Image via WikipediaWho cares about torture in the UK ?
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2010/07/who_cares_about.html
This is perhaps the best of eleven analyses I have found so far on major US blogs of the new material I recently posted proving a UK ministerial policy of torture.
This is perhaps the best of eleven analyses I have found so far on major US blogs of the new material I recently posted proving a UK ministerial policy of torture.
Torture and Truth
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/07/01/torture-and-truth
Yesterday, I posted on a Harvard study showing that the press, after an established tradition of referring to waterboarding as torture, stopped doing so once it became clear the US engaged in the practice. Our press, in other words, refused to tell what they had previously presented as “the truth” (that is, that waterboarding was unquestionably torture) when it became politically contentious to do so.
( 'Waterboarding' is, in fact, merely a convenient rebranding of Water Torture as practiced by Torquemada in the Spanish Inquisition and in countless Witch Trials)
John Pilger: There Is a War on Journalism
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/29/john_pilger_there_is_a_war
The reason we don’t see the war on civilians, the war that has caused the most extraordinary devastation, human and cultural and structural devastation in both Iraq and Afghanistan, is because of what is almost laughingly called the mainstream media. The one apology, not these apologies that we’ve seen this morning from Fox to CBS, right across the spectrum, to the New York Times this morning, the real apology that counted was the New York Times when it apologized to its readers for not showing us the war in—or the reasons that led up, rather, to the invasion of Iraq that produced this horrific war. I mean, these people now have become so embedded with the establishment, so embedded with authority, they’re what Brecht called the spokesmen of the spokesmen. They’re not journalists.
Brooks writes about a "culture of exposure." Excuse me, isn’t that journalism? Are we so distant from what journalism ought to be, not simply an echo chamber for authority, that somebody in the New York Times can attack a journalist who’s done his job? Hastings did a wonderful job. He caught out McChrystal, as he should have done. That’s his job. In a country where the media is constitutionally freer, nominally, than any other country on earth, the disgrace of the recent carnage in the Middle East and in Afghanistan is largely down to the fact that the media didn’t alert us. It didn’t report it. It didn’t question. It simply amplified and echoed authority.
Dangerous game
http://pulsemedia.org/2010/07/01/dangerous-game
Editor's Note
The campaign against Moazzam Beg and Amnesty International is led by the McCarthyite Harry’s Place, an Israel lobby operation that specializes in defaming critics of Israel and what it broadly labels as ‘Islamists’ (which according to its definition is any Muslim who is not Ayaan Hirsi Ali). It is also assisted by The Spittoon which is jointly run by members of the neoconservative Centre for Social Cohesion and the Quilliam Foundation. Like Harry’s Place, the Spittoon also uses the cover of anonymity to smear opponents. Both frequently crosspost each others material and coordinate their attacks. Ends
The Somali-born, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, has prospered as a celebrity for her critique of conservative Islam, earning a job at the conservative US think tank the American Enterprise Institute
I am now free to offer my help as an external expert with an intimate knowledge of Amnesty International’s processes and policies. I can explain in public debates… that adherence to violent jihad… is an integral part of a political philosophy that promotes the destruction of human rights generally and contravenes Amnesty International’s specific policies relating to systematic violence, particularly against women…
At the centre of Ms Sahgal’s criticism of Amnesty for working with Moazzam Begg – who can speak on rendition, torture and imprisonment from personal experience – and Cageprisoners, the web-based organisation which campaigns for Muslim prisoners held without trial, are three charges against him:
1. Attitudes to women.
2. Support for the Taliban.
3. Support for “violent jihad”
These have morphed into a generalised and theoretical attack on Amnesty for rejecting a “belief in universalism”, and a call for Amnesty to restore the integrity of human rights, as Ms Sahgal puts it. Or, as the petition puts it, “We believe that Gita Sahgal has raised a fundamental point of principle which is about the importance of the human rights movement maintaining an objective distance from groups and ideas that are committed to systematic discrimination”. (This is in tune with the astounding new US Supreme Court 6 – 3 ruling that prevents humanitarian groups from speaking to groups considered by the US to be terrorists, even for legal advice or peace-making.)
MCCHRYSTAL - DEATH SQUAD POSTER BOY
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php
The sacking of the head of NATO’s military command in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, caused a surge in coverage of the man described by political analyst James Petras as “Cheney’s chief assassin”.
In May 2009, Petras sampled from McChrystal’s CV. The general had played a central role in directing units involved in “extrajudicial assassinations, systematic torture, bombing of civilian communities and search and destroy missions”. He was “the very embodiment of the brutality and gore that accompanies military-driven empire building”. (http://www.alternet.org/story/140068/cheney's_chief_assassin_is_now_obama's_commander_in_afghanistan/?page=1)
( The part about Empire building that tends to be glossed over is that the supposed 'demockracy' it engenders bears more than a passing resemblance to a puppet mafia regime )
http://emptywheel.firedoglake.com/2010/07/01/torture-and-truth
Yesterday, I posted on a Harvard study showing that the press, after an established tradition of referring to waterboarding as torture, stopped doing so once it became clear the US engaged in the practice. Our press, in other words, refused to tell what they had previously presented as “the truth” (that is, that waterboarding was unquestionably torture) when it became politically contentious to do so.
( 'Waterboarding' is, in fact, merely a convenient rebranding of Water Torture as practiced by Torquemada in the Spanish Inquisition and in countless Witch Trials)
John Pilger: There Is a War on Journalism
http://www.democracynow.org/2010/6/29/john_pilger_there_is_a_war
The reason we don’t see the war on civilians, the war that has caused the most extraordinary devastation, human and cultural and structural devastation in both Iraq and Afghanistan, is because of what is almost laughingly called the mainstream media. The one apology, not these apologies that we’ve seen this morning from Fox to CBS, right across the spectrum, to the New York Times this morning, the real apology that counted was the New York Times when it apologized to its readers for not showing us the war in—or the reasons that led up, rather, to the invasion of Iraq that produced this horrific war. I mean, these people now have become so embedded with the establishment, so embedded with authority, they’re what Brecht called the spokesmen of the spokesmen. They’re not journalists.
Brooks writes about a "culture of exposure." Excuse me, isn’t that journalism? Are we so distant from what journalism ought to be, not simply an echo chamber for authority, that somebody in the New York Times can attack a journalist who’s done his job? Hastings did a wonderful job. He caught out McChrystal, as he should have done. That’s his job. In a country where the media is constitutionally freer, nominally, than any other country on earth, the disgrace of the recent carnage in the Middle East and in Afghanistan is largely down to the fact that the media didn’t alert us. It didn’t report it. It didn’t question. It simply amplified and echoed authority.
Dangerous game
http://pulsemedia.org/2010/07/01/dangerous-game
Editor's Note
The campaign against Moazzam Beg and Amnesty International is led by the McCarthyite Harry’s Place, an Israel lobby operation that specializes in defaming critics of Israel and what it broadly labels as ‘Islamists’ (which according to its definition is any Muslim who is not Ayaan Hirsi Ali). It is also assisted by The Spittoon which is jointly run by members of the neoconservative Centre for Social Cohesion and the Quilliam Foundation. Like Harry’s Place, the Spittoon also uses the cover of anonymity to smear opponents. Both frequently crosspost each others material and coordinate their attacks. Ends
The Somali-born, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, has prospered as a celebrity for her critique of conservative Islam, earning a job at the conservative US think tank the American Enterprise Institute
I am now free to offer my help as an external expert with an intimate knowledge of Amnesty International’s processes and policies. I can explain in public debates… that adherence to violent jihad… is an integral part of a political philosophy that promotes the destruction of human rights generally and contravenes Amnesty International’s specific policies relating to systematic violence, particularly against women…
At the centre of Ms Sahgal’s criticism of Amnesty for working with Moazzam Begg – who can speak on rendition, torture and imprisonment from personal experience – and Cageprisoners, the web-based organisation which campaigns for Muslim prisoners held without trial, are three charges against him:
1. Attitudes to women.
2. Support for the Taliban.
3. Support for “violent jihad”
These have morphed into a generalised and theoretical attack on Amnesty for rejecting a “belief in universalism”, and a call for Amnesty to restore the integrity of human rights, as Ms Sahgal puts it. Or, as the petition puts it, “We believe that Gita Sahgal has raised a fundamental point of principle which is about the importance of the human rights movement maintaining an objective distance from groups and ideas that are committed to systematic discrimination”. (This is in tune with the astounding new US Supreme Court 6 – 3 ruling that prevents humanitarian groups from speaking to groups considered by the US to be terrorists, even for legal advice or peace-making.)
MCCHRYSTAL - DEATH SQUAD POSTER BOY
http://www.medialens.org/alerts/index.php
The sacking of the head of NATO’s military command in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, caused a surge in coverage of the man described by political analyst James Petras as “Cheney’s chief assassin”.
In May 2009, Petras sampled from McChrystal’s CV. The general had played a central role in directing units involved in “extrajudicial assassinations, systematic torture, bombing of civilian communities and search and destroy missions”. He was “the very embodiment of the brutality and gore that accompanies military-driven empire building”. (http://www.alternet.org/story/140068/cheney's_chief_assassin_is_now_obama's_commander_in_afghanistan/?page=1)
( The part about Empire building that tends to be glossed over is that the supposed 'demockracy' it engenders bears more than a passing resemblance to a puppet mafia regime )
( I'll nominate Tenpercent )
http://www.tenpercent.org.uk/2010/07/01/amnesty-international-on-zeynab-jalalian-sakineh-mohammadi-ashtiani/)
http://www.tenpercent.org.uk/2010/06/29/halt-the-execution-of-zeinab-jalalian/
http://www.tenpercent.org.uk/2010/06/29/torture-cover-up-disguised-as-torture-inquiry/
http://www.tenpercent.org.uk/2010/06/26/international-day-in-support-of-victims-of-torture/
http://www.tenpercent.org.uk/2010/06/25/your-message-can-stop-a-woman-being-stoned-to-death/
http://www.tenpercent.org.uk/2010/06/29/ihh-report-on-the-killings-onboard-the-mavi-marmara/
http://www.tenpercent.org.uk/2010/06/23/osbornes-hate-speech/
The convenient thing about power is if you hate someone you don’t have to use direct means to hurt them, you can design systems and structural biases that do the violence for you. Thus the budget expressed rich politicians (Austerity cabinet has 18 millionaires!) hatred of the poor, of the sick, of those who have to rely on benefits because the systemic unemployment created by the ideology of the elite requires millions to be unemployed to provide the necessary ‘flexibility’ of labour. A budget designed to appease finance capital even as it threw manufacturing into the maw of a very possible double dip recession. But it was the hate that was remarkable, a visceral bigotry that informed every tiny adjustment and cut, a hatred that many in the commentariat were oblivious to presumably because they cannot imagine or empathise with ever having to rely on benefits.
http://www.tenpercent.org.uk/2010/06/21/help-save-refugee-and-migrant-justice/
http://www.tenpercent.org.uk/2010/06/21/funeral-blinkers/
In the entire BBC piece on UK military deaths reaching 300, that covers other nation’s military deaths and a graph…not one word of the Afghan civilian dead. Just as the Guardian reports- UK special envoy to Afghanistan who called for talks with Taliban quits- Exclusive: Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles on ‘extended leave’ after rocky relationship with Nato and US over tactics in conflict. Cameron hides behind the shield of uniformed ’sacrifice’.
“But it’s a moment for the whole country to reflect on the incredible service and sacrifice and dedication that the armed forces give on our behalf.”
http://www.tenpercent.org.uk/2010/06/20/world-refugee-day/
As millions of people around the globe were marking World Refugee Day on Sunday, UNHCR chief António Guterres called on the international community to do more for the forcibly displaced.
High Commissioner made his call during a press conference in Syria –broadcast on a live video link –where he met earlier in the day with President Bashar Assad and other top leaders. Syria hosts about 1 million mainly Iraqi refugees, according to the government.
The United Nations is to investigate claims that handcuffed Iraqi asylum seekers were beaten by British security officers during a charter flight back to Baghdad.
As many as 25 of 42 men deported from Heathrow on Wednesday evening were reportedly under detention at Baghdad airport yesterday, despite being screened in advance by Iraqi officials in the UK.
( Alison at Creekside and Thwap aren't as prolific...but they get the same sort of news out. They are covered in 'Blogs I Follow' posts. )
How Edmund de Rothschild Managed to Let 179 Governments Pay Him for Grasping Up to 30% of the Earth
http://euro-med.dk/?p=13656
After Edmund de Rothschild's statement, without basis, at the 4th World Wilderness Congress in 1987, that CO2 is the cause of a non-existent global warming - and that combating it needs money (our money), he founded the World Conservation Bank for this reason. In 1991 its name was changed to The Global Environment Facility (GEF). The purpose of this facility is to lend money to the poorest countries, printed by the IMF out of thin air, and with the guarantee of our governments. The facility takes wilderness areas with mineral riches as security. The GEF money is then to flow back to our governments as reimbursement for paid loans. I.e. We give away our tax money. For what? When a country cannot repay loans to the GEF it must give up a piece of its territory to the Rothschild banks (GEF, IMF, World Bank) - up to 30% of the Earth are meant. If land cannot be offered as collateral the country must starve (Haiti, Argentina and others)
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