BAGnewsNotes

British Army Accused of Sexual Abuse of Detainees in Iraq

BAGnews is pleased to introduce Pete Brook, our newest contributor. This piece is cross-posted from Pete's superb blog, Prison Photography.

Still from video shown to the Baha Mousa public Inquiry showing Corporal Donald Payne,

formerly of the Queen's Lancashire Regiment, shouting and swearing at hooded Iraqi detainees.

The British Army is facing accusations as serious as those leveled against the US military at Abu Ghraib.

Let me offer some context of UK Army abuses in Iraq.

Only one British soldier has ever been sentenced to prison for detainee abuses in Iraq. He is Corporal Donald Payne. Above is a still from this very disturbing video which was released in June of this year into the inquiry of Baha Mousa’s death. A long-running and contradicting narrative followed this case since Mousa’s death in 2003 and the opening of the first inquiry in 2006. BBC has a timeline.

It seems that Corporal Payne and the six other soldiers acquitted during this inquiry may not have been the only British soldiers involved in abuse. I must say that these allegations are still just that – they are unproven, yet to be fully investigated.

Robert Verkaik of the Independent has pursued this story here and here:

One claimants says he as raped by two British soldiers, and others say they were stripped naked, abused and photographed. For the first time, British female soldiers are accused of aiding in the sexual and physical abuse of detainees.

The 33 new cases, which form part of a pre-action protocol letter served on the MoD last week, include allegations of mock executions, dog attacks, rape, exposure to lewd acts and exposure to pornography. The abuses are alleged to have occurred in 2003 – the time as Baha Mousa’s torture and death.

Last Look On O China Trip: A Little Cold

How did this read to me on first pass, through this week's media filter?

...A nation of umpteen billion people and Obama, a man recognized for wowing the crowds and stirring hope in the masses, especially overseas, is featured today on the newswires wrapping up his China trip alone at the Great Wall.Either through lack of informed strategy, or a desire to placate, or real cards to play, Obama's failure to gain with the Chinese makes him come off, instead, more like a tourist with a steep hill to climb.

However, there was zero chance a triumphant image was going to come out of this trip, the Chinese being almost constitutionally disposed to stymie their charismatic visitor. And, after years of economic and leadership free fall, it's as much true that America has been left looking up.

Combine the demand for spectical with the obsession with an otherwise meaningless bow in Japan, and the domestic media's bottom line on this bridge-building excursion and, yes, "look-see," was of some kind of distant and solitary failure.

REVISED 11/19 9:30 PST

(photo: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images. caption: US President Barack Obama tours the Great Wall on November 18, 2009 at Badaling, northwest of Beijing. The US president was to wrap up his maiden trip to the world's most populous nation with a bit of tourism -- a visit to the Great Wall, one of China's most treasured landmarks -- before heading to South Korea.)

Afghanistan: Ain't That The Problem?

The AP couldn't express it in any taller terms.

As long as Stanley and the U.S.A. are fronting for the crooked, discredited Karzai, we've got nothing to say.

(photo: Anja Niedringhaus. caption: Gen. Stanley McChrystal, the top U.S. and NATO commander for Afghanistan, talks in front of a giant poster of Afghan President Hamid Karzai during a ceremony with the Afghan Air Force in Kabul, Afghanistan, Sunday, Nov. 15, 2009. Two new C-27 transport planes were donated by Italy and the United States to the Afghan Air Force)

Bite the Hand that Feeds You ... a Little Bit

Larger world hears/sees Obama, in Shanghai, push freedom of expression. In China (home of our banker), they hardly knew he was there.

Next question.

(photo: Jason Reed/Reuters. caption: U.S. President Barack Obama gestures during a town hall meeting with future Chinese leaders at the Museum of Science and Technology in Shanghai November 16, 2009. Obama faces tensions with China over trade and Tibet on his first visit to the emerging superpower for a summit that will grapple with economic imbalances and the future of the yuan.)

Bow Gate

From ABC: On President Obama's Bow to the Japanese Emperor, An Academic Friend Writes That Both the Left and the Right Are Wrong: ...

An old friend -- an academic with expertise about the Japanese Empire, and in general a supporter of President Obama -- sends me the following note, relating to photographs of President Obama bowing to Emperor Akihito of Japan.

"This picture shows two things," my friend writes.

"1) The 'right' is wrong about Obama's bow.

"2) The 'left' is wrong about Obama's bow.

... continued at Political Punch/Jack Tapper

(photo: AP)

Obama's Family Photograph

Really, that's what they call the final APEC summit pic.

Although the right might run with it as "Obama as 'furner"," I like the "goodness of fit" for our first "Pacific president."

The designer of the shirts, by the way, refers to the style as "Asian fusion," incorporating Chinese, Indian and Malay traditions with a Mandarin collar. Obama had a choice of three colors, either blue, red or green. President Hu, of course, chose red.

(I should also add that, compared to previous APEC get ups, Obama got off lucky.)

(image: Reuters. caption: APEC Leaders pose for a family photograph after their dinner at the APEC Summit in Singapore November 14, 2009. Pictured (L-R) are: Japan's Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama, Indonesia's President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, U.S. President Barack Obama, Singapore's Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong, China's President Hu Jintao)

Fall of the Wall + 20: Promises, Promises

The web is awash in images today commemorating the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

This shot, from November 11, 1989, shows East German border guards looking through an opening from a section pulled down by demonstrators near the Brandenburg Gate. As it resonates today, the picture delivers a huge nostalgia payoff with its heavy dose of Western cool, even if -- in the midst of our world-wide recession, and the painful/no-going for all immigrants, political and otherwise -- it's not exactly the promised land.

(Photo: Lionel Cironneau/AP)

Look of Oppressed: About the Same, Except a Lot Less Blurrier

by BAGnews contributor Stan Banos

Photographers such as Ed Burtynsky have been dashing about in record numbers chronicling and documenting the incredible industrial and manufacturing transformation that is the current day wonder called China. And while some such as Lu Guang have concentrated magnificently on the horrendously destructive environmental effects, few if any have looked beyond the mainland to notice the impact this emerging powerhouse has had on other developing nations.

One photographer who has is Paolo Woods, and if his overlooked subject matter somehow has the ring of deja vu all over again, it's because the faces and lives pictured within his work still bear the centuries old scars that are being revisited today. Of course, the pictures back in the19th century were in B&W and considerably blurrier, but the look of the oppressed shine through in any medium, regardless of the century.

Absent today is the blatant genocide and overt military presence that subdued native populations and signaled Europe's imperialism- local militia and the foreign capital their leaders have been infused with now perform their "sponsor's" bidding. The West's reputation may be in tatters in Africa with its history of colonialism, post colonial assassinations (eg- Patrice Lamumba), and failed foreign aid and economic policies. But Serge Michel reports all is not well in the new power marriage between China and Africa, despite all the building and glad handing (and I sure wouldn't want to live downhill of one of the hastily built dams they're constructing there).

No Eyes For Karzais

The picture captures Karzai's rather histrionic challenger, in officially refusing to participate in a run-off, as overwhelmed with sadness for himself and the country.

From this end, however, the visual -- given the new reality, that we're stuck propping up a government with no credibility -- also reads as: "I can't bear to look."

(photo: Moises Saman for The New York Times)

But He Really Hasn't Done Anything Yet -- Right? (#2)

December 2008