This abuse of human rights is almost as bad as torture

what the HELL do we think we're doing, luring these poor souls out of their homeland on false pretenses and then telling them, essentially, tough shit... what the hell kind of country am i living in...?

from the wapo...

For Ziaulhaq, an Afghan driver who had never ventured outside the borders of his war-torn country, the prospect of a trip to the United States seemed like the adventure of a lifetime. He pleaded with his bosses at a contracting company near the U.S. air base at Bagram to include him on the whirlwind trip to Columbus, Ohio.

But the all-expenses-paid travel -- billed as a conference to honor Afghan businesses -- turned out to be an elaborate ruse to draw Ziaulhaq and two co-workers to the United States. Prosecutors wanted them here as witnesses in a bribery case against U.S. servicemen and some Afghan contractors.

And what began as a celebration in the summer of 2008 has become an agonizing extended stay for Ziaulhaq, who is not accused of any crime but has been forced to stay thousands of miles away from his sick wife and six children at home. Ziaulhaq and two countrymen have spent more than a year confined to a hotel in a drab industrial area near Chicago's sooty Midway Airport.

[...]

Authorities say they want Ziaulhaq's testimony in their prosecution of a bribery scheme at Bagram, an Air Force base 27 miles north of Kabul, in which servicemen accepted kickbacks from Afghan contractors. The servicemen, according to prosecutors, packed the cash in boxes that they sent home by way of the U.S. Postal Service.

[...]

Justice Department officials declined to comment on the bribery case, but they noted that the lengthy detention was approved by a federal judge.

[...]

Ziaulhaq and his confederates -- Bashir Ahmad, 30, and Kiomars Mohammad Rafi, 27 -- had been employees of companies that provided concrete security barricades and other materials to the U.S. military at Bagram. Now they spend their days attending prayer services and cooking in their small kitchenette of their hotel, where monthly rates range from $2,000 to $3,000. The hotel sits next to a $3 carwash and across the street from an industrial strip occupied by discount-store distribution centers.

as a country, we've obviously decided to just kiss off any kind of decent treatment of fellow human beings... patético...

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Juan Cole on rightwing bottom-feeders

goddam these people to hell...

professor cole...

The American Rightwing would not have approved of Woodrow Wilson getting the prize for helping found the League of Nations. They do not believe in international cooperation or multilateralism in the first place. They think America should cowboy it. They are the tribe of 'bring'em on' and 'wanted dead or alive.' They are about trapping the country in quagmires so as to throw cash to their cronies in the military-industrial complex. They like wars, not peace. They don't care how many people they kill in the global south. A million Iraqis dead? They deny it or justify it or blame it on someone else. They are bottom feeders.

They would have considered Frederic Passy, the first peace Nobelist, as woolly-headed dreamer and laughed at a Universal Peace Conference organized just a little over a decade before the mass slaughter of World War I. They would have dismissed Jane Addams as a "socialist." And what would have provoked them to more gales of laughter than the 1935 award to the German pacifist Carl von Ossietzky. How'd that work out, they'd snicker as they elbowed each other (with any luck breaking some of each other's ribs). If there is anyone they find more laughable than Barack Obama, it is Jimmy Carter (the greatest ex-president in American history), the 2002 awardee. Mohammad Elbaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency repeatedly got in the way of the American Right's war plans, so presumably they didn't rejoice at his 2005 prize. They don't believe in climate change or global warming and want us to switch to the dirtiest coal possible, so Al Gore's 2007 prize set them giggling, as well.

[...]

Barack Obama was given the prize because he is a game-changer. Obama has dedicated himself to reducing and ultimately scrapping the nuclear arsenals that threaten the world with nuclear winter or a destruction of the ozone layer; either event would be catastrophic for human beings' existence on the planet. Obama has already made a substantial change in relations between the US and the Muslim world. Two years ago we were talking about whether Cheney could convince Americans to go to war on Iran. Now Washington is engaging in direct talks with Tehran that have easied tensions.

Whether she or he actually achieves peace or not is unpredictable, but game changers are clearly visible to everyone. The hand shake between Rabin and Arafat in the early 1990s was potentially a game changer, and the Oslo deal would have profoundly enhanced world peace if it had worked (it might even have averted 9/11 and the subsequent wars). Al Gore's campaign for the environment was a game changer. Shirine Ebadi's dedication to a rule of law in Iran is a game changer, and she gives hope to many otherwise cynical youth and women.

For those who are giggling and demanding concrete improvements, it is worth noting that most of the recipients have been idealists rather than practical persons. Obama is both, and therefore he has a real shot at vindicating the social worth of his policies in future. Rightwing policies were tried for 8 years and they failed. Miserably.

giggle away, you bastards...

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Follow-up on Obama's award from Michael Moore

yeah... what can i say except yeah...?

via alternet...

The irony that you have been awarded this prize on the 2nd day of the ninth year of our War in Afghanistan is not lost on anyone. You are truly at a crossroads now. You can listen to the generals and expand the war (only to result in a far-too-predictable defeat) or you can declare Bush's Wars over, and bring all the troops home. Now. That's what a true man of peace would do.

There is nothing wrong with you doing what the last guy failed to do -- capture the man or men responsible for the mass murder of 3,000 people on 9/11. BUT YOU CANNOT DO THAT WITH TANKS AND TROOPS. You are pursuing a criminal, not an army. You do not use a stick of dynamite to get rid of a mouse.

The Taliban is another matter. That is a problem for the people of Afghanistan to resolve -- just as we did in 1776, the French did in 1789, the Cubans did in 1959, the Nicaraguans did in 1979 and the people of East Berlin did in 1989. One thing is certain through all revolutions by people who wish to be free -- they ultimately have to bring about that freedom themselves. Others can be supportive, but freedom can not be delivered from the front seat of someone else's Humvee.

You have to end our involvement in Afghanistan now. If you don't, you'll have no choice but to return the prize to Oslo.

the only thing i hope is that, now that we've added immeasurably to the misery and devastation here in afghanistan, we don't just simply walk away... these good people deserve better...

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Let's put aside our anxieties for a moment and bask in the glory of Obama winning the Nobel Peace Prize

as much as i want obama to be saying and doing more than he's doing on a number of fronts, i have to step back and admit that reaching out to the muslim world and hacking away at the nuclear armageddon that hangs like the darkest of clouds over us all has been a breath of the freshest air i've had the opportunity to partake of in my memory...

congratulations, barack...!

President Barack Obama won the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize on Friday for "his extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples," the Norwegian Nobel Committee said, citing his outreach to the Muslim world and attempts to curb nuclear proliferation.

The stunning choice made Obama the third sitting U.S. president to win the Nobel Peace Prize and shocked Nobel observers because Obama took office less than two weeks before the Feb. 1 nomination deadline. Obama's name had been mentioned in speculation before the award but many Nobel watchers believed it was too early to award the president.

"Only very rarely has a person to the same extent as Obama captured the world's attention and given its people hope for a better future," the committee said. "His diplomacy is founded in the concept that those who are to lead the world must do so on the basis of values and attitudes that are shared by the majority of the world's population."

The committee said it attached special importance to Obama's vision of, and work for, a world without nuclear weapons.

"Obama has as president created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play," the committee said.

Theodore Roosevelt won the award in 1906 and Woodrow Wilson won in 1919. Former President Jimmy Carter won the award in 2002, while former Vice President Al Gore shared the 2007 prize with the U.N. panel on climate change.

good stuff... brightens my day...

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What does the 19th century Russian novel "Dead Souls" have in common with Wall Street greed...?

more than i would have thought...

from alternet...

It’s painful to admit this, but the way our 21st century American ruling class treats the rest of us is eerily reminiscent of the great Russian novel Dead Souls, about the 19th century Russian ruling class’s beastly treatment of its serfs (also called “souls”), back when most Russians were essentially slaves, legal property of the ruling class. Dead Souls features one of the most grotesque shysters in any novel: he comes up with a get-rich-quick scheme that’s eerily similar to today’s Wall Street’s latest schemes: the shyster goes from village to village, buying up “dead souls” (or “dead serfs”) who are still on the census rolls of the local landowners. The dead serfs are of no use to their owners anymore, so the landowners are happy to make one last ruble off their dead serfs by selling ownership rights over them to the shyster. The shyster’s plan: to acquire so many “dead souls” that he can package them into valuable collateral, and take out a huge loan against his “dead souls” which will finally make him rich. Wealth spun out of nothing but human misery, so that the shyster can waste huge amounts of money impressing others from the serf-owning class.

In other words: Dead Souls Loans.

Fast-forward to America in 2009, and now we’re the dead souls. Top American corporations are taking out “dead peasant insurance” on their workers without the workers even knowing it—and cashing in hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars on their employees, even though often times they don’t even offer those same employees decent health insurance coverage to allow them to survive illnesses. To top it off, these “dead peasant insurance” payouts are tax-free for the corporation that cashes in. It was a revelation so revolting that even ABC’s News’ mannequins admitted they were “stunned.”

[...]

[T]he state and the people serve the tiny ruling class; and when we’re not serving them, we can fuck off and die. Literally. Because that serves them too.

[...]

[T]oday we have a kind of highly-evolved dictatorship concealing itself as a functioning democracy. But in all the important issues, where billions or trillions are at stake, where their yachts and private jets are pitted against Americans’ lives or the national interest, you can spot the dictatorship’s horrific Predator-beast head rising from the swamp.

more truth-telling about stuff we are already horrifically familiar with...

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Kabul bomb blast

we were having a meeting in the cool morning air on the terrace when we heard the explosion... the sound had come from roughly the center of town but it wasn't until later looking at news reports that i learned it was near the ministry of the interior and the indian embassy...


Afghan soldiers carry body of a victim after a blast in
Kabul, Afghanistan on Thursday, Oct. 8, 2009. The
powerful explosion rocked the center of Afghanistan's
capital early Thursday near the Interior Ministry and
the Indian Embassy, where dozens of civilians were
killed in an attack last year.

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Olbermann's extended Special Comment on health care reform

Part l

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Part 2 - Part 3 - Part 4 - Part 5

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Hmmm... Do ya s'pose Gates and the Pentagon are trying to do an end run on Obama's Afghanistan policy review...?

kinda sounds like gates might just be offering his government career up as a whole burnt offering by essentially saying that, regardless of what his boss decides, he's already decided the troops stay in afghanistan... am i reading this correctly...?

Defense Secretary Robert Gates blamed the Taliban's revival on a past failure to deploy enough troops to Afghanistan and said U.S. forces would not withdraw whatever the result of President Barack Obama's strategy review.

"We are not leaving Afghanistan. This discussion is about next steps forward and the president has some momentous decisions to make," Gates said in a TV program taped at George Washington University on Monday and being aired by CNN on Tuesday.

oh, yeah, "the president has some momentous decisions to make," all right, but, in the meanwhile, lemme tell ya what they're gonna be... listen up, barack, m'boy...

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Chris Hedges: War memorials and museums are temples to the god of war

more sobering truth-telling...

chris hedges in truthdig via information clearing house...

War memorials and museums are temples to the god of war. The hushed voices, the well-tended grass, the flapping of the flags allow us to ignore how and why our young died. They hide the futility and waste of war. They sanitize the savage instruments of death that turn young soldiers and Marines into killers, and small villages in Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq into hellish bonfires. There are no images in these memorials of men or women with their guts hanging out of their bellies, screaming pathetically for their mothers. We do not see mangled corpses being shoved in body bags. There are no sights of children burned beyond recognition or moaning in horrible pain. There are no blind and deformed wrecks of human beings limping through life. War, by the time it is collectively remembered, is glorified and heavily censored.

[...]

War memorials are quiet, still, reverential and tasteful. And, like church, such sanctuaries are important, but they allow us to forget that these men and women were used and often betrayed by those who led the nation into war. The memorials do not tell us that some always grow rich from large-scale human suffering. They do not explain that politicians play the great games of world power and stoke fear for their own advancement. They forget that young men and women in uniform are pawns in the hands of cynics, something Pat Tillman’s family sadly discovered. They do not expose the ignorance, raw ambition and greed that are the engine of war.

at the risk of pointing out the blatantly obvious, it isn't only the war memorials that glorify war... it's enshrined in almost every aspect of our society... business and sports competition is expressed in terms of combat metaphors - gaining the high ground, attack, flanking maneuvers, crush the competitor... action films are filled to the brim with violence that pits the "good guys" (us) against the "bad guys" (them)... tots old enough to manage a wii controller attack and destroy cartoon demons and monsters in the struggle to "save the world"... those obscene plastic "support our troops" magnets that decorate cars remind us that we live in a war-obsessed, militarized society...

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I hope the IAEA's ElBaradei is prepared for the storm of abuse, scorn and calls for his scalp

truth-tellers in this day and age are few and far between... given the outcry that is almost certain to follow a statement like this, it's no wonder that truth has become such a precious and rare commodity...

via information clearing house...

Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday that "Israel is number one threat to Middle East" with its nuclear arms, the official IRNA news agency reported.

At a joint press conference with Iran's Atomic Energy Organization chief Ali Akbar Salehi in Tehran, ElBaradei brought Israel under spotlight and said that the Tel Aviv regime has refused to allow inspections into its nuclear installations for 30years, the report said.

"Israel is the number one threat to the Middle East given the nuclear arms it possesses," ElBaradei was quoted as saying.

Israel is widely assumed to have nuclear capabilities, although it refuses to confirm or deny the allegation.

"This (possession of nuclear arms) was the cause for some proper measures to gain access to its (Israel's) power plants ... and the U.S. president has done some positive measures for the inspections to happen," said ElBaradei.

i posted on juan cole's similar view just the other day but it's worth repeating here...

It is Israel's ongoing nuclear weapon production that drives the nuclear arms race in the Middle East. Saddam wanted a bomb because Israel had one. The Iranians were then worried both about an Iraqi and an Israeli bomb. Egypt, Saudi Arabia and others are annoyed at their geostrategic helplessness in the face of Israeli nukes.

god help anyone who points a finger at israel... however, i'm reminded of the old cliche, "sacred cows make the best burgers"...

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The dark underbelly of the beast

digby's reaction to michael moore's film via atrios...

This is not just a rehash of what happens when the capitalist dream dies, however, but an attempt to examine why it so often does. Moore digs deep into the dark underbelly of the beast in this outing; he gives us many eye-opening examples of truly soulless profiteering and unchecked vulture capitalism at its most egregious, including a very interesting business arrangement between a privately-run juvenile detention center and a hanging judge that will leave you slack-jawed with disbelief, and an animal glibly referred to by insurance company insiders as a “dead peasant policy” that will blow your fucking mind.

The film’s trailer has misled many people into assuming that they are just going to be seeing Moore doing another series of his patented grandstanding pranks. Although you do see him running around Wall Street armed with a megaphone, yellow crime scene tape and a rented Loomis truck, demanding a refund from bailed out financial institutions on behalf of the American taxpayers and generally being a pain-in-the-ass to hapless security guards, these types of shenanigans really only take up a relative fraction of screen time. Those moments of shtick aside, I think that the film represents the most cohesive and mature film-making Moore has done to date. Interestingly, from a purely polemical standpoint, it is also one of his least partisan, which I’m sure is going to make some of his usual knee-jerk critics develop a little twitch. Not that it really matters; his haters will continue to despise him no matter what kind of film he makes, and likely condemn it as anti-American, unpatriotic and full of lies (without bothering to actually see it, of course).

Okay, so he does close the film with a lounge-y version of “The Internationale” playing over the end credits (you just know he can’t help himself). Yet despite that rather obvious provocation (and the film’s title, of course), at the end of the day I didn’t really find his message to be so much “down with capitalism” as it is “up with people”. There is a streak of genuine and heartfelt humanism that runs through all his work, and it continues to be puzzlingly overlooked by many film-goers (and most film critics). Isn’t that kind of what the founding fathers were all about? After all, I believe that little Declaration thingy reads that we all have the right to “Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness”, not “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness, even at the expense of someone else’s”. Or does it?

i'd REALLY like to see this flick and wish i didn't have to wait until i return to the states, altho' this IS kabul and the pirated version may already be on the streets... guess i oughta look, huh...?

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Why do super-rich, white, old farts want to curb population growth...?

why, to have more for themselves, of course...!

george monbiot via information clearing house...

While there’s a weak correlation between global warming and population growth, there’s a strong correlation between global warming and wealth. I’ve been taking a look at a few superyachts, as I’ll need somewhere to entertain Labour ministers in the style to which they’re accustomed. First I went through the plans for Royal Falcon Fleet’s RFF135, but when I discovered that it burns only 750 litres of fuel per hour(5) I realised that it wasn’t going to impress Lord Mandelson. I might raise half an eyebrow in Brighton with the Overmarine Mangusta 105, which sucks up 850 l/hr(6). But the raft that’s really caught my eye is made by Wally Yachts in Monaco. The WallyPower 118 (which gives total wallies a sensation of power) consumes 3400 l/hr when travelling at 60 knots(7). That’s nearly one litre per second. Another way of putting it is 31 litres per kilometre(8).

Of course to make a real splash I’ll have to shell out on teak and mahogany fittings, carry a few jet skis and a mini-submarine, ferry my guests to the marina by private plane and helicopter, offer them bluefin tuna sushi and beluga caviar and drive the beast so fast that I mash up half the marine life of the Mediterranean. As the owner of one of these yachts I’ll do more damage to the biosphere in ten minutes than most Africans inflict in a lifetime. Now we’re burning, baby.

Someone I know who hangs out with the very rich tells me that in the banker belt of the lower Thames valley there are people who heat their outdoor swimming pools to bath temperature, all round the year. They like to lie in the pool on winter nights, looking up at the stars. The fuel costs them £3000 a month. One hundred thousand people living like these bankers would knacker our life support systems faster than 10 billion people living like the African peasantry. But at least the super wealthy have the good manners not to breed very much, so the rich old men who bang on about human reproduction leave them alone.

In May the Sunday Times carried an article headlined “Billionaire club in bid to curb overpopulation”. It revealed that “some of America’s leading billionaires have met secretly” to decide which good cause they should support. “A consensus emerged that they would back a strategy in which population growth would be tackled as a potentially disastrous environmental, social and industrial threat.”(9) The ultra-rich, in other words, have decided that it’s the very poor who are trashing the planet. You grope for a metaphor, but it’s impossible to satirise.

there are many who aren't laughing and, in fact, many who suspect that things like the swine flu, endless wars, food shortages and the like are not just unfortunate things to be dealt with, they are part of a deliberate plan to get rid of us peasants so that our super-rich handlers can have the planet to themselves...

i happen to be of the belief that there is MORE than enough to go around for everyone and that it's the ridiculous and obscene concentration of wealth, resources and power into an absurdly tiny percentage of the world's population that's the root cause of most of our problems...

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Sunday photoblogging - Kabul sunset

the dust and pollution don't exactly make for a healthy environment but they sure do offer up some nice sunsets and anyone who follows this blog knows what a sucker i am for sunsets...


Sunset over the Hindu Kush Mountains
5:23 p.m., Sunday, 4 October 2009
Kabul, Afghanistan

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