Extraordinary Rendition

I am appalled by what I am reading in the news today.

I place great hope in the EU. Progressive governance and an increasing ability (though apparently lacking desire) to break out from under the thumb of the US government gives Europeans great pride. However, continuing complicity towards Crimes Against Humanity should make all Europeans cringe as they read the news today.

From Ireland comes news today confirming the suspicion that Fianna Fáil (the party in power) gave their tacit support to American War Crimes in allowing the CIA to run over one hundred flights through Shannon Airport of "suspected terrorists" to formerly-secret concentration camps in Eastern Europe, with the full knowledge that those being taken would likely face torture.

F.F. have dishonored the memory of all those who died to bring about the Irish Republic, and for that they should be beyond ashamed.

From RTE News:

'Serious concerns' over use of Irish airports

28 November 2006 22:57
A draft European Parliament report into alleged CIA rendition flights has expressed 'serious concerns' over the 147 stopovers made by CIA-operated aircraft at Irish airports.

The report says these aircraft were on many occasions coming from, or en route to, countries linked with so-called 'extraordinary rendition' and the transfer of alleged terrorism suspects or detainees.

It also claims that CIA linked aircraft which had stopped off in Ireland had 'certainly been used for the extraordinary renditions' of nine named individuals.

From Al Jazeera:

Many European Union governments were aware of US secret jails being operated in Europe, according to a draft report.

Javier Solana, the EU foreign policy chief, also made "omissions and denials" to EU investigators despite knowing about the CIA's covert operations in Europe, the European Parliament report says.

Claudio Fava, the author of the draft report on the CIA's use of European countries for the illegal transport and detention of prisoners, said: "Many governments co-operated passively or actively [with the CIA]. They knew."

To allow the CIA to use the airports of a supposedly neutral country is a violation of the solemn vow given by government ministers to represent the will of their population. That is an insult to the population, one that I hope will not be allowed to pass unnoticed.

Life goes on...

"When I left home this morning, the streets were full of people who were going to work and schools with full determination as if there were no clashes and bombs an hour earlier"
-Baghdad Treasure post BOOOM Tuesday, May 23, 2006
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Some of today's news stories that I feel should be read...
(not necessarily by you of course, but...)

Iraq doctor brings evidence of US napalm at Fallujah
"EVIDENCE to support controversial claims that napalm has been used by US forces in Iraq has been brought to Australia by an Iraqi doctor."
So that's where the WMDs were! With the Americans!

Dozens Killed In Wave Of Bombings
The post-"victory" security situation in Iraq isn't getting any better.
So far the American Invasion of Iraq has lead to the deaths of
FOURTY THOUSAND PEOPLE ...

Why all is quiet on the American home front
...yet people don't seem like they really care.


The state of the world's human rights
Report by Amnesty International, regarding a topic important to those of us who believe that Torture is Wrong.

Israel turns blind eye to attacks on Palestinians:
AFP story on the report from Amnesty International
(I think perhaps they should stress Israeli attacks on Palestinians, rather than attacks Israel "turns a blind eye" to, but who am I to say...)

Amnesty concerns over Shannon Airport use
RTE story (from Ireland) about the CIA using Shannon Airport to transport detainees to the "secret detention facilities" brought to light by the International Committee of the Red Cross. This story is also regarding today's Amnesty International report.

...also...

Haniya offers long-term truce in exchange for pullout
Hamas offers to recognize the State of Israel, and also offers a long term Truce. Sources include Israeli Ha'aretz daily news, and the story is brought to you by Monsters and Critics (a news aggregate favorite of mine)

"Review of the Arab press - May 22"
from Monsters and Critics News

(My personal favorite) A noise that should be dispelled
China's rebuttal to recent American Media reports about "China's technological threat"

Russia, China discuss bilateral cooperation and within SCO
from ITAR-TASS, Moscow--- Discusses the SCO, which I have previously mentioned in this blog, including the Conspicuously absent entry and other linked entries.
----------------------------------------------------

The propaganda Blitz is on against Iran now. I wonder how many months it will be before the War Drums are beating so loud that we can't hear ourselves think.

Just today, the AP ran a story that I came across in the Bucharest Daily News regarding the fact that some Israeli lawmakers are planning on filing a lawsuit against the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, which claims, and I am not making this up:

A group of Israeli lawmakers and former diplomats plan to sue Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accusing him of conspiring to commit genocide, one of those involved said yesterday.
Ahmadinejad recently said Israel should be wiped off the map and dismissed the Nazi Holocaust as a "myth."
Dore Gold, a former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations, said Ahmadinejad's comments violate the 1948 U.N. Genocide Convention, to which Iran is a signatory.

Ok, perhaps there is no common sense in the world, but can I possibly be the only person who finds it ludicrous that the Iranian president's comments are a violation of the Geneva Conventions according to Israel, but their genocidal slaughter of tens of thousands of Palistinians are not?!?!

Today's report by Amnesty International about their data gathered for 2005 touches on this subject:

Killings and attacks by the [Israeli] army:
Some 190 Palestinians, including around 50 children, were killed by the Israeli army in the Occupied Territories. Many were killed unlawfully, in deliberate and reckless shootings, shelling and air strikes in densely populated residential areas, or as a result of excessive use of force. Some were extrajudicially executed and others died in armed clashes with Israeli soldiers. Hundreds of others were injured.
Seven children aged between 10 and 17 were killed and five others seriously wounded in an Israeli air strike as they were picking strawberries in the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Lahiya on 4 January. Those killed included six members of the Ghaben family – Rajah, Jaber, Mahmoud, Bassam, Hani and Mohammed – and Jibril al-Kaseeh.
On 27 October, Karam Mohammed Abu Naji, 14, Salah Said Abu Naji, 15, and Rami Riyad Assaf, 17, were killed when the Israeli army launched an air strike on a car travelling near the Jabalya refugee camp in the Gaza Strip. As well as the three child bystanders, all four people in the car were killed. Nineteen other bystanders, including seven children, were injured. Two members of a Palestinian armed group were believed to be the intended target.
On 3 November, 12-year-old Ahmed al-Khatib was fatally wounded by Israeli soldiers during a raid in Jenin refugee camp and died three days later. The army stated that he had been playing with a toy gun and soldiers had mistaken him for a gunman.


This is from the Human Rights Watch report on
Human Rights Issues in Israel/Occupied Palestinian Territories
While the total number of Israeli and Palestinian casualties fell in 2005 following the February ceasefire, the overall human rights situation in Israel and the OPT remained grave. Since the beginning of the current intifada in September 2000, Israel has killed nearly three thousand Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, including more than six hundred children. During the same period, Palestinian fighters have killed more than nine hundred Israelis inside Israel and in the OPT. Most of those killed on both sides were civilians.

it continues...

In July 2005, the Israeli Knesset approved legislation that effectively bars Palestinians from the OPT from suing Israel for death, injury or damages caused by Israeli security agents. The amendment to the Civil Wrongs (Liability of State) Law, 5712-1952 further strips Palestinians of an effective remedy for serious human rights abuses, which is required under international human rights law. The Knesset passed the bill at a time when the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) had criminally investigated fewer than ten percent of the Palestinian civilian deaths since September 2000, and have convicted only a handful of IDF soldiers for causing death or injury. In August, an Israeli court handed down an eight year sentence, by far the longest of the past five years, to the soldier found responsible for lethally shooting Briton Tom Hurndall in Gaza in 2002. The IDF maintains the policy that killings of Palestinians will be investigated only under “exceptional circumstances,” which neither the IDF nor the government has ever defined. The Israeli authorities’ failure to bring perpetrators to justice fosters a culture of impunity.

(By the way, these reports only cover published reports of civilian casualties [which can be limited in their scope]. They do not cover those dying from malnutrition or other aspects of this Humanitarian catastrophe.)

All of these reports are limited to the PAST YEAR.
This has been going on since 1967.
Yet somehow, the Iranian president saying Israel should be "wiped off the map" and asserting that the Holocost could be a "myth" somehow constitutes the War Crime. The Iranian President explained himself a small bit in his letter to the U.S. president:
"I am sure you know how – and at what cost – Israel was established:
-Many thousands were killed in the process.
-Millions of indigenous people were made refugees.
-Hundreds of thousands of hectares of farmland, olive plantations, townsand villages were destroyed.
This tragedy is not exclusive to the time of establishment; unfortunately it has been ongoing for sixty years now. A regime has been established which does not show mercy even to kids, destroys houses while the occupants are still in them, announces beforehand its list and plans to assassinate Palestinian figures, and keeps thousands of Palestinians in prison. Such a phenomenon is unique – or at the very least extremely rare – in recent memory.Another big question asked by the people is “why is this regime being supported?” "

He also notes:
Young people, university students, and ordinary people have many questions about the phenomenon of Israel. I am sure you are familiar with some of them. Throughout history many countries have been occupied, but I think the establishment of a new country with a new people, is a new phenomenon that is exclusive to our times. Students are saying that sixty years ago such a country did not exist. They show old documents and globes and say try as we have, we have not been able to find a country named Israel.

His rhetoric regarding Israel being "wiped off the map" is actually quite literal, not a genocidal threat, at least according to my (hopefully logical and not emotionally-based) interpretation of the situation: the state of Israel was an artificial creation that does not belong, and as such should be removed.

I am not saying that I agree with his views. I am only saying that presenting such a viewpoint is not Genocide (especially when compared with the last 50 years of systematic Palestinian slaughter at the hands of Israel).

But, such an accusation fits perfectly with the current war that's being waged. Yes folks, the west is at war (again!). It's not a terror war, it's not an imperialist war (although the latter exists and the former is the nom-de-guerre for a current policy of repression and oppression):
It's a Propaganda War.

And it's going on all around us.

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See also,
Wikipedia Entry regarding Israel and War Crimes
(not "verified as objective," but substantiated nonetheless)

The Day

Afghanistan air raid kills
up to 80 Taliban,
at least 16 civilians
Photo Courtesy of The Daily Times with their story.

From the
Nasrat Shoib
AFP story: exerpts below, specifically things that disturbed me about the situation.

To skip to my other news highlights click here.

When did human life become so meaningless that airstrikes on civilian areas were an acceptable means of accomplishing a military goal? Also, if America has the best military in the world (as conservative pundits would like us to believe), why are they not capable of sending troops in to take out the enemy fighters, why do they have to instead wipe out the entire village? And when did the proclamation by the "coalition" that the Taliban had been handily "defeated" become untrue? And why is no-one pointing out this irregularity?

Choice Quotes:

"Coalition forces conducted a significant operation early this morning in the Kandahar region near the village of Azizi that resulted in the unconfirmed deaths of possibly up to 80 Taliban members," a coalition spokesman said.

Unconfirmed... possibly up to... doesn't sound too convincing from the Coalition.

"Kandahar provincial governor Asadullah Khalid told reporters that at least 16 civilians were killed and 15 wounded in the attack"

"An elderly man, Attah Mohammad, said at the hospital that 24 members of his family, including some children, were killed in the bombing.

"They started to bomb our village at midnight and continued up to this morning," he said.

A doctor said that security forces had not allowed ambulances into the sealed-off area to fetch the wounded.

An 18-year-old with wounds to his face and chest said that there had been Taliban in the village but that they disappeared when the bombs started to fall.

"One hit my house. I was wounded and my two brothers were killed," said the teenager named Azizullah, adding that he had seen scores of dead and wounded on his way to the hospital.

A 45-year-old man named Nasratullah said that he had been having dinner with his in-laws. "Suddenly the bombardment started - there was big fire in our place. I managed to escape but I don't know what happened to my in-laws," he said. "
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More...
The New York Times vs. Hugo Chavez
FAIR Media Views reports: This title was taken by FAIR from CounterPunch, regarding the Front Page of the New York Times yesterday.

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Daring Depraivity Blog, my interesting find of the night
new posts:
US figures out how to solve UN Torture Crisis...
and
Foreign Law does not apply to the U.S.
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JERUSALEM, May 22, 2006 (WAFA)- The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said the ability of Palestinians to move inside the West Bank (WB) has significantly worsened in the past nine months.

In a report on "territorial fragmentation of the West Bank, May 2006", OCHA stated that a combination of checkpoints, physical obstacles and a permit system has effectively cut the West Bank into three distinct areas in addition to East Jerusalem.

"Within these areas further enclaves have been created - also bordered by checkpoints and roadblocks - that has led to one Palestinian community being isolated from its neighbour," it said

more at the Palestinian News Agency
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An Op/Ed from Pravda Russian News

If United States can occupy Iran, or at least change the regime in Iran to something that is subservient to the American interests, then U.S. can have over half of the world’s oil reserves under its control. There are four countries in the Middle East, that combined, have over 50% of the world’s proven oil reserves. These countries are: Iraq, Iran, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia

the story continues here...
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German Foreign Minister Urges Flexibility to End Iran Stand-off

Britain, France and Germany are preparing a package of trade, technology and security benefits if Tehran stops enriching uranium, a process which creates fuel for power plants but can also form the core of a nuclear bomb

the story is here, from the German news source Deutsche Welle

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Iraq: children suffer as food insecurity persists, UNICEF reports
From the U.N. News Center
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Stand together

on the issue of torture

Torture

Bloggers Against Torture

Join Us! Excerpts from UN Committee Against Torture report on The United States.19 May, 2006

" The Committee reiterates its previous recommendation that the State party should enact a federal crime of torture consistent with article 1 of the Convention, which should include appropriate penalties, in order to fulfill its obligations under the Convention to prevent and eliminate acts of torture causing severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, in all its forms.
The State party should ensure that acts of psychological torture, prohibited by the Convention, are not limited to "prolonged mental harm" as set out in the State party’s understandings lodged at the time of ratification of the Convention, but constitute a wider category of acts, which cause severe mental suffering, irrespective of their prolongation or its duration.
The State party should investigate, prosecute and punish perpetrators under the federal extraterritorial criminal torture statute."

"The State party should recognize and ensure that the Convention applies at all times,whether in peace, war or armed conflict, in any territory under its jurisdiction and that the application of the Convention’s provisions are without prejudice to the provisions of any other international instrument, pursuant to paragraph 2 of its articles 1 and 16."

"The State party should recognize and ensure that the provisions of the Convention expressed as applicable to "territory under the State party’s jurisdiction" apply to, and are fully enjoyed, by all persons under the effective control of its authorities, of whichever type, wherever located in the world."

"The State party should register all persons it detains in any territory under its jurisdiction, as one measure to prevent acts of torture. Registration should contain the identity of the detainee, the date, time and place of the detention, the identity of the authority that detained the person, the ground for the detention, the date and time of admission to the detention facility and the state of health of the detainee upon admission and any changes thereto, the time and place of interrogations, with the names of all interrogators present, as well as the date and time of release or transfer to another detention facility."

"The State party should ensure that no one is detained in any secret detention facility under its de facto effective control. Detaining persons in such conditions constitutes, per se, a violation of the Convention. The State party should investigate and disclose the existence of any such facilities and the authority under which they have been established and the manner in which detainees are treated. The State party should publicly condemn any policy of secret detention.
The Committee recalls that intelligence activities, notwithstanding their author, nature or location, are acts of the State party, fully engaging its international responsibility."

"The State party should adopt all necessary measures to prohibit and prevent enforced disappearance in any territory under its jurisdiction, and prosecute and punish perpetrators, as this practice constitutes, per se, a violation of the Convention."

Those Quotes are just a fraction of the recommendations. The U.S. has obligations under international law pursuant to the Geneva Conventions, The UN Charter, and UN resolutions. Protection of human rights is also written into the U.S. constitution. Pursuing a policy that takes away a person's basic inherent human rights is a dangerous direction to be going.

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Don't allow human rights to be trivialised.Join Us!

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Sources and links:
UN Committee Against Torture Report, Full Text, PDF format.
C/O BBC NEWS

Amnesty International

UN Official Documents Site

Torture Awareness Month Amnesty International

Blogs Against Torture

The BBC and UN human rights report...

The bbc has changed their main headline twice now in the past hour. The first version was this:

US 'must close Guantanamo camp'

The committee told the US to end secret detention

The US should close the Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba and any secret "war on terror" detention facilities abroad, a United Nations report has said.
The UN Committee against Torture
said that detaining persons in such conditions was a violation of the UN Convention against Torture.
It also urged the US to put in place "immediate
measures" to eradicate torture of detainees by its troops.
The committee's
report follows a hearing in early May into US conduct.
"The state party
should cease to detain any person at Guantanamo Bay and close the detention
facility," the 11-page report said.
It also told the US to ensure no-one was
detained in any secret detention facility.
"The state party should
investigate and disclose the existence of any such facilities and the authority
under which they have been established and the manner in which detainees are
treated," the report said.
The report also urged the US to "rescind any
interrogation technique" that constituted torture, such as the use of dogs to
scare detainees.
It criticised vague guidelines that it said had led to
serious abuse of detainees and techniques which "have resulted in the deaths of
some detainees during interrogation".
The report was compiled by a panel of
10 experts who heard testimony in early May from a delegation of US officials
into its "war on terror" conduct.

THEN this story was put through their bleach cycle, and came out like this an hour later:

US 'must end secret detentions'

The committee told the US to end secret
detentionThe US should close any secret "war on terror" detention facilities
abroad and the Guantanamo Bay camp in Cuba, a United Nations report has said.
The UN Committee against Torture urged the US to ensure no one was detained
in any secret facility.
The report followed the first US appearance before
the committee since the 11 September 2001 attacks.
During the hearing in
early May, the US neither confirmed or denied the existence of secret prisons.
UN COMMITTEE AGAINST TORTURE
Recommendations
in full (131K)
Most computers will open PDF documents automatically, but
you may need to download Adobe Acrobat Reader.
Download the reader
here
The US has been holding hundreds of terror suspects arrested since
11 September at facilities in Iraq, Afghanistan and Cuba. There are also reports
of CIA-run secret facilities in other countries.
The committee told the US
to provide more information on secret detention facilities.
"The state party
should investigate and disclose the existence of any such facilities and the
authority under which they have been established and the manner in which
detainees are treated," the 11-page report said.
It also called on the US to
end detentions at the Guantanamo Bay camp and close it.
Detaining people in
such conditions was a violation of the UN Convention against Torture, it said.
Abuse of detainees
The committee also urged the US to act against
ill-treatment of detainees, calling for "immediate measures to eradicate all
forms of torture and ill-treatment of detainees by its military or civilian
personnel, in any territory under its jurisdiction".
It called for an end to
interrogation techniques it said constituted torture, such as the use of dogs to
scare detainees.
The recommendations are not binding but the BBC's Imogen
Foulkes says the committee's conclusions will not make comfortable reading for
the US, with the assertion that secret camps do constitute torture.
The US
has maintained that it is engaged in a long term war on terror and that some
aspects of the convention on torture may not apply.
But the UN committee
rejected this, our correspondent says, saying the total ban on torture applies
in time of peace, war or armed conflict and anyone violating the convention
should be prosecuted.
Human rights groups welcomed the report.
"We hope
that the United States will take heed of this report and really begin to rethink
and change its policies on a number of practices, including secret prisons, lack
of accountability for abuse, and transfer of prisoners to places where they may
be tortured," Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch told Reuters news agency.

Both of these stories (were actually the SAME STORY and) were available at the following link:

US 'must close...something, we can't decide what'

The fact that these Human Rights abuses were a violation of international law was pushed to the bottom of the story in the second version, as though that was an irrelevant fact. I wonder why...

Rumsfeld Indictment?

An article relating to Rumsfeld's knowledge of torture of Guantanamo detainees that I discussed in my "deranged American government" entry was posted last week in Human Rights Watch's news:

"Rumsfeld could be liable under the doctrine of command responsibility the legal principle that holds a superior responsible for crimes committed by his subordinates when he knew or should have known that they were being committed, but fails to take reasonable measures to stop them. "

PBS describes the American concept of command responsibility quite well for those of you who haven't heard of it before.

Donald Rumsfeld's actions are not only in violation of international law, they are also in violation of American Law. When will the American government take responsibility for their actions?

And, out curiosity, how many of you lovely readers are old enough to remember the Iran/Contra affair of the 1980s? Or how it ended with the pardon of key players by george w bush's father? How it led to the death of the Swedish Prime minister, the (fairly recent) execution of a reporter who investigated the affair? Or how it tarnished the office of the President of the United States? Or how alot of the key players were recycled into the current Bush administration?

I wonder if these people will EVER take responsibility for their actions, rather than being hypocrites (ex. selling arms to Iran last time they were in power and demanding the world not sell arms to iran now) and demanding obedience while they themselves do not feel constrained by such frivolous things as laws. If they were part of any other country's government they would be in jail or worse, but I guess there's more than one interpretation of "land of the free."

The Deranged American Government

Ok, if ANYONE out there cares AT ALL about how terrifying the prospect of a bunch of mutinous insane asylum escapees having their fingers hovering (can't you just picture them standing there twitching going "c'mon, I dare ya!") over the Big Red Button that will bring about The End of our species' short reign as kings(/queens) of this planet, then please, let me know. Lets take the news today.
Reuters, not exactly a far left wing anti-bush news agency (example #1, they give an article to bush saying quite asinine things about his failed reaganomics tax cut scheme, and ONE LINE at the end to the opposition), ran a news story today based on an article run on Salon.com about Donald Rumsfeld (American Secretary of Defense) having PERSONAL KNOWLEDGE of prisoner abuses at Guantanamo Bay, and as having PERSONALLY authorised them.
This is NOT a revelation for those of us who often read the dissident media or frequent sites that provide more unbiased views on the world today, BUT, it was in REUTERS. One of the 2 MAIN news providers for ALL news organisations worldwide. AP and Reuters stories are listed on just about every news site you'll find, from The Khaleej Times to The Asia Times to AlJazeera to The BBC to LeMonde to EVERYWHERE. IN REUTERS!!! So, one of the MAIN sources of information for THE WORLD has come out today saying that the American Secretary of Defense PERSONALLY AUTHORISED his subordinates to VIOLATE INTERNATIONAL LAW (check www.icj-cij.org) as it relates to the Geneva Conventions on Humane Treatment of prisoners, and yet these men are NOT being brought before the International Court at the Hague... WHY?!?!?!?!?!?!