On The Edge

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After the invasion of Iraq in 2003 this joint US/UK task force appeared. Its primary mission was to kill or capture high value targets. Individuals detained by this Task Force often included non-combatants caught up in the search for high value targets. The use of secret detention centres within Iraq has negated the need to use Guantanamo Bay whilst allowing similar practice to go unnoticed...

Throughout my time in Iraq I was in no doubt that individuals detained by UKSF and handed over to our American colleagues would be tortured. During my time as member of the US/UK Task Force, three soldiers recounted to me an incident in which they had witnessed the brutal interrogation of two detainees. Partial drowning and an electric cattle prod were used during this interrogation and this amounted to torture. It was the widely held assumption that this would be the fate of any individuals handed over to our America colleagues. My commanding officer at the time expressed his concern to the whole squadron that we were becoming “the secret police of Baghdad”.

As UK soldiers within this Task Force a policy that we would detain individuals but not arrest them was continually enforced. Since it was commonly assumed by my colleagues that anyone we detained would subsequently be tortured this policy of detention and not arrest was regarded as a clumsy legal tool used to distance British soldiers from the whole process.

During the many operations conducted to apprehend high value targets numerous non-combatants were detained and interrogated in direct contravention of the Geneva Convention regarding the treatment of civilians in occupied territories. I have no doubt in my mind that non-combatants I personally detained were handed over to the Americans and subsequently tortured.

The joint US/UK Task Force has broken International Law, contravened The Geneva Conventions and disregarded the UN Convention Against Torture. British soldiers are intimately involved in the actions of this Task Force. Jack Straw, Margaret Beckett David Miliband, Geoff Hoon, Des Browne, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown. In their respective positions over the last five years they must know that British soldiers have been operating within this joint US/UK task force. They must have been briefed on the actions of this unit.

As the occupiers of Iraq we have a duty to uphold the law, to abide by the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture. We are also responsible for securing the borders of Iraq on all counts we have failed. The British Army once had a reputation for playing by the rules. That reputation has been tarnished over the last seven years. We have accepted illegality as the norm. I have no doubt that over the coming months and years increasing amounts of information concerning the actions of British soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan will be become public.

Whilst the majority of British Forces have been withdrawn from Iraq, UKSF remain within the US/UK Task Force.

¹Torture, according to the United Nations Convention Against Torture, is "any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession.”

Ben Griffin
25 February 2008




As if a free wheeling sky, shadows curving into attack, vacant spaces as he relaxed out of the holiday. All they wanted was to be protected from the looming financial crisis. The rich pull up their draw bridges. The farmers simply stop spending. Many other houses simply stop spending; except for the bare necessities. He could see that wooden hut on the side of the hill at Uki, where his grandparents eked out a simple living. They were at the bottom of even that undistinguished social set. Here in isolation, in the profound distance from civilisation, in the shadows and the enfolding warmth of the summer air, the screech of cicadas, the gusts of heat.

His grandfather's skinny frame was covered with soot when he arrived home from the cane fields. His grandmother had already washed and fed the tribe. Their simple aspirations, she learnt to drive in her 60s, came from a poverty stricken background where one could expect nothing, where the shadows of the ancestors were always there, little monuments on the sides of Asian roads. All those stories of his grandparents came out to play now, when the world was threatened with recession, even depression, when panic stricken politicians repeated glum nonsense ad nauseum, and they, like everybody else, tightened their belts.

$48 it cost to take me and the kids to the movies last night, to see some stupid thing called Tropic Thunder which my teenage boy thought was hysterical. They wouldn't see anything more serious. We couldn't really afford it. There's the absence of something, the failed consciousness. We're brave, we're strong, we'll still be here. The betrayals were so fluid, so deep. These images were clear. Did we adhere to the vision of a noble little house on the side of a lantana choked hill. Did we stay loyal to these past indignities, bear noble pride, decency in poverty, poor but true. Did the children scabble along the hilltop, as their father made his way home from the fields?

There was always an absence. Confusion was always part of the package these days. Superannuation savings have plummeted, although we have been told repeatedly how important it is to save for our own retirement. Classified as unimportant, God kicked their lives about like a child with a Lego set, ripping up and rearranging the patchwork quilt of the land, rearranging lives. They were simple folk and proud of it. About as fancy as it got was cheese and tomato on toast. He was reclassified as insane. He was shadow stricken, and searching for inner peace. He was reclassified, and nothing could bring him back.

It must have been melancholy, he thought, of his own mother's visit to her mother's grave. Grandmother, Sarah Audrey, had always been a wonderful person. Even at university, when his life was full of books and alcohol, he journeyed out to spend the night on their couch at the housing commission homes at Narrabeen, and the tomato plants were booming in the tiny tracks of dirt around the unit, and the peas were neatly staked. They came from an era when your own home garden was a vital part of survival, and a great deal of pride and energy went into the few vegetables they were able to grow.

A smile lit up their faces when they saw him. Family was everything to this generation. They needn't know about all the modern illnesses, the modern drugs which were distorting his consciousness, making him sick. To them he would always be their first grandson, first grandchild, and nothing he did or had done was worth bringing into this proud but simple place, cheap but comfortable, his grandfather's glass of beer on the veranda with the coaster placed on top to stop it going flat. One of the proudest days of his grandfather's life was when he took his eldest grandchild down to the boozer and introduced him around to everyone. This is my grandson, he said proudly. He's at university. While in reality his classroom schedule was chaos and he was behind in his essays, to them the fact that he was going to university was a source of great pride, as if the achievement was theirs as well as his. And in a way, he thought, as he ate the simple meal his grandmother had prepared, it really was. The blood line continued, even through the Great Depression; they had survived.



THE BIGGER STORY:

http://www.news.com.au/business/money/story/0,25479,24481708-14327,00.html

THE Federal Government is poised to raise the level at which it guarantees consumer bank deposits after Prime Minister Kevin Rudd held a crisis meeting in Canberra yesterday in response to the continuing global financial meltdown.

With governments around the world moving to back their national institutions, Mr Rudd joined key Cabinet ministers, Treasury head Ken Henry and Department of Prime Minister and Cabinet secretary Terry Moran to discuss the latest financial developments and their implications for Australia.

The Sunday Mail understands from those involved in the meeting that the Government is now likely to increase its guarantee of bank deposits above the current $20,000. Previously Mr Rudd has refused to commit to raising the deposit protection, citing the stability of the Australian banks.

Cabinet sources said yesterday the $20,000 limit was likely to be lifted, though to what level is uncertain.

Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull has called for a $100,000 guarantee in the wake of Ireland, Britain and the US governments' decision to lift bank guarantees.

A spokesman for Mr Rudd confirmed yesterday's agenda included "an examination of the broadening of Financial Claims Scheme following recent decisions by foreign governments about related schemes" but refused to give details.

Yesterday's crisis meeting followed an overnight conversation between Mr Rudd and US President George W. Bush and as an emergency session of finance ministers from the G20 group of countries was held as part of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank meetings in Washington.

Treasurer Wayne Swan, who attended the emergency session, yesterday warned that unemployment in Australia was set to rise and Budget spending would take a hit.

http://www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE49A1VQ20081011

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush on Saturday said the financial crisis will require a global coordinated response and the top industrial nations will work together to solve it as quickly as possible.

"All of us recognize that this is a serious global crisis and therefore requires a serious global response," he told reporters after an unusual Saturday gathering with the Group of Seven economic chiefs. "I'm confident that the world's major economies can overcome the challenges we face."

He said the crisis would require a coordinated global response and the United States will use all the tools at its disposal to deal with the crisis. But he cautioned that it will take time to resolve the credit crunch.

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Financial_crisis_hits_poor_nations_as_well/articleshow/3583295.cms

WASHINGTON: As the world's richest nations debate how to bring a catastrophic financial crisis under control, international groups are warning that its reach now goes far beyond the developed world.

Poor countries in Africa, Asia and Latin America, which are already dealing with a surge in food and energy prices, are now finding it harder to sell goods abroad and encourage investment in their own economies.

Rich nations are falling well behind on their aid pledges as they face problems at home. As many as 30 countries are dealing with severe balance of payment problems, in other words, a shortfall of cash, according to the World Bank.

That lack of investment could lead to a rash of bank and business failures in poor nations, similar to the chaos that has played out since September in the United States and Europe.

As a result, the World Bank has "tentatively" cut its forecast for 2009 growth in developing countries to about 4 percent, down from an April prediction of 6.6 percent, World Bank President Robert Zoellick told reporters Thursday.

While that compares favourably with the likely recession many advanced economies will face next year, Zoellick said the slowdown in poorer nations was "so sharp as to feel like a recession".

The International Monetary Fund said it was ready to make emergency loans to developing countries to meet the cash shortfall from the broadening financial crisis.