A reflection of the White House Correspondent's dinner last weekend on Mojo Blog [on Mother Jones], literally gives rise to food for thought [no pun intended!]:
"On Saturday night, as I was sitting at the annual White House Correspondents' Association dinner--Washington's official prom--I had a vision of the future.
This is what I saw: it's decades from now, and historians and others are trying to understand what happened in the first years of the 21st century. That was when the United States government initiated a foolhardy war on the basis of fear and hyped-up threats. It was also a period when the people in charge did not take one of their last chances to deal with the real danger of global warming. And, of course, it was during those years that American leaders hocked the nation to China and the nation's global financial standing diminished. And these historians are asking, "What the hell went on."
Read on here....
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
From Chief Prosecutor To Critic at Guantanamo
Now, this ought to give all those sceptics more than food for thought! Especially in relation to David Hicks and all that his "case" entailed.
The one-time Chief Prosecutor at Gitmo has gone across to the other side - and in the process slammed the process of which he played such an integral part, in a leading role, at one time.
The Washington Post reports:
"The Defense Department's former chief prosecutor for terrorism cases appeared Monday at the controversial U.S. detention facility here to argue on behalf of a terrorism suspect that the military justice system has been corrupted by politics and inappropriate influence from senior Pentagon officials."
And:
"Davis said he wants to wait until the cases -- and the military commissions system -- have a more solid legal footing. He also said that Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes II, who announced his retirement in February, once bristled at the suggestion that some defendants could be acquitted, an outcome that Davis said would give the process added legitimacy.
"He said, 'We can't have acquittals,' " Davis said under questioning from Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, the military counsel who represents Hamdan. " 'We've been holding these guys for years. How can we explain acquittals? We have to have convictions.' "
And even more:
"But he said that top military officials went around him when he was chief prosecutor, for example, to negotiate plea agreements, and that politicians forced him to press charges against Australian David Hicks even though he would have rather gone after other suspects first. When Hicks struck a secret plea deal that brought his release, Davis said he was not a party to it."
In Australia The Age reports this latest revelation this way:
"Any doubt that David Hicks was charged with war crimes for purely political reasons has been removed, his father and his lawyer say.
The former chief prosecutor of the US military commissions at Guantanamo Bay said overnight he would not have pursued Hicks because the case against the Australian was not serious enough."
The one-time Chief Prosecutor at Gitmo has gone across to the other side - and in the process slammed the process of which he played such an integral part, in a leading role, at one time.
The Washington Post reports:
"The Defense Department's former chief prosecutor for terrorism cases appeared Monday at the controversial U.S. detention facility here to argue on behalf of a terrorism suspect that the military justice system has been corrupted by politics and inappropriate influence from senior Pentagon officials."
And:
"Davis said he wants to wait until the cases -- and the military commissions system -- have a more solid legal footing. He also said that Defense Department general counsel William J. Haynes II, who announced his retirement in February, once bristled at the suggestion that some defendants could be acquitted, an outcome that Davis said would give the process added legitimacy.
"He said, 'We can't have acquittals,' " Davis said under questioning from Navy Lt. Cmdr. Brian Mizer, the military counsel who represents Hamdan. " 'We've been holding these guys for years. How can we explain acquittals? We have to have convictions.' "
And even more:
"But he said that top military officials went around him when he was chief prosecutor, for example, to negotiate plea agreements, and that politicians forced him to press charges against Australian David Hicks even though he would have rather gone after other suspects first. When Hicks struck a secret plea deal that brought his release, Davis said he was not a party to it."
In Australia The Age reports this latest revelation this way:
"Any doubt that David Hicks was charged with war crimes for purely political reasons has been removed, his father and his lawyer say.
The former chief prosecutor of the US military commissions at Guantanamo Bay said overnight he would not have pursued Hicks because the case against the Australian was not serious enough."
The Old Bailey: Read the transcripts
Reuters reports in "Old Bailey trials go online for first time" on what surely must have been a huge undertaking - which should make for most interesting research and reading:
"The transcript from Oscar Wilde's trial for gross indecency at London's Old Bailey Court went online for the first time on Monday alongside a raft of murder, robbery and abduction cases.
Up for free examination are 110,000 pages of transcripts -- including Wilde's trial and the notorious story of Dr Crippen and the murder of his wife.
Lurid tales of murder and rape, stories of pickpocketing and robbery -- every type of crime was paraded before the London court, which is topped by a statue of Justice with a sword in one hand and scales in the other.
The www.oldbaileyonline.org site was billed as the largest single source of searchable historical information about British lives that has ever been published.
The transcripts cover every one of the 210,000 trials held at the Old Bailey from 1674 to 1913, from just after The Great Fire that ravaged London to just before the outbreak of World War One. The court is still in operation."
"The transcript from Oscar Wilde's trial for gross indecency at London's Old Bailey Court went online for the first time on Monday alongside a raft of murder, robbery and abduction cases.
Up for free examination are 110,000 pages of transcripts -- including Wilde's trial and the notorious story of Dr Crippen and the murder of his wife.
Lurid tales of murder and rape, stories of pickpocketing and robbery -- every type of crime was paraded before the London court, which is topped by a statue of Justice with a sword in one hand and scales in the other.
The www.oldbaileyonline.org site was billed as the largest single source of searchable historical information about British lives that has ever been published.
The transcripts cover every one of the 210,000 trials held at the Old Bailey from 1674 to 1913, from just after The Great Fire that ravaged London to just before the outbreak of World War One. The court is still in operation."
Afghanistan: An analysis in April, 2008
Patricia Gossman is an independent consultant on human rights and rule of law issues in South Asia, Afghanistan in particular. She is currently a grantee of the United States Institute of Peace to write a book about justice and stability in post-2001 Afghanistan. In 2001 she established the Afghanistan Justice Project to document past war crimes in Afghanistan. Prior to that, she was a senior researcher on South Asia at Human Rights Watch. She recently responded by email (from Istanbul, where she is based) to six questions about the current situation in Afghanistan.
Harper's Magazine has the Q & A with Ms Gossman here.
Harper's Magazine has the Q & A with Ms Gossman here.
The Israeli Model Surges Toward Iraq: The New Walls of Baghdad
Counterpunch has an interesting, and revealing, piece by Professor Steve Niva, about the "surge" in Iraq and the way the US is implementing policies in the war-torn country learned from the Israelis:
"While there is no question that overall levels of violence have temporarily decreased, Iraq has become virtually caged in a carapace of concrete walls and razor wire, reinforced by an aerial occupation from the sky. Reporting from a recent visit to the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad, the seasoned journalist Nir Rosen noted in Rolling Stone (March 6, 2008) that:
Looming over the homes are twelve-foot-high security walls built by the Americans to separate warring factions and confine people to their own neighborhood. Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush's much-heralded "surge," Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood.
The explosion of walls and enclaves reinforced by aerial violence across Iraq suggest that the primary counterinsurgency lessons being followed by the U.S. military in Iraq today derive less from the lessons of "Lawrence of Arabia" than from Israel's experiences in the Occupied Palestinian Territories over the past decade."
And:
"Iraq, it seems, is surging towards Gaza.
This fact is not missed by average Iraqis. Visiting the Sunni bastion of Amriya in Baghdad, Nir Rosen in The Nation (April 3, 2008) recounts how his Iraqi driver pointed to a gap in the concrete walls with which the U.S. occupation forces have surrounded Amriya: "We call it the Rafah Crossing." He was referring to the one gate from besieged Gaza to Egypt that the Israeli army occasionally allows to open.
The U.S. military's virtual reproduction of distinctively Israeli counterinsurgency tactics in Iraq reveals that claims about applying the "lessons of history" of counterinsurgent warfare to Iraq are largely beside the point. The actual application of counterinsurgency on the ground in Iraq has a distinctly Israeli DNA, born of very recent lessons from Israel's own urban warfare laboratory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
This should not be surprising. The Israeli DNA in the new "surge" strategy is only the latest manifestation of a widely overlooked but unmistakable American predilection to increasingly draw from Israel's urban warfare laboratory and its flawed efforts to devise fresh tactics in the service of rebooting its own military occupation of Palestinian lands. What we are seeing in Iraq today has much less to do with the declared shift in U.S. military doctrine than with a deeper and more far-reaching "Israelization" of U.S. military strategy and tactics over the past two decades that was only heightened by America's misadventures in the Middle East after September 11, 2001. In the search for new means to confront urban insurgencies in predominately Arab and Muslim lands, there has been a complex institutional and cultural harmonization between these two militaries under the banner of fighting "the war on terror," though the traffic is mostly in one direction. In light of the real lessons of counterinsurgency history, however, mimicking Israel is a recipe for failure."
"While there is no question that overall levels of violence have temporarily decreased, Iraq has become virtually caged in a carapace of concrete walls and razor wire, reinforced by an aerial occupation from the sky. Reporting from a recent visit to the Dora neighborhood of Baghdad, the seasoned journalist Nir Rosen noted in Rolling Stone (March 6, 2008) that:
Looming over the homes are twelve-foot-high security walls built by the Americans to separate warring factions and confine people to their own neighborhood. Emptied and destroyed by civil war, walled off by President Bush's much-heralded "surge," Dora feels more like a desolate, post-apocalyptic maze of concrete tunnels than a living, inhabited neighborhood.
The explosion of walls and enclaves reinforced by aerial violence across Iraq suggest that the primary counterinsurgency lessons being followed by the U.S. military in Iraq today derive less from the lessons of "Lawrence of Arabia" than from Israel's experiences in the Occupied Palestinian Territories over the past decade."
And:
"Iraq, it seems, is surging towards Gaza.
This fact is not missed by average Iraqis. Visiting the Sunni bastion of Amriya in Baghdad, Nir Rosen in The Nation (April 3, 2008) recounts how his Iraqi driver pointed to a gap in the concrete walls with which the U.S. occupation forces have surrounded Amriya: "We call it the Rafah Crossing." He was referring to the one gate from besieged Gaza to Egypt that the Israeli army occasionally allows to open.
The U.S. military's virtual reproduction of distinctively Israeli counterinsurgency tactics in Iraq reveals that claims about applying the "lessons of history" of counterinsurgent warfare to Iraq are largely beside the point. The actual application of counterinsurgency on the ground in Iraq has a distinctly Israeli DNA, born of very recent lessons from Israel's own urban warfare laboratory in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
This should not be surprising. The Israeli DNA in the new "surge" strategy is only the latest manifestation of a widely overlooked but unmistakable American predilection to increasingly draw from Israel's urban warfare laboratory and its flawed efforts to devise fresh tactics in the service of rebooting its own military occupation of Palestinian lands. What we are seeing in Iraq today has much less to do with the declared shift in U.S. military doctrine than with a deeper and more far-reaching "Israelization" of U.S. military strategy and tactics over the past two decades that was only heightened by America's misadventures in the Middle East after September 11, 2001. In the search for new means to confront urban insurgencies in predominately Arab and Muslim lands, there has been a complex institutional and cultural harmonization between these two militaries under the banner of fighting "the war on terror," though the traffic is mostly in one direction. In light of the real lessons of counterinsurgency history, however, mimicking Israel is a recipe for failure."
John McCain's serious foreign policy
Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon.com, raises a critical and important question about Republican presidential candidate John McCain:
"John McCain was on a conference call with right-wing bloggers yesterday and boasted:
"I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare".
What possible reason would a U.S. President have for turning himself and our country into a "nightmare" for Hamas, let alone its "worst nightmare"?
Hamas is a single-issue Palestinian group, focused exclusively on its "territorial dispute" with Israel (and, in light of its victory in the U.S.-demanded election, is also now preoccupied with governing the Palestinian Authority). Is there anyone who thinks that Hamas has tried to, will try to, or ever could attack the U.S.? Hamas is an enemy of Israel, not the U.S. Is that a distinction we even recognize any more?
What exactly is the point of feeding Israel billions of dollars every year in military aid if we're going to deem every one of its fights to be our fight, and every one of its enemies to be our Enemy? Is that actually what Americans want to do: insinuate ourselves even more into other endless, intractable religious and ethnic conflicts in the Middle East?
More disturbingly still, this chest-beating threat from McCain is merely the latest in a long line of adolescent, mindlessly belligerent war cries emanating from the Serious foreign policy candidate. In a GOP debate in May of last year, he bellowed that he would "follow [Osama bin Laden] to the gates of hell" only thereafter, according to ABC News, to then "crack[] a smile which gave the impression to some viewers that perhaps he viewed his own answer as being over the top."
"John McCain was on a conference call with right-wing bloggers yesterday and boasted:
"I think that people should understand that I will be Hamas's worst nightmare".
What possible reason would a U.S. President have for turning himself and our country into a "nightmare" for Hamas, let alone its "worst nightmare"?
Hamas is a single-issue Palestinian group, focused exclusively on its "territorial dispute" with Israel (and, in light of its victory in the U.S.-demanded election, is also now preoccupied with governing the Palestinian Authority). Is there anyone who thinks that Hamas has tried to, will try to, or ever could attack the U.S.? Hamas is an enemy of Israel, not the U.S. Is that a distinction we even recognize any more?
What exactly is the point of feeding Israel billions of dollars every year in military aid if we're going to deem every one of its fights to be our fight, and every one of its enemies to be our Enemy? Is that actually what Americans want to do: insinuate ourselves even more into other endless, intractable religious and ethnic conflicts in the Middle East?
More disturbingly still, this chest-beating threat from McCain is merely the latest in a long line of adolescent, mindlessly belligerent war cries emanating from the Serious foreign policy candidate. In a GOP debate in May of last year, he bellowed that he would "follow [Osama bin Laden] to the gates of hell" only thereafter, according to ABC News, to then "crack[] a smile which gave the impression to some viewers that perhaps he viewed his own answer as being over the top."
Monday, April 28, 2008
Jimmy Carter on "pariah diplomacy"
"A counterproductive Washington policy in recent years has been to boycott and punish political factions or governments that refuse to accept United States mandates. This policy makes difficult the possibility that such leaders might moderate their policies."
So writes former US pres. Jimmy Carter in an op-ed piece "Pariah Diplomacy" in the NY Times.
As Carter writes there are "two notable examples" of what he saying. Read them, in full, here.
So writes former US pres. Jimmy Carter in an op-ed piece "Pariah Diplomacy" in the NY Times.
As Carter writes there are "two notable examples" of what he saying. Read them, in full, here.
3 war criminals?
RINF.COM: The Breaking News Alternative reports on the former Malaysian PM's view on how Bush, Blair and Howard ought to be treated:
"The former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, has echoed calls for Western leaders to be charged with war crimes over the invasion of Iraq.
Speaking at Imperial College in London Mahathir, who was in office from 1981 to 2003, singled out US President George Bush, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australia’s former prime minister John Howard as he wants to see them tried “in absence for war crimes committed in Iraq”.
The event was organised by the Ramadhan Foundation which is a leading British Muslim youth organisation working for peaceful co-existence and dialogue between communities."
"The former Prime Minister of Malaysia, Mahathir Mohamad, has echoed calls for Western leaders to be charged with war crimes over the invasion of Iraq.
Speaking at Imperial College in London Mahathir, who was in office from 1981 to 2003, singled out US President George Bush, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Australia’s former prime minister John Howard as he wants to see them tried “in absence for war crimes committed in Iraq”.
The event was organised by the Ramadhan Foundation which is a leading British Muslim youth organisation working for peaceful co-existence and dialogue between communities."
Floss 10, substance 0
Elizabeth Edwards is the wife of one-time Democrat presidential candidate John Edwards. She has been on the road with her husband and seen at first hand how the media covers the whole election process and what the candidates are saying and doing. She is therefore pretty well qualified to comment on the media, as she does in an op-ed piece in the NY Times:
"The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country’s inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.
But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture."
And:
"The problem today unfortunately is that voters who take their responsibility to be informed seriously enough to search out information about the candidates are finding it harder and harder to do so, particularly if they do not have access to the Internet."
"The vigorous press that was deemed an essential part of democracy at our country’s inception is now consigned to smaller venues, to the Internet and, in the mainstream media, to occasional articles. I am not suggesting that every journalist for a mainstream media outlet is neglecting his or her duties to the public. And I know that serious newspapers and magazines run analytical articles, and public television broadcasts longer, more probing segments.
But I am saying that every analysis that is shortened, every corner that is cut, moves us further away from the truth until what is left is the Cliffs Notes of the news, or what I call strobe-light journalism, in which the outlines are accurate enough but we cannot really see the whole picture."
And:
"The problem today unfortunately is that voters who take their responsibility to be informed seriously enough to search out information about the candidates are finding it harder and harder to do so, particularly if they do not have access to the Internet."
Sunday, April 27, 2008
Food, and not so glorious [availability of] food!!!!!
Forgive the play on the words of the song "Food, glorious food" from the musical "Oliver", as John Nichols writing in The Nation addresses the very serious, vexed and pressing issue of food and its ready availability all people around the world:
"The only surprising thing about the global food crisis to Jim Goodman is the notion that anyone finds it surprising. "So," says the Wisconsin dairy farmer, "they finally figured out, after all these years of pushing globalization and genetically modified [GM] seeds, that instead of feeding the world we've created a food system that leaves more people hungry. If they'd listened to farmers instead of corporations, they would've known this was going to happen." Goodman has traveled the world to speak, organize and rally with groups such as La Via Campesina, the global movement of peasant and farm organizations that has been warning for years that "solutions" promoted by agribusiness conglomerates were designed to maximize corporate profits, not help farmers or feed people. The food shortages, suddenly front-page news, are not new. Hundreds of millions of people were starving and malnourished last year; the only change is that as the scope of the crisis has grown, it has become more difficult to "manage" the hunger that a failed food system accepts rather than feeds.
The current global food system, which was designed by US-based agribusiness conglomerates like Cargill, Monsanto and ADM and forced into place by the US government and its allies at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, has planted the seeds of disaster by pressuring farmers here and abroad to produce cash crops for export and alternative fuels rather than grow healthy food for local consumption and regional stability. The only smart short-term response is to throw money at the problem. George W. Bush's release of $200 million in emergency aid to the UN's World Food Program was appropriate, but Washington must do more. Rising food prices may not be causing riots in the United States, but food banks here are struggling to meet demand as joblessness grows. Congress should answer Senator Sherrod Brown's call to allocate $100 million more to domestic food programs and make sure, as Representative Jim McGovern urges, that an overdue farm bill expands programs for getting fresh food from local farms to local consumers."
"The only surprising thing about the global food crisis to Jim Goodman is the notion that anyone finds it surprising. "So," says the Wisconsin dairy farmer, "they finally figured out, after all these years of pushing globalization and genetically modified [GM] seeds, that instead of feeding the world we've created a food system that leaves more people hungry. If they'd listened to farmers instead of corporations, they would've known this was going to happen." Goodman has traveled the world to speak, organize and rally with groups such as La Via Campesina, the global movement of peasant and farm organizations that has been warning for years that "solutions" promoted by agribusiness conglomerates were designed to maximize corporate profits, not help farmers or feed people. The food shortages, suddenly front-page news, are not new. Hundreds of millions of people were starving and malnourished last year; the only change is that as the scope of the crisis has grown, it has become more difficult to "manage" the hunger that a failed food system accepts rather than feeds.
The current global food system, which was designed by US-based agribusiness conglomerates like Cargill, Monsanto and ADM and forced into place by the US government and its allies at the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and the World Trade Organization, has planted the seeds of disaster by pressuring farmers here and abroad to produce cash crops for export and alternative fuels rather than grow healthy food for local consumption and regional stability. The only smart short-term response is to throw money at the problem. George W. Bush's release of $200 million in emergency aid to the UN's World Food Program was appropriate, but Washington must do more. Rising food prices may not be causing riots in the United States, but food banks here are struggling to meet demand as joblessness grows. Congress should answer Senator Sherrod Brown's call to allocate $100 million more to domestic food programs and make sure, as Representative Jim McGovern urges, that an overdue farm bill expands programs for getting fresh food from local farms to local consumers."
Rupert kills the news
The previous post on "disseminating news" makes for an "interesting" juxtaposition to what is happening in New York - where Rupert Murdoch is near to cornering the newspaper world.
The Columbia Journalism Review [reproduced on AlterNet] reports:
"The abrupt resignation of Marcus Brauchli as managing editor of The Wall Street Journal is surprising even to those of us who saw News Corp.'s takeover of the Journal's parent as a journalistic disaster in the making.
The best account, as Ryan Chittum points out in our Opening Bell, is by Richard Perez-Pena in today's New York Times.
There will be some who say the resignation of an editor doesn't matter or that it is a good thing since we live in the best of all possible worlds. In fact, Brauchli's resignation is a billboard-sized sign that the world's leading financial publication is abandoning the qualities that made it great in the first place.
If Murdoch's bid for Dow Jones & Co. was the beginning of the end of the Journal as we knew it, as I wrote when the bid was unveiled a year ago, Brauchli's exit is the end of the beginning of the end."
The Columbia Journalism Review [reproduced on AlterNet] reports:
"The abrupt resignation of Marcus Brauchli as managing editor of The Wall Street Journal is surprising even to those of us who saw News Corp.'s takeover of the Journal's parent as a journalistic disaster in the making.
The best account, as Ryan Chittum points out in our Opening Bell, is by Richard Perez-Pena in today's New York Times.
There will be some who say the resignation of an editor doesn't matter or that it is a good thing since we live in the best of all possible worlds. In fact, Brauchli's resignation is a billboard-sized sign that the world's leading financial publication is abandoning the qualities that made it great in the first place.
If Murdoch's bid for Dow Jones & Co. was the beginning of the end of the Journal as we knew it, as I wrote when the bid was unveiled a year ago, Brauchli's exit is the end of the beginning of the end."
"Disseminating the news".....go to jail!
Zimbabwe 2008. The charge of "committing journalism". Eh?
Read the account of the NY Times reporter arrested and imprisoned in Mugabe's Zimbabwe:
"I had never been arrested before and the prospect of prison in Zimbabwe, one of the poorest, most repressive places on earth, seemed especially forbidding: the squalor, the teeming cells, the possibility of beatings. But I told myself what I’d repeatedly taught my two children: Life is a collection of experiences. You savor the good, you learn from the bad.
I was being charged with the crime of “committing journalism.” One of my captors, Detective Inspector Dani Rangwani, described the offense to me as something despicable, almost hissing the words: “You’ve been gathering, processing and disseminating the news.”
And I’d been caught at it red-handed, my notes spread across my desk, my text messages readable on my cellphone, my stories preserved by Microsoft Word in an open laptop."
Meanwhile, on the topic of "news" The Washington Post reports on some good news - well, at least on one level:
"Saudi Arabia's most popular blogger was released Saturday after serving four months in prison without charge.
Fouad al-Farhan, 33, was detained Dec. 10 after authorities warned him about his online support of an activist group. At the time of his arrest, the Interior Ministry said only that his violations were not related to state security.
Farhan had used his blog to criticize corruption and call for political reform in Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy."
Read the account of the NY Times reporter arrested and imprisoned in Mugabe's Zimbabwe:
"I had never been arrested before and the prospect of prison in Zimbabwe, one of the poorest, most repressive places on earth, seemed especially forbidding: the squalor, the teeming cells, the possibility of beatings. But I told myself what I’d repeatedly taught my two children: Life is a collection of experiences. You savor the good, you learn from the bad.
I was being charged with the crime of “committing journalism.” One of my captors, Detective Inspector Dani Rangwani, described the offense to me as something despicable, almost hissing the words: “You’ve been gathering, processing and disseminating the news.”
And I’d been caught at it red-handed, my notes spread across my desk, my text messages readable on my cellphone, my stories preserved by Microsoft Word in an open laptop."
Meanwhile, on the topic of "news" The Washington Post reports on some good news - well, at least on one level:
"Saudi Arabia's most popular blogger was released Saturday after serving four months in prison without charge.
Fouad al-Farhan, 33, was detained Dec. 10 after authorities warned him about his online support of an activist group. At the time of his arrest, the Interior Ministry said only that his violations were not related to state security.
Farhan had used his blog to criticize corruption and call for political reform in Saudi Arabia, an absolute monarchy."
Friday, April 25, 2008
Latin America: the attack on democracy
John Pilger, veteran reporter, writer and filmmaker, is never one to shy away from hiding a light on areas of government action where others just won't go or would rather ignore.
In his latest piece for Information Clearing House, he targets what is happening in South America:
Beyond the sound and fury of its conquest of Iraq and campaign against Iran, the world's dominant power is waging a largely unreported war on another continent - Latin America. Using proxies, Washington aims to restore and reinforce the political control of a privileged group calling itself middle-class, to shift the responsibility for massacres and drug trafficking away from the psychotic regime in Colombia and its mafiosi, and to extinguish hopes raised among Latin America's impoverished majority by the reform governments of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.
In Colombia, the main battleground, the class nature of the war is distorted by the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the Farc, whose own resort to kidnapping and the drugs trade has provided an instrument with which to smear those who have distinguished Latin America's epic history of rebellion by opposing the proto-fascism of George W Bush's regime. "You don't fight terror with terror," said President Hugo Chávez as US warplanes bombed to death thousands of civilians in Afghanistan following the 11 September 2001 attacks. Thereafter, he was a marked man. Yet, as every poll has shown, he spoke for the great majority of human beings who have grasped that the "war on terror" is a crusade of domination. Almost alone among national leaders standing up to Bush, Chávez was declared an enemy and his plans for a functioning social democracy independent of the United States a threat to Washington's grip on Latin America. "Even worse," wrote the Latin America specialist James Petras, "Chávez's nationalist policies represented an alternative in Latin America at a time (2000-2003) when mass insurrections, popular uprisings and the collapse of pro-US client rulers (Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia) were constant front-page news."
It is impossible to underestimate the threat of this alternative as perceived by the "middle classes" in countries which have an abundance of privilege and poverty. In Venezuela, their "grotesque fantasies of being ruled by a 'brutal communist dictator'", to quote Petras, are reminiscent of the paranoia of the white population that backed South Africa's apartheid regime. Like in South Africa, racism in Venezuela is rampant, with the poor ignored, despised or patronised, and a Caracas shock jock allowed casually to dismiss Chávez, who is of mixed race, as a "monkey". This fatuous venom has come not only from the super-rich behind their walls in suburbs called Country Club, but from the pretenders to their ranks in middle-level management, journalism, public relations, the arts, education and the other professions, who identify vicariously with all things American. Journalists in broadcasting and the press have played a crucial role - acknowledged by one of the generals and bankers who tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Chávez in 2002. "We couldn't have done it without them," he said. "The media were our secret weapon."
In his latest piece for Information Clearing House, he targets what is happening in South America:
Beyond the sound and fury of its conquest of Iraq and campaign against Iran, the world's dominant power is waging a largely unreported war on another continent - Latin America. Using proxies, Washington aims to restore and reinforce the political control of a privileged group calling itself middle-class, to shift the responsibility for massacres and drug trafficking away from the psychotic regime in Colombia and its mafiosi, and to extinguish hopes raised among Latin America's impoverished majority by the reform governments of Venezuela, Ecuador and Bolivia.
In Colombia, the main battleground, the class nature of the war is distorted by the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known as the Farc, whose own resort to kidnapping and the drugs trade has provided an instrument with which to smear those who have distinguished Latin America's epic history of rebellion by opposing the proto-fascism of George W Bush's regime. "You don't fight terror with terror," said President Hugo Chávez as US warplanes bombed to death thousands of civilians in Afghanistan following the 11 September 2001 attacks. Thereafter, he was a marked man. Yet, as every poll has shown, he spoke for the great majority of human beings who have grasped that the "war on terror" is a crusade of domination. Almost alone among national leaders standing up to Bush, Chávez was declared an enemy and his plans for a functioning social democracy independent of the United States a threat to Washington's grip on Latin America. "Even worse," wrote the Latin America specialist James Petras, "Chávez's nationalist policies represented an alternative in Latin America at a time (2000-2003) when mass insurrections, popular uprisings and the collapse of pro-US client rulers (Argentina, Ecuador and Bolivia) were constant front-page news."
It is impossible to underestimate the threat of this alternative as perceived by the "middle classes" in countries which have an abundance of privilege and poverty. In Venezuela, their "grotesque fantasies of being ruled by a 'brutal communist dictator'", to quote Petras, are reminiscent of the paranoia of the white population that backed South Africa's apartheid regime. Like in South Africa, racism in Venezuela is rampant, with the poor ignored, despised or patronised, and a Caracas shock jock allowed casually to dismiss Chávez, who is of mixed race, as a "monkey". This fatuous venom has come not only from the super-rich behind their walls in suburbs called Country Club, but from the pretenders to their ranks in middle-level management, journalism, public relations, the arts, education and the other professions, who identify vicariously with all things American. Journalists in broadcasting and the press have played a crucial role - acknowledged by one of the generals and bankers who tried unsuccessfully to overthrow Chávez in 2002. "We couldn't have done it without them," he said. "The media were our secret weapon."
No equality here....
Human Rights Watch in its latest report - Saudi Arabia: Male Guardianship Policies Harm Women - once again brings to the fore an issue which the world would, seemingly, rather ignore - probably because of Saudi Arabian oil and a fear to upset the country's rulers.
"Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship of women and policies of sex segregation stop women from enjoying their basic rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Saudi women often must obtain permission from a guardian (a father, husband, or even a son) to work, travel, study, marry, or even access health care.
The Saudi government sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women. Saudi women won’t make any progress until the government ends the abuses that stem from these misguided policies.
In a 50-page report, “Perpetual Minors: Human Rights Abuses Stemming from Male Guardianship and Sex Segregation in Saudi Arabia,” Human Rights Watch draws on more than 100 interviews with Saudi women to document the effects of these discriminatory policies on woman’s most basic rights.
“The Saudi government sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women,” said Farida Deif, women’s rights researcher for the Middle East at Human Rights Watch. “Saudi women won’t make any progress until the government ends the abuses that stem from these misguided policies.”
The authorities essentially treat adult women like legal minors who are not entitled to authority over their lives and well-being. Saudi women are similarly denied the legal right to make even trivial decisions for their children. Women cannot open bank accounts for children, enroll them in school, obtain school files, or travel with their children without written permission from the child’s father.
Saudi women are prevented from accessing government agencies that have not established female sections unless they have a male representative. The need to establish separate office spaces for women is a disincentive to hiring female employees, and female students are often relegated to unequal facilities with unequal academic opportunities."
"Saudi Arabia’s male guardianship of women and policies of sex segregation stop women from enjoying their basic rights, Human Rights Watch said in a report released today. Saudi women often must obtain permission from a guardian (a father, husband, or even a son) to work, travel, study, marry, or even access health care.
The Saudi government sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women. Saudi women won’t make any progress until the government ends the abuses that stem from these misguided policies.
In a 50-page report, “Perpetual Minors: Human Rights Abuses Stemming from Male Guardianship and Sex Segregation in Saudi Arabia,” Human Rights Watch draws on more than 100 interviews with Saudi women to document the effects of these discriminatory policies on woman’s most basic rights.
“The Saudi government sacrifices basic human rights to maintain male control over women,” said Farida Deif, women’s rights researcher for the Middle East at Human Rights Watch. “Saudi women won’t make any progress until the government ends the abuses that stem from these misguided policies.”
The authorities essentially treat adult women like legal minors who are not entitled to authority over their lives and well-being. Saudi women are similarly denied the legal right to make even trivial decisions for their children. Women cannot open bank accounts for children, enroll them in school, obtain school files, or travel with their children without written permission from the child’s father.
Saudi women are prevented from accessing government agencies that have not established female sections unless they have a male representative. The need to establish separate office spaces for women is a disincentive to hiring female employees, and female students are often relegated to unequal facilities with unequal academic opportunities."
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Sshh! Mustn't offend the Chinese
truthdig.com reports in a piece "The High Price of Diplomacy with China" on an intriguing court case underway in the US and the Bush Administration doing its darnedest to stop it going forward lest it upset Chinese-American relations:
"The Bush administration is trying to scuttle a federal human rights lawsuit that threatens to embarrass one of China’s top political leaders. The administration says the case could jeopardize trade and “has already had a chilling effect on U.S.-China relations,” documents show.
The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. district court, accuses Bo Xilai—a member of China’s elite Politburo and until recently the country’s trade minister—of controlling and directing forced labor camps where inmates were beaten, suffocated and killed.
The abuses occurred while Bo was governor of Liaoning province between 2001 and 2004, before he was named China’s minister of commerce, according to the complaint.
If the lawsuit goes forward, the Bush administration argues it could create a “diplomatically undesirable inquiry”—into Bo’s—“responsibility for alleged torture and extrajudicial killing,” according to court filings. These “difficult and sensitive questions,” the administration said, “need not be confronted at this time.”
"The Bush administration is trying to scuttle a federal human rights lawsuit that threatens to embarrass one of China’s top political leaders. The administration says the case could jeopardize trade and “has already had a chilling effect on U.S.-China relations,” documents show.
The lawsuit, which was filed in U.S. district court, accuses Bo Xilai—a member of China’s elite Politburo and until recently the country’s trade minister—of controlling and directing forced labor camps where inmates were beaten, suffocated and killed.
The abuses occurred while Bo was governor of Liaoning province between 2001 and 2004, before he was named China’s minister of commerce, according to the complaint.
If the lawsuit goes forward, the Bush administration argues it could create a “diplomatically undesirable inquiry”—into Bo’s—“responsibility for alleged torture and extrajudicial killing,” according to court filings. These “difficult and sensitive questions,” the administration said, “need not be confronted at this time.”
An infamous letter
As the world knows the Israeli's continue, unabated, with the development and expansion of settlements - despite the so-called Oslo Accord and various undertakings, the latest as recent as the Annapolis Conference last November, that they would not expand the settlements.
Now, The Washington Post reports that the Israelis claim to have got the green light from none other than George W a few years back to go right ahead with those settlements:
"A letter that President Bush personally delivered to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon four years ago has emerged as a significant obstacle to the president's efforts to forge a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians during his last year in office.
Ehud Olmert, the current Israeli prime minister, said this week that Bush's letter gave the Jewish state permission to expand the West Bank settlements that it hopes to retain in a final peace deal, even though Bush's peace plan officially calls for a freeze of Israeli settlements across Palestinian territories on the West Bank. In an interview this week, Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weissglas, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed this understanding in a secret agreement reached between Israel and the United States in the spring of 2005, just before Israel withdrew from Gaza.
U.S. officials say no such agreement exists, and in recent months Rice has publicly criticized even settlement expansion on the outskirts of Jerusalem, which Israel does not officially count as settlements. But as peace negotiations have stepped up in recent months, so has the pace of settlement construction, infuriating Palestinian officials, and Washington has taken no punitive action against Israel for its settlement efforts."
Now, The Washington Post reports that the Israelis claim to have got the green light from none other than George W a few years back to go right ahead with those settlements:
"A letter that President Bush personally delivered to then-Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon four years ago has emerged as a significant obstacle to the president's efforts to forge a peace deal between the Israelis and Palestinians during his last year in office.
Ehud Olmert, the current Israeli prime minister, said this week that Bush's letter gave the Jewish state permission to expand the West Bank settlements that it hopes to retain in a final peace deal, even though Bush's peace plan officially calls for a freeze of Israeli settlements across Palestinian territories on the West Bank. In an interview this week, Sharon's chief of staff, Dov Weissglas, said Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reaffirmed this understanding in a secret agreement reached between Israel and the United States in the spring of 2005, just before Israel withdrew from Gaza.
U.S. officials say no such agreement exists, and in recent months Rice has publicly criticized even settlement expansion on the outskirts of Jerusalem, which Israel does not officially count as settlements. But as peace negotiations have stepped up in recent months, so has the pace of settlement construction, infuriating Palestinian officials, and Washington has taken no punitive action against Israel for its settlement efforts."
Hilary: A very valid question
Hilary Clinton may have won the latest Democratic primary but Robert Scheer, writing in The Nation, poses more than a valid question:
"How proud the Clintonistas must be. They have learned how to rival what Hillary once termed the "vast right-wing conspiracy" in the effort to destroy a viable Democratic leader who dares to stand in the way of their ambitions. The tactics used to kneecap Barack Obama are the same as had been turned on Bill Clinton in earlier times, from radical-baiting associates to challenging his resolve in protecting the nation from foreign enemies. Senator Clinton's eminently sensible and centrist--to a fault--opponent is now viewed as weak and even vaguely unpatriotic because he is thoughtful. Neither Karl Rove nor Dick Morris could have done a better job.
On primary election day in Pennsylvania, even with polls showing her well ahead in that state, Hillary went lower in her grab for votes. Seizing upon a question as to how she would respond to a nuclear attack by Iran--which doesn't have nuclear weapons--on Israel, which does, Hillary mocked reasoned discourse by promising to "totally obliterate them," in an apparent reference to the population of Iran. That is not a word gaffe; it is an assertion of the right of our nation to commit genocide on an unprecedented scale.
"Shouldn't the potential leader of a nation that used nuclear bombs to obliterate hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese employ extreme caution before making such a threat? Neither the Japanese then nor the Iranian people now were in a position to hold their leaders accountable, and to approve such collective punishment of innocents is to endorse terrorism. This from a candidate who attacked her opponent for suggesting targeted strikes against militants in Pakistan and derided his openness to negotiations with other national leaders as an irresponsible commitment on the part of a contender for the presidency."
"How proud the Clintonistas must be. They have learned how to rival what Hillary once termed the "vast right-wing conspiracy" in the effort to destroy a viable Democratic leader who dares to stand in the way of their ambitions. The tactics used to kneecap Barack Obama are the same as had been turned on Bill Clinton in earlier times, from radical-baiting associates to challenging his resolve in protecting the nation from foreign enemies. Senator Clinton's eminently sensible and centrist--to a fault--opponent is now viewed as weak and even vaguely unpatriotic because he is thoughtful. Neither Karl Rove nor Dick Morris could have done a better job.
On primary election day in Pennsylvania, even with polls showing her well ahead in that state, Hillary went lower in her grab for votes. Seizing upon a question as to how she would respond to a nuclear attack by Iran--which doesn't have nuclear weapons--on Israel, which does, Hillary mocked reasoned discourse by promising to "totally obliterate them," in an apparent reference to the population of Iran. That is not a word gaffe; it is an assertion of the right of our nation to commit genocide on an unprecedented scale.
"Shouldn't the potential leader of a nation that used nuclear bombs to obliterate hundreds of thousands of innocent Japanese employ extreme caution before making such a threat? Neither the Japanese then nor the Iranian people now were in a position to hold their leaders accountable, and to approve such collective punishment of innocents is to endorse terrorism. This from a candidate who attacked her opponent for suggesting targeted strikes against militants in Pakistan and derided his openness to negotiations with other national leaders as an irresponsible commitment on the part of a contender for the presidency."
Rewriting [falsifying or sanitising?] history on Wikipedia
"A pro-Israel pressure group is orchestrating a secret, long-term campaign to infiltrate the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia to rewrite Palestinian history, pass off crude propaganda as fact, and take over Wikipedia administrative structures to ensure these changes go either undetected or unchallenged.
A series of emails by members and associates of the pro-Israel group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), provided to The Electronic Intifada (EI), indicate the group is engaged in what one activist termed a "war" on Wikipedia."
Startling! - and disgraceful conduct by certain pro-Israel groups. So reports The Electronic Intifada in what seems to be well-documented evidence of certain groups, in effect, seeking to "corrupt" Wikipedia.
A series of emails by members and associates of the pro-Israel group CAMERA (Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America), provided to The Electronic Intifada (EI), indicate the group is engaged in what one activist termed a "war" on Wikipedia."
Startling! - and disgraceful conduct by certain pro-Israel groups. So reports The Electronic Intifada in what seems to be well-documented evidence of certain groups, in effect, seeking to "corrupt" Wikipedia.
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
America through Arab eyes
Rami G. Khouri is editor-at-large of The Daily Star and director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut.
Writing in the IHT he reports on a survey of people in Arab countries on their attitude to the US and Americans.
"One of the most important regular surveys over the past decade is the Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll, conducted by Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland with the respected polling firm Zogby International.
The latest survey, conducted in March, covered a representative sample of over 4,000 people in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (1.6 percent margin of error). It provides a good overview of Arab public opinion on key issues of the day, and deserves study every time it comes out.
This year's poll revealed strong and widespread opposition to American policies in the region. This is not particularly newsworthy, as this has been known for years, but it is particularly interesting for showing the substantial disdain that defines Washington's engagement with the Arab world."
Read the full piece here.
Writing in the IHT he reports on a survey of people in Arab countries on their attitude to the US and Americans.
"One of the most important regular surveys over the past decade is the Annual Arab Public Opinion Poll, conducted by Shibley Telhami of the University of Maryland with the respected polling firm Zogby International.
The latest survey, conducted in March, covered a representative sample of over 4,000 people in Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates (1.6 percent margin of error). It provides a good overview of Arab public opinion on key issues of the day, and deserves study every time it comes out.
This year's poll revealed strong and widespread opposition to American policies in the region. This is not particularly newsworthy, as this has been known for years, but it is particularly interesting for showing the substantial disdain that defines Washington's engagement with the Arab world."
Read the full piece here.
Clueless in American
It is generally accepted that Americans are, by and large, dis-interested in anything outside their own country. It just doesn't rate on their radar. Just look at the relatively small number of Americans who hold a passport. As for the media's coverage of events outside the US it is almost a wasteland.
With the upcoming presidential election Bob Herbert, writing his op-ed column in the NY Times, "Clueless in America", reflects on how education just has been a consideration of any of the candidates.
"The nation’s future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation’s infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S.
An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.
Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.
“We have one of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world,” said Allan Golston, the president of U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a discussion over lunch recently he described the situation as “actually pretty scary, alarming.”
With the upcoming presidential election Bob Herbert, writing his op-ed column in the NY Times, "Clueless in America", reflects on how education just has been a consideration of any of the candidates.
"The nation’s future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation’s infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S.
An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.
Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 1900.
“We have one of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world,” said Allan Golston, the president of U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a discussion over lunch recently he described the situation as “actually pretty scary, alarming.”
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
A book without a real plot?
The coup by Melbourne University Publishing [MUP] that it will publish former Treasurer Costello's memoirs leads one to question what the book will actually reveal, if anything.
Crikey has already weighed in with it's thoughts on the matter:
"Don't expect to see much of the Costello who begged off a fight for the leadership after Downer imploded, or who spent 11 years as Treasurer without a serious policy agenda, who let his Prime Minister turn a Coalition Government into the most appallingly profligate pack of porkbarrelers in Australian history, who didn't have the stomach to seriously pursue his leadership ambitions even after being repeatedly snubbed and insulted by Howard. Even after it was clear Howard was leading the party over the precipice."
And:
"It's typical of Costello, though, that even months after declaring he was pulling the pin, he still hovers at the edges of the political scene, unwilling to plunge in but seemingly unable to walk away. Can this bloke EVER make up his mind? If there's one great unknown that everyone would love to see in his memoirs, it's an explanation for his Hamlet-like indecisiveness, the apparent reluctance to commit, to sit back and wait.
But maybe he himself doesn't understand it."
Crikey has already weighed in with it's thoughts on the matter:
"Don't expect to see much of the Costello who begged off a fight for the leadership after Downer imploded, or who spent 11 years as Treasurer without a serious policy agenda, who let his Prime Minister turn a Coalition Government into the most appallingly profligate pack of porkbarrelers in Australian history, who didn't have the stomach to seriously pursue his leadership ambitions even after being repeatedly snubbed and insulted by Howard. Even after it was clear Howard was leading the party over the precipice."
And:
"It's typical of Costello, though, that even months after declaring he was pulling the pin, he still hovers at the edges of the political scene, unwilling to plunge in but seemingly unable to walk away. Can this bloke EVER make up his mind? If there's one great unknown that everyone would love to see in his memoirs, it's an explanation for his Hamlet-like indecisiveness, the apparent reluctance to commit, to sit back and wait.
But maybe he himself doesn't understand it."
So, is the US still top [power] dog?
The New Yorker has an interesting feature article "After America":
"Every so often, a grand thesis captures the world’s imagination, at least until it is swept away by events or by a newer, more plausible thesis. The latest one to do so, in policy think tanks, universities, foreign ministries, corporate boardrooms, editorial offices, and international conference centers, is that America’s time of global dominance is finished, and that new powers, such as China, India, and Russia, are poised to take over. It’s an idea that has had as much currency within the United States as elsewhere.
All great empires set too much store by predictions of their imminent demise. Perhaps, as the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy suggested in his poem “Waiting for the Barbarians,” empires need the sense of peril to give them a reason to go on. Why spend so much money and effort if not to keep the barbarians at bay?"
"Every so often, a grand thesis captures the world’s imagination, at least until it is swept away by events or by a newer, more plausible thesis. The latest one to do so, in policy think tanks, universities, foreign ministries, corporate boardrooms, editorial offices, and international conference centers, is that America’s time of global dominance is finished, and that new powers, such as China, India, and Russia, are poised to take over. It’s an idea that has had as much currency within the United States as elsewhere.
All great empires set too much store by predictions of their imminent demise. Perhaps, as the Greek poet Constantine Cavafy suggested in his poem “Waiting for the Barbarians,” empires need the sense of peril to give them a reason to go on. Why spend so much money and effort if not to keep the barbarians at bay?"
Soaring to busting level
The Age reports on some staggering data on the obesity of Australians - now and going forward:
"Obesity is the new tobacco and poses a major threat to Australia's economic future, a group of internationally renowned health experts warns the Prime Minister.
In an open letter to Kevin Rudd, the specialists call for the obesity epidemic to be top of the 2020 Summit agenda, claiming the nation has put on 2.4 million kilograms since federal Labor came to power.
The four acclaimed professors say obesity should be treated as a "national emergency" and given the same health priority status as smoking, HIV and immunisations.
Paul Zimmet, director of the International Diabetes Institute, Mark Nelson, chair of general practice at the University of Tasmania, nutrition expert Ian Caterson and metabolic health specialist Stephen Colagiuri, both from Sydney University, say the epidemic already costs $21 billion a year and the problem is growing.
"In the 120 days since the Government took office, Australians have gained a staggering 2.4 million kilos between them. Along with this weight has come disease and disability, as well as personal and societal trauma," the experts write. "By 2020 we will have amassed an additional 100 million kilos of unwanted blubber and the obesity epidemic will be biting deeply into every aspect of national life."
"Obesity is the new tobacco and poses a major threat to Australia's economic future, a group of internationally renowned health experts warns the Prime Minister.
In an open letter to Kevin Rudd, the specialists call for the obesity epidemic to be top of the 2020 Summit agenda, claiming the nation has put on 2.4 million kilograms since federal Labor came to power.
The four acclaimed professors say obesity should be treated as a "national emergency" and given the same health priority status as smoking, HIV and immunisations.
Paul Zimmet, director of the International Diabetes Institute, Mark Nelson, chair of general practice at the University of Tasmania, nutrition expert Ian Caterson and metabolic health specialist Stephen Colagiuri, both from Sydney University, say the epidemic already costs $21 billion a year and the problem is growing.
"In the 120 days since the Government took office, Australians have gained a staggering 2.4 million kilos between them. Along with this weight has come disease and disability, as well as personal and societal trauma," the experts write. "By 2020 we will have amassed an additional 100 million kilos of unwanted blubber and the obesity epidemic will be biting deeply into every aspect of national life."
The "debacle" which cannot be ignored
Once again the mainstream media has been shown severely lacking in reporting on a major Report on the Iraq War.
The Institute for National Strategic Studies (INSS) is a policy research and strategic gaming organization within NDU serving the Depart- ment of Defense, its components, and interagency partners. Established in 1984, the institute provides senior decisionmakers with timely, objective analysis and gaming events and supports NDU educational programs in the areas of international security affairs and defense strategy and policy. Through an active outreach pro- gram, including conferences and publications, INSS seeks to promote understanding of emerging strategic challenges and policy options.
Coming from the Pentagon's premier educational institution the Institute's latest Report "Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath" [go here to read the full Report] should not be ignored - especially as it concludes that the Iraq War has been a "debacle".
heraldsun.com.au is one of the few media outlets which has reported on the Report:
"The war in Iraq has become "a major debacle" and the outcome "is in doubt", despite improvements in security, according to a highly critical study published by the Pentagon's premier military educational institute.
The report, released by the National Institute for Strategic Studies, raises fresh doubts about President George W. Bush's projections of a US victory in Iraq just a week after he announced he was suspending US troop reductions.
The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and drew on interviews with other former senior defence and intelligence officials involved in pre-war preparations.
"Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle," says the report's opening line.
"Despite impressive progress in security, the outcome of the war is in doubt," the report says.
"For many analysts (including this one), Iraq remains a 'must win', but for many others, despite obvious progress under General David Petraeus and the surge, it now looks like a 'can't win'."
The report lays much of the blame on then-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld."
Coming from the Pentagon's premier educational institution the Institute's latest Report "Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath" [go here to read the full Report] should not be ignored - especially as it concludes that the Iraq War has been a "debacle".
heraldsun.com.au is one of the few media outlets which has reported on the Report:
"The war in Iraq has become "a major debacle" and the outcome "is in doubt", despite improvements in security, according to a highly critical study published by the Pentagon's premier military educational institute.
The report, released by the National Institute for Strategic Studies, raises fresh doubts about President George W. Bush's projections of a US victory in Iraq just a week after he announced he was suspending US troop reductions.
The report carries considerable weight because it was written by Joseph Collins, a former senior Pentagon official, and drew on interviews with other former senior defence and intelligence officials involved in pre-war preparations.
"Measured in blood and treasure, the war in Iraq has achieved the status of a major war and a major debacle," says the report's opening line.
"Despite impressive progress in security, the outcome of the war is in doubt," the report says.
"For many analysts (including this one), Iraq remains a 'must win', but for many others, despite obvious progress under General David Petraeus and the surge, it now looks like a 'can't win'."
The report lays much of the blame on then-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld."
Monday, April 21, 2008
It's nothing but gang warfare
As always Gideon Levy, writing in Haaretz, is spot on in his assessment of the newly increased warfare between the Palestinians and Israelis:
"On both sides of the fence locking in the Gaza Strip, there is a war of desperation going on. Hamas is fighting against the insufferable siege that the Gaza Strip has been under for many months, and the Israel Defense Forces is mostly preoccupied with avenging Hamas' actions. Both sides are busy with displays of power and retaliation. It was sufficient to hear last week the commander of an IDF company, which lost three of its men, who called on his troops to kill as many terrorists as possible and to destroy the area from which the attacks came, to understand that the differences between the two opposing sides are increasingly becoming distorted.
The ethical differences are also being blurred. For example, if the B'tselem report is correct, and the IDF has resumed using flechette tank shells, then killing is being done without distinction, precisely as Hamas does. Both sides avoid any dialogue with the other, Israel conducts the scandalous international boycott of Hamas and anyone who tries to end this unbearable cycle, such as former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, is immediately and shamefully condemned by Israel."
Al Jazeerah reports on the meeting of Jimmy Carter with the Hamas leader as follows:
"Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has called for Hamas to be included in peace negotiations, saying they are willing to "live as a neighbour next door in peace" with Israel if Palestinians approve a deal.
Carter said on Monday that Hamas leaders told him they would accept a negotiated peace agreement, if voted for by the Palestinian people.
His comments, delivered in an address to the Israel Council on Foreign Relations and a subsequent news conference at the King David Hotel in West Jerusalem, came after he met several Hamas leaders, including Khaled Meshaal, the group's exiled political bureau chief, in Syria last week.
Carter said Hamas leaders had told him they would accept a peace agreement negotiated by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president whose Fatah faction controls the West Bank, if Palestinians approved the deal in a vote."
"On both sides of the fence locking in the Gaza Strip, there is a war of desperation going on. Hamas is fighting against the insufferable siege that the Gaza Strip has been under for many months, and the Israel Defense Forces is mostly preoccupied with avenging Hamas' actions. Both sides are busy with displays of power and retaliation. It was sufficient to hear last week the commander of an IDF company, which lost three of its men, who called on his troops to kill as many terrorists as possible and to destroy the area from which the attacks came, to understand that the differences between the two opposing sides are increasingly becoming distorted.
The ethical differences are also being blurred. For example, if the B'tselem report is correct, and the IDF has resumed using flechette tank shells, then killing is being done without distinction, precisely as Hamas does. Both sides avoid any dialogue with the other, Israel conducts the scandalous international boycott of Hamas and anyone who tries to end this unbearable cycle, such as former U.S. president Jimmy Carter, is immediately and shamefully condemned by Israel."
Al Jazeerah reports on the meeting of Jimmy Carter with the Hamas leader as follows:
"Jimmy Carter, the former US president, has called for Hamas to be included in peace negotiations, saying they are willing to "live as a neighbour next door in peace" with Israel if Palestinians approve a deal.
Carter said on Monday that Hamas leaders told him they would accept a negotiated peace agreement, if voted for by the Palestinian people.
His comments, delivered in an address to the Israel Council on Foreign Relations and a subsequent news conference at the King David Hotel in West Jerusalem, came after he met several Hamas leaders, including Khaled Meshaal, the group's exiled political bureau chief, in Syria last week.
Carter said Hamas leaders had told him they would accept a peace agreement negotiated by Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president whose Fatah faction controls the West Bank, if Palestinians approved the deal in a vote."
Words and actions don't match
8 August for the opening of the Olympics draws ever nearer. Correspondingly the issues surrounding the Chinese Government's recent actions reflect grave concern that its vows to the IOC on how it will deal with the Olympics on a range of issues, notably freedom for its citizens and the foreign press, will not, in fact, be met.
The Washington Post reports:
"China has spent billions of dollars to fulfill its commitment to stage a grand Olympics. Athletes will compete in world-class stadiums. New highways and train lines crisscross Beijing. China built the world's largest airport terminal to welcome an expected 500,000 foreign visitors. Thousands of newly planted trees and dozens of colorful "One World, One Dream" billboards line the main roads of a spruced-up capital. The security system has impressed the FBI and Interpol.
But beneath the shimmer and behind the slogan, China is under criticism for suppressing Tibetan protests, sealing off large portions of the country to foreign reporters, harassing and jailing dissidents and not doing enough to curb air pollution. It has not lived up to a pledge in its Olympic action plan, released in 2002, to "be open in every aspect," and a constitutional amendment adopted in 2004 to recognize and protect human rights has not shielded government critics from arrest.
The two realities show that when China had to build something new to fulfill expectations, it has largely delivered. But in areas that touch China's core interests, Olympic pledges come second."
Read the full piece here - and view the photograph of the main stadium and the horrendous pollution.
The Washington Post reports:
"China has spent billions of dollars to fulfill its commitment to stage a grand Olympics. Athletes will compete in world-class stadiums. New highways and train lines crisscross Beijing. China built the world's largest airport terminal to welcome an expected 500,000 foreign visitors. Thousands of newly planted trees and dozens of colorful "One World, One Dream" billboards line the main roads of a spruced-up capital. The security system has impressed the FBI and Interpol.
But beneath the shimmer and behind the slogan, China is under criticism for suppressing Tibetan protests, sealing off large portions of the country to foreign reporters, harassing and jailing dissidents and not doing enough to curb air pollution. It has not lived up to a pledge in its Olympic action plan, released in 2002, to "be open in every aspect," and a constitutional amendment adopted in 2004 to recognize and protect human rights has not shielded government critics from arrest.
The two realities show that when China had to build something new to fulfill expectations, it has largely delivered. But in areas that touch China's core interests, Olympic pledges come second."
Read the full piece here - and view the photograph of the main stadium and the horrendous pollution.
Blooms without the scent
Roses are red, violets are blue.....but without scent it seems.
The Independent [as reproduced on CommonDreams] reports on new scientific research which finds that flowers are losing their scent:
"Pollution is dulling the scent of flowers and impeding some of the most basic processes of nature, disrupting insect life and imperilling food supplies, a new study suggests.
The potentially hugely significant research - funded by the blue-chip US National Science Foundation - has found that gases mainly formed from the emissions of car exhausts prevent flowers from attracting bees and other insects in order to pollinate them. And the scientists who have conducted the study fear that insects’ ability to repel enemies and attract mates may also be impeded.
The researchers - at the University of Virginia - say that pollution is dramatically cutting the distance travelled by the scent of flowers. Professor Jose Fuentes, who led the study, said: “Scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 metres. But today they may travel only 200 to 300 metres. This makes it increasingly difficult for bees and other insects to locate the flowers.”
The Independent [as reproduced on CommonDreams] reports on new scientific research which finds that flowers are losing their scent:
"Pollution is dulling the scent of flowers and impeding some of the most basic processes of nature, disrupting insect life and imperilling food supplies, a new study suggests.
The potentially hugely significant research - funded by the blue-chip US National Science Foundation - has found that gases mainly formed from the emissions of car exhausts prevent flowers from attracting bees and other insects in order to pollinate them. And the scientists who have conducted the study fear that insects’ ability to repel enemies and attract mates may also be impeded.
The researchers - at the University of Virginia - say that pollution is dramatically cutting the distance travelled by the scent of flowers. Professor Jose Fuentes, who led the study, said: “Scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 metres. But today they may travel only 200 to 300 metres. This makes it increasingly difficult for bees and other insects to locate the flowers.”
Olympic torches dubious birth
The Olympic torch relay started out with significant protests in Paris, London and San Francisco. In other places the progress of the torch through the particular city has had to be curbed. This week, the torch reaches Canberra in Australia. Protesters and supporters will line up whilst the Government has warned that any sort of violence will not be tolerated.
But where does this whole idea of the Olympic torch relay come from? The NY Times reveals its dubious "birth" and heritage in "The Relay of Fire Ignited by the Nazis":
"If you want to know how the Olympic torch really began its “Journey of Harmony,” as the Chinese call its current relay, if you want to see why the torch has had to pass through a human obstacle course composed of protesters, SWAT teams and police in San Francisco, Paris and London, then do not look to Tibet’s grievances against China. Look to the opening of Leni Riefenstahl’s 1938 film, “Olympia.”
In that homage to Berlin’s 1936 Olympic Games the origins of this ritual are revealed. Never before had a lighted torch been relayed from a Greek temple in Olympia to an athletic competition, let alone by thousands of runners trying to keep it from being extinguished.
So Riefenstahl creates the myth the Greeks never got around to telling, creating a filmic counterpart to the opening of Wagner’s “Ring,” in which an entire world gradually emerges from elemental fragments. The camera begins by surveying a misty landscape of ruins, of shattered pillars and overgrown grasses. Restless and circling, the camera reveals a Greek temple standing amid the stones. Heads and the bodies of Greek statues appear in an eerie erotic landscape. Under the sensuous caresses of Riefenstahl’s lens, a naked discus thrower comes to life, polished stone becoming muscular flesh. Another athlete prepares to throw a javelin, its trajectory leading toward a bowl of fire. Lighting the Olympic torch, another nude acolyte triumphantly raises it aloft like Wagner’s Siegfried displaying his sword."
But where does this whole idea of the Olympic torch relay come from? The NY Times reveals its dubious "birth" and heritage in "The Relay of Fire Ignited by the Nazis":
"If you want to know how the Olympic torch really began its “Journey of Harmony,” as the Chinese call its current relay, if you want to see why the torch has had to pass through a human obstacle course composed of protesters, SWAT teams and police in San Francisco, Paris and London, then do not look to Tibet’s grievances against China. Look to the opening of Leni Riefenstahl’s 1938 film, “Olympia.”
In that homage to Berlin’s 1936 Olympic Games the origins of this ritual are revealed. Never before had a lighted torch been relayed from a Greek temple in Olympia to an athletic competition, let alone by thousands of runners trying to keep it from being extinguished.
So Riefenstahl creates the myth the Greeks never got around to telling, creating a filmic counterpart to the opening of Wagner’s “Ring,” in which an entire world gradually emerges from elemental fragments. The camera begins by surveying a misty landscape of ruins, of shattered pillars and overgrown grasses. Restless and circling, the camera reveals a Greek temple standing amid the stones. Heads and the bodies of Greek statues appear in an eerie erotic landscape. Under the sensuous caresses of Riefenstahl’s lens, a naked discus thrower comes to life, polished stone becoming muscular flesh. Another athlete prepares to throw a javelin, its trajectory leading toward a bowl of fire. Lighting the Olympic torch, another nude acolyte triumphantly raises it aloft like Wagner’s Siegfried displaying his sword."
"Thank you, and now goodbye."
"Encapsulating the mood, about three months after the invasion, a graffito appeared on the plinth of the famously toppled Saddam statue. The graffito said, "All done, go home." I think that summed it up. It's the same sentiment I remember hearing on great march of [Shia] pilgrims through Karbala within three or four weeks of the toppling of the statue -- "Thank you, and now goodbye."
The invasion referred to above is, of course, that of Iraq now just over 5 years ago.
Jonathan Steele is a senior correspondent and columnist for London's Guardian newspaper. He made eight reporting trips to Iraq between 2003 and 2006. His new book Defeat: Why They Lost Iraq was recently released in the United States. AlterNet caught up with Steele to talk about his book in a Q & A session - here.
The invasion referred to above is, of course, that of Iraq now just over 5 years ago.
Jonathan Steele is a senior correspondent and columnist for London's Guardian newspaper. He made eight reporting trips to Iraq between 2003 and 2006. His new book Defeat: Why They Lost Iraq was recently released in the United States. AlterNet caught up with Steele to talk about his book in a Q & A session - here.
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Forget the facts....just manipulate the news
The NY Times reports, today, in a report "Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand" how the Pentagon has "manipulated" the news since 2005:
"In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.
The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.
To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.
Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found."
Read on here.
"In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.
The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.
To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as “military analysts” whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.
Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration’s wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found."
Read on here.
Passover.....and a message lost
Jews around the world are celebrating Passover - remembering the exodus and liberation from Egypt and being led into the land of Canaan by Moses.
Pivotal to the celebration is an abiding concern for the oppressed and those in need. For a people of the Book and said to be a "light unto the Nations" Israeli's actions in the West Bank and Gaza certainly do not reflect the spirit of the Passover.
Perhaps it was coincidental, but on the eve of the Passover The Independent featured a piece "Our reign of terror, by the Israeli army":
"In shocking testimonies that reveal abductions, beatings and torture, Israeli soldiers confess the horror they have visited on Hebron".
And:
"The maltreatment of civilians under occupation is common to many armies in the world – including Britain's, from Northern Ireland to Iraq.
But, paradoxically, few if any countries apart from Israel have an NGO like Breaking the Silence, which seeks – through the experiences of the soldiers themselves – as its website puts it "to force Israeli society to address the reality which it created" in the occupied territories."
Pivotal to the celebration is an abiding concern for the oppressed and those in need. For a people of the Book and said to be a "light unto the Nations" Israeli's actions in the West Bank and Gaza certainly do not reflect the spirit of the Passover.
Perhaps it was coincidental, but on the eve of the Passover The Independent featured a piece "Our reign of terror, by the Israeli army":
"In shocking testimonies that reveal abductions, beatings and torture, Israeli soldiers confess the horror they have visited on Hebron".
And:
"The maltreatment of civilians under occupation is common to many armies in the world – including Britain's, from Northern Ireland to Iraq.
But, paradoxically, few if any countries apart from Israel have an NGO like Breaking the Silence, which seeks – through the experiences of the soldiers themselves – as its website puts it "to force Israeli society to address the reality which it created" in the occupied territories."
Saturday, April 19, 2008
Get used to a different world!
From TomDispatch.com:
"It's strange that the business and geopolitics of energy takes up so little space on American front pages -- or that we could conduct an oil war in Iraq with hardly a mention of the words "oil" and "war" in the same paragraph in those same papers over the years. Strange indeed. And yet, oil rules our world and energy lies behind so many of the headlines that might seem to be about other matters entirely.
Take the food riots now spreading across the planet because the prices of staples are soaring, while stocks of basics are falling. In the last year, wheat (think flour) has risen by 130%, rice by 74%, soya by 87%, and corn by 31%, while there are now only eight to 12 weeks of cereal stocks left globally. Governments across the planetary map are shuddering. This is a fast growing horror story and, though the cry in the streets of Cairo and Port au Prince might be for bread, this, too, turns out to be a tale largely ruled by energy: Too many acres turned over to corn (and sugar cane) for the creation of biofuels; a historic drought in Australia and other climate-change-induced extremes of weather -- a result of the burning of fossil fuels -- that have affected crop yields; and many new middle-class consumers, in China and elsewhere, coming on line, with a growing desire for meat, the production of which is heavily petroleum based."
And more importantly:
"Oil at $110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionable price levels. Jet fuel so expensive that three low-cost airlines stopped flying in the past few weeks. This is just a taste of the latest energy news, signaling a profound change in how all of us, in this country and around the world, are going to live -- trends that, so far as anyone can predict, will only become more pronounced as energy supplies dwindle and the global struggle over their allocation intensifies.
Energy of all sorts was once hugely abundant, making possible the worldwide economic expansion of the past six decades. This expansion benefited the United States above all -- along with its "First World" allies in Europe and the Pacific. Recently, however, a select group of former "Third World" countries -- China and India in particular -- have sought to participate in this energy bonanza by industrializing their economies and selling a wide range of goods to international markets. This, in turn, has led to an unprecedented spurt in global energy consumption -- a 47% rise in the past 20 years alone, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE)."
Postscript: Last night a barrel of oil hit US$117. And Rupert Murdoch predicted that with an Iraq War oil would come down to US$20 a barrel!
"It's strange that the business and geopolitics of energy takes up so little space on American front pages -- or that we could conduct an oil war in Iraq with hardly a mention of the words "oil" and "war" in the same paragraph in those same papers over the years. Strange indeed. And yet, oil rules our world and energy lies behind so many of the headlines that might seem to be about other matters entirely.
Take the food riots now spreading across the planet because the prices of staples are soaring, while stocks of basics are falling. In the last year, wheat (think flour) has risen by 130%, rice by 74%, soya by 87%, and corn by 31%, while there are now only eight to 12 weeks of cereal stocks left globally. Governments across the planetary map are shuddering. This is a fast growing horror story and, though the cry in the streets of Cairo and Port au Prince might be for bread, this, too, turns out to be a tale largely ruled by energy: Too many acres turned over to corn (and sugar cane) for the creation of biofuels; a historic drought in Australia and other climate-change-induced extremes of weather -- a result of the burning of fossil fuels -- that have affected crop yields; and many new middle-class consumers, in China and elsewhere, coming on line, with a growing desire for meat, the production of which is heavily petroleum based."
And more importantly:
"Oil at $110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionable price levels. Jet fuel so expensive that three low-cost airlines stopped flying in the past few weeks. This is just a taste of the latest energy news, signaling a profound change in how all of us, in this country and around the world, are going to live -- trends that, so far as anyone can predict, will only become more pronounced as energy supplies dwindle and the global struggle over their allocation intensifies.
Energy of all sorts was once hugely abundant, making possible the worldwide economic expansion of the past six decades. This expansion benefited the United States above all -- along with its "First World" allies in Europe and the Pacific. Recently, however, a select group of former "Third World" countries -- China and India in particular -- have sought to participate in this energy bonanza by industrializing their economies and selling a wide range of goods to international markets. This, in turn, has led to an unprecedented spurt in global energy consumption -- a 47% rise in the past 20 years alone, according to the U.S. Department of Energy (DoE)."
Postscript: Last night a barrel of oil hit US$117. And Rupert Murdoch predicted that with an Iraq War oil would come down to US$20 a barrel!
Let's hear the Hamas position
Hamas is vilified and not recognised by Israel, the US and the EU. Never mind that it was the party which, legitimately, won the elections in Gaza. The organisation certianly doesn't have a good track record i many levels not least from a public-relations angle.
Now Jimmy Carter has met the Hamas leader - and in the process attracted considerable condemnation for doing so. Read about that here [from the Washington Post] and Forward's "take" on the visit [here]
But what about Hamas? Do we really know what they stand for and want? What better person than Mahmoud al-Zahar, a surgeon, and a founder of Hamas - he was foreign minister in the government of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, which was elected in January 2006 - to clarify things, as he does in this piece "No Peace Without Hamas" in The Washington Post.
Reuters reports on the Carter visit, here, in relation to an address given by Carter at the American University in Cairo - when he described the blockade of Gaza this way:
"It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. it's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on."
Now Jimmy Carter has met the Hamas leader - and in the process attracted considerable condemnation for doing so. Read about that here [from the Washington Post] and Forward's "take" on the visit [here]
But what about Hamas? Do we really know what they stand for and want? What better person than Mahmoud al-Zahar, a surgeon, and a founder of Hamas - he was foreign minister in the government of Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh, which was elected in January 2006 - to clarify things, as he does in this piece "No Peace Without Hamas" in The Washington Post.
Reuters reports on the Carter visit, here, in relation to an address given by Carter at the American University in Cairo - when he described the blockade of Gaza this way:
"It's an atrocity what is being perpetrated as punishment on the people in Gaza. it's a crime... I think it is an abomination that this continues to go on."
Fisk: Meet the Man
Robert Fisk, author and journalist, and based in Beirut for some 30 years now, is well known - and either revered or reviled.
The Guardian unplugs the man:
"Robert Fisk is one of the most famous journalists in the world, and one of the most divisive. Many revere him both for the muscular quality of his reporting - in a world numbed by 24/7 television, he makes news seem gripping and important and full of pity - and for his refusal to shy away from saying that which few other writers dare to put down on the page. No one escapes the heat of his ire: neither Bush nor Blair, neither Israel nor the Arab dictatorships. For him, journalism is about 'naming the guilty' and sod the consequences. In his more than 30 years as a Middle East correspondent - during which time he has survived bombs, bullets, two kidnap attempts and, perhaps most notoriously, a thorough beating at the hands of a group of Afghan refugees in Pakistan - he has won more awards than any other foreign news journalist and has written two bestselling and acclaimed books: Pity the Nation, a devastating history of the Lebanese civil war, and The Great War for Civilisation, a 1,300 page history, with eyewitness accounts lifted directly from his own notebooks, of the 'conquest' of the Middle East (his latest book, The Age of the Warrior, a collection of his journalism, has just been published). Fisk's lectures sell out across the world; at his book signings, the queue extends out of the door.
For others, though, Fisk is a hate figure, especially since 9/11, when he outraged many by asking what had motivated those who were responsible for the attacks. As a result, he received extensive hate mail. 'My father thinks he's the Antichrist,' said a friend of mine when I told her that I was going to meet him. His enemies accuse Fisk of being 'biased'; he is anti-west and anti-Israel, they argue. Usually they stop short of calling him anti-semitic, though this does happen sometimes. Alan Dershowitz, the liberal Harvard law professor, has called Fisk 'pro-terrorist' and 'anti-American', which, he added at the time, 'is the same as anti-semitic'. (Fisk's approach to this sort of thing is robust: anyone who makes this accusation in print can expect to hear from his lawyer.) His enemies also accuse him of getting his facts wrong. In 2001, the word 'Fisking' passed into the language, meaning a point-by-point refutation of a news story. The term was named after Fisk because he is such a frequent and, his enemies would say, deserving target of this kind of treatment."
The Guardian unplugs the man:
"Robert Fisk is one of the most famous journalists in the world, and one of the most divisive. Many revere him both for the muscular quality of his reporting - in a world numbed by 24/7 television, he makes news seem gripping and important and full of pity - and for his refusal to shy away from saying that which few other writers dare to put down on the page. No one escapes the heat of his ire: neither Bush nor Blair, neither Israel nor the Arab dictatorships. For him, journalism is about 'naming the guilty' and sod the consequences. In his more than 30 years as a Middle East correspondent - during which time he has survived bombs, bullets, two kidnap attempts and, perhaps most notoriously, a thorough beating at the hands of a group of Afghan refugees in Pakistan - he has won more awards than any other foreign news journalist and has written two bestselling and acclaimed books: Pity the Nation, a devastating history of the Lebanese civil war, and The Great War for Civilisation, a 1,300 page history, with eyewitness accounts lifted directly from his own notebooks, of the 'conquest' of the Middle East (his latest book, The Age of the Warrior, a collection of his journalism, has just been published). Fisk's lectures sell out across the world; at his book signings, the queue extends out of the door.
For others, though, Fisk is a hate figure, especially since 9/11, when he outraged many by asking what had motivated those who were responsible for the attacks. As a result, he received extensive hate mail. 'My father thinks he's the Antichrist,' said a friend of mine when I told her that I was going to meet him. His enemies accuse Fisk of being 'biased'; he is anti-west and anti-Israel, they argue. Usually they stop short of calling him anti-semitic, though this does happen sometimes. Alan Dershowitz, the liberal Harvard law professor, has called Fisk 'pro-terrorist' and 'anti-American', which, he added at the time, 'is the same as anti-semitic'. (Fisk's approach to this sort of thing is robust: anyone who makes this accusation in print can expect to hear from his lawyer.) His enemies also accuse him of getting his facts wrong. In 2001, the word 'Fisking' passed into the language, meaning a point-by-point refutation of a news story. The term was named after Fisk because he is such a frequent and, his enemies would say, deserving target of this kind of treatment."
Friday, April 18, 2008
Internal displacement
We read and hear about refugees, by the millions, in camps dotted around the world or literally "on the move" seeking either a safe haven or a new home. All too often the quest for a new "home" ends in some sort of tragedy - witness refugees dying in trucks moving from country to country or people drowning as they try and cross the seas from Africa to Europe.
But there is another group of people seemingly totally overlooked - those who are displaced internally in a country. Relief Web reports:
"In 2007, the estimated number of people internally displaced as a result of armed confl icts and violence passed the 26 million mark. This is the highest fi gure since the early 1990s, and marks a six per cent increase from the 2006 fi gure of 24.5 million. The increase resulted from a combination of continued high level of new displacements (3.7 million) and a lower level of return movements (2.7 million) in 2007.
Three countries had signifi cantly larger internally displaced populations than any others: Colombia, Iraq and Sudan. Together they accounted for nearly 50 per cent of the world’s internally displaced people (IDPs).
At the end of 2007, Africa hosted almost half of the global IDP population (12.7 million) and generated nearly half of the world’s newly displaced (1.6 million). Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were the African countries worst affected by new internal displacement in 2007.
The region with the largest relative increase in the IDP population during 2007 was the Middle East, where a rise of nearly 30 per cent was mainly caused by a continuing deterioration of security conditions in Iraq."
But there is another group of people seemingly totally overlooked - those who are displaced internally in a country. Relief Web reports:
"In 2007, the estimated number of people internally displaced as a result of armed confl icts and violence passed the 26 million mark. This is the highest fi gure since the early 1990s, and marks a six per cent increase from the 2006 fi gure of 24.5 million. The increase resulted from a combination of continued high level of new displacements (3.7 million) and a lower level of return movements (2.7 million) in 2007.
Three countries had signifi cantly larger internally displaced populations than any others: Colombia, Iraq and Sudan. Together they accounted for nearly 50 per cent of the world’s internally displaced people (IDPs).
At the end of 2007, Africa hosted almost half of the global IDP population (12.7 million) and generated nearly half of the world’s newly displaced (1.6 million). Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo were the African countries worst affected by new internal displacement in 2007.
The region with the largest relative increase in the IDP population during 2007 was the Middle East, where a rise of nearly 30 per cent was mainly caused by a continuing deterioration of security conditions in Iraq."
Torture? Go for it!!!!
An "interesting" web site Condi must GO, here, well worth having a look at.
As the site says:
"America will not stand for a Secretary of State who approved torture and then misled Congress. We call on the Presidential candidates to ask Secretary of State Rice to resign".
There has been talk of Rice as VP to presidential aspirant McCain.
By the way this is the same Condi Rice who in a [Freudian?] slip of the tongue referred to George Bush "as my husband".........!!!!
On the subject of the White House sanctioning torture also worth reading is this piece on AlterNet "Torturers in the White House: Why Is This Story Being Ignored?".
As the site says:
"America will not stand for a Secretary of State who approved torture and then misled Congress. We call on the Presidential candidates to ask Secretary of State Rice to resign".
There has been talk of Rice as VP to presidential aspirant McCain.
By the way this is the same Condi Rice who in a [Freudian?] slip of the tongue referred to George Bush "as my husband".........!!!!
On the subject of the White House sanctioning torture also worth reading is this piece on AlterNet "Torturers in the White House: Why Is This Story Being Ignored?".
Thursday, April 17, 2008
Anyone looking for lost luggage?
Travel light, or without luggage at all, might be the go - if this report on TravelMole is accurate:
"A total of 42.4 million bags were mishandled or delayed in 2007 by airports and airlines last year, new figures show.
The air transport industry lost $3.8 billion because of growing pressures on baggage management linked to passenger volumes, tight aircraft turnaround times, and heightened security measures.
The industry is estimated to handle around 2.25 billion pieces of checked baggage every year.
The single largest cause of baggage delay was in transfer baggage mishandling at 49%, down from 61% in 2005.
This was followed by ticketing error/ passenger bag switch/ security/ other, 14%; failure to load, 16%; space-weight restriction, 5%; loading/offloading error, 5%; tagging errors, 3%; and arrival station mishandling, 8%.
The statistics come from SITA, the IT provider which tracks passenger baggage worldwide for the air transport industry."
"A total of 42.4 million bags were mishandled or delayed in 2007 by airports and airlines last year, new figures show.
The air transport industry lost $3.8 billion because of growing pressures on baggage management linked to passenger volumes, tight aircraft turnaround times, and heightened security measures.
The industry is estimated to handle around 2.25 billion pieces of checked baggage every year.
The single largest cause of baggage delay was in transfer baggage mishandling at 49%, down from 61% in 2005.
This was followed by ticketing error/ passenger bag switch/ security/ other, 14%; failure to load, 16%; space-weight restriction, 5%; loading/offloading error, 5%; tagging errors, 3%; and arrival station mishandling, 8%.
The statistics come from SITA, the IT provider which tracks passenger baggage worldwide for the air transport industry."
Is Google evil?
We all know that "googling" has entered main-stream language. Some would say one can't live without the Google facility even if only a small-time user of the internet.
Perhaps we ought not be all that comfortable about Google and all that entails. Mother Jones in a piece "Is Google evil?" explains:
"Every search engine gathers information about its users—primarily by sending us “cookies,” or text files that track our online movements. Most cookies expire within a few months or years. Google’s, though, don’t expire until 2038. Until then, when you use the company’s search engine or visit any of myriad affiliated sites, it will record what you search for and when, which links you click on, which ads you access. Google’s cookies can’t identify you by name, but they log your computer’s IP address; by way of metaphor, Google doesn’t have your driver’s license number, but it knows the license plate number of the car you are driving. And search queries are windows into our souls, as 658,000 AOL users learned when their search profiles were mistakenly posted on the Internet: Would user 1997374 have searched for information on better erections or cunnilingus if he’d known that AOL was recording every keystroke? Would user 22155378 have keyed in “marijuana detox” over and over knowing someone could play it all back for the world to see? If you’ve ever been seized by a morbid curiosity after a night of hard drinking, a search engine knows—and chances are it’s Google, which owns roughly half of the entire search market and processes more than 3 billion queries a month.
And Google knows far more than that. If you are a Gmail user, Google stashes copies of every email you send and receive. If you use any of its other products—Google Maps, Froogle, Google Book Search, Google Earth, Google Scholar, Talk, Images, Video, and News—it will keep track of which directions you seek, which products you shop for, which phrases you research in a book, which satellite photos and news stories you view, and on and on. Served up à la carte, this is probably no big deal. Many websites stow snippets of your data. The problem is that there’s nothing to prevent Google from combining all of this information to create detailed dossiers on its customers, something the company admits is possible in principle. Soon Google may even be able to keep track of users in the real world: Its latest move is into free wifi, which will require it to know your whereabouts (i.e., which router you are closest to)."
Perhaps we ought not be all that comfortable about Google and all that entails. Mother Jones in a piece "Is Google evil?" explains:
"Every search engine gathers information about its users—primarily by sending us “cookies,” or text files that track our online movements. Most cookies expire within a few months or years. Google’s, though, don’t expire until 2038. Until then, when you use the company’s search engine or visit any of myriad affiliated sites, it will record what you search for and when, which links you click on, which ads you access. Google’s cookies can’t identify you by name, but they log your computer’s IP address; by way of metaphor, Google doesn’t have your driver’s license number, but it knows the license plate number of the car you are driving. And search queries are windows into our souls, as 658,000 AOL users learned when their search profiles were mistakenly posted on the Internet: Would user 1997374 have searched for information on better erections or cunnilingus if he’d known that AOL was recording every keystroke? Would user 22155378 have keyed in “marijuana detox” over and over knowing someone could play it all back for the world to see? If you’ve ever been seized by a morbid curiosity after a night of hard drinking, a search engine knows—and chances are it’s Google, which owns roughly half of the entire search market and processes more than 3 billion queries a month.
And Google knows far more than that. If you are a Gmail user, Google stashes copies of every email you send and receive. If you use any of its other products—Google Maps, Froogle, Google Book Search, Google Earth, Google Scholar, Talk, Images, Video, and News—it will keep track of which directions you seek, which products you shop for, which phrases you research in a book, which satellite photos and news stories you view, and on and on. Served up à la carte, this is probably no big deal. Many websites stow snippets of your data. The problem is that there’s nothing to prevent Google from combining all of this information to create detailed dossiers on its customers, something the company admits is possible in principle. Soon Google may even be able to keep track of users in the real world: Its latest move is into free wifi, which will require it to know your whereabouts (i.e., which router you are closest to)."
"Are Americans unusually stupid?"
"Are Americans unusually stupid or is it something our president put in the water? ? As millions surrender their homes and sacrifice other standards of our nation’s economic and political reputation to the caprice of the Bush-Cheney imperium, a majority of voters tell pollsters that they might vote for a candidate who promises more of the same.
Assuming that likely voters are not now thinking of yet another Republican president simply because John McCain is the only white guy left standing—an excuse as pathetic in its logic as the decision four years ago to return two Texas oil hustlers to the White House because they were not Massachusetts liberals—must mean that tens of millions of Americans have taken leave of their senses.
If not the white-guy syndrome, why would even a shocking minority of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama supporters say they prefer McCain to the other Democrat? How otherwise to explain the nation’s widespread bipartisan rejection of the Bush presidency and yet a willingness to let McCain continue in that vein?"
Robert Scheer, writing on truthdig.com poses some interesting questions and issues which both Americans - who will, after all, be voting in the presidential elections - and the rest of the world which will have to live with the new President, whoever he or she is, need to consider.
Assuming that likely voters are not now thinking of yet another Republican president simply because John McCain is the only white guy left standing—an excuse as pathetic in its logic as the decision four years ago to return two Texas oil hustlers to the White House because they were not Massachusetts liberals—must mean that tens of millions of Americans have taken leave of their senses.
If not the white-guy syndrome, why would even a shocking minority of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama supporters say they prefer McCain to the other Democrat? How otherwise to explain the nation’s widespread bipartisan rejection of the Bush presidency and yet a willingness to let McCain continue in that vein?"
Robert Scheer, writing on truthdig.com poses some interesting questions and issues which both Americans - who will, after all, be voting in the presidential elections - and the rest of the world which will have to live with the new President, whoever he or she is, need to consider.
Praise, not pillory, him
The news overnight has been that in yet another clash between the Israelis and Palestinians, 3 Israeli soldiers were killed and 19 Gazans. It is reported that some of the Palestinians were children.
Meanwhile, former US President is visiting the Middle East - and plans on meeting the leadership of Hamas. Needless to say that intended visit has drawn flack from the usual suspects, including Israeli leadership, as The Guardian reports:
"Jimmy Carter faced a cold reception in Israel yesterday where senior political leaders avoided meeting him and the Israeli secret service declined to help the American agents guarding him".
However, Haaretz editorialises in "Our debt to Jimmy Carter" that Carter ought to be praised and supported in his move, not condemned:
"The government of Israel is boycotting Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, during his visit here this week. Ehud Olmert, who has not managed to achieve any peace agreement during his public life, and who even tried to undermine negotiations in the past, "could not find the time" to meet the American president who is a signatory to the peace agreement with Egypt. President Shimon Peres agreed to meet Carter, but made sure that he let it be known that he reprimanded his guest for wishing to meet with Khaled Meshal, as if the achievements of the Carter Center fall short of those of the Peres Center for Peace. Carter, who himself said he set out to achieve peace between Israel and Egypt from the day he assumed office, worked incessantly toward that goal and two years after becoming president succeeded - was declared persona non grata by Israel.
The boycott will not be remembered as a glorious moment in this government's history. Jimmy Carter has dedicated his life to humanitarian missions, to peace, to promoting democratic elections, and to better understanding between enemies throughout the world. Recently, he was involved in organizing the democratic elections in Nepal, following which a government will be set up that will include Maoist guerrillas who have laid down their arms. But Israelis have not liked him since he wrote the book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid."
Meanwhile, former US President is visiting the Middle East - and plans on meeting the leadership of Hamas. Needless to say that intended visit has drawn flack from the usual suspects, including Israeli leadership, as The Guardian reports:
"Jimmy Carter faced a cold reception in Israel yesterday where senior political leaders avoided meeting him and the Israeli secret service declined to help the American agents guarding him".
However, Haaretz editorialises in "Our debt to Jimmy Carter" that Carter ought to be praised and supported in his move, not condemned:
"The government of Israel is boycotting Jimmy Carter, the 39th president of the United States, during his visit here this week. Ehud Olmert, who has not managed to achieve any peace agreement during his public life, and who even tried to undermine negotiations in the past, "could not find the time" to meet the American president who is a signatory to the peace agreement with Egypt. President Shimon Peres agreed to meet Carter, but made sure that he let it be known that he reprimanded his guest for wishing to meet with Khaled Meshal, as if the achievements of the Carter Center fall short of those of the Peres Center for Peace. Carter, who himself said he set out to achieve peace between Israel and Egypt from the day he assumed office, worked incessantly toward that goal and two years after becoming president succeeded - was declared persona non grata by Israel.
The boycott will not be remembered as a glorious moment in this government's history. Jimmy Carter has dedicated his life to humanitarian missions, to peace, to promoting democratic elections, and to better understanding between enemies throughout the world. Recently, he was involved in organizing the democratic elections in Nepal, following which a government will be set up that will include Maoist guerrillas who have laid down their arms. But Israelis have not liked him since he wrote the book "Palestine: Peace not Apartheid."
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
60 years on.....no destiny!
As Israel approaches its 60th birthday, Uri Avnery writes on Information Clearing House:
"Next month, Israel will celebrate its 60th anniversary. The government is working feverishly to make this day into an occasion of joy and jubilation. While serious problems are crying out for funds, some 40 million dollars have been allocated to this aim.
Bur the nation is in no mood for celebrations. It is gloomy.
From all directions the government is blamed for this gloom. "They have no agenda" is the refrain, "Their only concern is their own survival." (The word "agenda", with its English pronunciation, is now fashionable in Israeli political circles, pushing aside a perfectly adequate Hebrew word.)".
And:
What does all this mean? That there is no agenda? No, it means that behind the fictitious agenda, which appears in the media, there hides another agenda that does not meet the eye.
"THE HIDDEN agenda is opposed to peace. Why?
"Conventional wisdom has it that the government does not pursue peace because it is afraid of the settlers and their supporters. The peace that is being talked about - the peace of Two States for Two Peoples - demands the dismantling of dozens of settlements, including those which harbor the political and ideological leadership of the whole movement. That would mean a declaration of war on all the 250 thousand settlers, apart from those who will leave voluntarily for generous compensation. The current argument is that the government is too weak for such a confrontation."
And:
"But all these maps were only games. The real Zionist vision does not recognize any maps. It is a vision of a state without borders - a state that expands at all times according to its demographic, military and political power. The Zionist strategy resembles the waters of a river flowing to the sea. The river snakes through the landscape, goes around obstacles, turns left and right, flowing sometimes on the surface and sometimes underground, and on its way takes in more springs. In the end it reaches its destination.
That is the real agenda, unchanging, hidden, conscious and unconscious. It does not need decisions, formulations or maps, because it is encoded in the genes of the movement. This explains, among other things, the phenomenon described in the report of senior prosecution lawyer Talia Sasson on the settlements: that all the organs of the establishment, the government and the military, without any official coordination but with miraculously effective cooperation, acted to set up the "illegal" settlements. Every one of the thousands of officials and officers who spent decades involved in this enterprise knew exactly what to do, even without receiving any instructions."
"Next month, Israel will celebrate its 60th anniversary. The government is working feverishly to make this day into an occasion of joy and jubilation. While serious problems are crying out for funds, some 40 million dollars have been allocated to this aim.
Bur the nation is in no mood for celebrations. It is gloomy.
From all directions the government is blamed for this gloom. "They have no agenda" is the refrain, "Their only concern is their own survival." (The word "agenda", with its English pronunciation, is now fashionable in Israeli political circles, pushing aside a perfectly adequate Hebrew word.)".
And:
What does all this mean? That there is no agenda? No, it means that behind the fictitious agenda, which appears in the media, there hides another agenda that does not meet the eye.
"THE HIDDEN agenda is opposed to peace. Why?
"Conventional wisdom has it that the government does not pursue peace because it is afraid of the settlers and their supporters. The peace that is being talked about - the peace of Two States for Two Peoples - demands the dismantling of dozens of settlements, including those which harbor the political and ideological leadership of the whole movement. That would mean a declaration of war on all the 250 thousand settlers, apart from those who will leave voluntarily for generous compensation. The current argument is that the government is too weak for such a confrontation."
And:
"But all these maps were only games. The real Zionist vision does not recognize any maps. It is a vision of a state without borders - a state that expands at all times according to its demographic, military and political power. The Zionist strategy resembles the waters of a river flowing to the sea. The river snakes through the landscape, goes around obstacles, turns left and right, flowing sometimes on the surface and sometimes underground, and on its way takes in more springs. In the end it reaches its destination.
That is the real agenda, unchanging, hidden, conscious and unconscious. It does not need decisions, formulations or maps, because it is encoded in the genes of the movement. This explains, among other things, the phenomenon described in the report of senior prosecution lawyer Talia Sasson on the settlements: that all the organs of the establishment, the government and the military, without any official coordination but with miraculously effective cooperation, acted to set up the "illegal" settlements. Every one of the thousands of officials and officers who spent decades involved in this enterprise knew exactly what to do, even without receiving any instructions."
More time off!
"Oh, to be able to read a book! To lie down on the beach and hear just the waves breaking instead of all that rush-hour traffic! To have time to just sit there, instead of always doing something!
Or that's how I imagine the internal conversations of the poll respondents. Ezra Klein points out that leisure time was rated more desirable in the poll than careers, marriages and having children".
Really no surprise that the above reflects what Americans want - as found by the Pew Research Centre's national public opinion survey - as reported, and considered, in a piece in Nation.
Read on here.
Or that's how I imagine the internal conversations of the poll respondents. Ezra Klein points out that leisure time was rated more desirable in the poll than careers, marriages and having children".
Really no surprise that the above reflects what Americans want - as found by the Pew Research Centre's national public opinion survey - as reported, and considered, in a piece in Nation.
Read on here.
Tuesday, April 15, 2008
Muslims, the Koran and secular law
Shahram Akbarzadeh is deputy director of the National Centre of Excellence for Islamic Studies, University of Melbourne. He is therefore well-qualified to write on Muslims in Australia.
In a piece in today's Australian newspaper "Muslim majority wants secular law" Akbarzadeh writes:
"There is a presumption about Muslims' inability to live under secular rule that rests on the view that they live by strict Koranic codes that are incompatible with the modern way of life in Australia. This is false on two grounds.
First, most Australian Muslims are not affiliated with any religious organisation, do not attend mosque or send their children to Islamic schools. They may pray in the privacy of their homes but would not wear their religion on their sleeves. This group is best described as cultural Muslims.
Islam is the religion they are born into and proud of, and anything short of this would be tantamount to rejecting their heritage. Islam is part of their identity, as is social-familial status, political affiliations and ethnic background. But Islam is not the sole pillar of identity. This group is as comfortable with the laws that govern Australia as any of their non-Muslim neighbours; that is, they drive over the speed limit on occasion and try to dodge taxes if they can.
A lot of public debate about Muslims ignores this large demographic group. Instead, the focus is often on the more religiously devout and organised sections of Australian Muslims. There is a good reason for that. Cultural Muslims are the silent majority, as they don't organise and present their case under the rubric of Islam. It is not that cultural Muslims lack organisational skills. But as far as they are concerned, why form an Islamic society when they could form an ethnic or social club? The latter is more inclusive and allows for a broader cultural appeal than religiously oriented associations.
But by going down this path, cultural Muslims have been excluded (wittingly or unwittingly) from the public debate on Islam. The Coalition government effectively ignored ethnic Muslim groups when forming the Muslim Reference Group. These communities were not seen as representing the interests of Australian Muslims. But the reality was the reverse. The appointed reference group was drawn from a small pool of religious leaders and had little authority in the ethnically diverse Muslim communities, least of all among youth. This was a critical flaw."
In a piece in today's Australian newspaper "Muslim majority wants secular law" Akbarzadeh writes:
"There is a presumption about Muslims' inability to live under secular rule that rests on the view that they live by strict Koranic codes that are incompatible with the modern way of life in Australia. This is false on two grounds.
First, most Australian Muslims are not affiliated with any religious organisation, do not attend mosque or send their children to Islamic schools. They may pray in the privacy of their homes but would not wear their religion on their sleeves. This group is best described as cultural Muslims.
Islam is the religion they are born into and proud of, and anything short of this would be tantamount to rejecting their heritage. Islam is part of their identity, as is social-familial status, political affiliations and ethnic background. But Islam is not the sole pillar of identity. This group is as comfortable with the laws that govern Australia as any of their non-Muslim neighbours; that is, they drive over the speed limit on occasion and try to dodge taxes if they can.
A lot of public debate about Muslims ignores this large demographic group. Instead, the focus is often on the more religiously devout and organised sections of Australian Muslims. There is a good reason for that. Cultural Muslims are the silent majority, as they don't organise and present their case under the rubric of Islam. It is not that cultural Muslims lack organisational skills. But as far as they are concerned, why form an Islamic society when they could form an ethnic or social club? The latter is more inclusive and allows for a broader cultural appeal than religiously oriented associations.
But by going down this path, cultural Muslims have been excluded (wittingly or unwittingly) from the public debate on Islam. The Coalition government effectively ignored ethnic Muslim groups when forming the Muslim Reference Group. These communities were not seen as representing the interests of Australian Muslims. But the reality was the reverse. The appointed reference group was drawn from a small pool of religious leaders and had little authority in the ethnically diverse Muslim communities, least of all among youth. This was a critical flaw."
Roll up, roll up... for the torture demonstration
Nothing better demonstrates the shallowness and indecency of the Bush Administration than the fact, as the US ABC TV network revealed last week, that CIA provided a "demonstration" of torture techniques at the White House.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editorial Board takes up the issue in "Torture: Beyond the pale" on seattlepi.com:
"The image of CIA officers demonstrating and detailing torture techniques considered for use during detainee interrogations in the White House is one most Americans could probably never conceive. And yet, ABC News reported last week that senior Bush administration officials were privy to such presentations in the Situation Room as they discussed and approved the brutal treatment (such as waterboarding) of terror suspects. They also approved combining various techniques to be used on a suspect.
Included in the group were Vice President Dick Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (currently a lead contender for vice president on the Republican ticket), former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell. Regarding the use of the techniques, Rice told the CIA: "This is your baby. Go do it," as though assigning a casual project or giving a pep talk.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft was also part of this committee, and while he was fine with the torture techniques, he was uncomfortable with the fact that the White House knew so much about them -- doing so blows the whole "plausible deniability" argument. A former intelligence official told The Associated Press that the meetings were timed to the Justice Department memos approving the use of the techniques.
We agree with the American Civil Liberties Union calling for a congressional investigation into the matter. The fact that we torture suspects is unacceptable. That the White House reviewed and approved the techniques is beyond the pale."
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer Editorial Board takes up the issue in "Torture: Beyond the pale" on seattlepi.com:
"The image of CIA officers demonstrating and detailing torture techniques considered for use during detainee interrogations in the White House is one most Americans could probably never conceive. And yet, ABC News reported last week that senior Bush administration officials were privy to such presentations in the Situation Room as they discussed and approved the brutal treatment (such as waterboarding) of terror suspects. They also approved combining various techniques to be used on a suspect.
Included in the group were Vice President Dick Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (currently a lead contender for vice president on the Republican ticket), former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell. Regarding the use of the techniques, Rice told the CIA: "This is your baby. Go do it," as though assigning a casual project or giving a pep talk.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft was also part of this committee, and while he was fine with the torture techniques, he was uncomfortable with the fact that the White House knew so much about them -- doing so blows the whole "plausible deniability" argument. A former intelligence official told The Associated Press that the meetings were timed to the Justice Department memos approving the use of the techniques.
We agree with the American Civil Liberties Union calling for a congressional investigation into the matter. The fact that we torture suspects is unacceptable. That the White House reviewed and approved the techniques is beyond the pale."
Now you see it, now you don't!
One might have thought that as the Obama-Clinton show grinds on, and with the ever-looming presidential election, that the war in Iraq might rank highly on the political agenda in the US. Not so. By all accounts the populace just don't want to know. It's a bit of yawn!
It's a subject that veteran journalist, Frank Rich, addresses in his weekly op-ed column "Why Americans Are Tuning out the Disaster in Iraq" in the NY Times [reproduced on AlterNet]:
"Most Americans don’t want to hear, see or feel anything about Iraq, whether they support the war or oppose it. They want to look away, period, and have been doing so for some time.
That’s why last week’s testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker was a nonevent beyond Washington. The cable networks duly presented the first day of hearings, but only, it seemed, because the show could be hyped as an “American Idol”-like competition in foreign-policy one-upmanship for the three remaining presidential candidates, all senators. When the hearings migrated to the House the next day, they vanished into the same black media hole where nearly all Iraq news now goes. If the Olympic torch hadn’t provided an excuse to cut away, no doubt any handy weather disturbance would have served instead.
The simple explanation for why we shun the war is that it has gone so badly. But another answer was provided in the hearings by Senator George Voinovich of Ohio, one of the growing number of Republican lawmakers who no longer bothers to hide his exasperation. He put his finger on the collective sense of shame (not to be confused with collective guilt) that has attended America’s Iraq project. “The truth of the matter,” Mr. Voinovich said, is that “we haven’t sacrificed one darn bit in this war, not one. Never been asked to pay for a dime, except for the people that we lost.”
This is how the war planners wanted it, of course. No new taxes, no draft, no photos of coffins, no inconveniences that might compel voters to ask tough questions. This strategy would have worked if the war had been the promised cakewalk. But now it has backfired. A home front that has not been asked to invest directly in a war, that has subcontracted it to a relatively small group of volunteers, can hardly be expected to feel it has a stake in the outcome five stalemated years on."
It's a subject that veteran journalist, Frank Rich, addresses in his weekly op-ed column "Why Americans Are Tuning out the Disaster in Iraq" in the NY Times [reproduced on AlterNet]:
"Most Americans don’t want to hear, see or feel anything about Iraq, whether they support the war or oppose it. They want to look away, period, and have been doing so for some time.
That’s why last week’s testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Ambassador Ryan Crocker was a nonevent beyond Washington. The cable networks duly presented the first day of hearings, but only, it seemed, because the show could be hyped as an “American Idol”-like competition in foreign-policy one-upmanship for the three remaining presidential candidates, all senators. When the hearings migrated to the House the next day, they vanished into the same black media hole where nearly all Iraq news now goes. If the Olympic torch hadn’t provided an excuse to cut away, no doubt any handy weather disturbance would have served instead.
The simple explanation for why we shun the war is that it has gone so badly. But another answer was provided in the hearings by Senator George Voinovich of Ohio, one of the growing number of Republican lawmakers who no longer bothers to hide his exasperation. He put his finger on the collective sense of shame (not to be confused with collective guilt) that has attended America’s Iraq project. “The truth of the matter,” Mr. Voinovich said, is that “we haven’t sacrificed one darn bit in this war, not one. Never been asked to pay for a dime, except for the people that we lost.”
This is how the war planners wanted it, of course. No new taxes, no draft, no photos of coffins, no inconveniences that might compel voters to ask tough questions. This strategy would have worked if the war had been the promised cakewalk. But now it has backfired. A home front that has not been asked to invest directly in a war, that has subcontracted it to a relatively small group of volunteers, can hardly be expected to feel it has a stake in the outcome five stalemated years on."
Afghanistan: In reverse mode
Waleed Aly, writing an op-ed piece in The Age, "War Without Freedom", paints a depressing picture of life in Afghanistan - especially for its women - despite all the expectations and promises that with the Western nations moving in that things would get better for the country and its people :
"Afghanistan used to be our feel-good war. The regime really did turn out to have links with terrorists, and al-Qaeda suffered heavy losses there, at least until we invaded Iraq and breathed life into global terrorism. But above all, Afghanistan delivered the altruism of liberation long after similar ideals evaporated in the violent chaos of Iraq.
With the Taliban gone, and Hamid Karzai installed as President, freedom would be irrepressible. The people of Afghanistan would once more be enchanted by music and warmed by the glow of television.
Most symbolic were the Afghan women. No more beatings, no more repression, and especially, no more burqas. They would march in the Taliban's wake towards the equality with which we endowed them.
So the troops went in, and we looked elsewhere. With Iraq in turmoil, Afghanistan became the forgotten war. Last month's fifth anniversary of the Iraqi invasion inspired a wave of reflective commentary. Scan the papers in early October 2006, the fifth anniversary of the Afghan war, and you'll find barely a trickle. Perhaps we just assumed all was well.
But it isn't. The Taliban is resurgent, and al-Qaeda is flourishing again. Just this week NATO said it would send significantly more troops in 2009.
And what of the women? There's news here, too, and it's not terribly inspiring.
A recent report by British-based women's rights group Womankind has concluded that Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman. Around 80% of women are affected by domestic violence; over 60% of marriages are forced, some of them between elderly men and girls as young as eight; half of Afghanistan's girls are married before the age of 16."
"Afghanistan used to be our feel-good war. The regime really did turn out to have links with terrorists, and al-Qaeda suffered heavy losses there, at least until we invaded Iraq and breathed life into global terrorism. But above all, Afghanistan delivered the altruism of liberation long after similar ideals evaporated in the violent chaos of Iraq.
With the Taliban gone, and Hamid Karzai installed as President, freedom would be irrepressible. The people of Afghanistan would once more be enchanted by music and warmed by the glow of television.
Most symbolic were the Afghan women. No more beatings, no more repression, and especially, no more burqas. They would march in the Taliban's wake towards the equality with which we endowed them.
So the troops went in, and we looked elsewhere. With Iraq in turmoil, Afghanistan became the forgotten war. Last month's fifth anniversary of the Iraqi invasion inspired a wave of reflective commentary. Scan the papers in early October 2006, the fifth anniversary of the Afghan war, and you'll find barely a trickle. Perhaps we just assumed all was well.
But it isn't. The Taliban is resurgent, and al-Qaeda is flourishing again. Just this week NATO said it would send significantly more troops in 2009.
And what of the women? There's news here, too, and it's not terribly inspiring.
A recent report by British-based women's rights group Womankind has concluded that Afghanistan remains one of the most dangerous places in the world to be a woman. Around 80% of women are affected by domestic violence; over 60% of marriages are forced, some of them between elderly men and girls as young as eight; half of Afghanistan's girls are married before the age of 16."
Monday, April 14, 2008
Judging the judges-to-be
There are probably few countries in the world where a person nominated to be a justice of the highest court in the land is subjected to an "interrogation" by members of the legislature. Unusually, the US is one of those countries.
There have been questionable nominations - and confirmations. Clarence Thomas is one those.
The NY Times in an editorial counsels the Senate Judiciary Committee to take their task more seriously and probe more deeply, given a study just released which shows that what is said to the Committee is mostly not reflected in how the justice acts when on they eventually get onto the Bench.
"It is hard to imagine a more solemn responsibility than confirming the nomination of a Supreme Court justice. And we have worried, especially in recent years, that nominees are far too carefully packaged and coached on how to duck all of the hard questions.
A new study supports our fears: Supreme Court nominees present themselves one way at confirmation hearings but act differently on the court. That makes it difficult for senators to cast informed votes or for the public to play a meaningful role in the process.
The study — with the unwieldy title “An Empirical Analysis of the Confirmation Hearings of the Justices of the Rehnquist Natural Court” —published in Constitutional Commentary, looked at how nine long-serving justices answered Senate questions, and how they then voted on the court. While it does not say that any nominee was intentionally misleading, it still found a wide gap."
There have been questionable nominations - and confirmations. Clarence Thomas is one those.
The NY Times in an editorial counsels the Senate Judiciary Committee to take their task more seriously and probe more deeply, given a study just released which shows that what is said to the Committee is mostly not reflected in how the justice acts when on they eventually get onto the Bench.
"It is hard to imagine a more solemn responsibility than confirming the nomination of a Supreme Court justice. And we have worried, especially in recent years, that nominees are far too carefully packaged and coached on how to duck all of the hard questions.
A new study supports our fears: Supreme Court nominees present themselves one way at confirmation hearings but act differently on the court. That makes it difficult for senators to cast informed votes or for the public to play a meaningful role in the process.
The study — with the unwieldy title “An Empirical Analysis of the Confirmation Hearings of the Justices of the Rehnquist Natural Court” —published in Constitutional Commentary, looked at how nine long-serving justices answered Senate questions, and how they then voted on the court. While it does not say that any nominee was intentionally misleading, it still found a wide gap."
Tibet, the Olympics and China's youth
Matthew Forney, a former Beijing bureau chief for Time, is writing a book about raising his family in China.
From a different, and perhaps an "inside" perspective, on how the youth of China view all the brew ha-ha in relation to Tibet, the Dalai Lama and the upcoming Olympics, writing an op-ed piece in the NY Times Forney says:
"Many sympathetic Westerners view Chinese society along the lines of what they saw in the waning days of the Soviet Union: a repressive government backed by old hard-liners losing its grip to a new generation of well-educated, liberal-leaning sophisticates. As pleasant as this outlook may be, it’s naïve. Educated young Chinese, far from being embarrassed or upset by their government’s human-rights record, rank among the most patriotic, establishment-supporting people you’ll meet.
As is clear to anyone who lives here, most young ethnic Chinese strongly support their government’s suppression of the recent Tibetan uprising. One Chinese friend who has a degree from a European university described the conflict to me as “a clash between the commercial world and an old aboriginal society.” She even praised her government for treating Tibetans better than New World settlers treated Native Americans.
It’s a rare person in China who considers the desires of the Tibetans themselves. “Young Chinese have no sympathy for Tibet,” a Beijing human-rights lawyer named Teng Biao told me. Mr. Teng — a Han Chinese who has offered to defend Tibetan monks caught up in police dragnets — feels very alone these days. Most people in their 20s, he says, “believe the Dalai Lama is trying to split China.”
From a different, and perhaps an "inside" perspective, on how the youth of China view all the brew ha-ha in relation to Tibet, the Dalai Lama and the upcoming Olympics, writing an op-ed piece in the NY Times Forney says:
"Many sympathetic Westerners view Chinese society along the lines of what they saw in the waning days of the Soviet Union: a repressive government backed by old hard-liners losing its grip to a new generation of well-educated, liberal-leaning sophisticates. As pleasant as this outlook may be, it’s naïve. Educated young Chinese, far from being embarrassed or upset by their government’s human-rights record, rank among the most patriotic, establishment-supporting people you’ll meet.
As is clear to anyone who lives here, most young ethnic Chinese strongly support their government’s suppression of the recent Tibetan uprising. One Chinese friend who has a degree from a European university described the conflict to me as “a clash between the commercial world and an old aboriginal society.” She even praised her government for treating Tibetans better than New World settlers treated Native Americans.
It’s a rare person in China who considers the desires of the Tibetans themselves. “Young Chinese have no sympathy for Tibet,” a Beijing human-rights lawyer named Teng Biao told me. Mr. Teng — a Han Chinese who has offered to defend Tibetan monks caught up in police dragnets — feels very alone these days. Most people in their 20s, he says, “believe the Dalai Lama is trying to split China.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)