The Abomin Obministration on the Wrong Side of Torture . . . Again

From FDL, June 10, 2011

By Laura Raymond

The Obama administration has just recommended that the U.S. Supreme Court not hear a case brought by torture victims of Abu Ghraib and other detention centers in Iraq – a recommendation that leaves the Iraqi torture victims without any redress or accountability for those responsible for their torture. Through their case, Saleh v. Titan, these Iraqi civilians, many of whom still suffer from the effects of the physical and psychological harm done to them, seek to hold the two U.S. corporations implicated in their torture – CACI International and L-3 Services (formerly Titan Corporation) – accountable in a U.S. courthouse, and have their case heard by an American jury. These two corporations – military contractors – provided translation and interrogation services in the detention centers where some of the most notorious acts of torture are known to have taken place. Investigations into the torture – including investigations by the military itself – have concluded that contractors from CACI and L-3 were involved in "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses." The acts of torture at issue in this case include severe beatings, electrocution, threatening detainees with dogs, food and sleep deprivation, shackling in painful positions for hours, confining detainees in coffin-sized boxes, urinating on them, exposing them to extreme heat and cold, forcing them to watch the beating and rape of other prisoners, including their family members, threatening them with rape and execution, and raping and otherwise sexually assaulting and humiliating them.  __________ Related: Obama Rolls Back Miranda Rights The Obama administration has created a new interrogation policy in which investigators may waive the Miranda warning if they think it necessary to get timely intelligence from a terrorism suspect.

In a pure coincidence, Gaddafi impeded U.S. oil interests before the war

From Salon, June 11, 2011

By Glenn Greenwald

When the war in Libya began, the U.S. government convinced a large number of war supporters that we were there to achieve the very limited goal of creating a no-fly zone in Benghazi to protect civilians from air attacks, while President Obama specifically vowed that "broadening our military mission to include regime change would be a mistake."  This no-fly zone was created in the first week, yet now, almost three months later, the war drags on without any end in sight, and NATO is no longer even hiding what has long been obvious: that its real goal is exactly the one Obama vowed would not be pursued -- regime change through the use of military force.  We're in Libya to forcibly remove Gaddafi from power and replace him with a regime that we like better, i.e., one that is more accommodating to the interests of the West.  That's not even a debatable proposition at this point.

What I suppose is debatable, in the most generous sense of that term, is our motive in doing this.  Why -- at a time when American political leaders feel compelled to advocate politically radioactive budget cuts to reduce the deficit and when polls show Americans solidly and increasingly opposed to the war -- would the U.S. Government continue to spend huge sums of money to fight this war?  Why is President Obama willing to endure self-evidently valid accusations -- even from his own Party -- that he's fighting an illegal war by brazenly flouting the requirements for Congressional approval?  Why would Defense Secretary Gates risk fissures by so angrily and publicly chiding NATO allies for failing to build more Freedom Bombs to devote to the war?  And why would we, to use the President's phrase, "stand idly by" while numerous other regimes -- including our close allies in Bahrain and Yemen and the one in Syria -- engage in attacks on their own people at least as heinous as those threatened by Gaddafi, yet be so devoted to targeting the Libyan leader? Whatever the answers to those mysteries, no responsible or Serious person, by definition, would suggest that any of this  -- from today's Washington Post-- has anything to do with it: The relationship between Gaddafi and the U.S. oil industry as a whole was odd. In 2004, President George W. Bush unexpectedly lifted economic sanctions on Libya in return for its renunciation of nuclear weapons and terrorism. There was a burst of optimism among American oil executives eager to return to the Libyan oil fields they had been forced to abandon two decades earlier. . . . Yet even before armed conflict drove the U.S. companies out of Libya this year, their relations with Gaddafi had soured.The Libyan leader demanded tough contract terms. He sought big bonus payments up front. Moreover, upset that he was not getting more U.S. government respect and recognition for his earlier concessions, he pressured the oil companies to influence U.S. policies. . . . When Gaddafi made his deal with Bush in 2004, he had hoped that returning foreign oil companies would help boost Libya’s output . . . The U.S. government also encouraged American oil companies to go back to Libya. . . . The companies needed little encouragement. Libya has some of the biggest and most proven oil reserves -- 43.6 billion barrels -- outside Saudi Arabia, and some of the best drilling prospects. . . . Throughout this time, oil prices kept rising, whetting the appetite for greater supplies of Libya's unusually "sweet" and "light," or high-quality, crude oil. By the time Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited in 2008, U.S. joint ventures accounted for 510,000 of Libya's 1.7 million barrels a day of production, a State Department cable said. . . . But all was not well. By November 2007, a State Department cable noted "growing evidence of Libyan resource nationalism." It noted that in his 2006 speech marking the founding of his regime, Gaddafi said: "Oil companies are controlled by foreigners who have made millions from them. Now, Libyans must take their place to profit from this money." His son made similar remarks in 2007. Oil companies had been forced to give their local subsidiaries Libyan names, the cable said. . . . The entire article is worth reading, as it details how Gaddafi has progressively impeded the interests of U.S. and Western oil companies by demanding a greater share of profits and other concessions, to the point where some of those corporations were deciding that it may no longer be profitable or worthwhile to drill for oil there.  But now, in a pure coincidence, there is hope on the horizon for these Western oil companies, thanks to the war profoundly humanitarian action being waged by the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize winner and his nation's closest Western allies: But Libya's oil production has foundered, sagging to about 1.5 million barrels a day by early this year before unrest broke out. The big oil companies, several of which had drilled dry holes, felt that Libya was not making the best exploration prospects available. One major company privately said that it was on the verge of a discovery but that unrest cut short the project. With the country torn by fighting, the big international oil companies are treading carefully, unwilling to throw their lot behind Gaddafi or the rebel coalition. Yet when representatives of the rebel coalition in Benghazi spoke to the U.S.-Libya Business Council in Washington four weeks ago, representatives from ConocoPhillips and other oil firms attended, according to Richard Mintz, a public relations expert at the Harbour Group, which represents the Benghazi coalition. In another meeting in Washington, Ali Tarhouni, the lead economic policymaker in Benghazi, said oil contracts would be honored, Mintz said. "Now you can figure out who’s going to win, and the name is not Gaddafi," Saleri said. "Certain things about the mosaic are taking shape. The Western companies are positioning themselves." "Five years from now," he added, "Libyan production is going to be higher than right now and investments are going to come in." I have two points to make about all this: (1) The reason -- the only reason -- we know about any of this is because WikiLeaks (and, allegedly, Bradley Manning) disclosed to the world the diplomatic cables which detail these conflicts.  Virtually the entirety of thePost article -- like most significant revelations over the last 12 months, especially in the Middle East and North Africa -- are based exclusively on WikiLeaks disclosures.  That's why we know about Gaddafi's increasingly strident demands for the "Libyanization" of his country's resource exploitation.  That's how we know about most of the things we've learned about the world's most powerful political and corporate factions over the last 12 months.  Is there anything easier to understand than why U.S. Government officials are so eager to punish WikiLeaks and deter future transparency projects of this sort? (2) Is there anyone -- anywhere -- who actually believes that these aren't the driving considerations in why we're waging this war in Libya?  After almost three months of fighting and bombing -- when we're so far from the original justifications and commitments that they're barely a distant memory -- is there anyone who still believes that humanitarian concerns are what brought us and other Western powers to the war in Libya?  Is there anything more obvious -- as the world's oil supplies rapidly diminish -- than the fact that our prime objective is to remove Gaddafi and install a regime that is a far more reliable servant to Western oil interests, and that protecting civilians was the justifying pretext for this war, not the purpose?  If (as is quite possible) the new regime turns out to be as oppressive as Gaddafi but far more subservient to Western corporations (like, say, our good Saudi friends), does anyone think we're going to care in the slightest or (at most) do anything other than pay occasional lip service to protesting it?  Does anyone think we're going to care about The Libyan People if they're being oppressed or brutalized by a reliably pro-Western successor to Gaddafi? In 2006, George Bush instructed us that there was a "responsible" and an "irresponsible" way for citizens to debate the Iraq War: the "responsible" way was to suggest that there may be better tactics for waging the war more effectively, while the "irresponsible" way was to outrageously insinuate that perhaps oil or Israel or deceit played a role in the invasion: Yet we must remember there is a difference between responsible and irresponsible debate -- and it's even more important to conduct this debate responsibly when American troops are risking their lives overseas. The American people know the difference between responsible and irresponsible debate when they see it. They know the difference between honest critics who question the way the war is being prosecuted and partisan critics who claim that we acted in Iraq because of oil, or because of Israel, or because we misled the American people. And they know the difference between a loyal opposition that points out what is wrong, and defeatists who refuse to see that anything is right. Earlier this month, Hillary Clinton hosted a meeting of top executives from a wide array of corporations -- Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Halliburton, GE, Chevron, Lockheed Martin, Citigroup, Occidental Petroleum, etc. etc. -- to plot how to exploit "economic opportunities in the new Iraq."  And one WikiLeaks "diplomatic" cable after the next reveals constant government efforts topromote the interests of Western corporations in the developing world.  Nonetheless, the very notion that the U.S. wages wars not for humanitarian or freedom-spreading purposes, but rather to exploit the resources of other nations for its own large corporations, is deeply "irresponsible" and unSerious.  As usual, the ideas stigmatized with the most potent taboos are the ones that are the most obviously true. It's certainly possible to contend reasonably that (as was true for Iraq) removing a heinous dictator and other humanitarian outcomes will be the incidental by-product of our war in Libya even if not its purpose (although, as was also true in Iraq, one would need to see the regime that replaces Gaddafi to know if that's true).  And it's fine -- or at least candid -- to argue, as Ann Coulter often does, that "of course we should go to war for oil. . . .We need oil. That's a good reason to go to war." But to believe that humanitarianism (protection of Libya civilians) was why we went to war in Libya requires a blindness so willful and complete that it's genuinely difficult to describe.

US government to set up internet Ministry of Truth as communist-style government-run media

From NaturalNews, Friday, June 10, 2011 
by: J. D. Heyes

 It sounds like such an innocent idea, one rooted in "fairness" and wrapped in good intentions. An internet "ministry of truth," run either by the federal government or the United Nations, to protect against "misinformation and rumors" that find their way to the information superhighway.

Such an agency "would have to be an independent federal agency that no president could countermand or anything else because people wouldn't think you were just censoring the news and giving a different falsehood out."

No, that's not Russia's Vladimir Putin or Chinese President Hu Jintao making that absurd suggestion. That one came from former President Bill Clinton, the man who lied to the American public about his affair with Monica Lewinsky. If such an agency would have been in existence during his tenure, you have to think he would have been convicted during his impeachment trial in the Senate for sure.

A truth ministry would operate something like the BBC or perhaps National Public Radio (no bias there), Clinton said, and its scope would be narrowly defined to "not express opinions" and to identify "relevant factual errors." Clinton, of course, does not go on to saywhogets to define what a "factual error" is, but we presume it would be the commies who run this agency.

Clinton's call for this new federal agency comes on the heels of similar rantings by a man named Cass Sunstein, the Obama administration's info-czar, who all Web sites should be forced to link to opposing viewpoints or contain pop-ups filled with government information.

George Orwell must be laughing in his grave; our founding fathers must be rolling over in theirs.

No doubt part of Clinton's angst about the internetis the fact that it was an early internet entrepreneur -Matt Drudge, founder of DrudgeReport.com- who broke the story about the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal after Newsweek refused to run it.

Clinton's "suggestion" that Congressmove to regulate the internet builds on that same common theme shared among other members of our Legislative branch, as well as the Federal Communications Commission. In April House Republicans led the effort in passing legislation aimed at preventing the FCC from imposing so-called "net neutrality" regulations on the World Wide Web that opposinglawmakerssaid would give the agency immense censorshippower.

"The FCC power grab would allow it to regulate any interstate communication service on barely more than a whim and without any additional input from Congress," said Rep. Greg Walden, R-Ore.

The call to regulate the internet is no different than other calls to limit free speech, such as the establishment of "protest zones" on college campuses, public streets and in other venues. When the "fairness" angle hasn't polled well, other lawmakers have resorted to calling for internet regulation based on "national security concerns."

It was Thomas Jefferson, the father of the U.S. Constitution and third president of the United States, who once said, "The price of freedom is eternal vigilance." Clinton's call for a dictatorial info-suppression agency, with support from some U.S. lawmakers and the federal agency charged with guarding free speech, means Americans had better keep their heads in the game if they want to continue to experience the freedom the internet helps guarantee.



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(Somewhat) related: 

I.M.F. Reports Cyberattack Led to ‘Very Major Breach’

IMF Financial Terrorism

by Stephen Lendman
In July 1944, the IMF and Bank for Reconstruction and Development (now the World Bank) were established to integrate developing nations into the Global North-dominated world economy in ways other than initially mandated.

Under a new post-war monetary system, the IMF was created to stabilize exchange rates linked to the dollar and bridge temporary payment imbalances. The World Bank was to provide credit to war-torn developing countries. Both bodies, in fact, proved hugely exploitive, using debt entrapment to transfer public wealth to Western bankers and other corporate predators.

On a grander scale today, the scheme destructively obligates indebted nations to take new loans to service old ones, assuring rising indebtedness and structural adjustment harshness, including:

-- privatization of state enterprises, many sold for a fraction of their real worth;

-- mass layoffs;

-- deregulation;

-- deep social spending cuts;

-- wage freezes or cuts;

-- unrestricted free market access for western corporations;

-- corporate-friendly tax cuts;

-- tax increases for working households;

-- crushing trade unionism; and

-- harsh repression against opposition to a system incompatible with social democracy, civil and human rights.

As a result, bankers and other corporate predators strip mine countries of their material wealth and resources, shift them from public to private hands, crush democratic values, hollow out nations into backwaters, destroy middle class societies, and turn workers into serfs if they manage to have any means of employment.

In other words, perpetual debt bondage substitutes for freedom. A race to the bottom follows. An elite few benefit at the expense of the many, entrapped nations henceforth forced to pay homage to their money masters, effectively handing over their sovereignty. 

As a result, neoliberalism is neo-Malthusianism writ large, destroying humanity to save it. Its holy trinity, in fact, mandates no public sphere, unrestrained corporate empowerment, and eliminating social spending to devote all state resources for bottom line profits, national security and internal control. 

Except for the privileged few, it's the worst, not the best, of all possible worlds, financializing economies into debt bondage, transforming them into hollow shell dystopian backwaters.

For example, in the 1980s, 187 IMF loans caused poverty, hunger, malnutrition, disease and death for many developing countries, including all sub-Saharan ones entrapped by structural adjustment harshness. Their growth, in fact, declined on average by 2.2% per year, and per capita income dropped below pre-independence levels.

Debt service required health expenditures cut 50% and education by 25%. Moreover, as indebtedness rises, so does forced austerity, what, in fact, becomes a death spiral requiring new loans to service old ones, a never-ending cycle to oblivion for many nations in hock to IMF mandates.

In Latin America, the 1980s was a lost decade. Loans to Chile required 40% wage cuts. During Mexico's 1982 debt crisis, wages as well as spending for health, education, and basic infrastructure dropped by half. As a result, infant mortality tripled and vital human needs were unmet to assure bankers got paid.

By decade's end, developing nations overall, in fact, were worse off, not better, deeper than ever in debt the way IMF officials planned. Devaluations followed. Debts burgeoned. Growth fell. Earlier from 1976 to 1982, Latin American borrowing doubled, 70% of new loans needed to service old ones.

Yet Article I of the IMF's Articles of Agreement audaciously says it lends:

"to give confidence to members by making the general resources of the Fund temporarily available to them under adequate safeguards, thus providing them with opportunity to correct maladjustments in their balance of payments without resorting to measures destructive of national or international prosperity."

The IMF's web site states it provides loans to reduce poverty and increase economic development, adding that "(i)n difficult economic times, (it) helps countries to protect the most vulnerable in a crisis." 

It fact, it does precisely the opposite, entrapping them in debt, poverty and depravation, operating as a global loan shark, demanding not a pound of flesh but all of it no matter the pain and suffering caused.

Once shock therapy entrapped Chile under Pinochet, unemployment rose from 9.1 to 18.7% between 1974 and 1975. At the same time, output fell 12.9% as cheap imports flooded the country. As a result, local businesses closed, hunger grew, and so did mass disenchantment with economic harshness followed by repressive crackdowns against challenges to regime control. 

A decade later, growth resumed, but only after conditions worsened, including 45% of Chileans impoverished while the nation's richest 10% saw their incomes rise by 83%.

It works the same way everywhere under IMF mandates, including mass impoverishment, public wealth transferred to private hands, out-of-control corruption and cronyism, and nations transformed into hollow shells to benefit super-rich elitists already with too much.

In 1980s Bolivia under Victor Paz Estenssoro, austerity included wage freezes, ending food subsidies, lifting price controls, hiking oil prices 300%, imposing deep social spending cuts, permitting unrestricted imports, downsizing state enterprises before privatizing them, and letting unemployment rise sharply.

The decade through the early 1990s saw Latin American debt rise from $110 billion in 1980 to $473 in 1992, accompanied by interest payments growing from $6.4 billion to $18.3 billion. As a result, worker livelihoods, health and welfare suffered. Globally, in fact, many millions lucky enough to have work endure sub-poverty wages to let foreign predators cash in, profiting enormously on their misery.

The scenario replicated from sub-Saharan Africa to Latin America to Russia and Asian Tiger countries in 1997/98, looting them one at a time or in combination, turning Asia's miracle, in fact, into disaster. 

The International Labor Organization estimated 24 million lost jobs as a result of selling state enterprises at fire sale prices, replacing local brands with Western ones, and letting foreign predators benefit from what The New York Times called "the world's biggest going-out-of-business sale." 

At the same time, Asian workers became human wreckage, the fallout IMF policy statements never explain, perpetuating the myth they offer help as a lender of last resort when, in fact, their mandate is plunder for profit, no matter the damage caused.

Mandated Austerity in Greece

In his June 7 article titled, "Will Greece let EU Central Bankers Destroy Democracy," Michael Hudson discusses proposed bailout terms, calling them "an opportunity for privatization grabs," what local voters didn't bargain for with 2000 Euroland membership. 

They didn't understand its unintended consequences, including agreeing to foreign-controlled central bank authority running Greece like a colony, substituting its will over national sovereignty.

According to Professor William Black (former senior bank regulator and Savings and Loan prosecutor), Eurozone membership has strings, including foregoing rights to:

-- to devalue currencies to make exports more competitive;

-- sovereignty over members' own money or (for "periphery nations") influence over European Central Bank (ECB) policies; and

-- expansive fiscal policies to stimulate growth.

In fact, mandated bondage "is a double oxymoron - preventing effective counter-cyclical fiscal policies harm(ing) growth and stability throughout the Eurozone," weak members hurting stronger ones.

Moreover, like all debt-entrapped countries, Greece's bailout price is structural adjustment harshness, making a bad situation worse. It requires new infusions during hard times, causing rising indebtedness - the familiar IMF-imposed death spiral no responsible leader should accept.

Last year, however, in return for a $150 billion loan, Greek Prime Minister Georgios Papandreou imposed earlier cuts, including:

-- large public worker layoffs;

-- public sector 10% wage cuts, including a 30% reduction in salary entitlements;

-- cutting civil service bonuses 20%;

-- freezing pensions;

-- raising the average retirement age two years;

-- higher fuel, alcohol, tobacco, and luxury goods taxes with much more to come given Greece's worsening debt problem.

Euroland officials now demand them in return for more bailout help, Eurogroup President Jean-Claude Juncker expecting Greek political consensus to agree, saying:

"In the case of countries with difficulties, it would be wise for the principal political forces of those countries to agree on the path to follow. That's what happened in Ireland, and that's what we would like to happen between the political parties in Greece," no matter the economic wreckage or human cost.

Undeterred, on June 8, Papandreou announced new tax increases and over $9 billion in spending cuts. Earlier he divulged plans to raise nearly $75 billion by privatizing state enterprises, including water companies, Piraeus and Thessalonika port facilities, the Athens racecourse, Greece's Postbank, a casino, the OPAP lottery company, and state rail system.

However, Brussels demands more, including deeper cuts and selling off Greece's crown jewels at fire sale prices, effectively ceding its entire sovereignty to foreign buyers able to strip mine its wealth, no matter the human cost.

Greek public assets are worth an estimated $440 billion. Brussels wants at least the best of them sold as well as no restructuring to assure full debt repayment in return for another $125 billion loan. 

However, given Greece's rising burden, no amount is enough as greater austerity impedes economic growth and recovery, compounding its current crisis.

The Argentina Solution

On May 31, Irish Times.com headlined, "Ireland 'may try to restructure debt,' " saying:

According to Ernst and Young, "Ireland may try to restructure its debt to lower interest payments or extend the maturity on its borrowings as the economy contracts again this year." 

Like Greece, Portugal, Spain, Italy, and troubled Eastern European countries, Ireland's burden shows no signs of abating, perhaps heading it either for restructuring or default as the most sensible step to take.

In December 2001, Argentina halted all debt payments to domestic and foreign creditors. Months earlier, an IMF loan didn't help. Nearly $100 billion in debt was restructured, completed in 2005 on a take it or leave it basis, imposing stiff haircuts to bondholders agreeing to terms of around 65%, deciding something was better than nothing. Most holdouts out finally capitulated in 2010 on similar terms. 

Sustained economic growth followed from 2003 through 2007, helped by debt restructuring and a devalued currency. Eurozone countries can relieve their burdens with a similar option, reclaiming their sovereignty by reinstating their pre-euro currencies, what they never should have sacrificed in the first place.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon. All programs are archived for easy listening.
http://www.progressiveradionetwork.com/the-progressive-news-hour/.
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Related:

Clinton Warns Against Non-American Colonialism In Africa

New economic concepts of the day: "biflation" and "screwflation"

From The Reformed Broker:

Introducing…Biflation

Here a new one for us all to wring our hands over...

From BalanceJunkie:
The term biflation is relatively new, having been introduced by an analyst named F. Osborne Brown in 2003. Like most new concepts, there is still a lot of debate over its exact definition and parameters. Simply stated, biflation is an economic environment in which inflation of commodity-based assets occurs simultaneously with deflation in debt-based assets. I’ve heard a lot of people describe it as inflation in the things we need and deflation in the things we want, or inflation in services with deflation in durables. Indeed, the following chart shows that this phenomenon has actually been present for well over a decade:

Josh here, we've been talking about this already for some time but usually we've been calling it stagflation in a nod to the conditions of the 1970's.  With high oil prices and unemployment, we can be forgiven for the comparison.  F. Osborne Brown's biflation is a bit different though...

How is biflation different from stagflation? While biflation refers to an environment in which some prices are increasing and others are decreasing, stagflation refers to a period of more generalized inflation coupled with overall economic weakness. The biflation parameters don’t seem to make any direct calls on economic strength or weakness, but it seems like rising prices in things we need coupled with falling prices in more discretionary items would not be great for economic prosperity.

For the full explanation of what these conditions are all about, head over below.

Source:

Are You Ready for Biflation? (BalanceJunkie)

________-

From The Business Insider:

Doug Kass: "Screwflation" Is Slamming The Middle Class And Threatening The Stock Market

Our economy is an environment of "screwflation," in which inflation is rising and the middle class is being hit with a multitude of other burdens, threatening the health of the stock market, according to Doug Kass.
Kass explains that while prices on goods like food and fuel are rising hitting weaker consumers, fundamental changes in the U.S. economy have also left the middle and lower classes disadvantaged.
Those include a housing bubble that has left many middle class Americans unemployed, technology changes that have made many jobs obsolete, temporary work which has made an income stream less reliable, globalization which has moved jobs abroad, and the rising cost of education and health care.
The result is a long-term potential threat to the U.S. retail market. The solution is cutting taxes on the middle class, more tax incentives to encourage job creation, and domestic infrastructure and energy spending, according to Kass.
Read the full story at Barrons >

Please follow Money Game on Twitter and Facebook.
Join the conversation about this story »

Another CIA Blunder – ‘Kidnapped US Lesbian’ In Syria PsyOp Exposed

From Pakalert, June 11, 2011 

By JOHN STEVENS

• London woman says photo of U.S. lesbian blogger ‘kidnapped in Syria’ is actually her
• Jelena Lecic said: ‘I don’t know how this happened, I’ve never met her. This has put me in danger’
• Blogger’s ‘girlfriend’ admits she’s never met her
• Story of alleged kidnap was reported across the globe

The reported kidnap of a U.S. lesbian blogger in Syria has come into question after a woman in Britain claimed that photos being used to call for her release are actually her.

Thousands of campaigners joined protest groups after media outlets across the world reported that Amina Arraf, a blogger known for her frank posts about her sexuality and her open criticism of President Bashar Assad had been detained.

But a woman in London came forward today claiming the photos being circulated were actually her, raising questions about the existence of the blogger.

Fake? These photos had been used by the prolific gay blogger

Concerns: Jelena Lecic said that the identity theft has put her in danger

Jelena Lecic found out that pictures of her were being used by the blogger when she saw her photo used next to an article in a British newspaper.

It reported that on Monday the supposed U.S. citizen was bundled into a car by three men in their 20s in civilian clothes in Damascus, the capital of Syria, where homosexuality is illegal.

‘That is absolutely my picture taken in the last year in Paris,’ Miss Lecic told the BBC’s Newsnight.

‘It was [taken] on my birthday. I don’t know how this happened. I was very upset to see my picture.

‘I’ve never met her [Amina]. I’m not part of her blog. I’m not friends with her,’ said the Croatian who is working as an adminstrator at the Royal College in London.

‘I’m very upset because you have privacy settings on Facebook and obviously it doesn’t work because anyone can hijack your picture.

‘This has put me in danger. This person is a gay activist in Syria. I really don’t feel comfortable.’

Stolen identity: Jelena Lecic, who lives in London, said her photo was used alongside stories about the ‘missing’ Syrian blogger

Lesbian blogger? A woman in London said this photo reported to be of blogger Amina Arraf is actually her

Miss Lecic believes that her identity was stolen about a year ago, when her Facebook photographs appeared on another person’s profile.

An activist with the Local Coordination Committees, a group which helps documents the protests calling for an end to the Assad regime, had confirmed to reporters on Tuesday that Arraf had been taken.

But on Wednesday, the same activist said the group had ‘no independent confirmation’ and had reported it based on an entry by Arraf’s cousin on her ‘A Gay Girl in Damascus’ blog and from two people who claimed to be friends but who also got the information from the blog.

‘As far as we know, nobody’s emerged who has actually met her,’ the activist said.

On Tuesday news outlets across the globe reported the story of Amina Arraf, who it was claimed wrote a blog called ‘A Gay Girl in Damascus’, a mixture of erotic prose and updates about Syria’s uprising, including her participation in anti-regime protests.

Campaign: Thousands of people have joined a Facebook group calling for the release of Amina Arraf

Gay girl in Damascus: Followers of the blog have started a campaign for her to be freed

A person claiming to be her cousin, Rania Ismail, posted on her cousin’s blog, that Arraf  had been taken in a car that had a sticker depicting Assad’s late brother Basel, according to a friend who was nearby and saw what happened.

‘Amina hit one of them,’ her cousin posted on Monday night. ‘One of the men then put his hand over Amina’s mouth and they hustled her into a red Dacia Logan.’

‘We are hoping she is simply in jail and nothing worse has happened to her,’ Miss Ismail wrote.

A woman who had claimed to have been Arraf’s girlfriend has admitted she had never actually met her.

Sandra Bagaria, who had said she ‘crashed to the street’ sobbing when she heard about the kidnapping, had conducted an online relationship with her since January entirely through Internet communications in writing, including more than 500 e-mails.

The protests go on: Hundreds took to the streets in Talbiseh, in the central province of Homs, after it came under attacks from government troops

The day before the supposed blogger was reportedly detained, Arraf wrote: ‘I am complex, I am many things; I am an Arab, I am Syrian, I am a woman, I am queer, I am Muslim, I am binational, I am tall, I am too thin; my sect is Sunni, my clan is Omari, my tribe is Quraysh, my city is Damascus.

In the blog Arraf also said that she was born in Virginia, but no public records with her name or her parents’ names have been found there.

Since the uprising against Assad began in mid-March, a government crackdown has left about 1,300 people dead and more than 10,000 detained, according to human rights groups.

Homosexuality is illegal in Syria and gays are frowned upon by the country’s conservative society. It is rare for gay Arabs to speak openly about their sexuality.

Thousands of people had joined a ‘Free Amina’ Facebook page, calling for her release.


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Update:

Another CIA/MI6 troll bites the dust: Is 'Gay Girl in Damascus' blogger really a student at Edinburgh University? Reports in the U.S. suggest that Miss Arraf, who claims to have been born in the States, has been sending emails from a computer with an Edinburgh IP address. 10 Jun 2011 A blogger who has become an internet sensation with her tales of the Syrian uprising could in fact be an Edinburgh-based hoaxer. Amina Arraf won support for her outspoken criticism of the Syrian 'regime' after she began posting under the name 'A Gay Girl in Damascus'. But after a letter claiming to be from her cousin said she had gone missing in the Syrian capital Damascus, having possibly been arrested by the authorities, questions began to be asked about how genuine the blog is.