By Lin Noueihed and Frederik Richter
MANAMA (Reuters) - Bahrain's king declared martial law on Tuesday as his government struggled to quell an uprising by the island's Shi'ite Muslim majority that has drawn in troops from fellow Sunni-ruled neighbour Saudi Arabia.
The three-month state of emergency will hand wholesale power to Bahrain's security forces, which are dominated by the Sunni Muslim elite, stoking sectarian tensions in one of the Gulf's most politically volatile nations.
Disturbances shook the kingdom through the day. A hospital source said two men, one Bahraini and the other Bangladeshi, were killed in clashes in the Shi'ite area of Sitra and more than 200 people were wounded in various incidents.
State television said a Bahraini policeman was also killed, denying media reports that a Saudi soldier had been shot dead.
The United States, a close ally of both Bahrain and Saudi Arabia, said it was concerned about reports of growing sectarianism in the country, home to the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet. It dispatched Assistant Secretary of State Jeff Feltman to Bahrain to push for dialogue to resolve the crisis.
Speaking in Cairo, U.S. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton said she had told her Saudi counterpart to promote talks to resolve the situation.
It was not clear if a curfew would be imposed or whether there would be any clampdown on media or public gatherings.
"In order for the situation to return to normal we have to establish order and security and ... stop the violations which have spread disturbances among the people of our dear country," said Interior Minister Sheikh Rashed al-Khalifa.
Bahraini state media have said Shi'ite opposition activists, who complain the state has been naturalising Sunni foreigners to tip the sectarian balance, are targeting foreigners.
The opposition says the security forces are full of naturalised foreigners willing to use force against protesters.
SAUDI ANXIETY
On Monday, more than 1,000 Saudi troops rolled into the kingdom at the request of Bahrain's Sunni rulers. The United Arab Emirates and Qatar have said they would also send police.
Thousands of Bahrainis marched on the Saudi embassy in Manama on Tuesday to protest against the intervention.
"People are angry, we want this occupation to end. We don't want anybody to help the al-Khalifa or us," said a protester who gave his name as Salman, referring to the ruling family.
Analysts said the troop movement showed concern in Saudi Arabia that any concessions in Bahrain could inspire the kingdom's own Shi'ite minority.
Over 60 percent of Bahrainis are Shi'ites who complain of discrimination at the hands of the Sunni royal family. Calls for the overthrow of the monarchy have alarmed the Sunni minority, which fears that unrest could serve non-Arab Shi'ite power Iran.
Iran, which sits across the Gulf from Bahrain, criticised the decision to send in Saudi troops.
"The presence of foreign forces and interference in Bahrain's internal affairs is unacceptable and will further complicate the issue," Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said at his weekly news conference in Tehran.
A Bahraini foreign ministry official called the remarks "blatant interference in Bahrain's internal affairs," the state news agency BNA said, adding that Manama had recalled its ambassador to Iran for consultations.
SECTARIAN CLASHES
Bahrain has been gripped by its worst unrest since the 1990s after protesters took to the streets last month, inspired by uprisings that toppled the leaders of Egypt and Tunisia.
Unlike those countries, where the mainly Sunni populations united against the regime, Bahrain is split along sectarian lines, raising the risk of a slide into civil conflict.
Violent clashes between youths wielding clubs, knives and rocks have become daily occurrences, forcing Bahrain University and many schools to close in order to avoid further trouble.
The United Nations and Britain echoed the U.S. call for restraint and the Group of Eight powers expressed concern, though analysts said the escalation showed the limits of U.S. influence when security was threatened.
Amnesty International urged Bahrain and Saudi Arabia to restrain their forces after witnesses said protesters were shot.
"The king's declaration of a state of emergency must not be used as a cover for repression," said Malcolm Smart.
The disturbances are a major blow to the economy in Bahrain, whose oil reserves dwindling. Shops and offices were closed on Tuesday and the streets were deserted.
Fitch cut Bahrain's credit ratings by two notches to BBB for A-minus and said more downgrades were possible in the short term as political risk soared in the country.
The largest Shi'ite opposition group, Wefaq, condemned the imposition of martial law and urged international intervention.
In a sign that security could deteriorate, the U.S. State Department advised against all travel to Bahrain due to a "breakdown in law and order."
Armed youths attacked the printing press of Bahrain's only opposition newspaper Al Wasat overnight in an effort to stop its publication.
Metal barricades and piles of sand and rocks blocked the main road to the financial district and most shops were shut.
Around Bahrain, residents have placed skips, bins and pieces of metal on the road, to prevent strangers from entering their neighbourhoods. Young men, some wearing masks and carrying sticks, guarded the entrances to their areas.
(Reporting by Robin Pomeroy in Iran, Firouz Sedarat in Dubai, Walter Brandimarte in New York and Stephanie Nebehay in Geneva)
(Editing by Ralph Boulton)
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
In the Wake of Japan's Earthquake, A Hidden Nuclear Catastrophe
By Yoichi Shimatsu
Emergency Special Report I
The Wave, reminiscent of Hokusai's masterful woodblock print, blew past Japan's shoreline defenses of harbor breakwaters and gigantic four-legged blocks called tetrapods, lifting ships to ram through seawalls and crash onto downtown parking lots. Seaside areas were soon emptied of cars and houses dragged up rivers and back out to sea. Wave heights of up to10 meters (33
feet) are staggering, but before deeming these as unimaginable, consider the historical Sanriku tsunami that towered to 15 meters (nearly 50 feet) and killed 27,000 people in 1896.
Nature's terrifying power, however we may dread it, is only as great as the human-caused vulnerability of our civilization. Soon after Christmas 2004, I volunteered for the rescue operation on the day after the Indian Ocean tsunami and simultaneously did an on-site field study on the causes of fatalities in southern Thailand.
The report, issued by Thammasat and Hong Kong Universities, concluded that high water wasn't the sole cause of the massive death toll. No, it's buildings that kill - to be specific, badly designed structures without escape routes onto roofs or, in our greed for real estate, situated inside drained lagoons and riverbeds, or on loose landfill. In the Tohoku disaster, an ultramodern Sendai Airport sat helplessly flooded on all sides while nearby a monstrous black torrent swept entire houses upstream.
Other threats are built into the vulnerabilities of our critical infrastructure and power systems. The balls of orange flames churning out of huge gas storage tanks in Ichihara, Chiba, should never have happened if technical precautions had been properly carried out.
Whenever things go wrong, underlying risks had led to a liability and, in a responsible society, accountability.
Most people assume that the meticulous Japanese are among the world's most responsible citizens. As an investigative journalist who has covered the Hanshin
(Kobe) earthquake and the Tokyo subway gassing, I beg to differ. Japan is just better than elsewhere in organizing official cover-ups.
Hidden nuclear crisis
The recurrent tendency to deny systemic errors - "in order to avoid public panic" - is rooted in the determination of an entrenched bureaucracy to protect itself rather than in any stated purpose of serving the nation or its people. That's the unspoken rule of thumb in most governments, and the point is that Japan is no shining exception. So what today is being silenced on orders from the Tokyo government? The official mantra is that all five nuclear power plants in the northeast are locked down, safe and not leaking. The cloaked reality is that at least one of those - Tepco's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant - is under an emergency alert at a level indicative of a quake-caused internal rupture. The Fukushima powerhouse is one of the world's largest with six boiling-water reactors.
Over past decades, the Japanese public has been reassured by the Tokyo Electric Power Company that its nuclear reactors are prepared for any eventuality. Yet the mystery in Fukushima is not the first unreported problem with nuclear power, only the most recent. Back in 1996 amid a reactor accident in Ibaraki province, the government never admitted that radioactive fallout had drifted over the northeastern suburbs of Tokyo. Our reporters got confirmation from monitoring stations, but the press was under a blanket order not to run any alarming news, the facts be damned. For a nation that's lived under the atomic cloud of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, total denial becomes possible now only because the finger on the button is our own.
People are the best defense
Despite the national addiction to nuclear power that keeps the neon lights bright over Shibuya's famous corner, Japan still remains the most prepared of all societies for earthquakes, tsunami, conflagrations and other disasters. Every work unit, large or small, has an emergency response plan. The Tohoku quake hit on a workday afternoon, meaning the staff in every factory and office could act as a team to quell small fires, shut the gas lines, render first aid and restore their communication system. Even in most homes, residents have a rechargeable flashlight plugged into a socket and emergency bottles of water.
Northeast Japan is better prepared than other localities because in the wake of the Kobe quake in 1995, the regional Keidanren, or federation of industrial organizations, sponsored a thorough risk-management and crisis response study. Tohoku Keidanren staffers, who had known of my reporting on the San Francisco and Kobe quakes, asked me to write an article prioritizing disaster preparedness.
First on my list was a people-based communications network such as the citizen's band radio that enabled Northern Californians to self-organize despite power blackouts. That point directly led to the fast licensing of new mobile phone towers equipped with back-up batteries. Second was independent power generation inside all major factories so that these large facilities could recharge batteries, provide lighting and pump water for their neighborhoods and, if necessary, offer shelter, sanitation and medical care.
These systems must be routinely used at least on weekends so that the equipment is regularly checked and the staff stay familiar with their operation.
Third, and most important, is the ability of individuals to rally as a self-sustaining community. In Kobe, society collapsed under a sense of personal defeat. In San Francisco, by contrast, neighbors reached out as friends and opened their doors, food stocks and hearts to victims and their kin. Without compassion, each of us is very much alone indeed.
As participants in communities, who can suddenly find themselves naked before unthinkable hazards, we must act to defuse the deadly "bomb" that provides us lighting, energy for appliances and air-con. Prevention of the next Chernobyl or Three Mile Island begins when we stop naively believing in the cost efficiency of uranium, and for that matter the cleanliness and healthiness of "clean" coal.
Japan has vast untapped reserves of offshore wind energy, the only practical alternative to nuclear power and fossil fuel. Yet the nuclear lobby, coal companies and oil majors have strong-armed the government and industry to stubbornly refuse to invest in advanced and efficient turbine engineering, including magnetic-levitation rotors that eliminate the need for energy-sapping bearings.
At certain stages of societal evolution, there arrives an unmistakable message to leave behind our worn-out security blanket and surf the wave of the future. The tsunami is just such a signal arising from the ocean's depths to awaken Japan, as a global technology leader, to push much faster into a cleaner, greener and safer world.
Emergency Special Report II
Quake Monitor: Meltdown has started - Saturday 12 March (noon Japan time zone)
Meltdown is underway. Japan's Industrial Nuclear Safety Agency reported that the radioactive isotopes cesium and iodine were detected by a monitoring station in the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant. The presence of these substances in air samples is a sure indicator that an uncontrolled chain reaction has started.
Overheated uranium rods have eaten through their protective metal casings and have started nuclear fission. The regulatory agency's announcement overturns the earlier claim of plant operator TEPCO that all uranium rods were intact.
The National Institute of Radiological Science, in Chiba outside Tokyo, has flown a team of doctors and nurses by helicopter to a health center 5 km from the Fukushima plant to monitor nuclear exposure in workers, emergency crew and local residents.
Nuclear workers, who this morning restarted the pumping of cold water into the reactor, are being hampered by aftershocks of larger than Richter 6. Plant operator TEPCO ordered the release of steam from the overheated reactor this morning because internal pressure is twice higher than the allowable limits of the original facility design. Plant officials say that the steam is being filtered of radioactive particle. Outside the plant, however, the monitoring station detected outdoor radiation levels 8 times higher than normal, indicating either leakage or filter malfunction.
Three of the six reactors of the TEPCO Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, were operating at the time of the Tohoku quake. The failure of back-up generators caused significant rise in temperatures inside No.1 (46 MW
output) and No.2 (784 MW) reactors.
The Japanese government overnight dispatched truck-mounted power generators to both plants in order to restart cooling pumps. On-site back-up batteries that run the control system were depleted of power within 8 hours of the blackout. Authorities are now locating robots to dispatch for remote control repairs to the reactors because the interior is unsafe for human employees.
Impact on North America:
The Pacific jetstream is currently flowing due east directly toward the United States. In the event of a major meltdown and continuous large-volume radioactive release, airborne particles will be carried across the ocean in bands that will cross over the southern halves of Oregon, Montana and Idaho, all of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, the Dakotas, northern Nebraska and Iowa and ending in Wisconsin and Illinois, with possible further eastward drift depending on surface wind direction.
Most of the particles can be expected to travel high in the atmosphere, with fallout dependent on low pressure zones, rainfall and temperatures over the US. If a meltdown can be contained in Fukushima, a small amount of particles would be dispersed in the atmosphere with little immediate effect on human and animal health.
Another climate factor to be taken into account is the potential for an El Nino Variable bulging the jetstream further northward, causing fallout over western Canada and a larger number of American states.
Seasonal rainfall over Japan does not normally begin until mid-April and does not become significant until early June.
If very high radiation releases are detected at some point, a potential tactic to lessen contamination of North America is for the US, Canadian and Russian air forces to seed clouds over the northwest Pacific to create a low pressure front and precipitation to minimize particle mass reaching North America.
Emergency Special Report III
Ohoku Quake and Tsunami Monitor 2:
"The Good News Guys"
Sunday 13 March 2011 (0800 hrs Tokyo Time) Following a high-level meeting called by the lame-duck prime minister, Japanese agencies are no longer releasing independent reports without prior approval from the top. The censorship is being carried out following the imposition of the Article 15 Emergency Law. Official silencing of bad news is a polite way of reassuring the public.According to the chief Cabinet Secretary, reactor heat is being lowered and radiation levels are coming down. The Unit 1 reactor container is not cracked despite the explosion that destroyed its building. The explosion did not erupt out of the reactor. So what caused the explosion that blasted away the reinforced concrete roof and walls? Silence. Yes, there's nothing to worry about if residents just stay indoors, turn off their air-cons and don't breathe deeply. Everyone, go back to sleep.
The radiation leak at Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant is now officially designated as a "4" on the international nuclear-events scale of 7. This is the same criticality rating at an earlier minor accident at Tokaimura plant in Ibaraki. Technically, there is no comparison. Tokaimura did not experience a partial meltdown.
Enough of the Good News
The mayor of Tsuruga City, home of the trouble-plagued Monju plutonium-breeder reactor in Fukui Prefecture, isn't buying Tokyo's weak explanation about the Fukushima 1 blast and demanded the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to conduct an all-points investigation immediately.
A specialist medical team from the National Radiology Health Institute, flown by helicopter from Chiba to a field center 5 km from the No.1 Nuclear Plant, found radiation illness in 3 residents out of a sample group of 90. Overnight that number of civilian-nuclear "hibakusha" shot up to 19, but in other counts to 160.
The evacuation zone has been further widened from 10 km to 20 km.
A third reactor, Unit 6, has lost its cooling system and is overheating along with Reactors 1 and 2.
Fukushima No.2 plant, further south, is ringed by a wall of silence as a quiet evacuation is being conducted.
Firefighters are pumping seawater into the three overheated Fukushima 1 reactors. The mandatory freshwater supply is missing, presumably due to tsunami contamination from surging ocean waves. An American nuclear expert has called this desperation measure the equivalent of a "Hail Mary pass"..
So, the Prime Minister should be hoping that Japan's tiny Christian community is feverishly praying. Because right now, Japan and much of the world are living on a prayer.
Players not prayers
USA: The White House sent in a team to consult withe US-friendly Naoto Kan government. Instead of dispatching in experts from the Department of Energy, Nuclear Safety Agency and Health Department, President Obamas sent representatives of USAID, which is cover for the CIA.
The presence of these paranoiac bumblers only confirms suspicions of a top-level cover up. Why would the Agency be worried about the disaster? There are security considerations, such as regional "enemies"
Pyongyang, Beijing and Moscow taking advantage of the crisis. To the contrary, China and Russia have both offered carte blanche civilian aid.
Second, to coordinate a pro-American public campaign synchronized with the US relief effort from the nuclear carrier USS Ronald Reagan. Many Japanese might actually be alarmed by Navy ships offshore, reminding them of the firebombing campaign in the big war, and US helicopters rumbling overhead as if Sendai was Danang Vietnam 1968. The whole "aid" exercise smacks of a con job aimed at keeping US military bases in Okinawa and surreptitiously at a Japanese Self-Defense Force firing range at the foot of Mount Fuji.
Third, to ensure the safekeeping of Misawa Air Force Base in quake-hit Iwate Prefecture. Misawa, the hub of US electronic warfare and high-tech espionage in East Asia with its fleet of P-3 Orions and an ECHELON eavesdropping antennae.
PRC: In contrast to Washington's ulterior motives, China in an unprecedented move has sent in an emergency team into Japan. Unbeknownst to the world, China has world-leading expertise in extinguishing nuclear meltdowns and blocking radiation leaks at their uranium mines and military nuclear plants. This was discovered on a 2003 visit to a geological research center in the uranium-rich Altai mountain region of Xinjiang, where a scientist disclosed "off the record"
China's development of mineral blends that block radiation "much more than 90 percent, nearly totally".
When asked why the institute doesn't commercialize their formulas, he responded: "We've never thought about that." That's too bad because if one of China's exports was ever needed, it's their radiation blanket.
Russia: Moscow too, is offering unconditional aid, despite ongoing territorial conflict with Japan over four northern islands. The Russian Air Force, from bases in Kamchatka and the Kuriles, could play a key role in cloud-seeding to prevent radioactive particles from drifting over to the United States. Americans should learn how to act as team players in an international community, especially now their own children's lives will be at stake in the event of a total meltdown in Fukushima.
Canada: Meteorology is becoming evermore interesting, despite the "what me worry" attitudes of the global-warming skeptics. A freak of nature called El Nino Variable, if it occurs later this spring, could push the Pacific jet stream northward, meaning western Canada and more U.S. states could find themselves along a winding stream of radiation fallout from Japan.
Correction to Monitor 1: In our haste, we blurred over some important details on the use of potassium iodide tablets. These are taken to block radioactive
iodine-131 from affecting the human thyroid gland, thus lowering the risk of cancer and other disorders.
Yoichi Shimatsu currently with Fourth Media (China) is former editor of the Japan Times Weekly, has covered the earthquakes in San Francisco and Kobe, participated in the rescue operation immediately after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and led the field research for an architectural report on structural design flaws that led to the tsunami death toll in Thailand.
Global Research Articles by Yoichi Shimatsu
Emergency Special Report I
The Wave, reminiscent of Hokusai's masterful woodblock print, blew past Japan's shoreline defenses of harbor breakwaters and gigantic four-legged blocks called tetrapods, lifting ships to ram through seawalls and crash onto downtown parking lots. Seaside areas were soon emptied of cars and houses dragged up rivers and back out to sea. Wave heights of up to10 meters (33
feet) are staggering, but before deeming these as unimaginable, consider the historical Sanriku tsunami that towered to 15 meters (nearly 50 feet) and killed 27,000 people in 1896.
Nature's terrifying power, however we may dread it, is only as great as the human-caused vulnerability of our civilization. Soon after Christmas 2004, I volunteered for the rescue operation on the day after the Indian Ocean tsunami and simultaneously did an on-site field study on the causes of fatalities in southern Thailand.
The report, issued by Thammasat and Hong Kong Universities, concluded that high water wasn't the sole cause of the massive death toll. No, it's buildings that kill - to be specific, badly designed structures without escape routes onto roofs or, in our greed for real estate, situated inside drained lagoons and riverbeds, or on loose landfill. In the Tohoku disaster, an ultramodern Sendai Airport sat helplessly flooded on all sides while nearby a monstrous black torrent swept entire houses upstream.
Other threats are built into the vulnerabilities of our critical infrastructure and power systems. The balls of orange flames churning out of huge gas storage tanks in Ichihara, Chiba, should never have happened if technical precautions had been properly carried out.
Whenever things go wrong, underlying risks had led to a liability and, in a responsible society, accountability.
Most people assume that the meticulous Japanese are among the world's most responsible citizens. As an investigative journalist who has covered the Hanshin
(Kobe) earthquake and the Tokyo subway gassing, I beg to differ. Japan is just better than elsewhere in organizing official cover-ups.
Hidden nuclear crisis
The recurrent tendency to deny systemic errors - "in order to avoid public panic" - is rooted in the determination of an entrenched bureaucracy to protect itself rather than in any stated purpose of serving the nation or its people. That's the unspoken rule of thumb in most governments, and the point is that Japan is no shining exception. So what today is being silenced on orders from the Tokyo government? The official mantra is that all five nuclear power plants in the northeast are locked down, safe and not leaking. The cloaked reality is that at least one of those - Tepco's Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant - is under an emergency alert at a level indicative of a quake-caused internal rupture. The Fukushima powerhouse is one of the world's largest with six boiling-water reactors.
Over past decades, the Japanese public has been reassured by the Tokyo Electric Power Company that its nuclear reactors are prepared for any eventuality. Yet the mystery in Fukushima is not the first unreported problem with nuclear power, only the most recent. Back in 1996 amid a reactor accident in Ibaraki province, the government never admitted that radioactive fallout had drifted over the northeastern suburbs of Tokyo. Our reporters got confirmation from monitoring stations, but the press was under a blanket order not to run any alarming news, the facts be damned. For a nation that's lived under the atomic cloud of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, total denial becomes possible now only because the finger on the button is our own.
People are the best defense
Despite the national addiction to nuclear power that keeps the neon lights bright over Shibuya's famous corner, Japan still remains the most prepared of all societies for earthquakes, tsunami, conflagrations and other disasters. Every work unit, large or small, has an emergency response plan. The Tohoku quake hit on a workday afternoon, meaning the staff in every factory and office could act as a team to quell small fires, shut the gas lines, render first aid and restore their communication system. Even in most homes, residents have a rechargeable flashlight plugged into a socket and emergency bottles of water.
Northeast Japan is better prepared than other localities because in the wake of the Kobe quake in 1995, the regional Keidanren, or federation of industrial organizations, sponsored a thorough risk-management and crisis response study. Tohoku Keidanren staffers, who had known of my reporting on the San Francisco and Kobe quakes, asked me to write an article prioritizing disaster preparedness.
First on my list was a people-based communications network such as the citizen's band radio that enabled Northern Californians to self-organize despite power blackouts. That point directly led to the fast licensing of new mobile phone towers equipped with back-up batteries. Second was independent power generation inside all major factories so that these large facilities could recharge batteries, provide lighting and pump water for their neighborhoods and, if necessary, offer shelter, sanitation and medical care.
These systems must be routinely used at least on weekends so that the equipment is regularly checked and the staff stay familiar with their operation.
Third, and most important, is the ability of individuals to rally as a self-sustaining community. In Kobe, society collapsed under a sense of personal defeat. In San Francisco, by contrast, neighbors reached out as friends and opened their doors, food stocks and hearts to victims and their kin. Without compassion, each of us is very much alone indeed.
As participants in communities, who can suddenly find themselves naked before unthinkable hazards, we must act to defuse the deadly "bomb" that provides us lighting, energy for appliances and air-con. Prevention of the next Chernobyl or Three Mile Island begins when we stop naively believing in the cost efficiency of uranium, and for that matter the cleanliness and healthiness of "clean" coal.
Japan has vast untapped reserves of offshore wind energy, the only practical alternative to nuclear power and fossil fuel. Yet the nuclear lobby, coal companies and oil majors have strong-armed the government and industry to stubbornly refuse to invest in advanced and efficient turbine engineering, including magnetic-levitation rotors that eliminate the need for energy-sapping bearings.
At certain stages of societal evolution, there arrives an unmistakable message to leave behind our worn-out security blanket and surf the wave of the future. The tsunami is just such a signal arising from the ocean's depths to awaken Japan, as a global technology leader, to push much faster into a cleaner, greener and safer world.
Emergency Special Report II
Quake Monitor: Meltdown has started - Saturday 12 March (noon Japan time zone)
Meltdown is underway. Japan's Industrial Nuclear Safety Agency reported that the radioactive isotopes cesium and iodine were detected by a monitoring station in the Fukushima No.1 nuclear power plant. The presence of these substances in air samples is a sure indicator that an uncontrolled chain reaction has started.
Overheated uranium rods have eaten through their protective metal casings and have started nuclear fission. The regulatory agency's announcement overturns the earlier claim of plant operator TEPCO that all uranium rods were intact.
The National Institute of Radiological Science, in Chiba outside Tokyo, has flown a team of doctors and nurses by helicopter to a health center 5 km from the Fukushima plant to monitor nuclear exposure in workers, emergency crew and local residents.
Nuclear workers, who this morning restarted the pumping of cold water into the reactor, are being hampered by aftershocks of larger than Richter 6. Plant operator TEPCO ordered the release of steam from the overheated reactor this morning because internal pressure is twice higher than the allowable limits of the original facility design. Plant officials say that the steam is being filtered of radioactive particle. Outside the plant, however, the monitoring station detected outdoor radiation levels 8 times higher than normal, indicating either leakage or filter malfunction.
Three of the six reactors of the TEPCO Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant, were operating at the time of the Tohoku quake. The failure of back-up generators caused significant rise in temperatures inside No.1 (46 MW
output) and No.2 (784 MW) reactors.
The Japanese government overnight dispatched truck-mounted power generators to both plants in order to restart cooling pumps. On-site back-up batteries that run the control system were depleted of power within 8 hours of the blackout. Authorities are now locating robots to dispatch for remote control repairs to the reactors because the interior is unsafe for human employees.
Impact on North America:
The Pacific jetstream is currently flowing due east directly toward the United States. In the event of a major meltdown and continuous large-volume radioactive release, airborne particles will be carried across the ocean in bands that will cross over the southern halves of Oregon, Montana and Idaho, all of California, Nevada, Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, the Dakotas, northern Nebraska and Iowa and ending in Wisconsin and Illinois, with possible further eastward drift depending on surface wind direction.
Most of the particles can be expected to travel high in the atmosphere, with fallout dependent on low pressure zones, rainfall and temperatures over the US. If a meltdown can be contained in Fukushima, a small amount of particles would be dispersed in the atmosphere with little immediate effect on human and animal health.
Another climate factor to be taken into account is the potential for an El Nino Variable bulging the jetstream further northward, causing fallout over western Canada and a larger number of American states.
Seasonal rainfall over Japan does not normally begin until mid-April and does not become significant until early June.
If very high radiation releases are detected at some point, a potential tactic to lessen contamination of North America is for the US, Canadian and Russian air forces to seed clouds over the northwest Pacific to create a low pressure front and precipitation to minimize particle mass reaching North America.
Emergency Special Report III
Ohoku Quake and Tsunami Monitor 2:
"The Good News Guys"
Sunday 13 March 2011 (0800 hrs Tokyo Time) Following a high-level meeting called by the lame-duck prime minister, Japanese agencies are no longer releasing independent reports without prior approval from the top. The censorship is being carried out following the imposition of the Article 15 Emergency Law. Official silencing of bad news is a polite way of reassuring the public.According to the chief Cabinet Secretary, reactor heat is being lowered and radiation levels are coming down. The Unit 1 reactor container is not cracked despite the explosion that destroyed its building. The explosion did not erupt out of the reactor. So what caused the explosion that blasted away the reinforced concrete roof and walls? Silence. Yes, there's nothing to worry about if residents just stay indoors, turn off their air-cons and don't breathe deeply. Everyone, go back to sleep.
The radiation leak at Fukushima No.1 nuclear plant is now officially designated as a "4" on the international nuclear-events scale of 7. This is the same criticality rating at an earlier minor accident at Tokaimura plant in Ibaraki. Technically, there is no comparison. Tokaimura did not experience a partial meltdown.
Enough of the Good News
The mayor of Tsuruga City, home of the trouble-plagued Monju plutonium-breeder reactor in Fukui Prefecture, isn't buying Tokyo's weak explanation about the Fukushima 1 blast and demanded the Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency to conduct an all-points investigation immediately.
A specialist medical team from the National Radiology Health Institute, flown by helicopter from Chiba to a field center 5 km from the No.1 Nuclear Plant, found radiation illness in 3 residents out of a sample group of 90. Overnight that number of civilian-nuclear "hibakusha" shot up to 19, but in other counts to 160.
The evacuation zone has been further widened from 10 km to 20 km.
A third reactor, Unit 6, has lost its cooling system and is overheating along with Reactors 1 and 2.
Fukushima No.2 plant, further south, is ringed by a wall of silence as a quiet evacuation is being conducted.
Firefighters are pumping seawater into the three overheated Fukushima 1 reactors. The mandatory freshwater supply is missing, presumably due to tsunami contamination from surging ocean waves. An American nuclear expert has called this desperation measure the equivalent of a "Hail Mary pass"..
So, the Prime Minister should be hoping that Japan's tiny Christian community is feverishly praying. Because right now, Japan and much of the world are living on a prayer.
Players not prayers
USA: The White House sent in a team to consult withe US-friendly Naoto Kan government. Instead of dispatching in experts from the Department of Energy, Nuclear Safety Agency and Health Department, President Obamas sent representatives of USAID, which is cover for the CIA.
The presence of these paranoiac bumblers only confirms suspicions of a top-level cover up. Why would the Agency be worried about the disaster? There are security considerations, such as regional "enemies"
Pyongyang, Beijing and Moscow taking advantage of the crisis. To the contrary, China and Russia have both offered carte blanche civilian aid.
Second, to coordinate a pro-American public campaign synchronized with the US relief effort from the nuclear carrier USS Ronald Reagan. Many Japanese might actually be alarmed by Navy ships offshore, reminding them of the firebombing campaign in the big war, and US helicopters rumbling overhead as if Sendai was Danang Vietnam 1968. The whole "aid" exercise smacks of a con job aimed at keeping US military bases in Okinawa and surreptitiously at a Japanese Self-Defense Force firing range at the foot of Mount Fuji.
Third, to ensure the safekeeping of Misawa Air Force Base in quake-hit Iwate Prefecture. Misawa, the hub of US electronic warfare and high-tech espionage in East Asia with its fleet of P-3 Orions and an ECHELON eavesdropping antennae.
PRC: In contrast to Washington's ulterior motives, China in an unprecedented move has sent in an emergency team into Japan. Unbeknownst to the world, China has world-leading expertise in extinguishing nuclear meltdowns and blocking radiation leaks at their uranium mines and military nuclear plants. This was discovered on a 2003 visit to a geological research center in the uranium-rich Altai mountain region of Xinjiang, where a scientist disclosed "off the record"
China's development of mineral blends that block radiation "much more than 90 percent, nearly totally".
When asked why the institute doesn't commercialize their formulas, he responded: "We've never thought about that." That's too bad because if one of China's exports was ever needed, it's their radiation blanket.
Russia: Moscow too, is offering unconditional aid, despite ongoing territorial conflict with Japan over four northern islands. The Russian Air Force, from bases in Kamchatka and the Kuriles, could play a key role in cloud-seeding to prevent radioactive particles from drifting over to the United States. Americans should learn how to act as team players in an international community, especially now their own children's lives will be at stake in the event of a total meltdown in Fukushima.
Canada: Meteorology is becoming evermore interesting, despite the "what me worry" attitudes of the global-warming skeptics. A freak of nature called El Nino Variable, if it occurs later this spring, could push the Pacific jet stream northward, meaning western Canada and more U.S. states could find themselves along a winding stream of radiation fallout from Japan.
Correction to Monitor 1: In our haste, we blurred over some important details on the use of potassium iodide tablets. These are taken to block radioactive
iodine-131 from affecting the human thyroid gland, thus lowering the risk of cancer and other disorders.
Yoichi Shimatsu currently with Fourth Media (China) is former editor of the Japan Times Weekly, has covered the earthquakes in San Francisco and Kobe, participated in the rescue operation immediately after the Indian Ocean tsunami in 2004 and led the field research for an architectural report on structural design flaws that led to the tsunami death toll in Thailand.
Global Research Articles by Yoichi Shimatsu
Monday, March 14, 2011
Bahrain imports Gulf military force
(UKPA)
Troops from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations have moved into Bahrain to back up its Sunni rulers in the face of escalating Shiite-led protests seeking to break the monarchy's hold on power.
Bahrain's main opposition groups immediately denounced the intervention as an "occupation" that pushed the tiny Gulf kingdom dangerously close to a state of war.
It also marked the first cross-border military operations to try to quell unrest since the Arab world's rebellions began in December and underscores the Gulf leaders' worries about their own standing and fears that instability in Bahrain could give a foothold for Shiite powerhouse Iran.
The strife in Bahrain began to dramatically escalate over the weekend just as the US defence secretary arrived to urge its leaders - key Washington allies - to heed at least some of the demands for change.
A Saudi security official said the Gulf units dispatched to Bahrain are from a special force within the six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council.
The 1,000 strong force was deployed by air and road and to help protect key buildings.
The GCC members are Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Its arrival force comes a day after some of the most widespread chaos in the month-long series of protests and clashes that have left seven dead and the nation deeply divided.
A group of pro-government MPs has urged Bahrain's king to impose martial law and claimed "extremist movements" were trying to disrupt the country and push it toward sectarian conflict.
A coalition of seven Shiite-led opposition factions pledged to demand a UN investigation into the Gulf leaders' decision to send in the special force for an internal conflict. The unit had been deployed in the past to Kuwait, including during the 1991 US-led campaign to drive out Saddam Hussein's troops and before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Troops from Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations have moved into Bahrain to back up its Sunni rulers in the face of escalating Shiite-led protests seeking to break the monarchy's hold on power.
Bahrain's main opposition groups immediately denounced the intervention as an "occupation" that pushed the tiny Gulf kingdom dangerously close to a state of war.
It also marked the first cross-border military operations to try to quell unrest since the Arab world's rebellions began in December and underscores the Gulf leaders' worries about their own standing and fears that instability in Bahrain could give a foothold for Shiite powerhouse Iran.
The strife in Bahrain began to dramatically escalate over the weekend just as the US defence secretary arrived to urge its leaders - key Washington allies - to heed at least some of the demands for change.
A Saudi security official said the Gulf units dispatched to Bahrain are from a special force within the six-nation Gulf Co-operation Council.
The 1,000 strong force was deployed by air and road and to help protect key buildings.
The GCC members are Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman and the United Arab Emirates.
Its arrival force comes a day after some of the most widespread chaos in the month-long series of protests and clashes that have left seven dead and the nation deeply divided.
A group of pro-government MPs has urged Bahrain's king to impose martial law and claimed "extremist movements" were trying to disrupt the country and push it toward sectarian conflict.
A coalition of seven Shiite-led opposition factions pledged to demand a UN investigation into the Gulf leaders' decision to send in the special force for an internal conflict. The unit had been deployed in the past to Kuwait, including during the 1991 US-led campaign to drive out Saddam Hussein's troops and before the 2003 invasion of Iraq.
Bahrain Protests Throw Kingdom Into Chaos
NPR Staff and Wires
Thousands of anti-government demonstrators cut off Bahrain's financial center and drove back police trying to push them from the capital's central square shaking the tiny island kingdom Sunday with the most disruptive protests since calls for more freedom erupted a month ago.
Demonstrators also clashed with security forces and government supporters on the campus of the main university in the Gulf country, the home of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet.
The clashes fueled fears that Bahrain's political crisis could be stumbling toward open sectarian conflict between the ruling minority Sunnis and Shiites, who account for 70 percent of the nation's 525,000 people.
Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al Khalifa said the government is willing to discuss reforming its semi-democratic parliamentary system. But protesters like Hassan al-Mubarak are in no mood to talk
"This government, we've been giving them a chance for 230 years," he said. "They don't want to change."
The opposition is split between those who favor confronting the regime and others who are looking to negotiate.
In some neighborhoods, vigilantes set up checkpoints to try to keep outsiders from entering. Bahrain's interior ministry warned Saturday that the "social fabric" of the nation was in peril.
A day after visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged quick progress toward reform, thousands of protesters gathered before dawn to block King Faisal Highway, a four-lane expressway leading to Bahrain's main financial district in downtown Manama, causing huge traffic chaos during morning rush hour and preventing many from reaching their offices on the first day of the work week.
"No one was able to go to work today. Thugs and protesters were blocking the highway," complained Sawsan Mohammed, 30, who works in the financial district. "I am upset that Bahrain is no longer a stable place."
Security forces dispersed about 350 protesters "by using tear gas," the government said. But traffic was clogged until late morning and many drivers sent messages of rage and frustration to social media sites.
"I blame the protesters for what's happened in Bahrain today," said Dana Nasser, 25, who was caught in the traffic chaos and never made it to her office.
About 2 miles away, police at the same time moved in on Pearl traffic circle, site of a monthlong occupation by members of Bahrain's Shiite majority calling for an elected government and equality with Bahrain's Sunnis.
Many protesters in recent days have pressed their demands further to call for the ouster of the Sunni dynasty that has held power for more than two centuries.
Witnesses said security forces surrounded the protests' tent compound, shooting tear gas and rubber bullets at the activists in the largest effort to clear the protesters since a deadly crackdown last month that left four dead.
Activists tried to stand their ground and chanted "Peaceful! peaceful!"
The crowd swelled into thousands with protesters streaming to the square to reinforce the activists' lines as police continued firing tear gas. By early afternoon, police pulled back from the square, eyewitnesses said.
At Bahrain University, Shiite demonstrators and government supporters held competing protests that descended into violence when plainclothes pro-government backers and security forces forced students who had been blocking the campus main gate to seek refuge in classrooms and lecture halls, said Layla al-Arab, an employee at the Arts Collage.
Two protesters sustained serious head injures and hundreds looked for medical help, mostly with breathing problems from tear gas, hospital officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The Gulf kingdom holds particular importance to Washington as the host of the main American military counterweight to Iran's efforts to expand its armed forces and reach into the Gulf.
Bahrain has also tried hard to position itself as an attractive investment destination and Middle East banking center. Even the passport stamps issued to incoming visitors declare the kingdom as "Business-friendly Bahrain."
Thousands of anti-government demonstrators cut off Bahrain's financial center and drove back police trying to push them from the capital's central square shaking the tiny island kingdom Sunday with the most disruptive protests since calls for more freedom erupted a month ago.
Demonstrators also clashed with security forces and government supporters on the campus of the main university in the Gulf country, the home of the U.S. Navy's Fifth Fleet.
The clashes fueled fears that Bahrain's political crisis could be stumbling toward open sectarian conflict between the ruling minority Sunnis and Shiites, who account for 70 percent of the nation's 525,000 people.
Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al Khalifa said the government is willing to discuss reforming its semi-democratic parliamentary system. But protesters like Hassan al-Mubarak are in no mood to talk
"This government, we've been giving them a chance for 230 years," he said. "They don't want to change."
The opposition is split between those who favor confronting the regime and others who are looking to negotiate.
In some neighborhoods, vigilantes set up checkpoints to try to keep outsiders from entering. Bahrain's interior ministry warned Saturday that the "social fabric" of the nation was in peril.
A day after visiting U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates urged quick progress toward reform, thousands of protesters gathered before dawn to block King Faisal Highway, a four-lane expressway leading to Bahrain's main financial district in downtown Manama, causing huge traffic chaos during morning rush hour and preventing many from reaching their offices on the first day of the work week.
"No one was able to go to work today. Thugs and protesters were blocking the highway," complained Sawsan Mohammed, 30, who works in the financial district. "I am upset that Bahrain is no longer a stable place."
Security forces dispersed about 350 protesters "by using tear gas," the government said. But traffic was clogged until late morning and many drivers sent messages of rage and frustration to social media sites.
"I blame the protesters for what's happened in Bahrain today," said Dana Nasser, 25, who was caught in the traffic chaos and never made it to her office.
About 2 miles away, police at the same time moved in on Pearl traffic circle, site of a monthlong occupation by members of Bahrain's Shiite majority calling for an elected government and equality with Bahrain's Sunnis.
Many protesters in recent days have pressed their demands further to call for the ouster of the Sunni dynasty that has held power for more than two centuries.
Witnesses said security forces surrounded the protests' tent compound, shooting tear gas and rubber bullets at the activists in the largest effort to clear the protesters since a deadly crackdown last month that left four dead.
Activists tried to stand their ground and chanted "Peaceful! peaceful!"
The crowd swelled into thousands with protesters streaming to the square to reinforce the activists' lines as police continued firing tear gas. By early afternoon, police pulled back from the square, eyewitnesses said.
At Bahrain University, Shiite demonstrators and government supporters held competing protests that descended into violence when plainclothes pro-government backers and security forces forced students who had been blocking the campus main gate to seek refuge in classrooms and lecture halls, said Layla al-Arab, an employee at the Arts Collage.
Two protesters sustained serious head injures and hundreds looked for medical help, mostly with breathing problems from tear gas, hospital officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.
The Gulf kingdom holds particular importance to Washington as the host of the main American military counterweight to Iran's efforts to expand its armed forces and reach into the Gulf.
Bahrain has also tried hard to position itself as an attractive investment destination and Middle East banking center. Even the passport stamps issued to incoming visitors declare the kingdom as "Business-friendly Bahrain."
Friday, March 11, 2011
Then They Came for the Trade Unionists
by: William Rivers Pitt, t r u t h o u t | Op-Ed
Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) is under fire for his budget proposal that eliminates collective bargaining rights for public sector union workers. (Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Megan McCormick / Flickr)
On this day, it behooves us to remember the words of Martin Niemoller.
"First they came for the communists," he wrote, "and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."
I am a trade unionist, and yesterday in Wisconsin, they came for me. They came for you. They came for every working person in America, and their intent could not be more clear. Governor Scott Walker, along with the Koch Brothers and the right-wing radicals of the Republican Party, moved in darkness and with shameless deceit to gut the ability of dedicated laborers to bargain on an equal footing for the right to earn a living wage and to have access to decent health care.
Among other things, the bill as passed allows the state to fire anyone who participates in a strike. The story of the 20th century was written by workers who dared to face the truncheon in order to fight for their basic rights, and the strike was integral to that struggle. Any Wisconsin worker who dares to stand in defiance of The Bosses now faces personal annihilation, not just for themselves, but for their family. America was made in the struggle of union workers standing shoulder to shoulder in defiance of the idea that being rich means being right. That struggle is now in mortal peril, and the outcome affects all of us.
Fairness and the rule of law had no place in Wednesday's filthy action. This move was done in secret, without notice or announcement as required by Wisconsin law, and bears the stamp of the cowards and cretins who are responsible. Similar anti-worker legislation has been unfolding in Ohio, Indiana, Florida and more than a dozen other states. Those responsible claim such actions are necessary because of economic concerns, but the Wisconsin perpetrators tipped their hand. They stripped the bill in question of anything having to do with the state budget, so as to give them the chance to vote without a quorum...but the entire premise of their anti-union attack was that the destruction of collective bargaining was needed to salvage the state's financial situation. By gutting the bill of any semblance of budgetary issues, all they were left with is what they were after in the first place: the end of collective bargaining, the end of unions altogether, and by proxy, the end of the Democratic Party.
Eric Kleefeld, the excellent reporter for TalkingPointsMemo, and a Wisconsin native, exposed the endgame thusly:
The Democratic Party in Wisconsin is, to an extent that is not true in most other states, a genuine labor party -- a party that is intertwined with unions at the institutional level, with many politicians who have also been union officials or done legal work with unions, and which speaks for organized labor in key debates. They in turn compete with the Republican Party, which represents business interests as embodied by the state's Chamber group, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, in what has until now been a sometimes uneasy but nevertheless predictable political system.
In short, unions in Wisconsin are not just economic organizations made up of their respective workers - they are political institutions that are a major part of the state. As such, a change to the state's union laws that would threaten the existence of organized labor would in turn threaten the existence of the Democratic Party itself in Wisconsin, as people have known it for over half a century -- something that state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) may have accidentally alluded to earlier today.
On top of that, the class consciousness was especially ignited by Walker's phone call two weeks ago with blogger Ian Murphy, who was posing as Republican financier David Koch. During that call, Walker discussed his ideas for tricking the Democrats into coming back by pretending to negotiate, his ambition to bust the public employee unions in the mold of President Reagan firing the air traffic controllers, and that he had considered (but ruled out) planting troublemakers in the crowds of protesters. But beyond the specifics, the optics alone were amazing: The state's governor was seen buddying up to someone he believed to be a mega-rich donor from out of state.
Say what you will about the Democratic Party. For my part, I can say plenty, especially about President Obama's total absence during the three weeks this struggle has been going on, and about the White House's angry insistence that the fight in Wisconsin is merely "a distraction."
All Party nonsense aside, this is about a governor attacking people who work for a living, because they have the gall to believe standing together to fight for simple things like fair wages and basic health care is more important than a failing governor's ego or political aspirations.
The fact of the matter is that Governor Walker has unleashed a frontal assault on working people in his state because wealthy corporatists believe "Because I Say So" is enough. Make no mistake, friends. This is class warfare. It is brazen, unmistakable, and now out in the open. They have so much, but they want more. It has been made all too clear that they will gut your life, your rights, your everything, in order to get what they want, and what they want is absolute and total control.
Mr. Niemoller wrote his poem decades ago. It might read like this today:
First they declared corporations were "people," and I didn't complain because I'm already a person.
Then they made unlimited money "speech," and I didn't complain because the American Dream says I'll be rich someday, too.
Then they commandeered the means of production by shipping our greatest strength - manufacturing - overseas, because they don't have bothersome unions over there, and I didn't complain because WalMart has cheap stuff.
Then they bought Congress so they could write the laws, and I didn't complain because I can’t be bothered to vote.
Then they bought the Supreme Court so they could cement their rule, and I didn't complain because I don't have time to pay attention.
Then they bought the news so they could convince everyone it's always been this way, and I didn't complain because it's always been this way.
Then they manhandled an election and I didn't complain because I'm not from Florida.
Then they lied us into wars and I didn't complain because I'm not a soldier, or an Iraqi, or an Afghani.
Then millions died for profit and I didn't complain because the graphics on the news were totally awesome.
Then they started locking people up because they said they could and I didn't complain because nobody locked me up.
Then they started spying on everyone because they said they could and I didn't complain because I'm a real American.
Then they came for the worker, but thanks to supply-side trickle-down economics, I don't have a job.
This truth is self-evident.
They are coming for you, and they are relentless.
Stand up.
For your country, for your family, for yourself.
Stand up.
Be heard.
Strike!
Gov. Scott Walker (R-Wisconsin) is under fire for his budget proposal that eliminates collective bargaining rights for public sector union workers. (Image: Lance Page / t r u t h o u t; Adapted: Megan McCormick / Flickr)
On this day, it behooves us to remember the words of Martin Niemoller.
"First they came for the communists," he wrote, "and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew. Then they came for me and there was no one left to speak out for me."
I am a trade unionist, and yesterday in Wisconsin, they came for me. They came for you. They came for every working person in America, and their intent could not be more clear. Governor Scott Walker, along with the Koch Brothers and the right-wing radicals of the Republican Party, moved in darkness and with shameless deceit to gut the ability of dedicated laborers to bargain on an equal footing for the right to earn a living wage and to have access to decent health care.
Among other things, the bill as passed allows the state to fire anyone who participates in a strike. The story of the 20th century was written by workers who dared to face the truncheon in order to fight for their basic rights, and the strike was integral to that struggle. Any Wisconsin worker who dares to stand in defiance of The Bosses now faces personal annihilation, not just for themselves, but for their family. America was made in the struggle of union workers standing shoulder to shoulder in defiance of the idea that being rich means being right. That struggle is now in mortal peril, and the outcome affects all of us.
Fairness and the rule of law had no place in Wednesday's filthy action. This move was done in secret, without notice or announcement as required by Wisconsin law, and bears the stamp of the cowards and cretins who are responsible. Similar anti-worker legislation has been unfolding in Ohio, Indiana, Florida and more than a dozen other states. Those responsible claim such actions are necessary because of economic concerns, but the Wisconsin perpetrators tipped their hand. They stripped the bill in question of anything having to do with the state budget, so as to give them the chance to vote without a quorum...but the entire premise of their anti-union attack was that the destruction of collective bargaining was needed to salvage the state's financial situation. By gutting the bill of any semblance of budgetary issues, all they were left with is what they were after in the first place: the end of collective bargaining, the end of unions altogether, and by proxy, the end of the Democratic Party.
Eric Kleefeld, the excellent reporter for TalkingPointsMemo, and a Wisconsin native, exposed the endgame thusly:
The Democratic Party in Wisconsin is, to an extent that is not true in most other states, a genuine labor party -- a party that is intertwined with unions at the institutional level, with many politicians who have also been union officials or done legal work with unions, and which speaks for organized labor in key debates. They in turn compete with the Republican Party, which represents business interests as embodied by the state's Chamber group, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, in what has until now been a sometimes uneasy but nevertheless predictable political system.
In short, unions in Wisconsin are not just economic organizations made up of their respective workers - they are political institutions that are a major part of the state. As such, a change to the state's union laws that would threaten the existence of organized labor would in turn threaten the existence of the Democratic Party itself in Wisconsin, as people have known it for over half a century -- something that state Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald (R) may have accidentally alluded to earlier today.
On top of that, the class consciousness was especially ignited by Walker's phone call two weeks ago with blogger Ian Murphy, who was posing as Republican financier David Koch. During that call, Walker discussed his ideas for tricking the Democrats into coming back by pretending to negotiate, his ambition to bust the public employee unions in the mold of President Reagan firing the air traffic controllers, and that he had considered (but ruled out) planting troublemakers in the crowds of protesters. But beyond the specifics, the optics alone were amazing: The state's governor was seen buddying up to someone he believed to be a mega-rich donor from out of state.
Say what you will about the Democratic Party. For my part, I can say plenty, especially about President Obama's total absence during the three weeks this struggle has been going on, and about the White House's angry insistence that the fight in Wisconsin is merely "a distraction."
All Party nonsense aside, this is about a governor attacking people who work for a living, because they have the gall to believe standing together to fight for simple things like fair wages and basic health care is more important than a failing governor's ego or political aspirations.
The fact of the matter is that Governor Walker has unleashed a frontal assault on working people in his state because wealthy corporatists believe "Because I Say So" is enough. Make no mistake, friends. This is class warfare. It is brazen, unmistakable, and now out in the open. They have so much, but they want more. It has been made all too clear that they will gut your life, your rights, your everything, in order to get what they want, and what they want is absolute and total control.
Mr. Niemoller wrote his poem decades ago. It might read like this today:
First they declared corporations were "people," and I didn't complain because I'm already a person.
Then they made unlimited money "speech," and I didn't complain because the American Dream says I'll be rich someday, too.
Then they commandeered the means of production by shipping our greatest strength - manufacturing - overseas, because they don't have bothersome unions over there, and I didn't complain because WalMart has cheap stuff.
Then they bought Congress so they could write the laws, and I didn't complain because I can’t be bothered to vote.
Then they bought the Supreme Court so they could cement their rule, and I didn't complain because I don't have time to pay attention.
Then they bought the news so they could convince everyone it's always been this way, and I didn't complain because it's always been this way.
Then they manhandled an election and I didn't complain because I'm not from Florida.
Then they lied us into wars and I didn't complain because I'm not a soldier, or an Iraqi, or an Afghani.
Then millions died for profit and I didn't complain because the graphics on the news were totally awesome.
Then they started locking people up because they said they could and I didn't complain because nobody locked me up.
Then they started spying on everyone because they said they could and I didn't complain because I'm a real American.
Then they came for the worker, but thanks to supply-side trickle-down economics, I don't have a job.
This truth is self-evident.
They are coming for you, and they are relentless.
Stand up.
For your country, for your family, for yourself.
Stand up.
Be heard.
Strike!
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Madison a Foretaste of Things to Come: The Next Big Occupation Could Be Boomers Taking Over the Capitol Building
by: Dave Lindorff | This Can't Be Happening | News Analysis
Union supporters demonstrate outside the State Capitol as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker prepares to speak about the state budget at a joint session of the Legislature in Madison, Wis.(Photo: Nicole Bengiveno / The New York Times)
The dramatic and inspiring occupation of the Wisconsin Statehouse in Madison by angry public workers and their supporters over the past few weeks is an exciting preview of what we can expect to see in the halls of Congress before long, as right-wing forces, funded by corporate lobbies and corporate-funded think-tanks push hard for cutbacks in Social Security and Medicare.
The drive to undermine these two critically important social programs is moving into high gear as the 79-million Baby Boomers this year start to reach eligibility, even as their other assets--their homes and their investment portfolios--are still shriveled by the Wall Street heist known as the “fiscal crisis” and Great Recession.
For years, the right has been gravely warning of the supposedly looming “bankruptcy” of Social Security and the even more imminent “bankruptcy” of Medicare, as though these twin disasters for the elderly were an actuarial imperative. In fact, both programs are political creations, whose problems have political causes and political solutions.
Social Security is starting to draw down the huge reserves it had built up, not because of an increase in retirees (the bulge in retirees hasn't hit yet), but because the share of national income that is subject to the Social Security FICA tax has fallen, from 90% back in the 1980s to just 84% now, as the wealthy have appropriated an increasingly large share of the total national income. If more of the income of the rich were slapped with the FICA tax, to bring the total share of income subject to FICA back to 90%, there would be plenty of money to pay promised benefits into the foreseeable future. The same can be said of Medicare. More taxes on the rich would ensure the funding of that program too.
There is no inherent reason why only the first $106,000 of a person’s income should be subject to the FICA tax. It could be the first $200,000, or the first $500,000, and if it were the latter, we could be talking about improving benefits for retirees, or lowering the retirement age, not just preserving current levels. Benefits could be better still if investment income were no longer exempted from a FICA tax (and the Medicare tax).
But here’s the big point: Corporate America, and its political lackeys in the Republican and Democratic Parties, know that they are about to confront a dramatically more powerful protagonist in their campaign to kill Social Security and Medicare: the Boomer Retirees.
The so-called Senior Lobby is already enormously powerful. That’s why Social Security has so far largely defied concerted efforts by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush to undermine it, and it’s why Republicans and conservative Democrats running for national office always hasten to claim they are not going to threaten Social Security or Medicare, or at least that they won’t threaten “current beneficiaries.” It’s why they call Social Security the “third rail” of American politics: touch it and you die (for those of you unfortunate enough to live where there are no subways, the third rail is the “hot” rail that carries the electricity to power the electric trains).
But a Boomer retiree population will be two times the size of the current retiree population. That means that just in terms of the number of potential voters, it will be two times as powerful. But that’s only part of the story. The new generation of retirees are the people who came of political age in the late 1950s during the Civil Rights movement, and the 1960s and ‘70s during the anti-war movement and the feminist movement. We are veterans of both engaged electoral politics (witness that support our generation gave to the insurgent campaigns of Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy and George McGovern, as well as a host of more successful Congressional campaigns), and of powerful and of successful militant street politics.
What we showed back then in our youth and our formative young-adult years was that when our interests were on the line, as they were with the draft, or when we saw a gross injustice, as was the case with Jim Crow, we knew how to fight politically. I'm not suggesting that the people born in the decade and a half after World War II are particularly radical, but I am suggesting that when this age cohort gets riled and the right issue or issues sets the spark, we've got the spirit and experience to take that struggle to the streets and the halls of Congress. And both our personal interests and our sense of justice are certainly on the line when it comes to the growing attack on Social Security and Medicare.
Just one example. I spent a year teaching at Alfred University, a little liberal arts school in the middle of nowhere in western New York State. It was the 1990-91 school year--the year the US invaded Iraq and "liberated" Kuwait. Students who opposed the war came to me and asked me what to do. I didn't want to "lead" them, but they just had no idea where to start. "How can we get students here to wake up?" these kids asked me. I said, "What are you thinking of doing? They said they thought they might go down to the main street (the only street!) that runs through the little town of Alfred, and hold signs against the war. "How will that get the students to come out and join you?" I asked. They agreed it wouldn't help. It was winter, and who'd even be down there? So finally I asked, "What if you marched through campus, calling the kids to leave class and join you?" The kids looked shocked. "March through the campus? Outside? or in the buildings?" I said, "You have to decide." Again they looked shocked. But that was what was decided. They began marching the next day, with anti-war signs, crying "Join us!" Their numbers swelled. Eventually there were hundreds of them, and so they marched down to Main Street, but instead of just standing on the sidewalk with their signs, they took over the street and shut it down! My role, small enough, was just to remind them of what was possible. They took it from there.
My prediction: As the number of Boomers nearing or entering retirement soars, and the number anticipating or signing up for Medicare soars over the next few years, we will see massive national campaigns grow around not just saving these programs but expanding and improving them. With traditional pensions vanishing, and with IRAs and 401(k) plans having been exposed as the shams they are, we are going to see an irresistable demand grow for Social Security benefits to be raised, particularly for poorer retirees, so that all Americans can have a secure old age. And we will see another irresistable political drive to have Medicare not just improved but broadened to cover all Americans, as we Boomers recognize that it makes no sense at all to have a program that only covers the oldest and sickest of Americans, and not the younger and healthier population (our own kids and grandkids!). We will realize that it is in our interest to have all Americans invested fully in supporting a well-funded national Medicare program.
And if we don’t get it, we will be ready and willing to do what the public employees of Wisconsin are doing now--or more.
Hold on to your seats (and your walkers)! The new Boomer retirees are coming!
Union supporters demonstrate outside the State Capitol as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker prepares to speak about the state budget at a joint session of the Legislature in Madison, Wis.(Photo: Nicole Bengiveno / The New York Times)
The dramatic and inspiring occupation of the Wisconsin Statehouse in Madison by angry public workers and their supporters over the past few weeks is an exciting preview of what we can expect to see in the halls of Congress before long, as right-wing forces, funded by corporate lobbies and corporate-funded think-tanks push hard for cutbacks in Social Security and Medicare.
The drive to undermine these two critically important social programs is moving into high gear as the 79-million Baby Boomers this year start to reach eligibility, even as their other assets--their homes and their investment portfolios--are still shriveled by the Wall Street heist known as the “fiscal crisis” and Great Recession.
For years, the right has been gravely warning of the supposedly looming “bankruptcy” of Social Security and the even more imminent “bankruptcy” of Medicare, as though these twin disasters for the elderly were an actuarial imperative. In fact, both programs are political creations, whose problems have political causes and political solutions.
Social Security is starting to draw down the huge reserves it had built up, not because of an increase in retirees (the bulge in retirees hasn't hit yet), but because the share of national income that is subject to the Social Security FICA tax has fallen, from 90% back in the 1980s to just 84% now, as the wealthy have appropriated an increasingly large share of the total national income. If more of the income of the rich were slapped with the FICA tax, to bring the total share of income subject to FICA back to 90%, there would be plenty of money to pay promised benefits into the foreseeable future. The same can be said of Medicare. More taxes on the rich would ensure the funding of that program too.
There is no inherent reason why only the first $106,000 of a person’s income should be subject to the FICA tax. It could be the first $200,000, or the first $500,000, and if it were the latter, we could be talking about improving benefits for retirees, or lowering the retirement age, not just preserving current levels. Benefits could be better still if investment income were no longer exempted from a FICA tax (and the Medicare tax).
But here’s the big point: Corporate America, and its political lackeys in the Republican and Democratic Parties, know that they are about to confront a dramatically more powerful protagonist in their campaign to kill Social Security and Medicare: the Boomer Retirees.
The so-called Senior Lobby is already enormously powerful. That’s why Social Security has so far largely defied concerted efforts by Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush to undermine it, and it’s why Republicans and conservative Democrats running for national office always hasten to claim they are not going to threaten Social Security or Medicare, or at least that they won’t threaten “current beneficiaries.” It’s why they call Social Security the “third rail” of American politics: touch it and you die (for those of you unfortunate enough to live where there are no subways, the third rail is the “hot” rail that carries the electricity to power the electric trains).
But a Boomer retiree population will be two times the size of the current retiree population. That means that just in terms of the number of potential voters, it will be two times as powerful. But that’s only part of the story. The new generation of retirees are the people who came of political age in the late 1950s during the Civil Rights movement, and the 1960s and ‘70s during the anti-war movement and the feminist movement. We are veterans of both engaged electoral politics (witness that support our generation gave to the insurgent campaigns of Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy and George McGovern, as well as a host of more successful Congressional campaigns), and of powerful and of successful militant street politics.
What we showed back then in our youth and our formative young-adult years was that when our interests were on the line, as they were with the draft, or when we saw a gross injustice, as was the case with Jim Crow, we knew how to fight politically. I'm not suggesting that the people born in the decade and a half after World War II are particularly radical, but I am suggesting that when this age cohort gets riled and the right issue or issues sets the spark, we've got the spirit and experience to take that struggle to the streets and the halls of Congress. And both our personal interests and our sense of justice are certainly on the line when it comes to the growing attack on Social Security and Medicare.
Just one example. I spent a year teaching at Alfred University, a little liberal arts school in the middle of nowhere in western New York State. It was the 1990-91 school year--the year the US invaded Iraq and "liberated" Kuwait. Students who opposed the war came to me and asked me what to do. I didn't want to "lead" them, but they just had no idea where to start. "How can we get students here to wake up?" these kids asked me. I said, "What are you thinking of doing? They said they thought they might go down to the main street (the only street!) that runs through the little town of Alfred, and hold signs against the war. "How will that get the students to come out and join you?" I asked. They agreed it wouldn't help. It was winter, and who'd even be down there? So finally I asked, "What if you marched through campus, calling the kids to leave class and join you?" The kids looked shocked. "March through the campus? Outside? or in the buildings?" I said, "You have to decide." Again they looked shocked. But that was what was decided. They began marching the next day, with anti-war signs, crying "Join us!" Their numbers swelled. Eventually there were hundreds of them, and so they marched down to Main Street, but instead of just standing on the sidewalk with their signs, they took over the street and shut it down! My role, small enough, was just to remind them of what was possible. They took it from there.
My prediction: As the number of Boomers nearing or entering retirement soars, and the number anticipating or signing up for Medicare soars over the next few years, we will see massive national campaigns grow around not just saving these programs but expanding and improving them. With traditional pensions vanishing, and with IRAs and 401(k) plans having been exposed as the shams they are, we are going to see an irresistable demand grow for Social Security benefits to be raised, particularly for poorer retirees, so that all Americans can have a secure old age. And we will see another irresistable political drive to have Medicare not just improved but broadened to cover all Americans, as we Boomers recognize that it makes no sense at all to have a program that only covers the oldest and sickest of Americans, and not the younger and healthier population (our own kids and grandkids!). We will realize that it is in our interest to have all Americans invested fully in supporting a well-funded national Medicare program.
And if we don’t get it, we will be ready and willing to do what the public employees of Wisconsin are doing now--or more.
Hold on to your seats (and your walkers)! The new Boomer retirees are coming!
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
Isolation: “The Ideal Way Of ‘Breaking Down’ A Prisoner”
By: Jeff Kaye
The isolation and degradation of Bradley Manning by the Marine Corps penal authorities at the Quantico brig represents a significant acceleration of government torture policy, as it is meant, among other things, to further desensitize the U.S. population to the use of torture. Torture will be used on political dissidents in this country, that is clear now, and PFC Manning is the first, but there will be others.
How bad is isolation? Bad enough that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld himself felt it warranted a “caution” in his April 16, 2003 memo authorizing certain aggressive forms of interrogation, i.e., torture.
Caution: the use of isolation as an interrogation technique requires detailed implementation instructions, including specific guidelines regarding the length of isolation, medical and psychological review, and approvals for extension of the length of by the appropriate level in the chain of command. This technique is not known to have been generally used for interrogation purposes for longer than 30 days. Those nations that believe that detainees are subject to POW protections may view use of this technique as inconsistent with the requirements of Geneva III, Article 13 which provides that POWs must be protected against acts of intimidation; Article 14 which provides that POWs are entitled to respect for their person; Article 34 which prohibits coercion and Article 126 which ensures access and basic standards of treatment. Although the provisions of Geneva are not applicable to the interrogation of unlawful combatants, consideration should be given to these views prior to application of this technique.
Rumsfeld — bureaucrat that he is — concentrates on the legal obstacles to the use of isolation. But the psychological components have been well studied for decades. The following is from a 1961 article on use of isolation for interrogations written by Lawrence Hinkle, then a psychiatrist at Cornell Medical Center, and a CIA consultant (link to quote can be found here, emphasis in quote is mine):
It is well known that prisoners, especially if they have not been isolated before, may develop a syndrome similar in most of its features to the “brain syndrome”…. They become dull, apathetic, and in due time they become disoriented and confused; their memories become defective and they experience hallucinations and delusions…. their ability to impart accurate information may be as much impaired as their capacity to resist an interrogator….From the interrogator’s viewpoint it has seemed to be the ideal way of “breaking down” a prisoner, because, to the unsophisticated, it seems to create precisely the state that the interrogator desires: malleability and the desire to talk, with the added advantage that one can delude himself that he is using no force or coercion…. However, the effect of isolation on the brain function of the prisoner is much like that which occurs if he is beaten, starved, or deprived of sleep.
In the Camp Delta Guantanamo camp-wide SOP, declassified a few years ago, isolation was described as a tactic meant “to enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt by a newly arrived detainee” by isolating him or her in a Maximum Security cell, without even access to Red Cross or religious personnel, for at least the first four weeks upon arrival. Such isolation is meant to deprive the prisoner of all social support and “ability to resist.”
Indeed, it appears that the Marines are implementing the SERE “Coercive Management Techniques,” themselves modeled after Albert Biderman’s Chart of Coercion, which was taught to interrogators at Guantanamo. What are these “coercive management techniques”? I outlined them in an article in June 2008, which also examined the ways JPRA/SERE personnel taught their techniques to Guantanamo interrogators and “behavioral consultants”:
1. Isolation: This deprives the prisoner of all social support and “ability to resist”. While turning the prisoner upon his own resources, it “makes victim dependent upon interrogator” (quotes are from the SERE version). Furthermore, isolation can be complete, semi, or “group isolation”.
2. Monopolisation of Perception: This means again “physical isolation. Darkness or bright light. Barren environment. Restricted movement. Monotonous food.” The goal? To fixate the prisoner upon his “immediate predicament”, the technique also “eliminates stimuli competing with those controlled by captor,” frustrating all action “not consistent with compliance.”
3. Induced Debilitation and Exhaustion: This is what it seems to be, i.e., a method to weaken a prisoners’ “mental and physical ability to resist.” Techniques include: “Semi-starvation. Exposure. Exploitation of wounds. Induced illness. Sleep deprivation. Prolonged constraint. Prolonged interrogation” and “over-exertion”, among other practices (tortures!)
4. Threats: Which “cultivates anxiety and despair”, including threats of death, non return, “endless interrogation and isolation”, threats against family, and “mysterious changes of treatment”.
5. Occasional indulgences: To provide positive motivation for compliance, it also has the effect of hindering “adjustment to deprivation.”
6. Demonstrating “Omnipotence” and “Omniscience”: The purpose of this is said to suggest to the prisoner the “futility of resistance”. How is this done? By “demonstrating complete control over victim’s fate”. (And this, by the way, is a crucial way that the ban on habeas corpus for these prisoners, recently overturned by the Supreme Court, fed into the military’s torture program, by demonstrating that there was no appeal to anyone.)
7. Degradation: This is where one finds the prevention of personal hygiene, the insults, taunts, “demeaning punishments” and “denial of privacy”. The goal was to damage prisoner self esteem, making “capitulation” a lesser evil. It also “reduces the prisoner to ‘animal level’ concerns.” [Forced nakedness or stripping of the prisoner would come under this category. In fact, "stripping" or "forceful removal of detainee's clothing" was part of the 2002 SERE SOP "coercive management techniques, "used to demonstrate the omnipotence of the captor or to debilitate the detainee."]
8. Enforcing Trivial Demands: Again the point is to develop compliance in the captive, and takes place through “enforcement of minute rules.”
So there you have it, these are the “principles” the SERE instructors insisted future trainers for interrogators at Guantanamo (and since SERE instruction migrated to Iraq and Afghanistan as well, we can presume there as well) “be thoroughly prepared to discuss and explain”.
I suppose we can say these techniques have now migrated to Quantico as well, and so the torture virus enters the domestic body bloodstream, through its military vector.
Make no mistake, we are living in a totally lawless world, where there is no accountability for great crimes, whether those crimes be the torture of countless thousands, the aggressive bombing and devastation of non-attacking countries, violations of privacy against ordinary citizens, or the rape and pillage of the economies of the world for the benefit of a privileged few.
The isolation and degradation of Bradley Manning by the Marine Corps penal authorities at the Quantico brig represents a significant acceleration of government torture policy, as it is meant, among other things, to further desensitize the U.S. population to the use of torture. Torture will be used on political dissidents in this country, that is clear now, and PFC Manning is the first, but there will be others.
How bad is isolation? Bad enough that former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld himself felt it warranted a “caution” in his April 16, 2003 memo authorizing certain aggressive forms of interrogation, i.e., torture.
Caution: the use of isolation as an interrogation technique requires detailed implementation instructions, including specific guidelines regarding the length of isolation, medical and psychological review, and approvals for extension of the length of by the appropriate level in the chain of command. This technique is not known to have been generally used for interrogation purposes for longer than 30 days. Those nations that believe that detainees are subject to POW protections may view use of this technique as inconsistent with the requirements of Geneva III, Article 13 which provides that POWs must be protected against acts of intimidation; Article 14 which provides that POWs are entitled to respect for their person; Article 34 which prohibits coercion and Article 126 which ensures access and basic standards of treatment. Although the provisions of Geneva are not applicable to the interrogation of unlawful combatants, consideration should be given to these views prior to application of this technique.
Rumsfeld — bureaucrat that he is — concentrates on the legal obstacles to the use of isolation. But the psychological components have been well studied for decades. The following is from a 1961 article on use of isolation for interrogations written by Lawrence Hinkle, then a psychiatrist at Cornell Medical Center, and a CIA consultant (link to quote can be found here, emphasis in quote is mine):
It is well known that prisoners, especially if they have not been isolated before, may develop a syndrome similar in most of its features to the “brain syndrome”…. They become dull, apathetic, and in due time they become disoriented and confused; their memories become defective and they experience hallucinations and delusions…. their ability to impart accurate information may be as much impaired as their capacity to resist an interrogator….From the interrogator’s viewpoint it has seemed to be the ideal way of “breaking down” a prisoner, because, to the unsophisticated, it seems to create precisely the state that the interrogator desires: malleability and the desire to talk, with the added advantage that one can delude himself that he is using no force or coercion…. However, the effect of isolation on the brain function of the prisoner is much like that which occurs if he is beaten, starved, or deprived of sleep.
In the Camp Delta Guantanamo camp-wide SOP, declassified a few years ago, isolation was described as a tactic meant “to enhance and exploit the disorientation and disorganization felt by a newly arrived detainee” by isolating him or her in a Maximum Security cell, without even access to Red Cross or religious personnel, for at least the first four weeks upon arrival. Such isolation is meant to deprive the prisoner of all social support and “ability to resist.”
Indeed, it appears that the Marines are implementing the SERE “Coercive Management Techniques,” themselves modeled after Albert Biderman’s Chart of Coercion, which was taught to interrogators at Guantanamo. What are these “coercive management techniques”? I outlined them in an article in June 2008, which also examined the ways JPRA/SERE personnel taught their techniques to Guantanamo interrogators and “behavioral consultants”:
1. Isolation: This deprives the prisoner of all social support and “ability to resist”. While turning the prisoner upon his own resources, it “makes victim dependent upon interrogator” (quotes are from the SERE version). Furthermore, isolation can be complete, semi, or “group isolation”.
2. Monopolisation of Perception: This means again “physical isolation. Darkness or bright light. Barren environment. Restricted movement. Monotonous food.” The goal? To fixate the prisoner upon his “immediate predicament”, the technique also “eliminates stimuli competing with those controlled by captor,” frustrating all action “not consistent with compliance.”
3. Induced Debilitation and Exhaustion: This is what it seems to be, i.e., a method to weaken a prisoners’ “mental and physical ability to resist.” Techniques include: “Semi-starvation. Exposure. Exploitation of wounds. Induced illness. Sleep deprivation. Prolonged constraint. Prolonged interrogation” and “over-exertion”, among other practices (tortures!)
4. Threats: Which “cultivates anxiety and despair”, including threats of death, non return, “endless interrogation and isolation”, threats against family, and “mysterious changes of treatment”.
5. Occasional indulgences: To provide positive motivation for compliance, it also has the effect of hindering “adjustment to deprivation.”
6. Demonstrating “Omnipotence” and “Omniscience”: The purpose of this is said to suggest to the prisoner the “futility of resistance”. How is this done? By “demonstrating complete control over victim’s fate”. (And this, by the way, is a crucial way that the ban on habeas corpus for these prisoners, recently overturned by the Supreme Court, fed into the military’s torture program, by demonstrating that there was no appeal to anyone.)
7. Degradation: This is where one finds the prevention of personal hygiene, the insults, taunts, “demeaning punishments” and “denial of privacy”. The goal was to damage prisoner self esteem, making “capitulation” a lesser evil. It also “reduces the prisoner to ‘animal level’ concerns.” [Forced nakedness or stripping of the prisoner would come under this category. In fact, "stripping" or "forceful removal of detainee's clothing" was part of the 2002 SERE SOP "coercive management techniques, "used to demonstrate the omnipotence of the captor or to debilitate the detainee."]
8. Enforcing Trivial Demands: Again the point is to develop compliance in the captive, and takes place through “enforcement of minute rules.”
So there you have it, these are the “principles” the SERE instructors insisted future trainers for interrogators at Guantanamo (and since SERE instruction migrated to Iraq and Afghanistan as well, we can presume there as well) “be thoroughly prepared to discuss and explain”.
I suppose we can say these techniques have now migrated to Quantico as well, and so the torture virus enters the domestic body bloodstream, through its military vector.
Make no mistake, we are living in a totally lawless world, where there is no accountability for great crimes, whether those crimes be the torture of countless thousands, the aggressive bombing and devastation of non-attacking countries, violations of privacy against ordinary citizens, or the rape and pillage of the economies of the world for the benefit of a privileged few.
Thursday, March 3, 2011
Anonymous actively probing Koch brothers' corporate networks
By Crystal Chatham, AP
There was nothing terribly sophisticated about the denial-of-service attack executed by the activist hackers at Anonymous to temporarily knock out the website of Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group backed by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch.
But the senior execs at Georgia Pacific and other corporate holdings controlled by the Koch brothers ought to be very nervous. Anonymous, best known for similarly crippling websites of firms hostile to WikiLeaks, says it has begun actively probing for network weaknesses in Georgia Pacific and other Koch brothers' holdings.
Should the activist hackers succeed in cracking into any of the Koch brothers' corporate networks, Anonymous could solidify its emerging persona as a digital-age Robin Hood, says Josh Shaul, chief technology officer of network security company Application Security.
"These guys have so much attitude and spunk," says Shaul. " Anonymous is coming out of its shell and seems to be saying, 'Hey, we'll be the voice of the people, we'll be the Robin Hood fighting for the poor against the powerful.' "
In this statement, Anonymous accuses the Koch brothers of "fabricating grass-roots organizations and advertising campaigns to sway voters based on their falsehoods." The statement concludes:
Anonymous hears the voice of the downtrodden American people, whose rights and liberties are being systematically removed one by one, even when their own government refuses to listen or worse -- is complicit in these attacks. We are actively seeking vulnerabilities, but in the meantime we are calling for all supporters of true Democracy, and Freedom of The People, to boycott all Koch Industries' paper products. We welcome unions across the globe to join us in this boycott to show that you will not allow big business to dictate your freedom.
The group's highest-profile hack to date shows what it is capable of. On Feb. 5, a group of five elite hackers gained deep access to data intelligence firm HBGary, defaced and damaged most if its systems, and stole 77,000 e-mails from the Google Enterprise cloud-based service used by the company.
Upon being made public on the Internet, the stolen e-mails were pored over by reporters and activists; they revealed stunning details of how high-stakes, corporate-backed disinformation campaigns get birthed.
Click here to read about the pivotal role a 16-year-old girl played in that hack. The lightning rod in that caper -- HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr -- on Monday announced his resignation. Barr will go down in tech history as the disinformation expert who stirred Anonymous into a higher gear -- by bragging that he had identified the group's leaders and planning to expose them on Valentine's Day at the Security B-Sides conference in San Francisco.
Though corporations have spent billions shoring up network perimeter defenses, determined hackers routinely gain deep access into corporate systems. They do so by combining simple social-engineering trickery with proven hacking tools.
We recently published this news story about how one cybergang stole more than $50 million by setting up an elaborate series of stings of European companies participating in Europe's carbon-credits exchange. Another gang got deep into Nasdaq's Directors Desk cloud collaboration tool for senior executives, where they lurked for more than a year before recently being detected.
The activist hackers at Anonymous have demonstrated knowledge and skills of the techniques used by top hacking groups that concentrate on breaking into corporate networks for profit.
"They better be concerned," Shaul says of the Koch brothers. "What Anonymous is saying is, 'We're getting ready to execute whatever attack we can, so you better be worried. In the meantime, we're going to be a big pain.' "
Update: 5:50 p.m Eastern. A Michael Goldfarb called Technology Live and identified himself as a spokesman for Koch Industries. Goldfarb requested to go off the record for a "substantive discussion." We declined. The caller declined to comment on the Anonymous attack.
There was nothing terribly sophisticated about the denial-of-service attack executed by the activist hackers at Anonymous to temporarily knock out the website of Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group backed by billionaire brothers David and Charles Koch.
But the senior execs at Georgia Pacific and other corporate holdings controlled by the Koch brothers ought to be very nervous. Anonymous, best known for similarly crippling websites of firms hostile to WikiLeaks, says it has begun actively probing for network weaknesses in Georgia Pacific and other Koch brothers' holdings.
Should the activist hackers succeed in cracking into any of the Koch brothers' corporate networks, Anonymous could solidify its emerging persona as a digital-age Robin Hood, says Josh Shaul, chief technology officer of network security company Application Security.
"These guys have so much attitude and spunk," says Shaul. " Anonymous is coming out of its shell and seems to be saying, 'Hey, we'll be the voice of the people, we'll be the Robin Hood fighting for the poor against the powerful.' "
In this statement, Anonymous accuses the Koch brothers of "fabricating grass-roots organizations and advertising campaigns to sway voters based on their falsehoods." The statement concludes:
Anonymous hears the voice of the downtrodden American people, whose rights and liberties are being systematically removed one by one, even when their own government refuses to listen or worse -- is complicit in these attacks. We are actively seeking vulnerabilities, but in the meantime we are calling for all supporters of true Democracy, and Freedom of The People, to boycott all Koch Industries' paper products. We welcome unions across the globe to join us in this boycott to show that you will not allow big business to dictate your freedom.
The group's highest-profile hack to date shows what it is capable of. On Feb. 5, a group of five elite hackers gained deep access to data intelligence firm HBGary, defaced and damaged most if its systems, and stole 77,000 e-mails from the Google Enterprise cloud-based service used by the company.
Upon being made public on the Internet, the stolen e-mails were pored over by reporters and activists; they revealed stunning details of how high-stakes, corporate-backed disinformation campaigns get birthed.
Click here to read about the pivotal role a 16-year-old girl played in that hack. The lightning rod in that caper -- HBGary Federal CEO Aaron Barr -- on Monday announced his resignation. Barr will go down in tech history as the disinformation expert who stirred Anonymous into a higher gear -- by bragging that he had identified the group's leaders and planning to expose them on Valentine's Day at the Security B-Sides conference in San Francisco.
Though corporations have spent billions shoring up network perimeter defenses, determined hackers routinely gain deep access into corporate systems. They do so by combining simple social-engineering trickery with proven hacking tools.
We recently published this news story about how one cybergang stole more than $50 million by setting up an elaborate series of stings of European companies participating in Europe's carbon-credits exchange. Another gang got deep into Nasdaq's Directors Desk cloud collaboration tool for senior executives, where they lurked for more than a year before recently being detected.
The activist hackers at Anonymous have demonstrated knowledge and skills of the techniques used by top hacking groups that concentrate on breaking into corporate networks for profit.
"They better be concerned," Shaul says of the Koch brothers. "What Anonymous is saying is, 'We're getting ready to execute whatever attack we can, so you better be worried. In the meantime, we're going to be a big pain.' "
Update: 5:50 p.m Eastern. A Michael Goldfarb called Technology Live and identified himself as a spokesman for Koch Industries. Goldfarb requested to go off the record for a "substantive discussion." We declined. The caller declined to comment on the Anonymous attack.
Walker must go! For a general strike in Wisconsin!
By David North
The budget presented by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on Tuesday has caused profound shock and outrage among workers throughout the state. It has now become clear to hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin workers and their families that they are confronted with a ruthless attempt to drastically lower their living standards, eviscerate crucial social services and benefits, and strip away their democratic rights.
Walker is demanding cuts of at least $1.5 billion from the state’s budget to close a deficit that has been created, to a great extent, by his recent massive reduction of tax rates for large corporations.
These cuts include:
$1.25 billion in cuts to school aid and local government, including a reduction of more than $900 million in education funding statewide, which translates into a cut of approximately $500 per pupil.
$500 million in cuts from Medicaid, which finances critical state health programs for more than one million Wisconsin residents. The impact on low-income and uninsured adults and families with children will be devastating.
$250 million will be cut from funding for the University of Wisconsin. Moreover, as part of a privatization scheme that will serve the interests of wealthy investors, the Madison branch of the University of Wisconsin will be carved off from the state system. This will cost the jobs of at least 17,000 UW workers and lead to a sharp increase in college tuition costs over the next two years.
The Walker budget document is a declaration of war. His inclusion of further demands for the elimination of collective bargaining follows logically from his budget proposals. The cuts that he is calling for make a mockery of “bargaining,” because his budget proposals require, by their very nature, the complete surrender by workers to his unilateral demands.
The oft-repeated position of union officials—that they are prepared to accept Walker’s budget cuts if only he steps back from his demand for an end to collective bargaining—is not only cowardly, it represents a dangerous evasion of the political reality that exists in Wisconsin.
The term “collective bargaining” means nothing at all if unions are prepared to accept the dictates of state governments, which are acting in the interests of the capitalist bosses of the banks and industry. Collective bargaining did not emerge in the form of a permission slip granted by generous corporations to the workers. It was wrested from the capitalist class in the course of decades of bitter conflict for social and democratic rights, in which countless thousands of workers’ lives were lost. In the final analysis, collective bargaining existed only to the extent that workers were prepared to exercise the weapon of the strike to overcome the intransigence of the capitalist class and its political hirelings in local, state and federal government.
Walker’s budget signifies in practice, if not yet in law, the collapse of collective bargaining. His administration is ramming a brutal and socially destructive budget down the throats of Wisconsin working people and their families.
How should the working class in Wisconsin respond to this political reality?
In recent days, there has been a growing realization among working people throughout Wisconsin that protests in the state capital are insufficient and that they must escalate their struggle.
Sentiment is building for a general strike by the working class. Wisconsin workers, in ever greater numbers, are coming to realize that nothing short of a massive mobilization of their collective strength will be sufficient to beat back the attack of the Walker administration.
This sentiment is justified and corresponds to the political reality that exists in Wisconsin and, increasingly, throughout the United States. The collapse of collective bargaining-—that is, the attempt of the state to impose, with the implicit threat of force, intolerable and unacceptable demands upon workers—has a profound objective significance. The ruling class is telling working people: “We do not negotiate. We demand. You must accept our terms.”
This signifies, in effect, the end of compromise between the classes. The growing recognition of this political reality among workers lies behind the rising sentiment for a general strike.
It is necessary for workers who have come to this conclusion to build the momentum for a general strike. Talk about a general strike must turn toward its actual preparation.
In every work place, meetings should be called to discuss, debate and vote on a resolution for a general strike. Wherever substantial support exists for a general strike, rank-and-file committees, independent of union officials, should be formed to prepare for this action.
This movement should base the call for a general strike on the following demands:
* Total rejection of all economic concessions by the Wisconsin workers. Instead, social spending should be increased to meet the pressing problems created by three years of recession caused by the criminal speculative activities of the banks.
* Unequivocal rejection of any and all restrictions on the legal right of workers to negotiate and, when they so decide, strike to defend and improve their standard of living.
* For a substantial increase in taxes on corporate profits and the very rich to cover the budget deficit and the costs of new and essential social spending.
* For the immediate resignation of Governor Walker and his reactionary administration. Walker has deliberately made himself the political spearhead of the corporate attack on the working class and the use of dictatorial methods. The demand for his removal from office arises from the recognition that the struggle of Wisconsin workers against this budget is, in essence, a political struggle.
The call for Walker’s removal does not imply a vote of confidence in the Democratic Party. Beyond the borders of Wisconsin there are Democratic Party governors and mayors who are calling for budget cuts no less draconian than those sought by Walker. The Obama administration is collaborating with the state governors and the Congress in Washington in the implementation of budget cuts that will wreak havoc on the lives of workers throughout the country.
However, inspired by the example set by Wisconsin workers, the fight against the attacks on workers’ rights will expand from state to state and across the country as a whole, in opposition to all the political representatives of the capitalist class.
Thus, the demand for Walker’s removal raises the most important issue of all—the necessity for workers to create their own, independent, socialist alternative to the corporate-controlled Republican and Democratic parties.
The Socialist Equality Party supports and encourages the movement for a general strike against the Walker administration and its reactionary budget. The growing sentiment among workers that such action is necessary testifies to the intensity of social conflict in the United States. However, we urge workers to recognize that they are fighting not just one governor, but the capitalist class as a whole and the profit system upon which its rule is based.
The budget presented by Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker on Tuesday has caused profound shock and outrage among workers throughout the state. It has now become clear to hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin workers and their families that they are confronted with a ruthless attempt to drastically lower their living standards, eviscerate crucial social services and benefits, and strip away their democratic rights.
Walker is demanding cuts of at least $1.5 billion from the state’s budget to close a deficit that has been created, to a great extent, by his recent massive reduction of tax rates for large corporations.
These cuts include:
$1.25 billion in cuts to school aid and local government, including a reduction of more than $900 million in education funding statewide, which translates into a cut of approximately $500 per pupil.
$500 million in cuts from Medicaid, which finances critical state health programs for more than one million Wisconsin residents. The impact on low-income and uninsured adults and families with children will be devastating.
$250 million will be cut from funding for the University of Wisconsin. Moreover, as part of a privatization scheme that will serve the interests of wealthy investors, the Madison branch of the University of Wisconsin will be carved off from the state system. This will cost the jobs of at least 17,000 UW workers and lead to a sharp increase in college tuition costs over the next two years.
The Walker budget document is a declaration of war. His inclusion of further demands for the elimination of collective bargaining follows logically from his budget proposals. The cuts that he is calling for make a mockery of “bargaining,” because his budget proposals require, by their very nature, the complete surrender by workers to his unilateral demands.
The oft-repeated position of union officials—that they are prepared to accept Walker’s budget cuts if only he steps back from his demand for an end to collective bargaining—is not only cowardly, it represents a dangerous evasion of the political reality that exists in Wisconsin.
The term “collective bargaining” means nothing at all if unions are prepared to accept the dictates of state governments, which are acting in the interests of the capitalist bosses of the banks and industry. Collective bargaining did not emerge in the form of a permission slip granted by generous corporations to the workers. It was wrested from the capitalist class in the course of decades of bitter conflict for social and democratic rights, in which countless thousands of workers’ lives were lost. In the final analysis, collective bargaining existed only to the extent that workers were prepared to exercise the weapon of the strike to overcome the intransigence of the capitalist class and its political hirelings in local, state and federal government.
Walker’s budget signifies in practice, if not yet in law, the collapse of collective bargaining. His administration is ramming a brutal and socially destructive budget down the throats of Wisconsin working people and their families.
How should the working class in Wisconsin respond to this political reality?
In recent days, there has been a growing realization among working people throughout Wisconsin that protests in the state capital are insufficient and that they must escalate their struggle.
Sentiment is building for a general strike by the working class. Wisconsin workers, in ever greater numbers, are coming to realize that nothing short of a massive mobilization of their collective strength will be sufficient to beat back the attack of the Walker administration.
This sentiment is justified and corresponds to the political reality that exists in Wisconsin and, increasingly, throughout the United States. The collapse of collective bargaining-—that is, the attempt of the state to impose, with the implicit threat of force, intolerable and unacceptable demands upon workers—has a profound objective significance. The ruling class is telling working people: “We do not negotiate. We demand. You must accept our terms.”
This signifies, in effect, the end of compromise between the classes. The growing recognition of this political reality among workers lies behind the rising sentiment for a general strike.
It is necessary for workers who have come to this conclusion to build the momentum for a general strike. Talk about a general strike must turn toward its actual preparation.
In every work place, meetings should be called to discuss, debate and vote on a resolution for a general strike. Wherever substantial support exists for a general strike, rank-and-file committees, independent of union officials, should be formed to prepare for this action.
This movement should base the call for a general strike on the following demands:
* Total rejection of all economic concessions by the Wisconsin workers. Instead, social spending should be increased to meet the pressing problems created by three years of recession caused by the criminal speculative activities of the banks.
* Unequivocal rejection of any and all restrictions on the legal right of workers to negotiate and, when they so decide, strike to defend and improve their standard of living.
* For a substantial increase in taxes on corporate profits and the very rich to cover the budget deficit and the costs of new and essential social spending.
* For the immediate resignation of Governor Walker and his reactionary administration. Walker has deliberately made himself the political spearhead of the corporate attack on the working class and the use of dictatorial methods. The demand for his removal from office arises from the recognition that the struggle of Wisconsin workers against this budget is, in essence, a political struggle.
The call for Walker’s removal does not imply a vote of confidence in the Democratic Party. Beyond the borders of Wisconsin there are Democratic Party governors and mayors who are calling for budget cuts no less draconian than those sought by Walker. The Obama administration is collaborating with the state governors and the Congress in Washington in the implementation of budget cuts that will wreak havoc on the lives of workers throughout the country.
However, inspired by the example set by Wisconsin workers, the fight against the attacks on workers’ rights will expand from state to state and across the country as a whole, in opposition to all the political representatives of the capitalist class.
Thus, the demand for Walker’s removal raises the most important issue of all—the necessity for workers to create their own, independent, socialist alternative to the corporate-controlled Republican and Democratic parties.
The Socialist Equality Party supports and encourages the movement for a general strike against the Walker administration and its reactionary budget. The growing sentiment among workers that such action is necessary testifies to the intensity of social conflict in the United States. However, we urge workers to recognize that they are fighting not just one governor, but the capitalist class as a whole and the profit system upon which its rule is based.
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