A.LOEWENSTEIN ONLINE NEWSLETTER

• Obama wants to keep suspects in jail for as long as he wants
• Nothing in the Wikileaks documents? Please
• Our leaders happy to let people starve or die
• Early indications of Cablegate in July
• Iraq and Afghanistan come to American streets and homes
• ABC TV News 24 on refugees and government failures
• News flash: FT questions privatisation
• Bradley Manning is a hero
• Damaged Palestinian property is never investigated
• Assange: “What we released has moves towards a more just State”

Obama wants to keep suspects in jail for as long as he wants Posted: 21 Dec 2010 03:49 PM PST   If there are any illusions about Barack Obama, this should surely extinguish those forever: The White House is preparing an Executive Order on indefinite detention that will provide periodic reviews of evidence against dozens of prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay, according to several administration officials. The draft order, a version of which was first considered nearly 18 months ago, is expected to be signed by President Obama early in the New Year. The order allows for the possibility that detainees from countries like Yemen might be released if circumstances there change. But the order establishes indefinite detention as a long-term Obama administration policy and makes clear that the White House alone will manage a review process for those it chooses to hold without charge or trial.

Nothing in the Wikileaks documents? Please Posted: 21 Dec 2010 03:39 PM PST One: The prime minister of Mauritius has accused Britain of pursuing a “policy of deceit” over the Chagos islands, its Indian Ocean colony from where islanders were evicted to make way for a US military base. He spoke to the Guardian as his government launched the first step in a process that could end UK control over the territory. Navinchandra Ramgoolam spoke out after the Labour government’s decision to establish a marine reserve around Diego Garcia and surrounding islands was exposed earlier this month as the latest ruse to prevent the islanders from ever returning to their homeland. A US diplomatic cable dated May 2009, disclosed by WikiLeaks, revealed that a Foreign Office official had told the Americans that a decision to set up a “marine protected area” would “effectively end the islanders’ resettlement claims”. The official, identified as Colin Roberts, is quoted as saying that “according to the HMG’s [Her Majesty’s government’s] current thinking on the reserve, there would be ‘no human footprints’ or ‘Man Fridays’” on the British Indian Ocean Territory uninhabited islands.” A US state department official commented: “Establishing a marine reserve might, indeed, as the FCO’s Roberts stated, be the most effective long-term way to prevent any of the Chagos Islands’ former inhabitants or their descendants from resettling in the BIOT.” Nearly a year later, in April this year, David Miliband, then foreign secretary, described the marine reserve as a “major step forward for protecting the oceans”. He added that the reserve “will not change the UK’s commitment to cede the territory to Mauritius when it is no longer needed for defence purposes”. “I feel strongly about a policy of deceit,” Ramgoolam said , adding that he had already suspected Britain had a “hidden agenda”. Asked if he believed Miliband had acted in good faith, he said: “Certainly not. Nick Clegg said before the general election that Britain had a “moral responsibility to allow these people to at last return home”. William Hague, now foreign secretary, said that if elected he would “work to ensure a fair settlement of this long-standing dispute”. Ramgoolam said he believed the government was adopting the same attitude as its predecessor. Mauritius has lodged a document with an international tribunal accusing Britain of breaching the UN convention on the law of the sea. It says Britain has no right to establish the marine zone since it was not a “coastal state” in the region, adding that Mauritius has the sole right to declare an “exclusive zone” around the British colony. Two: US diplomats disparaged New Zealand‘s reaction to a suspected Israeli spy ring as a “flap” and accused New Zealand’s government of grandstanding in order to sell more lamb to Arab countries, according to leaked cables. The arrest and conviction in 2004 of two Israeli citizens, who were caught using the identity of a cerebral palsy sufferer to apply for a New Zealand passport, caused a serious rift between New Zealand and Israel, with allegations that the two men and others involved were Mossad agents. “The New Zealand government views the act carried out by the Israeli intelligence agents as not only utterly unacceptable but also a breach of New Zealand sovereignty and international law,” New Zealand’s then-prime minister, Helen Clark, said after the arrests. But US officials in Wellington told their colleagues in Washington that New Zealand had “little to lose” from the breakdown in diplomatic relations with Israel and was instead merely trying to bolster its exports to Arab states. A confidential cable written in July 2004, after New Zealand imposed high-level diplomatic sanctions against Israel, comments: “The GoNZ [government of New Zealand] has little to lose by such stringent action, with limited contact and trade with Israel, and possibly something to gain in the Arab world, as the GoNZ is establishing an embassy in Egypt and actively pursuing trade with Arab states.” A cable two days later was even more pointed, saying: “Its overly strong reaction to Israel over this issue suggests the GNZ sees this flap as an opportunity to bolster its credibility with the Arab community, and by doing so, perhaps, help NZ lamb and other products gain greater access to a larger and more lucrative market.” Three: Halliburton’s senior executive in Iraq accused private security companies of operating a “mafia” to artifically inflate their “outrageous prices”, according to a US cable. Written by a senior diplomat in the US’s Basra office, the confidential document discloses the tensions between private security firms, oil companies and the Iraqi government as coalition forces withdraw from protecting foreign business interests. John Naland, head of the provincial reconstruction team in Basra, wrote in January this year that several oil company representatives complained of “unwarranted high prices” given an improving security situation since 2008. “Halliburton Iraq country manager decried a ‘mafia’ of these companies and their ‘outrageous’ prices, and said that they also exaggerate the security threat. “Apart from the high costs for routine trips, he claimed that Halliburton often receives what he says are ‘questionable’ reports of vulnerability of employees to kidnapping and ransom. He said that he recently saw an internal memo from their security company which tasked its employees to emphasize the persistent danger faced by IOCs [international oil companies].” Naland wrote. The memo, written nine months after British troops handed over control of their base in Basra to the US army, does not name the Halliburton manager. According to the cable, it cost around $6,000 (£3,900) to hire a security firm for four hours in Basra in January. A typical trip would include four security agents, drivers, and three or four armoured vehicles. A recent visit by a member of Iraq’s government from Baghdad to Basra and back cost about $12,000 (£7,800), the cable claimed. Tensions between private security companies and the Baghdad government had increased in Iraq following the decision by the US courts in December 2009 not to prosecute anyone for the Blackwater killings of 17 Iraqis in Baghdad in September 2007. The source for this information was a British security company boss, whose name has been redacted. “According to [the British national] a China National Petroleum Company (CNPC) security team was stopped in Basrah [sic] city by the Iraqi police in a ‘clear attempt to disrupt and cause panic to the clients.’ [The British national] said that the Iraqi police stopped the convoy and showed a letter from the Ministry of Interior (MOI) stating that as of January 12, personal security teams now faced a more restrictive weapons regime. The situation was eventually resolved, and the convoy was released, but [the British national] said that this episode could presage a more restrictive posture towards security firms ‘in retaliation or the Blackwater verdict’,” wrote Naland. The cable also says that security companies are being encouraged by the Iraqi government and the oil companies to employ more Iraqis and less westerners in frontline jobs. “According to XXXXXXXXXX, the GOI [government of Iraq] is anxious to ‘get rid of all the white faces carrying guns’ in their streets,” it reads.

Our leaders happy to let people starve or die Posted: 21 Dec 2010 02:56 PM PST One of the key messages emerging from the Wikileaks cables is the callousness of Western leaders towards human rights. It’s seen as an inconvenience. That’s why we treat them with appropriate contempt. One: The Howard government urged the United States to force the collapse of the North Korean regime by denying it aid, despite advice that the country had a growing nuclear arsenal and could unleash an artillery barrage on South Korea’s capital at a moment’s notice. ”Let the whole place go to shit, that’s the best thing that could happen,” the foreign affairs minister, Alexander Downer, told the commander of US and United Nations forces in South Korea at a meeting in Canberra in 2005. A leaked US embassy cable reports that Mr Downer told General Leon LaPorte that the outside world should sharply increase pressure on North Korea, suggesting that ”aid that could prop up [North Korea’s] failing infrastructure should be withheld to bring an end to the regime’s tyranny”.  The cable, obtained by WikiLeaks and made available exclusively to the Herald, says Mr Downer’s ”off-the-top of his head” remarks also derided New Zealand’s approach to the Korean problem. ”If US officials wanted to hear the ‘bleeding hearts’ view of ‘peace and love’ with respect to North Korea, Downer joked, they only had to visit his colleagues in New Zealand. Mr Downer said he personally agreed with George Bush that tyranny had to be ended,” the cable says. Two: The British government has been training a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organisations as a “government death squad”, leaked US embassy cables have revealed. Members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which has been held responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial killings in recent years and is said to routinely use torture, have received British training in “investigative interviewing techniques” and “rules of engagement”. Details of the training were revealed in a number of cables, released by WikiLeaks, which address the counter-terrorism objectives of the US and UK governments in Bangladesh. One cable makes clear that the US would not offer any assistance other than human rights training to the RAB – and that it would be illegal under US law to do so – because its members commit gross human rights violations with impunity. Since the RAB was established six years ago, it is estimated by some human rights activists to have been responsible for more than 1,000 extra-judicial killings, described euphemistically as “crossfire” deaths. In September last year the director general of the RAB said his men had killed 577 people in “crossfire”. In March this year he updated the figure, saying they had killed 622 people. The RAB’s use of torture has also been exhaustively documented by human rights organisations. In addition, officers from the paramilitary force are alleged to have been involved in kidnap and extortion, and are frequently accused of taking large bribes in return for carrying out crossfire killings. However, the cables reveal that both the British and the Americans, in their determination to strengthen counter-terrorism operations in Bangladesh, are in favour of bolstering the force, arguing that the “RAB enjoys a great deal of respect and admiration from a population scarred by decreasing law and order over the last decade”. In one cable, the US ambassador to Dhaka, James Moriarty, expresses the view that the RAB is the “enforcement organisation best positioned to one day become a Bangladeshi version of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation”.

Early indications of Cablegate in July Posted: 21 Dec 2010 03:57 AM PST TED: I think I read as a kid you went to 37 different schools. Can that be right? Assange: My parents were in the movie business then on the run from a cult… TED: A psychologist might say that’s a recipe for breeding paranoia. Assange: What? The movie business?

Iraq and Afghanistan come to American streets and homes Posted: 21 Dec 2010 03:31 AM PST The future has arrived. Another installment in the stunning Washington Post series, Top Secret America called Monitoring America, on the bleeding of the “war on terror” into mainstream US life. Often privatised, mostly secret. This is the creation of a truly all-seeing police state in a so-called democracy: The months-long investigation, based on nearly 100 interviews and 1,000 documents, found that: * Technologies and techniques honed for use on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan have migrated into the hands of law enforcement agencies in America. * The FBI is building a database with the names and certain personal information, such as employment history, of thousands of U.S. citizens and residents whom a local police officer or a fellow citizen believed to be acting suspiciously. It is accessible to an increasing number of local law enforcement and military criminal investigators, increasing concerns that it could somehow end up in the public domain. * Seeking to learn more about Islam and terrorism, some law enforcement agencies have hired as trainers self-described experts whose extremist views on Islam and terrorism are considered inaccurate and counterproductive by the FBI and U.S. intelligence agencies. * The Department of Homeland Security sends its state and local partners intelligence reports with little meaningful guidance, and state reports have sometimes inappropriately reported on lawful meetings. … Hand-held, wireless fingerprint scanners were carried by U.S. troops during the insurgency in Iraq to register residents of entire neighborhoods. L-1 Identity Solutions is selling the same type of equipment to police departments to check motorists’ identities. * In Arizona, the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Facial Recognition Unit, using a type of equipment prevalent in war zones, records 9,000 biometric digital mug shots a month. * U.S. Customs and Border Protection flies General Atomics’ Predator drones along the Mexican and Canadian borders – the same kind of aircraft, equipped with real-time, full-motion video cameras, that has been used in wars in Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan to track the enemy.

ABC TV News 24 on refugees and government failures Posted: 21 Dec 2010 02:20 AM PST I was invited back on ABC TV News24′s The Drum tonight with host Waleed Aly and guests Jo Stella and ABC journalist Gillian Bradford (video here). We talked mostly about domestic politics especially asylum seekers and the parlous state of refugee policy on both major sides of parliament. I argued that Labor has spent the last years jumping at the shadow of the Liberal Party, petrified of doing anything humane that could be classed as compassionate. With roughly 1000 children now in immigration detention, the government is seemingly incapable of managing the issue. Last week’s tragedy off Christmas Island should be a catalyst for a more sensible policy that understands why people are coming in the first place – Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Iraq and Iran are all in turmoil, in case you were wondering – and families want to be reunited. There aren’t that many people coming here so let’s welcome them and stop the hysteria. If only it was that simple. There was also discussion about the impending NSW election. Rather than simply discussing who will probably win, I urged a public debate about what would likely be privatised. Did the public agree? What did the major parties think? Bring on the discussion.

News flash: FT questions privatisation Posted: 21 Dec 2010 01:49 AM PST Hold the phone. Here’s a very astute piece in the Financial Times arguing against unquestioned privatisation of everything, including Heathrow Airport. Challenging the religion of privatising the entire country is a debate too rarely had: For the world’s rising states, international airports – and indeed their national airlines (Turkish Airlines beats BA hands down on the Istanbul route) – are a statement of modernity. They speak both to national pride and to integration in the global economy.In Britain, the fixation on private ownership and quarterly earnings per share does not allow for such flights of fancy. This, incidentally, also explains why the country does not have anything resembling a half-decent railway system. I am tempted to say that Heathrow should be nationalised – or at the very least handed over to Boris Johnson, the London mayor. No one could do a worse job than BAA. Whatever the specifics of ownership and regulation, however, it is time Britain recognised the public interest in the dismal condition of the nation’s privately-run infrastructure.

Bradley Manning is a hero Posted: 20 Dec 2010 09:44 PM PST It takes a faux journalist to expose the deception at the heart of the US: The Colbert Report Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c International Manhunt for Julian Assange – Daniel Ellsberg www.colbertnation.com   Colbert Report Full Episodes Political Humor & Satire Blog</a> March to Keep Fear Alive

Damaged Palestinian property is never investigated Posted: 20 Dec 2010 09:02 PM PST Apartheid: The Yesh Din human rights group said that in cases of settlers’ violence against Palestinians, 90-92 percent are closed, mostly because the perpetrators are not found. These figures are based on 700 cases opened after claims of violence. In cases of vandalizing or destroying property, no charges are pressed in 100 percent of the incidents.

Assange: “What we released has moves towards a more just State” Posted: 20 Dec 2010 07:32 PM PST The latest interview with Julian Assange that allows him to refute some of the almost comical allegations flying around the internet – I’ve lost count with the number of people sending me emails with “evidence” that Wikileaks is helping Israel improve its image – and outline his vision for the Wikileaks empire: Anarchist or messiah, WikiLeaks founder and Editor-in-Chief Julian Assange wears both mantles with ease. His avalanche of words continues to rock world capitals from Washington to Wellington, but the man himself is rather soft-spoken. S Kalyana Ramanathan braved Arctic weather conditions and jostling photographers outside Beccles police station in Suffolk, where Assange must report daily as part of his bail conditions, for an exclusive interview. Excerpts: Do you see yourself as a journalist or crusader? I see myself predominantly as a publisher. That’s quite an interestingly play, but has been done in the US. Removing the political protection that journalists afford one another and the legal protection that the First Amendment affords publishers throws up the question: “Am I a journalist or what?” That is not really the question as far as law is concerned. The law is interested in “am I a publisher or not”. And without doubt, I am a publisher and editor. I still do some writing. I have been promoted up into managing other people. Hence, the best description would be publisher and editor-in-chief. Where do you see WikiLeaks five years from now… if it survives? On Mars (laughs). I hope we can standardise a certain type of publishing freedom for the little guys and the big guys. That we can get international covenants to promote that standard for freedom of the press and encourage ethical standards for journalists, so that good journalists are not out-competed by bad journalists. Is there anything you have leaked so far that you regret? Nothing. And that’s not because I view that every word we have ever released has tremendous positive value. Rather, it is (because) on an average, what we have released has major positive moves towards a more just State and it’s vital to keep to policy that does not make ad hoc, arbitrary decisions, but keeps to publicly-stated policy. Just as an example: A lawyer representing a client before the court cannot say he liked every single one of his clients. He can say – or the judge, or the people who believe in the judicial system would say – that every person has a right to be represented in court, provided certain minimum standards are met. And those minimum standards are public policy and not ad hoc arbitrary decision-making. There has been speculation that you have the support of George Soros and Israeli intelligence service Mossad. Where do you think this is coming from? (It is common) in the US to allege George Soros is behind everything. To be fair, the only vaguely conspiratorial things that George Soros has been behind is some of the ‘Colour Revolutions’ in Eastern Europe about five or six years ago that I know about. As for Mossad, in the release of “Cablegate” material, there is no one spared. If you look closely, what has happened is that the New York Times as a media organisation has to be quite careful not to criticise Israel too much. So, if you look at the coverage in English that is coming out you will see little that is critical of Israeli behaviour and a lot critical of Iran, for example. That is not a true reflection of the “Cablegate” material. There is information in there that is critical of most countries – certainly including Israel. There is a bias towards material that is critical of Iran because the information comes from US embassies and US diplomats reporting back to Washington. So, it does follow Washington’s agenda in terms of what US diplomats and political officers are looking to report and what they do report back to Washington. Realistically, what are the chances you will be extradited to the US? We foresee an attempt – that is clear – to pull me or others to the US. The way things are politically now in the UK, that attempt will not succeed. If there are further attacks on my morality or the morality of our organisation, we might lose enough political support in the UK such that the extradition process will not be stopped by the government of the UK. So, it is a political decision; it simply depends on what the political climate is and how independent the politicians are in each country (he talks about Sweden here) or how much they can be manipulated from the outside. Unfortunately, as we have revealed in the past, Sweden can be – has been – manipulated by the US under the table, in a whole host of arrangements that has been deliberately kept from the population. And those are not my words, but are of the US ambassador in Stockholm. Do you think what you have done so far has changed journalism forever? I hope so. Time will tell. I think more journalists as individuals working together, media institutions themselves working together, that is something we forced. As part of our conditions, we forced them (select media groups in the US, UK and France) to work together. I don’t think that is a normal situation. That is something we drove. India is still a very young and evolving democracy. What do you have to say about the Indian media? Well there are some very great little journalistic groups in India. (The) Hindu, (The) Times (of India) have been quite good… some of their material. In my dealings with Indians, there is such an incredible potential in the Indian media, because there is still a lot of corruption. On the other hand, journalism is quite vibrant in the medium and lower level. You have a rising middle class. You have more people getting access to the Internet. So, I am quite hopeful of about what is going to develop in India. Do you expect your life to return to normal anytime soon? Oh, I do hope not. What do you mean? We only live once. So, it is good to do something that is important and productive.