Thursday, 17 February 2011
Donald Rumsfeld's revisionism doesn't explain Iraq
We were Defense Department officials through the early phases of the war and worked for the CPA in Baghdad. We have defended many of the difficult decisions Rumsfeld made and respect his service to our country. But his book paints an inaccurate and unfair history of U.S. policymaking concerning Iraq's political transition.
Rumsfeld's basic theme is that the CPA erred by failing to grant Iraqis "the right to govern themselves" early in the U.S.-led occupation. Rumsfeld claims that he favored a "swift transition" of power to an "Iraqi transitional government" and that the Bush administration formally endorsed this strategy when it approved the Pentagon's plan for an Iraqi Interim Authority in March 2003. He writes that the head of the CPA, L. Paul Bremer, unilaterally decided not to implement this plan.
But Rumsfeld's own contemporaneous memos undermine this notion. The 26 "Principles for Iraq - Policy Guidelines" that Rumsfeld gave Bremer in May 2003 said nothing about handing real power to Iraqis...
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(GB2011) Women's refuge chief returns OBE in protest over cuts
Denise Marshall says she is returning the OBE as she received it specifically for providing services to disadvantaged women, something she claims the cuts will prevent her from doing. Photograph: Martin Godwin
The head of a leading women's refuge is handing back the OBE she received for services to disadvantaged women because she believes government cuts will leave her unable to provide proper support to vulnerable women.
Denise Marshall, chief executive of Eaves charity, which specialises in helping women who have been victims of violence and those who have been trafficked into prostitution, said the level of funding cuts to support organisations such as hers meant they would soon be unable to function properly.
National and local government funding decisions have hit women's support services hard. Preliminary research by the national charity Women's Aid shows that more than half of all domestic violence services still do not know whether they will have enough money to remain fully open after March.
Marshall told the Guardian: "I received the OBE in 2007 specifically for providing services to disadvantaged women. It was great to get it; it felt like recognition for the work the organisation has done.
"But recently it has been keeping me awake at night. I feel like it would be dishonourable and wrong to keep it. I'm facing a future where I can't give women who come to my organisation the services they deserve – I won't be able to provide the services for which I got the OBE."
Marshall is worried about what the cuts will mean for women's safety. "We will see situations where women are in danger as a result of the cuts. There are disasters waiting to happen." she said.
Like many charity directors, Marshall is unclear whether government grants will continue to fund all the projects she runs in the new financial year. She has been asked by the Ministry of Justice to reapply for funding for the scheme she runs for trafficked women, the Poppy Project – but with a projected reduction in funding of up to 75% for each victim. "They want a bargain basement service," she said.
She has declined to submit a tender to provide services at a radically reduced level, and has pulled out of tendering to continue to provide refuge services in Kensington and Chelsea, west London, at similarly reduced rates.
"I'm not prepared to bid for a service that did not enable women to get the quality of service that is essential," she said. "If you run a refuge where you don't have the support staff it just becomes a production line, where you move people on as quickly as possible to meet the targets. You're not helping women to escape the broader problems they face. They may get a bed, but no help with changing their lives and moving out of situations of danger."
Women's organisations have always struggled financially, but charities across the sector are reporting that the current round of public sector cuts has left them facing unprecedented funding shortages. Earlier this year Devon county council proposed to scrap funding to its domestic violence support services; after vigorous campaigning from women's groups a 42% cut was imposed instead.
"I've worked in this sector for almost 30 years. I don't want to sound melodramatic but I don't think I have ever felt as depressed and desperate as I do now," Marshall said.
"There has never been enough money, but we were able to scratch around to find some. I've always been reasonably pragmatic; I've been good at finding bits of money from grants, local authorities and charities. Now it feels like there is nowhere to go to. I feel devastated.
"We have always worked on a shoestring, but now that shoestring has been cut. What is suffering is the quality of the service provision. What was already a barely functioning sector is now in danger of dying on its feet."
Marshall called St James's Palace to find out how to return the OBE, and was told she could send it to either the Queen or the prime minister, with an explanation of why she was giving it back. Last night she had dusted off the medal, which she had stored at the back of a cupboard, and was writing a letter to David Cameron.
"To be told that we are all in this together and must make cuts like everyone else isn't right, because we didn't have enough money to begin with," she said. "Do we have to say to rape victims, you can only have half the counselling sessions you need because we don't have enough money? That's just wrong. It's not like there are other services we can tell them to go to instead – that's just not the case any more."
She believes local authorities have consistently failed to understand the need for women's refuges, and she worries that a move to a "big society" model of local decision-making will mean that these services lose out further.
"Domestic violence victims don't go and storm the local town hall to demand more help; rape victims don't go to the local paper to complain that there isn't a good service for them. They are invisible," she said. "Women's services are seen as an easy target. They are usually quite small, and lack the power to campaign and lobby because of historic funding shortages."
A Home Office spokesman said: "Tackling violence against women and girls is a priority for this government. We have protected Home Office funding for specialist services to tackle violence against women and girls with over £28m of funding allocated until 2015."
Inside Eaves's headquarters in south London, women were anxious about the organisation's long-term prospects. Mary (who preferred not to give her real name), 32, who was trafficked into prostitution from Nigeria, said if the charity's Poppy Project were to lose its funding, she would become homeless. "It would destroy me," she said. "I'd be on the streets doing prostitution. We don't want the service to close."
Amelia Gentleman @'The Guardian'
Wednesday, 16 February 2011
PJ Harvey - La Maroquinerie Paris 2/14/11
1. Let England Shake
2. The Words That Maketh Murder
3. All & Everyone
4. The Glorious Land
5. The Last Living Rose
6. Bitter Branches
(GB2011) UK Law Enforcement Also Looking To Be Able To Seize Domains
Ah, the power of censorship. It appears that some other countries may be jealous of Homeland Security getting to seize all those domain names, or the proposed COICA law that would allow even more domain seizures in the US. drew points out that, over in the UK, law enforcement is also asking for official power to force Nominet to shut down domains that it claims were "used by criminals." That seems pretty broad. Lots of domains are "used by criminals" in one way or another, does that mean they should automatically have the right to shut those domains down? And with both the US and the UK looking for such rights, won't more and more countries now start to follow? It certainly makes you wonder about the impact of the overall internet, when various countries can just seek to shut down various domains without any trial determination.
@'techdirt'
@'techdirt'
Is the Arab revolt spreading to Libya?
Fifteen years later, relatives of the victims are still demanding justice. On Feb. 15, 2 days ahead of a planned nationwide day of protests, the Libyan regime arrested Fatih Tarbel, an advocate for the Abu Salim families -- sparking outraged demonstrations in the coastal city of Benghazi. The BBC says the crowd was about 2,000 people, and activists on Twitter claim that at least 2 people have died.
It's not easy to report in Libya, and details of the protests remain sketchy and hard to confirm. It hasn't helped that some news organizations, such as the Associated Press, have confused what are doubtless orchestrated pro-Qaddafi protests with the genuine outpouring of anger against one of the world's most odious regimes (at one point, Qaddafi himself even said he might demonstrate against the prime minister).
While it's not clear how far the unrest might spread, the mere fact that people are lifting up their heads in a brutal police state like Libya is an incredible testament to human courage. And the swift fall of Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali in next-door Tunisia is a reminder that even the toughest regimes can prove surprisingly brittle once that mantle of fear is lifted.
Blake Hounshell @'FP'
blakehounshell Blake Hounshell
This phrase "the people demand the fall of the regime" (as-shaab yurid asqot an-nazam) is really catching on.
Clinton Demands Net Freedom Abroad as Domestic Restrictions Loom
It was the secretary’s second address on net freedoms and comes as social media sites like YouTube, FaceBook and Twitter helped fuel uprisings from Algeria to Syria.
“I urge countries everywhere to join the United States in our bet that an open internet will lead to stronger, more prosperous countries,” she said at George Washington University.
But will the United States join Clinton?
Clinton’s speech came a day after the House voted to extend to December 8 three controversial domestic spy provisions of the Patriot Act. And Customs officials seized 18 more internet domains without giving the pirate website owners a chance to challenge the forfeiture.
What’s more, the Obama administration on Thursday is expected to testify before a House subcommittee about the need to expand the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement Act, which already requires telcos and internet access providers to have wiretapping capabilities. The FBI wants Congress to demand that same requirement for encrypted e-mail services like Blackberry, and also wants that for social networks and peer-to-peer messaging networks like Skype.
The secretary, meanwhile, was quick to point out that the United States government’s vocal and legal campaign against WikiLeaks is premised on a “theft” of government material.
“The fact that WikiLeaks used the internet is not the reason we criticized its actions,” Clinton said.
Hours after the speech, the Justice Department was in federal court trying to get Twitter to cough up records related to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and others.
David Kravets @'Wired'
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