Forgive me for being so presumptuous, but I suspect that even the well informed are unaware of some of the most remarkable international news in recent weeks. Now if this supposition is correct then ask yourself, dear reader, for we will surely agree about the significance of the following — whether a corporate dominated media and democracy are indeed compatible?
My three selections are all American in origin but it goes without saying, at a time when there are extraordinary renditions and secret prisons on every continent, global in their import.
On 9 June Democratic Congressman Dennis Kucinich spent five hours on the floor of the House of Representatives reciting 35 articles of impeachment against George Bush ranging from electoral fraud to illegally invading Iraq. Despite considerable opposition from his own party, who appear only too willing to have it buried in red tape, Kucinich has vowed to re-introduce the motion every 30 days until hearings are held.
On 17 June the Senate Armed Services Committee met to analyse previously classified documents that show how senior officials in the Bush administration countenanced the use of torture, even though every branch of the military raised concerns about its legality. It was revealed that six years ago, the general council for Donald Rumsfeld’s department of defence started “reverse engineering” the US military’s preparation of pilots to withstand trauma at the imagined hands of rogue regimes, so as to become an integral part of the interrogation of detainees in their own custody. Simultaneously, a number of high-ranking government lawyers signed off opinions sanctioning this departure from a variety of international laws. Minutes from a meeting held in Guantanamo, for instance, reveal that a senior CIA lawyer told those present, “[Torture] is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies, you’re doing it wrong”.
On 18 June the group Physicians for Human Rights published a 130-page report, Broken Laws, Broken Lives, providing medical evidence substantiating claims of torture by eleven men held in US prison camps overseas. The report is shocking to say the least: One detainee describes being sodomised with a broomstick and then made to howl like a dog while a soldier urinated on him. All men were released without charge.
This damning statement by a now retired Major General, Antonio Taguba, who first investigated the abuse at Abu Ghraib, prefaces the report:
“After years of disclosures by [note] government investigations, media accounts, and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes. The only question is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account?”
Is a motion by a Congressman to impeach a US President, the concern of the military about the illegality of its own systemic instructions, or the stomach churning details of a report on torture compiled by doctors from Cambridge, Massachusetts, not headline news? Where then are the analyses, the comments and the debates?
I searched the New York Times, a paper of gravitas if not “of record”, and there was not one editorial opinion pertaining to the above, just five reports consisting together of about 2292 words. To give you give an indication of how inadequate that is I will have at end of this sentence written 549.
But let’s say, to be fair, because I cannot possibly survey the entire world wide web, that there are indeed a few commentators who have joined the dots: Gavin Younge’s recent analysis in the Guardian a case in point. So what? Is none of this worthy of being printed on the first page of a newspaper and thereby — exactly, say, like Zimbabwe in the case of the same New York Times — grab the attention (CIA say torture “basically subject to perception”) of a wider audience?
I’m also not highlighting the exceptions to the rule here.
How many know that a Spanish court has charged three US soldiers with the murder of a couple of journalists in, what is claimed, was a deliberate attack on the Iraqi hotel that they and other unembedded media were staying in 2003, and that the US refuses to extradite them; or that a number of cameramen in the employ of Al Jazeera, CBS and AP, including Pulitzer Prize winning photographer Bilal Hussein, have been imprisoned; or that only one journalist — a single journalist — on assignment for Mother Jones, covered the full court martial of the highest ranking officer charged in the Abu Ghraib scandal, and that he got off with a mere reprimand?
Naomi Wolf in her book, The End Of America: Letter Of Warning To A Young Patriot, makes the case that American reporters are facing an increasing number of investigations and subpoenas, and that this has intimidated some members of the fourth estate. The fascistic drift of this current US administration, and the extent of the resultant fear, is certainly part of any explanation.
Another recent example of the neglect of noteworthy news was a speech by the veteran journalist, Bill Moyers, delivered at the National Media Reform Conference in Minneapolis on 7 June. Moyers provides a structural analysis and the bulk of his critique is directed against the corporate media:
“As conglomerates swallow up newspapers, magazines, publishing houses, and broadcast outlets, news organizations are folded into entertainment divisions. The “news hole” in the print media shrinks to make room for ads, celebrities, nonsense…and the news we need to know slips from sight”.
Recently, for instance, the new owner of the Tribune Company, Sam Zell, told his journalists at the Los Angeles Times that he does not have a perspective about the civic responsibilities of newspapers. “I am a businessman. All the matters in the end is the bottom line”, he said. True to his word Zell is, according to the Wall Street Journal, planning on eliminating 500 pages of news a week from across his twelve newspapers.
This degeneration — what the investment firm of Piper Jaffray approvingly calls the new business media model of “communitainment” — is not unlike a capitalist Pravda wherein information is first and foremost capital, and loyalty to the self-interest of oligarchs determines what’s fit to print for the public.
Some of the most egregious examples of this inherent conflict between capitalist media and the democratic interest are to be found in the interlocking of Internet companies and Chinese totalitarianism: Cisco has supplied the hardware for the Great Firewall, Google has built a made-to-order Chinese search engine, Microsoft has removed political blogs, and Yahoo has handed over e-mail account information that has led to the arrest of, among others, a prominent Chinese journalist.
And then there is, of course, Rupert Murdoch who, for fear of upsetting Beijing, personally intervened to prevent Harper Collins from publishing the book it had acquired from the former governor of Hong Kong, Chris Patten. Bruce Dover, Murdoch’s then Vice-President in China, says Murdoch bellowed, “Kill the ****ing book”. The Chinese were, apparently, impressed by this “anticipatory compliance” because, as it turns out, they didn’t even know about the book’s existence in the first place!
What the above aptly demonstrates is that when profit is put before liberty itself, then accuracy and veracity cannot function. And without a deep commitment to that horse-and-buggy couple, neither can democracy, for as Wolf points out, “the [fundamental] fascist lie is the assertion that truth is not a marker anymore”.
Here’s another question — that is all too telling: Which presidential candidate favours impeachment and would be prepared to see George Bush prosecuted “for criminal and anti-constitutional behaviour” even after he leaves office?
He’s the one you won’t hear much of or see much written about? That’s right: Ralph Nader. And the black out that surrounds his message of “subordinating corporate power to the sovereignty of the people” is a study in capitalist censorship.
Nader’s “irrelevancy”, it should be noted, is not intellectual or moral but, because he’s the only candidate who problematises the two faces of a one-party corporate system, structural. He is simply too challenging of corporate interests to be given his fair share of time in the corporate media. To adapt Marshall McLuhan: The capitalist medium is the only message.
Just consider all these distortions and elisions and you will understand why Moyers is troubled about the future of democracy in America. His speech in Minneapolis, redolent of the great American journalist Edward R. Murrow, deserves to be read by many more people:
“Why does it matter? What does the media do, anyway? I’ll let an old Cherokee chief answer that. I heard this story a long time ago – of the tribal elder who was telling his grandson about the battle the old man was waging inside himself. He said, “It is between two wolves, my son. One is an evil wolf: Anger, envy, sorrow, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego. The other is the good wolf: Joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion and faith.” The boy thought this over for a minute, and then asked his grandfather: “Which wolf wins?” The old Cherokee replied simply: “The one I feed.” Democracy is that way: The wolf that wins is the one we feed, and the media provides the fodder”.
The most definitive example of the malevolent wolf is of course the invasion of Iraq, based on the fraudulent lies not just of politicians but of the media. Let’s not forget how all of Murdoch’s 175 newspapers spanning three continents editorialised in favour of the war. Let’s not forget that their master’s voice told us that, “The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy… would be $20 a barrel for oil”. And let’s not forget how Dick Cheney afterwards thanked the media for its services.
The funny thing is that, after over 1 000 000 mostly civilian dead, Iraq — pretext, context and reality — is no longer news. In a recent article in the New York Times you can read why US coverage of Iraq is being “massively scaled back”. It’s a “financial” decision we are being told. Remember what Wolf said about truth? It’s just not a marker anymore.
Permit me to return for one moment to Congressman Kucinich who has asked America, “What are we afraid of, that we’re afraid to look into violations of law by this president?” The answer is not to be found in the brutal detention without trail of, according to the US government own figures, at least 26 000 people, but in the very stranglehold that corporate media has on the body politic. Kucinich’s motion was referred to the House Judiciary Committee and this is what the otherwise sympathetic Chair, Congressman John Conyers, said:
“There is a very stark reality that with the corporatisation of the media, we could end up with turning people who should be documented in history as making many profound errors and violating the Constitution from villains into victims”.
And this reservation and timidity from the head of a body with jurisdiction, mind you, over administrative practice and civil liberties!
The good news — amongst the very, very bad — is that there are alternatives. After all, how was I able to find the information for this post?
So in conclusion, I thought I would share my regular public media fodder so that, hopefully, we can better debate with access to better information how to solve the interrelated problems we face wherever we are. In doing this we start to produce — to borrow an Eastern European word for an effective response to Pravda journalism — reliable samizdat, or self-publishing, in a variety of forms, not least of which is conversation.
In the same way I appreciated the courageous independence of the Weekly Mail, and the Vrye Weekblad to speak truth to Apartheid, I am today obliged to the following in helping to evaluate whether what’s in a mainstream newspaper is indeed the news:
AlterNet Bill Moyers Journal Democracy Now Electric Politics Z-Net
IF we’re going to discusss torture, and possibly journalistic balance and interesting stories could we all have a look at:
http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/91123/Egyptian_Police_Torturing_a_Woman_Murder_Suspect_Video
and in stead of concentrating on all the trendy anti-american stories, could we think of all the other victims in all the oher countries where torture is so common that the police (and army) like to film it on their mobile phones and send it to each other, which is why someone else found out about it and posted on the net.
Let alone in those countires where we dont know about it because they aren’t so kind as to give us the evidence.
and in the usa, someone, as you have pointed out will embarrass the govt by talking about it. Lots of other countries they wont, such as Usbekistan.
Ja man -who’s heard of Zimbabwe hey? Lets keep it focused on America, and who knows, maybe the whole blerrie continent will implode.
Just remember that there is things going on on that groot chunk a rots south of the mediteranean (no not the gulf straits -the other one).
Mr. Budd:
Torture indeed happens throughout the world but to the best of my knowledge the US is the only country to do so on an unprecedented global scale in locations as diverse as Kenya and Poland; and it is now believed even aboard prison-ships on the high seas.
Egypt too is a favoured destination for rendition. In fact an Italian prosecutor has launched a criminal case against 26 American officials for the abduction in Milan of one such victim who was turned over to the Egyptian security services by the CIA. Needless to say, his is yet another grizzly story of four years of beatings and rape on behalf of American overseers.
I also think that you overlook the courage of human rights activists and whistleblowers everywhere. Every tyranny falls on the self-evidence of its own sword eventually and let’s not forget that the reason why we know about Abu Ghraib is precisely because of the pornography of cameras and cell phones. What you appear to be saying – if you include AG – is not dissimilar to the philosopher Slavoj Zizek, who argues that this sort of material evokes the obscene underside of a popular culture.
I’m also not anti-American; nor do I believe are the Americans who report these dreadful stories.
I am well aware of the “media blackouts” of the American media. Nobody is interested in protecting our civil liberties. Nobody is interested in pursuing justice. The media manipulates the general opinion and turns us against a perceived enemy — ourselves. I have ideas of how we can fix this problem but unfortunately I am underfunded. I think the mainstream media is the main problem in America today. If we were all informed citizens, there is no limit to what we could accomplish. Unfortunately our media likes to keep us as ignorant sheep.
Chris
You insult journalists! How many have been killed and have risked their lives all over the world!
If I have a fear – it is of a grey world run by either Christian Fundamentalists or Muslim Fundamentalists or both.
Muslim countries abuse of media freedom is too numerous to mention. Morocco? Egypt? Nigeria? Lybia? Iran? Saudi Arabia?
Alaisdair
Thanks for the common sense – as normal!
Samizdat is right. We citizens need to push, prod, and provoke the media into action. In Rwanda the media was comlicit, in fact instrumental in the genocide. After the madness past the press, the radio and the newspapers were, to their surprise, indicted for war crimes right along with the administration. Our media is liable and we need to hold them accountable.
BTW–at least Brit media has the Guardian.
–mikel
The media and the government in the US are not without problems or issues. But there are not many places in this world where both the media and the government are as free and democratic as in the US.
If the media is not profit driven then who should pay them to report the news? The government? A non profit organization? If there is not traditional media and all we get is from the world wide web of personal stories, then it will take a long time to formulate any kind of picture of the real news.
A media writing for profit is not ideal, as can be seen in the silence about Iraq when the troop increase is actually working to reduce the amount of people killed in Iraq. The media is sensationalist, I agree, but for every “let’s not forget how Dick Cheney afterwards thanked the media for its services” there is more critical news about the government then positive. Who wants to read about the good things, when there are stories predicting the worst. You dear sir are part of the mass buying sensational stories in the newspaper and creating the market for what you despise. If we all strive for positive news stories the media will only write positive stories.
You are also painting a bleak picture and highlighting the worst so people read your piece. Where is your balance? Is your piece, clouded by your worldview any better than someone who got paid for writing an article? Just look at any two blogs about the same event in Israel/ Palestine from different view points. No money is paid to the blogger, but the news is one sided in each of the blogs.
My point is the system is broken, but your solution is just as flawed. Blogs in South Africa make the US seem like the most inept war mongering government that is totally clueless. But yet things are not that bad in the US. Believe me crime is everywhere, but I jog around my neighborhood in the middle of the night, leave the doors to my apartment and car unlocked, and live without fear. Front line workers drive new vehicles and there are not enough workers to fill positions in my company.
According to my view (tainted with my worldview and experience) the US government is doing a far better job than the South African one and to me it seems like we are “failing to notice the beam in your own eye, while we see the speck in our brother’s eye”. All reporting is biased and being paid or not does not change the issue. Just read a variety of sources and you, like me, will pick out what we agree with and validate our viewpoint while ignoring the rest.
I don’t like the anti-American bandwagon – just about as much as I don’t like George Bush – but I think Chris is absolutely right to raise these issues.
Like it or not, America has positioned itself on the moral high-ground against rogue states – they use it as the reason for invasions, and so they should not be allowed to get away with torture.
Ja and even the knitwear patterns in the Huisgenoot are biased in favour of these mooi skraal dinge these days. is there no end to media manipulation is what I say!Daisy D
Trekboer & MBA:
I am aware of the brutal despotism of Robert Mugabe and of the moral failure of Thabo Mbeki but this does not simultaneously detract from other tyrannies more especially if, unlike the former, they are being omitted from public record. There is also no comparison in the scale of specks and beams.
MBA
If all of this is of concern to you I challenge you to listen, read and watch – just for one week – some of the alternative American media from that list above and then, to refer to the biblical sentence that precedes your biblical quote, use the same critical measure of judgment in comparing stories in the mainstream press. I certainly do that whenever I read the Financial Times or watch the evening news.
To repeat myself: Is a motion of impeachment of the US president by a Congressman, evidence of the Bush administration’s policy of torture, or a report produced by American doctors on human rights abuses not big bold font, headline news? And if you can’t find it in the corporate press how do you explain its absence?
You seem to suggest that we should reach for some sort of pendulum and by way of a story-from-the-left and a story-from-the-right find the balance in the equilibrium of the middle. But that’s not the nature of the problem here because either Kucinich, the Senate Armed Services Committee, or Physicians for Human Rights exist and said what they said, or they don’t exist and never said what they said. This is not a matter of perspective or viewpoint. And if we accept not only that they exist but also that what they said was consequential, then what is your judgement on the media’s indifference?
Chris
Ever heard of the Roman Empire?
Or Alexander the Great?
Or the British Empire?
Or the Nazi 1000 Year Reich?
Or Mao?
Or Stalin?
The American Empire is just the latest – and compared to the others has a much higher civil rights record.
Ja Chris, it is not that I am saying these issues don’t have merit. What I am saying is that I think the focus of your blog has touched on America and Iraq a few too many times as of late (could I forsee a topic fatigue arising here from the readership?). I am surprised that you have not made any comments about good old Africa for a while (let us discount your obvious disillusionment with the ruling party that is). Beijing was discussed at around the time that Tibet and the Olympics were hot topics. Now that we have a Zimbabwean election process worthy of Charles Taylor’s highest plaudits, we hear nothing? As they say : ek vra maar net
Lyndall
I am not sure of the point you’re trying to make, but I will try and respond to what I assume you’re saying:
The existence of previous empires does not justify the actions of the current one. To deny exposure to their actions is as bad as being complicit with them. If they are indeed an empire, let us be aware of it and expose the injustices before events conspire to make them omnipotent. Ignoring the national socialist party in Germany had dire consequences for the world, lets not ignore the until it is impossible to do otherwise.
As regards press autonomy, yes journalists may be filled with ideals (both virtuous and questionable), but the sad fact is that their editors and ultimately their advertisers tend to slant the direction their words take. It is extremely rare that a privately funded non partisan publication has any voice let alone clout. Who pays is often critical in what voice that publication has.
Pravda
or
Prada?
These yanks really are a bit much.
What will they do next…..fly loaded passenger aircraft into crowded office blocks.
“unprecedented global scale”?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/192240.stm
I must remember that when reading about the Spanish Empire and the Conquistadores who by violence and spreading of European disease managed to kill an estimated 50 million Natives in south America, the Phillipines and various oher parts of the world (including Holland), over a couple of hundred years.
Where Christopher Columbus is thought of as the first murderer to turn up and start shooting at them.
And, there were numerous records of how the Jesuits and priests would torture natives to death in order to get them to convert to Christianity, where apon they would go to heaven.
As I keep trying to point out to you, the USA isn’t perfect but in light of historical records it comes way down the scale of genocidal atrocities, unless you start talking about Native Americans and the CIA’s involvement in the dirty wars in Latin America.
If you really want to slag Ameria off, start with the reports of American “advisors” taking part in the torture of natives and children. Some of the Advisors having apparently been identified and protected by the usa govt to this day.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1058/is_n14_v112/ai_16883522
YOu might like to research it, since someone in ZANU and Zimbabwe seems to be taking hints from Latin America, most notably the use of “the disappeared” to slowly mentally torture the population.
Thanks for the piece Chris, lots of food for thought at the very least.
In South Africa we are drowning in our ocean of pessimism, thinking we’re the only country in the world with problems.
Regarding democracy and dodgy leaders, an international perspective is needed (on front pages now and then) to give us a reality check and remind us that we are not unique in our distress.
Not that we should accept our ailing democracies just because it’s happens in the ‘first world’ too, but because the grass often seems greener on the other side, and yet we’ve rarely ever actually seen the grass!
For an old South African this has a ring of deja vu. Look at all the other bad people in the world. Naive sure but don’t worry about me beating my wife; the neighbour hasn’t paid his TV licence. Skande!
Professor Emiritus
When I was younger I knew many journalists. My husband and I met in the Cafe Royal in Cape Town, the unofficial pressclub in Cape Town, over a game of bridge. They were all idealist and committed.
Since then I have read many biographies of journalists.
Most of the time their editors have supported them, and the owners have allowed editorial independence.
And by the way, Lord Lucan was never in Cape Town in the 70s- that was my husband in the press club! He looked a lot like him in those days!
Lyndall
I can only hope the likes of Rupert Murdoch aren’t reading this.
Ja Lyndall
That Cafe Royal sure brings back the memories. Many a friday wasted there. I was one of many to mourn the fire and it’s subsequent demise. If there’s one thing I learnt tho, is never trust a pissed journalist. The problem then was actually getting anything controversial published at all.
Trekboer
The problem STILL is getting anything constroversial published – then it was Apartheid laws, now it is spineless editors – look what happened to Bullard!
So chris my brain is hurting with this one:
There are things that happen that aren’t reported?
Does the light in the fridge stay on when you shut the door?
Does a tree falling in the forest make a sound if no-one is there to hear it?
As to the first question, you found this out, and so have others -so it is starting to become important is it not?
If enough people notice, things tend to become issues, and if they are trite or meaningless, they tend to sink back under the surface.
Things only have meaning when enough people deem them so, otherwise they become irrelevant. In an age of instant information, things become a lot harder to sweep under the carpet and enough people like yourself do notice these things.
In summary, if you throw shit, it will stick, otherwise it’s just mud (or dirt) with little consequence.
Intellectual Property Thief:
The better question is whether you are an active citizen or an apathetic one? If the former, then you will appreciate that power concedes nothing without demand; but if the latter, then your indifference to the powerful permits tyranny. The crux of this matter is, with respect, not a metaphysical koan about light bulbs and forest trees!
Nor are the challenges we face resolved by being contented that there are still a few who point out the elephant in the room.
Professor Emeritus:
You are right to warn us about the slippery slope of fascism. Just take for example the erosion, in these recent years, of the principle of habeas corpus in both the UK and the US.
Japes & S R P:
We as South Africans have to start producing our own knowledge about the rest of the world and not rely on a cut-and-paste BBC or CNN. The more we know, the better we can imagine how to leave pessimism for better days. Because – the good news – is that there are progressive alternatives to many of this planet’s problems.
Alasdair Budd & Lyndall:
I would still argue that the imperialism of yore never had such unrivalled and unsurpassed global reach. Consider the unprecedented asymmetry in the fact that the US spends more on its military than the rest of the world combined. By comparison even the all powerful Imperio Español and Pax Britannica had their near rivals.
But does this historical debate about what progress we have made since previous centuries really matter to the bodies of the victims of the 21st? Has it come to this: Oh waterboarding is not so bad because we’re not employing all of Tomás de Torquemada’s apparatuses? Should we take comfort in discovering that military psychologists take part in these ordeals? Or should we wonder instead what, say, the Inquisition could have done with the benefits of electricity and a hi-fi? Again, the problem right now is not metaphysical or historiographical, but ethical, legal and immediate.
Chris,
Torture, slavery, sex slavery ( about 200 000
female sex slaves captured in East Europe in 2001 and sent to the West and countries outside Europe)are among the great evils of our time, and show that morally, humans have not advanced over the past 2000 – 3000 years.
“The USA also manufactures and exports large quntities of equipment used for torture.
In April 1998, a US company was negotiating to sell 10,000 electro-shock weapons to the Turkish police, despite its long-standing and documented record of practising electro-shock torture.”
“…in 1998 Amnesty International found leaked government documents showing that the US Commerce Department had licensed the export of thousands of stun guns to Indonesia in 1993, in the face of persistent reports of electro-shock torture by Indonesian government agents. ”
“Specially designed implements of torture and thumbscrews, which are part of the crime control category, require a license for export to all destinations. USA Foreign Policy Report. CHAPTER 2 Crime Control/Human Rights
(Sections 742.7, 742.11, 742.17 ) 5
Export Control Program Description and Licensing Policy.
If the Commerce Department’s control of the export of thumbscrews is any measure, however, there is cause for concern. Thumbscrews are miniature handcuffs which are good for virtually nothing but inflicting pain. The Department has acknowledged approving an unspecified shipment of them to Russia last year. It will not say to whom in Russia it authorized the sale. The Department’s own export license records for 1995 reveal, however, that it authorized the sale of “police helmets/handcuffs/shields used for torture” to Saudi Arabia, a country whose police are well known for their brutality.20
http://web.syr.edu/~tckerr/Cruel.html
“Just as worrisome, thumbscrews, blackjacks, and electronic weapons can be shipped legally under the category of general merchandise to NATO countries (including Turkey, where torture is a common practice), Australia, New Zealand, and Japan. Nor has the government required those who order and use such equipment to sign certificates that it would not be reexported.21 Amnesty International research shows that approximately forty US companies are manufacturing shock technology that could be exported and used for torture. Whether their equipment has fallen into the hands of torturers is at the moment impossible to know.”
UK also involved in the torture industry.
“And this is an electric baton, designed to administer shocks of up to 40,000 volts. This example comes from China; it was smuggled out by a Tibetan prisoner, Palden Gyatso, who had been tortured by it.
Something to notice about this baton: whereas any goon can beat people up, designing an instrument like this requires skill and training. Specifically, it requires the training that you will be taking over the next four years, training as an electrical engineer. If there were no electrical engineers, such devices would not exist.
I believe this example was actually made in China; however, it is a copy of a British design. There are at least five British engineering companies, including Royal Ordnance and its parent company, British Aerospace, who design and build such batons. This is not a small category; Royal Ordnance sales manager Philip Morris admitted that British Aerospace has supplied 8,000 such batons to Saudi Arabia. Another company, SDMS Security Products of Chelsea, London, offered to supply 300 such weapons to Zaire. British Aerospace has also supplied 10,000 electro-shock shields and 5,000 shock batons to Lebanon; another British company, IFECLT Technical Plastics, has supplied Lebanon with 15,000 electro-shock units. And these aren’t disposable items; each baton is of rugged construction, designed to be used many times. Saudi Arabia is just one customer; Amnesty International considers that more than half the world’s governments practice torture on a regular basis. Of course, the engineering work is not necessarily done in the country where the device is used. I’ve mentioned that the UK is one exporter of such devices. The United States is another; one of the less-publicised policy changes in the USA in 1980 when Reagan came to power was the lifting of export restrictions on certain classes of electrical interrogation equipment.
Specifically, between September 1991 and December 1993, the US Commerce Department approved over 350 export licenses under commodity category 0A82C. This category, in the words of the Export Admininstration Regulations, includes “thumbscrews; shackles; and specially designed instruments of torture”. The total value of US exports in this category was more than $27 million. Another export category, 0A84C, includes “electric shock batons, cattle prods, shotguns and shells”. France, China and Russia are the other major exporters. ”
source for above:
http://www.ensc.sfu.ca/~jones/ENSC100/Unit7/lecture7a.html
Shoe Chris, I didn’t know you had it in you -talk about multitasking hey! Firing all guns with 1 cylinder (I thought you’d appreciate the deliberate mixed metaphor).
@ Chris
Please visualise and consider:
* A man kidnaps the person you love most and holds her captive in a secret location.
* You manage to catch the guy.
* He refuses to tell you where your loved one is
* she will die if you do not find her within 12 hours.
What would you do, given your commitment to civilised norms and the general ineptitude of the police.
Most people would agree that extra-legal activities such as torture are hard to stomach.
You have given this a lot of thought so let us also have a few lines on what PRACTICAL steps you would take to deal with the highly elusive people who:
* Explode bombs on crowded trains and buses and in shopping malls
* Fly loaded aircraft into packed office blocks
* Behead innocent captives and video the event for global consumption
These are acts of war insofar as the victims are concerned and the host governments know that further attacks are planned.
The most potent weapon in the hands of the attackers is the the strict adherence to legal nicety on the part of the western democracies whose citizens are the victims of these attacks.
Dear anton kleinschmidt
I have one simple question for you:
How do you know you have the right person?
Or are you advocating a “Judge Dread” scenario where the police/ armed forces take on the role of judge jury and executioner. Are you not just advocating kangaroo justice as any extremis of action somehow is justified by extreme circumstances (and hence makes it somehow acceptable)?
Chris
are you saying we need to take action regardless of whether or not action is justified? Stories will surface if they have merit. issues will become part of mass consciousness when they are deemed to be relevant. Editors need to be selective in what they publish (to satisfy the numbers (or advertisers). If you don’t like the news you’re not getting from a particular source, change source!
@ Prof Emeritus
Judge Dread sounds very much like a fictional character and I am not familiar with his methods.
The situation faced by Western security is anything but fictional. I am sure that there is not a “one size fits all” answer to the problem. I do know that the results of the acts by these terrorist bodies are quite awful, and they are certainly not constrained by the same niceties as the rest of us.
Part of their strategy is to whip up sentiment against western security initiatives and with the help of the timid amongst us they are succeeding. This blog is proof of that.
We all want the bad guy to be dealt with but most of us do not have the stomach for the resultant blood and gore. This includes me, but I am prepared to allow some slack to the people who fight my battles for me. I can also acknowledge that all human endeavour has some margin of error but in most cases I believe that smoke and fire go together. If people stand too close to the fire they get burned.
Given my ambivalence, perhaps you would like to answer the questions which I put to Chris. How would you deal with the poser I created and what practical steps would you suggest in dealing with this threat to the citizens of the western democracies. If you are opposed to current methodologies then presumably you have given some thought to alternatives.
Anton Kleinscmidt:
Suffice it to say that, turning your question on its head, torture is impractical. After – not 12 hours – but years of its practice not a scintilla of evidence has ever been brought in front of a courtroom. Of course you might object, as does this Bush regime, that a courtroom is a mere legal nicety, but then you would be, frankly speaking, an incommensurable fascist.
There are also objections to your “ticking time bomb” scenario, more especially that it is a fantasy without reference to a single historical example, and that none of this, including 9/11, has anything to do with Iraq, nor the tens of thousands of victims who have been disappeared.
Truly practically speaking, you should consider the demonstrable legal success of the Spanish courts in securing convictions of the Madrid bombers by way of nothing more, but nothing less than judicial evidence.
Perhaps Anton, given the extent to which the neoconservatives have promoted this contradictory notion of “ethical cruelty” to undermine legal patriotism, I should indeed consider writing about this at some point.
Intellectual Property Thief:
Again, is this above discussion not significant? If so why is it not taking place in the mainstream American press? Why have “editors” not “deemed” the defence of their constitution “relevant”? At least we are clear that they are beholden to advertising revenues and that profit – and not a sense of civic responsibility – determines what is fit for “mass consciousness”.
Given that eight giant corporation control the US media, the problem is not resolved by switching channels, IPT, but by creating and supporting alternatives so as to address the absence of public-interest, public media. The problem is as much specific as it is universal.
@ Chris
….incommensurable fascist….. really?… strange context!
My post was an attempt to establish principle but you avoid this by simply refusing to answer my question. Nor do you come up with some practical solutions, for dealing with terrorrists, which do not include torture. The kicker… I am more than happy to agree that torture is reprehensible but would like you to reciprocate and answer my questions without obfuscation.
I repeat what would you do if faced with the issue of a imperilled love-one where the solution lay in your hands but required a sacrifice of principle. Uncomfortable is it not, and this is what these “facist” agencies have to deal with in the war against some pretty nasty types.
@ Prof E
?
Anton:
You were very clear about the “practical” requirements of an answer as to how to deal with terrorism, and I think that I have provided one as regards the entirely lawful approach adopted by the Spanish courts. Or not? I also think that it is evident why torture does not work on the basis of the very practical criterion that you demand. Or can you establish its efficacy?
If you now wish to debate abstract principles, very well; but the onus is on you to explain without recourse to a historically irrelevant scenario why the denial of a courtroom, habeas corpus, and legal representation – not to mention torture in itself – is nothing else but a jackboot in the face of democracy?
You accuse me of obfuscation, but I am very explicit that a civilisation based on human rights treats human beings as ends-in-themselves, and not as means to a hypothetical end.
But what should I make of the following:
You say that – knowing full well “the resultant blood and gore” – you are “prepared to allow some slack to the people who fight my battles for me”. You speak of a “legal nicety” that is “part of their strategy and is the “the most potent weapons in the hands of [terrorists]”. Indeed, my blog is evidence – so you say – of “the help of the timid amongst us”!
The more I think about it, Anton, you are using – verbatim – the language and threats of an anti-democratic and militaristic ideology.
Anton if you need me to spell it out to so be it:
In the case of a loved one I would do no differently whether the act was perpetrated by a terrorist, convict, criminal insane, deranged or other person. That is I would apply the rule of law and let the courts determine guilt and punishment. Without a rule of law we are nothing but animals living in a state of anarchy. i would still not condone unlawful methods. Salem and the Spanish Inquisition both tried this only to extract so called confessions from people who were nothing more than terrified into these confessions. Guilt at this price only takes the innocence away from the innocent.
Anton
As regards my earlier post the court or judiciary I refer to are the international court of human rights and the Geneva convention among various articles of international law we should all adhere to. In so much as Bosnia Serbia, Nazi Germany and many other rogue national issues were dealt with
And one further thought, by way of a recent quote from a British human rights lawyer, Gareth Peirce, who bemoans this same fascistic drift here in the UK:
“If our government continues on [this destructive] path, we will ultimately have destroyed much of the moral and legal framework that we claim to be protecting”.
Anton
You are wasting your time. He is not going to answer. We are dealing with an obsessive and closed mind.
Chris
America is so heavily in debt, mainly to China , that China probably paid for its army.
As for what the oil rich Muslims own? Harrods and our own V&A Waterfront, to start with.
You are living in a bubble which has no relation to the real world.
America is not the problem – globalisation is the problem.
@ Prof E
I salute you because you are a man of true principle. I was hoping that Chris would give me the same unequivocal answer as to whether he would abandon his principles to save a loved one. All we can do is draw our own conclusions from his responses.
Where do I stand in this. There are only three people in the whole world who are really dear to me. I have never been tested, but their well being might force me to discard the principles which you so eloquently espouse and with which I fully agree.
At 60 I am no longer enthralled by absolutes. The world is a nasty place and human beings are frightful species despite all their high-minded pretensions.
So Lyndall I see you moss like torturing yourself. I s there a new trend afoot with S&M readership that’s passed me by?
Anton:
To fear is one thing, but for it to possess you quite another. I have provided an answer but, such is I suspect the phobic scope of your misanthropy, that you cannot bring yourself to see this Spanish precedent. Instead, you keep insisting that I put myself into the shoes of someone in a fantastical scenario that, by way of a paradoxical dilemma, is contrived to legitimate state-terror.
If we are to play this hypothetical game then I may as well pose another: If you were abducted and thrown into a living hell were being sodomised with a broomstick and made to howl like a dog while a soldier simultaneously urinated on you, was only a fraction – yes only a part – of the abuse that you had to endure for years. And you were one day then released without charge and, without recourse, what would you do?
The strength of my scenario is that it isn’t the result of me having sucked-my-thumb but that it’s based on the suffering of an innocent 20-year-old called Amir. But perhaps you don’t want to read the Physicians for Human Rights report, Broken Laws, Broken Lives, full as it is of other real stories of rectal tearing and swollen testicles; because as you admit, you do not have the “stomach” for what you are, nevertheless, prepared to sanction others do on your behalf.
Really Anton. I have no respect for the circumspection of your seniority when it suggests that my defense of human rights is problematic. I can only hope that when America confronts its own Eugene de Kocks, it will have the wisdom not to outsource primary responsibility then too.
Lyndall:
If being an apologist for torture is the hallmark of an open mind, then you are indeed correct to say that mine is closed.
The sub-text that prevails throughout this and similar debates, is that the forces arrayed against the USA and its allies are victims of a complete breakdown of western democracy. This is patently ridiculous.
The methods being employed by the USA are not always exemplary or admirable, but then neither are those being employed against them. Most decent people would agree that 9/11 sets the benchmark.
Why can’t people remember who started this low intensity war and try and be balanced in their criticism.
Chris
ANSWER the question – and before you post your answer, ask your wife and kids what they think of your answer.
And exactly how many of the people tortured turned into torturers themselves? It is a fallacy that torture dehumanises the person being tortured, although it can cause major psychological harm. Torture dehumanises the torturer – from the Spanish Inquisition to Al Quada.
How many of the Jews saved from Austwich became mass murderers?
The best psychiatrist of the 20th Century, Scott M Peck, wrote that it did not surprise him how many people were mentally ill, but how many people were NOT!
Trekboer
Very funny! Can’t you find something more intelligent to contribute?
Lyndall your intelligence astounds me. For someone so anoyed by this column, why do you continue to seek attention. Lets face it, if it is so offensive to you don’t read it, no one is going to think less of you for doing so!
Trekboer
I am not offended – just irritated. If you take the trouble to read all this – why not contribute with an INTELLIGENT comment!
Chris,
Well sourced,and articulated.
Thanx- for a good read.
You are, however talking to the wrong audience?
South Africans need to read what you write – do you have alternative social spaces to print your articles.
Keep on writing, you have an authentic voice.