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Washington Scene:
TORTURE THOSE PALESTINIANS WHO REFUSE "PEACE" SAYS U.S. REPORT
Government, academia, CIA, and major media
are all interconnected in the capital of the USA
CSIS was originally started by Georgetown University
MID-EAST REALITIES - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 11/06:
"Torture for Peace" is not really something new for Palestinians, so let's
not misunderstand the interesting article today by Robert Fisk in The Independent.
The Israelis have been using torture in many forms for decades now, and "torture"
has been widely debated not only by Israeli intellectuals in the mass media,
but also by the highest Israeli courts which in their own back-handed way have
sanctioned it. Moreover, former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin made it
very clear, even in some publicly reported comments, that Arafat and the "Palestinian
Authority" were being brought in by the Israelis precisely to "control" and "repress"
the Palestinian people with even less concern for "human rights" than the Israelis
purported to have.
What is a little new is the out-front way in which this draft report from
the "Center for Strategic and International Studies" (CSIS) has raised the issue
so visibly and openly in this age of the Internet.
CSIS itself is known in Washington as a bastion of the CIA. Among many others
over the years the notorious "journalist" Judith Kipper worked on the staff there
for a number of years before going to the Council on Foreign Relations in New
York. Until his retirement former Deputy Chief of the CIA, Ray Cline, was one
of the top officials at CSIS. And incidentally the George W. Bush crowd is known
for its very close ties to CSIS, George W's father having been the Director of
the CIA before he was chosen by Reagan as Vice-President.
Now of course using "torture" is really nothing new for the Americans either.
The CIA has been advocating the use of torture, and training the military and
"intelligence" forces of many countries in how to use torture, for a very long
time now -- just ask the people in El Salvador and Chile for instance, just ask
the terribly suffering people of Iraq who have been subjected to a new modern-day
campaign of collective gross torture. After the original "Camp David" the Egyptians
were urged by the Americans to step up their use of torture; and the same is
true in Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and most of the key "client regime" countries supported
by the US in the region. And when it comes to the Palestinians, coming upon
specific stories of torture at the hands of both the Israelis and the Arafat
Regime is quite commonplace.
One interesting but usually forgotten thing about CSIS is that it had another
name some years ago -- The Georgetown University Center for Strategic and International
Studies. That's right, it was the Catholic Jesuits at Georgetown University
who originally gave birth to today's CSIS. And the story of that divorce about
twenty years ago now is another sordid tale of the interconnections between so
many elements of the government, academia, CIA, and major media in the capital
of the USA.
U.S. REPORT URGES ARAFAT TO USE TORTURE FOR PEACE
An influential think-tank advises
Palestinian Authority to ruthlessly
repress militant elements without
regard for basic human rights
By Robert Fisk in Gaza
The Independent - 6 November:
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.
The report says that even if peace follows the "Second Intifada",
"both sides [Palestinian and Israeli] will be forced to conduct
aggressive [sic] security operations for years to come" which "can
have a high price tag in terms of human rights." By way of
comparison, it adds that British security forces in Northern Ireland
"balanced" what it calls "effective security" with human rights � even
though "the British used excessive force, abused human rights, and
used extreme interrogation methods and torture."
Amnesty International and other human rights groups have frequently
condemned the use of arbitrary false arrest, detention and torture by
Arafat's "muhabarrat" security apparatus, pointing out that CIA
operatives appear to have been complicit in these abuses. Far from
denouncing these practices, however, the draft CSIS report appears to
encourage their use, stating that "such measures also tend to work".
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.
Entitled "Peace and War: Israel versus the Palestinians", it recounts the
turbulent history of Israeli-Palestinian relations since the 1993 Oslo
agreement although its bias is obvious from the frequent use of
"terrorist" to describe violent Arab groups and the almost ubiquitous
use of "extremist" in reference to their violent Israeli opposite
numbers.
It excuses the use of Israeli live bullets against stone-throwers, adding
that CS gas and rubber bullets are often "not effective in stopping large
groups" and that "troops cannot let mobs armed with stones and
Molotov cocktails close on their positions, or rely on the riot control
gear used in civil disobedience."
In a section headed "The Need for Palestinian Authority Ruthlessness
and Efficiency", it states "there will be no future peace, or stable peace
process, if the Palestinian security forces do not act ruthlessly and
effectively. They must react very quickly and decisively in dealing
with terrorism and violence if they are to preserve the momentum of
Israeli withdrawal, the expansion of Palestinian control, and the peace
process. They must halt civil violence even if this sometimes means
using excessive force by the standards of Western police forces. They
must be able to halt terrorist and paramilitary action by Hamas and
Islamic Jihad even if this means interrogations, detentions and trials
that are too rapid and lack due process. If they do not, the net cost to
both peace and the human rights of most Palestinians will be
devastating."
The report says that permission must be obtained for any publication
of the contents, but copies have now been circulated throughout the
Palestinian Authority, including the offices of Mohamed Dahalan and
Jibril Rajoub, respectively heads of Arafat's "Preventative Security" in
Gaza and Ramallah. Both Dahalan and Rajoub were sent to Langley,
Virginia, for what was called "human rights training" by US
government intelligence services.
Although it condemns "Israeli terrorism" � a phrase used only once
and in reference to Jewish settlers' groups � the document concludes
with chilling advice to both Palestinians and Israelis. "Every
counter-terrorist force that has ever succeeded has had to act
decisively and sometimes violently," it says.
"Effective counter-terrorism relies on interrogation methods that
border on psychological and/or physical torture, arrests and detentions
that are 'arbitrary' by the standards of civil law, break-ins and
intelligence operations that violate the normal rights of privacy, levels
of violence in making arrests that are unacceptable in civil cases, and
measures that involve the innocent (or at least not provably directly
guilty) in arrests and penalties."
The issue, the report adds, "is not whether extreme security measures
will sometimes be used, or whether they are sometimes necessary. The
issue is rather how many such acts occur, how well-focused they are
on those who directly commit terrorism, and how justified they are in
terms of their relative cost-benefits."
Palestinian officials here noted with surprise how accurate was the
report's list of escalating Israeli responses to the current low-intensity
war, from Israeli mobilisation of armour to the sealing off of
Palestinian towns and "the use of helicopter gunships and snipers to
provide mobility and suppressive fire". Apparently based on a 1996
Israeli test plan codenamed "Operation Field of Thorns", the military
responses end with the "forced evacuation" of Palestinians from
"sensitive areas". Palestine Authority officers, however, were taken
aback to read that the PA's "military strength" includes a Lockheed
Jetstar aircraft. The plane, they point out, happens to be Arafat's
personal executive jet.
MiD-EasT RealitieS - www.MiddleEast.Org
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