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Venezuelan Elections: The Media Response

Saturday, November 29th, 2008

By Stephen Lendman |

On November 23, Venezuela held regional and local elections for governors, mayors and other municipal offices. Over 5000 candidates contested in 603 races for 22 state governors, 328 mayors, 233 state legislative council members, 13 Caracas Metropolitan area council members, and seven others for the Alto Apure District Council.

As mandated under Article 56 of the Bolivarian Constitution: “All persons have the right to be registered (to vote) free of charge with the Civil Registry Office after birth, and to obtain public documents constituting evidence of the biological identity, in accordance with the law.”

It’s a constitutional mandate to let all Venezuelans vote. Once registered, none are purged from the rolls, obstructed, or prevented from having their vote count like so often happens in America. In Venezuela, democracy works.

In 2003, Hugo Chavez undertook a major successful initiative called Mision Itentidad (Mission Identity) to implement the law. Prior to it in 2000, 11 million Venezuelans were registered to vote. By September 2006, it was 16 million, and now it’s 16.8 million in a country of 27 million people.

How the Process Works

The electoral process is administered by the National Electoral Council (CNE). Unlike America’s privatized system, it’s an independent body, separate from the Executive, Legislative and Judicial branches of government or any private corporate interests. It’s comprised of 11 members of the National Assembly and 10 representatives of civil society, none of whom are appointed by the President.

Elections are conducted using Smartmatic touchscreen electronic voting machines with verifiable paper ballot receipts. Voters can thus check to confirm their votes and their accuracy. The CNE then saves them as a permanent record to be used in case a recount is needed. It also requires voters to leave an electronic thumbprint to assure no one votes more than once.

The machines work as intended, and, after the 2006 election, the Carter Center said: based on its observations, Venezuela’s “automated machines worked well and the voting results do reflect the will of the people.” Further earlier independent studies verified the same thing, including ones carried out by vote-process experts at the University of California Berkeley, Johns Hopkins, Stanford and elsewhere.

In design, great care was taken to eliminate the possibility of tampering. It required a special technology that split the security codes into four parts. As a result, numerous voting security reports endorse the process they say makes Venezuelan machines the most advanced and accurate in the world.

On November 23, CNE president Tibisay Lucena said voters turned out in unprecedented numbers at 65.45%, the largest ever total for a regional election. The people spoke and registered a resounding, but not one-sided, victory for Hugo Chavez’s United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) candidates and sent a message. They affirmed the success of Bolivarianism and want it continued.

As the Venezuela Information Office reported, PSUV candidates won 77% of governorships (17 of 22), 81% of mayoral offices, 77% of all contests, and 58% of the popular vote — an impressive result by any standard anywhere in an election that 134 independent observers from 54 countries (from America, Europe, Asia, Africa and the 34-member country Organization of American States — OAS) judged open, free, fair, and efficient like all others under Chavez. OAS secretary general Jose Miguel Insulza called this one “peaceful and exemplary” and described it as a powerful expression of democratic maturity and the trust Venezuelans have in it under Chavez.

Other observer comments were as follows:

– Colombia’s CNE representative, Joaquin Vives, called Venezuela’s electoral process “a pioneer in the world (and added) Many things dazzled us” about it, such as voters “great desire to construct democracy in Venezuela;”

– Greek legislator Sofia Sakorafa called the process “one that expresses the will of the people and is characterized by a commitment to social and political inclusion;”

– Costa Rica’s Maria Elena Salazar said the election was “beautiful, participative, of which all Latin Americans should be proud;” and

– Anthony Gonzales from America admired well-equipped and secured voting centers and that the election was held on a weekend to make it easier for working people.

Long-time Latin American expert James Petras commented on the significance of the victory:

– few European, North or South American parties have as high a level of support as the PSUV; certainly none in the United States in particular where growing numbers of voters have little faith in a deeply corrupted process;

– the PSUV is popular “in the context of several radical economic measures, including the nationalization of major cement, steel, financial and other private capitalist monopolies;” even so, business in Venezuela remains strong (though slowing) at a time of a global economic crisis;

– the PSUV won in spite of declining oil prices; fluctuating around $50 a barrel, they’re down about two-thirds from their peak price; even so, “the government maintained most of its funding for its social programs” and intends to continue doing it — in contrast to America where social programs have eroded for years and show no signs of revitalization under either party;

– the electorate was selective in its voting choices — “rewarding candidates who performed adequately in providing government services and punishing those who ignored or were unresponsive to popular demands;”

– most important: “the decisive (PSUV) victory provides the basis for confronting the deepening collapse of world capitalism with (impressive and workable) socialist measures;” compare them to the looting of the US Treasury to reward criminal bankers for their malfeasance and failures; the differences between both countries are dramatic and breathtaking — democratically impressive (though not perfect) in Venezuela compared to criminally corrupted under either party in America; no one dares mention this in the corporate media.

In the election’s aftermath, Petras explained that “most Venezuelan firms are heavily indebted to the state and local banks.” Chavez can ask them “to repay their debts or hand over the keys (and be able to bring) about a painless and eminently legal transition to socialism.” It remains to be seen if he’ll do it to advance his socialism of the 21st century — or perhaps remain defensive, proceed cautiously, and fail to take advantage of an important opportunity.

Responses from the Dominant Media

With some exceptions, it’s been pretty much as expected - one-sided, distorted, inaccurate, and not at all reflecting the will of Venezuelans and their impressive support for Chavez and Bolivarianism.

For example, the New York Times in a November 25 editorial headlined: “Hugo Chavez’s Choice.” After he took office in February 1999, the Times kept up a steady attack against him in editorials and commentaries. Here it states: Hugo Chavez “is not feeling the love. Collapsing oil prices have sharply curtailed his ability to ‘buy’ public sympathies,” and after Barack Obama’s election he no longer has “a convenient foe.”

Sunday’s elections “showed just how fed up (Venezuelans) are with his government’s ‘authoritarianism and incompetence’ by rejecting the president’s allies in significant races.” Even by Times standards, these comments are way over the top and mirror opposite of the facts.

The Times continues: “Mr. Chavez did pretty much everything he could to skew the elections. His government increased public spending by 60 percent in the last year.” Of course, he’s always used the nation’s wealth for his people and not as handouts to the rich like in America.

“A government watchdog (also) disqualified many opposition candidates,” but the Times omitted saying that the Venezuelan Supreme Court (YSJ) barred them because of corruption, misuse of public funds, and convictions for these offenses. The Times called them “bogus.”

It then exaggerated Sunday’s results, suggested Chavez’s popular support is waning, referred to his “rejected (December) power-grabbing constitutional reform,” and stated “Venezuelans don’t want to give Mr. Chavez even more power. He should heed the message (and) accept democratic limits to his rule.” Unstated was:

• Chavez’s popular support at over 60% compared to George Bush scoring lowest ever for a US president at around 20%;
• the nation’s impressive social democracy;
• the kind few other nations have;
• the type absent in America;
• the kind Venezuelans never before had and cherish; and
• are committed never to give up.

Simon Romero is the Times man in Caracas where his reporting is mediocre and inaccurate. His November 24 article was typical. It’s headlined: “Chavez Supporters Suffer Defeat in State and Municipal Races” in which he refers to their “stinging defeat in several state and municipal races.” Unnoticed were all the victories and how impressively they were won.

Instead Romero noted “festering discontent” and how “celebratory fireworks went off over parts of (Caracas) after the results were announced.” Perhaps so but mostly for Chavez and his PSUV.

Romero preferred to quote Caracas opposition mayoral winner, Antonio Ledezma, saying “Those who should feel defeated are the criminals.” An urban Caracas Petare carpenter as well being “tired of Chavez treating the entire country as if it were his military barracks.”

Well into his article, Romero had to say that “Voting unfolded without reports of major irregularities” but ignored the fact that few at all occurred and they were minor. He also admitted that pro-Chavez candidates won 17 of 22 states but added sour grapes about some being small “in terms of population.”

On the same day, Romero wrote another commentary headlined: “Once Considered Invincible, Chavez Takes a Blow” with as many inaccuracies as the above one. He referred to “many of (Chavez’s) supporters desert(ing) him… in areas where he was once thought invincible,” but had to admit the results might not “slow his Socialist-inspired revolution or check his power.” Why should it when most Venezuelans want it.

He repeated much from his other article, added a few inaccurate quotes (like it’s a “myth” to believe “only Chavez can be a champion of the poor”), omitted the most important facts, but again admitted the obvious — that “Mr. Chavez remains by far the dominant and most popular figure in Venezuelan politics,” and the election results showed it.

Even so, Romero downplayed his victory and said Chavez candidates won mostly in largely rural states. He quoted economist Luis Pedro Espana, director of the Economic and Social Research Institute at Venezuela’s Andres Bello Catholic University, stating: “The more modern part of the country wants political change.” What he means, but didn’t say, is the more affluent part, now forced to share some of the nation’s wealth with its least advantaged and most in need people — the great majority who support Chavez overwhelmingly.

On November 25, the Wall Street Journal was extremely hostile in two post-election articles — one on the results and another feature story headlined: “Chavez Lets Colombian Rebels Wield Power Inside Venezuela.” It reeks of inaccuracies, uses Washington and the Colombian military as its sources, and claims that Chavez is providing a growing “safe haven” for FARC-EP and ELN “guerrillas.”

Unreported was anything about Chavez’s Colombian peace intervention and his successful efforts to arrange FARC-EP held hostage releases — in spite of Washington and Colombia’s president Uribe conspiring to prevent it.

Journal writer Jose de Cordoba accused the Venezuelan military and police of “turning a blind eye to guerrilla activity, and at times cooperating in areas including the trafficking of arms and cocaine.” This and other anti-Chavez agitprop show up often in Journal commentaries, but this time in far more detail compared to much less said about the election results.

That was in a page six article headlined: “Chavez Base Rebukes Him at Polls.” Writer John Lyon referred to Chavez’s “dual ambitions — to stay in power for life and wield outsize influence on the global stage.” He added how “the very people that brought him to power” rebuked him: “the urban poor.”

Like the Times, the article reeked with inaccuracies that are increasingly common on both the Journal’s op-ed and news pages. Lyon suggests trouble for Chavez with his electoral “setbacks add(ing) to a list of growing problems that are likely to slow his swagger.” For example, falling oil prices that may crimp his “checkbook diplomacy that has won him allies outside his borders….”

He also compared him to Fidel Castro, referred to his “foreign adventures… backfir(ing) amid the local financial crisis,” and said his base is “dwindling” at a time it’s impressively strong. He quoted opposition candidate Antonio Ledezma (as did Romero) saying “Now is the time for true change” by which he means ending Bolivarianism, its social democracy, returning power to the privileged oligarchs, and throwing most Venezuelans back into deep poverty. Lyon apparently approves and quotes a leading opposition newspaper, Tal Cual, headlining: “We hit him where it hurts.” For the past 10 years, the Venezuelan people have had the last word.

The Washington Post was just as hostile in a November 25 editorial headlined “How to Beat Mr. Chavez” and his “Cuban-style socialist regime.” It called him “Venezuela’s strongman (and) caudillo” and over-hyped Sunday’s results much the way the Journal and Times did it. It added that Chavez “shows no sign that he is listening to the country,” and post-election said the voters’ message was to “continue down the same road.” Indeed it was and will be.

According to the Post, “the opposition now has an opportunity to show that it can offer a workable alternative to Mr. Chavez’s policies.” Unmentioned was that they had generations to “show” it, failed dismally, Venezuelans overwhelmingly reject them, and want no part of their kind of “change.”

With its large anti-Castro population, Miami is a hotbed of anti-Chavismo, and the Miami Herald reflects it. Post-election, it headlined “Despite foes’ gains, Hugo Chavez will try to get another term in Venezuela.” It referred to state and local elections “slow(ing) his grand ambitions to yank Venezuela and Latin America to the left” but not enough to stop him according to unnamed analysts.

It suggested an upcoming “titanic battle” as Chavez is expected to hold a national plebiscite next year “that would allow him to campaign for an additional six-year presidential term in 2012.” It quoted pollster Luis Vincente Leon of Datanalisis, who publicly called for Chavez’s assassination, saying: “He wants to change the constitution to run again. There’s no doubt about that,” but again unsaid is what the people want. Chavez wants them to choose and like always will honor their will.

On November 23, the far right Washington Times headlined a John Thomson commentary on “Chavez’s fraud game” and referred to “The kinds and extent of fraud already being applied by the Venezuelan government to crucial elections today.” He called them “unprecedented (and) unmitigated electoral larceny (and) Venezuela’s pilfer process starts well before the day the votes are cast and counted.”

In an age of breathtaking anti-Chavez agitprop, this comment takes the cake or at least matches the worst of it. Thomson called the “fraud potential” on election day “staggering” and listed a menu of absurdities and rubbish ranging from “jumbled” voting lists to “rigged” voting machines, and “manipulation” of results.

It’s much like Journal writer Mary O’Grady’s agitprop — her latest on November 17 in a commentary headlined: “Dodd’s Democrat Tightens His Grip.” Dodd, of course, is Senator Chris Dodd, and her article is about Venezuela’s election, the country’s “numerous setbacks for democracy,” and the chance Venezuelans have to “rid themselves of Mr. Chavez.”

She refers to his “authoritarian powers… deteriorating living standards (and) the widespread assumption that the government will use tricks to win” on November 23. “Venezuelans saw this coming. From his earliest days as president in 1999, Mr. Chavez began working to destroy any checks on his power.”

She attacked Chris Dodd for “throw(ing) a fit over Mr. Chavez’s (48-hour) removal” in April 2002. “This self-styled Latin American expert (referred to) a US-backed coup and insisted that since Mr. Chavez (was) democratically elected in a fair vote” no one should question his legitimacy.

“Of course it wasn’t a coup,” according to O’Grady, as she questions the “circumstances (of his) political resurrection,” again called him a “strongman,” warned earlier about his budding “dictatorship,” and now says her view about him is accurate.

“Political prisoners are rotting in Venezuelan jails without trials. Being identified as a political opponent of the revolution is a ticket to the end of the unemployment line. Private property has zero protection under the law and the economy’s private sector has been all but destroyed… (and Chavez) has made it clear he will not accept defeat at the polls.”

Breathtaking hardly describes this rant. It’s mirror opposite the truth. Venezuela’s social democracy is unimaginable in America, and one reason why O’Grady and others vilify it. It’s also why they reported inaccurately on Sunday’s election.

A Sane Voice in the Wilderness

On November 22, the London Independent published “Letters: In praise of Hugo Chavez.” One confronted Latin American writer Phil Gunson’s “bleak picture” of Venezuela in his article titled: “Tough-talking Chavez faces rising dissent.” It was grossly inaccurate, mentioned the usual kinds of criticisms, and pretty much read like the US and Venezuelan corporate media agitprop.

The writer asked: If Gunson is right, “why are President Chavez’s approval ratings at 58%, as he reports.” He doesn’t mention “how (his) government has delivered free healthcare to millions of people for the first time, eradicated illiteracy and used the country’s best economic performance for decades to halve the poverty levels.”

Suggesting that poll results may trigger a “violent reaction… turn(s) reality on its head. It was the Chavez government itself that was briefly the victim of an opposition-led military coup in 2002. In contrast, (his) government has showed a consistent commitment to democracy…. Moreover, last week the respected Latinbarametro survey showed that Venezuela is now the country with the greatest support for democracy in Latin America and the region’s second-most satisfied with the functioning of its democracy. Venezuela’s combination of democracy and social progress under Chavez has inspired widespread support.”

It’s signed by Colin Burgon, MP, Chair, Labour Friends of Venezuela group of MPs, House of Commons. He adds more as well, and the Independent published it. It’s unlike major US broadsheets that cover Chavez one way: with venomous inaccuracy and very rare exceptions that hardly draw notice.

The Venezuela Information Office reviewed the election in detail, and it’s summarized below as follows:

• for a regional election, voter turnout was unprecedented at over 65%;
• independent observers judged the process open, free, fair and efficient and according to OAS secretary general Insulza “peaceful and exemplary;”
• PSUV candidates won impressive victories, far exceeding the opposition;
• pro-government candidates gained a large majority of offices throughout the country - for governors, mayors and other posts;
• like for the past decade, most Venezuelans will continue to live under pro-Chavez regional and local leaders because they want them;
• the PSUV scored important victories in strategic areas of the country, but not all of them;
• pro-government candidates won by wide margins affirming Venezuelans faith in Bolivarianism;
• although the metropolitan Caracas mayoralty went to the opposition, residents of the largest city municipality voted for the PSUV;
• even in states won by the opposition, key municipalities went to the PSUV; and
• Venezuela’s Electoral Authority (CNE) handled the record voter turnout impressively.

The Wall Street Journal, New York Times and other publications falsely reported that a majority of the population is under opposition control. Official statistics show otherwise but were ignored.

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The Legal Advice to Wage War on Iraq was not just “sexed-up”, it was concocted

Saturday, November 29th, 2008

By C Stephen Frost |

Mary Bedworth, Christopher Burns-Cox, Lou Coatney and David Halpin co-signed this article, which appeared as a commentary in The Guardian following the publication of an article by Richard Norton Taylor (see below).  

 
Background on the scandal of the twice-changed legal advice of the British Attorney General, which purported to allow the United Kingdom, and thereby the United States (together with Australia, Denmark and Poland), to wage an aggressive and illegal war on Iraq. This war is the “supreme international war crime” according to the the Nuremberg Protocol and the Geneva Conventions.      

Iraq war: Time for a full inquiry

ANNEX

Top judge: US and UK acted as ‘vigilantes’ in Iraq invasion

by Richard Norton-Taylor

Former senior law lord condemns ’serious violation of international law’

18 November 2008, The Guardian

One of Britain’s most authoritative judicial figures last night delivered a blistering attack on the invasion of Iraq, describing it as a serious violation of international law, and accusing Britain and the US of acting like a “world vigilante”.

Lord Bingham, in his first major speech since retiring as the senior law lord, rejected the then attorney general’s defence of the 2003 invasion as fundamentally flawed.

Contradicting head-on Lord Goldsmith’s advice that the invasion was lawful, Bingham stated: “It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had.” Adding his weight to the body of international legal opinion opposed to the invasion, Bingham said that to argue, as the British government had done, that Britain and the US could unilaterally decide that Iraq had broken UN resolutions “passes belief”.

Governments were bound by international law as much as by their domestic laws, he said. “The current ministerial code,” he added “binding on British ministers, requires them as an overarching duty to ‘comply with the law, including international law and treaty obligations’.”

The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats continue to press for an independent inquiry into the circumstances around the invasion. The government says an inquiry would be harmful while British troops are in Iraq. Ministers say most of the remaining 4,000 will leave by mid-2009.

Addressing the British Institute of International and Comparative Law last night, Bingham said: “If I am right that the invasion of Iraq by the US, the UK, and some other states was unauthorised by the security council there was, of course, a serious violation of international law and the rule of law.

“For the effect of acting unilaterally was to undermine the foundation on which the post-1945 consensus had been constructed: the prohibition of force (save in self-defence, or perhaps, to avert an impending humanitarian catastrophe) unless formally authorised by the nations of the world empowered to make collective decisions in the security council …”

The moment a state treated the rules of international law as binding on others but not on itself, the compact on which the law rested was broken, Bingham argued. Quoting a comment made by a leading academic lawyer, he added: “It is, as has been said, ‘the difference between the role of world policeman and world vigilante’.”

Bingham said he had very recently provided an advance copy of his speech to Goldsmith and to Jack Straw, foreign secretary at the time of the invasion of Iraq. He told his audience he should make it plain they challenged his conclusions.

Both men emphasised that point last night by intervening to defend their views as consistent with those held at the time of the invasion. Goldsmith said in a statement: “I stand by my advice of March 2003 that it was legal for Britain to take military action in Iraq. I would not have given that advice if it were not genuinely my view. Lord Bingham is entitled to his own legal perspective five years after the event.” Goldsmith defended what is known as the “revival argument” - namely that Saddam Hussein had failed to comply with previous UN resolutions which could now take effect. Goldsmith added that Tony Blair had told him it was his “unequivocal view” that Iraq was in breach of its UN obligations to give up weapons of mass destruction.

Straw said last night that he shared Goldsmith’s view. He continued: “However controversial the view that military action was justified in international law it was our attorney general’s view that it was lawful and that view was widely shared across the world.”

Bingham also criticised the post-invasion record of Britain as “an occupying power in Iraq”. It is “sullied by a number of incidents, most notably the shameful beating to death of Mr Baha Mousa [a hotel receptionist] in Basra [in 2003]“, he said.

Such breaches of the law, however, were not the result of deliberate government policy and the rights of victims had been recognised, Bingham observed.

He contrasted that with the “unilateral decisions of the US government” on issues such as the detention conditions in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

After referring to mistreatment of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib, Bingham added: “Particularly disturbing to proponents of the rule of law is the cynical lack of concern for international legality among some top officials in the Bush administration.”

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Civil rights complaint targets Wall Street rating firms

Saturday, November 29th, 2008

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Freedom from slavery - at a price

Saturday, November 29th, 2008

Even after emancipation, the lives of former slaves in BDA were heavily policed
The Bermuda Archives has extended its “groundbreaking” exhibit, ‘A Very Manifest Alteration’ to December 31.

Pilot James ‘Jemmy’ Darrell is the basis from which 17 display items examine the limitations on the rights of ‘freed people of colour’ during Bermuda’s transitional period from 1793 to 1816.

The pilot-slave was ‘manumitted’ (freed) in 1796 on the recommendation of British Rear Admiral George Murray for safely manoeuvring Admiral Murray’s flagship, HMS Resolution through Bermuda’s northern reefs and into the deep waters of what became Murray’s Anchorage.

“We wanted not to focus so much on that particular feat, but what it meant to be a free person of colour in the age of slavery,” Bermuda Archives director, Karla Hayward said.

The ‘narrative,’ according to Ms Hayward, focuses on legal status. Freedom hardly differed from the earlier servitude, except that freed non-whites could benefit from their earnings.

When Pilot Darrell was manumitted, the document requested that all persons “treat him, as a Man actually and bona fide Free.” But the later-appointed King’s Pilot could not serve on a jury, or testify in a court.

The 1806 passage of three Acts further curtailed that freedom.

Acts one and two were intended to level the opportunities for young white men, who were being surpassed in the mechanics’ trades by successful and enterprising freed non-whites.

Parents of white apprentices and the tradesmen who taught their sons sail-making, tailoring, masonry, ship and house carpentry split a bounty, while ‘Freed Negroes and Persons of Colour’ practising the mechanics trades were subject to duties.

The third Act regulated emancipation.

Fear of insurrection

Fear in the white population of slave insurrection that might be instigated by the growing population of freed non-whites led to the stipulation that such slaves manumitted at 40-years or younger would have to leave the island within three months.

An emancipated slave not following the law was subject to imprisonment and deportation. If they returned, they could be re-enslaved.

The third Act also prevented freed non-whites from willing an estate. Pilot Darrell could therefore not leave the small parcel of land he acquired in 1800 to his wife and family.

The Act additionally stopped ‘Freed Blacks and Persons of Colour’ from renting a property for longer than seven years.

The petition by King’s Pilots Darrell and Jacob Pitcairn to the Naval Commissioners in London regarding the deprivation of property posterity would suffer under this latter Act is exhibited, as is Mr. Darrell’s Will. The Will was probated in 1823, eight years after his death and eight months prior to his wife Eusebia’s death.

No birth certificate exists, but Mr. Darrell was born into slavery about 1749. A 1795 receipt for his purchase for £150 by Governor James Crawford, and his Manumission a year later stating his age as 47 do exist and are part of the exhibit.

The three Acts, pilotage returns from Bermuda, census figures and the rights of a child of an interracial couple - which Mr. Darrell himself is suspected to have been - are among the items also displayed and explained.

“This is our history, and it’s a history of what slavery meant in Bermuda. It’s specific. It’s not slavery as it appeared in the American South or the Caribbean. It is Bermudian history, and it’s groundbreaking,” Ms. Hayward said. “The details that we have uncovered in this exhibition have not been examined or reported elsewhere.”

School groups, residents and visitors are invited to view this free exhibit until December 31.

A printed version of the documents on display is available upon request.

Other duplications may be made, depending upon donor permission and copyright, for a fee.

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Activists want end to Israeli blockade of Gaza

Saturday, November 29th, 2008

Have Your Say: Activists want end to Israeli blockade of Gaza
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Taking liberties with information

Saturday, November 29th, 2008

FT | So much for parliamentary privilege: Damian Green, the frontbench Conservative MP for Ashford, was arrested this week and held for nine hours for his part in leaking official documents to the press. The police’s absurd over-reaction shows a lack of understanding of political sensitivities in relation to freedom of information.

The government is right to investigate leaks. Given the sensitivity of materials in the Home Office, police involvement can be appropriate. In this case, however, there were no security implications. The mole should simply have been subject to internal disciplinary procedures.

But the police force has, not for the first time, used political offences as a pretext for showing off. As with the “cash for honours” investigation into whether parties sold positions in the House of Lords to donors, the police have delighted in dramatic, empty gestures.

Mr Green was arrested on the common-law offence of suspicion of conspiracy to commit misconduct in public office; among other things, this would require proving that the leaks he was involved with were damaging to the commonweal. Some of the exposés were trivial, some showed up ministerial incompetence. None was against the public interest. Revelations like Mr Green’s are what we demand of our official opposition politicians; they are self-evidently a public good.

Ministers adamantly deny knowing that Mr Green was going to be arrested for doing his job. Maybe so, but they must explain how an internal leak inquiry ended with arresting an MP for such a ridiculous offence. The Metropolitan Police Authority, the body to which the London police force answers, will need to ask tough questions about why this was allowed to happen. Boris Johnson, mayor of London, chairs the body and advised against the action. There must be genuine accountability for police forces.

Mr Green’s experience has also highlighted part of the common law that needs reform. Charges of the same offence were dropped only this week against a local journalist in Milton Keynes. Her offence had been to find out from a helpful policeman whether a local footballer would be charged with an offence. She escaped only because of protections offered by the European Human Rights Act.

Governments must be jealous of giving the police too much power and of vague, open-ended offences. Unaccountable police forces with such loosely defined prerogatives are a menace to liberty. But there is little reason to hope that this administration will recognise this. The draconian anti-terror legislation it has introduced alone has given the police so much power that it has been used to detain an elderly heckler at the Labour party conference, stop protests and, last month, to freeze the assets of Icelandic banks. The government must stop making free with civil liberties.

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Bush Speaks of Legacy

Saturday, November 29th, 2008

Truthdig | Still-President Bush has discussed his legacy with his sister Dorothy Bush Koch as part of a national oral-history project, suggesting the future should remember him for his “liberation” of 50 million people and reluctance to “sell his soul … to accommodate the political process”—likely referring to that which is outlined in the U.S. Constitution.

 

 

ABC News:

In a personal and wide-ranging interview conducted by his sister about his legacy, his faith and the influence of his father, President George W. Bush said he hopes to be remembered as a liberator of the Iraqi people.

“I’d like to be a president [known] as somebody who liberated 50 million people and helped achieve peace,” Bush told his sister, Dorothy Bush Koch, in a conversation recorded for the oral-history organization StoryCorps for the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress.

“I would like to be a person remembered as a person who, first and foremost, did not sell his soul in order to accommodate the political process,” Bush said, according to White House excerpts.

The president told his sister he is proud of the “tough decisions” he made.

Read more

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Report suggests CIA covered up role in missionary’s death

Saturday, November 29th, 2008

By Steve Gunn

MUSKEGON, Mich. — A top-ranking Republican said he will call for a new federal inquiry into an alleged CIA cover-up in the 2001 military attack on a small plane in Peru that killed an American missionary and her infant child.

Rep. Peter Hoekstra, R-Mich., the ranking Republican on the House Select Committee on Intelligence, said the attack that killed Veronica and Charity Bowers can be traced to a reckless CIA-sponsored drug interception program that already had downed numerous other planes.

Hoekstra also said the CIA may be responsible for a widespread cover-up designed to hide embarrassing details about the Bowers’ deaths and similar incidents in the skies over Peru between 1995 and 2001.

A new report from CIA Inspector General John Helgerson accuses the agency of running a reckless air interception program for illegal drugs and ignoring regulations and procedures designed to protect innocent air travelers.

That type of disregard for procedure might have led to the unnecessary downing of several private planes during the six-year life of the “Narcotics Airbridge Denial Program,” culminating with the Bowers tragedy, Hoekstra said.

“To say these deaths did not have to happen is an understatement,” said Hoekstra, who also represents the Bowers’ hometown of Muskegon.

“The CIA knew about repeated serious issues with this program but took no corrective action, which could have prevented this needless tragedy. Making matters worse, the inspector general found continuous efforts to cover the matter up and potentially block a criminal investigation.”

The CIA has admitted that proper procedures were not followed during the April 20, 2001, attack on the missionary plane carrying the Bowers family, according to Hoekstra.

The attack, by a Peruvian Air Force jet, resulted in the death of Veronica “Roni” Bowers, 35, and the Bowers’ 7-month-old daughter, Charity. Her husband, Jim Bowers, the Bowers’ young son, Cory, and pilot Kevin Donaldson survived.

The couple had been working in Peru with the Pennsylvania-based Association of Baptists for World Evangelism when the attack occurred. Jim Bowers, who has remarried and recently was working as a missionary in Africa, could not be reached for comment.

CIA officials claimed the tragedy was an isolated incident and its air interception program had been operating smoothly and legally to that point.

Hoekstra, however, said the report suggests that approximately 10 other private planes were shot down over Peru in the years before the Bowers tragedy.

In many of those incidents, strict federal procedures for identifying, following and trying to make contact with suspect planes were routinely ignored, and at least some of those planes may have been shot down without cause, Hoekstra said.

By the time the Bowers’ plane flew into the danger zone, disregard for the rules was apparently standard operating procedure, Hoekstra said.

So the Peruvian military plane that shot down the Bowers plane may have been doing nothing different from what it had done in the past — shooting and killing without proper warning or justification, Hoekstra said.

“(The CIA) told us this was the first time that anything happened out of the ordinary, that all guidelines in the past had been meticulously followed, and that was a lie,” Hoekstra said. “Every shoot-down prior to this, they never followed the rules as meticulously as they should have.”

The two Peruvian pilots who shot down the Bowers plane spent 10 months in prison in their native country but were never charged with a crime. The U.S. Justice Department also declined to bring any criminal charges following an investigation.

“If there had been accountability in the program, if there had been respect for procedures and adherence to the law, the Bowers (family) never would have been shot down,” said Hoekstra, who said he recently shared the new information with Jim Bowers.

“It was the senseless killing of a family, done by an agency that wasn’t following the rules.”

Hoekstra, who was chairman of the Intelligence Committee during the initial investigation of the tragedy, said he now realizes that CIA officials who testified before his committee, and answered his personal questions, may have been lying or concealing part of the truth.

Hoekstra said he would call for a new federal inquiry of the now-defunct drug interception program, the Bowers incident and the alleged CIA cover-up.

“We need to follow up as aggressively as we can,” Hoekstra said. “We cannot have an intelligence community that covers up what it does and then lies to Congress.”

A statement issued by the CIA indicated that the agency is taking the Inspector General’s report seriously.

“As soon as Director (Michael) Hayden got the Inspector General’s report in late August, he read it and recognized the seriousness of the matter,” the CIA statement said.

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