Omar Khadr Turns 21 in Gitmo

On Wednesday, the only Canadian citizen being held indefinitely in Gitmo and who was originally seized as a child soldier in Afghanistan, Omar Khadr, turned 21. Despite new protestations from Liberal leader Stephane Dion, the federal Conservatives continue to take a wait and see approach (which is nothing short of political pandering to the Bush administration's whims) when it comes to attempting to secure Khadr's release any time soon.

Unfortunately, Khadr was dealt yet another blow when the US congress failed to restore habeus corpus rights:

A Republican filibuster in the Senate yesterday [Wednesday] shot down a bipartisan effort to restore the right of terrorism suspects to contest in federal courts their detention and treatment, underscoring the Democratic-led Congress's difficulty with terrorism issues.

The 56 to 43 vote fell short of the 60 needed to cut off debate and move to a final vote on the amendment to the Senate's annual defense policy bill. But the measure did garner the support of six Republicans, a small victory for its supporters. A similar proposal drew 48 "yea" votes last September.

The Supreme Court had previously ruled that such detainees did have the right to appeal their detention in federal court, but the court invited Congress to weigh in on the issue. At the urging of the Bush administration, the Republican-controlled Congress last year voted to sharply limit detainee access to the courts. Since then, the high court has agreed to hear in its upcoming term another legal challenge concerning the habeas corpus rights of detainees at Guantanamo.

The authors of last year's bill said that advocates of such rights would open the federal courts to endless lawsuits from the nation's worst enemies. "To start that process would be an absolute disaster for this country," said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.), an Air Force Reserve lawyer who was instrumental in crafting the provision in question in last year's bill.

What Graham and his Republican colleagues don't appear to understand is that the denial of basic legal rights to detainees has already created a "disaster" for their country via the loss of America's integrity and credibility. And Omar Khadr certainly is not one of America's "worst enemies".

And, as senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) said after Wednesday's GOP filibuster:

The Senate's action "calls into question the United States' historic role of defender of human rights in the world," Leahy said. "It accomplishes what opponents could never accomplish on the battlefield, whittling away our own liberties."

So, as Omar Khadr sits and waits, this country's inaction is absolutely shameful:

"Canada is alone among Western nations in not having secured the release from Guantanamo of one of its nationals. Prime Minister Harper must finally ensure Mr. Khadr receives the same consular support that any other Canadian -- detainee or not -- would receive," Dion said in a statement released after he met with Khadr's lawyers.

Khadr's U.S. defence counsel, Lt.-Cmdr. William Kuebler, said the Canadian government has never asked for his client's release.

But he said Dion's comments indicate there is a growing movement to ensure Khadr's legal rights are protected.

"I'm hopeful, based on what we've seen recently from the Canadian Bar Association, which came out and called upon the prime minister to command Omar's repatriation last month, and the very courageous decision by Mr. Stephane Dion and his colleagues today, to call on the government to see that Omar is released from Guantanamo," he told CTV Newsnet.

"I think we're starting to turn a corner in Canada, similar to what happened in Australia and the U.K., when those countries finally got fed up by the treatment of their citizens by this process."

Why has it taken our government this long?

Meanwhile, as I noted here in August, this is what Omar Khadr has been reduced to:

Mr. Edney said that when he saw Mr. Khadr recently, his client was so mentally debilitated that he wanted nothing more than crayons and some paper to colour on. Contrary to federal government assurances that Mr. Khadr is doing just fine, Mr. Edney said, his client is actually "ill and going blind. He needs all sorts of help."

That is Bush/GOP-style "justice" - enabled by my country's government.

Everyone involved in perpetuating Omar Khadr's suffering is culpable.

Saying "happy birthday" just sounds trite. I can only hope that Omar experienced at least some moments of joy on his day - if that's even possible for him anymore.

Related:

U.S. prison stunting Khadr’s development, lawyer charges

Video: Avi Lewis' interview of Micahel Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights regarding Khadr's fate.
 

Sunday Food for Thought: Human Rights

"Whatever career you may choose for yourself - doctor, lawyer, teacher - let me propose an avocation to be pursued along with it. Become a dedicated fighter for civil rights. Make it a central part of your life. It will make you a better doctor, a better lawyer, a better teacher. It will enrich your spirit as nothing else possibly can. It will give you that rare sense of nobility that can only spring from love and selflessly helping your fellow man. Make a career of humanity. Commit yourself to the noble struggle for human rights. You will make a greater person of yourself, a greater nation of your country and a finer world to live in."

-- Martin Luther King, Jr.

The Suffering of Omar Khadr

This is what Omar Khadr has been reduced to:

Mr. Edney said that when he saw Mr. Khadr recently, his client was so mentally debilitated that he wanted nothing more than crayons and some paper to colour on. Contrary to federal government assurances that Mr. Khadr is doing just fine, Mr. Edney said, his client is actually "ill and going blind. He needs all sorts of help."

He added that when he spoke to Mr. Khadr about the unfairness of incarceration, his client said: "Canada doesn't care."

Every single Canadian who does care has the obligation to prove him wrong.

"It is unprecedented to try a child for war crimes," Lt.-Cdr. Kuebler said.

That this Canadian government willfully chooses to make Omar Khadr the first example of such a horrendous injustice by ignoring his suffering is absolutely unfathomable.

"All humanity is one undivided and indivisible family, and each one of us is responsible for the misdeeds of all the others. I cannot detach myself from the wickedest soul."

-Mahatma Gandhi

Please do your part. No one, especially a child soldier, deserves this fate.
 

Meet the new RCMP boss...

...same as the old RCMP boss:

TORONTO, OTTAWA — The civilian appointed to lead Canada's national police into a new era of accountability revealed Friday he was among the secret group of bureaucrats who had met to censor findings of the Maher Arar report.

“I was certainly involved in the process leading to that decision, but that decision was a decision taken by government,” RCMP Commissioner William Elliott, wearing a business suit, told reporters after the RCMP's change-of-command ceremony. He was referring to work he had done while serving as an associate deputy minister to Public Safety Minister Stockwell Day.

And Day, being the arrogant, feckless ass that he is, sent his spokespuppet out to say this:

A spokeswoman for Mr. Day, the past and current boss of Mr. Elliott, said “senior officials from various departments” decided to block out the passages before the government signed off on the recommendations.

I guess his momma never asked him the obvious question: "would you jump off a bridge just because the rest of the kids were doing it?" Or maybe she did and his answer was "yes".

Welcome to the new RCMP brought to you by the new government. I'll bet you feel safer already.
 

Video: The Abuse of Secrecy in the Arar Affair

From CBC's The National, Alex Neve of Amnesty International Canada and security analyst Wesley Wark discuss the newly uncensored portions of the Arar Inquiry report.



As one who also covers American politics and the battles between congress, the White House and organizations like the ACLU over claims of executive privilege wrapped in the mantra of national security, I have to say that Canada's system appears to place us light years ahead when it comes to demanding and getting transparency in these types of cases (although sometimes these victories can take a very long time to be realized). That type of regime of secrecy cannot and will not be tolerated in this country, as much as Stephen Harper's paranoid Conservative government wishes to make it so.

I recently had the occasion to reread the Reader's Digest 2006 interview with Stephen Harper, Man With a Plan, in which he was asked about the comparisons made between him and Bush. Note his cluelessness:

RD: Are there comparisons that offend you?

Harper: Yes. The Bush comparisons offend me. And not because I have any kind of personal dislike of George W. Bush. I don’t. It’s that the comparisons generally are not thoughtful. Bush has SUVs in his motorcade, and I have SUVs in my motorcade—“Ha ha, he’s just like George Bush.” Well, of course, this is actually the decision of the RCMP, and I’m sure George Bush didn’t pick out the cars in his own motorcade either. That kind of thing bothers me because it’s just a stereotype designed for polemical purposes.

No, Steve, you're compared to Bush because of your love of absolute control and as these new Arar inquiry revelations show us, that hammer you like to bring down on the Canadian people by fighting against things that might embarrass security or other officials implies a twisted sort of reasoning that is well beyond what most Canadians ought to find acceptable.

One would think that, when it comes to ensuring the safety of all Canadians, allowing us to finally see the inner workings of CSIS and the RCMP and how they contributed to an innocent man being tortured would be considered to be an absolute necessity so the same behaviour will never be repeated again. We cannot rely on our security agencies to police themselves, obviously, and as the interviewees point out, the current oversight regime is "fractured".

The Harper government's attempt to cover that up serves no one except those who prefer to remain complicit in such human rights abuses. That was the bottom line in arguing that these documents remain censored. The revelations do not pose a threat to our national security. Not revealing those portions however had the potential to enable CSIS and the RCMP to continue ignoring their own, very serious problems.

In the inquiry report, RCMP officials seemed to be tripping all over themselves to claim that they hadn't worked with the CIA prior to 9/11 - as if that was a good enough excuse to not understand how the CIA operates. And of course we now know that CSIS knew about the CIA's extraordinary rendition (torture flights) practices and still either naively trusted the CIA or just didn't care enough to ensure a Canadian citizen's rights would be protected. The official line seems to be that the CIA just pulled a fast one of Canadian security officials who supposedly had years of experience. How can that possibly be justified and what kind of prime minister would choose to cover that up?

Harper needs to be reminded at every turn that he works for the Canadian people, not his own interests or those of people who have the power to place our lives in jeopardy.

As Alex Neve said, keep the pressure on your MPs and government officials by letting them know that we will not put up with this subversion of our right to know the facts. We will not allow Harper to operate as Bush Lite.
 

Some Censored Portions of the Arar Report Released

Newly released portions of the Arar Inquiry report which had previously been censored - apparently to protect CSIS, the CIA, the FBI and the RCMP - show that Canadian security officials knew that information they relied on that damned Arar to a one year stay via "extraordinary rendition" in a Syrian jail had been obtained through the use of torture and that he most likely would be tortured as well.

The Globe and Mail offers the following summary but you can read the documents here (.pdf file - the previously censored material is highlighted by bold text).

Newly declassified findings of Judge O'Connor's report indicate a host of foreign agencies shoulder the blame for what happened:

• Investigating Mounties had no experience in dealing with the CIA before 2001, but a relationship began to develop after the Sept. 11 attacks that year.

• As anticipated, information from abroad – likely the statements by Mr. El Maati* – found its way into Canadian searches and interviews conducted in January, 2002. "When applying for search warrants, Project A-O Canada relied on information obtained from a country with a poor human rights record." The report adds that "no assessment was made of the reliability of that information."

• In the fall of 2002, the information was still being treated as credible. "In September 2002, the RCMP filed an application for a telephone warrant … [it] referred to [Ahmed Abou El Maati's] confession to the Syrians that he undertook pilot training at the request of his brother and that he accepted a mission to be a suicide bomber by exploding a truck bomb on Parliament hill."

• Even though the RCMP was made aware that the confession was extracted by "extreme coercion," they insisted that it was "still accurate and continues to be true." In this period, RCMP investigators had heard of Mr. El Maati's complaints of torture but dismissed them as "damage control" and asserted the confession corroborated their earlier investigation of him.

• It was the CIA that sent questions to Canada about Mr. Arar when U.S. border guards arrested him in October, 2002. The CIA, which sent him to the Middle East in shackles aboard a leased Gulfstream jet, appears to have been driving the process to send Mr. Arar to Syria.

• Canadian officials were knowledgeable about the U.S. practice of "rendering" suspects to harsh interrogations third-countries. "I think the U.S. would like to get Arar to Jordan where they can have their way with him," one CSIS official wrote in an email on October 10, 2002 – two days after Mr. Arar was quietly sent to that country, and on to Syria, for questioning.

• CSIS visited Syria once Mr. Arar was in custody and came back with the impression that officials there "looked upon the matter as more of a nuisance than anything." He remained jailed there for nearly a year.

(* Truck driver Ahmad Abou El Maati, just two months after 9/11, “confessed” in Syria to plotting a truck bomb attack in Canada at the behest of his brother, who is still considered a fugitive al-Qaeda suspect.

The truck driver has since returned to Canada, uncharged, and recanted his statements as purely the product of torture. He has also expressed regret that he was forced into naming Canadian associates of his, including Maher Arar, including saying that he saw the telecommunications engineer in Afghanistan in the early 1990s.)

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Canadian intelligence agencies knew about the CIA's "extraordinary rendition" practices since that program was authorized by Clinton in 1995. But, for the RCMP to expect that a warning it sent out with the supposed intel it had on Arar would cause the CIA not to act without its permission shows how incredibly naive Canadian officials chose to be in this case.

Again, members of Project A-O Canada had little experience or training to
assist them in handling the information-sharing challenges confronting them. This was a new environment for them. For example, they had never dealt with the CIA. As observed by the Assistant Criminal Operations (CROPS) officer, with “A” Division, Inspector Garry Clement, the CIA had a lot more latitude than law enforcement agencies when it came to the war on terror. Project A-O Canada was dealing with American agencies that were more sophisticated in matters of national security and might not always play by the rules Project members would expect.

Considering the CIA's shady reputation and history of illegal, covert activities - including projects like MKULTRA in Canada - one would think the average Canadian intelligence official would know better than to trust the CIA to do everything above board.

To suddenly feign surprise, after providing information on Mr Arar that was false and that was known to have been coerced via the torture of El Maati (a fact which, as the newly revealed portions reveal, was not presented to the judge who handled the telephone warrant in this case) truly rings hollow.

There is definitely enough blame to go around and while Bush repeated again during a press conference today that that the US does not torture, anyone with any knowledge of the CIA's history should have known better than to believe that Mr Arar - or anyone in CIA custody - would be safe.

The judge who ordered the release of these censored passages should be applauded for shedding ever more light on exactly how these ugly covert actions operate because, as much as the Bush administration bloviates about its so-called respect for human rights, the reality is painfully obvious: they'll do anything if they think it will advance the "war on terror", even if that means siding with people and other governments who use torture.

And the Democrats certainly don't get a free pass on this issue either, some of whom helped pass the Military Commissions Act - enabling prosecutorial immunity for CIA torturers - and further eroding legal rights by enabling the passage of the FISA bill last week. The heavy-handedness of the US government is institutional.

This isn't over yet. US officials must be held accountable.

Update: See my related post - Video: The Abuse of Secrecy in the Arar Affair
 

Sunday Food for Thought: Belligerent Benevolence

So, I was reading yet another article about the outrage sparked by the Iraqi government taking a summer break - this one in The Independent by Rupert Cornwell who takes a look at "work-obsessed Americans": Out of America: Holidays are for wimps (and the President) - and the phrase that popped into my mind about this whole affair was "belligerent benevolence".

Cornwell writes:

In a sense, the tide of criticism (complete with a stern "Do not go on vacation" instruction from George W Bush in person) is part of the new orthodoxy about Iraq here [in Washington]. This holds that the mess is all Iraq's fault. The US has done its part, selflessly kicking out Saddam Hussein and sacrificing blood and treasure to give Iraqis the chance to fashion a lasting democracy, but they haven't taken it. Instead the parliament squabbles and feuds, unwilling to pass vital legislation to reduce sectarian discrimination, share oil revenues and so on.

But indignation about those lazy do-nothings in Baghdad also reflected a different and ancient American reality. Something in the culture, the character or maybe the water makes the country deem a decent holiday an offence against God and all his works. As a recent study has it, the US is "the No-Vacation Nation".

He goes on to compare different nations' paid vacation policies and practices but the larger point is really about how too many Americans still buy into this myth that in every department they are "the greatest nation on earth". Emma Goldman summed up that attitude succinctly:

Patriotism ... is a superstition artificially created and maintained through a network of lies and falsehoods; a superstition that robs man of his self-respect and dignity, and increases his arrogance and conceit.

And while the current administration is the height of that type of arrogance, US history shows that both major parties have pushed the same type of patriotism that places their country above all others. And by doing so, America feels entitled when it gives something of itself to others - even when they do it without being asked ie. see: war, Iraq.

It's classic martyr syndrome behaviour and all of this feigned outrage over the Iraqi politicians taking a break is definitely symbolic of the bigger disease: belligerent benevolence.

Why would I call an illegal war benevolent? Because that's exactly how those who support see it every time they claim that it's about "spreading democracy" or "making the lives of Iraqis better". They really believe that military interventionism is an expression of "compassionate conservatism".

As Smedley Butler wrote in 1933:

I believe in adequate defense at the coastline and nothing else. If a nation comes over here to fight, then we'll fight. The trouble with America is that when the dollar only earns 6 percent over here, then it gets restless and goes overseas to get 100 percent. Then the flag follows the dollar and the soldiers follow the flag.

I wouldn't go to war again as I have done to protect some lousy investment of the bankers. There are only two things we should fight for. One is the defense of our homes and the other is the Bill of Rights. War for any other reason is simply a racket.

No one in the world gets something from America for nothing. Every "gift" is fraught with conditions and expectations that whoever they show their generosity to will in turn become eternally grateful in that they will become quasi-American. What an incredibly boring world it would be if that came to pass.

As Uzodinma Iweala recently wrote in a Washington Post editorial titled, Stop Trying To 'Save' Africa: ... (Too late.)

Such campaigns, however well intentioned, promote the stereotype of Africa as a black hole of disease and death. News reports constantly focus on the continent's corrupt leaders, warlords, "tribal" conflicts, child laborers, and women disfigured by abuse and genital mutilation. These descriptions run under headlines like "Can Bono Save Africa?" or "Will Brangelina Save Africa?" The relationship between the West and Africa is no longer based on openly racist beliefs, but such articles are reminiscent of reports from the heyday of European colonialism, when missionaries were sent to Africa to introduce us to education, Jesus Christ and "civilization."

Sound familiar?

There is no African, myself included, who does not appreciate the help of the wider world, but we do question whether aid is genuine or given in the spirit of affirming one's cultural superiority. My mood is dampened every time I attend a benefit whose host runs through a litany of African disasters before presenting a (usually) wealthy, white person, who often proceeds to list the things he or she has done for the poor, starving Africans. Every time a well-meaning college student speaks of villagers dancing because they were so grateful for her help, I cringe. Every time a Hollywood director shoots a film about Africa that features a Western protagonist, I shake my head -- because Africans, real people though we may be, are used as props in the West's fantasy of itself. And not only do such depictions tend to ignore the West's prominent role in creating many of the unfortunate situations on the continent, they also ignore the incredible work Africans have done and continue to do to fix those problems.

Why do the media frequently refer to African countries as having been "granted independence from their colonial masters," as opposed to having fought and shed blood for their freedom?

Because the west's benevolent empire building cloaked in the pc-sounding name "nation building" in order to rape cultures of their identity and resources has become the only way it can sustain itself. The people affected are simply "collateral damage" who must remain marginalized in order to stop any sort of revolt on a mass scale because that might cause the empire to collapse.

The problem is, however, that every colonial empire eventually collapses under its own weight.

This belligerence, this impatience with the Iraqi government - which just isn't getting the oil privatization law passed quickly enough for the war profiteers to walk off with their spoils - is just the latest example of the type of belligerent benevolence that drives every empire.

The "ungratefuls" will be made to pay - somehow - just as they already are in Iraq with a lack of water, electricity, proper sewage and basic human needs. They are being punished and that punishment is a war crime - just as the invasion of their country was to begin with. How dare any American demand compliance by a government it created in the midst of a hell that it engineered?

The next time America wants to be benevolent, it might just try giving to the Red Cross/Red Crescent and leave it at that. The rest of the world would certainly be much better off if it did.
 

Hell in Iraq - No water, no electricity

There is no escape.

Via the AP:

BAGHDAD (AP) - Iraq's electricity grid could collapse any day because of insurgent sabotage, rising demand, fuel shortages and provincial officials who are unplugging local power stations from the national system, electricity officials said on Saturday.
[...]
For many Iraqi citizens, however, trying to stay cool or find sufficient drinking water was a more urgent problem. The Baghdad water supply already has been severely affected by power blackouts and cuts that have affected pumping and filtration stations.

And now water mains have gone dry in the Shiite holy city of Karbala, where the whole province south of Baghdad has been without power for three days. Power supplies in Baghdad have been sporadic all summer and now are down to just a few hours a day, if that.

"We no longer need to watch television documentaries about the stone age. We are actually living in it. We are in constant danger because of the filthy water and rotten food we are having," said Hazim Obeid, who sells clothing at a stall in the Karbala market.

Sunday's Karbala weather forecast: 106 - 116 F

And what does Bush do? Makes yet another phone call because he was busy getting in his photo op at the site of the Minneapolis bridge collapse.

U.S. President George W. Bush, meanwhile, was busy on the phone, calling Vice-president Adel Abdel-Mahdi and President Jalal Talabani, urging political unity in the country, where the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki is under a stiff challenge.

But hey, that so-called "surge" is supposed to be working.

Right.

Tell that to the people who are hungry, thirsty, in the dark and dying from heat stroke in Iraq. You won't see Bush doing any photo ops there any time soon - where he's responsible for hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Related: A seldom discussed topic -


The War for Iraq's Water (2003) A must read.

Bechtel, an American firm with a controversial history of water privatization, who won the largest contract from USAID to rebuild Iraq's infrastructure, is set to be a major player in the process with a contract worth $680 million. Bechtel's history speaks for itself.

Blue Gold, a book exposing global control of water by private corporations, listed Bechtel in the second tier of ten powerful companies who profit from water privatization.10 According to Corpwatch, two years ago current USAID administrator Andrew Natsios was working for Bechtel as the chairman of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, a massive transportation project in Boston whose cost has inflated exponentially in the billions of dollars.11 While providing political disclaimers on its website as a result of investigative reporting centering on the close relationship between government and private business, Bechtel certainly will benefit from its positioning as the sole contractor for municipal water and sanitation services as well as irrigation systems in Iraq.

Vandana Shiva also implicates Bechtel in attempting to control not only the process of rebuilding Iraq's infrastructure, but also control over the Tigris and Euphrates rivers themselves.12 Bechtel has been embroiled in a lawsuit with Bolivia for their plan to privatize the water there, which would drastically rise the cost of clean water for the poorest people in the country. To control the water in the Middle East, Bechtel and its fiscal sponsors, the United States government, would have to pursue both Syria and Turkey, either militarily or diplomatically. Syria has already felt pressure from the United States over issues of harboring Iraqi exiles on the U.S.'s "most wanted" list, as well as over issues of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.

It is not stretch of the imagination that a company like Bechtel with a history of privatization would have its sights set on water in the Middle East, starting with their lucrative deal in Iraq.
[...]
Devoting attention to restoring the marshes clearly serves U.S. businesses and corporations who have control over which areas of the marshes get restored, and which ones get tapped for their rich oil resources. Control of the marshlands by the U.S.-led interim government and by the American corporations who have won reconstruction contracts is crucial in deciding where new oil speculation will take place. If only a percentage -- 25% according to experts on a Brookings Institution panel on marshland reconstruction -- can be restored, then it would behoove those working on issues of oil and water not to rehydrate areas where such oil speculation will likely take place.

Water is vital to the production of oil as well; one barrel of water is required to produce one barrel of oil. Bechtel and Halliburton, who received a U.S. Army contract to rebuild the damaged oil industry which will likely reach $600 million, are the two most strategically-positioned corporations to control both the water and oil industries in Iraq.
[...]
Perhaps the issue of water is left unspoken on the global level because the transnational corporations supported by powerful Western governments contribute largely to water pollution and privatization and do not want to draw attention to this fact lest they be forced to clean up their acts and sacrifice profits. Certainly higher standards and levels of accountability would be imposed on industries relying on expendable water resources if the true shortage of water were openly acknowledged.

Perhaps it is because the leaders, politicians and diplomats who negotiate issues like this do not want to cause mass hysteria in the region, or in the United States or Western world, by directly addressing the problem of diminishing water supplies. Instead they prefer to keep it their little secret, hidden from public view and accountability, prolonging the inevitable panic and hording that will ensue when people's needs will outweigh the planet's capacity for providing potable water.
[...]
Population growth expectations for the Middle East provide a staggering predicament. According to Michael Klare, author of Resource Wars, the regional population was near 500 million in 1998, and that figure is expected to double by the year 2050.14 There will be no peace in the Middle East without addressing issues of sustainability and access to water. The microcosm of war in the Middle East is a staggering prediction of a potential widespread global crisis if countries do not learn to conserve and cooperate.

Or perhaps it is because resources are not allocated fairly in the region, and acknowledging massive humanitarian crises means that the whistle-blowers are accountable to fixing the problem. Israelis and Palestinians already compete for limited water resources, with Palestine getting short shrift and less water. As noted in Resource Wars, Jewish settlers already get five to eight times more water per capita than Palestinians.15

New Brit Security Minister: Terror fight 'may take 15 years'

Quotes from Orwell's 1984:

"Nearly all children nowadays were horrible. What was worst of all was that by means of such organizations as the Spies they were systematically turned into ungovernable little savages, and yet this produced in them no tendency whatever to rebel against the discipline of the Party. On the contrary, they adored the Party and everything connected with it… All their ferocity was turned outwards, against the enemies of the State, against foreigners, traitors, saboteurs, thought-criminals. It was almost normal for people over thirty to be frightened of their own children." —pg 24

"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could igve [sic] you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face… was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime…" —pg 54

Britain's new security minister hails the excitement of snitching as he predicts that it will only take about 10-15 years to get a grip on the war on terror:

The battle to deal with radicalisation in the fight against terrorism could take at least 15 years to achieve, the UK’s new security minister has said.

Former navy chief Admiral Sir Alan West blamed jihadists outside the country for influencing young Britons, and said the terror fight was a “daunting task”.

He urged people to be un-British by “snitching” to the authorities.
[…]
Sir Alan said: “We’re talking about such a big change in the way people behave that it’s inevitably going to take 10 to 15 years, and that’s if we’re lucky, and that’s what I hope we can achieve.

“I think it would be wrong to pretend otherwise to the British nation.”

Sir Alan said jihadists outside the country were influencing young British men and women and that “we need to think about how we can change that”.

He added: “I used the word ’snitch’ because I thought this would get everyone rather excited and interested, and I think that’s achieved that.

Let's deal with the issue of "snitching" first. The admiral seems to think he's a behavioural psychologist who can predict a massive change in his nation's thinking in a very short 10-15 year timeline by promoting this supposed excitement people will feel by becoming "un-British" (now isn't that quite the framing?). And his proof for this prediction is what, exactly?

Now there is no doubt that "snitching" can be useful in fighting crime, however there is that little complication of the risks and rewards involved. Take, for example, the money doled out to people in Afghanistan who were willing to turn over their innocent friends and neighbours to the Americans - many of whom ended being imprisoned (and who knows what else?) in Gitmo.

The US government has a "Rewards for Justice" program that focuses on handing out money worldwide to anyone willing to snitch and, to encourage tips, they state on their site:

In addition to a cash reward, personal protection is available. You and your family may be relocated to a safe location, and have an opportunity to start a new life, pay for a home, and educate your children.

So, if you knew someone was an actual terrorist, would you turn that person over without a personal guarantee for your family's security? "May"? How encouraging - how "exciting" - is that? And how many of those who were snitched on and have since been released have successfully sought revenge? We don't hear anything about that. The US government knows though that some people will do anything for money.

And just how well run is that program? Take a look at this case in the Philippines.

Abdulla is a well-known civic and religious leader in Sulu. He has many friends in the Philippine Army – officers as well as enlisted men. He is in fact a frequent visitor to Army detachments in his province. “They know me very well,” he told Bulatlat in an interview.

Abdulla was also very much visible in the campaign period for the recently-concluded senatorial and local elections as a candidate for councilor under the Mushawara Party.

Unfortunately, that didn’t protect him from being mistakenly identified as a commander of the bandit Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG), which both Philippine and U.S. troops are hunting down in Mindanao.

On June 9, the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP) distributed a Rewards for Justice recognition handbook in Brgy. Samak, during a medical civic action program (MEDCAP) mission with U.S. troops.

The handbook contains a list of suspected terrorists with corresponding offers of reward money for any information that could lead to their arrest. Among the alleged terrorists in the list was a certain ASG commander identified as Ali Igasan, a.k.a. Abdulla Tuan Ya Yasir Igasan. Igasan was described in the handbook as a Brgy. Samak resident who goes by the nickname Ustadz.

Problem is, it was the picture of Ustadz Yahiya Sarahadil Abdulla – who also goes by the nickname Ustadz – which appeared with the name of Igasan.

After getting hold of a copy of the handbook, Abdulla immediately met with his friends in the Philippine Army and demanded an explanation. “They told me I had been mistaken for someone else,” he said.

“They may have found difficulty looking for a picture of Igasan so they just put my picture there,” he said when asked what could have prompted his being tagged as an ASG leader.
[...]
“What do I have to be afraid of?” he said. “I know that my friends in the military know very well that I am not an Abu Sayyaf commander… I could not be any kind of bad element because I am an ustadz, a religious leader.”

He said, however, that he worries for the safety of others who may experience the same. “If it could happen to someone like me, it could happen to anyone else,” he said.

Obviously, if Abdulla hadn't been well-known, he most likely would have ended up in American custody somewhere having to continually plead to his innocence to deaf ears who would just point to his picture in that handbook and insist he was lying.

How often has that happened? I doubt the US government makes that information publicly available.

Going back to the British admiral's ridiculous prediction that his country can bring radicalization to an end in his country during the next decade, note that he places all of the blame on foreign "jihadists" while making the obvious and arrogant mistake of refusing to examine why those radicals exist. Even Bush has often said that you have to listen to the extremists words themselves to understand their motivations (not that he actually hears what they say anyway - obviously).

Their huge blind spot (wrapped in the "they hate up for our freedoms" nonsense) is their failure to acknowledge what people like bin Laden have been saying for decades: it's all about the west's foreign policy in the Middle East. It doesn't get any more plain than this (via wiki):

In conjunction with several other Islamic militant leaders, bin Laden issued two fatwas—in 1996 and then again in 1998—that Muslims should kill civilians and military personnel from the United States and allied countries until they withdraw support for Israel and withdraw military forces from Islamic countries.

They have a cause. If western countries really want to get serious about fighting al Qaeda-like terrorism, perhaps they should stop doing things like illegally invading Iraq, supporting Israel unconditionally while thumbing their nose at the democratic process in the occupied Palestinian territories, abandoning any sort of peace process, protecting Saudi Arabia, endlessly killing innocent civilians (and then blaming the dead for being in the wrong place at the wrong time), forcefully trying to pillage the ME's oil resources, allowing Israel to have undeclared nuclear weapons while warmongering against Iran - which doesn't even have any...and on and on.

Root causes.

That's what imperialists choose to ignore while fearmongering about how they need to "fight them over there so we don't have to fight them over here" - all the while creating even more radicals as a result.

So Sir Alan, as excited as you may be about your snitching expedition and as optimistic as you are about eliminating radicalization in such a short time (while you seem to forget that radicals have existed as long as human beings have), your extremely simplistic view is nothing but laughable. If you are the new person in charge of Britain's security, I fear for the safety of the British people because it's more than obvious that you are in as much denial as every other western empire-building supporter.

And one more thing: the so-called war on terror is impossible to win. There will always be terror. You should know. You're a part of a coalition of western powers that uses it regularly try to scare your own people and others into submission. You've all certainly taken the words of Winston Churchill to heart and have actually chosen to fashion them into your official policy to impose on your countrymen:

We have nothing to fear but fear itself.

You dole out the fear and call that "leadership" while decrying the fear created by radicals and terrorists. You're in desperate need of a mirror.

What if what they really want is for us to herd children into stadiums like we're doing? And put soldiers on the street and - and have Americans looking over their shoulders? Bend the law, shred the Constitution just a little bit? Because if we torture him, General, we do that, and everything that we have bled and fought and died for is over, and they've won. They've already won!.
-- Denzel Washington. The Siege (1998).

Related: Via wiki - Human rights in the United Kingdom

Since 2001, the "War on Terrorism" has led to new human rights concerns.

The most recent criticism has concerned the Prevention of Terrorism Act 2005, a response to a perceived increased threat of Islamic terrorism. This act allows the house arrest of terrorist suspects where there is insufficient evidence to bring them to trial, involving the derogation (opting-out) of human rights laws. This aspect of the Prevention of Terrorism Act was introduced because the detention without trial of nine foreigners at HM Prison Belmarsh under Part IV of the Anti-terrorism, Crime and Security Act 2001 was held to be unlawful under human rights legislation in A and Others v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (2004).

Friday: Canada's National Aboriginal Day of Action

And the protests have already begun:

Armed Mohawk protesters barricaded a highway in eastern Ontario Thursday night, vowing to set up even more blockades as a national aboriginal day of action begins at midnight.

About 40 protesters parked a schoolbus on Highway 2, near Deseronto, just before 9 p.m. ET, forcing traffic to stop and turn around at the location, which is about 50 kilometres west of Kingston.

Protest leader Shawn Brant said the blockade is just a "soft target," done in anticipation of major blockades that will be set up somewhere along the high-traffic Highway 401, between Montreal and Toronto.

Protesters also intend to hit the CN Rail line between the two cities, Brant said, not giving exact locations for the blockades, but saying protesters are armed and ready to keep their blockades up until midnight Friday.

"We've made no secret that we have guns within this camp," he told the Canadian Press.
[...]
In anticipation of blockades, Via Rail cancelled all Friday train services between Toronto and Montreal and between Toronto and Ottawa.

One day of inconvenienced rail travelers is nothing compared to what our first nations people have suffered for far too long now.

And if all levels of government have any sense at all, they'll let the protesters make their voices heard peacefully while doing everything they can to avoid another Ipperwash style tragedy.

The Assembly of First Nations chief, Phil Fontaine, has also issued a statement on "potential illegal protests" on Friday.

We respectfully urge Canadians not to criminalize First Nations people with respect to the actions they plan to take on June 29th and beyond. Our people do have a right to protest, as do all Canadians. The Assembly of First Nations has never resorted to illegal activities, or anything beyond the rule of law, to advance the causes of FN people.

We understand the frustration that exists among too many of our people. Our objective in organizing the National Day of Action is to provide a positive channel for that energy. We invite all Canadians to stand with us in support of a better life for First Nations and a stronger country for all Canadians.

In recent weeks, the AFN has met with various police forces, as well as CN and CP Rail, because of our mutual interest in ensuring public safety and security during the various events that will make up the National Day of Action.

Visit this AFN page for more information about the protests and the national events schedule.

The treatment of aboriginal people in Canada is our nation's shame. It's a humanitarian disaster. And when the current conservative minority government decided to scrap the Kelowna Accord, it derailed years of work meant to finally begin to address those issues in a substantial way. Piecemeal policies have never been enough and they certainly are not enough now. Our aboriginal people deserve justice and their third-world living conditions must be dealt with immediately. Please support their day of action in any way you can.
 

The Consequences of Faux Humanitarian Intervention

When NATO's secretary general Jaap de Hoop Scheffer visited Canada this past week he tried to sell Canadians on an extended military commitment in Afghanistan beyond 2009. And to do that, he thought he could score political (and/or emotional) points by referring to our country's recent history as peacekeepers.

To critics of the mission, he said: "Please realize (that) in a nation like Canada, with such an enormous tradition of peacekeeping ... you are there for a good cause, and I know how dramatic it is if Canadian soldiers pay the high price, but I still say you are there for a good cause, you are there to defend basic universal values."

And writing for the Ottawa Sun, columnist Greg Weston laments that the Afghanistan war hasn't been sold properly to a public that overwhelmingly wants our mission to end when it's supposed to:

Rather than aggressively using the media to help frame the Afghan mission as a difficult humanitarian effort in a dangerous environment, Harper's failed spin machine has allowed the conflict to be framed by deaths, official snafus and other negative events. [Maybe that's because that's what's actually going on no matter how many happy puppy stories Harper tries to trot out? -catnip]
[...]
Whether the government can reverse the tide of public opinion on Afghanistan is a matter of some doubt, in part because the PM and his pointless grudge-match with the media are part of the problem. [And, in part because we shouldn't be there. Period. -catnip]

It's a "humanitarian effort", you see. It's about "basic universal values".

Except that it isn't and the public will not be fooled into thinking that it is.

Writing on the other side of the pond about the waning so-called "neutrality" of the UN and Tony Blair's part in that, Robert Fisk writes about the dangers inherent in the latest "humanitarian intervention" fiascoes:

The Iraq war has shattered the cause of humanitarian intervention endorsed by Tony Blair and directly led to the targeting of relief workers in conflict zones where they are no longer considered to be neutral, according to a former senior UN official.

[Ed. note: 6 UN peacekeepers were killed by a bomb in Lebanon on Sunday.]

In a speech in London tonight, Sir Mark Malloch-Brown will say: "The brutal truth is politics is making it harder and harder to serve victims' needs by reaching them with assistance or bearing witness to their suffering and thereby staying the hand of those who would harm them."

Mr Blair's belief in the doctrine of humanitarian intervention, or the use of force to advance moral causes, led to Nato's air war with Serbia to halt the ethnic cleansing of Kosovars, and later to British military intervention in Sierra Leone. The doctrine was also used to rally international support for the invasion of Afghanistan.

And what effect has that had?

Sir Mark, the former UN deputy secretary-general under Kofi Annan, however, points out that the Sudanese President, General Omar al-Bashir, has been able to use the Iraq invasion as the prime reason to delay acceptance of a UN force in Darfur. "Tony Blair and George Bush have repeatedly called for the right kind of action in Darfur only to be rebuffed as the architects of Iraq. Bashir has tried to make them his best weapon.

"It is not their loss of credibility that concerns me today, but rather that of humanitarian workers. The trouble is the two are linked," he goes on. "I have watched the work I used to do get steadily more dangerous as it is seen as serving Western interests rather than universal values."

While at the UN, he says, he would see the maps of Darfur showing ever-widening yellow circles that mark no-go areas for humanitarian workers. "Iraq is the immediate cause for this. And 9/11 the preceding trigger - but both come at the end of a process that has knocked humanitarian work off the straight and narrow of non-political impartial help ... bringing help to the needy."

Interesting that he should use the same phrase as de Hoop Scheffer. But the problem is that as far as conservative western leaders are concerned, western interests always trump those "universal values" and because those interests must be satisfied, the accepted doctrine is the use of military force - which they either fail to understand or refuse to admit as having a huge ripple effect.

Canadian troops are not on a peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan. We are not promoting "values". We're in the thick of battles in which 60 soldiers have now lost their lives. While politicians mimic Donald Rumsfeld who constantly complained about the lack of Good News™ coming out of both war zones he was responsible for, (and the record of achievements in Afghanistan is small as this current bunch of leaders try to convince you otherwise - with opium production fueling over 90% of the country's economy as tiny bandaids are offered as political solutions), apparently people like de Hoop Scheffer think they can tug at our humanitarian heartstrings to keep sending more troops to die into a country we've been at war with for 6 years now.

To what end?

That's the question more Canadians have been asking themselves lately and they're not satisfied with the answer.

I suppose history will judge our "will" as it does that of America in Iraq. In the US however, the main reason to call for the troops to come home seems to be that the war is being lost. In Canada, we have a different perspective: just how much good can we accomplish in Afghanistan?

We're different nations, the US and Canada, and we have different expectations of our roles in international affairs. (Well, we did until this minority Conservative government took over.) But what Robert Fisk has written about - the perils of the doctrine of "humanitarian intervention" and the way it has played out - whether that's the actual or perceived policy - and the effects it's having on the actual peacekeepers (such as those in Lebanon who were killed this weekend) is not something that western interests should overshadow on the international stage. If the people who are the most vulnerable and in need are not able to trust those who are trying to help them, who else can they turn to?

Bush, de Hoop Scheffer and Harper need to realize that war is not a "universal value" and that as the use of military force continues to make life more instead of less treacherous for too many civilians (with 90 killed this past week in Afghanistan alone, which Hamid Karzai rightly railed against on Saturday), the people that they all seem to feign care for are continually being harmed, not helped. They need aid workers. They need peacekeepers. They need true humanitarian intervention. They need to be able to trust.

How can it be right then, that these wars these leaders so want to push as being for a "good cause", be allowed to go on when the very people they are supposed to be benefiting are suffering so much? More of the same is not the answer.