AFGHANISTAN: Rudd government celebrates the changed circumstances ...

Australia's Immigration Minister has unilaterally announced that the situation in Afghanistan is changing for the better. Wonderful. No doubt his staff would have checked news reports and found the following signs of peace and harmony ...

[01] The situation on the ground has certainly improved. Five Afghan civilians were killed by a roadside bomb today. Some 13 were injured.

[02] Canada has announced that its forces will stay in Afghanistan beyond 2011. Here's what the Ottawa Citizen reported:

Defence Minister Peter MacKay warned Canada’s NATO allies Friday the military alliance cannot take its “foot off the gas” in Afghanistan, simply because the United States is about to send 17,000 more troops to the country.

[03] The Yanks are sending in a further 17,000 troops into the country.

[04] Relations between the United States and Afghan President Hamid Karzai are at an all-time low.

[05] Democracy is working so well that the Parliament has had to issue ultimatum to Karzai to fill 11 Cabinet posts within 10 days.

[06] The Taliban is so much on the run that even Hamid Karzai wants to join them.

[07] Far from fighting drugs, the Afghan President might be too busy using them himself! Here's what a former deputy UN envoy to Kabul, Peter Galbraith, has to say:

He's prone to tirades, he can be very emotional, act impulsively," Mr Galbraith said. "In fact some of the palace insiders say that he has a certain fondness for some of Afghanistan's most profitable exports.

Yep, this is a country fast changing for the better. Hence we have every reason to bring our troops home. Speaking of troops ...

OPINION: Values blur in good and evil ...

Uncle Sam stands at the top of a flight of stairs, looking more than slightly perplexed. Below him is a windowless chamber its sparse furnishings consist of a lamp, a wooden bench and a closet shaped roughly to the contours of a human body, spikes emerging from its rear wall. A man hangs from the roof, his ankles bound. Below him stand a Caucasian man dressed in a Nazi uniform, a hooded Spanish inquisitor brandishing a sword and a third man in military fatigues and an Arab head-dress.

All three are watching Uncle Sam, inviting him to join them, the third man stating:

C'mon down. Once you take the first step, it's easy.

What I've just described in words is a cartoon by Philadelphia Inquirer cartoonist Tony Auth. It's only now, with debate over the use of torture in the "war on terror", that we're discovering just how deep the Leader of the Free World had descended.

The frequent mantra recited by Western political masters was that we were in a war against terrorists who hated us because of who we are, because of our values. Terrorists despised us for being civilised. They wanted to replace notions such as democracy and the rule of law, which we stood for, with terror and lawlessness. This was a war for civilisation, a fight to defend freedom.

Yet within a mere six months of the 9/11 attacks, top officials of the CIA were happy to flout the rule of law and to breach the very values they claimed to protect. To use the words of North Carolina Senator Lindsay Graham, the Bush administration saw the law as a nicety we could not afford.


This new lawlessness incorporated the use of harsh interrogation techniques (read torture) such as waterboarding. In this torture, a prisoner is bound to an inclined board, his feet raised and his head slightly below the feet; then cloth is wrapped over his face and water is poured over him. Unavoidably, the prisoners gag reflex is activated and he feels convinced he is drowning.

One CIA prisoner, Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libbi, is said to have been subjected to waterboarding that proved so effective that he provided false evidence of a link between al-Qaeda and the former Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein which led to the 2003 invasion. Al-Libbi made these fabricated claims as he was terrified of further harsh treatment.

Even if we accepted claims by United States lawmakers that torture was used to protect Americans, al-Libbi's torture was clearly used for political purposes to justify a war the Bush administration was determined to fight even before the first jets hit the World Trade Center. Once evil means are adopted even for seemingly noble ends, the lines between good and evil soon become blurred.

Al-Libbi's treatment is just the tip of the iceberg. Thousands of people have been detained in various US detention facilities, both known and secret, including in Indonesia, Eastern Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Guantanamo Bay. Among them were two Australian citizens David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib.

Yet while US media seem almost fixated with the role that Republican and Democrat lawmakers and US government officials played in ordering and executing torture of detainees, few Australian journalists have considered what role (if any) the Australian government may have played or at least what knowledge it may have had of the torture of Australian citizens at Guantanamo Bay.

And yet now the US is reluctant to settle Guantanamo detainees on its own territory. Meanwhile US President Barack Obama is reluctant to release further documents and photos of torture conducted by the CIA for fear it will further inflame tensions. It is this very secrecy which provides a perfect cover for even more abuse.

Regardless of how painful the process may be, the US must take responsibility for the consequences of its inquisition. Yet all we seem to be hearing from Obama is empty rhetoric about how the US does not torture the same rhetoric used by his predecessor. Obama chose Cairo as the location to give his speech to the nominally Muslim world.

Cairo was also the place where Australian citizen Mamdouh Habib was sent by the US to have terrorism confessions extracted from him using the most brutal forms of torture. In his memoir My Story: the tale of a terrorist who wasn't, Habib outlined not just his own torture but also the suffering of other inmates also beaten and drugged.

During his Cairo address to an audience of political leaders and diplomats from Muslim-majority states, Obama admitted the US had acted contrary to its ideals by instituting torture. Yet among governments represented were those which will continue to implement the US policy of extraordinary rendition or the secret abduction and transfer of prisoners to countries that will carry out torture on behalf of the US.

The Washington Post reported on February 1, 2009, that Obama issued executive orders allowing the CIA to carry on with renditions. He further allowed the CIA to detain suspects in facilities used only to hold people on a short-term, transitory basis. America will effectively now outsource Guantanamo-type operations to the generals, sheikhs, colonels, dictators and presidents-for-life who will no doubt torture not just those deemed terror suspects by the US but also domestic political opponents.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights recently urged all those involved in the torture process including doctors, nurses, psychologists and lawyers to be pursued and not let off the hook. Australia and New Zealand can play a role in this process, given that both are the only two nations in the Pacific region to have ratified the Convention Against Torture. Yet given the lacklustre performance on the part of John Howard and Kevin Rudd on the treatment of former Australian citizen detainees at Guantanamo, one cannot expect too much from Australia.

Terrorists may hate us for our values, but clearly we don't seem to like our values too much either.

Irfan Yusuf's first book Once Were Radicals about young Muslims flirting with radical Islam was published by Allen & Unwin in May 2009. This article was first published in the Canberra Times on Tuesday 7 July 2009.

Words © 2009 Irfan Yusuf


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COMMENT: The UN and Racism ... Part 2

Let's continue with a discussion of the Durban I document, which you can read in full here.

It's hard to find a worse recorded example of violent genocidal racism over the past century than the Holocaust of European Jews by the Nazis. No doubt other genocides and forced removal of various Turkic tribes in the Soviet Union and the current genocide in Darfur can also be mentioned, though the former is perhaps not as meticulously recorded. Paragraph 58 carries a short, dignified yet powerful statement about the Holocaust.

58. We recall that the Holocaust must never be forgotten.

There is also a clear statement about growing religious and ethno-religious xenophobia.

59. We recognize with deep concern religious intolerance against certain religious communities, as well as the emergence of hostile acts and violence against such communities because of their religious beliefs and their racial or ethnic origin in various parts of the world which in particular limit their right to freely practise their belief.

60. We also recognize with deep concern the existence in various parts of the world of religious intolerance against religious communities and their members, in particular limitation of their right to practise their beliefs freely, as well as the emergence of increased negative stereotyping, hostile acts and violence against such communities because of their religious beliefs and their ethnic or so-called racial origin.

Interestingly, the Durban I declaration mentions growing anti-Semitism and anti-Muslim prejudice in the same paragraph.

61. We recognize with deep concern the increase in anti-Semitism and Islamophobia in various parts of the world, as well as the emergence of racial and violent movements based on racism and discriminatory ideas against Jewish, Muslim and Arab communities.

There are good reasons for linking the two kinds of prejudice, some of which I have dealt with here. The parallels between the kinds of rhetoric used by today's Muslimphobes in Europe and India and the anti-Semites of yesteryear are striking. At the same time, anti-Semitism in Muslim countries and even some Western Muslim communities is a disturbing development.

The Durban I Declaration recognises that racism particularly affects women, children, the disabled and those affected by HIV/AIDS.

Mahmoud Ahmedinejad of Iran isn't the only world leader who should note para 83 of the Durban I Declaration which reads:

We underline the key role that political leaders and political parties can and ought to play in combating racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and encourage political parties to take concrete steps to promote solidarity, tolerance and respect.

But it isn't just presidents, prime ministers, kings, emirs etc that have responsibility in this regard.

We note with regret that certain media, by promoting false images and negative stereotypes of vulnerable individuals or groups of individuals, particularly of migrants and refugees, have contributed to the spread of xenophobic and racist sentiments among the public and in some cases have encouraged violence by racist individuals and groups.

It's a long document and well-worth reading. If time permits, I'll go through more of it.

COMMENT: The UN and Racism ...

Today the UN Durban Review Conference began in Geneva. There's been plenty of news and comment about a speech by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. Various Western countries have boycotted the event, among them Australia. The original conference was held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001. That conference saw the adoption of the Durban Declaration and Program of Action.

Ironically 2001 was the UN Year of Dialogue among Civilizations after the adoption of a proposal by another Iranian president, Mohammad Khatami. The purpose of that year was to underline

... tolerance and respect for diversity and the need to seek common ground among and within civilizations in order to address common challenges to humanity that threaten shared values, universal human rights and the fight against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance, through cooperation, partnership and inclusion.

So we have one Iranian president who encouraged dialogue and another Iranian president who (we are told) doesn't want dialogue.

The Durban Conference recognised that racism had to be made a priority as the world entered the third millenium.

We recognize and affirm that, at the outset of the third millennium, a global fight against racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance and all their abhorrent and evolving forms and manifestations is a matter of priority for the international community ...

The conference recognised that people in Africa were especially made victims of racism and xenophobia. Any notion of racial superiority was specifically rejected, as was anything resembling apartheid.

Any doctrine of racial superiority is scientifically false, morally condemnable, socially unjust and dangerous, and must be rejected along with theories which attempt to determine the existence of separate human races.

Durban specifically recognised slavery as a crime against humanity affecting specifically people of African, Asian and indigenous descent. Colonialism was also seen as a direct cause (if not manifestation) of racism and xenophobia. Readers of certain tabloid newspapers holding inflammatory views on asylum seekers might feel disturbed by this paragraph from the Durban declaration:

We recognize that xenophobia against non-nationals, particularly migrants, refugees and asylum-seekers, constitutes one of the main sources of contemporary racism and that human rights violations against members of such groups occur widely in the context of discriminatory, xenophobic and racist practices

It's only when you read and ponder over the 62-page document that you realise just how dangerous racism, racial intolerance and xenophobia are. Racism is seen as a major root cause of wars. The socio-economic development of numerous nations is hampered by racism. Further, racism is gaining a respectable face, even becoming part of the platform of major political parties and becoming part of mainstream political discourse.

... contemporary forms and manifestations of racism and xenophobia are striving to regain political, moral and even legal recognition in many ways, including through the platforms of some political parties and organizations and the dissemination through modern communication technologies of ideas based on the notion of racial superiority.

It is interesting in the context of the current asylum seeker debate that the Durban declaration specifically referred to ...

... the urgent need to prevent, combat and eliminate all forms of trafficking in persons, in particular women and children, and recognize that victims of trafficking are particularly exposed to racism, racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance.

Andrew Bolt and his fan club, who rarely miss any opportunity to demonise African migrants to Australia, should overlook the following paragraph:

We recognize that people of African descent have for centuries been victims of racism, racial discrimination and enslavement and of the denial by history of many of their rights, and assert that they should be treated with fairness and respect for their dignity and should not suffer discrimination of any kind ... We recognize that in many parts of the world, Africans and people of African descent face barriers as a result of social biases and discrimination prevailing in public and private institutions

And the following paragraph from the Durban declaration has some relevance to legislation underpinning the Northern Territory Intervention which seeks to exempt itself from the provisions of the Commonwealth Racial Discrimination Act.

We emphasize that, in order for indigenous peoples freely to express their own identity and exercise their rights, they should be free from all forms of discrimination, which necessarily entails respect for their human rights and fundamental freedoms.

In other words, you cannot remove indigenous disadvantage by institutionalising racism.

It seems the products of such anti-racism conferences necessarily make certain persons feel uncomfortable. Usually these individuals (and in many cases, nation states) are so quick to find any excuse to condemn these events. More to come.