UN: US Tortures at Gitmo

The UN says the US should close the prison facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This report is from the BBC:

Treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay constitutes torture in some cases and violates international law, a leaked UN draft report says....

The Los Angeles Times published the draft report in its paper on Monday and spoke to one of the authors, the UN special raporteur on torture, Manfred Novak.

"We very, very carefully considered all of the arguments posed by the US government. There are no conclusions that are easily drawn. But we concluded that the situation in several areas violates international law and conventions on human rights and torture," Mr Nowak told the LA Times.

Officially, the report won't be out until the end of the week. The LA Times had this excerpt:

"In their view, the legal regime applied to these detainees seriously undermines the rule of law and a number of fundamental universally recognized human rights, which are the essence of democratic societies," the report said.

The US government is criticizing the document because the authors didn't actually go to Cuba. Of course, they've wanted to visit the prison since 2002:

The five experts had sought invitations from the United States to visit Guantanamo Bay since 2002 and three were offered a visit last year. But they refused in November when they were told they would not be allowed to interview detainees.

The United States believes that the International Committee of the Red Cross is the body that should handle that duty. However, ICRC reports are generally confidential, while the U.N. experts usually make their findings public.

"Fact-finding on the spot has to include interviews with detainees," said Manfred Nowak, the U.N. special investigator on torture and one of the experts. "What's the sense of going to a detention facility and doing fact-finding when you can't speak to the detainees? It's just nonsense."

Remember, kids, the US is spreading liberty and democracy...


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Filed as: Guantanamo and torture

Where the big bucks go

A couple of years ago, I taught a course called "Globalization (and Baseball)." It was fun, focusing on lots of interesting issues -- such as the working conditions in baseball's minor leagues in the Dominican Republic and Venezuela, remittances from baseball players to their home countries, stadium security in the age of globalized terror, migration and identity issues, etc.

I've long been interested in baseball and enjoyed the class, but I've never really devoted much time to baseball-related research questions.

Maybe I should.

Consider this factoid:

More public and private money is spent on sports and multi-purpose facilities than on any other kind of building.

That's from an article about the Kansas City architectural firm HOK, which has done $12 billion in stadium business.

Why do Americans want to spend so much public money on stadiums and other similar facilities?

My community is considering a huge downtown Louisville arena to replace Freedom Hall as home to the local college hoops team. Coach Pitino's view on this:

"I was down the road (Lexington), and I know what the perception of Louisville is: Louisville is an island — it's not part of the state of Kentucky. They don't look at it like Nashville or Indianapolis. They look at it as an island where they wear red instead of blue.

"I have never paid any attention to it. It's never going to get voted in. It's a waste of time; it's a waste of energy; it's a waste. I'm very excited about our new practice facility we're going to start building in May. So hire all the consultants you want; do whatever you like — it's not going to happen."

The guy might be overpaid, but I hope he knows something about local politics.

According to the NCAA's figures, Louisville is consistently in the top 5 in college basketball attendance. And stadiums, of course, are poor uses of public funds.


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Filed as: globalization of baseball and sports stadiums

Libby and his Superiors

This has been widely reported, but I wanted to save a copy of this quote on the blog. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald wrote the following in a January 23 letter to Lewis Libby's attorneys. AP, February 9:

"We also note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors,"

Libby's lawyers deny that such a defense is planned, nor do I think it would be especially relevant since Libby is not charged with leaking classified information.

He's charged with obstruction of justice, making false statements (2) and perjury (2). Five counts in all.

In any case, for the record, Libby's immediate superior was Vice President Dick Cheney, though he also worked as an Assistant to President George W. Bush. Presumably, some of Bush's top aides were viewed as superiors to Libby, who was the Veep's Chief of Staff.


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Filed as: Plame and Libby

The "culture of life"

AP, January 18, 2006:

Having suffered a heart attack back in September, [Clarence Ray] Allen had asked prison authorities to let him die if he went into cardiac arrest before his execution, a request prison officials said they would not honor.

"At no point are we not going to value the sanctity of life," said prison spokesman Vernell Crittendon. "We would resuscitate him," then execute him.

The story mentions that Allen was legally blind, nearly deaf and had diabetes.

Hat tip to Dale Jamieson on the GEP-ed listserv.


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Filed as: death penalty and culture of life

Over the line

Puppy drug mules?

Colombian drug dealers turned purebred puppies into drug couriers by surgically implanting them with packets of liquid heroin, US authorities said today....

DEA investigators said they believe the Medellin, Colombia-based ring used the puppies and other methods to conceal millions of dollars worth of heroin on commercial flights into New York City for distribution throughout the US East Coast.

"It just demonstrates what lengths drugs dealers will go to to get drugs into the country," [John] Gilbride [head of the DEA's New York office] said.

At least six puppies were victimized...but at least 10 others were rescued in a raid.


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Filed as: Puppy drug mules

Housekeeping

OK, I've posted twice recently about "feeds" and some of you are probably tired of the topic -- or mystified. However, for those who have some idea of this topic, whatever site reader you might be using, could you please change your settings to use the feedburner feed?

Unlike blogspot's atom feed (and other sources), Feedburner allows me to track the number of feed readers. I've probably signed up for at least half a dozen feed services over the past few years, and many of you may be using one or more of those feeds, so please switch now.

Don't worry, the service doesn't provide any other identifying information about you or your browsing habits.

OK?

Thanks

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Filed as: Feeds

Now this is dissent

The following was written by Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was previously an Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. Those credentials make him a real conservative. This shows that he's not at all happy with the current crowd in the White House:

Having eliminated internal opposition, the Bush administration is now using blackmail obtained through illegal spying on American citizens to silence the media and the opposition party.

Before flinching at my assertion of blackmail, ask yourself why President Bush refuses to obey the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. The purpose of the FISA court is to ensure that administrations do not spy for partisan political reasons. The warrant requirement is to ensure that a panel of independent federal judges hears a legitimate reason for the spying, thus protecting a president from the temptation to abuse the powers of government. The only reason for the Bush administration to evade the court is that the Bush administration had no legitimate reasons for its spying. This should be obvious even to a naif.

The United States is undergoing a coup against the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, civil liberties, and democracy itself. The "liberal press" has been co-opted. As everyone must know by now, the New York Times has totally failed its First Amendment obligations, allowing Judith Miller to make war propaganda for the Bush administration, suppressing for an entire year the news that the Bush administration was illegally spying on American citizens, and denying coverage to Al Gore's speech that challenged the criminal deeds of the Bush administration.

The TV networks mimic Fox News' faux patriotism. Anyone who depends on print, TV, or right-wing talk radio media is totally misinformed. The Bush administration has achieved a de facto Ministry of Propaganda.

The years of illegal spying have given the Bush administration power over the media and the opposition. Journalists and Democratic politicians don't want to have their adulterous affairs broadcast over television or to see their favorite online porn sites revealed in headlines in the local press with their names attached. Only people willing to risk such disclosures can stand up for the country.

Homeland Security and the Patriot Act are not our protectors. They undermine our protection by trashing the Constitution and the civil liberties it guarantees. Those with a tyrannical turn of mind have always used fear and hysteria to overcome obstacles to their power and to gain new means of silencing opposition.

There's a lot more and I encourage everyone to read the entire piece. Hat tip to Dave and Thomas at Seeing the Forest.

William Safire accused the administration of seizing "dictatorial power by replacing the rule of law with military kangaroo courts."

Actually, I've often blogged about the administration's conservative critics, so I won't go on about that right now.

Key question: When will it end?

I keep waiting for the American people to wake up and realize that they cannot be paralyzed by fear. While they are cowering, people in the current administration are posing an unprecedented threat to basic liberty. And in Orwellian fashion, they brag about protecting and spreading democracy.

It's truly obscene.



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Filed as: Bush threat to democracy

Feed update

I recently discovered that my RSS feed has been stuck in mid-December for many feed readers. I think that's fixed now...and hopefully will be reflected in my Feedburner reader box tomorrow. As I understand the stats Feedburner provides, dozens of people are subscribed to my feed. I wouldn't click either if the content hadn't changed in six weeks.

Sigh.

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Filed as: Feeds

The academy

Back in December, I was asked to join "The Academy," which is a community of scholars linked together at The Truth Laid Bear. Steven Taylor, an Associate Professor of Political Science at Troy State, and writer of PoliBlog is the group's administrator.

As Dr. Taylor wrote back in June 2005, the community provides two functions:

1) the chance for readers to find a variety of posts from bloggin’ profs aggregated in one place, and 2) to hopefully encourage and facilitate intelligent conversation amongst academics of all stripes.

Sounds good, eh?

Check it out.

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Filed as: Academic blogging

skippy the bush kangaroo

skippy readers, welcome to this little part of blogtopia.

Today's google special: "kangaroo" at whitehouse.gov. This result is from a November 28, 2001 press conference:

Q In The New York Times, William Safire charges that the President has seized dictatorial power by replacing the rule of law with military kangaroo courts that can conceal evidence, make its own rules, and execute the accused with no review by a civilian court. He says these are similar to courts in the Soviet Union and current communist China. In your view, how are they different from those kangaroo courts?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, the President, obviously, completely disagrees, and so, too, do many people who have taken a look at this issue.

The Veep took up this issue a couple of weeks later.

William Safire said that in 2001! Dictatorial power...kangaroo courts.

Note: Safire isn't any happier about the NSA wiretapping...


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OTT: Iran edition

Does anyone else remember the cold war? Reuters, February 6:

In an interview with Reuters, [Israeli] Ambassador [to the US] Daniel Ayalon called Iran the most dangerous problem facing the world since World War Two but played down the possibility of Israeli military action.

...Iran was "probably the most dangerous problem since World War Two" and most countries, including Russia which is building Iran's nuclear plant at Bushehr, understand that, he said.

Maybe we should be frightened, given some risks between 1945 and now.

Consider this from the inside cover from James Blight's The Shattered Crystal Ball: Fear and Learning in the Cuban Missile. Crisis:

In late October 1962, the threat of nuclear war was not only possible, but probable. The scenarios for nuclear war under discussion in the Kremlin and the White House were vividly concrete and terrifyingly real. Later, President John. F. Kennedy would estimate that the chances of avoiding nuclear war were no better than 50 percent.

On a related topic, Ambassador Ayalon said that Israel would not give up its nuclear deterrent.


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Worse than oil-for-food scandal?

The bad news from Iraq continues to get worse. This is from The New York Times, Sunday February 5:

Ali Allawi, Iraq's finance minister, estimated that insurgents reap 40 percent to 50 percent of all oil-smuggling profits in the country. Offering an example of how illicit oil products are kept flowing on the black market, he said that the insurgency had infiltrated senior management positions at the major northern refinery in Baiji and routinely terrorized truck drivers there. This allows the insurgents and their confederates to tap the pipeline, empty the trucks and sell the oil or gas themselves.

"It's gone beyond Nigeria levels now where it really threatens national security," Mr. Allawi said of the oil industry. "The insurgents are involved at all levels."

An unnamed American official concurs, calling corruption a "very real threat to the new state."

Apparently, the corruption is quite organized:

The former oil minister, Ibrahim Bahr al-Ulum, told the London-based newspaper Al Hayat late last year that "oil and fuel smuggling networks have grown into a dangerous mafia threatening the lives of those in charge of fighting corruption," according to a translation by the BBC.

The oil-for-food program was corrupt, but it didn't fuel Saddam Hussein's wmd programs and thereby pose a threat to US security.

Not to worry though, February 19 begins the American-declared "Anti-corruption week."


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Iran has been reported

Over at the Duck of Minerva, I have a new post that some reading here might find interesting: "Iran's motives and the IAEA." Earlier today, the Board of the International Atomic Energy Agency referred the problem of Iran's nuclear program to the United Nations Security Council.

The UNSC ultimately could decide to impose economic sanctions or authorize the use of "all necessary means" (force) to compel that Iran disclose the full nature of its nuclear program and prove that it is not pursuing nuclear weapons.



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This, you've gotta see

Go to google, click images, and then click advanced search. Put "whitehouse.gov" in the domain box.

Then, enter "Orwell" in the "related to all of the words" box.

Search.

One hit, right?

Now that's truth in government.

Spoiler for those too lazy to do this search.

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Blogging is, like, so 2004...

Or should that be...1984? You see, the administration's domestic spying and "data mining" might involve websurfing habits -- and blogging.

Blog readers have interests here too...

Actually, despite these worries about blog monitoring and reader tracking, big blogs are doing well. Indeed, the old "traffic concentration" problem seems to be getting worse, not better. Thousands and thousands of people are reading blogs -- but most of them are reading the same blogs.

Perhaps either the fear of spying or the concentration of blog traffic explains why readership is off on some sites -- or stagnant, as it is on the blog you're reading (though we're apparently getting more and more readers at the Duck, at least among other bloggers).

What's a small-time blogger to do? There are, of course, friendly suggestions on the web, like this -- or this.

Personally, I'm thinking of adding one of those lists of blurbs that some blogs feature. Readers, how do you like these actual recommendations from other bloggers?

"Rodger Payne, most definitely not a twat" -- helmut

"Payne is balanced and knowledgeable" -- Chris of Explananda

"Unlike many bloggers (including me), Rodger knows a whole lot about the subjects he discusses. Not reading his blog is a very stupid idea. So stop it right now." -- Dwight Meredith of Wampum

It's Friday afternoon, what do you want?


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NSA spying is clearly illegal

A group of constitutional law scholars and former government officials, including at least one prominent conservative has clearly and briefly explained why the NSA spying is illegal. Hat tip to Bloodless Coup for the link to the NY Review of Books piece.

Here's a great paragraph:

With minor exceptions, FISA authorizes electronic surveillance only upon certain specified showings, and only if approved by a court. The statute specifically allows for warrantless wartime domestic electronic surveillance—but only for the first fifteen days of a war. 50 U.S.C. § 1811. It makes criminal any electronic surveillance not authorized by statute, id. § 1809; and it expressly establishes FISA and specified provisions of the federal criminal code (which govern wiretaps for criminal investigation) as the "exclusive means by which electronic surveillance...may be conducted," 18 U.S.C. § 2511(2)(f) (emphasis added).

The lawyers dissect and destroy the administration's argument that the spying was implicitly authorized in the September 2001 authorization of force by Congress.

Oh, and the White House apparently knows that it is acting illegally. Tuesday, Steve Clemons referenced a President Bush speech from April 20, 2004:

any time you hear the United States government talking about wiretap, it requires -- a wiretap requires a court order. Nothing has changed, by the way. When we're talking about chasing down terrorists, we're talking about getting a court order before we do so.

While the President was trying to reassure everyone about the Patriot Act, his sweeping language clearly speaks to the NSA spying as well.


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State of the Union 2006

Over at the Duck, I've blogged about something important the President didn't talk about on Tuesday night. Heather Hurlburt noted several more missing items at Democracy Arsenal.

BTW, for the record, Heather didn't write President Clinton's most oft-quoted line -- and is tired of answering that question (which I didn't ask).

Note: January 26 was the 8 year anniversary of Clinton's denial. The President delivered his year six State of the Union address the following day. How time flies.


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Example #432, 873

It is not hard to explain why the Devil Rays are always bad. They typically make very bad personnel decisions.

Earlier this week, I saw this news and scratched my head:

The [Tampa Bay] Devil Rays and Travis Harper agreed to a one-year, $850,000 Major League contract Monday...

Harper, 29, led the Rays' bullpen with 73 1/3 innings pitched in 2005 while going 4-6 with a 6.75 ERA in 52 games.

Psssst, for those who know nothing about baseball....Harper's statistics (and his performance) in 2005 were awful. Truly bad, bad, bad.

And the Rays gave him nearly a million bucks, guaranteed.

By contrast, the Cincinnati Reds (who currently have only an interim General Manager) yesterday signed relief pitcher Rick White to a much smarter deal

White, a 37-year-old from Springfield, Ohio, will receive a $600,000 base salary with a chance to earn $300,000 more in incentive bonuses....

Cincinnati will be White's ninth big-league club. Last season with Pittsburgh, he posted a 4-7 record with a 3.72 ERA and two saves in a career-high 71 appearances.

For every nine innings pitched in 2005, White gave up three fewer earned runs than did Harper. They are both right-handed, so that's a wash.

Yet, the Rays are assured of paying Harper a quarter of a million dollars more cash in 2006 than what White is guaranteed.

Of course, White is not a star, he is 8 years older that Harper (which is bad, generally), and he could end up costing more money in 2006 (basically, if he is healthy and pitches a lot). Nonetheless, for his career, White has been a slightly above average reliever, giving up about 7% fewer runs than an average pitcher.

The Harper deal stinks. Yes, he was a pretty decent reliever in 2003 and 2004, but he gave up a lot of home runs last year and his strikeout rate collapsed. Those are bad signs for any pitcher. For his career, Harper has yielded almost 10% more runs than league average.

I'm not especially applauding the Reds -- just pointing out the obvious about the DRays. Tampa Bay (despite new management) does not seem to know what it is doing and is (again) overspending on mediocre talent that could be replaced at lower cost.

All that said, I think a number of Devil Rays are on the verge of some highly productive years (especially offensively) and the team could really surprise fans in the next year or two.

With that kind of convoluted analysis, can you tell that I'm almost ready for baseball season?


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