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The Goal of Modern Propaganda: Mythocracy

February 15, 2010

By Cindy Sheehan, Information Clearing House, Feb 15, 2010

“The goal of modern propaganda is no longer to transform opinion but to arouse an active and mythical belief.” Jacques Ellul

On Super Bowl Sunday, the reason that I wrote my new book: Myth America: 20 Greatest Myths of the Robber Class and the Case for Revolution, literally hit home.

Since it was the Holy Day of Obligation for our national religion of Football, I headed for my health club because I have always been a heretic. I arrived there a little before kick off, so the club was still occupied, but after kick-off it was deserted.

After my water workout and swim in the pool that I had all to myself, I headed to the hot tub which was occupied by another spa patron—an older gentleman named Bill whom seems to come to the club just to sit in the hot tub and chat. I get the feeling he is very lonely, and this following exchange may be why:

Bill: I think what you do disgraces your son, his memory and what he died for.

Cindy: Oh really? Since he was killed in an illegal and immoral war, I think this nation disgraced him.

Bill: But they attacked us on 9-11.
Cindy: Who attacked us on 9-11?

Bill: Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

Cindy: Are you serious? If you believe the official story, 16 Saudi Arabians attacked us.

Bill: But Saddam killed his own people.

Cindy: We have killed over one million of Saddam’s “own people,” (at this point Cindy does “air quotes?).

Bill: But we didn’t mean to.

Cindy: (deep sigh), So what team are you rooting for this afternoon?

At which point, Bill scrambled out of the hot tub and headed for the showers.

My “friend” Bill has been thoroughly propagandized from the right—there was no use sitting in the hot tub with the jets blasting and trying to reason with a man who thinks that over one million people can be killed “accidentally.”

Continues >>

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Torture is a crime, not a state secret

February 14, 2010

It’s a convenient argument for both governments, but the Binyam Mohamed ruling will not harm UK-US intelligence co-operation

The UK court ruling in the case of Binyam Mohamed demonstrates once more that judges on both sides of the Atlantic have had enough of governments hiding behind national security “secrets” to shield themselves from their many trespasses in the “war on terror”.

The court’s decision to publish a seven-paragraph summary of intelligence given to MI5 by the CIA has been met by the convenient, and wholly unbelievable, argument from British and American officials that the release could damage intelligence co-operation and sharing between the two allies.

The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, has argued that keeping the summary secret was vital to ensuring that the US continues to share vital intelligence with the British security services. The White House only played up this threat after the decision was handed down.

“We’re deeply disappointed with the court’s judgment because we shared this information in confidence and with certain expectations,” White House spokesman Ben LaBolt said. “As we warned, the court’s judgment will complicate the confidentiality of our intelligence-sharing relationship with the UK, and it will have to factor into our decision-making going forward.”

There are two important things to remember when analysing Miliband and the White House’s arguments concerning the “intelligence” released on the treatment of Ethiopian-born British resident Binyam Mohamed while he was in US custody.

First, the seven-paragraph summary details that the interrogation practices endured by Mohamed while in American custody during 2002 constituted “at the very least cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment”. It reveals nothing besides the fact the US and its proxies resorted to barbarous methods to extract information from captives they believed were al-Qaida terrorists.

Second, far more damning information on Mohamed’s torture was published last year by a US court. In November 2009, US District Judge Gladys Kessler granted the habeus corpus petition of Gitmo detainee Farhi Saeed Bin Mohammed – another indicator of the cross-Atlantic return of the rule of law. The prisoner had been held indefinitely without charge at Guantánamo Bay since 2002, based partly on Mohamed’s confessions to US interrogators. There was one problem, however: US interrogators coerced Mohamed’s allegations against Mohammed through torture. “The government does not challenge Petitioner’s evidence of Binyam Mohamed’s abuse,” Kessler wrote in her decision. It’s important to note that the “abuse” Mohamed says he endured during his detention included having his genitals slashed by a razor.

In short order, the information the British court ordered released yesterday was neither intelligence nor secret. What it did show, however, was what we already knew. The US had systematically tortured detainees it deemed terrorists without due process, and British intelligence was complicit.

Therefore the probability the United States would jeopardise its intelligence-sharing relationship with the United Kingdom over the Mohamed release is remote. It would demonstrate that the United States values protecting its lawless practices overseas more than the national security of its greatest ally. Imagine the public relations disaster if the British public learned the United States did not share intelligence of an imminent terrorist attack because of this judicial decision. Fortunately, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, the head of the US intelligence community, has already played down any break in the cross-Atlantic alliance. “This court decision creates additional challenges, but our two countries will remain united in our efforts to fight against violent extremist groups,” yesterday’s statement read.

So when the Milibands and White House apparatchiks of this world claim that exposing state crimes jeopardises the government’s ability to protect its citizens from terrorist atrocities, it’s important to remember the words of the radical political philosopher Michael Bakunin:

“There is no horror, no cruelty, sacrilege, or perjury, no imposture, no infamous transaction, no cynical robbery, no bold plunder or shabby betrayal that has not been or is not daily being perpetrated by the representatives of the states, under no other pretext than those elastic words, so convenient and yet so terrible: ‘for reasons of state’.”

Torture is a crime; it is not a state secret.

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U.S. Poised to Commit War Crimes in Marjah

February 13, 2010

by Robert Naiman,

The United States and NATO are poised to launch a major assault in the Marjah district in southern Afghanistan. Tens of thousands of Afghan civilians are in imminent peril. Will President Obama and Congress act to protect civilians in Marjah, in compliance with the obligations of the United States under the laws of war?

Few civilians have managed to escape the Afghan town of Marjah ahead of a planned US/NATO assault, raising the risk of civilian casualties, McClatchy News reports.

Under the laws of war, the US and NATO — who have told civilians not to flee — bear an extra responsibility to control their fire and avoid tactics that endanger civilians, Human Rights Watch notes. “I suspect that they believe they have the ability to generally distinguish between combatants and civilians,” said Brad Adams of Human Rights Watch. “I would call that into question, given their long history of mistakes, particularly when using air power. Whatever they do, they have an obligation to protect civilians and make adequate provision to alleviate any crisis that arises,” he said. “It is very much their responsibility.”

“If [NATO forces] don’t avoid large scale civilian casualties, given the rhetoric about protecting the population, then no matter how many Taliban are routed, the Marjah mission should be considered a failure,” said an analyst with the International Crisis Group.

A report in the Wall Street Journal cast fresh doubt on the ability — and even on the interest — of U.S. forces to distinguish combatants from civilians. “Across southern Afghanistan, including the Marjah district where coalition forces are massing for a large offensive, the line between peaceful villager and enemy fighter is often blurred,” the Journal says. The commander of the U.S. unit responsible for Pashmul estimates that about 95% of the locals are Taliban or aid the militants. Among front-line troops, “frustration is boiling over” over more restrictive rules of engagement than in Iraq, the Journal says — a dangerous harbinger of potential war crimes when the U.S. is about to engage in a major assault in an area densely populated with civilians.

Today, AFP reports, military helicopters dropped leaflets over Marjah as radio broadcasts “warned residents not to shelter Taliban ahead of a massive assault.” Doesn’t this suggest that the invading U.S. forces may regard any civilian alleged to be “sheltering Taliban” as a legitimate target, including women and children?

If the U.S. assault in Marjah results in large scale civilian casualties, the U.S. will have committed a major war crime. If the United States cannot protect civilians in Marjah, as the U.S. is required to do under the laws of war, the assault should be called off. Under international law, every U.S. citizen is legally obligated to work to bring about the compliance of the United States with international law. Raise your voice now, before it is too late.

Robert Naiman is Policy Director at Just Foreign Policy

Posted in Afghanistan, Commentary, Peace Movement, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, war | Leave a Comment »

Pentagon to set up new Pakistan bases

February 13, 2010
Morning Star Online, Friday 12 February 2010
The US is planning to "accelerate" the forces' training despite the anti-Western sentiment in Pakistan

The US is planning to “accelerate” the forces’ training despite the anti-Western sentiment in Pakistan

The Pentagon is planning to set up new bases in Pakistan where US commandos will work with Pakistani forces close to the Afghan border, a senior US military official has revealed.

The official said that the new “training centres” slated for the Northwest Frontier Province would supplement two already operating in Pakistan.

Continues >>

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Obama Copying Bush-era Detention Policies

February 12, 2010
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Written by Thomas R. Eddlem
New American, Thursday, 11 February 2010 06:30
Obama

The neo-conservative Wall Street Journal published two editorials February 9 about the Obama administration’s progressive lurch back toward the blatant Bush-era attack on the Bill of Rights, titling a house editorial “Dick Cheney’s revenge.”

The theme of the editorial was that Obama has adopted Cheney’s policies on national security, and that this was a good thing and evidence that Obama had matured in office because “political and security realities are forcing Mr. Obama’s antiterror policies ever-closer to the former Vice President’s. In fact, the President’s changes in antiterror policy have never been as dramatic as he or his critics have advertised.”

A companion op-ed by columnist William McGurn trumpeted “This weekend, Americans were treated to something new: Barack Obama defending his war policies by suggesting they merely continue his predecessor’s practices. The defense is illuminating, not least for its implicit recognition that George W. Bush has more credibility on fighting terrorists than does the sitting president.”

McGurn’s words were deceptive, as Obama was talking primarily about Bush policies before 9/11 – and not after 9/11 – in the conversation McGurn mentioned. But for the most part, the Wall Street Journal’s assessment of Obama copying the Bush administration’s attacks on the Bill of Rights hit the mark.

President Obama opened his presidency with a pledge to close Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, but the Wall Street Journal has noted: “Mr. Obama’s deadline has come and gone, and Guantanamo remains open.” Obama has indeed continued to detain those at Guantanamo without trial, even though many of those tortured there have proven to be innocent like Omar Deghayes. (Deghayes was permanently blinded by his American torturers. See video below.)

The Wall Street Journal and President Cheney have long cheered the kind of “enhanced interrogation” torture that Deghayes endured. Moreover, they oppose the criminal trials that would have segregated innocents like Deghayes from the actual terrorists at Guantanamo. The Journal noted that Obama’s reluctance to close Guantanamo was due “in part [to] political opposition from Americans — including many Congressional Democrats — who understandably do not want terrorists in their backyards.”

Understandable, they wrote. Maybe it has become “understandable” to the new totalitarian inhabiting the White House, since the Journal correctly noted that after Obama took office “the Justice Department quietly went to court and offered the same legal arguments the Bush Administration made, among them that the President has the power to detain enemy combatants indefinitely without charge.” There will be more innocents tortured under Obama like the innocents under Bush, such as Omar Deghayes, Khalid el-Masri of Germany, and Maher Arar of Canada. The names will be different, but the injustice will be the same.

The Constitution is not unclear about what the federal government is prohibited from doing. The Fifth Amendment prohibits indefinite detention without charges explicitly: “No person shall … be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law.” The Sixth Amendment requires a jury trial (even if it’s in a military court): “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law.” That means the trial must take place in New York City, where the crime of the September 11 attacks was committed.

Some people claim that the protection of basic rights in the U.S. Constitution applies only to citizens, and that this justifies indefinite detention of foreign detainees who are essentially outside of the protection of the law. But if they ever took the trouble to read the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, they’d find that they do not grant rights but protect rights that everyone — citizens and foreigners — already have because those rights were endowed by their Creator. The Constitution and Bill of Rights were written to limit the government, and the restrictions on the government are categorical. Those restrictions use absolute words like “all criminal prosecutions” and “no person,” not leaving an exception for “citizens” only.

The Wall Street Journal takes a step further and advises Obama to turn the United States into a full-fledged Soviet Republic, stressing that jury verdicts should have no impact on whether the U.S. should continue to hold detainees:

In the event of an acquittal or an overturned conviction, it would be entirely legitimate under the laws of war to continue holding KSM and the others as enemy combatants. But this would defeat the moral rationale of a trial and require the Administration to explain why it was continuing to detain men whose guilt it had failed to establish in court.

The Journal is also impressed with Obama’s acceleration of Bush administration war-mongering. “He has also ramped up drone strikes against al Qaeda and Taliban operatives in Pakistan,” the Journal noted, turning the Bush administration’s two wars in the Middle East effectively into four wars.

The Wall Street Journal summarizes the issue not as one where politicians are bound to follow the Constitution and its unequivocal mandate to give everyone in prison a trial, but rather in terms of crass political party manoeuvrings: “As long as George W. Bush and Dick Cheney were responsible for keeping Americans safe, Democrats could pander to the U.S. and European left’s anti-antiterror views at little political cost. But now that they are responsible, American voters are able to see what the left really has in mind, and they are saying loud and clear that they prefer the Cheney method.”

The Journal gets most of it wrong. Those who love the Constitution’s protection of basic rights are not all on “the Left” or “Democrats” — indeed, many on the Left have no problem violating such protections when they are in power, as the Obama administration demonstrates.  But in one respect, they are talking about an irrefutable truth. Obama is no better than Bush in following the strict dictates of the U.S. Constitution, and is in some ways worse. Obama has indeed favored the unconstitutional Cheney method thus far.

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Jordan cracks down on writers critical of CIA ties

February 11, 2010

Middle East Online, First Published 2010-02-11


Muwafaq Mahadin: ‘This (relation) is not suitable for a state’

Prominent writer says Jordan became ‘invested in terrorism’ following its relations with CIA.

AMMAN – A prominent writer and a political activist have been charged with insulting the state after criticising Jordan’s cooperation with the United States in the “war against terror”, a judicial official said on Thursday.

Columnist Muwafaq Mahadin, who writes for the independent daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm, and Sufian Tel were detained on Wednesday after a military prosecutor accused them of “carrying out acts that would harm the reputation of the state as well as ties with a foreign country.”

“The two, who have also been charged with insulting the army, face a five-year jail term if convicted. They were remanded for 15 days pending their trial,” the official said.

Continues >>

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Ending the War in Afghanistan

February 11, 2010

By Ron Jacobs, Counterpunch, Feb 11, 2010

Perhaps, there was once a time when most westerners could pretend that the US-led onslaught against the Afghan people was a good thing.  Perhaps they convinced themselves that because the government of that country had allowed Osama Bin Laden to live in the mountains there that there was reason enough to attack his neighbors and destroy what remained of their nation.  Perhaps, too, westerners (especially US citizens) believed that the true purpose of the US-led military mission in Afghanistan was to capture Bin Laden and destroy his terror network.

Continues >>

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The 700 Military Bases of Afghanistan

February 11, 2010

The 700 Military Bases of Afghanistan Black Sites in the Empire of Bases

by Nick Turse, TomDispatch.com, Feb 10, 2010

In the nineteenth century, it was a fort used by British forces.  In the twentieth century, Soviet troops moved into the crumbling facilities.  In December 2009, at this site in the Shinwar district of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar Province, U.S. troops joined members of the Afghan National Army in preparing the way for the next round of foreign occupation.  On its grounds, a new military base is expected to rise, one of hundreds of camps and outposts scattered across the country.

Nearly a decade after the Bush administration launched its invasion of Afghanistan, TomDispatch offers the first actual count of American, NATO, and other coalition bases there, as well as facilities used by the Afghan security forces.  Such bases range from relatively small sites like Shinwar to mega-bases that resemble small American towns.  Today, according to official sources, approximately 700 bases of every size dot the Afghan countryside, and more, like the one in Shinwar, are under construction or soon will be as part of a base-building boom that began last year.

Continues >>

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US Justice and Dr Aafia Siddiqui

February 10, 2010

by Yvonne Ridley, Dissident Voice,  February 9th, 2010

Many of us are still in a state of shock over the guilty verdict returned on Dr Aafia Siddiqui.

The response from the people of Pakistan was predictable and overwhelming and I salute their spontaneous actions.

From Peshawar to Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and beyond they marched in their thousands demanding the return of Aafia.

Even some of the US media expressed discomfort over the verdict returned by the jurors … there was a general feeling that something was not right.

Everyone had something to say, everyone that is except the usually verbose US Ambassador Anne Patterson who has spent the last two years briefing against Dr Aafia and her supporters.

This is the same woman who claimed I was a fantasist when I gave a press conference with Tehreek e Insaf leader Imran Khan back in July 2008 revealing the plight of a female prisoner in Bagram called the Grey Lady.

She said I was talking nonsense and stated categorically that the prisoner I referred to as “650” did not exist.

By the end of the month she changed her story and said there had been a female prisoner but that she was most definitely not Dr Aafia Siddiqui.

By that time Aafia had been gunned down at virtually point blank range in an Afghan prison cell jammed full of more than a dozen US soldiers, FBI agents and Afghan police.

Her Excellency briefed the media that the prisoner had wrested an M4 gun from one soldier and fired off two rounds and had to be subdued. The fact these bullets failed to hit a single person in the cell and simply disappeared did not resonate with the diplomat.

In a letter dripping in untruths on August 16 2008 she decried the “erroneous and irresponsible media reports regarding the arrest of Ms 
Aafia Siddiqui”. She went on to say: “Unfortunately,
there are some who have an interest in simply distorting the facts in an effort to manipulate and inflame public opinion. The truth is never served by sensationalism…”

When Jamaat Islami invited me on a national tour of Pakistan to address people about the continued abuse of Dr Aafia and the truth about her incarceration in Bagram, the US Ambassador continued to issue rebuttals.

She assured us all that Dr Aafia was being treated humanely had been given consular access as set out in international law … hmm. Well I have a challenge for Ms Patterson today. I challenge her to repeat every single word she said back then and swear it is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

As Dr Aafia Siddiqui’s trial got underway, the US Ambassador and some of her stooges from the intelligence world laid on a lavish party at the US Embassy in Islamabad for some hand-picked journalists where I’ve no doubt in between the dancing, drinks and music they were carefully briefed about the so-called facts of the case.

Interesting that some of the potentially incriminating pictures taken at the private party managed to find the Ambassador was probably hoping to minimize the impact the trial would have on the streets of Pakistan proving that, for the years she has been holed up and barricaded behind concrete bunkers and barbed wire, she has learned nothing about this great country of Pakistan or its people.

One astute Pakistani columnist wrote about her: “The respected lady seems to have forgotten the words of her own country’s 16th president Abraham Lincoln (1809-1865): “You
can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some
of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time”.

And the people of Pakistan proved they are nobody’s fool and responded to the guilty verdict in New York in an appropriate way.

When injustice is the law it is the duty of everyone to rise up and challenge that injustice in any way possible.

The response – so far – has been restrained and measured but it is just the start. A sentence has yet to be delivered by Judge Richard Berman in May.

Of course there has been a great deal of finger pointing and blame towards the jury in New York who found Dr Aafia guilty of attempted murder.

Observers asked how they could ignore the science and the irrefutable facts … there was absolutely no evidence linking Dr Aafia to the gun, no bullets, no residue from firing it.

But I really don’t think we can blame the jurors for the verdict – you see the jury simply could not handle the truth. Had they taken the logical route and gone for the science and the hard, cold, clinical facts it would have meant two things. It would have meant around eight US soldiers took the oath and lied in court to save their own skins and careers or it would have meant that Dr Aafia Siddiqui was telling the truth.

And, as I said before, the jury couldn’t handle the truth. Because that would have meant that the defendant really had been kidnapped, abused, tortured and held in dark, secret prisons by the US before being shot and put on a rendition flight to New York. It would have meant that her three children – two of them US citizens – would also have been kidnapped, abused and tortured by the US.

They say ignorance is bliss and this jury so desperately wanted not to believe that the US could have had a hand in the kidnapping of a five-month -old baby boy, a five-year-old girl and her seven-year-old brother.

They couldn’t handle the truth … it is as simple as that.

Well I, and many others across the world like me, can’t handle any more lies. America’s reputation is lying in the lowest gutters in Pakistan at the moment and it can’t sink any lower.

The trust has gone, there is only a burning hatred and resentment towards a superpower which sends unmanned drones into villages to slaughter innocents.

It is fair to say that America’s goodwill and credibility is all but washed up with most honest, decent citizens of Pakistan.

And I think even Her Excellency Anne Patterson recognizes that fact which is why she is now keeping her mouth shut.

If she has any integrity and any self respect left she should stand before the Pakistan people and ask for their forgiveness for the drone murders, the extra judicial killings, the black operations, the kidnapping, torture and rendition of its citizens, the water-boarding, the bribery, the corruption and, not least of all, the injustice handed out to Dr Aafia Siddiqui and her family.

She should then pick up the phone to the US President and tell him to release Aafia and return Pakistan’s most loved, respected and famous daughter and reunite her with the two children who are still missing.

Then she should re-read her letter of August 16, 2008 and write another … one of resignation.

Yvonne Ridley is a patron of Cageprisoners which first brought the plight of Dr Aafia Siddiqui to the world’s attention shortly after her kidnap in March 2003. The award-winning, investigative journalist also co-produced the documentary In Search of Prisoner 650 with film-maker Hassan al Banna Ghani which concluded that the Grey Lady of Bagram was Dr Aafia Siddiqui. Read other articles by Yvonne.

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Wars sending United States into ruin

February 10, 2010

by Eric Margolis, Toronto Sun/Canada, Feb 10, 2010

U.S. President Barack Obama calls the $3.8-trillion US budget he just sent to Congress a major step in restoring America’s economic health.

In fact, it’s another potent fix given to a sick patient deeply addicted to the dangerous drug – debt.

More empires have fallen because of reckless finances than invasion. The latest example was the Soviet Union, which spent itself into ruin by buying tanks.

Continues >>

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