Webdiary - Founded and Inspired by Margo Kingston

Just reading the two apparently unrelated conversations going on here at the moment. One in particular is full of crossed wires and misunderstandings.

Yet there is a tie in between these unrelated exchanges; a common thread.

The nigger in the woodpile, the source of all the other misunderstandings global and personal relates to the entities discussed by Richard in his reply to Robyn.

All that comes consequent to the operations of these people: the Murdoch press, the polarised politics, rancour between divided people who could easily be friends - all this commences with a group of people self-interested and unthinking of the consequences of their actions on virtually the rest of the world.

Are they evil, or just creations of that unfolding historical phenomenon that constitutes modern global culture?

I always thought Hannah Arendt had it right with her "banality of evil" take on Eichmann's trial.

Not a lunatic or a sadist, probably owned a dog or cat he wouldn't dream of kicking, just a little penpusher somewhere operating on a cognitive or emotional "lack" (sullied by a little denial) preventing him comprehending the real world and his role in it. Quite rational.

And of course the world is filled with damaged people like Rod Steiger's character in the film The Pawnbroker because life actual is also processive: people so badly damaged and emotionally blinded by their traumatic previous experiences that they in turn becomes unable to foresee or prevent the catastrophe that will emerge from an angry but comprehensible rejection of daily reality and humanity, including their own. What we got with that astonishing film was a reworking of the themes the great poets and tragedians of ancient Athens. No roadmaps or instructions and playthings of forces beyond understanding or control.

But determinism can be a little too much of a cop out. We don't take any responsibility for ourselves? We have no freedom?

No, I go along with the "wriggle room" thesis: not much we can do a lot of the time, but we can at least refuse or protest or object if not able to act, perhaps the only soul we save, if such a thing might exist, might be our own, because self-respect is the only thing really worth having having.

But then, in my heart of hearts, like the heroic Pawnbroker or inadequate Eichmann , I find I sold my soul years ago, or at least failed in my most cherished objectives, so apart from, or because of, a contingent and highly unlikely grace, what I'm left is a retrospective, leading back to culpability and its nature. Most are complicit, yes?

Like Dr Faust, the real problem begins with those of us who know better and return from the event of experience to this time cynically exploit the world disaster, all the more and worse, for the epiphany.

Smug Faust lost his soul for his uncaring response to life. Is this the case with; have or will Cheney, Madoff, Murdoch, Arafat, Mubarak, Hussein, Netanyahu etc, follow suit?

Who amongst us is also doomed, having carelessly crossed the line of least resistance?

I've always enjoyed Mick Jagger's angry, joyous rancorous, cynical Rabelaisian retort in Sympathy for the Devil.

Who was it who committed all the nasty deeds, like "Killing the Kennedys"?

When,

"...After all, it was you and I".

If there is a purpose in life, God alone knows what it is!

But if things have value, compassion must be the rarest and shortest commodity, on a quick glance at the unfolding parade.

Thanks for the vid, Robyn.  So good to hear from you again!   Sorry to be so long in responding.. I've been away for a few days.

Watching the CACI interpreter talking about KBR folks in Abu Graibh set me thinking again about that Steve Stefanowicz fellow.  Remember him?   He was working for them on the railway, provided a US voice in the post-S/11 Sunday papers, wound up working with dear Lindy England.  Where did such folks disappear to escape accountability?  Kandahar?

 As that soldier said, KBR's antics didn't do much for Army retention rates.

I'm still digging around the timelines, especially regarding infrastructure matters.  For instance, those KBR showers that electrocuted soldiers, including a Green Beret.. were those plans drawn up and implemented through the Adelaide Global Infrastructure headquarters?  It might make an interesting case, but I'm still guessing that the creation of such useful legal loopholes is the reason that paperwork for the dirtywork was (at the very least) postmarked from this city.

Ethics and business are still oxymoronic.. always will be I guess.  Another blurring of the lines. 

Apologies if fans of Halliburton/KBR have already seen this, but I thought it showed well the sort of values being espoused in Iraq:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6cJlJudDtVE

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1099848.html

And before Alan goes off half cocked and rants about me being an anti-semite he would do well to remember that the refugee convention was written and ratified by the world after our total disregard for human life which led to the world's worst known industrial genocide by a monstrous machine.

Australia was part of the writing of this convention that we have now thrown in the bin.

israel's crime is so much worse because they have forgotten their own history, have become so vile and evil that they just don't care about any life any more.

Re "Cheney the not do good shepherd", the Right revisited the clean up of up in the 1970 around the Carter era when in the wake of Chile, Vietnam, Nixon, the oil shock and recession, Intelligence and FBI were cleaned up in the USA. Finally, after Reagan overturned the reforms and Clinton in turn had to come along and clean things up again, Cheney and Bush and the interests they represented finally wormed their way into the trust of a public short of memory, as happened in Australia with Howard and Hansonism, boostered by gutter publicist Alan Jones - Rush Limbaugh's local equivalent - while Murdoch did his global smear campaigns against moderates.

The parallels to the last few years both in America and Australia are also so striking - the public realised how dangerous the threat to democracy from the oligarchic Right had become in the wake of massive policy failure; defeat in war and recession, in pursuit of ego massage, venal and/or delusion ridden weltanschaung and tossed them all out.

With the Cheney example the underlying problem was not lefties hampering legitimate operation of the intelligence organs, but the blatant politicisation and co-opting of these to suppress real information at odds with partisan alibis involving issues like the "weapons of mass destruction" hoax, with resulting bloodshed and then the massive commercial corruption that sheltered under the wing of so-called politics.

While it's true that the suppressed weapons of mass destruction hoax eventually undid Bush/Cheney, in Australia the final straw was Haneef, for whom Parkin was a forerunner. People finally saw how dangerous suppression and even co-opting of information for political purposes without oversight under the umbrella of the "security" excuse could be, but in slightly different ways.

But it also unfortunately equally true that the system responded not with unequivocal repudiation but with a botoxing of image thru media friendly images like Rudd and Obama, rather than underlying structure.

This is the real importance of the work that Marilyn Shepherd and her confederates do.

Not accepting prima facie the system's assurances that things have changed, they continue to question policy and outcomes on the basis of evidence emerging from its current operation, not just because of humanitarian concerns, but because with the precedents some of the legislation set re Habeas Corpus, revealed so stunningly in the Haneef case we all remain, in a sense, as unprotected as the most disempowered refugee.

The bikie legislation, supposedly post-Tory, and the refusal to fully roll back the aboriginal Intervention and Serf Choices, proves that even the new and saner centrist governments here has not grasped the underlying principles involved, as Obama's climb down on Gitmo, another visible tip, also has demonstrated as to America. And in a purportedly "new" age, how does the continuing dumbing down of media give hope or comfort for those seeking the end of the Age of Suppression?

The story spilling out of the US today is of Cheney sitting at the top of the information food-chain and having info on CIA counterterrorism techniques at his fingertips.  He has apparently violated his oath of office by not passing this information onto Congress, his claims of having complied being repudiated.

We have a situation here, as exemplified by the treatment of Halliburton-activist Parkin, in which ASIO considers revealing its info sources as counterproductive. This is quite understandble in some ways, but now that it's likely that Cheney could pass along stories to Howard and Co under such a cloak of information power.  He could even do this if he was lying to protect his corporate interests. 

I hope ASIO's reading the Oz, the Age and the SMH today.  Perhaps they're rethinking their approach?

Israel used to torture, they claim now that it has been banned but they continue to torture.

The most astonishing thing about this torture story is that here in Australia we lock up victims of torture and persecution without trial or charge, without lawyers and demand that they beg the minister to let them claim refugee status, something that is their universal right.

We then claim that the Indonesian fishermen must be jailed for "exploiting" them but not one journalist is curious enough to ask just how they do that. Do they crawl around Afghanistan and Iraq looking for victims of persecution and torture or simply give refugees a ride?

DIAC have this hysterical rant on their website about "rings of people smugglers" in the Pacific region - people leave Afghanistan, go to Malaysia or Indonesia and then come here. Apparently it is now people smuggling to leave danger, to use a false visa to enter Malaysia or Indonesia and then come here.

Yet they fail to mention that the refugees are the ones asking for the transport and that they cannot get protection in Indonesia or Malaysia.

Thank heavens two men who sailed straight to Christmas Island, tied up at the docks and went to sleep have pleaded not guilty.

We have not forced one charge against one torturer in the Afghan government - according to Malalai Joya, MP, 60-80% of the Afghan government that we are paying for are warlords, Taliban commanders, terrorist organisers, mass murderers and drug barons who awarded themselves freedom from prosecution.

It's bizarre - of the 290 "processed" this year on Christmas Island 277 have been granted permanent residence but we have wasted $11 million just on their jail charges while our normal contribution to refugees is about $1 per person per annum.

$11 million on jail charges so that thirteen people can be rejected or choose to go home. Does anyone else understand how completely stupid that is?

Richard Tonkin: "Habib's lawyer Stephen Hopper has said his client had suffered endless physical and psychological abuse while imprisoned at the facility."

Of course his lawyer would say that, especially as it looks as though it could be a nice little earner. As for you not being able to find anything about the alleged torture of Hicks, you left this little bit out:

"Regular visits by Australian officials to Guantanamo Bay have confirmed that Hicks and Habib are being treated humanely, [the most recent of which was] conducted in the first week of November."

Alan Curran, to answer your question to Marilyn from another thread..

SMH 2004:

The Pentagon is looking into new abuse allegations at Guantanamo Bay after the release of emails written by FBI agents that tell of harsh treatment against detainees.

The emails claim prisoners have been left in their own excrement, chained in ice-cold or super-hot cells and were subjected to other interrogation techniques that caused one prisoner to pull his hair from his head.

Australians Mamdouh Habib and David Hicks are being detained at the US military prison in Cuba.

Habib's lawyer Stephen Hopper has said his client had suffered endless physical and psychological abuse while imprisoned at the facility, including beatings and being told his wife and family were dead.

Hicks, meanwhile, has stated in an affidavit that prisoners at Guantanamo Bay were beaten while blindfolded and handcuffed, terrorised by dogs and forced to take drugs.

News.com.au 2008:

AN FBI agent watched Australian detainee Mamdouh Habib repeatedly vomit during a marathon interrogation session at Guantanamo Bay in 2004, according to a long-awaited US Justice Department report released today.

The agent said Mr Habib, a former Sydney taxi driver held at the US military prison at Guantanamo for more than two years, endured two 15-hour interrogation sessions with only a short break in between.

The report said "(Mr)Habib's condition did not bother" the agent at the time of the interrogation, "but in retrospect she questioned whether the treatment of (Mr) Habib was appropriate".

Details about Mr Habib's confinement at Guantanamo, including an alleged assault inflicted by a private-contract interrogator with Lockheed Martin, were included in the 370-page report that took the Department of Justice more than three years to compile.

More than 1000 FBI employees who served at Guantanamo and in Afghanistan and Iraq after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were surveyed to ascertain if FBI agents witnessed detainee abuse, reported abuse to superiors, and if agents participated in abuse.

Of the more than 450 FBI agents who served at Guantanamo, the report found almost half "observed or heard about various rough or aggressive treatment of detainees, primarily by military interrogators".

I can't find testimonial of FBI observance of Hicks' torture, but that there's enough confirmation that they were observing such practices being perpetrated in Guantanamo at the time of his incarceration. Good enough for me.

PS Irfan, many thanks.