Dear DIC

Mar 28, 2007 | Australian Values, Border Security, Citizenship, Cultural Values, Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Immigration, Legal, Media Values, OzPol Values, USPol, Values, War

Dear DIC

The Ultimate Dreamcometrue

 

I n the heat of the 2006 Spring Offensive over Australian values Values Australia was born in response to the cynical and ignorant way real Australian values were being abused by politicians and the sycophantic, right-wing media echo chamber.

It was a hard slog but slowly and surely the numbers began to rise and Values Australia was eventually recognised as a Top Five Google site.

And then…the ultimate success! The Deputy Secretary of the Department of Immigration and Citizenship — freshly cleansed of responsibility for Aborigines and migrants — complained in the most bureaucratically courteous and yet wounded tone about the Values Australia site.

The letter was variously described by others as “bizarre”, a “hoax” and (gloriously) “frog-shit”.

Values Australia had to respond to take advantage of this un-dreamt-of opportunity. (Or, as an Aussie medal-winner might say, “Issa dreamcometrue”.)

Here is an excerpt from the Department’s letter:

“I acknowledge that your website expressly states that it is a satire. However, I am very concerned that it gives the appearance of being an officially approved Australian Government website. I am concerned that some of the content may seriously damage Australia’s reputation overseas. It may also create confusion regarding the important business managed by the Department, including the processing of visa applications and the granting of Australian Citizenship. You have a right to express your views about the government but I consider that the website is potentially misleading and offensive. I request that you remove it immediately….

[…]

I would appreciate your notification within seven days of the date of receipt of this letter that you have taken that action. Otherwise the Department will consider whether to take any further action.”

The claims are addressed comprehensively in the following Values Australia response. We trust you will understand the deletion of the name and address:

Croydon NSW 2132
25 March 2007

Bob Correll
Deputy Secretary
Department of Immigration and Citizenship

Dear Mr Correll,

I have received a letter purporting to have come from your department. There are reasons for believing it may be a hoax and it is therefore attached for your information.

This letter threatens Values Australia with a number of laws and acts including Sections 53 (c) (d) and (eb) of the Trade Practices Act 1974, Section 68 of the Crimes Act 1914 and Section 39(2) of the Trade Marks Act 1995

One of the reasons it was thought this letter must be a hoax is that Section 68 of the Crimes Act 1914 was repealed in 2000 whereas the Values Australia website has only been online since September 2006. There may be other laws which are now more pertinent but it is unlikely that a competent government lawyer or the Deputy Secretary of a major government department would make such an embarrassing mistake if they were seriously trying to threaten a citizen.

However, on reflection, and taking into account the numerous far more embarrassing legal gaffes that have been made in recent history by your own department under its variety of names, and the government’s willingness in general to make threats on equally dubious legal grounds against Australian citizens, its willingness to push the legal envelope on refugees, not to mention acts which, according to everyone except government lawyers, contravene international law, and its eager acquiescence in illegal acts by other nations, it has been thought possible that this threat may in fact be genuine.

Section 39(2) of the Trade Marks Act 1995, which you mention (assuming for the moment that it was you and not a hoaxer) refers as far as we can tell to signs which so nearly resemble a sign as to be likely to be taken for it, this in particular reference to the Australian Coat of Arms].

You and your lawyers would have noted as they investigated the Values Australia website that there are a number of images to which you could be referring. There is no one image of which it might be said that “that is the one which is pretending to be the trademark”. Each of these images is merely an image. None of them is a modification in any way of the Australian Coat of Arms and each of them was generated as an original image from materials not remotely connected with the Australian Government.

None of the images is, or has ever been, intended as a trade mark, purports to be a trade mark, or has anywhere been claimed to be a trade mark.

Looking at the images it is clear to anyone remotely acquainted with the Australian Coat of Arms, and anyone who could pass any proposed Australian Citizenship Test, that none of them can be confused with it or could be “taken for it”. According to the official description of the Coat of Arms:

1) A shield is supported by a kangaroo and emu

2) A seven-pointed star sits above the shield

3) A wreath of gold and blue sits under the star

4) Golden wattle frames the shield and supporters

5) A scroll contains the word ‘Australia’.

This is not a description which fits any of the images on the Values Australia website.

a) The bird in every case is on the “wrong” side of the image and is usually a shape resembling an ostrich.

b) Where the bird, in one case only, is an emu it is looking directly at the viewer.

c) The kangaroo’s stance, when it is a stance, is different from that on the “real” Coat of Arms. The difference is variously the disposition of its arms and the direction the head is pointing.

d) In other iterations the kangaroo is reclining.

e) On most images on the site there is no kangaroo. A shape perhaps suggesting a koala is on the right hand side of the image.

f) There is no star, whether seven-pointed or not, on the values Australia image.

g) There is a representation of a crown. There is no crown anywhere on the “real” Coat of Arms.

h) On coloured images there is a rectangle below the crown which is red, blue and yellow.

i) There is no representation of wattle on any image.

j) On coloured images the foliage is clearly eucalyptus.

k) None of the images to which you may be referring have a scroll with the word “Australia”.

l) On images where there is a scroll it says either “Ministry of Mateship” or “Department of Values”.

m) Where there is a shield-shaped element discernible, it does not include any symbol of any of Australia’s six states.

n) Where a shield-shaped element can be discerned on the monotone versions there is no detail.

o) A coloured image bears a shield shape enclosing hands grasping prison bars, or perhaps the bars of a detention centre.

p) There is a distinctly non-Australian sash across the shape.

The third threat made in the letter is with Sections 53 (c) (d) and (eb) of the Trade Practices Act 1974, claiming that a case may be made of “passing off”.

In a landmark passing off case, Reckitt & Colman Ltd v Borden Inc [1990], Lord Oliver stated that a plaintiff must establish all of the following:

a goodwill or reputation attached to the goods or services…

Secondly, he must demonstrate a misrepresentation by the defendant to the public (whether intentional) leading or likely to lead the public to believe that the goods or services offered by him are goods or services of the plaintiff…

Thirdly, he must demonstrate that he suffers [loss or damage as a consequence of the erroneous belief that the goods or services of the defendant are the goods or services of the plaintiff].

a) Values Australia obviously cannot and does not offer or claim to offer the goods and services actually offered by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship.

b) Not even a stupid person, let alone a “reasonable person”, could conclude that the so-called “services” offered on the Values Australia website would be confused with the real services offered by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship or that there is any intent to represent a limited range of satirical mugs, t-shirts, or “Fair Dinkum Aussie Mate ‘certificates’” – or, indeed, laughter -as being goods or services of, or sanctioned by, the Department.

c) Because the website does not offer, or pretend to offer, or represent that it offers, the actual goods and services offered by the Department, it is as impossible to demonstrate as it is silly to suggest that the Department has suffered or could suffer loss or damage of those services as a result of any confusion caused by the website. No person has ever contacted Values Australia with any question concerning citizenship or visa applications. In case anyone were to try, Values Australia has on the contrary been responsible and careful to avoid confusing really stupid people. The “Contact” page of the website has a link to the Department’s website with the words,

“If you are seeking information about real Australian visas or citizenship, we recommend you go to the official site: http://www.immi.gov.au.”

The header of the website has the statement, “Not an Australian Government site”, which links to the official DIC website.

Returning to the “forgery” threat made in the letter:

The test is intent to deceive, in the case of the repealed act, or of an intention to obtain a gain or cause a loss by inducing a public official to accept a document as genuine. I am confident that there is no public official who would accept the Values Australia website or any of its ‘materials’ as genuine, particularly to the extent of acting upon them. For example, no public official could conceivably accept the Fair Dinkum Aussie Mate Cetrificate as anything but a parody. Values Australia has not and has never had any intention to have any of its materials taken as, or presented by others as, genuine Commonwealth documents, which they quite transparently are not. To suggest otherwise is ludicrous.

The wording on the Fair Dinkum Aussie Mate Certificate includes:

I, the Minister of Fair Dinkum Aussie Values and Detention Centres hereby grant this Certificate of Fair Dinkum Aussie Mateship to the abovenamed applicant who shall be an Aussie Mate, no worries.

The parodied “Visor” stamp contains the following text:

Holder has promised not to blow anything up or molest daughters and has correctly recited “I, Lover”

True blue mate who has promised to sling me a slab

Approved for entry to pick fruit for a period of three months and must then visit Opera House

The following text appears on the home page:

Enriching Australia through the well-managed detention of innocent children

Australian values are to always give people a fair go. This ethic does not apply if your name is David Hicks.

Australia offers a wide range of lifestyle choices – both RSLs and Leagues Clubs.

In principle, we decide who comes here and how they come, but only if that is all right with Indonesia.

Australia values democracy. We love it so much we give it away, at the point of a gun if necessary. Dead Iraqis are a small price to pay for world peace.

Values Australia looks forward to hearing the Department argue that these statements could be misinterpreted or misconstrued as official, credible, or even potential Government policy, or that these statements could possibly be officially approved and that these statements would not immediately indicate to even the most unwary and unsophisticated visitor that the site was a parody, a satire and definitely not a government or government-sanctioned site.

The claims concerning the “title of an official government agency” are the main reason it is thought this letter may be a hoax.

a) The letter was correct in stating that the Values Australia website used the phrase “Department of Citizenship” in the text of one iteration of the header image. However the full text on that image was “Department of Citizenship and Fair Dinkum Values”. The first use of this phrase on the website was on or after 22 September 2006 when your Department’s name was the “Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs”. Your Department was subsequently renamed on or about 23 January 2007 to become the “Department of Immigration and Citizenship”.

b) The letter claims that the use of the phrase “Department of Citizenship” could be misleading and deceptive, but it is clearly not. No reasonable, or even really stupid, person could possibly believe that a department called the “Department of Citizenship and Fair Dinkum Values” would exist in reality.

c) Your Department is not and never was called the “Department of Citizenship”. It is now called the “Department of Immigration and Citizenship”.

d) Astonishingly, the letter claims that the use of the phrase “Department of Citizenship”

“could be seen as a misrepresentation made in the course of trade to perspective customers, which is calculated to injure the business or goodwill of another trader and which causes actual damage, or will probably do so.”

Values Australia fails to see how the use of the phrase “Department of Citizenship and Fair Dinkum Values” three months before the Department’s change of name could be construed either as an intentional “misrepresentation”, or as “calculated to injure”. There was no Department of Citizenship in existence, or planned, which Values Australia could possibly have intended to misrepresent or to injure by using those words. The writer gives Values Australia far too much credit for political clairvoyance to suggest that it could have known three months in advance that the head of the Minister would roll and the Department’s name be changed.

If Values Australia had such predictive abilities it would be in another, far more lucrative, business.

e) On the other hand, perhaps it would not have been such a stretch to foresee that, from DIMIA to DIMA to DIC, first Aborigines and then ethnic Australians would be cleansed from your Department by the Prime Minister.

f) The letter mentions the possibility of “misrepresentation made in the course of trade to perspective customers”.

Values Australia is not clear what a “perspective” customer might be. Perhaps it is one who views the site from a safe distance.

  

 

The letter purporting to be from you effects concern that

“some of the content may seriously damage Australia’s reputation overseas.”

The Department does not need Values Australia to damage Australia’s reputation overseas. Your department, in particular, in hand with the Attorney General’s Department and the Department of Foreign Affairs have been “seriously damaging” Australia’s reputation overseas for some years.

Your department’s ministerially admitted and well-documented dysfunctional corporate culture, characterised by callous disregard for humanity, basic morality and decency (all until fairly recently basic Australian values), and the astonishing ineptitude and resultant shameless blameshifting and denial which are so regularly publicly exposed – most recently in your new Minister’s embarrassment over Nauru, IOM and the UNHCR – have resulted all by themselves in immeasurably more damage to Australia’s reputation than the Values Australia website could possibly do if it wanted to, which it most definitely does not.

Australia used to have a reputation overseas as a decent, fair and tolerant country.

Now in just the last few years we have had the Cornelia Rau affair, Vivian Solon, Robert Jovicic, the ongoing humanitarian disgrace of the detention centres and the appalling and un-Australian treatment of refugees.

Values Australia understands that Villawood detainees are released into the Australian community, after four years in detention, not knowing a word of English. Not to help these people to learn English, when there has been so much opportunity over four years, is a disgrace and to require them to enter the community without the basic tools they need in order to survive is simply abuse.

Then there is David Hicks and Guantánamo, Australia’s capitulation to Indonesia over refugees from Irian Jaya and of course AWB. Naturally, Values Australia understands that the fury at Australia expressed by the United Nations, The US Congress and Canada over the AWB Affair pales into insignificance beside the light humour attempted on the Values Australia website.

The letter you may have written says,

“You have a right to express your views about the government but I consider that the website is potentially misleading and offensive.”

Values Australia is not sure it understands. Does this mean that Australian citizens may express their views so long as they are not offensive? It does not say offensive to whom. The Department’s website asserts that Australians are free to express their opinions about any topic. That Australia does not censor the media. That a person may criticise the government without fear of arrest. Is this only as long as they are not offensive? Is it offensive by definition to criticise the government? Values Australia is not aware of which law would cover that.

Values Australia, although it makes fun of elements of Australian culture and politics, is fiercely and proudly Australian, defending the real Australian values of decency and humanity and a fair go, from the constant, corrosive attacks by cynical, self-serving politicians and bureaucrats.

Values Australia sees what it does as positively enhancing Australia’s international reputation, as it knows for a fact that it does, by demonstrating that despite our politicians and their compliant servants, most real Australians are humane; that Australians do care about people elsewhere in the world; that Australians do disagree with the callousness of this government and its servants, and that Australians do have a sense of humour.

Bob, a person reported to Values Australia a conversation with his children when they had read some pages of the Values Australia website. “Are they allowed to say that?” they asked. “Won’t they get into trouble?”

This person was furious and said so. “How dare you!” he exploded. “Don’t you understand? You have free speech in this country. You are allowed to say what you think! People fought wars and died for that freedom! How dare you assume that you don’t have freedom of speech!”

Of course their belief that they couldn’t necessarily say what they thought if it was critical of the government was natural. In their short lives they had already seen so many of the liberties, rights and freedoms that had been fought for and cherished in Australia for so long being eroded and corroded under this government, and apparently and unfortunately with the acquiescence of people like you.

So Bob (assuming you wrote the letter), what is another little freedom quietly whittled away, another voice strangled, another turn of the screw of fear on an increasingly, and synthetically, anxious population? It’s not really you, after all. It’s the job, it’s the kids’ education, it’s the career, it’s the boss, it’s the Minister, it’s the PM. It’s not you, not really. At the end of the week you can still hop in the Volvo and tootle down to the weekender at Moruya to bask in the knowledge of a week well worked. It’s just people, after all.

Values Australia will of course be assuming for the time being that the letter is real and taking legal advice on all of the points, but it declines to refrain from giving offence – if that is what is taken – for the sake merely of “not being offensive”. That would be a violation of a basic Australian value.

Graham (family name withheld)

for Values Australia

 

 

Values Australia is not a lawyer and would be grateful for any serious pro bono advice on the matter.

 

 

Some Responses to “Dear ‘DIC’ ”

 
Club Troppo » Missing Link:
29 March, 2007 at 7:19 am

[…] The usual superbly diverse collection of blogospherical delights are summarised below under the usual headings. But I thought I would highlight here in the intro a post which is my early favourite for Blog Post of the Year 2007. It’s quite possibly the best piece of passionate, angry polemic I’ve ever read, certainly on a blog. “Roger Migently” is roused to extraordinary heights of eloquence by the bastardry of the recently renamed federal Department of Immigration and Citizenship (”DIC”) and produces a devastating response to a threatening letter from the Department’s lawyers. Do yourself a favour and read it in full. For what it’s worth, my briefly considered generalist lawyer’s evaluation of the threats is that they have no legal substance whatever. This appalling example of government bullying and attempted suppression of political free speech should by rights become a significant story in the mainstream media if the Department continues pursuing “Roger”. […]

Barista » Blog Archive »:
30 March, 2007 at 7:46 am

[…] The site has a wonderful time taking the piss out of this letter, demonstrating just how ludicrous the claim is. I just wanted to compare the coats of arms which the Department considers to be so similar: […]

Lang Mack:
30 March, 2007 at 8:06 am

Thank you so much for the effort you put in,I have been dealing with these “people” on behalf of another four five years and have had to play it straight to get a result, that made me so happy, I wish you well.. Thanks again..

al loomis:

31 March, 2007 at 11:38 pm

was it really ‘dic’? are they that stupid? your fortune is made! unless it’s a scam in which case the the scammers get the coup feather, and you are caught taking yourself so very seriously. amusing, whichever.

 
roger migently:
1 April, 2007 at 12:22 am

Please say more about how to make one’s fortune out of this!!

 

Kieran:
7 April, 2007 at 11:09 am

Awesome. Absolutely awesome.

Guantánamo Career Suicide

Feb 24, 2007 | Democracy, Freedom of Speech, Legal, OzPol Values, Terrorism, USPol, Values, War

Guantánamo Career Suicide

 Guantánamo Policy Chief Pulls Plug on Career:
Spills Government Beans in Radio Interview

 

 

Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Guantánamo Policy, Charles “Cully” Stimson, resigned following uproar over a 12 January interview on Federal Newsradio, a propaganda front for the Bush administration. In the interview Stimson stated,

“I think the news story that you’re really going to start seeing in the next couple of weeks is this: As a result of a FOIA [Freedom of Information Act] request through a major news organization, somebody asked, ‘Who are the lawyers around this country representing detainees down there? And you know what, it’s shocking.”

When the interviewer asked who was paying for the legal representation, Stimson replied,

“It’s not clear, is it? Some will maintain that they are doing it out of the goodness of their heart, that they’re doing it pro bono, and I suspect they are; others are receiving moneys from who knows where, and I’d be curious to have them explain that.”

And then:

“I think, quite honestly, when corporate CEOs see that those firms are representing the very terrorists who hit their bottom line back in 2001, those CEOs are going to make those law firms choose between representing terrorists or representing reputable firms, and I think that is going to have major play in the next few weeks. And we want to watch that play out.”

This was enough not only to offend everyone who believes in and supports western democratic values, justice and the rule of law but also to incense large numbers of professional legal practitioners across the USA.

However, it’s not the first time US military officials have criticized Guantánamo defense lawyers.

In March of last year, Col. Moe Davis, chief prosecutor for the Guantánamo tribunals, told journalists that several major law firms that have defense contractors as paying clients are providing pro bono lawyers to defend Guantánamo detainees in habeas petitions.

“It’s somewhat ironic that the weaponry that we use in the war on terrorism is helping fund the defense of the alleged terrorists,” Davis said at the time.

This is the same Col. Moe Davis who is the Prosecutor in David Hicks’s case, who has lately been in the news in Australia, insisting that Hicks is the world’s blackest murderer since Hitler, and on Insight1 with Jenny Brockie on SBS2.

The Administration and the Pentagon effected to be embarrassed by Stimson’s loyal fervour.

A Pentagon spokesman, Lt. Col. Brian Maka, said Stimson was not speaking for the Bush administration.

Stimson’s comments “do not represent the views of the Department of Defense or the thinking of its leadership,” Maka said.

Stimson apologised within days claiming that

“those comments do not reflect my core beliefs”

Of course what he said does clearly express his core beliefs.

He was comfortable, relaxed and confident in the radical right wing atmosphere of the radio station with its right wing propagandist presenters. He was comfortable, relaxed and confident that he was expressing administration policy, thinking and attitudes.

It was no slip of the tongue, no moment of passion, no mad aberration. He was under no duress, and was very definitely not being flustered by tough questioning. He offered the information quite unprompted. He arrived at the interview intending to say what he said. He came prepared with a list of at least 12 of the 14 the law firms who had been disclosed as representing Guantánamo inmates.

There can be no doubt that he planned to say what he said and that what he said expressed his core beliefs. He is a practised, experienced propagandist who was repeating the company message which he had delivered almost word for word elsewhere and more than once:

GENE ROBINSON, Washington Post columnist (from audiotape): “…calls into question, really, the United States’ commitment to the values and ideals that we said we want to spread throughout the world, such as due process and rule of law. And Guantánamo seems to mock those values.”

 

KUR: How do you answer that?

 

MR. STIMSON: He’s wrong. That doesn’t mock those values at all. Indeed, we’re giving more rights to these terrorists than our own soldiers got during any conflict when they were detained or the Nazis got when they were detained during World War II. During war, you’re not entitled to a trial. You’re not entitled to criminal charges.

Stimson has consistently over time reinforced his message about the treatment of prisoners in Guantánamo:

  • It is transparent and humane
  • Prisoners are not entitled to a trial
  • They get more than they deserve or have a right to
  • There is minimal opposition to the holding of these prisoners
  • They release a lot of people
  • The media are irresponsible in their reporting
  • The inmates are unquestionably guilty

In fact…

  • These are “the very terrorists” who are personally responsible for the financial losses incurred by American companies after 9/11.

Stimson claims that over 2000 journalists, 500 media outlets have been there to see what goes on to the point that Guantánamo is

“probably the most transparent and open location in the world”.

However, the Washington Post has reported that

“Journalists could not talk to detainees, they had to be accompanied by a military escort and their photos were censored. Now, the Pentagon has shut down access entirely _ at least temporarily.”

Stimson claimed that media organisations are “irresponsible” for not showing the new prison at Guantánamo but continue to show Camp X-ray footage. After all, they have access to “B-roll” footage of the new facility but they don’t show it. “Ask yourself why?” he said, “Are they fair and balanced, or do they have an agenda?”

It is a reasonably safe bet that news organisations are not permitted to originate their own footage and that what Stimson describes as the “B-roll footage” is shot by the Defense Department and is entirely sanitised, showing only what Defense wants outsiders to see and nothing that they would not want outsiders to see.

Meanwhile, FBI agents have documented more than two dozen incidents of possible mistreatment at Guantánamo. In one, a detainee’s head was wrapped in duct tape because he chanted the Quran; in a second, a detainee pulled out his hair after hours in a sweltering room.

In a December 2006 court ruling, a federal judge in Washington decried the plight of “some of the unfortunate petitioners who have been detained for many years in the terrible conditions at Guantánamo Bay.”

Stimson characterises local and international public opposition to the Guantánamo detentions as

“…small little protests around the world – really quite minor – drummed up by Amnesty International trying to get their loyal, ardent followers to show up – these are a couple dozen here, a couple dozen folks there…”

Can detainees be released without trial?

CAUSEY: You have about 395 detainees there and I believe something like 340 others have previously been released to their home countries.?

 

STIMSON: 377 detainees, Mike, have been transferred or released from Guantánamo. Just in 2006 alone we transferred 114. We’re on track to transfer or release, you know, 70, 80, 90, 100 in the coming year. Now those numbers are hard to guess because of the diplomatic negotiations. What’s important to know is that those 395 that are there on the island now, roughly 70 to 80 have already been approved for transfer or release. So we’re just waiting for those countries to step up and accept responsibility and mitigate the threat that these guys pose.

Obviously detainees can be, and are, released without trial. It’s just a matter of “diplomacy”. As far as the American Administration is concerned they, but particularly those concerned with Guantánamo, are constrained by no laws. They can hold or release inmates on a whim. Even the politically careful Australian Prime Minister John Howard has said as much, insisting that if David Hicks is not brought to trial before the end of the year he will have him repatriated. He will not ask. He will require.

(This is directly contrary to Mr Cheney’s claims in Sydney (24 February) that “he cannot speed up the process”. One of them is a liar or both of them are liars. Place your vote here.)

And here is what has become of the presumption of innocence in the American justice system as expressed by Cuddly Stimson:

NORRIS: Is there a possibility that there are some folks on Guantánamo that don’t belong there?
STIMSON: Not now.

Referring to Stimson’s lame apology before his ultimate (forced) resignation, the Ethics Scoreboard says:

Stimson’s apology is a lie, and obviously so. What he calls his “core beliefs” are nothing of the kind. They are his official beliefs, the principles that he is required to support officially (that is, give lip service to) as a member of the bar and a high-ranking official in a democracy. True core beliefs are what you reveal when your guard is down, not what you contradict.

The reaction to Stimson’s vilification of Guantánamo defenders was swift and strident. Just a few of these will give the flavour.

The National Lawyers Guild

The undersigned organizations call for the censure of Mr. Charles “Cully” Stimson, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Detainee Affairs, for statements attacking the lawyers who are defending the Guantánamo detainees. Mr. Stimson’s remarks are aimed at chilling the willingness of lawyers to represent those persons imprisoned at Guantánamo, and are contrary to bedrock principles of the right to counsel and the presumption of innocence.

The threats by Mr. Stimson are not subtle. They imply these pro bono lawyers are terrorists. They exhort corporations to pull business from the firms where these lawyers are employed. These remarks are slanderous, and violate the free association rights of these lawyers and their firms.

The Society of American Law Teachers (representing over 800 members at 165 law schools):

Mr. Stimson – who, as a lawyer, should know better – has violated the highest standards of our profession by challenging the lawyers engaged in pro bono representation of Guantánamo detainees and calling on the clients of their law firms to withhold their business from those firms. Lawyers are essential to upholding the rule of law in our country, and the rule of law is precisely what the President claims the United States is defending in the “war on terror.”

And from the American Bar Association:

Lawyers represent people in criminal cases to fulfill a core American value: the treatment of all people equally before the law. To impugn those who are doing this critical work — and doing it on a volunteer basis — is deeply offensive to members of the legal profession, and we hope to all Americans.” She is right. Stimson should be immediately fired for what he said last week and, furthermore, he should be investigated for breaching the code of professional ethics. Not only were the remarks nasty, they were politically and diplomatically unwise.

 

What Stimson said, and why, and how, constitutes conduct unbecoming a member of government and a member of the bar. One hand may be acting aggressively, if not mercifully and justly, toward prosecuting suspected terrorists. But the other hand, Stimson’s hand, is undercutting the very principles we fight for. This is how our government waged the legal war on terror in our name last week.

 

As Thomas Paine wrote of the United States years ago, “This is a government of laws, and not men” – the unchecked power of even the President is not part of democracy or our system of justice.

Shortly after his apology, which was not accepted by any but the most hardline in the Bush Administration, Stimson resigned.

Some see the direct hand of John Yoo in the authorship of the letter of “apology”.
John Yoo’s position can be described as “justice in the service of politics”, rather than what we would normally expect, “politics in the service of justice”.
John Yoo’s judicial politics can be traced to Dick Cheney.

Salon reported an interview with Yoo regarding torture. The interviewer asked:

“If the president deems that he’s got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person’s child, there is no law that can stop him?”

 

“No treaty,” replied John Yoo, the former Justice Department official who wrote the crucial memos justifying President Bush’s policies on torture, “war on terror” detainees and domestic surveillance without warrants. Yoo made these assertions at a public debate in December [2005] in Chicago, where he also espoused the radical notion of the “unitary executive” — the idea that the president as commander in chief is the sole judge of the law, unbound by hindrances such as the Geneva Conventions, and possesses inherent authority to subordinate independent government agencies to his fiat. This concept is the cornerstone of the Bush legal doctrine.

Salon also says

Yoo, who left the Justice Department two years ago and is now a law professor at Boalt Hall at the University of California at Berkeley, was the prolific writer. But he was not the author of the process…Then, as now, the driving force was Vice President Cheney.
Cheney’s idea of the head of state invested with absolute power is a venerable one. Bush’s presidency is the latest experiment to achieve it…

 

The original commentary on it appeared in a pamphlet published in 1776, “Common Sense,” written by Tom Paine:

 

“But where say some is the King of America? I’ll tell you Friend, he reigns above, and doth not make havoc of mankind like the Royal Brute of Britain. Yet that we may not appear to be defective even in earthly honors, let a day be solemnly set apart for proclaiming the charter; let it be brought forth placed on the divine law, the word of God; let a crown be placed thereon, by which the world may know, that so far as we approve as monarchy, that in America THE LAW IS KING. For as in absolute governments the King is law, so in free countries the law ought to be King; and there ought to be no other. But lest any ill use should afterwards arise, let the crown at the conclusion of the ceremony be demolished, and scattered among the people whose right it is.”

So what does Stimson believe to be “Truth, Justice and the American way”?

“DoD official says some Guantánamo detainees may be imprisoned for life”. More than 300 prisoners now held by the US at Guantanamo Bay could remain there under US military detention for the rest of their lives, DoD Deputy Assistant Secretary for Detainee Affairs Charles “Cully” Stimson told Reuters during a routine visit to the base last week.

Ethics Scoreboard has named Charles “Cully” Stimson Liar of the Month for January 2007

 

1 The Insight webpage has a poll which asks “Should David Hicks be brought home?”
Voting is 93% in favour of Hicks’s immediate return.

 

Did Dick? Dick Did!

Feb 22, 2007 | Australian Values, Humour, OzPol Values, Religious Values, USPol, Values, War

Did Dick? Dick Did!

 

My Dick dick is bigger than your dikdik

 

US Vice-President Dick Cheney has arrived in Australia. Dick is visiting to offer John Howard a reach-around for the upcoming federal erection.

Values Australia staff report that Howard welcomed Dick personally with the greeting,

“Is that a gun in your pocket or is it your huge erect Dick?”

Overseas Affairs Minister Robin Boywonder was overheard to add,

“I like Dick!”

Dick was dining at the restaurant.
Dick was?
Was Dick ever! It was on the tax-payer!
Clever Dick.
Slick Dick!

How tall was Dick?
Oh, Dick’s about six foot seven.
Big Dick!

Dick went to the doctor’s the other day
Did Dick?
Dick Did!
Poorly Dick?
Sick Dick!

Dick walked into the bedroom last night. His wife ripped off all her clothes, threw herself on the bed and said: “Do what you want.” Dick said “Really?” She said: “Yes! YES!! Do exactly what you want!”
So Dick put his jacket on and went out and bombed Iran.
Thick Dick!

“Thanks to that dick joke, my kids will have new shoes this Christmas!”

Thanks to that joke Dick, Iraq will have no Shias this Christmas.

Where Do They Get These Ideas?

Feb 21, 2007 | Australian Values, Cultural Values, OzPol Values, Religious Values, USPol, Values, War

Where Do They Get These Ideas?

Dang Me If Its Not From Richard Perle!

 

Values Australia provides the following information to help Australians understand some of their Australian values, especially to understand where our values come from in relation to Middle East policy (yes, we know they come from America, but where did they get them from?)

In 1996 a group calling themselves the Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000, and led by Richard Perle (well known for his work for the Likud at the Project for the New American Century), produced a paper for Benjamin Netanyahu, the then-Prime Minister of Israel.

Perle, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, and known as “The Prince of Darkness” was also at the time an advisor to the Administration on Defense matters and remains a director of the Jerusalem Post. Amongst many other things.

David Wurmser is the Middle East Adviser to US Vice President Dick Cheney.

Douglas Feith was George W Bush’s Under Secretary of Defense for Policy. He was one of the signatories of the 1998 letter to President Clinton advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein. Feith led the controversial Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon which was set up to second-guess the CIA and other intelligence agencies and, some say, preemptively conclude that Iraq had WMD and “stove-pipe” this conclusion to the White House..

Other contributors were James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Robert Loewenberg and Meyrav Wurmser.

The paper was called “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm“.

Amongst its conclusions:

“Israel has the opportunity to make a clean break; it can forge a peace process and strategy based on an entirely new intellectual foundation, one that restores strategic initiative and provides the nation the room to engage every possible energy on rebuilding Zionism

[…]

“Syria challenges Israel on Lebanese soil. An effective approach, and one with which American can sympathize, would be if Israel seized the strategic initiative along its northern borders by engaging Hizballah, Syria, and Iran, as the principal agents of aggression in Lebanon”

[…]

“Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq – an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right – as a means of foiling Syria’s regional ambitions.”

[…]

“Israel’s new agenda can signal a clean break by abandoning a policy which assumed exhaustion and allowed strategic retreat by reestablishing the principle of preemption, rather than retaliation alone and by ceasing to absorb blows to the nation without response.”

[All emphasis added]

Anything ring a bell?

UK’s ‘Morale Muscular’ Withdrawal

Feb 21, 2007 | Australian Values, Democracy, OzPol Values, USPol, Values, War

UK’s ‘Morale Muscular’ Withdrawal

‘

“…under no circumstances should we allow ourselves to lose morale muscular and to step back from this…”  [Brendan Nelson]

 

Values Australia, in partnership with the Ministry of Mateship, notes the recent declaration by the British Government that it will shortly begin withdrawing its forces from Iraq. We understand that a lot of people will criticise the British for this and claim that they are “Cutting and Running”, not “Staying the Course” and not staying till “The Job is Done”. They will say that they are not “Standing By Their Mates”, and that their withdrawal will “Give the Terrorists Heart” and “Unleash Terrorism” on a scale unimagineable until now. They will say that withdrawal will mean utter defeat which will terminally damage the prestige and influence of the West and create instability in the Middle East.

The Australian Govermint wishes Australians, by which it means the Voting Public, to know that it will never make such accusations, and has never – and it has always been absolutely consistent in this – never made any such accusations in the past. The Australian Government has never suggested that anyone who advocates withdrawal from Iraq is on the side of the terrorists, or is playing into their hands.

On the other hand, Australia will never leave Iraq because to do so would be to cut and run, not stay the course, not stand by their mates, give the terrorists heart and unleash terrorism on a scale unimagineable until now.

For Australia (by which we mean the Labor Party) to withdraw from Iraq would be to side with the terrorists and play into their hands. An Australian withdrawal would mean utter defeat which would terminally damage the prestige and influence of the West and create instability in the Middle East.

Is that crystal clear?

Then let us make it clear. CRYSTAL!

JOHN HOWARD: Kerry I do know this, that if we are out in a year’s time it will be in circumstances of defeat. When I say we, I mean all the Coalition forces and obviously if the Americans go, then other forces will go as well. Now that would be circumstances of defeat and I know that the consequences of that for the West, its prestige, American prestige and influence in the Middle East, to spur that would give the terrorism in the Middle East, the implications it would have for the stability of other countries in the Middle East and also in our part of the world, the spur to terrorism, I think the consequences of that for Australia would be very great indeed.

[…]

I think we owe it to our greatest and strongest ally to stick by them in their hour of trial and pressure and need.

 

BRENDAN NELSON: Well, in fact what the Prime Minister is saying, that if Senator Obama or anybody else for that matter were to unilaterally and prematurely withdraw American and coalition forces from Iraq before the Iraqis can look after their own affairs, you are of course handing victory to the terrorists.

[…]

…our generation is engaged in a struggle which is going to last a long time against disparate groups of Islamic extremists throughout the world, principal amongst them being al Qaeda, and if anybody in any position of credibility were to say a particular date – in this case March and 2008 – coalition and US troops would be withdrawn, of course those terrorists are going to say, “Let us hope that that’s the policy outcome”, because that’s what these people are doing day to day in the bloodiest, cruelest, inhumane way in Iraq and it’s absolutely essential that all of us and the United States in particular prevail over that kind of outrageous and heinous behaviour.

[…]

BRENDAN NELSON: Well whatever the motives of those who are demanding that the coalition withdraw from Iraq, that is precisely what al Qaeda and the terrorists want us to do as well, Tony. And the reason why Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda, formerly al-Zarqawi, and a whole variety of terrorists are so determined to see that we leave Iraq and leave so prematurely before democracy can take hold, before an Iraqi security force is trained and Iraqis have the same democratic rights and freedoms enjoyed by Americans and Australians, is because they are determined to see defeat for the United States.

 

ALEXANDER DOWNER: I don’t think it would be right for us as an ally and a friend of America’s and of Britain’s, for us just to say to them well, you can do the dirty work, you can do the tough job, we’re not going to bother, but we’d like you to help us in South East Asia with the difficult things we’re doing1.

[…]

TONY JONES: Mr Downer, here’s what the American colonel who’s in charge of training said. He said, “Another advantage is that if it’s staffed by foreign officers they don’t have to come into Iraq and become targets in order to teach.”

 

ALEXANDER DOWNER: Yeah, but most training look, to be frank with you, you can find an American colonel – not a very senior officer in America – you can find an American colonel who would say almost anything. But to be honest with you -there are thousands of American colonels…

 

And just to make it even clearer if it could possibly be, the Australian voting public needs to understand exactly what is at stake. Iraq’s democracy is at stake in this and our credibility as a result because WE elected it.

 

BRENDAN NELSON: There is most certainly a coincidence of interest, if you want to call it Tony, between the United States, Britain, Australia and almost 30 other countries that democratically elected the Iraqi Government…

Got that?

 

1Mr Downer has not made it clear exactly what help the United States and Britain have been giving us up to now in South East Asia with “the difficult things we’re doing”.