Web / Press / Offsite Media Updates: June 13th - June 20th

by merrrrovinngññgnivonjans Sun Jun 20, 2004 14:49

FG councillors told to form local coalitions
12:09 Sunday June 20th 2004 Sunday Independent update.
Fine Gael has told its councillors around the country to enter a coalition with the Labour, the Greens and Independents. Several councils controlled by Fianna Fáil for decades could swing to rainbow or "civic alliances" after a weekend of political trading. Seven local authorities look likely to be controlled by a Fine Gael-Labour partnership while a further five are expected to be ruled by a civic alliance of the two parties with and the Greens and independents.
**********
Rainbows have previously acted to draw the important left tradition of stickydom into the mainstream Labour Party. Those rainbows went "right". This next stage will see if FG can act as centrist check on the FF/PD block. It is a crucial stage for comhaontas glas.
There will be at the end of this stage, a short exam, with reading comprehension, and the post general election opportunity to develop pact, and multi-party common ground at the other end of the rainbow.

by redjade Sun Jun 20, 2004 13:27

Letting Go
1: The Contradiction
Stepping Back, Staying Put
By Sarah Sewall

The inherent risk of owning Iraq dissuaded the first Bush administration from pushing U.S. forces on to Baghdad during the 1991 Gulf War. The elder Bush was a pragmatic internationalist, and his realpolitik foreign policy was tinted with an understated sense of noblesse oblige toward the rest of the world. He avoided the trap into which the United States so often falls -- adopting the rhetoric of wild aspirations that makes Americans feel good but carries expectations and responsibilities with it. His son has yet to learn this lesson. The president's foreign policy is brimming with missionary conviction and grand design. Inspired by the vision of a city on a hill, the Iraq invasion was stripped of the commitment and flexibility needed to realize it. The consequences of this unsettling combination are coming home to roost.

Sarah Sewall, project director at Harvard's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, was deputy assistant secretary of defense for peacekeeping during the Clinton administration.

by redjade Sun Jun 20, 2004 12:49

Show Us the Proof

Published: June 19, 2004

When the commission studying the 9/11 terrorist attacks refuted the Bush administration's claims of a connection between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, we suggested that President Bush apologize for using these claims to help win Americans' support for the invasion of Iraq. We did not really expect that to happen. But we were surprised by the depth and ferocity of the administration's capacity for denial. President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have not only brushed aside the panel's findings and questioned its expertise, but they are also trying to rewrite history.

Mr. Bush said the 9/11 panel had actually confirmed his contention that there were "ties" between Iraq and Al Qaeda. He said his administration had never connected Saddam Hussein to 9/11. Both statements are wrong.

[....]

The message, if we hear it properly, is that when it comes to this critical issue, the vice president is not prepared to offer any evidence beyond the flimsy-to-nonexistent arguments he has used in the past, but he wants us to trust him when he says there's more behind the screen. So far, when it comes to Iraq, blind faith in this administration has been a losing strategy.

by redjade Sun Jun 20, 2004 12:32

Thousands of ethnic Kurds are pushing into lands formerly held by Iraqi Arabs, forcing tens of thousands of them to flee to ramshackle refugee camps and transforming the demographic and political map of northern Iraq.

The Kurds are returning to lands from which they were expelled by the armies of Saddam Hussein and his predecessors in the Baath Party, who ordered thousands of Kurdish villages destroyed and sent waves of Iraqi Arabs north to fill the area with supporters.

The new movement, which began with the fall of Mr. Hussein, appears to have quickened this spring amid confusion about American policy, along with political pressure by Kurdish leaders to resettle the areas formerly held by Arabs. It is happening at a moment when Kurds are threatening to withdraw from the national government if they are not confident of having sufficient autonomy.

In Baghdad, American officials say they are struggling to keep the displaced Kurds on the north side of the Green Line, the boundary of the Kurdish autonomous region. The Americans agree that the Kurds deserve to return to their ancestral lands, but they want an orderly migration to avoid ethnic strife and political instability.

But thousands of Kurds appear to be ignoring the American orders. New Kurdish families show up every day at the camps that mark the landscape here, settling into tents and tumble-down homes as they wait to reclaim their former lands.
The Kurdish migration appears to be causing widespread misery, with Arabs complaining of expulsions and even murders at the hands of Kurdish returnees. Many of the Kurdish refugees themselves are gathered in crowded camps.

American officials say as many as 100,000 Arabs have fled their homes in north-central Iraq and are now scattered in squalid camps across the center of the country. With the anti-American insurgency raging across much of the same area, the Arab refugees appear to be receiving neither food nor shelter from the Iraqi government, relief organizations or American forces.

by redjade Sun Jun 20, 2004 12:21

From the June 17 broadcast of The Radio Factor with Bill O'Reilly, one of the most popular conservative media personalities in the USA...

O'REILLY: Because look ... when 2 percent of the population feels that you're doing them a favor, just forget it, you're not going to win. You're not going to win. And I don't have any respect by and large for the Iraqi people at all. I have no respect for them. I think that they're a prehistoric group that is -- yeah, there's excuses.

Sure, they're terrorized, they've never known freedom, all of that. There's excuses. I understand. But I don't have to respect them because you know when you have Americans dying trying to you know institute some kind of democracy there, and 2 percent of the people appreciate it, you know, it's time to -- time to wise up.

And this teaches us a big lesson, that we cannot intervene in the Muslim world ever again. What we can do is bomb the living daylights out of them, just like we did in the Balkans. Just as we did in the Balkans. Bomb the living daylights out of them. But no more ground troops, no more hearts and minds, ain't going to work.

[...]

They're just people who are primitive.
------
link: http://mediamatters.org/items/200406180005

listen to mp3: http://mediamatters.org/static/audio/oreilly-20040616.mp3 (300k)

by footie. Sat Jun 19, 2004 20:28

some weeks ago in a Sunday Papers I suggested one of the proof of the puddings of Civilisation might be games of international football that give weaker teams a victory. It's good for morale. In the interim we saw excellent games bewteen Barca and Celtic, Ireland and surrey (cricket) and then the present round of EU footie began.
Great. All the traditionally strong teams are drawing. Except for the English. They quite maliciously beat the Swiss to my mind, especially since the Helvatians had been so nice to the Croats.
Today France drew with Croatia and Germany drew with Lithuania. ra ra ra!
This means loads of Croats are happy, and loads of Lithuanians are happy. They need lots to be happy about.

¿can English football do the same?
¿does a leopard change it's spots?

by anonymous Sat Jun 19, 2004 20:22

Bush.
a CIA man publishes his book "Imperial Hubris" in which he warns that current US strategy is _exactly_ what Al Q wants, in that it provokes fullband confrontation with Islam "in the name of spreading democracy".
oh yeah-
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1242639,00.html

by redjade Sat Jun 19, 2004 14:10

Bush Knew About Leak of CIA Operative's Name
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/printer_4629.shtml

Witnesses told a federal grand jury President George W. Bush knew about, and took no action to stop, the release of a covert CIA operative's name to a journalist in an attempt to discredit her husband, a critic of administration policy in Iraq.

Their damning testimony has prompted Bush to contact an outside lawyer for legal advice because evidence increasingly points to his involvement in the leak of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak.

The move suggests the president anticipates being questioned by prosecutors. Sources say grand jury witnesses have implicated the President and his top advisor, Karl Rove.

by redjade Sat Jun 19, 2004 13:39

.... "1984," published four yea s later, had even greater success. Orwell w s fatally ill with pulmonary tuberculosis when e wrote it, and he died in January, 1950. He w s forty-six.

The revision began almost immediately. Frances Stonor Saunders, in her fascinating study "The Cultural Cold War," reports that right after Orwell's death the C.I.A. (Howard Hunt was the agent on the case) secretly bought the film rights to "Animal Farm" from his widow, Sonia, and had an animated-film version produced in England, which it distributed throughout the world. The book's final scene, in which the pigs (the Bolsheviks, in Orwell's allegory) can no longer be distinguished from the animals' previous exploiters, the humans (the capitalists), was omitted. A new ending was provided, in which the animals storm the farmhouse where the pigs have moved and liberate themselves all over again. The great enemy of propaganda was subjected, after his death, to the deceptions and evasions of propaganda—and by the very people, American Cold Warriors, who would canonize him as the great enemy of propaganda.


Howard Hunt at least kept the story pegged to the history of the Soviet Union, which is what Orwell intended. Virtually every detail in "Animal Farm" allegorizes some incident in that history: the Kronstadt rebellion, the five-year plan, the Moscow trials, the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, the Tehran conference. But although Orwell didn't want Communism, he didn't want capitalism, either. This part of his thought was carefully elided, and "Animal Farm" became a warning against political change per se. It remains so today.

by redjade Sat Jun 19, 2004 13:29

How compatible with Islam is the Internet? Are there contradictions with Islam going online?

Dr. Gary R.Bunt:
It depends how you define ‘Islam’. According to some Muslim scholars, there is no incompatibility with Islam as a religion and the Internet, but it does depend on the purpose and intent for which the media is applied. There has been resistance to the Internet from some quarters, but this has often been tempered by pragmatism: whilst some community authorities and leaders were opposed to the Internet, Muslims within their communities were using computers. There is now a generation – in some contexts – which has grown up using computers, for business, leisure, and education. So, it would be a contradiction if Muslims were not online. Many diverse Muslim perspectives have found no contradiction with going online. It has been an ideal networking tool between dispersed communities. The Qur’an was available online in the early days of the Internet. The concept of knowledge development and communication has a high place in Muslim cultures. The Prophet Muhammad stated: “Seek knowledge even as far as China”. The Internet could be seen as an extension of that quest. It has to be noted that access to the Internet – whilst improving in many Muslim majority contexts – is still relatively low.

Dr. Gary R.Bunt has written two successful books, Virtually Islamic and Islam in the digital age, and maintains a popular and informative site centred on his research http://VirtuallyIslamic.Com

rest of the interview at
http://www.threemonkeysonline.com/threemon_article.php?id=67

by redjade Sat Jun 19, 2004 13:23

July 1 is the deadline for the United Nations to renew for a third year a resolution that exempts U.S. troops in U.N.-sponsored peacekeeping missions from any charges in the International Criminal Court. Secretary General Kofi Annan counts himself among those opposing such a renewal:

"I think it would be unfortunate for one to press for such an exemption, given the prisoner abuse in Iraq. I think in this circumstance it would be unwise to press for an exemption, and it would be even more unwise on the part of the Security Council to grant it."

by redjade Sat Jun 19, 2004 12:14

A new report from Human Rights First (the new name of the Lawyers Committee for Human Rights) outlines the scope of the global network of U.S. detention facilities holding suspects in the "war on terror." The report lists more than two dozen facilities that have been reported by Human Rights First sources and the media; at least half of these operate in total secrecy.

In addition to listing known detention facilities – including prisons at Guantanamo Bay, Bagram Air Force Base, and Abu Ghraib – the report, "Ending Secret Detentions" provides an accounting of U.S. military detention facilities reported in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Jordan, and aboard U.S. ships at sea (see attached list).

"The abuses at Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib cannot be addressed in isolation," said Deborah Pearlstein, the Director of Human Rights First's U.S. Law and Security Program. "The United States government is holding prisoners in a secret system of off-shore prisons beyond the reach of adequate supervision, accountability, or law."

http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/media/2004_alerts/0617.htm

Download the report:
http://www.humanrightsfirst.org/us_law/PDF/EndingSecretDetentions_web.pdf

by redjade Sat Jun 19, 2004 11:33

Forgive Me, I was Wrong on Iraq

by Tom Frame

As the only Anglican bishop to have publicly endorsed the Australian Government's case for war, I now concede that Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction. It did not pose a threat to either its nearer neighbours or the United States and its allies. It did not host or give material support to al-Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

by redjade Sat Jun 19, 2004 11:28

Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday defeated a Democratic-sponsored effort to subpoena documents on torture and interrogation practices from the Justice Department.

The 10 to 9 vote reflected the mounting partisan rancor over the abuse of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison and whether U.S. officials condoned harsh interrogation practices on prisoners in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The vote came a day after the Senate unanimously voted, without debate, to add a provision to a defense spending bill that the United States should abide by anti-torture laws and international treaties. But even that vote reflected the controversy over what practices are acceptable.

The voice vote without debate allowed lawmakers to keep to themselves their views on whether torture is justified and when. In interviews, though, some senators said torture may sometimes be acceptable.

"I think it is unwise for us to try to announce in concrete the absolute limits of the military in wartime," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., who taught refresher courses on the Geneva Convention to military police.

by redjade Fri Jun 18, 2004 18:56

GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- By their own admission, Americans are largely uninformed about the network of 25 countries that now comprise the European Union, or EU, as it is widely called. A landmark Gallup Poll testing U.S. public knowledge of the EU finds a remarkably high number -- 77% -- admitting they know very little or nothing about the organization. Only 3% claim to know a great deal about it. Furthermore, relatively few Americans -- just 20% -- correctly assess the population of EU nations relative to that of the United States, saying the EU is "larger."

by redjade Fri Jun 18, 2004 17:10

enjoy Get Your War On?
http://www.mnftiu.cc

Have a Feed Reader?
( try http://bloglines.com )

now there's a RSS feed for the cartooon - trly a gift to humanity!
http://www.interglacial.com/rss/get_your_war_on.rss

by redjade Fri Jun 18, 2004 17:05

By Thomas B. Edsall
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, June 17, 2004; Page A01

Since locking up the Democratic nomination on March 2, Sen. John F. Kerry
(D-Mass.) has raised more than $100 million, or over $1 million a day -- a
pace breaking all presidential campaign records, including those set by
President Bush.

The Kerry campaign announced the figures yesterday, before filing with the
Federal Election Commission later this week. The disclosure shows that Kerry
led Bush in fundraising from March through May almost 2 to 1: $100.4 million
to Bush's $55.2 million. In May alone, Kerry raised $26 million compared
with $13.2 million by Bush, according to calculations by CNN that Bush
officials described as accurate.

Throughout the campaign, however, Bush has outraised Kerry by an estimated
$214 million to $145 million, according to FEC records and data released by
the Kerry campaign.

by redjade Fri Jun 18, 2004 16:50

From the NYTimes:

A federal grand jury in North Carolina on Thursday indicted a contractor employed by the Central Intelligence Agency who is accused of kicking and beating a detainee over two days at a military base in Afghanistan last June. The detainee died the next day.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/18/politics/18DETA.html

but go here to read the full analysis of what's going...
http://www.kathryncramer.com/wblog/archives/000631.html

by stick'a bush Fri Jun 18, 2004 16:02

What is this bastid up to?
Italy, France, ireland within a month.
Someone's got a plan...
Increased security at Shannon - gives you some ideas what we can expect
http://ryanair.com/press/2004/adv/snn-en-150604.html

by redjade Fri Jun 18, 2004 13:25

The Plain Truth

New York Times Editorial
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0617-08.htm

It's hard to imagine how the commission investigating the 2001 terrorist attacks could have put it more clearly yesterday: there was never any evidence of a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda, between Saddam Hussein and Sept. 11.

Now President Bush should apologize to the American people, who were led to believe something different.

[....]

Mr. Bush is right when he says he cannot be blamed for everything that happened on or before Sept. 11, 2001. But he is responsible for the administration's actions since then. That includes, inexcusably, selling the false Iraq-Qaeda claim to Americans. There are two unpleasant alternatives: either Mr. Bush knew he was not telling the truth, or he has a capacity for politically motivated self-deception that is terrifying in the post-9/11 world.

by romance always has little bits of hurt. Fri Jun 18, 2004 13:21

will it then be called a prison?
or a ghetto?
will we then be safe from each other?

The moat will destroy 125 kilometers of Palestinian farm land.
"it will secure Isreal".
Some day, Sharon will have built his prison, and within those walls, will be hundreds of thousands of people mostly arabs, with no farmland, no houses, no work, no hope of work, no schools, no future.
They will naturally live happily ever after, and not be in any way problematic.

go to the link and learn about the International Solidarity Movement
that organises peace observers.

where she is standing is now a wall, allow Sharon go on, it will also be a fifteen metre deep Sea Water moat. Maybe then polite U.S. ecologists will protest.

by kissy wissy. Fri Jun 18, 2004 13:11

By David Landau and Akiva Eldar of Isreal's Haaretz daily.
excerpt:-
"Arafat is ready to sign an agreement that would give Palestinians 97 per cent of the West Bank and Gaza - with the rest in a land swap, and the right of return of not all, but at least some refugees. In a free-ranging interview with Haaretz, conducted in the carefully preserved ruins of the Muqata, the PA Chairman also spoke of the historical family bonds between the two peoples.

"Definitely," says Yasser Arafat, waving his arm for emphasis. He definitely understands and accepts that Israel must be, and must stay, a Jewish state. The Palestinians "accepted that openly and officially in 1988 at our Palestine National Council," and they remain completely committed to it. Thus, the refugee problem needs to be solved in a way that will not change the Jewish character of the state. That is "clear and obvious."

read all at the link.

by redjade Fri Jun 18, 2004 13:08

The Senate voted without dissent yesterday to require the Bush administration to issue guidelines aimed at ensuring humane treatment of prisoners at U.S. military facilities and to report any violations promptly to Congress.

But, as it plunged into the controversy over abuse of detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison and whether interrogation methods were sanctioned by U.S. officials, the Senate balked at a Democratic proposal to bar interrogation by private contractors, who have been accused of involvement in the Abu Ghraib scandal.

It also rejected another Democratic proposal to make it a crime, punishable by as many as 20 years in prison and substantial fines, to engage in war profiteering. Instead, the Senate approved a Republican alternative extending two anti-fraud criminal statutes to cover overseas business operations.

by romantic fiction writer Fri Jun 18, 2004 13:04

In 1940, 12-year-old Cuban boy Fidel Castro wrote to US President Franklin Roosevelt to request a $10 note.
see links.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3808431.stm
http://portada.terra.com.ar/canales/internacionales/92/92081.html
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/pls/impreso/noticia.html?id_nota=229044&tabla=notas

Now coz the best romantic fiction gives both sides equal treatment this is a link to Castro's latest long speech, which came out of Havana the same day. (you know how these things go)
http://barcelona.indymedia.org/newswire/display/97810/index.php

by redjade Fri Jun 18, 2004 11:56

add your caption at...
http://www.drmenlo.com/samizdat/2004_06_13_archive.html#108754327623099837

by woohoo Thu Jun 17, 2004 19:45

Nicolas Sarkozy, France's finance minister, has given up any immediate privatisation of EdF and Gaz de France, the electricity and gas utilities, in a further concession to mounting union protests against any change to these state entities.

by 23 Thu Jun 17, 2004 17:32

Weapons that can incapacitate crowds of people by sweeping a lightning-like beam of electricity across them are being readied for sale to military and police forces in the US and Europe.

At present, commercial stun guns target one person at a time, and work only at close quarters. The new breed of non-lethal weapons can be used on many people at once and operate over far greater distances.

But human rights groups are appalled by the fact that no independent safety tests have been carried out, and by their potential for indiscriminate use.

by redjade Thu Jun 17, 2004 16:13

One of Europe's largest minority, the gypsies, will finally have a member in the European Parliament after Hungarians elected former radio announcer turned anthropologist Livia Jaroka on Sunday.

Gyspies, also known as Roma, officially number around five million in the enlarged 25-member European Union, with many living in sub-standard conditions across the continent.

Prior to Sunday's election, the 15-member European Parliament in Strasbourg had no Roma deputies.

"My goal is to put central European but primarily Hungarian gypsy concerns on the European political agenda," Jaroka, a 30 year-old mother of one, is quoted as saying on her Fidesz party's website.

"Unemployment remains the biggest problem, but we must also urgently do away with gypsy slums and improve access to education," added Jaroka, a conservative former radio announcer who is finishing her doctorate at the University College of London.

by redjade Thu Jun 17, 2004 16:06

Raucous bar scene emerges in Baghdad's green zone

By Jim Krane, Associated Press, 6/16/2004 14:27

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) The job of occupying Iraq means hardship and long hours and sometimes a game of Risk over a hookah and a few beers.

In a city where few people drink, Baghdad's sealed-off green zone counts at least seven bars, including a Thursday night disco, a sports bar, a British pub, a rooftop bar run by General Electric, and a bare-bones trailer-tavern operated by the contractor Bechtel.

Only employees of the occupation are welcome in most of them. U.S. troops ejected a reporter from the basement sports bar a few months ago, at the instance of Coalition Provisional Authority employees drinking inside.

The plushest tavern is the CIA's rattan furnished watering hole, known as the ''OGA bar.'' OGA stands for ''Other Government Agency,'' the CIA's low-key moniker.

The OGA bar has a dance floor with a revolving mirrored disco ball and a game room. It is open to outsiders by invitation only. Disgruntled CPA employees who haven't wangled invites complain that the CIA favors women guests.

An American government worker said the British residents are especially keen to drink. A joke running through the green zone says that British officials overseeing construction of their new embassy are giving highest priority to opening the embassy pub.

by 23 Thu Jun 17, 2004 13:43

Make your own Pirate Radio Station with an iPod
http://www.engadget.com/entry/3597373383872462/

First, to become your own pirate broadcast station you’ll need to increase the range and signal of your iTrip mini. Turns out, there is an antennae built inside the iTrip mini. All you need to do is remove the top sticker-like protection which hides the antennae and then using tweezers or your fingernail, pull the antennae out. We’ve found a 20% to 30% increase of range on average. This likely voids the warranty, so there, we said it.....

Posted Jun 15, 2004, 11:
iTrip Antenna Schematics
http://thewolfweb.com/photo_photo.aspx?user=13314&photo=182313

The iTrip looks like a pretty well designed mini-transmitter, however if broadcasting more than 10 feet is your goal, you might check out the venerable FM-10C from Ramsey Electronics. It's a kit, so it requires a bit of soldering (but is easy enough that a beginner could do it), but is easily modified and easily accepts an external antenna that will greatly extend range.
http://www.mediageek.org/archives/002289.html

FM-10C from Ramsey Electronicshttp://www.ramseyelectronics.com/cgi-bin/commerce.exe?preadd=action&key=FM10C

Make a pirate radio station in your purse
Steps 1-6...
http://irish.typepad.com/irisheyes/2004/06/make_a_pirate_r.html

by 23 Thu Jun 17, 2004 13:28

Bluntly contradicting the Bush administration, the commission investigating the Sept. 11 attacks reported Wednesday there was ``no credible evidence'' that Saddam Hussein helped al-Qaida target the United States.

In a chilling report that sketched the history of Osama bin Laden's network, the commission said his far-flung training camps were ``apparently quite good.'' Terrorists-to-be were encouraged to ``think creatively about ways to commit mass murder,'' it added.

Bin Laden made overtures to Saddam for assistance, the commission said in the staff report, as he did with leaders in Sudan, Iran, Afghanistan and elsewhere as he sought to build an Islamic army.

While Saddam dispatched a senior Iraqi intelligence official to Sudan to meet with bin Laden in 1994, the commission said it had not turned up evidence of a ``collaborative relationship.''

The Bush administration has long claimed links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida, and cited them as one reason for last year's invasion of Iraq.

On Monday, Vice President Dick Cheney said in a speech that the Iraqi dictator ``had long established ties with al-Qaida.''

by 23 Thu Jun 17, 2004 13:25

By Jim Miklaszewski
Correspondent
NBC News

Pentagon officials tell NBC News that late last year, at the same time U.S. military police were allegedly abusing prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld ordered that one Iraqi prisoner be held "off the books" — hidden entirely from the International Red Cross and anyone else — in possible violation of international law.

It’s the first direct link between Rumsfeld and questionable though not violent treatment of prisoners in Iraq.

The Iraqi prisoner was captured last July as deadly attacks on U.S. troops began to rise. He was identified as a member of the terrorist group Ansar al Islam, suspected in the attacks on coalition forces.

Shortly after the suspect’s capture, the CIA flew him to an undisclosed location outside Iraq for interrogation. But four months later the Justice Department suggested that holding him outside Iraq might be illegal, and the prisoner was returned to Iraq at the end of October.

That’s when Rumsfeld passed the order on to Army Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, commander of U.S. troops in Iraq, to keep the prisoner locked up, but off the books.

by 23 Thu Jun 17, 2004 13:19

Michael Ratner
The following is an excerpt from the book Guantanamo: What the World Should Know by Michael Ratner and Ellen Ray...

The Red Cross has said one of the most psychologically devastating things happening to people in Guantanamo is the notion that they have reached a dead end, that there is no way out. The psychological harm is horrendous. In fact, one of the threats employed to make prisoners in Iraq talk, even after they had been subjected to abuse and torture, was to threaten them with going to Guantanamo, because everyone understood that there was little or no chance of ever getting out of there. About one in five of the prisoners have been put on antidepressants, psychotropics, and other drugs. In addition to hunger strikes, there have been more than thirty suicide attempts. Guantanamo is like Dante's ninth circle of hell. The temperature is often 110 degrees Fahrenheit, and of course the prisoners have no such thing as air conditioning. The place is infested by scorpions and banana rats. The detainees sleep on concrete floors, with no mattresses; the toilet is a hole in the ground. It is a horrific situation from a physical, psychological, and legal point of view.

Unfortunately, we have very limited information as to precisely what is happening at Guantanamo, and there will always be dangerously cynical arguments about whether certain conduct is literally torture or whether it is simply cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. But both are abhorrent and contrary to the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions. We don't have any real observers in Guantanamo. The Red Cross goes there, but its people cannot examine the interrogation rooms, which are separate and secret. The Red Cross has made clear that their inability to speak publicly on this issue should not be taken to mean that torture is not happening there.

by pat c Thu Jun 17, 2004 12:12

A sheriff has ridiculed the Tourism Minister Frank McAveety as he cleared two anti-war protestors of terrorising him in the street.
Mr McAveety said he had felt the "worst intimidation in his life" while canvassing on Glasgow's south-side. Sheriff Graeme Warner said the Labour MSP "must live a very sheltered life".

School teacher Nicola Fisher, 32, was found not guilty and John Harper, 33, not proven of causing a breach of the peace and harassing Mr McAveety.

Glasgow Sheriff Court heard the incident took place in the Govanhill area of the city last April.

Full story at:

Sheriff Warner said the Labour MSP had "completely blown his credibility" by claiming intimidation

by iosaf +++ Thu Jun 17, 2004 11:05

To coincide with Bloomsday, the Holy See, a.k.a. the Vatican, a.k.a. the Roman Catholicke Church, has finally come clean on its use of sanctioned torture with a 783 page report examining the use of physical force during the Inquisition.
varying reactions-
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3214,36-369172,0.html
http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0616inquisition16.html
http://www.iht.com/articles/525118.html
The Holy Bunch are holding the line, (described by the International Herald Tribune as a _downsizing_ of the Inquisition) that torture was not as widespread as thought, and that not so many witches were burnt after all.

by - Wed Jun 16, 2004 17:19

denies rift with PD

by - Wed Jun 16, 2004 17:16

The possibility of censoring the internet, or establishing a code of practise, in many ways similar to the publishing guidelines and editorial policy of indymedia, runs into problems under US law.
The US First Amendment guarantees the right to citizens there to offer internet users everywhere most, I repeat, I have long repeated most, of the hate, anti-semite, racist, xenophobic and extreme right websites.
I call it "dixie".
They call it "free speech".
We are to measure it in detiorating social and intercultural conditions in Europe, increased terrorism and a return to the dark dark past.



http://www.liberation.fr/page.php?Article=215631

by i Wed Jun 16, 2004 17:11

after yesterdays delegation to ease Jewish immigration to Israel which prompted perhaps an inflammatory response from "Maariv", today the French see a two day conference with EU security entities to strategise stemming anti-semitism and xenophonbia.
The "Jewish Refugee story":-
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3226,36-369196,0.html
The focus on Racism and the internet:-
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-3226,36-369192,0.html
The OSCE are meeting in Vienna Austria and are hoping for "guidelines to be set".

The geopolitical situation and the most appaling government and leadership that continental Europe and the Middle East have been offered in recent years, means that this problem really is much greater and much more _widespread_ than any had thought.

by feeling the most horrid duty to speak and ascribe protest to - the daily yet more sickening abomination unleashed on minds these last years. Wed Jun 16, 2004 16:51

the USA thought to ignore the world and set up what we can only call "camp X", and in doing so cause so many people in the civilised world to think again on death camps, torture camps, concentration camps, the gulags.
And then without respite we were drawn into the ranks of the complicit, our strongest defeneders the Americans were and are to be excused torture, snuff videos appear, the worst of human experience becomes commonplace evening time TV.

What did they do to our own perception of civilised values?

Todays addition to the over brimming cup of abomination-
An investigator charged with sorting out spying allegations against a Syrian interpreter working in Guantanamo Bay, a man accused of helping to "open up the story there" has been charged with with raping and sodomizing children, some as young as 11 years old, on numerous occasions, and with mishandling classified documents.

Are we to be desythnesised from even voicing protest against war, by daily being yet more and more disgusted by the revealations of what is going on?

by pat c Wed Jun 16, 2004 16:38

Attorney for Steven Kurtz says FBI is 'zeroing in' on anti-bioterrorism spending message


An art professor who uses biotechnology to make performance art displays criticizing capitalism will appear in front of a federal grand jury in Buffalo today (June 15) to face possible bioterrorism charges.

Steven Kurtz is an associate professor at the Buffalo campus of the State University of New York. He came under suspicion on May 11 after he called 911 early in the morning to report that his wife had died in her sleep, from what authorities later said was heart failure.

Kurtz is controversial because of his membership in the Critical Art Ensemble (CAE), a tiny group of artists nationwide who build biotechnology arts projects with a political message. Neither for nor against biotechnology in general, according to its web site, the group advocates "contestational biology" – opposition to the belief that "the 'free' market always works in the public interest by saving us from environmental, health, and population problems."



Full story at:

by iosaf - background noise and warning signs Tue Jun 15, 2004 12:57

This is in response to increased anti-Semitism in France. Anti-semitism in France is worryingly high, and extends to both jew and arab. This last weekend a muslim cemetary was desecrated in Strassbourg.
http://libe.com/page.php?Article=195004&Template=GALERIE&Objet=12689
The plans are being compared (perhaps very foolishly) by the Right Wing Israeli daily "Maariv" (which is a very useful barometer of right wing Israeli and Global Jewish opinion), to operation Solomon which evacuated Jews from Ethopia in 1991.

I suggest this is a sign of a deteriorating situation. It is odd, as the traditional "extreme right" in France did not noticably fair better in constitutional democratic representation either at the most recent Euro Elections or the Municipal elections held some months ago. However the shock advances by ultra right politicians in neighbouring Belgium this last weekend has got the Francophone European world "Quite worried". This is why referenda such as Mc Dowell's are so terribly sensitive and ought be avoided if at all possible. The news that the fringe Irish population have "filled a loophole" has set the genuinely racist continentals running to emulate.

I hope this does not signal dark days ahead.

by skinny me iosaf Tue Jun 15, 2004 12:41

Super Size Me is a great documentary which follows 30 days of writer/director/cine blogger Morgan Spurlock, has he eats only Mc Donalds food. He eventually stopped on doctor's orders, and with an impressive 14 kilogrammes extra, which made him more like Michael Moore in appearance than the svelt Virginian his mother had raised.

Mc Donalds withdrew their "super size" portions in March, and today will launch a global advert campaign, including cinemas, explaining to people "basically"
You Can't Eat Our Shit everyday, and onyl eat our shit as part of a well balanced diet.

It really is such a pity that most US citizens and most British people do not have well balanced diets. This is why they are obese.
It might just have somthing to do with the market penetration of burger corps as well....

pass the mayonaise.

MC D responds:-
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2004/06/13/1087065034025.html?oneclick=true

by redjade Tue Jun 15, 2004 06:33

Since Fort Carson units began coming home in April, post recruiters have met only 57 percent of their quota for re-enlisting first-term soldiers for a second hitch, according to an Army report.

More disturbing, recruiters say, is they're re-enlisting only 46 percent of the quota for "mid-career" noncommissioned officers. These are the young sergeants with four to 10 years of experience who are the backbone of the Army - its skilled soldiers, mentors and future senior NCOs.

[....]

"We've gone from an unmarried Army to a married Army. These guys have come back from Iraq now, but you tell them they're going back within a year, and the wives are raising hell," said Dennis McCormack, a retired helicopter pilot who served in Vietnam and Desert Storm.

Fort Carson isn't alone with sharp re-enlistment drops during the past 90 days. According to Army figures:

• At Fort Bragg, N.C., home of the 82nd Airborne Division, recruiters have met 65 percent of their goal of first-termers and 80 percent of the goal for mid-career soldiers.

• At Fort Riley, Kan., whose 1st Brigade, 1st Infantry Division remains deployed in Iraq, re-enlistments are off sharply. Recruiters have signed only 50 percent of its quota for first-term re-enlistees, and 57 percent for mid-career soldiers.

• Across the Army's massive III Corps, which includes Fort Hood's 4th Infantry and 1st Cavalry divisions as well as Fort Carson's combat units, only 51 percent of first-termers and 54 percent of the mid-career soldiers are signing up.

by redjade Tue Jun 15, 2004 04:48

Lessons on how to fight terror
September 19, 2001

A message from the United Kingdom: Don't torture. Don't shoot boys who throw stones. And don't imagine for a moment that there is any guarantee of success.

By Andrew Brown

This may sound like hand-waving, but it has one immediate practical consequence: Don't use torture. Torture is the crack cocaine of anti-terrorism because, for a while, it works. The terrorists will certainly use it. But everyone tries it. The Brits did it in Northern Ireland, the Israelis use it on the Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority uses it on Palestinians too. The French, in their Algerian war against terrorism in the 1950s, turned it into an instrument of policy. But the price is higher than a democracy can pay. Either the people who have to do the torture are sickened, and spread their disillusion throughout society (this is what happened in France); or they are not sickened. They come to enjoy it; and then you have lost the values that you are fighting for. Either way, after a time, it stops working. The Russians in Chechnya can torture all they like. They still can't win the war there.

by redjade Tue Jun 15, 2004 04:46

A Moral Chernobyl
Prepare for the worst of Abu Ghraib.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Monday, June 14, 2004, at 1:46 PM PT


In a recent public debate, so I was told, an American officer referred to the Abu Ghraib scandal as a "moral Chernobyl." You might think that this was overstating matters, even if in one important sense—because Chernobyl was morally an accident, albeit in some ways a "systemic" one—it is actually understating them.

But get ready. It is going to get much worse. The graphic videos and photographs that have so far been shown only to Congress are, I have been persuaded by someone who has seen them, not likely to remain secret for very long. And, if you wonder why formerly gung-ho rightist congressmen like James Inhofe ("I'm outraged more by the outrage") have gone so quiet, it is because they have seen the stuff and you have not. There will probably be a slight difficulty about showing these scenes in prime time, but they will emerge, never fear. We may have to start using blunt words like murder and rape to describe what we see. And one linguistic reform is in any case already much overdue. The silly word "abuse" will have to be dropped. No law or treaty forbids "abuse," but many conventions and statutes, including our own and the ones we have urged other nations to sign, do punish torture—which is what we are talking about here at a bare minimum.

by redjade Mon Jun 14, 2004 20:50

Without any public hearing or debate, NEWSWEEK has learned, Defense officials recently slipped a provision into a bill before Congress that could vastly expand the Pentagon's ability to gather intelligence inside the United States, including recruiting citizens as informants.

[....]

....Among those pushing for the provision, sources say, were officials at northcom, the new Colorado-based command set up by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to oversee "homeland defense." Pentagon lawyers insist agents will still be legally barred from domestic "law enforcement." But watchdog groups see a potentially alarming "mission creep." "This... is giving them the authority to spy on Americans," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies, a group frequently critical of the war on terror. "And it's all been done with no public discussion, in the dark of night."

by redjade Mon Jun 14, 2004 20:15

SENATOR LEAHY: I would assume that you would carry out your responsibilities; you swore a solemn oath to do so. But does your answer mean that there has or has not been any order directed from the president with respect to interrogation of detainees, prisoners or combatants?

ASHCROFT: The president of the United States has not ordered any activity which would contradict the laws enacted by this Congress or previous Congresses...

LEAHY: Not quite my...

ASHCROFT: ... or the Constitution of the United States...

LEAHY: Mr. Attorney General, that was not my question.

(CROSSTALK)

ASHCROFT: ... or any of the treaties.

LEAHY: That was not my question.

Has there been any order directed from the president with respect to interrogation of detainees, prisoners or combatants, yes or no?

ASHCROFT: I'm not in a position to answer that question.

LEAHY: Does that mean because you don't know or you don't want to answer? I don't understand.

ASHCROFT: The answer to that question is yes.

LEAHY: You don't know whether he's issued such an order?

ASHCROFT: For me to comment on what I advise the president...

LEAHY: I'm not asking...

ASHCROFT: ... what the president's activity is is inappropriate if -- I will just say this: that he has made no order that would require or direct the violation of any law of the United States enacted by the Congress, or any treaty to which the United States is a party as ratified by the Congress, or the Constitution of the United States.

LEAHY: Well, it doesn't answer my question. But I think my time is up. We'll come back later.

by redjade Mon Jun 14, 2004 20:00

The New York Times writes:

In his recent trip to Rome, President Bush asked a top Vatican official to push American bishops to speak out more about political issues, including same-sex marriage, according to a report in the National Catholic Reporter, an independent newspaper.

In a column posted Friday evening on the paper's Web site, John L. Allen Jr., its correspondent in Rome and the dean of Vatican journalists, wrote that Mr. Bush had made the request in a June 4 meeting with Cardinal Angelo Sodano, the Vatican secretary of state. Citing an unnamed Vatican official, Mr. Allen wrote: "Bush said, 'Not all the American bishops are with me' on the cultural issues. The implication was that he hoped the Vatican would nudge them toward more explicit activism."

Mr. Allen wrote that others in the meeting confirmed that the president had pledged aggressive efforts "on the cultural front, especially the battle against gay marriage, and asked for the Vatican's help in encouraging the U.S. bishops to be more outspoken." Cardinal Sodano did not respond, Mr. Allen reported, citing the same unnamed people.

more at
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_06_13.php#003064

by redjade Mon Jun 14, 2004 19:58

In an early test of its imminent sovereignty, Iraq's new government has been resisting a U.S. demand that thousands of foreign contractors here be granted immunity from Iraqi law, in the same way as U.S. military forces are now immune, according to Iraqi sources

The U.S. proposal, although not widely known, has touched a nerve with some nationalist-minded Iraqis already chafing under the 14-month-old U.S.-led occupation. If accepted by Prime Minister Ayad Allawi, it would put the highly visible U.S. foreign contractors into a special legal category, not subject to military justice and beyond the reach of Iraq's justice system.

The U.S. request, confirmed Sunday by Allawi's office, is one of a number of delicate issues revolving around government authority that will confront the incoming U.S. ambassador, John D. Negroponte, when Allawi's interim government assumes formal sovereignty June 30.

by redjade Mon Jun 14, 2004 19:23

Paleoclimatology is the study of climate prior to the widespread availability of records of temperature, precipitation and other instrumental data. NOAA is particularly interested in the last few thousand years because this is the best dated, best sampled part of the past climatic record and can help us establish the range of natural climatic variability in a period prior to global-scale human influence.

Environmental recorders are used to estimate past climatic conditions and thus extend our understanding far beyond the 100+ year instrumental record. "Proxy" records of climate have been preserved in tree rings, locked in the skeletons of tropical coral reefs, extracted as ice cores from glaciers and ice caps, and buried in laminated sediments from lakes and the ocean.

more at
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/primer.html

main website: Paleoclimatology Branch of the National Climatic Data Center
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/

by redjade Mon Jun 14, 2004 19:15

After resisting Siamese invaders for years, Cambodia's greatest city and civilization -- temple-studded Angkor -- was dealt a death blow with its final sacking in 1431.

Or, so say the history books.

But an international research team now thinks its demise was set much earlier, by something that is the bane of many modern urban societies -- ecological failure and infrastructure breakdown.

"They created ecological problems for themselves and they either didn't see it until it was too late or they couldn't solve it even when they could see it," said Roland Fletcher, an archaeologist working on the Greater Angkor Project.

Angkor city, the capital of several Hindu kings who ruled over large swaths of Southeast Asia, flourished from the 9th to the 14th centuries, leaving a legacy of architectural splendor in its myriad of temples, including the country's cultural icon, Angkor Wat.

Project members are working on the theory that Angkorians created an elaborate system of reservoirs and canals -- for irrigation, trade and travel -- that began to silt up as the population grew, and perhaps saw failures that caused flooding and water shortages.

by - Mon Jun 14, 2004 16:27

She's still at it. 2nd keynote speech in one day.
Just go away!
She's come to defend Mikey, and something about democracy or something, and 4 to 1 and swingfactor and just go away now.
she got her referendum. She obviously wants the attention.
Ok Mammy Harney, Minister for Trade and Commerce and Black Black Kettles, you enter the National Online Archive with your racist referendum. now stop making the keynote speeches. You're a very greedy lot over on the right wing fringe.

by enthusing for Europe. - Celtic Tigers go go go! Olé! You have presided the least democratically representative elections yet Mon Jun 14, 2004 13:59

has made a keynote speech at the opening of the German Marshall Fund.
She has done so as Minister for Enterprise, Trade, Employment and Kettles.
She has not done this as a woman of international geo-political stature. For it is an accident that Ireland has through a combination of factors presided the EU in the last crucial and historic six months.
This has meant more than one mediocre voice from the fringe population of Ireland, having to give _keynote_ speeches to other it must be ackowledged generally polite politicans, but thankfully it will all soon be over.
The Mammy Harney, addressed an institution set up in the immediate aftermath of WW2 to assist the nations of Europe in their reconstruction. Ireland received less money from this fund than any other European State. She has used the opportunity of greatness afforded her by chance, to re-affirm US/EU trade partnerships.

Please for the sake of archivists who daily have to go through reams and reams and gigabytes of this sort of stuff, someone quietly usher her (and her rightwing splinter group) off the Irish, European and World Stage.
:"oh it's monday I better repeat some clichés and seem important"
;"don't try using proverbs, Mary, and don't get moral"
http://www.eu2004.ie/templates/news.asp?sNavlocator=66&list_id=834

by iosaf - ( i live and write in my own world ) [it's alarmingly similar to the real one] {surreal eh?} Mon Jun 14, 2004 12:37

I sent Tony Blair (and the BHS) a coded message after the vote at the weekend,
http://www.indymedia.ie/newswire.php?story_id=65058#comment78111
http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2004/06/293226.html
and made reference to the 100 most influential people in Scotland. The "spin it bad the spin it good". The collapse of New Labour hands Engurland back to the Liberals. The success of the UKIP has meant judicious use of a TV personality has guaranteed the BNP dont have seats.
Still 83 Engurlanders were detained after proving that bad sportsmanship is still an peculiarly English reserve, when their team lost to France in extra time yesterday.

One of those 100 most influential people in Scotland took the Observer comment space to Tory backwoodsman grumble-
for the archive Malcolm Rifkind, former HMG minister for Defence, very pally with BHS on the current state of play the "annoyance of the UKIP" :-
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/politics/story/0,6903,1237617,00.html

by internautique iosaf. Mon Jun 14, 2004 12:04

Well done you citizens of the European Union, you have shown that aside from the mighty and powerful Malta, that you don't give a shit about participatory democracy.

Now before the tears begin, I suggest that fine young minds who have served their country and party in far off places, come home and use their proven abilities to reshape their party and country from a base in Dublin.

I think too many of the good minds of Ireland have avoided the immigration of poverty, curiousity, diasporia, brain drain or sheer desperation only to accept the gilded years of MEP jobbing, and to the _detriment_ of their Country and Party.

Will the Greens learn?
http://www.elections2004.eu.int/ep-election/sites/en/yourparliament/

by Rick Wilson Mon Jun 14, 2004 06:57 fgwilson at sbcgloba dot net

Explosive documentary "911: the Road to Tyranny" is now on the Internet Archive.
Alex Jones' explosive documentary "911: the Road to Tyranny" is now on the Internet Archive. With his hard-hitting documentary, Alex Jones drops the biggest bombshell since August 8, 1945, on America's criminal JUNTA! CLICK HERE!

http://www.archive.org/movies/details-db.php?collection=independent_news&collectionid=911theRoadtoTyranny