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Coincidence? Guantanamo term ends as Bush’s does

Monday, August 11th, 2008

GUANTANAMO BAY U.S. NAVAL BASE, Cuba (Reuters) - It was no coincidence the U.S. military jurors at Guantanamo timed the prison sentence they gave Osama bin Laden’s driver to end just before President Bush’s term does, legal analysts say.

The timing seems intended to give the next U.S. president who takes office on Jan. 20 a chance to override the Bush administration’s announcement that it will continue to hold convicted Yemeni captive Salim Hamdan as an “enemy combatant” in the war against terrorism after he finishes his sentence.

“My inference is that they concluded that this administration would not release Hamdan at the end of his sentence, but the next one might,” said David Glazier, a national security expert who teaches at Loyola Law School.

“I think Hamdan’s continued detention past the end of his sentence, although justifiable under the law of war, would be a political train wreck, and I think the panel made an effort to protect the U.S. from further international criticism.”

Both major U.S. presidential candidates have said they would close the detention camp at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

The six-member jury of military officers convicted Hamdan Wednesday of providing material support for terrorism by driving and guarding bin Laden in Afghanistan.

They rejected charges that he was part of a broad al Qaeda conspiracy to murder American civilians, one of the “worst of the worst.”

The verdict in the first U.S. war crimes tribunal since World War Two endorsed military defense lawyers’ position that Hamdan was a bit player who made the terrible decision to keep working for bin Laden because he needed the $200 monthly salary to support his family.

MILITARY PUSHING BACK

When jurors began deliberating his sentence, the only question they asked the judge was how much credit Hamdan would get for the time he has been held at Guantanamo. The judge said he would get a little over 61 months’ credit, and the jurors sentenced Hamdan to a 66-month term that runs out at the end of December.

The jurors did not publicly explain their reasons but given the nuance of their verdict, it seems unlikely that timing was a coincidence.

“For seven years, uniformed military officers have pushed back against the administration’s most extreme and unlawful detention and interrogation policies, only to be overruled by White House lawyers with little respect for the Constitution or Geneva Conventions,” said Ben Wizner, a lawyer who monitored the trial for the American Civil Liberties Union.

“We may never know what the commission members were thinking, but we saw what they did: they ensured that Mr. Hamdan’s fate will be determined by a future administration with more respect for the rule of law.”

Only one other prisoner has been convicted at Guantanamo, Australian David Hicks. He avoided trial by pleading guilty to providing material support for terrorism — the same charge Hamdan was convicted of. Hicks plea-bargained for a nine-month sentence and was allowed to leave Guantanamo before it ended, finishing it out in Australia.

“Holding Hamdan past the end of his (term) is only going to further inflame anti-American feelings in the Muslim world where the U.S. will clearly be perceived as continuing to discriminate on the basis of nationality or religion,” said Glazier, a former U.S. Navy officer.

U.S. citizens are exempt from imprisonment and trial at Guantanamo. All the captives from Western nations were released long ago except for Canadian Omar Khadr, who faces trial in October on charges of killing a U.S. soldier with a grenade. (Editing by Xavier Briand)

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War in Georgia: The Israeli connection

Monday, August 11th, 2008

For past seven years, Israeli companies have been helping Gerogian army to preparer for war against Russia through arms deals, training of infantry units and security advice

By Arie Egozi | The fighting which broke out over the weekend between Russia and Georgia has brought Israel’s intensive involvement in the region into the limelight. This involvement includes the sale of advanced weapons to Georgia and the training of the Georgian army’s infantry forces.

The Defense Ministry held a special meeting Sunday to discuss the various arms deals held by Israelis in Georgia, but no change in policy has been announced as of yet.

“The subject is closely monitored,” said sources in the Defense Ministry. “We are not operating in any way which may counter Israeli interests. We have turned down many requests involving arms sales to Georgia; and the ones which have been approves have been duly scrutinized. So far, we have placed no limitations on the sale of protective measures.”

Israel began selling arms to Georgia about seven years ago following an initiative by Georgian citizens who immigrated to Israel and became businesspeople.

“They contacted defense industry officials and arms dealers and told them that Georgia had relatively large budgets and could be interested in purchasing Israeli weapons,” says a source involved in arms exports.

The military cooperation between the countries developed swiftly. The fact that Georgia’s defense minister, Davit Kezerashvili, is a former Israeli who is fluent in Hebrew contributed to this cooperation.

“His door was always open to the Israelis who came and offered his country arms systems made in Israel,” the source said. “Compared to countries in Eastern Europe, the deals in this country were conducted fast, mainly due to the defense minister’s personal involvement.”

Among the Israelis who took advantage of the opportunity and began doing business in Georgia were former Minister Roni Milo and his brother Shlomo, former director-general of the Military Industries, Brigadier-General (Res.) Gal Hirsch and Major-General (Res.) Yisrael Ziv.

Roni Milo conducted business in Georgia for Elbit Systems and the Military Industries, and with his help Israel’s defense industries managed to sell to Georgia remote-piloted vehicles (RPVs), automatic turrets for armored vehicles, antiaircraft systems, communication systems, shells and rockets.

According to Israeli sources, Gal Hirsch gave the Georgian army advice on the establishment of elite units such as Sayeret Matkal and on rearmament, and gave various courses in the fields of combat intelligence and fighting in built-up areas.

‘Don’t anger the Russians’

The Israelis operating in Georgia attempted to convince the Israeli Aerospace Industries to sell various systems to the Georgian air force, but were turned down. The reason for the refusal was “special” relations created between the Aerospace Industries and Russia in terms of improving fighter jets produced in the former USSR and the fear that selling weapons to Georgia would anger the Russians and prompt them to cancel the deals.

Israelis’ activity in Georgia and the deals they struck there were all authorized by the Defense Ministry. Israel viewed Georgia as a friendly state to which there is no reason not to sell arms systems similar to those Israel exports to other countries in the world.

As the tension between Russia and Georgia grew, however, increasing voices were heard in Israel – particularly in the Foreign Ministry – calling on the Defense Ministry to be more selective in the approval of the deals with Georgia for fear that they would anger Russia.

“It was clear that too many unmistakable Israeli systems in the possesion of the Georgian army would be like a red cloth in the face of a raging bull as far as Russia is concerned,” explained a source in the defense establishment.

For inctance, the Russians viewed the operation of the Elbit System’s RPVs as a real provocation.

“It was clear that the Russians were angry,” says a defense establishment source, “and that the interception of three of these RPVs in the past three months was an expression of this anger. Not everyone in Israel understood the sensitive nerve Israel touched when it supplied such an advanced arms system to a country whose relations with Russia are highly tense.”

In May it was eventually decide to approve future deals with Georgia only for the sale of non-offensive weapon systems, such as intelligence, communications and computer systems, and not to approve deals for the sale of rifles, aircraft, sells, etc.

A senior source in the Military Industry said Saturday that despite some reporters, the activity of Georgia’s military industry was extremely limited.

“We conducted a small job for them several years ago,” he said. “The rest of the deals remained on paper.”

Dov Pikulin, one of the owners of the Authentico company specializing in trips and journeys to the area, says however that “the Israeli is the main investor in the Georgian economy. Everyone is there, directly or indirectly.”

Georgian minister: Israel should be proud

“The Israelis should be proud of themselves for the Israeli training and education received by the Georgian soldiers,” Georgian Minister Temur Yakobashvili said Saturday.

Yakobashvili is a Jew and is fluent in Hebrew. “We are now in a fight against the great Russia,” he said, “and our hope is to receive assistance from the White House, because Georgia cannot survive on its own.

“It’s important that the entire world understands that what is happening in Georgia now will affect the entire world order. It’s not just Georgia’s business, but the entire world’s business.”

One of the Georgian parliament members did not settle Saturday for the call for American aid, urging Israel to help stop the Russian offensive as well: “We need help from the UN and from our friends, headed by the United States and Israel. Today Georgia is in danger – tomorrow all the democratic countries in the region and in the entire world will be in danger too.”

Zvi Zinger and Hanan Greenberg contributed to this report

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Climate activists vow to stay at camp

Monday, August 11th, 2008

guardian.co.uk | Climate change campaigners pledged today to set up a permanent protest camp at Kingsnorth, near Rochester in Kent, if the government allows a large new coal-fired power station to be built there.

Their defiant statement came as the police said they had arrested 100 protesters and charged 46 of them during the week-long protest that culminated on Saturday at the existing power station on the site, run by German energy company E.ON.

Most of those charged were accused of obstruction offences. The cost of policing the protest is believed to have been over £1m.

Four people were arrested after they managed to get inside the grounds of the power station on Saturday, and 19 others climbed over the outer perimeter fence. But a spokesman for E.ON said the protesters had not affected its power output.

Assistant Chief Constable Gary Beautridge of Kent police denied claims from protesters of heavy-handedness by some of the 1,400 police officers from 26 forces who were deployed to the camp.

“Our policy was that policing was proportionate to this threat,” he said. “Because of the level of resistance, officers were authorised to carry batons during two days of the protest. There are strict legal standards for their use and we gave clear warnings when any specialist team was deployed, which is our policy. Those intent on breaking the law had the choice and opportunity to stop.”

A spokesman for the Climate Camp said that there had been “widespread condemnation” of tactics used by police during the event. These included indiscriminate use of stop and search powers, the use of helicopters to disrupt workshops and speeches, and the confiscation of many items.

Kevin Smith said: “Our legal team are going to be exhausting every possible channel for holding the police accountable for the draconian use of stop and search measures, for the things they confiscated, and for their violent incursions on to the camp.

“Every year police use the supposed existence of a hardcore minority as justification for their heavy-handedness and every year this hardcore minority fails to materialise.”

The protesters claim that giving the go-ahead to a large new station would herald a new generation of highly polluting coal power stations giving the UK no chance of meeting its targets for the reduction of carbon dioxide emissions. The government argues that such stations are crucial to ensuring secure energy supply and that in future new technology will be able to capture and bury the exhaust gases.

Action by Climate Camp activists continued today with nine people targeting the UK head office of international mining giant BHP Billiton, with two protesters supergluing themselves to the front doors.

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Drinking Caffeine During Pregnancy Doubles Risk of Miscarriage

Monday, August 11th, 2008

NaturalNews | Drinking as little as 10 ounces of coffee per day may double a pregnant woman’s risk of miscarriage, according to a new study conducted by Kaiser Permanente researchers and published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Researchers interviewed 1,063 pregnant women, including 102 who had already suffered a miscarriage, about their caffeine intake. The median length of pregnancy for the women at the time of interview was 71 days. Another 70 women miscarried before the end of their pregnancies, bringing the total to 172, or about 16 percent - a fairly normal miscarriage rate.

Women who said that they never drank caffeine had a 12.5 percent chance of miscarriage, while women who reported drinking 200 milligrams or more of caffeine per day had a 24.5 percent miscarriage rate. This represented nearly twice the miscarriage risk of the non-caffeine drinkers. The effects of caffeine on miscarriage remained even after researchers adjusted for other risk factors, including age and smoking habits.

Previously, some researchers have suggested that a connection between caffeine intake and miscarriage rate is illusory, and is caused instead by the fact that women who experience morning sickness tend to have healthier pregnancies due to hormonal changes in the body. Because women with morning sickness are less likely to drink caffeine, it then appears that reducing caffeine intake reduces miscarriage risk.

But the current study found that the association between caffeine and miscarriage remained strong even after adjusting for different rates of morning sickness.

Lead author De-Kun Li recommended that pregnant women give up caffeine for at least the first three to four months of pregnancy. “If, for whatever reason, they really can’t do it, think of cutting to one cup or switching to decaf,” Li said. “Stopping caffeine really doesn’t have any downside.”

Two hundred milligrams of caffeine is approximately the amount found in 10 ounces of coffee or 25 ounces of tea.

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Petraeus: US is flying Georgian troops into battle zone

Monday, August 11th, 2008

The Times | ‘US aircraft have started to fly some of Georgia’s 2,000 troops in Iraq back home to join the fight in the breakaway province of South Ossetia, General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq said toda

“The flights are ongoing to redeploy the elements of the Georgian contingent so that they can deal with the security issues in their country,” General Petraeus told The Times in an interview at his office inside Baghdad’s Green Zone.

He said measures were already in place to mitigate the impact on operations in Iraq of the sudden departure of the soldiers.

“We can accommodate that. Obviously it was not expected but it is something, the effects of which we can certainly mitigate.”

The Georgian contingent has been taking part in an operation with US and Iraqi forces to clear the south-eastern corner of Diyala province, north of Baghdad, a known al-Qaeda stronghold.

Some 150 Georgian soldiers also guard the Iraqi Parliament building as well as other key structures inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.

In addition, one battalion is helping to support the Iraqi security forces in Wasit province, south of the capital, near the Iranian border.

what happens if a US military plane carry troops into a combat zone is shot down (accidentally!) by Russians? US troops did joint exercises in Georgia last month, are they still there?

jc, white plains ny, usa

God Bless America!! Just another example of U.S. interference in another country’s affairs. One of these days it is all going to come back & bite them. I suppose this will become part of the Obama/McCain platform? We screwed up/lied in Iraq so we might as well move on to Georgia.

IAN RAYBURN, Gloucester, Canada

What? 1000 soldiers to face the Red Army? Who’s their leader? Leonidas?

Eugene, heidelberg, germany

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