Nothing in Iraq happens without the approval of Al-Maliki. Nothing. So when the Human Rights Watch group and a Los Angeles Times writeup both accuse the military of either running secret prisons and/or of torture, Maliki is also complicit in these charges. FromJurist:
Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] on Tuesday accused military officials [HRW report] overseen by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki[BBC profile; JURISTnews archive] of running a secret jail in Iraq that is not subject to inspection by international groups and torturing suspects [JURIST news archive] in another detention center. The report claims that the Iraqi Army’s 56th Brigade controls the secret prison located in Camp Justice, and that Iraqi authorities ordered 280 detainees transferred there from Camp Honor in November 2010 days before international inspectors were to visit Camp Honor. The HRW report found that the 56th Brigade tortured suspects at Camp Honor, echoing a Los Angeles Times report [text] from last week. The Times found that the Camp Honor jail is run by the 56th Brigade rather than the Ministry of Justice, that prisoners face inhumane conditions, are held indefinitely and are often denied access to family members and lawyers. According to the HRW report, personnel in the overcrowded Camp Honor extracted confessions from suspected terrorists by beating them, suffocating them and making threats against their families. Deputy Justice Minister Buso Ibrahim denied the Times report [AFP report] last week, claiming that inmates can communicate with lawyers and family members and that they do not face torture or inhumane conditions. Ibrahim claimed the International Committee of the Red Cross [advocacy website] had visited Camp Honor, but the ICRC denied this, saying that it canceled the planned visit because the Iraqi government wanted to restrict its ability to talk to prisoners. Deputy Middle East director at HRW Joe Stark commented, “Revelations of secret jails in the heart of Baghdad completely undermine the Iraqi government’s promises to respect the rule of law. The government needs to close these places or move them under control of the justice system, improve conditions for detainees, and make sure that anyone responsible for torture is punished.”
In October, UN High Commissioner for Civil Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] called for the US and Iraq toinvestigate and prosecute [JURIST report] those responsible for alleged abuses that came to light afterWikiLeaks [website] released documents showing extensive human rights abuses in Iraq and accusing US forces of turning prisoners over to Iraqi forces despite knowing those prisoners were likely to face torture. Days earlier, HRW called for the Iraqi and US governments to launch an investigation [JURIST report] and prosecute those responsible for alleged detainee abuse. The group said the WikiLeaks reports detail the US military’s failure to prevent abuses, including beatings, burnings and lashings, of Iraqi detainees at the hands of their captors. In September, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] accused the Iraqi government [JURIST report] of illegally detaining over 30,000 people and torturing many of them. Last April, HRW accused Iraqi authorities of torturing detainees [JURIST report] in another secret prison.
Nothing will ever change in Iraq it seems. There have been centuries of hate and overthrowing empires. What is pathetic however is that we, via Bush43, have put in power another group that is no different than the one we deposed. Obama seems to be turning a blind eye to this and I can only hope that changes…soon.
Apple apparently doesn't want to feel the wrath of the US government...but Google doesn't give a shit. From Reuters:
Apple Inc has joined a growing number of U.S. companies that have severed ties with WikiLeaks, removing an application from its online store that gave users access to the controversial website's content.
But Google Inc, which operates the second-largest online mobile applications store, has kept more than half a dozen apps available on its Android Marketplace that make it easier to access the confidential U.S. government documents WikiLeaks had released on its site.
The two distinct approaches highlight how it is far tougher for developers to get on the iPhone's platform than Android's. Some of the Android programs provide direct access to the WikiLeaks cables, and one of them even alerts users whenever a new leaked document from the WikiLeaks repository is made public.
Kind of makes me go..hmmmmm..wtf Steve Jobs? Is Jobs a republican? Hearty lick of applause for Google on this issue.
On the home front, Kern County has been deluged, like most of Cali, with unrelenting rain for the last week. Ahnold has declared a state of emergency for our county and five others. Our house is well above the river, so the storm effect on my humble abode is minimal. The outdoor cats haven't been washed away yet, but the poor things, most of whom are feral, are just trying to find a dry place to hang out. Climate change anyone? We have gotten twice the amount of rain that we usually get in a whole year.
If I seem to be rambling, it's due to the fact that I am on massive pain meds. Ye olde back is a hot mess and being doped up to my eyeballs 24/7 means my concentration level is in the shitter....and I sleep a lot.
Obama is running his piehole on the boob tube now, so I gotta try to pay attention.
Live coverage over at the Guardian site. What they have posted to their site so far:
2.35pm: Assange sought consular assistance from the Australian high commission, according to Channel 4 News.
Sky claims that members of the commission are inside the court with Assange.
2.33pm: WikiLeaks has put out another appeal for funding. "KEEP US STRONG - DONATE", it tweeted.
With what?
The Press Association news agency has more on Visa's decision to cut off payments:
The card payment operator said an inquiry is under way into how the organisation operates.
The whistle-blowing website has suffered repeated denial of service attacks, moved server, lost its PayPal service and had a key Swiss bank account closed.
WikiLeaks relies on online donations from a worldwide network of supporters to fund its work.
A spokesman said: "Visa Europe has taken action to suspend Visa payment acceptance on WikiLeaks' website pending further investigation into the nature of its business and whether it contravenes Visa operating rules."
2.28pm: Assange said he would fight extradition to Sweden, according to the Associated Press news agency.
2.10pm: The socialite Jemima Khan has appeared in the court with Julian Assange, according to Sky News.
2.08pm: US defence secretary Robert Gates has welcomed the arrest of Assange. Speaking to reporters on a visit to US troops in Afghanistan, Gates smirked on hearing the news.
"I hadn't heard that, but that sounds like good news to me," he said.
2.07pm: More financial problems for WikiLeaks: Visa says it has suspended all payments to WikiLeaks "pending further investigation".
Earlier MasterCard said: "MasterCard is taking action to ensure that WikiLeaks can no longer accept MasterCard-branded products."
2.03pm: Hamid Karzai has been teasing the Americans and David Cameron about WikiLeaks, according to my colleague Polly Curtis, who accompanied Cameron to Kabul.
Making light of what has clearly been a tricky diplomatic period after the WikiLeaks revelations, Karzai said: "You should wait for the British WikiLeaks."
Cameron responded: "We were always nice about you," to which Karzai answered: "Most of the time."
1.58pm: Assange is due to appear in court in the next few minutes, according to a tweet from Channel 4 News.
Pretty shitty deal for all funding sources to be cut-off for Wikileaks. But, it doesn't surprise me.
I shouldn't be surprised as Paul voted with the Dim's to extend the tax cuts for the lower and middle class.. From Politico:
Rep. Ron Paul (R-Texas) is taking a stand as one of Julian Assange’s few defenders in Washington, arguing the Wikileaks founder should get the same protections as the media.
Read his entire logical, to me anyway, thoughts here. And he said it on Faux Business Channel of all places.
Once again Wikileaks has released hundreds of thousands of pages, many that were classified secret, to the NYT, DerSpeigel, UK's The Guardian and a couple other foreign news sources. Some of the releases (roughly 9000 documents/cables) are from as early as Feb of this year, meaning they will affect the Obama Administration and of course...Hillary Clinton, per TruthOut's analysis. From The Guardian writeup (all emphasis mine):
The cables contain specific allegations of corruption, as well as harsh criticism by US embassy staff of their host governments, from Caribbean islands to China and Russia. The material includes a reference to Putin as an "alpha-dog", Hamid Karzai as being "driven by paranoia" while Angela Merkel allegedly "avoids risk and is rarely creative". There is also a comparison between Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and Adolf Hitler.
The cables names Saudi donors as the biggest financiers of terror groups, and provide an extraordinarily detailed account of an agreement between Washington and Yemen to cover up the use of US planes to bomb al-Qaida targets. One cable records that during a meeting in January with General David Petraeus, then US commander in the Middle East, Yemeni president Abdullah Saleh said: "We'll continue saying they are our bombs, not yours."
Other revelations include a description of a near "environmental disaster" last year over a rogue shipment of enriched uranium, technical details of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva, and a profile of Libya's Muammar Gaddafi, who they say is accompanied everywhere by a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse.
*snip*
Topics covered range from the technical detail of secret US-Russian nuclear missile negotiations in Geneva, to an intimate personality profile of Colonel Gaddaffi, the eccentric Libyan dictator, who they say is nowadays accompanied everywhere by a "voluptuous blonde" Ukrainian nurse.
The cables cover secretary of state Hillary Clinton's work under the Obama administration, as well as thousands of files from the Bush presidency.Clinton led a frantic damage limitation exercise this weekend as Washington prepared foreign governments for the revelations, contacting leaders in Germany, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf, France and Afghanistan.
US ambassadors in other capitals were instructed to brief their hosts in advance of the release of unflattering pen-portraits or nakedly frank accounts of transactions with the US which they had thought would be kept quiet. Washington now faces a difficult task in convincing contacts around the world that any future conversations will remain confidential.
The White House, via the State Department released the usual condemnation of the leaks, stating the usual reasons:
The state department's legal adviser has written to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and his London lawyer, warning that the cables were obtained illegally and that publication would place at risk "the lives of countless innocent individuals … ongoing military operations … and cooperation between countries".
Oh hell yeah the 'cooperation between countries' will be compromised and possibly damaged as it shows how the US really trusts no one, spies on everyone and relies on that old adage: Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.
Wikileaks has said they will redact certain names to protect the innocent...or perhaps to protect the guilty..hard to say...but all the news agencies have said they will do the same as well. More from The Guardian writeup, which discusses our spying on everyone and every country:
The cables published today reveal how the US uses its embassies as part of a global espionage network, with diplomats tasked to obtain not just information from the people they meet, but personal details, such as frequent flyer numbers, credit card details and even DNA material.
Classified "human intelligence directives" issued in the name of Clinton or her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice, instruct officials to gather information on military installations, weapons markings, vehicle details of political leaders as well as iris scans, fingerprints and DNA.
The most controversial target was the UN leadership. That directive requested the specification of telecoms and IT systems used by top officials and their staff and details of "private VIP networks used for official communication, to include upgrades, security measures, passwords, personal encryption keys".
You can go to The Gaurdian's site here and download key data from the embassy cables and wade through them yourself or read the NYT's seven plus page synopsis here. Why in the blue hell do they need some of that shit, especially on our so-called allies? The cold-war never ended it seems...no matter what the fuckers in DC tell us.
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ), a UK website, has the entire set of Wikileaks Iraq War Logs online, other than Wikileaks itself. The corporate news sites like the NYT, The Guardian and Der Speigel and several others, all give you their interpretations of the thousands of pages, but TBIJ site seems the most comprehensive to me. From their site, the section which tells us what exactly the thousand upon thousands of pages of doc's, (400,000 pages), videos and military logs mean and their accompanying short video below:
Twelve weeks ago the Bureau of Investigative Journalism was given access to the biggest leak of military documents in history.
These documents formed a database of nearly 400,000 military logs recorded over six years of the Iraq war and covering the years 2004 to 2009.
There are over 37 million words used to recount military significant actions that took place across the entire country. This material provides an unrivaled portrait of one of the most controversial wars of the modern age.
For the first time the files reveal just how much the American military detailed the escalating violence in Iraq, and how this contrasts markedly to what the politicians said in public. This is the story behind the pronouncements – the uncensored detail Washington did not want us to know.
First off, the number of unreported civilian deaths just boggles my mind. The Iraq Body Count site estimates that this leak uncovers 15,000 more civilian deaths than our government reported. This of course raises the total level of deaths, regardless of group, country affiliation and including combatants to more than 150,000.Another quote to blow your mind:
Following the release of the US military war logs, the civilian death toll has risen from 107,000 to 122,000, according to Iraq Body Count.
I have been perusing the TBIJ site most of today and it just gets more ugly, grim and nightmarish with each page/story. The following line, from this page, just took my breath away:
On the same day 123 secret logs, including reports of the murder of 128 civilians, were filed.*
Holy fuckamoly, I just have a hard time wrapping my mind around everything I read there. Bear in mind that all the civilian deaths were not caused by US or Coalition troops. But.... Hundreds of civilians were gunned down in error at checkpoints...their deaths never reported to anyone.
I have purchased a domain name. I have been meticulously working on a new site,Leftwing Nutjob. Please change your bookmarks people..this puppy will no longer be updated as of July 1st 2011.
