Notice that [in this scenario] the Falcon XX launch cost for this operation is comparable to the current cost of paying the Russians to ferry our crews to the space station each year, while the low SLS cost is almost two-thirds of NASA’s entire annual budget, and the high estimate exceeds its budget by over $4 billion. We cannot know the actual cost of an SLS operation since no launch cost has been posted. The only comparable costs would be if we were using a fleet of expendable cargo aircraft, which were thrown away after each cargo flight to a distant shore due to lack of aviation fuel at the destination.
Showing posts with label Capitalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Capitalism. Show all posts
Sunday, February 16, 2014
"… SLS cost is almost two-thirds of NASA’s entire annual budget …"
Robbing NASA blind:
Sunday, February 9, 2014
Clouding the Moral Issue
In February 1961, Schlesinger was first told of the "Cuba operation" that would eventually become the Bay of Pigs Invasion. He opposed the plan in a memorandum to the President, stating that "at one stroke you would dissipate all the extraordinary good will which has been rising toward the new Administration through the world. It would fix a malevolent image of the new Administration in the minds of millions". He did, however, suggest,
Would it not be possible to induce Castro to take offensive action first? He has already launched expeditions against Panama and against the Dominican Republic. One can conceive a black operation in, say, Haiti which might in time lure Castro into sending a few boatloads of men on to a Haitian beach in what could be portrayed as an effort to overthrow the Haitian regime. If only Castro could be induced to commit an offensive act, then the moral issue would be clouded, and the anti-US campaign would be hobbled from the start.
Thursday, December 19, 2013
The Thing Keeping The USA Together? Pork Barrels.
Oh my:
In other news: CIA claims release of "Bay of Pigs" files would "confuse the public"
… Earlier this year, lawmakers set aside $436 million for the construction and maintenance of the mighty M-1 Abrams tank, of which the Army currently has more than 2,300—with another 3,000 in storage.Once the money stream to "defence" contractors and to the banks from the state starts to dry up, you will see "interesting times".
That might sound like enough tanks for the American military, and sure enough the Army agrees. “If we had our choice, we would use that money in a different way,” Gen. Ray Odierno, the Army’s chief of staff, told the Associated Press in April.
So why build more tanks? General Dynamics, the tank’s manufacturer, has aggressively lobbied to keep the M-1 in production. There’s also just one factory in the whole country that manufactures the Abrams: the Lima Army Tank Plant in Ohio. Such a seemingly precious facility is sure to inspire a fierce defense by backers against any attempt to shut it down. …
In other news: CIA claims release of "Bay of Pigs" files would "confuse the public"
Monday, October 28, 2013
We, The People, Demand Bug-Free Software!
Matt Bors:
American people the vocal "right leaning" majority don't particularly mind being fucked in the a treated like shit, as long as they are treated like shit by major corporations, and not the government.*
Because, you know, major corporations are good while the government is bad, because major corporations work in the interest of the share holders, while the government works only in their own lazy self-interest (I take it the government is mainly interested in burning large stacks of money on the National Mall every Friday afternoon, while the shareholders of major corporations stimulate the economy through the purchase of luxury goods as often as they can).
And so when private insurance companies make arcane websites (since the Internet exists, I'm tempted to write) that look like they are purposely made to be unusable, this is OK. But ho, when the government on the other hand lets the cheapest bidder roll out (under time pressure, considering what a large project such a "website" is) something that initially does not work as it should, then this is clearly evidence of the malfeasance, ineptitude and/or general evilness of the government.
* They are perfectly happy to get sub-par health treatment (even embargo-stricken Cuba seems to be better, if only slightly) for twice the price the rest of the industrialized world pays. Seriously, it is – on average – twice as expensive to get treatment in the USA than any other industrialized nation, and that is not including the cases where people get robbed blind if they end up un-insured and in need of medical assistance (and don't choose to let Nature do its thing – which sometimes might be better than seeking medical attention). If how ever Obama – grasp! – picks up Romney's (!) half-way sensible plans for health insurance, it is the end of the world. But thankfully they can discuss shortcomings of cheaply-build and freshly-rolled-out websites, while tragically missing the point.Americans are stupid The vocal majority is stupid.
Thinking further about the bugs on Healthcare.gov, it occurred to me that I’ve *never* been able to apply for health insurance online. Perhaps things have changed since the last time I applied — which was only a couple years ago — but I’ve always had to fill out pages and pages of forms. It was excruciating, and often took upwards of a week with all the researching of my own medical history. Yes, it would have been nice if the website rollout hadn’t been fubared, but I’ll probably be able to sign up next month with the help of a navigator. I’m dreading this process much less than I did in the past.This clearly shows that the
Because, you know, major corporations are good while the government is bad, because major corporations work in the interest of the share holders, while the government works only in their own lazy self-interest (I take it the government is mainly interested in burning large stacks of money on the National Mall every Friday afternoon, while the shareholders of major corporations stimulate the economy through the purchase of luxury goods as often as they can).
And so when private insurance companies make arcane websites (since the Internet exists, I'm tempted to write) that look like they are purposely made to be unusable, this is OK. But ho, when the government on the other hand lets the cheapest bidder roll out (under time pressure, considering what a large project such a "website" is) something that initially does not work as it should, then this is clearly evidence of the malfeasance, ineptitude and/or general evilness of the government.
* They are perfectly happy to get sub-par health treatment (even embargo-stricken Cuba seems to be better, if only slightly) for twice the price the rest of the industrialized world pays. Seriously, it is – on average – twice as expensive to get treatment in the USA than any other industrialized nation, and that is not including the cases where people get robbed blind if they end up un-insured and in need of medical assistance (and don't choose to let Nature do its thing – which sometimes might be better than seeking medical attention). If how ever Obama – grasp! – picks up Romney's (!) half-way sensible plans for health insurance, it is the end of the world. But thankfully they can discuss shortcomings of cheaply-build and freshly-rolled-out websites, while tragically missing the point.
Sunday, October 13, 2013
The State Of The Union
I started this several weeks ago. It is unfinished. I lack the energy to finish it. Maybe one day I will finish it. Maybe not. Does it matter?
Once a week the POTUS – Barack "This is contrary to who we are" Obama – meets with the military and the "intelligence" community and decides who to murder. Advise to Michelle Obama: Never rub your husband the wrong way. IANAL, but this is warrant-less, court-less, cold-blooded murder, and therefore IMHO in violation of *EVERY* law – US and international, civil and military – written for the protection of people against being robbed of their life.
It would be bad enough if the military went, based on an "presidential murder decree" (is this something like a fatwa? Or more like a ukaz?), and apprehended a person, identified him (without a doubt) and then execute him (or rather Mafia style: execute him, make some trophy photos as evidence for the boss, and then proceed to dump the corpse in the ocean). It is be bad enough that those in power in Washington murder without habeaus corpus. It is already bad enough that they only denied their murder victims a fair trial for their crimes (real and imaginary). But Washington does not care to actually find out what those murder victims did, Washington does not care to find out if they actually did all those evil things.
But what is even worse is that the US murder machine does not even bother to properly check someone's identity before killing them. And why should they? Washington does not even need to check the identity of their murder victims after they kill people! In a tradition going back to (at least) the "Vietnam" war, every person killed by the US military is declared an "enemy". Kill, and don't ask questions.
On the topic of "quality assurance", I would say leading a "war on terror" like that should not be considered "good practice".
An huge problem arises because the "war on terror" is an "asymmetric" war. For a "normal" war the rules are (somewhat simplified): You can stop the enemy by any means necessary (including killing the enemy, but not including cruel means) if you are engaged with him – and the enemy can be readily identified because his soldiers wear different uniforms than yours.* As an example: You are wearing an US army uniform and mowed down with your machine gun a group of people wearing an Wehrmacht uniform, who were running across the street 100 yards from your position? Good job! Get a cookie! That is the advantage of a clearly identifiable enemy. Mow down in the same street a group of people wearing civilian cloth? Uh, uh. Better hide that war crime. That's the beauty of the Hague Conventions. Easy and instant quality assurance!
But in an asymmetric war? The enemy is not different from an civilian in a readily identifiable way (unless he is foolish enough to drive an "tactical" pickup truck, or carry an RPG). Whether in the post-2001 failed state of Afghanistan, or in the post-2003 failed state of Iraq (with the survival of both failed states hinging on the continued military support of US): Civilians are routinely armed. Civilians wear the same cloth, drive the same vehicles, and even carry the same weapons as "insurgents" or "al Qaeda operatives". So if you have an regular army operating by the same rules as in "normal" war – identify the enemy, kill the enemy – but no longer have criteria by which your army grunts can clearly tell an enemy from an civilian, you get a huge problem. Cue in "collateral murder": They have identified the enemy, they have killed the enemy. Good job, get a cookie. And nobody in the military even notices that they have just committed an war crime. Like everyday. Probably. Nobody knows. Nobody cares.
Because everybody killed by the US is per definition an enemy. Simple as pie.
The Hague Conventions does not apply here. All those rules that are meant to protect the civilians, and limit warfare to the armies of the belligerents just flew out of the window. People living in some poor country the US is waging war against (or using any some form of "restricted" military force, or somesuch euphemism) have no protection against being falsely killed.
Image how many people (so called "civilians" or even "innocent civilians") have been killed, poeple who's sole "crime" was that the lived in a country that found itself at the wrong end of the US military machine? And the US does not even apologize for these killings. How could they, if they don't even investigate them. Imagine what it does to the population of such an country if the US kills and maims countless civilians (and they are countless, as the US does not bother to actually count them) without even the slightest bit of remorse? Would you be motivated to fight against the USA after having your friends and relatives murdered like that?
But shouldn't there be legal restrictions that protect people against being falsely killed? False imprisonment can be made undone. But a false killing? How do you undo that? And aren't there already legal restrictions already? Like "international laws" and "human rights"? And shouldn't those restrictions be more demanding than those against being falsely imprisoned? And shouldn't we enforce those "international laws"? Draw a red line? Maybe bomb Washington? At least a little bit? One Tomahawk for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and one for the Capitol, and one for the Pentagon? You know, to send a signal. Maybe bomb a TV station in Atlanta and a military hospital in Bethesda? Destroy some bridges in New York? Or how about some signature drone-strikes against US generals? Or one could bomb the shit out of the Los Angeles harbour? And as icing on the cake, maybe impose some crippling trade sanctions to bring the US back to the negotiation table? Freeze the bank accounts of all US citizens? After all, this is the way transgressions of international law (real and imaginary) are usually punished by the US imperial machine.
Speaking of falsely imprisoning someone: In Guantanamo almost 200 people still languish in an extra-legal limbo, now for over a decade, their access to the legal system, lawyers and even basic information severely restricted (not that the crooked US legal system would help much). IANAL, but regardless whether you consider them PoW or suspected(!) criminals, this is in violation of *EVERY* law, US and international, civil and military, written for the protection of people against being robbed of their freedom. Out of the almost 800 people who had been interned in Gitmo, only 7(!) had been sentenced by a court to have done something that would warrant a punishment – for comparison, in the same time 9 prisoners have died in Gitmo.
Now the extra-legal limbo of Gitmo would be bad enough, but you will be hard pressed to find a prisoner of Gitmo who had *not* been subjected to several forms of cruel and unusual punishment. Prisoners, 99% of who had *not even* been charged with any crime by a court of law. These human beings were transported shackled, gagged, hooded, chained to the floor of a cargo plane – like cattle, I want to write. But even if the human rights would not apply to these prisoners, you couldn't treat a cow in the US like that. These prisoners were depraved of sleep by being exposed in their cells for day and night to bright lights and loud music (and don't think the US military played their favourite music – I take it they liked to play Heavy Metal). Many had been waterboarded multiple times, a form of torture that is indistinguishable from drowning for the prisoner. The target was, I take it, that the prisoner confesses to their crimes (I take it KSM admitted to shooting Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, setting fire to the Reichstag in Berlin, while working for our eternal enemy Eastasia).
Granted, some of the worst transgressions happened during "Dubya" Bush, not during "contrary to who we are" Obama. Yes, the brutal force feeding of hunger-striking prisoners happened while Bush was commander in chief – but it continues on Obama's watch. This is the only means the prisoners have left to petition the government for redress of grievances: refusing to eat, to starve themselves, to death if necessary. (But then again they are probably not "people" in the sense of the US constitution, and the "contrary to who we are" Obama administration is not "their" government). Not only are those protesting prisoners brutally force fed, but it is insisted that it is for their best. And to add insult to injury, those who died in the past as a result of their protest, who have took their life in protest of torture, those are maligned as doing it to spread terror in their terrorist-ways – as if it was their great terrorist plan to get captured, cruelly punished and then to protest it by the only means left to them.
The extra-legal limbo and torturous treatment in Gitmo alone would have been bad enough, but the prisoners who reached Gitmo had it good, I take it. Many did not survive long enough to be shackled, gagged, hooded and strapped to the floor of a cargo plane.
There are those prisoners (supposedly surrendered "al Qaeda" fighters) who died in containers at Sheberghan prison, as recounted in "Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death". How many died? Nobody knows. To cite Pinter: It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. Where were the cries that the UN is doing nothing to stop this? It didn't matter, as the prisoners fought for al Qaeda. Has General Dostum, an US ally, been investigated for these alleged crimes? That was of no interest to the US. Dostum still does politics, without being threatened by the US like Assad is now. By the way, it seems to have never been of interest that Dostum fought on the Soviet side in the eighties – Dostum changed his allegiance fast enough, and after all, an ally is an ally, right?
Then there is the way in which many prisoners landed in the custody of the US. You see, when the minds of US citizens are not occupied by bombing the shit out of far away nations, then their thoughts start to revolve around money. So Americans seem to think it is a good idea to pay a substantial prize for every "al Qaeda fighter" they get delivered by the local Afghans tribes – no questions asked. So the local tribes round up some unlucky fools (be it some foreign fool, or some unlucky chaps from some rival tribe) and sell them to the US. And the Americans say: "If the locals say these are al Qaede fighters, then by god they must be al Qaeda fighters." Why bother to find out the truth? Nobody ever got in trouble for falsely imprisoning an "al Qaeda" member (real or imaginary) – and quality assurance is unnecessary work after all.
Leaving shortly Afghanistan, I suppose one could write books on the topic of "extraordinary renditions". And expect lengthy apologies by the US government. Possibly something along the line: "This is contrary to who we are." And maybe someone from Fort Benning (Florida) would disagree: "No, this exactly who we are." I leave the topic of extraordinary renditions to the so inclined reader, as it would burst this already lengthy column.
Then there is Bagram, which alone should be basis for the US to never stop apologizing. The "Bagram Theater Internment Facility" (as it was known among other names) did give Abu Ghraib a run for its money. What was used by the US at these sites as "interrogation methods", like for example "stress positions", had been developed by SS-"doctors" in KZ-camps. But of course it is a dirty rumor that Henry K. Beecher had learned these torture methods from Walter Schreiber (who had been involved in human experiments in KZ-camps) at the CIA run "Villa Schuster" facility in Kronberg ("Camp King", West-Germany) during the cold war. So of course it is an coincidence that the US uses fascist KZ-camp torture methods.
And there are supposedly still prisoners in Bagram.
For some prisoners that US had in their custody, it got worse after they had been flown out of Afghanistan. As Bob Baer put it:
Right.
Then in addition to countries like Syria, Egypt or Jorda – which could be used as convenient "black holes" for unwanted humans – there were countless black sites jointly created by the US and (among others) the "democracies" of "New Europe". How many have there been? What happened there? Are they still operating? Has there been an investigation? I apologize for again using that Pinter quote: It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. Well at least Obama closed those black sites, though it is hard to assert what has and has not been done in that regard.
If it is true that the black sites no longer operate, than a reasonable assumption is that the system of "extraordinary renditions" has simply been replaced be the "presidential murder decrees" – by US President "contrary to who we are" Obama. Give him a Nobelprize for Peace for that! Why extra-legally kidnap and torture people, when you can simply murder them? Much cheaper, and less fuss.
So, how should one classify those acts ordered by the POTUS? The political class makes very fine distinctions that such acts are not warfare (even so it is part of a so called "war on terror"). A very nuanced vocabulary is used when other nations are attacked by the USA, the euphemistic character of which goes all the way to eleven:
So again, what are these "presidential murder decrees", and the acts committed based on them? Are they act of wars? Contrary to what the political class in the US claims, these acts bear some hallmark features of acts of war. For these acts, the US uses mainly military means (I sure hope that kill lists and murder-drones will never be considered part of reasonable police work). These acts thoroughly lack criminal investigation and due process. The information basis is – as with all "intelligence" information – dubious at best. The legal basis is thin ice, which would not stand in any legal system worth the name. These acts are not directed at apprehending and questioning a suspect. (Why do I even have to write this? Shouldn't this be obvious?). That it is not a declared war (declared in the classical sense, as not even the "war on terror" had ever been formally declared in any way by any side) does not really make things better. De facto, these are acts of war.
But if these are acts of war, then probably they should be considered war crimes. Persons "hors de combat" (outside of combat), and those not taking part in hostilities, shall be protected and treated humanely – or so Wikipedia claims. The political class must therefore claim that these acts are not, and can not be considered, acts of war.
Fine, what about the contrary position, that these acts are not acts of war? After all, the targets of these presidential kill lists live in a murky twilight of not really being considered as "soldiers of an army" by the Hague Conventions. But what position would kill lists and murder-drones have in international law or any "civilian" legal system? The simple answer is that no Rechtsstaat – a "state of justice" – can operate like that and still be considered a state in which there exists justice. There is however a term for states in which the head of state orders people to be killed without oversight through an independent legal system: Such a state is called an dictatorship.
But what are these acts then, if they are not warfare? Imagine the Head of State of Iran, Russia or Syria ordering such acts based on whimsical "intelligence", and they would be rightfully branded as state terrorism. And that is what they are: Terrorism, no qualifier needed. And it is only through the American military might, and the collaboration of "US-friendly" governments, that it is possible to keep such acts of blatant disrespect for international law in a Heisenberg like state of being both acts of war and not being acts of war – existing outside of international law, unchecked and unchallenged. America is enforcing its grotesque version of international law, and not for the "benefit of the nation" (nor for the benefit of its population), but in the interest and for the benefit of a ravenous alliance between political class, military and capital.
When John Pilger wrote about "the silent military coup that took over Washington", one of his main points was that the US military has an relinquishing grip on US (foreign) policy, an grip that remained untouched by "contrary to who we are" Obama. After all, Obama said it quite clearly when he remarked that the "Afghan" war (and therefore the "war on terror") is a war of necessity. The military however came to power long before Obama. Pilger carefully avoided to pin-point the time this coup had happened. One could argue that the military–industrial complex is as old as the Pentagon, and was forged in the Second World War (as Eisenhower infamously tried to warn us about). One could argue that the Monroe doctrine formally established US militarism (and imperialism) a good hundred years before WWII, to reign in a era when the US military was used both inside and outside of the USA (with its expanding territory) in the interest of American corporations, banks and generally America's financial interests. Or one could go back fifty years before that to the American Revolutionary War, and polemically claim that rich white fucks used military force in their own interests (mainly to rid themselves of the rivals for power, in the form of British feudalism and imperialism), laying the foundation for US militarism. And speaking of British imperialism: One could probably argue that there is a good bit of British heritage in US imperialism. Arguably imperialism packed with a bit more proclaimed civil liberties and rights to make it more palatable for the masses. (Rights which in effect mainly protect those old white males wielding power in the name of US imperialism, rights which were not made for women, or blacks, or – good god! – slaves when the "Union" started its imperial business.)
My point is: This is nothing new. Michael Parenti was once asked (and I paraphrase here): "Is Iraq like Vietnam?", to which he answered "No. But Washington is still Washington."
But yeah, "we" urgently need to bomb the shit out of Syria. It is for the good of the Syrian people that we bomb the shit out of them. Their human rights demand it that we bomb the shit out of them. Gavrilo Princip (alone) started the first world war, and Hitler (alone) the second. Assad is like Hitler, therefore we have to bomb Syria, there is no way round. It is the right thing to do for Washington, as it always have been the right thing to bomb Hitler, as it was America that killed Hitler. The Russians are protecting Assad, as they have never done anything to fight against Hitler.
// This is a generic comment on the United States of America
// I could have written more (maybe), but what I have written is already too much in every respect
// Adjust things like $POTUS_NAME and $ENEMY_NAME were needed, and add current US transgressions to keep it up to date
// Don't ever attempt to create a exhaustive list of US transgressions
// Any sarcasm is intentional
Let me add one last thing. Harold Pinter once read an excerpt from Pablo Neruda's "I'm Explaining a Few Things" in the context of the 2003 war against Iraq:
--
* The Hague Conventions became necessary as the governments were leading wars that were more and more ugly, much more ugly than wars already were – hence some rules were needed to keep the business of killing thy enemy a bit "civilized", to remain acceptable in the population (nobody minds killing an dangerous enemy, but slaughtering "innocent" civilians makes it all to clear what wars are about…). BTW: Special, more murky rules apply when one is not directly engaged with the enemy. It was probably the bombing of civilians through the fascist Luftwaffe, followed by the retaliationary bombing of civilians through the RAF a few years later (as at the time it was the main thing the RAF was build to do) that made it acceptable to bomb civilians. This regression should have been rolled back – but then again if you start questioning parts of "modern" warfare, you might end up questioning the entire business of war, war that is usually fought in the name of some never quite clearly defined "national interests", so better not go there…
Hallelullah!
It works.
We blew the shit out of them.
We blew the shit right back up their own ass
And out their fucking ears.
It works.
We blew the shit out of them.
They suffocated in their own shit!
Hallelullah.
Praise the Lord for all good things.
We blew them into fucking shit.
They are eating it.
Praise the Lord for all good things.
We blew their balls into shards of dust,
Into shards of fucking dust.
We did it.
Now I want you to come over here and kiss me on the mouth.
Harold Pinter -- American Football
(A Reflection upon the Gulf War)
Once a week the POTUS – Barack "This is contrary to who we are" Obama – meets with the military and the "intelligence" community and decides who to murder. Advise to Michelle Obama: Never rub your husband the wrong way. IANAL, but this is warrant-less, court-less, cold-blooded murder, and therefore IMHO in violation of *EVERY* law – US and international, civil and military – written for the protection of people against being robbed of their life.
It would be bad enough if the military went, based on an "presidential murder decree" (is this something like a fatwa? Or more like a ukaz?), and apprehended a person, identified him (without a doubt) and then execute him (or rather Mafia style: execute him, make some trophy photos as evidence for the boss, and then proceed to dump the corpse in the ocean). It is be bad enough that those in power in Washington murder without habeaus corpus. It is already bad enough that they only denied their murder victims a fair trial for their crimes (real and imaginary). But Washington does not care to actually find out what those murder victims did, Washington does not care to find out if they actually did all those evil things.
But what is even worse is that the US murder machine does not even bother to properly check someone's identity before killing them. And why should they? Washington does not even need to check the identity of their murder victims after they kill people! In a tradition going back to (at least) the "Vietnam" war, every person killed by the US military is declared an "enemy". Kill, and don't ask questions.
On the topic of "quality assurance", I would say leading a "war on terror" like that should not be considered "good practice".
An huge problem arises because the "war on terror" is an "asymmetric" war. For a "normal" war the rules are (somewhat simplified): You can stop the enemy by any means necessary (including killing the enemy, but not including cruel means) if you are engaged with him – and the enemy can be readily identified because his soldiers wear different uniforms than yours.* As an example: You are wearing an US army uniform and mowed down with your machine gun a group of people wearing an Wehrmacht uniform, who were running across the street 100 yards from your position? Good job! Get a cookie! That is the advantage of a clearly identifiable enemy. Mow down in the same street a group of people wearing civilian cloth? Uh, uh. Better hide that war crime. That's the beauty of the Hague Conventions. Easy and instant quality assurance!
But in an asymmetric war? The enemy is not different from an civilian in a readily identifiable way (unless he is foolish enough to drive an "tactical" pickup truck, or carry an RPG). Whether in the post-2001 failed state of Afghanistan, or in the post-2003 failed state of Iraq (with the survival of both failed states hinging on the continued military support of US): Civilians are routinely armed. Civilians wear the same cloth, drive the same vehicles, and even carry the same weapons as "insurgents" or "al Qaeda operatives". So if you have an regular army operating by the same rules as in "normal" war – identify the enemy, kill the enemy – but no longer have criteria by which your army grunts can clearly tell an enemy from an civilian, you get a huge problem. Cue in "collateral murder": They have identified the enemy, they have killed the enemy. Good job, get a cookie. And nobody in the military even notices that they have just committed an war crime. Like everyday. Probably. Nobody knows. Nobody cares.
Because everybody killed by the US is per definition an enemy. Simple as pie.
The Hague Conventions does not apply here. All those rules that are meant to protect the civilians, and limit warfare to the armies of the belligerents just flew out of the window. People living in some poor country the US is waging war against (or using any some form of "restricted" military force, or somesuch euphemism) have no protection against being falsely killed.
Image how many people (so called "civilians" or even "innocent civilians") have been killed, poeple who's sole "crime" was that the lived in a country that found itself at the wrong end of the US military machine? And the US does not even apologize for these killings. How could they, if they don't even investigate them. Imagine what it does to the population of such an country if the US kills and maims countless civilians (and they are countless, as the US does not bother to actually count them) without even the slightest bit of remorse? Would you be motivated to fight against the USA after having your friends and relatives murdered like that?
But shouldn't there be legal restrictions that protect people against being falsely killed? False imprisonment can be made undone. But a false killing? How do you undo that? And aren't there already legal restrictions already? Like "international laws" and "human rights"? And shouldn't those restrictions be more demanding than those against being falsely imprisoned? And shouldn't we enforce those "international laws"? Draw a red line? Maybe bomb Washington? At least a little bit? One Tomahawk for 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, and one for the Capitol, and one for the Pentagon? You know, to send a signal. Maybe bomb a TV station in Atlanta and a military hospital in Bethesda? Destroy some bridges in New York? Or how about some signature drone-strikes against US generals? Or one could bomb the shit out of the Los Angeles harbour? And as icing on the cake, maybe impose some crippling trade sanctions to bring the US back to the negotiation table? Freeze the bank accounts of all US citizens? After all, this is the way transgressions of international law (real and imaginary) are usually punished by the US imperial machine.
Speaking of falsely imprisoning someone: In Guantanamo almost 200 people still languish in an extra-legal limbo, now for over a decade, their access to the legal system, lawyers and even basic information severely restricted (not that the crooked US legal system would help much). IANAL, but regardless whether you consider them PoW or suspected(!) criminals, this is in violation of *EVERY* law, US and international, civil and military, written for the protection of people against being robbed of their freedom. Out of the almost 800 people who had been interned in Gitmo, only 7(!) had been sentenced by a court to have done something that would warrant a punishment – for comparison, in the same time 9 prisoners have died in Gitmo.
Now the extra-legal limbo of Gitmo would be bad enough, but you will be hard pressed to find a prisoner of Gitmo who had *not* been subjected to several forms of cruel and unusual punishment. Prisoners, 99% of who had *not even* been charged with any crime by a court of law. These human beings were transported shackled, gagged, hooded, chained to the floor of a cargo plane – like cattle, I want to write. But even if the human rights would not apply to these prisoners, you couldn't treat a cow in the US like that. These prisoners were depraved of sleep by being exposed in their cells for day and night to bright lights and loud music (and don't think the US military played their favourite music – I take it they liked to play Heavy Metal). Many had been waterboarded multiple times, a form of torture that is indistinguishable from drowning for the prisoner. The target was, I take it, that the prisoner confesses to their crimes (I take it KSM admitted to shooting Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria, setting fire to the Reichstag in Berlin, while working for our eternal enemy Eastasia).
Granted, some of the worst transgressions happened during "Dubya" Bush, not during "contrary to who we are" Obama. Yes, the brutal force feeding of hunger-striking prisoners happened while Bush was commander in chief – but it continues on Obama's watch. This is the only means the prisoners have left to petition the government for redress of grievances: refusing to eat, to starve themselves, to death if necessary. (But then again they are probably not "people" in the sense of the US constitution, and the "contrary to who we are" Obama administration is not "their" government). Not only are those protesting prisoners brutally force fed, but it is insisted that it is for their best. And to add insult to injury, those who died in the past as a result of their protest, who have took their life in protest of torture, those are maligned as doing it to spread terror in their terrorist-ways – as if it was their great terrorist plan to get captured, cruelly punished and then to protest it by the only means left to them.
The extra-legal limbo and torturous treatment in Gitmo alone would have been bad enough, but the prisoners who reached Gitmo had it good, I take it. Many did not survive long enough to be shackled, gagged, hooded and strapped to the floor of a cargo plane.
There are those prisoners (supposedly surrendered "al Qaeda" fighters) who died in containers at Sheberghan prison, as recounted in "Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death". How many died? Nobody knows. To cite Pinter: It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. Where were the cries that the UN is doing nothing to stop this? It didn't matter, as the prisoners fought for al Qaeda. Has General Dostum, an US ally, been investigated for these alleged crimes? That was of no interest to the US. Dostum still does politics, without being threatened by the US like Assad is now. By the way, it seems to have never been of interest that Dostum fought on the Soviet side in the eighties – Dostum changed his allegiance fast enough, and after all, an ally is an ally, right?
Then there is the way in which many prisoners landed in the custody of the US. You see, when the minds of US citizens are not occupied by bombing the shit out of far away nations, then their thoughts start to revolve around money. So Americans seem to think it is a good idea to pay a substantial prize for every "al Qaeda fighter" they get delivered by the local Afghans tribes – no questions asked. So the local tribes round up some unlucky fools (be it some foreign fool, or some unlucky chaps from some rival tribe) and sell them to the US. And the Americans say: "If the locals say these are al Qaede fighters, then by god they must be al Qaeda fighters." Why bother to find out the truth? Nobody ever got in trouble for falsely imprisoning an "al Qaeda" member (real or imaginary) – and quality assurance is unnecessary work after all.
Leaving shortly Afghanistan, I suppose one could write books on the topic of "extraordinary renditions". And expect lengthy apologies by the US government. Possibly something along the line: "This is contrary to who we are." And maybe someone from Fort Benning (Florida) would disagree: "No, this exactly who we are." I leave the topic of extraordinary renditions to the so inclined reader, as it would burst this already lengthy column.
Then there is Bagram, which alone should be basis for the US to never stop apologizing. The "Bagram Theater Internment Facility" (as it was known among other names) did give Abu Ghraib a run for its money. What was used by the US at these sites as "interrogation methods", like for example "stress positions", had been developed by SS-"doctors" in KZ-camps. But of course it is a dirty rumor that Henry K. Beecher had learned these torture methods from Walter Schreiber (who had been involved in human experiments in KZ-camps) at the CIA run "Villa Schuster" facility in Kronberg ("Camp King", West-Germany) during the cold war. So of course it is an coincidence that the US uses fascist KZ-camp torture methods.
And there are supposedly still prisoners in Bagram.
For some prisoners that US had in their custody, it got worse after they had been flown out of Afghanistan. As Bob Baer put it:
If you want a serious interrogation, you send a prisoner to Jordan. If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear—never to see them again—you send them to EgyptWait, what? The US extradited prisoners to Syria to be tortured? Isn't Assad like Hitler, or something? Were was the outcry of the political class back then? Surely it must be a shameless lie that the US worked together with Syria! Otherwise the current US government would have to apologize for this, now wouldn't it? Right? RIGHT?
Right.
Then in addition to countries like Syria, Egypt or Jorda – which could be used as convenient "black holes" for unwanted humans – there were countless black sites jointly created by the US and (among others) the "democracies" of "New Europe". How many have there been? What happened there? Are they still operating? Has there been an investigation? I apologize for again using that Pinter quote: It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn't happening. It didn't matter. It was of no interest. Well at least Obama closed those black sites, though it is hard to assert what has and has not been done in that regard.
If it is true that the black sites no longer operate, than a reasonable assumption is that the system of "extraordinary renditions" has simply been replaced be the "presidential murder decrees" – by US President "contrary to who we are" Obama. Give him a Nobelprize for Peace for that! Why extra-legally kidnap and torture people, when you can simply murder them? Much cheaper, and less fuss.
So, how should one classify those acts ordered by the POTUS? The political class makes very fine distinctions that such acts are not warfare (even so it is part of a so called "war on terror"). A very nuanced vocabulary is used when other nations are attacked by the USA, the euphemistic character of which goes all the way to eleven:
- An (limited) intervention (the military is doing stuff the military does, but this is most definitely not war)
- Sending a signal (possibly by bombing the communication infrastructure)
- Drawing a red line (as opposed to threatening a nation with war)
- If necessary: low intensity warfare (and promised to be 100% free of war crimes and 100% free of civilian deaths, but 100% the same taste as real war – or your money back!)
- The afore mentioned fight against terrorism (as opposed to committing acts of terrorism against an civilian population)
- Bringing someone to the negotiation table (where one resides supposedly all the time, and not at the warfare table, where only the enemy resides)
- And most of all: upholding international law (which is constantly broken by the enemy, and it falls again and again to the US government and its valiant military to restore international law, alone) in order to keep the world a safe place (Yeah!)
So again, what are these "presidential murder decrees", and the acts committed based on them? Are they act of wars? Contrary to what the political class in the US claims, these acts bear some hallmark features of acts of war. For these acts, the US uses mainly military means (I sure hope that kill lists and murder-drones will never be considered part of reasonable police work). These acts thoroughly lack criminal investigation and due process. The information basis is – as with all "intelligence" information – dubious at best. The legal basis is thin ice, which would not stand in any legal system worth the name. These acts are not directed at apprehending and questioning a suspect. (Why do I even have to write this? Shouldn't this be obvious?). That it is not a declared war (declared in the classical sense, as not even the "war on terror" had ever been formally declared in any way by any side) does not really make things better. De facto, these are acts of war.
But if these are acts of war, then probably they should be considered war crimes. Persons "hors de combat" (outside of combat), and those not taking part in hostilities, shall be protected and treated humanely – or so Wikipedia claims. The political class must therefore claim that these acts are not, and can not be considered, acts of war.
Fine, what about the contrary position, that these acts are not acts of war? After all, the targets of these presidential kill lists live in a murky twilight of not really being considered as "soldiers of an army" by the Hague Conventions. But what position would kill lists and murder-drones have in international law or any "civilian" legal system? The simple answer is that no Rechtsstaat – a "state of justice" – can operate like that and still be considered a state in which there exists justice. There is however a term for states in which the head of state orders people to be killed without oversight through an independent legal system: Such a state is called an dictatorship.
But what are these acts then, if they are not warfare? Imagine the Head of State of Iran, Russia or Syria ordering such acts based on whimsical "intelligence", and they would be rightfully branded as state terrorism. And that is what they are: Terrorism, no qualifier needed. And it is only through the American military might, and the collaboration of "US-friendly" governments, that it is possible to keep such acts of blatant disrespect for international law in a Heisenberg like state of being both acts of war and not being acts of war – existing outside of international law, unchecked and unchallenged. America is enforcing its grotesque version of international law, and not for the "benefit of the nation" (nor for the benefit of its population), but in the interest and for the benefit of a ravenous alliance between political class, military and capital.
When John Pilger wrote about "the silent military coup that took over Washington", one of his main points was that the US military has an relinquishing grip on US (foreign) policy, an grip that remained untouched by "contrary to who we are" Obama. After all, Obama said it quite clearly when he remarked that the "Afghan" war (and therefore the "war on terror") is a war of necessity. The military however came to power long before Obama. Pilger carefully avoided to pin-point the time this coup had happened. One could argue that the military–industrial complex is as old as the Pentagon, and was forged in the Second World War (as Eisenhower infamously tried to warn us about). One could argue that the Monroe doctrine formally established US militarism (and imperialism) a good hundred years before WWII, to reign in a era when the US military was used both inside and outside of the USA (with its expanding territory) in the interest of American corporations, banks and generally America's financial interests. Or one could go back fifty years before that to the American Revolutionary War, and polemically claim that rich white fucks used military force in their own interests (mainly to rid themselves of the rivals for power, in the form of British feudalism and imperialism), laying the foundation for US militarism. And speaking of British imperialism: One could probably argue that there is a good bit of British heritage in US imperialism. Arguably imperialism packed with a bit more proclaimed civil liberties and rights to make it more palatable for the masses. (Rights which in effect mainly protect those old white males wielding power in the name of US imperialism, rights which were not made for women, or blacks, or – good god! – slaves when the "Union" started its imperial business.)
My point is: This is nothing new. Michael Parenti was once asked (and I paraphrase here): "Is Iraq like Vietnam?", to which he answered "No. But Washington is still Washington."
But yeah, "we" urgently need to bomb the shit out of Syria. It is for the good of the Syrian people that we bomb the shit out of them. Their human rights demand it that we bomb the shit out of them. Gavrilo Princip (alone) started the first world war, and Hitler (alone) the second. Assad is like Hitler, therefore we have to bomb Syria, there is no way round. It is the right thing to do for Washington, as it always have been the right thing to bomb Hitler, as it was America that killed Hitler. The Russians are protecting Assad, as they have never done anything to fight against Hitler.
Munich 1938: The international community is paralysed by Russia's veto, which prevents action to be taken against Hitler.
9th of May 2005, the 60th anniversary of the end of fascist Germany: Like every year Russia celebrates its decision to do nothing against Hitler.
// This is a generic comment on the United States of America
// I could have written more (maybe), but what I have written is already too much in every respect
// Adjust things like $POTUS_NAME and $ENEMY_NAME were needed, and add current US transgressions to keep it up to date
// Don't ever attempt to create a exhaustive list of US transgressions
// Any sarcasm is intentional
Let me add one last thing. Harold Pinter once read an excerpt from Pablo Neruda's "I'm Explaining a Few Things" in the context of the 2003 war against Iraq:
And one morning all that was burning,Harold Pinter then added:
one morning the bonfires
leapt out of the earth
devouring human beings
and from then on fire,
gunpowder from then on,
and from then on blood.
Bandits with planes and Moors,
bandits with finger-rings and duchesses,
bandits with black friars spattering blessings
came through the sky to kill children
and the blood of children ran through the streets
without fuss, like children's blood.
Jackals that the jackals would despise
stones that the dry thistle would bite on and spit out,
vipers that the vipers would abominate.
Face to face with you I have seen the blood
of Spain tower like a tide
to drown you in one wave
of pride and knives.
Treacherous generals:
see my dead house,
look at broken Spain:
from every house burning metal flows
instead of flowers
from every socket of Spain
Spain emerges
and from every dead child a rifle with eyes
and from every crime bullets are born
which will one day find
the bull's eye of your hearts.
And you will ask: why doesn't his poetry speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land.
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Come and see the blood in the streets.
Let me make it quite clear that in quoting from Neruda's poem I am in no way comparing Republican Spain to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. I quote Neruda because nowhere in contemporary poetry have I read such a powerful visceral description of the bombing of civilians.I have nothing to add to that.
--
* The Hague Conventions became necessary as the governments were leading wars that were more and more ugly, much more ugly than wars already were – hence some rules were needed to keep the business of killing thy enemy a bit "civilized", to remain acceptable in the population (nobody minds killing an dangerous enemy, but slaughtering "innocent" civilians makes it all to clear what wars are about…). BTW: Special, more murky rules apply when one is not directly engaged with the enemy. It was probably the bombing of civilians through the fascist Luftwaffe, followed by the retaliationary bombing of civilians through the RAF a few years later (as at the time it was the main thing the RAF was build to do) that made it acceptable to bomb civilians. This regression should have been rolled back – but then again if you start questioning parts of "modern" warfare, you might end up questioning the entire business of war, war that is usually fought in the name of some never quite clearly defined "national interests", so better not go there…
Thursday, August 15, 2013
The Effective Spy?
Adam Curtin: BUGGER
… The spy world became a fascinating other universe that was full of layer upon layer of deception, where the men who inhabited it spent their time trying to penetrate through the circles of falsehood to the inner sanctum of truth.
It was an image that was powerfully helped by John Le Carre's novels - and his anti-hero George Smiley. Le Carre's novels were a clever piece of PR - because they appeared to be more gritty and realistic than the glamourised James Bond image.
But it was just another layer of deception - because Smiley and his search for a hidden mole expressed powerfully the paranoid and unfounded fantasies of the dissident MI5 agents.
But it was a world that was all made-up. Le Carre - who had himself been a spy - admitted this, and described what the true reality of the spy world was:
For a while you wondered whether the fools were pretending to be fools as some kind of deception, or whether there was a real efficient service somewhere else.
Later in my fiction, I invented one.
But alas the reality was the mediocrity. Ex-colonial policemen mingling with failed academics, failed lawyers, failed missionaries and failed debutantes gave our canteen the amorphous quality of an Old School outing on the Orient express. Everyone seemed to smell of failure.
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Thursday, January 3, 2013
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
Anarchist Fodder For Thought
Dmitry Orlov's second part of "In Praise of Anarchy":
…
Kropotkin's third, and perhaps most significant observation addresses a common misunderstanding of Darwinian evolution. You see, when most people say “Darwinian” it turns out that they actually mean to say “Hobbesian.” Kropotkin pointed out that the term “survival of the fittest” has been misinterpreted to mean that animals compete against other animals of their own species, whereas that just happens to be the shortest path to extinction. This misinterpretation of facts directly observable from nature has led to the faulty Hobbsian justification of the economic appetite as something natural and evolved, and therefore inevitable, giving rise to the conjectured laws of the marketplace, which in turn favor nonempathic, exclusionary, brutal, possessive individualists. The result has been to enshrine mental illness—primitive, pathological, degenerate narcissism—as the ultimate evolutionary adaptation and the basis of the laws of economics. Thus, an entire edifice of economic theory has been erected atop a foundation of delusion borne of a misunderstanding of the patterns present in nature.
…
Saturday, September 29, 2012
Wednesday, July 25, 2012
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Richard Seymour on proletarian hegemony
Richard Seymour on proletarian hegemony:
Peter Thomas, in his Marxism talk about Gramsci and the 99%, made a defence of the concept of proletarian hegemony against certain misconceptions that might put people off it. Pointing out that the working class is numerically and proportionately larger than ever, he suggested that the 99% was potentially the name for hegemony as a principle of unity, rather than as simply a form of domination: what we all have in common, despite our immense differences in identity, social category, occupational culture and habitus, etc., is that we are all exploited. This is what working class hegemony means in practice today. Not, generally speaking, the unity of a national popular bloc of classes under working class leadership: this becomes less the case as capitalist mode of production has entrenched itself, and thus simplified the class system in one sense. Rather, it means the dominance of the working class as the axis of our common exploitation and thus as the strategically privileged basis for organisation. The arrival of the Asturian miners in Puerta del Sol, site of the Indignado rebellion, could be the the sign and sanction of this hegemony in motion. The question, then, is whether Spain's heteroclite social and industrial struggles can be stitched together under the banner of the 99%.
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Why we don't have cheap energy yet
Today's solid fuelled reactor vendors make long term revenues by making profit on the fuel fabrication. Without any fuel to fabricate and sell, a LFTR would have to adopt a different business model.
Friday, May 25, 2012
"Our government rearmed the enemy in order to oppose our old allies"
How did I pick up this dark, ironical, flip view of the war? Why do I enjoy exhibiting it? The answer is that I contracted it in the infantry. Even when I write professionally about Walt Whitman or Samuel Johnson, about the theory of comparative literature or the problems facing the literary biographer, the voice that’s audible is that of the pissed-off infantryman, disguised as a literary and cultural commentator. He is embittered that the Air Corps had beds to sleep in, that Patton’s Third Army got all the credit, that noncombatants of the Medical Administrative and Quartermaster Corps wore the same battle stars as he, that soon after the war the “enemy” he had labored to destroy had been rearmed by his own government and positioned to oppose one of his old allies. “We broke our ass for nothin’,” says Sergeant Croft in The Naked and the Dead. These are this speaker’s residual complaints while he is affecting to be annoyed primarily by someone’s bad writing or slipshod logic or lazy editing or pretentious ideas. As Louis Simpson says, “The war made me a foot-soldier for the rest of my life,” and after any war foot soldiers are touchy.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
George Carlin on Divide and Conquer
George Carlin on Divide and Conquer:
Now, to balance the scale, I'd like to talk about some things that bring us together, things that point out our similarities instead of our differences. 'Cause that's all you ever hear about in this country. It's our differences.
That's all the media and the politicians are ever talking about--the things that separate us, things that make us different from one another. That's the way the ruling class operates in any society. They try to divide the rest of the people.
They keep the lower and the middle classes fighting with each other so that they, the rich, can run off with all the fucking money! Fairly simple thing. Happens to work. You know? Anything different--that's what they're gonna talk about--race, religion, ethnic and national background, jobs, income, education, social status, sexuality, anything they can do to keep us fighting with each other, so that they can keep going to the bank!
You know how I define the economic and social classes in this country? The upper class keeps all of the money, pays none of the taxes. The middle class pays all of the taxes, does all of the work. The poor are there just to scare the shit out of the middle class. Keep 'em showing up at those jobs.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
What is a ‘left’ or ‘workers’ government?
What is a ‘left’ or ‘workers’ government?While it was written 1977, with the impressions of Chile and Italy, is still (and especially) interesting today in the context of Venezuela – were we are seeing the realization – and Greece – were this option is currently not really on the table, but things might have to change.
A government of the traditional workers’ parties does not gain power, merely because the majority of workers have voted for it. It also depends upon being allowed take office by the bourgeoisie, in other words they feel they are forced to give up their governmental positions to the leaders of the parties with a base in the workers’ movement. They do this either because they feel it would be counter-productive to destroy the myths of parliamentary democracy merely to prevent the temporary loss of power or because they feel compelled to retreat before a mass upsurge of the workers movement (as in Germany in 1918 and the SPD-USPD government, or in Spain with the Caballero government of September 1936).
However, it is only governmental positions that the bourgeoisie give up. They maintain their control over the major sectors of the state machine, over the key areas of the economy and over most of the means of communication. In other words, they retreat from the ‘front-line’ of the state, which in any case have less and less importance as the concentration of capital proceeds, but instead consolidate their power in the hierarchies of the state machine and in the economy.
Thus the ‘left government’ is not a revolutionary government formed by the smashing of the bourgeois state. Rather it exists with capitalism and its state still intact.
At a time of major social crisis the bourgeoisie is prepared to concede even major material reforms on condition that their main agency of control – the state machine – is left intact. Short-term concessions can be made as long as the bourgeoisie retain the means to perpetuate their long-term control. Reforms can always be repealed and fresh attacks launched when the workers movement has declined. …
Wednesday, April 4, 2012
Free-market Think Tank asks Nanny State for Help
The Heartland Institute has assembled a top-notch legal team and is asking the government to pursue criminal charges against Peter Gleick and his accomplices, as well as preparing to file civil suits against Gleick and his accomplices on behalf of Heartland and the scientists who have come under attack because of his actions.I think it is amusing when a free-market think tank runs to the nanny state for help. But well, they are right to sue the hell out of Gleick, but they are wrong in their believe in free-markets…
Thursday, February 16, 2012
"Markets are efficient if and only if P = NP"
Markets are efficient if and only if P = NP
Philip Maymin, NYU-Polytechnic Institute
ABSTRACT
I prove that if markets are weak-form efficient, meaning current prices fully reflect all information available in past prices, then P = NP, meaning every computational problem whose solution can be verified in polynomial time can also be solved in polynomial time. I also prove the converse by showing how we can “program” the market to solve NP-complete problems. Since P probably does not equal NP, markets are probably not efficient. Specifically, markets become increasingly inefficient as the time series lengthens or becomes more frequent. An illustration by way of partitioning the excess returns to momentum strategies based on data availability confirms this prediction.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
"More Evidence that Universal Health Care Would be Less Expensive"
We've written quite a bit about single payer health care systems as well as other models that are a mixture of public and private spending.
We've also analyzed some of the sources of excess cost of US healthcare to other countries. What is uniformly true about universal health care systems is that they all spend less on medical care per capita than the US. …
More Evidence that Universal Health Care Would be Less Expensive – denialism blog
Friday, February 10, 2012
Franco is still dead…
Franco is still dead…
By Scott Horton
… but his spirit seems to have inspired a courtroom drama in Madrid the past few weeks. Baltasar Garzón—the crusading investigative judge who once sought the arrest of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet, probed crimes against humanity in Central America, exposed massive corruption in public-works projects in Spain, and tried to open the lid on the mass killings of the Franco era—was himself placed in the dock, accused of misuse of his judicial powers. In the end little was left to chance in the rush to destroy him, an effort that brought into alignment the many powerful figures he had offended: the now-governing conservative Partido Popular, which was richly embarrassed by the corruption disclosures of the Garzón-led Gürtel investigation; the United States government, which was angered by his pursuit of a torture investigation focusing on Guantánamo and was openly working for his removal; the heirs of the Franco era, who were whipped into a state of hysteria about the prospect of an investigation into the mass murders of that era.
Even Spain’s leftists and liberals seemed uneasy with the quixotic and sometimes politically tin-eared jurist. Only a ragtag group of human-rights advocates and bar associations from around the Hispanic world stood with Garzón, remembering how he had stood with them against the atrocity crimes of dictatorships, which the polite and the powerful preferred simply to ignore. Now Garzón stands convicted of abuse of power, in comically politicized proceedings that he is not permitted to appeal.
…
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