What began as a training mission took a bizarre turn in 2004, an encounter that caught the attention of a Pentagon program investigating U.F.O.s.
Monthly Archives: December 2017
Glowing Auras and ‘Black Money’: The Pentagon’s Mysterious U.F.O. Program
The shadowy program began in 2007 and was largely funded at the request of Harry Reid, the former Senate majority leader, who has had a longtime interest in space phenomena.
Funeral of Palestinian amputee killed by Israeli fire takes place in Gaza
Wheelchair user Abu Thuraya was shot dead by troops during protests against US recognition of Jerusalem as Israeli capital
The funeral has taken place of a Palestinian wheelchair user who was shot dead on Friday during a demonstration in the Gaza Strip against Donald Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
The death of Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, 29, came as Trump administration officialsagain pre-empted negotiations over the disputed city’s final status in comments about the Western Wall.
Israel and ‘The Right to Maim’
Ibrahim Abu Thorayya,29, whose both legs were amputated during the 2008 war on Gaza, was killed yesterday by Israeli occupation sniper fire. Photo taken on 19 May (AFP) during a protest against the occupation.
Quite recently, a colleague of mine kindly brought to my attention a book called ‘The Right to Maim’, written by Jaspir Paur, published only last month by Duke University Press. I have ordered the book and read a couple of reviews about it. It seems fascinating. However, before reading anything about the book, I immediately started speculating what its thesis could be. The right to maim, I wondered. Of course, this must be another argument about coloniality, violence and human life. It surely must have some affinity with Judith Butler’s work on the un-liveability, and subsequent un-grievability, of those human lives which are out there, in places too far away, in the periphery.
The book, which I have not read yet, throws into question our common liberal understanding of disability and its associated rights. It makes a distinction between disability and what it calls debility. Debility disrupts the concept of disability understood as merely an individual state or identity that can be socially included and accommodated within liberal frameworks through disability rights (access, recognition, empowerment, pride etc.) Debility however refers to a concept central to biopolitical control (the control of bodies and populations) at the heart of colonial regimes; it refers to the racializing of an entire collectivity (population) through their designation as available for debilitation (the ‘right to maim’ which is linked to ‘the right to kill’), so it is part of a war tactic central to settler colonial regimes and to imperialism more broadly.
Of course, the book’s argument is much more complicated and nuanced that this, and the above is an extremely lame attempt at summarizing it. However, what makes the book interesting for me is that Paur carefully examines Israel’s practices in Gaza and its practice of deliberate maiming, otherwise referred to as the ‘shoot to cripple’ phenomenon. Having previously worked as a human rights NGO worker in Gaza, this is something that I have always thought about and, occasionally, discussed during informal conversations in Gaza during wars and in their aftermath. In particular, there is always a glaring disparity between the number of deaths and that of injuries, and while the former was the subject of ample commentary and coverage, the latter was only assigned secondary importance and discussed only in passe (for example, this Reuters news story, published just a few hours ago, carries the title: Israeli forces kill four Palestinians, wound 160 in protests over Jerusalem)
Paur explains, “The might of Israel’s military—one of the most powerful in the world—is built upon the claim of an unchanging ontological vulnerability and precarity, driven by history, geopolitics, and geography. Alongside the “right to kill,” I noted a complementary logic long present in Israeli tactical calculations of settler colonial rule—that of creating injury and maintaining Palestinian populations as perpetually debilitated, and yet alive, in order to control them. The Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) have shown a demonstrable pattern over decades of sparing life, of shooting to maim rather than to kill. This is ostensibly a humanitarian practice, leaving many civilians “permanently disabled” in an occupied territory of destroyed hospitals, rationed medical supplies, and scarce resources. This pattern appeared again during Operation Protective Edge; the number of civilian casualties was reported daily and justified through the logic of collateral damage, while the number of injuries was rarely commented upon and never included in reflections of the daily toll of the siege.”
Why I am writing this now is not only to emphasize an all too urgent need to highlight Israel’s deliberate colonial strategy of maiming and controlling Gazans but also because, only yesterday, we witnessed the murder of one wheelchair-bound, or debilitated, Palestinian protester Ibrahim Abu Thuraya, 29 years, who was waving a Palestinian flag and speaking out, in front of cameras, against Israel’s colonial regime. During an Israeli airstrike some nine years ago in Gaza, Abu Thuraya lost both his legs. Paur’s thesis is crystallized in the figure of Abu Thuraya, who embodies the ultimate object of this biopolitical control central to the colonial practices of the Israel state. Abu Thuraya is the object of Israel’s two most cherished rights, the right to kill, and prior to it, the right to maim. It is hardly a matter of speculation that Abu Thurayah was deliberately shot dead by Israeli troops. In its direct encounter with Abu Thuraya, and having already exercised its right to maim, Israel had only one choice at its disposal, to exercise its other right, to kill him. The regular presence of Abu Thurayah at protests, despite his debility, ostensibly demonstrated that Israel’s maiming of his body had utterly failed of bodily controlling him, stopping him from protesting physically. Finally, Abu Thurayyah’s murder is a manifestation of a powerful and rather long-established form of anti-colonial resistance, mass protest at points of friction with the Israeli army. Abu Thurayyah lived in dignity and died in dignity– dignity being a concept which, contrary to what many seem to think, is far from being merely sentimental, but is of paramount political significance for people who lack it.
Filed under: Politics & Society
Anita Hill to Lead Hollywood Commission on Sexual Harassment
Kathleen Kennedy, Nina Shaw and other female powerbrokers spearheaded the idea, and top agents, studio chief executives union leaders have signed on.
Uber Engaged in ‘Illegal’ Spying on Rivals, Ex-Employee Says
In a 37-page letter made public in court, a former Uber security employee detailed a massive intelligence-gathering operation that included tailing rival executives.
Bitcoin: EU approves cryptocurrency clampdown to combat terrorism financing
The European Union has agreed to implement stricter rules on exchange platforms that deal with virtual currencies, including bitcoin. The measure is part of an effort to prevent terrorist financing and money laundering.
Powerful 9th Circuit Justice Alex Kozinski to be Investigated for Sexual Misconduct Allegations
On Thursday, Sidney R. Thomas, the chief judge of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit, ordered an inquiry into sexual misconduct allegations against powerful, brilliant, and famously outspoken Judge Alex Kozinski.
According to Judge Thomas’s order, the probe into the matter is “based on allegations contained in a December 8, 2017, Washington Post article entitled ‘Prominent 9th Circuit Judge Accused of Sexual Misconduct’ …”
Although it appears that no one has complained about Kozinski directly to the court, the WaPo article itself became the “complaint” that constituted “reasonable grounds for inquiry,” according to Thomas’s order.
The Post’s story, reported by Matt Zapotosky, told of six women who formerly clerked for Kozinski or other 9th circuit judges, or were junior staffers—externs—at the court, who described discomforting encounters with the well-known judge.
Heidi Bond, a Kozinski clerk from 2006 to 2007, told of being asked by him to look at porn in his office, and then to give their opinions on the photos or videos, which were unrelated to any court case. According to the Post, the women also described other instances when they felt subject to inappropriate comments of a sexual nature.
For example, Emily Murphy, who did not clerk for Kozinski, but for another judge, related a conversation with Kozinski and some other court staff, in which he told her repeatedly she should work out naked in the court gym after she mentioned that the gym was underused and often nearly empty. Murphy is now a law professor. She and Bond, now a novelist writing under the name of Courney Milan, are the only two of the six who allowed their names to be used.
(You can read Bond’s own #MeToo account of her time clerking for Kozinski, and its affect on her, here.)
Judge Thomas made it clear that he did not think the 9th Circuit should investigate one of its own. To ensure confidence “in the impartiality of any proceedings,” he wrote, “and exceptional circumstances appearing…I request that the Chief Justice of the United States transfer this complaint to the judicial council of another circuit for review and disposition.”
Judge Kozinski, who was appointed to the federal appeals bench by Ronald Regan in 1985, told the Los Angeles Times he was unaware of any formal complaint against him and noted that he has employed 120 clerks and 400 externs over the years. “If this is all they are able to dredge up after 35 years, I am not too worried,”
None of the six women who told the Washington Post of allegedly sexually inappropriate experiences with the judge felt comfortable making a complaint during the period when they were working at the court, or shortly thereafter.
It is also relevant to know that Kozinski is one of a small group of jurists who are known as “feeder judges” whose proteges often go on to clerkships at the Supreme Court, a fact that has made positions on his staff among the most sought after in the federal judiciary.
Furthermore, when the Washington Post originally broke the story, the paper reportedly contacted “dozens” of other former clerks and former staff. Of those who returned the messages, many “said that they experienced no harassment of any kind.” Their experience, “which entailed grueling work into the wee hours of the morning every day” was, they said a rewarding one.
“Everybody knew”
Since the publication of the December 8 news story, however, more women than the original six have come forward to write about their past experience with the legendary judge.
Among the second round of voices is that of Dahlia Lithwick, the highly regarded legal correspondent for Slate who, on Wednesday of this week, published her own memories of Kozinski and about “the strange hypersexualized world of transgressive talk and action that embodied his chambers.”
This is the “problem with a system of ‘open secrets,” Lithwick wrote in her detailed and emotional account. “All the clerks and former clerks in Kozinski’s ambit knew and understood that you assumed the risk and accepted the responsibilities of secrecy. Once you acceded to the poker games and the movies and the ritualized sex talk, you helped give it cover and license.”
Kozinski, who has written on a wide variety of topics relating to law and the nation’s legal system for such publications as The New Republic, The National Review, and The New Yorker, has also written more than once on sexual harassment, such as in this 1992 forward to a scholarly book on the topic by two employment attorneys..
“A fast, effective, and confidential grievance procedure for dealing with harassment problems,” Judge Kozinski wrote, “is yet another essential component of any company’s office policy.”
And yet his own working sphere, according to the former clerks and staff who are now speaking out, sometimes demanded, as Lithwick put it, “the ritualized humiliation of young women.”
Interestingly, also on Thursday, shortly before Thomas issued the order, according to Above the Law, and confirmed by The Daily Caller, three of Judge Alex Kozinski’s law clerks resigned.
Stand up and fight for Ohio on tax bill, Sen. Portman: editorial
Sen. Rob Portman has mastered slick talking points in trying to sell a package of tax cuts for the wealthy as help for the middle class. But he risks the voters’ ire once the reality sinks in that it’s another political bait and switch, writes the editorial board.
‘Free internet’ for Germany despite US repeal
Berlin has vowed to back an “open and free internet” following a US decision to repeal net neutrality rules. But some experts say the US move could open the floodgates to a multi-speed internet in Europe.
You must be logged in to post a comment.