By William Fisher
The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has refused to release more than 7,000 documents related to its programs of secret detentions, renditions, and torture, and is asking a federal judge to dismiss a Freedom of Information lawsuit demanding disclosure.
The refusal came last week in the CIA’s response to a lawsuit brought by three human rights groups, Amnesty International USA (AIUSA), the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and the International Human Rights Clinic at New York University School of Law (NYU IHRC).
The CIA filed a motion with the court for a summary judgment to end the lawsuit and avoid turning over more than 7,000 documents related to its secret “ghost” detention and extraordinary rendition programs.
The CIA claimed that it did not have to release the documents because many consist of correspondence with the White House or top Bush administration officials, or because they are between parties seeking legal advice on the programs, including guidance on the legality of certain interrogation procedures. The CIA confirmed that it requested -- and received -- legal advice from attorneys at the Department of Justice Office of Legal Counsel concerning these procedures.
The case is significant for a number of reasons. Among them, said CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren, it marks the first time the CIA “has acknowledged that it has well over 7000 documents that relate to the torture and disappearance of men.”
And Curt Goering, AIUSA senior deputy executive director, said, “Given what we already know about documents written by Bush administration officials trying to justify torture and other human rights crimes, one does not need a fertile imagination to conclude that the real reason for refusing to disclose these documents has more to do with avoiding disclosure of criminal activity than national security.”
He called on the CIA to “stop stonewalling congressional oversight committees and release vital documents related to the program of secret detentions, renditions, and torture.”
The three human rights organizations will file their response brief in court next month.
These organizations filed their Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests last June with several U.S. government agencies, including the CIA. These requests sought information about individuals who are -- or have been -- held by the U.S. government or detained with U.S. involvement, and about whom there is no public record.
The requests also sought information about the government’s legal justifications for its secret detention and extraordinary rendition program. Comprehensive information about the identities and locations of prisoners in CIA custody -- as well as the conditions of their detention and the specific interrogation methods used against them -- has never been publicly revealed.
Emi MacLean, a CCR attorney, told IPS, “The CIA has been running a program of enforced disappearance and torture. What we are asking for is fundamental to a democratic society -- some essential transparency and accountability. We need to know what is being done in our name. Indeed, the documents withheld by the government demonstrate that this basic accountability is what they have been worried about from the very beginning.”
“The CIA has employed illegal techniques such as torture, enforced disappearances, and extraordinary rendition,” said Meg Satterthwaite, Director of the NYU IHRC. “It cannot use FOIA exemptions as a shield to hide its violations of U.S. and international law.”
In its legal filings, the CIA acknowledged that this program “will continue.” Some prisoners have been transferred to prisons in other countries for proxy detention where they face the risk of torture and where they continue to be held secretly, without charge or trial. Human rights reports indicate that the fate and whereabouts of at least 30 people believed to have been held in secret U.S. custody remain unknown.
In September 2006, President Bush publicly acknowledged the existence of CIA-operated secret prisons. At the same time, 14 detainees from these facilities were transferred to Guantánamo and several more have arrived since. The administration has admitted to using so-called “alternative interrogation procedures” on those held in the CIA program, including waterboarding. The international community and the United States, in other contexts, have unequivocally deemed these techniques torture.
One of the centers of particular interest in this case is a CCR client, Majid Khan. Khan emigrated from his native Pakistan to the U.S. in 1996 and is a legal U.S. resident. On a trip to Pakistan to visit his wife, Khan was abducted by Pakistani officials and transferred to one of the CIA’s secret prisons. Among those transferred to Guantanamo Bay to be tried before a Military Commission, he was the first of the so-called "high value" detainees to have legal representation.
Congress has also been unable to obtain CIA records. The few documents released in the human rights groups’ lawsuit demonstrate a pattern of withholding information from Congress.
In a pointed 2003 bipartisan letter, then-Chair and Ranking Member of the House Select Committee on Intelligence requested that the then CIA Director George Tenet provide senior level briefings on the treatment of, and information obtained by, three men known to be held in secret CIA detention.” He told the CIA that their committee was “frustrated with the quality of the information” provided in past briefings.
The CIA appears to have avoided answering detailed requests for specific information, responding instead with form letters and references to briefings. In 2005, these practices led to a forceful letter from Michigan Democratic Senator Carl Levin, now the Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, who was attempting to investigate CIA involvement in detainee deaths. In his letter, Levin noted that “The lack of CIA cooperation with the investigations to date has left significant omissions in the record.”
The Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1966. It allows for the full or partial disclosure of previously unreleased information and documents controlled by the U.S. Government. The Act defines agency records subject to disclosure, outlines mandatory disclosure procedures, but grants a number of exemptions to Federal agencies.
Saturday, April 26, 2008
WE’VE GOT A (STATE) SECRET
By William Fisher
Congress yesterday moved a step closer to reining in the legal practice that the government has used to block lawsuits by whistleblowers and victims of “extraordinary rendition,” as well as actions that would embarrass the administration.
By an 11-8 vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the State Secrets Protection Act, a measure introduced by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania. Specter. Specter, the committee’s most senior minority member, was alone among the panel’s nine Republicans to vote in favor of approving the bill.
The measure would establish new rules that would allow judges to review government evidence supporting its claims that bringing a case to civil trial would involve disclosure of classified state secrets and thus compromise national security.
The bill now goes to the full Senate for a vote, though its timing and outcome remain unclear. A similar bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressmen Jerrold Nadler, Democrat from New York, and Tom Petri, a Wisconsin Republican.
The White House has signaled that President George W. Bush will veto the legislation if it passes both houses of Congress.
The new bill would provide a mechanism for protecting legitimate secrets while also permitting civil litigation to proceed.
The proposed new legislation “will ensure that the litigation process will not reveal state secrets, using many of the same safeguards that have proven effective in criminal cases and in litigation under the Freedom of Information Act," Senator Kennedy said.
Under the proposed measure, when the government claims the state secrets privilege, it will be required to submit an affidavit explaining why the information sought should remain secret. If the court agrees that certain evidence is privileged, it must order the government to produce unclassified or blacked-out versions of the sensitive information if doing so would not harm national security.
Judges would be authorized to rule against the government if it refuses to produce this documentation.
The attorney general would be required to report to the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees every time the government claimed the state secrets privilege.
The state secrets privilege is a common law right that lets the government protect sensitive national security information from being disclosed as evidence in litigation. The courts have generally accepted such government assertions.
The privilege was first recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1953, in a case later shown to have been bogus. It has been asserted since then by every American administration, Republican and Democratic. But the Bush Administration has increased its use dramatically. It has raised the privilege in over 25 per cent more cases each year than previous administrations, and has sought dismissal in more than 90% of cases.
The privilege has been invoked to dismiss claims of unlawful domestic surveillance, detention, torture, and misconduct by government employees, on grounds that adjudicating them would cause unacceptable damage to national security.
In 1980, Congress enacted the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) to provide federal courts with clear statutory guidance on handling secret evidence in criminal cases. But no such guidance has been available in civil cases. The proposed new law is intended to correct that situation by providing the courts with “clear, fair, and safe rules.”
Legal scholars have long recognized the need for congressional guidance on this issue. A recent report by the American Bar Association urged Congress to “enact legislation governing federal civil cases implicating the state secrets privilege."
The bipartisan Constitution Project found that "legislative action is essential to restore and strengthen the basic rights and liberties provided by our constitutional system of government."
And a group of leading constitutional scholars wrote to Congress emphasizing that there "is a need for new rules designed to protect the system of checks and balances, individual rights, national security, fairness in the courtroom, and the adversary process."
The absence of such rules has resulted in the dismissal of a number of
high-profile lawsuits against the government. For example:
A German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, complained to the court that he was kidnapped, illegally detained and abused by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a case of "extraordinary rendition." His suit was dismissed because he would not be able to make his case except by using "privileged evidence” that exposed CIA practices -- and the CIA could not defend itself against the allegations "without using privileged evidence."
In another widely publicized case, the Justice Department asserted the state-secrets privilege in successfully seeking to dismiss a lawsuit by Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was detained in the U.S. in 2002 and sent against his will to Syria, where he says he was tortured until his release a year later. A Canadian Government commission found after a two-year investigation that Arar had no connection with terrorists and awarded him compensation of $10 million and an apology.
Another case involved Sibel Edmonds, a former translator at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who was fired for reporting security breaches and possible espionage within the Bureau. Edmonds unsuccessfully appealed her case to the U.S. Supreme Court. At the time, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice (DOJ) found that Ms. Edmonds’ firing was an act of retaliation.
Legal scholars and civil rights advocates have been outspoken against the Bush Administration’s use of the state secrets privilege as a shield behind which it can conceal virtually any activity.
Prof. David Cole of the Georgetown University Law Center, one of the nation’s preeminent constitutional lawyers, told IPS, “The Administration has argued on the merits that the President has unilateral executive power in the ‘war on terror’ to violate even criminal laws, and when it has been challenged on that assertion, it has argued that the courts can't even rule on that assertion of power because the alleged criminal violation is a ‘state secret’."
Cole’s view is echoed by Prof. Peter Shane of the Ohio University law school. He told IPS that the Bush Administration “has been conspicuous in its defense of the executive's secret-keeping authorities, even where disclosure of the information sought would not seem to undermine any public interest.”
He added, “The current Supreme Court is so solicitous of presidential power that there is absolutely no prospect of real reform initiated by the current judiciary. If there is to be change, it will have to be at the initiative of Congress.”
Steven Aftergood, head of the Government Secrecy Program at the Federation of American Scientists, told IPS, “The state secrets privilege has been used to derail legal challenges to government policies on detention, rendition, and interrogation, among other outstanding issues. There has to be a better way. There is no incentive for the executive to regulate itself or to curtail its use of the privilege.”
And Gabor Rona, International Legal Director of advocacy group Human Rights First, told IPS, “When courts dismiss cases alleging human rights violations on state secrets grounds, and leave no alternative for redress, the U.S. is in violation of its obligation under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to provide a remedy.”
But Attorney General Michael Mukasey said he believes Congress probably lacks the authority to alter the state secrets privilege because it is rooted in the Constitution "and is not merely a common law privilege."
He said the bill would transfer responsibility for making national security
judgments from the executive branch to the courts. He contends that federal judges do not have “the constitutional authority nor the institutional expertise to assume such functions."
Congress yesterday moved a step closer to reining in the legal practice that the government has used to block lawsuits by whistleblowers and victims of “extraordinary rendition,” as well as actions that would embarrass the administration.
By an 11-8 vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed the State Secrets Protection Act, a measure introduced by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, Democrat of Massachusetts, and Arlen Specter, a Republican from Pennsylvania. Specter. Specter, the committee’s most senior minority member, was alone among the panel’s nine Republicans to vote in favor of approving the bill.
The measure would establish new rules that would allow judges to review government evidence supporting its claims that bringing a case to civil trial would involve disclosure of classified state secrets and thus compromise national security.
The bill now goes to the full Senate for a vote, though its timing and outcome remain unclear. A similar bill has been introduced in the House of Representatives by Congressmen Jerrold Nadler, Democrat from New York, and Tom Petri, a Wisconsin Republican.
The White House has signaled that President George W. Bush will veto the legislation if it passes both houses of Congress.
The new bill would provide a mechanism for protecting legitimate secrets while also permitting civil litigation to proceed.
The proposed new legislation “will ensure that the litigation process will not reveal state secrets, using many of the same safeguards that have proven effective in criminal cases and in litigation under the Freedom of Information Act," Senator Kennedy said.
Under the proposed measure, when the government claims the state secrets privilege, it will be required to submit an affidavit explaining why the information sought should remain secret. If the court agrees that certain evidence is privileged, it must order the government to produce unclassified or blacked-out versions of the sensitive information if doing so would not harm national security.
Judges would be authorized to rule against the government if it refuses to produce this documentation.
The attorney general would be required to report to the House and Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees every time the government claimed the state secrets privilege.
The state secrets privilege is a common law right that lets the government protect sensitive national security information from being disclosed as evidence in litigation. The courts have generally accepted such government assertions.
The privilege was first recognized by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1953, in a case later shown to have been bogus. It has been asserted since then by every American administration, Republican and Democratic. But the Bush Administration has increased its use dramatically. It has raised the privilege in over 25 per cent more cases each year than previous administrations, and has sought dismissal in more than 90% of cases.
The privilege has been invoked to dismiss claims of unlawful domestic surveillance, detention, torture, and misconduct by government employees, on grounds that adjudicating them would cause unacceptable damage to national security.
In 1980, Congress enacted the Classified Information Procedures Act (CIPA) to provide federal courts with clear statutory guidance on handling secret evidence in criminal cases. But no such guidance has been available in civil cases. The proposed new law is intended to correct that situation by providing the courts with “clear, fair, and safe rules.”
Legal scholars have long recognized the need for congressional guidance on this issue. A recent report by the American Bar Association urged Congress to “enact legislation governing federal civil cases implicating the state secrets privilege."
The bipartisan Constitution Project found that "legislative action is essential to restore and strengthen the basic rights and liberties provided by our constitutional system of government."
And a group of leading constitutional scholars wrote to Congress emphasizing that there "is a need for new rules designed to protect the system of checks and balances, individual rights, national security, fairness in the courtroom, and the adversary process."
The absence of such rules has resulted in the dismissal of a number of
high-profile lawsuits against the government. For example:
A German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, complained to the court that he was kidnapped, illegally detained and abused by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a case of "extraordinary rendition." His suit was dismissed because he would not be able to make his case except by using "privileged evidence” that exposed CIA practices -- and the CIA could not defend itself against the allegations "without using privileged evidence."
In another widely publicized case, the Justice Department asserted the state-secrets privilege in successfully seeking to dismiss a lawsuit by Maher Arar, a Syrian-born Canadian citizen who was detained in the U.S. in 2002 and sent against his will to Syria, where he says he was tortured until his release a year later. A Canadian Government commission found after a two-year investigation that Arar had no connection with terrorists and awarded him compensation of $10 million and an apology.
Another case involved Sibel Edmonds, a former translator at the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), who was fired for reporting security breaches and possible espionage within the Bureau. Edmonds unsuccessfully appealed her case to the U.S. Supreme Court. At the time, the Inspector General of the Department of Justice (DOJ) found that Ms. Edmonds’ firing was an act of retaliation.
Legal scholars and civil rights advocates have been outspoken against the Bush Administration’s use of the state secrets privilege as a shield behind which it can conceal virtually any activity.
Prof. David Cole of the Georgetown University Law Center, one of the nation’s preeminent constitutional lawyers, told IPS, “The Administration has argued on the merits that the President has unilateral executive power in the ‘war on terror’ to violate even criminal laws, and when it has been challenged on that assertion, it has argued that the courts can't even rule on that assertion of power because the alleged criminal violation is a ‘state secret’."
Cole’s view is echoed by Prof. Peter Shane of the Ohio University law school. He told IPS that the Bush Administration “has been conspicuous in its defense of the executive's secret-keeping authorities, even where disclosure of the information sought would not seem to undermine any public interest.”
He added, “The current Supreme Court is so solicitous of presidential power that there is absolutely no prospect of real reform initiated by the current judiciary. If there is to be change, it will have to be at the initiative of Congress.”
Steven Aftergood, head of the Government Secrecy Program at the Federation of American Scientists, told IPS, “The state secrets privilege has been used to derail legal challenges to government policies on detention, rendition, and interrogation, among other outstanding issues. There has to be a better way. There is no incentive for the executive to regulate itself or to curtail its use of the privilege.”
And Gabor Rona, International Legal Director of advocacy group Human Rights First, told IPS, “When courts dismiss cases alleging human rights violations on state secrets grounds, and leave no alternative for redress, the U.S. is in violation of its obligation under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights to provide a remedy.”
But Attorney General Michael Mukasey said he believes Congress probably lacks the authority to alter the state secrets privilege because it is rooted in the Constitution "and is not merely a common law privilege."
He said the bill would transfer responsibility for making national security
judgments from the executive branch to the courts. He contends that federal judges do not have “the constitutional authority nor the institutional expertise to assume such functions."
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
THE RETURN OF JOE McCARTHY?
By William Fisher
The U.S. Government’s anti-terrorist financing programs are based on the “guilt by association” tactics of the McCarthy era and have had a widespread negative impact on American charities.
That is the view of Kay Guinane, Director of the Nonprofit Speech Rights Program for OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Watch, an independent not-for-profit government watchdog group. Guinane told us that government actions have resulted in program cutbacks and increased fear of speaking out on important public issues.
The organization accused Congress of continuing “an unfortunate pattern of insufficient congressional oversight of anti-terrorist financing programs, neglecting to address the unnecessarily harsh impacts the programs have on U.S. charities and philanthropy.”
As an example of insufficient congressional oversight of charities’ alleged support of terrorist organizations, OMB Watch cited a recent hearing before the Senate Finance Committee in which the only witness was a government official. The witness was Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey, who plays a lead role in identifying charities that the Treasury Department claims are supporting terrorist causes.
OMB Watch asked the Committee for an opportunity to testify, but was not invited.
The “McCarthy era” refers to a 1950s Cold War campaign led by then Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. McCarthy charged that communist "subversives" had infiltrated the American government and were undermining national security and disclosing secret information. He accused the administration of President Harry S. Truman of sheltering such subversives rather than investigating and ousting them.
As the threat of communism grew, people's fears were fed by McCarthy's charges. Hundreds of citizens were “blacklisted” and lost their jobs. Fearing a communist takeover, Congress made membership in the Communist Party a criminal offense, in a statute known as the Smith Act.
In his opening statement at the Senate hearing, Committee chair Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, referred to failed criminal prosecutions of charities suspected of having ties to terrorism, asking if the prosecutions "were off base" or if the government should "do a better job of monitoring these organizations?"
Baucus was referring to the government’s prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), the largest and best-known organization supporting Muslim causes.
In December 2001, the group was designated as a supporter of terrorism, shut down and had its assets frozen. At that time, President Bush, accompanied by then Attorney General John Ashcroft and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, charged that "Hamas has obtained much of the money that it pays for murder abroad right here in the U.S., money originally raised by the Holy Land Foundation."
But by the time of the trial, in 2007, prosecutors no longer claimed HLF provided support to Hamas or paid for violent acts. Instead, prosecutors admitted all the money went for charitable aid but said the local charities that delivered the aid to Palestinians were controlled by Hamas.
In October 2007, a federal jury in Texas deadlocked on all charges against HLF and most of the charges against five of its leaders. The former board chair and endowment director, Mohammed el-Mezain, was acquitted of 31 of 32 charges against him, with the jury deadlocking on the remaining charge.
The government has indicated that it will retry the case. But, according to OMB Watch, it will again face the problem of secret evidence that unraveled when subjected to scrutiny and the fact that none of the charities HLF was accused of funding are on government lists of terrorist organizations.
In his Senate testimony, Levey noted that Treasury has "designated approximately 50 charities worldwide as supporters of terrorism, including several in the United States, putting a strain on al Qaida's financing efforts."
But OMB Watch says, “Witnesses from charities and foundations could have provided the committee with a full picture of the real damage the financial war on terror is causing charities, foundations, and the people we serve. Instead, the public record is left incomplete, which will likely lead to continuation of flawed programs that do little or nothing to stop terrorism."
Georgetown University law school Prof. David Cole, one of America’s preeminent constitutional scholars, told us, “The ‘material support’ principle is ‘guilt by association’ in 21st-century garb, and presents all of the same problems that criminalizing membership and association did during the Cold War.”
In the name of cutting off support for terrorist organizations, the government has adopted the "paradigm of prevention”, Cole says. “That term, coined by former Attorney General John Ashcroft, describes an amalgam of tactics in which the government employs highly coercive and intrusive measures against groups and individuals based not on proof of past wrongdoing, but on necessarily speculative fears about what they might do in the future.”
In a chapter of a forthcoming book, “Counterterrorism: Democracy's Challenge,” to be published later this year, Cole writes, "The United States law now makes it a crime to provide anything of support -- from dues to volunteer services -- to any organization or individual that the government has labeled ‘terrorist’. The prohibition is not limited to those who intend to support the illegal or terrorist acts of so-called terrorist organizations. It criminalizes any and all support - including support that is otherwise entirely lawful, peaceful, and nonviolent.”
“Hundreds of individuals and groups have been placed on this ‘terrorist’ list since 2001,” Cole says, adding, “Remarkably, there is no definition in federal statutes of a ‘specially designated terrorist’ or a ‘specially designated global terrorist’. Thus, the President and the Secretary of Treasury can apply this label to literally anyone or any group.”
He told us that the problem requires fundamental changes in the terrorism-financing law. He recommends that the Treasury Department be required to permit closed charities to direct their collected funds to charities mutually approved by the frozen charity and the government.
He also says that Congress should enact a statutory definition of a "specially designated terrorist".
"Right now the Treasury Department makes such designations entirely on the basis of an executive order, and accordingly Congress has given the president essentially a blank check," Cole told us.
Treasury should allow designated entities to use their own funds to pay for their own defense, he argues. "Treasury not only shuts down charities in a secretive one-sided process, but then bars the charities from using any of their own money to defend themselves against the designation," according to Cole.
And the criminal material support statutes should be amended to require proof that an individual supported a proscribed group with the intent to further its illegal activities.
"Today," according to the government, "even aid intended to discourage terrorist activities is a crime under the material support laws," Cole says.
OMB Watch says the "material support" effort has resulted in the government shutting down charities that were not on any government watch list before their assets were frozen.
The organization says the result is that Muslims have no way of knowing which groups the government suspects of ties to terrorism. "Organizations and individuals suspected of supporting terrorism are guilty until proven innocent," it says. OMB Watch told us, "A group could comply 100 percent and still be shut down 'pending an investigation'."
The U.S. Government’s anti-terrorist financing programs are based on the “guilt by association” tactics of the McCarthy era and have had a widespread negative impact on American charities.
That is the view of Kay Guinane, Director of the Nonprofit Speech Rights Program for OMB (Office of Management and Budget) Watch, an independent not-for-profit government watchdog group. Guinane told us that government actions have resulted in program cutbacks and increased fear of speaking out on important public issues.
The organization accused Congress of continuing “an unfortunate pattern of insufficient congressional oversight of anti-terrorist financing programs, neglecting to address the unnecessarily harsh impacts the programs have on U.S. charities and philanthropy.”
As an example of insufficient congressional oversight of charities’ alleged support of terrorist organizations, OMB Watch cited a recent hearing before the Senate Finance Committee in which the only witness was a government official. The witness was Under Secretary of the Treasury for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence Stuart Levey, who plays a lead role in identifying charities that the Treasury Department claims are supporting terrorist causes.
OMB Watch asked the Committee for an opportunity to testify, but was not invited.
The “McCarthy era” refers to a 1950s Cold War campaign led by then Republican Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin. McCarthy charged that communist "subversives" had infiltrated the American government and were undermining national security and disclosing secret information. He accused the administration of President Harry S. Truman of sheltering such subversives rather than investigating and ousting them.
As the threat of communism grew, people's fears were fed by McCarthy's charges. Hundreds of citizens were “blacklisted” and lost their jobs. Fearing a communist takeover, Congress made membership in the Communist Party a criminal offense, in a statute known as the Smith Act.
In his opening statement at the Senate hearing, Committee chair Max Baucus, a Montana Democrat, referred to failed criminal prosecutions of charities suspected of having ties to terrorism, asking if the prosecutions "were off base" or if the government should "do a better job of monitoring these organizations?"
Baucus was referring to the government’s prosecution of the Holy Land Foundation (HLF), the largest and best-known organization supporting Muslim causes.
In December 2001, the group was designated as a supporter of terrorism, shut down and had its assets frozen. At that time, President Bush, accompanied by then Attorney General John Ashcroft and Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, charged that "Hamas has obtained much of the money that it pays for murder abroad right here in the U.S., money originally raised by the Holy Land Foundation."
But by the time of the trial, in 2007, prosecutors no longer claimed HLF provided support to Hamas or paid for violent acts. Instead, prosecutors admitted all the money went for charitable aid but said the local charities that delivered the aid to Palestinians were controlled by Hamas.
In October 2007, a federal jury in Texas deadlocked on all charges against HLF and most of the charges against five of its leaders. The former board chair and endowment director, Mohammed el-Mezain, was acquitted of 31 of 32 charges against him, with the jury deadlocking on the remaining charge.
The government has indicated that it will retry the case. But, according to OMB Watch, it will again face the problem of secret evidence that unraveled when subjected to scrutiny and the fact that none of the charities HLF was accused of funding are on government lists of terrorist organizations.
In his Senate testimony, Levey noted that Treasury has "designated approximately 50 charities worldwide as supporters of terrorism, including several in the United States, putting a strain on al Qaida's financing efforts."
But OMB Watch says, “Witnesses from charities and foundations could have provided the committee with a full picture of the real damage the financial war on terror is causing charities, foundations, and the people we serve. Instead, the public record is left incomplete, which will likely lead to continuation of flawed programs that do little or nothing to stop terrorism."
Georgetown University law school Prof. David Cole, one of America’s preeminent constitutional scholars, told us, “The ‘material support’ principle is ‘guilt by association’ in 21st-century garb, and presents all of the same problems that criminalizing membership and association did during the Cold War.”
In the name of cutting off support for terrorist organizations, the government has adopted the "paradigm of prevention”, Cole says. “That term, coined by former Attorney General John Ashcroft, describes an amalgam of tactics in which the government employs highly coercive and intrusive measures against groups and individuals based not on proof of past wrongdoing, but on necessarily speculative fears about what they might do in the future.”
In a chapter of a forthcoming book, “Counterterrorism: Democracy's Challenge,” to be published later this year, Cole writes, "The United States law now makes it a crime to provide anything of support -- from dues to volunteer services -- to any organization or individual that the government has labeled ‘terrorist’. The prohibition is not limited to those who intend to support the illegal or terrorist acts of so-called terrorist organizations. It criminalizes any and all support - including support that is otherwise entirely lawful, peaceful, and nonviolent.”
“Hundreds of individuals and groups have been placed on this ‘terrorist’ list since 2001,” Cole says, adding, “Remarkably, there is no definition in federal statutes of a ‘specially designated terrorist’ or a ‘specially designated global terrorist’. Thus, the President and the Secretary of Treasury can apply this label to literally anyone or any group.”
He told us that the problem requires fundamental changes in the terrorism-financing law. He recommends that the Treasury Department be required to permit closed charities to direct their collected funds to charities mutually approved by the frozen charity and the government.
He also says that Congress should enact a statutory definition of a "specially designated terrorist".
"Right now the Treasury Department makes such designations entirely on the basis of an executive order, and accordingly Congress has given the president essentially a blank check," Cole told us.
Treasury should allow designated entities to use their own funds to pay for their own defense, he argues. "Treasury not only shuts down charities in a secretive one-sided process, but then bars the charities from using any of their own money to defend themselves against the designation," according to Cole.
And the criminal material support statutes should be amended to require proof that an individual supported a proscribed group with the intent to further its illegal activities.
"Today," according to the government, "even aid intended to discourage terrorist activities is a crime under the material support laws," Cole says.
OMB Watch says the "material support" effort has resulted in the government shutting down charities that were not on any government watch list before their assets were frozen.
The organization says the result is that Muslims have no way of knowing which groups the government suspects of ties to terrorism. "Organizations and individuals suspected of supporting terrorism are guilty until proven innocent," it says. OMB Watch told us, "A group could comply 100 percent and still be shut down 'pending an investigation'."
Saturday, April 19, 2008
No YouTube Left Behind
By William Fisher
The most discredited bromide in American civic life is: “Give the American people the facts, and they will make the right decisions.”
But who is giving them the facts?
Fox News? Rush Limbaugh? Bill O’Reilly? Lou Dobbs? The hysterical Chris Matthews?
I don’t think so. These people are entertainers pitching themselves as journalists.
Or maybe the fact-gatherers are ABC’s Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, who spent the first 50 minutes of the last Obama-Clinton debate asking non-questions for which they surely deserve the year’s top Inanity Awards.
Charley and George are not journalists; they’re “gotcha” peddlers. Their interest is in ratings and money, not facts.
The short answer is nobody. And the result is a tragically uninformed electorate.
But this state of affairs didn’t start with TV talking heads. It started in our middle and high schools, with the parents of the young people who attend these schools and with those who teach those students.
The intellectual poverty of our educational system was recently highlighted in an article in the Journal of Higher Education by Ted Gup, a professor of journalism at Case Western Reserve University and author of “Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life” (Doubleday, 2007).
Gup recounted the following experience:
“I teach a seminar called ‘Secrecy: Forbidden Knowledge’. I recently asked my class of 16 freshmen and sophomores, many of whom had graduated in the top 10 percent of their high-school classes and had dazzling SAT scores, how many had heard the word "rendition." Not one hand went up. This is after four years of the word appearing on the front pages of the nation's newspapers, on network and cable news, and online. This is after years of highly publicized lawsuits, Congressional inquiries, and international controversy and condemnation. This is after the release of a Hollywood film of that title, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, and Reese Witherspoon.”
Gup wrote that this information deficit was no aberration. He said, “Nearly half of a recent class could not name a single country that bordered Israel. In an introductory journalism class, 11 of 18 students could not name what country Kabul was in, although we have been at war there for half a decade. Last fall only one in 21 students could name the U.S. secretary of defense. Given a list of four countries — China, Cuba, India, and Japan — not one of those same 21 students could identify India and Japan as democracies. Their grasp of history was little better. Some students thought that Islam was the principal religion of South America, that Roe v. Wade was about slavery, that 50 justices sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1975.”
Should we be surprised? I don’t think so.
The study of civics has virtually disappeared from our middle and high school curricula. And many of the few schools that still teach this subject are using a textbook – now in its 11th edition -- that the widely respected Center for Inquiry says contains “inaccurate and misleading statements, in particular in its analysis of certain constitutional law issues, including school prayer and global warming."
And despite the ubiquity of blackberries, laptops, and access to television and the Internet by our youth, survey after survey has validated the sorry state of their knowledge, particularly about American history and America’s civic life.
For example, one survey found that 52% of Americans could name two or more of the characters from "The Simpsons," but only 28% could identify two of the freedoms protected under the First Amendment. Another poll found that 77% of Americans could name at least two of the Seven Dwarfs from "Snow White," but only 24% could name two or more Supreme Court justices. Yet another survey showed that only two-thirds of Americans could identify all three branches of government; only 55% of Americans were aware that the Supreme Court can declare an act of Congress unconstitutional; and 35% thought that it was the intention of the founding fathers to give the president "the final say" over Congress and the judiciary.
And according to a new statewide study, thousands of Massachusetts public high school graduates arrive at college unprepared for even the most basic math and English classes, forcing them to take remedial courses that discourage many from staying in school. At three high schools in Boston and two in Worcester, at least 70 percent of students were forced to take at least one remedial class because they scored poorly on a college placement test.
Other studies sadly point in the same direction. One showed that a majority of college students thinks the press has too much freedom. Another found that they believe the freedoms of American Muslims should be restricted. Still another found that a majority of high school graduates couldn’t find China on a map. And year after year, America’s knowledge scores vis a vis other industrialized democracies keeps going south.
The totally predictable result is, as David Brooks pointed out in a recent New York Times column, “For the first time in the nation’s history, workers retiring from the labor force are better educated than the ones coming in.”
Lately, amidst our xenophobic immigration debate, there’s been lots of chatter about the new test the government is proposing to determine which immigrants qualify for naturalized U.S. citizenship. The Los Angeles Times’ Rosa Brooks writes, tongue in cheek, that it “will rigorously assess immigrants' knowledge of ‘the fundamental concepts of American democracy’," asking tough questions such as ‘Why do we have three branches of government? , ‘What is the rule of law?’ and ‘What are inalienable rights’? ”
Ms. Brooks says that requiring those who want the privileges of U.S. citizenship to have some minimal knowledge of American civics “is a great idea.” Why, she asks, “should this country mint new so-called citizens who don't know the first thing about American history or law?”
Her zinger, however, is that she wants to make native-born Americans take the test too — and deport them to their last known countries of ancestry if they flunk. Why, she asks, “should we ask first-generation immigrants to know more about the United States than the rest of us?”
Why indeed!
Do we have reason to hope that the millions of young people who have flocked to support Barack Obama’s candidacy represent some kind of a sea change among our youth?
No, we don’t. These young people are “the best and the brightest” – far above the norm. A vastly greater number of American young people are high school dropouts, or kids who graduate from high school despite being functionally illiterate, or even those who go on to college clueless about their country’s history and government.
These are the young people who click on YouTube to amass an encyclopedic knowledge of Paris Hilton’s latest antics.
And despite the Bush Administration’s overblown claims of success for its “No Child Left Behind” program, these are the millions of kids who continue to be left behind.
And who leave our country behind in the process.
The most discredited bromide in American civic life is: “Give the American people the facts, and they will make the right decisions.”
But who is giving them the facts?
Fox News? Rush Limbaugh? Bill O’Reilly? Lou Dobbs? The hysterical Chris Matthews?
I don’t think so. These people are entertainers pitching themselves as journalists.
Or maybe the fact-gatherers are ABC’s Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopoulos, who spent the first 50 minutes of the last Obama-Clinton debate asking non-questions for which they surely deserve the year’s top Inanity Awards.
Charley and George are not journalists; they’re “gotcha” peddlers. Their interest is in ratings and money, not facts.
The short answer is nobody. And the result is a tragically uninformed electorate.
But this state of affairs didn’t start with TV talking heads. It started in our middle and high schools, with the parents of the young people who attend these schools and with those who teach those students.
The intellectual poverty of our educational system was recently highlighted in an article in the Journal of Higher Education by Ted Gup, a professor of journalism at Case Western Reserve University and author of “Nation of Secrets: The Threat to Democracy and the American Way of Life” (Doubleday, 2007).
Gup recounted the following experience:
“I teach a seminar called ‘Secrecy: Forbidden Knowledge’. I recently asked my class of 16 freshmen and sophomores, many of whom had graduated in the top 10 percent of their high-school classes and had dazzling SAT scores, how many had heard the word "rendition." Not one hand went up. This is after four years of the word appearing on the front pages of the nation's newspapers, on network and cable news, and online. This is after years of highly publicized lawsuits, Congressional inquiries, and international controversy and condemnation. This is after the release of a Hollywood film of that title, starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, and Reese Witherspoon.”
Gup wrote that this information deficit was no aberration. He said, “Nearly half of a recent class could not name a single country that bordered Israel. In an introductory journalism class, 11 of 18 students could not name what country Kabul was in, although we have been at war there for half a decade. Last fall only one in 21 students could name the U.S. secretary of defense. Given a list of four countries — China, Cuba, India, and Japan — not one of those same 21 students could identify India and Japan as democracies. Their grasp of history was little better. Some students thought that Islam was the principal religion of South America, that Roe v. Wade was about slavery, that 50 justices sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, that the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima in 1975.”
Should we be surprised? I don’t think so.
The study of civics has virtually disappeared from our middle and high school curricula. And many of the few schools that still teach this subject are using a textbook – now in its 11th edition -- that the widely respected Center for Inquiry says contains “inaccurate and misleading statements, in particular in its analysis of certain constitutional law issues, including school prayer and global warming."
And despite the ubiquity of blackberries, laptops, and access to television and the Internet by our youth, survey after survey has validated the sorry state of their knowledge, particularly about American history and America’s civic life.
For example, one survey found that 52% of Americans could name two or more of the characters from "The Simpsons," but only 28% could identify two of the freedoms protected under the First Amendment. Another poll found that 77% of Americans could name at least two of the Seven Dwarfs from "Snow White," but only 24% could name two or more Supreme Court justices. Yet another survey showed that only two-thirds of Americans could identify all three branches of government; only 55% of Americans were aware that the Supreme Court can declare an act of Congress unconstitutional; and 35% thought that it was the intention of the founding fathers to give the president "the final say" over Congress and the judiciary.
And according to a new statewide study, thousands of Massachusetts public high school graduates arrive at college unprepared for even the most basic math and English classes, forcing them to take remedial courses that discourage many from staying in school. At three high schools in Boston and two in Worcester, at least 70 percent of students were forced to take at least one remedial class because they scored poorly on a college placement test.
Other studies sadly point in the same direction. One showed that a majority of college students thinks the press has too much freedom. Another found that they believe the freedoms of American Muslims should be restricted. Still another found that a majority of high school graduates couldn’t find China on a map. And year after year, America’s knowledge scores vis a vis other industrialized democracies keeps going south.
The totally predictable result is, as David Brooks pointed out in a recent New York Times column, “For the first time in the nation’s history, workers retiring from the labor force are better educated than the ones coming in.”
Lately, amidst our xenophobic immigration debate, there’s been lots of chatter about the new test the government is proposing to determine which immigrants qualify for naturalized U.S. citizenship. The Los Angeles Times’ Rosa Brooks writes, tongue in cheek, that it “will rigorously assess immigrants' knowledge of ‘the fundamental concepts of American democracy’," asking tough questions such as ‘Why do we have three branches of government? , ‘What is the rule of law?’ and ‘What are inalienable rights’? ”
Ms. Brooks says that requiring those who want the privileges of U.S. citizenship to have some minimal knowledge of American civics “is a great idea.” Why, she asks, “should this country mint new so-called citizens who don't know the first thing about American history or law?”
Her zinger, however, is that she wants to make native-born Americans take the test too — and deport them to their last known countries of ancestry if they flunk. Why, she asks, “should we ask first-generation immigrants to know more about the United States than the rest of us?”
Why indeed!
Do we have reason to hope that the millions of young people who have flocked to support Barack Obama’s candidacy represent some kind of a sea change among our youth?
No, we don’t. These young people are “the best and the brightest” – far above the norm. A vastly greater number of American young people are high school dropouts, or kids who graduate from high school despite being functionally illiterate, or even those who go on to college clueless about their country’s history and government.
These are the young people who click on YouTube to amass an encyclopedic knowledge of Paris Hilton’s latest antics.
And despite the Bush Administration’s overblown claims of success for its “No Child Left Behind” program, these are the millions of kids who continue to be left behind.
And who leave our country behind in the process.
Friday, April 11, 2008
WARRIORS IN KNEE-PANTS
By William Fisher
The U.S. is providing military aid to six of the countries cited in the U.S. State Department’s latest series of human rights report for recruiting and using child soldiers.
They are Afghanistan, Chad, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.
And a second report -- by the Center for Defense Information (CDI) – charges that, while child soldiers are often recruited and deployed by rebel groups over which the government has little control, in other cases the recruitment is being carried out by directly by governments and government-supported paramilitaries.
For example, the CDI reports that in Chad, government security forces recruited and retained child soldiers and compelled forced labor by adults and children. It says that human rights abuses included killings and use of child soldiers, adding that government and other armed groups continued to use child soldiers.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the CDI reports that government military units and armed groups continued to recruit and maintain child soldiers in their ranks. It notes that military authorities took no action against commanders who employed child soldiers, and says that while the government reached agreements with militias for the demobilization of child soldiers, the groups did not generally respect the agreements.
In Sudan, the CDI report says, “There were numerous serious abuses, including forced military conscription of underage men and recruitment of child soldiers.”
Recruitment of child soldiers also remained a serious problem in Sudan’s Darfur region. While much of the recruitment was carried out by a variety of anti-government rebel groups, the CDI says there are credible reports that government and government-aligned militias also conscripted children to serve as soldiers.
The State Department and CDI reports come at a time when the Bush administration is sharply increasing its use of military aid as a reward for countries that cooperate with its war on terrorism, despite concerns about human rights and political instability.
The CDI found large increases in government and commercial U.S. arms sales in recent years to 25 countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa that have become allies against Islamist militancy since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The nonpartisan Washington-based think tank said half the countries were identified by the State Department in 2006 as having serious, grave or significant human rights problems.
The center's analysis of U.S. data showed government-to-government U.S. arms sales to some 25 countries rocketed to $3.9 billion in 2006 from about $400 million a year earlier. The 2006 figure accounted for about 22 percent of the total $18 billion in U.S. foreign military sales last year.
"The trend is continuing in a steep upward climb," said Rachel Stohl, a co-author of the CDI study.
The center also criticized the Bush administration for its increasing use of new military assistance accounts, which it said allow the Pentagon to bypass legal restrictions on training or arming human rights abusers.
"The United States is sending unprecedented levels of military assistance to countries that it simultaneously criticizes for lack of respect for human rights and, in some cases, for questionable democratic processes," the center said.
"While these countries are currently considered important to U.S. efforts in the 'war on terror' now, political and military instability makes their continued allegiance to the United States questionable."
Military aid increases were due in part to the lifting of sanctions and restrictions against certain countries immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, according to the center. Direct commercial sales, in which U.S. weapons manufacturers strike deals overseen by the State Department, stood at over $3 billion for the same countries during the period from 2002 through 2006. That was up from $72 million for the five years preceding the Sept. 11 attacks.
At the same time, the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Public Integrity (CPI) charges that foreign lobbyists are exploiting America’s post-9/11 fear to obtain billions of dollars in U.S. military aid – and a substantial part of it is being sent to countries that routinely violate human rights, participate in ‘extraordinary renditions,’ and recruit and deploy child soldiers.
These are among the conclusions of a yearlong study by a CPI team of seasoned reporters – known as the Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The ICIJ report, titled “Collateral Damage”, concludes that “the influence of foreign lobbying on the U.S. government, as well as a shortsighted emphasis on counterterrorism objectives over broader human rights concerns, have generated staggering costs to the U.S. and its allies in money spent and political capital burned.”
“Deals to provide military aid to what are perceived as often corrupt and brutal governments have set back efforts to advance human rights and the rule of law,” the ICIJ report says.
Since 1950, the US government has provided over $91 billion to militaries around the world from a single fund. There are a number of additional funds, so the total is substantially higher. Most of the money comes from the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of State (DOS).
Joanne Mariner, Director of the Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program for Human Rights Watch, told us, “We're concerned that U.S. military aid is, in some cases, showered on repressive governments. In our view aid should be more carefully conditioned to ensure that abuses are not carried out with American funding.”
In their investigation, 10 ICIJ reporters on four continents explored American counterterrorism policy since the 2001 terrorist attacks. They found that post-9/11 U.S. political pressure, Washington lobbying and aid dollars have reshaped policies towards countries ranging from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, to Pakistan and Thailand in Asia, Poland and Romania in Europe, to Colombia in South America.
The ICIJ report notes that many of the recipients of this aid are countries believed to be guilty of human rights abuses. For example, it charges that countries receiving military aid from the U.S. have participated in “extraordinary renditions” – kidnapping suspected terrorists or transferring prisoners to countries known to practice torture and other inhuman and degrading practices.
Reliable data shows that airplanes chartered by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made at least 76 stopovers in Azerbaijan, 72 in Jordan, 61 in Egypt, 52 in Turkmenistan, 46 in Uzbekistan, 40 in Iraq, 40 in Morocco, 38 in Afghanistan, and 14 in Libya. Most of these countries are recipients of U.S. military assistance.
For example, in Uzbekistan, “Torture and ill-treatment” remain “widespread” and continue to occur with “impunity,” according to a highly critical assessment by the United Nations Committee Against Torture. Uzbekistan currently receives well over $100 million in U.S. military aid.
Since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Pakistan has become one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid – reportedly more than $10 billion.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) contends that torture is used extensively by both police and prison officials. It notes that no officials have been punished for engaging in such excesses. HRCP further alleges that instances of illegal detention occur on a relatively regular basis and that most of them go unreported.
The ICIJ report also says that Indonesia used the charitable foundation of a former Indonesian president to hire lobbyists to pressure Congress to keep U.S. funds flowing. Its report says the Indonesian government ran a concerted lobbying effort of Congress after the 9/11 attacks using “high-powered influence peddlers”, including former Republican Senator and 1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole.
The U.S. is providing military aid to six of the countries cited in the U.S. State Department’s latest series of human rights report for recruiting and using child soldiers.
They are Afghanistan, Chad, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.
And a second report -- by the Center for Defense Information (CDI) – charges that, while child soldiers are often recruited and deployed by rebel groups over which the government has little control, in other cases the recruitment is being carried out by directly by governments and government-supported paramilitaries.
For example, the CDI reports that in Chad, government security forces recruited and retained child soldiers and compelled forced labor by adults and children. It says that human rights abuses included killings and use of child soldiers, adding that government and other armed groups continued to use child soldiers.
In the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), the CDI reports that government military units and armed groups continued to recruit and maintain child soldiers in their ranks. It notes that military authorities took no action against commanders who employed child soldiers, and says that while the government reached agreements with militias for the demobilization of child soldiers, the groups did not generally respect the agreements.
In Sudan, the CDI report says, “There were numerous serious abuses, including forced military conscription of underage men and recruitment of child soldiers.”
Recruitment of child soldiers also remained a serious problem in Sudan’s Darfur region. While much of the recruitment was carried out by a variety of anti-government rebel groups, the CDI says there are credible reports that government and government-aligned militias also conscripted children to serve as soldiers.
The State Department and CDI reports come at a time when the Bush administration is sharply increasing its use of military aid as a reward for countries that cooperate with its war on terrorism, despite concerns about human rights and political instability.
The CDI found large increases in government and commercial U.S. arms sales in recent years to 25 countries in the Middle East, Asia and Africa that have become allies against Islamist militancy since the Sept. 11 attacks.
The nonpartisan Washington-based think tank said half the countries were identified by the State Department in 2006 as having serious, grave or significant human rights problems.
The center's analysis of U.S. data showed government-to-government U.S. arms sales to some 25 countries rocketed to $3.9 billion in 2006 from about $400 million a year earlier. The 2006 figure accounted for about 22 percent of the total $18 billion in U.S. foreign military sales last year.
"The trend is continuing in a steep upward climb," said Rachel Stohl, a co-author of the CDI study.
The center also criticized the Bush administration for its increasing use of new military assistance accounts, which it said allow the Pentagon to bypass legal restrictions on training or arming human rights abusers.
"The United States is sending unprecedented levels of military assistance to countries that it simultaneously criticizes for lack of respect for human rights and, in some cases, for questionable democratic processes," the center said.
"While these countries are currently considered important to U.S. efforts in the 'war on terror' now, political and military instability makes their continued allegiance to the United States questionable."
Military aid increases were due in part to the lifting of sanctions and restrictions against certain countries immediately after Sept. 11, 2001, according to the center. Direct commercial sales, in which U.S. weapons manufacturers strike deals overseen by the State Department, stood at over $3 billion for the same countries during the period from 2002 through 2006. That was up from $72 million for the five years preceding the Sept. 11 attacks.
At the same time, the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Public Integrity (CPI) charges that foreign lobbyists are exploiting America’s post-9/11 fear to obtain billions of dollars in U.S. military aid – and a substantial part of it is being sent to countries that routinely violate human rights, participate in ‘extraordinary renditions,’ and recruit and deploy child soldiers.
These are among the conclusions of a yearlong study by a CPI team of seasoned reporters – known as the Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ).
The ICIJ report, titled “Collateral Damage”, concludes that “the influence of foreign lobbying on the U.S. government, as well as a shortsighted emphasis on counterterrorism objectives over broader human rights concerns, have generated staggering costs to the U.S. and its allies in money spent and political capital burned.”
“Deals to provide military aid to what are perceived as often corrupt and brutal governments have set back efforts to advance human rights and the rule of law,” the ICIJ report says.
Since 1950, the US government has provided over $91 billion to militaries around the world from a single fund. There are a number of additional funds, so the total is substantially higher. Most of the money comes from the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of State (DOS).
Joanne Mariner, Director of the Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program for Human Rights Watch, told us, “We're concerned that U.S. military aid is, in some cases, showered on repressive governments. In our view aid should be more carefully conditioned to ensure that abuses are not carried out with American funding.”
In their investigation, 10 ICIJ reporters on four continents explored American counterterrorism policy since the 2001 terrorist attacks. They found that post-9/11 U.S. political pressure, Washington lobbying and aid dollars have reshaped policies towards countries ranging from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, to Pakistan and Thailand in Asia, Poland and Romania in Europe, to Colombia in South America.
The ICIJ report notes that many of the recipients of this aid are countries believed to be guilty of human rights abuses. For example, it charges that countries receiving military aid from the U.S. have participated in “extraordinary renditions” – kidnapping suspected terrorists or transferring prisoners to countries known to practice torture and other inhuman and degrading practices.
Reliable data shows that airplanes chartered by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made at least 76 stopovers in Azerbaijan, 72 in Jordan, 61 in Egypt, 52 in Turkmenistan, 46 in Uzbekistan, 40 in Iraq, 40 in Morocco, 38 in Afghanistan, and 14 in Libya. Most of these countries are recipients of U.S. military assistance.
For example, in Uzbekistan, “Torture and ill-treatment” remain “widespread” and continue to occur with “impunity,” according to a highly critical assessment by the United Nations Committee Against Torture. Uzbekistan currently receives well over $100 million in U.S. military aid.
Since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Pakistan has become one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid – reportedly more than $10 billion.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) contends that torture is used extensively by both police and prison officials. It notes that no officials have been punished for engaging in such excesses. HRCP further alleges that instances of illegal detention occur on a relatively regular basis and that most of them go unreported.
The ICIJ report also says that Indonesia used the charitable foundation of a former Indonesian president to hire lobbyists to pressure Congress to keep U.S. funds flowing. Its report says the Indonesian government ran a concerted lobbying effort of Congress after the 9/11 attacks using “high-powered influence peddlers”, including former Republican Senator and 1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole.
Thursday, April 10, 2008
Peering Into the Racial Divide
By William Fisher
Last week, the central Florida newspaper that gave me my start in journalism ran a story based on a 1950s reminiscence I wrote for Huffington Post.
My column recounted how, as a cub reporter, I witnessed the every-weekend mass and indiscriminate arrests of African-Americans by a posse of sheriff’s deputies from Volusia County, aided by local cops from the town of DeLand, where I ran the county seat bureau.
Back in those days, law enforcement departments operated on the “fee system.” That means they got a slice of the fines they collected, and that determined their annual budgets.
I wrote about men and women being arrested during these sorties into “colored town,” jailed without access to lawyers, eventually given court-appointed lawyers who showed up unprepared, or who were so hung over from their weekend revelries that they were incoherent or slept through their clients’ hearings.
Here’s a link to the story published by the Daytona Beach News-Journal on April 7.
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Headlines/frtHEAD02040708.htm
And here’s a link to my original March 18 Huffington Post story.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-fisher/its-about-a-lot-more-tha_b_92231.html
What intrigued me most about this trip down memory lane were the comments posted by readers of the News-Journal’s article. These remarks tell me that racism is still alive and well on what is often called “The Redneck Riviera” – but that, unlike my experience there half a century ago, there are many who have refused to drink the Klan’s Kool-Aid.
Here’s a small sampling of some of the reader comments:
A guy named Dan wrote, “Why don’t you put this crap on black month and get over it!!!!!!”
And Dan had more than his share of cheerleaders.
One, identified as “whitey”, opined: “The liberal media will do anything, anytime, to stir the white/black pot. That's how many liberals make their living. I guess nobody called in any news to the Journal. So not being able to find their way around the streets of Volusia County, the News Journal crew went to their library to see if they could dig up some really old news. Well they did. Does anybody wonder why Rush Limbaugh labeled them all as ‘The drive by Media’? That's exactly what they are.”
Then there was Joe from Daytona, who wrote, “It’s interesting when you read the original article. With easy facts being wrong, such as 1952 being more than 45 years ago, rather than the 56 it really is. With his comments that Black people are directed to the wrong polling places (because of racism). With his failure to mention that Volusia was one of the first integrated Sheriff Departments in the state. With his implications that racism is still institutionalized here, while providing no examples. With all those things, it makes everything he wrote questionable. It almost seems like his memories are crafted by Hillary Clinton. Did he see any snipers?”
And “WhiterNU”, who wrote, “What you need to do is tell that to a ‘big, black, young-buck’. He'll remind you just how much you fear black people. I hope that you get a black president. When he's elected, I'll be laughing at you! LOL LOL LOL!!! Redneck garbage is what you are. I'll take black families as neighbors every time over white trash like you. Your momma should have aborted you. But that would have reduced her welfare benefits, thus necessitating, turning tricks again.”
And “Dizzy – Huh,” whose comment was, “Jimmy Crack Crow and I don't care, Jimmy Crack Crow and I don't care, my master's gone away!”
And “bohog” from Daytona Beach. His comment: “Now, This is what I would called racism. This does not exist in today's world, but black people still thinks it does.”
But these folks faced a lot of opposition as well as praise.
Dan caught a lot of flak. One reader wrote, “Hey Dan. You need to get a life, and open your eyes. Articles such as this should be presented whenever they are needed to make the general public, or should I say educated public, that racist practices must be eliminated. You get over it and wise up.”
And Gail from Palm Coast, wrote, “I hear that they're having a white sale at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Time for you to stock up on some white sheets for your gatherings.”
Another reader responded to Dan: “Good one. LOL Dan's just a racist idiot that must have lost his wife or girlfriend to a bro. You'll find that out the more of his posts you see. I think really all he does is come on here to try to start sh**! Idiot from the word gooooooooo!”
Yet another, “Wlindsey” from Port Orange, wrote: “We're clearly a community in need of racial healing. All the more reason to celebrate the heritage of Mary McLeod Bethune and the college she founded, which tries to bring blacks and whites together and heal the deep wounds of racial division by inclusive conversation and a curriculum centered on social justice.”
Many readers questioned the role of the media in presenting news in its historical context. For example:
“Fed Up – Florida” wrote, “It must have been a slow news day. This reporter went to a history book and decided it was news.”
“Jim” from Ormond Beach wrote, “ This is history, not news. Stories like this are frequently published, however, to fulfill their liberal agenda of keeping racial divisions alive for the political gain of Democrats. Too bad we'll never read an inspiring account about one of the hundreds of millions of Americans that have bettered their lives because of this nation. Freedom is now taken for granted by too many people, and because of this politicians continue to take it away bit by bit everyday. So sad.”
And “Active O” wrote, “I'm not reading this NEWS PAPER for a history lesson... and make no mistake... this is HISTORY... history would be... (A chronological record of significant events (as affecting a nation or institution... often including an explanation of their causes)... it is NOT to be confused with NEWS... (A report of recent events b: Previously unknown information) get it??? Jim Crow died... DEAD... put in the grave in the mid-1960's... thanks to you and the News-Journal for assuming a history lesson was in order here... but for my part... your assumptions are sickeningly incorrect! Thanks anyway!”
But “andy ray” from Deltona disagreed. “You can't get to where you are going unless you know where you have been.”
Another reader said, “Thanks for this insightful historical piece. It must be awful to read these comments and be criticized for doing your job by educating and informing. Any story about race draws the ignorant. I guess people would rather sweep it under the rug and blame the media for propagating. Keep on chugging; your work is appreciated.”
And “Marley” reminded Jim: “History can serve as a reminder of today’s news, after all, history repeats itself, especially with the ignorant.”
Finally, “DlndChic” weighed in with “Quoting Rush Limbaugh doesn't show much intelligence…I'm blessed and thankful for those who are willing to keep their hearts and minds open. Only the ignorant will repeat mistakes made by others. The more intelligent will learn from them.”
I happily cast my lot with “DlandChic.” We scriveners cherish “those who are willing to keep their hearts and minds open.” We hope they will learn from our efforts to present the past as well as the present. In the news business, it’s called “context.”
Journalists who do their work without it do all of us a disservice.
Last week, the central Florida newspaper that gave me my start in journalism ran a story based on a 1950s reminiscence I wrote for Huffington Post.
My column recounted how, as a cub reporter, I witnessed the every-weekend mass and indiscriminate arrests of African-Americans by a posse of sheriff’s deputies from Volusia County, aided by local cops from the town of DeLand, where I ran the county seat bureau.
Back in those days, law enforcement departments operated on the “fee system.” That means they got a slice of the fines they collected, and that determined their annual budgets.
I wrote about men and women being arrested during these sorties into “colored town,” jailed without access to lawyers, eventually given court-appointed lawyers who showed up unprepared, or who were so hung over from their weekend revelries that they were incoherent or slept through their clients’ hearings.
Here’s a link to the story published by the Daytona Beach News-Journal on April 7.
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Headlines/frtHEAD02040708.htm
And here’s a link to my original March 18 Huffington Post story.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/william-fisher/its-about-a-lot-more-tha_b_92231.html
What intrigued me most about this trip down memory lane were the comments posted by readers of the News-Journal’s article. These remarks tell me that racism is still alive and well on what is often called “The Redneck Riviera” – but that, unlike my experience there half a century ago, there are many who have refused to drink the Klan’s Kool-Aid.
Here’s a small sampling of some of the reader comments:
A guy named Dan wrote, “Why don’t you put this crap on black month and get over it!!!!!!”
And Dan had more than his share of cheerleaders.
One, identified as “whitey”, opined: “The liberal media will do anything, anytime, to stir the white/black pot. That's how many liberals make their living. I guess nobody called in any news to the Journal. So not being able to find their way around the streets of Volusia County, the News Journal crew went to their library to see if they could dig up some really old news. Well they did. Does anybody wonder why Rush Limbaugh labeled them all as ‘The drive by Media’? That's exactly what they are.”
Then there was Joe from Daytona, who wrote, “It’s interesting when you read the original article. With easy facts being wrong, such as 1952 being more than 45 years ago, rather than the 56 it really is. With his comments that Black people are directed to the wrong polling places (because of racism). With his failure to mention that Volusia was one of the first integrated Sheriff Departments in the state. With his implications that racism is still institutionalized here, while providing no examples. With all those things, it makes everything he wrote questionable. It almost seems like his memories are crafted by Hillary Clinton. Did he see any snipers?”
And “WhiterNU”, who wrote, “What you need to do is tell that to a ‘big, black, young-buck’. He'll remind you just how much you fear black people. I hope that you get a black president. When he's elected, I'll be laughing at you! LOL LOL LOL!!! Redneck garbage is what you are. I'll take black families as neighbors every time over white trash like you. Your momma should have aborted you. But that would have reduced her welfare benefits, thus necessitating, turning tricks again.”
And “Dizzy – Huh,” whose comment was, “Jimmy Crack Crow and I don't care, Jimmy Crack Crow and I don't care, my master's gone away!”
And “bohog” from Daytona Beach. His comment: “Now, This is what I would called racism. This does not exist in today's world, but black people still thinks it does.”
But these folks faced a lot of opposition as well as praise.
Dan caught a lot of flak. One reader wrote, “Hey Dan. You need to get a life, and open your eyes. Articles such as this should be presented whenever they are needed to make the general public, or should I say educated public, that racist practices must be eliminated. You get over it and wise up.”
And Gail from Palm Coast, wrote, “I hear that they're having a white sale at Bed, Bath, and Beyond. Time for you to stock up on some white sheets for your gatherings.”
Another reader responded to Dan: “Good one. LOL Dan's just a racist idiot that must have lost his wife or girlfriend to a bro. You'll find that out the more of his posts you see. I think really all he does is come on here to try to start sh**! Idiot from the word gooooooooo!”
Yet another, “Wlindsey” from Port Orange, wrote: “We're clearly a community in need of racial healing. All the more reason to celebrate the heritage of Mary McLeod Bethune and the college she founded, which tries to bring blacks and whites together and heal the deep wounds of racial division by inclusive conversation and a curriculum centered on social justice.”
Many readers questioned the role of the media in presenting news in its historical context. For example:
“Fed Up – Florida” wrote, “It must have been a slow news day. This reporter went to a history book and decided it was news.”
“Jim” from Ormond Beach wrote, “ This is history, not news. Stories like this are frequently published, however, to fulfill their liberal agenda of keeping racial divisions alive for the political gain of Democrats. Too bad we'll never read an inspiring account about one of the hundreds of millions of Americans that have bettered their lives because of this nation. Freedom is now taken for granted by too many people, and because of this politicians continue to take it away bit by bit everyday. So sad.”
And “Active O” wrote, “I'm not reading this NEWS PAPER for a history lesson... and make no mistake... this is HISTORY... history would be... (A chronological record of significant events (as affecting a nation or institution... often including an explanation of their causes)... it is NOT to be confused with NEWS... (A report of recent events b: Previously unknown information) get it??? Jim Crow died... DEAD... put in the grave in the mid-1960's... thanks to you and the News-Journal for assuming a history lesson was in order here... but for my part... your assumptions are sickeningly incorrect! Thanks anyway!”
But “andy ray” from Deltona disagreed. “You can't get to where you are going unless you know where you have been.”
Another reader said, “Thanks for this insightful historical piece. It must be awful to read these comments and be criticized for doing your job by educating and informing. Any story about race draws the ignorant. I guess people would rather sweep it under the rug and blame the media for propagating. Keep on chugging; your work is appreciated.”
And “Marley” reminded Jim: “History can serve as a reminder of today’s news, after all, history repeats itself, especially with the ignorant.”
Finally, “DlndChic” weighed in with “Quoting Rush Limbaugh doesn't show much intelligence…I'm blessed and thankful for those who are willing to keep their hearts and minds open. Only the ignorant will repeat mistakes made by others. The more intelligent will learn from them.”
I happily cast my lot with “DlandChic.” We scriveners cherish “those who are willing to keep their hearts and minds open.” We hope they will learn from our efforts to present the past as well as the present. In the news business, it’s called “context.”
Journalists who do their work without it do all of us a disservice.
Tuesday, April 08, 2008
A Double-Standard For Jordan?
By William Fisher
When Jordan’s King Abdullah II addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress in March 2007, his speech was filled with words like peace and justice.
He was, of course, referring to the plight of the Palestinian people in their ongoing struggle with Israel. He had a good case to make.
And Congress gave him a standing ovation for making it.
But what he left out was any reference to Jordan’s own state of peace and justice.
Now we learn that this small Mideast country –often described by the mainstream media as the most moderate of America’s allies in the region -- was the first to receive prisoners “as a true proxy jailer for the CIA”, has received more victims of “extraordinary rendition” than any other country in the world, and has systematically subjected detainees to torture.
These are the principal conclusions of a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), a Washington-based advocacy organization.
The report charges that U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, were aware that “Jordan was already notorious for torturing security detainees” because the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “already had a history of close relations” with Jordan’s General Intelligence Department (GID).”
HRW charges that “Torture and cruel or inhuman treatment seems to have been systematically used” against most of the detainees rendered by the CIA to Jordan. “Detainees claim they were threatened, beaten, insulted, deprived of sleep, and subjected to falaqa -- a form of torture in which the soles of the feet are beaten with an object,” HRW says.
The report claims that rendered prisoners were “hidden whenever the International Committee of the Red Cross visited.”
It adds that the CIA’s long-standing relationship with Jordanian security services may have given U.S. officials confidence that the Jordanians “would be particularly good at keeping the fact of the detentions secret.”
Joanne Mariner, Director of the Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program for Human Rights Watch, told us, “The rendition cases we've documented in Jordan show the unreality of the Bush administration's claims that it did not hand people over to face torture.”
She added, “Not only did the CIA illegally detain prisoners in its own prisons in the years after September 11, it secretly outsourced the interrogation, detention, and torture of more than a dozen prisoners in Jordan.”
HRW says the precise number of people rendered to Jordan by the CIA is not known. But it asserts that rendered prisoners were taken to Jordan for one purpose only: to extract confessions of terrorist activities. “It is clear that many of the detainees were returned to CIA custody immediately after intensive periods of abusive interrogation in Jordan.”
Some of these people were then returned to custody in their home countries while others were taken to the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where some of them still remain. At least five men who are currently detained at Guantanamo were previously rendered to Jordan for some amount of time during the period of 2001 to 2004, HRW says.
In addition, at least two Yemeni prisoners who were later held in secret CIA prisons -- without being sent to Guantanamo -- were arrested in Jordan and held in the custody of the Jordanian security services for a few days or weeks prior to their transfer into U.S. custody.
HRW says “Some of the detainees who arrived in Jordan in 2002 were held for more than a year”, leaving Jordanian custody in 2004. Some former prisoners told Human Rights Watch that “for a while in 2002 and 2003 the detention facility was full of non-Jordanian prisoners who had been delivered by the CIA.”
The report says that after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the CIA quickly began rendering suspected terrorists to Jordan for interrogation.
Those rendered by the CIA to Jordan may have declined over time because the CIA developed its own detention capacity, opening secret facilities in Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland, and Romania, and had less need to rely on Jordan, the HRW report says.
The report concludes that U.S. government officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, were well aware of the hollowness of the “diplomatic assurances” it received from Jordan that it would not subject rendered prisoners to torture.
The report recalls that Rice, under pressure from European allies because of press revelations about CIA activities in Europe, offered a vigorous defense of U.S. rendition practices in December 2005.
Asserting that the practice of rendition was a “vital tool in combating transnational terrorism,” Rice claimed that the United States and other countries have long relied on renditions to transport terrorist suspects from the country where they were arrested to their home country or to other countries where they can be held and questioned.
She insisted that the United States “does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture.” Instead, she explained that, where necessary, “the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured.”
HRW says, “The systematic nature of the abuses suffered by prisoners rendered to Jordan contradicts Rice’s bland reassurances. If the Jordanians did indeed promise the US authorities that prisoners rendered there would not be tortured, it was a promise that neither the US nor Jordan believed.”
The Jordan chapter of the U.S. State Department’s 2001 human rights report states that prisoners in the custody of Jordanian police and security forces have alleged that “methods of torture include sleep deprivation, beatings on the soles of the feet, prolonged suspension with ropes in contorted positions, and extended solitary confinement.”
The report notes that Michael Scheuer, a former CIA officer who claims to have initiated the terrorist rendition program during the Clinton Administration, “rightly dismisses these assurances as ‘legal niceties’ -- pledges meant to look good on paper, which provide no real protection. He has said that both CIA agents and their superiors were aware that abuses were likely.”
HRW reports that Pakistan, and in particular the city of Karachi, was the source of at least six detainees believed to have been rendered to Jordan from U.S. custody. “The Pakistani authorities have made no secret of the fact that since September 2001 they have handed over several hundred terrorism suspects to the United States, boasting of the transfers as proof of Pakistan’s cooperation in US counterterrorism efforts,” HRW says.
“A large number of these men ended up at Guantanamo; some ended up in secret CIA prisons, and others were rendered to Jordan and other countries.”
The US practice of rendering terrorist suspects abroad -- transferring prisoners to foreign custody outside of normal legal proceedings -- predates the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. During the administration of President Bill Clinton, the CIA rendered a number of Egyptian terrorist suspects from countries such as Albania and Croatia to Egypt, where some of them had previously been sentenced to death in absentia.
HRW notes that after September 2001, the CIA’s rendition practices changed. “Rather than returning people to their home countries to face ‘justice’ (albeit justice that included torture and grossly unfair trials), the CIA began handing people over to third countries apparently to facilitate abusive interrogations.”
Following the September 11 attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush signed a classified presidential directive giving the CIA expanded authority to arrest, interrogate, detain, and render terrorist suspects arrested abroad. Since that time, the US is believed to have rendered terrorism suspects to the custody of Egypt, Morocco, Libya, and Syria, in addition to Jordan.
The HRW report calls on the U.S. government to repudiate the use of rendition to torture as a counterterrorism tactic, discontinue the CIA’s rendition program, and “disclose the identities, fate, and current whereabouts of all persons detained by the CIA or rendered to foreign custody by the CIA since 2001, including detainees who were rendered to Jordan.”
And it calls on Jordan’s government to repudiate its role as a proxy jailer in the CIA’s rendition program; disclose the identities, fate, and current whereabouts of all persons rendered to Jordan by the CIA since 2001; make public any audio recordings or videotapes made of interrogations of detainees rendered by the CIA to Jordan; and open an immediate independent judicial inquiry into the GID’s use of torture, ill-treatment, and arbitrary detention.
Dare we hope that the young monarch – and his American partners -- will heed this advice before he comes before the next joint session of Congress?
Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
When Jordan’s King Abdullah II addressed a joint session of the U.S. Congress in March 2007, his speech was filled with words like peace and justice.
He was, of course, referring to the plight of the Palestinian people in their ongoing struggle with Israel. He had a good case to make.
And Congress gave him a standing ovation for making it.
But what he left out was any reference to Jordan’s own state of peace and justice.
Now we learn that this small Mideast country –often described by the mainstream media as the most moderate of America’s allies in the region -- was the first to receive prisoners “as a true proxy jailer for the CIA”, has received more victims of “extraordinary rendition” than any other country in the world, and has systematically subjected detainees to torture.
These are the principal conclusions of a new report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), a Washington-based advocacy organization.
The report charges that U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, were aware that “Jordan was already notorious for torturing security detainees” because the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “already had a history of close relations” with Jordan’s General Intelligence Department (GID).”
HRW charges that “Torture and cruel or inhuman treatment seems to have been systematically used” against most of the detainees rendered by the CIA to Jordan. “Detainees claim they were threatened, beaten, insulted, deprived of sleep, and subjected to falaqa -- a form of torture in which the soles of the feet are beaten with an object,” HRW says.
The report claims that rendered prisoners were “hidden whenever the International Committee of the Red Cross visited.”
It adds that the CIA’s long-standing relationship with Jordanian security services may have given U.S. officials confidence that the Jordanians “would be particularly good at keeping the fact of the detentions secret.”
Joanne Mariner, Director of the Terrorism and Counterterrorism Program for Human Rights Watch, told us, “The rendition cases we've documented in Jordan show the unreality of the Bush administration's claims that it did not hand people over to face torture.”
She added, “Not only did the CIA illegally detain prisoners in its own prisons in the years after September 11, it secretly outsourced the interrogation, detention, and torture of more than a dozen prisoners in Jordan.”
HRW says the precise number of people rendered to Jordan by the CIA is not known. But it asserts that rendered prisoners were taken to Jordan for one purpose only: to extract confessions of terrorist activities. “It is clear that many of the detainees were returned to CIA custody immediately after intensive periods of abusive interrogation in Jordan.”
Some of these people were then returned to custody in their home countries while others were taken to the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where some of them still remain. At least five men who are currently detained at Guantanamo were previously rendered to Jordan for some amount of time during the period of 2001 to 2004, HRW says.
In addition, at least two Yemeni prisoners who were later held in secret CIA prisons -- without being sent to Guantanamo -- were arrested in Jordan and held in the custody of the Jordanian security services for a few days or weeks prior to their transfer into U.S. custody.
HRW says “Some of the detainees who arrived in Jordan in 2002 were held for more than a year”, leaving Jordanian custody in 2004. Some former prisoners told Human Rights Watch that “for a while in 2002 and 2003 the detention facility was full of non-Jordanian prisoners who had been delivered by the CIA.”
The report says that after the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, the CIA quickly began rendering suspected terrorists to Jordan for interrogation.
Those rendered by the CIA to Jordan may have declined over time because the CIA developed its own detention capacity, opening secret facilities in Thailand, Afghanistan, Poland, and Romania, and had less need to rely on Jordan, the HRW report says.
The report concludes that U.S. government officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, were well aware of the hollowness of the “diplomatic assurances” it received from Jordan that it would not subject rendered prisoners to torture.
The report recalls that Rice, under pressure from European allies because of press revelations about CIA activities in Europe, offered a vigorous defense of U.S. rendition practices in December 2005.
Asserting that the practice of rendition was a “vital tool in combating transnational terrorism,” Rice claimed that the United States and other countries have long relied on renditions to transport terrorist suspects from the country where they were arrested to their home country or to other countries where they can be held and questioned.
She insisted that the United States “does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture.” Instead, she explained that, where necessary, “the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured.”
HRW says, “The systematic nature of the abuses suffered by prisoners rendered to Jordan contradicts Rice’s bland reassurances. If the Jordanians did indeed promise the US authorities that prisoners rendered there would not be tortured, it was a promise that neither the US nor Jordan believed.”
The Jordan chapter of the U.S. State Department’s 2001 human rights report states that prisoners in the custody of Jordanian police and security forces have alleged that “methods of torture include sleep deprivation, beatings on the soles of the feet, prolonged suspension with ropes in contorted positions, and extended solitary confinement.”
The report notes that Michael Scheuer, a former CIA officer who claims to have initiated the terrorist rendition program during the Clinton Administration, “rightly dismisses these assurances as ‘legal niceties’ -- pledges meant to look good on paper, which provide no real protection. He has said that both CIA agents and their superiors were aware that abuses were likely.”
HRW reports that Pakistan, and in particular the city of Karachi, was the source of at least six detainees believed to have been rendered to Jordan from U.S. custody. “The Pakistani authorities have made no secret of the fact that since September 2001 they have handed over several hundred terrorism suspects to the United States, boasting of the transfers as proof of Pakistan’s cooperation in US counterterrorism efforts,” HRW says.
“A large number of these men ended up at Guantanamo; some ended up in secret CIA prisons, and others were rendered to Jordan and other countries.”
The US practice of rendering terrorist suspects abroad -- transferring prisoners to foreign custody outside of normal legal proceedings -- predates the September 11, 2001 attacks on the U.S. During the administration of President Bill Clinton, the CIA rendered a number of Egyptian terrorist suspects from countries such as Albania and Croatia to Egypt, where some of them had previously been sentenced to death in absentia.
HRW notes that after September 2001, the CIA’s rendition practices changed. “Rather than returning people to their home countries to face ‘justice’ (albeit justice that included torture and grossly unfair trials), the CIA began handing people over to third countries apparently to facilitate abusive interrogations.”
Following the September 11 attacks, U.S. President George W. Bush signed a classified presidential directive giving the CIA expanded authority to arrest, interrogate, detain, and render terrorist suspects arrested abroad. Since that time, the US is believed to have rendered terrorism suspects to the custody of Egypt, Morocco, Libya, and Syria, in addition to Jordan.
The HRW report calls on the U.S. government to repudiate the use of rendition to torture as a counterterrorism tactic, discontinue the CIA’s rendition program, and “disclose the identities, fate, and current whereabouts of all persons detained by the CIA or rendered to foreign custody by the CIA since 2001, including detainees who were rendered to Jordan.”
And it calls on Jordan’s government to repudiate its role as a proxy jailer in the CIA’s rendition program; disclose the identities, fate, and current whereabouts of all persons rendered to Jordan by the CIA since 2001; make public any audio recordings or videotapes made of interrogations of detainees rendered by the CIA to Jordan; and open an immediate independent judicial inquiry into the GID’s use of torture, ill-treatment, and arbitrary detention.
Dare we hope that the young monarch – and his American partners -- will heed this advice before he comes before the next joint session of Congress?
Well, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Saturday, April 05, 2008
COLLATERAL DAMAGE?
By William Fisher
Foreign lobbyists are exploiting America’s post-9/11 fear to obtain billions of dollars in U.S. military aid – and a substantial part of it is being sent to countries that routinely violate human rights, participate in ‘extraordinary renditions,’ and recruit and deploy child soldiers.
These are among the conclusions of a year-long study by a team of seasoned reporters – known as the Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) --under the aegis of the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Public Integrity (CPI).
The ICIJ report, titled “Collateral Damage”, concludes that “the influence of foreign lobbying on the U.S. government, as well as a shortsighted emphasis on counterterrorism objectives over broader human rights concerns, have generated staggering costs to the U.S. and its allies in money spent and political capital burned.”
“Deals to provide military aid to what are perceived as often corrupt and brutal governments have set back efforts to advance human rights and the rule of law,” the ICIJ report says.
Since 1950, the US government has provided over $91 billion to militaries around the world from a single fund. There are a number of additional funds, so total is substantially higher. Most of the money comes from the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of State (DOS).
In their investigation, 10 ICIJ reporters on four continents explored American counterterrorism policy since the 2001 terrorist attacks. They found that post-9/11 U.S. political pressure, Washington lobbying and aid dollars have reshaped policies towards countries ranging from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, to Pakistan and Thailand in Asia, Poland and Romania in Europe, to Colombia in South America.
The ICIJ report documents substantial increases in U.S. military aid since the attacks of September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The 2008 budget presented to Congress by President George W. Bush requested an increase of more than a billion dollars for military and security assistance, particularly to key ''front-line'' states in the ''war on terror".
But the ICIJ report notes that many of the recipients of this aid are countries believed to be guilty of human rights abuses.
For example, the report highlights the continued use and recruitment of child soldiers by governments and government-supported paramilitaries, militias and other armed groups in eight countries. The U.S. provides military assistance to six of those eight countries: Afghanistan, Chad, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.
It charges that countries receiving military aid from the U.S. have also participated in “extraordinary renditions” – kidnapping suspected terrorists or transferring prisoners to countries known to practice torture and other inhuman and degrading practices.
Reliable data shows that airplanes chartered by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made at least 76 stopovers in Azerbaijan, 72 in Jordan, 61 in Egypt, 52 in Turkmenistan, 46 in Uzbekistan, 40 in Iraq, 40 in Morocco, 38 in Afghanistan, and 14 in Libya. Most of these countries are recipients of U.S. military assistance.
The British Government recently disclosed, and the U.S. acknowledged, that CIA aircraft had touched down on Diego Garcia, a U.K. territory in the Indian Ocean. It is believed that CIA flights included hundreds carrying prisoners to the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba.
Until North American and European media exposed the practice, the U.S., along with countries reportedly receiving rendered prisoners, denied that “extraordinary renditions” were part of government policy.
For example, in a meeting with Human Rights Watch in late August 2007, Jordanian officials categorically denied that it had held prisoners rendered by the United States.
Often characterized by the mainstream press as being one of the most moderate nations in the Arab Middle East, Jordan was receiving more than $2.7 billion in U.S. military aid as of 2004, and the sum has reportedly increased since then.
Jordanian officials have denied that they inflict torture in detention. But Human Rights Watch concludes, “Given the weight of credible evidence showing the opposite, their denials are unconvincing.”
Egypt -- a key U.S. ally – has long been the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid, after only Israel. Washington provides $1.3 billion in annual military aid, a sum that amounts to 80 percent of Egypt’s military’s budget. Its secret police are notorious for their brutality during interrogations.
In Uzbekistan, according to a highly critical assessment by the United Nations Committee Against Torture, torture and ill-treatment remain “widespread” and continue to occur with “impunity.” Uzbekistan currently receives well over $100 million in U.S. military aid.
Although there have been prosecutions of Uzbek police for torture -- some 42 cases, according to the ICIJ report -- representatives of human rights groups assert that most of these cases resulted in convictions based on confessions and testimony linked to torture. They contend that the Uzbek government has grown more, rather than less, repressive over time
Since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Pakistan has become one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid – reportedly more than $10 billion.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) contends that torture is used extensively by both police and prison officials. It notes that no officials have been punished for engaging in such excesses. HRCP further alleges that instances of illegal detention occur on a relatively regular basis and that most of them go unreported.
Pakistan’s use of U.S. military assistance funds has also been the subject of serious questions raised in Congress and by human rights groups. Tim Rieser, a key adviser to Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, told the ICJ, “With the possible exception of Iraq reconstruction funds, I've never seen a larger blank check for any country.”
He added, “There is no formal auditing mechanism to verify costs apart from local U.S. embassies and military officials vouching for the accuracy of the submitted bills.” He charged that the former Republican congress "did next to nothing to track what was done with the money."
The ICJ said it “found little evidence that the U.S. government has paid significant attention to improving the accountability and human rights practices of Pakistan’s internal security forces.”
Indonesia – not long ago banned from American help because of its conflict with East Timor -- is now another recipient of substantial U.S. military aid. To increase the flow of U.S. money, the Indonesian intelligence agency used the charitable foundation of a former Indonesian president to hire lobbyists to pressure Congress on keeping the spigots open. The ICIJ report says the Indonesian government ran a concerted lobbying effort of Congress after the 9/11 attacks using “high-powered influence peddlers”, including former Republican Senator and 1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole.
The U.S. State Department reported, “Inadequate resources, poor leadership, and limited accountability contributed to serious violations by security forces. Widespread corruption further degraded an already weak regard for rule of law and contributed to impunity.”
Alleged human rights violations included extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture, harsh prison conditions, arbitrary detentions, a corrupt judicial system, infringements on free speech, peaceful assembly, and freedom of religion, and sexual abuse against women and children.
Foreign lobbyists are exploiting America’s post-9/11 fear to obtain billions of dollars in U.S. military aid – and a substantial part of it is being sent to countries that routinely violate human rights, participate in ‘extraordinary renditions,’ and recruit and deploy child soldiers.
These are among the conclusions of a year-long study by a team of seasoned reporters – known as the Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ) --under the aegis of the non-profit, non-partisan Center for Public Integrity (CPI).
The ICIJ report, titled “Collateral Damage”, concludes that “the influence of foreign lobbying on the U.S. government, as well as a shortsighted emphasis on counterterrorism objectives over broader human rights concerns, have generated staggering costs to the U.S. and its allies in money spent and political capital burned.”
“Deals to provide military aid to what are perceived as often corrupt and brutal governments have set back efforts to advance human rights and the rule of law,” the ICIJ report says.
Since 1950, the US government has provided over $91 billion to militaries around the world from a single fund. There are a number of additional funds, so total is substantially higher. Most of the money comes from the Department of Defense (DOD) and the Department of State (DOS).
In their investigation, 10 ICIJ reporters on four continents explored American counterterrorism policy since the 2001 terrorist attacks. They found that post-9/11 U.S. political pressure, Washington lobbying and aid dollars have reshaped policies towards countries ranging from Djibouti in the Horn of Africa, to Pakistan and Thailand in Asia, Poland and Romania in Europe, to Colombia in South America.
The ICIJ report documents substantial increases in U.S. military aid since the attacks of September 11, 2001 on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The 2008 budget presented to Congress by President George W. Bush requested an increase of more than a billion dollars for military and security assistance, particularly to key ''front-line'' states in the ''war on terror".
But the ICIJ report notes that many of the recipients of this aid are countries believed to be guilty of human rights abuses.
For example, the report highlights the continued use and recruitment of child soldiers by governments and government-supported paramilitaries, militias and other armed groups in eight countries. The U.S. provides military assistance to six of those eight countries: Afghanistan, Chad, The Democratic Republic of Congo, Sri Lanka, Sudan and Uganda.
It charges that countries receiving military aid from the U.S. have also participated in “extraordinary renditions” – kidnapping suspected terrorists or transferring prisoners to countries known to practice torture and other inhuman and degrading practices.
Reliable data shows that airplanes chartered by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) made at least 76 stopovers in Azerbaijan, 72 in Jordan, 61 in Egypt, 52 in Turkmenistan, 46 in Uzbekistan, 40 in Iraq, 40 in Morocco, 38 in Afghanistan, and 14 in Libya. Most of these countries are recipients of U.S. military assistance.
The British Government recently disclosed, and the U.S. acknowledged, that CIA aircraft had touched down on Diego Garcia, a U.K. territory in the Indian Ocean. It is believed that CIA flights included hundreds carrying prisoners to the U.S. Naval base at Guantanamo, Cuba.
Until North American and European media exposed the practice, the U.S., along with countries reportedly receiving rendered prisoners, denied that “extraordinary renditions” were part of government policy.
For example, in a meeting with Human Rights Watch in late August 2007, Jordanian officials categorically denied that it had held prisoners rendered by the United States.
Often characterized by the mainstream press as being one of the most moderate nations in the Arab Middle East, Jordan was receiving more than $2.7 billion in U.S. military aid as of 2004, and the sum has reportedly increased since then.
Jordanian officials have denied that they inflict torture in detention. But Human Rights Watch concludes, “Given the weight of credible evidence showing the opposite, their denials are unconvincing.”
Egypt -- a key U.S. ally – has long been the second-largest recipient of U.S. aid, after only Israel. Washington provides $1.3 billion in annual military aid, a sum that amounts to 80 percent of Egypt’s military’s budget. Its secret police are notorious for their brutality during interrogations.
In Uzbekistan, according to a highly critical assessment by the United Nations Committee Against Torture, torture and ill-treatment remain “widespread” and continue to occur with “impunity.” Uzbekistan currently receives well over $100 million in U.S. military aid.
Although there have been prosecutions of Uzbek police for torture -- some 42 cases, according to the ICIJ report -- representatives of human rights groups assert that most of these cases resulted in convictions based on confessions and testimony linked to torture. They contend that the Uzbek government has grown more, rather than less, repressive over time
Since the terrorist attacks on the U.S. on September 11, 2001, Pakistan has become one of the largest recipients of U.S. military aid – reportedly more than $10 billion.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) contends that torture is used extensively by both police and prison officials. It notes that no officials have been punished for engaging in such excesses. HRCP further alleges that instances of illegal detention occur on a relatively regular basis and that most of them go unreported.
Pakistan’s use of U.S. military assistance funds has also been the subject of serious questions raised in Congress and by human rights groups. Tim Rieser, a key adviser to Vermont Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy, told the ICJ, “With the possible exception of Iraq reconstruction funds, I've never seen a larger blank check for any country.”
He added, “There is no formal auditing mechanism to verify costs apart from local U.S. embassies and military officials vouching for the accuracy of the submitted bills.” He charged that the former Republican congress "did next to nothing to track what was done with the money."
The ICJ said it “found little evidence that the U.S. government has paid significant attention to improving the accountability and human rights practices of Pakistan’s internal security forces.”
Indonesia – not long ago banned from American help because of its conflict with East Timor -- is now another recipient of substantial U.S. military aid. To increase the flow of U.S. money, the Indonesian intelligence agency used the charitable foundation of a former Indonesian president to hire lobbyists to pressure Congress on keeping the spigots open. The ICIJ report says the Indonesian government ran a concerted lobbying effort of Congress after the 9/11 attacks using “high-powered influence peddlers”, including former Republican Senator and 1996 presidential candidate Bob Dole.
The U.S. State Department reported, “Inadequate resources, poor leadership, and limited accountability contributed to serious violations by security forces. Widespread corruption further degraded an already weak regard for rule of law and contributed to impunity.”
Alleged human rights violations included extrajudicial killings, disappearances, torture, harsh prison conditions, arbitrary detentions, a corrupt judicial system, infringements on free speech, peaceful assembly, and freedom of religion, and sexual abuse against women and children.
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
OBAMA, WRIGHT, AND THE MEDIA
By William Fisher
Amid the explosive controversy over remarks made in sermons by Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor, critics are charging that America’s mainstream media has distorted his comments with out-of-context soundbites, failed to understand the African American church, sought to punish the Democratic Party presidential hopeful through “guilt by association,” and gave a free pass to what they say are equally incendiary remarks made by white clergy on the religious right.
At the center of the storm that engulfed Barack Obama's presidential campaign is his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright is the former pastor of the Obama’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago's south side. He officiated at Obama's wedding and baptized his daughters.
Parts of Wright’s sermons have been played millions of times on the Internet and on television and have become a major issue for the Obama campaign. Wright's comments prompted Obama to give a groundbreaking speech on race in America – the first time in decades that this issue has been addressed by a candidate for the presidential nomination. In the speech, Obama said he rejected Wright’s more inflammatory statements, but refused to disown his longtime spiritual advisor.
Among Wright’s remarks:
"The government gives them (African Americans) the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, Goddamn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. Goddamn America for treating our citizens as less than human. Goddamn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."
"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now (post 9/11) we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
The comments of Dr. George Hunsinger of Princeton University, an ordained Presbyterian minister, are typical of those who believe the American popular media have distorted Wright’s remarks.
He told us, “I think we are looking at some basic questions of fairness. Is it really fair to take a minister's remarks, no matter how provocative or ill-advised, out of context and to broadcast them incessantly, as if they were the only thing that minister ever said or believed? What purposes are served by this sort of propaganda?”
Hunsinger also raised the issue of faulting Obama for remarks made by Wright. “Is it really fair to slime a candidate with the defamation of guilt by association? Does anyone really believe that tactics like this belong in a well-functioning democracy? What kind of media succumbs to these tactics? Finally, is it really fair to act as though African Americans should all be a bunch of happy watermellon eating black folks with no historic grievances that our nation has yet to address? What universe are we living in?”
Another prominent theologian, Rev. Martin Marty of the University of Chicago Divinity School, said he “does not excuse some of the indefensible comments of Wright that have now been bludgeoned into our consciousness to the exclusion of all else. And those comments should not be excused. And they have not been excused by Obama.”
But he says, “The four S's charged against Wright -- segregation, separatism, sectarianism, and superiority -- don't stand up…” He said Trinity “has made strenuous efforts to help black Christians overcome the shame they had so long been conditioned to experience…People do not leave Trinity ready to beat up on white people; they are charged to make peace.”
Civil libertarians have also been weighing in on the continuing Wright/Obama controversy. For example, Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, told us, “Wright’s comments were taken out of context to make it seem like he was justifying the 9/11 attacks and was therefore unpatriotic. But when you listen to his entire sermon, he characterizes them as blowback for a vicious U.S. foreign policy.”
She added, “The cable (news) stations played the soundbites over and over, distorting their real meaning. Over the weekend, when news was slow, CNN played one of Wright's sermons in its entirety, which was helpful.”
In his speech, Obama called an Americans to begin a national conversation on race and ethnicity. Cohn told IPS that this “is already happening in the corporate media and on the Web among grassroots organizations. There is so much to talk about, this discourse will, and should, go on for a long time. We have a long way to go in overcoming racism.”
But she expressed doubt that the Bush Administration will take any substantive action to encourage the debate. “The Bush administration likes to sugar coat, i.e. spin, the most important problems, such as the failing economy, and the increasingly disastrous situation in Iraq. By encouraging a national debate about institutional racism, the administration would be admitting to its own shortcomings. It won't happen.”
The National Lawyers Guild was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association which, at that time, did not accept African-American lawyers as members.
Most polling data suggest that the Wright controversy has not damaged Sen. Obama’s presidential bid. But Harold Ickes, a senior advisor to Sen. Hillary Clinton, his competitor for the Democratic Party nomination, is quoted as saying that the Clinton campaign would use it as a way of persuading Party insiders – known as Super-Delegates – that Obama is not electable.
Meanwhile, theologians in Texas expressed support for Wright at a symposium last weekend on the “State of Black Church.” Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas, associate professor of ethics and director of black church studies at the Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, said, ""What is eminently clear is the degree to which the black church is still largely misunderstood and routinely caricatured in U.S. popular culture.”
She added, “If Wright is guilty of anything, (he is) guilty of loving the U.S. enough to tell the United States the truth. Patriots and prophets are "often called to speak harsh words to their nation, not out of a place of hatred, as some suggest, but from an impassioned place of profound love and the highest of expectations.” Wright is a former member of the U.S. Marine Corps.
In contrast to the Wright/Obama furor, criticism of right-wing clergy has been muted or non-existent. For example, Mike Huckabee, a former candidate for the Republican nomination for president, has said, "I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives...I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ." Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, is a former governor of Arkansas.
Also attracting little attention in the U.S. mainstream press are endorsements by prominent conservative clergymen of the presumptive Republican nominee for president, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. One of them, Rev. John Hagee, has said Roman Catholicism is ‘A Godless theology of hate that no one dared try to stop for a thousand years.” He said that the Catholic religion has “produced a harvest of hate.” Hagee has confirmed that McCain sought his endorsement. McCain has said he was proud to have Hagee’s support.
Another prominent McCain supporter, Rev. Rod Parsley, has said, “America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion (Islam) destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”
Amid the explosive controversy over remarks made in sermons by Sen. Barack Obama’s former pastor, critics are charging that America’s mainstream media has distorted his comments with out-of-context soundbites, failed to understand the African American church, sought to punish the Democratic Party presidential hopeful through “guilt by association,” and gave a free pass to what they say are equally incendiary remarks made by white clergy on the religious right.
At the center of the storm that engulfed Barack Obama's presidential campaign is his spiritual mentor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. Wright is the former pastor of the Obama’s church, Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago's south side. He officiated at Obama's wedding and baptized his daughters.
Parts of Wright’s sermons have been played millions of times on the Internet and on television and have become a major issue for the Obama campaign. Wright's comments prompted Obama to give a groundbreaking speech on race in America – the first time in decades that this issue has been addressed by a candidate for the presidential nomination. In the speech, Obama said he rejected Wright’s more inflammatory statements, but refused to disown his longtime spiritual advisor.
Among Wright’s remarks:
"The government gives them (African Americans) the drugs, builds bigger prisons, passes a three-strike law and then wants us to sing 'God Bless America.' No, no, no, Goddamn America, that's in the Bible for killing innocent people. Goddamn America for treating our citizens as less than human. Goddamn America for as long as she acts like she is God and she is supreme."
"We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans and now (post 9/11) we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is now brought right back into our own front yards. America's chickens are coming home to roost."
The comments of Dr. George Hunsinger of Princeton University, an ordained Presbyterian minister, are typical of those who believe the American popular media have distorted Wright’s remarks.
He told us, “I think we are looking at some basic questions of fairness. Is it really fair to take a minister's remarks, no matter how provocative or ill-advised, out of context and to broadcast them incessantly, as if they were the only thing that minister ever said or believed? What purposes are served by this sort of propaganda?”
Hunsinger also raised the issue of faulting Obama for remarks made by Wright. “Is it really fair to slime a candidate with the defamation of guilt by association? Does anyone really believe that tactics like this belong in a well-functioning democracy? What kind of media succumbs to these tactics? Finally, is it really fair to act as though African Americans should all be a bunch of happy watermellon eating black folks with no historic grievances that our nation has yet to address? What universe are we living in?”
Another prominent theologian, Rev. Martin Marty of the University of Chicago Divinity School, said he “does not excuse some of the indefensible comments of Wright that have now been bludgeoned into our consciousness to the exclusion of all else. And those comments should not be excused. And they have not been excused by Obama.”
But he says, “The four S's charged against Wright -- segregation, separatism, sectarianism, and superiority -- don't stand up…” He said Trinity “has made strenuous efforts to help black Christians overcome the shame they had so long been conditioned to experience…People do not leave Trinity ready to beat up on white people; they are charged to make peace.”
Civil libertarians have also been weighing in on the continuing Wright/Obama controversy. For example, Marjorie Cohn, president of the National Lawyers Guild, told us, “Wright’s comments were taken out of context to make it seem like he was justifying the 9/11 attacks and was therefore unpatriotic. But when you listen to his entire sermon, he characterizes them as blowback for a vicious U.S. foreign policy.”
She added, “The cable (news) stations played the soundbites over and over, distorting their real meaning. Over the weekend, when news was slow, CNN played one of Wright's sermons in its entirety, which was helpful.”
In his speech, Obama called an Americans to begin a national conversation on race and ethnicity. Cohn told IPS that this “is already happening in the corporate media and on the Web among grassroots organizations. There is so much to talk about, this discourse will, and should, go on for a long time. We have a long way to go in overcoming racism.”
But she expressed doubt that the Bush Administration will take any substantive action to encourage the debate. “The Bush administration likes to sugar coat, i.e. spin, the most important problems, such as the failing economy, and the increasingly disastrous situation in Iraq. By encouraging a national debate about institutional racism, the administration would be admitting to its own shortcomings. It won't happen.”
The National Lawyers Guild was founded in 1937 as an alternative to the American Bar Association which, at that time, did not accept African-American lawyers as members.
Most polling data suggest that the Wright controversy has not damaged Sen. Obama’s presidential bid. But Harold Ickes, a senior advisor to Sen. Hillary Clinton, his competitor for the Democratic Party nomination, is quoted as saying that the Clinton campaign would use it as a way of persuading Party insiders – known as Super-Delegates – that Obama is not electable.
Meanwhile, theologians in Texas expressed support for Wright at a symposium last weekend on the “State of Black Church.” Dr. Stacey Floyd-Thomas, associate professor of ethics and director of black church studies at the Brite Divinity School at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, said, ""What is eminently clear is the degree to which the black church is still largely misunderstood and routinely caricatured in U.S. popular culture.”
She added, “If Wright is guilty of anything, (he is) guilty of loving the U.S. enough to tell the United States the truth. Patriots and prophets are "often called to speak harsh words to their nation, not out of a place of hatred, as some suggest, but from an impassioned place of profound love and the highest of expectations.” Wright is a former member of the U.S. Marine Corps.
In contrast to the Wright/Obama furor, criticism of right-wing clergy has been muted or non-existent. For example, Mike Huckabee, a former candidate for the Republican nomination for president, has said, "I got into politics because I knew government didn't have the real answers, that the real answers lie in accepting Jesus Christ into our lives...I hope we answer the alarm clock and take this nation back for Christ." Huckabee, an ordained Baptist minister, is a former governor of Arkansas.
Also attracting little attention in the U.S. mainstream press are endorsements by prominent conservative clergymen of the presumptive Republican nominee for president, Sen. John McCain of Arizona. One of them, Rev. John Hagee, has said Roman Catholicism is ‘A Godless theology of hate that no one dared try to stop for a thousand years.” He said that the Catholic religion has “produced a harvest of hate.” Hagee has confirmed that McCain sought his endorsement. McCain has said he was proud to have Hagee’s support.
Another prominent McCain supporter, Rev. Rod Parsley, has said, “America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion (Islam) destroyed, and I believe September 11, 2001, was a generational call to arms that we can no longer ignore.”
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