National ideals sacrificed for political expedience.....

President Barack Obama delivered his inaugural address immediately after his oath-taking which was heart-warming and which inspired hope for the passive voices. He repudiated the policies of his predecessors in so far as these relate to human rights abuses in the name of national security. To read his words literally, Mr. Obama blamed no one other than the country itself, critiquing “our collective failure to make hard choices” and a willingness to suspend national ideals “for expedience’s sake” — a clear reference to the cascade of decisions ranging from interrogation policies to wiretapping to the invasion of Iraq.
He has now spent a little more than half of his presidential term of office. Has anything changed since his inaugural speech?
The Guantánamo files and related reports published by Guardian make chilling revelations as to how the national ideals were willingly compromised for the sake of expedience. These files reveal the often fragile physical and mental condition of Guantánamo’s oldest and youngest residents, who have included an 89-year-old man and boys as young as 14. In 2002 Guantánamo prisoners were described as “the worst of a very bad lot” by Dick Cheney, US vice-president. “They are very dangerous. They are devoted to killing millions of Americans, innocent Americans, if they can, and they are perfectly prepared to die in the effort.”
According to the report, the internal files on some prisoners paint a very different picture. A 2002 assessment of Guantánamo’s oldest prisoner, Mohammed Sadiq, who was then 89, revealed dementia, depression and sickness. “His current medical issues include major depressive disorder, senile dementia and osteoarthritis, for which he receives prescribed treatment.” The Afghan national was also being assessed for prostate cancer.
Another elderly and unsuitable prisoner was found to have senile dementia on arrival at Guantánamo. Haji Faiz Mohammed, then 70, was flown to the base in 2002 after being swept up in a raid by US troops in Afghanistan. “There is no reason on the record for detainee being transferred to Guantánamo Bay detention facility,” his assessment says. The files shed light on the way mere children were shipped to the cages in Cuba. Naqib Ullah, who was about 14 when captured in 2003, spent a year interned at Guantánamo. Naqib’s file reveals he had been abducted by armed men as they passed through his village, mistreated and conscripted to fight for the Taliban. He told his captors that as US forces approached their camp most fighters fled the base, leaving a few behind to fight. Naqib was found holding a gun, the file states, but the weapon had not been fired.
Interrogation techniques taught to Guantánamo Bay staff made it extremely difficult for detainees to demonstrate their innocence. Camp staff were told any Muslim travelling to Afghanistan after 9/11 was likely to be there “to support Osama bin Laden through direct hostilities against the US forces” and that any other stated reasons were “total fabrications”. A highly classified briefing document suggested detainees who claimed to be in Afghanistan for charitable or educational reasons had been coached by terrorists to tell these stories. Answering questions slowly or confusingly, or challenging the interrogators, were further evidence of insurgent training.
The 778 detainees at Guantánamo Bay were regularly interrogated by US forces, often at weekly intervals for periods of months or years. The briefing is dated 4 August 2004 and entitled Assessment of Afghanistan Travels and Islamic Duties as they Pertain to Interrogation. It acknowledges that Muslims routinely travel the world to provide religious education and support charitable giving, but warns insurgents have been trained to use these traditions as cover.
“Travel to Afghanistan for charity reasons or to teach or study Islam,” the document warns, “is a known al-Qaida/extremist cover story without credence.  Many of the detainees have developed their cover stories around mainstream Islam and the charity and goodwill of those Muslims to lend a benign appearance to their travel to Afghanistan.”
For further details, visit: the Guantánamo files

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American ideals and politics of expedience...

US interest in Libya is all about oil and China's growing economy.....

The world is at it again. Libya seems to be Iraq of this decade and the “civilized” world is out to “protect” Libya’s civilians from the atrocities of Col Qaddafi. Iraq’s Saddam had huge possessions of weapons of mass destruction and therefore, was to be punished through a senseless massacre of millions of innocent Iraqi civilian. The same is going to repeat in Libya, this time under the umbrella of a UN resolution. There are atrocities in other parts of the world but those parts and the humans living there have not so far attracted the attention of the world for the simple reason that those countries either do not have oil reserves or if they do, those are practically West’s petrol stations. And the US will make every effort to squeeze the pipes providing oil to power China’s economy. Haven’t you heard some cynic saying that China is poised to be the Number One global economy in the near future?


Even a layman can understand that the civilized, democratic world has more than human values to evoke their interest in Libya. In an article titled, The US, Libya and Oil, Counterpunch has made an interesting analysis, saying that it is all about oil, or natural gas. The article has listed the following facts to support its analysis:

• In 2009, the U.S. Energy Information Administration predicted that world oil reserves had “peaked” and that over the next several decades, supplies would drop and prices would rise. There is some controversy over the study, but there is general agreement that easy-to-get petroleum sources are getting harder and harder to find.
• Approximately 65 percent of the world’s remaining oil reserves are in the Middle East, as well as considerable amounts of natural gas. Iran has the second greatest reserves of gas outside of Russia.
• The U.S.—with the largest economy in the world—uses around 21 million barrels of oil per day (bpd). Since it produces only 7.5 million bpd domestically, it imports two thirds of its oil. Its major sources are (in descending order) Canada, Mexico, Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, Venezuela, and Iraq.
• China—the world’s number two economy—uses about 8 million bpd, a demand that is projected to rise to 11.3 million bpd by 2015. Since it only produces 3.7 million bpd domestically, it too relies on imported oil. It main suppliers are (in descending order) Saudi Arabia, Iran, Angola, Russia, Oman and Sudan.

It is estimated that, sometime between 2030 and 2050, China will surpass the U.S. and become the world’s number one economy—provided that it can secure enough energy for its growing industrial needs. Insuring access to oil and gas is a major focus of Chinese foreign policy, particularly because Beijing is nervous about how it currently obtains its supplies. Some 80 percent are transported by sea, and all of those routes involve choke points currently controlled by the U.S.

The U.S. Fifth Fleet based in Bahrain controls the Hormuz Straits, through which Saudi Arabian, Iranian, and Omani oil passes. The Fifth also dominates the straits of Bab el-Mandab that control access to the Red Sea and through which Sudan’s oil is shipped into the Indian Ocean. In addition the Malacca Straits between Sumatra and the Malay Peninsula is the major transit point for oil going to China. The U.S. Seventh Fleet controls that choke point.

The article asserts that China’s nervousness over its sea-based oil supplies is one of the major reasons behind Beijing’s crash naval program, its construction of ports in South and Southeast Asia, and its efforts to build land-based pipelines from Russia, Central Asia, and Pakistan. The Chinese are also trying to cope with the fact that Iran, its second largest supplier of oil and gas, is currently under international sanctions that have reduced production and cut into China’s supplies. Beijing has invested upwards of $120 billion to upgrade Iran’s energy industry, but recently has had to cutback investments because its banks could end up being sanctioned for helping out the Tehran regime.

The Chinese are not the slightest bit cynical about why the U.S. is bombing Libya and not challenging Bahrain and Yemen: Bahrain hosts the U.S. Fifth Fleet, and Yemen’s port of Aden dominates the Red Sea. China can play chess. The U.S. doesn’t get oil from Libya, but its allies in Europe do. And the current crisis is African Command’s (AFRICOM) coming out party. Up to now the record of the spanking new military formation has been less than impressive. First, no one would host it, because the U.S. military in Africa makes the locals nervous. So it is still based in Germany. Then it coordinated the absolutely disastrous Ethiopian invasion of Somalia that ended up turning most of the country over to the extremist Shabab.

But Libya is a fresh slate for AFRICOM, and that is making the Chinese even more nervous (and explains why they have been so cranky about civilian casualties in Libya). When AFRICOM was in its infancy it war-gamed a military intervention in the Gulf of Guinea in case “civil disturbances: caused any disruptions in oil supplies. Angola, China’s other major African supplier, is in the Gulf of Guinea. It hardly seems like a coincidence that, at the very moment that African oil supplies become important, the U.S. creates a new military formation for the continent. AFRICOM is currently advising and training the military forces of 53 countries in the region.
Okay, so here you are in Beijing. Your industries are clamoring for power. Media in the United States reflect a growing hostility toward you, with headlines in newspapers reading, “The Chinese Tiger Shows Its Claws,” and U.S. politicians routinely blame you for America’s economic problems. And the U.S. has basically puts its thumb on each one of your oil and gas sources. Nobody is cutting off any supplies at this point, but the implied threat is always there.
In end, it is not so much about oil and gas itself, as the control of energy. Any country that corners energy supplies in the coming decades will be in a powerful position to dictate a whole lot of things to the rest of the world. That’s not cynicism, its cold-blooded calculation. And right now a lot of people in the Middle East are paying the price of the ticket.