Human Rights Watch Financier Soros buys Halliburton

The guy who wants to start a new Israel lobby. I smell Nobel Peace prize, Medal of Honor...
---
Soros buys Halliburton

Tue, 02/27/2007 - 3:22pm.

Normally, I'm willing to overlook the hypocrisy of the liberal elite. If Al Gore and his Hollywood cronies want to fly around on gas-guzzling, atmosphere-polluting private jets while railing against global climate change, I'm willing to overlook it.

But the latest move by globe trotting, hyper-liberal billionaire George Soros borders on being too much. According to papers filed with the SEC, in the fourth quarter of 2006 Soros purchased nearly 2 million shares of ... hold your breath ... Halliburton. The Halliburton shares reportedly went for an average purchase price of $31.30 a share. That puts Soros' total investment in Halliburton at around $62.6 million, or about 2 percent of his total portfolio.

Soros, of course, is the dean of Democratic money giving. And Halliburton, of course, is the company that embodies everything the Democrats see as evil. Dick Cheney is its former chief, for goodness' sake. But Soros is also a man of contradictions. He supported campaign finance reform for years, only to declare that defeating President George W. Bush was the "central focus" of his life. To prove it, he sunk $24 million of his own "soft" money into the 2004 campaign, helping make that election one of the most divisive in modern history.

Soros' position in Halliburton is reported to be his first, which means he bought it with a full understanding of Halliburton's reputation. Soros may not see a problem with profiting from a company that has been accused of everything from sweatheart deals to cooking the books to serving U.S. troops lousy food in Iraq. The real question, however, is whether MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, and other organizations that have benefitted from Soros' charity will see a problem with accepting money earned off Halliburton shares?

Mike Boyer |

permalink |

Home » blogs » Mike Boyer

Testing the line between despotism and a free society

SCOT LEHIGH

By Scot Lehigh, Globe Columnist | February 27, 2007

HABEAS CORPUS is now headed back to the US Supreme Court, in a case that will prove a fundamental test of US justice.

Will the Roberts court uphold one of the oldest and most basic rights in the US Constitution -- that of a prisoner to go to court to challenge his imprisonment?

The issue could also test the courage of the new Congress. Will the Democratic majority wage a determined fight to re-establish what has been a basic guarantee of procedural rights?

Last week, the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit framed the coming struggle by upholding the new Military Commissions Act, which strips those detainees of habeas rights. The Bush administration pressured Congress into passing that statue after the Supreme Court twice ruled that detainees at Guantanamo had habeas rights under US law.

The Constitution makes clear the importance the founders attached to habeas, saying: "The Privilege of the Writ of Habeas Corpus shall not be suspended, unless when in Cases of Rebellion or Invasion the public Safety may require it."

The writ itself traces back to the Magna Carta; among its guarantees is the assurance that no free man could be "imprisoned or dispossessed . . . except by the lawful judgment of his peers or by the law of the land."

"Of all the rights in the Constitution, habeas corpus is probably the single most fundamental," says civil libertarian Harvey Silverglate. "It is the line between despotism and a free society. If the government can simply scoop you up and throw you in prison, never to be seen again, it's a sign that a crucial corner had been turned ."

If habeas rights are denied, that's essentially what will have happened to most of the detainees at Guantanamo; they will have disappeared into a black hole in the US legal system.

The Bush administration has framed the question as a matter of whether enemies of the US deserve American justice. The real issue is whether it's legitimate to imprison someone indefinitely without granting him a judicial hearing to challenge the basis of that incarceration.

"Habeas is not a 'get out of jail free' card," notes Jennifer Daskal, US advocacy director for Human Rights Watch. "It merely allows an independent check to ensure that detentions are lawful and that the US is detaining the right people."

--MORE--

“Rebunking” the Lebanese ambulance story

December 20, 2006

Ethan

On July 23, 2006, two Lebanese Red Cross ambulances were attacked by Israeli forces, causing injury to the ambulance crews and the patients aboard - one of the patients, Ahmad Fawaz lost his leg in the attack. The incident generated a fierce burst of media attention because the attack on a marked Red Cross vehicle was a clear violation of the Geneva Conventions.

This media attention generated a wave of citizen media “debunking” of the incident, making an argument that the attack on the ambulances had been staged by Hezbollah sympathizers to frame Israel for war crimes. The debunking was led by the author behind Zombietime, whose analysis was picked up by prominent right-wing blog, Powerline, and later by conservative commentator Oliver North. This claim was later repeated by Australia’s foreign minister Alexander Downer, who stated “it is beyond all serious dispute that this episode has all the makings of a hoax.”

Zombietime’s argument centered on published media photos of the damaged ambulances - commentators concluded that the vehicles had suffered minor damage, while a missle strike would have destroyed them, and that rust around the missle entry hole proved that the hole had existed well before the alleged attack.

Human Rights Watch has just issued a 25-page refutation of this analysis, based on visits to Lebanon, interviews with all three ambulance patients and four of the six ambulance crew. (The Zombietime analysis was based on analysis of the photographs - the debunker did not travel to Lebanon or interview eyewitnesses.) They conclude that the ambulances were both struck by missles, one of which removed Fawaz’s leg, but that the missles were likely Dense Inert Metal Explosives fired from an Israeli drone. Other attacks from Israeli drones caused substantial damage within vehicles without destroying them entirely - larger missles, fired from Israeli helicopters and airplanes tend to obliterate vehicles entirely, leaving large craters.

Human Rights Watch had a definite interest in clearing up uncertainty about the events of July 23. The illegal attack on the ambulances was one of the violations of international conventions that Human Rights Watch reported in their first report on the Lebanon/Israel war - once the attack had been characterized as a “hoax”, some commentators used this characterization to call into question HRW’s other accusations about Israeli conduct during the war. And HRW’s report does include a major correction - they no longer characterize the attack as coming from a manned Israeli aircraft, but now believe the attacks came from a remote-controlled drone.

I’m fascinated by the incident, the “debunking” and HRW’s response refutation of the debunking (a “rebunking”?) because it raises interesting questions about what citizen media can and can’t do. I’ll happily acknowledge that the debunking of the Bush National Guard memo was a high point for the idea of bloggers as fact checkers of the media, even though the incident was seen as a victory for right-wing bloggers. (I’d prefer to see it as a victory for the idea of blogs as an oversight mechanism for the media.) I think it’s very important that photographs which were digitally retouched to enhance smoke, making the destruction in Lebanon look more apocalyptic were debunked, and I note this even though the incident was very embarrasing to Reuters, which is a substantial sponsor of the main project I work on these days.

But this is a case where the armchair pundits apparently got it very, very wrong… and may not have gotten it wrong in especially good faith. The bombing of marked Red Cross vehicles is very damaging to the narrative embraced by the American right that the Israelis are standing up to “global terror” with the sort of care and restraint one would hope for from a democratic state. (Then again, as an American, I haven’t gotten a lot of care and restraint from my democratic government lately.) There’s a strong motivation for pundits supportive of Israel to analyze the photos closely and offer an explanation that absolves Israel of a major breach of the Geneva convention.

What’s disturbing to me about the situation is the timeframe. Zombietime and affiliated rightwing commentators got their story out very quickly, offering their analysis within days of the incident. HRW’s response is coming almost half a year later. This makes sense - HRW actually went to Lebanon and interviewed people who saw the incident, while Zombietime looked at press photos and offered theories. While HRW’s analysis is critical in determining what really happened on July 23rd and demanding accountability from the Israeli government, this report is hardly likely to call as much attention to the incident as it recieved when it was initially reported. Zombietime et. al. already accomplished their rhetorical goals - they gave an explanation that let some readers dismiss the reporting of the incident and cast doubt into the mind of other readers. It’s unlikely that many of those people will wrestle with the issues again as a result of HRW’s report, as much as I’d hope otherwise.

This raises an interesting question about the future of factual disputes in the age of citizen media: should we expect partisan refutation of all inconvenient facts? If this is the case, is it a victory for dispersed global fact-checking, or for rhetoric? Pro-Israel organizations like Honest Reporting are closely monitoring media for stories they consider critical. If they subject these stories to careful, factual analysis and reveal sloppy reporting, like that conducted by Dan Rather on the Bush memos, this is a good thing. But if they do their own sloppy reporting and the assertions they offer can’t be challenged until six months after the fact, we’re in for a very ugly chapter in the history of news media.

Organizations like HRW are going to have to get better at responding to situations like this one in a way that’s both fast and careful. HRW can’t respond as quickly as a blogger because they’ve got a long track record of offering careful research and analysis before publishing reports. But maybe they need to consider mobilizing their own affiliated bloggers - I am proud to be one - much earlier in the process, not just when they’ve finished their analysis.

Filed under: Media, Blogs and bloggers, Human Rights/Free Speech

Witness to checkpoint abuse “punished” by Israeli Army

Witness to checkpoint abuse “punished” by IOF

December 5th, 2006

On Saturday at 4pm a human rights worker based in Nablus received a call from some fellow HRWs at Huwwara checkpoint, that hundreds of Palestinians including a mother with a sick child weren’t being allowed through after the checkpoint had been closed.

When the HRW arrived there were hundreds of people waiting to pass through the illegal Israeli checkpoint. A middle aged woman was pleading with soldiers to be able to pass as she was cradling a sick child who required treatment.

The HRWs attempted to ask the Israeli soldiers the reason for the closure and whether it would be possible for the women and child to pass through, but his pleas were met with stony silence. After further inquiries, the soldiers informed the HRW that if he didn’t go away he would be “punished”. The woman continued to remonstrate with the soldiers in the presence the HRW, at which point the soldiers wrestled him to the ground and handcuffed him.

During the arrest the HRW was lighly injured and his camera was damaged. He was then detained in a small holding cell for an hour before being taken to Ariel settlement police station where he was questioned and detained for a further 4 hours.

Police claimed that the HRW had struck one of the soldiers and asked him to sign a document promising never to visit Nablus again. The aggrieved HRW refused, pleading wrongful arrest and physical abuse. He was then asked to sign a document promising not to argue with Israeli soldiers at Huwwara checkpoint for a period of 15 days, before being released without charge at approximately 10pm.

Huwwara checkpoint is notorious for long unexplained closures, which have become more common of late. In the last few weeks Palestinians have had to spend up to 2 hours waiting to pass through. As well as Huwwara checkpoint, Palestinians have to travel through other permanent and temporary checkpoints on their way to Ramallah, resulting in journey times of up to 5 hours for a journey of 20 miles, if they are allowed through them.

There are currently 72 permanent military checkpoints throughout the West Bank along with at least 25 temporary and flying checkpoints set up randomly by Israeli occupying forces.

Checkpoints can be a major deterrent for Palestinians on any road because of the extensive delays, security searches, as well as physical and psychological abuse by Israeli soldiers.

The checkpoints and Israel’s closure policy are often used as a means of enforcing collective punishment on the inhabitants of a certain area, or even the entire population of the Occupied Palestinian Territories .Collective punishment is illegal under international law.

The system of Israeli checkpoints in the Occupied Palestinian Territories violates international humanitarian law as codified in the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949.

Posted in Reports, Nablus Region, Photos

by aspiringnomad December 5th

Human Rights Watch Must Retract Its Shameful Press Release

updated Nov. 29, 2006 12:40pm

A comment by Norman G. Finkelstein

11.29.2006

Even by the grim standards of Gaza, the past five months have been cruel ones.

Some four hundred Palestinians, mostly unarmed civilians, have been killed during Israeli attacks. (Four Israeli soldiers and two civilians have been killed.) Israel has sealed off Gaza from the outside world while the international community has imposed brutal sanctions, ravaging Gaza's already impoverished economy.

"Gaza is dying," Patrick Cockburn reported in The Independent, "its people are on the edge of starvation….A whole society is being destroyed….The sound that Palestinians most dread is an unknown voice on their cell phone saying they have half an hour to leave their home before it is hit by bombs or missiles. There is no appeal."

"Gaza is in its worst condition ever," Gideon Levy wrote in Haaretz. "The Israel Defense Forces has been rampaging through Gaza – there's no other word to describe it – killing and demolishing, bombing and shelling, indiscriminately....This is disgraceful and shocking collective punishment."

Predictably Gaza teetered on the precipice of civil war. "The experiment was a success: The Palestinians are killing each other," Amira Hass wryly observed in Haaretz, "They are behaving as expected at the end of the extended experiment called ‘what happens when you imprison 1.3 million human beings in an enclosed space like battery hens.'"

It is at times like this that we expect human rights organizations to speak out.

How has Human Rights Watch responded to the challenge?

It criticized Israel for destroying Gaza's only electrical plant, and also called on Israel to "investigate" why its forces were targeting Palestinian medical personnel in Gaza and to "investigate" the Beit Hanoun massacre.

On the other hand, it accused Palestinians of committing a "war crime" after they captured an Israeli soldier and offered to exchange him for Palestinian women and children held in Israeli jails. (Israel was holding 10,000 Palestinians prisoner.) It demanded that Palestinians "bring an immediate end to the lawlessness and vigilante violence" in Gaza. (Compare Amira Hass's words.) It issued a 101-page report chastising the Palestinian Authority for failing to protect women and girls. It called on the Palestinian Authority to take "immediate steps to halt" Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel.

Were this record not shameful enough, HRW crossed a new threshold at the end of November.

After Palestinians spontaneously responded to that "unknown voice on a cell phone" by putting their own bare bodies in harm's way, HRW rushed to issue a press release warning that Palestinians might be committing a "war crime" and might be guilty of "human shielding." ("Civilians Must Not Be Used to Shield Homes Against Military Attacks")

In what must surely be the most shocking statement ever issued by a human rights organization, HRW indicted Palestinian leaders for supporting this nonviolent civil disobedience:

Prime Minister Haniyeh and other Palestinian leaders should be renouncing, not embracing, the tactic of encouraging civilians to place themselves at risk.

The international community has for decades implored Palestinian leaders to forsake armed struggle in favor of nonviolent civil disobedience. Why is a human rights organization now attacking them for adopting this tactic?

Is it a war crime to protect one's home from collective punishment?

Is it human shielding if a desperate and forsaken populace chooses to put itself at deadly risk in order to preserve the last shred of its existence?

Indeed, although Israeli soldiers have frequently used Palestinians as human shields in life-threatening situations, and although HRW has itself documented this egregious Israeli practice, HRW has never once called it a war crime.

It took weeks before HRW finally issued a report condemning Israeli war crimes in Lebanon. Although many reliable journalists were daily documenting these crimes, HRW said it first had to conduct an independent investigation of its own.

But HRW hastened to deplore the nonviolent protests in Gaza based on anonymous press reports which apparently got crucial facts wrong.

Why this headlong rush to judgment?

Was HRW seeking to appease pro-Israel critics after taking the heat for its report documenting Israeli war crimes in Lebanon?

After Martin Luther King delivered his famous speech in 1967 denouncing the war in Vietnam, mainstream Black leaders rebuked him for jeopardizing the financial support of liberal whites. "You might get yourself a foundation grant," King retorted, "but you won't get yourself into the Kingdom of Truth."

HRW now also stands poised at a crossroads: foundation grants or the Kingdom of Truth?

A first step in the right direction would be for it to issue a retraction of its press release and an apology.

HRW executive director Kenneth Roth "commended" Israel during its last invasion for warning people in south Lebanon to flee - before turning it into a moonscape, slaughtering the old, infirm and poor left behind. It would seem that Palestinian leaders and people, too, merit some recognition for embracing the tactics of Gandhi and King in a last desperate bid to save themselves from annihilation.

(Many HRW staffers have reportedly been appalled by the press release. Your letter of protest can make a difference. Email HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson: whitsos@hrw.org - and HRW executive director Kenneth Roth--RothK@hrw.org.)

NEW: Reader letters

http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=705