Anarchoblogs

News and views from around the web posted to the Wonderland Wire:

• The 10 Countries With The Highest Probability Of Default – Gregory White | Business Insider 15 June 2010
• UN Secret Detention Report (Part One): The CIA’s “High-Value Detainee” Program and Secret Prisons | Andy Worthington 15 June 2010
• Bakiyev’s son held in Britain: Kyrgyz officials | AFP 15 June 2010
• Nigeria threatens US oil firm with sanctions over spills | AFP 15 June 2010
• O’Reilly’s “immigrant crime wave” fraud – Eric Ruder | SocialistWorker.org 15 June 2010
• China’s US govt debt holdings hit 2010 high: Treasury | AFP 15 June 2010
• Mexico drug war attacks claim 43 lives in one day | AFP 15 June 2010
• Gibbs: Administration may seize claims processing | AP 15 June 2010
• Emails ‘prove BP systematically put safety at risk’ | Times Online 15 June 2010
• Why $1 Trillion May Thwart Afghanistan Dreams – Amity Shlaes | BusinessWeek 15 June 2010
• Honda China Workers Suspend Strike as Talks Continue | BusinessWeek 15 June 2010
• India Approves Coal India, Hindustan Copper Sales | BusinessWeek 15 June 2010
• New York Fed’s New Powers May Come With Less Autonomy | BusinessWeek 15 June 2010
• Through the Looking Glass: The Myth of Israeli Exceptionalism – Michael Gould-Wartofsky | Truthout 15 June 2010
• ‘Discovery’ of Afghan riches a pro-war PR scam? – Daniel Tencer | Raw Story 15 June 2010
• Human Trafficking Still Widespread, U.S. Included – Matthew Berger | IPS 15 June 2010
• China-EU Rivalry in Africa Sharpens – Antoaneta Becker | IPS 15 June 2010
• UN: wars slow refugee returns to record low | AP 15 June 2010
• Singapore Gets Wired for Speed | NY Times 15 June 2010
• Pakistan rejects report saying nation’s intelligence agency aids Afghan Taliban | WaPo 15 June 2010
• UN Human Rights Council Discusses Secret Detention Report | Andy Worthington 15 June 2010
• Gulf states not to back attack against Iran | Gulf News 15 June 2010
• Remember The Whole “China Is A Currency Manipulator” Brouhaha? It’s Back | zero hedge 15 June 2010
• State Dept Wants Own ‘Combat Force’ for Iraq | Antiwar.com 15 June 2010
• Gulf oil spill: BP faces $34bn in fines as Senate smashes estimates | The Guardian 14 June 2010
• US military to punish culprits behind toxic waste dumping in Iraq | Times Online 14 June 2010
• Mineral Wealth Estimate Excites Afghan Officials | NY Times 14 June 2010
• In Desperately Poor Rwanda, Most Have Health Insurance | NY Times 14 June 2010
• Kyrgyz Tensions Rooted in Class, Not Ethnicity, Experts Say | NY Times 14 June 2010
• The U.S. wins the right to abduct innocent people with impunity – Glenn Greenwald | Salon.com 14 June 2010
• Rates on Treasurys hit lowest level since January | AP 14 June 2010
• Governor Refuses to Free Man, Despite Son’s Efforts | NY Times 14 June 2010
• Minor Drug Offenses Need Not Lead to Deportation, Justices Rule | NY Times 14 June 2010
• Print Story: Dollar falls on strong European manufacturing data | AP 14 June 2010
• Spanish unions to announce general strike on Tuesday | AFP 14 June 2010
• India’s May inflation rises to 10.2 percent | AP 14 June 2010
• China rejects US criticism over currency policy | BusinessWeek 14 June 2010
• India sending troops to end Manipur tribal blockade | BBC News 14 June 2010
• Supreme Court eases restriction on prisoners’ appeals | McClatchy 14 June 2010
• History of BP and Its Role in 1953 Iran Coup | MWC 14 June 2010
• Canadian RCMP Conducting Criminal Investigation of U.S. and Syrian Officials for Maher Arar’s Rendition to Torture | Center for Constitutional Rights 14 June 2010
• Aftermath of Dubai Assassination: Israel Against Extradition of Suspected Mossad Agent to Germany | SPIEGEL ONLINE 14 June 2010
• Every 1% Drop In The Euro Can Destroy 5% Of A Chinese Manufacturer’s Profit – Vincent Fernando | Business Insider 14 June 2010
• Saudi Arabia Denies Reported Alliance With Israel Against Iran | Business Insider 14 June 2010
• Report: BP Hires Blackstone Group, Goldman Sachs To Defend Itself Against Takeover Attempts | Business Insider 14 June 2010
• Alleged Torture Victim Rebuffed by U.S. Supreme Court on Suit | BusinessWeek 14 June 2010
• Private Contractors and Covert Wars in Latin America – Cyril Mychalejko | truthout 14 June 2010
• Authorities in Kyrgyzstan struggle to stop ethnic violence | WaPo 14 June 2010
• Ahmed Wali Karzai, an ally and obstacle to the U.S. military in Afghanistan | WaPo 14 June 2010
• New Strike Threats at Honda Parts Plant in China | NY Times 14 June 2010
• Iran not to reduce ties with Russia, China: MP | Xinhua 14 June 2010
• India out of ‘peace pipeline’ as Iran, Pakistan seal gas deal | The Times of India 14 June 2010
• ‘Discovery of Nearly $1tn in Untapped Mineral Deposits in Afghanistan’ Will Heat Pak Intel Proxy War With U.S. & India | Little Alex in Wonderland 14 June 2010

Filed under: Daily Briefing Tagged: 1953 Iran coup, Afghan Taliban, Afghanistan, Ahmed Wali Karzai, Amity Shlaes, Andy Worthington, Antoaneta Becker, austerity measures, Bill O'Reilly, Blackstone Group, BP, Canada, China, CIA, Coal India, currency manipulation, Daniel Tencer, death row, deportation, drug war, Dubai assassination, E, Eric Ruder, euro, European Union, extrajudicial assassinations, fiber optics, GCC, general strike, Gitmo, Glenn Greenwald, global debt, Goldman Sachs, Gregory White, Guantanamo Bay, habeas corpus, Haqqani Network, healthcare, Hindustan Copper, Honda, immigration, indefinite detention, India, inflation, Iran, Iraq, ISI, Israel, James Risen, Jan Brewer, Kyrgyzstan, labor unions, Latin America, Maher Arar, Matthew Berger, Maxim Bakiyev, Michael Gould-Wartofsky, mineral deposits, Mossad, Nigeria, Obama Administration, Pakistan, Pentagon, Persian Gulf, private military contractors, Quetta Shura, RCMP, renminbi, renminbi yuan, Robert Gibbs, Russia, Rwanda, Saudi Arabia, SCOTUS, secret prisons, Singapore, Spain, Taliban, torture, treasury bonds, TTP, UN, UNHRC, USD, Vincent Fernando, War on Terror, yuan

Deport him.  See how he appreciates it.

Australia’s answer to Bill O’Reilly has done it again.  Reading his latest column, well you can see what I’m getting at.  Bolt tackles the mammoth subject of asylum seekers and refugees in an argument that amounts to a gross mischaracterisation of… pretty much everything.

In no particular order,

• Howard’s Pacific Solution was the shiz

Bolt insinuates, bluntly, that the Pacific Solution under Howard was the answer to Australia’s refugee problem.  Fewer refugees came to the Australian continent, therefore it must have worked.  Unless of course there was a global downturn in refugees towards the end of Howard’s reign while the Pacific Solution was in place.

• Deterrents will stop people from coming

Imagine for a moment that you’re a father.  Your wife is dead, killed in local unrest.  Your life is ruined, your home burned and the lives of your children and yourself are under threat.  You gotta be a man, stand up, take care of the family.  What are you going to do?  Get yourself on a boat and look for a new future.  That’s what drives you to leave.  Chances are, you’re not going to know how the legal system operates in whatever country you are destined for.  You don’t know your rights, what can or can’t be done.  All you know is that you need to try.  So called ‘push’ factors have a much larger role than any ‘pull’ factors that Liberal Party members, Nationalists, and Conservatives like Andrew Bolt seem to play on.  No matter how brutal you get on these people, they’re still going to give it a shot because it can’t be worse than being gunned down, blown up, raped, set on fire — or any of the other evils you suffer back home.  Which brings me to my next point,

• Queue Jumpers

It is safe to say that anyone who believes there is a ‘queue’ is seriously misinformed.  Simply, there is no queue and often the governments that have persecuted these people have no interest in giving them the passports and other documents they need to travel.  As I have observed before, if you have no documents, you have no soul and virtually don’t exist.

Many of the people who find themselves in refugee camps like Kakuma, where violence and hunger is still common.  For some strange reason, people seem to be under the strange belief that life in a refugee camp is safe, happy and temporary.  Something akin to a holiday camping.  People may live half their lives in these refugee camps before they are even offered the chance to settle elsewhere.  Half a life spent behind razor wire, under the threat of being raped or killed if you leave the boundaries, battling hunger and then the possible divisions that exist inside the camp.  Although I do not claim this is universal, given the alternative, it’s understandable why people will do whatever they can to leave.

• They can pay, so they must not be that well off

Bolt makes this observation, and in response I point out that asylum seekers may be able to pay for a people smuggler to take them across the water to Australia, but notice how they don’t bring much of anything with them?  I don’t know what Bolt imagines when he thinks of refugees, but I can guarantee you that they arent’ dipping into their savings in a Swiss bank to get out.

• We should turn the boats back.  They ain’t ‘genuine’.

Well, I hate to say it, but that would be a breach of Australia’s obligations under international law as we are party to conventions that state, strictly, that a country cannot turn back refugees that are seeking assistance.  That’s the whole point of the refugee convention when, you know, a lot of the world wanted to ‘turn back’ Jewish refugees when Hitler was causing a bit of a ruckus in Europe.

That is, and there is a catch, if they land on Australian soil.  So this is why the Australian government has sunk millions of dollars into building, maintaining and expanding a system where the navy intercepts boats and hauls them off to detention at Christmas island; they are offshore.

And it is worth mentioning that this underscores the difference between a ‘asylum seeker’ and a ‘refugee’ in international law; ‘asylum seekers’ are ‘refugees’ that haven’t had the chance to be processed by the UN.  The major reason why they haven’t been processed is, as I mentioned earlier, the fact that there is ‘no queue’ and, that these people had to flee their homes, in other words, they had to get out fast or die.  So much for not being ‘genuine’.

• Housing them at Christmas Island cost big $$$.  We should send them back.

The biggest irony about this argument made by Bolt, is that he cites statistics provides by a refugee advocate service, which are predominately used to explain why the excessive border control is absurd and impossible to defend.  Secondly, the source of the statistic has the effect of, potentially, leading people to believe that Bolt is being fair and balanced, and certainly if Bolt has been snooping around the publications and websites put up by refugee advocates, he most certainly would be familiar with their myth-busting work.

The biggest problem for Bolt, on the other hand, is defending the mega-money that is needed to fund the navy to patrol our waters, protecting Australia from the life-threatening, doom-bringing, vilest of evil, boat travelling asylum seekers.  Not to mention the ancillary costs that will need to be given to advertising, logistics, persuading foreign governments to go along with the plan, feeding/accommodating/deporting all those that arrive by plane (there are far more), the untold cost to Australia’s international reputation.  These all compound every time we decide to get ‘tougher’ on border protection.  Sometimes it seems it would be easier to just let them all in.

Oh, and Bolt’s solution to the whole issue?

So here’s a simple plan to fix everything – a plan first suggested to me by Family First Senator Steve Fielding to stop the boats dead without being at all cruel.

Let’s announce that from today we’ll send every boatload of “asylum seekers” we intercept to some refugee camp in Indonesia, Pakistan or whichever other country we can persuade to take them.

Yes, you’re right. Those countries won’t want our rejects, so let’s make them an offer they can’t refuse.

For every single boat person they take from us, we’ll take two genuine refugees from their camps.

What could be fairer? We’ll be twice as kind, we’ll send the boat people to safety and we’ll reward not those who’ve pushed in but the refugees who have waited the longest in line.

Two refugees for every boat person. Guaranteed to stop the flood like nothing Rudd has ever tried.

Don’t you just love it when Bolt calls them ‘rejects’?  Nothing like a bit of callous disregard for human life to get you hot under the collar.

The winner of the unedited version of the Jon Stewart/Bill O’Reilly show according to the liberal blogosphere is naturally the Comedy Central host, which, frankly, is like winning an arm wrestling match against someone who has no arms. But while Stewart did skewer the comical, alleged sexually harassing curmudgeon -- pointing out the ludicrousness of labeling Obama a “socialist” when he following Bush's lead, redistributing income upward to bankers and brokers, not the crack-smoking welfare queens of the right-wing imagination -- he also looked the fool himself, ignorantly suggesting to O’Reilly that the man who has bombed at least three countries without congressional approval has ceded power relative to his predecessor:

O'Reilly: There are little socialistic programs and giant socialist programs. OK? And some people believe that Obama is on the huge government creation -- the government dominance. And you yourself said it! You yourself said it! He wants more regulation, he wants to create things, he wants big government.

Stewart: But he's given back so much executive power!

O'Reilly: What?

Stewart: Executive power!

O'Reilly: He hasn't given back anything. He just hasn't handled the Congress. He doesn't know how to handle them yet. That's inexperience.

Earlier this month I felt myself siding with Andrew Sullivan when he was dishonestly (and oh so pretentiously) labeled an anti-Semite by an editor at The New Republic for having the temerity to question the policies of the nation-state of Israel and their embrace by some neoconservative pundits, and now I can’t help but conclude Stewart just got owned, as the kids say, by Bill-freaking-O’Reilly; what other surprises will 2010 bring? On the issue of executive power, though, it’s appallingly ignorant to claim, as Stewart does, that Obama’s reign in office has seen a diminishing in the power of the executive. Beyond bombing Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia without so much as a constitutionally dubious congressional resolution, Obama has asserted the right not just to murder individual foreigners overseas without so much as a trial or a hint of oversight -- something liberals have usually been okay with, it being the price necessary to ensure their local NPR affiliates are safe -- but to kill American citizens deemed threats to U.S. national security, either by Obama or a designated subordinate, such matters being unworthy of the emperor’s time. He also, like Bush, maintains the right to wiretap the conversation of anyone in the world without a warrant, or to jettison said person away to one of the U.S.'s numerous military prisons around the globe.

O'Reilly is absolutely correct, a series of words I never thought I'd put together in a piece not labeled satire, when he credits Obama's difficulties on some domestic policy fronts, not to a weakened executive branch, but to inexperience, to which his failure to get even the corporatist health care scheme devised by the Senate to his desk is testament. On the other hand, Obama's failure to push for a "public option" and other initiatives desired by his progressive supporters has been entirely consistent with his governing philosophy -- corporatism mixed with liberal internationalism -- and should not be chalked up to his limited time in Washington, as some of his followers are wont to do. On Afghanistan and support for the financial industry, two areas where the president has de facto dictatorial powers, Obama has pursued the course laid out for him by his predecessor with zeal; only on areas involving cooperation with the increasingly irrelevant and dysfunctional Senate -- though I assume certain interests believe it's functioning quite well -- has Obama stumbled, which has nothing to do with diminished presidential power.

Tolerating a belligerent foreign policy and expansive empire in exchange for some liberal reformist policies at home was never a morally defensible position for progressives, and now, in light of Obama's actual performance in office, it's more clearly untenable than ever. Jon Stewart ought to know that by now.