Friday, February 25, 2011
Monday, June 21, 2010
Israel stations nuclear missile subs off Iran
Israel stations nuclear
missile subs off Iran
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
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Monday, March 22, 2010
Bagram prison in Afghanistan may become the new Guantánamo
Bagram prison in Afghanistan may
become the new Guantánamo
President Obama has pledged to close the Guantánamo Bay prison ? but a viable alternative continues to prove elusive
The American detention centre at Bagram in Afghanistan could be expanded into a Guantánamo-style prison for terrorist suspects detained around the world.
This is one of the options being considered as US officials try to find an alternative to Guantánamo Bay, which President Obama promised to close within a year of taking office. The continued use of the prison in Cuba has presented Mr Obama with an embarrassing dilemma because of the difficulty of finding somewhere acceptable to imprison those considered to be the most dangerous detainees.
A decision to send al-Qaeda suspects detained in countries such as Yemen and Somalia to Bagram, which is located north of Kabul, would be highly controversial.
General Stanley McChrystal, the American commander in Afghanistan, has already voiced his opposition, according to theLos Angeles Times newspaper, because of the negative publicity it would generate.
Bagram is synonymous in Afghan eyes with past human rights abuses, although the old prison has been replaced by a new facility at the large US airbase.
A senior Pentagon official said: “No one particularly likes any of the choices before us right now, but Bagram may be the least bad among them.”
The other alternative — of using a special prison in the US — is seen as less practical because the detainees would have to be put through the American justice system, and some of the suspects considered by the US as the most dangerous would be difficult to prosecute because of the lack of sufficient evidence. Congress would also oppose such a move.
Bagram currently houses about 800 detainees, including a small number of foreign fighters who were not arrested in Afghanistan. They were taken there under the Administration of George W. Bush.
The other complication for Mr Obama is that, under current plans, Bagram is to be handed over to the Afghan Government next year, so unless the US military retained control over one section of the prison — solely for suspects detained outside of Afghanistan — it is unlikely that the Government of President Karzai would approve of having responsibility for those detained by US special forces or the CIA in another part of the world.
A US official told the Los Angeles Times that General McChrystal supported the idea of Bagram being used for foreign fighters detained in Pakistan, provided they had a direct bearing “on the fight in Afghanistan”. That would include Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the alleged Taleban leader captured in Pakistan in February.
The issue of where to put high-risk detainees is so sensitive that when Admiral Eric Olson, commander of US Special Operations Command, was asked at a Senate hearing last week where he would send a terrorist suspect arrested in Yemen, he said that he could answer that question only in closed session.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article7070460.ece
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Enemy Belligerent Interrogation, Detention and Prosecution Act of 2010
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The proposed bill mandates that any person detained on suspicion of terrorist acts or material support for terrorism be placed in military custody. The detainee will not be entitled to Miranda rights and will remain in detention – and can be interrogated – while the Executive Branch makes a status determination. If determined to be an unprivileged enemy belligerent, the detainee will be held until the end of hostilities. Needless to say, unlike the POW in the war paradigm, for detainees, end of hostilities in the terrorism paradigm is a euphemism for ‘indefinite detention’.
The legislation’s panic response can be seen not only in the due process and rights denied, but in the categories of persons it addresses. By encompassing those suspected of material support for terrorism – a federal crime indeed but never part of the law of war – the bill subjects an extraordinarily broad group of persons to indefinite detention.
The proposed legislation’s impact would be a fundamental miscarriage of justice created by the unconstitutional denial of the right to counsel, the right to remain silent, the right to be free from arbitrary, let alone indefinite detention, and the right to a day in court.
Past practice in the US and abroad demonstrates, unfortunately, that panic and the desire to respond plays a dominant role over legitimate national security interests, respect for constitutional and international law considerations and careful analysis of the threat posed. That is, the response becomes what is important; its legitimacy and justification take a back seat. While terrorism poses a threat, that threat does not justify throwing our principles out the door in panic.
After the December 13, 2001 attack on the Indian parliament, the Prevention of Terrorism Act (POTA) created an overly broad definition of terrorism, and provided for detention of suspects for up to three months without charge. On September 17, 2004, the new elected Indian government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh announced that it would honor its election pledge to repeal the POTA, which dispensed with the presumption of innocence, allowed the compulsory denial of bail, and enabled the admissibility of confessions despite the rampant use of torture and coercion by police and security forces.
In the aftermath of the Passover eve bombing in Netanya, Israel, considered one of the worst terrorist attack in the nation’s history, Israel extended the time for detention of Palestinians suspected of involvement in terrorism to 18 days without judicial review. In striking down the law, the High Court of Justice made two key observations. First, the legislation was a classic example of a short-term response that did not address the long-term impact or issues of morality and legality. Second, democracies must adopt self-imposed restraints, recognizing that they must fight terrorism with “one arm behind their backs.”
Republicans and Democrats alike have failed to articulate, create and implement a lawful interrogation, detention and trial regime for post-9/11 detainees. That is shameful and reflects negatively on two Presidents, the Congress and the Supreme Court.
The real issue runs deeper: how does American society define itself in the context of terrorism – by the rule of law or the rule of fear? The proposed McCain-Lieberman bill suggests a problematic stop-gap measure that significantly violates the rights of suspects. The examples from India and Israel highlight the danger of panic legislation, ultimately overturned.
Although we must address - and resolve – the trinity of detention, interrogation and trial, discarding core principles is not the way. I have proposed the establishment of national security court in conjunction withMiranda guarantees for detainees. A protectionless interrogation regime predicated on indefinite detention does not contribute to counterterrorism. All it does is reflect panic. That has not worked before – why should it work now?
Amos N. Guiora is Professor of Law at SJ Quinney College of Law, the University of Utah; his latest book isFreedom from Religion: Rights and National Security (Oxford University Press, 2009).
Monday, March 8, 2010
One in three killed by US drone strikes is a civilian
One in three killed by US drone strikes is a civilian
Is that true? Well, not really, according to a new report from the New America Foundation, a non-profit research institute.
The percentage of civilians killed by drones in Pakistan is at about 32 percent, or one out of three, the report states, and the strikes themselves have little effect in deterring terrorist activities in either Pakistan or Afghanistan. Researchers do not believe any of the reported strikes targeted Osama bin Laden.
An excerpt:
Our study shows that the 114 reported drone strikes in northwest Pakistan, including 18 in 2010, from 2004 to the present have killed approximately between 834 and 1,216 individuals, of whom around 549 to 849 were described as militants in reliable press accounts, about two-thirds of the total on average. Thus, the true civilian fatality rate since 2004 according to our analysis is approximately 32 percent.
The group's report is titled "The Year of the Drone," referring to 2009. According to the figures obtained by the foundation, the Obama administration has increased the use of drone strikes considerably when compared to the previous years of the Bush administration.
There were 114 reported drone strikes from 2004 through 2009, but only 45 during the Bush years. The other 51 were during last year.
...[A]lthough the drone strikes have disrupted militant operations, their unpopularity with the Pakistani public and their value as a recruiting tool for extremist groups may have ultimately increased the appeal of the Taliban and al Qaeda, undermining the Pakistani state. This is more disturbing than almost anything that could happen in Afghanistan, given that Pakistan has dozens of nuclear weapons and about six times the population.
Although the US military executes the strikes with the approval of the Pakistani government, the people feel differently. Only 9 percent approve of drone strikes.
The group ReThink Afghanistan has already created a short documentary using some of the report's findings.
"Clearly when you have a drone strike that kills a wedding party of ninety people when you're really after one person and maybe you didn't even get that person, this contributes to the problem," Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) says in the film.
Watch it here:
OPERATION POPEYE
Operation Popeye
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Operation Popeye (Project Popeye/Motorpool/Intermediary-Compatriot) was a US military cloud seeding operation (running from March 20, 1967 until July 5, 1972) during the Vietnam war to extend the monsoon season over Laos, specifically areas of the Ho Chi Minh Trail. The operation seeded clouds withsilver iodide, resulting in the targeted areas seeing an extension of the monsoon period an average of 30 to 45 days. As the continuous rainfall slowed down the truck traffic, it was considered relatively successful.[1] The 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron carried out the operation to "make mud, not war." [2]
Contents[hide] |
[edit]Project Popeye (1966)
Project Popeye was an experiment in increased rainfall through cloud seeding jointly approved by the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Department of Defense. The technical aspects of the experiment were verified by Dr. Donald F. Hornig, Special Assistant to the President of the United States for Science and Technology. The government of Laos was not informed of the project, its methods or its goals.
Robert S. McNamara, U.S. Secretary of Defense, was aware that there might be objections raised by the international scientific community but said in a memo to the president that such objections had not in the past been a basis for prevention of military activities considered to be in the interests of U.S. national security.
During October 1966, Project Popeye was tested in a strip of the Laos panhandle east of the Bolovens Plateau in the Se Kong River valley. The test was conducted by personnel from the Naval Ordnance Test Station located at China Lake California. Fifty cloud seeding experiments were conducted with the result that 82% of the clouds produced rain within a brief period after having been seeded. It was claimed that one of the clouds drifted across the Vietnam border and dropped nine inches of rain on a US special forces camp over a four hour period. After the successful completion of the test phase, Project Popeye transitioned from an experiment to an operational program of the U.S. Defense department.
[edit]The Operation's Objectives
Operation Popeye goal was to increase rainfall in carefully selected areas to deny the Vietnamese enemy, namely military supply trucks, the use of roads by: [3]
- Softening road surfaces
- Causing landslides along roadways
- Washing out river crossings
- Maintain saturated soil conditions beyond the normal time span.
[edit]Operation Popeye
Starting on March 20, 1967 and continuing through every rainy season (March to November) in Southeast Asia until 1972, operational cloud seeding missions were flown. Three C-130 aircraft and two F4-C aircraft based at Udorn Royal Thai Air Force Base Thailand flew two sorties per day. The aircraft were officially on weather reconnaissance missions and the aircraft crews as part of their normal duty generated weather report information. The crews, all from the 54th Weather Reconnaissance Squadron, were rotated into the operation on a regular basis from Guam. Inside the squadron, the rainmaking operations were code-named "Motorpool".
The initial area of operations was the eastern half of the Laotian panhandle. On 11 July 1967, the operational area was increased northward to around the area of the 20th parallel and included portions of far western North Vietnam. In September 1967, the A Shau Valley in South Vietnam was added to the operational area. Operations over North Vietnam were eliminated on April 1, 1968 concurrent with conventional bombing restrictions being put into effect. The southern region of North Vietnam was added to the operational area on September 25, 1968 and then removed on November 1st of that year concurrent with a halt to conventional bombing of North Vietnam. In 1972, most of northeastern Cambodia was added to the operational area,
All rainmaking operations ceased on July 5, 1972.
[edit]The Operation revealed
Reporter Jack Anderson published a story in March 1971 concerning Operation Popeye (though in his column it was called Intermediary-Compatriot). The name Operation Popeye (Pop Eye) entered the public space through a brief mention in the Pentagon Papers [4] and a July 3 1972 article in the New York Times.[5] Operations in Laos ceased two days after the publication of the Times article.
The press stories led to demands from members of the U.S. Congress, led by Senator Claiborne Pell, for more information. U.S. House and Senate resolutions in favor of banning environmental warfare were passed as Senate Resolution 71 on July 11, 1973, H.R. 116 of 1974, H.R. 329 of 1974 and H.R. 28 of 1975.
[edit]Current Law and Operation Popeye
Weather modification procedures when performed to achieve a military end now fall under the provenance of the Convention on the Prohibition of Military or Any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques.
[edit]Sources
- Weather Modification Hearing, United States Senate Subcommittee on Oceans and International Environment of the Committee on Foreign Relations, March 20, 1974
[edit]Published government documents
- Keefer, Edward C. Foreign Relations of the United States 1964-1968 Volume XXVII Laos United States Government Printing Office, 1998.
[edit]References
- ^ "Laos, 1948-1989; Part 2". Acig.org. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
- ^ Will Thomas Author. "Weather Warfare/Global Dominance Over Weather/Full Spectrum Dominance By Us Over Weather". Willthomas.net. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
- ^ "ENMOD and the US Congress". Sunshine-project.org. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
- ^ "The Pentagon Papers, Gravel Edition, Volume 4, Chapter 2, "US Ground Strategy and Force Deployments, 1965-1968, pp. 277-604, 3rd section". Mtholyoke.edu. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
- ^ "Rainmaking Is Used As Weapon by U.S.; Cloud-Seeding in Indochina Is Sa... - Free Preview - The New York Times". Select.nytimes.com. Retrieved 2009-07-25.
[edit]External links
- Transcript of the US Senate Hearing on Weather Modification of March 20, 1974
- Operation Motorpool Gallery
- Dr. Edwin X Berry's 1969 trip to Philippines for Operation Popeye (Berry now at www.climatephysics.com)
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