War on Terror – Page 27

Darth Chimpy On Tour: Silence, Peasants!

Published on May 19, 2007

You may remember this post a while back about the ridiculous security lengths Cheney forced his .au hosts to go to on his vice-imperial progress around Sydney. That was bad enough.

But of course big, brave Chimpy McFlightsuit, because of his ego, has to go that little bit further even than the batshit insane Cheney’s paranoid, arrogant ridiculousness. Chimpy’s not even going to risk accidentally hearing anything bad Sydneyians might have to say about him:

Mobile blocking helicopter to trail Bush in Sydney
Fighters, SAS on alert as ‘Blue Luminary’ goes Down Under
By Lewis Page Published Friday 18th May 2007 16:14 GMT

US President George Bush will be followed about by a helicopter which jams mobile phone signals during an upcoming visit to Australia, it has emerged.

According to reports in the Sydney Daily Telegraph, train stations will also be temporarily shut down and parts of the city will “become restricted areas”. The Age speculates that “heavily armed [Australian] SAS troops” could be deployed on the Sydney streets, with “expanded rights to shoot to kill”.

President Bush is to visit Sydney along with 20 other world leaders in September for the Asia Pacific Economic Co-operation (APEC) summit. The summit and President Bush have been seen as a likely target for terrorist attacks on previous occasions.

The rash of news reports into APEC security comes as New South Wales state premier Morris Iemma announces likely measures and proposes temporary legislation on security powers.

Conjecture around the phone-jamming helicopter has arisen as a result of its appearance in attendance on Mr Bush at the 2005 APEC summit in South Korea. Reporters covering the conference said that a Black Hawk chopper would shadow the presidential motorcade, and as it passed overhead mobile phones would lose touch with the local network.

“Whenever Mr Bush visits a foreign country local sovereignty is surrendered to US authorities as he moves around in heavily armoured vehicles that follow him around the globe,” said the Telegraph.

More…. ®

Ah, the old ‘hearts and minds’ strategy.

Getting Away With Murder

Published on May 11, 2007

I expect they’d hoped to hide this amongst the hoohah about Gordon Brown.

BBC

11 Menezes police face no action
Mr Menezes was mistaken for a suicide bomber
Eleven officers involved in the shooting of Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes will not face disciplinary action, the police watchdog has said.

They were among 15 Metropolitan Police officers interviewed by the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

Decisions have not been made on the four most senior officers investigated.

The family of Mr Menezes – shot eight times at Stockwell Tube station after being mistaken for a suicide bomber – said the decision was “disgraceful”.

The 27-year-old was killed on 22 July 2005, one day after the failed London bombings.

The IPCC said a surveillance officer, one of the 11 not facing disciplinary action, would be given “management advice” in relation to action he took after the shooting.

It is a travesty of justice and another slap in the face for our family

Patricia da Silva Armani, Mr Menezes’ cousin

It said a decision on whether the four commanders and tactical advisers investigated should be disciplined would be made after the end of court proceedings.
More…

Mormon Sins, Feels ‘Bad’.

Published on May 11, 2007

Does the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints condone torture and murder by government?

This is Deputy White House Counsel Timothy Flanagan. Remember those porcine, well-fed, well-groomed features. We’ll be seeing them again at The Hague if there is any justice in the world.

This devout Mormon helped write the memo that allowed US troops to torture civilians at Abu Ghraib and secret US prisons elsewhere. This is one of the men who declared habeas corpus dead, said the Geneva Conventions were quaint and outdated and who declared that there were no human rights any longer. and that anywhere in the world, whoever or wherever you are, the US can kidnap, jail and torture you on a whim.

This is what that ‘devout’ ratfuck bastard enabled. (Warning, graphic violence)

Now he says he feels bad about it. Aww, bloody diddums. From Harpers:

I had a heartfelt conversation with Flanagan and told him what I had heard from Iraqis: that these techniques had been used on men, women and children in Iraq. He feels bad about it; I know he does. But the fact is that he and Yoo and some of these other people from the best law schools and universities in this country were the ones who came up with the legal definitions that allowed for the abuse to happen.

Quite. I urge you to read the whole article – it lays bare the horrendous torture that’s been happening and exactly who is to blame, including Flanagan. This is a man who should spend eternity with his eyes taped open watching endless looped movies of his own wife and children being raped and tortured. With a soundtrack on headphones.

What, you think that’s harsh? Why? It’s just what he made it legal for his underlings to do to others’ families, including children and babies. Flanagan is a monster, like his other ‘devout’colleagues-in-law John Yoo and Alberto Gonzalez; none of them got actual blood on their hands but they enabled a tide of blood, cruelty and filth in the hidden prisons of the US military and intelligence that will iflood the world with even more violence for decades to come.

So he says he feels bad now. What the hell does that mean? He has a vague sense of diquiet? Sincere repentance? Dismay at being caught? WTF? Saying he ‘feels bad’ is totally self-serving and meaningless. Are we supposed to show forgiveness and understanding to this psychopath now? Fuck that. He is a criminal against humanity.

What I really want to know now is whether the Church of Jesus Christ and Latter Day Saints, AKA The Mormons, will denounce him. Flanagan was the Mormon Church’s blue-eyed boy in the White House; here he is speaking to a conference of LDS layers on religion and integrity in politics – from Meridian Magazine, ‘The Place Where Latter Day Saints Gather’ :

[..]

Timothy E. Flanagan

Timothy Flanagan has firsthand experience in Washington political circles, having worked as counsel in the Bush White House. He said,

“If you lined up people who have political influence against the wall, you would have a great many wonderful Jewish people. Do you know how many Latter-day Saints there would be? Only a few. There are roughly the same number of Jews in the U.S. as Latter-day Saints, but do we have the same political impact? I don’t think so.

[…]

I’m willing to admit that our system is far from perfect and we have a great many problems as money touches politics. It is an observed fact that many Latter-day Saints view giving to candidates as something they just don’t want to do. But we can build on a cornerstone of integrity. You bring to this process your principles and the world is hungry for those principles.”

Brother Flanagan emphasized that the mark of any political work should be quality.

“Too much of the effort that people put into political work is just shoddy. It is substandard. You will stand out if you put true quality into what you do.”

When they supported Brother Timothy Flanagan in pushing their agenda in in the GOP and the White House, was torture part of that quality, principled, Mormon agenda? If not, did the LDS know Flanagan was pro-torture? They certainly knew it when he published his memo.

But I don’t see any condemnation from his church then or now. In the same article one of the other elders Boyd Black, says:

“The Church attempts very hard to keep politically neutral. Silence by the Church should never be considered as endorsement.”

Well it damned well looks like endorsement to me. Sorry, but from what I can see, I’d say the LDS hierarchy, in sheltering and approving this monster of a hypocrite, is objectively pro-torture and murder.

Oh Yeah?

Published on May 9, 2007

Jonathan Freedland was being ridiculously optimistic in the Guardian this morning:

A new book, Second Chance by Zbigniew Brzezinski, the cold war hawk who served as national security adviser to Jimmy Carter, includes a startling phrase. No leftist, Brzezinski detects what he calls a “global political awakening”, a stirring across much of the developing world, among those who are “conscious of social injustice to an unprecedented degree and resentful of its deprivations and lack of personal dignity”. Thanks to television and the internet, the global have-nots can now see all that the haves are enjoying at their expense. The hard-headed Brzezinski sniffs revolution in the air.

[…]

Is it possible that the Blair era of neoliberal certainty is coming to a close, that there are stirrings abroad that call for something else? Might there not be a demand for action, as there was when the last intolerable gap in wealth opened up nearly a century ago – a demand, in short, for a battle against inequality?

Dream on, Freedland. This is what happens when you plan to challenge the neoliberal status quo:

Hamburg – Hundreds of German police searched Wednesday the homes and offices of militants planning to protest against globalization at next month’s G8 summit on the Baltic coast. Federal prosecutors in Karlsruhe said they suspected 18 persons of terrorism. The inquiry is focussed on a series of petrol-bomb attacks over the past year on the offices, homes and cars of German officials in Berlin and Hamburg.

The raids, on 40 premises in northern Germany, were conducted by nearly 900 police.

The 18 had claimed responsibility under a variety of names for their bombings, prosecutors said.

Also under investigation were three persons identified as members of the separate Militant Groups (MG), a terrorist organization which had mounted two anti-G8 attacks, and 25 attacks on property in all since 2001.

Leftists accuse the Group of Eight (G8) nations of oppressing poor countries. They plan to disrupt the G8 summit to be hosted by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in the beach resort of Heiligendamm.

Police arrived at dawn at the Rote Flora, a building which functions as a headquarters for the German anarchist movement in the northern German city of Hamburg.

Prosecutors said the raids on the 18-person organization and MG were aimed at collecting documents and other evidence.

Among the targets of nine bomb attacks during 2006 was Thomas Mirow, state secretary of the finance ministry who lives in Hamburg, and there have been more attacks this year. Police have made no arrests so far.

The Rote Flora is the crumbling remnant of a 19th century theatre and was taken over by squatters in 1989.

The leftists now have a lease on the building, which has been at the focus of repeated clashes between rioters and the city-state’s riot police down the years.

Merkel has invited the leaders of the G7 nations and Russia to Heiligendamm, a high-class resort in sparsely populated countryside, to discuss world economic issues next month.

‘Leftist’ by whose definition? I note also that the arrested’ve been accused of terrorism – maybe I’m just dim, but I can’t find any reports on Google of a terrorist petrol bombing campaign carried out recently by leftists in Germany. Maybe someone can enlighten me?

I wonder how long it will take for all these people to be released with no charges against them. Not until conveniently after the G8, I expect.

They Don’t Like It Up ’em

Published on May 2, 2007

Censorship, it’s what the Patriot Act was made for – from Slashdot:

“Cryptome, a website concerned with encryption, privacy, and government secrecy, has received two weeks’ notice from Verio that its service will be terminated for unspecified “violation of [its] Acceptable Use Policy.” Cryptome has a history of making publicly available documents and information that governments would rather keep secret. For the notice, and a public response by Cryptome webmaster John Young, see Cryptome Shutdown by Verio/NTT.”

That terse report hides a fascinating series of emails between Cryptome’s owners and their ISP, in which the ISP stonewalls in a very peculiar way and Cryptome tries to work out the subtext of what’s happening. Eventually they get this curt termination of service letter:

This letter is to notify you that we are terminating your service for violation of our Acceptable Use Policy, effective Friday May 4, 2007. We are providing you with two week notice to locate another service provider.

Cryptome had had no previous problems with the ISP despite it’s having had alleged copyright infringement complaints made against it by disgruntled exposees. So why the shutdown now?

Might it be that they’re currently exposing a massive hole in the US military’s electronic and data security?

Not to worry for the moment though, Cryptome will survive:

This never-to-be-explained self-gagging by ISPs has become characteristic around the net due to covert and open governmental, commercial and personal aggressions to suppress information. Librarians and lawyers, among others, battling to overturn clamps on information, have learned to exhibit coded signals to the public to indicate undisclosable measures to suppress. Could be that is what Danna and Verio are signaling. We’ve received over 30 offers to host Cryptome in several countries and will accept most to disperse the collection as protection against future shutdowns.

Although Cryptome’s safe for now, what happened to them emphasises that the need for data havens is becoming ever more pressing to preserve free political speech.