Deliberate Hypocrisy

Source: Axis of Logic By Ghali Hassan Oct 30, 2007, 09:33 While in Moscow in October 2007, U.S. Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice still had the time to preach U.S. “democracy” and “human rights”. Meanwhile in Iraq, daily indiscriminate bombing raids by U.S. forces on Iraqi civilians are continuing in flagrant violation of international human rights law. The aim of this deliberate hypocrisy is to manufacture delusions and induce moral bankruptcy among the population, and to justify the use of violence to further U.S.-Western imperialist agenda. As the U.S. Secretary met with Russian “activists”, U.S. occupying forces in Iraq killed at least 34 innocent Iraqi civilians, including six women and nine children, and injured many more near Lake Tharthar, north of Baghdad. While these crimes are daily occurrence, the war against the Iraqi people has increased significantly. In addition to the rise in troop’s number – 170, 000 U.S. troops supplemented by 180,000 private mercenaries –, the number of bombs dropped on Iraq during the first six months of 2007 over the same period in 2006 has increased by five-fold. More than 30 tons of those have been cluster weapons, which targeted civilians and always resulted in a massacre of innocent civilians each time they are dropped. Keep reading . . .

General Musharraf decrees emegency rule in Pakistan

Dawn, November 3, 2007



ISLAMABAD, Nov 3: President General Pervez Musharraf, in his capacity as the chief of army staff, on Saturday declared emergency rule in the country, suspended the country’s constitution, and issued a new Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO).Text of emergency proclamation

The official announcement on the state-run Pakistan Television (PTV) came within minutes of a high-level meeting at the President House (Aiwan-i-Sadr) which was chaired by the President and attended by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, senior security and intelligence officials.

Shortly before the official announcement all the private and independent news channels in the country were pulled off the cable network, leading to intense speculations of a possible emergency rule or martial law.

This is the second time in General Musharraf’s tenure that an emergency rule has been imposed, and PCO issued. First it was at the time when the military seized power on October 12, 1999. This time it was when President Musharraf had already ruled the country for eight long years, and was faced with a situation where there was a strong possibility that the Supreme Court may rule against his move to get himself elected for the second time as the head of the state.

According to some details of the new PCO made available to the media, the National Assembly, Senate, provincial assemblies, the prime minister, provincial chief ministers, federal and provincial ministers, governors and all those in the “government services” will continue to function normally.

However, it was not clear how this will be possible, or be legitimate, with President Musharraf resorting to the extra-constitutional action of suspending the constitution and issuing his own provisional constitutional order or PCO.

Soon after the proclamation of emergency by Gen Musharraf, an eight-member bench of the Supreme Court, headed by Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, reportedly set aside the decision. Setting aside General Musharraf’s proclamation of emergency, the panel asked all members of the superior judiciary against taking oath under the new PCO.

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Retired General Dunlavey: Guantanamo Mission Came Straight From Bush, Rumsfeld

Published on Friday, November 2, 2007 by Erie Times News (Pennsylvania)

Orders From The Top

by Lisa Thompson

When military investigators questioned Erie County Judge Michael E. Dunlavey about reported prisoner abuse during his tenure at the Guantanamo Bay camp for suspected terrorists, Dunlavey told them he got his “marching orders” from President Bush, according to a new book about U.S. policies regarding torture.

The book, “Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond,” relies on government documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act to trace the development of what the authors claim was prisoner abuse and torture that emerged in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The book uses Dunlavey’s words to place him, a retired two-star general in the U.S. Army Reserve, at the advent of the development of what have become disputed interrogation policies.

In a statement Dunlavey provided to a U.S. Air Force lieutenant general investigating FBI reports of detainee abuses at Guantanamo Bay, Dunlavey explains that as leader of interrogations at Guantanamo, he reported directly to President Bush and then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

He acknowledged the use of loud music and dogs and shackling prisoners in the fetal position during interrogations, but stressed repeatedly that the standard was to treat detainees humanely. The military investigation into the claims of abuse at Guantanamo Bay found no reason to reprimand Dunlavey.

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Rice to Be Subpoenaed in Espionage Case

Associated Press

updated 4:37 p.m. ET Nov. 2, 2007

WASHINGTON - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and more than a dozen other current and former intelligence officials must testify about their conversations with pro-Israel lobbyists, a federal judge ruled Friday in an espionage case.

Lawyers for two former American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbyists facing charges have subpoenaed Rice, National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, Deputy National Security Adviser Elliott Abrams and several others to testify at their trial next year. Prosecutors had challenged the subpoenas in federal court.

Lobbyists Steven Rosen and Keith Weissman maintain the Israeli interest group played an unofficial but sanctioned role in crafting foreign policy and that Rice and others can confirm it. If they ultimately testify in court, the trial in federal court in suburban Alexandria, Va. could offer a behind-the-scenes look at the way U.S. foreign policy is crafted.

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Bush Is Right to Worry If Waterboarding Is Defined as Torture

Alternet.org

By Jane Smiley, HuffingtonPost.com. Posted November 3, 2007.

We should take the criminality of the Bush administration's torture policy seriously, and that means making sure they are not above the law. (Also: A waterboarding simulation photoseries.)

There is an article in Thursday's New York Times about the way Michael Mukasey has been hedging on waterboarding. The difficulty, according to many experts is, as "Jack L. Goldsmith, who served in the Justice Department in 2003 and 2004, wrote in his recent memoir, The Terror Presidency, that the possibility of future prosecution for aggressive actions against terrorism was a constant worry inside the Bush administration." Another expert points out that future prosecutors "... would ask not just who carried it out, but who specifically approved it. Theoretically, it could go all the way up to the president of the United States; that's why he'll never say it's torture."

Keep reading . . .

Iraqi deaths up in October in blow to US 'surge' policy

AFP - Friday, November 2

BAGHDAD (AFP) - - The number of Iraqis killed in insurgent and sectarian attacks rose in October, according to government figures obtained on Thursday, in a blow to a nine-month-old US troop surge policy.

At least 887 Iraqis were killed last month, compared to 840 in September, according to the data compiled by the interior, defence and health ministries.

As in previous months, the dead were overwhelmingly civilians, with 758 reported killed against 116 policemen and 13 soldiers.

The October death toll remained sharply down on the August figure of 1,770 but the increase on September dented boasts from both US and Iraqi leaders that the crackdown on insurgent and militia violence was leading to a significant fall in casualties.

Again on Thursday, Iraq's minister for security, Shirwan al-Waili, insisted that the situation was improving in Baghdad and other areas.

"Because of the security plan, the violence has reduced. Baghdad is much safer," Waili told state television.

And just last week, the Iraqi army commander for the Baghdad region, General Abud Qanbar, hailed what he said was mounting evidence of the success of Operation Fardh al-Qanoon (Imposing Law) launched in the capital and surrounding regions in February.

The operation has seen the deployment of 28,500 additional US troops ordered to Iraq as part of the "surge" policy of President George W. Bush.

"The level of the terrorist operations has reduced, and life has come to normality in many parts in Baghdad," Qanbar told reporters on October 24.

US second-in-command Lieutenant General Ray Odierno told the same news conference there was a "downward trend" in attacks.

"Improvised explosive device attacks, the extremists' preferred method of terror, have also been reduced, down well over 60 percent in the past four months, with notably reduced lethality," he said.

Iraqi casualties soared after a February 2006 attack on a revered Shiite shrine claimed by Al-Qaeda sparked an explosion of sectarian violence.

The bombing at the Al-Askari shrine in the central city of Samarra saw a sharp rise in monthly death tolls, peaking in January this year with 1,992 deaths reported by the three Iraqi ministries.

The ministry statistics are difficult to track as officals get reports of many attacks days later.

As recently as Sunday, preliminary figures floated by the three ministries had suggested the October death toll would total just 285.

The prime minister's office which used to release the data officially stopped doing so as the figures were widely disputed.

The United Nations, which used to review the statistics, has not been able to do so since earlier this year.

British website Iraqbodycount.net, which tracks Iraqi casualty figures, said 2007 could yet end up being the second deadliest year since the March 2003 invasion, after last year which saw 27,000 civilian deaths.

In new violence on Thursday, 16 Iraqis were killed, five of them in the capital, and 11 in the confessional mixed province of Diyala to its north.

The dead in Diyala, most of them security personnel, came after a suicide bombing against the province's police headquarters in the city of Baquba on Monday killed 28 policemen.

The five dead in the capital were would-be recruits to the Iraqi army from the Sunni district of Adhamiyah who had gathered at a recruitment centre in the nearby Al-Binouk neighbourhood, security officials said.