Department of Non-Sequiturs and No-Brainer Affairs

Caption: Above top, the 46th Vice President of the United States, Richard B.("Dick") Cheney; above bottom, Vice President Cheney's dog, Erwin Rommel

Bush: U.S. Doesn't Torture Prisoners

October 27 - Associated Press

President Bush said Friday the United States does not torture prisoners, commenting after Vice President Dick Cheney embraced the suggestion that a dunk in water might be useful to get terrorist suspects to talk.

Human rights groups complained that Cheney's words amounted to an endorsement of a torture technique known as "water boarding," in which the victim believes he is about to drown. The White House insisted Cheney was not talking about water boarding, but would not explain what he meant.

Cheney triggered the flap in an interview Tuesday by radio broadcaster Scott Hennen of WDAY in Fargo, N.D. Hennen said callers had told him, "Please, let the vice president know that if it takes dunking a terrorist in water, we're all for it, if it saves lives."

"Would you agree a dunk in water is a no-brainer if it can save lives?" Hennen asked. "Well, it's a no-brainer for me, but for a while there I was criticized as being the vice president for torture," Cheney said. "We don't torture. That's not what we're involved in."

At his photo op, Bush said, "This country doesn't torture, we're not going to torture. We will interrogate people we pick up off the battlefield to determine whether or not they've got information that will be helpful to protect the country."

Larry Cox, executive director of Amnesty International USA, said in a statement, "What's really a no-brainer is that no U.S. official, much less a vice president, should champion torture. Vice President Cheney's advocacy of water boarding sets a new human rights low at a time when human rights is already scraping the bottom of the Bush administration barrel."

Human Rights Watch said Cheney's remarks were "the Bush administration's first clear endorsement" of water boarding.

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OK, guys, don't get so excited! Mr Cheney probably was not referring to the water-boarding interrogation method but some other water sport known by the same name. The fact that the context of the call-in was interrogation methods has nothing to do here: Mr Cheney was thinking not interrogation methods, but perhaps water sports. In any case, why bother about the rights of some suspected terrorist? Well, because, one day, this might be you. You just did not shave for a couple of days before your vacation trip to Morocco and - bingo! - you are arrested at JFK and questioned about your links to Osama bin Laden. You keep insisting it's got to be a huge mistake but, no matter what, you are taken to the water-boarding department. You have no rights (terrorists have no rights, remember?) and thus no attorney. The rest is history. BYE BYE.

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Batir Pasha Yok Amane

ATHENS, October 20, 2006. European Union Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn and Turkey's EU membership negotiator Ali Babacan met with Greek Foreign Minister Dora Bakoyanni in Athens on Thursday. "We support Turkey's European course and ... every candidate must meet the requirements and commitments it has agreed on," Bakoyanni said.

Not so fast, Madam Minister!

Turkey’s full membership in the EU has long been hailed by both liberals and pragmatists as a way of assuring this most strategically important country does not join the ranks of Muslim fundamentalist nations. Washington, while pouring the concrete for the fence that will go up along the US border with Mexico, has been aggressively pressing Brussels to open its doors to over 70 million new citizens whose current GDP per capita is approximately one-fourth of that of the Union.

Granted, Turkey is of major strategic importance. Spanning two continents and occupying an area of 780,000 sq.km (almost as large as Germany and France combined), Turkey borders Iraq, Iran, and Syria. Unquestionably, the EU must forge a very close relationship with Turkey. But full accession?

There are certain principles and freedoms the Europeans have fought long and hard to achieve and attain; to name but a few, freedom of expression; freedom of the press; and separation of church and state. What will Turkey bring to the table? It is fair to ask; after all, Turkey will have the largest delegation to the European Parliament (by 2020, Turkey’s population will have surpassed that of Germany). As such, Turkish Euro-MPs will have a very big say on what the rest of us in the Union may or may not read, write, say, eat or drink.

How would you like to go to jail for insulting ‘Frenchness’ or for writing a negative article on the bureaucratic practices of Greek state banks? “Far-fetched,” you might say. Just ask Hrant Dink, Elif Safak, or Orhan Pamuk. They are among scores who were prosecuted under Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code (TPC) which punishes the public denigration of “Turkishness” or of state authorities. Unless you happen to be a world-known writer about to win a Nobel Prize, you might just rot in jail.

And how about publishing an editorial in El País critical of the way the government has treated the Basques? Think twice. In July 2006, the European Court of Human Rights condemned Turkey for having prosecuted an editor and the owner of the Turkish daily Ozgur Bakis for pro-Kurdish content.

Feel discriminated against by your employer, say British Airways, because of your sexual orientation and wish to seek redress? Sorry. Amnesty International points out that Article 122 of the TPC introduced in 2005 deals with discrimination on the basis of language, race, religion, and so on. Sexual orientation was originally listed but was removed from the draft at the last moment. Oops!

A religious crusader elected Federal Chancellor of Germany? The Turkish Euro-MPs will be all for it; after all, Turkey’s Islamist Prime Minister Erdogan served time in prison in 1999 for “inciting religious hatred.” Speaking of “Islamist,” what of a law outlawing the sale of liquor a mile or less from any mosque in the EU? You might think this belongs only in Utah or Arizona but, with Islam as a major force in the European Parliament, it is hard to predict how it will affect our daily lives. Like it or not, here is a society which does not look kindly upon alcohol, pornography, or women’s rights.

While President Bush welcomed Turkish Premier Erdogan to the White House on 6 October 2006 and used the occasion to once again publicly urge the EU to accept Turkey as a full member, here is what his intelligence tells him of Turkey:

Turkey

Transnational Issues

key transit route for Southwest Asian heroin to Western Europe and - to a far lesser extent the US - via air, land, and sea routes; major Turkish, Iranian, and other international trafficking organizations operate out of Istanbul; laboratories to convert imported morphine base into heroin are in remote regions of Turkey and near Istanbul; government maintains strict controls over areas of legal opium poppy cultivation and output of poppy straw concentrate; lax enforcement of money-laundering controls

(https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/print/tu.html)

Is this what you wish on us Mr President while you are busy building your border fence to keep Mexicans out?

Madam Minister,

I do not wish to take sides in this complex diplomatic issue. Assuring you I mean no harm whatsoever to the Greekness of your remarks last Thursday, I wish to leave you with a few photos from Turkey that a friend was kind enough to send me just as you were making your remarks. Please see "Postcard from our Neighbor to the East" below.

POSTCARD FROM OUR NEIGHBOR TO THE EAST

1. Satelitberdê

2. Mineralnargilé

3. Europkabinè

4. Trafiksorunu

5. Batirhanoumçarka

6. Efendihavouz

7. Boudalabahçe

8. Bouzhavadolap

9. Arabasistemleri

New York, N.Y. – 15 October 2006

EVERYONE IS ENTITLED TO BE STUPID, BUT SOME ABUSE THE PRIVILEGE

Last week, Columbia University was not a pretty scene. The Columbia University Republicans (all six of them!) invited Jim Gilchrist to speak on campus. Jim Gilchrist is a founder of the Minuteman Project (www.minutemanproject.com), the self-appointed armed brigade that patrols the border with Mexico looking for illegal immigrants. In case you were not around in 1968, the city’s most prestigious university is not exactly friendly territory for rightist causes, to put it mildly.

Before Mr Gilchrist’s speech got under way, the stage was mobbed by student protesters, including the International Socialist Organisation and the Chicano Caucus, and a very un-Ivy League scuffle developed, complete with punching and yelling. There was no Gilchrist speech at Columbia University last week, which had the university’s president and newspaper editorialists arguing that this was not freedom of expression’s finest moment. This non-speech, after all, came mere weeks after my own alma mater, the School of International and Public Affairs of Columbia University retracted an invitation to Mahmoud Ahmadinejad (www.ahmadinejad.ir), Iran’s president, to address the school’s students. Columbia’s rain check to Ahmadinejad came in the wake of negative reaction from alumni as well as faculty who likened this invitation to handing Hitler a microphone.

I apologise for being carried away, for this is not about freedom of expression. It is about illegal immigration, especially illegal immigration from Mexico, the very raison d’être of Mr Gilchrist’s vigilante teams. Now, illegal immigration is a very serious subject and feelings run deep on both sides of the argument as Mr Gilchrist’s expulsion from the Columbia stage proves. This past week, however, two news stories reported on what is the lighter side of illegal immigration.

I could not resist sharing them. They are not made up; these are true stories reported on The New York Times in the course of this past week.

CALIFORNIA: PORTLINESS THWARTS BORDER RUN

(The New York Times, 11 October 2006)

Five people trying to sneak into the United States from Mexico became trapped in a narrow tunnel after the largest of them, a 200-pound man, got stuck trying to climb out through a storm drain, the authorities said. Firefighters used jackhammers at the San-Diego-Tijuana border to widen the opening and free the man, who had become stuck at the hips, said James Jacques, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection. Seven more people behind the group crawled back into Mexico through the tunnel, Mr Jacques said. The tunnel, about two feet across, is part of San Diego’s storm drainage system

Next time you try this, keep off the cheese quesadillas, OK?

200 pounds is not THAT big in my book – I am closing in on that number myself right after holidays. Why not build your storm drains a bit roomier please?

TEXAS: DID YOU SEE THAT ELEPHANT CROSS THE BORDER?

(The New York Times, 12 October 2006)

A Pennsylvania Congressional candidate and former reality TV personality used an elephant and a mariachi band for a political stunt designed to make a point about border security. The man, Raj Peter Bhakta, who appeared on “The Apprentice,” paraded an elephant and the band through the water near the mouth of the Rio Grande on Tuesday. “…no one showed up,” Mr Bhakta, a Republican, told The Brownsville Herald. Mr Bhakta, who favors construction of a border fence, said he was in Brownsville to raise money when he saw half a dozen men swimming under one of the international bridges “with complete immunity” and decided to pull the stunt.

I presume Mr Gilchrist was on Morningside Heights for his speech at Columbia.

I have no sympathy whatsoever for you Raj Bhakta; not only are you running as a Republican, but you also favor the border fence. I personally know someone who crosses illegally every summer, makes his way to Suffolk County in Long Island to do gardening for some McMansions and then some regular houses out here, then crosses back into Mexico for the winter; this way he can assure to have bread on the table for his family. How would these people survive if you and your party build a fence? Double shame on you!

Forgive me for saying so, but last time I checked I did not find any Bhaktas on The Mayflower passenger list.

Excuse me for saying so, Raj Bhakta, but now that you got me started, what is it to you if people try to secure a better future for themselves and their children through hard work?

isn’t this exactly what you (or one of your ancestors) did? and isn’t this what America is all about? or does your party, with its idea of a border fence, finally put its mouth where its wallet is?

Trying to milk your appearance on “The Apprentice” for a run for Congress is the American way, this you got right Raj Bhakta.

Did you mean to say impunity rather than immunity, by the way?

finally, this comment for Mahmoud A., Tehran: Just as everyone in our western democratic society, you too (as Senator Moynihan used to say) are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts. And your website is hilarious, by the way. Do you actually come up with this stuff yourself or do you use professional writers?

8 October 2006

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 2 — Series of Laws Toughen Animal Protection

Among the new laws is one forbidding the tethering of a dog unattended for more than three hours, one of the first in the country to set a rigid rule on the amount of time an animal can wait on a leash as a master runs errands.

Another bill signed into law makes it a crime to leave animals unattended in vehicles in hot or cold weather, or without adequate ventilation, food or water. Violators of the law, which also allows the police to break windows and take animals away to safety, face fines and up to six months in jail.

New laws stiffen the penalties for those engaged in illegal animal fights like cockfighting, which animal rights advocates say is a common underground activity. In California, a second conviction can be a felony, resulting in prison time or a $25,000 fine.

In August, the US Senate unanimously passed a bill requiring emergency agencies to draw up plans for pet evacuations, care and shelter, and on Sept. 20, the House of Representatives sent it on to President Bush by a vote of 349 to 24. Governor Schwarzenegger signed a similar bill for California last Friday.

It was high time someone thought of our best (only?) friends...

1 October 2006

BERLIN (Reuters) - German Chancellor Angela Merkel warned on Wednesday against bowing to fears of Islamic violence after Berlin’s venerable Deutsche Oper canceled performances of Mozart’s “Idomeneo” because of concerns some scenes could enrage Muslims.

``We must take care that we do not retreat out of a fear of potentially violent radicals,'' Merkel was quoted as saying in Hanover's Neue Presse newspaper. ``Self-censorship out of fear is not tolerable.''

what next?

The Abduction from the Seraglio (Die Entführung aus dem Serail)?

The Egyptian Helen (Die Ägyptische Helena)?

Aida?

Les letres persanes ?