A.Loewenstein Online Newsletter

During the past week academic institutions have expressed contrition at past links with Libya and parliament has debated whether control order legislation should continue. Yet there has been total silence as to why it was that Libyan dissidents came to form a significant block of those made subject to control orders, and to a second highly contentious measure: deportation to a country that practised torture.
Following the bombings in London on 7 July 2005, known within a day to have been carried out by young British nationals, Tony Blair said: “The rules of the game have changed.” Within weeks he had initiated an agreement with Colonel Gaddafi on the deportation of Libyan dissidents who had sought asylum and whose presence, he claimed, constituted one of the gravest threats to the security of this country.
As to why this small group required such urgent and extreme attention, parallel chronologies provide some clues. In 2005 Libyan oilfields were made available for public auction. Might there have been a two-way accommodation? You give us oil, we give you your dissidents?
In order to achieve the men’s removal to Libya, a country whose leader had a grim record of eliminating opponents, the government had created new mechanisms: memorandums of understanding (MOU), whereby regimes known to practice torture might sign up to an unenforceable promise that they would not torture deported individuals. Gaddafi was evidently a man who could be trusted, but for good measure an independent organisation would monitor the wellbeing of the men deported to Libya: the Gaddafi Foundation, headed by Gaddafi’s son Saif.

Former Foreign Ministry director-general Alon Liel told Army Radio last week that at this point, “more than half” of Israel’s career diplomats disagree with the government’s actions, and that many feel that the government’s policies are leading to unprecedented isolation and de-legitimization of Israel.

It may be furnished, according to its new occupants, just as you would expect “when you have spent £10m of blood money on a house”, but judging by the appearance mid-afternoon of a masked man in camouflage gear carrying two shopping bags from Budgens, no one had thought to fill the fridge.
Perhaps when occupying the multimillion-pound London mansion of a tyrant’s son, food is some way down the list of priorities. More pressing tasks, for the small group of protesters who have moved into Saif al-Islam Gaddafi’s redbrick Hampstead home, were affixing banners to the roof reading “Revolution” and “Out of Libya, out of London”, and summoning the press, to whom they declared their actions had been taken “in solidarity with the people of Libya, the people of Cairo, the people of Saudi Arabia”.
Spokesman Montgomery Jones told the Guardian that the group, called Topple the Tyrants, had been formed in response to the events of the Arab spring; this was their first action. How many of them were there? “We’re not doing numbers.”
Though there were no Libyans among the group, “we have people from the Middle East and we’re hoping to disseminate the protests more widely”. Further properties would be targeted “if they are owned by dictators, absolutely”.

Sara Benninga, whose speech I reposted here on the blog, was interrogated by the police after speaking at the JStreet conference I attended. She provided one of the voices for a new direction for Jewish and Israeli activists working alongside Palestinians for justice. For this she was rewarded with an interrogation.
From Didi Remez’s facebook page:
Sara was interrogated for “incitement” because she made a call for solidarity with the #Jan25 protesters at Tahrir sq. She was also questioned on “subversion” because she dared chant “settlers, thieves”. I kid you not. I’ll update if there are indictment.

 
The rise of CACI, a northern Virginia corporation serves as an instructive case study of the beneficiaries of today’s threat environment, in which a corporation can rise to great prosperity (with a headquarters building emblazoned with its titular acronym looming over I-66 on the approaches to Washington D.C.) without actually making anything at all. Its functions, as a close scrutiny of the CACI website reveals, being in the unexplained area of “analysis” and “support”—a pure example of “selling costs.” Originally intended by its founders to commercialize their SIMSCRIPT simulation programming language, the war on terror brought many fresh opportunities to CACI, including a contract to supply interrogators for the notorious Abu Ghraib jail. Though that service does not today appear in the list of employment opportunities on offer on the company’s website, there are no lack of listings for work subcontracted by the Joint IED Defeat Organization, which remains much beloved by the service bureaucracies and their corporate partners for its mandate to apportion funds without specific authorization.
 
The CACI website also helpfully lists the board of directors, complete with biographies, thereby furnishing a useful cameo of today’s military industrial complex. Topping the list of outside directors is Gordon England, best known for his service as Navy Secretary and Deputy Secretary of Defense in the George W. Bush Administration, in which capacity he adroitly avoided the odium incurred by Donald Rumsfeld and displayed a helpful solicitude for the interests of major contractors, ever ready to run interference with Congress on their behalf.¹² That was hardly surprising, given England’s prior service with the General Dynamics, Lockheed, Litton and Honeywell Corporations.Another name that catches the eye is the retired and superbly well connected four star Admiral Gregory Johnson, who earned the trust of his peers not only as the commander of far-flung fleets, but also as senior military assistant to  Secretary of Defense William Cohen. Meanwhile, James L. Pavitt, formerly Deputy Director for Operations of the CIA, where, the biography informs us, he led the agency’s “operational response” to the 9/11 attacks, clearly makes a good fit on the board, as does retired four star army general William Wallace, who commanded a corps during the 2003 invasion of Iraq before ascending to the command of the army’s Combined Arms Center and ultimately the potent Training and Doctrine Command. Interestingly, Wallace’s CACI biography cites his role in developing the Future Combat Systems, a $160 billion baroque extravaganza infamous for monumental overruns and technical catastrophe and ultimately cancelled, but perhaps in such circles this is seen as a recommendation.
 
Also on the CACI board sits James Gilmore, former governor of Virginia, whose biography is larded with references to his experience in the bountiful area of homeland security. Dr. Warren Phillips, a former academic with a expertise in oil pipelines and armored vehicles, along with a lawyer and a graduate of the railroad and natural gas industry round off the roster of this truly twenty-first century defense company, with 2010 sales in excess of $3 billion.

“What really interests me are the mutual relations between the Jewish world and the State of Israel,” Schneller said, explaining why he brought the topic up for formal debate in the plenum.
“The code that was broken is more serious than the content.
“The fact that J Street fought against the sanctions that the United States wants to place against Iran is very, very serious in my eyes, as is the fact that they acted against the American veto,” he said.
Schneller said that “if they say that if Israel accepts our radical left-wing diplomatic positions, then we love Israel – it is a conditional love. If you don’t accept our ideas, then we will support Iran or the Palestinian Authority. I don’t want love like that. Don’t love me at all.
“I asked for the hearing not because of the content of J Street’s beliefs, but because I want to look into the commitment of Jewish love and support for Israel. If they don’t love and support Israel, then they should not present themselves as pro-Israel,” Schneller said.
“American Jewish groups, Right or Left, should understand that they should maintain full solidarity for Israel overseas – and when Tzipi Livni or Haim Oron become prime minister, I will demand the same loyalty from right-wing groups.”

Serco, the FTSE 100 support services group that runs the Docklands Light Railway, is to target growth in international markets as the UK economy comes under pressure from public spending cuts.

Christopher Hyman, chief executive, said overseas markets will “underpin” growth in the next two years although he stressed the UK will remain Serco’s “primary market”.

The company on Wednesday posted robust results for 2010, with revenues up 9pc to £4.3bn and pre-tax profits 21pc higher at £214m.

However, the order book slipped from £17.1bn to £16.6bn a year ago as Serco felt the impact of promising cost savings to the Cabinet Office and the cancellation of contracts in the UK, such as the development of a new prison in Merseyside.

Serco’s overseas operations now account for 40pc of the business, with revenues in Africa, the Middle East, Asia, and Australasia growing by 41pc. The company runs the Dubai Metro and has also won its first contract in New Zealand – the operation of a prison. In the Americas, revenue grew by 9pc.