SPEW 5 Various Artists 1994
10 minutes ago
Saturday, 22 October 2011
On Facebook, NATO Chief Announces End to Libya War
Jeez - you really think they would know that Twitter is where it's at. So much for intel eh!
Roughly cut footage of the police 'not employing excessive force' in removing #OccupyMelbourne from the City Square yesterday
As a policeman actually said to me yesterday: '...this is not heavy-handed'!!!
Doyle accused of heavy-handedness in halting occupation
I salute you Tom!
The Iraq War Ain’t Over, No Matter What Obama Says
President Obama announced on Friday that all 41,000 U.S. troops currently in Iraq will return home by December 31. “That is how America’s military efforts in Iraq will end,” he said. Don’t believe him. Now: it’s a big deal that all U.S. troops are coming home. For much of the year, the military, fearful of Iranian influence, has sought a residual presence in Iraq of several thousand troops. But arduous negotiations with the Iraqi government about keeping a residual force stalled over the Iraqis’ reluctance to provide them with legal immunity.
But the fact is America’s military efforts in Iraq aren’t coming to an end. They are instead entering a new phase. On January 1, 2012, the State Department will command a hired army of about 5,500 security contractors, all to protect the largest U.S. diplomatic presence anywhere overseas.
The State Department’s Bureau of Diplomatic Security does not have a promising record when it comes to managing its mercenaries. The 2007 Nisour Square shootings by State’s security contractors, in which 17 Iraqi civilians were killed, marked one of the low points of the war. Now, State will be commanding a much larger security presence, the equivalent of a heavy combat brigade. In July, Danger Room exclusively reported that the Department blocked the Congressionally-appointed watchdog for Iraq from acquiring basic information about contractor security operations, such as the contractors’ rules of engagement.
That means no one outside the State Department knows how its contractors will behave as they ferry over 10,000 U.S. State Department employees throughout Iraq — which, in case anyone has forgotten, is still a war zone. Since Iraq wouldn’t grant legal immunity to U.S. troops, it is unlikely to grant it to U.S. contractors, particularly in the heat and anger of an accident resulting in the loss of Iraqi life.
It’s a situation with the potential for diplomatic disaster. And it’s being managed by an organization with no experience running the tight command structure that makes armies cohesive and effective.
You can also expect that there will be a shadow presence by the CIA, and possibly the Joint Special Operations Command, to hunt persons affiliated with al-Qaida. Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has conspicuously stated that al-Qaida still has 1,000 Iraqi adherents, which would make it the largest al-Qaida affiliate in the world.
So far, there are three big security firms with lucrative contracts to protect U.S. diplomats. Triple Canopy, a longtime State guard company, has a contract worth up to $1.53 billion to keep diplos safe as they travel throughout Iraq. Global Strategies Group will guard the consulate at Basra for up to $401 million. SOC Incorporated will protect the mega-embassy in Baghdad for up to $974 million. State has yet to award contracts to guard consulates in multiethnic flashpoint cities Mosul and Kirkuk, as well as the outpost in placid Irbil.
“We can have the kind of protection our diplomats need,” Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough told reporters after Obama’s announcement. Whether the Iraqi people will have protection from the contractors that the State Department commands is a different question. And whatever you call their operations, the Obama administration hopes that you won’t be so rude as to call it “war.”
Spencer Ackerman @'Wired'
Statement from OccupyLSX
We are disappointed to learn that that the management of St Paul’s have decided to close the Cathedral this afternoon, in their open letter regarding our peaceful occupation that aims to highlight and challenge the social and economic injustice in the UK and beyond.
Since the beginning of the occupation six days ago, OccupyLSX have tried hard to accommodate the Cathedral’s concerns in any way we can. Over the past 48 hours, we have completely re-organised the camp in response to feedback from the Fire Brigade and we have also accepted the presence of two large barriers to preserve access to the side door of the Cathedral.
Both of these measures were accepted by the General Assembly in order that the Cathedral’s normal operations should not be unduly impacted by our presence. This afternoon we have been told, in a telephone call, by the fire brigade, that they have not issued any new requirements above and beyond those already communicated directly to the camp. Therefore, there are no outstanding fire safety issues.
What outstanding issues there are appear to be concerned with, firstly, health and safety and, secondly, the Cathedral’s commercial concerns. We seek clarification from the Cathedral as to the precise nature of those health and safety concerns, so that we might address them directly. In the short space of time that we have been here, we have successfully liaised with the City authorities and outside bodies to coordinate recycling and sanitation.
As to the Cathedral’s commercial concerns, access to the restaurant has never been blocked by the encampment. The closure of the restaurant, by the Cathedral, has mystified us, especially as it came at the same time as we encouraged our people to use and support the restaurant. We would much prefer to eat there than in some of the nearby chains.
We believe the Cathedral is also concerned about their visitor numbers. We have endeavoured to ensure that our schedule does not conflict with the Cathedral’s, so that their normal operations are not impaired. Clearly, we have become another tourist attraction on the Cathedral’s doorstep – but, since we are not a commercial concern, we are struggling to understand how we have had any financial impact on the Cathedral’s revenues.
We also understand that some individuals were in the process of arranging for a contribution to be made to St Paul’s in recognition of their hospitality. It is a shame the Cathedral authorities have decided to take this action before those preparations came to fruition, as we expected them to in the next 12 hours.
Over the course of this week, we have done a huge amount to draw attention to the crisis of economic and political legitimacy experienced in the UK and mirrored in protests staged across the world. That awareness-raising exercise – and our attempts to provide a truly participatory and accountable forum in which to investigate ways forward – will continue.
Via
Since the beginning of the occupation six days ago, OccupyLSX have tried hard to accommodate the Cathedral’s concerns in any way we can. Over the past 48 hours, we have completely re-organised the camp in response to feedback from the Fire Brigade and we have also accepted the presence of two large barriers to preserve access to the side door of the Cathedral.
Both of these measures were accepted by the General Assembly in order that the Cathedral’s normal operations should not be unduly impacted by our presence. This afternoon we have been told, in a telephone call, by the fire brigade, that they have not issued any new requirements above and beyond those already communicated directly to the camp. Therefore, there are no outstanding fire safety issues.
What outstanding issues there are appear to be concerned with, firstly, health and safety and, secondly, the Cathedral’s commercial concerns. We seek clarification from the Cathedral as to the precise nature of those health and safety concerns, so that we might address them directly. In the short space of time that we have been here, we have successfully liaised with the City authorities and outside bodies to coordinate recycling and sanitation.
As to the Cathedral’s commercial concerns, access to the restaurant has never been blocked by the encampment. The closure of the restaurant, by the Cathedral, has mystified us, especially as it came at the same time as we encouraged our people to use and support the restaurant. We would much prefer to eat there than in some of the nearby chains.
We believe the Cathedral is also concerned about their visitor numbers. We have endeavoured to ensure that our schedule does not conflict with the Cathedral’s, so that their normal operations are not impaired. Clearly, we have become another tourist attraction on the Cathedral’s doorstep – but, since we are not a commercial concern, we are struggling to understand how we have had any financial impact on the Cathedral’s revenues.
We also understand that some individuals were in the process of arranging for a contribution to be made to St Paul’s in recognition of their hospitality. It is a shame the Cathedral authorities have decided to take this action before those preparations came to fruition, as we expected them to in the next 12 hours.
Over the course of this week, we have done a huge amount to draw attention to the crisis of economic and political legitimacy experienced in the UK and mirrored in protests staged across the world. That awareness-raising exercise – and our attempts to provide a truly participatory and accountable forum in which to investigate ways forward – will continue.
Via
Even Muammar Gaddafi deserved a private death
Western foreign policy in recent years has combined with the democratisation of filmed images to create a stark new problem for media organisations: the existence of images of regime-changed leaders before, during and after the moment of death. Scenes of the hanging of Saddam Hussein were widely broadcast and printed, as snuff shots of Osama bin Laden surely also would have been if the American government had not decided (correctly, I think) to suppress the material filmed by its hit squad.
And the pictures of the terrified, wounded and then possibly dead Muammar Gaddafi used on TV bulletins and the print and online editions of newspapers in the last 24 hours seemed to me to be, by some distance, the most graphic and distressing representations we have ever seen of a recognisable individual during his final moments. The sense that these images significantly extended journalistic incursions across the historical borders of editorial taste is underlined by the intense objections on media sites, including the Guardian and the BBC.
Traditionally, shots of people in terminal extremis have been one of the strongest taboos for broadcasters and newspapers, leading to intermittent controversies when a medical or science programme on TV has shown (with the consent of the patients and their family) the moment of death. Such fusses result from a residual feeling in society that there should be dignity and privacy in death and the obligation imposed on editors (by such organisations as the PCC and Ofcom) not to cause unnecessary or unheralded offence to sensitive consumers.
Two developments – one cultural, one technological – have challenged this editorial decorum with results first noticed with the execution of Saddam five years ago and climaxing in the Gaddafi gallery yesterday. A common argument in favour of explicit pictures is that, in an instinctively suspicious and conspiratorial age, national and international communities, a global village of Doubting Thomases, will only accept that the villain is dead if they have seen the corpse. But this thesis is weakened because the reflex incredulity of our times necessarily extends even to any images that do emerge: when the Americans held back the Bin Laden death shots, online photographic pranksters mocked-up their own.
The most significant (and probably irresistible) change, however, is that the dissemination of contentious images has now largely left the desks of editors and regulators. Symbolically and crucially, the footage of Gaddafi's capture and assault was shot not by a crew but by a crowd on cellphones. TV or newspaper editors who ethically decide to bin the most distressing images know, unlike their predecessors, that the views will be generally available elsewhere and that curiosity will draw a large part of the audience there.
But the risk is the development of a culture of death porn. For me, as a simple moral position, Gaddafi merits as much privacy in his final extremities as did his victims in the Lockerbie bombing: a germane example from the past of a time when the media by common consent suppressed horrific images in the cause of taste and privacy.
The issue is most acute for newspapers because a front page (either paper or online) is designed to take readers unawares and attract the curiosity of passing trade. Unlike in television, no warning can be given of what is about to be seen, although, for me, the standard warnings given by broadcasters yesterday ("images which some viewers may find offensive") were inadequate for the leap in morbid detail that some of these pictures represented.
Though having largely caused the problem by making editorial control of questionable images so much harder to impose, online media may also be best placed to solve it. The most potentially upsetting images could be kept from general bulletins and front pages and restricted to online boxes which, like the curtained-off sections of art galleries, allow admission only to those who know what they are getting. Even presidents, Bill Clinton once pleaded, deserve a private life. Even tyrants, I would argue, deserve a private death.
Mark Lawson @'The Guardian'
And the pictures of the terrified, wounded and then possibly dead Muammar Gaddafi used on TV bulletins and the print and online editions of newspapers in the last 24 hours seemed to me to be, by some distance, the most graphic and distressing representations we have ever seen of a recognisable individual during his final moments. The sense that these images significantly extended journalistic incursions across the historical borders of editorial taste is underlined by the intense objections on media sites, including the Guardian and the BBC.
Traditionally, shots of people in terminal extremis have been one of the strongest taboos for broadcasters and newspapers, leading to intermittent controversies when a medical or science programme on TV has shown (with the consent of the patients and their family) the moment of death. Such fusses result from a residual feeling in society that there should be dignity and privacy in death and the obligation imposed on editors (by such organisations as the PCC and Ofcom) not to cause unnecessary or unheralded offence to sensitive consumers.
Two developments – one cultural, one technological – have challenged this editorial decorum with results first noticed with the execution of Saddam five years ago and climaxing in the Gaddafi gallery yesterday. A common argument in favour of explicit pictures is that, in an instinctively suspicious and conspiratorial age, national and international communities, a global village of Doubting Thomases, will only accept that the villain is dead if they have seen the corpse. But this thesis is weakened because the reflex incredulity of our times necessarily extends even to any images that do emerge: when the Americans held back the Bin Laden death shots, online photographic pranksters mocked-up their own.
The most significant (and probably irresistible) change, however, is that the dissemination of contentious images has now largely left the desks of editors and regulators. Symbolically and crucially, the footage of Gaddafi's capture and assault was shot not by a crew but by a crowd on cellphones. TV or newspaper editors who ethically decide to bin the most distressing images know, unlike their predecessors, that the views will be generally available elsewhere and that curiosity will draw a large part of the audience there.
But the risk is the development of a culture of death porn. For me, as a simple moral position, Gaddafi merits as much privacy in his final extremities as did his victims in the Lockerbie bombing: a germane example from the past of a time when the media by common consent suppressed horrific images in the cause of taste and privacy.
The issue is most acute for newspapers because a front page (either paper or online) is designed to take readers unawares and attract the curiosity of passing trade. Unlike in television, no warning can be given of what is about to be seen, although, for me, the standard warnings given by broadcasters yesterday ("images which some viewers may find offensive") were inadequate for the leap in morbid detail that some of these pictures represented.
Though having largely caused the problem by making editorial control of questionable images so much harder to impose, online media may also be best placed to solve it. The most potentially upsetting images could be kept from general bulletins and front pages and restricted to online boxes which, like the curtained-off sections of art galleries, allow admission only to those who know what they are getting. Even presidents, Bill Clinton once pleaded, deserve a private life. Even tyrants, I would argue, deserve a private death.
Mark Lawson @'The Guardian'
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