Things can't be going well for the US military commissions set up to punish America's enemies, ostensibly 'illegal combatants', if all they have to convict are chauffeurs and media men. The case of Ali Hamza al Bahlul, who specialised in recruitment videos (and poor ones, at that), was recently decided.
The piece reproduced below is from Facts and Arts, 11 November 2008:
First the Chauffeur, now the Media Man: Bahlul at Gitmo
By Binoy Kampmark
First the driver, now the media man. The trial system established by the Bush administration to strike fear into America's enemies, can barely tweak their noses. Not only has the infamous system of miliary commissions at Guantanámo Bay failed to convict any notable personality in the crudely termed GWOT ('Global War on Terror'), it has failed to shake off the appearance of being a half-baked enterprise. US authorities keep resorting to piecemeal tactics against an organization that shows no signs of disappearing just yet. Who do we have amongst the convicted terrorist luminaries behind bars? Bin Laden's chauffeur, Salim Hamdan, and now, the equivalent of Al Qaeda's Dan Perino (though less well coiffed), Ali Hamza al Bahlul.
The allegations against Bahlul centred around his conspiring with Al Qaeda, soliciting murder and providing material support for terrorism. The trial already had that air of the surreal - the defendant and his lawyer refused to participate in a whole-hearted defence of the case. Bahlul himself had little affection for Air Force Major David Frakt, the officer designated his defense counsel.
If Bahlul was perturbed, he rarely showed signs of it. At this conviction by the nine-member jury, he had made a makeshift paper plane (perhaps the next item to be confiscated before boarding flights), and read out a bit of his less than impressive poetry praising the attacks of September 11.
Jailing the media man (or secretary, as some reports put it) can hardly be a worthwhile incentive against professional terrorists or practitioners of atrocity. Making videos and managing the media material of GWOT fiends may not be something to condone, but it is hardly something that should lead to a life sentence. Bahlul is far from an expert propaganda minister (Goebbels, don't eat your heart out), and his amateurish media methods (grainy recruitment videos and commercials) would have made the Third Reich's most prominent filmmaker, Leni Riefenstahl, cringe.
One video demonstrating an attack on the USS Cole harboured in the Yemeni port of Aden in 2000 that led to the deaths of 17 American sailors, is suitably tasteless but hardly worth a life sentence. If that were the case, most of Rupert Murdoch's media minions, not to mention Mr Hegemony himself, would be well behind bars for inciting an illegal war on Iraq. Yet again, the legal services of the Gitmo system demonstrate why they should be immediately disbanded and shifted to standard criminal courts. The deluded continue to promote Camp X-Ray as if it were a tropical, well-equipped holiday camp, with all the shackled trimmings thrown in. An FBI agent who interrogated Bahlul in early 2002 went so far as to call this carceral paradise 'very comfortable' (3 Nov Reuters).
President Barack Obama made murmurings during his candidacy that this detention facility, and with it the legal absurdities that arose out of it, should end. That would be wise, if the US has any genuine intention of winning this abstract and vague conflict on 'terror'.
Wednesday, November 26, 2008
Farewelling the Yugo
Shall we shed a tear for the demise of the Yugo (otherwise known as the Zastava Koral)? Star of so many video clips and films, some might well do so for the ill-fated vehicle. Others will simply breathe a sigh of relief. A discussion on this legendary and much maligned is available at Counterpunch, November 21/3, 2008:
The End of the Yugo: The Day that Did Come
By Binoy Kampmark
Let's not mince words. The Zastava Koral, known simply as the Yugo, was an abomination, but an endearing one. The last car, assembled by car workers Radoslav Simovic and Zarko Niciforovic, rolled off the line in the Serbian town of Kragujevac earlier this week. The car company is destined for the mechanical mortuary (if not restructuring), with Zastava now taken over, fittingly, by Fiat.
Created with good, populist intentions (yet another car for the struggling, mobile-hungry Volk), it did achieve a few milestones apart from its otherwise sketchy record. The company, for instance, got into bed with Ford in the 1930s supplying trucks to the Yugoslavian army. It did the same with Fiat in 1953, producing two models under license from the Italian giant.
The car always had a sense of the derivative about it, despite spectacular forays into advertising and publicity. The Fiat 128 was the main model of copy, but when it came to jeeps in the 1950s, it was Willys-Overland who shaped up to help. What did not seem so derivative was the flesh that adorned the packages. Ravishing, scantily-clad Yugo-girls were thrown alongside promoted vehicles, pouting for the products. Vulgar yet irrepressibly functional, the Yugo seemed set to last.
In 1985, the Yugo appeared in the United States Tata-like, cheap and at the instigation of the entrepreneurial Malcolm Bricklin. At $3,990, the GV (‘Great Value’) hatchback seemed like a steal, but the only theft being perpetrated was on gullible buyers. Somewhere in the order of 140,000 were sold in the US till 1991, with numbers falling sharply in the last year of sale. All in all, some 800,000 were built over four decades.
Poor performances lent the Yugo to an increasing collection of jokes, many hovering somewhere between the inane and banal. Notable faults were the doomed gearbox, the shoddy workmanship of loosely assembled doors, and that rather limiting feature of repeated engine failure. ‘Why does a Yugo have a defroster on the rear window? To keep your hands warm while you push it.’ An American survey condemned it as the worst car of the millennium, and given the dross coming out of the US over the years, that’s saying something.
Not all have such a negative impression of the products of Zastava. Fonte Everette of Detroit was happy to admit to owning one when he was interviewed earlier this year. For him, the Yugo and his father’s wisdom went hand in hand. ‘If you’ve got a piece of a horse, you’ve got something to work with.’ Everette describes scenes of salivating onlookers hoping to make off with his mechanical beast, but no one was ever willing to offer the right price.
This piece of horse became a ubiquitous fixture of popular culture, and a host of films ran with it. In the stakes of fame (or infamousness), the car’s brand was guaranteed. Then there was that little matter of Yugoslavian unity. Modern governments, from Kuala Lumpur to Belgrade, have rendered cars totemic symbols. They may cost a fortune, and may not even work, but they at least they have a brand.
The excuses for the demise of this idiosyncratic car are piling up like scrap metal. The Yugo, precisely because it was advertised as a delectable cheapo, was treated as one (no need for oil checks, thanks). Abuse yields its predictable outcomes.
Metallica may well have drummed ‘The Day that Never Comes’ in the deadly desert, featuring the ill-fated Yugo (stationary, helplessly inert) which is eventually revived by American soldiers suspicious of its Afghan passengers, one, a demure, chador-clad woman. But the Marines are hardly likely to be storming to the Yugo’s rescue now.
The End of the Yugo: The Day that Did Come
By Binoy Kampmark
Let's not mince words. The Zastava Koral, known simply as the Yugo, was an abomination, but an endearing one. The last car, assembled by car workers Radoslav Simovic and Zarko Niciforovic, rolled off the line in the Serbian town of Kragujevac earlier this week. The car company is destined for the mechanical mortuary (if not restructuring), with Zastava now taken over, fittingly, by Fiat.
Created with good, populist intentions (yet another car for the struggling, mobile-hungry Volk), it did achieve a few milestones apart from its otherwise sketchy record. The company, for instance, got into bed with Ford in the 1930s supplying trucks to the Yugoslavian army. It did the same with Fiat in 1953, producing two models under license from the Italian giant.
The car always had a sense of the derivative about it, despite spectacular forays into advertising and publicity. The Fiat 128 was the main model of copy, but when it came to jeeps in the 1950s, it was Willys-Overland who shaped up to help. What did not seem so derivative was the flesh that adorned the packages. Ravishing, scantily-clad Yugo-girls were thrown alongside promoted vehicles, pouting for the products. Vulgar yet irrepressibly functional, the Yugo seemed set to last.
In 1985, the Yugo appeared in the United States Tata-like, cheap and at the instigation of the entrepreneurial Malcolm Bricklin. At $3,990, the GV (‘Great Value’) hatchback seemed like a steal, but the only theft being perpetrated was on gullible buyers. Somewhere in the order of 140,000 were sold in the US till 1991, with numbers falling sharply in the last year of sale. All in all, some 800,000 were built over four decades.
Poor performances lent the Yugo to an increasing collection of jokes, many hovering somewhere between the inane and banal. Notable faults were the doomed gearbox, the shoddy workmanship of loosely assembled doors, and that rather limiting feature of repeated engine failure. ‘Why does a Yugo have a defroster on the rear window? To keep your hands warm while you push it.’ An American survey condemned it as the worst car of the millennium, and given the dross coming out of the US over the years, that’s saying something.
Not all have such a negative impression of the products of Zastava. Fonte Everette of Detroit was happy to admit to owning one when he was interviewed earlier this year. For him, the Yugo and his father’s wisdom went hand in hand. ‘If you’ve got a piece of a horse, you’ve got something to work with.’ Everette describes scenes of salivating onlookers hoping to make off with his mechanical beast, but no one was ever willing to offer the right price.
This piece of horse became a ubiquitous fixture of popular culture, and a host of films ran with it. In the stakes of fame (or infamousness), the car’s brand was guaranteed. Then there was that little matter of Yugoslavian unity. Modern governments, from Kuala Lumpur to Belgrade, have rendered cars totemic symbols. They may cost a fortune, and may not even work, but they at least they have a brand.
The excuses for the demise of this idiosyncratic car are piling up like scrap metal. The Yugo, precisely because it was advertised as a delectable cheapo, was treated as one (no need for oil checks, thanks). Abuse yields its predictable outcomes.
Metallica may well have drummed ‘The Day that Never Comes’ in the deadly desert, featuring the ill-fated Yugo (stationary, helplessly inert) which is eventually revived by American soldiers suspicious of its Afghan passengers, one, a demure, chador-clad woman. But the Marines are hardly likely to be storming to the Yugo’s rescue now.
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