A lot has already been written about the unprovoked Israeli attack on an unarmed boat, in international waters, headed for Gaza carrying humanitarian aid for the besieged Gazans.
At the time of writing the death toll is said to be some 19 deaths and countless injuries.
Here is one of the first responses from Realistic Peace in Israel-Palestine:
"Having worked on the issue of Israel and its myriad conflicts for many years, one gets used to tragedy and even to stunningly abhorrent behavior. And indeed, I have seen more than enough of both from all sides in this conflict.
But every once in a while, things take a turn, and that turn is punctuated by a singular, stunning event. The murderous raid on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla this day was one such event."
And:
"The bottom line is that Israel raided these ships with commandoes, and the end result was a great deal of needless bloodshed. And apparently, according to the IDF spokesperson, as reported by journalist Gregg Carlstrom, they couldn’t even wait to do it until the ships had passed out of international waters, which makes it, if no explanation is forthcoming, an act of piracy as well.
Israel crossed a line today, in a way not dissimilar (though certainly of a much smaller scope, thankfully) to the line they crossed in their massive attack on Gaza in 2008-09. Whatever Israel’s detractors have said over the years, this incident, like Operation Cast Lead, was far beyond anything Israel has done in the past."
Monday, May 31, 2010
Beyond just Memorial Day
Lisa Millar is one of the Australian ABC's correspondents in the USA.
In a piece on The Drum on the ABC's web site, reflecting on the upcoming Memorial Day in America this weekend she has some observations, given that she is a "foreigner", perhaps more acute than otherwise, of what true memory really embraces.
"When I was here in my first term as a correspondent, the wars were just beginning. The nightly news would broadcast stories from those far away places in the Middle East. Young soldiers and marines would stand in front of the camera and send messages back home, talk about the challenges of facing this difficult enemy and reinforce their commitment to being there.
There would be stories from the communities they'd left behind, the towns where just about everyone was related to or knew someone who had gone to war.
There was Killeen near Fort Hood where I stood in the high school's corridor looking up at the stars hanging from the ceiling - silver for each parent currently deployed overseas, gold for those who had died, pinned up by their children.
But as the years have dragged on the prominence of those overseas wars seems to be waning. In between the big announcements on troops surges and pullouts and exit dates, attention drifts.
The ABC's cameraman Louie Eroglu and I attended a citizenship ceremony this week at a National Guard Armory in Maryland just north of Washington DC.
There were about 20 immigrants taking the oath, facing the flag and pledging their allegiance to a country where many had already lived for 20 or 30 years.
It was being held there because it was Military Appreciation Week and at least a dozen of those earning their citizenship were in uniform. Signing up to fight for the US puts you on a fast track through bureaucracy.
There were several speeches from uninspiring local officials - but one line remained with me.
Brigadier General James Adkins thanked them for their service and for the load they carry. And then he casually tossed in this statistic - only 1 per cent of Americans currently serve in the military. One per cent of a population of 300 million people.
It's easy to understand how many Americans can live their daily lives without really being touched by war.
And it's no wonder so many of the military are returning to those battlefields again and again.
It's interesting to ask a group of soldiers how many are on their second or third or fourth deployment. Hands go up across the room. Some of them admittedly are shorter missions than others but the military is discovering what happens when soldiers go back again and again.
This week, after years of requests, the ABC was finally allowed into the Walter Reed Medical Centre in DC. They call it a centre but really it's a vast stretch of buildings that's the hospital for the majority of injuries from Iraq and Afghanistan. We were filming for The 7.30 Report - a story you'll see in the coming weeks - following the challenges facing a young soldier who lost the bottom part of his leg to an IED or improvised explosive device two months ago.
I asked the therapist taking a plastic cast of his stump how many times a week he did this. Sometimes a dozen a day, he said.
For many this Memorial Day in the US will be like all the others before. But it won't be for some. Because more "Names of the Dead" have appeared in print since last year - a reality in black and white."
In a piece on The Drum on the ABC's web site, reflecting on the upcoming Memorial Day in America this weekend she has some observations, given that she is a "foreigner", perhaps more acute than otherwise, of what true memory really embraces.
"When I was here in my first term as a correspondent, the wars were just beginning. The nightly news would broadcast stories from those far away places in the Middle East. Young soldiers and marines would stand in front of the camera and send messages back home, talk about the challenges of facing this difficult enemy and reinforce their commitment to being there.
There would be stories from the communities they'd left behind, the towns where just about everyone was related to or knew someone who had gone to war.
There was Killeen near Fort Hood where I stood in the high school's corridor looking up at the stars hanging from the ceiling - silver for each parent currently deployed overseas, gold for those who had died, pinned up by their children.
But as the years have dragged on the prominence of those overseas wars seems to be waning. In between the big announcements on troops surges and pullouts and exit dates, attention drifts.
The ABC's cameraman Louie Eroglu and I attended a citizenship ceremony this week at a National Guard Armory in Maryland just north of Washington DC.
There were about 20 immigrants taking the oath, facing the flag and pledging their allegiance to a country where many had already lived for 20 or 30 years.
It was being held there because it was Military Appreciation Week and at least a dozen of those earning their citizenship were in uniform. Signing up to fight for the US puts you on a fast track through bureaucracy.
There were several speeches from uninspiring local officials - but one line remained with me.
Brigadier General James Adkins thanked them for their service and for the load they carry. And then he casually tossed in this statistic - only 1 per cent of Americans currently serve in the military. One per cent of a population of 300 million people.
It's easy to understand how many Americans can live their daily lives without really being touched by war.
And it's no wonder so many of the military are returning to those battlefields again and again.
It's interesting to ask a group of soldiers how many are on their second or third or fourth deployment. Hands go up across the room. Some of them admittedly are shorter missions than others but the military is discovering what happens when soldiers go back again and again.
This week, after years of requests, the ABC was finally allowed into the Walter Reed Medical Centre in DC. They call it a centre but really it's a vast stretch of buildings that's the hospital for the majority of injuries from Iraq and Afghanistan. We were filming for The 7.30 Report - a story you'll see in the coming weeks - following the challenges facing a young soldier who lost the bottom part of his leg to an IED or improvised explosive device two months ago.
I asked the therapist taking a plastic cast of his stump how many times a week he did this. Sometimes a dozen a day, he said.
For many this Memorial Day in the US will be like all the others before. But it won't be for some. Because more "Names of the Dead" have appeared in print since last year - a reality in black and white."
Hearing absent voices in the Middle East discourse
Perhaps most in the West ought to sit up and take notice of the words of leaders in the Middle East all too sadly missing in the discourse and narrative of that troubled region.
FP's Middle East Channel report makes for worthwhile reading:
"This week, Charlie Rose was in Damascus and conducted high-profile interviews with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. The Bashar interview echoed many of the points previously made on the Channel by Joshua Landis in his piece 'What is behind the Scud scare?' in which he described how Bashar's Syria views its strategic decisions largely in a context of an assymetric power imbalance with Israel. Bashar noted about the U.S. in this vein that:
Meanwhile, Rose's interview with Meshaal, both explicitly and implicitly, shed light on how the Islamic Resistance movement sees itself and how it reconciles the fact of its movement and political apparatuses. On the latter point, Meshaal expanded upon previous statements that have reflected the pragmatic wing of Hamas' political ideology. Said Meshaal: "So when the occupation comes to an end, the resistance will end, as simple as that. If Israel would go to the 1967 borders...that will be the end of the Palestinian resistance." He went on to declare Hamas' opposition to the intentional targeting of civilians, called on the United States to directly negotiate with the movement, and that Hamas didn't have any "problem whatsoever with the United States", just with its favoritism in the region."
Go here and here to view the two interviews.
FP's Middle East Channel report makes for worthwhile reading:
"This week, Charlie Rose was in Damascus and conducted high-profile interviews with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal. The Bashar interview echoed many of the points previously made on the Channel by Joshua Landis in his piece 'What is behind the Scud scare?' in which he described how Bashar's Syria views its strategic decisions largely in a context of an assymetric power imbalance with Israel. Bashar noted about the U.S. in this vein that:
They don't understand that we want peace. But if you want peace, it doesn't mean--to sign [sic] peace treaty, it doesn't mean we sign capitulation agreement. That's what they don't understand. There is a big different between capitulation agreement and peace treaty.
Meanwhile, Rose's interview with Meshaal, both explicitly and implicitly, shed light on how the Islamic Resistance movement sees itself and how it reconciles the fact of its movement and political apparatuses. On the latter point, Meshaal expanded upon previous statements that have reflected the pragmatic wing of Hamas' political ideology. Said Meshaal: "So when the occupation comes to an end, the resistance will end, as simple as that. If Israel would go to the 1967 borders...that will be the end of the Palestinian resistance." He went on to declare Hamas' opposition to the intentional targeting of civilians, called on the United States to directly negotiate with the movement, and that Hamas didn't have any "problem whatsoever with the United States", just with its favoritism in the region."
Go here and here to view the two interviews.
One of our greater books....and the "missing" author
"The celebrations will last the summer, as befits the 50th anniversary of the book that British librarians a few years ago voted top of a must-read list before you die (ahead of the likes of the Bible, Orwell's 1984 and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, to name but three others in the top 10). There's just one problem. The guest of honour at the party almost certainly won't show up.
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee's haunting and inspiring novel about the collision of childhood innocence with the realities of race and racial injustice in the Depression-era South, was first published in July 1960. Since then, it has sold about a million copies a year, become a fixture on every school reading list in the country, and been translated into 40 languages. But Lee herself more or less vanished from the face of the earth. She is 84 now, and living in a retirement home in the small, God-fearing town of Monroeville where she was born. It is a place of 7,000 inhabitants in deepest Alabama, with 28 churches and where everyone refers to the most famous, if rarely sighted, local resident by her first name of Nelle."
From The Independent. Continue reading here.
To Kill a Mockingbird, Harper Lee's haunting and inspiring novel about the collision of childhood innocence with the realities of race and racial injustice in the Depression-era South, was first published in July 1960. Since then, it has sold about a million copies a year, become a fixture on every school reading list in the country, and been translated into 40 languages. But Lee herself more or less vanished from the face of the earth. She is 84 now, and living in a retirement home in the small, God-fearing town of Monroeville where she was born. It is a place of 7,000 inhabitants in deepest Alabama, with 28 churches and where everyone refers to the most famous, if rarely sighted, local resident by her first name of Nelle."
From The Independent. Continue reading here.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
Reporting at its best.....exposing the worst
As you read this post, there is a flotilla of boats with some 800 people aboard - including members of the EU Parliament - steaming toward to Gaza to deliver 10,000 tones of purely humanitarian aid for the Gazans.
Israel has vowed to block the boats. As is its wont, Israel is again out there attempting its usual PR spin.
Thankfully, the Al Jazeera journalist is just that - in its finest tradition:
Israel has vowed to block the boats. As is its wont, Israel is again out there attempting its usual PR spin.
Thankfully, the Al Jazeera journalist is just that - in its finest tradition:
Saturday, May 29, 2010
Obama: A man not up to the task
As Obama attempts very belatedly tackles the BP oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico, writing on TomDispatch in "The American Century Is So Over", Dilip Hiro asserts that Obama can now be fairly judged a failure on foreign affairs matters:
"Irrespective of their politics, flawed leaders share a common trait. They generally remain remarkably oblivious to the harm they do to the nation they lead. George W. Bush is a salient recent example, as is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. When it comes to foreign policy, we are now witnessing a similar phenomenon at the Obama White House.
Here is the Obama pattern: Choose a foreign leader to pressure. Threaten him with dire consequences if he does not bend to Washington’s will. When he refuses to submit and instead responds vigorously, back off quickly and overcompensate for failure by switching into a placatory mode.
In his first year-plus in office, Barack Obama has provided us with enough examples to summarize his leadership style. The American president fails to objectively evaluate the strength of the cards that a targeted leader holds and his resolve to play them.
Obama’s propensity to retreat at the first sign of resistance shows that he lacks both guts and the strong convictions that are essential elements distinguishing statesmen from politicians. By pursuing a rudderless course in his foreign policy, by flip-flopping in his approach to other leaders, he is also inadvertently furnishing hard evidence to those who argue that American power is on the decline -- and that the downward slide of the globe’s former “sole superpower” is irreversible."
"Irrespective of their politics, flawed leaders share a common trait. They generally remain remarkably oblivious to the harm they do to the nation they lead. George W. Bush is a salient recent example, as is former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. When it comes to foreign policy, we are now witnessing a similar phenomenon at the Obama White House.
Here is the Obama pattern: Choose a foreign leader to pressure. Threaten him with dire consequences if he does not bend to Washington’s will. When he refuses to submit and instead responds vigorously, back off quickly and overcompensate for failure by switching into a placatory mode.
In his first year-plus in office, Barack Obama has provided us with enough examples to summarize his leadership style. The American president fails to objectively evaluate the strength of the cards that a targeted leader holds and his resolve to play them.
Obama’s propensity to retreat at the first sign of resistance shows that he lacks both guts and the strong convictions that are essential elements distinguishing statesmen from politicians. By pursuing a rudderless course in his foreign policy, by flip-flopping in his approach to other leaders, he is also inadvertently furnishing hard evidence to those who argue that American power is on the decline -- and that the downward slide of the globe’s former “sole superpower” is irreversible."
Hell in the Islamic Republic
Roger Cohen, op-ed writer for The International Tribune and The New York Times, was one of the few journalists to be in and report from Teheran, Iran, on the upheaval following the obviously rigged election in Iran last year. It was graphic, and what happened in Teheran, tragic, to say the least.
In his latest column he writes about a regime which seems to be no better than the much-hated reign of the Shah some 40 years ago. However, he suggests that if we want to help the people of Iran that to isolate the country is going to achieve nothing - just to the contrary!
"If you believe that Iran is not eternally condemned to veer from a monarch’s to a theocrat’s repression, and that its centennial quest for pluralism is unquenchable, speak out about abuse but pursue engagement because isolation only serves the horror merchants. Shun the realist and idealist bravura for the gray area where things get done.
Iran is weaker now than before the election. Its renewed interest in Brazilian-Turkish mediated talks is worth skeptical consideration. If you believe Mohsen — in the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate — deserves a future."
Read this troubling piece, in full, here.
In his latest column he writes about a regime which seems to be no better than the much-hated reign of the Shah some 40 years ago. However, he suggests that if we want to help the people of Iran that to isolate the country is going to achieve nothing - just to the contrary!
"If you believe that Iran is not eternally condemned to veer from a monarch’s to a theocrat’s repression, and that its centennial quest for pluralism is unquenchable, speak out about abuse but pursue engagement because isolation only serves the horror merchants. Shun the realist and idealist bravura for the gray area where things get done.
Iran is weaker now than before the election. Its renewed interest in Brazilian-Turkish mediated talks is worth skeptical consideration. If you believe Mohsen — in the name of God, the Merciful, the Compassionate — deserves a future."
Read this troubling piece, in full, here.
Anyone for Facebook? [with lack of privacy and all]
Credited to Nate Beeler, The Washington Examiner
Friday, May 28, 2010
Thursday, May 27, 2010
Amnesty's report condemns 'politicisation of justice'
Perhaps no surprise that in Amnesty General's Annual Report it condemns the "politicisation of justice".
BBC News reports:
"Amnesty International has criticised the "politicisation of international justice" in its annual report, which documents torture in 111 countries.
The human rights group accuses powerful governments of subordinating justice to political self-interest and of shielding allies from scrutiny.
It expresses particular concern over possible war crimes committed during fighting in Sri Lanka last year.
The report also criticises the UN for its failure to intervene.
Thousands of people were killed during the war, and a UN spokesman described the situation in northern Sri Lanka at the time as a "bloodbath".
But Amnesty says that "power plays" at the UN Human Rights Council led to member states approving a resolution drafted by the Sri Lankan government, complimenting itself on its success against the Tamil Tigers.
"By the end of the year, despite further evidence of war crimes and other abuses, no-one had been brought to justice," Amnesty's Secretary General Claudio Cordone says. "One would be hard pressed to imagine a more complete failure to hold to account those who abuse human rights."
BBC News reports:
"Amnesty International has criticised the "politicisation of international justice" in its annual report, which documents torture in 111 countries.
The human rights group accuses powerful governments of subordinating justice to political self-interest and of shielding allies from scrutiny.
It expresses particular concern over possible war crimes committed during fighting in Sri Lanka last year.
The report also criticises the UN for its failure to intervene.
Thousands of people were killed during the war, and a UN spokesman described the situation in northern Sri Lanka at the time as a "bloodbath".
But Amnesty says that "power plays" at the UN Human Rights Council led to member states approving a resolution drafted by the Sri Lankan government, complimenting itself on its success against the Tamil Tigers.
"By the end of the year, despite further evidence of war crimes and other abuses, no-one had been brought to justice," Amnesty's Secretary General Claudio Cordone says. "One would be hard pressed to imagine a more complete failure to hold to account those who abuse human rights."
Wellwishers
The world spends countless and mind-boggling trillions of dollars on armaments whilst in many parts of the world, really modest sums of money could make a material difference to the lives and well-being of people.
ABC Radio National's Breakfast program, presented by Fran Kelly, highlights how one couple, with commitment and starting out with little, have succeeded in making a substantial difference to villagers in Ethiopia.
"As Australia struggles with the ongoing drought, spare a thought for Ethiopia, where millions are affected by food and water shortages. It's frustrating because the solution for Ethiopian villagers is simply to dig a well, but that costs about $6,000 -- money the villagers don't have.
You might remember a couple of years ago I spoke with Ross Allen. He and his wife Marianne started the Wellwishers movement, and they're directly responsible now for bringing clean water for the first time in their lives to over 100,000 people."
Go here to hear an inspiring interview with Ross Allen.
ABC Radio National's Breakfast program, presented by Fran Kelly, highlights how one couple, with commitment and starting out with little, have succeeded in making a substantial difference to villagers in Ethiopia.
"As Australia struggles with the ongoing drought, spare a thought for Ethiopia, where millions are affected by food and water shortages. It's frustrating because the solution for Ethiopian villagers is simply to dig a well, but that costs about $6,000 -- money the villagers don't have.
You might remember a couple of years ago I spoke with Ross Allen. He and his wife Marianne started the Wellwishers movement, and they're directly responsible now for bringing clean water for the first time in their lives to over 100,000 people."
Go here to hear an inspiring interview with Ross Allen.
Look out for what looms up ahead
Robert Dreyfuss, writing in The Nation raises more than a valid question of where the US is heading, militarily, in the Middle East - and what it's objectives are.
"A secret military directive signed last September 30 by General David Petraeus, the Centcom commander, authorizes a vast expansion of secret US military special ops from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East to Central Asia and “appears to authorize specific operations in Iran,” according to the New York Times.
If President Obama knew about this, authorized it and still supports it, then Obama has crossed a red line, and the president will stand revealed as an aggressive, militaristic liberal interventionist who bears a closer resemblance to the president he succeeded than to the ephemeral reformer that he pretended to be in 2008, when he ran for office. If he didn’t know, if he didn’t understand the order, and if he’s unwilling to cancel it now that it’s been publicized, then Obama is a feckless incompetent. Take your pick.
If Congress has any guts at all, it will convene immediate investigative hearings into a power grab by Petraeus, a politically ambitious general, and the Pentagon’s arrogant Special Operations team, led by Admiral Eric T. Olson, who collaborated with Petraeus. And Congress needs to ask the White House, What did you know, and when did you know it?"
"A secret military directive signed last September 30 by General David Petraeus, the Centcom commander, authorizes a vast expansion of secret US military special ops from the Horn of Africa to the Middle East to Central Asia and “appears to authorize specific operations in Iran,” according to the New York Times.
If President Obama knew about this, authorized it and still supports it, then Obama has crossed a red line, and the president will stand revealed as an aggressive, militaristic liberal interventionist who bears a closer resemblance to the president he succeeded than to the ephemeral reformer that he pretended to be in 2008, when he ran for office. If he didn’t know, if he didn’t understand the order, and if he’s unwilling to cancel it now that it’s been publicized, then Obama is a feckless incompetent. Take your pick.
If Congress has any guts at all, it will convene immediate investigative hearings into a power grab by Petraeus, a politically ambitious general, and the Pentagon’s arrogant Special Operations team, led by Admiral Eric T. Olson, who collaborated with Petraeus. And Congress needs to ask the White House, What did you know, and when did you know it?"
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Caste casts a tragic shadow over cupid
All too sadly, caste still carries sway in many countries, such as India. The consequences are often devastating.
The Washington Post reports on a situation of cupid in India which led to the deaths of a couple who eloped - and what followed.
"No one in this village visits Chanderpati Banwala's home, which stands at the end of a lane full of sleeping buffaloes and overturned wooden carts. The boycott began three years ago when her son eloped with his sweetheart, a neighbor from his clan.
But the marriage was short-lived. Village elders declared the relationship incestuous, a violation of ancient Hindu rules of marriage because the two were descendants of a common ancestor who lived thousands of years ago. As the couple tried to flee town, the young woman's family chased them down and dragged them out of a bus on a busy highway. The groom, Manoj, was strangled, and his bride, Babli, was forced to drink pesticide. Their bodies were dumped in a canal."
Continue reading here.
The Washington Post reports on a situation of cupid in India which led to the deaths of a couple who eloped - and what followed.
"No one in this village visits Chanderpati Banwala's home, which stands at the end of a lane full of sleeping buffaloes and overturned wooden carts. The boycott began three years ago when her son eloped with his sweetheart, a neighbor from his clan.
But the marriage was short-lived. Village elders declared the relationship incestuous, a violation of ancient Hindu rules of marriage because the two were descendants of a common ancestor who lived thousands of years ago. As the couple tried to flee town, the young woman's family chased them down and dragged them out of a bus on a busy highway. The groom, Manoj, was strangled, and his bride, Babli, was forced to drink pesticide. Their bodies were dumped in a canal."
Continue reading here.
Confirmation of what we knew [suspected?] all along
The Guardian reports on a forthcoming book which clearly establishes that Israel was more than keen to assist South Africa during the horrid apartheid regime with no less than nuclear weapons.
"Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.
The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.
The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence."
"Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state's possession of nuclear weapons.
The "top secret" minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa's defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel's defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them "in three sizes". The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that "the very existence of this agreement" was to remain secret.
The documents, uncovered by an American academic, Sasha Polakow-Suransky, in research for a book on the close relationship between the two countries, provide evidence that Israel has nuclear weapons despite its policy of "ambiguity" in neither confirming nor denying their existence."
And, yes, what about those wars?
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan continue unabated - as also in Pakistan and probably Yemen now too - yet the American public seems indifferent to them.
It's a subject taken up by Glenn Greenwald in his latest Salon blog entry:
"The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt ponders how little attention our various wars received during the primary campaigns that were just conducted: "You would hardly know, from following this year's election campaign or the extensive coverage of last week's primaries, that America is at war. . . . those wars, and the wisdom of committing to or withdrawing from them, have hardly been mentioned in the hard-fought campaigns of the spring." Hiatt is right in that observation, and it's worth examining the reasons for this.
One significant cause of America's indifference to the wars we are waging is that those wars have virtually no effect on the overwhelming majority of Americans (at least no recognized effect), while they impose a huge cost on a tiny sliver of the population: those who fight the wars and their families. Hiatt acknowledges that fact: "it's yet another reminder of American society's separation from its professional military." If anyone would know about that, it's the endless-war-loving, nowhere-near-a-battlefield Fred Hiatt."
Continue reading here.
It's a subject taken up by Glenn Greenwald in his latest Salon blog entry:
"The Washington Post's Fred Hiatt ponders how little attention our various wars received during the primary campaigns that were just conducted: "You would hardly know, from following this year's election campaign or the extensive coverage of last week's primaries, that America is at war. . . . those wars, and the wisdom of committing to or withdrawing from them, have hardly been mentioned in the hard-fought campaigns of the spring." Hiatt is right in that observation, and it's worth examining the reasons for this.
One significant cause of America's indifference to the wars we are waging is that those wars have virtually no effect on the overwhelming majority of Americans (at least no recognized effect), while they impose a huge cost on a tiny sliver of the population: those who fight the wars and their families. Hiatt acknowledges that fact: "it's yet another reminder of American society's separation from its professional military." If anyone would know about that, it's the endless-war-loving, nowhere-near-a-battlefield Fred Hiatt."
Continue reading here.
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
Forged passports, and an assassination, a "mistake"
Greg Sheridan is the Foreign Editor for Rupert Murdoch's "The Australian" newspaper. To say that he is an apologist for anything Israel says or does is a mild understatement. Whilst he hasn't disclosed it, he has been to Israel courtesy of Australian and Israeli Jewish bodies.
Yesterday, Australia, rightly, expelled an Israeli "diplomat" - most likely a Mossad agent one would assume - because of Israel's use of forged Australian passports when in Dubai a few months back to assassinate an alleged Hamas operative. Forget about the fact that in addition to that infraction, the killing amounted to an extra-judicial killing in a foreign country.
How does Sheridan address the expulsion in his column in The Australian? He describes it an "overreaction" and "bad mistake" on the part of the Australian Government, and then concludes his piece with this astounding proposition:
"Whether this bad decision was the sign of government weakness in the face of the bureaucracy, or yet another move in the pathetic effort to court Arab votes for our meaningless bid for a UN Security Council seat, or just a bad misjudgment by Mr Smith which Kevin Rudd ratified, it is a poor and misjudged move against a close friend which made a mistake in exceptionally difficult circumstances" [emphasis added]
"Mistake?"
Yesterday, Australia, rightly, expelled an Israeli "diplomat" - most likely a Mossad agent one would assume - because of Israel's use of forged Australian passports when in Dubai a few months back to assassinate an alleged Hamas operative. Forget about the fact that in addition to that infraction, the killing amounted to an extra-judicial killing in a foreign country.
How does Sheridan address the expulsion in his column in The Australian? He describes it an "overreaction" and "bad mistake" on the part of the Australian Government, and then concludes his piece with this astounding proposition:
"Whether this bad decision was the sign of government weakness in the face of the bureaucracy, or yet another move in the pathetic effort to court Arab votes for our meaningless bid for a UN Security Council seat, or just a bad misjudgment by Mr Smith which Kevin Rudd ratified, it is a poor and misjudged move against a close friend which made a mistake in exceptionally difficult circumstances" [emphasis added]
"Mistake?"
It's not as cold as it ought to be.....
Lewis Gordon Pugh, an environmental campaigner, has swum 1km across a glacial lake on Mount Everest to highlight the impact of global warming.
He only wore swimming trunks, goggles and a swimming hat to face the 2C waters of Pumori Lake at 17,000ft (5,300m).
Pugh has been nicknamed the “human polar bear” for his cold water swims.
He only wore swimming trunks, goggles and a swimming hat to face the 2C waters of Pumori Lake at 17,000ft (5,300m).
Pugh has been nicknamed the “human polar bear” for his cold water swims.
Europe: There goes the good life
Europe has traditionally been seen as encompassing many countries with a wonderful social security system, excellent health schemes, an urbane and relaxed lifestyle and generally a reasonably good life. No more, it seems.
The New York Times reports in "Europeans Fear Crisis Threatens Liberal Benefits" on
reality-check time in Europe:
"Across Western Europe, the “lifestyle superpower,” the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt. The deficit crisis that threatens the euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare, built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II.
Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism.
Europeans have benefited from low military spending, protected by NATO and the American nuclear umbrella. They have also translated higher taxes into a cradle-to-grave safety net. “The Europe that protects” is a slogan of the European Union.
But all over Europe governments with big budgets, falling tax revenues and aging populations are experiencing rising deficits, with more bad news ahead.
With low growth, low birthrates and longer life expectancies, Europe can no longer afford its comfortable lifestyle, at least not without a period of austerity and significant changes. The countries are trying to reassure investors by cutting salaries, raising legal retirement ages, increasing work hours and reducing health benefits and pensions."
The New York Times reports in "Europeans Fear Crisis Threatens Liberal Benefits" on
reality-check time in Europe:
"Across Western Europe, the “lifestyle superpower,” the assumptions and gains of a lifetime are suddenly in doubt. The deficit crisis that threatens the euro has also undermined the sustainability of the European standard of social welfare, built by left-leaning governments since the end of World War II.
Europeans have boasted about their social model, with its generous vacations and early retirements, its national health care systems and extensive welfare benefits, contrasting it with the comparative harshness of American capitalism.
Europeans have benefited from low military spending, protected by NATO and the American nuclear umbrella. They have also translated higher taxes into a cradle-to-grave safety net. “The Europe that protects” is a slogan of the European Union.
But all over Europe governments with big budgets, falling tax revenues and aging populations are experiencing rising deficits, with more bad news ahead.
With low growth, low birthrates and longer life expectancies, Europe can no longer afford its comfortable lifestyle, at least not without a period of austerity and significant changes. The countries are trying to reassure investors by cutting salaries, raising legal retirement ages, increasing work hours and reducing health benefits and pensions."
Monday, May 24, 2010
Google: Too big for its own boots?
With Google in the news because of its collation of private information about householders as it undertook its camera-work as part of Street View, The New York Times poses the not unimportant question in "Sure, It’s Big. But Is That Bad?" of whether Google, being the mammoth corporation it is,with significant reach into so much of our activities on line, needs to be curbed.
"Can monopolies exist online, when competition is only a click away? What constitutes anti-competitive behavior in the complex networked economy, where the very size of big companies allows them to operate more efficiently, and thus grow even bigger? Are consumers harmed if various services are bundled together, but everything is free?
Google executives acknowledge the scrutiny. “We’re getting larger, and we have been very disruptive within some industries,” says Alan Davidson, head of United States public policy at Google. “We know we have a giant bull’s-eye on our backs.”
UN biodiversity report calls for global action to prevent destruction of nature
More than sobering information [read this, naysayers!] revealed in a UN report, as reported by The Guardian:
"Species losses around the world could really cost us the Earth with food shortages, floods and expensive clean up costs."
And:
"Around the world the picture is as bad or worse: the International Union for the Conservation of Nature believes one in five mammals, one in three amphibians and one in seven birds are extinct or globally threatened, and other species groups still being assessed are showing similar patterns.
Simon Stuart, a senior IUCN scientist, has warned that for the first time since the dinosaurs humans are driving plants and animals to extinction faster than new species can evolve."
"Species losses around the world could really cost us the Earth with food shortages, floods and expensive clean up costs."
And:
"Around the world the picture is as bad or worse: the International Union for the Conservation of Nature believes one in five mammals, one in three amphibians and one in seven birds are extinct or globally threatened, and other species groups still being assessed are showing similar patterns.
Simon Stuart, a senior IUCN scientist, has warned that for the first time since the dinosaurs humans are driving plants and animals to extinction faster than new species can evolve."
Sunday, May 23, 2010
Obama: Oh, the hypocrisy!
"As a parent, I can also imagine the terror I would feel if one of my family members were rounded up in the middle of the night and sent to Guantanamo without even getting one chance to ask why they were being held and being able to prove their innocence. . . .
By giving suspects a chance -- even one chance -- to challenge the terms of their detention in court, to have a judge confirm that the Government has detained the right person for the right suspicions, we could solve this problem without harming our efforts in the war on terror one bit. . .
Most of us have been willing to make some sacrifices because we know that, in the end, it helps to make us safer. But restricting somebody's right to challenge their imprisonment indefinitely is not going to make us safer. In fact, recent evidence shows it is probably making us less safe."
Who would you think might have said that? None other than Pres. Obama - who has now, quite hypocritically, won for himself the right to detain people without even any habeas review.
Glenn Greenwald, lawyer and blogger on Salon, backgrounds and explains it all here.
By giving suspects a chance -- even one chance -- to challenge the terms of their detention in court, to have a judge confirm that the Government has detained the right person for the right suspicions, we could solve this problem without harming our efforts in the war on terror one bit. . .
Most of us have been willing to make some sacrifices because we know that, in the end, it helps to make us safer. But restricting somebody's right to challenge their imprisonment indefinitely is not going to make us safer. In fact, recent evidence shows it is probably making us less safe."
Who would you think might have said that? None other than Pres. Obama - who has now, quite hypocritically, won for himself the right to detain people without even any habeas review.
Glenn Greenwald, lawyer and blogger on Salon, backgrounds and explains it all here.
You have to hand it to Texas.....
Texas is many things - much of it not especially positive- but now another dimension has been added to this southern US State. It's revised curriculum for school kids.
BBC News reports:
"Education officials in the US state of Texas have adopted new guidelines to the school curriculum, which critics say will politicise teaching.
The changes include teaching that the UN could be a threat to American freedom, and that the Founding Fathers may not have intended a complete separation of church and state."
And:
"Students in Texas will now be taught the benefits of US free-market economics and how government taxation can harm economic progress.
They will study how American ideals benefit the world but organisations such as the UN could be a threat to personal freedom.
And Thomas Jefferson has been dropped from a list of enlightenment thinkers in the world-history curriculum, despite being one of the Founding Fathers who is credited with developing the idea that church and state should be separate."
BBC News reports:
"Education officials in the US state of Texas have adopted new guidelines to the school curriculum, which critics say will politicise teaching.
The changes include teaching that the UN could be a threat to American freedom, and that the Founding Fathers may not have intended a complete separation of church and state."
And:
"Students in Texas will now be taught the benefits of US free-market economics and how government taxation can harm economic progress.
They will study how American ideals benefit the world but organisations such as the UN could be a threat to personal freedom.
And Thomas Jefferson has been dropped from a list of enlightenment thinkers in the world-history curriculum, despite being one of the Founding Fathers who is credited with developing the idea that church and state should be separate."
Saturday, May 22, 2010
UK move something others could well follow
Scott Horton, writing in "New U.K. Government Opens Formal Torture Inquiry" on Harper's Magazine, rightly concludes that the enquiry on torture to be set up by the new UK Government could well be emulated by the Obama Administration - as also complicit governments in torture and renditioning.
"How does a newly elected government concerned about civil liberties and the accountability of its predecessor react to credible claims that intelligence operatives were involved in the torture of prisoners? Britain’s new foreign secretary, Conservative William Hague, shows the way. The Guardian:
'A judge will investigate claims that British intelligence agencies were complicit in the torture of terror suspects, William Hague, the foreign secretary, said tonight. The move was welcomed by civil liberties campaigners and may put pressure on the Labour leadership candidate and former foreign secretary David Miliband, who was accused by Hague, while in opposition, of having something to hide. Miliband has repeatedly rejected the accusation and broadly indicated that he or his officials may have been misled by foreign intelligence agencies about the degree of British complicity.
Hague’s remarks appear to have caught the Foreign Office by surprise, as no details were yet available on how the inquiry will be conducted, its terms of reference or when it will start work. Hague will come under pressure to ensure the inquiry is public and comprehensive. He first called last year for an independent judicial inquiry into claims that British officials had colluded in the torture of Binyam Mohamed, the former Guantánamo detainee and a UK resident. Mohamed claimed that he was tortured by US forces in Pakistan and Morocco, and that MI5 fed the CIA questions that were used by US forces.'
"How does a newly elected government concerned about civil liberties and the accountability of its predecessor react to credible claims that intelligence operatives were involved in the torture of prisoners? Britain’s new foreign secretary, Conservative William Hague, shows the way. The Guardian:
'A judge will investigate claims that British intelligence agencies were complicit in the torture of terror suspects, William Hague, the foreign secretary, said tonight. The move was welcomed by civil liberties campaigners and may put pressure on the Labour leadership candidate and former foreign secretary David Miliband, who was accused by Hague, while in opposition, of having something to hide. Miliband has repeatedly rejected the accusation and broadly indicated that he or his officials may have been misled by foreign intelligence agencies about the degree of British complicity.
Hague’s remarks appear to have caught the Foreign Office by surprise, as no details were yet available on how the inquiry will be conducted, its terms of reference or when it will start work. Hague will come under pressure to ensure the inquiry is public and comprehensive. He first called last year for an independent judicial inquiry into claims that British officials had colluded in the torture of Binyam Mohamed, the former Guantánamo detainee and a UK resident. Mohamed claimed that he was tortured by US forces in Pakistan and Morocco, and that MI5 fed the CIA questions that were used by US forces.'
Don't condemn......Talk!
The Turks and Brazilians have concluded a deal with Iran whereby Turkey will process Iran's nuclear material. One might have thought that that would gain plaudits from those countries which have condemned Iran for its alleged nuclear ambitions and the fear of it destabilising the Middle East. Sanctions have already been imposed on Iran.
Rather than the Turkish-Brazilian deal being seen as a positive, the US has condemned it and vowed to seek even stiffer sanctions against Iran at the UN.
Stephen Walt, writing his blog on FP says that the US ought to welcome the move and start talking with the Iranians.
"Here's why I think the United States should welcome the deal. The only feasible way out of the current box is via diplomacy, because military force won't solve the problem for very long, could provoke a major Middle East war, and is more likely to strengthen the clerical regime and make the United States look like a bully with an inexhaustible appetite for attacking Muslim countries. (And having Israel try to do the job wouldn't help, because we'd be blamed for it anyway). I think George Bush figured that out before he left office, and I think President Obama knows it too. So do sensible Israelis, though not the perennial hawks at the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, who appear to have learned nothing from their shameful role cheerleading the debacle in Iraq back in 2002."
Read his piece, in full, here. Meanwhile, over at The New York Times, Roger Cohen takes up much the same theme in his piece "America Moves the Goal Posts":
"And what’s the U.S. response? To pursue “strong sanctions” (if no longer “crippling”) against Iran at the United Nations; and insist now on a prior suspension of enrichment that was not in the October deal (indeed this was a core Obama departure from Bush doctrine).
Obama could instead have said: “Pressure works! Iran blinked on the eve of new U.N. sanctions. It’s come back to our offer. We need to be prudent, given past Iranian duplicity, but this is progress. Isolation serves Iranian hard-liners.”
No wonder Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, is angry. I believe him when he says Obama and U.S. officials encouraged Turkey earlier this year to revive the deal: “What they wanted us to do was give the confidence to Iran to do the swap. We have done our duty.”
Yes, Turkey has. I know, the 1,200 kilograms now represents a smaller proportion of Iran’s LEU than in October and it’s no longer clear that the fuel rods will come from the conversion of the LEU in escrow. But that’s small potatoes when you’re trying to build a tenuous bridge between “mendacious” Iranians and “bullying” Americans in the interests of global security.
The French and Chinese reactions — cautious support — made sense. The American made none, or did only in the light of the strong Congressional push for “crushing” sanctions. Further sanctions will not change Iran’s nuclear behavior; negotiations might. I can only hope the U.S. bristling was an opening gambit.
Last year, at the United Nations, Obama called for a new era of shared responsibilities. “Together we must build new coalitions that bridge old divides,” he declared. Turkey and Brazil responded — and got snubbed. Obama has just made his own enlightened words look empty."
Rather than the Turkish-Brazilian deal being seen as a positive, the US has condemned it and vowed to seek even stiffer sanctions against Iran at the UN.
Stephen Walt, writing his blog on FP says that the US ought to welcome the move and start talking with the Iranians.
"Here's why I think the United States should welcome the deal. The only feasible way out of the current box is via diplomacy, because military force won't solve the problem for very long, could provoke a major Middle East war, and is more likely to strengthen the clerical regime and make the United States look like a bully with an inexhaustible appetite for attacking Muslim countries. (And having Israel try to do the job wouldn't help, because we'd be blamed for it anyway). I think George Bush figured that out before he left office, and I think President Obama knows it too. So do sensible Israelis, though not the perennial hawks at the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, who appear to have learned nothing from their shameful role cheerleading the debacle in Iraq back in 2002."
Read his piece, in full, here. Meanwhile, over at The New York Times, Roger Cohen takes up much the same theme in his piece "America Moves the Goal Posts":
"And what’s the U.S. response? To pursue “strong sanctions” (if no longer “crippling”) against Iran at the United Nations; and insist now on a prior suspension of enrichment that was not in the October deal (indeed this was a core Obama departure from Bush doctrine).
Obama could instead have said: “Pressure works! Iran blinked on the eve of new U.N. sanctions. It’s come back to our offer. We need to be prudent, given past Iranian duplicity, but this is progress. Isolation serves Iranian hard-liners.”
No wonder Ahmet Davutoglu, the Turkish foreign minister, is angry. I believe him when he says Obama and U.S. officials encouraged Turkey earlier this year to revive the deal: “What they wanted us to do was give the confidence to Iran to do the swap. We have done our duty.”
Yes, Turkey has. I know, the 1,200 kilograms now represents a smaller proportion of Iran’s LEU than in October and it’s no longer clear that the fuel rods will come from the conversion of the LEU in escrow. But that’s small potatoes when you’re trying to build a tenuous bridge between “mendacious” Iranians and “bullying” Americans in the interests of global security.
The French and Chinese reactions — cautious support — made sense. The American made none, or did only in the light of the strong Congressional push for “crushing” sanctions. Further sanctions will not change Iran’s nuclear behavior; negotiations might. I can only hope the U.S. bristling was an opening gambit.
Last year, at the United Nations, Obama called for a new era of shared responsibilities. “Together we must build new coalitions that bridge old divides,” he declared. Turkey and Brazil responded — and got snubbed. Obama has just made his own enlightened words look empty."
A child's wish: 'I want no one else in Israel ever to be hurt by a landmine'
It was always known, although Israel initially denied it, that it dropped an unprecedented number of landmines in Southern Lebanon when it invaded that country a few years back.
Now, The Independent reports:
"The Knesset [Isreali Parliament] has been moved to begin clearing some of its 260,000 mines by a remarkable 11-year-old. Donald Macintyre meets him".
Yes, you read that correctly - an astounding 260,000 landmines. There are many countries, Israel not being one of them, who have signed up to ban the use of landmines.
As the young campaigner says:
"Nor is he impressed by security arguments in favour of preserving the mines. "People are always inventing a new story not to remove the landmines." Accepting that a minority of the mines may have to remain at some of Israel's borders, he says: "There should not be mines where people travel."
Read the piece, in full, here.
Now, The Independent reports:
"The Knesset [Isreali Parliament] has been moved to begin clearing some of its 260,000 mines by a remarkable 11-year-old. Donald Macintyre meets him".
Yes, you read that correctly - an astounding 260,000 landmines. There are many countries, Israel not being one of them, who have signed up to ban the use of landmines.
As the young campaigner says:
"Nor is he impressed by security arguments in favour of preserving the mines. "People are always inventing a new story not to remove the landmines." Accepting that a minority of the mines may have to remain at some of Israel's borders, he says: "There should not be mines where people travel."
Read the piece, in full, here.
Friday, May 21, 2010
Welcome to "justice" [and Death Row] Texas style!
Words fail.....in the land which professes that it has a judicial system which protects its citizens, a proper rule of law and lectures other countries on the failings of their court system.
The New York Times reports on "justice" in Texas [yes, a cowboy State]:
"A good way to end up on death row in Texas is to be accused of a capital crime and have Jerry Guerinot represent you.
Twenty of Mr. Guerinot’s clients have been sentenced to death. That is more people than are awaiting execution in about half of the 35 states that have the death penalty.
“People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said.
So what is Mr. Guerinot’s secret?
It seems to boil down to a failure to conduct even rudimentary investigations, said David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston and the litigation director of the Texas Defender Service, which represents death row inmates, including not a few of Mr. Guerinot’s former clients.
“He doesn’t even pick the low-hanging fruit which is hitting him in the head as he’s walking under the tree,” Mr. Dow said."
The New York Times reports on "justice" in Texas [yes, a cowboy State]:
"A good way to end up on death row in Texas is to be accused of a capital crime and have Jerry Guerinot represent you.
Twenty of Mr. Guerinot’s clients have been sentenced to death. That is more people than are awaiting execution in about half of the 35 states that have the death penalty.
“People who are well represented at trial do not get the death penalty,” Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has said.
So what is Mr. Guerinot’s secret?
It seems to boil down to a failure to conduct even rudimentary investigations, said David R. Dow, a law professor at the University of Houston and the litigation director of the Texas Defender Service, which represents death row inmates, including not a few of Mr. Guerinot’s former clients.
“He doesn’t even pick the low-hanging fruit which is hitting him in the head as he’s walking under the tree,” Mr. Dow said."
Whacking the politicians.....loud and clear
The primaries just concluded in the USA have seen the traditional political parties whacked by the electorate. But why?
Glenn Greenwald, writing his blog "Why do voters hate incumbents?" on Salon proffers his reasons for the politicians being on the nose. Remember too, that although UK PM Gordon Brown's Labour Party wasn't at all popular, the opposition Conservatives were unable in the recent election to gain an outright majority of votes and seats in the House of Commons.
"It makes perfect sense that the country loathes the political establishment. Just look at its rancid fruits over the past decade: a devastating war justified by weapons that did not exist; a financial crisis that our Nation's Genuises failed to detect and which its elites caused with lawless and piggish greed; elections that seem increasingly irrelevant in terms of how the Government functions; grotesquely lavish rewards for the worst culprits juxtaposed with miserable unemployment and serious risks of having basic entitlements (Social Security) cut for ordinary Americans; and a Congress that continues to be owned, right out in the open, by the very interests that have caused so much damage. The political establishment is rotten to its core, and the only thing that's surprising is that the citizenry's contempt isn't even more intense than it is. But precisely because that dynamic so clearly transcends Left/Right or Democratic/GOP dichotomies, little effort is expended to understand or explain it.
One of the most interesting and important questions is whether this trans-partisan, anti-establishment anger can bring about some cracks in the rigid partisan polarization that serves, more than anything else, to preserve the status quo."
Glenn Greenwald, writing his blog "Why do voters hate incumbents?" on Salon proffers his reasons for the politicians being on the nose. Remember too, that although UK PM Gordon Brown's Labour Party wasn't at all popular, the opposition Conservatives were unable in the recent election to gain an outright majority of votes and seats in the House of Commons.
"It makes perfect sense that the country loathes the political establishment. Just look at its rancid fruits over the past decade: a devastating war justified by weapons that did not exist; a financial crisis that our Nation's Genuises failed to detect and which its elites caused with lawless and piggish greed; elections that seem increasingly irrelevant in terms of how the Government functions; grotesquely lavish rewards for the worst culprits juxtaposed with miserable unemployment and serious risks of having basic entitlements (Social Security) cut for ordinary Americans; and a Congress that continues to be owned, right out in the open, by the very interests that have caused so much damage. The political establishment is rotten to its core, and the only thing that's surprising is that the citizenry's contempt isn't even more intense than it is. But precisely because that dynamic so clearly transcends Left/Right or Democratic/GOP dichotomies, little effort is expended to understand or explain it.
One of the most interesting and important questions is whether this trans-partisan, anti-establishment anger can bring about some cracks in the rigid partisan polarization that serves, more than anything else, to preserve the status quo."
Thursday, May 20, 2010
They're at it again! This time urging war against Iran
Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His latest book, Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush, was written with two of his sons, Sam and Nat.
He now writes in "Itching to Fight Another Muslim Enemy", for consortiumnews, on the beating of drums, by politicians and the media, for an attack on Iran:
"If you read the major American newspapers or watch the propaganda on cable TV, it’s pretty clear that the U.S. foreign policy Establishment is again spoiling for a fight, this time in Iran
Just as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was the designated target of American hate in 2002 and 2003, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is playing that role now. Back then, any event in Iraq was cast in the harshest possible light; today, the same is done with Iran.
Anyone who dares suggest that the situation on the ground might not be as black and white as the Washington Post's editors claim it is must be an “apologist” for the enemy regime. It’s also not very smart for one’s reputation to question the certainty of the reporting in the New York Times, whether about Iraq’s “aluminum tubes” for nuclear centrifuges in 2002 or regarding Iran’s “rigged” election in 2009.
It’s much better for one’s career to clamber onto the confrontation bandwagon. Nobody in the major U.S. media or in politics will ever be hurt by talking tough and flexing muscles regarding some Muslim “enemy.” And, if the posturing leads to war, it will fall mostly to working-class kids to do the fighting and dying while the bills can be passed along to future generations.
Even groups that should know better – like Votevets.org representing veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars – have been piggybacking on the organized hate campaign against Ahmadinejad and Iran to advance other political agendas. In cable TV ads, Votevets.org uses Ahmadinejad’s face and Iran’s alleged manufacture of some IEDs to press the case for alternative energy.
Indeed, looking at this American propaganda campaign objectively, you would assume that the only acceptable outcome of U.S. differences with Iran is another Iraq-like ratcheting up of tensions, using Washington’s influence within the UN Security Council to impose escalating sanctions, leading ultimately to another war, as if the lessons of Iraq have already been forgotten."
He now writes in "Itching to Fight Another Muslim Enemy", for consortiumnews, on the beating of drums, by politicians and the media, for an attack on Iran:
"If you read the major American newspapers or watch the propaganda on cable TV, it’s pretty clear that the U.S. foreign policy Establishment is again spoiling for a fight, this time in Iran
Just as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was the designated target of American hate in 2002 and 2003, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is playing that role now. Back then, any event in Iraq was cast in the harshest possible light; today, the same is done with Iran.
Anyone who dares suggest that the situation on the ground might not be as black and white as the Washington Post's editors claim it is must be an “apologist” for the enemy regime. It’s also not very smart for one’s reputation to question the certainty of the reporting in the New York Times, whether about Iraq’s “aluminum tubes” for nuclear centrifuges in 2002 or regarding Iran’s “rigged” election in 2009.
It’s much better for one’s career to clamber onto the confrontation bandwagon. Nobody in the major U.S. media or in politics will ever be hurt by talking tough and flexing muscles regarding some Muslim “enemy.” And, if the posturing leads to war, it will fall mostly to working-class kids to do the fighting and dying while the bills can be passed along to future generations.
Even groups that should know better – like Votevets.org representing veterans of the Iraq and Afghan wars – have been piggybacking on the organized hate campaign against Ahmadinejad and Iran to advance other political agendas. In cable TV ads, Votevets.org uses Ahmadinejad’s face and Iran’s alleged manufacture of some IEDs to press the case for alternative energy.
Indeed, looking at this American propaganda campaign objectively, you would assume that the only acceptable outcome of U.S. differences with Iran is another Iraq-like ratcheting up of tensions, using Washington’s influence within the UN Security Council to impose escalating sanctions, leading ultimately to another war, as if the lessons of Iraq have already been forgotten."
Bishops: If they are not employees what are they?
The Catholic Church has a lot on its plate at the moment - including being sued for the actions of one of its bishops.
The position of the Church? Bishops are not employees of the Church. Eh?
TimesOnLine reports:
"The Vatican will today make its most detailed defence yet against claims that it is liable for US bishops who allowed priests to molest children, saying bishops are not its employees and that a document from 1962 did not require them to keep quiet.
The Vatican will make the arguments in a motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds filed in Louisville, Kentucky, but it could affect other efforts to sue the Holy See.
Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's lawyer in the US, said the Vatican would assert that bishops are not its employees because they are not paid by Rome, don't act on Rome's behalf and are not controlled day-to-day by the pope — factors courts use to determine whether employers are liable for the actions of their employees."
The position of the Church? Bishops are not employees of the Church. Eh?
TimesOnLine reports:
"The Vatican will today make its most detailed defence yet against claims that it is liable for US bishops who allowed priests to molest children, saying bishops are not its employees and that a document from 1962 did not require them to keep quiet.
The Vatican will make the arguments in a motion to dismiss a federal lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds filed in Louisville, Kentucky, but it could affect other efforts to sue the Holy See.
Jeffrey Lena, the Vatican's lawyer in the US, said the Vatican would assert that bishops are not its employees because they are not paid by Rome, don't act on Rome's behalf and are not controlled day-to-day by the pope — factors courts use to determine whether employers are liable for the actions of their employees."
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Sri Lanka slammed
It's perhaps not surprising that the actions of the Sri Lankan government are so very similar to those of the Israeli State. Always deny everything, challenge any independent investigation of anything - including making it almost impossible for reporters to act as true journalists - and disassemble.
Now the International Crisis Group's Report on Sri Lanka is in - and it slams the country. The Independent reports:
"An investigation into the last months of Sri Lanka's bloody civil war released yesterday claims that government forces were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands more civilians than previously estimated, and targeted hospitals and humanitarian operations as part of their final onslaught on the rebel Tamil Tigers.
According to the International Crisis Group study, many thousands more people may have died in the operation than UN figures have suggested, with as many as 75,000 citizens unaccounted for, and almost all of the deaths in the so-called "No-Fire Zone" due to government fire.
The study also claims that the government shelled hospitals where it knew international NGO staff and civilians to be working or receiving treatment. "The Sri Lankan government committed war crimes with top government and military leaders potentially responsible," it says. "An international inquiry into alleged crimes is essential."
The Sri Lankan government has refused to comment on the report, the most comprehensive account of the violence that ended a year ago today. Senior officials have insisted in the past that there were no civilian casualties in the last months of the war."
Now the International Crisis Group's Report on Sri Lanka is in - and it slams the country. The Independent reports:
"An investigation into the last months of Sri Lanka's bloody civil war released yesterday claims that government forces were responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands more civilians than previously estimated, and targeted hospitals and humanitarian operations as part of their final onslaught on the rebel Tamil Tigers.
According to the International Crisis Group study, many thousands more people may have died in the operation than UN figures have suggested, with as many as 75,000 citizens unaccounted for, and almost all of the deaths in the so-called "No-Fire Zone" due to government fire.
The study also claims that the government shelled hospitals where it knew international NGO staff and civilians to be working or receiving treatment. "The Sri Lankan government committed war crimes with top government and military leaders potentially responsible," it says. "An international inquiry into alleged crimes is essential."
The Sri Lankan government has refused to comment on the report, the most comprehensive account of the violence that ended a year ago today. Senior officials have insisted in the past that there were no civilian casualties in the last months of the war."
WikiLeaks: Speaking to the man behind it
WikiLeaks is cursed by Governments and corporations alike. Not surprising when one considers that the whistleblowing web site has revealed much critical information and data which governments and corporations would much rather remain under wraps.
We know the web site and its revelations. But who is behind it?
Phillip Adams, in his program Late Night Live on ABC Radio, interviews Julian Assange:
"WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website, has, in just three years, gone from a small, secretive organisation to a recognised media player; breaking stories about corruption, crime and lack of accountability among political and corporate interests. But it's also attracting the attention of Internet lawmakers. What happens when the notion of a free press comes up against the idea of regulated information?"
We know the web site and its revelations. But who is behind it?
Phillip Adams, in his program Late Night Live on ABC Radio, interviews Julian Assange:
"WikiLeaks, the whistleblower website, has, in just three years, gone from a small, secretive organisation to a recognised media player; breaking stories about corruption, crime and lack of accountability among political and corporate interests. But it's also attracting the attention of Internet lawmakers. What happens when the notion of a free press comes up against the idea of regulated information?"
Sweet victory over Nestles....and saving the orang-utan
Ah, Nestles (already the subject of much criticism in relation to the products it sells in Africa) was taken on by Greenpeace, using social media, with respect to the company's use of palm oil in making one of its chocolate products - with a by-product of orang-utans dying in Indonesia.
The Age reports:
"Environment group Greenpeace has claimed social media led to its success in a campaign that linked global food giant Nestle's chocolate bar Kit Kat to deforestation in Indonesian rainforests and the destruction of orang-utan habitats.
Today in Malaysia, Nestle announced a partnership with not-for-profit organisation The Forest Trust (TFT), promising to adhere to responsible sourcing guidelines for palm oil.
In a Greenpeace report titled Caught Red-handed, launched on March 17, Greenpeace exposed Nestle's use of Indonesian logging company Sinar Mas and subsidiaries including Asia Pulp and Paper to obtain palm oil.
Palm oil is used as an ingredient in Nestle chocolate products, including its well known Kit Kat chocolate bars.
Greenpeace said Sinar Mas was implicated in rainforest destruction and the destruction of orang-utan habitats as it planted plantations for palm oil and pulp."
The Age reports:
"Environment group Greenpeace has claimed social media led to its success in a campaign that linked global food giant Nestle's chocolate bar Kit Kat to deforestation in Indonesian rainforests and the destruction of orang-utan habitats.
Today in Malaysia, Nestle announced a partnership with not-for-profit organisation The Forest Trust (TFT), promising to adhere to responsible sourcing guidelines for palm oil.
In a Greenpeace report titled Caught Red-handed, launched on March 17, Greenpeace exposed Nestle's use of Indonesian logging company Sinar Mas and subsidiaries including Asia Pulp and Paper to obtain palm oil.
Palm oil is used as an ingredient in Nestle chocolate products, including its well known Kit Kat chocolate bars.
Greenpeace said Sinar Mas was implicated in rainforest destruction and the destruction of orang-utan habitats as it planted plantations for palm oil and pulp."
Tuesday, May 18, 2010
Plan B? An emerging power diplomacy in the Middle East?
An interesting analysis - reflecting possible wider ramifications - by David Rothkopf in FP on the deal brokered by Turkey and Brazil whereby Turkey will process Iranians nuclear material.
"Whether the deal brokered by Turkey and Brazil with Iran ultimately actually defuses the stand-off between Tehran and the international community remains to be seen. And even if it does, it seems unlikely to actually stop Ahmadinejad & Co. from continuing surreptitious efforts to cultivate nuclear weapons capability -- especially given the Iranians' decision to simultaneously announce that they will continue their enrichment program in any event. Indeed, it, like the sanctions program the United States has been engineering, seems more likely to simply hit the "pause" rather than the "reset" button, thus buying the one commodity the Iranians want most: time.
That said the effort is significant on another level. It represents the return of Plan B both to Middle Eastern and global relations. During the Cold War, international actors typically had a binary choice. They could seek the favor and advocacy of the East or the West, the Soviets or the Americans. Then, almost twenty years ago that all ended. And for a while it appeared, the choice was America or an international community that couldn't get its act together terribly effectively.
But Turkey and Brazil working closely with Russia, India, and China, have effectively sent a message that Plan B has returned to the global equation. They have essentially said they didn't want to go along with the American approach to solving the problem (sanctions) and were vehemently against the Israeli approach (bombs away). The Turks in particular have been vocal with their BRIC partners in expressing their skepticism of the effectiveness of sanctions and their sense they would be very counterproductive.
The Iranians in turn seem to have recognized that the Brazil-Turkey deal is a win-win for them. It makes them look like they want to be constructive and thus takes the heat off of them and buys time. They get to tip the geopolitical scales in the direction of the relevance of emerging powers, tweak the U.S. efforts, and seemingly help usher in a new era in international diplomacy.
Something else vitally important to notice has happened here. This has become the first Middle Eastern stand-off in which the most important player from outside the region was China -- because China is the one country that had and has the power to determine whether or not a sanctions regime would work. The Chinese, while still internally debating just how much they want to lead on the international stage, have played this deftly so far. They have engaged in talks with the United States and with their BRIC plus one partners. They have evaluated. Behind the scenes they have been constructive and moderate with reports coming out of recent meetings among BRIC leaders that they have made the case for understanding the pressure that President Obama is under. And they have pressed the Iranians to make a deal while sharing like the others in the emerging power leadership a healthy skepticism of Iranian motives and likely compliance.
Thus this deal may seem smallish and technical from afar, but it could well signal a change in the way international diplomacy works. Certainly, it signals an intent on the part of a group of vitally important emerging powers not to be cowed by the "with us or against us" mindset that still permeates some in the U.S. foreign policy establishment."
"Whether the deal brokered by Turkey and Brazil with Iran ultimately actually defuses the stand-off between Tehran and the international community remains to be seen. And even if it does, it seems unlikely to actually stop Ahmadinejad & Co. from continuing surreptitious efforts to cultivate nuclear weapons capability -- especially given the Iranians' decision to simultaneously announce that they will continue their enrichment program in any event. Indeed, it, like the sanctions program the United States has been engineering, seems more likely to simply hit the "pause" rather than the "reset" button, thus buying the one commodity the Iranians want most: time.
That said the effort is significant on another level. It represents the return of Plan B both to Middle Eastern and global relations. During the Cold War, international actors typically had a binary choice. They could seek the favor and advocacy of the East or the West, the Soviets or the Americans. Then, almost twenty years ago that all ended. And for a while it appeared, the choice was America or an international community that couldn't get its act together terribly effectively.
But Turkey and Brazil working closely with Russia, India, and China, have effectively sent a message that Plan B has returned to the global equation. They have essentially said they didn't want to go along with the American approach to solving the problem (sanctions) and were vehemently against the Israeli approach (bombs away). The Turks in particular have been vocal with their BRIC partners in expressing their skepticism of the effectiveness of sanctions and their sense they would be very counterproductive.
The Iranians in turn seem to have recognized that the Brazil-Turkey deal is a win-win for them. It makes them look like they want to be constructive and thus takes the heat off of them and buys time. They get to tip the geopolitical scales in the direction of the relevance of emerging powers, tweak the U.S. efforts, and seemingly help usher in a new era in international diplomacy.
Something else vitally important to notice has happened here. This has become the first Middle Eastern stand-off in which the most important player from outside the region was China -- because China is the one country that had and has the power to determine whether or not a sanctions regime would work. The Chinese, while still internally debating just how much they want to lead on the international stage, have played this deftly so far. They have engaged in talks with the United States and with their BRIC plus one partners. They have evaluated. Behind the scenes they have been constructive and moderate with reports coming out of recent meetings among BRIC leaders that they have made the case for understanding the pressure that President Obama is under. And they have pressed the Iranians to make a deal while sharing like the others in the emerging power leadership a healthy skepticism of Iranian motives and likely compliance.
Thus this deal may seem smallish and technical from afar, but it could well signal a change in the way international diplomacy works. Certainly, it signals an intent on the part of a group of vitally important emerging powers not to be cowed by the "with us or against us" mindset that still permeates some in the U.S. foreign policy establishment."
Robert Fisk: Silenced for speaking the truth about Guantanamo
The travesty that is Gitmo, and everything associated with it, rightly, won't go away!
Robert Fisk, writing in The Independent, reveals what is going on in a trial of a Canadian - who the Canadian authorities have seemingly abandoned.
"I began my column last week with the words "We know all about Guantanamo". I was wrong. Courtesy of the Toronto press – until a few days ago, when half of them were censored out of the drumhead courts martial that pass for "justice" in this execrable place – I have been learning a lot more.
Because the case involves a Canadian citizen – and because the Canadian government is doing sod-all for its passport-carrying prisoner – it hasn't been getting a lot of publicity on this side of the Atlantic. It should.
Omar Khadr was 15 when he allegedly – the word "'allegedly" is going to have to be used for ever, since this is not a fair trial – shot and killed a US Special Forces soldier in eastern Afghanistan in July 2002. Last week, a former US serviceman called Damien Corsetti, nicknamed "The Monster" at the Bagram jailhouse where torture and murder were widespread, agreed via a video link to the Guantanamo "court" that Khadr was trussed up in a cage "in one of the worst places on earth". "We could do basically anything to scare the prisoners," Corsetti announced.
Beating was forbidden, "The Monster" acknowledged, but prisoners could be threatened with "nightmarish scenarios" like rendition to Egypt or Israel where, according to Canada's Globe and Mail, "they would disappear". Which tells you a lot about Israel. Or what the Americans think of Israel. Quite a lot about Egypt, too, come to think of it."
Continue reading here - and in doing so, observe the complicity of Egypt and Israel in renditioning by the Americans.
Robert Fisk, writing in The Independent, reveals what is going on in a trial of a Canadian - who the Canadian authorities have seemingly abandoned.
"I began my column last week with the words "We know all about Guantanamo". I was wrong. Courtesy of the Toronto press – until a few days ago, when half of them were censored out of the drumhead courts martial that pass for "justice" in this execrable place – I have been learning a lot more.
Because the case involves a Canadian citizen – and because the Canadian government is doing sod-all for its passport-carrying prisoner – it hasn't been getting a lot of publicity on this side of the Atlantic. It should.
Omar Khadr was 15 when he allegedly – the word "'allegedly" is going to have to be used for ever, since this is not a fair trial – shot and killed a US Special Forces soldier in eastern Afghanistan in July 2002. Last week, a former US serviceman called Damien Corsetti, nicknamed "The Monster" at the Bagram jailhouse where torture and murder were widespread, agreed via a video link to the Guantanamo "court" that Khadr was trussed up in a cage "in one of the worst places on earth". "We could do basically anything to scare the prisoners," Corsetti announced.
Beating was forbidden, "The Monster" acknowledged, but prisoners could be threatened with "nightmarish scenarios" like rendition to Egypt or Israel where, according to Canada's Globe and Mail, "they would disappear". Which tells you a lot about Israel. Or what the Americans think of Israel. Quite a lot about Egypt, too, come to think of it."
Continue reading here - and in doing so, observe the complicity of Egypt and Israel in renditioning by the Americans.
Kicking an own goal!
Brilliant diplomacy! The Israelis clearly show that the country isn't the democracy it claims to be - because Chomsky has written and spoken of Israel. So, refuse him entry, not into Israel, but to the West Bank. So, now the West Bank, like Gaza, is under Israeli siege too.
Promised Land comments:
"According to Chomsky, what bothered Israeli officials at the Allenby crossing was not only his views, but the fact that he intends to visit the West Bank, and not Israel. Later it was said that the IDF authority might end up granting him a visa. But whatever way this affair ends, it is clear that Chomsky made a better case against Israel today than in anything he said or wrote. He practically proved that the Palestinians are far from being autonomous, and that the West Bank is in reality under siege, with Israel dictating who and what might leave or enter.
When the Spanish clown Ivan Pedro was denied entry by the Shin Beit into the West Bank, some people tried to make a national security case out of it, claiming Pedro refused to submit information regarding his contacts in the West Bank. I hope nobody is planning the same line with the Chomsky. Israel simply decided not to let him in because he is pro-Palestinian, like it does every day to many others. The only difference is that in those cases nobody alerts Reuters.
There is no arguing that Israel is now viewing certain ideas, not just actions, as existential threat, and is willing to make use of its powers in order to suppress them. It is important to understand this point: Some people think that the state made a stupid mistake today, when it chose to refuse Chomsky a visa. But That’s only true if you judge the affair in terms of actual security – then you conclude that making such a fuss over a speech in Ramallah by an aging linguistic that no one would even notice is pure madness. But if you are obsessed with the persecution of “dangerous ideas” and constantly searching for ideological menaces, then Chomsky is a threat. In this context, not allowing him to enter your country might be logical and even legal – again, if you consider Israel’s control of all entrances to the West bank legal – but it is also scary is hell."
Monday, May 17, 2010
Karzai comes to DC: Oh what a merry dance!
Karzai comes to town....Washington. So, what does the Administration do?
Maureen Dowd puts her finger on the pulse in her latest op-piece for The New York Times:
"Everybody here lies.
But with the arrival of Hamid Karzai, the mendacity blossomed into absurdity.
The question for the Obama White House is not whether it can grow to appreciate the caped capo who runs Afghanistan. (President Obama can’t stand him.) The question is whether Karzai will fall for all the guff they’re throwing at him.
Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and Gen. Stanley McChrystal were paraded into the White House press room to pretend as though their dispute about the efficacy of the surge, given Karzai’s serious flaws as a partner, has been put to rest. (It hasn’t.)
The administration crooned a reassuring lullaby to the colicky Karzai: that it has a long-term commitment in Afghanistan (it doesn’t) and an endgame there (it doesn’t) and that it knows that the upcoming Kandahar offensive will work (it doesn’t).
Asked by a reporter about the change from sticks to carrots, Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan who has had contentious sessions with Karzai, replied: “No, I certainly don’t think it’s changed.” (It has.)
For their part, the Afghans promise to work on stemming corruption and stopping the poppy trade. (They won’t.)"
Read on here.
Maureen Dowd puts her finger on the pulse in her latest op-piece for The New York Times:
"Everybody here lies.
But with the arrival of Hamid Karzai, the mendacity blossomed into absurdity.
The question for the Obama White House is not whether it can grow to appreciate the caped capo who runs Afghanistan. (President Obama can’t stand him.) The question is whether Karzai will fall for all the guff they’re throwing at him.
Ambassador Karl Eikenberry and Gen. Stanley McChrystal were paraded into the White House press room to pretend as though their dispute about the efficacy of the surge, given Karzai’s serious flaws as a partner, has been put to rest. (It hasn’t.)
The administration crooned a reassuring lullaby to the colicky Karzai: that it has a long-term commitment in Afghanistan (it doesn’t) and an endgame there (it doesn’t) and that it knows that the upcoming Kandahar offensive will work (it doesn’t).
Asked by a reporter about the change from sticks to carrots, Richard Holbrooke, the special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan who has had contentious sessions with Karzai, replied: “No, I certainly don’t think it’s changed.” (It has.)
For their part, the Afghans promise to work on stemming corruption and stopping the poppy trade. (They won’t.)"
Read on here.
Google: Way beyond a mere search
We all know that the company Google, and Googling, now go with use of the internet.
But Google, the company, has, as we now discover, gone way beyond being the mere vehicle for searching the net. AFP reports [as reproduced on Salon] that Google has intruded on our personal space in a disturbing way:
"The company has accumulated about 600 gigabytes of people's online activities transmitted over public networks.
Google says it has scooped up snippets of people's online activities broadcast over unprotected Wi-Fi networks during the past four years.
The admission made Friday is likely to raise more worries about potential privacy breaches as Google gathers volumes of personal information through its search engine and other services.
Google picked up fragments of e-mails and Web addresses while its cars were photographing neighborhoods for the "Street View" feature on its mapping service.
The company says it only recently discovered it has accumulated about 600 gigabytes of data transmitted over public Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries. Google says none of the information has appeared in its search engine or other services."
But Google, the company, has, as we now discover, gone way beyond being the mere vehicle for searching the net. AFP reports [as reproduced on Salon] that Google has intruded on our personal space in a disturbing way:
"The company has accumulated about 600 gigabytes of people's online activities transmitted over public networks.
Google says it has scooped up snippets of people's online activities broadcast over unprotected Wi-Fi networks during the past four years.
The admission made Friday is likely to raise more worries about potential privacy breaches as Google gathers volumes of personal information through its search engine and other services.
Google picked up fragments of e-mails and Web addresses while its cars were photographing neighborhoods for the "Street View" feature on its mapping service.
The company says it only recently discovered it has accumulated about 600 gigabytes of data transmitted over public Wi-Fi networks in more than 30 countries. Google says none of the information has appeared in its search engine or other services."
Sunday, May 16, 2010
A refreshing take on the internet....from an unusual source
The French Foreign Minister, Bernard Kouchner, has not shown himself over the years as being some sort of liberal thinker or libertarian.
It is therefore more than refreshing to read his op-ed piece "The Battle for the Internet" in the International Herald Tribune:
"In 2015, 3.5 billion people — half of mankind — will have access to the Internet. There has never been such a revolution in freedom of communication and freedom of expression. But how will this new medium be used? What obstacles will the enemies of the Internet come up with?
Extremist, racist and defamatory Web sites and blogs disseminate odious opinions in real time. They have made the Internet a weapon of war and hate. Web sites are attacked. Violent movements spread propaganda and false information. It is very hard for democracies to control them. I do not subscribe to the naïve belief that a new technology, however efficient and powerful, is bound to advance liberty on all fronts.
Yet, the distortions are the exception rather than the rule. The Internet is above all the most fantastic means of breaking down the walls that close us off from one another. For the oppressed peoples of the world, the Internet provides power beyond their wildest hopes. It is increasingly difficult to hide a public protest, an act of repression or a violation of human rights. In authoritarian and repressive countries, mobile telephones and the Internet have given citizens a critical means of expression, despite all the restrictions.
However, the number of countries that censor the Internet and monitor Web users is increasing at an alarming rate. The Internet can be a formidable intelligence-gathering tool for spotting potential dissidents. Some regimes are already acquiring increasingly sophisticated surveillance technology."
It is therefore more than refreshing to read his op-ed piece "The Battle for the Internet" in the International Herald Tribune:
"In 2015, 3.5 billion people — half of mankind — will have access to the Internet. There has never been such a revolution in freedom of communication and freedom of expression. But how will this new medium be used? What obstacles will the enemies of the Internet come up with?
Extremist, racist and defamatory Web sites and blogs disseminate odious opinions in real time. They have made the Internet a weapon of war and hate. Web sites are attacked. Violent movements spread propaganda and false information. It is very hard for democracies to control them. I do not subscribe to the naïve belief that a new technology, however efficient and powerful, is bound to advance liberty on all fronts.
Yet, the distortions are the exception rather than the rule. The Internet is above all the most fantastic means of breaking down the walls that close us off from one another. For the oppressed peoples of the world, the Internet provides power beyond their wildest hopes. It is increasingly difficult to hide a public protest, an act of repression or a violation of human rights. In authoritarian and repressive countries, mobile telephones and the Internet have given citizens a critical means of expression, despite all the restrictions.
However, the number of countries that censor the Internet and monitor Web users is increasing at an alarming rate. The Internet can be a formidable intelligence-gathering tool for spotting potential dissidents. Some regimes are already acquiring increasingly sophisticated surveillance technology."
Oh Great! "Expect war for 5-10 years more"
What could be more sobering, or of greater concern, than to read in the US The Army Times [reproduced on CommonDreams], that a senior US military man says that we can expect war for 5-10 years more:
"For the next "five to 10 years," the military likely will remain engaged in the same kinds of conflicts it has been fighting since 2001, said Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright.
"There is nothing out there that tells us we won't be wrapped up in these conflicts for as far as the eye can see," Cartwright said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies-sponsored forum. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Chip Somodevilla)The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs on Thursday told a conference in Washington that "no one I know thinks we'll be out of" these kinds of conflicts any time soon.
"There is nothing out there that tells us we won't be wrapped up in these conflicts for as far as the eye can see," Cartwright said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies-sponsored forum.
In coming years, however, the military might be tasked with fighting these kinds of wars "in different places and at different levels," Cartwright said.
He did not point to specific nations into which U.S. forces or assets might be deployed over the next decade beyond Iraq and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
His comments come several days after Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters traveling with him to Kansas that he doubts Washington will soon launch another "protracted" operation like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. One reason, Gates said May 7, was the high cost of such missions, especially amid the ongoing economic crisis."
"For the next "five to 10 years," the military likely will remain engaged in the same kinds of conflicts it has been fighting since 2001, said Marine Corps Gen. James Cartwright.
"There is nothing out there that tells us we won't be wrapped up in these conflicts for as far as the eye can see," Cartwright said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies-sponsored forum. (AFP/Getty Images/File/Chip Somodevilla)The vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs on Thursday told a conference in Washington that "no one I know thinks we'll be out of" these kinds of conflicts any time soon.
"There is nothing out there that tells us we won't be wrapped up in these conflicts for as far as the eye can see," Cartwright said at the Center for Strategic and International Studies-sponsored forum.
In coming years, however, the military might be tasked with fighting these kinds of wars "in different places and at different levels," Cartwright said.
He did not point to specific nations into which U.S. forces or assets might be deployed over the next decade beyond Iraq and the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.
His comments come several days after Defense Secretary Robert Gates told reporters traveling with him to Kansas that he doubts Washington will soon launch another "protracted" operation like the ones in Iraq and Afghanistan. One reason, Gates said May 7, was the high cost of such missions, especially amid the ongoing economic crisis."
Saturday, May 15, 2010
America's Ten Most Corrupt Capitalists
AlterNet goes where others may fear to tread - identifying, and then detailing, what it says are America's ten most corrupt capitalists.
The List will surprise......including Warren Buffet being on it.
"The financial crisis has unveiled a new set of public villains—corrupt corporate capitalists who leveraged their connections in government for their own personal profit. During the Clinton and Bush administrations, many of these schemers were worshiped as geniuses, heroes or icons of American progress. But today we know these opportunists for what they are: Deregulatory hacks hellbent on making a profit at any cost. Without further ado, here are the 10 most corrupt capitalists in the U.S. economy."
Read the piece, in full, here.
The List will surprise......including Warren Buffet being on it.
"The financial crisis has unveiled a new set of public villains—corrupt corporate capitalists who leveraged their connections in government for their own personal profit. During the Clinton and Bush administrations, many of these schemers were worshiped as geniuses, heroes or icons of American progress. But today we know these opportunists for what they are: Deregulatory hacks hellbent on making a profit at any cost. Without further ado, here are the 10 most corrupt capitalists in the U.S. economy."
Read the piece, in full, here.
Food for thought.....if it was you who was affected
In a piece "Blowback: Why They Try to Bomb Us" on truthdig David Sirota asks some penetrating and pertinent questions:
"Imagine, if you can, an alternate universe.
Imagine that in this alternate universe, a foreign military power begins flying remote-controlled warplanes over your town, using onboard missiles to kill hundreds of your innocent neighbors.
Now imagine that when you read the newspaper about this ongoing bloodbath, you learn that the foreign nation’s top general is nonchalantly telling reporters that his troops are also killing “an amazing number” of your cultural brethren in an adjacent country. Imagine further learning that this foreign power is expanding the drone attacks on your community despite the attacks’ well-known record of killing innocents. And finally, imagine that when you turn on your television, you see the perpetrator nation’s tuxedo-clad leader cracking stand-up comedy jokes about drone strikes—jokes that prompt guffaws from an audience of that nation’s elite.
Ask yourself: How would you and your fellow citizens respond? Would you call homegrown militias mounting a defense “patriots” or would you call them “terrorists”? Would you agree with your leaders when they angrily tell reporters that violent defiance should be expected?
Fortunately, most Americans don’t have to worry about these queries in their own lives. But how we answer them in a hypothetical thought experiment provides us insight into how Pakistanis are likely to be feeling right now. Why? Because thanks to our continued drone assaults on their country, Pakistanis now confront these issues every day. And if they answer these questions as many of us undoubtedly would in a similar situation—well, that should trouble every American in this age of asymmetrical warfare.
Though we don’t like to call it mass murder, the U.S. government’s undeclared drone war in Pakistan is devolving into just that. As noted by a former counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus and a former Army officer in Afghanistan, the operation has become a haphazard massacre."
"Imagine, if you can, an alternate universe.
Imagine that in this alternate universe, a foreign military power begins flying remote-controlled warplanes over your town, using onboard missiles to kill hundreds of your innocent neighbors.
Now imagine that when you read the newspaper about this ongoing bloodbath, you learn that the foreign nation’s top general is nonchalantly telling reporters that his troops are also killing “an amazing number” of your cultural brethren in an adjacent country. Imagine further learning that this foreign power is expanding the drone attacks on your community despite the attacks’ well-known record of killing innocents. And finally, imagine that when you turn on your television, you see the perpetrator nation’s tuxedo-clad leader cracking stand-up comedy jokes about drone strikes—jokes that prompt guffaws from an audience of that nation’s elite.
Ask yourself: How would you and your fellow citizens respond? Would you call homegrown militias mounting a defense “patriots” or would you call them “terrorists”? Would you agree with your leaders when they angrily tell reporters that violent defiance should be expected?
Fortunately, most Americans don’t have to worry about these queries in their own lives. But how we answer them in a hypothetical thought experiment provides us insight into how Pakistanis are likely to be feeling right now. Why? Because thanks to our continued drone assaults on their country, Pakistanis now confront these issues every day. And if they answer these questions as many of us undoubtedly would in a similar situation—well, that should trouble every American in this age of asymmetrical warfare.
Though we don’t like to call it mass murder, the U.S. government’s undeclared drone war in Pakistan is devolving into just that. As noted by a former counterinsurgency adviser to Gen. David Petraeus and a former Army officer in Afghanistan, the operation has become a haphazard massacre."
Friday, May 14, 2010
Governments have no place in monitoring the internet
The Sydney Morning Herald publishes an op-piece by blogger Antony Loewenstein on Government's trying to monitor the internet:
"We live under the illusion that governments can protect us from the evils of the world.
Paedophilia, extreme violence, lessons in self-harm and suicide, race hatred and terrorism. We have every right to expect governments to monitor hate and terror sites and arrest and prosecute those who aim to do harm to others.
But censoring the internet will have no effect on insulating us from these horrors. It's false security, comforting election-cycle rhetoric to convince fearful parents and scared teachers.
And that's just in the West.
Having spent time in numerous repressive states, such as Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and China, there is no indication that these nations are any better at protecting their citizens from the darkest recesses of the internet or the mind. Millions of users find ways around filtering services provided by Western multinationals.
Besides, tell me how trying to ban YouTube videos of men kissing or women driving – both illegal acts in brutal, US-backed Saudi Arabia – proves anything other than officials will filter material that suits their political agenda? Who here trusts our government, of any stripe, to transparently only block content that is harmful to children?
Already in Europe there are debates about banning websites that allegedly endorse terrorism. But who decides? Resistance movements that oppose American and Australian actions in Iraq and Afghanistan? Elected Palestinian parties such as Hamas backed by millions of Arabs? The powerful Lebanese group Hezbollah, regarded as a terrorist organisation in many Western capitals, but lionised across the Muslim world?"
"We live under the illusion that governments can protect us from the evils of the world.
Paedophilia, extreme violence, lessons in self-harm and suicide, race hatred and terrorism. We have every right to expect governments to monitor hate and terror sites and arrest and prosecute those who aim to do harm to others.
But censoring the internet will have no effect on insulating us from these horrors. It's false security, comforting election-cycle rhetoric to convince fearful parents and scared teachers.
And that's just in the West.
Having spent time in numerous repressive states, such as Cuba, Egypt, Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia and China, there is no indication that these nations are any better at protecting their citizens from the darkest recesses of the internet or the mind. Millions of users find ways around filtering services provided by Western multinationals.
Besides, tell me how trying to ban YouTube videos of men kissing or women driving – both illegal acts in brutal, US-backed Saudi Arabia – proves anything other than officials will filter material that suits their political agenda? Who here trusts our government, of any stripe, to transparently only block content that is harmful to children?
Already in Europe there are debates about banning websites that allegedly endorse terrorism. But who decides? Resistance movements that oppose American and Australian actions in Iraq and Afghanistan? Elected Palestinian parties such as Hamas backed by millions of Arabs? The powerful Lebanese group Hezbollah, regarded as a terrorist organisation in many Western capitals, but lionised across the Muslim world?"
Accountability it certainly isn't
Jeremy Scahill is the author of the New York Times bestseller Blackwater: The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army. He is currently a Puffin Foundation Writing Fellow at the Nation Institute.
In his latest piece "Obama on Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan: "I Am Accountable" on The Nation he writes:
"During his White House press conference Wednesday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, President Obama addressed the issue of civilian deaths caused by US operations in Afghanistan. "I take no pleasure in hearing a report that a civilian has been killed," said Obama. "That's not why I ran for president, that's not why I'm Commander in Chief."
"Let me be very clear about what I told President Karazi: When there is a civilian casualty, that is not just a political problem for me. I am ultimately accountable, just as Gen. McChrystal is accountable, for somebody who is not on the battlefield who got killed," said Obama.
That statement is quite remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it is not true. How are President Obama or Gen. McChrystal accountable? Afghans have little, if any, recourse for civilian deaths. They cannot press their case in international courts because the US doesn't recognize an International Criminal Court with jurisdiction over US forces, Afghan courts have not and will not be given jurisdiction and Attorney General Eric Holder has made clear that the Justice Department will not permit cases against US military officials brought by foreign victims to proceed in US courts to go forward. So, what does it mean to be accountable for civilian deaths? Public apology? Press conferences? A handful of courts martial?
Obama praised US forces for their restraint in Afghanistan, saying, "Because of Gen McChrystal's direction, often times they're holding fire, they're hesitating, they're being cautious about how they operate even though it would be safer for them to go ahead and take these locations out."
But how does that square with recent, heinous instances of civilian killings in Afghanistan? In February, for example, US special forces shot and killed five people, including three women who collectively had 16 children. The US military tried to cover it up and blame it on the Taliban, saying coalition forces "found the bodies of three women who had been tied up, gagged and killed." The New York Times reported that military officials had "suggested that the women had all been stabbed to death or had died by other means before the raid, implying that their own relatives may have killed them."
Later, General McChrystal's command admitted US-led forces had done the killing, saying it was an accident. This was hard to square with reports that soldiers may have dug bullets out of the dead bodies to try to cover it up. The head of the Joint Special Operations Command, Vice Admiral William McRaven, eventually apologized to the family of the dead Afghans and offered them two sheep as a condolence gift. Was this accountability?
Or, what about the incident last May when US warplanes bombed civilian houses in Farah province killing more than 100 people? The dead, according to the Red Cross, included an "Afghan Red Crescent volunteer and 13 members of his family who had been sheltering from fighting in a house that was bombed" in the air strike. US Military sources floated the story to NBC and other outlets that Taliban fighters used grenades to kill three families to "stage" a massacre and then blame it on the US.
"War is tough and difficult and mistakes are gonna be made," President Obama said today. Part of the problem, though, is that when "mistakes" happen and civilians are killed, attempts are made to cover them up or to blame them on the Taliban."
In his latest piece "Obama on Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan: "I Am Accountable" on The Nation he writes:
"During his White House press conference Wednesday with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, President Obama addressed the issue of civilian deaths caused by US operations in Afghanistan. "I take no pleasure in hearing a report that a civilian has been killed," said Obama. "That's not why I ran for president, that's not why I'm Commander in Chief."
"Let me be very clear about what I told President Karazi: When there is a civilian casualty, that is not just a political problem for me. I am ultimately accountable, just as Gen. McChrystal is accountable, for somebody who is not on the battlefield who got killed," said Obama.
That statement is quite remarkable for a number of reasons, not the least of which is that it is not true. How are President Obama or Gen. McChrystal accountable? Afghans have little, if any, recourse for civilian deaths. They cannot press their case in international courts because the US doesn't recognize an International Criminal Court with jurisdiction over US forces, Afghan courts have not and will not be given jurisdiction and Attorney General Eric Holder has made clear that the Justice Department will not permit cases against US military officials brought by foreign victims to proceed in US courts to go forward. So, what does it mean to be accountable for civilian deaths? Public apology? Press conferences? A handful of courts martial?
Obama praised US forces for their restraint in Afghanistan, saying, "Because of Gen McChrystal's direction, often times they're holding fire, they're hesitating, they're being cautious about how they operate even though it would be safer for them to go ahead and take these locations out."
But how does that square with recent, heinous instances of civilian killings in Afghanistan? In February, for example, US special forces shot and killed five people, including three women who collectively had 16 children. The US military tried to cover it up and blame it on the Taliban, saying coalition forces "found the bodies of three women who had been tied up, gagged and killed." The New York Times reported that military officials had "suggested that the women had all been stabbed to death or had died by other means before the raid, implying that their own relatives may have killed them."
Later, General McChrystal's command admitted US-led forces had done the killing, saying it was an accident. This was hard to square with reports that soldiers may have dug bullets out of the dead bodies to try to cover it up. The head of the Joint Special Operations Command, Vice Admiral William McRaven, eventually apologized to the family of the dead Afghans and offered them two sheep as a condolence gift. Was this accountability?
Or, what about the incident last May when US warplanes bombed civilian houses in Farah province killing more than 100 people? The dead, according to the Red Cross, included an "Afghan Red Crescent volunteer and 13 members of his family who had been sheltering from fighting in a house that was bombed" in the air strike. US Military sources floated the story to NBC and other outlets that Taliban fighters used grenades to kill three families to "stage" a massacre and then blame it on the US.
"War is tough and difficult and mistakes are gonna be made," President Obama said today. Part of the problem, though, is that when "mistakes" happen and civilians are killed, attempts are made to cover them up or to blame them on the Taliban."
A shameful and shamefaced celebration
From CommonDreams:
"Today is Jerusalem Day, wherein oblivious Israelis celebrate the "unification" of a city whose "unity" is not recognized by the international community, where Arab East Jerusalem and 28 Palestinian villages were erased to make way for Jewish homes and three-quarters of Palestinian children now live in poverty. From Haaretz, a look at Israeli denial on the subject of Palestinian repression, and the cost on both sides.
"The nation that oppresses another nation forges its own chains." - Karl Marx"
"The nation that oppresses another nation forges its own chains." - Karl Marx"
Thursday, May 13, 2010
They were quite right all along
Who can forget the storm Walt and Mearsheimer caused, first with their piece on the Israel Lobby in the London Review of Books, and then with their book - which became a best-seller - on the same subject.
The authors were accused of anti-semitism for claiming that the Jewish lobby used its influence with US administrations to shape America's pro-Israel policy.
Now, Walt rightly points out in the latest posting "Wish I'd said that ... (wait a minute ... I did!)" on his blog on FP that he and Mearsheimer were right all along:
"From the New Yorker profile of Haim Saban:
Presumably Abe Foxman will now denounce Saban for peddling noxious anti-Semitic stereotypes about "Jewish influence." My view is different: I think Saban is just a smart businessman who cares a lot about a single issue and understands how the American system of interest group politics works."
The authors were accused of anti-semitism for claiming that the Jewish lobby used its influence with US administrations to shape America's pro-Israel policy.
Now, Walt rightly points out in the latest posting "Wish I'd said that ... (wait a minute ... I did!)" on his blog on FP that he and Mearsheimer were right all along:
"From the New Yorker profile of Haim Saban:
"His greatest concern, [Saban] says, is to protect Israel, by strengthening the United States-Israel relationship. At a conference last fall in Israel, Saban described his formula. His 'three ways to be influential in American politics,' he said, were: make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets."
Presumably Abe Foxman will now denounce Saban for peddling noxious anti-Semitic stereotypes about "Jewish influence." My view is different: I think Saban is just a smart businessman who cares a lot about a single issue and understands how the American system of interest group politics works."
Google to the rescue of journalism?
First Google was instrumental in killing the newspaper business. Now it is trying to reverse that...for commercial reasons.
James Fallow, writing in The Atlantic, explains in "How to Save the News":
"Plummeting newspaper circulation, disappearing classified ads, “unbundling” of content—the list of what’s killing journalism is long. But high on that list, many would say, is Google, the biggest unbundler of them all. Now, having helped break the news business, the company wants to fix it—for commercial as well as civic reasons: if news organizations stop producing great journalism, says one Google executive, the search engine will no longer have interesting content to link to. So some of the smartest minds at the company are thinking about this, and working with publishers, and peering ahead to see what the future of journalism looks like. Guess what? It’s bright."
James Fallow, writing in The Atlantic, explains in "How to Save the News":
"Plummeting newspaper circulation, disappearing classified ads, “unbundling” of content—the list of what’s killing journalism is long. But high on that list, many would say, is Google, the biggest unbundler of them all. Now, having helped break the news business, the company wants to fix it—for commercial as well as civic reasons: if news organizations stop producing great journalism, says one Google executive, the search engine will no longer have interesting content to link to. So some of the smartest minds at the company are thinking about this, and working with publishers, and peering ahead to see what the future of journalism looks like. Guess what? It’s bright."
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
A perspective not often heard or seen
The position of the Israelis in its ongoing conflict with the Palestinians gains most media attention. Rarely does one read a reportage from or a perspective of those on the Palestinian side.
"Ask Palestinians why there is no Gandhi in their movement, and often the answer comes: but there are several, and Mustafa Barghouti should be recognized more widely as one of them."
A medical doctor, born in Jerusalem in 1954, trained both in the old Soviet Union and in the US, he is the advocate of a strong, non-violent push to a two-state deal with Israel. He got his break in the show biz of American opinion last Fall on the Daily Show. His B. D. S. campaign this Spring in the world press and on American campuses stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions to bring the pressure of international attention and law on the Israeli government.
Mustafa Barghouti has set his own course in the famous Barghouti family and in Palestinian politics. With Edward Said and others in 2002, Mustafa Barghouti helped found the Palestinian National Initiative. He was the Initiative’s candidate (and ran second to Mahmood Abbas) to succeed Yasir Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority in 2005. His Initiative banner waves for “a truly democratic and independent ‘third way’ for the large majority of silent and unrepresented Palestinian voters, who favour neither the autocracy and corruption of the governing Fatah party, nor the fundamentalism of Hamas.”
In a long conversation at Brown’s Watson Institute , Dr. Barghouti seemed a model of the old virtues: patience, long-suffering, gentleness and a certain deep enthusiasm."
Continue here to read this well worth-reading piece on Palestine Monitor.
"Ask Palestinians why there is no Gandhi in their movement, and often the answer comes: but there are several, and Mustafa Barghouti should be recognized more widely as one of them."
A medical doctor, born in Jerusalem in 1954, trained both in the old Soviet Union and in the US, he is the advocate of a strong, non-violent push to a two-state deal with Israel. He got his break in the show biz of American opinion last Fall on the Daily Show. His B. D. S. campaign this Spring in the world press and on American campuses stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions to bring the pressure of international attention and law on the Israeli government.
Mustafa Barghouti has set his own course in the famous Barghouti family and in Palestinian politics. With Edward Said and others in 2002, Mustafa Barghouti helped found the Palestinian National Initiative. He was the Initiative’s candidate (and ran second to Mahmood Abbas) to succeed Yasir Arafat as president of the Palestinian Authority in 2005. His Initiative banner waves for “a truly democratic and independent ‘third way’ for the large majority of silent and unrepresented Palestinian voters, who favour neither the autocracy and corruption of the governing Fatah party, nor the fundamentalism of Hamas.”
In a long conversation at Brown’s Watson Institute , Dr. Barghouti seemed a model of the old virtues: patience, long-suffering, gentleness and a certain deep enthusiasm."
Continue here to read this well worth-reading piece on Palestine Monitor.
Addiction a la iPhone style
Forget about hash or ice.......is the iPhone the addiction of 2010?
Demographer Bernard Salt writing on The Australian:
'There can be no doubt that the arrival of new technologies has had a powerful effect in shaping work, life and relationships in the 21st century.
But the impact of mobile phones, SMS and social media such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as smart phones such as the iPhone, go beyond the way we work and the way we form relationships.
New technology is forging new protocols and new, somewhat bizarre, social behaviours.
Do you check emails on your iPhone on weeknights when you are home with your family? What about on weekends? Do you zone out of a family conversation to "just check your emails"?
Do you take your iPhone on holidays so that you can keep track of what's happening on the work front?
Have you checked your iPhone at a family wedding? What about at a funeral?
You have, haven't you? Is nothing sacred?
Why do you need to look at your iPhone all day, every day? What vital piece of information are you expecting that you have to look at the thing every five minutes?"
Keep reading, here, to see whether you fit the bill. Odds on you do!
Demographer Bernard Salt writing on The Australian:
'There can be no doubt that the arrival of new technologies has had a powerful effect in shaping work, life and relationships in the 21st century.
But the impact of mobile phones, SMS and social media such as Facebook and Twitter, as well as smart phones such as the iPhone, go beyond the way we work and the way we form relationships.
New technology is forging new protocols and new, somewhat bizarre, social behaviours.
Do you check emails on your iPhone on weeknights when you are home with your family? What about on weekends? Do you zone out of a family conversation to "just check your emails"?
Do you take your iPhone on holidays so that you can keep track of what's happening on the work front?
Have you checked your iPhone at a family wedding? What about at a funeral?
You have, haven't you? Is nothing sacred?
Why do you need to look at your iPhone all day, every day? What vital piece of information are you expecting that you have to look at the thing every five minutes?"
Keep reading, here, to see whether you fit the bill. Odds on you do!
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