Antony Loewenstein

Martin Luther King Jr on American TV in 1967 urging all Americans to refuse fighting in Vietnam. His message resonates decades on:

This is what “diplomacy” means:

Turkey allowed the US to use its airbase at Incirlik in southern Turkey as part of the “extraordinary rendition” programme to take suspected terrorists to Guantánamo Bay, according to a US diplomatic cable.

Turkey’s involvement in the controversial programme was revealed in a cable dated 8 June 2006, written by the then US ambassador to Turkey, Ross Wilson. The cable described Turkey as a crucial ally in the “global war on terror” and an important logistical base for the US-led war in Iraq.

“The Turkish military had allowed us to use Incirlik as a refuelling stop for Operation Fundamental Justice detainee movement operations since 2002, but revoked this permission in February of this year. We understand OSD [office of the secretary of defence] and JCS [joint chiefs of staff] have been discussing whether to approach Turkey to seek to reverse this decision,” the cable said.

“We recommend that you do not raise this issue with TGS [Turkish general staff] pending clarification from Washington on what approach state/OSD/JCS/NSC [national security council] wish to take.”

The cable contradicts statements made at the time by Turkish officials. On 14 June 2006, a spokesman for Turkey’s foreign ministry told reporters: “The Turkish government and state never played a part [in the secret transfers] … and never will.”

Turkey had just been named in a Council of Europe report among 14 European countries that colluded in or tolerated the covert transporting of prisoners.

A question that should be asked. Why didn’t Rudolf Elmer hand over his supposedly vital banking documents to the mainstream media itself? Didn’t trust them? Had more faith in Wikileaks?

Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, today pledged to make public the confidential tax details of 2,000 wealthy and prominent individuals, after being passed the data by a Swiss banker who claims the information potentially reveals instances of money-laundering and large-scale illegal tax evasion.

In a carefully choreographed handover in central London, Rudolf Elmer, formerly a senior executive at the Swiss bank Julius Baer, based in the Cayman islands, said he was handing the data to WikiLeaks as part of an attempt “to educate society” about the amount of potential tax revenues lost thanks to offshore schemes and money-laundering.

“As banker, I have the right to stand up if something is wrong,” he said. “I am against the system. I know how the system works and I know the day-to-day business. I wanted to let society know how this system works because it’s damaging society,” he said.

Elmer will appear in a Swiss court on Wednesday charged with breaking Swiss banking secrecy laws, forging documents and sending threatening messages to two officials at his former employer.

He denies the charges.

This is progress?

The intensity of warfare in the computer age is on display at a secret intelligence and surveillance installation at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia, a massive, heavily air-conditioned warehouse where hundreds of TVs hang from black rafters. Every day across the Air Force’s $5 billion global surveillance network, cubicle warriors review 1,000 hours of video, 1,000 high-altitude spy photos and hundreds of hours of “signals intelligence” — usually cellphone calls.

At the Langley center, officially called Distributed Common Ground System-1, heavy multitasking is a daily routine for people like Josh, a 25-year-old first lieutenant (for security reasons, the Air Force would not release his full name). For 12 hours a day, he monitors an avalanche of images on 10 overhead television screens. They deliver what Josh and his colleagues have nicknamed “Death TV” — live video streams from drones above Afghanistan showing Taliban movements, suspected insurgent safehouses and American combat units headed into battle.

As he watches, Josh uses a classified instant-messaging system showing as many as 30 different chats with commanders at the front, troops in combat and headquarters at the rear. And he is hearing the voice of a pilot at the controls of a U-2 spy plane high in the stratosphere.

“I’ll have a phone in one ear, talking to a pilot on the headset in the other ear, typing in chat at the same time and watching screens,” Josh says. “It’s intense.”

The stress lingers when the shift is over. Josh works alongside Anthony, 23, an airman first class who says his brain hurts each night, the way feet ache after a long march.

“You have so much information coming in that when you go home — how do you take that away? Sometimes I work out,” Anthony said. “Actually, one of my things is just being able to enjoy a nice bowl of cereal with almond milk. I feel the tension is just gone and I can go back again.”

Video games don’t do the trick. “I need something real,” he said.

How many Zionist lobbyists does it take to defend apartheid?

Don’t answer that (hint: one).

The ongoing saga of Sydney council Marrackville supporting BDS is slammed by defender of the occupation Anthony Orkin.

What’s funny reading this delusion is how it could have been written decades ago. Occupation doesn’t exist. Israel’s growing descent into fascism is simply “democracy”. Palestinians commit terrorism.

Please keep writing these pieces; it’s certainly helping our cause:

Driving through some of the potholed Marrickville streets this week and seeing unrepaired vandalism of public property was a stark reminder of the tasks which confront Local Councils.

In addition to dealing with the needs of locals, the majority of Marrickville Councillors have determined that they will dive headlong into complex Middle East issues, in the process contravening Australian foreign policy and undermining all those who are working to promote a better future for Israelis, Palestinians and others.

The resolution they passed on December 14 calls for a blanket boycott on produce and services from Israel and virtually all contacts with any and all Israelis. None of the 559 other Local Councils in Australia have passed such a ridiculous resolution.

Greens Councillor Cathy Peters moved the unprecedented resolution which was supported by Mayor and Greens candidate for the State seat of Marrickville, Fiona Byrne as well as three other Greens, four ALP members and one Independent.

It defies logic that Marrickville Councillors would add foreign affairs to their list of responsibilities. It is worrying for local residents, however, that the Mayor believes this resolution “is well within Council’s jurisdiction”. It is also clearly outside their area of expertise.

Will the Mayor and the nine other Councillors now refrain from using their computers and phones? After all, the current Google-search algorithm was written by an Israeli, the Intel chip was designed in Israel and voicemail and instant messaging are Israeli inventions. The Councillors are being hypocrites every time they use this technology.

Boycotting Israel would hurt Palestinian livelihoods and devastate the Palestinian economy which is intricately linked to the Israeli economy. This resolution reflects the extreme ideology of its supporters in that it seeks to punish and demonise the sole democracy in the Middle East rather than help any of the victims of the decades old conflict.

This resolution is detrimental to the quest for peace. There are many co-operative projects between the Israelis and Palestinians in areas such as water recycling, sport and culture. There are many exchanges whereby Israelis and Palestinian engage in dialogue and exchange views about peace and their respective aspirations. For Palestinian statehood to have a chance, this co-operation must be increased. Yet according to Marrickville, such exchanges should stop, since they violate the boycott they have endorsed.

…

Israel is the only country in the Middle East with racial, gender, sexual and religious equality enshrined in law. It is the only democracy in the region with a full range of civil rights, such as freedom of speech and freedom of assembly.

Arab dictatorships are what the West likes very much. Compliant thugs who do as they’re told. We give them money and support and wonder why terrorism breeds.

Robert Fisk issues caution over hoping the Arab world could reform post Tunisia:

Yes, we would like a democracy in Tunisia – but not too much democracy. Remember how we wanted Algeria to have a democracy back in the early Nineties?

Then when it looked like the Islamists might win the second round of voting, we supported its military-backed government in suspending elections and crushing the Islamists and initiating a civil war in which 150,000 died.

No, in the Arab world, we want law and order and stability. Even in Hosni Mubarak’s corrupt and corrupted Egypt, that’s what we want. And we will get it.

The truth, of course, is that the Arab world is so dysfunctional, sclerotic, corrupt, humiliated and ruthless – and remember that Mr Ben Ali was calling Tunisian protesters “terrorists” only last week – and so totally incapable of any social or political progress, that the chances of a series of working democracies emerging from the chaos of the Middle East stand at around zero per cent.

The job of the Arab potentates will be what it has always been – to “manage” their people, to control them, to keep the lid on, to love the West and to hate Iran.

The shambles that is Australia’s immigration policy. Little transparency, people’s lives are simply something to be managed. By whom? Once again multinational Serco, with a record of abuses across the world, is running the show:

A charity that recruits volunteers to run recreational activities at detention centres is on the brink of deregistration for failing to provide a single financial statement to Fair Trading NSW since it was formally created in 2003.

Fair Trading wrote to the founder of the Australian League of Immigration Volunteers, Gary Taylor, on December 15, demanding he lodge the documents within 28 days. But it has received no response.
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The Herald understands Fair Trading wrote again last week asking Mr Taylor to show cause why the organisation should not be deregistered.

A priest who worked with the league’s volunteers at one centre is concerned about the group’s restrictive regulations, which he says are unlike any he has encountered in 30 years of charity work.

Former volunteers have speculated that it is being run on the principles of Scientology, while Pamela Curr, the campaign co-ordinator of the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, fears for the well-being of the vulnerable detainees.

…

Ms Curr said she could not understand why volunteer labour was being used to provide services that Serco, the company that runs Australia’s detention centres, is required to provide under its $400 million contract with the Department of Immigration.

The 729-page contract confirms Serco is responsible for language, cultural and recreational programs. Serco says it does provide such services and that the league simply supplements them.

But league volunteers said they were the only people providing such activities for much of the time they were at the centres.

Oh my:

The offshore bank account details of 2,000 “high net worth individuals” and corporations – detailing massive potential tax evasion – will be handed over to the WikiLeaks organisation in London tomorrow by the most important and boldest whistleblower in Swiss banking history, Rudolf Elmer, two days before he goes on trial in his native Switzerland.

British and American individuals and companies are among the offshore clients whose details will be contained on CDs presented to WikiLeaks at the Frontline Club in London. Those involved include, Elmer tells the Observer, “approximately 40 politicians”.

Elmer, who after his press conference will return to Switzerland from exile in Mauritius to face trial, is a former chief operating officer in the Cayman Islands and employee of the powerful Julius Baer bank, which accuses him of stealing the information.

He is also – at a time when the activities of banks are a matter of public concern – one of a small band of employees and executives seeking to blow the whistle on what they see as unprofessional, immoral and even potentially criminal activity by powerful international financial institutions.

Along with the City of London and Wall Street, Switzerland is a fortress of banking and financial services, but famously secretive and expert in the concealment of wealth from all over the world for tax evasion and other extra-legal purposes.

Elmer says he is releasing the information “in order to educate society”. The list includes “high net worth individuals”, multinational conglomerates and financial institutions – hedge funds”. They are said to be “using secrecy as a screen to hide behind in order to avoid paying tax”. They come from the US, Britain, Germany, Austria and Asia – “from all over”.

Clients include “business people, politicians, people who have made their living in the arts and multinational conglomerates – from both sides of the Atlantic”. Elmer says: “Well-known pillars of society will hold investment portfolios and may include houses, trading companies, artwork, yachts, jewellery, horses, and so on.”

“What I am objecting to is not one particular bank, but a system of structures,” he told the Observer. “I have worked for major banks other than Julius Baer, and the one thing on which I am absolutely clear is that the banks know, and the big boys know, that money is being secreted away for tax-evasion purposes, and other things such as money-laundering – although these cases involve tax evasion.”

Sick of corporate journalists simply repeating government talking points? Are we “winning” the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? The embedded mindset is alive and well.

Dahr Jamail is a notable exception, independent reporter for years. Some choice comments from his recent interview with Truthout:

A3N: How do they [mainstream media] address the argument that exposing war crimes is not a crime?

DJ: Usually they don’t, because the corporate media – and the government, for that matter – avoid the words “war crime” as though they are a plague. Thus, they avoid the issue at all cost.

A3N: In your opinion, how do the corporate media present the US occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan to the US public?

DJ: With Iraq, the occupation is presented as though it was a mistake, as though the great benevolent US empire was mistakenly mislead into the war, but since “we” are there, it is good that at least Saddam Hussein has been removed – and now, of course, the US has only done the best it can in a tough situation.

With Afghanistan, the occupation is presented to the public as the ongoing frontline battle against “terrorism,” while in reality, they should call Afghanistan “pipeline-istan” because it’s all about securing the access corridors for natural gas and oil pipelines from the Black Sea through Afghanistan – the four main US bases there are located along the exact pipeline route – to the coast of Pakistan.

Former long-time CIA officer Bruce Riedel wonders what the US should do in the Arab world in light of the upheavals in Tunisia.

What about the people living in US-backed dictatorships across the region, or is the only concern how poor little Washington may handle it?

Barack Obama’s challenge in Egypt will be to avoid tying America to Mubarak and trying to hold back the winds of change that are coming while not destabilizing a critical ally. The United States has a poor track record of pulling off that difficult balance. In Pakistan, George Bush hung by his man Pervez Musharraf far too long. The result is that Pakistanis hate America.

What has just happened in Tunisia is a revolution in Arab politics. No one knows now if it will be a one-off or the beginning of a trend. For President Obama and Secretary Hillary Clinton, the region just got a whole lot more complicated.

Once again, Wikileaks is doing the job that supposedly serious journalists should be doing; questioning a nation’s war mission:

The publication now over 3,000 cables sent by US diplomats in The Hague to Washington is no coincidence, Julian Assange of the Wikileaks organisation, told Nos tv on Sunday.

Dutch journalists approached Wikileaks looking for information which may be relevant to the ongoing debate about a new mission to Afghanistan, Assange said.

While Wikileaks is not trying to influence the debate, it would be wrong if the material ‘written by the US government’ was not published before the debate and vote on the plans, Assange said.

Many of the 3021 cables obtained by several Dutch news organisations focus on US efforts to get the Netherlands to stay in Afghanistan. In the event, the government collapsed when Labour refused to give its backing to a second extension to the Nato mission.

The new government is now looking at sending a 545-strong police training mission instead.