Whats up in the news lately

[skippy]

A collection of articles I found interesting,

Your views on each are more than welcome,


Laws would snare a Mandela: council
November 18, 2005

The draft anti-terrorism law is so broad it could even be used to jail members of the Australian Wheat Board accused of paying Saddam Hussein $290 million through a front company, a government committee has been told.

Members of the NSW Council for Civil Liberties told a Senate committee that by introducing the element of recklessness to a crime of sedition, members of many organisations would be exposed to prosecution for an offence not used for decades.

Witnesses said the laws were so wide they could be used to prosecute the ACTU secretary, Greg Combet, for his remarks urging opposition to the new industrial laws, and could be applied to those who had supported resistance movements including Fretilin and Nelson Mandela's African National Congress.

The council president, Cameron Murphy, said the law was "the most dangerous threat to our democratic system in our history". He predicted police investigations into normal crimes would "morph" into terrorism investigations because the new laws gave police such broad powers to search properties.

He agreed the AWB payments, ostensibly for the transport of wheat inside Iraq, could constitute the sort of reckless behaviour outlawed by the new sedition clauses.

The co-convener of the Australian Muslim Civil Rights Network, Dr Waleed Kadous, said that under the bill, supporting resistance groups such as Fretilin could be seen as advocating terrorism. He predicted the laws would discourage Muslims from co-operating with authorities.

But the head of ASIO, Paul O'Sullivan, supported the proposed new laws, telling senators, they were "directed at strengthening Australia's counter-terrorism capabilities".

Despite the recent arrests on terrorism charges in Sydney and Melbourne, the threat had still not abated, he said, and ASIO believed an act of terrorism was "feasible and could still occur".

The deputy commissioner of the Australian Federal Police, John Lawler, said police strongly supported the proposals on control orders, preventive detention, wider search powers and sedition.

But he said the laws would be used "judiciously and cautiously" to protect people. He made it clear that control orders, allowing for possible house arrests, would be used against suspects who had trained in terrorist camps overseas, in bomb making and assassination, not where there was insufficient evidence to charge them with an offence or where the evidence would reveal sources.

Mr Lawler said the federal police supported the proposed sedition laws because there were people who urged others to undertake terrorist activity. He noted the publicity earlier this year about the sale of publications inciting violence.

However, questioned by senators, Mr Lawler conceded the federal police had received no written advice from the Attorney-General explaining why the existing laws on incitement to violence were not sufficient to prosecute offenders without the need for sweeping new sedition laws.

The president of the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, John von Doussa, was particularly worried that the new bill had no provisions on how to detain suspects suffering from mental illness.

"If [such] a person is cut off from support mechanisms it could be disastrous," he said.

He feared the insistence on keeping detainees isolated could mean they would need to be kept in solitary confinement.

[skippy]

CIA Plea to cover up wrongful arrest

By Dana Priest in Washington


December 5, 2005

MAY 2004, the White House dispatched the US ambassador in Germany to pay an unusual visit to that country's interior minister.

Daniel Coats informed Otto Schily that the CIA had wrongfully imprisoned a German citizen, Khaled Masri, for five months and would soon release him. There was also a request: that the German Government not disclose what it had been told even if Mr Masri went public. The US feared exposure of a covert action program designed to capture terrorism suspects abroad and transfer them among countries, and possible legal challenges to the CIA from Mr Masri and others with similar allegations.

The Masri case offers a rare study of how pressure on the CIA to apprehend al-Qaeda members after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US has led in some instances to detention based on thin or speculative evidence.

The CIA, working with other intelligence agencies, has captured an estimated 3000 people, including several key leaders of al-Qaeda, in its campaign to dismantle terrorist networks.

It is impossible to know, however, how many mistakes the CIA and its foreign partners have made. Unlike the military's prison for terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba - where 180 prisoners have been freed after a review of their cases - there is no tribunal or judge to check the evidence against those picked up by the CIA.

The same bureaucracy that decides to capture and transfer a suspect for interrogation - a process called "rendition" - is also responsible for policing itself.

The CIA inspector-general is investigating a growing number of what the agency calls "erroneous renditions".

One intelligence official said about three dozen names fall in that category; others believe it is fewer. The list includes several people whose identities were offered by al-Qaeda figures during CIA interrogations. One turned out to be an innocent college professor who had given the al-Qaeda member a bad grade.

One way the CIA deals with prisoners it no longer wants is to transfer them to the custody of the US military at Guantanamo Bay, where military authorities decide whether to keep or release them.

Some CIA officials say the prison camp has become, as one former official put it, "a dumping ground" for CIA mistakes.

Among those released from Guantanamo is Mamdouh Habib, the Egyptian-born Australian apprehended by the CIA in Pakistan in October 2001, then sent to Egypt for interrogation. After six months, he was flown to Guantanamo, and was freed earlier this year without charge.

Mr Masri was held for five months largely because the head of the CIA's Counter-terrorist Centre's al-Qaeda unit "just had a hunch" he was someone else, one former CIA official said.

Mr Masri can find few words to explain his ordeal.

"I have very bad feelings" about the US, he said. "I think it's just like in the Arab countries: arresting people, treating them inhumanly and less than that, and with no rights and no laws."

The Washington Post

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Europe to be told to back off on CIA
December 5, 2005


The US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, will confront European concerns at reports of a secret CIA prison system in Eastern Europe during a five-day visit to the continent. She will make the case that intelligence co-operation between the US and Europe is essential to prevent future terrorist attacks.

After weeks of criticism in the European media over reports of clandestine prisoner transfers and secret detention centres, Bush Administration officials have concluded that they need to put European governments on notice that they should back off and begin to emphasise the benefits of intelligence co-operation.

"The key point will be: 'We're all in this together and you need to look at yourselves as much as us'," one US official said.

Reports emerged last month that the CIA had been hiding and interrogating important al-Qaeda suspects at a Soviet-era compound in Eastern Europe as part of a covert prison system.

The Washington Post,Agence France-Presse

[skippy]

Breeding mistrust in the tax system

Date: 12 December 2005

http://www.crikey.com.au/articles/20...1031-3497.html

The Robert Gerard tax dispute has raised questions about the administration of the Australian Tax Office. Former ATO auditor Chris Seage says the Public Accounts Committee inquiry, set to take place next year, is a chance to investigate just how level the tax playing field is.

When Bob Fitton was asked what gift he would like for his retirement after thirty five years working as a senior audit manager in the Australian Taxation Office, he requested a cuckoo clock, “Every hour it can remind me of when I worked for the Tax Commissioner.” He went on to say: “I would like to apologize to all of those salary and wage earners who I have had dealings with as I do not think the ATO treats you fairly and equitably compared with the big end of town, small taxpayers do not get the write down on penalties that large companies get.”

The comments created quite a stir and were widely reported. Here was a long serving ATO auditor admitting something we'd suspected but could never quite prove: that salary and wage earners were paying too much tax while the wealthy and powerful got away with paying as little as possible.
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Eighteen months on, has anything changed? The ATO compliance program for 2005-06, announced by Commissioner Michael Carmody has the usual ring to it. Priority again seemed to be directed towards individual taxpayers and small business.
Teachers and academics are again on the hit-list. The construction industry makes another appearance as well as the food preparation and processing industries. Newcomers were dance, drama and music instructors.

Mr Carmody wrote to nearly four hundred thousand individual taxpayers before they lodged their income tax returns this year to tell them about his concerns regarding the claiming of tax deductions. And eleven thousand audits are planned for this segment. The same old target areas are mentioned. Work related expenses, rental income and deductions and capital gains tax. Compare that activity to the softly softly approach in the large business and international segment where Mr Carmody will undertake 185 audits.

Fitton earned a reputation for himself in the 80s and 90s with raids on big accounting and legal firms (Greenwood Freehills and Allen Allen & Hemsley respectively) chasing international tax avoidance. The raids led to subsequent court action by the professional firms, which were won by the ATO. The legal cases sparked by his investigations helped establish broad powers for the tax office. Peter Haggstrom, former commonwealth tax ombudsman (1995 – 1998), now Vice President (technical) Deutsche Bank, says: “The tax world will be a much greyer place without him.”

But Fitton enthusiasm for controversial cases – such as his pursuit of the Griffith mafia (he sat in the royal commission taking notes about the drug profiting), the bottom of the harbour schemes era, brothel owners, SP bookmakers and international profit shifting of large corporates – might have also shortened his career. Fitton knew he was in trouble when he went for a promotion interview. He was told by one of the interview committee comprising senior executive audit personnel that: “You've rocked the boat with the accounting and legal professions and that has not held you in good stead.”

And just prior to the start of the annual desk audit season, one of his superiors told Fitton: “...forget about the big boys and concentrate on the bread and butter stuff that brings the money in. Just make sure that nurses have the receipts for their stockings and that salesmen have got their car diaries up to date.”

With the Gerard affair now upon us, Fitton's comments are sure to pour petrol on the fire of tax equity. “It had concerned me for a while,” Fitton said. “Every day we prosecute small taxpayers for not lodging tax returns and we penalise and prosecute small business people but in the last five years I had not seen any prosecutions of the big end of town. It's a gross injustice.”

Fitton said when dealing with the ATO, ordinary taxpayers might want to take the lead of top company executives he'd met on the job:
A. Lose everything, deny everything, admit nothing.

B. Blame your accountant.

C. If the top two don't work, ring the Tax Commissioner.
There has been a feeling among auditors at the coalface for a long time that big companies wield too much power and influence with the senior levels of the ATO hierarchy. Deals or "settlements" are done to reduce the amount of tax and penalties payable after the completion of an audit. The problem is, say the auditors, that the negotiation of the disputed figure is taken away from the local case manager and the audit team, as the company and their representatives take their case to Canberra.

That power and influence includes having nosy auditors removed from audits as was the case with Fitton in 2000 when, in a widely publicised spat, he was removed from the audit of Daihatsu Australia after KPMG partner Mr Stephen Breckenridge complained to the tax commissioner, Michael Carmody about Fitton's conduct. A subsequent internal investigation into Fitton's conduct run by an Assistant Commissioner in Canberra established that Breckenridge had had eight auditors removed from various audits he was involved in. That's only one tax advisor. One wonders why Mr Carmody did not expand his investigation to include other influential tax advisors in the tax industry.

At the time, the acting Secretary of the Community and Public Sector Union (tax division), Mr Michael Tull, said the practice of removing officers from investigations after complaints from tax specialists and their corporate clients was becoming more common. “As soon as a big taxpayer complains, particularly a big corporate client, the ATO seems to take a case of guilty until proven innocent,” he said. “The whole question has been a substantial issue during Michael Carmody's rein.”

Leading Sydney tax lawyer Robert Richards says: "'Deals' is a bad word. Settlements is more accurate. What happens is that the ATO will make settlements if it thinks it is far from certain it will win a case. The more complex the matter the more likely this will be the case. Less wealthy taxpayers affairs will by definition not be complicated and as a consequence the less likely it is that there will be settlement opportunities."

"The system of deals does not work like that except that I think as matter of strategy the ATO sometimes comes in with a high figure to encourage taxpayers to do settlements. I have seen instances where the ATO has exaggerated tax payable by ten fold clearly as a tactic of starting from a high point which will enable it to negotiate down to what the ATO thinks is the correct point. They are the 'deals' you might hear about but they are artificial in the first place.”

Fitton disagrees. “Whinge and win,” he says. “I've seen too many cases reduced just because the company has access to senior people so they can whinge. And they were not reduced because of any technical point of law. We're not talking small change here. The reductions I'm talking about could build more hospitals and schools."

"...the secrecy provisions of the tax act are hiding gross deficiencies in the administration of tax law in this country. At the moment the ATO is not accountable to Parliament for settling these large corporate cases because the government cannot ask the ATO questions because of the secrecy provisions and the potential for corruption is huge. We need to have someone like the Auditor General or a bipartisan parliamentary committee to review these settlements because the country is losing potentially billions of dollars.”

Fitton also says that the message coming out of the Commissioner's office about the big stick being applied to Corporate Australia is misleading. “Michael Carmody comes out with figures that suggest he is screwing his fair share out of Corporate Australia and it all sounds very impressive but what he doesn't tell you, me and the Parliament is how much he is giving away in 'settlements.'"

Perhaps the last word should go to Haggstrom, who is in a unique position to assist the public and Parliament's understanding of the issues by revealing what went on in his position as the Howard government appointed taxation ombudsman. “The big problem with giving a balanced view of tax administration to the parliament and the public is the secrecy provisions of the tax act."

"One area I particularly wanted to look at closely was settlements and we got a complaint that actually demonstrated the flaws of the system. To say that the ATO was unenthusiastic about having its settlement processes picked over is an understatement. It had external Senior Counsel riding 'shotgun' on the investigation,” says Haggstrom.

Haggstrom tried to make the settlement process more accountable but it fell on deaf ears. “My suggestion that videotaping of settlements be mandatory (at least for amounts over a certain level) was not greeted warmly by the ATO or the tax industry. “

“Fundamentally I don't think our politicians really want to know what goes on – it is a bit like not wanting to know what the chef did to the liver in the kitchen before it was served up to you.”

Associate Professor Cynthia Coleman from Sydney University is one of Australia's leading academics in taxation law and research. Her research has indicated that small business taxpayers justify not declaring their cash and overstating their tax deductions by saying that big business don't pay their fair share. “The most discouraging feature of recent research is that the biggest area of mistrust in the Australian community is between taxpayers themselves and whether other taxpayers are paying their fair share of tax," Coleman says. "While that perception may overstate the actual level of vertical inequity, it nevertheless breeds mistrust of the tax system.”

Of course, it's impossible for the ATO to check everyone's return. The ATO corporate plan relies on what they call voluntary compliance with the tax laws where they hope the vast majority of taxpayers will be honest and file correct tax returns. Voluntary compliance is one of the pillars that support our tax system. It has the potential to fall down like a pack of cards if one or more segments of the market believe another is being treated differently or favourably.

[MrShadow]

The last one with the ATO sounds about right. I know a few tax accounatnts and some of the **** the ATO pulls out of it's arse is just plain F@#ken stupid and borders on discrimination sometimes. They don't care about big business, just the small guy who can't afford the costs invovled in fighting them in court.

[skippy]

If the law doesn't suit, just ignore it

Opinion section with some awesome quotes.

http://smh.com.au/news/opinion/if-th...956295386.html


If the law doesn't suit, just ignore it
January 13, 2006

The way George Bush sees the proper functioning of the US justice system bears a striking similarity to the way the Iraqi justice system functioned under Saddam Hussein. In other words, whatever the President declares to be law, is the law. In that sense the US and the former regime in Iraq enjoyed an unexpected synchronicity.

The latest presidential "edict" is that aliens held at Guantanamo Bay have no right to have their habeas corpus cases heard in the US civil courts. To that end the US Department of Justice has moved to close the courts to about 300 detainees at the navy base in Cuba, including David Hicks.

The habeas cases essentially sought to have the US courts determine whether prisoners at Guantanamo are being legally detained and whether the military commission process set up by Bush is legal.

To get the full flavour of this potentially far-reaching and under-reported development we have to go back a notch.

At his Crawford ranch over New Year Bush signed a supplementary defence appropriations bill that incorporated congressional amendments outlawing the use of torture (the McCain amendment) and limiting access to the courts by the Guantanamo prisoners (the Graham-Levin amendment). Importantly, the White House issued what is known as a "signing statement" with this legislation. In fact it issued two signing statements.

These flourishes are designed to provide a view to the world of the executive branch's interpretation of the law. They have no legal authority of themselves, but they may prove persuasive in the courts. This is what Bush said when signing, on December 30, the defence authorisation bill: "I also appreciate the legislation's elimination of the hundreds of claims brought by terrorists at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, that challenge many different aspects of their detention and that are now pending in our courts."

This incredible statement can be found on the White House website. Even John Howard and Philip Ruddock might be expected to insert the word "alleged" in a sentence referring to, among others, David Hicks.

The Justice Department needed no further encouragement and notified the courts it will seek to have all the Guantanamo appeals dismissed. Within 24 hours of that notice at least one judge, Reggie Walton, had given a petitioner until yesterday to show cause why his action shouldn't be dismissed for lack of jurisdiction.

Things are moving very fast, with important implications for Hicks's action (known as Rasul v Bush), first in line for determination by the District Court in Washington. The Australian Government has been silent on all of this - not entirely surprising since its position on due process in relation to "terrorists", even alleged ones, is equivocal.

Senator Carl Levin, a Democrat, who was the co-sponsor of the detainee appeal amendment, is leaping about saying that the legislation is meant to apply to prospective appeals, not to those already lodged by detainees.

The Administration simply is ignoring his protest, just as it is ignoring Senator John McCain's amendment which forbids torture of detainees. The President's signing statement in relation to that provision said he reserved the right to ignore the law under his powers as commander-in-chief.

Similarly he ignored the judicial warrant provisions of the wire-tap legislation, claiming the Government had the right to drop into any telephone conservation or email it wanted to.

The situation reached a perfect farce in 2003 when Congress tried to restrict Bush's extra-legislative manipulations by passing a Justice Department spending bill requiring the department to tell the legislators when the executive decided to ignore a piece of legislation on constitutional grounds. The bill was signed by Bush, who promptly issued a statement asserting a right to ignore the notification requirement.

Another of the Administration's most creative sleights of hand was to invent the category, unknown to international law, of "enemy combatant", claiming that this class of person fell outside the Geneva protections.

Now it wants to strip the courts of the power to hear appeals from imprisoned petitioners at Guantanamo Bay and is seeking to suspend habeas corpus, which together amount to a violent assault on the ancient bedrock of democracy.

Little wonder, given the reports in the US press recently that Bush had blurted out at a heated White House meeting that the constitution was "just a goddamned piece of paper".

The Bush regime's position is that the President should have the power to arrest and indefinitely hold prisoner anyone, anywhere in the world, without charge and without judicial review. The view from Washington is that checks and balances are for girly-boys. Saddam would approve.

justinian@lawpress.com.au

[MrShadow]

In my opinion, the most dangerous man in the world isn't Saddam or Osama. It's Dubya. He's turning the US into what Iraq qas a few years back. Democracy my rosy red ass.

[skippy]

By ALI AKBAR DAREINI, Associated Press Writer
Sun Jan 22, 10:55 PM ET



TEHRAN, Iran - The Iraqi cleric who once led two uprisings against U.S. forces said Sunday that his militia would help to defend Iran if it is attacked, the official Islamic Republic News Agency reported.

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Muqtada al-Sadr, speaking on the sidelines of a meeting with the top Iranian nuclear negotiator, said his Mahdi Army was formed to defend Islam.

"If neighboring Islamic countries, including Iran, become the target of attacks, we will support them," al-Sadr was quoted as saying. "The Mahdi Army is beyond the Iraqi army. It was established to defend Islam."

The comments could be seen as a message that Tehran has allies who could make things difficult for U.S. forces in the region if Iran's nuclear facilities are attacked.

Al-Sadr has a large following among Iraq's young and impoverished Shiites. His militia launched two uprisings against U.S. troops in Iraq in 2004, but since the fighting ended he has transformed himself into a respected political figure. Al-Sadr's followers now hold 21 seats in the outgoing parliament as well as three Cabinet posts.

Al-Sadr's backing of Iran, a Shiite majority nation, follows a hint from Israel's defense minister that the Jewish state was preparing for military action to stop Iran's nuclear program. A few days earlier, French President Jacques Chirac said France could respond with nuclear weapons against any state-sponsored terror attack. The comments were seen by some as a reference to Iran.

"I don't see any threat against Iran," Iran's nuclear negotiator, Ali Larijani, said after meeting with al-Sadr. "Iran is big and strong and it is a hard target."

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman said earlier Sunday that Israel would be making a "fatal mistake" should it resort to military action. Iran has warned that Israel was living in a "glass house" and was well within Iran's missile range.

An upgraded version of Iran's Shahab-3 missile has a range of over 1,240 miles, putting Israel and U.S. forces in the Middle East in range.

Iran's resumption of its atomic research program earlier this month caused an international standoff over its nuclear ambitions.

Some Western nations fear Iran is using its civilian nuclear program as a cover to develop an atomic bomb. Iran insists it wants only peaceful nuclear energy.

[skippy]

We knew nothing of bribes: Howard

January 30, 2006 - 10:00AM
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...469633022.html


The government worked closely with Australia's wheat exporter but knew nothing of bribes paid to former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, Prime Minister John Howard said.
Furious at Labor claims that letters released to an inquiry implicate the government in the bribery scandal, Mr Howard said it was his job to promote wheat sales in the lucrative Iraqi market.
"We were in no way involved with the payment of bribes. We didn't condone them, we didn't have knowledge of them, but we did work closely with AWB," he told ABC Radio today.
"I make no bones about that. I had no reason to believe that AWB Ltd wasn't just going all out to preserve Australia's wheat sales to Iraq.
"That's what we wanted them to do, that's what Mr Rudd wanted them to do and that what every wheat grower in Australia wanted them to do."
A letter from Mr Howard to AWB chief executive Andrew Lindberg was released, along with scores of other documents, by the Cole inquiry into the UN oil-for-food scandal yesterday.
In the letter dated July 27, 2002, after Iraq threatened to cut wheat imports from Australia, Mr Howard told Mr Lindberg: "In view of the importance of the matter, I suggest the government and AWB Ltd remain in close contact in order that we can jointly attempt to achieve a satisfactory outcome in the longer term."
Shortly afterwards, Mr Lindberg and other AWB staff, along with Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) officials, visited Iraq.
The inquiry has been told that during that visit, Mr Lindberg agreed to pay $US2 million ($A2.7 million) to the Iraqis that was to be disguised in an inflated wheat contract.
And in November 2000, Mr Vaile wrote to then AWB chairman Trevor Flugge urging him to "maintain a close dialogue" with his office and with DFAT officials.
Mr Howard said he had met with AWB after Mr Lindberg's return.
"When they came back from Iraq there was a meeting between the leaders of AWB and the foreign minister," he said.
"I called in on that meeting and we just had a very brief discussion and there had been an issue regarding the wheat, which had been resolved.
"We were pleased about that, Mr Rudd was jubilant, he said that AWB Ltd had achieved its (favourable) outcome."
Asked if he knew how the AWB achieved its outcome, Mr Howard said: "No they didn't go in to any detail; we had no suspicion, no suggestion there had been any bribes paid."
The Cole inquiry is looking into the payment by AWB of almost $300 million in kickbacks to Saddam's regime, at a time strict UN sanctions were in place, to secure $2.3 billion in wheat contracts. The contracts were paid under the humanitarian oil-for-food program.

Mr Howard said in 2002 the government was facing pressure to preserve Australian wheat sales to Iraq while maintaining opposition to Saddam's regime.

"And by writing to AWB Ltd, that's exactly what I was doing and I don't find this letter embarrassing I don't think it proves what Mr Rudd rather breathlessly said," he said.

"It would have been astonishing in 2002 if, as prime minister, I hadn't done everything I possibly could to preserve Australia's very valuable wheat market."

Opposition foreign affairs spokesman Kevin Rudd today said the letters tied the government more closely to the process of deceiving the United Nations and funnelling money to the Iraqi dictator.

Mr Rudd said the Howard government tried to construct a firewall around itself by blaming the UN for the corrupt oil-for-food program and denying any responsibility for AWB's actions.

"These letters demonstrate at the highest levels of the Howard government is that there was a pattern of systematic briefing, contact and engagement with ministers, their advisers and officials throughout this period," he said.

"Yet the Howard government wants to somehow cause us all to believe that only the AWB and not themselves should be under the scrutiny of an inquiry."

The inquiry has already been given evidence showing the government, through DFAT and its mission to the United Nations in New York, was warned AWB was engaged in behaviour that went against UN sanctions.

Later, Mr Howard told the John Laws radio program he would be failing the country if he did not help AWB keep its contracts to Iraq.

"I would have been failing in my job as prime minister if I hadn't done everything I could to maintain and protect the wheat market because it was one of our best," he said.

Mr Howard said he had no idea the company was acting in any corrupt manner.

"They're alleged to be illegal. But we have no knowledge of any corrupt behaviour," he said.

"Now the question of whether AWB behaved corruptly is something for the commission to decide upon and I'm not going to prejudge that."

Mr Howard said he and the government was not naive for believing AWB and its actions with the Saddam regime.

"I don't believe I was naive because there was no evidence as distinct from anything else that was put to the government to suggest that anything corrupt was occurring," he said.

"The experience I'd had with people involved with AWB was quite a positive one. They did not strike me as people who would be engaged in improper conduct."

Earlier evidence at the Cole inquiry showed the government, through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and its mission to the UN in New York, had been warned that AWB was engaged in activities that flouted UN sanctions.

The commission has to report by the end of March.
AAP

[skippy]

Howard letter draws PM into wheat scandal
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...469608032.html

By Marian Wilkinson, National Security Editor
January 30, 2006

John Howard wrote to the head of Australia's wheat exporter asking him to work closely with government officials on Iraq shortly before the executive went to Baghdad to negotiate an illicit payment to Saddam Hussein's regime, new evidence from the Cole inquiry shows.
The letter from the Prime Minister to AWB's Andrew Lindberg was released by the inquiry into the UN oil-for-food scandal yesterday, which is investigating $300 million in AWB kickbacks to the Iraqi regime. It also released scores of documents showing government officials were far more deeply involved in the exporter's deals with the regime than previously recognised.
Letters from Mr Howard and the Trade Minister, Mark Vaile, to AWB executives, as well as confidential AWB documents, will draw the Government into the widening scandal at the most senior levels.
In the Prime Minister's letter to Mr Lindberg on July 27, 2002 - after Iraq threatened to cut imports of wheat from Australia - Mr Howard told him: "In view of the importance of the matter, I suggest the government and AWB Limited remain in close contact in order that we can jointly attempt to achieve a satisfactory outcome in the longer term."
Soon after, a delegation from AWB led by Mr Lindberg went to Iraq accompanied by officials from the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. During that visit, according to evidence before the inquiry, Mr Lindberg agreed to pay $US2 million to the Iraqis that was to be disguised in an inflated wheat contract.
Labor's foreign affairs spokesman, Kevin Rudd, said the documents, including the Howard letter, "provide dramatic new evidence of the close, intimate and systematic contact between the AWB and the Howard Government at the highest level during the life of the $300 million scandal".
A spokesman for the Prime Minister, Tony O'Leary, rejected Mr Rudd's claim, saying "at no stage has the Federal Government condoned in any way illegal payments to the former Iraqi government. The letter the PM wrote in no way supports Mr Rudd's absurd allegations."
Mr Rudd called on Mr Howard to widen the terms of the inquiry to allow it to investigate the Government's role in the scandal.
The inquiry, headed by Terence Cole, QC, was established after a UN investigation found that AWB had paid almost $300 million in kickbacks to Saddam's regime to secure $2.3 billion in wheat contracts. The contracts were paid under the oil-for-food progam that allowed humanitarian trade with Iraq while UN sanctions were in place on the regime.


The new documents show Mr Vaile told the then AWB chairman, Trevor Flugge, in 2000 that he had asked officials from the department "to maintain a close dialogue with their AWB Ltd interlocutors" on negotiations with Iraq and "to keep me appraised of developments".
The letter was written at the time AWB hugely increased its kickbacks to the Iraqi regime from $12 per tonne of wheat to $44.50.
Other documents show that both AWB and the department were under intense pressure in the months before the war because Iraq had not only threatened to dump the wheat contracts but also to renege on its $500 million debt to Australia for past exports. The threats were in direct retaliation for the Government's pro-US actions against Iraq in the lead-up to the war.
One email from AWB's senior manager, Michael Long, recommended AWB's Middle East desk work out "the most appropriate strategy for liaising" with Australia over the threat to the wheat debt. Mr Long noted that if the threat leaked, "it would have a serious negative impact on the Australian Government, particularly with farm incomes under considerable pressure". Shortly afterwards, an AWB team went again to Iraq to discuss the $US2 million illicit payment.

[skippy]

Quote
In the Prime Minister's letter to Mr Lindberg on July 27, 2002 - after Iraq threatened to cut imports of wheat from Australia - Mr Howard told him: "In view of the importance of the matter, I suggest the government and AWB Limited remain in close contact in order that we can jointly attempt to achieve a satisfactory outcome in the longer term."
End Quote

So when they came back succesful for no apparent reason all was seen to be good and no cause for concern to governement.

Either the government knew and helped things progress
or
at the very least turned a blind eye to what looks like something very shady taking place between a HUGE Australian company/co-op and a war mongering human rights abusing dictator we are thinking of waging war against.

So was our PM lying when he said
“In view of the importance of the matter, I suggest the government and AWB Limited remain in close contact in order that we can jointly attempt to achieve a satisfactory outcome in the longer term."
Or was he a party to the whole sordid affair,

Either he did not really care or was he a party to it,

A new low even for little John,

[skippy]

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/isr...836369455.html


Israel denies torturing Palestinians, but pays alleged victims $710,000

By Ed O'Loughlin
Herald Correspondent in Jerusalem
February 3, 2006


THE Israeli Government has admitted paying 2.5 million shekels ($710,000) to 28 Palestinians who say they were tortured by Israeli police and intelligence agents during the earlier Palestinian uprising.

Israeli officials said the out-of-court settlement did not mean that Israel was admitting to the abuses and was intended only to save the state the cost of a trial.

Local media reports that one plaintiff, Benan Oudeh, now 31, had to have his testicles amputated following his 1989 arrest and torture on suspicion of having thrown stones at Israeli troops occupying his West Bank home town of Qalqilya.

During the 1990s, Israeli courts sanctioned the use of torture, described as "moderate physical pressure", to extract information from Palestinians whom police or security agents said they believed would have knowledge of forthcoming terrorist attacks.

The courts have since rescinded this permission, but Palestinians and human rights groups say the practices continue.

All the plaintiffs in the case - many of them teenagers during the first intifada of the late 1980s and early 1990s - said they were subjected to physical abuse such as sleep deprivation, shaking, blindfolding and being tied up and suspended in agonising positions for long periods.

Several also said they were severely beaten or chilled, deprived of food, water, medical treatment or access to bathrooms, and threatened with extreme violence.

Lawyers for the men said they confessed under torture to offences such as stone-throwing and membership of the banned Islamic movement Hamas, but later retracted their statements on the basis that they were coerced.

Several of the plaintiffs suffered permanent physical or psychological debility as a result of the crimes, their lawyers said.

No Israeli police, army or intelligence officials have been charged in relation to the alleged abuses.

Right-wing Israelis and sections of the media are calling for an inquiry into alleged excessive use of force by police and troops called upon to demolish several buildings in an illegal Jewish settlement in the West Bank.

Police used clubs and water-cannon against hundreds of Jewish fundamentalists trying to block the execution of a high court order.

"They are relating to human beings here like they wouldn't relate to Arabs," complained far-right MP Aryeh Eldad.

More than 200 police and demonstrators, including three MPs, were injured in the clashes.

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Myth and Denial in the War Against Terrorism:
Just why do terrorists terrorize?

The notion that terrorist acts against the United States can be explained by envy and irrational hatred, and not by what the United States does to the world -- i.e., US foreign policy -- has been written on the face of the Bush administration ever since the attacks of September 11, 2001.
The fires were still burning at Ground Zero in New York when Secretary of State Colin Powell declared: "Once again, we see terrorism, we see terrorists, people who don't believe in democracy."{1}
President Bush picked up on that theme and ran with it. He's been its leading proponent with his repeated insistence, in one wording or another, that terrorists are people who hate America and all that it stands for, its democracy, its freedom, its wealth, its secular government. (Ironically, the president and his first Attorney General, John Ashcroft, probably hate America's secular government as much as anyone.)
Here is the president more than a year after September 11: "The threats we face are global terrorist attacks. That's the threat. And the more you love freedom, the more likely it is you'll be attacked."{2}
The American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a conservative watchdog group founded by Lynne Cheney, wife of the vice-president, announced in November 2001 the formation of the Defense of Civilization Fund, declaring that "It was not only America that was attacked on September 11, but civilization. We were attacked not for our vices, but for our virtues."{3}
In September 2002, the White House released the "National Security Strategy", purported to be chiefly the handiwork of Condoleezza Rice, which speaks of the "rogue states" which "sponsor terrorism around the globe; and reject basic human values and hate the United States and everything for which it stands."
In July of the following year, we could hear the spokesman for Homeland Security, Brian Roehrkasse, declare: "Terrorists hate our freedoms. They want to change our ways."{4}
And in his January 2005 inauguration address, the president spoke of the threat to the United States: "We have seen our vulnerability -- and we have seen its deepest source. For as long as whole regions of the world simmer in resentment and tyranny, prone to ideologies that feed hatred and excuse murder, violence will gather." Not a single word in his talk about anything the United States has ever done to contribute to this resentment and hatred. It's just there in the anti-American terrorists, perhaps in their genes.
To all of this, Thomas Friedman the renowned foreign policy analyst of the New York Times would say amen. Terrorists, he wrote in 1998 after two US embassies in Africa had been attacked, "have no specific ideological program or demands. Rather, they are driven by a generalized hatred of the US, Israel and other supposed enemies of Islam."{5}
This idée fixe -- that the rise of anti-American terrorism owes nothing to American policies -- in effect postulates an America that is always the aggrieved innocent in a treacherous world, a benign United States government peacefully going about its business but being "provoked" into taking extreme measures to defend its people, its freedom and its democracy. It follows from this idea that there's no good reason to modify US foreign policy, no choice but to battle to the death this irrational international force out there that hates the United States with an abiding passion.
Thus it was that Afghanistan and Iraq were bombed and invaded with seemingly little concern in Washington that this could well create many new anti-American terrorists. And indeed, following the first strike on Afghanistan in October 2001 there were literally scores of terrorist attacks against American institutions in the Middle East, South Asia and the Pacific, more than a dozen in Pakistan alone: military, civilian, Christian, and other targets associated with the United States, including the October 2002 bombings in Bali, Indonesia, which destroyed two nightclubs and killed more than 200 people, almost all of them Americans and their Australian and British allies. The following year brought the heavy bombing of the US-managed Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia, the site of diplomatic receptions and 4th of July celebrations held by the American Embassy; all this in addition to the thousands of attacks in Iraq against US occupation.
Even when a terrorist attack is not aimed directly at Americans, the reason the target has been chosen can be because the country it takes place in has been cooperating with the United States in its so-called "War on Terrorism". Witness the horrendous attacks of recent years in Madrid, Turkey and Saudi Arabia.
A US State Department report on worldwide terrorist attacks -- "Patterns of Global Terrorism" -- showed that the year 2003 had more "significant terrorist incidents" than at any time since the department began issuing statistics in 1985, even though the figures did not include attacks on US troops by insurgents in Iraq, which the Bush administration explicitly labels as "terrorist".{6} When the 2004 report showed an even higher number of incidents, the State Department announced that it was going to stop publishing the annual statistics.{7}

Terrorists in their own words
The word "terrorism" has been so overused in recent years that it's now commonly used simply to stigmatize any individual or group one doesn't like, for almost any kind of behavior involving force. But the word's raison d'être has traditionally been to convey a political meaning, something along the lines of: the deliberate use of violence against civilians and property to intimidate or coerce a government or the population in furtherance of a political objective.
Terrorism is fundamentally propaganda, a very bloody form of making the world hear one's jeremiad.
It follows that if the perpetrators of a terrorist act declare what their objective was, their statement should carry credibility, no matter what one thinks of the objective or the method used to achieve it. Let us look at some of their actual declarations.
The terrorists responsible for the bombing of the World Trade Center in 1993 sent a letter to the New York Times which stated, in part: "We declare our responsibility for the explosion on the mentioned building. This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel the state of terrorism and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region."{8}
Richard Reid, who tried to ignite a bomb in his shoe while aboard an American Airline flight to Miami in December 2001, told police that his planned suicide attack was an attempt to strike a blow against the US campaign in Afghanistan and the Western economy. In an e-mail sent to his mother, which he intended her to read after his death, Reid wrote that it was his duty "to help remove the oppressive American forces from the Muslims land."{9}
After the bombings in Bali, one of the leading suspects, who was later convicted, told police that the bombings were "revenge" for "what Americans have done to Muslims." He said that he wanted to "kill as many Americans as possible" because "America oppresses the Muslims".{10}
In November 2002, a taped message from Osama bin Laden began: "The road to safety begins by ending the aggression. Reciprocal treatment is part of justice. The [terrorist] incidents that have taken place ... are only reactions and reciprocal actions."{11}
That same month, when Mir Aimal Kasi (or Kansi), who killed several people outside of CIA headquarters in 1993, was on death row, he declared: "What I did was a retaliation against the US government" for American policy in the Middle East and its support of Israel.{12}
In June 2004, Islamic militants in Saudi Arabia beheaded an employee of the leading US defense contractor, Lockheed Martin, maker of the Apache helicopter, on which the victim, Paul Johnson, Jr. had long worked. His kidnappers said he was singled out for that reason. "The infidel got his fair treatment. ... Let him taste something of what Muslims have long tasted from Apache helicopter fire and missiles."{13}
Finally, we have another audio message from Osama bin Laden, in April 2004, containing the following excerpts:

The greatest rule of safety is justice, and stopping injustice and aggression. ... What happened on 11 September and 11 March [the Madrid train bombings] is your commodity that was returned to you. ... we would like to inform you that labelling us and our acts as terrorism is also a description of you and of your acts. ... Our acts are reaction to your own acts, which are represented by the destruction and killing of our kinfolk in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine. ... Which religion considers your killed ones innocent and our killed ones worthless? And which principle considers your blood real blood and our blood water? Reciprocal treatment is fair and the one who starts injustice bears greater blame. ... The killing of the Russians was after their invasion of Afghanistan and Chechnya; the killing of Europeans was after their invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan; and the killing of Americans on the day of New York was after their support of the Jews in Palestine and their invasion of the Arabian Peninsula.{14}

Difficulty of maintaining the simplistic idée fixe
It should be noted that when Mir Aimal Kasi was executed, the State Department warned that this could result in attacks against Americans around the world.{15} It did not warn that the attacks would result from foreigners hating or envying American democracy, freedom, wealth, or secular government.
In the days following the start of the American bombing of Afghanistan there were numerous warnings from US government officials about being prepared for retaliatory acts, and during the war in Iraq, the State Department announced: "Tensions remaining from the recent events in Iraq may increase the potential threat to US citizens and interests abroad, including by terrorist groups."{16}
Similarly, in June 2002, after a car bomb exploded outside the US Consulate in Karachi, killing or injuring more than 60 people, the Washington Post reported that "US officials said the attack was likely the work of extremists angry at both the United States and Pakistan's president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, for siding with the United States after September 11 and abandoning support for Afghanistan's ruling Taliban."{17}
George W. and others of his administration may or may not believe what they tell the world about the motivations behind anti-American terrorism, but, as in the examples just given, some officials, at least in effect, have questioned the party line for years. A Department of Defense study in 1997 concluded: "Historical data show a strong correlation between US involvement in international situations and an increase in terrorist attacks against the United States."{18}
Former US president Jimmy Carter told the New York Times in a 1989 interview:

We sent Marines into Lebanon and you only have to go to Lebanon, to Syria or to Jordan to witness first-hand the intense hatred among many people for the United States because we bombed and shelled and unmercifully killed totally innocent villagers -- women and children and farmers and housewives -- in those villages around Beirut. ... As a result of that ... we became kind of a Satan in the minds of those who are deeply resentful. That is what precipitated the taking of our hostages and that is what has precipitated some of the terrorist attacks.{19}

Colin Powell has also revealed that he knows better. Writing of this same 1983 Lebanon debacle in his memoir, he foregoes clichés about terrorists hating democracy: "The U.S.S. New Jersey started hurling 16-inch shells into the mountains above Beirut, in World War II style, as if we were softening up the beaches on some Pacific atoll prior to an invasion. What we tend to overlook in such situations is that other people will react much as we would."{20}
The ensuing terrorist attack against US Marine barracks in Lebanon took the lives of 241 American military personnel.

Hostile foreign policy, a list
The bombardment of Beirut in 1983 and 1984 is but one of many examples of American violence or other outrage against the Middle East and/or Muslims since the 1980s. The record includes:
* the support of corrupt and tyrannical Middle East governments, from the Shah of Iran to the Saudis
* the support for Russia and China against their Muslim populations
* the shooting down of two Libyan planes in 1981
* the bombing of Libya in 1986
* the bombing and sinking of an Iranian ship in 1987
* the shooting down of an Iranian passenger plane in 1988
* the shooting down of two more Libyan planes in 1989
* the massive bombing of the Iraqi people in 1991
* the continuing bombings and horrific sanctions against Iraq from 1991 to 2003
* the bombing of Afghanistan and Sudan in 1998
* the habitual support of Israel despite the routine devastation and torture it inflicts upon the Palestinian people
* the habitual condemnation of Palestinian resistance to this
* the abduction of "suspected terrorists" from Muslim countries, such as Malaysia, Pakistan, Lebanon and Albania, who are then taken to places like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, where they are tortured
* the large military and hi-tech presence in Islam's holiest land, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere in the Persian Gulf region
* the devastation and occupation of Afghanistan beginning in 2001 and of Iraq beginning in 2003
"How do I respond when I see that in some Islamic countries there is vitriolic hatred for America?" asked George W. "I'll tell you how I respond: I'm amazed. I'm amazed that there's such misunderstanding of what our country is about that people would hate us. I am -- like most Americans, I just can't believe it because I know how good we are."{21}
It's not just people in the Middle East who have good reason for hating what the US government does. The United States has created huge numbers of potential terrorists all over Latin America during a half century of American actions far worse than what it's done in the Middle East. If Latin Americans shared the belief of radical Muslims that they will go directly to paradise for martyring themselves in the act of killing the great Satan enemy, by now we might have had decades of repeated terrorist horror coming from south of the border.
As it is, there have been numerous non-suicidal terrorist attacks against Americans and their buildings in Latin America over the years.
To what extent do the American people really believe the official disconnect between what the US does in the world and anti-American terrorism? One indication that the public is somewhat skeptical came in the days immediately following the commencement of the bombing of Iraq on March 20, 2003. The airlines later announced that there had been a sharp increase in cancellations of flights and a sharp decrease in future flight reservations in those few days.{22}

How the Muslim world sees the United States
In June, 2003 the Pew Research Center released the results of polling in 20 Muslim countries and the Palestinian territories that brought into question the official thesis that support for anti-American terrorism goes hand in hand with hatred of American society. The polling revealed that people interviewed had much more "confidence" in Osama bin Laden than in George W. Bush. However, "the survey suggested little correlation between support for bin Laden and hostility to American ideas and cultural products. People who expressed a favorable opinion of bin Laden were just as likely to appreciate American technology and cultural products as people opposed to bin Laden. Pro- and anti-bin Laden respondents also differed little in their views on the workability of Western-style democracy in the Arab world."{23}
After another year of US occupation of Iraq and torture scandals, polling results unsurprisingly offered Washington no more support for its claims. A June, 2004 Zogby International survey of men and women in Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco and the United Arab Emirates produced results such as the following, reported the Washington Post:

Those polled said their opinions were shaped by U.S. policies, rather than by values or culture. When asked: 'What is the first thought when you hear "America?" respondents overwhelmingly said: 'Unfair foreign policy.' And when asked what the United States could do to improve its image in the Arab world, the most frequently provided answers were 'Stop supporting Israel' and 'Change your Middle East policy'. ... Most Arabs polled said they believe that the Iraq war has caused more terrorism and brought about less democracy, and that the Iraqi people are far worse off today than they were while living under Hussein's rule. The majority also said they believe the United States invaded Iraq for oil, to protect Israel and to weaken the Muslim world.{24}

The Pentagon's own advisory panel, the Defense Science Board, corroborated some of the above, reporting in November 2004: "Today we reflexively compare Muslim 'masses' to those oppressed under Soviet rule. This is a strategic mistake. There is no yearning-to-be-liberated-by-the-U.S. groundswell among Muslim societies -- except to be liberated perhaps from what they see as apostate tyrannies that the U.S. so determinedly promotes and defends. ... Muslims do not 'hate our freedom,' but rather they hate our policies ... when American public diplomacy talks about bringing democracy to Islamic societies, this is seen as no more than self-serving hypocrisy. ... [Muslims believe] American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering."{25}
Lastly, we have Michael Scheuer, a 22-year veteran of the CIA, where he was a senior terrorism analyst. In his 2004 book, Imperial Hubris: Why The West is Losing the War on Terror (written under the name "Anonymous"), and elsewhere, he makes the following observations:

None of bin Laden's stated reasons for waging war on the United States "have anything to do with our freedom, liberty, and democracy, but everything to do with U.S. policies and actions in the Muslim world," notably unlimited support for Israel's repression of the Palestinians and the destruction of Iraq.{26} "As long as unchanged U.S. policies motivate Muslims to become insurgents," the United States will have to "kill many thousands of these fighters in what is a barely started war."{27} "This mind-set holds that America does not need to reevaluate its policies, let alone change them; it merely needs to better explain the wholesomeness of its views and the purity of its purposes to the uncomprehending Islamic world. What could be more American in the early 21st century, after all, than to re-identify a casus belli as a communication problem, and then call on Madison Avenue to package and hawk a remedy called "Democracy-Secularism-and-Capitalism-are-good-for-Muslims" to an Islamic world that has, to date, violently refused to purchase?"{28}

The Iraqi resistance
The official Washington mentality about the motivations of individuals they call terrorists has also been manifested in US occupation policy in Iraq. Secretary of War Donald Rumsfeld has declared that there are five groups opposing US forces -- looters, criminals, remnants of Saddam Hussein's government, foreign terrorists and those influenced by Iran.{29} American official in Iraq maintained that many of the people shooting at US troops are "poor young Iraqis" who have been paid between $20 and $100 to stage hit-and-run attacks on US soldiers. "They're not dedicated fighters," he said. "They're people who wanted to take a few potshots."{30} With such language do American officials avoid dealing with the idea that any part of the resistance is composed of Iraqi citizens who are simply demonstrating their resentment about being bombed, invaded, occupied, tortured, slain, and subjected to daily humiliations.
Some officials convinced themselves that it was largely the most loyal followers of Saddam Hussein and his two sons who were behind the daily attacks on Americans, and that with the capture or killing of the evil family, resistance would die out; tens of millions of dollars were offered as reward for information leading to this joyful prospect. Thus it was that the killing of the sons elated military personnel. US Army trucks with loudspeakers drove through small towns and villages to broadcast a message about the death of Hussein's sons. "Coalition forces have won a great victory over the Baath Party and the Saddam Hussein regime by killing Uday and Qusay Hussein in Mosul," said the message broadcast in Arabic. "The Baath Party has no power in Iraq. Renounce the Baath Party or you are in great danger." It called on all officials of Hussein's government to turn themselves in.{31} What followed was several days of some of the deadliest attacks against American personnel since the guerrilla war began. Unfazed, American officials in Washington and Iraq continued to suggest that the elimination of Saddam himself would surely write finis to anti-American actions. His capture, in December 2003, of course did no such thing.

Another way in which the political origins of anti-American terrorism are obscured is by the common practice of blaming poverty or repression by Middle Eastern governments (as opposed to US support for such governments) for the creation of such terrorists. Defenders of US foreign policy cite this also as a way of showing how enlightened they are. Here's Condoleezza Rice as National Security Advisor:

[The Middle East] is a region where hopelessness provides a fertile ground for ideologies that convince promising youths to aspire not to a university education, a career or family, but to blowing themselves up, taking as many innocent lives with them as possible. We need to address the source of the problem.{32}

There are those on the left who speak in a similar fashion, apparently unconscious of what they're obfuscating. Their analysis confuses terrorism with revolution. But, in any case, why would a person suffering from hopelessness become a suicide bomber instead of merely committing suicide, if not for a political reason?

September 11 Commission
On June 16, 2004, the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (investigating the events of September 11, 2001), issued a report which stated that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, regarded as the mastermind of the attacks, wanted to personally commandeer one aircraft and use it as a platform to denounce US policies in the Middle East. Instead of crashing it in a suicide attack, the report says, Mohammed planned to kill every adult male passenger on the plane, contact the media while airborne, and land at a US airport. There he would deliver his speech before releasing all the women and children.{33}
The question once again arises: Why was Mohammed planning on denouncing US policies in the Middle East? Why wasn't he instead planning to denounce America's democracy, freedom, wealth and secular government, or its music, films or clothing?

A while ago, I heard a union person on the radio proposing what he called "a radical solution to poverty -- pay people enough to live on."
Well, I'd like to propose a radical solution to anti-American terrorism -- stop giving terrorists the motivation to attack America. As long as the United States insists that anti-American terrorists have no good or rational reason for retaliation against the United States for anything the US has ever done to their countries, as long as the Bush administration feverishly experiments with one program after another to improve America's image in the Muslim world instead of putting and end to a foreign policy of bloody and oppressive interventions, the "War on Terrorism" is as doomed to failure as the war on drugs has been.


NOTES
1. Miami Herald, September 12, 2001
2. Agence France Presse, November 19, 2002
3. The Guardian (London), December 19, 2001, article by Duncan Campbell
4. Washington Post, August 1, 2003, p.4
5. New York Times, August 22, 1998, p.15
6. Washington Post, June 23, 2004 and June 28, p.19
7. "Bush Administration Eliminating 19-year-old International Terrorism Report", Knight Ridder Newspapers, April 15, 2005
8. Jim Dwyer, et al., "Two Seconds Under the World" (New York, 1994), p.196; see also the statement made in court by Ramzi Ahmed Yousef, who planned the attack, New York Times, January 9, 1998, p.B4
9. Washington Post, October 3, 2002, p.6
10. Agence France Press, December 23, 2002; Washington Post, November 9, 2002
11. Los Angeles Times, November 13, 2002, p.6
12. Associated Press, November 7, 2002
13. Associated Press, June 19, 2004
14. BBC News, April 15, 2004
15. Associated Press, November 7, 2002
16. Voice of America News, April 21, 2003
17. Washington Post, June 15, 2002
18. US Department of Defense, Defense Science Board 1997 Summer Study Task Force on DOD Responses to Transnational Threats, October 1997, Final Report, Vol.1
19. New York Times, March 26, 1989, p.16
20. Colin Powell with Joseph E. Persico, "My American Journey" (New York, 1995), p.291
21. Boston Globe, October 12, 2001, p.28
22. Washington Post, March 27, 2003
23. Ibid., June 4, 2003, p.18
24. Ibid., July 23, 2004
25. New York Times, November 24, 2004
26. "Imperial Hubris", p.x and passim
27. Washington Post, June 26, 2004
28. Los Angeles Times, July 2, 2004, op-ed by "Anonymous"
29. Pentagon briefing, June 30, 2003
30. Washington Post, June 29, 2003
31. Ibid., July 24, 2003, p.7
32. Ibid., August 8, 2003
33. Ibid., June 17, 2004, p.14

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Iran was not referred to the Security Council for Noncompliance

By Mike Whitney
http://www.informationclearinghouse....ticle12002.htm

02/21/06

"ICH" -- -- How powerful is the corporate information-system we call the mainstream media?

Is it powerful enough, for example, to mislead the public into believing that Iran has been “referred” to the United Nations Security Council for violations to the NPT, thus paving the way for another war on the back of false information?

The IAEA DID NOT report on Iran’s “noncompliance” to the Security Council, because there is no evidence that Iran has done anything wrong. In fact, as nuclear physicist Gordon Prather points out in his recent article, “March Madness”, “THE BOARD DIDN’T REPORT ANYTHING.”

Then why does the media keep insisting that Iran is being called before the Security Council for noncompliance?

Could it be that the media is simply executing an agenda that is deliberately designed to deceive?

There was no “referral” and there will be no “punitive action” because there are no violations. “Rather”, as Prather ads, “the IAEA Board ‘REQUESTED’ that Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei report to the Security Council”…”calling on Iran to-among other things-implement ‘transparency measures’”.

These “transparency measures” have nothing to do with Iran’s obligations under the NPT. They are additional demands made at the behest of the Bush administration (through strong-arm tactics with nations on the IAEA Board) that will force Iran to provide access to “individuals, documentation relating to procurement, dual-use equipment, certain military owned workshops, and research and development as the Agency may request in support of its ongoing investigations”.

What does this mean?

It means that the Bush administration, which has already demonstrated its hostile intentions towards Iran, will be able to operate secretly behind its surrogates in the IAEA to locate all of Iran’s conventional weapons sites, radar facilities, and military installations so they can easily destroy Iran’s defensive capability when the inevitable attack is launched.

Isn’t this the same trap that Saddam fell into?

So, why is the IAEA facilitating another war by placating the Bush administration instead of condemning its obvious belligerence?

The IAEA members are well-aware of the propaganda that is currently circulating in the wire-services and newspapers. Why are they playing along?

Do they really believe that war can be averted by capitulation to the superpower?

Iran has not violated the NPT, does not have a nuclear weapons program, and poses no threat to its neighbors or the United States. Never the less, the spurious accusations in the media have precipitated a dramatic shift in public opinion. For more than a decade only 6% of the American people considered Iran the “greatest danger” to the United States. Now (according to a recent Pew Poll) that number has jumped to 27%. Also, the survey showed that “nearly half (47%) said they favored military action, preferably along with European allies, to halt Iran’s nuclear program.” (Jim Lobe, “Polls: anti-Iran Propaganda Working”)

“Military action”? Even while the US is bogged down in an unwinnable war in Iraq?

Can anyone seriously doubt the shocking power of propaganda after seeing these polling results?

The public should not be worried about Iran, rather, it should be concerned about the implications of allowing one nation to arbitrarily repeal internationally-accepted treaties and dictate how the world will be run.

Iran has an “inalienable right” to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes under the terms of its treaty agreement. It should reject the attempt to overturn its legally-binding contract, just to appease its enemies in Washington.

Iran is not a pariah or a rogue-nation. It should fight to be treated equally and with justice.

The United States has steadfastly refused to provide Iran with any security-guarantees that it will not attack if so chooses. In fact, Iran was originally duped into negotiating with the EU-3 (Germany, France, England) because it believed that the talks might deliver a non-aggression pact between themselves and the Bush administration. The administration, however, does not believe in treaties and will not “lower itself” to sign agreements with those it feels are its inferiors.

There is nothing Iran can do to forestall the approaching war. The Washington warlords believe they are entitled to the vast oil wealth of the Caspian Basin and will not be deterred by the facts. Iran would be better off ignoring the ineffectual maneuverings of the feckless United Nations, and preparing itself for the struggle ahead.

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Open or shut: Hicks case may be empty

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/hic...330767575.html

THE two embassies that David Hicks was accused of staking out as part of his al-Qaeda training were abandoned at the time.

Mr Hicks's charge sheet, made public in 2004, included allegations that "on or about August 2001" he conducted surveillance on the British and US embassies in the Afghan capital, Kabul.

The alleged offence, which was part of the charge of conspiracy levelled against Mr Hicks, dissolved when the US Supreme Court ruled last year that the military commissions were illegal. But the offence is likely to be reconstituted when Mr Hicks is charged under the new military commission system.

The US Military Commission chief prosecutor, Colonel Morris Davis, mentioned the alleged embassy surveillance in interviews last week in which he said Mr Hicks was a fully fledged al-Qaeda operative. "He conducted surveillance on the US embassy and other embassies," he said.

Inquiries by the Herald show the British and US embassies were abandoned in 1989 as Afghanistan plunged into civil war in the wake of the 10-year Soviet occupation.

The British embassy was reopened in December 2001, four months after Mr Hicks's alleged surveillance and a month after his capture. The US embassy, which had been maintained by Afghan employees since 1989, was reopened in January 2002.

Mr Hicks's Adelaide lawyer, David McLeod, said the embassy allegation was a sign that the US authorities were "really scratching around for charges".

Although not classified as a high value detainee by the US, Mr Hicks is expected to be charged in the next few weeks. The Australian Government last week called on the US Government to charge and try Mr Hicks as quickly as possible.

Guidelines for the commissions made public late last week attracted immediate condemnation from defence lawyers, Labor and other parties and legal groups because hearsay evidence and statements made using coercion would be admissible.

Further criticism came yesterday in the form of a report based on a visit to Guantanamo Bay in September by the British parliament's foreign affairs committee.

The committee found the detention facilities failed to achieve minimum British standards and it expressed concerns about the new military commission system regarding human rights and breaches of international law.

The panel said the British Government should work with the United States to develop an alternative to Guantanamo.

Mr McLeod was unsurprised. "It's just consistent with what everyone's been saying," he said.

The British Government secured the release of all its citizens because it said the military commissions failed to meet the basic standards of international law. Two foreign-born British residents remain there and have never been charged.

Labor's legal affairs spokesman, Kelvin Thomson, called again yesterday for Mr Hicks to be taken out of Guantanamo Bay and given a fair trial in either the US or Australia, or released. At the very minimum, Mr Hicks should be granted an immediate assessment of his mental health, he said

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2007/...330807525.html


Qantas bans Bush T-shirt passenger



An Australian who lives in Britain has threatened legal action against Qantas for barring him from a Melbourne-to-London flight wearing a T-shirt depicting US President George Bush as a terrorist.

Allen Jasson today said he was defending freedom of speech through his insistence on wearing the T-shirt.

Mr Jasson, 55, an IT specialist living in London, is staying with his daughter in Melbourne after he was refused entry to the flight to London at Melbourne Airport on Friday.

Airline staff argued the T-shirt, which bears an image of the US President with the slogan "World's number 1 terrorist", was a security risk or an item likely to upset passengers.

The airline earlier prevented him from flying to Melbourne for Christmas with relatives on December 2 until he removed the shirt.

Domestic carrier Virgin Blue took the same action when Mr Jasson tried to catch a connecting flight to Adelaide, but on a return flight to Melbourne with Qantas on Friday, he successfully wore the shirt.

Mr Jasson said he cleared international security checks and arrived at the departure lounge in Melbourne for the flight home when he approached the gate manager, congratulated him over Qantas allowing him to wear the shirt and demanded an apology for his earlier treatment.

"I concede that I raised the issue, but I wanted primarily to thank Qantas for relenting when [the gate manager] told me: 'I'm surprised you got this far, the staff should have stopped you,' " Mr Jasson said.

Mr Jasson said he risked missing his chance of permanent residency if he spent more than two months out of Britain.

But the Adelaide-born former Melbourne resident said he was seeking legal advice to challenge the airline's policy and recover costs.

"To be fair to Qantas, they have said I can take another flight if I don't wear the T-shirt but I am not prepared to go without the T-shirt," he said.

"I might forfeit the [$2500] fare but I have made up my mind that I would rather stand up for the principle of free speech."

When asked whether the stand was worthwhile, Mr Jasson said: "In Australia today it is very sad that that question has to be asked.

"It's very sad that I find that question has to be asked in Australia. It's a very unhealthy situation and it makes me feel very sad.

"It's one of the reasons that I now live in the UK."

Reading from a prepared statement, a Qantas spokesman said: "Whether made verbally or on a T-shirt, comments with the potential to offend other customers or threaten the security of a Qantas group aircraft will not be tolerated."

AAP

[skippy]

Now what could moitivate this,

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/...330827958.html


Bring back tobacco advertising: young Libs


Email Print Normal font Large font Phillip Coorey Chief Political Correspondent
January 23, 2007


THE Young Liberal Movement's penchant for controversial policy ideas will continue at its annual convention this weekend with suggestions such as lifting the ban on tobacco advertising, introducing a flat income tax and building nuclear power stations.

The movement's convention in Melbourne will also debate a motion questioning the veracity of global warming and another advocating raising the eligibility age for the age pension to 70 for everyone. The Victorian branch of the movement is sponsoring the call to end the ban on tobacco ads.

"Prohibitions on tobacco advertising are an insult to the intelligence of the ordinary Australian," the branch says in its supporting statement.

"These bans assume that individuals are not fit to make up their own minds on the benefits or otherwise of smoking and need the Government to make the decision for them."

It says tobacco companies should have the right to compete with anti-tobacco advertising and says the ban does not reduce the uptake of smoking but simply entrenches the market share of existing brands. "Cigarettes that may in fact be less harmful to health are prohibited from advertising this fact," it says.

The parliamentary secretary for health, Chris Pyne, said the Government had no intention of lifting the ban and that it had helped reduce the smoking rate to 17.4 per cent, the lowest in the OECD.

Mr Pyne said even more graphic warnings would soon appear on cigarette packets and he would deliver his message when he addressed the convention this weekend.

Simon Chapman, professor in public health at the University of Sydney and an expert on tobacco advertising, suggested the movement had not done its homework before formulating the idea. Australia was a signatory to the international Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which required it to ban advertising. "The Young Liberals are still in their public policy nappies," he said.

The NSW branch has proposed a policy that supports the introduction of nuclear energy as a "clean alternative energy source". It calls upon the Federal Government not to take any action to address "alleged man-made global warming" until there is "conclusive scientific evidence" of its existence.

The Victorian branch advocates the construction of new coal-fired power stations and a flat tax, although it does not nominate a rate.

The call to increase the pension age comes from NSW