When word emerged Sunday night that President Obama would be making remarks from the White House at 10:30 pm, viewers knew it must be important. When it began to leak that America had finally found and killed Osama bin Laden, there was joy from sea to shining sea. The nagging pain that this radical Islamic assassin had never received American justice was finally relieved. Crowds gathered in front of the White House and at Ground Zero to chant joyously “USA! USA!” But for most, it wasn’t jubilation. It was the silent fist pump, and a silent prayer of thanksgiving for the safety of our extraordinary military. And a thanks to this president for his leadership in bringing justice to that monster. Unfortunately, while the president spoke for the whole country in remembering the pain of 9/11, his remarks left a gaping hole. He made no generous bow to all the efforts of his predecessor George W. Bush as well as his team. My one regret is that Bush 43 didn't get this scalp. He deserved it more than anyone. Instead, Obama played subtle and wholly undignified games. He underlined that Osama had “avoided capture” under Bush and “continued to operate” during his tenure. But “I directed” CIA director Leon Panetta to make getting Osama the “top priority” (as opposed to?), and “I” gave the go-ahead to the final mission. Obama also avoided Bush in a Medal of Honor ceremony on Monday afternoon. Even in a Monday night “bipartisan” event at the White House, Obama honored the “military and counter-terrorism professionals” and “the members of Congress from both parties” who offered support to the mission….but no credit for Bush. If the roles had been reversed, you know Bush would have been more generous. It’s what Bushes do. What about our media? No one in the media wondered if Obama was being rude. No one seemed in any hurry to give Bush credit, either. In the media’s mind’s eye, Bush just doesn’t deserve it. They didn’t like him then, they don’t like him now. Will the media
Continue reading …Despite the way U.S. Navy Seals took down bin Laden in a scene straight out of the movie Navy Seals , until 2001 American special forces had never targeted terrorists anywhere, ever. Remember the Bushies yapping about how the War on Terror could not be waged according to a “law enforcement” paradigm? That’s where all the Stupid of our lost decade begins, because law enforcement is in fact the best possible model for dealing with men like Osama bin Laden. Much more after the jump … During the Reagan administration, the Pentagon determined that terrorism was a crime — and terrorists criminals by definition. Invoking posse comitatus, the Pentagon forswore actions against terrorists and adopted a posture called ” force protection .” Base security was increased, soldiers were admonished to be watchful, and the elite forces of SOCOM stayed in their barracks. As General Pete Schoomaker, original Delta Force member who later commanded the unit in 1991-92 before leading the Special Operations Command in the late 1990s, put it: Counterterrorism, by Defense Department definition, is offensive. But Special Operations was never given the mission. It was very, very frustrating. It was like having a brand-new Ferrari in the garage, and nobody wants to race it because you might dent the fender. Those words were recorded by neocon Richard Schultz, Jr . in a January 2004 edition of Weekly Standard . Schultz also said: “Patterns of Global Terrorism,” a report issued by the State Department every year since 1989, sets forth guidance about responding to terrorism. Year after year prior to 9/11, a key passage said it was U.S. policy to “treat terrorists as criminals, pursue them aggressively, and apply the rule of law.” Even now, when President Bush has defined the situation as a war on terrorism, “Patterns of Global Terrorism” says U.S. policy is to “bring terrorists to justice for their crimes.” Schultz’s article is surprisingly fair to the Clinton administration. The Pentagon resisted any role in dealing with terrorism by disclaiming legal authority to deal with the issue, stalling Richard Clarke, and offering only “action plans” with enormous risks attached: One former official recalled that when strikes against al Qaeda cells were proposed, “the Joint Staff and the chairman would come back and say, ‘We highly recommend against doing it. But if ordered to do it, this is how we would do it.’ And usually it involved the 82nd and 101st Airborne Divisions. The footprint was ridiculous.” In each instance the civilian policymakers backed off. To some extent, (Special Ops) planners themselves have been guilty of this. “Mission-creep,” one official called it. Since you can’t “totally suppress an environment with 15 guys and three helicopters,” force packages became “five or six hundred guys, AC-130 gunships, a 900-man quick-reaction force ready to assist if you get in trouble, and F-14s circling over the Persian Gulf.” The policymakers were thinking small, surgical, and stealthy, so they’d take one “look at it and say that’s too big.” But after 9/11, resistance to the sort of daring operation just completed in Pakistan was mainly an executive decision. Iraq took the full attention of policymakers. Bush and Cheney repeatedly asserted the “War on Terror” could not be fought as a law enforcement matter, and still are. Meanwhile, American troops were enacting scenes from Cops on a daily basis in Baghdad, kicking in doors and clearing houses. The handoff of responsibility to Iraqi troops has mostly involved teaching them how to do the same thing a SWAT team does. Consider the infamous ” WikiLeaks video ,” in which the helicopter crew fired on unknowns according to wartime “rules of engagement.” Had the crowd been gathered in South Central Los Angeles, a police helicopter would merely have radioed ground units to investigate. Indeed, the most important weapon on a drone isn’t the missile, but the camera. Loitering overhead, it can wait until the target leaves a wedding — or guide ground units to capture him. War is in fact a bad paradigm for fighting terrorism. Or consider what police officers do in interrogation rooms every day. Rather than waterboarding and torture, they ask questions in a language the suspect understands. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, better known as the Underpants Bomber, gave up critical information in his initial interview. When the FBI brought his parents to bear on him, Abdulmutallab became cooperative . The difference between breaking a terrorist and a criminal is no difference at all . Questions about whether Americans should enforce their laws in other countries, or act as a “global policeman,” are moot if one simultaneously argues for the applicability of laws to terrorism. With Pakistan unable or unwilling to pursue bin Laden, extradition was not an option. Osama now joins Pablo Escobar in hell, victims of their own safety and surety in friendly territory. Indeed, I can think of no better analogy to the “War on Terror” than the “War on Drugs” — both need to end through saner, sounder policy. America’s reach is long, but its paradigms need work.
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“We are intensely aware that we are and must be the government of all Canadians, including those that did not vote for us.” — STEPHEN HARPER, Canadian Prime Minister, after his Conservative Party earned the majority of seats in the Canadian Parliament during Monday’s election (via The Globe and Mail)
Continue reading …An education expert says Gov. Tom Corbett’s use of scare tactics to justify the Pennsylvania public schools budget is a textbook example of applying Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” to education policy: The citizenry is repeatedly told that the only way out of this budget crisis is to cut spending and that individual citizens (taxpayers) should not take on any of the burden. In fact, the propaganda leveled at the taxpayers also paints them as helpless victims that have been milked by greedy public-sector unions. In turn, the general public becomes very supportive of any promise to lift their burden and somewhat celebratory in watching their neighbors (public sector employees) lose, at a minimum, basic benefits. However, what if the “financial crisis” was not real? Now, I’m not saying that states and local governments aren’t actually in debt; however, what if the proposed solutions (that are being accepted without any critical analysis because of the Shock Doctrine effect) end up (as stated above) costing more money than the proposed cuts? For example, in my home state of Pennsylvania, newly elected governor Tom Corbett has proposed cutting 586 million dollars from K-12 public schools to help cover a projected $4 billion deficit. And of course, with a hefty dose of “greedy teacher” rhetoric from right wing radio, he has been able to convince a large population in Pennsylvania to actively support these cuts in the name of helping the “financial crisis.” But one only need look at Corbett’s proposed plans for public education to actually find out that Corbett is indeed using the Shock Doctrine to dupe the citizenry into supporting deep cuts to public schools. For example, State Department of Education spokesman Steve Weitzman was quoted as saying, “The presumption of steady, unbroken revenue increases year after year no longer is feasible. The day of reckoning has come.” Sounds shocking, right? What exactly does he mean by the day of reckoning? Well, it has nothing to do with actually spending less on education. Yes, the Corbett administration plans on cutting $589 million from public school appropriations. And these cuts are devastating local school budgets and turning neighbor against neighbor in local communities. However, between maintaining the worthless PSSA system (NCLB) and implementing a set of new initiatives, the Corbett administration may end up actually spending close to one billion dollars. The Corbett administration supports funding a voucher system that has been demonstrated not to raise achievement test scores and ends up costing taxpayers more money. Voucher programs are not funded by some magical pot of money. Taxpayers pay for them! Corbett also wants to develop a grading system for public schools that has the ability to wreak chaos on property values. The governor plans to implement the Keystone exams (exit exams) that national research has shown add nothing to a child’s education, and in the state of California is estimated to cost over $500 million dollars a year to administer . Additionally, Corbett wants to create a merit pay system for teachers that will narrow the curriculum, end teacher collaboration and cost taxpayers even more money . As Diane Ravitch recently pointed out , “when the Vanderbilt study of merit pay was published, the U.S. Department of Education immediately released nearly $500 million for — what else — more merit-pay programs, and promised that another $500 million would be forthcoming. Data mean nothing when your mind is made up.” Therefore, Corbett’s plans for public schools will end up costing taxpayers more than the initial $589 million cut. Communities need to speak up and recognize the “shock.” Local schools are making significant cuts to programs that benefit children and the communities they serve. But why should they if the Corbett administration plans on actually spending more for its own politically-driven initiatives that are specifically designed to dismantle the public school system? I guess the “day of reckoning” is really facing the fact that the Corbett administration is using the “financial crisis” as a way to push a market-driven reform strategy that will destroy local community-schools (Shock Doctrine).
Continue reading …An education expert says Gov. Tom Corbett’s use of scare tactics to justify the Pennsylvania public schools budget is a textbook example of applying Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” to education policy: The citizenry is repeatedly told that the only way out of this budget crisis is to cut spending and that individual citizens (taxpayers) should not take on any of the burden. In fact, the propaganda leveled at the taxpayers also paints them as helpless victims that have been milked by greedy public-sector unions. In turn, the general public becomes very supportive of any promise to lift their burden and somewhat celebratory in watching their neighbors (public sector employees) lose, at a minimum, basic benefits. However, what if the “financial crisis” was not real? Now, I’m not saying that states and local governments aren’t actually in debt; however, what if the proposed solutions (that are being accepted without any critical analysis because of the Shock Doctrine effect) end up (as stated above) costing more money than the proposed cuts? For example, in my home state of Pennsylvania, newly elected governor Tom Corbett has proposed cutting 586 million dollars from K-12 public schools to help cover a projected $4 billion deficit. And of course, with a hefty dose of “greedy teacher” rhetoric from right wing radio, he has been able to convince a large population in Pennsylvania to actively support these cuts in the name of helping the “financial crisis.” But one only need look at Corbett’s proposed plans for public education to actually find out that Corbett is indeed using the Shock Doctrine to dupe the citizenry into supporting deep cuts to public schools. For example, State Department of Education spokesman Steve Weitzman was quoted as saying, “The presumption of steady, unbroken revenue increases year after year no longer is feasible. The day of reckoning has come.” Sounds shocking, right? What exactly does he mean by the day of reckoning? Well, it has nothing to do with actually spending less on education. Yes, the Corbett administration plans on cutting $589 million from public school appropriations. And these cuts are devastating local school budgets and turning neighbor against neighbor in local communities. However, between maintaining the worthless PSSA system (NCLB) and implementing a set of new initiatives, the Corbett administration may end up actually spending close to one billion dollars. The Corbett administration supports funding a voucher system that has been demonstrated not to raise achievement test scores and ends up costing taxpayers more money. Voucher programs are not funded by some magical pot of money. Taxpayers pay for them! Corbett also wants to develop a grading system for public schools that has the ability to wreak chaos on property values. The governor plans to implement the Keystone exams (exit exams) that national research has shown add nothing to a child’s education, and in the state of California is estimated to cost over $500 million dollars a year to administer . Additionally, Corbett wants to create a merit pay system for teachers that will narrow the curriculum, end teacher collaboration and cost taxpayers even more money . As Diane Ravitch recently pointed out , “when the Vanderbilt study of merit pay was published, the U.S. Department of Education immediately released nearly $500 million for — what else — more merit-pay programs, and promised that another $500 million would be forthcoming. Data mean nothing when your mind is made up.” Therefore, Corbett’s plans for public schools will end up costing taxpayers more than the initial $589 million cut. Communities need to speak up and recognize the “shock.” Local schools are making significant cuts to programs that benefit children and the communities they serve. But why should they if the Corbett administration plans on actually spending more for its own politically-driven initiatives that are specifically designed to dismantle the public school system? I guess the “day of reckoning” is really facing the fact that the Corbett administration is using the “financial crisis” as a way to push a market-driven reform strategy that will destroy local community-schools (Shock Doctrine).
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Acting prime minister José Socrates says Portugal must slash its deficit from 9.1% to 5.9% this year under terms of deal Portugal’s caretaker government said that it had negotiated a €78bn bailout deal with the European Union and the International Monetary Fund, but was waiting for opposition parties to agree. Acting prime minister José Sócrates said that, under the terms of the deal, Portugal must slash its budget deficit from 9.1% to 5.9% this year, and then reduce it to 3% by 2013. “The government has today reached an agreement with the international institutions regarding the financial aid to our country,” Sócrates said in a televised address. “Naturally, there are no financial assistance programs that are not demanding,” he added. “The times we live in continue to imply efforts and a lot of work. Let no one doubt that.” Sócrates said that an austerity programme to bring the deficit down this year would basically imitate the plan which was thrown out by the Portuguese parliament in March, causing president Aníbal Cavaco Silva to call a snap election for 5 June. Two weeks later, Sócrates finally admitted that Portugal would join fellow eurozone countries Greece and Ireland in requesting a bail-out. He said that Portugal had “got a good deal” and that further cuts to civil service pay would not be needed. “We will beat this crisis,” he added. A government official told Associated Press that the €78bn package included aid for Portugal’s cash-strapped banks. The Público newspaper reported austerity measures would include cuts to some, higher-scale state pensions. Basic pension rates and the minimum wage would stay in place as would free schooling and health services, the newspaper reported. The retirement age would not be changed, it added. Sócrates insisted that the bailout package required the country to carry out the same austerity measures rejected in parliament by the opposition centre-right social democrats, who are currently ahead in the opinion polls. Those polls suggest that neither party can win an absolute majority. Publico reported that the social democrats would also have to approve the aid package. “With this agreement the country obtains for the second time, now in different terms, the support and the confidence of the international institutions based on the program that the government presented in March,” Sócrates said. European finance ministers have set a target date of 16 May for the approval of the agreement, and are demanding all main political parties sign off on the terms. IMF Portugal Global economy Europe Economics Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk
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Israeli conductor voices support for non-violence and Palestinian state during performance for schoolchildren and NGO workers The orchestra arrived with the impact of a presidential motorcade, in armoured cars, with sirens wailing and flanked by dozens of armed men. It was an unusual overture to a rendition of Mozart. But then, the arrival in Gaza of Daniel Barenboim, the world-famous Israeli conductor and his Orchestra for Gaza – featuring musicians from Paris, Milan, Berlin and Vienna – to play for an audience of schoolchildren and NGO workers was itself far from usual. The orchestra set off from Berlin on Monday, stopped at Vienna and then landed at El Arish, close to the Egyptian side of the Gaza Strip, on a plane chartered by Barenboim himself. As an Israeli citizen it is illegal for Barenboim to enter Gaza without a permit, and, as if that wasn’t enough, the recent murder of an Italian peace activist and fears that pro-Osama bin Laden groups in Gaza might seek revenge on western targets meant that the UN security team was on high alert. Barenboim has previously played in Ramallah and holds an honorary Palestinian passport, and is widely praised for his attempts to reach out across the divide. In Israel, meanwhile, he has been attacked for promoting the work of Wagner. He told his audience on Tuesday that the people of Gaza “have been blockaded for many years and this blockade has affected all of your lives.” The aim of his orchestra, he said, was to bring “solace and pleasure” through music to the people of Gaza and to let them know that people all over the world care for them. Gaza is more accustomed to the sound of explosions, sonic booms and the traditional drums and pipes that accompany its nightly weddings than Mozart. Many religious leaders disapprove of music, and people in general prefer Middle Eastern-style music to Western classical or popular music. Barenboim drew a burst of applause and then a murmur of appreciation as the orchestra began when he told the audience that they might recognise the first movement of Mozart’s Symphony No 40 as it was the basis of one of the celebrated songs of Fairuz, the most famous living singer in the Arab world. The orchestra first played Mozart’s Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, which was warmly appreciated, but Barenboim’s speech at the end of the performance went down even better. “I am a Palestinian ..… and an Israeli,” he told the audience, who applauded the second statement only slightly less than the first. “So you see it is possible to be both.” He said the Israeli and Palestinian conflict was one between two peoples who believe they are entitled to live on a single piece of land rather than a conflict between two nations about borders, adding that the whole world understood that a Palestinian state should be established on the land that Israel occupied in 1967. “Everyone has to understand that the Palestinian cause is a just cause therefore it can be only given justice if it is achieved without violence. Violence can only weaken the righteousness of the Palestinian cause,” he said. Referring to the revolutions in the Arab world and the nuclear catastrophe in Japan, he said that everyone should question their past actions. “Every musician here has played these pieces many times, sometimes hundreds of times. Yesterday we looked at this music as if we had seen it for the first time. We never accept that the next note will played the same way it was played before. Thinking anew is our daily activity. I hope all the people of this region can take note of that,” he said. Diana Rustum, 12, a pupil at a local UN school said she enjoyed the discipline of the musicians and the melody of the music. “I think it was different from Fairuz but just as beautiful,” she said. Abdul Rahman Abu Hashem, 12, insisted that he did not get bored during the hour-long performance. “It was very good,” he said. Gaza Middle East Palestinian territories Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart Classical music Israel Conal Urquhart guardian.co.uk
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Click here to view this media We know Republicans seem to have a deep-seated belief that only torture will keep us safe from the terrorists, even though the people who do real intelligence gathering can tell you that just wrong: It’s ineffective and counterproductive — not to mention morally depraved . Not that any of this seems to deter conservatives. So the spectacle of every right-winger on the planet rushing to claim that it was torture that provided the intelligence leading to the killing of Osama bin Laden was nothing if not predictable. And of course, it turned out to be wholly wrong. For instance, here were Rudy Giuliani and Sean Hannity last night on Fox . Most of the segment was devoted to claiming that it was “aggressive interrogation techniques” that provided the key intelligence to finding Bin Laden, though at one point Hannity actually commended President Obama — and then lied about him: HANNITY: But we needed the intelligence to confirm that right. Does this now bring this debate back to the forefront? And by the way, and I give President Obama a lot of credit here. Because I thought it was a gutsy choice. GIULIANI: It was. HANNITY: A gutsy choice, not to drop a 2,000-pound bomb but to send these guys in, so we can confirm that it’s him. GIULIANI: When you consider everything that could have gone wrong and how President Obama would look today if it did, it took a lot of courage to do that and I do admire that. And I think there’s a good day the last two days for both President Obama and President Bush. Because I think President Bush set in motion all of the things that led to this. And then President Obama picked up on it and carried it out. And I give both of them a tremendous amount of credits. HANNITY: And I do too. And this is a good day for this country and we’ll going to talk to Todd Beamer’s dad who’s going to be on the program. And — is going to be on the program tonight. And General Tommy Franks is on tonight. But as I look at this, would President Obama not now realize that without the intelligence, he wouldn’t have had the ability to make this decision, I would hope that it might change his mind. GIULIANI: Maybe it will. And the reality is he also at that very last minute when he’s made the decision had to know that intelligence had to know, 50/50. I mean, you never know. HANNITY: You’ll never know. GIULIANI: They were going in there to get Osama Bin Laden but who knows if it wasn’t somebody that just looked like him or was like him. The better your intelligence, the more accurate your decision making and the safer we are. And the reality is, and I was glad to hear the Secretary of State Hillary Clinton say this. This is not the end, we are in the middle of this, and we can’t let down our guard. We shouldn’t be leaving Afghanistan as a result of this. We shouldn’t be leaving Iraq, we should remain there to get the job done. HANNITY: I agree but this is where I find myself a little conflicted here because this is almost the opposite of what candidate Obama said he would do. And maybe for the first time he’s grown in office. Oh, yeah, it was almost the opposite: — if by “almost” you mean “the opposite of”: enlarge Now, you can argue that Hannity and Giuliani couldn’t have known that they were 100 percent wrong in their speculation, since John Brennan didn’t officially shoot it down until today. But in fact, we already knew that waterboarding had nothing to do with this intelligence. It had already been reported by the Associated Press : Mohammed did not discuss al-Kuwaiti while being subjected to the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding, former officials said. He acknowledged knowing him many months later under standard interrogation, they said, leaving it once again up for debate as to whether the harsh technique was a valuable tool or an unnecessarily violent tactic. It took years of work before the CIA identified the courier’s real name: Sheikh Abu Ahmed, a Pakistani man born in Kuwait. When they did identify him, he was nowhere to be found. Once again, smart, lawful intelligence gathering made the difference here. I gather that this is anathema to the conservative mindset, however. No wonder they’re so incompetent.
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Liberals came in a distant third in Monday’s elections with just 34 seats giving Stephen Harper’s Conservatives a majority Michael Ignatieff, the man once hailed as the “bionic liberal”, has stepped down as Canada’s Liberal leader after leading the party to its worst ever election defeat. The Liberals came in a distant third in Monday night’s elections with 34 seats, giving Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, on 167 seats, a majority in the 308-seat House of Commons. The collapse of the Liberals, the traditional party of governance for the 20th century, has redrawn the map of Canadian politics. The leftwing New Democratic party, led by Jack Layton, nearly tripled their strength to 102 seats, emerging for the first time as the official opposition. Voters also elected the first Green party MP, Elizabeth May, in British Columbia, and threw out all but four members of the French-speaking separatist Bloc Québécois. Ignatieff’s humiliation was compounded by the loss of his own seat. On Tuesday morning, the exhausted-looking leader blamed the Liberals’ collapse on negative attack ads. Canadians liked him once they got to know him, he told a press conference, but “there were these negative attack ads that made it very difficult for me to connect with people who weren’t in the room,” he said. “I had a very large square put around my neck for a number of years.” But Ignatieff, who became a public figure in the 1990s as the telegenic host of BBC’s Late Show before decamping for a job at Harvard as a human rights professor, said he took responsibility for the defeat. “The only thing Canadians like less than a loser is a sore loser and I go out of politics with my head held high,” he said. The party will meet next week to choose an interim leader. Ignatieff said he wanted to return to academia, the career he gave up in 2005 to make his first run for office in a suburban Toronto district, though he said he had had no offers as yet. Ignatieff, who was cast by some party grandees as the great hope for an ailing party in search of a charismatic leader, became leader in 2009. But under his leadership, the Liberals were reduced to less than 19% of the popular vote and Harper got his first majority after five years of minority rule. Commentators said Harper now had an historic opportunity to move the centre of Canadian politics further to the right. In the immediate future, the Conservative majority gives Harper a chance to push through an economic agenda of corporate tax breaks and government spending cuts. At a press conference in Calgary on Tuesday, he said the result would bring stability to Canada, which has seen four elections in seven years. He also offered reassurances about an immediate lurch to the right because of pressure from his party’s right wing. “We are intensely aware that we are and we must be the government of all Canadians, including those who did not vote for us,” Harper said. Layton, whose party won more than 30% of the popular vote, must now fashion a credible opposition force from a large and inexperienced group. The party’s biggest wins came from Quebec, where it became the default choice for voters fed up with the Bloc Québécois. One of the winners from Quebec on Monday night, Ruth Ellen Brosseau, works in a bar in Ottawa, does not speak French, and may not have ever visited her district, Canadian press reported. She also spent part of the campaign on holiday in Las Vegas – but she still took 40% of the vote. Other prominent casualties include the leader of the Bloc Québécois, Gilles Duceppe, who stood down after his party lost nearly all of its members. The Liberal party collapse claimed other high-profile figures. In Toronto, Ken Dryden, a goalie in the National Hockey League before entering law and politics, lost to a conservative. However, Justin Trudeau, the son of the late prime minister Pierre Trudeau, held on to his seat in Quebec. Michael Ignatieff Canada Stephen Harper Suzanne Goldenberg guardian.co.uk
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Reports suggest warrants could include Gaddafi and his son Saif al-Islam in move intended to increase pressure on Tripoli Senior Libyan officials face international arrest warrants for crimes against humanity, the United Nations security council will be told today. Luis Moreno-Ocampo, chief prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, is to brief the council about crimes committed by Muammar Gaddafi’s forces since the Libyan uprising began in mid-February. Western diplomats say the move is intended to ratchet up international pressure on Tripoli. Ocampo revealed that up to five warrants are likely to be issued in the next few weeks with the approval of the ICC’s pre-trial chamber. No names have been disclosed. But Al-Arabiya TV reported that the warrants could include Gaddafi himself and his son, the discredited reformist Saif al-Islam, who has strong UK links. It said others being targeted include Libya’s former foreign minister, Moussa Koussa, who defected to the UK, and Abu Zeyd Omar Dorda, director general of the Libyan External Security Organisation. Koussa is the most important defector from the regime so far, and British officials had hoped his defection might persuade other key Libyans to abandon Gaddafi, although observers warn of the potential for a clash between a pragmatic approach to weakening the regime and a principled commitment to international criminal law. The security council voted unanimously in February to refer Gaddafi’s violent crackdown against anti-government demonstrators to The Hague-based ICC. That move was widely criticised as premature, leaving the Libyan leader and other key officials no exit strategy as the international response to the crisis escalated into the armed action now being undertaken by Nato. “We have strong evidence on the beginning of the conflict, the shooting of civilians,” Ocampo told Reuters. “Also, we have strong evidence of the crime of persecution.” Turkey’s prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan called on Gaddafi to step down “immediately,” echoing calls by Barack Obama, David Cameron and France’s Nicolas Sarkozy. Switzerland, meanwhile, has frozen assets worth up to £585m connected to Gaddafi and the former presidents of Egypt and Tunisia. Micheline Calmy-Rey, Switzerland’s president and foreign minister, disclosed that of the total amount of frozen assets, 957m in Swiss francs, some SFr360m (£246m) is linked to Gaddafi and his associates, SFr410m (£280m) is tied to Hosni Mubarak, the Egyptian president who stood down in February after 18 days of protests, and SFr60m (£41m) to Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali, the Tunisian president who fled in January after an uprising. In Cairo, Mubarak’s sons, Gamal and Alaa, face renewed questioning by a public prosecutor on their roles during their father’s 30-year rule. Mubarak is being treated for a heart condition in a hospital in Sharm al-Sheikh, where the family has remained since February. “These amounts are frozen in Switzerland following blocking orders by the Swiss government related to potentially illegal assets in Switzerland,” said the Swiss authorities. “It is not just money, there are real estate assets.” The UK has only provided an update on its efforts to freeze the assets of the Gaddafi regime. Speaking in March, David Cameron said £12bn had been frozen by the UK after the Libyan Central Bank and the Libyan Investment Authority were added to the asset-freezing list. No updates have been provided on Mubarak or Ben Ali, although the sums are expected to be smaller because neither has sovereign wealth funds of the size run by the Libyan Investment Authority. The fate of billions in public funds alleged to have gone missing is a talking point in all three countries. The US has so far seized $34bn (£20.5bn) in assets connected to Gaddafi, although it has yet to act against any assets linked to Ben Ali or Mubarak and their associates. Calmy-Rey did not give details of the banks holding the assets. Switzerland is trying to become more open about its banking, in part because of pressure from the US three years ago on Swiss bank UBS to reveal the identities of 20,000 clients. Officials said that the decision to reveal the sums frozen indicated that the Swiss felt they were unlikely to uncover many more assets linked to the three. Although amounts have been revealed, none of the assets has been released, as there is insufficient proof they were obtained illegally. While Tunisia and Egypt have begun steps to reclaim the assets, Gaddafi remains in the control of Libya’s government. Switzerland has begun returning assets to Haiti, 25 years after freezing money belonging to Jean-Claude Duvalier, its former leader. The Swiss said they believed some SFr5.8bn (£4bn) had been frozen and that it could now “initiate forfeiture proceedings”. The precise wealth of the three Middle East leaders is unclear. Forbes estimated in 2008 that the Tunisian president’s fortune was $5bn. In February, officials in the Serious Organised Crime Agency began the process of tracing the bank accounts of Mubarak and his cabinet in the UK, while Britain froze the assets of Gaddafi and his five children amid reports the Libyan leader had moved £3bn to Britain. Some £900m of Libyan currency in storage at a secure compound in the north-east of England was impounded. Libya Muammar Gaddafi Middle East Ian Black Jill Treanor guardian.co.uk
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