Good, but this isn't just about Iraq

Following yesterday's admission that methods used in Iraq violated the Geneva Convention, the US government has changed its interrogation rules for Iraq and barred the use of sleep and sensory deprivation, "dietry manipulation" (hunger and thirst) and stress positions.

This is good, but its important to remember that this isn't just about Iraq. The US has also admitted to using torture in Guantanamo and in the CIA's secret gulag; it must be stamped out there as well. Anything less is as much a betrayal of America's values as what went on in Abu Ghraib.

Gross hypocrisy

In his presidential statement on the United Nations International Day in Support of Victims of Torture on June 26th, 2003, George W. Bush said this:

The United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example. I call on all governments to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.

While he was saying it, prisoners were being abused and tortured in Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, and in the CIA's extrajudicial gulag, on the orders of his subordinates. Did he not know - or did he just not care?

Watch them scatter like cockroaches

According to Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon's lawyers, "torture-lite" is perfectly legal and not banned by the Geneva Convention. Unless, of course, the victim is an American:

Sen. Jack Reed asked Pace if a foreign nation held a U.S. Marine in a cell, naked with a bag over his head, squatting with his arms uplifted for 45 minutes, would that be a good interrogation technique or a Geneva Convention violation.

"I would describe is as a violation, sir," replied Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

"As I read Gen. Sanchez's guidance, precisely that behavior could have been employed in Iraq," said Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat.

Reed later asked Wolfowitz a similar question. Wolfowitz initially tried to sidestep it, but eventually replied, "What you've described to me sounds, to me, like a violation of the Geneva Convention."

And suddenly everybody at the top level in Washington is running to avoid the war crimes charges. That list of interrogation techniques was never discussed, never reviewed, never seen "beyond the theatre" - it's all General Sanchez's fault, prosecute him, not me!

This will be fun to watch...

The strategy of deceit

And while I'm on Don Brash, I have to mention his strategy of deceit. His initial response when asked "did you say that" was "I don't remember", and "it's not the sort of language I'd normally use" - with the clear implication that he hadn't said anything of the sort. And now the evidence is out, it's "I don't remember", with the tone implying that, well, he may have said something like that, but he doesn't remember the exact words.

I thought Brash was supposed to be a man who stood by his principles, not a weasel. The above sounds like Bill Clinton's infamous "I did not have sex with that woman", rather than the words of a "man of conviction".

But I guess Brash knows better than anyone that if the public understood his convictions - on nuclear policy, on taxation, on government services, on wage-levels - they'd run a mile.

Confirming duplicity

The comments released by the government today confirm Don Brash's duplicity over nuclear ships. He's been telling the New Zealand public one thing, and the Americans another:

Dr (Lockwood) Smith explained the current study being done by the National Party. If the study came to the same conclusion as it did in 1992, then National would look seriously at the nuclear legislation...

It was here that Dr Brash made the throw-away comment 'If the National Party was in government today, we would get rid of the nuclear propulsion section today - by lunchtime, even.

Which makes his sudden "memory loss" when asked about it highly convenient.

Also in the category of people who try desperately to hide their unpopular opinions is Lockwood Smith. Linda Clark interviewed him on Nine Till Noon the other morning about National's nuclear review, and at the end asked him for his personal opinion on the desirability of nuclear ship visits. He didn't have one, didn't want to talk about it, and said that that wasn't the issue. All of which made him appear rather two-faced...

Bloody tabloids

The Mirror's photos are fakes. Stupid, stupid newspaper. By going for a dramatic image for the front page, they've given the government the chance to paper over the scandal. Which means that the growing number of witnesses that have come forward, the allegations by the ICRC and Amnesty International, and the fact that these claims are being taken very seriously by military authorities, will be lost in the noise.

Anticipation

Why has Public Address' David Slack been silent for the last two months? Because he's been writing a book...

Given his previous contributions on the foreshore issue and Treaty debate, I'm looking forward to it.

Condemnations

One of NZPundit's commentators asks:

Once again I ask where are the voices from the Muslim world decrying the actions of these imbeciles as an insult to Allah?

The murder of Nick Berg has attracted widespread condemnation in the Islamic world, on exactly those grounds. Scholars, religious and political leaders, even groups normally hostile to the US (such as the Iraqi Board of Muslim Clergy and Hizbollah) have condemned it; "forbidden by Islam", "rejected by Islam", and "absolutely wrong" are just some of the opinions expressed.

If NZPundit's commentators aren't aware of this, it says more about their narrow media-reading habits than about feeling in the Islamic world.

Intolerable

Suspects in methamphetamine manufacturing cases are facing up to three years in jail on remand while waiting for ESR to analyse the evidence. One suspect has waited a year already - and his case hasn't even made it to a depositions hearing, let alone trial.

A High Court Judge has called this situation "intolerable", and I agree. Waiting years on remand before facing trial means that suspects will pay the price regardless of guilt or innocence. It's a violation of human rights and of natural justice. And if it continues, we are going to see charges dismissed and people going free, or judges granting bail and suspects reoffending - which will no doubt be exploited by politicians to argue for increased penalties and longer sentences.

As for why this is happening, yes, the direct cause is that ESR doesn't have enough trained forensic scientists. But the root cause is their funding model. CRI's are no longer funded simply to maintain a capability; no-one is giving ESR money just to be a decent forensics lab (or rather, the "non-specific" funding they get from the government is nowhere near enough to cover this). Instead, they must get funding on a project-by-project basis, from FRST, the private sector, or other organisations. This unstable revenue stream affects staffing decisions and encourages CRIs to keep core staff numbers low.

In the case of ESR Forensics, they get a lot of their funding from the police, on a case-by-case basis. This provides even less stability than usual, and its easy to see how they could be caught short-staffed by an epidemic, and be reluctant to hire more (because they'll just have to lay them off when the epidemic passes), or have difficulty doing so (temporary contingent employment is not the norm in science, and potential staff would be reluctant to accept it).

ESR have said they can reduce the backlog if given a one-off cash injection of around a million dollars - enough to hire extra staff and provide stability for four or five years (by way of comparison, ESR's total revenue last year was $33 million, so this represents a substantial increase in funding). But in the long-term, the government is going to have to fund CRIs more on a capability basis if it wants to avoid this problem happening again and again and again.

(And for those on the right, no, this is not something we can simply contract out. Few labs are accredited for forensic work, and we should be very uneasy about involving organisations legally required to be driven solely by the profit motive in a core aspect of our judicial system).

Deeper into the pit

It's not just the US Army using torture in the "war on terror"; it's also the CIA. And they're worse:

The CIA has used coercive interrogation methods against a select group of high-level leaders and operatives of al-Qaida that have produced growing concerns inside the agency about abuses, according to current and former counterterrorism officials.

At least one agency employee has been disciplined for threatening a detainee with a gun during questioning, they said.

In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, CIA interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as "water boarding," in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed underwater and made to believe he might drown.

Where "made to believe he might drown" means "held underwater for long periods of time until drowning, repeatedly, until they talk". This technique is also known as "the submarine" and is popular among torturers because it doesn't leave any marks.

There can be no quibbling about torture vs "torture-lite" here. This is the real thing. And there can also be no question about "bad apples" or "isolated individuals", because this has been authorised at the highest levels of the Bush administration. The moral degeneration of the US is complete - it has now wholeheartedly joined the ranks of states that practice torture. The beacon of freedom has been extinguished; the light has gone out.

Still, I guess it'll give them something to talk about with Sudan and Cuba at the next meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission...

The article also alludes to the US practice of extraordinary rendition - transferring people to a foreign jurisdiction with a questionable human rights record (such as Egypt or Jordan) so that they may be tortured. This allows US officials to keep their hands clean and dodge US anti-torture legislation - they only ask the questions (or write them so that their proxies can ask them); they are not the people applying the electrodes or pulling fingernails. But what's the moral difference between torturing someone yourself and having someone do it on your behalf for your benefit? None whatsoever.

Sarah, formally of Leto fame, has got herself a new blog.

Part of the process

The other day the ICRC reported being told that prisoners being confined naked in their cells was "part of the process". Now we have confirmation that the US has legalised the widespread use of "torture-lite" in Iraq:

Revealing the interrogation methods allowed in Iraq, the Senate Armed Services Committee released a single page titled "Interrogation Rules of Engagement", listing two categories of measures.

The first showed basic techniques approved for all detainees, while the second involved tougher measures that required approval by Lieutenant-General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of US forces in Iraq. Among the items on the second list were stress positions for up to 45 minutes, sleep deprivation for up to 72 hours and use of muzzled dogs.

Looking at the photo, the list also includes dietry and environmental manipulation - i.e. denial of food, water, heat, shelter, and clothing. Sound familiar?

And at the sme time, in the same room, the US undersecretary for defence had the gall to claim that prisoners in Iraq were treated according to the Geneva Convention. He must have a different version of it to everybody else, because the version I've seen outlaws anything even remotely like the above.

Still, we now know exactly how high this goes - all the way to the top. Use of these techniques must be approved by Lt-Gen Sanchez. There is a similar list for Guantanamo, requiring the explicit approval of Donald Rumsfeld. As they are the people approving this treatment, responsability ultimately rests with them. Both are war criminals, both should be prosecuted. If the US won't do it, then the international community should.

Hollow promises

Aviation students are being sold "hollow promises", many racking up tens of thousands of dollars in student loans without ever finding jobs as pilots, aviation operators say.

Story here.

But aviation is just an extreme example; the same applies to graduates in general. The good thing about the student loan scheme is that it has made tertiary education more accessible; the downside is that by increasing the supply of graduates, it has decreased the payoff for getting a degree - undermining the "private good" which is supposed to justify the scheme in the first place.

The market solution is that students will respond to market demand by focusing their studies in areas where they are more likely to gain employment, or even forgoing tertiary study entirely. This sounds perfect in theory - the market will eventually reach equilibrium - but due to imperfect information and a five-plus year timelag, what it means for individuals is ruined lives and debt that can never be repaid.

(And when the market does work as intended and the signals reach students, the result is that we don't have enough teachers or nurses. Fantastic)

One of the reasons we have a State in the first place is to insulate people from risk - both the risk of other people using force (hence police and a justice system), and the vicissitudes of fortune (hence a health system, welfare, and anti-discrimination legislation). Our current market model of education - tuition fees and restricted student support - dramaticly increase the risks individuals are exposed to - and for what? To save the government money. Why do we, as citizens, tolerate this?

Questions

why is rhetoric all right in muslim nations?

Because effective language usage is obviously the sort of thing that only dastardly Muslims and lawyers would approve of.

who won the dispute between thomas becket and henry 2?

Henry delivered a knockout, but Beckett won on points.

Putting the past behind us

The Criminal Records (Clean Slate) Act (2004) was passed last night. This is a good thing. It allows people who made stupid mistakes as teenagers and never reoffended to put their past behind them and get on with their lives. At the same time, it strikes a good balance with protecting the public - records are still kept, and can be consulted when someone is applying for a sensitive position (such as in the police or security services); sexual offences and anything resulting in prison time are not concealed.

The downside is that it will create new business opportunities for scum like BayCorp, and give them new scope to ruin people's lives when they make a mistake. Theoretically this can be dealt with under the Privacy Act and libel law, but few have the resources to protect their reputation through the courts. Adding a provision imposing significant fines on those who do not correct false information when asked would have been good.

Can we sue?

So one of the labs responsible for testing seed coming into New Zealand for GE material turns out to have not been reporting levels it considered "too small to confirm" - despite being told that we had a "zero-tolerance" regime in place. As a result, the government is going to have to spend a lot of money finding out where the seed was planted, whether its still there, and possibly checking surrounding areas for evidence of cross-pollination.

I really hope we can sue them for their laxity.

Why the Spanish left Iraq

According to Juan Cole, they were asked by the Americans to bring in Moqtada al-Sadr "dead or alive". Being familiar with conditions on the ground in Najaf, and having some inkling of the shitstorm it would provoke (and the number of Spaniards who would die as a result), they wisely refused.

It's an illuminating insight into how American commanders see the rest of the "coalition of the willing" - as disposable auxilliaries, to be given all the dirty and risky jobs and die in the place of Americans. No wonder the Spanish wanted nothing to do with it.

More details here.

Other solutions to the foreshore

While the Foreshore and Seabed Bill has passed its first hurdle, that hasn't stopped other solutions from being proposed. Here's two:

Fighting Talk:

Let the land court handle the claims. Legislate so that, if the court finding would confer the right to bar public access or to sell the land, that must be ratified by Parliament. That satisfies the public positions of everybody this side of National, and probably some people on the other side as well.

Well, this is certainly better than the current plan, and I think the need for ratification would encourage negotiation by both parties. And OTOH, requiring ratification by Parliament is blatantly stacking the deck, and will turn any property rights recognised by the court into a political football.

Clockworkfish:

* allow the law to grant title to foreshore where Maori can prove they have a right to it

* set up a legal structure which protects access to and enjoyment of important areas of New Zealand.

This gets to the heart of it in recognising that its not ownership that matters to pakeha, so much as the right of recreational usage. And the government is creating just such a legal structure with the customary rights mechanism. If they granted universal customary rights of access, navigation and recreational usage on all foreshore, then it wouldn't really matter who owned it.

The sticking point, obviously, is existing property owners. There are some who need to be able to restrict access (ports, for example); others would need to be compensated. However, the former can be dealt with by tweaking the RMA (which already allows people to restrict access to public foreshore with the right permit), and the latter would seem to be a damn sight cheaper than compensating for full expropriation.

The Bill is currently heading to Select Committee, and isn't due back before the House until November, so there's still time to encourage the government not to shame us all.

Morgue's trip to Palestine

Part 2
Part 3

Mischevious

Don Brash says that speculation that Simon Power will lose his defence portfolio is "mischevious"...

...besides, they don't have anyone else to give it to.