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Amendment Would Put Spy Lawsuits, Amnesty On Hold Pending Investigation

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

By Ryan Singel |On Tuesday, the Senate resumes considering whether to hand new dragnet spy powers to the nation’s spooks and to grant retroactive amnesty to telecoms that secretly helped the government spy on Americans without warrants for five years.

The Senate seems set to bless the president’s secretive program and to free some of the nation’s largest corporations from the indignity of due process under the law, making an odd amendment from New Mexico Democrat Sen. Jeff Bingaman the the last real hope for those who want a court to rule on the legality of Bush’s spying program.

Democratic Sens. Christopher Dodd, Russ Feingold and Patrick Leahy have sponsored an amendment to fully strip the retroactive amnesty from the bill, therefore allowing a federal judge to decide how and whether to proceed with the class-action suits. That muscular approach failed by a substantial margin in March, and would likely do so again.

Republican Sen. Arlen Specter offered an amendment that would allow the judge in the case to dismiss a plea for amnesty if the court found that the underlying surveillance violated the Constitution. That’s a nifty proposal, but one unlikely to pass — given that the Republican-appointed judge in the combined anti-wiretapping cases all but declared the President’s secret wiretapping regime to be illegal in a ruling last week.

Bingaman offers a different solution. Hitching his amendment to the anti-amnesty argument (.pdf) that Congress should not approve what it did not understand, Bingaman proposes that the court cases and amnesty powers all are put on hold, until three months after the joint report by the Inspectors General of the various intelligence services complete their report to Congress on just what transpired between the nation’s telecoms and the intelligence services.

If Congress is disturbed by the report — due a year from the day the bill becomes law, it has time to undo or tweak the rules; otherwise, it can just leave amnesty provisions to come into effect three months after the report to Congress (both public and classified).

That report is already required in the larger bill, but it’s not due until next spring, far after the White House has a new inhabitant and long after the judge overseeing the anti-warrantless wiretapping program will have to dismiss the cases if the current bill is passed unmodified.

The Bingaman amendment makes the simple argument that Congress should not handing out pardons without knowing what the pardons are for.

Not surprisingly, the Director of National Intelligence and the Attorney General both told Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nevada) that if the bill were passed with the Bingaman amendment, they and other senior Bush advisors would recommend that the President veto it.

“Continued delay in protecting those who provided assistance after September 11 will invariably be noted by those who may someday be called upon again to help the Nation,” DNI Michael McConnell and AG Michael Mukasey wrote Monday. “Any amendment that would delay implementation of the liablity protection is critical to the national security.”

Critics, such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation, say preventing massive cooperation with a secret government surveillance operation that targets Americans is exactly the point of the suit.

The government’s set-in-stone opposition does not surprise Kevin Bankston, an EFF attorney who specializes in surveillance law.

“They want to finish up the last of the cover-up of the government’s  illegal, warrantless wiretapping program,” Bankston said.

The Senate is set to begin debate on the bill Tuesday, though planned votes on the three pending amendments and the final bill will be Wednesday to allow senators to attend the funeral of former North Carolina Senator Jesse Helms.

Senator Christopher Dodd (D-Connecticut) is scheduled to take to the Senate floor early evening Tuesday. His orations against telecom amnesty and wider spying powers stopped the bill cold in December and evince a passion rarely seen on the Senate floor.

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China - One month left to improve human rights

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

A month before the opening of the Olympics Amnesty International has today sent an open letter to Hu Jintao, President of the People’s Republic of China, urging him to deliver on the promises made to improve the country’s human rights.

“If China can mobilise thousands of people to clean up algae on their beaches in time for the Olympics, surely it can also clean up its human rights record to provide a positive Olympics legacy as it promised when awarded the Games,” says Margaret Taylor, Amnesty International spokesperson.

“China sadly still appears to lack the political will to deliver on those promises, which is why Amnesty International has today called on Hu Jintao to commit to the following recommendations,” says Taylor.

Five recommendations:
- release all human rights defenders detained for speaking out on human rights violations related to China hosting the Olympics,
- prevent the arbitrary detention of human rights activists as part of the pre-Olympics “clean up”,
- make public the death penalty statistics and commit to a reduction in the number of capital crimes,
- allow full media access and freedom for both international and Chinese journalists,
- account for all those killed or detained in the March 2008 protests in Tibet.

The open letter to Hu Jintao features below.

–

 

Open letter to Hu Jintao

Hu Jintao
President of the People’s Republic of China
The State Council General Office
2 Fuyoujie
Xichengqu
Beijingshi 100017
People’s Republic of China

8 July 2008
Your Excellency

With one month remaining until the much-anticipated start of the XXIX Olympiad in Beijing, I ask you to take five steps toward the “development of human rights” pledged by the Beijing Olympics Bid Committee in 2001. Over the last year Amnesty International has collected hundreds of thousands of voices from around the world echoing this call. I join them in urging you to take this historic opportunity to act.

Amnesty International recognizes the Chinese government’s efforts to address some longstanding human rights concerns. I am particularly encouraged by the apparent progress made in reducing the use of the death penalty through the Supreme Peoples Court review process. I also appreciate recent statements by a number of Chinese officials, including Chief Justice Xiao Yang, that China is following the global trend towards abolishing the death penalty. Amnesty International also welcomes the news that 1,157 people held in connection with the protests in Tibetan-populated areas of China last March have been released. The official commitment to “full media freedom” and regulations for foreign journalists represents another step towards realising greater freedom of expression for journalists.

These developments notwithstanding, the preparation for the Olympics has actually had a negative impact in some areas of human rights. Official persecution of human rights activists continues, particularly those making connections between ongoing human rights violations and China’s hosting of the Olympics, including Ye Guozhu, Hu Jia and Yang Chunlin who are serving prison sentences solely for having expressed their views peacefully. The “clean-up” of Beijing through the extended use of Re-education Through Labour is a worrying development, particularly as it ignores domestic calls for reform of this arbitrary system of detention.

Amnesty International calls on you to grasp the opportunity of the Olympic Games to implement the following five recommendations—supported by many inside and outside China—before the Games begin:

* Release all prisoners of conscience - including Ye Guozhu, Hu Jia, Yang Chunlin and any others detained in connection with the hosting of the Olympics solely for expressing their views peacefully;

* Prevent the police from arbitrarily detaining petitioners, human rights activists and others as part of a pre-Olympics “clean-up”;

* Publish full national statistics on the death penalty, commit to a reduction in the number of capital crimes – especially those for non-violent offences – and introduce a moratorium on executions in line with UN General Assembly resolution 62/149 adopted on 18 December 2007;

* Allow full access and freedom of reporting for both Chinese and international journalists in all parts of China in line with promises of “complete media freedom” in the run-up to the Games;

* Account for all those killed or detained in the wake of the March 2008 protests in Tibet, particularly 116 people officially acknowledged to still be in custody, and ensure that those detained for their involvement in peaceful protests are released and that others receive a fair trial.

I believe that delivering on these five points will go a long way towards the Games being remembered not only for positive achievements on the sports field but in the field of human rights as well.

Yours sincerely
Irene Khan
Secretary General

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Troops killing people ‘like goats’ by slitting throats

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Amnesty International today released a report revealing the dire human rights and humanitarian crisis facing the people of Somalia.

The report contains first-hand testimony from scores of traumatised survivors of the conflict, exposing the violations and abuses they have suffered at the hands of a complex mix of perpetrators which include Somalia’s Transitional Federal Government (TFG) troops, Ethiopian troops, and various armed groups.

Amnesty International’s Africa Deputy Programme Director Michelle Kagari said:
‘The people of Somalia are being killed, raped, tortured; looting is widespread and entire neighbourhoods are being destroyed.’

Witnesses described to Amnesty International an increasing incidence of Ethiopian troops killing people by what is locally termed ’slaughtering’ or ‘killing like goats’ - referring to killing by slitting the throat.

Those killed are often left lying in pools of blood in the streets until armed fighters, including snipers, move out of the area and relatives can collect their bodies.

In one case, a 15-year-old girl found her father with his throat cut when she returned home from school after Ethiopian security forces had swept through her neighbourhood.

Other cases in the report include:
A 56-year-old woman from Mogadishu called Haboon said Ethiopian troops had raped her neighbour’s 17-year-old daughter. When the young woman’s 13 and 14 year old brothers tried to protect their sister, the soldiers beat them and gouged out their eyes with a bayonet. The mother fled.

It is not known what happened to the boys. This girl is in a coma as a result of the injuries she sustained during the attack.

Qorran, another 56-year-old woman from Mogadishu, described how after her family went to bed, she went out to collect charcoal. While she was out, a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at her home, completely destroying it. She said, ‘When I came back, I couldn’t find my house.’ Her husband and sons were all killed in the attack. She told Amnesty International, ‘If grief is going to kill anyone it’s going to kill me.’

Guled, aged 32, who said that he saw his neighbours ’slaughtered’. Guled said he saw many men whose throats were slit and whose bodies were left in the street. Some had been castrated. He also saw women being raped. In one incident, more than 20 Ethiopian soldiers raped his newly-married neighbour when her husband was not home.

Michelle Kagari continued:
‘The testimony we received strongly suggests that war crimes and possibly crimes against humanity have been committed by all parties to the conflict in Somalia - and no one is being held accountable.

‘The human rights and humanitarian situation in Somalia is growing worse by the day. This report represents the voices of ordinary Somalis, and their plea to the international community to take action to end the attacks against them, including those committed by internationally-supported TFG and Ethiopian forces.’

Security in many parts of Mogadishu is non-existent and the entire city’s population bears the scars of having witnessed or experienced severe violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

Michelle Kagari said:
‘There is no safety for civilians, wherever they run. Those fleeing violence in Mogadishu are attacked on the road and those lucky enough to reach a camp or settlement face further violence and dire conditions.’

Amnesty International’s report insists that the TFG, as the recognised government of Somalia, bears the primary responsibility for protecting the human rights of the Somali people. However, the Ethiopian military, which is taking a leading role in backing the TFG, also bears responsibility.

Kagari continued:
‘Attacks on civilians by all parties must stop immediately. Also, the international community must bear its own responsibility for not putting consistent pressure on the TFG or the Ethiopian government to stop their armed forces from committing egregious human rights violations.’

Amnesty International urged that the capacity of the UN Political Office for Somalia be strengthened, and that the African Union Mission to Somalia (or AMISOM) - and any succeeding UN peacekeeping mission - be mandated to protect civilians and include a strong human rights component with the capacity to investigate human rights violations.

The organisation also called for the UN arms embargo on Somalia to be strengthened, amongst other recommendations.

http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=17747

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Many migrant women workers in Saudi treated like slaves

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Saudi Arabia should implement labor, immigration, and criminal justice reforms to protect domestic workers from serious human rights abuses that in some cases amount to slavery, Human Rights Watch said in a new report released Tuesday.

Employers often face no punishment for committing abuses including months or years of unpaid wages, forced confinement, and physical and sexual violence, while some domestic workers face imprisonment or lashings for spurious charges of theft, adultery, or “witchcraft.”

The 133-page report, “‘As If I Am Not Human’: Abuses against Asian Domestic Workers in Saudi Arabia,” concludes two years of research and is based on 142 interviews with domestic workers, senior government officials, and labor recruiters in Saudi Arabia and labor-sending countries.

“In the best cases, migrant women in Saudi Arabia enjoy good working conditions and kind employers, and in the worst they’re treated like virtual slaves. Most fall somewhere in between,” said Nisha Varia, senior researcher in the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch. “The Saudi government should extend labor law protections to domestic workers and reform the visa sponsorship system so that women desperate to earn money for their families don’t have to gamble with their lives.”

Saudi households employ an estimated 1.5 million domestic workers, primarily from Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Nepal. Smaller numbers come from other countries in Africa and Asia. While no reliable statistics exist on the exact number of abuse cases, the Saudi Ministry of Social Affairs and the embassies of labor-sending countries shelter thousands of domestic workers with complaints against their employers or recruiters each year.

Excessive workload and unpaid wages, for periods ranging from a few months to 10 years, are among the most common complaints. The Kingdom’s Labor Law excludes domestic workers, denying them rights guaranteed to other workers, such as a weekly rest day and overtime pay. Many domestic workers must work 18 hours a day, seven days a week.

The restrictive kafala (sponsorship) system ties migrant workers’ visas to their employers, and means employers can deny workers the ability to change jobs or leave the country. Human Rights Watch interviewed dozens of women who said their employers forced them to work against their will for months or years. Employers often take away passports, and lock workers in the home, increasing their isolation and risk of psychological, physical, and sexual abuse. After interviews with 86 domestic workers, Human Rights Watch concluded that 36 faced abuses that amounted to forced labor, trafficking, or slavery-like conditions.

“The Saudi government has some good proposals for reform but it has spent years considering them without taking any action,” Varia said. “It’s now time to make these changes, which include covering domestic workers under the 2005 Labor Law and changing the kafala system so that workers’ visas are no longer tied to their employers.”

The Saudi Ministry of Social Affairs, in cooperation with the police operates a shelter in Riyadh to assist domestic workers to claim their wages and return home. However, in many cases shelter staff negotiated unfair wage settlements between employers and workers, often leaving workers empty-handed because they had to forego back pay in exchange for their employer’s permission to leave the country.

Poor investigations and criminal proceedings that often stretch for years mean that abusive employers are rarely punished through the criminal justice system. For example, after three years of proceedings, a Riyadh court dropped the charges against the employer of Nour Miyati, despite the employer’s confession, ample medical evidence, and intense public scrutiny. Nour Miyati, an Indonesian domestic worker, had her fingers and toes amputated as a result of being starved and beaten daily by her employers.

Human Rights Watch said that rather than seeing their abusers brought to justice, domestic workers are more likely to face counter-accusations of witchcraft, theft, or adultery. And in such cases, domestic workers often face severe delays in getting access to interpreters, legal aid, or consular assistance, or are denied help.

The punishments are severe. In a sample of cases studied by Human Rights Watch, punishments for “witchcraft” and “moral” crimes such as adultery and being in the presence of unrelated men included up to 10 years of imprisonment and between 60 and 490 lashes. Domestic workers who are pregnant as a result of rape also risk prosecution if they cannot meet strict evidentiary standards to prove the rape.

“Many of the women I talked to did not file complaints for fear of countercharges,” Varia said. “In other cases, they dropped the charges against their abusers, even if they had a strong case, because otherwise they would be stuck in an overcrowded shelter for years, away from their families and unable to work, and with very little chance of ultimately getting justice.”

In the absence of effective local redress mechanisms, the foreign missions of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, and Nepal often play a critical role in providing shelter, legal aid, and assistance to those who have wage claims or court cases. The demands placed on these embassies far outweigh their resources, and many domestic workers complain of long waiting periods with little information about their cases and, in the cases of Indonesia and Sri Lanka, overcrowded and unhygienic shelters.

Human Rights Watch called upon Saudi Arabia to investigate and punish abusive employers and to protect domestic workers from spurious countercharges. It also called upon Saudi Arabia to cooperate more effectively with labor-sending countries to monitor domestic workers’ employment conditions, facilitate rescues, ensure recovery of unpaid wages, create shelters for survivors of abuse with comprehensive support services, and arrange for timely repatriation. Both Saudi Arabia and governments in labor-sending countries should also establish mechanisms for rigorous and regular monitoring of labor agencies and recruitment practices.

More than 8 million migrants work in Saudi Arabia, comprising roughly one-third of its population. They fill critical gaps in the health, construction, and domestic service sectors, and also support their home economies, sending back US$15.6 billion in 2006, approximately 5 percent of Saudi Arabia’s gross domestic product. — July 8, 2008

(Human Rights Watch is the largest human rights organization based in the United States. Human Rights Watch researchers conduct fact-finding investigations into human rights abuses in all regions of the world. Human Rights Watch then publishes those findings in dozens of books and reports every year, generating extensive coverage in local and international media.)

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‘We have no alternative than peaceful protest’

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Guardian.co.uk | Israeli troops have surrounded a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank after several weeks of demonstrations against the latest stretch of the West Bank barrier.

For at least the past two days the military has placed a cordon around the village of Nilin, imposing what it calls a “closure” and preventing people from entering or leaving. Nilin is the latest village to join a small but growing protest movement that organisers say is supposed to remain non-violent, but which often involves stone throwing.

The military said the closure was a direct response to the protests. “There have been riots in the past few weeks and there is a closure now,” said a military spokeswoman. She said three Israeli soldiers and five border policeman had been injured in recent protests and that a closure had been imposed since Sunday morning. Villagers said Nilin had been closed for four days.

A major demonstration is planned for Thursday this week, but villagers say they have been told the Israeli military cordon will remain as long as the demonstrations continue.

Dozens of protesters, both Palestinians and foreigners, have also been injured, some seriously, when troops and policeman have fired tear gas and rubber-coated bullets at the crowds. In the most recent incident, on Sunday, one soldier and 50 demonstrators were injured.

Protests have recently started against the building on the village’s farmland of a stretch of the barrier that will place 2,500 dunams (250 hectares) of Nilin’s farmland on the “Israeli” side, an area of the West Bank which here has been used to build several Jewish settlements, including Hashmoniim. Two other settlements, Nili and Na’ale, have also been built to the east of the village and the people of Nilin fear they will soon be surrounded and cut off. All settlements in the occupied territories are illegal under international law.

“Our land will be divided into small cantons,” Salah Khawaja said before the latest Israeli military operations. Khawaja, 40, is one of the organisers of the village protests and works as an administrator in a medical organisation.

“People in this area were totally dependent on agriculture but now they are imposing a transfer and migration policy on us in a very harsh way. Everyone can see the quantity and quality of land they are going to confiscate,” he said.

In 1948, at the time of the creation of the state of Israel, the village had around 57,000 dunams of land, he said. It now has around 10,000 and will have even fewer when the latest part of the barrier is finished.

Khawaja has already spent a quarter of his life in an Israeli jail. He was picked up in the mid-1980s just before the first Palestinian intifada when he was a student activist at the leading university on the West Bank, Birzeit, where he led protests against the Israeli occupation. Now 20 years have gone by - including the terrible violence of the second intifada, with its suicide bombings and tough Israeli military raids - and Khawaja is once again leading protests. This time he belongs to a group called al-Mubadara, the Palestinian National Initiative, led by Mustafa Barghouti, a doctor and politician who argues in favour of non-violent protest.

“The first message is to say to Palestinians that any inch of our land that we can preserve is quite an achievement,” said Khawaja. “We demonstrate to strengthen our connection with the land, a connection that we feel slipped away since the intifada because we were living under the illusion that the agreements with the Israelis would solve all our problems.”

So at midday on a recent Friday, instead of going to the mosque, Khawaja and hundreds of his neighbours walked out onto their farmland to pray under the shade of their olive trees. A few hundred yards away Israeli troops fired the occasional round into the air to deter protesters from getting too close.

Among the crowd was Asad Amir, 54, who spent more than 20 years working as a labourer in Israel and used the money to buy and farm in the village. His land will soon be completely cut off by the barrier. “We don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said. “Coming here is the least we can do but the stronger side are always going to win.”

Akram Khawaja, 24, a recently-graduated computer engineer, was also praying with the crowd. “It’s not easy to get our land back this way, but it’s the safe way to act and to show the world that we do believe in non-violence. We’re struggling to get our rights.”

The villagers say they feel overlooked by the Palestinian political leadership, who do not attend the increasing frequent protests. Although there is stone throwing, the protest organisers say they have tried to discourage that and instead arrange gatherings where the crowd uses hand-held mirrors to reflect the sun in the faces of soldiers and settlers across the barrier, or where they bang household pots and pans and blow whistles loudly within earshot of the nearby settlement.

But across the Palestinian territories the influence of the armed groups over all forms of protest remains strong and efforts to maintain a non-violent movement have proved extremely difficult and have rarely won a broad following. Many Palestinians argue it is futile, others are put off by the risk of injury or arrest.

“We believe we have no other alternative than peaceful protest,” said Khawaja. “We believe popular resistance should be a national strategy, but it is not easy to convince others. It’s much harder than you think to convince people to come on a peaceful procession. Civil action takes time and a lot of education.”

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Police seek wider DNA data powers

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

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U.S. Seeks Data Exchange

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

By Ellen Nakashima |

 

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Want some torture with your peanuts?

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

By Jeffrey Denning | Just when you thought you’ve heard it all…

A senior government official with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has expressed great interest in a so-called safety bracelet that would serve as a stun device, similar to that of a police Taser®. According to this promotional video found at the Lamperd Less Lethal website, the bracelet would be worn by all airline passengers.

This bracelet would:

• take the place of an airline boarding pass

• contain personal information about the traveler

• be able to monitor the whereabouts of each passenger and his/her luggage

• shock the wearer on command, completely immobilizing him/her for several minutes
 
The Electronic ID Bracelet, as it’s referred to as, would be worn by every traveler “until they disembark the flight at their destination.”  Yes, you read that correctly. Every airline passenger would be tracked by a government-funded GPS, containing personal, private and confidential information, and that it would shock the customer worse than an electronic dog collar if he/she got out of line?

Clearly the Electronic ID Bracelet is an euphuism for the EMD Safety Bracelet, or at least it has a nefarious hidden ability, thus the term ID Bracelet is ambiguous at best. EMD stands for Electro-Musclar Disruption. Again, according to the promotional video the bracelet can completely immobilize the wearer for several minutes.

So is the government really that interested in this bracelet? Yes!

According to a letter from DHS official, Paul S. Ruwaldt of the Science and Technology Directorate, office of Research and Development, to the inventor whom he had previously met with, he wrote, “To make it clear, we [the federal government] are interested in…the immobilizing security bracelet, and look forward to receiving a written proposal.” The letterhead, in case you were wondering, came from the DHS office at the William J. Hughes Technical Center at the Atlantic City International Airport, or the Federal Aviation Administration headquarters.

In another part of the letter, Mr. Ruwaldt confirmed, “It is conceivable to envision a use to improve air security, on passenger planes.”

Would every paying airline passenger flying on a commercial airplane be mandated to wear one of these devices? I cringe at the thought. Not only could it be used as a physical restraining device, but also as a method of interrogation, according to the same aforementioned letter from Mr. Ruwaldt.

Would you let them put one of those on your wrist? Would you allow the airline employees, which would be mandated by the government, to place such a bracelet on any member of your family?

Why are tax dollars being spent on something like this? Is this a police state or is it America?

As we approach July 4th, Independence Day, I can’t help but think of the blessing we have of living in America and being free from hostile government forces. It calls to mind on of my favorite speeches given by an American Founding Forefather, Patrick Henry, who said,

“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!”

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Guantanamo Bay may be turned into marine ‘rapid reaction’ base

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

By Damien McElroy in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba | The United States is considering transforming the Guantanamo Bay terrorism prison into a base for a Marines “rapid reaction force” to deal with threats in Central America.

In the first official admission that closure of the camp had entered the planning stage, the base commander, Captain Mark Leary, said regional US Marines commanders have surveyed the site to assess its suitability.

“The southern command has looked into the possibility of the station bringing in a marine forward deployment,” he said.

“It assumes that there is a lot in Guantanamo base that would allow a marine expeditionary presence to support training and other tasks. There have been discussions on future missions.”

Capt Leary said strategic planners had identified a need for a marine base to be ready to intervene in the troubled Caribbean and Central American region. That could mean up to 3,500 marines would take up occupancy of the sprawling Camps Delta and Echo after the last detainee leaves.

The plans come amid increased speculation about the base’s future. Last week it emerged that the Bush administration was preparing to empty Guantanamo of its 235 inmates, possibly transferring them to the US mainland.

While no specific threat has been identified by the Pentagon, tensions have risen between the US and Hugo Chavez, the president of Venezuela, who has sought ties with Iran and is accused of supporting Farc Leftist terrorists in Colombia.

The US has a long history of intervention in the region, including invasions of Panama and Grenada, and covert operations across Central America.

Capt Leary said that, alternatively, the facility could be mothballed or knocked down but it was clear that a new role would be a “better option”.

America has leased the 45-square-mile base from Cuba since 1903 but, until 2002, it was a rundown refuelling station for navy and coast guard boats that was occasionally opened up to refugees.

Since 2002, the Pentagon has laid sewage, water, electricity and fibre optic cable systems. New harbour berths and support facilities have been built.

Navy personnel and their dependents make up the majority of the 7,300 people based there. Without a marine contingent, its most important function would be as a listening station on communist Cuba.

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AMERICA’S CULTURE OF WAR NOT AN ISSUE THIS ELECTION

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

By Sherwood Ross | One issue the American people likely are not going to hear about in this presidential campaign is how to stop the millitary-industrial complex(MIC) from destroying this country, from bankrupting it morally and financially.

No matter that each passing day brings some new revelation of gross Pentagon mismanagement and waste, of treaty violation or crimes against humanity, it is a topic no candidate for the White House dares to broach lest he or she be deemed “naïve” or “soft” on the subject of defense.

Yet, the MIC is running this nation into the ground, sucking trillions of dollars out of taxpayers’ wallets and laying waste to civilian sectors in urgent need of repair and regeneration.

The MIC is a beast without a heart, without compassion. It will wage war anywhere in the world, on any lie or pretext, sending thousands or millions to their deaths. It is devoid of morality; it has learned nothing from religious teachings except lip-service; and its civilian employees go to their jobs manufacturing nuclear weapons and aircraft carriers as though they were planting apple orchards or raising flowers.

When the Pentagon was under construction, members of the Roosevelt cabinet questioned the wisdom of bringing together under one roof the numerous military offices scattered around Washington, D.C. They feared the impending consolidation of awesome martial powers into one of the greatest structures on earth; they worried, too, that the war machine might take on a life of its own. Tragically, their fears have been transformed over the years into today’s ugly reality.

As James Carroll writes in “House of War”(Houghton Mifflin), by 1965 nearly 6 million Americans were employed in Pentagon-run enterprises. After all, in the 20 years following World War II, “the Pentagon spent nearly $100 billion, ten times the federal expenditures devoted to all aspects of health, education, and welfare in the same period.”

By 1997, Father Philip Berrigan, humanitarian and anti-war activist, could tell the judge who would shortly sentence him to two years in prison for spilling blood on a U.S. warship: “The United States has spent fourteen trillion dollars on arms since 1946. Our government has intervened in the affairs of fifty nations and has violated the laws of God and humanity by designing, deploying, using, and threatening to use atomic weapons.”

Carroll sees it in much the same light: “The Pentagon is now the dead center of an open-ended martial enterprise that no longer pretends to be defense…the Pentagon has, more than ever, become a place to fear.” “What the Bush administration has done,” Carroll writes, “is to lay bare the real character of the ‘disastrous rise’ of Pentagon power of which Eisenhower warned in 1961. In Iraq, despite America’s overwhelming military might, there will be no winning ever.”

Carroll’s words sound more prophetic each time another general testifies the Pentagon is “making progress” but the situation remains “fragile” and so we must stay on an on. Two years ago Carroll literally predicted Senator John McCain’s comment about staying in Iraq for a hundred years if need be, writing, “there will be no winning ever. Whether the U.S. occupation is terminated abruptly or is maintained for years, violence and mayhem will define Iraq indefinitely, while the rest of the Middle East copes with Iraqi-spawned waves of chaos.”

McCain says, if elected, he will be out of Iraq by 2013, but as Senator Joseph Biden pointed out in a recent talk carried on C-Span, McCain gave no specifics. And so one begins to suspect the goal in Iraq is not necessarily to win a war but to make war again and again, forever and a day, so the MIC can prosper while non-defense sectors starve, so that government contractors can erect a monster embassy in Baghdad and huge, permanent military bases nearby to dominate the oil-rich Middle East.

Carroll writes the U.S. under President Bush has “normalized” war: “Not noted by most Americans, a new archipelago of U.S. military bases stretched across the Middle East into the heart of the former Soviet Union…Such forward basing of forces was designed to control, by means of ‘regime change’ and ‘prevention,’ emerging political trends around the globe, with the unabashed goal of guaranteeing U.S. dominance everywhere.” (America operates about 1,000 military bases at home and more than 700 overseas.)

“Such a strategy,” Carroll goes on to write, “assumes not only the possession of unparalleled military power but the display of it and the ready use of it. Under George W. Bush, a self-styled war president, ‘the normalization of war’ was thus established.”

What’s more, Carroll writes, under former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Pentagon in 2002 embarked “on the stunning project of developing a new generation of nuclear weapons including a burrowing device designed to go after underground targets and ‘mini-nukes’ to be used in concert with a conventional attack.”

The effect of all this, Carroll writes, “is to legitimize nuclear-based power politics, giving other nations, friend and foe alike, compelling reasons to acquire a nuclear capacity, if only for deterrence, and prompting them to behave in similar ways.”

Carroll says the U.S. return to nuclear development was to spur Iran and North Korea to become nuclear-capable and to make states that renounced the atom—such as Brazil, Egypt, South Africa— rethink that decision. Meanwhile, Carroll says, Russia, China, Israel, India and Pakistan “are all furiously adding to their nuclear arsenals” and “The Pentagon has become the engine of proliferation.”

If the public hasn’t figured it out yet, the United States of America cannot go on this way forever, spending nearly half of every tax dollar on war. Besides the tragedy of our own 4,000 killed and 30,000 wounded in a deceitful war for oil, and the tragedy of perhaps 1 million Iraqis killed and a million more wounded, and four million forced from their homes, and their nation in ruins, the Bush regime has also turned much of the world against America and American brands. Soon, Americans workers and their families may be suffering economically as they never have since the Great Depression.

And the tyrannosaurus Rex in the family room smashing our domestic tranquility is the MIC. President Eisenhower had the guts to warn us of it. Senator McCain is a traveling salesman for it. And Senator Obama remains to be heard from. Yo, Senator Obama!

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U.S. exports to Iran shot up even as Bush talked tough on sanctions

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

Associated Press | U.S. exports to Iran grew more than tenfold during President George W. Bush’s years in office even as he accused Iran of nuclear ambitions and helping terrorists. America sent more cigarettes to Iran under Bush - at least $158 million worth - than any other products.

Other surprising shipments to Iran during the Bush administration: brassieres, bull semen, cosmetics, fur clothing, sculptures, perfume, musical instruments. Top states shipping goods to Iran include California, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio and Wisconsin, according to an analysis by The Associated Press of seven years of U.S. government trade data.

That list includes some solidly conservative Republican states where Bush’s assertive foreign policy has been highly popular.

Despite increasingly tough rhetoric toward Iran, which Bush has called part of an axis of evil, U.S. trade in a range of goods survives on-again, off-again sanctions originally imposed nearly three decades ago. The rules allow sales of agricultural commodities, medicine and a few other categories of goods. The exemptions are designed to help Iranian families even as the United States pressures Iran’s leaders.

“Our sanctions are targeted against the regime, not the people,” said Adam Szubin, director of the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control, which enforces the sanctions. The government tracks exports to Iran using details from shipping records, but in some cases it is unclear whether anyone pays attention.

Sanctions are intended in part to frustrate Iran’s efforts to develop its military, but the U.S. government’s own figures show at least $148,000 worth of unspecified weapons and other military gear were exported from the United States to Iran during Bush’s time in office. That includes $106,635 in military rifles and $8,760 in rifle parts and accessories shipped in 2004, the data show.

Also shipped to Iran were at least $13,000 in aircraft launching gear and/or deck arrestors, equipment needed to launch and recover jets on aircraft carriers, according to U.S. records. Iran’s navy is not believed to own or operate any carriers.

Those numbers seem small, but military items can sell for pennies on the dollar compared with what the Pentagon paid. Last year, federal agents seized four F-14 fighter jets sold to domestic buyers by an officer at a California naval air station for $2,000 to $4,000 each, with proceeds benefiting a squadron recreation fund. When F-14s were new, they cost roughly $38 million each.

Szubin said it was unlikely exports of military gear occurred, but the government was looking into it to be certain after the AP raised questions. He said shipping records are subject to human error, such as citing wrong commodity codes or recording Iran as the destination rather than Iraq. The Treasury Department said Monday it was still checking to see whether it could offer an explanation.

“That’s something that would obviously concern us greatly and concern the whole administration,” Szubin said in an interview with the AP. “And so when you presented us with the question in the last day we have called over to our colleagues in other government agencies, and you can be assured they’re looking very carefully into it.”

Bush signed legislation this year to prohibit the Pentagon from selling leftover F-14 parts. The law was prompted by AP’s reports that buyers for Iran, China and other countries exploited Pentagon surplus sales to obtain sensitive military equipment that included parts for F-14 Tomcats and other aircraft and missile components. Two men were indicted in Florida last week on charges they shipped U.S. military aircraft parts to Iran including Tomcat and attack-helicopter parts.

Iran received at least $620,000 in aircraft parts and $19,600 worth of aircraft during Bush’s terms. Iran relies on spare parts from other countries to keep its commercial and military aircraft flying. In some cases, U.S. sanctions allow shipments of aircraft parts for safety upgrades for Iran’s commercial passenger jets.

The U.S. government seems uncoordinated on efforts to limit trade with Iran.

The Securities and Exchange Commission sought to shine a light on companies active in Iran or four other countries the State Department considers state sponsors of terror, but stopped after business groups complained. The Treasury Department allowed some companies and individuals suspected of illegal trading with Iran to escape punishment. Yet the Bush administration also has collected millions of dollars in fines from trade-rule violators while pressing Congress without success to pass laws to strengthen enforcement.

The United States sent Iran $546 million in goods from 2001 through last year, government figures show. It exported roughly $146 million worth last year, compared with $8.3 million in 2001, Bush’s first year in office. Even adjusted for inflation, that is more than a tenfold increase.

Exports to Iran are a politically loaded but tiny part of U.S. trade. The United States counted more than $1 trillion in world exports last year. The value of U.S. shipments last year to Canada, America’s top trading partner, was more than 1,000
times higher than to Iran.

Top U.S. exports to Iran over Bush’s years in office include corn, $68 million; chemical wood pulp, soda or sulphate, $64 million; soybeans, $43 million; medical equipment, $27 million; vitamins, $18 million; bull semen, $12.6 million; and vegetable seeds, $12 million, according to the AP’s analysis of government trade data compiled by the World Institute for Strategic Economic Research in Massachusetts.

Also getting Bush administration approval for export to Iran were at least $101,000 worth of bras; $175,000 in sculptures; nearly $96,000 worth of cosmetics; $8,900 in perfume; $30,000 in musical instruments and parts; $21,000 in golf carts and-or snowmobiles; $4,000 worth of movie film; and $3,300 in fur clothing.

Few people or companies asking U.S. permission to trade with Iran are turned down by the Treasury Department, the lead agency for licensing exports to sanctioned countries.

During Bush’s terms, the office has received at least 4,523 license applications for Iran exports, issued at least 2,821 licenses and 213 license amendments and denied at least 178, Treasury Department data show.

Neither the Treasury data nor trade data compiled by the Census Bureau identify exporters or specify what they shipped. AP requested those details under the Freedom of Information Act in 2005 and still is waiting for the Treasury Department to provide them.

The Bush administration’s record enforcing export laws is mixed. The Office of Foreign Assets Control let the statute of limitations expire in at least 25 cases involving trade with Iran from 2002 to 2005, according to one internal department audit. The companies involved, disclosed to the AP under the Freedom of Information Act, include Acterna Corp., American Export Lines, Parvizian Masterpieces, Protrade International Corp., Rex of New York, Shinhan Bank, Phoenix Biomedical Corp., World Cargo Alliance and World Fuel Services.

Abdi Parvizian of the Parvizian Masterpieces rug gallery in Chevy Chase, Maryland, said his case was dropped because his business proved everything was imported from Iran legally. He bristled over current congressional proposals to ban imports from Iran, including carpets.

“The problem with the rugs is it has nothing to do with the government of Iran,” Parvizian said. This is something that is made by the very unfortunate people in the country, and those people are going to get hurt more than anybody else.

World Fuel Services said an employee fueled a ship out of Singapore that turned out to be Iranian-owned, and the U.S. government spotted it from a wire transfer. The company explained the mistake to Treasury with no repercussions, said Kevin Welber, general counsel of the company’s marine business. It has since put in place techniques to identify Iranian-owned ships, which Welber said can be difficult because some Iranian ships sail under Cyprus flags.

Phoenix Biomedical acknowledged it shipped surgical shunts to Iran without a license. It previously was allowed during the Clinton administration to send them to Iran and sent replacement shunts without a new license, which was required, said Charles Hokanson, who sold Phoenix Biomedical to French-based Vygon and is now chief executive of Vygon USA. He said that was the last business it did with Iran.

The other companies did not respond to requests by AP for explanations.

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Microwave ray gun controls crowds with noise

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

By David Hambling | A US company claims it is ready to build a microwave ray gun able to beam sounds directly into people’s heads.

The device – dubbed MEDUSA (Mob Excess Deterrent Using Silent Audio) – exploits the microwave audio effect, in which short microwave pulses rapidly heat tissue, causing a shockwave inside the skull that can be detected by the ears. A series of pulses can be transmitted to produce recognisable sounds.

The device is aimed for military or crowd-control applications, but may have other uses.

Lev Sadovnik of the Sierra Nevada Corporation in the US is working on the system, having started work on a US navy research contract. The navy’s report states that the effect was shown to be effective.

Scarecrow beam?

MEDUSA involves a microwave auditory effect “loud” enough to cause discomfort or even incapacitation. Sadovnik says that normal audio safety limits do not apply since the sound does not enter through the eardrums.

“The repel effect is a combination of loudness and the irritation factor,” he says. “You can’t block it out.”

Sadovnik says the device will work thanks to a new reconfigurable antenna developed by colleague Vladimir Manasson. It steers the beam electronically, making it possible to flip from a broad to a narrow beam, or aim at multiple targets simultaneously.

Sadovnik says the technology could have non-military applications. Birds seem to be highly sensitive to microwave audio, he says, so it might be used to scare away unwanted flocks.

Sadovnik has also experimented with transmitting microwave audio to people with outer ear problems that impair their normal hearing.

Brain damage risk

James Lin of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Illinois in Chicago says that MEDUSA is feasible in principle.

He has carried out his own work on the technique, and was even approached by the music industry about using microwave audio to enhance sound systems, he told New Scientist.

“But is it going to be possible at the power levels necessary?” he asks. Previous microwave audio tests involved very “quiet” sounds that were hard to hear, a high-power system would mean much more powerful – and potentially hazardous – shockwaves.

“I would worry about what other health effects it is having,” says Lin. “You might see neural damage.”

Sierra Nevada says that a demonstration version could be built in a year, with a transportable system following within 18 months. They are currently seeking funding for the work from the US Department of Defence.

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The World Health Organization Documents Failure of U.S. Drug Policies

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

By Bruce Mirken | The United States has some of the world’s most punitive drug policies and has led the cheering section for tough “war on drugs” policies worldwide, but a new international study suggests that those policies have been a crashing failure. A World Health Organization survey of 17 countries, conducted by some of the world’s leading substance abuse researchers, found that we have the highest rates of marijuana and cocaine use.

The numbers are startling. In the United States, 42.4 percent admitted having used marijuana. The only other nation that came close was New Zealand, another bastion of get-tough policies, at 41.9 percent. No one else was even close. The results for cocaine use were similar, with the United States leading the world by a large margin.

This study is important because it’s the first time a respected international group has surveyed drug use around the world, using the same questions and procedure everywhere. While many countries have their own drug use surveys, the questions and methodology vary, and comparisons between countries are difficult. This new study eliminates that problem.

Some of the most striking numbers are from the Netherlands, where adults are permitted to possess a small of marijuana and purchase it from regulated businesses. Some U.S. officials have claimed that these Dutch policies have created some sort of decadent cesspool of drug abuse, but the new study demolishes such assertions: In the Netherlands, only 19.8 percent have used marijuana, less than half the U.S. figure.

Even more striking is what the researchers found when they asked young adults when they had started using marijuana. Again, the United States led the world, with 20.2 percent trying marijuana by age 15. No other country was even close, and in the Netherlands, just 7 percent used marijuana by 15 — roughly one-third of the U.S. figure.

The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy tried to dismiss the study, Bloomberg News reported:

 

Trying to find a link between drug use and drug enforcement doesn’t make sense, said Tom Riley, spokesman for the U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy in Washington. “The U.S. has high crime rates but we spend a lot on law enforcement and prison,” Riley said yesterday in a telephone interview. “Should we spend less? We’re just a different kind of country. We have higher drug use rates, a higher crime rate, many things that go with a highly free and mobile society.”

 

Funny, ONDCP takes precisely the opposite line whenever a state considers liberalizing its marijuana laws. In a March press release, deputy Drug Czar Scott Burns railed against a New Hampshire proposal to decriminalize marijuana, saying such a move “sends the wrong message to New Hampshire’s youth, students, parents, public health officials and the law enforcement community,” and would lead to “more drugs, drug users and drug dealers on their streets and communities.”

Back in 2002, denouncing a proposed marijuana law reform in Nevada, ONDCP distributed a list of talking points to prosecutors specifically slamming the “extremely dubious” Dutch system of regulated sales, saying, “Increased availability of marijuana leads to increased use of marijuana and other drugs.”

In fact, ONCDP’s latest excuse for the failure of U.S. drug policies — that enforcement and penalties don’t really have much effect on rates of use — is probably just about right. But it also dynamites any justification for our current marijuana laws. The WHO researchers put it this way:

“The U.S., which has been driving much of the world’s drug research and drug policy agenda, stands out with higher levels of use of alcohol, cocaine, and cannabis, despite punitive illegal drug policies. … The Netherlands, with a less criminally punitive approach to cannabis use than the US, has experienced lower levels of use, particularly among younger adults. Clearly, by itself, a punitive policy towards possession and use accounts for limited variation in nation level rates of illegal drug use.”

For this we arrest 830,000 Americans a year on marijuana charges?

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New War Brewing: US, Israel Take Dangerous Steps

Tuesday, July 8th, 2008

By Eric Margolis | GENEVA – The U.S., Israel and Iran are playing a very dangerous game of chicken that soon could result in a new Mideast war.

U.S. intelligence has concluded that Iran is not working on nuclear weapons. But the Bush administration and Israel, recently joined by France, are issuing increasingly loud threats of military action to frighten Iran into halting its nuclear enrichment program.

Iran insists its nuclear program is entirely for civilian use. Tehran is alternating between conciliatory statements and threats to retaliate against any attack by inflicting economic chaos on the global economy. Europe fears the economic damage a war against Iran would bring far more than Iran’s nuclear program.

Senior Israeli officials are openly threatening to attack Iran’s nuclear installations before President George W. Bush’s term expires. Early, this month Israel staged a large, U.S.-approved exercise using F-15s and F-16s to rehearse an attack over 900 miles – precisely the distance to Iran’s nuclear facilities.

The highly regarded American journalist Seymour Hersh just confirmed that the U.S. Congress authorized a $400-million plan to overthrow Iran’s government and incite ethnic unrest. This column reported a year ago that U.S. and British special forces were operating in Iran, preparing for a massive air campaign. Israel’s destruction of an alleged Syrian reactor last fall was a warning to Iran.

This week a Pentagon official claimed an Israeli attack on Iran was coming before year end.

Other Pentagon and CIA sources say a U.S. attack on Iran is imminent, with or without Israel. The Bush administration is even considering using small tactical nuclear weapons against deeply buried Iranian targets.

Senior American officers Admiral William Fallon and Air Force Chief Michael Mosley recently were fired for opposing war against Iran. According to Israel’s media, President Bush even told Israel’s Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that he could not trust America’s intelligence community and preferred to rely on Israeli intelligence.

AIR BLITZ

Intensifying activity is evident at U.S. bases in Europe and the Gulf, aimed at preparing a massive air blitz that may include repeated attacks on 3,100 targets in Iran. Other sources say Iranian Revolutionary Guard installations will be barraged by cruise missiles.

In Washington, Congress, under intense pressure from the Israel lobby, is about to adopt a resolution calling for a naval blockade of Iran, an overt act of war.

Pro-Israel groups have been airing TV commercials claiming Iran is attacking American troops in Iraq and threatens the U.S.

The Bush administration’s last desperate act, its Götterdämmerung, could be war with Iran. UN weapons inspectors concur with U.S. intelligence that there is no proof Iran is working on nuclear arms, but the neocon war party in Washington is determined to loosen a final Parthian shaft by striking Iran.

Israel asserts the right to maintain its Mideast nuclear monopoly by destroying all fissile-producing reactors in the region. Iran vows to retaliate against Israel with its inaccurate Shahab missiles, shut the Strait of Hormuz and mine the Gulf, producing worldwide financial panic, severe fuel shortages, and $400-$500 per barrel oil. Iran likely will attack U.S. forces in Afghanistan, Iraq and Kuwait, and strike Saudi and Kuwaiti oil facilities. Canadians in Afghanistan could also become targets.

GRAVE DAMAGE

The embattled Bush administration’s bunker mentality is leading to war that will gravely damage long-term U.S. Mideast interests. A single Iranian missile hit on Israel’s reactor would do more damage to the Jewish state than all its previous wars. Besides, Israel cannot destroy Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. A U.S. or Israeli attack on Iran will guarantee Tehran decides to build nuclear weapons. Israel and Iran have turned their regional rivalry into a confrontation that threatens all.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei, not its bombastic President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, controls that nation’s military and insists Iran will not produce nuclear weapons. Israel claims it faces a second holocaust. Iran says Israel’s nuclear forces threaten its existence.

The dogs of war are being unleashed.

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