IT’S ALL GOING WRONG for Bush & Co. these days. Last week the prosecutions’ cases against the first two Guantanamo detainees fell apart due to the language used in the Military Commissions Act. As if this wasn’t embarrasing enough for the current US administration, a court in Richmond, Virginia last night ruled that President Bush cannot order the military to indefinitely imprison a suspected al-Qaeda operative as an “enemy combatant“.

Given that all the 380 odd remaining detainees at Gitmo are currently classed as “enemy combatants” this poses a bit of a problem for ol’ Dubya and his cronies.

As enlightened as this ruling sounds, it’s not all clear sailing however. The powers that be could simply just decide to transfer the prisoners from Gitmo to somewhere in the mainland USA and then process them from there. At that point the government could still transfer detainees to civilian authorities to face criminal charges, initiate deportation proceedings, hold them as witnesses in a grand jury case or detain them for a limited period under the Patriot Act – so basically there are still options, however perverted, to the legal beagles in Bush & Co. should they wish to take them… but it’s still a huge embarrasment on the part of the administration in failing actually bring a single successful case against any detainee thus far. And it just goes from bad to worse…

Hell, even Colin Powell is calling for the immediate closure of Gitmo. He also called for the abolition of the military tribunal system, saying terror suspects should face trial under existing US federal laws – so even the old gaurd are starting to change their mind about this purgatory in paradise.

Even so, the US Justice Department is urging the courts to reconsider their decision and you can bet all the movers and shakers are working the same schtick in the background with all their legal contacts… but slowly and surely Bush still seems to be loosing their grip. Finally. Hopefully.

Meanwhile the detainees – some of whom may well be guilty of their alleged crimes but under the current so-called justice system we will never know - continue to sweat it out, continue to be endlessly interrogated and of course continue to non-exist as far as the rest of the world is concerned. And as for the American troops on guard duty there, well they have their own problems. According to this Gaurdian Unlimited article the U.S. military is currently probing how guards failed to prevent the death of a Guantanamo Bay detainee last month, an apparent suicide in one of the most closely monitored detention camps for suspected al-Qaida and Taliban members.

And let’s not forget the input this week from one of the original prosecutors at the Nuremberg war crimes tribunal. To quote prosecutor Henry King Jr: “The US war crimes tribunals at Guantanamo have betrayed the principles of fairness that made the Nazi war crimes trials at Nuremberg a judicial landmark… I think Robert Jackson, who’s the architect of Nuremberg, would turn over in his grave if he knew what was going on at Guantanamo“.

So then – are Bush & Co. loosing their touch? Is the rest of America finally waking up to the disaster that is Bush & Co.? The rest of the world certainly has, but is America catching on to that reality yet? Hmmmm.

Maybe there is light at the end of the tunnel. Just maybe.

I guess we will have to wait and see.

US MILITARY JUDGES have thrown out cases against two Guantanamo inmates, casting doubt on future tribunals for the 380 detainees at the prison and giving Bush & Co. a huge country sized headache in the process.

It seems that the whole thing rests upon the use of the term “unlawful enemy combatants“.  Both cases collapsed because military authorities had failed to designate the men as “unlawful” enemy combatants, and the chances are that none of the other 380 folks still stuck in Gitmo were classed as “unlawful” either, leaving a massive problem for the Bush legal crew to fix.

The really stupid thing about this however is that the new wording is required as a result of the Military Commissions Act that George Bush pushed for and signed into existence last year. Whatever about the legalities of detaining people without due process in Gitmo, it seems incredible to me that Bush & Co. would push through new legislation to enable them to prosecute detainees from Gitmo that depends on wording which has not been used for ANY of the detainees thus far.

In other words – the infamous Military Commissions Act does not apply to anyone actually detained at Gitmo, so it kind of looses its teeth a bit.

I’m sure the legal beagles within the Bush cabal will be rushing forward with all kinds of nuances and shifty ways to get around this, but for the moment there remains a huge big embarrasing hole in what was to be their first prosecution of a detainee from the prison camp. The amazing team behind George Bush strikes again.

You couldn’t make stuff like this up if you tried

EUROPEAN COUNTRIES have been “turning a blind eye” to flights operated by the CIA which, “on some occasions, were being used for extraordinary rendition or the illegal transportation of detainees” according to a report published today. The European Parliament  has produced it’s final report on the alleged illegal activities of the CIA in Europe, specifically the so-called “Rendition” flights and the secret detention facilities.

The report alleges that over 1200 CIA-operated flights used European airspace from 2001 to 2005 and temporary secret detention facilities “may have been located at US military bases” in Europe. The report notes that the renditions investigated by the committee “in the majority of cases involved incommunicado detention and torture” during interrogations, as was confirmed by the victims – or their lawyers – who gave testimony to the Parliament’s committee on CIA activities in Europe.

This is not exactly a surprise in some respects because the Council of Europe also investigated the CIA activities and produced their own report as far back as April 2006, citing specific countries for their collusion and noting the lack of co-operation from others during the investigative process. You can read the special file on this topic they maintain on this topic for more information. What is interesting however this time out is the mention that Ireland gets in the European Parliament report, and more interestingly the ‘offical response’ from our illustrious Minister for Foreign Affairs

The following are the key points raised about Ireland in the report:-

• Where as it was noted that the Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs testified to his unequivocal criticism of the process of extraordinary rendition, it was also noted that he failed to answer all the questions posed by the committee in relation to concerns that Irish Airports were being used by CIA aircraft travelling to or from extraordinary rendition missions (as in the case of Abu Omar).
• It was also noted that the Irish Government had ignored the recommendation of Irish Human Rights Commission in respect of the current policy to take diplomatic assurances as proof that no rendition flights or activities were in fact taking place at Irish Airports.
• The committee stated that there were 147 stopovers made at Irish Airports by the CIA-operated aircraft and expressed serious concern about the purpose of these flights which were linked with extraordinary rendition activities elsewhere.
• The report considered it ‘deplorable’ that stopovers in Ireland were permitted for aircraft which have been shown to be used by the CIA for the extraordinary rendition of Bisher Al-Rawi, Jamil El-Banna, Abou Elkassim Britel, Khaled El-Masri, Binyam Mohammed, Abu Omar and Maher Arar and for the expulsion of Ahmed Agiza and Mohammed El Zari.
• It cites a lack of Irish Parliamentary scrutiny either Irish or foreign intelligence services and the potential that this creates for abuse.
• It strongly recommends that in the absence of random searches a complete ban on all CIA-operated aircraft in ireland be implemented.
• Lastly it recommends the Irish Parliament launch a full investigation into CIA-related rendition activities within the Irish jurisdiction.

It’s pretty damming stuff, but no more than is deserved for this shower of wankers we call a government; they have systematically ignored the warnings and the human rights issues in favour of making a profit from all the American troop transports and CIA stopovers down in Shannon airport.

And the best bit is the reaction from our inglorious Minister for Foreign Affairs to the report’s publication and it’s damnation of our complicity in these rendition activities. He did what any politican would in similar circumstances; he blamed the European Parliament for letting the CIA flights happen in Ireland!

DEATH BY CHOCOLATE; you’ve all heard the expression. It’s usually meant as a humourous description of the perfect way to end things, given our love of the stuff. Chocolate has been tagged with all kinds of properties down through the centures; it’s an aphrodisiac, it stimulates serotonin levels in the brain, it’s supposed to help calm you down when stressed, it’s all things to all people. We love it. We eat it, drink it and cook with it. Hell I know some women who would gladly bathe in it. Chocolate however has a very dark secret that most of us aren’t aware of; I certainly wasn’t until I read an article entitled “Death By Chocolate” by Jennifer O’Leary in the Sunday Business Post today.

In short, chocolate is derived from the cocoa bean and almost half the worlds demand for cocoa beans are fulfilled from the Ivory Coast in West Africa. The only problem with this is that it’s common practice in the Ivory Coast to use kidnapped child labour to harvest the cocoa beans, and worse still the children in question are often mutilated to prevent them from escaping the various cocoa plantations and their captors. The secrecy that surrounds this practice is visciously protected; children, people, journalists – anyone who gets in the way – simply vanish when they become a problem to the locals.

“I tried to run away, but I was caught… as punishment they cut my feet, and I had to work for weeks while my wounds healed. I stayed in a large room with other Malian children from a neighbouring plantation.”

The quote above is from a young boy in Mali who was lured to a cocoa farm in the Ivory Coast. His testimony is part of a US court case brought against chocolate giants Nestle by the International Labour Rights Fund (ILRF). However, this is just the tip of the proverbial iceberg…

In 2004 a French-Canadian journalist (Guy-Andre Kieffer) ‘vanished’ in the Ivory Coast because he was getting too close to the truth. Officials in the Ivory Coast are willing to look the other way because it’s profitable for them. Another Canadian journalist (Carol Off) followed the trail left by Keiffer, and was promptly threatened and reminded of what ‘happened to the last person’ who looked too closely at things they shouldn’t have. The children who pick these cocoa beans don’t even know what the beans are for, or what chocolate is. Everyone in West Africa is looking the other way. The large chocolate manufacturers who are being supplied by these farms and plantations are looking the other way, but what about you? Are you going to look the other way now that you know what is going on?

Before you break off your next square of chocolate with that tea or coffee your sipping, before you snack down on some chocolate treat and indulge in another of those mmmmmmm moments; consider for a moment the origins of that product you are eating. The UN’s International Labour Organisation currently estimates that there are over 284,000 child labourers working on cocoa farms in West Africa alone. If you want some sobering reading check out the Child Labour In The Cocoa Industry report over on the ILRF website.

I’m no slouch in the love of chocolate stakes, but I pale into insignificance beside my other half; SusiQ is what you would call a real chocolate person. She probably dreams about the stuff for all I know, and the thing is she is not alone. In Ireland we have the highest consumption per capita of chocolate in the world. Think about that for a second. The Irish are eating more chocolate per capita per annum than the Swiss! The Irish chocolate confectionary market was worth over an estimated €651 million in 2004, and it continues to grow year on year. In fact, the demand for the cocoa bean and its derivitives is about to explode because pretty soon China is going to get hooked on the stuff as well. For the last 100 years the demand has increased worldwide by 3%, every year.

So here we are, a nation hooked on chocolate; but there is another aspect to this too. We are also a nation that prides ourselves on our charitable donations, our foreign aid packages, our missions, our not-for-profit organisations, our ‘fair trade’ policies, our international reputation as a country that ‘cares’. So how does that sit with the knowledge that children are being kidnapped, abused, mutilated and in some cases ‘vanished’ in order to feed our chocolate habit? How do you feel now about the expression “Death By Chocolate“?

The issue here is the usual one – profit, at any cost. The problem is that some companies are willing to look the other way for this profit. I don’t know how many companies are involved in this practice. I do know that the one most implicated to date however is Nestle. There is however one thing we – as consumers – can do about this, we can boycott any chocolate products from Nestle until such time as they can prove they are no longer facilitating child labour.

We can also spread the word; use the Internet and the online community and ‘instant connectivity’ we share for some good for a change. Get the word out there that it’s not acceptable for Nestle to do this. Stop purchasing their products and if enough people do this, it will impact on their bottom line. It’s the only way to force some social responsibility on them, and it’s also a positive way to try to make a difference in advance of any potential legislation which will hopefully ensure that cocoa importation cannot take place unless proof can be offered to show no labour (children or otherwise) was abused in the production of same. If you have any principles at all – you must take a stand on this.

Link to this article. Write articles of your own. Do some research into the subject. Hell I don’t care if you just decide to cut and paste this article in it’s entirety – just get the word out there and help force these people to stand up and take some social responsibility.

On a personal level I am deciding now to never knowingly touch a Nestle product again; until such time as they can prove they no longer use child labour.

What are you going to do?

A US ARMY Lieutenant who questioned the legality of the war in Iraq and refused to deploy there when ordered is currently running out of options because a judge has ruled that he cannot use a defence which questions the war or it’s legality. The ruling released Tuesday in the case of 1st Lt. Ehren Watada sets the stage for a Feb. 5 court-martial. Watada could face up to six years in prison for his failure to join his brigade in Iraq last June, as well as for his outspoken attacks on the Bush administration’s conduct of the war.

Defence attorneys had hoped to argue that the war in Iraq is illegal, in part, because it violated Army regulations that call for wars to be launched in accordance with the United Nations charter. However in a ruling, Lt. Col. John Head said that “whether the war is lawful” is a political question that could not be judged in a military court.

In other words – the proceedings in February are more disciplinary than justice orientated. Questioning the war is no longer an option for this poor sod. Now it’s just a case of how much of a book they throw at him, and how long he will be locked up for as a result.

Now before any of you gung-ho types start branding the lad a coward, please note that he has gone on record as stating that he would be happy to serve anywhere else on the planet and proud to do so for his country, but in the case of Iraq he does not believe that the USA has any right to be there. He came to this conclusion after researching the issue and made his own mind up about it. Unfortunately for him, it’s free thinking like this which will probably condemn him to a very long time behind bars.

I actually admire the stance he has taken; there are times when you just have to stand up for what you believe is right, for your principles, but I don’t hold out much hope of him getting any sort justice in the military tribunal system he now faces with the amount of political pressure that will be brought in to the mix.

Still – it’s easy for me as an outsider (non military, non American) to take such a stance, but I would like to hear from some of my American on this one, I’d like to know what you think of the case.

Let me know where you stand on this one folks!

EVER GET THE FEELING that you were being watched? Well – these days that itchy feeling at the back of your neck is no longer just instinct, it’s fact. If you live in the USA or Britain in particular, you are being watched, monitored, recorded and filtered every day, in every way… and it looks like it will only get worse.

Think about it. Right now you are probably carrying a cellphone which can pinpoint your location, you use credit cards which are used to track your funds and financial transactions, you have ID cards which ‘remember’ personal data, everytime you browse the Internet you are almost certainly tracked and you are probably monitored pretty much everywhere you go by street cameras and CCTV installations.

Big Brother isn’t coming, it’s already here.

The same thing is happening elsewhere, but for now the two biggest exponents of implementing a ‘Big Brother’ society of constant surveillance “for our own good” are the USA and Britain. The usual arguments in favour of such moves are to make life more ‘convenient’ for us, to help us become ‘more efficient’ and of course that old faithful, to make things ‘more secure’. The problem is that what happens in the USA and Britain is usually just a forerunner of what happens everywhere else eventually.

In the US Bush & Co. seem intend on turning the country into a police state, and thus far the only opposition they have met has been legal and political stumbling blocks brought about by organisations like the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF). If you think I’m exaggerating just consider for a moment the key facts: Patriot Act, Abandonment of due process, Domestic Spying, the Pentagon’s “Total Information Awareness” program… the list goes on and on although here’s one you may not yet be aware of. After signing a postal reform bill called H.R. 6407, the “Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act,” Bush issued a “signing statement” that declared his (Bush’s) right to open the private mail of American citizens without a judge’s warrant. Nothing is safe from monitoring or tampering in the USA at the moment.

By comparison, another State which once aspired to monitor and hold such amounts of information on its citizens was in fact the Communists in Germany between the end of World War 2 and the fall of the Wall in Berlin; they had a file on every single individual citizen, but I’m not sure even they could compare to the job that Bush & Co. seem intent on doing.

Right now this process of implementing Big Brother continues in the USA. Only this week Civil Rights groups came together to oppose the implementation of an additional 50 surveillance cameras in San Francisco; note the word ‘additional’ here. Believe it or not, the USA is lagging behind Britain in this respect – surveillance is already firmly established in Britain and has been for years now, what the British Government seems to be focused on now is the implementation of massive databases and filtering systems to enable them to process all that data they collect. Back in 2005 it was estimated that the average person in Britain is captured hundreds of times per day on various CCTV cameras – how’s that for an invasion of privacy?

All of this is of course being done for our benefit – if you believe the hype. Better security. Enhanced public services. More currency of information. More convenient for us. Safer, smarter, better…

It’s all a crock of shit!

The only thing a surveillance society delivers is control. State control. Moves to push the USA towards a surveillance society were already underway long before 9-11 happened, but of course Bush & Co. have been using the so-called “war on terror” as an excuse for encroaching on personal and corporate privacy ever since then. In Britain the same is true and if they manage to perfect the back end systems to sift through all the data that is being generated, well then they pretty much have a full Big Brother solution in place without any real opposition.

The very same process has begun to happen here in Ireland, but to a lesser extent and thus far the only opposition is a legal challenge by Digital Rights Ireland.

It’s time to wake up people. It’s time to quit sleepwalking through life and watching other people make a stand on your behalf. Get off your collective arses and do something.

You need to shake yourself awake, open your eyes and realise that Big Brother and the “Surveillance Society” it implies is not some far off concept, some borrowed ideal from a futuristic novel; it’s a reality and if you live in the USA or Britain – it’s already here and it’s only going to get worse unless you do something about it.

It’s not just about personal or data protection and privacy; it’s about personal freedom. Find the nearest opposition group and get involved, start lobbying for your information rights in a digital world or find some other way to make a difference, but do something before it’s too late.

THE IMAGE you are looking at is not a work of fiction. It may look like some sci-fi book cover, but actually this is an observation image from the Hubble telescope as it sheds light on the mass of a star previously believed to be amongst the heaviest in the Milky Way.

Breathtaking isn’t it? 

Take a moment to really appreciate this if you can, because it’s not often we take any time to appreciate the absolute beauty and complexity of this universe we inhabit. It’s real. It’s there and it might as well have a huge big sign in front saying “You are tiny in the great scheme of things“.

Still – the reason we don’t take the time to look at the bigger picture is because we are surrounded by our own personal and international chaos on a daily basis, by complete and utter inhumanity from almost every direction.

Today’s news items range from outgoing UN Secretary General Kofi Annan asking the Americans in his final speech to remember that “No nation can make itself secure by seeking supremacy over others” and Bush meanwhile is off naval gazing again trying to figure out what to do about the Iraq problem as the daily news reports just keep on getting worse and worse – a bank heist today in Baghdad resulted in the bad guys walking away with ovet $1M in cash and of course the body count continues to rise daily while international credibiity continues to fall.

In the UK a new serial killer is on the loose in Suffolk and has racked up 3 confirmed kills (of prostitutes) thus far and police are worried because two other prostitutes have gone missing; this nutjob is on a mission all right.

The daily slaughter of children continues in a pointless conflict in Gaza.

In Ireland idiotic drivers continue to drink, then drive, then kill innocents despite all of the measures taken by police (over 750 drink driving offences in the last 2 weeks alone), and you just know it’s going to get worse coming up to Christmas.

And that’s just a sample of the news today, a smattering of the chaos we are enveloped within. It just goes on and on, without end. Round and round we go until we get desensitized and bored in equal parts, turn over the channel to something entertaining instead and carry on with our daily existences, because we all have our own problems too right? We all have our own shit to deal with.

Now look at that photo again. Tell me you are not completely blown away by the sheer scale, the audacity and the scope of such a thing. That it exists at all is a wonder. That we can see it even better, but what good is getting a perspective on what’s out there, if we can’t get our own shit sorted back here?

Iraq is our shit.

Innocent children, civilians and yes even the military daily death toll, that’s our shit too.

Serial killers, drunk drivers, pointless conflicts; Thery’re all our shit.

And it’s time we did something about it instead of just switching over the channel and watching something entertaining.

If you haven’t done so already, make a noise people. Do something. Stand up and be counted. Make a fucking difference in whatever way you can, because if we are ever going to understand out there, we sure as shit are going to have to sort back here first.

Otherwise, exactly what is the point of seeing the bigger picture?

YET ANOTHER report has emerged from the EU about the complicity of certain European states in either direct or indirect support and facilitation of the illegal detention of EU (and other) citizens as part of the CIA’s “Rendition” programme. This time around it’s the turn of the European Parliament, and more specifically Claudio Fava, an Italian MEP who has been responsible for the production of this report.

This is not the first such report it must be noted. I’ve written about this topic on many occasions in the past, most notably the following pieces entitled “Europe’s Complicity: A Web Of Detentions & Transfer” which charted the routes and destinations of the CIA rendition flights within Europe and “A Happy Hunting Ground For Foreign Security Services” which explored the complicity of certain European states in facilitating the CIA and their programme of illegal activities within European borders and then there was a piece entitled “Council Of Europe Confirms CIA Rendition Flights” which – as the title suggests – offered proof of the existence and support for these so-called rendition flights.

It’s actually quite depressing that here – yet again – we have another report, from another European body (although still in draft form at this point) which seems to validate all the allegations and suspicions thus far about the USA’s policy of detention in Europe. It’s just one more useless nail in a seemingly impenetrable coffin for USA because no matter how many sodding reports are produced, nothing is ever done about it.

So for anyone who hasn’t followed this saga to date here is a quick summation of the reality of living in Europe and dealing with the completely illegal activities of the CIA:-

Numerous European sources, reports, government bodies, human rights agencies and I dare say private punters have confirmed that the CIA operated illegally within European borders citing such activities as kidnapping, illegal detention and torture.

US President George W Bush admitted in September that the CIA had used prisons abroad for the secret detention of terror suspects, but he did not specify where the prisons were.

Several EU member states were directly complicit in the facilitation of these illegal activities

Other member states simply looked the other way when it suited them.

Nothing has been done about it, unless of course you count the seemingly endless commissioning of additional reports into the affair.

And what does this teach us? It basically confirms that Europe is a toothless, half blind (when it suits) politically stagnant and morally stunted windbag which seems more interested in hearing it’s own opinions about the problems than actually doing anything to fix them.

I’ve never been a particularly huge fan of Europe as a federated state, and I’m certainly opposed to any form of common European defence force, but I will admit to being bowled over by the success of the Euro as a currency thus far (although the removal of some trade barriers and the implementation of tax harmonisation wouldn’t hurt!)… but based on all this waffle and inaction over what is clearly a violation of human rights by the CIA on European soil, I just don’t see what the benefit of European membership is.

They talk a good fight, but when you get right down to it… they do fuck all about the issue.

I WROTE A DISTURBING piece back in April this year entitled “Mother, Daughter, Suicide Bomber” which explored the origins of and recent growth in suicide bombings being carried out by women. At that time I felt that we had crossed over some invisible line, that we (as a species) had simply lost our way based upon the fact that young Palestinian women now felt they had no recourse but to strap bombs onto themselves and go hunting Israeli soldiers.

In that particular instance the suicide bomber was pregnant when she carried out her attack. Today I am absolutely horrified to discover that another invisible line has been crossed. Not only are the young women of Palestine throwing their lives on the funeral pyres, but now the oldest of them are joining the ranks of suicide bombers.

A 64-year-old grandmother became the oldest Palestinian suicide bomber when she blew herself up near Israeli troops. She was later identified as Fatma Omar An-Najar. Her relatives said she was 64 – by far the oldest of the more than 100 Palestinian suicide bombers who have attacked Israelis over the past six years.

She lived in Jebaliya town, next to the refugee camp where she tried to blow up Israeli soldiers. An-Najar took part in a women’s demonstration to divert Israeli troops while Hamas militants escaped from a mosque earlier this month, reflecting increased involvement by Gaza women in the struggle. Today she committed suicide and tried to take out as many Israeli soldiers with her because recently as a result of Israeli attacks one grandson was killed and another has had his leg amputated and is now wheelchair bound.

When will this insanity stop? At what point is enough, enough?

THE ISRAELI DEMOLITION strategy being employed in Palestine was defeated in recent days when hundreds of people gathered on and about a house in Jabaliya refugee camp in Gaza which had been selected for destruction by the Israeli air force.

Mohammedweil Baroud said he was warned by Israeli forces to leave his home. He instead ran to a mosque and summoned neighbours to help defend the house from the impending air attack. Hundreds of relatives and neighbours gathered at the house, where about 50 people reportedly climbed onto the roof. Others stood in the street chanting anti-Israeli and anti-American slogans.

The tactic worked this time, although an Israeli military commander said Israel would continue its policy of targeted air strikes and accused militants of using the civilians in the camp as human shields.

Well duh… of course they were. What else are they supposed to do?

Oh wait – that’s right. A bunch of folks living in a refugee camp have so many other options when confronted with the imminent destructon of their homes by a foreign military power who is nice enough to ‘phone ahead’ and let them know it’s time to get out of the way of the smart bombs. Yup – loads of options right? They can either leave their house in the 10 minute time alloted and watch it being vaporised from a safe distance, or … well actually that pretty much sums up their options.

Until now that is.

I suppose the Israeli forces will just stop sending notifications of these night attacks now, and the civillian body count will continue to rise beyond control as a result. Madness. Sheer madness.