Nato’s Malignant Godchild

Armed militias are threatening the security and stability of Libya, Amnesty International has warned.

BBC

The human rights group says at least 12 detainees held by militias have died after being tortured since September.

The report is being released to coincide with the one-year anniversary on Friday of the revolt that toppled Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi.

Last month, the UN said about 8,000 pro-Gaddafi supporters were being held by militia groups.

The interim government has said it is trying to reassert authority, but correspondents say it has largely failed to rein in the groups.

'Nobody responsible'

Continue reading the main story

According to Amnesty, some groups of former rebels are committing human rights violations with impunity, unchecked by the interim government.
"Nobody is holding these militias responsible," Donatella Rovera, senior crisis response adviser at Amnesty International, told AP news agency.

The report cites detainees who said they been suspended in contorted positions, beaten for hours with whips, cables, plastic hoses, metal chains and bars, and given electric shocks with live wires and taser-like electroshock weapons.

In one detention centre, in Tripoli, investigators found severely tortured detainees who interrogators tried to conceal, Amnesty said. The report is based on research conducted in Libya in January and February.

The group noted that African migrants and refugees - who were accused during the conflict of being "mercenaries" for Muammar Gaddafi - were among those being abused.

Militias have also been responsible for fatal clashes in Tripoli and fighting in other towns in recent months.

On Tuesday, thousands of fighters from across western Libya held a parade in the capital, displaying heavy machine guns and rocket launchers, and firing rifles in the air.

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Gabriel GatehouseBBC News

In the past month, the BBC has seen corroborating evidence of torture in Misrata, Libya's third city, as well as the town of Gharyan, south of the capital Tripoli.

In January, the BBC saw the corpse of a man whose body bore the marks of torture, including beating and electric shocks.

On Friday, there will be celebrations across the country to mark the one-year anniversary of the start of the revolution that - it was hoped - would usher in a new era.

There is now a real fear that some of the very men who - with the support of Nato - fought the battle to topple the old regime, are now jeopardising the country's future.

Is there a more pathetic power than our Nato ally, Germany?

Definitely not their grandfathers' navy

This news clip appears in DW, which is the German voice to the World: 

Pirates have seized a German vessel. 

No outrage, calm,  but the first sentence does say " the ship's 17 crew members are unhurt, according to a Kenyan maritime official." OK, a German ship is taken on the high seas by pirates and the Germans are relieved because a Kenyan maritime official tells them all is well. 

But the Germans are going to do something about it, right? 

We learn the vessel is sailing under the flag of Malta. OK, I guess that makes it a little less of a German problem. 

A Mombasa-based East African Seafarers Assistance Program says they heard about the taking. That was news to the Germans, because some Ministry officials in Berlin said they didn't know much about it but were investigating. WTF kind of ministry are they exactly? It gets worse.

"The attack comes just a day after NATO decided to extend its anti-piracy work off the coast of Somalia." 

Nato really scared the shit out of them didn't they, but we learn more about the Nato ops:

"Four vessels from NATO's Standing Naval Maritime Group One have been conducting anti-piracy work and escorting merchant ships, including some carrying food aid for Somalia, since last month."

War ships carrying food aid, does this war ship have any guns? WTF? It gets worse.

"The naval ships were due to make courtesy port visits to Karachi in Pakistan, Singapore and Perth in Western Australia, but the last two visits have been cancelled, the spokeswoman said.". 

The pirates are off Somalia. They are not in Singapore or Perth, Australia. How much are the Germans spending on Nato? How much are we spending on Nato? It gets worse.

"They now will break off to visit Karachi on April 26-27 but will return to continue their counter-piracy work until June 6.

"With the great increase in pirate attacks and the ensuing international attention, NATO's recent contribution to counter-piracy has been significant," the spokeswoman said.

Six weeks and they are tired. This is significant counter piracy from Nato?

Please get us out  of Nato, mach schnell.

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PIRACY | 25.04.2009
Somali pirates hijack German ship after NATO extends naval mission

The latest hijacking came after NATO extended it anti-piracy mission

Somali pirates have seized a 31,000-ton German grain carrier in the Gulf of Aden but the ship's 17 crew members are unhurt, according to a Kenyan maritime official.

The US Navy's 5th Fleet confirmed that the ship "Patriot" was seized 300 kilometers south-east of the Yemeni coastal city Muqalla. The freighter was sailing under the flag of Malta.

"I hear it was taken early this morning," said Andrew Mwangura, director of the Mombasa-based East African Seafarers Assistance Program, in a statement released on Saturday.

Ministry officials in Berlin could not confirm the reports but said investigations were under way.

Piracy attacks off the eastern African coast have escalated in the past few weeks despite the presence of a flotilla of foreign navy warships in the region.

Pirates there are holding more than 250 hostages and have made millions of dollars through ransoms, driving up insurance costs. Some shipping lines now opt to use a longer and more expensive route around the Cape of Good Hope to avoid capture.

NATO extends anti-piracy mission

The attack comes just a day after NATO decided to extend its anti-piracy work off the coast of Somalia.

"NATO has decided to continue the counter-piracy activities off Somalia in the Gulf of Aden," said a spokesman for the transatlantic alliance at its Brussels headquarters.

NATO ships will continue to patrol the Gulf of Aden

Four vessels from NATO's Standing Naval Maritime Group One have been conducting anti-piracy work and escorting merchant ships, including some carrying food aid for Somalia, since last month.

The naval ships were due to make courtesy port visits to Karachi in Pakistan, Singapore and Perth in Western Australia, but the last two visits have been cancelled, the spokeswoman said.

They now will break off to visit Karachi on April 26-27 but will return to continue their counter-piracy work until June 6.

"With the great increase in pirate attacks and the ensuing international attention, NATO's recent contribution to counter-piracy has been significant," the spokeswoman said.

Pirates attacked over 130 merchant ships in the Gulf of Aden last year — more than double last year's total, according to the International Maritime Bureau.

Attacks increased tenfold in the first three months of 2009 compared to the same period last year.

Am I alone in finding Obama increasingly to be something of a bore?

Barack Obama really does go on a bit
Posted By: Iain Martin at Apr 5, 2009 at 18:26:40
Telegraph

Isn't it time for him to go home yet? It is good, in theory, that the new President of the United States is taking so much time to tour Europe. He arrived in London last Tuesday, has been to Strasbourg, Prague yesterday and now he's off to Turkey. It shows, I suppose, that he cares about the outside world and that is 'A Good Thing'. But his long stay means that we are hearing rather a lot from him, way too much in fact.

His speeches have long under-delivered, usually leaving a faintly empty sensation in this listener even though I welcomed, moderately, his victory last year as offering the possibility of a fresh start and a boost to confidence.

Yet, we are told that he is a great orator and in one way he certainly is. He does have a preternatural calm in the spotlight and a mastery of the cadences we associate with the notable speakers in US history - such as JFK and MLK. But beyond that, am I alone in finding him increasingly to be something of a bore?

His performance at the first press conference in London with Gordon Brown featured moments in which he sparkled - his riff on loving the Queen was a high-point. But most of the serious answers that I listened to were interminable, windy and not very impressive. At points there were pauses so long that it appeared he had simply lost his train of thought.

Today, we were treated to another set-piece Obama speech, and my didn't he go on a bit? The crowd in Prague was huge, and initially wildly enthusiastic, but what he served up was not any more impressive than his damp squib in Berlin last year. Is there a computer which churns this stuff out for him?

"For over a thousand years, Prague has set itself apart from any other city in any other place. You have known war and peace. You have seen empires rise and fall. You have led revolutions in the arts and science, in politics and poetry. Through it all, the people of Prague have insisted on pursuing their own path, and defining their own destiny. And this city - this Golden City which is both ancient and youthful - stands as a living monument to your unconquerable spirit."

Empires rising and falling, destinies being defined and a Golden City standing as a monument to unconquerable spirit... goodness, what a ham. When he really gets going he's worse than Tony Blair.

But Obama was only warming up. "When I was born," (Everything usually leads back to him, you'll notice)... "the world was divided, and our nations were faced with very different circumstances. Few people would have predicted that someone like me would one day become an American President." (Him again)...

"Few people would have predicted that an American President would one day be permitted to speak to an audience like this in Prague. And few would have imagined that the Czech Republic would become a free nation, a member of NATO, and a leader of a united Europe. Those ideas would have been dismissed as dreams". (Not by Ronald Reagan they wouldn't have been, when most of Obama's Democrat friends thought the then US President's robust approach to the Cold War made him a loony on the loose).

"We are here today because enough people ignored the voices who told them that the world could not change. We are here today because of the courage of those who stood up - and took risks - to say that freedom is a right for all people, no matter what side of a wall they live on, and no matter what they look like... (subtly this time, but right at the end the sentence leads back to him again).

The Obamas have handled their trip well and in their public appearances have been a credit to their country. But I'll wager that within a year or so he'll be marked down as a wind-bag.

Nato saves the day. Belgium to send 35 trainers to Afghanistan

It costs more to clean this room per year than Belgium will spend with her 35 trainers in Afghanistan.

Hat tip: al-bob

It is a wonderful thing to have friends and allies when you need them. Certainly it is a tribute to past US sacrifices in Belgium, that Belgium steps in as a clutch player and offers 35 of her finest to supplement thousands of US fighting forces in Afghanistan. No, I am not talking about 35 divisions, not 35 brigades or platoons. No I said 35 trainers. Thirty five?

There are around 360 Belgian soldiers already deployed in Afghanistan, most of them maintaining security at Kabul Airport.

The total cost of the extension of the Belgian contribution to the military effort to Afghanistan was 30 million euros ($44.60 million) in 2008 from 24.5 million euros in 2007.

Wind back the clock.

In December 1944, German forces launched the Ardennes Offensive in southeastern Belgium. That was the Battle of the Bulge.

The liberation of Belgium began in September 1944 and at the end the US paid for the venture with 75,000 casualties.

It took the Belgian army less than 18 days to surrender to the Nazis in 1940.

An interesting report of a speech from Obama

Big transatlantic moment as Barack Obama bemoans "arrogance" of US and "insidious" anti-Americanism of Europe
Posted By: Toby Harnden at Apr 3, 2009 at 16:24:00
Posted in: Foreign Correspondents Telegraph

Here in the Rhenus Sports Arena in Strasbourg, I've just witnessed what is surely a very important - I hesitate to say historic - moment in transatlantic relations. Barack Obama went further than any previous president in apologising for American behaviour.

"In America, there is a failure to appreciate Europe's leading role in the world," he said in a prepared speech delivered before a campaign-style town hall meeting in which he took questions from mainly French and German students.

"Instead of celebrating your dynamic union and seeking to partner with you to meet common challenges, there have been times where America has shown arrogance and been dismissive, even derisive."

But he balanced this startling mea culpa - or, perhaps more accurately, a George W. Bush culpa - with a clear message to Europeans that blaming America for everything was unacceptable.

"In Europe, there is an anti-Americanism that is at once casual, but can also be insidious. Instead of recognising the good that America so often does in the world, there have been times where Europeans choose to blame America for much of what is bad."

Then, in classic Obama fashion, he sought to find a synthesis between the two poles. "On both sides of the Atlantic, these attitudes have become all too common. They are not wise. They do not represent the truth.

"They threaten to widen the divide across the Atlantic and leave us both more isolated. They fail to acknowledge the fundamental truth that America cannot confront the challenges of this century alone, but that Europe cannot confront them without America."

I was standing beside a White House official who told me afterwards that the speech was a concerted attempt to draw a line under the Bush years and offer an olive branch to Europe.

The time is fast approaching when Obama will have to be more than the unBush - that will not get him a pass in Europe indefinitely. He recognises this, saying: "I think it is important for Europe to understand that even though I am president and George Bush is not president, al-Qaeda is still a threat."

In concrete, immediate terms Obama wants to use his vow to rebuild America's global relations by securing more troops for Afghanistan.

The rather woolly US language on this subject last week now seems to be hardening up considerably with Obama saying that although "we will be partnering with Europe on the development side and on the diplomatic side" that isn't in itself enough.

"There will be a military component to it," he said. "And Europe should not simply expect the United States to shoulder that burden alone. We should not, because this is a joint problem, and it requires joint effort."

Word is that Gordon Brown has just pledged to send 1,000 more troops to Afghanistan. We should soon know whether the continental Europeans will also be - as Obama put it while standing alongside Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany - "stepping up to the plate".