Newspaper clips: October 2011

Monday, October 24, 2011

Condolences for killing a terrorist?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/condolences-for-killing-a-terrorist/2011/10/17/gIQATuJirL_story.html?hpid=z2

By Marc A. Thiessen, Published: October 17

While the Obama administration was busy last week tamping down reports that the Japanese government has scuttled President Obama’s plans to visit Hiroshima and publicly apologize for America’s dropping of the atom bomb, another apology received less notice. According to the Charlotte Observer, an official from the State Department called the family of American al-Qaeda terrorist Samir Khan “to offer the government’s condolences on his death in a U.S. drone attack last week in Yemen.” Apparently Khan, who was killed alongside Anwar al-Awlaki, was not on the U.S. government’s targeting list, making his death “collateral damage” in the eyes of the Obama administration. So an official from the State Department called his family — much as they might the families of innocent women and children accidentally killed in a U.S. strike — to express our condolences for his accidental death.

This is an outrage. The United States has no reason to offer “condolences” for the death of this self-proclaimed “traitor to America.” His role as an al-Qaeda propagandist alone justified his killing (much as America would have been justified in killing Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels during World War II).

But Khan was much more than a mere propagandist; he was an online al-Qaeda terrorist trainer. The internet magazine he founded, Inspire, publishes not just inspirational sermons, but detailedinstructions for how to commit terrorist attacks against the United States.

In each issue of Inspire, Khan published a section called “Open Source Jihad,” which he described as “a resource manual for those who loathe tyrants; including bomb making techniques, security measures, guerilla tactics, [and] weapons training.” The purpose, Khan wrote, was to let terrorists “train at home instead of risking dangerous travel abroad.” Under his leadership, Inspire became a virtual al-Qaeda terror training camp.

Take the fall 2010 issue, in which Khan published detailed instructions for how to “use a pickup truck as a mowing machine, not to mow grass but mow down the enemies of Allah.” The article advised jihadists in America to weld blades to the front of the vehicle and then “pick up as much speed as you can while still retaining good control … to strike as many people as possible in your first run.” This, the magazine said, would create “maximum carnage” adding “You can imagine the scene after such an operation!”

In that same issue, Khan also published “Tips for our brothers in the United States,” with ideas and guidance “for those planning on executing operations.” These ranged from “random shooting operations” targeting a “crowded restaurant in Washington, DC at lunch” to more ambitious WMD plots “for those mujahid brothers with degrees in microbiology or chemistry.” The article provided instructions in the use of code words, encryption and other tactics to evade and defeat intelligence monitoring.

In the summer 2010 issue, Khan published “The AQ Chef: How to Build a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom,” which provided detailed instructions for constructing a pipe bomb “from ingredients available in any kitchen in the world.” In the summer 2011 issue, he published “Bomb School: Making Acetone Peroxide” which provided step-by-step, photo-illustrated instructions for assembling the explosive, and advised that “In the US … [ingredients] could be found at places such as Home Depot, Sears and Wal-Mart.” In the winter 2010 issue, Khan published a detailed guide for “Destroying Buildings,” with advice on the “best gas to use” and instructions on how to find “the center of gravity … the points in the building that if destroyed would cause the fall of the building.” The magazine also ran a three-issue series called “Weapons School: Training with the AK,” which instructed jihadists “on the basics of the AK, the weapon’s capabilities, how to open the weapon and clean it, shooting positions, the types of bullets and the add-ons.”

Disseminating this material in an official al-Qaeda publication makes Khan no different than the leader of an al-Qaeda terror training camp operating in the mountains of Yemen or Pakistan. He was a legitimate military target.

Khan understood exactly what he was doing. In an article titled “I am proud to be a traitor to America,” he wrote, “I am acutely aware that body parts have to be torn apart, skulls have to be crushed and blood has to be spilled” for al-Qaeda to achieve victory. He added, “it only brought me gleeful tears and great joy to hear that America labels me a terrorist.. . .and I take this opportunity to accentuate my oath of allegiance . . . to the ferocious lion, the champion of jihad, the humble servant of God, my beloved Shaykh, Usama bin Ladin. We pledge to wage jihad for the rest of our lives until either we implant Islam all over the world or meet our Lord as bearers of Islam.”

Khan was not “collateral damage.” He was a sworn member of al-Qaeda who trained terrorists to kill his fellow Americans. And it is appalling that a representative of the U.S. government he sought to destroy — whose citizens he wanted to “mow down” like grass — would offer “condolences” for his death.

Polling the Occupy Wall Street Crowd

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204479504576637082965745362.html?mod=rss_opinion_main

By DOUGLAS SCHOEN

President Obama and the Democratic leadership are making a critical error in embracing the Occupy Wall Street movement—and it may cost them the 2012 election.

Last week, senior White House adviser David Plouffe said that "the protests you're seeing are the same conversations people are having in living rooms and kitchens all across America. . . . People are frustrated by an economy that does not reward hard work and responsibility, where Wall Street and Main Street don't seem to play by the same set of rules." Nancy Pelosi and others have echoed the message.

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'Occupy Wall Street' demonstrators in the financial district of New York

Yet the Occupy Wall Street movement reflects values that are dangerously out of touch with the broad mass of the American people—and particularly with swing voters who are largely independent and have been trending away from the president since the debate over health-care reform.

The protesters have a distinct ideology and are bound by a deep commitment to radical left-wing policies. On Oct. 10 and 11, Arielle Alter Confino, a senior researcher at my polling firm, interviewed nearly 200 protesters in New York's Zuccotti Park. Our findings probably represent the first systematic random sample of Occupy Wall Street opinion.

Our research shows clearly that the movement doesn't represent unemployed America and is not ideologically diverse. Rather, it comprises an unrepresentative segment of the electorate that believes in radical redistribution of wealth, civil disobedience and, in some instances, violence. Half (52%) have participated in a political movement before, virtually all (98%) say they would support civil disobedience to achieve their goals, and nearly one-third (31%) would support violence to advance their agenda.

The vast majority of demonstrators are actually employed, and the proportion of protesters unemployed (15%) is within single digits of the national unemployment rate (9.1%).

An overwhelming majority of demonstrators supported Barack Obama in 2008. Now 51% disapprove of the president while 44% approve, and only 48% say they will vote to re-elect him in 2012, while at least a quarter won't vote.

Fewer than one in three (32%) call themselves Democrats, while roughly the same proportion (33%) say they aren't represented by any political party.

Barney Frank, Predatory Lender

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704107204574475110152189446.html

Recent reports that the Federal Housing Administration (FHA) will suffer default rates of more than 20% on the 2007 and 2008 loans it guaranteed has raised questions once again about the government's role in the financial crisis and its efforts to achieve social purposes by distorting the financial system.

The FHA's function is to guarantee mortgages of low-income borrowers (the mortgages are then sold through securitizations by Ginnie Mae) and thus to take reasonable credit risks in the interests of making mortgage credit available to the nation's low-income citizens. Accordingly, the larger than normal losses that will result from the 2007 and 2008 cohort could be justified by Barney Frank, the chairman of the House Financial Services Committee, as "policy"—an effort to ease the housing downturn through the application of government credit. The FHA, he argued, is buying more weak mortgages in order to help put a floor under the housing market. Eventually, the taxpayers will have to judge whether this policy was justified.

Far more interesting than the FHA's prospective losses on its 2007 and 2008 book are the agency's losses on its 2005 and 2006 guarantees, when the housing bubble was inflating at its fastest rate and there was no need for government support. FHA-backed loans during those years also have delinquency rates between 20% and 30%. These adverse results—not the result of a "policy" effort to shore up markets—pose a significant challenge to those who are trying to absolve the U.S. government of responsibility for the financial crisis.

When the crisis first arose, the left's explanation was that it was caused by corporate greed, primarily on Wall Street, and by deregulation of the financial system during the Bush administration. The implicit charge was that the financial system was flawed and required broader regulation to keep it out of trouble. As it became clear that there was no financial deregulation during the Bush administration and that the financial crisis was caused by the meltdown of almost 25 million subprime and other nonprime mortgages—almost half of all U.S. mortgages—the narrative changed. The new villains were the unregulated mortgage brokers who allegedly earned enormous fees through a new form of "predatory" lending—by putting unsuspecting home buyers into subprime mortgages when they could have afforded prime mortgages. This idea underlies the Obama administration's proposal for a Consumer Financial Protection Agency. The link to the financial crisis—recently emphasized by President Obama—is that these mortgages would not have been made if regulators had been watching those fly-by-night mortgage brokers.

There was always a problem with this theory. Mortgage brokers had to be able to sell their mortgages to someone. They could only produce what those above them in the distribution chain wanted to buy. In other words, they could only respond to demand, not create it themselves. Who wanted these dicey loans? The data shows that the principal buyers were insured banks, government sponsored enterprises (GSEs) such as Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and the FHA—all government agencies or private companies forced to comply with government mandates about mortgage lending. When Fannie and Freddie were finally taken over by the government in 2008, more than 10 million subprime and other weak loans were either on their books or were in mortgage-backed securities they had guaranteed. An additional 4.5 million were guaranteed by the FHA and sold through Ginnie Mae before 2008, and a further 2.5 million loans were made under the rubric of the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which required insured banks to provide mortgage credit to home buyers who were at or below 80% of median income. Thus, almost two-thirds of all the bad mortgages in our financial system, many of which are now defaulting at unprecedented rates, were bought by government agencies or required by government regulations.

The role of the FHA is particularly difficult to fit into the narrative that the left has been selling. While it might be argued that Fannie and Freddie and insured banks were profit-seekers because they were shareholder-owned, what can explain the fact that the FHA—a government agency—was guaranteeing the same bad mortgages that the unregulated mortgage brokers were supposedly creating through predatory lending?

The answer, of course, is that it was government policy for these poor quality loans to be made. Since the early 1990s, the government has been attempting to expand home ownership in full disregard of the prudent lending principles that had previously governed the U.S. mortgage market. Now the motives of the GSEs fall into place. Fannie and Freddie were subject to "affordable housing" regulations, issued by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), which required them to buy mortgages made to home buyers who were at or below the median income. This quota began at 30% of all purchases in the early 1990s, and was gradually ratcheted up until it called for 55% of all mortgage purchases to be "affordable" in 2007, including 25% that had to be made to low-income home buyers.

It was not easy to find candidates for traditional mortgages—loans to people with good credit records or the resources for a substantial downpayment—among home buyers who qualified under HUD's guidelines. To meet their affordable housing requirements, therefore, Fannie and Freddie reduced their lending standards and reached into the FHA's turf. The FHA, although it lost market share, continued to guarantee what it could, adding to the demand that the unregulated mortgage brokers filled. If they were engaged in predatory lending, it was ultimately driven by the government's own requirements. The mortgages that resulted are now problem loans for the GSEs, the FHA and the big banks that were required to make them in order to burnish their CRA credentials.

The significance of the FHA's troubles is that this agency had no profit motive. Yet it dipped into the same pool of subprime and other nontraditional mortgages that the GSEs and Wall Street were fishing in. The left cannot have it both ways, blaming the private sector for subprime lending while absolving the government policies that created the demand for subprime loans. If the financial crisis was caused by subprime mortgages and predatory lending, the government's own policies made it happen.

Mr. Walllison is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

Obama extends support for protesters

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/052226f8-f80c-11e0-a419-00144feab49a.html#axzz1b32aqQJ5

Barack Obama, US president, offered more support for protesters against the global financial system after a weekend of demonstrations in cities around the world, but called on them not to “demonise” those who worked on Wall Street.

On Sunday, Mr Obama honoured Martin Luther King at a dedication to a new memorial on National Mall in Washington. Referring to protests that have spread from Wall Street to London, Rome and elsewhere, Mr Obama said: “Dr King would want us to challenge the excesses of Wall Street without demonising those who work there.” Mr Obama had previously said the protests “express the frustration” of ordinary Americans with the financial sector.

A top Republican in Washington dramatically altered his stance on protesters involved in Occupy Wall Street just one week after comparing the movement to “angry mobs”. Eric Cantor, the Republican majority leader in the House of Representatives, told Fox News on Sunday that Republicans agreed there was “too much” income disparity in the country. “More important than my use of the word [‘mobs’] is that there is a growing frustration out there across the country and it is warranted. Too many people are out of work,” he said.

Thousands took part in demonstrations this weekend around the world, many voicing their anger at the bail-out of banks and government austerity packages. “It is ridiculous the government is willing to pay out over a trillion pounds to bail out banks while at the same time cutting our pensions and benefits in the name of austerity,” offered Tai Wardallg, a protest organiser in London.

But some bankers and others in the protesters’ sights sought to spread the blame. Andreas Schmitz, head of the German banking federation and chief executive of HSBC Trinkaus, told the Financial Times on Sunday that protests against banks were “a diversion from the fundamental problem: that we can no longer finance our welfare states”.

In 2008 a banking crisis caused a budget crisis for governments, he said. Now “a state debt crisis [in the eurozone] is causing a banking crisis”. Politicians, he warned, should not try to make the banks the “fall guys” for their mistakes.

Protesters complained about banking excesses, but the demonstrations reflect more than simple anger at financial institutions, argued a banker in London. “It’s becoming apparent these are protests that aren’t just about banks, it’s all manner of things . . . They’re talking about the number of millionaires in the cabinet and all kinds of things – it doesn’t necessarily simply involve the banking sector.”

Demonstrators picked the wrong target when they chose to rally at stock exchanges in New York and London, executives of some of the world’s largest exchanges said. “We are the most visible symbols of the financial world so it makes exchanges an obvious destination. But I don’t think it’s the right target. We don’t represent the financial sector,” said Ron Arculli, chairman of the World Federation of Exchanges.

Others voiced sympathy for the demonstrators. Banks “just compete and stampede to make money at the expense of consumers,” said Atsushi Saito, Tokyo Stock Exchange chief executive. “To some extent, I can understand the mindset of those demonstrators against Wall Street.”

The rallies show Americans want a “financial system that works,” said David Axelrod, chief campaign strategist for Mr Obama, on Sunday. They support financial reforms which some Republican presidential candidates have threatened to roll back, he said.

In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi, prime minister, condemned the violence in Rome by a “large group” or rioters, although the initial violence came from just small numbers of “black bloc” anarchist and far-left militants. Paolo, a researcher in molecular biology who marched in Rome, said the police had let rioting get out of hand in order to “criminalise” and discredit protesters.

Protesters’ grievances remained disparate and wide-ranging, with signs in various cities condemning corporate greed, demanding an end to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars and calling for student debt relief. A statement posted on an activist web site that helped organise the protests said: “United in one voice, we will let politicians, and the financial elites they serve, know it is up to us, the people, to decide our future.”

It is unclear what the next step for protesters will be. In New York, where the month-long Occupy Wall Street movement has been a leading inspiration for protesters, dozens remained at their base in Zuccotti Park on Sunday. The group’s agenda listed only a committee meeting and the regular nightly assembly scheduled for the evening.

Supporters of Occupy Wall Street have donated nearly $300,000 in cash, as well as food, blankets, medical supplies and sleeping bags, spokesman Bill Dobbs told the Associated Press.

New York Police Department said at least 88 were arrested in New York on Saturday and overnight, including two dozen for trespassing at a Citibank branch and 45 in Times Square.

In London, hundreds of protesters occupying the steps of St Paul’s cathedral have begun to settle in, erecting tents and setting up a kitchen, a media centre and toilets. “We will occupy this space for as long as it takes for our voices to be heard,” said Adam Young, a student who was also at the Wall Street occupation. “The system is broken and it is up to us to fix it,” he said.

Others stressed they were part of a global movement for justice. “First came the Arab Spring and Spain’s indignados. Then came the Wall Street protests. In London, we are now part of this movement campaigning for a better world,” said Spyro Van Leemnen.

Additional reporting by Alice Ross and Michael Stothard in London, Quentin Peel in Berlin, Guy Dinmore in Rome and Jeremy Grant in Johannesburg

Reid signals government jobs must take priority over private-sector jobs

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/188443-reid-says-public-sector-jobs-must-take-priority-over-private-sector-jobs

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Wednesday indicated Congress needs to worry about government jobs more than private-sector jobs, and that this is why Senate Democrats are pushing a bill aimed at shoring up teachers and first-responders.

"It's very clear that private-sector jobs have been doing just fine; it's the public-sector jobs where we've lost huge numbers, and that's what this legislation is all about," Reid said on the Senate floor.

Reid was responding to recent comments from Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who accused Democrats of purposefully pursuing higher taxes as part of the teacher/first-responder bill, S. 1723, so that Republicans would oppose it. McConnell said the bill was meant to fail in order to give Democrats an issue to run on in the 2012 election, but Reid said the Republicans are simply trying to defeat President Obama any way they can.

The legislation Reid is defending is part of Obama's jobs package. Vice President Biden was in Pennsylvania, an important election state, on Tuesday to push for the administration's plan on increasing the number of teachers.

Reid reiterated his emphasis on creating government jobs by saying Democrats are looking to "put hundreds of thousands of people back to work teaching children, have more police patrolling our streets, firefighters fighting our fires, doing the rescue work that they do so well … that's our priority." He said Republicans are calling the bill a "failure" because they are "using a different benchmark for success than we are."

Private-sector jobs have increased over the last 19 months, while government jobs have lagged. They've also seen cuts in several states that are struggling to balanced their books.

Despite these comments, a spokesman for Reid pointed out that Senate Democrats have tried to pass several bills aimed at spurring private sector job growth, but have been blocked by Republicans. Among other things, Democrats have proposed tax cuts to help companies hire workers and write off expenses, as well as infrastructure jobs that would add to private construction payrolls.

"Senator Reid believes that Congress must work to spur job-creation in the private sector, which is why he's working to pass tax cuts for small businesses to hire new workers, tax cuts for small businesses to write off business expenses, and investments to create private-sector construction jobs," Spokesman Adam Jentleson said. "Republicans are blocking all of these proposals to create jobs in the private sector because they care more about defeating President Obama than putting Americans back to work."

Reid also said a majority of people polled support the bill, and that the tax hike needed to fund the $35 billion spending program is minimal.

"My friend, the Republican leader … is complaining about a tax of one-half of 1 percent … on people who make more than $1 million a year to pay for a program that would stop teachers from being laid off and rehire some of the teachers that have been laid off," Reid said.

Democrats who support the bill have said it would help save 400,000 teacher jobs and thousands of first-responder jobs that have either been cut or could soon be cut. Reid said Wednesday that these layoffs are "rooted in the last administration," but did not explain further.

Senate Democrats are hoping to pass S. 1723 as early as this week, although votes could be delayed until early November, depending on the progress made on passing a 2012 spending bill.

Reid also dismissed efforts by the Republican House to ease environmental regulations as a way to create jobs.

"The Republican response has been cutting back environmental health safeguards, I guess hoping that a sicker, more polluted country is a better place to create jobs, and it's not," Reid said.

-- This story was last updated at 1:33 p.m.

World power swings back to America

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/comment/ambroseevans_pritchard/8844646/World-power-swings-back-to-America.html

The American phoenix is slowly rising again. Within five years or so, the US will be well on its way to self-sufficiency in fuel and energy. Manufacturing will have closed the labour gap with China in a clutch of key industries. The current account might even be in surplus.

By Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, International Business Editor

5:53PM BST 23 Oct 2011

1028 Comments

Assumptions that the Great Republic must inevitably spiral into economic and strategic decline - so like the chatter of the late 1980s, when Japan was in vogue - will seem wildly off the mark by then.

Telegraph readers already know about the "shale gas revolution" that has turned America into the world’s number one producer of natural gas, ahead of Russia.

Less known is that the technology of hydraulic fracturing - breaking rocks with jets of water - will also bring a quantum leap in shale oil supply, mostly from the Bakken fields in North Dakota, Eagle Ford in Texas, and other reserves across the Mid-West.

"The US was the single largest contributor to global oil supply growth last year, with a net 395,000 barrels per day (b/d)," said Francisco Blanch from Bank of America, comparing the Dakota fields to a new North Sea.

Total US shale output is "set to expand dramatically" as fresh sources come on stream, possibly reaching 5.5m b/d by mid-decade. This is a tenfold rise since 2009.

The US already meets 72pc of its own oil needs, up from around 50pc a decade ago.

"The implications of this shift are very large for geopolitics, energy security, historical military alliances and economic activity. As US reliance on the Middle East continues to drop, Europe is turning more dependent and will likely become more exposed to rent-seeking behaviour from oligopolistic players," said Mr Blanch.

Meanwhile, the China-US seesaw is about to swing the other way. Offshoring is out, 're-inshoring' is the new fashion.

"Made in America, Again" - a report this month by Boston Consulting Group - said Chinese wage inflation running at 16pc a year for a decade has closed much of the cost gap. China is no longer the "default location" for cheap plants supplying the US.

A "tipping point" is near in computers, electrical equipment, machinery, autos and motor parts, plastics and rubber, fabricated metals, and even furniture.

"A surprising amount of work that rushed to China over the past decade could soon start to come back," said BCG's Harold Sirkin.

The gap in "productivity-adjusted wages" will narrow from 22pc of US levels in 2005 to 43pc (61pc for the US South) by 2015. Add in shipping costs, reliability woes, technology piracy, and the advantage shifts back to the US.

The list of "repatriates" is growing. Farouk Systems is bringing back assembly of hair dryers to Texas after counterfeiting problems; ET Water Systems has switched its irrigation products to California; Master Lock is returning to Milwaukee, and NCR is bringing back its ATM output to Georgia. NatLabs is coming home to Florida.

Boston Consulting expects up to 800,000 manufacturing jobs to return to the US by mid-decade, with a multiplier effect creating 3.2m in total. This would take some sting out of the Long Slump.

As Philadelphia Fed chief Sandra Pianalto said last week, US manufacturing is "very competitive" at the current dollar exchange rate. Whether intended or not, the Fed's zero rates and $2.3 trillion printing blitz have brought matters to an abrupt head for China.

Fed actions confronted Beijing with a Morton's Fork of ugly choices: revalue the yuan, or hang onto the mercantilist dollar peg and import a US monetary policy that is far too loose for a red-hot economy at the top of the cycle. Either choice erodes China's wage advantage. The Communist Party chose inflation.

Foreign exchange effects are subtle. They take a long to time play out as old plant slowly runs down, and fresh investment goes elsewhere. Yet you can see the damage to Europe from an over-strong euro in foreign direct investment (FDI) data.

Flows into the EU collapsed by 63p from 2007 to 2010 (UNCTAD data), and fell by 77pc in Italy. Flows into the US rose by 5pc.

Volkswagen is investing $4bn in America, led by its Chattanooga Passat plant. Korea's Samsung has begun a $20bn US investment blitz. Meanwhile, Intel, GM, and Caterpillar and other US firms are opting to stay at home rather than invest abroad.

Europe has only itself to blame for the current “hollowing out” of its industrial base. It craved its own reserve currency, without understanding how costly this “exorbitant burden” might prove to be.

China and the rising reserve powers have rotated a large chunk of their $10 trillion stash into EMU bonds to reduce their dollar weighting. The result is a euro too strong for half of EMU.

The European Central Bank has since made matters worse (for Italy, Spain, Portugal, and France) by keeping rates above those of the US, UK, and Japan. That has been a deliberate policy choice. It let real M1 deposits in Italy contract at a 7pc annual rate over the summer. May it live with the consequences.

The trade-weighted dollar has been sliding for a decade, falling 37pc since 2001. This roughly replicates the post-Plaza slide in the late 1980s, which was followed - with a lag - by 3pc of GDP shrinkage in the current account deficit. The US had a surplus by 1991.

Charles Dumas and Diana Choyleva from Lombard Street Research argue that this may happen again in their new book "The American Phoenix".

The switch in advantage to the US is relative. It does not imply a healthy US recovery. The global depression will grind on as much of the Western world tightens fiscal policy and slowly purges debt, and as China deflates its credit bubble.

Yet America retains a pack of trump cards, and not just in sixteen of the world’s top twenty universities.

It is almost the only economic power with a fertility rate above 2.0 - and therefore the ability to outgrow debt - in sharp contrast to the demographic decay awaiting Japan, China, Korea, Germany, Italy, and Russia.

Europe's EMU soap opera has shown why it matters that America is a genuine nation, forged by shared language and the ancestral chords of memory over two centuries, with institutions that ultimately work and a real central bank able to back-stop the system.

The 21st Century may be American after all, just like the last.

Libya: Apparent Execution of 53 Gaddafi Supporters

http://www.hrw.org/node/102543

OCTOBER 24, 2011

MORE COVERAGE:

More Human Rights Watch Reporting on Libya

We found 53 decomposing bodies, apparently Gaddafi supporters, at an abandoned hotel in Sirte, and some had their hands bound behind their backs when they were shot. This requires the immediate attention of the Libyan authorities to investigate what happened and hold accountable those responsible.

Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch

(Sirte) – Fifty-three people, apparent Gaddafi supporters, seem to have been executed at a hotel in Sirte last week, Human Rights Watch said today. The hotel is in an area of the city that was under the control of anti-Gaddafi fighters from Misrata before the killings took place.

Human Rights Watch called on Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) to conduct an immediate and transparent investigation into the apparent mass execution and to bring those responsible to justice.

“We found 53 decomposing bodies, apparently Gaddafi supporters, at an abandoned hotel in Sirte, and some had their hands bound behind their backs when they were shot,” said Peter Bouckaert, emergencies director at Human Rights Watch, who investigated the killings. “This requires the immediate attention of the Libyan authorities to investigate what happened and hold accountable those responsible.”

Human Rights Watch saw the badly decomposed remains of the 53 people on October 23, 2011, at the Hotel Mahari in District 2 of Sirte. The bodies were clustered together, apparently where they had been killed, on the grass in the sea-view garden of the hotel.

Anti-Gaddafi fighters from Misrata had held that area of Sirte since early October, according to witnesses interviewed by Human Rights Watch. On the entrance and walls of the hotel Human Rights Watch saw the names of several brigades from Misrata.

The condition of the bodies suggests the victims were killed approximately one week prior to their discovery, between October 14 and October 19, Human Rights Watch said. The bloodstains on the grass directly below the bodies, bullet holes visible in the ground, and the spent cartridges of AK-47 and FN-1 rifles scattered around the site strongly suggest that some, if not all of the people, were shot and killed in the location where they were discovered, Human Rights Watch said.

All the bodies were in a similar stage of decomposition, suggesting they were killed at the same approximate time. Some of the bodies had their hands tied behind their backs with plastic ties. Others had bandages over serious wounds, suggesting they had been treated for other injuries prior to their deaths.

About 20 Sirte residents were putting the bodies in body bags and preparing them for burial when Human Rights Watch arrived at the hotel. They said they had discovered the bodies on October 21, after the fighting in Sirte had stopped and they returned to their neighborhood. They identified four of the dead as residents of Sirte: Ezzidin al-Hinsheri, allegedly a former Gaddafi government official, a military officer named Muftah Dabroun, and two Sirte residents, Amar Mahmoud Saleh and Muftah al-Deley.

Those preparing the bodies said they believed most of the victims were residents of Sirte, some of them Gaddafi supporters. They said that some of the victims had most likely tried to flee from District 2, the last stronghold of Gaddafi loyalists as anti-Gaddafi forces attacked the city. Other victims were possibly released from Ibn Sina Hospital in Sirte, they said, after being treated for conflict-related injuries. The claim that some of the victims had been released from the hospital is consistent with the discovery of bandaged wounds on some of the bodies, Human Rights Watch said.

The Hotel Mahari was apparently in the hands of anti-Gaddafi forces from Misrata before the killings, and it remained in their control until the fighting in Sirte stopped on October 20, Human Rights Watch said.

Anti-Gaddafi forces are organized in brigades whose primary loyalty is to their city of origin. Many Libyan cities have numerous brigades, small groups of fighters who operate semi-independently during battles. More than 100 brigades (katiba) operate in the city of Misrata alone.

On the walls of the Hotel Mahari, Human Rights Watch saw the names of five known Misrata-based fighting groups, who had apparently based themselves in the hotel. At the entrance, as well as on the inside and outside walls, was prominently written the “Tiger Brigade” (Al-Nimer). In numerous places on other walls were written the “Support Brigade” (Al-Isnad), the Jaguar Brigade (Al-Fahad), the Lion Brigade (Al-Asad), and the Citadel Brigade (Al-Qasba).

There is no direct evidence that these five brigades were involved in the executions, but their apparent presence in the hotel requires immediate investigation, Human Rights Watch said.

“The evidence suggests that some of the victims were shot while being held as prisoners, when that part of Sirte was controlled by anti-Gaddafi brigades who appear to act outside the control of the National Transitional Council,” Bouckaert said. “If the NTC fails to investigate this crime it will signal that those who fought against Gaddafi can do anything without fear of prosecution.”

At a separate site in Sirte, Human Rights Watch saw the badly decomposed bodies of 10 people who had apparently also been executed. The bodies had been dumped in a water reservoir in District 2 of the city. The identity of the victims was unknown, and it was not possible to establish whether Gaddafi forces or anti-Gaddafi fighters were responsible. From the state of decomposition of the bodies, it appears they were killed prior to October 12.

Medical officials in Sirte told Human Rights Watch that pro-Gaddafi forces had carried out executions in the city. They said that medical teams and anti-Gaddafi fighters found at least 23 bodies, their hands bound, between October 15 and October 20.

The executions at the Mahari Hotel came to light just days after the still unexplained deaths of Libya’s former leader Muammar Gaddafi and his son Muatassim Gaddafi while in the custody of fighters from Misrata. Both men were captured alive in Sirte on October 20.

At the site where Muammar Gaddafi was captured, Human Rights Watch found the remains of at least 95 people who had apparently died that day. The vast majority had apparently died in the fighting and NATO strikes prior to Gaddafi’s capture, but between six and ten of the dead appear to have been executed at the site with gunshot wounds to the head and body.

To date, the NTC has failed to conduct a serious investigation into the killing of the former rebel military commander, Gen. Abdel Fattah Younes, who was killed with two aides on July 28 after being detained by opposition fighters, apparently after NTC officials had issued a warrant for his arrest.

Violence of any kind, and in particular murder, inflicted during an armed conflict on combatants who have laid down their arms or are in detention, is a war crime under the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC). The ICC has jurisdiction in Libya for all crimes within its mandate committed since February 15, 2011. Under the court's treaty, criminal liability applies to both those who physically commit the crimes and to senior officials, including those who give the orders and those in a position of command who should have been aware of the abuses but failed to prevent them or to report or prosecute those responsible.

“This latest massacre seems part of a trend of killings, looting, and other abuses committed by armed anti-Gaddafi fighters who consider themselves above the law,” Bouckaert said. “It is imperative that the transitional authorities take action to rein in these groups.”

Monday, October 24, 2011

By Marc A. Thiessen, Published: October 17

By DOUGLAS SCHOEN

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