The Beaver Lake Cree Nation vs the Tar Sands
by Drew Mildon
July 15th, 2009
[The following article was written by Drew Mildon, a lawyer at the Canadian law firm Woodward and Company. Woodward and Company is overseeing the Beaver Lake Cree Nation law suit against the Government of Canada. See source here: http://oilsandstruth.org/beaver-lake-cree-nation-vs-tar-sands]
The Cooperative Financial Services delegates flew into Edmonton on Canada day. They brought along with them Emily Beament, a member of the British Press Association, a BBC film crew and Paul Myles from Ecologist Magazine. We drove north to Lac La Biche, passing through Fort Saskatchewan - the refinery and upgrading center of Alberta, the nexus of so many pipelines - pushing the natural gas needed to drive the engines of the oil industry. Past the Dow Chemical plant and the miles and miles of puffing smokestacks. Across the road from all this industry a few skinny cattle graze and you begin to give serious thought to how enticed you'll be next time you see the words "Alberta Beef."
On Thursday morning, we meet our plane at the tiny green terminal building of the Lac La Biche airport. We fly north over the vast green forests, bogs and fens of the boreal. Seismic lines old and new checkering and cris-crossing and carving the wood into unnatural patterns in long desperate lines that stretch as far as the eye can see. Everywhere little squares of SAGD's old and new scar the landscape.
In Fort McMurray the "Beeb" crew tape up the helicopters with duct tape and external cameras for the flight out over the heart of the problem. We slide up the valley of the Clearwater River and its pretty, pretty like river valleys are supposed to be, and then you come up over the rise and its all there in front of you. And. it. is. devastating. There are moments when, 2,000 ft up, the entire horizon is open pit mines and upgraders, a thousand of those tiny trucks down there, each three stories high and carrying 100 tons of tar sands, these hundreds of foot high pipes burning off sour gas in eternal shooting flames (because its cheaper than upgrading it) - and the lakes (no ponds, no) the lakes of strange grayish yellow that go on and on and on. There's a new lake district in Alberta - but you wouldn't want to pop in there to cool off on a hot sunny day. There's another moment, when each of us on that helicopter, each of us committed, by the laws of our childhood, by our faiths, by our sense of duty, by what ever moral or ethical bubble guides us, committed to the care and the protection of this good earth which sustains us, which fills us with food and life and cool, cool water and we all think - "this is too big, too terrible and it cannot be stopped." And I am weeping, weeping with the sickness of it, weeping with the anger and hatred for those who direct this thing, for those who profit from this thing.
Remember the scene in the animated version of Watership Down? Where the rabbits who escaped the warren late catch up and describe the bulldozers and the gas poured down the holes?
In my early 20s I was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder - and looking down on this fucked up mess I think: "This will all start over again. I will wake every night now, shivering and shaking and unable to scream and this will be the thing that is in my head - this image I will carry with me all of my life." But it is a good thing to go, and to see, and to bear witness, I think.
We retire to the Benson hunting lodge for the evening. It's a buffalo ranch next to the Beaver Lake reserve, and it is incredible peaceful and serene. In the early morning you wake to the soft snorting of the buffalo and the deer jump golden in the slanting light from their nighttime safety slip among the herd. And we pack up to drive around to some of the SAGD and pipelines in the area. Everything seems mild after the tar sands pits - but you don't have to look long at the miles of gleaming silver pipelines running six-abreast to understand why the caribou went away. On the side of a massive upgrader a huge sign, one presumes about worker safety, reads "Stop and think!!!" Yes, perhaps we should.
But in the evening we are back at the Beaver Lake cultural grounds for the Pow Wow. And it is a hell of a show. It is the plains First Nations at their very finest, at their most joyful and their most proud and it is a truly amazing thing to behold. It is one of those moments when I feel most blessed in my vocation. When we first arrive there are cameras and journalists everywhere, Chief Lameman and the Pow Wow marshals emerge from the tent where they have just completed a pipe ceremony - to respond to the reports and the mics in their faces. And they are soft-spoken, thoughtful - and determined as hell.
We walk into the Grand Entry, following Chief Lameman and his Council, Germaine Anderson, Jerry Gladue, and Hank Gladue. As we stand in the center of the ring and hundreds of swirling dancers in traditional gear move around us - it's enough to make a scrawny white guy a bit nervous. And it is so, so cool. I think the pasty Brits from Manchesters' eyes are going to fall out of their heads. No one is prepared for the precision and power of the spectacle, or the strength and power of Cree drumming and singing. Your body just moves to it. We are honoured by Chief and Council with blankets and as we try to slip quietly to the sidelines we're instructed - "No, no - you have to dance one round with your blankets." I laugh, thinking they're having me off (as the Brits would say). And the photographer for the Journal says "I think he's serious." And I think the photographer just sees a good opportunity for some funny shots of lawyers trying to dance. So after one dance I try to slip away again - only to be told by a grinning Kookum - "No, no, once you start you have to dance until it's over." So someone is having me off - but who am I to complain? The beat rides your blood. Some of the children have recognized Colin from pictures around the Band office - and they gather around him - teaching him their styles.
The next day it's back to the Pow Wow and a breakfast of Bannock burgers and Indian tacos. We aim for the less-professional looking stands, hoping for the perfect home-made bison burger. On the way I'm asked by Colin if there's any sort of "shamanistic" tradition amongst the Cree and I grin - knowing what lies ahead in the next few days. As we walk in, a local healer is standing, chatting with my colleagues.
Throughout the day the announcers at the Pow Wow are welcoming the visitors from over the big pond - and cracking wise about words like "Blimey" (apparently from "God Blind Me!"). That afternoon Colin goes up to give away some presents from the Cooperative - and the announcer invites folks up from outside Treaty 6 and Colin is surrounded by children - the perfect pale slim summer Santa. And Colin and Paul present a check for $100,000 Canadian to Chief Lameman and a director from RAVEN - to help protect the lands, to help constraint the tar sands in their seemingly insurmountable march. Chief Al says - "without the land we have nothing, we must protect it." My boss, big Jack Woodward, standing tall in his misshapen cowboy hat takes the mic, and sets the crowd on fire. He gives them a new copy of an old treaty - says that promises must be kept. And the shouts and war cries fill the Pow Wow ring, and my heart. And I think "Hi, hi. It is an honour to serve the People."
http://itsgettinghotinhere.org/2009/07/15/the-beaver-lake-cree-nation-vs...
Tuesday, July 21, 2009
Saturday, July 18, 2009
Like Killing a Bird Today in Afghanistan
"The Killing of Women is Like Killing a Bird Today in Afghanistan": Afghan Women's Rights Activist
By Stephen de Tarczynski, IPS News
Posted on July 17, 2009, Printed on July 18, 2009
http://www.alternet.org/story/141358/
MELBOURNE, Jul 13 (IPS) -- It is easy to understand why epithets such as brave and courageous often accompany the name of Malalai Joya. Slight of stature and serenely demure, the young Afghan woman’s past and present encapsulate the plight of her countrywomen.
Malalai Joya returned to Afghanistan in 1998 -- she had spent most of her life until then in refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan -- as an underground volunteer educator of girls, a decidedly dangerous and difficult role given that the hardline Taliban were in power.
She came to the world’s attention in 2003 when, at a constitutional convention attended by Afghanistan’s leaders, she publicly accused many of those present of being war criminals, drug lords and supporters of the Taliban.
Joya continued to speak out against fellow parliamentarians following her election to the national assembly in 2005. While her outspoken views have gained much support both inside Afghanistan and internationally, Joya has also created powerful enemies.
She remains suspended from parliament for being openly critical of fellow MPs and has survived several assassination attempts.
In Australia to promote her book Raising My Voice, Joya, still just 31, met with IPS writer Stephen de Tarczynski to discuss the position of women in her country. The following are extracts from the interview.
IPS: How do you see the situation for women today in Afghanistan?
Malalai Joya: Women and children, they were the most and first victims and still there is much violence against them. And the main reason is that the Northern Alliance fundamentalists, who are mentally the same as the Taliban but physically are different, came to power.
First of all, like the Taliban, they mix Islam with politics to use against women of my country. The situation of women is like hell in most of the provinces.
It is true that in some big cities like Kabul, like Herat, Mazar-i-Sharif, some women have access to jobs and education but in most of the provinces, not only is there no justice at all -- even in the capital -- but in faraway provinces the situation of women is becoming more disastrous. The killing of women is like killing a bird today in Afghanistan.
IPS: In your book you quote George W. Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address when the then-U.S. president said that the mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captive in their own homes under the Taliban and became free when the Taliban were ousted from power. Do you regard Afghan women and girls as free?
MJ: The U.S. government lies and wants to pretend to the people around the world that for the first time they brought women’s rights to Afghanistan and that women do not wear burqas.
After 9/11 the main message of the U.S government was that women were not wearing burqas anymore but today, eight years later, most women wear burqas because of security [concerns]. I wear a burqa because of security.
In these past eight years, Afghan women haven't gained even the limited rights that they had in the 1970s and 1980s. In the past it was like in western countries. Women wore what they wished, as I wear what I wish now [in Australia]. But in Afghanistan I have to wear a burqa and most of the women of my country don't like that.
But burqas are not the only or main problem for women. We are wearing it now just to be alive. Even now it is useful, we have to wear it. Wearing the burqa is the main tactic I use to be alive, the same as I used in the period of the Taliban.
IPS: You’ve become a figurehead for women's rights in Afghanistan, but are there other women risking as much as you do but who we don’t hear about?
MJ: Even more than me. Only when they have been killed, then through democratic journalists the world knows it, people know it. As I said when Sitara Achakzai [a provincial council member in Kandahar who was murdered in April], the last great woman activist to be killed, she is not the first one and unfortunately she won't be the last one.
Before Sitara Achakzai, Safia Amajan has been killed in Kandahar [the teacher and public servant was 63 when assassinated in 2006]. In the same province Malalai Kakar [a high-ranking policewoman who was murdered last year] has been killed.
In Herat province Nadia Anjaman was a great poet-activist has been killed [at 25 years of age in 2005]. In Parwan [in 2007] Zakia Zaki was a young journalist on radio who had lots of supporters, people loved her, was killed in her house.
IPS: Do assassinations of women like Sitara Achakzai indicate that there is a fear in Afghanistan of women who raise their voice? Are the Taliban and others afraid of women like you?
MJ: Of course they are afraid. That’s why they are against the role of women, half the population of our country. That’s why I say that society is like a bird, with one wing being a man and one wing being a woman. When one wing is injured can the bird fly?
For society also it's impossible. That's why they want half the population to always be in darkness, to not have education, to not play a role, just to be in the house and give birth to babies.
Women are like machines to them. They don't even see a woman as a human.
Every year around the world on Mar. 8, women celebrate International Women's Day with lots of hope and happiness. But in my country, this year three women set themselves on fire on Mar. 8. But it's even more than that. Tens of women every month commit suicide.
Thirteen years ago, the fascist commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar threw acid in the face of women and girls who were outside looking for jobs or education. But the same crimes are happening, repeating now under the name of democracy.
IPS: Are there many other individual women and groups who fight for women's rights in Afghanistan?
MJ: Let me tell you about RAWA [Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan]. This is a woman’s political organisation whose leader Meena - in my opinion she is a hero of my country, my people love her a lot - was killed by the fundamentalists. Still they have projects and underground activists too. The same problems [exist] as under the Taliban.
But only one time they had a function in public, many people came to their hall. At that time I was here [in Australia] when they invited me. They weren’t afraid even though a bomb to kill them all was possible. But they gathered openly and exposed the mask of these warlords.
IPS: What is your message for people around the world?
MJ: My message always to democratic people around the world is to educationally support people of my country, activists of my country, democrats of my country because they are the alternative for the future of Afghanistan. They are able to fight against terrorism and fundamentalism [although] they are risking their lives. As always I am saying they are my secret heroes and heroines.
I have said many times condolences on behalf of my people to those families in Australia and the U.S., everywhere that I went, who lost their loved sons and husbands in Afghanistan. I said the condolences are not enough, to cry these tears is not enough. Please raise your voice first of all against the wrong policies of your government. This is a war crime.
They [U.S. forces] bombed Farah province in May. More than 150 civilians have been killed, most of them women and children. They even used white phosphorous but they're just saying 'sorry', that is it. They don't even want to give the exact reports, just that 20 or 30 people were killed while government officials are saying more than 150 civilians dead. Some of the children were as young as three years old, but even government officials don't want to include them in the lists. Are three-year-old babies not human?
IPS: Your country continues to be ravaged by war, women's rights are still being trampled on and you face the likelihood of further attempts on your life. What gives hope?
MJ: Another gift of the U.S. government, when [U.S. President Barack] Obama took office they want to get some Taliban, like [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar, to join the [Afghan] government.
But two days after that, acid was thrown on the faces of 15 girls in Kandahar. And [Afghan President Hamid] Karzai invited Mullah Omar to join the government. But at the same time when journalists interviewed those girls in a bad condition in the hospital they are saying they'll go back to school when they are healthy. It's hope. And these are steps towards democracy.
IPS: Where do you get your courage?
MJ: First, the truth itself gives courage. And also the sorrows and pain of my people, especially the condition of women. The history of my country and values like democracy and women's rights, these values give me hope. And I believe that these will not be given to us by someone.
But the U.S. government and its allies, unfortunately they have pushed us from the frying pan and into the fire. But we are the ones who firstly are responsible.
The silence of good people is worse than the actions of bad people. That’s why I don't fear death but I do fear the political silence against injustice. I'm sure that one day we will achieve these values as our history shows that we never accept an occupation and we have many heroes and heroines in our country who taught us that sitting in silence is not the way.
© 2009 IPS News All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/141358/
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Dump Wars: OPP Move on Site 41
OPP threatens arrests at Site 41, protesters will not yield
This morning, four OPP officers verbally warned people blocking the gates at controversial dump Site 41 in Tiny Township to leave immediately or face arrest, putting Site 41 opponents on high alert. Police had previously said they had ‘no issues’ with the ongoing protest. The protesters were directed to immediately leave the gates or risk being arrested for Mischief under the Criminal Code which carries penalties of up to $5000 fine and/or six months in jail. Local residents, farmers, cottagers and First Nations people have blocked the four gates to Site 41 around the clock for the last 10 days.
“We have said all along that we will not let construction work continue on this dump, that we will protect the water,” said Vicki Monague, one of the Anishnabe Kwei from Christian Island that have been camped at Site 41 for more than two months. “We have maintained good relations with the police, the county and the contractors. We let the security guards in and out and we allow access for the pump contractor and various engineering and Ministry people to monitor the site and keep it safe,” said Monague, “and the county is welcome to come anytime and remove its machinery to put to work off site.”
“Just yesterday the police said they had no issues with the protest. What has changed?” asks Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow. The Council of Canadians is urging the OPP and local police not to arrest anyone, but rather let the matter be debated at Simcoe County council instead. “The way to resolve this is not by arresting peaceful protesters. This highlights the urgent need for an emergency session of Simcoe County Council, and an immediate moratorium on Site 41 construction.”
“A woman in her eighties was here blockading with us yesterday and she said to me ‘If I am going to get arrested once in my life it will be to protect the water.’” said Monague. “At her age, she is really protecting the water for the next generations. This touched me very deeply because that is my role as an Anishnabe Kwei.”
Dump site 41 was originally rejected as a landfill site in the late 1980s by the Ministry of the Environment but their decision was overturned through an Order in Council by the Liberal government of David Peterson. For the last two decades, the local agricultural community has fought to protect the Alliston aquifer that lies beneath the proposed dump site, which contains the purest ground water ever tested. Serious questions about the theoretical modeling in the engineering reports used to select the site have been reinforced by real facts revealed by the actual construction of the site.
-30-
For More Information:
Vicki Monague, Anishinabe Kweag, 705-305-8425
Dylan Penner, Council of Canadians, 613-795-8685, dpenner@canadians.org
Background Information on Site 41: www.canadians.org/Site41
--
Sign up to receive Council of Canadians e-Newsletters and Action Alerts --
The Council of Canadians
700-170 Laurier Avenue West, Ottawa, ON K1P 5V5.
Tel: (613) 233-2773; Toll-free: 1-800-387-7177
Fax: (613) 233-6776
inquiries@canadians.org
www.canadians.org
From: Council of Canadians
MEDIA RELEASE
For Immediate Release
July 16, 2009
This morning, four OPP officers verbally warned people blocking the gates at controversial dump Site 41 in Tiny Township to leave immediately or face arrest, putting Site 41 opponents on high alert. Police had previously said they had ‘no issues’ with the ongoing protest. The protesters were directed to immediately leave the gates or risk being arrested for Mischief under the Criminal Code which carries penalties of up to $5000 fine and/or six months in jail. Local residents, farmers, cottagers and First Nations people have blocked the four gates to Site 41 around the clock for the last 10 days.
“We have said all along that we will not let construction work continue on this dump, that we will protect the water,” said Vicki Monague, one of the Anishnabe Kwei from Christian Island that have been camped at Site 41 for more than two months. “We have maintained good relations with the police, the county and the contractors. We let the security guards in and out and we allow access for the pump contractor and various engineering and Ministry people to monitor the site and keep it safe,” said Monague, “and the county is welcome to come anytime and remove its machinery to put to work off site.”
“Just yesterday the police said they had no issues with the protest. What has changed?” asks Council of Canadians chairperson Maude Barlow. The Council of Canadians is urging the OPP and local police not to arrest anyone, but rather let the matter be debated at Simcoe County council instead. “The way to resolve this is not by arresting peaceful protesters. This highlights the urgent need for an emergency session of Simcoe County Council, and an immediate moratorium on Site 41 construction.”
“A woman in her eighties was here blockading with us yesterday and she said to me ‘If I am going to get arrested once in my life it will be to protect the water.’” said Monague. “At her age, she is really protecting the water for the next generations. This touched me very deeply because that is my role as an Anishnabe Kwei.”
Dump site 41 was originally rejected as a landfill site in the late 1980s by the Ministry of the Environment but their decision was overturned through an Order in Council by the Liberal government of David Peterson. For the last two decades, the local agricultural community has fought to protect the Alliston aquifer that lies beneath the proposed dump site, which contains the purest ground water ever tested. Serious questions about the theoretical modeling in the engineering reports used to select the site have been reinforced by real facts revealed by the actual construction of the site.
-30-
For More Information:
Vicki Monague, Anishinabe Kweag, 705-305-8425
Dylan Penner, Council of Canadians, 613-795-8685, dpenner@canadians.org
Background Information on Site 41: www.canadians.org/Site41
--
Sign up to receive Council of Canadians e-Newsletters and Action Alerts --
The Council of Canadians
700-170 Laurier Avenue West, Ottawa, ON K1P 5V5.
Tel: (613) 233-2773; Toll-free: 1-800-387-7177
Fax: (613) 233-6776
inquiries@canadians.org
www.canadians.org
From: Council of Canadians
MEDIA RELEASE
For Immediate Release
July 16, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Canada's Spy Agency and the Torture of Child Soldier Omar Khadr
Spy watchdog raps CSIS in Khadr affair
By Jim Bronskill, THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA — Canada’s spy watchdog says CSIS ignored human-rights concerns in deciding to interview a teenaged Omar Khadr in an American military prison.
In a report released Wednesday, the Security Intelligence Review Committee said there is no evidence CSIS took Khadr’s young age into account either.
The Toronto-born Khadr, 22, is being held by the Americans at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for allegedly throwing a grenade in Afghanistan when he was just 15, killing a U.S. soldier.
There was widespread media reporting on allegations of mistreatment and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody in Guantanamo and Afghanistan when the Canadian Security Intelligence Service interviewed Khadr in February 2003, the review committee report says.
“SIRC did not find any evidence that CSIS took this information into account in deciding to interview Khadr.”
The committee also raised serious concerns about Khadr’s tender age in the special report to Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, cabinet member responsible for CSIS.
“It is well recognized in Canadian and international law that youth are entitled to certain fundamental rights because of their status as a minor,” the report says.
“SIRC found no evidence that CSIS took Khadr’s age into consideration before deciding to interview him at Guantanamo Bay.”
Documents have surfaced showing Khadr’s American captors threatened him with rape, kept him isolated and would not let him sleep.
It has also long been known that CSIS officers questioned Khadr at Guantanamo in 2003 and that they shared the results of their interrogations with the Americans.
Public release of an interrogation video in which a teenaged Khadr cries for his mother sparked an international uproar last year.
The report says SIRC hopes the changes CSIS has made in recent years concerning co-operation and information-sharing with foreign partners will help the spy service take human-rights issues into consideration in future probes.
It also recommends CSIS consider establishing a policy framework to guide its dealings with young people.
“As part of this, the service should ensure that such interactions are guided by the same principles that are entrenched in Canadian and international law.”
In a broader vein, the review committee says it may be time for CSIS “to undertake a fundamental reassessment of how it conducts business” and urges it to introduce measures to keep pace with “growing and evolving expectations” of how an intelligence agency should operate in a democracy.
“To that end, it would be helpful if CSIS received guidance and advice from the minister on how to accomplish this task.”
A spokesman for Van Loan had no immediate comment on the recommendation.
But he said the minister was reviewing the report and noted the government had already issued new direction to CSIS on dealing with individuals under age 18.
CSIS said Wednesday it welcomes a policy discussion about the role, mandate and expectations of an intelligence agency when operating abroad “as this function is vital to the security of Canadians.”
However, the spy agency was quick to add that while it was aware of media allegations of mistreatment of Guantanamo detainees, it had no reliable proof that Khadr had been mistreated before interviewing him.
Khadr has spent more than six years at Guantanamo, the lone remaining westerner at the U.S. holding facility for prisoners in the war on terror.
A U.S. military commission is considering the charges against him. Hearings have been suspended pending a review of his case.
Khadr’s lawyers have maintained that the interrogation of Khadr made Canadian officials complicit in rights violations.
Successive governments, both Liberal and Conservative, have refrained from intervening in the case. The Tories have rejected a growing chorus of calls to repatriate Khadr and deal with him on Canadian soil.
The Federal Court of Canada ruled in April the government must ask the United States “as soon as practical” to return Khadr home. The government is appealing that decision.
Critics object to the notion Canada should defer to U.S. proceedings against Khadr.
The Khadr family has gained notoriety for apparent longstanding ties to al-Qaida kingpin Osama bin Laden.
Omar’s father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was a purported extremist and financier for the terror network. He was killed by Pakistani forces six years ago. A brother, Karim, was left a paraplegic from wounds suffered in the shootout.
Another brother, Abdullah, is wanted by the Americans for allegedly supplying weapons to al-Qaida.
By Jim Bronskill, THE CANADIAN PRESS
OTTAWA — Canada’s spy watchdog says CSIS ignored human-rights concerns in deciding to interview a teenaged Omar Khadr in an American military prison.
In a report released Wednesday, the Security Intelligence Review Committee said there is no evidence CSIS took Khadr’s young age into account either.
The Toronto-born Khadr, 22, is being held by the Americans at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for allegedly throwing a grenade in Afghanistan when he was just 15, killing a U.S. soldier.
There was widespread media reporting on allegations of mistreatment and abuse of detainees in U.S. custody in Guantanamo and Afghanistan when the Canadian Security Intelligence Service interviewed Khadr in February 2003, the review committee report says.
“SIRC did not find any evidence that CSIS took this information into account in deciding to interview Khadr.”
The committee also raised serious concerns about Khadr’s tender age in the special report to Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan, cabinet member responsible for CSIS.
“It is well recognized in Canadian and international law that youth are entitled to certain fundamental rights because of their status as a minor,” the report says.
“SIRC found no evidence that CSIS took Khadr’s age into consideration before deciding to interview him at Guantanamo Bay.”
Documents have surfaced showing Khadr’s American captors threatened him with rape, kept him isolated and would not let him sleep.
It has also long been known that CSIS officers questioned Khadr at Guantanamo in 2003 and that they shared the results of their interrogations with the Americans.
Public release of an interrogation video in which a teenaged Khadr cries for his mother sparked an international uproar last year.
The report says SIRC hopes the changes CSIS has made in recent years concerning co-operation and information-sharing with foreign partners will help the spy service take human-rights issues into consideration in future probes.
It also recommends CSIS consider establishing a policy framework to guide its dealings with young people.
“As part of this, the service should ensure that such interactions are guided by the same principles that are entrenched in Canadian and international law.”
In a broader vein, the review committee says it may be time for CSIS “to undertake a fundamental reassessment of how it conducts business” and urges it to introduce measures to keep pace with “growing and evolving expectations” of how an intelligence agency should operate in a democracy.
“To that end, it would be helpful if CSIS received guidance and advice from the minister on how to accomplish this task.”
A spokesman for Van Loan had no immediate comment on the recommendation.
But he said the minister was reviewing the report and noted the government had already issued new direction to CSIS on dealing with individuals under age 18.
CSIS said Wednesday it welcomes a policy discussion about the role, mandate and expectations of an intelligence agency when operating abroad “as this function is vital to the security of Canadians.”
However, the spy agency was quick to add that while it was aware of media allegations of mistreatment of Guantanamo detainees, it had no reliable proof that Khadr had been mistreated before interviewing him.
Khadr has spent more than six years at Guantanamo, the lone remaining westerner at the U.S. holding facility for prisoners in the war on terror.
A U.S. military commission is considering the charges against him. Hearings have been suspended pending a review of his case.
Khadr’s lawyers have maintained that the interrogation of Khadr made Canadian officials complicit in rights violations.
Successive governments, both Liberal and Conservative, have refrained from intervening in the case. The Tories have rejected a growing chorus of calls to repatriate Khadr and deal with him on Canadian soil.
The Federal Court of Canada ruled in April the government must ask the United States “as soon as practical” to return Khadr home. The government is appealing that decision.
Critics object to the notion Canada should defer to U.S. proceedings against Khadr.
The Khadr family has gained notoriety for apparent longstanding ties to al-Qaida kingpin Osama bin Laden.
Omar’s father, Ahmed Said Khadr, was a purported extremist and financier for the terror network. He was killed by Pakistani forces six years ago. A brother, Karim, was left a paraplegic from wounds suffered in the shootout.
Another brother, Abdullah, is wanted by the Americans for allegedly supplying weapons to al-Qaida.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Gorilla Radio with Chris Cook, Dahr Jamail, Robert Parry, Janine Bandcroft
This Week on GR
by C. L. Cook
Approaching the seventh anniversary of the America invasion of Iraq few conscious observers still harbour any doubts the usurpation of Saddam Hussein had anything to do with either weapons of mass destruction, or providing aid to the long suffering Iraqi populace. Stripped of its supposed raison d'etre for being in Iraq, what is the American military fighting for? According to freelance journalist and author, Dahr Jamail, a growing number of U.S. soldiers in Iraq are simply not continuing to fight.
Listen. Hear.
Echoing the fading days of America's war agianst the people of Vietnam, the "boots on the ground," increasingly finding their patrol missions both futile and fatal, are failing to carry out orders.
Dahr Jamail is a multi-award winning journalist, recently returned from his third unembedded tour covering the unnatural disaster in Iraq. He's the author of, 'Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches from an Unembedded Journalist in Iraq,' and the recently published, 'Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan,' from which he published the article 'Refusing to Comply: The Tactics of Resistance in an All-Volunteer Military' at Tom Dispatch.com. Dahr Jamail in the first segment.
And; what's old is nuevo again in Central America, at least as far as Honduras and the new Obama administration is concerned. Two weeks ago, the democratically elected Patrone-cum populist president, Manuel "Mel" Zelaya was rousted from his bed in the middle of the night and ousted from his country in a Coup d'Etat. Coming in the midst of high-minded U.S. disapprobations against the Iranian mullahs and their disdain for democracy, the Latin American coup, carried out by a host of graduates from the notorious School of the Americas, that training centre in the United States specializing in torture methods, death squad fundamentals, and of course, the proper conduct of coups d'etat, comes as a bit of an embarrassment for "enlightened" new president, Barak Obama. Robert Parry is a freelance journalist and author whose own experience encompasses the Dirty Wars in Latin America during Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush's reign of terror in the 1980's. He's founder of the web news site, Consortium News.com, whose book titles include: 'Neck Deep: The Disastrous Presidency of George W. Bush,' 'Secrecy and Privilege: The Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq,' and 'Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & Project Truth.' Robert Parry and back to the future in the second half.
And; Victoria Street Newz publisher and CFUV broadcaster, Janine Bandcroft will check in at the bottom of the hour from her current assignment on the road with the Pastors for Peace Caravan to Cuba. But first; Dahr Jamail and Refusniks American style.
Essence of the Regime
The Essence of the Regime
By URI AVNERY
Every German child knows the story of the Captain of Koepenick.
The scene is 1908 Germany, with the Second Reich at the peak of its power, ruled by a Kaiser who is almost always decked out in a splendid military uniform.
A shoemaker named Wilhelm Voigt is released from prison, after doing time for fraud. He needs a passport to get a job, but felons cannot obtain a passport.
The shoemaker goes to a masquerade shop and puts on the uniform of an army captain. He commandeers a squad of soldiers that happens to be passing in the street. They do notice some irregularities in his outfit but dare not disobey an officer.
The “captain” marches the soldiers to the little town of Koepenick, a suburb of Berlin, arrests the mayor and confiscates the safe, which contains blank passports. Later the police have no great difficulty making out who committed the outrage, and it is not long before he is arrested.
When an adjutant announces the news to the Kaiser, the court holds its breath. After a tense moment or two, His Majesty bursts out laughing. All of Germany laughs with him, along with the rest of Europe.
The “Hauptmann von Koepenick” became a legend, because his adventure threw into relief the very essence of the regime: in the militarist Germany of the time, just before World War I, military rank meant unquestioned authority.
* * *
PERHAPS IT is true that every country has an episode of this kind, highlighting with one stroke the main foibles of its regime. In Israel it was – until this week – the affair of the “Ramat Gan Light Bulb”.
In March 1982 the Economy Minister Yaacov Meridor, a leading member of the Likud, announced that a scientist by the name of Danny Berman had come up with an invention that would cause a revolution throughout the world. By a simple chemical process he was able to produce energy sufficient to light all of Ramat Gan with one single light bulb. Ramat Gan is a sister town of Tel Aviv, and almost as big.
Yaacov Meridor (no relation of the current minister Dan Meridor) was not just anybody. He had been the commander of the Irgun before the arrival of Menachem Begin, and later had set up major economic enterprises in Africa. He was the No. 2 Likud leader and it was no secret that Begin considered him his heir and successor.
Before Meridor’s announcement, a senior reporter of my news magazine, Haolam Hazeh, came to me and told me breathlessly about the wondrous invention. I responded with one word: Nonsense. My years as an investigative magazine editor had honed my nose for detecting phony stories. But the whole country was ecstatic.
In the following days, the revolutionary invention was exposed as a simple fraud. Berman, the genius who posed as a former Air Force officer, was exposed as an impostor with a criminal record. Meridor lost his political future. But a small band of True Believers, including my senior reporter, continued to swear that Berman was indeed a misunderstood genius.
How could a completely nonsensical story, without any foundation at all, capture a whole country and elicit general acceptance, at least at the beginning? Very simple: it expressed one of the deeply-held beliefs of the Israeli public - that Jews are the most intelligent people in the world.
That, by the way, is a conviction held both by many Jews and by anti-Semites. The infamous tract “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, which discloses a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world, relies on this belief.
There are many theories which profess to explain the alleged superiority of the “Jewish Brain”. One asserts that in the thousands of years of persecution, the Jews were compelled to develop their brainpower just in order to survive. Another theory goes like this: in medieval Catholic Europe, the most intelligent men became priests or monks whose vocational celibacy prevented the transmission of their genes to offspring, while it was the habit in the Jewish communities for rich parents to marry their daughters to the most outstanding young scholars.
* * *
THIS WEEK, the Ramat Gan Light Bulb was trumped by an even more magnificent invention: the Heart Sticker.
The economic supplement of Haaretz published a sensational scoop: a virtually unknown Israeli company had sold a third of its shares to a Taiwan-British corporation for 370 million dollars, raising its own value to a billion. All this owing to a revolutionary invention: a small sticker that, when put on the breast, can foretell a heart attack a crucial half hour before it actually happens. The sticker sends out warnings by cellular phone and satellite, thus introducing the possibility of saving countless lives.
That evening, one of the chiefs of the happy firm appeared on TV and disclosed that the wonder-sticker could do much more: for example, it could measure the amount of sugar in the blood without invading the body.
My nose immediately began to twitch.
And indeed, a day later the media started to investigate the matter, revealing one curious fact after another. Nobody had actually seen the wonder sticker. No patent had been registered. No cardiologist or other expert had examined it. No scientific paper had mentioned it. And, it seems, no scientific experiment had been conducted.
The Taiwan-British company had sent no representative to Israel to examine the invention for which it had allegedly paid a huge sum. The negotiations had been conducted entirely by email, without any personal contact. The lawyers involved refused to show the signed agreement.
When reporters contacted the foreign company, they denied any knowledge of the matter. It appeared that the inventor had registered a computer domain with a similar name and thus actually sold the shares to himself.
At this stage, the house of cards started to fall apart. It was revealed that the inventor had twice done time in prison for fraud. But his partners still insisted that the matter was serious and that within days, if not hours, the genius of the invention would be revealed to all, and the critics would be compelled to eat their hats.
The hats remained uneaten, and the partners deserted the ship one after the other.
* * *
WHAT TRANSFORMED the affair from an amusing “sting” operation into a matter of national importance was the readiness of the whole country, for a whole day, to accept the story as another proof of Jewish genius.
No less typical was the identity of its heroes. No. 1 was the inventor himself, who continues to protest that this time, this of all times, he is not an impostor. No. 2 was his partner, the businessman, who was or was not an accomplice to the fraud. But the interesting characters are the other two main protagonists.
No. 3 has been for many years the closest friend of Binyamin Netanyahu, and especially of his wife, Sarah (known to everybody by the childish diminutive Sara’le). At the height of the scandal he resigned his job as CEO, after failing to obtain a copy of the famous contract. If it is assumed that this friend of Netanyahu’s is indeed innocent, his level of intelligence must be subject to grave doubts. However, it may not be intelligence that the Netanyahu family looks for in close friends.
That is even more true for No. 4: Haggai Hadas. The exact nature of his involvement is not entirely clear. At the beginning, he vigorously defended the invention and seemed to be involved from head to foot, but when the thing blew up he desperately tried to distance himself from it.
Why is this any more important than the usual gossip? Because Haggai Hadas, apart from enjoying Netanyahu’s confidence and being, reportedly, a personal friend of his wife, has served in the past as chief of the operations department of the Mossad, the third most important post in the spy agency. He could by now have been the Mossad chief, if the incumbent had not actively prevented everybody else from coming even close.
Some weeks ago, Netanyahu appointed Hadas to one of the most sensitive positions in the security establishment: to coordinate all the efforts to free the “kidnapped” soldier Gilad Shalit.
If we do not want to assume that this man, a confidante of the Prime Minister and a former senior officer of the Mossad, who has been responsible for life-and-death decisions, was an accomplice to a vile fraud, there is no escape from the conclusion that his judgment is grievously impaired and that he fell into a trap that any person with common sense could have spotted a mile off.
How can such a person possibly be entrusted with such a sensitive task as the negotiation for a prisoner exchange with Hamas, in which sophisticated Egyptian mediators are involved?
And what does this say about the judgment of Netanyahu, who appointed him to this task, especially assuming that his wife had demanded it?
* * *
THIS WEEK also marked a milestone: the end of the first 100 days of Netanyahu’s second term as Prime Minister.
The Kadima people have invented a catchy slogan: “100 days, 0 achievements”.
To start with, Netanyahu appointed a bloated government in which a third of all Knesset members serve as ministers or deputy ministers, many of them without any apparent duties. Two of the three most important ministries were allotted to totally unsuited persons: the Treasury to an economic toddler and the Foreign Office to a racist who is openly shunned by many of the world’s most prominent leaders.
Then there came a series of laws and measures that were announced with great fanfare, only to be dropped very quietly. The latest example: the levying of VAT on fruits and vegetables, which was abandoned at the last moment.
But the epitome of inefficiency was the inability to put together the Prime Minister’s staff. The Advisor for National Security, Uzi Arad, is not interested in peace with either the Palestinians or the Syrians, and wants to deal only with the Iranian issue. (This week President Barack Obama issued a public and unequivocal prohibition on any Israeli military attack on Iran.) The Chief of Cabinet, the Director General of the Prime Minister’s office, the Political Advisor and other members of the staff detest each other and do not make any effort to hide it. The Press Advisor has already been replaced, and this week a female friend of Sarah Netanyahu was appointed as advisor for “Branding the State” (Anyone know what that means??)
In the meantime, Sara’le has returned to the spotlight. A former airline stewardess who met Netanyahu in an airport duty-free shop when he was still married to his second wife, she was universally disliked and served as a butt of jokes during her husband’s first term. This time, efforts were made to keep her in the background. When the Prime Minister still insisted on taking her with him to Washington, Michelle Obama avoided meeting her. When he was due to visit several European capitals, she was struck from the list at the last moment. But it seems that she is very active behind the scenes, especially as far as crucial senior appointments are concerned.
Perhaps this country really does need a wonder sticker?
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
By URI AVNERY
Every German child knows the story of the Captain of Koepenick.
The scene is 1908 Germany, with the Second Reich at the peak of its power, ruled by a Kaiser who is almost always decked out in a splendid military uniform.
A shoemaker named Wilhelm Voigt is released from prison, after doing time for fraud. He needs a passport to get a job, but felons cannot obtain a passport.
The shoemaker goes to a masquerade shop and puts on the uniform of an army captain. He commandeers a squad of soldiers that happens to be passing in the street. They do notice some irregularities in his outfit but dare not disobey an officer.
The “captain” marches the soldiers to the little town of Koepenick, a suburb of Berlin, arrests the mayor and confiscates the safe, which contains blank passports. Later the police have no great difficulty making out who committed the outrage, and it is not long before he is arrested.
When an adjutant announces the news to the Kaiser, the court holds its breath. After a tense moment or two, His Majesty bursts out laughing. All of Germany laughs with him, along with the rest of Europe.
The “Hauptmann von Koepenick” became a legend, because his adventure threw into relief the very essence of the regime: in the militarist Germany of the time, just before World War I, military rank meant unquestioned authority.
* * *
PERHAPS IT is true that every country has an episode of this kind, highlighting with one stroke the main foibles of its regime. In Israel it was – until this week – the affair of the “Ramat Gan Light Bulb”.
In March 1982 the Economy Minister Yaacov Meridor, a leading member of the Likud, announced that a scientist by the name of Danny Berman had come up with an invention that would cause a revolution throughout the world. By a simple chemical process he was able to produce energy sufficient to light all of Ramat Gan with one single light bulb. Ramat Gan is a sister town of Tel Aviv, and almost as big.
Yaacov Meridor (no relation of the current minister Dan Meridor) was not just anybody. He had been the commander of the Irgun before the arrival of Menachem Begin, and later had set up major economic enterprises in Africa. He was the No. 2 Likud leader and it was no secret that Begin considered him his heir and successor.
Before Meridor’s announcement, a senior reporter of my news magazine, Haolam Hazeh, came to me and told me breathlessly about the wondrous invention. I responded with one word: Nonsense. My years as an investigative magazine editor had honed my nose for detecting phony stories. But the whole country was ecstatic.
In the following days, the revolutionary invention was exposed as a simple fraud. Berman, the genius who posed as a former Air Force officer, was exposed as an impostor with a criminal record. Meridor lost his political future. But a small band of True Believers, including my senior reporter, continued to swear that Berman was indeed a misunderstood genius.
How could a completely nonsensical story, without any foundation at all, capture a whole country and elicit general acceptance, at least at the beginning? Very simple: it expressed one of the deeply-held beliefs of the Israeli public - that Jews are the most intelligent people in the world.
That, by the way, is a conviction held both by many Jews and by anti-Semites. The infamous tract “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, which discloses a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world, relies on this belief.
There are many theories which profess to explain the alleged superiority of the “Jewish Brain”. One asserts that in the thousands of years of persecution, the Jews were compelled to develop their brainpower just in order to survive. Another theory goes like this: in medieval Catholic Europe, the most intelligent men became priests or monks whose vocational celibacy prevented the transmission of their genes to offspring, while it was the habit in the Jewish communities for rich parents to marry their daughters to the most outstanding young scholars.
* * *
THIS WEEK, the Ramat Gan Light Bulb was trumped by an even more magnificent invention: the Heart Sticker.
The economic supplement of Haaretz published a sensational scoop: a virtually unknown Israeli company had sold a third of its shares to a Taiwan-British corporation for 370 million dollars, raising its own value to a billion. All this owing to a revolutionary invention: a small sticker that, when put on the breast, can foretell a heart attack a crucial half hour before it actually happens. The sticker sends out warnings by cellular phone and satellite, thus introducing the possibility of saving countless lives.
That evening, one of the chiefs of the happy firm appeared on TV and disclosed that the wonder-sticker could do much more: for example, it could measure the amount of sugar in the blood without invading the body.
My nose immediately began to twitch.
And indeed, a day later the media started to investigate the matter, revealing one curious fact after another. Nobody had actually seen the wonder sticker. No patent had been registered. No cardiologist or other expert had examined it. No scientific paper had mentioned it. And, it seems, no scientific experiment had been conducted.
The Taiwan-British company had sent no representative to Israel to examine the invention for which it had allegedly paid a huge sum. The negotiations had been conducted entirely by email, without any personal contact. The lawyers involved refused to show the signed agreement.
When reporters contacted the foreign company, they denied any knowledge of the matter. It appeared that the inventor had registered a computer domain with a similar name and thus actually sold the shares to himself.
At this stage, the house of cards started to fall apart. It was revealed that the inventor had twice done time in prison for fraud. But his partners still insisted that the matter was serious and that within days, if not hours, the genius of the invention would be revealed to all, and the critics would be compelled to eat their hats.
The hats remained uneaten, and the partners deserted the ship one after the other.
* * *
WHAT TRANSFORMED the affair from an amusing “sting” operation into a matter of national importance was the readiness of the whole country, for a whole day, to accept the story as another proof of Jewish genius.
No less typical was the identity of its heroes. No. 1 was the inventor himself, who continues to protest that this time, this of all times, he is not an impostor. No. 2 was his partner, the businessman, who was or was not an accomplice to the fraud. But the interesting characters are the other two main protagonists.
No. 3 has been for many years the closest friend of Binyamin Netanyahu, and especially of his wife, Sarah (known to everybody by the childish diminutive Sara’le). At the height of the scandal he resigned his job as CEO, after failing to obtain a copy of the famous contract. If it is assumed that this friend of Netanyahu’s is indeed innocent, his level of intelligence must be subject to grave doubts. However, it may not be intelligence that the Netanyahu family looks for in close friends.
That is even more true for No. 4: Haggai Hadas. The exact nature of his involvement is not entirely clear. At the beginning, he vigorously defended the invention and seemed to be involved from head to foot, but when the thing blew up he desperately tried to distance himself from it.
Why is this any more important than the usual gossip? Because Haggai Hadas, apart from enjoying Netanyahu’s confidence and being, reportedly, a personal friend of his wife, has served in the past as chief of the operations department of the Mossad, the third most important post in the spy agency. He could by now have been the Mossad chief, if the incumbent had not actively prevented everybody else from coming even close.
Some weeks ago, Netanyahu appointed Hadas to one of the most sensitive positions in the security establishment: to coordinate all the efforts to free the “kidnapped” soldier Gilad Shalit.
If we do not want to assume that this man, a confidante of the Prime Minister and a former senior officer of the Mossad, who has been responsible for life-and-death decisions, was an accomplice to a vile fraud, there is no escape from the conclusion that his judgment is grievously impaired and that he fell into a trap that any person with common sense could have spotted a mile off.
How can such a person possibly be entrusted with such a sensitive task as the negotiation for a prisoner exchange with Hamas, in which sophisticated Egyptian mediators are involved?
And what does this say about the judgment of Netanyahu, who appointed him to this task, especially assuming that his wife had demanded it?
* * *
THIS WEEK also marked a milestone: the end of the first 100 days of Netanyahu’s second term as Prime Minister.
The Kadima people have invented a catchy slogan: “100 days, 0 achievements”.
To start with, Netanyahu appointed a bloated government in which a third of all Knesset members serve as ministers or deputy ministers, many of them without any apparent duties. Two of the three most important ministries were allotted to totally unsuited persons: the Treasury to an economic toddler and the Foreign Office to a racist who is openly shunned by many of the world’s most prominent leaders.
Then there came a series of laws and measures that were announced with great fanfare, only to be dropped very quietly. The latest example: the levying of VAT on fruits and vegetables, which was abandoned at the last moment.
But the epitome of inefficiency was the inability to put together the Prime Minister’s staff. The Advisor for National Security, Uzi Arad, is not interested in peace with either the Palestinians or the Syrians, and wants to deal only with the Iranian issue. (This week President Barack Obama issued a public and unequivocal prohibition on any Israeli military attack on Iran.) The Chief of Cabinet, the Director General of the Prime Minister’s office, the Political Advisor and other members of the staff detest each other and do not make any effort to hide it. The Press Advisor has already been replaced, and this week a female friend of Sarah Netanyahu was appointed as advisor for “Branding the State” (Anyone know what that means??)
In the meantime, Sara’le has returned to the spotlight. A former airline stewardess who met Netanyahu in an airport duty-free shop when he was still married to his second wife, she was universally disliked and served as a butt of jokes during her husband’s first term. This time, efforts were made to keep her in the background. When the Prime Minister still insisted on taking her with him to Washington, Michelle Obama avoided meeting her. When he was due to visit several European capitals, she was struck from the list at the last moment. But it seems that she is very active behind the scenes, especially as far as crucial senior appointments are concerned.
Perhaps this country really does need a wonder sticker?
Uri Avnery is an Israeli writer and peace activist with Gush Shalom. He is a contributor to CounterPunch's book The Politics of Anti-Semitism.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Who Knew?: CIA Lied To Congress
The CIA Lied to Congress
by John Nichols
In May, at a point when congressional Republicans and their amen corner in the media were attempting to defend the Bush-Cheney administration's torture regime, their primary defense was: Pelosi knew. The spin held that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, as a member of the House Intelligence Committee, had in 2002 been secretly briefed
about the use of harsh interrogation techniques on terror suspects.
Pelosi said the Central Intelligence Agency had failed to inform her about the character and extent of the harsh interrogations. Pelosi accused the CIA of "misleading the Congress of the United States."
In late June, CIA Director Leon Panetta admitted in secret testimony to Congress that the agency had concealed information and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001.
Republican senators screamed: "It's outrageous that a member of Congress should call a terror-fighter a liar," howled Missouri Senator Kit Bond, the vice chair of the Senate intelligence committee. "It seems the playbook is, blame terror-fighters. We ought to be supporting them."
CIA officials denied lying to Congress and the American people, and that seemed to be that. "Let me be clear: It is not our practice or policy to mislead Congress," said CIA Director Leon Panetta. That is against our laws and values."
But, now, we learn that, in late June, Panetta admitted in secret testimony to Congress that the agency had concealed information and misled lawmakers repeatedly since 2001. Some of the details of Panetta's testimony are contained in a letter from seven House Democrats to Panetta that was released Wednesday morning.
In the letter, the members (Anna Eshoo of California, Alcee Hastings of Florida, Rush Holt of New Jersey, Jan Schakowsky of Illinois, Adam Smith of Washington, Mike Thompson of California and John Tierney of Massachusetts) wrote: "Recently you testified that you have determined that top CIA officials have concealed significant actions from all members of Congress, and misled members for a number of
years from 2001 to this week."
The letter continued: "In light of your testimony, we ask that you publicly correct your statement of May 15, 2009."
Pelosi's critics are claiming that Panetta's admission does not resolve the debate about whether the speaker was lied to in briefings about harsh interrogations.
What does the CIA say? That's where things seem to get confusing -- but, as we'll see, not too confusing. Panetta "stands by his May 15 statement," CIA spokesman George Little claimed after the letter from the House members was released. The problem is that Little also said:
"This agency and this director believe it is vital to keep the Congress fully and currently informed. Director Panetta's actions back that up. As the letter from these...representatives notes, it was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees."
So, officially, CIA director Panetta stands by his statement that:
"It is not our practice or policy to mislead Congress." But...Panetta's spokesman is seemingly rather proud that "it was the CIA itself that took the initiative to notify the oversight committees" that the agency had -- in the words of the House members -- "misled members for a number of years from 2001."
Can we reconcile these statements? Yes. Panetta, who has only headed the CIA since February of this year says that "it is not our practice or policy to mislead Congress." But he tells Congress that it was in fact the consistent practice of the CIA to lie to Congress during the Bush-Cheney years.
So what are we left with? Perhaps a measure of vindication for Pelosi, but the speaker's wrangling with the Republicans is a distraction from the fundamental revelation. Far more important is Panetta's reported admission that his agency has "concealed significant actions" and "misled members of Congress."
No matter what anyone thinks of Pelosi or waterboarding, there is a clear case for dramatically expanding congressional oversight of the CIA. Of course, more House and Senate members should have access to briefings -- and should have the authority to hold CIA officials (and their White House overseers) to account for deliberate deceptions.
But that ought not be the first response to the latest news.
Step one must be to get to the bottom of exactly what the CIA was lying about. Did it have anything to do with the case for invading and occupying Iraq? Afghanistan? Torture?
CIA defenders will claim that some secrets must be kept. Perhaps. But the Congress and the American people have a right to know the broad outlines of the deception -- and the extent to which it may have warped, and may continue to warp, U.S. policy.
John Nichols is Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine.
Copyright © 2009 The Nation -- distributed by Agence Global
-------------------
Release Date: 09 July 2009
Word Count: 747
Rights & Permissions Contact: Agence Global, 1.336.686.9002,
rights@agenceglobal.com
-------------------
Off the Table: The Truth of America
Practically on the Table
by Ralph Nader
A few days ago, a citizen asked the progressive legislator from California, Congressman Henry Waxman why he took his name off the list of about Eighty House sponsors of single-payer health insurance? Mr. Waxman replied: "it [H.R. 676] isn't going to happen."
In early January and last year, Americans who believe in Presidential accountability for constitutional, statutory and treaty violations asked Democrats in Congress-"If not impeachment, why not at least a resolution of censure of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney?" The uniform reply was "It's not practical."
These lawmakers-Democrats all, who are the majority in Congress and who agree with these questioners-keep saying "It's not going to happen" or "It's not practical."
"It's just not practical" to provide a federal minimum wage equal to that in 1968, inflation adjusted, which would be $10 an hour.
"It's not going to happen" to get comprehensive corporate reform at a time when a corporate crime wave and the Wall Street multi-trillion dollar collapse on Washington, on taxpayers and on the economy is tearing this country apart. A little regulatory tinkering is all citizens are told to expect.
"It's just not practical" to give workers, consumers and taxpayers simple facilities for banding together in associations with their own voluntary dues to defend these interests in the corporate occupied territory known as Washington, D.C.
Last year, the excuse was a Bush veto. So the Democrats didn't even try to advance reforms they believe in, knowing Bush and his Republican Party would stonewall. What's the excuse this year with Obama in the White House?
After all, it was only a year and a half ago when nominating and then electing an African-American President was "not going to happen, was not practical."
But since it did happen, why aren't these and many other long overdue beneficial redirections and efficiencies happening for the American people? Why aren't there rollbacks, at least, of the Bush-driven inequities and injustices that have so damaged the well-being of working people?
Why isn't a simpler and more efficient carbon tax more "practical" than the complex corruption-prone, corporatized cap and trade deal driven by Goldman Sachs and favored by most Democrats? The avaricious tax cuts for the super-wealthy are still there.
The statutory ban on Uncle Sam negotiating volume discounts on medicines purchased by the federal government are still there. Taking the huge budgets for the Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan off their annual fast track, and putting them a meaningful House and Senate Appropriations Committee hearing process has not happened.
Face it, America. You are a corporate-controlled country with the symbols of democracy in the constitution and statutes just that-symbols of what the founding fathers believed or hoped would be reality.
Even when the global corporate giants come to Washington dripping with crime, greed, speculation and cover-ups, and demand gigantic bailouts on the backs of taxpayers and their children, neither the Republicans nor the now majority Democrats are willing to face them down.
The best of America started with our forebears who faced down those who told them "it's not going to happen," or "it's not practical" to abolish slavery, give women the right to vote, elevate the conditions of workers and farmers, provide social security and medicare, make the air and water less polluted and so on. These pioneers, with grit and persistence, told their members of Congress and Presidents-"It is going to happen."
To paraphrase the words of a great man, the late Reverend William Sloan Coffin, it is as if those legendary stalwarts from our past, knowing how much more there is to achieve a practical, just society, are calling out to us, the people today, and saying "get it done, get it done!"
Ralph Nader [1] is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book is The Seventeen Traditions [2].
by Ralph Nader
A few days ago, a citizen asked the progressive legislator from California, Congressman Henry Waxman why he took his name off the list of about Eighty House sponsors of single-payer health insurance? Mr. Waxman replied: "it [H.R. 676] isn't going to happen."
In early January and last year, Americans who believe in Presidential accountability for constitutional, statutory and treaty violations asked Democrats in Congress-"If not impeachment, why not at least a resolution of censure of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney?" The uniform reply was "It's not practical."
These lawmakers-Democrats all, who are the majority in Congress and who agree with these questioners-keep saying "It's not going to happen" or "It's not practical."
"It's just not practical" to provide a federal minimum wage equal to that in 1968, inflation adjusted, which would be $10 an hour.
"It's not going to happen" to get comprehensive corporate reform at a time when a corporate crime wave and the Wall Street multi-trillion dollar collapse on Washington, on taxpayers and on the economy is tearing this country apart. A little regulatory tinkering is all citizens are told to expect.
"It's just not practical" to give workers, consumers and taxpayers simple facilities for banding together in associations with their own voluntary dues to defend these interests in the corporate occupied territory known as Washington, D.C.
Last year, the excuse was a Bush veto. So the Democrats didn't even try to advance reforms they believe in, knowing Bush and his Republican Party would stonewall. What's the excuse this year with Obama in the White House?
After all, it was only a year and a half ago when nominating and then electing an African-American President was "not going to happen, was not practical."
But since it did happen, why aren't these and many other long overdue beneficial redirections and efficiencies happening for the American people? Why aren't there rollbacks, at least, of the Bush-driven inequities and injustices that have so damaged the well-being of working people?
Why isn't a simpler and more efficient carbon tax more "practical" than the complex corruption-prone, corporatized cap and trade deal driven by Goldman Sachs and favored by most Democrats? The avaricious tax cuts for the super-wealthy are still there.
The statutory ban on Uncle Sam negotiating volume discounts on medicines purchased by the federal government are still there. Taking the huge budgets for the Bush wars in Iraq and Afghanistan off their annual fast track, and putting them a meaningful House and Senate Appropriations Committee hearing process has not happened.
Face it, America. You are a corporate-controlled country with the symbols of democracy in the constitution and statutes just that-symbols of what the founding fathers believed or hoped would be reality.
Even when the global corporate giants come to Washington dripping with crime, greed, speculation and cover-ups, and demand gigantic bailouts on the backs of taxpayers and their children, neither the Republicans nor the now majority Democrats are willing to face them down.
The best of America started with our forebears who faced down those who told them "it's not going to happen," or "it's not practical" to abolish slavery, give women the right to vote, elevate the conditions of workers and farmers, provide social security and medicare, make the air and water less polluted and so on. These pioneers, with grit and persistence, told their members of Congress and Presidents-"It is going to happen."
To paraphrase the words of a great man, the late Reverend William Sloan Coffin, it is as if those legendary stalwarts from our past, knowing how much more there is to achieve a practical, just society, are calling out to us, the people today, and saying "get it done, get it done!"
Ralph Nader [1] is a consumer advocate, lawyer, and author. His most recent book is The Seventeen Traditions [2].
d'Aquino: Who Would be King of Kanada
MP says d'Aquino's been Canada's 'unofficial PM for 15 years'
by Bea Vongdouangchanh
The Hill Times, July 6, 2009
When the CCCE talks, the government listens, say lobbyists and insiders.
When former deputy prime minister John Manley takes over as president-designate and CEO of the Canadian Council of Chief Executives on Oct. 19, he will be heading one of the most powerful blue-chip lobby organizations in the country with more than $800-billion in revenues.
The CCCE has played an influential role in the country's fiscal, taxation, trade, energy, environmental, competitiveness and corporate governance issues for decades. When the CCCE talks, the government listens, say lobbyists and insiders.
Outgoing CCCE president and CEO Thomas d'Aquino was Canada's "unofficial Prime Minister for the last 15 years" because of the amount of influence the lobby organization representing the country's largest businesses had over public policy, says NDP MP Pat Martin.
Canadian Council of Chief Executives Lobby Registration
*Description of the organization's activities:*
The Canadian Council of Chief Executives is a non-partisan and not-for-profit organization and the senior voice of Canadian business on public policy issues in Canada and internationally.
*Organization's membership or classes of membership:*
Members are the chief executive officers of 150 of the largest Canadian corporations. Three ex-officio members are the elected heads of the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Canadian Manufacturers And Exporters and the Conseil du Patronat du Quebec.
*Lobbyists Employed by the Organization:*
San Boutziouvis, vice-president
Thomas d'Aquino, chief executive and president
John Dillon, vice-president
Ross Laver, vice-president
David Stewart-Patterson,executive vice-president
*Policies, Programs and Regulations Lobbied*:
Employment Insurance Act
Innovation: "Policies and programs, including taxation and financing, designed to support increased research and development among Canadian corporations with respect to new technologies, as well as the commercialization of newly discovered technologies"
Goods and Services Tax
Canada-Mexico Partnership
G-8 and G-20 Summits
Trade and Environment: "Input to federal consultations on how to ensure Canada's trade agreements and trade and policies support environmentally sustainable development"
UN Convention on Climate Change
Intellectual Property Protection: "The promotion of stronger laws and regulations to ensure adequate protection of intellectual property in Canada; with respect to amendments and new regulations governing the rights of creators related to copyright, patent and trade marks, and harmonization and strengthening of intellectual property protection internationally"
Infrastructure
Income Tax Act
Canada-China Trade
Investment Canada Act
Continental Energy Policy
Corporate governance
Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America
Post-secondary education
National securities regulator
Public service: "Rules and regulations governing the conduct of public servants in their relations with corporations and business associations, processes for consulting with business on the impact of new laws and regulations governing the conduct of business in Canada."
Canada Labour Code
Free Trade Agreement of the Americas
Canada Health and Social Transfer
North American Free Trade Agreement
Parliamentary reform: "Input regarding changes to rules governing Parliament; Senate reform."
Corporate social responsibility
World Trade Organization
Kyoto Protocol
Bill C-288, An Act to ensure Canada meets its global climate change obligations under the Kyoto Protocol.
Canada-Japan Trade
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation
Fiscal and monetary policy
Notice of intent to regulate greenhouse gases and other air emissions
Lobbying Act
Canada-Jordan trade
Bill C-23, Canada-Colombia Free Trade Agreement .Implementation Act
North American Commission on Environmental Cooperation
Competition Policy
Bill C-257, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code
Old age security
Canada-U.S. border
Health care
Bill C-16, Environmental Enforcement Act
North American Leaders' Summit
Canadian Environmental Assessment Act
Entrepreneurship
Canada-India Trade
North American Commission on Labour Cooperation
UN Commission on Sustainable Development
Cost recovery
Science and technology policy
Bill C-24, Canada-Peru Free Trade Implementation Act
Bill C-10, Budget Implementation Act 2009
Canada Business Corporations Act
Canada-Chile Trade
Constitution
Bill C-2, The Canada-EFTA Free Trade Agreement .Implementation Act
Internal Trade
Budget
Canadian Environmental Protection Act
Electronic Commerce
North American defence
Canada-European Union Relations
Canada Pension Plan
Competitiveness
Bill C-415, An Act to Amend the Canada Labour Code: But, lobbying insiders say it's more about the message, than the messenger.
"I think they have almost absolute control and influence. Governments dance when they say, 'dance,' and they jump when they say, 'jump,' " Mr. Martin (Winnipeg Centre, Man.) told /The Hill Times/ last week, adding that Mr. d'Aquino, who has served as the CCCE's head since 1981 has sometimes been "arrogant and smug because he knew damn well it didn't matter a hoot what anybody, any elected official said, he was going to get his way. You cannot compete with the kind of influence the CCCE has."
Mr. Martin said that the Canadian Council of Chief Executives had a "scary amount of control over government policy, major government policies like deregulation, divesting of public interests."
The CCCE, which began in 1977 under the name the Business Council on National Issues, is a "not-for-profit, non-partisan association composed of 150 chief executive officers and entrepreneurs of leading Canadian corporations from all major sectors and regions of the country" which collectively have $3.5-trillion in assets and revenues worth $800-billion.
The CCCE's board of directors announced on June 25 that Mr. d'Aquino would end his 28-year run as the president and CEO and Mr. Manley, former Liberal deputy prime minister, would replace him---as president-designate on Oct. 19, and officially on Jan. 1, 2010.
According to his biography on the CCCE's website, Mr. d'Aquino's leadership helped "play an influential role in shaping the direction of fiscal, taxation, trade, energy, environmental, competitiveness and corporate governance policies in Canada. ... He is acknowledged as one of the private sector architects of the Canada-United States free trade initiative, the North American Free Trade Agreement and of the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America."
International Trade Minister Stockwell Day (Okanagan-Coquihalla, B.C.) noted the upcoming change in CCCE's presidents in an official statement.
"I want to extend my heartfelt thanks to Thomas d'Aquino for his leadership as president and chief executive of the CCCE. His contribution to public policy over the past three decades has led to positive and lasting results, both nationally and internationally. He has played a pivotal role in representing Canadian business interests. I look forward to continuing to work with him until the end of his
mandate," Mr. Day said in a statement on June 26. "The CCCE is a key association of Canada's business leaders that plays an important role in providing expert advice to policy-makers across government on a wide range of business issues, such as Canada-U.S. commercial relations and global trade and investment liberalization."
Lobbying insiders say the sheer size and demographics of the CCCE, governments should and do listen to what they have to say.
Hill and Knowlton lobbyist Don Boudria, a former Liberal MP who represented the riding of Glengarry-Prescott-Russell, Ont., both in opposition and in government for 22 years, said it's "a stretch" to say the CCCE, or Mr. D'Aquino specifically was the "unofficial" government.
"Governments should listen to organizations that create most of the wealth of this country, of course they should. Obviously this organization represents just that, so what they have to say is important. They're the ones who create so many of the jobs, so certainly it would be simply wrong not to listen to what these people have to
say," Mr. Boudria said last week. "Any government that discounted what they had to say would be remiss in their duty, but that doesn't mean, of course, they're the pseudo or unofficial government. That's nonsense."
Leo Duguay, a former Progressive Conservative MP who is a government relations consultant with the Rothwell Group, said Ottawa listens to the CCCE because it represents companies that have $800-billion in revenues.
"If you take that number, it would be four times the Canadian budget so if I were in government and somebody came to me who had a credible message offering to solve problems, I'd be paying attention," Mr. Duguay said.
Moreover, Mr. Duguay said apart from the size of the organization, governments listen to the CCCE because it offers "clear, credible" solutions to various problems facing the business sector.
"I tend to think of codes, so just listen to this little code---message versus messenger, bias versus credibility, solution versus confusion. That's kind of what I think. It isn't so much the messenger, so much as the message, and it's the credibility, and it's the solutions that people offer," he said. "Every government that's been in power has listened to Tom d'Aquino because he brings a clear message of solutions that will help business run."
Another lobbyist, who wanted to remain anonymous, said for the government, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives is a "one-stop shop" for policy advice.
"They [the CCCE] look at economic systems holistically. They're sensitive to global realities. This association is probably well positioned to be a very strong strategic resource to decision makers, regardless of what stripe they are," the lobbyist said. "They do have a voice at the policy table, absolutely they do. But if you look at the organization, they're representing the creators of wealth in society for the most part."
According to its lobby registration, the Canadian Council of Chief Executives is registered to lobby the federal government on more than 60 issues from pieces of legislation to policy proposals and regulations which include everything from international trade, health care, defence, pensions, Parliamentary reform, corporate social responsibility, a private member's bill on replacement workers, and the environment among numerous others.
Mr. Boudria said the number of lobbying issues is an indication of how diverse the group is and why they are an important voice, rather than an indication of how influential and powerful they are on shaping public policy.
Mr. Martin said however that the organization has been successful because Canadian governments have been run by "the two business parties" for which "the leading business lobbyists have been playing the tune for these guys to dance."
Mr. Martin said many of Canada's laws have been designed to favour big business and the influence the council has is "bastardizing democracy" when it should be elected MPs who make the policies.
"[Former prime minister Jean] Chrétien and [former prime minister Paul] Martin and [Prime Minister Stephen] Harper, they just used their Cabinet as a focus group. They really listened to the lobbyists and met behind closed doors. That's who's really running the country, a half a dozen unelected people in the PMO, listening to Thomas d'Aquino and now John Manley, telling the country what it needs to do," Mr. Martin said. "It undermines democracy because the duly elected representatives like myself can't possibly influence the decision making nearly as much as this privileged [group]."
Mr. Duguay said there is nothing wrong with listening to a variety of opinions, especially if they are coming from a large group that represents a significant portion of the population and the economy.
"We're not talking about undue influence, we're talking about people who should be listened to, [just as] Pat Martin should be listened to," he said.
Summa Strategies vice-president Tim Powers said however that the while the CCCE is still a large voice at the public policy table, its influence has declined since its major victory in the North American Free Trade debates.
"That was their high-water mark," he said. "John Manley is a very credible guy, this will certainly help them get the attention they want. Manley's experience will also help the group how best to position themselves going forward if they want to regain the glory of the late '80s."
Mr. Powers said that the council is one of many influential business associations, for example the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, led by former Progressive Conservative defence minister Perrin Beatty, the Retail Council of Canada, the Canadian Federation of Independent Business and the Canadian Manufacturers Association are equally influentially and "have their own degrees of heft. No one group dominates."
Moreover, he said, "Certainly with this [Conservative] government and the [former Liberal Jean] Chrétien government 'Main Street' has had arguably more success than 'Bay Street' in pushing policy. Tom d'Aquino's skill as an advocate was building a brand and the perception of a brand that allowed him to develop an aura of influence. Depending on your audience sometimes that is more important than anything else."
For his part, Mr. Martin said he fears under Mr. Manley, the group will target pensions in a negative way. "I think they've got pensions in their cross hairs and god help Canadian workers if we let them succeed," he said. "They've pretty much declared war on pensions already. In the auto crisis they tried to vilify the very notion of pensions, calling them 'legacy costs' and blaming greedy pensioners for management's own sloth and ineptitude. I think that this is likely one of Manley's key marching orders as new head honcho of the CCCE."
Others, such as the lobbying insider who did not want to be named, said Mr. Manley is an "inspired choice" to lead the organization.
bvongdou@hilltimes.com
The Hill Times
Friday, July 10, 2009
News Dissector: CEO's on Parade
Is Obama Another FDR Or Herbert Hoover, More On War
Want to see Dick Fuld in prison stripes? Angelo Mozillo in solitary? Join the crowd. A conversation with top legal minds on who will and who won’t be prosecuted—and why. “We, the Jury” - A conversation with top legal minds on who will and who won’t be prosecuted—and why.READ FULL STORY HERE
I have seen this quote published on other sites. I am pleased to “echo” it here:
QUOTE OF THE DAY: h/t To UnderNews:
“I suppose that every man who has looked on at the game has been struck by the remarkable way in which politics deteriorate the moral tone of everyone who mixes in them.” [Emphasis mine, DS.]
The deterioration is far more marked than in any other occupation I know, except the turf, stock-jobbing, and gambling. I imagine the reason in each case to be the same. It is the curse of politics that what one man gains, another man loses. On such conditions you can create not even an average morality. Politicians as a class must be as mean as card-sharpers, turf-men, or Wall Street curb-stone operators. There is no respectable industry in existence which will not average a higher morality.”
— Henry Adams, in an 1881 letter to Henry Cabot Lodge who had just lost election to the Massachusetts State Senate.
CONGRESS MIFFED AT CIA DISHONESTY
BARACK HOOVER OBAMA?
FBI FINDS UPSURGE IN MORTGAGE FRAUD
It was another day of violence in Iraq (scroll down for a clip of an insurgent video) and fighting continued in the streets of Iran where thousands defied police. There have been threats there and in China that people causing “instability” will be killed. China has another earthquake, 300 dead. The House shut down a resolution supporting Michael Jackson that was mocked on the NY Times Op-Ed Page, and LA Detectives will investigate his suspected drug use. Health Care Bill Stalled for Now as Democrats oppose some provisions. Study says 1 in 3 breast cancer patients overtreated. Obama was in Rome pushing poorer nations to promote global warming.
Back home:
House Intel Chair: CIA Has Misled Us for Years
Pamela Hess, The Associated Press:
“Democrats are accusing senior CIA official “of repeatedly misleading Congress, but Republicans say the allegations are just political maneuvering to protect House Speaker Nancy Pelosi. The accusations come as lawmakers prepare to debate intelligence legislation - a bill President Barack Obama has threatened to veto.”
Obama’s Rollback Strategy: Honduras, Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan (and the Boomerang Effect) By James Petras
The recent events in Honduras and Iran, which pit democratically elected regimes against pro-US military and civilian actors intent on overthrowing them can best be understood as part of a larger White House strategy designed to rollback the gains achieved by opposition government and movements during the Bush years. READ FULL STORY HERE
IS IT FAIR TO COMPARE PRESIDENT OBAMA WITH HERBERT HOOVER? Harper’s Magazine thinks so in a “must” read:
QUOTE: “The best indications now are that he will fail, because he will be unable—indeed he will refuse—to seize the radical moment at hand.
Every instinct the president has honed, every voice he hears in Washington, every inclination of our political culture urges incrementalism, urges deliberation, if any significant change is to be brought about. The trouble is that we are at one of those rare moments in history when the radical becomes pragmatic, when deliberation and compromise foster disaster. The question is not what can be done but what must be done.” READ FULL STORY HERE
RELATED:
Portfolio: Lead Us. Please. The Reeducation Of Timothy Geithner:
Growing up is hard to do—especially in public. After his disastrous start, the Treasury secretary is scrambling to learn on the job. But how long can we afford to wait? READ FULL STORY HERE
Eliot Spitzer: Redemption Tour by Matt Malone Emerging from exile after his own scandal, New York’s former top cop speaks his mind
[snip]
“If most of these people get off, which company would be most likely to face criminal charges?
AIG. I said for years that AIG is the center of the web. When we started investigating AIG and challenging [former CEO] Hank Greenberg, it was unambiguous to me that what we were seeing was evidence of a deeply problematic structure.” READ FULL STORY HERE
China: Xinjiang Crisis Deepens
So far, no world leader has publicly condemned the massive crackdown by Chinese security forces in Urumqi or challenged Beijing’s claim that its heavily-armed troops are there to maintain social order and prevent further ethnic conflict.
ISRAEL
Is Israel Already at War With Iran?
Israel may have already started a war against Iran’s nuclear program - not with bunker busting bombs and cruise missiles, but with computers.
FT: BRITISH POLICE WILL NOT REOPEN INQUIRY INTO NEWS CORPSE
The police said on Thursday there was no reason to reopen a phone-tapping investigation in spite of a political firestorm over allegations that journalists working for the News of the World had hacked into the phones of thousands of politicians and celebrities.
But questions were still being directed at News International, the paper’s parent and part of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp, to answer allegations that it had paid £1m to three people from the world of football in settlement of damages claims concerning the alleged hacking. MPs are to launch their own inquiry.
This entry was posted on Friday, July 10th, 2009 at 5:39 am and is filed under Daily Dissections. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
Iraq's New Dirty War
The Dirty War
Thursday 09 July 2009
by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
photo
Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki looks at the coffins of Harith al-Ubaidi and his brother-in-law. Harith al-Obaidi, leader of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc in the Iraqi Parliament, was shot dead. (Photo: Reuters Pictures)
On Friday, June 12, Harith al-Obaidi, leader of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc in the Iraqi Parliament, was shot dead outside a mosque just minutes after giving a sermon condemning the Maliki government for human rights abuses. Obaidi, who was a leader in the opposition movement against the government and had strong support among both Sunnis and the Shi'ite bloc loyal to the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was a long-time advocate for human rights and a staunch critic of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Only the day before, Obaidi had given a speech in parliament calling for the resignation of top government officials for their ties to human rights abuses in Iraq. In addition, the neighborhood where the mosque he had given the sermon was located had several checkpoints, thus begging the question of how a gunman could have made his way, undetected, to the mosque.
In the wake of this assassination, Maliki has ordered the creation of a committee to investigate the death of this influential human rights advocate. The day after Obaidi was killed, Maliki went so far as to attend his funeral.
Many would consider both these acts to be smokescreens for Maliki's - and possibly even US - complicity. US action in Iraq since the invasion was launched appears to favor the creation of a client state in Iraq along lines similar to those in Egypt, Jordan and Colombia. In any case, one essential element of that equation seems to be military and/or paramilitary forces answerable to, and supporting, the US-backed head of state.
Let's be clear - Maliki has been supported by the US as the leader of Iraq since his installation. In January 2005, I was in Baghdad for the elections that formed an Iraqi Parliament, which then elected Iraq's first prime minister under US occupation - that man was Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Jaafari wasn't exactly toeing the US/UK line in Iraq, so it wasn't long until then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her UK counterpart Jack Straw rushed to Baghdad to set things straight. Just after their visit, Jaafari was out and Maliki was in. No democracy was involved in this process.
In a recent article titled "Iraq's New Death Squad" for The Nation by independent journalist Shane Bauer, we are provided with an inside view of Maliki's iron fist, which has come in the form of the Iraq Special Operations Forces.
Bauer writes:
"The Iraq Special Operations Forces (ISOF) is probably the largest special forces outfit ever built by the United States, and it is free of many of the controls that most governments employ to rein in such lethal forces. The project started in the deserts of Jordan just after the Americans took Baghdad in April 2003. There, the US Army's Special Forces, or Green Berets, trained mostly 18-year-old Iraqis with no prior military experience. The resulting brigade was a Green Beret's dream come true: a deadly, elite, covert unit, fully fitted with American equipment, that would operate for years under US command and be unaccountable to Iraqi ministries and the normal political process. The ISOF is at least 4,564 operatives strong, making it approximately the size of the US Army's own Special Forces in Iraq. Congressional records indicate that there are plans to double the ISOF over the next "several years."
According to Bauer, control of the ISOF was slowly transferred by US Special Forces to the Iraqis in 2007, but it wasn't put under the command of the Defense or Interior Ministry. Rather, "the Americans pressured the Iraqi government to create a new minister-level office called the Counter-Terrorism Bureau," Bauer writes, "Established by a directive from Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, the CTB answers directly to him and commands the ISOF independently of the police and army. According to Maliki's directive, the Iraqi Parliament has no influence over the ISOF and knows little about its mission."
Untold numbers of politically motivated murders have followed as a result. Regular assassinations and detentions of al-Sahwa (US-created Sunni militia that Maliki had opposed from the beginning) members have been ongoing for years. Last August, the ISOF raided the provincial government compound in Diyala, while backed by US Apache helicopters, and arrested a member of Iraq's main Sunni Arab political party. In December, the ISOF arrested more than 30 Interior Ministry officials who were believed to be opponents of Maliki's Dawa Party. In March, the ISOF arrested a leader of the Sahwa.
Michael Knights, a Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute and head of its Iraq program, told Bauer that he believes the Maliki government had developed a "culture of direct control" and the people running the ISOF at regional levels are "personally chosen loyalists or relatives of Maliki. It reminds me of Saddam.... The prime minister is looking for re-election, and there are not that many restraints on his ability to target political opponents, as [his government] has been doing with the Sadrists for years now."
Thus, the stage is set for an indefinite amount of bloodletting across Iraq. A cursory glance at the week from June 6 through June 13 provides several examples of this dirty war. For a dirty war it is, as the opponents of Maliki, and the occupation, and the Sahwa, are sure to respond in kind to any violence visiting them.
On June 8, a gunman was killed while attacking a checkpoint in Fallujah, and on the same day, five "suspects" were captured. The next day, two policemen were wounded during a bombing in Fallujah, a bicycle bomb wounded another seven, and six more "suspects" were detained from around the city. June 10 found police forces in Diyala province, during three different operations, arresting five people "affiliated with armed groups" around Baquba. It is worth remembering that long-time reasons given by the Maliki government for arresting Sahwa members have been that they are "affiliated with armed groups" or for having had taken part in resistance operations against occupation forces. On June 12, two policemen were arrested in Mosul in connection with an attack on Americans in February, while gunmen raided the home of an Iraqi army officer in Balad Ruz, killing his 17-year-old daughter and wounding his wife.
In total, it was another typical week in occupied Iraq, one that found 95 Iraqis killed and another 176 wounded. At least two US soldiers died in Iraq, and another died by hanging himself in the backyard of his childhood home due to not having recovered from having seen "his sergeant blown to pieces. He saw the bodies of half of the men in his platoon torn apart. Heads were cut off and limbs severed."
The US occupation of Iraq has killed as many as 1,320,110 Iraqis and at least 4,312 US soldiers, and as usual, there appears to be no end in sight.
»
Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq," (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from occupied Iraq for eight months as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last four years.
I also highly recommend this excellent new piece by Professor Michael Schwartz, author of War Without End: The Iraq War in Context:
Colonizing Iraq
The Obama Doctrine?
By Michael Schwartz
Here's how reporters Steven Lee Myers and Marc Santora of the New York Times described the highly touted American withdrawal from Iraq's cities last week:
"Much of the complicated work of dismantling and removing millions of dollars of equipment from the combat outposts in the city has been done during the dark of night. Gen. Ray Odierno, the overall American commander in Iraq, has ordered that an increasing number of basic operations - transport and re-supply convoys, for example - take place at night, when fewer Iraqis are likely to see that the American withdrawal is not total."
Acting in the dark of night, in fact, seems to catch the nature of American plans for Iraq in a particularly striking way. Last week, despite the death of Michael Jackson, Iraq made it back into the TV news as Iraqis celebrated a highly publicized American military withdrawal from their cities. Fireworks went off; some Iraqis gathered to dance and cheer; the first military parade since Saddam Hussein's day took place (in the fortified Green Zone, the country's ordinary streets still being too dangerous for such things); the U.S. handed back many small bases and outposts; and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki proclaimed a national holiday - "sovereignty day," he called it.
Continue reading here.
** Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches **
** Visit Dahr Jamail's website http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
Dahr Jamail's new book, The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, is now available for pre-order.
Pre-order book here http://tinyurl.com/cnlgyu
As one of the first and few unembedded Western journalists to report the truth about how the United States has destroyed, not liberated, Iraqi society in his book Beyond the Green Zone, Jamail now investigates the under-reported but growing antiwar resistance of American GIs. Gathering the stories of these courageous men and women, Jamail shows us that far from "supporting our troops," politicians have betrayed them at every turn. Finally, Jamail shows us that the true heroes of the criminal tragedy of the Iraq War are those brave enough to say no.
-0-
US Occupation of Iraq Continues Unabated
Monday 06 July 2009
by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
photo
At Camp Victory, Vice President Joe Biden speaks to soldiers. (Photo: Khalid Mohammed / Reuters)
"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
- George Orwell
On July 4 in Baghdad, Vice President Joe Biden, who campaigned with Barack Obama on a platform of ending the occupation of Iraq, found himself in one of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's lavish buildings, the Al-Faw Palace. While one of Saddam Hussein's thrones sat on the side of the room, Biden presided over a swearing-in ceremony for 237 soldiers, who were becoming US citizens. Speaking of the ceremony, Biden said, "We did it in Saddam's palace, and I can think of nothing better. That S.O.B. is rolling over in his grave right now." Perhaps the irony of both the scene and his statement were lost to Biden. For if Saddam Hussein was rolling in his grave, the reason would have less to do with one of his palaces being used as a naturalization center for US soldiers, and more to do with the fact that the US government has no intention of withdrawing from Iraq anytime soon.
We have passed the June 30 deadline that, according to a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) signed between US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on November 17, 2008, was the date all US forces were to have been withdrawn from all of Iraq's cities. Today, however, there are at least 134,000 US soldiers in Iraq - a number barely lower than the number that were there in 2003. In addition, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates testified on June 9 that the United States would maintain an average of at least 100,000 troops in Iraq through fiscal year 2010.
The SOFA is a sieve, and the number of US military personnel in Iraq is remaining largely intact for now. Add to the 134,000 US soldiers almost the exact number of military contractors (132,610 and increasing), 36,061 of which, according to a recent Department of Defense report, are US citizens.
While the military and most corporate media would like you to believe that from now on no US soldiers will step foot in Iraqi cities, US military patrols in them are ongoing and will continue.
In addition, there has been an assumption that all US military bases within Iraqi city limits would be moved. For example, US Army Forward Operating Base Falcon, home to 3,000 US troops, is clearly within the city limits of Baghdad. But US military officials, working with Iraqis in the US-supported Iraqi government, have other ideas. "We and the Iraqis decided it wasn't in the city," a military official told the Christian Science Monitor. Thus, city lines are redrawn, to the convenience of the US military, to render certain bases and forward operating bases "outside" of Iraqi cities.
While military commanders claim to have handed over 142 military outposts around Iraq to the Iraqis, US troops will continue to occupy 320 other outposts around Iraq.
Meanwhile, the Democratically controlled Congress just passed a war-spending bill that allocated over $100 billion more for the ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the military (and military contractors) in Iraq is busily expanding and augmenting new bases in rural areas of Iraq. In fact, they are even building new bases in Iraq.
Furthermore, at least 50,000 troops will remain in Iraq until at least the end of 2011, despite the fact that, according to the SOFA, all US "combat" forces will leave Iraq by December 31, 2011.
A July 30 referendum vote on the SOFA is scheduled to take place in Iraq. Despite attempts by the Obama administration to postpone the referendum, it appears as though the vote will take place. Considering the fact that according to recent polls, 73 percent of Iraqis oppose the presence of US forces, the referendum, if legitimate, will put the Obama administrations long-term plans for Iraq in jeopardy as the vote could force US forces out of Iraq as they would no longer be under the legal "protection" of the SOFA.
Although we can only speculate as to whether the referendum will actually reflect the will of the Iraqi people, there will be one of two outcomes:
1. Due to Kurdish and Sunni opposition to the withdrawal of US forces, Maliki postpones the referendum. The US, which is also interested in maintaining the SOFA, supports Maliki in the delay they (Obama administration) have previously pushed for.
2. The Maliki regime overcomes this opposition and does not interfere with the carrying out of the vote or the results of the referendum, which will most likely reflect the will of the Iraqi people to have US forces withdraw from Iraq completely. This would mean the Maliki regime does not want US forces to remain in Iraq, feels strong enough to finally stand on its own and is prepared to settle scores with the formerly US-backed Sahwa forces (Sunni militia), to establish absolute control in Baghdad.
Regardless of the outcome, it is clear that Iraq is further down the road of Balkanization, a plan that Biden has supported for years -to have Iraq split into three rump states. There is already evidence for this - for as Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan have been forced to return home due to funding to support them having been cut due to the Maliki regime pressuring hosting countries, as well as the UN, to have them return. Those returning have been unable to return to their homes. Instead, they are being forced to relocate to either Sunni or Shia areas. Moreover, the Iraqi government has been making no effort to help them return to their original homes, which indicates the Maliki regime is interested in supporting the Balkanization of Iraq.
Nevertheless, again we find the US policy of long-term, indefinite occupation of Iraq to be at loggerheads with the will of the vast majority of the Iraqi people.
From June 28 to July 5, at least 82 Iraqis were killed and 225 wounded, which amounts to another typical week of US occupation of their country. Let us watch how the Obama administration reacts to the referendum at the end of this month, since President Obama is clearly not interested in withdrawing from Iraq anymore than he is interested in a withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq," (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from occupied Iraq for eight months as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last four years.
Thursday 09 July 2009
by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
photo
Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki looks at the coffins of Harith al-Ubaidi and his brother-in-law. Harith al-Obaidi, leader of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc in the Iraqi Parliament, was shot dead. (Photo: Reuters Pictures)
On Friday, June 12, Harith al-Obaidi, leader of the Iraqi Accordance Front, the largest Sunni bloc in the Iraqi Parliament, was shot dead outside a mosque just minutes after giving a sermon condemning the Maliki government for human rights abuses. Obaidi, who was a leader in the opposition movement against the government and had strong support among both Sunnis and the Shi'ite bloc loyal to the cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, was a long-time advocate for human rights and a staunch critic of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki.
Only the day before, Obaidi had given a speech in parliament calling for the resignation of top government officials for their ties to human rights abuses in Iraq. In addition, the neighborhood where the mosque he had given the sermon was located had several checkpoints, thus begging the question of how a gunman could have made his way, undetected, to the mosque.
In the wake of this assassination, Maliki has ordered the creation of a committee to investigate the death of this influential human rights advocate. The day after Obaidi was killed, Maliki went so far as to attend his funeral.
Many would consider both these acts to be smokescreens for Maliki's - and possibly even US - complicity. US action in Iraq since the invasion was launched appears to favor the creation of a client state in Iraq along lines similar to those in Egypt, Jordan and Colombia. In any case, one essential element of that equation seems to be military and/or paramilitary forces answerable to, and supporting, the US-backed head of state.
Let's be clear - Maliki has been supported by the US as the leader of Iraq since his installation. In January 2005, I was in Baghdad for the elections that formed an Iraqi Parliament, which then elected Iraq's first prime minister under US occupation - that man was Ibrahim al-Jaafari. Jaafari wasn't exactly toeing the US/UK line in Iraq, so it wasn't long until then-US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her UK counterpart Jack Straw rushed to Baghdad to set things straight. Just after their visit, Jaafari was out and Maliki was in. No democracy was involved in this process.
In a recent article titled "Iraq's New Death Squad" for The Nation by independent journalist Shane Bauer, we are provided with an inside view of Maliki's iron fist, which has come in the form of the Iraq Special Operations Forces.
Bauer writes:
"The Iraq Special Operations Forces (ISOF) is probably the largest special forces outfit ever built by the United States, and it is free of many of the controls that most governments employ to rein in such lethal forces. The project started in the deserts of Jordan just after the Americans took Baghdad in April 2003. There, the US Army's Special Forces, or Green Berets, trained mostly 18-year-old Iraqis with no prior military experience. The resulting brigade was a Green Beret's dream come true: a deadly, elite, covert unit, fully fitted with American equipment, that would operate for years under US command and be unaccountable to Iraqi ministries and the normal political process. The ISOF is at least 4,564 operatives strong, making it approximately the size of the US Army's own Special Forces in Iraq. Congressional records indicate that there are plans to double the ISOF over the next "several years."
According to Bauer, control of the ISOF was slowly transferred by US Special Forces to the Iraqis in 2007, but it wasn't put under the command of the Defense or Interior Ministry. Rather, "the Americans pressured the Iraqi government to create a new minister-level office called the Counter-Terrorism Bureau," Bauer writes, "Established by a directive from Iraq's prime minister, Nuri al-Maliki, the CTB answers directly to him and commands the ISOF independently of the police and army. According to Maliki's directive, the Iraqi Parliament has no influence over the ISOF and knows little about its mission."
Untold numbers of politically motivated murders have followed as a result. Regular assassinations and detentions of al-Sahwa (US-created Sunni militia that Maliki had opposed from the beginning) members have been ongoing for years. Last August, the ISOF raided the provincial government compound in Diyala, while backed by US Apache helicopters, and arrested a member of Iraq's main Sunni Arab political party. In December, the ISOF arrested more than 30 Interior Ministry officials who were believed to be opponents of Maliki's Dawa Party. In March, the ISOF arrested a leader of the Sahwa.
Michael Knights, a Lafer Fellow at the Washington Institute and head of its Iraq program, told Bauer that he believes the Maliki government had developed a "culture of direct control" and the people running the ISOF at regional levels are "personally chosen loyalists or relatives of Maliki. It reminds me of Saddam.... The prime minister is looking for re-election, and there are not that many restraints on his ability to target political opponents, as [his government] has been doing with the Sadrists for years now."
Thus, the stage is set for an indefinite amount of bloodletting across Iraq. A cursory glance at the week from June 6 through June 13 provides several examples of this dirty war. For a dirty war it is, as the opponents of Maliki, and the occupation, and the Sahwa, are sure to respond in kind to any violence visiting them.
On June 8, a gunman was killed while attacking a checkpoint in Fallujah, and on the same day, five "suspects" were captured. The next day, two policemen were wounded during a bombing in Fallujah, a bicycle bomb wounded another seven, and six more "suspects" were detained from around the city. June 10 found police forces in Diyala province, during three different operations, arresting five people "affiliated with armed groups" around Baquba. It is worth remembering that long-time reasons given by the Maliki government for arresting Sahwa members have been that they are "affiliated with armed groups" or for having had taken part in resistance operations against occupation forces. On June 12, two policemen were arrested in Mosul in connection with an attack on Americans in February, while gunmen raided the home of an Iraqi army officer in Balad Ruz, killing his 17-year-old daughter and wounding his wife.
In total, it was another typical week in occupied Iraq, one that found 95 Iraqis killed and another 176 wounded. At least two US soldiers died in Iraq, and another died by hanging himself in the backyard of his childhood home due to not having recovered from having seen "his sergeant blown to pieces. He saw the bodies of half of the men in his platoon torn apart. Heads were cut off and limbs severed."
The US occupation of Iraq has killed as many as 1,320,110 Iraqis and at least 4,312 US soldiers, and as usual, there appears to be no end in sight.
»
Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq," (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from occupied Iraq for eight months as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last four years.
I also highly recommend this excellent new piece by Professor Michael Schwartz, author of War Without End: The Iraq War in Context:
Colonizing Iraq
The Obama Doctrine?
By Michael Schwartz
Here's how reporters Steven Lee Myers and Marc Santora of the New York Times described the highly touted American withdrawal from Iraq's cities last week:
"Much of the complicated work of dismantling and removing millions of dollars of equipment from the combat outposts in the city has been done during the dark of night. Gen. Ray Odierno, the overall American commander in Iraq, has ordered that an increasing number of basic operations - transport and re-supply convoys, for example - take place at night, when fewer Iraqis are likely to see that the American withdrawal is not total."
Acting in the dark of night, in fact, seems to catch the nature of American plans for Iraq in a particularly striking way. Last week, despite the death of Michael Jackson, Iraq made it back into the TV news as Iraqis celebrated a highly publicized American military withdrawal from their cities. Fireworks went off; some Iraqis gathered to dance and cheer; the first military parade since Saddam Hussein's day took place (in the fortified Green Zone, the country's ordinary streets still being too dangerous for such things); the U.S. handed back many small bases and outposts; and Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki proclaimed a national holiday - "sovereignty day," he called it.
Continue reading here.
** Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches **
** Visit Dahr Jamail's website http://dahrjamailiraq.com **
Dahr Jamail's new book, The Will to Resist: Soldiers Who Refuse to Fight in Iraq and Afghanistan, is now available for pre-order.
Pre-order book here http://tinyurl.com/cnlgyu
As one of the first and few unembedded Western journalists to report the truth about how the United States has destroyed, not liberated, Iraqi society in his book Beyond the Green Zone, Jamail now investigates the under-reported but growing antiwar resistance of American GIs. Gathering the stories of these courageous men and women, Jamail shows us that far from "supporting our troops," politicians have betrayed them at every turn. Finally, Jamail shows us that the true heroes of the criminal tragedy of the Iraq War are those brave enough to say no.
-0-
US Occupation of Iraq Continues Unabated
Monday 06 July 2009
by: Dahr Jamail, t r u t h o u t | Perspective
photo
At Camp Victory, Vice President Joe Biden speaks to soldiers. (Photo: Khalid Mohammed / Reuters)
"Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."
- George Orwell
On July 4 in Baghdad, Vice President Joe Biden, who campaigned with Barack Obama on a platform of ending the occupation of Iraq, found himself in one of former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's lavish buildings, the Al-Faw Palace. While one of Saddam Hussein's thrones sat on the side of the room, Biden presided over a swearing-in ceremony for 237 soldiers, who were becoming US citizens. Speaking of the ceremony, Biden said, "We did it in Saddam's palace, and I can think of nothing better. That S.O.B. is rolling over in his grave right now." Perhaps the irony of both the scene and his statement were lost to Biden. For if Saddam Hussein was rolling in his grave, the reason would have less to do with one of his palaces being used as a naturalization center for US soldiers, and more to do with the fact that the US government has no intention of withdrawing from Iraq anytime soon.
We have passed the June 30 deadline that, according to a Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) signed between US Ambassador Ryan Crocker and Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari on November 17, 2008, was the date all US forces were to have been withdrawn from all of Iraq's cities. Today, however, there are at least 134,000 US soldiers in Iraq - a number barely lower than the number that were there in 2003. In addition, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates testified on June 9 that the United States would maintain an average of at least 100,000 troops in Iraq through fiscal year 2010.
The SOFA is a sieve, and the number of US military personnel in Iraq is remaining largely intact for now. Add to the 134,000 US soldiers almost the exact number of military contractors (132,610 and increasing), 36,061 of which, according to a recent Department of Defense report, are US citizens.
While the military and most corporate media would like you to believe that from now on no US soldiers will step foot in Iraqi cities, US military patrols in them are ongoing and will continue.
In addition, there has been an assumption that all US military bases within Iraqi city limits would be moved. For example, US Army Forward Operating Base Falcon, home to 3,000 US troops, is clearly within the city limits of Baghdad. But US military officials, working with Iraqis in the US-supported Iraqi government, have other ideas. "We and the Iraqis decided it wasn't in the city," a military official told the Christian Science Monitor. Thus, city lines are redrawn, to the convenience of the US military, to render certain bases and forward operating bases "outside" of Iraqi cities.
While military commanders claim to have handed over 142 military outposts around Iraq to the Iraqis, US troops will continue to occupy 320 other outposts around Iraq.
Meanwhile, the Democratically controlled Congress just passed a war-spending bill that allocated over $100 billion more for the ongoing occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the military (and military contractors) in Iraq is busily expanding and augmenting new bases in rural areas of Iraq. In fact, they are even building new bases in Iraq.
Furthermore, at least 50,000 troops will remain in Iraq until at least the end of 2011, despite the fact that, according to the SOFA, all US "combat" forces will leave Iraq by December 31, 2011.
A July 30 referendum vote on the SOFA is scheduled to take place in Iraq. Despite attempts by the Obama administration to postpone the referendum, it appears as though the vote will take place. Considering the fact that according to recent polls, 73 percent of Iraqis oppose the presence of US forces, the referendum, if legitimate, will put the Obama administrations long-term plans for Iraq in jeopardy as the vote could force US forces out of Iraq as they would no longer be under the legal "protection" of the SOFA.
Although we can only speculate as to whether the referendum will actually reflect the will of the Iraqi people, there will be one of two outcomes:
1. Due to Kurdish and Sunni opposition to the withdrawal of US forces, Maliki postpones the referendum. The US, which is also interested in maintaining the SOFA, supports Maliki in the delay they (Obama administration) have previously pushed for.
2. The Maliki regime overcomes this opposition and does not interfere with the carrying out of the vote or the results of the referendum, which will most likely reflect the will of the Iraqi people to have US forces withdraw from Iraq completely. This would mean the Maliki regime does not want US forces to remain in Iraq, feels strong enough to finally stand on its own and is prepared to settle scores with the formerly US-backed Sahwa forces (Sunni militia), to establish absolute control in Baghdad.
Regardless of the outcome, it is clear that Iraq is further down the road of Balkanization, a plan that Biden has supported for years -to have Iraq split into three rump states. There is already evidence for this - for as Iraqi refugees in Syria and Jordan have been forced to return home due to funding to support them having been cut due to the Maliki regime pressuring hosting countries, as well as the UN, to have them return. Those returning have been unable to return to their homes. Instead, they are being forced to relocate to either Sunni or Shia areas. Moreover, the Iraqi government has been making no effort to help them return to their original homes, which indicates the Maliki regime is interested in supporting the Balkanization of Iraq.
Nevertheless, again we find the US policy of long-term, indefinite occupation of Iraq to be at loggerheads with the will of the vast majority of the Iraqi people.
From June 28 to July 5, at least 82 Iraqis were killed and 225 wounded, which amounts to another typical week of US occupation of their country. Let us watch how the Obama administration reacts to the referendum at the end of this month, since President Obama is clearly not interested in withdrawing from Iraq anymore than he is interested in a withdrawal from Afghanistan.
Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist, is the author of "Beyond the Green Zone: Dispatches From an Unembedded Journalist in Occupied Iraq," (Haymarket Books, 2007). Jamail reported from occupied Iraq for eight months as well as from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and Turkey over the last four years.
Wednesday, July 08, 2009
Red Rum: Rio Tinto Busted in China
LONDON (Reuters) - Four employees of global mining giant Rio Tinto in Shanghai have been detained by Chinese authorities, the firm said on Tuesday.
Rio, which last month scrapped a $19.5 billion deal with Chinese state-owned metals group Chinalco, said it was unclear why the employees were detained on Sunday.
"It appears four employees from Rio Tinto's Shanghai office have been detained for questioning by the Chinese authorities," spokesman Nick Cobban said.
"We haven't been able to make contact with them since and we've asked the Chinese authorities for an explanation and we're haven't received anything from them."
Three of the four being detained by the Public Security Bureau are Chinese citizens, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported.
The fourth is an Australian passport holder, it said, citing a government source, and said the Australian government is demanding that Beijing grant consular access.
Rio's Cobban said the Shanghai office is mainly a sales and marketing office for Rio, the world's second biggest iron ore producer, which is listed in London and Sydney.
"Obviously China is a very big market for us particularly in terms of iron ore, so we have quite a significant presence in China." He declined to give the employees' names or nationalities.
"Rio Tinto intends to co-operate fully with any investigation the Chinese authorities may wish to undertake and has sought clarification on what has occurred," the company said in a statement.
On June 5, Rio announced it had dumped plans for a landmark investment from Chinalco and instead decided to seal an iron ore joint venture with rival BHP Billiton.
Several days later, China's official Xinhua news agency slammed Rio Tinto's "perfidy" for scrapping the deal.
Rio has been locked in difficult talks with China's huge steel sector, the biggest customer for Rio's iron ore. Rio has refused to give in to Chinese demands for a bigger cut in contract prices and has been shipping material on the spot market.
(Reporting by Pratima Desai and Eric Onstad; editing by Jason Neely)
Rio, which last month scrapped a $19.5 billion deal with Chinese state-owned metals group Chinalco, said it was unclear why the employees were detained on Sunday.
"It appears four employees from Rio Tinto's Shanghai office have been detained for questioning by the Chinese authorities," spokesman Nick Cobban said.
"We haven't been able to make contact with them since and we've asked the Chinese authorities for an explanation and we're haven't received anything from them."
Three of the four being detained by the Public Security Bureau are Chinese citizens, the Sydney Morning Herald newspaper reported.
The fourth is an Australian passport holder, it said, citing a government source, and said the Australian government is demanding that Beijing grant consular access.
Rio's Cobban said the Shanghai office is mainly a sales and marketing office for Rio, the world's second biggest iron ore producer, which is listed in London and Sydney.
"Obviously China is a very big market for us particularly in terms of iron ore, so we have quite a significant presence in China." He declined to give the employees' names or nationalities.
"Rio Tinto intends to co-operate fully with any investigation the Chinese authorities may wish to undertake and has sought clarification on what has occurred," the company said in a statement.
On June 5, Rio announced it had dumped plans for a landmark investment from Chinalco and instead decided to seal an iron ore joint venture with rival BHP Billiton.
Several days later, China's official Xinhua news agency slammed Rio Tinto's "perfidy" for scrapping the deal.
Rio has been locked in difficult talks with China's huge steel sector, the biggest customer for Rio's iron ore. Rio has refused to give in to Chinese demands for a bigger cut in contract prices and has been shipping material on the spot market.
(Reporting by Pratima Desai and Eric Onstad; editing by Jason Neely)
Honduras: Big Stakes Down South
High Stakes in Honduras
by BENJAMIN DANGL
July 08, 2009 "Counterpunch" When rallying in the streets of Tegucigalpa for the ousted President Manuel Zelaya, Alejandra Fernandez, a 23-year-old university student told a journalist why she supported Zelaya: "He raised the minimum wage, gave out free school lunches, provided milk for the babies and pensions for the elderly, distributed energy-saving light bulbs, decreased the price of public transportation, made more scholarships available for students." Others gathered around to mention the roads and schools in rural areas the president had created.
"That's why the elite classes can't stand him and why we want him back," Alejandra explained. "This is really a class struggle."
But it's not just because of these relatively progressive reforms that Zelaya enacted that he deserves our support. Nor is it simply because this democratically-elected leader was ousted in a repressive coup led by right-wing oligarchs and military officials trained at the infamous torture and counterinsurgency school, the School of the Americas, now known as Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, based in Georgia.
He also deserves our support because he was ultimately overthrown in response to his plans to organise a popular assembly to rewrite the country's constitution.
According to Central American political analyst Alberto Valiente Thoresen, Honduras's current constitution, written in 1982, "was the product of a context characterised by counter-insurgency policies supported by the US government, civil façade military governments and undemocratic policies." In an assembly made up of elected representatives from various political parties and social sectors, a new, likely more progressive and inclusive constitution could have a lasting impact on the country's corrupt politicians, powerful sweatshop owners and repressive military institutions.
Many commentators have said that Zelaya sought to re-write the constitution to extend his time in office. Yet nothing indicates that that was the case. Leading up to the coup, Zelaya was pushing for a referendum on 28 June in which the ballot question was to be: "Do you agree that, during the general elections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constituent National Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?" This non-binding referendum - not plans from Zelaya to expand his power – was enough to push right wing and military leaders to organise a coup.
If the Honduran people approved the formation of a constitutional assembly in November, it would likely take years – as it did recently in Bolivia – to rewrite the document. Zelaya would not be president as he would not be running in the upcoming elections. His term in office finishes in January 2010, too short a time to complete a national assembly's rewriting of the constitution.
Given that it was the call for the constituent assembly that led to the coup, it appears that the coup leaders are more worried about an assembly in which the people could re-write their own constitution, than Zelaya himself. Clearly it's the Honduran oligarchs, rather than Zelaya, who are more interested in concentrating and conserving their own power.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Zelaya in Washington today, and one development was that Costa Rica's president Oscar Arias will act as mediator for the return of Zelaya. But there still is plenty of room for improvement in the US's stance. The Obama administration should listen to Zelaya's demands rather than impose preconditions for US support. And it should avoid bullying Zelaya into dropping his plans for the new constitution, or limiting any progressive reforms he may want to enact upon returning to office. The Honduran people should decide what course Zelaya should take, not the Obama administration and certainly not any right wing junta.
Although the Obama administration has been critical of the coup and relatively supportive of Zelaya, it should go much further. Some clear signs that Washington backs Zelaya would be withdrawing the US ambassador from the country, following in the footsteps of the other nations that have condemned the coup. The US should also cut off all of its aid to the rogue government, and end all military aid to the country. These actions would put pressure on the already weak military and send a clearer message to the region that, at this point, Washington is entirely against the coup, and willing to respect demands from Latin American leaders, all of whom have called for Zelaya's reinstatement.
This past Sunday, after his plane was turned back upon trying to land in Honduras, Zelaya told reporters: "the United States, which has tremendous power, should take action. Specifically, the strongest government in economic matters, in aspects of the sphere of the dollar, for us is the United States. If they decide to live with the coup, then democracy in the Americas is over."
Benjamin Dangl is currently based in Paraguay and is the author of "The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia" (AK Press). He edits UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America, and TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events. Email: Bendangl(at)gmail(dot)com.
by BENJAMIN DANGL
July 08, 2009 "Counterpunch" When rallying in the streets of Tegucigalpa for the ousted President Manuel Zelaya, Alejandra Fernandez, a 23-year-old university student told a journalist why she supported Zelaya: "He raised the minimum wage, gave out free school lunches, provided milk for the babies and pensions for the elderly, distributed energy-saving light bulbs, decreased the price of public transportation, made more scholarships available for students." Others gathered around to mention the roads and schools in rural areas the president had created.
"That's why the elite classes can't stand him and why we want him back," Alejandra explained. "This is really a class struggle."
But it's not just because of these relatively progressive reforms that Zelaya enacted that he deserves our support. Nor is it simply because this democratically-elected leader was ousted in a repressive coup led by right-wing oligarchs and military officials trained at the infamous torture and counterinsurgency school, the School of the Americas, now known as Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, based in Georgia.
He also deserves our support because he was ultimately overthrown in response to his plans to organise a popular assembly to rewrite the country's constitution.
According to Central American political analyst Alberto Valiente Thoresen, Honduras's current constitution, written in 1982, "was the product of a context characterised by counter-insurgency policies supported by the US government, civil façade military governments and undemocratic policies." In an assembly made up of elected representatives from various political parties and social sectors, a new, likely more progressive and inclusive constitution could have a lasting impact on the country's corrupt politicians, powerful sweatshop owners and repressive military institutions.
Many commentators have said that Zelaya sought to re-write the constitution to extend his time in office. Yet nothing indicates that that was the case. Leading up to the coup, Zelaya was pushing for a referendum on 28 June in which the ballot question was to be: "Do you agree that, during the general elections of November 2009 there should be a fourth ballot to decide whether to hold a Constituent National Assembly that will approve a new political constitution?" This non-binding referendum - not plans from Zelaya to expand his power – was enough to push right wing and military leaders to organise a coup.
If the Honduran people approved the formation of a constitutional assembly in November, it would likely take years – as it did recently in Bolivia – to rewrite the document. Zelaya would not be president as he would not be running in the upcoming elections. His term in office finishes in January 2010, too short a time to complete a national assembly's rewriting of the constitution.
Given that it was the call for the constituent assembly that led to the coup, it appears that the coup leaders are more worried about an assembly in which the people could re-write their own constitution, than Zelaya himself. Clearly it's the Honduran oligarchs, rather than Zelaya, who are more interested in concentrating and conserving their own power.
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with Zelaya in Washington today, and one development was that Costa Rica's president Oscar Arias will act as mediator for the return of Zelaya. But there still is plenty of room for improvement in the US's stance. The Obama administration should listen to Zelaya's demands rather than impose preconditions for US support. And it should avoid bullying Zelaya into dropping his plans for the new constitution, or limiting any progressive reforms he may want to enact upon returning to office. The Honduran people should decide what course Zelaya should take, not the Obama administration and certainly not any right wing junta.
Although the Obama administration has been critical of the coup and relatively supportive of Zelaya, it should go much further. Some clear signs that Washington backs Zelaya would be withdrawing the US ambassador from the country, following in the footsteps of the other nations that have condemned the coup. The US should also cut off all of its aid to the rogue government, and end all military aid to the country. These actions would put pressure on the already weak military and send a clearer message to the region that, at this point, Washington is entirely against the coup, and willing to respect demands from Latin American leaders, all of whom have called for Zelaya's reinstatement.
This past Sunday, after his plane was turned back upon trying to land in Honduras, Zelaya told reporters: "the United States, which has tremendous power, should take action. Specifically, the strongest government in economic matters, in aspects of the sphere of the dollar, for us is the United States. If they decide to live with the coup, then democracy in the Americas is over."
Benjamin Dangl is currently based in Paraguay and is the author of "The Price of Fire: Resource Wars and Social Movements in Bolivia" (AK Press). He edits UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America, and TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events. Email: Bendangl(at)gmail(dot)com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)