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Gary Edwards

Gun Control: WWJD? | RedState - 0 views

www.redstate.com/...gun-control-wwjd

Ben-Shapiro 2nd-Ammendment Jesus Constitution

shared by Gary Edwards on 15 Jan 13 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 15 Jan 13
     
    Excellent discussion of the 2nd Amendment and the gun control arguments of the socialists.  The article centers on the well trod socialist argument, "What would Jesus do?".  The author, Ben Howe, demolishes this argument and then moves on to the core issue of why the 2nd Amendment is important.  Includes a must see youtube capture of the idiot Piers Morgan interview with Ben Shapiro of Breitbart Magazine.  Awesome job Ben!! Great closing quote: "Without the 2nd Amendment, the Constitution is just a wishlist". excerpt: "As the gun control debate rages in America following the abominable events in Newtown, eventually, perhaps inevitably, the media will ask itself, "What would Jesus do?" They've done it for years as it relates to wealth redistribution and Obamacare. Obama gave an entire speech about taxes in which he used Jesus for his justification. I'd wager that the tactic is designed to hit God fearing southerners where, in keeping with the caricature that the media has created of them, they are most likely to submit without question and accept the answer given to them by their betters. Of course this vastly underestimates the target, but putting that aside, is there any truth to the idea that Jesus would deplore a concealed carry license or a mom defending her children from an intruder? After all, Jesus has some pretty radically pacifist quotes that need only be lifted from the Bible without context to sound convincing. Such has been the case on Twitter where I've already more than once been the victim of "well meaning" gun control advocates who simply want me to be as "peaceful as Jesus." Virtually without fail, they point to Matthew 5:39: But I say to you, do not resist an evil person; but whoever slaps you on your right cheek, turn the other to him also. If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two. Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away fr
Paul Merrell

UK ordered to hold inquests into civilian deaths during Iraq war | UK news | guardian.c... - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...uests-civilian-deaths-iraq-war

war & peace war crimes UK EU Iraq Obama

shared by Paul Merrell on 27 May 13 - No Cached
  • A series of public inquests should be held into the deaths of civilians who are alleged to have been killed unlawfully by the British military following the 2003 invasion of Iraq, the high court has ruled.In a ground-breaking judgment that could have an impact on how the British military is able to conduct operations among civilians in the future, the court ruled on Friday that up to 161 deaths should be the subject of hearings modelled upon coroners' inquests.In practice, a series of hearings – possibly amounting to more than 100 – are likely to be held as a result of the judgment, which follows a three-year legal battle on behalf of the Iraqis' families.
  • Each hearing must involve a "full, fair and fearless investigation accessible to the victim's families and to the public", the court ruled, and should examine not only the immediate circumstances but other issues surrounding each death.As a first step, the court ordered Philip Hammond, the defence secretary, to announce within six weeks whether any of the deaths are to result in prosecutions, or to explain any further delays over prosecuting decisions.After years of judicial review proceedings, and in the face of determined opposition from the Ministry of Defence, which appeared anxious to maintain control over any investigative process, the court concluded that hearings modelled upon coroners' inquests were the best way for the British authorities to meet their obligations under article 2 of the European convention on human rights (ECHR), which protects the right to life.
  • The court also ruled that this should be just the start of the process by which public hearings will examine the alleged misconduct of some members of the British armed forces who served in Iraq.Following the completion of the Article 2 hearings – into allegedly unlawful killings – further hearings should be established in order to meet the UK's obligations under Article 3 of the ECHR, the court said. These will inquire into allegations of torture and lesser mistreatment of individuals detained by British troops in Iraq, focusing on a sample of the most serious of the 700-plus cases in which such allegations have been made.In December last year the MoD said it had paid out £14m in compensation and costs to 205 Iraqis who alleged unlawful imprisonment and mistreatment, and that it was negotiating a further 196 payments. Several hundred more claims were expected to be lodged.
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  • The court said it had examined "allegations of the most serious kind involving murder, manslaughter, the wilful infliction of serious bodily injury, sexual indignities, cruel inhuman and degrading treatment and large scale violation of international humanitarian law".The judgment from Sir John Thomas, president of the Queen's Bench Division, and Mr Justice Silber, added that there was evidence to support claims that some of the abuse had been systemic, and questioned whether responsibility for poor training and a failure to investigate promptly lay with senior officers and figures in government
  • Paul Merrell on 27 May 13
     
    These UK proceedings are under authority of the E.U. Convention on Human Rights, whose relevant provisions echo those of the UN Convention on Human Rights, which both the U.K. and the U.S. are party to.  The Brits' willingness to prosecute its own soldiers, senior officers, and figures in government for war crimes sharply contrasts to the U.S., where Barack Obama immediately upon taking office rejected calls for the Iraqi war crimes investigation and prosecution of U.S. military members and Executive Branch officials, saying that he wanted to look forward, not back.  This was a very thin answer to the nation's Nuremburg Prosecution principles later embodied in international law at the instigation of the U.S. Good on the Brits. Shame on the U.S.   
Gary Edwards

Saul Alinsky Leaves the White House | The American Spectator - 0 views

spectator.org/alinsky-leaves-the-white-house

Obama

shared by Gary Edwards on 19 Jan 17 - No Cached
  • Gary Edwards on 19 Jan 17
     
    "When Barack Obama leaves the White House tomorrow, he leaves with his worst dreams unrealized. Still, what he leaves behind is awful. Thank goodness he'll be gone. The very day after Obama was elected in 2008, I predicted in this space that his team would steal the Senate by hook and crook (see: Al Franken); nuke the filibuster at least for judicial nominees; liberalize voting laws (or enforcement thereof) to make fraud easier while charging opponents with "vote suppression"; drum up spurious allegations of civil rights violations; punish anti-abortion protesters; enact "copious new regulations, especially environmental, to be used selectively to ensnare other conservative malcontents"; invasively use the IRS to harass conservative organizations; and tacitly encourage civil unrest in furtherance of Obamite goals. All those predictions of course came true. Obama and company also waged bureaucratic war against independent inspectors general; tried their hardest (even illegally) to hobble fossil fuels industries; evaded Congress's intent by sending cash and uranium to a near-nuclear-ready Iran; fumbled and stumbled while veterans suffered virtually criminal neglect; wasted hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars on projects that were not "shovel-ready" and did not create many jobs; oversaw an economy in which the workforce participation rate dropped to historically low levels while real median household income also fell and personal debt rose, and in which food stamp rolls grew to a number larger than the population of Spain; horrendously politicized the Justice Department; and saw race relations worsen for the first time in decades. In what should have been treated by the media as major scandals (or more major than the media represented them), the Obama administration encouraged illegal gun-running to Mexican cartels, with untold numbers of resultant deaths; failed to provide adequate security before or rescue during the Benghazi tragedy; provide
Paul Merrell

Israel losing Democrats, 'can't claim bipartisan US support,' top pollster warns | The ... - 0 views

www.timesofisrael.com/-us-support-top-pollster-warns

war & peace Israel Democrats polls

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Jul 15 - No Cached
  • hree quarters of highly educated, high income, publicly active US Democrats — the so-called “opinion elites” — believe Israel has too much influence on US foreign policy, almost half of them consider Israel to be a racist country, and fewer than half of them believe that Israel wants peace with its neighbors. These are among the findings of a new survey carried out by US political consultant Frank Luntz
  • Detailing the survey results to The Times of Israel on Sunday, Luntz called the findings “a disaster” for Israel. He summed them up by saying that the Democratic opinion elites are converting to the Palestinians, and “Israel can no longer claim to have the bipartisan support of America.” He said he “knew there was a shift” in attitudes to Israel among US Democrats “and I have been seeing it get worse” in his ongoing polls. But the new findings surprised and shocked him, nonetheless. “I didn’t expect it to become this blatant and this deep.” A prominent US political consultant known best for his work with Republicans, Luntz is meeting with a series of high-level Israeli officials this week to discuss the survey and consult on how to grapple with the trends it exposes.
  • “Israel has won the hearts and minds of Republicans in America, while at the same time it is losing the Democrats,” he said. On US politics, “I’m right of center,” he added. “But the Israeli government and US Jews have to focus on repairing relations with the Democrats.” Luntz put a series of largely Israel-related questions to 802 members of the opinion elites and his findings have a 3.5% margin of error. The survey, sponsored by the Jewish National Fund, was conducted last week. Among the key findings: • Asked about Israeli influence on US foreign policy, an overwhelming 76% of Democrats, as compared to 20% of Republicans, said Israel has “too much influence.” • Asked whether Israel is a racist country, 47% of Democrats agreed it is, as opposed to 13% of Republicans. Another 21% of Democrats didn’t know or were neutral (as opposed to 12% of Republicans), and only 32% of Democrats disagreed when asked if Israel is a racist country, as opposed to 76% of Republicans. (Overall 32% of those polled said Israel is a racist country.)
  • ...6 more annotations...
  • • Asked whether Israel wants peace with its neighbors, while an overwhelming 88% of Republicans said it does, a far lower 48% of Democrats agreed. Another 21% of Democrats didn’t know or were neutral (as compared to 7% of Republicans). And 31% of Democrats did not think Israel wants peace (as compared to 5% of Republicans). • Asked whether they would be more likely to vote for a local politician who supported Israel and its right to defend itself, an overwhelming 76% of Republicans said yes, but only 18% of Democrats said yes. Meanwhile, only 7% of Republicans — but 32% of Democrats — said they would be less likely to support a local politician who backed Israel. • Asked whether they would be more likely to vote for a local politician who criticized Israeli occupation and mistreatment of Palestinians, 45% of Democrats said yes, compared to just 6% of Republicans. Asked whether they would be less likely to vote for a local politician who criticized Israeli occupation and mistreatment of Palestinians, a whopping 75% of Republicans said yes, compared to just 23% of Democrats.
  • • Asked whether the US should support Israel or the Palestinians, a vast 90% of Republicans and a far lower 51% of Democrats said Israel. Another 8% of Republicans and 31% of Democrats were neutral. And 18% of Democrats said the Palestinians, compared to 2% of Republicans. Overall, 68% of those polled said the US should support Israel, and 10% said the US should support the Palestinians. • Asked about which side they themselves support, 88% of Republicans and 46% of Democrats said they were “pro-Israeli” while 4% of Republicans and 27% of Democrats said they were “pro-Palestinian.” • Asked if settlements are an impediment to peace, 75% of Democrats and 25% of Republicans agreed.
  • A specialist in finding and testing the language that can impact public opinion, Luntz was vehement that Israel’s “messaging” has to be different if support for Israel among US Democrats is to be revived. “Obviously, policy has something to do with it, but the messaging is critical,” he said. “And the Republicans have to realize that their rhetoric is part of the problem: It’s not security that needs to be highlighted, but [Israel’s] social justice and human rights.” Underlining Israel’s role in protecting human rights and promoting equality could be particularly resonant, he said. The “words that work best” among Republicans, he said, are those along the lines of, “Israel is our strongest ally in the Middle East, and attempts to destroy the country economically and politically could do direct harm to the United States.” By contrast, the “words that work best” among Democrats are those to the effect that, “We should be encouraging more communication and cooperation, not less. We should be encouraging more diplomacy and discussion, not less.”
  • More specifically, when it comes to the most effective messaging, Luntz found that the statement “Women in Israel have exactly the same rights as men. No other Middle Eastern country offers women fully equal rights” was particularly well received among Democrats, as was the declaration, “Everyone in Israel is free to practice their religion and worship their God. No other Middle Eastern country offers similar religious protections.” By contrast, responses were markedly less positive to statements about the need for a Jewish homeland after the Holocaust, Israeli claims to the Holy Land, and Israel’s start-up technology prowess. Widely resonant among all those polled, he found, was the statement that “Despite the ongoing conflict with Gaza, Israel still donates tens of millions in humanitarian aid to Palestinians and opens its hospitals to treat them.”
  • “They don’t care about the ‘Start-Up Nation,'” he said flatly of American opinion elites in general. “It’s tragic that so much effort has been devoted to selling an image of Israel that many aren’t interested in buying.” Still more drastically, Luntz said the word “Zionism” could play no part in messaging designed to repair relations with US Democrats. There has to be an “end to the [use of the] word Zionism,” he said. “You can’t make the case if you use that word. If you are at Berkeley or Brown and start outlining a Zionist vision, you don’t get to make a case for Israel because they’ve already switched off.” He also predicted that Israel is in for “a lot more trouble” from the BDS (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions) campaign. Once they had been informed about the BDS campaign, 19% of respondents supported it — 31% of Democrats and 3% of Republicans. And, stressed Luntz, 60% of America’s opinion elites said they were not familiar with BDS. “Israel is already having trouble with BDS, and Americans don’t even know what it means. Can you imagine how bad it will get?”
  • He also foresaw a looming battle in the US over foreign aid to Israel. Some 33% of Democrats and 22% of Republicans, his poll found, were upset that “Israel gets billions and billions of dollars in funding from the US government that should be going to the American people.” Luntz also asked whether respondents see anti-Semitism as a problem in the US. Overall, 58% agreed with the idea that anti-Semitism is a problem in America (57% of Republicans and 64% of Democrats), compared to 28% who disagreed. “Non-Jews recognize the problem, even if some Israelis want to minimize it,” he said. Ironically, the poll also found, 50% of Democrats and 18% of Republicans (and 36% of all respondents) agreed with the proposition that “Jewish people are too hyper-sensitive and too often label legitimate criticisms of Israel as an anti-Semitic attack.”
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Jul 15
     
    So the cure is supposedly "better messaging" rather than substantive reforms in Israel. Anything but behave as a civilized nation. 
Paul Merrell

Arab League Summit agrees to establish joint Arab military forces | nsnbc international - 0 views

nsnbc.me/...ish-joint-arab-military-forces

war & peace Arab-League mutual-defense-pact

shared by Paul Merrell on 30 Mar 15 - No Cached
  • Arab League member states agreed to establish a joint Arab military force within four months, in which participation will be optional, according to the outcome document following the 26th Arab League summit in Sharm al-Sheikh.
  • The outcome document also announced its official support of the Saudi-lead military operation Resolute Storm in Yemen against Shiite Houthi forces; it also demanded their withdrawal from the capital of Sanaa and to return power to “legitimate authorities.” Shokry added in news conference that the the proposed military force is separate from intervention in Yemen.
  • Paul Merrell on 30 Mar 15
     
    The Arab League is dominated by Egypt and the Gulf Coast states, all of which have for decades depended on the U.S. for their ultimate defense. This new joint military force, coming at the same time as a similar force among European nations independent of NATO is coming into existence and the E.U. is rejecting American leadership in the Ukraine and in economic matters and, further supports the appearance that a collapse of the American Empire has begun.   This development will also be viewed with alarm in Israel. The Arab nations have long seethed over Israeli mistreatment of Palestinians and Israeli Arab citizens. Several of the Arab nations fought previous wars against Israel over that issue that the Arabs lost, largely because of poor coordination.  A unified Arab force thus poses a threat to the Israeli government.
Paul Merrell

Netanyahu Ups the US Ante | Consortiumnews - 0 views

consortiumnews.com/...netanyahu-ups-the-us-ante

war & peace Israel Palestine U.S.-foreign-policy BDS Netanyahu Progressives

shared by Paul Merrell on 13 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu continues to play the tune to which U.S. politicians, including presidents and presidential candidates, dance. Now, his price for a future swirl around the dance floor is being raised to $4.5 billion a year, as retired Army Col. Ann Wright explains.
  • Paul Merrell on 13 Nov 15
     
    Actually, the increase in U.S. aid to $4.5 billion annually was a done deal before Netanyahu's arrival. Netanyahu's trip to the U.S. was an unmitigated disaster for the Israeli Zionist right wing. He drew huge demonstrations in Washington, D.C., New York, and Chicago. And his appearance before the Democratic think tank Center for American Progress caused major news coverage of progressive Democrats' objections to Netanyahu being invited into the Democratic sanctum despite his mistreatment of the Palestinians, further cementing the Zionist cause into a Republican-only venue in Congress. All directly counter to Netanyahu's goal of patching up relations with Democratic Progressives. 
Paul Merrell

Belhaj v. Straw: UK Supreme Court Hearing Case on UK Complicity in US Rendition and Tor... - 0 views

www.justsecurity.org/...k-complicity-rendition-torture

war & peace CIA rendition torture UK Supreme-Court legal-remedies

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15 - No Cached
  • The United Kingdom Supreme Court heard arguments this week in two critical cases concerning the UK’s role in the United States’ rendition, detention, and interrogation efforts in the years after 9/11. In both cases, the UK government is arguing that the claims cannot be considered by English courts. If the government succeeds, one potential practical implication would be to limit the extent to which individuals could seek redress for wrongs done against them, including torture, where the alleged wrongs involve other States. The first case, Belhaj & another v. Straw & others, involves one of the most controversial claims of rendition involving the UK. The government has appealed against the lower court’s ruling, which found against the government for its alleged role in the 2004 abduction of Libyan national, Abdul-Hakim Belhaj, and his wife, and their subsequent rendition to Libya and mistreatment at the hands of US and other foreign officials. In December 2013, the High Court dismissed a civil suit brought by Belhaj on the basis that it lacked jurisdiction because of the act of state doctrine (a rule of English law which prevents courts from considering claims where the court would have to examine the acts of a foreign state). But in October 2014, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that the act of state doctrine did not preclude Belhaj’s claim against the British government, citing, among other reasons, the universal condemnation of torture and the “stark reality” that these allegations would escape judicial investigation unless the English courts were able to exercise jurisdiction over the case.
  • Specifically, the Court found that: [T]he present case falls within the established limitation on the act of state doctrine imposed by considerations of public policy on grounds of violations of human rights and international law and that there are compelling reasons requiring the exercise of jurisdiction. The Court of Appeal also rejected the government’s controversial attempt to invoke the domestic law on immunity of foreign states from domestic proceedings as a bar to any claim against the UK government whenever the conduct of foreign states may be called into question, a concept known as the doctrine of indirect impleader in state immunity.
  • The government’s appeal against the Court of Appeal’s decision in Belhaj is being heard jointly with the appeal in another case, Ministry of Defense and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office v. Yunus Rahmatullah, involving a Pakistani citizen captured by British forces in Iraq. In 2004, Rahmatullah was transferred from UK to US custody in Iraq and thereafter rendered to Bagram air base in Afghanistan, with UK knowledge and in breach of Article 45 and Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Held by the US without trial for more than a decade, Rahmatullah was denied access to a lawyer and subjected to numerous acts of torture and mistreatment before being repatriated to Pakistan and released without charge in May 2014. He now seeks to sue the British government for damages. The main thrust of the UK government’s argument, in both cases, is that the litigation will most likely damage the UK’s relationship with the United States. If accepted by the Supreme Court, this argument may lead the Court to find that it lacks jurisdiction to hear the claims. The far-reaching implications of such a ruling would be to protect individual states and their institutions from the scrutiny of British courts in cases where it is alleged that they acted in concert with other states, even if their actions were unlawful. Such an expansive interpretation of a “but they did it too” excuse would constitute a notable limitation on British courts’ jurisdiction in the context of events arising from the so-called global war on terror. Since Belhaj and Rahmatullah, and others like them, are unlikely to secure redress directly in a US court, a ruling in favor of the government would essentially preclude them from securing redress in any forum. You can find the full Court of Appeal judgment here and below.   Belhaj v. Straw – Court of Appeal Judgment (30 Oct 2014) by Just Security
  • Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 15
     
    Hopefully, the "we can't be held liable because it would upset the U.S." defense won't be sustained by the Supreme Court. What a brazen assertion of UK subservience to the U.S.!
Paul Merrell

MoD pays out millions to Iraqi torture victims | Law | The Guardian - 0 views

www.guardian.co.uk/...mod-iraqi-torture-victims

war crimes torture rendition human rights

shared by Paul Merrell on 23 Dec 12 - No Cached
  • The Ministry of Defence has paid out £14m in compensation and costs to hundreds of Iraqis who complained that they were illegally detained and tortured by British forces during the five-year occupation of the south-east of the country.Hundreds more claims are in the pipeline as Iraqis become aware that they are able to bring proceedings against the UK authorities in the London courts.
  • Lawyers representing former prisoners of the British military say that more than 700 further individuals are likely to make claims next year.Most of those compensated were male civilians who said they had been beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened before being interrogated by British servicemen and women who had detained them on suspicion of involvement in the violent insurgency against the occupation. Others said that they suffered sexual humiliation and were forced into stress positions for prolonged periods.
  • Many of the complaints arise out of the actions of a shadowy military intelligence unit called the Joint Forward Interrogation Team (Jfit) which operated an interrogation centre throughout the five-year occupation. Officials of the International Committee of the Red Cross complained about the mistreatment of detainees at Jfit not long after it was first established.Despite this, the interrogators shot hundreds of video films in which they captured themselves threatening and abusing men who can be seen to be bruised, disoriented, complaining of starvation and sleep deprivation and, in some cases, too exhausted to stand unaided.
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  • During proceedings brought before the high court in London, lawyers representing the former Jfit prisoners suggested the interrogation centre could be regarded as "Britain's Abu Ghraib".
  • Next month, the high court will hear a judicial review of the MoD's refusal to hold a public inquiry into the abuses. Human rights groups and lawyers for the former prisoners say the UK government is obliged to hold an inquiry to meet its obligations under the European convention on human rights – and particularly under article three of the convention, which protects individuals from torture.After a hearing, the high court highlighted matters supporting the allegations of systemic abuse. These included:• The same techniques being used at the same places for the same purpose: to assist interrogation.• The facilities being under the command of an officer.• Military doctors examining each prisoner at various stages in their detention.• Investigations by the Royal Military police that were concluded without anyone being held to account.
  • Paul Merrell on 23 Dec 12
     
    The Brits at least have the decency to attempt to make amends for its soldiers who tortured prisoners. Not so in the U.S. *Every* "war on terror" detainee who has filed a case for damages in the U.S. has been thrown out of court at the government's request, usually on grounds of the State Secrets privilege. It is a sad situation that our courts allow government secrecy about unlawful conduct to trump individual rights to redress for injury. 
Paul Merrell

ICC Prosecutors: US Likely Committed War Crimes In Afghanistan - 0 views

www.mintpressnews.com/...222284

war & peace U.S.-foreign-policy torture Aghanistan ICC litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Nov 16 - No Cached
  • Prosecutors from the International Criminal Court (ICC) today revealed that the results of a preliminary probe have suggested the US likely committed war crimes during the occupation of Afghanistan, saying that the probe suggested troops and the CIA tortured at least 61 detainees. The United States has made a point of not becoming a member of the ICC specifically to try to prevent American personnel from facing legal repercussions for war crimes. The ICC, however, has jurisdiction in this case because Afghanistan is a member, and the torture happened on Afghan soil. The report said the evidence suggests the torture was not the abuses of a few isolated individuals, but rather part of a systematic US approach of mistreating detainees to try to extract “actionable intelligence” from them. The report added that secondary investigations are also ongoing related to CIA torture in Poland, Romania, and Lithuania. Such preliminary probes are obviously just the first step, and are meant to determine if there is enough evidence and a legal basis for jurisdiction to launch a full-scale investigation. While Afghanistan obviously gives them jurisdiction, it isn’t clear if they will move forward. That’s because the ICC would also have to establish that the war criminals are not being prosecuted for their crimes at home, and they are still seeking to get all the details of all the court-martial cases and the like the US has conducted. Even then, the ICC has never gone on to launch a full investigation in anyplace but Africa so far, and the international body may be loathe to move from prosecuting Tuareg rebels in Mali to trying to go after CIA torture-masters.
Paul Merrell

gulftoday.ae | Pressure mounts over UK's Iraq 'war crimes' - 0 views

gulftoday.ae/...60-40b4-b226-d85d06f8e96c.aspx

war & peace war crimes UK International Criminal Court

shared by Paul Merrell on 14 Jan 14 - No Cached
  • Legal experts from around the world are to join calls for an investigation into whether British politicians and senior military figures should be prosecuted for alleged war crimes in Iraq.An open letter from about a dozen heavyweight figures will increase the pressure on the International Criminal Court (ICC) to launch a formal inquiry into allegations that more than 400 Iraqis were victims of  thousands of incidents of mistreatment amounting to “torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment.”The Independent on Sunday revealed that a 250-page dossier has been submitted to the ICC  in The Hague by Public Interest Lawyers and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights. It will be published in London on Tuesday.Ministers dismissed the need for an investigation, pointing out that the ICC had rejected such a call in 2006.  However, the letter from international experts will argue that fewer than 20 cases were known about then and that hundreds of new cases have emerged since.
  • William Schabas, professor of law at Middlesex University, who is co-ordinating the letter, said: “There is fresh evidence that was not there in 2006.  A lot more has come to light since then. We think the 2006 decision was wrong and we want the [ICC] Prosecutor to look at it through a different lens.”  He believed there was enough evidence to pass the tests for an ICC inquiry to be launched – that there was systematic rather isolated abuse; the scale of the complaints cleared the “gravity” threshold and that the claims had not been properly investigated by the UK.  However, the government will argue that these criteria have not been met.The dossier names General Sir Peter Wall, the head of the British Army; Geoff Hoon, the former Defence Secretary and Adam Ingram, the former Armed Forces Minister, who did not respond for requests to comment. The complainants decided to name those responsible for the UK’s strategy in Iraq following the US-led invasion in 2003. But political and defence figures said the ICC was unlikely to hold them responsible for actions “on the ground.”William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, said there was no “systematic” torture by troops and individual cases had either already been dealt with by the British authorities or were the subject of inquiries.He told Sky News: “There have been some cases of abuse that have been acknowledged and apologies and compensation have been paid appropriately.  But the government has always been clear and the armed forces have been clear that they absolutely reject allegations of systematic abuses by the British armed forces.
Paul Merrell

Venezuela's foreign minister calls Kerry 'murderer' | Reuters - 0 views

www.reuters.com/...protests-idUSBREA2D1J020140314

war & peace Venezuela U.S. foreign policy

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • Venezuela's foreign minister lambasted U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry on Friday as a "murderer" fomenting unrest that has killed 28 people in the South American OPEC member nation. Since street demonstrations began against President Nicolas Maduro's socialist government in early February, Venezuelan officials have been accusing Washington of stirring the country's worst political troubles in a decade.
  • "Every time we're about to isolate and reduce the violence, Mr. Kerry comes out with a declaration and immediately the street protests are activated," Foreign Minister Elias Jaua said in a speech carried on state TV."Mr. Kerry, we denounce to the whole world, you encourage the violence in Venezuela ... We denounce you as a murderer of the Venezuelan people."
  • But the bitterness and incidents have continued, with Maduro last month expelling three U.S. diplomats he accused of recruiting protesters. Washington responded in kind."In Guatemala, you said to me 'you have to lower the tone'," Jaua added in his speech. "We are not going to lower the tone to any empire until you order your lackeys in Venezuela to cease the violence against the people."Despite the harsh words, pragmatism has continued to trump politics when it comes to oil, with shipments unaffected and the United States remaining Venezuela's main export market.
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  • As well as the 28 deaths during the unrest, more than 300 people have been injured. Security forces have arrested nearly 1,300 people, of whom about 100 are still in jail.Maduro says he has seen off a "coup" attempt, and he does not look in danger of being toppled by a "Venezuelan Spring", with the military apparently still behind him.But opponents and rights groups say he has used heavy-handed tactics against opponents, including unnecessary brutality from troops and police on the street. Several dozen detainees have denounced being beaten and other forms of mistreatment.A hard core of mainly student protesters are vowing to stay in the streets until Maduro quits.
Paul Merrell

US criticised by UN for human rights failings on NSA, guns and drones | World news | th... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...human-rights-abuses-nsa-drones

human rights civil liberties UN

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Mar 14 - No Cached
  • The US came under sharp criticism at the UN human rights committee in Geneva on Thursday for a long list of human rights abuses that included everything from detention without charge at Guantánamo, drone strikes and NSA surveillance, to the death penalty, rampant gun violence and endemic racial inequality.At the start of a two-day grilling of the US delegation, the committee’s 18 experts made clear their deep concerns about the US record across a raft of human rights issues. Many related to faultlines as old as America itself, such as guns and race.Other issues were relative newcomers. The experts raised questions about the National Security Agency’s surveillance of digital communications in the wake of Edward Snowden’s revelations. It also intervened in this week’s dispute between the CIA and US senators by calling for declassification and release of the 6,300-page report into the Bush administration’s use of torture techniques and rendition that lay behind the current CIA-Senate dispute.The committee is charged with upholding the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), a UN treaty that the US ratified in 1992. The current exercise, repeated every five years, is a purely voluntarily review, and the US will face no penalties should it choose to ignore the committee’s recommendations, which will appear in a final report in a few weeks’ time.
  • But the US is clearly sensitive to suggestions that it fails to live up to the human rights obligations enshrined in the convention – as signalled by the large size of its delegation to Geneva this week. And as an act of public shaming, Thursday’s encounter was frequently uncomfortable for the US.The US came under sustained criticism for its global counter-terrorism tactics, including the use of unmanned drones to kill al-Qaida suspects, and its transfer of detainees to third countries that might practice torture, such as Algeria. Committee members also highlighted the Obama administration’s failure to prosecute any of the officials responsible for permitting waterboarding and other “enhanced interrogation” techniques under the previous administration.Walter Kälin, a Swiss international human rights lawyer who sits on the committee, attacked the US government’s refusal to recognise the convention’s mandate over its actions beyond its own borders. The US has asserted since 1995 that the ICCPR does not apply to US actions beyond its borders - and has used that “extra-territoriality” claim to justify its actions in Guantánamo and in conflict zones.
  • This world is an unsafe place,” Kälin said. “Will it not become even more dangerous if any state would be willing to claim that international law does not prevent them from committing human rights violations abroad?”Kälin went on to express astonishment at some of America’s more extreme domestic habits. He pointed to the release this week in Louisiana of Glenn Ford, the 144th person on death row in the US to be exonerated since 1973, saying: “One hundred and forty-four cases of people wrongfully convicted to death is a staggering number.”Pointing out the disproportional representation of African Americans on death rows, he added: “Discrimination is bad, but it is absolutely unacceptable when it leads to death.”
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  • Among the other issues that came under the committee’s withering gaze were:· the proliferation of stand-your-ground gun laws· enduring racial disparities in the justice system, including large numbers of black prisoners serving longer sentences than whites;· mistreatment of mentally-ill and juvenile prisoners;· segregation in schools;· high levels of homelessness and criminalization of homeless people;· racial profiling by police, including the mass surveillance of Muslim communities by the New York police department.
Paul Merrell

Fukushima - A Global Threat That Requires a Global Response - 0 views

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environment pollution radiation Fukushima disaster

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Oct 13 - No Cached
  • The story of Fukushima should be on the front pages of every newspaper. Instead, it is rarely mentioned. The problems at Fukushima are unprecedented in human experience and involve a high risk of radiation events larger than any that the global community has ever experienced. It is going to take the best engineering minds in the world to solve these problems and to diminish their global impact. When we researched the realities of Fukushima in preparation for this article, words like apocalyptic, cataclysmic and Earth-threatening came to mind. But, when we say such things, people react as if we were the little red hen screaming "the sky is falling" and the reports are ignored. So, we’re going to present what is known in this article and you can decide whether we are facing a potentially cataclysmic event.
  • There are three major problems at Fukushima: (1) Three reactor cores are missing; (2) Radiated water has been leaking from the plant in mass quantities for 2.5 years; and (3) Eleven thousand spent nuclear fuel rods, perhaps the most dangerous things ever created by humans, are stored at the plant and need to be removed, 1,533 of those are in a very precarious and dangerous position. Each of these three could result in dramatic radiation events, unlike any radiation exposure humans have ever experienced.  We’ll discuss them in order, saving the most dangerous for last.
  • Missing reactor cores:  Since the accident at Fukushima on March 11, 2011, three reactor cores have gone missing.  There was an unprecedented three reactor ‘melt-down.’ These melted cores, called corium lavas, are thought to have passed through the basements of reactor buildings 1, 2 and 3, and to be somewhere in the ground underneath.  Harvey Wasserman, who has been working on nuclear energy issues for over 40 years, tells us that during those four decades no one ever talked about the possibility of a multiple meltdown, but that is what occurred at Fukushima.  It is an unprecedented situation to not know where these cores are. TEPCO is pouring water where they think the cores are, but they are not sure. There are occasional steam eruptions coming from the grounds of the reactors, so the cores are thought to still be hot. The concern is that the corium lavas will enter or may have already entered the aquifer below the plant. That would contaminate a much larger area with radioactive elements. Some suggest that it would require the area surrounding Tokyo, 40 million people, to be evacuated. Another concern is that if the corium lavas enter the aquifer, they could create a "super-heated pressurized steam reaction beneath a layer of caprock causing a major 'hydrovolcanic' explosion." A further concern is that a large reserve of groundwater which is coming in contact with the corium lavas is migrating towards the ocean at the rate of four meters per month. This could release greater amounts of radiation than were released in the early days of the disaster.
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  • Radioactive water leaking into the Pacific Ocean:  TEPCO did not admit that leaks of radioactive water were occurring until July of this year. Shunichi Tanaka the head of Japan’s Nuclear Regulation Authority finally told reporters this July that radioactive water has been leaking into the Pacific Ocean since the disaster hit over two years ago. This is the largest single contribution of radionuclides to the marine environment ever observed according to a report by the French Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety.  The Japanese government finally admitted that the situation was urgent this September – an emergency they did not acknowledge until 2.5 years after the water problem began. How much radioactive water is leaking into the ocean? An estimated 300 tons (71,895 gallons/272,152 liters) of contaminated water is flowing into the ocean every day.  The first radioactive ocean plume released by the Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster will take three years to reach the shores of the United States.  This means, according to a new study from the University of New South Wales, the United States will experience the first radioactive water coming to its shores sometime in early 2014.
  • One month after Fukushima, the FDA announced it was going to stop testing fish in the Pacific Ocean for radiation.  But, independent research is showing that every bluefin tuna tested in the waters off California has been contaminated with radiation that originated in Fukushima. Daniel Madigan, the marine ecologist who led the Stanford University study from May of 2012 was quoted in the Wall Street Journal saying, "The tuna packaged it up (the radiation) and brought it across the world’s largest ocean. We were definitely surprised to see it at all and even more surprised to see it in every one we measured." Marine biologist Nicholas Fisher of Stony Brook University in New York State, another member of the study group, said: "We found that absolutely every one of them had comparable concentrations of cesium 134 and cesium 137." In addition, Science reports that fish near Fukushima are being found to have high levels of the radioactive isotope, cesium-134. The levels found in these fish are not decreasing,  which indicates that radiation-polluted water continues to leak into the ocean. At least 42 fish species from the area around the plant are considered unsafe.  South Korea has banned Japanese fish as a result of the ongoing leaks.
  • Wasserman builds on the analogy, telling us it is "worse than pulling cigarettes out of a crumbled cigarette pack." It is likely they used salt water as a coolant out of desperation, which would cause corrosion because the rods were never meant to be in salt water.  The condition of the rods is unknown. There is debris in the coolant, so there has been some crumbling from somewhere. Gundersen  adds, "The roof has fallen in, which further distorted the racks," noting that if a fuel rod snaps, it will release radioactive gas which will require at a minimum evacuation of the plant. They will release those gases into the atmosphere and try again. The Japan Times writes: "The consequences could be far more severe than any nuclear accident the world has ever seen. If a fuel rod is dropped, breaks or becomes entangled while being removed, possible worst case scenarios include a big explosion, a meltdown in the pool, or a large fire. Any of these situations could lead to massive releases of deadly radionuclides into the atmosphere, putting much of Japan — including Tokyo and Yokohama — and even neighboring countries at serious risk."  
  • The most recent news on the water problem at Fukushima adds to the concerns. On October 11, 2013, TEPCO disclosed that the radioactivity level spiked 6,500 times at a Fukushima well.  "TEPCO said the findings show that radioactive substances like strontium have reached the groundwater. High levels of tritium, which transfers much easier in water than strontium, had already been detected." Spent Fuel Rods:  As bad as the problems of radioactive water and missing cores are, the biggest problem at Fukushima comes from the spent fuel rods.  The plant has been in operation for 40 years. As a result, they are storing 11 thousand spent fuel rods on the grounds of the Fukushima plant. These fuel rods are composed of highly radioactive materials such as plutonium and uranium. They are about the width of a thumb and about 15 feet long. The biggest and most immediate challenge is the 1,533 spent fuel rods packed tightly in a pool four floors above Reactor 4.  Before the storm hit, those rods had been removed for routine maintenance of the reactor.  But, now they are stored 100 feet in the air in damaged racks.  They weigh a total of 400 tons and contain radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
  • The building in which these rods are stored has been damaged. TEPCO reinforced it with a steel frame, but the building itself is buckling and sagging, vulnerable to collapse if another earthquake or storm hits the area. Additionally, the ground under and around the building is becoming saturated with water, which further undermines the integrity of the structure and could cause it to tilt. How dangerous are these fuel rods?  Harvey Wasserman explains that the fuel rods are clad in zirconium which can ignite if they lose coolant. They could also ignite or explode if rods break or hit each other. Wasserman reports that some say this could result in a fission explosion like an atomic bomb, others say that is not what would happen, but agree it would be "a reaction like we have never seen before, a nuclear fire releasing incredible amounts of radiation," says Wasserman. These are not the only spent fuel rods at the plant, they are just the most precarious.  There are 11,000 fuel rods scattered around the plant, 6,000 in a cooling pool less than 50 meters from the sagging Reactor 4.  If a fire erupts in the spent fuel pool at Reactor 4, it could ignite the rods in the cooling pool and lead to an even greater release of radiation. It could set off a chain reaction that could not be stopped.
  • What would happen? Wasserman reports that the plant would have to be evacuated.  The workers who are essential to preventing damage at the plant would leave, and we will have lost a critical safeguard.  In addition, the computers will not work because of the intense radiation. As a result we would be blind - the world would have to sit and wait to see what happened. You might have to not only evacuate Fukushima but all of the population in and around Tokyo, reports Wasserman.  There is no question that the 1,533 spent fuel rods need to be removed.  But Arnie Gundersen, a veteran nuclear engineer and director of Fairewinds Energy Education, who used to build fuel assemblies, told Reuters "They are going to have difficulty in removing a significant number of the rods." He described the problem in a radio interview: "If you think of a nuclear fuel rack as a pack of cigarettes, if you pull a cigarette straight up it will come out — but these racks have been distorted. Now when they go to pull the cigarette straight out, it’s going to likely break and release radioactive cesium and other gases, xenon and krypton, into the air. I suspect come November, December, January we’re going to hear that the building’s been evacuated, they’ve broke a fuel rod, the fuel rod is off-gassing."
  • As bad as the ongoing leakage of radioactive water is into the Pacific, that is not the largest part of the water problem.  The Asia-Pacific Journal reported last month that TEPCO has 330,000 tons of water stored in 1,000 above-ground tanks and an undetermined amount in underground storage tanks.  Every day, 400 tons of water comes to the site from the mountains, 300 tons of that is the source for the contaminated water leaking into the Pacific daily. It is not clear where the rest of this water goes.   Each day TEPCO injects 400 tons of water into the destroyed facilities to keep them cool; about half is recycled, and the rest goes into the above-ground tanks. They are constantly building new storage tanks for this radioactive water. The tanks being used for storage were put together rapidly and are already leaking. They expect to have 800,000 tons of radioactive water stored on the site by 2016.  Harvey Wasserman warns that these unstable tanks are at risk of rupture if there is another earthquake or storm that hits Fukushima. The Asia-Pacific Journal concludes: "So at present there is no real solution to the water problem."
  • This is not the usual moving of fuel rods.  TEPCO has been saying this is routine, but in fact it is unique – a feat of engineering never done before.  As Gundersen says: "Tokyo Electric is portraying this as easy. In a normal nuclear reactor, all of this is done with computers. Everything gets pulled perfectly vertically. Well nothing is vertical anymore, the fuel racks are distorted, it’s all going to have to be done manually. The net effect is it’s a really difficult job. It wouldn’t surprise me if they snapped some of the fuel and they can’t remove it." Gregory Jaczko, Former Chairman of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission concurs with Gundersen describing the removal of the spent fuel rods as "a very significant activity, and . . . very, very unprecedented." Wasserman sums the challenge up: "We are doing something never done before – bent, crumbling, brittle fuel rods being removed from a pool that is compromised, in a building that is sinking, sagging and buckling, and it all must done under manual control, not with computers."  And the potential damage from failure would affect hundreds of millions of people.
  • The first thing that is needed is to end the media blackout.  The global public needs to be informed about the issues the world faces from Fukushima.  The impacts of Fukushima could affect almost everyone on the planet, so we all have a stake in the outcome.  If the public is informed about this problem, the political will to resolve it will rapidly develop. The nuclear industry, which wants to continue to expand, fears Fukushima being widely discussed because it undermines their already weak economic potential.  But, the profits of the nuclear industry are of minor concern compared to the risks of the triple Fukushima challenges. 
  • The second thing that must be faced is the incompetence of TEPCO.  They are not capable of handling this triple complex crisis. TEPCO "is already Japan’s most distrusted firm" and has been exposed as "dangerously incompetent."  A poll found that 91 percent of the Japanese public wants the government to intervene at Fukushima. Tepco’s management of the stricken power plant has been described as a comedy of errors. The constant stream of mistakes has been made worse by constant false denials and efforts to minimize major problems. Indeed the entire Fukushima catastrophe could have been avoided: "Tepco at first blamed the accident on ‘an unforeseen massive tsunami’ triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake on March 11, 2011. Then it admitted it had in fact foreseen just such a scenario but hadn’t done anything about it."
  • The reality is Fukushima was plagued by human error from the outset.  An official Japanese government investigation concluded that the Fukushima accident was a "man-made" disaster, caused by "collusion" between government and Tepco and bad reactor design. On this point, TEPCO is not alone, this is an industry-wide problem. Many US nuclear plants have serious problems, are being operated beyond their life span, have the same design problems and are near earthquake faults. Regulatory officials in both the US and Japan are too corruptly tied to the industry. Then, the meltdown itself was denied for months, with TEPCO claiming it had not been confirmed.  Japan Times reports that "in December 2011, the government announced that the plant had reached ‘a state of cold shutdown.’ Normally, that means radiation releases are under control and the temperature of its nuclear fuel is consistently below boiling point."  Unfortunately, the statement was false – the reactors continue to need water to keep them cool, the fuel rods need to be kept cool – there has been no cold shutdown.
  • TEPCO has done a terrible job of cleaning up the plant.  Japan Times describes some of the problems: "The plant is being run on makeshift equipment and breakdowns are endemic. Among nearly a dozen serious problems since April this year there have been successive power outages, leaks of highly radioactive water from underground water pools — and a rat that chewed enough wires to short-circuit a switchboard, causing a power outage that interrupted cooling for nearly 30 hours. Later, the cooling system for a fuel-storage pool had to be switched off for safety checks when two dead rats were found in a transformer box."  TEPCO has been constantly cutting financial corners and not spending enough to solve the challenges of the Fukushima disaster resulting in shoddy practices that cause environmental damage. Washington’s Blog reports that the Japanese government is spreading radioactivity throughout Japan – and other countries – by burning radioactive waste in incinerators not built to handle such toxic substances. Workers have expressed concerns and even apologized for following order regarding the ‘clean-up.’
  • Indeed, the workers are another serious concern. The Guardian reported in October 2013 the plummeting morale of workers, problems of alcohol abuse, anxiety, loneliness, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and depression. TEPCO cut the pay of its workers by 20 percent in 2011 to save money even though these workers are doing very difficult work and face constant problems. Outside of work, many were traumatized by being forced to evacuate their homes after the Tsunami; and they have no idea how exposed to radiation they have been and what health consequences they will suffer. Contractors are hired based on the lowest bid, resulting in low wages for workers. According to the Guardian, Japan's top nuclear regulator, Shunichi Tanaka, told reporters: "Mistakes are often linked to morale. People usually don't make silly, careless mistakes when they're motivated and working in a positive environment. The lack of it, I think, may be related to the recent problems." The history of TEPCO shows we cannot trust this company and its mistreated workforce to handle the complex challenges faced at Fukushima. The crisis at Fukushima is a global one, requiring a global solution.
  • In an open letter to the United Nations, 16 top nuclear experts urged the government of Japan to transfer responsibility for the Fukushima reactor site to a worldwide engineering group overseen by a civil society panel and an international group of nuclear experts independent from TEPCO and the International Atomic Energy Administration , IAEA. They urge that the stabilization, clean-up and de-commissioning of the plant be well-funded. They make this request with "urgency" because the situation at the Fukushima plant is "progressively deteriorating, not stabilizing." 
  • The problems at Fukushima are in large part about facing reality – seeing the challenges, risks and potential harms from the incident. It is about TEPCO and Japan facing the reality that they are not equipped to handle the challenges of Fukushima and need the world to join the effort. 
  • Paul Merrell on 26 Oct 13
     
    Excellent roundup of evidence that the Fukushima disaster recovery process has gone badly awry and is devolving quickly to looming further disasters. Political momentum is gathering to wrest the recovery efforts away from the Japanese government and to place its leadership in the hands of an international group of experts. The disaster was far worse than its portrayal in mainstream media, is continuing, and even worse secondary disasters now loom. 
Paul Merrell

UK referred to International Criminal Court for war crimes in Iraq - World Socialist We... - 0 views

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war & peace Iraq ICC UK

shared by Paul Merrell on 11 Jun 14 - No Cached
  • International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, has accepted the complaint lodged in January alleging that UK military personnel committed war crimes against Iraqis in their custody between 2003 and 2008. She has ordered a preliminary investigation. It is the first step into a possible criminal prosecution against Britain’s political and military leaders, including politicians, senior civil servants, lawyers, Chief of Defence Staff and Chief of Defence Intelligence, who bear ultimate responsibility for systematic abuse of detainees in Iraq. This is the first time the ICC in The Hague has opened an enquiry into a Western state. Almost all of the ICC’s indictees have been African heads of state or officials.
  • Bensouda’s decision flows from an official complaint by the British Public Interest Lawyers (PIL) and the European Centre for Constitutional and Human Rights (ECCHR) last January. Their 250-page submission, the most detailed ever submitted to the ICC on war crimes committed by British forces in Iraq, took years to compile. It documented the new facts and additional evidence that had become available since the initial complaint in 2006.
  • The list of the most serious allegations is damning. They include the use of sensory deprivation and isolation, food and water deprivation, the use of prolonged stress positions, the use of the “harshing” technique which involves sustained aggressive shouting in close proximity to the victim, a wide range of physical assault, including beating, burning, electrocution or electric shocks, both direct and implied threats to the health and safety of the detainees and/or friends and family, including mock executions and threats of rape, death, torture, indefinite detention and violence.
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  • There are claims that British personnel used environmental manipulation such as exposure to extreme temperatures, forced exertion, cultural and religious humiliation. Other allegations referred to a wide range of sexual assaults and humiliation including forced nakedness, sexual taunts and attempted seduction, touching of genitalia, forced or simulated sexual acts, and forced exposure to pornography and sexual acts between soldiers. In all, the victims made thousands of allegations of mistreatment that amount to war crimes: torture, inhuman or degrading treatment as well as the deliberate infliction of grievous suffering and/or serious injury. They were not dissimilar from those of the infamous US torture at Abu Ghraib prison. The sheer scale of the crimes, committed repeatedly at numerous sites and over a long period, testify to the systematic use of illegal methods of detention and interrogation, sanctioned at the top of the military and political chain.
  • UK military commanders “knew or should have known” that forces under their control “were committing or about to commit war crimes,” but failed to act. “Civilian superiors knew or consciously disregarded information at their disposal, which clearly indicated that UK services personnel were committing war crimes in Iraq.” PIL and ECCHR specifically called for Britain’s most senior army personnel and politicians, including former Secretaries of State for Defence Geoffrey Hoon, John Reid, Des Browne and John Hutton and Ministers of State for the Armed Forces Personnel Adam Ingram and Bob Ainsworth as officials who should have to answer claims about the systematic use of torture and cruelty.
Paul Merrell

Is someone pinching pennies at Guantánamo prison? | Miami Herald - 0 views

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war & peace GITMO-detainees mistreatment

shared by Paul Merrell on 10 Oct 15 - No Cached
  • Could the people at the Most Expensive Prison on Earth be pinching pennies?
  • Attorneys for the last 114 captives at the U.S. Navy base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, say they have been increasingly providing their clients with everything from T-shirts and socks and shoes to shampoo and vitamins to fill a long-term, unexplained need at the war on terror prison.Lawyers who have visited the prison as recently as this month say the captives’ U.S. military issue uniforms are faded, torn or tattered and their shoes have holes. In other instances, detainees tell their lawyers, personal hygiene supplies are cheap and simply don’t do the job. A case-in-point: When attorney Ramzi Kassem met detainee Shaker Aamer to share the news that the long-held Saudi prisoner was approved for transfer to Britain after Oct. 24, the captive was brought to their meeting in prison-issue canvas shoes held together by duct tape.
  • “Stuff’s just not getting replaced,” said attorney George Clarke who in late September spent about $300 on slip-on canvas shoes, plastic sandals, T-shirts and towels for his two detainee clients — both approved for repatriation, if the political situation improves in Yemen. “They say the stuff they get is crap. Or they’re not getting it.”Recently, he said, the detention center staff has been more accepting of contributions from the attorneys, suggesting prison commanders are confronted with a cash crunch or have realized they can pass along costs of basics to the private sector.
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  • At the prison, a spokesman declined to say whether the raggedy clothing reflected a new policy or budget cutbacks but dismissed a question on whether there was a supply issue. Detainee provisions “have not changed,” Navy Capt. Christopher Scholl said tersely by email. The prison would not provide a list of what constitutes basic issue prisoner provisions these days. Nor would Scholl address a question about whether the quality of prison-issue items had degraded.
  • The International Committee of the Red Cross would not say whether delegates have raised the issue in confidential talks with the prison commander. The Miami Herald spoke, separately, with 12 attorneys who have met captives in recent months and describe detainees showing up at legal meetings looking disheveled and needing replacement footwear or clothes. The attorneys say the appearance is noteworthy because through the years all but mentally ill captives have tried to tidy up for their legal meetings.“They’re looking pretty threadbare,” attorney Cori Crider of the nonprofit Reprieve legal defense group said from the U.S. Navy base Tuesday after she bought shampoo and socks for one prisoner. “It’s an escalating complaint that people are being left in rags.”The lawyers quote their clients as saying some supplies have disappeared entirely at the prison, which boasts Muslim sensitivity and humane treatment. Some just aren’t replaced frequently enough, they claim.
  • Into this vacuum attorneys who represent the detainees at no charge have for about nine months routinely spent hundreds of dollars on each trip to buy their clients basic provisions at the base commissary, the Navy Exchange, or NEX.In March, Chicago attorney Patricia Bronte, a solo practitioner, spent $136.25 on shoes and Gold Toe socks for her two Yemeni clients. She left them with a prison lawyer, who got them to the clients after she left the base — something she knows because she got thank-you notes via the prison’s legal mail system.
  • “I have noticed that sometimes the client appears at the meetings with shoes that look pretty beaten up. So I went to the NEX and I bought shoes and socks.” Also $6.12 in toothbrushes and toothpaste, according to her commissary receipt.“Understand, I’m not complaining. I don’t mind buying my clients shoes to improve their conditions,” she said. “It’s the gall of this country. To detain these guys for little or no reason for 14 years and not provide them with shoes is offensive.”
  • Prison officials had already stopped spending taxpayers’ money on books, videos and electronic games for the detainee diversion program, according to media visits in the past year, leaving it to the Red Cross and lawyers to donate to the Detainee Library. Kassem, the attorney, said his clients quoted guards and other prison staff as blaming budget cuts at the prison where the Pentagon maintains a 2,000-plus staff for 114 captives and has spent more than $5 billion. “Sometimes it’s a problem of poor toiletries — soap that doesn’t lather, toothpaste that doesn’t froth, deodorant that doesn’t prevent body odor,” said Kassem, a professor at the City University of New York School of Law whose legal clinic represents five Guantánamo detainees. Captives he sees in the prison’s iconic orange prison uniform are wearing old, torn and much less orange jumpsuits, he said.The prisoners are perplexed, Kassem said. “They’ve heard how much it costs per prisoner. They wonder, where’s all the money?”“Somebody’s pinching pennies, it seems,” he said, describing the prison-issue footwear on Aamer, the next detainee to be released, as “Oliver Twist tattered” despite repeated pleas for a replacement pair.
  • Over at the secret prison for former long-held CIA captives, Camp 7, the detainees are taking vitamin D furnished by defense attorneys Cheryl Bormann and Air Force Capt. Michael Schwartz.Walid bin Attash spent years without exposure to sunlight in a so-called CIA black site before he got to Camp 7 in 2006. Now, he’s told his lawyers, his medical record shows a severe vitamin D deficiency. He asked his defense team for a halal version of the supplement, which the prison doesn’t provide. One attorney, who asked not to be identified, quoted a prison medical officer as telling detainees “there’s no money for that.”So bin Attash’s lawyers ordered kosher vitamin D — no forbidden products in those gel caps — and gave it to the military staff attorney assigned to Camp 7. The prison’s medical officer has apparently doled them out to other former CIA black site captives because bin Attash needs a resupply sooner than a one-a-day distribution would require, Bormann said.“We’ve been having to purchase vitamin D for our client,” said Bormann, a criminal defense attorney with death-penalty experience. “It’s crazy.” At a civilian prison, she said, the lawyers wouldn’t have to buy and furnish it. They’d go to a federal or state judge, who would order the prison to provide it.
  • Lists of purchases provided by more than a dozen attorneys include toothbrushes, toothpaste, bar soap, shampoo, deodorant, slip-on sandals that double as slippers, white socks, white T-shirts, towels, no-lace sneakers, canvas slip-on shoes, pillows, books, individual DVD players, video games and audio tapes. Those reached the clients after a guard inspection — as did tahini, ginger, allspice, mint oil, mint tea, ginger tea, Nesquik, olive oil, ground cloves, henna and almonds, around Ramadan. Lawyers also said they have submitted other items that were rejected — notably black socks, hairbrushes, combs and aftershave (probably for its taboo alcohol content).
Paul Merrell

Secret documents shine light on GCSB spying in Bangladesh - National - NZ Herald News - 0 views

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surveillance state war & peace NZ GCSB CIA NSA Bangladesh torture

shared by Paul Merrell on 16 Apr 15 - No Cached
  • Secret documents reveal New Zealand has shared intelligence collected through covert surveillance with Bangladesh despite that country's security forces being implicated in extrajudicial killings, torture and other human rights abuses. The documents shine light on the major role played by the Government Communications Security Bureau (GCSB) in electronic spying operations conducted in the small South Asian nation. The surveillance has been used to aid the United States as part of its global counter-terrorism campaign, launched after the September 11 attacks in 2001. The New Zealand Herald analysed the documents in collaboration with US news website The Intercept, which obtained them from the NSA whistle-blower Edward Snowden.
  • The Bangladesh spying is revealed in an April 2013 US National Security Agency (NSA) report about its relationship with New Zealand. In a section called "What Partner Provides to NSA", it says "GCSB has been the lead for the intelligence community on the Bangladesh CT [Counter-Terrorism] target since 2004." The GCSB provides "one of the key SIGINT [signals intelligence] sources of [Bangladesh counter-terrorism] reporting to the US intelligence community."
  • The intelligence gathered by the GCSB staff was also being forwarded to foreign intelligence agencies, including Bangladesh's state intelligence agency. In recent years, human rights groups have issued several reports documenting Bangladeshi intelligence and security agencies' disregard for international prohibitions on torture and alleged involvement in politically motivated killings. In 2014, a case was filed in the International Criminal Court accusing the Bangladesh Government of committing crimes against humanity. The GCSB's surveillance operations in Bangladesh are among the most surprising and obscure yet revealed. Bangladesh barely registers in New Zealand foreign policy. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade website says: "Relations between New Zealand and Bangladesh remain friendly, although interaction is limited." Nonetheless, a New Zealand government source told the Herald that Bangladesh is the main focus of one of the GCSB's four analysis sections, called ICT, and has been for over a decade. ICT, the Transnational Issues section, was set up in April 2002 in the wake of the September 11 attacks to focus on terrorism threats.
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  • The 2009 document reveals that there is a special collection site in the Bangladesh capital, Dhaka, for eavesdropping on local communications. New Zealand does not have a high commission or any other official building in Bangladesh in which to hide a covert listening post. The Snowden documents suggest the Dhaka unit may be located inside a US-controlled building with operations overseen by the NSA and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
  • Green Party co-leader Russel Norman said the spy agency was "dragging" New Zealand into human rights abuses, and the Government should stop providing intelligence assistance to Bangladesh. "All three key anti-terrorism government agencies in Bangladesh have been implicated in horrendous human rights abuses, so it is impossible to guarantee that the information passed on did not lead to innocent people being killed or tortured," Dr Norman said. "John Key has always justified the GCSB on the basis that it is there to protect the good guys, but these documents reveal that it is helping the bad guys.
  • The intelligence gathered by the GCSB staff was being forwarded to foreign intelligence agencies. The April 2013 NSA report said the "GCSB's Bangladesh CT [counter terrorism] reporting provided unique intelligence leads that have enabled successful CT operations by Bangladesh State Intelligence Service, CIA and India over the past year". The specific Bangladesh "State Intelligence Service" referred to is not named in the document. Bangladesh has several agencies that focus on gathering intelligence, primarily including the Directorate General of Forces Intelligence (DGFI), the National Security Intelligence agency (NSI), and the police Special Branch. The lead agency that executes the country's counter-terrorism operations is the Rapid Action Battalion, or RAB. Each of these agencies has been accused of involvement in severe human rights abuses over a sustained number of years. In 2008, for instance, Human Rights Watch alleged that the Special Branch headquarters in Dhaka's Maghbazar neighbourhood was used to torture detainees.
  • In 2010, a trade union activist accused the NSI of arresting, torturing, and threatening to kill him. The same activist was found dead in unexplained circumstances two years later, his toes and feet broken, legs and body battered and bruised, and his legs apparently pierced with a sharp object. Bangladesh's intelligence agencies and main police and security forces co-operate closely. Most notably, they work together as part of a notorious centre called the Taskforce for Interrogation Cell, located inside a compound in northern Dhaka that is controlled by the RAB unit. In 2011, Britain's Guardian newspaper reported the interrogation cell was used as a place to extract information and confessions from "enemies of the state". It was described as a "torture centre" used for "deliberate and systematic" mistreatment of detainees. One British man detained there in 2009 on terrorism-related charges was allegedly hooded and strapped to a chair while a drill was driven into his right shoulder and hip.
  • Other torture methods used by Bangladeshi authorities, according to Human Rights Watch, have included "burning with acid, hammering of nails into toes ... electric shocks, beatings on legs with iron rods, beating with batons on backs after sprinkling sand on them, ice torture, finger piercing, and mock executions". In February last year, the US Government suspended its own support for the RAB, citing "gross violation of human rights" committed by the force's members. The same month, a case against the Bangladesh Government was lodged in the International Criminal Court, accusing the country's officials of waging a brutal campaign of "widespread or systematic" torture, killings, and other human rights abuses that amounted to crimes against humanity.
Paul Merrell

Pentagon fears blowback from 'humane' Guantánamo video release | The Miami He... - 0 views

www.miamiherald.com/...article4263887.html

war & peace GITMO forced-feedings litigation appeal

shared by Paul Merrell on 06 Dec 14 - No Cached
  • A Pentagon official is invoking the revulsion of Muslims worldwide over images of U.S. Marines urinating on corpses to predict the global backlash at seeing videos of Guantánamo troops hauling a captive to force-feedings.The Justice Department included the declaration in a renewed bid to prevent the public from seeing 32 videos made by U.S. forces at the detention center in Cuba. “While the videos at issue in this litigation do not in my opinion depict any improper treatment of the detainees, but rather the lawful, humane and appropriate interaction between guards and detainees,” wrote U.S. Navy Rear Adm. Sinclair Harris, “persons and entities hostile to the United States and its detention of enemy belligerents at Guantánamo Bay are likely to think otherwise.”Harris is vice director of operations at the Department of Defense Joint Staff, and said he had watched some of the videos — which lawyers say portray troops forcing captive Abu Wa’el Dhiab to tube feedings. The admiral said he concluded the images could be used for propaganda purposes to stoke anti-American sentiment and put U.S. citizens at risk in Iraq and Afghanistan.
  • Dhiab, 43, was cleared for release from Guantánamo years ago but can’t be repatriated to his native Syria, a nation now wracked with Islamic State violence. Instead, Uruguay has offered him sanctuary in a deal that was sidelined first by the Pentagon then by that South American nation’s elections. He has been protesting by hunger striking.Dhiab wants the videos released, according to one of his attorneys, Cori Crider, and so does a consortium of 16 media organizations, which petitioned a federal court in Washington, D.C. On Oct. 3, Judge Gladys Kessler ordered the U.S. government to obscure the faces and identities in the videos of everyone but the captive, then make them public. Tuesday, U.S. government lawyers notified Kessler’s court that it would file an appeal.
  • Dhiab’s attorney argues that ugly optics are no excuse.“I’ve seen the videos — and of course they’re upsetting,” Crider said Wednesday by email from Reprieve, a London-based law firm that represents Dhiab at no charge. “But that’s no reason to hide the truth from Americans.” “By that logic, think of all the government scandals that never would have seen the light of day,” she added, citing the 2003 photos of guards abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and images of the 1968 My Lai massacre that “changed the conversation about Vietnam.”Reprieve’s legal team discovered there were recordings during a forced-feeding challenge; the detention center says it has since discontinued taping the tube feedings for reasons of patient privacy.
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  • Harris suggested the videos could lead to the “perceived mistreatment of individuals,” and serve as a recruiting tool for the Islamic State. In his declaration he noted that South Florida journalist Steven Sotloff was forced by his captors to make an anti-Guantánamo statement before he was beheaded earlier this year. When Sotloff was killed, he was clad in an orange jumpsuit that has come to symbolize the prison in southeast Cuba.
  • Harris argued against release based on “prior experience from the release of certain provocative photographs and information.” He noted that “in 2012 the release of a video depicting Marines urinating on the corpses of alleged Taliban members was used as a recruitment tool for the Taliban and led to an Afghan soldier attacking and killing French troops.”It is not known when the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit would take up the Justice Department appeal because Tuesday’s filing was not the appeal itself but notice to the court that the Obama administration was appealing Kessler’s release order.Separately, the prison camps commander Navy Rear Adm. Kyle Cozad, argued that disclosure of the videos would tip captives to certain techniques used by its tackle-and-shackle squad of soldiers — something Judge Kessler ridiculed in her ruling as “implausible” because the captives experience what is portrayed in the videos.
  • Cozad, however, suggested in a heavily redacted 13-page sworn statement that if the videos are released he might restrict access to news media in the cellblocks, a popular distraction at the detention center that the admiral characterized as “important for intellectual stimulation and overall morale.”He also listed a series of assaults that apparently occurred since he took over this summer, including a captive who resisted his force-feeding by biting a guard and another who hit a soldier in the face with a handcuffed fist.He called the videos a useful tool for the prison, saying staff likened them to “an NFL team watching video of the previous week’s football game to determine what plays worked well, what they did wrong, and what they could do better during the next game.”
  • Paul Merrell on 06 Dec 14
     
    If DOJ does not win its appeal, watch for the GITMO prisoner to be suddenly released in order to moot his case so the video doesn't have to be disclosed.  
Paul Merrell

US to Detainee: The Government "Regrets Any Hardship" - 0 views

fas.org/...regrets-any-hardship

deep-state unlawful-detention litigation apology

shared by Paul Merrell on 22 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • In an unusual gesture, the U.S. Government last week apologized to Abdullah al-Kidd, a U.S. citizen who was arrested in 2003 and detained as a material witness in connection with a terrorism-related case. Mr. Al-Kidd, represented by American Civil Liberties Union attorney Lee Gelernt, challenged his detention as unconstitutional and inhumane. Now the case has been settled, with an official apology and a payment of $385,000. “The government acknowledges that your arrest and detention as a witness was a difficult experience for you and regrets any hardship or disruption to your life that may have resulted from your arrest and detention,” wrote U.S. Attorney Wendy J. Olson in a January 15 letter. This sort of admission of regret is rare. The government apologizes much less frequently than it perpetrates injuries that are inappropriate or unwarranted. So, for example, the recent Senate report on post-9/11 CIA interrogation practices noted that at least 26 individuals had been “wrongfully detained.” But legal attempts to recover damages are typically foreclosed by courts based on “separation of powers, national security, and the risk of interfering with military decisions.”
  • Why not apologize and compensate those who have been abused and mistreated, starting with those individuals who by all accounts are innocent of any wrongdoing? It would be the just and honorable thing to do, both for the intelligence community and for the country. And it would be most powerful (and most “therapeutic”) if the IC undertook this step at its own initiative, rather than waiting to be compelled by others. “Personally I agree,” a senior U.S. intelligence community legal official said privately, “for the reasons you say and some others. [But] getting it done is a lot harder.” And so it is. Even as it apologized to Abdullah al-Kidd, the U.S. Government insisted on a stipulation that the settlement of the case “is not, is in no way intended to be, and should not be construed as, an admission of liability or fault on the part of the United States.”
  • Paul Merrell on 22 Jan 15
     
    More background on the case here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashcroft_v._al-Kidd
Paul Merrell

Cooperation between British spies and Gaddafi's Libya revealed in official papers | UK ... - 0 views

www.theguardian.com/...libya-revealed-official-papers

tyranny torture rendition UK Libya MI5 MI6 litigation

shared by Paul Merrell on 26 Jan 15 - No Cached
  • Britain’s intelligence agencies engaged in a series of previously unknown joint operations with Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s government and used the information extracted from rendition victims as evidence during partially secret court proceedings in London, according to an analysis of official documents recovered in Tripoli since the Libyan revolution. The exhaustive study of the papers from the Libyan government archives shows the links between MI5, MI6 and Gaddafi’s security agencies were far more extensive than previously thought and involved a number of joint operations in which Libyan dissidents were unlawfully detained and allegedly tortured. At one point, Libyan intelligence agents were invited to operate on British soil, where they worked alongside MI5 and allegedly intimidated a number of Gaddafi opponents who had been granted asylum in the UK.
  • the research suggests that the fruits of a series of joint clandestine operations also underpinned a significant number of court hearings in London between 2002 and 2007, during which the last Labour government unsuccessfully sought to deport Gaddafi’s opponents on the basis of information extracted from people who had been “rendered” to his jails. In addition, the documents show that four men were subjected to control orders in the UK – a form of curfew – on the basis of information extracted from victims of rendition who had been handed over to the Gaddafi regime.
  • The papers recovered from the dictatorship’s archives include secret correspondence from MI6, MI5 reports on Libyans living in the UK, a British intelligence assessment marked “UK/Libya Eyes Only – Secret” and official Libyan minutes of meetings between the two countries’ intelligence agencies.
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  • Gaddafi’s agents recorded MI5 as warning in September 2006 that the two countries’ agencies should take steps to ensure that their joint operations would never be “discovered by lawyers or human rights organisations and the media”. In fact, papers that detail the joint UK-Libyan rendition operations were discovered by the New York-based NGO Human Rights Watch in September 2011, at the height of the Libyan revolution, in an abandoned government office building in Tripoli. Since then, hundreds more documents have been discovered in government files in Tripoli. A team of London-based lawyers has assembled them into an archive that is forming the basis of a claim for damages on behalf of 12 men who were allegedly kidnapped, tortured, subject to control orders or tricked into travelling to Libya where they were detained and mistreated.
  • An attempt by government lawyers to have that claim struck out was rejected by the high court in London on Thursday , with the judge, Mr Justice Irwin, ruling that the allegations “are of real potential public concern” and should be heard and dealt with by the courts.
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