Resorting To Threats Of Violence Is A Fascist Reaction

Perversely the strange cult (Cheerleaders, Fighting Cocks, whatever) around Tory Islamophobe Dominic Wightman and Charlie Flowers/Ludas Matyi (and by association Patrick ‘once sacked for racism‘ Mercer MP) claim to fight extremism yet they applaud intimidation and threats of violence against blogger Tim Ireland which are strongly reminiscent of the common or garden fascist. What is even more puzzling is they appear to also be a ‘band’ who rather than rebellion and anti establishment passion proudly associate themselves with state security services in the name of fighting ‘radical Islam’, how very Rock & Roll. It’s as if Nine Inch Nails teamed up with the CIA and released an album about how great it is to bomb Iraq… (except NIN are talented, can play and more than 3 people have heard of them). The whole thing seems so cack handed it’s enough to make you wonder if our spooks are part funding this astroturf oddment, it’s Terry & June dressed as punks in its cultural illiteracy.

So if the only answer to journalistic enquiry is to challenge someone to a fight we can deduce they have no arguments. I suppose it could be worse, they could be threatening to play their albums at bloggers. To those people in the ‘band’ who may not be fully aware of the odd activities of the ringleaders, I would find some musical differences quick and move on to more talented pastures.

HuffPep

Regular users of the Huffington Post should be aware of this.

Q2N- What The Establishment Learned From Iraq: They Can Get Away With It

Via Iran Affairs, the Columbia Journalism Review (and look they make a mistake, they type Iraq when they mean Iran, in the current NYT version it is Iran -no google cache- so did CJR mistype of did the NYT?)-

On Saturday, The New York Times offered on its front page a long, behind-the-scenes reconstruction of what it called “three dramatic days of highly sensitive diplomacy and political maneuvering” that the Obama administration had conducted after it learned of the letter that Iran had sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency describing the new nuclear plant. The story, we were informed, was “based on interviews with administration officials and American allies, all of whom want the story known to help support their case against Iraq.” No allies were cited, however. Instead, the article relied entirely on anonymous US officials. Here’s my attribution tally:

a senior administration official
a second senior administration official
administration officials
senior intelligence officials
the officials
the official
White House officials
American officials
a senior administration official
the officials
a senior official
American officials
the officials
a senior administration official
the administration official
a senior administration official
administration officials
one administration official
senior administration official

I wondered how many officials this actually added up to. Were the senior administration officials, the White House officials, and the American officials different individuals or different ways of referring to the same people?

Neocon Rory Stewart Was An MI6 Operative

Rory Stewart currently vying for selection as a Tory candidate, as Craig Murray reveals–

One person I would not vote for is the crusading neo-Conservative Rory Stewart. It is particularly annoying that he is constantly referred to as a former diplomat. Stewart was an MI6 officer and not a member of the FCO.

Three years ago I received a message from the FCO asking me not to mention this as, at that time, Stewart was still very active for MI6 in Afghanistan and his life could have been endangered. I agreed, and even removed a reference from my blog. However now that he is safely and lucratively ensconsed at Harvard, I see no reason to conceal the truth. I is necessary to reveal this so that people can correctly evaluate his political pronouncements on Iraq and Afghanistan, and his motives in making them.

Word.

Two Comments on Art

Polanski has made some great films (Repulsion is a corker), rape is a crime and should be punished, the reasons for his apprehension are murky, possibly a corporate studio got annoyed at some deal with him that went bad and reached out to the DA, but he should pay for his crime whether that is community service, reparations, incarceration & therapy, that’s for a jury.

This is censorship, artworks in a gallery context are not identical to pornography, the Met clearly lack the theoretical grounding to understand this, the Tate is cowardly, galleries are formal spaces where discourse must be free in order to be of any cultural use.

That is all.

Q2N Replay

Can I get a rewind?

The UN’s chief weapons inspector, Mohamed ElBaradei, said today he had seen “no credible evidence” that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, rejecting British intelligence allegations that a weapons programme has been going on for at least four years.

The Guardian too spread propaganda and the media frenzy is ludicrous, but the war pimps objective is not so funny.

US Ignores Torture Of Own Citizen As It Unfreezes Relations With Burma

Jotman has the goods on this, so go there. But briefly, Amnesty says–

Trusted sources have reported to Amnesty international that male activist Kyaw Zaw Lwin was tortured and suffered other ill-treatment whilst in detention in Insein Prison, Yangon, Myanmar’s main city. He was arrested in Yangon on 3 September. He has been denied medical treatment for the injuries he sustained from the torture he endured during interrogation. There are grave concerns about his health.

Follow Amnesty link for action details.

This as the US meets the Burmese health minister and changes its policy on Burma. As I have said before the prospect of intelligent sanctions and negotiations could be good but… in reality is it really about countering China’s influence & non -US- aligned spread of nuclear technology in a geopolitical context as the US squares up to the new power in town (a power that owns a shit load of US debt, hmmm) and human rights & social justice will be forgotten. This is not the most auspicious start. I think we are getting used to the Obama administration’s style sheet, good presentation masking business as usual.

Death By Leaflet

In a grimly symbolic incident -we are so ham fisted, the military is a blunt instrument (when all you got is a hammer every problem looks like a nail)- they kill a child with an airdrop of leaflets.

Britain’s ministry of defence is investigating the death of an Afghan girl who died after being hit by a box of leaflets dropped by the Royal Air Force. The information leaflets were dropped in boxes from an RAF Hercules aircraft over a rural area of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan on 23 June. The box failed to break apart in mid-air and landed on top of the girl who died later in hospital.

Karzai’s Victory So Corrupt Even Washington’s UN Stooge Couldn’t Stomach It

And so what happened, the US let the UN know it was time to move on (I guess like Obama looking forwards) and Galbraith has been sacked.

EU election observers have said that about 1.5m votes – about a quarter of all ballots – cast in August’s presidential vote could be fraudulent. They say that 1.1 million votes cast for President Karzai are suspicious.

The US has decided to go with Karzai so Galbraith calling for a total recount was a liability. Proxy puppet warlord administration -Redux- ahoy!

US Army Drops Prosecution Of War Resistor Ehren Watada

Army 1st Lt. Ehren Watada will be discharged by the end of the week, concluding the fight over his refusal to deploy to Iraq, an Army spokesman said Monday. After a court-martial proceeding that ended in a mistrial, the Army has elected not to attempt further prosecution and instead will discharge the first lieutenant, who argued he would be participating in war crimes if he fought in Iraq.

“What was approved was basically his request to resign in lieu of a general court-martial for the good of the service,” said spokesman Joseph Piek at Ft. Lewis, Wash., where Watada has been working at a desk job. The separation is classified as an administrative discharge. Watada’s lawyers said it was granted under “other than honorable conditions.” The Army previously had refused Watada’s offer to resign.

Lewis Amselem, Friend of Rapists, Scum

Pampered children enjoy making and viewing horror movies, because it is a safe way of approaching the dark reality of what humans can and will do, I enjoy indulging in them sometimes too. The extreme end of thrill horror, torture porn, Tarantino etc are actually immaturely banal, the real thing will scar you, just reading about it, hearing it will stay with you forever, it should. One such testimony for me is that of Dianna Ortiz, a US nun who was tortured in Guatemala, you can search about, read her writings, or buy her book (click the image) it will not be an easy thing to bear, how she lives with it is true bravery. 200,000 people were killed in Guatemala under torture regimes supported by the US, a Holocaust of its own, US officials were hands on involved with raping and torturing people, US taxpayer’s money paid their wages and met their expense accounts (yet some protest at funding healthcare).

Al Giordano caught this (and Machetera), I did not remember the name, Lewis Amselem,

Lewis Amselem

Earlier I posted about Amselem, the second highest ranking US official to the OAS who blamed Zelaya for causing trouble even as the Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Honduras (CODEH) found 101 killings by the coup regime. This man Lewis Amselem is working for Hillary Clinton, he was a Bush appointee, a fundamentalist right winger. He was political-military officer at the US embassy in Guatemala City (1988-92) Ortiz’s remembers this of him-

Two months later, after a U.S. doctor had counted 111 cigarette burns on my back alone, the story changed. In January 1990, the Guatemalan defense minister publicly announced that I was a lesbian and had staged my abduction to cover up a tryst. The minister of the interior echoed this statement and then said he had heard it first from the U.S. embassy. According to a congressional aide, the political affairs officer at the U.S. embassy, Lew Anselem, was indeed spreading the same rumor.

In the presence of Ambassador Thomas Stroock, this same human rights officer told a delegation of religious men and women concerned about my case that he was “tired of these lesbian nuns coming down to Guatemala.” The story would undergo other permutations. According to the Guatemalan press, the ambassador came up with another version: he told the Guatemalan defense minister that I was not abducted and tortured but simply “had problems with [my] nerves.”

Dianna Ortiz was treated appallingly by the US government in the aftermath-

In 1996, I held a five-week vigil before the White House, asking for the declassification of all U.S. government documents related to human rights abuses in Guatemala since 1954, including documents on my own case. A few days into my vigil, I was granted a meeting with First Lady Hillary Clinton. Mrs. Clinton admitted what no other U.S. government official had dared to concede during my seven-year search for the truth behind my abduction and torture in Guatemala: she said it was possible that the American in charge of my Guatemalan torturers was a “past or present employee of a U.S. agency.”

She eventually won a judgement against General Gramajo Morales who had been Defence Minister at the time and covered up the crimes, he was by then studying at Harvard (by invitation) and lecturing at the School of the Americas.

Architect of genocidal policies which essentially legalized military atrocity in Guatemala throughout the eighties. (HAH)Found guilty by default of numerous war crimes in a U.S. Court six weeks before speaking at a prestigious SOA graduation. (The Bayonet, 1/3/92) Former SOA Commandant José Feliciano claimed Gramajo inspired many SOA policies. (The Benning Patriot 2/21/92)

The General used it as campaign…plus-

The Guatemalan general ordered last month by a Boston judge to pay $47.5 million in damages for terror against a U.S. nun and eight Guatemalan Indians said the ruling will help his chances to win his bid for president of Guatemala in November elections. Gen. Hector Gramajo claimed publicity generated by the court ruling is proving useful in his presidential campaign as candidate of the right-wing National Unity Front Party, or FUN.

You will be pleased to know he is now dead, killed by bees, I hope that was, FUN.

So back to Clinton, as her personal meeting with Dianna Ortiz testifies she is not ignorant of the torture regimes the US ran nor can she be ignorant of Amselem, certainly not after his statements against Zelaya. For Clinton to send him to the OAS is a big fuck you, to keep him on now it is worse. It is perhaps a lesson in imperialism, that even as consummate a politician as Clinton is, she once still had some human feelings, she did not absolutely ignore Dianna Ortiz, but over time she has been corrupted completely by the needs of power and dominance. She employs one of the men who were behind Ortiz’s gang rape & torture. Amselem is just one of the many thousands of government operatives who have done things that would normally mean they ended their days in prison, yet do it in the name of Empire- rape, murder, torture and you get a raise and a promotion and you are a respectable senior official. I wonder what his wife and four children think of him, spreading lies about a rape & torture victim to protect his fellow gang members, one of many crimes he assisted in, I guess the money and prestige helps with that. If I were a US citizen I would contact my Reps and insist the Obama administration fire this Bush hangover and rights abuser. I’ll leave you with this Bruce Cockburn song.

Unworthy

The lesser of two evils is still evil, New Labour might not be as horrific as the Tories, but really, how passionate or excited can you get about a desultory pragmatism that favours one style of management of neoliberalism over another. Judging from media/blogs apparently still quite a lot, I guess it helps people justify their pundit existence. The underclass will continue to be subjected to a sort of civic genocide, labour will be kept malleable and cheap through economic terrorism, foreigners will continue to provide a bloody canvas for our failings whether abroad or in migrant jails. And when the angry violent reaction comes the same punditocracy can talk incessantly about that to keep them in work.
Rinse and repeat.

New Labour Host Accused War Criminal

A United Kingdom court on Tuesday deferred until further notice an appeal by local pro-Palestinian groups to issue an arrest warrant against visiting Defense Minister Ehud Barak. It is not yet clear whether the issue will be raised for deliberation while Israel’s top defense official is still in Britain. According to sources close to Barak, the British Foreign Ministry recommended to the London court that it treat the current appeal in the same manner it did when a similar appeal was issued in 2004 against Israel’s then defense minister, Shaul Mofaz.

A group of Palestinians in Britain sought earlier Tuesday to obtain the warrant for Barak as he visited the United Kingdom for talks with senior officials. The Palestinian group made the request at the Westminster Magistrates Court, the British paper The Daily Telegraph reported, regarding alleged war crimes perpetrated by Israel during its winter offensive against Hamas in Gaza. Barak’s bureau relayed in response to the move that the defense minister did not intend to change his plans.

“No arrest warrant has been issued, and in any event, he has immunity due to his being a minister in the government,” the bureau said in a statement. “Therefore, his program will continue without disturbance.” Barak was due to speak at Britain’s Labour party’s annual conference on Tuesday, at a fringe event for the Labour Friends of Israel lobby. He was also set to meet with Britain’s Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and foreign secretary, David Miliband, during the trip.

The appeal to arrest the defense minister comes as Richard Goldstone, the author of a United Nations report on Israel’s Gaza offensive, told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on Tuesday that the lack of accountability for war crimes committed in the Middle East is undermining any hope for peace in the region.

The Only Thing That’s Definitely True In This NYT Piece

War Pimps ahoy! Q2N is back in fashion, the NYT is up to speed with- A Nuclear Debate Brews: Is Iran Designing Warheads? Happily it does include this one true sentence-

The debate, in essence, is a mirror image of the intelligence dispute on the eve of the Iraq war.

Funny stuff. (Hmmm, so ‘intelligence dispute‘ is what the kids are calling it now, I remember when we just called them ‘lies’. Y’know, before we killed over a million people.)

North Wales Police Taser Use

COPS in North Wales used taser guns 58 times last year, new figures show. However statistics released under the Freedom of Information Act reveal they were only actually fired 16 times. The 50,000 volt guns were drawn, aimed or pressed up against people on 42 other occasions. The youngest person threatened with one was aged 14 and the oldest was 63. But of the 16 who did have the electric barbs fired at them, the youngest person was 19 and the oldest was 58. In a Freedom of Information response a North Wales Police spokesman said they aimed tasers without removing the safety catch twice. But the safety catch was removed to allow officers to shine a red light at people 28 times. On three other occasions, the taser was pressed against people and cycled which gives a shock without firing the probes.