Saturday, February 23, 2013 1:18 AM
Top U.S. Terrorist Group: the FBI
By David Swanson
http://warisacrime.org/content/top-us-terrorist-group-fbi
A careful study of the FBI's own data on terrorism in the United States, reported in Trevor Aaronson's book The Terror Factory, finds one organization leading all others in creating terrorist plots in the United States: the FBI.
Imagine an incompetent bureaucrat. Now imagine a corrupt one. Now imagine both combined. You're starting to get at the image I take away of some of the FBI agents' actions recounted in this book.
Now imagine someone both dumb enough to be manipulated by one of those bureaucrats and hopelessly criminal, often sociopathic, and generally at the mercy of the criminal or immigration courts. Now you're down to the level of the FBI informant, of which we the Sacred-Taxpayers-Who-Shall-Defund-Our-Own-Retirement employ some 15,000 now, dramatically more than ever before. And we pay them very well.
Then try to picture someone so naive, incompetent, desperate, out-of-place, or deranged as to be manipulable by an FBI informant. Now you're at the level of the evil terrorist masterminds out to blow up our skyscrapers.
Well, not really. They're actually almost entirely bumbling morons who couldn't tie their own shoes or buy the laces without FBI instigation and support. The FBI plants the ideas, makes the plans, provides the fake weapons and money, creates the attempted act of terrorism, makes an arrest, and announces the salvation of the nation.
Over and over again. The procedure has become so regular that intended marks have spotted the sting being worked on them simply by googling the name or phone number of the bozo pretending to recruit them into the terrorist brotherhood, and discovering that he's a serial informant.
Between 911 and August, 2011, the U.S. government prosecuted 508 people for terrorism in the United States. 243 had been targeted using an FBI informant. 158 had been caught in an FBI terrorism sting. 49 (that we know of, FBI recording devices have completely unbelievable patterns of "malfunctioning") had encountered an agent provocateur. Most of the rest charged with "terrorism" had little or nothing to do with terrorism at all, most of them charged with more minor offenses like immigration offenses or making false statements. Three or four people out of the whole list appear to be men whom one would reasonably call terrorists in the commonly accepted sense of the word. They intended to and had something at least approaching the capacity to engage in acts of terrorism.
These figures are not far off the percentages of Guantanamo prisoners or drone strike victims believed to be guilty of anything resembling what they've been accused of. So, we shouldn't single out the FBI for criticism. But it should receive its share.
Here's how U.S. District Judge Colleen McMahon understood a case that seems all too typical:
"The essence of what occurred here is that a government, understandably zealous to protect its citizens from terrorism, came upon a man both bigoted and suggestible, one who was incapable of committing an act of terrorism on his own. It created acts of terrorism out of his fantasies of bravado and bigotry, and then made those fantasies come true. . . . I suspect that real terrorists would not have bothered themselves with a person who was so utterly inept."
When we hear on television that the FBI has prevented a plot to blow up a crowded area of a big U.S. city, we either grow terrified and grateful, or we wait for the inevitable revelation that the FBI created the plot from start to finish, manipulating some poor fool who had zero contact with foreign terrorists and more often than not participated unwittingly or for the money offered him. But even those of us who do the latter might find Aaronson's survey of this phenomenon stunning.
During some of its heretofore darkest days the FBI didn't use informants like it does now. J. Edgar Hoover's informants just observed and reported. They didn't instigate. That practice took off during the war on drugs in the 1980s. But the assumption that a drug dealer might have done the same thing without the FBI's sting operation is backed up by some statistics. There is no evidence to back up the idea that the unemployed grocery bagger and video game player who sees visions, has never heard of major Islamic terrorist groups, can't purchase a gun with thousands of dollars in cash and instructions on how to purchase a gun, understands terrorism entirely from the insights of Hollywood movies, and who has no relevant skills or resources, is going to blow up a building without help from the FBI.
(Which came first, the FBI's terror factory or Hollywood's is a moot question now that they feed off each other so well.)
Read this book, I'm telling you, we're looking at people who've been locked away for decades who couldn't have found their ass with two hands and a map. These cases more than anything else resemble those of mentally challenged innocent men sitting on death rows because they tried to please the police officer asking them to confess to a crime they clearly knew nothing about.
Of course the press conferences announcing the convictions of drug dealers and "terrorists" are equally successful. They also equally announce an ongoing campaign doomed to failure. The campaign for "terrorists" developed under President George W. Bush and expanded, like so much else, under President Barack Obama.
Aaronson spoke with J. Stephen Tidwell, former executive assistant director at the FBI. Tidwell argued that someone thinking about the general idea of committing crimes should be set up and then prosecuted, because as long as they're not in prison the possibility exists that someone other than the FBI could encourage them to, and assist them in, actually committing a crime. "You and I could sit here, go online, and by tonight have a decent bomb built. What do you do? Wait for him to figure it out himself?"
The answer, based on extensive data, is quite clearly that he will not figure it out himself and act on it. That the FBI has stopped 3 acts of terrorism is believable. But that the FBI has stopped 508 and there wasn't a 509th is just not possible. The explanation is that there haven't been 509 or even 243. The FBI has manufactured terrorist plots by the dozens, including most of the best known ones. (And if you watched John Brennan's confirmation hearing, you know that the underwear bomber and other "attacks" not under the FBI's jurisdiction have been no more real.)
Arthur Cummings, former executive assistant director of the FBI's National Security Branch, told Aaronson that the enemy was not Al Qaeda or Islamic Terrorism, but the idea of it. "We're at war with an idea," he said. But his strategy seems to be one of consciously attempting to lose hearts and minds. For the money spent on infiltrations and stings, the U.S. government could have given every targeted community free education from preschool to college, just as it could do for every community at home and many abroad by redirecting war spending. When you're making enemies of people rather than friends, to say that you're working against an idea is simply to admit that you're not targeting people based on a judicial review finding any probable cause to legally do so.
The drug war's failure can be calculated in the presence of drugs, although the profits for prisons and other profiteers aren't universally seen as failures. The FBI's counterterrorism can be calculated as a failure largely because of the waste of billions of dollars on nonexistent terrorism. But there's also the fact that the FBI's widespread use of informants, very disproportionately in Muslim communities, has made ordinary people who might provide tips hesitant to do so for fear of being recruited as informants. Thus "counter terrorism" may make it harder to counter terrorism. It may also feed into real terrorism by further enraging people already outraged by U.S. foreign policy. But it's no failure at all if measured by the dollars flowing into the FBI, or the dollars flowing into the pockets of informants who get paid by commission (that is, based on convictions in court of their marks). Nor do weapons makers, other war profiteers, or other backers of right wing politics in general seem to be objecting in any way to the production of widespread fear and bigotry.
Congressman Stephen Lynch has introduced a bill that would require federal law enforcement agencies to report to Congress twice a year on all serious crimes, authorized or unauthorized, committed by informants (who are often much more dangerous criminals than are those they're informing on). The bill picked up a grand total of zero cosponsors last Congress and has reached the same mark thus far in the current one.
The corporate media cartel has seen its ratings soar with each new phony incident. Opposition to current practice does not seem to be coming from that quarter.
And let's all be clear with each other: our society is tolerating this because the victims are Muslims. With many other minority groups we would all be leaping to their defense.
It may be time to try thinking of Muslims as Samaritans, as of course some of them are.
--
David Swanson's books include "War Is A Lie." He blogs at http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for http://rootsaction.org. He hosts Talk Nation Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook.
Saturday, February 23, 2013
Drone Pilots Are Found to Get Stress Disorders Much as Those in Combat Do
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/23/us/drone-pilots-found-to-get-stress-disorders-much-as-those-in-combat-do.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130223&_r=0
February 22, 2013
Drone Pilots Are Found to Get Stress Disorders Much as Those in Combat Do
By JAMES DAO
In the first study of its kind, researchers with the Defense Department have found that pilots of drone aircraft experience mental health problems like depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress at the same rate as pilots of manned aircraft who are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.
The study affirms a growing body of research finding health hazards even for those piloting machines from bases far from actual combat zones.
“Though it might be thousands of miles from the battlefield, this work still involves tough stressors and has tough consequences for those crews,” said Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively about drones. He was not involved in the new research.
That study, by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, which analyzes health trends among military personnel, did not try to explain the sources of mental health problems among drone pilots.
But Air Force officials and independent experts have suggested several potential causes, among them witnessing combat violence on live video feeds, working in isolation or under inflexible shift hours, juggling the simultaneous demands of home life with combat operations and dealing with intense stress because of crew shortages.
“Remotely piloted aircraft pilots may stare at the same piece of ground for days,” said Jean Lin Otto, an epidemiologist who was a co-author of the study. “They witness the carnage. Manned aircraft pilots don’t do that. They get out of there as soon as possible.”
Dr. Otto said she had begun the study expecting that drone pilots would actually have a higher rate of mental health problems because of the unique pressures of their job.
Since 2008, the number of pilots of remotely piloted aircraft — the Air Force’s preferred term for drones — has grown fourfold, to nearly 1,300. The Air Force is now training more pilots for its drones than for its fighter jets and bombers combined. And by 2015, it expects to have more drone pilots than bomber pilots, although fighter pilots will remain a larger group.
Those figures do not include drones operated by the C.I.A. in counterterrorism operations over Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.
The Pentagon has begun taking steps to keep pace with the rapid expansion of drone operations. It recently created a new medal to honor troops involved in both drone warfare and cyberwarfare. And the Air Force has expanded access to chaplains and therapists for drone operators, said Col. William M. Tart, who commanded remotely piloted aircraft crews at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.
The Air Force has also conducted research into the health issues of drone crew members. In a 2011 survey of nearly 840 drone operators, it found that 46 percent of Reaper and Predator pilots, and 48 percent of Global Hawk sensor operators, reported “high operational stress.” Those crews cited long hours and frequent shift changes as major causes.
That study found the stress among drone operators to be much higher than that reported by Air Force members in logistics or support jobs. But it did not compare the stress levels of the drone operators with those of traditional pilots.
The new study looked at the electronic health records of 709 drone pilots and 5,256 manned aircraft pilots between October 2003 and December 2011. Those records included information about clinical diagnoses by medical professionals and not just self-reported symptoms.
After analyzing diagnosis and treatment records, the researchers initially found that the drone pilots had higher incidence rates for 12 conditions, including anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and suicidal ideation.
But after the data were adjusted for age, number of deployments, time in service and history of previous mental health problems, the rates were similar, said Dr. Otto, who was scheduled to present her findings in Arizona on Saturday at a conference of the American College of Preventive Medicine.
The study also found that the incidence rates of mental heath problems among drone pilots spiked in 2009. Dr. Otto speculated that the increase might have been the result of intense pressure on pilots during the Iraq surge in the preceding years.
The study found that pilots of both manned and unmanned aircraft had lower rates of mental health problems than other Air Force personnel. But Dr. Otto conceded that her study might underestimate problems among both manned and unmanned aircraft pilots, who may feel pressure not to report mental health symptoms to doctors out of fears that they will be grounded.
She said she planned to conduct two follow-up studies: one that tries to compensate for possible underreporting of mental health problems by pilots and another that analyzes mental health issues among sensor operators, who control drone cameras while sitting next to the pilots.
“The increasing use of remotely piloted aircraft for war fighting as well as humanitarian relief should prompt increased surveillance,” she said.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
February 22, 2013
Drone Pilots Are Found to Get Stress Disorders Much as Those in Combat Do
By JAMES DAO
In the first study of its kind, researchers with the Defense Department have found that pilots of drone aircraft experience mental health problems like depression, anxiety and post-traumatic stress at the same rate as pilots of manned aircraft who are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan.
The study affirms a growing body of research finding health hazards even for those piloting machines from bases far from actual combat zones.
“Though it might be thousands of miles from the battlefield, this work still involves tough stressors and has tough consequences for those crews,” said Peter W. Singer, a scholar at the Brookings Institution who has written extensively about drones. He was not involved in the new research.
That study, by the Armed Forces Health Surveillance Center, which analyzes health trends among military personnel, did not try to explain the sources of mental health problems among drone pilots.
But Air Force officials and independent experts have suggested several potential causes, among them witnessing combat violence on live video feeds, working in isolation or under inflexible shift hours, juggling the simultaneous demands of home life with combat operations and dealing with intense stress because of crew shortages.
“Remotely piloted aircraft pilots may stare at the same piece of ground for days,” said Jean Lin Otto, an epidemiologist who was a co-author of the study. “They witness the carnage. Manned aircraft pilots don’t do that. They get out of there as soon as possible.”
Dr. Otto said she had begun the study expecting that drone pilots would actually have a higher rate of mental health problems because of the unique pressures of their job.
Since 2008, the number of pilots of remotely piloted aircraft — the Air Force’s preferred term for drones — has grown fourfold, to nearly 1,300. The Air Force is now training more pilots for its drones than for its fighter jets and bombers combined. And by 2015, it expects to have more drone pilots than bomber pilots, although fighter pilots will remain a larger group.
Those figures do not include drones operated by the C.I.A. in counterterrorism operations over Pakistan, Yemen and other countries.
The Pentagon has begun taking steps to keep pace with the rapid expansion of drone operations. It recently created a new medal to honor troops involved in both drone warfare and cyberwarfare. And the Air Force has expanded access to chaplains and therapists for drone operators, said Col. William M. Tart, who commanded remotely piloted aircraft crews at Creech Air Force Base in Nevada.
The Air Force has also conducted research into the health issues of drone crew members. In a 2011 survey of nearly 840 drone operators, it found that 46 percent of Reaper and Predator pilots, and 48 percent of Global Hawk sensor operators, reported “high operational stress.” Those crews cited long hours and frequent shift changes as major causes.
That study found the stress among drone operators to be much higher than that reported by Air Force members in logistics or support jobs. But it did not compare the stress levels of the drone operators with those of traditional pilots.
The new study looked at the electronic health records of 709 drone pilots and 5,256 manned aircraft pilots between October 2003 and December 2011. Those records included information about clinical diagnoses by medical professionals and not just self-reported symptoms.
After analyzing diagnosis and treatment records, the researchers initially found that the drone pilots had higher incidence rates for 12 conditions, including anxiety disorder, depressive disorder, post-traumatic stress disorder, substance abuse and suicidal ideation.
But after the data were adjusted for age, number of deployments, time in service and history of previous mental health problems, the rates were similar, said Dr. Otto, who was scheduled to present her findings in Arizona on Saturday at a conference of the American College of Preventive Medicine.
The study also found that the incidence rates of mental heath problems among drone pilots spiked in 2009. Dr. Otto speculated that the increase might have been the result of intense pressure on pilots during the Iraq surge in the preceding years.
The study found that pilots of both manned and unmanned aircraft had lower rates of mental health problems than other Air Force personnel. But Dr. Otto conceded that her study might underestimate problems among both manned and unmanned aircraft pilots, who may feel pressure not to report mental health symptoms to doctors out of fears that they will be grounded.
She said she planned to conduct two follow-up studies: one that tries to compensate for possible underreporting of mental health problems by pilots and another that analyzes mental health issues among sensor operators, who control drone cameras while sitting next to the pilots.
“The increasing use of remotely piloted aircraft for war fighting as well as humanitarian relief should prompt increased surveillance,” she said.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Friday, February 22, 2013
Inside the Bush Administration's Lawless Global Torture Regime (And How Obama Remains Complicit)
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
AlterNet [1] / By Alex Kane [2]
Inside the Bush Administration's Lawless Global Torture Regime (And How Obama Remains Complicit)
February 21, 2013
You may not have heard of Mohammed al-Asad, but the torture he suffered was carried out in your name. And his story is one of 136 such ordeals that were perpetrated by the Central Intelligence Agency.
Those stories are told in a comprehensive report issued by the Open Society Foundations (OSF) this month. Titled "Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detention and Extraordinary Rendition [3]," the report is the fullest accounting yet of the Bush administration’s global torture ring. The document aims to fully fill in the gaps of what people know about the Bush administration’s torture program, which enlisted the help of 54 countries around the world.
Al-Asad is a Yemeni national who was detained in Tanzania in 2003 by security forces in that country. He was then shipped off to Djibouti where he was held incommunicado before being transferred to a U.S. “rendition team” which consisted of five people, all of whom wore black with their faces covered.
Then al-Asad was shipped off to a third country, Afghanistan, where he was held in isolation, subject to loud music, faced harsh light 24 hours a day and had his diet manipulated. Finally, al-Asad, by this time damaged by intense CIA-led torture, was handed off to Yemen, his home country and a repressive ally of the U.S., where he was imprisoned for using forged travel documents. He was finally released in 2006, without ever being charged with terrorism--the ostensible reason the CIA picked up him up and tortured him in the first place.
Mohammed al-Asad’s ordeal was by no means unique. He was caught up in the dragnet of the CIA’s global program of “extraordinary rendition,” which liberally used torture on alleged terrorist suspects, though some were undoubtedly innocent. In total, 136 people were subject to either the CIA’s “black sites” or “extraordinary rendition” operations.
Authored by Amrit Singh, senior legal officer for national security and counterterrorism at the Open Society Foundations, the report fully exposes [3] the shocking breadth of the CIA’s lawlessness in the age of the war on terror.
“There was a need for a comprehensive public record on the scale and scope of the CIA’s secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations, both in terms of the victims of these operations and the associated human rights abuses, as well as the governments that were complicit,” Singh told AlterNet.
The OSF publication gives names to the people tortured by the CIA, exposes the governments around the globe complicit in America’s torture ring, calls for investigations and accountability for the lawless programs, and makes clear that “extraordinary renditions” were not outlawed by the Obama administration and that the U.S. has a responsibility under the law to investigate and prosecute those behind the global torture program right now. It is at once a call for action directed at the Obama administration and an important historical document that lays bare the utter depravity of the Bush administration’s practices.
The Obama administration’s mantra on the torture carried out under the Bush administration has been to “look forward,” and not backward. This has resulted in grotesque abuses carried out by the CIA being swept under the rug, with no criminal prosecutions forthcoming. And while Obama did sign a much-heralded executive order to ban torture, the order also was “specifically crafted to preserve the CIA’s authority to detain terrorist suspects for short periods prior to ‘rendering’ them to another country for interrogation or trial,” writes Singh.
“Globalizing Torture” focuses on two different yet interlocking aspects of the CIA’s global torture program, which the Bush administration put into overdrive following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
“Extraordinary rendition” is defined as the “transfer—without legal process—of a detainee to the custody of a foreign government for purposes of detention and interrogation,” as the report states. The “black sites” were “a secret detention program under which suspected terrorists were held in CIA prisons,” and “where they were subjected to interrogation methods that involved torture and other abuses.”
Singh explains how these are related, writing:
The two programs had similar modalities and entailed the same kinds of human rights violations—the abduction and disappearance of detainees, their extra-legal transfer on secret flights to undisclosed locations around the world, followed by their incommunicado detention, interrogation, torture, and abuse. Moreover, extraordinary rendition typically involved secret detention by the United States if only for the time it took to transfer the person to the custody of another government. In some instances, the same detainee was subjected both to prolonged secret detention in CIA custody and extraordinary rendition to a country where the detainee was at real risk of torture.
The CIA program of extraordinary rendition has its roots in the Clinton administration, as the OSF report notes. Egypt, a strong U.S. ally at the time known to use torture, was one country the CIA often worked with. But it was the Bush administration, following 9/11, that made the program a crucial aspect of how the global war on terror was fought. President Bush “issued a directive authorizing the CIA to conduct these ‘extraordinary renditions without any advance approval from either the White House or the Departments of Justice or State. The CIA gained broad authority to secretly transfer terrorist suspects to be detained and interrogated in the custody of foreign governments, including those known to employ torture.”
While the U.S. government claimed that the countries they sent suspects to had assured them torture wouldn’t be used, those assurances were largely bunk. By 2005, the U.S. had “extraordinarily rendered” over 100 and perhaps as many as 150 people.
What did this program of holding people in top-secret CIA prisons, or sending them off to other countries entail? Brutal torture in order to obtain intelligence about terrorist networks and plots--despite the fact that many interrogation experts say that torture usually produces bad information. But no matter: the CIA implemented a number of tactics that can only be called torture on suspected militants, though some were innocent of any crime. The tactics included “walling,” or repeatedly thrusting a detainee’s head into a “false wall”; stress positions; forced nudity; sleep deprivation; dietary manipulation; and waterboarding. A series of memos from the Bush administration’s Office of Legal Counsel purported to legalize these tactics.
But as the report makes clear, none of the “enhanced interrogation techniques” (in Bush administration parlance) were legal. In fact, international law prohibits torture no matter what, even in the face of a national security emergency. The U.S. is a party to the UN Convention Against Torture, and in the U.S. there is a “federal criminal statute that provides criminal penalties for acts of torture—including attempts and conspiracy to commit such acts—committed outside the United States.” The U.S. is also a party to other international treaties that ban torture, like the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. But the Bush administration systematically violated both domestic and international law by engaging in a global torture program.
The report also makes plain that it was not only the Bush administration that violated international law. Fifty-four governments around the globe that participated in the torture ring also violated international law by being parties to the program. It’s unsurprising that stalwart allies of the U.S., like the authoritarian governments of Jordan, Egypt, Morocco and Pakistan, would willingly allow people to be tortured at the behest of the CIA. These governments have long battled Islamist political movements, and their participation was seen as a way to gather intelligence and crack down on extremists living in their midst. Afghanistan is also an unsurprising destination for those rendered, considering that the U.S. already had control of detainees there as a result of the invasion and occupation of the country in 2001.
But there are also surprises. Countries held up as paragons of social democracy were deeply complicit. Iceland allowed the CIA to use its airspace and airports to transport prisoners to be tortured. Sweden “apprehended individuals and transferred them to CIA custody for extraordinary rendition.” And then there’s also unstable countries like Somalia. The OSF report states that “Somalia provided territory and guards for individuals subjected to secret CIA detention. From about 2002 onward, U.S. counterterrorism efforts in Somalia required the cooperation of faction leaders and former military or police officers.The CIA hired Somali warlords to kidnap suspected militants, creating what the International Crisis Group termed ‘a small industry in abductions.’”
Notably, as Greg Grandin writes in TomDispatch [4], no Latin American country participated in the program.
The global torture regime put in place by the CIA implicates dozens of governments, and that in itself is staggering. But as David Cole notes in theNation, [5] those governments’ complicity may open a route to accountability.
“The United States may be able to suppress complaints at home, but it lacks the power to exercise such censorship abroad. The only fitting response to the globalization of torture is the globalization of accountability,” writes Cole.
One model of accountability, as Cole notes, has already been established. Last year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that “Macedonia had violated the European Convention on Human Rights’ prohibitions on torture, inhuman treatment and arbitrary detention by handing Khaled El-Masri to the CIA, which rendered him to Afghanistan and tortured him,” according to Cole. “The court held that transferring El-Masri to the CIA under such circumstances amounted to complicity in torture and ordered Macedonia to pay damages. The European Court has no jurisdiction over the United States, and therefore could not issue a remedy against it; but it did find expressly that the CIA tortured El-Masri, a predicate to its finding of Macedonia’s complicity.”
More recently, Italy’s former intelligence chief was given 10 years in prison for his role in the kidnapping of an Egyptian cleric who was then taken to an American air base and shipped off to Egypt, where he was tortured.
Those European cases make plain why the OSF report remains relevant and vitally important. More investigations and prosecutions of high-level officials in the nations that participated in the CIA’s torture program could still come in the years ahead. The black mark of the CIA’s practices will continue to hang over the world as long as accountability is lacking.
And there are other reasons why the OSF report remains relevant. One glaring one is that the Obama administration is obligated under the law to investigate and prosecute officials who crafted the illegal torture program. And U.S. courts have acquiesced to the Obama administration’s attempts to shield officials who were responsible for “extraordinarily rendering” people off to be tortured. Another glaring reason is that the Obama administration has not banned “extraordinary rendition” or CIA “black sites,” as the OSF report makes clear. Furthermore, reports of secret detention with the involvement of the CIA have continued to surface during the Obama administration, making clear that the excesses of the Bush era have yet to be fully excised.
Asked by AlterNet whether “extraordinary rendition” remains in use in the Obama era, Singh replied: “It’s a little bit hard to know what the current government’s policies are because they still remain secret...The full extent of what is actually continuing has not been acknowledged by the Obama administration. So these [news reports of CIA involvement in secret detentions] raise serious questions about what the Obama administration’s policies are.”
And as ProPublica revealed this month [6], 20 prisoners who were held by the CIA remain missing. Nobody knows what happened to them or where they are.
Perhaps the report’s most important section is its recommendations, which provide a path forward to correcting the lawless global torture regime. The OSF publication calls on the U.S. to fully repudiate “extraordinary rendition”; disclose information related to human rights violations; conduct criminal investigations into the CIA’s torture; create a board to provide compensation for the victims of the program; and institute safeguards to ensure that counterterrorism operations by the U.S. don’t run afoul of the law.
“The human rights violations associated with CIA secret detention and extraordinary rendition operations were significant and systemic,” writes Singh in the conclusion of her report. “The time has come for the United States and its partner governments to admit to the truth of their involvement in secret detention and extraordinary rendition, repudiate these practices, and conduct effective investigations directed at holding officials accountable.”
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/world/inside-bush-administrations-lawless-global-torture-regime-and-how-obama-remains-complicit
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/alex-kane
[3] http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/reports/globalizing-torture-cia-secret-detention-and-extraordinary-rendition
[4] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175650/tomgram:_greg_grandin,_why_latin_america_didn't_join_washington's_counterterrorism_posse/
[5] http://www.thenation.com/article/172669/fifty-four-nations-are-implicated-cia-torture-scheme
[6] http://www.propublica.org/article/at-least-20-cia-prisoners-still-missing
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Thursday, February 21, 2013
Terrorism against women: The war that never ends
Terrorism against women: The war that never ends
By Matthew Behrens
February 21, 2013
http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/02/terrorism-against-women-war-never-ends
In September 2005, Emory University Professor Erica Frank came to a none-too-startling conclusion: that investments in basics like disease prevention and research would save far more lives than the hundreds of billions spent in the "war on terror." Citing one example, Dr. Frank noted that in September 2002, New York State spent $1.3 million to reduce heart disease (the leading cause of death in the state) while the state budgeted $34 million for bio-terrorism preparedness (the latter an issue rooted largely in the netherworld of speculation).
Such fact-based reality checks are nuisances to politicians and corporate executives who profit from fear and the substanceless scenarios that make for memorable nightmares, as well as hefty "defence and security" contracts.
Similar "nuisances" have arisen in the U.S. gun control debate. Absent the 9/11 attacks, the number of Americans killed in what the U.S. government declares are terrorism attacks from 2001-2011 is 37. The number of American homicides committed with firearms in that same period is a staggering 130,147, with suicide via gunshot numbering even higher at 194,187. While Zero Dark Thirty and other propaganda efforts remind us that there is always the possibility that somewhere, somehow, someone is plotting something evil, the odds of an American being killed in a terrorist attack currently stand at 1 in 73 million (whereas 1 in 50,000 Americans face death by accidental suffocation.)
Dangerous to be a woman
Statistics also reveal that during the past decade, it has been far more dangerous to be a woman in a relationship with a man than it has been to be an overseas soldier or police officer. In his book The War on Women, the late author Brian Vallée pointed out that between 2001 and 2006, 101 Canadian soldiers and police officers were killed. During that same period, over 500 Canadian women were murdered. We knew about the losses of the former group because they're marked by mass funeral processions and patriotic displays saluting hearses driving along the 401. No such events mark the regularized murder of women.
This is meant not to take away from the horror and sadness at the loss of those soldiers and police officers. Rather, it is meant to place in context the broader question: who, exactly, is being protected by these billions spent both on overseas wars and, in a lot of Canadian communities, on the occupying army also known as the police? It's certainly not those 500 women. Nor is it the 600 missing and murdered aboriginal women (since 1970) for whom a public inquiry has yet to be announced (a failure repeatedly condemned by the likes of Amnesty International and the United Nations). Nor is it the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced women and children forced to find space at one of the 550-plus women's shelters across Canada, not to mention the countless thousands who are turned away. Nor is it the uncounted population of women who have been unable to take that step of leaving after enduring years of abuse that, in many cases, constitutes home-grown torture: beatings, whippings, burnings, intentional breaking of bones.
As Vallée noted, "These comparisons are meant solely to draw attention to the ongoing scourge that continues to take the lives and to damage the bodies and minds of thousands upon thousands of women and children living in fear of the domestic terrorists in their own homes. If our governments became aware of terrorist cells that planned to kill and maim thousands of their citizens, would they not muster the full resources of the state to go after and stop them? It is an outrage that this slaughter of women should continue in so-called progressive Western democracies, or anywhere else in the world."
Last week's One Billion Rising activities were designed to up the ante on action to end terrorism against women, though they received scant Canadian attention when compared to stories about hockey injuries. (The day was based on the United Nations estimate that one in three women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime). When media DID choose to cover the event, it was often focused on events in India or the Philippines, as if the problems in those countries are worse than here.
RCMP abuses aboriginal women
Women's lives were also dismissed last week by the Harper government after the release of Human Rights Watch's devastating indictment of the RCMP's mistreatment of scores of aboriginal women and girls, including reports of tasering, rape and death threats. Stephen Harper, in a tone that reads "this is tiresome," was critical that these women shared their stories anonymously, and called on the fearful women to "just do it" and report these crimes to the police (the ones allegedly committing these crimes). Notably, the head of the RCMP has admitted time and again the problems of systemic sexism within the force, and a recent RCMP complaints commission report found female Mounties feel their complaints are met by a biased internal system designed to protect the institution against any complaints.
With such a reality staring us in the face, the utter failure to implement a fully-funded action plan to end violence against women in all of its broad contexts (from devaluing women's labour, lack of affordable housing and accessible daycare, and demonization of all things feminist to promotion of the notion that men are victims of women's relative success, among many others) stands in stark contrast to the open coffers for Canada's weapons manufacturers and torture-complicit spy agencies. Their narrative of alleged and unproven threats lurking in the shadows takes priority over factual findings on violence against women (a theme that runs through other Harper initiatives such as his law and order prison expansion amidst falling crime rates). But in Lanark County, an hour from the nation's capital, the Interval House women's shelter is starved for funds as it struggles to attend to the thousands of crisis calls it receives annually. For the women and children of this rural area, represented by a Harper Conservative, the prospect of Canada spending tens of billions on jet fighters, drones and warships does not provide any sense of comfort when the real-life terrorist they fear either lives with them or is separated by a rarely respected no-contact court order.
Perhaps one reason the issue of violence against women gets thrown onto the backburner is the ever-growing use of obtuse language that fails to properly name perpetrators and targets. Terms like "spousal violence," "relationship violence," and "domestic assault," decontextualize who is doing what to whom. Perhaps one way to overcome this is to change the parameters of the language. The FBI defines terrorism as "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." Those same dynamics of coercion and intimidation to seek power, control and domination exist in the realm of what has been called in some academic literature Intimate Terrorism, and so perhaps calling for an end to terrorism against women might make a few government ostriches pull their heads out of the sand.
But if a change in language does not provoke new policy, one has to wonder what, exactly, will speak to the Conservatives in a manner that will force them to make the safety of women a priority.
Assume, for a moment, the sick possibility that if women could show that the terrorism conducted against them could harm the economy -- Harper's top priority -- then perhaps Harper and company would pay attention, allocate some funding, do something to help end the scourge?
The "cost" of violence against women
Such studies do exist. In 2011, for example, Canadian Public Policy magazine reported an estimated $6.9 billion in public and private costs as a result of the difficulties faced by women who had left abusive relationships. Canada's Department of Justice undertook a similar study that sought to capture a snapshot of the cost of violence against women in the year 2009. The results of that study -- that at a very conservative estimate, violence against women costs the economy $7.4 billion -- were sparingly reported over the Christmas holidays, the study itself only becoming public as a result of a Canadian Press access to information request.
Among other things, the study found "Victim costs ($6 billion) accounted for the largest proportion (80.7 per cent) of the total economic impact for cost items such as medical attention, lost wages, lost education, the value of stolen/damaged property, and pain and suffering."
The report finds "46,918 spousal violence incidents were brought to the attention of police in 2009, 81 per cent involving female victims and 19 per cent involving male victims. More victims were victimized by current spouses (71 per cent) than by former spouses (29 per cent)." The report remarks that such figures are no doubt very conservative, as the great majority of violence against women goes unreported or, when it is reported, it occurs after multiple incidents of violence. Depressingly, it also notes that "the incidence of spousal violence in Canada has not decreased over time."
This study, which appears to have been destined for a dusty bureaucratic shelf, has failed to generate much follow-up from government benches. Instead, the old patterns remain: as millions will be spent celebrating the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1 in 2014, it is unlikely the government will be devoting much energy to marking the 25th anniversary of one of the worst terrorist acts on Canadian soil, the mass murder of 14 women at L'Ecole Polytechnique in 1989.
Wretched court decisions
And so the war goes on. We read of the justifiable need for Post-Traumatic Stress counselling for military veterans, but what of the far higher numbers of women suffering PTSD from the violence they experience in the intimacy of their own homes? While much education has been done, it is clear that, as organizers of One Billion Rising noted, upping the ante is crucial, as the traditional canards that seek to rationalize violence against women have not disappeared.
To cite one area where stereotypes still abound -- the courts -- we've seen in the past month the Supreme Court of Canada refusing to provide protection for niqab-wearing women who fear having to remove the veil if they testify against an assailant, the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling that a woman can be fired if her employer finds her "irresistible," and an Ottawa lawyer who, in defending a man who murdered his female friend with 53 stab wounds to her neck, face, chest and arms, blamed the victim as a "lying, manipulative, deceitful woman and welfare cheat." It is unclear if the lawyer mentioned the length of her skirt.
The rage inspired by such events is palpable in some quarters, but as Eve Ensler of One Billion Rising concludes, it's largely met with "the passivity of good men. Where the hell are you? You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren't you standing with us? Why aren't you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation of us?"
To join the global uprising to end rape culture visit: http://onebillionrising.org
Matthew Behrens is a freelance writer and social justice advocate who co-ordinates the Homes not Bombs non-violent direct action network. He has worked closely with the targets of Canadian and U.S. 'national security' profiling for many years.
By Matthew Behrens
February 21, 2013
http://rabble.ca/columnists/2013/02/terrorism-against-women-war-never-ends
In September 2005, Emory University Professor Erica Frank came to a none-too-startling conclusion: that investments in basics like disease prevention and research would save far more lives than the hundreds of billions spent in the "war on terror." Citing one example, Dr. Frank noted that in September 2002, New York State spent $1.3 million to reduce heart disease (the leading cause of death in the state) while the state budgeted $34 million for bio-terrorism preparedness (the latter an issue rooted largely in the netherworld of speculation).
Such fact-based reality checks are nuisances to politicians and corporate executives who profit from fear and the substanceless scenarios that make for memorable nightmares, as well as hefty "defence and security" contracts.
Similar "nuisances" have arisen in the U.S. gun control debate. Absent the 9/11 attacks, the number of Americans killed in what the U.S. government declares are terrorism attacks from 2001-2011 is 37. The number of American homicides committed with firearms in that same period is a staggering 130,147, with suicide via gunshot numbering even higher at 194,187. While Zero Dark Thirty and other propaganda efforts remind us that there is always the possibility that somewhere, somehow, someone is plotting something evil, the odds of an American being killed in a terrorist attack currently stand at 1 in 73 million (whereas 1 in 50,000 Americans face death by accidental suffocation.)
Dangerous to be a woman
Statistics also reveal that during the past decade, it has been far more dangerous to be a woman in a relationship with a man than it has been to be an overseas soldier or police officer. In his book The War on Women, the late author Brian Vallée pointed out that between 2001 and 2006, 101 Canadian soldiers and police officers were killed. During that same period, over 500 Canadian women were murdered. We knew about the losses of the former group because they're marked by mass funeral processions and patriotic displays saluting hearses driving along the 401. No such events mark the regularized murder of women.
This is meant not to take away from the horror and sadness at the loss of those soldiers and police officers. Rather, it is meant to place in context the broader question: who, exactly, is being protected by these billions spent both on overseas wars and, in a lot of Canadian communities, on the occupying army also known as the police? It's certainly not those 500 women. Nor is it the 600 missing and murdered aboriginal women (since 1970) for whom a public inquiry has yet to be announced (a failure repeatedly condemned by the likes of Amnesty International and the United Nations). Nor is it the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced women and children forced to find space at one of the 550-plus women's shelters across Canada, not to mention the countless thousands who are turned away. Nor is it the uncounted population of women who have been unable to take that step of leaving after enduring years of abuse that, in many cases, constitutes home-grown torture: beatings, whippings, burnings, intentional breaking of bones.
As Vallée noted, "These comparisons are meant solely to draw attention to the ongoing scourge that continues to take the lives and to damage the bodies and minds of thousands upon thousands of women and children living in fear of the domestic terrorists in their own homes. If our governments became aware of terrorist cells that planned to kill and maim thousands of their citizens, would they not muster the full resources of the state to go after and stop them? It is an outrage that this slaughter of women should continue in so-called progressive Western democracies, or anywhere else in the world."
Last week's One Billion Rising activities were designed to up the ante on action to end terrorism against women, though they received scant Canadian attention when compared to stories about hockey injuries. (The day was based on the United Nations estimate that one in three women will be sexually assaulted in her lifetime). When media DID choose to cover the event, it was often focused on events in India or the Philippines, as if the problems in those countries are worse than here.
RCMP abuses aboriginal women
Women's lives were also dismissed last week by the Harper government after the release of Human Rights Watch's devastating indictment of the RCMP's mistreatment of scores of aboriginal women and girls, including reports of tasering, rape and death threats. Stephen Harper, in a tone that reads "this is tiresome," was critical that these women shared their stories anonymously, and called on the fearful women to "just do it" and report these crimes to the police (the ones allegedly committing these crimes). Notably, the head of the RCMP has admitted time and again the problems of systemic sexism within the force, and a recent RCMP complaints commission report found female Mounties feel their complaints are met by a biased internal system designed to protect the institution against any complaints.
With such a reality staring us in the face, the utter failure to implement a fully-funded action plan to end violence against women in all of its broad contexts (from devaluing women's labour, lack of affordable housing and accessible daycare, and demonization of all things feminist to promotion of the notion that men are victims of women's relative success, among many others) stands in stark contrast to the open coffers for Canada's weapons manufacturers and torture-complicit spy agencies. Their narrative of alleged and unproven threats lurking in the shadows takes priority over factual findings on violence against women (a theme that runs through other Harper initiatives such as his law and order prison expansion amidst falling crime rates). But in Lanark County, an hour from the nation's capital, the Interval House women's shelter is starved for funds as it struggles to attend to the thousands of crisis calls it receives annually. For the women and children of this rural area, represented by a Harper Conservative, the prospect of Canada spending tens of billions on jet fighters, drones and warships does not provide any sense of comfort when the real-life terrorist they fear either lives with them or is separated by a rarely respected no-contact court order.
Perhaps one reason the issue of violence against women gets thrown onto the backburner is the ever-growing use of obtuse language that fails to properly name perpetrators and targets. Terms like "spousal violence," "relationship violence," and "domestic assault," decontextualize who is doing what to whom. Perhaps one way to overcome this is to change the parameters of the language. The FBI defines terrorism as "the unlawful use of force and violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives." Those same dynamics of coercion and intimidation to seek power, control and domination exist in the realm of what has been called in some academic literature Intimate Terrorism, and so perhaps calling for an end to terrorism against women might make a few government ostriches pull their heads out of the sand.
But if a change in language does not provoke new policy, one has to wonder what, exactly, will speak to the Conservatives in a manner that will force them to make the safety of women a priority.
Assume, for a moment, the sick possibility that if women could show that the terrorism conducted against them could harm the economy -- Harper's top priority -- then perhaps Harper and company would pay attention, allocate some funding, do something to help end the scourge?
The "cost" of violence against women
Such studies do exist. In 2011, for example, Canadian Public Policy magazine reported an estimated $6.9 billion in public and private costs as a result of the difficulties faced by women who had left abusive relationships. Canada's Department of Justice undertook a similar study that sought to capture a snapshot of the cost of violence against women in the year 2009. The results of that study -- that at a very conservative estimate, violence against women costs the economy $7.4 billion -- were sparingly reported over the Christmas holidays, the study itself only becoming public as a result of a Canadian Press access to information request.
Among other things, the study found "Victim costs ($6 billion) accounted for the largest proportion (80.7 per cent) of the total economic impact for cost items such as medical attention, lost wages, lost education, the value of stolen/damaged property, and pain and suffering."
The report finds "46,918 spousal violence incidents were brought to the attention of police in 2009, 81 per cent involving female victims and 19 per cent involving male victims. More victims were victimized by current spouses (71 per cent) than by former spouses (29 per cent)." The report remarks that such figures are no doubt very conservative, as the great majority of violence against women goes unreported or, when it is reported, it occurs after multiple incidents of violence. Depressingly, it also notes that "the incidence of spousal violence in Canada has not decreased over time."
This study, which appears to have been destined for a dusty bureaucratic shelf, has failed to generate much follow-up from government benches. Instead, the old patterns remain: as millions will be spent celebrating the 100th anniversary of the start of World War 1 in 2014, it is unlikely the government will be devoting much energy to marking the 25th anniversary of one of the worst terrorist acts on Canadian soil, the mass murder of 14 women at L'Ecole Polytechnique in 1989.
Wretched court decisions
And so the war goes on. We read of the justifiable need for Post-Traumatic Stress counselling for military veterans, but what of the far higher numbers of women suffering PTSD from the violence they experience in the intimacy of their own homes? While much education has been done, it is clear that, as organizers of One Billion Rising noted, upping the ante is crucial, as the traditional canards that seek to rationalize violence against women have not disappeared.
To cite one area where stereotypes still abound -- the courts -- we've seen in the past month the Supreme Court of Canada refusing to provide protection for niqab-wearing women who fear having to remove the veil if they testify against an assailant, the Iowa Supreme Court's ruling that a woman can be fired if her employer finds her "irresistible," and an Ottawa lawyer who, in defending a man who murdered his female friend with 53 stab wounds to her neck, face, chest and arms, blamed the victim as a "lying, manipulative, deceitful woman and welfare cheat." It is unclear if the lawyer mentioned the length of her skirt.
The rage inspired by such events is palpable in some quarters, but as Eve Ensler of One Billion Rising concludes, it's largely met with "the passivity of good men. Where the hell are you? You live with us, make love with us, father us, befriend us, brother us, get nurtured and mothered and eternally supported by us, so why aren't you standing with us? Why aren't you driven to the point of madness and action by the rape and humiliation of us?"
To join the global uprising to end rape culture visit: http://onebillionrising.org
Matthew Behrens is a freelance writer and social justice advocate who co-ordinates the Homes not Bombs non-violent direct action network. He has worked closely with the targets of Canadian and U.S. 'national security' profiling for many years.
White House Tactic for C.I.A. Bid Holds Back Drone Memos
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/us/politics/strategy-seeks-to-ensure-bid-of-brennan-for-cia.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130221
February 20, 2013
White House Tactic for C.I.A. Bid Holds Back Drone Memos
By SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON — The White House is refusing to share fully with Congress the legal opinions that justify targeted killings, while maneuvering to make sure its stance does not do anything to endanger the confirmation of John O. Brennan as C.I.A. director.
Rather than agreeing to some Democratic senators’ demands for full access to the classified legal memos on the targeted killing program, Obama administration officials are negotiating with Republicans to provide more information on the lethal attack last year on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, according to three Congressional staff members.
The strategy is intended to produce a bipartisan majority vote for Mr. Brennan in the Senate Intelligence Committee without giving its members seven additional legal opinions on targeted killing sought by senators and while protecting what the White House views as the confidentiality of the Justice Department’s legal advice to the president. It would allow Mr. Brennan’s nomination to go to the Senate floor even if one or two Democrats vote no to protest the refusal to share more legal memos.
At issue is the critical question of how Congress conducts oversight of a shadow war against people suspected of being terrorists. The administration routinely reports on its lethal drone strikes to both the Senate and the House Intelligence and Armed Services Committees, but it has long rebuffed Congressional attempts to see the legal opinions that authorize the strikes — let alone requests to make them public.
Only after an unclassified Justice Department white paper summarizing the legal arguments was leaked to NBC News this month did the administration make two legal opinions on the targeted killing of American citizens briefly available to members of the Intelligence Committees.
But the documents were available to be viewed only for a limited time and only by senators themselves, not their lawyers and experts.
The arrangement frustrated members of the committee, who were not allowed to have their staff members study the highly complex legal opinions. But the reinvigorated public discussion set off by the nomination of Mr. Brennan has raised hopes in Congress that the debate will continue even if he is confirmed.
The refusal so far to share more of the opinions with Congress, or to make redacted versions of the memos public, comes despite a pledge of greater transparency by President Obama in his State of the Union address on Feb. 12.
“I recognize that in our democracy, no one should just take my word that we’re doing things the right way,” the president said. “So, in the months ahead, I will continue to engage with Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.”
The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, has long called for all Justice Department legal opinions on intelligence to go to the committee. But a spokesman said she did not believe the issue should block Mr. Brennan’s confirmation.
The votes of at least two other Democratic senators who feel strongly about greater access to the legal opinions, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, are less certain.
“I still have a number of unanswered questions about the president’s authority to kill Americans who are deemed to be a threat to the United States,” Mr. Wyden said.
He said that he was “encouraged” by Mr. Obama’s promise of greater transparency in the State of the Union address but that “the administration has not yet lived up to that commitment.”
The administration is currently in discussions with Republican members of the Intelligence Committee about providing the trail of e-mails that were the basis of “talking points” from the intelligence agencies regarding the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, which killed the American ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans. Such a concession would probably win at least some Republican votes for Mr. Brennan.
By most accounts, Mr. Brennan is likely to be confirmed as director of the C.I.A., in part because some human rights advocates who were once deeply skeptical about his record are now ambivalent.
Four years ago, a swell of criticism of Mr. Brennan’s association with the Bush administration’s detention and interrogation program short-circuited Mr. Brennan’s bid to become Mr. Obama’s first C.I.A. director. He withdrew his name from consideration for the job, and wrote a sharply worded letter to Mr. Obama in November 2008 accusing critics of distorting his record.
In his subsequent appointment as Mr. Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, Mr. Brennan has become the American official most closely associated with the drone program, also a target of human rights groups. But he has also won some respect from the groups, which have come to see him as a voice for some of their concerns in internal deliberations.
“There are certainly people who see Brennan as a symbol of programs they disapprove of, particularly the drone program,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch. “In my case, though there are issues on which he and I would undoubtedly disagree, I noticed that of all the senior people on the president’s national security team, no one seemed more willing to argue that counterterrorism needed to have a moral dimension and to be grounded in the rule of law.”
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said that human rights groups once had a “fun-house mirror” picture of Mr. Brennan.
But over the past four years, he said, Mr. Brennan’s stances on issues like closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have won him praise from current and former members of the Obama administration who have long been vocal about human rights issues.
One of those people, Harold Hongju Koh, a former State Department legal adviser, said that rights groups should embrace Mr. Brennan’s nomination.
“Who would they rather have, and why would that person promote their values as C.I.A. director more than John Brennan?” Mr. Koh asked.
But the continuing secrecy around the drone program remains a stumbling block for some advocates.
“We have this drone war, and the American public has no idea what the rules are, and Congress doesn’t know much more,” said Virginia E. Sloan, president of the Constitution Project, a civil liberties group in Washington. “YouTube appearances and speeches,” she said, referring to the president’s online appearances and officials’ public remarks, “are absolutely no substitute for having the actual memos in hand.”
Elisa Massimino, president of Human Rights First, an advocacy group, said the administration had a long way to go to fulfill its promise of greater openness.
“President Obama and Mr. Brennan have both pledged transparency,” she said. “Let’s see it.”
© 2012 The New York Times Company
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
February 20, 2013
White House Tactic for C.I.A. Bid Holds Back Drone Memos
By SCOTT SHANE and MARK MAZZETTI
WASHINGTON — The White House is refusing to share fully with Congress the legal opinions that justify targeted killings, while maneuvering to make sure its stance does not do anything to endanger the confirmation of John O. Brennan as C.I.A. director.
Rather than agreeing to some Democratic senators’ demands for full access to the classified legal memos on the targeted killing program, Obama administration officials are negotiating with Republicans to provide more information on the lethal attack last year on the American diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya, according to three Congressional staff members.
The strategy is intended to produce a bipartisan majority vote for Mr. Brennan in the Senate Intelligence Committee without giving its members seven additional legal opinions on targeted killing sought by senators and while protecting what the White House views as the confidentiality of the Justice Department’s legal advice to the president. It would allow Mr. Brennan’s nomination to go to the Senate floor even if one or two Democrats vote no to protest the refusal to share more legal memos.
At issue is the critical question of how Congress conducts oversight of a shadow war against people suspected of being terrorists. The administration routinely reports on its lethal drone strikes to both the Senate and the House Intelligence and Armed Services Committees, but it has long rebuffed Congressional attempts to see the legal opinions that authorize the strikes — let alone requests to make them public.
Only after an unclassified Justice Department white paper summarizing the legal arguments was leaked to NBC News this month did the administration make two legal opinions on the targeted killing of American citizens briefly available to members of the Intelligence Committees.
But the documents were available to be viewed only for a limited time and only by senators themselves, not their lawyers and experts.
The arrangement frustrated members of the committee, who were not allowed to have their staff members study the highly complex legal opinions. But the reinvigorated public discussion set off by the nomination of Mr. Brennan has raised hopes in Congress that the debate will continue even if he is confirmed.
The refusal so far to share more of the opinions with Congress, or to make redacted versions of the memos public, comes despite a pledge of greater transparency by President Obama in his State of the Union address on Feb. 12.
“I recognize that in our democracy, no one should just take my word that we’re doing things the right way,” the president said. “So, in the months ahead, I will continue to engage with Congress to ensure not only that our targeting, detention and prosecution of terrorists remains consistent with our laws and system of checks and balances, but that our efforts are even more transparent to the American people and to the world.”
The chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, Democrat of California, has long called for all Justice Department legal opinions on intelligence to go to the committee. But a spokesman said she did not believe the issue should block Mr. Brennan’s confirmation.
The votes of at least two other Democratic senators who feel strongly about greater access to the legal opinions, Ron Wyden of Oregon and Mark Udall of Colorado, are less certain.
“I still have a number of unanswered questions about the president’s authority to kill Americans who are deemed to be a threat to the United States,” Mr. Wyden said.
He said that he was “encouraged” by Mr. Obama’s promise of greater transparency in the State of the Union address but that “the administration has not yet lived up to that commitment.”
The administration is currently in discussions with Republican members of the Intelligence Committee about providing the trail of e-mails that were the basis of “talking points” from the intelligence agencies regarding the Sept. 11 attack in Benghazi, which killed the American ambassador to Libya, J. Christopher Stevens, and three other Americans. Such a concession would probably win at least some Republican votes for Mr. Brennan.
By most accounts, Mr. Brennan is likely to be confirmed as director of the C.I.A., in part because some human rights advocates who were once deeply skeptical about his record are now ambivalent.
Four years ago, a swell of criticism of Mr. Brennan’s association with the Bush administration’s detention and interrogation program short-circuited Mr. Brennan’s bid to become Mr. Obama’s first C.I.A. director. He withdrew his name from consideration for the job, and wrote a sharply worded letter to Mr. Obama in November 2008 accusing critics of distorting his record.
In his subsequent appointment as Mr. Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, Mr. Brennan has become the American official most closely associated with the drone program, also a target of human rights groups. But he has also won some respect from the groups, which have come to see him as a voice for some of their concerns in internal deliberations.
“There are certainly people who see Brennan as a symbol of programs they disapprove of, particularly the drone program,” said Tom Malinowski, Washington director of Human Rights Watch. “In my case, though there are issues on which he and I would undoubtedly disagree, I noticed that of all the senior people on the president’s national security team, no one seemed more willing to argue that counterterrorism needed to have a moral dimension and to be grounded in the rule of law.”
Tommy Vietor, a spokesman for the National Security Council, said that human rights groups once had a “fun-house mirror” picture of Mr. Brennan.
But over the past four years, he said, Mr. Brennan’s stances on issues like closing the prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, have won him praise from current and former members of the Obama administration who have long been vocal about human rights issues.
One of those people, Harold Hongju Koh, a former State Department legal adviser, said that rights groups should embrace Mr. Brennan’s nomination.
“Who would they rather have, and why would that person promote their values as C.I.A. director more than John Brennan?” Mr. Koh asked.
But the continuing secrecy around the drone program remains a stumbling block for some advocates.
“We have this drone war, and the American public has no idea what the rules are, and Congress doesn’t know much more,” said Virginia E. Sloan, president of the Constitution Project, a civil liberties group in Washington. “YouTube appearances and speeches,” she said, referring to the president’s online appearances and officials’ public remarks, “are absolutely no substitute for having the actual memos in hand.”
Elisa Massimino, president of Human Rights First, an advocacy group, said the administration had a long way to go to fulfill its promise of greater openness.
“President Obama and Mr. Brennan have both pledged transparency,” she said. “Let’s see it.”
© 2012 The New York Times Company
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Oscar Nominated Palestinian Filmmaker Detained at Los Angeles Airport
Published on Wednesday, February 20, 2013 by Common Dreams
Oscar Nominated Palestinian Filmmaker Detained at Los Angeles Airport
'When you live under occupation, with no rights, this is a daily occurrence'
- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer
Oscar nominated Palestinian filmmaker Emad Burnat was detained at Los Angeles International Airport Tuesday night with his wife and 8-year-old son, who had all arrived in Los Angeles ahead of the Academy Awards.
Despite showing immigration officers the Oscar invitation for his critically acclaimed film 5 Broken Cameras, Burnat and his family were held for 90 minutes. Officers told Burnat he did not have permission to enter the United States and threatened to send him "back to Palestine."
It wasn't until Burnat contacted his friend Michael Moore, who in turn contacted lawyers and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that Burnat and his family were allowed to enter the country.
"Apparently the Immigration & Customs officers couldn't understand how a Palestinian could be an Oscar nominee. Emad texted me for help," Moore tweeted Wednesday.
"It's nothing I'm not already used to," Emad later told Moore. "When you live under occupation, with no rights, this is a daily occurrence."
Burnat's film is nominated for Best Documentary.
The film tells the story of the residents of a small village, Bil’in, in the West Bank, and their fight to stop to the expansion of the Israeli separation wall on their land and the continued spread of illegal Jewish settlements.
Burnat would be the first Palestinian to win an Oscar.
Watch the trailer for 5 Broken Cameras:
Below Burnat and co-director Israeli activist Guy Davidi discuss the film with Laura Flanders:
Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/02/20-4
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Oscar Nominated Palestinian Filmmaker Detained at Los Angeles Airport
'When you live under occupation, with no rights, this is a daily occurrence'
- Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer
Oscar nominated Palestinian filmmaker Emad Burnat was detained at Los Angeles International Airport Tuesday night with his wife and 8-year-old son, who had all arrived in Los Angeles ahead of the Academy Awards.
Despite showing immigration officers the Oscar invitation for his critically acclaimed film 5 Broken Cameras, Burnat and his family were held for 90 minutes. Officers told Burnat he did not have permission to enter the United States and threatened to send him "back to Palestine."
It wasn't until Burnat contacted his friend Michael Moore, who in turn contacted lawyers and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences that Burnat and his family were allowed to enter the country.
"Apparently the Immigration & Customs officers couldn't understand how a Palestinian could be an Oscar nominee. Emad texted me for help," Moore tweeted Wednesday.
"It's nothing I'm not already used to," Emad later told Moore. "When you live under occupation, with no rights, this is a daily occurrence."
Burnat's film is nominated for Best Documentary.
The film tells the story of the residents of a small village, Bil’in, in the West Bank, and their fight to stop to the expansion of the Israeli separation wall on their land and the continued spread of illegal Jewish settlements.
Burnat would be the first Palestinian to win an Oscar.
Watch the trailer for 5 Broken Cameras:
Below Burnat and co-director Israeli activist Guy Davidi discuss the film with Laura Flanders:
Source URL: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/02/20-4
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Climate change is destroying American jobs right now — but climate protection will produce millions of new jobs.
How EPA Climate Protection Can Be America’s Greatest Jobs Producer
Climate change is destroying American jobs right now — but climate protection will produce millions of new jobs.
by Jeremy Brecher
Published by Portside
February 20, 2013
As our country is devastated by more and more severe droughts, floods, fires, and superstorms, the public is demanding regulation of the greenhouse gasses that cause climate change. The corporations that profit from coal, oil, and gas fear such regulation will reduce their profits and the value of their investments. They and their political mouthpieces have a solution, however: persuade the public that regulation of greenhouse gasses will destroy American jobs. The truth? Climate change is destroying American jobs right now — but climate protection will produce millions of new jobs. Here’s why.
Climate change is causing extreme weather. The giant reinsurance company Munich Re, which has gathered the world’s most comprehensive database of natural disasters, concludes that worldwide, “Floods have more than tripled since 1980, and windstorm natural catastrophes more than doubled, with particularly heavy losses from Atlantic hurricanes. This rise can only be explained by global warming.”
Floods, fires, droughts, and storms related to climate change are devastating not only health and the environment, but also the US economy. Superstorm Sandy alone caused an estimated $80 billion in damage. The drought that affected 80% of US farmland last summer destroyed a quarter of the US corn crop, stalled transportation on the Mississippi River, raised food and energy prices nationwide, and did at least $20 billion damage to the economy.
What does all this have to do with jobs? Consider Sandy. According to Mark Zandi, the Chief Economist of Moody’s Analytics: “Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on the job market in November, slicing an estimated 86,000 jobs from payrolls.” What kind of jobs? “The manufacturing, retailing, leisure and hospitality, and temporary help industries were hit particularly hard by the storm.”
But isn’t that kind of job loss just temporary? Consider hurricane Katrina. In 2004 the New Orleans region had 671,000 jobs. Katrina wiped out 129,000 of them — about twenty percent. In 2011, the region had 90,000 fewer jobs than on the eve of Katrina.
The economic threat of climate change isn’t limited to hurricanes. Heat waves increase energy costs and cause droughts, which kill crops and increase food prices. Floods destroy houses, businesses, and infrastructure. Closed businesses and lost earnings represent an economic loss that can never be recovered. The devastating health effects of extreme weather like heat waves and floods not only harm individuals but represent a cost for the whole economy.
EPA regulation promotes jobs
Many studies have documented the beneficial effects of EPA regulations. Research by the EPA indicates that as of 2008, environmental protection created a net positive increase of 1.7 million jobs. A study by the Office of Management and Budget found that EPA air and water regulations from 1999 to 2009 cost $26-29 billion annually but produced benefits from $82-533 billion. EPA regulation has led to the development of the rapidly growing environmental control industry. It has encouraged technical innovation, such as the development of catalytic converters, which has made the US one of the world’s leading exporters of environmental control technologies.
When the EPA issued new fuel efficiency standards for vehicles and pollution standards for new power plants, they won wide support among unions that represent the workers affected by them. Ten major unions joined environmental groups to issue a statement supporting “the actions by the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act” and urging Congress to “reject efforts to weaken this authority.” Their release on the statement was headed, “BlueGreen Alliance brings Together Unions and Environmentalists in Support of EPA Efforts to Protect Public Health and Safety.” It noted that, complemented by clean energy policies, regulations will create jobs and increase America’s economic competitiveness. Unions supporting the statement included the Steelworkers, Communications Workers, Service Workers, Laborers, Utility Workers, American Federation of Teachers, Transit Workers, Sheet Metal Workers, Auto Workers, and United Food and Commercial Workers.
The evidence supports the jobs benefits of EPA regulation of greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act. For example, a study by Ceres and the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts titled New Jobs — Cleaner Air: Employment Effects of Planned Changes in the EPA’s Air Pollution Rules, examines the jobs effects of some of the new regulations — ones that have been harshly attacked by EPA critics. This well-documented study finds that far from being “job killers,” the new regulations will create nearly 300,000 new jobs, especially skilled, high-pay jobs for engineers, project managers, electricians, boilermakers, pipefitters, millwrights, and iron workers. The regulations would lead to net job increases of more than 120,000 job years in Illinois, 123,000 in Virginia, 113,000 in Tennessee, 76,000 in North Carolina, and 76,000 in Ohio. The study points out that regulation will have many other benefits in addition to increased employment. It will ensure cleaner air, improve public health, promote more efficient, more competitive technologies, reduce greenhouse gasses, and increase state tax revenues. And it will stimulate “induced jobs” that result when workers have money in their pockets to buy things made or sold by other workers.
A Just Transition
All industrial modernization — whether for protecting the environment, increasing productivity, improving the product or any other reason — threatens to eliminate some jobs in obsolete and less efficient facilities. So while the transition to a new energy economy will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, it will also eliminate some existing jobs. The fact that many states and many workers will get new green jobs provides little solace for the people and communities who have lost theirs through no fault of their own.
It is a basic principle of fairness that the burden of policies that are necessary for society — like protecting the environment — shouldn’t be borne by a small minority who happen to be victimized by their side effects. Unless workers and communities are protected against the unintended effects of the transition to a new energy economy, there is likely to be a backlash that threatens the whole effort to protect the environment — and to save the planet. Not only that, the beneficial job creation that comes from appropriate environmental regulation will be lost. How can public policy forestall such undesirable side effects?
A good model here could be the highly successful process that helped local communities adjust to the disruption and job shifting that resulted from the closing of military bases under the Base Realignment and Closing Commission (BRAC). Those communities were provided a wide range of federal assistance, including, planning and economic adjustment assistance, environmental cleanup, Community Development Block Grants and Community Service Grants.
Workers dislocated by base closings also received extensive support. The Department of Defense itself provided advance notification of a reduction in force; pre-separation counseling; a hiring preference system with federal agencies to re-employ qualified displaced DOD employees; financial incentives to encourage early retirement of those eligible. Workers affected by base closings were also eligible for help under National Emergency Grants, “Rapid Response” programs, comprehensive assessments and development of individual employment plans and job training.
Communities and individuals affected by energy transition in general and EPA regulations in particular could be similarly targeted for assistance from such existing programs as the Department of Labor’s Rapid Response Services and the National Emergency Grants of the DOL’s Employment and Training Administration, as well as funding for economic development and industrial efficiency and modernization from the Departments of Energy and Commerce.
Because the needed resources are scattered among many different government agencies, the first step might well be for President Barack Obama to establish an interagency task force composed of U.S. agency officials overseeing issues of employment, energy and the environment. Their first task could be to create a transition package for coal miners, utility workers and other affected workers that would provide robust financial and training support and preferential access to the new jobs created by environmental policies. That could be combined with vigorous support for economic planning and investment in the affected communities, focusing on the development of new clean energy industries. Think of it as a GI Bill for displaced workers and their communities.
Climate protection: A new jobs program?
The next item on the EPA climate-protection agenda is regulation of emissions from existing power plants. Predictably, opponents are claiming that such regulation will be “bad for jobs.” The opposite is the case: EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions will be positive both for jobs and for the broader economy.
How many and what kind of jobs EPA regulation will create of course depends on the specific rules it establishes. Let’s consider one example. A study by Synapse Energy Economics developed a Transition Scenario for the electric power industry based on reducing energy consumption, phasing out high-emission power plants, and building new, lower-emission energy facilities. The study estimated the number of “job years” — one new worker employed for one year — that would be created by the Transition Scenario over a decade.
• 444,000 job-years for construction workers, equivalent to 44,400 construction workers working full time for the entire decade.
• 90,000 job-years for operations and maintenance workers, equivalent to about 9,000 full time workers employed over the decade.
• 3.1 million indirect jobs for people designing, manufacturing, and delivering materials and jobs in local economies around the country induced by spending by workers hired in the Transition Scenario.
Of course, this is only one piece of the climate-protection puzzle. A comprehensive program to convert to a climate safe economy will produce tens of millions of jobs.
When the US went from the Great Depression to World War II, it created millions of new jobs making the products needed for the war. Faced with the devastating threat of global warming, the best protection for the future of our jobs and our communities is to create millions of jobs making what we need to protect us against climate change.
[Jeremy Brecher is a historian whose new book Save the Humans? Common Preservation in Action, published by Paradigm Publishers, addresses how social movements make social change. He currently works with the Labor Network for Sustainability. This piece is drawn from a longer, footnoted discussion paper available here]
Posted by Portside on February 20, 2013
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Climate change is destroying American jobs right now — but climate protection will produce millions of new jobs.
by Jeremy Brecher
Published by Portside
February 20, 2013
As our country is devastated by more and more severe droughts, floods, fires, and superstorms, the public is demanding regulation of the greenhouse gasses that cause climate change. The corporations that profit from coal, oil, and gas fear such regulation will reduce their profits and the value of their investments. They and their political mouthpieces have a solution, however: persuade the public that regulation of greenhouse gasses will destroy American jobs. The truth? Climate change is destroying American jobs right now — but climate protection will produce millions of new jobs. Here’s why.
Climate change is causing extreme weather. The giant reinsurance company Munich Re, which has gathered the world’s most comprehensive database of natural disasters, concludes that worldwide, “Floods have more than tripled since 1980, and windstorm natural catastrophes more than doubled, with particularly heavy losses from Atlantic hurricanes. This rise can only be explained by global warming.”
Floods, fires, droughts, and storms related to climate change are devastating not only health and the environment, but also the US economy. Superstorm Sandy alone caused an estimated $80 billion in damage. The drought that affected 80% of US farmland last summer destroyed a quarter of the US corn crop, stalled transportation on the Mississippi River, raised food and energy prices nationwide, and did at least $20 billion damage to the economy.
What does all this have to do with jobs? Consider Sandy. According to Mark Zandi, the Chief Economist of Moody’s Analytics: “Superstorm Sandy wreaked havoc on the job market in November, slicing an estimated 86,000 jobs from payrolls.” What kind of jobs? “The manufacturing, retailing, leisure and hospitality, and temporary help industries were hit particularly hard by the storm.”
But isn’t that kind of job loss just temporary? Consider hurricane Katrina. In 2004 the New Orleans region had 671,000 jobs. Katrina wiped out 129,000 of them — about twenty percent. In 2011, the region had 90,000 fewer jobs than on the eve of Katrina.
The economic threat of climate change isn’t limited to hurricanes. Heat waves increase energy costs and cause droughts, which kill crops and increase food prices. Floods destroy houses, businesses, and infrastructure. Closed businesses and lost earnings represent an economic loss that can never be recovered. The devastating health effects of extreme weather like heat waves and floods not only harm individuals but represent a cost for the whole economy.
EPA regulation promotes jobs
Many studies have documented the beneficial effects of EPA regulations. Research by the EPA indicates that as of 2008, environmental protection created a net positive increase of 1.7 million jobs. A study by the Office of Management and Budget found that EPA air and water regulations from 1999 to 2009 cost $26-29 billion annually but produced benefits from $82-533 billion. EPA regulation has led to the development of the rapidly growing environmental control industry. It has encouraged technical innovation, such as the development of catalytic converters, which has made the US one of the world’s leading exporters of environmental control technologies.
When the EPA issued new fuel efficiency standards for vehicles and pollution standards for new power plants, they won wide support among unions that represent the workers affected by them. Ten major unions joined environmental groups to issue a statement supporting “the actions by the Environmental Protection Agency to regulate greenhouse gas emissions under the Clean Air Act” and urging Congress to “reject efforts to weaken this authority.” Their release on the statement was headed, “BlueGreen Alliance brings Together Unions and Environmentalists in Support of EPA Efforts to Protect Public Health and Safety.” It noted that, complemented by clean energy policies, regulations will create jobs and increase America’s economic competitiveness. Unions supporting the statement included the Steelworkers, Communications Workers, Service Workers, Laborers, Utility Workers, American Federation of Teachers, Transit Workers, Sheet Metal Workers, Auto Workers, and United Food and Commercial Workers.
The evidence supports the jobs benefits of EPA regulation of greenhouse gasses under the Clean Air Act. For example, a study by Ceres and the Political Economy Research Institute of the University of Massachusetts titled New Jobs — Cleaner Air: Employment Effects of Planned Changes in the EPA’s Air Pollution Rules, examines the jobs effects of some of the new regulations — ones that have been harshly attacked by EPA critics. This well-documented study finds that far from being “job killers,” the new regulations will create nearly 300,000 new jobs, especially skilled, high-pay jobs for engineers, project managers, electricians, boilermakers, pipefitters, millwrights, and iron workers. The regulations would lead to net job increases of more than 120,000 job years in Illinois, 123,000 in Virginia, 113,000 in Tennessee, 76,000 in North Carolina, and 76,000 in Ohio. The study points out that regulation will have many other benefits in addition to increased employment. It will ensure cleaner air, improve public health, promote more efficient, more competitive technologies, reduce greenhouse gasses, and increase state tax revenues. And it will stimulate “induced jobs” that result when workers have money in their pockets to buy things made or sold by other workers.
A Just Transition
All industrial modernization — whether for protecting the environment, increasing productivity, improving the product or any other reason — threatens to eliminate some jobs in obsolete and less efficient facilities. So while the transition to a new energy economy will create hundreds of thousands of new jobs, it will also eliminate some existing jobs. The fact that many states and many workers will get new green jobs provides little solace for the people and communities who have lost theirs through no fault of their own.
It is a basic principle of fairness that the burden of policies that are necessary for society — like protecting the environment — shouldn’t be borne by a small minority who happen to be victimized by their side effects. Unless workers and communities are protected against the unintended effects of the transition to a new energy economy, there is likely to be a backlash that threatens the whole effort to protect the environment — and to save the planet. Not only that, the beneficial job creation that comes from appropriate environmental regulation will be lost. How can public policy forestall such undesirable side effects?
A good model here could be the highly successful process that helped local communities adjust to the disruption and job shifting that resulted from the closing of military bases under the Base Realignment and Closing Commission (BRAC). Those communities were provided a wide range of federal assistance, including, planning and economic adjustment assistance, environmental cleanup, Community Development Block Grants and Community Service Grants.
Workers dislocated by base closings also received extensive support. The Department of Defense itself provided advance notification of a reduction in force; pre-separation counseling; a hiring preference system with federal agencies to re-employ qualified displaced DOD employees; financial incentives to encourage early retirement of those eligible. Workers affected by base closings were also eligible for help under National Emergency Grants, “Rapid Response” programs, comprehensive assessments and development of individual employment plans and job training.
Communities and individuals affected by energy transition in general and EPA regulations in particular could be similarly targeted for assistance from such existing programs as the Department of Labor’s Rapid Response Services and the National Emergency Grants of the DOL’s Employment and Training Administration, as well as funding for economic development and industrial efficiency and modernization from the Departments of Energy and Commerce.
Because the needed resources are scattered among many different government agencies, the first step might well be for President Barack Obama to establish an interagency task force composed of U.S. agency officials overseeing issues of employment, energy and the environment. Their first task could be to create a transition package for coal miners, utility workers and other affected workers that would provide robust financial and training support and preferential access to the new jobs created by environmental policies. That could be combined with vigorous support for economic planning and investment in the affected communities, focusing on the development of new clean energy industries. Think of it as a GI Bill for displaced workers and their communities.
Climate protection: A new jobs program?
The next item on the EPA climate-protection agenda is regulation of emissions from existing power plants. Predictably, opponents are claiming that such regulation will be “bad for jobs.” The opposite is the case: EPA regulation of greenhouse gas emissions will be positive both for jobs and for the broader economy.
How many and what kind of jobs EPA regulation will create of course depends on the specific rules it establishes. Let’s consider one example. A study by Synapse Energy Economics developed a Transition Scenario for the electric power industry based on reducing energy consumption, phasing out high-emission power plants, and building new, lower-emission energy facilities. The study estimated the number of “job years” — one new worker employed for one year — that would be created by the Transition Scenario over a decade.
• 444,000 job-years for construction workers, equivalent to 44,400 construction workers working full time for the entire decade.
• 90,000 job-years for operations and maintenance workers, equivalent to about 9,000 full time workers employed over the decade.
• 3.1 million indirect jobs for people designing, manufacturing, and delivering materials and jobs in local economies around the country induced by spending by workers hired in the Transition Scenario.
Of course, this is only one piece of the climate-protection puzzle. A comprehensive program to convert to a climate safe economy will produce tens of millions of jobs.
When the US went from the Great Depression to World War II, it created millions of new jobs making the products needed for the war. Faced with the devastating threat of global warming, the best protection for the future of our jobs and our communities is to create millions of jobs making what we need to protect us against climate change.
[Jeremy Brecher is a historian whose new book Save the Humans? Common Preservation in Action, published by Paradigm Publishers, addresses how social movements make social change. He currently works with the Labor Network for Sustainability. This piece is drawn from a longer, footnoted discussion paper available here]
Posted by Portside on February 20, 2013
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Chinese Plan to Kill Drug Lord With Drone Highlights Military Advances
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/21/world/asia/chinese-plan-to-use-drone-highlights-military-advances.html?nl=todaysheadlines&emc=edit_th_20130221&_r=0
February 20, 2013
Chinese Plan to Kill Drug Lord With Drone Highlights Military Advances
By JANE PERLEZ
BEIJING — China considered using a drone strike in a mountainous region of Southeast Asia to kill a Myanmar drug lord wanted in the murders of 13 Chinese sailors, but decided instead to capture him alive, according to an influential state-run newspaper.
The plan to use a drone, described to the Global Times newspaper by a senior public security official, highlights China’s increasing advances in unmanned aerial warfare, a technology dominated by the United States and used widely by the Obama administration for the targeted killing of terrorists.
Liu Yuejin, the director of the Ministry of Public Security’s antidrug bureau, told the newspaper in an article published online on Tuesday that the plan called for using a drone carrying explosives to bomb the outlaw’s hide-out in the opium-growing area of Myanmar, in the Golden Triangle at the intersection of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
China’s law enforcement officials were under pressure from an outraged public to take action after 13 Chinese sailors on two cargo ships laden with narcotics were killed in October 2011 on the Mekong River. Photos of the dead sailors, their bodies gagged and blindfolded and some with head wounds suggesting execution-style killings, circulated on China’s Internet.
It was one of the most brutal assaults on Chinese citizens abroad in recent years. Naw Kham, a member of Myanmar’s ethnic Shan minority and a major drug trafficker, was suspected in the murders.
A manhunt by the Chinese police in the jungles of the Golden Triangle produced no results, and security officials turned to a drone strike as a possible solution.
Dennis M. Gormley, an expert on unmanned aircraft at the University of Pittsburgh, said of the reported Chinese deliberations, “Separating fact from fiction here is difficult.” But he added, “Given the gruesome nature of the 2011 killings and the Chinese public’s outcry for action, it’s not at all surprising to imagine China employing an armed drone over Myanmar’s territory.”
Mr. Gormley said the decision not to carry out a drone strike might reflect a lack of confidence in untested Chinese craft, control systems or drone pilots. “I think China’s still not ready for prime time using armed drones, but they surely will be with a few more years of determined practice,” he said. “And they surely will have America’s armed drone practice as a convenient cover for legitimating their own practice.”
China’s global navigation system, Beidou, would have been used to guide the drones to the target, Mr. Liu said. China’s goal is for the Beidou system to compete with the United States’ Global Positioning System, Russia’s Glonass and the European Union’s Galileo, Chinese experts say.
Mr. Liu’s comments on the use of the Beidou system with the drones reflects the rapid advancement in that navigation system from its humble beginnings more than a decade ago.
The experimental navigation system was started in 2000 and has since expanded to 16 navigation satellites over Asia and the Pacific Ocean, according to an article in Wednesday’s China Daily, an English-language state-run newspaper. The Chinese military, particularly the navy, is now conducting patrols and training exercises using Beidou, the paper said.
As an example, China Daily quoted the information chief at the headquarters of the North Sea Fleet, Lei Xiwei, as saying a fleet with the missile destroyer Qingdao, along with the missile frigates Yantai and Yancheng, entered the South China Sea on Feb. 1 using the Beidou navigation system to provide positioning, security and protection for the fleet.
As China has been vastly improving its navigation system, it is also making fast progress with drones, and many manufacturers for the military have research centers devoted to unmanned aerial vehicles, according to a report last year by the Defense Science Board of the Pentagon.
Two Chinese drones, apparently modeled on the American Reaper and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, were unveiled at the Zhuhai air show in November. A larger drone Western experts say is akin to the American RQ-4 Global Hawk is also known to be in the Chinese arsenal.
One of the Chinese drones, the CH-4, had a range of about 2,200 miles and was ideal for surveillance missions over islands in the East China Sea that are the subject of a dispute between China and Japan, an official with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said at the Zhuhai air show.
China has acknowledged a pilot program that uses drones as part of its stepped-up surveillance of its coastal areas, as well as in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.
The State Oceanic Administration has said that by 2015, it plans to use drones along China’s coastline on a permanent basis and will establish monitoring bases in provinces along the coastline for drones.
As for Naw Kham, the fugitive, he was captured by Laotian authorities at the Mekong River port of Mong Mo after a six-month hunt in the jungles of the Golden Triangle by the combined police forces of China, Myanmar, Thailand and Laos. After his extradition to China, Naw Kham received a death sentence from a Chinese court in Yunnan Province and awaits execution.
“We didn’t use China’s military, and we didn’t harm a single foreign citizen,” Mr. Liu bragged after the arrest in April 2012.
Scott Shane contributed reporting from Washington. Bree Feng contributed research from Beijing.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
February 20, 2013
Chinese Plan to Kill Drug Lord With Drone Highlights Military Advances
By JANE PERLEZ
BEIJING — China considered using a drone strike in a mountainous region of Southeast Asia to kill a Myanmar drug lord wanted in the murders of 13 Chinese sailors, but decided instead to capture him alive, according to an influential state-run newspaper.
The plan to use a drone, described to the Global Times newspaper by a senior public security official, highlights China’s increasing advances in unmanned aerial warfare, a technology dominated by the United States and used widely by the Obama administration for the targeted killing of terrorists.
Liu Yuejin, the director of the Ministry of Public Security’s antidrug bureau, told the newspaper in an article published online on Tuesday that the plan called for using a drone carrying explosives to bomb the outlaw’s hide-out in the opium-growing area of Myanmar, in the Golden Triangle at the intersection of Laos, Thailand and Vietnam.
China’s law enforcement officials were under pressure from an outraged public to take action after 13 Chinese sailors on two cargo ships laden with narcotics were killed in October 2011 on the Mekong River. Photos of the dead sailors, their bodies gagged and blindfolded and some with head wounds suggesting execution-style killings, circulated on China’s Internet.
It was one of the most brutal assaults on Chinese citizens abroad in recent years. Naw Kham, a member of Myanmar’s ethnic Shan minority and a major drug trafficker, was suspected in the murders.
A manhunt by the Chinese police in the jungles of the Golden Triangle produced no results, and security officials turned to a drone strike as a possible solution.
Dennis M. Gormley, an expert on unmanned aircraft at the University of Pittsburgh, said of the reported Chinese deliberations, “Separating fact from fiction here is difficult.” But he added, “Given the gruesome nature of the 2011 killings and the Chinese public’s outcry for action, it’s not at all surprising to imagine China employing an armed drone over Myanmar’s territory.”
Mr. Gormley said the decision not to carry out a drone strike might reflect a lack of confidence in untested Chinese craft, control systems or drone pilots. “I think China’s still not ready for prime time using armed drones, but they surely will be with a few more years of determined practice,” he said. “And they surely will have America’s armed drone practice as a convenient cover for legitimating their own practice.”
China’s global navigation system, Beidou, would have been used to guide the drones to the target, Mr. Liu said. China’s goal is for the Beidou system to compete with the United States’ Global Positioning System, Russia’s Glonass and the European Union’s Galileo, Chinese experts say.
Mr. Liu’s comments on the use of the Beidou system with the drones reflects the rapid advancement in that navigation system from its humble beginnings more than a decade ago.
The experimental navigation system was started in 2000 and has since expanded to 16 navigation satellites over Asia and the Pacific Ocean, according to an article in Wednesday’s China Daily, an English-language state-run newspaper. The Chinese military, particularly the navy, is now conducting patrols and training exercises using Beidou, the paper said.
As an example, China Daily quoted the information chief at the headquarters of the North Sea Fleet, Lei Xiwei, as saying a fleet with the missile destroyer Qingdao, along with the missile frigates Yantai and Yancheng, entered the South China Sea on Feb. 1 using the Beidou navigation system to provide positioning, security and protection for the fleet.
As China has been vastly improving its navigation system, it is also making fast progress with drones, and many manufacturers for the military have research centers devoted to unmanned aerial vehicles, according to a report last year by the Defense Science Board of the Pentagon.
Two Chinese drones, apparently modeled on the American Reaper and Predator unmanned aerial vehicles, were unveiled at the Zhuhai air show in November. A larger drone Western experts say is akin to the American RQ-4 Global Hawk is also known to be in the Chinese arsenal.
One of the Chinese drones, the CH-4, had a range of about 2,200 miles and was ideal for surveillance missions over islands in the East China Sea that are the subject of a dispute between China and Japan, an official with the China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation said at the Zhuhai air show.
China has acknowledged a pilot program that uses drones as part of its stepped-up surveillance of its coastal areas, as well as in the South China Sea and the East China Sea.
The State Oceanic Administration has said that by 2015, it plans to use drones along China’s coastline on a permanent basis and will establish monitoring bases in provinces along the coastline for drones.
As for Naw Kham, the fugitive, he was captured by Laotian authorities at the Mekong River port of Mong Mo after a six-month hunt in the jungles of the Golden Triangle by the combined police forces of China, Myanmar, Thailand and Laos. After his extradition to China, Naw Kham received a death sentence from a Chinese court in Yunnan Province and awaits execution.
“We didn’t use China’s military, and we didn’t harm a single foreign citizen,” Mr. Liu bragged after the arrest in April 2012.
Scott Shane contributed reporting from Washington. Bree Feng contributed research from Beijing.
© 2012 The New York Times Company
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
Wednesday, February 20, 2013
Baltimore Activist Alert - Part 3
53] Drone protest – Feb. 20
54] Riot for Rights! – Feb. 20
55] MONEY IN POLITICS – Feb. 20
56] What’s To Be Done? – Feb. 20
57] Panel Discussion on the Cuban 5 – Feb. 20
58] Drone protest at DOJ – Feb. 21
59] Forum on the “Black Messiah” – Feb. 21
60] Propaganda & Culture – Feb. 21
61] Film "Within the eye of the storm" – Feb. 21
62] Forum on the Prevention of Gun Violence – Feb. 21
63] “Vagina Monologues” – Feb. 21-23
64] Gun violence prevention rally - Mar. 1
65] “Prosperity Not Austerity" bus tour – Mar. 23
66] MUPJ Conference – Apr. 12 & 13, 2013
67] Support Red Emma’s in its move
68] Symposium needs support
69] Do you possess any Tom Lewis artwork?
70] Sign up with Washington Peace Center
71] Join Fund Our Communities
72] Submit articles to Indypendent Reader
73] Donate books, videos, DVDs and records
74] Do you need any book shelves?
75] Join Global Zero campaign
76] Digital Information and the Criminal Justice System
77] War Is Not the Answer signs for sale
78] Click on The Hunger Site
79] Fire & Faith
80] Join Peace Park Antinuclear Vigil
53] – On Wed., Feb. 20 at noon in the atrium of the Senate Hart Building, human rights activists will denounce the covert drone program with compelling visuals, and will visit Senator Dianne Feinstein’s office to demand an accounting of civilian casualties caused by CIA drones. Email noor.codepink@gmail.com.
54] – Riot for Rights! Gather for the 1-Year Anniversary of Pussy Riot Concert at Christ the Savior Cathedral on Wed., Feb. 20 from 4:30 to 6:30 PM at the Embassy of Russian Federation, 2650 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Join Amnesty International for the commemoration of Pussy Riot's protest by calling for their immediate and unconditional release, and demanding that Putin respect free expression and human rights. Re-enact the performance and dance in solidarity with Russian human rights defenders to raise the call again: Free Pussy Riot! Today, two of the women arrested in connection with the Pussy Riot performance are still held in infamous Siberian labor camps far from Moscow, while the third faces restrictions on her freedom of movement and speech. Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/527673360609378/.
55] – On Wed., Feb. 20 from 6:30 to 8 PM, The Baltimore MoveOn Council presents Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD 3rd Dist) and Charlie Cooper of Get Money Out – Maryland for a discussion of MONEY IN POLITICS at the Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation, 4 E. University Pkwy., Baltimore 21218-2437. Go to http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/event.html?event_id=137320.
56] – On Wed., Feb. 20 from 7 to 9 PM, hear details about the Report on 2012 IFPB Delegation to Palestine/Israel& a discussion on What’s To Be Done. Philip Farah, co-leader of the IFPB delegation will conduct a PowerPoint presentation of what the delegation saw and on what we heard from Palestinian and Israeli activists. He will also lead a brainstorming discussion of how solidarity groups in the U.S. can respond to the calls from Palestinian and Israeli activists. This event is intended primarily for persons already involved in Palestine/Israel peace & justice solidarity work, and follows several public presentations to diverse audiences in the Washington & Cleveland Metro areas on the May 2012 delegation. It will be held in the "Parlor" Room, Westmoreland Congregational UCC Church, 1 West Moreland Circle, Northwest Bethesda, MD 20816. RSVP at farahp@yahoo.com or 703-593-7982.
57] – Catch a Panel Discussion on the Cuban 5 on Wed., Feb. 20 at 7 PM at UMD College Park. The speakers are Bill Norris, trial and appeals attorney for Ramón Labañino, Kurt Schmoke, former dean, currently General Counsel, Howard Univ. School of Law, Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report, Brian Becker, coordinator, ANSWER Coalition, and José Pertierra, attorney for Venezuela in Posada extradition matter. Email info@freethefive.org.
58] – On Thurs., Feb. 21 at noon, get over to the Department of Justice, Constitution Ave. between 9th and 10th Sts. CODEPINK will bring a giant replica of the U.S. Constitution to the Justice Department, demanding that the Justice Department start respecting the document. Join them in exposing the illegality of drone strikes and pressuring the DOJ to release all legal opinions on targeted killing. CODEPINK will also deliver a petition to Attorney General Eric Holder. Email noor.codepink@gmail.com.
59] – Hear a forum on The “Black Messiah” The Life and Assassination of Malcolm X. Who Killed Him and Why? It takes place on Thurs., Feb. 21 from 6 to 9 PM at Blackburn Center, Room 155, Howard University. This forum will also cover the extensive programs, like COINTELPRO and CHAOS run by government agencies from the 1950s forward to neutralize, disrupt and destroy the leadership for social change in the United States, and the role of political assassinations in shaping the politics of America and the world. Email copa@starpower.net.
60] – The Free School & Peace House present Propaganda & Culture session led by Prof. Chris Simpson on Thurs., Feb. 21 from 7 to 9 PM at the Peace House, 1233 12th St. NW. The session includes high theory, low politics, a bit of history and an opportunity for you to plot an imaginary new phase in world domination by the forces of evil -- as well as the means to resist. Costumes welcome. Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/603944292955897/.
61] – On Thurs., Feb, 21 at 7 PM, see the film "Within the eye of the storm." Bassam and Rami, a Palestinian and Israeli, were once dedicated fighters willing to kill and be killed by one another for the sake of their nations. Yet each one of them came face to face with the price of war when their daughters were killed in the conflict. There will be a screening at Dumbarton UMC, DuPont Circle, 3133 Dumbarton Circle NW. Go to http://withineyeofstorm.com/.
62] – On Thurs., Feb, 21 at 7 PM, attend a Community Forum on the Prevention of Gun Violence at Saint Mark Presbyterian Church, 10701 Old Georgetown Road, North Bethesda, MD 20852. The forum, hosted by both the church and Congregation Beth El Synagogue, is expected to include remarks from state Sen. Bill Ferguson (D-Dist. 46); state Del. Bill Frick (D-Dist. 16); Montgomery County Councilwoman Nancy Floreen; Douglas Steel, with the Montgomery County Public Schools safety and security division; Montgomery County Assistant Police Chief Russell Hamill; and Dr. Gayle Jordan-Randolph, deputy secretary for behavioral health and disabilities in the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Contact Jennifer Carr at carr.jennifere@yahoo.com.
63] – THE 2013 VAGINA MONOLOGUES will be performed at American University on Thurs., Feb. 21 at 8 PM in Mary Graydon Center rooms 3, 4, and 5, Fri., Feb. 22 at 8 PM in Mary Graydon Center rooms 3, 4, and 5 and Sat., Feb. 23 at 1PM in the Kay Spiritual Life Center. The theater piece, presented by Women's Initiative and VDay American University, is celebrating its 15th anniversary of a series of monologues written by Eve Ensler.
Tickets cost $8 for AU students with ID and $10 for non-AU students. All proceeds from the show will benefit RAINN (http://www.rainn.org/), AYUDA (http://www.ayudainc.org/template/index.cfm), H.I.P.S. (http://hips.org/) and VDay International (http://www.vday.org/home). Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/341628059284360/.
64] – On Fri., Mar. 1, members of the legislature will meet for the first time to debate the governor’s common-sense proposals to reduce gun violence. Help represent what the vast majority of Marylanders want--sensible gun violence prevention measures. The rally will begin at 10:30 AM in Lawyers Mall, 100 State Circle, Annapolis (in front of the State Capitol), and buses are available from Baltimore. Go to http://marylanderstopreventgunviolence.org/march-1st-rally-to-prevent-gun-violence/.
65] – Fund Our Communities will begin its “Prosperity Not Austerity" bus tour/car caravan in Baltimore on Sat., Mar. 23. You can join the tour for the entire day, beginning at 9 AM, or you can participate by coming to one of the stops, each of which will include a program focused on different community needs. The tour will emphasize that we have tremendous unmet needs in our communities, while we are wasting many billions in unneeded military spending.
The tour schedule is as follows: 9 a.m.: Dallas F. Nicholas Senior Elementary School, 201 East 21st St, Baltimore. Address education funding need. 10:20: Amazing Grace Lutheran Church, 2424 McElderry St., Baltimore. Address food and health issues. 12:20: Prince Georges Social Services Office and Prince Georges Community College, Dept of Social Services, 6505 Belcrest Road, Hyattsville. Address funding needs for college students, jobs training, Medicaid, cash assistance for need. 2 p.m.: Silver Spring Library, 8902 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. Address services for all citizens, including libraries, parks, roads, public health, crisis services. 3:10: Hughes Neighborhood Housing, 10720 Georgia Ave., Wheaton. Address care of the most vulnerable, and in particular housing. 5 p.m.: U.S. Capitol—Rally. See also http://ourfunds.org.
66] – The 28th Annual Maryland Peace, Justice and the Environment Conference [www.mupj.org] will take place Fri., Apr. 12 and Sat., Apr. 13 at the Turner Memorial AME Church, 7201 16th Place, Hyattsville. Save these dates. Email paulette.d.hammond@questdiagnostics.com.
67] – Red Emma's is in the process of closing down the location at 800 St. Paul St., and reopening in a much larger new space on North Avenue in the fall. The collective is seeking your help. It's time to reinvent the project started in 2004 to build a self-sustaining progressive space in Baltimore, committed to providing a daily reminder that another world was possible and that there were people working in the city to build it.
Here's how you can help: donate money, buy books at the current store, provide skilled help, and share these needs. Email john@redemmas.org or go to http://indiegogo.com/redemmas2.
68] – The campaign has been extended to raise funds for the Symposium ‘Equitable and Sustainable Development: a Path Forward’ another two weeks. One of the presenters will be Donald Gresham from Community Housing and Relocation Working Group, a resident of the current unfair redevelopment in East Baltimore who continues to challenge EBDI, Hopkins, the Casey Foundation, and city and state official to come to the table and negotiate a community benefits agreement. Go to http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/equitable-and-sustainable-development-a-path-forward/x/1214770.
69] – Stephen Kobasa is hoping to do an exhibit of the work of Tom Lewis opening in May 2013 in New Haven, CT. It would include a variety of his paintings, drawings, silkscreen prints, book illustrations, posters, banners and sketchbooks. This would not only be a display of objects on a gallery wall, but would also involve events which would return Tom's art to the streets where it was originally meant to make conscience visible.
Contact Stephen if you are in possession of original work and would consider loaning it for a month long display. You can reach him at stephen.kobasa at gmail.com or 203-500-0268.
70] – The Washington Peace Center has a progressive calendar & activist alert! Consider signing up to receive its weekly email: info@washingtonpeacecenter.org.
71] – Fund Our Communities campaign is a grass roots movement to get support from local organizations and communities to work together with their local and state elected officials to pressure Congresspersons and senators to join with Congresspersons Barney Frank and Ron Paul, who have endorsed a 25% cut to the federal military budget. Bring home the savings to state and county governments to meet the local needs which are under tremendous budget pressures. Plan to join FOC on the March 23 Peace Bus from Baltimore to D.C. Go to www.OurFunds.org.
72] – MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD. Baltimore's Indypendent Reader is looking for individuals interested in creating media - written, photo, audio, or video - that relates to issues like...economic justice, race, prisons & policing, environment, gender & sexuality, war & peace and more! If you would like to create social justice media, then email indypendentreader@gmail.com. Visit http://www.indyreader.org.
73] – If you would like to get rid of books, videos, DVDs or records, contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.
74] – Can you use any book shelves? Contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.
75] – Join an extraordinary global campaign for the elimination of nuclear weapons: http://www.globalzero.org/sign-declaration. A growing group of leaders around the world is calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons and a majority of the global public agrees. This is an historic window of opportunity. With momentum already building in favor of Zero, a major show of support from people around the world could tip the balance. When it comes to nuclear weapons, one is one too many.
76] – Visit the Digital Information and the Criminal Justice System at http://www.onlinecriminaljusticedegree.com/. This link presents a wide range of insightful articles for criminal justice and legal professionals, both current and future. The project aims to be an objective, authoritative resource in the ever-changing court system.
77] – WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER signs from Friends Committee on National Legislation are again for sale at $5. To purchase a sign, call Max at 410-366-1637.
78] – The Hunger Site was initiated by Mercy Corps and Second Harvest, and is funded entirely by advertisers. You can go there every day and click the big yellow "Give Food for Free" button near the top of the page; you do not have to look at the ads. Each click generates funding for about 1.1 cups of food. So consider clicking.
79] – Go online for FIRE AND FAITH: The Catonsville Nine File. On May 17, 1968, nine people entered the Selective Service Offices in Catonsville, Maryland, and burned draft records in protest against the war in Vietnam. View http://www.prattlibrary.org/digital/.
80] – Peace Park Antinuclear Vigil takes place every day in Lafayette Park, 1601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 24 hours a day, since June 3, 1981. Go to http://prop1.org; call 202-682-4282.
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.
"One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the better" - Daniel Berrigan
54] Riot for Rights! – Feb. 20
55] MONEY IN POLITICS – Feb. 20
56] What’s To Be Done? – Feb. 20
57] Panel Discussion on the Cuban 5 – Feb. 20
58] Drone protest at DOJ – Feb. 21
59] Forum on the “Black Messiah” – Feb. 21
60] Propaganda & Culture – Feb. 21
61] Film "Within the eye of the storm" – Feb. 21
62] Forum on the Prevention of Gun Violence – Feb. 21
63] “Vagina Monologues” – Feb. 21-23
64] Gun violence prevention rally - Mar. 1
65] “Prosperity Not Austerity" bus tour – Mar. 23
66] MUPJ Conference – Apr. 12 & 13, 2013
67] Support Red Emma’s in its move
68] Symposium needs support
69] Do you possess any Tom Lewis artwork?
70] Sign up with Washington Peace Center
71] Join Fund Our Communities
72] Submit articles to Indypendent Reader
73] Donate books, videos, DVDs and records
74] Do you need any book shelves?
75] Join Global Zero campaign
76] Digital Information and the Criminal Justice System
77] War Is Not the Answer signs for sale
78] Click on The Hunger Site
79] Fire & Faith
80] Join Peace Park Antinuclear Vigil
53] – On Wed., Feb. 20 at noon in the atrium of the Senate Hart Building, human rights activists will denounce the covert drone program with compelling visuals, and will visit Senator Dianne Feinstein’s office to demand an accounting of civilian casualties caused by CIA drones. Email noor.codepink@gmail.com.
54] – Riot for Rights! Gather for the 1-Year Anniversary of Pussy Riot Concert at Christ the Savior Cathedral on Wed., Feb. 20 from 4:30 to 6:30 PM at the Embassy of Russian Federation, 2650 Wisconsin Ave. NW. Join Amnesty International for the commemoration of Pussy Riot's protest by calling for their immediate and unconditional release, and demanding that Putin respect free expression and human rights. Re-enact the performance and dance in solidarity with Russian human rights defenders to raise the call again: Free Pussy Riot! Today, two of the women arrested in connection with the Pussy Riot performance are still held in infamous Siberian labor camps far from Moscow, while the third faces restrictions on her freedom of movement and speech. Visit https://www.facebook.com/events/527673360609378/.
55] – On Wed., Feb. 20 from 6:30 to 8 PM, The Baltimore MoveOn Council presents Rep. John Sarbanes (D-MD 3rd Dist) and Charlie Cooper of Get Money Out – Maryland for a discussion of MONEY IN POLITICS at the Episcopal Cathedral of the Incarnation, 4 E. University Pkwy., Baltimore 21218-2437. Go to http://pol.moveon.org/event/events/event.html?event_id=137320.
56] – On Wed., Feb. 20 from 7 to 9 PM, hear details about the Report on 2012 IFPB Delegation to Palestine/Israel& a discussion on What’s To Be Done. Philip Farah, co-leader of the IFPB delegation will conduct a PowerPoint presentation of what the delegation saw and on what we heard from Palestinian and Israeli activists. He will also lead a brainstorming discussion of how solidarity groups in the U.S. can respond to the calls from Palestinian and Israeli activists. This event is intended primarily for persons already involved in Palestine/Israel peace & justice solidarity work, and follows several public presentations to diverse audiences in the Washington & Cleveland Metro areas on the May 2012 delegation. It will be held in the "Parlor" Room, Westmoreland Congregational UCC Church, 1 West Moreland Circle, Northwest Bethesda, MD 20816. RSVP at farahp@yahoo.com or 703-593-7982.
57] – Catch a Panel Discussion on the Cuban 5 on Wed., Feb. 20 at 7 PM at UMD College Park. The speakers are Bill Norris, trial and appeals attorney for Ramón Labañino, Kurt Schmoke, former dean, currently General Counsel, Howard Univ. School of Law, Glen Ford, Black Agenda Report, Brian Becker, coordinator, ANSWER Coalition, and José Pertierra, attorney for Venezuela in Posada extradition matter. Email info@freethefive.org.
58] – On Thurs., Feb. 21 at noon, get over to the Department of Justice, Constitution Ave. between 9th and 10th Sts. CODEPINK will bring a giant replica of the U.S. Constitution to the Justice Department, demanding that the Justice Department start respecting the document. Join them in exposing the illegality of drone strikes and pressuring the DOJ to release all legal opinions on targeted killing. CODEPINK will also deliver a petition to Attorney General Eric Holder. Email noor.codepink@gmail.com.
59] – Hear a forum on The “Black Messiah” The Life and Assassination of Malcolm X. Who Killed Him and Why? It takes place on Thurs., Feb. 21 from 6 to 9 PM at Blackburn Center, Room 155, Howard University. This forum will also cover the extensive programs, like COINTELPRO and CHAOS run by government agencies from the 1950s forward to neutralize, disrupt and destroy the leadership for social change in the United States, and the role of political assassinations in shaping the politics of America and the world. Email copa@starpower.net.
60] – The Free School & Peace House present Propaganda & Culture session led by Prof. Chris Simpson on Thurs., Feb. 21 from 7 to 9 PM at the Peace House, 1233 12th St. NW. The session includes high theory, low politics, a bit of history and an opportunity for you to plot an imaginary new phase in world domination by the forces of evil -- as well as the means to resist. Costumes welcome. Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/603944292955897/.
61] – On Thurs., Feb, 21 at 7 PM, see the film "Within the eye of the storm." Bassam and Rami, a Palestinian and Israeli, were once dedicated fighters willing to kill and be killed by one another for the sake of their nations. Yet each one of them came face to face with the price of war when their daughters were killed in the conflict. There will be a screening at Dumbarton UMC, DuPont Circle, 3133 Dumbarton Circle NW. Go to http://withineyeofstorm.com/.
62] – On Thurs., Feb, 21 at 7 PM, attend a Community Forum on the Prevention of Gun Violence at Saint Mark Presbyterian Church, 10701 Old Georgetown Road, North Bethesda, MD 20852. The forum, hosted by both the church and Congregation Beth El Synagogue, is expected to include remarks from state Sen. Bill Ferguson (D-Dist. 46); state Del. Bill Frick (D-Dist. 16); Montgomery County Councilwoman Nancy Floreen; Douglas Steel, with the Montgomery County Public Schools safety and security division; Montgomery County Assistant Police Chief Russell Hamill; and Dr. Gayle Jordan-Randolph, deputy secretary for behavioral health and disabilities in the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Contact Jennifer Carr at carr.jennifere@yahoo.com.
63] – THE 2013 VAGINA MONOLOGUES will be performed at American University on Thurs., Feb. 21 at 8 PM in Mary Graydon Center rooms 3, 4, and 5, Fri., Feb. 22 at 8 PM in Mary Graydon Center rooms 3, 4, and 5 and Sat., Feb. 23 at 1PM in the Kay Spiritual Life Center. The theater piece, presented by Women's Initiative and VDay American University, is celebrating its 15th anniversary of a series of monologues written by Eve Ensler.
Tickets cost $8 for AU students with ID and $10 for non-AU students. All proceeds from the show will benefit RAINN (http://www.rainn.org/), AYUDA (http://www.ayudainc.org/template/index.cfm), H.I.P.S. (http://hips.org/) and VDay International (http://www.vday.org/home). Go to https://www.facebook.com/events/341628059284360/.
64] – On Fri., Mar. 1, members of the legislature will meet for the first time to debate the governor’s common-sense proposals to reduce gun violence. Help represent what the vast majority of Marylanders want--sensible gun violence prevention measures. The rally will begin at 10:30 AM in Lawyers Mall, 100 State Circle, Annapolis (in front of the State Capitol), and buses are available from Baltimore. Go to http://marylanderstopreventgunviolence.org/march-1st-rally-to-prevent-gun-violence/.
65] – Fund Our Communities will begin its “Prosperity Not Austerity" bus tour/car caravan in Baltimore on Sat., Mar. 23. You can join the tour for the entire day, beginning at 9 AM, or you can participate by coming to one of the stops, each of which will include a program focused on different community needs. The tour will emphasize that we have tremendous unmet needs in our communities, while we are wasting many billions in unneeded military spending.
The tour schedule is as follows: 9 a.m.: Dallas F. Nicholas Senior Elementary School, 201 East 21st St, Baltimore. Address education funding need. 10:20: Amazing Grace Lutheran Church, 2424 McElderry St., Baltimore. Address food and health issues. 12:20: Prince Georges Social Services Office and Prince Georges Community College, Dept of Social Services, 6505 Belcrest Road, Hyattsville. Address funding needs for college students, jobs training, Medicaid, cash assistance for need. 2 p.m.: Silver Spring Library, 8902 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. Address services for all citizens, including libraries, parks, roads, public health, crisis services. 3:10: Hughes Neighborhood Housing, 10720 Georgia Ave., Wheaton. Address care of the most vulnerable, and in particular housing. 5 p.m.: U.S. Capitol—Rally. See also http://ourfunds.org.
66] – The 28th Annual Maryland Peace, Justice and the Environment Conference [www.mupj.org] will take place Fri., Apr. 12 and Sat., Apr. 13 at the Turner Memorial AME Church, 7201 16th Place, Hyattsville. Save these dates. Email paulette.d.hammond@questdiagnostics.com.
67] – Red Emma's is in the process of closing down the location at 800 St. Paul St., and reopening in a much larger new space on North Avenue in the fall. The collective is seeking your help. It's time to reinvent the project started in 2004 to build a self-sustaining progressive space in Baltimore, committed to providing a daily reminder that another world was possible and that there were people working in the city to build it.
Here's how you can help: donate money, buy books at the current store, provide skilled help, and share these needs. Email john@redemmas.org or go to http://indiegogo.com/redemmas2.
68] – The campaign has been extended to raise funds for the Symposium ‘Equitable and Sustainable Development: a Path Forward’ another two weeks. One of the presenters will be Donald Gresham from Community Housing and Relocation Working Group, a resident of the current unfair redevelopment in East Baltimore who continues to challenge EBDI, Hopkins, the Casey Foundation, and city and state official to come to the table and negotiate a community benefits agreement. Go to http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/equitable-and-sustainable-development-a-path-forward/x/1214770.
69] – Stephen Kobasa is hoping to do an exhibit of the work of Tom Lewis opening in May 2013 in New Haven, CT. It would include a variety of his paintings, drawings, silkscreen prints, book illustrations, posters, banners and sketchbooks. This would not only be a display of objects on a gallery wall, but would also involve events which would return Tom's art to the streets where it was originally meant to make conscience visible.
Contact Stephen if you are in possession of original work and would consider loaning it for a month long display. You can reach him at stephen.kobasa at gmail.com or 203-500-0268.
70] – The Washington Peace Center has a progressive calendar & activist alert! Consider signing up to receive its weekly email: info@washingtonpeacecenter.org.
71] – Fund Our Communities campaign is a grass roots movement to get support from local organizations and communities to work together with their local and state elected officials to pressure Congresspersons and senators to join with Congresspersons Barney Frank and Ron Paul, who have endorsed a 25% cut to the federal military budget. Bring home the savings to state and county governments to meet the local needs which are under tremendous budget pressures. Plan to join FOC on the March 23 Peace Bus from Baltimore to D.C. Go to www.OurFunds.org.
72] – MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD. Baltimore's Indypendent Reader is looking for individuals interested in creating media - written, photo, audio, or video - that relates to issues like...economic justice, race, prisons & policing, environment, gender & sexuality, war & peace and more! If you would like to create social justice media, then email indypendentreader@gmail.com. Visit http://www.indyreader.org.
73] – If you would like to get rid of books, videos, DVDs or records, contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.
74] – Can you use any book shelves? Contact Max at 410-366-1637 or mobuszewski at verizon.net.
75] – Join an extraordinary global campaign for the elimination of nuclear weapons: http://www.globalzero.org/sign-declaration. A growing group of leaders around the world is calling for the elimination of nuclear weapons and a majority of the global public agrees. This is an historic window of opportunity. With momentum already building in favor of Zero, a major show of support from people around the world could tip the balance. When it comes to nuclear weapons, one is one too many.
76] – Visit the Digital Information and the Criminal Justice System at http://www.onlinecriminaljusticedegree.com/. This link presents a wide range of insightful articles for criminal justice and legal professionals, both current and future. The project aims to be an objective, authoritative resource in the ever-changing court system.
77] – WAR IS NOT THE ANSWER signs from Friends Committee on National Legislation are again for sale at $5. To purchase a sign, call Max at 410-366-1637.
78] – The Hunger Site was initiated by Mercy Corps and Second Harvest, and is funded entirely by advertisers. You can go there every day and click the big yellow "Give Food for Free" button near the top of the page; you do not have to look at the ads. Each click generates funding for about 1.1 cups of food. So consider clicking.
79] – Go online for FIRE AND FAITH: The Catonsville Nine File. On May 17, 1968, nine people entered the Selective Service Offices in Catonsville, Maryland, and burned draft records in protest against the war in Vietnam. View http://www.prattlibrary.org/digital/.
80] – Peace Park Antinuclear Vigil takes place every day in Lafayette Park, 1601 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, 24 hours a day, since June 3, 1981. Go to http://prop1.org; call 202-682-4282.
Donations can be sent to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD 21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/.
"One is called to live nonviolently, even if the change one works for seems impossible. It may or may not be possible to turn the US around through nonviolent revolution. But one thing favors such an attempt: the total inability of violence to change anything for the better" - Daniel Berrigan
Tuesday, February 19, 2013
Which Countries Helped the CIA With Their Dirty Torture Work and Which Didn't?
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
TomDispatch [1] / By Greg Grandin [2]
Which Countries Helped the CIA With Their Dirty Torture Work and Which Didn't?
February 18, 2013
To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here. [3]
The map tells [4] the story. To illustrate a damning new report, “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detentions and Extraordinary Rendition,” recently published [5] by the Open Society Institute, the Washington Post put together an equally damning graphic: it’s soaked in red, as if with blood, showing that in the years after 9/11, the CIA turned just about the whole world into a gulag archipelago.
Back in the early twentieth century, a similar red-hued map was used to indicate the global reach of the British Empire, on which, it was said, the sun never set. It seems that, between 9/11 and the day George W. Bush left the White House, CIA-brokered torture never saw a sunset either.
All told, of the 190-odd countries on this planet, a staggering 54 participated in various ways in this American torture system, hosting CIA “black site [6]” prisons, allowing their airspace and airports to be used for secret flights, providing intelligence, kidnapping foreign nationals or their own citizens and handing them over to U.S. agents to be “rendered [7]” to third-party countries like Egypt and Syria. The hallmark of this network, Open Society writes, has beentorture [8]. Its report documents the names of 136 individuals swept up in what it says is an ongoing operation, though its authors make clear that the total number, implicitly far higher, “will remain unknown” because of the “extraordinary level of government secrecy associated with secret detention and extraordinary rendition.”
No region escapes the stain. Not North America, home to the global gulag’s command center. Not Europe, the Middle East, Africa, or Asia. Not even social-democratic Scandinavia. Sweden turned over at least two people to the CIA, who were then rendered to Egypt, where they were subject to electric shocks, among other abuses. No region, that is, except Latin America.
What’s most striking about the Post’s map is that no part of its wine-dark horror touches Latin America; that is, not one country in what used to be called Washington’s “backyard” participated in rendition or Washington-directed or supported torture and abuse of “terror suspects.” Not even Colombia, which throughout the last two decades was as close to a U.S.-client state as existed in the area. It’s true that a fleck of red should show up on Cuba, but that would only underscore the point: Teddy Roosevelt took Guantánamo Bay Naval Base for the U.S. in 1903 “in perpetuity.”
Two, Three, Many CIAs
How did Latin America come to be territorio libre in this new dystopian world of black sites and midnight flights, the Zion of this militarist matrix [9] (as fans of the Wachowskis' movies might put it)? After all, it was in Latin America that an earlier generation of U.S. and U.S.-backed counterinsurgents put into place a prototype of Washington’s twenty-first century Global War on Terror.
Even before the 1959 Cuban Revolution, before Che Guevara urged revolutionaries to create “two, three, many Vietnams,” Washington had already set about establishing two, three, many centralized intelligence agencies in Latin America. As Michael McClintock shows [10] in his indispensable bookInstruments of Statecraft, in late 1954, a few months after the CIA’s infamous coup in Guatemala that overthrew a democratically elected government, the National Security Council first recommended strengthening “the internal security forces of friendly foreign countries."
In the region, this meant three things. First, CIA agents and other U.S. officials set to work “professionalizing” the security forces of individual countries like Guatemala, Colombia, and Uruguay; that is, turning brutal but often clumsy and corrupt local intelligence apparatuses into efficient, “centralized,” still brutal agencies, capable of gathering information, analyzing it, and storing it. Most importantly, they were to coordinate different branches of each country’s security forces -- the police, military, and paramilitary squads -- to act on that information, often lethally and always ruthlessly.
Second, the U.S. greatly expanded the writ of these far more efficient and effective agencies, making it clear that their portfolio included not just national defense but international offense. They were to be the vanguard of a global war for “freedom” and of an anticommunist reign of terror in the hemisphere. Third, our men in Montevideo, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Asunción, La Paz, Lima, Quito, San Salvador, Guatemala City, and Managua were to help synchronize the workings of individual national security forces.
The result was state terror on a nearly continent-wide scale. In the 1970s and 1980s, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s Operation Condor [11], which linked together the intelligence services of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile, was the most infamous of Latin America’s transnational terror consortiums, reaching out to commit mayhem as far away as Washington D.C. [12],Paris [13], and Rome [14]. The U.S. had earlier helped put in place [15] similar operations elsewhere in the Southern hemisphere, especially in Central America in the 1960s.
By the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans had been tortured, killed, disappeared, or imprisoned without trial, thanks in significant part to U.S. organizational skills and support. Latin America was, by then, Washington’s backyard gulag. Three of the region’s current presidents -- Uruguay’s José Mujica, Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega -- were victims of this reign of terror.
When the Cold War ended, human rights groups began the herculean task of dismantling the deeply embedded, continent-wide network of intelligence operatives, secret prisons, and torture techniques -- and of pushing militaries throughout the region out of governments and back into their barracks. In the 1990s, Washington not only didn’t stand in the way of this process, but actually lent a hand in depoliticizing Latin America’s armed forces. Many believed that, with the Soviet Union dispatched, Washington could now project its power in its own “backyard” through softer means like international trade agreements and other forms of economic leverage. Then 9/11 happened.
“Oh My Goodness”
In late November 2002, just as the basic outlines of the CIA’s secret detention and extraordinary rendition [16] programs were coming into shape elsewhere in the world, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld flew 5,000 miles to Santiago, Chile, to attend a hemispheric meeting of defense ministers. "Needless to say,” Rumsfeld nonetheless said [17], “I would not be going all this distance if I did not think this was extremely important." Indeed.
This was after theinvasion of Afghanistan but before the invasion of Iraq and Rumsfeld was riding high, as well as dropping the phrase “September 11th” every chance he got. Maybe he didn’t know of the special significance that date had in Latin America, but 29 years earlier on the first 9/11, a CIA-backed coup by General Pinochet and his military led to the death of Chile’s democratically elected president Salvador Allende. Or did he, in fact, know just what it meant and was that the point? After all, a new global fight for freedom, a proclaimed Global War on Terror, was underway and Rumsfeld had arrived to round up recruits.
There, in Santiago, the city out of which Pinochet had run Operation Condor, Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials tried to sell what they were now terming [18]the “integration” of “various specialized capabilities into larger regional capabilities” -- an insipid way of describing the kidnapping, torturing, and death-dealing already underway elsewhere. “Events around the world before and after September 11th suggest the advantages,” Rumsfeld said [17], of nations working together to confront the terror threat.
“Oh my goodness,” Rumsfeld told [19] a Chilean reporter, “the kinds of threats we face are global.” Latin America was at peace, he admitted, but he had a warning for its leaders: they shouldn’t lull themselves into believing that the continent was safe from the clouds gathering elsewhere. Dangers exist [20], “old threats, such as drugs, organized crime, illegal arms trafficking, hostage taking, piracy, and money laundering; new threats, such as cyber-crime; and unknown threats, which can emerge without warning.”
“These new threats,” he added ominously, “must be countered with new capabilities.” Thanks to the Open Society report, we can see exactly what Rumsfeld meant by those “new capabilities.”
A few weeks prior to Rumsfeld’s arrival in Santiago, for example, the U.S., acting on false information supplied by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, detained Maher Arar, who holds dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship, at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport and then handed him over to a “Special Removal Unit.” He was flown first to Jordan, where he was beaten, and then to Syria, a country in a time zone five hours ahead of Chile, where he was turned over to local torturers. On November 18th, when Rumsfeld was giving his noon speech in Santiago, it was five in the afternoon in Arar’s “grave-like” cell in a Syrian prison, where he would spend the next year being abused.
Ghairat Baheer was captured in Pakistan about three weeks before Rumsfeld’s Chile trip, and thrown into a CIA-run prison in Afghanistan called the Salt Pit. As the secretary of defense praised Latin America’s return to the rule of law after the dark days of the Cold War, Baheer may well have been in the middle of one of his torture sessions, “hung naked for hours on end.”
Taken a month before Rumsfeld’s visit to Santiago, the Saudi national Abd al Rahim al Nashiri was transported to the Salt Pit, after which he was transferred “to another black site in Bangkok, Thailand, where he was waterboarded.” After that, he was passed on to Poland, Morocco, Guantánamo, Romania, and back to Guantánamo, where he remains. Along the way, he was subjected to a “mock execution with a power drill as he stood naked and hooded,” had U.S. interrogators rack a “semi-automatic handgun close to his head as he sat shackled before them.” His interrogators also “threatened to bring in his mother and sexually abuse her in front of him.”
Likewise a month before the Santiago meeting, the Yemini Bashi Nasir Ali Al Marwalah was flown to Camp X-Ray in Cuba, where he remains to this day.
Less than two weeks after Rumsfeld swore that the U.S. and Latin America shared “common values,” Mullah Habibullah, an Afghan national, died “after severe mistreatment” in CIA custody at something called the “Bagram Collection Point.” A U.S. military investigation “concluded that the use of stress positions and sleep deprivation combined with other mistreatment... caused, or were direct contributing factors in, his death.”
Two days after the secretary’s Santiago speech, a CIA case officer in the Salt Pit had Gul Rahma stripped naked and chained to a concrete floor without blankets. Rahma froze to death.
And so the Open Society report goes... on and on and on.
Territorio Libre
Rumsfeld left Santiago without firm commitments. Some of the region’s militaries were tempted by the supposed opportunities offered by the secretary’s vision of fusing crime fighting into an ideological campaign against radical Islam, a unified war in which all was to be subordinated to U.S. command. As political scientist Brian Loveman has noted [21], around the time of Rumsfeld’s Santiago visit, the head of the Argentine army picked up Washington’s latest set of themes, insisting that “defense must be treated as an integral matter,” without a false divide separating internal and external security.
But history was not on Rumsfeld’s side. His trip to Santiago coincided with Argentina’s epic financial meltdown, among the worst in recorded history. It signaled a broader collapse of the economic model -- think of it as Reaganism on steroids -- that Washington had been promoting in Latin America since the late Cold War years. Soon, a new generation of leftists would be in power across much of the continent, committed to the idea of national sovereignty and limiting Washington’s influence in the region in a way that their predecessors hadn’t been.
Hugo Chávez was already president of Venezuela. Just a month before Rumsfeld’s Santiago trip, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the presidency of Brazil. A few months later, in early 2003, Argentines elected Néstor Kirchner, who shortly thereafter ended his country’s joint military exercises with the U.S. In the years that followed, the U.S. experienced one setback after another. In 2008, for instance, Ecuador evicted [22] the U.S. military from Manta Air Base.
In that same period, the Bush administration’s rush to invade Iraq, an act most Latin American countries opposed, helped squander whatever was left of the post-9/11 goodwill the U.S. had in the region. Iraq seemed to confirm the worst suspicions of the continent’s new leaders: that what Rumsfeld was trying to peddle as an international “peacekeeping” force would be little more than a bid to use Latin American soldiers as Gurkhas [23] in a revived unilateral imperial war.
Brazil’s “Smokescreen”
Diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show the degree to which Brazil rebuffed efforts to paint the region red on Washington’s new global gulag map.
A May 2005 U.S. State Department cable [24], for instance, reveals that Lula’s government refused “multiple requests” by Washington to take in released Guantánamo prisoners, particularly a group of about 15 Uighurs the U.S. had been holding since 2002, who could not be sent back to China.
“[Brazil’s] position regarding this issue has not changed since 2003 and will likely not change in the foreseeable future,” the cable said. It went on to report that Lula’s government considered the whole system Washington had set up at Guantánamo (and around the world) to be a mockery of international law. “All attempts to discuss this issue” with Brazilian officials, the cable concluded, “were flatly refused or accepted begrudgingly.”
In addition, Brazil refused to cooperate with the Bush administration’s efforts to create a Western Hemisphere-wide version of the Patriot Act [25]. It stonewalled, for example, about agreeing to revise [26] its legal code in a way that would lower the standard of evidence needed to prove conspiracy, while widening the definition of what criminal conspiracy entailed.
Lula stalled for years on the initiative, but it seems that the State Department didn’t realize he was doing so until April 2008, when one of its diplomats wrote a memo calling Brazil’s supposed interest in reforming its legal code to suit Washington a “smokescreen.” The Brazilian government, another Wikileaked cable complained [27], was afraid that a more expansive definition of terrorism would be used to target “members of what they consider to be legitimate social movements fighting for a more just society.” Apparently, there was no way to “write an anti-terrorism legislation that excludes the actions” of Lula’s left-wing social base.
One U.S. diplomat complained [27] that this “mindset” -- that is, a mindset that actually valued civil liberties -- “presents serious challenges to our efforts to enhance counterterrorism cooperation or promote passage of anti-terrorism legislation.” In addition, the Brazilian government worried that the legislation would be used to go after Arab-Brazilians, of which there are many. One can imagine that if Brazil and the rest of Latin America had signed up to participate in Washington’s rendition program, Open Society would have a lot more Middle Eastern-sounding names to add to its list.
Finally, cable after Wikileaked cable revealed that Brazil repeatedly brushed off efforts by Washington to isolate Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, which would have been a necessary step if the U.S. was going to marshal South America into its counterterrorism posse.
In February 2008, for example, U.S. ambassador to Brazil Clifford Sobell met with Lula’s Minister of Defense Nelson Jobin to complain about Chávez. Jobim told [28] Sobell that Brazil shared his “concern about the possibility of Venezuela exporting instability.” But instead of “isolating Venezuela,” which might only “lead to further posturing,” Jobim instead indicated that his government “supports [the] creation of a ‘South American Defense Council’ to bring Chavez into the mainstream.”
There was only one catch here: that South American Defense Council was Chávez’s idea in the first place! It was part of his effort, in partnership with Lula, to create independent institutions parallel to those controlled by Washington. The memo concluded with the U.S. ambassador noting how curious it was that Brazil would use Chavez’s “idea for defense cooperation” as part of a “supposed containment strategy” of Chávez.
Monkey-Wrenching the Perfect Machine of Perpetual War
Unable to put in place its post-9/11 counterterrorism framework in all of Latin America, the Bush administration retrenched [29]. It attempted instead to build a “perfect machine of perpetual war” in a corridor running from Colombia through Central America to Mexico. The process of militarizing that more limited region, often under the guise of fighting “the drug wars,” has, if anything, escalated in the Obama years. Central America has, in fact, become the only place Southcom -- the Pentagon command that covers Central and South America -- can operate more or less at will. A look at this other map [30], put together by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, makes the region look like one big landing strip for U.S. drones and drug-interdiction flights.
Washington does continue [31] to push and probe further south, trying yet again to establish a firmer military foothold in the region and rope it into what is now a less ideological and more technocratic crusade, but one still global in its aspirations. U.S. military strategists, for instance, would very much like to have [32] an airstrip in French Guyana or the part of Brazil that bulges out into the Atlantic. The Pentagon would use it as a stepping stone to its increasing presence [33] in Africa, coordinating the work of Southcom with the newest global command, Africom.
But for now, South America has thrown a monkey wrench into the machine. Returning to that Washington Post map, it’s worth memorializing the simple fact that, in one part of the world, in this century at least, the sun never rose on US-choreographed torture.
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/world/which-countries-helped-cia-their-dirty-torture-work-and-which-didnt
Links:
[1] http://www.tomdispatch.com/
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/greg-grandin
[3] https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:Join/signupId:43308/acctId:25612
[4] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/02/05/a-staggering-map-of-the-54-countries-that-reportedly-participated-in-the-cias-rendition-program/
[5] http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/projects/globalizing-torture
[6] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer
[7] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/7789/tom_engelhardt_dolce-vita
[8] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175630/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren,_torture_superpower/
[9] http://books.google.com/books?id=wrCLSOYo2q8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=one+percent+solution&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FXcZUZr6DYm_0AHvqoDABg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=matrix&f=false
[10] http://www.statecraft.org/chapter7.html
[11] http://books.google.com/books?id=EfKjP7zyGYcC&pg=PA207&lpg=PA207&dq=%22Bernardo+Leighton%22+rome+1975&source=bl&ots=2DGuICF7-f&sig=PsFct0HkHvwm0AmCReXfXISkLQs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NuMUUb6TBbC70QHW_4H4DQ&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22Bernardo%20Leighton%22%20rome%201975&f=false
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Letelier
[13] http://books.google.com/books?id=G497QpeEqpwC&pg=PA127&dq=%22operation+condor%22+paris+france&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BykYUbzDL6KA0AGw5IBQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22operation%20condor%22%20paris%20france&f=false
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Letelier%20Washington%20D.C.,%20Paris,%20and%20http://books.google.com/books?id=G497QpeEqpwC&pg=PA127&dq=%22operation+condor%22+paris+france&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BykYUbzDL6KA0AGw5IBQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=rome&f=false
[15] http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ceh/mds/spanish/cap2/vol1/intel.html
[16] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175582/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy,_perfecting_illegality/
[17] http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=42490
[18] http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=42482
[19] http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/950_The_Panama_Connection/message/1729
[20] http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=308
[21] http://books.google.com/books?id=wjNRLcbLux4C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=%22defense+must+be+treated+as+an+integral+matter%22&source=bl&ots=3FHM07d-2S&sig=Q7pjVr4Do_vDBKRrfhGu3m0dq5Y&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wyUVUam_CMq70QGsgYHwCw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22defense%20must%20be%20treated%20as%20an%20integral%20matter%22&f=false
[22] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303289.html
[23] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha
[24] https://github.com/alx/cablegate/blob/master/classification/CONFIDENTIAL/05BRASILIA1396.txt
[25] http://www.aclu.org/free-speech-national-security-technology-and-liberty/reform-patriot-act-myths-realities
[26] http://cablesearch.org/cable/view.php?id=08BRASILIA504
[27] http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=09BRASILIA1206
[28] http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/02/08BRASILIA236.html
[29] http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Fblog%2F158492%2Fbuilding-perfect-machine-perpetual-war-mexico-colombia-security-corridor-advances&ei=VA0VUaLEEILC0QGqtIHAAQ&usg=AFQjCNGjkvFdV8KIBEvBKOKUTCuRAW3BIQ&bvm=bv.42080656,d.dmg
[30] https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&source=embed&msa=0&msid=200051002538340819949.000499e6cb90476b05f73&ll=3.776559,-83.496094&spn=45.09916,79.013672&z=4
[31] http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1884/68/%20one%20thing%20then%20http://www.diariolaprimeraperu.com/online/politica/centro-de-operaciones-e-inteligencia-usa-en-vrae_36734.html
[32] http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CE4QFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dtic.mil%2Fcgi-bin%2FGetTRDoc%3FAD%3DADA505390&ei=2JoVUZKrJbS40gHQq4Bg&usg=AFQjCNGwuq0Lpl1E1hWeeKDvJxNdJPvC_w&bvm=bv.42080656,d.dmQ
[33] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175567/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_america%27s_shadow_wars_in_africa_
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"The master class has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles. The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their lives." Eugene Victor Debs
TomDispatch [1] / By Greg Grandin [2]
Which Countries Helped the CIA With Their Dirty Torture Work and Which Didn't?
February 18, 2013
To stay on top of important articles like these, sign up to receive the latest updates from TomDispatch.com here. [3]
The map tells [4] the story. To illustrate a damning new report, “Globalizing Torture: CIA Secret Detentions and Extraordinary Rendition,” recently published [5] by the Open Society Institute, the Washington Post put together an equally damning graphic: it’s soaked in red, as if with blood, showing that in the years after 9/11, the CIA turned just about the whole world into a gulag archipelago.
Back in the early twentieth century, a similar red-hued map was used to indicate the global reach of the British Empire, on which, it was said, the sun never set. It seems that, between 9/11 and the day George W. Bush left the White House, CIA-brokered torture never saw a sunset either.
All told, of the 190-odd countries on this planet, a staggering 54 participated in various ways in this American torture system, hosting CIA “black site [6]” prisons, allowing their airspace and airports to be used for secret flights, providing intelligence, kidnapping foreign nationals or their own citizens and handing them over to U.S. agents to be “rendered [7]” to third-party countries like Egypt and Syria. The hallmark of this network, Open Society writes, has beentorture [8]. Its report documents the names of 136 individuals swept up in what it says is an ongoing operation, though its authors make clear that the total number, implicitly far higher, “will remain unknown” because of the “extraordinary level of government secrecy associated with secret detention and extraordinary rendition.”
No region escapes the stain. Not North America, home to the global gulag’s command center. Not Europe, the Middle East, Africa, or Asia. Not even social-democratic Scandinavia. Sweden turned over at least two people to the CIA, who were then rendered to Egypt, where they were subject to electric shocks, among other abuses. No region, that is, except Latin America.
What’s most striking about the Post’s map is that no part of its wine-dark horror touches Latin America; that is, not one country in what used to be called Washington’s “backyard” participated in rendition or Washington-directed or supported torture and abuse of “terror suspects.” Not even Colombia, which throughout the last two decades was as close to a U.S.-client state as existed in the area. It’s true that a fleck of red should show up on Cuba, but that would only underscore the point: Teddy Roosevelt took Guantánamo Bay Naval Base for the U.S. in 1903 “in perpetuity.”
Two, Three, Many CIAs
How did Latin America come to be territorio libre in this new dystopian world of black sites and midnight flights, the Zion of this militarist matrix [9] (as fans of the Wachowskis' movies might put it)? After all, it was in Latin America that an earlier generation of U.S. and U.S.-backed counterinsurgents put into place a prototype of Washington’s twenty-first century Global War on Terror.
Even before the 1959 Cuban Revolution, before Che Guevara urged revolutionaries to create “two, three, many Vietnams,” Washington had already set about establishing two, three, many centralized intelligence agencies in Latin America. As Michael McClintock shows [10] in his indispensable bookInstruments of Statecraft, in late 1954, a few months after the CIA’s infamous coup in Guatemala that overthrew a democratically elected government, the National Security Council first recommended strengthening “the internal security forces of friendly foreign countries."
In the region, this meant three things. First, CIA agents and other U.S. officials set to work “professionalizing” the security forces of individual countries like Guatemala, Colombia, and Uruguay; that is, turning brutal but often clumsy and corrupt local intelligence apparatuses into efficient, “centralized,” still brutal agencies, capable of gathering information, analyzing it, and storing it. Most importantly, they were to coordinate different branches of each country’s security forces -- the police, military, and paramilitary squads -- to act on that information, often lethally and always ruthlessly.
Second, the U.S. greatly expanded the writ of these far more efficient and effective agencies, making it clear that their portfolio included not just national defense but international offense. They were to be the vanguard of a global war for “freedom” and of an anticommunist reign of terror in the hemisphere. Third, our men in Montevideo, Santiago, Buenos Aires, Asunción, La Paz, Lima, Quito, San Salvador, Guatemala City, and Managua were to help synchronize the workings of individual national security forces.
The result was state terror on a nearly continent-wide scale. In the 1970s and 1980s, Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet’s Operation Condor [11], which linked together the intelligence services of Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Chile, was the most infamous of Latin America’s transnational terror consortiums, reaching out to commit mayhem as far away as Washington D.C. [12],Paris [13], and Rome [14]. The U.S. had earlier helped put in place [15] similar operations elsewhere in the Southern hemisphere, especially in Central America in the 1960s.
By the time the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, hundreds of thousands of Latin Americans had been tortured, killed, disappeared, or imprisoned without trial, thanks in significant part to U.S. organizational skills and support. Latin America was, by then, Washington’s backyard gulag. Three of the region’s current presidents -- Uruguay’s José Mujica, Brazil’s Dilma Rousseff, and Nicaragua’s Daniel Ortega -- were victims of this reign of terror.
When the Cold War ended, human rights groups began the herculean task of dismantling the deeply embedded, continent-wide network of intelligence operatives, secret prisons, and torture techniques -- and of pushing militaries throughout the region out of governments and back into their barracks. In the 1990s, Washington not only didn’t stand in the way of this process, but actually lent a hand in depoliticizing Latin America’s armed forces. Many believed that, with the Soviet Union dispatched, Washington could now project its power in its own “backyard” through softer means like international trade agreements and other forms of economic leverage. Then 9/11 happened.
“Oh My Goodness”
In late November 2002, just as the basic outlines of the CIA’s secret detention and extraordinary rendition [16] programs were coming into shape elsewhere in the world, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld flew 5,000 miles to Santiago, Chile, to attend a hemispheric meeting of defense ministers. "Needless to say,” Rumsfeld nonetheless said [17], “I would not be going all this distance if I did not think this was extremely important." Indeed.
This was after theinvasion of Afghanistan but before the invasion of Iraq and Rumsfeld was riding high, as well as dropping the phrase “September 11th” every chance he got. Maybe he didn’t know of the special significance that date had in Latin America, but 29 years earlier on the first 9/11, a CIA-backed coup by General Pinochet and his military led to the death of Chile’s democratically elected president Salvador Allende. Or did he, in fact, know just what it meant and was that the point? After all, a new global fight for freedom, a proclaimed Global War on Terror, was underway and Rumsfeld had arrived to round up recruits.
There, in Santiago, the city out of which Pinochet had run Operation Condor, Rumsfeld and other Pentagon officials tried to sell what they were now terming [18]the “integration” of “various specialized capabilities into larger regional capabilities” -- an insipid way of describing the kidnapping, torturing, and death-dealing already underway elsewhere. “Events around the world before and after September 11th suggest the advantages,” Rumsfeld said [17], of nations working together to confront the terror threat.
“Oh my goodness,” Rumsfeld told [19] a Chilean reporter, “the kinds of threats we face are global.” Latin America was at peace, he admitted, but he had a warning for its leaders: they shouldn’t lull themselves into believing that the continent was safe from the clouds gathering elsewhere. Dangers exist [20], “old threats, such as drugs, organized crime, illegal arms trafficking, hostage taking, piracy, and money laundering; new threats, such as cyber-crime; and unknown threats, which can emerge without warning.”
“These new threats,” he added ominously, “must be countered with new capabilities.” Thanks to the Open Society report, we can see exactly what Rumsfeld meant by those “new capabilities.”
A few weeks prior to Rumsfeld’s arrival in Santiago, for example, the U.S., acting on false information supplied by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, detained Maher Arar, who holds dual Syrian and Canadian citizenship, at New York’s John F. Kennedy airport and then handed him over to a “Special Removal Unit.” He was flown first to Jordan, where he was beaten, and then to Syria, a country in a time zone five hours ahead of Chile, where he was turned over to local torturers. On November 18th, when Rumsfeld was giving his noon speech in Santiago, it was five in the afternoon in Arar’s “grave-like” cell in a Syrian prison, where he would spend the next year being abused.
Ghairat Baheer was captured in Pakistan about three weeks before Rumsfeld’s Chile trip, and thrown into a CIA-run prison in Afghanistan called the Salt Pit. As the secretary of defense praised Latin America’s return to the rule of law after the dark days of the Cold War, Baheer may well have been in the middle of one of his torture sessions, “hung naked for hours on end.”
Taken a month before Rumsfeld’s visit to Santiago, the Saudi national Abd al Rahim al Nashiri was transported to the Salt Pit, after which he was transferred “to another black site in Bangkok, Thailand, where he was waterboarded.” After that, he was passed on to Poland, Morocco, Guantánamo, Romania, and back to Guantánamo, where he remains. Along the way, he was subjected to a “mock execution with a power drill as he stood naked and hooded,” had U.S. interrogators rack a “semi-automatic handgun close to his head as he sat shackled before them.” His interrogators also “threatened to bring in his mother and sexually abuse her in front of him.”
Likewise a month before the Santiago meeting, the Yemini Bashi Nasir Ali Al Marwalah was flown to Camp X-Ray in Cuba, where he remains to this day.
Less than two weeks after Rumsfeld swore that the U.S. and Latin America shared “common values,” Mullah Habibullah, an Afghan national, died “after severe mistreatment” in CIA custody at something called the “Bagram Collection Point.” A U.S. military investigation “concluded that the use of stress positions and sleep deprivation combined with other mistreatment... caused, or were direct contributing factors in, his death.”
Two days after the secretary’s Santiago speech, a CIA case officer in the Salt Pit had Gul Rahma stripped naked and chained to a concrete floor without blankets. Rahma froze to death.
And so the Open Society report goes... on and on and on.
Territorio Libre
Rumsfeld left Santiago without firm commitments. Some of the region’s militaries were tempted by the supposed opportunities offered by the secretary’s vision of fusing crime fighting into an ideological campaign against radical Islam, a unified war in which all was to be subordinated to U.S. command. As political scientist Brian Loveman has noted [21], around the time of Rumsfeld’s Santiago visit, the head of the Argentine army picked up Washington’s latest set of themes, insisting that “defense must be treated as an integral matter,” without a false divide separating internal and external security.
But history was not on Rumsfeld’s side. His trip to Santiago coincided with Argentina’s epic financial meltdown, among the worst in recorded history. It signaled a broader collapse of the economic model -- think of it as Reaganism on steroids -- that Washington had been promoting in Latin America since the late Cold War years. Soon, a new generation of leftists would be in power across much of the continent, committed to the idea of national sovereignty and limiting Washington’s influence in the region in a way that their predecessors hadn’t been.
Hugo Chávez was already president of Venezuela. Just a month before Rumsfeld’s Santiago trip, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva won the presidency of Brazil. A few months later, in early 2003, Argentines elected Néstor Kirchner, who shortly thereafter ended his country’s joint military exercises with the U.S. In the years that followed, the U.S. experienced one setback after another. In 2008, for instance, Ecuador evicted [22] the U.S. military from Manta Air Base.
In that same period, the Bush administration’s rush to invade Iraq, an act most Latin American countries opposed, helped squander whatever was left of the post-9/11 goodwill the U.S. had in the region. Iraq seemed to confirm the worst suspicions of the continent’s new leaders: that what Rumsfeld was trying to peddle as an international “peacekeeping” force would be little more than a bid to use Latin American soldiers as Gurkhas [23] in a revived unilateral imperial war.
Brazil’s “Smokescreen”
Diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks show the degree to which Brazil rebuffed efforts to paint the region red on Washington’s new global gulag map.
A May 2005 U.S. State Department cable [24], for instance, reveals that Lula’s government refused “multiple requests” by Washington to take in released Guantánamo prisoners, particularly a group of about 15 Uighurs the U.S. had been holding since 2002, who could not be sent back to China.
“[Brazil’s] position regarding this issue has not changed since 2003 and will likely not change in the foreseeable future,” the cable said. It went on to report that Lula’s government considered the whole system Washington had set up at Guantánamo (and around the world) to be a mockery of international law. “All attempts to discuss this issue” with Brazilian officials, the cable concluded, “were flatly refused or accepted begrudgingly.”
In addition, Brazil refused to cooperate with the Bush administration’s efforts to create a Western Hemisphere-wide version of the Patriot Act [25]. It stonewalled, for example, about agreeing to revise [26] its legal code in a way that would lower the standard of evidence needed to prove conspiracy, while widening the definition of what criminal conspiracy entailed.
Lula stalled for years on the initiative, but it seems that the State Department didn’t realize he was doing so until April 2008, when one of its diplomats wrote a memo calling Brazil’s supposed interest in reforming its legal code to suit Washington a “smokescreen.” The Brazilian government, another Wikileaked cable complained [27], was afraid that a more expansive definition of terrorism would be used to target “members of what they consider to be legitimate social movements fighting for a more just society.” Apparently, there was no way to “write an anti-terrorism legislation that excludes the actions” of Lula’s left-wing social base.
One U.S. diplomat complained [27] that this “mindset” -- that is, a mindset that actually valued civil liberties -- “presents serious challenges to our efforts to enhance counterterrorism cooperation or promote passage of anti-terrorism legislation.” In addition, the Brazilian government worried that the legislation would be used to go after Arab-Brazilians, of which there are many. One can imagine that if Brazil and the rest of Latin America had signed up to participate in Washington’s rendition program, Open Society would have a lot more Middle Eastern-sounding names to add to its list.
Finally, cable after Wikileaked cable revealed that Brazil repeatedly brushed off efforts by Washington to isolate Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez, which would have been a necessary step if the U.S. was going to marshal South America into its counterterrorism posse.
In February 2008, for example, U.S. ambassador to Brazil Clifford Sobell met with Lula’s Minister of Defense Nelson Jobin to complain about Chávez. Jobim told [28] Sobell that Brazil shared his “concern about the possibility of Venezuela exporting instability.” But instead of “isolating Venezuela,” which might only “lead to further posturing,” Jobim instead indicated that his government “supports [the] creation of a ‘South American Defense Council’ to bring Chavez into the mainstream.”
There was only one catch here: that South American Defense Council was Chávez’s idea in the first place! It was part of his effort, in partnership with Lula, to create independent institutions parallel to those controlled by Washington. The memo concluded with the U.S. ambassador noting how curious it was that Brazil would use Chavez’s “idea for defense cooperation” as part of a “supposed containment strategy” of Chávez.
Monkey-Wrenching the Perfect Machine of Perpetual War
Unable to put in place its post-9/11 counterterrorism framework in all of Latin America, the Bush administration retrenched [29]. It attempted instead to build a “perfect machine of perpetual war” in a corridor running from Colombia through Central America to Mexico. The process of militarizing that more limited region, often under the guise of fighting “the drug wars,” has, if anything, escalated in the Obama years. Central America has, in fact, become the only place Southcom -- the Pentagon command that covers Central and South America -- can operate more or less at will. A look at this other map [30], put together by the Fellowship of Reconciliation, makes the region look like one big landing strip for U.S. drones and drug-interdiction flights.
Washington does continue [31] to push and probe further south, trying yet again to establish a firmer military foothold in the region and rope it into what is now a less ideological and more technocratic crusade, but one still global in its aspirations. U.S. military strategists, for instance, would very much like to have [32] an airstrip in French Guyana or the part of Brazil that bulges out into the Atlantic. The Pentagon would use it as a stepping stone to its increasing presence [33] in Africa, coordinating the work of Southcom with the newest global command, Africom.
But for now, South America has thrown a monkey wrench into the machine. Returning to that Washington Post map, it’s worth memorializing the simple fact that, in one part of the world, in this century at least, the sun never rose on US-choreographed torture.
Source URL: http://www.alternet.org/world/which-countries-helped-cia-their-dirty-torture-work-and-which-didnt
Links:
[1] http://www.tomdispatch.com/
[2] http://www.alternet.org/authors/greg-grandin
[3] https://app.e2ma.net/app/view:Join/signupId:43308/acctId:25612
[4] http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2013/02/05/a-staggering-map-of-the-54-countries-that-reportedly-participated-in-the-cias-rendition-program/
[5] http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/projects/globalizing-torture
[6] http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/08/13/070813fa_fact_mayer
[7] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/7789/tom_engelhardt_dolce-vita
[8] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175630/tomgram%3A_peter_van_buren,_torture_superpower/
[9] http://books.google.com/books?id=wrCLSOYo2q8C&printsec=frontcover&dq=one+percent+solution&hl=en&sa=X&ei=FXcZUZr6DYm_0AHvqoDABg&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=matrix&f=false
[10] http://www.statecraft.org/chapter7.html
[11] http://books.google.com/books?id=EfKjP7zyGYcC&pg=PA207&lpg=PA207&dq=%22Bernardo+Leighton%22+rome+1975&source=bl&ots=2DGuICF7-f&sig=PsFct0HkHvwm0AmCReXfXISkLQs&hl=en&sa=X&ei=NuMUUb6TBbC70QHW_4H4DQ&ved=0CEoQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q=%22Bernardo%20Leighton%22%20rome%201975&f=false
[12] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Letelier
[13] http://books.google.com/books?id=G497QpeEqpwC&pg=PA127&dq=%22operation+condor%22+paris+france&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BykYUbzDL6KA0AGw5IBQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=%22operation%20condor%22%20paris%20france&f=false
[14] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orlando_Letelier%20Washington%20D.C.,%20Paris,%20and%20http://books.google.com/books?id=G497QpeEqpwC&pg=PA127&dq=%22operation+condor%22+paris+france&hl=en&sa=X&ei=BykYUbzDL6KA0AGw5IBQ&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=rome&f=false
[15] http://shr.aaas.org/guatemala/ceh/mds/spanish/cap2/vol1/intel.html
[16] http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175582/tomgram%3A_alfred_mccoy,_perfecting_illegality/
[17] http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=42490
[18] http://www.defense.gov/News/NewsArticle.aspx?ID=42482
[19] http://dir.groups.yahoo.com/group/950_The_Panama_Connection/message/1729
[20] http://www.defense.gov/speeches/speech.aspx?speechid=308
[21] http://books.google.com/books?id=wjNRLcbLux4C&pg=PA30&lpg=PA30&dq=%22defense+must+be+treated+as+an+integral+matter%22&source=bl&ots=3FHM07d-2S&sig=Q7pjVr4Do_vDBKRrfhGu3m0dq5Y&hl=en&sa=X&ei=wyUVUam_CMq70QGsgYHwCw&ved=0CDMQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22defense%20must%20be%20treated%20as%20an%20integral%20matter%22&f=false
[22] http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/03/AR2008090303289.html
[23] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gurkha
[24] https://github.com/alx/cablegate/blob/master/classification/CONFIDENTIAL/05BRASILIA1396.txt
[25] http://www.aclu.org/free-speech-national-security-technology-and-liberty/reform-patriot-act-myths-realities
[26] http://cablesearch.org/cable/view.php?id=08BRASILIA504
[27] http://www.cablegatesearch.net/cable.php?id=09BRASILIA1206
[28] http://wikileaks.org/cable/2008/02/08BRASILIA236.html
[29] http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CC8QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.thenation.com%2Fblog%2F158492%2Fbuilding-perfect-machine-perpetual-war-mexico-colombia-security-corridor-advances&ei=VA0VUaLEEILC0QGqtIHAAQ&usg=AFQjCNGjkvFdV8KIBEvBKOKUTCuRAW3BIQ&bvm=bv.42080656,d.dmg
[30] https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&source=embed&msa=0&msid=200051002538340819949.000499e6cb90476b05f73&ll=3.776559,-83.496094&spn=45.09916,79.013672&z=4
[31] http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1884/68/%20one%20thing%20then%20http://www.diariolaprimeraperu.com/online/politica/centro-de-operaciones-e-inteligencia-usa-en-vrae_36734.html
[32] http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CE4QFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dtic.mil%2Fcgi-bin%2FGetTRDoc%3FAD%3DADA505390&ei=2JoVUZKrJbS40gHQq4Bg&usg=AFQjCNGwuq0Lpl1E1hWeeKDvJxNdJPvC_w&bvm=bv.42080656,d.dmQ
[33] http://www.tomdispatch.com/blog/175567/tomgram%3A_nick_turse,_america%27s_shadow_wars_in_africa_
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