Peace and Justice Post

AFP – Tuesday, November 13, 2007

BRUSSELS (AFP) – – Human rights watchdog Amnesty International urged NATO-led forces in Afghanistan Tuesday to stop transferring prisoners to the Afghan authorities, saying it feared they could be tortured.

In a new report, Amnesty said the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) could be exposing detainees to abuse, including whipping, beatings, exposure to extreme cold and food deprivation.

It singled out Afghanistan’s National Directorate of Security (NDS) as a major offender and said the agency “currently poses a serious threat to those in its custody”.

Amnesty said Britain, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and Norway had signed “memorandums of understanding” and other accords on prisoner transfers with the Afghan authorities, and that Belgium, France, Germany and Sweden may do so too.

The agreements, it said, “do not fulfil the absolute and non-derogable legal obligation not to put anyone in a situation where they are at risk of torture or other ill-treatment.”

ISAF, which comprises some 40,000 troops from 37 nations, is trying to spread the influence of President Hamid Karzai’s weak central government across the strife-torn country, but is battling a tenacious Taliban-led insurgency.

Amnesty urged ISAF to “immediately declare a moratorium on any further transfers of detainees to the Afghan authorities and take responsibility for the custody of such detainees until effective safeguards against torture and other ill-treatment are introduced in the Afghan detention system.”

It called on them not to rely on memorandums of understanding as a guarantee that prisoners would not be tortured once they are handed over, and help train prison staff and reform the prison system.

It urged Afghanistan to reform the NDS and allow independent monitors into all detention facilities.

NATO spokesman James Appathurai said the military alliance had no evidence that any prisoners were being abused and did not plan to build its own jails just in case.

“NATO has no proof of ill-treatment or of torture of detainees that its forces have transferred to the Afghans,” he said.

“It’s true there are concerns. This is precisely why the allies have invested, and a lot, in the reform of the Afghan institutions, including the NDS. It’s the only appropriate and acceptable way to improve the situation.”

But “Afghanistan is a sovereign country”, he said. “It’s not up to NATO to put a parallel detention system in place on Afghan territory.

The News International, November 13, 2007
By Fredrik Dahl

TEHRAN: The United States could unleash vastly superior firepower if it attacked Iran but Tehran could strike back against its forces in Iraq and threaten oil supplies crucial to the world economy.

Speculation is growing that President George W Bush could launch military action before he leaves office in January 2009 even though Washington says it is committed to resolving the crisis over Iran’s disputed atomic ambitions diplomatically.

“It should be a walkover militarily,” said London-based defence analyst Andrew Brookes about any US attempt to knockout the Islamic Republic’s atomic installations. “The hard bit is what comes afterwards and that is opening Pandora’s box,” said Brookes of the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think-tank. Western powers suspect Iran is seeking to build atom bombs. Iran says its nuclear programme is aimed at generating electricity so that it can export more of its oil and gas.

Keep reading . . .

Dissident Voice, November 12, 2007

by Paul Street

“We Have Some Major Priorities”

Here are 49 words to inspire dismay and disgust:

“House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and her lieutenants maneuvered to avoid a floor fight that would have forced Democrats to choose between their liberal base, which might cheer a Cheney impeachment, and a broader electorate, which might view the resolution as a partisan game in a time of war.”

I read these words on the fourth page of the front section of the November 7th edition of the Iowa City Press-Citizen. They are part of a story titled “GOP Tries to Outfox Foes: VP’s Impeachment Vote Beat Back.” They are attributed to the following author: “Washington Post/LA Times.”

The story is about how the Republican Party tried to force a vote on progressive Congressman Dennis Kucinich’s (D-Ohio) call for the House to pass a resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney for “fabricating a threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction” to justify the invasion of Iraq.

House Republican (GOP) leaders knew that the Democrats lack the votes and willpower to work for the impeachment of Cheney and/or Bush. The Republicans wanted to embarrass the Democrats and expose the fissures in their party by forcing a vote on Kucinich’s bill.

Pelosi succeeded in defeating the Republicans by getting Kucinich’s measure sent to the Judiciary Committee. According to House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), “impeachment is not on our agenda. We have some major priorities. We need to focus on those.”

Keep reading . . . 

London Telegraph. Last Updated: 12:01am GMT 05/11/2007

Dictators have three distinct lines of self-exculpation at the ready. First, the plea of contingency: we’ll restore liberty just as soon as we’ve got on top of the disorder. Second, the pretence of relativism: parliamentary democracy may be all very well for you Western colonialists, but it’s not part of our tradition here.

Third, the claim of Realpolitik: yes, all right, we’re overriding the constitution, but we’re still better than the alternative.

All three excuses are now being trotted out by Gen Pervez Musharraf, who has proclaimed a state of emergency in Pakistan, and by his apologists abroad. All three are transparently false and self-serving.

Gen Musharraf complains of the “visible ascendancy in the activities of extremists and incidents of terrorist attack”. It is true that civil order is fraying in parts of Pakistan, but this is not what has prompted President Musharraf’s second coup. Indeed, the continuation of the junta suits the jihadists, allowing them to claim to represent the majority – a claim that would be belied by free elections.

Nor will it do to argue that liberal democracy is a Western flower whose roots find no sustenance in the dry earth of the Hindu Kush. Pakistan began with the same political infrastructure as India: free courts, independent armed forces and a modern constitution.

The reason that it did not remain a democracy, as its larger neighbour did, had nothing to do with the character of the Pakistani people and everything to do with the ambitions of a handful of army officers.

But the West, too, is to blame. Because successive Pakistani regimes backed us during the Cold War, at a time when India was non-aligned, we indulged the autocrats in Islamabad on the ground that, whatever their faults, they were on our side.

Only now are there the first signs that Britain and America might deprive the General of the billions that have kept his regime afloat.

Our support for Gen Musharraf may turn out to have been self-defeating. By lining up with a dictator, we give his opponents every reason to resent us, and vindicate the constant anti-Western plaint of “double standards”. And for what?

Gen Musharraf is as threatened by the terrorists as we are, but he has been a far from perfect ally: our forces in Afghanistan constantly complain about the ease with which the Taliban can operate from the Pakistani side of the frontier.

Nor need we be frightened of the opposition: all the indications are that a free poll would return secular, democratic parties.

If, however, we continue to support Musharraf on the basis that he is the only alternative to the fundamentalists, we will eventually make that ludicrous contention come true. Once again, our Foreign Office, like the US State Department, is over-emphasising its investment in a regime that just happens to be there.

Pakistan deserves better. If generals want to go into politics, let them resign their commissions and stand for election.

The Nation, November 10, 2007

There is much, much to be said of Norman Mailer, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and world-class rabble-rouser who died Saturday at age 84.

But the pugilistic pensman would perhaps be most pleased to have it known that he went down swinging. The chronicler of our politics and protests in the 1960s with two of the era’s definitional books–1968’s Armies of the Night and Miami and the Siege of Chicago, did not rest on the laurels–and they were legion–earned for exposing the dark undersides of the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon.

He went after George Bush with a fury, and a precision, that was born of his faith that all politicians–including 1969 New York City mayoral candidate Norman Mailer – had to be viewed skeptically. And, when found to be lacking, had to be dealt with using all tools available to a writer who had pocketed two Pulitzers, a National Book Award, a George Polk Award, a Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters from the National Book Foundation and a global prominence rarely accorded the pushers of pens.

Mailer did not hesitate to suggest that Bush and his compatriots were setting up “a pre-fascistic atmosphere in America” and he saw the war in Iraq as an imperialistic endeavor destined–as all such attempts are–to diminish democracy at home.

Keep reading . . .

Axis of Logic / Latin America

By José Manuel MARTÍN MEDEM. Translated for Tlaxcala by Ernesto Páramo. Revised by Mary Rizzo. Nov 11, 2007, 10:24

If there is anyone that has no right to demand that a participant keeps quiet at a Latin-American conference, that is the king of Spain, who is the only head of state present that has not been elected to office by anyone. If someone is right in their interventions at a Latin-American Conference, it is he who accuses the fascist Aznar and denounces the imperialist voraciousness of the Spanish companies in Latin America.

Regarding Aznar, it is sufficient to remember his complicity with Bush and his pleasure flights in the planes belonging to the Miami mafia boss that organizes terrorist outrages in Cuba, as well as his collaboration in his electoral campaigns. Against King Juan Carlos, it would be sufficient to ask him why he has never asked the king of Morocco to keep silent every time he shows his dictatorial lineage. Regarding the Spanish trans-nationals, it would only be necessary to remind  them that the only reason they are able to carry out their business in Latin America is because of the complicity of the governments that privatized the companies  they bought at knock-down prices and with the guarantee of captive markets. Against Zapatero’s attitude we can say that it is very clear that he prefers mending fences with Bush rather than helping to facilitate the new and authentic integration of Latin America.

Who has told the pro-Franco Borbon that he has the authority to try to shut up a Latin-American president that has been ratified by his electorate on many occasions? Why is Zapatero dropping himself in the shit by defending the fascist Aznar instead of collaborating with the new Latin American insurgency?

By checking any newspaper archive it can be demonstrated that Aznar’s government  and the CEOE (the Spanish Businessmen Confederation) were accomplices to the United States in the coup d’état against Chávez. And it can also be proved that the big mass media outlets that applauded the coup had to retreat, embittered when  legality was reestablished in the country.

Did the king of Spain ask the Venezuelans that took part in the coup atthttp://axisoflogic.com/artman/images/wysiwyg2/scripts/source_html.htmempt to be quiet? Why don’t you shut up, Juan Carlos?

Watch the Santiago de Chile “incident”: King Juan Carlos spits Hugo Chávez: “Why don’t you shut up?”

Franko… giving birth, by J. MiKy Maus

Report, The Electronic Intifada, 12 November 2007

Leading Palestinian and Israeli scholars and activists will be among the speakers at an unprecedented conference to explore a one-state solution, at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) in London on 17-18 November.

Organized by the London One State Group and the SOAS Palestine Society, the conference, “Challenging the Boundaries: A Single State in Israel/Palestine,” will explore new models for a just peace including binationalism, secular democracy, a ‘state of all its citizens’ and federalism.

The London conference comes as prominent politicians including US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and UK Foreign Secretary David Milliband have recently warned that the window for implementing a two-state solution is fast closing. Israel has continued to block the establishment of a Palestinian state by accelerating its colonization of the occupied West Bank and tightening its starvation siege of the occupied Gaza Strip, even as Rice makes last ditch efforts to implement a partition.

Keep reading . . .

Published on Sunday, November 11, 2007 by The Washington Times

 

by Valerie Richardson

DENVER – Antiwar veterans passed out leaflets and carried signs opposing the war in Iraq yesterday after winning a last-minute right to march in this city’s annual Veterans Day parade.About 50 marchers displayed peace signs and banners with messages like “Iraq is Just Vietnam in the Desert,” “Bring Our Troops Home Where They Belong,” and “Bush Lies.”

They were greeted with bursts of applause by some parade-watchers and shouts of criticism by others.

“Go find another parade!” yelled one man.

“Leave your politics at home! This is about veterans, not politics,” shouted Alex Cuellar, who attended the event with his wife and two young children.

He called the eleventh-hour decision to include the antiwar veterans groups in the parade “disgraceful.”

“This is supposed to be for the veterans. It’s not about whether the war was right. The soldiers don’t choose the war,” said Mr. Cuellar.

The United Veterans Council of Denver had excluded the antiwar groups, citing complaints about disruptions during last year’s parade, until the city brokered a deal Friday afternoon allowing Veterans for Peace and Iraq Veterans Against the War to participate.

“We’re happy to be included,” said Frank Bessinger, founder of the Denver chapter of Veterans for Peace. “We’ve asked everyone to keep it respectful. Our intent has never been to disrupt or offend.”

As the marchers passed the reviewing stand, a few parade-watchers asked why they hadn’t displayed an American flag. The marchers carried organizational flags but not the Stars and Stripes.

“They weren’t carrying an American flag and a couple of the veterans standing nearby asked why they weren’t, but they didn’t say anything,” said Jerry Hageman, president of the United Veterans Council of Denver.

Otherwise, Mr. Hageman said, the event was a success. “It went off real well. They [antiwar veterans] did what they said they were going to do,” he said.

In last year’s parade, one antiwar marcher shouted at Sen. Ken Salazar, Colorado Democrat, as they passed the reviewing stand. The marchers also chanted antiwar slogans, resulting in complaints from some parade-watchers.

Mr. Hageman said the antiwar groups were excluded because the city’s rules expressly forbid “politicking and soliciting” by marchers. But city officials agreed to allow the organizations to march after they promised not to “embarrass the city,” said Mr. Bessinger.

Marchers didn’t chant this year, but they did hand out copies of an article criticizing the war in Iraq, cards printed with the Bill of Rights, and postcards that said “Funding the War is Killing Our Troops.”

The parade featured about 3,000 marchers, with the antiwar veterans bringing up the rear. “We’re kind of like Santa Claus, coming at the end,” said Mr. Bessinger.

Denver wasn’t the only municipality wrestling with how to handle antiwar groups. In Boston, Veterans Day organizers struck a deal with Veterans for Peace that allows them to march at the end of the parade. In Long Beach, antiwar veterans were banned from marching in the city’s parade after organizers said they wanted to keep politics out of the event. Long Beach City Attorney Bob Shannon backed parade organizers despite complaints from the groups.

© 2007 The Washington Times

By Penny Coleman, AlterNet. Posted November 11, 2007.

Americans have been effectively insulated from the human cost of our wars. That’s not an accident; it’s policy.

On November 6, the Joshua Omvig Suicide Prevention Bill became law. The bill was named for a 22-year-old Iowa reservist who took his own life eleven months after coming home from Iraq. Though Josh is one of hundreds of combat veteran suicides since the wars began in 2001, it is his name that has become symbolic of the campaign to get the military to take the mental health of America’s vets seriously.

With the exception of the unspeakable images of Abu Ghraib, which were e-mailed home by soldiers themselves, for six years Americans have been effectively insulated from the human cost of our wars. This insulation is not an accident; it is policy. Images from the Vietnam years, like the naked child trying to outrun her own burning skin, or the anguished women and children waiting their turn to be executed at My Lai, were catalysts that helped turn public opinion against that war. This time, the government wanted to ensure that would not happen. On the eve of the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Pentagon issued a directive to the media forbidding any coverage of returning American coffins. No coffins, no funerals, no wounds, no tears. No empathy.

Keep reading . . .

Al-Ahram Weekly, 8-14 November 2007

Only sustained action, not piecemeal and polite entreaty, can help block America’s voracious military-economic machine from devastating the region, writes Azmi Bishara

---

A Pentagon general returning to work today after 20 years of retirement would be in for a surprise. Two decades ago his country had just emerged victorious over the international communist order after some 40-odd years of political, cultural, economic and intelligence warfare, which erupted in countless regional conflicts, revolutions and coups in various areas of the globe, and in which his agency had invested all its energies and resources. So he would have set off into his golden years confident that America was safer and more secure now that it had bested what Ronald Reagan had dubbed the “Evil Empire”. His confidence would have been fortified by the fact that the last arms appropriations bill that president had submitted to Congress amounted to a half a trillion dollars in today’s terms, the effect of which was to lure the shattered Soviet economy into another arms race. Imagine that retired general’s surprise, 20 years down the line after his government laid to rest that mortal enemy to freedom and the American way of life, that his president, today, in 2008, has asked Congress to approve a military budget for this era of peace equivalent in actual terms to the size of the 1987 budget, which is to say in the area of $505 billion.

Keep reading . . .