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human rights
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS GAMBIA:FREE GAMBIAN JOURNALIST EBRIMA MANNEH:The following call for solidarity comes from the Care2 Petition site. The “African media foundation” referred to below is undoubtedly the Media Foundation for West Africa who have …
Omar Khadr, a 23-year-old Canadian citizen was kidnapped by the military in Afghanistan after being shot to the infirmary at the U.S. detention center at Bagram Air Base, where he was tortured and threatened with rape before being transferred the prison at Guantánamo Bay—all when he was only 15—where he’s been held captive since. The ‘war crime’ was throwing a hand grenade at U.S. troops and allegedly killing one of them, though the cause of the soldier’s death is in question, the burden of proof cannot be met of who threw any grenades, throwing a grenade at a uniformed enemy is not a war crime and child soldiers are legally distinguished as victims.
At AntiWar Radio with Scott Horton, journalist, legal analyst and Human Right First senior associate in law and security Daphne Eviatar discussed the U.S. military commission to try Mr. Khadr for war crimes (25:55):
19 Aug 2010 | AntiWar Radio
Daphne Eviatar, Senior Associate in Law and Security for Human Rights First, discusses the circumstances surrounding Omar Khadr’s capture and incarceration in Afghanistan at the age of 15 in 2002, the Military Commissions judge’s decision to allow the admissibility of a confession extracted under threat of death, the irony of the U.S. prosecuting Khadr for war crimes while sponsoring amnesty and rehabilitation for child soldiers in Africa, the purging of jurors who had any negative opinion on Guantanamo prison or U.S. foreign policy and the question of just who committed war crimes (Khadr—unarmed—was shot twice in the back).
Daphne Eviatar is a lawyer and freelance journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, The Nation, Legal Affairs, Mother Jones, the Washington Independent, The HuffingtonPost and many others. She is a Senior Reporter at The American Lawyer, Senior Associate in Law and Security for Human Rights First and was an Alicia Patterson Foundation fellow in 2005 and a Pew International Journalism fellow in 2002.
RELATED:
Specifics of its agreement with the government reveal BP PLC has not agreed, as is widely reported, to set aside a $20bn escrow fund for the Deepwater Horizon explosion that flooded the Gulf of Mexico with millions of barrels of oil. CNN reported Tuesday morning that University of South Florida researchers are calling the floor of the Gulf “a constellation” oil, based on preliminary observations of images (10:47):
18 Aug 2010 | InfoShop News
Specifics of its agreement with the government reveal BP PLC has not agreed, as is widely reported, to set aside a $20bn escrow fund for the Deepwater Horizon explosion that flooded the Gulf of Mexico with millions of barrels of oil. CNN reported Tuesday morning that University of South Florida researchers are calling the floor of the Gulf “a constellation” oil, based on preliminary observations of images.
Contrary to the government’s claims earlier this month that “federal scientists said that only about a quarter of the oil remained and the rest was either removed, dissolved or dispersed”, researchers with the University of Georgia “believe that roughly three-quarters of the oil (70% to 79%) still lurks under the surface,” The Huffington Post reported today. Worse, BP PLC has not agreed, as is widely reported, to set aside a $20bn escrow fund to cover damage claims.
This comes weeks after the discovery that BP’s Deepwater Horizon well explosion was gushing at over 12 times the rate of the government’s early publicized estimates. “New estimates released [August 2] by a government-led team of scientists found that as much as 62,000 barrels of oil were leaking from the well each day at its peak—far beyond the initial estimate of 5,000 barrels a day and more in line with what scientists told McClatchy it was,” Erika Bolstad and Lesley Clark reported.
Federal documents showed “heavy use of dispersants” over 54 days between the explosion and August 1, David Fahrenthold and Steven Mufson reported at The Washington Post, but whistleblower Fred McAllister revealed that BP was using the chemicals to sink the oil in order to deter visibility. Independent journalist Allison Kilkenny wrote August 3 at her blog, Unreported:
Fred McCallister, a whistleblower who claims BP is using dispersants to sink oil and hide it from the pesky media’s cameras, will testify before a Senate investigative panel this week.
For quite some time, many bloggers and journalists following the BP-Corexit story, including me, have made the allegation that BP may have been experimenting by dumping over a million gallons of toxic dispersants into the ocean because they were desperately trying to prevent the oil from hitting the beaches.
[...]
Everyone remembers what happened to Exxon’s public image the moment all of those adorable birds became coated in thick crude. And while BP has not been able to prevent oil from hitting all coastal birds, they have greatly diminished their PR liability by using dispersants like Corexit to coagulate the oil and sink it beneath the ocean’s surface where the media cannot photograph it, and BP won’t be fined for beach cleanup.
There, buried in the sea, the dispersants will likely alter the ecosystem—perhaps poisoning and killing ocean life—but by then BP will have fled the area, leaving future coastal generations to clean up their mess.
The government’s been aiding BP’s public relations nightmare since the explosion. Frankly, there has been no reason to believe that Washington or BP have ever made anything but marketing the first priority.
The damages from the April explosion are estimates well into the tens of billions and the initial scare was that, after cleanup, BP would only be held liable for $75m in damages and U.S. taxpayers inevitably footed with the rest of the bill. Playing damage control, the Obama Administration brokered a ‘voluntary’ $20bn holding fund that BP would set aside to cover future claims.
In reality, BP is expected to save nearly $10bn this year is U.S. and U.K. tax credits as it announced a $32.2bn provision for the spill. Worse, the $20bn escrow fund agreement is not directly with BP PLC, but with BP Exploration and Production Inc., a subsidiary of BP America Production, which is a distant subsidiary of BP PLC that deals primarily with production in the Gulf. Kate Sheppard at Mother Jones reported today:
BP America Production is a subsidiary of BP Company North America, which is a subsidiary of BP Corporation North America, which is a subsidiary of BP America Inc., which is a subsidiary of the parent company BP. In case you’re counting, that means the escrow deal is with a subsidiary five layers removed from BP PLC, the multinational oil giant. Because the deal is with a subsidiary way down the chain, it would be difficult to access additional funds from the corporate parent should the subsidiary collapse or simply not have enough funds to meet the obligation, since it’s the subsidiary, not the parent corporation, that’s legally on the hook, says Public Citizen.
Translation: if BP can’t drill in the Gulf, they can just tank BP Exploration and Production Inc. and the escrow agreement goes to the bankruptcy courts. Worse that what Ms. Kilkenny fears, U.S. taxpayers will be forced to deal with the mess and BP will not have run away, but will be drilling and collecting oil to sell back to the government a stone’s throw away. The government can’t afford to force BP to comply without risking that runaway and the bankruptcy of BP Exploration and Production Inc.
When BP was exploiting the people whose source of income they destroyed to clean up the beaches, the corporation set the condition that workers not wear safety goggles or use respirators because executives feared pictures would “spread hysteria“.
In July, as the Gulf was turning blacker and blacker every day, BP was publicly blaming “natural seepage“.
BP pockets billions of dollars every year fueling the U.S. war machine and there’s no end in sight to that guarantee. The government’s interest in playing damage control on the public relations end is clear: massive dumping of confidence in BP will raise the price it charges the government, though it’s guaranteed billions more over the next 20 years from the Iraqi government.
Nearly 5 million barrels of oil gushed from the well after the April explosion killed 11 workers and almost 2 million gallons of dispersants were sprayed over the Gulf since. Countless careers, property and lives have been crushed. The environmental effects carry no optimistic projections. BP PLC is projected to be just fine.
There’s a fixation on BP and what policy can be put in place to prevent man-made disasters of such magnitude and hold criminals liable for their destruction. Unfortunately, the narrative is ignorant of the systemic perpetuators of injustice. Until discussion about the illegitimacy of corporate personhood, regulatory caps on liability and Washington’s partnership with Corporate America and beyond are strictly scrutinized, we might have to wait until next time to actually witness justice being served. And that next time can result in monumental human demise as these injustices cross the energy and environment sector into the financial cartels, the healthcare industry and the military industrial complex.
News and views from around the web posted to the Wonderland Wire:
Man is coward. He is.
The man who chooses to not stand against war chooses to stand for nothing and is the vilest coward of all mankind. He is the sociopath that plagues the zeitgeist.
He ought to be ostracized from any community pursuing anything near virtue.
He is the hate.
He hates humankind for the Truth of humankind.
He is below the Neanderthal.
Caring not for the undead, he doesn’t deserve to kiss the dirt upon which the hypothetical zombie walks.
He’s never surpassed the machine of the flesh.
Is he even Man?
INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS: CLOSING GUANTANAMO PRISON CAMP:It’s coming close to the anniversary of the election of the great white hope (pun intended) Obama in the USA, and his promise to close the Guantanamo prison camp is still unfulfilled. Not that …
The first military commission of a detainee renditioned to the U.S. detention center at Guantánamo Bay under the Obama Administration opened Tuesday. Omar Khadr, a Canadian citizen, was kidnapped eight years ago in Afghanistan at the age of 15 by the U.S. military, threatened with rape in detention at the U.S. air base at Bagram, transferred to Guantánamo where he was tortured until he confessed that he threw a grenade that killed a U.S. soldier. Monday evening, Texas A&M at Qatar associate professor Todd Kent noted that it will likely not be a political issue for the Adminsitration because the mainstream media is downplaying it, though criminal justice is a large part of the president’s avatar, at Al Jazeera English’s “Inside Story”—which focused on the coming so-called ‘trial’ (23:41):
Tuesday, the military judge ruled the defendant’s statement obtained by torture would be admissible in the military commission.
10 Aug 2010 | AJE
The first trial of a Guantanamo detainee under the Obama administration is about to get under way.
The cases will focus on two men facing terrorism charges.
One has already pleaded guilty: The 50-year old Sudanese national, Ibrahim Ahmed Mahmoud al-Qosi, could be sentenced as early as Monday.
He is accused of acting as an accountant and supply chief for Al Qaeda and as a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden.
The other is a 23-year-old Canadian national. Omar Khadr, was 15 years old when he was arrested, and he says he was tortured and threatened with rape.
He has been in American custody since 2002, having been captured in Afghanistan.
He is accused of perpetrating war crimes against the U.S., having allegedly detonated a hand grenade that killed a US soldier.
Barack Obama, the U.S. president, had promised to close the detention center that has been the object of international condemnation, but he has faced congressional opposition on transferring the detainees to the U.S.
What is the legality of the so-called military commissions? And who is really calling the shots here—the president or the Pentagon?
“Inside Story”, with presenter Teymoor Nabili, discusses with Asim Qureshi, the executive director of the Cageprisoners organisation, Sunny Hundal, the editor of PickledPolitics.com and a writer for the Guardian newspaper, Todd Kent, an assistant professor of political science at Texas A&M, University at Qatar.
With 70,000 U.S. troops in Iraq, President Obama yesterday dropped his 2009 pledge to remove all combat troops before September, extending the target date 15 months, Gareth Porter reported today at Inter Press Services. The drawdown is intended by the Administration to leave 50,000 ‘residual troops’ indefinitely, but investigative journalist Jeremy Scahill notes the so-called “withdrawal” is a replacement of combat troops with ‘private’ mercenary firms. Earlier today, he spoke with Amy Goodman at Democracy Now!
Prof. Chomsky writes the WikiLeaked Afghanistan War Logs “may contribute to the unfortunate and prevailing doctrine that wars are wrong only if they aren’t successful—rather like the Nazis felt after Stalingrad”.
3 Aug 2010 | In These Times
The War Logs—a six-year archive of classified military documents about the war in Afghanistan, released on the Internet by the organization WikiLeaks—documents a grim struggle becoming grimmer, from the U.S. perspective. And for the Afghans, a mounting horror.
The War Logs, however valuable, may contribute to the unfortunate and prevailing doctrine that wars are wrong only if they aren’t successful—rather like the Nazis felt after Stalingrad.
Last month came the fiasco of Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, forced to retire as commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and replaced by his superior, Gen. David H. Petraeus.
A plausible consequence is a relaxation of the rules of engagement so that it becomes easier to kill civilians, and an extension of the war well into the future as Petraeus uses his clout in Congress to achieve this result.
Afghanistan is President Obama’s principal current war. The official goal is to protect ourselves from Al Qaeda, a virtual organization, with no specific base—a “network of networks” and “leaderless resistance,” as it’s been called in the professional literature. Now, even more so than before, Al Qaeda consists of relatively independent factions, loosely associated throughout the world.
The C.I.A. estimates that 50 to 100 al-Qaeda activists may now be in Afghanistan, and there is no indication that the Taliban want to repeat the mistake of offering sanctuary to Al Qaeda.
By contrast, the Taliban appear to be well-established in their vast forbidding landscape, a large part of the Pashtun territories.
In February, in the first exercise of Obama’s new strategy, U.S. Marines conquered Marja, a minor district in Helmand province, the main center of the insurgency.
There, reported The New York Times’ Richard A. Oppel, Jr.:
The Marines have collided with a Taliban identity so dominant that the movement appears more akin to the only political organization in a one-party town, with an influence that touches everyone.
[...]
“We’ve got to re-evaluate our definition of the word ‘enemy’,” said Brig. Gen. Larry Nicholson, commander of the Marine expeditionary brigade in Helmand Province. “Most people here identify themselves as Taliban. We have to readjust our thinking so we’re not trying to chase the Taliban out of Marja, we’re trying to chase the enemy out.”
The Marines are facing a problem that has always bedeviled conquerors, one that is very familiar to the U.S. from Vietnam. In 1969, Douglas Pike, the leading U.S. government scholar on Vietnam, lamented that the enemy—the National Liberation Front (N.L.F.)—was the only “truly mass-based political party in South Vietnam.”
Any effort to compete with that enemy politically would be like a conflict between a minnow and a whale, Pike recognized. We therefore had to overcome the N.L.F.’s political force by using our comparative advantage, violence—with horrifying results.
Others have faced similar problems: for example, the Russians in Afghanistan during the 1980s, where they won every battle but lost the war.
Writing of another U.S. invasion—the Philippines in 1898—Bruce Cumings, an Asia historian at the University of Chicago, made an observation that applies all too aptly to Afghanistan today: “When a sailor sees that his heading is disastrous he changes course, but imperial armies sink their boots in quicksand and keep marching, if only in a circle, while the politicians plum the phrase book of American ideals.”
After the Marja triumph, the U.S.-led forces were expected to assault the major city of Kandahar, where, according to a U.S. Army poll in April, the military operation is opposed by 95 percent of the population, and 5 out of 6 regard the Taliban as “our Afghan brothers”—again, echoes of earlier conquests. The Kandahar plans were delayed, part of the background for McChrystal’s leavetaking.
Under these circumstances, it is not surprising that U.S. authorities are concerned that public support for the war in Afghanistan may erode even further.
In May, WikiLeaks released a March C.I.A. memorandum [.pdf] about how to sustain Western Europe’s support for the war. The memorandum’s subtitle: “Why Counting on Apathy Might Not Be Enough.”
“The Afghanistan mission’s low public salience has allowed French and German leaders to disregard popular opposition and steadily increase their troop contributions to the International Security Assistance Force,” the memorandum states.
“Berlin and Paris currently maintain the third and fourth highest ISAF troop levels, despite the opposition of 80 percent of German and French respondents to increased ISAF deployments.” It is therefore necessary to “tailor messaging” to “forestall or at least contain backlash.”
The C.I.A. memorandum should remind us that states have an internal enemy: their own population, which must be controlled when state policy is opposed by the public.
Democratic societies rely not on force but on propaganda, engineering consent by “necessary illusion” and “emotionally potent oversimplication,” to quote Obama’s favorite philosopher, Reinhold Niebuhr.
The battle to control the internal enemy, then, remains highly pertinent—indeed, the future of the war in Afghanistan may hinge on it.
Noam Chomsky is a libertarian socialist Institute Professor of Linguistics (Emeritus) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, known as the ‘father of modern lingustics’, cognitive scientist, political activist, most cited living author of over 100 books on linguistics, political science and media, one of the world’s leading intellectuals and of an elite few in the history of the world to be at the top of two fields: linguistics and political science.
Julian Assange posted a complete answer to the question he’s frequently asked: Do we need WikiLeaks and why? He holds back no punches and points the finger at conspirators who create the need for reasonable skepticism and authoritarians who create the need for light-bearers.
