tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-58400532024-03-13T21:38:40.830-05:00THE WORLD ACCORDING TO BILL FISHERArticles written by me and a few colleagues and friends on important issues of international affairs and civil liberties.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.comBlogger1290125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-14402301181666064302013-06-14T11:19:00.002-05:002013-06-14T11:19:11.114-05:00William Fisher ObituaryWilliam Fisher 1928- 2013<br />
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William Fisher, of Old Chatham, New York, retired journalist and international development consultant, died at Berkshire Medical Center in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, on June 11th, 2013. He was eighty-four. <br />
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He is survived by his daughters Victoria Fisher of New Marlborough, Massachusetts, Julie Fisher of Ashfield, Massachusetts, a son in law, Ronald Gorevic of Ashfield; and a granddaughter, Kezia, of Ashfield.<br />
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Bill Fisher was born in Brooklyn, New York, and attended schools there. He was graduated from Stetson University, Deland, Florida, in 1950, with a major in journalism. He served as President of the Florida Intercollegiate Press Association, and was editor of the college newspaper, The Reporter.<br />
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He served in the U.S. Army Military Police during the Korean War, 1950-52.<br />
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Fisher's early work life combined his two loves-newspaper writing and jazz. He worked his way through college playing jazz piano, preparing arrangements, and conducting a thirteen-piece swing band. Soon he added newspaper reporting to his schedule, landing a job as cub reporter on the Daytona Beach News-Journal.<br />
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He returned to the News-Journal in 1952 as a Bureau Chief, at which time he also began reporting for The Associated Press. Fisher was also the first white correspondent of the Baltimore Afro-American, for which he wrote a series of investigative articles dealing with police corruption and racial bigotry in Central Florida.<br />
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In the mid 1950's, Fisher began a career designing and managing public relations programs for not-for-profit organizations in the hospitals, health, and welfare fields. His clients included Montefiore Hospital, the New York Citizens Committee for Children, CARE, and the Korean-American Foundation. He subsequently formed his own public relations firm in New York City.<br />
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In 1961, Fisher was recruited by the John F. Kennedy White House to join the Administration as a speech writer and public affairs specialist. He served as a member of the White House Committee on Trade Expansion.<br />
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Following the death of president Kennedy, Fisher joined a major New York public relations firm, and moved to London to head the firm's first international office.<br />
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In 1973, he formed his own public relations firm in London, and joined his wife, the late Florence Zucker Fisher, in founding Environmental Resources Ltd. (ERL), the first environmental consulting firm outside the United States. ERL won several Queen's Awards for service to Her Majesty.<br />
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In the mid 1980's, Fisher began yet another career in international development. He served as a consultant to the U.S. Agency for International Development, the United Nations, and the U.S. State Department; and managed economic development programs in more than a dozen countries in North and sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Central and South America, and Southeast Asia.<br />
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Over the last few years of Fisher's semi-retirement, he reported on political and economic issues for various internet publications.<br />
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In lieu of flowers, the family suggests contributions to The Innocence Project, Reporters Without Borders, or the Columbia County Humane Society.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-49767104640412725552013-05-17T20:08:00.001-05:002013-05-17T20:08:31.322-05:00FORE!<br />
<h2>By William Fisher</h2><h2><br />
It must have been the late 1950s and I couldn’t have been more than 18 – I hadn’t yet finished undergrad school. But I had a job on what was widely thought of as one of the most progressive dailies in the South – the Daytona Beach (Florida) News-Journal.</h2><div class="MsoBodyText"><o:p></o:p></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And if this wasn’t enough for a kid from Brooklyn, there was a bonus: I was to be the paper’s “overhead man” for the Associated Press. Let me explain. The AP, representing pretty much all the newspapers in a given area, tries to cover all the news in that area, down to bake sales, church dinners and, of course, sporting events.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The AP’s Jacksonville office, where statewide news was assembled from a team of eager young journalists like me, was particularly a great fan of golf. And with central Florida’s reputation as a retirement home for seniors, several major universities in our area, and even large high schools getting into the golf tournament business, there never seemed to be shortage of scores, personality snippets, and suchlike to satisfy the endless needs of even the most gluttonous golf buffs.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So with all the credibility I could garner from my one golf game with my Dad when I was nine years old, I dove into my new mission with the zeal only an 18-year-old could sustain. And things went well. Folks were reading my stuff. Even more importantly, my editor, Tip Davidson, a veteran of the bare-knuckled Chicago News Bureau, was reading my stuff.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The AP even paid me. The amounts were so tiny that it’s my recollection that the “overhead guys” were allowed to keep their pittance.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Anyway, since those days, the AP has enjoyed a very special place on my journalistic memory lane. I haven’t had much direct contact, but I was very pleased when the AP‘s Washington office chose to interview me for a recent piece they did on US Aid’s field operations.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But what really caught my attention was the news, as reported by Sari Horowitz of the Washington Post, “In a sweeping and unusual move, the Justice Department secretly obtained two months’ worth of telephone records of journalists working for the Associated Press as part of a year-long investigation into the disclosure of classified information about a failed al-Qaeda plot last year.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><h2>The AP’s president said the Justice Department’s actions were a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into newsgathering activities.</h2><div class="MsoBodyText"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Two things I found particularly galling. First, we have a Bill of Rights that’s part of our Constitution. They’re the first ten amendments to that document and the very first one is called the Establishment Clause and covers the free exercise of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press and of assembly, and the right to petition the government.</span></div><div class="MsoBodyText"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">In very straightforword language it begins: “Congress <i>shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”<o:p></o:p></i></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><i><br />
</i></span></div><h2><span lang="EN">Politicians and those who try to buy their votes have been trying to use freedom of the press as if it were a criminal act. It isn’t. It’s right all of us are supposed to enjoy. And it’s worth noting here that this particular right is one where the rhetoric of the Obama Administration has been splendid and the enforcement cusping on shameful.</span></h2><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">As a former Constitutional law instructor, the President knows all the right words and all the right body language to look like the most conscientious civil libertarian.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Over the years, this and practically every other U.S. administration has sought to have Congress pass a “press shield” law – one that would protect the nations media from tampering by government or those who wannabee government. But these efforts have always come just so far and then fell like a stone in the Potomac.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">One oughta finally get passed. With teeth.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The second thing I found particularly annoying: When I was that kid writing up golf scores for the News-Journal, I remember how the AP guys in Jacksonville – real newsmen – badgered me without reprieve about (a) accuracy – double source it or throw it away; (b) objectivity – be sure to tell both sides of every story (as if stories had only two sides); and institutional track-record (the press is the fourth estate; it has over the years earned the right to be paid attention to.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I remember how hard we young ones worked to fulfill these mandates. They were really important to us. And they still are – no doubt also to those who do these little jobs today.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This may seem a bit simplistic in today’s Internet world, but it’s not a bad place to start. If you do (a) and (b) well, you ought to be able to capitalize on (c).<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">So what’s happened to the government’s respect for the freedom and accuracy of the press? <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">AW.O.L.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Of course, the media has made and will continue to make mistakes. With some awful exceptions, most news outlets try to correct their errors in a timely way.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><br />
</span></div><h2>Writing about this ancient subject makes me feel a little like the granny inveighing against the government, a la, “I hate government interference, just make them keep their hands off my Medicare!”</h2><div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="mso-margin-bottom-alt: auto; mso-margin-top-alt: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">* *<o:p></o:p></span></div><i><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt;">"Fore!" The shouted word by which <b>golfers</b> warn others on the <b>course</b> that they are in <b>danger</b> of being struck by a ball</span></i><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 16pt;">.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
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</div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-8561654973394274872013-04-29T16:50:00.001-05:002013-04-29T16:50:35.377-05:00Georgia Justice<br />
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By William Fisher<br />
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In 2002 U.S. Supreme Court ruled 6-3 that executions of mentally retarded criminals are "cruel and unusual punishment," violating the Eighth Amendment to the Constitution. <br />
Some time in the very near future – as soon as a new execution date is established -- Texas will execute Warren Hill, who is mentally retarded with an IQ OF 70. <br />
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How come? Texas find a back door somewhere?<br />
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Well, yes and no.<br />
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On April 22, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied Warren Hill’s appeal to halt his execution based on new evidence of his intellectual infirmity.<br />
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The Court ruled that Hill’s claim of intellectual disability (mental retardation) was presented in an earlier petition and could not be presented again, despite the new evidence. The judges also held that, even if Hill's claim is a new one, it only challenges his eligibility for the death penalty, not his underlying guilt, and is therefore improper in a second petition.<br />
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On April 22, a divided U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit denied Warren Hill’s appeal to halt his execution based on new evidence of his intellectual disability. <br />
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The Court ruled that Hill’s claim of intellectual disability (mental retardation) was presented in an earlier petition and cannot be presented again, despite the new evidence. <br />
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<em><strong>Wha? “Presented in an earlier petition and cannot be presented again?” Did we hear correctly? </strong></em><br />
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Yes, we did. And so did Appeals Judge Rosemary Barkett. In her dissenting opinion, she said, “There is no question that Georgia will be executing a mentally retarded man because all seven mental health experts who have ever evaluated Hill, both the state’s and Hill’s, now unanimously agree that he is mentally retarded.” <br />
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She also stated, "The idea that courts are not permitted to acknowledge that a mistake has been made which would bar an execution is quite incredible for a country that not only prides itself on having the quintessential system of justice but attempts to export it to the world as a model of fairness.... <br />
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[The federal habeas statute] should not be construed to require the unconstitutional execution of a mentally retarded offender who, by presenting evidence that virtually guarantees that he can establish his mental retardation, is able to satisfy even the preposterous burden of proof Georgia demands."<br />
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The state argues that the claims for habeas relief should be barred because Georgia law requires that any claims not made in the initial petition should be barred from review, and this is Hill’s third such request.<br />
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So Hill will be put to death because a court chose a gaggle of legal technicalities while ignoring the larger issues.<br />
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But, in a dissenting opinion, Judge Rosemary Barkett said, “There is no question that Georgia will be executing a mentally retarded man because all seven mental health experts who have ever evaluated Hill, both the state’s and Hill’s, now unanimously agree that he is mentally retarded.” <br />
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She also stated, "The idea that courts are not permitted to acknowledge that a mistake has been made which would bar an execution is quite incredible for a country that not only prides itself on having the quintessential system of justice but attempts to export it to the world as a model of fairness.... <br />
At the Supreme Court’s initial ruling, Justice John Paul Stevens wrote the opinion for SCOTUS. It was joined by Sandra Day O'Connor, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. <br />
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"We are not persuaded that the execution of mentally retarded criminals will measurably advance the deterrent or the retributive purpose of the death penalty," the Court said. <br />
If one favored the death penalty, Darell Hill would be right up there among prime candidates. This cognitively challenged miscreant has committed some of the most heinous crimes we can recall. But if he couldn’t tell right from wrong, should he lose his life? The Appeals Court ruling doesn't address the constitutionality of capital punishment in general. <br />
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The majority cited a growing national consensus on the issue since the high court ruled in 1989 that such executions may be unacceptable. In the past 13 years the number of states that do not allow the execution of mentally retarded death row prisoners has grown from two to 18. <br />
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"It is fair to say that a national consensus has developed against it," Stevens wrote. <br />
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In a blistering dissent, Justice Antonin Scalia scoffed at what he called "the 47 percent consensus." He said the 18 states represent less than half of the 38 states that permit capital punishment in any case. <br />
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"If one is to say as the court does today that ALL executions of the mentally retarded are so morally repugnant as to violate our national standards of decency, surely the consensus it points to must be one that has set its righteous face against ALL such executions," Scalia wrote. <br />
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Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist and Justice Clarence Thomas joined Scalia in dissenting. <br />
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According to a report by The Associated Press, the three dissenting justices, the court's most conservative members, telegraphed their views when they complained about reprieves the court majority had granted to two Texas inmates who claim they are retarded. <br />
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The most immediate effect of the ruling will be in the 20 states that allowed execution of the retarded up to now. Presumably, dozens or perhaps hundreds of inmates in those states will now argue that they are retarded, and that their sentences should be converted to life in prison. <br />
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The state also argues that the “new evidence” – the doctors’ statements – is not credible. These doctors met with Hill and reviewed extensive documentation in 2000, and they haven’t seen him since and didn’t have new information, the state argues. The judge agreed, writing that the new petition is procedurally barred and that the “new evidence” does not establish a miscarriage of justice.<br />
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This is an example of the level of technicalities being invoked by the State of Texas. <br />
So unless the U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear a further appeal of this legal nightmare – if the defendant decides to mount one -- Texas will have its way with Warren Hill. <br />
And this will accomplish what?<br />
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<strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-19862931282483960072013-04-23T17:25:00.001-05:002013-04-23T17:25:48.908-05:00Freedom and High Anxiety in the USA <br />
<strong><em>This Analysis (23 April 2013) was written by Lawrence Davidson, who is a university history professor. It is well worth a read.</em></strong><br />
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<strong>Part I - High Anxiety</strong><br />
Americans may assume that public insecurity is a condition you find under dictatorships, where the agents of the state can burst through your door and cart you away without a warrant. That can now happen in the USA too, but only to those the government calls “terrorists.” Perhaps naively, ordinary folks see themselves as immune from that sort of treatment. However, public insecurity has many roots. Americans actually experience, but almost never acknowledge, the fact that there is a correlation between U.S. democracy’s relatively broad array of freedoms and public high anxiety. Here are some of the ways this works:<br />
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Economic freedom can, theoretically, break down class barriers and open up opportunities for enterprising citizens. It also leaves you free to become abjectly poor and produces a socio-political environment in which ideologically driven leaders hesitate to use the power of the state to solve the consequences of poverty. Being poor is, usually, a high-anxiety state.<br />
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Political freedoms can become lopsided in favor of well-organized special interests with the financial ability to corrupt the political system. It might be that 90% or more of Americans favor reform of the gun laws and would feel safer if there were universal background checks on those purchasing firearms. It does not matter, though, because this majority does not know how to effectively use its political freedom to achieve this end. As a consequence lobby groups that specialize in working the system (such as the National Rifle Association) can easily override the wishes of the majority and, as just happened, arrange for the most innocuous of gun reform legislation to be defeated in the Senate. Moved by the same lobby influence, the Senate is expected to reject the recently created UN Arms Trade Treaty. Thus the rest of us, and our children, are stuck in a situation that is very free for gun owners who can give their fantasies full play, but spells high anxiety for the rest of us.<br />
Media freedom, such as it is, is perhaps the greatest contributor to public insecurity because it has produced a consistent concentration on the negative. This occurs because either those who own the media outlets, and thus literally select the news we receive, hold an anxiety-producing worldview, or they see such an approach as good business. The spectacularly negative seems to sell newspapers and boost ratings.<br />
At this point, one can ask who are those who are most inclined to use freedom, either as economic, political, or media policy makers, or leaders of special interest groups, to promote practices and policies that are anxiety producing to great majority? It is often rigid, single-issue protagonists who are anything but free in their own minds. In fact their single-mindedness has blinded them to broader community interests and needs.<br />
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Take for instance, the Christian and Jewish ideologues making up such groups as Christians United for Israel and the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The former is an your classic Christian Zionist organization which claims to be “the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States serving 1.3 million members.” AIPAC, of course, is one of the most influential lobby groups in the country. And just how do these groups “serve” their constituents? Well, one way is by going around trying to convince the rest of us that we are in mortal danger from a nuclear Iran (which happens to be a country at odds with Israel). They have done a good job of implanting this anxiety-producing fantasy in the minds of both the public and many members of the U.S. Congress. But, how do I know the claim that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons is a fantasy? Because every time the heads of our government’s intelligence services are asked about this they say it isn’t true. Oddly, this gets very little press.<br />
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Such Zionist organizations also spread public insecurity through the promotion of Islamophobia, another fantasy, which states that just about every Muslim in the U.S. is an al Qaeda agent. As one friend of mine, Peter Loeb of Boston, has put it, “the word ‘terrorist’ has become equated with ‘Arab/Muslim’ in the American mind.” Thus, referring to the recent Boston Marathon bombing, ABC news reports that “the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 has left many people anxious. But Muslim Americans await the identity of the perpetrator with particular dread.”<br />
<strong>Part II - The Example of the Boston Marathon</strong><br />
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The recent anxiety that hit the nation over the Boston Marathon bombings is good example of just how exaggeratedly frightening a world our freedom (in this case media freedom) has created for us. If one bothers with the facts, one learns that terrorist attacks are not numerous in the U.S. and are in fact declining. Most of them are not carried out by Muslims but by animal rights advocates. Finally, U.S. law enforcement is getting better at dealing with these incidents. But all of this good news makes no impact in the face of something made into a major anxiety-producing national event by the media.<br />
The Boston Marathon affair was carried out by two young immigrant brothers of Chechen ethnicity. The older brother, who was probably the leader in this escapade, appeared to be a disenchanted misfit. He was an aspiring and talented boxer who had his heart set on making the U.S. Olympic team. However, he had recently learned that as a “foreign athlete” (he was not yet a citizen) he could not compete in the U.S. national championships. He had come to feel that “there are no values anymore” and that “people can’t control themselves.” By the way, these are feelings that no devout Muslim would ever seriously entertain.<br />
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Unortunately, freedom as practiced in the U.S. has its drawbacks. It has encouraged an often heartless individuality that disregards serious levels of poverty. It has allowed the evolution of interest group politics that often works against national interests in both domestic and foreign policies. And, in the guise of a free media, it has produced an environment that breeds exaggeration, fantasy, and a general concentration on the most spectacular, and most negative, of news stories.<br />
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Does this make America’s freedoms, in principle, bad things? Not at all. But it does call attention to the fact that such freedoms, practiced unconditionally, can give free rein to the less communal and more selfish aspects of the human psyche. The result can be a form of negative blowback. An intelligent, mature community will be aware of this fact and implement non-abusive regulations to assure that along with economic, political, and media freedom comes responsible behavior.<br />
Alas, America as a society is not particularly intelligent or mature, so such reforms encouraging responsible behavior are unlikely. The irony of it all is that it will be in the name of preserving freedom, in its peculiarly American radical individualistic form, that powerful elites and influential special interests will resist any effort to mandate the responsible use of those freedoms. As a consequence, high anxiety and freedom will continue to go along with each other.<br />
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Part I - High Anxiety<br />
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Americans may assume that public insecurity is a condition you find under dictatorships, where the agents of the state can burst through your door and cart you away without a warrant. That can now happen in the USA too, but only to those the government calls “terrorists.” Perhaps naively, ordinary folks see themselves as immune from that sort of treatment. However, public insecurity has many roots. Americans actually experience, but almost never acknowledge, the fact that there is a correlation between U.S. democracy’s relatively broad array of freedoms and public high anxiety. Here are some of the ways this works:<br />
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Economic freedom can, theoretically, break down class barriers and open up opportunities for enterprising citizens. It also leaves you free to become abjectly poor and produces a socio-political environment in which ideologically driven leaders hesitate to use the power of the state to solve the consequences of poverty. Being poor is, usually, a high-anxiety state.<br />
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Political freedoms can become lopsided in favor of well-organized special interests with the financial ability to corrupt the political system. It might be that 90% or more of Americans favor reform of the gun laws and would feel safer if there were universal background checks on those purchasing firearms. It does not matter, though, because this majority does not know how to effectively use its political freedom to achieve this end. As a consequence lobby groups that specialize in working the system (such as the National Rifle Association) can easily override the wishes of the majority and, as just happened, arrange for the most innocuous of gun reform legislation to be defeated in the Senate. Moved by the same lobby influence, the Senate is expected to reject the recently created UN Arms Trade Treaty. Thus the rest of us, and our children, are stuck in a situation that is very free for gun owners who can give their fantasies full play, but spells high anxiety for the rest of us.<br />
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Media freedom, such as it is, is perhaps the greatest contributor to public insecurity because it has produced a consistent concentration on the negative. This occurs because either those who own the media outlets, and thus literally select the news we receive, hold an anxiety-producing worldview, or they see such an approach as good business. The spectacularly negative seems to sell newspapers and boost ratings.<br />
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At this point, one can ask who are those who are most inclined to use freedom, either as economic, political, or media policy makers, or leaders of special interest groups, to promote practices and policies that are anxiety producing to great majority? It is often rigid, single-issue protagonists who are anything but free in their own minds. In fact their single-mindedness has blinded them to broader community interests and needs.<br />
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Take for instance, the Christian and Jewish ideologues making up such groups as Christians United for Israel and the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The former is an your classic Christian Zionist organization which claims to be “the largest pro-Israel organization in the United States serving 1.3 million members.” AIPAC, of course, is one of the most influential lobby groups in the country. And just how do these groups “serve” their constituents? Well, one way is by going around trying to convince the rest of us that we are in mortal danger from a nuclear Iran (which happens to be a country at odds with Israel). They have done a good job of implanting this anxiety-producing fantasy in the minds of both the public and many members of the U.S. Congress. But, how do I know the claim that Iran is seeking nuclear weapons is a fantasy? Because every time the heads of our government’s intelligence services are asked about this they say it isn’t true. Oddly, this gets very little press.<br />
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Such Zionist organizations also spread public insecurity through the promotion of Islamophobia, another fantasy, which states that just about every Muslim in the U.S. is an al Qaeda agent. As one friend of mine, Peter Loeb of Boston, has put it, “the word ‘terrorist’ has become equated with ‘Arab/Muslim’ in the American mind.” Thus, referring to the recent Boston Marathon bombing, ABC news reports that “the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil since 9/11 has left many people anxious. But Muslim Americans await the identity of the perpetrator with particular dread.”<br />
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Part II - The Example of the Boston Marathon<br />
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The recent anxiety that hit the nation over the Boston Marathon bombings is good example of just how exaggeratedly frightening a world our freedom (in this case media freedom) has created for us. If one bothers with the facts, one learns that terrorist attacks are not numerous in the U.S. and are in fact declining. Most of them are not carried out by Muslims but by animal rights advocates. Finally, U.S. law enforcement is getting better at dealing with these incidents. But all of this good news makes no impact in the face of something made into a major anxiety-producing national event by the media.<br />
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The Boston Marathon affair was carried out by two young immigrant brothers of Chechen ethnicity. The older brother, who was probably the leader in this escapade, appeared to be a disenchanted misfit. He was an aspiring and talented boxer who had his heart set on making the U.S. Olympic team. However, he had recently learned that as a “foreign athlete” (he was not yet a citizen) he could not compete in the U.S. national championships. He had come to feel that “there are no values anymore” and that “people can’t control themselves.” By the way, these are feelings that no devout Muslim would ever seriously entertain.<br />
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Part III - Freedom and Responsibility<br />
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Unfortunately, freedom as practiced in the U.S. has its drawbacks. It has encouraged an often heartless individuality that disregards serious levels of poverty. It has allowed the evolution of interest group politics that often works against national interests in both domestic and foreign policies. And, in the guise of a free media, it has produced an environment that breeds exaggeration, fantasy, and a general concentration on the most spectacular, and most negative, of news stories.<br />
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Does this make America’s freedoms, in principle, bad things? Not at all. But it does call attention to the fact that such freedoms, practiced unconditionally, can give free rein to the less communal and more selfish aspects of the human psyche. The result can be a form of negative blowback. An intelligent, mature community will be aware of this fact and implement non-abusive regulations to assure that along with economic, political, and media freedom comes responsible behavior.<br />
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Alas, America as a society is not particularly intelligent or mature, so such reforms encouraging responsible behavior are unlikely. The irony of it all is that it will be in the name of preserving freedom, in its peculiarly American radical individualistic form, that powerful elites and influential special interests will resist any effort to mandate the responsible use of those freedoms. As a consequence, high anxiety and freedom will continue to go along with each other.<br />
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Lawrence Davidson <br />
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=-Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-42907998431792278712013-04-22T09:11:00.001-05:002013-04-22T09:11:25.711-05:00System Collapse<strong><em>This email was written by Elie Housman, one of my oldest friends. He is a staunch supporter of Israel , in a policy of quity and compassion</em></strong>.<br />
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Dear Friends: It seems that the framework that was in place in the USA is collapsing. Five years ago our economy almost totally collapsed, and was saved only because of mass government intervention. We showed the world that capitalistic banking system, without strict government regulation does not work. Last week we proved that out political system does not function as well. This is about five years that the grid-lock in Washington now celebrates. A well-organized minority is able to choke the wheels of progress. <br />
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It was not until this last week that we proved that hypocrisy reigns and democracy is a thing of the past. I doubt that in the history of the USA there was a subject that 90% of the people agreed on. All polls show that 90% of us advocate some legislation regarding some check on gun purchases. We can paralyze and lock down an entire city for hours (Boston last week), but we can not wait a couple of hours to sell a gun until a background check is completed. If one is a convicted criminal or mentally deranged or child abuser or suspect by the FBI of terrorist activity or any thing else that will make him dangerous to the community, almost the entire country believes that he should not be able to purchase fire arms including magazines that allow him to shot dozens of bullets a minute. Despite the unprecedented mass public support and the common sense of this proposal 90% of Republicans voted against it, with the result of defeating the proposed legislation.<br />
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Some say that unlimited gun ownership is protected by the Second Amendment. But who in his right mind intended to protect the right of deranged people to own guns? The 21st century assault weapons are nothing like the guns of the Founding Fathers' era, which were single-shot muskets and hunting rifles, for a potential invasion of the British, or an attempted takeover of individual states by our own federal government. <br />
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And anyway, what's wrong with changing the second amendment given what it is doing to our society?<br />
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If there is no quick correction to the stupid rejection of the background check legislation Washington lost any moral standing. This might be remembered as a landmark in the decline of the country that was supposed to be "the city upon a hill" (which, ironically, the Puritans said about their proposed community in Boston).<br />
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With the government's budget deadlock, immigration issues, continued waste of political time over the abortion debate, gun control, financial institution that are too big to fail, financial markets again flooded with derivatives that nobody understands, we are losing our grip of what made this country great.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-87388278980753049572013-04-20T08:23:00.001-05:002013-04-20T08:23:57.046-05:00How About A Real Peace Prize?<br />
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By William Fisher<br />
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So carried away with anticipation that they could no longer contain their enthusiasm, back in 2009 the Nobel Committee opted to award the Peace Prize to newly-elected President Barack Obama.<br />
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For many who took in this news, it sullied the reputation of the Nobel awards almost beyond reclamation. But most of us forgave the Committee for being carried away by the stark contrast between Obama and the war-making George W. Bush.<br />
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The Nobel Committee said “Obama has as President created a new climate in international politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions can play. <br />
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In fact, Obama had created next to nothing save hopeful rhetoric. He hadn’t had time. <br />
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Meanwhile, the Nobel folks were garnering a ton of publicity not normally achieved by the awards in medicine, economics and so forth, whose titles often cause the readers’ eyes to glaze over. <br />
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So how about a Peace Prize award for something that’s actually happened. Think about this: Since 1989, The Innocence Project has freed a thousand men and women from their unlawful prison sentences. That’s one thousand human beings, many of whom were set free only after rotting in jail cells or on death row for 40 or 50 years .<br />
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Thanks largely to the development of DNA and the incredible motivation of co-founders Barry C. Scheck & Peter J. Neufeld and their students and staff at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University. <br />
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Thanks to these folks, there are now Innocence Projects all across the US. Just their research into widespread prosecutorial misconduct would more than justify a Nobel.<br />
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But by now we all know the blood-curdling stories of people sent to prison on the basis of faux, totally unscientific forensic “evidence.” We know about the police forced confessions from the innocent. We know about how law enforcement settles old scores with people they think should be in jail, whether or not they actually committed a crime. We know about our nation’s prisons using solitary confinement as a management tool, and people dying or losing their minds locked up in isolation for years on end.<br />
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And we also know that of the thousand people exonerated more than half were black and male.<br />
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For reasons that are tough to understand, I suspect The Innocence Project won’t be a popular choice for the Peace Prize. It’s going to take a groundswell of grassroots support to get some momentum going.<br />
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This is my project for the year. And I need your help to make it happen. <br />
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<strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-66781841755710927892013-04-16T18:24:00.001-05:002013-04-16T18:24:39.257-05:00<v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"><v:stroke joinstyle="miter"></v:stroke><v:formulas><v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></v:f></v:formulas><v:path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"></v:path><o:lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></o:lock></v:shapetype><v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"><v:stroke joinstyle="miter"></v:stroke><v:formulas><v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></v:f></v:formulas><v:path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"></v:path><o:lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></o:lock></v:shapetype> <div class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt;"><a href="http://www.blogger.com/null" name="OLE_LINK1"><v:shapetype coordsize="21600,21600" filled="f" id="_x0000_t75" o:preferrelative="t" o:spt="75" path="m@4@5l@4@11@9@11@9@5xe" stroked="f"><v:stroke joinstyle="miter"></v:stroke><v:formulas><v:f eqn="if lineDrawn pixelLineWidth 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 1 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum 0 0 @1"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @2 1 2"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @3 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @0 0 1"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @6 1 2"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelWidth"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @8 21600 0"></v:f><v:f eqn="prod @7 21600 pixelHeight"></v:f><v:f eqn="sum @10 21600 0"></v:f></v:formulas><v:path gradientshapeok="t" o:connecttype="rect" o:extrusionok="f"></v:path><o:lock aspectratio="t" v:ext="edit"></o:lock></v:shapetype><v:shape id="_x0000_i1025" style="height: 461.25pt; width: 431.25pt;" type="#_x0000_t75"><v:imagedata o:title="" src="file:///C:/DOCUME~1/ADMINI~1/LOCALS~1/Temp/msoclip1/01/clip_image001.png"></v:imagedata></v:shape></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-45876930385311864122013-02-22T20:45:00.001-05:002013-02-22T20:45:02.013-05:00Let’s See Who Blinks First<br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">By William Fisher</span></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><b><i>During my years in Cairo, I was often invited to dinner at the apartments of Egyptian colleagues. On this night, the apartment building was a high-rise located in a middle class neighborhood close to downtown. As we entered the tiny lobby, I couldn’t help seeing that it was littered with a smorgasbord of junk, making it all but impassable.</i></b></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Old fridges. Baby beds. Jagged concrete boulders from construction. Toys. Books. You name it. The junk continued to block our way as we headed for the flight of stairs that led to my friend’s apartment. It was the same between apartment doors on the first floor.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“Why are all these things here?” I asked. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My colleague answered: “This is how most Egyptians think of one another. Inside our apartments everything is neat and modern. Out here – in the halls and lobby – everything belongs to all the residents and none. No one has any obligation to help anyone else.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">And then he added this really strange remark: “That’s why the NGOs are so important to this country. We don’t have a long or strong history of voluntarism yet. People helping people is a Western – mostly American – concept and it’s still young and fragile. And it has been fighting for freedom since Mubarak took over from Sadat. That’s why the current persecution couldn’t have come at a worse time.” (we had been discussing NGOs earlier in the day.)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div style="margin-left: 30.75pt; margin-right: 6.0pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 30.75pt; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span lang="EN" style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14pt;">If this were a discussion of American NGOs, we’d be mentioning names like the American Civil Liberties Union, Save the Children, the Sierra Club and the American Cancer Society. Not only are they <b><i>not</i></b> persecuted, these names are the epicenter of our civil society. These are the groups that don’t work for a profit, and raise billions for their constituents and those who represent them in the Government. They’re the outfits that</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt;"> remind us of what Franklin Roosevelt told a group of reformers in 1932, Roosevelt told them: "I agree with you, I want to do it, now make me do it." <o:p></o:p></span></div><div style="margin-right: 6.0pt;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: 30.75pt; mso-list: l0 level1 lfo2; tab-stops: list 30.75pt; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">By which he meant to use the power of the people to take up those causes that demand action by political leaders who would rather play it safe and do as little as possible.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But in Egypt, the persecution of NGOs was indeed nothing new. Egyptian NGOs had been battling government political interference from Day One of the Mubarak regime. There had been NGO shutdowns and court trials and first the conviction of</span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt;"> Saad Eddin Ibrahim </span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">followed two trials later by his </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14pt;">exoneration. O</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">ne of the country’s human rights pioneers was accused of accepting a European Union grant to make a film about political parties. A coup in the US; a criminal offense in Egypt.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Supporters of NGOs were looking toward a new spirit in the land and a new lease on life for their organizations. Now, on the cusp of the January 25<sup>th</sup> Revolution, things were about to get a lot worse. A new NGO law was being drafted and, from the sound of the gossip, it would stifle freedom even more egregiously than the expiring law.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">There were some 30,00O NGOs in a country of 83.6 million -- a relatively small number – and many of them were NGOs on paper only. They needed funding, training, field experience. This new law was going cut their possibilities substantially. There are 1.5 million NGOs in the US.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">While advocating for human rights may make the most noise, the names of these organizations are mostly unknown except to those in the NGO field, Egypt’s 30,000 NGOs are dedicated to a wide variety of causes – from politically charged situations such as the Nile water supply to community gardens being planted by neighbors. Obviously the political causes are those that give the government the biggest migraines. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">We are still a decade away from January 25, 2012 and the fall of Mubarak. Before the election of President Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, Egypt was ruled by the military following Mubarak’s fall from power. And it was the military – the temporary SCAF – Supreme Council of Armed Forces -- who initiated arguably the most severe punishment in the history of the NGO movement. There would be arrests. There would be a new NGO law even more draconian than those of the past two decades. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoFooter"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This ominous portent triggered perhaps the most furiously frustrated statement ever issued by the blue-chip Cairo Institute for Human Rights Studies (CIHRS) in 2012.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Here’s part of the unsigned statement the Institute wrote: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: -.25in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘For the past year and a half, Egypt’s NGOs have <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent" style="margin-left: .25in;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">been targeted through a systematic chain of repressive violations, culminating in an orchestrated smear campaign led by the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) and its interim cabinets. During this transitional period, the prospects of civil society and human rights advocacy in Egypt faced several endangering threats. The current government is now faced with archaic laws that are in need of change if civil society is to thrive going forward.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .5in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-left: .25in; mso-list: l1 level1 lfo3; tab-stops: list .75in; text-indent: 0in;"><!--[if !supportLists]--><span style="font-family: Symbol; font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">·<span style="font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: 7pt;"> </span></span><!--[endif]--><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">‘Various NGOs were targeted because of their role in exposing human rights violations committed by the former regime. It was these very violations that paved the way not only for the January 25th Revolution, but also for continuous pressure towards fulfilling the people’s demands after Mubarak’s ouster.’<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoFooter"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The statement got more apoplectic as it progressed. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“Under SCAF’s rule, human rights organizations tried to contribute to what they hoped would be a democratic transition. NGOs advocated for the adoption of several democratic initiatives aimed primarily at providing a legislative and reformist platform for the restructuring of state institutions, the statement said, adding:</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoBodyTextIndent2"><span style="font-size: 14pt;">“SCAF’s lack of political will to restructure state institutions on the one hand, and NGO pressure from the other is believed to be one of the main reasons behind SCAF’s smear campaign against civil society groups, which was put into motion by the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation.”</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The CIHRS statement charged that the government never intended to encourage a freer civil society. The. former Minister of International Cooperation, Fayza Abul-Naga, said that an NGO’s ‘real’ role is “helping the government in developmental fields which is more beneficial than just criticizing the government’s policies.” This was the road the government had in mind for NGO. It would effectively shift their focus away from advocating for basic human rights – the most serious and most dangerous task taken on by NGOs in a country whose police and security forces were corrupt and whose prisons were poster children for torture and death in detention.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The government’s standard trojan horse against violations by NGOs was legitimized by whitewashing the regime’s appearance. “A repressive NGO law regulated civil society and ensured NGO’s human rights advocacy programs had limited impact. The law guaranteed that conditions under which the NGOs operated were restrictive, with sources of funding and all activities monitored and subject to state security approval,” the statement said.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-top: 12.0pt;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">It continued: “The wording of the law was intentionally ambiguous, making it easy to prohibit organizations from engaging in political or trade union activities, facilitating state repression of NGOs. It also prohibited foreign funding in all its forms (donations or grants without advance approval of the Minister of Social Affairs)<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">After Mubarak’s ouster, NGOs tried to change the law, to ensure it respected the universal standards of freedom of association and guaranteed the existence of a free civil society in Egypt that could advocate for human rights. Some 39 NGOs signed a new draft law that met these standards, while also removing the power of the Ministry of Social Affairs over NGOs.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The CIHRS statement alleged that “at around the same time, the government launched an investigation into several organizations following a statement by US Ambassador Anne Patterson that local groups had received more than $40 million in funding from the US government.” It added that her statements “galvanized suspicions about NGO funding, and were a major push for what came next.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Last December, while security forces were trying to discover documents supporting their view that foreign donations were funding the protests in Tahrir Square. The Government said the protests were “spreading chaos and inciting violence.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Measures were taken to limit NGO funding of organizations, as was the case with the “New Woman Foundation”, CEWLA, a feminist organization, and the Arab Program for Human Rights Activists, the statement charged.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">This reporter is without first-hand information about Ambassador Anne Patterson and why she disclosed the funding of $40,000 for the two small women’s programs.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">But I can report based on first hand observation my attendance at one of the US-sponsored “democracy” Institutes, where senior officials of the Mubarak regime were seated in the audience listening to a very professional English-language lecture on modern political parties and their care and feeding. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">I can also report that in about this same time period, approaching the turn of the century, USAID launched an NGO Center to teach local NGO officials about administrative tasks such as planning special events, launching fund-raising campaigns, and holding elections. Given the Government’s attitudes toward NGOs, it is just about impossible to understand why this NGO Center ever got off the ground (though it had a very short life). It is inconceivable that the Government was unaware of its existence, since every program introduced by USAID must be “requested” by the host government.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">The attack on the foreign funding issue reached a head during a raid on several international NGOs, the CIHRS statement said. The Government was shifting its emphasis toward a more aggressive approach in dealing with civil society in Egypt, and “resulted in the referral of several employees from these organizations to criminal prosecution in a trial that is ongoing to this day,” the statement read. The trial has been postponed a number of times, while non-Egyptian defendants have flown back to their home countries but have sworn to return for the trial. Meanwhile, NGOs are drafting “a new law that would put an end to state repression of these organizations.” <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">With the election of President Mohamed Morsi, “NGOs hoped that the president’s promises would be fulfilled, and that he would break from an inherited restrictive legacy, which includes the notorious NGO law,’ the statement said, adding: <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">“The first 60 days of his presidency would prove otherwise. Security forces have continued to violently disperse protests, watched over the displacement of Christians, and detained dozens of civilians following bloody clashes between citizens and the <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">police.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">POMED, the Project on Middle East Democracy, told this reporter, “The so-called ‘foreign-funded’ NGO trial is still moving its way through the Cairo criminal court. In February 2012, 43 U.S. and local NGO workers were charged with receiving foreign funding without proper government approval in violation of law no.84/2002. The defendants’ lawyers were able to present documents that detailed the expenditures of the NGOs involved in the case, to try and disprove government claims that the funds were used for nefarious purposes. Documents further showed that the Egyptian government had prior knowledge and approval of at least $33 million of funding to the accused NGOs.”<o:p></o:p></span></div><span style="font-size: 14pt;">But many, in Egyptian as well as foreign government circles, are hopeful that this trial will never happen. The US has made it clear that such a trial could have a negative effect on the current $1.3 billion in military aid it has been giving Egypt since Egypt and Israel signed their peace treaty in 1979.<o:p></o:p></span><br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: 14pt;">In a letter to the SCAF (the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces), Daphne McCurdy, a Senior Research Associate with POMED said: “These groups have worked transparently and in cooperation with Egyptian authorities to help support Egypt’s democratic transition—a goal to which the ruling military council purports to be committed. Sixteen of those charged are American citizens, seriously threatening the future of the U.S.-Egypt relationship.”</span><span style="font-size: 14pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Internally, the new Egyptian government seems set on passing a new NGO law that is widely criticized as more restrictive, according to POMED – the Project </span><span lang="EN" style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-ansi-language: EN; mso-bidi-font-size: 9.5pt;">on Middle East Democracy, a credible US-based NGO.</span><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;"> <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">What’s the bottom line here? It is that we can’t want representative government more than the Egyptians want it. And, at least in respect to NGOs, they don’t appear to want it. <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">They are not the least bit interested in having creative, vibrant organizations capable of improving on government-fashioned policies and practices. If the good ideas aren’t coming from the government, maybe there aren’t any good ideas! <o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">My friend Lu Rudel, one of our very first Foreign Service Officers, is fond of telling me about another Arab Awakening) in which it took Ataturk 100 years to bring law and order to Turkey.<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; mso-bidi-font-size: 12.0pt;">Well, it looks like the Egyptians are going to require the same degree of patience.<o:p></o:p></span></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-70026751220445156052013-02-18T19:28:00.001-05:002013-02-18T19:28:39.235-05:00Bahrain: Will Dialogue Bring Peace?<br />
By William Fisher<br />
<br />
After two years of civil unrest, death, torture and destruction, the King of Bahrain finally sat down with his subjects last week for the start of a much-delayed “National Dialogue” designed to bring “meaningful reform that meets the aspirations of all of Bahrain’s citizens.”<br />
<br />
Those were the words of U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, speaking on Monday after what must have been months of hyper-diplomatic arm-twisting. <br />
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“The United States welcomes the start of Bahrain’s National Dialogue. We’re encouraged by the broad participation of Bahraini political groups in the dialogue.” <br />
<br />
She added, “We view the dialogue as a positive step in a broader process that can result in meaningful reform that meets the aspirations of all of Bahrain’s citizens. We believe that efforts to promote engagement and reconciliation among Bahrainis are necessary to long-term stability.” <br />
<br />
The tiny, oil rich state is strategically located and is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet. In early 2011, protests erupted led by majority Shi'ite Muslims, who include the King and the Royal Family. The Shi'ite Muslims, who claim they are discriminated against, demanded an end to the Sunni-led monarchy's political domination and full powers for parliament. Shi'ite Muslims complain of discrimination in the electoral system, jobs, housing, education and government departments. The U.S. views Bahrain as an ally a against Shi’ite Iran. <br />
<br />
At the beginning of the serious unrest, the Gulf Cooperation Council ordered Saudi troops to drive over the causeway that separates the two countries. Saudi troops assisted Bahraini police and security forces in quelling the unrest.<br />
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This will be the second time the government and opposition groups have attempted to organize a national dialogue. Earlier, the largest democracy group, Wefaq, and five other groups, have said they are ready to participate in the talks but have called for a constitutional democracy with an elected government rather than one appointed by the king.<br />
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Thirty-five people died during the unrest and two months of martial law that followed, but the opposition says that number has risen to more than 80. The government rejects the figure.<br />
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While martial law has ended and the government has introduced what most observers regard as minor reforms, the opposition says the measures are cosmetic.<br />
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Fifteen months ago, the King of Bahrain received a 500-page report from the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI). The report contained the Commission’s findings regarding the February-March 2011 popular uprising and the government’s heavy-handed response. <br />
The King and his government were widely hailed for commissioning and then personally receiving the report, which described in detail the frequent use of excessive force by security forces, the systemic abuse and torture of detainees, mass discrimination and dismissals of workers and students, and grave violations of medical neutrality. <br />
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It highlighted a culture of impunity prevalent among government officials at all levels, concluding that many abuses “could not have happened without the knowledge of higher echelons of the command structure.” <br />
This report was no inside job. The shocker here was that the report was commissioned by the King himself, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah, and funded and carried out under the supervision of an independent team headed by an Egyptian judge with an impeccable reputation for fairness. <br />
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The King’s decisions to both commission and accept the report was hailed by some in the international community as an extraordinary act of political leadership. It was seen by many as a potentially critical step toward resolving the country’s escalating political crisis.<br />
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But world leaders wondered: Could this really be happening? Would the Sovereign really be prepared to expose the shortcomings of his regime to the very adversaries who focused public attention on these very same shortcomings?<br />
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So, while many praised the King, others did not. Many did not fully understand why the King was taking these unconventional actions, and were suspicious of His Majesty’s motives and strategy. They worried that he was simply stalling, buying time and hoping his opposition would fade away.<br />
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More than a year later, most observers in the international community believe they have their answer. What fundamental reforms recommended by the BICI were actually implemented? Virtually none say Bahrain-watchers.<br />
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Next to nothing! The tiny, oil-rich, and strategically located nation continues to put out near-daily cotton-candy press releases and, according to the major think-tanks focused on Bahrain, at the same time continues to be wracked by simmering violence and social divisions, and the government appears unwilling to enact substantial political reforms. <br />
<br />
However, through the government press apparatus and high-powered PR consultants, it appears more than ready to continue launching a tsunami of what I regard as largely insignificant developments as “news” – though the chances of finding actual news in these documents are somewhere between slim and none.<br />
<br />
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published the following descriptions of the current situation:<br />
<br />
The three main Bahraini political forces—the Shia opposition, Sunni Islamists, and the ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family—are paralyzed by internal fissures with more militant idealists overtaking pragmatists. <br />
<br />
For the U.S., which docks its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, this impasse looms as a crucial test of America’s ability to balance the need for political reform with long-standing strategic interests and military partnerships. <br />
<br />
The US has been unsuccessful in persuading various players to embrace a robust dialogue to come up with practical and equitable solutions to the island’s deep-seated problems. The CarnegieFoundation sees this failure as a sign of increased anti-Americanism in Bahrain and the waning influence American wields in the area.<br />
<br />
Even before the BICI report was commissioned, Bahrain hired some of the most high-powered New York public relations firms to keep us all informed about how well things were going and the substantial number of the report’s recommendations were actually being implemented. This reporter can affirm that many follow-up questions to the press office from journalists went unanswered.<br />
<br />
A lot of the pushback against “political reform by press release” came from the daughter and one of the sisters of arguably the country’s leading human rights defenders. Both were imprisoned by the government, the father for a life sentence. The un-jailed daughter was working from outside Bahrain. She was trying with limited resources to match the blizzard of press releases launched into the in-boxes of Western journalists. <br />
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And Carnegie’s Frederic Wehrey writes, <br />
<br />
“And while assessments of the Royal Family’s commitment to genuine, comprehensive reform continue, those doing the assessing have been unable to transparently provide evidence to support such claims and allow access for outside observers to confirm such claims independently.” <br />
<br />
He adds, “They have been unable to produce meaningful reforms through dialogue or political participation, the mainstream Shia opposition represented by Al Wefaq is losing popular support. The youth are rising up. The February 14 Youth Coalition—a leaderless network formed in the early days of Bahrain’s uprising—is winning over some of Al Wefaq’s supporters. It has rejected dialogue with the regime, called for the creation of a republic, and confronted security forces with sporadic violence. <br />
<br />
A hardline faction of the Al Khalifa family, led by the royal court minister and the commander of the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF), is drowning out more moderate voices. Class-based Sunni anger with the regime is rising. Hardline royal factions have attempted to co-opt this dissent and redirect it against the Shia—a losing strategy that is stoking sectarianism in Bahraini society.<br />
<br />
Anti-Americanism is growing among both hardline Sunni Islamists and rejectionist Shia elements. This anti-Americanism coupled with the entrenched regime’s apparent intent to ignore calls for deep reform risks damaging American legitimacy and jeopardizing U.S. assets and people.<br />
<br />
America needs to “Rethink the long-standing U.S. defense relationship with Bahrain. The relationship may soon become a liability given the stalemate on reform, endemic violence, and mounting anti-Americanism.”<br />
<br />
Wehrey concludes: Two years after the uprising that shook its foundations, Bahrain is a broken country, wracked by simmering violence and social polarization. Its Sunni-dominated government shows little willingness to implement substantial reforms and its young citizens—both Sunni and Shia—are becoming increasingly radicalized. Its once-vibrant economy is stagnant. <br />
<br />
“As of early 2013, over 100 people have been killed in violence related to the uprising. Successive efforts to resolve the impasse have failed, largely due to deep divisions within the country’s three main camps. Within the royal family, a hardline faction has come to dominate the government’s response, framing the crisis as a security problem rather than a symptom of a broader political malaise that requires sweeping reforms.” <br />
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Among the opposition similar splits have arisen between an institutionalized current that is receptive to dialogue and advocates gradual change within the context of the monarchy, and more youthful, rejectionist networks who employ confrontational street tactics and demand the end of the monarchy. <br />
<br />
The Sunni Islamist field has witnessed similar fissures, between loyalists and a more genuine opposition. Underpinning all of these dynamics is a creeping sectarianism at the societal level and disturbing levels of anti-Americanism.<br />
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The United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image.<br />
<br />
As the crisis persists, troubling questions have arisen about the deleterious effects of America’s strategic relationship with Bahrain, which has long been a central pillar in U.S. power projection in the Gulf. Most crucially, Bahrain serves as the seat of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and it hosts a number of U.S. air and special operations capabilities. But increasingly, the United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image. Ultimately, breaking through Bahrain’s impasse is not just a matter of promoting human rights but mitigating potential security challenges to U.S. assets and people and—eventually, perhaps—forestalling a violent challenge to the monarchy. <br />
<br />
Backed by robust Saudi financial and military support, the Bahraini regime may be able to hobble through the current crisis, withstanding extraordinary pressure from both its own citizenry and the international community. But the status quo is not sustainable indefinitely. <br />
<br />
With the likely fall of the Alawite-dominated government in Syria, Bahrain’s Al Khalifa family will soon be the only sectarian minority in the Middle East ruling over a majority that has little-to-no say in its government. Recent history suggests that, absent sweeping structural changes, the outcome for such an arrangement will not be peaceful reforms, more forceful and public engagement with key leaders, and using multilateral forums to sanction regime infractions. <br />
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The goal of all of these efforts should be raising the economic and political costs for hardliners who would block reforms while increasingly, the United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image. <br />
Ultimately, breaking through Bahrain’s impasse is not just a matter of promoting human rights but mitigating potential security challenges to U.S. assets and people and—eventually, perhaps—forestalling a violent challenge to the monarchy. <br />
<br />
Backed by robust Saudi financial and military support, the Bahraini regime may be able to hobble through the current crisis, withstanding extraordinary pressure from both its own citizenry and the international community. But the status quo is not sustainable indefinitely. <br />
<br />
With the likely fall of the Alawite-dominated government in Syria, Bahrain’s Al Khalifa family will soon be the only sectarian minority in the Middle East ruling over a majority that has little-to-no say in its government. Recent history suggests that, absent sweeping structural changes, the outcome for such an arrangement will not be peaceful.<br />
<br />
Other observers have reached similar conclusions. In a separate report published in the Washington Post, Stephen McInerney, executive director of POMED (the Project on Middle East Democracy) quoted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, She said: <br />
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“Our challenge in a country like Bahrain,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last November, is that the United States “has many complex interests. We’ll always have to walk and chew gum at the same time.” The growing problem is that the United States does plenty of “walking” — maintaining our strategic alliance with the Gulf kingdom in the short term — but little or no “chewing,” or taking meaningful steps to spur the political reforms needed to preserve Bahrain as an ally in the long term.<br />
<br />
In recent weeks, Bahrain’s government has banned demonstrations of any size and upheld lengthy prison sentences given to teachers and medics for expressing their political views. It continues to crack down violently against daily protests. Washington has repeatedly expressed “concern” about the state of human rights in Bahrain, but it is increasingly clear that such statements have little or no impact. <br />
<br />
Frederic Wehrey, Senior Associate in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, weighs in this way:<br />
<br />
<ul><li> Bahrain is wracked by simmering violence and social divisions, and the government appears unwilling to enact substantial political forces—the Shia opposition, Sunni Islamists, and the ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family—are paralyzed by internal fissures with more militant idealists overtaking pragmatists. This is a crucial test of the United States’ ability to balance the need for political reform with long-standing strategic interests and military partnerships.</li>
</ul>• Unable to produce meaningful reforms through dialogue or political participation, the mainstream Shia opposition represented by Al Wefaq is losing popular support.<br />
<br />
• The youth are rising up. The February 14 Youth Coalition—a leaderless network formed in the early days of Bahrain’s uprising—is winning over some of Al Wefaq’s supporters. It has rejected dialogue with the regime, called for the creation of a republic, and confronted security forces with sporadic violence.<br />
• A hardline faction of the Al Khalifa family, led by the royal court minister and the commander of the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF), is drowning out more moderate voices.<br />
<br />
• Class-based Sunni anger with the regime is rising. Hardline royal factions have attempted to co-opt this dissent and redirect it against the Shia—a losing strategy that is stoking sectarianism in Bahraini society.<br />
<br />
• Anti-Americanism is growing among both hardline Sunni Islamists and rejectionist Shia elements. This anti-Americanism coupled with the entrenched regime’s apparent intent to ignore calls for deep reform risks damaging American legitimacy and jeopardizing U.S. assets and people.<br />
So the deeply divided factions will continue to demand justice and equity, and have demonstrated more than enough courage to make life extremely difficult for all the players. It may be especially difficult for the U.S., which pro-democracy forces are hoping will advocate quietly, behind-the curtain, for an end to discrimination.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-25061531093837370732013-02-16T22:31:00.001-05:002013-02-16T22:31:40.147-05:00Will Bahrainis Finally Dialogue?<br />
By William Fisher<br />
<br />
After two years of civil unrest, death, torture and destruction, the King of Bahrain finally sat down with his subjects last week for the start of a much-delayed “National Dialogue” designed to bring “meaningful reform that meets the aspirations of all of Bahrain’s citizens.”<br />
<br />
Those were the words of U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, speaking on Monday after what must have been months of hyper-diplomatic arm-twisting. <br />
<br />
“The United States welcomes the start of Bahrain’s National Dialogue. We’re encouraged by the broad participation of Bahraini political groups in the dialogue.” <br />
<br />
She added, “We view the dialogue as a positive step in a broader process that can result in meaningful reform that meets the aspirations of all of Bahrain’s citizens. We believe that efforts to promote engagement and reconciliation among Bahrainis are necessary to long-term stability.” <br />
<br />
The tiny, oil rich state is strategically located and is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet. In early 2011, protests erupted led by majority Shi'ite Muslims, who include the King and the Royal Family. The Shi'ite Muslims, who claim they are discriminated against, demanded an end to the Sunni-led monarchy's political domination and full powers for parliament. Shi'ite Muslims complain of discrimination in the electoral system, jobs, housing, education and government departments. The U.S. views Bahrain as an ally against Shi’ite Iran. <br />
<br />
At the beginning of the serious unrest, the Gulf Cooperation Council ordered Saudi troops to drive over the causeway that separates the two countries. Saudi troops assisted Bahraini police and security forces in quelling the unrest.<br />
<br />
This is will be the second time the government and opposition groups have attempted to organize a national dialogue. Earlier, the largest democracy group, Wefaq, and five other groups, have said they are ready to participate in the talks but have called for a constitutional democracy with an elected government rather than one appointed by the king.<br />
<br />
Thirty-five people died during the unrest and two months of martial law that followed, but the opposition says that number has risen to more than 80. The government rejects the figure.<br />
<br />
While martial law has ended and the government has introduced what most observers regard as minor reforms, the opposition says the measures are cosmetic.<br />
<br />
Fifteen months ago, the King of Bahrain received a 500-page report from the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI). The report contained the Commission’s findings regarding the February-March 2011 popular uprising and the government’s heavy-handed response. <br />
<br />
The King and his government were widely hailed for commissioning and then personally receiving the report, which described in detail the frequent use of excessive force by security forces, the systemic abuse and torture of detainees, mass discrimination and dismissals of workers and students, and grave violations of medical neutrality. <br />
<br />
It highlighted a culture of impunity prevalent among government officials at all levels, concluding that many abuses “could not have happened without the knowledge of higher echelons of the command structure.”<br />
<br />
This report was no inside job. The shocker here was that the report was commissioned by the King himself, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah, and funded and carried out under the supervision of an independent team headed by an Egyptian judge with an impeccable reputation for fairness. <br />
<br />
The King’s decisions to both commission and accept the report was hailed by some in the international community as an extraordinary act of political leadership. It was seen by many as a potentially critical step toward resolving the country’s escalating political crisis.<br />
<br />
But world leaders wondered: Could this really be happening? Would the Sovereign really be prepared to expose the shortcomings of his regime to the very adversaries who focused public attention on these very same shortcomings?<br />
<br />
So, while many praised the King, others did not. Many did not fully understand why the King was taking these unconventional actions, and were suspicious of His Majesty’s motives and strategy. They worried that he was simply stalling, buying time and hoping his opposition would fade away.<br />
<br />
More than a year later, most observers in the international community believe they have their answer. What fundamental reforms recommended by the BICI were actually implemented? Virtually none say Bahrain-watchers.<br />
<br />
Next to nothing! The tiny, oil-rich, and strategically located nation continues to put out near-daily cotton-candy press releases and, according to the major think-tanks focused on Bahrain, at the same time continues to be wracked by simmering violence and social divisions, and the government appears unwilling to enact substantial political reforms. <br />
<br />
However, through the government press apparatus and high-powered PR consultants, it appears more than ready to continue launching a tsunami of what I regard as largely insignificant developments as “news” – though the chances of finding actual news in these documents are somewhere between slim and none.<br />
<br />
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published the following descriptions of the current situation:<br />
<br />
The three main Bahraini political forces—the Shia opposition, Sunni Islamists, and the ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family—are paralyzed by internal fissures with more militant idealists overtaking pragmatists. <br />
<br />
For the U.S., which docks its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, this impasse looms as a crucial test of America’s ability to balance the need for political reform with long-standing strategic interests and military partnerships. <br />
<br />
The US has been unsuccessful in persuading various players to embrace a robust dialogue to come up with practical and equitable solutions to the island’s deep-seated problems. The CarnegieFoundation sees this failure as a sign of increased anti-Americanism in Bahrain and the waning influence American wields in the area.<br />
Even before the BICI report was commissioned, Bahrain hired some of the most high-powered New York public relations firms to keep us all informed about how well things were going and the substantial number of the report’s recommendations were actually being implemented. This reporter can affirm that many follow-up questions to the press office from journalists went unanswered.<br />
<br />
A lot of the pushback against “political reform by press release” came from the daughter and one of the sisters of arguably the country’s leading human rights defenders. Both were imprisoned by the government, the father for a life sentence. The un-jailed daughter was working from outside Bahrain. She was trying with limited resources to match the blizzard of press releases launched into the in-boxes of Western journalists. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
And Carnegie’s Frederic Wehrey writes, <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“And while assessments of the Royal Family’s commitment to genuine, comprehensive reform continue, those doing the assessing have been unable to transparently provide evidence to support such claims and allow access for outside observers to confirm such claims independently.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
He adds, “They have been unable to produce meaningful reforms through dialogue or political participation, the mainstream Shia opposition represented by Al Wefaq is losing popular support. The youth are rising up. The February 14 Youth Coalition—a leaderless network formed in the early days of Bahrain’s uprising—is winning over some of Al Wefaq’s supporters. It has rejected dialogue with the regime, called for the creation of a republic, and confronted security forces with sporadic violence. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
A hardline faction of the Al Khalifa family, led by the royal court minister and the commander of the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF), is drowning out more moderate voices. Class-based Sunni anger with the regime is rising. Hardline royal factions have attempted to co-opt this dissent and redirect it against the Shia—a losing strategy that is stoking sectarianism in Bahraini society.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Anti-Americanism is growing among both hardline Sunni Islamists and rejectionist Shia elements. This anti-Americanism coupled with the entrenched regime’s apparent intent to ignore calls for deep reform risks damaging American legitimacy and jeopardizing U.S. assets and people.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
America needs to “Rethink the long-standing U.S. defense relationship with Bahrain. The relationship may soon become a liability given the stalemate on reform, endemic violence, and mounting anti-Americanism.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Wehrey concludes: Two years after the uprising that shook its foundations, Bahrain is a broken country, wracked by simmering violence and social polarization. Its Sunni-dominated government shows little willingness to implement substantial reforms and its young citizens—both Sunni and Shia—are becoming increasingly <br />
<br />
radicalized. Its once-vibrant economy is stagnant. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“As of early 2013, over 100 people have been killed in violence related to the uprising. Successive efforts to resolve the impasse have failed, largely due to deep divisions within the country’s three main camps. Within the royal family, a hardline faction has come to dominate the government’s response, framing the crisis as a security problem rather than a symptom of a broader political <br />
<br />
malaise that requires sweeping reforms.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Among the opposition similar splits have arisen between an institutionalized current that is receptive to dialogue and advocates gradual change within the context of the monarchy, and more youthful, rejectionist networks who employ confrontational street tactics and demand the end of the monarchy. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The Sunni Islamist field has witnessed similar fissures, between loyalists and a more genuine opposition. Underpinning all of these dynamics is a creeping sectarianism at the societal level and disturbing levels of anti-Americanism.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image.<br />
<br />
As the crisis persists, troubling questions have arisen about the deleterious effects of America’s strategic relationship with Bahrain, which has long been a central pillar in U.S. power projection in the Gulf. Most crucially, Bahrain serves as the seat of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and it hosts a number of U.S. air and special operations capabilities. But increasingly, the United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image. Ultimately, breaking through Bahrain’s impasse is not just a matter of promoting human rights but mitigating potential security challenges to U.S. assets and people and—eventually, perhaps—forestalling a violent challenge to the monarchy. <br />
Backed by robust Saudi financial and military support, the Bahraini regime may be able to hobble through the current crisis, withstanding extraordinary pressure from both its own citizenry and the international community. But the status quo is not sustainable indefinitely.<br />
<br />
With the likely fall of the Alawite-dominated government in Syria, Bahrain’s Al Khalifa family will soon be the only sectarian minority in the Middle East ruling over a majority that has little-to-no say in its government. Recent history suggests that, absent sweeping structural changes, the outcome for such an arrangement will not be peaceful reforms, more forceful and public engagement with key leaders, and using multilateral forums to sanction regime infractions. <br />
<br />
The goal of all of these efforts should be raising the economic and political costs for hardliners who would block reforms while increasingly, the United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image. <br />
Ultimately, breaking through Bahrain’s impasse is not just a matter of promoting human rights but mitigating potential security challenges to U.S. assets and people and—eventually, perhaps—forestalling a violent challenge to the monarchy. <br />
<br />
Backed by robust Saudi financial and military support, the Bahraini regime may be able to hobble through the current crisis, withstanding extraordinary pressure from both its own citizenry and the international community. But the status quo is not sustainable indefinitely. <br />
<br />
With the likely fall of the Alawite-dominated government in Syria, Bahrain’s Al Khalifa family will soon be the only sectarian minority in the Middle East ruling over a majority that has little-to-no say in its government. Recent history suggests that, absent sweeping structural changes, the outcome for such an arrangement will not be peaceful.<br />
<br />
Other observers have reached similar conclusions. In a separate report published in the Washington Post, Stephen McInerney, executive director of POMED (the Project on Middle East Democracy) quoted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, She said: <br />
<br />
“Our challenge in a country like Bahrain,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last November, is that the United States “has many complex interests. We’ll always have to walk and chew gum at the same time.” The growing problem is that the United States does plenty of “walking” — maintaining our strategic alliance with the Gulf kingdom in the short term — but little or no “chewing,” or taking meaningful steps to spur the political reforms needed to preserve Bahrain as an ally in the long term.<br />
<br />
In recent weeks, Bahrain’s government has banned demonstrations of any size and upheld lengthy prison sentences given to teachers and medics for expressing their political views. It continues to crack down violently against daily protests. Washington has repeatedly expressed “concern” about the state of human rights in Bahrain, but it is increasingly clear that such statements have little or no impact. <br />
<br />
Frederic Wehrey, Senior Associate in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, weighs in this way:<br />
<br />
· Bahrain is wracked by simmering violence and social divisions, and the government appears unwilling to enact substantial political forces—the Shia opposition, Sunni Islamists, and the ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family—are paralyzed by internal fissures with more militant idealists overtaking pragmatists. This is a crucial test of the United States’ ability to balance the need for political reform with long-standing strategic interests and military partnerships.<br />
<br />
• Unable to produce meaningful reforms through dialogue or political participation, the mainstream Shia opposition represented by Al Wefaq is losing popular support.<br />
<br />
• The youth are rising up. The February 14 Youth Coalition—a leaderless network formed in the early days of Bahrain’s uprising—is winning over some of Al Wefaq’s supporters. It has rejected dialogue with the regime, called for the creation of a republic, and confronted security forces with sporadic violence.<br />
• A hardline faction of the Al Khalifa family, led by the royal court minister and the commander of the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF), is drowning out more moderate voices.<br />
<br />
• Class-based Sunni anger with the regime is rising. Hardline royal factions have attempted to co-opt this dissent and redirect it against the Shia—a losing strategy that is stoking sectarianism in Bahraini society.<br />
<br />
• Anti-Americanism is growing among both hardline Sunni Islamists and rejectionist Shia elements. This anti-Americanism coupled with the entrenched regime’s apparent intent to ignore calls for deep reform risks damaging American legitimacy and jeopardizing U.S. assets and people.<br />
<br />
So the deeply divided factions will continue to demand justice and equity, and have demonstrated more than enough courage to make life extremely difficult for all the players. It may be especially difficult for the U.S., which pro-democracy forces are hoping will advocate quietly, behind-the curtain, for an end to discrimination.<br />
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<br />
Will Bahrainis Finally Dialogue?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
William Fisher<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
After two years of civil unrest, death, torture and destruction, the King of Bahrain finally sat down with his subjects last week for the start of a much-delayed “National Dialogue” designed to bring “meaningful reform that meets the aspirations of all of Bahrain’s citizens.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Those were the words of U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, speaking on Monday after what must have been months of hyper-diplomatic arm-twisting. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“The United States welcomes the start of Bahrain’s National Dialogue. We’re encouraged by the broad participation of Bahraini political groups in the dialogue.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
She added, “We view the dialogue as a positive step in a broader process that can result in meaningful reform that meets the aspirations of all of Bahrain’s citizens. We believe that efforts to promote engagement and reconciliation among Bahrainis are necessary to long-term stability.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The tiny, oil rich state is strategically located and is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet. In early 2011, protests erupted led by majority Shi'ite Muslims, who include the King and the Royal Family. The Shi'ite Muslims, who claim they are discriminated against, demanded an end to the Sunni-led monarchy's political domination and full powers for parliament. Shi'ite Muslims complain of discrimination in the electoral system, jobs, housing, education and government departments. The U.S. views Bahrain as an ally a<br />
<br />
against Shi’ite Iran. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
At the beginning of the serious unrest, the Gulf Cooperation Council ordered Saudi troops to drive over the causeway that separates the two countries. Saudi troops assisted Bahraini police and security forces in quelling the unrest.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
This will be the second time the government and opposition groups have attempted to organize a national dialogue. Earlier, the largest democracy group, Wefaq, and five other groups, have said they are ready to participate in the talks but have called for a constitutional democracy with an elected government rather than one appointed by the king.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Thirty-five people died during the unrest and two months of martial law that followed, but the opposition says that number has risen to more than 80. The government rejects the figure.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
While martial law has ended and the government has introduced what most observers regard as minor reforms, the opposition says the measures are cosmetic.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Fifteen months ago, the King of Bahrain received a 500-page report from the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI). The report contained the Commission’s findings regarding the February-March 2011 popular uprising and the government’s heavy-handed response. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The King and his government were widely hailed for commissioning and then personally receiving the report, which described in detail the frequent use of excessive force by security forces, the systemic abuse and torture of detainees, mass discrimination and dismissals of workers and students, and grave violations of medical neutrality. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
It highlighted a culture of impunity prevalent among government officials at all levels, concluding that many abuses “could not have happened without the knowledge of higher echelons of the command structure.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
This report was no inside job. The shocker here was that the report was commissioned by the King himself, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah, and funded and carried out under the supervision of an independent team headed by an Egyptian judge with an impeccable reputation for fairness. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The King’s decisions to both commission and accept the report was hailed by some in the international community as an extraordinary act of political leadership. It was seen by many as a potentially critical step toward resolving the country’s escalating political crisis.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
But world leaders wondered: Could this really be happening? Would the Sovereign really be prepared to expose the shortcomings of his regime to the very adversaries who focused public attention on these very same shortcomings?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
So, while many praised the King, others did not. Many did not fully understand why the King was taking these unconventional actions, and were suspicious of His Majesty’s motives and strategy. They worried that he was simply stalling, buying time and hoping his opposition would fade away.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
More than a year later, most observers in the international community believe they have their answer. What fundamental reforms recommended by the BICI were actually implemented? Virtually none say Bahrain-watchers.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Next to nothing! The tiny, oil-rich, and strategically located nation continues to put out near-daily cotton-candy press releases and, according to the major think-tanks focused on Bahrain, at the same time continues to be wracked by simmering violence and social divisions, and the government appears unwilling to enact substantial political reforms. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
However, through the government press apparatus and high-powered PR consultants, it appears more than ready to continue launching a tsunami of what I regard as largely insignificant developments as “news” – though the chances of finding actual news in these documents are somewhere between slim and none.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published the following descriptions of the current situation:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The three main Bahraini political forces—the Shia opposition, Sunni Islamists, and the ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family—are paralyzed by internal fissures with more militant idealists overtaking pragmatists. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
For the U.S., which docks its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, this impasse looms as a crucial test of America’s ability to balance the need for political reform with long-standing strategic interests and military partnerships. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The US has been unsuccessful in persuading various players to embrace a robust dialogue to come up with practical and equitable solutions to the island’s deep-seated problems. The CarnegieFoundation sees this failure as a sign of increased anti-Americanism in Bahrain and the waning influence American wields in the area.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Even before the BICI report was commissioned, Bahrain hired some of the most high-powered New York public relations firms to keep us all informed about how well things were going and the substantial number of the report’s recommendations were actually being implemented. This reporter can affirm that many follow-up questions to the press office from journalists went unanswered.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
A lot of the pushback against “political reform by press release” came from the daughter and one of the sisters of arguably the country’s leading human rights defenders. Both were imprisoned by the government, the father for a life sentence. The un-jailed daughter was working from outside Bahrain. She was trying with limited resources to match the blizzard of press releases launched into the in-boxes of Western journalists. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
And Carnegie’s Frederic Wehrey writes, <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“And while assessments of the Royal Family’s commitment to genuine, comprehensive reform continue, those doing the assessing have been unable to transparently provide evidence to support such claims and allow access for outside observers to confirm such claims independently.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
He adds, “They have been unable to produce meaningful reforms through dialogue or political participation, the mainstream Shia opposition represented by Al Wefaq is losing popular support. The youth are rising up. The February 14 Youth Coalition—a leaderless network formed in the early days of Bahrain’s uprising—is winning over some of Al Wefaq’s supporters. It has rejected dialogue with the regime, called for the creation of a republic, and confronted security forces with sporadic violence. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
A hardline faction of the Al Khalifa family, led by the royal court minister and the commander of the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF), is drowning out more moderate voices. Class-based Sunni anger with the regime is rising. Hardline royal factions have attempted to co-opt this dissent and redirect it against the Shia—a losing strategy that is stoking sectarianism in Bahraini society.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Anti-Americanism is growing among both hardline Sunni Islamists and rejectionist Shia elements. This anti-Americanism coupled with the entrenched regime’s apparent intent to ignore calls for deep reform risks damaging American legitimacy and jeopardizing U.S. assets and people.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
America needs to “Rethink the long-standing U.S. defense relationship with Bahrain. The relationship may soon become a liability given the stalemate on reform, endemic violence, and mounting anti-Americanism.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Wehrey concludes: Two years after the uprising that shook its foundations, Bahrain is a broken country, wracked by simmering violence and social polarization. Its Sunni-dominated government shows little willingness to implement substantial reforms and its young citizens—both Sunni and Shia—are becoming increasingly <br />
<br />
radicalized. Its once-vibrant economy is stagnant. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“As of early 2013, over 100 people have been killed in violence related to the uprising. Successive efforts to resolve the impasse have failed, largely due to deep divisions within the country’s three main camps. Within the royal family, a hardline faction has come to dominate the government’s response, framing the crisis as a security problem rather than a symptom of a broader political <br />
<br />
malaise that requires sweeping reforms.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Among the opposition similar splits have arisen between an institutionalized current that is receptive to dialogue and advocates gradual change within the context of the monarchy, and more youthful, rejectionist networks who employ confrontational street tactics and demand the end of the monarchy. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The Sunni Islamist field has witnessed similar fissures, between loyalists and a more genuine opposition. Underpinning all of these dynamics is a creeping sectarianism at the societal level and disturbing levels of anti-Americanism.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
As the crisis persists, troubling questions have arisen about the deleterious effects of America’s strategic relationship with Bahrain, which has long been a central pillar in U.S. power projection in the Gulf. Most crucially, Bahrain serves as the seat of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and it hosts a number of U.S. air and special operations capabilities. But increasingly, the United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image. Ultimately, breaking through Bahrain’s impasse is not just a matter of promoting human rights but mitigating potential security challenges to U.S. assets and people and—eventually, perhaps—forestalling a violent challenge to the monarchy. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Backed by robust Saudi financial and military support, the Bahraini regime may be able to hobble through the current crisis, withstanding extraordinary pressure from both its own citizenry and the international community. But the status quo is not sustainable indefinitely. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
With the likely fall of the Alawite-dominated government in Syria, Bahrain’s Al Khalifa family will soon be the only sectarian minority in the Middle East ruling over a majority that has little-to-no say in its government. Recent history suggests that, absent sweeping structural changes, the outcome for such an arrangement will not be peaceful reforms, more forceful and public engagement with key leaders, and using multilateral forums to sanction regime infractions. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The goal of all of these efforts should be raising the economic and political costs for hardliners who would block reforms while increasingly, the United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Ultimately, breaking through Bahrain’s impasse is not just a matter of promoting human rights but mitigating potential security challenges to U.S. assets and people and—eventually, perhaps—forestalling a violent challenge to the monarchy. <br />
<br />
Backed by robust Saudi financial and military support, the Bahraini regime may be able to hobble through the current crisis, withstanding extraordinary pressure from both its own citizenry and the international community. But the status quo is not sustainable indefinitely. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
With the likely fall of the Alawite-dominated government in Syria, Bahrain’s Al Khalifa family will soon be the only sectarian minority in the Middle East ruling over a majority that has little-to-no say in its government. Recent history suggests that, absent sweeping structural changes, the outcome for such an arrangement will not be peaceful.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Other observers have reached similar conclusions. In a separate report published in the Washington Post, Stephen McInerney, executive director of POMED (the Project on Middle East Democracy) quoted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, She said: <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“Our challenge in a country like Bahrain,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last November, is that the United States “has many complex interests. We’ll always have to walk and chew gum at the same time.” The growing problem is that the United States does plenty of “walking” — maintaining our strategic alliance with the Gulf kingdom in the short term — but little or no “chewing,” or taking meaningful steps to spur the political reforms needed to preserve Bahrain as an ally in the long term.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
In recent weeks, Bahrain’s government has banned demonstrations of any size and upheld lengthy prison sentences given to teachers and medics for expressing their political views. It continues to crack down violently against daily protests. Washington has repeatedly expressed “concern” about the state of human rights in Bahrain, but it is increasingly clear that such statements have little or no impact. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Frederic Wehrey, Senior Associate in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, weighs in this way:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
· Bahrain is wracked by simmering violence and social divisions, and the government appears unwilling to enact substantial political forces—the Shia opposition, Sunni Islamists, and the ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family—are paralyzed by internal fissures with more militant idealists overtaking pragmatists. This is a crucial test of the United States’ ability to balance the need for political reform with long-standing strategic interests and military partnerships.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
• Unable to produce meaningful reforms through dialogue or political participation, the mainstream Shia opposition represented by Al Wefaq is losing popular support.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
• The youth are rising up. The February 14 Youth Coalition—a leaderless network formed in the early days of Bahrain’s uprising—is winning over some of Al Wefaq’s supporters. It has rejected dialogue with the regime, called for the creation of a republic, and confronted security forces with sporadic violence.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
• A hardline faction of the Al Khalifa family, led by the royal court minister and the commander of the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF), is drowning out more moderate voices.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
• Class-based Sunni anger with the regime is rising. Hardline royal factions have attempted to co-opt this dissent and redirect it against the Shia—a losing strategy that is stoking sectarianism in Bahraini society.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
• Anti-Americanism is growing among both hardline Sunni Islamists and rejectionist Shia elements. This anti-Americanism coupled with the entrenched regime’s apparent intent to ignore calls for deep reform risks damaging American legitimacy and jeopardizing U.S. assets and people.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
So the deeply divided factions will continue to demand justice and equity, and have demonstrated more than enough courage to make life extremely difficult for all the players. It may be especially difficult for the U.S., which pro-democracy forces are hoping will advocate quietly, behind-the curtain, for an end to discrimination.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
END<br />
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<br />
Will Bahrainis Finally Dialogue?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
William Fisher<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
After two years of civil unrest, death, torture and destruction, the King of Bahrain finally sat down with his subjects last week for the start of a much-delayed “National Dialogue” designed to bring “meaningful reform that meets the aspirations of all of Bahrain’s citizens.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Those were the words of U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, speaking on Monday after what must have been months of hyper-diplomatic arm-twisting. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“The United States welcomes the start of Bahrain’s National Dialogue. We’re encouraged by the broad participation of Bahraini political groups in the dialogue.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
She added, “We view the dialogue as a positive step in a broader process that can result in meaningful reform that meets the aspirations of all of Bahrain’s citizens. We believe that efforts to promote engagement and reconciliation among Bahrainis are necessary to long-term stability.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The tiny, oil rich state is strategically located and is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet. In early 2011, protests erupted led by majority Shi'ite Muslims, who include the King and the Royal Family. The Shi'ite Muslims, who claim they are discriminated against, demanded an end to the Sunni-led monarchy's political domination and full powers for parliament. Shi'ite Muslims complain of discrimination in the electoral system, jobs, housing, education and government departments. The U.S. views Bahrain as an ally a<br />
<br />
against Shi’ite Iran. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
At the beginning of the serious unrest, the Gulf Cooperation Council ordered Saudi troops to drive over the causeway that separates the two countries. Saudi troops assisted Bahraini police and security forces in quelling the unrest.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
This will be the second time the government and opposition groups have attempted to organize a national dialogue. Earlier, the largest democracy group, Wefaq, and five other groups, have said they are ready to participate in the talks but have called for a constitutional democracy with an elected government rather than one appointed by the king.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Thirty-five people died during the unrest and two months of martial law that followed, but the opposition says that number has risen to more than 80. The government rejects the figure.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
While martial law has ended and the government has introduced what most observers regard as minor reforms, the opposition says the measures are cosmetic.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Fifteen months ago, the King of Bahrain received a 500-page report from the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI). The report contained the Commission’s findings regarding the February-March 2011 popular uprising and the government’s heavy-handed response. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The King and his government were widely hailed for commissioning and then personally receiving the report, which described in detail the frequent use of excessive force by security forces, the systemic abuse and torture of detainees, mass discrimination and dismissals of workers and students, and grave violations of medical neutrality. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
It highlighted a culture of impunity prevalent among government officials at all levels, concluding that many abuses “could not have happened without the knowledge of higher echelons of the command structure.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
This report was no inside job. The shocker here was that the report was commissioned by the King himself, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah, and funded and carried out under the supervision of an independent team headed by an Egyptian judge with an impeccable reputation for fairness. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The King’s decisions to both commission and accept the report was hailed by some in the international community as an extraordinary act of political leadership. It was seen by many as a potentially critical step toward resolving the country’s escalating political crisis.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
But world leaders wondered: Could this really be happening? Would the Sovereign really be prepared to expose the shortcomings of his regime to the very adversaries who focused public attention on these very same shortcomings?<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
So, while many praised the King, others did not. Many did not fully understand why the King was taking these unconventional actions, and were suspicious of His Majesty’s motives and strategy. They worried that he was simply stalling, buying time and hoping his opposition would fade away.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
More than a year later, most observers in the international community believe they have their answer. What fundamental reforms recommended by the BICI were actually implemented? Virtually none say Bahrain-watchers.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Next to nothing! The tiny, oil-rich, and strategically located nation continues to put out near-daily cotton-candy press releases and, according to the major think-tanks focused on Bahrain, at the same time continues to be wracked by simmering violence and social divisions, and the government appears unwilling to enact substantial political reforms. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
However, through the government press apparatus and high-powered PR consultants, it appears more than ready to continue launching a tsunami of what I regard as largely insignificant developments as “news” – though the chances of finding actual news in these documents are somewhere between slim and none.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published the following descriptions of the current situation:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The three main Bahraini political forces—the Shia opposition, Sunni Islamists, and the ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family—are paralyzed by internal fissures with more militant idealists overtaking pragmatists. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
For the U.S., which docks its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, this impasse looms as a crucial test of America’s ability to balance the need for political reform with long-standing strategic interests and military partnerships. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The US has been unsuccessful in persuading various players to embrace a robust dialogue to come up with practical and equitable solutions to the island’s deep-seated problems. The CarnegieFoundation sees this failure as a sign of increased anti-Americanism in Bahrain and the waning influence American wields in the area.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Even before the BICI report was commissioned, Bahrain hired some of the most high-powered New York public relations firms to keep us all informed about how well things were going and the substantial number of the report’s recommendations were actually being implemented. This reporter can affirm that many follow-up questions to the press office from journalists went unanswered.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
A lot of the pushback against “political reform by press release” came from the daughter and one of the sisters of arguably the country’s leading human rights defenders. Both were imprisoned by the government, the father for a life sentence. The un-jailed daughter was working from outside Bahrain. She was trying with limited resources to match the blizzard of press releases launched into the in-boxes of Western journalists. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
And Carnegie’s Frederic Wehrey writes, <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“And while assessments of the Royal Family’s commitment to genuine, comprehensive reform continue, those doing the assessing have been unable to transparently provide evidence to support such claims and allow access for outside observers to confirm such claims independently.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
He adds, “They have been unable to produce meaningful reforms through dialogue or political participation, the mainstream Shia opposition represented by Al Wefaq is losing popular support. The youth are rising up. The February 14 Youth Coalition—a leaderless network formed in the early days of Bahrain’s uprising—is winning over some of Al Wefaq’s supporters. It has rejected dialogue with the regime, called for the creation of a republic, and confronted security forces with sporadic violence. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
A hardline faction of the Al Khalifa family, led by the royal court minister and the commander of the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF), is drowning out more moderate voices. Class-based Sunni anger with the regime is rising. Hardline royal factions have attempted to co-opt this dissent and redirect it against the Shia—a losing strategy that is stoking sectarianism in Bahraini society.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Anti-Americanism is growing among both hardline Sunni Islamists and rejectionist Shia elements. This anti-Americanism coupled with the entrenched regime’s apparent intent to ignore calls for deep reform risks damaging American legitimacy and jeopardizing U.S. assets and people.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
America needs to “Rethink the long-standing U.S. defense relationship with Bahrain. The relationship may soon become a liability given the stalemate on reform, endemic violence, and mounting anti-Americanism.”<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Wehrey concludes: Two years after the uprising that shook its foundations, Bahrain is a broken country, wracked by simmering violence and social polarization. Its Sunni-dominated government shows little willingness to implement substantial reforms and its young citizens—both Sunni and Shia—are becoming increasingly <br />
<br />
radicalized. Its once-vibrant economy is stagnant. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“As of early 2013, over 100 people have been killed in violence related to the uprising. Successive efforts to resolve the impasse have failed, largely due to deep divisions within the country’s three main camps. Within the royal family, a hardline faction has come to dominate the government’s response, framing the crisis as a security problem rather than a symptom of a broader political <br />
<br />
malaise that requires sweeping reforms.” <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Among the opposition similar splits have arisen between an institutionalized current that is receptive to dialogue and advocates gradual change within the context of the monarchy, and more youthful, rejectionist networks who employ confrontational street tactics and demand the end of the monarchy. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The Sunni Islamist field has witnessed similar fissures, between loyalists and a more genuine opposition. Underpinning all of these dynamics is a creeping sectarianism at the societal level and disturbing levels of anti-Americanism.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
As the crisis persists, troubling questions have arisen about the deleterious effects of America’s strategic relationship with Bahrain, which has long been a central pillar in U.S. power projection in the Gulf. Most crucially, Bahrain serves as the seat of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and it hosts a number of U.S. air and special operations capabilities. But increasingly, the United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image. Ultimately, breaking through Bahrain’s impasse is not just a matter of promoting human rights but mitigating potential security challenges to U.S. assets and people and—eventually, perhaps—forestalling a violent challenge to the monarchy. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Backed by robust Saudi financial and military support, the Bahraini regime may be able to hobble through the current crisis, withstanding extraordinary pressure from both its own citizenry and the international community. But the status quo is not sustainable indefinitely. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
With the likely fall of the Alawite-dominated government in Syria, Bahrain’s Al Khalifa family will soon be the only sectarian minority in the Middle East ruling over a majority that has little-to-no say in its government. Recent history suggests that, absent sweeping structural changes, the outcome for such an arrangement will not be peaceful reforms, more forceful and public engagement with key leaders, and using multilateral forums to sanction regime infractions. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
The goal of all of these efforts should be raising the economic and political costs for hardliners who would block reforms while increasingly, the United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Ultimately, breaking through Bahrain’s impasse is not just a matter of promoting human rights but mitigating potential security challenges to U.S. assets and people and—eventually, perhaps—forestalling a violent challenge to the monarchy. <br />
<br />
Backed by robust Saudi financial and military support, the Bahraini regime may be able to hobble through the current crisis, withstanding extraordinary pressure from both its own citizenry and the international community. But the status quo is not sustainable indefinitely. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
With the likely fall of the Alawite-dominated government in Syria, Bahrain’s Al Khalifa family will soon be the only sectarian minority in the Middle East ruling over a majority that has little-to-no say in its government. Recent history suggests that, absent sweeping structural changes, the outcome for such an arrangement will not be peaceful.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Other observers have reached similar conclusions. In a separate report published in the Washington Post, Stephen McInerney, executive director of POMED (the Project on Middle East Democracy) quoted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, She said: <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
“Our challenge in a country like Bahrain,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last November, is that the United States “has many complex interests. We’ll always have to walk and chew gum at the same time.” The growing problem is that the United States does plenty of “walking” — maintaining our strategic alliance with the Gulf kingdom in the short term — but little or no “chewing,” or taking meaningful steps to spur the political reforms needed to preserve Bahrain as an ally in the long term.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
In recent weeks, Bahrain’s government has banned demonstrations of any size and upheld lengthy prison sentences given to teachers and medics for expressing their political views. It continues to crack down violently against daily protests. Washington has repeatedly expressed “concern” about the state of human rights in Bahrain, but it is increasingly clear that such statements have little or no impact. <br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Frederic Wehrey, Senior Associate in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, weighs in this way:<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
· Bahrain is wracked by simmering violence and social divisions, and the government appears unwilling to enact substantial political forces—the Shia opposition, Sunni Islamists, and the ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family—are paralyzed by internal fissures with more militant idealists overtaking pragmatists. This is a crucial test of the United States’ ability to balance the need for political reform with long-standing strategic interests and military partnerships.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
• Unable to produce meaningful reforms through dialogue or political participation, the mainstream Shia opposition represented by Al Wefaq is losing popular support.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
• The youth are rising up. The February 14 Youth Coalition—a leaderless network formed in the early days of Bahrain’s uprising—is winning over some of Al Wefaq’s supporters. It has rejected dialogue with the regime, called for the creation of a republic, and confronted security forces with sporadic violence.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
• A hardline faction of the Al Khalifa family, led by the royal court minister and the commander of the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF), is drowning out more moderate voices.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
• Class-based Sunni anger with the regime is rising. Hardline royal factions have attempted to co-opt this dissent and redirect it against the Shia—a losing strategy that is stoking sectarianism in Bahraini society.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
• Anti-Americanism is growing among both hardline Sunni Islamists and rejectionist Shia elements. This anti-Americanism coupled with the entrenched regime’s apparent intent to ignore calls for deep reform risks damaging American legitimacy and jeopardizing U.S. assets and people.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
So the deeply divided factions will continue to demand justice and equity, and have demonstrated more than enough courage to make life extremely difficult for all the players. It may be especially difficult for the U.S., which pro-democracy forces are hoping will advocate quietly, behind-the curtain, for an end to discrimination.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
END<br />
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Will Bahrainis Finally Dialogue?<br />
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William Fisher<br />
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After two years of civil unrest, death, torture and destruction, the King of Bahrain finally sat down with his subjects last week for the start of a much-delayed “National Dialogue” designed to bring “meaningful reform that meets the aspirations of all of Bahrain’s citizens.”<br />
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Those were the words of U.S. State Department spokesperson Victoria Nuland, speaking on Monday after what must have been months of hyper-diplomatic arm-twisting. <br />
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“The United States welcomes the start of Bahrain’s National Dialogue. We’re encouraged by the broad participation of Bahraini political groups in the dialogue.” <br />
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She added, “We view the dialogue as a positive step in a broader process that can result in meaningful reform that meets the aspirations of all of Bahrain’s citizens. We believe that efforts to promote engagement and reconciliation among Bahrainis are necessary to long-term stability.” <br />
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The tiny, oil rich state is strategically located and is home to the U.S. Fifth Fleet. In early 2011, protests erupted led by majority Shi'ite Muslims, who include the King and the Royal Family. The Shi'ite Muslims, who claim they are discriminated against, demanded an end to the Sunni-led monarchy's political domination and full powers for parliament. Shi'ite Muslims complain of discrimination in the electoral system, jobs, housing, education and government departments. The U.S. views Bahrain as an ally a<br />
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against Shi’ite Iran. <br />
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At the beginning of the serious unrest, the Gulf Cooperation Council ordered Saudi troops to drive over the causeway that separates the two countries. Saudi troops assisted Bahraini police and security forces in quelling the unrest.<br />
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This will be the second time the government and opposition groups have attempted to organize a national dialogue. Earlier, the largest democracy group, Wefaq, and five other groups, have said they are ready to participate in the talks but have called for a constitutional democracy with an elected government rather than one appointed by the king.<br />
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Thirty-five people died during the unrest and two months of martial law that followed, but the opposition says that number has risen to more than 80. The government rejects the figure.<br />
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While martial law has ended and the government has introduced what most observers regard as minor reforms, the opposition says the measures are cosmetic.<br />
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Fifteen months ago, the King of Bahrain received a 500-page report from the Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI). The report contained the Commission’s findings regarding the February-March 2011 popular uprising and the government’s heavy-handed response. <br />
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The King and his government were widely hailed for commissioning and then personally receiving the report, which described in detail the frequent use of excessive force by security forces, the systemic abuse and torture of detainees, mass discrimination and dismissals of workers and students, and grave violations of medical neutrality. <br />
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It highlighted a culture of impunity prevalent among government officials at all levels, concluding that many abuses “could not have happened without the knowledge of higher echelons of the command structure.” <br />
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This report was no inside job. The shocker here was that the report was commissioned by the King himself, Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifah, and funded and carried out under the supervision of an independent team headed by an Egyptian judge with an impeccable reputation for fairness. <br />
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The King’s decisions to both commission and accept the report was hailed by some in the international community as an extraordinary act of political leadership. It was seen by many as a potentially critical step toward resolving the country’s escalating political crisis.<br />
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But world leaders wondered: Could this really be happening? Would the Sovereign really be prepared to expose the shortcomings of his regime to the very adversaries who focused public attention on these very same shortcomings?<br />
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So, while many praised the King, others did not. Many did not fully understand why the King was taking these unconventional actions, and were suspicious of His Majesty’s motives and strategy. They worried that he was simply stalling, buying time and hoping his opposition would fade away.<br />
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More than a year later, most observers in the international community believe they have their answer. What fundamental reforms recommended by the BICI were actually implemented? Virtually none say Bahrain-watchers.<br />
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Next to nothing! The tiny, oil-rich, and strategically located nation continues to put out near-daily cotton-candy press releases and, according to the major think-tanks focused on Bahrain, at the same time continues to be wracked by simmering violence and social divisions, and the government appears unwilling to enact substantial political reforms. <br />
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However, through the government press apparatus and high-powered PR consultants, it appears more than ready to continue launching a tsunami of what I regard as largely insignificant developments as “news” – though the chances of finding actual news in these documents are somewhere between slim and none.<br />
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The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace published the following descriptions of the current situation:<br />
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The three main Bahraini political forces—the Shia opposition, Sunni Islamists, and the ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family—are paralyzed by internal fissures with more militant idealists overtaking pragmatists. <br />
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For the U.S., which docks its Fifth Fleet in Bahrain, this impasse looms as a crucial test of America’s ability to balance the need for political reform with long-standing strategic interests and military partnerships. <br />
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The US has been unsuccessful in persuading various players to embrace a robust dialogue to come up with practical and equitable solutions to the island’s deep-seated problems. The CarnegieFoundation sees this failure as a sign of increased anti-Americanism in Bahrain and the waning influence American wields in the area.<br />
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Even before the BICI report was commissioned, Bahrain hired some of the most high-powered New York public relations firms to keep us all informed about how well things were going and the substantial number of the report’s recommendations were actually being implemented. This reporter can affirm that many follow-up questions to the press office from journalists went unanswered.<br />
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A lot of the pushback against “political reform by press release” came from the daughter and one of the sisters of arguably the country’s leading human rights defenders. Both were imprisoned by the government, the father for a life sentence. The un-jailed daughter was working from outside Bahrain. She was trying with limited resources to match the blizzard of press releases launched into the in-boxes of Western journalists. <br />
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And Carnegie’s Frederic Wehrey writes, <br />
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“And while assessments of the Royal Family’s commitment to genuine, comprehensive reform continue, those doing the assessing have been unable to transparently provide evidence to support such claims and allow access for outside observers to confirm such claims independently.” <br />
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He adds, “They have been unable to produce meaningful reforms through dialogue or political participation, the mainstream Shia opposition represented by Al Wefaq is losing popular support. The youth are rising up. The February 14 Youth Coalition—a leaderless network formed in the early days of Bahrain’s uprising—is winning over some of Al Wefaq’s supporters. It has rejected dialogue with the regime, called for the creation of a republic, and confronted security forces with sporadic violence. <br />
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A hardline faction of the Al Khalifa family, led by the royal court minister and the commander of the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF), is drowning out more moderate voices. Class-based Sunni anger with the regime is rising. Hardline royal factions have attempted to co-opt this dissent and redirect it against the Shia—a losing strategy that is stoking sectarianism in Bahraini society.<br />
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Anti-Americanism is growing among both hardline Sunni Islamists and rejectionist Shia elements. This anti-Americanism coupled with the entrenched regime’s apparent intent to ignore calls for deep reform risks damaging American legitimacy and jeopardizing U.S. assets and people.<br />
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America needs to “Rethink the long-standing U.S. defense relationship with Bahrain. The relationship may soon become a liability given the stalemate on reform, endemic violence, and mounting anti-Americanism.”<br />
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Wehrey concludes: Two years after the uprising that shook its foundations, Bahrain is a broken country, wracked by simmering violence and social polarization. Its Sunni-dominated government shows little willingness to implement substantial reforms and its young citizens—both Sunni and Shia—are becoming increasingly <br />
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radicalized. Its once-vibrant economy is stagnant. <br />
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“As of early 2013, over 100 people have been killed in violence related to the uprising. Successive efforts to resolve the impasse have failed, largely due to deep divisions within the country’s three main camps. Within the royal family, a hardline faction has come to dominate the government’s response, framing the crisis as a security problem rather than a symptom of a broader political <br />
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malaise that requires sweeping reforms.” <br />
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Among the opposition similar splits have arisen between an institutionalized current that is receptive to dialogue and advocates gradual change within the context of the monarchy, and more youthful, rejectionist networks who employ confrontational street tactics and demand the end of the monarchy. <br />
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The Sunni Islamist field has witnessed similar fissures, between loyalists and a more genuine opposition. Underpinning all of these dynamics is a creeping sectarianism at the societal level and disturbing levels of anti-Americanism.<br />
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The United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image.<br />
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As the crisis persists, troubling questions have arisen about the deleterious effects of America’s strategic relationship with Bahrain, which has long been a central pillar in U.S. power projection in the Gulf. Most crucially, Bahrain serves as the seat of the U.S. Navy’s Fifth Fleet, and it hosts a number of U.S. air and special operations capabilities. But increasingly, the United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image. Ultimately, breaking through Bahrain’s impasse is not just a matter of promoting human rights but mitigating potential security challenges to U.S. assets and people and—eventually, perhaps—forestalling a violent challenge to the monarchy. <br />
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Backed by robust Saudi financial and military support, the Bahraini regime may be able to hobble through the current crisis, withstanding extraordinary pressure from both its own citizenry and the international community. But the status quo is not sustainable indefinitely. <br />
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With the likely fall of the Alawite-dominated government in Syria, Bahrain’s Al Khalifa family will soon be the only sectarian minority in the Middle East ruling over a majority that has little-to-no say in its government. Recent history suggests that, absent sweeping structural changes, the outcome for such an arrangement will not be peaceful reforms, more forceful and public engagement with key leaders, and using multilateral forums to sanction regime infractions. <br />
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The goal of all of these efforts should be raising the economic and political costs for hardliners who would block reforms while increasingly, the United States finds itself in the undesirable position of maintaining close ties with a repressive regime that has skillfully avoided meaningful reforms while engaging in a concerted public relations campaign to burnish its image. <br />
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Ultimately, breaking through Bahrain’s impasse is not just a matter of promoting human rights but mitigating potential security challenges to U.S. assets and people and—eventually, perhaps—forestalling a violent challenge to the monarchy. <br />
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Backed by robust Saudi financial and military support, the Bahraini regime may be able to hobble through the current crisis, withstanding extraordinary pressure from both its own citizenry and the international community. But the status quo is not sustainable indefinitely. <br />
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With the likely fall of the Alawite-dominated government in Syria, Bahrain’s Al Khalifa family will soon be the only sectarian minority in the Middle East ruling over a majority that has little-to-no say in its government. Recent history suggests that, absent sweeping structural changes, the outcome for such an arrangement will not be peaceful.<br />
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Other observers have reached similar conclusions. In a separate report published in the Washington Post, Stephen McInerney, executive director of POMED (the Project on Middle East Democracy) quoted former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, She said: <br />
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“Our challenge in a country like Bahrain,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last November, is that the United States “has many complex interests. We’ll always have to walk and chew gum at the same time.” The growing problem is that the United States does plenty of “walking” — maintaining our strategic alliance with the Gulf kingdom in the short term — but little or no “chewing,” or taking meaningful steps to spur the political reforms needed to preserve Bahrain as an ally in the long term.<br />
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In recent weeks, Bahrain’s government has banned demonstrations of any size and upheld lengthy prison sentences given to teachers and medics for expressing their political views. It continues to crack down violently against daily protests. Washington has repeatedly expressed “concern” about the state of human rights in Bahrain, but it is increasingly clear that such statements have little or no impact. <br />
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Frederic Wehrey, Senior Associate in Carnegie’s Middle East Program, weighs in this way:<br />
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· Bahrain is wracked by simmering violence and social divisions, and the government appears unwilling to enact substantial political forces—the Shia opposition, Sunni Islamists, and the ruling Sunni Al Khalifa family—are paralyzed by internal fissures with more militant idealists overtaking pragmatists. This is a crucial test of the United States’ ability to balance the need for political reform with long-standing strategic interests and military partnerships.<br />
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• Unable to produce meaningful reforms through dialogue or political participation, the mainstream Shia opposition represented by Al Wefaq is losing popular support.<br />
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• The youth are rising up. The February 14 Youth Coalition—a leaderless network formed in the early days of Bahrain’s uprising—is winning over some of Al Wefaq’s supporters. It has rejected dialogue with the regime, called for the creation of a republic, and confronted security forces with sporadic violence.<br />
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• A hardline faction of the Al Khalifa family, led by the royal court minister and the commander of the Bahrain Defense Force (BDF), is drowning out more moderate voices.<br />
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• Class-based Sunni anger with the regime is rising. Hardline royal factions have attempted to co-opt this dissent and redirect it against the Shia—a losing strategy that is stoking sectarianism in Bahraini society.<br />
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• Anti-Americanism is growing among both hardline Sunni Islamists and rejectionist Shia elements. This anti-Americanism coupled with the entrenched regime’s apparent intent to ignore calls for deep reform risks damaging American legitimacy and jeopardizing U.S. assets and people.<br />
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So the deeply divided factions will continue to demand justice and equity, and have demonstrated more than enough courage to make life extremely difficult for all the players. It may be especially difficult for the U.S., which pro-democracy forces are hoping will advocate quietly, behind-the curtain, for an end to discrimination.<br />
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END<br />
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.Will Bahrainis Finally Dialogue?<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-90329861462499707012013-02-10T09:19:00.001-05:002013-02-10T09:19:09.018-05:00Presidential Power<br />
By William Fisher<br />
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There must be something in the air when a person gets to be President.<br />
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These leaders spend their entire lives rhapsodizing about checks and balances, due process, transparency and the rule of law. Yet five minutes after their inauguration you hear them beginning to distance themselves (that’s Washington-speak for deniability) from these foundational truths.<br />
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Presidents always seem to come up with tiny reasons why the whole promise can’t be kept today, but surely will be kept soon. These days we hear a lot about compromise being the reason. No one side in a compromise can have 100% of what he/she wants, or has been promised. So we’re all exhorted to settle for a little less than we were expecting. Months later, we learn down the road (where the can is) that the whole production has been scrapped – our leaders worked really hard perfecting their initial press release, a small group of them held a news conference, it made cable news, and now it’s on to matters of greater moment.<br />
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It is said that in Washington, the most dangerous place to be is between a politician and a camera. Well, not always. When our statesmen and women have fully distanced themselves from whatever promise they made, it’s time for another recess, not another camera.<br />
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Why do they do what they do? Well, a lot of folks in Washington think it’s nothing more than a naked play for more and more Presidential power. Others think a stronger President will be more successful politically. Still others think a President’s motivation plays a big role: The more power he gets, the better he will be able to protect the people he’s sworn to protect.<br />
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This is nothing new. It’s happened to almost all our Presidents, even to some we now think of as transformational. The Constitutional Rights Foundation tells us that when John Adams succeeded George Washington as president in 1797, the Federalist Party had controlled Congress and the rest of the national government from the beginning of the new nation. Adams and the other Federalists believed that their political party was the government. The Federalists believed that once the people had elected their political leaders, no one should publicly criticize them. <br />
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Congress passed the Alien and Sedition Acts, which had stiff implications – and jail terms – for critics of John Adams, whom most of us now think of as one of our great presidents, regardless of political party. <br />
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Lincoln didn’t escape the bubble either. In the first year of our Civil War, Lincoln suspended use of the writ of habeas corpus – one of our oldest and most revered legal principals. “By stripping the courts of habeas jurisdiction over detainees, the U.S. would be signaling to the rest of the world that it is not bound by the rule of law in its treatment of them,” says Kenneth Roth, Executive Director of Human Rights Watch.<br />
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Our 28th President, Woodrow Wilson, also belongs in the panoply of American leaders who supported civil liberties being held hostage to the demands of security. The Sedition Act of 1918 extended the Espionage Act of 1917 to cover a broader range of offenses, notably speech and the expression of opinion that cast the government or the war effort in a negative light or interfered with the sale of government bonds. Litigation under this law sent the renowned Socialist political leader, Eugene V. Debs, to prison.<br />
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Wilson was also a supporter of the so-called “Red Raids” by his Attorney General, Mitchell Palmer, and his new sidekick, J. Edgar Hoover. Hundreds of US citizens and others were suspected of being Bolsheviks and were deported.<br />
And so it went. Franklin Delano Roosevelt uprooted 110,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese citizens and settled them involuntarily in internment camps. In he Cold War following WWII, we had Richard Nixon and the House un-American Affairs Committee and Senator Joe McCarthy witch-hunting people’s lives and decimating careers. <br />
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Later, Bill Clinton came up with “extraordinary rendition,” in which suspected terrorists are kidnapped and flown to countries that practice torture. George W. Bush secretly developed the so-called “enhanced interrogation” programs and their “Black Site” secret prisons, lied to the American people about “warrantless” eavesdropping on the private phone and email traffic of citizens charged with no crime, and then absolved the phone companies of responsibility for illegally helping the government.<br />
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Now, Barack Obama, who promised the most transparent administration in US history, admits he is going to use unmanned aircraft to assassinate those who would harm the U.S., be they citizens or not, whether or not they are close to a recognized battlefield – all without charges, trial, due process, et cetera.<br />
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And scariest of all, he is going to do it alone! No oversight! No court! No accountability.<br />
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Simply put, the “legal memos” notwithstanding, this has to be the most outrageous rape of the Constitution in the history of our country. In the interests of more and more Presidential Power.<br />
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And still worse: According to the polls, the American people like the idea!<br />
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<strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-85251514657896638572013-02-05T12:14:00.001-05:002013-02-05T12:14:17.858-05:00The Gatekeepers –An Analysis <strong>By Lawrence Davidson</strong><br />
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<em>Prof. Davidson teaches history at West Chester University in West Chester, Pa. This is a guest contribution. </em><br />
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There is a new documentary movie about Israel, called The Gatekeepers. It is directed by Dror Moreh, and features interviews with all the former leaders of the Shin Bet, the country’s internal security organization. The Shin Bet is assigned the job of preventing Palestinian retaliatory attacks on Israel and, as described by Moreh, the film “is the story of Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories as told by the people at the crossroads of some of the most crucial moments in the security history of the country.” Along the way it touches on such particular topics as targeted assassinations, the use of torture, and “collateral damage.” <br />
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The Gatekeepers has garnered a lot of acclaim. It has played at film festivals in Jerusalem, Amsterdam, New York, Toronto and Venice, and elsewhere. It has received critical acclaim from critics and won the Los Angeles Film Critics Association’s Best Documentary Award. It has been nominated for an Oscar. <br />
<strong>Part II — The Messages </strong><br />
In order to promote the The Gatekeepers, Morah has been doing interviews and recently appeared on CNN with Christiane Amanpour. He made a number of points, as did the Shin Bet leaders in the clips featured during the interview. I shall review and critique some of these below.<br />
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– Moreh says that “if there is someone who understands the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, it’s these guys” (the Shin Bet leaders). Actually, this not necessarily true. One might more accurately claim that these men, who led Israel’s most secretive government institution, were and are so deeply buried inside their country’s security dilemma that they see it in a distorted fashion (with only occasional glimmers of clarity). For instance:<br />
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– Avraham Shalom (head of the Shin Bet from 1981-1986), tells us that “Israel lost touch with how to coexist with the Palestinians as far back as the aftermath of the Six Day War in 1967….When the country started doubling down on terrorism.” But is this really the case? One might more accurately assert that Israel had no touch to lose. Most of its Jewish population and leadership has never had any interest in coexistence with Palestinians in any equalitarian and humane sense of the term. The interviewed security chiefs focus on the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza because they are the ones who offered the most resistance to conquest. But what of the 20% of the population of Israel who are also Palestinian and who actually lived under martial law until 1966? You may call the discriminatory regime under which these people live “coexistence,” but it is the coexistence of superior over the inferior secured largely by intimidation. <br />
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–Moreh also insists that it is the “Jewish extremists inside Israel” who have been the “major impediment” to resolving issues between Israel and the Palestinians. The film looks at the cabal of religious fanatics, who in 1980, planned to blow up the sacred Muslim shrine of the Dome of the Rock on Jerusalem’s Temple Mount, as well as the assassination of Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin in 1995. Yet, as dangerous as are Israel’s right-wing extremists and settler fanatics, focusing exclusively on them obscures the full history of the occupation. <br />
<br />
By the time Menachem Begin and Israel’s right-wing fanatics took power in 1977, the process of occupation and ethnic cleansing was well under way. It had been initiated, both against the Arab Israelis from 1948 onward, and against the Palestinians of the West Bank and Gaza after 1967, by the so-called Israeli Left: the Labor Party and such people as David Ben Gurion, Golda Meir, Shimon Peres, and Yitzak Rabin himself. Amongst the Israeli leadership, there are no clean hands. <br />
– Finally, Dror Moreh repeatedly pushes another message: “a central theme of the documentary is the idea that Israel has incredible tactics, but it lacks long-term strategy…if [security] operations do not support a move toward a peace settlement, then they are meaningless.” <br />
Again, this erroneous assessment is a function of being so deeply situated inside of a problem that you cannot perceive it clearly. Moreh assumes that achieving peace with the Palestinians is the only “long-term strategy” Israel ought to have and, in its absence, Israel pursues no strategy at all. However, an objective assessment of Israeli history tells us that there has been another strategy in place. The Zionist leaders have in fact always had a long-term strategy to avoid any meaningful peace settlement, so as to allow: 1. occupation of all “Eretz Israel,” 2. the ethnic cleansing or cantonization of the native population, and 3. settlement of the cleansed territory with Jews. <br />
It is because of this same naivete that Moreh confesses himself “shocked” when Shalom compares the occupation of the Palestinian territories to “Germany’s occupation of Europe” which, of course, had its own goal of ethnic cleansing. It is to Shalom’s credit that he made the statement on camera, and to Morah’s credit that he kept the statement in the final version of the film. But then Morah spoils this act of bravery when he tells Amanpour, “Only Jews can say these kind of words. And only they can have the justification to speak as they spoke in the film.” Well, I can think of one other group who has every right to make the same comparison Shalom makes– the Palestinians. <br />
<strong>Part III — The Retired Official’s Confession Syndrome </strong><br />
<br />
For all its shortcomings, the film is a step forward in the on-going effort to deny the idealized Zionist storyline a monopoly in the West. Indeed, that The Gatekeepers was made at all, and was received so positively at major film venues, is a sign that this wholly skewed Israeli storyline is finally breaking down. Certainly, this deconstruction still has a long way to go, but the process is picking up speed.<br />
<br />
On the other hand there is something troubling about the belated nature of the insights given in these interviews. They are examples of what I like to call the “retired official’s confession syndrome.” Quite often those who, in retirement, make these sorts of confessions were well aware of the muddled or murderous situation while in office. But, apparently, they lacked the courage to publicize it at the time. It would have meant risking their careers, their popularity, and perhaps relations with their friends and family. One is reminded of the fate of Professor Ilan Pappe, who did stand up and live his principles, and eventually lost his position at Haifa University and was, in the end, forced into exile. For most, however, including these leaders of the Shin Bet, their understanding was clouded and their actions skewed by a time-honored, but deeply flawed, notion of “duty” to carry on like good soldiers. <br />
<br />
<strong>Part IV – Conclusion </strong><br />
<br />
To date, Israel’s leaders and Zionist supporters have shown an amazing capacity to ignore all criticism. The newly re-elected Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has let it be known that he has no intention of watching The Gatekeepers. It is also questionable how many of those who voted for him, or other right-wing politicians, will bother to seek the documentary out. <br />
<br />
Israel’s government has recently made the decision to ignore the country’s obligations under the United Nations Human Rights Charter, a decision signaled by its representatives refusal to show up for the country’s “universal periodic review” before the Human Rights Council. Nor is there any sign that any new right-wing led government coalition will stop the ethnic cleansing and illegal colonial repopulation of East Jerusalem. <br />
<br />
The only reasonable conclusion one can come to is that it will take increasing outside pressure on Israel, in the form of boycotts, divestment and sanctions, to convince a sufficient number of that country’s Jewish population that they must change their ways. To not change is to acquiesce in Israel’s evolving status as a pariah state. The irony of it all is that that status will have little to do with their being Jewish. Yet, It will have everything to do with the fact that, in this day and age, even the Jews have no right to maintain a racist state.<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-87207146733274948102013-02-05T11:49:00.001-05:002013-02-05T11:49:34.796-05:00Of Hope and Disgust: Solitary Confinement<br />
<br />
By William Fisher<br />
<br />
This news may come a tad late for Nicholas James Yarris, and may be greeted with a combination of hope and disgust. Hope that things are going to get better. Disgust that it’s taken a generation to take the first step.<br />
<br />
What is this big news?<br />
<br />
Dick Durbin, the second-highest-ranking Democrat in the U.S. Senate, announced that the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has agreed to a comprehensive review of the use of solitary confinement in its prisons.<br />
<br />
The study will include the fiscal and public safety consequences of the controversial practice and will be carried out by the National Institute of Corrections (NIC). NIC plans to retain an independent auditor to examine the use of solitary confinement, which is also known as restrictive housing. NIC is an agency within the Federal Bureau of Prisons, effectively controlled by appointments by Attorney General Eric Holder.<br />
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BOP spokesman Chris Burke said, "We are confident that the audit will yield valuable information to improve our operations, and we thank Senator Durbin for his continued interest in this very important topic." <br />
<br />
Prisoners in isolation are often confined to small cells without windows for up to 23 hours a day. Durbin's office said the practice can have a severe psychological impact on inmates and that more than half of all suicides committed in prisons occur in solitary confinement.<br />
<br />
In Durbin's state of Illinois, 56 percent of inmates have spent some time in segregated housing. Illinois houses TAMMS, the state’s supermax facility in Tamms, Illinois, where it has been reported by numerous journalists, penologists, and academics, that solitary confinement is routinely being used as a management tool. Durbin and other State leaders have been campaigning to close the facility because of its high cost.<br />
<br />
"The United States holds more prisoners in solitary confinement than any other democratic nation in the world, and the dramatic expansion of solitary confinement is a human rights issue we can't ignore," said Durbin, who chaired a Senate hearing on the use of solitary confinement last year. It was the very first such hearing ever held in Congress.<br />
<br />
And it is a subject about which Nicholas James Yarris knows a little something. He spent 23 years in solitary confinement as a death row prisoner in Pennsylvania before his exoneration through DNA testing in 2003. The Innocence Project was instrumental in securing his release.<br />
<br />
Here’s what Yarris said: <br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">Having spent an astounding 8000-plus days locked within a cell 23 hours a day, I have witnessed or understood every form of deprivation or sensory starved confinement one can know.<br />
<br />
There are two features to solitary confinement that I wish to address here in this statement.<br />
<br />
First, the most degrading mental breakdown to men comes from the physical confinement. In the three decades I spent watching new prisoners come to death row in Pennsylvania, I saw with little variation, the breakdown of the personality of men initially entering death row. This occurs when all structure from your previous life hits full stop and you are left with ordered times for every facet of your care.<br />
<br />
Combined with intentional cruelty inflicted upon men in maximum-security settings, makes most men break down in their first two years. I entered death row at age 21, being the second youngest man on death row in my home state at the time in 1982.<br />
<br />
In subsequent years, I saw death row swell in numbers from 24 in 1982, to 250 in 2004 by the time I was set free. I saw endless processions of men enter death row only to see that within two years each one either committed violence on others, self harmed or had serious mental breakdowns and required long-term medications to keep them stable. <br />
<br />
Of the three men executed by Pennsylvania, two were heavily medicated psychiatric patients with long-term mental health issues.<br />
<br />
I have witnessed numerous suicide attempts and 11 successful suicides. I myself have not only attempted my own suicide at age 21, but later in my incarceration, in 2002, I asked to be executed rather than to continue being held in endless degradation..<br />
<br />
It was only because of my asking to be executed that the DNA tests I sought for 15 years had been forced upon the state. I was not let out of solitary confinement until the day I was set free. I was exonerated by DNA in July of 2003 and was not released until January 2004. In the last months I was stripped of all death row privileges and was placed in an administrative/disciplinary housing unit where I was allowed nothing at all in my cell.<br />
<br />
I was brought before the prison administration of Green County Prison in Pennsylvania once DNA had been used in court to remove all of my death row convictions. I was told that I posed a threat to the staff because in the years confined within solitary confinement, having my hand crushed by a guard or other things done to me made them fear me. I was told that they feared I would lash out at them because they could not accept that anyone.<br />
<br />
For all of Pennsylvania's efforts to hold me in solitary confinement because I was so dangerous was, in the end, a facade. I make this last point not to be facetious, but to point out the reality that every prisoner at some point is going to get out, either on his feet or not. I am able to look at what was done to me and see beyond the draw of anger or pain. Not everyone is going to feel as I do, and they are going to be worse in society than they were before we subjected them to solitary confinement.</blockquote>I wonder just how much arm-twisting Dick Durbin had to engage in to get the prison bureau to agree to this study. But Durbin’s reputation is that, when he has the sniff of his target in his nostrils, he can be short, sharp and unforgiving.<br />
<br />
That this study might actually get started and finished is good news. But taking a generation to reach the start-point should trigger a healthy dose of skepticism. From testimony given at Durbin’s Senate hearing, we get a strong sense that solitary confinement is not a top priority for the current head of the prisons bureau, Charles Samuels. At the hearing, he was unable to tell the senators how many inmates were currently in solitary in the Federal prison system. While Samuels offered no figures for the total number of prisoners the BOP holds in isolation, in 2010 a BOP spokesperson told CNN that there were more than 11,000 inmates in "special housing"—a common euphemism—out of a total prison population, at that time, of about 210,000, it was reported by Mother Jones. Since that time, the prison population has continued to grow.<br />
<br />
Samuels says solitary is “a deterrent and it works," before admitting his agency has never studied the issue. Yet the federal prison system is a serious offender when it comes to the use and abuse of solitary.<br />
<br />
MOJO went on to write, “A former corrections officer who rose through the ranks at the BOP, Samuels came off as a consummate bureaucrat. (His predecessor Harley Lappin, forced to resign after a drunk driving incident, now works for the nation's largest private-prison corporation.) <br />
<br />
Samuels quickly made his position clear: "Segregated housing," as he called it, is a necessary part of prison practice, and is not used excessively in the federal system. It's not a "preferred option," Samuels said, but he went on to say he believes that it helps stop violence and other bad behavior in prison. <br />
<br />
Human Rights Watch and other rights groups have completed a number of major studies of prisoners and detainees in many local, state and federal facilities, including those run by private contractors. Their conclusion is that inmates “confront conditions that are abusive, degrading and dangerous. Soaring prison populations due to harsh sentencing laws—which legislators have been reluctant to change—and immigrant detention policies coupled with tight budgets have left governments unwilling to make the investments in staff and resources necessary to ensure safe and humane conditions of confinement. Such failures violate the human rights of all persons deprived of their liberty to be treated with humanity and with respect for the inherent dignity of the human person, and to be free from cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.”<br />
<br />
David Fathi, the Director of the ACLU’s National Prison Project, said, " The [BOP] is the nation’s largest prison system with over 215,000 prisoners, and has been using solitary confinement at an alarmingly high rate. Similar reviews in state prison systems have led to dramatic reductions in solitary confinement, generating millions of dollars in taxpayer savings. We hope and expect that the review announced today will lead the Bureau to significantly curtail its use of this draconian, inhumane, and expensive practice."<br />
<br />
And lest any of us get carried away with enthusiasm, it would be prudent to remember that our nation’s capitol is suffocating under the weight of hundreds of thousands of reports on every conceivable subject – which no one has read or, Heaven Forfend, acted on since they were published.<br />
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<strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-80275181747900142042013-01-28T21:00:00.001-05:002013-01-28T21:00:41.130-05:00Pleading With Satan<br />
By William Fisher<br />
<br />
President Obama is fond of waxing eloquent about “the majesty of the rule of law.” A prosecutor reminds us that we’re the only country in the world where a defendant’s innocence is defended with at least as much passion as his guilt is attacked. A judge rolls out all his Sunday adjectives to extol the blessings of the jury system.<br />
<br />
This is, of course, rhetoric, and talk is cheap. Bottom Line: It’s not true. Or it’s only partly true. Or it’s true only a tiny fraction of the time. Whatever. <br />
<br />
But when I hear pronouncements like these, I am invariably reminded of some of the tawdry practices that threaten to shatter our criminal justice system.<br />
<br />
Tim Lynch, who runs the Cato Institute’s Criminal Justice portfolio, has written an article he calls “The Devil's Bargain: How Plea Agreements, Never Contemplated by the Framers, Undermine Justice.” The article appeared in the July 2011 issue of Reason.<br />
<br />
Lynch writes that the point of the article is that” most Americans are under the mistaken impression that when the government accuses someone of a crime, the case typically proceeds to trial, where a jury of laypeople hears arguments from the prosecution and the defense, then deliberates over the evidence before deciding on the defendant’s guilt or innocence.”<br />
Well, according to Tim Lynch, me, and just about everyone associated with the criminal justice system except prosecutors and bookkeepers, this image of American justice is “wildly off the mark,” as Tim puts it.<br />
<br />
He says, “Criminal cases rarely go to trial, because about 95 percent are resolved by plea bargains. In a plea bargain, the prosecutor usually offers a reduced prison sentence if the <br />
<br />
defendant agrees to waive his right to a jury trial and admit guilt in a summary proceeding before a judge.”<br />
<br />
This procedure was not contemplated by the Framers. The Constitution simply says, “the Trial of all Crimes, except in Cases of Impeachment; shall be by Jury.” <br />
<br />
So it’s not as if one of our storied forefathers corralled his colleagues and said, Hey, Colleagues, let’s come up with a system that’s better and cheaper than juries and would also relieve any doubt about guilt or innocence and, that “would replace jury trials with a supposedly superior system of charge-and-sentence bargaining,” as Tim Lynch puts it.<br />
Tim Lynch likens the growth of the plea deal to the growth of government in general. “Plea bargaining slowly crept into and eventually grew to dominate the system,” he says..<br />
<br />
He goes on: “From the government’s perspective, plea bargaining has two advantages. First, its less expensive and time-consuming than jury trials, which means prosecutors can haul more people into court and legislators can add more offenses to the criminal code. <br />
<br />
“Second, by cutting the jury out of the picture, prosecutors and judges acquire more influence over case outcomes.’ Once a defendant pleads guilty as part of a plea deal, he’s guilty. No one has to sweat it out while the Law and Order-type jury comes to its decision.”<br />
<br />
Supporters of plea deals also point out that a plea agreement, requiring only the approval of the judge, saves the court endless hours of litigation. <br />
<br />
From a defendant’s perspective, writes Tim Lynch, “plea bargaining extorts guilty pleas. People who have never been prosecuted may think there is no way they would plead guilty to a crime they did not commit. But when the government has a ‘witness’ who is willing to lie, and your own attorney urges you to accept one year in prison rather than risk a ten-year jury sentence, the decision becomes harder.” <br />
<br />
But not always. To begin with, what if the defendants are innocent? Such things have been known to happen with frequency in courtrooms all across the county. In this situation, innocent people are getting locked up for crimes they did not commit.<br />
<br />
And sometimes the choice of plea or no plea seems like no choice at all. Four men from upstate New York were arrested for “material support of terrorism” a few years ago. The prosecutor’s deal was “confess or you will find yourself in Guantanamo Bay forever.” The four confessed and are serving time in the US.<br />
Or how about a plea when the defendants are guilty? Why should guilty men get reduced sentences when they know they’re guilty. The answer is: Because they Can.<br />
By signing on with the DA, the guilty party absolves him/herself of guilt for the crime he was to be charged with (more serious) and accepts the one he’s plead to (less serious). Which could mean the criminal would be out on the street and doing what he does while those charged with the original crime are still serving their time.<br />
<br />
Why has this happened? There are a number of reasons but the primary one is cost. The costs of preparing a case, empanelling a jury, and conducting an average trial, tends to vary somewhat depending on location, complexity, time required, and other factors. But a recent Wyoming murder trial believed to be at the low end of the cost scale cost $111,000.<br />
<br />
Later, if the defendant is found guilty, it will cost $55.09 on average per day or $20,108 per year to keep an inmate in prison (FY0708), <br />
<br />
The impact on the courts’ caseloads is immediate. The 1,195 jury trials conducted in 2011 are one-third the number held in 1996, according to the Texas Administrative Office of Courts. During the same period, the number of lawsuits filed rose 25 percent. In 1996, juries decided one out of every 48 lawsuits filed. Last year, only one in 183 new complaints. <br />
<br />
Says Houston trial lawyer David Beck, “We are seeing our rights to trial by jury disappear before our eyes.” To which many other lawyers, judges and defendants argue that justice should never be held hostage to the mountain of unprocessed paper work that might one day become the organized basis of a real jury trial.<br />
Someone – a lot of someones – ought to be reminding our President that justice is not simply a cost-benefit analysis. Some of our sentencing rules may well be demented, but we do have rules. They should be changed, then followed.<br />
<br />
<strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-53447849296741823082013-01-26T11:31:00.001-05:002013-01-26T11:31:06.404-05:00Rights Erosion - An Analysis<strong>By LAWRENCE DAVIDSON</strong><br />
<br />
<strong><em>Lawrence Davidson is a professor of History at West Chester University. This is a guest article.</em></strong><br />
<br />
<strong>PART I - What Is Important When It Comes to Rights?</strong><br />
<br />
Question: Why is it that so many Americans are more angry over the prospect of relatively minor adjustments to the gun laws, than they are over the serious erosion of Constitutional rights to due process in the courts? <br />
<br />
Despite the fact that proposed changes to the gun laws would leave the Second Amendment’s* alleged basic right of ownership intact, thousands of Americans rallied in state capitals across the nation last week to demand their “right” to own all manner of automatic weapons and multiple round ammunition clips. The rationale for this ranged from “the Second Amendment comes from God,” a popular claim with protesters in Austin Texas, to the equally absurd notion that the Obama administration is obsessed with controlling all our lives. “It is not about guns, it is about control” proclaimed the folks rallying in Annapolis, Maryland. All this took place on the nation’s first impromptu “gun appreciation day” (Saturday, 19 January 2013) during which five accidental shooting occurred at celebratory gun shows and three others took place elsewhere. Nonetheless, as one protester in Maine put it, the right to “bear arms” is “a constitutional right no one can take away.” <br />
<br />
Actually, the last twelve years have proved this fellow from Maine quite wrong. There has been an erosion of constitutional rights that are much more important than his so-called inalienable right to own weapons with thirty round clips. For instance, the federal government has been steadily eroding the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments which guarantee one’s access to fair procedures in the courts. These are the ones that say your life, liberty and property cannot be taken away without your being charged with a crime and tried by a jury of your peers and/or a judge following due process rules. There are multiple examples of such deterioration:<br />
<br />
--The federal government now asserts that it has the authority to hold Americans, as well as others, indefinitely without charge or trial. It does so on the assertion that we are in a perennial state of war. This allows for the perversion of the Fifth Amendment which allows for the suspension of Habeas Corpus in the special cases of war and rebellion. The government’s claim to this authority has been challenged in court but the U.S. Court of Appeals has sided with the Feds and the issue will probably end up in the Supreme Court. In the meantime, to fall into this black hole in American jurisprudence all you have to do is be is labeled a “terrorist” by the president. This, of course, can happen based on alleged evidence never made public. <br />
<br />
-- Another weird but relevant point. If you do happen to meet someone who is a member of a “designated terrorist group,” don’t you dare try to talk them out of being violent. That is illegal as well. Our very own Supreme Court told us so in the 2010 case of Holder v. Humanitarian Law Project. In what may well call into question the rationality of a majority of the justices (the decision was decided 6 for the government position and 3 against), the Court declared that trying to persuade members of such an organization give up violence is the equivalent of rendering “material aid” to the bad guys. Try to save their souls in this fashion and you will end up in some special hell-hole of an American prison where all communications with your lawyer will be taped for the benefit of the prosecution. <br />
<br />
--The president can also put anyone, including American citizens, on a list of folks to be murdered at the first suitable opportunity. The government often uses drones to do this. Here is one of the ways this works: some Air Force officer living in Las Vegas gets up in the morning, has his breakfast, kisses the wife goodbye and tells the kids to behave at school. He gets in his four door sedan and drives to Creech Air Force base in the desert outside of town. He passes through the security checks and finally gets to his “office.” The office is a video studio affair from which he controls a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) full of explosives. The UAV in question is actually sitting at an another air base in Afghanistan, Yemen or some such location. Our man's job is to remotely fly this thing into somebody’s house half-a-world away. Doing so usually kills another man, his wife, his kids, and maybe the neighbors too. All this happens without any due process establishing the victims' guilt or innocence. <br />
<br />
-- Then there is the case of the Holy Land Foundation in which five American citizens who ran the largest Muslim charity in the nation were convicted of “material support of terrorism” and sentenced to up to 65 years in jail on the basis of an anonymous witness whose credibility could not be challenged. This is a prima facie violation of the Sixth Amendment which guarantees (or used to guarantee) the accused his or her right to confront the accuser. You would think the Supreme Court would have something to say about this, particularly considering that all the real evidence in the case showed that the Holy Land Foundation was simply supporting institutions such as Palestinian hospitals, and that its directors had repeatedly consulted the State Department to assure the legality of their activities. But no, in a miscarriage of justice not rivaled since Dread Scott, our present Court refused to hear the Holy Land Five’s appeal. <br />
<br />
<strong>PART II -- Why the Apathy?</strong><br />
<br />
Alas, with the exception of a handful of citizens, no one has hit the streets in protest over any of these horrid legal precedents. No one has dreamt up a “due process appreciation day” and called for commemorative rallies. How come? The answer has to do with how basic communal impulses play out. These include natural localism and the power of custom and tradition.<br />
<br />
Natural localness is my term for the fact that most people live their lives according to the precepts of their immediate local communities. Therefore, local customs and traditions are usually taken quite seriously. In the United States, gun ownership is widespread enough to be an issue for self-conscious subsets of most local populations. In other words, for millions it is an important local custom which helps shape their self-images. Gun ownership has also been tied to a Constitutional right allegedly enshrined in the Second Amendment. Support for this claim links these subsets into a powerful “special interest” that translates local custom into a national tradition. So, you can get thousands protesting on the same day in state capitals across the U.S. <br />
<br />
What about due process? Is it not a local practice of major importance representing a national tradition enshrined in law through the Constitution? Yes, that is correct, but psychologically, due process rights have completely different personae. Due process laws protect the rights of those accused of wrong doing. They try to assure, among other things, that the accused is assumed innocent until proven guilty. Yet among the public this assumption is almost never held. If you end up in court, the public assumption is that you must have done something wrong. This is particularly true if you can be tagged with a label that suggests danger to or betrayal of community values. The media uses such labels all the time, for instance, terms such as terrorist or whistle blower. So, those who are in need of due process protections are almost always assumed by the public to have acted outside the parameters of acceptable behavior. <br />
<br />
The other side of this coin is that ordinary individuals, the mass who make up “the people,” naively feel that due process protections are not important to them. This is because they rarely trespass against the customs and traditions they themselves have, over time, established. In other words, the “people” define what is acceptable. Carrying guns or, in the local lingo, to “go packin,” is sufficiently within the bounds of acceptable behavior to be “normal” in much of the U.S. As long as you register all the weapons in your arsenal (even if you have enough of them to wage a small war), you are still a “law abiding” citizen. However, give charity to the Palestinians or try to tell the Kurdish PKK (a group on the State Department’s Terrorism List) how to pursue their goals non-violently, and you are a danger to the American way of life and on an obscenely fast track to indefinite detention. And very few law abiding citizens are going to care, because if they notice your fate at all, they will assume you are guilty and getting what you deserve. <br />
<br />
<strong>PART III - Conclusion</strong><br />
<br />
"The people” simply do not like those who think outside the box. They never have and probably never will. Non-conformists (in this case those in need of due-process and not those "packin") make the majority feel uneasy and fearful.<br />
<br />
In relatively peaceful times such “others’ can be tolerated if they don’t make too much noise and, with the American Civil Liberties Union watching, they can demand their due process rights when needed. However, since the September 11, 2001 attacks things have changed. We are being told that there are no more peaceful times. Crisis is, supposedly, perpetual and that leads to the erosion of the rights of those assumed guilty of something endangering the majority--even if there is no real evidence or logic to the claim. This is a awful slippery slope.<br />
<br />
There is a passage in the 1957 play A Man For All Seasons, by Robert Bolt, that speaks to this present predicament. The play tells the story of Sir Thomas More, the singularly principled Chancellor of England under King Henry VIII. The passage we are concerned with is about the importance making the law available to all, even the Devil. <br />
<br />
“William Roper (More’s son-in-law): So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law! <br />
<br />
Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil? <br />
William Roper: Yes, I'd cut down every law in England to do that! <br />
<br />
Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned 'round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man's laws, not God's! And if you cut them down, and you're just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake!”<br />
<br />
So that is the crux of the matter. As long as the law is denied to some, we are all at risk. The majority does not understand this. They do not understand that for democracy to be worth its salt, it must defend the rights of everyone, and particularly those who disagree with, live differently from, and think differently than the majority. The United States as we know it can easily survive without everyone having assess to assault rifles. It cannot survive without everyone having assess to due process. Thus, as goes due process rights, so goes our democracy.<br />
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* The origin of the Second Amendment lies, at least in good part, with the Founders' perceived need to give local jurisdictions control of militias in slave holding sections of the young United States. See Thom Hartmann piece on this issue at: <a href="http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery">http://truth-out.org/news/item/13890-the-second-amendment-was-ratified-to-preserve-slavery</a>.<br />
Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-50107078259228069612013-01-26T09:44:00.001-05:002013-01-26T09:44:20.254-05:00The ExpendablesBy William Fisher<br />
<br />
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Three years ago, the twenty-something grandson of one of my colleagues was arrested for murder. A confirmed, long-standing, well-diagnosed victim of paranoid schizophrenia, he had been off his meds. <br />
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Now he was in full flight on a classic schizophrenic tear. He was angry. He was delusional. He was hearing voices that didn’t exist, and they were threatening to persecute him. He was Merlin, a legendary figure best known as the wizard in the Arthurian legend. <br />
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Though there were the usual character testimonials submitted to the Court at sentencing, and professional pleas to place him not in prison but in a psychiatric hospital treatment program, he was tried, convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Before his trial, he was incarcerated in a County jail, afterward in a larger state prison. <br />
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Even though his correct medication was recorded in the documents that accompanied him to his lock-up sites, during the entire first year of his incarcarceration, the only medication he received were tranquilizers, not usually given to paranoid schizophrenics except for short periods to calm them down... Nobody looked. Nobody cared.<br />
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While some of the facts in this introduction have been edited to protect the inmate’s privacy, with that predicate it may not surprise you to learn that the treatment of this seriously sick inmate is not the exception; it is, with few exceptions, the rule.<br />
More Americans receive mental health treatment in prisons and jails than in hospitals or treatment centers. In fact, the three largest inpatient psychiatric facilities in the country are jails: Los Angeles County Jail, Rikers Island Jail in New York City and Cook County Jail in Illinois.<br />
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In a ground-breaking 2006 report, Human Rights Watch said new federal statistics revealed that the number of mentally ill inmates in U.S. prisons and jails had quadrupled since 2000. And, as is true of inmates all across the U.S., the numbers of African American and Latino prisoners have grown out of all proportion to the size of their respective racial/ethnic groups. <br />
The Bureau of Justice Satistics (BJS), part of the Department of Justice (DOJ), reported that more than half of all state inmates now report mental health problems. These included symptoms of major depression, mania and psychotic disorders..<br />
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In 1998, the BJS reported there were an estimated 283,000 prison and jail inmates who suffered from mental health problems. That number is now estimated to be 1.25 million. The rate of reported mental health disorders in the state prison population is five times greater (56.2 percent) than in the general adult population (11 percent).<br />
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In its 2006 Report, the BJS estimated that 705,600 mentally ill adults were incarcerated in State prisons, 78,800 in Federal prisons and 479,900 in local jails. <br />
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In addition, research suggests, "people with mental illnesses are over-represented in probation and parole populations at estimated rates ranging from two to four times the general population," <br />
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The 2006 report compiled by the Bureau of Justice also reported that 73% of all women in state prisons, 75% of women in local jails, and 55% and 63%, respectively, among men, have mental health problems. In addition, nearly a quarter of women in state prisons and jails have been diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder by a mental health professional. <br />
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So here you have an impaired prison population growing exponentially, composed largely of people who should be in hospital treatment programs and not prison in the first place, under the care of workers untrained to handle sick people whose illness can only get worse in prison, and who would much prefer not having to do so, but who can find no alternative to jail.<br />
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How did we get here? Why are so many of the mentally ill homeless, living under bridges or in makeshift shelters? Why haven’t they been admitted to hospital-based treatment programs before they get into petty trouble with the law that eventually escalates them into jail.<br />
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There is a sharp division of opinion among different segments of the US population regarding who’s to blame. Many fault the prisoners, others think the police and prison authorities simply want to accrue more power..<br />
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The fact is the fault is with neither and both. Prisoners with mental illnesses can’t simply will away their sickness. And some do try to exploit their illnesses to secure greater comforts for themselves. Prison staff has its job to do as well. It’s true that they are often needlessly cruel in getting their work done – like the prison guard who made a bitter joke out of denying sanitary napkins, or offering soiled ones, to mentally disturbed inmates. This is not acceptable behavior; guards need to do whatever is reasonable and legal to maintain order. What do they do?<br />
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In recent years, prison officials have increasingly turned to solitary confinement as a way to manage difficult or dangerous prisoners. Many of the prisoners subjected to isolation, which can extend for years, have serious mental illness, and the conditions of solitary confinement can exacerbate their symptoms or provoke recurrence.<br />
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“Yet, the Bureau of Justice freely admits that among those incarcerated with mental health problems, only one in three state prisoners, and one in six jail inmates, has received treatment since admission,” Sadhbh Walshe writes in The Guardian newspaper, adding:<br />
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“There is no mention in the report about what happens to the majority of mentally ill prisoners who go untreated, but the evidence suggests that they are not just ignored, but actually brutalized by a system that has failed them at every turn.”<br />
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According to Human Rights Watch, deficient mental health services in prisons and jails leave prisoners under-treated or not treated at all. Across the country, prisoners with mental health problems face a shortage of qualified staff, lack of facilities and prison rules that interfere with treatment.<br />
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“While the number of mentally ill inmates surges, prisons remain dangerous and damaging places for them,” says Jamie Fellner, director of Human Rights Watch’s U.S. Program and author of the 2006 report. <br />
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The repoprt s ays prison staff often punish mentally ill offenders for showing symptoms of their illness, such as being noisy, refusing orders, self- mutilating or attempting suicide. Mentally ill prisoners are thus more likely than others to end up housed in especially harsh conditions, including isolation, that can push them over the edge into acute psychosis.<br />
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Mentally ill inmates without their meds often spell trouble for prison staff. Typically, there are no doctors on the premises and no inventory of medicines the guards are authorized to access. The prisoner is yelling, screaming, fighting with other prisoners, generally making life difficult for prison staff. So they turn to what appears to be the weapon of choice: solitary confinement.<br />
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Jamie Fellner of HRW quotes a federal judge who called the practice of putting mentally ill prisoners in solitary confinement the equivalent of putting an asthmatic in a room with no air. <br />
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Since then, lawsuits against corrections departments in at least 10 states have obtained court orders or settlements...have a criminal justice system which has a very clear purpose: You get arrested. We want justice. We try you, and justice hopefully prevails. It was never built to handle people that were very, very ill, at least with mental illness," says Steve Leifman, the Florida judge who has campaigned tirelessly to professionalize the care of mental illness in prison or move the entire operation to a far more appropriate setting. <br />
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Read some of the heart-breaking testimonies of solitary confinement victims here. If the victims of this cruel treatment weren’t very sick when they entered solitary, no one would be surprised if they were dangerously mentally ill when they were released – sometimes after years of segregation and abuse.<br />
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Here is the testimony of Anthony Graves, freed from a Texas death row with the help of The Innocence Project. It was presented recently at the first hearing ever held in the U.S. Senate on the subject of solitary confinement. The hearing was convened by Sen. Dick Durban, Democrat of Illinois.<br />
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My name is Anthony Graves and I am death row exoneree number 138. I was wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in Texas back in 1992, where my nightmare began. Like all death row inmates, I was kept in solitary confinement. I lived under some of the worst conditions imaginable with the filth, the food, the total disrespect of human dignity. I lived under the rules of a system that is literally driving men out of their minds. I was one week away from my 27th birthday when I was arrested, and this emotional torture took place for the next 18.5 years. I survived the torture by believing in my innocence and hoping that they would make it right. My life was saved, but those 18.5 years were no way to live.<br />
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I lived in a small 8 by 12 foot cage. I had a steel bunk bed, with a very thin plastic mattress and pillow that you could only trade out once a year. By the time a year comes around, you’ve been virtually sleeping on the steel itself. I have back problems as a result. I had a steel toilet and sink that were connected together, and it was positioned in the sight of male and female officers. They would walk the runs and I would be in plain view while using the toilet.<br />
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I had a small shelf that I was able to use as a desk to write on. This was the same shelf that I ate at. There was a very small window up at the top of the back wall. In order to see the sky or the back of the building you would have to roll your plastic mattress up to stand on. I had concrete walls that were always peeling with old dull paint. It’s the image of an old abandoned one-room project apartment.<br />
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I lived behind a steel door that had two small slits in it, the space replaced with iron mesh wire, which was dirty and filthy. Those slits were cut out to communicate with the officers that were right outside your door. There was a slot that’s called a pan hole and that’s how you would receive your food. I had to sit on my steel bunk like a trained dog while the officer delivered my food tray. He would take a steel crow bar and stick it into the metal lock on the pan hole, it would fall open, which then allowed the officer to place your tray in the slot. Afterward, he then steps back, which was the signal for me to get off the bunk and retrieve my food. This is no different from the way we train our pets.<br />
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The food lacks the proper nutrition, because it is either dehydrated when served to you or perhaps you’ll find things like rat feces or a small piece of broken glass. There is no real medical care. I had no television, no telephone, and most importantly, I had no physical contact with another human being for at least 10 of the 18 years I was incarcerated.<br />
I was subjected to sleep deprivation. I would hear the clanging of metal doors throughout the night, an officer walking the runs and shining his flashlight in your eyes, or an inmate kicking and screaming because he’s losing his mind. <br />
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Solitary confinement does one thing, it breaks a man’s will to live and he ends up deteriorating. He’s never the same person again. <br />
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Then his mother comes to see her son sitting behind Plexiglass, whom she hasn’t been able to touch in years, and she has to watch as her child deteriorates right in front of her eyes. This madness has a ripple effect. It doesn’t just affect the inmate; it also affects his family, his children, his siblings and most importantly his mother.<br />
Another tragic story of the impact of solitary can be found here.<br />
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The Sad Story of Armando Cruz, from the Journal of the American Academy of Psychiatry and the Law<br />
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On a dozen Post-It notes he scribbled his final words, telling his family he loved them. His final ge was “REMEMBER ME!”<br />
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The death of Armando Cruz was the culmination of years suffering from hallucinations, engaging in self-harm and escalating problems. It also exemplifies what can and does happen to people with severe mental health problems when they are locked into the prison system.<br />
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Entering the California prison system on February 25, 2003 following three years of legal wrangling, he would spend at least four years in solitary confinement units, including the final year of his life. Housed alone, his hallucinations and delusions would fester as he ruminated in cells no larger than a bathroom to the point where, in the final months of his life, he invented a family that lived with him. For a vulnerable young man with a fear of “being alone in a cell,” the protracted isolation amounted to psychological torture. Ultimately, he became one of 33 California prisoners who would commit suicide in 2011.<br />
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In order to understand Armando Cruz’s death, it is important to understand the tumultuous life that he led.<br />
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Armando Emmanuel Cruz, Jr. was born on April 23, 1983 to Armando and Yolanda Cruz in Fontana, California. He was a relatively quiet child who enjoyed playing sports, participated in karate, and was well liked by his peers. He was a decent student in elementary school.<br />
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Says his mother, Yolanda, of her son, “What I want the broken system to know and the State of California is, that Armando…was a sensitive son who worried about the less fortunate and the injustices in our world.<br />
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Things began to change when he entered adolescence. When he was thirteen, he began to use marijuana and methamphetamine and engaged in inhalant abuse (“huffing”). He began experimenting with cocaine and LSD and also began to drink alcohol, which he reportedly did to the point of losing consciousness.<br />
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In August 1997 at the age of 14, he was arrested for possessing marijuana at school. The following month he was arrested for burglary. He had stolen several thousand dollars worth of tools.<br />
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In 1998, he began to exhibit early psychotic symptoms, yelling at his mother that he was feeling forgetful, that he “felt out of place” and that he was “losing his language.”<br />
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In January 1998, according to legal documents, he was examined at County Mental Health and diagnosed as suffering from Inhalant Dependency. Two months later,”[Cruz] had a juvenile forensic evaluation and was diagnosed as suffering from a psychotic disorder, probably a hallucinogen induced psychosis, and also suffering from Borderline Intellectual Functioning.”<br />
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Though he was placed in various diversionary programs to keep him out of juvenile detention facilities, his problems continued to escalate.<br />
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Friends commented that they felt that the various psychiatric drug combinations Cruz was on “made him slower,” “made him seem more dazed” and that “it felt like Cruz was getting farther away.”<br />
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In July 1999, records indicate that he threatened: “I’ll kill a cop and cut off his hand” while in a mental health facility for young people and was seen by a psychiatrist. One doctor thought that he suffered from a psychotic disorder, while another thought that he suffered from a paranoid schizophrenia. Others still claimed it was schizophrenic form disorder.<br />
In January 2000, a drunken Cruz got into a yelling and shoving match with his mother. At the time, he was medicated with Zyprexa, Welbutrin and Tenax. He told officers “he doesn’t have anything to live for and he wanted to die.”<br />
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On April 30, 2000, California Highway Patrol Officer was conducting a routine traffic stop in Lakeside, California, an unincorporated area of San Diego County. Suddenly, an individual wearing only underwear ran behind the officer and with a large knife, sliced the throat of the officer and ran away.<br />
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Cruz, medicated with Zyprexa, Guanfacine, Wellbutrin, and also drinking alcohol that night stated that he recalled the lead up of events as follows: “I was in my house…listening to a song by Sublime about the riots in LA which suggested committing 187 (Murder) on a cop. I was depressed; I looked across the street and saw the CHP officer writing a ticket. I wanted to save the world. I went across the street and hid behind a stop sign. I sliced the guy’s throat with a kitchen knife. I just wanted to be a demon…I felt dead on the inside.”<br />
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Neither the officer who sustained a superficial injury required tape stitches, nor were there witnesses in either the stopped vehicle or the surrounding area able to immediately identify the suspect. However, in the subsequent weeks Cruz began to speak about his actions to a friend, who told his father, who notified the police about what Cruz had said. Cruz was arrested on May 24, 2000 and quickly admitted to the attack on the officer.<br />
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Nearly three years of legal wrangling would be a very difficult time for Cruz.<br />
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Following his arrest, he would be held at a University of California San Diego psychiatric unit for evaluation. He is noted to have “jumped off a balcony” in an apparent suicide attempt. Upon being transferred to another psychiatric unit, an examining psychiatrist would tell his mother: “Armando’s schizophrenia has gotten worse.”<br />
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In the next years, his father would die of a terminal illness that had ailed him for many years. Cruz, then being held in the county jail was allowed to attend a service for his father. He was brought in arm and leg restraints and was constantly under guard and was not allowed to embrace family.<br />
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He would be incarcerated at the San Diego County jail from April 2001 until being sentenced in 2003. At some point in this period he would attempt suicide by hanging at the jail, something that only came to his mother’s attention after his death.<br />
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While in jail he was kept in segregation for periods of time for his own protection. He had reported being taken advantage of by inmates who, as his mother said, took advantage of his kindness and naïveté.<br />
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The legal battle that culminated with his pleading guilty in January 2003 and being sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole after eight years for the Attempted Murder of a Police Officer.<br />
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Says Cruz’s mother of the legal proceedings, “The system took complete advantage of a young, naive, scared, incompetent schizophrenic teenager, who in his mind was trying to protect himself and his family. Starting from the sheriff’s department that questioned him without my permission in order to get a statement and confession from him in his mental incompetence. My son was declared at the 707 hearing as severely mentally ill suffering from schizophrenia. He was talked into a plea deal of 8 minimum to life which would after all the legal wrangling, send my naïve son into a level 4 adult prison setting.“<br />
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Cruz was among the first juveniles to be charged and sentenced as an adult under the overwhelmingly passed Proposition 21 in California, which had been approved by California voters just one month before the April 2000 attack on the CHP officer.<br />
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At this point, 17-year old Cruz would become one of the countless numbers of prisoners in the United States suffering from debilitating mental health problems.<br />
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“Asking prisons to treat people with serious mental illness is pushing round pegs into square holes,” says Fellner. “People who suffer from mental illness need mental health interventions, not punishment for behavior that may be motivated by delusions and hallucinations.” <br />
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According to Human Rights Watch, the staggering rate of incarceration of the mentally ill is a consequence of under-funded, disorganized and fragmented community mental health services. Many people with mental illness, particularly those who are poor, homeless, or struggling with substance abuse – cannot get mental health treatment. If they commit a crime, even low-level nonviolent offenses, punitive sentencing laws mandate imprisonment. <br />
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The apex of self-delusion came in the form of The Community Mental Health Act of 1963 (CMHA), which was also known as the Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act, Mental Retardation Facilities and Construction Act, Public Law 88-164, or the Mental Retardation and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act of 1963. <br />
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It was an act billed to solve these intractable problems by providing federal funding for community mental health centers throughout the United States. These centers would replace state psychiatric hospitals, thus optimizing the use of tranquillizers – which had been in steady development during the 1950s and 60s, and “preparing the ground” for the array of “miracle” drugs that most of the psychiatric community sincerely believed was just around the corner. <br />
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This legislation was passed as part of President John F. Kennedy's New Frontier. It introduced a new piece of psycho-speak into the jargon of psychiatric public policy and led to one of the genuine public health disasters of the second half of the 20th Century. <br />
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It was called deinstitutionalization.<br />
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Under the legislation, The CMHA provided grants to states for the establishment of local mental health centers, subject to the overview of the National Institute of Mental Health. The NIH also conducted a study involving adequacy in mental health issues. The purpose of the CMHA was to provide for community-based care, as an alternative to institutionalization. However, some states saw this as an excuse to close expensive state hospitals without spending some of the money on community-based care.<br />
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Under the CMHA, many patients, formerly warehoused in institutions, were released into the community. However, not all communities had the facilities or expertise to deal with them. In many cases, patients wound up in adult homes or with their families, or homeless in large cities but without the mental health care they needed,<br />
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The 2006 BJS report reveals that state prisoners with mental health problems were twice as likely to have been homeless and twice as likely to have lived in a foster home, agency or institution while growing up as those without mental health problems. Prisoners with mental health problems were also significantly more likely to have reported being physically or sexually abused in the past, to have had family members who had substance abuse problems, and to have a family member who had been incarcerated in the past. An estimated 42 percent of state inmates had both a mental health problem and substance dependence or abuse.<br />
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Yet, even with meager resources, law enforcement and psychiatric professionals continue to struggle in hundreds of communities throughout the US to create conditions that will improve the lives of the mentally ill who find themselves locked up. They do so knowing that practical public servants typically will assign a zero priorority to spending tax dollars on an idea framed to improve life for the very convicts that turn our jails into noisy, disorganized, expensive, crime-ridden killing fields.<br />
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Thus advocates for even the most fundamental mental illness management programs must must be perceived by their colleagues as Sancho Panza, tilting at windmills . One of those warriors is Miami-Dade County Judge Steven Leifman, who has worked for many years to get justice system to do more for the mentally ill than incarcerate them.<br />
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Judge Leifman is trying to prevent individuals with mental illnesses who have committed minor crimes from ending up in jail. He's creating a novel facility in Miami-Dade that will serve as what's known as a "forensic diversion facility." <br />
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The program provides a sentencing alternative in cases where the offender has mental health issues. Those entering will begin in a higher-security area, more like a jail, and once stabilized move to a different part of the building for treatment. <br />
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Leifman is working to get justice system to do more for the mentally ill than simply lock them up. His ideas, and to a great extent, the ideas of others who are working on this problem, are centered around trying to ensure that offenders suspected of committing minor non-violent crimes never make it into the prison system to begin with,<br />
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All over the US, one can find such pilot or model programs. But few have shown the resources – or the interest – to scale up these experiments. <br />
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For the broader community and its political leadership, improving care for mentally ill prisoners has to be among the lowest priorities. Long gone are the euphoric days when local psychiatrists and their political leaderhip could brag about vastly improving medicines for the care of the mentally ill while saving huge amounts of tax dollars on state hospitals no longer needed.<br />
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That’s how we got here. In the 1980s, under the directives of three California Governors, including Ronald Reagan, most state-run mental hospitals were shut down – with the promise that mentally ill patients would receive better, more humane care in community-based facilities. <br />
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But that left people with mental illness with nowhere to turn, and many ended up in jail. The cause, in psychospeak, was deinstitutionalization.<br />
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What is “deinstitutionalization?” It is the process through which state-owned-and-run psychiatric hospitals were systematically closed down beginning in the early 1980s and their patients encouraged to use “community health centers” (which, for the most part, had not yet been built) and rely for medication on new psychiatric drugs (most not yet developed for clinical testing). Meanwhile, they would make use of existing medications, mostly tranquillizers that are generally not used on patients with, for example, schizophrenia except for short periods of time to calm the patient down.<br />
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As early as 1984, the policy that led to the release of most of the nation's mentally ill patients from the hospital to the community is now widely regarded as a major failure. Thousands of people with mental illnesses had no place to live except under bridges or in makeshift shelters. Many were Vietnam vets. They had no treatment, no medicines other than tranquillizers that worked, no support systems, and few who cared whether they lived or died.<br />
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Who was responsible? Sweeping critiques of the policy, notably the American Psychiatric Association, spread the blame everywhere, faulting politicians, civil libertarian lawyers and psychiatrist<br />
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Many in the psychiatric community felt optimistic that they would soon develop medications analogous to penicillin – but it would be penicillin for schizophrenia and depression and bipolar disease and all the other awful demons and goblins that nature unleashed. Many convinced themselves that these psychiatric wonder drugs had already arrived.<br />
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The shrinks weren’t conning anyone, except perhaps themselves. They believed their own story. And their enthusiasm was so overwhelming that before long they managed to convince the politicians in California that they were standing on the brink of a new day: Soon they would be able to tell their constituents that they were able to be tough on crime and save large sums of money at the same time.<br />
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Eventually, very powerful people bought into the myth. Topping the list were the three California Governors, and Governors of other states, and the Federal Government to which the “good news” had traveled quickly.<br />
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Richard Lyons wrote in the New York Times in 1984, “the politicians were dogged by the image and financial problems posed by the state hospitals and that the scientific and medical establishment sold Congress and the state legislatures a quick fix for a complicated problem that was bought sight unseen.”<br />
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He added: “In California, for example, the number of patients in state mental hospitals reached a peak of 37,500 in 1959 when Edmund G. Brown was Governor, fell to 22,000 when Ronald Reagan attained that office in 1967, and continued to decline under his administration and that of his successor, Edmund G. Brown Jr. The senior Mr. Brown now expresses regret about the way the policy started and ultimately evolved. ''They've gone far, too far, in letting people out,'' he said in an interview.”<br />
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Lyons quotes Dr. Robert H. Felix, who was then director of the National Institute of Mental Health and a major figure in the shift to community centers, who says now on reflection: ''Many of those patients who left the state hospitals never should have done so. We psychiatrists saw too much of the old snake pit, saw too many people who shouldn't have been there and we overreacted. The result is not what we intended, and perhaps we didn't ask the questions that should have been asked when developing a new concept, but psychiatrists are human, too, and we tried our damnedest.''<br />
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The original policy changes were backed by scores of national professional and philanthropic organizations and several hundred people prominent in medicine, academia and politics. The belief then was widespread that the same scientific researchers who had conjured up antibiotics and vaccines during the outburst of medical discovery in the 50s and 60s had also developed penicillins to cure psychoses and thus revolutionize the treatment of the mentally ill.<br />
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One of the most influential groups in bringing about the new national policy was the Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health, an independent body set up by Congress in 1955. One of its two surviving members, Dr. M. Brewster Smith, a University of California psychologist who served as vice president, said the commission took the direction it did because of ''the sort of overselling that happens in almost every interchange between science and government.''<br />
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''Extravagant claims were made for the benefits of shifting from state hospitals to community clinics,'' Dr. Smith said. ''The professional community made mistakes and was overly optimistic, but the political community wanted to save money.''<br />
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Charles Schlaifer, a New York advertising executive who served as secretary-treasurer of the group, said he was now disgusted with the advice presented by leading psychiatrists of that day. <br />
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''Tranquilizers became the panacea for the mentally ill,'' he said. ''The state programs were buying them by the carload, sending the drugged patients back to the community and the psychiatrists never tried to stop this. Local mental health centers were going to be the greatest thing going, but no one wanted to think it through.''<br />
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In restrospect it does seem clear that questions were not asked that might have been asked. In the thousands of pages of testimony before Congressional committees in the late 1950's and early 1960's, little doubt was expressed about the wisdom of deinstitutionalization. And the development of tranquilizing drugs was regarded as an unqualified ''godsend,'' as one of the nation's leading psychiatrists, Dr. Francis J. Braceland, described it when he testified before a Senate subcommittee in 1963.<br />
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Dr. Braceland, a former president of the American Psychiatric Association who is a retired professor of psychiatry at Yale University, still maintains, however, that under the circumstances the widespread prescription of drugs for the mentally ill was and is a wise policy.<br />
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''We had no alternative to the use of drugs for schizophrenia and depression,'' Dr. Braceland said. ''Before the introduction of drugs like Thorazine we never had drugs that worked. These are wonderful drugs and they kept a lot of people out of the hospitals.''<br />
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The consensus seems to be that the more intelligent approach to the overall problem is to realize both the limitations and value of the drugs, the importance of combining drug treatment with proper care - either in hospitals or local clinics, depending on the individual case - and that mental illness is a sociological fact that cannot be ignored simply out of a desire to save tax dollars.<br />
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Jack R. Ewalt, who directed the staff of the Joint Commission when it was founded in 1955, says now that he remains ''a great believer in the use of drugs, but they are just another treatment, not a magic.''<br />
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''Drugs can help people get back to the community,'' he said, ''but they have to have medical care, a place to live and someone to relate to. They can't just float around aimlessly.''<br />
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Dr. Ewalt said the 1963 act was supposed to have the states continue to take care of the mentally ill but that many states simply gave up and ceded most of their responsibility to the Federal Government.<br />
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''The result was like proposing a plan to build a new airplane and ending up only with a wing and a tail,'' Dr. Ewalt said. ''Congress and the state governments didn't buy the whole program of centers, plus adequate staffing, plus long-term financial supports.''<br />
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With the patchwork implementation of President Kennedy’s Community Mental Health Act of 1963 (CMHA) (also known as the Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act, Mental Retardation Facilities and Construction Act, Public Law 88-164, or the Mental Retardation and Community Mental Health Centers Construction Act of 1963) was an act to provide federal funding for community mental health centers in the United States. This legislation was passed as part of John F. Kennedy's New Frontier. It led to considerable deinstitutionalization.<br />
<br />
In 1955, Congress passed the Mental Health Study Act, leading to the establishment of the Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Mental Health. That Commission issued a report in 1961,[1] which would become the basis of the 1963 Act.[2]<br />
<br />
The CMHA provided grants to states for the establishment of local mental health centers, under the aegis of the National Institute of Mental Health. The NIH also conducted a study involving adequacy in mental health issues. The purpose of the CMHA was to provide for community-based care, as an alternative to institutionalization. However, some states saw this as an excuse to close expensive state hospitals without spending some of the money on community-based care.<br />
<br />
Under the CMHA many patients, formerly warehoused in institutions, were released into the community. However, not all communities had the facilities or expertise to deal with them. In many cases, patients wound up in adult homes or with their families, or homeless in large cities but without the mental health care they needed<br />
<br />
Here then we have the perfect storm: A collection of well-intentioned but seriously flawed assumptions used as the basis for a new national public health policy that won the uncritical favor of politicians, drug companies, psychiatrists – even property developers who would build the network of community health centers and lawyers who drew up the deeds and transfers -- but which instead resulted in unspeakable pain and suffering for millions of people with mental illnesses, in and out of prison.<br />
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<em>Editor’s Note: Sadhbh Walshe writes a weekly column for The Guardian newspaper on the mentally ill in US prisons and jails. Her series is called “Inside Story: The U.S. Prison System. </em><br />
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</em> <em>(http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/series/inside-story).</em><br />
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<strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-49637892153959718052013-01-21T10:32:00.001-05:002013-01-21T10:32:23.444-05:00Afghanistan: The Abyss Deepens<br />
By William Fisher<br />
<br />
Speaking to the press just before Christmas, President Obama confidently predicted that the US would achieve its goals in the Afghan War effort.<br />
Following the release of the US annual strategy review which noted an increase in attacks by the Taliban and groups with which it is allied, the review said that al-Qaeda's leadership was at its weakest since 2001.<br />
<br />
The President has said on numerous occasions that US-NATO strategy is working, despite the view of many senior US diplomats and journalists that Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai is “increasingly erratic and even paranoid.” The Karzai government has done little to stem years of charges of financial corruption and election misconduct. <br />
<br />
Among those US senior diplomats is Anthony H. Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the prestigious Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). He has been visiting and lecturing in Asia since the 1960s, and is a Senior Advisor to the US-Asia Institute.<br />
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Cordesman has emerged as one of the harshest critics of the Afghan operation. In a report entitled “Going in Transition: US Military and Aid Spending: FY2002-2013,” he has estimated that at the end of 2013 – the announced date for the completion of the US and NATO – these Afghan allies will have spent $641.7 billion.<br />
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Cordesman says, “This is an incredible amount of money to have spent with so few controls, so few plans, so little auditing, and almost no credible measures of effectiveness.”<br />
<br />
It is surprisingly difficult to get a meaningful estimate of the total cost of the Afghan conflict, total spending on Afghan forces and total spending on various forms of aid, he adds.<br />
<br />
The Cordesman report addresses the cost to the US of the Afghan War from FY2000-FY2013. It provides estimates of total cost, cost to the Department of Defense, and aid costs to State, USAID, and other federal agencies. It also reports on the total cost of international aid when this takes the form of integrated aid to Afghan development and Afghan forces – a fraction of total aid spending. <br />
<br />
No reliable estimate exists of total international aid to Afghanistan, since so much of this aid has been direct and has not passed through the Afghan Central government.<br />
<br />
The resulting figures show that:<br />
<br />
· The vast majority of aid went to the Afghan security forces and not development. President Obama has consistently stressed the importance of economic development in Afghanistan, while denying that “nation-building” was a major US objective.<br />
<br />
· Most aid was very erratic in annual levels of effort, making it extremely difficult to plan the most effective use of the money and ensuring that program continuity was not possible.<br />
<br />
· The bulk of the total spending and aid has been allocated since FY2009, and came after the insurgency had reached high levels. It is a clear case of too much, too late.<br />
<br />
· The surge in aid spending creates the irony that the maximum actual cash flow – “disbursements” – is only occurring now that transition is in place and major cuts are coming between 2012 and 2014.<br />
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· The data only tell the amount of money made available on a total category basis. They do not tell how much money actually reached Afghanistan, they do not tie spending to any clear objectives, they do not reflect any effective contracting and auditing system, and there are no measures of effectiveness or success.<br />
<br />
· Not only did the money come far too late to prevent the rise of a major insurgency, when it did come, it came in areas where there were no effective overall planning, management, and contacting systems. No adequate fiscal controls, and no real measures of effectiveness. The system virtually invited waste, fraud, and abuse.<br />
<br />
Cordesman cautions that it is important to note that reforms have taken place in many areas of contracting, and there is now better auditing. The Afghan government has also promised important reforms in its control of spending and efforts to reduce corruption. <br />
<br />
A total of $641.7 billion, of which $198.2 billion – or over 30% – will be spent in FY2012 and FY2013. Cordesnman says, “This is an incredible amount of money to have spent with so few controls, so few plans, so little auditing, and almost no credible measures of effectiveness.”<br />
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He also charges that “the end effect has been to sharply raise the threshold of corruption in Afghanistan, to make transition planning far more difficult, and raise the risk that sudden funding cuts will undermine the Afghan government’s ability to maintain a viable economy and effective security forces.”<br />
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Cordesman explains that four sets of funds are involved with a total value of $58.6 billion in appropriations and pledges as of March 2012. The largest is the US Afghanistan Security Forces Fund (ASFF) that provides the ANSF with equipment, supplies, services, and training, as well as facility and infrastructure repair, renovation, and construction. <br />
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Meantime, a separate audit by the State Department's Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), reported little change in the cavalcade of management disasters that has plagued the Afghan operation since its inception. <br />
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SIGAR reported that “almost $13 million in equipment designed to upgrade Afghanistan's creaking power grid has been left mothballed in storage for lack of an installation plan.”<br />
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In addition, the agency discovered that a contractor was paid $5.76 million to help the Afghan national power utility, but most of the work was never carried out.<br />
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"Almost $12.8 million in equipment purchased to meet urgent needs in support of the counterinsurgency strategy is sitting unused in storage... without a clear plan for installation," said the report by Inspector General John Sopko.<br />
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The equipment was dispatched in March, but has been stored at a US Army Corps of Engineers base in the southern city of Kandahar on wooden palettes as they ponder what to do with it, pending a clear installation plan.<br />
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A further concern is that the manufacturer's two-year warranty on the electricity meters could run out before the equipment is installed.<br />
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Sopko said in a letter to General John Allen, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, that he had audited US efforts to help the Afghan power utility.<br />
He also highlighted that millions of dollars were paid to contractor Louis Berger Group Inc/Black & Veatch to provide training and technical assistance to the utility.<br />
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But 76 percent of the work was never completed, including "a draft and final meter installation plan, procurement and installation of 231 boundary meters, and a transition manual and handover plan."<br />
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The two findings "warrant immediate attention prior to issuing a final report in early 2013," Sopko wrote.<br />
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Since 2009, the US has spent some $88 million to help improve and modernize the Afghan power grid, and a further $157 million are pledged between 2013-2016.<br />
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Afghanistan, which never had a fully developed power grid, is trying to rebuild after more than three decades of war.<br />
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The SIGAR report recommended that US commanders determine whether the equipment can be used in Kandahar, and draw up a plan.<br />
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It said the head of the US Agency for International Development mission in Afghanistan should assess the work done by the contractor LBG/BV and seek any reimbursement of funds due.<br />
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Finally, Paul D. Shinkman, a national security reporter at U.S. News & World Report, predicted that the facilities for security in Afghanistan will not last after (the) allied drawdown. Afghanistan won't be ready to maintain the infrastructure for its security forces following the kind of drawdown that both candidates for president prescribed (during the recent campaign,) his report finds.<br />
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He writes that “a low hiring rate, few technical skills, an inefficient procurement process and a lack of preparedness are among the reasons the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction believes that country won't be able to operate and maintain its own security forces' facilities after the U.S. and coalition troops begin withdrawing in 2014.”<br />
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Shinkman writes that his report follows up on the $800 million the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave a firm named Exelis, a Virginia-based contractor, in 2010, to ensure (that) Afghan security forces in both the northern and southern parts of the country would be able to maintain their facilities.<br />
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In a memo included in the report, the corps officials state Exelis was not performing sufficient quality control on the services it was contracted to supply.<br />
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The Afghan government has hired far less than 40 percent of its positions for operations and management, or O&M, of security facilities, according to the report. Apparently a discrepancy in salary between these positions and those in the private sector (is) are to blame for the lack of interest.<br />
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There are also very few people who have the technical skills necessary to maintain these facilities, such as managing drinking water, wastewater and power generation.<br />
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The government's Ministry of Defense has been dragging its feet on providing its army with supplies, the report states, and the Ministry of the Interior did not allocate O&M money for police facilities until March of this year.<br />
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Exelis was hiring a project operations manager in support of this project in Afghanistan as of Oct. 16 to oversee 258 separate contract locations in the northern region of Afghanistan, as well as 2,400 employees and subcontractors. <br />
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The stability of Afghanistan's security forces is a central tenet of American hopes to withdraw its troops within two years. The current condition of those forces leaves some worried for the future.<br />
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"There are police who don't even know the meaning of the word 'police,'" said the National Police Academy's director Mullah Dad Pazoish in a recent interview with the Associated Press. "We have generals who have no training. They are the jihadi commanders."<br />
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Many worry that the police force, which is largely illiterate, will fall apart if Western forces leave, Shinkman reports.<br />
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All of which brings to mind the probably apocryphal question said to have been raised by a Russian soldier as his forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 1988-89.”<br />
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“What,” he asked, “were we supposed to be doing here anyway?”<br />
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<strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-20699207341807595852013-01-21T10:23:00.001-05:002013-01-21T10:23:48.025-05:00Our New Double-Standard for Justice<br />
By William Fisher<br />
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I received an urgent email last week from Khalil Meek, the Executive Director of the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA).<br />
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What Khalil was busting out to tell me (and hopefully several thousand others) was Glenn Greenwald’s conclusion that a New York Court of Appeals case containing “a fascinating new ruling (that) unwittingly illustrates the separate system of 'justice' invented for Muslims in the US after 9/11."<br />
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Intriguing, right? Read on! <br />
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The case involved a “gang-related murder trial in which prosecutors charged the defendant with terrorism. The alleged gang member was convicted, but the New York Court of Appeals completely threw out the terrorism and non-terrorism convictions because, they said:<br />
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· Terrorism charges do not apply because the defendant and his acts do not meet the ‘collective understanding’ of what terrorism is (in other words "violence committed by Arabs or Muslims against the west"), and <br />
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· Trials that involve terrorism charges allow for otherwise inadmissible evidence that prejudices juries in favor of the prosecution (in other words, terrorism trials are rigged to be unfair, to deny Muslims their legal rights, and to ease the way for convictions).” <br />
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Got that? Once more, with feeling:<br />
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“We now have it on the books: terrorism charges are reserved primarily for Muslims, and the rules of trials involving terrorism charges are different than non-terrorism trials -- the main difference being that terrorism trials are designed to be unfair so that prosecutors can easily get convictions.”<br />
<br />
Is this true? Most non-lawyers – and many lawyers – remain unaware that this metamorphosis is taking place “in plain sight.” Here’s proof:<br />
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Listen to the editorial page editor of The New York Times, Andrew Rosenthal, writing about Liberty and Justice. <br />
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He says, "It's rarely acknowledged that the 9/11 attacks have also led to what's essentially a separate justice system for Muslims. In this system, the principle of due process is twisted and selectively applied, if it is applied at all." <br />
<br />
In order to understand the significance of this case, it’s necessary to get down in the weeds a bit. Here’s how the New York Times presented it:<br />
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“Last month, New York State’s highest court ruled that the Bronx district attorney’s office erred in "trying to use a state terrorism charge to prosecute street gangs."<br />
The Bronx district attorney, had “argued that Mr. Morales’s gang, the St. James Boys, met the somewhat vague definition of ‘terror’ in the state statute because it sought to intimidate or coerce the entire Mexican-American population" around St. James Park. <br />
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“In a unanimous decision, the six judges on the top court ruled that adopting the prosecution’s broad definition would allow other prosecutors to ‘invoke the specter of terrorism’ every time a Blood assaults a Crip or an organized crime family orchestrates the murder of a rival syndicate’s soldier. <br />
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But the judges ruled that the concept of terrorism “has a unique meaning and its implications risk being trivialized if the terminology is applied loosely in situations that do not match our collective understanding of what constitutes a terrorist act.”<br />
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So what definition of ‘terrorism’is this court using? Well, it never does say. It simply says, ‘we have looked at the crime and it is not terrorism.”<br />
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Which tracks the never-to-be-forgotten words of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1978. When asked in an obscenity case, ‘What is porn?’ Justice Potter simply said, ‘I know it when I see it.”<br />
<br />
Gabor Rona, the International Legal Director of advocacy group<br />
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Human Rights First, provides another nail in the coffin of due process.<br />
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He says, “One pernicious aspect of prosecutions these days is that terrorism charges are increasingly being used for things that are not terrorism, in order to inflame juries. What makes this easy is the flexible definition of terrorism used in the criminal justice system.<br />
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“It takes a garden variety crime, say assault or murder, and turns it into something even more frightening by reference to the motive of the accused, rather than the act, itself. Even more attenuated from a balanced view of reality and justice is the leverage prosecutors have to charge conspiracy to commit terrorism, which, like all conspiracy charges, does not require any underlying crime to have been committed at all. <br />
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“This phenomenon is not limited to Muslim and Arab targets. Indeed, the ever-expansive use of terrorism in the prosecutor's toolbox, be it in the form of terrorism itself, conspiracy to commit terrorism, or "material support" to terrorism, puts virtually any political activism in the crosshairs of law enforcement. <br />
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“Fear of Muslims and Arabs may have given rise to this phenomenon, but authorities have successfully capitalized on it to take down tree huggers and to justify intrusive investigations of Occupy Movement activists. <br />
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“But another, equally disturbing manifestation of the creeping security state does involve mostly Muslims and Arabs. It's the disintegration of constitutional protections against entrapment. <br />
<br />
“In theory, the law has not changed and the successful entrapment defense has always been rare. The government can supply virtually everything -- encouragement, incentives, materials, training, facilities -- to facilitate the crime, and still get a conviction. But it does have to prove that the accused was ‘pre-disposed’ to commit the crime. Even more than ‘motive’, predisposition is an amorphous concept, easily manipulated to prey on the fears and prejudices of juries who most certainly are not the ‘peers’ of the accused.<br />
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His conclusion is that ”prejudice does play an important role in the disintegration of due process, but once prosecutors hit upon a shiny new tool, they will naturally seek to expand its use wherever and whenever they can. To dial back this trend is virtually impossible at any time, let alone one where few judges or legislators can expect to survive the accusation: ‘soft on terrorism’."<br />
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Kathy Manley is an Albany (NY) Criminal defense attorney and the VP of the Capital Region Chapter of the NYCLU. <br />
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“By saying, as the NY court did, that ‘we know terrorism when we see it’, and then giving as examples cases involving Muslims, the decision shows this very clearly,” she says. “I think the court reached the right result here, but unintentionally made the double standard in the Muslim cases extremely clear,” she added. <br />
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“The case of my client, Yassin Aref, is a similar story but like so many other Muslim cases, it involved a sting operation,” she said. “A Kurdish Iraqi imam, Yassin came to Albany, NY as a UN refugee, and was soon targeted by the FBI for some reason. (As he discovered through a recent FOIA request, it appears they had him mixed up with an Al Qaeda operative who was later killed in 2010, after which Yassin was moved to a low security prison for the first time.)<br />
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“They sent a criminal con artist – Shahed Hussain, also used in the Newburgh 4 case - to befriend a co-founder of the mosque where Yassin was imam. This man, Mohammed Hossain, ran a struggling pizza business and needed money, so he was happy to be offered a loan by the provocateur, who said he was a rich importer who wanted to help his Muslim brothers. At one point he showed Mohammed a missile tube and said this was one of the things he imported. Mohammed was shocked and refused to help transport the missile, but he didn’t think it was connected to his loan, and he still wanted the money. <br />
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“Yassin was only brought in to witness the loan transaction as set forth in the Quran, something he often did for mosque members, who couldn’t use banks because their religious beliefs forbade them from paying or charging interest. <br />
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“Yassin never saw the missile, and had no idea the loan he was witnessing was connected to terrorism. The government recorded 50 hours of conversations between the three men, and Yassin never said anything showing he understood this. Yet, because he was charged with material support for terrorism, the government was able to bring into his 2006 trial Yassin’s 1999 diary and some speeches he made in Iraq in 1994, both of which showed Yassin’s Islamist beliefs and contained criticisms of the West as immoral.<br />
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’While nothing there connected Yassin to terrorism, the evidence was damning in the post-911 environment of Islamophobia. Worse, there was a mountain of secret evidence (likely the erroneous FBI reports alleging Yassin was a member of Al Qaeda) which was all given to the judge, but which even the security cleared defense attorneys were not permitted to see. This resulted in the judge telling the jury that the government had “good and valid reasons” for targeting Yassin. While acquitting him of most of the charges, I believe the jury was afraid to let him go completely, and convicted him of a few charges.<br />
“As for what can be done, there needs to be much more awareness of all this, and how it is destroying innocent families and terrorizing the Muslim community. The government strategy is spreading beyond Muslims too, as we have seen sting operations used against Occupy and peace activists, who have also been targeted in material support for terrorism investigations. <br />
“Such abuses always begin by targeting the most vulnerable and, if not stopped there, they are applied to others and eventually to everyone. Professor Francis A. Boyle, the firebrand law professor from the University of Illinois, summed up the situation this way:<br />
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In post 9/11 America, if you are an Arab or a Muslim facing a terrorism charge, the American legal system functionally presumes you to be guilty as charged instead of innocent as constitutionally required.<br />
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<strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-78987286085583902462013-01-21T10:14:00.001-05:002013-01-21T10:14:19.518-05:00The Law Strikes Out!<br />
<br />
By William Fisher<br />
<br />
One could just about hear the loud low anguished cry of Ohoooooooooooooo from the folks who sat through the trial as the judge read out the sentence.<br />
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<strong><em>The sentence</em></strong>: 70 years in prison without the possibility of parole under the so-called “3-Strikes” law. In other words, Life.<br />
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<strong><em>The Crimes</em></strong>: Two break-ins counted as his third and fourth strike (his priors were also burglary and coming into possession of stolen goods) stealing jewelry.<br />
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<strong><em>The Prisoner</em></strong>: Jeremy Stewart, 25, father of two small children.<br />
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<strong><em>Why?</em></strong> Sadhbh Walshe of the Guardian Newspaper explains:<br />
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“In January of this year, I wrote about Jeremy Stewart. In his case, the normal 25-to-life sentence was doubled to 50-to-life, and the judge threw in an extra 20 years for no reason anyone can explain to me – apparently, just to make absolutely sure this young man (who was struggling with drug addiction) never gets to see his children outside a prison visiting room again.”<br />
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Since Stewart’s conviction, Californians have finally amended their Draconian 3-strikes law. With the change voted in by referendum 36 – 18 years in coming – the “third strike” will result in a life-without-parole sentence only when that strike is a violent crime and/or when the third felony offense is serious or violent, as defined in state law. It also authorizes the courts to resentence thousands of people who were sent away for low-level third offenses and who present no danger to the public. <br />
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Listen to Walshe, “Jeremy's mother tells me that his 70-year sentence was upheld recently in an appeals hearing, and Jeremy will not be eligible for any reduction of his sentence under Prop 36 because burglary counts as a serious felony.”<br />
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One of the results of Prop 36 will be the re-sentencing of thousands of prisoners. The Stanford Innocence Project says the resentencing process “is shaping up as a kind of referendum on the state’s barbaric treatment of mentally ill defendants, who make up a substantial number of those with life sentences under the three-strikes rule. It is likely that many were too mentally impaired to assist their lawyers at the time of trial. Mentally ill inmates are nearly always jailed for behaviors related to their illness. Nationally, they account for about one-sixth of the prison population.”<br />
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The introduction of mental illness adds a serious new dimension to sentencing – with the ratio of mentally ill prisoners apparently higher among three-strike lifers in California. According to a 2011 analysis of state data by Stanford Law School’s Three Strikes Project, nearly 40 percent of these inmates qualify as mentally ill and are receiving psychiatric services behind bars. <br />
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Even before the recent ballot initiative, “the clinic’s law students had overturned the life sentences of 26 people, based on newly discovered evidence or inadequate assistance of counsel, as when defense lawyers failed to present evidence of a client’s mental illness.” <br />
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Michael Romano, director of the Stanford project, said, “In my experience, every person who has been sentenced to life in prison for a nonserious, nonviolent crime like petty theft suffers from some kind of mental illness or impairment — from organic brain disorders, to schizophrenia, to mental retardation, to severe P.T.S.D.,” or post-traumatic stress disorder. Nearly all had been abused as children, he pointed out.” All had been homeless for extended periods, and many were illiterate. None had graduated from high school.” <br />
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He added, “In other words, these were discarded people who could be made to bear the brunt of this brutal law without risk of public backlash.”<br />
<br />
The Stanford Three Strikes Project is the only legal organization in the country devoted to representing individuals serving life sentences under California's Three Strikes law. The Project represents defendants charged under the Three Strikes law with minor, non-violent felonies at every stage of the criminal process: at trial, on appeal, and in state and federal post-conviction habeas corpus proceedings. The Project also works, on behalf of its clients in collaboration with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, to reform the harshest aspects of the Three Strikes law.<br />
<br />
The history of California’s 3-Strikes law is a nightmare of prison mismanagement. The Stanford Three Strikes Project is the only legal organization in the country devoted to representing individuals serving life sentences under California's Three Strikes law. <br />
<br />
The Project represents defendants charged under the Three Strikes law with minor, non-violent felonies at every stage of the criminal process: at trial, on appeal, and in state and federal post-conviction habeas corpus proceedings. The Project also works, on behalf of its clients in collaboration with the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, to reform the harshest aspects of the Three Strikes law. <br />
<br />
Brent Staples wrote in the New York Times: “Among the more horrifying cases investigated by the Three Strikes Project is that of 55-year-old Dale Curtis Gaines, who suffers from both mental retardation and mental illness. He has never committed a violent crime, but is serving a life sentence for receiving stolen property. His first two strikes, daytime burglaries of empty homes during which he was unarmed, appear to have involved thefts valued at little more than pocket change.”<br />
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Staples says, “According to court documents, Mr. Gaines’s early childhood was a nightmare, filled with the most savage forms of abuse. His grandmother, a primary care giver, is said to have beaten him when he urinated or defecated in bed — and forced him to eat his feces as punishment. Later, as often happens with mentally impaired adolescents, he began to skip school because he was ashamed that he could not keep up with his classmates. He was often homeless. While serving time for his second crime, he was diagnosed by the prison system itself as both mentally disabled and schizophrenic.”<br />
<br />
Staples adds: “He was clearly too impaired to help with his defense, and at one point simply put a blanket over his head and declined to speak to a doctor who was questioning him. His ability to read is comparable to that of a kindergartner.”<br />
<br />
The Times concludes: At the time of his third strike, for receiving stolen computer equipment, Mr. Gaines was getting Social Security and disability benefits because of mental illness and retardation. His mental health history, readily available in the prison record, would probably have been recognized as a mitigating factor and prevented him from being so harshly sentenced. <br />
<br />
But, according to court documents, his public defender presented no evidence about his disability. In 2010, 12 years after Mr. Gaines was convicted, the prosecutor who handled the case but by then had left the district attorney’s office wrote to him in prison, expressing regret and offering help if he wished to appeal. The Stanford students also noticed his case and are now trying to free him. <br />
Mr. Gaines’s story is not unique. The Times’ Staples says, “As more cases unfold in court, judges, lawyers and Californians should look back with shame at the injustice the state inflicted on a vulnerable population that often presented little or no danger to the public.” <br />
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Nor is California’s 3-strikes story unique. According to FindLaw.com, beginning in the early 1990s, states began to enact mandatory sentencing laws for repeat criminal offenders. These statutes came to be known as "three strikes laws," because they were invoked when offenders committed their third offense. <br />
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By 2003 over half the states and the federal government had enacted three strikes laws. The belief behind the laws was that getting career criminals off the streets was good public policy. However, the laws have their critics, who charge that sentences are often disproportionate to the crimes committed and that incarceration of three strikes inmates for 25 years to life would drive up correctional costs. Nevertheless, the U.S. Supreme Court has upheld three strikes laws and has rejected the argument that they amount to Cruel and Unusual Punishment.”<br />
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Washington state's legislature was the first to respond, passing its 3-strike legislation in 1993. The law mandates life in prison after conviction on any three of about 40 felonies, ranging from murder to robbery and vehicular assault. Defendants convicted under this law are not eligible for parole, nor may their sentence be suspended or shortened. <br />
<br />
California and 11 other states passed similar laws in 1994. Nine more states were added to the list a year later. By the year 2000 more than 24 states had adopted laws of their own.<br />
<br />
Georgia took matters a step further, enacting a "Two Strikes and You're Out" law. Felons convicted of the state's most serious crimes only twice are sentenced to life in prison without parole. Known as "the seven deadly sins," these crimes are murder, armed robbery, rape, kidnapping, aggravated Sodomy, aggravated Child Molestation, and aggravated sexual Battery.<br />
<br />
Despite their popularity in the early 1990s, the laws came under severe attack in the late 1990s. Four studies were largely responsible for driving the debate: one by the Rand Institute, one by the National Institute of Justice, one by the Justice Policy Institute, and one by the Campaign for Effective Crime Policy, a nonpartisan group comprised of wardens, prosecutors, and law enforcement officials.<br />
<br />
The studies revealed two kinds of results. In most states, little had changed. Washington had convicted 66 people under its 3-strike law. Arkansas had 12 convictions and Alaska, Connecticut, Louisiana, Maryland, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Vermont, and New Jersey had no more than six. Wisconsin had invoked its law only once, while no one in Utah, Virginia, Montana, Tennessee, New Mexico, or Colorado had ever been prosecuted for a third-strike offense. <br />
<br />
The results were vastly different in California and Georgia. Over 4,000 inmates in California are serving life sentences under the Three Strikes law for non-violent crimes. Past and current project clients have been given life sentences for minor offenses including stealing one dollar in loose change from a parked car, possessing less than a gram of narcotics, and attempting to break into a soup kitchen.<br />
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In addition the state also identified more than 40,000 second-strike offenders who would await such a sentence were they subsequently convicted for any one of roughly 500 crimes. <br />
<br />
Georgia had sent approximately 1,000 defendants to prison for life without parole under its two strikes law and identified another 1,000 offenders eligible for that fate were they to subsequently commit one of the "seven deadly sins."<br />
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And according to new research, California's controversial and costly three-strikes law has done nothing to deter crime despite expanding the state's prison population, according to a new study. In fact, violent crime began falling almost two years before the law was enacted in 1994, statistics show. The study pegs that the decrease in crime to lower alcohol consumption and unemployment, which was largely in decline before the current economic downturn.<br />
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These studies did more than arm opponents of 3-strike laws with evidence of disparate results. They suggested that the laws had been enforced more often against minority offenders than against white offenders. In California only 1,237 of the more than 4,800 defendants sentenced for a third strike were white; 2,138 were African American, 1,262 were Latino, and 201 were classified as "other." <br />
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The studies further indicated that these minority offenders were mostly being punished for nonviolent third strikes. Statistics demonstrated that more than twice as many defendants' third-strike offenses were for drug possession or petty theft as for murder, rape, or kidnapping. Some of these nonviolent third strikes included seemingly innocuous offenses, such as shoplifting, stealing packages of steak, and drinking alcohol at a liquor store without paying for it.<br />
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Though critics of the law were disappointed by the findings, they argued that the economic cost of incarcerating three strikes inmates may ultimately lead to the repeal of such laws. In California it will cost an estimated $700 million per year to incarcerate these offenders, and over a billion dollars to construct new prisons to house the escalating number of inmates. As the state contends with caring for an aging prison population it will be forced to decide whether it wants to allocate limited resources to maintain the three strikes law.<br />
Michael Romano, the Stanford University law professor who founded the Three Strikes Project, says many of the people sentenced to life are the homeless, guilty of petty theft or drug use. These convicts take up precious jail space and cost taxpayers millions, when their third strike might involve something as minor as stealing $20 worth of gloves from Home Depot or breaking into a parked car.<br />
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The nation’s 3-Strike laws are still with us. A few have undergone minor modifications over time. But as more research is completed, it appears clear is that they have helped drive prison costs off the charts, produced dangerous overcrowding, and continued to convict African Americans at a rate out of all proportion to the size of their race.<br />
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<strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-80684155349815982882013-01-11T22:42:00.001-05:002013-01-11T22:42:05.333-05:00John Brennan: The New Normal <br />
By William Fisher<br />
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I remember very clearly President Obama’s second full day in office in 2009, when he signed the executive order calling for the closure of the detention camp at the United States Naval Station at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba,<br />
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The excitement was palpable. It was a huge first step toward the ending of what the New York Times called “the grim emblem of President George W. Bush’s lawless policies of torture and detention.”<br />
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Those policies were our response to the terrorist attacks of 9/11. At home, “middle-Eastern-looking men” were swept up and jailed with no charges and no access to lawyers. Abroad, in a dozen countries, “suspected terrorists” were tagged ‘the worst of the worst’, captured or kidnapped and shipped to GITMO. “High value suspects” were disappeared to a network of secret overseas prisons run by the CIA, where they were held incommunicado and subjected to so-called “enhanced interrogation” techniques, i.e. waterboarding and other forms of torture.<br />
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The administration of George W. Bush found a seemingly endless trove of abuses. The abused found the courthouse doors locked. By invoking the so- called State Secrets Privilege, the government found a way to kill lawsuits brought by alleged victims of Bush’s anti-terrorism campaign. To date, not a single plaintiff in any of these lawsuits has had his day in a U.S. court.<br />
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Congress, too, did its part. It passed the USA Patriot Act, giving the government a wide range of new legal tools to use against those the government suspected of providing support to terrorist organizations. Secretly, President Bush authorized U.S. intelligence agencies to carry out ongoing surveillance of phone calls and emails originating in the U.S.<br />
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The effect was to create a second-tier justice system for Muslims only.<br />
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Now, with Obama in the White House, our country would pull itself out of its historic train wreck and back on the rails of law and justice. The world would once again respect America for its confidence in the rule of law.<br />
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Well, guess what happened to American civil liberties as we moved from Bush to Obama?<br />
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Things got worse.<br />
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First, those courageous men and women we elect to represent us in Congress decided that if the Obama Administration was allowed to bring Guantanamo prisoners to Federal Court in New York for trial, the city would be overrun with terrorists eating at McDonald’s or shopping at The Mall. Completely overlooked by our brave Representatives is the fact that dozens of men have been tried, convicted and sentenced as terrorists at that exact court in lower Manhattan.<br />
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No alleged victim of government counter-terror programs has yet to see his lawsuit survive.<br />
A second tier of justice has been fashioned by those charged with providing material support to terrorists. So bizarre has this become that an organization that has been trying to teach peaceful reconciliation techniques to Iraqi Kurds was convicted of providing material support to terrorists.<br />
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And today, the use of drone unmanned aircraft has been dramatically expanded. Targets may be citizens of anywhere or nowhere, including the U.S. Civilian deaths from drone strikes are categorized as collateral damage. A drone kill list has been put together for targeted assassinations. John Brennan runs this program.<br />
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Asked why no one was being held accountable for abuses committed by the U.S., Obama said he would rather look forward than backward and from that point on, we all knew that he (as they like to say in Washington) had doubled-down on a very bad bet.<br />
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What does all this have to do with John Brennan? Back in 2008, before Obama had taken office, the scuttlebutt around Washington was that Brennan was Obama’s choice to run the CIA.<br />
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As Glenn Greenwald noted in The Guardian, the pushback in 2008 “centered around the fact that Brennan, as a Bush-era CIA official, had expressly endorsed Bush's programs of torture, [with the exception of waterboarding] and rendition and also was a vocal advocate of immunizing lawbreaking telecoms for their role in the illegal Bush NSA eavesdropping program.”<br />
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“As a result, Greenwald writes, Brennan withdrew his name from consideration, issuing a bitter letter blaming ‘strong criticism in some quarters prompted by [his] previous service with the’ CIA.”<br />
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Obama then appointed him as his top counter-terrorism adviser, the job he has now. That job does not require Senate confirmation.<br />
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The point is that through the years of the Bush Administration and the first term of the Obama Administration, John Brennan was the White House ringmaster for the so-called war on terror. Today, his influence is even greater, since he is believed to be in charge of the drone “kill list” – identifying those slated for assassination.<br />
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And yet, the vast preponderance of Congressional and press comment on these two nominations has centered, not on Brennan, but on Chuck Hegel, the former Republican Senator, who is said by some to be anti-Israel, even anti-Semitic, principally because of his reference to “the Jewish lobby.”<br />
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Israelis must find this amusing. “Jewish lobby” is a phrase frequently used by the lobby itself. And the words used by the U.S. press to describe Hegel’s attitudes toward Israel must seem to the Israelis and their American Diaspora as children’s games. Israelis say much worse things about other Israelis than non-Israelis would ever dream of saying. But most of the U.S. Congress, perpetually running for reelection and running after campaign contributions, would likely be worried into silence by fear of retaliation.<br />
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So the paradox is that the political environment that was so hostile for Brennan in 2008, now makes him a valued defender of the Republic, while a far more practical defender takes all the heat.<br />
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Those of us who take this view are not naïve. We understand that intelligence agencies get involved in the darkest side of the world community. We understand that some secrets need to remain secret. But we also believe that “state secrets protected in the name of national security are the easiest to hide and hardest to question.<br />
The ACLU believes that the Senate should not proceed with John Brennan's nomination to head the CIA "until it assesses the legality of his actions in past leadership positions in the CIA during the early years of the George W. Bush administration and in his current role in the ongoing targeted killing program".<br />
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But, unfortunately, that would not be an assessment of John Brennan. It would be an assessment of the civil rights and civil liberties records of two presidents. And in these fields, both men would have been found to be abject failures.<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-2233139538725955112013-01-07T11:35:00.001-05:002013-01-07T11:35:38.604-05:00Our New Double-Standard for Justice<br />
By Bill Fisher<br />
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I received an urgent email last week from Khalil Meek, the Executive Director of the Muslim Legal Fund of America (MLFA).<br />
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What Khalil was busting out to tell me (and hopefully several thousand others) was Glenn Greenwald’s conclusion that a New York Court of Appeals case containing “a fascinating new ruling (that) unwittingly illustrates the separate system of 'justice' invented for Muslims in the US after 9/11."<br />
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Intriguing, right? Read on! <br />
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The case involved a “gang-related murder trial in which prosecutors charged the defendant with terrorism. The alleged gang member was convicted, but the New York Court of Appeals completely threw out the terrorism and non-terrorism convictions because, they said:<br />
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· Terrorism charges do not apply because the defendant and his acts do not meet the ‘collective understanding’ of what terrorism is (in other words "violence committed by Arabs or Muslims against the west"), and <br />
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· Trials that involve terrorism charges allow for otherwise inadmissible evidence that prejudices juries in favor of the prosecution (in other words, terrorism trials are rigged to be unfair, to deny Muslims their legal rights, and to ease the way for convictions).” <br />
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Got that? Once more, with feeling:<br />
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“We now have it on the books: terrorism charges are reserved primarily for Muslims, and the rules of trials involving terrorism charges are different than non-terrorism trials -- the main difference being that terrorism trials are designed to be unfair so that prosecutors can easily get convictions.”<br />
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Is this true? Most non-lawyers – and many lawyers – remain unaware that this metamorphosis is taking place “in plain sight.” Here’s proof:<br />
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Listen to the editorial page editor of The New York Times, Andrew Rosenthal, writing about Liberty and Justice. <br />
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He says, "It's rarely acknowledged that the 9/11 attacks have also led to what's essentially a separate justice system for Muslims. In this system, the principle of due process is twisted and selectively applied, if it is applied at all." <br />
In order to understand the significance of this case, it’s necessary to get down in the weeds a bit. Here’s how the New York Times presented it:<br />
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“Last month, New York State’s highest court ruled that the Bronx district attorney’s office erred in trying to use a state terrorism charge to prosecute street gangs. <br />
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The Bronx district attorney, had “argued that Mr. Morales’s gang, the St. James Boys, met the somewhat vague definition of ‘terror’ in the state statute because it sought to intimidate or coerce the entire Mexican-American population around St. James Park. <br />
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“In a unanimous decision, the six judges on the top court ruled that adopting the prosecution’s broad definition would allow other prosecutors to ‘invoke the specter of terrorism’ every time a Blood assaults a Crip or an organized crime family orchestrates the murder of a rival syndicate’s soldier. <br />
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But the judges ruled that the concept of terrorism “has a unique meaning and its implications risk being trivialized if the terminology is applied loosely in situations that do not match our collective understanding of what constitutes a terrorist act.”<br />
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So what definition of ‘terrorism’is this court using? Well, it never does say. It simply says, ‘we have looked at the crime and it is not terrorism.”<br />
Which tracks the never-to-be-forgotten words of Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart in 1978. When asked in an obscenity case, ‘What is porn?’ Justice Potter simply said, ‘I know it when I see it.”<br />
Gabor Rona, the International Legal Director of advocacy group Human Rights First, provides another nail in the coffin of due process. He says, “One pernicious aspect of prosecutions these days is that terrorism charges are increasingly being used for things that are not terrorism, in order to inflame juries. What makes this easy is the flexible definition of terrorism used in the criminal justice system.<br />
“It takes a garden variety crime, say assault or murder, and turns it into something even more frightening by reference to the motive of the accused, rather than the act, itself. Even more attenuated from a balanced view of reality and justice is the leverage prosecutors have to charge conspiracy to commit terrorism, which, like all conspiracy charges, does not require any underlying crime to have been committed at all. <br />
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“This phenomenon is not limited to Muslim and Arab targets. Indeed, the ever-expansive use of terrorism in the prosecutor's toolbox, be it in the form of terrorism itself, conspiracy to commit terrorism, or "material support" to terrorism, puts virtually any political activism in the crosshairs of law enforcement. <br />
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“Fear of Muslims and Arabs may have given rise to this phenomenon, but authorities have successfully capitalized on it to take down tree huggers and to justify intrusive investigations of Occupy Movement activists. <br />
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“But another, equally disturbing manifestation of the creeping security state does involve mostly Muslims and Arabs. It's the disintegration of constitutional protections against entrapment. <br />
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“In theory, the law has not changed and the successful entrapment defense has always been rare. The government can supply virtually everything -- encouragement, incentives, materials, training, facilities -- to facilitate the crime, and still get a conviction. But it does have to prove that the accused was ‘pre-disposed’ to commit the crime. Even more than ‘motive’, predisposition is an amorphous concept, easily manipulated to prey on the fears and prejudices of juries who most certainly are not the ‘peers’ of the accused.<br />
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His conclusion is that ”prejudice does play an important role in the disintegration of due process, but once prosecutors hit upon a shiny new tool, they will naturally seek to expand its use wherever and whenever they can. To dial back this trend is virtually impossible at any time, let alone one where few judges or legislators can expect to survive the accusation: ‘soft on terrorism’."<br />
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Kathy Manley is an Albany (NY) Criminal defense attorney and the VP of the Capital Region Chapter of the NYCLU. <br />
“By saying, as the NY court did, that ‘we know terrorism when we see it’, and then giving as examples cases involving Muslims, the decision shows this very clearly,” she says. <br />
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“I think the court reached the right result here, but unintentionally made the double standard in the Muslim cases extremely clear,” she added. <br />
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“The case of my client, Yassin Aref, is a similar story but like so many other Muslim cases, it involved a sting operation,” she said. “A Kurdish Iraqi imam, Yassin came to Albany, NY as a UN refugee, and was soon targeted by the FBI for some reason. (As he discovered through a recent FOIA request, it appears they had him mixed up with an Al Qaeda operative who was later killed in 2010, after which Yassin was moved to a low security prison for the first time.)<br />
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“They sent a criminal con artist – Shahed Hussain, also used in the Newburgh 4 case - to befriend a co-founder of the mosque where Yassin was imam. This man, Mohammed Hossain, ran a struggling pizza business and needed money, so he was happy to be offered a loan by the provocateur, who said he was a rich importer who wanted to help his Muslim brothers. At one point he showed Mohammed a missile tube and said this was one of the things he imported. Mohammed was shocked and refused to help transport the missile, but he didn’t think it was connected to his loan, and he still wanted the money. <br />
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“Yassin was only brought in to witness the loan transaction as set forth in the Quran, something he often did for mosque members, who couldn’t use banks because their religious beliefs forbade them from paying or charging interest. <br />
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“Yassin never saw the missile, and had no idea the loan he was witnessing was connected to terrorism. The government recorded 50 hours of conversations between the three men, and Yassin never said anything showing he understood this. Yet, because he was charged with material support for terrorism, the government was able to bring into his 2006 trial Yassin’s 1999 diary and some speeches he made in Iraq in 1994, both of which showed Yassin’s Islamist beliefs and contained criticisms of the West as immoral.<br />
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’While nothing there connected Yassin to terrorism, the evidence was damning in the post-911 environment of Islamophobia. Worse, there was a mountain of secret evidence (likely the erroneous FBI reports alleging Yassin was a member of Al Qaeda) which was all given to the judge, but which even the security cleared defense attorneys were not permitted to see. This resulted in the judge telling the jury that the government had “good and valid reasons” for targeting Yassin. While acquitting him of most of the charges, I believe the jury was afraid to let him go completely, and convicted him of a few charges.<br />
“As for what can be done, there needs to be much more awareness of all this, and how it is destroying innocent families and terrorizing the Muslim community. The government strategy is spreading beyond Muslims too, as we have seen sting operations used against Occupy and peace activists, who have also been targeted in material support for terrorism investigations. <br />
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“Such abuses always begin by targeting the most vulnerable and, if not stopped there, they are applied to others and eventually to everyone. Professor Francis A. Boyle, the firebrand law professor from the University of Illinois, summed up the situation this way:<br />
<strong><em>In post 9/11 America, if you are an Arab or a Muslim facing a terrorism charge, the American legal system functionally presumes you to be guilty as charged instead of innocent as constitutionally required.</em></strong><br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-71513085929371594192013-01-03T12:33:00.001-05:002013-01-03T12:33:00.939-05:00Afghanistan: The Abyss Deepens<br />
By Bill Fisher<br />
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Speaking to the press just before Christmas, President Obama confidently predicted that the US would achieve its goals in the Afghan War effort.<br />
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Following the release of the US annual strategy review which noted an increase in attacks by the Taliban and groups with which it is allied, the review said that al-Qaeda's leadership was at its weakest since 2001.<br />
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The President has said on numerous occasions that US-NATO strategy is working, despite the view of many senior US diplomats and journalists that Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karzai is “increasingly erratic and even paranoid.” The Karzai government has done little to stem years of charges of financial corruption and election misconduct.<br />
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One of those US senior diplomats is Anthony H. Cordesman, the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the prestigious Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). Cordesman has emerged as one of the harshest critics of the Afghan operation. In a report entitled “Going in Transition: US Military and Aid Spending: FY2002-2013,” he has estimated that at the end of 2013 – the announced date for the completion of the US and NATO – these Afghan allies will have spent $641.7 billion.<br />
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Cordesman says, “This is an incredible amount of money to have spent with so few controls, so few plans, so little auditing, and almost no credible measures of effectiveness.”<br />
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It is surprisingly difficult to get a meaningful estimate of the total cost of the Afghan conflict, total spending on Afghan forces and total spending on various forms of aid. <br />
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The Cordesman report addresses the cost to the US of the Afghan War from FY2000-FY2013. It provides estimates of total cost, cost to the Department of Defense, and aid costs to State, USAID, and other federal agencies. It also reports on the total cost of international aid when this takes the form of integrated aid to Afghan development and Afghan forces – a fraction of total aid spending. <br />
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No reliable estimate exists of total international aid to Afghanistan, since so much of this aid has been direct and has not passed through the Afghan Central government.<br />
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The resulting figures show that:<br />
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· The vast majority of aid went to the Afghan security forces and not development. President Obama has consistently stressed the importance of economic development in Afghanistan, while denying that “nation-building” was a major US objective.<br />
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· Most aid was very erratic in annual levels of effort, making it extremely difficult to plan the most effective use of the money and ensuring that program continuity was not possible.<br />
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· The bulk of the total spending and aid has been allocated since FY2009, and came after the insurgency had reached high levels. It is a clear case of too much, too late.<br />
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· The surge in aid spending creates the irony that the maximum actual cash flow – “disbursements” – is only occurring now that transition is in place and major cuts are coming between 2012 and 2014.<br />
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· The data only tell the amount of money made available on a total category basis. They do not tell how much money actually reached Afghanistan, they do not tie spending to any clear objectives, they do not reflect any effective contracting and auditing system, and there are no measures of effectiveness or success.<br />
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· Not only did the money come far too late to prevent the rise of a major insurgency, when it did come, it came in areas where there were no effective overall planning, management, and contacting systems. No adequate fiscal controls, and no real measures of effectiveness. The system virtually invited waste, fraud, and abuse.<br />
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It is important to note that reforms have taken place in many areas of contracting, and there is now better auditing. The Afghan government has also promised important reforms in its control of spending and efforts to reduce corruption. <br />
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A total of $641.7 billion, of which $198.2 billion – or over 30% – will be spent in FY2012 and FY2013. This is an incredible amount of money to have spent with so few controls, so few plans, so little auditing, and almost no credible measures of effectiveness.<br />
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It is also clear that the end effect has been to sharply raise the threshold of corruption in Afghanistan, to make transition planning far more difficult, and raise the risk that sudden funding cuts will undermine the Afghan government’s ability to maintain a viable economy and effective security forces.<br />
Four sets of funds are involved with a total value of $58.6 billion in appropriations and pledges as of March 2012. The largest is the US Afghanistan Security Forces Fund (ASFF) that provides the ANSF with equipment, supplies, services, and training, as well as facility and infrastructure repair, renovation, and construction. <br />
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Meantime, a separate audit by the State Department's Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR), reported little change in the cavalcade of management disasters that has plagued the Afghan operation since its inception. <br />
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SIGAR reported that “almost $13 million in equipment designed to upgrade Afghanistan's creaking power grid has been left mothballed in storage for lack of an installation plan.”<br />
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In addition, the agency discovered that a contractor was paid $5.76 million to help the Afghan national power utility, but most of the work was never carried out.<br />
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"Almost $12.8 million in equipment purchased to meet urgent needs in support of the counterinsurgency strategy is sitting unused in storage... without a clear plan for installation," said the report by Inspector General John Sopko.<br />
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The equipment was dispatched in March, but has been stored at a US Army Corps of Engineers base in the southern city of Kandahar on wooden palettes as they ponder what to do with it, pending a clear installation plan.<br />
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A further concern is that the manufacturer's two-year warranty on the electricity meters could run out before the equipment is installed.<br />
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Sopko said in a letter to General John Allen, the top US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, that he had audited US efforts to help the Afghan power utility.<br />
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He also highlighted that millions of dollars were paid to contractor Louis Berger Group Inc/Black & Veatch to provide training and technical assistance to the utility.<br />
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But 76 percent of the work was never completed, including "a draft and final meter installation plan, procurement and installation of 231 boundary meters, and a transition manual and handover plan."<br />
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The two findings "warrant immediate attention prior to issuing a final report in early 2013," Sopko wrote.<br />
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Since 2009, the US has spent some $88 million to help improve and modernize the Afghan power grid, and a further $157 million are pledged between 2013-2016.<br />
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Afghanistan, which never had a fully developed power grid, is trying to rebuild after more than three decades of war.<br />
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The SIGAR report recommended that US commanders determine whether the equipment can be used in Kandahar, and draw up a plan.<br />
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It said the head of the US Agency for International Development mission in Afghanistan should assess the work done by the contractor LBG/BV and seek any reimbursement of funds due.<br />
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Finally, Paul D. Shinkman, a national security reporter at U.S. News & World Report, predicted that the facilities for security in Afghanistan will not last after allied drawdown. Afghanistan won't be ready to maintain the infrastructure for its security forces following the kind of drawdown that both candidates for president prescribe, his report finds.<br />
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He writes that “a low hiring rate, few technical skills, an inefficient procurement process and a lack of preparedness are among the reasons the U.S. Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction believes that country won't be able to operate and maintain its own security forces' facilities after the U.S. and coalition troops begin withdrawing in 2014.”<br />
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Shinkman writes that his report follows up on the $800 million the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers gave a firm named Exelis, a Virginia-based contractor, in 2010, to ensure Afghan security forces in both the northern and southern parts of the country would be able to maintain their facilities.<br />
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In a memo included in the report, the corps officials state Exelis was not performing sufficient quality control on the services it was contracted to supply.<br />
The Afghan government has hired far less than 40 percent of its positions for operations and management, or O&M, of security facilities, according to the report. Apparently a discrepancy in salary between these positions and those in the private sector are to blame for the lack of interest.<br />
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There are also very few people who have the technical skills necessary to maintain these facilities, such as managing drinking water, wastewater and power generation.<br />
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The government's Ministry of Defense has been dragging its feet on providing its army with supplies, the report states, and the Ministry of the Interior did not allocate O&M money for police facilities until March of this year.<br />
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Exelis was hiring a project operations manager in support of this project in Afghanistan as of Oct. 16 to oversee 258 separate contract locations in the northern region of Afghanistan, as well as 2,400 employees and subcontractors. <br />
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The stability of Afghanistan's security forces is a central tenet of American hopes to withdraw its troops within two years. The current condition of those forces leaves some worried for the future.<br />
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"There are police who don't even know the meaning of the word 'police,'" said the National Police Academy's director Mullah Dad Pazoish in a recent interview with the Associated Press. "We have generals who have no training. They are the jihadi commanders."<br />
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Many worry that the police force, which is largely illiterate, will fall apart if Western forces leave, Shinkman reports.<br />
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All of which brings to mind the probably apocryphal question said to have been raised by a Russian soldier as his forces withdrew from Afghanistan in 1988-89.”<br />
“What,” he asked, “were we supposed to be doing here anyway?”<br />
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<strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-17875469801330383692012-12-12T21:11:00.001-05:002012-12-12T21:15:16.739-05:00The Good News ColumnEvery year at about this time, I hear from a small group of readers who follow my columns on the Web. And every year, their message is the same: “Can’t you find some good news to write about?”<br />
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God knows, they’re entitled. Virtually everything I write deals with death, destruction and mayhem. Most of my tales expose the darkest side of the human species.<br />
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Nevertheless, I promise my readers that I will give some thought to their suggestion. And I do. But I never seem to come up with enough good-enough news to fill a good news column. For me, good-enough news would be something like a lasting peace deal between the Israelis and the Palestinians.<br />
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The bottom line is I fail. And one way I can think of to avoid that embarrassment is to ask readers what’s happening in the world that’s giving them hope. <br />
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So I did. And here’s some of what a few of them told me. <br />
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Their responses trended toward the sociopolitical and ran the gamut from democratization in Myanmar to ongoing protest in Egypt, from immigration to the U.S. to what young people are doing in terms of creative expression, from this nation's unmatched proclivity to innovate to embrace of same-sex marriage to “we can learn to love.”<br />
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Here are a few of those comments in their author’s own words:<br />
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<strong>Peter M. Shane, who teaches law at Ohio State</strong>, wrote: There is “a lot happening in the political world that gives me cause to feel good -- e.g., democratization in Myanmar, elections in Sierra Leone, ongoing protest in Egypt, blogging in China, the global rise in standards of living. <br />
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“We live in a time, of course, where every proclamation of hope can be met with a response of, ‘Yes, but . . .,’ but we shouldn't let our anxieties blind us when good things develop. <br />
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“Immigration to the U.S., for example, is good, and what the Obama Administration is doing to take the pressure off young undocumented immigrants is good. The rapid pace of change in social attitudes towards gays and lesbians is good. Getting millions more Americans on health insurance plans is good. <br />
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“When I really need a big dose of hopefulness, I focus on what young people are doing in terms of creative expression, journalism, political mobilization -- everything -- with the mind-blowing toolbox of new digital information and communication technologies. <br />
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“A lesson I take from the 2012 election is that people are tired of professional politicians' expectations for their passivity, and new technologies are enabling us to engage in the public sphere with a much greater reach -- think about how many more readers you reach than I.F. Stone! Isn't that amazing? For all these reasons, I feel very good, indeed.” <br />
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<strong>Kevin R. Johnson, who is Dean of the law school at the University of California at Davis</strong>, notes that he is “not particularly known for optimism” but is “happy about the chances for Congress to enact comprehensive immigration reform. Indeed, the time, I believe, is now for such reform, which could have a positive impact on millions of people in the United States. <br />
“The last decade has been rather depressing when it comes to immigration and possible reform. The shadow of September 11 influenced any and all discussion of immigration and the national mantra becomes something like border "enforcement now, enforcement forever", to paraphrase Alabama Governor George Wallace's defense of segregation. <br />
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“In an attempt to secure Republican support for meaningful reform, the Obama administration deported more immigrants than any administration in U.S. history, close to 400,000 in fiscal years 2011 and 2011. <br />
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“Here is why I am happy about the chances that immigration reform might pass: <br />
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1. Reelection of a President committed to reform; <br />
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2. Rejection overwhelming by Latinos of a Republican candidate who -- to attract the base -- claimed in the primaries that he endorsed "self-deportation," would promote enforcement, would not sign into law the DREAM Act; and <br />
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3. The realization by Republicans that to be relevant in future elections they had to attract Latino/a voters, not alienate Latina/os by demonizing Latina/os and immigrants, and enact some kind of immigration reform.<br />
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Then along came <strong>Lu (for Ludwig) Rudel</strong>, who built a successful business career atop 25 distinguished years in the US Foreign Service. Lu admitted to being “very thankful for a lot of things” but “that does not mean I am optimistic about the future. In fact, I am probably less optimistic than you are.”<br />
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Lu goes on: “I share your admiration of the Constitutional protection afforded to us from public authority. I share your recognition and thankfulness for our Rule of Law (notwithstanding all of the "lawyer jokes" that are out there).<br />
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“But I also feel gratitude for those gun-slinging enforcers who are protecting me from hostiles both overseas and within our borders. That includes our military, Customs and Immigration and the Border Patrol as well as the local police. They deserve my thanks and support even when a few rotten apples abuse their mandate.<br />
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“I am a legal immigrant that was allowed to escape to these shores during the Holocaust. In the words of Mark Rubio, I ‘was given a chance...’ by this country to get a free education, to become a citizen, to serve in the military during the Korean War, to serve in the Foreign Service for 25 years and then to build a business that made a profit. That is a great deal in one lifetime for which I give much thanks.<br />
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“There are many challenges to the continued growth of this society and I am not optimistic that the present political system is suited to allow our society to meet these challenges effectively, in large part because we tend vilify our institutions every time we note that they are not perfect. <br />
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“I believe the right to vote needs to be earned. A citizen needs to show that he/she has qualifications (in the sense that the voter has enough knowledge) to make an informed selection. And those who do not vote should be fined (as is done in Australia).<br />
“I have little respect for those who ‘game the systems’ that have been put in place by the citizens of this country, to gain an undeserved benefit. <br />
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“Whatever hope there is for our future rests with this nation's unmatched proclivity to innovate. Those who dwell in this country enjoy a wonderful ‘risk to reward ratio’. I hope it remains so. We are an adventurous lot. <br />
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“I can think of no other nation on this planet where I would prefer to reside.”<br />
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<strong>Col. Morris D. ‘Moe’ Davis (Ret.)</strong> was a US Air Force officer and lawyer, was appointed to serve as the third Chief Prosecutor in the Guantanamo military commissions. In October 2007 Colonel Davis resigned from his position as Chief Prosecutor and became the Head of the Air Force Judiciary, hours after he was informed that controversial General Counsel William Haynes ll would be his superior. Davis said, , "The guy who said waterboarding is A-okay I was not going to take orders from. I quit.” Since his resignation. Moe has frequently spoken out against the Commissions. <br />
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Here’s what keeps him optimistic:<br />
<br />
“When I think about what gives me hope, two people and two groups come to mind.<br />
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“New York City Police Officer Lawrence DePrimo bought a pair of boots for a man out on the street with bare feet on a cold night. A lot of people will do the right thing when they know others are looking and they’ll get credit for their good deeds. <br />
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“I think it says a lot about a person’s character when he does the right thing when he has no idea anyone is paying attention. The world would be a better place if more of us acted like Officer DePrimo.<br />
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“Malala Yousufzai refused to let Taliban extremists stop her from advocating for education for girls in Pakistan and all a coward’s bullet could do was to galvanize support for her efforts. <br />
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“Too many of us just lay and down and offer up our liberties when the fear-mongers tell us it’s for our safety and security. More of us need to have the courage of a teenage girl to stand up to fear and march on. We say we’re the Home of the Brave; we ought to act like it….<br />
<br />
“I see examples of compassion, courage, commitment and enthusiasm – the kinds of positive examples that are often drowned out by all the bad news we face on a daily basis – and I think there is room for hope for the future. As long as there are those kinds of people out there I’m not going to give up.”<br />
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Prof. Lawrence Davidson teaches history at West Chester University in West Chester PA. An expert on Middle East history and politics, he is also a prolific writer. <br />
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Here’s his take on keeping optimistic:<br />
<br />
“The foibles of leaders and their institutions, and the willingness of a vast majority of people to support these, have existed for thousands of years. It is not going to change now. Nonetheless, one must struggle against the violence and injustice that inevitably results. In doing so one achieves personnel victory and a real sense of worth. So the struggle becomes its own good news. Also, I find the debating aspect of this struggle (now mostly done through the weblog) to be fun. It is a bit odd, but it works for me. <br />
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“I also happen to have a rather dark sense of humor. Often I find the pronouncements of our leaders to be ahistorical, illogical, pathetic and funny all at once. Of course the funny side doesn't work when considering invasions of Gaza or drone murders, but sometimes it applies to the often ridiculous efforts made to rationalize these actions. Again, this may be a bit crazy, but you need a little bit of zaniness to get by.“<br />
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Simultaneously pathetic and funny comes as no surprise to <strong>Dr. Jack N. Behrman</strong>, one of the world’s most respected economists, a senior official in the J.F. Kennedy Administration (where he was my boss), and Chairman of the MBA Program and Associate Dean of the Faculty at the University of North Carolina.<br />
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Jack reminds us that “Good News consists of focusing on those near and dear. A society is built on relationships, and the closer they are the more pleasure and joy is created out of the love of others.<br />
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“On a more expanded world scene, while there is the potential for many and varied relationships, it appears that the major thrust is to gain materially from the others -- a sadness. <br />
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“But, this orientation is contradicted when disasters occur, as with Sandy and the Japanese Tsunami -- then we see love and sharing pouring out. So, there is a fundamental social cohesion, but not enough love and compassion during ‘normal times’. We can learn to love, though, so some optimism is warranted.”<br />
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As the provocateur of all these sentiments, I hope I have earned the right to say that “we can learn to love” is the most optimistic – and hopeful -- statement on this page. If all of us work to that end, next year’s good news column will be easier to write.<br />
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<strong></strong>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-87405867956915666492012-12-10T17:08:00.001-05:002012-12-10T17:08:16.555-05:00To Hell with the Intelligence -- an AnalysisBy Lawrence Davidson<br />
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<strong><span style="color: red;">Part I - Magdulien Abaida and the Real Libya</span></strong><br />
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On 3 December 2012, BBC News reported on the plight of Libyan activist Magdulien Abaida. When the Libyan revolution broke out in Benghazi back in February 2011, she played an important part in developing a positive image of the revolt among European audiences and helped arrange material aid for the rebel forces. She did this against the backdrop of Western governments describing the rebellion as one that sought “democratic rights” for the Libyan people. Upon the collapse of the Qaddafi regime, the U.S. State Department issued a statement (2 November 2012) applauding the rebel victory as a “milestone” in the country’s “democratic transition." This matched Ms Abaida’s expectations. Unfortunately, her subsequent experience belied the optimism.<br />
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With the rebel victory in October 2011, Abaida returned to Libya to help with the “democratic transition” and promote her particular cause of women’s rights. However, what she found in her homeland was chaos. The tribalism that underlies social organization in Libya had come to the fore. According to Amnesty International, that tribalism is reflected in the activities of “armed militias...acting completely out of control....There are hundreds of them across the country, arresting people without warrant, detaining them incommunicado, and torturing them....This is all happening while the government is unwilling or unable to rein the militias in.”<br />
Abaida adds that “during the revolution everyone was united, all were working together.” That, of course, was when many of the tribes had a common enemy–the Qaddafi regime. Now the common enemy was gone. As it turned out, Qaddafi’s dictatorship had served for 41 years as a center of gravity–a center that kept the centrifugal tribal forces in check. The National Transitional Council (NTC) that took over after the defeat of the regime and the parliamentary elections that followed, were supposed to fill the void. They proved insufficient to the task. Ms. Abaida and her cause has now become a victim of that failure.<br />
Upon her return she advocated for gender equality to be incorporated into any new Libyan constitution. She never had a chance. The tribes are tied to traditions that are strongly patriarchal. Also, the chaotic nature of post-revolution Libyan politics allowed free play to extremist Islamic forces that saw gender equality as a Western perversion. In October 2011, Mustafa Abdul Jalil, “the internationally-known face of the revolution and head of the rebels’ NTC used his first public speech after the fall of Gaddafi (sic) to propose making it easier for men to have more than one wife.” For Ms Abaida this was a “big shock....We wanted more rights, not to destroy the rights of half of society.”<br />
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Worse was yet to come. When Abaida came to Benghazi in the summer of 2012 to attend a conference on the status of women in the new Libya, she was twice abducted by an extremist militia that saw her and the conference as anti-Islamic. During her abduction she was pointedly told that she could be killed and “nobody would know.” But they did not kill her. They just beat her up and turned her loose. She was left with the strong impression that, if she stayed politically active in Libya, she would indeed die and no one would know.<br />
<span style="color: red;">Part II – Rush to Judgment</span><br />
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Was what happened to Ms Abaida’s predictable? Or, to put it more broadly, could those Western leaders who spent billions of taxpayer dollars assisting in the “liberation” of Libya have predicted, with reasonably high probability, that victory for the rebels would result in political breakdown and the empowerment of extremist groups such as the one that kidnaped and assaulted Magdulien Abaida? I think that the answer to this is yes. Indeed, I suspect that the prediction was actually made yet ignored by the powers that be.<br />
U.S. intelligence services such as the CIA, and their equivalents in other countries, have middle level professionals who know a great deal about almost every country in the world. They know the languages, read the local newspapers, listen to the radio and television stations, and have other sources of information that come through diplomatic and private channels. When it comes to Libya, it is beyond doubt that the relevant intelligence workers knew the nature of this society and the divergent tribal forces that had been so long kept in check by the Qaddafi dictatorship. It is also beyond doubt that, at this country-specific level, operatives in these intelligence agencies knew and were reporting about the relative strengths and weaknesses of extremist religious elements held in check by the regime. The normal routine is to pass such intelligence up a hierarchical bureaucratic channel. The information deemed important enough is then packaged into daily updated reports that end up, in the case of the U.S., with the president and his national security staff. Again, in the face of a serious rebellion against Qaddafi, it is more than reasonable to assume such information did get that far.<br />
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Yet, it would seem that such information caused no serious second thoughts about quickly jumping into the fray and backing the rebellion. Even with the historic consequences of our having armed al-Qaeda and similar groups during the Afghan-Soviet war, it does not appear that anyone in authority stopped long enough to ask if the U.S. might risk repeating this mistake in Libya. Instead, Washington and its allies rallied NATO, rammed through a UN resolution that allowed intervention and, in short order, was aiding and abetting the rebellion. One of the ways it did this was in supplying an almost unlimited amount of weapons to rebel forces through a conduit set up by Qatar. No one paid attention to just whom the Qataris were giving the guns to. Sure enough, some of them were given to al-Qaeda like elements.<br />
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Thus, the move to get involved in Libya occurred very quickly. The allure of destroying Muammar Qaddafi, who had for so long been the bete noir of the U.S. (though for the past few years he had reversed policy and cooperated with the West), must have been just too strong. Even Italy, which had found the Qaddafi government a dependable economic partner and secure source of affordable oil, dropped its support of the regime without much protest. In the rush to judgment, the question of who might gain power afterwards was, apparently, left to the middle echelon intelligence agents to worry about.<br />
Now Qaddafi is gone, murdered to the acclaim of Hillary Clinton, and the tribal warlords and their militias have largely taken his place. The central government in Libya is weak and, under the present conditions, has little real chance of reigning them in. The aggressive extremists have our guns, as well as Qaddafi's, and some of them are probably migrating to Syria to carry on their battle. As for Magdulien Abaida, she is too afraid to return to the land she tried so diligently to help.<br />
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<span style="color: red;">Part III – Conclusion</span><br />
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As intelligence agencies go, the CIA and its like are fairly good at collecting information, analyzing it, and rendering reasoned judgments as to its meaning. (They can be, of course, utterly evil when it comes to killing and torturing, but that is not the “mission” I am presently speaking of). Usually, the advice rendered by the middle level folks who do the analyzing and reporting errs on the side of caution. The problem is the political leaders all too often ignore the intelligence reports when they don’t fit with their political goals. Those goals reflect ideological and electoral concerns as well as the need to appear to be acting in strong and determined ways–more assertive protectors of “freedom” than their competitors in the opposition party. This works to make presidents and prime ministers prone to opportunism and short-sightedness. Thus, the rush to judgment in Iraq, in Libya, and maybe soon in Iran. In the end, Washington has repeatedly proven that Mark Twain was wrong when he asserted “all you need in this life is ignorance and confidence, then success is sure.”<br />
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__________________________________________________________________________________<br />
Lawrence Davidson is a professor of History at West Chester University in West Chester, Pa. His work is reproduced here with permission.<br />
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=Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08751070111937957444noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5840053.post-52492242536967015472012-12-04T13:44:00.001-05:002012-12-04T13:44:13.803-05:00How Does This Federal Judge Sleep at Night?<br />
Today’s subject is “how to waste money and inflict maximum pain by locking up non-violent drug users for painfully long jail sentences.”<br />
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So let’s get right to it.<br />
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The Nation writes about a representative case in point involving a young woman named Sabrina Giles. Sabrina was 22 years old in 2004 and was sentenced to 12 years in prison for Conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute over 50 grams of meth; and possession with intent to distribute over five grams of meth. <br />
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The Nation, in its introduction to an article, writes that Sabrina’s parents fought often during her childhood, and frequently their arguments would lead to physical violence. They divorced after Sabrina’s father was incarcerated for trafficking marijuana. Her mother worked hard cleaning motel rooms to provide for Sabrina. <br />
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The article is by Federal District Judge Mark W. Bennett, and reading it will make you angry and break your heart. This is not some aberration the Judge trotted out as some kind of an editorial zinger. This description of Sabrina’s tragic journey through our broken criminal justice system was written by the man who reluctantly meted out her sentence. It appeared in the November 12, 2012, edition of The Nation. Judge Bennett was appointed by President Clinton.<br />
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There is a second reason Judge Bennett’s article is remarkable. That’s because only a tiny handful of sitting Federal Judges have spoken out publicly on the injustice of mandatory minimum sentences. In doing so, Judge Bennett has shown unusual courage and no doubt earned the enmity of those who think mandatory minimums are solving our drug problem.<br />
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Judge Bennett tells us that Sabrina’s battle with substance abuse began at age 12 when she started smoking marijuana. In tenth grade she became pregnant and dropped out of school. The father of Sabrina’s child was extremely abusive and is currently incarcerated. <br />
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When Sabrina was 19-years-old, she fell in love with a man 13 years her senior. He was a known methamphetamine dealer in New Mexico and introduced the drug to Sabrina. <br />
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On April 30, 2002, police officers went to Sabrina’s home to arrest the man -- he had been living with her since his release from jail three days earlier. Moments before police took him into custody; the man placed 0.79 grams of methamphetamine into Sabrina’s waistband as he hugged her. The police confiscated it, along with 49.95 grams of methamphetamine, 21.1 grams of marijuana, a handgun and her boyfriend’s drug ledger. Sabrina, a single mother, kept the gun for protection. Police arrested Sabrina along with her boyfriend. <br />
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Judge Bennett writes that Sabrina pled guilty and was held accountable for between 500 grams and 1.5 kilograms of methamphetamine. Though the sentencing guidelines proscribed a term of 70 to 87 months in prison, the charges against Sabrina carry a ten-year mandatory minimum. Sabrina’s probation officer took into account the detrimental impact her incarceration would have on her family and asked the Court for mercy.<br />
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Instead, “The government threatened Sabrina with an additional five-year mandatory minimum for the handgun, but agreed to a plea bargain of 12 years in federal prison”, Judge Bennett wrote. <br />
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Thus, a minor participant in the offense, with no criminal record, received just three years less than her boyfriend, a drug dealer who had experienced many run-ins with the law, Judge Bennett says. <br />
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He comments that, “During her incarceration, Sabrina has dedicated herself to turning her life round. She works hard at her prison job and maintains a positive attitude. Sabrina’s mother currently cares for Sabrina’s young daughter and is very supportive of Sabrina.”<br />
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This is a description of what’s actually happening in the country that has more people in jail than any other country in the world. – about 2.26 million at last count, year-end 2010. In addition, there were 70,792 juveniles in juvenile detention in 2010. <br />
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In 2008 approximately one in every 31 adults (7.3 million) in the United States was behind bars, or being monitored (probation and parole). In 2008 the breakdown for adults under correctional control was as follows: one out of 18 men, one in 89 women, one in 11 African-Americans (9.2 percent), one in 27 Latinos (3.7 percent), and one in 45 Caucasians (2.2 percent). Crime rates have declined by about 25 percent from 1988-2008. 70% of prisoners in the United States are non-whites. In recent decades the U.S. has experienced a surge in its prison population, quadrupling since 1980, partially as a result of mandatory sentencing that came about during the "war on drugs." Violent crime and property crime have declined since the early 1990s. <br />
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In addition, there were 86,927 held in juvenile facilities as of the 2007 Census of Juveniles in Residential Placement (CJRP), conducted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. As of 2009, the three states with the lowest ratios of imprisoned people per 100,000 population are Maine (150 per 100,000), Minnesota (189 per 100,000), and New Hampshire (206 per 100,000). The three states with the highest ratio are Louisiana (881 per 100,000), Mississippi (702 per 100,000) and Oklahoma (657 per 100,000). <br />
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In some countries, incarceration is a last step, not a first one. When people are locked up, it’s generally because a number of other initiatives have been tried first – and didn’t work. Not so in the US. Prison sentences are what’s being offered. Because, while there are a few promising pilot programs being run to demonstrate alternatives to prison, there are virtually no nationally available programs that are in sync with mandatory minimum sentencing to help the courts and the convicts to avoid wasting needless years in “the joint.”<br />
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Judge Bennett writes that he has sentenced more than 3,000 defendants in four federal district courts and reviewed sentences...Far from being a bucolic area, he writes, he sentences “more drug offenders in a single year than the average federal district court judge in New York City, Washington, Chicago, Minneapolis and San Francisco—combined.” <br />
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He says, “While drug cases nationally make up 29 percent of federal judges’ criminal dockets, according to the US Sentencing Commission, they make up more than 56 percent of mine. More startling, while meth cases make up 18 percent of a judge’s drug docket nationally, they account for 78 percent of mine. Add crack cocaine and together they account for 87 percent.”<br />
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Judge Bennett writes about crack defendants. He says, “They are almost always poor African-Americans. Meth defendants are generally lower-income whites. More than 80 percent of the 4,546 meth defendants sentenced in federal courts in 2010 received a mandatory minimum sentence. These small-time addicts are apprehended not through high-tech wiretaps or sophisticated undercover stings but by common traffic stops for things like nonfunctioning taillights.” <br />
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He adds: “Or they’re caught in a search of the logs at a local Walmart to see who is buying unusually large amounts of nonprescription cold medicine. They are the low-hanging fruit of the drug war. Other than their crippling meth addiction, they are very much like the folks I grew up with. Virtually all are charged with federal drug trafficking conspiracies—which sounds ominous but is based on something as simple as two people agreeing to purchase pseudoephedrine and cook it into meth. They don’t even have to succeed.”<br />
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Why do we have federal mandatory minimum sentences? The enabling legislation is the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. The Guidelines are the product of the United States Sentencing Commission, which reports to Congress annually. Their primary goal was to alleviate sentencing disparities that research had indicated was prevalent in the existing sentencing system. <br />
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The Sentencing Commission’ s future life is in the hands of Congress, which votes the funds for its work. For a number of years, there have been concerted efforts to persuade the Sentencing Commission to recommend to Congress an end to minimum sentencing. But the Commission – which is said to be good at vote-counting – has elected to nibble around the edges.<br />
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Few members of Congress appear to be prepared to question the effectiveness of mandatory minimum/maximum sentences. Many members fear primary challenges from rightwing candidates who are eager to accuse incumbents of being “soft on crime.” That attitude is largely responsible for the overly cautious approaches by Congress.<br />
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The Guidelines determine sentences based primarily on two factors: 1.the conduct associated with the offense (the offense conduct, which produces the offense level); and 2.the defendant's criminal history (the criminal history category).<br />
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The Sentencing Table in the Guidelines Manual shows the relationship between these two factors; for each pairing of offense level and criminal history category, the Table specifies a sentencing range, in months, within which the court may sentence a defendant. For example, for a defendant convicted on an offense with a total offense level of 22 and a criminal history category of I, the Guidelines recommend a sentence of 41–51 months, considering the year of the offense to be the same as the year of the guidelines. If, however, a person with an extensive criminal history (Category VI) committed the same offense in the same manner in the same modern timeline and not during the older guideline periods, the Guidelines would recommend a sentence of 84–105 months.<br />
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The prosecutor's power to extract guilty pleas, previously held in check by judges, is now counterbalanced only by the diligence of the defense attorney." <br />
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Judge Bennett quotes William J. Stuntz, who claims that "when necessary, the litigants simply bargain about what facts will (and won't) form the basis for sentencing. It seems to be an iron rule: guidelines sentencing empowers prosecutors, even where the guidelines' authors try to fight that tendency...In short, plea bargains outside the law's shadow depend on prosecutors' ability to make credible threats of severe post-trial sentences. Sentencing guidelines make it easy to issue those threats."<br />
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The federal guilty plea rate has risen from 83% in 1983 to 96% in 2009, a rise attributed largely to the Sentencing Guidelines.<br />
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“I recently sentenced a group of more than twenty defendants on meth trafficking conspiracy charges. All of them pled guilty. Eighteen were “pill smurfers,” as federal prosecutors put it, meaning their role amounted to regularly buying and delivering cold medicine to meth cookers in exchange for very small, low-grade quantities to feed their severe addictions. Most were unemployed or underemployed. Several were single mothers. They did not sell or directly distribute meth; there were no hoards of cash, guns or counter-surveillance equipment. Yet all of them faced mandatory minimum sentences of sixty or 120 months.”<br />
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“One meth-addicted mother faced a 240-month sentence because a prior meth conviction in county court doubled her mandatory minimum. She will likely serve all twenty years; in the federal system, there is no parole, and one serves an entire sentence minus a maximum of a 15 percent reduction rewarded for ‘good time’,” Judge Bennett writes.<br />
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He continues: “Several years ago, I started visiting inmates I had sentenced in prison. It is deeply inspiring to see the positive changes most have made. Some definitely needed the wake-up call of a prison cell, but very few need more than two or three years behind bars. These men and women need intensive drug treatment, and most of the inmates I visit are working hard to turn their lives around. They are shocked—and glad—to see me, and it’s important to them that people outside prison care about their progress. For far too many, I am their only visitor.”<br />
He continues: “If lengthy mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent drug addicts actually worked, one might be able to rationalize them. But there is no evidence that they do. I have seen how they leave hundreds of thousands of young children parentless and thousands of aging, infirm and dying parents childless. They destroy families and mightily fuel the cycle of poverty and addiction. In fact, I have been at this so long, I am now sentencing the grown children of people I long ago sent to prison.”<br />
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Judge Bennett concludes: “For years I have debriefed jurors after their verdicts. Northwest Iowa is one of the most conservative regions in the country, and these are people who, for the most part, think judges are too soft on crime. Yet, for all the times I’ve asked jurors after a drug conviction what they think a fair sentence would be, never has one given a figure even close to the mandatory minimum. It is always far lower. Like people who dislike Congress but like their Congress member, these jurors think the criminal justice system coddles criminals in the abstract—but when confronted by a real live defendant, even a ‘drug trafficker,’ they never find a mandatory minimum sentence to be a just sentence.”<br />
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We should be grateful to The Nation for publishing a scary piece on a subject many readers may find boring. And we should be equally grateful to Judge Bennett, who held the truth in higher esteem than the unexpressed views of many of his colleagues on the Court.<br />
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