It’s all here. It may be a bit more than you wanted to know, and you may not want to read it too close to mealtime. Consider yourself forewarned.

Thanks to a comment from Eric of Wo Bu Mingbai, I’ve learned that the US propaganda people are playing their own games with Internet site blocking.

The U.S. government concocted a brilliant plan a few years ago: Why not give Internet surfers in China and Iran the ability to bypass their nations’ notoriously restrictive blocks on Web sites?
Soon afterward, the U.S. International Broadcasting Bureau (IBB) invented a way to let people in China and Iran easily route around censorship by using a U.S.-based service to view banned sites such as BBC News, MIT and Amnesty International.

But an independent report released Monday reveals that the U.S. government also censors what Chinese and Iranian citizens can see online. Technology used by the IBB, which puts out the Voice of America broadcasts, prevents them from visiting Web addresses that include a peculiar list of verboten keywords. The list includes “ass” (which inadvertently bans usembassy.state.gov), “breast” (breastcancer.com), “hot” (hotmail.com and hotels.com), “pic” (epic.noaa.gov) and “teen” (teens.drugabuse.gov).

“The minute you try to temper assistance with evading censorship with judgments about how that power should be used by citizens, you start down a path from which there’s no clear endpoint,” said Jonathan Zittrain, a Harvard University law professor and co-author of the report prepared by the OpenNet Initiative.

How stupid can we get?

In the abstract, the argument is a reasonable one. If the IBB’s service had blocked only hard-core pornographic Web sites, few people would object.

Instead, the list unintentionally reveals its author’s views of what’s appropriate and inappropriate. The official naughty-keyword list displays a conservative bias that labels any Web address with “gay” in them as verboten–a decision that affects thousands of Web sites that deal with gay and lesbian issues, as well as DioceseOfGaylord.org, a Roman Catholic site.

More to the point, the U.S. government could have set a positive example to the world regarding acceptance of gays and lesbians–especially in Iran, which punishes homosexuality with death.

18 months after waiting for things to improve under the new leadership of Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabo, two professors at Beijing University tell Joseph Kahn of the NY Times that censorship in China is worse than ever, and compare the censors to Nazis.

I don’t see how anyone can come away from this superb article feeling much hope for increased fredom of speech in China. Jiao Guobiao, a journalism professor at Beijing University, says that as in the days of the Cultural Revolution, censors still stifle free speech, and it’s getting worse, not better.

“Their censorship orders are totally groundless, absolutely arbitrary, at odds with the basic standards of civilization, and as counter to scientific common sense as witches and wizardry,” he wrote in the article – which has been widely circulated by Internet in Beijing despite, not unpredictably, being banned by the Communist Party’s propaganda department.

Such explicit outbursts of dissent are still rare in China. But Mr. Jiao is not alone in expressing frustration that, even after a long-awaited transition to a new generation of leaders some 18 months ago, China’s political scene remains stultifying. Intellectuals, Mr. Jiao said, are “supposed to act like children who never talk back to their parents.”

The leadership team headed by the president and party chief Hu Jintao that many hoped would tolerate more open debate has instead slapped new restrictions on free speech and the press that some say remind them of the repressive years after the 1989 Tiananmen Square crackdown.

State security agents have been scouring the Internet and pressing charges against people who use it to distribute information or express opinions deemed unfavorable. The authorities harassed scholars who took part in a debate about constitutional changes, disappointing some who believed that Mr. Hu had once invited discussion about how to strengthen the rule of law.

It’s another of those articles where I’d like to quote just about every line. Jiao’s scorn for the censors is palpable, and his outspokenness refreshing.

His [Jiao’s] treatise mocks the 10 “forbiddens” and 3 “musts” style used in propaganda orders and describes “14 diseases” and “4 cures,” one of which is abolishing censorship.

Among his criticisms: propaganda officials “protect thugs and corrupt officials” by banning reports on corruption. The reason, Mr. Jiao wrote, is that the propaganda officials “use the media administration power granted them by the Party to enrich themselves” with bribes.

During SARS, Mr. Jiao wrote, propaganda officials used the excuse of “social stability” to prohibit reporting about the disease. In fact, he argued, social stability was threatened because reporting was so inadequate, panicking people who felt they could not trust official sources of information.

“There’s not a shadow of scientific rigor in their brains,” he wrote. “They simply follow their own ignorant feelings.”

I keep seeing examples of individual bravery like this, and look for a sign that they are making a difference. Kahn, too, is obviously exasperated, referring to the “glacial pace of change” and noting that more topics have recently become forbidden for the media to discuss, like corruption.

When it comes to censorship, there’s no getting around the fact that Hu and Wen have brought the country backwards, badly disappointing those (like me) who foolishly took their initial overtures of reform and openess at face value.

What next?

A government commission is recommending to President Bush a series of measures to cut U.S. dollar flows to Cuba as part of a broader policy to hasten the end of the country’s communist system, an administration official said Sunday night.

….Last October, Bush announced the creation of the Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba and set a May 1 deadline for completion of a report. The concept and the timing appeared to be linked to maintaining in the November elections the solid support Bush received in 2000 from Cuban-Americans in Florida. Without their backing, the election would have gone to Democrat Al Gore.

Four of the five chapters in the 500-page report deal with ways to assist a post-Castro government that seeks to establish democracy. The other chapter focuses on ways to end Castro’s government.

I don’t like the sound of this at all. The timing smells, and besides, haven’t we learned that trying to build nations in our own image is a dangerous business that can backfire on us big time?

What can we do to bring about regime change where it’s needed most, i.e., the US? Today I started looking into doing volunteer work for the Kerry campaign. I can’t just blog about it anymore, I have to contribute. The very idea of four more years makes me nauseous.

This site has been so bombarded with spam comments over the past few days that I may have a nervous breakdown. I had to close many of the comment threads in earlier posts because the deluge was overwhelming.

I’ve looked into MT plugins for comment spam and they all require a knowledge of basic code that I don’t possess. If anyone knows a truly simple solution, please share it with me. Thanks.

UPDATE: I really appreciate the offers, here and in emails, to help me fix this nightmare. I don’t want anyone going out of his way to work on this, so I am having one of the creators of an anti-spam program check out my directory and install the program at a small charge. This morning I got 45 separate spam comments, all from an “enlargement” site. What a waste of my time.

Having lived in Singapore for the past year, where China is the theme of nearly every business article, I can attest to the fact that Friedman is exactly right:

Here’s what I learned in Tokyo: If you’re the leader of Japan, America, Australia, Taiwan, Malaysia, Russia, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, the Philippines or the European Union and you’re not going to bed each night saying the following prayer for China, then you’re not paying attention:

“Dear Heavenly Father, please keep the leader of China, President Hu Jintao, healthy and on an even keel. Please see to it that he moves steadily and carefully toward restructuring the Chinese banking system and ridding it of its huge overhang of bad loans and corruption, before there is a real meltdown that would be felt around the world. Give him the wisdom to cool the overheated Chinese economy without creating a recession that would prompt China to stop importing like crazy and start just exporting like crazy. And Father, forgive us for all the bad words we used in recent years to describe China’s leaders — terms like `Butchers of Beijing.’ We did not mean it. We meant to say `Bankers of Beijing,’ because their economy is now fueling growth all over Asia, bolstering Japan and sucking up imports from everywhere. May China’s leaders live to 120, and may they enjoy 9 percent G.D.P. growth every year of their lives. Thank you, Father. Amen.”

….If the China bubble bursts, it will be the mother of all burst bubbles. Which is why we need to pray that China’s leaders will have the skill to cool things down, just enough but not too much, without some wheels falling off.

The overheating Chinese economy and whether the country can finesse a soft landing as opposed to a spectacular crash is now the hottest topic in town. The fate of Asia, at least in the short term, depends on the answer. Friedman looks at just how difficult China’s problem is, mainly because it’s trapped in the tentaclces of its own system (SOEs, free-wheeling banks, reliance on foreign investment) and it really doesn’t have many options.

Everyone’s got a different opinion about whether or not China can come out of this relatively unscathed, so I’m steering clear of making predictions. So is Friedman:

One can only say three things: 1. They’ve done a pretty good job so far. 2. The job gets harder every day. 3. No one will be immune to the fallout. The relationship of the world to China right now reminds me of that old banker’s rule: If a client owes you $1,000, that’s his problem. If a client owes you $1 million, that’s your problem. China’s stability is our problem.

If you live in Singapore, one thing you do not want to do is get on the bad side of “senior minister” (read that to mean “President for Life”) Lee Kuan Yew like this poor bastard.

BBC World Affairs Editor John Simpson writes a scathing column accusing the UK and other world powers of turning their backs on China’s subversion of its “One Country, Two Systems” promise.

Last Monday the convenient fiction on which Britain handed over Hong Kong to China (“one country, two systems”) came to an end. The Standing Committee of China’s parliament, the National People’s Congress, declared that the inhabitants of Hong Kong could not elect their chief executive in 2007, nor vote for more than half the seats in the territory’s legislature in 2008.

Was there a wave of public outrage in Britain? What do you think? Some newspapers ran the kind of short, worthy column that only means one thing: the foreign editor can’t ignore the subject completely, but wants to get rid of it as fast as possible. The BBC’s Ten O’Clock News ran a stylish and intelligent report on the subject from its Beijing correspondent.

Otherwise there was a big public silence. The Foreign Office called in the Chinese ambassador to complain. The Americans, who to their credit have shown more concern for Hong Kong than the British, condemned the Chinese move publicly.

But that’s the extent of it. Seven years after the hand-over, the spirit of the Chinese-British deal has been destroyed, and we prefer to ignore it. In slightly menacing celebration, eight Chinese warships sailed into Hong Kong harbour last week, the biggest show of Chinese naval strength there since 1997.

He makes the case that the UK is appeasing China in the worst way, and that someday it may have to pay a heavy price for refusing to stand up to China while it still could.

UPDATE: This must-read article (and I mean it, if this subject interest you, you’ve got to see it) tells a somewhat different, more terrible story.

Well, I’m glad that puts an end to the uproar:

Top U.S. military officer Gen. Richard Myers said Sunday there is no widespread pattern of abuse of Iraqi prisoners and that the actions of “just a handful” of U.S. troops at a Baghdad prison have unfairly tainted all American forces.

Now Iraqis can sleep soundly tonight, knowing they’re safe in the hands of the occupying forces. The same article refers to Amnesty International’s report of a widespread “pattern of abuse” of Iraqi prisoners, but they must have got it wrong.

Actually, most Iraqis probably are safe under the protection of the occupiers. But if we honestly believe statements like Myers’ are going to restore trust and peace of mind to Iraqis who’ve been horrified by the recent photos from Abub Ghraib prison, we’re deluding ourselves. It’s going to take a supreme display of goodwill and repentance on our part if we’re ever going to rebuild that trust — like showing them that the people at the very top, those responsible for overseeing the catastrophe — are held accountable, and not just a handful of people on the ground who, it appears, were encouraged by their superiors to commit the acts of cruelty.

Even then, I’m skeptical that we can ever recover from this, at least in terms of the Iraqi occupation. As Joseph Bosco eloquently states today, America’s position as a leading advocate of human rights has been dealt a serious blow, one from which it won’t recover easily.

Now, quite sadly, current events have risen their so often ugly heads and presented all Americans with one of the most shameful lessons regarding the truth of what I have written and what so many military officers, historians and scholars have always known. I am writing of the truly heartbreaking proof of what American troops have done to Iraqi “detainees” in the Abu Ghraib prison just west of Baghdad. I am writing of something so ugly and so calculated and so systemic that I offer that it may be decades–if ever–before the Republic I love beyond measure can ever again have the moral authority to speak of human rights, human abuse or war crimes to even the most repressive regimes.

America, my country, in the name of freedom, liberation and democracy has treated detainees–within their own country, within the same prison where so many of them had been tortured and murdered by the regime we took it upon ourselves to overthrow largely because of its brutality to its citizens–with a sickening level of beastly violence upon their bodies and souls that is almost without precedence in American military history. There can be understanding, even sympathy, albeit grudgingly, when in the heated blood of combat and comrades lost that “enemies” are spontaneously lined up against a wall and machine-gunned. But deliberate torture? Much of it acts of sexual perversion and depravity to make even this old crime reporter reel and gag from the utter baseness of it?

I shed very real tears this day as I looked at the pictures and read the articles excerpted below. I did so for two reasons: One, just basic human compassion for any man–and the victims were all men–forced to undergo such soul-crushing indignities as seen in the pictures; two, because I know that we Americans may never be able to live this down, that perhaps never again can I lecture in my classes abroad about the basic goodness of the American process.

Be sure to check Joseph’s epic post, and understand how the stories exposed last week in Iraq will affect his role as an American professor in China for years to come.

Once again, George Bush’s excellent adventure as president has ripped a gaping hole in America’s image, and thrown gasoline on the flames that inspire our enemies to hate us. And this, from a man who will run on the platform of national security! I’d be shocked if this week’s events haven’t led to a surge in al Qaeda’s membership, and renewed their vows to destroy America, the great enemy.

Veteran muckracker Seymour Hersh has a devastating account of the abuses performed by Americans at the Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad.

The abuses have been going on a long time. Hersh got hold of a 53-page secret Pentagon report that lists the abuses in some detail:

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

Many of these Iraqis apparently had nothing to do with the insurgency, and were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Forget for the moment all the arguments about whether the abusers’ acts were right or wrong or justified or in accord with the Geneva Convention, etc. All that matters right now is what this means for America as we continue to pretend Iraqis view us as liberators and saviors.

Obviously these acts of stupidity and depravity can’t hold a candle to what Saddam used to do. But at a time when we are right on the verge of losing the support of the population we fought to liberate, this is as awful as it could get. How supportive would you be of a government that took US prisoners and urinated on them and tortured them and humiliated them, with the “security team” cheering and laughing in the background? And that’s how its perceived — it wasn’t a bunch of untrained fools who committed the torture, it was America.

And it looks like the only ones who’ll be punished will be the little people, none of the officers who are supposed to be responsible (they’re just going to be relieved of duty, it seems).

It’s been a bad few weeks for our little adventure in Iraq, but I won’t be surprised if this turns out to be pivotal. How on earth do we win back the trust of the man on the street in Iraq after he’s seen these images?

Most Americans in Iraq, I believe, want to see the operation succeed and want to build a better Iraq. But the entire prinicple of nation-building is founded on trust. Right now, any trust that had remained has been pretty well obliterated.

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men….

UPDATE: Seymour Hersh’s 3rd article is just out, and it’s merciless.