A.LOEWENSTEIN ONLINE NEWSLETTER

• Revolutionary Guards pulling strings in Iran
• Obama’s Bush mannerisms
• BDS backers are basically terrorists in disguise (in hasbara minds)
• A few easy steps to buy products from West Bank colonies
• The futility and vindictiveness of destroying Bedouin homes
• Google and CIA work together
• Anything to protect the privatised asylum seekers
• YouTube generation gives the finger to the mullahs
• Knowing that Afghanistan is a failure
• Open letter to MEAA over ExxonMobil funding of journalism

Revolutionary Guards pulling strings in Iran Posted: 30 Jul 2010 A new blog by a colleague who knows Iran inside out. Iran Dispatch is essential reading. Like this post that discusses where real power today lies in the Islamic Republic: Iran’s opposition leader, Mehdi Karroubi says Iran Revolutionary Guards has been behind the election fraud and now controls the whole economy of the country. In an exclusive interview with BBC News Karroubi claims the private sector has been forced to leave the market and a monopoly has been concentrated in the hands of the IRGC. Karroubi says Ahmadinejad Government awards sole-source contracts to the Guards and sales state owned enterprises, such as the Telecommunication Company, without going through the tender procedures.

Obama’s Bush mannerisms Posted: 30 Jul 2010 The ACLU on Obama’s morphing into George W. Bush: In the eighteen months since the issuance of those executive orders, the administration’s record on issues related to civil liberties and national security has been, at best, mixed. Indeed, on a range of issues including accountability for torture, detention of terrorism suspects, and use of lethal force against civilians, there is a very real danger that the Obama administration will enshrine permanently within the law policies and practices that were widely considered extreme and unlawful during the Bush administration. There is a real danger, in other words, that the Obama administration will preside over the creation of a “new normal.”

BDS backers are basically terrorists in disguise (in hasbara minds) Posted: 30 Jul 2010 This is almost funny. Palestinian activists and writers, such as Ali Abunimah and Diana Buttu, backing BDS are, according to this Zionist propaganda video, “anti-Israel” because they don’t accept the two-state solution, a pipe-dream that is both impractical and immoral. Seriously, this is what Zionism is left with; smearing Palestinians who demand full rights instead of collaborating with their Israeli masters:

A few easy steps to buy products from West Bank colonies Posted: 30 Jul 2010 This is the face of modern Zionism. A Rabbi looking to help those poor souls in Israel. Help! One of Brooklyn Heights’s most-influential Jewish leaders fought back against an anti-Israel rally last Friday by doing what influential rabbis do in such situations: he bought cosmetics. Rabbi Aaron Raskin of Congregation B’nai Avraham picked up some Ahava products at Ricky’s cosmetics shop on Montague Street just a few days after the store was picketed by protesters claiming that selling the West-Bank-made lotions supported Israel’s “illegal” occupation of the West Bank. Raskin said he did his shopping simply to “make a stand” against the protesters. He also e-mailed 2,000 congregants and friends urging them to support Ricky’s and Israel by buying Ahava goods, which are made in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank. “It is inescapable to see [the protest] as anything other than an expression of anti-Semitism,” Raskin said in the e-mail.

The futility and vindictiveness of destroying Bedouin homes Posted: 30 Jul 2010 Heartbreaking and enraging. Footage this week of Israel demolishing the homes of a Bedouin village in the Negev desert. 300 people are now homeless: The Bedouin of the Negev (Naqab in Arabic) are full Israeli citizens, but some 76,000 of them live in “unrecognized villages” that receive virtually no government services including water, electricity, and sanitation.

Google and CIA work together Posted: 30 Jul 2010 Just what the world needs: The investment arms of the CIA and Google are both backing a company that monitors the web in real time — and says it uses that information to predict the future. The company is called Recorded Future, and it scours tens of thousands of websites, blogs and Twitter accounts to find the relationships between people, organizations, actions and incidents — both present and still-to-come. In a white paper, the company says its temporal analytics engine “goes beyond search” by “looking at the ‘invisible links’ between documents that talk about the same, or related, entities and events.” The idea is to figure out for each incident who was involved, where it happened and when it might go down. Recorded Future then plots that chatter, showing online “momentum” for any given event. This appears to be the first time, however, that the intelligence community and Google have funded the same startup, at the same time. No one is accusing Google of directly collaborating with the CIA. But the investments are bound to be fodder for critics of Google, who already see the search giant as overly cozy with the U.S. government, and worry that the company is starting to forget its “don’t be evil” mantra.

Anything to protect the privatised asylum seekers Posted: 30 Jul 2010 Following my article in yesterday’s Crikey about the out of control privatisation agenda in Australia, two heavy hitters respond today in the publication in predictably shallow ways. Spin, spin and more spin: Department of Immigration and Citizenship spokesman Sandi Logan writes: Let me assure Crikey readers the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) — and its detention services provider Serco — treats seriously its duty of care to all people in detention.  The safety and good order of all of our detention facilities is paramount. Serco, our current detention services provider and the subject of your correspondent’s report, was selected as the Australian Government’s detention services provider through a fair and transparent tender process. Where areas for improvement have been identified since Serco was contracted by DIAC, appropriate action has been taken to remed these issues. If Loewenstein knows of anyone in detention who has complaint about the way they are being treated or the detention environment in general, he can advise them there are clear complaint-handling mechanisms in place to ensure their concerns are treated seriously, investigated promptly and resolved. Finally, contrary to the tenor of your Loewenstein’s report, and as Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young herself said in recent days, there is a community feeling among detainees at Curtin Immigration Detention Centre (IDC) as well as goodwill towards those in charge.  Clearly he was writing about Australian immigration detention arrangements without recent first hand knowledge. Emma Needham, Communications Director, Serco Asia Pacific, writes: I write in response to Antony Loewenstein’s references to Serco in yesterday’s edition of Crikey. Serco has grown to become one of the world’s leading service companies by working in partnership with its customers, mainly governments, to manage change smoothly and positively. Citizens want faster and better services so we think innovatively to help governments improve services across a diverse range of sectors. Serco has been operating in Australia for more than 15 years, partnering with governments in the delivery of services in transport, health, justice, immigration and defence. Serco began operations in 1929, known then as RCA Services Limited. In 1987, RCA Services Limited was renamed Serco Limited and in 1988, the company achieved a full listing on the London Stock Exchange as Serco Group plc. Serco has no connection or association with KBA or Halliburton as inferred by Mr Loewenstein. Serco’s values-based approach and strong management capability are underpinned by a robust accountability framework in all contracts we operate, including immigration services. Serco is subject to closely monitored contractual requirements and the company will be penalised where it does not meet these requirements. Furthermore, governance and accountability is assured through a rigorous independent inspection and monitoring framework, which is often far more comprehensive than that to which the public service is subjected. Serco aims to positively contribute to the communities in which we operate and has a strong history of high performance. We are working closely with the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to deliver a humane and dignified service for the people in our care. Following a two day visit to Christmas Island last week, Professor Patrick McGorry spoke of the improvements that have been made, describing the centres as, “a more supportive and humane environment” where staff are treating asylum seekers as clients, not criminals.

YouTube generation gives the finger to the mullahs Posted: 30 Jul 2010 Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick in the Wall” reframed as a defiant call of support for those backing democratic change in Iran. Tehran’s authoritarianism is being noticed:

Knowing that Afghanistan is a failure Posted: 30 Jul 2010 Simon Jenkins writes in the Guardian that the Wikileaks war logs are significant. But will the media war cheer-leaders be listening? Is it the death of war? In Vietnam the horror of fighting was brought to TV screens in real time. Such was the reaction that American citizens withdrew their consent. In the 1980s computers were said to have restored the aloofness of battle by enabling armies to fight and defeat an enemy by remote control. They could locate the foe, direct fire and drop bombs with pinpoint accuracy. That thesis is now threadbare. There is no such thing as a secure computer, let alone an accurate one. Every jot of information is leaky, permeable, corruptible, accessible, free-to-air. Computerisation and miniaturisation have stripped command of all secrecy and rendered every success or failure vulnerable to WikiLeak. As a result, like Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey, computers can change sides and become the enemy. Far from defeating the enemy, technology is portrayed as shielding soldiers from the immediate result of their actions, hence distorting tactics and corrupting strategy. By recording failure in meticulous detail, the logs mock the moral basis for so-called wars among the peoples. Like Vietnam’s TV images, they leave the Iraq and Afghan conflicts as bloodthirsty killing fields, devoid of rational justification. The war logs are not so much sensational as relentless. Most of the material was known. It is the detail that bears devastating witness. Afghanistan 2001 now enters firmly into the pantheon of folly, from the wooden horse to Napoleon in Moscow to Vietnam. Indeed it bears the added crassness of coming two decades after the Russians committed the exact same folly in the same place. In 1971 the Pentagon papers revealed the deception of the Johnson and Nixon governments during the Vietnam war. The papers were credited with collapsing US morale as the war drew to a close. The Afghanistan logs convey a different message. They show George Bush, Tony Blair and their generals to be so dazzled by their massive military (and intellectual) firepower that they thought they were invincible against a tinpot Taliban. Anyone who visited Kabul in the past eight years knew that a western war of occupation would end in tears. The Taliban were a concept, not an army. Al-Qaida was an unwelcome guest, but only the Taliban were likely to expel it. Mujahideen would ooze from the rocks if provoked and never stop fighting until the infidel was expelled. Pakistan, long holder of the key to the Afghan door, had a powerful interest in backing the Taliban, an interest promoted and financed by the CIA in the 1980s. All this was known – and is now confirmed.

Open letter to MEAA over ExxonMobil funding of journalism Posted: 30 Jul 2010 Following the recent decision by Australia’s leading journalist’s union to ask ExxonMobil to fund its annual conference, the Australian Centre for Independent Journalism – I’m a research associate there -is circulating the following letter. I’ve signed it, as have many other leading reporters: Open Letter Chris Warren Secretary Media, Entertainment and Arts Alliance Dear Chris We have recently become aware that Exxon Mobil is the Gold Sponsor of the 2010 Walkley Media Conference.  As journalists and others with an interest in media, we ask you to reconsider this decision and remove its sponsorship.   The MEAA Code of Ethics emphasises the central importance of striving for the truth and the responsibilities of media in a democracy. While we can understand the need for sponsorship, we consider that Exxon Mobil, a transnational oil corporation with a strong record of funding climate skeptic groups is an inappropriate choice. These groups promote confusion and ignorance in the community. They also protect fossil fuel interests threatened by policies aimed at meeting the grave challenge of climate change. Not only does Exxon Mobil funds these groups but it has been neither open nor honest about it. In addition, Exxon Mobil has a long record of funding groups, which continually attack and undermine media organizations and individual journalists, which they consider to be too liberal. Exxon is sponsoring the conference in order to gain and enhance their credibility through association with the Australian media community.  We consider that whatever financial advantages have been gained by the MEAA in return for this sponsorship deal, the reputation of the MEAA and its credibility in protecting the role of journalists to seek the truth and the public right to know is too great a price to pay. Therefore we the undersigned call on MEAA to withdraw from this sponsorship arrangement before the conference. If you would like to discuss this matter with a group of signatories, please contact us.