At Last, Australia Takes a Stand Against the Dark Side
There is a line in Alex Gibney’s Oscar-winning documentary Taxi To The Dark Side, aired here by SBS, which stayed with me after I watched the film for the first time last week.
One of the young American soldiers prosecuted over the death in 2002 of the Afghan taxi driver, Dilawar, at Bagram Air Base, tells the camera: “Sometimes I feel that I should have gone with my own morality, more than what was common.”
We now know the junior soldiers who abused Dilawar, and those who subsequently abused prisoners at Abu Ghraib, were not acting of their own accord, without direction from above.
It was the Bush Administration which after September 11, 2001, overrode morality, and made methods of torture “common”.
It was the Bush Administration which - so as to give itself the “flexibility” to use methods previously defined as torture - covertly redefined torture as “extreme acts” which resulted in “death or organ failure”.
Now, finally, after years of standing idly by, Australia is taking a stand.
Four years after the Howard government refused to ratify the Optional Protocol to the United Nations Convention against Torture, the Rudd Government is moving to sign up Australia. It is also considering introducing legislation outlawing torture under the Commonwealth Criminal Code.
The Attorney-General, Robert McClelland, says he will soon talk to the states and territories about ratification. It is necessary to bring them into the process as, under the Optional Protocol, member nations must establish a system of international and national visits to places of detention - jails, immigration detention centres and psychiatric institutions - many of which are run by state and territory governments.
In March 2004, a joint parliamentary committee dominated by members of the former government declared there was “no immediate need” for Australia to ratify the protocol.
The argument made by proponents in favour of ratifying the protocol - that it would set an example on human rights to the region - was “not a compelling reason by itself” to sign.
Australia was “already regarded as a leader in human rights standards”, the majority said. Some leader. As scandal after scandal broke in the US - the photographs of naked prisoners leashed like dogs at Abu Ghraib, the secret memorandums from the highest levels of the Bush Administration authorising interrogators to work outside the Geneva Conventions and use a raft of inhumane tactics against detainees - what did Australia do?
We had an attorney-general, Philip Ruddock, opine: “I don’t regard sleep deprivation as torture.” We had a prime minister, John Howard, agree with an interviewer in 2002 - five years before political pressure forced a backflip by his government - that it was “fair” that David Hicks be held “indefinitely without bail” at Guantanamo Bay. And we had a government defend again and again the farcical military commissions set up by the Bush Administration in Cuba, deliberately outside the purview of US domestic law, which allowed among other things evidence gained under torture to be used to convict detainees.
These are the same military commissions where the Pentagon has recently announced it is seeking the death penalty against six Guantanamo Bay detainees. Evidence against at least one of those prisoners, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an alleged September 11 plotter, is said to have been procured using the notorious “waterboarding” technique perfected during the Spanish Inquisition. (Waterboarding is where detainees are made to believe they are drowning to get them to talk.)
Torture has been around a long time. It tends to resurface during times of renewed security threat. Think of the Algerian War in the 1950s and ’60s, when the French army tortured opponents, or techniques used by the British against the IRA during the 1970s.
At times of crisis or fear, the unthinkable becomes possible. A constitutional expert, Professor George Williams, says as a result of policies pursued by the Bush Administration, “We’re now in a position where the use of torture is more acceptable than it was before 9/11.”
But torture doesn’t work. According to professional interrogators, it is unnecessary, and produces false confessions. Look at the interrogations of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. The New Yorker reports that he has claimed a role in more than 30 criminal plots. It is known much of this is questionable.
And torture creates more terrorists. The use of torture places our armed forces, whom the Geneva Conventions try to protect against mistreatment in the event they are ever captured, at risk.
It demeans all of us who purport to believe in democratic values based on human dignity and the sanctity of the individual. And it usurps the moral authority of the state which uses it.
There are indications that Australia is waking up to these truths. Mark Thomson, the secretary-general of the Association for the Prevention of Torture, based in Geneva, which has lobbied the Rudd Government to sign the Optional Protocol, told the Herald that all that human rights organisations have been struggling for over the past 50 years has been challenged by what has happened since September 11, 2001.
But on the positive side Thomson says it has been an “important wake-up call” for both the public and organisations like his to guard against complacency.
“Protecting human rights is a constant struggle.”
–Cynthia Banham
Copyright © 2008 The Sydney Morning Herald
In reality, countries around the world should be putting pressure on the US, but few do, especially amongs the rich countries. Nobody wants to pick a fight with Uncle Sam because he is dangerous. Also, many countries are themselves fond of the idea of empire and want to be part of the plunder, or be free to do the same. This small action by Australia isn’t much at all. i expect few significant changes.
This is all true but we, who pay attention, already knew this. I suppose someone who was undecided had to write it down to try and convince the other undecideds.
How there can be anyone undecided 7 years after the complete disintegration of the country we used to have must have been in a hole. Jebus help us. Its all about globilization and free markets, how rich can the corporatocracy get? Screw all the rest of us.
Australia, better late than never, welcome to the party.
lizard March 10th, 2008 11:48 am:
“Nobody wants to pick a fight with Uncle Sam because he is dangerous. Also, many countries are themselves fond of the idea of empire and want to be part of the plunder, or be free to do the same. This small action by Australia isn’t much at all. i expect few significant changes.”
Lizard, taking into consideration what you wrote, above, are not the Australian’s actions a portent of a sea-change, a new giddy realization that “Uncle Sam can’t hurt me Naaa! Naaa!” or is there a bigger bully in the school yard? Newfound morality? Insane dreams of Australian Empire building on mainland China? Or whaaaat?
This is too little toolate. Australia, like England and the Philippines is nothing more than a lap-dog to the United States. Just because it got off our lap to go bark doesn’t change what it is. It will be a long time before they can re-establish their credibility.
Glad to see they got rid of Howard. Good on ya mates!
“Glad to see they got rid of Howard. Good on ya mates!” by willo.
I second that willo. The time is now for Australia, I have a feeling a big future is in store for the Aussies.
I would really like to see the UN apply sanctions to the rogue united states. I personally, whenever possible, will never buy anything that says “Made in USA”… but then again, there’s very few things made in the US anymore anyways… Again, whenever possible, I will make my purchases from small businesses rather than the big chains, even if it means paying a few dollars more. I’d like to see how the US survived under an embargo of the type that Cuba has suffered under. The US is the global bully so we need to do what every school kid is taught, stand up to the bully.
I don’t think that so called first world countries avoid “a fight with Uncle Sam because he is dangerous”. They avoid a fight because it is not good for their piece of the money pie. Canada ended up with a big softwood battle with the US when we ‘only’ covertly supported the Iraq war. Other nations receive other pressures if they fail to cooperate with the US in the UN etc. No country escapes these pressure and if they are really ‘bad’ millions of their citizens are killed.
www.amoralamerica.info
Supporting small business over large multinationals sounds good in theory, but in practice local small-business owners around here, at least, are Republican Zionists who contribute to the Republican National Committee.
And if a small business owner sells, say, Coca Cola in his store, the Coca Cola company donates some 5% of its profits to right-wing Israel. Other large multinationals do the same. Nothing is unaffected. Every monetary exchange is an act of violence, with the two parties, the buyer and the seller, both attempting to exercise as much FORCE upon the other as possible. Capitalism is violence, on many different levels. Violence did not just materialize recently.
For many thousands of years homo-sapiens have been attempting to dehumanize one another. Decades ago I sold insurance for a large company. Professional salespeople do not see their customers as human beings except to the extent that human emotions can be played upon for eventual profit and financial gain. In sales you have “leads” and you have “closed leads” and you have “dead leads.” You don’t have people. Some of my sales colleagues would probably have agreed that torturing their leads would not result in increased sales.
Should a crime be committed in company, with one of the group using a firearm, all participants are considered equally guilty of the firearm offense.
Australia’s guilt is by Association with the criminals running the U S A. Unfortunately it seems it will only diminish not disappear.
tomedga@halenet.com.au
I wondered how long it would take for someone to bring in an argument about the influence of the Jews, no matter how difficuly it would be. Nine posts in. Not bad, miftin, althought the segue is a bit clumsy.
Even managed to get in the ridiculous furphy (created by the Middle Eastern soft drink manufacturers who wanted to substitute their product for Coca Cola when the US got embroiled in Iraq in 2002-2003 to turn Arab peoples away from Coke) that Coca Cola donates a percentage of its profits to Israel.
The UN should be moved out of the USA, a country which practices torture and illegal wars of agression, to Canada, a country that does neither.
I always thought Australia was pretty much as hosed as the US. They may have had their government toppled by the CIA in ‘75 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_constitutional_crisis_of_1975), they’re pretty much under the yoke of the same mortgage system that denies real estate ownership (they’re also in a housing bubble), they produced Ruport Murdoch, etc.
Hey Plaza Toro–
Coca Cola was donating 5% of its profits to the worst of rightwing Israel fifteen years ago. If you want to contribute to Israeli peace groups that’s completely different from contributing to the most rabid right-wing settlers groups. History didn’t begin with the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Maybe yours did.
Australia is cut from the same cloth as the US, such puny tugs of conscious will have absolutely have no affect on anybody.
All good and dandy, but in the end it’s all worthless, though a useful tactic for the real and hidden ruling elites to keep deceiving many people of the masses, general public, into misbelieving that we have real laws for protecting our rights, and therefore lives, [and] courts and govts that will act as they’re supposed to. People believing that their govts agreed to important and just laws means that the laws will be adhered to by the ruling elites, now these are very fooled citizens.
That the UN representative calls on govts to agree to important laws is fine, but they’re unfortunately not going to be abided by.
Basically, there are no really important laws anymore, for even the important ones applied for local incidents amount to extremely little when we consider wars of aggression by the USA et al, their genocides, etc., etc., all for the sake of RACKET. And I’ve noticed for two decades or more now that judges or courts here are often treating violent criminals very leniently; like sentences of two years minus a day of imprisonment for having brutally beaten a little infant months old, f.e. I’ve read of that very kind of example too many times over the past several years, as well as some other violent offences being lightly punished; while having noticed for roughly twenty years that this sort of outcome has been growing increasingly worse, to the point where we are at a couple of years prison for crimes that nearly end in murder and of little infants, elderly citizens, and women, mostly.
That’s in Quebec, Canada, and there are other such stories across the country, while I think also some cases in the USA. Here, locally, we have one or more very good prosecutors, though I’m mostly familiar with a young enough woman, and she’s been right about demanding firm and serious sentences a number of times, not seeing anything off in her demand and the related argument. But the judges seem to have gone off into the mindscape of psychopathia. It’s not new in Canadian history, but the bad of the past would preferably not be repeated.
So I also see no value in this Sydney Morning Herald article, which, and all the worse, doesn’t address what the Au. govt’s position is on the most critical crimes of all, the wars of aggression Au. is and has previously been involved in.
Much as I agree with Canuckchuck that the UN should move to a neutral country, is Canada the right choice? After all our harpie in charge has shat over our decision to remain outside the illegal Iraq imbroglio by positioning some of our navy (such as it is) in the Persian Gulf and some of our soldiers are doing duty in Iraq…and then there is our active “peacemaking” role in Afghanistan (also illegal). So much for our “independent” status, especially in light of how quickly Harpie removed the US from the diplomats’ handbook citing nations that torture. Not even Canada is immune to having a Bushpuppet leader.
Like Elmysterio, I avoid buying anything that is made in the USA (cinch), nor will I visit there or fly over the country even at the extra cost of circumnavigation (not that I travel much now in light of my present personal economy).
It’s curious that the leaders of so many Western countries have so much in common these days — militaristic, antithetical to the interests of their bottom 90%, great believers in housing bubbles, international banking and denying real estate to their people, etc. Almost like one big happy mob family.
But it’s happened before — dial back to before the revolutions.
Don’t expect anything from a British Commonwealth country. We may be crypto Commonwealth members ourselves. Our policies are an Anglo-American joint venture, our capitol may be in London. Long live the Queen, or is it Big Brother, I forget. At least we aren’t calling ourselves Oceania yet, so will stick with the Queen.
Has anybody noticed a problem loading buzzflash.com? I’m on dialup and it seems to just load forever never giving me anymore than the top banner. It’s been this way for a couple of days. Is it just me?
” A Voice Apart March 10th, 2008 10:19 pm
Much as I agree with Canuckchuck that the UN should move to a neutral country, is Canada the right choice? After all our harpie in charge has shat over our decision to remain outside the illegal Iraq imbroglio by positioning some of our navy (such as it is) in the Persian Gulf and some of our soldiers are doing duty in Iraq …. …”
HARPIE DIDN’T DO THAT; instead, he maintained what the prior two PMs had already done. We know the Liberal Party didn’t [fully] embark Ca in the war on Iraq, but PM Chretien made Ca the largest contributor to the U.S. military build-up in the Persian Gulf leading up to the launch of the war in March 2003, and both he and PM Martin had provided CAF (Canadian Armed Forces) commanders and possibly other officers for “helping” the U.S. with directing the war of aggression and the continued war occupation.
Harpie has sent more, but did not start sending them.
The war could not be justified, and U.N. voted against authorisation both wars, legally making both wars the type called ‘aggression’, hence extremely criminal, the U.N. weapons inspections worked very well, and that was a contingency in the U.S. Congress’ authorisation to recourse to war; if Saddam Hussein refused to comply with the weapons inspections. That meant that that authorisation from Congress had become null-and-void, automatically, for Saddam greatly complied with the weapons inspections, which we all know additionally proved ‘NO WMD’ everywhere the inspectors were told they’d find WMD.
So Ca was made war criminal not only by partaking in the war on Afghanistan, but also the war on Iraq, all before Harpie became PM. And Ca is war criminal for partaking in the act-of-war-of-aggression coup d’etat against the democratically elected govt of Haiti, while also criminally siding with Israel against Palestininian and Lebanese populuations and states, ETCETERA.
Not much new with Harpie, and that was expectable, so also one key reason to NOT vote for him to become PM. There was nothing credibly good about him, and there still isn’t, certainly not as a member of political office or any other important govt office anyway; but none of what this post says reflects any really new changes since Harpie became PM.
Some Canadian activist groups are aware of the list of known crimes of Ca with these wars alone; it’s from a local organisation in Sherbrooke, Quebec, that I obtained a list of Ca’s crimes from, and prior to Harpie becoming PM. It was several years ago, but I don’t recall if Martin or Chretien was PM at the time. Yet the contribution to the military build-up for war on Iraq was definitely when Chretien was PM, and this act and decision should be a war crime, for it was then known assistance to committing war when there was NO justification at all to do so. For such actions to not be war crimes, they mustn’t be committed before it’s been well ascertained that a threatened war is certainly justified and therefore only for defence.
The courts would not decide this way, for they really work for the hidden elites that do the real ruling of the U.S. and, much anyway, other govts. They will rule criminally against political leaders the ruling elites want out of their way, so like against former President Slobodan Milosevic, f.e.; but these courts aren’t going to be ruling against western-Imperialism’s crimes, neither correctly nor wrongly, for it’s simply not going to happen at all. It could happen, but surely won’t.
They’re why Canada’s “peacekeeping” deserves to be put in quotes, for CAF don’t work for law and therefore rights, but for the super-privileged ruling elites; although and of course most of the soldiers are not informed about this. Ca is NOT a ‘peacekeeping’ country anymore, and hasn’t been for a long time. It certainly never has been since Chretien first became PM, and likely hadn’t been really about peacekeeping starting considerably before, maybe ever since Trudeau was no longer PM.
Harpie didn’t start this, but maintains the war criminal status, so he’s made himself Canada’s minimally third war criminal PM in a row. I’m not sure about when Mulroney was PM, so can’t say if it’s more than three or more consecutive PMs.
Maybe Harpie’s added yet another war crime or serious crime against human rights, but, and from what I’ve gathered, he’s mostly continued and keeps continuing what was started.
He also didn’t start the SPP matter, which was, in a sense, started by PM Martin; but that’s only in the visible sense, for the SPP is basically an expansion of the NAFTA program, etcetera.
Over time, we can notice that the govt and therefore politicans are NOT working for The People much at all, but while we can nonetheless notice that they oddly are working much. Hmmm; head-scratcher. Trick is to wonder who all that work is for, given it’s clearly NOT for the general population; and if we do this carefully, then we can or should realise that there’s obviously one, single answer, which is that the govt is really working for themselves and their masters, the top and hidden ruling elites.
‘War is a Racket’, and who makes war? Govts and their ruling elites, NOT the general population!
And North America has been increasingly becoming a very LARGE PoW camp.
Bomb, support bombing impoverished villagers, impose your chosen “leaders” on farming communities and wait until they get sick enough of your soldiers to plot against your far removed rule… Knowing your killing the boys of your countrymen. Then hire this major media mouthpiece to sell us your denunciation of torture… What a f en sham. Lets find the reality on the ground shall we?
[ Australia in this article air supporting murderers… How bout holding your guts in, watching your kids bleed to death having a 500 pound bomb demolish your home? Is that torture? ]
http://presszoom.com/story_143923.html
(PressZoom) - 3/10/2008 - SOUTHWEST ASIA ( AFPN ) — Coalition airpower integrated with coalition ground forces in Iraq and the International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan during operations Mar. 8, according to Combined Air and Space Operations Center officials here.
In Afghanistan, Air Force A-10 Thunderbolt IIs dropped a general-purpose 500-pound bomb and fired cannon rounds onto enemy positions in the vicinity of Nangalam. The joint terminal attack controller declared the mission a success.
An Air Force B-1B Lancer dropped guided bomb unit-31s and GBU-38s onto enemy positions in Qalat. The targets destroyed included a weapons cache, an enemy vehicle, and enemy combatant fighting positions. The mission was reported a success by the JTAC.
Shows of force were conducted by A-10s in the areas of Kabul and Bari Kowt. The shows of force were performed in order to deter enemy activities against coalition forces. The JTAC confirmed the missions as successful.
Air Force F-15E Strike Eagles performed shows of force to deter enemy activities against coalition forces. The shows of force were performed in Lwara and Bermel. The missions were declared successful by the JTAC.
A show of force was conducted by an F-15E in order to deter enemy activities against a coalition forces convoy in the vicinity of Bari Kowt. The JTAC reported the mission as a success.
In total, 40 close-air support missions were flown as part of the ISAF and Afghan security forces, reconstruction activities and route patrols.
Twenty-six Air Force, Navy, and Royal Australian Air Force surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft flew missions as part of operations in Iraq. Additionally, two Air Force aircraft performed tactical reconnaissance.
Air Force C-130s and C-17s provided intra-theater heavy airlift, helping to sustain operations throughout Afghanistan, Iraq and the Horn of Africa.
Approximately 152 airlift sorties were flown, 737 tons of cargo delivered and 3,463 passengers were transported. This included approximately 29,100 pounds of troop re-supply air-dropped in Afghanistan.
Coalition C-130 crews from Australia and Canada flew as part of operations in Afghanistan or Iraq.
http://www.turkishweekly.net/news.php?id=53282
The commander of coalition forces in Tarin Kowt has welcomed Australian plans to shift the focus from reconstruction to training the Afghanistan army.
Australia has about 700 personnel in the Oruzgan Province as part of an overall 1050-strong effort in the country alongside a larger Dutch provincial reconstruction team, with about 400 focusing on reconstruction and about 300 special forces taking the fight to the Taliban.
[ Taking the fight to the government from before when aUSie government was imposed on Afghanistan. In reality the Taliban high officials were allowed to vacate Afghanistan with the Bin Ladens, the Taliban midlevel unconnected were terminated, and the Taliban reported here are the sons of the Taliban terminated and the drug connected warlords armies. Cheney has top level opium connections. Notice there’s no plan for anyone to train Afghani police… Well why were there be in a warlordi society silly? Worse though is what happens when foreign militaries train native money loyal militants in what’s necessary to dominate without attack jets. Oh, it’s gets way ugly… Make the SOA seem mild. How bout Iraq’s Special Police Commandos, drill torture and multi year thousand executions per week, all victims left bound rotting in the dessert. Teachers taken from their schools by the interior departments special police commandos found dead in the dessert, bound, single bullet wound to the back of the head type ugly…]
It kinda seems to me, Australian industrialists are making mad loot selling weapons, AND the Ausie government is a lot easier capable of eliminating the element of their society that will challenge their rule when they tire of this murderous sham, AND the Aussie media is paid well enough to look the other way while murderers enforce their view points AND they’re all very busy serving up a torturous mass murder sandwich to impoverished farmers in Iraq and Afghanistan, complicit with a vocal torture enforcer, AND this little torturous retraction of torture support is merely some feel good damage control to induce confusion and passivity AND the Aussie leadership is still VERY much so in support of torture, torture methods, torturous warfare, torture suffering of impoverished foreigners, torture even of other Aussies by Military family neglect and IED… laughing all the way to the bank.
rocyahsoul - what absolute garbage.
Australia does not have a weapons industry.
The new left of centre government was only elected in November 2007.
This new government party is, and previously when in opposition always has been, unequivocal in its condemnation of the use of torture as practiced by the US military and approved by the present USA administration.
The Australian combat troops currently in Iraq will be withdrawn by June this year.
The Kyoto protocol on climate change has been ratified in direct defiance of the wishes of the USA.
Not a bad effort in only three months.
Rocy, truly where ignorance is bliss, ’tis folly to be wise.
Canuckchuck, I wouldn’t base the UN in Canada for the reason they are not involved in wars of aggression! What about Haiti where they are backing up the hideous US agenda? What about Afghanistan where they are basically there to free up US troops to go to Iraq, and to protect oil transportation?
When Canada drops from being the 6th largest arms dealer in the world to the 206th THEN you can think about placing the UN here in Ottawa. Otherwise, don’t fall for the old myth that Canada is some peacekeeping saint.
“…But torture doesn’t work.”
Depends on what torture is *for*. As a means of obtaining reliable information, it’s terrible. But for sending a message to rivals and enemies - what Noam Chomsky calls “maintaining credibility” - torture is an excellent policy tool. As Naomi Wolf says, it keeps dissenters quiet and ensures a compliant media.
Australia, like the United States, has a sordid history. Both nations were based on the mass murder of the native inhabitants. Both nations have a self righteousness based on a belief that their religion and economic systems bring freedom to people when reflection shows that they do not. Self delusional both. Any small recognition of this fact is better than none.
At least Australia is forced to be honest about the criminal background of its original white immigrants. I like to think it allows the folks down under to appreciate those in government may be among those who deserve to be in a chain gang.
I don’t know the details of Australia’s arms industry; I can’t think of any Aussie weapons peddled worldwide. But, it must have one, because it has a military, which means the infrastructure to maintain it even if the weapons are purchased from abroad.
Thanks Mike Corbeil for your well researched and informative post. I did know most, if not all, of which you wrote about, but I like to blame it all on Harpie. I have to admit that it would have been a good balance to insert what Paul Martin, the CEO of Canada, did to us after the Chretien bobsled team. I have not voted liberal and certainly never neo-con tory since before Chretien. Mulroney was a total Nafta disaster (I was a silly servant during his reign). Sigh, it has been decades since we had good social democracy, and even then it was probably a pipe-dream.