What does happen to all those old unwanted and regularly discarded computers and mobile / cell phones? It's a real problem and something addressed in a report issued by the UN this week.
SpiegelOnlineInternational reports:
"This week the United Nations released a report on the problems surrounding the recycling of electronic scrap, known as e-waste. Millions of tons of old computers and phones on the scrap heaps of the world contain more gold and silver than the average mine. What is needed is better and safer recycling.
Mankind goes to an immense effort to extract metal from out of the ground. We dig holes thousands of meters deep into the earth, blow up mountains and dig laboriously in sand dunes.
But in fact, there are much easier ways to find precious metals. There is a treasure trove of gold and silver stored in household and industrial trash -- in discarded electrical devices, to be more exact. According to a report by the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP) around 40 million tons worth of electronics end up in the trash annually. The report was released on Monday at a meeting of environmental officials from 140 countries on Indonesia's resort island of Bali.
Recycling these materials properly would assist in preserving the earth's stocks of raw materials, says Rüdiger Kühr of the United Nations University (UNU) who is also the executive secretary of the Solving the E-Waste Problem Initiative (StEP), a consortium of non-governmental organizations, industry, and governments. And the yield would be many times larger than that of traditional mines."
Sunday, February 28, 2010
Yes, you read correctly!
Yes, it's hard to believe, but Abbey Zimet, writing on CommonDreams, reveals the newest dimension to attacking Obama by the extreme right-wing nutters who have already given us "the birthers", Obama is a Muslim, etc. etc."Okay, loonies, this takes the nefarious cake. Right-wing blogs are aflutter 'cause the new logo of the Missile Defense Agency sort of has a - gasp! - crescent and star, which makes it part of "an increasingly obvious and worrying pattern of official U.S. submission to Islam," which is all a plot by Comrade Obama, whose campaign logo also looks suspiciously like...Oh treachery! Oh insanity!"
Saturday, February 27, 2010
Tom [Friedman] revises history - again!
FAIR rightly takes to task Tom Friedman [NY Times op-ed writer] on his latest column - where, as a supporter of the Iraq war, he now does more than a bit of revision on the grounds for going to war:
"In his New York Times column today (2/24/10), Tom Friedman presents a bizarre view of the Iraq War. Attempting to answer the question of whether Iraq is dysfunctional because of its culture (the "conservative" argument) or because of its politics (the "liberal" argument), he writes:
Ironically, though, it was the neo-conservative Bush team that argued that culture didn’t matter in Iraq, and that the prospect of democracy and self-rule would automatically bring Iraqis together to bury the past. While many liberals and realists contended that Iraq was an irredeemable tribal hornet's nest and we should not be sticking our hand in there; it was place where the past would always bury the future.
But stick we did, and in so doing we gave Iraqis a chance to do something no other Arab people have ever had a chance to do: freely write their own social contract on how they would like to rule themselves and live together.
Of course, most readers might recall that there was another rationale for invading Iraq--the imminent threat posed by their stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Those did not exist. Many war opponents--presumably some "liberals and realists" among them--opposed the invasion because they thought this threat was exaggerated. Others believed, just as importantly, that it was illegal to attack a country that was not about to launch an imminent attack of its own, regardless of how you feel about that country's leader. The (somewhat racist) notion that war critics saw Iraq as "an irredeemable tribal hornet's nest" is mostly a distraction.
As for Friedman's idea about what the war intended to accomplish: Was it really to allow Iraqis to "freely write their own social contract on how they would like to rule themselves and live together"? As Anthony Shadid recalled in the New York Times on Sunday, Order No. 1 from Paul Bremer after the invasion banned members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. The effect of that order lingers to this day, as political candidates continue to be banned from participating in Iraqi politics because of their Baathist connections. Seth Ackerman wrote in Extra! (5-6/05) about the Bush administration's efforts to make the Iraqi elections as undemocratic as possible.
Erasing the inconvenient history of the Iraq War removes the essential lies that were told in order to sell the war."
"In his New York Times column today (2/24/10), Tom Friedman presents a bizarre view of the Iraq War. Attempting to answer the question of whether Iraq is dysfunctional because of its culture (the "conservative" argument) or because of its politics (the "liberal" argument), he writes:
Ironically, though, it was the neo-conservative Bush team that argued that culture didn’t matter in Iraq, and that the prospect of democracy and self-rule would automatically bring Iraqis together to bury the past. While many liberals and realists contended that Iraq was an irredeemable tribal hornet's nest and we should not be sticking our hand in there; it was place where the past would always bury the future.
But stick we did, and in so doing we gave Iraqis a chance to do something no other Arab people have ever had a chance to do: freely write their own social contract on how they would like to rule themselves and live together.
Of course, most readers might recall that there was another rationale for invading Iraq--the imminent threat posed by their stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Those did not exist. Many war opponents--presumably some "liberals and realists" among them--opposed the invasion because they thought this threat was exaggerated. Others believed, just as importantly, that it was illegal to attack a country that was not about to launch an imminent attack of its own, regardless of how you feel about that country's leader. The (somewhat racist) notion that war critics saw Iraq as "an irredeemable tribal hornet's nest" is mostly a distraction.
As for Friedman's idea about what the war intended to accomplish: Was it really to allow Iraqis to "freely write their own social contract on how they would like to rule themselves and live together"? As Anthony Shadid recalled in the New York Times on Sunday, Order No. 1 from Paul Bremer after the invasion banned members of Saddam Hussein's Baath Party. The effect of that order lingers to this day, as political candidates continue to be banned from participating in Iraqi politics because of their Baathist connections. Seth Ackerman wrote in Extra! (5-6/05) about the Bush administration's efforts to make the Iraqi elections as undemocratic as possible.
Erasing the inconvenient history of the Iraq War removes the essential lies that were told in order to sell the war."
The New Rules of War
From an article "The New Rules of War" on FP:
"Every day, the U.S. military spends $1.75 billion, much of it on big ships, big guns, and big battalions that are not only not needed to win the wars of the present, but are sure to be the wrong approach to waging the wars of the future.
In this, the ninth year of the first great conflict between nations and networks, America's armed forces have failed, as militaries so often do, to adapt sufficiently to changed conditions, finding out the hard way that their enemies often remain a step ahead. The U.S. military floundered for years in Iraq, then proved itself unable to grasp the point, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, that old-school surges of ground troops do not offer enduring solutions to new-style conflicts with networked adversaries."
And, most critically important, and a grave cause for concern:
"Which brings us to war in the age of information. The technological breakthroughs of the last two decades -- comparable in world-shaking scope to those at the Industrial Revolution's outset two centuries ago -- coincided with a new moment of global political instability after the Cold War. Yet most militaries are entering this era with the familiar pattern of belief that new technological tools will simply reinforce existing practices."
"Every day, the U.S. military spends $1.75 billion, much of it on big ships, big guns, and big battalions that are not only not needed to win the wars of the present, but are sure to be the wrong approach to waging the wars of the future.
In this, the ninth year of the first great conflict between nations and networks, America's armed forces have failed, as militaries so often do, to adapt sufficiently to changed conditions, finding out the hard way that their enemies often remain a step ahead. The U.S. military floundered for years in Iraq, then proved itself unable to grasp the point, in both Iraq and Afghanistan, that old-school surges of ground troops do not offer enduring solutions to new-style conflicts with networked adversaries."
And, most critically important, and a grave cause for concern:
"Which brings us to war in the age of information. The technological breakthroughs of the last two decades -- comparable in world-shaking scope to those at the Industrial Revolution's outset two centuries ago -- coincided with a new moment of global political instability after the Cold War. Yet most militaries are entering this era with the familiar pattern of belief that new technological tools will simply reinforce existing practices."
10,000,000,000 and counting
It's hard to get one's head around the figure, but Apple yesterday notched up a mere 10,000,000,000 [that's 10 billion] downloads from its iTunes.
As TUAW comments:
"This represents a huge milestone for both Apple and the music industry. Apple has revolutionized the music industry with the iPod and iTunes. It seems like only yesterday that Apple sold the 500 millionth song to much fanfare. It's pretty clear that this whole digital music thing has really caught on."
As TUAW comments:
"This represents a huge milestone for both Apple and the music industry. Apple has revolutionized the music industry with the iPod and iTunes. It seems like only yesterday that Apple sold the 500 millionth song to much fanfare. It's pretty clear that this whole digital music thing has really caught on."
Friday, February 26, 2010
Remember Haiti? Now read about the aid racket....
The scenes out of Haiti a while back caused by the devastating earthquake - and then the aftershocks - are hard to forget.
The media rushed in headlong - and reported steadily and regularly - and then it all evaporated as they moved onto whatever next seemed newsworthy. Now the Haitians are still there, of course, trying to comes to grips with what has befallen them.
Ashley Smith, writing on counterpunch in "Haiti and the Air Racket" deals with the aid racket now underway in the devastated country:
"It's now more than a month since the earthquake that laid waste to Port-au-Prince, killing more than 200,000 people and thrusting millions of people into the most desperate conditions.
But according to the U.S. government, Haitians have a lot to be thankful for.
On February 12, the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Ken Merten boasted, "In terms of humanitarian aid delivery...frankly, it's working really well, and I believe that this will be something that people will be able to look back on in the future as a model for how we've been able to sort ourselves out as donors on the ground and responding to an earthquake."
Bill Quigley, the legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, had a simple response to Merten's claim: "What? Haiti is a model of how the international government and donor community should respond to an earthquake? The ambassador must be overworked and need some R&R. Look at the facts."
What are the facts? The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that "more than 3 million people--one in every three Haitians--were severely affected by the earthquake, of whom 2 million need regular food aid. Over 1.1 million people are homeless, many of them still living under sheets and cardboard in makeshift camps. The government of Haiti estimates that at least 300,000 people were injured during the quake."
So far, the relief effort has only managed to provide 270,000 people with basic shelters like tents. More than 1 million people still have little access to food and water and have to scrape by to find sustenance. Even worse, because the relief operation is so inefficient, Haitians report that some of the food spends so long at the airport that it is rotten by the time it gets to the hungry."
And:
"Despite the good intentions of the many aid workers swarming around the UN base, much of the aid coming through the larger organizations is still blocked in storage, waiting for the required UN and U.S. military escorts that are seen as essential for distribution. Meanwhile, people in the camps are suffering, and their tolerance is waning."
The media rushed in headlong - and reported steadily and regularly - and then it all evaporated as they moved onto whatever next seemed newsworthy. Now the Haitians are still there, of course, trying to comes to grips with what has befallen them.
Ashley Smith, writing on counterpunch in "Haiti and the Air Racket" deals with the aid racket now underway in the devastated country:
"It's now more than a month since the earthquake that laid waste to Port-au-Prince, killing more than 200,000 people and thrusting millions of people into the most desperate conditions.
But according to the U.S. government, Haitians have a lot to be thankful for.
On February 12, the U.S. Ambassador to Haiti Ken Merten boasted, "In terms of humanitarian aid delivery...frankly, it's working really well, and I believe that this will be something that people will be able to look back on in the future as a model for how we've been able to sort ourselves out as donors on the ground and responding to an earthquake."
Bill Quigley, the legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, had a simple response to Merten's claim: "What? Haiti is a model of how the international government and donor community should respond to an earthquake? The ambassador must be overworked and need some R&R. Look at the facts."
What are the facts? The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports that "more than 3 million people--one in every three Haitians--were severely affected by the earthquake, of whom 2 million need regular food aid. Over 1.1 million people are homeless, many of them still living under sheets and cardboard in makeshift camps. The government of Haiti estimates that at least 300,000 people were injured during the quake."
So far, the relief effort has only managed to provide 270,000 people with basic shelters like tents. More than 1 million people still have little access to food and water and have to scrape by to find sustenance. Even worse, because the relief operation is so inefficient, Haitians report that some of the food spends so long at the airport that it is rotten by the time it gets to the hungry."
And:
"Despite the good intentions of the many aid workers swarming around the UN base, much of the aid coming through the larger organizations is still blocked in storage, waiting for the required UN and U.S. military escorts that are seen as essential for distribution. Meanwhile, people in the camps are suffering, and their tolerance is waning."
Kofi Annan: As long as Palestinians are occupied, passions will be inflamed
An extract from a lecture given by Kofi Annan [former UN Secretary-General] in The Guardian:
"Globalisation will not bring peace or prosperity unless we all share fairly in its benefits. To regain legitimacy, the global economy must be guided by an ethical framework that addresses the gross inequalities in our world, and meets the basic needs and aspirations of people everywhere.
Nor can our global institutions play their essential role in building consensus and bridging divides unless they are reformed to reflect the realities of today rather than 60 years ago. We are seeing new powers emerging eager to share global responsibilities. Respecting diversity on the world stage means giving them the opportunity to play their role.
Rather than be alarmed, we should welcome this return to multipolarity. It will require reconciling a more diverse set of interests and values but it promises a much stronger foundation to address shared threats and challenges. All of these are important steps which will help improve relations between countries. But they will have limited impact if the current climate of fear and suspicion continues to be re-fuelled by political events, especially those in which Muslim peoples... are seen as victims of military action by non-Muslim powers.
We may wish to think of the Arab-Israeli conflict as just one regional conflict amongst many. It is not. As I know from my time at the United Nations, no other conflict carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge among people far removed from the battlefield. As long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation, passions will be everywhere inflamed.
It may seem unfair that progress in improving relations between fellow citizens should be held hostage to a solution of one of humanity's most intractable political problems. And certainly the lack of such a solution must not be used as an excuse for neglecting other issues. But in the end the linkage cannot be wished away.
We need urgently to work on both fronts at once – seeking both to improve social and cultural understanding between peoples and, at the same time, to resolve political conflicts, in the Middle East and elsewhere."
"Globalisation will not bring peace or prosperity unless we all share fairly in its benefits. To regain legitimacy, the global economy must be guided by an ethical framework that addresses the gross inequalities in our world, and meets the basic needs and aspirations of people everywhere.
Nor can our global institutions play their essential role in building consensus and bridging divides unless they are reformed to reflect the realities of today rather than 60 years ago. We are seeing new powers emerging eager to share global responsibilities. Respecting diversity on the world stage means giving them the opportunity to play their role.
Rather than be alarmed, we should welcome this return to multipolarity. It will require reconciling a more diverse set of interests and values but it promises a much stronger foundation to address shared threats and challenges. All of these are important steps which will help improve relations between countries. But they will have limited impact if the current climate of fear and suspicion continues to be re-fuelled by political events, especially those in which Muslim peoples... are seen as victims of military action by non-Muslim powers.
We may wish to think of the Arab-Israeli conflict as just one regional conflict amongst many. It is not. As I know from my time at the United Nations, no other conflict carries such a powerful symbolic and emotional charge among people far removed from the battlefield. As long as the Palestinians live under occupation, exposed to daily frustration and humiliation, passions will be everywhere inflamed.
It may seem unfair that progress in improving relations between fellow citizens should be held hostage to a solution of one of humanity's most intractable political problems. And certainly the lack of such a solution must not be used as an excuse for neglecting other issues. But in the end the linkage cannot be wished away.
We need urgently to work on both fronts at once – seeking both to improve social and cultural understanding between peoples and, at the same time, to resolve political conflicts, in the Middle East and elsewhere."
Thursday, February 25, 2010
Death of Rachel Corrie goes to Court
Rachel Corrie, allegedly killed by the Israelis some years ago, has been the focal point of a play, a film and controversy. The Israelis have maintained the death was an accident. There is evidence to suggest the contrary.
The Guardian backgrounds the upcoming case [in Haifa, Israel] in "Rachel Corrie's family bring civil suit over human shield's death in Gaza":
"The family of the American activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza seven years ago, is to bring a civil suit over her death against the Israeli defence ministry.
The case, which begins on 10 March in Haifa, northern Israel, is seen by her parents as an opportunity to put on public record the events that led to their daughter's death in March 2003. Four key witnesses – three Britons and an American – who were at the scene in Rafah when Corrie was killed will give evidence, according the family lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein.
The four were all with the International Solidarity Movement, the activist group to which Corrie belonged. They have since been denied entry to Israel, and the group's offices in Ramallah have been raided several times in recent weeks by the Israeli military.
Now, under apparent US pressure, the Israeli government has agreed to allow them entry so they can testify. Corrie's parents, Cindy and Craig, will also fly to Israel for the hearing.
A Palestinian doctor from Gaza, Ahmed Abu Nakira, who treated Corrie after she was injured and later confirmed her death, has not been given permission by the Israeli authorities to leave Gaza to attend.
Abu Hussein, a leading human rights lawyer in Israel, said there was evidence from witnesses that soldiers saw Corrie at the scene, with other activists, well before the incident and could have arrested or removed her from the area before there was any risk of her being killed."
The Guardian backgrounds the upcoming case [in Haifa, Israel] in "Rachel Corrie's family bring civil suit over human shield's death in Gaza":
"The family of the American activist Rachel Corrie, who was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza seven years ago, is to bring a civil suit over her death against the Israeli defence ministry.
The case, which begins on 10 March in Haifa, northern Israel, is seen by her parents as an opportunity to put on public record the events that led to their daughter's death in March 2003. Four key witnesses – three Britons and an American – who were at the scene in Rafah when Corrie was killed will give evidence, according the family lawyer, Hussein Abu Hussein.
The four were all with the International Solidarity Movement, the activist group to which Corrie belonged. They have since been denied entry to Israel, and the group's offices in Ramallah have been raided several times in recent weeks by the Israeli military.
Now, under apparent US pressure, the Israeli government has agreed to allow them entry so they can testify. Corrie's parents, Cindy and Craig, will also fly to Israel for the hearing.
A Palestinian doctor from Gaza, Ahmed Abu Nakira, who treated Corrie after she was injured and later confirmed her death, has not been given permission by the Israeli authorities to leave Gaza to attend.
Abu Hussein, a leading human rights lawyer in Israel, said there was evidence from witnesses that soldiers saw Corrie at the scene, with other activists, well before the incident and could have arrested or removed her from the area before there was any risk of her being killed."
Yes, Virginia, they do have a licence to steal
The figures are truly staggering! Especially when seen in the context of the financial woes confronting the USA post the nadir of the GFC.
Robert Scheer, writing in The Nation, spells out how the large Wall St. financiers have done extremely well out of the GFC:
"They do have a license to steal. There is no other way to read Tuesday’s report from the New York state comptroller that bonuses for Wall Street financiers rose 17 percent to $20.3 billion in 2009. Of course that is less than the $32.9 billion for bonus rewards back in 2007, when those hotshots could still pretend that they were running sound businesses.
The economy is anything but sound, but you would hardly know that from looking at the balance sheets of the big investment banks. The broker-dealer firms on Wall Street made a record profit, estimated at greater than $55 billion by the comptroller, and the only thing holding back even more grotesque bonuses was concern over criticism from a public that was hardly doing as well.
The enormous rewards last year come not from their having righted the ship of finance by lowering the rate of mortgage foreclosures for ordinary folks, one of four who are now “underwater” on their loans. Consumer confidence this month is the lowest in 27 years, and unemployment is expected to hover near 10 percent for the next two years. No, they get bonuses because the Federal Reserve, backed by the Treasury, bought the toxic mortgage securitization packages that Wall Street banks were left holding. They, and they alone, were made whole."
Robert Scheer, writing in The Nation, spells out how the large Wall St. financiers have done extremely well out of the GFC:
"They do have a license to steal. There is no other way to read Tuesday’s report from the New York state comptroller that bonuses for Wall Street financiers rose 17 percent to $20.3 billion in 2009. Of course that is less than the $32.9 billion for bonus rewards back in 2007, when those hotshots could still pretend that they were running sound businesses.
The economy is anything but sound, but you would hardly know that from looking at the balance sheets of the big investment banks. The broker-dealer firms on Wall Street made a record profit, estimated at greater than $55 billion by the comptroller, and the only thing holding back even more grotesque bonuses was concern over criticism from a public that was hardly doing as well.
The enormous rewards last year come not from their having righted the ship of finance by lowering the rate of mortgage foreclosures for ordinary folks, one of four who are now “underwater” on their loans. Consumer confidence this month is the lowest in 27 years, and unemployment is expected to hover near 10 percent for the next two years. No, they get bonuses because the Federal Reserve, backed by the Treasury, bought the toxic mortgage securitization packages that Wall Street banks were left holding. They, and they alone, were made whole."
One Greek Not Bearing Gifts
There is the saying...beware of Greeks bearing gifts!
All too sadly the financial mess in which Greece now finds itself has all the hallmarks of spreading to other European countries - with a ripple-effect beyond.
The Nation provides the background to Greece's plight in "Athens: The First Domino?"
"The shadow of classical Greece has always loomed large over Western civilization--whether in literature, philosophy, art, mathematics, history or politics, it has been, in so many ways, the fons et origo of us all. Modern Greece suddenly seems poised to play that same outsized role, but by no means in the same civilizing way. Athens's fiscal crisis could very well ignite the next global financial crisis--just as the world hoped it might be starting a slow exit from the last one.
After meeting with fellow European leaders in Brussels in early February, where he argued the case for help in solving the hefty budget deficit he'd inherited on taking office last fall, Prime Minister George Papandreou flew home to Athens to tell his countrymen that he'd returned with a half-full cup of promises--and no assurance of the serious backing Greece needs to weather its woes. Global markets, which had been fibrillating nervously for three months about Greece's (and the euro's) financial health, skipped several beats after Papandreou's speech, after already suffering a long sell-off that wiped out much of Wall Street's shaky recovery. All eyes are anxiously casting about for Delphic signs of what Europe's finance ministers will do when they meet to hear Greece make its case again, this time in hard numbers.
The situation has the makings of an Aeschylean tragedy. If help isn't forthcoming, little Greece--whose economy is just 3 percent of Europe's GDP--could, against its will, set off a chain reaction that pulls down Portugal, Ireland, Spain, perhaps even Italy, and thereby throws Europe's, and then America's and the rest of the world's, fragile recoveries into reverse.
The crisis is, in classic Greek fashion, ripe with ironies."
All too sadly the financial mess in which Greece now finds itself has all the hallmarks of spreading to other European countries - with a ripple-effect beyond.
The Nation provides the background to Greece's plight in "Athens: The First Domino?"
"The shadow of classical Greece has always loomed large over Western civilization--whether in literature, philosophy, art, mathematics, history or politics, it has been, in so many ways, the fons et origo of us all. Modern Greece suddenly seems poised to play that same outsized role, but by no means in the same civilizing way. Athens's fiscal crisis could very well ignite the next global financial crisis--just as the world hoped it might be starting a slow exit from the last one.
After meeting with fellow European leaders in Brussels in early February, where he argued the case for help in solving the hefty budget deficit he'd inherited on taking office last fall, Prime Minister George Papandreou flew home to Athens to tell his countrymen that he'd returned with a half-full cup of promises--and no assurance of the serious backing Greece needs to weather its woes. Global markets, which had been fibrillating nervously for three months about Greece's (and the euro's) financial health, skipped several beats after Papandreou's speech, after already suffering a long sell-off that wiped out much of Wall Street's shaky recovery. All eyes are anxiously casting about for Delphic signs of what Europe's finance ministers will do when they meet to hear Greece make its case again, this time in hard numbers.
The situation has the makings of an Aeschylean tragedy. If help isn't forthcoming, little Greece--whose economy is just 3 percent of Europe's GDP--could, against its will, set off a chain reaction that pulls down Portugal, Ireland, Spain, perhaps even Italy, and thereby throws Europe's, and then America's and the rest of the world's, fragile recoveries into reverse.
The crisis is, in classic Greek fashion, ripe with ironies."
Wednesday, February 24, 2010
"This Book Is Overdue!": Hot for librarian
Who would have thought it? Librarians with a visage much different to that of the dowdy, glass-wearing spinster type.
Salon reveals all........
"Behold the stereotypical librarian, with her cat’s-eye glasses, bun and pantyhose -- a creature whose desexualized persona and desire for us to be quiet has fueled generations of wild sexual fantasies. But there's bad news for those of you with a shushing fetish; as Marilyn Johnson explains in "This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All," the uptight librarian is a species that's rapidly approaching extinction.
A new generation of young, hip and occasionally tattooed librarians is driving them out. They call themselves guybrarians, cybrarians and "information specialists," and they blog at sites like The Free Range Librarian and The Lipstick Librarian. They can be found in droves on Second Life, but also outside the Republican National Convention, dodging tear gas canisters and tweeting the location of the police.
Johnson, a former staff writer for Life magazine, and author of "The Dead Beat," a book about the fascinating world of obituary writing, delights in refuting our assumptions about librarians, while making a rock-solid case for their indispensability at a time when library systems are losing an average of 50 librarians per year. Who else is going to help us formulate the questions Google doesn’t understand, or show non-English speakers how to apply for jobs online, or sympathize with your need to research the ancient origins of cockfighting? Librarians, Johnson argues, are one of our most underappreciated natural resources."
Salon reveals all........
"Behold the stereotypical librarian, with her cat’s-eye glasses, bun and pantyhose -- a creature whose desexualized persona and desire for us to be quiet has fueled generations of wild sexual fantasies. But there's bad news for those of you with a shushing fetish; as Marilyn Johnson explains in "This Book Is Overdue!: How Librarians and Cybrarians Can Save Us All," the uptight librarian is a species that's rapidly approaching extinction.
A new generation of young, hip and occasionally tattooed librarians is driving them out. They call themselves guybrarians, cybrarians and "information specialists," and they blog at sites like The Free Range Librarian and The Lipstick Librarian. They can be found in droves on Second Life, but also outside the Republican National Convention, dodging tear gas canisters and tweeting the location of the police.
Johnson, a former staff writer for Life magazine, and author of "The Dead Beat," a book about the fascinating world of obituary writing, delights in refuting our assumptions about librarians, while making a rock-solid case for their indispensability at a time when library systems are losing an average of 50 librarians per year. Who else is going to help us formulate the questions Google doesn’t understand, or show non-English speakers how to apply for jobs online, or sympathize with your need to research the ancient origins of cockfighting? Librarians, Johnson argues, are one of our most underappreciated natural resources."
All the news [and editorial] fit to print?
The NY Times is published under the well-known banner "All the News Fit to Print".
There are many aspects of the Times which can be called into question. Apart from not being as far-reaching in reporting news from around the world - or its lack of judgment, as recently the subject of debate, in having Ethan Bonner as its Bureau Chief in Jerusalem - the latest eye-raising issue is in relation to a recent editorial.
truthout reports in "New York Times' "Mystery" Op-Ed Calls for More Afghan Civilian Deaths":
"On Thursday, The New York Times made an astonishing editorial choice, for which its editors owe the public an explanation: it published an op-ed by an obscure and poorly identified author attacking Gen. Stanley McChrystal for his directive last July that airstrikes in Afghanistan be authorized only under "very limited and prescribed conditions." The op-ed denounced an "overemphasis on civilian protection" and charged that "air support to American and Afghan forces has been all but grounded by concerns about civilian casualties."
The author of the op-ed, Lara M. Dadkhah, is identified by The Times merely as "an intelligence analyst." In the body of the op-ed, the author identifies herself as "employed by a defense consulting company," without telling us which company, or what her relationship might be to actors who stand to lose financially if the recognition that killing civilians is bad for the United States were to affect expenditures by the United States military.
As Glenn Greenwald asked in Salon:
What defense consulting company employs her? Do they have any ties to the war effort? Do they benefit from the grotesque policies she's advocating? What type of "analyst" is she? Who knows ... it's virtually impossible to find any information about "Lara Dadkhah" using standard Internet tools."
There are many aspects of the Times which can be called into question. Apart from not being as far-reaching in reporting news from around the world - or its lack of judgment, as recently the subject of debate, in having Ethan Bonner as its Bureau Chief in Jerusalem - the latest eye-raising issue is in relation to a recent editorial.
truthout reports in "New York Times' "Mystery" Op-Ed Calls for More Afghan Civilian Deaths":
"On Thursday, The New York Times made an astonishing editorial choice, for which its editors owe the public an explanation: it published an op-ed by an obscure and poorly identified author attacking Gen. Stanley McChrystal for his directive last July that airstrikes in Afghanistan be authorized only under "very limited and prescribed conditions." The op-ed denounced an "overemphasis on civilian protection" and charged that "air support to American and Afghan forces has been all but grounded by concerns about civilian casualties."
The author of the op-ed, Lara M. Dadkhah, is identified by The Times merely as "an intelligence analyst." In the body of the op-ed, the author identifies herself as "employed by a defense consulting company," without telling us which company, or what her relationship might be to actors who stand to lose financially if the recognition that killing civilians is bad for the United States were to affect expenditures by the United States military.
As Glenn Greenwald asked in Salon:
What defense consulting company employs her? Do they have any ties to the war effort? Do they benefit from the grotesque policies she's advocating? What type of "analyst" is she? Who knows ... it's virtually impossible to find any information about "Lara Dadkhah" using standard Internet tools."
Getting further bogged down......
A record, of sorts, was set today. 1000 US troops have been killed in Afghanistan. And the question which needs to be asked. Has it been a "price" worth incurring? and for what end? - given the period the war has now dragged on and with no real end in sight.
Yahoo! News puts the grim figures into context:
"The number of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan has reached 1,000, an independent website said on Tuesday, a grim reminder that eight years of fighting has failed to defeat Taliban insurgents.
Icasualties.org said 54 U.S. troops were killed this year in Afghanistan, raising the casualties to 1,000, compared to eight in Iraq, where the total has reached 4,378. The rise to 1,000 dead coincides with one of the biggest offensives against the Taliban, a NATO-led assault in the Marjah district of Helmand, Afghanistan's most violent province.
The operation is an early test of U.S. President Barack Obama's troop surge strategy aimed as wresting control of Taliban bastions and handing them over to Afghan authorities before the start of a gradual U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011.
Afghanistan is high on Obama's foreign policy agenda and more American casualties or a military campaign that fails to bring stability to the country could harm his presidency.
Violence is at its highest level since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban. Last year was the deadliest of the war for civilians and foreign troops."
Yahoo! News puts the grim figures into context:
"The number of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan has reached 1,000, an independent website said on Tuesday, a grim reminder that eight years of fighting has failed to defeat Taliban insurgents.
Icasualties.org said 54 U.S. troops were killed this year in Afghanistan, raising the casualties to 1,000, compared to eight in Iraq, where the total has reached 4,378. The rise to 1,000 dead coincides with one of the biggest offensives against the Taliban, a NATO-led assault in the Marjah district of Helmand, Afghanistan's most violent province.
The operation is an early test of U.S. President Barack Obama's troop surge strategy aimed as wresting control of Taliban bastions and handing them over to Afghan authorities before the start of a gradual U.S. troop withdrawal in 2011.
Afghanistan is high on Obama's foreign policy agenda and more American casualties or a military campaign that fails to bring stability to the country could harm his presidency.
Violence is at its highest level since the 2001 ouster of the Taliban. Last year was the deadliest of the war for civilians and foreign troops."
Tuesday, February 23, 2010
Yoo said slaugthter was OK
Perhaps nothing is surprising anymore - especially what occurred in the years of the Bush Administration - but for a Justice Department lawyer to have ok'd slaughter is astounding. Troubling is that this official, now teaching law at a US University [!] is not to be prosecuted for what must undoubtedly be professional misconduct - given that what he was advising Bush and Co. was clearly a violation of the law.
consortiumnews.com reports:
"Former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo argued that President George W. Bush’s commander-in-chief powers were so sweeping that he could willfully order the massacre of civilians, yet Yoo’s culpability in Bush administration abuses was deemed “poor judgment,” not a violation of “professional standards.”
That downgrading of criticism by the Justice Department – regarding the legal advice from Yoo and his boss at the Office of Legal Counsel, Jay Bybee, to Bush's White House and the CIA – means that the department will not refer them to state bar associations for possible disbarment as lawyers.
But an earlier version of the report by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that the legal advice warranted the sterner conclusion and thus possible disbarment.
The judgment was softened by career prosecutor David Margolis, who was put in charge of the final recommendations and who said he was "unpersuaded" by OPR's "misconduct" conclusion, which faulted Yoo and Bybee for their approval of brutal interrogation techniques that were used against terrorism suspects after the 9/11 attacks.
Legal opinions written by Yoo in 2002 and signed by Bybee cleared the way for the Bush administration to subject detainees to the near drowning of waterboarding and other painful treatment at the hands of CIA interrogators.
Waterboarding and some of the other measures, such as slamming detainees against walls and depriving them of sleep, have long been considered acts of torture and have been treated as war crimes in other circumstances. However, Yoo – working closely with Bush administration officials – claimed that the techniques did not violate U.S. criminal laws and international treaties forbidding torture.
Further, Yoo asserted that Bush’s presidential powers were virtually unlimited in wartime, even a conflict as vaguely defined as the “war on terror.”
consortiumnews.com reports:
"Former Justice Department lawyer John Yoo argued that President George W. Bush’s commander-in-chief powers were so sweeping that he could willfully order the massacre of civilians, yet Yoo’s culpability in Bush administration abuses was deemed “poor judgment,” not a violation of “professional standards.”
That downgrading of criticism by the Justice Department – regarding the legal advice from Yoo and his boss at the Office of Legal Counsel, Jay Bybee, to Bush's White House and the CIA – means that the department will not refer them to state bar associations for possible disbarment as lawyers.
But an earlier version of the report by the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility concluded that the legal advice warranted the sterner conclusion and thus possible disbarment.
The judgment was softened by career prosecutor David Margolis, who was put in charge of the final recommendations and who said he was "unpersuaded" by OPR's "misconduct" conclusion, which faulted Yoo and Bybee for their approval of brutal interrogation techniques that were used against terrorism suspects after the 9/11 attacks.
Legal opinions written by Yoo in 2002 and signed by Bybee cleared the way for the Bush administration to subject detainees to the near drowning of waterboarding and other painful treatment at the hands of CIA interrogators.
Waterboarding and some of the other measures, such as slamming detainees against walls and depriving them of sleep, have long been considered acts of torture and have been treated as war crimes in other circumstances. However, Yoo – working closely with Bush administration officials – claimed that the techniques did not violate U.S. criminal laws and international treaties forbidding torture.
Further, Yoo asserted that Bush’s presidential powers were virtually unlimited in wartime, even a conflict as vaguely defined as the “war on terror.”
A Human Shield in Iraq.....and the aftermath
From a piece "Mocked When She Flew to Baghdad" on counterpunch:
"A book recently launched at Sydney University attracted a large audience and scant media attention. At first glance this may not seem surprising, as its author is not a Vogue model, shock jock, porn start or literary giant. She is a Christian; one of an unusual hue. Her faith is expressed in deeds, not platitudes and ghastly hymns. She believes John Howard, Tony Blair, George Bush – all self proclaimed Christians - committed grave crimes with the 2003 shock & awe invasion of Baghdad. She was there – she saw it, she smelled it, she nursed the limbless children in hospitals, their mattresses soaked in blood. Her name is Donna Mulhearn.
Back then, “forty six per cent of Iraq’s population was below the age of sixteen,” Donna writes in her memoir, Ordinary Courage, “this is essentially a war against kids”. She was right. In 2007,UNICEF reported the number of vulnerable children in Iraq had outstripped the country's capacity to care for them. Half of Iraq's four million people who had fled their homes since 2003 were children, most of whom were traumatized.
Not that the media gave a hoot about that. They were too busy stitching up Donna for “supporting Saddam Hussein”, whom she didn’t support in the slightest. It was the Australian Wheat Board which supported Saddam, thickly greasing the palms of his entourage, with a nod and a wink from neo-con Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer.
Donna arrived in Baghdad with the goal of doing good. She was part of the derided initiative known as “human shields”, which attracted civilians from numerous countries. Up to 500 shields eventually made their way to Iraq and played a part in protecting non military infrastructure, such as water purifying plants, hospitals and the decrepit telephone exchange. Donna was one of the first to arrive and the last to leave.
Back in Sydney, she was stunned by the media’s hostility. According to her memoir, the usually pleasant ABC drive time host, Richard Glover, treated her as a Saddam cheerleader and bombarded her with accusations. In the eyes of jingoists, she is “a traitor”. Yet her warnings about the impact of the invasion were accurate, much more so than the assurances of politicians. Some recent estimates place Iraqi civilian casualties at over 600,000. About 4 million Iraqis have been displaced, 2 million of them within Iraq and the rest primarily in Syria and Jordan. Over 8000 children are believed to have been permanently disabled. The reason John Howard and his colleagues have not been dragged to the Hague, is because in matters of international law, Australia often ducks its obligation to prosecute.
In September 2004, UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan proclaimed the invasion was not in conformity with the UN Charter. “From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal”. As far as I am aware, not a single Australian Prime Minister has expressed regret at the scale of slaughter and mayhem unleashed on Iraqi by the unlawful attack and prolonged occupation. The bombs that continue to kill in Baghdad today are no longer triggered by us, but remain a bitter testament of our legacy.
When ‘shock and awe’ hit the heart of Baghdad and John Howard went to his local Church, Donna Mulhearn and fellow shields huddled inside the city’s Water Treatment plant. Night after night bombs shook the city. “The tremors, the sirens, the fear, the smell of death…”. In a rare lull, she visits the hospitals: “rows of beds mostly filled with children”. She sees a little girl, Rosul, who has was playing at home when flying shrapnel ripped out pieces of her chest and right arm. “The wounds are deep; the bones in her arm have protruded through her flesh; she has a collapsed lung and internal bleeding….”. On TV the media pundits are touting the joys of ‘precision bombing’.
Although the invaders had little interest in Iraqi civilian casualties, they were well aware that the bombing human shields could be a PR disaster. The co-ordinates of sites hosting the shields had been sent to Central Command, for which Donna and her colleagues deserve credit. All sites where shields remained in place during the bombings survived intact. No shields were injured. Unlike the hapless US President, the motley crew of peaceniks and pacifists who descended on Baghdad in 2003 could truly say …. Mission Accomplished."
"A book recently launched at Sydney University attracted a large audience and scant media attention. At first glance this may not seem surprising, as its author is not a Vogue model, shock jock, porn start or literary giant. She is a Christian; one of an unusual hue. Her faith is expressed in deeds, not platitudes and ghastly hymns. She believes John Howard, Tony Blair, George Bush – all self proclaimed Christians - committed grave crimes with the 2003 shock & awe invasion of Baghdad. She was there – she saw it, she smelled it, she nursed the limbless children in hospitals, their mattresses soaked in blood. Her name is Donna Mulhearn.
Back then, “forty six per cent of Iraq’s population was below the age of sixteen,” Donna writes in her memoir, Ordinary Courage, “this is essentially a war against kids”. She was right. In 2007,UNICEF reported the number of vulnerable children in Iraq had outstripped the country's capacity to care for them. Half of Iraq's four million people who had fled their homes since 2003 were children, most of whom were traumatized.
Not that the media gave a hoot about that. They were too busy stitching up Donna for “supporting Saddam Hussein”, whom she didn’t support in the slightest. It was the Australian Wheat Board which supported Saddam, thickly greasing the palms of his entourage, with a nod and a wink from neo-con Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer.
Donna arrived in Baghdad with the goal of doing good. She was part of the derided initiative known as “human shields”, which attracted civilians from numerous countries. Up to 500 shields eventually made their way to Iraq and played a part in protecting non military infrastructure, such as water purifying plants, hospitals and the decrepit telephone exchange. Donna was one of the first to arrive and the last to leave.
Back in Sydney, she was stunned by the media’s hostility. According to her memoir, the usually pleasant ABC drive time host, Richard Glover, treated her as a Saddam cheerleader and bombarded her with accusations. In the eyes of jingoists, she is “a traitor”. Yet her warnings about the impact of the invasion were accurate, much more so than the assurances of politicians. Some recent estimates place Iraqi civilian casualties at over 600,000. About 4 million Iraqis have been displaced, 2 million of them within Iraq and the rest primarily in Syria and Jordan. Over 8000 children are believed to have been permanently disabled. The reason John Howard and his colleagues have not been dragged to the Hague, is because in matters of international law, Australia often ducks its obligation to prosecute.
In September 2004, UN Secretary-General, Kofi Annan proclaimed the invasion was not in conformity with the UN Charter. “From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal”. As far as I am aware, not a single Australian Prime Minister has expressed regret at the scale of slaughter and mayhem unleashed on Iraqi by the unlawful attack and prolonged occupation. The bombs that continue to kill in Baghdad today are no longer triggered by us, but remain a bitter testament of our legacy.
When ‘shock and awe’ hit the heart of Baghdad and John Howard went to his local Church, Donna Mulhearn and fellow shields huddled inside the city’s Water Treatment plant. Night after night bombs shook the city. “The tremors, the sirens, the fear, the smell of death…”. In a rare lull, she visits the hospitals: “rows of beds mostly filled with children”. She sees a little girl, Rosul, who has was playing at home when flying shrapnel ripped out pieces of her chest and right arm. “The wounds are deep; the bones in her arm have protruded through her flesh; she has a collapsed lung and internal bleeding….”. On TV the media pundits are touting the joys of ‘precision bombing’.
Although the invaders had little interest in Iraqi civilian casualties, they were well aware that the bombing human shields could be a PR disaster. The co-ordinates of sites hosting the shields had been sent to Central Command, for which Donna and her colleagues deserve credit. All sites where shields remained in place during the bombings survived intact. No shields were injured. Unlike the hapless US President, the motley crew of peaceniks and pacifists who descended on Baghdad in 2003 could truly say …. Mission Accomplished."
Monday, February 22, 2010
Treading on Shards
Sara Roy is a senior research scholar at Harvard's Center for Middle Eastern Studies.
Writing in The Nation she records what is happening in and in relation to Gaza since her most recent visit there in August last year. It makes for a miserable situation, made worse by what the Israelis - with the quiet aquiescence of the West - is allowing to happen there. To think that the access [that is, what is allowed in] to food is rationed in order to keep it just barely above starvation level is scandalous. A department of one of the Israeli ministries monitors that.
"Normal trade (upon which Gaza's tiny economy is desperately dependent) continues to be prohibited; traditional imports and exports have almost disappeared from Gaza. In fact, with certain limited exceptions, no construction materials or raw materials have been allowed to enter the Strip since June 14, 2007. Indeed, according to Amnesty International, only forty-one truckloads of construction materials were allowed to enter Gaza between the end of the Israeli offensive in mid-January 2009 and December 2009, although Gaza's industrial sector presently requires 55,000 truckloads of raw materials for needed reconstruction. Furthermore, in the year since they were banned, imports of diesel and petrol from Israel into Gaza for private or commercial use were allowed in small amounts only four times (although the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, periodically receives diesel and petrol supplies). By this past August, 90 percent of Gaza's total population was subject to scheduled electricity cuts of four to eight hours per day, while the remaining 10 percent had no access to any electricity, a reality that has remained largely unchanged.
Gaza's protracted blockade has resulted in the near total collapse of the private sector. At least 95 percent of Gaza's industrial establishments (3,750 enterprises) were either forced to close or were destroyed over the past four years, resulting in a loss of between 100,000 and 120,000 jobs. The remaining 5 percent operate at 20-50 percent of their capacity. The vast restrictions on trade have also contributed to the continued erosion of Gaza's agricultural sector, which was exacerbated by the destruction of 5,000 acres of agricultural land and 305 agricultural wells during the war. These losses also include the destruction of 140,965 olive trees, 136,217 citrus trees, 22,745 fruit trees, 10,365 date trees and 8,822 other trees."
Writing in The Nation she records what is happening in and in relation to Gaza since her most recent visit there in August last year. It makes for a miserable situation, made worse by what the Israelis - with the quiet aquiescence of the West - is allowing to happen there. To think that the access [that is, what is allowed in] to food is rationed in order to keep it just barely above starvation level is scandalous. A department of one of the Israeli ministries monitors that.
"Normal trade (upon which Gaza's tiny economy is desperately dependent) continues to be prohibited; traditional imports and exports have almost disappeared from Gaza. In fact, with certain limited exceptions, no construction materials or raw materials have been allowed to enter the Strip since June 14, 2007. Indeed, according to Amnesty International, only forty-one truckloads of construction materials were allowed to enter Gaza between the end of the Israeli offensive in mid-January 2009 and December 2009, although Gaza's industrial sector presently requires 55,000 truckloads of raw materials for needed reconstruction. Furthermore, in the year since they were banned, imports of diesel and petrol from Israel into Gaza for private or commercial use were allowed in small amounts only four times (although the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, UNRWA, periodically receives diesel and petrol supplies). By this past August, 90 percent of Gaza's total population was subject to scheduled electricity cuts of four to eight hours per day, while the remaining 10 percent had no access to any electricity, a reality that has remained largely unchanged.
Gaza's protracted blockade has resulted in the near total collapse of the private sector. At least 95 percent of Gaza's industrial establishments (3,750 enterprises) were either forced to close or were destroyed over the past four years, resulting in a loss of between 100,000 and 120,000 jobs. The remaining 5 percent operate at 20-50 percent of their capacity. The vast restrictions on trade have also contributed to the continued erosion of Gaza's agricultural sector, which was exacerbated by the destruction of 5,000 acres of agricultural land and 305 agricultural wells during the war. These losses also include the destruction of 140,965 olive trees, 136,217 citrus trees, 22,745 fruit trees, 10,365 date trees and 8,822 other trees."
Sunday, February 21, 2010
Been there....done that! Dubai, Mossad, assassinations, CCTV, etc. etc.
It's all over the news....what appears almost certain to have been Mossad's assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai. The story has still some way to unfold.
Meanwhile, Paul McGeough, veteran journalist in the Middle East and author of the must-read book, Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas, [the true account of the attempt by Mossad to assassinate Khalid Mishal in Amman back in 1997] is interviewed on Democracy Now, bringing up-to-date the present situation of the assassination in Dubai and putting the whole thing into context:
"Well, the similarities are that the Mossad chose, and funnily enough, while Benjamin Netanyahu was prime minister in an earlier incarnation—these sorts of missions require the prime minister’s sign-off—they chose a foreign setting. They chose Amman, the capital of Jordan, notwithstanding the fact that King Hussein of Jordan was Israel’s best friend in the Arab world and had gone out on a limb to sign a peace treaty with Israel.
Again, it was a very clever plan. They proposed that they would inject a secret mysterious poison into Khalid Mishal’s ear as he walked down the street. He wasn’t expected to be aware that this had happened. The hope was that he would go home and lie down, feeling tired, and die. And when there was an autopsy, there would be no trace of this mysterious poison in his system.
In fact, what happened was, the brilliance of the plan ended up being its Achilles’ heel, because they left enough time for the poison to work so that Mishal would have departed the setting of the injection, so that his people would not link the accidental bumping of somebody up against him in the street with his subsequent death. But the time they left for the poison to work was the time in which Jordanian doctors were able to put in place the effort to save him.
And while that was going on, Mishal’s bodyguards captured two of the Mossad agents, thereby delivering to King Hussein bargaining chips. King Hussein was able to demand, in deliberate humiliation of Benjamin Netanyahu, the release of Hamas prisoners from Israeli prisons. And also he put the word on Bill Clinton, then US president, to force Netanyahu to hand over to the Jordanians the secret poison and an antidote."
Go here to read the whole most interesting interview.
Meanwhile, Paul McGeough, veteran journalist in the Middle East and author of the must-read book, Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas, [the true account of the attempt by Mossad to assassinate Khalid Mishal in Amman back in 1997] is interviewed on Democracy Now, bringing up-to-date the present situation of the assassination in Dubai and putting the whole thing into context:
"Well, the similarities are that the Mossad chose, and funnily enough, while Benjamin Netanyahu was prime minister in an earlier incarnation—these sorts of missions require the prime minister’s sign-off—they chose a foreign setting. They chose Amman, the capital of Jordan, notwithstanding the fact that King Hussein of Jordan was Israel’s best friend in the Arab world and had gone out on a limb to sign a peace treaty with Israel.
Again, it was a very clever plan. They proposed that they would inject a secret mysterious poison into Khalid Mishal’s ear as he walked down the street. He wasn’t expected to be aware that this had happened. The hope was that he would go home and lie down, feeling tired, and die. And when there was an autopsy, there would be no trace of this mysterious poison in his system.
In fact, what happened was, the brilliance of the plan ended up being its Achilles’ heel, because they left enough time for the poison to work so that Mishal would have departed the setting of the injection, so that his people would not link the accidental bumping of somebody up against him in the street with his subsequent death. But the time they left for the poison to work was the time in which Jordanian doctors were able to put in place the effort to save him.
And while that was going on, Mishal’s bodyguards captured two of the Mossad agents, thereby delivering to King Hussein bargaining chips. King Hussein was able to demand, in deliberate humiliation of Benjamin Netanyahu, the release of Hamas prisoners from Israeli prisons. And also he put the word on Bill Clinton, then US president, to force Netanyahu to hand over to the Jordanians the secret poison and an antidote."
Go here to read the whole most interesting interview.
Terrorism: the most meaningless and manipulated word
The disgruntled crazy, Joseph Stack, who flew a plane into an IRS office in the USA has brought forth the usual commentary, usually from the uninformed, like those on Fox News, about terrorists.
Glenn Greenwald, lawyer, writing his blog on Salon, rightly points out that the word "terrorist" has been overworked and become totally distorted:
"All of this underscores, yet again, that Terrorism is simultaneously the single most meaningless and most manipulated word in the American political lexicon. The term now has virtually nothing to do with the act itself and everything to do with the identity of the actor, especially his or her religious identity. It has really come to mean: "a Muslim who fights against or even expresses hostility towards the United States, Israel and their allies." That's why all of this confusion and doubt arose yesterday over whether a person who perpetrated a classic act of Terrorism should, in fact, be called a Terrorist: he's not a Muslim and isn't acting on behalf of standard Muslim grievances against the U.S. or Israel, and thus does not fit the "definition." One might concede that perhaps there's some technical sense in which term might apply to Stack, but as Fox News emphasized: it's not "terrorism in the larger sense that most of us are used to . . . terrorism in that capital T way." We all know who commits terrorism in "that capital T way," and it's not people named Joseph Stack."
Glenn Greenwald, lawyer, writing his blog on Salon, rightly points out that the word "terrorist" has been overworked and become totally distorted:
"All of this underscores, yet again, that Terrorism is simultaneously the single most meaningless and most manipulated word in the American political lexicon. The term now has virtually nothing to do with the act itself and everything to do with the identity of the actor, especially his or her religious identity. It has really come to mean: "a Muslim who fights against or even expresses hostility towards the United States, Israel and their allies." That's why all of this confusion and doubt arose yesterday over whether a person who perpetrated a classic act of Terrorism should, in fact, be called a Terrorist: he's not a Muslim and isn't acting on behalf of standard Muslim grievances against the U.S. or Israel, and thus does not fit the "definition." One might concede that perhaps there's some technical sense in which term might apply to Stack, but as Fox News emphasized: it's not "terrorism in the larger sense that most of us are used to . . . terrorism in that capital T way." We all know who commits terrorism in "that capital T way," and it's not people named Joseph Stack."
Saturday, February 20, 2010
The chicken and the egg!
Michelle Obama has taken to involving herself in attacking obesity in America's children. Not that that is something which ought to be confined to the USA. Meanwhile, Toyota is battling its corporate image as it recalls vehicles with various faults.
Perhaps there is a message in there somewhere....as cartoonist Jimmy Marguiles reflects in his cartoon in New Jersey's The Record.
Sri Lanka: A lost cause?
The Nation, in a piece "Sri Lanka Wins a War and Diminishes Democracy", puts into context the sad plight of the people of Sri Lanka post the "defeat" of the Tamil Tigers last year - and all that entailed, mostly negative.
"In its 62 years of independence, Sri Lanka has never had a better chance than it has now to stamp out the last fires of ethnic hatred, violence and mindless chauvinisms that have left over 80,000 people dead in civil wars across one of the most physically beautiful countries in Asia.
Tragically for all Sri Lankans, it looks as if its increasingly autocratic president, reelected in January on a surge of Sinhala triumphalism following the defeat of a Tamil rebel army, is determined to let this hopeful moment pass. Not only a lasting peace between the Tamils and Sinhalese is at stake but also the multiparty democracy that set the country apart from many of its neighbors.
Why should a descent into misgovernment in a nation of 21.3 million people on a relatively small island off the coast of India matter to people anywhere else? This isn't Zimbabwe or Bosnia or Haiti. Not yet. But it is one of the newest examples -- streamed live on the Web if not much present in the American media -- of a post colonial collapse. Kenya is another. It is a phenomenon worth study.
Sri Lanka was once the most advanced nation in South Asia by measures of human development. Literacy, education levels and social services are all still higher than in neighboring Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nepal. The country has no external enemies. Women have held high office for decades. There was a lively press and a functioning two-party system, albeit dominated by mostly people drawn from elite families.
Now journalists live in fear, are killed, disappear or flee. (The president has just named himself information minister, to make matters more menacing.) The leader of the opposition party who dared to challenge the incumbent in the January presidential election has been detained, so far without formal charges. The Tamils, who voted overwhelmingly for him, wait fearfully for the payback."
"In its 62 years of independence, Sri Lanka has never had a better chance than it has now to stamp out the last fires of ethnic hatred, violence and mindless chauvinisms that have left over 80,000 people dead in civil wars across one of the most physically beautiful countries in Asia.
Tragically for all Sri Lankans, it looks as if its increasingly autocratic president, reelected in January on a surge of Sinhala triumphalism following the defeat of a Tamil rebel army, is determined to let this hopeful moment pass. Not only a lasting peace between the Tamils and Sinhalese is at stake but also the multiparty democracy that set the country apart from many of its neighbors.
Why should a descent into misgovernment in a nation of 21.3 million people on a relatively small island off the coast of India matter to people anywhere else? This isn't Zimbabwe or Bosnia or Haiti. Not yet. But it is one of the newest examples -- streamed live on the Web if not much present in the American media -- of a post colonial collapse. Kenya is another. It is a phenomenon worth study.
Sri Lanka was once the most advanced nation in South Asia by measures of human development. Literacy, education levels and social services are all still higher than in neighboring Pakistan, India, Bangladesh and Nepal. The country has no external enemies. Women have held high office for decades. There was a lively press and a functioning two-party system, albeit dominated by mostly people drawn from elite families.
Now journalists live in fear, are killed, disappear or flee. (The president has just named himself information minister, to make matters more menacing.) The leader of the opposition party who dared to challenge the incumbent in the January presidential election has been detained, so far without formal charges. The Tamils, who voted overwhelmingly for him, wait fearfully for the payback."
Friday, February 19, 2010
Robert Fisk: Britain's Explanation is Riddled with Inconsistencies. It's Time to Come Clean
By all accounts seems to be almost certainty that Israel's Mossad was behind the assassination of a Hamas leader in Dubai. Writing on Information Clearing House, Robert Fisk questions Britain's role in all of this sordid extra-judicial killing:
"That's what it's all about. The United Arab Emirates suspect – only suspect, mark you – that Europe's "security collaboration" with Israel has crossed a line into illegality, where British passports (and those of other other EU nations) can now be used to send Israeli agents into the Gulf to kill Israel's enemies. At 3.49pm yesterday afternoon (Beirut time, 1.49pm in London), my Lebanese phone rang. It was a source – impeccable, I know him, he spoke with the authority I know he has in Abu Dhabi – to say that "the British passports are real. They are hologram pictures with the biometric stamp. They are not forged or fake. The names were really there. If you can fake a hologram or biometric stamp, what does this mean?"
The voice – I know the man and his origins well – wants to talk. "There are 18 people involved in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Besides the 11 already named, there are two Palestinians who are being interrogated and five others, including a woman. She was part of the team that staked out the hotel lobby." Two hours later, an SMS arrives on my Beirut phone from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It is the same source.
"ONE MORE THING," it says in capital letters, then continues in lower case. "The command room of the operation was in Austria (sic, in fact, all things are "sic" in this report)... meaning the suspects when here did not talk to each other but thru the command room on separate lines to avoid detection or linking themselves to one another... but it was detected and identified OK??" OK? I ask myself.
My source is both angry and insistent. "We have sent out details of the 11 named people to Interpol. Interpol has circulated them to 188 countries – but why hasn't Britain warned foreign nations that these people are using passports in these names?" There was more to come.
"We have identified five credit cards belonging to these people, all issued in the United States." The man will not give the EU nationalities of the extra five – this would make two women involved in Mr Mabhouh's murder. He said that EU countries were cooperating with the UAE, including the UK. But "not one of the countries we have been speaking to has notified Interpol of the passports used in their name. Why not?"
The source insisted that one of the names on a passport – the name of a man who denies any knowledge of its use – has travelled on it in Asia (probably Indonesia) and EU countries over the past year. The Emirates have proof that an American entered their country in June 2006 on a British passport issued in the name of a UK citizen who was already in prison in the Emirates. The Emirates claim that the passport of an Israeli agent sent to kill a Hamas leader in Jordan was a genuine Canadian passport issued to a dual national of Israel.
Intelligence agencies – who in the view of this correspondent are often very unintelligent – have long used false passports. Oliver North and Robert McFarlane travelled to Iran to seek the release of US hostages in Lebanon on passports that were previously stolen from the Irish embassy in Athens. But the Emirates' new information may make some European governments draw in their breath – and they had better have good replies to the questions. Intelligence services – Arab, Israeli, European or American – often adopt an arrogant attitude towards those from whom they wish to hide. How could the Arabs pick up on a Mossad killing, if that is what it was? Well, we shall see.
Collusion is a word the Arabs understand. It speaks of the 1956 Suez War, when Britain and France cooperated with Israel to invade Egypt. Both London and Paris denied the plot. They were lying. But for an Arab Gulf country which suspects its former masters (the UK, by name) may have connived in the murder of a visiting Hamas official, this is apparently now too much. There is much more to come out of this story. We will wait to see if there are any replies in Europe."
"That's what it's all about. The United Arab Emirates suspect – only suspect, mark you – that Europe's "security collaboration" with Israel has crossed a line into illegality, where British passports (and those of other other EU nations) can now be used to send Israeli agents into the Gulf to kill Israel's enemies. At 3.49pm yesterday afternoon (Beirut time, 1.49pm in London), my Lebanese phone rang. It was a source – impeccable, I know him, he spoke with the authority I know he has in Abu Dhabi – to say that "the British passports are real. They are hologram pictures with the biometric stamp. They are not forged or fake. The names were really there. If you can fake a hologram or biometric stamp, what does this mean?"
The voice – I know the man and his origins well – wants to talk. "There are 18 people involved in the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. Besides the 11 already named, there are two Palestinians who are being interrogated and five others, including a woman. She was part of the team that staked out the hotel lobby." Two hours later, an SMS arrives on my Beirut phone from Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates. It is the same source.
"ONE MORE THING," it says in capital letters, then continues in lower case. "The command room of the operation was in Austria (sic, in fact, all things are "sic" in this report)... meaning the suspects when here did not talk to each other but thru the command room on separate lines to avoid detection or linking themselves to one another... but it was detected and identified OK??" OK? I ask myself.
My source is both angry and insistent. "We have sent out details of the 11 named people to Interpol. Interpol has circulated them to 188 countries – but why hasn't Britain warned foreign nations that these people are using passports in these names?" There was more to come.
"We have identified five credit cards belonging to these people, all issued in the United States." The man will not give the EU nationalities of the extra five – this would make two women involved in Mr Mabhouh's murder. He said that EU countries were cooperating with the UAE, including the UK. But "not one of the countries we have been speaking to has notified Interpol of the passports used in their name. Why not?"
The source insisted that one of the names on a passport – the name of a man who denies any knowledge of its use – has travelled on it in Asia (probably Indonesia) and EU countries over the past year. The Emirates have proof that an American entered their country in June 2006 on a British passport issued in the name of a UK citizen who was already in prison in the Emirates. The Emirates claim that the passport of an Israeli agent sent to kill a Hamas leader in Jordan was a genuine Canadian passport issued to a dual national of Israel.
Intelligence agencies – who in the view of this correspondent are often very unintelligent – have long used false passports. Oliver North and Robert McFarlane travelled to Iran to seek the release of US hostages in Lebanon on passports that were previously stolen from the Irish embassy in Athens. But the Emirates' new information may make some European governments draw in their breath – and they had better have good replies to the questions. Intelligence services – Arab, Israeli, European or American – often adopt an arrogant attitude towards those from whom they wish to hide. How could the Arabs pick up on a Mossad killing, if that is what it was? Well, we shall see.
Collusion is a word the Arabs understand. It speaks of the 1956 Suez War, when Britain and France cooperated with Israel to invade Egypt. Both London and Paris denied the plot. They were lying. But for an Arab Gulf country which suspects its former masters (the UK, by name) may have connived in the murder of a visiting Hamas official, this is apparently now too much. There is much more to come out of this story. We will wait to see if there are any replies in Europe."
World's top firms cause $3 trilion of environmental damage, report estimates
To everything to is cause and effect - and mostly, a cost. So it is with a cost to populaces around the world from any damage to the environment from such things as just simple pollution. The source of the damage is the top 3000 companies around the world - and at a cost of a staggering $3 trillion!
The Guardian reports on the findings of an upcoming United Nations Report:
"The cost of pollution and other damage to the natural environment caused by the world's biggest companies would wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable, a major unpublished study for the United Nations has found.
Black clouds over the central business district, Jakarta. The report into the activities of the world's 3,000 biggest public companies has estimated the cost of use, loss and damage of the environment. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty ImagesThe report comes amid growing concern that no one is made to pay for most of the use, loss and damage of the environment, which is reaching crisis proportions in the form of pollution and the rapid loss of freshwater, fisheries and fertile soils.
Later this year, another huge UN study - dubbed the "Stern for nature" after the influential report on the economics of climate change by Sir Nicholas Stern - will attempt to put a price on such global environmental damage, and suggest ways to prevent it. The report, led by economist Pavan Sukhdev, is likely to argue for abolition of billions of dollars of subsidies to harmful industries like agriculture, energy and transport, tougher regulations and more taxes on companies that cause the damage."
The Guardian reports on the findings of an upcoming United Nations Report:
"The cost of pollution and other damage to the natural environment caused by the world's biggest companies would wipe out more than one-third of their profits if they were held financially accountable, a major unpublished study for the United Nations has found.
Black clouds over the central business district, Jakarta. The report into the activities of the world's 3,000 biggest public companies has estimated the cost of use, loss and damage of the environment. Photograph: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty ImagesThe report comes amid growing concern that no one is made to pay for most of the use, loss and damage of the environment, which is reaching crisis proportions in the form of pollution and the rapid loss of freshwater, fisheries and fertile soils.
Later this year, another huge UN study - dubbed the "Stern for nature" after the influential report on the economics of climate change by Sir Nicholas Stern - will attempt to put a price on such global environmental damage, and suggest ways to prevent it. The report, led by economist Pavan Sukhdev, is likely to argue for abolition of billions of dollars of subsidies to harmful industries like agriculture, energy and transport, tougher regulations and more taxes on companies that cause the damage."
Hillary Clinton gets tough with "military dictatorships"
"I have this nagging, intuitive sense that there are a few inconsistencies embedded in these statements -- which some people in the target audience might perceive -- though I can't quite put my finger on what they are."
So begins Glenn Greenwald's latest column "Hillary Clinton gets tough with "military dictatorships" on Salon.
Greenwald goes on to examine what Hillary has been reported as saying and concludes:
"What I always find mystifying is who they think the target audience is. I understand if they expect a domestic audience to swoon for this sort of rhetoric, but do they actually expect that there is anyone in the Middle East, anywhere, who will take seriously the righteous objections of Hilary Clinton -- the American Secretary of State and close Mubarak family friend -- to the rise of an oppressive military dictatorship in the Middle East? Is anyone there really going to believe that it's that government's lack of respect for human rights -- rather than its refusal to serve American interests and heed its various dictates -- that is motivating the hostility and threats?"
So begins Glenn Greenwald's latest column "Hillary Clinton gets tough with "military dictatorships" on Salon.
Greenwald goes on to examine what Hillary has been reported as saying and concludes:
"What I always find mystifying is who they think the target audience is. I understand if they expect a domestic audience to swoon for this sort of rhetoric, but do they actually expect that there is anyone in the Middle East, anywhere, who will take seriously the righteous objections of Hilary Clinton -- the American Secretary of State and close Mubarak family friend -- to the rise of an oppressive military dictatorship in the Middle East? Is anyone there really going to believe that it's that government's lack of respect for human rights -- rather than its refusal to serve American interests and heed its various dictates -- that is motivating the hostility and threats?"
Malaysia takes a giant step.....backwards!
The BBC reports on what must surely be regarded a barbaric in the 21st century....even allowing for any religious aspect or considerations involved:
"Three Malaysian women have been caned by the authorities for having extra-marital sex, say officials.
They are the first women to receive such a sentence under Islamic law in the country.
The punishments come as another Malaysian woman waits to hear whether her caning - for drinking beer - is carried out.
Malaysia's majority Malays are subject to Islamic laws, while the large Chinese and Indian minorities are not."
"Three Malaysian women have been caned by the authorities for having extra-marital sex, say officials.
They are the first women to receive such a sentence under Islamic law in the country.
The punishments come as another Malaysian woman waits to hear whether her caning - for drinking beer - is carried out.
Malaysia's majority Malays are subject to Islamic laws, while the large Chinese and Indian minorities are not."
Thursday, February 18, 2010
Ciao, baby! Why Italy just can't say no to Silvio
It's almost beggars belief that good 'ol Silvio, Italian PM, remains in office - and with seemingly little dent to his popularity. How come? - and how does he do it?
The Independent provides the background dope on the Teflon PM [a la Ronald Reagan?]:
"They must be among the harshest claims ever lodged against a European prime minister, and this month they were made in public, before Sicilian public prosecutors, and backed by documentary evidence. The cornerstone of the fortune of the tycoon who has ruled Italy for most of the past 15 years was money from the Mafia, which Silvio Berlusconi used to build his first housing estate, the project which made him rich and famous. And when, in 1993, after the meltdown of Italy's major political parties in a corruption scandal, Berlusconi decided to launch himself into politics, it was with the support of Bernardo Provenzano, the capo di capi of the Cosa Nostra who, 13 years later, was finally arrested after many years on the run on the very day that Berlusconi lost the general election."
And:
"Under Blair and Brown, the British Government has demonstrated morally dubious equivocation towards the resident but non-domiciled kleptocracy, including those members of it that sit in the House of Lords. In Italy they do these things more democratically: the indulgence of Berlusconi for those with a horror of tax – those who share the late hotelier Leona Helmsley's belief that tax is for little people – extends across half the population, including many of the little people themselves.
Italy today is devouring its own entrails. Private affluence and public squalor; constantly shrinking budgets which inflict vicious blows on schools and universities and hospitals and museums while the entrenched gerontocracies which preside over them are untouched; talented and vigorous youth who flee abroad to find study and work opportunities in ever-greater numbers, while their less-enterprising contemporaries struggle to make ends meet in jobs with miserable pay and no security; organised crime which constantly extends its reach; fear and hatred of immigrants, cynically encouraged by politicians in the government: this is Berlusconi's dismal legacy."
The Independent provides the background dope on the Teflon PM [a la Ronald Reagan?]:
"They must be among the harshest claims ever lodged against a European prime minister, and this month they were made in public, before Sicilian public prosecutors, and backed by documentary evidence. The cornerstone of the fortune of the tycoon who has ruled Italy for most of the past 15 years was money from the Mafia, which Silvio Berlusconi used to build his first housing estate, the project which made him rich and famous. And when, in 1993, after the meltdown of Italy's major political parties in a corruption scandal, Berlusconi decided to launch himself into politics, it was with the support of Bernardo Provenzano, the capo di capi of the Cosa Nostra who, 13 years later, was finally arrested after many years on the run on the very day that Berlusconi lost the general election."
And:
"Under Blair and Brown, the British Government has demonstrated morally dubious equivocation towards the resident but non-domiciled kleptocracy, including those members of it that sit in the House of Lords. In Italy they do these things more democratically: the indulgence of Berlusconi for those with a horror of tax – those who share the late hotelier Leona Helmsley's belief that tax is for little people – extends across half the population, including many of the little people themselves.
Italy today is devouring its own entrails. Private affluence and public squalor; constantly shrinking budgets which inflict vicious blows on schools and universities and hospitals and museums while the entrenched gerontocracies which preside over them are untouched; talented and vigorous youth who flee abroad to find study and work opportunities in ever-greater numbers, while their less-enterprising contemporaries struggle to make ends meet in jobs with miserable pay and no security; organised crime which constantly extends its reach; fear and hatred of immigrants, cynically encouraged by politicians in the government: this is Berlusconi's dismal legacy."
Closed Zone
"Despite declarations that it has "disengaged" from the Gaza Strip, Israel maintains control of the Strip’s overland border crossings, territorial waters, and air space. This includes substantial, albeit indirect, control of the Rafah Crossing.
During the past 18 months, Israel tightened its closure of Gaza, almost completely restricting the passage of goods and people both to and from the Strip.
These policies punish innocent civilians with the goal of exerting pressure on the Hamas government, violating the rights of 1.5 million people who seek only to live ordinary lives – to be reunited with family, to pursue higher education, to receive quality medical treatment, and to earn a living.
The effects of the closure were particularly harsh during the military operation of Dec. 2008 - Jan. 2009. For three weeks, Gaza residents had nowhere to flee to escape the bombing.
Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement calls on the State of Israel to fully open Gaza's crossings and to allow the real victims of the closure - 1.5 million human beings - the freedom of movement necessary to realize their dreams and aspirations."
During the past 18 months, Israel tightened its closure of Gaza, almost completely restricting the passage of goods and people both to and from the Strip.
These policies punish innocent civilians with the goal of exerting pressure on the Hamas government, violating the rights of 1.5 million people who seek only to live ordinary lives – to be reunited with family, to pursue higher education, to receive quality medical treatment, and to earn a living.
The effects of the closure were particularly harsh during the military operation of Dec. 2008 - Jan. 2009. For three weeks, Gaza residents had nowhere to flee to escape the bombing.
Gisha - Legal Center for Freedom of Movement calls on the State of Israel to fully open Gaza's crossings and to allow the real victims of the closure - 1.5 million human beings - the freedom of movement necessary to realize their dreams and aspirations."
Is Obama [the Law Professor] abandoning the Rule of Law?
It is hard to believe that Obama, a Harvard trained lawyer and one-time Law Professor, could even contemplate putting into place a regime which allows for indefinite detention without trial.
Politico reports that it might well be on the cards:
"The White House is considering endorsing a law that would allow the indefinite detention of some alleged terrorists without trial as part of efforts to break a logjam with Congress over President Barack Obama’s plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday.
Last summer, White House officials said they had ruled out seeking a “preventive detention” statute as a way to deal with anti-terror detainees, saying the administration would hold any Guantanamo prisoners brought to the U.S. in criminal courts or under the general “law of war” principles permitting detention of enemy combatants.
However, speaking at a news conference in Greenville, S.C., Monday, Graham said the White House now seems open to a new law to lay out the standards for open-ended imprisonment of those alleged to be members of or fighters for Al Qaeda or the Taliban."
Politico reports that it might well be on the cards:
"The White House is considering endorsing a law that would allow the indefinite detention of some alleged terrorists without trial as part of efforts to break a logjam with Congress over President Barack Obama’s plans to close the Guantanamo Bay prison, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) said Monday.
Last summer, White House officials said they had ruled out seeking a “preventive detention” statute as a way to deal with anti-terror detainees, saying the administration would hold any Guantanamo prisoners brought to the U.S. in criminal courts or under the general “law of war” principles permitting detention of enemy combatants.
However, speaking at a news conference in Greenville, S.C., Monday, Graham said the White House now seems open to a new law to lay out the standards for open-ended imprisonment of those alleged to be members of or fighters for Al Qaeda or the Taliban."
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Cheney condemns himself out of his own mouth
If the Obama Administration were even remotely interested in applying the law to its citizens, whoever they might be, then former VP Cheney made admissions the other day which would pave the way to successfully prosecuting the hard-right warrior Cheney.
truthout explains in "Cheney Admits to War Crimes, Media Yawns, Obama Turns the Other Cheek":
"Dick Cheney is a sadist.
On Sunday, in an exclusive interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News' "This Week," Cheney proclaimed his love of torture, derided the Obama administration for outlawing the practice, and admitted that the Bush administration ordered Justice Department attorneys to fix the law around his policies."
truthout explains in "Cheney Admits to War Crimes, Media Yawns, Obama Turns the Other Cheek":
"Dick Cheney is a sadist.
On Sunday, in an exclusive interview with Jonathan Karl of ABC News' "This Week," Cheney proclaimed his love of torture, derided the Obama administration for outlawing the practice, and admitted that the Bush administration ordered Justice Department attorneys to fix the law around his policies."
The WWW: Information Super-Sewer?
There can be little doubt that the www - including the ready facility and acccess of email - has been a great benefit to people around the world.
BUT, and it's a big but, there are many downsides to the world wide web. Chris Hedges, formerly with The NY Times, explains in "The Information Super-Sewer", his regular column on truthdig:
"The Internet has become one more tool hijacked by corporate interests to accelerate our cultural, political and economic decline. The great promise of the Internet, to open up dialogue, break down cultural barriers, promote democracy and unleash innovation and creativity, has been exposed as a scam. The Internet is dividing us into antagonistic clans, in which we chant the same slogans and hate the same enemies, while our creative work is handed for free to Web providers who use it as bait for advertising.
Ask journalists, photographers, musicians, cartoonists or artists what they think of the Web. Ask movie and film producers. Ask architects or engineers. The Web efficiently disseminates content, but it does not protect intellectual property rights. Writers and artists are increasingly unable to make a living. And technical professions are under heavy assault. Anything that can be digitized can and is being outsourced to countries such as India and China where wages are miserable and benefits nonexistent. Welcome to the new global serfdom where the only professions that pay a living wage are propaganda and corporate management."
The Web, at the same time it is destroying creative work, is forming anonymous crowds that vent collective rage, intolerance and bigotry. These virtual slums do not expand communication or dialogue. They do not enrich our culture. They create a herd mentality in which those who express empathy for “the enemy”—and the liberal class is as guilty of this as the right wing—are denounced by their fellow travelers for their impurity. Racism toward Muslims may be as evil as anti-Semitism, but try to express this simple truth on a partisan Palestinian or Israeli website.
BUT, and it's a big but, there are many downsides to the world wide web. Chris Hedges, formerly with The NY Times, explains in "The Information Super-Sewer", his regular column on truthdig:
"The Internet has become one more tool hijacked by corporate interests to accelerate our cultural, political and economic decline. The great promise of the Internet, to open up dialogue, break down cultural barriers, promote democracy and unleash innovation and creativity, has been exposed as a scam. The Internet is dividing us into antagonistic clans, in which we chant the same slogans and hate the same enemies, while our creative work is handed for free to Web providers who use it as bait for advertising.
Ask journalists, photographers, musicians, cartoonists or artists what they think of the Web. Ask movie and film producers. Ask architects or engineers. The Web efficiently disseminates content, but it does not protect intellectual property rights. Writers and artists are increasingly unable to make a living. And technical professions are under heavy assault. Anything that can be digitized can and is being outsourced to countries such as India and China where wages are miserable and benefits nonexistent. Welcome to the new global serfdom where the only professions that pay a living wage are propaganda and corporate management."
The Web, at the same time it is destroying creative work, is forming anonymous crowds that vent collective rage, intolerance and bigotry. These virtual slums do not expand communication or dialogue. They do not enrich our culture. They create a herd mentality in which those who express empathy for “the enemy”—and the liberal class is as guilty of this as the right wing—are denounced by their fellow travelers for their impurity. Racism toward Muslims may be as evil as anti-Semitism, but try to express this simple truth on a partisan Palestinian or Israeli website.
Michael Ratner on Israeli apartheid
The vengeance with which former US president was attacked - as also those who made similar statements - when he some years ago described some of Israel's actions as being like apartheid, is hard to forget.
Now, Michael Ratner, President of the US based Centre for Constitutional Rights describes his, and his family's visit to Israel - and what he regards as the apartheid-like policies adopted by the Israelis.
Now, Michael Ratner, President of the US based Centre for Constitutional Rights describes his, and his family's visit to Israel - and what he regards as the apartheid-like policies adopted by the Israelis.
Tuesday, February 16, 2010
Hold Onto Your Underwear. This Is Not a National Emergency
All the hype post the so-called underpants bomber has been over the top. The excesses put in place to protect the travelling public have bordered on the patently absurd. Like......passengers in the US in the weeks post the incident on Christmas Day in the last hour of their flight not permitted to leave their seats or read a book.
TomDispatch takes up the issue and puts into some sort of context in his latest piece "Hold Onto Your Underwear".
"Let me put American life in the Age of Terror into some kind of context, and then tell me you’re not ready to get on the nearest plane heading anywhere, even toward Yemen.
In 2008, 14,180 Americans were murdered, according to the FBI. In that year, there were 34,017 fatal vehicle crashes in the U.S. and, so the U.S. Fire Administration tells us, 3,320 deaths by fire. More than 11,000 Americans died of the swine flu between April and mid-December 2009, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; on average, a staggering 443,600 Americans die yearly of illnesses related to tobacco use, reports the American Cancer Society; 5,000 Americans die annually from food-borne diseases; an estimated 1,760 children died from abuse or neglect in 2007; and the next year, 560 Americans died of weather-related conditions, according to the National Weather Service, including 126 from tornadoes, 67 from rip tides, 58 from flash floods, 27 from lightning, 27 from avalanches, and 1 from a dust devil.
As for airplane fatalities, no American died in a crash of a U.S. carrier in either 2007 or 2008, despite 1.5 billion passengers transported. In 2009, planes certainly went down and people died. In June, for instance, a French flight on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared in bad weather over the Atlantic, killing 226. Continental Connection Flight 3407, a regional commuter flight, crashed into a house near Buffalo, New York, that February killing 50, the first fatal crash of a U.S. commercial flight since August 2006. And in January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549, assaulted by a flock of birds, managed a brilliant landing in New York’s Hudson River when disaster might have ensued. In none of these years did an airplane go down anywhere due to terrorism, though in 2007 two terrorists smashed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with propane tanks into the terminal of Glasgow International Airport. (No one was killed.)"
And:
"And yet here’s the strange thing: thanks to what didn’t happen on Flight 253, the media essentially went mad, 24/7. Newspaper coverage of the failed plot and its ramifications actually grew for two full weeks after the incident until it had achieved something like full-spectrum dominance, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. In the days after Christmas, more than half the news links in blogs related to Flight 253. At the same time, the Republican criticism machine (and the media universe that goes with it) ramped up on the subject of the Obama administration’s terror wimpiness; the global air transport system plunked down millions of dollars on new technology which will not find underwear bombs; the homeland security-industrial-complex had a field day; and fear, that adrenaline rush from hell, was further embedded in the American way of life."
TomDispatch takes up the issue and puts into some sort of context in his latest piece "Hold Onto Your Underwear".
"Let me put American life in the Age of Terror into some kind of context, and then tell me you’re not ready to get on the nearest plane heading anywhere, even toward Yemen.
In 2008, 14,180 Americans were murdered, according to the FBI. In that year, there were 34,017 fatal vehicle crashes in the U.S. and, so the U.S. Fire Administration tells us, 3,320 deaths by fire. More than 11,000 Americans died of the swine flu between April and mid-December 2009, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; on average, a staggering 443,600 Americans die yearly of illnesses related to tobacco use, reports the American Cancer Society; 5,000 Americans die annually from food-borne diseases; an estimated 1,760 children died from abuse or neglect in 2007; and the next year, 560 Americans died of weather-related conditions, according to the National Weather Service, including 126 from tornadoes, 67 from rip tides, 58 from flash floods, 27 from lightning, 27 from avalanches, and 1 from a dust devil.
As for airplane fatalities, no American died in a crash of a U.S. carrier in either 2007 or 2008, despite 1.5 billion passengers transported. In 2009, planes certainly went down and people died. In June, for instance, a French flight on its way from Rio de Janeiro to Paris disappeared in bad weather over the Atlantic, killing 226. Continental Connection Flight 3407, a regional commuter flight, crashed into a house near Buffalo, New York, that February killing 50, the first fatal crash of a U.S. commercial flight since August 2006. And in January 2009, US Airways Flight 1549, assaulted by a flock of birds, managed a brilliant landing in New York’s Hudson River when disaster might have ensued. In none of these years did an airplane go down anywhere due to terrorism, though in 2007 two terrorists smashed a Jeep Cherokee loaded with propane tanks into the terminal of Glasgow International Airport. (No one was killed.)"
And:
"And yet here’s the strange thing: thanks to what didn’t happen on Flight 253, the media essentially went mad, 24/7. Newspaper coverage of the failed plot and its ramifications actually grew for two full weeks after the incident until it had achieved something like full-spectrum dominance, according to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. In the days after Christmas, more than half the news links in blogs related to Flight 253. At the same time, the Republican criticism machine (and the media universe that goes with it) ramped up on the subject of the Obama administration’s terror wimpiness; the global air transport system plunked down millions of dollars on new technology which will not find underwear bombs; the homeland security-industrial-complex had a field day; and fear, that adrenaline rush from hell, was further embedded in the American way of life."
Did your city crack The List?
The debate goes on every year. Which city in the world is the most liveable? How on earth one can realistically evaluate such things remains somewhat of a mystery, but The Economist "does" the exercise annually.
This year's List is out:
"Canadian and Australian cities account for seven of the top ten spots in the Economist Intelligence Unit's latest liveability ranking. Vancouver (Canada) continues to top the Economist Intelligence Unit's global liveability survey with a score of 98%, which bodes well for visitors during the Winter Olympics this year.
All of the top ten cities achieve scores of over 95% and almost half of the cities surveyed (64 of 140) score more than 80% which puts them in the very top tier of liveability. For most cities liveability has been unaffected by the global downturn, which may have hit wages and prices but has had less of an impact on factors that the survey measures like infrastructure or crime levels."
Top 10 cities Bottom 10 cities
Rank Country City Rating
1 Canada Vancouver 98.0
2 Austria Vienna 97.9
3 Australia Melbourne 97.5
4 Canada Toronto 97.2
5 Canada Calgary 96.6
6 Finland Helsinki 96.2
7 Australia Sydney 96.1
8= Australia Perth 95.9
8= Australia Adelaide 95.9
10 New Zealand Auckland 95.7
Rank Country City Rating
130= Senegal Dakar a 48.3
132 Sri Lanka Colombo 47.3
133 Nepal Kathmandu 47.1
134 Cameroon Douala 43.3
135 Pakistan Karachi 40.9
136 Nigeria Lagos 39.0
137 PNG Port Moresby 38.9
138= Algeria Algiers 38.7
138= Bangladesh Dhaka 38.7
140 Zimbabwe Harare 37.5
a Dakar shares its rank with Tehran (Iran).
The Economist's Gulliver lists the criteria for making up the List:
"The ranking scores each city from 0-100 on 30 factors spread across five areas: stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. These numbers are then weighted and combined to produce an overall figure."
This year's List is out:
"Canadian and Australian cities account for seven of the top ten spots in the Economist Intelligence Unit's latest liveability ranking. Vancouver (Canada) continues to top the Economist Intelligence Unit's global liveability survey with a score of 98%, which bodes well for visitors during the Winter Olympics this year.
All of the top ten cities achieve scores of over 95% and almost half of the cities surveyed (64 of 140) score more than 80% which puts them in the very top tier of liveability. For most cities liveability has been unaffected by the global downturn, which may have hit wages and prices but has had less of an impact on factors that the survey measures like infrastructure or crime levels."
Top 10 cities Bottom 10 cities
Rank Country City Rating
1 Canada Vancouver 98.0
2 Austria Vienna 97.9
3 Australia Melbourne 97.5
4 Canada Toronto 97.2
5 Canada Calgary 96.6
6 Finland Helsinki 96.2
7 Australia Sydney 96.1
8= Australia Perth 95.9
8= Australia Adelaide 95.9
10 New Zealand Auckland 95.7
Rank Country City Rating
130= Senegal Dakar a 48.3
132 Sri Lanka Colombo 47.3
133 Nepal Kathmandu 47.1
134 Cameroon Douala 43.3
135 Pakistan Karachi 40.9
136 Nigeria Lagos 39.0
137 PNG Port Moresby 38.9
138= Algeria Algiers 38.7
138= Bangladesh Dhaka 38.7
140 Zimbabwe Harare 37.5
a Dakar shares its rank with Tehran (Iran).
The Economist's Gulliver lists the criteria for making up the List:
"The ranking scores each city from 0-100 on 30 factors spread across five areas: stability, health care, culture and environment, education, and infrastructure. These numbers are then weighted and combined to produce an overall figure."
Monday, February 15, 2010
Message to Obama: Some home truths about the Middle East
Interestingly, when The NY Times is presently involved in a lively debate about the "independence" of its Bureau Chief in Jerusalem - his son is a member of the IDF - along comes ones of its regular op-ed writers, Roger Cohen, calling on Obama to take some stern and urgent action to get things sorted out in the Middle East. As Cohen rightly says, time is running out.
"For over a century now, Zionism and Arab nationalism have failed to find an accommodation in the Holy Land. Both movements attempted to fill the space left by collapsed empire, and it has been left to the quasi-empire, the United States, to try to coax them to peaceful coexistence. The attempt has failed.
President Barack Obama came to office more than a year ago promising new thinking, outreach to the Muslim world, and relentless focus on Israel-Palestine. But nice speeches have given way to sullen stalemate. I am told Obama and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have a zero-chemistry relationship.
Domestic U.S. politics constrain innovative thought — even open debate — on the process without end that is the peace search. As Aaron David Miller, who long labored in the trenches of that process, once observed, the United States ends up as “Israel’s lawyer” rather than an honest broker. The upside for an American congressman in speaking out for Palestine is nonexistent.
I don’t see these constraints shifting much, but the need for Obama to honor his election promise grows. The conflict gnaws at U.S. security, eats away at whatever remote possibility of a two-state solution is left, clouds Israel’s future, scatters Palestinians and devours every attempt to bridge the West and Islam."
Continue reading here.
"For over a century now, Zionism and Arab nationalism have failed to find an accommodation in the Holy Land. Both movements attempted to fill the space left by collapsed empire, and it has been left to the quasi-empire, the United States, to try to coax them to peaceful coexistence. The attempt has failed.
President Barack Obama came to office more than a year ago promising new thinking, outreach to the Muslim world, and relentless focus on Israel-Palestine. But nice speeches have given way to sullen stalemate. I am told Obama and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have a zero-chemistry relationship.
Domestic U.S. politics constrain innovative thought — even open debate — on the process without end that is the peace search. As Aaron David Miller, who long labored in the trenches of that process, once observed, the United States ends up as “Israel’s lawyer” rather than an honest broker. The upside for an American congressman in speaking out for Palestine is nonexistent.
I don’t see these constraints shifting much, but the need for Obama to honor his election promise grows. The conflict gnaws at U.S. security, eats away at whatever remote possibility of a two-state solution is left, clouds Israel’s future, scatters Palestinians and devours every attempt to bridge the West and Islam."
Continue reading here.
Taliban friend's letters to the enemy
Benjamin Gilmour, if you didn't know it, has written a wonderful book Warrior Poets and made a much lauded film Son of a Lion. Check out both here.
Writing on Eureka Street.com.au he details a letter from a member of the Taliban "addressed to the Americans". The letter becomes even more significant given the 15,000 strong military operation presently underway in Afghanistan.
"Looting of military convoys is nothing new in this part of the world. A few decades ago it was the Soviets who lost their AK47s, big fur hats and service medals. Pre-partition, the British were so frustrated with the Pashtun habit of looting their weapon stores, that they encouraged Afridi tribes to expand the capabilities of the Darra Bazaar. It is ironic to think the only way the colonialists could stop the enemy from stealing their weapons was to help them make their own.
Fifty years later the Pashtuns are putting up the same fight they always have. Thanks to never-ending attempts to control them, war has become their way of life. In Abdullah Khan's gift there is a clear message, but he wants to make sure I don't miss it.
'My friend, tell your soldiers to stop risking their lives in Afghanistan for these medals. Here in Pakistan, we'll give them one for free. As long as they pack up and go home, we'll give them as many as they want.'"
Writing on Eureka Street.com.au he details a letter from a member of the Taliban "addressed to the Americans". The letter becomes even more significant given the 15,000 strong military operation presently underway in Afghanistan.
"Looting of military convoys is nothing new in this part of the world. A few decades ago it was the Soviets who lost their AK47s, big fur hats and service medals. Pre-partition, the British were so frustrated with the Pashtun habit of looting their weapon stores, that they encouraged Afridi tribes to expand the capabilities of the Darra Bazaar. It is ironic to think the only way the colonialists could stop the enemy from stealing their weapons was to help them make their own.
Fifty years later the Pashtuns are putting up the same fight they always have. Thanks to never-ending attempts to control them, war has become their way of life. In Abdullah Khan's gift there is a clear message, but he wants to make sure I don't miss it.
'My friend, tell your soldiers to stop risking their lives in Afghanistan for these medals. Here in Pakistan, we'll give them one for free. As long as they pack up and go home, we'll give them as many as they want.'"
Sunday, February 14, 2010
Our world, in photographs, in 2009
Photographs are still able to capture the "scene" - which the printed word or narrative can't.
The independent, non-profit World Press Photo, which organizes the largest international press photography exhibit, announced this year's winners today.
Go here, on CommonDreams, to view the winners.
The independent, non-profit World Press Photo, which organizes the largest international press photography exhibit, announced this year's winners today.
Go here, on CommonDreams, to view the winners.
China: Yet another blow for freedom of expression
The Washington Post reports:
"A Chinese court upheld Thursday the unprecedented 11-year sentence given to a prominent scholar who had called for political reform, the latest in a string of harsh punishments for dissenters."
This conviction once again demonstrates that freedom of expression in China is near enough impossible - whatever the Chinese claim.
"Asked whether China's treatment of dissidents might negatively affect its image overseas, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu responded, "There are no dissidents in China."
Mmm! Read the full Post article here.
"A Chinese court upheld Thursday the unprecedented 11-year sentence given to a prominent scholar who had called for political reform, the latest in a string of harsh punishments for dissenters."
This conviction once again demonstrates that freedom of expression in China is near enough impossible - whatever the Chinese claim.
"Asked whether China's treatment of dissidents might negatively affect its image overseas, Foreign Ministry spokesman Ma Zhaoxu responded, "There are no dissidents in China."
Mmm! Read the full Post article here.
Italy's PM does it again
No, you are not reading about some African or South American dictatorship. It's Italy, land of Chianti, pasta, those canals in Venice, pizza - and it's infamous Premier, Silvio Berlesconi.
Passport, the blog of the Editors of FP, reports on what must surely be more than cause for concern:
"Italy has now essentially banned talk shows on state broadcaster RAI from commenting on politics ahead of regional elections:
'The ruling PDL Party's majority on the parliamentary watchdog that oversees public broadcaster RAI forced through rules that mean the state broadcaster's most popular talk shows will have to scrap their political content – or face a transfer from mid-evening to graveyard shifts. Programmes such as Ballarò and Annozero, which have frequently held Mr Berlusconi to account for alleged sex scandals and even Mafia links, will be the main victims of the month-long clamp down that prompted accusations of censorship.'
Political content will be allowed – but only if all 30 or so parties standing in the elections are represented on every show, which programme-makers said would make their formats unworkable.
The rules will apply from 28 February until 28 March, when the country's regional elections are held. Government supporters said the rules were needed to ensure political neutrality during the election campaign.
Naturally, broadcasters owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset will not be effected by the rule.
This joke of a law is the sort of thing one would expect out of Vladimir Putin's Russia or Hugo Chavez's Venezuela and makes one wonder if Berlusconi would be taken at all seriously as a democratic leader if he didn't happen to live in Western Europe. With his attempts to control Italy's media and judiciary, a trail of corruption charges involving 2,500 court hearings, and -- let's face it -- somewhat unbecoming personal behavior, Berlusconi is becoming an embarassment not just for Italy but for the European Union.
Can the E.U. really be an international voice for democratic reform with one of its core members behaving like a tinpot dictator?"
Passport, the blog of the Editors of FP, reports on what must surely be more than cause for concern:
"Italy has now essentially banned talk shows on state broadcaster RAI from commenting on politics ahead of regional elections:
'The ruling PDL Party's majority on the parliamentary watchdog that oversees public broadcaster RAI forced through rules that mean the state broadcaster's most popular talk shows will have to scrap their political content – or face a transfer from mid-evening to graveyard shifts. Programmes such as Ballarò and Annozero, which have frequently held Mr Berlusconi to account for alleged sex scandals and even Mafia links, will be the main victims of the month-long clamp down that prompted accusations of censorship.'
Political content will be allowed – but only if all 30 or so parties standing in the elections are represented on every show, which programme-makers said would make their formats unworkable.
The rules will apply from 28 February until 28 March, when the country's regional elections are held. Government supporters said the rules were needed to ensure political neutrality during the election campaign.
Naturally, broadcasters owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset will not be effected by the rule.
This joke of a law is the sort of thing one would expect out of Vladimir Putin's Russia or Hugo Chavez's Venezuela and makes one wonder if Berlusconi would be taken at all seriously as a democratic leader if he didn't happen to live in Western Europe. With his attempts to control Italy's media and judiciary, a trail of corruption charges involving 2,500 court hearings, and -- let's face it -- somewhat unbecoming personal behavior, Berlusconi is becoming an embarassment not just for Italy but for the European Union.
Can the E.U. really be an international voice for democratic reform with one of its core members behaving like a tinpot dictator?"
Saturday, February 13, 2010
It pays to pay up ...big!
Mind-boggling is a word which comes to mind when reading this report in The Huffington Post on what lobbyists spent in 2009. And, yes Virginia, it was a year of recession in the US:
"The final reports are in and we can now officially say that 2009 was the most profitable year ever for the lobbying industry.
The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics tallied lobbying income data from tens of thousands of disclosure filings, and the data show that special interests of all stripes spent $3.47 billion lobbying the federal government in 2009, up from $3.3 billion the previous year.
How did the influence industry manage such a banner year despite a battered economy? The simple answer is that the Obama administration's aggressive change agenda has prompted businesses to open their wallets to an unprecedented degree in the hope of preventing reform."
"The final reports are in and we can now officially say that 2009 was the most profitable year ever for the lobbying industry.
The nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics tallied lobbying income data from tens of thousands of disclosure filings, and the data show that special interests of all stripes spent $3.47 billion lobbying the federal government in 2009, up from $3.3 billion the previous year.
How did the influence industry manage such a banner year despite a battered economy? The simple answer is that the Obama administration's aggressive change agenda has prompted businesses to open their wallets to an unprecedented degree in the hope of preventing reform."
Two perspectives on Iran
Iran is again back at the top of the news. Apart from celebrating it's 31 year old Islamic Revolution - and the protests that has wrought - the announcement of the maverick Iranian President that the country is closer to being a nuclear power has caused more than ripples of concern around the world.
World Focus highlights 2 pieces on Iran.
First, this, on women in Iran:
"Iranian women have made remarkable strides in education during the last few decades; 65 percent of college undergraduates are female.
Correspondent Bigan Saliani and producer Richard O'Regan travel to Iran to explore tensions between the expectations of highly educated young Iranian women and the reality of their lives."
Second, the current street protests in Iran:
"As Iran battles dissent at home and abroad, hundreds of thousands of people showed their support for the government today.
Iranians took to the streets of Tehran to mark the 31st anniversary of the revolution that created the Islamic republic."
World Focus highlights 2 pieces on Iran.
First, this, on women in Iran:
"Iranian women have made remarkable strides in education during the last few decades; 65 percent of college undergraduates are female.
Correspondent Bigan Saliani and producer Richard O'Regan travel to Iran to explore tensions between the expectations of highly educated young Iranian women and the reality of their lives."
Second, the current street protests in Iran:
"As Iran battles dissent at home and abroad, hundreds of thousands of people showed their support for the government today.
Iranians took to the streets of Tehran to mark the 31st anniversary of the revolution that created the Islamic republic."
Top judge: Binyam Mohamed case shows MI5 to be devious, dishonest and complicit in torture
It's all unravelling!
Either through the Chilcot Inquiry in the UK or litigation in the Binyam Mohamed case, the duplicity and lying of politicians is being revealed - as also the clear involvement of many in the torture of those imprisoned, mostly without any charge or conviction. Remember renditioning?
Just read through this and this piece from The Guardian.
Either through the Chilcot Inquiry in the UK or litigation in the Binyam Mohamed case, the duplicity and lying of politicians is being revealed - as also the clear involvement of many in the torture of those imprisoned, mostly without any charge or conviction. Remember renditioning?
Just read through this and this piece from The Guardian.
Friday, February 12, 2010
They're back! The neo-con bomb 'em mob!
As if the world hasn't seen enough of what havoc the neo-con bomb 'em mob have wrought, as FP reveals.....they are back! Now, it's not Iraq which they have in their sights, but Iran.
"They're back! The "Bomb Iran" crowd is making a big return to the political center stage after months of puzzlement over what to do about developments in the Islamic Republic. Hawks such as Daniel Pipes and John Bolton are arguing that Iran is dead-set on its pursuit of a nuclear arsenal -- and point to developments such as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announcement this weekend that Iran would enrich its uranium stocks to 20 percent to argue that diplomatic avenues have reached a dead end. The would-be bombers fear that the mullahs will leverage their nuclear capability to expand Persian influence through the Arab world and beyond -- and argue that the United States must do anything in its power, including the use of force, to stop them.
This movement had its heyday in neoconservative circles in 2006 and 2007, following Iran's official announcement that it had started to enrich uranium and the subsequent U.S.-led push in the U.N Security Council for additional sanctions. And who could forget 2008 presidential candidate John McCain's memorable "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" gaffe, sung to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann"? In the wake of Iran's contested election last June, pro-bomb pundits have argued that the popular unrest -- including the imminent anti-regime protests scheduled for Feb. 11, the anniversary of the Islamic Republic -- far from meaning the United States should hold back, presents a perfect opportunity to target the increasingly unpopular leadership of the Iranian regime. Needless to say, it doesn't appear that Obama will be taking their advice any time soon; administration officials have strongly suggested they prefer to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions through diplomacy and sanctions."
FP goes on, here, to provide chapter-and-verse of who are what ought to be the now discredited crew of "bombers".
"They're back! The "Bomb Iran" crowd is making a big return to the political center stage after months of puzzlement over what to do about developments in the Islamic Republic. Hawks such as Daniel Pipes and John Bolton are arguing that Iran is dead-set on its pursuit of a nuclear arsenal -- and point to developments such as President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's announcement this weekend that Iran would enrich its uranium stocks to 20 percent to argue that diplomatic avenues have reached a dead end. The would-be bombers fear that the mullahs will leverage their nuclear capability to expand Persian influence through the Arab world and beyond -- and argue that the United States must do anything in its power, including the use of force, to stop them.
This movement had its heyday in neoconservative circles in 2006 and 2007, following Iran's official announcement that it had started to enrich uranium and the subsequent U.S.-led push in the U.N Security Council for additional sanctions. And who could forget 2008 presidential candidate John McCain's memorable "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" gaffe, sung to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann"? In the wake of Iran's contested election last June, pro-bomb pundits have argued that the popular unrest -- including the imminent anti-regime protests scheduled for Feb. 11, the anniversary of the Islamic Republic -- far from meaning the United States should hold back, presents a perfect opportunity to target the increasingly unpopular leadership of the Iranian regime. Needless to say, it doesn't appear that Obama will be taking their advice any time soon; administration officials have strongly suggested they prefer to deal with Iran's nuclear ambitions through diplomacy and sanctions."
FP goes on, here, to provide chapter-and-verse of who are what ought to be the now discredited crew of "bombers".
Obama! Clueless?
With markets once again getting jittery in the light of Greece's economic woes - as possibly also those of Portugal and Spain - and the US economy limping along and looking in need of being admitted to the ER, Obama's response to Wall St. firms announcing huge bonuses for their execs is to say the least puzzling. One day he is having a go at Wall St. and the next seemingly relaxed about it.
All of this prompts Paul Krugman, Nobel prize winner in economics, writing in The NY Times to wonder, out loud, whether Obama is clueless.
"I’m with Simon Johnson here: how is it possible, at this late date, for Obama to be this clueless?
The lead story on Bloomberg right now contains excerpts from an interview with Business Week which tells us:
"President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay.
The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is “an extraordinary amount of money” for Main Street, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.”
“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.”
Obama sought to combat perceptions that his administration is anti-business and trumpeted the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies. He plans to reiterate that message when he speaks to the Business Roundtable, which represents the heads of many of the biggest U.S. companies, on Feb. 24 in Washington."
Oh. My. God.
First of all, to my knowledge, irresponsible behavior by baseball players hasn’t brought the world economy to the brink of collapse and cost millions of innocent Americans their jobs and/or houses.
And more specifically, not only has the financial industry has been bailed out with taxpayer commitments; it continues to rely on a taxpayer backstop for its stability. Don’t take it from me, take it from the rating agencies:
The planned overhaul of US financial rules prompted Standard & Poor’s to warn on Tuesday it might downgrade the credit ratings of Citigroup and Bank of America on concerns that the shake-up would make it less likely that the banks would be bailed out by US taxpayers if they ran into trouble again.
The point is that these bank executives are not free agents who are earning big bucks in fair competition; they run companies that are essentially wards of the state. There’s good reason to feel outraged at the growing appearance that we’re running a system of lemon socialism, in which losses are public but gains are private. And at the very least, you would think that Obama would understand the importance of acknowledging public anger over what’s happening.
But no. If the Bloomberg story is to be believed, Obama thinks his key to electoral success is to trumpet “the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies.”
We’re doomed."
All of this prompts Paul Krugman, Nobel prize winner in economics, writing in The NY Times to wonder, out loud, whether Obama is clueless.
"I’m with Simon Johnson here: how is it possible, at this late date, for Obama to be this clueless?
The lead story on Bloomberg right now contains excerpts from an interview with Business Week which tells us:
"President Barack Obama said he doesn’t “begrudge” the $17 million bonus awarded to JPMorgan Chase & Co. Chief Executive Officer Jamie Dimon or the $9 million issued to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. CEO Lloyd Blankfein, noting that some athletes take home more pay.
The president, speaking in an interview, said in response to a question that while $17 million is “an extraordinary amount of money” for Main Street, “there are some baseball players who are making more than that and don’t get to the World Series either, so I’m shocked by that as well.”
“I know both those guys; they are very savvy businessmen,” Obama said in the interview yesterday in the Oval Office with Bloomberg BusinessWeek, which will appear on newsstands Friday. “I, like most of the American people, don’t begrudge people success or wealth. That is part of the free- market system.”
Obama sought to combat perceptions that his administration is anti-business and trumpeted the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies. He plans to reiterate that message when he speaks to the Business Roundtable, which represents the heads of many of the biggest U.S. companies, on Feb. 24 in Washington."
Oh. My. God.
First of all, to my knowledge, irresponsible behavior by baseball players hasn’t brought the world economy to the brink of collapse and cost millions of innocent Americans their jobs and/or houses.
And more specifically, not only has the financial industry has been bailed out with taxpayer commitments; it continues to rely on a taxpayer backstop for its stability. Don’t take it from me, take it from the rating agencies:
The planned overhaul of US financial rules prompted Standard & Poor’s to warn on Tuesday it might downgrade the credit ratings of Citigroup and Bank of America on concerns that the shake-up would make it less likely that the banks would be bailed out by US taxpayers if they ran into trouble again.
The point is that these bank executives are not free agents who are earning big bucks in fair competition; they run companies that are essentially wards of the state. There’s good reason to feel outraged at the growing appearance that we’re running a system of lemon socialism, in which losses are public but gains are private. And at the very least, you would think that Obama would understand the importance of acknowledging public anger over what’s happening.
But no. If the Bloomberg story is to be believed, Obama thinks his key to electoral success is to trumpet “the influence corporate leaders have had on his economic policies.”
We’re doomed."
Thursday, February 11, 2010
Robert Fisk: Gaza's defiant tunnellers head deeper underground
The Israelis have Gaza under a seige - and have had so, for many years. There is even a territorial-limit on the fishing Gazans can do. Now the Egyptians, as puppets of the US and with the active support of Israel, are in the process of building a wall [yes, Virginia, like the Berlin one and the one the Israelis call a "fence"] along the Gaza-Egyptian border.
Where that is supposed to leave 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza is more than an "interesting" question. With just everything blocked off from entering and leaving Gaza what are its people to do?
Robert Fisk, writing in The Independent, relates how the by now ubiquitous tunnels "work" and the evil of it all:
"They are the real resistance. They are the lung through which Gaza breathes. True, missiles must pass along their subterranean tracks, Qassam rockets, too, Kalashnikov ammunition, explosives. But by far the greatest burden of the tunnellers of Gaza is the very life-blood of this besieged little pseudo-Islamic statelet: fresh meat, oranges, chocolate, shirts, trousers, toys, cigarettes, wedding dresses, paper, entire motor-cars in four bits, car batteries, even plastic bottle tops. The tunnellers of Gaza are bombed by the Israelis, they die in their own collapsing tunnels – and now they face a new Egyptian wall, even the fear of drowning. Terrorists they may be to the Israelis – the promiscuous use of this word makes it fairly meaningless these days – but heroes they are to the Palestinians of Gaza. Rich ones, too, perhaps."
Continue reading here.
Where that is supposed to leave 1.5 million inhabitants of Gaza is more than an "interesting" question. With just everything blocked off from entering and leaving Gaza what are its people to do?
Robert Fisk, writing in The Independent, relates how the by now ubiquitous tunnels "work" and the evil of it all:
"They are the real resistance. They are the lung through which Gaza breathes. True, missiles must pass along their subterranean tracks, Qassam rockets, too, Kalashnikov ammunition, explosives. But by far the greatest burden of the tunnellers of Gaza is the very life-blood of this besieged little pseudo-Islamic statelet: fresh meat, oranges, chocolate, shirts, trousers, toys, cigarettes, wedding dresses, paper, entire motor-cars in four bits, car batteries, even plastic bottle tops. The tunnellers of Gaza are bombed by the Israelis, they die in their own collapsing tunnels – and now they face a new Egyptian wall, even the fear of drowning. Terrorists they may be to the Israelis – the promiscuous use of this word makes it fairly meaningless these days – but heroes they are to the Palestinians of Gaza. Rich ones, too, perhaps."
Continue reading here.
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