Secret British files of torture exposed

Governments claim the sole right to exercise violence and they also can excuse or dissimulate or expunge the exercise of violence -- at least most do.  When information about the abuse of human beings by a government comes to light it's important.  Now we learn of a treasure trove of files about the abuse of people by British officials during the colonial era.  That's news.  Strangely, not much seems to have been made of it.

This is what is known:  That a British judge has allowed three Kenyans who were tortured by British officials during the Mau Mau uprising to sue the British government.  Apparently what made their claim plausible to the judge was the revelation that files exist that document British torture during that period.    [From an article by Simon Hooper in AlJazeera, 11/30/12:] 

The government conceded that the trio, Paulo Muoka Nzili, 85, Wambugu Wa Nyingi, 84, and Jane Muthoni Mara, 73, had suffered brutal abuse, including castration, sexual assault and beatings as a result of their detentions during one of the bloodiest and most enduring rebellions of the British empire's final days. But it argued that the distance from the events over which it was accused meant a fair trial was impossible.
That argument came unstuck when the foreign office was forced last year to reveal the existence of almost 9,000 hidden files brought to Britain from 37 former colonies. The files had been concealed as a consequence of a government policy that any "embarrassing" documents should not be left in the hands of the territories' successor governments.
Among them were several thousand papers relating to the British authorities' handling of the Mau Mau crisis, including details of how senior officials had colluded in the mistreatment of detainees by changing the law to provide legal cover for what they deemed "acceptable punishment", even knowing that what they were condoning equated to torture by international standards.
"If we are going to sin, then we must sin quietly," wrote Eric Griffiths-Joyce, the Kenyan attorney general, in a memo to Sir Evelyn Baring, the colonial governor, in 1957.

Torture, done quietly, is still "sin."  No wonder the files were stashed away to be forgotten.  

Shameful strategies to deter voting -- in America?

Elizabeth Drew’s account [New York Review 12/20/12] of the tactics used by the Republican Party to restrict the Democratic vote – narrowing the windows of time in which pre-voting can take place, demanding IDs that would be difficult for poor and minorities to obtain, changing the rules for proper registration multiple times ( as Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husten did), even on the Friday evening before election day – these strategies of restricting voting opportunities leaves me wondering if the Republican Party really believes in the democratic process.

“By the time of the election, more than thirty states had passed laws requiring voters to present some form of identification, often a government-issued photo ID that they didn’t possess and couldn’t obtain easily, in many cases not at all. The point was to make it more difficult for constituent groups of the Democratic Party—blacks, Hispanics, low-income elderly, and students—to exercise their constitutionally guaranteed right to vote.” 

“… In some parts of the country, confusion was sown deliberately: intimidating billboards suggesting that photo IDs would be required appeared in predominantly black and Hispanic areas.  // This was no sneak attack but a national, coordinated enterprise ….”

The result was long lines where voters waited in some instances as long as eight hours to vote.  It seems that many of those situations were not due to mis-management but to deliberate attempts to make voting difficult and unattractive.

“[T]he lines were deliberately caused by limits imposed by Republican officials on the amount of time allowed for voting before election day. In 2008, blacks and Hispanics voted at higher rates than others on weekends in Ohio and Florida, and Obama carried both states. In theory, early voting is supposed to provide voters opportunities to avoid long election-day lines and cast their votes before election day, but the limits on the number of early voting days assured that early voters ended up in long lines on early voting days.” 

“Florida, for its part, created a mess by drastically restricting early voting. …[T] the Republican state legislature cut the number of days for early voting from fourteen to eight and prohibited it altogether on the last Sunday before the election. Sunday had been a special day for blacks, many of whom were transported from church by bus to the polling stations. On the Saturday of the final weekend, … some people waited for as long as eight hours, till past midnight….  Yet on Sunday, polling places in populous Miami-Dade County were still unprepared for the onslaught of people wanting to vote. One place unprepared for such a crowd shut down for two hours and then reopened as would-be voters banged on the doors demanding that they be allowed to vote. … On election night some Florida voters were still standing in line to vote when President Obama gave his victory speech. The last vote was cast at 1:08 AM.”

It’s hard to grasp that Republicans, who pride themselves on their bona fides as "true Americans" [who said that?], would have stooped to such transparently un-American behavior.  Have they no shame?

A displaced, abused people, with nowhere to go

Tucked away in various corners of the world there are still peoples who are little recognized in the world, with scarcely a right to live anywhere.  Many of them are distrusted because they have to survive by working in the margins of society.  Often they are abused.  

AlJazeera [thank you AlJazeera!] has been running a series of articles about a group that few of us ever heard of, the Rohingya.  It seems that they are unwelcome everywhere.  And of course they have a history of conflict with various other peoples, so they are regarded as troublemakers and on such grounds are abused.     Subir Bhaumik, in his latest report calls them "the world's most forgotten people."   Here are some of the things he says about them.  

Bangladesh's Awami League-led coalition government wants to send back all the Rohingya refugees to Myanmar. "They are Myanmar citizens and we have sheltered them long enough. Now they must go back and settle down in Myanmar,"

The Awami League ... see the Rohingya as religious bigots who support their rivals in Bangladesh's Islamic party, the Jamait-e-Islami.  

Unwanted now in an over-populated Bangladesh, the Rohingya are also not wanted in their own country, Myanmar. Even President Thein Sein has said on record that the Rohingyas are migrants from the Chittagong region of neighbouring Bangladesh and not indigenous to Myanmar, so they should be taken away to some other place. 

The president is supported by many of his countrymen in his perceptions that the Rohingya are "dangerous trouble-makers" and "Islamic Jihadis". In late July, dozens of Burmese in Yangon chanted slogans in front of a UN office in Yangon: "Go back Rohingya, get out of Myanmar, we support our president". They blamed the Rohingya for the recent riots in  Rakhine (formerly Arakan) state, though UNHCR officials say the Rohingya have suffered much more than the native Rakhines.More than 60 of the nearly 80 killed in the riots in Rakhine state this summer are Rohingya. The riots started after Rohingya men were accused of raping a Rakhine woman, and spread when angry Rakhines went on a killing spree. 

And nearly 100,000 of them have been displaced from their homes and herded into makeshift camps. 

The Buddhist Rakhines and the Muslim Rohingya have a long tradition of intense hostility that goes back to the steady flow of Muslim immigrants from Bengal's Chittagong region into Arakan province, migration that was encouraged by the British. Thousands of Rakhines and Rohingya died in riots in Arakan in 1942 during the Second World War. The Japanese also massacred large number of Rohingya because they supported the British. 

... the Rakhines and the Burmese military junta ... unleashed "Operation King Dragon" in the Rohingya-dominated areas of Arakan in 1978. The mass torture and extra-judicial killings, gang rapes and demolition of mosques forced nearly one-third of the Rohingya population to flee to Bangladesh.  From there, many of them moved into India enroute to Pakistan and elsewhere in the Middle east. 

...thousands of them have been migrating to Pakistan through India from the refugee camps in Bangladesh. During the course of her research, she found a lot of Rohingya women in the red light districts of Karachi and many Rohingya men in the port city's thriving fishing industry. 

After the prospects of migrating to Pakistan and the Middle East began to dry up, Rohingya turned towards Malaysia, travelling there through Thailand.

Bahrain's abuse of its own citizens -- with American complicity

We and most of the world rightly have condemned the Syrian government's abuse of its own people, but what about the similar situation in Bahrain?  There is a difference:  In Bahrain there is a Naval base that is crucial to the United Sates in the Gulf.  So the US tolerates the abuse of the people in Bahrain and condemns the abuse of people in Syria.  


Shame on us. 


How can the United States not  be considered complicit in these abuses of the Bahrani public?  

Bahrain has convicted its own doctors for treating the injured in public demonstrations
Bahrain convicts medics for role in uprising - Middle East - Al Jazeera English

And Bahrain has, with the rest of the world looking elsewhere, continued to abuse their own people with impunity
Bahrain: Shouting in the dark - Programmes - Al Jazeera English

The Kordofan War and its casualties: Anyone paying attention?

Al Jazeera claims to be the only news source on what's going on in Kordofan, which is in south Sudan -- the southern part of the new Sudan, after Southern Sudan was carved out of it.


Sudan has a reputation for indifference to the needs of its population so long as the "Arab" elite in northeast Sudan, led by Bashir, can remain safely in control of the key institutions of government.  After 37 years of war with the south, which it has now given up to become a separate country, and many years of deliberate exploitation of its western province of Darfur, the government still seems unable to be at peace with itself. One wonders if some countries -- some administrations -- cannot remain in power without having an enemy to justify an continued internal mobilization.  Sudan may be such a place.


But it seems that few people are paying attention.  It is fair to doubt that any of this will appear on American TV, and so will go unnoticed, unreported as far as most of the world's audiences are concerned.


Click on the title above for a link to a video on what it's like to live under a regime that regards any form of independent living as a threat to its own existence.

The Plight of Women in Afghanistan

The plight of women in Afghanistan.  This is what Tom A. Peter reports in the Guardian

• Nearly half of all women in Afghan prisons are being held for "moral crimes" such as running away from home or adultery, according to a report by Human Rights Watch.
• In almost all cases of the imprisonment of women who fled their homes to escape abusive situations those responsible for the abuse did not face any legal actions, while the victims faced prison sentences.
• Afghanistan is the only country in the world that interprets sharia law to prohibit women from running away from their home without permission.
• In one case described by the HRW report, a woman named Souriya Y was given away for marriage at the age of 12 to resolve a family dispute. Her husband was abusive, but her father encouraged her to be patient. Nine years into the marriage, her husband accused her of running away and having sex with one of his enemies. Souriya told HRW she saw the man she was accused of running away with for the first time in court and says her husband made up the story to get rid of her and shame his rival. She was convicted and sentenced to five and a half years in prison.
• 87% of Afghan women reported experiencing physical, psychological, or sexual abuse or forced marriages.
• With a legal system that often punishes women for reporting violent crimes against them such as rape or abuse, a number of women do not speak up for fear of facing judicial reprisal.
• an Afghan woman named Gulnaz was imprisoned after she was raped by a relative. After the case received international attention, the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, offered Gulnaz a pardon but she told reporters that she planned to marry the man who raped her to avoid social problems associated with having a child outside of wedlock.
• Only 12.5% of Afghan women are literate, and campaigners say that it remains a challenge to educate women about exactly what rights they possess.
• Karzai has publicly supported a decree by the Ulema Council, a government-sponsored group of religious leaders, that said women are worth less than men, should not leave the house without a male escort, or mix with men at school or the workplace.

• © 2012 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.

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The Afshar Massacre, a forgotten horror

The uncertainties of the present situation in Afghanistan, as talks are said to be beginning between NATO and theTaliban have inspired claims that another terrible and all-engulfing civil war could be in the offing.  It's worth remembering how it once was.  Nothing was worse than the civil war of 1992-1996 that made even life under the Taliban seem tame -- the Taliban were at first welcomed by virtually everyone because they brought peace, at least a form of peace.  The terror, the internal divisions, the shifting of alliances, the betrayal of friends and colleagues -- all this could be ahead again for the peoples of Afghanistan if the talks break down.  

The current generation has no idea what it was like. The civil war of 1992-1996 and afterward is scarcely rivaled for its ferocity and cruelty.  Civil wars -- the American Civil War being a famous example -- are the cruelest, meanest of human conflicts.  They are always a blight on human history, on memory, a shame to all the pretenses of the human moral imagination.


KabulPress recently published a long report on one such incident in the war for Kabul:  the Afshar Massacre and Rape of the Hazaras that took place almost exactly nineteen years ago this month (February 1993).  I reproduce it here because the story has been forgotten, and the younger generation has no idea; its' one of the tragic affairs of all Afghan history.  Let us pray that the Afghans will be spared that experience again.  [Click on the title for a link to the source.]

Massacre and Mass Rape in Afshar (February 10-11, 1993)AFGHANISTAN JUSTICE PROJECT  Saturday 11 February 2012 

The Context of the OperationThe Afshar operation of February 1993 represented the largest and most integrated use of military power undertaken by the ISA up to that time. There were two tactical objectives to the operation. First, Massoud intended, through the operation to capture the political and military headquarters of Hizb-i Wahdat, (which was located in the Social Science Institute, adjoining Afshar, the neighborhood below the Afshar mountain in west Kabul), and to capture Abdul Ali Mazari, the leader of Hizb-i Wahdat. Second, the ISA intended to consolidate the areas of the capital directly controlled by Islamic State forces by linking up parts of west Kabul controlled by Ittihad-i Islami with parts of central Kabul controlled by Jamiat-i Islami. Given the political and military context of Kabul at the time, these two objectives (which were largely attained during the operation) provide a compelling explanation of why the Islamic State forces attacked Afshar.

Responsibility for the abuses committed during the operationThe forces that launched the offensive in west Kabul on February 10-11, 1993 all formally belonged to the ministry of defense of the ISA. The minister of defense and de facto commander-in-chief of the ISA at the time of the Afshar operation was Ahmad Shah Massoud. He had overall responsibility for planning and command of military operations. He directly controlled the Jamiat-i Islami units and indirectly controlled the Ittihad-i Islami unit. Massoud secured the participation of the Ittihad-i Islami units through agreement with Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, the leader of the party. Although the Ittihad units had been given Afghan Army formation numbers, commanders in the field took their orders from senior Ittihad commanders and Sayyaf himself. Sayyaf acted as the de facto general commander of Ittihad forces during the operation and was directly in touch with senior commanders by radio. In this sense, Sayyaf shares equal command and control responsibility with the top Jamiat military leadership.Given the pattern of violence and ethnic tension that had preceded the operation, the general commanders could and should have anticipated the pattern of abuse that would result when launching an offensive into a densely populated Hazara majority area.. Furthermore, as fighting took place in an area barely two kilometers from the general command post, and field commanders were equipped with radio communications, the general commander must have known of the abuses taking place in Afshar as soon as they started. Both Massoud, together with his senior commanders, and Sayyaf failed to take effective measures to prevent abuses before the operation commenced, or to stop them once the operation was underway.  While it has not been possible to identify individual commanders responsible for specific instances of execution or rape, the Afghanistan Justice Project has been able to identify a number of the commanders who led troops in the operation. Testimony indicates that both Jamiat and Ittihad troops committed abuses. Although some of the commanders were only involved in legitimate military actions, capturing and securing a designated objective, commanders who took place in the operation on the ground have a case to answer to determine whether they restrained their troops from abuses, or whether they and their men actively participated in the summary executions, rape, arbitrary detentions and other abuses that occurred during the operation.The Islamic State, through Defense Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud and leader of factional ally, Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, committed the following military forces to participate in the Afshar operation. 

Jamiat-i Islami commanders and units 

Mohammad Qasim Fahim, director of intelligence, with responsibility for special operations in support of the offensive and participating in planning of the operation. Anwar Dangar, commander of a division level unit of mujahidin from Shakkar Darra, Shamali, named by numerous witnesses as leading troops in Afshar that carried out abuses on the first two days of the operation.Mullah Izzat, commander of a division level unit of mujahidin, from Paghman, named by numerous eye witnesses as leading troops in Afshar that carried out abuses on the first two days of the operation.  Mohammad Ishaq Panshiri, commander of a brigade level unit of mujahidin (lewa) that, according to witnesses, participated in the assault Haji Bahlol Panshiri, commander of a brigade level unit (lewa) that, according to witnesses participated in the assault Baba Jullunder Panshiri, commander of a brigade level unit (lewa) that participated in the assault Khanjar Akhund, Panshiri, commander of a battalion level unit (ghund) that participated in the assault Mushdoq Lalai, battalion level, participated in the assault Baz Mohammad Ahmadi Badakhshani, commander of a division level unit that participated in the assault, attacking from Qargha 

Ittihad-i Islami commanders and units participating in the operation 

Haji Shir Alam, division commander affiliated to Sayyaf, from Paghman, named by numerous eye witnesses as leading troops in Afshar on the first two days when abuses were committed  Zulmai Tufan, commander of the Lewa 597 brigade, named by numerous eye witnesses as leading troops in Afshar on the first two days, when abuses were committed. (Lewa 597 existed before the fall of Dr. Najibullah’s government when it was called Lewa Moradat-Tank). It was in based in the Company area of west Kabul.  Dr. Abdullah, commander of a battalion level unit (ghund) of the Lewa 597, named by several witnesses as leading troops in Afshar on day one and two, when abuses were committed Jaglan Naeem, commander of a battalion level unit (ghund) of the Lewa 597, had stationed troops in Afshar by second day of the operation  Mullah Taj Mohammad, named as participating in planning of the operation  Abdullah Shah, named by several witnesses as leading troops in Afshar and responsible for arbitrary arrests, abductions and other abuses.  Khinjar, who had stationed troops in Afshar by the second day of the operation  Abdul Manan Diwana, commander of a battalion level unit (ghund), named by witnesses as stationing troops in Afshar by the second day of the operation  Amanullah Kochi, commander of a battalion level unit (ghund), had stationed troops in Afshar by second day of the operation  Shirin, commander of a battalion level unit (ghund), had stationed troops in Afshar by the second day of the operation  Mushtaq Lalai, commander of a battalion level unit (ghund), had stationed troops in Afshar by the second day of the operation  Mullah Kachkol, had stationed troops in Afshar by second day of the operation  

Narrative of the operation 

All of the forces that ultimately participated in the fighting on February 10-11, 1993, were already deployed in and around Kabul before the start of the offensive. The main preparations made by the ISA were the conduct of special operations to weaken the Hizb-i Wahdat defenses and deployment of additional artillery for the bombardment. As director of intelligence, Mohammad Fahim had overall responsibility for special operations. His personnel contacted a number of the Shia commanders around Afshar and obtained their commitment to cooperate with the Islamic State offensive.  The most significant new deployment of artillery before the operation was the position on Aliabad Hill. Massoud pre-positioned a Z0 23 gun there, with the detachment of 30 men, to target the area around the Central Silo, Afshar, Kart-iSeh, Kart-iChar and Kart-iSakhi.  The main significance of the massive firepower and the large number of positions from which artillery was used is that they demonstrate the scale and significance of the operation. This was not a raid or skirmish but a full scale battle, in which the Islamic State deployed the combined military resources from the old Soviet era army and the mujahidin against targets within the capital city, all of them located in areas that were primarily residential, with the civilian population intact.  Witnesses who were associated with the military at the time of the operation have provided accounts of the planning and military coordination that Massoud undertook prior to actually launching the operation on the ground. However, this represents only a partial view of the planning, as an operation of this scale must have involved intensive preparations. According to one witness, the top Jamiat commanders, along with selected senior Ittihad commanders (Shir Alam and Zulmai Tufan), and with the main Shia ally, Massoud Hussain Anwari, plus the ISA military advisors, met under the chairmanship of Massoud at Corps headquarters in Badambagh two days before the operation. Another meeting was held in an intelligence safe house in KartiParwan, near the Intercontinental hotel, on the night before the offensive. Massoud used the same house as an operations room for much of the day. There was also a meeting of the Ittihad commanders, under the chairmanship of Sayyaf, in Paghman, one day before the operation. The purpose of these meetings was to instruct key commanders on their role in the ground offensive.The ISA forces commenced a generalized bombardment of west Kabul on the night of February 10-11, 1993, with targets both around the Social Science Institute and Afshar and in the rest of the Shia areas of the city. Troop movement started around 05.00 on February 11, and this is generally remembered as the time of the full commencement of the operation. The first decisive troop movement was from Badambagh to the top of the Radar Hill, part of the Afshar ridge. ISA troops were immediately able to take over positions along the top of the ridge unopposed and the main Hizb-i Wahdat defense posts there were burned and the tanks stationed there immobilized.  A large contingent of both Ittihad and Jamiat forces advanced towards Afshar from the west. The closest point of the front line to the main target of the operation was the Kabul Polytechnic. A Jamiat force advanced along the main Afshar Road, from Kart-iParwan and the Intercontinental Hotel, towards the Social Science Institute, entering Afshar from the east. The ISA forces did not advance along other sections of the front line marking the west Kabul enclave, although they maintained an intense bombardment and had ample forces deployed to maintain a threat of advance.  However, by 13.00 Hizb-i Wahdat’s main defense line along the Afshar ridge was gone and their hold on the Social Science Institute untenable. Mazari and his top commanders fled the Institute on foot. By 14.00 the ISA forces were able to occupy the Social Science Institute, and the forces that had advanced from the east and the west, met up in Afshar, having taken effective control of the area. They deployed in Khushal Mina and Afshar, but made no further advance.  Troops started to secure the area, establishing posts and undertaking a search operation. It was this search operation that rapidly became a mass exercise in abuse and looting, as described in the civilian eyewitness testimony below.  Mazari was able to order the re-establishment of the defense line along the edge of Khushhal Mina, next to the Central Silo and Kart-iSakhi, thus retaining most of the rest of west Kabul. Some of the Afshar residents, basically those considering themselves most vulnerable, managed to flee with the departing Wahdat troops (this factor seems to account for the relatively low number of male youths mentioned in the casualties in the testimony). However, the majority of the Afshar civilian population was in place as the ISA forces took over. Because of the bombardment, active fighting and presence of potentially hostile troops, it seems that many civilians were unable to leave on the first day of the operation. However, a mass exodus took place on the night of the February 11-12. Women and children fled mainly towards Taimani, in north Kabul, and they found shelter in schools and mosques in the Ismaili quarter there. Some old men elected to stay and guard houses and possessions, but testimony indicates that the troops mainly targeted men for arbitrary detention and summary execution, i.e. male civilians were not free to leave the area. Most survivors who fled Afshar described seeing debris and corpses along the way, indicating that they fled after the main battle. By the end of the second day, the bulk of the civilian population had evacuated Afshar and it seems that this exodus was the development that most decisively ended abuses against civilians in the area.  On the second day of the operation, February 12, Massoud convened a meeting in the Hotel Intercontinental which, belatedly, discussed arrangements for security in the newly captured areas. This meeting was attended by top ISA military commanders and political figures, including Rabbani, Sayyaf, Hayatollah Mohsin, Ayatollah Fazl, and General Fahim. ISA did claim a Shia constituency and Hussain Anwari, as a senior ISA commander, was under pressure from Shia civilians to make some arrangements for their safety. The meeting ordered a halt to the massacre and looting and agreed on an exchange of envoys between the warring parties, for identification of prisoners. It also called for a withdrawal of the offensive troops, leaving a smaller force to garrison the new areas.Given the scale of abuses that occurred on the first two days of the operation, before the meeting, it was clearly too late to prevent the main abuses. The meeting also seems to have been ineffective in halting the looting of the area, as the destruction of housing in Afshar happened largely after the meeting. 

The War Crimes: Indiscriminate Attacks, Rapes, Abductions and Summary Executions 

Indiscriminate Shelling and bombardment of civilian areasThe Afshar area was subjected to heavy bombardment during the first day of the operation. The principal military targets would have been the Social Science Institute and the other main Wahdat garrisons. However, the Social Science Institute was never hit. The majority of the rockets, tank shells and mortars fell in civilian residential areas. As the command centers of both the Ittihad and Jamiat forces were within site of Afshar, it appears that the attack was intended to drive the civilian population from Afshar—which it succeeded in doing. The number killed in the assault (not including those summarily executed) is not known. Virtually every witness interviewed by the Afghanistan Justice Project described seeing bodies in the area.Indeed, the shelling and mortar fire was so intense, many residents hid on the first day, and did not try to leave. Although this may have reduced civilian casualties from the bombardment, it left these civilians vulnerable to the abuses that followed.

The price of breaking our own rules

Barry Wingard is a Lt Col, Judge Advocate General (JAG) in the Air Force, has served 28 years and is a war veteran, and in civilian life he serves as a public defender in the city of Pittsburgh.  His statement of the reasons for American problems of remaining in Iraq are so on point that I think it should be more widely read.  However, I wish this had been published in a prominent American paper.  Thankfully, Al Jazeera would publish it.  From the Jan 18, 2012 site: http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2012/01/20121141418247919.html.

Rule of law in full retreat

'How can the US set the standard for equal justice and human rights when its own moral authority lies in ruin?'

Washington DC - President Obama recently announced that, by the end of 2011, all United States military forces will be withdrawn from Iraq.
Reportedly, the US would like to have established some lasting military presence in Iraq (similar to that in Kuwait and other friendly nations); but this scenario was not possible because the US and Iraq could not agree upon the terms of a "status of forces agreement" (SOFA).
Such agreements generally permit the United States to exercise jurisdiction over certain criminal matters involving United States service members, rather than having service members prosecuted by host-nation authorities. So, in essence, the reason the US had to withdraw all its troops is because the Iraqis do not trust the United States' legal system.
And who can blame them?
In recent years, Iraq watched the US' response to the widely-publicised atrocities at Abu Ghraib by prosecuting only the lowest-ranking offenders (with no meaningful accountability at higher levels). Iraq also witnessed a complete lack of accountability when American employees of "Blackwater" allegedly killed dozens of Iraqi civilians in Nisour Square.
These were not exactly shining examples of "American justice in action. 

But perhaps the most obvious reason the Iraqis might be suspect of the American legal system is that, for the past 10 years, the most visible example of "American justice" has been the confinement of Muslims at Guantanamo Bay without a trial of any kind.
Reaping a poisonous cropFor 10 years, the US has clearly demonstrated it applies one set of legal rules to Americans and another to non-Americans. The first set respects due process, the rule of law, individual rights and the concept of innocent until proven guilty.
Unfortunately, the second set involves enhanced interrogation, indefinite detention and a presumption of guilt without any opportunity to prove innocence.
So, having planted the seeds of legal inequality, the US has now begun to reap a poisonous crop. And its inability to negotiate a SOFA with Iraq is likely one of many serious consequences.
While the US continues to characterise its policies in easily-digestible terms for domestic consumption (such as "war on terror" and "homeland security"), the world opinion of the US and its commitment to justice is on decline and has changed forever.
How can the US set the standard for equal justice and human rights when its own moral authority lies in ruin?
The Arab spring has presented opportunities for meaningful change throughout the Middle East. Unfortunately, the US has placed itself in a poor position to extend the hand of friendship or to provide an example for new democracies to follow.
This is especially true for those countries still represented amongst the suffering population of Guantanamo Bay, 95 per cent of whom will never receive a trial or an apology for the treatment they endured or their ruined lives. Why does the US assert its right to hold human beings for life without trial in its never-ending battle against "terror"?
The only justification that I can see is "because it can".

Lt Col Wingard is a military lawyer who represents Fayiz al-Kandari and has served for 28 years in the military. When not on active duty, he is a public defender in the city of Pittsburgh.

An intriguing letter of congratulations from Iran

Below is a statement I received today broadly distributed from Dr. ... , a former official of the the Iranian government under the "progressive" Prime Minister Muhammad Khatami.  Dr. ...  is notable for his efforts to create relations between Muslim and Christian theologians through an institute which he founded and directs in Tehran.  He is also notable for his involvement in the demonstrations against the government of Iran during the 2009 demonstrations, and for the abuse he clearly suffered when he was imprisoned for it.  He went into prison a portly short man and came out many months later evidently 100 pounds lighter.  The time spent in custody and the lost weight clearly discounted the statements of loyalty he made when he was finally released.  Before his ordeal he paid a visit to Washington University in St Louis as well as to Covenant Seminary, whose faculty had visited him in Tehran some months before, so he has friends here who have followed his career and taken note of the abuse he has evidently suffered at the hands of his own government, dominated as it is by a kabal of less progressive Shiite theologians.

Now he is resurfacing as the head of his Institute and making a statement of great interest because it seems to depart from the usual rhetoric of the Islamic Republic.  Here, in his statement of congratulations to Christians in their time of celebration, is a condemnation of dictatorship and even a call for the Islamic regimes of the world to allow non-Muslims to practice their faiths.

The Institute ... is honored to compliment New Year to you and your colleagues. Coincidence of New Year and birthday of Christ shows that religion is the most powerful factor in human life, which has been abused either it is able to solve huge problems of humanity. so that we invite all religions to note common subjects and make dialogue about them, to solve man's problems also to achieve the spirituality. The biggest event of world in the last year, was fall of dictators in Muslim's countries.  Spirit of the struggle against dictatorship was Islam-willing and once again it confirmed the importance of religion in human life. we, in our turn, request of new leaders and authorities in Islamic countries to accept actual share of other religions and their faithfuls, grant them their full rights of citizenship so that all religions will be able to expand intellectuality and theism in the world, to replace peace instead of current violence.  Accept good wishes of my colleagues and me, in the Institute … for New Year. [signed] ... [from] Iran- Tehran

Dr ... is proposing that the "new leaders and authorities in Islamic countries accept ... other religions and their faithfuls [followings], [and] grant them their full rights of citizenship ...."  This plea for tolerance of other religious groups can hardly be other than a challenge to his own government, which famously cannot bear dissent or unauthorized religious practice.  Buried in his congratulations to those of us in the Western world -- I'm sure it went out to his whole address list -- is a  veiled critique of his own political context, one that, as he says, has "abused" religion.  I hope he can be safe in such a place; Der ...  knows by experience how painful it can be to those who embarrass a dictatorial regime.    

Torture is back in Egypt

Torture has been a powerful radicalizing element in the Middle East.  It was torture that turned Sayed Qutb from a critic of the Egyptian government and the west to one who believed the whole system was corrupt and irredeemable: the only hope was extreme action.  It was torture that radicalized Ayman Zawahiri, now head of Al Qaeda.  And it was torture that created the hatred of the Egyptians for the police and underlaid the explosion of public demonstrations against President Mubarak early this year.  

The police seem unable to avoid the practice in Egypt.  Now that they are back on the streets the Egyptians are at risk of losing much of what they have gained.  Here is an article that appeared in the Bikya Masr website on October 28.

Power and torture in Egypt by Desmond Shephard Oct 28

“We are all Khaled Said” turned to “We are all Mina Daniel” and then on Thursday evening Egyptians began the “We are all Essam” campaign after rights activists and NGOs reported 24-year-old Essam Atta was brutally tortured to death by prison guards at Torah prison in Cairo after they discovered a mobile phone SIM card in his cell.

The images of the slain Egyptian sparked a massive outpouring of anger toward the country’s police, who also shot dead a man just outside the capital on Thursday. The police have returned in full force to Egypt and it has left the country on the edge, with calls for demonstrations beginning to foment once more. Calls for a renewal of revolution have been drifting in for the past day. Activists are angry.

The return of the police, which was largely responsible for the murder of over 850 Egyptians during the 18 days of uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak, has shown that they have regained their power over daily life in the country. Random checkpoints, ID checking and detention have once more become the norm on Egypt’s streets.

Essam Atta has become the new Khaled Said – the man who was tortured and murdered in Alexandria in June 2010, who largely began the road to revolution – after he was sodomized by a hose by prison guards, who then tossed his body in front of Cairo’s Qasr el-Aini hospital Thursday evening.

According to the al-Nadeem Center for Rehabilitation and Torture, Essam Atta suffered a severe drop in blood pressure and heart failure after being tortured by police officials at Tora prison.

There have already been over 2,000 “likes” on the We are all Essam Facebook page, showing that Egyptians can mobilize quickly.

What Thursday’s torture of the 24-year-old represents is the power, corruption and torture intrinsically part of the Egyptian police force. On Wednesday, the two officers who killed Khaled Said were handed baffling sentences of 7 years in prison on manslaughter charges. It signalled to many activists that change had not come to Egypt in the 9 months since Mubarak was ousted. Instead, what we are witnessing is the rise of the police yet again in the country, employing the same tactics that left a country angry, fearful and ready for revolution.

The power the police have in this country is hard to deny. They can come into cafes, interrogate anyone at anytime. Videos showing police torture have done much to spur a mindset change in the country, but the reality is that after decades of state television broadcasting horrendous reports on the glories of the police, cracking through the inherent belief in the military and the police is proving difficult.

One Egyptian mother, who had never heard of a blog and didn’t have a Twitter account, when told that a man had been tortured to death by prison guards wouldn’t believe the military would allow such an incident to occur. “The military would never let this happen, I know that because they supported the revolution and are making Egypt great again,” the 33-year-old woman told me.

Public opinion seems to fall into this line of thinking. Talking with people, the online activists appear out of touch with the majority, even as they espouse arguably the truth about Egypt’s current predicament. The vast majority of Egyptians believe the official government stance on a number of issues, including the Maspero massacre on October 9 that saw the armed forces kill 27 people, police violence, torture and murder. The military, and its police arm, have created an almost monopoly on public discourse that despite the handful of activists on online networks, tend to garner the support of the masses.

Torture is not new to Egypt, unfortunately. From Khaled Said to Essam Atta, hundreds of Egyptians have been tortured by police, electrocuted, beaten and killed. The difficulty now facing Egypt is how to respond. Online campaigns are all good and well, but they will not galvanize the public.

Ahmed Maher, a co-founder of the 6th of April Movement, recently said he doesn’t use Twitter because that is not how to reach people. He is right. What is needed, in order to counter the increasing power and monopoly on information in Egypt, is a grassroots campaign that speaks with the people on the abuses that are leaving Egypt in a precarious position less than one month before parliamentary elections are set to begin.

Change can come, but fighting against power and torture in the country continues to prove difficult. In the end, when the rulers of the country had been part of the former regime for nearly two decades, it’s extremely hard to battle against their machine.

BM

Slavery is still widely practiced in the world. And in the US?

Most of us have assumed that slavery was abolished long ago.  Little do we know.  Al Jazeera has a special series of programs on slavery.  [Click on the title above for a link.] Their programs highlight several kinds of enslavement.

• Food chain slaves:  They say there are 40,000 slaves in the US today.
• Sex slaves:  "There are an estimated 1.4 million sex slaves in the world today and international trafficking is on the rise."
• Bonded slaves:  "a form of slavery that is passed down from one generation to the next."
• Child slaves: "There are at least 8.4 million child slaves in the world today, many of them held as forced labour."
• Charcoal slaves: " Poverty stricken men from north of Brazil are lured to remote camps where they are used as slave laborers."
• Bridal slaves: 
  

  
  

  India has the world's largest number of slaves, among them an increasing number of women and girls sold into marriage

  .
• Prison slaves:  In Chinese factories.

There is enough here to give a whole course on slavery around the world.  Of course there are several useful books on the topic:  For instance, Kevin Bales, Disposable People.

Iranian Plot or another Lackawanna Misfire?

The behavior of the Iranians has been so bizarre over the years that scarcely anything that that regime did would surprise, but there is reason to wonder about this new claim that they had hatched a plot to kill the Saudi ambassador in the United States.  The central figure in this plot turns out to be “more a stumbling opportunist than a calculating killer” [NYTimes today; click on the title for a link].

The United States has a huge system of surveillance that costs billions of dollars, but for all they do – and they have to be good at what they do – they have been unable to claim many major discoveries.  Not to denigrate this history, because most of us agree that such a system is necessary in this complex world.  But the man they have accused of plotting to kill a Saudi diplomat?  If today’s paper is to be believed, this man can hardly be up to the task that he is accused of.  This guy has “left a string of failed businesses and angry creditors in his wake, and an embittered ex-wife who sought a protective order against him. … [he is] perennially disheveled, …and hopelessly disorganized.”

It is hard not to think back to the accusations against the so-called Lackawanna Six, who were shadowed for over a year because they had once been involved in a training camp in Afghanistan; as it happened no evidence of seditious activity was ever found against them.  They were however accused when one of them flew to Yemen and announced in a telegram to his friends that he was getting married.  To the intelligence community the word “wedding” in the telegram meant he was about to commit a suicide attack.  After a national alert the government quietly dropped all charges:  It turned out he did get married after all.  Suicide?  Well, it depends on what you think about marriage [!].

So now we have a 56 year old loser to accuse of a complex potentially heinous crime.  Lets hope it turns out better this time.  


Addenda on what others say:

How strong is the case against Iran plot suspect?
Jeffrey Toobin 10/14/11
==========
Wagging the Dog with Iran’s Maxwell Smart
by Juan Cole 10/13/2011 
================

*Unanswered questions over the alleged Iranian assassination plot*
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/oct/12/unanswered-questions-iranian-ass
assination-plot?newsfeed=true
================
*Iran 'plot' raises unanswered questions*

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-15280746

A look at Chomsky's critique of the world's elite

A friend has pointed me to an article by Noam Chomsky that appeared some time ago, which I provide a link to here.  I have tended to see Chomsky as further to the left than I am, but the older I get and the more I learn about the world the more I wonder if Chomsky is right.  The whole idea that the elites of the world don't really believe in democracy, don't even want democracy, has seemed extreme.  But the more I watch the behavior of American political leaders the more I wonder.  I am appalled at the way that so many of them protect the rich -- not merely the well-off but the super-super rich.  Lately several of our congressmen have shamelessly argued against asking the 1% to pay a higher percentage than the middle class.  They are offended the rich might have to pay a premium for the benefits from investing in this country where investments are believed to be safer than elsewhere.  It's no surprise that the politicians want to protect their benefactors, their donors, but what astonishes is that they now do it so openly, so blatantly, and without shame.
So I think Chomsky may have been right all along.
Have a look at what he has to say by clicking on the following:  http://www.tomdispatch.com/archive/175382/
    

How the State Department intimidates its own employees

A recent post by Peter Van Buren on how he has been harassed for posting a link from his personal blog to a Wikileaks site on the web should alarm everyone.  There are still, and always will be, ways of intimidating individuals without breaking the law, and the treatment of this State Department official is frightening.  This kind of behavior, I can believe, might have taken place during the George W Bush administration when the whole country was punchy about every twitch that could be regarded as a threat to the country.  But, no, this took place only recently, by officials in the Obama administration, which we had all hoped would avoid such knee-jerk reactions.  Consider the following:

Van Buren was told that by posting a link to a WikiLeaks document already available elsewhere on the Web he had essentially disclosed “classified material.”

This was reason to be formally asked if he had “donated any money ... to a forward military base in Iraq.”

Had he “’transferred’ classified information” in any other way?

Mr Van Buren assumed that there was a subtext to this interrogation:  Someone objected to what he had to say in a forthcoming book, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the Battle for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People.  Whatever the reason it was un-American.

Van Buren is a State Department employee with 23 years of experience, and in this interview he was told that for the act of simply linking to another website he could lose his security clearance, which for him would of course mean the termination of a career.  The agents questioning him even stated that he was subject to criminal prosecution.  Indeed by merely revealing that he was being thus interrogated he could be charged with “interfering with a Government investigation.” A report of the interrogation on his blog would be considered “Law Enforcement Sensitive”.  

Hmm.  This is a free society, right?  Not Syria, not Saudi Arabia, not Bahrain, not Iran or North Korea.  We think an open society is a good thing.  We like the idea of a society in which people are free to use the internet.  It’s OK even to link to other sites the web -- because of course they are  already there.  

 [To read the whole story click on http://aep.typepad.com/american_empire_project/2011/09/freedom-isnt-free-at-the-state-department.html#readmore]

A Cry of the Heart from Yemen

So much has been happening in the Middle East and Central Asia -- and I have shared none of it here.

Certainly, the world needs to hear this cry of the heart from Yemen. Click on the title to hear a voice of desperation from Yemen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_uUrvrLEloc&feature=player_embedded

Is the American Ambassador listening? Who is listening? Will no one listen?

And from Syria: Still, people are going out on the street to challenge an army that has made sure that it has a reputation for brutality against its own citizens -- and Bashir Assad wants his country to be regarded as civilized.

Who else feels helpless and ashamed that there is no help for such earnest youthful voices? Is that the best the world can do for them? All I know to do is pray.

The way Egyptian officials honor Al Jazeera: Raid their offices

Al Jazeera has become one of the most valuable sources of information on what's going on in the Middle East. One wonders if the "Arab Spring" could have taken place without the involvement of the media to broadcast what was going on. Al Jazeera was crucial. But publishing what was happening in the Arab world -- what was really happening -- made Al Jazeera unpopular.

That the Egyptian government has had no use for Al Jazeera is no surprise. New York Times describes Al Jazeera as "known for attentive coverage of street protests" and "known for its attentive, if not sensational, coverage of street protests, including the Israeli Embassy attack on Friday." And for reporting on the attack on the Israeli embassy the other day they were raided by "officials" {not thugs?}. Here is what The Times has to say about this affair:

"The raid also came after a warning last week by Egypt’s minister of media, Osama Heikal, that the government would take legal action against stations that “endanger the stability and security” of the nation, and some analysts said they feared the raid could signal a broader effort to curtail the new freedoms of expression experienced since the uprising that ousted former President Hosni Mubarak this year.

"The network, Al Jazeera Live Egypt, was founded in the aftermath of the uprising and has become known for its attentive, if not sensational, coverage of street protests, including the Israeli Embassy attack on Friday. The raid forced the network to halt its programming for a period before it resumed broadcasting from Al Jazeera’s headquarters in Doha, Qatar.

"Officials of the Interior Ministry said they had raided the network because it lacked a license, and that neighbors had complained about noise. ... But Islam Lotfy, a lawyer for the channel, said the channel had applied for a license in March without a response."

The raid took form as "officers in plain clothes" entering "without showing a warrant or identifying themselves." They "confiscated equipment and arrested an engineer operating it."

But the response of manager of the television channel had an eminently quotable response to all this: “If broadcasting the truth is considered endangering stability,” he said, “then it is an honor for any media outlet to be endangering stability.”

Attacks against the Shia in Pakistan: From The Friday Times

The following is an article from The Friday Times [Lahore, Pakistan] that reveals some of the ugly features of Pakistan's internal politics. This source used to be only available for a small fee but it is now free. Take advantage of it.
Consider what it means to live as a minority person in a place like this. But also consider what is entailed in being a journalist in this place. It takes courage to put your name on an article that calls a spade a spade in a place where there is little assurance that a journalist will be protected. Altogether 39 Pakistani journalists have been killed since the 1990s, the most recent being Salim Shahzad, who reported on the hypocrisy of the Pakistani government. RLC

Balochistan crisis: Sectarian groups continue to target the Persian-speaking Shia community, which is not sure if the state wants to protect it
By Zia Ur Rehman

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi behind Hazara killings in Quetta


Eleven people, including a woman, were killed on July 30 when gunmen opened fire on a passenger vehicle near Pishin bus stop in Quetta. All the victims were Hazaras. The incident sparked violent protests and Quetta was completely shut down on July 31.

Over 200 Shia Hazaras have been killed in Balochistan in the last three years; they include businessmen, political leaders, government employees, clerics, police cadets, vegetable vendors, and daily-wage workers.

This is not the first such attack on members of the Shia Persian-speaking Hazara community. On July 10, two Hazara policemen were shot and killed on Qambrani Road. On June 22, two people were killed and 11 others injured in Hazar Ganji area when armed men ambushed a bus carrying pilgrims to Iran.

Syed Abrar Hussain Shah, a former Olympian, deputy director of Pakistan Sports Board, and recipient of the prestigious presidential Pride of Performance and Sitara-e-Imtiaz medals, was gunned down on June 16 near Nawab Nauroz Khan Stadium in Quetta. Shah, who belonged to the Hazara community, has represented Pakistan in the Olympics thrice and won a gold medal at the 1990 Asian Games in Beijing.

In another sectarian attack near Mirgahi Khan Chowk on May 18, unidentified men shot dead seven members of the Hazara community, including a baby, and injured five others. Most of the killed were vegetable vendors.

Seven Hazara men were killed and several injured in a rocket and gun attack in Hazara Town on May 6. There were Frontier Constabulary and Police checkposts nearby, but the attackers fled.

Over 200 Shia Hazaras have been killed in Balochistan in the last three years, according to elders of Hazara tribe and media sources. They include businessmen, political leaders, government employees, clerics, police cadets, vegetable vendors, and daily-wage workers. Hazaras are identifiable because of their Mongoloid features.

A large number of Hazaras have also been killed in attacks on religious processions. Last year, over 80 Shias, most of them Hazaras, were killed in a bombing on a Shia procession on September 3.

"Members of our community have been targeted persistently for the last 10 years by sectarian outfits, especially the banned militant organisations Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP)," said Abdul Khaliq, chairman of Hazara Democratic Party.

LeJ has accepted responsibility of most of these attacks. A spokesman for the LeJ in Balochistan, who ironically identifies himself as Ali Sher Haidri, said his group would avenge the killing of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by targeting not only government officials and security forces, but also Hazara Shias.

Handbills distributed in Quetta recently have warned the Hazaras of a "jihad" similar to the one carried out against the Hazaras of Afghanistan by the Taliban.

Handbills distributed in Quetta recently have warned the Hazaras of a "jihad" similar to the one carried out against the Hazaras of Afghanistan by the Taliban; the Taliban regime had killed 12,000 Hazaras in central Afghanistan.

The 3.5 million Hazaras in Balochistan are said to have migrated to Quetta from Afghanistan a century ago. In the 1990s, the Taliban massacred the community - the third largest in the country - killing thousands in Bamyan, Ghazni and parts of Uruzgan that later became the Daykundi province. They had accused the Hazaras of collaborating with the Afghan Northern Alliance (ANA) fighting the Taliban regime in Kabul. According to an Amnesty International report, about 12,000 Hazaras were killed in central Afghanistan by the Taliban.

"Hundreds of Pakistani young men from militant organisations including the SSP, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Jundullah and Harkatul Mujahideen fought with the Taliban against the ANA," said an expert on militancy who teaches at Balochistan University. "The same men are now killing the Hazaras in Balochistan." He said the Al Qaeda and Taliban-linked groups accuse the community of colluding with the Americans and causing the downfall of the Taliban. Quetta is reportedly the new hub of the defeated Taliban factions, and has become a major site of expression of the hatred
towards the Hazaras.

The LeJ network in Quetta is being run by Usman Saifullah Kurd, Dawood Badini and Shafiqur Rind, a senior police official said. Kurd, who heads the LeJ in Balochistan, has trained a new group of killers who are carrying out attacks on the Hazaras, he said. Rind was arrested in 2003 from Mastung area of Balochistan while Kurd was arrested by the Criminal Investigation Unit in Karachi on June 22, 2006. Both fled from the Anti-Terrorist Force jail in Quetta on January 18, 2008. Rind was rearrested, but Kurd is still at large.

A source in the SSP said Kurd had recently met Malik Ishaq, a founding member of the LeJ, in Rahim Yar Khan and invited him to visit Quetta to address the banned SSP's public meetings.

Ishaq, accused of having masterminded the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in 2009 from behind the bars, was recently released by the Supreme Court after 14 years in prison.

The Hazara community had expressed concerns over his release. "The courts are releasing top leaders of banned organisations, and that shows these groups are getting stronger once again," said a Hazara religious scholar.

According to the Hazara Democratic Party chairman, Kurd's escape from jail was proof that these groups have inside support. He said the government claims to have arrested the attackers in all the cases, but they are never brought before the court or the public.

"The government has failed to tackle sectarian violence and protect the Hazara community," Khailq said, whose predecessor Hussain Ali Yousafi was also killed for being a Hazara in 2009.

Hazara elders believe intelligence agencies know about the activities of banned outfits and the whereabouts of their leaders, who simply operate under new names. They believe the state is either indifferent or supporting them.

The writer is a journalist and a researcher who works on militancy and human rights.
He can be contacted at zia_red@hotmail.com

A Sudanese regime that doesn't know how to blush.

A friend of mine recently said he recoiled when he saw yet one more report by Nicholas D Kristof about human rights violations. I had to confess that I myself sometimes have turned away from reports of violent and cruel abuses of women and the murder of unarmed helpless civilians. Outrage fatigue.

But then what would the world be like if there were no reporting on the abuses of power in the world. How many other incidents have taken place that have not been reported on? And how many powerful figures, even in the face of the evidence, lie, denying what they have done to vulnerable human beings in their paths? We live in a broken world, and without serious reporting few would have even a clue about what is going on.

Even so, I’m appalled at the shameless behavior of some regimes. Syria, Bahrain, Yemen, Iran, North Korea – in these countries and others the regimes in power will do anything to their own citizens to stay in place.

Now we hear about Sudan – again. Yet again we hear of a government that will send its troops into a community to brutalize, rape, and burn. Have they no shame? We can only invoke the language of one of the greatest social critics of all time: "Are they ashamed of their loathsome conduct? No, they are absolutely shameless. They do not even know how to blush." [Jer 8:12]

Here is a link to today’s report by Kristof: what would we do without him?
"Yet again in Sudan."