Get rid of the bum on the plush!

Part 7 of 8

The Afghanistan Foundation

From : Elite Watch

The Afghanistan Foundation (this is a reproduction of the original website which I have salvaged for posterity. The original address, http://www.afghanistanfoundation.org/, is now not working. The foundation was setup in 1996 with support from Zbigniew Brzezinski & Brent Scowcroft & worked to shape thinking in Washington about what could be done in Afghanistan. I'm hoping to look more into this in the future)


The foundation

The Afghanistan - America Foundation is a 501c(3) non-profit, non-partisan, independent organization located in Washington, D.C., a few blocks from the U.S. Capitol building. It was founded in May 1996 and was incorporated in the District of Columbia in October 1996 by former U.S Congressman Don Ritter (R-PA, 1979-1993) along with committed Afghan and American leaders.

In its overall structure, the Afghanistan - America Foundation serves as a vehicle for partnership between Afghans, Americans and others in the international community who wish to bring peace, stability, and prosperity to Afghanistan. It fosters public and governmental understanding regarding Afghanistan and its people. It seeks to promote more effective U.S. policies for peace, economic development, humanitarian assistance, cultural appreciation and, last but not least, a deeper understanding by the American public of the Afghan people's historic sacrifice and achievement in helping to bring about an end to the Cold War.

Since its inception, the Afghanistan - America Foundation has convened key players on the Afghanistan issue and has held educational and policymakers' forums, as well as "roundtables", in the U.S. Congress. It has testified at congressional hearings, and has begun an ongoing dialogue with the U.S. Congress and Administration on Afghanistan. It has met with key players in the region, including the Taliban, the Northern Alliance, and representatives from Pakistan, the Central Asian nations and Russia to seek positive, pro-active common ground among them. The Foundation works to reduce confrontation and enhance prospects for peace and stability in the region.

Congressman Ritter serves as Chairman and President of the Afghanistan - America Foundation. Congressman Ritter was one of the leading congressional proponents of U.S. assistance to the people of Afghanistan, and was founder of the Congressional Task Force on Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation. For years he has played a major role in moving U.S. policy toward a higher level of positive and practical involvement in the Afghanistan issue.

In its first two years of activity, the Foundation has successfully initiated several major programs. In May 1998 the Foundation conducted a Research Mission to Afghanistan, Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and Russia. The primary objectives of this important mission were fact-finding and engagement of key players in order to create both an international Afghanistan Charter and a Seminal White Paper to inform Congress, the White House, Administration, the United Nations, and the international media. Both the Charter and the White Paper will seek to elevate, broaden, and deepen U.S. policy attention toward Afghanistan and the region.

The research mission and White Paper effort also serve as input to the Foundation's second major program, the Afghanistan Charter Project. The Charter will be a declaration of principles, drafted by Afghan scholars and leaders around the world, based on common values and essential elements of culture, history, national unity, education, and economic development. The Charter will represent an historic effort to define the ideals that will help to shape, strengthen, and unite Afghan society now and in the future.

The Foundation is in the process of expanding its current efforts with new programs, such as the National Unity Community Outreach Sectors (NUCOS) Project. NUCOS will consist of committees that will foster local dialogue and cooperation among communities of Afghan-Americans throughout the United States and abroad. Each outreach sector will seek to create meaningful activities that will bring awareness to current Afghan issues, and promote a sense of unity within the community. NUCOS will provide a constituency and a sounding board for the Foundation as it expands program development.

Alongside Congressman Ritter, the Foundation has convened the distinguished leadership and informative guidance of prominent scholars and specialists on Afghanistan and the region, as well as a bipartisan group of key Members of Congress and former diplomatic officials from Afghanistan and the United States. These form the Foundation's Board of Directors, Congressional Advisory Board, Diplomatic Advisory Board, and International Advisory Board.

The Foundation is honored to have as its National Honorary Co-Chairmen two former White House National Security Advisors, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Gen. Brent Scowcroft. Also closely advising and working with the Foundation are Dr. Zalmay Khalilzad, RAND Corp.; Dr. Tom Gouttierre, Director of the Center for Afghanistan Studies, University of Nebraska, Omaha, and Vice-President of the Afghanistan - America Foundation. Dr. Frederick Starr, former President of Oberlin College and now Chairman of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at the School for Advanced International Studies (SAIS) of Johns Hopkins University; and Dr. Barnett Rubin, Council on Foreign Relations, serve on the Foundation's White Paper Task Force. Dr. Tom Greene, a retired career Foreign Service Officer and former Deputy Special Envoy to the Afghan Resistance, currently serves as the Executive Director of the Foundation. The Foundation's staff consists of young Afghan and American scholars with expertise in human rights law, international relations, and Afghanistan politics and history.

In addition to the above listed individuals, the Foundation's Congressional Advisory Board serves as a channel of contact between the Foundation and senior Members of Congress, many of whom were members of the Congressional Task Force on Afghanistan during the 1980s and early 90s. Today, they serve in senior positions in Congress. Others on the Board are active on human rights issues or have numerous Afghan-American constituents. These include, but are not limited to: Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, Congressman David Dreier, Congressman Duncan Hunter, Congressman Bill McCollum, Congressman James Moran, Congressman John Porter, Congressman Ed Royce, Congressman Gary Ackerman, Congressman Chris Smith, Congressman Tom Davis, and former Congressman Charles Wilson. Additional interested Members of Congress continue to join the Congressional Advisory Board as the Foundation grows.

The Diplomatic and International Advisory Boards also engage a cross section of leadership with the Foundation's work. Members include former Afghan and American Ambassadors, ex-State Department and senior diplomatic officials, intellectuals, business leaders, artists, scholars, educators, and private citizens. These individuals share information, ideas and perspectives with the Foundation by providing political, historical, ethnic, religious, cultural, intellectual, and international perspectives to the Chairman, the Board of Directors, the Executive Director, and others working with the Foundation.

The Foundation's proven track record demonstrates that it has established itself as the premier U.S.-based organization capable of raising the issue of Afghanistan at the highest levels of U.S. policy-making circles. The Foundation is in the process of enlarging its Board to include outstanding members of the Afghan Diaspora as well as concerned Americans.

China's unlucky 8

AZUZ: Many of the numbers associated with this earthquake are huge: more than 67,000 people killed; 21,000 missing; 45 million residents affected in Sichuan province. But there's also a focus on a smaller number: eight. In Chinese culture, eight traditionally has a positive meaning. But some people are looking at how the number's connected to a few events that have taken place this year. As Alina Cho tells us, for them it's adding up to bad news.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

ALINA CHO, CNN REPORTER: It may be the worst-kept ancient Chinese secret: 8 is a lucky number. That's why the Beijing Olympics will begin on August 8, 2008, or 8-8-08. In Chinese, the word for eight is similar to the word for wealth, so the Chinese people believe eight and prosperity are connected. The number 8 is everywhere: People try to get married on the 8th, and a Chinese airline paid more than a quarter million dollars to get this phone number: eight 8s. So, if that's the case, why are the blogs on fire with this: eight is a "curse for China"?

Three recent events: all negative, all linked to the number 8. First, a massive snowstorm blankets China on January 25th; 1 plus 2 plus 5 equals 8. Second, widespread protests against Chinese rule in Tibet. Date: March 14th; 3 plus 1 plus 4 equals 8. Third, a devastating earthquake hits Sichuan province, killing tens of thousands on May 12th; 5 plus 1 plus 2 equals 8. And the quake hits 88 days before the start of the Olympics.

CHO: Is this a lucky number? Is it an unlucky number? So, which is it?

ROSE WELSH, NUMEROLOGIST: Well, it's both.

CHO: Rose Welsh is a numerologist. She says eight on its side is a chain, like a chain of events.

WELSH: It was waiting to happen, that.

CHO: You're saying they should have known?

WELSH: They did know.

CHO: But on the streets of Beijing, many believe it's just a bad coincidence. Says this man: "It's nonsense. It's just superstition." And in New York's Chinatown...

RANDY FUNG: My old house was 404. 4 is a bad number in Chinese, but nothing happened to me.

CHO: But maybe that's because 4 plus 4 equals 8. Now, a lot of people we talked to in China believe all of this eight business is just a coincidence; many still believe eight is a lucky number. And there is currently no talk about changing the start date for the Olympic Games. Alina Cho, CNN, New York.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

~ From: CNN Student News Transcript: May 28, 2008 ~

The Fallacy of the Ticking Time Bomb - by Aliya Mughal

The "ticking time bomb" argument excusing torture as a necessary means to an end was once the preserve of philosophers and theorists. The past few years have seen this theorising take a sinister turn. Policy makers and state leaders seeking to legitimise interrogation practices that are in fact torture, are pedalling the idea that it is a viable solution in combating global terrorism.

The hypothesis states that where a person knows the whereabouts of a bomb that is certain to cause mass human carnage, it would be legitimate to use torture to avert disaster. The human rights of one person are pitched against the human rights of thousands - an emotionally persuasive argument in the wake of terrorist attacks in a number of countries. The argument places those opposing the use of torture in the position of reminding communities that torture is globally and unequivocally banned, but they are seen as belittling the rights of the innocent lives seemingly at stake.

The UK government has already attempted to dilute the applicability of Article 3 of the European Convention on Human Rights - that "no one shall be subjected to torture or to inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment". When considering removing failed asylum seekers to countries where they may be tortured, it claims there should be a balance of probabilities test where national security trumps the risks to the individual.

During 2007, we bore witness to US President George Bush insisting that "enhanced interrogation techniques" such as waterboarding are acceptable. By arguing that these 'techniques' were not within the international definition of torture, he vetoed the legal advice of his own administration to ban them. Simultaneously, we saw the US government closing itself off from scrutiny by destroying videotaped evidence of the CIA's alleged use of torture against Guantánamo Bay detainees.

It is this veil of secrecy, the assumption of legality and the politics of fear that we need to unmask. By denying its actions, a state prevents any discussion and evades accountability. This is the refrain of the torturer who tells the victim; "no one knows you're here, no one will hear your cry, no one cares".

Apologists argue that torture is a morally justifiable means to the truth if the odds are high enough. But the argument brushes over the human cost and the long term damage in societies encouraged to turn a blind eye.

Torture is wrong in principle and in law. It has been agreed as such by states around the globe. Torture is the polar opposite of freedom. It removes choice and liberty from the victim, and enslaves their physical and psychological wellbeing to a catalogue of violations and humiliation. Allowing torture just once sanctions its use wholesale, and diminishes the authority of any state by giving the clear message that human rights no longer matter. Such is the resounding lesson of history.

In 1987, reporting on the security service's use of "moderate physical pressure" the Israeli government famously sanctioned the use of certain interrogatory procedures providing its agents with the defence of necessity. Twelve years later, as torture became endemic, the Supreme Court moved to outlaw the practice.

Torture was banned throughout Europe in the 18th century on the grounds that it did not work. Over the years, that principle has been reiterated in other situations. In one particular incident, a World War II army commander ordered his fellow American POWs held by the Japanese to resist to the point of injury or the loss of mental faculty, and to then resort to deceit and distortion - never reveal the truth.

Evidence further illustrates that information provided under torture is unreliable. Dr William Hopkins, MF Consultant Psychiatrist & Psychotherapist, points out that under extreme pain and suffering, the capacity to think rationally is severely hindered. Victims become anxious, confused, panic-stricken. Added to that is the impact on the memory and concentration of repeated blows to the head. All of this diminishes the ability to respond to questioning, which casts further doubt on the validity of 'confessions' provided under torture.

Dr Hopkins says: "Some people stay quiet under torture because they know that the more they say, even when it is false, the more they are suspected of knowing, and so the more they are tortured."

Governments world-wide have endorsed human rights standards and the ban on torture - the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the UN Convention Against Torture, the European Convention on Human Rights and the Geneva Conventions could not be clearer in this aim. Yet there is a growing movement to circumvent that absolute ban.

Most notably, Harvard law Professor Alan Dershowitz claims that as states already torture, to deny that fact is hypocritical and allows them to go unchecked. According to Dershowitz, "torture warrants" - authorising torture in rare circumstances that require proof for its necessity before the event - would reduce the frequency and severity of torture.

The argument presupposes that the torturing state will always abide by the court's decision whether or not a warrant is granted, ignoring the plain fact that torture thrives with or without official sanction.

Professor Philippe Sands QC has conducted extensive investigations into who in the Bush administration was responsible for human rights abuses in the "war on terror". In his book 'Torture Team', he claims to have found a direct link between Dershowitz's rationale and the behaviour of key individuals: "Who is to judge when the ticking bomb scenario occurs? The fact that Dershowitz was going around making that argument encouraged people at Guantánamo to believe that what they were doing was the right thing."

Torture does not operate in a vacuum. It requires the acceptance of society at large, and with that, comes the institutionalisation of a practice that until now, we have convincingly been able to deplore in the repressive regimes of countries which thousands flee year after year.

The question we must ask ourselves is this - how far are we willing to go in becoming complicit in the dehumanisation of others? Are we really prepared to forsake decades of progress to the point where human rights become conditional according to the power of a state?

~ From: Medical Foundation ~

NDP MP Black introduces bill to prevent torture

This morning, NDP Defence Critic Dawn Black (New Westminster-Coquitlam) introduced a bill to prevent the Government of Canada from transferring prisoners to authorities where they would be in danger of torture, and to make it a criminal offence to use information obtained during torture.

“These reforms are long overdue, and I call on all Parliamentarians to support this legislation,” said Black.

After the Afghan detainee scandal, Black believed that it was necessary to introduce additional safeguards to prevent a repetition of that scandal. “It was clear from those events that there were no clear guidelines prohibiting the transfer of prisoners to a situation where they were in danger of being tortured.”

Black was assisted by the BC Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), the oldest and most active civil liberties group in Canada. Rob Holmes, the president of the BCCLA strongly supports the adoption of this bill.

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