Lou,
We needn't worry. Dick Cheney will be Vice
President, assuming he doesn't kick the bucket.
And we all know that he is a strong opponent of
torturing Palestinians
Barkley Rosser
-Original Message-
From: Louis Proyect <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>;
[EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Monday, November 27, 2000 9:55 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:5001] Torture them
>www.counterpunch.org
>November 24, 2000
>
>'Torture Them'
>
>Do we want a Vice President who endorses illegal detention and torture of
>Palestinians? Anthony Cordesman, a national security type frequently
>deployed as a television pundit, recently posted a paper on the website for
>the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies
>recommending that Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority engage in just these
>practices to repress the latest intifada. "Halt civil violence," Cordesman
>counsels, "even if it means using excessive force by the standards of
>Western police forces." But this is only a warm-up.
>
>"Halt terrorist and paramilitary action by Hamas and Islamic Jihad,"
>Cordesman continues, "even if this means interrogations, detentions, and
>trials that are too rapid and lack due process." Still not clear enough.
>"Effective counter-terrorism relies on interrogation methods that border on
>psychological and/or physical torture, arrests and detention that violate
>the normal rights of privacy, [with] levels of violence in making arrests
>that are unacceptable in civil cases, and measures that involve the
>innocent (or at least the not probably directly guilty) in arrests and
>penalties."
>
>In other words, protected only by the weasel phrase "border on," Cordesman
>urges that Israel's security forces return to the torture techniques that
>were finally abandoned under High Court order a year ago. Joe Lieberman is
>one of the senators belonging to the CSIS Middle East Task Force. Thus far,
>despite explicit requests for comment, he has not disavowed Cordesman's
>prescriptions, which have been condemned by Amnesty International USA. For
>two months now Israel has laid barbarous siege to Palestinians throughout
>the occupied territories.
>
>The Israeli Army is busily cordoning Palestinian areas behind trenches and
>barbed wire, making Gaza and the West Bank one vast prison-or rather, many
>separate prisons, all barred from communicating with one another. The
>policy of "closure," initiated after the Gulf War, continued unabated
>during the so-called Oslo peace process, in violation of Israeli government
>obligations.
>
>The strategy of apartheid and imprisonment is now accelerating, accompanied
>by bombardment of heavily populated areas, as well as incessant attacks
>from settlers (all courtesy of the US government, as always, with vast new
>military subventions rolling in after the Al-Aksa intifada began).
>
>Even the relatively better-informed mainstream accounts fail to convey the
>brutality of this policy. There are a number of excellent news outlets for
>those who want unjaundiced reporting. The website for Middle East Research
>and Information Project is trustworthy (http://www.merip.org), as is the
>Electronic Intifada (http://electronicintifada.net/new.html). For the
>latter, the intro essay by Nigel Parry gives a useful overview of media
>coverage. Electronic Intifada also has links to other sites, as does ZNet's
>Mideast Watch (http://www.zmag.org/meastwatch/meastwat.htm). Particularly
>comprehensive is Birzeit University's site (http://www.birzeit.edu/links).
>
>Footnote: Meanwhile, the Hebrew language newspaper Haaretz features an
>interview with a sniper in the Israeli Defense Forces in which he says,
>regarding the targeting of Palestinian youths, "Twelve and up is allowed.
>He's not a child any more, he's already after his bar mitzvah period."
>
>Interviewer: "Thirteen is bar mitzvah age."
>
>Sniper: "Twelve and up, you're allowed to shoot. That's what they tell us."
>
>Interviewer: "So, according to the IDF, it is twelve?"
>
>Sniper: "According to what the IDF says to its soldiers. I don't know if
>this is what the IDF says to the media."
>
>
>Louis Proyect
>Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org
>
>
