Antony Loewenstein

The story about Iraq that you’ve never read:

In what has been described as one of the most remarkable stories of the entire Iraq war, a reporter from the Army Times has given perhaps the first inside account of how an Army unit committed mutiny and refused to carry out orders in Iraq.

The incident occurred in Adhamiya, a district in northeastern Baghdad, where soldiers in the 2nd Platoon, Charlie Company, were stationed. The 2nd Platoon had lost many men since deploying to Iraq eleven months before. After an IED attack killed five more members of Charlie 1-26, members of 2nd Platoon gathered for a meeting and determined they could no longer function professionally. Several platoon members were afraid their anger could set loose a massacre. They decided to stage a revolt against their commanders that they viewed as a life-or-death act of defiance.

Iraq’s only heavy-metal group now reside in Istanbul. Yet another Iraqi refugee story:

Nart Villeneuve, Index on Censorship, Volume 36, Issue 4, November:

In some countries, there is no technical [internet] filtering in place; it is the legal system itself which acts as the primary mechanism of Internet censorship. Threatening ISPs, or content providers such as search engines, with ‘takedown’ requests is one of the most undocumented methods of censoring Internet content. In some cases these can be formal legal requests for removal due to copyright violation or claims of libel/defamation or informal requests due to allegations of supporting terrorism. ISPs are not required to report such ‘takedowns’ and most happen in complete silence. In these cases, ISPs act as judge, jury and enforcer at the same time and will act to remove content rather than fully investigate the claim, in order to avoid liability.

The questions surrounding the lack of transparency and accountability led Christian Ahlert, Chris Marsden and Chester Yung, from the Oxford Centre for Socio-Legal Studies, to investigate what they termed the ‘privatisation of censorship’. In 2003, they conducted an experiment, known as ‘Liberty’, to test notice and takedown procedures in the US and Europe. They created a web page containing text that was clearly in the public domain and uploaded it to ISPs in the US and the UK. The uploaded text was an excerpt from Chapter 2 of J S Mill’s On Liberty, which discusses freedom of the press and censorship. They then created an email account with a free service for a mythical organisation called the ‘John Stuart Mill Heritage Foundation’ and sent takedown notices to the ISPs claiming copyright infringement. In the UK, ISPs took the information down, but in the US, they asked for more details, including a declaration ‘under penalty of perjury’ that the claim was valid. At this point, the researchers terminated the experiment. However, they noted that if they had supplied the language required by the ISPs, the takedown process could have continued.

Yotam Feldman, Haaretz, December 20:

From his home on the Upper Galilee road between Safed and Rosh Pina, as Brigadier General (res.) Zvika Fogel looks out over Lake Kinneret, the Gaza Strip seems a distant memory. But four years after Fogel retired from the Israel Defense Forces (IDF), Gaza continues to preoccupy him. He became chief of staff of Southern Command headquarters in February 2000, and in the past few years he has reflected a great deal on the actions he and his fellow officers carried out in the months that preceded the eruption of the second intifada, at the end of September 2000. His conclusion: the IDF created an irreversible situation that led to a confrontation with the Palestinians.

“The constellation of preparations we made actually led to the confrontation – there was no other choice,” says Fogel, who is still called up for reserve service in Southern Command.

The ten most under-reported humanitarian stories of 2007, according to Doctors Without Borders USA.

Newspapers may not be dead, but the trend is not positive:

The number of UK adults reading at least one national daily newspaper on an average day fell from 26.7 million in 1992 to 21.7 million last year, according to research.

In 1992, 59% of adults read one or more national daily newspapers, compared with 45% last year, the figures from a National Readership Survey commissioned by the House of Lords communications committee found.

Of course, it doesn’t help, in the US at least, that a majority of Americans simply don’t trust the mainstream media to report political issues fairly. Case study one.

Good Lord:

A video made by a Christian ministry group shows Air Force Academy cadets being pressured to become “government paid missionaries when they leave” the academy, according to the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), which released the video this week.

MRFF president Mikey Weinstein says the video is unconstitutional and an outrage.

“This is absolutely out of control. You cannot engage the U.S. government to propel your religion,” said Weinstein.
The video features former Academy Campus Crusade for Christ director Scot Blum saying, “They’re government paid missionaries when they leave here,” referring to graduates of the academy.

“Our purpose for Campus Crusade for Christ at the Air Force Academy is to make Jesus Christ the issue at the Air Force Academy and around the world,” said Blum on the video.

America has greatly expanded its aerial assault against Iraq and Afghanistan.

Not that you’d read that in the mainstream media.

The blogosphere reveals all.

More here on a man who would undoubtedly cause America to be hated around the world more than it is already.

Welcome to America.

(But expect to be treated like a criminal.)

Most American Zionist organisations are now little more than apologists for Israel or supporters of genocide-denying nations (Turkey.)

And most remain seemingly incapable of deciding if torture should be outlawed:

The American Jewish Committee last week became the first, and to date only, mainstream Jewish group to give strong public backing to proposed legislation that would ban the use of torture by American military, intelligence and law-enforcement personnel.

On December 10, the AJCommittee’s board of governors passed a resolution expressly condemning the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques. Two days later the group also sent a letter to all members of Congress, urging them to support legislation that would force CIA interrogators to follow the guidelines set forth by the Army’s field manual, which bans waterboarding, mock executions and other harsh methods.

Most other Jewish organizations with prominent advocacy efforts in Washington, however, have been noticeably absent from efforts to push through the anti-torture legislation and from the broader national debate about the alleged use of enhanced interrogation techniques by American security forces.

Whatever one thinks of presidential nominee Ron Paul – he’s certainly anti-war but also a fundamentalist anti-abortionist – this is truly remarkable:

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul made history Sunday by raising $6 million in online contributions in 24 hours, breaking the record for the most money raised by a national candidate in a single day, and potentially putting Paul on track to surpass the fourth quarter fund raising of all of his competitors in both parties.

The mainstream media has largely ignored Paul’s campaign – though leading blogger Andrew Sullivan remains very supportive – and proves that something is stirring in the USA.