Baleful Imperial Power

August 4, 2008

Bases Upon Bases

By BRIAN CLOUGHLEY | Counterpunch, August 2 / 3, 2008

What do the following places have in common — Afghanistan, Belgium, Bosnia, Bulgaria, Germany, Italy, Iraq, Japan, Macedonia, Kosovo, Serbia and South Korea?

They all have US army bases. There are dozens of them. To which add enjoyment or otherwise of the presence of US Navy headquarters and warships by the Bahamas, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, El Salvador, Cuba (Guantanamo Bay), Greece, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, Spain, United Arab Emirates and the United Kingdom, plus another score of ports worldwide where USN ships are welcomed by permanently-based staffs who are guests of host governments. These places are not bases. They are not counted in the officially admitted 780 (or so) colonial-style military encampments that Washington has imposed on inferior nations. The US military presence round the world is enormous. It is greater than any other country or empire has ever had. The most expansionist days of Rome and the British Empire, Hitler’s assault on Europe, and Stalin’s domination of the countries on Russia’s borders pale in comparison with the global embrace of what has become a sinister force for destabilisation.

Although it is unlikely that any more South American countries will allow the US to establish military bases (Ecuador will cancel its airbase agreement next year, being so fed up with the arrogance of the northern imperialists), the newly-created US Fourth Fleet is now patrolling off the shores of Venezuela, menacing its democratically elected leader, Hugo Chavez, who has incurred the wrath of US business interests by running his country more efficiently without their presence.

Mr Chavez doesn’t like the idea of giving his country’s natural resources to US companies and he won’t be bribed by them. This is absolutely unforgivable in the eyes of the Cheney-supported Friedmaniac freaks who nearly ruined Russia – and would have done so, had it not been for President Putin taking charge and restoring his country to economic sanity. Little wonder President Chavez has been attacked so viciously by the US and British media, parroting the Right Wing mantra that privatisation might reduce millions to poverty, but that it’s really a good thing in the long run. (Providing you aren’t one of those who have died from starvation meantime, of course.)

Venezuela has lots of oil, which may have added to Washington’s priority in creating a 12 ship fleet to “build confidence and trust among nations through collective maritime security efforts that focus on common threats and mutual interests.” But it isn’t clear what confidence and trust can be created by a nuclear aircraft carrier and amphibious assault ships whose ostensible mission involves countering drug smuggling and, inevitably, taking part in the absurd “War on Terror.”

President Chavez said words to the effect that he wondered what US reaction be if a South American nation sent a fleet to patrol the coast of Virginia, and of course he is perfectly right in fearing the baleful American presence. America sends hundreds of ships, many nuclear-armed and equipped with fearsome missile, to roam the coasts of foreign countries, but imagine the screams of shock, horror and astonished indignation if Russia or China sent a battle group to stroll nautically up and down the coast from Seattle to San Francisco.

As to Venezuela – who knows what special forces knuckle-draggers and CIA psychotics are deployed to assist the US-supported anti-Chavez underground that already exists. (The Fourth Fleet is commanded by Admiral Joseph D Kernan, a former special forces commander ; the signal could not be clearer.) In May a US Navy Viking electronic warfare aircraft “accidentally” flew into Venezuelan airspace, which doesn’t provide much confidence in a navy operating a super-sophisticated plane, with every up-to-date navigation device, that can lose its way so easily. What a load of nonsense. So it can be deduced that the plane was deliberately trailing its coat to assess the effectiveness of Venezuela’s defence radar system – just as is done every day in the Persian Gulf by US aircraft and ships closing up to Iran’s coastline to plot radar and other defence facilities in order to be able to bomb them if Bush decides to encourage Israel to attack Iran.

There is also a US navy, Marine and air force base in Diego Garcia, a British territory, in which there is a CIA prison to which prisoners have been delivered by the wonderful process of “rendition.” (The British government denied knowledge of “rendition” through British territory but had to acknowledge that it lied, following production of evidence that it had lied. Can we trust anyone? Anyone at all?)

Continued . . .

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US Vilifies Faithful Old Ally

August 4, 2008

Bush administration vents against Pakistan’s military intelligence for doing its duty — defending Pakistan

Eric Margolis | Toronto Sun, August 3, 2008

It’s blame Pakistan week. As resistance to western occupation of Afghanistan intensifies, the increasingly frustrated Bush administration is venting its anger against Inter-Service Intelligence (ISI), Pakistan’s military intelligence agency.

The White House leaked claims ISI was in cahoots with pro-Taliban groups in Pakistan’s tribal area along the Afghan border.

Pakistan’s Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar said the White House accuses ISI of warning Pashtun tribes of impending U.S. air attacks. President George W. Bush angrily asked Pakistan’s visiting Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani, “Who’s in charge of ISI?”

In Ottawa, the Harper government dutifully echoed Bush’s accusation against Pakistan, including the so far unsubstantiated claim that ISI agents had bombed India’s embassy in Kabul.

I was one of the first western journalists invited into ISI headquarters in 1986. ISI’s then director, the fierce Lt.- Gen. Akhtar Rahman, personally briefed me on Pakistan’s secret role in fighting Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. ISI’s “boys” provided communications, logistics, heavy weapons, and direction in the Afghan War. ISI played the key role in the victory over the Soviets.

On my subsequent trips to Pakistan I was routinely briefed by succeeding ISI chiefs and joined ISI officers in the field, sometimes under fire.

ISI is accused of meddling in Pakistani politics. The late Benazir Bhutto, who often was thwarted by Pakistan’s spooks, always scolded me, “you and your beloved generals at ISI.” But before Musharraf, ISI was the Third World’s most efficient, professional intelligence agency. It defends Pakistan against internal and external subversion by India’s powerful spy agency, RAW, and by Iran. ISI works closely with CIA and the Pentagon, but also must serve Pakistan’s interests, which often are not identical to Washington’s.

The last ISI director general I knew was the tough, highly capable Lt.-Gen. Mahmood Ahmed. He was purged by the new dictator, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, because Washington felt Mahmood was insufficiently responsive to U.S. interests. Ensuing ISI directors were all pre-approved by Washington. All senior ISI veterans deemed “Islamist” or too nationalistic by Washington were purged, leaving ISI’s upper ranks top heavy with yes men and paper passers.

Even so, there is strong opposition inside ISI to Washington’s bribing and arm-twisting the Musharraf dictatorship into waging war against fellow Pakistanis and gravely damaging Pakistan’s national interests.

ISI’s primary duty is defending Pakistan. Pashtun tribesmen on the border sympathizing with their fellow Taliban Pashtun in Afghanistan are Pakistanis. Many, like the legendary Jalaluddin Haqqani, are old U.S. allies and freedom fighters from the 1980s.

TRIBAL UPRISINGS

Violence and uprisings in these tribal areas are not caused by “terrorism,” but directly result from the U.S.-led occupation of Afghanistan and Washington’s forcing the hated Musharraf regime to attack its own people.

ISI is trying to restrain pro-Taliban Pashtun tribesmen while dealing with growing U.S. attacks into Pakistan that threaten a wider war.

India, Pakistan’s bitter foe, has an army of agents in Afghanistan and is arming, backing and financing the Karzai puppet regime in Kabul. Pakistan’s historic strategic interests in Afghanistan have been undermined by the U.S. occupation. The U.S., Canada and India are trying to eliminate Pakistani influence in Afghanistan.

ISI, many of whose officers are Pashtun, has every right to warn Pakistani citizens of impending U.S. air attacks that kill large numbers of civilians.

But ISI also has another vital mission. Preventing Pakistan’s Pashtun (15% to 20% of the population of 165 million) from rekindling the old “Greater Pashtunistan” movement calling for union of the Pashtun tribes of Pakistan and Afghanistan — divided by British imperialism — into a new Pashtun nation. That would tear apart Pakistan and invite Indian military intervention.

Washington’s bull-in-a-china-shop behaviour pays no heeds to such realities.

Instead, Washington demonizes faithful old allies, ISI and Pakistan, while supporting Afghanistan’s communists and drug dealers, and allowing India to stir the Afghan pot — all for the sake of new energy pipelines.

As Henry Kissinger cynically noted, being America’s ally is more dangerous than being its enemy.

Copyright © 2008, Canoe Inc.

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Israel’s secret police pressuring sick Gazans to spy for them, says report

August 4, 2008

· Treatment only offered to would-be informants
· Patients allowed to cross the border drops sharply

A porter pushes a 15-year-old Palestinian cancer patient through the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel

A porter pushes a 15-year-old Palestinian cancer patient through the Erez crossing between the Gaza Strip and Israel Photograph: Goran Tomasevic

Israel’s secret police are pressuring Palestinians in Gaza to spy on their community in exchange for urgent medical treatment, according to a report released today by an Israeli human rights organisation.

Physicians for Human Rights says the Shin Bet began interrogating Palestinian patients seeking permission to travel from Gaza to Israel for crucial medical help after Israel blockaded and then declared the tiny territory an enemy entity more than a year ago.

Typically, patients are taken to a small, windowless room, underground, beneath the security terminal at Erez, the only passenger crossing that remains open between Gaza and Israel, where they are questioned by Shin Bet agents for hours, the report says.

Refusal to cooperate often results in the denial of medical treatment. Based on the testimonies of more than 30 Palestinians – 11 of which are published – the report says the Shin Bet is using coercion and extortion to force patients to collaborate.

“They took me through underground passages and made me sit in another waiting room for almost 45 minutes. A man approached me and called me to another room for interrogation. He asked me to sit down and presented himself as Moshe,” Bassam al-Wahidi, a Fatah-aligned journalist, said in his affidavit to Physicians for Human Rights.

“After all my responses he said to me: ‘I want to talk to you openly when you return from Israel so that you will have an acceptable reputation on the Israeli side. Either you make contact with me and agree to my demands, or you will not get any medical treatment which will cause you to be blind and you will become a burden to your family and friends,'” Wahidi said in his affidavit.

But he said he refused and was forced to return to Gaza without receiving any treatment. Now the 28-year-old, who married a year and a half ago, is completely blind in his right eye and losing the vision in his overstrained left eye.

“I might divorce because I can’t stand in front of my wife as a disabled person,” Wahidi said .

He is one of an unknown number of patients from Gaza who have been denied medical treatment after refusing to inform on their friends, neighbours and relatives. Many patients feel they are being forced to choose between preserving their life or protecting their community. Physicians for Human Rights says such pressure amounts to coercion and extortion.

International law forbids the use of civilians in conflict to damage an enemy state and collaboration in the Palestinian community is a crime punishable by death.

“The patient knows that refusal to respond to the interrogator’s questions and demands will ruin his chances to access medical treatment,” the report says. While some patients are turned back after they refuse to collaborate, others arrive at the security interview only to be detained and locked in jail, it says.

Applications for help in Israel jumped sharply with Israel’s blockade on Gaza.

Decrepit and deficient hospital services in the besieged territory coupled with the closure of Gaza’s crossing into Egypt forced Palestinians in the besieged territory to increasingly seek help in Israel.

As a result, the number of requests for medical assistance in Israel – which is funded by the Palestinian Authority – jumped from about 600 a month at the beginning of 2007 to about 1,000 a month by the end of the year. As a result, the proportion of sick Gazans permitted to cross into Israel has dropped sharply from 90% in early 2007 to 62% by the end of the year.

Israel’s security services insists that patients are denied entry only on security grounds. It also says that holding Israel responsible for the health of Palestinians in Gaza is “wholly inappropriate and misleading”, arguing that it no longer occupies the coastal territory, having withdrawn its troops and settlers from the area in 2005.

However, in a letter to Physicians for Human Rights in June, Colonel Shlomi Muchtar said: “The state’s obligations are derived, among other things, from the rules of war and from the scope of its control over border crossings between it and the Gaza Strip.”

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Denying the undeniable: Enforced disappearances in Pakistan

August 3, 2008

© Amnesty International.”Amina Masood Janjua holding the photo of her “disappeared” husband in September 2006.

Amina Masood Janjua holding the photo of her “disappeared” husband in September 2006.

© Amnesty International.

>Protests against enforced disappearances, Pakistan

Protests against enforced disappearances, Pakistan

© Private

Amnesty International, July 22, 2008

“For us relief is only when our loved one is safe and sound standing freed before us. […] I believe that my husband Masood is held only three kilometres from my home, yet he continues to suffer unknown ill-treatment and we, his wife, his children and his very old parents cannot even see him. They [the new government] must act now to bring them back immediately.”
– Amina Masood Janjua, July 2008

The last time Amina Masood Janjua saw her husband, Masood Janjua, was on 30 July 2005 when he left home to meet his friend Faisal Faraz. Pakistani security forces apprehended both men on that day while on a bus journey to another city.

Since then, Pakistan’s government has been holding them in secret without charge or trial, repeatedly denying any knowledge of their whereabouts despite eyewitness testimony as to their detention.

Masood Janjua and Faisal Faraz are among hundreds of victims of enforced disappearance in Pakistan, including children as young as nine and ten years old. Many of them were detained after the attacks in the USA on 11 September 2001, their detentions justified in the name of the US-led “war on terror”.

The practice, rare before 2001, then spread to activists involved in pushing for greater ethnic or regional rights, including Baloch and Sindhis.

Despite undeniable evidence, the government of President Pervez Musharraf consistently denied subjecting anyone to enforced disappearances.

In the report Denying the undeniable, enforced disappearances in Pakistan, Amnesty International uses official court records and affidavits of victims and witnesses of enforced disappearances to confront the Pakistani authorities with evidence of how government officials obstructed attempts to trace those who have “disappeared.”

New government brings opportunity for change
The report urges the newly elected government of Pakistan – which has pledged to improve Pakistan’s human rights record – to end the policy of denial, investigate all cases of enforced disappearance and hold those responsible to account.

“By holding people in secret detention the government of Pakistan has not only violated their rights, but also failed in its duty to charge and try those suspected of involvement in attacks on civilians”, said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia Pacific director.

Crucially, Pakistan’s new government must reinstate deposed judges who had previously been investigating disappearance cases and were deposed by President Pervez Musharraf when he imposed a state of emergency in the country in November 2007.

Complicity of other governments
The report also calls on other governments – most notably the USA – to ensure that they are not complicit in and do not contribute to or tolerate the practice of enforced disappearance in Pakistan.

Many of those unlawfully held at the US detention centre in Guantánamo Bay, and those who have been held in secret CIA custody were arrested in Pakistan. Others were unlawfully transferred from Pakistan to countries where they faced torture and other ill treatment.

Many people who have been secretly held in detention centres in Pakistan say they were interrogated by Pakistani intelligence agencies, but also by foreign intelligence agents.

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Iraq’s antiquities looted

August 3, 2008

Uruknet.info, July 31, 2008

DAUD SALMAN, The Institute for War & Peace Reporting

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BAGHDAD — To most, the scenes of looting and wanton destruction of Iraq’s archaeological treasures that followed the U.S. invasion in 2003 are just a distant memory.

But unfortunately, the country continues to lose its priceless artifacts on a daily basis as a result of theft, illegal excavations and trespassing.

The government estimates that there are around 10,000 archaeological sites in the country. Most of them are located in central Iraq, an area badly hit by the chaos and lawlessness that has gripped the country over the last several years.

While some of the best-known Mesopotamian sites, such as Ur near modern-day Nasiriyah, are well-protected, many others are completely unguarded.

Qais Rashid Hussein, director general of excavations and inspection at the Ministry of Archaeology and Tourism, said there are only 1,200 troops available to protect all of Iraq’s historic treasures. That has created “a huge problem” that has left antiquities vulnerable to gangs and smugglers, he said.

Treasure hunters illegally excavate the sites for valuable items that are then traded on the black market and often smuggled out of the country.

Margarete van Ess, director of Oriental Science at the German Archaeological Institute in Berlin, estimated that illegal excavation in Iraq has caused $10 billion worth of damage in recent years.

“Many of the sites are far from town centers and cities and are under the control of tribes,” she said, making them vulnerable to looters.

Former President Saddam Hussein’s regime maintained tight control over most of the country’s archaeological sites and imposed stiff penalties on those caught looting. Those convicted of stealing antiquities faced 15 years in prison, and, in some cases, the death penalty. While many of those laws remain on the books, they are rarely enforced today.

Ancient coins, seals and other gold, silver and bronze pieces can be purchased on the black market in Iraq for as little as $10. But the same item offered for sale in Syria or Jordan can fetch thousands of dollars.

“A (Sumerian) cylinder seal can be bought for less than $100, and gold coins for even less (in Baghdad),” said Said Mahmood, a 52-year-old antiquities collector. “(However) the same cylinder seal can be sold for more than $2,000 outside of Iraq.” Last month, the Iraqi government announced that it was launching a concerted effort to reclaim about 15,000 artifacts believed stolen during the looting on the Baghdad Museum in 2003.

Already, Jordan has returned about 2,000 stolen items, some dating back to 7,000 B.C. In April, Syria turned over around 700 pieces, including gold coins and jewelry, which were seized by Syrian customs officials.

But even as the government reclaims stolen items, additional artifacts are being looted from unguarded sites. Sometimes, ignorance or neglect is behind the damage being done to Iraq’s ancient past.

Last year, officials with the antiquities ministry discovered that a new housing project was about to be built on top of a priceless archeological site; in Baghdad, a similar site was being used as a garbage dump until authorities intervened.

Khalid Sultan, a Baghdad-based archaeology expert, said both the Iraqi government and the international community need to do more to protect the country’s past.

“The destruction of Iraqi antiquities after the 2003 war has been enormous,” he said. “We need a massive effort from the international community to return the stolen pieces and to help us to protect the remaining archaeological sites.”

Daud Salman is a reporter in Iraq who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nonprofit organization that trains journalists in areas of conflict. Readers may write to the author at the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, 48 Grays Inn Road, London WC1X 8LT, U.K.; Web site: http://www.iwpr.net. For information about IWPR’s funding, please go to http://www.iwpr.net/index.pl?top—supporters.html.

(c) 2008, The Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services

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Exiled Egyptian activist sentenced

August 3, 2008
Al Jazeera, August 3, 2008

Ibrahim wanted to return to Egypt but only with assurances he would not be arrested

Saad Eddin Ibrahim, an outspoken critic of the Egyptian government, has been sentenced to two years in prison.

The sociologist and human rights activist was convicted for “tarnishing Egypt’s reputation,” the country’s official MENA news agency said.

Shady Talaat, Ibrahim’s laywer, said the ruling by a Cairo court was flawed and that he would use his right to appeal.

Ibrahim was granted bail of 10,000 Egyptian pounds ($1,890).

Ibrahim, who has been living in Qatar since June 2007, says he fears arrest if he returns to Egypt.

The case is among a series of lawsuits filed by members and loyalists of Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP) against government critics.

Accusations

Prosecuting lawyers Abul Naga al-Mehrezi and Hossam Salim took the case against Ibrahim to court and accused him of defaming the country after a series of articles and speeches on citizenship and democracy in which he criticised the Egyptian government.

Ibrahim said last month he wanted to return from exile, but only after assurances he would not be arrested.

According to the Egyptian independent daily Al-Masri Al-Youm, Ibrahim had written to the foreign ministry asking for guarantees that he would not be held on arrival.

The 69-year old went into exile citing a climate prejudicial to political opposition and human rights.

A vocal critic of Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president, Ibrahim was quoted in the Washington Post last year as saying he preferred to remain outside Egypt for fear of being arrested “or worse”.

After meeting George Bush, the US president, in June last year in Prague he was called a “dissident” by the US leader.

Ibrahim, who founded the Ibn Khaldoun Centre for Development Studies, was sentenced in 2001 to seven years for, again, “tarnishing Egypt’s reputation,” before being freed on appeal after spending 10 months behind bars.

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We lie and bluster about our nukes – and then wag our fingers at Iran

August 3, 2008

By failing to disarm and breaking the rules when it suits, nuclear states are driving proliferation as much as Ahmadinejad

What is the Iranian government up to? For once the imperial coalition, overstretched in Iraq and unpopular at home, is proposing jaw, not war. The UN security council’s offer was a good one: if Iran suspended its uranium enrichment programme, it would be entitled to legally guaranteed supplies of fuel for nuclear power, assistance in building a light water reactor, foreign aid, technology transfer and the beginning of the end of economic sanctions. The US seems prepared, for the first time since the revolution, to open a diplomatic office in Tehran. But in Geneva, 10 days ago, the Iranians filibustered until the negotiations ended. On Saturday President Ahmadinejad announced that Iran has now doubled the number of centrifuges it uses to enrich uranium. A fourth round of sanctions looks inevitable.

The unequivocal statements Barack Obama and Gordon Brown made in Israel last week about Iran’s nuclear weapons programme cannot yet be justified. Nor can the unequivocal statements by some anti-war campaigners that Iran does not intend to build the bomb. Why would a country with such reserves of natural gas and so great a potential for solar power suffer sanctions and the threat of bombing to make fuel it could buy from other states, if it accepted the UN’s terms?

Those who maintain that Iran’s purposes are peaceful clutch at the National Intelligence Estimate published by the US government in November. While it judged that Iran had halted its nuclear weapons programme in 2003, it saw the country’s civilian uranium programme as a means of developing “technical capabilities that could be applied to producing nuclear weapons, if a decision is made to do so”. The latest report from the International Atomic Energy Agency notes that no fissile material has been diverted from Iran’s stocks, but raises grave questions about some of the documents it has found, which suggest research into bomb-making (Iran says the papers are forgeries). Those of us who oppose an attack on Iran are under no obligation to accept Ahmadinejad’s claims of peaceful intent.

Continued . . .

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US ‘held suspects on British territory in 2006’

August 3, 2008

Terrorist suspects were held by the United States on the British territory of Diego Garcia as recently as 2006, according to senior intelligence sources. The claims, which undermine Foreign Office denials that the archipelago in the Indian Ocean has been used as a so-called ‘black site’ to facilitate extraordinary rendition, threaten to cause a diplomatic incident.

The government has repeatedly accepted US assurances that Diego Garcia has not been used to hold high-ranking members of al-Qaeda who have been flown to secret interrogation centres around the world in ‘ghost’ planes hired by the CIA. Interrogation techniques used on suspects are said to include ‘waterboarding’, a simulated drowning that Amnesty International claims is a form of torture. But now the government’s denials over Diego Garcia’s role in extraordinary rendition are crumbling. Senior American intelligence sources have claimed that the US has been holding terrorist suspects on the British territory as recently as two years ago.

The former intelligence officers unofficially told senior Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón that Mustafa Setmarian, a Spanish-based Syrian accused of running terrorist training camps in Afghanistan, was taken to Diego Garcia in late 2005 and held there for months. The Spanish are trying to locate and arrest Setmarian for separate terrorist offences.

It is thought that more than 10 high-ranking detainees have been held on Diego Garcia or on a US navy vessel within its harbour since 2002. The suggestion, if true, is acutely embarrassing for the British government which has admitted only that planes carrying al-Qaeda suspects landed on Diego Garcia on two occasions in 2002.

However, a former senior American official familiar with conversations in the White House has also told Time magazine that in the same year Diego Garcia was used to hold and interrogate at least one terrorist suspect.

The Council of Europe has also raised concerns that the UK territory has been used to house detainees. Earlier this year Manfred Novak, the United Nations special investigator on torture, told The Observer he had talked to detainees who had been held on the archipelago in 2002, but declined to name them.

The human rights group Reprieve said it believes most of high-level detainees captured by the US have been rendered through Diego Garcia at one time or another. These include Abu Zubaydah, a Saudi accused of being one of al-Qaeda’s top strategists, and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, allegedly the mastermind behind 9/11.

‘We are confident high-value prisoners have been held on Diego Garcia for interrogation and possible torture,’ said a Reprieve spokeswoman. ‘We now have sources from the CIA, the UN, the Council of Europe and a Spanish judge who will confirm this.’

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Secret ‘torture memo’ gave legal cover to interrogators who acted in ‘good faith’

August 2, 2008

Jason Leopold | Online Journal, July 31, 2008

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A Justice Department legal opinion issued in August 2002 advised the CIA that its interrogators would not be prosecuted for violating anti-torture laws as long as they acted in “good faith” while using brutal techniques to obtain information from suspected terrorists, according to a previously undisclosed memo released publicly last Thursday.

The closely guarded Aug. 1, 2002, memo provided the Bush administration with the legal framework to use “alternative interrogation methods” against suspected terrorists captured in the war on terror.

The heavily redacted document, obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union under a Freedom of Information Act request, was signed by then Assistant Attorney General Jay Bybee and specifically outlined approved methods the CIA could use, such as waterboarding, during interrogations. Waterboarding has been regarded as torture since the days of the Spanish Inquisition.

“To validate the statute, an individual must have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering,” the Aug. 1, 2002 memo says. “Because specific intent is an element of the offense, the absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture.”

The Bybee memo was written by John Yoo, a former deputy attorney general at the DOJ’s Office of Legal Counsel (OLC), and preceded a second August 2002 legal opinion about CIA interrogation methods leaked to the media in 2004. Both memos were later rescinded.

The Aug. 1, 2002, legal opinion was based on a statute governing health benefits when Yoo provided the White House with a legal opinion defining torture, according to a former Justice Department official.

Yoo’s legal opinion stated that unless the amount of pain administered to a detainee results in injury “such as death, organ failure, or serious impairment of body functions” than the interrogation technique could not be defined as torture.

Waterboarding, a brutal and painful technique in which a prisoner believes he is drowning, Yoo wrote, therefore was not considered to be torture.

“That statute defined an ’emergency medical condition’ that warranted certain health benefits as a condition ‘manifesting itself by acute symptoms of sufficient severity (including severe pain)’ such that the absence of immediate medical care might reasonably be thought to result in death, organ failure, or impairment of bodily function,” Jack Goldsmith, the former head of OLC, wrote in his book, The Terror Presidency

“The health benefits statute’s use of ‘severe pain’ had no relationship whatsoever to the torture statute. And even if it did, the health benefit statute did not define ‘severe pain.’ Rather it used the term ‘severe pain’ as a sign of an emergency medical condition that, if not treated, might cause organ failure and the like. . . . OLC’s clumsily definitional arbitrage didn’t seem even in the ballpark.”

Yoo, who now teaches at the University of California at Berkeley, also drafted a March 14, 2003 document, nearly identical to the August 2002 memo he authored, that essentially provided military interrogators with legal cover if they resorted to brutal and violent methods to extract information from prisoners. The ACLU under a FOIA request also obtained that document earlier this year.

Continued . . .

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A QUESTION OF NOMENCLATURE

August 2, 2008

Malcolm Lagauche, August 2 – 4, 2008

baghdadbob23.jpg
Nobody laughs at Baghdad Bob any more

Saturday-Monday, August 2-4, 2008

When I began to work at Radio Netherlands in its English section in 1981 as a broadcaster/interviewer/news writer, I received training from a master, Hans Kramer. He quickly turned my American delivery into a more international style.

His tips on interviewing have lasted with me for almost three decades: never ask a question that can be answered by “yes,” or “no:” never make a statement, only ask questions: except for your first and last questions, never have any written down: and others.
When he discussed news writing, he stressed the virtues of brevity and accuracy. Then he stated, “And never use the word ‘terrorist.’ One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter.”

At the time, I rarely wrote news that would border on this issue, but the statement remained with me. Today, however, the word “terrorist” is bandied about with frequency: mostly in the wrong context.

In Iraq, a resistance is in full swing. The resistance is being conducted against an occupying force, therefore, every time the word “terrorist” is used by U.S. administration officials, or by Iraqi stooges, the word is in error.

Some news agencies have softened the word by calling the resistance an “insurgency.” Again, this is false. An insurgency is an uprising against a legal entity. The current Iraqi government is illegal and those in the real government have been murdered or are in prison. Therefore, the resistance fighters in Iraq are definitely not part of an insurgency.

Let’s look at occupied France of World War II. The resistance was trying to make things difficult for the German occupiers. After the war, they were considered heroes by the U.S. who, to this day, have not failed to consistently remind France that it was American troops who helped liberate the country as well.

If we use the same logic, how can the U.S. be considered liberators of Iraq? In reality, they are the same occupiers as were the Germans of France in World War II. The only difference is that Germany did not destroy as much of France as the U.S. has in Iraq.

Therefore, the Iraqi resistance fighters are the heroes. They are trying to oust an occupying force.

The U.S. media have things backwards because they use the same terminology as the administration. They mention the “bad guys” when discussing the resistance and most U.S. citizens have fallen in line. A simple method of portraying the truth is by merely reversing the words of “bad guys” to “good guys.” This 180-degree change would then be indicative of a more truthful look at current Iraq.

Iraq has been resisting since 1991, but it was not until U.S. troops were on its soil that the resistance took on its current form. The first Gulf War killed about 250,000 Iraqis, but the killing did not stop with the 1991 cease-fire. From March 1991 to March 2003, about two million Iraqis were given a premature grave because of the illegal embargo placed on it.

Most people do not remember the bogus “no-fly zones” set up by the U.S. During the embargo years, about 850 Iraqis were killed by the antics of U.S. pilots flying over Iraq, with a few thousand more injured.

During the those years, a few proclamations were floated to the Iraqi government. One, in particular, said that if Saddam Hussein signed the document, the embargo would be lifted and he would be re-packaged by the U.S. as a man of peace, similar to the transition of Col. Ghadaffi from a terrorist to a “good Arab.”

The document called for Iraq to hand over its oil production to the U.S. and allow a few huge U.S. military bases to be constructed in the country. Saddam and associates refused to sign. In mentioning this approach to him, as well as other occurrences in Iraq at the time, Saddam Hussein stated, “Iraq has been put in a situation in which it has to choose between sacrifice and slavery.”

Today’s Iraq is in the same quandary. Some collaborators have chosen slavery. They do not realize that by cooperating with the U.S. occupier, the country’s fate has been sealed for decades.

The resistance has taken the sacrifice route. The members have sacrificed their own careers and family ties to ensure that Iraq does not fall into total slavery.

When Saddam Hussein stated that “the mother of all battles has begun” on January 17, 1991, he was ridiculed. He knew his military would not be able to fare well against the U.S., but it was a stance that someone had to take in fighting imperialism. He also knew that this was only the beginning of a long struggle that could last for years or decades.

From January 17, 1991, to April 9, 2003, Iraq resisted, but not in a way that was greatly visible. It lost many people with little loss of life for the opposition.

On April 8, 2003, the Iraqi Information Minister, Mohammed Sahaff was giving his daily report to the world. He was known as Baghdad Bob and held a worldwide audience because of his colorful statements in English and Arabic.

Sahaff was telling the audience how the U.S. troops were going to be bogged down in Iraq. One reporter shouted, “Look, the Americans are already in Baghdad.” Sahaff turned around to see a U.S. tank about 200 meters in the distance. He took the microphone and said:

Do not be hasty because your disappointments will be huge … You will reap nothing from this aggressive war, which you launched on Iraq, except for disgrace and defeat … We will embroil them, confuse them, and keep them in the quagmire … They cannot just enter a country of 26 million people and lay besiege to them. They are the ones who will find themselves under siege.

He walked away, never again to be seen in public.

For the next few months, websites sprung up laughing at Sahaff and his last statement in particular. T-shirts and coffee mugs were made mocking his statement.

Sahaff went to the U.S. authorities and they laughed at him, not taking him prisoner. This, in essence, was a statement meaning, “You’re not even worth capturing.”

A few months later, while being interviewed in the U.A.E., where he relocated, a reporter asked Sahaff about his last statement. At the time, the resistance was in its formative stages, but not as active as today. Sahaff refused to take back the statement and said, “Let history speak about this matter.”

Today, the resistance is solid and every day we read or hear about another plan to placate the Iraqis. Plans change, but the effectiveness of the resistance does not.

Today, when one looks back at Sahaff’s statement, nobody seems to be laughing anymore.

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