition."
How to build an illegal settlement......
Whilst Israel speaks of seeking some sort of accord with the Palestinians - or least the Abbas Fatah group, as distinct to Hamas in Gaza - it continues, unabated, in building settlements in the West Bank.
The way a settlement comes into existence, and grows, is clearly explained in a piece written by dissident Israeli architect, Eyal Weizman, published on SocialistWorkeronline:
"The occupied West Bank, 1999. A group of Israeli settlers complain that their mobile phone reception cuts out on a bend in a road from Jerusalem to their settlements.
The mobile phone company Orange agrees to put up an antenna on a hill overlooking the bend.
The hill happens to be owned by Palestinian farmers, but since mobile phone reception is a “security issue”, the mast construction can go ahead without the farmers’ permission.
Other companies agree to supply electricity and water to the construction site on the hill.
In May 2001 an Israeli security guard moves on to the site and connects his cabin to the water and electricity mains. Then his wife and children move in with him.
In March 2002 five more families join him to create the settler outpost of Migron. The Israeli ministry for construction and housing builds a nursery, while donations from abroad build a synagogue.
By mid-2006 Migron is a fully fledged illegal settlement comprising 60 trailers on a hilltop around the antenna, overlooking the Palestinian lands below."
Read the full piece here - and see how easy it is to get a settlement up and running with active support of the Israeli Government. All up the Israelis can be seen as speaking with either a forked tongue, or falsely, about the removal of all those settlements built on Palestinian land.
The way a settlement comes into existence, and grows, is clearly explained in a piece written by dissident Israeli architect, Eyal Weizman, published on SocialistWorkeronline:
"The occupied West Bank, 1999. A group of Israeli settlers complain that their mobile phone reception cuts out on a bend in a road from Jerusalem to their settlements.
The mobile phone company Orange agrees to put up an antenna on a hill overlooking the bend.
The hill happens to be owned by Palestinian farmers, but since mobile phone reception is a “security issue”, the mast construction can go ahead without the farmers’ permission.
Other companies agree to supply electricity and water to the construction site on the hill.
In May 2001 an Israeli security guard moves on to the site and connects his cabin to the water and electricity mains. Then his wife and children move in with him.
In March 2002 five more families join him to create the settler outpost of Migron. The Israeli ministry for construction and housing builds a nursery, while donations from abroad build a synagogue.
By mid-2006 Migron is a fully fledged illegal settlement comprising 60 trailers on a hilltop around the antenna, overlooking the Palestinian lands below."
Read the full piece here - and see how easy it is to get a settlement up and running with active support of the Israeli Government. All up the Israelis can be seen as speaking with either a forked tongue, or falsely, about the removal of all those settlements built on Palestinian land.
Iraq: A different coup?
That Iraqi PM al-Maliki is somewhat on the nose with the powers-that-be can be seen from the criticisms and barbs directed at him.
He is now confronted with another twist to the "story" of Iraq - as Arianne Huffington in The Huffington Report reports:
"As we all await the Petraeus Report on the state of the surge, we may also need to be anticipating the Allawi Coup.
I'm talking, of course about Ayad Allawi, longtime C.I.A. asset and former interim prime minister of Iraq. He's making quite the PR push to get his old job back, penning an op-ed for the Washington Post, hooking up with Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition on Sunday, and even putting the high-powered GOP lobbying firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers on a $300,000 retainer.
It says everything you need to know about who the true power holders in Iraq are that Allawi, who has a "six-point plan" for Iraq that involves replacing the current Prime Minister, is campaigning in Washington -- not Baghdad. He clearly knows that despite Bush's bathetic paeans to Iraqi sovereignty, the real deciders in Iraq are not the Iraqi people, but a few dozen folks in the White House and the Pentagon. They are Allawi's true constituency."
He is now confronted with another twist to the "story" of Iraq - as Arianne Huffington in The Huffington Report reports:
"As we all await the Petraeus Report on the state of the surge, we may also need to be anticipating the Allawi Coup.
I'm talking, of course about Ayad Allawi, longtime C.I.A. asset and former interim prime minister of Iraq. He's making quite the PR push to get his old job back, penning an op-ed for the Washington Post, hooking up with Wolf Blitzer on Late Edition on Sunday, and even putting the high-powered GOP lobbying firm Barbour Griffith & Rogers on a $300,000 retainer.
It says everything you need to know about who the true power holders in Iraq are that Allawi, who has a "six-point plan" for Iraq that involves replacing the current Prime Minister, is campaigning in Washington -- not Baghdad. He clearly knows that despite Bush's bathetic paeans to Iraqi sovereignty, the real deciders in Iraq are not the Iraqi people, but a few dozen folks in the White House and the Pentagon. They are Allawi's true constituency."
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Another disastrous outcome for the Coalition of the Willing
It's bad enough that the people of Afghanistan and Iraq have been devastated by the wars underway in their respective countries - thanks to the foreign forces in both countries. It's equally bad for the troops and their families fighting there. More troubling, on a much great world-wide basis, is that opium-production has grown hugely in Afghanistan this year - with all that entails apart from providing funds to the Taliban.
The Independent reports:
"Britain faces a war on two fronts in Afghanistan, following the revelation that the province where British troops are deployed has become the biggest source of illicit drugs in the world.
In an annual survey of opium production released yesterday, the UN reported that Helmand province had produced 48 per cent more opium compared to its record-breaking crop last year. Opium production in Afghanistan as a whole will reach a "frighteningly new level" at 8,200 tons, 34 per cent higher than last year, the report said.
British troops sent to back up reconstruction efforts in Helmand have been pinned down by resurgent Taliban fighters, who have a stranglehold over the drugs trade which is funding the resistance.
Although another record opium crop had been expected, the massive jump in the Helmand output reflects the level of insecurity in the province, where the insurgency has deepened in the past year. British commanders have described the conflict as the most intense since the Korean war."
The Independent reports:
"Britain faces a war on two fronts in Afghanistan, following the revelation that the province where British troops are deployed has become the biggest source of illicit drugs in the world.
In an annual survey of opium production released yesterday, the UN reported that Helmand province had produced 48 per cent more opium compared to its record-breaking crop last year. Opium production in Afghanistan as a whole will reach a "frighteningly new level" at 8,200 tons, 34 per cent higher than last year, the report said.
British troops sent to back up reconstruction efforts in Helmand have been pinned down by resurgent Taliban fighters, who have a stranglehold over the drugs trade which is funding the resistance.
Although another record opium crop had been expected, the massive jump in the Helmand output reflects the level of insecurity in the province, where the insurgency has deepened in the past year. British commanders have described the conflict as the most intense since the Korean war."
No loss!
Whether it be a disintegration of the Bush "team" or not, the resignation of his Attorney-General Gonzales is "interesting".
The Salon take on the resignation "Why Did Gonzales Resign?":
"When Alberto Gonzales swiftly turned heel on the stage at the Department of Justice without answering questions about his resignation as attorney general he left behind yet another lingering cloud of mystery. What is he not telling about his resignation?
The true story may be something like the denouement of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter," which was in plain sight all along, a solution that can, as Poe wrote, "escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident." To be excessively obvious, Gonzales' resignation, following Karl Rove's exactly by two weeks, is the shadow of the first act.
Under investigation by the House and Senate Judiciary committees for his part in the political purge of U.S. attorneys and warrantless domestic surveillance, Gonzales wandered through his appearances down winding paths of dissembling. On the U.S. attorneys, his former deputies -- his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, and former deputy attorney general, Paul McNulty -- contradicted him. On domestic spying, the former acting attorney general, James Comey, described then White House counsel Gonzales' attempted coup on behalf of a program Comey considered illegal through Gonzales' securing the signature of the ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft, barely able to lift his head in his hospital bed after surgery. After Gonzales offered a different account, FBI Director Robert Mueller appeared before the Senate on July 27 to corroborate Comey's version, staking his position against Gonzales' credibility. Senators called for the appointment of a special prosecutor."
The Salon take on the resignation "Why Did Gonzales Resign?":
"When Alberto Gonzales swiftly turned heel on the stage at the Department of Justice without answering questions about his resignation as attorney general he left behind yet another lingering cloud of mystery. What is he not telling about his resignation?
The true story may be something like the denouement of Edgar Allan Poe's "The Purloined Letter," which was in plain sight all along, a solution that can, as Poe wrote, "escape observation by dint of being excessively obvious; and here the physical oversight is precisely analogous with the moral inapprehension by which the intellect suffers to pass unnoticed those considerations which are too obtrusively and too palpably self-evident." To be excessively obvious, Gonzales' resignation, following Karl Rove's exactly by two weeks, is the shadow of the first act.
Under investigation by the House and Senate Judiciary committees for his part in the political purge of U.S. attorneys and warrantless domestic surveillance, Gonzales wandered through his appearances down winding paths of dissembling. On the U.S. attorneys, his former deputies -- his former chief of staff, Kyle Sampson, and former deputy attorney general, Paul McNulty -- contradicted him. On domestic spying, the former acting attorney general, James Comey, described then White House counsel Gonzales' attempted coup on behalf of a program Comey considered illegal through Gonzales' securing the signature of the ailing Attorney General John Ashcroft, barely able to lift his head in his hospital bed after surgery. After Gonzales offered a different account, FBI Director Robert Mueller appeared before the Senate on July 27 to corroborate Comey's version, staking his position against Gonzales' credibility. Senators called for the appointment of a special prosecutor."
Monday, August 27, 2007
Bill Moyer's farewell to Karl Rove
Karl Rove, George Bush's brain, as he has been called, has, certainly openly, left the scene at the White House.
Veteran journalist, Bill Moyers, having referred to what others said about Rove post his announced retirement,reflects on Rove this way:
"....There is, of course, more to be said. What struck me about my fellow Texan, Karl Rove, is that he knew how to win elections as if they were divine interventions. You may think God summoned Billy Graham to Florida on the eve of the 2000 election to endorse George W. Bush just in the nick of time, but if it did happen that way, the good lord was speaking with a Texas accent.
Karl Rove figured out a long time ago that the way to take an intellectually incurious draft-averse naughty playboy in a flight jacket with chewing tobacco in his back pocket and make him governor of Texas, was to sell him as God's anointed in a state where preachers and televangelists outnumber even oil derricks and jack rabbits. Using church pews as precincts Rove turned religion into a weapon of political combat - a battering ram, aimed at the devil's minions, especially at gay people."
Both read and view the full Moyers piece, on truthout.com, here.
Veteran journalist, Bill Moyers, having referred to what others said about Rove post his announced retirement,reflects on Rove this way:
"....There is, of course, more to be said. What struck me about my fellow Texan, Karl Rove, is that he knew how to win elections as if they were divine interventions. You may think God summoned Billy Graham to Florida on the eve of the 2000 election to endorse George W. Bush just in the nick of time, but if it did happen that way, the good lord was speaking with a Texas accent.
Karl Rove figured out a long time ago that the way to take an intellectually incurious draft-averse naughty playboy in a flight jacket with chewing tobacco in his back pocket and make him governor of Texas, was to sell him as God's anointed in a state where preachers and televangelists outnumber even oil derricks and jack rabbits. Using church pews as precincts Rove turned religion into a weapon of political combat - a battering ram, aimed at the devil's minions, especially at gay people."
Both read and view the full Moyers piece, on truthout.com, here.
Some "interesting" questions about 9/11
With the sixth anniversary of 9/11 upon us in a couple of weeks, Robert Fisk's latest piece in The Independent is worth pondering, or at least reflecting on....
"Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience – just one – whom I call the "raver". Apologies here to all the men and women who come to my talks with bright and pertinent questions – often quite humbling ones for me as a journalist – and which show that they understand the Middle East tragedy a lot better than the journalists who report it. But the "raver" is real. He has turned up in corporeal form in Stockholm and in Oxford, in Sao Paulo and in Yerevan, in Cairo, in Los Angeles and, in female form, in Barcelona. No matter the country, there will always be a "raver".
His – or her – question goes like this. Why, if you believe you're a free journalist, don't you report what you really know about 9/11? Why don't you tell the truth – that the Bush administration (or the CIA or Mossad, you name it) blew up the twin towers? Why don't you reveal the secrets behind 9/11? The assumption in each case is that Fisk knows – that Fisk has an absolute concrete, copper-bottomed fact-filled desk containing final proof of what "all the world knows" (that usually is the phrase) – who destroyed the twin towers. Sometimes the "raver" is clearly distressed. One man in Cork screamed his question at me, and then – the moment I suggested that his version of the plot was a bit odd – left the hall, shouting abuse and kicking over chairs.
Usually, I have tried to tell the "truth"; that while there are unanswered questions about 9/11, I am the Middle East correspondent of The Independent, not the conspiracy correspondent; that I have quite enough real plots on my hands in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, the Gulf, etc, to worry about imaginary ones in Manhattan. My final argument – a clincher, in my view – is that the Bush administration has screwed up everything – militarily, politically diplomatically – it has tried to do in the Middle East; so how on earth could it successfully bring off the international crimes against humanity in the United States on 11 September 2001?"
"Each time I lecture abroad on the Middle East, there is always someone in the audience – just one – whom I call the "raver". Apologies here to all the men and women who come to my talks with bright and pertinent questions – often quite humbling ones for me as a journalist – and which show that they understand the Middle East tragedy a lot better than the journalists who report it. But the "raver" is real. He has turned up in corporeal form in Stockholm and in Oxford, in Sao Paulo and in Yerevan, in Cairo, in Los Angeles and, in female form, in Barcelona. No matter the country, there will always be a "raver".
His – or her – question goes like this. Why, if you believe you're a free journalist, don't you report what you really know about 9/11? Why don't you tell the truth – that the Bush administration (or the CIA or Mossad, you name it) blew up the twin towers? Why don't you reveal the secrets behind 9/11? The assumption in each case is that Fisk knows – that Fisk has an absolute concrete, copper-bottomed fact-filled desk containing final proof of what "all the world knows" (that usually is the phrase) – who destroyed the twin towers. Sometimes the "raver" is clearly distressed. One man in Cork screamed his question at me, and then – the moment I suggested that his version of the plot was a bit odd – left the hall, shouting abuse and kicking over chairs.
Usually, I have tried to tell the "truth"; that while there are unanswered questions about 9/11, I am the Middle East correspondent of The Independent, not the conspiracy correspondent; that I have quite enough real plots on my hands in Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, Iran, the Gulf, etc, to worry about imaginary ones in Manhattan. My final argument – a clincher, in my view – is that the Bush administration has screwed up everything – militarily, politically diplomatically – it has tried to do in the Middle East; so how on earth could it successfully bring off the international crimes against humanity in the United States on 11 September 2001?"
A Most Inconvenient Truth
Sooner or later the truth will be out - even if not fully. In politics to ascertain what has been going on is not always that easy to establish.
The gassing of the Kurds by Saddam has always been trotted out in support of showing how evil the Iraq dictator was and well got rid of. Now, it seems that it's not all that simple and the hand of US politics and hypocrisy in relation to Iraq, and the gassing of the Kurds, has been revealed in a new book, as The Nation reveals:
"If the United States ever possessed a shred of moral authority for the invasion of Iraq, it came from Halabja, a Kurdish town of about 70,000 people nestling in a bowl in front of the towering mountain chain that fringes Iraq's northeast frontier with Iran. Halabja was once famous among Kurds as the "city of poets," and the townspeople were known for their love of books. It is doubtful that George W. Bush had ever heard of the poets, but he did find it useful to know that in 1988 Halabjans were the victims of the largest use of chemical weapons against a civilian population in history, thereby providing inspiration for Bush's repeated observation that Saddam was "evil" and had "gassed his own people.
Like Guernica or My Lai, Halabja (in Kurdish, "the wrong place") suffered an experience of mass murder intense enough to transform the town's very name into a historical event. That event occurred on the afternoon of March 16, 1988--a cold but pleasant day, with occasional showers, notes Joost Hiltermann in A Poisonous Affair, his comprehensive and powerful delineation not only of what happened that day but of all those who helped bring it about. The day before, Kurdish fighters, with Iranian encouragement and support, had occupied the town after driving out Iraqi government troops. Now the Iraqi air force had returned to deliver Saddam's response."
The full piece can be read here......and look out for the description of Rumsfeld and how he was viewed by the Iraqis and others.
The gassing of the Kurds by Saddam has always been trotted out in support of showing how evil the Iraq dictator was and well got rid of. Now, it seems that it's not all that simple and the hand of US politics and hypocrisy in relation to Iraq, and the gassing of the Kurds, has been revealed in a new book, as The Nation reveals:
"If the United States ever possessed a shred of moral authority for the invasion of Iraq, it came from Halabja, a Kurdish town of about 70,000 people nestling in a bowl in front of the towering mountain chain that fringes Iraq's northeast frontier with Iran. Halabja was once famous among Kurds as the "city of poets," and the townspeople were known for their love of books. It is doubtful that George W. Bush had ever heard of the poets, but he did find it useful to know that in 1988 Halabjans were the victims of the largest use of chemical weapons against a civilian population in history, thereby providing inspiration for Bush's repeated observation that Saddam was "evil" and had "gassed his own people.
Like Guernica or My Lai, Halabja (in Kurdish, "the wrong place") suffered an experience of mass murder intense enough to transform the town's very name into a historical event. That event occurred on the afternoon of March 16, 1988--a cold but pleasant day, with occasional showers, notes Joost Hiltermann in A Poisonous Affair, his comprehensive and powerful delineation not only of what happened that day but of all those who helped bring it about. The day before, Kurdish fighters, with Iranian encouragement and support, had occupied the town after driving out Iraqi government troops. Now the Iraqi air force had returned to deliver Saddam's response."
The full piece can be read here......and look out for the description of Rumsfeld and how he was viewed by the Iraqis and others.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
And this is our police "at work"?
The Haneef case in Australia has attracted much attention. Leaving aside the disgraceful conduct of the Federal Government in the whole affair - notably the Attorney-General and Immigration Minister - the release of the transcript of the police interrogation of Dr. Haneef is not only pathetic but highlights the ineptitude of the Federal Police "interrogator". Ignorance is a word which comes to mind when considering the seemingly decent police interrogator.
David Marr, writing in the SMH, analyses the interrogation and what it tells us about the police and Immigration Minister:
"Geography was not one of my better subjects at school," Detective Sergeant Adam Simms of the Joint Counter-Terrorism Team admitted to the prisoner in the sixth hour of the interrogation. "Bangalore, where's that in relation to Pakistan?"
As good a reason as any for the Australian Federal Police to be so furious this week at the release of the transcript of the second interrogation of Mohamed Haneef, is the embarrassment the force will endure as the ignorance of the interrogators is displayed page after page. For 10 days detectives on three continents had been gathering whatever evidence they could find about the Gold Coast doctor, but Detective Simms had not opened an atlas.
He did not know where Liverpool was from London. The name Mysore meant nothing to him. It seems he'd never heard of Urdu. The ways of Skype were new to him: "I'm a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to this sort of thing." His grasp of a doctor's career paths was shaky. He had no clue what Muslims do in Ramadan. "OK," he said when Haneef explained. "Excuse my ignorance, yeah."
David Marr, writing in the SMH, analyses the interrogation and what it tells us about the police and Immigration Minister:
"Geography was not one of my better subjects at school," Detective Sergeant Adam Simms of the Joint Counter-Terrorism Team admitted to the prisoner in the sixth hour of the interrogation. "Bangalore, where's that in relation to Pakistan?"
As good a reason as any for the Australian Federal Police to be so furious this week at the release of the transcript of the second interrogation of Mohamed Haneef, is the embarrassment the force will endure as the ignorance of the interrogators is displayed page after page. For 10 days detectives on three continents had been gathering whatever evidence they could find about the Gold Coast doctor, but Detective Simms had not opened an atlas.
He did not know where Liverpool was from London. The name Mysore meant nothing to him. It seems he'd never heard of Urdu. The ways of Skype were new to him: "I'm a bit of a dinosaur when it comes to this sort of thing." His grasp of a doctor's career paths was shaky. He had no clue what Muslims do in Ramadan. "OK," he said when Haneef explained. "Excuse my ignorance, yeah."
Blogs to You!
The debate continues! Newspapers in decline or the world of news and comment changing, dramatically, with the advent of on-line journalism and the ever-pervasive blogs?
It's a on-going discussion, and analysis, which will continue for some time, but there is no getting away from the fact that the dissemination of news and opinion-forming pieces - if not downright simple politicking - is undergoing huge changes. Just think of move.on in the US and GetUp in Australia.
A veteran newspaper man puts the whole thing into perspective in this most interesting piece, "Bogs to You" in NewMatilda.com [well worth subscribing to by the way]:
"A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself,’ said the great American playwright Arthur Miller in 1961, and now the technology is in place to allow that conversation to happen in real time.
Blogging, podcasting and video sharing on sites like YouTube are dramatically changing the media landscape, allowing a host of new voices around the world to be heard. Blogging isn’t journalism on the cheap, as some critics have suggested — it’s a natural extension of the core mission of journalism: helping foster a vigorous public dialogue. And it’s allowed us to tap into the wisdom in the crowds.
I’ve been an online journalist for more than a decade. When I first saw a web browser in August 1993, I knew that the internet would be a powerful force for remaking journalism. For those of us who have been online since before the rise of the World Wide Web, the internet has always been about interaction and communication, not just a publishing platform or a better shopping experience."
It's a on-going discussion, and analysis, which will continue for some time, but there is no getting away from the fact that the dissemination of news and opinion-forming pieces - if not downright simple politicking - is undergoing huge changes. Just think of move.on in the US and GetUp in Australia.
A veteran newspaper man puts the whole thing into perspective in this most interesting piece, "Bogs to You" in NewMatilda.com [well worth subscribing to by the way]:
"A good newspaper, I suppose, is a nation talking to itself,’ said the great American playwright Arthur Miller in 1961, and now the technology is in place to allow that conversation to happen in real time.
Blogging, podcasting and video sharing on sites like YouTube are dramatically changing the media landscape, allowing a host of new voices around the world to be heard. Blogging isn’t journalism on the cheap, as some critics have suggested — it’s a natural extension of the core mission of journalism: helping foster a vigorous public dialogue. And it’s allowed us to tap into the wisdom in the crowds.
I’ve been an online journalist for more than a decade. When I first saw a web browser in August 1993, I knew that the internet would be a powerful force for remaking journalism. For those of us who have been online since before the rise of the World Wide Web, the internet has always been about interaction and communication, not just a publishing platform or a better shopping experience."
Reflections on comparing Iraq and Vietnam....
George Bush has drawn a long-bow, or most likely got it totally wrong, in attempting to draw on parallels between or lessons from the present Iraq war and the ill-fated Vietnam one.
How the people around him deal with the present situation in Iraq isn't without interest either - as veteran journalist Robert Parry explores in this piece on his blog consortiumnews.com:
"Now that President Bush has invited comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam, a parallel could be drawn between Gates and Clark Clifford, the Defense Secretary who took over the job in March 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War and persuaded President Lyndon Johnson to start down the road toward a negotiated settlement.
Like Gates, Clifford replaced a Defense Secretary (Robert McNamara) who was tied to an increasingly unpopular war. McNamara was considered as much an architect of the Vietnam War as Gates’s predecessor (Donald Rumsfeld) was of the Iraq War.
In another parallel, it was learned later that McNamara harbored grave doubts about the prospects for victory in Vietnam and that Rumsfeld privately urged Bush to consider a de-escalation in Iraq before stepping down last November.
But a key difference in the cases of Clifford and Gates is that Clifford initiated the excruciating process of withdrawing U.S. troops from Vietnam, while Gates so far has simply overseen an escalation of U.S. troops into Iraq, the “surge.” Instead of convincing Bush to look for a route out of Iraq, Gates helped send more troops in.
The question now confronting Gates is whether he will continue to be Bush’s loyal front man on the war or chart a course closer to the views of the Pentagon’s top brass who favor a sharp reduction in U.S. troop levels in Iraq next year."
How the people around him deal with the present situation in Iraq isn't without interest either - as veteran journalist Robert Parry explores in this piece on his blog consortiumnews.com:
"Now that President Bush has invited comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam, a parallel could be drawn between Gates and Clark Clifford, the Defense Secretary who took over the job in March 1968 at the height of the Vietnam War and persuaded President Lyndon Johnson to start down the road toward a negotiated settlement.
Like Gates, Clifford replaced a Defense Secretary (Robert McNamara) who was tied to an increasingly unpopular war. McNamara was considered as much an architect of the Vietnam War as Gates’s predecessor (Donald Rumsfeld) was of the Iraq War.
In another parallel, it was learned later that McNamara harbored grave doubts about the prospects for victory in Vietnam and that Rumsfeld privately urged Bush to consider a de-escalation in Iraq before stepping down last November.
But a key difference in the cases of Clifford and Gates is that Clifford initiated the excruciating process of withdrawing U.S. troops from Vietnam, while Gates so far has simply overseen an escalation of U.S. troops into Iraq, the “surge.” Instead of convincing Bush to look for a route out of Iraq, Gates helped send more troops in.
The question now confronting Gates is whether he will continue to be Bush’s loyal front man on the war or chart a course closer to the views of the Pentagon’s top brass who favor a sharp reduction in U.S. troop levels in Iraq next year."
The problem isn't Maliki
Notwithstanding the White House trying to put a positive spin on things in Iraq, seeking to shift blame onto Iraqi PM al-Maliki and Osama bin Laden, etc. etc. there seems little doubt that Iraq is an unholy mess on just about every conceivable level.
The IHT has an incisive and spot-on Opinion piece putting the entire Iraq fiasco into context:
"Blaming the prime minister of Iraq, rather than the president of the United States, for the failure of U.S. policy, is cynical politics, pure and simple. It is neither fair nor helpful in figuring out how to end America's biggest foreign policy fiasco since Vietnam.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has been catastrophic for Iraq ever since he took over from the equally disastrous Ibrahim al-Jaafari more than a year ago. America helped engineer Jaafari's removal, only to get Maliki. That tells you something important about whether this is more than a matter of personalities. Jaafari, as it happens, was Iraq's first democratically chosen leader under the U.S.-sponsored Constitution."
Read the full piece, "The problem isn't Maliki" here.
The IHT has an incisive and spot-on Opinion piece putting the entire Iraq fiasco into context:
"Blaming the prime minister of Iraq, rather than the president of the United States, for the failure of U.S. policy, is cynical politics, pure and simple. It is neither fair nor helpful in figuring out how to end America's biggest foreign policy fiasco since Vietnam.
Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Maliki has been catastrophic for Iraq ever since he took over from the equally disastrous Ibrahim al-Jaafari more than a year ago. America helped engineer Jaafari's removal, only to get Maliki. That tells you something important about whether this is more than a matter of personalities. Jaafari, as it happens, was Iraq's first democratically chosen leader under the U.S.-sponsored Constitution."
Read the full piece, "The problem isn't Maliki" here.
Saturday, August 25, 2007
AIPAC tactics under attack
AIPAC - a pro-Israeli lobby group - is said to be the #2 lobby group in the US after #1, the NRA, the gun lobbyists. Bear in mind that the NRA does not seek to influence US foreign policy. AIPAC's tactics, and effect, have been the subject of criticism, no more so than by people such as Professors Mearsheimer and Walt, both respected scholars at prestigious universities.
More troubling that the mere hard-line lobbying pro-Israel lobbying of AIPAC, is the epithet it always throws out at Jews who dare speak out or criticise it or Israel. They are invariably labeled Jewish anti-semites or self-hating Jews.
It is therefore refreshing to read this moderated and cogently argued piece, by a Jew, "AIPAC is Hurting Israel, Jews, and Middle-East Peace", on The Huffington Post:
"The Jewish communities around the world have made wonderful contributions to civil and human rights. In addition, no community has a better record of standing up for and actively being involved in humane causes and opposing racism and intolerance throughout the world. That is why I believe that AIPAC is now advocating the very intolerance and violence that the Jewish communities have fought against for centuries. They have now become what most thoughtful Jews would describe as anti-Jewish bullies who even attack other Jews for having differences with them. It is time for AIPAC to understand that the only real help for Israel comes from the peace process and not fascist type tactics. AIPAC does not represent me or most of the views of the Jewish community."
By the way, look out for the Mearsheimer and Walt book, "The Israel Lobby" - released in the US on 4 September, and already the subject of attack from the usual quarters and suspects!
More troubling that the mere hard-line lobbying pro-Israel lobbying of AIPAC, is the epithet it always throws out at Jews who dare speak out or criticise it or Israel. They are invariably labeled Jewish anti-semites or self-hating Jews.
It is therefore refreshing to read this moderated and cogently argued piece, by a Jew, "AIPAC is Hurting Israel, Jews, and Middle-East Peace", on The Huffington Post:
"The Jewish communities around the world have made wonderful contributions to civil and human rights. In addition, no community has a better record of standing up for and actively being involved in humane causes and opposing racism and intolerance throughout the world. That is why I believe that AIPAC is now advocating the very intolerance and violence that the Jewish communities have fought against for centuries. They have now become what most thoughtful Jews would describe as anti-Jewish bullies who even attack other Jews for having differences with them. It is time for AIPAC to understand that the only real help for Israel comes from the peace process and not fascist type tactics. AIPAC does not represent me or most of the views of the Jewish community."
By the way, look out for the Mearsheimer and Walt book, "The Israel Lobby" - released in the US on 4 September, and already the subject of attack from the usual quarters and suspects!
Minister's incompetence exposed!
Immigration Minister Kevin Andrews, a lawyer [crikey!], has displayed his incompetence in all its glory the last weeks. In fact he has all along demonstrated what an appalling and poor Minister he is in his present portfolio - as also in his previous portfolio of Employment and Workplace Relations. Apart from being the narrow-minded, religiously-driven, one-eyed individual he appears to be, he certainly doesn't come within a bull's roar of being capable of holding office as a Minister of the Crown - as Mike Carlton backgrounds in his weekly piece in the SMH:
"To give him the benefit of the doubt, it might just be that soapy Kevin Andrews, the Immigration Minister, is as thick as two planks.
That would be the kindest explanation for the trail of chaos he leaves behind as he bumbles along through the dismal affair of Dr Mohamed Haneef and the vanishing visa.
Then again, it is also possible that he set out deliberately to distort the public case against the good doctor by cherry picking from the ham-fisted federal police investigation and, when that collapsed, by plucking rank fabrications from thin air.
Either way, at every stage he has been exposed as an incompetent.
His latest embarrassment, at the hands of Judge Jeffrey Spender of the Federal Court, was proof of the pudding. Andrews's decision to ban Haneef on the grounds of a link to a distant second cousin who might or might not have had something to do with the London and Glasgow bombings blew up in his face.
Spender demolished him by ruling that "the minister cancelled the visa by adopting a wrong criterion; he fell into jurisdictional error by applying the wrong test. That error infects the cancellation decision. It follows that the decision must be set aside."
This would be farce if it were not so serious. In legislating extraordinary powers to deal with terrorism, the Government scrapped a truckload of the ancient rights and liberties we have known at law. The promise in return was that these powers would be used with scrupulous care.
Clearly they have not been. Andrews and his advisers, if that's what they are, have blundered around like pigs in a minefield."
"To give him the benefit of the doubt, it might just be that soapy Kevin Andrews, the Immigration Minister, is as thick as two planks.
That would be the kindest explanation for the trail of chaos he leaves behind as he bumbles along through the dismal affair of Dr Mohamed Haneef and the vanishing visa.
Then again, it is also possible that he set out deliberately to distort the public case against the good doctor by cherry picking from the ham-fisted federal police investigation and, when that collapsed, by plucking rank fabrications from thin air.
Either way, at every stage he has been exposed as an incompetent.
His latest embarrassment, at the hands of Judge Jeffrey Spender of the Federal Court, was proof of the pudding. Andrews's decision to ban Haneef on the grounds of a link to a distant second cousin who might or might not have had something to do with the London and Glasgow bombings blew up in his face.
Spender demolished him by ruling that "the minister cancelled the visa by adopting a wrong criterion; he fell into jurisdictional error by applying the wrong test. That error infects the cancellation decision. It follows that the decision must be set aside."
This would be farce if it were not so serious. In legislating extraordinary powers to deal with terrorism, the Government scrapped a truckload of the ancient rights and liberties we have known at law. The promise in return was that these powers would be used with scrupulous care.
Clearly they have not been. Andrews and his advisers, if that's what they are, have blundered around like pigs in a minefield."
Voting....with emotion?
We vote - and in some countries are required to do so by law - but do we do so with emotion? Nah! you say. Well, a US professor begs to differ, as he has detailed in a new book, The Political Brain.
Mark Colvin, presenter of ABC Radio National's PM program interviewed the author-professor, Drew Westen:
"Mark Colvin: When we all go to the polls in this year's federal election, will your decision be based on facts or emotions?
Most of us would probably answer facts, but recent advances in brain science suggest that we vote much more emotionally than we may imagine.
Drew Westen is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and he's written a book investigating these advances, called The Political Brain.
A supporter and adviser to the Democratic Party, he argues that "the question for Democratic politics isn't so much about moving to the right or the left, but about moving the electorate".
Read a fascinating interview, here, and reflect on how you have, in the past, voted, and what may shape your opinion next time around.
Mark Colvin, presenter of ABC Radio National's PM program interviewed the author-professor, Drew Westen:
"Mark Colvin: When we all go to the polls in this year's federal election, will your decision be based on facts or emotions?
Most of us would probably answer facts, but recent advances in brain science suggest that we vote much more emotionally than we may imagine.
Drew Westen is Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, and he's written a book investigating these advances, called The Political Brain.
A supporter and adviser to the Democratic Party, he argues that "the question for Democratic politics isn't so much about moving to the right or the left, but about moving the electorate".
Read a fascinating interview, here, and reflect on how you have, in the past, voted, and what may shape your opinion next time around.
Friday, August 24, 2007
No "spark" in downtown Baghdad
That things are going from bad to worse in Iraq is clearly seen from this piece from Newsweek. How on earth the Coalition of the Willing see all of this winning the hearts and minds of the local populace is hard to see. George Bush can speak about comparisons with Vietnam, and others about "progress" in the war-torn country - whatever that might mean! - but in the final analysis all independent assessments conclude that Iraq is a total basket-case.
"Electricity output in Iraq has been slightly lower this summer than last year. For the fifth year since the 2003 invasion, Iraqis sweat out sleepless nights on their roofs, seeking to escape the heat inside their homes. They see food spoil in warm refrigerators and go without water as household electric pumps sit idle. Televisions can't be used to keep kids from going out into the dangerous streets. Those who can afford a generator or tap into a neighbor's can get power for as long as they can pay the increased prices of diesel fuel. Those who can't have seen their power cut to less than an hour a day at times.
The electricity shortage is a major source of anger and disillusionment toward both the Iraqi government and the U.S. presence here. But much of the summer's shortfall is caused by bureaucratic snags that continue to stymie a plan for importing Kuwaiti diesel fuel—needed to power many government generators. An approximately $2.5 million dispute between government ministries and between Iraq and its southern neighbor is holding up what was supposed to be $150 million in imported diesel. Another self-inflicted wound to the country's electrical grid is even more disturbing and calls into question the entire viability of a unified Iraq. Electrical workers around the country, under the order of local officials or threats from rogue militias, are refusing to keep to national schedules for sharing power between the provinces. That not only deprives the capital of power, but causes systemwide shutdowns that sometimes damage the generators themselves."
"Electricity output in Iraq has been slightly lower this summer than last year. For the fifth year since the 2003 invasion, Iraqis sweat out sleepless nights on their roofs, seeking to escape the heat inside their homes. They see food spoil in warm refrigerators and go without water as household electric pumps sit idle. Televisions can't be used to keep kids from going out into the dangerous streets. Those who can afford a generator or tap into a neighbor's can get power for as long as they can pay the increased prices of diesel fuel. Those who can't have seen their power cut to less than an hour a day at times.
The electricity shortage is a major source of anger and disillusionment toward both the Iraqi government and the U.S. presence here. But much of the summer's shortfall is caused by bureaucratic snags that continue to stymie a plan for importing Kuwaiti diesel fuel—needed to power many government generators. An approximately $2.5 million dispute between government ministries and between Iraq and its southern neighbor is holding up what was supposed to be $150 million in imported diesel. Another self-inflicted wound to the country's electrical grid is even more disturbing and calls into question the entire viability of a unified Iraq. Electrical workers around the country, under the order of local officials or threats from rogue militias, are refusing to keep to national schedules for sharing power between the provinces. That not only deprives the capital of power, but causes systemwide shutdowns that sometimes damage the generators themselves."
Putin and Russia 2007 style
President Putin has just restored observation flights and is on the path of arming Russia in the fact of the US and Nato countries placing nuclear weapons in Europe close to the Russian borders. Not offensive says George Bush. President Putin obviously doesn't think so.
More troubling, as The Economist highlights in its piece, a successor to the old KGB - Putin's old stomping ground - is alive and well in Russia:
"On the evening of August 22nd 1991—16 years ago this week—Alexei Kondaurov, a KGB general, stood by the darkened window of his Moscow office and watched a jubilant crowd moving towards the KGB headquarters in Lubyanka Square. A coup against Mikhail Gorbachev had just been defeated. The head of the KGB who had helped to orchestrate it had been arrested, and Mr Kondaurov was now one of the most senior officers left in the fast-emptying building. For a moment the thronged masses seemed to be heading straight towards him.
Then their anger was diverted to the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the KGB's founding father. A couple of men climbed up and slipped a rope round his neck. Then he was yanked up by a crane. Watching “Iron Felix” sway in mid-air, Mr Kondaurov, who had served in the KGB since 1972, felt betrayed “by Gorbachev, by Yeltsin, by the impotent coup leaders”. He remembers thinking, “I will prove to you that your victory will be short-lived.”
Those feelings of betrayal and humiliation were shared by 500,000 KGB operatives across Russia and beyond, including Vladimir Putin, whose resignation as a lieutenant-colonel in the service had been accepted only the day before. Eight years later, though, the KGB men seemed poised for revenge. Just before he became president, Mr Putin told his ex-colleagues at the Federal Security Service (FSB), the KGB's successor, “A group of FSB operatives, dispatched under cover to work in the government of the Russian federation, is successfully fulfilling its task.” He was only half joking.
Over the two terms of Mr Putin's presidency, that “group of FSB operatives” has consolidated its political power and built a new sort of corporate state in the process. Men from the FSB and its sister organisations control the Kremlin, the government, the media and large parts of the economy—as well as the military and security forces. According to research by Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist at the Russian Academy of Sciences, a quarter of the country's senior bureaucrats are siloviki—a Russian word meaning, roughly, “power guys”, which includes members of the armed forces and other security services, not just the FSB. The proportion rises to three-quarters if people simply affiliated to the security services are included. These people represent a psychologically homogeneous group, loyal to roots that go back to the Bolsheviks' first political police, the Cheka. As Mr Putin says repeatedly, “There is no such thing as a former Chekist.”
More troubling, as The Economist highlights in its piece, a successor to the old KGB - Putin's old stomping ground - is alive and well in Russia:
"On the evening of August 22nd 1991—16 years ago this week—Alexei Kondaurov, a KGB general, stood by the darkened window of his Moscow office and watched a jubilant crowd moving towards the KGB headquarters in Lubyanka Square. A coup against Mikhail Gorbachev had just been defeated. The head of the KGB who had helped to orchestrate it had been arrested, and Mr Kondaurov was now one of the most senior officers left in the fast-emptying building. For a moment the thronged masses seemed to be heading straight towards him.
Then their anger was diverted to the statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the KGB's founding father. A couple of men climbed up and slipped a rope round his neck. Then he was yanked up by a crane. Watching “Iron Felix” sway in mid-air, Mr Kondaurov, who had served in the KGB since 1972, felt betrayed “by Gorbachev, by Yeltsin, by the impotent coup leaders”. He remembers thinking, “I will prove to you that your victory will be short-lived.”
Those feelings of betrayal and humiliation were shared by 500,000 KGB operatives across Russia and beyond, including Vladimir Putin, whose resignation as a lieutenant-colonel in the service had been accepted only the day before. Eight years later, though, the KGB men seemed poised for revenge. Just before he became president, Mr Putin told his ex-colleagues at the Federal Security Service (FSB), the KGB's successor, “A group of FSB operatives, dispatched under cover to work in the government of the Russian federation, is successfully fulfilling its task.” He was only half joking.
Over the two terms of Mr Putin's presidency, that “group of FSB operatives” has consolidated its political power and built a new sort of corporate state in the process. Men from the FSB and its sister organisations control the Kremlin, the government, the media and large parts of the economy—as well as the military and security forces. According to research by Olga Kryshtanovskaya, a sociologist at the Russian Academy of Sciences, a quarter of the country's senior bureaucrats are siloviki—a Russian word meaning, roughly, “power guys”, which includes members of the armed forces and other security services, not just the FSB. The proportion rises to three-quarters if people simply affiliated to the security services are included. These people represent a psychologically homogeneous group, loyal to roots that go back to the Bolsheviks' first political police, the Cheka. As Mr Putin says repeatedly, “There is no such thing as a former Chekist.”
Iraq: the NIE Report and Robert Fisk....on it all going downhill
The news out of Washington, today, is that an intelligence report has determined that all is not well in Iraq, in particular any political stability there.
The Washington Post reports:
"Iraq remains "unable to govern" itself effectively and hobbled by the absence of strong leadership, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's inability to broker political accord continues to make him vulnerable, according to a new U.S. intelligence report released today.
Seven months after President Bush ordered more U.S. troops to the country, "there have been measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq's security situation," the report concludes. . If U.S. forces continue their current strategy, security "will continue to improve modestly" over the next six to 12 months but violence will remain high and political reconciliation will remain elusive.
The report , determined that while some Iraqi security forces "have performed adequately," overall they "have not improved enough to conduct major operations independent" of U.S. forces in multiple locations on a sustained basis."
Interestingly, before Robert Fisk would have known about the National Intelligence Estimate Report he has analysed the US approach to Iraq in his latest piece in The Independent:
"Always, we have betrayed them. We backed "Flossy" in Yemen. The French backed their local "harkis" in Algeria; then the FLN victory forced them to swallow their own French military medals before dispatching them into mass graves. In Vietnam, the Americans demanded democracy and, one by one - after praising the Vietnamese for voting under fire in so many cities, towns and villages - they destroyed the elected prime ministers because they were not abiding by American orders.
Now we are at work in Iraq. Those pesky Iraqis don't deserve our sacrifice, it seems, because their elected leaders are not doing what we want them to do.
Does that remind you of a Palestinian organisation called Hamas? First, the Americans loved Ahmed Chalabi, the man who fabricated for Washington the"'weapons of mass destruction" (with a hefty bank fraud charge on his back). Then, they loved Ayad Allawi, a Vietnam-style spook who admitted working for 26 intelligence organisations, including the CIA and MI6. Then came Ibrahim al-Jaafari, symbol of electoral law, whom the Americans loved, supported, loved again and destroyed. Couldn't get his act together. It was up to the Iraqis, of course, but the Americans wanted him out. And the seat of the Iraqi government - a never-never land in the humidity of Baghdad's green zone - lay next to the largest US embassy in the world. So goodbye, Ibrahim."
Then there was Nouri al-Maliki, a man with whom Bush could "do business"; loved, supported and loved again until Carl Levin and the rest of the US Senate Armed Forces Committee - and, be sure, George W Bush - decided he couldn't fulfil America's wishes. He couldn't get the army together, couldn't pull the police into shape, an odd demand when US military forces were funding and arming some of the most brutal Sunni militias in Baghdad, and was too close to Tehran."
The Washington Post reports:
"Iraq remains "unable to govern" itself effectively and hobbled by the absence of strong leadership, and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's inability to broker political accord continues to make him vulnerable, according to a new U.S. intelligence report released today.
Seven months after President Bush ordered more U.S. troops to the country, "there have been measurable but uneven improvements in Iraq's security situation," the report concludes. . If U.S. forces continue their current strategy, security "will continue to improve modestly" over the next six to 12 months but violence will remain high and political reconciliation will remain elusive.
The report , determined that while some Iraqi security forces "have performed adequately," overall they "have not improved enough to conduct major operations independent" of U.S. forces in multiple locations on a sustained basis."
Interestingly, before Robert Fisk would have known about the National Intelligence Estimate Report he has analysed the US approach to Iraq in his latest piece in The Independent:
"Always, we have betrayed them. We backed "Flossy" in Yemen. The French backed their local "harkis" in Algeria; then the FLN victory forced them to swallow their own French military medals before dispatching them into mass graves. In Vietnam, the Americans demanded democracy and, one by one - after praising the Vietnamese for voting under fire in so many cities, towns and villages - they destroyed the elected prime ministers because they were not abiding by American orders.
Now we are at work in Iraq. Those pesky Iraqis don't deserve our sacrifice, it seems, because their elected leaders are not doing what we want them to do.
Does that remind you of a Palestinian organisation called Hamas? First, the Americans loved Ahmed Chalabi, the man who fabricated for Washington the"'weapons of mass destruction" (with a hefty bank fraud charge on his back). Then, they loved Ayad Allawi, a Vietnam-style spook who admitted working for 26 intelligence organisations, including the CIA and MI6. Then came Ibrahim al-Jaafari, symbol of electoral law, whom the Americans loved, supported, loved again and destroyed. Couldn't get his act together. It was up to the Iraqis, of course, but the Americans wanted him out. And the seat of the Iraqi government - a never-never land in the humidity of Baghdad's green zone - lay next to the largest US embassy in the world. So goodbye, Ibrahim."
Then there was Nouri al-Maliki, a man with whom Bush could "do business"; loved, supported and loved again until Carl Levin and the rest of the US Senate Armed Forces Committee - and, be sure, George W Bush - decided he couldn't fulfil America's wishes. He couldn't get the army together, couldn't pull the police into shape, an odd demand when US military forces were funding and arming some of the most brutal Sunni militias in Baghdad, and was too close to Tehran."
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Fox News "attacks" Iran
All the fears about Rupert Murdoch and his potential influence over the Wall Street Journal are doubtlessly correct. Witness Fox News - a company in the Murdoch stable - on what seems to be its effective declaration of war on Iran - all too, too familiar to the hype and rubbish put out by Fox pre the Iraq War. Remember that it was Murdoch who so famously supported the Iraq War and claimed that one outcome of the War would be that oil would cost US$20 a barrel. Today's price? US$69.26. It was over $75 recently.
Watch the video clip here. Be appalled!
Watch the video clip here. Be appalled!
Yikes! That's some inflation!
Zimbabwe continues to go backwards on all levels - not the least economically, politically and in human rights. The world sits idle by probably because, one, it's Africa, and secondly, Zimbabwe has no oil or anything like minerals of value to the West.
The BBC reports on the latest, staggering, inflation numbers in Zimbabwe:
"Zimbabwe's annual rate of inflation jumped to 7,638% in July according to the first official figures to be published for three months.
The Central Statistical Office said inflation had more than doubled since May - the last official data released.
Since then the government has ordered shopkeepers to slash their prices and arrested anyone who has failed to obey.
Last month, the International Monetary Fund warned annual inflation could reach 100,000% by the end of the year.
The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe has said the real year-on-year inflation is far higher than the official rate - claiming it was nearer 13,000% in June."
The BBC reports on the latest, staggering, inflation numbers in Zimbabwe:
"Zimbabwe's annual rate of inflation jumped to 7,638% in July according to the first official figures to be published for three months.
The Central Statistical Office said inflation had more than doubled since May - the last official data released.
Since then the government has ordered shopkeepers to slash their prices and arrested anyone who has failed to obey.
Last month, the International Monetary Fund warned annual inflation could reach 100,000% by the end of the year.
The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe has said the real year-on-year inflation is far higher than the official rate - claiming it was nearer 13,000% in June."
Living with blinkers on....
Anyone who has visited the US will know that both newspapers and TV is a wasteland insofar as any international news is concerned. Aside from any American notion that what happens outside its borders is irrelevant to the US, the media obviously sees no need to "educate" its readers or viewers. Then again, why should the media if there isn't any "demand" from the populace?
Columbia Journalism Review makes the point in a revealing piece:
"From April 1 to June 29 of this year, coverage of the war in Iraq was down across the board, as compared to the first three months of the year. That’s according to the latest quarterly report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which has been tracking which stories get the most play in the national media.
“In all, the policy debate [over Iraq] filled 7% of the space or airtime in the quarter,” the study says, “down from 12% in the three months of the year.”
But not all war coverage, even when it’s down, is created equal. Apparently, just as in the first quarter of the year, Fox News only featured about half as much coverage of the war—eight percent—as CNN, which clocked in eighteen percent, and MSNBC, which filled up fifteen percent of its news coverage with stories about Iraq.
Is that enough? I would say no, but I come here not to criticize coverage of Iraq, but something else the study has pointed out: that six years after 9/11 “changed everything” and woke Americans up to how international events effect us here at home, we’re still not getting much international news. For the first six months of 2007, cable television dedicated only four percent of its coverage to non-U.S. international news. Network TV did better at seven percent, newspapers weighed in with a paltry twelve percent, while “Online” (which includes cnn.com, Google News, Yahoo! News, AOL), had them all beat, devoting a full thirty-one percent to non-U.S. international news. Taken together, PEJ estimates that only ten percent of the total news broadcast and printed in the first six months of the year dealt with non-U.S. related international news.
As the 9/11 attacks showed, America isn’t an island, and the general ignorance of the American public about events abroad that are directly related to American interests and security is dangerous. Assigning editors and television producers still apparently haven’t woken up to this fact. Given all that’s happened during the first decade of the twenty-first century, I’d love for someone high atop the media food chain to explain this to me. Any takers?"
Columbia Journalism Review makes the point in a revealing piece:
"From April 1 to June 29 of this year, coverage of the war in Iraq was down across the board, as compared to the first three months of the year. That’s according to the latest quarterly report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, which has been tracking which stories get the most play in the national media.
“In all, the policy debate [over Iraq] filled 7% of the space or airtime in the quarter,” the study says, “down from 12% in the three months of the year.”
But not all war coverage, even when it’s down, is created equal. Apparently, just as in the first quarter of the year, Fox News only featured about half as much coverage of the war—eight percent—as CNN, which clocked in eighteen percent, and MSNBC, which filled up fifteen percent of its news coverage with stories about Iraq.
Is that enough? I would say no, but I come here not to criticize coverage of Iraq, but something else the study has pointed out: that six years after 9/11 “changed everything” and woke Americans up to how international events effect us here at home, we’re still not getting much international news. For the first six months of 2007, cable television dedicated only four percent of its coverage to non-U.S. international news. Network TV did better at seven percent, newspapers weighed in with a paltry twelve percent, while “Online” (which includes cnn.com, Google News, Yahoo! News, AOL), had them all beat, devoting a full thirty-one percent to non-U.S. international news. Taken together, PEJ estimates that only ten percent of the total news broadcast and printed in the first six months of the year dealt with non-U.S. related international news.
As the 9/11 attacks showed, America isn’t an island, and the general ignorance of the American public about events abroad that are directly related to American interests and security is dangerous. Assigning editors and television producers still apparently haven’t woken up to this fact. Given all that’s happened during the first decade of the twenty-first century, I’d love for someone high atop the media food chain to explain this to me. Any takers?"
Shielding the President's eyes....
How to shape political thinking? How to assess what the people are saying? Simple proposition one might have thought - certainly for a politician, and certainly a President or a PM.
It seem that President Shrub needs to be sheltered from the people - that is, people who haven't been vetted from being with eyesight of the President or might be seen on TV in any footage of the George W addressing the people. Protestors can forget it if they think they might even get within earshot of the President.
There is a Manual on all of this at the White House, as The Washington Post reveals:
"Not that they're worried or anything. But the White House evidently leaves little to chance when it comes to protests within eyesight of the president. As in, it doesn't want any.
A White House manual that came to light recently gives presidential advance staffers extensive instructions in the art of "deterring potential protestors" from President Bush's public appearances around the country.
Among other things, any event must be open only to those with tickets tightly controlled by organizers. Those entering must be screened in case they are hiding secret signs. Any anti-Bush demonstrators who manage to get in anyway should be shouted down by "rally squads" stationed in strategic locations. And if that does not work, they should be thrown out.
But that does not mean the White House is against dissent -- just so long as the president does not see it. In fact, the manual outlines a specific system for those who disagree with the president to voice their views. It directs the White House advance staff to ask local police "to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in the view of the event site or motorcade route."
It seem that President Shrub needs to be sheltered from the people - that is, people who haven't been vetted from being with eyesight of the President or might be seen on TV in any footage of the George W addressing the people. Protestors can forget it if they think they might even get within earshot of the President.
There is a Manual on all of this at the White House, as The Washington Post reveals:
"Not that they're worried or anything. But the White House evidently leaves little to chance when it comes to protests within eyesight of the president. As in, it doesn't want any.
A White House manual that came to light recently gives presidential advance staffers extensive instructions in the art of "deterring potential protestors" from President Bush's public appearances around the country.
Among other things, any event must be open only to those with tickets tightly controlled by organizers. Those entering must be screened in case they are hiding secret signs. Any anti-Bush demonstrators who manage to get in anyway should be shouted down by "rally squads" stationed in strategic locations. And if that does not work, they should be thrown out.
But that does not mean the White House is against dissent -- just so long as the president does not see it. In fact, the manual outlines a specific system for those who disagree with the president to voice their views. It directs the White House advance staff to ask local police "to designate a protest area where demonstrators can be placed, preferably not in the view of the event site or motorcade route."
Wednesday, August 22, 2007
Those Exclusive Brethren
The revelation, today, that PM Howard and Treasurer Costello have met with members of the Exclusive Brethren gives one cause for concern. They may be a so-called religious group, but their activities and "ways" are shady to say the least. The politicians can't so easily brush off their meetings with the EB, more especially as they were instrumental "players" in Howard's electorate last election.
The ABC Radio National program, Background Briefing, went into a background of the organisation last year:
"They shun contact with the world. Not just with technology, books, radio and TV, but also other people. They do not vote, because voting interferes with God's right to ordain who rules. But Satan has infiltrated democracy and the Exclusive Brethren have started putting money and time into political campaigns."
Read a transcript of the program, and read relevant documents, here.
A BBC report on the sect, back in 2000, can be read here.
The ABC Radio National program, Background Briefing, went into a background of the organisation last year:
"They shun contact with the world. Not just with technology, books, radio and TV, but also other people. They do not vote, because voting interferes with God's right to ordain who rules. But Satan has infiltrated democracy and the Exclusive Brethren have started putting money and time into political campaigns."
Read a transcript of the program, and read relevant documents, here.
A BBC report on the sect, back in 2000, can be read here.
Speaking out....
It may be only a small step but US troops who have returned from Iraq now speaking out may be a sign of visible tide turning in America. Of course, what the troops are saying, so publicly, gives the lie to all the White House PR that things are looking up, hang in there until the Commander in Iraq presents his Report, etc. etc.
That the entire Iraq "venture" has been an unmitigated disaster, on every level, appears beyond doubt - as any reading of the media, generally, or publications, reports or blog on line, readily testify.
Watch the US troops speak out on YouTube here.
That the entire Iraq "venture" has been an unmitigated disaster, on every level, appears beyond doubt - as any reading of the media, generally, or publications, reports or blog on line, readily testify.
Watch the US troops speak out on YouTube here.
When the Occupation Gets Really Filthy
Israel's development of that wall - surely the joke of the year when it is called a "fence" by the Israelis and its apologists - continues unabated. The whole exercise, together what is being undertaken in relation to establishing settlements in the West Bank, gives a lie to any thought the Israelis might have [apparently none!] in moving out of the West Bank in any peace settlement with the Palestinians.
IPS describes and shows in graphic terms in a piece "When the Occupation Gets Really Filthy" the havoc the Israeli incursion is causing to the local Arab population:
"In the orange glow of another sunset, Awad Abu Swai, 36, stands underneath a towering fig tree, a sample of its fruit in his hand. He peels back the bright green skin to expose crimson jelly and seeds inside
"The Israeli military came inside the valley and cut about 50 apricot and walnut trees since May. And now, they are coming to cut more trees. This is all because of what they are building through this land -- my land. Here, they are building a sewage channel to run raw sewage through this valley collected from four Israeli settlements near here."
Abu Swai is one of approximately 4,000 residents of the Palestinian village of Artas, located southeast of Bethlehem city. Artas is known regionally for its succulent vegetables, and fruit and nut trees. But over the last few months Israeli occupation forces have brought dozens of bulldozers to the eastern valley fields of Artas to construct a wall that will cut villagers off from this fertile land, while a concrete tunnel for raw settlement sewage grows longer each day.
Efrat settlement colony, part of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc that stretches around several villages and towns near Bethlehem, sits perched on a hill over Artas. Below the settlement, a colony which houses approximately 9,000 Israelis and immigrants, Israeli bulldozers and earth movers work day and night constructing the sewage channel and building the wall."
IPS describes and shows in graphic terms in a piece "When the Occupation Gets Really Filthy" the havoc the Israeli incursion is causing to the local Arab population:
"In the orange glow of another sunset, Awad Abu Swai, 36, stands underneath a towering fig tree, a sample of its fruit in his hand. He peels back the bright green skin to expose crimson jelly and seeds inside
"The Israeli military came inside the valley and cut about 50 apricot and walnut trees since May. And now, they are coming to cut more trees. This is all because of what they are building through this land -- my land. Here, they are building a sewage channel to run raw sewage through this valley collected from four Israeli settlements near here."
Abu Swai is one of approximately 4,000 residents of the Palestinian village of Artas, located southeast of Bethlehem city. Artas is known regionally for its succulent vegetables, and fruit and nut trees. But over the last few months Israeli occupation forces have brought dozens of bulldozers to the eastern valley fields of Artas to construct a wall that will cut villagers off from this fertile land, while a concrete tunnel for raw settlement sewage grows longer each day.
Efrat settlement colony, part of the Gush Etzion settlement bloc that stretches around several villages and towns near Bethlehem, sits perched on a hill over Artas. Below the settlement, a colony which houses approximately 9,000 Israelis and immigrants, Israeli bulldozers and earth movers work day and night constructing the sewage channel and building the wall."
Troubling Jose Padilla case revisited
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review.
With governments around the world tightening so-called anti-terrorism laws - a notable example being Australia with some of the most draconian and problematic laws - this piece by Roberts on the very vexed and troublesome Jose Padilla case in CounterPunch bears a close reading:
"Jose Padilla's conviction on terrorism charges on August 16 was a victory, not for justice, but for the US Justice (sic) Department's theory that a US citizen can be convicted, not because he committed a terrorist act but for allegedly harboring aspirations to commit such an act. By agreeing with the Justice (sic) Department's theory, the incompetent Padilla Jury delivered a deadly blow to the rule of law and opened Pandora's Box.
Anglo-American law is a human achievement 800 years in the making. Over centuries law was transformed from a weapon in the hands of government into a shield of the people from unaccountable power. The Padilla Jury's verdict turned law back into a weapon.
The jury, of course, had no idea of what was at stake. It was a patriotic jury that appeared in court with one row of jurors dressed in red, one in white, and one in blue (Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post, August 17, 2007).
It was a jury primed to be psychologically and emotionally manipulated by federal prosecutors desperate for a conviction for which there was little, if any, supporting evidence. For the jury, patriotism required that they strike a blow for America against terrorism. No member of this jury was going to return home to accusations of letting off a person who has been portrayed as a terrorist in the US media for five years.
The "evidence" against Padilla consists of three items:
(1) seven intercepted telephone conversations,
(2) a 10-year old non-relevant video of Osama bin Laden, and
(3) an alleged application to a mujahideen (not terrorist) training camp with Padilla's fingerprints."
Roberts examines each of the 3 pieces of so-called "evidence" here.
With governments around the world tightening so-called anti-terrorism laws - a notable example being Australia with some of the most draconian and problematic laws - this piece by Roberts on the very vexed and troublesome Jose Padilla case in CounterPunch bears a close reading:
"Jose Padilla's conviction on terrorism charges on August 16 was a victory, not for justice, but for the US Justice (sic) Department's theory that a US citizen can be convicted, not because he committed a terrorist act but for allegedly harboring aspirations to commit such an act. By agreeing with the Justice (sic) Department's theory, the incompetent Padilla Jury delivered a deadly blow to the rule of law and opened Pandora's Box.
Anglo-American law is a human achievement 800 years in the making. Over centuries law was transformed from a weapon in the hands of government into a shield of the people from unaccountable power. The Padilla Jury's verdict turned law back into a weapon.
The jury, of course, had no idea of what was at stake. It was a patriotic jury that appeared in court with one row of jurors dressed in red, one in white, and one in blue (Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post, August 17, 2007).
It was a jury primed to be psychologically and emotionally manipulated by federal prosecutors desperate for a conviction for which there was little, if any, supporting evidence. For the jury, patriotism required that they strike a blow for America against terrorism. No member of this jury was going to return home to accusations of letting off a person who has been portrayed as a terrorist in the US media for five years.
The "evidence" against Padilla consists of three items:
(1) seven intercepted telephone conversations,
(2) a 10-year old non-relevant video of Osama bin Laden, and
(3) an alleged application to a mujahideen (not terrorist) training camp with Padilla's fingerprints."
Roberts examines each of the 3 pieces of so-called "evidence" here.
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
Latest: Terrorism Index updated
Not surprisingly, Foreign Policy magazine's Terrorism Index released in the last hour shows that things are getting worse on the terrorism front and, not surprisingly, the so-called surge in Iraq isn't working:
"....FOREIGN POLICY and the Center for American Progress once again turned to the very people who have run the United States’ national security apparatus during the past half century. Surveying more than 100 of America’s top foreign-policy experts—Republicans and Democrats alike—the FOREIGN POLICY/Center for American Progress Terrorism Index is the only comprehensive, nonpartisan effort to mine the highest echelons of the nation’s foreign-policy establishment for its assessment of how the United States is fighting the war on terror. First released in July 2006, and again last February, the index attempts to draw definitive conclusions about the war’s priorities, policies, and progress. Its participants include people who have served as secretary of state, national security advisor, senior White House aides, top commanders in the U.S. military, seasoned intelligence professionals, and distinguished academics. Eighty percent of the experts have served in the U.S. government—including more than half in the Executive Branch, 32 percent in the military, and 21 percent in the intelligence community.
The world these experts see today is one that continues to grow more threatening. Fully 91 percent say the world is becoming more dangerous for Americans and the United States, up 10 percentage points since February. Eighty-four percent do not believe the United States is winning the war on terror, an increase of 9 percentage points from six months ago. More than 80 percent expect a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 within a decade, a result that is more or less unchanged from one year ago.
On the positive side, many of the key agencies charged with ensuring the United States’ national security appear to be getting better at their job. Six of nine agencies, including the Departments of State and Defense, scored above average on the experts’ scale of 0 to 10. One year ago, only one agency scored above average. The National Security Agency fared the best, with an average ranking of 6.6. Many of the policies that these agencies pursue, however, did not fare as well. Nearly every foreign policy of the U.S. government—from domestic surveillance activities and the detention of terrorist suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to U.S. energy policies and efforts in the Middle East peace process—was sharply criticized by the experts. More than 6 in 10 experts, for instance, believe U.S. energy policies are negatively affecting the country’s national security. The experts were similarly critical of the CIA’s rendition of terrorist suspects to countries known to torture prisoners and the Pentagon’s policy of trying detainees before military tribunals."
"....FOREIGN POLICY and the Center for American Progress once again turned to the very people who have run the United States’ national security apparatus during the past half century. Surveying more than 100 of America’s top foreign-policy experts—Republicans and Democrats alike—the FOREIGN POLICY/Center for American Progress Terrorism Index is the only comprehensive, nonpartisan effort to mine the highest echelons of the nation’s foreign-policy establishment for its assessment of how the United States is fighting the war on terror. First released in July 2006, and again last February, the index attempts to draw definitive conclusions about the war’s priorities, policies, and progress. Its participants include people who have served as secretary of state, national security advisor, senior White House aides, top commanders in the U.S. military, seasoned intelligence professionals, and distinguished academics. Eighty percent of the experts have served in the U.S. government—including more than half in the Executive Branch, 32 percent in the military, and 21 percent in the intelligence community.
The world these experts see today is one that continues to grow more threatening. Fully 91 percent say the world is becoming more dangerous for Americans and the United States, up 10 percentage points since February. Eighty-four percent do not believe the United States is winning the war on terror, an increase of 9 percentage points from six months ago. More than 80 percent expect a terrorist attack on the scale of 9/11 within a decade, a result that is more or less unchanged from one year ago.
On the positive side, many of the key agencies charged with ensuring the United States’ national security appear to be getting better at their job. Six of nine agencies, including the Departments of State and Defense, scored above average on the experts’ scale of 0 to 10. One year ago, only one agency scored above average. The National Security Agency fared the best, with an average ranking of 6.6. Many of the policies that these agencies pursue, however, did not fare as well. Nearly every foreign policy of the U.S. government—from domestic surveillance activities and the detention of terrorist suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to U.S. energy policies and efforts in the Middle East peace process—was sharply criticized by the experts. More than 6 in 10 experts, for instance, believe U.S. energy policies are negatively affecting the country’s national security. The experts were similarly critical of the CIA’s rendition of terrorist suspects to countries known to torture prisoners and the Pentagon’s policy of trying detainees before military tribunals."
Starving Gaza - with horrendous consequences!
Chris Hedges is well-versed in the affairs of the Middle East. He is a former Bureau chief in Jerusalem of the NY Times.
The last weeks have seen Gaza isolated even more than previously. Right-thinking people have said that even putting to one side the horrendous humanitarian crisis caused by this siege and isolation, the political outcome, long term, is bound to be a disaster.
Hedges writes [in truthdig.com here] about the effect of the effective siege in graphic terms:
"The effects of the siege are disastrous. Palestinians in Gaza are not allowed to travel abroad. They cannot enter Israel for work. They do not fish off the coast because Israeli gunboats open fire at any vessels that are more than a mile offshore. Gaza has seen 75 percent of its factories closed since June, with the loss of 68,000 jobs, according to the World Bank. There is a 70 percent unemployment rate, and 1.1 million of the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza depend on U.N. assistance to survive. The boycott has forced the United Nations to suspend $93 million worth of construction projects for homes, schools and sewage treatment in Gaza because cement and other building supplies have run out. These U.N. projects once employed 121,000 people. About 80 percent of the Palestinians in Gaza survive on $2 a day. Basic foodstuffs such as milk powder, baby formula, vegetable oil and medical supplies are running out. Families, unable to get food or find work, are living on little more than tea and bread."
No less importantly Hedges concludes:
"The decision by Israel and the United States to widen the schism and increase tensions between Hamas and Abbas is a blunder of catastrophic proportions. The hatred for Israel and the United States, which already runs deep among Palestinians, will only grow the longer the siege continues. Abbas, by dancing to the tune of those seen by the Palestinians as the enemy, is becoming a reviled, weak and discredited figure. The schism makes a peace agreement and future cooperation only more elusive. Hamas is an unsavory organization, but as long as it has broad support among the Palestinians, and it does, it is going to have to be included in any eventual settlement if civility and peace are to be restored in Gaza and the West Bank. The ham-fisted attempt to make Hamas go away by meting out draconian punishments on the Palestinians in Gaza will radicalize more Palestinians and see the civil war spill into the West Bank. Despite all the aid Abbas gets, he may soon be battling Hamas militants in Ramallah.
Violence begets violence. Iraq should have taught us that. The road chosen by the Bush administration and the Israeli government is one that failed in Iraq, failed in Lebanon and will fail in the Palestinian territories. It will only increase the chaos, suffering and death. Hamas is not going to vanish because of Israeli repression. Radical organizations, on the contrary, count on this repression to build a militant base and silence the voices of reason within their own societies. These two apocalyptic extremes—represented by Hamas and the Israeli right wing—need each other to further their frightening visions. The Israeli right wing dreams of a broken and compliant Palestinian population living on impoverished reservations surrounded by the Israeli military. Hamas dreams of destroying the Jewish state. Neither dream is based on reality. Neither dream will work. But a lot of people will suffer and die to find this out."
The last weeks have seen Gaza isolated even more than previously. Right-thinking people have said that even putting to one side the horrendous humanitarian crisis caused by this siege and isolation, the political outcome, long term, is bound to be a disaster.
Hedges writes [in truthdig.com here] about the effect of the effective siege in graphic terms:
"The effects of the siege are disastrous. Palestinians in Gaza are not allowed to travel abroad. They cannot enter Israel for work. They do not fish off the coast because Israeli gunboats open fire at any vessels that are more than a mile offshore. Gaza has seen 75 percent of its factories closed since June, with the loss of 68,000 jobs, according to the World Bank. There is a 70 percent unemployment rate, and 1.1 million of the 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza depend on U.N. assistance to survive. The boycott has forced the United Nations to suspend $93 million worth of construction projects for homes, schools and sewage treatment in Gaza because cement and other building supplies have run out. These U.N. projects once employed 121,000 people. About 80 percent of the Palestinians in Gaza survive on $2 a day. Basic foodstuffs such as milk powder, baby formula, vegetable oil and medical supplies are running out. Families, unable to get food or find work, are living on little more than tea and bread."
No less importantly Hedges concludes:
"The decision by Israel and the United States to widen the schism and increase tensions between Hamas and Abbas is a blunder of catastrophic proportions. The hatred for Israel and the United States, which already runs deep among Palestinians, will only grow the longer the siege continues. Abbas, by dancing to the tune of those seen by the Palestinians as the enemy, is becoming a reviled, weak and discredited figure. The schism makes a peace agreement and future cooperation only more elusive. Hamas is an unsavory organization, but as long as it has broad support among the Palestinians, and it does, it is going to have to be included in any eventual settlement if civility and peace are to be restored in Gaza and the West Bank. The ham-fisted attempt to make Hamas go away by meting out draconian punishments on the Palestinians in Gaza will radicalize more Palestinians and see the civil war spill into the West Bank. Despite all the aid Abbas gets, he may soon be battling Hamas militants in Ramallah.
Violence begets violence. Iraq should have taught us that. The road chosen by the Bush administration and the Israeli government is one that failed in Iraq, failed in Lebanon and will fail in the Palestinian territories. It will only increase the chaos, suffering and death. Hamas is not going to vanish because of Israeli repression. Radical organizations, on the contrary, count on this repression to build a militant base and silence the voices of reason within their own societies. These two apocalyptic extremes—represented by Hamas and the Israeli right wing—need each other to further their frightening visions. The Israeli right wing dreams of a broken and compliant Palestinian population living on impoverished reservations surrounded by the Israeli military. Hamas dreams of destroying the Jewish state. Neither dream is based on reality. Neither dream will work. But a lot of people will suffer and die to find this out."
Bye-Bye Baghdad
The other day 7 soldiers, serving in Iraq, wrote in the NY Times about their experiences in the war-torn country: see yesterday's posting on MPS.
Now, truthdig.com publishes a piece "Bye-Bye Baghdad" written by one of those contractors we read about - the ones said to be earning a small fortune working alongside, or instead of, the military in Iraq:
"I have been living and working in Baghdad for the past 16 months and will be leaving next week for good. I am one of those overpaid Department of Defense contractors, or, as some would call me, a “war profiteer.” Yes, I have profited. I am out of debt and have money saved. But it has cost me. I am a changed man. I have become hardened. I almost feel like a zombie.
Although I work in Baghdad, I have no idea what Baghdad looks like. I have been told by soldiers that it is “like one of those Mexican border towns.” I don’t live in the “heavily fortified” Green Zone, which, although heavily fortified, has been getting hit with mortars on a daily basis. No, I live on an Army base. I live in a trailer with four other men. We each have our own space and I am lucky to have quiet roommates. There is a common latrine and shower.
I have had a lot of experiences over these 16 months, and the situation has not changed one bit. I feel like I am leaving a sinking ship. The only thing that has changed is that more trailers have had to be added for the “surge” of troops that have come in. Oh, and our laundry now takes 72 hours to get done.
The majority of my co-workers are Iraqi, and every single one has been deeply affected by the war. Everyone knows someone who has been killed or kidnapped, whether a family member or a friend. It’s a daily occurrence, and they feel helpless, frustrated and, of course, very sad. Those that had the means have gone to either Jordan or Syria. The others are trapped. No country wants them."
Now, truthdig.com publishes a piece "Bye-Bye Baghdad" written by one of those contractors we read about - the ones said to be earning a small fortune working alongside, or instead of, the military in Iraq:
"I have been living and working in Baghdad for the past 16 months and will be leaving next week for good. I am one of those overpaid Department of Defense contractors, or, as some would call me, a “war profiteer.” Yes, I have profited. I am out of debt and have money saved. But it has cost me. I am a changed man. I have become hardened. I almost feel like a zombie.
Although I work in Baghdad, I have no idea what Baghdad looks like. I have been told by soldiers that it is “like one of those Mexican border towns.” I don’t live in the “heavily fortified” Green Zone, which, although heavily fortified, has been getting hit with mortars on a daily basis. No, I live on an Army base. I live in a trailer with four other men. We each have our own space and I am lucky to have quiet roommates. There is a common latrine and shower.
I have had a lot of experiences over these 16 months, and the situation has not changed one bit. I feel like I am leaving a sinking ship. The only thing that has changed is that more trailers have had to be added for the “surge” of troops that have come in. Oh, and our laundry now takes 72 hours to get done.
The majority of my co-workers are Iraqi, and every single one has been deeply affected by the war. Everyone knows someone who has been killed or kidnapped, whether a family member or a friend. It’s a daily occurrence, and they feel helpless, frustrated and, of course, very sad. Those that had the means have gone to either Jordan or Syria. The others are trapped. No country wants them."
Monday, August 20, 2007
Israel turns away refugees from Dafur
Refugees from Dafur have either been turned away at the border to Israel or actually expelled from the country - something one might have thought Israel would not do given its own "birth" out of the Holocaust and all those Jews displaced by the War. A true dilemma!
The Washington Post reports:
"Israel closed the door Sunday on a surge of asylum-seekers from Sudan's Darfur region and from other African countries, the largest influx of non-Jewish refugees in the modern history of the Jewish state.
Authorities announced that they had expelled 48 of more than 2,000 African refugees who have entered illegally from Egypt in recent weeks. Officials said they would allow 500 Darfurians among them to remain, but would deport everyone else back to Egypt and accept no more illegal migrants from Darfur or other places.
The announcement, raising new concerns over the refugees' safety, heightened a debate in Israel over what responsibilities a nation created by survivors of genocide in Europe bore toward people fleeing mass killing in Africa."
The Washington Post reports:
"Israel closed the door Sunday on a surge of asylum-seekers from Sudan's Darfur region and from other African countries, the largest influx of non-Jewish refugees in the modern history of the Jewish state.
Authorities announced that they had expelled 48 of more than 2,000 African refugees who have entered illegally from Egypt in recent weeks. Officials said they would allow 500 Darfurians among them to remain, but would deport everyone else back to Egypt and accept no more illegal migrants from Darfur or other places.
The announcement, raising new concerns over the refugees' safety, heightened a debate in Israel over what responsibilities a nation created by survivors of genocide in Europe bore toward people fleeing mass killing in Africa."
Iraq: Seven US soldiers speak out
We don't often get the opportunity to hear, let alone read, what the soldiers "on the ground" in Iraq have to say on what is happening there. Listen to the politicians and it will mostly be spin - and probably be flawed information if not downright lies.
It is therefore welcome, and refreshing, to read what seven US soldiers have to say in "The Iraq war as we see it"- as published in the IHT:
"Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is surreal.
Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched.
As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the "battle space" remains the same, with changes only at the margins."
It is therefore welcome, and refreshing, to read what seven US soldiers have to say in "The Iraq war as we see it"- as published in the IHT:
"Viewed from Iraq at the tail end of a 15-month deployment, the political debate in Washington is surreal.
Counterinsurgency is, by definition, a competition between insurgents and counterinsurgents for the control and support of a population. To believe that Americans, with an occupying force that long ago outlived its reluctant welcome, can win over a recalcitrant local population and win this counterinsurgency is far-fetched.
As responsible infantrymen and noncommissioned officers with the 82nd Airborne Division soon heading back home, we are skeptical of recent press coverage portraying the conflict as increasingly manageable and feel it has neglected the mounting civil, political and social unrest we see every day. (Obviously, these are our personal views and should not be seen as official within our chain of command.)
The claim that we are increasingly in control of the battlefields in Iraq is an assessment arrived at through a flawed, American-centered framework. Yes, we are militarily superior, but our successes are offset by failures elsewhere. What soldiers call the "battle space" remains the same, with changes only at the margins."
Tossing fuel on the fire
The Israelis are, doubtlessly, celebrating the fact that the US will extend military aid to Israel over the next 10 years to the extent of US$30 billion. Long term this aid will come back and bite the Americans on the bum - as also the military aid to be given to Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
How the US electorate will respond to this generous aid given that its own infrastructure has been seen to be wanting - witness the recent bridge collapse - is hard to know at this stage. David Lindorff, writing in CounterPunch, addresses the issue:
"According to a new Associated Press report, the US is offering Israel a record $30-billion 10-year military aid package.
Let's ignore for a moment the AP story's irony-free comment that "Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said the package was meant to back peace-seeking countries like Israel and moderate Arab states in the region to counter U.S. adversaries such as Iran." (Israel is a "peace-seeking" country?) We'll just focus on the amount of money that's being promised here.
Israel is a land of only 6 million people. That works out to about $5000 in arms aid per man, woman and child, and of course, since nearly a third of the people in Israel are Palestinian, and won't see a penny's (or bullet's) worth of that aid, it's really closer to $7500 per person. And remember, this is no basket case nation; this is one of the most technologically developed and wealthiest countries on earth we're talking about here.
Looked at another way, this aid to Israel represents a gift of $100 worth of money and weaponry from every man, woman and child in America to the people of Israel."
How the US electorate will respond to this generous aid given that its own infrastructure has been seen to be wanting - witness the recent bridge collapse - is hard to know at this stage. David Lindorff, writing in CounterPunch, addresses the issue:
"According to a new Associated Press report, the US is offering Israel a record $30-billion 10-year military aid package.
Let's ignore for a moment the AP story's irony-free comment that "Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Nicholas Burns said the package was meant to back peace-seeking countries like Israel and moderate Arab states in the region to counter U.S. adversaries such as Iran." (Israel is a "peace-seeking" country?) We'll just focus on the amount of money that's being promised here.
Israel is a land of only 6 million people. That works out to about $5000 in arms aid per man, woman and child, and of course, since nearly a third of the people in Israel are Palestinian, and won't see a penny's (or bullet's) worth of that aid, it's really closer to $7500 per person. And remember, this is no basket case nation; this is one of the most technologically developed and wealthiest countries on earth we're talking about here.
Looked at another way, this aid to Israel represents a gift of $100 worth of money and weaponry from every man, woman and child in America to the people of Israel."
Sunday, August 19, 2007
An evaluation of Australia in 2007
The New Statesman has a 4 pieces on Australia under the banner "Focus on Australia [here].
One of the pieces, "Still the Lucky Country" - an incisive and perceptive one - has been written by Julianne Schultz, editor of The Griffith Review. She writes:
"Over the past decade under John Howard's leadership, Aus tralia has become a much more cynical, unimaginative and materialistic place. Gone is the sense of crafting a unique environment, characterised by cultural diversity, openness, inclusiveness, Aboriginal reconciliation and a creative yet pragmatic approach to policymaking. The spirit captured by the Sydney Olympics and beamed to the world in 2000 has dissipated. That outward-looking, self-confident Australia has become defensive, socially and culturally divided and domestically complacent. It still works better than most places, but it is no longer a demonstration project on the future.
Instead, Australians have jettisoned much of their carefree larrikinism and learned to be fearful, seeking solace in perfectly appointed homes bursting with appliances."
One of the pieces, "Still the Lucky Country" - an incisive and perceptive one - has been written by Julianne Schultz, editor of The Griffith Review. She writes:
"Over the past decade under John Howard's leadership, Aus tralia has become a much more cynical, unimaginative and materialistic place. Gone is the sense of crafting a unique environment, characterised by cultural diversity, openness, inclusiveness, Aboriginal reconciliation and a creative yet pragmatic approach to policymaking. The spirit captured by the Sydney Olympics and beamed to the world in 2000 has dissipated. That outward-looking, self-confident Australia has become defensive, socially and culturally divided and domestically complacent. It still works better than most places, but it is no longer a demonstration project on the future.
Instead, Australians have jettisoned much of their carefree larrikinism and learned to be fearful, seeking solace in perfectly appointed homes bursting with appliances."
Racism is alive and well in the US ...The Jena Six
This piece, from Counterpunch, clearly highlights how racism and a poor legal system is alive and well in the USA.
The "story" makes for appalling reading as it shows, all too clearly, that whilst some progress has been made in America to eradicate racism, bigotry is still rampant - and the justice "system" is not addressing the problem. Of course, bottom line, it is the people of the US who must confront the underlying scourge of racism and prejudice.
"Almost a year ago, in the small northern Louisiana town of Jena, a group of white students hung three nooses from a tree in front of Jena High School. This set into motion a season of racial tension and incidents that culminated in six Black youths facing a lifetime in jail for a schoolyard fight.
The story that has unfolded since then is one of racism and injustice, but also of resistance and solidarity, as people from around the world have joined together with the families of the accused, lending legal and financial support, adding political pressure, and joining demonstrations and marches."
The "story" makes for appalling reading as it shows, all too clearly, that whilst some progress has been made in America to eradicate racism, bigotry is still rampant - and the justice "system" is not addressing the problem. Of course, bottom line, it is the people of the US who must confront the underlying scourge of racism and prejudice.
"Almost a year ago, in the small northern Louisiana town of Jena, a group of white students hung three nooses from a tree in front of Jena High School. This set into motion a season of racial tension and incidents that culminated in six Black youths facing a lifetime in jail for a schoolyard fight.
The story that has unfolded since then is one of racism and injustice, but also of resistance and solidarity, as people from around the world have joined together with the families of the accused, lending legal and financial support, adding political pressure, and joining demonstrations and marches."
Evidence points to Israel having started Lebanon War
The Israel PR machine has always pumped out the line that Hezbollah started the Lebanon war last year. The Western media has mainly just accepted that as the fact.
Now, evidence is emerging that, in fact, it was the Israeli who started the War. Only last weekend Haaretz editorialised to that effect.
As Jonathan Cook writes on Anti War.com:
"It has been left to the Israeli media to begin rewriting the history of last summer. Last weekend, an editorial in the liberal Haaretz newspaper went so far as to admit that this was "a war initiated by Israel against a relatively small guerrilla group." Israel's supporters, including high-profile defenders like Alan Dershowitz in the US who claimed that Israel had no choice but to bomb Lebanon, must have been squirming in their seats.
There are several reasons why Haaretz may have reached this new assessment.
Recent reports have revealed that one of the main justifications for Hezbollah's continuing resistance – that Israel failed to withdraw fully from Lebanese territory in 2000 – is now supported by the UN. Last month its cartographers quietly admitted that Lebanon is right in claiming sovereignty over a small fertile area known as the Shebaa Farms, still occupied by Israel. Israel argues that the territory is Syrian and will be returned in future peace talks with Damascus, even though Syria backs Lebanon's position. The UN's admission has been mostly ignored by the international media."
Read this insight to the real background to the dispute and the egregious actions of the Israelis in destroying the homes of innocent Lebanese, indiscriminate bombing and the use of cluster bombs.
Now, evidence is emerging that, in fact, it was the Israeli who started the War. Only last weekend Haaretz editorialised to that effect.
As Jonathan Cook writes on Anti War.com:
"It has been left to the Israeli media to begin rewriting the history of last summer. Last weekend, an editorial in the liberal Haaretz newspaper went so far as to admit that this was "a war initiated by Israel against a relatively small guerrilla group." Israel's supporters, including high-profile defenders like Alan Dershowitz in the US who claimed that Israel had no choice but to bomb Lebanon, must have been squirming in their seats.
There are several reasons why Haaretz may have reached this new assessment.
Recent reports have revealed that one of the main justifications for Hezbollah's continuing resistance – that Israel failed to withdraw fully from Lebanese territory in 2000 – is now supported by the UN. Last month its cartographers quietly admitted that Lebanon is right in claiming sovereignty over a small fertile area known as the Shebaa Farms, still occupied by Israel. Israel argues that the territory is Syrian and will be returned in future peace talks with Damascus, even though Syria backs Lebanon's position. The UN's admission has been mostly ignored by the international media."
Read this insight to the real background to the dispute and the egregious actions of the Israelis in destroying the homes of innocent Lebanese, indiscriminate bombing and the use of cluster bombs.
Saturday, August 18, 2007
The mind-numbing cost of war
The figures speak for themselves......as detailed by Katrina Vanden Heuvel in this piece in The Nation on the breathtaking and mind-numbing cost of the Iraq War:
"The National Priorities Project (NPP), a research organization that analyzes and clarifies federal data so that people can understand how their tax dollars are spent, continues to be an invaluable resource when it comes to translating the costs of the Iraq War.
$456 billion has now been appropriated for the war through September 30, and that's a difficult number to get a handle on. But as I've written previously (here and here), NPP spells out exactly what every state and district has paid towards this catastrophe and describes the spending priorities that could have been met with those same resources.
For example, $456 billion could have provided over 48 million children with health care coverage for the length of the War; built 3.5 million affordable housing units; 45,800 elementary schools; hired 8 million additional public school teachers for a year; paid for nearly 60 million kids to attend Head Start; or awarded 22 million 4-year scholarships at public universities. Instead, we find our nation speeding towards what Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimated as a final price tag – somewhere between $1 trillion and $2 trillion."
"The National Priorities Project (NPP), a research organization that analyzes and clarifies federal data so that people can understand how their tax dollars are spent, continues to be an invaluable resource when it comes to translating the costs of the Iraq War.
$456 billion has now been appropriated for the war through September 30, and that's a difficult number to get a handle on. But as I've written previously (here and here), NPP spells out exactly what every state and district has paid towards this catastrophe and describes the spending priorities that could have been met with those same resources.
For example, $456 billion could have provided over 48 million children with health care coverage for the length of the War; built 3.5 million affordable housing units; 45,800 elementary schools; hired 8 million additional public school teachers for a year; paid for nearly 60 million kids to attend Head Start; or awarded 22 million 4-year scholarships at public universities. Instead, we find our nation speeding towards what Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz estimated as a final price tag – somewhere between $1 trillion and $2 trillion."
Debt culture gone awry...
The last days have seen world stock markets a sea of red. Billions of dollars have been wiped off the value of companies around the globe. The horror word is debt - and a fear that the end of the downturn hasn't been reached yet. The potential fallout of all of this is hard to presently gauge.
What we in the West don't read about is how the turbulence of the last days has been viewed in the Middle East.
Hamid Varzi is an economist and banker based in Tehran and in an op-ed piece in the IHT writes:
"The U.S. economy, once the envy of the world, is now viewed across the globe with suspicion. America has become shackled by an immovable mountain of debt that endangers its prosperity and threatens to bring the rest of the world economy crashing down with it.
The ongoing sub-prime mortgage crisis, a result of irresponsible lending policies designed to generate commissions for unscrupulous brokers, presages far deeper problems in a U.S. economy that is beginning to resemble a giant smoke-and-mirrors Ponzi scheme. And this has not been lost on the rest of the world.
This new reality has had unfortunate side effects that go beyond economics. As a banker working in the heart of the Muslim world, I have been amazed by the depth and breadth of anti-Americanism, even among U.S. allies, manifested in reactions ranging from fierce anger to stoic fatalism. Muslims outside the United States interpret America's policies in the Middle East not as an effort to spread democracy but as a blatant neocolonialist attempt to solve its economic problems by force. Arabs and Persians alike argue that America's fiscal irresponsibility has forced the nation to seek solutions through military aggression."
What we in the West don't read about is how the turbulence of the last days has been viewed in the Middle East.
Hamid Varzi is an economist and banker based in Tehran and in an op-ed piece in the IHT writes:
"The U.S. economy, once the envy of the world, is now viewed across the globe with suspicion. America has become shackled by an immovable mountain of debt that endangers its prosperity and threatens to bring the rest of the world economy crashing down with it.
The ongoing sub-prime mortgage crisis, a result of irresponsible lending policies designed to generate commissions for unscrupulous brokers, presages far deeper problems in a U.S. economy that is beginning to resemble a giant smoke-and-mirrors Ponzi scheme. And this has not been lost on the rest of the world.
This new reality has had unfortunate side effects that go beyond economics. As a banker working in the heart of the Muslim world, I have been amazed by the depth and breadth of anti-Americanism, even among U.S. allies, manifested in reactions ranging from fierce anger to stoic fatalism. Muslims outside the United States interpret America's policies in the Middle East not as an effort to spread democracy but as a blatant neocolonialist attempt to solve its economic problems by force. Arabs and Persians alike argue that America's fiscal irresponsibility has forced the nation to seek solutions through military aggression."
The Chinese check out the Old World
With all those Chinese gaining increasing wealth, the tourism industry, worldwide, must be salivating at the prospect of all those tourists visiting their respective countries. It would seem it might be like an endless tide. There is no doubt that the Chinese are already out there visiting the Old World:
"Chinese tourists have recently discovered Europe as a destination. SPIEGEL traveled with a group who covered 11 countries in 14 days by bus, snapping the sights and buying up brand names. But for some the Old World was a disappointment, full of lazy Italians and slovenly French."
"Chinese tourists have recently discovered Europe as a destination. SPIEGEL traveled with a group who covered 11 countries in 14 days by bus, snapping the sights and buying up brand names. But for some the Old World was a disappointment, full of lazy Italians and slovenly French."
And this is what you call American justice?
The US government via the prosecuting attorney crows about the conviction secured of Jose Padilla. It's a trial which has been keenly observed for a host of reasons, not the least of all the alleged basis for the charges against Padilla. No less importantly, is the background to the trial as explained by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now [and reproduced on AlterNet]:
"On Thursday, the jury in the Jose Padilla terror trial has found the American citizen guilty of conspiracy to support Islamic terrorism overseas. His sentencing is set for December 5 and he faces possible life in prison.
The FBI initially arrested him in Chicago in 2002 after he got off a plane from Europe. For a month he was held as a material witness. Then Attorney General John Ashcroft made a dramatic announcement -- the U.S. government had disrupted an al-Qaeda plot to set off nuclear dirty bombs inside the United States. At the center of the plot, Ashcroft alleged, was Padilla.
President Bush then classified Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant, stripping him of all his rights. He was transferred to a Navy brig in South Carolina where he was held in extreme isolation for forty three months.
The Christian Science Monitor reported: "Padilla's cell measured nine feet by seven feet. The windows were covered over… He had no pillow. No sheet. No clock. No calendar. No radio. No television. No telephone calls. No visitors. Even Padilla's lawyer was prevented from seeing him for nearly two years."
According to his attorneys, Padilla was routinely tortured in ways designed to cause pain, anguish, depression and ultimately the loss of will to live.
His lawyers have claimed that Padilla was forced to take LSD and PCP to act as a sort of truth serum during his interrogations.
Up until last year the Bush administration maintained it had the legal right to hold Padilla without charge forever. But when faced with a Supreme Court challenge, President Bush transferred Padila out of military custody to face criminal conspiracy charges.
On January 3, 2006 the government charged him and two others with criminal conspiracy. The government claims Padilla, along with his mentor, Adham Amin Hassoun, and Hassoun's colleague, Kifah Wael Jayyousi, conspired to commit murder abroad and to provide material support toward that goal.
Since May the men have been on trial in Miami. According to the Miami Herald, the overall case against Padilla is riddled with circumstantial evidence. Much of the case is built around an alleged form Padilla filled out to attend an al-Qaeda training camp.
Prosecutors have no introduced no evidence of personal involvement by Padilla in planning or carrying out any violent acts. There is no mention of Padilla -- plotting to set off a dirty bomb.
Questions have also been raised about whether Padilla was mentally fit to stand trial. His lawyers and family say he has become clearly mentally ill after being held in isolation."
Ready the full piece here - and be not only dismayed and horrified by the actions of all involved in this seeming travesty of "justice" but that the US expects the world to see the Americans as showing the ways of a fair and decent justice system.
It is "interesting" too to read the NY Times editorial on the Padilla case and the conviction:
"The administration is already claiming victory, but the result in Mr. Padilla’s case is in many ways a mess. He will likely never be brought to trial on the dirty-bomb plot, a much publicized charge that cries out for resolution. (In another move worthy of Alice in Wonderland, the government is holding another prisoner in Guantánamo, Binyam Mohamed, because he was accused of conspiring with Mr. Padilla in the dirty-bomb plot for which Mr. Padilla was never charged.) There is also the danger that Mr. Padilla’s conviction will be reversed on appeal because of his alleged mistreatment before trial. In hailing the verdict yesterday, a White House spokesman thanked the jury for “upholding a core American principle of impartial justice for all.” It is a remarkable statement, since the administration did everything it could to keep Mr. Padilla away from a jury and deny him impartial justice."
"On Thursday, the jury in the Jose Padilla terror trial has found the American citizen guilty of conspiracy to support Islamic terrorism overseas. His sentencing is set for December 5 and he faces possible life in prison.
The FBI initially arrested him in Chicago in 2002 after he got off a plane from Europe. For a month he was held as a material witness. Then Attorney General John Ashcroft made a dramatic announcement -- the U.S. government had disrupted an al-Qaeda plot to set off nuclear dirty bombs inside the United States. At the center of the plot, Ashcroft alleged, was Padilla.
President Bush then classified Jose Padilla as an enemy combatant, stripping him of all his rights. He was transferred to a Navy brig in South Carolina where he was held in extreme isolation for forty three months.
The Christian Science Monitor reported: "Padilla's cell measured nine feet by seven feet. The windows were covered over… He had no pillow. No sheet. No clock. No calendar. No radio. No television. No telephone calls. No visitors. Even Padilla's lawyer was prevented from seeing him for nearly two years."
According to his attorneys, Padilla was routinely tortured in ways designed to cause pain, anguish, depression and ultimately the loss of will to live.
His lawyers have claimed that Padilla was forced to take LSD and PCP to act as a sort of truth serum during his interrogations.
Up until last year the Bush administration maintained it had the legal right to hold Padilla without charge forever. But when faced with a Supreme Court challenge, President Bush transferred Padila out of military custody to face criminal conspiracy charges.
On January 3, 2006 the government charged him and two others with criminal conspiracy. The government claims Padilla, along with his mentor, Adham Amin Hassoun, and Hassoun's colleague, Kifah Wael Jayyousi, conspired to commit murder abroad and to provide material support toward that goal.
Since May the men have been on trial in Miami. According to the Miami Herald, the overall case against Padilla is riddled with circumstantial evidence. Much of the case is built around an alleged form Padilla filled out to attend an al-Qaeda training camp.
Prosecutors have no introduced no evidence of personal involvement by Padilla in planning or carrying out any violent acts. There is no mention of Padilla -- plotting to set off a dirty bomb.
Questions have also been raised about whether Padilla was mentally fit to stand trial. His lawyers and family say he has become clearly mentally ill after being held in isolation."
Ready the full piece here - and be not only dismayed and horrified by the actions of all involved in this seeming travesty of "justice" but that the US expects the world to see the Americans as showing the ways of a fair and decent justice system.
It is "interesting" too to read the NY Times editorial on the Padilla case and the conviction:
"The administration is already claiming victory, but the result in Mr. Padilla’s case is in many ways a mess. He will likely never be brought to trial on the dirty-bomb plot, a much publicized charge that cries out for resolution. (In another move worthy of Alice in Wonderland, the government is holding another prisoner in Guantánamo, Binyam Mohamed, because he was accused of conspiring with Mr. Padilla in the dirty-bomb plot for which Mr. Padilla was never charged.) There is also the danger that Mr. Padilla’s conviction will be reversed on appeal because of his alleged mistreatment before trial. In hailing the verdict yesterday, a White House spokesman thanked the jury for “upholding a core American principle of impartial justice for all.” It is a remarkable statement, since the administration did everything it could to keep Mr. Padilla away from a jury and deny him impartial justice."
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