Bollocks!

John Pilger is pissed.  At what, you ask?  At just about everything going on at the moment, that's what.  Here's a sample (on a topic I'd planned to post about, but set aside for other timely news):

The BBC's explanation for banning an appeal on behalf of the stricken people of Gaza is a vivid example. [...] In 1999, at the height of the illegal Nato bombing of Serbia and Kosovo, the TV presenter Jill Dando made an appeal on behalf of Kosovar refugees. The BBC web page for that appeal was linked to numerous articles meant to stress the gravity of the humanitarian issue. These included quotations from Blair himself, such as: "This will be a daily pounding until he [Slobodan Milosevic] comes into line with the terms that Nato has laid down." There was no significant balance of view from the Yugoslav side, and not a single mention that the flight of Kosovar refugees began only after Nato had started bombing.

For reference, here's a list of the appeals the BBC has either aired or denied; the only previous denial for political reasons was an appeal for aid after Israel's attack on Lebanon in 2006.  Do I detect a pattern here?

Regarding Obama and rendition, Pilger begs to differ with Glenn Greenwald, Scott Horton, and Hilary Bok:

Far from “shutting down the CIA’s secret prison network”, Obama’s executive orders actually give the CIA authority to carry out renditions, abductions and transfers of prisoners in secret without threat of legal obstruction. As the Los Angeles Times disclosed, “current and former US intelligence officials said that the rendition programme might be poised to play an expanded role”. A semantic sleight of hand is that “long-term prisons” are changed to “short-term prisons”; and while Americans are now banned from directly torturing people, foreigners working for the US are not. This means that America’s numerous “covert actions” will operate as they did under previous presidents, with proxy regimes, such as Augusto Pinochet’s in Chile, doing the dirtiest work.

It's hard to tell exactly what's going to happen with all the smoke being blown about renditions at the moment, of course.  But here's something I'd missed last week from Leon Panetta's testimony that supports Pilger's interpretation:

Obama's nominee for CIA director, Leon Panetta, said last week that he approved of rendition for foreign prosecution or brief CIA detention, but not for extended confinement. Like his Bush administration predecessors, he also said he would require a foreign government to promise not to torture a prisoner.

So it looks like we'll just be back to using pro forma, wink-wink-nudge-nudge promises from foreign governments not to torture prisoners.  Hey, at least it will provide plausible deniability—and I'm sure that will be more than sufficient for the diehard Obama fans out there, who've already demonstrated their mental flexibility by convincing themselves that the Obama administration's position on the use of the state secrets privilege is just "the work of either Bush moles inside Justice, or, Bush moles in concert with wingers in Intelligence forcing their position on the matter."  (And while I admit there's some nutpicking there, consider that Glenn Greenwald advanced a similar notion in his column on renditions.)

Read the rest of Pilger's enjoyable rant here.

(Thanks to reader Bjorn for the pointer to Pilger's article.)

Comments

[NomadUK]

If you just can't get enough Pilger, you can always get his documentaries on DVD.

[Gnome Chomsky]

Ah, I see you've been enjoying the low-hanging fruit of Digby's comments too! My personal favorite was this one in a different thread:

Is there any chance that the administration wants this posture to be tested so that case law and precedent repudiates it?
nonononononono | 02.10.09 - 3:54 pm |

You can almost picture the hands over the ears with a name like that! Thankfully, that was quickly followed by:

No way in fucking hell. That would be like prosecuting abortion doctors in the hopes that the (oh so liberal) federal appellate courts would overturn the convictions and find a Constitutional right to choose. They are taking this position because they want to take this position, just like they are about to give away the rest of the Treasury to the banks because they want their banker friends to stay rich.
Jeff in Texas | 02.10.09 - 4:32 pm |

That said, Digby herself has had a couple of come-to-Chomsky moments over this - she originally was despondent over the LA Times story, but allowed herself to be talked into believing the alternate interpretation. Now with the state secrets thing, she really does seem to be finding it hard to explain all this, ah, "un-progressive" behavior away. Stay tuned...

[John Caruso]

I only check in on Digby occasionally but I'd also noticed her existential doubts over the latest betrayals. But I'm not holding my breath to see that translate into anything but supporting "better" Democrats (or, failing that, voting for Democrats anyway—because can we really afford to have a Republican win?).