OF THE
TIMES
Well fancy that: this document shows HMG responds to #rendition questions by hiding details of flights 2 Diego Garcia pic.twitter.com/MlQ3kni1Xq
- Ian Cobain (@IanCobain) July 13, 2014
"Through Diego Garcia," Vine pointed out, "the U.S. can project its power throughout the Middle East, and from East Africa to India, Australia and Indonesia. With Guam, the island is the most important American base outside the U.S." He said U.S. bases now number around 1,000, including 287 in Germany, 130 in Japan and Okinawa, and 57 in Italy.Diego Garcia - A brief history lesson: U.S. military forcibly transported inhabitants and gassed their dogs
"Bases have been essential tools of U.S. military and economic power since not long after independence," Vine pointed out. "We had bases all the way to the Pacific. After the Civil War, the U.S. began to acquire coaling bases in the Pacific."
Although the Chagossians were forcibly removed in 1971, they still hope to return, Vine says, and refer to their period of exile as one of "profound sorrow." Vine says they would be happy to live on the unused eastern portion of the island and work at the base but the U.S. instead "imports contract labor from other areas so they can send them home when the job is done." The island's exiled survivors and their descendants today number about 5,000.
Long off limits to reporters, the Red Cross, and all other international observers and far more secretive than Guantánamo Bay, many long suspected the island was a clandestine CIA "black site" for high-profile detainees, Vine wrote in a related article. Journalist Stephen Grey's 2006 book "Ghost Plane" documented the presence on the island of a CIA-chartered plane used for rendition flights. On two occasions former U.S. Army General Barry McCaffrey publicly named Diego Garcia as a detention facility. And a Council of Europe report named the atoll, along with those in Poland and Romania, as a secret prison.
Map created by Léopold Lambert for The Funambulist (July 10, 2014)As the military siege on Gaza (the fourth since the 2005 evacuation of the Israeli settlers) continue to kill every day (81 Palestinian killed in bombings so far), I go back, once again to the idea that we should as much focus on the exceptional violence that affects many of us emotionally, as on the normal violence that unfolds itself on a daily basis upon what has been legitimately named "the largest prison on earth (1.65 millions inhabitants). Let it be clear, making maps won't save any life, and the production of knowledge during urgent situation is always problematic. Moreover, maps tend to be disincarnated and therefore carry the risk of a desensitization on the contrary of photographs and/or videos that allow us to identify with situated bodies. There is therefore a need for articulating the emotional approach to violence - it manifests most of the time through the notion of spectacular - with a more structural and analytical approach of it, as I have been recently writing again.
Download a high-quality version of the map here (5MB)
(license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommerical-ShareAlike 4.0)
Comment: Russia is taking steps to counter US hegemony and it appears that Putin's government is doing well in its attempts to forge new alliances. This may explain the US-led Ukrainian government's increased attempts to create chaos, thus drawing Russia directly into war.
US failing to push economic sanctions against Russia through EU allies
Unintended consequences? Western sanctions will cause Russia to change its economic partners...for the better
Russia, China banking deal to exclude dollar in transactions - Symbolic blow to dollar
Bear baiting: Russia vows response after Ukraine shell kills 1, injures 2 in Russian city