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March 17, 2006
Newsdrop
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Interesting – I have been waiting for this to happen for a while. The media usually present Iraqs Kurd areas as “democratic” and peaceful.
In reality there are two ruling groups of robber barons under Talabani and Barzani which tried to kill each other just a few years ago. The had a civil war and were being played against each other by the Turks and Saddam.
As soon as there would be formal independence of kurdistan it would go down in a brutal civil war.
Kurds Destroy Shrine in Rage at Leadership
The violence, pitting furious local residents against a much smaller force of armed security men, was the most serious popular challenge to the political parties that have ruled Iraqi Kurdistan for the past 15 years. Occurring on the day the new Iraqi Parliament met for the first time, the episode was a reminder that the issues facing Iraq go well beyond fighting Sunni Arab insurgents and agreeing on cabinet ministers in Baghdad.
Although Kurdistan remains a relative oasis of stability in a country increasingly threatened by sectarian violence, the protests here — which left the renowned Halabja Monument a charred, smoking ruin — starkly illustrated those challenges even in Iraq’s most peaceful region.
Many Kurds have grown angry at what they view as the corruption and tyranny of the two dominant political parties here. They accuse their regional government of stealing donations gathered to help survivors of the poison gas attack. The town’s residents chose Thursday to close off the town’s main road and rally against government corruption. When government guards fired weapons over the protesters’ heads, the crowd went wild and attacked the monument.
Anywhere you care to look people are being slaughtered, raped and robbed in the name of democracy and the american way.
It’s possible to feel sorry for the stooges being paid a pittance to put a local face on US imperialism. The victims know they have to confine their resistance to acts against the stooges. Any attempt to go after the perpetrators will have them branded terrorists, an out come which would guarantee none of their leaders ever saw the light of day again and which could conceivably have all of them liberated by a thermo-nuclear device.
Call for calm after Papua protest
Armed police are patrolling the capital of Indonesia’s Papua province, Jayapura, after clashes with protesters demanding the closure of a gold mine.
Police have arrested 57 people over Thursday’s violence during which three officers and a soldier were killed.
There have been protests against the mine’s operator – US giant Freeport McMoRan – since security forces tried to evict unlicensed miners last month.
Supporters of Papua independence see the mine as a symbol of unfair rule.
“The situation in Jayapura and the surrounding areas is now back to normal. Shops are already open, buses running normally,” police spokesman Kartono Wangsadisastra said.
Police officials said they have appealed for people to remain calm and “restrain themselves”.
President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono rejected demands for the immediate closure of the mine but said he would assign ministers to examine social grievances related to its operations.
Controversial
The Freeport McMoRan mine – Indonesia’s biggest taxpayer – is one of the largest in the world.
There has been frequent controversy over its environmental impact, the share of revenue going to Papuans, and the legality of payments to Indonesian security forces who help guard the site.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW) urged Indonesia’s government to allow an independent inquiry into the violence.
There were unconfirmed reports of two civilian deaths in the clashes, and rights groups said at least six protesters were seriously injured, HRW said in a statement.
The incident was the most serious for several months, and was likely to stoke tensions in the province, which has seen a low-level insurgency against Indonesian rule.
Eyewitness: ‘They feel oppressed’
Indonesia flashpoints: Papua
Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 17 2006 7:44 utc | 2
Hospital holds baby for payment
USIsrael’s justice ministry is deciding whether to prosecute a hospital that held a newborn baby for two months as a “guarantee” until a bill was paid.
Snip:
Because the children’s father was a Palestinian resident of the West Bank, the hospital demanded payment of the bill as it was not certain of recovering the costs from the National Insurance Institute (NII).
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 17 2006 12:48 utc | 4
U$,
hey, the Israelis had every right to detain this kid: if his father was a Palestinian, that makes him a potential terrorist…
Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 17 2006 13:40 utc | 5
New Poll Finds 86 Percent Of Americans Don’t Want To Have A Country Anymore
Does America’s finest news source read MoA?
Posted by: citizen | Mar 18 2006 0:37 utc | 6
What You Need to Know About The Proposed Model State Emergency Health Powers Act in Your State
Because you know it’s coming, and I suspect it will most certainly be blamed on Iran. What thinkst?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 18 2006 2:20 utc | 7
VIDEO- Jonathan Turley on Warrantless Eavesdropping and Warrantless Physical Searches
Note: the above is a direct link to the video.
While your out celebrating this weekend or just away from your home for whatever reason, work, visiting friends, at the grocery, keep in mind, your home may be searched.
See more here:
No Warrant. No Problem. Bush breaking into homes
The 4th Ammendment under assault as your representative elite (both republican and democrat ) sale your rights down the river made legal by the Patriot Act of which they didn’t even read.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 18 2006 3:10 utc | 8
If you ever saw Chris Farley (on sat night live) do that motivational speaker (lives in a van down by the river) bit, you might enjoy this real life version, with a new “Holy Ghost Enema” twist (ugg). Good thing there were no coffee tables around.
Posted by: anna missed | Mar 18 2006 8:45 utc | 9
@brother anna missed
Holy Shit!…lmao.
Thanks, I needed that ..Amen and Awoman!
Bck at cha:
Jamie Raskin on the Difference Between the Bible and the Constitution
“On Wednesday, March 1, 2006, at a hearing on the proposed Constitutional Amendment to prohibit gay marriage, Jamie Raskin, professor of law at AU, was requested to testify.
At the end of his testimony, Republican Senator Nancy Jacobs said: ‘Mr. Raskin, my Bible says marriage is only between a man and a woman. What do you have to say about that?’
Raskin replied: ‘Senator, when you took your oath of office, you placed your hand on the Bible and swore to uphold the Constitution. You did not place your hand on the Constitution and swear to uphold the Bible.’
The room erupted into applause.”
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 18 2006 9:03 utc | 10
It looks as though the Bush regime has learned there’s a potential psychopath on any street in the ‘burbs’. An interesting insight of the psychopathology of a culture whose religion teaches that one’s primary responsibility is to materially benefit oneself.
Billmon’s New Pravda spells out the ease with which sadists were found to torture and subjugate their fellow man:
Before and After Abu Ghraib, a U.S. Unit Abused Detainees
By ERIC SCHMITT and CAROLYN MARSHALL
Published: March 19, 2006
As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein’s former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. There, American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government’s torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room.
In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball. Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq’s most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.
The Black Room was part of a temporary detention site at Camp Nama, the secret headquarters of a shadowy military unit known as Task Force 6-26. Located at Baghdad International Airport, the camp was the first stop for many insurgents on their way to the Abu Ghraib prison a few miles away.
Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, “NO BLOOD, NO FOUL.” The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: “If you don’t make them bleed, they can’t prosecute for it.” According to Pentagon specialists who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and confined for weeks without charges. “The reality is, there were no rules there,” another Pentagon official said.
The story of detainee abuse in Iraq is a familiar one. But the following account of Task Force 6-26, based on documents and interviews with more than a dozen people, offers the first detailed description of how the military’s most highly trained counterterrorism unit committed serious abuses.
It adds to the picture of harsh interrogation practices at American military prisons in Afghanistan and Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, as well as at secret Central Intelligence Agency detention centers around the world.
The new account reveals the extent to which the unit members mistreated prisoners months before and after the photographs of abuse from Abu Ghraib were made public in April 2004, and it helps belie the original Pentagon assertions that abuse was confined to a small number of rogue reservists at Abu Ghraib.
The abuses at Camp Nama continued despite warnings beginning in August 2003 from an Army investigator and American intelligence and law enforcement officials in Iraq. The C.I.A. was concerned enough to bar its personnel from Camp Nama that August.
It is difficult to compare the conditions at the camp with those at Abu Ghraib because so little is known about the secret compound, which was off limits even to the Red Cross. The abuses appeared to have been unsanctioned, but some of them seemed to have been well known throughout the camp.
For an elite unit with roughly 1,000 people at any given time, Task Force 6-26 seems to have had a large number of troops punished for detainee abuse. Since 2003, 34 task force members have been disciplined in some form for mistreating prisoners, and at least 11 members have been removed from the unit, according to new figures the Special Operations Command provided in response to questions from The New York Times. Five Army Rangers in the unit were convicted three months ago for kicking and punching three detainees in September 2005.
Some of the serious accusations against Task Force 6-26 have been reported over the past 16 months by news organizations including NBC, The Washington Post and The Times. Many details emerged in hundreds of pages of documents released under a Freedom of Information Act request by the American Civil Liberties Union. But taken together for the first time, the declassified documents and interviews with more than a dozen military and civilian Defense Department and other federal personnel provide the most detailed portrait yet of the secret camp and the inner workings of the clandestine unit.
The documents and interviews also reflect a culture clash between the free-wheeling military commandos and the more cautious Pentagon civilians working with them that escalated to a tense confrontation. At one point, one of Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s top aides, Stephen A. Cambone, ordered a subordinate to “get to the bottom” of any misconduct.
Most of the people interviewed for this article were midlevel civilian and military Defense Department personnel who worked with Task Force 6-26 and said they witnessed abuses, or who were briefed on its operations over the past three years.
Many were initially reluctant to discuss Task Force 6-26 because its missions are classified. But when pressed repeatedly by reporters who contacted them, they agreed to speak about their experiences and observations out of what they said was anger and disgust over the unit’s treatment of detainees and the failure of task force commanders to punish misconduct more aggressively. The critics said the harsh interrogations yielded little information to help capture insurgents or save American lives.
Virtually all of those who agreed to speak are career government employees, many with previous military service, and they were granted anonymity to encourage them to speak candidly without fear of retribution from the Pentagon. Many of their complaints are supported by declassified military documents and e-mail messages from F.B.I. agents who worked regularly with the task force in Iraq.
Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 19 2006 2:51 utc | 11
Google ordered to hand over data
A federal judge has ordered internet search engine Google to turn over some search data, including 50,000 web addresses, to the US government.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 19 2006 14:29 utc | 12
The farcical end of the American dream
The US press is supposed to be challenging the lies of this war
By Robert Fisk
03/18/06 “The Independent” — — It is a bright winter morning and I am sipping my first coffee of the day in Los Angeles. My eye moves like a radar beam over the front page of the Los Angeles Times for the word that dominates the minds of all Middle East correspondents: Iraq. In post-invasion, post-Judith Miller mode, the American press is supposed to be challenging the lies of this war. So the story beneath the headline “In a Battle of Wits, Iraq’s Insurgency Mastermind Stays a Step Ahead of US” deserves to be read. Or does it?
Datelined Washington – an odd city in which to learn about Iraq, you might think – its opening paragraph reads: “Despite the recent arrest of one of his would-be suicide bombers in Jordan and some top aides in Iraq, insurgency mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi has eluded capture, US authorities say, because his network has a much better intelligence-gathering operation than they do.”
Now quite apart from the fact that many Iraqis – along, I have to admit, with myself – have grave doubts about whether Zarqawi exists, and that al-Qai’da’s Zarqawi, if he does exist, does not merit the title of “insurgency mastermind”, the words that caught my eye were “US authorities say”. And as I read through the report, I note how the Los Angeles Times sources this extraordinary tale. I thought American reporters no longer trusted the US administration, not after the mythical weapons of mass destruction and the equally mythical connections between Saddam and the international crimes against humanity of 11 September 2001. Of course, I was wrong.
Here are the sources – on pages one and 10 for the yarn spun by reporters Josh Meyer and Mark Mazzetti: “US officials said”, “said one US Justice Department counter-terrorism official”, “Officials … said”, “those officials said”, “the officials confirmed”, “American officials complained”, “the US officials stressed”, “US authorities believe”, “said one senior US intelligence official”, “US officials said”, “Jordanian officials … said” – here, at least is some light relief – “several US officials said”, “the US officials said”, “American officials said”, “officials say”, “say US officials”, “US officials said”, “one US counter-terrorism official said”.
I do truly treasure this story. It proves my point that the Los Angeles Times – along with the big east coast dailies – should all be called US OFFICIALS SAY. But it’s not just this fawning on political power that makes me despair. Let’s move to a more recent example of what I can only call institutionalised racism in American reporting of Iraq. I have to thank reader Andrew Gorman for this gem, a January Associated Press report about the killing of an Iraqi prisoner under interrogation by US Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer Jnr.
Mr Welshofer, it transpired in court, had stuffed the Iraqi General Abed Hamed Mowhoush head-first into a sleeping bag and sat on his chest, an action which – not surprisingly – caused the general to expire. The military jury ordered – reader, hold your breath – a reprimand for Mr Welshofer, the forfeiting of $6,000 of his salary and confinement to barracks for 60 days. But what caught my eye was the sympathetic detail. Welshofer’s wife’s Barbara, the AP told us, “testified that she was worried about providing for their three children if her husband was sentenced to prison. ‘I love him more for fighting this,’ she said, tears welling up in her eyes. ‘He’s always said that you need to do the right thing, and sometimes the right thing is the hardest thing to do'”.
Yes, I guess torture is tough on the torturer. But try this from the same report: “Earlier in the day … Mr Welshofer fought back tears. ‘I deeply apologise if my actions tarnish the soldiers serving in Iraq,’ he said.”
Note how the American killer’s remorse is directed not towards his helpless and dead victim but to the honour of his fellow soldiers, even though an earlier hearing had revealed that some of his colleagues watched Welshofer stuffing the general into the sleeping bag and did nothing to stop him. An earlier AP report stated that “officials” – here we go again – “believed Mowhoush had information that would ‘break the back of the insurgency’.” Wow. The general knew all about 40,000 Iraqi insurgents. So what a good idea to stuff him upside down inside a sleeping bag and sit on his chest.
But the real scandal about these reports is we’re not told anything about the general’s family. Didn’t he have a wife? I imagine the tears were “welling up in her eyes” when she was told her husband had been done to death. Didn’t the general have children? Or parents? Or any loved ones who “fought back tears” when told of this vile deed? Not in the AP report he didn’t. General Mowhoush comes across as an object, a dehumanised creature who wouldn’t let the Americans “break the back” of the insurgency after being stuffed headfirst into a sleeping bag.
Now let’s praise the AP. On an equally bright summer’s morning in Australia a few days ago I open the Sydney Morning Herald. It tells me, on page six, that the news agency, using the Freedom of Information Act, has forced US authorities to turn over 5,000 pages of transcripts of hearings at the Guantanamo Bay prison camp. One of them records the trial of since-released British prisoner Feroz Abbasi, in which Mr Abbasi vainly pleads with his judge, a US air force colonel, to reveal the evidence against him, something he says he has a right to hear under international law.
And here is what the American colonel replied: “Mr Abbasi, your conduct is unacceptable and this is your absolute final warning. I do not care about international law. I do not want to hear the words international law. We are not concerned about international law.”
Alas, these words – which symbolise the very end of the American dream – are buried down the story. The colonel, clearly a disgrace to the uniform he wears, does not appear in the bland headline (“US papers tell Guantanamo inmates’ stories”) of the Sydney paper, more interested in telling us that the released documents identify by name the “farmers, shopkeepers or goatherds” held in Guantanamo.
I am now in Wellington, New Zealand, watching on CNN Saddam Hussein’s attack on the Baghdad court trying him. And suddenly, the ghastly Saddam disappears from my screen. The hearing will now proceed in secret, turning this drumhead court into even more of a farce. It is a disgrace. And what does CNN respectfully tell us? That the judge has “suspended media coverage”!
If only, I say to myself, CNN – along with the American press – would do the same.
Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 19 2006 18:21 utc | 13
A federal judge has ordered internet search engine Google to turn over some search data, including 50,000 web addresses, to the US government.
Uncle, didn’t you mean to say A federal “judge”? Can’t discuss judges anymore w/out mentioning who appointed them, and if they’re Federalist Society. Wish a lawyer would start a site making it easier to get that info.
Posted by: jj | Mar 19 2006 18:53 utc | 14
Congratulations to Byelorussian president Alexandr Lukashenko, who received 101.4% of the vote in today’s election (it seems that several thousand Poles and Ukranians snuck over the border and were allowed to vote for him, too)
Meanwhile, the planned “coup” by opposition forces was nipped in the bud in a manner that would make deputy Barney Fife proud…
Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 19 2006 20:47 utc | 15
@ralphieboy
We have a cultural colloquialism, here in the states, called getting “schooled”. I’m glad to my knowledge, no one got ‘schooled’ in the Republic of Belarus today.<--sad attempt at dry humor, on a not so humourous subject....
Belarus KGB Says Opposition Planned School Bombings on Election Day
Belarusian State Security Committee Chairman Stepan Sukhorenko has accused the opposition of conspiring to stage a coup, news agencies said Thursday. Sukharenko said he had evidence that the United States and Georgia were backing efforts to overthrow the country’s current regime by force in Sunday’s presidential elections.
Stepan Sukharenko showed a press conference in the Belarussian capital, Minsk, a video of an interview with a man he said was one of those involved in the plot, RIA Novosti reported. The man said he had been at a training camp in Georgia at which training was provided by “four Arabs [and] officers of the former Soviet army”.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 19 2006 21:05 utc | 16
Well, it seems that the polling results were premature: Lukashenko only got 82% of the vote.
In other news, 18% of the Byelorussian population was placed under arrest on charges of treason.
Posted by: ralphieboy | Mar 19 2006 21:56 utc | 17
AP: Bush Using Straw-Man Arguments in Speeches
When the president starts a sentence with “some say” or offers up what “some in Washington” believe, as he is doing more often these days, a rhetorical retort almost assuredly follows.
The device usually is code for Democrats or other White House opponents. In describing what they advocate, Bush often omits an important nuance or substitutes an extreme stance that bears little resemblance to their actual position.
He typically then says he “strongly disagrees” – conveniently knocking down a straw man of his own making.
…
A specialist in presidential rhetoric, Wayne Fields of Washington University in St. Louis, views it as “a bizarre kind of double talk” that abuses the rules of legitimate discussion.
“It’s such a phenomenal hole in the national debate that you can have arguments with nonexistent people,” Fields said. “All politicians try to get away with this to a certain extent. What’s striking here is how much this administration rests on a foundation of this kind of stuff.”
nothing new about this, other than that the AP is calling bush on it
Posted by: b real | Mar 20 2006 3:23 utc | 18
so what’s up w/ rumsfeld & his nazi projection…erm, fixation…i mean conflation?
Rumsfeld: leaving Iraq like giving Nazis Germany
“Turning our backs on postwar Iraq today would be the modern equivalent of handing postwar Germany back to the Nazis,” he wrote in an essay in The Washington Post.
feb 3, 2006
Rumsfeld likens Venezuela’s Chavez to Hitler
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld likened Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to Adolf Hitler, reflecting continuing tension in relations between the United States and the Latin American government.
may 26, 2005
Rumsfeld: Zarqawi Like Hitler
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld is comparing Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to Adolf Hitler in the final days of Nazi Germany.
The comments come amid reports that al-Zarqawi has been wounded.
In a pep talk to thousands of paratroopers Thursday, Rumsfeld likened al Qaeda’s reportedly wounded chief in Iraq to a cornered Adolf Hitler during the final days of Nazi Germany.
“Like Hitler in his bunker, this violent extremist, failing to advance his political objectives, now appears committed to destroying everything and everyone around him,” Rumsfeld said.
april 10, 2003
Saddam joins Hitler, Stalin: Rumsfeld
Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein is going down with Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin among history’s failed dictators, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today.
…
“Saddam Hussein is now taking his rightful place alongside Hitler, Stalin, [Vladimir] Lenin and [Romanian dictator Nicolae] Ceausescu in the pantheon of failed, brutal dictators,” Rumsfeld declared.
Posted by: b real | Mar 20 2006 4:03 utc | 19
Zeynep at under the same sun has the Time story of how a US convoy was attacked, and how the soldiers sought revenge by entering the nearest three houses killing the 15 men women and children inside.
Posted by: anna missed | Mar 20 2006 6:12 utc | 20
here’s the fulltime story w/photos
anybody else wonder if a film crew hadn’t gotten in there the next day to document this it would have never come to light?
how many other incidents like this?
Posted by: annie | Mar 20 2006 6:19 utc | 21
The joys of being ‘protected’ by the US military.
I bet CBS didn’t tell US citizens that reported rapes in New Zealand dropped dramatically once the US Navy was banned from visiting.
Manila may drop rape charges against US marines
MANILA (Reuters) – The Philippine government said on Monday it was considering dropping rape charges against three U.S. marines in favor of a lesser charge but would pursue the case against a fourth marine.
Last year, Philippine prosecutors charged the four with raping a 22-year-old Filipino woman in early November but, following an appeal by defense lawyers, the government is reviewing the charges before the marines are formally arraigned.
“What I’m studying now is whether the culpability of all these people is the same,” Justice Secretary Raul Gonzalez told Reuters.
When asked about media reports that the Philippines will drop all charges against three of the four U.S servicemen, Gonzalez said “I do not think so.”
“I think it’s the question of (the) particular nature of the participation,” he said. “(It’s) not necessary that they will be acquitted.”
The four Marines, along with the alleged rape victim, were expected to appear in court on March 24 to hear the formal charges but Gonzalez said he did not know if the Justice department’s review would be completed by then.
“I don’t know whether the judge will proceed with the arraignment unless I would have submitted already my resolution.
“I’m trying to be ready, I’m trying my best. This is a very thick folder you do not give justice by just reading it … you have to study … there is an international relationship involved here.”
A person convicted of rape in the Philippines can be sentenced to death.
Despite a series of small demonstrations, the rape case has not inflamed any serious anti-American sentiment in the Philippines, a former U.S. colony and Washington’s closest security partner in Southeast Asia.
The marines, stationed in Okinawa, Japan, had just ended two weeks of military exercises with Philippine troops in October and were on rest-and-recreation leave when the alleged incident happened.
The four members of the 31st Marine Expeditionary Unit remain under the custody of the U.S. embassy after Washington turned down a request by Manila to hand them over, ignoring an arrest warrant issued by a local court in January.
In a January 16 diplomatic note, the embassy invoked the 1998 Visiting Forces Agreement, saying “the U.S. government shall continue to exercise custody until completion of all judicial proceedings”.
Opposition politicians and leftist activists have protested over Washington’s refusal to hand over the Marines, describing it as a vote of no confidence in the country’s justice system.
Still it could have been worse they weren’t trying to protect their dwindling seafood resources from poaching by unlicensed Tuna fishermen working for US canneries
US captures 13 Somali ‘pirates’
Thirteen suspected pirates involved in clashes with the US Navy off the Somali coast on Saturday have been captured, a spokesman for the men says.
Saleban Aadan Barqad told the BBC that his men were protecting fishing stocks from foreign vessels when they were attacked by the Americans.
The group has demanded that the United States release the men.
On Saturday, the US Navy reported an exchange of fire between two of its ships and the suspected pirates.
One person was killed and five wounded in the incident, which happened early on Saturday as the ships were conducting maritime security operations, reports say.
No US sailors were injured in the incident.
According to the US navy, it is holding 12 suspects, but unconfirmed reports quote the men’s spokesman as saying 13 men are in custody.
It is not clear whether the 13 men include the person killed in the gun battle on Saturday.
There are contradictory reports on how the gunbattle began.
Saleban Aadan Barqad said his men returned fire after being attacked by the American warships. But the US navy says the warships were targeted by the suspected pirates.
The ships – the USS Cape St George, a guided missile cruiser, and the USS Gonzalez, a guided missile destroyer – spotted a suspect vessel, which opened fire on them, according to a Navy statement.
They were patrolling the area as part of a Dutch-led coalition task force.
Dangerous waters
Hijackings and piracy have recently surged off the Somali coastline.
The area has become one of the most dangerous in the world for piracy since warlords ousted Somalia’s former ruler in 1991 and divided the country amongst themselves.
The International Maritime Bureau has warned ships to stay away from the coast because of the attacks. It has recorded 37 attacks since mid-March last year.
Earlier this month, United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan said pirate attacks were hampering efforts to bring food aid to Somalia.
Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 20 2006 6:42 utc | 22
barsnack:
you-mean-they-really-are-whiny-ass-titty-babies
Posted by: citizen | Mar 20 2006 19:57 utc | 23
can you believe this bush buffoon – he now parades – tal afar as a victory – in exactly the same sort of language goebells used in the siege of leningrad & stalingrad
there is no end to their foolishness
Posted by: remembereringgiap | Mar 20 2006 20:15 utc | 24
@b
Please consider this post my attempt at a full essay to drive a thread.
If it doesn’t pass muster, I’d appreciate feedback from anyone on how to whip it into better shape. If it’s just too derivative of the Haditha discussion already existing, I’d appreciate hearing that too.
Posted by: citizen | Mar 20 2006 21:21 utc | 25
can anyone point me toward “the rest of the story” as far as what is happening in Belarus?
something is missing from corporate media on the coverage of this.
Posted by: dan of steele | Mar 20 2006 21:35 utc | 26
Henry Waxman seems to be making a move to clarify certain grounds for impeachment charges
crimes that would be more consequential than lying under oath, but equally innocuous regarding the sacred war/profit effort.
Posted by: citizen | Mar 20 2006 21:48 utc | 27
These guys are so fucking COLD
Even the poor old Afghani vllagers who have copped the rough end of the pineapple from at least 1970 until now, are are copping the shakedown.
They are being told to kick most of the pittance they have been granted in aid back to Rumsfeld as tribute. The old Bird-Flu scam which in terms of sheer ingenuity is up there with Bill Burroughs ‘great accounting machine ripoff’. The difference is of course that old Bill only pulled that one on crooked croakers, crafty quacks who wanted yer left and right arms for a demerol script. I doubt even Toto Riina would have been this callous to a bunch of people who have done nothing but eat shit for two generations. They finally cop some ketchup to hide the taste and whaddyaknow Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz grab the bottle. They don’t need it cause ketchup n caviar has the flavour and texture of a cup of cold fat with a few hairs in it. But let one starving raggedy assed country off the hook and every whining snot dripping dial will be stuck in yer face wanting “a break please Mr Boss just like Afghanistan got”.
If you think there’s a bit of hyperbole loose read the para about “birds falling out of the sky”.
BBC News Monday, 20 March 2006, 17:54 GMT
Afghans fear bird flu spreading
Afghan officials fear the deadly bird flu virus may have spread to a third province, a week after the H5N1 strain was first confirmed in the country.
Two birds tested positive for the H5 strain in Kabul and in Kunar province. More tests are being conducted.
A spokesman for the Kunar governor told the BBC that villagers had reported seeing birds falling out of the sky.
The UN has urged a quick response, after two H5N1 cases were confirmed in Kabul and Nangarhar last week.
Cull planned
UN spokesman Adrian Edwards said speed was imperative in dealing with the flu outbreak.
“It’s clearly important to see action rather than just statements on this and we look forward to see what the government is coming up with,” he told Reuters news agency.
Although the government and the UN had taken a decision to begin culling birds, a government official said the process would begin only on Wednesday.
Protective suits have been supplied by the US military, but officials fear there will not be enough of them, according to the Associated Press.
Nine hundred chicken farms were closed in Jalalabad last week after the detection of the flu.
Confirming the death of chickens in Kunar Province, a spokesman for the governor, Zahidullah Zahid, told the BBC that at least 50 chickens had died in the village of Yargul outside the provincial capital, Asadabad.
Mr Zahid told the BBC that villagers were reporting seeing birds falling from the air.
Poultry imports
It is feared that Afghanistan – with its proximity to Iran and India which have both detected outbreaks – could be especially vulnerable.
After 30 years of war, Afghanistan’s health care system and administrative machinery are ill-equipped to deal with any outbreak of a large scale epidemic.
Following the detection of bird flu, the Afghan government put an immediate ban on poultry imports from neighbouring Pakistan. The UN spokesman in Afghanistan confirmed that no case of human infection had been detected in Afghanistan.
Six other samples taken from birds in the southern province of Kandahar and from Kunduz in the north had tested negative, officials said last week.
Bird flu has killed about 100 people since late 2003, most of them in Asia.
However the virus does not at present pose a large-scale threat to humans, as it cannot pass easily from one person to another.
Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 20 2006 22:42 utc | 28
FBI agent: warnings obstructed in Moussaoui case
An FBI agent testified in the sentencing trial of September 11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui on Monday his superiors at the agency repeatedly blocked his efforts to warn of a possible terror attack.
Harry Samit, the FBI agent who arrested Moussaoui three weeks before the deadly airliner hijackings that killed 3,000 people, said he tried to tell his superiors that he thought a hijacking plan might be in the works.
“You tried to move heaven and earth to get a search warrant to search this man’s belongings. You were obstructed,” defense attorney Edward MacMahon said as the trial resumed after a week’s delay over improper witness coaching.
“From a particular individual in the (FBI’s) Radical Fundamentalist Unit, yes sir, I was obstructed,” Samit said.
from CNN
A federal judge threatened to throw out the death penalty at the sentencing trial of al Qaeda conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui after prosecutors disclosed Monday that a government lawyer tried to coach seven witnesses.
U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema sent the jury home and scheduled a hearing Tuesday to investigate what she said could be a “very serious taint of a key portion of this case.”
Prosecutors disclosed Monday that seven current and former Federal Aviation Administration employees were sent transcripts from last week’s opening statements and testimony.
Brinkema said that “blatantly” violated her February 22 order that witnesses “may not attend or otherwise follow trial proceedings; for example, may not read transcripts, before being called to testify.”
The judge voiced her clear displeasure: “In all the years I’ve been on the bench, I have never seen such an egregious violation of a rule on witnesses.”
Posted by: annie | Mar 21 2006 1:45 utc | 29
This one is still new to me, and I haven’t had much chance to look into it, but it appears that Merrie Olde England has their own version of Executive Privilege in the works. And, as these things are usually done, there’s nary a peep in the way of public debate during the pre-passage phase.
Posted by: Monolycus | Mar 21 2006 2:34 utc | 30
I wonder how this one is playing in the Bible Belt?
These laws were originally passed in Muslim countries to try and stop the alleged xtian ‘aid agencies’ attaching strings like ‘baptism’ to the distribution of food and medical supplies. However this chap may have been done in by an irate in-law rather than for foisting his P.O.V. on others.
Apart from the serious disruption of this individual’s freedom to believe whatever he goddamn wants to, more countries should have laws to prevent xtians from knockin on yer door and trying to foist their narrow and biased view of the world on others. People raised in xtian countries just accept evangelising and proseltyzing from xtians.
If you stop and consider it, the whole business of trying to push your personal beliefs onto complete strangers, in their own home, is both really ill-mannered and totally reprehensible.
BBC News Monday, 20 March 2006, 13:15 GMT
Afghan on trial for Christianity
An Afghan man is being tried in a court in the capital, Kabul, for converting from Islam to Christianity.
Abdul Rahman is charged with rejecting Islam and could face the death sentence under Sharia law unless he recants.
He converted 16 years ago as an aid worker helping refugees in Pakistan. His estranged family denounced him in a custody dispute over his two children.
It is thought to be Afghanistan’s first such trial, reflecting tensions between conservative clerics and reformists.
Conservatives still dominate the Afghan judiciary four years after the Taleban were overthrown.
The BBC’s Mike Donkin in Kabul says reformists, like the government under President Hamid Karzai, want a more liberal, secular legal system but under the present constitution it is hard for them to intervene.
‘Tolerance’
Afghanistan’s post-Taleban constitution is based on Sharia law, and prosecutors in the case says this means Abdul Rahman, whose trial began last Thursday, should be put to death.
We will ask him if he has changed his mind. If so we will forgive him
Trial judge Ansarullah Mawlazezadah
When he was arrested last month he was found to be carrying a bible and charged with rejecting Islam which is punishable by death in Afghanistan.
Trial judge Ansarullah Mawlazezadah told the BBC that Mr Rahman, 41, would be asked to reconsider his conversion, which he made while working for a Christian aid group in Pakistan.
“We will invite him again because the religion of Islam is one of tolerance. We will ask him if he has changed his mind. If so we will forgive him,” the judge told the BBC on Monday.
But if he refused to reconvert, then his mental state would be considered first before he was dealt with under Sharia law, the judge added.
He said he expected the case to take about two months to be heard.
Precedent
The Afghan Human Rights Commission has called for a better balance in the judiciary, with fewer judges advocating Sharia law and more judges with a wider legal background.
Several journalists have been prosecuted under blasphemy laws in post-Taleban Afghanistan.
The editor of a women’s rights magazine was convicted of insulting Islam and sentenced to death last year – but was later released after an apology and heavy international pressure.
Mr Karzai’s office says the president will not intervene in the case.
Observers say executing a converted Christian would be a significant precedent as a conservative interpretation of Sharia law in Afghanistan.
But it would also outrage Western nations which put Mr Karzai in power and are pouring billions of dollars into supporting the country.
Posted by: Anonymous | Mar 21 2006 5:42 utc | 31
@Annie et al…
Your post on Lobby Danger sent my suspicious mind into red alert. In dealing w/Senator Cantwell, in particular where you wrote, …”a year ago when i was working w/a local progressive group that senator cantwell was open to dialogue with(turns out it was all show) a few of us divided into groups to tackle issues important to us.”.
It may be nothing, but you expressing the above in that you guys/gals split up into groups for disscusion reminded me of how groups are manipulated i.e. herded into thought boxes by way of coercion via what is known as the Delphi Technique.
The delphi technique is a proven scientific form of propaganda, to control group dynamics. I can’t help but wonder did you guys decide to split up into groups, are were you told to?
For instance, many politicians are using the delphi technique to achieve consensus. Often it can it is lead us away from representative government to an illusion of citizen participation.
The Delphi Technique and consensus building are both founded in the same principle – the Hegelian dialectic of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis, with synthesis becoming the new thesis. The goal is a continual evolution to “oneness of mind” (consensus means solidarity of belief) -the collective mind, the wholistic society, the wholistic earth, etc.
In thesis and antithesis, opinions or views are presented on a subject to establish views and opposing views. In synthesis, opposites are brought together to form the new thesis. All participants in the process are then to accept ownership of the new thesis and support it, changing their views to align with the new thesis. Through a continual process of evolution, “oneness of mind” will supposedly occur.
In group settings, the Delphi Technique is an unethical method of achieving consensus on controversial topics. It requires well-trained professionals, known as “facilitators” or “change agents,” who deliberately escalate tension among group members, pitting one faction against another to make a preordained viewpoint appear “sensible,” while making opposing views appear ridiculous.
There is a need of those in power to preserve the illusion that there is “community participation in decision-making processes, while in fact lay citizens are being squeezed out.
The setting or type of group is immaterial for the success of the technique. The point is that, when people are in groups that tend to share a particular knowledge base, they display certain identifiable characteristics, known as group dynamics, which allows the facilitator to apply the basic strategy.
The facilitators or change agents encourage each person in a group to express concerns about the programs, projects, or policies in question. They listen attentively, elicit input from group members, form “task forces,” urge participants to make lists, and in going through these motions, learn about each member of a group. They are trained to identify the “leaders,” the “loud mouths,” the “weak or non-committal members,” and those who are apt to change sides frequently during an argument.
Suddenly, the amiable facilitators become professional agitators and “devil’s advocates.” Using the “divide and conquer” principle, they manipulate one opinion against another, making those who are out of step appear “ridiculous, unknowledgeable, inarticulate, or dogmatic.” They attempt to anger certain participants, thereby accelerating tensions. The facilitators are well trained in psychological manipulation. They are able to predict the reactions of each member in a group. Individuals in opposition to the desired policy or program will be shut out.
The Delphi Technique works. It is very effective with parents, teachers, school children, and community groups. The “targets” rarely, if ever, realize that they are being manipulated. If they do suspect what is happening, they do not know how to end the process. The facilitator seeks to polarize the group in order to become an accepted member of the group and of the process. The desired idea is then placed on the table and individual opinions are sought during discussion. Soon, associates from the divided group begin to adopt the idea as if it were their own, and they pressure the entire group to accept their proposition.
How the Delphi Technique Works
Consistent use of this technique to control public participation in our political system is causing alarm among people who cherish the form of government established by our Founding Fathers. Efforts in education and other areas have brought the emerging picture into focus.
In the not-too-distant past, the city of Spokane, in Washington state, hired a consultant to the tune of $47,000 to facilitate the direction of city government. This development brought a hue and cry from the local population. The ensuing course of action holds an eerie similarity to what is happening in education reform. A newspaper editorial described how groups of disenfranchised citizens were brought together to “discuss” what they felt needed to be changed at the local government level. A compilation of the outcomes of those “discussions” influenced the writing of the city/county charter.
That sounds innocuous. But what actually happened in Spokane is happening in communities and school districts all across the country. Let’s review the process that occurs in these meetings.
First, a facilitator is hired. While his job is supposedly neutral and non-judgmental, the opposite is actually true. The facilitator is there to direct the meeting to a preset conclusion.
The facilitator begins by working the crowd to establish a good-guy-bad-guy scenario. Anyone disagreeing with the facilitator must be made to appear as the bad guy, with the facilitator appearing as the good guy. To accomplish this, the facilitator seeks out those who disagree and makes them look foolish, inept, or aggressive, which sends a clear message to the rest of the audience that, if they don’t want the same treatment, they must keep quiet. When the opposition has been identified and alienated, the facilitator becomes the good guy – a friend – and the agenda and direction of the meeting are established without the audience ever realizing what has happened.
Next, the attendees are broken up into smaller groups of seven or eight people. Each group has its own facilitator. The group facilitators steer participants to discuss preset issues, employing the same tactics as the lead facilitator.
Participants are encouraged to put their ideas and disagreements on paper, with the results to be compiled later. Who does the compiling? If you ask participants, you typically hear: “Those running the meeting compiled the results.” Oh-h! The next question is: “How do you know that what you wrote on your sheet of paper was incorporated into the final outcome?” The typical answer is: “Well, I’ve wondered about that, because what I wrote doesn’t seem to be reflected. I guess my views were in the minority.”
That is the crux of the situation. If 50 people write down their ideas individually, to be compiled later into a final outcome, no one knows what anyone else has written. That the final outcome of such a meeting reflects anyone’s input at all is highly questionable, and the same holds true when the facilitator records the group’s comments on paper. But participants in these types of meetings usually don’t question the process.
Why hold such meetings at all if the outcomes are already established? The answer is because it is imperative for the acceptance of the School-to-Work agenda, or the environmental agenda, or whatever the agenda, that ordinary people assume ownership of the preset outcomes. If people believe an idea is theirs, they’ll support it. If they believe an idea is being forced on them, they’ll resist.
The Delphi Technique is being used very effectively to change our government from a representative form in which elected individuals represent the people, to a “participatory democracy” in which citizens selected at large are facilitated into ownership of preset outcomes. These citizens believe that their input is important to the result, whereas the reality is that the outcome was already established by people not apparent to the participants.
It’s the next level of agent provocateur. It is quite Machiavellian. At times, this can be part of a government’s agend, (or fill in th e blank here, politican, board director, what have you) to deflect or direct a range of discourse. The so-called “permitted parameters of debate” or “prop-agenda” then gives the appearance of concensus and democratic process. Brian Eno captures this aspect in talking about recent American foreign policy actions:
In the West the calculated manipulation of public opinion to serve political and ideological interests is much more covert and therefore much more effective [than a propaganda system imposed in a totalitarian regime]. Its greatest triumph is that we generally don’t notice it — or laugh at the notion it even exists. We watch the democratic process taking place – heated debates in which we feel we could have a voice — and think that, because we have “free” media, it would be hard for the Government to get away with anything very devious without someone calling them on it.
…the new American approach to social control is so much more sophisticated and pervasive that it really deserves a new name. It isn’t just propaganda any more, it’s “prop-agenda.” It’s not so much the control of what we think, but the control of what we think about. When our governments want to sell us a course of action, they do it by making sure it’s the only thing on the agenda, the only thing everyone’s talking about. And they pre-load the ensuing discussion with highly selected images, devious and prejudicial language, dubious linkages, weak or false “intelligence” and selected “leaks”. (What else can the spat between the BBC and Alastair Campbell be but a prime example of this?)
With the ground thus prepared, governments are happy if you then “use the democratic process” to agree or disagree — for, after all, their intention is to mobilise enough headlines and conversation to make the whole thing seem real and urgent. The more emotional the debate, the better. Emotion creates reality, reality demands action.
— Brian Eno, Lessons in how to lie about Iraq40, The Observer/Guardian, August 17, 2003
Of course, I could be completely off base on your comments and infering way to much, however this type of (for lack of a better definition) mind control has been going on since the early thiries. See the recent documentary, (I believe annie has watched some of it)Century of the Self and Edward Bernays or even better, THE MASS PSYCHOLOGY OF FASCISM, by Wilhelm Reich. Reich’s study on the origins of authoritarian political and social phenomena.
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Mar 21 2006 6:26 utc | 32
@Uncle–
This has to be one of the most interesting and thought provoking posts for me in a long while.
Whole new forms of manufacturing consent which I didn’t even know existed.
I must say, though, that for someone who is so full of links, this post is starkly devoid of them. Where are they? I would be particularly interested in a recording of this process transpiring, or at least a transcript of how its done.
Only slightly OT: This also reminds me of an article that I clipped for my personal files and have since lost, I think it was about 1987-89 from the Utne Reader, but all attempts to trace it and its ideas have been unsuccessful. Anyway, as I recall, it concerned a study done by the Rand Corporation for the government studying, describing, categorizing and statistically weighting aggregate people’s personality types in the interest of being able to manipulate public sentiment. The results went something like this: 42% of the population was found to have a profound aversion to conflict and will go along with whatever the majority believes to avoid conflict. 73% were found to be uncomfortable holding an opinion in opposition to the majority. Only 1.3% were found to be able to maintain a position when all others were against them. 7% were able to cogently argue for their position against a larger opposition……
This is just an approximation of what I remember the argument to be like, the numbers and descriptions here are just a reconstruction for example. But I realized, as did the author of the article, that such an understanding of the range of human personality types in a society could be essential towards manipulating enough opinion through structured arguments, and employing the correct method for the target group.
Any knowledge of material like this? I’m sure the sadists in Guantanamo know this stuff backwards and forward, though maybe the recent gravitation to more corporeal methods of persuasion have left the understanding of the workings of the human mind obsolete.
Posted by: Malooga | Mar 21 2006 23:21 utc | 33
Troops to Stay in Iraq for Years
WASHINGTON –
President Bush said Tuesday that American forces will remain in
Iraq for years and it will be up to a future president to decide when to bring them all home. But defying critics and plunging polls, he declared, “I’m optimistic we’ll succeed. If not, I’d pull our troops out.”
Posted by: B 52 | Mar 22 2006 1:11 utc | 34
uncle, i did watch the first segment of century of the self and really loved it, unfortunately i was not able to figure out how to watch the 2 thru 4th episodes from that website..
the situation was very similar to what you describe although different at the same time.
the facilitator of the group i was involved with was a control freak and tho most likely not intentionally practicing the
delphi technique, the effects were similar.
the senators liason had offered to meet w/a group of us as a prep for meeting w/the senator. he was perfectly willing to meet with 10 or 15 people but she(favilitator) had her own agenda, specifically she wanted to be taken seriously and thought if we followed some format we might seem more official. she had her handpicked people she wanted in on the meeting all w/the perfect little notes. the format she developed was that we would meet w/the rep for 1 hr and each of the 5 issues, being represented by one person would get about 3 minutes to speak. during that time we were supposed to remark on her past votes and then state how we would have liked her to vote.
i thought the person choosing an issue should be able to have more say over their presenation. it became very clear to me from checking cantwells voting record and interest group ratings that she was a staunch supporter of all things israel. it seemed pretty clear that she was not going to deviate from her record. my idea was to look at the middle east as a whole and pinpoint as a common denominator the most agitating feature to a majority of citizens thruout the region and see if we could budge her on this issue. iraq is all bundled in these justifications i won’t bother repeating, but the palestinian issue was something i wanted to hear her have to address. it really goes to the heart of the pain in the middle east and is a microcosm of the glaring injustice. it also wraps in the lobbying power of aipac.
i came to the meeting about 10 minutes early to discuss what i considered was the best approach to address or highlight our divergence in views and this was when i found out we were not equal, that in fact we were only there to carry out the wishes of our ‘leader’, who really didn’t want me there.
she’s a real mover and shaker in the grassroots dem party here and these guys fight like tooth and nail to make a place for themselves locally. it was so much bullshit i don’t know how they ever accomplish anything. i never returned.
they did end up having a meeting w/the senator, it made no difference at all, and most of the group are not supporting her in the primary, although committed to supporting the dem nominee in the election.
i don’t consider myself easily manipulated. there have been instances where i have been involved in situations w/strange manuverings that i have called the bluff successfully. specifically with my sons schools when he was growing up.
numerous circumstances. i recognize certain patterns easily thru an awareness of being mentally confined. for example, after working at a 9 to 5 job for 2 weeks as a teenager i realized immediately i would have to find another way to exist. way to much confinement for me.
thank you for calling my attention to this delphi technique. i will follow up, sounds interesting.
Posted by: annie | Mar 22 2006 8:32 utc | 35