Antony Loewenstein

Positive news:

Today, a federal appellate court dismissed the appeals of two private military contractors who had argued they were immune from litigation when they engage in torture.  The corporate defendants, CACI and L-3, have argued that they should receive the same protections as the United States government and that, therefore, any of their wartime activities – including torture – are similarly beyond review of the courts.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, sitting en banc, remanded the cases to the district courts that had previously rejected the corporations’ novel claims of immunity, in order to allow fact-finding to proceed.  The Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) is co-counsel on the cases, which were filed in 2008.

“Today’s ruling provides an opportunity for victims of torture at Abu Ghraib to tell their stories to an American court and to obtain justice from the private military contractors who played such a prominent role in one of the most shocking episodes of abuse in recent American history,” said CCR Legal Director, Baher Azmy, who co-argued the case.

The corporate defendants in the consolidated cases, who were hired to provide interpretation and interrogation services, are alleged to have subjected the plaintiffs to electric shocks, rape and other forms of sexual assault, forced nudity, broken bones, and deprivation of oxygen, food and water.  The two cases were brought on behalf of 76 Iraqis who were subjected to brutal, sadistic acts in detention centers Iraq by employees of the corporate defendants.  Court martial and other testimony from soldiers convicted of serious abuse in Iraq directly link both companies to instances of torture. All of the plaintiffs were released from detention without charge.

Said Susan Burke, lead counsel on the case who also participated in oral argument before the full court, “The ruling is especially important in light of the unprecedented rise in the use of private military contractors in war zones.  Ultimately, these cases should be about whether the actions of the defendants constituted war crimes and torture in violation of the law and not about whether or not the perpetrators should receive impunity even if they engaged in torture.”

In December, a coalition of groups, including retired military officers and human rights NGOs and experts, filed amicus briefs arguing that for-profit corporations cannot be considered equivalent to U.S. soldiers and should face justice under traditional legal principles that govern illegal conduct.  The military officers’ brief expressed concern that “persons engaging in shocking behavior that the U.S. military does not itself tolerate for its own members have broad impunity from accountability.”

En banc appellate review, by all judges on a federal appeals court, is a rare occurrence, reserved for cases in which the issues raised are deemed to be of particular legal and constitutional importance.  Fourteen judges heard the appeal, with 11 of the judges deciding in the plaintiffs favor.

The Indian edition of my book The Blogging Revolution was recently released. Here’s a just published review in The Telegraph from Calcutta:

The Blogging Revolution: How the newest media is changing politics, business and culture in India, China, Iran, Syria, Egypt, Cuba and Saudi Arabia By Antony Loewenstein, Jaico, Rs 350

Antony Loewenstein’s book is an intelligent examination of the dichotomous character of the internet, a force that can be both “liberating and restrictive”. Political analysts have often excitedly pointed at the arms of the new media — Facebook, Twitter, blogs — as catalysts for the Arab Spring that toppled several autocratic regimes in the Muslim world. As proof, they refer to the spark that was lit in Tunisia. When a street vendor immolated himself to protest against harassment by authorities, irate local people posted the video of his death on Facebook. Al-Jazeera distributed the video on its network, starting a fire that singed despotic regimes in the region. Loewenstein’s journeys across Iran, Egypt, Syria, Saudi Arabia, Cuba and China and his interactions with online dissenters have given him the leverage to posit a caveat in this respect. The internet, he argues, has crystallized into a critical platform for disseminating information among dissidents. But it remains only one of the many arrows in the quiver in the battle for democracy.

Loewenstein bolsters his argument by citing the failure of the ‘Green Revolution’ in Iran. All the factors needed for yet another revolution inspired by the ‘web’ was in place: a repressive regime, tech-savvy youth, YouTube videos of State violence, and so on. Yet Ahmadinejad could not be dislodged from his throne. If anything, the tables have been turned on anonymous dissidents by regimes in China, Russia and Iran that are covertly colluding with technology companies to root out online dissent. Loewenstein’s research reveals that Google, Yahoo and Microsoft are competing to design effective deterrents to curb freedom in cyberspace. Significantly, the institutional backlash against online dissidence has borrowed heavily from the rule-book of dissenters. Iran, for instance, has assisted in the formation of individual religious blogs to counter ‘revolutionary propaganda’.

The Blogging Revolution dismantles several other half-truths. In mainstream media, dissidence is often glorified, but journalists seldom pay attention to the forlornness of the enterprise. Here, we come across an Egyptian dissident who confides that his battle against the State has left him terribly lonely. He seems to echo the pain of the Cuban woman activist who confesses her estrangement from her son on account of her opposition to Castro.

Loewenstein also punctures the claim that cyber dissent has helped forge a pan-Arab nationalism. He unearths the ethnic tensions that continue to brew in Syria over the question of Iraqi refugees, thereby exposing new faultliness that are eroding old ties based on identity.

Online campaigns are not only about democracy. For the women respondents, the war is also against regressive norms and their proponents. An Iranian artist complains that she cannot exhibit her work in Iran; an Egyptian blogger reveals that she finds the views of the Muslim Brotherhood extreme. It is heartening to see Loewenstein address the question of women’s empowerment to suggest that the battle against tyranny is complex and layered, and that political change is meaningless without social transition.

Loewenstein should also be thanked for his attempt to democratize information. He is aware that the debased culture of contemporary reportage often prioritizes Western hegemony and interests. His unembedded travels help liberate voices that are seldom accommodated in the mainstream Western media. A Saudi blogger insists that change can never be imposed from the outside on the Muslim world. He could have been speaking for nearly every other dissident. Their views offer compelling evidence for the West to temper its campaign to project the new media as a tool to engineer revolution in the Muslim world.

Loewenstein’s book would also be of use to Indian readers and journalists. The latter, who often succumb to the lure of sensationalism, will find in it a template for objective reporting. Loewenstein’s sympathies may lie with the oppressed but he does not allow his sentiments to cloud his broader objectives. His prose thus remains dispassionate, economical, and nearly always enquiring. As for Indian readers, this book will perhaps make them value their freedom of expression and remind them not to take that right for granted. It will also make them wary of seemingly innocuous developments such as the minister for human resources directing social networking sites to remove ‘objectionable’ content or the judiciary mulling over guidelines for the media in India.

But what of the future, both in the real and cyber world? Even after revolutions — whether or not aided by the social media— things may remain unchanged. In Egypt, recently freed from the shadow of Mubarak, a blogger was imprisoned for criticizing the military. Loewenstein reminds us that it is imperative for dissident bloggers to remain engaged with the injustices that are perpetrated not just in repressive states but also in the free world.

An Iranian blogger had once written that every light that remains switched on in Teheran at night showed that “somebody is sitting behind [sic] a computer, driving through [sic] information road; and that is in fact a storehouse of gun powder that, if ignited, will start a great firework in the capital of the revolutionary Islam”. That light, Loewenstein urges, should never be turned off.

UDDALAK MUKHERJEE

Since 9/11, far too few journalists have questioned the avalanche of spin emerging from the White House and other official sources when it comes to so-called terror threats. This short story in the Guardian is necessary to challenge the narrative:

While serious questions remain about the origins and source of the Yemeni “bomb plot”, a clearer picture is emerging of an audacious and, as far as the CIA is concerned, a successful sting operation.

Sources familiar with the operation suggest that a CIA informant and putative suicide-bomber originally recruited by Saudi intelligence infiltrated al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) and said he wanted a bomb in order to explode an aircraft bound for the US.

The double agent was handed the latest bomb devised by AQAP and passed it on to his Saudi handlers and the CIA.

Western intelligence sources do not dispute it was a sting operation. But it seems it was more than that: the “suicide bomber”was an agent provocateur – that it is to say, there is no evidence that AQAP was already planning such a plot and that without his approach to the militant group, no such plot wouild have taken place, not yet at any rate.

“It seems the double agent was planted and offered himself up to AQAP, it was an opportunity for them to test new technology”, said Tobias Feakin, director of national security and resilience at the London-based Royal United Services Institute (RUSI).

He added that claims of an AQAP-inspired plot did not seem to quite fit as both core al-Qaida and AQAP were in the process of “regrouping”, adopting more of a role in support of the local population rather than planning ambitious bomb plots.

Western intelligence officials have made it clear that the “underwear” bomb, now in the hands of the FBI, will prove extremely useful in testing airport security measures, specifically over whether a bomb such as this one with no metallic content could be detected by existing screens.

The sting operation may be a morale-boosting propaganda coup. The alleged plot also served to defend the Obama administration’s decision last month to step up US drones on targets in Yemen. According to the New York Times reported, the double agent also provided intelligence that led the CIA to conduct a drone strike in Yemen on Sunday that killed the AQAP leader Fahd al-Quso.

But, it seems, he did not know of the whereabouts of the bombmaker himself, Hassan al-Asiri, who must now be the prime target of a US drone attack.

Judging by the responses of sources approached about the operation, it was set up by the CIA and the Saudis, and no other intelligence agency was involved.

It does, however, raise the spectre of crying wolf – will reports of the next plot refer to a sting, or a real terrorist operation?

Seriously (via Wired):

The U.S. military taught its future leaders that a “total war” against the world’s 1.4 billion Muslims would be necessary to protect America from Islamic terrorists, according to documents obtained by Danger Room. Among the options considered for that conflict: using the lessons of “Hiroshima” to wipe out whole cities at once, targeting the “civilian population wherever necessary.”

The course, first reported by Danger Room last month and held at the Defense Department’s Joint Forces Staff College, has since been canceled by the Pentagon brass. It’s only now, however, that the details of the class have come to light. Danger Room received hundreds of pages of course material and reference documents from a source familiar with the contents of the class.

The chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff recently ordered the entire U.S. military to scour its training material to make sure it doesn’t contain similarly hateful material, a process that is still ongoing. But the officer who delivered the lectures, Army Lt. Col. Matthew A. Dooley, still maintains his position at the Norfolk, Virginia college, pending an investigation. The commanders, lieutenant colonels, captains and colonels who sat in Dooley’s classroom, listening to the inflammatory material week after week, have now moved into higher-level assignments throughout the U.S. military.

For the better part of the last decade, a small cabal of self-anointed counterterrorism experts has been working its way through the U.S. military, intelligence and law enforcement communities, trying to convince whoever it could that America’s real terrorist enemy wasn’t al-Qaida — but the Islamic faith itself. In his course, Dooley brought in these anti-Muslim demagogues as guest lecturers. And he took their argument to its final, ugly conclusion.

“We have now come to understand that there is no such thing as ‘moderate Islam,’” Dooley noted in a July 2011 presentation (.pdf), which concluded with a suggested manifesto to America’s enemies. “It is therefore time for the United States to make our true intentions clear. This barbaric ideology will no longer be tolerated. Islam must change or we will facilitate its self-destruction.”

If most mainstream politicians dare write or say anything overtly critical of Israel, they’ll be hounded.

But if you advocate ethnic cleansing, as Rep. Joe Walsh (R-Ill) did recently, they’ll be deafening silence:

Those Palestinians who wish to may leave their Fatah- and Hamas-created slums and move to the original Palestinian state: Jordan. The British Mandate for Palestine created Jordan as the country for the Palestinians. That is the only justification for its creation. Even now, 75 percent of its population is of Palestinian descent. Those Palestinians who remain behind in Israel will maintain limited voting power but will be awarded all the economic and civil rights of Israeli citizens.

If you think there’s been outrage, you’d be wrong. After all, it’s only Palestinians.

Michael Hastings and Glenn Greenwald discuss how many in the mainstream media fuel the never-ending “war on terror”

You have to laugh. Or you’ll cry.

Has Murdoch’s Australian gone mad? Has it dared speak honestly about Israeli repression in Palestine? The Zionist lobby is outraged. Er, well, Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan – a man who has enjoyed countless free Zionist lobby trips to Israel, all for research purposes, of course – is having none of it today:

Many readers were surprised, as I was, to read a headline in The Weekend Australian: Living under the cloud of Israel’s cruel apartheid. The headline did an injustice to the story, which only used the word apartheid in reporting the comments of one person who was interviewed. The editor of this august journal has confirmed to me that the headline was a mistake, the sort that creeps into newspapers where staff are always battling the pressure of deadlines. The Australian believes, and certainly I personally believe, the word apartheid has no application to Israel, which is a democracy in good standing, which extends basic rights to all its citizens, whatever their race or creed. Too often the misuse of such a word is designed to demonise Israel, wholly unjustly. In this case, it was just a mistake.

Putting aside a clueless BBC interviewer – it’s so clear that she thought she had to continually interrupt Finkelstein to be “balanced” – there’s a good discussion about young Jews turning away from Israel and the Zionist state’s seeming dedication to destroy itself:

Amira Hass in Haaretz:

Let’s imagine this scene: eleven Palestinian youngsters under the age of 18 demonstrating with Palestinian flags and posters at the north-west entrance of the Ariel settlement, demanding that the old road which leads to Salfit be reopened. Let’s assume that these youngsters aren’t attacked by the Ariel residents. After all, this is not a hotheaded settlement, its zealotry is limited to land fever.

Nonetheless, under military procedures, the youth are violating security codes relating to “a prohibition of incitement activity and hostile propaganda,” which were signed by then-GOC Central Command Uzi Narkiss in August 1967. The bans apply to “a group of 10 or more people who gather at a site for a political purpose, or for a matter that can be interpreted as being political,” such as waving a flag or distributing incendiary (“incitement” ) materials. Even if they are aged 13 to 17, these imaginary demonstrators can be detained and interrogated for eight days before they are brought to a military tribunal.

What happens to Jewish youth of the same age who mutilate trees on lands belonging to Palestinian villages in the Salfit district? Even though they live in the same area as the Palestinian youth, a different law applies to them: Israeli law. Under Israeli juvenile law, should IDF soldiers or police make the effort to detain Jewish youth for mutilating trees, minors under the age of 14 can be held for up to 12 hours, and minors over the age of 14 can be detained for 24 hours. Israeli military law does not distinguish between a Palestinian minor and an adult when it comes to their primary detention, before trial. Palestinian detainees under and over the age of 18 can be held for eight days. One country, two legal codes.

For some people, this circumstance of double standards contradicts human logic, professional norms and ethics. In 2010, two petitions were lodged with the High Court of Justice disputing such structural discrimination: Attorney Lila Margalit represented the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Yesh Din-Volunteers for Human Rights and the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel; attorneys Smadar Ben Natan and Avigdor Feldman represented the Palestinian Ministry of Prisoners’ Affairs. The petitioners sought to make prearraignment detention periods for Palestinian suspects equivalent to those of Israeli suspects.

And as often happens, a rare coincidence was discovered: The state prosecutor’s January 2011 response to these High Court petitions indicated that “a decision was reached recently to institute far-ranging changes in detention periods designated under the security codes; these changes are supported by the IDF, the Israel Police and the Shin Bet security service.”

These “far-ranging” changes were incorporated in an amendment to the military codes signed by then-GOC Central Command Avi Mizrahi on February 2, 2012, which are gradually being instituted between March 1 and August 1. The amendment reduces the period of detention, but does not equalize the period of detention faced by Palestinian and Israeli suspects. This disparity, explained the prosecutor, is justified in terms of the essence of “territory under belligerent occupation for a long period of years.” The inequality is substantiated via reference to the “fanaticism” of Palestinian detainees who operate on the basis of “ultra-nationalist, ideological motivations,” and so “interrogation of them is more difficult.”

This is basically propaganda for a new computer game (even if it claims to be a documentary) and yet the film provides disturbing insights into how the merging between reality and fiction is here:

I was interviewed last week by the independent program Earthwise. We discussed the importance of Wikileaks and its challenge to the mainstream media:

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