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Internet Marketing - 7 Future Proofing SEO Tips

Monday, August 31st, 2009

The landscape of Internet marketing, specifically Search Engine Optimization (SEO), could look set to change yet again, at least according to some SEO’s. While it is too early to tell how much of an impact the Yahoo/Microsoft search partnership will truly have on the U.S search market, some experts are predicting the new joint venture, Bing, will hold a 28% share.

That’s a significant loss in traffic for websites not prepared for the coming 2010 search engine battle.

So does this mean webmasters will need to hire an SEO professional to make essential website changes?

The short answer, I’m sure you’ll be pleased to hear is; no.

If your website is already ’engineered’ for Google, there is little need to make extra investment. While Bing currently operates in a different way to Google, it is still based on the solid cornerstones of SEO.

So now, more than ever, correctly optimizing your site for Google is important for long term success. Bing tends to give better rank to sites that have a strong Meta description, but does not give the same weight to backlinks.

This is a bonus for new and small sites as Google considers the age of a webpage, and indeed the age of the domain name the page sits on, before ranking.

So for Bing it looks like it’s back to basics at least in terms of SEO, but as the search engine often only displays 5 results per page, how do we ensure our sites are seen in the top 5 results of both Bing and Google, to avoid missing out up to 80% of search traffic from being ranked below the scroll bar?

The entire process, while very quick and easy to impliment, goes beyond the scope of this short news report, but here’s a few tips to get you started:

1. Unique and keyword based Titles for each page.
2. Unique and keyword based Meta Descriptions for each page.
3. Keyword based page URLS.
4. Topic specific pages containing on topic content and links.
5. Both a Sitemap and Site-Map.
6. Auto Pinging your RSS feeds.
7. Strong internal linking structure and navigation.

In fact, there’s over 60 essential core factors that Google uses to rank every page it indexes. To discover all of them to supercharge your search engine rank without getting too technical, grab these SEO videos.

Could it be the more things change the more they stay the same, as wherever Google goes others will follow?
What tips would you share for long term SEO success?

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Stop the War Coalition: Conspiracy Groups Distraction At Best, Antisemitic At Worst

Friday, August 28th, 2009

The Stop the War Coalition (StWC) has for the first time spoken out against British conspiracy groups illegally using its name and logo. Two conspiracy groups have been carrying StWC logos on their promotional material and claims the coalition is involved with co-organising conspiracy events.

These British conspiracy groups, ‘We Are Change’ and ‘Truth Action’, are the latest incarnation of the now defunct ’911 Truth Campaign’, that while active, organised events that promoted Holocaust denial, antisemitism and other right wing conspiracies. The campaign also allowed the harassment of journalists including George Monbiot, Nick Cohen, Robert Fisk and Jon Ronson, and encouraged the intimidation of terrorist attack survivors such as Rachel North and her family.

In a recent website post, the groups claimed: “WeAreChange London in collaboration with London Truth Action and Stop the War Hounslow will be holding a demonstration outside the BBC Television Centre.”

However StWC denies any involvement with either of these groups.

The StWC stated: “We have contacted Hounslow Stop the War and they have not been asked to support this event.”

It is not the first time these conspiracy goups have used branding without permission. Last year they attempted to host an event with Holocaust denier Nick Kollerstrom but promoted it as a ‘J7 Campaign’ event, when it was in fact organised by the ’911 Truth Campaign’.

The StWC continued: ”For the record, we consider groups such as these to be, at best, a distraction from our central focus of ending the war on terror, and at worst they can drift into anti-semitism.”

StWC meetings and events are still attended by conspiracy theorists, albeit not to the same extent as seen in previous years, which involve conspiracy theorists, such as Justin Walker, proclaiming the world is controlled by Zionist shape-shifting reptiles - widely regarded as conspiracy code for Jewish.

The StWC have always ignored the theorist, even when one theorists, Steven Williams, repeatedly begged the coalition to join forces with conspiracy groups, in front of hundreds of StWC meeting attendees. The use of StWC’s name and logo on conspiracy promotional material signals a new degree of desperation for these groups.

The StWC have written to these conspiracy groups demanding that they remove any reference to Stop the War Coalition.

The original flyers (click to enlarge/download):

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Laptop seach and seize will continue at US borders

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Cliff Saran

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) in the US has amended its policy to seize any electronic device brought into the country, in a bid to counter criticisms that the policy infringes civil liberties.

The DHS conducts border searches of computers and other electronic media on a percentage of international travellers seeking to enter the US. Most times, the traveller is asked to turn on a device to ensure it is what it appears to be. But out of the 1,000 laptop searches between October 2008 and August 2009, 46 searches were in-depth.

Secretary Janet Napolitano announced the new directives to clarify searches of computers and other electronic media at US ports of entry. “The new directives announced today strike the balance between respecting the civil liberties and privacy of all travellers while ensuring DHS can take the lawful actions necessary to secure our borders,” she said.

The changes do not affect the department’s ability to conduct searches of laptops.

In a blog posting on the previous DHS policy, Eugene Schultz, chief technology officer at consultancy Emagined Security, said, “Computers almost always contain a great deal of personal, sensitive information in the form of e-mail messages, photographs, and more- information that people deem private and that would be embarrassing to them if it were to be viewed by someone else. This information should thus not be available to DHS border agents at their whim.

“Additionally, having a computer system seized is very disruptive to individuals who use the system to get their work done. Furthermore, people should not have to surrender the password to a system they own unless there is a compelling rationale to require the person to do so.”

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ID cards snubbed in Manchester

Friday, August 28th, 2009

Matthew Davis

ONLY 8,000 people have enquired about getting the government’s controversial ID cards, which will be launched in Manchester.

During a live webchat at the M.E.N offices, Lord Bill Brett, the minister responsible for the introduction of the ID card scheme, admitted only a small percentage of the population had asked about the voluntary scheme.

The cards will cost £30 and contain biometric details of holders.

They can be used in place of a passport throughout Europe.

Lord Brett hopes the cards, available in Manchester in October, will be rolled out across the north west by 2010, and eventually the rest of the country.

He said he foresaw the cards becoming ‘the accepted form of ID in the UK’.

But a poll on this website revealed 81 per cent would not be taking part in the trial.

Lord Brett said: “We have not set targets for what is a purely voluntary scheme, but our research shows a majority of people support ID cards.

“We are confident that support and the number of ID cards will grow incrementally in the period from its introduction in Manchester to the ongoing rollout across the country.

“A lot of opposition to the cards has been based on fear from misconception and mischievousness. I don’t believe the initiative is doomed to failure, rather that it will grow over time to become the accepted form of ID, as the voluntary ID card in France has become.”

The cards will be valid for 10 years.

Lord Brett admitted the cards would not by themselves ‘provide a silver bullet’ in the fight against terrorism, but he said: “The security services and the police believe it will be a helpful tool in that task.”

The minister claimed the cards would provide ‘a secure and unique identity’ for holders. He said they would be targeted in particular at young people, who he said had ‘problems with security and identification’.

He said: “They will have all the information they need on one card. This will assist young people who want to buy cigarettes, alcohol, and in a city like Manchester with a lively nightlife, they can access clubs and bars while also having a document that protects against fraud and allows travel through Europe.”

Lord Brett, admitted that the cards - which should be available from 2012 to all British citizens aged 16 and over - could be scrapped by a future government.

He said: “No government can bind its successors.”

Lord Brett stressed the government had ‘no intention to make ID cards compulsory’. Asked why Manchester had been chosen for the pilot, he said: “Manchester is a major city, with a large young population, a large university and major airport.”

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Police admit CCTV not effective - solves less than 1 crime per year

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Ewan Turney

The news takes on extra relevance for pubs after reports of several police forces in parts of the country, including Islington, Richmond and Liverpool, objecting to licence applications where venues don’t agree to use fit CCTV.

Each case helped by the use of CCTV costs around £20,000, according to the Telegraph, which obtained the information under the Freedom of Information Act.

A Met Police report said: “For every 1,000 cameras in London, less than one crime is solved per year.”

Tory David Davis told the paper: “CCTV leads to massive expense and minimum effectiveness. It creates a huge intrusion on privacy, yet provides little or no improvement in security.”

The Infomation Commissoner’s Officer (ICO) also voiced its concerns about CCTV in pubs earlier this year.

It said: “Hardwiring surveillance into the UK’s pubs raises serious privacy concerns.

“We recognise that CCTV plays an important role in the prevention and detection of crime, and can help to reduce crime in areas of high population density, such as city boroughs.

“However we are concerned at the prospect of landlords being forced into installing CCTV in pubs as a matter of routine in order to meet the terms of a licence.

“The use of CCTV must be reasonable and proportionate if we are to maintain public trust and confidence in its deployment. Installing surveillance in pubs to combat specific problems of rowdiness and bad behaviour may be lawful, but hardwiring in blanket measures where there is no history of criminal activity is likely to breach data protection requirements.”

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The Blackwater Targeted Killing Program

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

A U.S. district court will decide this week whether one of the darkest chapters of the Bush era, the relationship between the administration and the private security company Blackwater, should be reexamined. Former Blackwater employees want to shine light on the company’s shadowy activities.

Susan Burke supported the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, during the 2008 U.S. presidential campaign. But now that Obama is in office, she finds her views diverging widely from his.

Obama is opposed to investigating the excesses of the administration of his predecessor, former President George W. Bush. Burke, an attorney, favors an investigation. Obama has thus far avoided answering the question of whether the U.S.  Constitution was violated in Bush’s so-called “war on terror.” Burke wants an investigation to focus on precisely this question. Obama is looking forward, while Burke is looking back.

 

What Burke sees when she looks into the rearview mirror is indeed ugly. She sees 17 dead, including women and children, lying on Nisoor Square in Baghdad, killed on Sept. 16, 2007, by mercenaries working for Blackwater, a private American security firm. She sees Blackwater employee Andrew Moonen who, after a Christmas party in 2006, drove through Baghdad, heavily armed, and shot a man for no reason. She hears the shot, fired from a Blackwater helicopter, that killed an innocent man on Baghdad’s Wathba Square on Sept. 9, 2007.

But most of all, Burke sees Erik Prince, Blackwater’s founder and former owner. In her suit, she refers to him as a “modern-day merchant of death,” and she alleges that the 40-year-old created a “culture of lawlessness and unaccountability” at Blackwater, where the “excessive and unnecessary use of deadly force” was commonplace. In her motion, Burke also accuses Blackwater of war crimes. The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, in Alexandria, Virginia, will now decide whether to take on Burke’s civil suit.

Committed In the Name of America

The political world will also have to make some decisions. The first question is whether the U.S. government will make public on Monday the most comprehensive report to date on the treatment of terrorism suspects. That alone would trigger a political hurricane in Washington, says former CIA Director Porter Goss. It would also make it much more difficult for the government to rebuff calls for it to finally investigate all the alleged illegal activity carried out in the fight against terrorism.

It was not until the end of June that U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder read the report, which was prepared by the CIA’s inspector general in 2004. But then he spent a full two days in his office in Washington, D.C., studying the document. When he had finished reading it, he apparently stood at the window for a long time, staring out at Constitution Avenue. Horrified over what had been done in the name of America, Holder looked into the possibility of appointing a special prosecutor. Sources in Washington say that he has now achieved his goal, which puts him more squarely in Burke’s camp than Obama’s.

Blackwater characterizes Burke’s accusations as “scandalous and baseless,” and claims that the cases she cites were isolated incidents. According to Blackwater attorneys, “no diplomat under the protection of this service died or even was injured during the entire duration of the contract.”

Symbol of an Era

Prince, who earlier in his career claimed to have “the heart of a warrior,” is intent on preventing the civil suit from going to trial. To that end, he has hired a team of lawyers working for the law firm of Mayer Brown, which also represents 89 companies on Fortune magazine’s list of the top 500 U.S. companies ranked by revenues.

Peter White, the head of the Mayer Brown team, plans to convince the judges in Alexandria this week that the Blackwater case isn’t a case at all. In his written response to Burke’s lawsuit, White argues that any public disclosure of Blackwater’s methods would endanger its personnel in war zones, and her suit should be dismissed.

White also argues that if there is any culpability, it rests with the individuals who committed the acts in question, not the entire company. He points to unsuccessful lawsuits that were filed against US corporations after the Vietnam War, including the case of Vietnamese plaintiffs who tried and failed to sue the U.S. multinational corporation Dow Chemical, the manufacturer of the defoliant Agent Orange. In one respect, the comparison is apt: Blackwater has become a symbol of an entire era, just as Agent Orange was a potent symbol of the Vietnam War.

Outsourcing War

After the al-Qaeda attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney began using large numbers of private security contractors for the first time. The mercenaries were intended to make up for a lack of manpower, especially in the area of personal security, as well as to perform the dirty work, such as interrogating detainees, thereby leaving U.S. military personnel untainted. Erik Prince’s company turned into an empire practically overnight, collecting more than $1 billion (€700 million) in revenues from U.S. taxpayers. Seventy percent of Blackwater’s contracts with the government were no-bid contracts.

The company’s most important personnel, its fighters, who were known internally as “shooters,” were recruited around the world, including from places like the Philippines and Latin America. In 2007, the company proudly changed its name to Blackwater Worldwide.

The advantage of privatizing the war was obvious for the Bush administration. Blackwater contractors are cheaper than regular U.S. soldiers. When they were killed, their widows received only minor compensation, while the U.S. military pays lifelong survivor benefits. Besides, Blackwater employees died quietly - in other words, they were never part of the official death statistics, which was convenient for the president.

With the end of the Bush administration, Blackwater received fewer contracts and the company changed its name to Xe Services. But its founder’s most determined adversary, Susan Burke, continued her fight.

‘A Christian Crusader’

Burke now plans to call 40 witnesses to testify against Prince. If the court agrees to hear her suit on Friday, eyewitnesses to the various killings will be summoned from Baghdad. In the United States, Burke, who made a name for herself defending detainees subjected to abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, will ask the court to subpoena several former Blackwater employees, including a former executive.

Two affidavits that have been filed in the Alexandria court contain serious allegations against company founder Erik Prince. The men who signed the affidavits, fearing that their lives could be put in danger if their identities were revealed, are identified anonymously as John Doe 1 and John Doe 2.

In his affidavit, John Doe 1, who served in Iraq, writes that he “personally observed multiple incidents of Blackwater personnel intentionally using excessive and unjustified deadly force.”

John Doe 2, who worked for Prince, writes that the former head of Blackwater “views himself as a Christian crusader tasked with eliminating Muslims and the Islamic faith from the globe.” He claims that company employees treated the killing of Iraqis as sport.

The Blackwater attorney questions the validity of these witnesses, saying that much of what they claim is based on hearsay. The fact that the witnesses are remaining anonymous, says White, makes it impossible to verify their credibility. He calls the tactics “unfair” and highly prejudicial to defendants.

But the key witnesses’ fear of retaliation is considerable, which also has something to do with the fact that Prince has powerful friends in the government, particularly inside the CIA.

 

Assassination Teams and Extraordinary Renditions

In addition to working for government departments, Blackwater also worked directly for the intelligence agency, as the new CIA director recently confirmed in a closed-door hearing in the U.S. Congress. And, in a memo Spiegel has obtained, two other former employees describe, for the first time, the details of this covert collaboration.

The two informants are referred to as “Source A” and “Source B” in the internal memo. According to Source B, Blackwater, working on behalf of the CIA, flew terror suspects from Guantanamo to Pakistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan, where the detainees apparently faced “special treatment” in secret prisons.

The intelligence service commissioned Blackwater and its subsidiaries to transport terror suspects from Guantanamo to interrogations at secret prison camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Uzbekistan. The paper identifies aircraft movements and unveils how the flights were disguised. The memo reads: “The CIA hired Blackwater to conduct extraordinary renditions” and “Blackwater flew the rendition targets from Fort Perry and Cuba to Kandahar, Afghanistan.”

‘The CIA Hired Blackwater’

According to the informant, some of the flights were provided by two other companies Prince owned, Presidential Airways and Aviation Worldwide, which were given special clearance in 2003 by the U.S. Defense Department to conduct such flights. Source B even knew the tail numbers of the aircraft that were allegedly involved: N962BW, N964BW and N968BW.

The flights also involved Satelles Solutions, another Prince subsidiary, which operates a training and recruitment camp in the Philippines designed to accommodate about 1,000 soldiers.

According to Source A, Blackwater also helped out the CIA with another controversial activity during the Bush years. In the memo, Source A writes: “The CIA hired Blackwater to conduct targeted killings in Afghanistan.”

In June Leon Panetta, Obama’s new CIA director, told lawmakers in a closed-door hearing on Capitol Hill about a secret program to kill or capture al-Qaeda operatives that was begun eight years ago. The purpose of the so-called assassination program was to recruit and train special forces to assassinate senior al-Qaeda leaders.

Authority to Kill

According to Panetta, Cheney asked the CIA not to disclose the covert program to Congress. The argument that was used at the time was that when combating terrorism, the CIA has the authority to kill without special congressional approval. The program, however, never quite went beyond the training phase, according to CIA testimony before the U.S. Senate.

The memo by the two sources gets more specific. Source A names five people who were allegedly involved in the development of assassination teams, including a man who left Blackwater in mid-2005 and last worked as the head of the Blackwater’s OGA division. The acronym stands for “Other Government Agencies,” which included the connection to the CIA. The other men on the source’s list are a former member of Blackwater’s paratrooper unit, an employee of Blackwater Security Consulting who, according to the memo, was designated as a “hit man” within the unit and Alvin Bernard Krongard, the most senior employee on the list, who the source claims was responsible for assembling the teams. “Krongard set up the teams,” the paper claims.

But the memo does not specify whether agreements were made with individuals or the company itself, or what Krongard’s role was exactly. The latter is particularly difficult to determine, given that Krongard has worked on both sides of the desk. From March 2001 to September 2004, Krongard served as the CIA’s executive director, under then-CIA Director George Tenet. After leaving office, he switched to the private sector, joining Blackwater’s advisory board.

‘We Are Not Inclined to Comment’

Spiegel confronted the company, the CIA and Krongard with the contents of the memo last Wednesday, but they had declined to comment by Friday. A CIA spokesman was unwilling to confirm or deny cooperation with Blackwater with regard to the assassination program or the secret detainee transports. “We do not comment on our contractual relationships,” the spokesman said. He did note, however, that the details of the memo included “mistakes,” although he chose not to elaborate.

Stacy DeLuke, the spokeswoman of Xe Services (as Blackwater is now called), answered in an e-mail: “Due to the sensitive nature of these allegations, we are not inclined to comment at this time.” Krongard’s assistant Cathy Davis said: “I received your e-mail and confirm receipt by Mr. Krongard as well,” but did not respond to questions about Krongard’s role.

The allegations have triggered growing unease on Capitol Hill, where senators want to know more about the covert assassination program. Last Friday, it was also revealed that Blackwater assisted in drone attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In a letter to fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton, Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky urged the secretary of state “not to enter into further contracts with Xe and to immediately review any existing contracts.”

Intellpuke: You can read this article by Spiegel correspondent Gabor Steingart, reporting from Washington, D.C., in context here: www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,644571,00.html
This article was translated from the German by Christopher Sultan.

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Lawyers: Ban Bush from Canada for war crimes

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Canwest News Service

A lawyers’ group has asked the RCMP to bar former U.S. president George W. Bush from entering Canada, citing torture and war crimes committed in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

 

In a letter to the RCMP war crimes section and copied to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff and other federal ministers and opposition MPs, the Lawyers Against the War group claims that Bush is “inadmissible to Canada . . . because of overwhelming evidence that he has committed, outside Canada, torture and other offences” as detailed in Canada’s War Crimes Act.

 

Bush is expected to visit Canada on March 17, to give a speech in Calgary as a guest of the city’s chamber of commerce.

 

The letter, dated Wednesday, asks the Mounties to “begin an investigation of George W. Bush for aiding, abetting and counselling torture between Nov. 13, 2001, and November 2008 at Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, Bagram prison in Afghanistan, and other places.”

 

It also asks the prime minister, attorney general and ministers of immigration and public safety to ban Bush for heading an administration that “engaged in torture and other war crimes against humanity.”

 

The group offers to provide evidence of incidents of torture.

 

This isn’t the first time the group has protested against Bush.

 

In 2005, a B.C. Supreme Court judge rejected their attempt to put the then-U.S. president on trial for war crimes.

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PIRACY PLAN ‘IS ILLEGAL’

Wednesday, August 26th, 2009

Brendan Abbott

PLANS to suspend the internet accounts of “copyright pirates” who illegally download and swap films and music could breach human rights.

Broadband providers and consumer rights groups warned yesterday “persuasion not coercion” was the way to stop piracy.

Stephen Timms, minister for Digital Britain, said previous schemes, which only cut users’ broadband speed, were not enough.

Internet service providers could also be allowed to take action against pirates.

In the year to July 2008, 6.5 million Britons illegally downloaded music and films.

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Equality group takes racist BNP to court over ethnic exclusion

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

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Obama Following Bush’s Footsteps?

Tuesday, August 25th, 2009

Jeff Huber 

Those of you still hoping for “change” can forget it. Young Mr. Obama is working the same number that young Mr. Bush pulled on us. In Obama’s address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars in Phoenix, Ariz., on Aug. 17, he made his commitment to war in the Bananastans irrevocable.

It would be wonderful if public servants seeking to associate themselves with the military would cater to the agenda of the Veterans for Peace. For a president of the United States to pander to the VFW is a disgrace. While the VFW is not a pack of latter-day Brownshirts like the American Legion, the two groups possess a common value: they never saw an armed conflict they didn’t like. If they had to serve in a pointless war, everyone else should too. They also never met a Republican politician they didn’t like. Why a Democrat who was elected on a peace platform feels compelled to throw a bone to Pavlov’s dogs of war is inscrutable.

In Phoenix, Obama deflected criticism of his lack of support for the self-defeating Iraq war by drumming up support for his self-defeating conflict in the Bananastans. He continued a tradition established by his predecessor when he told the veterans “Those who attacked America on 9/11 are plotting to do so again.” Are we doomed to hearing presidents evoke 9/11 every time they want to justify overseas adventurism?

“But we must never forget,” Obama reminded the veterans, that the Bananastans conflict “is not a war of choice.” It is a “war of necessity” because “if left unchecked, the Taliban insurgency will mean an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.” So, according to Obama, the Bananastans crusade is not only “worth fighting,” it is “fundamental to the defense of our people.”

What fundamental horse manure.

We’ve accepted the myth that the 9/11 attacks were made possible by Osama bin Laden’s “sanctuary” in Afghanistan for far too long. 9/11 “mastermind” Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was operating in the Philippines when he first presented the attack plan to bin Laden in 1996. The six hijackers who controlled the airplanes received their flight training in the U.S. The “muscle hijackers” came from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. That bin Laden was in Afghanistan at the time is a narrative of our “good intelligence” in that part of the world, which, to this day, amounts to beating or bribing locals into telling us what we want to hear or believing the lies that Afghan and Pakistani intelligence agencies feed us.

“We will plan responsibly,” Obama told the veterans, and he boasted of the “new comprehensive strategy” for the Bananastans that he announced in March. The people responsible for Obama’s new comprehensive strategy deserve a session of tar-and-feather therapy.

The strategy, conjured by National Security Adviser James Jones and his team of “chess masters,” is a compendium of wimp-words and hazy goals. We’ll be “promoting a more capable” Afghan government, one that “can eventually function.” We’ll also be “developing” an “increasingly self-reliant” Afghan security force. On top of all that, we’ll be “assisting efforts to enhance civilian control” of Pakistan’s government.

With a strategy like this, who needs enemies? It’s self-defeating. We’ll kinda/sorta try to do things we can’t possibly accomplish. A prolonged occupation of the Bananastans will not “disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda” and its allies. Al-Qaeda and its allies have iPhones. They don’t need to hunker down in the Bananastani Himalayas. They can plan and execute their evildoing at a Club Med getaway if they want to.

 

By June 2009 the Pentagon still hadn’t figured out what measures of effectiveness to use in determining if the new comprehensive strategy is working. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Joint Chiefs Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen said that some of those metrics – whatever they turn out to be – will remain classified. That way they won’t have to explain how they know they’re being effective (if they told us, they’d have to kill us). We’ll just have to take their word for it that they’re turning corners and mopping up dead-enders and that victory is at hand even though it will be a long struggle. Gates and Mullen make Cheney and Rumsfeld seem like straight shooters.

Obama told the VFW that “military power alone will not win this war,” but military power, as flaccid as it has become, is more effective than the other forms of power in the American arsenal. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is as adept at diplomacy as John Bolton was. Whenever she opens her mouth it’s all anyone can do to keep another war from breaking out. Whatever economic efforts we can afford to make in the Bananastans will amount to handing out bribes like the ones we handed out in Iraq, and our information operations there involve, at best, a gentlemanly exchange of mendacities with the host countries.

“By moving forward in Iraq,” Obama told the VFW, “we’re able to refocus on the war against al-Qaeda and its extremist allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Candidate Obama pledged to “get the job done” in Afghanistan when his opponents attacked him for having voted against the surge in Iraq. He would have been better off to refute claims of the strategy’s success. Today, more than two-and-a-half years after the surge commenced, counterinsurgency expert John A. Nagl says “the insurgency is not over” and Pentagon correspondent Thomas E. Ricks says we’re “at about the midpoint of the conflict now.”

Bush was probably too dim to realize he was talking gibberish about Iraq, but Obama is too smart to believe the bull jargon he’s handing us about the Bananastans. Obama has to realize that there is no strategy for Afghanistan and that the organized but senseless violence his generals are conducting there will not further “the security and safety of the American people.”

At this point, Obama cannot escape the Bananastan trap without gnawing off a political foot. He needs to sack his National Security Council and everyone in the Department of Defense who wears a bird or a star in their collar or whose title contains the word “secretary.” Then he needs to tell the nation that he was wrong about escalating the war in Afghanistan, and then he needs to bring our troops home.

I doubt that he has the political baby-makers to do that.

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Obama Approves Torture Team

Monday, August 24th, 2009

The White House has confirmed that U.S. President Barack Obama has approved the creation of an elite team of interrogators to question key terrorism suspects.

White House spokesman Bill Burton said the team will be headquartered at the FBI and will bring together all “different elements” involved in interrogations. He said the team’s operation will be consistent with U.S. Army Field Manual regulations.

The Washington Post quotes senior administration officials as saying President Obama approved the so-called High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group last week. According to The Post, the group will be made up of experts from several intelligence and law enforcement agencies, and will be overseen by the National Security Council, giving the White House direct oversight of it.  

President Obama already has banned severe interrogation measures such as waterboarding, or simulated drowning, which were permitted under the previous administration of President George W. Bush. Consistent with the Army Field Manual, banned techniques also include playing loud music and depriving prisoners of sleep.  

Separately, The New York Times reports that the Justice Department ethics office is recommending reopening some prisoner abuse cases from the Bush administration, which could expose CIA employees and contractors to criminal prosecution.

A White House spokesman said the decision on whether to reopen the cases is solely up to Attorney General Eric Holder.

The developments come Monday, as a report by the CIA’s internal investigator is to be released, providing details of the controversial Bush-era interrogation techniques.

Sources who have seen the report say CIA interrogators brandished a gun at one prisoner, Abd al Rahim al-Nashiri, the man accused of masterminding an attack on the USS Cole, and also held a power drill near his body, turning it on and off.

In another case, a gunshot was fired in a room next door, to make a suspect believe another detainee had been killed. Threatening a prisoner with imminent death is illegal under U.S. law.

Sources who have seen the report say it suggests that the harsh techniques did not lead to useful information.

The investigation was completed in 2004. The American Civil Liberties Union fought for the results to be made public.

Some information for this report was provided by AP.

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China releases rights activist

Monday, August 24th, 2009

Ananth Krishnan

BEIJING: Chinese authorities on Sunday unexpectedly released on bail the well-known human rights lawyer Xu Zhiyong, a move seen by scholars and activists in Beijing as a rare victory for public activism.

Mr. Xu, who was arrested outside his home on July 29, is known in China for taking on sensitive human rights cases. He had been accused of tax evasion and kept in detention since July 29. His arrest was seen by many activists here as part of a wider crackdown launched by authorities on non-governmental organisations in the lead-up to the People’s Republic of China’s sixtieth anniversary on October 1.

Mr. Xu, whose detention has attracted international attention, was unexpectedly granted bail on Sunday. As the granting of bail is usually rare in such cases in China, Mr. Xu’s release most likely received sanction from higher authorities.

Mr. Xu founded a legal aid group called Gongmeng, or the Open Constitution Initiative, which has taken on sensitive legal cases in China. The organisation first came to prominence in 2003 when it took up the case of Sun Zhigang, a 27-year-old graduate student who was beaten to death in a Guangzhou detention centre after being picked up for not having the right identification papers. This case received a lot of attention in China, and in its aftermath the government amended custody laws.

Most recently, Gongmeng took up the cases of the victims of milk poisoning. Last year, more then 3 lakh children were sickened after consuming milk tainted with the chemical melamine. Gongmeng is currently representing the parents of victims who are seeking compensation.

But work at the centre has come to a standstill since its Beijing offices were raided last month on tax evasion charges. Authorities said the centre was not properly registered as an NGO, and fined the group 1.4 million Yuan. But human rights activists said the timing of the move suggested a wider crackdown on NGOs which handle sensitive issues in anticipation of the politically significant anniversary on October 1.

“The organisation’s activists say they now hope they can carry on with their work representing the parents of those affected by the milk powder scandal. After Mr. Xu’s arrest, we have not been able to operate normally,” Tian Qizhuang, Gongmeng’s executive director, told The Hindu. “This case has taken up all our energies.”

Mr. Tian said the organisation had on August 10 tried to pay the tax bureau the outstanding charges, but the payment was refused as officials said they needed the signature of Mr. Xu, who was then being held in detention.

Mr. Tian said it was “impossible” for organisations like Gongmeng to register themselves with the government as NGOs as doing so required sanction from government authorities. Consequently, he said, the group’s legal aid centre was functioning under the umbrella of the privately owned Gongmeng group.

The larger fate of Mr. Xu and his organisation is still unresolved.

Mr. Xu still faces trial. It is also unclear if there were any conditions he had to agree to secure his release, and if Gongmeng will continue taking on the kinds of sensitive cases it has in the past.

For now though, Mr. Xu’s release is seen by activists and scholars in Beijing as a rare victory for public activism.

“His release is a victory for all those who seek to promote public interest,” Zhou Xiaozheng, a professor of law at Renmin University in Beijing told the Global Times newspaper. “It’s a huge step of progress for promoting the rule of law in the country.”

(Bao BeiBei contributed to reporting.)

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UK ID cards will be useless in Europe

Saturday, August 22nd, 2009

David Neal |

ACCORDING TO the UK’s Identity Minister, the Government’s ID cards won’t be worth the paper they’ll be printed on.

Despite the fact that the cards are almost in UK citizens’ wallets there is still a lot of work needed to raise awareness about them and their uses, particularly outside the British Isles.

In an interview with the Oldham Evening Chronicle, Lord Brett said that if holders leave the country and try to use the cards as some form of ID they will be met with blank faces and, we presume, Gallic shrugs.

Lord Brett said, “When we do launch it, we want to make sure all our ducks are in a row, it is not just marketing and selling the card to people who want to have it but to make sure first of all that all the countries in Europe will accept it and understand it as a travel document.” He added that unless this was the case there would be “no day one” for the cards.

Further damning the roll out, Brett said that the Police did not have the right to demand to see them, despite government claims that they will have a use in the fight against terrorism.

Brett also revealed the numbers of people who had already signed up to willingly receive the cards. In a display of underwhelming public support, 8,000 people have added their names to the list. Brett added, “It says what it does on the tin, it is your identity card, it is entirely voluntary.”

Meanwhile, millions of UK citizens have wisely chosen not to tear up their passports and driving licenses just yet, if ever.

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Ex-Employees Label Blackwater Chief Super-Villian

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Blackwater — I mean, “Xe” — is back in the news, more than six months after the mercenary firm was kicked out of Iraq by the Iraqi government for using “excessive force.” Baghdad gave Blackwater the boot for the company’s apparent role in the killings of 17 civilians in Baghdad’s Nisoor Square on Sept. 16, 2007. In that incident, Blackwater guards reportedly opened fire on a crowd after coming under attack.

According to affidavits filed in federal court on Monday, the company’s founder Erik Prince and his staff were engaged in a fantastic litany of crimes, almost too fantastic to be believed. At the top of the list: Prince and his proteges “murdered, or had murdered, one or more persons who have provided information, or who were planning to provide information, to the federal authorities” regarding the Nisoor Square killings. The affidavits, part of a civil lawsuit stemming from Blackwater’s alleged abuses in Iraq, were signed by “John Doe #1″ and “John Doe #2,” both of whom claim to be current or former Blackwater employees. John Doe #2 wrote that he “fear[s] violence against me in retaliation for submitting this declaration.”

The affidavits also allege that Blackwater illegally smuggled weapons into Iraq, sometimes in bags of dog food — an allegation we’ve heard before. More broadly, “Prince intentionally deployed to Iraq certain men who shared his vision of Christian supremacy, knowing and wanting these men to take every available opportunity to murder Iraqis. … Going to Iraq to shoot and kill Iraqis was viewed as a sport or game,” according to the statements.The Nation broke the story of the new accusations, calling them “devastating.” Blackwater had re-branded itself as “Xe” earlier this year, in a bid to shed its bad image.

Blackwater’s got loads of legal troubles. Five employees await trial in the U.S. on charges stemming from the Nisoor shootings. The company has also faced accusations from crew members aboard its warship McArthur, which was outfitted to fight pirates but has yet to win a contract. Three McArthur crewmen reported harassment, reprisals and physical abuse at the hands of drunken superiors.

Iraqis, in particular, are adamant that Blackwater face justice. “Iraqis might think at least a little differently of America if the killers are put in prison,” said Iraqis Farid Walid, who was wounded in the Nisoor Square incident.

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Scientology founder made up qualifications

Friday, August 7th, 2009

Jean Antonique

London, UK - Scientology founder L Ron Hubbard made up his qualifications along with his religion, as shown by secret documents released to the Times.

Hubbard bought a sham college and then awarded himself a PhD from it, according to files released by the National Archives after a request by the paper under the Freedom of Information Act.

Back in 1968, Scientologists threatened to sue the British government for libel, after it banned followers from entering the country. To defend itself, the government started gathering evidence that Hubbard was a fake.

In a signed statement amongst the documents, one of Hubbard’s collaborators wrote: “The position is L Ron Hubbard [and others] acquired premises somewhere in Los Angeles which they had registered as a university called Sequoia and immediately awarded each other doctorates.”

Whitehall officials followed up on this with the British Consulate in Los Angeles. They were told: “[Sequoia] is a ‘will of the wisp’ organisation which has no premises and does not really exist. It has not and never had any authority whatsoever to issue diplomas or degrees and the dean is sought by the authorities ‘for questioning’.”

The Scientologists, who number Tom Cruise amongst their numbers, have some pretty groovy beliefs. Apparently, we’re all aliens who have lived before on other planets, and paying Hubbard’s crew loads and loads of money will bring liberation.

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