Thursday, July 22, 2010

Andy Worthington, author and filmmaker, on Guantanamo and Charly Gittings

http://www.andyworthington.co.uk/

RIP Charly Gittings: We’ve Just Lost One of the Good Guys

I suggest going to Andy's site and reading the entire article.

’m saddened to report that on the night of July 14, Charly Gittings, the most tenacious opponent of the Bush administration and its crimes, passed away at the age of 57. I had never met Charly, but we had been in email contact since November 2008, and I had been aware of his work before that time. No one who has ever researched Guantánamo can have failed, at some point, to have come across Charly’s extraordinary “Project to Enforce the Geneva Conventions” (PEGC), a vast archive of documents relating to the Bush administration crimes, consisting of legal opinions, memoranda, press statements, from the courts, the White House, the DoD, the DoJ, the State Department — all the evidence required to convict senior officials of war crimes.

At the foot of this post, I reproduce Charly’s “Political Biography,” in which he explained how his project began on November 13, 2001, when President Bush issued his original “Military Order – Detention, Treatment, and Trial of Certain Non-Citizens in the War Against Terrorism,” a vile document that, years later, I too realized was central to the administration’s plot to shred every law that protected us from ourselves, and that protected our enemies — or random strangers — from torture, arbitrary detention and murder. Charly, however, was there at the beginning, urging his fellow Americans to uphold the laws they claimed to admire.

When I first struck up contact with Charly, he sent me a wonderful email that, on re-reading, captures his dedication to the law, and also sheds light on how, like many sensitive people in a world that has become increasingly coarse, violent and uncaring, he found it hard to dwell too much on the stories of the men — and boys — subjected to the Bush administration’s lawless and brutal experiment in unfettered executive power, and focused instead on law and policy, and his unwavering belief that America was led by war criminals.

Glad to meet you! I’ve heard of you and your book … I was very glad that you wrote your book, because I’d been studiously avoiding the idea of trying to write it myself for five years or so but definitely thought it would be good for someone to do it. My main focus has always been the legal and policy issues, and much as I sympathize with the detainees on a human level, the details of individual cases tend to overwhelm me a bit. I remember how I felt in early 2002 when I saw the pictures of the first detainees being transported to Gitmo — that told me everything I needed to know about Gitmo right then and there. I do pay attention, but have to keep a balance lest I drown in details … you probably get what I mean better than most would.

Wednesday, July 21, 2010

The 25 Greatest Fictional Lawyers (Who Are Not Atticus Finch)

http://www.abajournal.com/magazine/article/the_25_greatest_fictional_lawyers_who_are_not_atticus_finch/#comments

Naaaaaaaaah! I was going to go for Frank Galvin, but Paul Newman’s face in the article was so compelling that I decided to be a bit more thoughtful in my choice. I am applying the Atticus Finch doctrine here. Jake Brigance in A Time to Kill showed me how to be a lawyer. He led the jury into a position where they could empathize with a man who murdered his daughter’s torturers by flipping the argument on its head.

Here it is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7f-BgDgpmE

Tuesday, July 20, 2010

The killing fields of MNCs | The Asian Age

The killing fields of MNCsThe killing fields of MNCs | The Asian Age

The Bhopal gas tragedy was the worst industrial disaster in human history. Twenty-five thousand people died, 500,000 were injured, and the injustice done to the victims of Bhopal over the past 25 years will go down as the worst case of jurisprudence ever.
The gas leak in Bhopal in December 1984 was from the Union Carbide pesticide plant which manufactured “carabaryl” (trade name “sevin”) — a pesticide used mostly in cotton plants. It was, in fact, because of the Bhopal gas tragedy and the tragedy of extremist violence in Punjab that I woke up to the fact that agriculture had become a war zone. Pesticides are war chemicals that kill — every year 220,000 people are killed by pesticides worldwide.
After research I realised that we do not need toxic pesticides that kill humans and other species which maintain the web of life. Pesticides do not control pests, they create pests by killing beneficial species. We have safer, non-violent alternatives such as neem. That is why at the time of the Bhopal disaster I started the campaign “No more Bhopals, plant a neem”. The neem campaign led to challenging the biopiracy of neem in 1994 when I found that a US multinational, W.R. Grace, had patented neem for use as pesticide and fungicide and was setting up a neem oil extraction plant in Tumkur, Karnataka. We fought the biopiracy case for 11 years and were eventually successful in striking down the biopiracy patent.
Meanwhile, the old pesticide industry was mutating into the biotechnology and genetic engineering industry. While genetic engineering was promoted as an alternative to pesticides, Bt cotton was introduced to end pesticide use. But Bt cotton has failed to control the bollworm and has instead created major new pests, leading to an increase in pesticide use.
The high costs of genetically-modified (GM) seeds and pesticides are pushing farmers into debt, and indebted farmers are committing suicide. If one adds the 200,000 farmer suicides in India to the 25,000 killed in Bhopal, we are witnessing a massive corporate genocide — the killing of people for super profits. To maintain these super profits, lies are told about how, without pesticides and genetically-modified organisms (GMOs), there will be no food. In fact, the conclusions of International Assessment of Agricultural Science and Technology for Development, undertaken by the United Nations, shows that ecologically organic agriculture produces more food and better food at lower cost than either chemical agriculture or GMOs.
The agrochemical industry and its new avatar, the biotechnology industry, do not merely distort and manipulate knowledge, science and public policy. They also manipulate the law and the justice system. The reason justice has been denied to the victims of Bhopal is because corporations want to escape liability. Freedom from liability is, in fact, the real meaning of “free trade”. The tragedy of Bhopal is dual. Interestingly, the Bhopal disaster happened precisely when corporations were seeking deregulation and freedom from liability through the instruments of “free trade”, “trade liberalisation” and “globalisation”, both through bilateral pressure and through the Uruguay Round of General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) which led to the creation of the World Trade Organisation.
Injustice for Bhopal has been used to tell corporations that they can get away with murder. This is what senior politicians communicated to Dow Chemical. This is what the US-India Commission for Environmental Cooperation forum stated on June 11, 2010, in the context of the call from across India for justice for Bhopal victims. As one newspaper commented, Bhopal is being seen as a “road block and impediment to trade… the recommendations include removing road blocks to commercial trade by (India), and adoption of a nuclear liability regime”.
Denial of justice to Bhopal has been the basis of all toxic investments since Bhopal, be it Bt cotton, DuPont’s nylon plant or the Civil Nuclear Liability Bill.
Just as Bhopal victims were paid a mere Rs 12,000 (approximately $250) each, the proposed Nuclear Liability Bill also seeks to put a ceiling on liability of a mere $100 million on private operations of a nuclear power plant in case of a nuclear accident. Once again, people can be killed but corporations should not have to pay.
There has also been an intense debate in India on GMOs. An attempt was made by Monsanto/Mahyco to introduce Bt brinjal in 2009. As a result of public hearings across the country, a moratorium has been put on its commercialisation. Immediately after the moratorium a bill was introduced for a Biotechnology Regulatory Authority of India —the bill does not only leave the biotechnology industry free of liability, but it also has a clause which empowers the government to arrest and fine those of us who question the need and safety of GMOs.
From Bhopal to pesticides to GMOs to nuclear plants, there are two lessons we can draw. One is that corporations introd­u­ce hazardous technologies like pe­sticides and GMOs for profits, and profits alone. And second le­sson, related to trade, is that corporations are seeking to ex­p­a­nd markets and relocate haza­r­d­o­us and environmentally costly te­c­hnologies to countries like India.
Corporates seek to globalise production but they do not want to globalise justice and rights. The difference in the treatment of Union Carbide and Dow Chemical in the context of Bhopal, and of BP in the context of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico shows how an apartheid is being created. The devaluation of the life of people of the Third World and ecosystems is built into the project of globalisation. Globalisation is leading to the outsourcing of pollution — hazardous substances and technologies — to the Third World. This is at the heart of globalisation — the economies of genocide.
Lawrence Summers, who was the World Bank’s chief economist and is now chief economic adviser to the Obama government, in a memo dated December 12, 1991, to senior World Bank staff, wrote, “Just between you and me, shouldn’t the World Bank be encouraging more migration of the dirty industries to the less developed countries?”
Since wages are low in the Third World, economic costs of pollution arising from increased illness and death are least in the poorest countries. According to Mr Summers, the logic “of relocation of pollutants in the lowest wage country is impeccable and we should face up to that”.
All this and Bhopal must teach us to reclaim our universal and common humanity and build an Earth Democracy in which all are equal, and corporations are not allowed to get away with crimes against people and the planet.

Dr Vandana Shiva is the executive director of the Navdanya Trust

The Project to Enforce the Geneva Conventions

I succeeded Charles B. Gittings, Jr. as the Director of the Project to Enforce the Geneva Conventions this week. It was a tragic occasion. Charly passed away last week after a long illness. The Project was conceived 8 years ago in order to bring legal and scholarly attention to ongoing war crimes.

The main website and research repository is located at www.pegc.us, which I have been hosting for five years. Charly assigned all his intellectual property to me before his death.


I have created the PEGC Facebook group
and a blog to handle communications in the interim while I prepare for an important event to occur next week. I will hard at work on the Project after that.

Friday, July 2, 2010

a flea

I fought the longest war in flea history. It began in 2000. I was the proud but tired victor in 2010. Here is my story. ~Hypatia

a flea

I had just changed into an old top, to do a messy household job, when I felt the first sharp prick of a flea bite on my upper right arm. I am never sure about the first bite. Maybe it could be a straw in my clothing or a forgotten tag holder. But I commenced to get little rashes that itched fiercely. I doffed all my clothing and put it in the washing machine. Then, I felt the little bastard in my hair. I knew I had to go take a shower. That old top had come from my closet…

Whew, that’s better! I put back on the bathrobe I had used before the shower, then it started again. I am headed back to the washing machine, then out to the kitchen to smear myself with diatomaceous earth. I don’t like doing that; the powder is bad for my lungs. It’s worth it, though, to be free of the pain and itch. A life full of this kind of pain isn’t worth living.

How do I know it isn’t a figment of my imagination? I asked my psychiatrist, Dr. R., who said I did not have this disease, insect phobia, nor this one, Delusions of Parasitosis. Those are the only two conditions that would cause one to feel assaulted by imaginary bugs. I do not have those conditions.

Prequel: The Pearl Harbor attack against the fleas

After Harris left for a trip of indeterminate length, I knew I had to get right on a housewide eradication program. Besides the flea bombs and flea spray, the kind that retards their growth into adulthood, I ordered 5 pounds of food-grade diatomaceous earth (DE).

I vacuumed every vacuumable item in the home. I washed the floors.

I checked with Harris to make sure that using flea bombs would not blow up the house due to exposure to lit pilot lights. Turned out they were in the garage. Great place for the birds! I put them in the garage, with a blanket under the garage door to keep fumes from entering.

I sat the bombs on raised platforms. I held my nose and took a deep breath, then set off the bombs. Previously, I had gathered all the bedding in the house to wash at the Laundromat…too voluminous to wash in our modest home washer.

Then I set off to the Laundromat, productively killing off the two-hour wait while the deadly chemicals dispersed with productive activity. I loaded the washing machines. It took 5 triple-capacity monster machines at $4.25 per pop, to hold the comforters, sheets, blankets and pillows from two bedrooms and the living room.

While everything washed, I treated the empty van with flea spray.

You get the picture.

After the bombing and the DE application, which took the better part of two days, I still have fleas.

I just smeared my body with DE.

One Week After: a flea

I had just changed into an old top, to do a messy household job, when I felt the first sharp prick of a flea bite on my upper right arm. I am never sure about the first bite. Maybe it could be a straw in my clothing or a forgotten tag holder. But I commenced to get little rashes that itched fiercely. I doffed all my clothing and put it in the washing machine. Then, I felt the little bastard in my hair. I knew I had to go take a shower. That old top had come from my closet…

Whew, that’s better! I put back on the bathrobe I had used before the shower, then it started again. I am headed back to the washing machine, then out to the kitchen to smear myself with diatomaceous earth. I don’t like doing that; the powder is bad for my lungs. It’s worth it, though, to be free of the pain and itch. I recognize that staving off this affliction will shorten my life. I am past caring about that.

How do I know it isn’t a figment of my imagination? I asked my psychiatrist, Dr. R., who said I did not have this disease, insect phobia, nor this one, Delusions of Parasitosis. Those are the only two conditions that would cause one to feel assaulted by imaginary bugs. I do not have those conditions.

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