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Under Obama, the Freedom of Information Act is Still in Shackles

By Trevor Timm | EFF | January 26, 2012

Three years ago this past weekend, on his first full day in office, President Barack Obama issued his now infamous memo on transparency and open government, which was supposed to fulfill his campaign promise to lead the “most transparent administration in history.”

Instead,  his administration has been just as secretive—if not more so—than his predecessors, and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) has become the prime example of his administration’s lack of progress.

In 2009, Obama made FOIA reform the centerpiece of his open government agenda. “My Administration is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government,” he said, while laying out principles he wished to see his agencies adopt in the proceeding months.

In March of 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder issued what the Justice Department called “comprehensive new Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) guidelines.” Holder ordered that all executive branch departments and agencies were to apply “a presumption of openness” in response to FOIA requests.

In 2010, EFF’s senior counsel David Sobel testified to Congress, calling on Obama to lead by example if they wish to change the FOIA process.

Unfortunately, secrecy won out in the Obama administration almost immediately. In the early months of his presidency, a court ruled that the administration would have to turn over photos related to the Abu Ghraib torture scandal in response to a FOIA request. Knowing they’d likely lose the appeal, Obama supported a new law that could keep information secret even when FOIA would otherwise require disclosure. The bill’s only intention was to create a way to shield photographs of detainee abuse from public disclosure.

President Obama also refused at first to release White House visitor records, a practice for which his predecessor, George W. Bush, was pilloried. The Obama Administration appealed a court’s ruling that the visitor logs were subject to FOIA.  In September 2009, Obama reversed course and agreed to voluntarily release White House visitor records going forward. But in 2011, the Administration was still fighting in court to keep the logs before Obama’s reversal a secret.

The Associated Press looked at the administration’s commitment to transparency in 2010 and concluded Obama was using FOIA exemptions to withhold information from requesters more than Bush did in his final year, despite receiving fewer overall requests. And one of the most frequently used exemptions was one Obama explicitly told the agencies not to use: the “deliberative process” exemption, which allows the government to withhold documents dealing with its decision making process. In Obama’s first year in office, the use of the exemption skyrocketed from 47,395 times in 2008 to 70,779 times in 2009.

Worse, more than a year after Obama and Holder’s memos, a National Security Archive study found “less than one-third of the 90 federal agencies that process such FOIA requests have made significant changes in their procedures.” Even FOIA requests on transparency were held up:

The AP is still waiting–after nearly three months–for records it requested about the White House’s “Open Government Directive,” rules it issued in December directing every agency to take immediate, specific steps to open their operations up to the public.

Yet around the same time, when President Obama was asked a question at a townhall about why his administration wasn’t more transparent, he responded by saying it was the most transparent in the modern era.

What was his first reason?

The administration’s release of White House visitor records—the same records they went to court to fight to keep secret.

The President also bragged: “We’ve revamped the classification system so it’s not used to hide things that might be embarrassing to us.”

Which, of course, is not true either. As EFF has pointed out, government secrecy and over-classification has reach absurd levels under Obama.

More damage was done to FOIA in the Dodd-Frank bill. A little-noticed provision of the recently passed financial-reform legislation stated that the SEC “no longer has to comply with virtually all requests for information releases from the public, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act.” Other media organizations have lodged public complaints about FOIA procedure at the State Department, the Department of Homeland Security and even agencies dealing with health and scientific issues like the EPA and NASA.

EFF has experienced many of these problems first hand. When we sued the FBI after it was revealed they were systematically abusing their National Security Letter authority, the bureau redacted the vast majority of the thousands of pages requested. In another case, it was clear the FBI was arbitrarily redacting information when it wasn’t appropriate. The DHS singled out EFF, along with other activist groups and media representatives such as the ACLU, EPIC, Human Rights Watch, and AP, for an extra layer of review on its FOIA requests. EFF sued just to find out the names of the members of Obama’s Intelligence Oversight Board.

But by March 2011, only 49 of the 90 federal agencies had followed any “specific tasks mandated by the White House to improve their FOIA performance.” The National Security Archive found in July that federal backlogs of FOIA requests are growing. A Study released in December of this year by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and OpenTheGovernment.org found the administration was withholding information using nine of the most common exemptions 33% more than George Bush’s last full year in office.

But perhaps the worst violation of Obama’s open government principles was the deplorable attempt by the Justice Department to change the DOJ’s own FOIA regulations. Under the proposed rule, instead of refusing to confirm or deny a document is in the Department’s possession, the agency could “respond to the request as if the excluded records did not exist.” The Los Angeles Times called it an “outrageous proposal” that “provides a license for the government to lie to its own people and makes a mockery of FOIA.” After near universal outcry, including pressure from Congress, the Justice Department scaled back its rules. But as the Sunlight Foundation said, the Justice Department’s revised FOIA rules were still “worse than reported” and allow reviewers to dismiss requests for a host of trivial reasons. Obama’s Justice Department seemed intent on killing the very law it championed at the start of his administration.

The Freedom of Information Act has been hailed by open government advocates as “one of the most significant laws ever passed by the U.S. Congress,” yet its passage and survival has been fought by Presidents for more than forty years. The bill, as a significant check on executive power and secrecy, was originally opposed by Lyndon Johnson, yet was signed into law in 1966. When Congress strengthened the act after the Watergate scandal, President Ford vetoed it on the advice of his then-chief of staff Dick Cheney. Thankfully, Congress overrode his veto. Reagan’s Attorney General Edwin Meese was so opposed to FOIA, despite its being law for more than 20 years, he wrote a memo telling the Justice Department to essentially disregard requests it disliked.

President Obama promised to change all that. Unfortunately, it’s clear many of his pledges have been broken or ignored, turning his declaration that he would lead the “most transparent administration ever” into a punch line rather than a re-election slogan.

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February 4, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Deception, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Eliot Cohen, Mitt Romney’s Man on Iran

By Max Blumenthal | Al Akhbar | February 3, 2012

Should Mitt Romney make it to the White House, his Middle East policy and plan for Iran may be as hawkish as that of Bush Junior, thanks to Eliot Cohen.

In 2005, a group of graduate students at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced and International Studies (SAIS) participated in the school’s annual diplomatic simulation. The high-pressure scenario required the students to negotiate a resolution to a standoff with a nuclear-armed Republic of Pakistan. Mara Karlin, a student known for her hawkish politics on Israel and the Middle East, played President of the United States.

Though most of the participants were confident they could head off a military conflict with diplomatic measures, Karlin jumped the gun. According to a former SAIS student, not only did Karlin order a nuclear strike on Pakistan, she also took the opportunity to nuke Iran. Her classmates were shocked. It was the first time in 45 years that a simulation concluded with the deployment of a nuclear weapon.

That year, Karlin received a plum job in the Bush administration’s Department of Defense where, according to her bio she was “intimately involved in formulating U.S. policy on Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Israel-Palestinian affairs.” Lebanon was a special area of focus for Karlin. She claims to have helped structure the Lebanese Armed Forces and coordinated relations between the US and Lebanese militaries.

According to the former SAIS student, Karlin was a favorite of Eliot Cohen, an ultra-hawkish professor of strategic studies at SAIS, which is regarded in American foreign policy circles as a training ground for the neoconservative movement. Through Cohen’s connections among the neocons occupying key civilian posts in Bush’s Defense Department, the former student claims Cohen was able to arrange an attractive sinecure for Karlin. Besides Karlin, the ex-SAIS student told me Cohen has promoted the career ambitions of many former pupils, including Kelly Magsamen, who worked under Cohen in the Bush administration and now oversees the Iran portfolio in the Obama administration’s State Department.

Today, Cohen is among Republican presidential front-runner Mitt Romney’s top campaign advisers. He is the primary author of Romney’s foreign policy white paper, which attacks Obama for “currying favor with [America’s] enemies” and “ostentatiously shunning Jerusalem.”

The paper urges a policy of regime change in Iran including possible coordination with Israel on military strikes to prevent the Iranian regime from developing a nuclear weapon. It is an aggressive Republican election season document presenting a concoction of post-9/11 unilateralism and unvarnished neo-imperialism as the antidote to a sitting president Cohen accused of “unilateral disarmament in the diplomatic and moral sphere.” More importantly, it suggests that a Romney administration’s foreign policy might look remarkably similar to – and perhaps more extreme than – that of the Bush administration.

Stephen Walt, a professor of international affairs at Harvard University’s School of Government who has been on the receiving end of aggressive attacks by Cohen, called Cohen “a classic neoconservative.” Walt said, “He is constantly fretting about alleged U.S. vulnerabilities, consistently supportive of increased defense spending, and generally inclined to favor U.S. intervention in other countries. Second, like virtually all neoconservatives, he is also deeply attached to Israel, as well as to the United States. I do not question his patriotism, but I think he tends to see U.S. and Israeli interests as more-or-less identical and doesn’t see a trade-off between support for one and support for the other.”Cohen rose through the ranks of the Republican foreign policy elite as a protégé of Paul Wolfowitz, the former Assistant Secretary of Defense who is credited with playing a central role in the push for invading Iraq. In 1990, Wolfowitz secured a position for Cohen working beside him on the policy planning staff of the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Three years later, when Wolfowitz was appointed dean of SAIS, he began using his influence to propel Cohen’s career. According to a former State Department official who graduated from SAIS, it was through the beneficence of Wolfowitz that Cohen earned an endowed teaching position at SAIS as the Robert E. Osgood Professor of Strategic Studies.

In 1997, Wolfowitz and Cohen joined forces to form the Project for a New American Century, a neoconservative umbrella group that served as the key non-governmental vehicle for promoting the case for invading Iraq after 9/11. In the immediate wake of al-Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., Cohen took to the media to map out the next phase of a grand global military venture that he coined, “World War IV.”

Describing Iraq as “the big prize,” Cohen urged a unilateral invasion of Iraq that would advance the ambitions of the now-discredited political charlatan Ahmed Chalabi and his Iraqi National Congress. Like so many of his neoconservative peers, Cohen claimed Saddam Hussein’s regime maintained “a connection with the 9/11 terrorists.” With the war deteriorating into a chaotic bloodbath and as his own son was called up for duty, Cohen criticized the Bush administration for “happy talk and denials of error.” However, he refused to admit fault for his role in selling Americans on the invasion.

Despite mildly dissenting from the White House line, Cohen continued his ascent, replacing Philip Zelikow as counselor to then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice in 2007. According to the former State Department official, Rice had almost no role in Cohen’s appointment. Instead, Cohen was recommended for the position by Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter Liz. Cheney’s daughter headed the Iran Syrian Operations Group, a newly created, neoconservative-inspired initiative burrowed within the State Department’s Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. At the time of Cohen’s appointment, Rice was attempting to open diplomatic lines to Iran, North Korea, and Syria – a move Cohen and the Cheneys fiercely opposed.

A few months after Bush left office, the former State Department official said Cohen and Wolfowitz rewarded their neoconservative fellow traveler Eric Edelman – a former Defense Department official during the later Bush years – with a visiting scholarship at SAID. In private, Johns Hopkins alumni expressed outrage at the installment of Edelman, a career diplomat with no academic background, accusing the neoconservatives of exploiting SAIS to create a system of political patronage.

Cohen’s extensive web of foreign policy and military connections forms a seamless line to Tel Aviv. There, on the top floor of one of the office buildings known as “HaKirya,” is the office of one of Cohen’s former pupils, Aviv Kochavi. Kochavi is now the director of Israeli military intelligence, making him one of the most quietly influential figures in the country. In 2006, Kochavi, who also holds a philosophy degree, boasted to the Israeli architect and anti-occupation activist Eyal Weizmann about how he and his troops crushed Palestinian resistance cells in Nablus through the use of “inverse geometry” and “micro-tactical actions” inspired by the theories of post-structuralist philosophers like Deleuze and Guattari. On February 2, Kochavi appearedat the annual Herzliya Conference to issue grave warnings about the rapid progress of Iran’s nuclear program, suggesting that sanctions and diplomacy have failed, and that more aggressive action might be required.Despite Cohen’s deep Israeli ties, he has proven extremely sensitive to critiques of the connection. When Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer, the latter a professor of International Relations at the University of Chicago, published their widely debated paper on the Israel lobby in 2006, Cohen authored one of the first attempts to discredit their thesis about a loose coalition of individuals and organizations creating political pressure to move US foreign policy in a pro-Israel direction. In an op-ed in the Washington Post, Cohen accused the authors of “kooky academic work” and “obsessive and irrationally hostile beliefs about Jews.”

“Cohen’s rather hysterical reaction to our work was both typical and easy to explain,” Walt remarked. “Given that he and other neoconservatives had played a key role in convincing George Bush to invade Iraq in 2003, he was understandably upset when we pointed this out and provided extensive documentation of their role in the run-up to this disastrous war. He could not refute our logic or our evidence, however, so he chose to misrepresent our views and smear us falsely as anti-Semites and conspiracy theorists.”

With the last battalions of US troops preparing to redeploy from Iraq to other conflict zones, Cohen is homing in on Iran. In a September 2009 editorial for the Wall Street Journal, he dismissed diplomacy and sanctions as feasible means of curbing Iran’s nuclear ambitions. “Pressure, be it gentle or severe, will not erase that nuclear program,” he wrote. “The choices are now what they ever were: an American or an Israeli strike, which would probably cause a substantial war, or living in a world with Iranian nuclear weapons, which may also result in war, perhaps nuclear, over a longer period of time.” While not ruling out the necessity of an American strike on Iranian facilities, Cohen advised that the “US actively seek the overthrow of the Islamic Republic…through every instrument of U.S. power, soft more than hard.”

As tensions between Israel and Iran rise to unprecedented levels, and Israel’s leadership beseeches the US to join a military strike on Iran, Cohen’s visions of regime change seem closer to realization than ever before. For him and the neoconservative policy elite, a Romney victory in November might deliver the next “big prize.”

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February 4, 2012 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Britain resorts to nuclear bullying against Argentina

Press TV – February 4, 2012

The UK is sending a nuclear submarine to the Malvinas Islands amid growing tensions between Britain and Argentina over the disputed territories.

According to media reports on Saturday, British Prime Minister David Cameron has personally approved the deployment of the Trafalgar-class vessel, believed to be either HMS Tireless or HMS Turbulent, in the South Atlantic.

However, a British Ministry of Defense (MoD) spokeswoman said, “We do not comment on submarine deployments.”

The heavily-armed submarine is set to be in the Malvinas waters in April for the 30th anniversary of the 1982 war which the two countries fought over the islands also known as the Falklands.

The Royal Navy has already revealed it is sending HMS Dauntless, a Type 45 destroyer, to the Falklands.

Britain’s Prince William arrived in the Malvinas on Thursday for a six-week training mission as a search and rescue pilot with the Royal Air Force (RAF).

Buenos Aires has strongly condemned Britain’s “provocative” move to post Prince William, likening it to that of a “conqueror.”

“The Argentinean people regret that the royal heir is coming to the soil of the homeland with the uniform of the conqueror and not with the wisdom of a statesman who works in the service of peace and dialogue between nations,” read an Argentine Foreign Ministry statement.

Situated about 250 nautical miles from Argentina, Malvinas has been a British colony for over 180 years.

Argentina claims sovereignty and the two countries fought a destructive 74-day war over the islands in 1982.

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February 4, 2012 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

CIA Claims Release of its History of the Bay of Pigs Debacle Would “Confuse the Public.”

By Nate Jones | Unredacted | February 3, 2012

Late last year, the Central Intelligence Agency explained to Judge Kessler of the US District Court in Washington DC that releasing the final volume of its three-decade-old history of the 1961 Bay of Pigs debacle would “confuse the public,” and should be withheld because it is a “predecisional” document.  Wow.  And I thought that I had heard them all.

On the 50th anniversary of the Bay of Pigs invasion, the National Security Archive filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit for the release of a five-volume CIA history of the Bay of Pigs affair.  In response to the lawsuit, the CIA negotiated to release three volumes of the history — the JFK Assassination Records Review Board had already released Volume III– with limited redaction, currently available on the National Security Archive’s website.  At the time, the Director of the National Security Archive’s Cuba Documentation project, Peter Kornbluh, quipped that getting historic documents released from the CIA was “the bureaucratic equivalent of passing a kidney stone.”   He was right.  The Agency refused to release the final volume of this history, and the National Security Archive is not giving up on the fight.

Keet it secret!

Volume five of the history, written by CIA historian Jack Pfeiffer –who sued the CIA himself to release the history in 1987, and lost– is described by the CIA as an “Internal Investigation document” that “is an uncritical defense of the CIA officers who planned and executed the Bay of Pigs operation… It offers a polemic of recriminations against CIA officers who later criticized the operation and against those U.S. officials who its author, Dr. Pfeiffer, contends were responsible for the failure of that operation.”

While Dr. Pfeiffer’s conclusions may or may not be true, FOIA case law appears to be pretty clear that Americans –who funded the operation and Dr. Pfeiffer’s histories– have the right to read this document and decide for themselves its merits.  Despite the claims of the CIA’s chief historian David Robarge, the document should not remain in the CIA vaults because its conclusions “could cause scholars, journalists, and others interested in the subject at hand to reach an erroneous or distorted view of the Agency’s role.”  Historians, after all, are well trained in treating documents –especially CIA hagiographies sources– skeptically.

To prevent the public from reading this volume, the CIA has argued that because it is a draft, it is a predecisional document and can be denied under exemption b(5) of the FOIA.  Except –as Davis Sobel, counsel to the National Security Archive points out in our motions– the case law states otherwise.

President Obama instructed every agency (yes, even the CIA) to “usher in a new era of open government” and apply a  “presumption of disclosure… to all decisions involving FOIA.”   In response to this instruction, the Department of Justice Office of Information Policy –responsible for enforcing FOIA throughout the government– issued its own guidance to agencies (yes, even the CIA), explaining:

“A requested record might be a draft, or a memorandum containing a recommendation.  Such records might  be properly withheld under Exemption 5, but that should not be the end of the review.  Rather, the content of that particular draft and that particular memorandum should be reviewed and a determination made as to whether the agency reasonably foresees that disclosing that particular document, given its age, content, and character, would harm an interest protected by Exemption 5.  In making these determinations, agencies should keep in mind that mere “speculative or abstract fears” are not a sufficient basis for withholding.  Instead, the agency must reasonably foresee that disclosure would cause harm…

For all records, the age of the document and the sensitivity of its content are universal factors that need to be evaluated in making a decision whether to make a discretionary release.” *

As the D.C. circuit recognized, “the Supreme Court has pointed out that the ‘expectation of the confidentiality of executive communications [] has always been limited and subject to erosion over time…”” (Judicial Watch, Inc. v. U.S. Dep’t of Justice (D.C. Cir. 2004.)

Even presidential records are barred from being withheld under “predecisional pretenses” after a period of time.  The Presidential Records Act expressly states that exemption b(5) cannot be invoked to withhold records once the president has been out of office twelve years.  If the presidential communication and work process is not threatened by this provision, there is no reason that the CIA’s history staff should be.

And there is a good chance that the history is not even a predecisonal document.  The burden rests on the CIA to point to the specific decision that the history is “decides” to make it a predecisional document.  And so far they have not.  Their case rests on the speculative and abstract fear of  “discrediting[ing] the work of the CIA History Staff in the eyes of the public or, worse, in the eyes of the Agency officers who rely upon CIA histories.”

Even if parts of the document truly are predecisional, only they can be withheld, the facts leading up to that decision –and histories are (hopefully) based primarily on facts– must be released.

To wit, draft histories have frequently been released under FOIA.  In 2010, the Department of Justice released portions of  pages of a candid history of Nazi-hunting (and Nazi-protecting) clearly marked DRAFT.   (The unredacted version of the report was subsequently leaked– no prosecution by the Obama administration for that one… yet.)  Moreover, the CIA previously disclosed Volume IV of this history in draft form (with a disclaimer)!  This final volume to the CIA’s history remains one of the few –perhaps the only– government produced product chronicling the doomed invasion which remains classified; the public should be allowed to see its contents.

“Trust us. You don’t need to read it for yourselves.”

The National Security Archive’s case is a strong one.  I’m confident that Judge Kessler will require a de novo review of the document leading to its eventual release.

On the other hand, the CIA’s “confuse the public” defense appears is as weak as it is insulting.

—————————

*It’s certainly not clear why DOJ attorneys would agree to argue this case for the CIA, especially after Eric Holder sent a government-wide memo which promised to defend denials of FOIA requests only when disclosures would truly harm agency interests.   What is more clear is the reason why many agencies have failed to implement the Obama FOIA reforms –the Department of Justice has done a poor job implementing them within its own divisions, and the DOJ Office of Information Policy has done a poorer job forcing other agencies to comply with the law.

As the Archive’s counsel David Sobel put it, “This case is yet the latest example of the Obama administration failing to deliver on its promise of ‘unprecedented’ transparency.  It’s hard to understand how the release of this document, after all these years, could in any way harm legitimate government interests.””

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February 4, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Foolishly Ignoring the Arab League Report on Syria

By Sharmine Narwani | Al Akhbar | February 4, 2012

On December 19, 2011 the Syrian Arab Republic and the Arab League signed a protocol establishing an observer mission that would lead efforts to resolve the conflict in Syria and protect civilians in the process.

Almost immediately afterward, once-staunch advocates of this Arab League “intervention” in Syria began efforts instead to undermine the mission’s efforts.

Before inking the final deal, an Arab League official had warned me that certain member states – Qatar, most prominently – were setting up conditions that would preclude the participation of the Syrian government. But intense shuttle diplomacy at the eleventh hour produced a breakthrough: the mission was approved by the two parties, and the disappointed spoilers launched a public relations blitz to cast doubt on the mission’s participants, the Arab League’s capabilities and the investigation’s discoveries.

For the last month, we have heard allegations fly riotously about the Sudanese Head of Mission Lieutenant General Mohamed Ahmed Mustafa al-Dabi, now suddenly accused of war crimes. Rumors abounded about mission observers quitting their posts because of the “horrific” nature of the Syrian government’s onslaught against its civilians. International NGOs and a slew of western politicians even offered to “train” the mission observers – implicitly suggesting that Arabs lack observation and negotiation capabilities, or worse perhaps, that the observers need to be taught to view the Syrian conflict through external lenses.

It was hard to doubt these rumors entirely. The Arab League has, after all, refused to make the final monitors’ report available to the general media. But the report has suddenly popped up as an annex to the UN resolution on Syria currently being hotly debated at the Security Council. Most puzzling though, is that few Western or Arab journalists congregated at the United Nations this week are drawing attention to this critical document that provides insight into the very events contested at Council sessions.

Mission Report: The Good, Bad and Ugly

The full monitor’s report of the Arab League, as revealed here, refers in several instances to efforts aimed at undermining the mission and its activities:

“Since it began its work, the Mission has been the target of a vicious media campaign…that increased in intensity after the observers’ deployment. Some media outlets have published unfounded statements, which they attributed to the Head of the Mission. They have also grossly exaggerated events…Such contrived reports have helped to increase tensions among the Syrian people and undermined the observers’ work. Some media organizations were exploited in order to defame the Mission and its Head and cause the Mission to fail.”

The effort to “defame” the mission – ostensibly by opponents of the Syrian government – is a strange one. The report – while short – is professionally written, detailed, and highlights the difficulties inherent in covering a hard-fought conflict. It also criticizes the Syrian regime’s actions and shortcomings in sticking to the protocol and protecting civilians:

“On being assigned to their zones and starting work, the observers witnessed acts of violence perpetrated by Government forces and an exchange of gunfire with armed elements in Homs and Hama. As a result of the Mission’s insistence on a complete end to violence and the withdrawal of Army vehicles and equipment, this problem has receded.”

On the critical issue of political detainees, the report states:
“On 19 January 2012, the Syrian government stated that 3569 detainees had been released from military and civil prosecution services. The Mission verified that 1669 of those detained had thus far been released. It continues to follow up the issue with the Government and the opposition, emphasizing to the Government side that the detainees should be released in the presence of observers so that the event can be documented.” The report also verifies that an additional 3,843 detainees were released before Syrian President Bashar Assad issued a general amnesty decree on January 15. The government claims the number is 4,035.

But then the report veers sharply away from conventional narratives about the nature of the Syrian conflict by observing: “The Mission determined that there is an armed entity that is not mentioned in the protocol.”

Though the report attributes this development “to the excessive use of force by Syrian Government forces in response to protests,” it also points out that “in some zones, this armed entity reacted by attacking Syrian security forces and citizens, causing the Government to respond with further violence.”

The report then provides several examples of this:
“In Homs and Dera‘a, the Mission observed armed groups committing acts of violence against Government forces, resulting in death and injury among their ranks. In certain situations, Government forces responded to attacks against their personnel with force. The observers noted that some of the armed groups were using flares and armour-piercing projectiles.”

“In Homs, Idlib and Hama, the Observer Mission witnessed acts of violence being committed against Government forces and civilians that resulted in several deaths and injuries. Examples of those acts include the bombing of a civilian bus, killing eight persons and injuring others, including women and children, and the bombing of a train carrying diesel oil. In another incident in Homs, a police bus was blown up, killing two police officers. A fuel pipeline and some small bridges were also bombed.”

Media Coverage and Access In Syria

Notable too is the mission report’s contention that media reports on incidents of violence in Syria are often exaggerated and unverified:

“The Mission noted that many parties falsely reported that explosions or violence had occurred in several locations. When the observers went to those locations, they found that those reports were unfounded. The Mission also noted that, according to its teams in the field, the media exaggerated the nature of the incidents and the number of persons killed in incidents and protests in certain towns.”

The report also addresses criticism that the Syrian government restricts media access both into Syria and into the country’s hot spots. Complaints varied from media being allowed into the country for an insufficient “four days” to the regime demanding cumbersome “destination” itineraries, “operating permits” and “movement restrictions.”

The report provides a list naming the various individual journalists and media organizations entering Syria during the mission’s mandate, and concludes: “The Government had accredited 147 Arab and foreign media organizations. Some 112 of those organizations entered Syrian territory, joining the 90 other accredited organizations operating in Syria through their full-time correspondents.”

I should note that I was in Syria doing research for some articles during the mission’s investigations and that I am not on the list. While my own visa was arranged through a connected non-Syrian friend, I know of other writers who entered the country without incident. I spent my time there freely interviewing many opposition groups and individuals and was at no time accompanied by government minders – or monitored, to the best of my knowledge.

Less fortunate was Gilles Jacqiuer, the France 2 Channel cameraman who was killed during a visit to a pro-regime neighborhood in Homs. The French government has loudly sought to implicate the Syrian government in this killing, but the mission says that “mission reports from Homs indicate that the French journalist was killed by opposition mortar shells.”

 

The report also refers to controversial statements made by several monitors who abandoned their positions and publicly criticized the mission afterward. Probably the most memorable of these is Algerian Anwar Malek who famously claimed on Al Jazeera: “What I saw was a humanitarian disaster…The regime is not just committing one war crime, but a series of crimes against its people. The snipers are everywhere, shooting at civilians. People are being kidnapped. Prisoners are being tortured and none were released.”

 

The Arab League released a terse statement in response, saying Malek’s allegation “does not relate to the truth in any way,” and claiming instead, that “since he was assigned to the Homs team, Malek did not leave the hotel for six days and did not go out with the rest of the team into the field giving the excuse that he was sick.”

The report further expounds: “Some observers reneged on their duties and broke the oath they had taken. They made contact with officials from their countries and gave them exaggerated accounts of events. Those officials consequently developed a bleak and unfounded picture of the situation.”

Mission Success or Failure?

The report concludes with some pessimism: because of early logistical and other difficulties, the mission only actually operated for 23 days out of its month-long mandate. There is a need for better transportation, communication equipment – and most importantly – the necessary “media and political support” to complete its mandate.

On a positive note, the mission stresses that the Syrian regime “strived to help it succeed in its task and remove any barriers that might stand in its way. The Government also facilitated meetings with all parties. No restrictions were placed on the movement of the Mission and its ability to interview Syrian citizens, both those who opposed the Government and those loyal to it.”

Most critically, however, the report recommends a change in the Protocol’s mandate, namely, the “commitment of all sides to cease all acts of violence.” This, for the first time, introduces the notion that the Syrian government may not be entirely responsible for the civilian casualty numbers flaunted in media reports. And it is an important point – regular soldiers reportedly account for approximately 2,000 deaths in the country since March 2011.

But the observers warn: “Recently, there have been incidents that could widen the gap and increase bitterness between the parties. These incidents can have grave consequences and lead to the loss of life and property. Such incidents include the bombing of buildings, trains carrying fuel, vehicles carrying diesel oil and explosions targeting the police, members of the media and fuel pipelines. Some of those attacks have been carried out by the Free Syrian Army and some by other armed opposition groups.”

The “citizens” of Syria with whom they met – some of whom suffer from “extreme tension, oppression and injustice” – “believe the crisis should be resolved peacefully through Arab mediation alone, without international intervention. Doing so would allow them to live in peace and complete the reform process and bring about the change they desire.”

This is a narrative that is entirely missing in the mainstream media’s coverage of the Syrian crisis. The complicity of armed groups in escalating the violence initially started by the Syrian government; the compliance of the regime in advancing the Arab League Protocol’s demands; the rejection by ordinary citizens of internationalizing and militarizing the conflict.

Read the mission report. Conclude what you will. But admit that possibly the worst thing that can be done at this critical juncture is to suspend the Arab League mission’s investigations and interventions. If the mission is halted, civilians will lose protection in this conflict, facts will be hard to come by, and intermediaries on the ground in Syria will be nonexistent. Violence escalated after the mission took its leave to file the report. Inserting them back into the ring is unarguably the right course of action, particularly as it appears the UN Security Council is, today, at an impasse.

Sharmine Narwani is a commentary writer and political analyst covering the Middle East. You can follow Sharmine on twitter @snarwani.

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February 4, 2012 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , | Leave a comment

US ‘most notorious police chief’ trains Bahraini forces

Press TV – February 4, 2012

A former U.S. police chief – whose “horrific” crackdown on protesters in Miami in 2003 drew condemnation from the Amnesty International- is now on the ground in Bahrain to train the security forces in the Persian Gulf nation, a human rights activist says.

The Bahraini government which has been repressing anti-regime protesters since mid-February last year now has one of America’s “most notorious police chiefs” to train its security forces, Mohammed Malik, who is also an organizer of Occupy Miami, told Press TV’s U.S. Desk.

“We continue to see the crackdown and this is an embarrassment to be an American and see that,” Malik said.

John Timoney was chief of the Miami Police for seven years and his heavy-handed policing of protests around the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in 2000 and the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit meeting in Miami in 2003 has made him controversial.

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February 4, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Settlers Install New Outpost Near Hebron

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | February 03, 2012

A group of fundamentalist Israeli settlers installed a new illegal settlement outpost, south of the southern West Bank city of Hebron, on Friday while another group of armed settlers invaded areas in Beit Ummar town, north of Hebron.

Rateb Jabbour, coordinator of the National Committee Against the Wall and Settlements, reported that approximately 250 settlers, accompanied by Israeli Border Police officers, invaded that Al-Carmel village, and installed six new caravans in Um Ash-Shuqhan area, near the Maoun illegal outpost that was installed on privately-owned Palestinian lands.

In related news, Yousef Abu Maria, media spokesperson of the National Committee Against the Wall and Settlements in Beit Ummar, stated that approximately 150 settlers attacked Palestinian farmlands in Za’ta area, east of Beit Ummar, and blocked the Jerusalem-Hebron road in front of Palestinian traffic.

According to Abdul-Hadi Hantash, a Palestinian expert on Maps and Settlements, that recent escalation is part of a larger plan that aims at installing more outposts, and expanding existing ones, by stealing more Palestinian lands.

Hantash added that settlers are stealing Palestinian lands in Um Ash-Shuqhan area, and installing new outposts, so that they can create a geographical contiguity by linking the new outposts with the settlements of Ma’oun, Karmiel, Havat Yair, Avigayil, and Susyia. All are illegal outposts built on privately-owned Palestinian lands.

The official further stated that Israel is implementing an agenda that aims at isolating the Palestinians in Hebron by the illegal Annexation Wall and the chain of settlements and outposts built on the hills of the Hebron district.

“Israel wants to force the Palestinians out of their homes and lands, wants them to leave”, Hantash added, “But the residents are determined to remain steadfast in their homes, lands”.

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February 3, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , | Leave a comment

Kufr ad-Dik and Burqin march against boars, pollution, and violence by Israelis

International Solidarity Movement, West Bank | 3 February 2012

Burqin and Kufr Ad-Dik face daily obstructions in justice as nearby illegal Zionist settlements encroach on the livelihood of local Palestinians. The villages are surrounded by several hilltop illegal settlements and industrial sites with polluting factories and an army base.

“This is a microcosm of Palestinian suffering” stated a resident upon the arrival of International Solidarity Movement volunteers.

Burqin and Kufr Ad-Dik are under siege by settlers and soldiers. The villages are situated in Areas B and C as stipulated by the Oslo Agreement and sit dangerously close to the 1948 Green Line. Burqin has approximately 4000 residents which include many refugees from Al Nakba, or the Catastrophe, known to Palestinians when they faced exile from their villages in 1948 at the creation of Israel.


Kufr ad-Dik face to face with their oppressor

The village relies on small scale agriculture for its existence. The Israelis from the illegal settlements know this and routinely destroy Palestinian crops often by burning olive trees as part of the extremist “Price Tag Campaign.” They have also released wild boars from their settlements which eat Palestinian crops and are very dangerous, especially to the young of the villages. In an act of callousness the settlers destroyed a newly bought piece of farm machinery about two weeks ago. During this attack they also burned a car and unsuccessfully firebombed the local mosque, leaving threatening graffiti that they will be back.

While a local place of worship, graffiti, and vandalism seem like small offenses, one must keep in mind that these are systematically done to pressure the villages into abandoning what is left of their homes.

As with many of the Palestinian villages who have suffered the injustice of having their lands stolen by Israel in order to build illegal settlements, which continue to expand, Burqin and Kufr Ad-Dik are forced to endure regular attacks from the illegal occupants of their land as well as harassment by the Israeli military. The settlers, soldiers and Israeli government, which is benefiting from and funding the existence of these illegal settlements work cooperatively to forcibly remove Palestinians from their land.

There is an industrial estate, situated on top of a hill, which houses several severely polluting factories. These factories could not gain a license to be constructed inside of Israel due to the pollution that will be created, but they were granted permission by the Israeli government to be built within the West Bank illegally under international law. The waste from these factories is channeled in an open sewer through the villages.

Since the factories began polluting there has been a sharp rise in health problems within the village including an anomaly in cancer cases. A German charity volunteered to pay for the sewer to be covered and managed.

Permission to build this cover was flatly denied by the Israelis. The pollution from the factories has severely affected the surrounding land causing trees to die, crops to fail, and the meat from animals grazed on the land cannot be sold due to fear of contamination.

According to an article published by the Baheth Center for Strategic and Palestinian Studies, information on the size and power of these factories is not available to local Palestinians. In an article published by the Baheth center, they describe the extent of the factory waste:

The waste water and solid waste these industries produce,  provide important clues about the type and extent of industrial activity… Clear evidence that Israeli factories operating in the Occupied Territories do not follow pollution prevention measures is provided by the Barqan industrial zone, which houses factories producing aluminum, fiberglass, plastic, electroplating, and military items. Industrial waste water from this zone flows untreated to the nearby valley, damaging agricultural land belonging to the Palestinian villages of Sarta, Kufr Al-Deek, and Burqin, and polluting the groundwater with heavy metals.

Unemployment is now very high in the villages since much of the land has been taken by settlers and the military. To add insult to the pollution inflicted on the villages, the Palestinians are banned from working the factories surrounding them. With more land being taken away every day, unemployment and poverty continue to rise. Yesterday an army order was issued to take another 60 dunums (1000m squared = 1 dunum) for “military purposes.”  Farmers are now collating deeds to their lands in an attempt to argue their case in court.

Burqin has lost over 8000 dunums to the illegal occupation, most of which was stolen in the last 10 years. The land theft is sharply on the increase. The farm land that is left is still extremely dangerous to farm due to settler attacks and the threat of wild boars.

Not satisfied with attacking the food production, the Israelis have destroyed several wells, which are vital to the well-being of the villagers. The illegal settlers have commandeered most of the water supply leaving the Palestinians with critically low access to clean water. A recent study found that the average settler uses 18 times that of one Palestinian villager.

In addition to the destruction of wells several homes have been demolished including a home that the owner worked for 30 years to save enough to build.

Leaving or reentering the villages is high risk as settlers will often throw rocks at Palestinian cars. If the villagers successfully run the gauntlet they then have to pass through harassing Israeli Army checkpoints.

The villages have just started a weekly protest against their oppression in Kufr Ad-Dik. This was met last week with tear gas and steel bullets thinly coated with rubber leaving 10 villagers wounded.

The protest will continue every Friday.

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February 3, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | | Leave a comment

New thinking in India’s Iran policy

By M K Bhadrakumar | Rediff | February 2, 2012

Finally, India is getting its act together in its Iran policy. The ‘breaking news’ that India proposes to robustly explore expanding its trade with Iran signals a new approach to stepping up oil imports from Iran while at the same time rectifying the imbalance in trade, which heavily favours Iran traditionally, and to make this happen within a paradigm that resolves the current problem over the payment mechanism.

The new thinking is an acknowledgement of Iran’s importance as a strategic partner. That is where the rub lies. Delhi has lumped far too long the blackmail tactic by Washington with the malicious intention to erode India’s ties with Iran. Indeed, as result, for no real fault of Tehran, the India-Iran relationship suffered needless setbacks in the recent years.

Delhi should never accept that this is a zero sum game – India’s relationships with the US and Iran respectively. Iran is far too important a regional power in India’s extended neighbourhood to be neglected. There is no need to dilate on this thought.

Other Asian countries like Japan, South Korea or Malaysia have successfully managed to have positive relationships with both Iran and the GCC states. Also, GCC states themselves have maintained highly nuanced relationships with Iran. In a long term perspective, it is far from inevitable that Iran’s rise is an irreconcilable eventuality for the GCC states.

Much of the present-day tensions in the Persian Gulf is also to be attributed to the imperial policy of ‘divide-and-rule’ that the West continues to pursue in the region for the sake of perpetuating their hegemony. Finally, the US-Iran standoff itself is increasingly becoming unsustainable if Washington is to optimally develop a regional strategy. The point is, Iran has already bolted away.

China sees all these trends very clearly and is successfully developing a multi-tiered regional strategy that creates space for pursuing fruitful relations with Iran and GCC –  and even Israel – alike.

Indeed, it is also best for a healthy US-India partnership that it is an equal relationship where neither side takes undue advantage or tries to browbeat or resorts to prescriptive approaches and arm-twisting. In this case, the US policy toward Iran also happens to be vacuous, lacking sincerity of purpose; it is opaque and brittle – and increasingly, US comes to realise that even its European allies are reluctant to follow its lead. Therefore, it is simply appalling that US has chosen to harbour expectations of dictating to Delhi the directions and content of its Iran policy.

Of course, the American side is not to bear the entire blame, either. Somehow, the Indian elites (including bureaucrats) and strategic pundits have come to develop an atavistic fear that US-Indian partnership is highly perishable unless Delhi keeps harmonising its policies with the US global strategies even by sacrificing its interests. This sort of inferiority complex is completely unwarranted.

The heart of the matter is that the US is a highly experienced practitioner of diplomacy. If it began abandoning its historic cussedness toward India sometime during Bill Clinton administration’s second term, it was because Washington saw the growth potential of India and the great possibilities that would arise for a beneficial relationship.

Even today, that consideration is the prime mover of the US polices toward India. It is a well-known fact that after being grumpy for a few weeks after India spurned the US offer for the 10-billion dollar multi-purpose aircraft tender, Washington moved on.

We could also learn from the Americans – how doggedly they keep pursuing their regional strategies through the Afghan endgame, no matter what Delhi thinks of it. Suffice to say, the high probability is that India’s Iran policy may displease Washington for a while and then life will move on. As for the fear complex of the Indian elites or pundits, it is borne more out of their own insecurities vis-a-vis the US establishment and it should remain their private affair.

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February 3, 2012 Posted by | Economics | , | Leave a comment

The Warmongering Post: Iran, Israel, Ignatius, and the Intended Consequences of Propaganda

By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep In America | February 2, 2012

In the latest example of mainstream media warmongering, in today’s Washington Post David Ignatius writes,

Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has a lot on his mind these days, from cutting the defense budget to managing the drawdown of U.S. forces in Afghanistan. But his biggest worry is the growing possibility that Israel will attack Iran over the next few months.

Panetta believes there is a strong likelihood that Israel will strike Iran in April, May or June — before Iran enters what Israelis described as a “zone of immunity” to commence building a nuclear bomb. Very soon, the Israelis fear, the Iranians will have stored enough enriched uranium in deep underground facilities to make a weapon — and only the United States could then stop them militarily.

When reading reports like the one Ignatius has filed here, it should always be remembered that what is being so nonchalantly discussed as a point of perturbation for a beleaguered Leon Panetta is, without doubt, the willful and active commission of a war crime. Not only that, but – in the words of the Nuremberg Tribunal – initiating a war of aggression, as Israel would undoubtedly be doing by unilaterally and illegally bombing Iran, is “the supreme international crime.”

Ignatius, despite his clear intent of beating war drums under the guise of disinterested journalism, acknowledges repeatedly that Iran is not building nuclear weapons and has no nuclear weapons program. While the bogus Israeli claim of Iran reaching a “zone of immunity” (the new Barakian term for what until recently was ominously called the “point of no return“) is noted by Ignatius, it’s followed by the claim that this spooky “zone” would enable Iran to “commence building a nuclear bomb.” Which means it’s not currently doing that. Ignatius even reiterates the fact that – per U.S. (and Israeli and IAEA) intelligence – Iran is not building a bomb. Which means this is all speculative. Which means any potential attack would be “preventative” and not based on any immediate threat. Which means it would be totally illegal under any possible reading of international law.

Ignatius writes that “Netanyahu doesn’t want to leave the fate of Israel dependent on American action.” There’s that “existential threat” again! Y’know, the one that Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak, former Mossad chiefs Meir Dagan and Ephraim Halevy, current Mossad chief Tamir Pardo say doesn’t actually exist. Just today, Ynet reported that former IDF Chief of Staff Dan Halutz also repeated the assessment that Iran poses no such threat to Israel. “The use of this terminology is misleading. If it is intended to encourage a strike on Iran, it’s a mistake,” he said.

Nevertheless, Ignatius repeats this absurdity as if it’s an uncontroversial fact. It appears that, for Beltway reportage, “If Netanyahu says it, it must be true!”

Ignatius goes on, “Administration officials caution that Tehran shouldn’t misunderstand: The United States has a 60-year commitment to Israeli security, and if Israel’s population centers were hit, the United States could feel obligated to come to Israel’s defense.”

Does that refer to an aggressive, first-strike on Israel by Iran? If so, this is a fabricated premise that no one actually considers to be a danger (Iran’s “defensive military doctrine” is well-documented and consistently reaffirmed by U.S. intelligence) and is an action Iran has repeatedly said it would never commit. Ayatollah Khamenei, Iran’s head of state and commander-in-chief, has stated unequivocally that “the Islamic Republic has never threatened and will never threaten any country.” Meanwhile, just the mere threat of military attack by Israel is a clear violation of Article 2 of the UN Charter.

So, essentially, Ignatius is crafting a strawman in order to beat the American warrior chest much like Hillary Clinton did in 2008 when she declared that, if Iran attacked Israel and she were president, she would order the U.S. military to “totally obliterate” Iran. How’s that for a genocidal, “wipe off the map” fantasy?

Ignatius also suggests there are currently only two ways out of the current crisis: Iran could “finally open serious negotiations for a formula to verifiably guarantee that its nuclear program will remain a civilian one; or the United States could step up its covert actions.”

Anyone familiar with the 2007 Work Plan that Iran and the IAEA agreed to, knows that this has already happened and that the IAEA consistently confirms that Iran’s nuclear program is not militarized. The “verifiable guarantee” is the presence of IAEA cameras and inspectors at Iran’s safeguarded facilities. What would make Iran’s program even more “verifiably” civilian in nature would be for the international community – including the U.S. – to accept Iran’s numerous offers to invest in and partner with its program, thereby making it virtually impossible for Iran to weaponize. These overtures have been consistently rebuffed or ignored.

The other option, of course, is more “covert actions” – in other words: drone surveillance and industrial sabotage. Those pesky little murders and explosions that leave widows and orphans and which, in any other context – if any other country’s citizens were the victims of such summary executions – would be unconditionally and unequivocally condemned as terrorism.

Sure, Ignatius ends with the off-hand comment that Netanyahu is vacillating and that “top Israeli intelligence officials remain skeptical of the project” – the “project” of course being shorthand for an act of aggressive war (again, “the supreme international crime”).

Concluding with requisite Beltway fear-mongering, Ignatius warns that “senior Americans doubt that the Israelis are bluffing” and are “worrying about the guns of spring — and the unintended consequences.”

At this point, with three decades of war threats, devastating sanctions that amount to the collective punishment of the Iranian people for the crime of overthrowing the Shah, and propaganda about Iran’s ever-imminent hell-bending drive for atomic weaponry with which to evaporate poor little (nuclear-armed and super-power funded) Israel, how can any of the “consequences” honestly be referred to as “unintended”?

I suppose it would be lovely for Israel (and its many cheerleaders here in Congress and the media) if it were able to bomb whomever they want whenever they want, killing thousands upon thousands, with impunity and without any repercussions – that’s what it’s been doing in Gaza and Lebanon for years. But Iran is not ghettoized and occupied, demilitarized and defenseless, blockaded and besieged. Iran, unlike the usual victims of Israeli and American bullets and bombs, can actually fight back if it’s attacked.

That’s what frustrates warmongers from Foggy Bottom to Herzliya so much.

February 3, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | , , , , | Leave a comment

Zionist plan to build a shopping centre on Armenian Church land

Palestine Information Center – 03/02/2012

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — The Jerusalem occupation municipality announced a plan to build a new shopping centre with a car park on a piece of land that is owned by the Armenian Church in the old city.

The municipality further banned residents of the Armenian quarter in the old city from parking their cars on the land which is owned by the church.

Residents of the Armenian quarter demonstrated on Thursday to protest the steps taken by the municipality, but the demonstration was dispersed by the Israeli occupation police.

The land which is about 4000 square meters and which is owned by the Armenian Church was used by local residents as a free car park, but the locals were surprised when the so called Jewish quarters committee started collecting parking fees, and now barred them altogether from parking their cars there.

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February 3, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , | Leave a comment

13 injured in Nabi Saleh demonstration

Ma’an – 03/02/2012

BETHLEHEM – Israeli forces injured 13 people in the village of Nabi Saleh, near Ramallah, during a Friday demonstration against Israeli land confiscation, witnesses said.

A French national sustained an injury from a tear-gas canister, activists said. She was taken to a hospital in Ramallah and her injury was described as moderate, they said.

Maj. Peter Lerner of the Israeli army suggested the injury was actually caused by a Palestinian stone-thrower. Israeli border police were injured at the same “riot,” he wrote on Twitter.

Palestinian residents of Nabi Saleh and their local and international supporters demonstrate each week against a nearby settlement’s encroachment toward lands owned by the village.

In December 2011, a tear-gas canister killed Mustafa Tamimi, a resident of the village.

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February 3, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism, Subjugation - Torture | | Leave a comment

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