A. Loewenstein Online Newsletter

Post 9/11 MSM thinking; get somebody, anybody

Posted: 06 Sep 2011

As the 10th anniversary of 9/11 approaches, get ready for an orgy of self-justification (endless war is required because “they” still hate us).

This piece by Seamus Milne in the UK Guardian is fascinating because it reveals the mindset of so many elites to the terror attacks. It’s a handy reminder that fear-mongers and war-mongers became scared little boy and girls, calling for the blood of Muslims. Ten years on, those policies remain a disaster, with countless Western-led occupations continuing globally.

We are governed by bigoted children.

Here’s Milne (who was the paper’s opinion editor on 9/11):

Wikileaks has shown us a world we need to know

Posted: 06 Sep 2011

Wikileaks has its share of critics – the organisation is too centred around Julian Assange and a personality-type cult exists – but surely the vast bulk of information the group has released since 2006 makes it a major force for good (not least because it’s forced governments and many journalists on the defensive about their insider tactics):

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange blasted the Guardian on Tuesday, saying the British paper’s “negligence” in publishing an encryption key to uncensored files forced his organization’s hand in publishing the secret U.S. diplomatic memos.

It was Assange’s first public comments since WikiLeaks disclosed its entire archive of U.S. State Department cables last week. The United States has fiercely criticized the move, saying it could endanger the lives of the sources named in the cables, including opposition figures or human rights advocates.

Speaking via a video link, Assange told an audience at a Berlin technology trade fair that a Guardian journalist had published the password to the encrypted files in his book, creating a situation where some people got access to the uncensored files while others did not.

“We had a case where every intelligence agency has the material and the people who are mentioned do not have the material,” he said from a mansion about two hours’ drive from London, where he is under virtual house arrest pending extradition proceedings to Sweden on unrelated sexual assault allegations.

“So you have a race between the bad guys and the good guys and it was necessary for us to stand on the side of the good guys,” he said.

Assange gave the conference’s keynote address and answered questions from a monitor.

WikiLeaks on Friday posted the 251,287 cables on its website, making potentially sensitive diplomatic sources available to anyone.

A joint statement published that day on the Guardian’s website said it and its international media counterparts — The New York Times, France’s Le Monde, Germany’s Der Spiegel and Spain’s El Pais — “deplore the decision of WikiLeaks to publish the unredacted State Department cables, which may put sources at risk.”

Previously, international media outlets — and WikiLeaks itself — had redacted the names of potentially vulnerable sources, although the standard has varied and some experts warned that even people whose names had been kept out of the cables were still at risk.

But Assange specifically blamed the Guardian, pointing out that a sensitive password used to decrypt the files was published in a book by David Leigh, one of the paper’s investigative reporters and a collaborator-turned-critic of Assange.

He also blamed WikiLeaks defector Daniel Domscheit-Berg, though not by name, alleging he told media organizations where to find the encrypted files and how to use the password.

“An individual in Berlin had been spreading the location of a hidden encrypted file that had been encrypted with that password with selected media organizations in order to gain personal benefit,” Assange said.

With the information available to some people, Assange said he decided to make it available to everyone.

“It was necessary to give the information in an authenticated way to the general public, to journalists and to those people who might be mentioned in those materials to show that they were mentioned and what might have been said about them,” he said.

Who or what really caused the London riots?

Posted: 06 Sep 2011

Finally, hopefully, some answers:

The causes and consequences of the English riots last month, the most serious bout of civil unrest in a generation, will be examined in a study by the Guardian and the London School of Economics.

Researchers will interview hundreds of people who were involved, in the first empirical study into the widespread rioting and looting.

As well as surveys of those who took part in the disorder, the research will include interviews with residents, police and the judiciary, and an advanced analysis of more than 2.5m riot-related Twitter messages.

The study – Reading the Riots – is supported by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Open Society Foundations. The project, announced on the eve of the one-month anniversary of the outbreak of trouble in Tottenham, north London, will seek to better understand why riots then spread to other parts of the capital and cities across England.

Four consecutive nights of looting and arson in August left five people dead and more than 2,000 suspects arrested. Police anticipate that investigations to identify perpetrators of the disorder will last several years.

Reading the Riots is modelled on an acclaimed survey conducted in the aftermath of the Detroit riots in 1967. The findings of that study, the result of a groundbreaking collaboration between the Detroit Free Press newspaper and Michigan’s Institute for Social Research, challenged prevailing assumptions about the cause of the unrest.

…

Reading the Riots will bring together a team of leading academics and experts and combine quantitative and qualitattive research methods. At the heart of the project are two unique databases compiled by the Guardian over the last month.

The first is a database of more than 1,100 defendants who have appeared in court charged with riot-related offences. The list, compiled with the assistance of the Ministry of Justice, consists of more than 70% of those who have appeared in magistrate and crown courts. Many will be given the opportunity to take part in the research study in the coming weeks.

The second database contains 2.5m riot-related tweets. Executives at Twitter’s headquarters in California authorised the collation of tweets, pooled from hashtags relating to the riots and their aftermath, so they could form part of the study. A spokeman for the company said: “Twitter provided publicly available information that is accessible to researchers and others via its API.”

Wikileaks reveals Israeli company loving “war on terror” (aka targeting Muslims makes us good money)

Posted: 05 Sep 2011

9/11 happens. An already large privatised security industry massively expands. Israel is the supposed expert on such matters (being good at racial profiling and killing Arabs whilst damaging the security prospects and future of the state).

Wikileaks releases a document from March 2008 that highlights just one company looking to make a fortune from this bogus threat:

On March 7, Econoff received a briefing from senior executives at Hazard Threat Analysis, Ltd. (HTA), a private company specializing in internet-based counter-terrorism (CT) intelligence gathering. Founder and CEO Aviram Halevi explained that all of HTA’s research is based on open source material gathered by collectors from shared platforms and peer-to-peer programs on the internet and Web 2.0. Halevi clarified that the company does not collect business intelligence or use hackers. HTA has a staff of approximately 25 researchers, of whom twenty are language specialists, primarily in Farsi and Arabic. The researchers are often recently discharged members of Israeli Defense Intelligence’s (IDI) elite Unit 8200, which is well known in Israel as IDI’s signal intelligence unit. The young staff is employed by HTA to develop online identities (avatars) in discussion groups used by potential terrorists to actively solicit information useful to their clients. Some of these identities have been maintained for as long as two years. Halevi was quick to note that his employees are not involved in terrorist planning online, limiting themselves to observer status within the groups. A typical monthly report costs between USD 2500-4500.

¶2. (S) Halevi, a former Lt. Colonel in IDI, said that other companies and agencies engage in similar activities, but none with the skill or experience of his team. Discharged soldiers from IDI serve as a “bottomless well” of talent, said Halevi, and new personnel can always be hired depending on the needs of the client. Halevi explained that the researchers and analysts understand the CT context in which they are working from their army training, and their skills are such that not one false identity has ever been identified by other participants in discussion groups. Halevi noted that HTA has a competitive edge in this sort of technical analysis, and is currently providing similar reports to the Joint Task Force in Iraq (this has not been independently confirmed). In Halevi’s view, this ability to analyze technical capabilities is what differentiates HTA from others in the field, such as the American Rita Katz and her Site Institute. In a separate conversation, IDI Iran analyst Itai Yonat told Econoff that HTA analysts often claim responsibility for recent terrorist attacks as a means of establishing credibility in online groups, using technical knowledge of such events in the region. Yonat confessed that the GOI was generally unwilling to outsource intelligence work to HTA, but regularly made use of their information when provided for free.

¶3. (S) Mickey Segall, Head of Political Analysis, noted that HTA was different from traditional intelligence agencies in that there is no wall between collection and analysis. Instead, collectors and analysts work side-by-side to refine the final product and bring it to market as quickly as possible. This allows the staff to “reach across the aisle” and change priorities if the customer makes a specific request. Segall worked on Arab and Iranian issues for twenty years in IDI where he also reached the rank of Lt. Colonel, but said that when he joined HTA one year ago much of the company’s information was entirely new to him. It is surprising, said Segall, how many high-ranking people keep blogs, especially in Iran, which is a relatively techno-savvy country. He offered the example of the Central Bank of Iran, which maintains a public site where officials discuss the bank’s internal policies and comment on actions taken by the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

¶4. (S) Segall said that outsourcing to HTA does not replace traditional intelligence, but rather enhances it. “We can be there fast, with high quality information tailored to the customer,” said Segall. HTA can do both pinpoint research and broader situation reports, but is not able to provide the sort of “point-to-point” specific information available through more traditional intelligence gathering methods. Instead, said Segall, the researchers focus on early phases of CT when terrorists are often less cautious about their use of technology. Halevi said that this type of information could be particularly useful in tracking terrorism finance. HTA’s analysts often encounter fundraisers for terrorist groups, credit card numbers, pin codes, and other identifying information, but do not have any customers requesting this information. Halevi also believes that when it comes to Iran, there is considerable information that could be obtained on the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and other groups through the use of link analysis connecting individuals with support for terrorism and nuclear proliferation.<

¶5. (S) The company maintains a databank of private video and photographs posted on blogs and discussion groups from target countries. Halevi said that in many cases, the data is removed by government censors within minutes, but the footage remains accessible forever to HTA researchers. HTA analysts recently used video footage posted on Hamas internet chat groups to prepare a report for IDI Research on rocket capacity in Gaza. He added that gaining the confidence of U.S. clients is an arduous process, as HTA is not incorporated in the United States. HTA shares contracts with its sister company in the United Kingdom, Hazard Management Solutions Ltd, which was recently acquired by the Canadian company Allen-Vanguard.

Contracting in Afghanistan is turning that country into a deformed beast

Posted: 05 Sep 2011

My following investigation appears today in Crikey:

In the 10 years since 9/11, millions of people have been killed but countless firms have benefited from the explosion inWestern defence spending. Brian Michael Jenkins, senior adviser to the president at Rand Corporation, recently toldNational Defence that “the war on terrorism cost $3.8 trillion in the first 10 years”.

Much of this money has also been used in American theatres of war including Iraq and Afghanistan. A just-released reportby the US-based Commission on Wartime Contracting found that at least one out of every six dollars spent by the US on contractors in both countries in the past decade has been wasted or disappeared. That’s more than $30 billion.

A lawyer working on rule of law issues in Afghanistan exclusively tells Crikey from Kabul that nothing has changed on the contracting issue since Barack Obama assumed office and nor will it:

“People are tired of this war and it will be an issue in the forthcoming [2012] election. The news that the Obama administration is negotiating with Afghan President Hamid Karzai [to keep at least 25,000 troops in the country until 2024, according to media reports] would not be welcomed by American voters. Using [private] contractors is a great solution for Obama in terms of bringing the troops home while still maintaining a presence here.”

One of the key points of the Commission on Wartime Contracting is that America initiated wars after 9/11 without adequate planning, therefore relying on private contractors to fill the void. At times, more than 260,000 people in the contractor workforce has exceeded the number of US military forces in a conflict zone.

As The New Yorker revealed earlier this year, an army of largely invisible foreign workers populate American bases with little or no protection from exploitation.

America couldn’t fight its multiple wars without contractors.

The depth of the problem is shown by the presence of the controversial mercenary company Blackwater in Afghanistan, despite the Karzai government continually rejecting the presence of such forces.

Without them, however, the nation’s violence would spiral even further out of control, because the Afghan army isdeserting in massive numbers and remains incapable of fighting an insurgency that is only strengthening as long as foreign troops occupy the nation.

Such dismal figures also put into perspective the role of Australia in Uruzgan Province as we’re constantly told that our role is to train Afghan soldiers to defend the country on their own. The possible success of this mission is highly questionable. Confirmation that Australian forces are using drones to kill supposed enemies in southern Afghanistan will only increase the local hatred of Western forces.

Furthermore, this week’s important article in the Fairfax Media about Australian special forces using legally and morally suspect covert means to target insurgents missed one important element; the use of private companies to assist this process, something I revealed in Crikey in late 2010.

Various sources tell Crikey that Australian and American troops increasingly rely on private intelligence contractors to gain information on suspected insurgents. Tragically this information is often incorrect, causing the wrongful abduction or death of civilians.

The lawyer in Kabul tells says that the nexus between huge amounts of foreign money, a corrupt Karzai regime and private contractors make the job of reform almost impossible.

“The Afghan government is not in a position to be serious about fighting corruption because President Karzai is holding together the most fragile of coalitions and he’s only able to do it by carving out gifts to everybody he needs support from,” she said. “Those gifts include high-ranking positions, opportunities to collect money through corruption, control of provinces and the narcotics trade. Karzai doesn’t really have the option to be sincere about fighting corruption. The Afghan anti-corruption institution is essentially a fake institution. It may well have been set up with clear marching orders to occupy that space without doing anything.”

This is the government with whom the West is betting its future in Afghanistan.

Contractors hired by NATO or the US military to provide supplies to the troops have to pay off the Taliban in order to be able to do their job. Enormous amounts of money are going from defence budgets into the pockets of the people the troops are being deployed to fight.

“The military has become a prep school that you have to get through and graduate to be a well paid mercenary,” the Kabul lawyer tells Crikey. “These [contracting] companies are publicly traded. They don’t have a philosophy or a set of values of their own; they have shareholders. Their only next goal is to get the next contract.”

A recent investigation in Caravan magazine explained how Indian aid money to the country was feeding the insurgency by bribing the warlords New Delhi says it wants to defeat.

One of the key reasons private contractors will remain in Afghanistan and countless other nations are because the war-making Western powers have no desire for it to stop. A war economy is thriving in Afghanistan due to ongoing occupation policies dictating a never-ending supply of security to insulate those implementing it. And since the occupation will continue for years to come, mercenaries will always be in demand.

I’ve seen the price list of Western contractors in Afghanistan who can charge a small fortune to protect individuals and these companies are only demanding what the market can sustain.

One human rights source in Kabul, who requested anonymity, tells Crikey that the occupying army in Afghanistan is fighting dual battles to establish any kind of peace and stability. Private contractors, without which the Americans and Australians couldn’t operate in the country, are relied upon despite a shocking human rights record.

For example, DynCorp is integral to the American war effort despite being accused of complicity in the illegal transfer of terror suspects through extraordinary rendition. This is the same company that a US government report recently found massively failed to deliver on its contractual agreement to train the Afghan National Police.

The Kabul source explains how the entire Western war machine is seemingly destined not to succeed, therefore requiring a foreign troop presence for the foreseeable future:

“The real issue with ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] is that everybody is on a six-month tour, including the people with desk jobs. I never forget a meeting I had with two ISAF people dedicated to fighting corruption. An American and a French man. One of them said to me, ‘Ma’am, ISAF understands that we aren’t going to be able to end corruption in Afghanistan in the next two years but ISAF’s goal is that within two years corruption will no longer be an obstacle between the people and the government with the people running into the arms of the insurgency’. I said that sounded ambitious. I said that you’re planning to be here for two years? He said, ‘No, ma’am, I’m here for six months’.”

*Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist currently working on a book about disaster capitalism

Dishonest media continues lies over BDS to smear support for Palestine as anti-Semitic

Posted: 05 Sep 2011

The rot continues in Murdoch’s Australian.

After Greens Senator Lee Rhiannon defended her right to be pro-Palestinian and not anti-Semitic (a leap of logic only made by desperate Zionists and hack media), a flurry of letters ensued.

This was yesterday:

While those behind the boycott of Israeli products will claim that this is not anti-Semitic, the fact that it targets the only Jewish state, a democracy, while ignoring serial human rights-abusing nations, tells us that this is indeed anti-Semitic in intent and in effect.

This demonstrates how far “respectable anti-Semitism” has come. Clearly it has become acceptable to boycott and discriminate against Jews, as long as there is a thin veneer of anti-Zionism which purportedly covers the hateful act.

Bill Anderson, Surrey Hills, Vic

Lee Rhiannon (Letters, 2/9) has every right to criticise Israel’s policies, but the BDS boycott campaign that she champions, with its triumphalist slogans like “Palestine will be free from the (Jordan) river to the (Mediterranean) sea” is a thinly veiled attempt to destroy Israel as the national homeland of the Jewish people.

More than 190 nations provide self-determination for their peoples. Rhiannon champions the cause of people who have never had sovereignty of one square centimetre of land (and I wouldn’t deny her right to do so) but why deny the national aspirations of the Jewish people?

Steve Lieblich, Jewish Community Council, North Perth, WA

And a voice of reason today (which will clearly be seen as anti-Semitic because it’s written by a Palestinian and we all know Palestinians hate Jews, right?) followed by a typical Zionist voice that wants the world to focus on every human rights abuse except Israel and Palestine. The occupation is invisible to these people and yet they have the temerity to call themselves “friends” of Israel:

AT the risk of sounding like a cracked record, let us be clear, again, about what the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) call from Palestinian civil society is actually about.

It is about recognising the inalienable rights of the Palestinian refugees; about ending the illegal military occupation; and about ending the systematic discrimination of Palestinian citizens in Israel.

It also specifically renounces all forms of racism including anti-Semitism. How can it be that any criticism of Israel is automatically anti-Semitic? How can a legitimate BDS target, such as Max Brenner (the Israeli business with strong links to the Israeli Defence Force), be automatically anti-Jewish?

And since when did a BDS protest have anything to do with 9/11 as suggested by John Ferguson (“Unions’ anti-Israel campaign puts ACTU, Labor on the spot”, 3-4/9)?

Why is there a near singular narrative that continues to misrepresent the voice of Palestine in this debate?

Moammar Mashni, Australians for Palestine, Hawthorn, Vic

What are Greens senator Lee Rhiannon’s credentials for her claim that she regularly speaks out against human rights abuses (Letters, 2/9)?

Did she boycott any communist countries when they were committing some of the greatest atrocities of the 20th century? When the Soviet Union invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring, did Rhiannon boycott the Soviets? No, she joined the Socialist Party of Australia, a pro-Soviet grouping that split from the Communist Party of Australia after the CPA abhorred the Soviet actions.

Did she boycott the Soviet Union when it was administering psychiatric abuse such as electro-shocks to its dissidents? No, she led a delegation to Moscow. She even made an appearance in Soviet Woman.

Not even in the dying days of the Soviet dictatorship did she protest about human rights abuses.

Rhiannon leads a movement that singles out Israel for boycott. Yet Rhiannon never boycotted or distanced herself from the communist regime she supported for decades.

Douglas Kirsner, Caulfield North, Vic

Afghanistan may be at war but rest assured the vultures will come

Posted: 05 Sep 2011

A friend says that a link to this page appeared on Murdoch’s Australian today, just proving that exploitating the fears and conflict of a war-torn country is never beyond the remit of disaster capitalists:

U.S. geologists just found some $1 trillion of untapped mineral deposits in Afghanistan. What’s next for the war-torn country?

Overnight, Afghanistan has gone from being a political pariah to one of the richest countries on the globe.

But can the rocky, war-torn desert – known mostly for harboring terrorists and exporting opium – be reborn as a major commodities exporter?

Afghanistan’s mineral wealth includes large caches of iron, copper, gold and lithium that could turn the country into one of the most important mining centers in the world.

Think of Australia, Canada, and Latin America. They pale in comparison to the goldmine Afghanistan could be sitting on.

But, how will Afghanistan tap into these deposits? It is a country marked by ongoing warfare, lack of infrastructure and political corruption… Will they ever be able to overcome all that?

Sign up for Money Morning now to get the free report… You’ll find out exactly what it will take to mine these deposits… How long it might be before these minerals hit the commodities market…. And how to profit.