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Lorry drivers to stage M62 fuel protest

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

By Jon Land | Police monitoring a proposed fuel protest by truckers on one of the UK’s busiest motorways said today their primary aim is to keep traffic flowing on the route. Organisers of the demonstration on the M62 in West Yorkshire have predicted up to 170 lorries will take part in the action against high fuel prices.

The hauliers plan the go-slow action from 2pm.

They are expected to start at junction 31, near Castleford, and head westwards to junction 26 south of Bradford.

The route will take the protest along a notoriously congested section of the motorway system, including the M1/M62 junction near Leeds.

One of the organisers, trucker Rob Sweeting, told BBC Radio Leeds: “Hopefully somebody will listen to us - the Government.”

A spokesman for West Yorkshire Police said: “West Yorkshire Police has been in discussion with the organisers of the protest and our partners in the Highways Agency and comprehensive plans are in place to minimise disruption, ensure public safety and deal effectively with any potential problems.

“We will continue to closely monitor the situation.

“Our primary aim is to ensure the continued free flow of traffic on the motorway while allowing lawful, peaceful protest to go ahead.

“Anyone found breaking the law will face prosecution.”

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UK is world’s biggest arms dealer

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

ABC | Britain was the world’s biggest arms seller last year, accounting for a third of global arms exports, the Government’s trade promotion organisation said.

UK Trade and Investment (UKTI) said British arms exporters had added $20.1 billion in new business last year, giving them a larger share of global arms exports than the United States.

“As demonstrated by this outstanding export performance, the UK has a first-class defence industry, with some of the world’s most technologically sophisticated companies,” Minister for Trade and Investment Digby Jones said.

UKTI said the British figures were boosted by orders for Eurofighter Typhoon jets from Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest arms buyer, which imported $32.8 billion in weapons over the last five years.

The United States still tops the world for the last five years with $66.7 billion in total arms exports.

Britain was second with $56.1 billion and Russia third with $35 billion, it said.

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Doctors’ Report Finds Evidence of U.S. Torture and ‘War Crimes’

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

AP | Medical examinations of former terrorism suspects held by the U.S. military at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, found evidence of torture and other abuse that resulted in serious injuries and mental disorders, according to a human rights group.

For the most extensive medical study of former U.S. detainees published so far, Physicians for Human Rights had doctors and mental health professionals examined 11 former prisoners. The group alleges finding evidence of U.S. torture and war crimes and accuses U.S. military health professionals of allowing the abuse of detainees, denying them medical care and providing confidential medical information to interrogators that they then exploited.

“Some of these men really are, several years later, very severely scarred,” said Barry Rosenfeld, a psychology professor at Fordham University who conducted psychological tests on six of the 11 detainees covered by the study. “It’s a testimony to how bad those conditions were and how personal the abuse was.”

One Iraqi prisoner, identified only as Yasser, reported being subjected to electric shocks three times and being sodomized with a stick. His thumbs bore round scars consistent with shocking, according to the report obtained by The Associated Press. He would not allow a full rectal exam.

Another Iraqi, identified only as Rahman, reported he was humiliated by being forced to wear women’s underwear, stripped naked and paraded in front of female guards, and was shown pictures of other naked detainees. The psychological exam found that Rahman suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder and had sexual problems related to his humiliation, the report said.

The report came as the Senate Armed Services Committee revealed documents showing military lawyers warned the Pentagon that methods it was using post-9/11 violated military, U.S. and international law. Those objections were overruled by the top Pentagon lawyer.

[McClatchy Newspapers has been publishing since Sunday a multi-part series exposing abuse and wrongful imprisonment of detainees.]

President Bush said in 2004, when the prison abuse was revealed, that it was the work of “a few American troops who dishonored our country and disregarded our values.” Bush and other U.S. officials have consistently denied that the U.S. tortures its detainees.

Physicians for Human Rights, an advocacy group based in Cambridge, Mass., that investigates abuse around the world and advocates for global health and human rights, did not identify the 11 former prisoners to protect their privacy. Seven were held in Abu Ghraib between late 2003 and summer of 2004, a period that coincides with the known abuse of prisoners at the hands of some of their American jailers. Four of the prisoners were held at Guantanamo beginning in 2002 for one to almost five years. All 11 were released without criminal charges.

Those examined alleged that they were tortured or abused, including sexually, and described being shocked with electrodes, beaten, shackled, stripped of their clothes, deprived of food and sleep, and spit and urinated on.

The abuse of some prisoners by their American captors is well documented by the government’s own reports. Once-secret documents show that the Pentagon and Justice Department allowed, at least for a time, forced nakedness, isolation, sleep deprivation and humiliation at both Guantanamo Bay Naval Base and at Abu Ghraib.

Because the medical examiners did not have access to the 11 patients’ medical histories prior to their imprisonment, it was not possible to know whether any of the prisoners’ ailments, disabilities and scars pre-dated their confinement. The U.S. military says an al-Qaida training manual instructs members, if captured, to assert they were tortured during interrogation.

However, doctors and mental health professionals stated they could link the prisoners’ claims of abuse while in U.S. detention to injuries documented by X-rays, medical exams and psychological tests.

“The level of the time, thoroughness and rigor of the exams left me personally without question about the credibility of the individuals,” said Dr. Allen Keller, one of the doctors who conducted the exams, in an interview with the AP. “The findings on the physical and psychological exams were consistent with what they reported.”

Most former detainees are out of reach of Western doctors because they are either in Iraq or have been returned to their home countries from Guantanamo.

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World Governments Misleading and Failing Iraqi Refugees

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Amnesty International | The international community is evading its responsibility towards refugees from Iraq by promoting a false picture of the security situation in Iraq when the country is neither safe nor suitable for return, Amnesty International said today.

In its new report, Rhetoric and reality: the Iraqi refugee crisis, which is based on recent research and interviews with Iraqi refugees, the organization said that the world’s richest states are failing to provide the necessary assistance to Iraqi refugees, most of whom are plunged in despair and hurtling towards destitution.

“Governments have done little or nothing to help Iraqi refugees, failing in their moral, political and legal duty to share responsibility for them,” said Amnesty International. “Instead, apathy and rhetoric have been the overwhelming response to one of the worst refugee crises in the world.”

Amnesty International said that the Government of Iraq and states involved in the invasion of Iraq in 2003, in particular the USA and the UK, highlight “improved” security or “voluntary” returns to Iraq out of political expedience, to demonstrate that their military involvement has been a success.

“Rhetoric cannot hide the reality that the wider human rights situation in Iraq remains dire,” said Amnesty International.

“People are being killed every month by armed groups, the Multinational Force, Iraqi security forces and private military and security guards. Kidnappings, torture, ill-treatment and arbitrary detention pervade the daily lives of Iraqis. People continue to attempt to flee, something that is now very difficult with the recent imposition of visa restrictions on Iraqis by Jordan and Syria.”

According to the latest estimates of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), the number of Iraqis who have fled their homes has now reached 4.7 million, the highest since the US-led invasion of Iraq and the subsequent internal armed conflict.

While Syria and Jordan have shouldered most of the refugee influx, they have now resorted to drastic measures such as restricting entry and deporting people who may be at risk of persecution, partly due to the lack of support from the international community.

Having exhausted savings, many refugees are now living in complete destitution and facing new dangers, such as being forced into so-called “voluntary” return to Iraq and child labour — many families have been forced to send their children to work in the streets in a desperate bid to help them survive.

For some refugees, the difficulties they are facing in the host country are prompting them to make the difficult and dangerous decision to return to Iraq, either temporarily to collect a pension or food ration or for other such reasons, or more permanently because of their desperate situation, not because they feel they are no longer at risk of human rights abuses in Iraq.

They are making this decision as they feel they have no other option.

A 62-year-old retired Shi’a army officer, Majid, a widower with seven adult children all living in Baghdad, told Amnesty International in February that after attempting to find protection in Syria, with only the 50 lira (US$1) in his pocket, he had to return to Iraq. Even though he was extremely scared, he had lost hope, saying “If I die, I die.” Majid fled Iraq in February 2008 after two of his nephews, Mansour and Sami, aged 17 and 19, were beheaded by members of an armed group north of Baghdad. He exhausted his savings in Syria and was soon left with nothing. Weeping, he explained to Amnesty International that he had no alternative but to return to Iraq.

Many European countries are now attempting to deport Iraqis, sometimes to some of the most dangerous parts of Iraq such as the south and central regions. In addition to taking direct actions forcing Iraqis to return, they are using indirect methods such as cutting off basic assistance and services to rejected asylum-seekers in order to force them to “voluntarily” return to Iraq.

Sweden, which is host to the largest number of Iraqi refugees in Europe and once a positive example to its neighbours, has now changed its approach and is denying the vast majority of Iraqis protection and forcibly returning some to very dangerous areas.

Amnesty International is greatly concerned that the failure to respond to this crisis will worsen an already dire situation. Amongst other things, it is calling on the international community to:
• urgently and substantially raise sustainable financial assistance;
• end practices such as forcible returns that put lives at further risk;
• cease practices that result in coerced “voluntary” returns;
• allow individuals to seek paid employment; and
• extensively increase resettlement places for the most vulnerable refugees to start a new life in a third country.

Amnesty International is also calling on the governments of Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt, as well as those of other countries in the region, to allow unrestricted access to people fleeing Iraq, cease all deportations to Iraq, and grant refugees access to the labour market.

“The international community must make a true commitment to assist Iraq’s displaced people by substantially boosting sustainable financial assistance, ending forcible returns, stopping practices that result in coerced voluntary returns and offering increased numbers of resettlement places,” said Amnesty International.

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Bush’s “ownership society” hits the canvas

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

By Mike Whitney | The economy is in tatters. Consumer confidence has plummeted, food and energy prices are soaring, and the housing market is experiencing its biggest crash since the Great Depression. Manufacturing is down, unemployment is up, gasoline is topping $4 per gallon, and tent cities are sprouting up throughout the Southwest. If there’s a silver lining to this mess; it’s not visible from planet earth.

The trillion dollar mortgage-backed securities (MBS) market is barely limping along. Investors are brushing off the higher yields and staying on the sidelines. How bad is it? In the first five months of the year, sales of mortgages repackaged into bonds are down a whopping 89 per cent. The wholesale market is dead. The same is true of commercial paper (CP) which has declined $452 billion in the last 44 weeks alone. There’s no appetite for structured investments of any kind; it’s a broken model. More worrisome, the Fed’s low interest rates have failed to restart the economy or stabilize declining home prices. (Long term interest rates are actually going higher!) While oil and food continue to rise, housing prices have tumbled more than they did during the 1930s. And, even though housing inventory is bulging, it is more difficult than ever to get financing. Bigger down payments are required as well as stricter documentation of earnings. Underwriting standards have tightened overnight.
The days of no down, “no doc”, no collateral mortgages are over.

Last week, Fed chief Ben Bernanke made light of the nation’s economic woes saying:

“Despite the unwelcome rise in the unemployment rate that was reported last week, the recent incoming data, taken as a whole, have affected the outlook for economic activity and employment only modestly. Indeed, although activity during the current quarter is likely to be weak, the risk that the economy has entered a substantial downturn appears to have diminished over the past month or so…The Federal Open Market Committee will strongly resist an erosion of longer-term inflation expectations.”

“The risks to the economy have diminished over the past month”?

Not bloody likely, Ben.

Bernanke’s remarks were part of a broader public relations campaign to strengthen the dollar by “jawboning”. The objective is to scare-off the speculators from the futures market and (hopefully) bring down the prices of oil and grains. His comments were followed by equally supportive “strong dollar” statements by Bush, Philadelphia Fed President Charles Plosser and Henry Paulson. Paulson went so far as to say that “intervention was still on the table”.

But why would the Fed threaten to intervene and distort the currency markets rather than simply raise interest rates and send the speculators running for the exits?

Bernanke is bluffing; he has no plan to raise interest rates. It’s all for show. Besides, the Fed doesn’t care about the pain its policies cause to working people; Bernanke even said so in his speech. He discounted the increases in food and oil as insignificant (they are not part of the core inflation) The Fed focuses on the “wage-price spiral”. In other words, the only time the Fed calculates inflation is when working people get a raise to keep up with the soaring cost of living. The consumer price index (CPI) is the most class-based of all the governments figures.

In real terms, inflation is off the charts; anyone whose been to a gas station or the grocery store lately knows that. The Fed responsible for keeping interest rates too low to try to keep the investment banks afloat and the stock market awash in cheap capital. Last week, Sun Zhenyu, China’s ambassador to the World Trade Organization said what most people have already figured out for themselves: “The dollar’s depreciation has further added fuel to the rapid increases of crude oil and food prices and hurt the exports of developing countries.”

Dollar weakness is at the center of the economic malaise that is generating political instability around the world. Spanish truckers are blocking highways outside Madrid and other parts of the country protesting the spike in gas prices. In Malaysia, at least 2,000 protesters marched through Kuala Lumpur to protest this month’s 41% surge in fuel prices. In Haiti, food riots have broken out over rising price of rice. Countries throughout Southeast Asia have banned rice exports and have begun hoarding for anticipated future shortages. Corn, soybeans and wheat futures are at record highs while many basic crops are threatened with blight, floods and weather-related disasters. “Global inventories are at a 24 year low” according to the US Dept of Agriculture while food aid volumes sunk to their lowest levels in 50 years”. (Financial Times) “The World Bank says now that grain, rice and other staples have become so expensive that 100 million people are on the verge of going hunger, joining the 850 million people who already were malnourished.” (Globe and Mail)

It all started at the Federal Reserve with their whacky macroeconomic gymnastics. Now the global financial system is stuck with the task of wringing out the excess credit created by Greenspan’s low interest policy.

A.K. Gupta explains the erratic behavior of the commodities in his article in Z magazine “Market Madness: How Speculators are Manipulating and Profiting from the Global food crisis”:

“One striking aspect of the rising commodity prices is that when charted, they look similar to the Internet stock mania a decade ago or the charts of soaring (and plunging) home prices of late. This is no mere coincidence. One of the main factors in accelerating commodity and food costs is financial speculation. The same Wall Street banks and hedge funds that gave us the stock bubble and the housing bubble are reportedly throwing billions of dollars at the commodity markets, betting they can make a fast buck. One analyst interviewed by the Wall Street Journal estimates that “investors have poured roughly $175 billion to $200 billion into commodity-linked index funds since 2001.” The Journal explained, “As with energy markets a few years ago, pension funds and hedge funds have flocked to grain investments as the supply of farm acreage and crop output shrinks relative to the growing global population and new demands for crops for biofuels and food. Many such investors make predominantly bullish bets,” that is, expecting the price to rise.

The daily fluctuations on commodity exchanges are at times greater than used to occur in an entire year. On February 25 alone, at the Minneapolis Grain Exchange, one type of wheat jumped 29 percent. On a single day in March, “the price of cotton jumped 15 percent despite reports showing cotton supplies were at near record highs,” according to the Toronto Globe and Mail. During the CFTC hearings, commodity producers laid the blame for soaring prices at the speculators’ door. A representative of the National Grain and Feed Association testified, “Sixty percent of the current [wheat] market is owned by an index fund. Clearly that’s having an impact on the market,” while a cotton producer stated, “The market is broken, it’s out of whack.” (A.K. Gupta “Market Madness: How Speculators are Manipulating and Profiting from the Global food crisis”, Z Magazine)

Oil and commodities prices won’t normalize until the Fed stops flushing cheap money into the financial system. As long as Bernanke fixes interest rates below the rate of inflation, investors will continue to trade their paper assets (US dollars) for raw materials that promise to maintain their value. Its as simple as that. Bernanke has fooled the bond market into believing that he will raise rates at the Fed’s August meeting, but others are not so easily convinced.

Tom Petruno of the LA Times believes that Bernanke is just “saber-rattling” and that surging unemployment (5.5%) and a crashing real estate market will keep the Fed from following up its threats of credit tightening. Petruno is right; Bernanke is just blowing smoke. There’s no chance of a rate hike unless the world’s central banks decide they’ve had enough of the Fed’s misguided approach to monetary policy and trigger a global run on the dollar. But we’re not quite there yet. So the dollar is likely to strengthen temporarily from the Fed’s “tough talk” until investors realize that its all hot air. The Fed has no intention of raising rates and driving a stake through the heart of the banking system. That will NOT happen.

The Fed is currently in panic-mode because it doesn’t have the tools or resources to fix the problems its facing. Its already eaten through more than half of its $900 billion balance sheet and has traded away hundreds of billions in US Treasuries for worthless MBS and collateralized debt obligations (CDOs) which are steadily losing value every month. The Fed is trying to revive the moribund banking system which has lost its main sources of revenue (structured financial investments) and is teetering on the brink of insolvency from its steadily wilting assets, a collapse in commercial and residential real estate, and a rise in corporate defaults. Bernanke has the banks on life support by stealthily providing liquidity via rotating loans (repos), but the banks have been forced to sluice the money into other “less conventional” areas of investment in search of revenue. According to Bloomberg News: “Trading in derivatives, led by short-term interest-rate futures, climbed 30% to a record $692 trillion in the first quarter… the Bank for International Settlements said. The value of short-term interest-rate futures traded on exchanges rose to $548 trillion…” The larger question is whether the investment banks—faced with a frozen bond market and ravaged balance sheets—are diverting the money they’re getting from the Fed into commodities (via the hedge funds) driving the prices upward and triggering political turmoil around the world?

The Fed knows, but they’re not saying.

Over the weekend, the G-8 ministers called on national authorities to examine the commodity futures markets and take “appropriate measures as needed.”…There are serious concerns among some G-8 members such as France, Germany and Italy that speculators have been a key driving force behind recent record-high oil prices of nearly $140 a barrel on the futures market.” According to Bloomberg News:

“Goldman [Sachs] and Morgan Stanley are expected by analysts to report the best second-quarter earnings of the world’s biggest securities firms this week, having limited their losses from the collapsing credit market….They also lead Wall Street in commodities trading, where crude oil futures doubled in the past year and the price of products from gold to corn soared to record highs.”

Ah ha! So the investment giants ARE playing the commodities market. Could we be in the early phase of another Dot.com bubble?

In one year, oil has jumped from $65 per barrel to $135 per barrel at Friday’s close. At the same time mortgage equity withdrawals (MEW) have declined from their peak of $576 billion in the second quarter of 2006 to $114 billion in the first quarter of 2008. That is $462 billion less that will be spent at the malls and home improvement stores; another blow to the flagging consumer-driven economy. (Keep in mind that the loss in MEWs far exceeds Bush’s “stimulus package” by a margin of 3 to 1) As consumers continue to wither from the loss of home equity, stagnant wages and unsustainable credit card debt; the economy is bound to contract dramatically leaving Bernanke with no other option than to lower rates to 1 per cent or less.

That’s right; interest rates are going down not up. Goldman Sachs has arrived at the same conclusion saying in a recent statement:

“We still believe that tightening is both inappropriate and unlikely anytime soon. It is inappropriate because: (1) the economy is fundamentally weak, with tax rebates driving the surge in retail sales; (2) financial markets remain fragile; and (3) worries about inflation are overdone … ” (Calculated Risk)

So, in the short-term, Bernanke is hoping he can rattle the commodities speculators and bring down oil prices by jawboning. But what he is really focussed on is the deflationary hurricane that is about to touch down and ravage the economy. Good luck.

Economist, Nouriel Roubini, also believes that the Fed will keep rates at 2 per cent adding:

“More persistent factors will bear negatively on consumption over the summer and especially the fall: the fall in home prices and the collapse of home equity withdrawal (with their wealth effect on spending); the stressed balance sheets and high debt ratios of the household sector (such debt is up to almost 140% of disposable income); the credit crunch in mortgage markets that is now spreading to unsecured consumer credit (credit cards, student loans, auto loans); the rise in debt servicing ratios (following the reset of mortgage rates, and higher interest rates on mortgages and consumer credit); the sharp rise in gasoline and energy prices that is a serious shock to real incomes; the further erosion of real wages through the rise in the inflation rate; the sharp fall in consumer confidence; the drop in employment (now five months in a row) and thus in income generation; the negative wealth effect of the correction in equity markets and the fall in the net worth of the household sector. All these factors will have – over time – a much more significant negative effect on consumption than the temporary boost given by the tax rebates.”

As housing continues to search for a bottom and foreclosures rise, the corporate bond market will struggle and corporate defaults will increase. This will send shockwaves through the bond market and put the derivatives dominoes in motion. New York Fed chief timothy Geithner huddled with industry leaders last week to make contingency plans for an expected breakdown in the $62 trillion credit default swaps(CDS). The meeting called together 17 senior executives and dealers “to discuss ways to quickly address weaknesses in the infrastructure of the derivatives market” and (hopefully) avoid an system-wide meltdown in over the counter swaps. There is growing probability of major crisis emerging from the “unregulated” shadow banking system, where over $500 trillion of counterparty contracts are traded beyond any government supervision. As business defaults increase and derivatives bets unwind, a doomsday scenario affecting the global economy becomes more and more likely.

The present storm in the financial markets is the result of loose monetary policies which increased the amount of credit in the system. For a while, the explosion in credit was mistaken for genuine wealth creation in the form of higher home prices and the high-flying stock market. In fact, rising real estate prices were just confirmation of “uneven” asset inflation. Now that the bubble has burst, trillions of dollars are sloshing about the system looking for a new home and driving up commodities in the process. The Fed’s job is to mop up the excess credit so the markets can rebalance and start anew. Everything Bernanke is doing is designed to inflate another speculative equity bubble. Its a good example of how the Fed works at cross-purposes with the people it is supposed to serve.

Commodities prices (including oil) are particularly hard to control because Congress abandoned its responsibility to regulate the futures markets during the Clinton Administration. Congress passed what is known as the Enron Loophole which allows speculators to game the market beyond the reach of the Commodities Future Trading Commission (CFTC) Futures trading is now the purview of high-stakes gamblers who are now sending prices into the stratosphere. As William Engdahl notes in his article “The Real Reason behind High oil Prices” (Global Research):

“A conservative calculation is that at least 60% of today’s $128 per barrel price of crude oil comes from unregulated futures speculation by hedge funds, banks and financial groups using the London ICE Futures and New York NYMEX futures exchanges and uncontrolled inter-bank or Over-The-Counter trading to avoid scrutiny. US margin rules of the government’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission allow speculators to buy a crude oil futures contract on the Nymex, by having to pay only 6% of the value of the contract. At today’s price of $128 per barrel, that means a futures trader only has to put up about $8 for every barrel. He borrows the other $120. This extreme “leverage” of 16 to 1 helps drive prices to wildly unrealistic levels and offset bank losses in sub-prime and other disasters at the expense of the overall population.”

Supply and demand don’t explain the sudden doubling and sometimes tripling of grain and oil prices on the futures market. The flagging dollar and lack of oversight have unleashed speculative forces which are out of control leading to food riots, massive protests and starvation. The market cannot self-correct as long as interest rates on the world’s reserve currency are kept artificially low. The global financial crisis radiates from Washington, which is where the solution lies.

But the real problem goes beyond Wall Street’s exotic debt-instruments or the Federal Reserves low interest funny-money. Overcapacity is the result of slacking demand which naturally arises when workers wages stagnate as they have for the last 30 years. When that happens, the only way the economy can grow is by easing lending standards and expanding credit. That’s why Greenspan and his fellows were so enthusiastic about all the complex derivatives and shaky subprime mortgages; it all fit with their class-based view that wages must remain low (to fight inflation) while debt is expanded ad infinitum. This is the blueprint for the New Economy that Maestro touted. While banks were keeping less than $1 dollar in capital for every $10 they lent to mortgage applicants; the investment banks and hedge funds were amplifying that debt many times over by taking those dodgy mortgages and borrowing 20 to 30 times the value of the underlying asset to maximize their profits. Then trillions of dollars in credit default swaps were used as a way to hedge against possible default on the over-inflated bonds. Voila; the biggest equity bubble in history created by some of the smartest guys on Wall Street.

Now the underlying collateral (housing) is quickly deteriorating causing a system-wide deleveraging and a flight to safety (US Treasuries, foreign bonds). The dollar is in free fall, credit is tightening, and the banks are only able to stay open due to the generosity of the Federal Reserve.

According to economist and author Henry Liu, the same thing happened just prior to the Great Depression:

“The problem in 1929 was, as it is in 2008, that asset prices buoyant by speculation had outstripped the purchasing power of stagnant income of consumers. Assets and commodities in the economy were valued at price levels that aggregate wage income could not sustain. The solution was not to inject more useless liquidity to sustain inoperative price levels, which will only make the problem worse, but to INTRODUCE DEMAND MANAGEMENT THROUGH FULL EMPLOYMENT AND LET WAGES QUICKLY RISE BACK UP TO THE LEVEL OF WAGE-PRICE EQUILIBRIUM. This was the policy objective of Roosevelt’s New Deal Program, an objective not yet recognized by policymakers in 2008 even amid a revival of populist rhetoric.

Are you listening, Barak Obama?!?

There is no way to escape the day of reckoning now facing the financial system; the hundreds of bank failures, the corporate defaults, the meltdown in real estate, the massive loss of jobs, the dreary contraction of credit, the tumbling stock market, and the blow to our national confidence. But there is a way to rebuild, to reassert control over our own currency; to “even the playing field” and recommit to a strong middle class; to smash the system that diverts the greatest portion of the nation’s wealth to a handful of unelected oligarchs whose main objectives are to expand their own personal power and subvert the democratic process. The existing system cannot meet the challenges of the new century. It’s gotta go.

PBS journalist Bill Moyers summed it up like this at a recent Media conference in Chicago:

“Capitalism breeds great inequality that is destructive, unless tempered by an intuition for equality, which is the heart of democracy. When the state becomes the guardian of power and privilege to the neglect of justice for the people who have neither power nor privilege, you can no longer claim to have a representative government.”

You tell ‘em, Bill.

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How powerful is the mass media?

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

Socialist Worker | Our rulers can’t fool all of the people all of the time, argues Sadie Robinson. The idea that the mass media controls our ideas is a very common one. According to this theory, the media acts as a kind of syringe that injects propaganda directly into our minds.

People are seen as sheep that follow the media more or less unthinkingly. The conclusion is that we are powerless in the face of mass propaganda that brainwashes us into compliance.

This view of the media does not just exist at the margins of society. It’s also a dominant idea within mainstream politics. Leading figures in all the main political parties see winning over the mass media as the key to winning elections – rather than having decent policies that ordinary people could support.

The notion that the media is all-powerful is also used to write off any sense that people can fight back against the system, or that they can be won away from racist or sexist ideas.

All this raises two questions. Who actually controls the mass media? And how much impact does it really have on the ideas people hold?

Under capitalism the mass media is owned by a handful of rich and powerful people that form part of the “ruling class” – the tiny number of people at the top of society who own the factories, offices and other workplaces.

Rupert Murdoch, for instance, owns over 175 print publications across the world, including the Sun, the Times and the News of the World here in Britain.

Status quo

The ruling class has a clear interest in promoting ideas that justify the status quo and endorse the global system that it benefits from. That is why there are so many clear instances of the mass media pushing propaganda on behalf of the bosses.

In 2002 and 2003, when Britain and the US were preparing to wage war on Iraq, the Sun newspaper gave pages over to detailing how Saddam Hussein’s alleged “weapons of mass destruction” could hit British troops in Cyprus within 45 minutes of being fired.

It either ignored or attacked anti-war activists and provided “support our boys” posters for readers to display in their windows.

But media bias towards the ruling class can also be seen in less extreme times. After the National Union of Teachers (NUT) conference earlier this year sections of the media ran hysterical articles condemning the teachers’ decision to strike over pay and conditions.

The Daily Telegraph declared that it was “time to crush the NUT like the miners” – referring to the Miners’ Strike of 1984-85.

This bias goes wider than simply attacking strikers or building support for war. The mass media operates within an ideological framework that accepts and promotes the dominant ideas in society – such as the idea that capitalism is the only way to organise society.

The bias does not exist only in the openly right wing media, but also in media outlets that pride themselves on being “neutral” or “liberal”.

The Guardian newspaper recently ran a week-long series of articles on the global food crisis. This was presented as in-depth, serious analysis. Yet it reiterated some of the worst myths about the food crisis, myths that would rather blame the Chinese for eating too much meat than suggest there might be something wrong with the free market.

The revolutionaries Karl Marx and Frederick Engels wrote in the 19th century that “the ideas of the ruling class are in every epoch the ruling ideas”. But this doesn’t arise out of some kind of shady conspiracy within the ruling class.

It’s true that owners sometimes intervene directly in the running of their media franchises. Murdoch is well known for regularly intervening in the editorial decisions of the Sun newspaper.

In May this year Murdoch was asked if he had anything to do with the New York Post’s support for Barack Obama in the US Democratic presidential run off. He answered simply, “Yes.”

Assumptions

But for the most part owners rely on well-paid senior managers and editors who are closely tied to the capitalist class and so share their assumptions and ideas about the world.

If the mass media is owned by an elite that tries to use it to back up their system, how do we explain political differences in the message put out by different media outlets? The point here is that the ruling class is not a homogenous group. There are divisions within it – and the media reflects these.

The Daily Mirror’s stance in the run up to the Iraq war is a good example of this. It took an anti-war position in the context of divisions among the ruling class and an unprecedented mass movement against the war. So it reflected the fact that the ruling class was divided – but it also knew that there was an audience for an anti-war newspaper.

The profit motive can sometimes pull the mass media in different directions and make it appear that it is posing a challenge to the dominant ideology.

For instance, the Daily Mail has recently run several front pages on the rising cost of living in Britain. These rising costs are real. But the Daily Mail’s explanation for them is one that diverts people’s anger away from the bosses and towards immigrants.

Although the ruling class owns the mass media, it does not always completely control it.

The media needs workers to get produced in the first place. And media workers can and have refused to produce some of the worst excesses of racism and anti-union propaganda.

In 2006, workers at the Daily Star prevented the printing of an anti-Muslim page titled, “How Britain’s fave newspaper would look under Muslim rule.” Planned features included “Burqa Babes” and a “censored” editorial.

Workers in the National Union of Journalists called an emergency meeting and forced the Daily Star management to pull the page.

Similarly, during the Miners’ Strike printers at the Sun refused to print a front page of miners’ leader Arthur Scargill that made him look as if he was giving a Nazi salute.

How much notice do people really take of the mass media? It is certainly important as a major source of information and news for many people.

So it isn’t true to suggest that the media has no influence on people’s ideas. But the way our ideas are shaped by the media is much more complex than the simplistic “syringe” theory.

Our consciousness is shaped by our experiences of the world. Marx and Engels argued, “Consciousness does not determine life, but life consciousness.” People’s ideas are shaped by the material reality of their lives.

The majority of people that the mass media is sold and marketed to are working class. There is a huge gulf between the reality of their lives and the dominant ideology of capitalism. That gap can open up a space for that ideology to be questioned, challenged or rejected.

In the 1989 Hillsborough disaster, 96 people were killed after police allowed too many Liverpool football fans into overcrowded terraces.

The Sun newspaper ran a front page condemning the fans, claiming that they were drunken hooligans who stole from the dead. In fact the fans were key to helping the injured.

The scandal of the Sun’s coverage led to a boycott of the paper by newsagents across Liverpool. Sales plummeted and have never recovered. In 2004, the average circulation for the Sun in Liverpool was 12,000 copies a day – 200,000 less than before it printed the Hillsborough story.

Yet the dominant ideology remains and is promoted not just by the media, but by all of the major institutions in our society – including the education system and the legal system.

This leads to a situation where people hold contradictory ideas. People can have anti-immigrant opinions, but also support anti-deportation campaigns that involve someone they know personally.

Although people may reject obvious propaganda in the media, over time it can have an impact in generating racist or sexist assumptions. The mass media can reinforce backward ideas and it’s important that we challenge this.

But the mass media is not the fundamental reason why bigotry persists. Racism and sexism exist because of the kind of society that we live in.

Ideology

They form part of the dominant ideology of our society because the ruling class uses such ideas to divide and weaken the working class – and thereby preserve ruling class power.

Faced with ruling class bias in the mass media, many people turn to “alternative” sources of media. This is a positive development. Anti-war websites or other alternative media outlets can give people the facts and figures to argue their case with others. They can increase their understanding of the world and their confidence to fight back.

Revolutionaries have always seen producing socialist newspapers such as Socialist Worker as important.

But we recognise that these papers should do more than challenge the ideology of the ruling class – they should act as a tool for organising the struggle against the system.

The Russian revolutionary Lenin described the revolutionary paper as the “scaffolding” around which a revolutionary organisation is built. The scaffolding is clearly important. But it is there for a reason – to build up networks and organisation of people on the ground who can take on the system.

Research has found that the mass media has the biggest impact on those with no political affiliation. The mass media is most powerful when people are politically passive. Building resistance to capitalism can lead millions to question dominant ideas – and can see the power of that mass media melt away.

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Zimbabwe Government Blocks Aid for Six Million In Need

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

By Ephraim Nsingo | Sixty-six year old Gogo Lethiwe Ncube gazes at a distant truck cruising towards the Avoca Shopping Centre in Insiza, Matabeleland South Province and starts smiling.

“Why does that vehicle not appear to have a long aerial on it?” she asks, shading her eyes to get a better look at the speeding Toyota. On realising that the truck truly does not have a long radio antenna, the smile on Gogo Ncube’s face suddenly disappears.

The antennas are meant to keep aid workers in touch with their colleagues, but for Gogo Ncube and other residents of rural Matabeleland South, they have another function: they announce that relief supplies have arrived — they are found only on food aid trucks.

One of the people at the shopping centre informs Gogo Ncube that she’s unlikely to see the cars with long aerials in the village before the elections scheduled for the end of June, on the orders of the government.

After several minutes of silence and pondering, she finally opens up and says: “It has been over a month now since we last had supplies from World Vision. They should be arriving any time from now. If they do not come, then I will die. Who will give me food? How will I feed my three grand children? What will I give to the sick girl?”

The list of her worries seems endless. Gogo Ncube lives with her three grandchildren – Themba (9), Mandla (7) and Bongiwe (4). The three youngsters were orphaned three years ago when their parents died of AIDS-related sickness within a month of each other. The youngest of the three, Bongiwe, is also sick from what Gogo Ncube says “is the same as what took my son and his wife.”

Gogo Ncube is one of many villagers in Matabeleland South — a drought-stricken province in the southern part of Zimbabwe — who have been left helpless by the government’s suspension of non-governmental organisations that carry out field operations in rural areas. Most people in this semi-arid region have for the last few years survived only thanks to food aid from agencies like the World Food Programme, Care International, and World Vision. Every month, each household receives 50 kilogrammes of maize, 25 kg of barley, 2 litres of cooking oil, 5 kg of beans and 500 g of salt.

Most able-bodied people of working age have left the Avoca village to try their fortunes panning gold in the Insiza and Umzingwane Rivers, about 25 and 40 kilometres to the west of the village respectively. Others have crossed into South Africa in search of work. Those left behind explain how they have managed to survive on relief food from international humanitarian organisations for the past five years.

Last year, the World Food Programme (WFP) said that more than four million Zimbabweans relied on food aid, and following the failure of the last growing season the number is likely to increase. Zimbabwean civil society organisations, among them Restoration of Human Rights in Zimbabwe (ROHR Zimbabwe) — a human rights organisation established in 2006 and involved mostly in humanitarian work — say more than six million Zimbabweans are currently in need of food following the failure of crops in the last farming season.

But in a circular to non-governmental organisations dated June 4, Public Service, Labour and Social Welfare Minister Nicholas Goche said “a number of NGOs involved in humanitarian operations are breaching the terms and conditions of their registration”.

“As the regulatory authority, before proceeding with the provision of Section (10) sub-Section (c) of the Private Voluntary Organisations Act (Chapter 17:05), I hereby instruct all PVOs/ NGOs to suspend all field operations until further notice.”

Goche was later quoted in the state-run Herald newspaper saying NGOs were using food aid to meddle in Zimbabwe’s politics, and that some of them were campaigning for the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader Morgan Tsvangirai who faces the incumbent Robert Mugabe on June 27 in a run-off presidential election.

The National Association of Non-Governmental Organisations (NANGO), which represents both local and international NGOs operating in Zimbabwe, denies the government’s claims.

“Different organisations have codes of conduct. This code of conduct bars an organisation or anyone acting on its behalf to engage in political activities,” said NANGO spokesperson, Fambai Ngirande.

“This will leave thousands of people without any source of food, thereby condemning them to starvation. This is a contravention of the PVO Act that protects the rights of the NGOs. The country at the moment does not have the capacity to feed its population. What is sad is that the ban will affect the most innocent of the country’s citizens.”

But in an interview with IPS, Goche appeared relentless about the ban. “Some of these organisations were capitalising on the plight of our people to campaign for the opposition. It is not true that there is starvation in the rural areas. In fact, the situation has now improved as the government is now handling all food distribution through our local government structures,” said Goche.

Food aid is now being distributed by traditional chiefs and headmen, who are viewed by the opposition and civil society organisations as being mostly supporters of the governing Zimbabwe African National Union Patriotic Front (ZANU PF).

MDC spokesperson Nelson Chamisa said his party had irrefutable evidence that ZANU-PF was now distributing food only to its supporters. “This is yet another desperate attempt by ZANU PF to reverse the people’s will as expressed on March 29. War veterans and ZANU PF militias have virtually taken over food distribution in rural areas, and our supporters are being forced to first denounce the MDC before they can get aid,” said Chamisa.

The ban could also render hundreds of Zimbabweans jobless. A week after the ban, a Care International official said they had recalled more than 300 of the organisation’s field workers in Chivi, Mberengwa, Shurugwi, Gutu, Zaka, and Bikita.

ROHR Zimbabwe deputy President Stendrick Zvorwadza said the ban on humanitarian aid organisations was unlawful and an attempt by the government to shut out dissenting voices.

“Humanitarian organisations are being closed at a time when people in Zimbabwe need humanitarian aid more than ever. More than 6 million Zimbabweans are in need of food aid; thousands have been internally displaced by ZANU PF violence and homes have been burnt therefore effectively terminating their hopes of livelihood. People living with HIV/AIDS were depending on NGOs for access to anti-retroviral drugs which are not easily available in Government hospitals and clinics,” said Zvorwadza.

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US spy base to be built in Western Australia

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

BY PHILIP DORLING | Australian defence support for United States military operations in the Middle East will be boosted by construction of a new top-secret US military communications base in Western Australia. Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon revealed yesterday that work would begin in July or August this year on a satellite ground station for the United States Mobile Users Objective System, a new satellite communications system being deployed by the US Navy.The new US defence facility will be located with the existing Australian satellite signals intelligence facility at Geraldton, Western Australia. The base will be linked to a network of communications satellites that will provide front-line US military units with instant access to high-grade intelligence and tactical information.

Once operational, the new facility will automatically provide communications support for US military operations in Iraq and the Persian Gulf.

Indeed, it will also automatically provide communications support for US military operations in much of the Asia-Pacific region.

The Defence Department announced late last year that it had finalised an agreement with the US Navy for the new satellite communications centre.

Mr Fitzgibbon’s confirmation that construction will proceed comes shortly after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s withdrawal of the bulk of Australian combat troops from Iraq.

The new Geraldton facility will be the first major US defence base to be established in Australia since the construction in the 1960s of the Joint Defence Facility at Pine Gap in the Northern Territory and the now closed early-warning satellite ground station at Nurrungar in South Australia.

In answering a question on notice by Labor backbencher Daryl Melham, Mr Fitzgibbon also revealed the US Navy had contracted Boeing Australia to provide construction services for the new Geraldton base. Boeing Australia already provides operational support for the existing facility at Geraldton, another Australian signals intelligence facility at Shoal Bay near Darwin, the Australian Navy’s communication station at North West Cape near Exmouth, and the Defence Communications Network facility at Deakin, ACT.

About 70 Australian contractors are working on the design of the new Geraldton building and up to 20 United States staff and 100 Australian contractors will be involved in the construction phase.

The ground station will comprise three buildings housing sophisticated electronic infrastructure, three 18m satellite dishes and two smaller antennas.

Once complete, the base will be fully automated and will require only call-out maintenance support. All costs will be carried by the US.

Informal discussions on the possible location of the facility in Australia began in 2003.

The Defence Department and the US Navy signed a classified memorandum of understanding setting out the governing arrangements for the station in November last year.

The conclusion of a secret memorandum of understanding rather than a formal treaty means the agreement has not been reviewed by Federal Parliament’s Joint Standing Committee on Treaties. Mr Fitzgibbon has said the ground station will be operational by 2011.

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Pentagon: Shooting of Reuters journalist in Iraq justified

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

By LOLITA C. BALDOR | The 2005 shooting death of a Reuters journalist in the midst of a firefight in Baghdad was justified because U.S. soldiers believed the camera protruding from an unmarked car was a rocket propelled grenade, the Pentagon’s internal watchdog has concluded.

In an 82-page report, the Defense Department’s inspector general also said that Reuters safety practices contributed to the death of sound technician Waleed Khaled, and the wounding of cameraman Haider Kadhem.

While the report was critical of how the initial investigation was conducted — saying the military unit’s investigating officer did not follow correct procedures — it nevertheless concluded that a “preponderance of evidence establishes that the cameraman and driver took actions during the incident that reasonably led U.S. soldiers to believe they were confronting hostile intent.”

Reuters Editor-in-Chief David Schlesinger said he believes the inspector general took the case seriously and came up with positive recommendations.

“We are never satisfied when a journalist is killed in the course of covering a story,” he said. “I welcome the recommendation that the military and media engage together to better ensure the safety of journalists on the front line.”

He said Reuters will examine its safety procedures, and noted, “Better training for journalists and for the military, clear rules of engagement and a closer dialogue are essential in order to prevent further tragedies occurring.”

According to the report, U.S. soldiers responding to an ambush on Iraqi police, saw the car with the Reuters journalists inside, and mistook Kadhem’s handheld camcorder and microphone for a weapon. The soldiers fired warning shots at the car.

Following Reuters’ safety procedures, the crew put the car in reverse and began to back away — an action the military is trained to interpret as an insurgent’s combat tactics.

The soldiers fired shots to disable the car, killing and wounding the journalists. A contributing factor, the inspector general said, was the Reuters policy that allows journalists to work without wearing protective equipment, and in unmarked cars.

“We understand Reuters’ concern for employee safety, and their employees’ desire to reduce their visibility or profile in violent environments,” the report said, “but the actions of the Reuters journalists reduced the soldiers’ ability to distinguish them from combatants during a battle.”

According to the report, the military unit’s investigating officer did not follow correct procedures — the officer didn’t interview all personnel at the scene, did not get written statements from the shooting team members, and did not fully investigate the scene.

Later, the video of the incident, which was taped by Kadhem, was accidentally lost when the investigating officer mistakenly took it home to Louisiana with him. It was mailed back to Iraq, but never arrived there.

The report recommended that corrective action be taken against the investigating officer for failing to preserve evidence, and that officers receive additional training on how to conduct investigations. It also recommended that the U.S. military in Iraq review procedures with the media so they can safely respond in such encounters.

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V.A. Using Iraq Vets as Guinea Pigs in Drug Tests

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

By Greg Mitchell | As if the “soldier suicide” problem wasn’t bad enough already, word has just emerged from ABC News and The Washington Times that our government is testing drugs with severe side effects, including promoting suicidal behavior, on hundreds of vets.

In one case, the V.A. took three months to alert the veterans to the severe mental effects caused by one of the drugs, the controversial Chantix, used to halt smoking.

They are even using cash payments to attract patients into medical experiments “that often target distressed soldiers returning from Iraq and Afghanistan,” the newspaper puts it today.

The Chantix warning did not come “until after one of the veterans taking the drug had suffered a psychotic episode that ended in a near lethal confrontation with police,” the Washington Times reports.

ABC aired an interview today with that man, James Elliott, an Army sharpshooter who suffers from PTSD after serving 15 months in Iraq.

“You’re a lab rat for $30 a month,” Elliott said.

Sen. Barack Obama has already offered a protest: “It is outrageous and unacceptable that our government would irresponsibly endanger veterans who have already sacrificed so much for our country. Our veterans - particularly those suffering from mental health injuries - should have the very best health care and support in the world, they should never be needlessly exposed to drugs without proper notification of the dangers involved or effective monitoring of the side effects. I will immediately be asking for a full and thorough investigation of how our government could yet again let down our veterans and their families who have given so much to their country, and who have paid so much for the failures of civilian leadership in Washington. It is time to demand accountability and to ensure that this kind of breach of trust never takes place again.”

More from the Washington Times report follows.
*
One of the nation’s premier medical ethicists said the VA’s behavior in the anti-smoking study violated basic protections for humans in medical experiments.

“When you’re taking advantage of a very vulnerable population, people who have served the country, and the agency that’s responsible for their welfare isn’t putting their welfare first, that’s a pretty serious breach of ethics,” said Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania.

n all, nearly 1,000 veterans with PTSD were enrolled in the study to test different methods of ending smoking, with 143 using Chantix. Twenty-one veterans reported adverse effects from the drug, including one who suffered suicidal thoughts, the three-month investigation by The Times and ABC News found.

Mr. Caplan, who reviewed the consent and notification forms for the study at the request of The Times and ABC News, said the VA deserved an “F” and that it has an obligation to end the study, given the vulnerability of veterans with PTSD and the known side effects of Chantix. “Continuing it doesn’t make any ethical sense,” he said.

The VA continues to test Chantix on veterans, even as reported problems with the drug increase and have prompted at least one other federal agency to take action. On May 21, the Federal Aviation Administration banned airline pilots and air traffic control personnel from taking Chantix, citing the adverse side effects.

http://washingtontimes.com/
*
Greg Mitchell’s new book includes several chapters on soldier/vet suicides. It is So Wrong for So Long: How the Press, the Pundits — and the President — Failed on Iraq.

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‘Random’ searches of passengers on Metrolink

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

LA Times | Random searches of passengers and their belongings will begin next week on Metrolink commuter trains, the agency announced Thursday. Passengers got the news via a flier left on train seats. Sheriff’s deputies will be setting up random screening stations at random times. “Access to the station platform will be restricted; passengers must pass through the checkpoint to gain access to the station platform,” stated the flier.

The release goes on to say that some passengers will be selected from those lines and have their baggage searched. Anyone who refuses to be searched won’t be allowed to get on the train. Deputies are looking for “explosives” or other “dangerous items.”

Metrolink spokeswoman Denise Tyrrell told me this morning that the searches are not in response to any threats that have been made against trains.

“It’s more in response to what has become standard procedure at other commuter rail agencies across the country,” she said. “We were one of the few who wasn’t doing this, and we thought it would be a good idea to step up the security a little bit.”

She said police are primarily looking for explosives, but won’t turn a blind eye to other issues. “They are police officers,” Tyrrell added. “If you have a half a pound of hash in your book bag, they are going to arrest you. I would suggest if that’s the case you are one of the people that wants to walk away.”

One reader already e-mailed me with a salient question: If the searches are random and skip from station to station, then couldn’t a terrorist with a bomb simply get on the train at a station where random searches aren’t being done?

Tyrrell said that there will also be more security officers on trains. “We have 55 stations so we can’t be at every station” with a random search, she said. “What we’re trying to do is make it uncomfortable for someone to harm our passengers by having a greater level of security.”

As for the meaning of “dangerous items,” Tyrrell said that means guns or items that are obvious threats — large amounts of toxic materials, for example.

–Steve Hymon

A question for Bottleneckers: How do you feel about this? Is it a good idea? Leave a comment below.

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Police attack anti-Bush protestors

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

By Stewart Office | The ban on the demonstration down Whitehall to protest the visit of war criminal George Bush was enforced with violence by the Metropolitan police. Two protestors were hospitalised by baton weilding police. Stop the War Coalition have organised over 20 national protests all of which have been peaceful. We have written a letter of protest to the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith.

GeorgeGalloway MP, a vice president of the Stop the War Coalition, has also written a letter of protest to the Commissioner of Police, Sir Ian Blair. Images of the demo can be found here and here.

Police Brutality

Two protestors were hospitalised after police batoned those who approached the security fence around the protest free ‘green zone’. The image below shows one hospitalised protestor being pulled towards the police before being struck on the head and back.

Civil liberties another casualty of war

Prominent supporters of Stop the War Coalition condemned police violence. Human rights campaigner Bianca Jagger said, “Our civil liberties are becoming another casualty of the ‘war on terror’. I was born in a dictatorship and look with great concern at recent erosions of our liberties. At the demonstration today all I wanted to do with others was to peacefully deliver my letter to the Prime Minister. I was prevented from doing so and instead witnessed brutality towards the demonstrators.”

Andrew Murray, Chair of StWC, said, “We condemn the decision of the British government and police to deny the British public the right to peacefully demonstrate while acting on behalf of the criminal administration in the USA. We also denounce the brutal conduct of many police officers towards demonstrators in Whitehall. This evening’s events highlight both the growing menace to freedoms in Britain and also the fear that George W Bush and Gordon Brown have of being held to account for their disastrous war policies.”

More Media Reports

BBC VIDEO: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7455206.stm
GUARDIAN: http://tinyurl.com/4nl4uq
EVENING STANDARD: http://tinyurl.com/6nbtw7

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Senate probes Pentagon-Guantanamo contacts

Wednesday, June 18th, 2008

It is no secret that American military personnel at Guantanamo Bay and other US-run prisons have stripped detainees naked, used dogs to scare them, hooded them, and deprived them of sleep. But an 18-month-long US Senate investigation has been trying to get to the bottom of who thought of these techniques, and who authorised them.

Documents have been uncovered showing that senior Pentagon officials played a more active role than previously thought in developing some of the methods.

A senior staffer for Vice-President Dick Cheney also went to Guantanamo Bay to discuss how interrogations were conducted.

But the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Democrat Carl Levin, says it is not simply a case of a few bad apples acting on their own.

“The truth is that senior officials in the US Government sought information on aggressive techniques, twisted the law to create the appearance of their legality, and authorised their use against detainees,” Senator Levin said.

The Senate investigation shows that military officials, including psychologists, who had the job of training US troops to resist enemy interrogations, were asked to give Pentagon lawyers a list of tactics that could be used in prisons like Guantanamo Bay.

Previously secret memos also show that in July 2002 the Pentagon’s former top civilian lawyer directed his staff to start researching the use of practices like stress positions and sensory deprivation.

William Haynes then went to Guantanamo a few months later, with the vice-president’s senior counsel, to talk about the techniques.

A month later, the top US military lawyer at the prison wrote a memo recommending the use of interrogation methods like removing clothing, forcing shaving of facial hair, and the use of a wet towel and dripping water to induce fear of suffocation.

Now retired, Colonel Diane Beaver says she was “shocked” that no one questioned her recommendation and that many of her suggestions were approved in late 2002 by the then-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

“I never received a phone call; I never received an email; I never received anything. Asking me anything, like are you a lunatic? What were you thinking? Or great opinion,” Colonel Beaver said.

Senator Levin was scathing in his appraisal of what the new techniques led to.

“When Secretary Rumsfeld approved the use of abusive techniques against detainees he unleashed a virus which ultimately infected interrogation operations conducted by the US military in Afghanistan and Iraq,” Senator Levin said.

While it has been known for some time that military lawyers voiced strong objections to the harsh interrogation techniques in early 2003, for the first time the new memos show that those concerns were being raised in November 2002 before Mr Rumsfeld officially approved them.

The White House says the abuse of detainees has never been the policy of the Bush administration and that all detainees have been treated humanely, and in accordance with the law.

-Adapted from an AM report by Kim Landers

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