Northman's Fury

A court in the ultra-conservative kingdom of Saudi Arabia is punishing a female victim of gang rape with 200 lashes and six months in jail, a newspaper reported on Thursday.

The 19-year-old woman -- whose six armed attackers have been sentenced to jail terms -- was initially ordered to undergo 90 lashes for "being in the car of an unrelated male at the time of the rape," the Arab News reported.

But in a new verdict issued after Saudi Arabia's Higher Judicial Council ordered a retrial, the court in the eastern town of Al-Qatif more than doubled the number of lashes to 200.

A court source told the English-language Arab News that the judges had decided to punish the woman further for "her attempt to aggravate and influence the judiciary through the media."

Sure is nice to know these guys are on our side.

More than 1,000 people from 85 countries who are accused of such crimes as rape, killings, torture and genocide are living in the United States, according to Department of Homeland Security figures.

America has become a haven for the world's war criminals because it lacks the laws needed to prosecute them, Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill., said Wednesday. There's been only one U.S. indictment of someone suspected of a serious human-rights abuse. Durbin said torture was the only serious human-rights violation that was a crime under American law when committed outside the United States by a non-American national.

Torture committed by American nationals, on the other hand, is not really torture, and is necessary for national security, and is not really under American jurisdiction when carried out on military bases in other countries.

David Scheffer is a Northwestern University law professor who was the ambassador at large for war-crimes issues during the Clinton administration. He testified that after the experience of war-crimes tribunals after World War II and international tribunals prosecuting many atrocities over the past 15 years, "one would be forgiven to assume that surely in the United States the law is now well established to enable U.S. courts — criminal and military — to investigate and prosecute the full range of genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes. . . .

"That, however, is not the case."

Of course, if it was, guys like Rumsfeld would be in even more trouble than they are already, and Bush would need an auto-scriber to handle the number of pardons he’d have to issue.

Snarky comments about the current administration aside, this is really an institutional problem that far predates them, but it is another sign of how ignoring the principles that the US was once thought to be the ultimate example of, has made what were once thought to be unfortunate exceptions into standard fare.

In the genteel world of bridge, disputes are usually handled quietly and rarely involve issues of national policy. But in a fight reminiscent of the brouhaha over an anti-Bush statement by Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks in 2003, a team of women who represented the United States at the world bridge championships in Shanghai last month is facing sanctions, including a yearlong ban from competition, for a spur-of-the-moment protest.

At issue is a crudely lettered sign, scribbled on the back of a menu, that was held up at an awards dinner and read, “We did not vote for Bush.”

By e-mail, angry bridge players have accused the women of “treason” and “sedition.”

As usual, Jon Swift provides some excellent commentary:

The United States Bridge Federation has an excellent opportunity to show the world what America stands for by punishing these women. Some people have the wrong idea about what the Bill of Rights really means. In America you have freedom of expression as long as a private organization doesn't own your expression. Peaceful protests are fine as long as they don't embarrass organizations that depend on corporate sponsorship and take place on American soil behind police barricades where they can be videotaped for future use in any trials that might arise.

Read the whole thing. It's quite good.

This story is no surprise:

Across much of Pakistan on Monday, the government was firmly in command -- squelching protests, blacking out television stations and picking up dozens more political prisoners to add to the thousands already in jail.

But in vast stretches of the country's rugged and wild northwest -- heartland of the Islamic extremist insurgency -- President Pervez Musharraf's army did not have any more control than it did when the military-led government imposed emergency rule nine days ago. In some areas, it had less.

. . .

When the army has tried to conduct operations in the tribal areas, it has paid a heavy price. In August, for example, Taliban fighters commandeered an entire army convoy, taking 250 soldiers hostage without firing a single shot.

The Taliban held the troops for more than two months. They were released the day after Musharraf imposed emergency rule, when the government acceded to Taliban demands and freed nearly 30 of the group's fighters, including several who had been involved in planning suicide bombings.

And of course, something that has been obvious to anyone paying attention and not blinded by the, "It's mushie or the Taliban" rhetoric,

Advisers to Musharraf have conceded that the main reason he suspended the constitution, fired most of the Supreme Court and declared an emergency was that the court was about to rule him ineligible for another term as president.

Maybe its just me, but it seems these stories are becoming more frequent as our dollar rises in value.

A 2006 report from the Nixon Center, a Washington, D.C., policy institute, quoted a senior FBI official as saying that Canada is the most worrisome terrorist point of entry and that al Qaida training manuals advise terrorists to enter the United States from Canada.

The report concluded that "despite widespread alarms raised over terrorist infiltration from Mexico, we found no terrorist presence in Mexico and a number of Canadian-based terrorists who have entered the United States."

I grew up close to the border and have a number of relatives on the southern side of it. While sealing the vast hinterlands is virtually impossible, the step-up at the legal crossings is quite noticeable.

Little wonder tourism has taken a dive even though the falling US dollar should make it more attractive.

You have to love this piece of stupidity by Don Surber

Musharraf vs Chavez

One wants to ignore his nation’s constitution, the other is a U.S. ally

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf’s crackdown on dissidents in his country looks a lot like Venezuela President Hugo Chavez’s crackdown on dissidents in his country. Both men seek to exceed their nation’s term limits on presidents.

First, let me be clear that I'm not trying to defend Chavez here. His recent actions make it quite clear that he's following in the footsteps of many other Latin American strongmen, (and more on that later), but I would at least like to see people get their facts straight. Chavez is trying to change his country's constitution, he's not ignoring it, (yet). Musharraf, on the other hand, just suspended the constitution, i.e. - ignoring it. US ally or not, let's not pretend democracy and rule of law have anything in common with Musharraf.

The difference is one is a dictator, the other is a lion tamer . . .

Musharraf, who came to power in a military coup and recently suspended the constitution when the Supreme Court was about to announce his Presidency illegal is certainly a dictator. But Chavez, who came to power democratically and won several legitimate elections since and survived a coup attempt as a lion-tamer?

trying to keep the second-largest Muslim nation in the world from exploding.

Oh, you meant Chavez is the dictator. I'm sure you'll explain now how all of Musharraf's actions are justified as a US ally.

Musharraf’s call to hold elections in January as planned was greeted with skepticism, but since it is the nation’s only real hope for survival, I was not surprised.

I wasn't surprised either, since rigging elections has a long and proud history, and its a lot easier to win when you've just rounded up all of your political opponents and put them in jail.

His crackdown 9 days ago was not a spontaneous act. Rather it was a reaction to attempts on both his life and that of Benazir Bhutto, the once and likely future prime minister.

These were acts of terrorism from the hotbed of terrorism along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border provinces. Martial law under such circumstances as would be the house “arrest” of Bhutto, as a caution against her assassination.

I don't normally do this, but that last paragraph is just really bad English. I'm no literary scholar, but is it too much to ask for a bit of proof-reading?

Yes, the crackdown wasn't spontaneous; as stated, it was a reaction to the Supreme Court about to announce his Presidency illegal. And if this is all about fighting the "terrorists" and protecting Bhutto, then you'll have to explain why, while she and the judges and lawyers are being put in "protective custody", Musharraf is releasing the top Taliban commanders that he's captured.

With allies like him . . .

He told a skeptical world press on Sunday that he did so “to save the democratic process.”

I hav emy doubts.

Really? A military dictator declares martial law and rounds up his political opponents and you have doubts that it may not be to "save democracy". Maybe your head isn't entirely up your ass.

Certainly he at least has an excuse, unlike Chavez who has shuttered the opposition media and pushed through a series of constitutional amendments aimed at giving him unprecedented power for life in one of South America’s oldest democracies.

"Unprecedented power"? Yeah, because if there's anything my reading of Latin American history has shown me, is the incredible lack of dictatorial regimes in the region. It often gets confused with Western Europe that way.

Honestly, the guy may be a smarmy bastard, but keep things in perspective. Chavez has a fair ways to go just to match some of his contemporaries, let alone the historical examples of strongmen in the area.

Surber goes on about how Danny Glover and Sean Penn are out fawning over Chavez, which merely proves that there are some who are taken in by Hugo's act just as much as Surber apparently is by Musharraf's.

The difference is that the US doesn't give Chavez billions of dollars in military aid and high-tech equipment, and certainly doesn't try to cover his ass internationally when he starts cracking down on opponents.

Does anyone really think that if the Taliban sympathizers with the elections in January that is a step forward for democracy.

It always comes down to this, of course. Musharraf is our ally in the "War on Terror" and therefore we have no choice but to support him. Even if the Islamists have never gotten more than 10% in any election in Pakistan, their hordes will overwhlem all opposition if we don't let our pet dictator crack down of his opponents.

In a fair election, I doubt the Taliban and their sympathizers have much of a chance, but maybe somebody could tell Surber that having his "ally" round up all of the secular opposition while releasing the Taliban commanders and their supporters is going to make the Taliban's electoral prospects much better than they should be.

Since the US intelligence community appears reluctant to give the administration a sufficiently threatening sounding NIE on Iran and its nuclear program, they appear to be looking for other ways to push the confrontation towards outright war.

US military officials are putting huge pressure on interrogators who question Iraqi insurgents to find incriminating evidence pointing to Iran, it was claimed last night.

. . .

Brose, 30, who extracts information from detainees in Iraq, said: 'They push a lot for us to establish a link with Iran. They have pre-categories for us to go through, and by the sheer volume of categories there's clearly a lot more for Iran than there is for other stuff. Of all the recent requests I've had, I'd say 60 to 70 per cent are about Iran.

'It feels a lot like, if you get something and Iran's not involved, it's a let down.' He added: 'I've had people say to me, "They're really pushing the Iran thing. It's like, shit, you know." '

And thanks to the Democrats rolling over to support the appointment of an attorney general who isn't sure waterboarding is torture, I'm sure they will find ways to get some of the incriminating testimony they want.

He denied ever being asked to fabricate evidence, adding: 'We're not asked to manufacture information, we're asked to find it. But if a detainee wants to tell me what I want to hear so he can get out of jail... you know what I'm saying.'

Torture for actionable intelligence isn't all that useful, but if you're looking for "confessions" of Iranian involvement . . . well, I wouldn't be too surprised if we hear about some insurgents "admitting" to being supported by Iran in the near future. Something they've so far been unable to produce.

All about asking the right questions in the right way, I'm sure.

Meet the future of the Republican Party

Via American Footprints, Deroy Murdock, contributing editor to The National Review decides to help clear up any confusion about where he stands on the waterboarding issue:

[T]he whole point of my piece is that I AM complaining that we do NOT waterboard enough. Yes, we need to waterboard more. At the moment, waterbaording [sic] appears to have been banned by both the CIA and the Pentagon. As I say pretty directly in my piece, Bush should reinstate waterboarding publicly and proudly, and I called him deluded for thinking he would gain anything by going along with the Left and ditching waterboarding. . . .

I hope this clears up any confusion you might have had.

It definitely clears up mine.

Big news this morning is that Benazir Bhutto has been placed under house arrest to block her from attending the planned rally today. While that may keep the protests less focused, it doesn't seem that it will be enough to keep the situation from deteriorating further.

Ms Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) says thousands of its supporters have been detained in the past two days.

Despite the ban, PPP activists have been trying to reach the venue of the planned rally through alleyways, throwing stones and clashing with police.

The authorities banned the event, saying attackers were trying to target it.

. . .

Meanwhile in the city of Peshawar, police say a suicide bomber targeted the residence of the minister for political affairs, Amir Muquam.

They say two security personnel were killed, along with the attacker, but the minister is safe.

If things continue down this path, Musharraf will have little choice but to put the army in the streets to face the protesters, and the military is already suffering morale problems. Place them in a position of having to fight their own people, and its disintegration will accelerate.

Add in the fact that with the security services focused on the secular establishment that's leading these protests, the extremists in the border regions have a free hand to do as they please. Despite all this, Bush still thinks Musharraf is an "indispensable ally". You have to wonder for who.

A couple of days ago, Fred Kaplan in Slate stated that the suspension of the constitution by Musharraf in Pakistan marks the end of Bush’s “freedom agenda”.  That’s a pretty generous assessment given little proof the program ever really existed in the first place.

Bush finally got around to calling Musharraf and asking him to “restore” democracy, apparently overlooking the fact that Pakistan was hardly a democracy prior to this latest power grab.  The “freedom agenda” never touched Saudi Arabia or raised its head when Egypt was rounding up opposition party supporters in their elections.

In fact, it is probably even more instructive to look at the places where Bush's "Freedom agenda" was declared a success.

There's Palestine, where the US immediately began undermining the election victory of Hamas and supporting a coup by their more acquiescent rivals. Success at holding the elections proving very fleeting.

Then there's Lebanon’s “Cedar Revolution” that resulted in Hezbollah making sweeping gains.  The pro-US factions got thrown to the wolves as soon as Israel’s interests became important, and the government there is still paralyzed by street protests by Hezbollah and its allies, not that those make the news anymore.

Georgia’s “Rose Revolution” is currently undergoing some tough times, with the “democratic” leader calling in troops to restore order and declaring a state of emergency, showing much the same democratic idealism of Musharraf.

And lest we forget, calling in troops to quell opposition rallies is also something the hero of Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” was more than happy to do when the street protests weren’t ones that he himself had organized.

If you wanted to know what Bush's freedom agenda really meant, you could start with this quote from George Orwell's, "Politics and the English Language":

In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different.

In the case of the Bush administration, the definition works out to, "the leaders are amiable to US interests", never mind what kind of freedoms or rights the people actually enjoy.  If the government is clearly undemocratic, they just say that the leaders', “commitment to democracy is strong”, never mind the inconvenient facts proving otherwise.

It’s why Hugo Chavez will never get a call from Bush asking him to restore democracy, even though he’s won actual, internationally-recognized, elections before going on a clearly undemocratic rampage of power grabs.  Holding fair elections doesn’t make you democratic, agreeing with US policy does.  Chavez never did kowtow to the US, so he was never a “democratic” leader.

It’s also why in Russia, Putin is considered a threat to democracy, but Yeltsin was always democracy’s friend even if he did happen to send in tanks to attack the Duma.

Our own government has, in this as with many other things, followed the Bush administrations lead, as their recent actions regarding how they will now pick and choose what Canadian prisoners they'll stand up for. In their case, "democracy" stands for, "countries that will do to you what we will if we ever get the chance".

Welcome to the new English.

I read a couple days ago, (I've forgotten where exactly), that only the military has the power to remove Musharraf. Unlikely given that he's the head of said military, and has had the foresight to install loyalists in most top positions, but possible if he becomes too much of a liability.

The lawyers alone don't make Musharraf a liability, but if Bhutto can put great masses of Pakistani people onto the streets as she appears to be planning, and the other major opposition groups join them, as some appear to be planning, then the calculation changes.

Reading the Pakistani authorities reaction to the planned protest,

He told the Associated Press there was a "strong threat" of another suicide bomb attack against Ms Bhutto, who survived an assassination attempt in Karachi on 18 October that killed more than 140 people.

almost makes you wonder where the threat is coming from.

It also got me thinking. The situation in Pakistan is clearly tense, passions are on the rise, and a quite popular figure is about to take to the streets with, if the crowds greeting her return are any indication, possibly hundreds of thousands of supporters. Any crackdown is likely to be quite nasty and bloody.

Musharraf is desperate, and its very hard to predict what a desperate man will do. But as ugly as a heavy-handed crackdown would be, what if the "strong threat" is real? And what if it succeeds?

With all the pent-up rage and frustration there right now, what happens if Bhutto becomes a martyr?

I'm apparently feeling much like Cathie did yesterday, because when I came across this piece of shit of by Alan Dershowitz, I just couldn't seem to come up with the wherewithal to figuratively bash him over the head with his stupidity.

Fortunately, Cernig's done a fine job of it so I can just link to his excellent piece and let my own outrage meter recharge for the next, inevitable, craptastic posting that shows up.

A majority of Americans consider waterboarding a form of torture, but some of those say it's OK for the U.S. government to use the technique, according to a poll released Tuesday.

Asked whether they think waterboarding is a form of torture, more than two-thirds of respondents, or 69 percent, said yes; 29 percent said no.

Asked whether they think the U.S. government should be allowed to use the procedure to try to get information from suspected terrorists, 58 percent said no; 40 percent said yes. 

In truth, I have far more respect for those that know waterboarding is torture and yet still support its use, than for hypocrites like Mukasey who pretend they don’t know so they can avoid having to answer “hypothetical” questions about its use.

In the procedure, water is used on restrained prisoners to make them feel like they are drowning.

Actually, there’s no “feel like” about it.  Waterboarding isn’t simulated drowning, it’s controlled drowning.  Here is a really good description of it for you:

Waterboarding is not a simulation. Unless you have been strapped down to the board, have endured the agonizing feeling of the water overpowering your gag reflex, and then feel your throat open and allow pint after pint of water to involuntarily fill your lungs, you will not know the meaning of the word.

Waterboarding is a controlled drowning that, in the American model, occurs under the watch of a doctor, a psychologist, an interrogator and a trained strap-in/strap-out team. It does not simulate drowning, as the lungs are actually filling with water. There is no way to simulate that. The victim is drowning. How much the victim is to drown depends on the desired result (in the form of answers to questions shouted into the victim’s face) and the obstinacy of the subject. A team doctor watches the quantity of water that is ingested and for the physiological signs which show when the drowning effect goes from painful psychological experience, to horrific suffocating punishment to the final death spiral.

Waterboarding is slow motion suffocation with enough time to contemplate the inevitability of black out and expiration –usually the person goes into hysterics on the board. For the uninitiated, it is horrifying to watch and if it goes wrong, it can lead straight to terminal hypoxia. When done right it is controlled death. Its lack of physical scarring allows the victim to recover and be threaten with its use again and again.[emp mine]

Yeah, that sounds a lot like harmless frat-boy pranks to me.

Waterboarding was used during the Spanish Inquisition and by Cambodia's brutal Khmer Rouge regime and the World War II Japanese military,

And I bet during WWII, Americans were quite clear on whether or not it constituted torture

It seems that Ethiopia and Eritrea are getting ready to go at each other once again.

Ethiopia and Eritrea, stubbornly hostile neighbors for years, are possibly weeks away from a renewed border war that could engulf the volatile Horn of Africa region, according to a report released Monday by a foreign policy research group.

. . .

Eritrea, a tiny country with one of the largest armies in Africa, has about 12,000 troops near the disputed border, as well as 4,000 positioned inside a demilitarized zone that was established by a peace agreement that ended a 1998-2000 border war, according to U.S. government estimates cited in the report.

On its side of the border, Ethiopia, a U.S.-backed military powerhouse, maintains an estimated 100,000 troops who have been carrying out large-scale training exercises in recent months.

Ethiopia also has been building up its air force and jamming Eritrean radar, according to a U.S. government source, who speculated that Ethiopia may strike by air in the Eritrean capital, Asmara, hoping to topple the government there.

As noted, there is a link to proxy wars between the two countries funding and supporting insurgent groups in each others territory, as well as the big link with the fighting in Somalia, which Ethiopia invaded with US backing.

It makes one wonder if the US military support to Ethiopia, meant to be used to fight the Islamists of Somalia, may be being diverted to build up the forces for a war with Eritrea. Not unlike the fact that Musharraf in Pakistan has used the military aid the US has given him to bulk up his conventional forces facing India's rather than supply the troops he sends into Waziristan.

It would be par for the course in the way the US picks its allies these days.

Adding to Condi criticizing Russia over the centralization of power in the Kremlin and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates warning the Turks that bombing or sending in troops without good intelligence is a bad idea, we now have the White House press secretary telling Pakistan that its unreasonable to restrict constitutional freedoms in the name of fighting terrorism. (After all, its much easier to just ignore them and hope nobody notices.)

It's doubly ironic in that, as with most things, telling someone to not follow the Bush administration's example is actually really good advice.

I don't have a lot to add about the situation in Pakistan, except to reiterate something I said back in September:

All too often, it seems, the dictators in the Middle East use the West’s fear of Islamists as an excuse to stay in power and crack down on all of their opponents. Since they can’t shut down the mosques as easily as they can other opposition focus points, the result is that the Islamists wind up being the only organized opposition force standing. That apparently hasn’t happened in Pakistan yet, but prop up Musharraf long enough while he crushes his secular opposition and you can be sure it will.

In reading the news today, I learn that parliamentary elections may be delayed by the emergency ruling, and that Musharraf is using this opportunity to round up opposition politicians and lawyers.

And then there is this post by Barnett Rubin, who is in Pakistan and live-blogging the events:

One of the curious aspects of General Musharraf's speech last night (by the way, it is General, not President, as he first annulled the constitution and then invoked one of its provisions to declare an Emergency, acting not as president but as Chief of Army Staff), at least to this observer, was the general's thoroughly un-self-conscious invocation of two major threats to the security and integrity of Pakistan: terrorism and "judicial activism." It did not seem to occur to the general that, to some observers, even flawed or over-reaching attempts by duly constituted bodies to uphold the law might not be equivalent to mass murder. Judging by the General's actions, judicial activism is a much more sinister and immediate threat than terrorism, as all of his actions since yesterday have targeted the former rather than the latter. Indeed Musharraf's agents managed to pirate the codes to prevent Geo TV from uploading its programs to satellite, while Maulana Fazlullah's FM station in Swat continues to broadcast calls for jihad without impediment.[Emphasis mine]

The US, while officially complaining about the loss of democratic freedoms, has also made it quite clear that the money and weapons will keep flowing to Musharraf.

I really wish I was wrong more often.

The Smirking Chump has a few things to say about that "bent spear" incident that saw six nuclear weapons flown across the US:

According to the Air Force report, some Air Force personnel mounted the warheads on the missiles (which are obsolete and slated for destruction), and another ground crew, allegedly not aware that the missiles were armed with nukes, moved them out and mounted them on a launch pylon on the B-52's wing for a flight to Barksdale and eventual dismantling. Only on the ground at Barksdale did ground crew personnel spot the nukes according to the report. (Six other missiles with dummy warheads were mounted on a pylon on the other wing of the plane.)

The problem with this explanation for the first reported case of nukes being removed from a weapons bunker without authorization in 50 years of nuclear weapons, is that those warheads, and all nuclear warheads in the US stockpile, are supposedly protected against unauthorized transport or removal from bunkers by electronic antitheft systems--automated alarms similar to those used by department stores to prevent theft, and even anti-motion sensors that go off if a weapon is touched or approached without authorization.

. . .

And yet we're asked to believe that some low-ranking ground crew personnel at Minot AFB simply walked out of a nuclear weapons bunker with six nuclear armed Advanced Cruise Missiles, not knowing what they were carrying, and labored for eight hours to mount those missiles and their launch pylon on the wing of a B-52 strategic bomber without ever noticing that they were armed with nuclear weapons. We're asked to believe that none of those electronic alarms and motion sensors built into the system went off during that whole process.

When I mentioned the automated alarm and motion sensors to Lt. Col. Jennifer Cassidy, a public affairs person at the Department of the Air Force, and asked her how the movement of the six nukes could have occurred without those alarms being disabled, she said, "It's an intriguing question, and it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck."

Read the whole article. It should do more than make the hairs on the back of your neck stand up.