When money and political posturing clash with science.

The debate about global warming – now called climate change – is driven by conflicting interests.  On the one hand there are climate scientists who are concerned that their projections suggest frightening changes coming upon the earth; on the other are the corporate interests that cannot bear for this to be known because it’s bad for business.  So the moneyed interests have turned the issue into a political flash point. 

Actually the issue is not new among those who have been looking at such things.  As far back as twenty-five years ago one of my colleagues showed me a graph of the amounts of CO² levels at various times over the last several thousand years, based on ice cores taken from the Greenland icecap.  What struck me then was the noticeable rise in CO² about 10,000 years ago, which we speculated could have been caused by the invention of slash-burn (or swidden) agriculture.  Neither of us was surprised at the far more dramatic rise in CO² levels beginning in the twentieth century, the time when the automobile was coming into vogue; the amounts have been rising ever since, and dramatically so recently.  At the time, I had no idea what those rising levels might mean for the planet we live on. 

The consensus of the climate scientists is that the earth is warming at an ever faster pace.  The voices contesting this come from outside the community of scholars specializing in global climate.  Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway call those nay-sayers Merchants of Doubt (Bloomsbury Press, 2010).  Philip Kitcher summarizes their point in his review of “The Climate Change Debates” in Science(vol 328, p. 1230-34, June 4, 2010):  “Opposition to scientifically well-supported claims about  the dangers of cigarette smoking, the difficulties of the Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”), the effects of acid rain, the existence of the ozone hole, the problems caused by secondhand smoke, and -- ultimately – the existence of anthropogenic climate change was used in ‘the service of political goals and commercial interests’ to obstruct the transmission to the American public of important information.  Amazingly, the same small cadre of obfuscators figure in all these episodes.”  Oreskes and Conway discovered that scientists tied to particular industries, with strong political connections, have played a disproportionate role in debates about contested issues.  Even though they obtained their stature in fields with little pertinence to the issues in question they have posed as experts, many of them paid by “think tanks” devoted to contesting claims that threaten the interests of powerful corporations and political interests.  The attempt has been to shape the way the public thinks about the natural processes that threaten the world.  In fact, it seems certain that any attempt to deny the processes of nature cannot prevail, at least in the long run.  The world operates according to its own mechanisms, whatever we might think about it.  We cannot create a "reality" by mere rhetoric or ostrich-like denial.  

The task of science of course is to faithfully seek an understanding of the world as it is.  Obviously, if the climate experts are right the earth is facing critical developments that will not go away. 

What most climate scientists foresee is indeed worrisome.  If we consider how the dangerous trends in the world can be turned around, to turn back the trend of CO² production that is causing climate change, we find reasons to consider the situation dire.  That is, there are natural processes and there are social processes.  Anthony Giddens, the sociologist who has joined the debate (The Politics of Climate Change, 2009), puts it this way:  “It will be a colossal task to turn around a society whose whole way of life is constructed around mobility and a ‘natural right’ to consume energy in a profligate way.”  A colossal task, yes.  Turning around a civilization that is hell-bent on carrying on as it always has, driven by institutional conventions that are ensconced and opulently funded will indeed be a Herculean task.  That the system in place will seek to deny scientific findings that threaten it is to be expected.  So why does Giddens add to the above eminently formulated assertion the following codicil: “Yet it isn’t as hopeless an endeavor as it looks”? He provides no evidence to support this claim.  We wonder: Did Giddens reach for a straw to avoid admitting how unlikely such a turn-around is?  It seems obvious enough that what is actually required for the world to transform itself is a huge effort.  So, really, how likely is it?  Minimal.  Is the reality too hideous for Giddens to put it into words? 

Nancy Lindesfarne [Anthropology Today 26(4):1,2 2010] describes the collapse of the UN climate talks in Copenhagen, December, 2009:  "No one  ... imagined what shape the Copenhagen Accord would actually take. ... Alone, the heads of five states brazenly decided, in a last minute, back-room fix, to do nothing at all to prevent catastrophic climate change.   These five states are among the world's largest coal consumers.  ... they are all states that would have to change most to address climate change.  In the midst of the global financial crisis, they decided it would just cost too much. ..."  In response to the failure of the Copenhagen talks Evo Morales Ayma, President of Bolivia, called for a World's Peoples Conference on Climate Change and affirmed, "We have two paths: to save capitalism, or to save Mother Earth." 


Capitalism or global collapse:  That's an option our world leaders must never have to face.

Contrary views of what is going on in Syria: From unbiased sources?

The following, sent to me by a friend, reveal how different the "news" in other places looks from what we read in the United States.  RLC

‘CIA, MI6 and Mossad: Together against Syria’
21 November, 2011
The West is doing its best to destabilize the situation in Syria, author and journalist Webster Tarpley told RT. According to him, civilians have to deal with death squads and blind terrorism, which is typical of the CIA.“What average Syrians of all ethnic groups say about this is that they are being shot at by snipers. People complained that there are terrorist snipers who are shooting at civilians, blind terrorism simply for the purpose of destabilizing the country. I would not call this civil war – it is a very misleading term. What you are dealing with here are death squads, you are dealing with terror commandos; this is a typical CIA method. In this case it’s a joint production of CIA, MI6, Mossad, it’s got money coming from Saudi Arabia, The United Arab Emirates and Qatar,” he explained.  He added that Syrian society is the most tolerant society in the Middle East, the one place where all kinds of people live together in remarkable harmony, Muslims and Christians of all kinds. “This is a model of a peaceful coexistence of various ethnic groups. The US policy right now is to smash the Middle East according to ethnic lines,” he added. Assad’s rule is increasingly being called illegitimate.
But the US and Europe do not seem concerned that getting rid of the Syrian president could cause even more violence, as was seen in Egypt, believes Tarpley. “After Libya becoming a bloodbath with 150.000 dead and now with Egypt showing what it was all along – there was no revolution there, it was a complete failure and now people are beginning to understand that.  Still, Mrs Clinton and Ms Rice (sic) continue to push this bankrupt model of the colour revolution, backed up by terrorist troops – people from Al-Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood.  There is a growing movement inside the Islamic community, which says ‘We want reconciliation, we want law and order, and we want legality’,” he said.  http://rt.com/news/syria-terrorism-cia-destabilization-863/
--------------------------------------------
Russian FM blames West for ‘provocation’ over Syria
21 November, 2011
 Russia has accused the west of exacerbating the already tense situation in Syria. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov says calls for the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad's regime are nothing but a provocation. “In Syria we are now seeing a situation where the Arab League is calling for a halt to violence and the beginning of dialogue, and western countries and the capitals of some countries in the region are making calls to the contrary, expressly recommending the opposition hold no talks with the Assad regime,” Lavrov announced.  “It looks like a political provocation on an international scale. Yes, violence  has  to be  stopped,  but  this demand  has  to  be addressed to  the  authorities  and  armed  groups  in  the  Syrian opposition,” he argued.  The Russian government has established trustworthy relations with both Assad’s regime and armed opposition groups. Moscow is potentially the only third force capable of forcing the sides to strike a deal.
But as the Russian FM warns, the position of certain foreign states is likely to prevent peaceful negotiations. “A kind of liberation army of Syria has appeared and created a Temporary Military Council, proclaiming as its aim toppling the regime in Syria,” Sergey Lavrov says. “Some European capitals are preparing to discuss the issue at the UN Security Council, equating the military actions of Syrian renegades to the manifestation of democratic aspirations by the people.” The Russian FM reaffirmed Moscow’s stance on Syria: Russia wants to see both sides coming together to discuss peacefully how to lead the country out of crisis. Last week, Syria was expelled from the Arab League, a step “counterproductive to the peace process’, as Sergey Lavrov put it. This is not the first time the Russian FM has leveled accusations at the west regarding Syria. When the Arab League made its decision to expel the country, Mr Lavrov suggested the “shadowy hand of western powers” was behind the move. Many analysts are comparing the situation in Syria with Libya before the NATO invasion. Former allies and friends of President Assad are calling on the west to intervene in Syria. Into its eighth month, the violence in the country has claimed an estimated 3,500 lives. British Foreign Secretary William Hague said on Monday the international community would do its best to turn up the heat on Syria. The statement followed President Bashar al-Assad declaring he would not bow to pressure to crack down on protesters. "We will increase the pressure on the Assad regime. I discussed this with the Secretary of the Arab League yesterday and I believe they will wish to do so at their further meeting tomorrow," he told BBC Radio. "The behavior of that regime is appalling and unacceptable and of course we will do what we can to support democracy in Syria in the future," Hague said. Hague also stated the international community had "done a lot" to increase the pressure on Assad. This included imposing sanctions and stopping all of Syria's crude oil exports from entering EU waters. "We are working this week on a further round of sanctions which I hope we can agree next week," Hague added.  Turkish Prime Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned Bashar al-Assad that his days as Syrian leader were numbered and he cannot remain in power indefinitely with the help of the military force."You can remain in power with tanks and cannons only up to a certain point. The day will come when you'll also leave, "Erdogan said during a meeting in Istanbul.  Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki warned that the civil war in Syria could have a destabilizing effect on the whole region. The PM called for implementing reforms in Syria, though he flatly denied the military intervention of other countries would be of any help to resolving the conflict between Damascus and the opposition.  http://rt.com/news/syria-international-provocation-lavrov-825/
------------------------------------
CIA spy ring busted in Iran and Lebanon
21 November, 2011,
United States officials are saying that shortcuts, unaccountability, laziness and general mismanagement are to blame for the compromising of several CIA informants in Iran and Lebanon who are now feared dead. A CIA-led program in the Middle East is up in the air after officials confirmed to news organizations today that paid informants in Iran and Lebanon working for the US government have disappeared while attempting to infiltrate Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed military organization considered a terrorist group by the US. Iranian intelligence minister Heidar Mosleh announced in May that more than 30 US and Israeli spies had been discovered and he quickly took to Iranian television to broadcast information explaining the methods of online communication that the agents would use to trade intel. Only a month later, Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah announced that two high-ranking officers within his own organization had been identified as CIA spies. Just now, however, does the US government confirm that not only is this information true, but they believe that the rest of their Hezbollah-targeted operations in the Middle East have been compromised. According to some within the agency, all of this could have been prevented. Speaking to ABC News, one former US senior intelligence official speaking without accreditation says that CIA agents were warned to avoid using the same Lebanon hub for secret meet-ups — a Beirut Pizza Hut restaurant — though spies continue to use the location for countless meet-ups with a wide range of informants. "We were lazy and the CIA is now flying blind against Hezbollah," the former official tells ABC. According to several US officials speaking to the press, the CIA used the codeword “PIZZA” to arrange for would-be clandestine meetings at the restaurant. To ABC, however, a current CIA officer denied the allegations that the entire operations evaporated at the eatery  Others within the agency, but currently and formerly, say that outside of the Pizza Hut sting, the revealing of the online communication conducted between the CIA and informants in Iran led to “dozens” of assets being compromised. Officials have confirmed that the websites that Intel Ministero Mosleh showed an Iranian television audience were indeed used by the CIA in their secret web chats. "We've lost the tradition of espionage," one former intelligence official tells ABC. "Officers take short cuts and no one is held accountable.” Another anonymous official tells the Associated Press that the CIA was warned by Hezbollah’s Nasrallah that they were cracking down on American spies, but the US pressed on despite the consequences. Prior to the September 11 terrorist attacks, the Hezbollah organization was believed to be responsible for the most terrorism-related deaths of Americans ever. Last year the State Department described the militants as "the most technically capable terrorist group in the world” and a government probe linked the group to hundreds of millions of dollars in funding out of Iran. A 2009 crackdown by Hezbollah aimed at Israeli spies led to the arrest of roughly 100, and a CIA investigation that followed revealed that the United States’ own agents would be just as susceptible to similar strikes.  While the fate of the CIA agents remains uncertain — and the final toll kept under wraps — what is known is that for the American intelligence community, not much good can come from this."Hezbollah has disappeared people before. Others they have kept around,” counterterrorism expert Matthew Levitt tells the AP."If they were genuine spies, spying against Hezbollah, I don't think we'll ever see them again," former CIA officer Robert Baer tells ABC. "These guys are very, very vicious and unforgiving." http://rt.com/usa/news/cia-iran-lebanon-hezbollah-861/

Friedman said it plainly: Why our budget is in the red

Tom Friedman's op-ed piece today [New York Times "The Whole Truth and Nothing But"] says a number of things that need to be said even though in fact they are obvious. The politicians seem unable to say the obvious, the truth. But what I liked was the following succinct formulation of the problem.

Why has this been a lost decade? An answer can be found in one simple comparison: How Dwight Eisenhower and his successors used the cold war and how George W. Bush used 9/11. America had to face down the Russians in the cold war. America had to respond to 9/11 and the threat of Al Qaeda. But the critical difference between the two was this: Beginning with Eisenhower and continuing to some degree with every cold war president, we used the cold war and the Russian threat as a reason and motivator to do big, hard things together at home — to do nation-building in America. We used it to build the interstate highway system, put a man on the moon, push out the boundaries of science, teach new languages, maintain fiscal discipline and, when needed, raise taxes. We won the cold war with collective action.
George W. Bush did the opposite. He used 9/11 as an excuse to lower taxes, to start two wars that — for the first time in our history — were not paid for by tax increases, and to create a costly new entitlement in Medicare prescription drugs.

The reason politicians can get away with such much verbiage and so little information is that the public member is so short. There is no longer any mention that Bill Clinton left office with a budget surplus. The claim that both parties have contributed to the debt problem we have now is obvious but it conceals a critical reality: The administration of George W. Bush effective wiped out all surplus and -- according to a source quoted elsewhere on this page -- borrowed more money than all the presidents before him combined. {I have not checked this out; there should be a way to do it and I will try to get it done.]

Anyway, it's a reality that needs to be faced if wise decisions are now made in choosing the next body of leaders to take us out of this mess.

A "news" error at Politico again reminds us ...

Apropos of the layers of misleading, interested lies that try to pass for "truth" in the world, FP's Passport blog describes how Politico was hustled by the Russian media.

See http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/04/09/the_kremlin_wins_the_day

Vivid fears of an American invasion in Pakistan

From this side of the world the behavior of the Pakistanis seems bizarre. On the one hand they would never want to live under a regime like the Taliban while on the other hand they cultivate the Taliban. Graham Usher has explained that the military are still fighting a war with India and they see Afghanistan as in the pocket of India and therefore don’t mind if the Taliban attack Afghanistan. That’s one reason. Anatol Lieven has given us another [(London) Times, May 5, 09, "Mistrust of the West is stronger in Pakistan than fear of the Taleban"]: the Pakistanis believe the Americans want to dominate the Muslim world, indeed are so bent on taking over the Muslim world that they would murder thousands of their own people in order to have an excuse to blame Muslims and invade. Here is what Lievan tells us:

“to judge by my meetings with hundreds of Pakistanis from all walks of life over the past nine months, . . . the vast majority of people believe that the 9/11 attacks were not an act of terrorism by al-Qaeda, but a plot by the Bush Administration or Israel to provide an excuse to invade Afghanistan and dominate the Muslim world.”

And he adds: “most of the Pakistani population genuinely believe it, even here in Sindh where I have been travelling for the past week; and the people who believe it include the communities from which the army's soldiers, NCOs and junior officers are drawn.” [Click on the title above for a link to the source.]

Here are some other things worth noting about Pakistanis, according to Lievan:
• What will be tolerated is Taleban strength in the tribal areas of northwest Pakistan. As I discovered during a visit to the region last September, the level of support for them there is such that crushing them completely would take a huge campaign of repression.
• The jihad of the Afghan Taleban against the US “occupation” of Afghanistan enjoys overwhelming public approval in northern Pakistan,
• The Pakistani judicial system is such a corrupt, slow, impenetrable shambles that the Taleban's programme of Sharia enjoys a great deal of public support, at least in the Pashtun areas that I have visited.
• The security Establishment is determined to prevent Afghanistan becoming an ally of India, and continues to shelter parts of the Afghan Taleban as a long-term “strategic asset” against this threat.

Even so, he reassures us that

There is no possibility at present of the Taleban seizing Islamabad and bringing down the state. In Punjab . . . [there is] as yet, nothing like the insurgency occurring among the Pashtun tribes. In the interior of Sindh, support for the Taleban is virtually non-existent.

The whole situation underlines how vulnerable we all are to information flows around us. In an earlier post I quoted from a Pakistani blogger who seems to believe that the Taliban are a creation of the CIA in order to provide an excuse for Americans to invade Pakistan. It sounds so haywire from here that we are all likely to discount it as a single crank. But we are all caught up in currents of opinion larger than we are. It is just easier to see it in others.

We all live within fields of lies, piled upon one another, so that it becomes difficult to sort out the truth from the misunderstandings and even the deliberate lies -- like that promoted by the Pakistani military virtually on 9/11/01 that the Americans had done it to themselves in order to promote their imperial interests. Such a story works in Pakistan because the South Asians are vividly aware of how long they have been dominated by outside powers. From here it just sounds bizarre. But we have only to remember that the Bush administration persuaded the American people that Saddam Hussain had been involved in the attack on 9/11/01. We create the myths we live by -- sometimes very costly myths, as those that justified a 'preemptive' attack on Iraq. As far as I know, our only hope is to seek the most authentic and reliable sources available in order to understand as we best can what is going on around us.

Swat's descent into chaos

The Pakistani government -- which is essentially the army and the civilians it has deigned to allow to hold office -- has been claiming to fight extremists for many years but the practice seems so different from the claims that one wonders if anything the Pakistan government says could be true. The harder they claim to be fighting extremism the stronger the extremists become. Shame. In the mean time there are many diligent and brilliant Pakistani journalists who have to put up with the double-dealing and distortions of truth that the army leaders have become notorious for. Until there is an attempt at honesty by the army of Pakistan the whole region is at risk, including the army itself. Here is BAsim Usmani in the Guardian on the topic. [Thanks to my friend S. for sending this to me.]

Taliban militants have taken the Swat valley in Pakistan – why is the
country turning a blind eye?
Basim Usmani Wednesday 4 February 2009 20.00

Swat, once a resort for Pakistanis on holiday, has fallen to the Taliban. The battle for Swat began in 2007, while the country was distracted by ongoing operations in the tribally administered northern areas and the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Now, President Zardari's preoccupation with the Mumbai attacks has given the militants in Swat, Tehreek-e-Taliban, a chance to rap up their bombing campaign of girls' schools.

The Tehreek has blow up 170 girls' schools in Swat to date. Oblivious to Swat's descent into chaos, the government has been busy cracking down on Jamat-ud-Dawa, the humanitarian organisation that operates allegedly with militia in Kashmir, in a series of enthusiastic measures to abate Indian pressure post-Mumbai.

A week ago, the government took control of Jamat-ud-Dawa's public schools in their headquarters in Muridke, a small pit-stop city economically dependent on neighboring Lahore, the capital of Punjab. The Dawa's influence is striking: truckers coming through on the "Grand Truck Road" found no cigarettes or chewing tobacco, which have been banned from sale in accordance with the organisation's edicts.

Despite Jamat-ud-Dawa's standing, the protest that accompanied the government's takeover only consisted of peaceful faculty staff and students. There were no death threats issued to prominent politicians in Punjab and administrators of the Dawa's school system and adjacent hospital expressed hope that the change of heads would lead to more financial support from the government.

Interestingly, this is after the government handed over all girls' schools in the Swat valley to the Taliban, after being complicit to the militant's 15 January ban on female education. Currently, the "third phase" of military operations in Swat is taking place and live coverage of the military battling the Tehreek-e-Taliban is hopefully going to highlight the urgency of the situation. The military got wise to the media attention and the chiefs of the army, navy and air force held a meeting bright and early on Sunday morning where they praised their "operational readiness".

Sadly, this readiness was nowhere to be found a week ago when the body of Pir Samiullah, a famous Swati and government loyalist who was purportedly encouraged by the military to organise a lashkar (independent army), was killed by the Taliban. After discovering the grave where Samiullah's family secretly buried him, the Taliban exhumed his body and hung it from a major crossing in the area. Before that, the vice-president of the Awami National Party (the party with a majority in the North West Frontier Province, where Swat is located) was kidnapped and killed. Maulana Fazlullah, an influential Taliban spokesman, issued death threats over his pirate radio station that broadcasts throughout the valley, naming 40 politicians, who have mostly fled the valley.

Fazlullah warned of an army of suicide bombers to attack the Pakistani state if military operations continue, something that could find Zardari back-pedalling to the government's position last May, when Asif handed over the valley to the Taliban to enforce their version of sharia law in return for a ceasefire. The Taliban then got organised, set up parallel courts and a brutal police force that has turned Swat into Kabul circa 2001. The spokesman for the military Major General Athar Abbas still blames the Taliban for flubbing up the May ceasefire. Those pesky Talibans, they always surprise you!

This inability to promptly drive the radicals out of Swat is reminiscent of Musharraf's sluggish six-day siege of the Red Mosque. The militants began like those in Swat, with warnings against "un-Islamic" activities such as vending DVDs or being dressed inappropriately. In Islamabad's case, the veiled and stick-wielding Jamia Hafza threatened transgressors with violence. Then they occupied a library, issuing edicts and promising suicide bombing. The government then waited for the group, which included many misguided teenage religious students, to set up a fortress in Lal Masjid, which had been stockpiled with weapons since the 80s by its imam, Maulana Abdul Aziz. When the siege was one day in, the country went into mourning. Musharraf's drawn out Operation Silence gave the media ample time to project the human interest angle of a mosque filled with misguided religious students under fire. If the Swat operation continues to be as fumbling, with the 12,000 troops deployed there continuing to accrue their civilian death count in search of 3,000 fanatics, the Zardari government will be disgraced as Musharraf was. And a war of sentiments is what the fanatics are waging.

The public has not protested Swat yet. The only people who have protested are residents of Swat when children there were killed in crossfire and police opened fire on them. In place of the Taliban in Swat, people in every district of Lahore have protested the Israeli assault on Gaza. Shortly after Gaza was struck, the sectarian Imamia Students Organisation held a 3,000-strong protest down Mall Road, with posters of Hezbollah and Nasrullah on proud display. Some time last week, heavily made-up and westernised college students became a common sight at pro-Palestinian demonstrations, which were taking place multiple times a day. It seems popular to pick up Palestine the way Darfour became the issue of choice for university students three years ago.

After the government took control of Jamat-ud-Dawa's school system in Muridke, the charity office they ran in Lahore was replaced. The new name for what was the Dawa office is Tehreek-e-Tahafouz-e-Qibla-Awal, and instead of collecting donations for Pakistani mujahideen they are asking for money for Gaza. Ostensibly, the office is run by the same people. Somehow Gaza remains a more passionate issue than Swat, which has yet to see any aid offered to its residents. Why are Pakistanis turning a blind eye? Is it because those who are killing Muslims in Swat claim to be Muslims themselves? Or is it because Lahoris are scared to speak up because they're scared of being blown up?

If it's the fear of being blown up that decides what Pakistanis do, then they can expect to do a lot less in the future. Bombs recently blew up outside al-Falah cinema, where Punjabi stage shows are held on Lahore's Mall Road. Before that, the World Performing Arts Festival, three juice stalls and the only Punjabi-language radio station were hit by bombs. And don't think Lahore, or any city in Pakistan, can't be host to a Lal Masjid-esque debacle. In October, CD and DVD vendors in the main electronics market on Hall Road already enforced a ban on the sale of "inappropriate CDs" in accordance with an edict sent from local Islamists.

Lahore isn't any less likely a target for the Taliban than Swat is. Maulana Fazlullah has already promised a new army of suicide bombers – words it looks like he will make good on. Lahoris need to speak out on behalf of Swatis living under the Taliban because they may need someone to speak out for themselves soon.

* guardian.co.uk © Guardian News and Media Limited 2009

How dangerous, and precious, is the truth: worth two more lives

Another two lives are taken lest the truth be known and promoted, one a lawyer the other a journalist working for a Russian newspaper who had already lost three journalists, including Anna Politkovskaia, since 2000. Another indicator of how costly -- how precious -- the truth is. Or, saying it the other ways, how dangerous, to some, the truth would be if it were known.
[Click on the title to link to the source.]

NYTimes January 20, 2009
Leading Russian Rights Lawyer Is Shot to Death in Moscow, Along With Journalist
By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ

MOSCOW — A prominent Russian lawyer who spent the better part of a decade pursuing contentious human rights and social justice cases was killed on Monday in a brazen daylight assassination in central Moscow, officials said.

The lawyer, Stanislav Markelov, had just left a news conference where he announced that he would continue to fight against the early release from jail of Yuri D. Budanov, a former Russian tank commander imprisoned for murdering a young Chechen woman.

Anastasia Baburova, a 25-year-old journalist who was with Mr. Markelov, was also killed, according to a spokeswoman for a newspaper where she worked as a freelancer, Novaya Gazeta, which is highly critical of the government. The two were shot.

Officials said they believed that Mr. Markelov, 34, was the primary target, having brought cases against the Russian military, Chechen warlords and murderous neo-fascists. With a laundry list of his potential enemies, authorities refrained from naming any suspects.

“Investigators are looking into various theories, including that the murder was linked to the victim’s professional activities,” Vladimir I. Markin, a spokesman for the investigative wing of the Prosecutor General’s Office, said of Mr. Markelov.

The murder bore the characteristics of a contract killing, a not-uncommon phenomenon in Russia. Even so, the audacity of Mr. Markelov’s murder surprised some commentators.

“Even when organized crime in the 1990s was rampant, such a killing would have been considered bold and horrific,” said a correspondent from Vesti television.

Mr. Markelov, who was the director of the Rule of Law Institute, a civil liberties group, gained prominence recently representing the family of Elza Kungayeva. She was an 18-year-old Chechen whom Mr. Budanov, the former tank commander, admitted strangling in his quarters in March 2000, just as the second post-Soviet war in Chechnya was beginning to rage.

Mr. Budanov was sentenced to 10 years in prison but was given early parole for good behavior.

Mr. Markelov, at the news conference just before his death, told reporters that he might file an appeal to the European Court of Human Rights against the early release of Mr. Budanov, who was a decorated colonel of the Russian Army before he was stripped of his rank. In an interview last week with The New York Times, Mr. Markelov said he might also file a lawsuit against the administration of the prison that released Mr. Budanov last Thursday.

The decision to free Mr. Budanov set off street protests and outraged some human rights groups and Chechen officials. It reignited long-simmering tensions years after a decade of intermittent war in Chechnya, a southern Russian republic, was replaced by tenuous stability.

But Mr. Budanov was also revered by nationalists as a valiant fighter who helped wage a bloody but necessary war against separatist rebels in Chechnya. Some now see Mr. Markelov’s murder as revenge for his efforts against a Russian hero.

“The murder of Markelov, I consider a bold open warning by the ‘party of war’ to democratic Russia,” Nudri S. Nukhazhiev, Chechnya’s human rights ombudsman, said in a statement. “Today, there are no facts or evidence of the direct participation of Budanov in this crime, but I am more than certain that it was committed by his supporters with his consent.”

Mr. Markelov phoned the father of Ms. Kungayeva, the slain teenager, a few days ago to complain that he had received death threats, the father told the Interfax news agency.

Lela Khamzayeva, another lawyer for Ms. Kungayeva’s family, was adamant, however, that the killing of Mr. Markelov could not be linked to his connection with Mr. Budanov, because his role during the actual proceedings against the former colonel was, as she put it, “insignificant.”

“If someone is trying to link this murder with Markelov’s participation in the Budanov case, well, that’s just ridiculous,” she said.

Given Mr. Markelov’s propensity for challenging the Russian authorities and others known to settle scores violently, the list of potential suspects is lengthy.

He worked closely with Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist with Novaya Gazeta and strong critic of Russia’s Chechnya policies, who was murdered in Moscow in 2006.

He often defended the interests of those, like Ms. Kungayeva, who became ensnared in the violent and often arbitrary military justice of the Chechen conflict or the tyrannical rule of Chechnya’s violence-prone leader, Ramzan A. Kadyrov, in the war’s aftermath.

“He handled almost every case opened as a result of the work of Anna Politkovskaya,” said Nadezhda Prusenkova, a spokeswoman for Novaya Gazeta.

While he was not involved in the current trial of three men accused in the murder of Ms. Politkovskaya, Mr. Markelov did work on the case of another murdered Novaya Gazeta journalist, Igor Domnikov, who died in 2000 from wounds caused by a hammer blow to the head.

Mr. Markelov has also represented victims of neo-fascist and xenophobic violence, a phenomenon that has been expanding annually both in frequency and intensity, according to experts.

At least 10 people were killed and 9 others injured in racist attacks in Russia in the first two weeks of 2009, said Aleksandr Brod, the head of the Moscow Human Rights Bureau, Interfax reported.

Ms. Baburova, the freelancer who was killed Monday, began working for Novaya Gazeta last October. She cited Mr. Markelov in her most recent article about fascist groups, published on Saturday.

In it, the lawyer criticized the authorities for their handling of a case against the leader of a violent nationalist group, who was sentenced to three years in prison for arranging the murder of a man from Tajikistan and putting video of the killing on the Internet.

With Ms. Baburova’s death, Novaya Gazeta has lost four reporters to murder or other mysterious circumstances since 2000.

Michael Schwirtz reported from Moscow, and Graham Bowley from New York.

Copyright 2009 The New York Times Company

The power of contemporary myth in war: A reporter's personal tragedy

Lately I have become accustomed to saying to my students that we all live in fields of lies. It is lies that give us grounds for doing what we do. In that sense we live by faith -- faith that the stories we tell ourselves are true and authenticated, irrefutable; the reality is often otherwise. Indeed, the real world we encounter is reasonably well encompassed by the lies we tell ourselves; the lies work more or less OK most of the time. Only rarely do events so starkly break into our consciousness as to force us to question what we have taken for granted. The killing of a radio reporter's three daughters by Israeli shells just before he was to give an on-air update of affairs in Gaza was such an event. It seems to have challenged the comfortable consciousness of many Israelis, but not all. Even then a young Israeli soldier's mother took it for granted that the reporter's house was attacked for good reason. She assumed that reporter's family deserved the attack. Here is McClachy's report on the incident, apparently unreported by some of the other papers. RLC [Click on the title for the source]

McClatchy Washington Bureau
Sun, Jan. 18, 2009

Israeli fire killed interviewee's 3 daughters just before airtime
Dion Nissenbaum

January 19, 2009 01:00:36 AM

TEL HASHOMER, Israel - For many Israeli television viewers, Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish was the disembodied Palestinian voice on their nightly news that brought them first-hand telephone accounts of the fighting in Gaza.

Over the past 23-days, the Palestinian doctor had described a harrowing life in Gaza as Israeli air strikes, tanks and artillery repeatedly pounded the isolated Mediterranean strip.

On Friday night, when Israel's Channel 10 prepared to check in with Abuelaish as hopes for a cease-fire began to become reality, viewers were gripped as a personal tragedy played out live on their evening news.

Minutes before Channel 10 went on the air, an Israeli strike had hit the doctor's home in Gaza, killing three of his daughters. A niece also was killed. When an Israeli reporter reached Abuelaish during the newscast, the doctor was frantically trying to save their lives.

"My god, my girls," Abuelaish wailed on the telephone as he pleaded with Israeli journalist Shlomi Eldar for help. "Shlomi, can't anybody help us?"

In what may be remembered as one of the most emotionally-charged events of the devastating 23-day-old Israeli military campaign in Gaza, the Palestinian doctor's family calamity touched a nerve.

The Israeli public has been grappling for days with the cloudy ethical questions raised by the strikes on Gaza. Abuelaish made real the abstract moral quandary about fighting adversaries hiding in the densely-populated cities.

Channel 10 quickly mobilized. Eldar and his colleagues tapped their Israeli military contacts and helped spirit Abuelaish, one of his surviving daughters, and other family members into Israel for emergency medical treatment.

The injured were taken to the Chaim Sheba Medical Center, where Abuelaish, one of the rare Gaza residents allowed to work in Israel, conducts research.

The story was jarring. The Israeli government actively sought to restrict coverage from Gaza as a way to prevent heart-wrenching tales like Abuelaish from overwhelming the reasons behind Israel's campaign to destabilize Hamas.

Israel barred reporters from freely entering Gaza during the entire military campaign, and Israeli government officials unapologetically backed the policy.

"There is an unequal war going on there between a power and a terror organization, and the only way to hurt us is to get those images to hurt us in the battlefield of public opinion," Danny Seaman, the head of Israel's Government Press Office, said last week before the strike on Abuelaish's home. "In that sense, the less pictures coming out helping them the better."

But Abuelaish's story unfolded live on Israel's evening news.

And emotions boiled over again on Saturday when Abuelaish spoke to reporters the hospital.

"Why did they kill them?" an inconsolable Abuelaish told journalists. "Give me a reason."

The doctor's appeals were too much for Levona Stern, a 55-year-old Israeli mother of three boys who had served in the military.

As Abuelaish wept, Stern began angrily shouting at the Palestinian doctor and the reporters gathered around to hear his tale.

Without knowing the story, Stern accused Abuelaish of storing weapons in his home, an accusation that has not been made by the Israeli military.

"What's wrong with you, have you all gone crazy?" Stern shouted as people tried to hold her back. "My son is in the paratroopers, who knows what you had inside your home, nobody is talking about that. Nobody is talking. Who knows what kind of weapons were in your house; so what if he's a doctor? The soldiers knew exactly. They had weapons inside the home, you should be ashamed."

The Israeli military said it is looking into the incident, one of many that has drawn condemnation from the international community and calls for Israel to be investigated for committing possible war crimes.

In a preliminary review, the Israeli military said that its forces were responding to fire from, or near, Abuelaish's five-story apartment building.

Abuelaish dismissed the story as fiction and appealed to the Israeli military to give him an honest reason why his daughters are dead.

"If they have morals, if they have courage, they should say the truth," he said Sunday while taking a break from looking after his 17-year-old daughter, Shata. "That they made a mistake. Because there is no other way: By mistake or intentionally. No other way. No excuses."

Abuelaish couldn't hold back tears every time a new person called to grieve with the Palestinian doctor who spent 15 years working a gynecologist in Israel.

"They were soldiers for peace," Abuelaish said of his daughters, who had taken part in co-existence programs with Israeli children over the years. "Why did they kill this hope?"

In a telephone interview Sunday from her Herzliya home, Stern said she felt sorry for Abuelaish, but could not accept the possibility that Israeli soldiers might have mistakenly killed the Palestinian doctor's children.

"I don't believe our soldiers would shoot for no reason," said Stern. "I know how sensitive we are to human life, but war is war - and civilians get killed."

Abuelaish, who speaks Hebrew, English and Arabic, said he was overwhelmed by the outpouring of support from his Israeli friends.

"I will never change the way I believe," he said. "There is no other way but for us to live in peace, with justice and respect for human rights. The military way proved its failure years ago. And still we haven't learned the lessons."

A letter from the grave: The cost of revealing affairs as one finds them.

Steve Coll has just published in the New Yorker a notice of the assassination of a journalist in Sri Lanka, Lasantha Wickramatunga. Coll reproduces in full the letter written by Wickramatunga for publication in case he is assassinated.
What this report reminds us of is how precious authentic information is. We take journalists for granted and often we don't like them because they don't cover a story the way we think they should or that reveals details that offend. But journalism is one of the enduring great ministries to the world, a service and if done right, in a society like Sri Lanka's and many other societies, a dangerous even sacrificial ministry.
We can give thanks for the zeal of this faithful public servant, who sought as he best knew how to tell the story as he found it. We grieve with and for all those who were close to him and who have lost someone they knew and loved. But we need to grieve for ourselves also because we cannot estimate how much might have been revealed if Wickramatunga had lived.
So how valuable is an authentic report in a society at war? How valuable is a story told among folks who cannot bear for it to be revealed?
I deliberately avoid here the word "truth" in order to recognize how problematic all reports are in a complex world -- but when one's life is at stake in the telling of a story, that story has to be considered precious beyond reckoning. [Click on the title above to link to the source.]

New Yorker January 12, 2009
Steve Coll: Letter from the Grave

Last Thursday, Lasantha Wickramatunga, who was fifty-two years old and the editor of a Sri Lankan newspaper called the Sunday Leader, was assassinated on his way to work by two gunmen riding motorcycles. The Leader’s investigative reporting had been fiercely critical of the government and of the conduct of its war against Tamil separatists; Wickramatunga had been attacked before. He knew that he was likely to be murdered and so he wrote an essay with instructions that it be published only after his own death. Some mutual friends in the region sent a copy to me today. Read it in full below. It is like nothing else you will read today, that I promise.

A very brief bit of context: Sri Lanka’s government, drawing support from the island’s Sinhalese ethnic majority, has been at war since the nineteen-eighties with various militant separatist groups representing the country’s Tamil ethnic minority. In recent years, the war has narrowed to a contest between government troops and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, a group designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and others. The L.T.T.E. purports to speak for the aspirations of Tamil civilians, but it has conducted its campaign with child soldiers, suicide bombers, and other horrors. For its part, the Sri Lankan government has arranged for the disappearance and murder of uncounted numbers of Tamils, just as it “disappeared” and murdered thousands of its own Sinhalese citizens during an earlier period of counterinsurgency.

The country’s current president, Mahinda Rajapaksa, who is referred to in Wickramatunga’s essay, came to power emphasizing human rights and reform but has more recently pursued a military solution to his L.T.T.E. problem. Sri Lankan troops have lately marched deep into Tamil territory under a heavy veil of media censorship. Local journalists have been accused of disloyalty to the war, which has inspired or created a pretext for attacks against them and their offices. Wickramatunga believed that he would be killed, and the Sri Lankan government would be responsible for his murder.

According to media reports from Sri Lanka, the government has condemned Wickramatunga’s murder and ordered an investigation. Sri Lankan journalists and others today staged a silent march in Colombo, the capital, to protest his killing. Reporters Without Borders, a Paris-based group devoted to protecting journalists, issued a statement about Wickramatunga’s murder that said, “President Mahinda Rajapaksa, his associates and the government media are directly to blame because they incited hatred against him and allowed an outrageous level of impunity to develop as regards violence against the press.”

Here is his essay:

No other profession calls on its practitioners to lay down their lives for their art save the armed forces and, in Sri Lanka, journalism. In the course of the past few years, the independent media have increasingly come under attack. Electronic and print-media institutions have been burnt, bombed, sealed and coerced. Countless journalists have been harassed, threatened and killed. It has been my honor to belong to all those categories and now especially the last.

I have been in the business of journalism a good long time. Indeed, 2009 will be The Sunday Leader’s 15th year. Many things have changed in Sri Lanka during that time, and it does not need me to tell you that the greater part of that change has been for the worse. We find ourselves in the midst of a civil war ruthlessly prosecuted by protagonists whose bloodlust knows no bounds. Terror, whether perpetrated by terrorists or the state, has become the order of the day. Indeed, murder has become the primary tool whereby the state seeks to control the organs of liberty. Today it is the journalists, tomorrow it will be the judges. For neither group have the risks ever been higher or the stakes lower.

Why then do we do it? I often wonder that. After all, I too am a husband, and the father of three wonderful children. I too have responsibilities and obligations that transcend my profession, be it the law or journalism. Is it worth the risk? Many people tell me it is not. Friends tell me to revert to the bar, and goodness knows it offers a better and safer livelihood. Others, including political leaders on both sides, have at various times sought to induce me to take to politics, going so far as to offer me ministries of my choice. Diplomats, recognizing the risk journalists face in Sri Lanka, have offered me safe passage and the right of residence in their countries. Whatever else I may have been stuck for, I have not been stuck for choice.

But there is a calling that is yet above high office, fame, lucre and security. It is the call of conscience.

The Sunday Leader has been a controversial newspaper because we say it like we see it: whether it be a spade, a thief or a murderer, we call it by that name. We do not hide behind euphemism. The investigative articles we print are supported by documentary evidence thanks to the public-spiritedness of citizens who at great risk to themselves pass on this material to us. We have exposed scandal after scandal, and never once in these 15 years has anyone proved us wrong or successfully prosecuted us.

The free media serve as a mirror in which the public can see itself sans mascara and styling gel. From us you learn the state of your nation, and especially its management by the people you elected to give your children a better future. Sometimes the image you see in that mirror is not a pleasant one. But while you may grumble in the privacy of your armchair, the journalists who hold the mirror up to you do so publicly and at great risk to themselves. That is our calling, and we do not shirk it.

Every newspaper has its angle, and we do not hide the fact that we have ours. Our commitment is to see Sri Lanka as a transparent, secular, liberal democracy. Think about those words, for they each has profound meaning. Transparent because government must be openly accountable to the people and never abuse their trust. Secular because in a multi-ethnic and multi-cultural society such as ours, secularism offers the only common ground by which we might all be united. Liberal because we recognize that all human beings are created different, and we need to accept others for what they are and not what we would like them to be. And democratic… well, if you need me to explain why that is important, you’d best stop buying this paper.

The Sunday Leader has never sought safety by unquestioningly articulating the majority view. Let’s face it, that is the way to sell newspapers. On the contrary, as our opinion pieces over the years amply demonstrate, we often voice ideas that many people find distasteful. For example, we have consistently espoused the view that while separatist terrorism must be eradicated, it is more important to address the root causes of terrorism, and urged government to view Sri Lanka’s ethnic strife in the context of history and not through the telescope of terrorism. We have also agitated against state terrorism in the so-called war against terror, and made no secret of our horror that Sri Lanka is the only country in the world routinely to bomb its own citizens. For these views we have been labeled traitors, and if this be treachery, we wear that label proudly.

Many people suspect that The Sunday Leader has a political agenda: it does not. If we appear more critical of the government than of the opposition it is only because we believe that - pray excuse cricketing argot - there is no point in bowling to the fielding side. Remember that for the few years of our existence in which the UNP was in office, we proved to be the biggest thorn in its flesh, exposing excess and corruption wherever it occurred. Indeed, the steady stream of embarrassing exposes we published may well have served to precipitate the downfall of that government.

Neither should our distaste for the war be interpreted to mean that we support the Tigers. The LTTE are among the most ruthless and bloodthirsty organizations ever to have infested the planet. There is no gainsaying that it must be eradicated. But to do so by violating the rights of Tamil citizens, bombing and shooting them mercilessly, is not only wrong but shames the Sinhalese, whose claim to be custodians of the dhamma is forever called into question by this savagery, much of which is unknown to the public because of censorship.

What is more, a military occupation of the country’s north and east will require the Tamil people of those regions to live eternally as second-class citizens, deprived of all self respect. Do not imagine that you can placate them by showering “development” and “reconstruction” on them in the post-war era. The wounds of war will scar them forever, and you will also have an even more bitter and hateful Diaspora to contend with. A problem amenable to a political solution will thus become a festering wound that will yield strife for all eternity. If I seem angry and frustrated, it is only because most of my countrymen - and all of the government - cannot see this writing so plainly on the wall.

It is well known that I was on two occasions brutally assaulted, while on another my house was sprayed with machine-gun fire. Despite the government’s sanctimonious assurances, there was never a serious police inquiry into the perpetrators of these attacks, and the attackers were never apprehended. In all these cases, I have reason to believe the attacks were inspired by the government. When finally I am killed, it will be the government that kills me.

The irony in this is that, unknown to most of the public, Mahinda and I have been friends for more than a quarter century. Indeed, I suspect that I am one of the few people remaining who routinely addresses him by his first name and uses the familiar Sinhala address oya when talking to him. Although I do not attend the meetings he periodically holds for newspaper editors, hardly a month passes when we do not meet, privately or with a few close friends present, late at night at President’s House. There we swap yarns, discuss politics and joke about the good old days. A few remarks to him would therefore be in order here.

Mahinda, when you finally fought your way to the SLFP presidential nomination in 2005, nowhere were you welcomed more warmly than in this column. Indeed, we broke with a decade of tradition by referring to you throughout by your first name. So well known were your commitments to human rights and liberal values that we ushered you in like a breath of fresh air. Then, through an act of folly, you got yourself involved in the Helping Hambantota scandal. It was after a lot of soul-searching that we broke the story, at the same time urging you to return the money. By the time you did so several weeks later, a great blow had been struck to your reputation. It is one you are still trying to live down.

You have told me yourself that you were not greedy for the presidency. You did not have to hanker after it: it fell into your lap. You have told me that your sons are your greatest joy, and that you love spending time with them, leaving your brothers to operate the machinery of state. Now, it is clear to all who will see that that machinery has operated so well that my sons and daughter do not themselves have a father.

In the wake of my death I know you will make all the usual sanctimonious noises and call upon the police to hold a swift and thorough inquiry. But like all the inquiries you have ordered in the past, nothing will come of this one, too. For truth be told, we both know who will be behind my death, but dare not call his name. Not just my life, but yours too, depends on it.

Sadly, for all the dreams you had for our country in your younger days, in just three years you have reduced it to rubble. In the name of patriotism you have trampled on human rights, nurtured unbridled corruption and squandered public money like no other President before you. Indeed, your conduct has been like a small child suddenly let loose in a toyshop. That analogy is perhaps inapt because no child could have caused so much blood to be spilled on this land as you have, or trampled on the rights of its citizens as you do. Although you are now so drunk with power that you cannot see it, you will come to regret your sons having so rich an inheritance of blood. It can only bring tragedy. As for me, it is with a clear conscience that I go to meet my Maker. I wish, when your time finally comes, you could do the same. I wish.

As for me, I have the satisfaction of knowing that I walked tall and bowed to no man. And I have not travelled this journey alone. Fellow journalists in other branches of the media walked with me: most of them are now dead, imprisoned without trial or exiled in far-off lands. Others walk in the shadow of death that your Presidency has cast on the freedoms for which you once fought so hard. You will never be allowed to forget that my death took place under your watch. As anguished as I know you will be, I also know that you will have no choice but to protect my killers: you will see to it that the guilty one is never convicted. You have no choice. I feel sorry for you, and Shiranthi will have a long time to spend on her knees when next she goes for Confession for it is not just her owns sins which she must confess, but those of her extended family that keeps you in office.

As for the readers of The Sunday Leader, what can I say but Thank You for supporting our mission. We have espoused unpopular causes, stood up for those too feeble to stand up for themselves, locked horns with the high and mighty so swollen with power that they have forgotten their roots, exposed corruption and the waste of your hard-earned tax rupees, and made sure that whatever the propaganda of the day, you were allowed to hear a contrary view. For this I - and my family - have now paid the price that I have long known I will one day have to pay. I am - and have always been - ready for that. I have done nothing to prevent this outcome: no security, no precautions. I want my murderer to know that I am not a coward like he is, hiding behind human shields while condemning thousands of innocents to death. What am I among so many? It has long been written that my life would be taken, and by whom. All that remains to be written is when.

That The Sunday Leader will continue fighting the good fight, too, is written. For I did not fight this fight alone. Many more of us have to be - and will be - killed before The Leader is laid to rest. I hope my assassination will be seen not as a defeat of freedom but an inspiration for those who survive to step up their efforts. Indeed, I hope that it will help galvanise forces that will usher in a new era of human liberty in our beloved motherland. I also hope it will open the eyes of your President to the fact that however many are slaughtered in the name of patriotism, the human spirit will endure and flourish. Not all the Rajapakses combined can kill that.

People often ask me why I take such risks and tell me it is a matter of time before I am bumped off. Of course I know that: it is inevitable. But if we do not speak out now, there will be no one left to speak for those who cannot, whether they be ethnic minorities, the disadvantaged or the persecuted. An example that has inspired me throughout my career in journalism has been that of the German theologian, Martin Niemoller. In his youth he was an anti-Semite and an admirer of Hitler. As Nazism took hold in Germany, however, he saw Nazism for what it was: it was not just the Jews Hitler sought to extirpate, it was just about anyone with an alternate point of view. Niemoller spoke out, and for his trouble was incarcerated in the Sachsenhausen and Dachau concentration camps from 1937 to 1945, and very nearly executed. While incarcerated, Niem0ller wrote a poem that, from the first time I read it in my teenage years, stuck hauntingly in my mind:

First they came for the Jews
and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for the Communists
and I did not speak out because I was not a Communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists
and I did not speak out because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.

If you remember nothing else, remember this: The Leader is there for you, be you Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, low-caste, homosexual, dissident or disabled. Its staff will fight on, unbowed and unafraid, with the courage to which you have become accustomed. Do not take that commitment for granted. Let there be no doubt that whatever sacrifices we journalists make, they are not made for our own glory or enrichment: they are made for you. Whether you deserve their sacrifice is another matter. As for me, God knows I tried.

With friends like Pakistan and other governments such as our own …

We continue to get news about the double dealing of the Pakistanis, but it seems to be matched, on the other hand, by the double dealing of western powers with Pakistan.

Take Pakistan’s double dealing, for instance. Musharraf has claimed for years to be on the front line of the “war against terror” but his government has allowed many ant-American, anti-Western Islamist groups to be comfortably ensconced in its borders. Today’s New York Times (Elaine Sciolino, “In ’06 Bomb Plot Trial, a Question of Imminence”) describes how the eight defendants in Britain accused of plotting to blow up trans-Atlantic airliners had gained the information for their project through contacts with extreme elements in Pakistan. “British investigators are convinced that the size, scope, cost, secrecy and ingenuity of the plot bear the Qaeda signature; they say they believe that the cell learned to make the liquid explosive device from Qaeda operatives in Pakistan. … Mr. Sarwar admitted that during a trip to Pakistan between mid-June and early July 2006, a friend told him how to make the explosive HMTD.” This is but one more of many signs that Pakistan is the vortex of radical Islamist activities.

What that means to American troops is described in another article in today’s NYTimes: “Taliban Breached NATO Base in Deadly Clash.” In it Carlotta Gall and Eric Schmitt point out that the insurgents who attacked a remote outpost in north-eastern Afghanistan two days ago, killing nine Americans, “had benefited from new bases in neighboring Pakistan.” And indeed Pakistani militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba, “have been present in the area for months.” Moreover, “insurgents had freedom of movement from the border with Pakistan through 60 miles of Nuristan to the base at Wanat. ‘They can bring men, weapons and cars’” said one source.

Pakistan is our friend while it is at the same time a caldron of radical Islamism feeding troops into Afghanistan to kill American and NATO soldiers.

But then there is the way our own country double-deals in their relations with Pakistan. We have already heard about the convenient way the Americans have worked with Pakistan’s intelligence agency to allow abuse of prisoners. Now it turns out that the British have made similar use of Pakistan. Today’s [July 15] Guardian says that they have been handing over their own citizens to be tortured by Pakistani agencies. A medical student, for instance, "said he was abducted at gunpoint in August 2005 and held for two months at the offices of Pakistan's Intelligence Bureau opposite the British Deputy High Commission in Karachi. [He] ... described how he was whipped, beaten, deprived of sleep, threatened with execution and witnessed other inmates being tortured." Nice way to treat your own people. [Thanks to my friend S. for bringing this to me.]

So we see again how governments carry on their business: While they parade their moral agendas they conceal what they do on “the dark side”. The ancient wisdom is still salient: “Men loved darkness because their deeds were evil; they would not come into the light lest their deeds be exposed.” The problem we have – Americans, British, Pakistanis – is that these are our governments acting in our name.

Addendum, thanks to my friend S:

*In the dark hole of a Pakistani prison by Tim Johnson,
McClatchy Newspapers, Feb 5, 2008
http://news.yahoo.com/s/mcb_china/20080205/wl_mcb_china/inthedarkholeofapakistaniprison

*'Briton' being held in Pakistan, by Syed Shoaib Hasan,
BBC News, 27 June 2007.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6247052.stm

Ahmed Rashid on Descent into Chaos

Rashid, Ahmed. 2008. Descent into Chaos: The United States and the Failure of Nation Building in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Central Asia. New York: Viking.

I have now read every word in this book [but not all the notes, yet]. It is many things: a documented indictment of leaders in many places: they are shown to be incompetent, obdurate, arrogant, often totally unable to face the urgent necessities before them, incapable of addressing the rising needs and frustrations of peoples in the Middle East/Central Asia/South Asia.

This book is also a cry of the heart. Rashid quotes Benazir Bhutto’s last speech in terms that are, I believe, his own: “Wake up, my brothers! This country [Pakistan] faces great dangers. This is your country! My country! We have to save it.” I suppose that the plight of Pakistan weighs deeply on him, not only because it is his home, his country, but because it seems to be the vortex of an ever more acute regional crisis. I join him in concern for what is happening to the peoples of Central and South Asia; and of course the implications reach to my own country. Indeed, the scale of duplicity, dishonesty, perfidy, and ineptness among those leading our country and many other countries in recent decades has been so great as to induce one to wonder what can be done now. We have seen a collapse of responsible leadership in many contexts at a time when the mutual connections among the peoples of the world are gaining in intensity ever more rapidly.

Rashid’s book is an indictment of the high crimes and misdemeanors by many of the leaders of the modern world – notably, of course, the Bush administration but also, especially, the Musharraf government. In fact, it is not only the urgency and intensity of Rashid’s detailed and extensively documented critique that strikes the reader, but -- for those of us familiar with what happens to those who expose the truth about powerful figures in Pakistan -- it is the danger to himself (and to his family?) that Rashid has risked by this book. He has risked his life by telling so much, revealing so much, with such zeal, such particularity. Such a detailed description of the perfidy and outright dishonesty of the leaders of Pakistan has to make him the most despised citizen of the country -- despised, that is by Pervez Musharaf (the man who made himself President), despised by the generals of the army (who stand behind Musharraf), despised by the intelligence officers of the ISI (who have effectively constituted themselves as an independent government) --leaving aside the Taliban and Al Qaeda, who have their own reasons for wanting him dead.

If anything can save Rashid it is that he has been equally unsparing of the leaders of virtually all other government officials mentioned in his tale: George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Richard Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Tony Blair, and many other leaders of the great powers in Europe. All get their due. This work specifies how these leaders have been guilty of stupidity, incompetence, ignorance, arrogance, and deliberate and repeated lies. Even Hamed Karzai, a personal friend of Rashid who comes off slightly better, is described as indecisive and tolerant of corrupt friends and relatives.

Here are some samples of his critique:

On the Musharraf government:

• p. 379: “In 2007 there had been 56 suicide bombings in Pakistan, which killed 419 security officials and 217 civilians … [And yet] the regime had failed to track down a single culprit. Now the public was expected to believe that the military had resolved the Bhutto murder in a couple of days … [Moreover, there was] Musharraf’s failure to show any remorse over Bhutto’s death. Instead he blamed her for sticking her head out of the sunroof and said the army had never liked her anyway.”
  

On George W. Bush:

• 293: [T[he decision by President Bush on February 7, 2002, to deny captured al Qaeda, Taliban, and other terrorist suspects prisoner-of-war status or any access to justice was a step backward for the United States and for mankind – one that has haunted the United States, its allies, and the international legal system ever since. Whereas in the West it created a furious debate about civil liberties, in the Muslim world it further entrenched dictatorship and abuse of civilizations.”

On US Secretary of Defense Richard Rumsfeld:

• 342: “…Uzbekistan promised again to pursue democratic reforms. Yet its crackdown on political dissent had already reached new heights. … [E]leven prisoners had died as a result of torture in Uzbek jails that year, even as the State Department claimed that the country was making progress in human rights. No longer were just the accused tortured, but also their families if they dared ask where relatives were imprisoned. … Rumsfeld continued to heap praise on [President] Karimov. … [A]s major US NGOs were being thrown out of the country, he spoke of “the wonderful cooperation we’ve received from the government of Uzbekistan and promised $57 million in aid for 2004.”

On Tony Blair:

• 356: [Blair] followed the Americans so unquestioningly and blindly into Iraq that he lost his influence in the White House. The neocons saw Blair as their poodle … Attempts by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw to prop up Colin Powell to take on the neocons were constantly undermined by Blair ….”

There is so much here that I can only urge everyone possible to take the time to read this book. I repeatedly had to put the book down because of my own anger and exasperation. You will too.

How to talk gently about lies

I have been ruminating about Alex’s comment that the report of disputations among the Taliban is a fake, possibly a CIA plant [see July 2, 2008]. He claims to be able to discern it; apparently, I am not.

The world of “news” is so filled with lies that we all have a hard time sorting them out. The truth seems ever more elusive, the more we understand that so many of those who hawk information have reasons for presenting it in a certain way. We are becoming inured to lies. We are even inventing courteous ways of saying that we are being lied to, perhaps to avoid being so blunt. The newest way, at least that I have noticed, appears in today’s New York Times. Here is Senator Byron L. Dorgan, Democrat of North Dakota, talking about Maj. Gen. Jerome Johnson, former commander of the Army Sustainment Command: “I believe General Johnson presented evidence that deceived Congress,” Mr. Dorgan said in an interview. But the neatest way he put it is further down in the article: Dorgan says of Johnson’s report, that it was “a display of negligent disregard for facts that were known to the Pentagon.” “Negligent disregard for facts that were known”: a pretty good definition of “lying”.

But there are other ways to misrepresent the truth. The way that Fox News represents Michelle Obama is to run several minutes of talk about her in which she says scarcely anything except the few words that they find offensive. Given this kind of treatment, how would anyone get across anything they want to say? That kind of treatment indicates again that the “news” is crafted for an audience by social elements that have reasons, interests, in persuading others to see things they way they see it. It becomes all the most critical, then, for us to know what the interests are of those who describe situations. Politics is the contest over how to define the public situation. That makes news agencies political vehicles. Again, we need to know who owns the news companies and what their interests are. We know quite a bit about Fox: it would be nice if they would seek a better reputation; but then Bill O’Reilly is just too valuable.

Somewhere I saw that the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth announced that they would be taking on Obama. This is a group whose credentials were dubious when they claimed to represent the real combat experience of John Kerry, and they have even worse credentials for saying anything in particular about Barak Obama. That they announced their plans to go after him reveals in fact what they are: professional character assassinators whose connection with “truth” is and has always been a charade. They have been pretty quiet, though, since both Obama and McCain have appeared to quash the “527 organizations” this time around. In fact, their website now says that as of May 31, 2008, they have “formally disbanded and ceased all operations”. Is it possible their claim to be working on an attack against Obama was an offer to serve the high-rolling elite who funded their activities the last time? These days the super-rich are not dumping so much money into the Republican cause this time around; could it be that the Swift Boaters didn’t get any offers worth their trouble this time? What with the cost of gas these days and the vanished funding from the super-rich, it hardly pays anymore to be in the business of character assassination.

Pakistan: still the source of insurgency in the Middle East

It is hard to believe that the Pakistan government continues to deny that Pakistani territory is a source for Taliban and Al-Qaeda insurgents to base their activities in harassing Afghanistan. Once again an Afghan official is charging Pakistanis as giving sanctuary to insurgents. And once again the Pakistanis are ignoring and denying such claims.

We have just heard of another person's report, through personal sources. on a recent visit to Quetta. They report that Taliban and Al Qaeda members openly walk the streets of Quetta, and openly recruit fighters in their war against Afghanistan. They are paying families for allowing their young men to go off to the “holy war” against the Afghanistan government and the Americans. They seem, again, not to lack funds, and there are few jobs for the local recruits.

Pakistan is a festering source of insurgency – in fact, not only in Afghanistan but elsewhere in the Middle East.

The long-practiced denial in Washington is being emulated in Islamabad.

Thanks to those who reveal the truth, even when it is embarrassing and offensive

I have assigned a number of troubling works as a professor of anthropology – troubling in that they describe abuses of human beings that no one I know would countenance. For instance, last semester I assigned, among other things, the following works in one class:

· Khalid Husseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns, about the abuse of women – two wives – in Afghanistan;

· Khassan Baiev, Grief of My Heart [or elsewhere published as The Oath], about the commitment of a Muslim doctor in Chechnya to serve whoever was brought to him, even some who had tried to kill him, in the midst of a devastating war;

· Philip Gourevitch, We Regret to Inform You that Tomorrow we are to be Killed with our Families, about the atrocities of the Rwandan genocide;

· And Bishop Tutu’s No Future Without Forgiveness, which also has some disturbing descriptions of torture.

Moreover, in another class last year, one of my students chose from a list Anna Politkovskaia’s “A Small Corner of Hell”, about the atrocities of the Chechnyan War; my student became so shaken by Politkovskaia's report that she could not sleep, did not want to turn out the light at night. Such are the descriptions of what is actually going on in this world. This is the human condition that I and my students have sought to understand. It is brutal.

But the book I have just finished discussing with my students, Fear Up Harsh, by Tony Lagouranis and Allen Mikaelian, about the way our military interrogators treat Iraqis under their power, has been as troubling to me as any I have read, for it is about things that have gone on, and still appear to be going on, in the name of the American people. I don’t believe many Americans would be comfortable with this report. Lagouranis claims he has wrecked a number of lives as a torturer. But he also deeply wounded his own life; I was touched by his description of the phantoms that disturbed him after he returned to the States. And when he received psychiatric treatment, which was aimed at enabling him to deal with coming back to the United States, he considered his sense of guilt as something more than a sense of guilt: “it was not in the realm of psychology, but morality.” He said to his psychiatrist, “If you don’t include torturing helpless prisoners in your definition of evil, your definition of evil is meaningless” [p 232]. What is most nauseating about the book is the obvious evidence that the brutal treatment of prisoners by our military could not take place on such a scale without the knowledge or complicity of higher-ups. Indeed, the attempts of known individuals such as John Yoo in the Bush administration to justify torture represents an attitude and perspective that worked downward through the military from the highest levels of government.

This is why it is so crucial that the misrepresentations of truth by an administration that led the world into war be called “lies”; and that “renditions” of prisoners to countries that torture be called “un-American” and “immoral behavior”; and that Justice-Department legitimations of prisoner abuse through carefully phrased euphemisms be called “criminal behavior,” for it radically departs from the moral assumptions upon which the Bill of Rights was constructed. So far, the only people who have been punished for the abuse of prisoners have been a few enlisted men and women. What about those who gave the orders? What about those who made it seem OK? Lagouranis and Mikaelian have performed a service by making public what is being done in our name, sullying the reputation of this country.

شكرا لمن كشف الحقيقة ، حتى عندما وهو معيب
عندي عدد من المحال المقلقه يعمل استاذا للأنثروبولوجيا -- مقلق في ان تصف هذه التجاوزات من البشر ان احدا لا اعرف من شأنه ان الطلعه. على سبيل المثال ، الفصل الدراسي الاول الماضي المحال ، في جملة أمور ، ما يلي يعمل في احد الصفوف :

خالد الحسيني 'sرائع الف الشموس ، ازاء الاساءات المراه -- اثنين الزوجات -- في افغانستان ؛

حسن baiev ، احزان قلبي [أو في أي مكان آخر كما نشرت القسم] ، حول التزام الطبيب المسلم في الشيشان لخدمة لمن كان يوجه اليه ، حتى بعض الذين حاولوا قتله ؛

فيليب gourevitch ، ونحن نأسف لابلاغكم بان غدا نحن سيقتلون مع اسرنا ، عن الفظائع التي ارتكبت في الحرب الروانديه ؛

والاسقف توتو لا مستقبل بدون الغفران ، والتي ايضا قد وصف بعض الانزعاج من التعذيب.

وعلاوة على ذلك ، في آخر طبقة من العام الماضي ، احد زملائي الطلاب واختار من قائمة انا politkovskaia 's" ركن صغير من الجحيم "، وازاء الفظائع من حرب الشيشان ؛ بلادي الطلاب حتى اصبح هزته politkovskaia تقرير انها لا تستطيع النوم ، لا تريد ان تتحول الى ضوء في الليل. هذه هي الاوصاف على حقيقة ما يجري في هذا العالم. هذه هي حالة الانسان ان الطلاب بلدي وانا اسعى الى فهم. ومن وحشية.

ولكن الكتاب لتوي أنهى مناقشة مع زملائي الطلبة ، والخوف حتى قاسيه ، من طوني lagouranis والن mikaelian ، حول الطريقة التي تعامل قواتنا العسكرية المستجوبين العراقيين تحت سلطتهم ، كما تم مقلق لي أي لقد قرأت ، لانه هو عن الاشياء التي لم تكتشف المعنى ، ويبدو انها لا تزال مستمرة ، وباسم الشعب الامريكى. لا ، لا اعتقد ان الكثير من الاميركيين سيكون مريحا مع هذا التقرير. Lagouranis المطالبات محطم لديه عدد من الارواح كما تعذيب. لكنه أيضا بالغ الجرحى على حياته ، لقد كنت تأثرت فوصفه للالخيالات منزعجه منه بعد ان عاد الى الولايات. وعندما تلقى العلاج النفسي ، والتي تهدف الى تمكينه من التعامل مع عودته الى الولايات المتحدة ، واعتبر احساسه بالذنب بوصفها شيئا أكثر من شعور بالذنب : "انها ليست في مجال علم النفس ، ولكن الأخلاق وقال "لصاحب طبيب نفساني ،" اذا كنت لا تشمل عاجز تعذيب السجناء في التعريف الخاص بك من الشر ، والتعريف الخاص بك من الشر لا معنى له "[ف 232].
وهذا هو السبب فى ان من الاهميه بمكان ان ذلك من الافتراءات الحقيقة من جانب الادارة التي قادت العالم الى حرب تسمى "اكاذيب" ؛ وان "الترحيل" السجناء الى البلدان التي تسمى التعذيب "ضد امريكا" و "سلوك غير اخلاقي" ؛ ان وزارة العدل - legitimations السجين من خلال اساءة استعمال صيغ بعناية التلطيفيه ان يسمى "السلوك الاجرامي." حتى الان ، فقط الناس الذين عوقبوا لتعاطي سجناء تعرضوا لعدد قليل من الرجال والمجندين للحرس الوطني امرأة واحدة العام. وماذا عن اولئك الذين امروا؟ اولئك الذين جعلوا يبدو انه موافق؟ Lagouranis وmikaelian يؤدون الخدمة العامة عن طريق جعل ما يجري عمله في اسمنا.

感谢那些揭露事实真相，甚至当它是可耻的
我已指派了一些令人不安的工程作为一个人类学教授-令人不安，因为它们说明虐待的人表示，没有人，我知道会的国家进行。举例来说，上学期i指派，除其他事项外，下列工程，在一个班级：

哈利德侯赛尼的1000灿烂的太阳，对侵犯妇女-两个妻子-在阿富汗;

哈桑baiev ，悲痛的我的心[或其他地方刊登誓言] ，对承诺的一个穆斯林医生在车臣的服务，谁被带到他的，甚至有人曾试图将他杀死;

弘夫，我们很遗憾地通知你，明天我们要杀害我们的家人，对暴行的卢旺达战争;

和图图大主教的，没有前途，没有宽恕的，其中也有一些令人不安的描述酷刑。

此 外，在另一个阶级去年，我的一个学生选择了从名单安娜politkovskaia的"一小角落地狱" ，对暴行的车臣战争，我的学生变得如此震撼politkovskaia的报告说，她不能入睡，不想转出光在夜间进行。这些都是说明的是什么，实际上在进 行，在这个世界上。这是人的条件，我和我的学生们已设法了解。这是残酷的。

不过这本书我刚刚结束与我的学生，害怕了苛刻的，由托尼 lagouranis和Allen mikaelian ，该如何进行我军审问对待伊拉克人根据自己的权力，一直作为更让我为任何我看过，因为这是关于这件事已经对，而现在仍似乎是在进行中，在姓名的美国人民。 我不相信许多美国人会感到舒服这个报告。 lagouranis声称他已断送了多少人的生命作为施刑。但他也深深伤害其自己的生命;令我十分感动，他描述的阴影困扰着他后，他返回美国护照。而当他 收到接受精神科治疗，其目的是使他能够应付未来运回美国，他认为他的感觉内疚，看成是一个多感内疚： "这不是在境界的心理，但道德"他说，他的心理医生， "如果你不包括拷打囚犯无奈，在你的定义，无恶不作，你的定义，邪恶是没有什么意义的"模式[ P 232 。
这就是为什么它是如此关键的是，歪曲真相，由政府主导的世界陷入战争，被称为"谎言" ，并认为"演绎"的囚犯，以国家酷刑被称为"联合国-美国的"和"不道德的行为" 。并认为正义署legitimations的虐俘经过精心包装的委婉语被称为"犯罪行为" ，所以截至目前为止，只有人被查处，虐待犯人已被数名士兵和一名国民警卫队的女将军。那么这些是谁给了订单吗？那些使这似乎好吧？ lagouranis和mikaelian已经进行了服务，使市民正在做些什么，在我们的名字。


Я выделил ряд тревожных работает в качестве профессора антропологии - беспокойство в том, что они описывают нарушения прав людей, что никто я знаю, будет поддерживать. Например, в прошлом семестре я назначена, среди прочего, следующие работает в одном классе:

Халид Хусейни в A Thousand Сплендид солнца, по поводу нарушения прав женщин - две жены - в Афганистане;

Хасан Baiev, горе мое сердце [или в других местах, как опубликованные Клятва], о приверженности мусульманской врачом в Чечне служить тот, кто был с ним, даже кое-кто пытался убить его;

Филип Гуревич, мы сожаление по Информ Вы, что завтра мы должны быть с нашими Убит семей, о зверствах в Руанде войны;

И епископ Туту в Нет будущего без прощения, который также имеет некоторые тревожные описаний пыток.

Кроме того, в другой класс в прошлом году, один из моих учеников выбрали из списка, Анна Политковская в "Маленький уголок ада", по поводу злодеяний, из Chechnyan войны; мой студент стал настолько потрясен Политковская в докладе, что она не может спать, не хотят оказаться в свет в ночи. Таковы описания того, что на самом деле происходит в этом мире. Это состояние человека, что я и мои студенты пытались понять. Это жестокая.

Но книгу я уже закончил обсуждение с моим студентам, Страх Вверх жестковатое, Тони Аллен Lagouranis и Микаэлян, о том, как наши военные допросы лечения иракцев, находящихся под их властью, была тревожной, как ко мне, как любой Я прочитал, за это о вещах, которые прошли, и еще, как представляется, происходит во имя американского народа. Я не думаю, что многие американцы будут комфортно с этим докладом. Lagouranis претензий он разгромлены ряд жизней в качестве палача. Но он также глубоко ранили его собственной жизни, и я была тронута его описание на фантомов, что беспокоит его, после того как он вернулся в Штаты. И когда он получил психиатрическое лечение, которое было направлено на то, чтобы позволить ему заниматься возвращается в Соединенные Штаты, по его мнению, его чувство вины, как нечто большее, чем чувство вины: "она не в области психологии, но и морали ". Он говорит, чтобы его психиатру:" Если вы не включают пытки заключенных в беспомощном Ваше определение зла, Ваше определение зла не имеет смысла "[р 232].
Вот почему так важно, чтобы искажения истины в администрации, что привело мир к войне будет называться "ложь", и что "исполнение" заключенных в страны, что пытки будет называться "снимите американской" и "аморальное поведение" , и о том, что Департамент юстиции-legitimations нарушения прав осужденных путем тщательно сформулированы эвфемизмы, называется "преступное поведение." Пока единственный человек, которые были наказаны за злоупотребление заключенных было несколько военнослужащих и один Национальной гвардии женщина целом. Что можно сказать о тех, кто отдавал приказы? Те, кто сделал это, похоже OK? Lagouranis и Микаэлян играют службы путем обнародования том, что делается в нашем имени.

Gracias a las personas que revelen la verdad, incluso cuando es vergonzoso
Me han asignado una serie de inquietantes obras como profesor de antropología - preocupante en la medida en que describen abusos de los seres humanos que nadie sé que presencia. Por ejemplo, el semestre pasado me asigna, entre otras cosas, las siguientes obras en una clase:

Khalid Husseini del Mil Splendid Suns, acerca de los abusos de las mujeres - dos esposas - en el Afganistán;

Hassan Baiev, Duelo de Mi Corazón [o publicados en otros lugares como El Juramento], sobre el compromiso de un médico musulmán de Chechenia para servir a todo aquel que fue llevado a él, incluso algunos que han tratado de matarlo;

Philip Gourevitch, nos Informar a Usted a pesar de que mañana vamos a ser Matado con nuestros familiares, acerca de las atrocidades de la guerra de Rwanda;

Y el Obispo Tutu n del futuro sin perdón, que tiene también algunas inquietantes descripciones de la tortura.

Además, en otra clase el año pasado, uno de mis estudiantes eligió de una lista de Anna Politkovskaia "Un Rincón de los Pequeños Hell", acerca de las atrocidades de la guerra de Chechenia; mi estudiante llegó a ser tan sacudido por Politkovskaia en su informe de que no podía dormir, No quería convertirse en la luz por la noche. Estas son las descripciones de lo que realmente pasa en este mundo. Esta es la condición humana y que mis alumnos me han tratado de comprender. Es brutal.

Pero los libros que acaban de terminar discutiendo con mis estudiantes, el miedo Hasta Harsh, de Tony Lagouranis y Allen Mikaelian, acerca de la forma en el tratamiento de nuestros interrogadores militares iraquíes bajo su poder, ha sido tan preocupante como que me he leído todo, porque es Acerca de las cosas que se han ido, y todavía parece estar pasando, en el nombre del pueblo estadounidense. No creo que muchos norteamericanos se sienten cómodos con este informe. Lagouranis reclamaciones que ha destruido un número de vidas como un torturador. Pero también herido profundamente su propia vida; Me conmovió su descripción de los fantasmas que le inquieta después regresó a los Estados. Y cuando él recibió tratamiento psiquiátrico, que fue destinada a permitir a él para tratar de regresar a los Estados Unidos, consideró su sentido de culpabilidad como algo más que un sentimiento de culpabilidad: "no es en el ámbito de la psicología, pero la moral ". Él dijo a su psiquiatra," Si no se incluye la tortura de prisioneros indefensos en su definición del mal, su definición de la maldad no tiene sentido "[p. 232].
Por eso es tan importante que el tergiversaciones de la verdad por parte de una administración que llevó al mundo a la guerra es la de "mentiras", y que "entregas" de prisioneros a países en que la tortura es la de "un-American" y "conducta inmoral" , Y que el Departamento de Justicia de legitimaciones de los abusos de prisioneros a través de eufemismos cuidadosamente su enunciado es la de "conducta criminal." Hasta el momento, las únicas personas que han sido sancionados por uso indebido de los presos se han alistado unos pocos hombres y una mujer de la Guardia Nacional general. ¿Qué pasa con los que dieron las órdenes? Los que hicieron parece bien? Lagouranis y Mikaelian han realizado un servicio público haciendo lo que se está haciendo en nuestro nombre.