Just before Christmas

It's the week-end before Christmas, but reading through the net today, I am disgusted by what is happening in the world. I feel the need to rant.

So the US is bombing Iraq on a regular basis, but who reports much on this? I recommed http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GL16Ak02.html for further information.

So the newspapers sit on important stories for a year because the government told them to? That's their line of explanation, no apologies, no independent judgement, no need to know for the population? What other stories are they sitting on? And how can revealing that the US is spying on its own citizens damage national security? Is everything which reveals the corruption, lying, moral deprevation and sheer idiocy of the current government a danger to national security? Why? Cause it might finally rouse the people to protest?

The fact That W is granting himself powers beyond those traditionally associated with a president, goes unnoticed. Siince when is a president no longer accountable for contravening or bypassing the law? Nixon was held accountable for actions performed, so why not W? Human rights and constitutional freedoms are being slowly eroded. The fact that the people accept this spying will just embolden him, and the lack of protest will hasten the process, all in the name of the war on terror.
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/New_York_Times_admits_it_held_1215.html http://www.commondreams.org/views05/1217-31.htm
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m18808&l=i&size=1&hd=0
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=24079
http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-5487879,00.html


Ah yes, and of course the torture issue, sidelined now that the spying issue takes precedence. I wonder whether torture really prevents innocent people getting killed, or will it finally just lead to more hatred and terrorism? http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11325.htm and http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11327.htm As for McCain, well there were exceptions made, plus of coures extraordinary rendition has not been made illegal. Trebles all round then, as the government looks good without the public seeing the small print. For more on rendition see a UK programme.
http://orbstandard.com/News/Peterson/Peterson_Bush_Fool_Americans.html
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11314.htm
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18796&hd=0&size=1&l=e

Plus the good news here is that if they get all Guantanamo detainess to implicate each other, with torture if necessary, they can keep them all imprisoned without trial for the rest of their lives!
http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news2/nyt151.html


Can we expect similar reports 60 years hence on the US interrogation, as are now being revealed about the UK? http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11326.htmThen again, I forgot, it was being done to nasty Germans so that makes it alright! Except that 60 years on such revelations, plus other information on the US and UK prsioner camps looks bad when looking down on the Germans and holding oneself up as morally superior.

Other great news concerns the 2000 US election. Yes, that old chestnut, funny how it always comes up again. So the machines aren't hackproof, and tampering does not show up in the audit trail (if the machines have one). Hands up everyone who thinks that a. the elections were not rigged and b. the machines are tamperproof. The good news is that soon it does not matter what you think as they will be showing up at a polling booth near you. http://www.bradblog.com/archives/00002168.htm

Well what about that airplane shooting incident? Well from reports I have read (and this link is just a summary sort of) http://www.smirkingchimp.com/print.php?sid=24051
the chap never mentioned a bomb, they just shot him. Reminds one of London somehow.


Then we learn that our news is preselected for us. Quo vadis internet? BTW, some sites I tried looking at were not accessile to me today, including usa today. Wondering whether anyone else is having problems with it? Try http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.asp?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&article_id=20817 let me know if it works for you.

Oh and if you live in the UK, please be aware that you may be extradited to the US at the drop of a hat. The case only needs to be made once you are safely in the US prison. A law designed for combating terrorism is being abused to get access to anyone the US desires. http://www.guardian.co.uk/wto/article/0,2763,1667774,00.html

And what about the rioting in Hong Kong, that''s cheery as well! Oh yes and the riots in Sydney, the earthquake victims in Pakistan suffering, New Orleans and its non-existent recovery, etc.

Finally, just a little news story I heard on the radio which was then dropped asap from the headlines. Maybe the German papers had more on it than the radio did. Anyway, seems the new agriculture minister in Germany wants to stop supporting ecological farmers (Bio Bauern) and instead wants to introduce more GM crops. This despite consumers well known dislike of these products. Anyone want to take any bets on who financed him, and where he will later get a job? Just look at Schroeder, September he pushes a pipeline deal through, December he starts working for them. It's becoming just like the UK, where I just somehow think of Blunkett!

Shroeder at least had the balls to disagree with the US on Iraq, the new German government is completely in their pockets. The interior minister is actually condoning torture, imprisonment etc,by saying we should use the information available from Guantanamo.

Chinese Miners Die Again And Again And Again

Chinese mine accidents continue to occur at an alarming rate. In the latest a gas explosion has reportedly killed 54:

(Xinhua) A gas explosion in a colliery in Tangshan, North China's Hebei Province, has killed 54 miners and left 22 missing. At least 186 miners were working underground when the blast occurred at 3:30 pm in Liuguantun Mine in Tangshan's Kaiping District. By press time, 110 miners had escaped, but 22 others were still trapped in the coal pit.

The Chinese mining industry has seen the death of 2700 people in the just the first have of 2005. Over the past month a quick Google Search reveals there have been six other mine accidents reported in just the past month.

Nov 7: 42 killed, 21 missing in two mine accidents

At least 42 people were killed and 21 missing in two mining accidents in North China on Sunday one day before the authorities decreed that a senior manager has to accompany coal miners underground on every shift. A gypsum-mine collapse in Hebei Province claimed the lives of 27 with 20 missing on Sunday evening. The accident happened at 7:40 pm at Kangli Gypsum Mine of Shangwang Village in Xingtai, according to the State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS)... In Shanxi Province, a coal mine blast killed 15 miners on Sunday morning in Qingxu County near Taiyuan, the provincial capital. One miner is missing.

Nov 9: Explosion in miners' dormitory kills 14

Fourteen people were killed and two seriously injured in an early morning explosion yesterday at the Beitashan Coal Mine in Qitai County, about 150 kilometres east of Urumqi, capital of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region.

Nov 11: 7 miners killed in Inner Mongolia colliery gas blast

Seven miners were killed and nine others still trapped in a colliery gas explosion occurred Friday afternoon in Wuhai City of north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region.

Nov 28: 68 killed, 74 saved in Heilongjiang coal mine blast

As of 2:00 p.m. Monday, the death toll rose to 68 in Sunday night's coal mine blast in northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, said sources with the National Bureau of Production Safety Supervision and Administration. Rescuers have saved 74 miners while 79 others still trapped underground. Li Yizhong, head of the administration, called for rescuers to "spare no efforts to save the trapped miners." Altogether 221 miners were working underground when the blast went off at 9:40 p.m. Sunday at Dongfeng Coal Mine run by the Qitaihe branch of the Longmei Mining (Group) Co., Ltd., according to the provincial coal mine safety bureau.

Dec 1: Mine death toll could rise to 171

The number of miners working underground on Sunday night when an explosion ripped through a coal mine in this Northeast China city was put at 241 yesterday, up from the 221 previously announced. That means the death toll in the Dongfeng Coal Mine blast could rise to 171 instead of an earlier estimate of 151.

Dec 1: Coal mine blast in Hebei kills 5

A coal mine blast has killed five miners and left one missing in north China's Hebei Province, local authorities said Friday. The gas explosion occurred at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday at Xipo Coal Mine in Weixian County of Zhangjiakou City, according to the provincial coal mine safety bureau.

Dec 5: Latest mine accidents kill 16, 45 missing

Three more mining accidents over the weekend have claimed 16 lives and left 45 people missing... Explosions ripped through two separate collieries on Friday morning in Guizhou Province in Southwest China. Sixteen miners were killed, 15 were rescued, and three were still missing yesterday. The third of the latest tragedies unfolded on Friday night when a coal mine in Central China's Henan Province was flooded, leaving 42 miners missing.

On a daily basis it seems we are reading about yet another mine accident in China killing dozens of miners, or yet another suicide bomber in Iraq killing dozens of Iraqis. If it is of any consolation to the Iraqis, I think Americans probably care more about their deaths than the Chinese deaths, if for no other reason than the fact American soldiers are also victims of such attacks. Yet what is going on in China is also an outrage. The conditions are abominable, and the safety precautions seem non-existent.

China is aggressively trying to grow its global economic hegemony, pricing products at levels that are almost impossible to beat, and moving into untapped markets in developing nations, such as in Africa. Yet this growth is coming at the expense of a working force that is being treated as a disposable, replaceable resource. As China becomes a greater economic threat to Western nations, just how they are making their gains is increasingly falling under the microscope. We have a moral obligation to put pressure on the Chinese to clean up their act and to improve working conditions and safety, and not just play lip service to the issue.

Cross-posted at On The Road To 2008.

"Keeping Us Safe" Gets A Failing Grade

When George Bush accepted his party's nomination for re-election last September he said:

"This moment in the life of our country will be remembered," he told the delegates from a podium at the center of Madison Square Garden. "Generations will know if we kept our faith and kept our word. Generations will know if we seized this moment and used it to build a future of safety and peace. The freedom of many, and the future security of our nation, now depend on us."

...

"I believe the most solemn duty of the American president is to protect the American people."

Ah, those were the days, when Bush's approval rating was at 54%.

Today, with an approval rating that has sunk to 38% in the latest Gallop Poll released Nov 17th, just how well have Bush and his fearmongering VP in hiding, Cheney, done in their pledge to protect us?

In a word, badly.

The September 11 Commission, now organized as a watchdog group called the 9/11 Public Discourse Project released a report card Monday about how well this administration has been doing. There are enough D's and F's there to require this administration redo a term - but thankfully that won't be necessary.

Let's not forget this is a bi-partisan group passing judgement. In a prepared statement co-Chairs Thomas H. Kean and Lee H. Hamilton wrote:

Some of these failures are shocking. Four years after 9/11:

-- It is scandalous that police and firefighters in large cities still cannot communicate reliably in a major crisis.
-- It is scandalous that airline passengers are still not screened against all names on the terrorist watchlist.
-- It is scandalous that we still allocate scarce homeland security dollars on the basis of pork barrel spending, not risk.

We are frustrated by the lack of urgency about fixing these problems.

The irony is that this administration, and this president in particular, continue to try to convince America we are safer today than we were five years ago. This in face of the growing turmoil in Iraq, that is increasingly looking like it will lead to an Iraqi civil war that could spill over and affect the entire region, and that is becoming a melting pot for anti-American radicalism, while on the home front we have progressed little and neglected obvious weak points in the nation's infrastructure that could become easy targets for terrorist attacks.

Unfortunately it seems that Bush's commitment to our safety was merely lip service to Americans during an election campaign, and over the next year we shouldn't expect the Republican dominated Congress to pay much attention to the matter, as incumbents coming up for re-elections of their own focus on sound bites and photo opportunities, rather than real action and leadership.

Cross-posted at On The Road To 2008.

Underreported news

How quick life moves on, and how easy we all forget the events of last year. Yes we all remember the Tsunami, but how many still remember the pacification of Fallujah? Occasionally the name still crops up, sometimes in connection with the mention that the US used chemical weapons in Iraq, sometimes when another US soldier is killed there, but those subjects are then again quickly dropped as no one wants to really rock the boat.

After all, who wants to mention that all is not well in Iraq? Not the NPR:

Yesterday morning on NPR (National Pentagon Radio) their reporter in Baghdad was
asked if he felt what Mr. Bush said in a recent speech was true-was the US
military strategy in Iraq working? He replied that he felt what Mr. Bush said
was true in some cases, like in Fallujah. The NPR reporter referred to Fallujah
as "pacified."

But soldiers and civilians are still dying there, just as everywhere else in Iraq. True, the number of reports are getting less, but that seems to be because the media deems them less newsworthy than other items, not because less people are being killed. And the deaths of Iraqis just doesn't rate as news any more.

Well what about those chemical weapons? Surely Iraq was invaded to ensure these do not get used? So now it turns out the US was using different chemical weapons (which are not outlawed as per the US State Department) , where is the huge public outcry? There was no memorable picture of a little girl covered in napalm burns, but people got killed just the same. Where is the independent examination, where the public protest? What about the UN? Again the story crops up and dies down, just not newsworthy.

I am sorry, but if Christmas is the period when we sing songs about goodwill to all men & peace on earth, then it surely is also the period where we should not just go shopping but take stock of the world around us and see if we are helping to achieve this peace & goodwill. And our lack of inaction, lack of reaction, just pisses me off. Sure we gave money to the victims of the tsunami, it was a natural disaster, nothing we could do to change it. But on those issues where we could have an effect, we just do not care enough about our fellow man. No protest against chemical weapons, which should be banned and outlawed, if they aren't already. No protest against the senseless destruction of a whole city and the continued killings therein (no, they did not find Zarqawi). And don't get me started on depleted uranium.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4442156.stm

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18394&hd=0&size=1&l=x

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=18397&hd=0&size=1&l=x

http://usinfo.state.gov/media/Archive_Index/Illegal_Weapons_in_Fallujah.html

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1108/dailyUpdate.html

Torture, complicity and other minor matters

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/120205M.shtml

Pressure is mounting on the White House to answer claims that the CIA is using UK airports to fly terrorist suspects for torture in secret prisons in Europe. Elizabeth Wilmshurst, the former Foreign Office lawyer who resigned over the Iraq war, warned Tony Blair last night that he cannot duck the questions crowding in about the flights which could mean Britain has been complicit in torture.

In The Independent, Ms Wilmshurst, now a fellow of Chatham House, said the Prime Minister could not justify breaking the international convention against torture by saying the "rules of the game have changed" because of the war on terrorism.

Britain's European partners stepped up the pressure for details to be disclosed about hundreds of secret flights by CIA-operated jets.

So Blair is finally facing allegations of complicity in torture from various sides, including the European partners. Excuse me, but what about these partners themselves?

Twenty-six planes apparently used by the CIA have made 307 flights in Europe since 9/11. Of these, 94 had stops in Germany and 76 in Britain, at Luton, Glasgow, Prestwick and Northolt. The UK government has denied prisoners are being held on a US-operated base on British-owned Diego Garcia.

Germany, for instance, has had these flights going via the US base at Frankfurt airport and Ramstein Airbase. So all are equally guilty, not one is innocent. Since the occupation after World War II, the US and UK still maintain bases, airfields and military zones within Germany, areas over which the German government has no jurisdiction, control or power. For the UK the question must be whether these flights were going across areas they did not control, or via regular airports. If regular airports, then the government should have known about them. Last time I checked Luton was a civilian airport.

EU leaders are ready to follow up their request to Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, to challenge the White House. On Tuesday he wrote to Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, calling for details of the secret flights to be revealed. Mr Straw said yesterday he had raised the issue with Ms Rice. She is likely to face direct challenges about flights when she visits Brussels next week.

Nope, can't see it, the UK actually challenging the US? Highly unlikely, not so much a growling bulldog demanding information, more like a lapdog pinching you. And of course he will represent Europe. I am so glad to see that we have leaders who know which country will not ask probing questions, and will get of lightly in the rebuke.

There is a debate in the US about whether torture should be permitted for extracting information. A Bill tabled by Senator John McCain to outlaw torture passed the Senate but is being opposed by Vice President Dick Cheney, who wants special exemption for CIA agents.

Well, we already knew what the US thinks about the Geneva Convention, this merely confirms it. If it can abandon the Convention when it comes to prisoners, then why not to torture. You can just imagine the brainstorming session: "I know, we'll just give the prisoners a funny name, then we can treat them as we like. Not prisoners of war, more like enemy combatants. And while we are at it, lets think of another name for kidnapping someone of the streets and taking him to be tortured, how does extraordinary rendition sound? " If I were an American I would be concerned at the ease with which the current government abandons all these supposedly basic human right principles. If it can do so with ease vis a vis foreigners without the US public protesting, who says they will protest once the same treatment is applied to a US citizen? Silly me, they already do, and the public does not care.

Finally all will die down and the flights, kidnapping and torture will continue as before. Remember Abu Ghraib? Well they slapped some people on the wrist, and now the subject has died down, but as these flights show the torture hasn't. It's been merely shifted to places where people do not ask so many questions and where there are less reporters who might pick up on a story. Next episode, torture ships out at sea.

PS. In the 60's my parents were nearly arrested in Germany while walking close to a US military installation. They are not marked on maps, I was informed by my mother.

PPS Whatever happened to discussions about Echelon? Particularly now that the EU wants to set up one of its own!

The wonders of GM crops

GM crop failure a warning, says US adviser

A former agricultural adviser to US presidents says the failure of a genetically modified field pea trial should act as a warning for future GM crop testing.

The 10-year CSIRO trial was abandoned when tests found the peas were making mice seriously ill.

Dr Charles Benbrook, who advised presidents Carter, Bush senior, Reagan and Clinton says the field pea trial failure shows current GM crop testing is grossly inadequate.

"I don't believe that this new study proves that all genetically engineered food is posing a great threat to people but it certainly confirms the need to go back and look at the major food crops," he said.

He has called for changes to the Gene Technology Act, which is currently under review, to tighten GM crop regulation and increase scientific scrutiny of potential commercial varieties.

But the Grains Council's David Ginns says the failed field pea trial was an isolated case, and the fact health concerns were discovered shows current monitoring is adequate.

"It picked up a problem early and the project was terminated on the basis that there were concerns raised in the trial."

Grand! After years telling us how wonderful GM really is and how we should all accept it instead of refusing it, they realise that all is not well. Given that they have found that there is cross fertilisation between GM brassicas and other brassicas, despite their promises that such an event would not occur, isn't it time to properly inform the consumers just what the effects of all this GM really are? Unfortunately most medical and GM trials are carried out by the companies producing and promoting the products, so everything always comes up smelling of roses. And most governments do not check the results. Consumers only realise that there is no medical miracle or 100% safe drug when things start going wrong. In the case of GM, just what are we putting in our bodies? Aren't the 100' s of pesticides they spray over crops enough? I for one am no longer buying Monsanto products.

Then again German TV had a test session recently where they discovered that most vegetable and fruit is contaminated, even some organic ones. That expensive fruit & veg does not mean healthier. In fact one of the best tested was a German discounter. Put this together with all the hormones and antibiotics given to animals, the meat marked as being unfit for human consumption which is found in supermarkets, and we are heading for a good time. Breastfeeding, although still recommeded, has also been found to be a way of passing on chemicals, pesticides, etc to the very young. What does it do to their system?

The Iraqi Reality

A good article from the Washington Post paints quite a different picture of Iraq than the one George Bush described in his speech yesterday.

Bush, in his speech at the U.S. Naval Academy, spoke of progress toward independence, of land restored to Iraqi control, of gains in stability and democracy, and of the "skill and courage" of newly trained Iraqi security forces.

But on the streets of Baghdad, such optimistic rhetoric contrasts sharply with the thunder of suicide bombs, the scream of ambulance sirens, the roar of racing police cars bearing men with masks and machine guns, and the grim daily reports of assassinations, murders and hostage-taking.

But that's generalizing. Maybe things have gotten better? What about now, at the time of the speech?

On the same day Bush spoke, nine farmworkers were killed when gunmen opened fire on a bus near Baqubah, snipers fired on the office of a National Assembly member in the capital, and three Iraqi army officers were wounded when a bomb went off near their patrol. In Fallujah, 20,000 people marched in a funeral for a Sunni cleric shot while leaving prayers.

For Iraq, that was a quiet day.

Ok, but Iraq is a pretty big country, it can't be bad everywhere, so how do Iraqis feel?

"At least we didn't have terrorism under Saddam Hussein. Now, we have explosions, kidnapping, stealing," said [Ali] Kathem, 24, a stocky man who has sold cigarettes on a busy roadside in the Iraqi capital for nearly a decade.

In an electronics store nearby, Haider Falleh, 32, said his opinion of the new Iraq crystallized when a half-dozen men in police uniforms, driving police cars, robbed his shop of 45 cell phones. He ran for help to police at a checkpoint across the street. They shrugged.

For Ghassan Abdul Haider, 26, a Shiite police officer in the capital, the religious lines dividing the country have kept him from his home in northern Baghdad for three months. The last time he was there, little children brought notes from his Sunni neighbors saying he would be killed.

...

"You just never know what you will face. Each day when I come to work, I think it will be my last day alive," said Falleh, the electronics store operator. He said he survived one bomb blast and escaped death a second time when police reacting to the bomb fired wildly into his car.

But things have got to have been improving in the past couple of years? Right?

Multiple-death bombings reached an all-time high of 46 in September, a record likely to be broken this month. More than 400 people have died in bombings this month, compared with 91 a year ago. Every day, according to an estimate by the Brookings Institution in Washington, there are roughly 100 attacks, double the rate of a year ago, and each month between 200 and 300 Iraqi policemen and soldiers are killed. Ninety-three U.S. troops died in October, the fourth-highest monthly toll since the invasion of Iraq.

So how does the situation improve then? What do Iraqis think should happen?

Iraqi political leaders see the U.S. debate as a key to their own futures, and in the foyer of the National Assembly, many offered diverging opinions on the subject.

"The Iraqi security forces and army are not yet at the level of performance to maintain security for the Iraqi people," said Arif Tayfor Sarder, deputy speaker of the National Assembly and a Kurd. "We feel the presence of the American forces is a safety valve for keeping the forces who are trying to incite trouble under control," he said.

The Kurds in Iraq's north are the least eager among Iraqi groups to see the departure of the United States, which has helped ensure a large degree of autonomy for them.

"A withdrawal rate of 40,000 year is doable," said Ali Abdul-Amir Allawi, a former defense minister and now the finance minister. "If the rate of progress of the Iraqi forces continues, then I think we can replace the U.S. forces man-for-man when the Iraqis are battle-ready."

That sounds optimistic. However, what will happen in such a power vacuum?

[Allawi] also said he saw a growing movement toward carving Iraq into large regions -- one for Shiites, one for Sunnis, one for Kurds. That notion of division has stoked fears of a civil war among the sects when the Americans leave.

"We see the beginning of that already. All these assassinations every day," said Wael Abdul-Latif, a parliament member who helped write the constitution. "The security is deteriorating. It's becoming worse day by day.

"I think there are 60 to 70 assassinations every day, and most of these are sectarian killings," Latif added. "The Sunni, Kurd and Shiite militias are the ones that control the street. If the multinational forces withdraw in such a situation, there will be even more assassinations, and the government will get weaker."

Back in his electronics shop, Falleh predicted that "if the American troops leave right away, there will be massacres between Sunnis and Shiites. If they go, there will be no law left. But they are a target here," he said. "The U.S. troops make the situation worse."

He paused, struggling to make a choice.

"I guess what I'm saying is that if they stay, they will cause problems. If they leave, they will cause bigger problems."

Seems like a damned if we do, damned if we don't situation when it comes to considering an American withdrawal. The thing is the decision will be mostly based on the political situation in the U.S., not the one in Iraq. That's not how it should be, but how it will likely play out. The U.S. invasion of Iraq was a disastrous move, as much because of that reality as anything else.

Americans have never had the stomach for the kind of long term commitment needed to produce any real stability in the region. I'm talking decades. My prediction if Bush won re-election last year, which of course he did, was that by 2006 the mid-term elections would cause a political backlash that would drive to a premature withdrawal from Iraq. Republicans fear a drubbing at the ballot box should the situation continue much longer.

I actually believe that had Kerry won election, politics could have been set at bay and a policy toward Iraq based on strategic and military factors would have had a greater chance.

Bush still hasn't given a real indication about the speed and size of a withdrawal, but even were we to pull out 50,000 troops we'd still have 100,000 left. Hardly the type of action that will appease the critics calling for a immediate withdrawal of all troops.

It is hard to argue that minimizing our casualties by pulling out sooner rather than later isn't the best option available. The insurgency has proven to be more resilient than anyone would have predicted. Our presence in Iraq fuels the fire we're trying to put out. If America is to have a serious debate on the issue, beyond politics, it will have to recognize both that reality and balance it with all the others.

One thing is for sure, this is a mess of our making, from even before the invasion. Let's not forget how Saddam rose to power in the first place. America will pay a price one way or another before all is said and done. That is not my wish, it is simply the most likely outcome.

Cross-posted at On The Road To 2008.