The Osterley Times

Thursday, February 12, 2009

Chairman Frank Asks CEOs - Why do you need bonuses?

Barney Frank asks the same question that I asked a couple of days ago. Why do bankers need to be bribed to do the job for which they are already being paid a very high salary to do?

Minister: I couldn't live on benefits.

The Employment minister Tony McNulty is in the papers today stating what I think is the bloody obvious: It is impossible to live on the benefit we currently pay to the unemployed.

Mr McNulty's admission came in a BBC Radio 5 Live interview when he was asked how he expected people to make ends meet on £60 a week.

He replied: "We just need to work with them to try and get them back into work at the earliest opportunity." Challenged about whether he could survive on that income, he conceded: "I don't think I could. I'd be the first to say that." The minister added: "I think it's very, very difficult and in most instances – not everybody – people will have other support from the state as well, through a range of other benefits."

Brendan Barber, the TUC general secretary, said the comments proved the need for an increase in jobseekers' allowance, adding: "Even government ministers admit they couldn't live on today's unemployment benefit of less than £10 a day – one of the lowest relative to wages in the developed world."

As unemployment inevitably rises in the current recession, more and more people are going to find themselves relying on this measly handout from the state. A handout which even the Employment minister admits is simply impossible to live on.

So what will their choices be? They will either find a way to supplement this income on the black market or they will turn to crime.

None of us want to create a situation where people can simply choose to live off the state, but we also need to bear in mind that unemployment benefit is there to catch any of us if we should fall.

Our present benefit payments simply don't do that. I can't think of anyone who could survive on what we currently pay. But, from the days of Thatcher onwards this subject has become so toxic that we are not allowed to state the bloody obvious. Very few of us become unemployed through choice. And any of us who do would find it impossible to live on what we currently allow for the unemployed.

Steve Webb, the Liberal Democrat work and pensions spokesman, said: "The minister isn't telling people on benefit anything they don't already know. What is appalling is that he doesn't appear to want to do anything about it."

This is one of the things which I, as a lifetime Labour supporter, find hardest to swallow. We have accepted the Tory positioning on such matters as if they are gospel. And, in doing so, we have stopped asking if our benefits system does its job.

If unemployment benefit is insufficient to live on, then we, as a society, have removed the safety net. I find that deplorable.

Click title for full article.

Rival leaders court the 'kingmaker of the right'.

As predicted, both Livni and Netanyahu now find themselves dancing at the court of the quasi fascist, Lieberman, in the hope of forming a government.

Mr Lieberman has emerged as one of the main beneficiaries of Tuesday's vote, with a probable 15 seats and considerable power to make or break each leader's chances of forming a government. He met each of them in Jerusalem yesterday, without committing to either.

His apparent indispensability casts serious doubt on whether any government capable of negotiating a peace deal with the Palestinians can emerge from the current political imbroglio.

Lieberman walked out of the Olmert's cabinet because he objected to any negotiations with the Palestinians, so one can only fear for what peace prospects will be left for any government which relies on Lieberman's support in order to function.

The election of Obama offers, I think, the greatest chance to achieve peace in the Middle East for decades. Here, at last, we have an American leader who is willing to support Israel but also to recognise the suffering of the Palestinians.

The results of this election could not have been worse in my eyes. It places an intractable fascist in the role of king maker.

The people of Israel simply are out of step with the mood of the times, and especially out of step with the message coming from the Obama camp.

On the pronounced shift to the right demonstrated by the election results, the prominent Haaretz commentator Aluf Benn said yesterday: "The Obama message of new hope and new energy in the peace process failed to reach Israeli voters."

Israel has surged to the right and, in doing so, has made the achievement of peace ten times harder.

Mr Netanyahu has little interest in negotiations on a "final status" deal with the Palestinians. Ms Livni is likely to find herself heavily constrained if she depends for survival on Mr Lieberman – and possibly, despite its stated preference for Mr Netanyahu, on the right-wing ultra orthodox party Shas, which now has 11 seats.

It no longer matters whether Livni or Netanyahu or becomes Israel's Prime Minister as, whoever does so, will now be constrained by their need to please Lieberman in order to stay in power. Netanyahu would find this easier to do as he does not believe in peace. Livni would find her government horribly restrained were she ever to gain power on Lieberman's back.

For Obama, and for anyone hoping for a peace deal in the Middle East, the results of this election simply couldn't have been worse.

Perhaps some will argue that Israel will now negotiate from a position of strength, but my fear is that Israel will now refuse to negotiate at all.

Click title for full article.

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Fleischer: I kept Bush from calling on 'dotcoms and oddballs'.

O'Reilly is so determined to run down all things Obama that he accuses Obama of breaking protocol by having a list which he refers to when calling for questions at a press conference. However, even Ari Fleischer finds himself unable to join O'Reilly in his latest round of Obama baiting:

O’REILLY: George Bush came in with a list of guys he was going to call on?

FLEISCHER: Yes, I used to prepare it for him. I would give him a grid, show him where every reporter is seated. And there are some reporters, you know, in that briefing room, you can imagine, Bill, you get a lot of dot coms and other oddballs who come in there. They’re screened.

O’REILLY: Like the Huffington Post. Now it gets called on.

FLEISCHER: And I used to seat them all in one section. I would call it "Siberia." And I told the President, "Don’t call on Siberia."

I actually think it's a good thing that the Huffington Post now gets called on. They probably have more readers in day than many of the broadsheets, so why shouldn't they get to ask questions?

But it's blatant that O'Reilly is simply looking for ways to fault Obama when he latches on to Obama continuing a practice which is was obvious that Bush employed and sees a fault when Obama does it that he didn't notice when this was done by Bush.

Scarborough: Perhaps We Don't Know What We're Talking About.

Even Joe Scarborough has now come to the realisation that perhaps Obama is on the money here and that Republicans, "don't know what we're taking about".

I watched the insane Lyndsey Graham the other day state:

Graham: What we've lost is a young president's promise to change things. Please don't say this is change I can believe in. And please don't underestimate how the public is pulling for you, but they don't like this bill.

Graham is actually doing what the Republicans always seem to do, he's imagining that his views are universal and that, when he speaks, he speaks for Americans as a whole. The Republicans seem to have no idea how out of touch they are. The reality, as Scarborough admits, is that 67% of the public approve of Obama's handling of the stimulus and 58% disapprove of the way the Republicans have handled this issue.

And yet Graham can stand up and insist that the public don't like this bill. The Republican party are talking to themselves on this issue. They are ignoring the fact that both Obama and McCain fought an election on the economy and that the public backed the ideas of Barack Obama. They are insisting that their ideas should prevail even though they lost the election.

He condemns, "the attitude, we won, we write the bill" as if the fact that one side won should actually be an irrelevance. He appears to think that the same Republican mindset which created this disaster should actually be the way out of it, despite the fact that his views were rejected by the electorate.

Lyndsey Graham epitomises why the Republicans deserve to be out of power for generations: they are simply too stupid to be trusted.

BillO mocks Helen Thomas, calls her "old lady", "wicked witch of the east"

During the last US election we were told that it was ageist to bring up the fact that electing McCain would actually be electing the oldest president in the history of the US.

And, for the most part, the subject was left alone.

But, now that the election is over, watch the way Billo attacks Helen Thomas for being old.

O'Reilly: The White House press corps looked intimidated to me... Except for that, what's her name? The old lady, Helen Thomas. [squawking sound]

Colmes: Is that your Helen Thomas impression?

O'Reilly: Yea! [squawking sound]

Colmes: I didn't know you did impersonations.

O'Reilly: It's like the wicked witch of the east! If I were Obama, I would've poured water on her, and she would dissolve!

Colmes: It's not nice to make fun of an old woman, Bill.

O'Reilly: It doesn't matter.

Billo doesn't seem to get it. Helen Thomas is a legend. To attack her for her age should be beneath even this crackpot.

Hat tip to Crooks and Liars.

Kadima and Likud claim victory in Israel poll.

The Israeli election has ended, highlighting - for me - all that is wrong with proportional representation.

Tipzi Livni has actually secured 28 seats whilst Netanyahu has secured 27. However, now the bartering will begin between the other parties who secured even less votes to see who can form a government and the parties that did not secure the majority of the votes will now assume a power - completely out of touch with their popularity - and decide who next governs Israel.

Now the views of the more extremist parties begin to assume a power which does not reflect the way most Israelis think.

Even though Livni won the elections she may yet lose the government. Her party has the largest number of seats but she may not become prime minister if, as expected, the right-wing parties can together muster a larger coalition.

Avigdor Lieberman, the far-right leader, came in third with 15 seats, a sizeable gain for him. Behind him came Ehud Barak, the Labour leader and defence minister, whose party had just 13 seats, one of its worst election results.

"Everything is wide open and up for negotiations," said Mitchell Barak, a pollster from Keevoon Research. He said a national unity government, bringing together the main parties, was most likely. "The only question is who is going to head it," he said.

Livni, 50, claimed that role for herself. "The people of Israel have chosen Kadima, and we will complete this task by forming a unity government headed by us," she said in a speech to party supporters. If successful she would be only the second woman elected prime minister in Israel's history.

There was stunned silence at Netanyahu's party headquarters in Tel Aviv when the exit polls were announced. For months leading up to the election he had been comfortably ahead, but his lead narrowed sharply in the final days. In part the rise of Lieberman took votes away from the Likud, although the right wing as a whole looked set to dominate.

Yet Netanyahu, 59, sounded just as victorious as his rival, and also promised a "broad and stable" government. "The question is not what the polls said. The question is what reality says," he said in a rousing speech to his supporters. "With God's help, I will lead the next government."

I have always favoured the "first past the post" system where one party eventually takes all. The notion of someone like Lieberman deciding who will rule the country simply appals me. Why should someone who so few people voted for assume such power?

Such a close final result also makes Lieberman a kingmaker. If Livni can draw him into a coalition she might hope to find a majority, but including him might cost her the support of some of the more left-wing parties.

So, we now have a quasi fascist holding the deciding vote. That strikes me as a bonkers system. I understand the arguments which state that in such a system every view is counted, but this is a perfect example of how, in such a situation, the views of the minority actually carry more weight than one would ever want.

Click title for full article.

Tuesday, February 10, 2009

Jon Stewart slams BillO for "right to privacy" hypocrisy.

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Bill O'Reilly's Right to Privacy

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Funny Political News
Joke of the Day

Bill O'Reilly's hypocrisy simply knows no bounds and Jon Stewart is right to call him on it.

Bush Faithful Rewarded With Jobs.

Why am I not remotely surprised to read this?

Fred F. Fielding, Emmet T. Flood, William A. Burck and Daniel M. Price worked together at the White House under George W. Bush. Less than two weeks before leaving office, Bush made sure the senior aides shared a new assignment, naming them to an obscure World Bank agency called the International Center for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

The appointments are for six years and are potentially lucrative, paying up to $3,000 a day plus travel and other expenses if an appointee is chosen to hear a case. Bush also named two other prominent Republican lawyers to the agency, which attempts to broker international finance disagreements.

Nearly half of Bush's appointments after Election Day were filled by donors who gave a total of nearly $1.9 million to Republicans since 2003, according to an analysis of the postings. At least 20 of the positions were filled by former Bush aides, plus others filled by old hands from the administrations of Richard M. Nixon, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush.

Putting his buddies into jobs which they were spectacularly unfit for is something which Bush turned into a kind of art form. I mean who could forget when he placed Michael Brown in charge of FEMA. It's not as if that didn't work out well.

Click title for full article.

Should the US be facing war crimes investigation?

Some lawyers, very low down the chain, have been left vulnerable to prosecution for war crimes. One of them talks here about how she feels about the position the Bush regime have left her in.

To counter this, David Rivkin appears arguing that Bush was essentially right, as he also argued in this article in the WSJ:

What Mr. Obama's national security team will quickly discover is that the civilian criminal-justice system is an inadequate tool to deal with terrorists. President Bush's policies -- particularly treating captured terrorists as unlawful enemy combatants and employing a military court system to try them -- were dictated by the very real need to defend American citizens, not by disdain for the rule of law.

It is simply ludicrous to argue that a legal system which can deal with serial killers and murderers is somehow "inadequate" when it comes to dealing with terrorists.

Indeed, by his own admission, one of the reasons why Rivkin finds the civilian criminal justice system "inadequate" is because it denies the government what he defines as "maximum flexibility".

"Maximum flexibility" is another way of saying that no rules apply and that the gloves are off. It is a recipe for war crimes.

Rivken also appears to be arguing that there is no link whatsoever between big decisions like the one to suspend the application of the Geneva Conventions to al Qaeda detainees and the abuse which followed, which he continues to maintain were committed by "bad apples". Thankfully, his view is becoming - increasingly - an isolated one.

There are very few people who do not now believe that torture was official US policy. The real question now is what the Obama administration are prepared to do to investigate whether or not war crimes have taken place.

If Obama is not prepared to this, then the international community has an obligation to investigate any war crimes which the US is ignoring. Somewhere, however far down the line, the international community are going to have to acknowledge that what was done here was illegal and that it must not be allowed to stand unchallenged.

Israel's election cliffhanger as Livni closes gap with Netanyahu.

The election is Israel is turning into a cliffhanger with Livni closing on Netanyahu as we approach the day for the vote, but it is still expected that Israel will, when this is all over, be led by a right wing administration.

Netanyahu, leader of the Likud party, is slightly ahead, and given the combined size of the rightwing parties that would support him he is thought most likely to lead the next coalition government. But up to a fifth of voters are thought to be undecided, according to opinion polls.

Israel's proportional representation voting system is complicated and no single party will be able to form a government without bringing four or five other parties into a coalition. Even if Livni's Kadima party emerges with the largest number of seats most analysts think she would struggle to put together a like-minded coalition with enough seats to have a majority in the Knesset, or parliament.

"It will be very, very difficult for Livni to form a government, even if Kadima turns out to be the bigger party, because every government of Livni would depend on a rightwing party," said Yossi Verter, a political commentator for the left-leaning Ha'aretz newspaper.

It saddens me that Netanyahu will probably win this election as I do not believe that he has any interest in peace. For the first time in years we have, in the US, a president who is seriously prepared to take the Palestinian viewpoint into consideration and willing to push forward for a peace deal. The last thing which is needed is an obstructionist like Netanyahu in power in Israel.

And Netanyahu will probably rely on the support of people like Avigdor Lieberman to form his government. As far as I am concerned Lieberman is a quasi-Fascist and will bring about the collapse of Netanyahu's government in the unlikely event that he attempts to make peace.

Israel simply couldn't make a worse choice than the one she appears to be about to make at this time. Pulling off a peace deal in the Middle East was always likely to be Obama's stiffest challenge, but the election of Netanyahu will probably make that almost impossible. Almost.

If Obama pushes forward with the sense of fairness and logic which has epitomised his run for office then he might, might, just be able to make the impossible possible. But the election of Netanyahu will make this much harder to pull off.

Click title for full article.

Obama: This is a "Full-Blown Crisis".

Obama has come out fighting against Republican apathy about what to do regarding the economic crisis.

Conventional ideas popular with economic conservatives, like tax cuts, would not work and a failure to act could turn crisis into catastrophe.

"This is no ordinary run of the mill recession," he said.

Obama says that the real danger here is that we create a "negative spiral" and that inaction ignores the fact that we are facing the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Three point six million jobs have been lost and more than half of those jobs have been lost in the last three months.

The situation is getting worse by the day.

"If there is anyone out there who still doesn't believe this constitutes a full blown crisis, I suggest speaking to one of the millions of Americans whose lives have been turned upside down because they don't know where their next pay cheque is coming from," Obama said in prepared remarks before taking questions.

I don't know what the Republican answer is to this problem which Obama inherited, but as he makes clear here, "I am happy to get good ideas from across the political spectrum from Democrats and Republicans. What I won't do is return to the failed theories of the last eight years that got us into this fix in the first place. Because those theories have been tested and they have failed. That's part of what the election in November was about."

The Republican theories were rejected by the electorate. And yet they continue to insist that their theories are the only way forward here.

The locations, though chosen to demonstrate Obama's connection to the hardships of ordinary Americans, also contain an implicit threat to Republican hold-outs against the rescue plan.

Indiana and Florida are traditionally Republican states that voted for Obama in November, and his appearance was also intended as a subtle threat that those who stand in the way of the package could face a potential backlash.

In Florida, the message was underscored by the scheduled appearance with Obama of the state's governor, Charlie Crist.

Obama did not hold back from taking a tough line against those Republican opponents, taking advantage of the primetime television audience to lay the responsibility for the economic recession squarely on George Bush and the Republicans.

"I inherited the deficit that we have right now and the economic crisis that we have right now," he said.

"The notion that I just came in here ginned up to spend $800 billion dollars - that wasn't how I envisioned beginning my presidency."

I admit that the Republican position on this simply baffles me. Obama did not set out to be president during the worst economic crisis for decades, he inherited this from a Republican president.

What I hear from McCain and others is a reluctance to accept that their ideas have been tried and that they have failed. Tax cuts, it turns out, are not the answer to everything. And yet that seems to be the only thing the Republicans have in their bag.

Click title for full article.

Monday, February 09, 2009

No rewards for failure, insists Brown.

Gordon Brown is insisting that there should be no bonuses for bankers who lose money:

Prime Minister Gordon Brown insisted today that there must be "no rewards for failure" in Britain's banks.
Speaking to an audience of economists in London, Mr Brown promised that he would "sweep aside" the short-term bonus culture in banks and ensure that rewards are provided only for long-term sustainable success, with "penalties" for those who take irresponsible risks.

The policy of "no rewards for failure" would be pursued "aggressively", said the Prime Minister, adding that banks in which the state now holds a majority stake would pay no bonuses to board members and no dividends to shareholders this year.

Mr Brown said: "I believe, as a society, we should support hard work, effort, enterprise and responsible risk-taking.

"We should not in any way condone, but should punish, irresponsible and excessive risk-taking."

I'd take this even further and ask why do these people deserve bonuses at all? Most of us agree on a fee and then do the work that we are contracted to do for that fee. Why is there a stratum of society which needs to be promised bonuses in order to do their job properly?

I know people argue that they require incentive but some of these people are already taking seven figure salaries, so what further incentive do they need?

If a million pounds a year isn't enough incentive to make them eager to do their job properly then maybe they ought to move on to another job. There will be plenty of people in line eager to accept that meagre salary.

Click title for full article.

McCain: Stimulus Plan is "Generational Theft".

It's simply extraordinary to listen to McCain - of all bloody people - talk of "generational theft".

This is the man who backed both the Iraq war and Bush's tax cuts whilst running to be president, what is that if not "generational theft?" Bush inherited a massive surplus and left office with an enormous deficit which was caused by two things; his tax cuts and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Wars which Republicans were keen to support but not, apparently, keen to pay for.

The cost of that they passed down the line to be paid for by their children and their grandchildren. So it's a bit bloody rich to listen to McCain complain here about "generational theft". The hypocrisy that he is indulging in here is quite breathtaking.

Pakistan identified as biggest foreign policy test.

It says a lot about the good sense of the Obama administration that he can admit that Pakistan is the situation that "scares" him. I never felt that Bush ever understood the situation in Pakistan, as every pressure he placed on Musharraf simply made the situation worse. It's all well and good to demand that Pakistan must help in the war on terror but, anyone who believes in democracy as Bush claimed to do, must understand that in a democracy it is very hard to work against the will of the people, and many of the people did not agree with what Bush was asking Pakistan to do.

The situation is much more nuanced and difficult than Bush ever acknowledged.

The country is threatened by a growing Islamist insurgency, economic collapse and a crisis of governance as it struggles to establish democratic rule. The Obama administration believes Pakistan is key to its objectives of pacifying Afghanistan and going after al-Qaida and has appointed a pugnacious diplomatic troubleshooter, Richard Holbrooke, as a special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

"We often call this situation Afpak," said Holbrooke at a conference in Munich yesterday, before flying to Islamabad. "There will be more focus on Pakistan," he said. "A new and fragile democracy has emerged ... but the situation in Pakistan requires attention and sympathy."

I am delighted to hear Holbrooke talk of sympathy, for that is exactly what is needed here. The last thing we need is for a continuation of the Bush policy of simply laying down the law and demanding that the Pakistan government comply with American wishes.

That policy will result in possible civil unrest in Pakistan, which is the last thing we need in a country with nuclear weapons.

Pakistan is al-Qaida's headquarters, while its tribal territory, which runs along the Afghan border, is used by the Taliban to launch attacks against coalition forces in Afghanistan. Some Pakistani extremists who previously focused on Afghanistan, have now turned inwards, spawning a vicious Pakistani Taliban movement which challenges the writ of the state. Obama warned in a television interview this month that the spillover of the war in Afghanistan risks "destabilising neighbouring Pakistan, which has nuclear weapons".

The security situation in Pakistan seems to deteriorate daily. Last week's headlines, for instance, included: a bombing of a religious procession in the central town of Dera Ghazi Khan, which claimed at least 27 lives; government helicopter gunship attacks that killed 52 militants in the Khyber area of the tribal region; the kidnapping of a senior UN official by gunmen; and the beheading of a Polish engineer who was abducted five months ago. A videotape of the execution was released last night by his captors.

I have no idea what policies Obama is going to pursue in Pakistan but I am delighted that he appears, at least, to acknowledge that there is no political consensus in Pakistan when it comes to what to do about al Qaeda. Indeed, there is some question over whether the civilian government are actually in charge of their own army.

"The civilian leadership is weak and fearful of the inevitable in Pakistan, that it oversteps the mark and runs the risk of being removed [by the army]," said Rashed Rahman, a political analyst based in Lahore. "It's a non-functional government."

The army has repeatedly shown that it will not bow to civilians on national security, refusing a government order last year, for instance, to place the top spy agency, the powerful Inter-Services Intelligence, under government control.

Bush acted as if Musharraf was duty bound to accept his goals as his own. That was a suicidal policy which ignored political reality.

Obama, at least, is willing to accept that political reality and shape policy which is sympathetic to it. We all know what we would like them to do, but saying it doesn't make it doable.

Obama, unlike Bush, appears to have grasped that.

Click title for full article.

Sunday, February 08, 2009

Criticism rises from ex-Bush officials.

The Bush administration were always a regime of dangerous radicals who felt that the rules did not apply to them, and that seems to be the case even once they have left office.

Dick Cheney says President Obama's policies will make it easier for terrorists to kill Americans. Alberto Gonzales says the new attorney general could be undermining the morale of U.S. intelligence officials.
And Andrew Card, George W. Bush's first chief of staff, took Obama to task for allowing shirtsleeves and loose collars in the Oval Office -- arguing it was a clear departure from Bush's sterner sartorial rules.

The knives are already out just two weeks after Bush left the White House, as some of his closest friends and former aides begin lobbing sharp criticisms at the Obama administration.

The comments mark a departure from the rules of decorum that held sway during the final weeks of the Bush administration, when the departing president and his aides made a point of fostering a cordial relationship with the Obama team.

Normally, outgoing administrations make a point of never criticising the new president, but we shouldn't be surprised that this bunch of torturing, Constitution ignoring, partisan thugs have wasted no time in breaking with protocol.

"It's certainly unbecoming, especially for a former vice president," Thomas Mann, a scholar at the Brookings Institution, said in reference to the remarks by Cheney and others. "It reinforces the fact that there's a lot of bitterness about the low public standing of Bush and the administration as they left office, and the soaring standing of Barack Obama. A lot of these people are still caught up in these ideological battles and can't let go."

Clinton maintained his silence, even after right wing sources attempted to blame him for 9-11, and only broke it when Chris Wallace made the terrible mistake of bringing the subject up during an interview. Clinton, at that point, destroyed him, and the notion that Bush had been diligent on the subject of terrorism prior to 9-11.

But we shouldn't be surprised that the Bush administration lack dignity once out of office, nor that they refuse to behave as protocol demands.

They are, after all, what they have always been. Dangerous ideologues who believe that normal rules don't apply to them.

Click title for full article.

C.I.A. Dir Nominee Panetta Retracts Statement On Torture.

Jonathan Turley makes the very good point that it's impossible to condemn terrorism whilst, simultaneously, refusing to prosecute war crimes as they are both cut from the same cloth.

Top US lawyer warns of deaths at Guantánamo.

Lieutenant-Colonel Yvonne Bradley, an American military lawyer, will tomorrow go to the Foreign Office in London and demand the disclosure of 42 secret documents which she alleges will prove that her client, Binyam Mohamed, was tortured and that Britain was complicit in his torture.

She will also reveal that Mohamed, a British citizen who is currently on hunger strike, could very well die and the JTF [the Joint Task Force running Guantánamo] are keeping the scale of what is taking place at the Cuban base out of the public eye.

Bradley recently met Mohamed in Camp Delta's sparse visiting room and was shaken by his account of the state of affairs inside the notorious prison.

She said: "At least 50 people are on hunger strike, with 20 on the critical list, according to Binyam. The JTF are not commenting because they do not want the public to know what is going on.

"Binyam has witnessed people being forcibly extracted from their cell. Swat teams in police gear come in and take the person out; if they resist, they are force-fed and then beaten. Binyam has seen this and has not witnessed this before. Guantánamo Bay is in the grip of a mass hunger strike and the numbers are growing; things are worsening.

"It is so bad that there are not enough chairs to strap them down and force-feed them for a two- or three-hour period to digest food through a feeding tube. Because there are not enough chairs the guards are having to force-feed them in shifts. After Binyam saw a nearby inmate being beaten it scared him and he decided he was not going to resist. He thought, 'I don't want to be beat, injured or killed.' Given his health situation, one good blow could be fatal," said Bradley.

"Binyam is continuing to lose weight and he is going to get worse. He has been told he is about to be released, but psychologically and physically he is declining."

David Miliband has already refused to release evidence which could prove whether or not Mohamed was tortured, on the grounds that this could stop the Americans sharing intelligence with Britain, which is a simply astonishing thing to claim regarding our ally in the war on terror.

On Tuesday this week High Court judges Lord Justice Thomas and Mr Justice Lloyd Jones will decide whether or not to reopen this case which Mohamed insists will validate his torture claims.

Astonishingly, the Guardian are reporting that the American security services might actually prefer for Mohamed to die:

Suspicion is also growing that some sections of the US intelligence community would prefer Binyam did die inside Guantánamo. Silenced forever, only the sparse language of his diary would be left to recount his torture claims and interviewees with an MI5 officer, known only as Witness B. Such a scenario would also deny Mohamed the chance to personally sue the US, and possibly British authorities, over his treatment.

But if Mohamed survives to come back to London, his experiences of the past six years promise a harrowing journey through the dark underbelly of the war on terror. For Miliband, the questions concerning Britain's role may have only just begun.

The worst thing about all of this are the lengths that the British government are prepared to go to in order to prevent the truth from coming out here. No-one regards as credible the claim that the US would stop sharing information with us were we to reveal a summary of the evidence in court.

Indeed, as the judges made clear in a stinging rebuke of Miliband's position last week:

"Indeed we did not consider that a democracy governed by the rule of law would expect a court in another democracy to suppress a summary of the evidence contained in reports by its own officials ... relevant to allegations of torture and cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment, politically embarrassing though it might be."

And that is the entire point here. There are no grounds of national security which might be breached and it is simply cheap for Miliband to hide behind that defence, especially as he is using that defence to hide the evidence of possible torture of a British resident. They are trying to avoid political embarrassment born from the extent to which the British government were complicit in Bush's crimes.

UPDATE:

Shami Chakrabarti brilliantly takes Geoff Hoon to task over this on Question Time.

Click title for full article.

Israeli Arabs fear a Gaza backlash as far right prepares for power role.

I cannot be the only person who finds what's happening in Israeli politics at the moment to be scary.

On Tuesday, if all the polls are right, Lieberman will emerge as the most significant beneficiary of an Israeli general election campaign played out against the bloody background of the three-week assault on Gaza in which more than 1,300 Palestinians died, many of them civilians.

The rightwing Likud party of Benyamin Netanyahu will probably emerge as the winner ahead of the Kadima party of Tzipi Livni. But most Israelis also recognise the wider significance of the moment: these elections are likely to mark the emergence of a far-right force, with a racist anti-Arab agenda, as the country's power broker.

Lieberman is currently running his campaign under the slogan, “No Loyalty, No Citizenship”, and wants to introduce a law forcing 1.2m Palestinians with an Israeli passport to choose: either they swear an oath of allegiance to the Israeli state and serve in the military – or commit to alternative national service – or they lose their citizenship.

He wants to demand that Israel's Arab population agree to actions like the recent attacks on Gaza, which were the subject of almost worldwide condemnation, or simply cease to be citizens. That's almost textbook fascism and yet, astonishingly, his party, Israel Beitenu, look at the moment as if they are about to take almost 15% of the vote, placing Lieberman in a very strong negotiating position in a country which decides elections by proportional representation.

I was appalled when Olmert invited him to join his cabinet as Deputy Prime Minister, a position which Lieberman resigned from under protest that Israel were prepared to have any negotiations with the Palestinians. I was also appalled at the time that the Bush administration, which had lots to say about Arab extremism, was utterly silent whilst a man who held such appalling views was made Israel's Deputy Prime Minister.

The party mostly emphasizes a secular nationalist vision and demands that all citizens must demonstrate their loyalty to the principle of a "Jewish and democratic state" before they can enjoy the benefits of citizenship. Israel Beitenu's TV commercials boast that "only Lieberman speaks Arabic"—that is, he is the only candidate who understands how to deal with the problem of disloyalty he attributes to many members of the Israeli Arab minority.

I find that terrifying. Lieberman is insisting that it is disloyal for Israel's Arab population to have views which differ from the views of the state, which is a simply astonishing claim for anyone to make within a democracy.

Even Ariel Sharon, who no-one could accuse of being left wing, found the views of Lieberman to be too much and Sharon insisted that, "We regard Israeli Arabs as part of the State of Israel." Sharon went on to dismiss Lieberman from the cabinet.

And yet, if the polls are correct, Avigdor Lieberman could very well find himself in a real position of power after the next Israeli election.

Here are some of the things he has said:

Following nine Palestinian attacks on Israelis during a two day period in March 2002, the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth quoted Lieberman's proposal for an ultimatum to the Palestinians to halt all terror activity or face wide-ranging attacks on commercial centers: "if it were up to me I would notify the Palestinian Authority that tomorrow at ten in the morning we would bomb all their places of business in Ramallah, for example." This led Foreign Minister Shimon Peres to respond that excessive military measures could lead to accusations of war crimes.

In July 2003, reacting to a commitment made by Ariel Sharon to the US, where amnesty could be given to approximately 350 Palestinian prisoners including members of Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Lieberman rejected a chance to participate in the related committee and said "It would be better to drown these prisoners in the Dead Sea if possible, since that's the lowest point in the world,"Liebreman continued, according to Galei Tzahal ('Israel Army Radio'), stating his willingness, as Minister of Transport, to supply buses to take the prisoners there.

This man is a far right extremist by any possible measurement and yet it looks as if he, with views which were rejected as too extreme even by Ariel Sharon, is now going to emerge as a sort of power broker in Israeli politics.

I find that terrifying, and Obama's task of finding a way to establish a state of Palestine will get a whole lot harder if someone like Lieberman has any real influence in Israel. Netanyahu is terrifying enough, but Lieberman is a whole different ball game.

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Israeli elections: Be afraid. Be very afraid

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Saturday, February 07, 2009

Countdown: Special Comment on Dick Cheney's Remarks About a Future Terrorist Attack in the U.S.

One thing that always astonishes me about Dick Cheney's constant, and yet completely unsubstantiated, claim that 61 of the people released from Guantanamo Bay went on to return to the battle.

Let's take what he is saying at face value, shouldn't he be ashamed of such a thing? I mean doesn't it reflect badly on the competence of the Bush/Cheney administration that they released such people?