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Indymedia Seizures Initiated In Europe
daveschroeder continues: "Rackspace's statement reads, 'In the present matter regarding Indymedia, Rackspace Managed Hosting, a U.S. based company with offices in London, is acting in compliance with a court order pursuant to a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT), which establishes procedures for countries to assist each other in investigations such as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering. Rackspace responded to a Commissioner's subpoena, duly issued under Title 28, United States Code, Section 1782 in an investigation that did not arise in the United States. Rackspace is acting as a good corporate citizen and is cooperating with international law enforcement authorities. The court prohibits Rackspace from commenting further on this matter.'"
Europe's not perfect! The United States isn't always the bad guy! Panic erupts on Slashdot.
. . . each of Europe and the U.S. gets the other to do the dirty work that would be too hot in each home country. This was a J. Edgar Hoover through the side door.
And half the people on here thought it was all the US/FBI's fault, that we are the bad guys..
Go figure, It just wouldn't make sense to wait for the facts before opening ones mouth, Instead we slashdotters like to shoot from the hip
Personal Website
"as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering." Another blatant misuse of laws! They make 'em for one purpose and then use 'em for another.. go figure!
Infinite time means everything that can happen, will. You being you is absolutely incidental. You do not exist.
This is the FBI, not the CIA. The FBI is allowed to monitor domestic things, the CIA is not. That is why they CIA might work with another country to get intelligence on its own country. The FBI has no need.
How far does this MLAT extend? I'm wondering whether it would obligate nations to assist in cases where based on their own laws, the suspected crime wouldn't have been a crime at all. This is pretty relevant since the USA has significantly more anal-retentive IP laws right now, and Europe has significantly fewer protections on freedom of speech. Might a country that doesn't have anything like a DMCA be forced to help the FBI take down some infringing code? Would the FBI be forced to help some EU nation take down a website promoting "hate speech"?
I guess I realize why this sort of treaty is useful, but I'm having a hard time understanding how it avoids trampling on the local legal rules of each nation.
from hosting with a large, multinational corporation.
It also serves as a good reminder to consider using encrypted discs for servers where the data should not fall into the hands of law-enforcement.
Rainer
Windows 2000 - from the guys who brought us edlin
The court prohibits Rackspace from commenting further on this matter.
which court , a US one ? French, Swiss ?
its almost a human rights issue if the suspect has been bound over from discussing the charges or suspected charges with anyone
then again USA and human rights never did get on well
In theory, if /. refered to a project that was supposed to be secret in a foreign coutry the 1st amendment rights of /. can be broached by that country issuing subpeonas via the MLAT thingy? I read the article and it refered to a pic of some Swiss undercover brownshorts getting their cover blown on an Indymedia server as the likely cause of the take down.
Ah, the swiss, in their hollowed out little country. The nice germans, or as they say, "The other white race"
Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.
Perhaps they should have been hosted in SeaLand?
- Just my $0.02, take with a grain of salt, your mileage may vary.
Try telling that to the inmates of Belmarsh Prison who have been imprisoned under our shiny new anti-terrorism laws here in the UK. True, maybe some or even all of them should be in there and the evidence really is truly sensitive and could, for instance, compromise an undercover asset if made public. Even so, they are still being held without being formally charged with anything at all in many cases.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Good citizen, this is not last week, we are not at war with oceana, we never were at war with oceana, and in any case last week does not officially exist.
Always *ALWAYS* make backups of everything and distribute many copies abroad.
This is not the first time that governments abuse their powers and surely won't be the last.
...and, as such, had to be served with a subpoena by a US law enforcement entity. That's why the FBI was tangentially involved. The FBI merely acted as a legal conduit under an international legal treaty to which the US, UK, and many other nations are parties.
First off, RTFA. Second, strongly centralized governments envy banana republics that don't have this "rule of law" democracy seeking people keep asking for.
I think Indymedia's problem really is that they don't know why the servers were seized, they just got a call from rackspace saying "dude, the FBI is here with a warrant, so that server is coming down". In fact, I think that this could have been done without Indymedia knowing until the server was unplugged, sort of a Patriot Act style no knock raid.
The first rule about patriot act is we don't talk about patriot act. The second rule about patriot act is we don't talk about patriot act!
Bacardi + slashdot = negative karma.
John Young of Cryptome.org says:
"This is not unprecedented. Some years ago several US ISPs removed material on sites at the request of foreign governments. They acted unilaterally, without court order, merely upon the request of the governments. Some of these incidents were made public, competing ISPs offered to refuse to abide such requests, and customers abandoned those who cooperated with the authorities.
This method can be used against Rackspace. Indeed, it is likely that Rackspace awaits public outcry, and customers leaving, in order to have grounds to resist the thinly justified action in this case.
Recall that the US DoJ is regularly bluffing and faking its attack on alleged terrorist suspects and political dissidents. Other countries are following the US in this vile practice. They cover for each other with these obnoxious mutual assistance treaties, in which fingers are pointed after the dirty deeds are done."
It's here
http://cryptome.org/fbi-imc.htm
http://cryptome.org/fbi-imc/fbi-imc-doc.htm
http://cryptome.org/rackspace-axe.htm
Go not unto/. for advice, for you will be told both yea and nay (but have nothing to do with the question)
wow..I like how when someone criticizes a site that happens to be left-wing, they get modded down. It seems that some moderators haven't figured out that there is no real difference between being "left-wing" or "right-wing". Both sides use the logic that the other side is automatically wrong, regardless of the situation. The MoveOn/Michael Moore zealots are no different than the Swift Boat/anti-Kerry zealots.
-b.
What's up with that gag order?
I could understand them choosing to refrain from comment for legal reasons (basically a CYA maneuver). But a court order? Does anyone here know what's going on?
I think I speak for many when I ask:
Who the heck is Indymedia and why should we care?
Seriously, what were the involved in that could be alleged to be "illegal"?
Pretty much solves that problem...
i on -HOWTO/Encryption-HOWTO-4.html
Using an encrypted device, e.g.
http://www.linuxsecurity.com/docs/HOWTO/Encrypt
And use AFS on top of that in order to provide global redundancy.
http://www.openafs.org/
Deleted
You cannot have a war on an inanimate object. Let me say that again: You cannot have a war on an inanimate object. That goes for drugs. Additionally: You cannot have a war against a tactic. "Terrorism" (of the sort seen in Iraq today) is a tactic which would have previously been covered by the adjective "guerilla" fighting.
Great how we let 3,000 people dying in a country of 260,000,000 eliminate some of our liberty that we're certain to never get back.
The concentration of power has been a society-destroying force in every major historic society. Think Roman Empire.
I think i'd prefer it if there WAS some "oceania" out there we could be at perpetual war with: at least it has borders which are easily defined. Terror is an excuse to use the military worldwide without checks and then to come after the citizens of your own country when they question the government's efforts to fight the terror.
The bottom line here, for what it's worth, is that the US (or political agents within the US) had absolutely nothing to do with Indymedia's drives being seized, even though that's what 90% of the posters in the original article immediately assumed. And, on top of that, the ONLY reason the FBI was involved was because Rackspace, Indymedia's host, is a US company. However, the FBI itself did not do any of the seizing. MLAT complicates the issue, but the fact is that if they had hosted in the UK with, say, a UK company as opposed to a US company, there would have been ZERO US involvement, and the US involvement in this is merely a tertiary formality of MLAT. The FBI was obligated to pass on the request to Rackspace under MLAT, but in fact performed no enforcement duty, according to Rackspace itself and Indymedia.org's own report.
No doubt conspiracy theorists will still think it was some kind of US/Bush/GOP attempt to silence critics, when in reality Europe has no further to look than its own doorsteps - Italy and Switzerland - for the seizure requests...
...of opposing Slashdot groupthink. Your punishment is to be rated troll. May CmdrTaco have mercy on your soul.
The funny thing here is that the sort of "everyone is judged by the standards of the least free country" treaties that turn out to have resulted in this shutdown are the exact sort of thing that the Indymedia crowd has been trying to oppose with their "anti-globalization" tirades all along.
Now it turns out they're the first to be targetted by these treaties.
Go figure.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
How is this on topic? The fact of the matter is that in this instance, the US had nothing to do with it. Also, FBI != CIA.
Encrypted disks just makes the disk by itself useless. Next time, law enforcement will just take the whole machine.
The only thing encrypted disks get you on a public webserver is protecting those who access your site, but honestly, all that info is easily accessible with a ethernet tap and sniffer, or automatically via the fancier managed switches- and if you are concerned about protecting the privacy of your users, don't log their IPs in the first place.
Please help metamoderate.
Any enforcement was done by the UK Metropolitan Police IN the UK, not by the FBI. Sorry to disappoint.
Hello,
s html
Living in switzerland, I could hear quite often the news concerning this article.
At least concerning the Switzerland, I cannot say for Italie, the problem was that Indymedia was publishing some pictures of swiss cops under cover with 1 name, addresses from both cops.
From this point of view I can understand that it's quite dangerous for them to be exposed in such way.
here is an article (in french) http://www.edicom.ch/news/suisse/041009160849.sa.
if you want to read it by yourself!
LG
Actually citizens of the UK (in the six counties of north Ireland) have been living in such a state since 1922. It's called the Special Powers Act.
I'm a bit clueless here... What information, besides the names of RNC Delegates, did Indymedia have? What do they do? I'm looking around but I can't find a concise summary. Sorry if I'm lazy. :)
Small potatoes make the steak look bigger.
...which is exclusively where the seizures took place. The FBI was involved in the chain of the request because Rackspace itself is a US corporation. Nice invocation of the PATRIOT Act, though, when it's not involved in this in any way. The responsibility for this rests squarely on the office of the UK Home Secretary, not the US or FBI.
I disagree, and agree.
Agreement:
'Both sides' (Since when did it have to be only two sides?!) have people who are guilty of closed minds.
Disagreement:
SWIFT is nothing like MoveOn, etc.
The SWIFT organization is using half-truths such as "I served with Kerry in Vietnam.." meaning that they were both in the armed forces in Vietnam at the same time, NOT that they served in the same unit, or knew each other at all-- and then using this as a basis for an attack on character.
It is my personal observation that people on the 'left' are more likely to explain their actions/opinions in ways that do not invoke private greed (i.e. look to the future).
I'm going to stop here because I can go on about this forever.
Not loading at all. Cos it is /.ed, not a seizure too, right?
can't you read the sign?
[Please Do Not Feed the Troll]
Snowden and Manning are heroes.
I notice under the "Related Links" section, it says, "Best deals: Your Rights Online". Is this where our government has been selling off our civil rights for the last decade or so?
Adrian
"Rackspace may be a US company but Rackspace in London is subject to UK law not US law. If they took down and handed over Indymedia's servers simply on the basis of a US subpoena communicated to them this would not be lawful in the UK.
However it seems more likely that the US subpoena was the subject of a request for mutual legal assistance from the US Attorney General to the UK Home Secretary under the MLA Treaty. It would for the Metropolitan Police, probably accompanied by the FBI, to enforce the request and take possession of the servers.
This begs the questions: Why did the Home Office agree? What grounds did the USA give for the seizure of the servers? Were these grounds of a "political" nature? Has the Home Office requested that the servers be returned? What does this action say about freedom of expression and freedom of the press?
A trail that started in Switzerland and Italy has now ended fairly and squarely in the lap of the UK Home Secretary to justify."
Heres a quite interesting story on the power of mlats and what we will have to look forward to with the COE treaty :
A cop car was broken into in Quebec and a security doc relating to measures for the Free Trade Area of the Americas summit protests was stolen and posted in the net in Seattle. At the behest of the RCMP, a magistrate judge issued an order to grab the records from a Seattle web site called the 'independent media center' using the US/CAN mlat. They were then visited by the FBI/Secret Service. They then had a gag order on this for several days before it was released today.
Great precedent. I wonder if when my car gets broken into again, I can use the cybercrime treaty to find my stereo again...
The Honorable and Omnipotent Ruler Iron, dictator of Irony, has issued a dictate calling for the right hands of the administrators of Rackspace. Thus far the international community has failed to cooperate with this legally issued order.
Hmm. Belmarsh - the Guantanamo bay of the UK?
Get your own free personal location tracker
You mean "Extended the war on drugs" with "The war of terror... "
It doesn't matter whether the war is against a country, an inanimate object, or a tactic. It doesn't matter whether it's real or imagined. All that matters is that the citizens of the state are kept fearful of and distracted by the target of the war. It also gives the state a pretext to deal with "troublesome" citizens. That was the point Orwell was making. It doesn't matter whether the war can be won or not, because it's merely a tool of distraction.
AEIOU: open-source anonymous internet currency
The only way to keep your civil liberties at this point are to protect them. Sadly, as far as protecting your host is concerned, that probably means hosting as far away from the Western world as possible right now... better yet, decentralize. As far as all the calls for encryption on the disks, etc, I doubt it would help. I suspect the primary goal of the seizure was to take the site down for as long as possible. Hope someone made a backup. The other possibility is that someone is trying to retrieve user info and access logs. Unfortunately, I'm sure many people involved with the project were not paranoid enough to protect their identities from IndyMedia.
====
Crudely Drawn Games
A very crude outline of a solution:
:)
Encrypted disks are a great idea, but you need a server-oriented solution, not a desktop solution.
Each server has an unencrypted boot partition and an encrypted data partition. Upon boot, the server sends a decrypt-request with a hash of unique system data (CPUID, MAC address(es), kernel compile date, etc.) to a pool of authentication servers. If the server grants decrypt permission, a key is exchanged and the server comes online. This process is repeated every 10 minutes. If a cycle fails, the decrypt keys are removed from system memory and the server removed from service until it can get decrypt authorization.
Servers are distributed among several data centers. Decrypt servers are also distributed among data centers.
Alternately, if you want to ensure that a photo is available on the internet forever, send it over to fark for a photoshop contest.
there is no real difference between being "left-wing" or "right-wing"
Get thee to a politics class... Hell, basic logic class would suffice - just because there's one thing in common between the sides doesn't mean they're the same.
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
to governments repeatedly going after Indymedia sites; Israel took down Israel Indymedia.
Google for offshore dedicated servers
Placing the servers offshore gives you that extra protection you need especially from big brother monitoring and being able to shut down your site. Of course, you have to do your homework to see which ones are REALLY offshore. Any "offshore" company with a US address or US telephone number or any ties to the US simply isn't 100% offshore. Also find one with 24 hour support, as when we at midday they are at midnight, so it becomes crucial they are around to assist you. Try emailing them or calling them before you sign up and see how responsive they are.
And remember to choose one that has been around a while and is stable, as there seem to be many fly-by-night offshore providers, and many that keep getting disconnected and with flaky connections and crap bandwidth. Got burned once... so be careful which one you choose.
**FREE** Track and view your phone's via CellID and/or WIFI and/or GPS
Does anybody know of a torrent of the questionable data? If there's a torrent, it would be pretty impossible to track down and sieze...
I don't respond to AC's.
The other day the FBI was accused of instigating a raid (in the UK). Does this mean that, in fact, the FBI did NOT instigate that raid? I'm sorry their servers have been seiged, but it would be nice to get facts, rather than impressions.
Key to running a media source is ensuring its integrity. If indy can't check the facts concerning whether the FBI -- er -- CIA -- er -- Italian Government has been shutting them down, then why are they printing it?
I sure hope their misreporting of the facts [in this particular case] does not [in general] represent their quality of journalism. I still have some faith in them, though.
Anyhow, if they want to safeguard against bullying they could use something like freenet.
"Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us." -Jesus Christ The Lord's Prayer
And I said that in the story I submitted. But the ONLY reason they were there in attendance was because a US subpoena was served on a US company. But the seizure was executed by UK authorities (since the FBI has no jurisdiction in the UK), and the only reason the US had a subpoena was because of a legal request under treaty by Italian and Swiss authorities. IF Rackspace was, say, a UK company instead of US, the same seizure would have taken place without the FBI acting as even a conduit, or any US involvement whatsoever. The FBI and US's involvement here was minimal and compulsory, and only because it was required for dealing with a US-based company. None of the request for action was initiated in any way within the US, the seizure was not conducted by the US, and the seizure did not happen in the US. You're going to have to find other places to lay blame. To repeat: the ONLY reason ANY US agency was involved is because Rackspace is a US company.
This is one more example of why it is imperative to have current backups and to have redundant servers located in diverse areas. It is also a good argument for keeping as little data as possible located on hosted servers.
To the left, the right IS "them." It's a basic moral opposition. A moral leftist must regard the right as his or her enemies.
Quite a few (younger)left wing people I know seem to be more interested in dissent than in the actual issues. Look at the number of people who would rather blow whistles at an anti-war rally than write letters to their Senators and Representatives. The reason I think some people are undecided about the 04 election is not because they like Bush or hate Kerry. It is becuase they do not want to be on the same side as a bunch of hysterical "No Blood for Oil" protestors. Rememeber "The Enemy of My Enemy is My Friend" dominates the rationale of most people.
Huh?
Even if we don't know the EXACT reason the hard drives were seized, I think a logical, sane person can conclude that the governments of Switzerland and Italy - the nations from which the seizure requests initiated - have NOTHING to do with Diebold or the RNC delegates.
But even if they were totally irrelevant, the fact is that they've had legal action taken against them and are unable to determine the parties or reasons for the legal action. That's honest-to-god police state stuff, and we should be asking our elected officials tough questions about it.
Then, for this particular issue, you'd better be asking in Europe about it, since the US had nothing to do with initiating the request (Italy and Switzerland), nor seizing the hard drives (UK authorities). The only reason ANY US entity was involved is because Rackspace is a US company.
I literally can't believe that, after Indymedia itself said the request did NOT originate within the US, and drives were only seized in the UK (NOT by the FBI, since the FBI has no jurisdiction in the UK, and only served Rackspace with a subpoena via a request made under treaty), you're spouting off about Diebold and the RNC delegates.
And, yes, something like this can be bad for a company or web site. But this seems to go a little too far:Don't these people have backups? And they should at least be able to get the text/html portions of their data back up on line very quickly.
If anyone wants to help out (there are still many IMC sites down) some more mirrors would be good!
You can get in touch with IMC techies via email or via #tech on irc.indymedia.org.
The sites that are easy to mirror are the ones running Mir since this CMS generates static HTML, this includes the global site and the UK site.
Also one of the siezed London servers was the main Blag Linux server and it ran some other Free software mirrors... :-/
Encrypted filesystems wouldn't help here. The point of seizing a public web server isn't to find out what's on the hard drive. The government(s) in question already know what's on that server. The point is to keep people from visiting the site and downloading whatever "dangerous" information was hosted there.
Hosting servers in a place where the local authorities wouldn't cooperate with European spies would be a much better use of their time.
0 1 - just my two bits
This is clear prior restraint and a First Amendment violation. No treaty can override that. Remember, the Patriot Act gag order provisions were ruled unconstitutional by a U.S. District Court last week. Further use of those provisions by the Government is questionable and may be illegal.
The way to deal with an overextended empire, as you write that the USA is becoming, is to get it bogged down in highly symbolic but strategically worthless wars that comsume all of its energy and resources.
Naturally, no one in their right mind would want to take on the empire directly. But it might be worthwhile to provoke some of one's annoying hot-headed neighbors to do so. That way you keep your neighbors too busy fighting the empire to bother you.
This world is not really a good place to run a totalitarian empire. There is a giant surplus of young people without jobs who can be easily convinced that all their troubles are caused by the empire, and that some god will solve all of their troubles if they just kill enough of the empire's citizens and solders. The empire spends billions each year on high tech weapons but only has a million or so solders up against two billion young people willing to fight it. Globally they get spread pretty thin.
The USA is in deep debt. Each year its government spends far more than it takes in through taxes. It finances itself by issuing bonds. People outside the USA buy its bonds because they believe that the USA will always make good on its bonds. The USA believes that whenever its bonds come due it can cover them by just selling more bonds. The empire finances itself not through looting and pillage but with a giant Ponzi scheme.
Want to stop the growth of the empire. Stop buying its government bonds. Today the largest buyer of USA government bonds is the government of People's Republic of China. Fifteen years ago it was the the various banks of Japan. Thirty years ago it was Saudi Arabia.
It's best for everyone if the empire occupies itself with endless expensive wars in worthless little hellholes. Let's hope that they continue to do so and leave the rest of us alone.
Then who is doing the coordination???
Privacy is terrorism.
Undercover cops whose names are known by everyone aren't in any danger - they're just unable to ever take part in more undercover operations. Undercover cops whose names are only known by a few non-police (as they must have already been, if Indymedia was about to "out" them in the first place) may be in great danger.
I think that some of the non-IndyMedia-affiliated groups whose data was affected by this need to file complaints with the relevant courts/agencies about their data being confiscated without a valid warrant, and file legal action against Rackspace for having turned over their data without a valid warrant for their data being presented. Don't bring IndyMedia into it, don't let the FBI or Rackspace bring them in, make the authorities explain in public why they're seizing the property of people not named in the warrants.
American democracy is when the sheep has a bazooka.
you should read everything on the internet as if it had "but I'm probably talking out of my ass" appended to it.
Quite a few (younger)left wing people I know seem to be more interested in dissent than in the actual issues.
On the other hand, a lot of right wing people *I* know seem to be more interested indulging their knee-jerk fear of gays, foreigners, etc, than with the actual political tenents (fiscal responsibility, civil society, etc), of the American right-wing.
Both sides have a contingent that they are ashamed off (or ought to be ashamed off). It seems to me, however, that the crazy protesters are at least not in control of the left, but that the reactionaries are firmly in control of the right. How else do explain the fact that the current Republican platform is largely at odds with conservative principles, while the current Democratic platform is largely consistent with liberal principles? How do you explain a supposedly conservative President that passed hundreds of billions of dollars in welfare programs?
Look at the number of people who would rather blow whistles at an anti-war rally than write letters to their Senators and Representatives.
I think it's important to remember that Senators and Representatives are beholden to public opinion. We have (almost) no true statesmen left in Congress. They will not do anything that could incite a strong public reaction. Hence you have liberals (who supposedly care about civil liberties), vote almost unanimously in favor of something like USA PATRIOT. The goal of protesting is not so much to convince legislators, but to have some visceral impact on the people.
I think it is an unfortunate, but unavoidable fact of reality that emotional spectacles have more of an effect on the public than intellectual arguments. I saw Fahrenheit 911, and even though I agree with the basic ideas of the movie, I detested the way those ideas were presented. However, Fahrenheit 911 seemed to have a lot more impact on the people than all the logical arguments posed by the anti-war people ever did.
It is becuase they do not want to be on the same side as a bunch of hysterical "No Blood for Oil" protestors.
I don't know about that. I remember rightist protestors (and major rightist talking heads), saying after 9/11 how America deserved it because of feminists and gays. Would people rather be on the same side as those nut-jobs?
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Bourne's back on the grid!
The world is a safe place.
investigations such as international terrorism, kidnapping and money laundering.
Which of the three does publishing news stories fall under?
________________________________________________
suwain_2
... we'd better agree on what's constitutional and acceptable on a freedom & rights perspective. I've got the nagging feeling that some italian (I'm one, so I speak for my own county's perspective) office really wanted to do something that our own apparatus wouldn't allow without painstaking authorizations and outrage so, given the chance, they turned to a more "liberal" establishment (US) to get the job done without too many hassles. It stinks, as far as I'm concerned the responsibility rests in our turf for having done something we ourselves legislated to disallow (and it doesn't matter if it's business as usual for the US... everyone responds to himself... and that applies to nations too)
Mi domando chi à il mandante di tutte le cazzate che faccio - Altan
No, not Indymedia, but the ones who seazed their servers.
From what I've read, Indymedia is assumed to be innocent = A VERY GOOD THING . However, the problem I have with what I've read is that there is an assumed guilt on the part of the ones doing the seazures. They too should be extended the same curtesy Indymedia so much would use to their own advantage and cause. Do we really know if they are innocent or guilty? Or if there is an actual, dare I say, reasonable law that has been broken by Indymedia? From what's written you would be hard pressed to think they were less than innocent. (It's still OK to presume they are.)
Let's see if they'll continue to cry foul, foul , FOUL! Or if they'll be calm and collected in the confidence and peace actual, real guiltlessness affords the innocent.
8 Sep 2004: Indymedianates publishes an article with photos of at least 1 (maybe 2?) undercover swiss police. Google cache of another site with pictures here. Translation of original Indymedia post.
Unknown date: FBI asks the post to be removed, but admitted no laws were violated: "The FBI agents told me that they were not concerned with the photos, but with the identifying information. There never was any such identifying information, and even if there was, it would likely be protected by the first amendment if it was obtained legally. (There was a recent case here in Washington that you may be familiar with on this very issue). But, even assuming it is illegal to post identifying information (which it is not), there WAS NO SUCH info. The FBI agents freely admitted to me that individuals have a right to take photographs of agents in public places and post those photos on the internet."
7 Oct 2004: Two Indymedia servers hosted by Rackspace (a US Company) but physically located in LONDON are taken. FBI agents are present at the seizure. No information is given other than the servers were taken. The order was issued to Rackspace (not Indymedia) and Rackspace was apparently barred from talking about it.
8 Oct 2004: Rackspace publishes that they turned over the servers in response to an order under MLAT (Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty).
8 Oct 2004: The AFP states that the request for the seizure originated with the Italian and Switzerland governments.
The facts in front of you are the Bush administration sold this war to the world based on Iraq possessing WMD's, and having ties to 9/11 and Al Qaeda. Neither of these were true. its revisionism to make out like it was really about "Freedom and Democracy" and because Saddam liked to build palaces.
You are missing two critical fact about Saddam's obstruction of the WMD inspection regime.
A) When the war was actually launched he was cooperating with U.N. inspectors, the inspectors had to flee the country ahead of the invasion.
B) The CIA has after billions of dollars spent and a year and a half of unfettered searching found no WMD's so apparently as troubled as it was, the sanctions worked.
The bottomline is when the time came for the U.N to authorize the invasion of Iraq it didn't, so as a result, the U.S. invasion was illegal under current international law. Either you abide by UN votes or you don't in which case you should get out, instead of adhering to the decisions you like and ignoring the ones you don't. Building consensus is hard, it usually ends in everyone being unhappy but its usually better than unilateralism.
It appears the U.N.'s judgement was in fact right because they didn't buy the U.S. propaganda that Saddam was on the verge of giving a nuclear bomb to Al Qaeda.
The fact that Saddam was a prick and built palaces is no justification for preemptive warfare. Before the first Gulf War and sanctions Iraq was in fact a pretty prosperous place. It was a secular state versus an extremist Islamic state like Saudi Arabia or Iran. Yes Saddam was a two bit dictator but the world is full of those. If the U.S. wanted to take him down they should have done it in the first gulf war when they had a fresh justification. If they would done it then it would have saved the lives of millions, for example the lives of the Kurds and Shia's George H.W. Bush encouraged to revolt and then turned his back on.
"I'm wondering how much aid the U.S. has given your country through the years."
I'm American, though I'm increasingly embarrassed to admit it. The chump change the U.S. hands out in foreign aid doesn't even register against what its sucked out of the world over the years. The World Bank and IMF in particular hand out billions of dollars most of which disappears into the pockets of corrupt dictators, and leave the country and its people deeply in debt, worse off, and at the mercy of the tyranny of the IMF's economic dictates. I'm willing to bet you the third world would be a better place if the IMF never existed. It is just another tool by the U.S. to acquire control over poor nations.
@de_machina
But I'm sure that the people who run Indymedia do know the reasons behind the seizure.
I work with the pittsburgh indymedia center and to the best of my knowlege the court papaers were served to the _ISP_ and not to indymedia directly. Of course, you did read the article.
-- john
The amount of data generated by indymedia is really quite impressive. That coupled with a quite limited budget is a major part of the problem. Some peole do mirror sites to their home computers. Of courseif there are off site backups, why would you come out and say "hey i've got a backup" only to have your computer confiscated.
-- john
I'm not sure what part of this architecture you're describing as not being 'very secure.' If data was served via SSL from the website, it would be less available to packet sniffers and would thereby be pretty secure end-to-end. Also, even though the server is at a hosting company, they could have been running it as a dedicated server, which would give IndyMedia 100% control over reboots, etc. Worst case scenario, it's a shared host. Indymedia could have kept their sensitive data on an encrypted partition that they would have to ssh into the box to mount themselves.
Of course, these are all hypotheticals as the specific details of this case haven't been revealed.
$5 / month hosted VPS on linux = awesome!
A lot of mourning over an organization that made Fox News look like it was completely unbiased. Good riddance to them.
/. is that "biased" is mostly defined as any opinion you don't agree with. Courts ruled a way you didn't like? Obviously they were biased because they were bought off (in some fashion never actually explained). Don't like the way a news story was written? Must have been the work of the evil Corporations/Americans/Israelis/Europeans/Arabs!
/.'ers who have this problem, but alas, I suspect it is far more than that.
I know this comment's a karma burner, but to hell with it. I'm sick of people who bitch about CNN being biased, and then point to IndyNews as the "accurate" source of information.
One of the most important life lessons I've learned on
Get a grip. It's impossible to report truth, because the facts lend themselves to any number of truths if you arrange them properly. And, no matter what you do, you MUST arrange the facts in order to report a story.
What's worse is that Europeans have been steadily conditioned by their news media to believe that they are somehow less susceptible to media bias, or that their media doesn't have any. I don't know what's scarier anymore: the obviously biased US news sources, or the more subtly biased European news sources. I pray that it is only European
In summary: shut up. You are not unbiased in any way, shape, or form. Your news sources are not unbiased in any way, shape, or form. You will need to use your head to discern facts from the truth that is given to you, and then use these facts to reconstruct a more likely truth about the situation. What's worse is that you will need to consider that other people can do this, yet come up with a different truth than you.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
Those dirty, filthy Europeans are always at the forefront suppressing free speech. America is not safe as long as the Europeans have the ability to reach into our country to suppress our freedom of speech! Fight the fascism, say no to Europe!
Don't you know? According to the Slashdotter logic, it's always Bush's fault.
Did your hamster die? It's Bush's falut.
Did you get an F in your finals because you partied all night? It's Bush's falut.
Did you charged your phat gaming machine on a credit card and now you can't pay it off? It's Bush's falut.
CBS runs feature on Bush's guard memo without verifying it? It's Bush's falut.
Democrats were spineless to stop Bush on the Patriot Act and Iraq? It's Bush's falut.
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How can it be PRIOR restraint when the information in question had already been published on Indymedia's site? Prior restraint would be preventing the publishing of the information by shutting them down beforehand.
You can argue that it was an unlawful restraint, but I can't see how it was a prior restraint.
Unless you're saying that taking down the server prevents the publishing of some yet unknown material.
But that's a bit like me taking some lady to task for not going out with me as it would interfere with the rights of our as yet unconcieved children.
The bottomline is when the time came for the U.N to authorize the invasion of Iraq it didn't, so as a result, the U.S. invasion was illegal under current international law.
Your argument is flawed. The US invasion wasn't strictly illegal by international law. Hussein was in material breach of the Gulf War cease-fire, and a number of UN treaties.
By any measure of International law, the cease fire that Iraq/Hussein signed was violated in any number of cases over the years. Any one of those violations was enough to justify - legally - renewed military operations.
George H.W. Bush encouraged to revolt and then turned his back on.
One final note. This is again overly simplistic view of the matter. The dynamics of the countries in the middle-east are vastly complex. Countries like Saudi Arabia who are railed against for being on the side terrorists (especially by the left in the media - "18 of 19 hijackers were from there", type of stuff) are a mish-mash of conflicting political entities. Saudia Arabia was nearly torn apart from within due to the US intervention the first time around with Iraq. The ruling family is not in complete control of the nation. They have a tacit agreement with the religious clerics to preserve and protect the order - but the House of Saud knows that this could turn at any moment. Make no mistake: if the House of Saud falls to a fundamentalist regime like the old Taliban or the Iranian government the world as a whole will be in a really nasty spot.
It's hard to underestimate the effect this would have on the world.
HW Bush was warned off deposing Hussein the first time because of tensions in moderate nations, specifically Jordan and Saudia Arabia.
Middle-East politics is an amazingly complex thing. Citing a single reason for anything that happens there is a sure-fire way to be wrong.
I can't wait to hear the Bushies defend this one. Let's hear a justification for something like this from the Mighty Whitey Righty. And don't give me that crap about Democrats voted for it, too. All this is happening on YOUR watch and YOU own it.
The only difference between a democrat and a republican is the rhetoric. If you want change, stop spouting bullshit and get involved in politics at your local level.
Just because you don't like your president doesn't give you license to ignore governmental process. This treaty was organized by the EXECUTIVE, but ratified by CONGRESS. In other words, CONGRESS is the final arbitor.
This treaty and similar ones have been ON THE BOOKS for quite some time. Welcome to reality. Take a fucking civics class... please.
-- No matter how great your triumphs or how tragic your defeats, approximately one billion Chinese couldn't care less.
Look at the number of people who would rather blow whistles at an anti-war rally than write letters to their Senators and Representatives.
My guess is that because it's cooler to riot and get busted than writing some boring letter or actually voting. There is a reason why 18 to 25 year age group has the lowest percentage of voting record.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Many Europeans bash the U.S. for restricting freedom of speech, yet Slashdot is live and well in the U.S. dispite regular anti-government posts. Not to mention that Slashdot will likely be illegal in many parts of Europe for containing hate messages (for examples, try viewing the posts at -1 level).
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
I'm the tech who had the contract with Rackspace. My blog has info about this, including copies of the rackspace trouble tickets:
http://jebba.blagblagblag.org
I'd like to clarify a few misconceptions I see in some slashdot comments (imagine that!):
daveschroeder wrote in comments (he also submitted this story to slashdot):
The bottom line here, for what it's worth, is that the US (or political agents within the US) had absolutely nothing to do with Indymedia's drives being seized, even though that's what 90% of the posters in the original article immediately assumed.
It is believed that it is the US State Department that had the drives (servers?) seized. You say the US had absolutely nothing to do with it? How about the Federal Order? Do you have info I don't have? Sounds very much like US agents are involved...
We do not know for certain whether it is related to Italy or Switzerland or somewhere else. It is a good guess, but still a guess. All we know is that it was a Federal Order from the U. S. of A.
ptitvert wrote in comments:
Indymedia was publishing some pictures of swiss cops under cover with 1 name, addresses from both cops.
Really? Did you ever see the post? I never saw a single name or address of a cop. There was just a newswire submission (very similar to a slashdot comment, except that it's multimedia enabled). See my blog and trouble tickets with rackspace for more info about this issue.
Also, folks write things like:
It could be a story they ran about the Swiss undercover police
Indymedia has feature articles and a newswire. Indymedia "ran a story about undercover cops" in the same way that CmdrTaco ran a story about your comments. Get it? FREE POSTING TO ANYONE WITH A FREAKING MODEM (npi).
Anyway, no one really knows what is going on, and that's the spooky part. I mean, the Feds just yanked the servers and never even contacted us once. And they still haven't. (Um, not that I'm inviting them over for coffee or anything...)
Look! They're just grabbing servers, no comments. This sucks folks, even if you loathe indymedia.
I know there is a lot of noise/spam/junk on indymedia, but there is on slashdot too... Since ANYONE can post, the posts are of greatly varying quality. But Indymedia has some of the best (if not the best) coverage from the street, especially at demonstrations. It does break news which is found no where else. It is extremely valuable for this alone.
Let's say there is a Swiss pharmaceutical company in Ohio that does something the Mexican cops don't like. Do the Swiss cops raid? The Mexicans? It seems we really have Team America: World Police.
The rockin' EFF has volunteered to represent me/indymedia pro bono. Very nice. :)
Have fun,
-Jeff
It is almost a certainty that the sanctions were at an end. They weren't popular anywhere, not even the US that was getting pilots shot at in the no-fly zones. So, the sanctions were going to be lifted. Then we would have seen what had been held up for the last 10 years - Saddam with a nice fat wallet and plenty of countries willing to trade with him without any sanctions in place.
Oh, and by the way, the IMF isn't run or operated by the US - it is a 100% UN institution, part of the World Bank.
Calling Nazi's "left wing" or "right wing" doesn't make sense the context of the US. American politics don't really mesh with European politics in that sense: in most European countries, for instance, the leftists are the hawks and the right wingers want to end military spending.
Naziism was socialist in fact, not just in name, in that the state controlled most of the means of production. So in that sense, they were leftist. Naziism gets associated with the right in America because their rhetoric of traditional blue-collar values as against the elitist urban bourgeois matches a lot of right-wing American rhetoric ... the closest match to naziism in a lot of policies was the American Populist movement: people like Huey P. Long. Even then, it doesn't quite work because the Populists didn't rely so heavily on ceremony and ritual as a means of political control.
All's true that is mistrusted
"Your argument is flawed. The US invasion wasn't strictly illegal by international law. Hussein was in material breach of the Gulf War cease-fire, and a number of UN treaties."
...quote lengthy rant on Saudi Arabia here...
Excepting you are doing exactly what I said you were doing. You like the resolutions that sanctioned and condemned Saddam so you are using them as justification, but you when you either didn't get a vote or lost the vote sanctioning the most extreme form of enforcement, an invasion, and all of sudden the UN's will is irrelevant. Since the UN passed all those resolutions it was the UN's call to decide if they had been violated and what the punishment should be, instead the U.S. through a tantrum and decided itself. Like I said the U.S. should either get out of the U.N. or be thrown out instead of using it when its convenient, and then ignoring it when its convenient.
What does this have to do with anything I said. Saudi Arabia had nothing to do with George H.W. Bush sending signals to the Kurds and Shia at the end of the first gulf war that the U.S. would support them if they revolted against Saddam. They did revolt, and the then first Bush administration looked the other way while Saddam slaughtered them. As a new height in hypocrisy George W. Bush uses some of the mass graves full of those rebels as justification for the second war, though most of those people are dead thanks to the actions of his dad's administration.
"if the House of Saud falls to a fundamentalist regime like the old Taliban or the Iranian government the world as a whole will be in a really nasty spot."
So its OK to topple a despotic regime in Iraq with a high probability it will be replacted with a fundementalist regime like the one in Iran. But somehow its crucial to the entire world that a despotic, already fundementalist regime in Saudi Arabia stay in power. Not sure you were aware but Saudi Arabia already closely resembles Afghanistan under the Taliban, women are deeply oppressed and people are routinely beheaded in public because thats what Islamic law stipulates. The only key difference is Saudi Arabia has lots of oil money, and its royal family is massively corrupted and many of them are decidedly bad Muslims, thanks to the womanizing, gambling, jet setting etc. things that most people do when they are filthy rich.
I'm pretty sure Americans are no judge as to whether the world would be a better or worse place if the House of Saud was deposed. America might be worse off for it because they own like 7% of America which is why we don't complain about all the things we complained about with Saddam and the Taliban. Americans think the House of Saud is sacred because they have massive influence over America's political, economic and media leaders, the kind of influence massive quantities of money can buy. The poor Taliban didn't have that kind of money.
"HW Bush was warned off deposing Hussein the first time because of tensions in moderate nations, specifically Jordan and Saudia Arabia."
So why did that matter then and it was irrelevant the second time around when most of the world condemned the invasion? Was it because the Saudi's secretly gave it the green light the second time and as I said above the Saudi's practically own the Bush administration?
@de_machina
there's a well known but not much publicised or admitted-to option Israel has, and that is to take down all the capitals in europe and the US with nukes if it looks like they will be over-run in another general war. The obvious reference is from Samson taking down the pillars and collapsing the temple on himself, but getting all his foes as well.
I don't agree with it, and I think it was a boneheaded move to re establish that state there artifically, but thems the facts and realities now-they got hundreds of nukes, enough to pulverise all the middle eastern capitals and also europe and some of the US if push comes to genocidal shove for them. Basically blackmail, and it sucketh. I personally don't consider their political state as being frinedly to the US, nor any of the other middle eastern states, it's just relationships of convenience more than anything else right now. They've never signed the nuclear non proliferation treaty, and as such should be under embargo from the US by our general law, but they are specifically excluded and ignored on that point. Some say it's because of the Samson option, but to back that up-and this is speculation as well but well founded-they have so many US lawmakers in their pockets from potential blackmail threats and from bribery that they get what they want almost all the time, and will continue to do so.
I see almost zero chance of any peace in the middle east, and almost a 100% chance of a major war being fought there eventually, including all forms of WMD. It might happen within this decade, too, for that matter.
Armageddon if you will.
Learn history, idiot. National "Socialism" was capitalism par excellence. Especially the war industry was organized similar to today's war industry in the US.
A monkey is doing the real work for me.
Rackspace may be a US company but Rackspace in London is subject to UK law not US law. If they took down and handed over Indymedia's servers simply on the basis of a US subpoena communicated to them this would not be lawful in the UK.
Ok, so whose fault is that? Not the FBI's. Rackspace said it was being a "good corporate citizen" and helping international law enforcement entities.
This was NOT an FBI (or US) operation. No. Really. It wasn't.
However it seems more likely that the US subpoena was the subject of a request for mutual legal assistance from the US Attorney General to the UK Home Secretary under the MLA Treaty.
OK, and? The reason the US received the request was because the hosting provider was a US company, albeit doing business in the UK. There were probably more MLA requests; in fact, there were probably MLA requests from Italy and Switzerland to the US, and possibly even the UK, and between the US and the UK.
It would for the Metropolitan Police, probably accompanied by the FBI, to enforce the request and take possession of the servers.
Indeed. "Metropolitan Police" not being a US law enforcement entity. I understand how that could be confusing. And "probably" accompanied by the FBI? They don't even know that for sure; they just know that the subpoena ORIGINATED from the FBI; for all we know, US FBI agents weren't even there. But since the request stemmed from an FBI subpoena, it's a hell of a lot more interesting to say that the "FBI" seized the hard drives, isn't it? Rather than waiting to find out the actual story, which is that Switzerland and Italy asked for assistance compelling a US company operating in a third nation to cease from publishing dangerous materials - i.e., the photos and identification of Swiss undercover police officers. I'm not saying it's right, just that that's what happened.
This begs the questions: Why did the Home Office agree?
Who knows. But that has nothing to do with the US.
What grounds did the USA give for the seizure of the servers?
Probably that it received a request for assistance from the Italian and Swiss governments.
Were these grounds of a "political" nature?
*Sigh* I suppose you can argue that EVERYTHING in government is "political", to some extent.
Has the Home Office requested that the servers be returned?
Who knows. But, again, that has nothing to do with the US.
What does this action say about freedom of expression and freedom of the press?
That you'd better now reveal the identities of undercover law enforcement officers, with thinly veiled threats? (And yes, that goes for Valerie Plame, too, since some retard will surely bring it up, but Plame has NOTHING to do with this instance or Indymedia, or the fact that Italy and Switzerland were who initiated the Indymedia requests, not the US or the FBI.)
A trail that started in Switzerland and Italy has now ended fairly and squarely in the lap of the UK Home Secretary to justify.
Indeed. The "UK Home Secretary" not being the "US" or the "FBI".
The FBI was minimally and tangentially involved here. It did not initiate the request. It did not perform the seizure. No seizure took place within the US. The only relationship anyone in the US has with this is due to the fact that Rackspace was a US company. If it were not, we wouldn't be talking about the FBI right now (though conspiracy theorists would still believe that it was someone in the US with political motivations who was responsible...they just can't fathom the US not being intentionally involved for malevolent reasons).
"not even the US that was getting pilots shot at in the no-fly zones."
The U.S. and Britain were shooting just as much as they were being shot at in the no fly zones. It appears likely the no fly zone flights were in fact being used to soften Iraq up in the run up to the invasion.
"plenty of countries willing to trade with him without any sanctions in place."
Its interesting but plenty of nations were already trading with Saddam in defiance of the sanctions. The recent CIA report on Iraq listed all the companies in Russia, France etc. Interestingly enough there is apparently also a list of American and especially Texas companies that were violating the santions. The Russian and French companies were named by the Bush administration while the list of American companies is still classifed so as to not embarrass the Bush administration and their friends. It will be interesting if Halliburton was one of them and if this list comes out before the election. I wager Halliburton was on the list, thanks to one of their many foreign shells they use to skirt sanctions, and I wager the Bush administration will make a maximum effort to censor it. Lets hope someone leaks the uncensored list.
The U.S. can be holier than though about corruption, in the U.N., France and Russia, but when there is a buck to be made Americans are just as corrupt as everyone else if not more so.
"Oh, and by the way, the IMF isn't run or operated by the US - it is a 100% UN institution, part of the World Bank."
When the IMF was formed the U.S. and Europeans cut a deal. The U.S. always holds the Presidency and Europe nominates the managing director. The American president apparently has approval authority over the choice of the Managing Director. The end result is the U.S. does in fact have ultimate control over the World Bank and the IMF, though the G-8 do have substantial input. The rest of the world really doesn't have a lot of say in it.
If you want it to be international body, you apparently think it is, the U.S. and Europe would have to renounce their lock on the presidency and managing directory and replace it by a system where all nations vote on candidates regardless of nationality. I don't the U.S. or Europe is likely to relinquish that power.
@de_machina
Pal, you have *no* idea what you're talking about.
The Nazis were backed by corporate interests and were good Fascists. The Socialist tag was just a bit of Orwellian Newspeak thrown in to confuse the common worker who thought socialism was probably a Good Idea given how the Weimar Republic had worked them over.
Classifying them as leftist is buying into their Newspeak. Like all Fascist regimes, the name tag on their politics have little or nothing to do with their actual politics - which was pretty ordinary Corporate/Statist Fascism. Now, both the extreme Right and the Extreme left converge on dictatorships, but that doesn't mean that all dictatorships are extreme left.
Your assumptions are blinding you to the effect of Corporate Fascism and right-wing rethoric though, which is the point from the PoV of the current NewSpeak propagandists. I think a little rechecking of your assumptions might be in order.
Disclaimer-- I think Wilhelm Reich takes this argument too far regarding a fairly Freudian analysis of symbols such as the Swastica. I do, think, however, he has a valid point here...
Reich (see "Mass Psychology of Fascism") argued that a principle means by which dictators control the people is to enforce a strong concept of sexual morality. I think that this does come into play when we look at the way that the fascist elements of the right are interested in arguing against gay marriage, their versions of family values, etc.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Dig deeper. It may seem like the US government somehow controls the IMF and World Bank. But in truth, the same people who own the Bank of England.
A few solutions to their problem:
- Backups
- Backups
- Backups
Seeing as how they have multiple servers all over the place, and that they haven't been around a short period of time, they should of had a disaster recovery plan.As a former web server (linux only, thank God) support tech, I was amazed at how many online "businesses" trusted their web content, that they actually seemed to heavily rely on, to a single man made, man maintained machine at a relatively few bucks (~$20.00) a month. All without a single local backup of their files, that they themselves had pushed to the server. It's dumbfounding to think that they could rely so much on their website but not have the smarts to make their own backups.
Secondly, having so many servers with basically the same stuff on them, they should have templates galor ready to be repopulated, because the crowds are not going to stop comming over night if they at least place a "We'll be right back" sign on their home page. I also don't see any indication of down time, which is pretty good on their part. So, they must have an inkling as to how to properly run their sites and have them back up shortly.
So, that arguement is baseless unless they are stupid. If they are stupid then natural selection has won, again.
Woah.
but you when you either didn't get a vote or lost the vote sanctioning the most extreme form of enforcement
Woah. I am talking pre-Gulf-War-I. Iraq was in material breach of their cease fire agreement. Therefore the first gulf war's negotiated end is over - null and void. This war is nothing but an extension of the Gulf War of the 1990s.
Secondly, you are wrong in thinking that the UN is the arbortor of international law. It is not. International law would maybe be better off, but that is not the case. Put all that aside though.
Thirdly, the security council did pass a resolution which warned Iraq of the "most serious of consequences" - almost a quote - and that did in fact pass. The UN inspection team did report that Iraq was in breach of it's obligations in terms of co-operation even though it was their opinion that they possessed no weapons that were significantly or seriously wrongly in possesion of (I am obviously not going to split hairs on the range of a missle that is a few miles past its allowable range).
Based on all that, this war was not strictly illegal.
Like I said the U.S. should either get out of the U.N. or be thrown out instead of using it when its convenient, and then ignoring it when its convenient
I don't disagree. I am not addressing your position in general, just a detail of that argument. Specifically, that this war was illegal. It was not. This would not even be close in a court of law way. No, was the US administration forthright in it's arguments? No, they weren't. Did they act in good faith with the UN? No. They didn't.
A problem with the UN in general is that it attempts to treat all nations as equals, and elevates some to "first amoung equals" status. This is a bogus idea. To suggest that some nations have equally legitimate status as others is untrue. Specifically, the UN seems to be of the collective mind that inaction is worse than wrong action, and this often leads to the type of indecision that gets it criticized - often rightly.
They did revolt, and the then first Bush administration looked the other way while Saddam slaughtered them.
Even though you disown it, both Jordan and Saudia Arabia warned Bush that mid-east would be thrown into choas if the US removed Hussein, and that the coallition would fall apart. The King of Saudia Arabia spoke with Bush about this himself. Bush had already at this point promised to support the Kurds as a nation seperate from Hussein and to support their revolutionary attempts.
Not sure you were aware but Saudi Arabia already closely resembles Afghanistan under the Taliban, women are deeply oppressed and people are routinely beheaded in public because thats what Islamic law stipulates.
This is a completely false comparison. Women are not routinely executed like in Afganistan under the Taliban. Quite frankly you are terribly wrong. The biggest threat that women face is from execution from family members. These women are offered protection by the Saudi government and their related killers or attempted killers are treated as killers. Women in the Kingdom are clearly not equals with men, but they are not treated as abject victims like in the Taliban controlled Afganistan. Additionally, the degree to which women are mistreated is largely related to the strength in the area of the clergy. As I mentioned before, the House of Saud is not in control of the country in a typical despotic environment. They rule at the pleasure of the clerical Muslims. Much of the military or paramilitary power in the Kingdom is loyal to the mullahs, not to the royal house. This is the great difference between the House of Saud and the Taliban. The House is deeply interested in the Westernization of the country. It is a true balancing act between their impulses and what the religious voice of the nation dictates.
There is a real legitimate reason why the US and specifically any administration with interest in
"Don't cross this line in the sand, or we will draw a new line in the sand for you not to cross."
Fact is the UN was not standing up for their resolutions - they knowingly doing nothing when they were violated. Why did they bother to pass those resolutions? Resolutions which BTW did threaten force. The US waited a long time, went though a lot of resolutions that were violated, before saying enough and going alone.
Threats are meaningless unless it is understood that you will back them up, and they promise an action that isn't wanted.
Maybe the US shouldn't have gone into Iraq. the UN should not have made those resolutions if they were unwilling to back them up though.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
"Women are not routinely executed like in Afganistan under the Taliban. Quite frankly you are terribly wrong."
You are putting words in my mouth. I said "women are deeply oppressed" and "people are routinely beheaded in public". I didn't say "women are beheaded in public" though I'm pretty sure they must be if they violate the laws that call for beheading. The key point is most Saudis, outside the royal family. don't really have a better life than those under the Taliban and Saddam did. Women had more rights under Saddam. Americans don't seem to realize this because Saudi Arabia is an ally so they haven't been demonized by propaganda the way Saddam and the Taliban have.
"They, despite innuendo, do not support terrorism against the West."
As you recall there were 80+ pages censored from the Congressional 9/11 report that were entirely about Saudi Arabia's role in 9/11. I'd sure like to read what they said.
You seem to be echoing a Bush administration propaganda theme that the Saudi's are pure as driven snow. I doubt that is true and you seem to have fallen for some very good propaganda that said, Saddam was involved in 9/11 and Saudi Arabia wasn't. Reality is almost certainly the exact opposite.
The Saudi's have only very recently officially started to fight terrorism, partially thanks to the fact Al Qaeda launched attacks in Saudi Arabia against Arabs. Prior to that they either denied the problem or were indifferent as long as it was targeted at infidels.
Unofficially its a near certainty wealthy Saudi's are still funnelling large sums into Madrassa's to raise new extremists and to fund Al Qaeda, Hamas and the rest.
"First off, foreign investment is a way of life in the US, and has been for two hundred plus years. It's nothing new."
There is nothing new about it but when a small number of foreign investors own a stake as big as this one, they are insured they will get special treatment. If they pulled their investment out they could single handedly crash markets. You just have to factor in they get special treatment when the U.S. government deals with them. For example they get 80+ pages of embarrassment censored out of report on their involvement in 9/11, and they get to fly their nationals out of the country right after 9/11. After Pearl Harbor most Japanese Americans were rounded up, stripped of their property, and eventually landed in concentration camps.
@de_machina
So much for "you can't police/censor the Internet - it's international, it's impossible, we'll just route around it". The FBI has figured out how to handle that, at least when it means stomping out troublsome independent media. Until all content is available through URIs that, unlike URLs, are not coupled to a single physical location, but rather in a distributed, redundant, semantic space, physical access to the machines will still trump any security regime.
--
make install -not war
You conveniently choose to forget that the resolutions and sanctions were designed to:
- Prevent Saddam from acquiring WMD's
- Attacking his neighbors
As the Duelfer report has established at the time of the invasion, Saddam didn't have any WMD's so the sanctions worked. It was ugly and painful and difficult but in the end the UN sanctions worked, though the U.S. refuses to admit it after all their false rhetoric.
The UN inspectors who were on the ground in Iraq when the invasion rushed ahead said the same thing. There were some technical violations but they didn't even come close to a justification for declaring a breech and starting a war. And again there were inspectors on the ground when the invasion rushed ahead which meant Iraq was striving to come in to compliance. It was a time that called for patience, instead we got a rush for war. T
he Bush administration rhetoric at the time said they "knew" he had WMD's and they "knew" where they were, yet they couldn't provide any valid intelligence on the subject to the inspectors. Why, because they were lieing, to justify a war they were raging for other reasons.
@de_machina
The bitching and moaning isn't about Indymedia in particular, but that an independent news site got raided by the FBI. Now, they might have deserved some sort of punishment for outing an undercover operative, but getting raided by the FBI? Even Robert Novak hasn't gotten that sort of attention for outing the CIA overseas operative.
Makes you wonder why some sorts of disclosures are okay, and some are not...
--------
Bleah! Heh heh heh... BLEAH BLEAH!!! Ha ha ha ha...
Countries like Saudi Arabia who are railed against for being on the side terrorists (especially by the left in the media - "18 of 19 hijackers were from there", type of stuff) are a mish-mash of conflicting political entities. Saudia Arabia was nearly torn apart from within due to the US intervention the first time around with Iraq. The ruling family is not in complete control of the nation. They have a tacit agreement with the religious clerics to preserve and protect the order - but the House of Saud knows that this could turn at any moment. Make no mistake: if the House of Saud falls to a fundamentalist regime like the old Taliban or the Iranian government the world as a whole will be in a really nasty spot.
I've long been arguing that this is the real message of September 11 -- it was an attempt by bin Laden to drive a wedge between the Americans and the Saudis, to topple the current House of Saud or at least make sure that the next ruler (even if from the same family) is of a more fundamentalist bent.
Looked at in this light, the invasion of Iraq makes sense (at least in terms of US foreign policy being conducted for the benefit of the US alone): the US is ensuring an ongoing oil supply from the Gulf, even if the Saudis raise the price too high.
deus does not exist but if he does
Sigh, I remember watching this film:
http://www.endofsuburbia.com/ (There audio plus a transcript of the interview that inspired it available.)
I remember some guy in it saying how hard it would be to have a war over oil because all it takes is five pound of plastic explosive and a camel to blow up an oil rig.
Now I'm thinking how hard it is to fight for our freedoms. It seems to take so little for the U.S. Gubment to do something really atrocious like this. All it takes is a couple of guys with airplane tickets and a few phone calls.
At least blatant strawmEn are alive and modded +5. Yet does that ole Slashdot heart beat!
The AP may have (finally) picked up this story. Here is a report from WOAI in San Antonio:p x?content_ id=F406EF7A-15E6-405D-8954-CB2686A7D82A
- 09-indym edia_x.htm
7 204,11 037236%5e15306%5e%5enbv%5e,00.html
. cfm
y /0,3604,132 4244,00.html
W hoTookAhims a
i splay/126509/i ndex.php
9 59
i ones/2004/1004 /0910/noticias091004/noticias091004-2.htm
http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.as
A little coverage now in USA Today:
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-10
Here is a more recent article from AFP:
http://australianit.news.com.au/articles/0,
Server theft is on the radar of the WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW:
http://thewhir.com/marketwatch/aut100804
UK guardian coverage:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/stor
Answering questions and clarifying the situation around Ahimsa (the confiscated IMC web servers):
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Global/
English translation of a French article indicating the Italian government may have wanted IMC Italy shut down permanently:
http://nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/d
Article (in Italian) pointing to Italy's role in IMC shutdown:
http://punto-informatico.it/p.asp?i=49
Another article (in Spanish) on the Indymedia shutdown. Unfortunately, it contains little new information:
http://www.noticiasdot.com/publicac
You can get a poor translation of the above articles here:
http://www.google.com/language_tools?hl=en
Just plug in the URL above and be sure to select Spanish->English option.
You seem to be echoing a Bush administration propaganda theme that the Saudi's are pure as driven snow. I doubt that is true and you seem to have fallen for some very good propaganda that said, Saddam was involved in 9/11 and Saudi Arabia wasn't. Reality is almost certainly the exact opposite.
NO. Absolutely not. I am claiming that the House of Saud is a far more moderate government for Saudia Arabia than any Wahabist regime would be. And right now we can have the House of Saud OR the Wahabist's that are next in line for power. I know that Saudi Arabians were involed in 9/11 and Iraqis were not. However, the House of Saud does not and did not support these terrorists. I'd love to read about the Saudi's as well, but you know, we aren't going to any time soon I can think of.
The Saudi's have only very recently officially started to fight terrorism, partially thanks to the fact Al Qaeda launched attacks in Saudi Arabia against Arabs. Prior to that they either denied the problem or were indifferent as long as it was targeted at infidels.
I agree they've only started recently fighting terrorism, but not because of indifference. The ruling family in the Kingdom is not all powerful, and any actions they take against the clerical muslims in charge have to be very very carefully balanced. The mullahs are the ones who have the loyalty of the people. Not the royalty.
If they pulled their investment out they could single handedly crash markets.
That's patently false. The largely circulated number about how much the Saudi's own in terms of American assets is deceptive. There is a saying that when you owe the bank 100,000 they own you. But when you owe the bank 100,000,000 you own the bank. Well, in the US, we owe the Saudi's the 100,000,000.
Simply put, the Saudi's cannot pull their investments. It's not possible. If they attempted to quickly remove their capital from the United States the prices for those investments would fall and no buyers would be present. Additionally, all the markets you speak of are designed with systems that prevent them from being short-circuited. Moreover much of the wealth that the Saudi's have are not in the name of the Kingdom of Saudi arabia, but of individuals. Much of the wealth is concentrated in instruments that are long-term and cannot be traded into a short-term liquid asset - government issue bonds, stakes in insurance companies and banks, etc.
and they get to fly their nationals out of the country right after 9/11.
Just so you know, this has been throughly debunked. The 9/11 report that you mentioned says this:
No commercial planes, including chartered flights, were permitted to fly into, out of, or within the United States until September 13, 2001. After the airspace reopened, six chartered flights with 142 people, mostly Saudi Arabian nationals, departed from the United States between September 14 and 24. One flight, the so-called Bin Ladin flight, departed the United States on September 20 with 26 passengers, most of them relatives of Usama Bin Ladin. We have found no credible evidence that any chartered flights of Saudi Arabian nationals departed the United States before the reopening of national airspace.
You make it sound like "they got to fly their nationals out right after 9/11" implies some type of special treatment based on their wealth and representation in the administration. It's simply untrue. They used no special privelages, and there has been no evidence provided to back any other claim.
After Pearl Harbor most Japanese Americans were rounded up, stripped of their property, and eventually landed in concentration camps.
Just as a final side point you statement is wrong. Most Japanese Americans were not rounded up. 110,000 to 120,000 thousand were, the offical number being the lower and the estimated number by historians the latter. It is worth noting that according to the voluntary registraton of aliens before the war th
It's Bush's fault that I can't spell.
1f u c4n r34d th1s u r34lly n33d t0 g37 l41d
Hearing about these seizures gives me seizures.
The term "leftist" is what the American Right uses when they want to define their opposition as some lunar group of wannabe terrorist guerillas.
Go read UNSCR 687.
The main point was a dismantling of the WMD programs and weapons. This was, if not completely done, very nearly so.
UNSCR 1441 was based on the premise that 687 had been circumvented, and that Saddam was a liar.
The real facts, as evidenced by the most recent report, is that Iraq had had it's WMD's and programs largely, at a minimum, removed. Thus, in large part, the premise behind 1441 was faulty.
I'm not going to waste a bunch of breath on arguing. Read for yourself.
Go to www.un.org
Find the Security Counsel resolutions and read 687 and 1441.
687 only required that he disarm. That he did, though not exactly willingly.
From that front, it really does seem to me, that technically, 1441 was a sham, and that the US action was very probably illegal.
Cheers,
Greg
In July, the CIA pressured the govt of Cyprus to investigate Cyprus Indymedia in July. When the Cyprus govt finally admitted this publicly, it made front page news there.
In August, the US Secret Service harassed NY Indymedia's ISP Calyx during the Republican National Convention, making intimidating requests to the ISP, demanding home contact details of Indymedia server admins, etc.
Now it's the FBI's turn.
What does the US govt plan to do to Indymedia in November, I wonder?
Here's some background on what the Italian govt had in mind when they requested the "assistance" of the US Feds. A federal prosecutor in Italy, Marina Plazzi, has stated that she is investigating Indymedia because of possible "support of terrorism". Apparently this is about supposedly positive postings after an attack on Italian soldiers in the Iraqi city of Nassiriya last November. "We asked the FBI for help alongside the Italian Department of Justice", federal prosecutor Plazzi said. The Italian Minister of Justice, Roberto Castelli, has so far refused to speak out on the proceedings of the FBI.
The parliamentary representatives of the Italian government parties are clearly less reticent. On Sunday, Mario Landolfi, spokesman of the neo-fascist party "Alleanza Nazionale" (AN), announced the seizure of the computers served "the enforcement of the law".
Note that the AN are coalition partners in the current Italian government of Silvio Berlusconi, our Partner In The War On Terror(tm).
Last November, 17 AN delegates, including the granddaughter of Benito Mussolini, demanded the shut-down of Indymedia in a joint statement. Back then, Paolo Valentino, state secretary in the Italian Department of Justice and also a member of AN, had announced possible cooperation with the USA.
This week's seizure of Indymedia servers appears to be what he was hoping for.
I would seldom call a religious extremist a real christian. The extreamist bit tends to cloud out the religious bit. Real education tends to make people less extreamist.
We get COUPONS?!?!?!?
Sign me up!
Those who sacrifice security to condemn liberty deserve to repeat history or something. - Benjamin Santayana
It's not that simple.
In the very early days (before they became known as National Socialists, Nazis, or the NSDAP), they were the German Workers' Party with about 50-60 members and were considered to be on the left.
Soon after WWI, one A.Hitler was sitting in Munich with not much to do, still under military orders (there was not much work or food or anything in Germany given onerous reparations after WWI) when he was spotted as a charismtic speaker by officers who, at the time, were infiltrating political groups for various reasons (and there were a lot of disparate political parties given the circumstances).
Hitler was asked to go along to the German Workers' Party (curiously, he went reluctantly) and eventually ended up heading the party. Apart from its anti-semitic and virulent nationalist bent, many joined (including Goebbels) specifically because they considered the NSDAP to be a workers' party and essentially socialist.
It was not until the late 1920s, when the party was in danger of being split as a result of Hitler's directly opposing views to the socialist wing that the NSDAP became (effectively) Hitler's party in his own image. One of the reasons that Hitler opposed the socialist wing (besides his own convictions) was because he was being bankrolled by militaristic corporate owners. Does this ring any alarm bells?
Did he inhale?
I would only add that the term "religious extremist" seems to get used, not to label those who hold their beliefs dearly and clearly, but to those who are willing to twist religious sentiment to justify just about anything they want to accomplish. In that sense, you and the parent poster are both right.
----
Not to be confused with Col.
Whether they are biased or not is not the issue. At issue is whether it's OK for the 'powers that be' to raid journalist sites and confiscate material. I don't think Indymedia is unbiased either, nor do I think most people that read Indymedia think Indymedia is unbiased. It's just a group of amateur journalists reporting on what they choose to report on.
Your comment really missed the point.
What's amazing to me is how they've managed to piss so many people off just by reporting on things that most media outlets ignore. They're not particularly revolutionary in their reportage, nor are they very good reporters. They come accross as very amateurish and sometimes naive. The fact they've managed to piss off someone enough to get their hardware seized just points out how easy it is to piss 'the powers that be' off. Which just further illustrates how thin their veil of power is. If a bunch of ragtag amateur journalists can ignite this kind of reaction from the government then how much longer can 'the powers that be' keep this facade going?
The Information Revolution will be fought on the command line.
Since the less acceptable part of the USA is largely about money and corporation (the founding fathers had some concerns about this, too), I've started (last year) to boycott anything/everything USA major corporation connected.
It isn't really practical at 100% but I'm making an effort. Another thought that an expatriate American friend had (I live in the UK and France) is to go for one big thing like Coca-Cola. It doesn't serve any purpose anyway and does a lot of damage to teeth, gums and general health. Water is pretty nice and we're lucky to have it, many humans don't.
This is a non-violent and constructive way for everyone to disagree with all this. There's some good lists at: http://www.boycottusa.org/
Up to now, governments can't force you to drink a cold Coke. However, watch this space...
On y va, qui mal y pense!
From that front, it really does seem to me, that technically, 1441 was a sham, and that the US action was very probably illegal.
I've read both, studied both. As I've noted, they are not the sole rationale for what is and is not legal.
Iraq has been in material breach of it's cease-fire agan and again. The cease-fire is invalid, and the Gulf War is back on again.
That's way number, and it's a slam dunk. Technically legal yes, in the spirit of the UN, no.
Both resolutions 687 and 1441 are based on Hussein's continuing no-compliance with inspectors. I think we both know what Hussein was doing: trying to walk the line between complying with them fully enough to evade a war and still chest-thumping enough to play tough guy to his military guys and international neighbors. Being pushed around the UN must have been a big old slap in the face for him, and seriously damaged his ego. Regardless of his motivatons, and though both resolutions were based on the clearly wrong premise that his weapons programs were running in secret or hiding, he was in technical breach of his obligations.
As an argument, the "legality" of the war is extremely tenuous.
check out the indymedia cache of the story that might have some bearing on why Blunkett was so agreeable to pulling them off the net.
I agree with this Anonympus post ... The US is the largest provider .
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of foreign aid in the World, it has remained so since after World War 2
The US is the only nation I currently know of that helped the
country that suprise attacked them at pearl harbor build a
world class auto manufacturing apparatus that dwarfs the monolithic car makers of the US
We did all we could to help see the re-unification of germany,
and so it came to pass under a republican who out spent the
russians . Mr. Gorbachev tore down the wall
Alot of bad things have been done on both sides of the big pond,
but odds are u'd be speaking russian, german, or japanese without the US
It's true we are not the same country as we were in the 1940's, but it is not the same world either
Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex, and I FIRMLY agrre with him and expand its reach to all corporations anywhere that influence governments . Saddam was a piece of crap, and his sons were crazier than he was
We gave him over a decade to come clean and cooperate, but it was
just not his way of doing business . The UN wrote and signed the
over dozen resolutions against him
Saddam bribed French and UN officials with oil vouchers, and the rest is history . The French will OK genocide for the right price . ( Kurds ) I wonder if the oilfields in the Sudan are keeping ppl
from sending help there
The French sold saddam his 1st atempt at a nuclear reactor, the israeli's blew it up
The UN is the 2nd attempt at the League of Nations, the League of
Nations was dissolved because of petty bickering and the fact
that it did little real good beyond making lots of speeches
and printing lots of paper
The UN is the step child of the League of Nations, it can do
good in the world or it can let things like the Sudan go on
and on, Like Rwanda, etc etc etc . The UN is crap
It has great potential to be much much more, but human nature
and selfish self centered isolationism and apathy will win the day.
The US coporations have sent all their manufacturing overseas,
and alot of their IT work too, and more to follow
The US can expel every visa worker, and put sanctions on businesses
doing business on foreign soil, and it would bring it all back and
the US would boom again
As for the oil, it would hurt the US for a short while if the
oil was cut off . There would be mandantory rationing, and
we could save about 20% just by switching to a 4 day work week
Further more, we could mandate all fleet vehicles to be E-85/E-95
flex fuel, and restart our dying farming communities for making
corn oil for a hybrid fuel
Fracturing natural gas for hydrogen at local filling stations
is the main success point in the green parties plan to move the
US in the direction of hydrogen . Scientists have looked at the
plan and it is viable and workable
Hydrogen powered Hybrid-Eletrics could replace 20-50% of US cars
in 10 years if a tax break equal to the one for SUV's was given
Bush is one man, Congress and the House can bypass him by getting
enough votes to do so
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
"I know that Saudi Arabians were involed in 9/11 and Iraqis were not. However, the House of Saud does not and did not support these terrorists. I'd love to read about the Saudi's as well, but you know, we aren't going to any time soon I can think of."
Uh, how can you say the House of Saud's hands are clean, given there are 80+ pages of censored text from a congressional investigation that may well say they were involved, for all we know. The "House of Saud" is huge, it is impossible to say some of them aren't pursuing their own agenda and supporting Al Qaeda.
As I recall there were some pretty clear links there was money flowing from the wife of a Saudi diplomat directly to the 9/11 hijackers.
"You make it sound like "they got to fly their nationals out right after 9/11" implies some type of special treatment based on their wealth and representation in the administration. It's simply untrue."
Its not me making it sound that way, they did, with White House and FBI blessing and minimal screening. Fahrenheit 911's take on it was a little exaggerated but its not like its been debunked because it was basically true. When you were attacked by Bin Laden why would you let his immediate relatives flee the country without at least investigating them.
@de_machina
The Nazis were backed by corporate interests and were good Fascists.
If that's you definition of "right", they were certainly that.
If you define it as being for a free market economy, they were no closer to that than the communists. So by that definition Hitler was definitely "left".
Also remember that only some corporate interests backed them. The big number of Jewish owned corporations that they felt unfairly dominated the German economy didn't get any favorable treatment.
Both resolutions 687 and 1441 are based on Hussein's continuing no-compliance with inspectors.
You obviously don't comprehend the resolutions then.
687 was immed. after the Gulf War I. No inspectors were present prior. 687 doesn't have *JACK* to do with non-compliance with an inspection regeime.
I'm sorry, but with statements such as you've made above, I have a hard time seeing that you comprehend or understand the nature of 687.
If the UNSCR 687 is in breach, which I tend to dispute, then the action would be to go BACK to the UN and get a ruling that they were in breach of 687 and authorization to recind the cease-fire.
If one is going to use a material breach of the *UNSCR* 687 as a pretext for war, then a UNSCR to recind the cease-fire only makes sense.
Finally, how about naming some things that they were in breach of in UNSCR 687?
If there is/was anything it was terribly minor - and it wasn't named in any of the rationals leading up the the war by the present administration.
You may come up with rationals outside of those presented by the current administration, but these don't have much weight with me. It's clear that the die was set and now you and everyone else is casting about looking for legal loop-holes to help sustain the legality of the invasion.
The real story is, that he who wins the war is legal. Always is. Doesn't make it reality, but the winner is essence makes reality.
Cheers,
Greg
good old plain summaries.
http://volokh.com/posts/1097514987.shtml/ has some interesting insights and questions on this.
The real story is, that he who wins the war is legal. Always is. Doesn't make it reality, but the winner is essence makes reality.
This is what I am speaking of.
Go back and read the cease fire. No additional UN resolution is needed to rekindle the war. Shooting even once at a jet patroling the no-fly zone is a breach worthy of re-opening the war.
The bottom line remains that this war was not technically illegal, but rather, against the spirit of the UN.
There are lots of "technically" correct answers. Starting wars over those "technical" answers is something only a moron would do.
I disagree with your conclusions over the cease fire, as in practice these things are never so tenuous. I'm not sure, even technically, that these things are authorizations to restart the war. (Shooting at an aircraft.)
Iraq didn't give up it soverign status. I suspect many of the items we'd see as provocation would be just as vigorously defended by the past Iraqi administration as simply protecting its soverign status.
As far as UN status. If you're going to rely on the fact that Iraq was ignoring a *UN* resolution, then further action would be required at the UN. There is no action specified in 687 should Iraq fail to meet its obligation - i.e. one can restart the war without UN input and vote.
The US move to war was all about UN resolutions and how Iraq was violating them. Point was, they weren't really - not 687, and 1441 was moot if no WMD's existed. And further, even if they were, a vote on the UN resolutions and the responses etc would be required to restart a war.
Cheers,
Greg
I disagree with your conclusions over the cease fire, as in practice these things are never so tenuous. I'm not sure, even technically, that these things are authorizations to restart the war. (Shooting at an aircraft.)
Read the cease-fire. It's in there. Any agressive action against coalition aircraft or personell.
The US move to war was all about UN resolutions and how Iraq was violating them. Point was, they weren't really - not 687, and 1441 was moot if no WMD's existed. And further, even if they were, a vote on the UN resolutions and the responses etc would be required to restart a war.
It can't be retroactively moot. I mean to say, it all hinges on co-operation. If Hussein had none (which he didnt) then the burden is on him to prove it, since, before this all started he was known to have them and pursue them. Before the war was started Hussein denied having them - to a degree - yet would not/could 100% to prove it.
I am not saying this war was right to start, but I am saying that on it's face there are many ways this war was technically legal. The illegality of the war is a non-starter in terms of real-world issues and technical legal merit.
"It can't be retroactively moot. I mean to say, it all hinges on co-operation. If Hussein had none (which he didnt) then the burden is on him to prove it, since, before this all started he was known to have them and pursue them. Before the war was started Hussein denied having them - to a degree - yet would not/could 100% to prove it."
1441 is based on a flawed pretense.
687 required that Saddam relinquish his WMD et al.
It's pretty clear from the Duelfer report that all WMD programs and most anything else forbidden in 687 was gone in 1995 at latest.
So, since 1441 is predicated that Saddam hadn't complied with 687, and was deceiving us, than the whole basis for 1441 is wrong and moot.
It's a catch-22. Saddam says he destroyed it all. Inspectors were trying to ascertain that.
Scott Ritter basically claimed that all the old WMD materials were almost 100% accounted for with 100% certainty - the other 5% was still almost 100% certain to have been destroyed too...
So, now we claim Saddam still had WMD's and was being deceptive. Perhaps he was, but 687 doesn't say anything about proving to 100% certainty that no WMD's exist. It simply says "disarm."
Well, that was accomplished.
The premise behind 1441 was that he hadn't disarmed.
Ala' Circular reference - system overload.
Cheers,
Greg
It's called Hypocrisy.