I am not completely humorless.
I'd say do a shot for every criminal act he admits to, but then we'd be drunk by noon.
Americablog did a live blogcasting of Der Fuhrer's speech this morning.
Sorry Republicans... but I've just had it with your party and your moronic leader. Once those people are out of office, I'll go back to being my usually respectful self.
No, of course not.
Why?
Because the vast majority of the United States populace does not give a hairy rat's ass that the President of the United States has committed crimes.
George W. Bush is a criminal.
And so is every person who serves at his pleasure.
But, he won't get impeached.
He'll continue to stay in office, further shredding the Constitution, until January 2009.
Radical Militant Librarians and Other Dire Threats
As if this were not outrageous enough, Bush, during his weekly radio address, bluntly admitted to violating the laws governing surveillance of American citizens and the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution not once, but some thirty times. "I have reauthorized this program more than 30 times since the September 11 attacks," said Bush, "and I intend to do so for as long as our nation faces a continuing threat from al Qaeda and related groups."
Retired Air Force Lieutenant Karen Kwiatkowski, widely known for her revelations about the inner workings of the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans and its manipulation of Iraq war evidence, spent two years working at the National Security Agency. On Sunday, I asked her what the ramifications are of a President throwing aside the firewalls that have blocked governmental surveillance of citizens for the last twenty five years.
"It means we are in deep trouble," said Kwiatkowski, "deeper than most Americans really are willing to think about. The safeguards of mid-1970s were put in place by a mobilized Democratic congress in response to President Richard Nixon's perceived and actual contempt for rule of law, and the other branches of government. At that time, the idea of a sacred constitution balancing executive power with the legislative power worked to give the Congress both backbone and direction."
"Today," continued Kwiatkowski, "we have a President and administration that has out-Nixoned Nixon in every negative way, with none of the Nixon administration's redeeming attention to detail in domestic and foreign policy. It may indeed mean that the constitution has flat-lined and civil liberties will be only for those who can buy and own a legislator or a political party. We will all need to learn how to spell 'corporate state,' which for Mussolini was his favorable definition of fascism."
Gail Sredanovic of the Raging Grannies makes an additional point: "Aside from the disturbing civil liberties aspects of the Pentagon spying on local peace groups, it makes me scared to think that the folks in charge of protecting us from possible terrorist attacks can't tell the difference between a terrorist threat and a peaceful citizen gathering. Are they really that stupid?"
As a general matter, the Constitution forbids the government from spying on Americans - including by listening in on their phone calls - without a court's permission. The 4th Amendment says police or federal agents must show a magistrate some evidence of wrongdoing before they can obtain a warrant that authorizes them to listen in on phone calls.
However, through most of the 20th century, presidents maintained they had the power to protect the nation's security by, for example, spying on foreign agents who were operating in the United States. No one questioned that US intelligence agencies could tap the phones of Soviet agents.
In the mid-1970s, Congress learned the White House had abused this power: Presidents, both Democratic and Republican, had authorized the FBI to tap the phones of hundreds of political activists and celebrities, including Martin Luther King Jr. and Vietnam War protesters.
Those revelations led to the 1978 law. One provision says it is a crime for anyone to "intentionally engage in electronic surveillance" except as authorized by law or a court order. However, "the president, through the attorney general, may authorize electronic surveillance ... to acquire foreign intelligence information" if officials obtain a warrant from a special court that operates inside the Justice Department.
The judges of what is known as the FISA court may issue warrants for wiretaps when the government has evidence that a person is working for a "foreign power" or is involved in terrorism. This is not a high standard, legal experts say. The judges issue warrants virtually whenever the government applies for one, the Justice Department has said in the past.
However, the law requires evidence that the wiretap target has links to a foreign government or a terrorist group. It would not permit, for example, the wiretaps of hundreds of Muslim men in the United States simply because they telephoned the Middle East.
Top intelligence officials have in the past assured Congress that they follow the law and do not engage in secret spying. "There is a rigorous regime of checks and balances which we - the CIA, the NSA and the FBI - scrupulously adhere to whenever conversations of US persons are involved. We do not collect [information] against US persons unless they are agents of a foreign power," then-CIA Director George J. Tenet told a House committee five years ago.
Apparently, the White House over a year ago asked the New York Times not to publish the facts of NSA eavesdropping on American citizens. True to character, the Times complied and cooperated.But now that we know about it, the media, every member of Congress, and every concerned American should be asking "Is this Constitutional?" and "Is this legal?" The executive branch itself should be asking these questions as well. Further, the executive branch would do well to ask, in a business sense, "Is this worthwhile?" and "Is it cost effective?" and "Does it work to improve national security?" I'd like to think that, in addition to these questions, my old boss Michael Hayden is asking the very simple, straightforward, and ultimately the most courageous question: "Is it right?"
Friday 16 December 2005
Remarks by US Senator Robert C. Byrd as delivered on the Senate floor.
I believe in America. I believe in the dream of the Founders and Framers of our inspiring Constitution. I believe in the spirit that drove President Lincoln to risk all to preserve the Union. I believe in what President Kennedy challenged America to be.
America, the great experiment of democracy, where the strong are also just, and the weak can feel secure, and the soul and promise of America stand as a beacon of freedom and a protector of liberty which lights and energizes people around the world.
Today, sadly, that beacon is dimmed. This Administration's America is becoming a place where the strong are arrogant and the weak are ignored.
Yes, we hear high-flown language from this White House about bringing democracy to lands where democracy has never been. We seem mesmerized with glorious rhetoric about justice and liberty. But, does the rhetoric really match the reality of what our country has become since the heinous attacks of September 11?
I speak of the actions of our own government, actions that have undermined the credibility of this nation around the world. These actions, taken one at a time, may seem justified. But taken as a whole, they form an unsettling picture and tell a troubling story.
Do we remember the abuses at Abu Ghraib? They were explained as an aberration.
Do we remember the abuses at Guantanamo Bay? They were denied as an exaggeration.
Now, we read about this so-called policy of 'rendition' - a policy where the US taxpayers are funding secret prisons in foreign lands. What a word - rendition. It sounds so vague, almost harmless. But the practice of "rendition" is abhorrent. The Administration's practice of 'rendition' is an affront to the principles of freedom - the very opposite of principles we claim we are trying to transplant to Iraq and other rogue nations.
The Administration claims that "rendition" is a valuable weapon in the war on terror. But, what is the value of having America's CIA sit as judge and jury while deciding just who might be a threat to our national security? Such determinations receive no review by a court of law. The CIA simply swings into action, abducts a person from some foreign country, and flies them off to who-knows-where. With no judicial review of guilt or innocence, a person can be held in secret prisons in unnamed countries, or even shipped off to yet another country to face torture at the hands of the secret police of brutal governments.
Is this the America that our Founders conceived? Is this the America of which millions dream dreams? Is this the beacon of freedom inspiring other nations to follow?
The United States should state clearly and without question that we will not torture prisoners and that we will abide by the treaties we sign. To fail to do so is to lose the very humanity, the morality, that makes America the hope for individual liberty around the world. The disgusting, degrading, and damaging practice of rendition should cease immediately.
"It's not about who they are. It's about who we are." Those are the words of my colleague, Senator John McCain. Senator McCain is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. He is a former prisoner of war, and he is exactly right.
There is no moral high ground in torture. There is no moral high ground in the inhumane treatment of prisoners.
Our misguided, thuggish practice of "rendition" has put a major blot on American foreign policy, and now comes this similarly alarming effort to reauthorize the Patriot Act retaining provisions which devastate many of our own citizens' civil liberties here at home. What is happening to our cherished America? Any question raised about the wisdom of shredding Constitutional protections of civil liberties with roots that trail back centuries is met with the disclaimer that, "the world has changed" and that the 9-11 attacks are in effect a green light to trash the Constitution. To seize private library records, to search private property without the knowledge of the owner, to spy on ordinary citizens accused of no crime in a manner which is a sick perversion of our system of justice must not be allowed. Paranoia must not be allowed to chip away at our civil liberties. The United States of America must not adopt the thuggish tactics of our enemies. We must not trash the Fourth Amendment because the United States Senate is being stampeded at the end of a congressional session.
Government fishing expeditions with search warrants written by FBI agents is not what the Framers had in mind. Spying on ordinary unsuspecting citizens without their knowledge is not what the Framers had in mind. Handing the government unilateral authority to keep all evidence secret from a target so that it may never be challenged in a court of law is not what the Framers had in mind. Yesterday we heard reports that the military has spied on Americans simply because they exercised their right to peaceably assemble and to speak their minds. Today we hear that the military is tapping phone lines in our own country without the consent of a judge. Labeling civil disobedience and political dissent as "domestic terrorism" is not what the Framers had in mind.
Our nation is the most powerful nation in the world because we were founded on a principle of liberty. Benjamin Franklin said that "those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Our founding fathers, intent on addressing the abuses they have suffered at the hands of an over zealous government, established a system of checks and balances, ensuring that there is a separation of powers within government, so that no one body may run amok with its agenda. These checks are what safeguard freedom, and the American people are looking to us now to restore and protect that freedom.
So many have died protecting those freedoms. We owe it to those brave men and women to deliberate meaningfully, and to ultimately protect those freedoms Americans cherish so deeply. The American people deserve nothing less.
Earlier today, the Senate voted to stop a bill that would have allowed the abuses of American civil liberties to continue for another four years. The message of this vote is not just about the Patriot Act: it is a message that the Senate can stand up against an over-reaching executive that has sacrificed our liberties and stained our standing in the world.
The Patriot Act has gone too far. Secret renditions should be stopped. Torture must be outlawed. Our military should not spy on our own people. The Senate has spoken: let us secure our country, but not by destroying our liberties.
Thank God for checks and balances. Thank God for the United States Senate.
| You Passed 8th Grade Math |
 Congratulations, you got 7/10 correct! |
| The Keys to Your Heart |
 You are attracted to those who are unbridled, untrammeled, and free. In love, you feel the most alive when your partner is patient and never willing to give up on you. You'd like to your lover to think you are stylish and alluring. You would be forced to break up with someone who was emotional, moody, and difficult to please. Your ideal relationship is open. Both of you can talk about everything... no secrets. Your risk of cheating is zero. You care about society and morality. You would never break a commitment. You think of marriage something you've always wanted... though you haven't really thought about it. In this moment, you think of love as something you can get or discard anytime. You're feeling self centered. |
| Your Dating Purity Score: 78% |
 You are an under-experienced dater. This doesn't mean you're unexperienced - far from it. It just means that there's a lot of romance left to discover! |
About Bush caving in on the torture issues, but I'd rather have you read this:
The Silence of the Doctors
By Jonathan H. Marks
The Nation
26 December 2005 Issue
It was called the "water cure." But it was dosed out liberally to those who weren't sick. Unfortunate recipients were held by the neck beneath a water tank. The tap was turned on, and they were forced to swallow the gushing stream - or to choke within an inch of death while trying. Another variation used tubing to siphon water from a kerosene can into a detainee's nostril. Sworn testimony records the use of this tactic in the presence of a doctor. It was, after all, a "cure." When the detainee still refused to talk, the doctor would ratchet up the treatment, ordering a second tube to be placed in the detainee's other nostril and a handful of salt to be thrown into the water. Anyone who's ever had sea water up his or her nose will know just how pleasant that would have been.
This interrogation tactic comes not from the "war on terror" but from the war in the Philippines more than 100 years ago. There too the abuses were justified by the need to combat troublesome local "insurgents." The enemy was "not civilized" and did not deserve to be treated according to the rules of civilized warfare. The water cure is, of course, the precursor to a more recent interrogation technique known as "water boarding." And the participation of the physician is an early example of American medical personnel being co-opted into an egregious and unlawful military mission. The doctor's presence did not restrain the interrogator's excesses; on the contrary, he actively fueled them.
After 9/11 some American healthcare personnel were once again asked to step into the breach and help Army interrogators conduct aggressive interrogations. They have, among others, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller - former camp commander at Guantánamo Bay - to thank for this. Miller considered the participation of Behavioral Science Consultation Teams - known colloquially as "Biscuits" - to be an "essential" part of the interrogation process. Having introduced the first Biscuit to the Guantánamo facility in late 2002, Miller urged the deployment of a similar team at Abu Ghraib in late 2003. These Biscuits were staffed at various times by psychologists and/or psychiatrists.
The Defense Department has acknowledged that several Biscuit staff were sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for training at SERE school - short for Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape. This is where American soldiers are taught how to resist their captors. Training is based on exposure to abusive tactics, some tantamount to torture, delivered by fellow soldiers. (That these tactics are designed to break detainees and procure false confessions - not to produce intelligence - appears to have been overlooked by the Administration when it decided to deploy them in the "war on terror.") At SERE school, Biscuit healthcare personnel acquired a grounding in the now well-publicized techniques of hooding, prolonged isolation, stress positions, sleep deprivation and exposure to loud noise and temperature extremes - techniques often used in combination.
They brought this knowledge back to Guantánamo Bay, where - according to an internal Army report - they offered opinions on the character and personalities of detainees, advised on interrogation plans and approaches, and provided feedback on interrogation technique. Army documents also record that Biscuit personnel sometimes sat in on interrogations. Notably, the name of a Biscuit psychologist appears in the interrogation log of Guantánamo detainee Mohammed al-Qahtani. According to that log - a copy of which was obtained by Time magazine - Qahtani was questioned for eighteen to twenty hours per day for forty-eight out of fifty-four consecutive days in late 2002 and early 2003. During that time, he was subjected to an array of tactics that included exposure to temperature extremes, barking military dogs, strip searches, stress positions, being led around on a leash and being forced to stand naked in front of women. In addition to these measures - many of which were held "legally permissible" in a recent Army report - a medical corpsman forcibly administered three and a half bags of intravenous fluid. Qahtani was refused a promised bathroom break and, when he became desperate, he was told to go in his pants.
Before this interrogation regime, Qahtani had been subjected to 160 days of isolation and - according to a letter of complaint sent by the FBI to the Pentagon - he was "evidencing behavior consistent with extreme psychological trauma." Not surprisingly, this trauma was compounded by the deleterious impact the interrogation tactics had on Qahtani's physical health. On one occasion, his heartbeat became so slow - just thirty-five beats per minute instead of the normal sixty to 100 - that he had to be hospitalized. On at least two occasions, his temperature dropped to a life-threatening ninety-five degrees.
Aggressive interrogations like those endured by Qahtani were based on a model that seeks to employ extreme levels of stress in order to erode established patterns of behavior, such as resistance to questioning. One of the functions of Biscuit health professionals is to help interrogators tailor interrogation "stressors" to the personality of each detainee - particularly "high-value detainees." In one example - reported by Neil Lewis in the New York Times - interrogators were told by a Biscuit that a detainee's medical files recorded his severe phobia of the dark, and the Biscuit suggested ways that fear could be manipulated to make the detainee cooperate.
Much ink has been spilled - by me and others - explaining why these practices violate fundamental rules and protections found in both the laws of war and international human rights law. These two bodies of law prohibit most of the aggressive interrogation strategies deployed in the "war on terror" - and mandate the humane treatment of detainees. The Administration has tried its best to circumvent these laws. It argues, for example, that the ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment doesn't apply to foreigners outside the United States - a position the McCain amendment seeks to overturn. This amendment is all the more important in light of the Defense Department's new Interrogation Directive. The directive was greeted warmly in the press with headlines like "Pentagon: Detainees Must Be Treated Well" (AP). It prohibits the use of military dogs and requires interrogations to be humane and in accordance with "relevant" international law (whatever that may be). But read the fine print: It also expressly provides that Defense Secretary Rumsfeld or his deputies may authorize interrogations that do not meet either of these basic criteria.
When medical personnel are involved in interrogation, medical ethics should also have something to say. And when the Administration plays around with legal rules, it is all the more important for the medical establishment - and its members - to take an ethical stand. Medical ethics should embrace and reflect the fundamental protections found in human rights law and the laws of war, as the UN has recognized. According to a resolution of the General Assembly adopted without dissent in 1982, it is a "gross contravention of medical ethics" for health professionals to be complicit in torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. They are also required not to use their knowledge and skills to assist with an interrogation that may adversely affect a detainee's health and is not in accordance with international law. Medical personnel who helped design and monitor aggressive interrogations like those of Qahtani have undoubtedly fallen afoul of this ethical mandate.
But ethical constraints can and should go beyond the requirements of law. The World Medical Association has acknowledged this and holds that - even in times of armed conflict - it is unethical for physicians to weaken the physical or mental health of a human being "without therapeutic justification." Its codes also emphasize that detainee medical records are presumed to be confidential. This presumption - universally acknowledged as being vital to patient trust and effective medical care - was violated by the routine exploitation of medical records during interrogations at Guantánamo. The association's rules also prohibit force-feeding hunger-strikers - a rule now broken daily at Guantánamo. Although the Defense Department has denied the shocking claim that a finger-thick nasogastric tube was reused without sterilization in order to feed different detainees at the facility, it readily admits that force-feeding is occurring.
The Pentagon has recently taken steps to alleviate concerns about the involvement of medical personnel in abuse. In June it issued new medical "procedures" for detainees in US custody. These prohibit healthcare personnel from participating in interrogations not in accordance with "applicable law." But what law is "applicable"? More pertinent, what law is applicable according to an Administration that does not shy away from developing its own highly permissive formulations of legal doctrine? In September the Defense Department issued a further "special text" stating that Biscuit members should not have access to medical records "except as needed to maintain safe, legal and ethical interrogations." But anyone familiar with previous abuses must have concerns about how that constraint will be enforced. In October the Pentagon flew officials from several health professional organizations to Guantánamo. Like the typical Defense Department tour of Guantánamo, it was a six-hour visit. Guests were armed with packs of information and given multiple briefings, but they were not permitted to talk to detainees - a prohibition that recently led UN human rights experts to cancel their Guantánamo visit.
These measures may not have had the effect the Administration hoped for. Following the Guantánamo trip, Dr. Steven Sharfstein, president of the American Psychiatric Association, stated publicly that it was "inappropriate" for psychiatrists to serve on Biscuits. The APA's board is soon expected to adopt changes to its rules that will make this official policy. Sharfstein's concerns extend beyond aggressive interrogations. In his view, all Guantánamo interrogations are tainted by the detention of the subject in legal limbo and, more than that, he doesn't want his members participating in or advising on any inherently deceptive interrogation tactics.
Other groups - not least, Physicians for Human Rights and Physicians for Social Responsibility - have also been vocal in their condemnations of medical participation in abusive practices at Guantánamo Bay and elsewhere. The responses of two of America's core medical professional organizations, the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association, however, raise serious concerns.
The performance of the AMA - the organization that spoke out so firmly in response to the abuses of Nazi doctors - has been especially shocking. After the Guantánamo tour, it declined to make its representative on that trip, Dr. Audiey Kao, available to the New York Times for comment. The AMA was also slow to express support for the anti-torture McCain amendment, doing so only after other medical groups had spoken out and its silence became embarrassing. One reason for the AMA's lack of resolve is its members' concerns about other issues - topics more relevant to their daily practice. Hundreds of resolutions are brought by members every year on issues ranging from tort "reform" to Medicare. But only two resolutions in the past year addressed the interrogation issue. The result was a decision in November to commission a report from the AMA's ethics body, which won't appear until June 2006 at the earliest. That concerns about the level of Medicare reimbursements - currently under consideration on the Hill - are preventing the AMA from speaking out on an issue that goes to the heart of what it means to be a physician (whether for fear of offending the government or exhausting the group's political capital) should be a source of shame.
The American Psychological Association has been quicker to act, producing guidance drafted by its Presidential Task Force in June. But the task force was stacked predominantly with psychologists who work or have worked for the military - in some cases at SERE school. Although the resulting guidelines require psychologists not to facilitate torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, they adopt as a "touchstone" US rules and regulations as "developed and refined" in the "war on terror." Despite the association's subsequent support of the McCain amendment, this makes psychologists' ethical constraints appear dependent upon the Administration's manipulation of legal doctrine and, in particular, on its views about the scope and content of the ban on cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment. Just as important, the task force also failed to require psychologists to respect the fundamental human rights of detainees established in international law. Rather than giving psychologists firm guidelines, the task force tells them to be mindful of factors that "require special ethical consideration" when consulting on interrogation. But leaving psychologists to make ad hoc decisions in military scenarios - when they are dependent on others for information and have neither the time nor the competence to assess it - is not a good recipe for preventing future abuses. Since the Defense Department has deployed psychologists rather than psychiatrists on Biscuits recently - sensing, perhaps, that their ethical constraints may not be as rigorous - it is especially important that the shortcomings in these guidelines be addressed.
But all bodies within the medical establishment should lay down rules that directly address the participation of their members in the design and monitoring of interrogations. Clear rules drafted with real-world scenarios in mind are vital if we are to empower medical personnel to say no when asked to participate in future abuses.
Moving forward, however, also requires looking back. At least four Guantánamo detainees have lodged a complaint against Dr. John Edmondson, head of the facility's Naval hospital. They allege that physicians under Edmondson's supervision made medical care contingent on cooperation with interrogators, that they witnessed and participated in abuse and that they shared medical information with interrogators to expose detainees' weaknesses. The Medical Board of California has refused to entertain the complaint on procedural grounds. The board says it can't consider the complaint because the alleged conduct occurred outside its jurisdiction, on a military base. By that rationale, a lawyer could be guilty of serious misconduct in California and still practice at the New York bar. This point has not escaped Scott Sullivan, the attorney representing the detainees. He has asked the California courts to compel the Medical Board to hear the complaint. That it should come to this is more than unfortunate.
Although it is the job of the medical community to regulate its own, and to call to account the few who threaten to tarnish the reputation of the many, a full and independent investigation into detainee abuses and the role of medical personnel in those abuses is also needed. An "assessment" report of detainee medical activities made public by the Army Surgeon General in July raised more questions than it answered. What did the seventy-four medical personnel - in Iraq alone - who admitted witnessing interrogations actually see? What do the detainees who were the subjects of those interrogations - and who were not interviewed for the report - have to say about the involvement of those personnel? More generally, how were some medical personnel co-opted into a policy of detainee abuse after 9/11? Demanding answers to these questions is essential, not just for the integrity of the medical community but for the health of our democracy.
NIMBYism is a global issue.
Tiny Malta feels pressure of immigrant traffic
By Robin Pomeroy
Thu Dec 15, 8:02 AM ET
VALLETTA, Malta (Reuters) - More densely populated than Bangladesh, Malta has little room to house illegal immigrants. Even the newcomers, fleeing to Europe from war and poverty in Africa and Asia, know the island is approaching crisis point.
"There are 400,000 people here. The problem is the land isn't enough for the Maltese, so how about the refugees?" said Mohammed Abdull Osman, a 26-year-old Somali who like thousands of others landed in Malta in a fishing boat from Libya.
This year at least 1,800 immigrants have arrived in Malta -- a rocky outcrop barely twice the size of Washington, D.C. at just 122 square miles.
The wave of migration began in earnest in 2002. Most immigrants land in Malta by mistake as they try to reach the European mainland on overcrowded, wooden fishing boats or are picked up by Maltese authorities, who have a duty to save lives at sea.
Just as the new arrivals don't want to be here, many Maltese would rather they were elsewhere. Critics accuse the former British colony's conservative government of having no answers.
"Rational interest would dictate that we should take a stand and make it clear that Malta is not the dumping ground of the Mediterranean," said Philip Beattie, the founder of Republican National Alliance, a new anti-immigration, right-wing movement.
Home Minister Tonio Borg has called on Libya to take back migrants who leave there by sea, copying a controversial agreement Italy has struck with Tripoli. He also wants other European Union countries to take some of the immigrants.
RISE IN RACISM
Illegal immigration has become a highly charged political and social issue in southern Europe. The sight of hundreds of Africans trying to scale razor-wire fences in the Spanish enclave of Ceuta this year underscored the desperation of people driven by the huge gap between lifestyles in Europe and Africa.
Borg said the illegal immigrants arriving in Malta, many with nothing but the clothes on their backs, were sapping the island's resources -- and inflaming passions.
"What is more worrying is the public reaction," Borg told Reuters in a recent interview. "To us, Africa was just another neighboring continent. Now there are racist opinions."
Beattie, a 41-year-old economics lecturer at Malta University, led the island's first protest march against illegal immigration in October. Minor scuffles broke out with opponents who accused Beattie of racism.
An admirer of Italy's post-fascist National Alliance party Beattie rejects accusations that his movement fuels racism. "The people who call us racists are bigots."
Beattie says Malta should stop patrolling its coastal waters -- a space of a 250,000 square miles, according to the government -- and cease rescuing boat people. He says Libya should also patrol its shores to stop people from leaving.
"If they keep coming, summer after summer after summer, where are we going to put them?"
Further to the right, and better known in Malta, is Norman Lovell, the leader of Imperium Europa, a white supremacist group which talks of Malta leading a "planetary struggle" to save the "White Race" and create a Latin-speaking European empire.
Beattie distances himself from Lovell's ideas about race but credits him with raising awareness of the immigration issue.
"I suppose he will go down in history as the first whistle-blower."
HOME SWEET HOME
Near the docks in Malta's capital Valletta, a derelict school has been converted into an "open center" for 400 immigrants, mostly Africans and nearly all men, who sleep in bunk beds in what used to be classrooms.
A curtain hangs around one bed, providing a measure of privacy. A notice pinned to it reads: "God bless our home."
What seems an ironic gesture is in fact probably meant in all sincerity -- the people living in these cramped rooms are the lucky ones, free to come and go and seek casual work.
They have survived the crossing from Libya --a perilous trip which killed at least 600 people between June and October, according to Borg who said this was a conservative estimate.
After the crossing, most of them spend around 12 months in Malta's detention camps while their applications for asylum are processed. The live in barracks, tents or rusty World War Two tube-like Nissen huts under heavily military guard.
"They're detained in pretty miserable conditions," said Katrine Camilleri, who works for the Jesuit Refugee Service, a non-governmental organization that provides legal and medical aid at the camps, which journalists are not allowed to visit.
Camilleri said the system was both punishing and useless: processing never leads to deportation because it costs too much and is a diplomatic nightmare to return people with few documents to far-flung countries with no links to Malta.
"We have a system that if you are accepted you stay and if you are rejected you stay," Camilleri said.
She estimated 6 to 8 percent of the immigrants get refugee status and around 50 percent are granted humanitarian protection -- allowing them to stay on the island, live in the open centers and work -- usually because they are from war zones like Eritrea, the Palestinian Territories, Somalia or
Iraq.
If immigrants who make it to the European mainland are caught and identified, they are sent back to Malta.
"On a human level, I feel extremely sorry for them, but I do understand that in a country the size of Malta it isn't possible to have everyone staying," said Camilleri. "As long as human rights are respected, people should be returned (home)."
In the center, Somali Osman says he would happily return to his wife and daughter if his country was safe, and he made light of the risks he had taken.
"In our country, we have the Indian Ocean. The Mediterranean? This is nothing."
(Additional reporting by Nelson Graves)
Excluded and Invisible
By Jeremy Lovell
Wed Dec 14, 5:36 AM ET
LONDON (Reuters) - Millions of the world's neediest children are not even a blip on the radar of their own governments because there is no record of their birth, the United Nation's Children's Fund
UNICEF said on Wednesday.
In its annual State of the World's Children report "Excluded and Invisible," UNICEF said one-third of the estimated 150 million children born worldwide each year were not registered -- and the number was growing.
"Birth registration is vital to really start to know the extent of the problem, how many children there are out there, how many abuses are going on," report author David Anthony told Reuters in an interview.
Children not registered at birth may never officially exist, making it easy for governments to ignore them and for traffickers to make them disappear without risk of retribution.
From that stemmed an array of problems from pedophile abuse to slavery, the report said, estimating that 1.8 million children entered the sex industry, 5.7 million were sold into slavery and 1.2 million were trafficked each year.
"These numbers are huge, and we do have to push several buttons in every case," said UNICEF child protection chief Karin Landgren. "So we have to start by shining that light on the plight of these children."
But equally AIDS orphans and those forced into early marriages accounted for millions of children who simply disappeared either through being cast out by their communities and taking to the streets or just ceasing to be seen.
"Part of what this report does is to highlight the issue to the public to create an outrage about what is going on," UNICEF chief Ann Veneman said.
SEX TRAFFICKING
She said sex trafficking was an increasing phenomenon -- driven in part by cheap flights making sex tourism easier and in part by the spread of the Internet.
"Trafficking needs to be looked at as a global problem that is not just a developing world problem ... because the demand often comes from the developed world," she said.
And it was not just governments that bore the responsibility for taking action -- although they had the primary function of monitoring their own populations and ensuring that they enforced their own basic laws.
"The recommendations in this year's report particularly make it clear that it is not just governments that are involved here. Civil society has a huge role to play, communities have a huge role to play," the report's author Anthony said.
"It takes bold and courageous action to tackle some of these things in many countries," he added.
But matters were slowly improving.
"Just looking at governments' reactions in recent years, we have seen enormous changes. If governments talk about these issues -- as we have seen with HIV/AIDS in sub-Saharan Africa -- it sends a signal that it is OK to talk about these things," protection chief Landgren said.
Read the Report.
First, I noticed that parts of blogs and entire blog entries were missing from blogspot. Then I open my email from the office around 9am and find several dozen emails from gmail and hotmail accounts. Death threats; threats to kill my cat - vividsect is what one of them said - threats of beatings, rape, torture... incredibly sick, twisted, stuff.
Why?
I don't know. But pay attention punks. I'm hunting for you. When I find you I'll be forwarding all the information I have on you to law enforcement authorities. Over this past year I've had email accounts hacked and credit card information stolen. I've had enough. Whether or not you morons are responsible really doesn't matter to me - I'm going to take it out on you anyway.
In the meantime, I'm deleting all entries that have any personal information in them. I've changed passwords and blocked the gmail and hotmail morons and I may, yet again, change email accounts.
Moving onward, because I can't figure out what happened. An excellent article I'm re-posting from TruthOut.
The Death Penalty Is Not Pro-Life
By Marjorie Cohn
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Monday 12 December 2005
In 1960, California Governor Edmund G. "Pat" Brown agonized about whether to grant clemency to death row inmate Caryl Chessman. Brown's refusal to commute Chessman's sentence haunted him for the rest of his life. He reversed 23 death judgments in the last 7 years of his term. Ronald Reagan, who defeated Brown in the 1966 gubernatorial election, used the death penalty as a weapon to unseat the incumbent governor.
Twenty years later, Rose Bird, one of the greatest chief justices ever to serve on the California Supreme Court, lost her confirmation election largely because of the way she voted in death penalty cases. In all 64 capital cases that came before her during her tenure, Bird voted to overturn every one. Her court as a whole reversed 61. Some of Bird's supporters advised her to affirm just one death verdict in order to win confirmation. Bird refused. She said, "It is easy to be popular. It is not easy to be just."
Republican Governor George Deukmejian and President Ronald Reagan both campaigned against Bird. "The defeat of Rose Bird was significant because it created a new danger in [California], the danger of politicizing a judicial branch that had not previously been subject to political pressures," Court of Appeals Justice J. Anthony Kline observed. Reagan's opposition to judges who "save the lives of killers" helped him in his bid for the presidency.
The fate of Stanley Tookie Williams now rests in the hands of California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. The governor is damned if he does and damned if he doesn't spare Williams's life. On the one hand, Schwarzenegger is under pressure from right-wing Republicans to refuse clemency. But there's also high-profile pressure on him in California to grant clemency and prove his campaign claims that he really is a moderate.
When Schwarzenegger denied clemency to Donald Beardslee, the governor was the subject of a mighty backlash in his native Austria, which has outlawed the death penalty. And he must deal with his conscience, much like Pat Brown did in 1960. Schwarzenegger said the Beardslee decision was "the hardest day" of his life.
If ever there was a condemned man who deserved clemency, Williams is the one. A co-founder of the Crips gang, Williams has undergone a remarkable transformation in the 24 years he has been in prison. The author of several children's books that decry gang violence (65,000 have been sold to schools and libraries), Williams has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.
In 1993, Williams videotaped a message from death row supporting a truce between the Crips and the Bloods. He said, "Working together, we can put an end to this cycle that creates deep pain in the hearts of our mothers, our fathers, and our people, who have lost loved ones to this senseless violence." The videotape was shown during a peace summit meeting attended by over 400 gang members. If Schwarzenegger refuses Williams's plea, what message will it send to our children?
By granting clemency to Williams, Schwarzenegger would affirm the ideal of rehabilitation he claims to favor. A governor's pardon of Williams would signal that people can be redeemed, that mercy, not just retribution, is a worthy goal. "I have a despicable background," Williams said. "I was a criminal. I was co-founder of the Crips. I was a nihilist. But people forget that redemption is tailor-made for the wretched."
But even if Schwarzenegger pardons Stanley Tookie Williams, we must ask ourselves if we want to continue to engage in the state-sponsored killing of our people. "The reason to oppose capital punishment," the Los Angeles Times wrote in a recent editorial, "has to do with who we are, not who death row inmates are. The death penalty is inappropriate in all situations because it is unbefitting of a civilized society. Williams' case, though poignant, is irrelevant to this argument."
As it deliberates the nomination of Judge Samuel Alito, the Senate must also deal with what it means to be "pro-life." Alito, who claims to be pro-life when it comes to abortion, is pro-death when it comes to the death penalty.
During his tenure on the Court of Appeals, Alito has shown little solicitude for death row inmates bringing habeas corpus petitions, particularly claims based on ineffective assistance of counsel and racial discrimination in jury selection. His positions in these cases run contrary to recent Supreme Court decisions emphasizing the importance of both race-neutral jury selection and constitutionally adequate counsel.
In 2001, Alito voted to affirm the death judgment of an African-American man convicted by an all-white jury in Delaware. The prosecutor had struck all prospective African-American jurors from the jury pool. That same prosecutor had struck every prospective African-American juror in 3 other capital murder trials in the same county during the prior year. When Alito refused to infer racial discrimination from that pattern, he said, flippantly, "Although only about 10% of the population is left-handed, left-handers have won five of the last six presidential elections ... But does it follow that the voters cast their ballots based on whether a candidate was right- or left-handed?"
A majority of the full court accused Alito of "minimiz[ing] the history of discrimination against prospective black jurors and black defendants."
Stanley Tookie Williams, an African-American, was also convicted and sentenced to death by a jury cleansed of all prospective African-American jurors by the prosecutor, based on the testimony of paid police informants. Williams maintains his innocence.
If confirmed as a Supreme Court justice, Alito would have a powerful influence over whether many of our citizens live or die. In the past 5 years, the Court decided only 3 cases concerning abortion, but over 3 dozen involving the death penalty.
Capital cases are complex and often laden with error. A recent study at Columbia University found that 67 percent of death penalty cases had been reversed for serious constitutional error. Recurring features in these cases include prosecutorial or police misconduct; the use of unreliable witness testimony, physical evidence, or confessions; and inadequate defense representation. There is a growing number of cases where DNA or other evidence has proved conclusively that death row inmates are factually innocent. In some cases, that evidence has surfaced too late - after innocent people have already been executed.
The United States is the only industrialized Western democracy that still executes its citizens. In 2004, 97 percent of all known executions took place in China, Iran, Vietnam and the United States. Several major international human rights treaties eschew the death penalty. None of the 3 international criminal tribunals - the International Criminal Court, the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia, and the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda - permit the death penalty as a sentencing option for the most heinous of crimes over which they have jurisdiction.
Scientific studies have consistently failed to find convincing evidence that that the death penalty deters crime more effectively than other punishments, according to Amnesty International.
"The deliberate institutionalized taking of human life by the state is the greatest conceivable degradation to the dignity of the human personality," US Supreme Court Justice Arthur L. Goldberg wrote in a 1976 article in the Boston Globe. We must not be a society that rewards the meanest judges and elected officials. Let us choose and affirm life, not death.
I was answering comments this morning and noticed I'm missing entries and parts of entries. What the heck happened? Massive blog failure or something? Anyone else having this problem?
ETA:
7:40 am
This is crazy; what's missing or chopped up makes no sense.
I swear the internet gods hate me. Email fubars are constant and now this?
Word to the wise: back up whatever you want to keep.
Lieberman hasn't been right in the head since he ran for VEEP.
Remember Connecticut. Remember.
| You Have a Melancholic Temperament |
 Introspective and reflective, you think about everything and anything. You are a soft-hearted daydreamer. You long for your ideal life. You love silence and solitude. Everyday life is usually too chaotic for you. Given enough time alone, it's easy for you to find inner peace. You tend to be spiritual, having found your own meaning of life. Wise and patient, you can help people through difficult times. At your worst, you brood and sulk. Your negative thoughts can trap you. You are reserved and withdrawn. This makes it hard to connect to others. You tend to over think small things, making decisions difficult. |
How Kinky Are You?
Is it good or bad that I'm only 10% kinky?
Are You Buddha?
Apparently I am 100% Buddha. My Catholic Grandmother is rolling in her grave.
Are you Good or Evil?
I'm an Archangel. Which might be the funniest thing I've read all day. Thanksgiving was better than I thought.
How Caffinated Are You?
I'm only 60% caffinated. I must be having a really mellow day.
And, there should be an option for Dunkin Donuts.
The Funny Personality Test
I got to the end and couldn't figure out what was supposed to be funny. I'm a brilliant loner according to those losers. I wouldn't mind dating the sad looking guy in the picture at the end of the test though.
America: The Fundamentalist Invasion
By Philippe Boulet-Gercourt
Le Nouvel Observateur
Thursday 17 November 2005 edition
These reactionaries who judge in God's name.
They're in the White House, already control the Senate, the House of Representatives, and the Supreme Court. Today, the ultras of the extreme religious right also want to stuff their own men into the whole judicial apparatus.
Are you a Minimalist? A Strict Constructionist? Or an Evolutionist then, a partisan of a "living Constitution?" If you find yourself scratching your head with perplexity, welcome to the club of 99.9% of Americans who understand none of these questions. If not, perhaps you were present at the annual Federalist Society dinner last Thursday in Washington. In which case, you will surely have heard Karl Rove's speech. After weeks of silence, all devoted to avoiding an indictment in "Plamegate," the White House guru chose this association to make a much-noted reappearance. The Federalist Society? A select and powerful club of jurists among whom a few leftists are numbered for appearances' sake, but which, in fact, finds itself at the heart of the most important conservative crusade of the Bush presidency: a complete takeover of the judicial system.
The choice of Karl Rove was no accident. He came to dinner with Leonard Leo, the association's vice president, who has just taken a seven month leave to help confirm conservatives to the Supreme Court. Leo is part of a group nicknamed "the four horsemen" that organizes a telephone conference every Monday with the White House. Karl Rove often participates in it. There, the latest news about the campaign to stuff the federal bench with reactionaries is exchanged. It's a longterm campaign, begun in the 1980s by Edwin Meese, Ronald Reagan's Attorney General and one of the "four horsemen."
Now, today, these men are close to achieving their objective: Republican appointees control ten of the thirteen federal courts, a number that should increase to 12 in 2008. As of today, according to the "National Law Journal," close to 85% of Appeals Court judges will have been chosen by Republicans. The jackpot is obviously the Supreme Court, where, after John Roberts's confirmation as Chief Justice, hard-line Republicans are about to obtain a solid majority with the nomination of Samuel Alito, an eminent member ... of the Federalist Society.
Why this obsession on the right? After all, the Republicans already control the Presidency, the Senate, and the House of Representatives and they've named six of the nine judges on the Supreme Court. To justify their relentlessness, the conservatives advance a convenient explanation which they've polished to a fine luster over the years. America is victim to "judicial imperialism" on the part of judges transformed into "robed legislators," as Rove repeated last Thursday. Bush, for his part, does not miss any opportunity to denounce those magistrates who "legislate from the bench" instead of "strictly" applying the Constitution, all the Constitution, nothing but the Constitution.
In its unrefined populist version, this criticism denounces unelected leftist judges who dare to contradict the vox populi. For example, the decision by the Ninth Court of Appeal to prohibit the recitation of the Pledge of Allegiance in public schools because it contained the words "under God." This decision could have provoked a legal debate worthy of the name. Not only because these two words "under God" were added in 1954 - right in the middle of the McCarthyite hysteria - to counter Communism, but also because the Constitution explicitly interdicts "the establishment of a religion." The actual debate over this judgment - later invalidated - provoked a torrent of criticism, some even suggesting the Ninth Court of Appeals be castrated by limiting its authority to California only.
A second, more recent example: the courts' decision with regard to Terry Schiavo, the Florida women living in a vegetative state whose husband wanted to "unplug" her. The law was so clear that "when Terry Schiavo finally died March 31, the Appeals Courts had decided more than twenty times against the Schindlers [Terry's parents, who wanted to keep her alive]," writes Catherine Crier, author of a virulent book about the right's offensive against the courts. [1] "During this whole affair, the courts resisted the efforts of the Florida legislature, Congress, Governor Bush and President Bush to violate the Constitution." In other words: the conservative right respects the letter of the law ... except when judges' decisions go against what it demands or it decrees to be the desire of the majority.
More subtlely, the fundamentalists' theoretical justification is defended at the Supreme Court by Judge Scalia, Judge Thomas, and, if he is confirmed by the Senate, Judge Alito. Their philosophy: in its interpretation by judges, the Constitution must mean exactly what it meant at the moment of its ratification. No more, no less. At first blush, the idea of ridding this admirable text of all posthumous political interpretation can only seduce, and one understands why Bush placed his judicial offensive under the sign of "objectivity." But in reality, the rigidity of the fundamentalists is a decoy - or rather, a convenient fig leaf for these ultra-reactionaries. In their style, fundamentalists such as Scalia are models of intolerance. They reduce their critics to the ranks of "cretins" and their hatred for evolutionists - those who think that the Constitution is a living organ the interpretation of which must necessarily evolve over the centuries - is equal only to "Creationists'" hostility to Darwin. Their stict reading of the Constitution "finds a parallel in the literal interpretation of the Koran or the Bible," remarks Cass Sunstein, author of the best book on this radical crusade. [2] And the consequences of their philosophy are potentially terrifying.
In his book, Professor Sunstein imagines some of them: holding to the letter of the Constitution, states can prohibit the sale of contraceptives; key elements in the laws against pollution or work accidents would be unconstitutional; the federal government could discriminate on the basis of race or gender; the individual states in the union could establish official churches; the president could dispose of enlarged powers to detain persons suspected of terrorism or suspected of having helped them; significant dispositions of laws like the Clean Water or Endangered Species Acts, and maybe even civil rights, would no longer be within the purview of the Federal government; even the most modest laws controlling firearms would no longer be valid. Add to this list the right to abortion which, according to Scalia & Co., has no basis in the Constitution.
Fundamentally, this literal reading is as abusive as a myopic reading of sacred texts. One more example: Antonin Scalia - like Karl Rove last Thursday - has declared himself to be scandalized by a recent Supreme Court decision prohibiting the execution of convicts who were minors at the time they committed their crime. According to Scalia, the only real question is whether the execution of a minor was considered "cruel and unusual" - therefore prohibited - at the time when the Bill of Rights was ratified. The idea that judges should take into consideration the fact that such execution is today prohibited or fallen into disuse in practically all the states of the union or that the United States remains one of the only countries in the world to execute minors is, in his eyes, an error - worse, a heresy!
Another example: the separation of Church and State. The Constitution is unclear on this issue, as Judge Sandra O'Connor acknowledged when she exclaimed: "It's hard to draw the line!" Precisely, Scalia objects, "why should the Supreme Court purport to draw a line that is impossible to define if the Constitution doesn't demand it? Why not authorize religious manifestations in any public place?" In reality, the Constitution never purported to compete with the Ten Commandments. It's not a timeless law engraved in marble. A number of its formulations - like the prohibition on "cruel and unusual" punishments - are deliberately hazy, susceptible to interpretation by the following generations, and, moreover, it's this flexibility, this simplicity that provides its genius. During the lifetime of the Founding Fathers, Constitutional interpretational was already a rich and intense activity. In 1802, for example, Thomas Jefferson insisted on the fact that the Constitution established a "wall of separation between Churh and State ..."
The supposed objectivity of the fundamentalists and the ideologues of the right, in fact, covers up a much more sinister ambition. It's a question of imposing reforms that the majority of Americans don't want through the judiciary. Catherine Crier revisits recent polls and shows that two thirds of citizens do not want to see "Roe versus Wade" (the famous decision on abortion) annulled. On euthanasia, gun control, or stem cell research, Americans profess to equally moderate positions. Therefore, for the religious right, the only way to impose its views remains the judicial route. Hence its monomaniacal, obsessive relentlessness, up until now crowned with success.
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[1] Contempt. How the Right Is Wronging American Justice, by Catherine Crier (Rugged Land: 2005).
[2] Radicals in Robes. Why Extreme Right-Wing Courts Are Wrong for America, by Cass Sunstein (Basic Books: 2005).
Translation: t r u t h o u t French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.
Wag the Dog
By Michael T. Klare
TomDispatch.com
Tuesday 15 November 2005
Crisis scenarios for deflecting attention from the President's woes.
In the 1998 movie Wag the Dog, White House spinmeister Conrad Brean seeks to deflect public attention from a brewing scandal over an alleged sexual encounter in the White House between the president and an all-too-young Girl Scout-type by concocting an international crisis. Advised by a Hollywood producer (played with delicious perversity by Dustin Hoffman), Brean "leaks" a fraudulent report that Albania has acquired a suitcase-sized nuclear device and is seeking to smuggle it into the United States. This obviously justifies an attention-diverting military reprisal. The press falls for the false report (sound familiar?) and all discussion of the president's sex scandal disappears from view - or, as Brean would have it, the "tail" of manufactured crisis wags the "dog" of national politics.
As Brean explains all this to the White House staff in the film, American presidents have often sought to distract attention from their political woes at home by heating up a war or crisis somewhere else. Now that the current occupant of the White House is facing roiling political scandals of his own, it stands to reason that he, too, or his embattled adviser Karl Rove (not to speak of his besieged Vice President, Dick Cheney) may be thinking along such lines. Could Rove - today's real-life version of Conrad Brean - already be cooking up a "wag the dog" scenario? Only those with access to the innermost sanctum of George Bush's White House can know for sure, but it is hardly an improbable thought, given that they have done so in the past.
It bears repeating that this administration - more than any other in recent times - has employed deception and innuendo to mold public opinion and advance its political agenda. Indeed, the very scandal now enveloping the White House - the apparent conspiracy to punish whistle-blower Joseph Wilson by revealing the covert CIA identity of his wife, Valerie Plame - is rooted in the President's drive to mobilize support for the invasion of Iraq by willfully distorting Iraqi weapons capabilities. Why then would he and his handlers shrink from exaggerating or distorting new intelligence about other hostile powers, and then using such distortions to ignite an international crisis?
Add to this the fact that a rising level of belligerence is already detectable in the statements of top administration officials regarding potential adversaries in the Middle East and Asia. Most striking perhaps was Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's truculent appearance before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on October 19. Under questioning from both Democratic and Republican Senators, she refused to rule out the use of military force against Syria or Iraq, nor would she acknowledge any presidential obligation to consult Congress before engaging in such an action. Asked by Senator Paul Sarbanes (Dem.-MD) whether the administration actually "entertains the possibility of using military action against Syria or against Iran" and "could undertake to do that without obtaining from Congress an authorization for such action," she replied: "What I said is that the President doesn't take any of his options off the table and that I will not say anything that constrains his authority as Commander in Chief." While insisting that the administration was still relying on diplomacy to resolve its differences with Syria and Iran, she left no doubt as to Bush's preparedness (and right) to employ force at any time or place of his choosing.
There are many who claim that Bush could not possibly contemplate military action against Iran, Syria, or any other hostile power at present. American forces, they argue, are stretched to the limit in Iraq and so lack the capacity to undertake a significant campaign in another country. At the very least, these analysts overlook the massive American air and naval capabilities hardly engaged in Iraq, and certainly available for use elsewhere. But this is not the point. As Wag the Dog suggested, war itself is not the only way to distract public attention from the President's domestic woes. An atmosphere of crisis in which rumors of war or preparations for war come to overshadow all else might well do the trick - and administration officials don't need fresh armies to accomplish this, only plausible scenarios for the escalation of existing foreign troubles. These, unfortunately, are all too easy to find.
What then are the most promising scenarios at hand for such a purpose? Many such scenarios might be envisioned, but the most credible ones - barring a major new terrorist attack on the United States - would entail a military showdown with Syria, Iran, or North Korea.
The Syria Option
Syria appears the most likely candidate for an instant stir-and-mix foreign-policy crisis. To start with, it has already been branded a pariah state - both because of its suspected involvement in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri and because the Bush administration regularly charges it with facilitating the entry of foreign jihadists into Iraq.
The issue of Syrian involvement in Hariri's assassination arose immediately following the February 14, 2005 bomb explosion that killed him (and 22 others) in downtown Beirut. Because Hariri had long campaigned for the withdrawal of Syrian forces from Lebanon, his supporters insisted that Damascus must have played a role in the explosion. The United States and Great Britain persuaded the UN Security Council to initiate an investigation of the explosion. A preliminary report by the international team formed to investigate, released on October 24, strongly suggested that Syrian officials had played a key role in organizing the attack. Washington and London then returned to the Security Council on October 31and pushed through a resolution that calls on the Syrian government to cooperate fully with the continuing investigation and make available for questioning any of its top officials suspected of involvement. This resolution also warns of unspecified "further action" - an obvious threat of economic sanctions - if Syria fails to comply. The ante was raised further on November 7, when UN investigators requested interviews with six top Syrian officials, including General Assef Shawkat, the powerful brother-in-law of President Bashar al-Assad.
From the very beginning, the White House has seized on these developments to portray Syria as an outlaw state and set the stage for a diplomatic assault on the Assad regime. Condoleezza Rice has been particularly harsh. After the October 31 resolution was adopted, for instance, she declared, "With our decision today, we show that Syria has isolated itself from the international community - through its false statements, its support for terrorism, its interference in the affairs of its neighbors, and its destabilizing behavior in the Middle East." Then came the clincher: "Now the Syrian government must make a strategic decision to fundamentally change its behavior."
What changes must the Syrian government make? What are the consequences if it fails to comply? There are no clear answers to these questions, nor are there likely to be any. The intent, so far as can be determined, is not to reach some sort of peaceful resolution of this issue but rather to keep Damascus, and the rest of the world, on edge, expecting some new crisis at any moment. This strategy - "rattling the cage," as it's known in Washington - was reportedly adopted by senior aides to President Bush at an October 1st meeting at the White House. According to the New York Times, this strategy entails putting relentless pressure on the Assad regime, forcing it to make humiliating concessions to Washington (thus weakening it domestically) or face increasingly severe reprisals from Washington and its allies
The public face of this assault is the diplomatic campaign being waged by Condoleezza Rice and her associates at the Department of State. The Department of Defense, meanwhile, is conducting the dark side of this campaign, involving nothing short of a covert, low-level military campaign against Syria, including commando raids by Iraqi-based US forces into Syrian territory. These raids - first reported by the New York Times in October - are supposedly intended to impede efforts by Iraqi insurgent forces or foreign jihadists to use Syria as a staging point for forays into Iraq. Undoubtedly, however, they constitute but another component of the "rattling the cage" strategy, designed to keep the Assad regime off balance, tempting or provoking it into clashes with American forces that would only provide a justification for further escalations of the attacks.
It is easy to see how this could lead to something closer to the outbreak of full-scale military hostilities with Syria or, more likely, escalating air and missile attacks. Indeed, military analyst William Arkin of the Washington Post reports that the Pentagon has already commenced full-scale planning for such contingencies. "US intelligence agencies and military planners [have] received instructions to prepare up-to-date target lists for Syria and to increase their preparations for potential military operations against Damascus," he observed recently. Such operations could include "cross-border operations to...destroy safe havens supporting the Iraqi insurgency" as well as "attacks on the regime of Syria's President Bashar al-Assad." Attacks of this type could be mounted at any time, and should be considered highly likely if Damascus rebuffs UN efforts to compel testimony by its senior officials or if conditions worsen in Iraq (as is likely).
The standoff between the United States and Syria has already been ratcheted up to dangerous levels and could be intensified even further in the weeks ahead if Assad refuses to turn over his brother-in-law and other top officials for questioning (and possible arrest) by the UN investigating team. Under these circumstances, it would be all too easy for the White House to create a brink-of-war environment in Washington, possibly by stepping up commando raids on the Iraq-Syrian border or by threatening to bomb terrorist "sanctuaries" inside Syria. Even if such strikes were merely hinted at, discussion of a possible war with Syria would monopolize media coverage of the White House and so deflect attention from the President's political woes.
The Iran Option
After Syria, the ongoing imbroglio over Iran's nuclear activities represents the most promising option for a "wag the dog" scenario. This dispute has approached moments of acute crisis before, only to subside following a concession by one side or another - and this could certainly happen again. At present, however, a very serious confrontation appears to be in the offing. While long in the making, the current standoff with Iran hasn't been eased any by that country's new president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who seems to be prone to making inflammatory statements. (Israel, he said recently, "must be wiped off the map.") Nonetheless, the primary issue is Iran's apparent determination to engage in nuclear activities viewed in Washington as indicative of a covert Iranian drive to manufacture nuclear weapons. Here, a bit of background is useful.
Iran is a signatory of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and, in accordance with the treaty, has asserted its right to build nuclear power plants and to construct the infrastructure needed to "enrich" natural uranium - that is, increase the proportion of the fissionable isotope U-235 - for use in its reactors. Over the years, however, Iran has violated its NPT obligations by building uranium enrichment facilities out of sight of inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). These facilities include a plant to convert uranium ore into a gas, uranium hexaflouride (UF6), that can be introduced into high-speed centrifuges which separate U-238 from the lighter U-235, allowing for the gradual accumulation of "enriched" uranium - the raw material for both power reactors and, in highly enriched form, nuclear weapons. The Iranians insist that they want the enriched material for peaceful purposes only; but their concealment of these efforts in the past leads easily to speculation that they ultimately seek to accumulate highly-enriched uranium for a future Iranian bomb.
The Bush administration has already made up its mind on this subject: "Iran [has] concealed a large-scale, covert nuclear weapons program for over eighteen years," then Undersecretary of State (and now UN Ambassador) John R. Bolton asserted on August 17, 2004. "The costly infrastructure to perform all of these [enrichment] activities goes well beyond any conceivable peaceful nuclear program," he added. "No comparable oil-rich nation has ever engaged, or would be engaged, in this set of activities - or would pursue them for nearly two decades behind a continuing cloud of secrecy and lies to IAEA inspectors and the international community - unless it was dead set on building nuclear weapons."
Despite such American assertions, the IAEA and the international community have not reached a consensus on Iran's ultimate intentions. The IAEA has, however, repeatedly stated that Iran is in violation of its obligations to fully disclose all nuclear-related activities and to abstain from actions that could lead to the manufacture of nuclear weapons. In 2003, a "trio" of European Union nations - Britain, France, and Germany - secured an agreement from Teheran to temporarily suspend uranium enrichment activities while negotiations were under way for a permanent suspension in exchange for a package of EU economic benefits. But neither these negotiations, nor repeated IAEA warnings, have fully halted Iranian enrichment programs. Now, the Bush administration is calling for an IAEA resolution that would find Iran in full breach of its NPT obligations and refer the matter to the UN Security Council for possible actions which could include the imposition of economic and other sanctions.
At a meeting on Sept 24, the IAEA Board of Governors formally held Iran in breach of its NPT obligations, but did not immediately refer the matter to the Security Council, presumably to leave more room for negotiations. President Ahmadinejad, however, has since rejected the IAEA resolution, and Iran subsequently announced the resumption of UF6 production in a strong rebuke to the EU trio. Meanwhile, Washington has stepped up its efforts to persuade other states that Iran is determined to acquire nuclear weapons. A showdown is likely in late November or early December, when the IAEA Board next convenes.
Were this matter to be sent to the United Nations, it is unlikely that harsh sanctions would be imposed as Russia and China, both allied to Iran, sit on the Security Council and possess veto power over any vote. What then might the White House do if Iran announces the full-scale resumption of nuclear enrichment activities? Under such circumstances, a military strike against nuclear facilities in Iran has to be considered a genuine possibility. After all, President Bush has already declared that the United States will not "tolerate" the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran, a clear expression of his willingness to employ military force. In addition, as early as last January, Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker magazine that US Special Operations Forces units were already conducting secret forays into Iranian territory to pinpoint the location of hidden nuclear installations in preparation for any future decision to launch an attack.
Here again, the kindling exists for a full-blown international crisis. Although the European trio along with Russia and China are determined to avoid a military confrontation with Iran, the Bush administration clearly feels no such inhibitions. It has already laid the groundwork for air and missile strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities and has refused - in Condoleezza Rice's phrase - to take any "options off the table." Even the strong hint of an impending assault on Iran would probably push crude oil prices to stratospheric levels and invite anger and concern around the world, but this may not be enough to deter Bush and his advisers from initiating such a crisis if they saw no other way to boost the President's approval ratings.
The North Korean Option
Although less appealing than the Syrian or Iranian options, a scenario entailing possible conflict with North Korea is also likely to be on any White House list of future provocations. This scenario is less appealing than the others because everyone knows that an all-out conflict with North Korea would probably produce a horrendous bloodbath and might even trigger first an Asian economic, and then a global, economic meltdown. Any move to crank up such a crisis to dangerous levels would also meet with fierce resistance from China, Russia, South Korea, and the rest of the international community. At the same time, however, North Korea has long been branded an outlaw state and its nuclear-weapons activities are far more advanced than anything conceivably under way in Iran. The Defense Department also possesses a very robust air, ground, and naval presence in the region, so a confrontation on the Korean Peninsula need not even require the redeployment of American forces from Iraq - as would presumably be the case in a war scenario involving Syria or Iran.
North Korea is believed to have begun a secret nuclear weapons program after the end of the Korean War. However, under the so-called Agreed Framework of 1994, it pledged to cease all such activities in return for a basket of economic and political incentives from the United States and its allies. Both sides complied with some aspects of the agreement but balked at others. The Clinton administration was well on its way toward resolving these inconsistencies when George W. Bush assumed the presidency in early 2001.
Soon after taking office, Bush foreclosed any serious diplomatic contact with the North Koreans and froze many of America's obligations under the Agreed Framework. In his 2002 State of the Union address, he included North Korea in his famed "axis of evil." In response, the North Koreans announced that they were no longer bound by the Agreed Framework and had resumed their work on the manufacture of nuclear weapons. Rather than deal with Pyongyang directly on such critical nuclear-proliferation matters, the White House insisted than any future negotiations had to be conducted on a multilateral basis. China subsequently agreed to convene "six-party" talks - involving the United States, Japan, Russia, the two Koreas, and itself - for this purpose.
At a September meeting of the six-party group, the North Koreans finally agreed to abandon their nuclear-weapons activities but only in return for significant economic benefits from the other parties and non-aggression assurances about an American attack. In subsequent statements, Pyongyang indicated that any such step would be predicated as well on a promise by the other participants to supply them with a light-water nuclear reactor (that could only be used for generating electricity). The United States has since ruled out any commitment of this sort, but has suggested that various incentives might be provided once North Korea commenced the irreversible dismantlement of its nuclear-weapons program.
At this point, there is reason to believe that a peaceful resolution of the dispute is within reach. China and South Korea have worked hard to promote a constructive stance on Pyongyang's part, but it is a situation that could turn sour again in a diplomatic instant. As if to highlight that possibility, the United States has recently bolstered its military capabilities in the area - sending fifteen F-117 "stealth" bombers and other advanced weapons to South Korea and announcing other efforts aimed at isolating North Korea.
The Bush administration has many levers it could pull should a decision be made to provoke a fresh confrontation with North Korea. No doubt this would prove unpopular with China and South Korea, along with most of the rest of the world, but it would be guaranteed to produce a crisis atmosphere in Washington and so distract attention from escalating Presidential problems at home. As a result, it cannot be excluded as a potential wag-the-dog scenario.
Minus a microphone (or a leaker) in the Oval Office, it is impossible for outsiders to determine what attention-grabbing scenarios President Bush, his Vice President, and his closest advisers might be discussing at the moment. To some extent, the state of play will be shaped as well by the unpredictable actions of foreign leaders, especially the leaders and chief aides of Syria, Iran, and North Korea. But if past White House behavior is any indication, we can safely assume that the President's men are considering every option for turning these foreign crises into a compelling distraction from the administration's current political malaise. They have already shown by their decisions in Iraq that they are prepared to spill a lot of blood in pursuit of political advantage, and so the possibility that a contrived crisis with Syria, Iran, or North Korea might erupt into something much greater - even a full-scale war or economic meltdown - may be unlikely to deter them from a wag-the-dog maneuver.
In case you missed it:
This Isn't the Real America
By Jimmy Carter
The Los Angeles Times
Monday 14 November 2005
In recent years, I have become increasingly concerned by a host of radical government policies that now threaten many basic principles espoused by all previous administrations, Democratic and Republican.
These include the rudimentary American commitment to peace, economic and social justice, civil liberties, our environment and human rights.
Also endangered are our historic commitments to providing citizens with truthful information, treating dissenting voices and beliefs with respect, state and local autonomy and fiscal responsibility.
At the same time, our political leaders have declared independence from the restraints of international organizations and have disavowed long-standing global agreements - including agreements on nuclear arms, control of biological weapons and the international system of justice.
Instead of our tradition of espousing peace as a national priority unless our security is directly threatened, we have proclaimed a policy of "preemptive war," an unabridged right to attack other nations unilaterally to change an unsavory regime or for other purposes. When there are serious differences with other nations, we brand them as international pariahs and refuse to permit direct discussions to resolve disputes.
Regardless of the costs, there are determined efforts by top US leaders to exert American imperial dominance throughout the world.
These revolutionary policies have been orchestrated by those who believe that our nation's tremendous power and influence should not be internationally constrained. Even with our troops involved in combat and America facing the threat of additional terrorist attacks, our declaration of "You are either with us or against us!" has replaced the forming of alliances based on a clear comprehension of mutual interests, including the threat of terrorism.
Another disturbing realization is that, unlike during other times of national crisis, the burden of conflict is now concentrated exclusively on the few heroic men and women sent back repeatedly to fight in the quagmire of Iraq. The rest of our nation has not been asked to make any sacrifice, and every effort has been made to conceal or minimize public awareness of casualties.
Instead of cherishing our role as the great champion of human rights, we now find civil liberties and personal privacy grossly violated under some extreme provisions of the Patriot Act.
Of even greater concern is that the US has repudiated the Geneva accords and espoused the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, and secretly through proxy regimes elsewhere with the so-called extraordinary rendition program. It is embarrassing to see the president and vice president insisting that the CIA should be free to perpetrate "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment or punishment" on people in US custody.
Instead of reducing America's reliance on nuclear weapons and their further proliferation, we have insisted on our right (and that of others) to retain our arsenals, expand them, and therefore abrogate or derogate almost all nuclear arms control agreements negotiated during the last 50 years. We have now become a prime culprit in global nuclear proliferation. America also has abandoned the prohibition of "first use" of nuclear weapons against nonnuclear nations, and is contemplating the previously condemned deployment of weapons in space.
Protection of the environment has fallen by the wayside because of government subservience to political pressure from the oil industry and other powerful lobbying groups. The last five years have brought continued lowering of pollution standards at home and almost universal condemnation of our nation's global environmental policies.
Our government has abandoned fiscal responsibility by unprecedented favors to the rich, while neglecting America's working families. Members of Congress have increased their own pay by $30,000 per year since freezing the minimum wage at $5.15 per hour (the lowest among industrialized nations).
I am extremely concerned by a fundamentalist shift in many houses of worship and in government, as church and state have become increasingly intertwined in ways previously thought unimaginable.
As the world's only superpower, America should be seen as the unswerving champion of peace, freedom and human rights. Our country should be the focal point around which other nations can gather to combat threats to international security and to enhance the quality of our common environment. We should be in the forefront of providing human assistance to people in need.
It is time for the deep and disturbing political divisions within our country to be substantially healed, with Americans united in a common commitment to revive and nourish the historic political and moral values that we have espoused during the last 230 years.
It takes a while to load:
Geograghy Test.
On the US test I got all but one wrong. Damn Nebraska!
Well, not a lot of information anyway:
After a week of nightly disturbances that have left hundreds of cars and buses torched, and several buildings burned down, the horns echoing off the concrete walls of grim housing projects sounded a broader alarm. The spreading violence has lifted the lid on an ugly stew of poverty, discrimination, and desperation amongst immigrant-descended families that most French citizens have long preferred to ignore.
The outburst of violence, pitting youths throwing stones and Molotov cocktails against riot police, erupted after two teenagers in the nearby suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois - apparently hiding from the police - died by electrocution.
That incident, says social worker Michèle Lereste, "crystallized the hatred" that some of the most disaffected and hopeless young men living in what the government calls "sensitive urban zones" feel toward authority.
In these 751 zones that the government has designated for special programs, unemployment stands at 19.6 percent - double the national average - and at more than 30 percent among 21- to 29- year-olds, according to official figures. Incomes are 75 percent below the average.
The world is divided into the have's and have nots. I'm reminded of Charles Dickens' warning to humanity. Beneath the robes of Christmas Present hid two small children:
'Spirit, are they yours?' Scrooge could say no more.
'They are Man's,' said the Spirit, looking down upon them. 'And they cling to me, appealing from their fathers. This boy is Ignorance. This girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased. Deny it!' cried the Spirit, stretching out its hand towards the city. 'Slander those who tell it ye! Admit it for your factious purposes, and make it worse! And abide the end!'
'Have they no refuge or resource?' cried Scrooge.
'Are there no prisons?' said the Spirit, turning on him for the last time with his own words. 'Are there no workhouses?'
The bell struck twelve.
Scrooge looked about him for the Ghost, and saw it not. As the last stroke ceased to vibrate, he remembered the prediction of old Jacob Marley, and lifting up his eyes, beheld a solemn Phantom, draped and hooded, coming, like a mist along the ground, towards him.
