by David Steven | Jun 2, 2009 | North America, UK
Rumours have long been floating around that the Abu Ghraib photos that Barack Obama has been battling to keep secret are much more graphic than anything yet published. A week ago the Telegraph dived into the fray to confirm the story:
Photographs of alleged prisoner abuse which Barack Obama is attempting to censor include images of apparent rape and sexual abuse… At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee.
Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube. Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.
Shocking stuff and all the more credible because their source, Major General Anthony Taguba, conducted the original investigation of Abu Ghraib and has since played a key role in continuing to describe “a systematic regime of torture” authorised directly by George Bush. Taguba believes that there is “no doubt” that the Bush adminstration was guilty of war crimes.
The Telegraph, however, had Obama in its sights, not Bush. He’d promised to release the photos, then relented when lobbied by the military. He’d then lied about their content: “I want to emphasise that these photos that were requested in this case are not particularly sensational, especially when compared to the painful images that we remember from Abu Ghraib.” Rape? Sodomy? Not particularly sensational! It was quite a scoop.
The Obama adminstration was unamused, trying to divert attention by attacking the British meda, with an Obama spokesman describing the British press as the last place you’d look for “something that bordered on truthful news.”
The Telegraph was apoplectic, publishing three furious responses. Nile Gardiner: “‘juvenile,” an “absolute disgrace.” Toby Harnden: “a smokescreen,” “as arrogant as anything the Bush administration ever said about the press.” James Delingpole: “stop pooping on our lawn.”
One problem. It turns out the Taguba had been misquoted. He was referring to other photos that he’d seen – and which have already been published in 2006 – by Salon. Scott Horton, who had also been promoting the story, issued this apology:
The 44 photos subject to the ACLU lawsuit and reviewed by President Obama do not contain sexually explicit images. I regret my errors.
And the Telegraph? Well, so far it’s just kept digging. Indeed, it reported Taguba’s clear denial as confirming its story, while claiming Scott Horton’s reporting also backed them up. Apologies, as James Delingpole would no doubt put it, are clearly for “pantywaists”.
Expect more “robus”‘ reporting from the Telegraph in the future, now it’s cemented in its role as the scourge of the political class, and as it acts to correct the failings of America’s “congenitally libtard Mainstream Media.” According to Delingpole:
We don’t respect politicians any more. Not our politicians, and not yours either. Imagine how this new strain of irreverence bordering on utter contempt is going to affect our reporting of political affairs.
It’s going to be a fun ride…
by David Steven | May 22, 2009 | What we're watching
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VqXDiqe-xY&feature=player_embedded[/youtube]
by Jules Evans | May 1, 2009 | Conflict and security, Global system, Middle East and North Africa, North America
Justin Webb at the BBC speculates whether this interesting article at Salon.com by Andrew Bacevich, professor of international relations at Boston University, illustrates the “secret underpinning” of Obama’s foreign policy.
Bacevich’s article takes issue with the idea of the American century, as famously put forward by Henry Luce in a 1941 issue of Life magazine, which suggested that America should be “the Good Samaritan to the world”. Bacevich writes:
In its classic formulation, the central theme of the American Century has been one of righteousness overcoming evil. The United States (above all the U.S. military) made that triumph possible. When, having been given a final nudge on Dec. 7, 1941, Americans finally accepted their duty to lead, they saved the world from successive diabolical totalitarianisms. In doing so, the U.S. not only preserved the possibility of human freedom but modeled what freedom ought to look like.
The idea was obviously a defining influence on neo-con thinking, like the Project for a New American Century.
Bacevich suggests:
The problems with this account are twofold. First, it claims for the United States excessive credit. Second, it excludes, ignores or trivializes matters at odds with the triumphal story line.
The net effect is to perpetuate an array of illusions that, whatever their value in prior decades, have long since outlived their usefulness. In short, the persistence of this self-congratulatory account deprives Americans of self-awareness, hindering our efforts to navigate the treacherous waters in which the country finds itself at present. Bluntly, we are perpetuating a mythic version of the past that never even approximated reality and today has become downright malignant. Although Richard Cohen [a Washington Post columnist] may be right in declaring the American Century over, the American people — and especially the American political class — still remain in its thrall.
Meanwhile, the Republican party has renewed its attack of Obama’s first 100 days of foreign policy, in an advert that looks like it was made by Adam Curtis, maker of The Power of Nightmares.
by David Steven | Apr 15, 2009 | North America
In the US, hundreds of millions of right wing ‘tea baggers’ (yes – really) are protesting against “illegitimate President Barack Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package.” (Illegitimate here refers not to Obama’s parenthood, but to the fantasy he’s not a citizen.)
Protestors had collected a million tea bags to dump in Washington, but they didn’t have their paperwork in order:
“We have a million tea bags here, and we don’t have a place to put them because it’s not on our permit,” said Rebecca Wales, lead organizer of D.C. Tea Party.
The tea bags were, instead, dropped off at a local conservative think tank. I bet Obama’s grassroots organisers are quaking in their boots.
by Alex Evans | Apr 15, 2009 | North America
Mohammed al Qurani, a young Chadian inmate of Guantanamo who’s been detained there for the last seven years, got permission to call a relative earlier this week – but used the chance instead to call Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera cameraman who spent six years in Guantanamo before his release last year. It’s the first known interview with a current Guantanamo inmate. In his own words:
There has been no change in the administration of Guantanamo. The people managing the detainees there haven’t changed yet. These are the same people who were there during the Bush years and so they use the same methods.
From Al Jazeera’s coverage:
[Al Qurani said that] the alleged ill-treatment “started about 20 days” before Barack Obama became US president and “since then I’ve been subjected to it almost every day”.
[snip]
Describing a specific incident, which took place after change in the US administration, al-Qurani said he had refused to leave his cell because they were “not granting me my rights”, such as being able to walk around, interact with other inmates and have “normal food”. A group of six soldiers wearing protective gear and helmets entered his cell, accompanied by one soldier carrying a camera and one with tear gas, he said. “They had a thick rubber or plastic baton they beat me with. They emptied out about two canisters of tear gas on me,” he told Al Jazeera. “After I stopped talking, and tears were flowing from my eyes, I could hardly see or breathe.
“They then beat me again to the ground, one of them held my head and beat it against the ground. I started screaming to his senior ‘see what he’s doing, see what he’s doing’ [but] his senior started laughing and said ‘he’s doing his job’. He broke one of my front teeth. Of course they didn’t film the blood, they filmed my back so it doesn’t show.”
Obama has got to sort this out. Announcing plans for closure on his second day in office is great, and it’s widely understood that it’ll take time to figure out where the detainees will go after its closure – but in the meantime, according to Reprieve, conditions in the camp are getting worse, with an increase in the number of reported incidents in Camp Five (one of the isolation camps).
