God save the Princess Consort

Charles, Prince of Wales, New South Wales, New Zealand, Canada, Belize, PNG, and a number of other unlikely places is going to make an honest woman of Mrs Parker-Bowles. The palace has announced she will be known as the Princess Consort when Charles becomes king. We won't move to a republic any faster and I refuse to get all hot, bothered and censorious about marriage styles of the rich, royal and famous.

Elsewhere, The Road to Surfdom displays a surprisingly wowserish approach to royal marriage and No Right Turn (correctly) couldn't give a rat's arse. For once, Tim is wrong.

Once upon a time Lord Clarendon's daughter Anne shocked her father and consigned him to political oblivion by marrying the future James II and VII and becoming a rock chopper. When the outraged father asked her how she could become a Papist she answered that she thought the lusts of Henry Tudor an unlikely vehicle for the intervention of the Holy Spirit.

Weirdly, the only woman to marry an heir to the British throne since the unfortunate Anne in 1637 was Diana. The vital historical questions remain on everyone's lips. What will His Excellency the Governor-General say? Why does the Church of Henry VIII oppose divorce? Will Camilla be the first Queen known as a Princess Consort? Will Murdoch get the exclusive rights?

detaining Vanstone

Inquiry into Rau detention planned

The federal government would hold an inquiry into the immigration detention of a mentally ill Australian woman for 10 months, Prime Minister John Howard said.

Cornelia Rau, a 39-year-old permanent resident who came to Australia when she was 18 months old, was released from South Australia's Baxter immigration centre on Friday.

Refugee advocates say Ms Rau was locked in solitary confinement for up to 20 hours a day for about two months.

Mr Howard said Ms Rau's detention was unsatisfactory.

The Man of Steel apparently thinks Immigration Minister Vanstone the best person to advise him on an inquiry into her own unsatisfactory performance.

Sadly, the one thing the inquiry will not address is what's wrong with the way Vanstone and her advisers run the detention camps. It's not all that hard to find out the facts about an Australian citizen. Immigration did not get it right for month after month. These are the same people who tell us they always get it right when they identify undocumented asylum seekers.

If they can't identify an Australian citizen on the missing persons list, what hope do they have with people with no documentation? It's established fact, beyond any doubt, that Cornelia Rau has a severe and long-standing mental illness. Immigration's doctors could not even find that.

Howard's inquiry is not going to question how immigration can detain an Australian citizen as an unlawful immigrant. That would be questioning Kafka. And the minister has no worries that she won't be detained in office.

verbaling Mamdouh Habib

Australian's Long Path in U.S. Antiterrorism Maze

According to Australian intelligence, he went to Afghanistan and entered Qaeda camps. He completed basic training and an advanced course, including surveillance of urban public buildings, a senior Australian official said.

A few days before Sept. 11, 2001, Mr. Habib called his wife from Pakistan, Australian officials said this week. (Her phone was being monitored.) In the conversation, they said, Mr. Habib said something big was going to happen in America in the next few days.

But this phone call, which has not previously been reported, does not support the allegation that Mr. Habib had advance knowledge that planes were going to be flown into the World Trade Center or the Pentagon, another Australian official cautioned. Just about everyone in Kandahar and the Qaeda camps knew that something big was coming, he said. 'There was a buzz.'

and:

American officials did not explain why they never brought charges. A Defense Department spokesman said of the release, 'This action allows our Australian allies to ensure that their citizens who previously engaged in or supported terrorist activities do not do so in the future.'

Australian officials declined to discuss what measures they were taking, beyond saying that Mr. Habib's passport would be revoked and that he would be closely monitored.

The circumstances of his release were uncertain until the last. On Wednesday, as Mr. Habib was preparing to leave Guantánamo, guards there terrified him by telling him he was being sent to Egypt, according to his lawyer. Mr. Habib had petitioned a federal judge to keep the United States from sending him back there. Not until Mr. Margulies arrived to accompany him to Australia did Mr. Habib know that he was indeed going home.

He arrived Friday afternoon.

'He's not in custody,' said the Australian attorney general, Philip Ruddock. 'He's at liberty.'

Attorney-General Ruddock has always contended that Habib is a terrorist. it's a new element to the story if the US was relying on Asutralia's intercept for evidence. If that evidence was not good enough for a military commission, where the prosecutor, not the commission, determines evidentiary questions, then it must be fairly slender evidence. If Ruddock was privy to that evidence then he has been consistently lying to parliament and people throughout the course of Habib's detention. It's what happens when you abandon ancient liberties in favour of silly laws justified by the supreme emergency idea. The US even kept Ruddock himself in the dark. When governments cock up in the dark, they tend not to want the lights on.

And there's one small footnote.

Freed Australian Returns From Guantanamo

The 48-year-old Egyptian-born former Sydney coffee shop owner wore an oversized white T-shirt shirt, rolled-up jeans and tennis shoes as he stepped down from a chartered Gulfstream G-550 jet with an American flag on its tail, walking behind his American lawyer Joe Margulies.

The CIA is reported to use a chartered Gulfstream to effect extraordinary renditions. Ruddock says Australia chartered this flight. Perhaps our great and powerful friends recommended the company. The charter company has a fairly dubious history. It looks like Habib may have flown home in the same plane the CIA used to move him to Egypt for torture.

Kim Beazley has a chance to start his long campaign of vigoorous opposition. The opposition and minor parties have a Senate majority until June.

If nominated I will not campaign, if elected I will not serve

I would like to join Tim Dunlop in announcing I will not run for the opposition leadership. Although the party is in a god-awful mess I have decided to do absolutely nothing to try and change that by questioning the approach of the present leadership. It is vital that everyone else not run for anything either so we can unite the party by talking about absolutely nothing. Ideally, no labor candidates should run for parliament at the next election to ensure there is no disunity when no-one gets elected. Audio of my press conference is available here.

quem di vult destruire dementant

Kevin Rudd has decided the best way to prove he has the courage to be opposition leader is to get off at Redfern. Jenny Macklin, despite her contribution to the Latham disaster will quietly continue to do whatever it is she's been doing since she became deputy leader. The factions and the fixers will congratulate themselves on how well they've handled the whole thing. About the only consolation is that it would be politically difficult for the Man of Steel to take advantage of his 67% approval and call an early election.

in the Ruddy light of a new day

At first, i was attracted to the idea of Beazley leading the ALP again. I think Latham fell without being pushed, and obviously his illness exacerbated his tendency to go it alone. Bringing the old warhorse back for a last run, and perhaps even a Howard-style resurrection, would be a great story. Sadly, events have destroyed that idea.

Beazley has vetoed the idea of Julia Gillard as deputy leader. jenny Macklin refuses to stand aside and Beazley has said he is very happy with her as deputy leader. Beazley is looking to the NSW machine for support. Crean refuses to go away and is up to his armpits in the campaign for the leadership. The reason we keep getting nothing campaigns and nothing platforms is the dominance of the party by its factions. The Democratic Audit of Australia has just released a detailed analysis of the way Australian parties operate. They find:

The Labor Party can claim that its formal structures and processes include powerful representative and responsible components. The Platform is written and amended by a Conference of delegates from the grass-roots organisation. The caucus, the cabinet and the leader are bound by the Conference and the Platform. Each level of the party is formally responsible to a wider sector of the party. In practice, however, three features question the efficacy of this. First, the union base has, for over a century, been able to dominate the numbers at the Conferences. Second, there has been some ‘seepage of authority’ to the top levels of the party. Third, the factions have become allpowerful.

That has to change and, despite Beazley's avowal that he's learnt his lessons, there's no sign he actually has. keeping Macklin and swanning around with the NSW Right and is not going to challenge factional dominance or get the ALP open to the force of ideas again. Rudd would be a better choice. And at least he can utter a sentence without 14 subclauses.

Meanwhile, the ALP rank and file, let alone the ALP's wider supporters in the electorate, are sick of the insider game. As we heard on the 7:30 report:

DR PETER BOTSMAN: No-one doubts Kim's abilities, but this is an insider fallacy, that all we need to do is have a one-horse race and everything's gonna be okay. The truth is that the rank and file are very angry when they hear people on the radio saying that it's just a matter of being, again, loyal to a leader. That's not what people want. People want to be able to participate in the Labor Party and know that their voices count. They want to be able to actually elect a leader themselves, and really, this should be the last time that Labor allows a caucus to simply elect a leader. It really should be a rank-and-file vote for a leader, and the new leader needs to be about advocating those kinds of changes in the party.

MAXINE McKEW: But as Kim Beazley said the other day, it's not a US-style primary system. In the meantime, we're stuck with the caucus system as it is; they elect the leader. Who is the most viable alternative, then, do you think, to Kim Beazley?

There's a better question then if this is a caucus election or a primary election. The question is what kind of eleciton should it be. Most progressive parties elect their leader by direct ballot, or by a wider electoral college. The caucus system has not produced a successful leader since Keating. That's getting to be a long time.

Labor needs a new deputy

We will probably never know why Latham chose not to issue a tsunami statement. Clearly the guy is gravely ill and perhaps that effected his judgement. Deputy Opposition Leader Jenny Macklin does not have the pancreatitis defence. US Vice-president Charles Dawes said his job was 'to look at newspapers every morning to see how the president's health is.'

A competent deputy would have been banging on Latham's door 24 hours or so after Latham looked like staying silent on the tsunami. Macklin didn't and the ALP should find a new deputy leader who will. The Beazley unity ticket looks inevitable. That does not mean Labor cannot or should not find a more energetic deputy. It would also be a fine chance to signal that the faction system is on the way out.

Andrew Bartlett's comments are worth reading.

PS Somehow I resisted the temptation to call this 'For the congaline is over...'

This is Tuesday, it must be Iran

The Coming Wars

George W. Bush's re-election was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities' strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control - against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism - during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as "facilitators" of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way.

Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush Administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy goal in the Middle East: the establishment of democracy throughout the region. Bush's re-ection is regarded within the Administration as evidence of America's support for his decision to go to war. It has reaffirmed the position of the neoconservatives in the Pentagon's civilian leadership who advocated the invasion, including Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Douglas Feith, the Under-secretary for Policy. According to a former high-level intelligence official, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the election and told them, in essence, that the naysayers had been heard and the American people did not accept their message. Rumsfeld added that America was committed to staying in Iraq and that there would be no second-guessing.

"This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone," the former high-level intelligence official told me. "Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah - we've got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism."

Bush is on record as claiming the election ratified his Iraq policy:

"We had an accountability moment and that's called the 2004 elections," he told the Washington Post.

"The American people listened to different assessments made about what was taking place in Iraq and they looked at the two candidates and chose me."

Meanwhile, This is Rumor Control scores 5 out of 10 for the rumour that:

Speechwriters for George Bush are aghast at the President's insistence that his inaugural address contain an explicit military pledge to strike Iran militarily unless they announce an end to their nuclear program.

Iran has around 3 times Iraq's population, and over 4 times Iraq's area. The terrain is more varied, including some of the highest mountain ranges in the region. Broadly the population is better educated and national unity is much greater. Iraq, while nowhere near a democracy, is not an eccentric personal dictatorship wrecked by 12 years of economic sanctions. The US cannot sustain its occupation of Iraq. How the hell can they think about taking on a nation at least 4 times stronger?

The inaugural should make interesting listening. So should the Man of Steel's reaction.

Gay bombs: US secret weapon plan OR Planet Pentagon Bombards Earth with Sex Rays!

Gay bombs: US secret weapon plan

A US plan to develop a bad breath bomb and a chemical weapon to make enemy soldiers sexually irresistible to each other has been revealed in newly declassified documents.

New Scientist's web site reports that the documents show the Pentagon considered a range of non-lethal chemical weapons aimed at disrupting enemy discipline and morale.

Bush the Imperious meets Wang the Perverted! I doubt this project succeeded or the sex bomb would certainly be available at a number of outlets in Newtown. Presumably the projected weapon would have been carefully designed to ensure the enemy soldiers only developed ungovernable lust and not a desire to marry.

Update
A couple of people assumed I was making this up. That is untrue and here is the proof.

and the other Hickup

Excuses, excuses from a regime too ready to throw away the key

So what now for Hicks? According to the US Department of Defence website, he is one of four Guantanamo enemy combatants who have been charged. There are more than 500 detainees at the US base in Cuba. Most have been there almost three years, since the invasion of Afghanistan. The US military says a quarter are of 'intelligence value' and all remaining detainees are being 'reviewed' to see how dangerous a threat they really pose to the US. We know that close to 200 soon are to be released to their home countries.

The charges against Hicks are quite a way off from being 'tried' by a military commission. Hundreds of writs of habeas corpus are flying around the US court system. The US Supreme Court in June said the detainees do have access to the civil courts and now all eyes are on the case of Osama bin Laden's alleged chauffeur, Samil Ahmed Hamdan. The Bush Administration is appealing a decision of the US District Court last November that the prisoner was entitled to a hearing to determine whether he was a prisoner of war and therefore subject to the Geneva Convention, rather than the Gonzales/Bush convention.

Hicks's lawyers have made an identical application to that of Hamdan's. It is all heading to the US Supreme Court but it may take years to get there.

The Gonzales/Bush plan for the quick railroading of anyone rounded-up by their forces is coming unstuck, and like most else with that spooky regime, there is no fall-back plan.

Major Mori, Hicks' US military lawyer, has made the point that Hicks faces charges much less than anything alleged against Habib. Why then does he remain at Guantánamo facing a military commission? And how long before the Hicks case reaches a court and it, like Habib's, comes unstuck?

the wordiest case of sour grapes on record?

Mamdouh Habib remains a person of security concern: Ruddock

[Attorney-General]PHILIP RUDDOCK: Look, the important point, I think, that needs to be understood is that we looked very closely at information that was known to us as to whether or not he could be charged here in Australia, and the Americans had always taken the view that if we were in a position to charge him - and I might say, for that matter, Mr Hicks - that they would have released them to us for the purposes of pursuing those matters. We looked at our laws in relation to these matters and found our laws were deficient.

HEATHER EWART: Is there any prospect of charges being laid against him in Australia?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, there is no prospect under Australian law, on the information that is now before us. But if further information were to become known which suggests that offences have occurred, then charges will be brought.

HEATHER EWART: So you will keep him under surveillance?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: No, I've not said that. What I've said is that he remains a person of security concern and that, in accordance with our law, competent authorities will do what is appropriate in relation to him, and we don't talk about those matters; it's not helpful to talk about them...

HEATHER EWART: But why not, because in effect you're forcing this man to live in some sort of twilight zone.

PHILIP RUDDOCK: No, it's not. It's a situation in which competent authorities have certain lawful entitlements where they can pursue certain matters. Decisions have to be taken in relation to those matters. We do not detail those measures, and it's not appropriate to put that sort of information into the public arena. It only compromises its effectiveness.

HEATHER EWART: But in a democracy like ours, if charges are not laid, isn't a person entitled to live normally with the presumption of innocence?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, they're entitled to live a normal life, subject to Australian law, and...

HEATHER EWART: Do you see what I mean? What sort of precedent are you setting here?

PHILIP RUDDOCK: Well, no, I'm simply saying that under Australian law, there are certain authorities that have - with appropriate consents to undertake a range of activities in relation to any Australians.

What did our Government know?

Habib has not been charged with any offence. It is clear that he has not committed any offence against Australian law: the legislation that might apply was not passed until nine months after his arrest. We can assume that he has not committed any offence against the law of Pakistan or Afghanistan, since those countries have not sought to extradite or charge him. It seems that he has not committed any offence against American law: if he had, he could have been taken to America for trial, but that has not happened.

The decision to send Habib home is the result of two US court decisions in 2004, which appear to have upset American plans. In US courts, evidence illegally obtained must be excluded, because the state should not break the law. Both in American and Australian courts, confessions obtained under duress must be excluded, because of their inherent unreliability. Confessions obtained by use of torture are excluded on both grounds.

The Americans planned to try Guantanamo prisoners in military commissions that would not be bound by the ordinary rules of evidence. Specifically, the commissions were to be able to receive evidence of confessions obtained by use of torture. The overwhelming inference is that the Australian Government knew or suspected that Habib had been tortured.

However, last July the US Supreme Court ruled that it had jurisdiction to review the circumstances of detention in Guantanamo. In November, the Federal Court for the District of Columbia held that the military commissions violated the standards required for fair trials. It ordered that the commissions be halted until America complied with the Geneva Convention relating to prisoners of war.

That ruling spelt the end of the military commissions. The conditions under which detainees in Guantanamo have been held and interrogated practically guarantee that any confession obtained would be excluded from evidence in any trial that could be described as fair.

At Guantanamo, detainees were forbidden to speak; they were permitted two minutes a week for a shower; they were regularly subjected to body searches, including cavity searches; they were frequently held short-shackled for hours on end: this involves squatting on the floor, the hands shackled between the legs and attached to the floor by a chain so short that the detainee can scarcely move. Detainees were held in cells in which the air-conditioning was set to freezing temperatures. They were interrogated while chained to the floor; they were not allowed to go to the toilet during interrogations and would have to urinate in their clothes. Detainees were threatened with electric shocks; they were threatened with the prospect of being sent to Egypt or Morocco to be tortured.

It is not hard to see why Habib is now to be released. After his arrest in October 2001, he was sent to Egypt for six months, where he was tortured. He was then taken to Guantanamo and interrogated for three years. No American (or Australian) court would admit confessions obtained by these methods.

What is really significant is the timing of his release. The November court decision means, in substance, that evidence obtained by use of torture would not be allowed. The Americans must then have realised that they could never make a case against Habib. Only then did the Australian Government ask that he be returned to Australia.

This sequence of events raises some very disturbing questions: How much did Australia know about the treatment of Habib? Why did Australia not ask for his return before this - why did we wait until evidence obtained by torture was ruled out? Why has Attorney-General Philip Ruddock been so guarded in his comments about the treatment to which Habib has been subjected?

The overwhelming inference is that the Australian Government knew or suspected that Habib had been tortured, but believed that a military commission could use evidence obtained this way. Conditions in Guantanamo have been the subject of many reliable reports over the past two years. From late 2002, Major-General Geoffrey Miller was in charge at Guantanamo. In April last year, he was exposed as the person responsible for the outrages at Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. The Australian Government knew of those events months earlier. It must have known of the mistreatment of prisoners in Guantanamo; it must have known that the mistreatment was designed to obtain evidence that could only be admissible in a trial that lacked the basic requirements of fairness. And it certainly knew that the victims of this mistreatment included two Australian citizens. The alternative, only slightly less disturbing, is that our Government simply did not care how the Americans treated Australian citizens.

Detainee Says U.S. Handed Him Over for Torture

Habib, a 48-year-old Australian citizen who grew up in Egypt, was about to disappear for six months into an Egyptian prison. There, he says, his Egyptian captors shocked him with high-voltage wires, hung him from metal hooks on the wall, nearly drowned him and mercilessly beat and kicked him.

The former coffee shop owner soon confessed to a litany of terrorism-related crimes, including teaching martial arts to several of the Sept. 11 hijackers and planning a hijacking himself. Habib later insisted that his confessions were false and given under "duress and torture."

Habib's more than three years of incarceration came into sharp focus this week, when the Bush administration agreed not to charge him with any crime and to repatriate him to Australia. Once home, he will be free, Australian officials said Wednesday.

"When he returns to Australia, he will not be detained or charged," said Matt Francis, a spokesman for the Australian Embassy in Washington. "He is a person of security interest, but we do not have any laws under which he can be charged."

Habib's vivid account of his secret delivery by U.S. forces to an Egyptian prison and his torture before being transferred to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in May 2002 is the most detailed to surface of a CIA-run operation that has played a growing role in the war on terrorism. The operation, the controversial "extraordinary renditions" program, is run by a secret unit in the CIA's counter-terrorism center.

Habib's U.S. lawyer, Joseph Margulies, said he planned to inform his client of his impending freedom when he visited him at Guantanamo on Saturday.

"If the U.S. government believes he's done something wrong, they wouldn't let him go," he said.

In a statement, the Defense Department said the Australian government had "made a number of security assurances … that were important to the transfer decision."

The CIA declined to comment on the case.

News accounts, congressional testimony and independent investigations suggest the spy agency has covertly delivered at least 18 terrorism suspects since 1998 to Egypt, Syria, Jordan and other Middle Eastern nations where, according to State Department reports, torture has been widely used on prisoners.

Impunity in breaking the law is a bad thing. No-one, including the US and Australian governments, contends that the Torture Convention is not part of the domestic law of Australia and the US. Why then are both governments violating it directly (the US) or winking at such violations (Australia's competent authorities)?

I would have thought the most basic sign of competence in the competent authorities dashing about with their lawful pursuits of certain undefined matters would be to understand the presumption of innocence and the right to liberty. Evidently that particular hurdle is too high a leap for Australia's first law officer.

Mamdouh Habib a free man

11 January 2005 US to release Habib without charge.

Australian Mamdouh Habib will be released from the United States's prison camp at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, without charge.

The US has told the Australian Government it does not intend to bring charges against Mr Habib, who has been at Guantanamo Bay since 2002.

Attorney-General Philip Ruddock says there is no timetable for his repatriation.

Mr Habib's lawyer Stephen Hopper has told Sky News he was surprised by the announcement.

'It's a great day for justice. This proves we were right all along,' he said.

The US Government continues to assert that Mr Habib had prior knowledge of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.

Mr Ruddock says it is unlikely he will face charges when he returns to Australia because counter-terrorism laws are not retrospective.

But he says Mr Habib will remain of interest to Australian security agencies.

Mr Hopper has called on the Attorney-General to concede that Mr Habib is innocent.

'This sounds like the Attorney-General is full of sour grapes,' he said.

'Why can't he clear this man?'

Mr Habib's release means that David Hicks, from Adelaide, is the only Australian still detained at Guantanamo Bay.

On Monday, a Pentagon spokesman said only about 25 per cent of the 550 detainees at Guantanamo Bay had intelligence value.

More than 200 other detainees have been returned to their home countries to be detained or released.

11 January 2005 Government must explain: Labor

Opposition attorney-general spokeswoman Nicola Roxon said the release raised serious questions about the Australian government's credibility.

"It does seem extraordinary that for three years the government has been describing Mr Habib as a terrorist, really from day one, and now the US is going to release him I think we're entitled to an explanation as to the reasons for the release and the reasons that the government was already accusing him from day one," Ms Roxon said.

"Is it really fair to spend three years telling the public that (Hicks and Mr Habib) are terrorists?

"To then find that (one of) these men isn't going to be charged, let alone convicted, certainly raises questions over both of them."

Mr Ruddock said Hicks would not be repatriated because he faced three terrorism-related chargers under American law, for which he is due to face trial by a military commission in early March.

The sudden decision to request the release of Mr Habib may have been prompted by allegations last week that the men had been tortured while in custody at Guantanamo Bay, Ms Roxon said.

"You have to query why he's now suddenly being released and we'd like the government to explain whether it's related in any way to the recent allegations of treatment in custody, torture in custody," she said.

8 December 2004 Ruddock Doorstop Interview, Canberra

JOURNALIST:  Just on another topic, there’s been some reports from foreign wire services, concerns about unfair practises at Guantanamo Bay. There’s a human rights lawyer, one of the first British non-government people to visit Guantanamo Bay, said he had serious concerns about the situation there. Do you have any sort of updated information on the, where does the Government stand on?

ATTORNEY-GENERAL:  Well look, our interest is of course in relation to Australians who are within that system and to ensure that they are humanely treated and we’ve taken those matters up as matters specific to them are raised and they are being investigated. There’ve been some preliminary comments, we’ve received assurances that they have not been the subject of abuse and there are further enquiries that have yet to report. Look, I know that there are people who want to focus on every statement made in relation to these issues whether people have been there, whether they haven’t, whether they have any first hand knowledge or whether they don’t. The only point I’d make is that the only context in which these matters become relevant are legitimate complaints to those who are in authority that can do something about it and that means that people who have information, first hand information, that warrants enquiry they should take it to the United States authorities. If it relates to the Australians, we will follow it up as we have before. But there’s no new information that’s come to us relating to either Hicks or Habib. Finally, if these matters are relevant to any trial process in which they’re engaged, whatever form of process is used, evidence that is obtained inappropriately, that issue will be raised before the competent authorities, and it’s unhelpful I think if people have substantive issues they want to see raised at a trial, to have them canvassed in a way which is prejudicial to a proper consideration of those issues by people who are competent to determine them in a proper process, whether it’s the military commission or whether it’s any other trial process. I don’t comment on those issues here at home and it’s unreasonable to expect that I should comment on every remark made by people who may or may not have first hand information and published abroad.

JOURNALIST:  Are you confident you’re getting information regarding some of these tribunals, there’s been some concerns about combatant status review tribunal not being sort of being open and accountable and providing enough information publicly?

ATTORNEY-GENERAL:  Look, there are people who are going to mount critiques, who don’t like the results, and

JOURNALIST:  But do they see the results?

ATTORNEY-GENERAL:  Well, I have seen results published, I think they said today that 33 people have been [inaudible] combatant review tribunals, their matters have been considered and

JOURNALIST:  [inaudible] reasons been given?

ATTORNEY-GENERAL:  Well, I think that again is a matter for the Americans as to what degree they will publish material that may have broader security implications. I mean the question of holding people and reviewing their status as combatants is one, a serious one, and if you have material that goes to national security, you may not publish it. It’s the same issue that we are debating in the Parliament now as to our own courts where you have national security information the extent to which it is appropriate to put it in the public domain. So, if the United States formed a view that information that might go to sources, might go to the techniques that they use, may compromise foreign agencies who provide information, they may well have the same view that we have that that information needs to be handled sensitively and not necessarily in the public domain. I don’t think it tends to be a major question to me.

What a difference a month makes. The reason, as Ruddock should know, for the traditional rights that protect civil liberties, is that uncontrolled executive power makes mistakes. In this case the Bush administration, backed by a supine Ruddock and a supine Man of Steel, has inflicted catastrophic harm on this man and his family. The US now says it cannot charge him. He must be very innocent indeed for the US military tribunal system, with its disregard for the rules of evidence and the independence of the courts, cannot convict.

Perhaps what we are seeing is not so much a new form of warfare as an old form of bungling with impunity.

One wonders if the Autralian government will offer an apology or any form of compensation. I would not not hold my breath waiting.

rendering unto Bush

UN Convention Against Torture

Article 3
No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.

For the purpose of determining whether there are such grounds, the competent authorities shall take into account all relevant considerations including, where applicable, the existence in the State concerned of a consistent pattern of gross, flagrant or mass violations of human rights.

Terror Suspect Alleges Torture: Detainee Says U.S. Sent Him to Egypt Before Guantanamo

U.S. authorities in late 2001 forcibly transferred an Australian citizen to Egypt, where, he alleges, he was tortured for six months before being flown to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, according to court papers made public yesterday in a petition seeking to halt U.S. plans to return him to Egypt.

Egyptian-born Mamdouh Habib, who was detained in Pakistan in October 2001 as a suspected al Qaeda trainer, alleges that while under Egyptian detention he was hung by his arms from hooks, repeatedly shocked, nearly drowned and brutally beaten, and he contends that U.S. and international law prohibits sending him back.

Habib's case is only the second to describe a secret practice called "rendition," under which the CIA has sent suspected terrorists to be interrogated in countries where torture has been well documented. It is unclear which U.S. agency transferred Habib to Egypt.

Habib's is the first case to challenge the legality of the practice and could have implications for U.S. plans to send large numbers of Guantanamo Bay detainees to Egypt, Yemen, Saudi Arabia and other countries with poor human rights records.

The CIA has acknowledged that it conducts renditions, but the agency and Bush administration officials who have publicly addressed the matter say they never intend for the captives to be tortured and, in fact, seek pledges from foreign governments that they will treat the captives humanely

The Habib case is getting closer and closer to the Maher Arar case in Canada. Australia has consistently defended the US violation of Article 3. Canada held a judicial inquiry. Australia relies on press releases from Philip Ruddock.

torturing the truth

UN Convention against Torture

Article 2
Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

US Department of Justice Memo Re: Legal Standards Applicable Under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A (PDF)

Torture is abhorrent both to American law and values and to international norms. This universal repudiation of torture is reflected in our criminal law, for example, 18 U.S.C. §§ 23402340A; international agreements, exemplified by the United Nations Convention Against Torture (the "CAT")'; customary international law2; centuries of Anglo-American law3; and the longstanding policy of the United States, repeatedly and recently reaffirmed by the President.4

This Office interpreted the federal criminal prohibition against torture—codified at 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A—in Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. §§ 23402340A (Aug. 1, 2002) ("August 2002 Memorandum"). The August 2002 Memorandum also addressed a number of issues beyond interpretation of those statutory provisions, including the President's Commander-in-Chief power, and various defenses that might be asserted to avoid potential liability under sections 2340-2340A. See id. at 31 -46.

Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court

Article 2(e)
"Torture" means the intentional infliction of severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, upon a person in the custody or under the control of the accused; except that torture shall not include pain or suffering arising only from, inherent in or incidental to, lawful sanctions;

INTERNATIONAL CRIMINAL COURT ACT 2002 - SECT 3

Principal object of Act
(1) The principal object of this Act is to facilitate compliance with Australia's obligations under the Statute.

(2) Accordingly, this Act does not affect the primacy of Australia's right to exercise its jurisdiction with respect to crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC.

Note: The crimes within the jurisdiction of the ICC are set out as crimes in Australia in Division 268 of the Criminal Code .

Australia signed the Rome Statute on 9 Dec 1998. Australia ratified the Rome Statute on 1 Jul 2002.

That is all very comforting. Except that the lawyers for Mamdou Habib say otherwise.

Documents reveal Habib torture allegations

New detail has emerged about the alleged torture inflicted on Australian terrorism suspect Mamdouh Habib while he was in Egypt.

Mr Habib was captured by US forces in Pakistan in 2001 and was moved to Egypt before being taken to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.

The ABC has obtained previously sealed court documents in which Mr Habib's lawyers outline allegations of routine torture and beatings while he was in Egypt.

The Sydney man says he was left in rooms filled with water up to his chin, tortured with electrodes during questioning and threatened with dogs.

He says the torture made him give some false confessions.

Mr Habib relayed the claims to his lawyers several weeks ago and they plan to use the information if the US tries to have him returned to Egypt.

Mr Habib's Australia-based lawyer, Stephen Hopper, says the new evidence implicates the Australian Government.

Mr Hopper says the most serious allegation in the documents concerns the involvement of an Australian official in his client's alleged abuse before he was taken to Egypt.

"The Australian officials stood by while what we believe were CIA officials engaged in the type of abuses we've seen at Abu Graib, where Mamdouh Habib's clothes were cut off, he's handcuffed, held down with women around him," he said.

The Bush administration is an enthusiastic practitioner of extraordinary rendition, by which a prisoner is sent to a country whch practices torture. Habib claims he was sent to Egypt and tortured there before his transfer to Guantánamo. The Australian government denied all knowledge of torture in Egypt or elsewhere before the last hearings of the Senate Foreign Affairs estimates committee on 24 May 2003. If Habib's lawyers can substantiate that he was subjected to torture with the knowledge of the Australian government then those responsible are guilty of crimes against humanity and, if not prosecuted in Australia, can be prosecuted before the International Criminal Court.

worrying about the Old Peak

Scientists Predict a MegaTsunami May Devastate Eastern U.S. Coastline

It may not happen anytime soon, but the Cumbre Vieja volcano in the Canary Islands is bound to erupt again - and when it does, it may well set in motion a tsunami wave more massive than any in recorded history. According to a new model by Simon Day of University College London and Steven Ward of the University of California, this mega-tsunami, which they describe in the September 2001 issue of Geophysical Research Letters, would rouse waves 100 meters high along the West Saharan shore, seas more than 40 meters high on the north coast of Brazil, and water walls towering 50 meters in the air off the coast of Florida and in the Caribbean. Britain, Spain, Portugal and France would also face sizeable waves.

Day and his colleagues predicted earlier that a future eruption of Cumbre Vieja would most likely prompt a serious landslide on the volcano's western side. They guessed that a chunk of rock twice the volume of the Isle of Man might break off, rush into the sea and create a debris avalanche deposit extending as far as 60 kilometers from the island. The new model adds to this picture, forecasting that Cumbre Vieja's collapse would send up a dome of water 900 meters high and tens of kilometers wide. As that dome collapsed and rebounded, giant waves would form and build, fueled by what is known as a tsunami wave train, itself created as the landslide sped away from the island underwater. In 10 minutes, such a tsunami would travel almost 250 kilometers.

Scientists: Volcano Could Swamp U.S. with Mega-Tsunami

A wall of water up to 55 yards high crashing into the Atlantic seaboard of the United States, flattening everything in its path -- not a Hollywood movie but a dire prophecy by some British and U.S. academics.

As the international community struggles to aid victims of last month's devastating tsunami in southern Asia, scientists warn an eruption of a volcano in Spain's Canary Islands could unleash a "mega-tsunami" larger than any in recorded history.

According to their controversial study, an explosion of the Cumbre Vieja volcano on the island of La Palma could send a chunk of rock twice the size of the Isle of Wight into the Atlantic at up to 220 miles an hour.

Many experts believe the risk of "mega-tsunamis" from such a massive landslide on La Palma has been hugely overstated.

But in the study's scenario, energy released would equal the electricity consumption of the United States for six months, sending gigantic tidal waves across the Atlantic at the speed of a jet plane.

It's now obvious a tsunami warning system will be set up in the Indian Ocean. One hopes we don't end up having the same debate some time about why no-one thought to set up an Atlantic Ocean system. Or why no-one thought to monitor Cumbre Vieja.

Coming soon to a planet near you:

• supervolcanoes
  
• asteroid impacts
  
• the grey goo
  

beating around the Bushes in a catastrophe

There is a proposition floating around that it is wrong to criticise George Bush for his tardness in recognising the scale of Indian Ocean tsunami. The Un commented on the stinginess of the rich countries in general, and Bush, moved eprhaps by a guilty conscience, snapped back:

Bush on Wednesday dismissed suggestions that America was stingy as "misguided and ill-informed" and set off alarm bells in the relief community by announcing he had assembled a core group of Australia, India, Japan and the United States to coordinate the relief effort.

The move prompted speculation that Bush hoped to supplant the United Nations, which has taken the lead in coordinating natural disaster relief for the past five decades.

But Powell said the group had been formed only because Washington saw a need for a coordination mechanism consisting of countries in the region "with assets, experience and capability that could be brought to bear right away."

The group "might expand slightly but in due course we hope the core group will work itself out of business because we will have brought all of the international organizations into play under the overall supervision and leadership of the United Nations," Powell said.

Comes now Colin Powell, to tell a stunned world:

Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Tuesday he hoped American aid for Asia's tsunami victims would strengthen U.S. and regional security by removing any discontent that could fuel terrorism.

Powell, touring three countries ravaged by the Dec. 26 disaster in which about 150,000 people were killed, said Washington had sent money, ships, helicopters and aircraft for humanitarian reasons.

But there were U.S. and regional security interests in providing aid to help countries recover from such disasters, he told a joint news conference with Indonesian Foreign Minister Hassan Wirajuda in Jakarta.

"We hope that through these efforts people will see that the United States is committed to helping those who are in poverty, to those who are not able to educate their children, to those who are looking for jobs and need a country that is based on law and order," said Powell.

"We believe it is in the best interest of those countries and it's in our best interest and it dries up those pools of dissatisfaction which might give rise to terrorist activity," he said.

It seems strange that the Bush administration can argue that disaster relief is actually a security matter and that its partisans then demand that such efforts be above criticism. Evading criticism led directlyto the Iraqi diaster. Democracries are supposed to flourish on criticism and George Bush is not supposed to be, like Caesar's wife, above suspicion.

For the record, New Zealand blogger, No Right Turn has put together a table giving current aid cmmitments on a per capita basis. At the time Bush sought control of the aid effort through the core group the US was not, and still is not, the largest aid contributor. Other than the customary backhander to the UN, what is the core group for? Is Bush proposing to send Halliburton into Aceh to repeat their sterling performance in Iraq?

Labor's election loss cannot be blamed on the fear of interest rate rises

However, when we rank the correlations, and run further, more sophisticated statistical modeling, to see which variables were simply descriptive, or ecological, and which highlighted stronger, underlying behaviour, we see the swing took place amongst formerly rusted on Labor voters - those in lower to middle income, unskilled or blue collar trades jobs, who just happened to be paying lower to middle sized mortgages.

Many of these migrated to the Coalition via Family First preferences. They didn't swing to Labor because they didn't want to, and they haven't wanted to, since John Howard won in 1966, although Kim Beazley did well among some of the lower income groups in 1998.

The swing to Labor took place amongst groups disaffected with the Coalition since 2001, like the well paid and the better educated, or professionals in medicine, architecture and commerce, who just happened to be paying higher mortgages and carrying the largest total household debt.

NATSEM's study showed this group was smart enough to pay off their high-interest credit card every month, so they're smart enough not to waste a vote on a party they think will cost them money.

Surely, if any group was motivated by concern about interest rates, and educated about economic management and the economy, it would be this one - and it swung to Labor, not to the Coalition.

Labor's real problem lies in the fact that the Howard Government has continued to whittle away Labor's diehard supporters since 1996, through effective economic management and better election campaigning.

Which gets back to the reason for the creation of the myth about interest rates in the first place: The Labor leadership now rationalising the loss is simply not prepared to take responsibility for it.

Perhaps Labor should campaign for aspirations, not aspirationals. The group that swung to Labor sound a lot like the vaunted 'doctors' wives' (a disastrous name for a potential swing demographic if ever there was one) who were moved by Labor's superior social policy and approach to human rights and the environment. Pity Labor's only effort on those issues was the forest policy Latham announced too late to win seats on the mainland but just in time to lose seats in forest districts. Labor needs to start talking to people who care about social issues and needs to start telling it's blue-collar vote that social change is not a threat.

Wikipedia | 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake

The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake was an undersea megathrust earthquake of moment magnitude 9.0 that struck the Indian Ocean off the western coast of northern Sumatra, Indonesia on December 26, 2004 at 00:58:50 UTC (or 07:58:50 local time in Jakarta and Bangkok.) It was the largest earthquake on Earth since the 9.2-magnitude Good Friday Earthquake which struck Alaska, USA, on March 27, 1964, and the fourth largest since 1900. Tens of thousands were killed by the resulting tsunamis, which were as high as 10 m (33 ft) in some locations and struck within three hours of the quake. Southern part of india had a deep impact because of the killer waves which resulted because of the quake.

As usual, Wikipedia has about the best coverage in terms of news and where you can donate money.

No Peace on Earth During Unjust War

One of the criteria for a just war is that there be a reasonable chance of victory. Where is that reasonable chance? Each extra day of the war makes it more unjust, more criminal. The guilty people are not only the Vulcans but those Americans who in the November election endorsed the war.

They are also responsible for the Iraqi deaths, especially the men who join the police or the army because they need the money to support their families -- their jobs eaten up in the maw of the American ''liberation.'' Iraqi deaths don't trouble many Americans. Their attitude is not unlike the e-mail writer who said he rejoices every time a Muslim kills another Muslim. ''Let Allah sort them out.''

This time of the year we celebrate ''peace on Earth to men of good will.'' Americans must face the fact that they can no longer claim to be men and women of good will, not as long as they support an unnecessary, foolish, ill-conceived, badly executed and, finally, unwinnable war. If most people in other countries blame the war on Americans, we earned that blame in the November election -- not that there is any serious reason to believe that Sen. John Kerry would have had the courage to end the war. Perhaps if he had changed his mind, as he did about the war in Vietnam, and opposed the Iraqi war, he might have won. Too late now. Too late till 2010 -- or 2020.

Note: Some conservative Catholics -- Republicans, I assume -- are spreading the word on the Internet that I am an ''unfrocked'' (sic) priest. That is false witness. I am and have been for 50 years a priest in good standing of the Archdiocese of Chicago. Call (312) 751-8220 if you don't believe me. False witness is a grave sin and must be confessed before Christmas communion. Moreover, those who commit it are bound to restore the reputation of the one about whom they've lied.

I like Andrew Greeley's clerical detective novels. His Note struck me as much as his main article. False witness is not only a grave sin in the Catholic tradition. It is included in the Decalogue at Exodus 20:16. Evidently all those literalist Bible-believing Religious Right types have discovered an exemption from the Ten Commandments for political campaigns.

Happy Feast of the Incarnation.

Denial as a a method of war

US strategy 'based in fantasyland'

America's handling of the occupation of Iraq came in for scathing criticism yesterday, with government officials accused of living in a 'fantasyland' and failing to learn from mistakes made in Vietnam.

A report issued by the independent Centre for Strategic and International Studies charged that the occupation had been handled by 'ideologues' in the Bush administration who consistently underestimated the scale of the problems they were facing and this had contributed to a culture in which facts were wilfully misrepresented.

The report lists a litany of errors on the part of the US. 'Their strategic assessments of Iraq were wrong,' it says. 'They were fundamentally wrong about how the Iraqi people would view the United States invasion. They were wrong about the problems in establishing effective governance, and they underestimated the difficulties in creating a new government that was legitimate in Iraqi eyes.

'They greatly exaggerated the relevance and influence of Iraqi exiles, and greatly underestimated the scale of Iraq's economic, ethnic, and demographic problems.'

The report lays responsibility for these errors with the policymakers in Washington.

'The problem with dealing with the Iraqi army and security forces was handled largely by ideologues who had a totally unrealistic grand strategy for transforming Iraq and the Middle East,' the report says.

Under the heading 'Denial as a method of counter-insurgency warfare', it notes that the US 'failed to honestly assess the facts on the ground in a manner reminiscent of Vietnam'.

But there was a rare attempt at honesty in the Pentagon yesterday when the defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said he was 'truly saddened' that anybody might think he did not care about US soldiers. 'Their grief,' he said, 'is something I feel to my core.'

The full report (large PDF) is, if anything, more damning than The Guardian's description. I'm still reading but I was really struck by:

To date, and at every stage, the transition process has failed to deliver anticipated results. The Interim Governing Council was not a representative body; the current government has not been in a position to exercise actual sovereignty since June 2004; and Iraq's security forces will not be capable of ensuring security by January 2005. Politically, whatever grace period Prime Minister Allawi once enjoyed seems a thing of the past. Too tough for some, insufficiently so for others, and overly dependent on the U.S. for most, he is bereft of genuine political backing, social basis or functioning institutions. Worthy as it was, the attempt to broaden political participation through a national conference was taken over by the formerly exiled opposition, depriving it of credibility and longterm relevance.

Yet, while the political timetable bears little relation to reality, it has become essentially unalterable: given the huge mistrust developed since April 2003, any significant modification, however sensible, would probably be viewed as a U.S. attempt to perpetuate the occupation.29 Given the de facto equation of a successful transition process with adherence to a formal calendar, moreover, any such alteration also would be viewed as a major setback. Delaying the transfer of sovereignty until such time as it could actually be exercised, or postponing elections until they could be truly inclusive,30 carry such high political costs because of the worsening situation -- in other words, for the precise reason that delay and postponement would make sense.

It strikes me that the real weakness in almost everything the Bush administration does is impunity. They practice impunity at every turn from authorising torture and then denying they've authorised it to defying the UN charter to misleading the American people about progress. Not one US official has everbeen dismissed or even criticised for the conduct of this quagmire. The ultimate price of that is going to be terrible for the American people, but incalculably worse for the Iraqis who have been conscripted as bit-players in a US political drama.

rotting from the top

UN Convention against Torture

Article 2
Each State Party shall take effective legislative, administrative, judicial or other measures to prevent acts of torture in any territory under its jurisdiction.

No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat or war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture.
An order from a superior officer or a public authority may not be invoked as a justification of torture.

From President Bush's interviews with Al Arabiya and Alhurra, 5/5/04

President Bush views the Abu Ghraib prison abuses as abhorrent.

What took place at Abu Ghraib does not represent America, which is a compassionate country that believes in freedom. America sent troops into Iraq to promote freedom.

In a democracy, everything is not perfect and mistakes are made. But also in a democracy, those mistakes will be investigated and people will be brought to justice. We are an open society that is willing to fully investigate what took place in Abu Ghraib.

This stands in stark contrast to life under Saddam Hussein. His trained torturers were never brought to justice under his regime. There were no investigations about mistreatment of people.

There are investigations under way to determine how widespread abuse may be occurring.

President Bush has instructed Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to find the truth and then tell the Iraqi people and world the truth. Then, to address the problems in a forthright, up-front manner.

FBI E-Mail Refers to Presidential Order Authorizing Inhumane Interrogation Techniques

A document released for the first time today by the American Civil Liberties Union suggests that President Bush issued an Executive Order authorizing the use of inhumane interrogation methods against detainees in Iraq. Also released by the ACLU today are a slew of other records including a December 2003 FBI e-mail that characterizes methods used by the Defense Department as 'torture' and a June 2004 'Urgent Report' to the Director of the FBI that raises concerns that abuse of detainees is being covered up.

'These documents raise grave questions about where the blame for widespread detainee abuse ultimately rests,' said ACLU Executive Director Anthony D. Romero. 'Top government officials can no longer hide from public scrutiny by pointing the finger at a few low-ranking soldiers.'

The documents were obtained after the ACLU and other public interest organizations filed a lawsuit against the government for failing to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The two-page e-mail that references an Executive Order states that the President directly authorized interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, stress positions, the use of military dogs, and 'sensory deprivation through the use of hoods, etc.' The ACLU is urging the White House to confirm or deny the existence of such an order and immediately to release the order if it exists. The FBI e-mail, which was sent in May 2004 from 'On Scene Commander--Baghdad' to a handful of senior FBI officials, notes that the FBI has prohibited its agents from employing the techniques that the President is said to have authorized.

The ACLU documents are available here. Perhaps the president might find it useful to investigate himself in his unstoppable drive for accountability.

Golkar selects Yudhoyono ally as new leader

Yusuf Kalla, who stood as Yudhoyono's running mate in September presidential polls, was chosen to lead Golkar, the former political vehicle of former president Suharto, after he beat incumbent Akbar Tanjung.

The victory during a chaotic party conference at Nusa Dua on the resort island of Bali marks a major coup for the president, who has faced an uphill struggle to push reforms through a parliament dominated by a hostile Golkar.

Tanjung, who scored 156 votes to Kalla's 323, had pledged to strengthen the party's resolve as an opposition force if he was elected for another five years. Instead the vice president is likely to steer Golkar behind Yudhoyono.

A number of Indonesia's political hierarchies shook when Yudhoyono was elected. A struggle continues for control of the two largest Muslim organisations between the president's allies his opponents' allies. The importance of the Golkar leadership is shown by the attempt to poison Yusuf Kalla before the Golkar convention.

Winning control of Golkar gives Yudhoyono a legislative majority and is a massive step toward making his official power real.

derogatory rights

Abraham Lincoln 1838

How then shall we perform it? At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it? Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never! All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

A (FC) and others v. Secretary of State for the Home Department (Respondent) per Lord Hoffmann:

This is one of the most important cases which the House has had to decide in recent years. It calls into question the very existence of an ancient liberty of which this country has until now been very proud: freedom from arbitrary arrest and detention. The power which the Home Secretary seeks to uphold is a power to detain people indefinitely without charge or trial. Nothing could be more antithetical to the instincts and traditions of the people of the United Kingdom.

and:

The real threat to the life of the nation, in the sense of a people living in accordance with its traditional laws and political values, comes not from terrorism but from laws such as these. That is the true measure of what terrorism may achieve. It is for Parliament to decide whether to give the terrorists such a victory.

Ahmed Ali Al-Kateb V Godwin per Gleeson CJ:

During the Second World War, reg 26 of the National Security (General) Regulations 1939 (Cth) provided:

The Minister may if satisfied with respect to any particular person that with a view to prevent that person acting in any manner prejudicial to the public safety or the defence of the Commonwealth it is necessary to do so make an order ... directing that he be detained in such place and under such conditions as the Minister from time to time determines ...

This Court unanimously upheld the validity of the regulation in Ex parte Walsh[48]. Starke J said that the application for habeas corpus was "hopeless"[49]. In Little v The Commonwealth[50], Dixon J held that an order of the Minister under this regulation was not examinable upon any ground other than bad faith.

During the greater part of the period when reg 26 was in force, the relevant Minister was Dr H V Evatt, who had been a Justice of this Court and was later to become President of the United Nations General Assembly. According to a speech he gave in Parliament on 19 July 1944, 6174 persons were detained under this regulation at the time when he became the Minister and 1180 persons were still detained under the regulation in July 1944[51]. He does not appear to have thought that, in making orders under reg 26, he was acting in breach of Ch III of the Constitution

The High Court also upheld a similar regulation during the First World War. My great grandfather, whose family had lived here since the 1840s, faced internment because he had a German name.

In August the High Court made a legally impeccable and morally repugnant decision that our constitution permits indefinite detention without charge. The moral repugnance does not belong to the judges, it belongs to a political elite which has always opposed a bill of rights in Australia. The Court said, also per Gleeson CJ:

Eminent lawyers who have studied the question firmly believe that the Australian Constitution should contain a Bill of Rights which substantially adopts the rules found in the most important of the international human rights instruments[75]. It is an enduring - and many would say a just - criticism of Australia that it is now one of the few countries in the Western world that does not have a Bill of Rights. But, desirable as a Bill of Rights may be, it is not to be inserted into our Constitution by judicial decisions drawing on international instruments that are not even part of the law of this country. It would be absurd to suggest that the meaning of a grant of power in s 51 of the Constitution can be elucidated by the enactments of the Parliament. Yet those who propose that the Constitution should be read so as to conform with the rules of international law are forced to argue that rules contained in treaties made by the executive government are relevant in interpreting the Constitution. It is hard to accept, for example, that the meaning of the trade and commerce power can be affected by the Australian government entering into multilateral trade agreements. It is even more difficult to accept that the Constitution's meaning is affected by rules created by the agreements and practices of other countries. If that were the case, judges would have to have a "loose-leaf" copy of the Constitution. If Australia is to have a Bill of Rights, it must be done in the constitutional way - hard though its achievement may be - by persuading the people to amend the Constitution by inserting such a Bill.

The moral fault lies with both major parties who show a consistent record of threatening the nation, as Lord Hoffman and Abraham Lincoln said, by abridging liberties in the name of crisis. We need a major political party that accepts the priority of human rights. We do not have such a major party. To return to Lord Hoffman:

When Milton urged the government of his day not to censor the press even in time of civil war, he said:

Lords and Commons of England, consider what nation it is whereof ye are, and whereof ye are the governours

96. This is a nation which has been tested in adversity, which has survived physical destruction and catastrophic loss of life. I do not underestimate the ability of fanatical groups of terrorists to kill and destroy, but they do not threaten the life of the nation. Whether we would survive Hitler hung in the balance, but there is no doubt that we shall survive Al-Qaeda. The Spanish people have not said that what happened in Madrid, hideous crime as it was, threatened the life of their nation. Their legendary pride would not allow it. Terrorist violence, serious as it is, does not threaten our institutions of government or our existence as a civil community.

Australia will survive al-Qa'ida as well. But we need to stop empowering the terrorists by abridging our liberties.

signs of the times

Winning in the Streets

One of the unlikely heroes of the Ukraine uprising is a state television sign-language interpreter, who began signing on the air that the telecast was lies and that she wouldn't go along with it any longer. Inspired by her actions, 200 journalists for state-run TV and radio vowed to no longer act as the government's mouthpiece. How many bland White House assertions that the sky is green and the grass is blue would it take to drive someone at Fox News to denounce the status quo like that?

The US media are deaf to reality anyway.

smoke and mirrors

Different targets, same tactics

The relevant facts about the oil for food programme were pushed to one side. James Dobbins, the former US ambassador to Afghanistan, wrote in the Washington Post: 'First, no American funds were stolen. Second, no UN funds were stolen. Third, the oil-for-food programme achieved its two objectives: providing food to the Iraqi people and preventing Saddam Hussein from rebuilding his military threat to the region.'

Then the Post published a story that the US was wire-tapping Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, in an operation to discover that he was secretly aiding Iran in hiding its nuclear weapons programme. In fact, ElBaradei was working with the Europeans in negotiating a resolution with the Iranians. It was this diplomacy that neoconservatives were seeking to discredit. Compliance with internationally monitored nuclear development of Iran isn't the objective of the neocons; they want regime change, Iraqredux.

The techniques of the permanent campaign, especially negative attacks, recently applied in the re-election contest, are being transferred seamlessly and shamelessly to international relations.

In part, the slash-and-smear campaign against Annan and ElBaradei is the Bush administration's effort to subjugate international civil servants and organisations to its central command. But this episode also reflects the rolling coup of the neocons as they struggle for power, position and policy in a second Bush term.

Just how bad can a smear campaign get? The US named Dolly Downer as ElBaradei's successor. Dolly Downer refused. Even the Howard govenrment will not sign up to this one.

Meanwhile, we have a new Bush doctrine to deal with the collapse in the US exchange rate and trade deficit.

Bush aims to cut deficits

President George W Bush pledged overnight to work with the US Congress to reduce the country's huge deficits and support a strong US dollar.
Bush said that in addition to the budget deficit, America suffers from a huge trade deficit.

"That's easy to resolve," Bush said. "People can buy more US products if they're worried about the trade deficit."

Bush's comments came a day after the government reported that America's trade deficit hit a monthly record of $US55.5 billion ($A73.42 billion) in October.

"The policy of my government is a strong-dollar policy," Bush said during an Oval Office meeting with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

"We're going to take this issue on seriously with the Congress," the president said, after Berlusconi raised concerns about the dollar's fall.

The Bush administration has controlled the US presidency, house and senate for 4 years. They have done nothing to cut the deficit in that time, despite their unprecedented power. The US is being governed by Rufus T Firefly.

Something in the dihydrogen monoxide

The city councillors of Aliso Viejo in Orange County, California, are well-meaning, socially responsible people. And when they came across the huge threat posed to their constituents by dihydrogen monoxide they did what any elected official should do: they took steps to protect their community. A motion due to go before the city legislature proposed banning the potentially deadly substance from within the city boundaries.

Researchers found that the presence of dihydrogen monoxide in Aliso Viejo had reached startling levels: it was present in its crude form, often spilling unmonitored on to the city streets; it was found to be a crucial ingredient in many common chemical compounds; its presence was even detected in that most ubiquitous of civilised artifacts, the styrofoam cup.

And it got worse: dihydrogen monoxide is lethal if inhaled, causes severe burns in its gaseous state, and is the major component in acid rain. Prolonged exposure to solid dihydrogen monoxide can cause severe tissue damage. It can, said the city council report, 'threaten human safety and health'.

Fortunately for the concerned legislators, the rat was smelt before it got as far as the debating chamber. The perils of dihydrogen monoxide have been ignored until now largely because it is better known by its common name: water.

'It's embarrassing,' said city manager David Norman in an inspired act of buck-passing. 'We had a paralegal who did bad research.'

At least the city fathers of Aliso Viejo can sleep soundly at night now that they know dihydrogen monoxie is not ert. I guess it's one for the legal philosophers. If the city council had enacted this law, how should a judge have treated offenders? How is dihydrogen monoxide related to dry economics? How persuasive is the evidence presented by the Dihydrogen Monoxide Research Division?

Fortunately there is no danger of governments pursuing empirical error. It is, for instance, impossible that a number of governments would invade another country over weapons of mass destruction that do not exist.

flagging missile defence

Well, I'm glad the US missile defence agency can launch a dummy successfully.

The first test in nearly two years of a multibillion-dollar U.S. anti-missile shield failed on Wednesday when the interceptor missile shut down on its launch pad in the central Pacific, the Pentagon said.

About 16 minutes earlier, a target missile carrying a mock warhead had been successfully launched from Kodiak Island, Alaska, the Pentagon's Missile Defense Agency said in a statement.

Ah, yes, this is the invincible shield of steel the Australian government wants to protect Sydney from North Korean missilies. I think I preerred it when the Coalition were part of the reality-based community

NZ parliament threatens survival of the species

New Zealand has just passed a civil unions bill. This is sad because, if the Man of Steel is to be believed, it means that the New Zealanders face extinction in the near future. On the other hand, believing the Man of Steel has never been a terrifically effective cognitive strategy.

The parliamentary committee on the bill reported:

Most submitters who opposed the bill were specifically opposed to same-sex couples raising children, as they did not believe gay parents could have the same outcomes for children as heterosexual married parents. This is not supported by the research specifically comparing the heterosexual and homosexual parents. Because these beliefs about lesbian and gay parents and their children are open to empirical test, their accuracy can be tested. The American Psychological Association, Lesbian and Gay Parenting: Summary of Research Findings, found:

there is no evidence to suggest that lesbians and gay men are unfit to be parents or that psychosocial development among children of gay men or lesbians is compromised in any respect relative to that among offspring of heterosexual parents. Not a single study has found children of gay or lesbian parents to be disadvantaged in any significant respect relative to children of heterosexual parents. Indeed, the evidence to date suggests that home environments provided by gay and lesbian parents are as likely as those provided by heterosexual parents to support and enable children’s psychosocial growth.

This was supported by the paper ‘‘(How) Does the Sexual Orientation of Parents Matter?’’ published in the American Sociological Review. Both these papers identify the most significant difference to be the discrimination their parents face. The research states:

we propose that homophobia and discrimination are the chief reasons why parental sexual orientation matters at all. Because lesbigay parents do not enjoy the same rights, respect, and recognition as heterosexual parents, their children contend with the burdens of vicarious social stigma.

We recognise the concern that submitters have about the environments in which children are being raised. However, we believe that the biggest unchecked social change New Zealanders have seen in the last 30 years has not been about homosexual rights, the erosion of marriage or no-fault divorce. We believe the shift in work/life balance from favouring the family to favouring the workplace, needs to be urgently addressed. Many submitters agreed that this shift has had significant consequences for New Zealand families. We were reminded that this was important for both parents as their relationship with their children can become strained where workplace pressures mean they do not have much time to engage with their children and play a significant role in their development. The quality of these most significant relationships is pivotal to children’s success.

In the dying days of the last parliament, the government, ably assisted by the opposition, whipped through a bill excluding gay marriage. The prime minister's justification (apart from his undisclosed deal with Family First) was the protection of children. Apparently stigmatizing kids by refusing to let their parents marry does them good.

Behind the facade of our miracle economy

Reserve Bank figures show that in 1992 household debt was 56 per cent of income. At the end of 2002 it was 125 per cent. Over that period the average mortgage went from $82,000 to $175,000. Over the same period income rose about 40 per cent and, at the same time, jobs became increasingly casual or part time and so less secure.

It was in outer suburbs such as Mill Park that people worried during the recent election campaign about how a possible interest rate rise would threaten prosperity. Yet because people on the outer suburban fringe are among the most reliant on the motor car, we now know higher petrol prices are having the impact of a de facto rate rise.

There is an interesting precedent for a glittering facade. Gregor Alexandrovich Potemkin was an 18th century Russian military leader, politician and lover to Empress Catherine the Great. His name comes down to us partly because of his construction of elaborate fake villages in the Ukraine and Crimea for Catherine to see during her royal tours. She was apparently unaware that the prosperity was a fake.

So are our suburbs a reflection of economic potemkinism?

Economist Peter Brain, who heads the National Institute of Economic and Industry Research, thinks it is a facade and thus unsustainable and liable to collapse.

'One of the problems of borrowing against home values is that values can fall, but the debt will not. House prices are static in most of Australia and have already started to fall in Sydney,' he says. 'We are borrowing overseas to fund consumption and leaving nothing to the next generations except debt. The next generations, X and Y, will have nothing to inherit.'

So who will own the tracts of housing in a generation? Brain thinks that in 20 or 30 years, if we don't do something to stop the debt blow-out, much of our housing could be owned by overseas investors, the same sort of people who are lending money to the banks for us to borrow.

Debt is the elephant in the living room. Next time the opposition has a chance, perhaps they'll discuss this instead of signing Potemkin guarantees to keep interest rates low and 'easy' credit flowing. Next time someone is looking for a populist campaign platform how will the Coalition or Labor deal with a movement based on denouncing the faceless investors beyond our shores who want to take the McMansions away?

Stamping on Conroy

Never mind the policy, Latham prefers to fight

There were three policy proposals and 18 pieces of legislation on the shadow cabinet agenda. But Mark Latham was more intent on an Old West shootout with Stephen Conroy, his deputy Senate leader.

No sooner had yesterday's 10am meeting begun than the two men - half of Labor's 'leadership group' - restarted the internecine battle over Conroy's alleged 'jihad' against his boss.

The bitter fight over Conroy's alleged leaking against his leader was supposed to have been resolved on Sunday, when Conroy put out a statement of contrition and loyalty. Obviously not.

According to one witness, the Latham-Conroy interaction was 'like the gunfight at the OK Corral'. Another said the rest of the 17-member shadow cabinet watched in appalled silence like 'spectators at a tennis match' as the two argued.

The best way for opposition leaders to stamp their authority on the party is by winning elections. If that can't be done, life gets harder. The Latham campaign lost ground to the coalition. Finding out why that happened is a much higher priority than trying to stamp on heads. It is to be hoped we don't hear soon that the ALP leadership would walk over hot coals for Latham.

What's actually happening is a longterm decline in Labor support among aspirational voters.

The changing face of the ALP voter

From 1996 onwards, the industrial backbone of the ALP vote, as measured by our modeling, began to weaken, until, at the last election, the correlation - for male tradespersons - had lapsed into statistical insignificance, at plus 0.06, while female tradespersons was minus 0.08.

Skilled blue collar workers, such as electricians, carpenters, like open cut miners before them, have now been lost to the ALP, as their wages have increased, in a more competitive international economy.

On the flipside, in 1966, the correlation between the ALP two-party preferred vote and male and female clerks was 0.00 and plus 0.02 respectively - totally neutral. The latter, under the then census definitions, was a huge group, comprising one in three female workers and 11 per cent of the total workforce.

Over the intervening 38 years, this group’s links with the Liberals has weakened, along with sales staff; to the extent that the less skilled clerical and sales groups, such as sales assistants, keyboard operators, bar staff and carers, comprise the major electoral base for the ALP.

The images that we saw in the last week of the election campaign, of the tattooed Tasmanian timber workers - cheering a Liberal Prime Minister - were only the visible tip of the statistical iceberg.

Food for thought for the new ALP front bench … not to mention the ACTU.

Perhaps the ALP frontbench could devote its attentions to why its aspirational campaign inspired so few aspirational votes. perhaps they could also think abput their gift of a Victorian Senate seat to Family First.

Votes pinched by Family First

On the basis of the modelling, Black reaches this conclusion about the make-up of the Family First vote: "The first group was what you would have expected from a party founded by religious activists; middle income, professional, evangelical – and Liberal. But the second group, equal in size, was rusted on Labor voters – agnostic, blue-collar, lower income, single parents."

Black theorises that these were the voters who were the bottom-end losers in Labor's controversial tax and family policy. They couldn't bring themselves to vote for John Howard. But they weren't going to reward Latham, so they parked their vote with Family First.

Trouble is, those votes then found their way back to Howard via preferences. According to Black's calculations, they did so in sufficient numbers to deliver the Coalition three Labor-held seats (Bonner, Wakefield and Kingston) and the 39th Coalition senator in Queensland – which gave Howard his historic majority in both houses of parliament.

Says Black: "Sole parents earning up to $35,000 a year may not have believed in God or Family First. But they saw Labor's ladder of opportunity not as something to climb, but leading down to the cellar."

The point being it was Latham's ladder of opportunity and Latham's tax policy. And Conroy had nothing to do with either concept.

Howard's success in 2001 and 2004 is built on annexing former One Nation voters.The two major parties may not have offered that group much by way of effective policy, but Howard found ways (Tampa, the War) to make them feel good about themselves. I suspect Howard was not looking in his wildest dreams for a Labor tax policy that actively punished these voters (or could be represented that way) in pursuit of the exciting possibility of an aspirational vote that appears not to exist.

If Labor spends it's time fighting irrelevant battles on who runs the party they face losing another significant slab of the electorate. Perhaps a policy that addressed these people would be a good idea. Perhaps the ALP could even stun the country by talking about equity at the bottom. Or questioning whether an economic boom foudned on exploding personal debt, a ballooning trade deficit, and the end of affordable housing is entirely an unmixed blessing.

Ahem

I had a few technical problems. Apple should really coffee-proof their keyboards better. I'm also trying to finish a project by this weekend. Abnormal blogging will resume shortly.

Thousands and thousands of potential terrorist attacks

SALON: Is there reason to believe that there are a lot more problems like this that the administration isn't talking about?

CIRINCIONE: Well, like Rumsfeld says, 'We don't know what we don't know.' But they've been peppered with questions about the nuclear sites, and they've just dodged them all along. We don't know what happened to a lot of the material from those places, some of which could certainly be usable in so-called dirty bombs. They are highly radioactive materials that could be used mixed in with conventional explosives -- such as RDX or HMX -- and dispersed over a wide area.

SALON: Do you think the news of this missing stockpile of explosives will have an impact on the last week of the presidential campaign?

CIRINCIONE: It most certainly could, especially if it becomes clear that many of the explosions that have been killing U.S. troops have been caused by this material. That could really hurt President Bush's reelection chances, because it would be such a clear and dramatic example of how the mismanagement of the war has made the situation much worse than it might otherwise have been.

It's one thing if insurgents have been making bombs from artillery shells or munitions that they could've gotten from a hundred other sites. But it's something altogether different for them to have gotten possession of some of the most sophisticated explosives material ever made -- and in vast quantities. And to do so after U.S. forces had been warned about this and apparently had gone to the site and seen the material and still done nothing about it.

The site was inspected by the IAEA on 4 March and first vsted by US troops on 3 April. They warned the Bush administration to secure the site. It's unlikely a large truck convoy removed the material on Saddam's orders between the IAEA inspection and the collapse of his rgeime. The intensive satellite surveillance would have detected that.

The occupation did not secure the site. They were probably busy making banners announcing the ned of combat operations. This shows how creating your own reality can blow up in your face.

Cosmology Primer

Cosmology Primer

Twentieth-century science completely overturned our view of cosmology. We now know that our solar system is one of many in our galaxy, and our galaxy is one of many in the universe. These galaxies are spread throughout space in a nearly uniform distribution, and distant galaxies are mutually moving apart from each other as the universe expands. Over ten billion years ago the entire collection emerged from an incredibly hot and dense state: the Big Bang.

This, of course, is of interest only to those dangerous radicals who believe that reality matters. Or that matter has reality.