CDR: Re: US report urges Arafat to use torture for peace

Tim May tcmay at got.net
Sun Nov 5 20:49:16 PST 2000


At 11:14 PM -0500 11/5/00, An Metet wrote:
>http://www.independent.co.uk/news/World/Middle_East/2000-11/ruthless061100.shtml
>
>An influential think-tank advises Palestinian Authority to 
>ruthlessly repress militant elements without regard for basic human 
>rights
>
>By Robert Fisk in Gaza
>
>6 November 2000
>
>Palestinian leaders have been shocked to read an American think-tank 
>report which urges them to act "ruthlessly" against opponents of the 
>Oslo agreement - even if this involves "excessive force", trials 
>without due process of law and "interrogation methods that border on 
>psychological and/or physical torture."
>
>A draft copy of the report by the influential Centre for Strategic 
>and International Studies (CSIS), which has close links with the 
>United States government, has been published on the internet and 
>circulated among dozens of members of the Palestinian Authority in 
>Gaza, including Yasser Arafat's most senior intelligence officers.

This has been SOP for the U.S. for a half century or more.

-- CIA training schools for torturers, assassins, death squads, etc.

-- "College of the Americas"

-- extremely "anti-constitutional" policies in countries the U.S. 
invades: confiscation of all privately-owned weapons, shutting down 
of newspapers and radio stations critical of the U.S. invasion, 
imposition of price controls...the U.S.G. treats moves into foreign 
countries as the chance to do everything it can't do inside the U.S.

-- did I mention training torturers and death squad members in 
Honduras, Argentina, Guatemala, El Salvador, Somalia (before the 
natives kicked out the U.S. soldiers via what the U.S.G. called 
"terrorism"), and numerous other countries

(The U.S. Army had developed the "Can you fly?" torture method, where 
a group of Viet Cong or NVA prisoners were loaded onto choppers and 
then, one by one, pushed out at a few thousand feet. The Argentinians 
modified this for their treatment of the students, union members, and 
political activists they arrested by the tens of thousands: they 
loaded them onto C-5 cargo planes and pushed them out over the ocean. 
No wonder they "disappeared." The CIA no doubt updated their training 
manuals accordingly.)

By the way, my best demolition manuals are from the U.S.G. (I picked 
up a set of four CD-ROMs with nearly all of the U.S.G. terrorism, 
assassination, mayhem, booby trap, and similar manuals. Precisely the 
kind of "bomb-making instructions" the criminals like Sen. Swinestein 
are trying to get banned.)

>
>The document is dated 18 October and bears the name of Anthony H 
>Cordesman - a former national security assistant to failed 
>Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain - who is now 
>holder of the Arleigh A Burke Chair in Strategy at the CSIS, named 
>after the former Chief of US Naval Operations. His document is 
>heavily referenced to CIA, State Department and Israeli sources and, 
>according to Palestinian officials here, has been circulated within 
>the US and Israeli governments.

Cordesman is also, ironically, a journalist for audio and audiophile 
magazines, the kind of magazines ("Stereophile," "The Absolute 
Sound") which report on the Tice Clock, an LED alarm clock which when 
plugged into any outlet in the room of a stereo system results in "a 
delicate softening of the mid-range digital signals, enhancing the 
perceived dimensionality of the tonal experience. The fact that the 
Tice Clock was _advertised_ in these rags, er, journals, was 
unimportant.

(I'm not criticizing Cordesman for these audio things, just noting 
that I've been following his career since the Gulf War, when he was a 
daily commentator on CNN and similar networks. Yes, he's the same 
guy...no error.)

--Tim May
-- 
---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:---------:----
Timothy C. May              | Crypto Anarchy: encryption, digital money,
ComSec 3DES:   831-728-0152 | anonymous networks, digital pseudonyms, zero
W.A.S.T.E.: Corralitos, CA  | knowledge, reputations, information markets,
"Cyphernomicon"             | black markets, collapse of governments.






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