Water: Without It, There's Neither Life Nor Liberty

It all boils down to this (article by by: Maude Barlow, YES! Magazine):

As climate change and worldwide shortages loom, will people fight over
water or join together to protect it? A global water justice movement is
demanding a change in international law to ensure the universal right to clean
water for all.
It's a colossal failure of political foresight that water has not emerged as an important issue in the U.S. Presidential campaign. The links between oil, war, and U.S. foreign policy are well known. But water - whether we treat it as a public good or as a commodity that can be bought and sold - will in large part determine whether our future is peaceful or perilous.
Americans use water even more wastefully than oil. The U.S relies on non-renewable groundwater for 50 percent of its daily use, and 36 states now face serious water shortages, some verging on crisis. Meanwhile, dwindling freshwater supplies around the world, inequitable access to water, and corporate control of water, together with impending climate change from fossil fuel emissions, have created a life-or-death situation across the planet.

We heard about this when Atlanta was thirsty, but when that crisis was averted, politics forgot the basics of life.

We forgot to think about water. But the Pentagon did not forget.

Now the Pentagon, as well as various U.S. security think tanks, have
decided that water supplies, like energy supplies, must be secured if the United
States is to maintain its current economic and military power in the world. And
the United States is exerting pressure to access Canadian water, despite
Canada's own shortages.
Under the name, "North American Future 2025 Project," the U.S. Center for
Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) brought together high level
government officials and business executives from Canada, the United States, and
Mexico for a series of six meetings to discuss a wide range of issues related to
the Security and Prosperity Partnership, a controversial and tightly guarded set
of negotiations to expand NAFTA."As ... globalization continues and the balance
of power potentially shifts, and risks to global security evolve, it is only
prudent for Canadian, Mexican, and U.S. policymakers to contemplate a North
American security architecture that could effectively deal with security threats
that can be foreseen in 2025," said a leaked copy of a CSIS backgrounder.

And there in plain English, "water consumption, water transfers, and artificial diversions of bulk water" were right on the table.

The water and security connection deepens with the fact that Sandia
National Laboratories, a vital partner with CSIS in its Global Water Futures
Project, also plays a major role in military security in the United States.
While Sandia is technically owned by the U.S. government, and reports to the
Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration, its management
is contracted out to Lockheed Martin, the world's biggest weapons
manufacturer.

So why would they want water? For workers and others extracting oil from the Alberta tar sands to drink. But why would a weapons manufacturer be in on this? It has to do with corporate profit and control of resources, both energy resources and that most precious of life resources, water.

In language that will be familiar to critics who argued that the United
States invaded Iraq not for democracy but for access to oil and profits for
corporations, a 2005 report from CSIS's Global Water Futures project had this to
say about water:
"Water issues are critical to U.S. national security and integral to upholding American values of humanitarianism and democratic development. Moreover, engagement with international water issues guarantees business opportunity for the U.S. private sector, which is well positioned to contribute to development and reap economic reward."

It's another phase of disaster capitalism: anticipated disaster capitalism. The world is in a water crisis, right? Countries like India and China may be economically "rising", but they also have a huge water crisis - potable water crisis, that is - on their hands. And that's a disaster in the making. So the U.S. wants its "private sector" - not you and me, but huge corporations - to "capitalize" on this "disaster potential" and thus control the world ... again... or something to that effect...

Clearly, the powers that be in the United States have decided that water is
not a public good but a private resource that must be secured by whatever
means.
But there are alternatives.
North Americans must learn to live within our means, by conserving water in agriculture and in the home. We could learn from the many examples here and beyond our borders-from the New Mexican "Acequia" system that uses an ancient natural ditch irrigation tradition to distribute water in arid lands to the International Rainwater Harvesting Alliance in Geneva, that works globally to promote sustainable rainwater harvesting programs.

Is it not true that we live in a global economy and one planet, that one nation's disaster is no longer our business opportunity, but somehow the source of our next disaster? And if we privatize what essentially is a human right and a human necessity, do we not endanger our entire species and its civilizations in toto? But the corporate powers are a formidable beast.

Conservation strategies would undermine the massive investment now going
into corporate technological and infrastructure solutions, such as desalination,
wastewater reuse, and water transfer projects. And conservation would be many
times cheaper, a boon to the public but not to the corporate interests that are
currently driving international water agreements.

Certainly, corporations will fight tooth and nail for this most lucrative commodity, even though in essence it's a sort of blackmail: we'll take your water and sell it back to you for our profit - and power. This gets especially nasty when multinational or foreign corporations "claim" water belonging to original residents of an area, among them animals and plants... But there is hope, and something we can do, and it is of incredible importance:

At the grassroots, a global water justice movement is demanding a change in
international law to settle once and for all the question of who controls water,
and whether responses to the water crisis will ensure water for the public or
profits for corporations. Ricardo Petrella has led a movement in Italy to
recognize access to water as a basic human right, which has support among
politicians at every level. The Coalition in Defense of Public Water in Ecuador
is demanding that the government amend the constitution to recognize the right
to water. The Coalition Against Water Privatization in South Africa is
challenging the practice of water metering before the Johannesburg High Court on
the basis that it violates the human rights of Soweto's citizens. Dozens of
groups in Mexico have joined COMDA, the Coalition of Mexican Organizations for
the Right to Water, a national campaign for a constitutional guarantee of water
for the public.
The U.S. and Canada are the only two countries actively
blocking international attempts to recognize water as a human right. But
movements in both countries are working to change that. A large network of human
rights, faith-based, labor, and environmental groups in Canada has formed
Canadian Friends of the Right to Water to get the Canadian government to support
a U.N. right-to-water covenant. And a network in the United States led by Food
and Water Watch is calling for a national water trust to ensure safekeeping of
the nation's water assets and a change of government policy on the right to
water.

The U.N. recognizes water as a basic right for all humans, which may help. But it is grassroots work on the part of many, with a little help and recognition of the issue from those in power - how about you, Barack Obama??? - that can ensure that our most precious resource is not improperly used, polluted, diverted, or otherwise mishandled to the detriment of all inhabitants of our most valued planet. It is more urgent than almost any other issue - just ask anyone in India who has to spend their entire day on the logistics of obtaining water ... are we going to wait until it comes down to that?

Dems Capitulate to Neocons' Spy Bill: New Fisa Bill Gets W Off Hook

According to this article in Alternet entitled "Dems Have Legalized Bush's War Crimes", some of the real story behind the new FISA bill and its passage is detailed:

It wasn't that Bush and his team didn't understand the old law's language;
they simply believed they could violate the law without consequence, under the radical theory that at a time of war -- even one as vaguely defined as
the "war on terror" -- the President's powers trump all laws as well as the
constitutional rights of citizens.
Essentially, Bush was betting that even if his warrantless wiretap program was disclosed -- as it was in December 2005 -- that he could trust his Republican congressional allies to protect him and could count on most Democrats not to have the guts to challenge him.
His bet proved to be a smart one. After the New York Times revealed the warrantless wiretaps two and a half years ago, Congress took no steps to hold Bush accountable. Before the 2006 elections, Pelosi declared that Bush's impeachment was "off the table."

Sen. Russell Feingold, D-Wisconsin, a strong constitutionalist, termed the
new bill "not a compromise; it is a capitulation."
One of the bill's illusions would seem to be that the precedent of a President ignoring the FISA law and escaping any accountability can somehow be negated by restating what the original, violated law had declared.
In her June 20 floor statement, Pelosi said in her view this was a crucial feature of the bill, the statement that the President cannot ignore the FISA law again. However, Pelosi's position sounded like the words of an indulgent parent of a spoiled child: "This time I really mean it!"

Pelosi, she of the "impeachment is off the table" and other disasters, doesn't have the courage to face a criminal administration with consequences. Now the Imperial Presidency is clinched. Let's hope McCain doesn't get the imperial crown, or we may lose our Constitution forever. Oh, and with a flag pin placed ceremoniously on the grave.

Truce Between Hamas & Israel: Reprieve or Improvement?

From the Guardian:

On Thursday at 6 am, following a furious final burst of activity from Qassam rocket teams against the residents of the towns of the Western Negev, and by Israel's air force against the Qassam rocket teams, silence descended on Gaza and its environs. The six-month "tahdiya" (period of calm) declared between the Hamas rulers of Gaza and Israel is the latest move in a long and exhausting war currently under way in the Middle East. This war pits a coalition of rejectionist (mainly Islamist) forces centered on Iran against pro-western elements in the region. A central goal of the pro-Iranian alliance is the destruction of Israel. Hamas is the main representative of this alliance in Gaza and the West Bank. The "tahdiya" represents a significant achievement for Hamas, and therefore for this camp.
The "tahdiya" is the fruit of the campaign of attacks launched by Hamas against the communities of the western Negev. This campaign began in the days following Israel's unilateral withdrawal from Gaza in the summer of 2005. Since that time, of course, Hamas has won PA elections, and destroyed its Fatah opponents in Gaza. The Egyptian-brokered period of calm is a de facto recognition by the government of Israel of the Hamas regime in the Strip.
Hamas gave some ground in the indirect negotiations in the period leading up to the ceasefire. Most significantly, the movement had originally wanted the ceasefire to extend to the West Bank. Israel, fearing the possibility of a creeping Hamas takeover of this area, refused. But this caveat notwithstanding, the tahdiya will allow Hamas a breathing space in which it will consolidate its rule and build up its forces.
According to the ceasefire, Israel will begin to ease its blockade of Gaza if the quiet holds for three days. A week later, again dependent on the maintenance of quiet, Israel will then further ease restrictions on cargo crossings. Talks will then begin over the re-opening of the Rafah Crossing between Egypt and Gaza, and for the release of kidnapped IDF soldier Gilad Shalit. (The causal relation between these two final aspects is not clear, and it will be interesting to observe whether the Egyptian decision to re-open Rafah will indeed be conditioned on progress regarding Shalit, or whether the one will be quietly de-coupled from the other in the weeks to come.)

Israel's Breach of Conscience Breeds More Terrorism Than Peace

Even when a new "shaky" ceasefire is in place, it helps to consider the plight of Gaza again.
When this came out last May 30

Archbishop Desmond Tutu has denounced the international community for its "silence and complicity" on what he called Israel's "abominable" 11-month blockade of Gaza.

and

The Archbishop, mainly here on a UN mission to investigate what he called the Beit Hanoun massacre of 21 civilians by Israeli tank shelling 18 months ago, said: "All we had heard about conditions in Gaza – deprivation, a sense of despair, the lack of economic activity – had not prepared us for the stark reality which we saw."

Of course, this gets little response, thanks to "fear of AIPAC." But AIPAC may ultimately be working against Israel's long-term interests, and so are others who support the blockade, which has radicalized more moderates and villainized Israel to more people than any "Islamist" propaganda ever could.

Nobody in their right mind expects the candidates to stand in sympathy with Gaza or the Palestinians. Candidates have to be all things to all people, and even more particularly, all things to all power-brokers. So to whom do we turn to stand up to the almighty power of AIPAC about which is said:

Former president Bill Clinton defined it as "stunningly effective". Former speaker of the House of Representatives Newt Gingrich called it "the most effective general-interest group across the entire planet". The New York Times as "the most important organization affecting America's relationship with Israel".

and

AIPAC maintains a virtual stranglehold over the US Congress. Critics of the Israel lobby other than Walt and Mearsheimer also contend that AIPAC essentially prevents any possibility of open debate on US policy towards Israel.

Or towards Palestinians. Or towards ... Iraq?

It has become relatively fashionable for some members of the Israeli lobby to deny any involvement in the build-up towards the war on Iraq. But few remember what AIPAC executive director Howard Kohr told the New York Sun in January 2003: "Quietly lobbying Congress to approve the use of force in Iraq was one of AIPAC's successes over the past year."

And in a New Yorker profile of Steven Rosen, AIPAC's policy director during the run-up to the war on Iraqi, it was stated that "AIPAC lobbied Congress in favor of the Iraqi war".

Compare it with a 2007 Gallup study based on 13 different polls, according to which 77% of American Jews were opposed to the Iraq war, compared to 52% of Americans.

Walt and Mearsheimer contend

"the war was due in large part to the lobby's influence, and especially its neo-con wing. The lobby is not always representative of the larger community for which it often claims to speak."

Does this mean AIPAC is overextending itself and in fact, doing the Jews - or actual human beings who identify themselves as Jews - and even Israel in a more long-term sense - more harm than good??

Does that apply also to the Palestinian issue? Of course it does! Look at Amy Goodman, who frequently hosts Palestinian-sympathizing guests and expresses strong opposition to the hawkish Security First line.

Nothing ever gets solved without the willingness to actually discuss and communicate as human beings. Once both sides become Untouchable Aliens, there is no solution but war, violence and suffering. And this doesn't occur in a vaccuum.
The problem also lies in what has been defined as "nationalism" vs. "patriotism".

George Orwell wrote that nationalism was one of the worst enemies of peace. He defined nationalism as the feeling that your way of life, country, or ethnic group were superior to others. These types of feelings lead a group to attempt to impose their morality on any given situation. When those standards were not met, more often then not, war would result.

In contrast he stated that patriotism was the feeling of admiration for a way of life etc. and the willingness to defend it against attack. The obvious difference between the two is that while patriotism is a passive attitude, nationalism is aggressive by nature.

Israel's Security First right wing enforces strong nationalism. Nationalism that displays in US foreign policy that blares to the world "Israel Right or Wrong". It's presented as a patriotic thing, but in practice, with the pre-emptive attack policy, it cannot be described as merely "defense".

On the other hand, Israel has failed to recognize that it actually has neighbors to whom it must prove itself as a good neighbor so as to get off US life-support, finally graduate from Protected Fetus status, and become a viable nation in every sense of the word. In other words, Israel will remain in vitro, a sort of implant in the Middle East, as long as it keeps this "I am God, You are Dirt" attitude. The blockade of Gaza signs, seals and delivers that impression on all those neighbors. Those nasty little vermin anti-semitic terrorists/ tyrants.

Can't you even pretend they're human? Turn on the electricity or open some freaking road so the dying can get treatment in the hospitals? Can't you see how tyrannical, nasty, mean, racist, and downright immoral this looks? The taste of genocide is in the air... where's those talented PR guys??? A token loaf of bread, some baby formula, something...

Israel cannot maintain its current position forever, much to some Israeli right-wingers' disbelief. The US empire is crumbling in the wake of the disastrous so-called "War on Terror" which has proved to be more of an apocalyptic-styled war on any non-totalitarian Muslim society that claims to have an "Islamic" government.

The US and Israel, by their policies, are feeding the fire, creating more terror, more enemies, more worldwide resentment. They are becoming, in the eyes of the rest of the world, pariahs. Their policies are intransigent, highly aggressive, featuring torture and "pre-emptive strikes". What was once the sole domain of Israel and done with some trepidation is now US foreign policy and done without a single pang of conscience.

What is conscience? An inconvenience? A nagging UN-leftwing-bleedingheart-vegan-weenie-antisemitic rant? Or is it that very thing that forces humankind to do what they hate most - consideration for others? It is that painful, dreaded submission of pride to some alien group again.

Conscience is replaced by rhetoric. Discourse is replaced by rant.

On the one hand, we hear citations of numerous threats by Hamas or Hamas sympathizers that they will somehow return Palestine to its original, Jew-free state. Just as Palestinians see Israel's insistence that recognition include the phrase "Jewish Homeland" which they take to mean recognition of the right of Israel to expel all non-Jews from Israel, to create an Arab-free state. But everyone knows reality is never dictated by threats, dreams, commands, or dictates issuing from leaders or governments.

Even Hamas leader Misha'al stated (quoted here)

We have the Palestinian Conciliation Document of 2006, in which all the organizations agreed clearly to a state based on the borders of 1967 including Jerusalem, the right of return and full sovereignty.

At some point, Israel will have to listen to its own people and take them into consideration, not for their fears but for their hopes and aspirations - but realistically. That means facing the ugly consequences of what the Israeli government is doing now so aggregiously, so aggressively, so cold-heartedly. So devoid of conscience. As Desmond Tutu said:

"The entire situation is abominable. I believe the ordinary Israeli citizens would not support this blockade if they knew what it really meant to ordinary people like themselves... My message to the international community is that our silence and complicity, especially on the situation in Gaza, shames us all. It is almost like the behaviour of the military junta in Burma."

And here's the crux of the matter:

... he said that events in both South Africa and Northern Ireland had shown that peace would come through negotiations "not with your friends. Peace can only come when enemies sit down and talk".

Of course, fat chance of that from nationalist Israel:

... less than 24 hours after the Archbishop's visit to Beit Hanoun, 60 Palestinians were arrested during a pre-dawn raid by the Israeli military on the northern Gaza town. Palestinian witnesses said that residents had been summoned to a local square before dozens were taken away for questioning, and that armed military bulldozers had destroyed some farmland in the area.

Some think they can obliterate a population and then, as if committing the perfect crime, simply deny they ever existed, thus exonerating their deed. Others prefer using semantics, calling Palestinians "terrorists" and "antisemites" (implying "racist") while Jews are "God's chosen people" and part of Biblical destiny and "holocaust victims" - meaning not simply victims of the Holocaust, but people who, having collectively undergone such a horrible disaster, now are justified in doing anything whatsoever to maintain their security. It's a feeling, but Israel needs more self-confidence, less defensiveness. Hey, they're nuclear armed in a sea of Arab military nothingness!

Finally, the net result of Israel's blockade of Gaza may be to create more extremism and terrorism in the region, since all Palestinians and Arabs can see of Israel is cruelty and oppression and a callous disregard for their humanity. They don't see that Hamas is also culpable in this, that they may be "abusing" their population in some ways.

Palestinian children in Hamas-controlled Gaza are being taught to take an active role in terrorist operations against Israel and are thus placed in mortal danger by those who should be responsible for their safety and well-being. The children, too young to fully understand even the meaning of death, are taught to aspire to "martyrdom" in children's television shows produced by the Hamas.

The blockade is NOT having the desired effect of limiting Hamas' power, but rather increasing their hold on people who see Hamas, like them, as being victimized. It gives Hamas the role of "voice of the people", a role I believe Israel, in its most nationalistic right-wing dream, would prefer it not to have.

Conscience has its perks. People recognize good works and human consideration for others. They really do. And ultimately, what could hurt Israel in the region is disregard for Palestinians and the human wasteland they've made of Gaza. You can blame Hamas. You can call them terrorists. But what the people feel is that Israel wants to destroy them, not Hamas. And only Israel can have a change of conscience. The US will do nothing with theirs, as long as Bushco and AIPAC remain in their positions of unmitigated power.

Gitmo Now Breeding Ground for Terrorists

According to this article,

A McClatchy investigation found that instead of confining terrorists,
Guantanamo often produced more of them by rounding up common criminals,
conscripts, low-level foot soldiers and men with no allegiance to radical Islam
- thus inspiring a deep hatred of the United States in them - and then housing
them in cells next to radical Islamists.
The radicals were quick to exploit the flaws in the U.S. detention system.
Soldiers, guards or interrogators at the U.S. bases at Bagram or Kandahar
in Afghanistan had abused many of the detainees, and they arrived at Guantanamo
enraged at America.
The Taliban and al Qaida leaders in the cells around them were ready to preach their firebrand interpretation of Islam and the need to wage jihad, Islamic holy war, against the West. Guantanamo became a school for jihad, complete with a council of elders who issued fatwas, binding religious instructions, to the other detainees.
Rear Adm. Mark H. Buzby, until recently the commanding officer at Guantanamo, acknowledged that senior militant leaders gained influence and control in his prison.
"We have that full range of (Taliban and al Qaida) leadership here, why would they not continue to be functional as an organization?" he said in a telephone interview.
"I must make the assumption that there's a fully functional al Qaida
cell here at Guantanamo."

Congratulations, neocons! Now we won't run out of enemies when we need them, so we can fight more cool wars and ruin more economies and increase the gap between rich and poor which should create the huge vacuum we need to survive as neocon "profligate conservatives"!

Genius!

US Maneuvers to Annex Iraq as a Base to Control that Pesky Middle East

If there were any doubts about US intentions in Iraq, their plans and demands laid down before Nouri al-Maliki, this should put them to rest:

On Friday, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told reporters in Amman, Jordan that negotiations over initial U.S. proposals for bilateral political and military agreements between the United States and Iraq had "reached a dead end" after U.S. negotiators demanded "control of Iraqi airspace and immunity from prosecution for U.S. troops and private contractors." BBC reports the disagreement between Maliki and U.S. negotiators "goes to the heart of the immensely sensitive issue of who is actually in charge in the country: the Americans or the Iraqis." "The Iraqi demands are unacceptable to the Americans, and the American demands are unacceptable to the Iraqis," Maliki said. "Iraqis will not consent to an agreement that infringes their sovereignty." The disposition of the negotiations will determine the future of the U.S. involvement in Iraq. Last week, members of the two ruling Shia parties leaked details of the U.S. proposal, telling McClatchy News that the United States is "demanding 58 bases as part of [an] agreement that will allow U.S. troops to remain in the country indefinitely."

Hopefully, the Iraqis will NEVER give in to the American demands, which should totally destabilize the region and radicalize whatever moderates were "undecided" as to whose interests the United States works on in the region. The US is fighting tooth and nail to become the actual ruler of the region, militarily and economically. Politically? Well, the plan is to use clout on that front.

Establishing bases in Iraq from which to project American power through the
region has been one of the underlying goals of the war from its inception, and
partially explains why the United States has been willing to accommodate parties
such as Maliki's Da'wa and the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq (who
are close to Iran but also support U.S. goals), at least in the
short term. Conservative pundit Dick Morris spoke for much of the pro-war
community when he told Fox News that, after 4,000 American casualties in Iraq,
"I want bases out of that."

At least somebody agrees with me:

If the administration gets its way, American troops would be stationed in the
heart of the Middle East for the foreseeable future -- likely fueling continued
extremist anti-American sentiment and political unrest. This highlights the
tension between the U.S. goals of a democratic Iraq and a continued U.S.
military presence in Iraq. For that presence to be legal and legitimate, it must
be subject to agreement by the Iraqi government. But it is extremely unlikely
that any Iraqi government that agrees to an extended U.S. presence -- especially on the terms the U.S. is currently demanding --
will be viewed as legitimate by the Iraqi people.

As for national sovereignty, that's a thing of the past. Ahhhh, Empire..... it hurts so good... if you're from Richistan, that is....

23 Billion Dollars LOST in Iraq: BBC Uncovers it, US Gags It

Click the link above for must-read news. The disasters keep on coming: when it rains, it pours.
This war, the Bush-Cheney War, is turning out to be the absolute worst debacle in every respect ever perpetrated by anyone on the US - they beat out al-Qaeda by a long shot.

While Presdient George W Bush remains in the White House, it is unlikely
the gagging orders will be lifted.
To date, no major US contractor faces
trial for fraud or mismanagement in Iraq.
The president's Democratic
opponents are keeping up the pressure over war profiteering in Iraq.
Henry Waxman, who chairs the House committee on oversight and government reform, said:
"The money that's gone into waste, fraud and abuse under these contracts is just
so outrageous, it's egregious.
"It may well turn out to be the largest war profiteering in history."
In the run-up to the invasion, one of the most senior officials in charge of procurement in the Pentagon objected to a contract potentially worth $7bn that was given to Halliburton, a Texan company which used to be run by Dick Cheney before he became vice-president.

Read it and weep...

Omar Khadr Lawyer: Gitmo Interrogators told to Trash Notes

San Juan, Puerto Rico - The Pentagon urged interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to destroy handwritten notes in case they were called to testify about potentially harsh treatment of detainees, a military defense lawyer said Sunday.
The lawyer for Toronto-born Omar Khadr, Lt. Cmdr. William Kuebler, said the instructions were included in an operations manual shown to him by prosecutors and suggest the U.S. deliberately thwarted evidence that could help terror suspects defend themselves at trial.
Kuebler said the apparent destruction of evidence prevents him from challenging the reliability of any alleged confessions. He said he will use the document to seek a dismissal of charges against Khadr.
A Pentagon spokesman, Navy Cmdr. Jeffrey Gordon, said he was reviewing the matter Sunday evening.

US Holds Terror Subjects on Prison Ships!!

Actually, this came out around June 1st (it was reported by ask on dkos), and I just found out about it. It falls right in line with the horrors of the Bush Administration: Guantanamo, torture, secret renditions to outsource torture to other countries like Syria, Abu Ghraib and a thousand similar incidents as yet minimally reported or unreported, bold outright lies to con the American public to go to war for his personal/cronies' profit in oil, manipulation of the justice system, building up huge "security" prisons in America and housing entire families including infants in their prison walls... etcetera...


And now... prison ships!

The United States is operating "floating prisons" to house those arrested
in its war on terror, according to human rights lawyers, who claim there has
been an attempt to conceal the numbers and whereabouts of detainees.
Details of ships where detainees have been held and sites allegedly being used in
countries across the world have been compiled as the debate over detention
without trial intensifies on both sides of the Atlantic. The US government was
yesterday urged to list the names and whereabouts of all those
detained.
Information about the operation of prison ships has emerged through
a number of sources, including statements from the US military, the Council of
Europe and related parliamentary bodies, and the testimonies of prisoners.

You can thank Reprieve for this investigation, which sounds almost out of another era, or a horror film. They also revealed:

there have been more than 200 new cases of rendition since 2006, when
President George Bush declared that the practice had stopped.
According to research carried out by Reprieve, the US may have used as many
as 17 ships as "floating prisons" since 2001. Detainees are interrogated aboard
the vessels and then rendered to other, often undisclosed, locations, it is
claimed.
Ships that are understood to have held prisoners include the USS Bataan and USS Peleliu. A further 15 ships are suspected of having operated around the British territory of Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, which has been used as a military base by the UK and the Americans.
Reprieve will raise particular concerns over the activities of the USS Ashland and the time it spent off Somalia in early 2007 conducting maritime security operations in an effort to capture al-Qaida terrorists.
At this time many people were abducted by Somali, Kenyan and Ethiopian forces in a systematic operation involving regular interrogations by individuals believed to be members of the FBI and CIA. Ultimately more than 100 individuals were "disappeared" to prisons in locations including Kenya, Somalia, Ethiopia, Djibouti and Guantánamo Bay.

Remember the South American dictators and the "disappeared" and the "mothers of the disappeared"? Now we have Muslim mothers worldwide whose sons have suddenly and unexplicably "disappeared" into the evil vortex of the so-called "War on Terror" in a supposed effort to maintain Americans' alleged "security". In fact, nothing could be further from the truth, of course.

The Reprieve study includes the account of a prisoner released from Guantánamo
Bay, who described a fellow inmate's story of detention on an amphibious assault
ship. "One of my fellow prisoners in Guantánamo was at sea on an American ship
with about 50 others before coming to Guantánamo ... he was in the cage next to
me. He told me that there were about 50 other people on the ship. They were all
closed off in the bottom of the ship. The prisoner commented to me that it was
like something you see on TV. The people held on the ship were beaten even more
severely than in Guantánamo."
Clive Stafford Smith, Reprieve's legal director, said: "They choose ships to try to keep their misconduct as far as possible from the prying eyes of the media and lawyers. We will eventually reunite these ghost prisoners with their legal rights."

We hope this ugly history will unravel when Bush and his cronies-in-crime leave office.
CIA "black sites" are also believed to have operated in Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland and Romania.
In addition, numerous prisoners have been "extraordinarily rendered" to US allies and are alleged to have been tortured in secret prisons in countries such as Syria, Jordan, Morocco and Egypt.

As Reprieve's Director Clive Smith said:

“By its own admission, the US government is currently detaining at least
26,000 people without trial in secret prisons, and information suggests up to
80,000 have been ‘through the system’ since 2001. The US government must show a commitment to rights and basic humanity by immediately revealing who these
people are, where they are, and what has been done to them.”

Revealed: Secret plan to keep Iraq under US control

MUST READ THIS - use link above (click title)

A secret deal being negotiated in Baghdad would perpetuate the American
military occupation of Iraq indefinitely, regardless of the outcome of the US
presidential election in November.
The terms of the impending deal, details
of which have been leaked to The Independent, are likely to have an explosive
political effect in Iraq. Iraqi officials fear that the accord, under which US
troops would occupy permanent bases, conduct military operations, arrest Iraqis
and enjoy immunity from Iraqi law, will destabilise Iraq's position in the
Middle East and lay the basis for unending conflict in their country.

British Court "Forces Government" to Hand Over Torture Docs in Gitmo Case

Here it is, from the Guardian's mouth:

(below is the article in its entirety, with my emphasis)

A British resident facing a life sentence at Guantánamo Bay has won a battle in a British court to force the government to hand over documents showing he was tortured into confessing he was a terrorist.
Binyam Mohamed, once a cleaner in Kensington, west London, is accused by the US of being an al-Qaida terrorist intent on the mass murder of civilians.
Yesterday it emerged that the high court had rejected a British government attempt to avoid a court hearing which would decide whether it should reveal evidence showing Mohamed was tortured by the US.
Mohamed, through his lawyers, who have visited him in Guantánamo, alleges he was "rendered" to Morocco, where his torture included his genitals being slashed.
The high court found the UK government supplied America with information to interrogate Mohamed and said the hearing should be held as soon as possible.

Mohamed's lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, said: "I have seen not one shred of evidence against him that was not tortured out of him. We know the British talked to Binyam in Pakistan, told him he was to be rendered and gave information to the US that was used in his torture in Morocco."

Total Joy! Obama Clinches Nomination ... Finally

Many said it was impossible. He proved them wrong, bringing an incredible mix of networking, good organization, inspiration and charisma... plus message! Compare his speeches on the stump to Hillary's: his are all on the issues - especially toward the end - and hers are all about ... well, ... her. Oh, and "you". "I love West Virginia!" and "When I grew up in Scranton..." And what's gonna happen to all those bitter, resentful women? What's with that? Personally, I'd like to have a woman do it on her own, without her husband's "brand".
Obama did it amazingly well.

Sobering News: Iraq War Vets Recount Atrocities from US Occupation

Dahr Jamail's latest report "Enough Is Enough, It's Time to Get Out" recounts the daily horror stories shared by Iraq War veterans in Seattle in what was "a continuation of the "Winter Soldier" hearings held in Silver Spring, Maryland in March."

If this isn't enough incentive to pull out of that occupation, what is?

"We were told we'd be deploying to Iraq and that we needed to get ready to have
little kids and women shoot at us," Sergio Kochergin, a former Marine who served
two deployments in Iraq, told the audience. "It was an attempt to portray Iraqis
as animals. We were supposed to do humanitarian work, but all we did was harass
people, drive like crazy on the streets, pretending it was our city and we could
do whatever we wanted to do."

">Dahr Jamail's latest report "Enough Is Enough, It's Time to Get Out" recounts the daily horror stories shared by Iraq War veterans in Seattle in what was "a continuation of the "Winter Soldier" hearings held in Silver Spring, Maryland in March."
If this isn't enough incentive to pull out of that occupation, what is?

"We were told we'd be deploying to Iraq and that we needed to get ready to have little kids and women shoot at us," Sergio Kochergin, a former Marine who served two deployments in Iraq, told the audience. "It was an attempt to portray Iraqis as animals. We were supposed to do humanitarian work, but all we did was harass people, drive like crazy on the streets, pretending it was our city and we could do whatever we wanted to do."

Kochergin continued, "We were constantly told everybody there wants to kill
you, everybody wants to get you. In the military, we had racism within every
rank and it was ridiculous. It seemed like a joke, but that joke turned into
destroying peoples' lives in Iraq."

"I was in Husaiba with a sniper platoon right on the Syrian border and
we would basically go out on the town and search for people to shoot," Kochergin
said. "The rules of engagement (ROE) got more lenient the longer we were there.
So if anyone had a bag and a shovel, we were to shoot them. We were allowed to
take our shots at anything that looked suspicious. And at that point in time,
everything looked suspicious."

Kochergin added, "Later on, we had no ROE at all. If you see something
that doesn't seem right, take them out." He concluded by saying, "Enough is
enough, it's time to get out of there."

The huge disconnect between rhetoric fed to the American public/protoplasm at home and the reality on the ground in US-occupied Iraq boggles the still-working mind. No wonder the Republican agenda is based on dumbing-down and distraction - to coverup for their blatant crimes, lies, and cruel policies.

We claim to oppose racism and promote democracy and higher values. Like this, perhaps?

Doug Connor was a first lieutenant in the army and worked as a surgical nurse in
Iraq. While there he worked as part of a combat support unit, and said most of
the patients he treated were Iraqi civilians. "There were so many people that
needed treatment we couldn't take all of them," he said. "When a bombing
happened and 45 patients were brought to us, it was always Americans treated
first, then Kurds, then the Arabs."

Or how about these "family values"?

Connor added quietly, "It got to the point where we started calling the Iraqi
patients 'range balls' because, just like on the driving range (in golf), you
don't care about losing them."

So that's how they laid down the "groundwork for peace" as W claimed? Maybe he was thinking of the peace one finds in cemeteries? But there's more than just the "peace" of death.

"I watched Iraqi Police bring in someone to interrogate," Seth Manzel, a vehicle
commander and machine gunner in the U.S. Army, told the audience. "There were
four men on the prisoner...one was pummeling his kidneys with his fists, another
was inserting a bottle up his rectum. It looked like a frat house gang-rape."

Of course, they will say "those were Iraqis"... But who set the example for them? Abu Ghraib, no doubt - which was no exception.
This has to be Job One: Get out of Iraq asap. Occupation can never be victory. It was a mistake, a lie, a humanitarian disaster, a shame, a gigantic drain on the economy, and now a burgeoning tragedy.