“We will understand and will not press you on the issue”
So Gerald Ford is dead. Of all the mainstream stories about him, I wonder how many will mention that he gave Indonesia a green light to invade East Timor on December 6, 1975? And that Indonesia eventually killed more than 200,000 Timorese? (Ford’s specific words to Indonesia’s ruler Suharto were: “We will understand and will not press you on the issue.”)
I’m going to go out on a limb here and guess the number is zero.
In a letter to Chileans written to be published after his death, Gen. Augusto Pinochet said he wished he hadn’t had to stage the bloody 1973 coup that put him in power and called the abuses during his long rule inevitable…
The former dictator, who died Dec. 10 of heart failure at age 91, insisted that the military takeover avoided civil war and a Marxist dictatorship, and said his 1973-90 rule never had “an institutional plan” to abuse human rights.
“But it was necessary to act with maximum rigor to avoid a widening of the conflict,” Pinochet wrote…
“How I wish the Sept. 11, 1973, military action had not been necessary!” Pinochet wrote.
“Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves.”
—William Pitt, House of Commons, November 18, 1783
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Eight Marines face criminal charges or administrative punishment in connection with the killings of Iraqi civilians in the northwestern city of Haditha in November 2005, the Marine Corps announced Thursday.
Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich will face 13 counts of murder. He will also face charges of making false statements to investigators and trying to persuade others to do the same, said his lawyer, Mark Zaid.
The attorneys for two other Marines said their clients have also been charged in the case.
Attorney Gary Myers told The Associated Press that Lance Cpl. Justin Sharratt faces one charge of murder involving unpremeditated killings of three men.
“Our view has been and continues to be that these are combat-related deaths,” AP quoted Myers as saying.
Attorney Jack Zimmerman said that Lance Cpl. Stephen Tatum also was charged in the case, but he did not reveal the charges.
Military officials said Monday that at least five enlisted Marines would face charges in the Haditha killings, and an unknown number of officers could face administrative punishments for their handling of the matter. Charges were to be announced at 4 p.m. ET Thursday at Camp Pendleton, California, where the unit is based.
Neal Puckett, another of Wuterich’s attorneys, said the sergeant faces 12 counts of unpremeditated murder against individuals and one count of the murder of six people “while engaged in an act inherently dangerous to others.” The maximum sentence on the charges would be life in prison, he said.
Wuterich was leading a patrol from Kilo Company of the 3rd Battalion, 1st Marine Regiment, through Haditha on November 19, 2005, when the unit was hit by a roadside bomb that killed one of its members.
Over at TPM, M.J. Rosenberg is giving me a serious case of deja vu :
I just watched Hillary Clinton on “the View.” And I realized something. Every time she lets go a little (like when she jogged into the room), she is very appealing.
Yeah, I remember thinking the exact same thing about Gore in 200 and Kerry in 2004. I’ve heard Republicans also say similar things about Dole in 1996. Which leads me to ask when are the Washington elite going to realize that Americans want a human being to lead them, not some talking-points shitting android who looks uncomfortable in his/her own skin?
Robots could one day demand the same citizen’s rights as humans, according to a study by the British government.
. . .
The paper which addresses Robo-rights, titled Utopian dream or rise of the machines? examines the developments in artificial intelligence and how this may impact on law and politics.
The paper says a “monumental shift” could occur if robots develop to the point where they can reproduce, improve themselves or develop artificial intelligence.
The research suggests that at some point in the next 20 to 50 years robots could be granted rights.
If this happened, the report says, the robots would have certain responsibilities such as voting, the obligation to pay taxes, and perhaps serving compulsory military service.
Personally, I think this is far-fetched. Not just for the standard “where the hell is my flying car?” reasons, but the fact that i don’t see artificial intelligence ever getting to that point. Unless specifically programmed, artificially intelligent machines will lack human traits such as greed, lust, jealousy, compassion, fear, sadness, and joy that motivate our actions much more than intelligence. The idea that AI’s evolution will evolve to the point where “sentient” machines would have the same needs and desires as human beings is fanciful. If anything, as AI evolves towards more human-like behaviors, we’ll probably just cross into the uncanny valley and never return. That is, unless some AI genius decides it’s a good idea to program their robots to bitch about their taxes and have crappy taste in music. In which case, I say we tax the hell out of those rusty, metallic welfare queens. Get a job, IG-88!
I hope that my liblogging buddies are finally waking up to this dreadful reality [of Iraq], but just in case they’re still dreaming sweet dreams about all the wonderful things the Dems are going to deliver in ‘07, and especially in ‘08, allow me to raise my voice for a moment.
ATTENTION MULES! THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IS A PARTY OF WAR, DESTRUCTION AND GREED! THEY WANT TO USE YOUR KIDS AS FODDER FOR THEIR BLOODSHED! AND THERE IS NO END IN SIGHT! OBAMA WILL NOT SAVE YOU! SO WAKE THE FUCK UP, GET OFF YOUR ASS, AND DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!
Sorry about that. Generally, I’m an easy going guy. But with a ten-year-old son, soon to turn 11, to think about, and watching these criminals plan for more chaos and agony, expecting my boy to sign on, I tend to come unhinged. And I trust this will become worse as the years drag on.
2. The Nation has published a fantastic article by Mohamed Bazzi about the usually-overlooked ways the civil conflict in Lebanon is based in class (via Sam Husseini):
Ever since Hezbollah and its allies began an open-ended protest against the US-backed government on December 1, Beirut’s gilded downtown–built for wealthy Lebanese and foreign tourists–has become more authentically Lebanese. Where Persian Gulf sheiks once ate sushi, families now sit in abandoned parking lots, having impromptu picnics, the smell of kebabs cooked over coals wafting through the air. Young men lounge on plastic chairs, smoking apple-scented water pipes, and occasionally break out into debke, the Lebanese national dance.
3. I’ve mentioned previously the whistleblowing WMD testimony of Carne Ross, former First Secretary in Britain’s Mission to the UN. But also fascinating is a piece he wrote last year for the Financial Times; it’s one of the most sensitive and intelligent accounts I’ve ever seen of how governments deceive themselves and others.
Short of reinstating involuntary conscription, I mean:
WASHINGTON, Dec. 19 — President Bush said Tuesday that the United States should expand the size of its armed forces, acknowledging that the military had been strained by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and would need to grow to cope with what he suggested would be a long battle against Islamic extremism.
“I’m inclined to believe it’s important and necessary to do,” Mr. Bush said. He said this was an “accurate reflection that this ideological war we’re in is going to last for a while, and that we’re going to need a military that’s capable of being able to sustain our efforts and help us achieve peace.”
On Saturday, the New York Times reported that the military is taking a tougher stance at what Rush Limbaugh likes to call “Club Gitmo”:
As the first detainees began moving last week into Guantánamo’s modern, new detention facility, Camp 6, the military guard commander stood beneath the high, concrete walls of the compound, looking out on a fenced-in athletic yard.
The cells at Camp 6, which began to house its first prisoners last week. Following a riot at Guantánamo in May, the facility has been retrofitted to make it more difficult to attack guards and commit suicide.
The yard, where the detainees were to have played soccer and other sports, had been part of a plan to ease the conditions under which more than 400 men are imprisoned here, nearly all of them without having been charged. But that plan has changed.
“At this point, I just don’t see using that,” the guard commander, Col. Wade F. Dennis, said.
After two years in which the military sought to manage terrorism suspects at Guantánamo with incentives for good behavior, steady improvements in their living conditions and even dialogue with prison leaders, the authorities here have clamped down decisively in recent months.
The reason was simple:
The commander of the Guantánamo task force, Rear Adm. Harry B. Harris Jr., said the tougher approach also reflected the changing nature of the prison population, and his conviction that all of those now held here are dangerous men. “They’re all terrorists; they’re all enemy combatants,” Admiral Harris said in an interview.
He added, “I don’t think there is such a thing as a medium-security terrorist.”
The article goes on to inform us:
[Shortly after Admiral Harris’s remarks, another 15 detainees were sent home to Saudi Arabia, where they were promptly returned to their families.]
So they’re all terrorists, except for those 15 (or 16 — see below) Saudis. Oops, and 18 more, as we learn from today’s Times:
The Defense Department said Sunday that a total of 18 prisoners who had been held at the naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had been sent to their home nations over the weekend, reducing the captive population at the base to about 395.
Aside from seven Afghan prisoners, who arrived in Kabul on Saturday, the group included six sent to Yemen, three to Kazakhstan and one each to Libya and Bangladesh, the Pentagon said in a news release.
So either those guys were hard core terrorists who have just been released to once again ply their trade, or they weren’t and just spent four years as involuntary guests of Uncle Sam.
Oh, also:
Sixteen (sic) Saudi Arabian prisoners were sent home earlier in the week, and another 85 prisoners of various nationalities have been designated for transfer to their countries, some for continued detention and some for outright release.
This is what can happen to American citizens in the post 9/11 world:
One night in mid-April, the steel door clanked shut on detainee No. 200343 at Camp Cropper, the United States military’s maximum-security detention site in Baghdad.
American guards arrived at the man’s cell periodically over the next several days, shackled his hands and feet, blindfolded him and took him to a padded room for interrogation, the detainee said. After an hour or two, he was returned to his cell, fatigued but unable to sleep.
The fluorescent lights in his cell were never turned off, he said. At most hours, heavy metal or country music blared in the corridor. He said he was rousted at random times without explanation and made to stand in his cell. Even lying down, he said, he was kept from covering his face to block out the light, noise and cold. And when he was released after 97 days he was exhausted, depressed and scared.
Detainee 200343 was among thousands of people who have been held and released by the American military in Iraq, and his account of his ordeal has provided one of the few detailed views of the Pentagon’s detention operations since the abuse scandals at Abu Ghraib. Yet in many respects his case is unusual.
The detainee was Donald Vance, a 29-year-old Navy veteran from Chicago who went to Iraq as a security contractor. He wound up as a whistle-blower, passing information to the F.B.I. about suspicious activities at the Iraqi security firm where he worked, including what he said was possible illegal weapons trading.
But when American soldiers raided the company at his urging, Mr. Vance and another American who worked there were detained as suspects by the military, which was unaware that Mr. Vance was an informer, according to officials and military documents.
At Camp Cropper, he took notes on his imprisonment and smuggled them out in a Bible.
“Sick, very. Vomited,” he wrote July 3. The next day: “Told no more phone calls til leave.”
Nathan Ertel, the American held with Mr. Vance, brought away military records that shed further light on the detention camp and its secretive tribunals. Those records include a legal memorandum explicitly denying detainees the right to a lawyer at detention hearings to determine whether they should be released or held indefinitely, perhaps for prosecution.
The story told through those records and interviews illuminates the haphazard system of detention and prosecution that has evolved in Iraq, where detainees are often held for long periods without charges or legal representation, and where the authorities struggle to sort through the endless stream of detainees to identify those who pose real threats.
