The CIA station chief jailed in Pakistan for the murder of two people has been released after the victims’ families pardoned him (something apparently possible under Pakistani law) after receiving an undisclosed amount of ‘blood money’ as compensation.
Congressman Dennis Kucinich sent a letter to the Defense Department in response to their stalling for over a month on his request to visit Manning.
My request to visit with Pfc. Manning must not be delayed further. Today we have new reports that Manning was stripped naked and left in his cell for seven hours. While refusing to explain the justification for the treatment, a marine spokesman confirmed the actions but claimed they were ‘not punitive.’
Is this Quantico or Abu Ghraib? Officials have confirmed the ‘non-punitive’ stripping of an American soldier who has not been found guilty of any crime. This ‘non-punitive’ action would be considered a violation of the Army Field Manual if used in an interrogation overseas. The justification for and purpose of this action certainly raises questions of ‘cruel and unusual punishment,’ and could constitute a potential violation of international law.
Dennis Kucinich has the decency to protest the treatment of Manning. Contrast this with the weasely behavior of John Kerry and his feeble attempt to find excuses for the appalling treatment of Bradley Manning.
This US senator from Massachusetts, the Democratic presidential nominee in 2004, is rapidly proving himself to be a totally vapid politician, notorious for sonorously going on and on during Senate hearings, who seems to be more fond of hearing his own voice than of standing up for anything. Here is Kerry during Hillary Clinton’s confirmation hearings when his introductory comments went on for so long that she looked like she would fall asleep.
Then there was the time when it was discovered that multimillionaire Kerry, married to an heiress, owned a $7 million yacht but avoided paying Massachusetts taxes by keeping it in a neighboring state.
But a far worse example was in 2007 he continued to blather on, and even attempt to joke, while Andrew Meyer, a University of Florida student who questioned him at a public meeting, was wrestled to the ground by campus security offices and tasered even though he had done nothing to merit such harsh treatment. (This was the famous ‘Don’t tase me, bro!” incident.) Kerry did not do anything even as the student’s screams of pain reverberated through the auditorium. You can see the horrifying video.
To some extent I can understand politicians acting cynically, and even criminally, for personal gain, even if I do not excuse them for doing so. What I truly despise are those politicians like Kerry for whom it would cost nothing to do the right thing (like ask for decent treatment of Andrew Meyer and Bradley Manning) but do not have the common decency to do so.
It appears that many of the so-called ‘porno scanners’ are recording up to ten times the radiation emissions that they are advertised as providing.
Meanwhile the Department of Homeland Security claims that it can unilaterally implement a policy of strip searching all air travelers without any prior public comment or getting approval from any higher authority.
Under the guise of fighting terror, we have created an out-of-control monster in the DHS. All these abuses can be traced back to the odious USA PATRIOT Act that was rammed through after 9/11.
Authoritarians are quick to exploit any scare to further infringe on our rights and liberties under the guise of keeping us safe.
While deficits and a large national debt are not good things in the long run, it is not the case that it is the greatest problem right now. What is clear is that they are being used as weapons by the oligarchy to strip people of their basic rights and benefits and destroy public services in order to further enrich the few obscenely wealthy people in this country.
Paul Craig Roberts looks at the numbers and argues that we are witnessing a great rip-off.
Rachel Maddow explains what is happening in Michigan as emblematic of what is going on nationwide, which is the wholesale assault on democracy itself. (Thanks to reader Norm.)
As is often the case, what I see happening in the US has precursors in Sri Lanka a few decades ago. In Sri Lanka, elections used to swing back and forth between left-of-center and right of-center political parties, with the range being much greater than in the US. As a result, the government’s economic and social policies would change every few years. Since we had a British parliamentary system, governments would sometimes get a landslide, which would later be reversed.
In 1977, the right-of-center party won by a huge landslide. Its autocratic leader decided that he wanted to play for keeps and create a new system that would entrench his party in power indefinitely so that his policies would not be reversed. Using his huge majority, he forced through major changes in the constitution and government and elections and the judiciary system to make it hard for another pendulum swing to occur and reverse his policies, and that even the judiciary would not be able to rein in the anti-democratic measures.
It worked, at least for a while. But eventually people got tired of the government and its corruption and voted in the opposition, despite the rigged system. And now the other party is using those very same powers to entrench itself and its cronies in power. But because of the weakened democratic system and the removal of safeguards, corruption is now endemic and political thuggery and intimidation commonplace.
The lesson in this? It is that we are entering a new phase in politics in the US. The people who are attacking unions and undermining the public sector and the watchdog role of government are playing for keeps. They too want to change the rules of the game so the oligarchy has total freedom to do what it likes and that there will be no going back. They are using the ignorant tea partiers as a wedge to claim popular legitimacy but the tea partiers will be tossed aside once they have served their purpose. The tea partiers will realize only too late that they vociferously cheered on the very people who will turn around and destroy them.
The Democratic Party is too feckless to vigorously fight this assault on democracy, because they are also, with a few rare exceptions, part of the oligarchy. The Democratic Party will only do the right thing if they are forced to do so by an angry public. This is why the mass demonstrations of ordinary people occurring around the country are so important. In the March 2011 issue of Z Magazine, Paul Street quotes the late, great historian Howard Zinn:
There’s hardly anything more important that people can learn than the fact that the really critical thing isn’t who is sitting in the White House, but who is sitting in – in the streets, in the cafeteria, in the halls of government, in the factories. Who is protesting, who is occupying offices and demonstrating – those are the things that determine what happens.
Street also quotes C. Derber in his book Hidden Power (2005):
The leading agents of significant policy change in U. S. history have not been parties glued to the next election, but social movements that operate on the scale of decades rather than two- and four-year electoral cycles. Political parties have historically become agents of democratic change only when movements infuse the parties with their own long-term vision, moral conviction, and resources.
We have to support the demonstrations in Wisconsin, Ohio, and Michigan and elsewhere that are opposing this attempt to radically reshape the democratic structure to allow total control by the oligarchy.
Commenter Matt alerts me to the fact that State Department spokesperson P. J. Crowley has been forced to resign following his criticism of Bradley Manning’s treatment.
Although I have strongly criticized Crowley in the past, I find it odd the reasons why people in high positions in government are fired. You can brazenly lie and torture and even kill people and yet escape punishment and even be commended as long as you faithfully espouse the party line. But say what you feel in an unguarded moment, even to a small group and in a private capacity like Crowley did, and you are done for.
In Crowley’s case, I wrote a few months ago that I wondered whether he ever looked in the mirror and wondered how he could have sunk so low. It looks like he did.
The abusive treatment of Manning is becoming a bigger and bigger millstone around Obama’s neck.
UPDATE: As I expected, Glenn Greenwald weighs in on the Crowley case.
There have been some interesting developments concerning Bradley Manning. Amnesty International has called for people to protest his treatment. Other groups are organizing demonstrations nationwide, the first one on Sunday, March 20 outside the military brig in Quantico, VA where Manning is being abused.
Then State Department spokesperson P. J. Crowley, whom I have lambasted many times here for his hypocritical statements when it comes to the torture of foreigners or the attacks on WikiLeaks, told a small group at MIT in response to a question that the way Manning was being treated was “ridiculous, counterproductive, and stupid.” He later clarified that that was his own opinion, not that of the State Department, but he still is to be commended for voicing at least some criticism, even if it was not nearly as strong as I would have wished.
The same cannot be said for Obama. He was later asked about Manning’s treatment at a press conference and said, “With respect to Private Manning, I have actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures that have been taken in terms of his confinement are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards. They assure me that they are.”
Really? He actually asked the Pentagon about it and was told everything was fine so now he’s happy? Glenn Greenwald is appropriately sarcastic about Obama’s response:
Oh, that’s very reassuring — and such a very thorough and diligent effort by the President to ensure that detainees under his command aren’t being abused. He asked the Pentagon and they said everything was great — what more is there to know? Everyone knows that on questions of whether the military is abusing detainees, the authoritative source is . . . the military. You just ask them if they’re doing anything improper, and once they tell you that they’re not, that’s the end of the matter.
I have no doubt that George Bush asked the DoD whether everything was being run professionally at Guantanamo and they assured him that they were. Perhaps the reason there haven’t been any Wall Street prosecutions is because Obama asked Jamie Dimon and Lloyd Blankfein if there was any fraud and those banking executives assured the President that there wasn’t.
Just when I think my opinion of Obama cannot sink any lower, he proves me wrong.
But I am hoping that the increased publicity over Manning will lead to him being at least treated better.
In 1988, 73% of people opposed same sex marriage. A new poll finds that for the first time more people favor it than oppose it, by a margin of 46% to 42%. See the trend in this figure.
Belief in god, like opposition to equal rights for gays, has no rational basis and is thus susceptible to the same kind of collapse in support.
Scott Horton says that classified Department of Defense documents show how the enforced nudity practices used on Bradley Manning is deliberate policy to a break prisoner’s will but can have unpleasant repercussions.
Manning’s special regime raises concerns that abusive techniques adopted by the Bush Administration for use on alleged terrorists are being applied to a U.S. citizen and soldier. Classified Defense Department documents furnish an alternative explanation for the use of enforced nudity: “In addition to degradation of the detainee, stripping can be used to demonstrate the omnipotence of the captor or to debilitate the detainee.” Other documents detail how enforced nudity and the isolation techniques being applied to Manning can be used to prepare the prisoner to be more submissive to interrogators in connection with questioning.
…
Under established rules of international humanitarian law, the detention practices that a state adopts for its own soldiers are acceptable standards for use by a foreign power detaining that state’s soldiers in wartime. So by creating a “special regime” for Bradley Manning, the Department of Defense is also authorizing all the bizarre practices to which he is being subject to be applied to American soldiers, sailors, and airmen taken prisoner in future conflicts. This casual disregard for the rights of American service personnel could have terrible ramifications in the future.
It amazes me that people in authority take these measures assuming that their own people will never be at the receiving end. Remember that Ray Davis, a reputed CIA agent, is currently being held for murder in a Pakistan jail. What would be the US reaction if the Pakistani authorities subjected him to this kind of treatment? He is already being kept in isolation with round-the-clock monitoring.
Meanwhile, authorities stressed the stringent measures they have put in place to protect Davis in Lahore’s Kot Lakhpat jail, following angry rallies in which his effigy was burned and threats from extremist clerics.
Surveillance cameras are trained on his cell in an isolation wing, his guards have been disarmed and a ring of paramilitary Punjab rangers are posted outside. About 25 jihadi prisoners have been transferred to other facilities.
What if the authorities torture him to get him to talk? What if they forced him to be naked for extended periods of time to break him psychologically? The US would have absolutely no standing to protest, since they are doing it to their own soldier.
Maybe the US authorities just don’t care since it is never the policymakers who are at risk of such retaliation but lowly people way down the totem pole and thus expendable.
Reports are now emerging that Ray Davis, the American arrested in Pakistan for gunning down two people in the crowded streets of Lahore, was not just a CIA agent but acting head of the CIA in Pakistan, thus making lies of the claim by the US government that Davis was just an ordinary US consular official going about his business who had shot the two people in self-defense as they tried to rob him.
This revelation was hardly a surprise since the official US story right from the beginning simply did not make sense. Look at the items found in Davis’s car: a 9mm gun and 75 bullets, bolt cutters, a GPS unit, an infrared light, telescope, a digital camera, an air ticket, two mobile phones and a blank cheque. Hardly the things that a mere consular official would carry around on a shopping trip. Furthermore his behavior during and after the incident was not that of an ordinary person.
On 27 January, Raymond Davis, a bulky 36-year-old CIA agent with a shock of grey hair, was winding through the chaotic Lahore traffic when he stopped at a red light. A motorbike carrying two men, coming from the opposite direction, swerved in front of his Honda Civic. The pillion passenger was carrying a gun. Davis, a former special forces soldier, whipped out his 9mm semi-automatic Glock pistol and, still behind the wheel, opened fire. Five shots sliced through the windscreen. Muhammad Faheem, a 19-year-old street criminal, fell dead.
Davis got out of the car and took aim at the motorbike driver, Faizan Haider, who had started running. Another five shots rang out and Haider fell to the ground, having run 30ft; a postmortem indicated he was hit three times in the front and twice in the back.
Davis walked back to his car, called for help on a military-style radio, then started to photograph the dead men. Anwar Khan watched from his restaurant across the street, amazed at the American’s sang-froid. “He was very peaceful and confident. I was wondering how he could be like that after killing two people,” he said.
The US government sent John Kerry to Pakistan in an attempt to get Davis released. Kerry pledged that “the U.S. Department of Justice would open a criminal investigation against Davis.” The attempt failed. Did Kerry really think that people there would believe his statement, since the US is now notorious for not investigating and punishing anyone in the government who torture their own citizens and murder foreigners? As Scott Horton writes
In order to secure Davis’s freedom, Senator Kerry and Secretary Clinton need to be able to argue to their Pakistani counterparts that the United States is capable of investigating the Lahore incident fairly and taking criminal or disciplinary action as appropriate. Davis claims he acted in self defense, attempting to stop a daytime robbery. The use of lethal force in such circumstances may well be justified. That’s the sort of call that a prosecutor would normally make after a thorough investigation.
The problem is that America’s track record shows clearly that it doesn’t investigate or act on claims involving either intelligence agents or contractors. As I noted in earlier Congressional testimony, the United States has a de facto policy of impunity for its security contractors and agents who kill or injure foreign civilians.
But apparently Kerry did manage to spirit out of the country the other shadowy Americans who, in rushing to Davis’s aid in a failed attempt to get him away from the scene, sped along a crowded one-way street in the wrong direction and in the process killed an innocent motorcyclist.
A Pakistani judge has now denied the US government’s claim that Davis has diplomatic immunity and thus should be freed and allowed to leave the country. The Pakistani government, a US client, would prefer the higher courts to overturn this decision but there is so much popular anger against Davis and the US that doing so might cause riots and de-stabilize the government. The opposition to his release has intensified ever since the 19-year old widow of one of the victims committed suicide because in addition to her grief she felt that Davis would escape punishment. It is not helping that there are reports that the victims’ family members are now being threatened to not give evidence against Davis, and suspicions abound that these thugs are acting on behalf of the US.
So what exactly was Davis doing in Pakistan? The Pakistani newspaper Dawn reports:
Sources have revealed that a GPS chip recovered from Davis was being used in identifying targets for drone attacks in the tribal region.
It was also learnt during the probe that Davis made upto 12 visits to the tribal areas without informing Pakistani officials.
The 36- year-old US official was reluctant in giving out information about his visits to the tribal region, sources added.
The US Embassy officials were exerting pressure on the authorities, asking them not to expose the information received from Davis.
Why was he going to remote tribal areas? David Lindorff, who has been following the case closely and first brought to my attention his murky background, says:
As I reported earlier, both Pakistani and Indian news organizations are claiming, based upon intelligence sources, that Davis was involved in not just intelligence work, but in orchestrating terrorist activity by both the Pakistani Taliban and the terrorist organization Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has been linked to both the assassination of Benezir Bhutto and the capture and beheading of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Multiple calls to members of both groups were found by police on some of the cell phones found on Davis and in his car when he was arrested in Lahore.
There are so many unanswered questions swirling around this story. Why would the CIA be working with terrorist groups in Pakistan that are ostensibly opposed to the US? What about the long-standing links between the Pakistani intelligence service ISI and groups like the Taliban? Was Davis going behind the backs of the ISI to create direct links with those groups? What about the allegations in the Pakistani media that the two people shot dead by Davis were members of the ISI who were tailing him? I have no idea what the answers to these questions are. Davis clearly has information that may not be palatable to a lot of people and his life is in danger.
In the meantime, Davis is being held under rather extraordinary security because of rumors that the Americans will try to spring him, or even poison him. Davis is being shielded from any direct contact with U.S. officials, and a box of chocolates sent to Davis by the Embassy was confiscated.
I frankly cannot see how this is going to end. The US and Pakistani governments would undoubtedly like to bring this to a quick close and send Davis back to the US, where he will very likely not even be investigated let alone tried. He may even be promoted if past actions are any guide. But people in Pakistan are furious about the matter and releasing him could cause an explosion of anger.