Hamas warns Blair that ignoring group will damage his credibility

Former British prime minister and the Quartet's special envoy to the Middle East Tony Blair speaking at a Quartet meeting in Lisbon on Thursday. (Reuters)

21 July 2007

Hamas warned Tony Blair on Saturday his credibility as the new international Mideast peace envoy will be damaged if he ignores the militant Islamist organization.

The former British prime minister was expected in Israel and the West Bank early next week in his maiden visit since his appointment as envoy of the Quartet of Middle East peace negotiators - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia.

"We warn the new envoy that any attempt to marginalize the Hamas movement will cost him his credibility," said Hamas hard-liner Mahmoud Zahar, a former Palestinian foreign minister.

Blair's mandate is limited to helping Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas build the Palestinian economy and infrastructure.

He also has been instructed to have no dealings with Hamas, which last month forcibly seized control of Gaza from forces of the Fatah movement loyal to Abbas.

The Quartet refuses to deal with Hamas because it refuses to recognize Israel's right to exist, renounce violence or accept agreements by previous Palestinian governments with Israel.

"That policy won't change to accommodate Blair," Zahar said. "We are not ready to sit with anyone calling on us to abandon our national constants and to foreswear the aspirations of the Palestinian people," he said.

After his first meeting with Quartet leaders Thursday, Blair said he will need all the optimism he can muster to "make headway in his new task, but I am determined to try."

Meanwhile, Hamas said it is replacing Gaza's defunct courts with a legal committee comprised of an Islamic law expert, a military court lawyer and the head of the main prison.

Source

Bush on U. S. National Security

For Immediate Release

Office of the Press Secretary

July 21, 2007

Audio

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. On Friday, I met with a group of veterans and military families who support our troops and our mission in Iraq. These men and women know the tremendous sacrifices that our troops and their families are making. And I appreciate the good work their organizations are doing to support our men and women in uniform in their important mission to protect the United States.

This week Americans saw more evidence of how difficult that mission is -- and how central it is to our security. The Director of National Intelligence released a summary of an important document called the National Intelligence Estimate on the Terrorist Threat to the U.S. Homeland. This assessment brings together the analysis of our entire intelligence community and provides policymakers with an up-to-date picture of the threat we face.

I know you are hearing a lot about this document. Some of its assessments are encouraging, and others are cause for concern. Most importantly, this document reminds us that America faces "a persistent and evolving" threat from Islamic terrorist groups and cells -- especially al Qaeda.
Since al Qaeda attacked us on 9/11, the United States has taken many steps to keep the American people safe. We've gone on the offense, taking the fight to the terrorists around the world. We've worked with partners overseas to monitor terrorist movements, disrupt their finances, and bring them to justice. Here at home, we've strengthened security at borders and vital infrastructure like power plants and airports and subways. We have given intelligence and law enforcement professionals new tools like the Patriot Act, and we continue to work with Congress to modernize the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act.

The actions we and our partners around the world have taken have helped disrupt plots and save lives. Here's how the NIE report put it -- quote -- "We assess that greatly increased worldwide counterterrorism efforts over the past five years have constrained the ability of al Qaeda to attack the U.S. homeland again and have led terrorist groups to perceive the homeland as a harder target to strike than on 9/11."

The NIE report also cites some setbacks. One of the most troubling is its assessment that al Qaeda has managed to establish a safe haven in the tribal areas of Pakistan bordering Afghanistan. Last September, President Musharraf of Pakistan reached an agreement that gave tribal leaders more responsibility for policing their own areas. Unfortunately, tribal leaders were unwilling and unable to go after al Qaeda or the Taliban.

President Musharraf recognizes the agreement has not been successful or well-enforced and is taking active steps to correct it. Earlier this month, he sent in Pakistani forces to go after radicals who seized control of a mosque, and then he delivered a speech vowing to rid all of Pakistan of extremism. Pakistani forces are in the fight, and many have given their lives. The United States supports them in these efforts. And we will work with our partners to deny safe haven to the Taliban and al Qaeda in Pakistan -- or anywhere else in the world.

Nearly six years have passed since 9/11. And as time goes by, it can be tempting to think that the threat of another attack on our homeland is behind us. The NIE report makes clear that the threat is not behind us. It states that al Qaeda will continue to -- and I quote -- "focus on prominent political, economic, and infrastructure targets with the goal of producing mass casualties, visually dramatic destruction, significant economic aftershocks, and/or fear among the U.S. population." It goes on to say that al Qaeda will continue to seek chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material to use in these attacks.

The men who run al Qaeda are determined, capable, and ruthless. They would be in a far stronger position to attack our people if America's military, law enforcement, intelligence services, and other elements of our government were not engaged in a worldwide effort to stop them. We will meet the responsibility that history has given us; we will adapt to changing conditions, and we will not let up until our enemies are defeated and our people are secure.

Thank you for listening.

END

Further Reading:

Step in Time to Bush?

Mass Graves Dug To Deal With Death Toll

This picture, taken by Almiy Al Azawi in Baguba, shows morgue workers inspecting bodies outside a hospital morgue today. The bodies with torture marks and some bound from behind were found dumped in different parts of Baquba, police said.

17 July 2007

By Ahmed Ali

BAQUBA, (IPS) - The largest morgue in Diyala province is overflowing daily. Officials told IPS they have had to dig mass graves to dispose of bodies.

More and more bodies of victims of the ongoing violence are being found every day in Baquba, capital city of the province, 50km northeast of Baghdad.

"The morgue receives an average of four or five bodies everyday," Nima Jima'a, a morgue official, told IPS. "Many more are dropped in rivers and farms -- or it is sometimes the case they are buried by their killers for other reasons. The number we record here is only a fraction of those killed."

Ambulances, now able to move again after weeks of restrictions, have been removing bodies of victims from the current fighting. But they have also found skulls and bones, evidence of other killings long ago.

Dealing with these remains is becoming difficult. Like the rest of the city, the morgue suffers from continuing lack of electricity. Over the last two weeks, two of its refrigerators have been shut down. The smell of decomposing bodies hits visitors 100 metres away.

Morgue officials told IPS that a local U.S. military commander recently ordered them to bury all bodies within three days.

"We got 30 bodies out of the refrigerator on Sunday, put a number on each, and put them in plastic bags provided by U.S. troops," morgue official Kareem al-Rubaee told IPS. "We asked families to have a look at the bodies. Then, they were buried collectively."

There is expected to be a need now to bury bodies collectively every 15-20 days in order keep the capacity of the refrigerator intact, al-Rubaee said.

Families are often unable to identify and collect the bodies, morgue officials say. It is still extremely dangerous to travel around the city. Also, most bodies are never brought to the morgue at all to be identified or counted.

Many victims of U.S. air strikes have been buried under the rubble of their homes for days, sometimes weeks, residents say. The military operation has been launched to target al-Qaeda, amid local reports that the operation began after the al-Qaeda suspects had fled town.

People in the town feel targeted by killings from all sides. Foreign terror groups, like those who claim to be following the model of al-Qaeda, have kidnapped many people who are never heard from again.

Groups believed to be al-Qaeda have been known to kill and then drop the body in selected places that they call "the execution zone." This is intended to show people the power of al-Qaeda.

Police vehicles and ambulances have been moving bodies mainly from such spots to the morgue.
Baquba, never anticipating such a death toll, has only a small morgue, and limited means to carry out necessary procedures.

"When a number of bodies are brought to the morgue, we take at least two photos from different angles," Mohammed Abid, another official at the morgue told IPS. "Generally, the bodies are brought without identity cards. This is a problem for the families for whom the photographs are not enough -- faces are often deformed due to torture or shooting."

The refrigerators at the morgue are packed beyond capacity, and workers narrate grisly accounts of attempts to access the bodies for identification.

"My brother's photo is in the computer, but we couldn't get the body because it was taken by another family," 52-year-old primary schoolteacher Naser Sattar told IPS. "They thought him their son because the body was deformed."

The schoolteacher added, "I went to that family and got my brother's body and then buried it."

(Ahmed, our correspondent in Iraq's Diyala province, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region)

Is This Ben Gurion Or Hell?

18 July, 2007

By Remi Kanazi

Anyone who has traveled through Ben Gurion airport in Israel knows that it is a unique experience. For most Israeli Jews, the experience is comforting, a quick and accommodating entry into a nation created and developed for the Jewish people. For Palestinian-Americans and many activists working in occupied Palestine it is quite a different experience. Most of these travelers are held for hours and questioned repeatedly; some of who are stripped naked and in some cases (especially in the last two years) denied entry.

As I write from Ramallah, I recall my and my brother's experience in Ben Gurion just one week ago. After a sleepless 15 hour trip from New York, we arrived at the airport and went directly to the check-in booth. After waiting in a short line, a friendly woman asked for our passports, yet immediately turned sour once she viewed them. We were asked to step aside and after about 15 minutes a woman from airport security told us to follow her into one of the detainment rooms. Given the countless stories of harassment I had heard and read about before my trip, I wasn't so foolish to think that my journey through Ben Gurion would be a walk in the park. I had initially anticipated a four hour wait, interrogation, and a thorough pat down by Israel's finest.

When we arrived at the first detainment room, several young female security agents asked us where we were going, about our ethnic background and family history, whether we had family in Israel or the occupied territories (and if we would be staying with them), and if "there was anything they should know." We were then taken to another detainment room, where a few other detainees were being held. Over the next three hours, several female security officers came into the detainment room we were being held in to question us, while at other times we were called into other detainment rooms for questioning. One African detainee, an elderly black woman, was not allowed into the country with her husband despite a seemingly innocent decision to visit her family.

After about four hours, pure exhaustion set in. At this time, we were taken to a large room with metal detectors, an x-ray machine and a coffee machine that looked like it wasn't in use. Still, in a token attempt at friendliness, the security agent offered us a cup of coffee. But the offer was rescinded once he noted the machine was out of service.

About every ten minutes another member of airport security entered the room. After about 30 minutes we were taken into a back room, patted down, and scanned with a hand held metal detector. After being held for an hour, Sami, who claimed to be a higher up in the IDF and airport security, entered the room. He had apparently been called in by regular airport security because of certain "red flags" we had raised.

Sami didn't look particularly happy to see us. He started to go through our bags, which had been checked by every member of airport security that previously entered the room. He had a determined look on his face as he sifted through my brother's book on corporate law and became more agitated when he didn't find the holy grail of information.

After about 15 minutes Sami looked up at us and told us that "something was missing;" we were "leaving out part of the story," and he was going to find out just exactly what that "part" was. He was looking for what he called the "truth." So I repeated what we had told the previous soldiers: we were staying our first two nights in East Jerusalem, we would be traveling to the holy sites (to see where baby Jesus was born), Haifa and Yaffa (the cities our grandparents were dispossessed from in 1948), Nazareth and Bethlehem. We told the truth, but kindly omitted Ramallah, Nablus, Hebron, Jenin, Dheisheh, and any other intended stops in the occupied territories that didn't involve conventional tourism. In all honesty, we had only planned out our first two days in East Jerusalem, which made Sami increasingly annoyed.

Sami put it bluntly, as of the moment we were called in we were considered "terrorists" or people intending to "engage in terrorists activities" because we "lied" to airport security about the intention of our travels. Sami defined terrorism and terrorist activities as meeting up with the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), working in "terrorist" branches of the Alternative Information Center (AIC), and non-violently protesting against the Apartheid Wall in the village of Bil'in. He was trying to a strike fear in us that went well passed being denied entry. It had become a matter of whether he was going to tell the US government if we were terrorists or not.

He claimed that if he told the US government we were terrorists, it would not only affect us the rest of our lives (i.e. anytime we tried to get a job, bought a plane ticket, or applied for a credit card), but it would affect our family, immediate and extended, in a similar fashion. The explanation was clear: nobody would believe two Palestinians males over a respected man in the IDF with 40 years of experience. At this point I started to offer up information that may or may have not been considered "terrorist activity," essentially the plans for our trip, which my brother and I were still faintly excited about, plans that didn't seem to bring much joy to Sami.

Sami started to go through our phones, writing down numbers and asking questions about anyone with an Arab, Persian or Jewish name. He was particularly angered when he saw the name of a well known Jewish activist who had done extensive work in the occupied territories in my brother's phone. Ironically, the number in my brother's phone was the number of a paralegal in New York City, not the well-known activist, but Sami wouldn't get off the subject for a solid half hour.

After about 90 minutes of intense bullying, Sami concluded we weren't terrorists. At this point, good old Sami started to warm up, but not without first telling us what we explicitly weren't supposed to do: no ISM, stay away from AIC activity, and do not engage in anything that we would categorize as non-violent activism.

By the end of stay at Ben Gurion, Sami informed us that we were lucky to catch him on a good day. He became extremely open and candid in the last 30 minutes. He said that he may not agree with everything that he does and he may not agree with the political situation, but he's a soldier of the state, and serving its interest is his job. While I appreciated his honesty, this type of rationalization has been used throughout history, justifying war crimes and human rights violations ad infinitum.

As our seven hour journey came to an end, Sami began telling us personal stories. I'm not sure if it was an attempt clear his conscience, but he told us about his diverse group of friends, which included Arabs, and how his life had been saved five times, all by Arabs. It was amazing to see how human and forthcoming some of the "toughest" people in Israel have become, while at the same time keeping up their walls of discrimination and oppression, walls that have ultimately been encompassed by a greater wall of rationalization. For us, it was seven hours of hell in Ben Gurion. For a Palestinian here, occupation is a reality every day of the year.

Remi Kanazi is a Palestinian-American poet and writer based in New York City. He is the co-founder of www.PoeticInjustice.net and the editor of the forthcoming anthology of poetry, Poets for Palestine.

How The News Works

(Click picture for a larger View.)

Give War a Chance

20 July 2007

by Cindy Sheehan

Being in the deep south has been a very interesting experience. As George’s approval numbers hover down some where in Congress’s range and approval for their war is shrinking, we have encountered very little opposition to our message, but the opposition we have encountered has been vile, abusive and potentially dangerous.In Houston, one of the more active kingdoms of war profiteering, we encountered no protest. As a matter of fact, while we were stationed on a bridge over I-10 holding our “Impeach Bush and Cheney” and “Troops home now” signs, we had almost 100% approval. People were actually stopping their cars to applaud us and in some cases, join us.

Our next stop was New Orleans where the policies of BushCo are still harming our brothers and sisters. The various governments are gobbling up land in poor, but hard-working class areas to be used for upscale housing and/or casinos. We meet with several grass-roots organizations who are feeding people, helping them find homes and jobs. There was also not one peep of opposition to our message because the people of New Orleans intimately understand the reasons that BushCo should be impeached.

The fun started, however when we got to Montgomery, AL where right off the bat, the Secretary of the Montgomery Repugs confronted me and displayed his ignorance by stating that he loves George Bush and that George had “nothing” to do with the war in Iraq. When some Veterans for Peace confronted him and asked him why he didn’t enlist to go to Iraq if he was such a strong supporter of the mayhem, he let us know that he was “courageously” supporting the war effort by staying in America, working and “paying his taxes.” Now that the encounter with this brave patriot has been shown all over cable news, every pipsqueak repug with a bad toupe will be confronting me to get his 15 minutes of fame.

In Montgomery, our Caravan met with many nice folks who were on the side of impeachment and ending the war with us, but we also ran into a couple of people who were upset with BushCo for different reasons. On a beautiful, magnolia tree lined street where our group was hosted for a pot-luck, a home had the sign: “Give War a Chance.” The homeowner and father of five told us that George Bush “is a “pu**y” and that if he were President, he would “wipe out” the entire Middle East with nukes. He has a service age daughter whom he said he would be proud for her to go to Iraq and he would be thrilled if she got some “confirmed kills.” Another gentleman driving down the street didn’t know why we were so upset because America had a “civil war” so why can’t Iraq “have one?” We all needed to be decontaminated on that visit!

At the School of the Assassins in Columbus, Ga and in Charlotte, NC, we ran into similar problems: police presence that seemed to be there to foster violence At both places the neo-Nazi, pro-war fascist group “Gathering of Eagles” came out to mostly try to intimidate us from our mission. At Ft. Benning, after we complained, the police kept them separate from us, but in Charlotte, the police refused saying that the Eagles had their rights to “freedom of speech.” But the Eagles’ freedom of speech has included physical threats against me and actual physical force against kids and women. When the Charlotte police were told this, they said that they couldn’t keep them apart from our group until the Eagles actually did something. So I chose to stay away from the rally then go and perhaps cause them to hurt someone else because of my presence. Freedom of speech is one thing, but I don’t believe that the First Amendment protects violent speech, especially if it is one of the neocons or their media supporters calling for increased violence in the Middle East. Nothing about our movement promotes or calls for violence and it would be swell if the CPD protected everyone’s First Amendment rights, not just people whom they agree with. Gold Star Father, Carlos Arredondo, joined us in Charlotte with his display about the personal cost of war which doesn’t affect the “Gathering of Chickenhawks” at all, in fact we believe that they are the ones who disgrace our children’s memories and the memories of the fallen in Vietnam by supporting another ‘Nam like quagmire.

It is my belief that for all human history, we have been giving “war a chance” and it has never worked. There has never been a “war to end all wars.” No matter how much BushCo blather, peace cannot be spread by the use of force and democracy cannot be forced on a people at the end of a M-16. Congressional Democrats are busy throwing up smokescreens…or bones…to their “anti-war” left by their meaningless bills after they gave George 120 billion more dollars to wage these wars of aggression and potentially invade Iran.

As one of my peace idols, John Lennon said let’s “give peace a chance.”

For more information about the Journey for Humanity and Accountability, or to donate to help defray expenses, please go to thecampcaseyinstitute.org.

Cindy Sheehan is the mother of Spc. Casey Sheehan who was killed in Bush's war of terror on 04/04/04. She is the co-founder and president of Gold Star Families for Peace and The Camp Casey Peace Institute. Read other articles by Cindy.

The Invisible Government

20 July 2007

by John Pilger

In a speech delivered at the Socialism 2007 Conference on Saturday, June 16 2007 in Chicago, John Pilger describes how propaganda has become such a potent force in our lives and, in the words of one of its founders, represents “an invisible government.”

The title of this talk is Freedom Next Time, which is the title of my book, and the book is meant as an antidote to the propaganda that is so often disguised as journalism. So I thought I would talk today about journalism, about war by journalism, propaganda, and silence, and how that silence might be broken. Edward Bernays, the so-called father of public relations, wrote about an invisible government, which is the true ruling power of our country. He was referring to journalism, the media. That was almost 80 years ago, not long after corporate journalism was invented. It is a history few journalist talk about or know about, and it began with the arrival of corporate advertising. As the new corporations began taking over the press, something called “professional journalism” was invented. To attract big advertisers, the new corporate press had to appear respectable, pillars of the establishment — objective, impartial, balanced. The first schools of journalism were set up, and a mythology of liberal neutrality was spun around the professional journalist. The right to freedom of expression was associated with the new media and with the great corporations, and the whole thing was, as Robert McChesney put it so well, “entirely bogus”.

For what the public did not know was that in order to be professional, journalists had to ensure that news and opinion were dominated by official sources, and that has not changed. Go through the New York Times on any day, and check the sources of the main political stories — domestic and foreign — you’ll find they’re dominated by government and other established interests. That is the essence of professional journalism. I am not suggesting that independent journalism was or is excluded, but it is more likely to be an honorable exception. Think of the role Judith Miller played in the New York Times in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Yes, her work became a scandal, but only after it played a powerful role in promoting an invasion based on lies. Yet, Miller’s parroting of official sources and vested interests was not all that different from the work of many famous Times reporters, such as the celebrated W.H. Lawrence, who helped cover up the true effects of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima in August, 1945. “No Radioactivity in Hiroshima Ruin,” was the headline on his report, and it was false.

Consider how the power of this invisible government has grown. In 1983 the principle global media was owned by 50 corporations, most of them American. In 2002 this had fallen to just nine corporations. Today it is probably about five. Rupert Murdoch has predicted that there will be just three global media giants, and his company will be one of them. This concentration of power is not exclusive of course to the United States. The BBC has announced it is expanding its broadcasts to the United States, because it believes Americans want principled, objective, neutral journalism for which the BBC is famous. They have launched BBC America. You may have seen the advertising.

The BBC began in 1922, just before the corporate press began in America. Its founder was Lord John Reith, who believed that impartiality and objectivity were the essence of professionalism. In the same year the British establishment was under siege. The unions had called a general strike and the Tories were terrified that a revolution was on the way. The new BBC came to their rescue. In high secrecy, Lord Reith wrote anti-union speeches for the Tory Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin and broadcast them to the nation, while refusing to allow the labor leaders to put their side until the strike was over.

So, a pattern was set. Impartiality was a principle certainly: a principle to be suspended whenever the establishment was under threat. And that principle has been upheld ever since.

Take the invasion of Iraq. There are two studies of the BBC’s reporting. One shows that the BBC gave just two percent of its coverage of Iraq to antiwar dissent — two percent. That is less than the antiwar coverage of ABC, NBC, and CBS. A second study by the University of Wales shows that in the buildup to the invasion, 90 percent of the BBC’s references to weapons of mass destruction suggested that Saddam Hussein actually possessed them, and that by clear implication Bush and Blair were right. We now know that the BBC and other British media were used by the British secret intelligence service MI-6. In what they called Operation Mass Appeal, MI-6 agents planted stories about Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, such as weapons hidden in his palaces and in secret underground bunkers. All of these stories were fake. But that’s not the point. The point is that the work of MI-6 was unnecessary, because professional journalism on its own would have produced the same result.

Listen to the BBC’s man in Washington, Matt Frei, shortly after the invasion. “There is not doubt,” he told viewers in the UK and all over the world, “That the desire to bring good, to bring American values to the rest of the world, and especially now in the Middle East, is especially tied up with American military power.” In 2005 the same reporter lauded the architect of the invasion, Paul Wolfowitz, as someone who “believes passionately in the power of democracy and grassroots development.” That was before the little incident at the World Bank.

None of this is unusual. BBC news routinely describes the invasion as a miscalculation. Not Illegal, not unprovoked, not based on lies, but a miscalculation.

The words “mistake” and “blunder” are common BBC news currency, along with “failure” — which at least suggests that if the deliberate, calculated, unprovoked, illegal assault on defenseless Iraq had succeeded, that would have been just fine. Whenever I hear these words I remember Edward Herman’s marvelous essay about normalizing the unthinkable. For that’s what media clichéd language does and is designed to do — it normalizes the unthinkable; of the degradation of war, of severed limbs, of maimed children, all of which I’ve seen. One of my favorite stories about the Cold War concerns a group of Russian journalists who were touring the United States. On the final day of their visit, they were asked by the host for their impressions. “I have to tell you,” said the spokesman, “that we were astonished to find after reading all the newspapers and watching TV day after day that all the opinions on all the vital issues are the same. To get that result in our country we send journalists to the gulag. We even tear out their fingernails. Here you don’t have to do any of that. What is the secret?”

What is the secret? It is a question seldom asked in newsrooms, in media colleges, in journalism journals, and yet the answer to that question is critical to the lives of millions of people. On August 24 last year the New York Times declared this in an editorial: “If we had known then what we know now the invasion if Iraq would have been stopped by a popular outcry.” This amazing admission was saying, in effect, that journalists had betrayed the public by not doing their job and by accepting and amplifying and echoing the lies of Bush and his gang, instead of challenging them and exposing them. What the Times didn’t say was that had that paper and the rest of the media exposed the lies, up to a million people might be alive today. That’s the belief now of a number of senior establishment journalists. Few of them — they’ve spoken to me about it — few of them will say it in public.

Ironically, I began to understand how censorship worked in so-called free societies when I reported from totalitarian societies. During the 1970s I filmed secretly in Czechoslovakia, then a Stalinist dictatorship. I interviewed members of the dissident group Charter 77, including the novelist Zdener Urbanek, and this is what he told me. “In dictatorships we are more fortunate that you in the West in one respect. We believe nothing of what we read in the newspapers and nothing of what we watch on television, because we know its propaganda and lies. I like you in the West. We’ve learned to look behind the propaganda and to read between the lines, and like you, we know that the real truth is always subversive.”

Vandana Shiva has called this subjugated knowledge. The great Irish muckraker Claud Cockburn got it right when he wrote, “Never believe anything until it’s officially denied.”

One of the oldest clichés of war is that truth is the first casualty. No it’s not. Journalism is the first casualty. When the Vietnam War was over, the magazine Encounter published an article by Robert Elegant, a distinguished correspondent who had covered the war. “For the first time in modern history,” he wrote, the outcome of a war was determined not on the battlefield, but on the printed page, and above all on the television screen.” He held journalists responsible for losing the war by opposing it in their reporting. Robert Elegant’s view became the received wisdom in Washington and it still is. In Iraq the Pentagon invented the embedded journalist because it believed that critical reporting had lost Vietnam.

The very opposite was true. On my first day as a young reporter in Saigon, I called at the bureaus of the main newspapers and TV companies. I noticed that some of them had a pinboard on the wall on which were gruesome photographs, mostly of bodies of Vietnamese and of American soldiers holding up severed ears and testicles. In one office was a photograph of a man being tortured; above the torturers head was a stick-on comic balloon with the words, “that’ll teach you to talk to the press.” None of these pictures were ever published or even put on the wire. I asked why. I was told that the public would never accept them. Anyway, to publish them would not be objective or impartial. At first, I accepted the apparent logic of this. I too had grown up on stories of the good war against Germany and Japan, that ethical bath that cleansed the Anglo-American world of all evil. But the longer I stayed in Vietnam, the more I realized that our atrocities were not isolated, nor were they aberrations, but the war itself was an atrocity. That was the big story, and it was seldom news. Yes, the tactics and effectiveness of the military were questioned by some very fine reporters. But the word “invasion” was never used. The anodyne word used was “involved.” America was involved in Vietnam. The fiction of a well-intentioned, blundering giant, stuck in an Asian quagmire, was repeated incessantly. It was left to whistleblowers back home to tell the subversive truth, those like Daniel Ellsberg and Seymour Hersh, with his scoop of the My-Lai massacre. There were 649 reporters in Vietnam on March 16, 1968 — the day that the My-Lai massacre happened — and not one of them reported it.

In both Vietnam and Iraq, deliberate policies and strategies have bordered on genocide. In Vietnam, the forced dispossession of millions of people and the creation of free fire zones; In Iraq, an American-enforced embargo that ran through the 1990s like a medieval siege, and killed, according to the United Nations Children’s fund, half a million children under the age of five. In both Vietnam and Iraq, banned weapons were used against civilians as deliberate experiments. Agent Orange changed the genetic and environmental order in Vietnam. The military called this Operation Hades. When Congress found out, it was renamed the friendlier Operation Ranch Hand, and nothing change. That’s pretty much how Congress has reacted to the war in Iraq. The Democrats have damned it, rebranded it, and extended it. The Hollywood movies that followed the Vietnam War were an extension of the journalism, of normalizing the unthinkable. Yes, some of the movies were critical of the military’s tactics, but all of them were careful to concentrate on the angst of the invaders. The first of these movies is now considered a classic. It’s The Deerhunter, whose message was that America had suffered, America was stricken, American boys had done their best against oriental barbarians. The message was all the more pernicious, because the Deerhunter was brilliantly made and acted. I have to admit it’s the only movie that has made me shout out loud in a Cinema in protest. Oliver Stone’s acclaimed movie Platoon was said to be antiwar, and it did show glimpses of the Vietnamese as human beings, but it also promoted above all the American invader as victim.

I wasn’t going to mention The Green Berets when I set down to write this, until I read the other day that John Wayne was the most influential movie who ever lived. I saw The Green Berets starring John Wayne on a Saturday night in 1968 in Montgomery Alabama. (I was down there to interview the then-infamous governor George Wallace). I had just come back from Vietnam, and I couldn’t believe how absurd this movie was. So I laughed out loud, and I laughed and laughed. And it wasn’t long before the atmosphere around me grew very cold. My companion, who had been a Freedom Rider in the South, said, “Let’s get the hell out of here and run like hell.”

We were chased all the way back to our hotel, but I doubt if any of our pursuers were aware that John Wayne, their hero, had lied so he wouldn’t have to fight in World War II. And yet the phony role model of Wayne sent thousands of Americans to their deaths in Vietnam, with the notable exceptions of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Last year, in his acceptance of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the playwright Harold Pinter made an epoch speech. He asked why, and I quote him, “The systematic brutality, the widespread atrocities, the ruthless suppression of independent thought in Stalinist Russia were well know in the West, while American state crimes were merely superficially recorded, left alone, documented.” And yet across the world the extinction and suffering of countless human beings could be attributed to rampant American power. “But,” said Pinter, “You wouldn’t know it. It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest.” Pinter’s words were more than the surreal. The BBC ignored the speech of Britain’s most famous dramatist.

I’ve made a number of documentaries about Cambodia. The first was Year Zero: The Silent Death of Cambodia. It describes the American bombing that provided the catalyst for the rise of Pol Pot. What Nixon and Kissinger had started, Pol Pot completed — CIA files alone leave no doubt of that. I offered Year Zero to PBS and took it to Washington. The PBS executives who saw it were shocked. They whispered among themselves. They asked me to wait outside. One of them finally emerged and said, “John, we admire your film. But we are disturbed that it says the United States prepared the way for Pol Pot.”

I said, “Do you dispute the evidence?” I had quoted a number of CIA documents. “Oh, no,” he replied. “But we’ve decided to call in a journalistic adjudicator.”

Now the term “journalist adjudicator” might have been invented by George Orwell. In fact they managed to find one of only three journalists who had been invited to Cambodia by Pol Pot. And of course he turned his thumbs down on the film, and I never heard from PBS again. Year Zero was broadcast in some 60 countries and became one of the most watched documentaries in the world. It was never shown in the United States. Of the five films I have made on Cambodia, one of them was shown by WNET, the PBS station in New York. I believe it was shown at about one in the morning. On the basis of this single showing, when most people are asleep, it was awarded an Emmy. What marvelous irony. It was worthy of a prize but not an audience.

Harold Pinter’s subversive truth, I believe, was that he made the connection between imperialism and fascism, and described a battle for history that’s almost never reported. This is the great silence of the media age. And this is the secret heart of propaganda today. A propaganda so vast in scope that I’m always astonished that so many Americans know and understand as much as they do. We are talking about a system, of course, not personalities. And yet, a great many people today think that the problem is George W. Bush and his gang. And yes, the Bush gang is extreme. But my experience is that they are no more than an extreme version of what has gone on before. In my lifetime, more wars have been started by liberal Democrats than by Republicans. Ignoring this truth is a guarantee that the propaganda system and the war-making system will continue. We’ve had a branch of the Democratic Party running Britain for the last 10 years. Blair, apparently a liberal, has taken Britain to war more times than any prime minister in the modern era. Yes, his current pal is George Bush, but his first love was Bill Clinton, the most violent president of the late 20th century. Blair’s successor, Gordon Brown is also a devotee of Clinton and Bush. The other day, Brown said, “The days of Britain having to apologize for the British Empire are over. We should celebrate.”

Like Blair, like Clinton, like Bush, Brown believes in the liberal truth that the battle for history has been won; that the millions who died in British-imposed famines in British imperial India will be forgotten — like the millions who have died in the American Empire will be forgotten. And like Blair, his successor is confident that professional journalism is on his side. For most journalists, whether they realize it or not, are groomed to be tribunes of an ideology that regards itself as non-ideological, that presents itself as the natural center, the very fulcrum of modern life. This may very well be the most powerful and dangerous ideology we have ever known because it is open-ended. This is liberalism. I’m not denying the virtues of liberalism — far from it. We are all beneficiaries of them. But if we deny its dangers, its open-ended project, and the all-consuming power of its propaganda, then we deny our right to true democracy, because liberalism and true democracy are not the same. Liberalism began as a preserve of the elite in the 19th century, and true democracy is never handed down by elites. It is always fought for and struggled for.

A senior member of the antiwar coalition, United For Peace and Justice, said recently, and I quote her, “The Democrats are using the politics of reality.” Her liberal historical reference point was Vietnam. She said that President Johnson began withdrawing troops from Vietnam after a Democratic Congress began to vote against the war. That’s not what happened. The troops were withdrawn from Vietnam after four long years. And during that time the United States killed more people in Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos with bombs than were killed in all the preceding years. And that’s what’s happening in Iraq. The bombing has doubled since last year, and this is not being reported. And who began this bombing? Bill Clinton began it. During the 1990s Clinton rained bombs on Iraq in what were euphemistically called the “no fly zones.” At the same time he imposed a medieval siege called economic sanctions, killing as I’ve mentioned, perhaps a million people, including a documented 500,000 children. Almost none of this carnage was reported in the so-called mainstream media. Last year a study published by the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health found that since the invasion of Iraq 655, 000 Iraqis had died as a direct result of the invasion. Official documents show that the Blair government knew this figure to be credible. In February, Les Roberts, the author of the report, said the figure was equal to the figure for deaths in the Fordham University study of the Rwandan genocide. The media response to Robert’s shocking revelation was silence. What may well be the greatest episode of organized killing for a generation, in Harold Pinter’s words, “Did not happen. It didn’t matter.”

Many people who regard themselves on the left supported Bush’s attack on Afghanistan. That the CIA had supported Osama Bin Laden was ignored, that the Clinton administration had secretly backed the Taliban, even giving them high-level briefings at the CIA, is virtually unknown in the United States. The Taliban were secret partners with the oil giant Unocal in building an oil pipeline across Afghanistan. And when a Clinton official was reminded that the Taliban persecuted women, he said, “We can live with that.” There is compelling evidence that Bush decided to attack the Taliban not as a result of 9-11, but two months earlier, in July of 2001. This is virtually unknown in the United States — publicly. Like the scale of civilian casualties in Afghanistan. To my knowledge only one mainstream reporter, Jonathan Steele of the Guardian in London, has investigated civilian casualties in Afghanistan, and his estimate is 20,000 dead civilians, and that was three years ago.

The enduring tragedy of Palestine is due in great part to the silence and compliance of the so-called liberal left. Hamas is described repeatedly as sworn to the destruction of Israel. The New York Times, the Associated Press, the Boston Globe — take your pick. They all use this line as a standard disclaimer, and it is false. That Hamas has called for a ten-year ceasefire is almost never reported. Even more important, that Hamas has undergone an historic ideological shift in the last few years, which amounts to a recognition of what it calls the reality of Israel, is virtually unknown; and that Israel is sworn to the destruction of Palestine is unspeakable.

There is a pioneering study by Glasgow University on the reporting of Palestine. They interviewed young people who watch TV news in Britain. More than 90 percent thought the illegal settlers were Palestinian. The more they watched, the less they knew — Danny Schecter’s famous phrase.

The current most dangerous silence is over nuclear weapons and the return of the Cold War. The Russians understand clearly that the so-called American defense shield in Eastern Europe is designed to subjugate and humiliate them. Yet the front pages here talk about Putin starting a new Cold War, and there is silence about the development of an entirely new American nuclear system called Reliable Weapons Replacement (RRW), which is designed to blur the distinction between conventional war and nuclear war — a long-held ambition.

In the meantime, Iran is being softened up, with the liberal media playing almost the same role it played before the Iraq invasion. And as for the Democrats, look at how Barak Obama has become the voice of the Council on Foreign Relations, one of the propaganda organs of the old liberal Washington establishment. Obama writes that while he wants the troops home, “We must not rule out military force against long-standing adversaries such as Iran and Syria.” Listen to this from the liberal Obama: “At moment of great peril in the past century our leaders ensured that America, by deed and by example, led and lifted the world, that we stood and fought for the freedom sought by billions of people beyond their borders.”

That is the nub of the propaganda, the brainwashing if you like, that seeps into the lives of every American, and many of us who are not Americans. From right to left, secular to God-fearing, what so few people know is that in the last half century, United States administrations have overthrown 50 governments — many of them democracies. In the process, thirty countries have been attacked and bombed, with the loss of countless lives. Bush bashing is all very well — and is justified — but the moment we begin to accept the siren call of the Democrat’s drivel about standing up and fighting for freedom sought by billions, the battle for history is lost, and we ourselves are silenced.

So what should we do? That question often asked in meetings I have addressed, even meetings as informed as those in this conference, is itself interesting. It’s my experience that people in the so-called third world rarely ask the question, because they know what to do. And some have paid with their freedom and their lives, but they knew what to do. It’s a question that many on the democratic left — small “d” — have yet to answer.

Real information, subversive information, remains the most potent power of all — and I believe that we must not fall into the trap of believing that the media speaks for the public. That wasn’t true in Stalinist Czechoslovakia and it isn’t true of the United States.

In all the years I’ve been a journalist, I’ve never know public consciousness to have risen as fast as it’s rising today. Yes, its direction and shape is unclear, partly because people are now deeply suspicious of political alternatives, and because the Democratic Party has succeeded in seducing and dividing the electoral left. And yet this growing critical public awareness is all the more remarkable when you consider the sheer scale of indoctrination, the mythology of a superior way of life, and the current manufactured state of fear.

Why did the New York Times come clean in that editorial last year? Not because it opposes Bush’s wars — look at the coverage of Iran. That editorial was a rare acknowledgement that the public was beginning to see the concealed role of the media, and that people were beginning to read between the lines.

If Iran is attacked, the reaction and the upheaval cannot be predicted. The national security and homeland security presidential directive gives Bush power over all facets of government in an emergency. It is not unlikely the constitution will be suspended — the laws to round of hundreds of thousands of so-called terrorists and enemy combatants are already on the books. I believe that these dangers are understood by the public, who have come along way since 9-11, and a long way since the propaganda that linked Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda. That’s why they voted for the Democrats last November, only to be betrayed. But they need truth, and journalists ought to be agents of truth, not the courtiers of power.

I believe a fifth estate is possible, the product of a people’s movement, that monitors, deconstructs, and counters the corporate media. In every university, in every media college, in every news room, teachers of journalism, journalists themselves need to ask themselves about the part they now play in the bloodshed in the name of a bogus objectivity. Such a movement within the media could herald a perestroika of a kind that we have never known. This is all possible. Silences can be broken. In Britain the National Union of Journalists has undergone a radical change, and has called for a boycott of Israel. The web site Medialens.org has single-handedly called the BBC to account. In the United States wonderfully free rebellious spirits populate the web — I can’t mention them all here — from Tom Feeley’s International Clearing House, to Mike Albert’s ZNet, to CounterPunch online, and the splendid work of FAIR. The best reporting of Iraq appears on the web — Dahr Jamail’s courageous journalism; and citizen reporters like Joe Wilding, who reported the siege of Fallujah from inside the city.

In Venezuela, Greg Wilpert’s investigations turned back much of the virulent propaganda now aimed at Hugo Chávez. Make no mistake, it’s the threat of freedom of speech for the majority in Venezuela that lies behind the campaign in the west on behalf of the corrupt RCTV. The challenge for the rest of us is to lift this subjugated knowledge from out of the underground and take it to ordinary people.

We need to make haste. Liberal Democracy is moving toward a form of corporate dictatorship. This is an historic shift, and the media must not be allowed to be its façade, but itself made into a popular, burning issue, and subjected to direct action. That great whistleblower Tom Paine warned that if the majority of the people were denied the truth and the ideas of truth, it was time to storm what he called the Bastille of words. That time is now.

John Pilger is an internationally renowned investigative journalist and documentary filmmaker. His latest film is The War on Democracy. His most recent book is Freedom Next Time (Bantam/Random House, 2006). Read other articles by John, or visit John's website.

Israel's Palestinian Prisoners

9,850 Palestinians remain in Israeli jails.

105 are women.

359 are children.

40 Palestinian Legislative Council members are also under arrest.

Marwan Barghouti, serving five life sentences, is one of the most prominent detainees. He is a member of Fatah's Revolutionary Council and is seen as a potential future Palestinian leader.

Sources: Palestinian Ministry for Prisoner Affairs (July 2006), B'Tselem (Oct 2006)

Palestinian women look down and wave to...

(MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images)

GAZA CITY-Palestinian women look down and wave to Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya (not seen) as they attend the weekly Friday prayers at a mosque in Gaza City, 20 July 2007.

Whilst yesterday Israel freed more than 250 Palestinian prisoners, who flashed victory signs to a West Bank heroes' welcome, in a move intended to bolster moderate president Mahmud Abbas.

Of the 250 Palestinians prisoner’s that where released yesterday, the 30 Hamas member’s that where released; a short time later were executed by the enemies of all Palestine.

(MOHAMMED ABED/AFP/Getty Images)

GAZA CITY-Palestinian prime minister Ismail Haniya attends the weekly Friday prayers at a mosque in Gaza City, 20 July 2007.

Stripped of Livelihood

(RAMZI HAIDAR/AFP/Getty Images)

Palestinian refugees from the besieged camp of Nahr al-Bared rest at the nearby Beddawi refugee camp, 20 July 2007.

They have been stripped of virtually all their belongings -- their houses, their livelihood, their precious jewelry, even their identity papers.

But the Palestinian refugees who fled the fighting at Nahr al-Bared camp in Northern Lebanon and who are now crammed into the nearby camp of Beddawi only yearn for one thing: to return to the smoldering ruins of their homes.

Bush Against Cruel and Inhuman Behavior

Leg irons and hand cuffs hang on a board at Camp Delta at Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Monday, Aug. 23, 2004, in Cuba.

Handcuffs attached to the floor that are used on detainees during interrogations in the maximum-security facility of Camp Five at the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base, Cuba, are shown in this June 30, 2004 file photo.

An interview room inside the long-term detention facility at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Wed., April 13, 2005. A shackle is attached to the floor. (AP Photo/Richard Ross).


A detainee in an outdoor solitary confinement cell talks with a military policeman at the Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of Baghdad, Iraq Tuesday, June 22, 2004.

Guantanamo Hunger Strikers Stay Defiant

The basic possessions of a detainee are displayed in a maximum security cell at Camp V Delta, part of the the long-term detention facility at U.S. Naval Station Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, Wed., April 13, 2005. The items include an orange uniform, sandals, a Quran, a toothbrush and prayer beads. (AP Photo/Richard Ross).

20 July 2007

By BEN FOX

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE-Twice a day at the U.S. military prison here, Abdul Rahman Shalabi and Zaid Salim Zuhair Ahmed are strapped down in padded restraint chairs and flexible yellow tubes are inserted through their noses and throats. Milky nutritional supplements, mixed with water and olive oil to add calories and ease constipation, pour into their stomachs.

Shalabi, 32, an accused al-Qaida militant who was among the first prisoners taken to Guantanamo, and Ahmed, about 34, have refused to eat for almost two years to protest their conditions and open-ended confinement. In recent months, the number of hunger strikers has grown to two dozen, and the military is using force-feeding to keep them from starving.

An Associated Press investigation reveals the most complete picture yet of a test of wills that's taking place out of public view and shows no sign of ending, despite international outrage.

The restraint chair was a practice borrowed from U.S. civilian prisons in January 2006. Prisoners are strapped down and monitored to prevent vomiting until the supplements are digested.

The British human rights group Reprieve labeled the process "intentionally brutal" and Shalabi, according to his lawyer's notes, said it is painful, "something you can't imagine. For two years, me and Ahmed have been treated like animals."

The government says force-feeding detainees in the restraint chair was not meant to break the hunger strikes, but it had that effect. A mass protest that began in August 2005 and reached a peak of 131 detainees dwindled at one point to just two — Shalabi and Ahmed. In recent months, though, the number has grown again.

The military won't identify strikers, citing privacy rules and a desire to keep detainees from becoming martyrs.

But the AP was able to identify Shalabi and Ahmed, both Saudi Arabians, through interviews with several detainee lawyers and detailed military charts, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, tracking the weights of each detainee.

Shalabi told his lawyer that other strikers include Sami al-Hajj, a Sudanese cameraman for Al-Jazeera, the Qatar-based Arabic-language TV station; Shaker Aamer, a Saudi who has acted as a camp leader; and Ghassan Abdullah al-Sharbi, a U.S.-educated Saudi engineer who told his captors he was proud to fight the U.S. and would consider it an honor to be given a life sentence.

"I don't quite see what they have gained from it," detention center commander Navy Rear Adm. Mark Buzby told the AP. "They are alive and healthy and we are going to keep them that way as long as they are here."

The military counted 24 men on hunger strike this week, including 23 receiving "enteral feeding" through tubes. It begins daily monitoring and considers force-feeding any detainee who misses nine consecutive meals. All are now at 100 percent of their ideal body weight because of the tube feedings, the military says.

"We never allow them to become seriously, medically compromised," said Navy Capt. Ronald Sollock, a doctor who commanded the detention center hospital from January 2006 until this month.

Guantanamo officials who deal directly with the strikers — and cannot be identified under military rules — cast doubt on their commitment. They say some were coerced by other detainees to stop eating and others eat McDonald's Happy Meals or Subway sandwiches provided by interrogators when they think other detainees won't find out.

And while detainees have complained of wounds from the repeated insertion and removal of the tubes, the military says it uses lubricants and local anesthetics to ease the pain.

Health experts unaffiliated with the military say there are no nutritional consequences from long-term tube feeding, that with proper care it can be done safely. Psychological and physical harm, however, are a real possibility.

Dr. Ronald Kleinman, chief of pediatric gastroenterology and nutrition at MassGeneral Hospital for Children, says there is a potential for "psychological consequences when this is done coercively," as well as "physical harm from repeatedly inserting a tube through the nose or leaving it in place inappropriately."

The previous Guantanamo commander, Navy Rear Adm. Harry Harris, underwent the process "just so he could say it was no big deal," Buzby said. He also says long-term strikers have complained at times when their feeding is delayed.

Prisoners have sporadically refused to eat at Guantanamo since shortly after they began arriving in January 2002. Detainees also show defiance by banging on their cell doors in concert for extended periods or hurling their bodily excretions at guards.

The mass hunger strike that began in August 2005, however, was something different. The prisoners compared themselves to the 10 Irish Republican Army hunger strikers who starved themselves to death in Britain's Maze prison in 1981 in hopes of winning status as political prisoners.

"Nobody should believe for one moment that my brothers here have less courage," Ethiopian detainee Binyam Mohammed warned in a statement released through his lawyer.

The Guantanamo hunger strikers were tube-fed, but many intentionally vomited the nutritional supplements and steadily lost weight.

By that December, at least 19 of 29 remaining strikers were significantly malnourished and at "great risk" of complications such as infection, permanent organ damage and injuries from weakened bones and muscles, according to an affidavit filed by a former hospital commander, Navy Capt. Stephen Hooker, in support of the military's response.

In early 2006, the military started using the restraint chairs, which strap down their arms and legs, to prevent detainees from resisting feeding efforts or making themselves vomit.

Among opponents were the International Committee of the Red Cross and Physicians for Human Rights. "We believe the will of the detainee must be respected," Red Cross spokesman Simon Schorno said.

The number of strikers has increased again recently, lawyers say, in protest of their increased isolation in Camp 6, the newest section of Guantanamo, where detainees spend most of the day alone in solid-wall cells. About 360 men are still being held at Guantanamo on suspicion of terrorism or links to al-Qaida or the Taliban.

The U.S. considers refusing to eat to be a disciplinary infraction and confiscates so-called comfort items such as mattresses and long underwear from their air-conditioned cells. Detainees must sleep on thin mats, can't get books or magazines other than the Quran and can have paper and pens to write letters for only an hour or so a day.

Shalabi and Ahmed have regained their weight since their captors began strapping them down. The records show Shalabi's weight dropped from 124 pounds to 106 pounds in January 2006, when the use of the restraint chair began. His lawyer says he now weighs about 155. Ahmed dropped from 149 pounds to 108 in December 2005 and was 143 pounds at the end of last year. His current weight is unknown.

The military doesn't allow detainee interviews, and Ahmed has no known lawyer. But Shalabi told New York attorney Julia Tarver Mason that after more than five years in detention without being charged, the strikers see their protest as a grueling but necessary struggle against indefinite confinement.

"I think he just feels hopeless that the law doesn't apply to him," Mason said.

A slight man with a short beard, Shalabi appeared in better health in June than when they previously met in October 2005, when he was "gaunt and emaciated," Mason said. But the strike has taken its toll. "He looks very old for someone his age. ... If I saw him anywhere else," the lawyer said, "I would think he's a man in his 50s."

The Bush administration maintains the detainees have no right to challenge their confinement in U.S. courts. They may, however, have some reason to feel less hopeless now: Reversing an earlier decision, the U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to review the question, and a decision is expected next year.

Bush Alters Rules for Interrogations?

President Bush waves from Marine One as he departs the South Lawn of the White House, Friday, July 20, 2007, in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

20 July 2007

By DEB RIECHMANN

WASHINGTON -President Bush signed an executive order Friday prohibiting cruel and inhuman treatment, including humiliation or denigration of religious beliefs, in the detention and interrogation of terrorism suspects.

The White House declined to say whether the CIA currently has a detention and interrogation program, but said if it did, it must adhere to the guidelines outlined in the executive order. The order targets captured al-Qaida terrorists who have information on attack plans or the whereabouts of the group's senior leaders.

"Last September, the president explained how the CIA's program had disrupted attacks and saved lives, and that it must continue on a sound legal footing," White House press secretary Tony Snow said. "The president has insisted on clear legal standards so that CIA officers involved in this essential work are not placed in jeopardy for doing their job — and keeping America safe from attacks."

The executive order was the result of legislation Bush signed in October that authorized military trials of terrorism suspects, eliminated some of the rights defendants are usually guaranteed under U.S. law, and authorized continued harsh interrogations of terror suspects.

The Supreme Court had ruled in June 2006 that trying detainees in military tribunals violated U.S. and international law, so Bush urged Congress to change the law. He also insisted that the law authorize CIA agents to use tough methods to interrogate suspected terrorists.

The legislation said the president can "interpret the meaning and application" of international standards for prisoner treatment, a provision intended to allow him to authorize aggressive interrogation methods that might otherwise be seen as illegal by international courts.

The United States has been criticized by European allies and others around the world over interrogation techniques such as "waterboarding," in which prisoners are strapped to a plank over water and are made to fear that they may be drowned. Critics also have complained that the CIA has run secret prisons on European soil and mistreated prisoners during clandestine flights in and out of Europe.

Bush has repeatedly said that the United States does not practice torture.

Not wanting to give up its terrorism playbook, the White House did not detail what types of interrogation procedures, such as waterboarding, would be allowed.

But it did offer parameters, saying any conditions of confinement and interrogation practices could not include:

_Torture or other acts of violence serious enough to be considered comparable to murder, torture, mutilation and cruel or inhuman treatment.

_Willful or outrageous acts of personal abuse done to humiliate or degrade someone in a way so serious that any reasonable person would "deem the acts to be beyond the bounds of human decency, such as sexual or sexually indecent acts undertaken for the purpose of humiliation, forcing the individual to perform sexual acts or to pose sexually, threatening the individual with sexual mutilation.

_Acts intended to denigrate the religion, religious practices, or religious objects of an individual.

The order also says that detainees must receive basic necessities, including adequate food and water, shelter from the elements, necessary clothing, protection from extreme heat and cold and essential medical care. It says whatever interrogation practices used must be determined safe on an individual basis.To ensure the professional operation and safety of the program, it directs the CIA director to issue written policies to govern the program, including guidelines for CIA personnel.

The executive order has been months in the making, with some in the CIA increasingly eager to get the rules of the road laid out. Asked if one of the agency's most extreme techniques — waterboarding — would be allowed, a senior intelligence official declined to provide any specifics. But, the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity about the order, said: "It would be wrong to assume the program of the past transfers to the future."

While the order did not provide many specifics, CIA Director Mike Hayden asked the Justice Department to prepare a legal opinion on techniques the agency can use, and the CIA has prepared guidance to its operatives in the field, according to the senior official.

The Consequences of Committing Sins

by Ibn Al-Qayyim Al-Jowziyyah

The great scholar Ibn Al-Qayyim Al-Jowziyyah wrote the following words in a famous tract called Al-Jawaab Al-Kaafi in response to a letter written to him by an individual who was seeking advice on how to rid himself of major sin. We take a look at the dire consequences of committing sins in general.

One: The Prevention of Knowledge
Knowledge is a light which Allah throws into the heart, and disobedience extinguishes this light. Imaam Shaafi’ee said: I complained to Wakee’ about the weakness of my memory so he ordered me to abandon disobedience and informed me that knowledge is light and that the light of Allah is not given to the disobedient.

Two: The Prevention of Sustenance

Just as Taqwaa brings about sustenance, the abandonment of Taqwaa causes poverty. There is nothing which can bring about sustenance like the abandonment of disobedience.

Three: The Prevention of Obedience (to Allah) If there was no other punishment for sin other than that it prevents one from obedience to Allah then this would be sufficient.

Four: Disobedience weakens the heart and the body.
Its weakening the heart is something which is clear. Disobedience does not stop weakening it until the life of the heart ceases completely.

Five: Disobedience reduces the life span and destroys any blessings. Just as righteousness increases the life span, sinning reduces it.

Six: Disobedience sows its own seeds and gives birth to itself until separating from it and coming out of it becomes difficult for the servant.

Seven: Sins weaken the hearts will and resolve so that the desire for disobedience becomes strong and the desire to repent becomes weak bit by bit until the desire to repent is removed from the heart completely.

Eight: Every type of disobedience is a legacy of a nation from among the nations which Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, destroyed. Sodomy is a legacy of the People of Lot. Taking more than one’s due right and giving what is less is a legacy of the People of Shu’ayb. Seeking greatness in the land and causing corruption is a legacy of the People of Pharoah. Pride/arrogance and tyranny is a legacy of the People of Hud. So the disobedient one is wearing the gown of some of these nations who were the enemies of Allah.

Nine: Disobedience is a cause of the servant being held in contempt by his Lord. Al-Hasan Al-Basree (radiallahu ‘anhu) said: They became contemptible in (His sight) so they disobeyed Him. If they were honorable (in His sight) He would have protected them. Allah the Exalted said: And whomsoever Allah lowers (humiliates) there is none to give honor. [Al-Hajj 22:18)

Ten: The ill-effects of the sinner fall upon those besides him and also the animals as a result of which they are touched by harm.

Eleven: The servant continues to commit sins until they become very easy for him and seem insignificant in his heart and this is a sign of destruction. Every time a sin becomes insignificant in the sight of the servant it becomes great in the sight of Allah. Ibn Mas’ood (radiallahu ‘anhu)said: Indeed, the believer sees his sins as if he was standing at the foot of a mountain fearing that it will fall upon him and the sinner sees his sins like a fly which passes by his nose so he tries to remove it by waving his hand around. [Al-Bukhaaree]

Twelve: Disobedience inherits humiliation and lowliness.
Honor, all of it, lies in the obedience of Allaah. Abdullaah ibn al-Mubaarak said: I have seen sins kill the hearts and humiliation is inherited by their continuity. The abandonment of sins gives life to the hearts and the prevention of your soul is better for it.

Thirteen: Disobedience corrupts the intellect.
The intellect has light and disobedience extinguishes this light. When the light of the intellect is extinguished it becomes weak and deficient.

Fourteen: When disobedience increases, the servant’s heart becomes sealed so that he becomes of those who are heedless. The Exalted said: But no! A stain has been left on their hearts on account of what they used to earn (i.e. their actions) [Al-Mutaffifeen 83:141]

Fifteen: Sins cause the various types of corruption to occur in the land. Corruption of the waters, the air, the plants, the fruits and the dwelling places. The Exalted said: Mischief has appeared on the land and the sea on account of what the hands of men have earned; that He may give them a taste of some of (the actions) they have done, in order that they may return. [Ar-Rum 30:41]

Sixteen: The disappearance of modesty, which is the essence of the life of the heart and is the basis of every good. Its disappearance is the disappearance of all that is good. It is authentic from the Messenger (sallallahu ‘alaihi wa sallam) that he said: Modesty is goodness, all of it. [Al-Bukhaari and Muslim]

A Poet said: And by Allah, there is no good in life or in the world when modesty goes.

Seventeen: Sins weaken and reduce the magnification of Allaah, the Mighty in the heart of the servant.

Eighteen: Sins are the cause of Allah forgetting His servant, abandoning him and leaving him to fend for himself with his soul and his shaytaan and in this is the destruction from which no deliverance can be hoped for.

Nineteen: Sins remove the servant from the realm of Ihsaan (doing good) and he is prevented from (obtaining) the reward of those who do good. When Ihsaan fills the heart it prevents it from disobedience.

Twenty: Disobedience causes the favors of Allah to cease and justify His retribution. No blessing ceases to reach a servant except due to a sin and no retribution is made desrving upon him except due to a sin. Ali (radiallahu ‘anhu) said: No trial has descended except due to a sin and it (the trial) is not repelled except by repentance.

Allaah the Exalted said: Whatever misfortune afflicts you then it is due to what your hands have earned and (yet) He pardons many. [Ash-Shura 42:30]

And the Exalted also said: That is because never will Allah change the favor He has bestowed on a people until they change what is within themselves. [Anfaal 8:53]

May Allah have mercy upon us and help us to abandon the sins that are the causes of our problems. Ameen.

[The bulk of this article was derived from Ibn Al-Qayyim’s Al-Jawaab Al-Kaafi English Translation by Abu ‘Iyaad and The Ill-Effects Of Sins by Muhammad Saalih ibn Al‘Uthaimeen]

Is Their a Problem?

Few of the Major Sins Occurring Today

Ruler Being Treacherous to his People:

The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) is reported to have said, which meaning can be translated as: “If Allah appoints anyone of His slaves as a ruler over a people and he dies when he is still treacherous to is people, Allah shall forbid him from entering Paradise.” [Al-Bukhari and Muslim]

Injustice or Oppression ( which is doing wrong to others by taking their properties, beating them or cursing them, etc):

The Messenger of Allah (PBUH) is reported to have said, which meaning can be translated as: “Be on your guard against committing oppression, for oppression will be darkness of the Day of Resurrection.” [Muslim]

Also according to the Messenger of Allah (PBUH), Allah has asserted in a /Divine Saying, which meaning can be translated as: O my slave, I have taken upon Myself to wrong no one and have made oppression unlawful for you. So do not oppress one another.” [Muslim]

Arrogance and Oppression:

Allah says in the Quran, which meaning can be translated as: the way (of blame) is only against those who oppress men and wrongly rebel in the earth without justification, for such there will be a painful torment.” [Ash-Shura 42:42]

Judging by Laws other than those Allah has Decreed:

“Whoever does not Judge (rule) by what Allah has revealed (then) such (people) are the Fasiqeen (the Rebellious.)” [Al-Maidah 5:47]

Betrayal (Treason):

Allah says in the Quran, “ O you who believe! Betray not Allah and His Messenger (PBUH), nor betray knowingly your Amanat (tings entrusted to you and all of the duties which Allah has ordained to you).” [Al-Anfal 8:27]

Also, Allah’s Messenger (PBUH) is reported to have said, “Whosoever has the following four (characteristics) will be a pure hypocrite. And whosoever has one of the following four characteristics of hypocrisy unless and until he gives it up: Whenever he is entrusted, he betrays (proves dishonest). Whenever he speaks, he tells a lie. Whenever he makes a covenant, he roves treacherous. And whenever he quarrels, he behaves in a very imprudent, evil and insulting manner.” [Al-Bukhari]

Annoying Muslims:

Allah says in the Quran, which meaning can be translated as: “And those who annoy believing men and women undeservedly they bear (on themselves) the crime of slander and plain sin.” [Al-Ahzab 33:58]

Where is the Ummah?

The sacred text of Islam, the Quran , uses term, ummah, to refer to the community of believers. The term is used to describe both individual communities, both great and small, of faithful Muslims and to refer to the world-wide community of believers.


To All Muslims in the World!

Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory

12 - 18 July 2007

Palestinian civilians arrested by Israeli Occupation Forces in Gaza Strip

Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) Continue Systematic Attacks on Palestinian Civilians and Property in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT)


IOF killed a Palestinian at Ennab checkpoint, east of Tulkarm.

4 Palestinians and an international human rights defender were wounded by IOF gunfire in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

IOF conducted 20 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and 2 incursions into the Gaza Strip.

IOF razed at least 118 donums[1] of agricultural land in the Gaza Strip.

IOF arrested 30 Palestinian civilians in the West Bank, and 3 others in the Gaza Strip.

IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT.

IOF have isolated the Gaza Strip from the outside world and a humanitarian crisis has emerged.

At least 6,000 Palestinians have been stuck at the Egyptian side of Rafah International Crossing Point, and the number of deaths among them has mounted to 16.

IOF positioned at various checkpoints in the West Bank arrested a Palestinian civilian.

IOF have continued settlement activities and Israeli settlers have continued to attack Palestinian civilians and property in the West Bank.

IOF demolished 5 houses in the West Bank, including 3 ones in Jerusalem.

Israeli settlers took over 30 donums of land in Hebron.


Summary