U.S. Is Examining a Plan to Bolster the Rights of Detainees

he Defense Department is considering substantial changes to the military tribunals that the Bush administration established to prosecute foreign terror suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, military and administration officials say.

The proposed changes, many of which are detailed in a 232-page draft manual for the tribunals that has been circulating among Pentagon lawyers, come after widespread criticism from the federal courts, foreign governments and human rights groups.

Those changes include strengthening the rights of defendants, establishing more independent judges to lead the panels and barring confessions obtained by torture, the officials said.

The draft manual has renewed a sharp debate within the Bush administration between military and civilian lawyers who are pushing to overhaul the tribunals and other officials who have long insisted that suspected terrorists held at Guantánamo are not entitled to many of the basic rights granted defendants in United States courts.

Military officials said the draft, which is modeled after the Manual for Courts-Martial, was written under the auspices of the Pentagon official in charge of the tribunals, Maj. Gen. John D. Altenburg Jr., who is now retired. The proposals gained momentum after high-level discussions late last year that included officials at the Pentagon, the office of the White House Counsel and the National Security Council.

The proposals would generally move the tribunals - formally known as military commissions - more into line with the judicial standards applied to members of the American military in traditional courts-martial, officials said. Many military lawyers have privately urged such a shift since President Bush first authorized the commissions after Sept. 11.

The administration's willingness to restructure the commissions, which have been a central part of its strategy for fighting terrorism, is uncertain. Some officials said they considered the proposals premature because a lawsuit challenging the legality of the commissions is now in a federal appeals court.

In addition, some of the White House aides who supported changes to the commissions have recently moved to new jobs, leaving behind a small but powerful group of officials, led by Vice President Dick Cheney and his staff, who have opposed changing to the commission rules unless forced to do so by the courts, officials said.

"There are a number of folks who would like to make changes," one Pentagon official said of the rules governing the military commissions. But, the official added, "Cheney is still driving a lot of this."

At an interagency meeting earlier this month on detainee policy, officials said, the State Department's designated legal adviser, John B. Bellinger III, who was formerly the legal adviser on the National Security Council staff, raised the question of possible modifications to the commission procedures and was quickly rebuffed by Mr. Cheney's counsel, David S. Addington.

"We don't need any changes in the commissions," the officials quoted Mr. Addington as saying.

A spokesman for Mr. Bellinger, who was traveling, declined to comment. A spokesman for the vice president's office did not respond to requests for comment on Mr. Addington's views.

A spokeswoman for General Altenburg, Lt. Susan McGarvey, said, "We are always considering ways to improve the commissions process," but she declined to discuss the draft manual.

The plan to use military commissions to try terrorism suspects emerged in the weeks following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, from a small group of White House and Justice Department lawyers who consulted closely with Mr. Cheney, current and former administration officials have said.

By their own accounts, those officials sought to use the presidency's war powers to allow the military to detain, interrogate and prosecute terrorism suspects who might be harder to question or convict in the federal justice system.

A military order signed by Mr. Bush on Nov. 13, 2001, promised that the tribunals would be "full and fair." But the order and subsequent Pentagon regulations denied defendants some due-process guarantees of civilian and military courts, including the right to hear and contest all of the evidence against them.

After more than two years of delays, the commission hearings began last August but were marred by disorganization and other problems. For a time, Pentagon officials said, they considered removing the presiding officer chosen to lead the first four trials.

Those proceedings were halted after a federal district judge in Washington ruled on Nov. 8 that the commissions could not legally try one of the first defendants, Salim Ahmed Hamdan.

The judge, James Robertson, said the administration had improperly bypassed Congress in setting up the commissions and violated binding international law when it refused to screen prisoners like Mr. Hamdan in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. Judge Robertson also held that commission rules allowing the defendant to be excluded from some proceedings and denied access to some of the evidence against him were "fatally contrary to or inconsistent with" the standards of American military and civilian courts.

Rather than push forward with other trials, General Altenburg chose to regroup. Several weeks earlier, he had asked a senior lawyer on his staff, Col. Lee Deneke, to oversee a group of lawyers in drafting a manual that would address procedural shortcomings of the tribunals and some of the criticisms made by legal experts, foreign governments and human rights groups, officials said.

"There has been a push for some time to address some of the outstanding issues on military commissions," said one administration official, who, like others insisted on anonymity because of the secrecy of the process. "But now it is no longer just a few voices advocating changes. Now you have the courts saying that some things need to be done."

Several officials who have read the draft manual said it would address only some of the criticisms raised by Judge Robertson, a former civil rights lawyer and naval officer appointed by President Bill Clinton.

In his 45-page ruling, Judge Robertson also noted other discrepancies between the military commission rules and the courts-martial regulations of the Uniform Code of Military Justice, including the lack of speedy trial provisions or guarantees against self-incrimination and the smaller size of a commission panel and the comparative ease with which it can vote a life sentence.

The draft manual affords defendants more power to challenge the evidence against them, even when that information is classified, officials said. Another proposal raises the minimum number of military officers on a tribunal to five from three. In a capital case, as many as 12 panel members might be required, one military lawyer said.

The manual would also bar any "confession or admission that was procured from the accused by torture," according to portions of a draft read to a reporter. The definition of torture in the draft is fairly broad, covering any act "specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain and suffering."

The draft manual includes a legal analysis of each provision. Without the analysis, the 232-page draft runs just over 100 pages, an official said.

One of the most significant proposals would make the commissions' presiding officer more like the judge in a general courts-martial. Officials said that change was intended to solve procedural problems created by rules that now require all commission members to rule on questions of the law, as well as on the facts of a case, even though the members are generally active-duty or reserve officers without legal training.

But the problem might also be one of the most difficult to fix, officials said.

In order to change the scheme, military lawyers, including General Altenburg, would now like to amend the presidential order, a step that would probably be opposed by some in the White House and that might take months to move through the bureaucracy even if it were fully endorsed, officials said.

Administration officials also appear to be divided over the wisdom of changing any of the commission rules before the federal lawsuit is resolved.

Although many officials are optimistic about the administration's chances before three Republican-appointed judges who are scheduled to hear arguments in the case on April 7 in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, many of those officials also expect the matter to reach the Supreme Court regardless of the outcome.

"People who think that it will be full steam ahead for the commissions after the appeals court rules fail to appreciate how much litigation might be ahead of us," said a military lawyer who advocates changes to the commissions. "A manual like that might make the courts more reluctant to intervene."

By TIM GOLDEN

As war stretches on, recruiters scramble

Falling short of goals, the Army has beefed up bonuses and raised the maximum age of Guard and Reserve recruits to 39.


LAUREL, MD. - It was no surprise when Bruce Ziegler enlisted in the National Guard. After six years in the Army and two tours abroad in Afghanistan and Iraq, Sergeant Ziegler had come to a conclusion about his life: Whatever he did, he wanted to serve his country.

Yet when it came time to decide what to do with this strait-laced, close-cropped soldier from rural Kansas, the National Guard decided that he could serve America best not in the streets of Baghdad or the caves of the Hindu Kush, but at a small desk here in the pallid light of Laurel Armory.

Ziegler is a recruiter, and as the Army Guard and Reserve - as well as the Army itself - begin consistently missing their recruitment goals, his job has emerged as one of the most pressing concerns of the war on terror.

Last month, the Army missed its monthly recruiting target for the first time since 2000. The Army National Guard and Reserve haven't reached their monthly targets since October. The Pentagon has responded by fattening bonuses for soldiers, training more recruiters like Ziegler, and raising the top age for Guard and Reserve recruits from 34 to 39.

Their success is crucial to the course of the Iraq war. In the first sustained test of the all-volunteer military created by the abolition of the draft in 1973, the Army has had to rely heavily on citizen soldiers, who make up 45 percent of US forces in Iraq. Now, that supply chain is showing signs of stress, and some experts say the current data suggest that the task of maintaining a full force in the Middle East will only get harder. "The longer this war goes on, the more difficult it's going to be to get more recruits," says Lawrence Korb of the Center for American Progress in Washington.

Five months into its recruiting year, the Army Reserve is 10 percent behind its goal and the National Guard is 24 percent off.

To be sure, recruiting in wartime has always been difficult, hence the need for a draft in the past. Moreover, as the economy improves, more potential recruits are finding financial security without turning to military service to pay for bills or college.

Yet the Iraq war has also produced unique stresses on the military and on recruiting, particularly for the Guard and Reserve. "The National Guard has changed radically," says Lt. Col. Mike Milord of the National Guard Bureau. "Historically, the National Guard has been here to be available for a World War III-type scenario."

It was a relative haven from active military service, where members could establish civilian lives with some sense of normalcy. As a result, active soldiers at the end of their enlistment would often join the ranks of the Guard and Reserve, providing about half of their total force.

Today, however, the Guard and Reserve are in the thick of the action. Since 2001, more than 60,000 Guard and Reserve troops have been deployed at least twice, blurring the line between active and reserve soldiers and affecting recruitment efforts. Those soldiers willing to stay in Iraq are cashing in on large incentives to reenlist in the active Army. Those who want to get out are avoiding the Guard and Reserve, because they know they could be sent back. "We've changed our recruiting," says Colonel Milord. "We've had to get more of the non-prior-service market."

The difficulties betray deeper questions about whether the size and structure of the current military is adequate at a time of substantial US intervention worldwide. The Army must rely so heavily on the Guard and Reserve because it is not large enough, and because some key nationbuilding duties - such as policing and engineering - are handled partly by the Guard and Reserve, some experts say.

"The Army - and by that I mean active, Guard, and Reserve - is simply too small and improperly structured to successfully fulfill and perform all the nation is asking it to do," Rep. John McHugh (R) of New York told a House hearing last month.

So far, the Pentagon has rejected the notion that the pace of deployments is unsustainable. It has also dismissed any potential need for a draft. In the long term, many analysts agree that the Army could grow, if it wishes, using volunteers. But the failure simply to maintain current strength shows the challenges of recruiting in wartime.

But recruiter Ziegler is not ready to concede defeat. Dressed in his camouflage fatigues, he is unfailingly optimistic, ringing every affirmative answer with a "Roger, that." The stepson of a Kansas oil man and one of a dozen children, Ziegler speaks with the conviction of a true believer. The Army changed his life, and he thinks he can help change other lives, too.

When he was 20, working odd jobs in his stepfather's oil fields and in the local Wal-Mart, pictures of the military in Kosovo inspired him to want to help others. Nowadays, he spends his hours trying to find kids just like him. "If I make a difference in one person's life, that's a big deal," he insists.

Ziegler is one of 2,100 recruiters added by the Guard and Reserve this year. Those additions, together with the new bonuses for enlistment and the relaxed age limit, give the military hope it can reverse the recent trend.

For his part, Ziegler is no stranger to the frustrations of recruiting. Most mornings, he journeys to high schools and shopping malls, setting up information booths and talking to kids. In the evenings, he makes phone calls and house visits to potential recruits.

The questions and concerns are always the same. "What is the Guard?" "Will I be sent to Iraq?" Or, just as often: "Will my son be sent to Iraq?" Parents are becoming more involved in decisions.

"There is more opposition among parents, and particularly among parents who might normally be open to the economic benefits [of enlisting]," says David Segal, a military expert at the University of Maryland. "Now they're saying, 'Getting killed isn't worth going to college.' "

Ziegler can respond only with what he knows. He tells parents about how he helped rebuild Iraqi schools, restore power to Iraqi neighborhoods, and train Iraqi police. "You might see a soldier hurt," he says. "But he's doing something he loves and he's giving back. Once I tell them that, they kind of relate."

Still, in three months on the job, both people he has enlisted were prior service members. "It can be hard," Ziegler says. But then, just as quickly, his face brightens. This new soldier in the Guard's recruiting offensive is a man who volunteered to go on high school recruiting trips when he was still in basic training. "I approach this with a positive attitude."

By Mark Sappenfield © 2005 The Christian Science Monitor.

Anti-China Protesters Inundate Taipei

A massive crowd turns out to condemn China's new anti-secession law aimed at the island. Beijing may have misjudged the fallout.

TAIPEI, Taiwan — Several hundred thousand Taiwanese took to the streets Saturday to protest China's passage of a controversial anti-secession law authorizing the mainland to use force if Taipei declares independence.

A handful of demonstrators burned Chinese flags and defaced cardboard images of China, but no major clashes were reported during the mass gathering in which many pushed baby carriages, chanted slogans and protest songs and walked dogs wreathed in peace banners.

"I'm here because I want the world to know that Taiwan's future should be determined by the Taiwanese people," said Maria Yang, 40, a teacher from Taipei walking with a huge crowd toward the president's office. "I hope China receives a very clear message today that they have no authority over us, no right to pass such a law."

The rally, which organizers said drew 1 million people but police estimated attracted fewer than half that number, was as much about gaining foreign support as it was about rallying Taiwanese.

American protest songs including "Blowin' in the Wind" and "We Shall Overcome" were chosen to resonate with overseas viewers, organizers said. Several in the crowd carried American flags, "Peace" and "Protect Taiwan" signs in English and cardboard depictions of President Bush and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, leaders of the two nations most likely to defend Taiwan if China were to attack.

"We're trying to have the voice of Taiwan heard by China and the international community," said Hsiao Bi-kim, a protest organizer and lawmaker with the ruling Democratic Progressive Party. "The vast majority of people find the Chinese law unacceptable."

Washington has criticized the statute, passed without opposition two weeks ago by Beijing's largely ceremonial legislature, as likely to worsen already tense cross-strait relations. Taiwan broke with China in 1949 during the civil war that brought the Communists to power, but Beijing still claims the island as part of its territory.

Chinese analysts condemned Saturday's demonstration, saying it had been organized by troublemakers and misrepresented genuine Taiwanese public opinion.

"A few pro-independence forces are trying to fan the emotions of Taiwanese who don't understand the law, bringing them onto the streets," said Xu Bodong, a professor at Beijing Union University. "They lure them with money and gifts like free lunches."

Taiwanese lawmakers and government officials said the next move was up to Beijing. It's unlikely that China will revoke the law, but it could ease its hard-line rhetoric or exacerbate tensions by strengthening its military posture and changing emergency statutes to conform to the new anti-secession law.

The demonstration occurred at a very sensitive time, said Wu Yu-shan, a regional expert with Academia Sinica, a Taiwanese think tank.

"If Beijing interprets the march as a substantial step toward independence, it could put even greater pressure on Taiwan and we could see an escalation" of problems, he said. "It really depends on everyone knowing the limits."

China's decision to pass the law has undermined its security interests, at least in the short term, according to overseas analysts.

"I think they shot themselves in the foot," said Jean-Philippe Beja, a China expert at France's Center for International Studies and Research. "The lesson they'll draw from this is to be a lot more careful in the future."

In China's immediate neighborhood, the law has burdened cross-strait relations just when the two sides seemed to be edging closer with the advent of direct holiday charter flights, the naming of a moderate Chinese premier and less inflammatory rhetoric on both sides.

Further afield, analysts said, China appears to have underestimated the impact that the new law would have in Europe, which is debating the lifting of a 15-year embargo on weapons sales to China enacted after the Tiananmen Square crackdown.

By codifying its willingness to use military force against Taiwan, Beijing handed a potent argument to Europeans who oppose lifting the ban, allowing them to paint China as an aggressor that can't be trusted.

China's new law is only one of several factors in the debate over the ban. Washington has lobbied European nations hard against lifting sanctions, arguing that it would pit European and American weapons against each other in a cross-strait conflict.

Analysts said, however, that the law could very well tip the balance.

"The anti-secession law does complicate the weapons ban debate to a certain extent," said Song Xinning, an expert on Sino-European relations at Renmin University in Beijing. "I'm pessimistic the ban will be lifted now, a side effect of the law's passage."

The new law could also strengthen Japan's growing concern over China's expanding economic and military power in Asia, prompting Tokyo to raise its own military profile and move closer to the U.S. and Taiwan to counter Beijing's ambitions.

"China's more pronounced stance is likely to increase tensions with the U.S. over security issues, and affect links with Taiwan and Japan," said Pauline Eadie, a political analyst with the University of Nottingham in Britain.

"There's a possibility they're playing brinkmanship as a way to have the U.S. clarify its position in the region."

Last week's visit by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice could have been a high point for the relatively new regime of President Hu Jintao and Premier Wen Jiabao. Instead, there were signs of tension as she delivered a message that the Chinese law raised cross-strait anxieties and was not welcomed.

It has also handed Taiwan's Chen Shui-bian, an expert political campaigner, the opportunity to rally support behind his presidency.

"There's real grass-roots unhappiness with the law in Taiwan," said Chiu Tai-san, vice chairman of Taiwan's Mainland Affairs Council, charged with overseeing relations with China. "It's made Taiwanese realize the fundamental gap in democracy and values between the two systems."

Decision-making in Beijing is largely opaque, but analysts offer several possible reasons for China's apparent miscalculation. The leadership appears to have overrated European support for lifting the arms ban.

It also may have gotten caught in its own clunky system, some say.

The decision to pass the law was made last year when it looked as though Taiwan's pro-independence movement was unstoppable. Having announced it would pass the law, the Chinese leadership couldn't easily reverse course even as cross-strait relations warmed.

The statute contains little that China hasn't said repeatedly. But Chinese officials failed to realize that putting it into law would fuel suspicion and anger.

But keeping Taiwan from declaring independence is so important to the Chinese leadership, frustrated by its eroding influence over the island, that it's willing to weather short-term setbacks if it ultimately keeps Taipei in check, analysts say.

President Chen opted not to speak at the demonstration Saturday, but marched and sang a song, "Taiwan Is Our Baby." Scores of children were plastered with stickers decrying China's arsenal, meant to contrast Taiwanese innocence with what demonstrators see as Chinese belligerence.

Protesters converged on the president's office from 10 directions, signifying the 10 articles in the anti-secession law.

"China's law is unwelcome and unnecessary," said Lin Shou-ling, a 32-year-old office worker from Taipei who was holding a camera and a designer handbag. "We don't belong to them, so why are they doing this?"


By Mark Magnier March 27, 2005
Special correspondent Tsai Ting-I in Taipei and Yin Lijin in the Beijing Bureau contributed to this report.
Copyright 2005 Los Angeles Times

Countering Despair with the Momentum of Hope

Z

"What goes against the grain of conditioning
is experienced as not credible, or as a hostile act."
(John McMurtry, philosopher)

Bizarre Conversations

Climate crisis is not a future risk. It is today's reality. As Myles Allen, a climate scientist at Oxford University, warned recently: "The danger zone is not something we are going to reach in the middle of this century. We are in it now." (Roger Highfield, 'Screen saver weather trial predicts 10 deg rise in British temperatures', Daily Telegraph, 31 January, 2005)

Human-induced climate change has been killing people for decades. Climatologists estimate that global warming has led to the deaths of 150,000 people since 1970. (Meteorological Office, 'Avoiding Dangerous Climate Change', 1-3 February 2005, Table 2a. 'Impacts on human systems due to temperature rise, precipitation change and increases in extreme events', page 1; www.stabilisation2005.com/impacts/impacts_human.pdf) By 2050, as temperatures rise, scientists warn that three billion people will be under "water stress", with tens of millions likely dying as a result.

At such a desperate moment in the planet's history, we could simply throw up our hands in despair, or we could try to reduce the likelihood of the worst predictions coming true. The corporate media has yet to examine its own role in setting up huge obstacles to the latter option of hope.

Consider, for example, Michael McCarthy, environment editor of the Independent. McCarthy described how he "was taken aback" at dramatic scientific warnings of "major new threats" at a recent climate conference in Exeter. One frightening prospect is the collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet, previously considered stable, which would lead to a 5-metre rise in global sea level. As McCarthy notes dramatically: "Goodbye London; goodbye Bangladesh".

On the way back from Exeter on the train, he mulls over the conference findings with Paul Brown, environment correspondent of the Guardian:

"By the time we reached London we knew what the conclusion was. I said: 'The earth is finished.' Paul said: 'It is, yes.' We both shook our heads and gave that half-laugh that is sparked by incredulity. So many environmental scare stories, over the years; I never dreamed of such a one as this.

"And what will our children make of our generation, who let this planet, so lovingly created, go to waste?" (McCarthy, 'Slouching towards disaster', The Tablet, 12 February, 2005; available at http://www.gci.org.uk/articles/Tablet.pdf)

This is a remarkably bleak conclusion. McCarthy glibly notes the "inevitability of what [is] going to happen", namely: "The earth is finished." We applaud the journalist for presenting the reality of human-caused climate change. But the resignation, and the apparent lack of any resolve to avert catastrophe, is irresponsible. As Noam Chomsky has put it in a different, though related, context:

"We are faced with a kind of Pascal's wager: assume the worst and it will surely arrive: commit oneself to the struggle for freedom and justice, and its cause may be advanced." (Chomsky, 'Deterring Democracy', Vintage, London, 1992, p. 64)

Following McCarthy's anguished return to the Independent's comfortable offices in London, one searches in vain for his penetrating news reports on how corporate greed and government complicity have dragged humanity into this abyss. One searches in vain, too, for anything similar by Paul Brown in The Guardian.

The notion of government and big business perpetrating climate crimes against humanity is simply off the news agenda. A collective madness of suffocating silence pervades the media, afflicting even those editors and journalists that we are supposed to regard as the best.


Contraction and Convergence: Climate Logic for Survival

In 1992, the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change was agreed. The objective of the convention is to "stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will avoid dangerous rates of climate change." The Kyoto protocol, which came into force in February, requires developed nations to cut emissions by just 5 per cent, compared to 1990 levels. This is a tiny first step, and is far less than the cuts required, which are around 80 per cent.

One of the major gaps in the climate 'debate' is the deafening silence surrounding contraction and convergence (C&C). This proposal by the London-based Global Commons Institute would cut greenhouse gas emissions in a fair and timely manner, averting the worst climatic impacts. Unlike Kyoto, it is a global framework involving all countries, both 'developed' and 'developing'.

C&C requires that annual emissions of greenhouse gases contract over time to a sustainable level. The aim would be to limit the equivalent concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to a safe level. The pre-industrial level, in 1800, was 280 parts per million by volume (ppmv). The current level is around 380 ppmv, and it will exceed 400 ppmv within ten years under a business as usual scenario. Even if we stopped burning fossil fuels today, the planet would continue to heat up for more than a hundred years. In other words, humanity has already committed life on the planet to considerable climate-related damages in the years to come.

Setting a 'safe' limit of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration actually means estimating a limit beyond which damage to the planet is unacceptable. This may be 450 ppmv; or it may be that the international community agrees on a target lower than the present atmospheric level, say 350 ppmv. Once the target is agreed, it is a simple matter to allocate an equitable 'carbon budget' of annual emissions amongst the world's population on a per capita basis. This is worked out for each country or world region (e.g. the European Union).

The Global Commons Institute's eye-catching computer graphics illustrate past emissions and future allocation of emissions by country (or region), achieving per capita equality by 2030, for example. This is the convergence part of C&C. After 2030, emissions drop off to reach safe levels by 2100. This is the contraction. (Further information on C&C, with illustrations, can be found at http://www.gci.org.uk).

Recall that the objective of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change is to "stabilise greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere at a level that will avoid dangerous rates of climate change." Its basic principles are precaution and equity. C&C is a simple and powerful proposal that directly embodies both the convention's objective and principles.

Last year, the secretariat to the UNFCCC negotiations declared that achieving the treaty's objective "inevitably requires Contraction and Convergence". C&C is supported by an impressive array of authorities in climate science, including physicist Sir John Houghton, the former chair of the science assessment working group of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (1988-2002). Indeed, the IPCC, comprising the world's recognised climate experts, has announced that: "C&C takes the rights-based approach to its logical conclusion."

The prestigious Institute of Civil Engineers in London recently described C&C as "an antidote to the expanding, diverging and climate-changing nature of global economic development". The ICE added that C&C "could prove to be the ultimate sustainability initia?tive." (Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers, London, paper 13982, December 2004)

In February 2005, Aubrey Meyer of the Global Commons Institute was given a lifetime's achievement award by the Corporation of London. Nominations had been sought for "the person from the worlds of business, academia, politics and activism seeking the individual who had made the greatest contribution to the understanding and combating of climate change, leading strategic debate and policy formation."

Although Meyer is at times understandably somewhat despondent at the enormity of the task ahead, he sees fruitful signs in the global grassroots push for sustainable development, something which "is impossible without personal and human development. These are things we have to work for so hope has momentum as well as motive." ('GCI's Meyer looks ahead', interview with Energy Argus, December 2004, p. 15; reprinted in http://www.gci.org.uk/briefings/EAC_document_3.pdf, p. 27)

And that momentum of hope is building. C&C has attracted statements of support from leading politicians and grassroots groups in a majority of the world's countries, including the Africa Group, the Non-Aligned Movement, China and India. C&C may well be the only approach to greenhouse emissions that developing countries are willing to accept. That, in turn, should grab the attention of even the US; the Bush administration rejected the Kyoto protocol ostensibly, at least, because the agreement requires no commitments from developing nations. Kyoto involves only trivial cuts in greenhouse gas emissions, as we noted above, and the agreement will expire in 2012. A replacement agreement is needed fast.

On a sane planet, politicians and the media would now be clamouring to introduce C&C as a truly global, logical and equitable framework for stabilising the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide. Rational and balanced coverage of climate change would be devoting considerable resources to discussion of this groundbreaking proposal.

It would be central to news reports of international climate meetings as a way out of the deadlock of negotiations; Jon Snow of Channel 4 news would be hosting hour-long live debates; the BBC's Jeremy Paxman would demand of government ministers why they had not yet signed up to C&C; ITN's Trevor Macdonald would present special documentaries from a multimillion pound ITN television studio; newspaper editorials would analyse the implications of C&C for sensible energy policies and tax regimes; Friends of the Earth and Greenpeace would be endlessly promoting C&C to their supporters. Instead, a horrible silence prevails.


Leaders as Moral Metaphors of a Corrupt System

We conducted a Lexis-Nexis newspaper database search to gauge the relative importance given to different topics in climate news reports by a number of major environment reporters. The following figures relate to the five year period leading up to, and including, 25 February 2005. We investigated to what extent equity, and contraction and convergence, entered into mainstream news reports on climate, in the best British press.

Michael McCarthy (Independent) Number of news reports "climate" 232 "climate" + "industry" 80 "climate" + "Blair" 53 "climate" + "equity" 0 "climate" + "contraction and convergence" 0

Geoffrey Lean (Independent on Sunday) "climate" 105 "climate" + "industry" 40 "climate" + "Blair" 38 "climate" + "equity" 0 "climate" + "contraction and convergence" 1

Charles Clover (Telegraph) "climate" 136 "climate" + "industry" 47 "climate" + "Blair" 38 "climate" + "equity" 0 "climate" + "contraction and convergence" 0

Paul Brown (Guardian) "climate" 287 "climate" + "industry" 137 "climate" + "Blair" 48 "climate" + "equity" 1 "climate" + "contraction and convergence" 1

John Vidal (Guardian) "climate" 193 "climate" + "industry" 98 "climate" + "Blair" 31 "climate" + "equity" 1 "climate" + "contraction and convergence" 0

This is not a rigorous scientific analysis, of course, but the numbers +are+ highly indicative of hugely skewed priorities. Out of a grand total of 953 articles across the Independent, Independent on Sunday, Guardian and Telegraph, C&C was mentioned only twice, as was equity. On the other hand, industry was addressed in 402 articles, and Blair was mentioned 208 times, both almost entirely from an uncritical perspective.

One might counter that pronouncements on climate by Tony Blair, as prime minister, should be deemed automatically 'newsworthy'. But we must also bear in mind what Blair actually represents, even if the media conceals it well. Canadian philosopher John McMurtry explains:

"Tony Blair exemplifies the character structure of the global market order. Packaged in the corporate culture of youthful image, he is constructed as sincere, energetic and moral. Like other ruling-party leaders, he has worked hard to be selected by the financial and media axes of power as 'the man to do the job'. He is a moral metaphor of the system." (McMurtry, 'Value Wars', Pluto, London, 2002, p. 22)

Although public trust in Blair has collapsed after his many deceptions over Iraq, the media continue to present him as a fundamentally well-intentioned leader pursuing the interests of the nation. Thus, whenever Blair, Bush and other corporate-backed political leaders are given prominent news coverage, the media is in effect promoting its own business goals of profit and power. This is inimical to any reasonable prospect of averting climate catastrophe.

Contraction and convergence is the only serious global framework on the table for plotting a route out of the climate crisis. That C&C, and the concept of equity, can be so systematically ignored by the corporate media, is yet another damning indictment of the media's systemic failings. It is incumbent upon us all to push these issues onto the news agenda.

SUGGESTED ACTION

The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. When writing emails to journalists, we strongly urge readers to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone. You could ask questions along the following lines: In your reports on climate change, why do you never address equity, or contraction and convergence?

Write to Michael McCarthy, environment editor of the Independent: Email: m.mccarthy@independent.co.uk

Write to Geoffrey Lean, environment editor of the Independent on Sunday: Email: g.lean@independent.co.uk

Write to Charles Clover, environment editor of the Daily Telegraph: Charles.Clover@telegraph.co.uk

Write to Paul Brown, environment correspondent of the Guardian: Email: paul.brown@guardian.co.uk

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March 27, 2005
By David Cromwell

Women of Palestine

The Suffering Palestinian Women Undergo Every Day

The following is the speech Nurit Peled-Elhanan delivered at the European Parliament, Strasbourg, on March 8 on the occasion of International Women's Day.

Thank you for inviting me to this day. It is always an honor and a pleasure to be here, among you.

However, I must admit I believe you should have invited a Palestinian woman at my stead, because the women who suffer most from violence in my county are the Palestinian women. And I would like to dedicate my speech to Miriam R'aban and her husband Kamal, from Bet Lahiya in the Gaza Strip, whose five small children were killed by Israeli soldiers while picking strawberries at the family's strawberry field. No one will ever stand trial for this murder.

When I asked the people who invited me here why wouldn't they invite a Palestinian woman the answer was that it would make the discussion too localized.

I don't know what is non-localized violence. Racism and discrimination may be theoretical concepts and universal phenomena but their impact is always local, and real. Pain is local, humiliation, sexual abuse, torture and death, are all very local, and so are the scars.

It is true unfortunately, that the local violence inflicted on Palestinian women by the government of Israel and the Israeli Army, has expanded around the globe. In fact state violence and army violence, individual and collective violence are the lot of Muslim women today, not only in Palestine but wherever the enlightened Western world is setting its big imperialistic foot. It is violence which is hardly ever addressed and which is halfheartedly condoned by most people in Europe and in the USA.

This is because the so-called free world is afraid of the Muslim womb.

Great France of la liberté l'égalité et la fraternité is scared of little girls with headscarves, Great Jewish Israel is afraid of the Muslim womb. Its ministers call it a demographic threat. Almighty America and Great Britain are infecting their respective citizens with blind fear of the Muslims, who are depicted as vile, primitive and blood-thirsty, apart from their being non-democratic, chauvinistic and mass producers of future terrorists.

This in spite of the fact that the people who are destroying the world today are not Muslim. One of them is a devout Christian, one is Anglican and one is a non-devout Jew.

I have never experienced the suffering Palestinian women undergo every day, every hour. I don't know the kind of violence that turns a woman's life into constant hell. This daily physical and mental torture of women who are deprived of their basic human rights and needs of privacy and dignity, women whose homes are broken in at any moment of day and night, who are ordered at a gun-point to strip naked in front of strangers and their own children, whose houses are demolished, who are deprived of their livelihood and of any normal family life. This is not part of my personal ordeal. But I am a victim of violence against women insofar as violence against children is actually violence against mothers. Palestinian, Iraqi, Afghan women are my sisters because we are all at the grip of the same unscrupulous criminals who call themselves leaders of the free enlightened world and in the name of this freedom and enlightenment rob us of our children. Furthermore, Israeli, American, Italian and British mothers have been for the most part violently blinded and brainwashed to such a degree that they cannot realize their only sisters, their only allies in the world are the Muslim Palestinian, Iraqi or Afghani mothers, whose children are killed by our children or who blow themselves to pieces with our sons and daughters. They are all mind-infected by the same viruses engendered by politicians. And the viruses, though they may have various illustrious names such as Democracy, Patriotism, God, Homeland, are all the same. They are all part of false and fake ideologies that are meant to enrich the rich and to empower the powerful.

We are all the victims of mental, psychological and cultural violence that turn us to one homogenic group of bereaved or potentially bereaved mothers. Western mothers are taught to believe their uterus is a national asset just like they are taught to believe that the Muslim uterus is an international threat. They are educated not to cry out: "I gave him birth, I breast-fed him, he is mine, and I will not let him be the one whose life is cheaper than oil, whose future is less worth than a piece of land."

All of us are terrorized by mind-infecting education to believe all we can do is either pray for our sons to come back home or be proud of their dead bodies.

And all of us were brought up to bear all this silently, to contain our fear and frustration, to take Prozac for anxiety, but never hail Mama Courage in public. Never be real Jewish or Italian or Irish mothers.

I am a victim of state violence. My natural and civil rights as a mother have been violated and are violated because I have to fear the day my son would reach his 18th birthday and be taken away from me to be the game tool of criminals such as Sharon, Bush, Blair and their clan of blood-thirsty, oil-thirsty, land-thirsty generals.

Living in the world I live in, in the state I live in, in the regime I live in, I don't dare to offer Muslim women any ideas how to change their lives. I don't want them to take off their scarves, or educate their children differently, and I will not urge them to constitute democracies in the image of Western democracies that despise them and their kind. I just want to ask them humbly to be my sisters, to express my admiration for their perseverance and for their courage to carry on, to have children and to maintain a dignified family life in spite of the impossible conditions my world is putting them in. I want to tell them we are all bonded by the same pain, we are all the victims of the same sort of violence even though they suffer much more, for they are the ones who are mistreated by my government and its army, sponsored by my taxes.

Islam in itself, like Judaism in itself and Christianity in itself, is not a threat to me or to anyone. American imperialism is, European indifference and cooperation is and Israeli racist and cruel regime of occupation is. It is racism, educational propaganda and inculcated xenophobia that convince Israeli soldiers to order Palestinian women at gun-point to strip in front of their children for security reasons; it is the deepest disrespect for the other that allow American soldiers to rape Iraqi women, that give license to Israeli jailers to keep young women in inhuman conditions, without necessary hygienic aids, without electricity in the winter, without clean water or clean mattresses and to separate them from their breast-fed babies and toddlers. To bar their way to hospitals, to block their way to education, to confiscate their lands, to uproot their trees and prevent them from cultivating their fields.

I cannot completely understand Palestinian women or their suffering. I don't know how I would have survived such humiliation, such disrespect from the whole world. All I know is that the voice of mothers has been suffocated for too long in this war-stricken planet. Mothers' cry is not heard because mothers are not invited to international forums such as this one. This I know and it is very little. But it is enough for me to remember these women are my sisters, and that they deserve that I should cry for them, and fight for them. And when they lose their children in strawberry fields or in on filthy roads by the checkpoints, when their children are shot on their way to school by Israeli children who were educated to believe that love and compassion are race- and religion-dependent, the only thing I can do is stand by them and their betrayed babies, and ask what Anna Akhmatova, another mother who lived in a regime of violence against women and children, had asked:

Why does that streak o blood, rip the petal of you cheek?

By Nurit Peled-Elhanan
Arab News, March 26, 2005