Scotsman.com News - International - Poland named as main base for secret CIA terror interrogations
MICHAEL HOWIE
POLAND is the CIA's main centre for detaining terrorist suspects in Europe at clandestine prisons, a leading human rights investigator has claimed.
Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst with Human Rights Watch, said his organisation had documents proving Poland was 'the main base' for interrogating prisoners and showing Romania was a transit point for moving terror suspects.
Poland's leaders continue vigorously to deny any involvement in alleged secret CIA prisons.
But Mr Garlasco claimed: 'Poland was the main base of interrogating prisoners and Romania was more of a hub.
'This is what our sources from within the CIA tell us and what is shown from the documents we gathered.'
Mr Garlasco said an 'operation on such a scale could not have happened without the knowledge of the Polish authorities. There are people who took part in it, there are flight records.'
He said about 25 important terror suspects were interrogated in Poland near a former military airport in Szymany, in the north, and in a much larger facility in the south.
Meanwhile, there was confusion over whether Scottish police were investigating claims by Green MSP Mark Ruskell that CIA 'torture flights' landed secretly at an RAF base en route to other countries. Fife Constabulary Chief Constable Peter Wilson wrote to Mr Ruskell informing him that 'inquiries' would be made into the claims. A force spokesman yesterday said an investigation was underway.
But Mr Wilson, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers in Scotland, later told The Scotsman that no formal inquiry would be held into claims that RAF Leuchars, or any other Scottish airport, had been used for the so-called 'extraordinary rendition' flights, as there was no evidence any crime had taken place or was being planned.
Several Scottish airports, including Prestwick, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Inverness, are already known to have been used by at least 176 secret flights carrying Islamic militants abroad for interrogation that would be illegal in America.
Greater Manchester Chief Constable Michael Todd has agreed to meet the head of a leading human rights group to discuss a possible probe into claims the 'torture flights' have landed on airports throughout the UK."
Saturday, December 10, 2005
A Sanctuary for Torturers
A Sanctuary for Torturers
By Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith, The Nation
Posted on December 7, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/29214/
Thousands of well-meaning people are mobilizing to pressure Congress to pass legislation banning torture. But the Bush Administration is maneuvering to turn it into legislation that would instead protect the torturers by eliminating a basic legal right. To stop them, torture opponents will need to be not just as innocent as doves but also as cunning as foxes.
When Congress returns to Washington on Monday, a campaign will unfold in support of Senator John McCain's legislation banning torture, which is attached to a defense bill. But McCain's amendment is accompanied by one from Senator Lindsey Graham that bans the appeals that prisoners at Guantanamo have used to take their cases to civilian courts.
In the 2004 case Rasul v. Bush, brought on behalf of Guantanamo captives, the Supreme Court established the right of foreigners held by the United States to habeas corpus, the 800-year-old legal procedure grounded in the Magna Carta and enshrined in the US Constitution, which requires government officials to explain to a court why they are holding someone in captivity. Graham's amendment strips courts of the power to hear such cases.
Graham sprang his amendment on the Senate in the closing days of the session with no hearings and little debate. A firestorm of criticism forced Graham to accept a compromise--negotiated with Democratic Senator Carl Levin--that allows captives limited appeals to civilian courts. (Newsweek has reported that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and White House Counsel Harriet Miers were also in on the negotiations.) But the Graham compromise still strips federal courts of jurisdiction to hear applications for habeas corpus brought by Guantanamo prisoners.
The Senate passed the compromise amendment 84 to 14. Republican Senator Arlen Specter, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, described it as "a sophisticated, blatant attempt at court-stripping."
Bill Goodman, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the first habeas corpus cases for Guantanamo captives, says the Graham amendment "will formalize the lawless policies of the Bush Administration that allow the Department of Defense to hold prisoners indefinitely without any requirement that it show any reason for doing so." That has and will continue to result in "torture of US prisoners."
The Graham amendment bans habeas corpus appeals against conditions of confinement. The consequence, according to Michael Dorf, the Sovern Professor of Law at Columbia University, is that "a prisoner cannot get into federal court by claiming (or presenting evidence) that he is being subject to torture or otherwise degrading treatment."
Deviously, the Graham amendment has been packaged with McCain's anti-torture amendment. But the package will make things worse, not better, for Guantanamo captives unless Graham's amendment banning habeas corpus is removed. As Bill Goodman points out, while the pair of amendments "profess to ban torture," without the right to judicial oversight, they are "defanged." They are "a right without a remedy and, as such, meaningless."
The Bush Administration is now negotiating with Graham and others to make the legislation even more restrictive. A Justice Department spokesperson told Newsweek, "We definitely agree with the principle behind the current bill, though there are still some concerns that the language may need to be improved." White House spokesman Trent Duffy also told Newsweek that the White House is positive about the Graham bill and is "working with Senator Graham on technical aspects" of the legislation.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has talked with Senator Graham about the bill at least twice. The Justice Department spokesperson told Newsweek Gonzales was "particularly focused on thwarting some of the 160 habeas lawsuits filed by Gitmo detainees." (Gonzales was the author of the notorious 2002 memo advising the President that the Geneva Conventions did not apply in order to provide "a solid defense to any future prosecution" of US officials under the War Crimes Act. Gonzales's personal role in laying the groundwork for torture is sufficient for professor Marjorie Cohn, now president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, to have drafted an indictment of Gonzales for violating the War Crimes Act.)
The Bush Administration is apparently divided. Despite the role of the White House in preparing the Graham compromise amendment, Vice President Cheney opposed it. Indeed, Cheney has fought any legislation that would eliminate the government's right to torture, though he seems willing to compromise on language that leaves the CIA, but not the military, free to torture. In the past, President Bush has threatened to veto the entire defense bill if McCain's anti-torture amendment is included.
Both the Graham and McCain amendments are attached to a defense bill that now goes to a Senate-House conference. Graham and Levin plan to demand that the final legislation include both.
The conference committee will undoubtedly be the focus of pressure from those who want to preserve the right of habeas corpus. A statement by Habeas Counsel, the coalition of prestigious attorneys representing Guantanamo captives, says, "To legislate this way is disgraceful. It is also completely unnecessary. This is not an emergency situation. The Graham-Levin amendment should be stripped out in conference. The genuine deliberation required by the gravity of the issue can then begin."
Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, a member of the Progressive Caucus and an outspoken opponent of torture and "extraordinary rendition" (a k a government-run kidnapping), describes the task facing cunning progressive foxes:
"If the US wants to demonstrate that we are a nation committed to justice and the rule of law, we should adopt the McCain amendment barring torture and drop the Graham amendment suspending habeas corpus rights for those detained at Guantanamo Bay. If persons held by the US lack the right to challenge their detention or their treatment, the McCain amendment's protections against torture and other forms of cruel or humiliating treatment may turn out to be illusory."
Only nine of the more than 500 Guantanamo captives have even been charged with crimes, and their trials are being prolonged year after year. This is exactly the situation habeas corpus is designed to remedy. And without it, the captives can rot in prison forever and possibly be subject to torture and inhumane treatment that the courts are unable even to learn about.
Graham and the Bush Administration oppose rights for Guantanamo detainees in part on the grounds that they are terrorists who deserve no better. They refuse to face the very real possibility of innocent people caught up in the system, acknowledged by the military's own commanders at Guantanamo. According to the Wall Street Journal:
"American commanders acknowledge that many prisoners shouldn't have been locked up here in the first place because they weren't dangerous and didn't know anything of value. 'Sometimes, we just didn't get the right folks,' says Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, Guantanamo's current commander."
Graham's original proposal to eliminate habeas corpus for foreign captives was met by extraordinary condemnation. Ten retired military leaders endorsed a letter from Rear Adm. John Hutson calling the restriction on habeas corpus a "momentous" change. "The practical effects of such a bill would be sweeping and negative." Signers included Army Lieut. Gen. Robert Gard, Marine Maj. Gen. Fred Haynes and other senior officers.
Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, the organization of military lawyers, said the Graham amendment would sanction "unreviewable executive detention that cannot be harmonized with the nation's longstanding adherence to the rule of law."
The American Bar Association has urged the Senate to reconsider and defeat the original Graham amendment. Michael Greco, president of the association, gave a stirring defense of habeas corpus, which "cannot and should not" be replaced by the "extremely limited review" provided by the Graham amendment, which "would undermine the very principles that distinguish us from our enemies."
Does Congress have the power to tell the Supreme Court what cases it can or cannot hear? In American law, courts have the power to review the constitutionality of legislation passed by Congress, but they tend to defer to the other branches of government, especially where national security issues are involved.
Both Graham's original amendment and his compromise amendment directly conflict with the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul v. Bush that Guantanamo captives have the right to habeas corpus. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a challenge to the constitutionality of the Bush Administration's military tribunals for Guantanamo captives.
No one knows how the Court would respond to an instruction from Congress to reverse its interpretation of the Constitution. Indeed, the conflict over the power of courts to hear prisoners' appeals is plunging the country into an ongoing constitutional crisis in which all three branches of government are involved.
Since treatment of captives held by the United States has included well-documented cases of torture, brutality and even treatment leading to death, the Graham amendment would erect a screen behind which such crimes may be conducted with impunity. Opponents of torture need to make sure they are not inadvertently helping to pass an amendment that would protect torturers.
By Jeremy Brecher and Brendan Smith, The Nation
Posted on December 7, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/29214/
Thousands of well-meaning people are mobilizing to pressure Congress to pass legislation banning torture. But the Bush Administration is maneuvering to turn it into legislation that would instead protect the torturers by eliminating a basic legal right. To stop them, torture opponents will need to be not just as innocent as doves but also as cunning as foxes.
When Congress returns to Washington on Monday, a campaign will unfold in support of Senator John McCain's legislation banning torture, which is attached to a defense bill. But McCain's amendment is accompanied by one from Senator Lindsey Graham that bans the appeals that prisoners at Guantanamo have used to take their cases to civilian courts.
In the 2004 case Rasul v. Bush, brought on behalf of Guantanamo captives, the Supreme Court established the right of foreigners held by the United States to habeas corpus, the 800-year-old legal procedure grounded in the Magna Carta and enshrined in the US Constitution, which requires government officials to explain to a court why they are holding someone in captivity. Graham's amendment strips courts of the power to hear such cases.
Graham sprang his amendment on the Senate in the closing days of the session with no hearings and little debate. A firestorm of criticism forced Graham to accept a compromise--negotiated with Democratic Senator Carl Levin--that allows captives limited appeals to civilian courts. (Newsweek has reported that Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and White House Counsel Harriet Miers were also in on the negotiations.) But the Graham compromise still strips federal courts of jurisdiction to hear applications for habeas corpus brought by Guantanamo prisoners.
The Senate passed the compromise amendment 84 to 14. Republican Senator Arlen Specter, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, described it as "a sophisticated, blatant attempt at court-stripping."
Bill Goodman, legal director for the Center for Constitutional Rights, which brought the first habeas corpus cases for Guantanamo captives, says the Graham amendment "will formalize the lawless policies of the Bush Administration that allow the Department of Defense to hold prisoners indefinitely without any requirement that it show any reason for doing so." That has and will continue to result in "torture of US prisoners."
The Graham amendment bans habeas corpus appeals against conditions of confinement. The consequence, according to Michael Dorf, the Sovern Professor of Law at Columbia University, is that "a prisoner cannot get into federal court by claiming (or presenting evidence) that he is being subject to torture or otherwise degrading treatment."
Deviously, the Graham amendment has been packaged with McCain's anti-torture amendment. But the package will make things worse, not better, for Guantanamo captives unless Graham's amendment banning habeas corpus is removed. As Bill Goodman points out, while the pair of amendments "profess to ban torture," without the right to judicial oversight, they are "defanged." They are "a right without a remedy and, as such, meaningless."
The Bush Administration is now negotiating with Graham and others to make the legislation even more restrictive. A Justice Department spokesperson told Newsweek, "We definitely agree with the principle behind the current bill, though there are still some concerns that the language may need to be improved." White House spokesman Trent Duffy also told Newsweek that the White House is positive about the Graham bill and is "working with Senator Graham on technical aspects" of the legislation.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales has talked with Senator Graham about the bill at least twice. The Justice Department spokesperson told Newsweek Gonzales was "particularly focused on thwarting some of the 160 habeas lawsuits filed by Gitmo detainees." (Gonzales was the author of the notorious 2002 memo advising the President that the Geneva Conventions did not apply in order to provide "a solid defense to any future prosecution" of US officials under the War Crimes Act. Gonzales's personal role in laying the groundwork for torture is sufficient for professor Marjorie Cohn, now president-elect of the National Lawyers Guild, to have drafted an indictment of Gonzales for violating the War Crimes Act.)
The Bush Administration is apparently divided. Despite the role of the White House in preparing the Graham compromise amendment, Vice President Cheney opposed it. Indeed, Cheney has fought any legislation that would eliminate the government's right to torture, though he seems willing to compromise on language that leaves the CIA, but not the military, free to torture. In the past, President Bush has threatened to veto the entire defense bill if McCain's anti-torture amendment is included.
Both the Graham and McCain amendments are attached to a defense bill that now goes to a Senate-House conference. Graham and Levin plan to demand that the final legislation include both.
The conference committee will undoubtedly be the focus of pressure from those who want to preserve the right of habeas corpus. A statement by Habeas Counsel, the coalition of prestigious attorneys representing Guantanamo captives, says, "To legislate this way is disgraceful. It is also completely unnecessary. This is not an emergency situation. The Graham-Levin amendment should be stripped out in conference. The genuine deliberation required by the gravity of the issue can then begin."
Representative Edward Markey of Massachusetts, a member of the Progressive Caucus and an outspoken opponent of torture and "extraordinary rendition" (a k a government-run kidnapping), describes the task facing cunning progressive foxes:
"If the US wants to demonstrate that we are a nation committed to justice and the rule of law, we should adopt the McCain amendment barring torture and drop the Graham amendment suspending habeas corpus rights for those detained at Guantanamo Bay. If persons held by the US lack the right to challenge their detention or their treatment, the McCain amendment's protections against torture and other forms of cruel or humiliating treatment may turn out to be illusory."
Only nine of the more than 500 Guantanamo captives have even been charged with crimes, and their trials are being prolonged year after year. This is exactly the situation habeas corpus is designed to remedy. And without it, the captives can rot in prison forever and possibly be subject to torture and inhumane treatment that the courts are unable even to learn about.
Graham and the Bush Administration oppose rights for Guantanamo detainees in part on the grounds that they are terrorists who deserve no better. They refuse to face the very real possibility of innocent people caught up in the system, acknowledged by the military's own commanders at Guantanamo. According to the Wall Street Journal:
"American commanders acknowledge that many prisoners shouldn't have been locked up here in the first place because they weren't dangerous and didn't know anything of value. 'Sometimes, we just didn't get the right folks,' says Brig. Gen. Jay Hood, Guantanamo's current commander."
Graham's original proposal to eliminate habeas corpus for foreign captives was met by extraordinary condemnation. Ten retired military leaders endorsed a letter from Rear Adm. John Hutson calling the restriction on habeas corpus a "momentous" change. "The practical effects of such a bill would be sweeping and negative." Signers included Army Lieut. Gen. Robert Gard, Marine Maj. Gen. Fred Haynes and other senior officers.
Eugene Fidell, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, the organization of military lawyers, said the Graham amendment would sanction "unreviewable executive detention that cannot be harmonized with the nation's longstanding adherence to the rule of law."
The American Bar Association has urged the Senate to reconsider and defeat the original Graham amendment. Michael Greco, president of the association, gave a stirring defense of habeas corpus, which "cannot and should not" be replaced by the "extremely limited review" provided by the Graham amendment, which "would undermine the very principles that distinguish us from our enemies."
Does Congress have the power to tell the Supreme Court what cases it can or cannot hear? In American law, courts have the power to review the constitutionality of legislation passed by Congress, but they tend to defer to the other branches of government, especially where national security issues are involved.
Both Graham's original amendment and his compromise amendment directly conflict with the Supreme Court's decision in Rasul v. Bush that Guantanamo captives have the right to habeas corpus. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear Hamdan v. Rumsfeld, a challenge to the constitutionality of the Bush Administration's military tribunals for Guantanamo captives.
No one knows how the Court would respond to an instruction from Congress to reverse its interpretation of the Constitution. Indeed, the conflict over the power of courts to hear prisoners' appeals is plunging the country into an ongoing constitutional crisis in which all three branches of government are involved.
Since treatment of captives held by the United States has included well-documented cases of torture, brutality and even treatment leading to death, the Graham amendment would erect a screen behind which such crimes may be conducted with impunity. Opponents of torture need to make sure they are not inadvertently helping to pass an amendment that would protect torturers.
Goodbye, New Orleans
Goodbye, New Orleans
By Mike Tidwell, OrionOnline.org
Posted on December 9, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/29274/
As we reach the 90-day mark since Katrina hit, it's time we ended our national state of denial. Turns out House Speaker Dennis Hastert had it right all along, though his reasons were flawed. We should call it quits in New Orleans not because the city can't be made relatively safe from hurricanes. It can be. And not because to do so is more trouble than it's worth. It's not. But because the Bush Administration has already given New Orleans a quiet kiss of death now that the story has run its news cycle.
As someone who dearly loves New Orleans and has experienced many of her charms, it pains me immeasurably to call for this retreat. This is not a rhetorical stunt or a shock argument meant to invite compromise talks. I mean what I say: Shut the city down and board it up before thousands more lives are lost.
In the weeks after Katrina, the American media somehow portrayed the catastrophe as a matter of failed levees and flawed evacuation plans. The "What went wrong?" coverage involved autopsies of every breached dike and a witch hunt for those responsible for the Superdome and Convention Center fiascos. But these were just horrifying symptoms of a much larger disease.
Katrina destroyed the Big Easy -- and future Katrinas will do the same -- not because of engineering failures but because one million acres of coastal islands and marshland have vanished in Louisiana in the last century due to human interference. These land forms served as natural "speed bumps," reducing the lethal surge tide of past hurricanes and making New Orleans habitable in the first place.
But while encouraging city residents to return home and declaring for the media audience that "we will do whatever it takes" to save the city, the President earlier this month formally refused the one thing New Orleans simply cannot live without: A restored network of barrier islands and coastal wetlands.
Tens of billions of dollars have been authorized to treat the symptoms -- broken levees, insufficient emergency resources, destroyed roads and bridges -- but next to nothing for the disease itself, that of disappeared land, which ushered the ocean into the city to begin with. No amount of levee building or stockpiling of bottled water will ever save New Orleans until the state's barrier shoreline is restored.
Just since World War II an area of land the size of Rhode Island has turned to water between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico, most of it former marshland. And every 2.7 miles of marshland reduces a hurricane surge tide by a foot, dispersing the storm's power. Simply put, had Katrina struck in 1945 instead of 2005, the surge that reached New Orleans would have been as much as 5-10 feet less than it was.
These marshes, as well as the barrier islands, were created by the sediment-rich flood waters of the Mississippi River deposited over thousands of years. But modern levees have prevented this natural flooding, and the existing wetlands, starved for new sediments and nutrients, have eroded and "subsided" and just washed away. Every ten months, even without hurricanes, an area of Louisiana land equal to Manhattan turns to water. That's 50 acres a day. A football field every 30 minutes!
A $14 billion plan to fix this problem -- a plan widely viewed as technically sound and supported by environmentalists, oil companies, and fishermen alike -- has been on the table for years and was pushed forward with greater urgency after Katrina hit. But for reasons hard to fathom, yet utterly lethal in their effect, the administration has turned its back on this plan. Instead of investing the equivalent of six weeks of spending in Iraq, or the cost of the Big Dig in Boston, we must now prepare to pay for another inevitable $200 billion hurricane just around the corner in Louisiana.
The grand plan to change all this, commonly known as the Coast 2050 plan, would use massive pipelines and pumps and surgically designed canals to guide a portion of the river's sediment-thick water back toward the coastal buffer zone without destroying existing infrastructure or communities. This would rebuild hundreds of thousands of acres of wetlands over time and reconstruct entire barrier islands in as little as 12 months. (It is estimated that the government's plan to rebuild the levees could take decades.) Everyone agrees the plan will work. The National Academy of Sciences confirmed the soundness of the approach just last week and urged quick action.
Yet in its second and final post-Katrina emergency spending package sent to Congress on November 8th, the White House dismissed the rescue plan with a shockingly small $250 million proposed authorization instead of the $14 billion requested.
How could this administration, found totally unprepared for the first Katrina, not see the obvious action needed to prevent the next one? My theory is that Bush hears "wetlands" and retreats to a blind, ideological aversion to all things "environmental." Which perhaps explains why in multiple speeches given during six photo-op trips to the Gulf since Katrina hit, the President has not one time mentioned the words barrier islands or wetlands. Not once.
"Either they don't get it or they just don't care," said Mark Davis, director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. "But the results are the same: more disaster."
So stop the repairs; put the brooms and chain saws away. Close the few businesses that have re-opened. Leave the levees in their tattered state and get out. Right now. Everybody. It's utterly unsafe to live there.
To encourage people to return to New Orleans, as Bush is doing, without funding the only plan that can save the city from the next Big One, is to commit an act of mass homicide. If, after all the human suffering and expense of this national ordeal, the federal government can't be bothered to spend the cost of a tunnel from Logan Airport to downtown Boston, then the game is truly over.
Anyone who doesn't like this news -- farmers who export grain through the port of New Orleans, New Englanders who heat their homes with natural gas from the Gulf, cultural enthusiasts who like their gumbo in the French Quarter -- should all direct their comments straight to the White House. But don't wait around for a response.
Mike Tidwell is the author of Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast.
By Mike Tidwell, OrionOnline.org
Posted on December 9, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/29274/
As we reach the 90-day mark since Katrina hit, it's time we ended our national state of denial. Turns out House Speaker Dennis Hastert had it right all along, though his reasons were flawed. We should call it quits in New Orleans not because the city can't be made relatively safe from hurricanes. It can be. And not because to do so is more trouble than it's worth. It's not. But because the Bush Administration has already given New Orleans a quiet kiss of death now that the story has run its news cycle.
As someone who dearly loves New Orleans and has experienced many of her charms, it pains me immeasurably to call for this retreat. This is not a rhetorical stunt or a shock argument meant to invite compromise talks. I mean what I say: Shut the city down and board it up before thousands more lives are lost.
In the weeks after Katrina, the American media somehow portrayed the catastrophe as a matter of failed levees and flawed evacuation plans. The "What went wrong?" coverage involved autopsies of every breached dike and a witch hunt for those responsible for the Superdome and Convention Center fiascos. But these were just horrifying symptoms of a much larger disease.
Katrina destroyed the Big Easy -- and future Katrinas will do the same -- not because of engineering failures but because one million acres of coastal islands and marshland have vanished in Louisiana in the last century due to human interference. These land forms served as natural "speed bumps," reducing the lethal surge tide of past hurricanes and making New Orleans habitable in the first place.
But while encouraging city residents to return home and declaring for the media audience that "we will do whatever it takes" to save the city, the President earlier this month formally refused the one thing New Orleans simply cannot live without: A restored network of barrier islands and coastal wetlands.
Tens of billions of dollars have been authorized to treat the symptoms -- broken levees, insufficient emergency resources, destroyed roads and bridges -- but next to nothing for the disease itself, that of disappeared land, which ushered the ocean into the city to begin with. No amount of levee building or stockpiling of bottled water will ever save New Orleans until the state's barrier shoreline is restored.
Just since World War II an area of land the size of Rhode Island has turned to water between New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico, most of it former marshland. And every 2.7 miles of marshland reduces a hurricane surge tide by a foot, dispersing the storm's power. Simply put, had Katrina struck in 1945 instead of 2005, the surge that reached New Orleans would have been as much as 5-10 feet less than it was.
These marshes, as well as the barrier islands, were created by the sediment-rich flood waters of the Mississippi River deposited over thousands of years. But modern levees have prevented this natural flooding, and the existing wetlands, starved for new sediments and nutrients, have eroded and "subsided" and just washed away. Every ten months, even without hurricanes, an area of Louisiana land equal to Manhattan turns to water. That's 50 acres a day. A football field every 30 minutes!
A $14 billion plan to fix this problem -- a plan widely viewed as technically sound and supported by environmentalists, oil companies, and fishermen alike -- has been on the table for years and was pushed forward with greater urgency after Katrina hit. But for reasons hard to fathom, yet utterly lethal in their effect, the administration has turned its back on this plan. Instead of investing the equivalent of six weeks of spending in Iraq, or the cost of the Big Dig in Boston, we must now prepare to pay for another inevitable $200 billion hurricane just around the corner in Louisiana.
The grand plan to change all this, commonly known as the Coast 2050 plan, would use massive pipelines and pumps and surgically designed canals to guide a portion of the river's sediment-thick water back toward the coastal buffer zone without destroying existing infrastructure or communities. This would rebuild hundreds of thousands of acres of wetlands over time and reconstruct entire barrier islands in as little as 12 months. (It is estimated that the government's plan to rebuild the levees could take decades.) Everyone agrees the plan will work. The National Academy of Sciences confirmed the soundness of the approach just last week and urged quick action.
Yet in its second and final post-Katrina emergency spending package sent to Congress on November 8th, the White House dismissed the rescue plan with a shockingly small $250 million proposed authorization instead of the $14 billion requested.
How could this administration, found totally unprepared for the first Katrina, not see the obvious action needed to prevent the next one? My theory is that Bush hears "wetlands" and retreats to a blind, ideological aversion to all things "environmental." Which perhaps explains why in multiple speeches given during six photo-op trips to the Gulf since Katrina hit, the President has not one time mentioned the words barrier islands or wetlands. Not once.
"Either they don't get it or they just don't care," said Mark Davis, director of the Coalition to Restore Coastal Louisiana. "But the results are the same: more disaster."
So stop the repairs; put the brooms and chain saws away. Close the few businesses that have re-opened. Leave the levees in their tattered state and get out. Right now. Everybody. It's utterly unsafe to live there.
To encourage people to return to New Orleans, as Bush is doing, without funding the only plan that can save the city from the next Big One, is to commit an act of mass homicide. If, after all the human suffering and expense of this national ordeal, the federal government can't be bothered to spend the cost of a tunnel from Logan Airport to downtown Boston, then the game is truly over.
Anyone who doesn't like this news -- farmers who export grain through the port of New Orleans, New Englanders who heat their homes with natural gas from the Gulf, cultural enthusiasts who like their gumbo in the French Quarter -- should all direct their comments straight to the White House. But don't wait around for a response.
Mike Tidwell is the author of Bayou Farewell: The Rich Life and Tragic Death of Louisiana's Cajun Coast.
China's diplomatic and military muscle flexing
http://www.financialexpress.com/fe_full_story.php?content_id=111090
China?s diplomatic and military muscle flexing
HIDEAKI KANEDA
President Bush?s recent Asia visit made little news ?by design. But that?s because Bush didn?t begin to address the issue that is looming ever larger in the region: the changing face of security in Asia in view of China?s growing economic and military might.
This summer, for example, China and Russia conducted their first-ever grand-scale joint military exercise. This was followed by Russian news reports that China, Russia, and India would conduct trilateral military exercises, named ?Indira 2005,? on the same scale before the end of this year.
In the past, such a combination of countries was almost unthinkable, and these exercises cannot be explained away as simple ?one-off? affairs with little resonance. Instead, they reflect China?s long-term strategic goal of establishing hegemony across Asia.
One tool of this ambition is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) under which the Sino-Russian exercises took place. Established in June 2001, it includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The SCO?s original aim was to mitigate tensions on China?s borders and the Central Asian countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the arrival of the US military with the war in Afghanistan.
China regards the SCO as a stage for broadening its influence over a vast region, ranging from the Asia-Pacific to Southwest Asia, the Middle East, East Africa, and the Indian Ocean. Its members include about 45% of the world?s population, and 28% of the landmass across the Eurasian continent.
China?s active leadership of the SCO has resulted in policies that it favours.The SCO is often used as a forum to campaign against supposed American unilateralism and to provide a united front?especially between China and Russia? against the US with respect to security and arms-reduction issues in the region. This includes joint anti-terror training and demands to reduce US forces in the region, particularly from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
The SCO provides China not only with a platform to confront the existing US-led alliance in the Asia-Pacific region, but is increasingly being used to prevent the formation of a US-led network to restrain China?s advance. It is feared that it could develop into a military alliance similar to the Warsaw Pact of the Cold War era, with an embryonic ?Great China Union? at its core.
But China?s regional diplomacy goes far beyond the SCO. It seizes every opportunity that comes its way, including the Six Party Talks on North Korea?s nuclear ambitions, to emphasise its centrality to the settlement of any and all Asian issues. It continues to build its ?string of pearls? of military bases at key points on maritime transportation routes along the ?arc of instability? from the Middle East to China?s coast.
No one seems to know how to respond to China?s diplomatic and military muscle flexing in Asia, for the extent of China?s ambitions remains utterly unclear. But, while everyone else ponders China?s motives, its government is acting. Indeed, the UK?s premier security think-tank, the Institute for International Strategic Studies, recently warned that while the world focuses on the fight against international terrorism and the unfolding events in the Middle East, China is rapidly expanding its influence from Asia to Africa.
The ?pearls? in Africa include Sudan, Angola, Algeria, Gabon, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Djibouti, Mali, Central Africa, Liberia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In each, China is nurturing special military and commercial relations intended to promote loyalty to Chinese interests.
Growing Chinese influence begets increased support for Chinese policies. Of course, it?s a two-way street. Whenever complaints come up in the United Nations? Human Rights Committee, China can count on the support of many African countries that have their own human rights problems. Even the selection of Beijing as the site of the 2008 Olympics benefited from ?African votes.? And China has publicly stated it will back African nations in potential disputes at the WTO and other organisations.
Many African states seem to be leaning heavily towards China in its dispute with Taiwan. When Japan tried to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, few African countries backed its bid, despite receiving economic aid for decades.
China likes to boast of its ?peaceful rise.? But the rise of Bismarck?s Germany at the end of the 19th century was also peaceful, for a while. The question is not whether China rises to great-power status peacefully, but whether it intends to remain peaceful when it gets there. Just as the world confronted the ?German Question? 125 years ago, it is now confronting the ?China Question.? We need a better answer this time.
The author, a former viceadmiral of Japan?s Defence Forces, is director of the Okazaki Institute, Tokyo
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2005
China?s diplomatic and military muscle flexing
HIDEAKI KANEDA
President Bush?s recent Asia visit made little news ?by design. But that?s because Bush didn?t begin to address the issue that is looming ever larger in the region: the changing face of security in Asia in view of China?s growing economic and military might.
This summer, for example, China and Russia conducted their first-ever grand-scale joint military exercise. This was followed by Russian news reports that China, Russia, and India would conduct trilateral military exercises, named ?Indira 2005,? on the same scale before the end of this year.
In the past, such a combination of countries was almost unthinkable, and these exercises cannot be explained away as simple ?one-off? affairs with little resonance. Instead, they reflect China?s long-term strategic goal of establishing hegemony across Asia.
One tool of this ambition is the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) under which the Sino-Russian exercises took place. Established in June 2001, it includes China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. The SCO?s original aim was to mitigate tensions on China?s borders and the Central Asian countries after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the arrival of the US military with the war in Afghanistan.
China regards the SCO as a stage for broadening its influence over a vast region, ranging from the Asia-Pacific to Southwest Asia, the Middle East, East Africa, and the Indian Ocean. Its members include about 45% of the world?s population, and 28% of the landmass across the Eurasian continent.
China?s active leadership of the SCO has resulted in policies that it favours.The SCO is often used as a forum to campaign against supposed American unilateralism and to provide a united front?especially between China and Russia? against the US with respect to security and arms-reduction issues in the region. This includes joint anti-terror training and demands to reduce US forces in the region, particularly from Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
The SCO provides China not only with a platform to confront the existing US-led alliance in the Asia-Pacific region, but is increasingly being used to prevent the formation of a US-led network to restrain China?s advance. It is feared that it could develop into a military alliance similar to the Warsaw Pact of the Cold War era, with an embryonic ?Great China Union? at its core.
But China?s regional diplomacy goes far beyond the SCO. It seizes every opportunity that comes its way, including the Six Party Talks on North Korea?s nuclear ambitions, to emphasise its centrality to the settlement of any and all Asian issues. It continues to build its ?string of pearls? of military bases at key points on maritime transportation routes along the ?arc of instability? from the Middle East to China?s coast.
No one seems to know how to respond to China?s diplomatic and military muscle flexing in Asia, for the extent of China?s ambitions remains utterly unclear. But, while everyone else ponders China?s motives, its government is acting. Indeed, the UK?s premier security think-tank, the Institute for International Strategic Studies, recently warned that while the world focuses on the fight against international terrorism and the unfolding events in the Middle East, China is rapidly expanding its influence from Asia to Africa.
The ?pearls? in Africa include Sudan, Angola, Algeria, Gabon, Namibia, Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe, Uganda, Djibouti, Mali, Central Africa, Liberia, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. In each, China is nurturing special military and commercial relations intended to promote loyalty to Chinese interests.
Growing Chinese influence begets increased support for Chinese policies. Of course, it?s a two-way street. Whenever complaints come up in the United Nations? Human Rights Committee, China can count on the support of many African countries that have their own human rights problems. Even the selection of Beijing as the site of the 2008 Olympics benefited from ?African votes.? And China has publicly stated it will back African nations in potential disputes at the WTO and other organisations.
Many African states seem to be leaning heavily towards China in its dispute with Taiwan. When Japan tried to become a permanent member of the UN Security Council, few African countries backed its bid, despite receiving economic aid for decades.
China likes to boast of its ?peaceful rise.? But the rise of Bismarck?s Germany at the end of the 19th century was also peaceful, for a while. The question is not whether China rises to great-power status peacefully, but whether it intends to remain peaceful when it gets there. Just as the world confronted the ?German Question? 125 years ago, it is now confronting the ?China Question.? We need a better answer this time.
The author, a former viceadmiral of Japan?s Defence Forces, is director of the Okazaki Institute, Tokyo
Copyright: Project Syndicate, 2005
CIA scandal deepens in Germany
CIA scandal deepens in Germany
By STEFAN NICOLA
UPI Germany Correspondent
KEHL AM RHEIN, Germany, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- The scandal surrounding a German national allegedly abducted by the CIA continues with fresh revelations almost daily.
According to a newspaper report, the German Federal Intelligence Service, known by the acronym BND, fed U.S. intelligence with information on Khaled el-Masri, who says he was kidnapped Dec. 31, 2003, by the CIA in Macedonia and held in a prison in Afghanistan for five months.
"We might have called attention to el-Masri through information we shared with U.S. intelligence," a German intelligence source, who did not want to be identified, told Friday's Berliner Zeitung. "It's quite conspicuous that the Americans asked el-Masri about information they obtained from us."
So far, news reports have claimed Masri was abducted because he shares his name with a high-ranking al-Qaida member linked to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Masri, however, claims he was not asked about his alleged connection to the terror attacks on New York City and Washington -- his interrogators squeezed him mainly for knowledge of the Islamist scene of his Bavarian hometown Neu-Ulm, a city of 50,000.
The interrogators repeatedly asked about Masri's Neu-Ulm-based acquaintance Reda Seyam, whom the U.S. believes to be a radical Islamist, the newspaper reported. The German intelligence official told the daily he believes Masri's interrogators knew quite well whom they had in custody. He said German intelligence had material on Masri because he popped up in Seyam's environments from time to time. "But he was far too inconspicuous to become a real suspect," he said.
The list of who knew what in the affair over Masri's kidnapping seems to grow longer with each day. Already, former Interior Minister Otto Schily and acting Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier have had to admit they knew of the case.
Opposition politicians have called for Steinmeier's head, but the left-right grand coalition of German Chancellor Angela Merkel has so far stood by him. Before becoming foreign affairs chief, Steinmeier had been chief-of-staff to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
As the political career of Schily, 73, is over, it won't have much of an effect on the former anti-terror chief, observers say.
Both politicians, however, will have to testify before a parliamentary commission in Germany that is dealing with the affair. The findings of the commission will stay classified.
But other findings likely won't.
Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in the name of Masri against former CIA Director George Tenet and 10 "John Doe" CIA employees involved in his abduction to Afghanistan.
Masri's German lawyer, Manred Gnjidic, said Merkel's remarks from her meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice significantly improve his client's chances in the legal struggle in the United States.
"Mrs. Merkel's comment was one of the most important steps for us in the last months," Gnjidic told Spiegel Online. "They're the first step toward the truth."
Asked over the fate of Masri, Merkel on Tuesday in a news conference after a private meeting with Rice said:
"We talked about that particular case, which has been accepted by the U.S. government as a mistake."
Gnjidic is even considering calling Merkel to the witness stand.
"The chancellor will have to explain to us precisely what she meant when she said it was a mistake and how she came about saying that," he said. "Her remarks have increased the pressure on the U.S. government to finally tell the truth about CIA practices."
Merkel's comment caused considerable discomfort with a Rice aide, who afterward said he didn't know "what went through (Merkel's) head" when she said it.
A German government spokesman, however, since has said Merkel's comments remain "valid."
"The whole affair is unpleasant for the old and for the new German government," Karl-Heinz Kamp, security expert at the Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung, a political think tank with close ties to Merkel's conservatives, told United Press International in a telephone interview.
By STEFAN NICOLA
UPI Germany Correspondent
KEHL AM RHEIN, Germany, Dec. 9 (UPI) -- The scandal surrounding a German national allegedly abducted by the CIA continues with fresh revelations almost daily.
According to a newspaper report, the German Federal Intelligence Service, known by the acronym BND, fed U.S. intelligence with information on Khaled el-Masri, who says he was kidnapped Dec. 31, 2003, by the CIA in Macedonia and held in a prison in Afghanistan for five months.
"We might have called attention to el-Masri through information we shared with U.S. intelligence," a German intelligence source, who did not want to be identified, told Friday's Berliner Zeitung. "It's quite conspicuous that the Americans asked el-Masri about information they obtained from us."
So far, news reports have claimed Masri was abducted because he shares his name with a high-ranking al-Qaida member linked to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
Masri, however, claims he was not asked about his alleged connection to the terror attacks on New York City and Washington -- his interrogators squeezed him mainly for knowledge of the Islamist scene of his Bavarian hometown Neu-Ulm, a city of 50,000.
The interrogators repeatedly asked about Masri's Neu-Ulm-based acquaintance Reda Seyam, whom the U.S. believes to be a radical Islamist, the newspaper reported. The German intelligence official told the daily he believes Masri's interrogators knew quite well whom they had in custody. He said German intelligence had material on Masri because he popped up in Seyam's environments from time to time. "But he was far too inconspicuous to become a real suspect," he said.
The list of who knew what in the affair over Masri's kidnapping seems to grow longer with each day. Already, former Interior Minister Otto Schily and acting Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier have had to admit they knew of the case.
Opposition politicians have called for Steinmeier's head, but the left-right grand coalition of German Chancellor Angela Merkel has so far stood by him. Before becoming foreign affairs chief, Steinmeier had been chief-of-staff to Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder.
As the political career of Schily, 73, is over, it won't have much of an effect on the former anti-terror chief, observers say.
Both politicians, however, will have to testify before a parliamentary commission in Germany that is dealing with the affair. The findings of the commission will stay classified.
But other findings likely won't.
Earlier this week, the American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in the name of Masri against former CIA Director George Tenet and 10 "John Doe" CIA employees involved in his abduction to Afghanistan.
Masri's German lawyer, Manred Gnjidic, said Merkel's remarks from her meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice significantly improve his client's chances in the legal struggle in the United States.
"Mrs. Merkel's comment was one of the most important steps for us in the last months," Gnjidic told Spiegel Online. "They're the first step toward the truth."
Asked over the fate of Masri, Merkel on Tuesday in a news conference after a private meeting with Rice said:
"We talked about that particular case, which has been accepted by the U.S. government as a mistake."
Gnjidic is even considering calling Merkel to the witness stand.
"The chancellor will have to explain to us precisely what she meant when she said it was a mistake and how she came about saying that," he said. "Her remarks have increased the pressure on the U.S. government to finally tell the truth about CIA practices."
Merkel's comment caused considerable discomfort with a Rice aide, who afterward said he didn't know "what went through (Merkel's) head" when she said it.
A German government spokesman, however, since has said Merkel's comments remain "valid."
"The whole affair is unpleasant for the old and for the new German government," Karl-Heinz Kamp, security expert at the Konrad-Adenauer Stiftung, a political think tank with close ties to Merkel's conservatives, told United Press International in a telephone interview.
Truth for the Troops-
Truth for the Troops
By Richard Cohen
Thursday, December 8, 2005; Page A33
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/07/AR2005120701893.html
If, as Samuel Johnson said, "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," then "support our troops" is very close by. It is being used to deflect criticism of the war in Iraq, or to rebut those who call for a pullout or question how incompetents seized control of the government in a coup by ideologues. In the lexicon of some, the only way to support our troops is to ensure that more of them die.
The utter tastelessness of this approach was on display Tuesday when Vice President Cheney spoke to the 10th Mountain Division and the National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. These are storied outfits. The Mountain Division is Bob Dole's own, and those of us who followed him as he campaigned for the presidency in 1996 will never forget the day in New Hampshire when some of the division's World War II veterans gathered to hear from their old comrade in arms. There was Dole, trying as ever to be stoical, but that day his voice cracked and emotion rocked him and, along the wall of the hall, a mighty cynical press corps fought hard to hold back the tears.
As for the 42nd Division, it is my own. Its famous Rainbow Patch -- Douglas MacArthur said "the 42nd Division stretches like a rainbow from one end of America to the other" -- is among my mementos. I make no great claim to military service -- I was a reluctant Vietnam-era enlistee in the National Guard -- but I trained at Fort Drum, wore the Rainbow Patch and keep it to this day on the bulletin board in my office. By accident and happenstance, it's my outfit. Somehow, it matters.
So I don't need any cheap reminders about supporting the troops. On the contrary, it's the other way around. It is the reminders who need reminding that they owe the troops the highest level of respect. That means, among other things, explaining clearly and honestly why they are being sent into harm's way. If that cannot be done -- if you cannot tell soldiers why they might die -- then you cannot send them. At the very least, you must stick to the strictest truth.
But Cheney was not strictly truthful. He turned the war in Iraq into a war against terrorism, when it is only partly that. The Sunni insurgents have no designs on America. And to say, as Cheney did, that terrorists "believe that, by controlling an entire country, they will be able to . . . establish a radical Islamic empire that encompasses a region from Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way to Indonesia" is to give credence to the fantasies of Islamic nut cases. This may or may not be the goal of certain terrorists, but it is clearly beyond their reach -- and no reason to fight in Iraq.
Similarly, Cheney once again implied a link between the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Saddam Hussein. His words were slippery, but his meaning was clear: "Some have suggested that by liberating Iraq . . . we simply stirred up a hornet's nest. They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq . . . and the terrorists hit us anyway." Yes, and the crowing of the rooster makes the sun come up. Cause and effect is being mocked here.
As I recently wrote, I do not favor an immediate pullout from Iraq -- not yet, anyway. The arguments advanced for staying make sense to me, and Cheney mentioned some of them in his speech. There is reason to fear civil war in Iraq, the country's dissolution, the creation of a haven for terrorists and the precipitous loss of American prestige, which could encourage even more terrorism.
But I do not fear the emergence of a vast, radical Islamic empire stretching from Granada to Jakarta, and neither do I believe that toppling Hussein dealt a blow to terrorists or made the United States one iota safer. Soon enough we will exceed in military deaths the number of civilians killed on Sept. 11 -- and the culprits, including Osama bin Laden, are still on the loose, still posing a threat. This is a policy that collapsed of its own stupidity.
By dint of heroic effort, the Bush administration long ago lost any credibility. But if we are going to stay in Iraq -- if additional Americans are going to be asked to die -- then Bush, Cheney and others should avoid emotionally compelling, but intellectually fatuous, arguments. As far as the troops are concerned, pay them the ultimate respect for their ultimate sacrifice: Stick to the truth.
cohenr@washpost.com
By Richard Cohen
Thursday, December 8, 2005; Page A33
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/07/AR2005120701893.html
If, as Samuel Johnson said, "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel," then "support our troops" is very close by. It is being used to deflect criticism of the war in Iraq, or to rebut those who call for a pullout or question how incompetents seized control of the government in a coup by ideologues. In the lexicon of some, the only way to support our troops is to ensure that more of them die.
The utter tastelessness of this approach was on display Tuesday when Vice President Cheney spoke to the 10th Mountain Division and the National Guard's 42nd Infantry Division at Fort Drum, N.Y. These are storied outfits. The Mountain Division is Bob Dole's own, and those of us who followed him as he campaigned for the presidency in 1996 will never forget the day in New Hampshire when some of the division's World War II veterans gathered to hear from their old comrade in arms. There was Dole, trying as ever to be stoical, but that day his voice cracked and emotion rocked him and, along the wall of the hall, a mighty cynical press corps fought hard to hold back the tears.
As for the 42nd Division, it is my own. Its famous Rainbow Patch -- Douglas MacArthur said "the 42nd Division stretches like a rainbow from one end of America to the other" -- is among my mementos. I make no great claim to military service -- I was a reluctant Vietnam-era enlistee in the National Guard -- but I trained at Fort Drum, wore the Rainbow Patch and keep it to this day on the bulletin board in my office. By accident and happenstance, it's my outfit. Somehow, it matters.
So I don't need any cheap reminders about supporting the troops. On the contrary, it's the other way around. It is the reminders who need reminding that they owe the troops the highest level of respect. That means, among other things, explaining clearly and honestly why they are being sent into harm's way. If that cannot be done -- if you cannot tell soldiers why they might die -- then you cannot send them. At the very least, you must stick to the strictest truth.
But Cheney was not strictly truthful. He turned the war in Iraq into a war against terrorism, when it is only partly that. The Sunni insurgents have no designs on America. And to say, as Cheney did, that terrorists "believe that, by controlling an entire country, they will be able to . . . establish a radical Islamic empire that encompasses a region from Spain, across North Africa, through the Middle East and South Asia, all the way to Indonesia" is to give credence to the fantasies of Islamic nut cases. This may or may not be the goal of certain terrorists, but it is clearly beyond their reach -- and no reason to fight in Iraq.
Similarly, Cheney once again implied a link between the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Saddam Hussein. His words were slippery, but his meaning was clear: "Some have suggested that by liberating Iraq . . . we simply stirred up a hornet's nest. They overlook a fundamental fact: We were not in Iraq . . . and the terrorists hit us anyway." Yes, and the crowing of the rooster makes the sun come up. Cause and effect is being mocked here.
As I recently wrote, I do not favor an immediate pullout from Iraq -- not yet, anyway. The arguments advanced for staying make sense to me, and Cheney mentioned some of them in his speech. There is reason to fear civil war in Iraq, the country's dissolution, the creation of a haven for terrorists and the precipitous loss of American prestige, which could encourage even more terrorism.
But I do not fear the emergence of a vast, radical Islamic empire stretching from Granada to Jakarta, and neither do I believe that toppling Hussein dealt a blow to terrorists or made the United States one iota safer. Soon enough we will exceed in military deaths the number of civilians killed on Sept. 11 -- and the culprits, including Osama bin Laden, are still on the loose, still posing a threat. This is a policy that collapsed of its own stupidity.
By dint of heroic effort, the Bush administration long ago lost any credibility. But if we are going to stay in Iraq -- if additional Americans are going to be asked to die -- then Bush, Cheney and others should avoid emotionally compelling, but intellectually fatuous, arguments. As far as the troops are concerned, pay them the ultimate respect for their ultimate sacrifice: Stick to the truth.
cohenr@washpost.com
The Iron Fist of Jesus
The Iron Fist of Jesus
The Inmates are Running the Asylum
How much damage will men like George Bush, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Sam Brownback, Ralph Reed, and Rick Santorum inflict before reason prevails and they are unmasked as the twisted, malevolent charlatans that they are? Fundamentalist Christians, adherents to a nauseating perversion of Christianity (conjured from their twisted imaginations and their distorted interpretations of the Bible) wield a significant amount of power in the United States, socially and politically. Fund-raising, promotional, and organizational skills have enabled these Corpora-Fascist Capitalists masquerading as practitioners of the Christian faith to gain pervasive influence over the Republican Party. Despite recent blows, Republicans still control the Executive and Legislative branches of government, and are well on their way to dominating the Judicial branch by appointing judges who zealously rule in ways which promote the Social Darwinism, elitism, bigotry, property rights, and corporate power the Christo-Fascist Fundamentalist Christians crave.
God Bless America? Surely You Jest
One of the rationalizations for the illegal occupation of Iraq (and the murders of over one hundred thousand innocent Iraqi civilians) is that the United States is engaged in a struggle of "good versus evil". In spite of repeated heinous acts committed for years by the United States in the Middle East, including state terrorism resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, installation and/or support of ruthless dictators (i.e. Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran), and enabling the Israelis to commit genocide against the Palestinians, these pseudo-Christians have managed to convince many Americans that the US is "good" and the "terrorists" (i.e. the Resistance to US occupation in Iraq) are "evil". As the US government continues to rape the Middle East, Christo-Fascists slap "God Bless America" bumper stickers on their gas-guzzling SUV's actually believing that the Father, the Son, and/or the Holy Spirit would bless a nation governed by murderers, thieves and thugs.
Yes, I can visualize a Christian God sitting on his throne in the kingdom of heaven gazing down upon humankind. As he surveys humanity, he "wisely and judiciously" decides to answer Jane Morgan's prayer for a 2005 Hummer to replace her two year old Navigator. After all, he can't have Jane driving a "jalopy" to worship him on Sundays, now can he? Spying eight year old Mahmoud, a Palestinian in Gaza, God decides to let him die of malnutrition because he is not a Christian, and in fact is an "evil" Muslim who could become "terrorist" someday. Jerry Falwell, who does not appear to be struggling with malnutrition, would be most pleased with his Maker.
Not the Jesus I "Knew" When I was Younger
Growing up Methodist, my indoctrination into the Christian faith was rather moderate. I do not recall our ministers preaching fire, brimstone, or eternal damnation. Somehow I missed the interpretation of Revelations in which the Christo-Fascists have determined that Christ will return to Earth to "judge and make war". For those of you not fortunate enough to be blessed with the knowledge that Jesus will smite you down "with a rod of iron" (or do much worse) if you are deemed unworthy, click on this link to learn of your fate:
(http://www.christiancourier.com/archives/righteouswarrior.htm)
Powerful leaders of the Fundamentalist movement in America have devoted a great deal of time and energy toward their goal of convincing their loyal "Christian" soldiers that they will be saved in the "impending apocalypse" while "non-believers" will suffer beyond the scope of human imagination. Their dichotomous view of Christ as a compassionate and merciful champion of society's victims returning as a vengeful warrior bent on inflicting misery on his "enemies" reflects their psychologically impaired tendency to employ black and white thinking almost continuously.
In April of 2004 (in the New York Times) David Kirkpatrick wrote:
Writers and artists have been imagining the Second Coming of Jesus for 2,000 years, but few have portrayed him wreaking more carnage on the unbelieving world than Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.
In their new apocalyptic novel, "Glorious Appearing," based on Dr. LaHaye's interpretation of Biblical prophecies about the Second Coming, their Jesus appears from the clouds on a white horse with a "conviction like a flame of fire" in his eyes. With all the gruesome detail of a Hollywood horror movie, Jesus eviscerates the flesh of millions of unbelievers merely by speaking.
"Men and women soldiers and horses seemed to explode where they stood," Dr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins write. "It was as if the very words of the Lord had superheated their blood, causing it to burst through their veins and skin.'' The authors add, "Even as they struggled, their own flesh dissolved, their eyes melted and their tongues disintegrated."
Dr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins did not invent fire and brimstone. But some scholars who study religion say that the phenomenal popularity of their "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic thrillers - now the best-selling adult novels in the United States - are part of a shift in American culture's image of Jesus. The gentle, pacifist Jesus of the Crucifixion is sharing the spotlight with a more muscular warrior Jesus of the Second Coming, the Lamb making way for the Lion."
Match Made in "Heaven"
Desperately yearning to rule with the "Iron Fist of Jesus", the Christo-Fascists and Machiavellian toadies like Karl Rove were instrumental in thrusting a grossly inept George Bush into the office of the President to do their malevolent bidding. While Bush has certainly made decisions which have displeased the masters of the Christo-Fascists, and has at times distanced himself from them, ?God?s Favorites? could not have conjured up a more desirable denizen of the Oval Office, even in their most gratifying wet dreams.
Under Bush (who believes he is fulfilling a divine mission), America's regime continues its ongoing military, economic, and social assault on the Arab world, which according to the Christo-Fascists, is populated by "evil" Muslims ready to slice the white, Christian throats of "good" Americans if given the chance. They point to the handful of beheadings of Western hostages by extremist Muslims as ?evidence? of this ?fact?. The US continues its complicity in committing genocide against the Palestinians to clear the way for Jewish inhabitation of the "Holy Land", the necessity of which is woven into Christo-Fascist mythology. Legislative and judicial actions continue to chip away at the gains made for social justice here in the US throughout the Twentieth Century. Christo-Fascists have their coveted religious war to set the stage for the coming of the Warrior Christ and their regressive social movement to crush the threats to their mythical beliefs (i.e. critical thinking, science, freedom of religion, separation of church and state). Consummating the marriage made in the Christo-Faschists? horrifying version of heaven (one man's heaven is another man's hell, eh?), the corporations and politicians comprising the military industrial complex reap the huge financial benefits of perpetual war, a significant percentage of the American public to support their perpetual war (who do you think is still showing up in the polls as supporting the war?), and loyal voters to help keep them in office.
In the Land of Oz, Science and Reality Cease to Exist
Living in Kansas and having a child in a Kansas public school, I have been following the farcical actions of the six Christo-Fascists who represent the majority on the Kansas State School Board. They recently decided it was time to rewrite the definition of science so that it is no longer "limited to" searching for natural explanations of phenomena. The board is also implementing new standards which will open the door for the introduction of the so-called "theory" of intelligent design into science classes.
As an aside, I will say that as a Deist (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), I believe in an intelligent designer, but that in no way diminishes my acceptance in the Theory of Evolution, which is supported by evidence and has withstood the tests of time and scientific scrutiny. Evolution is by no means complete, but there is no true theory of which I am aware that rivals Evolution, and until one emerges, I want my child learning Evolution. Comparing intelligent design and Evolution is absurd. ID is a theological argument based on one simple premise while Evolution is a legitimate scientific theory which has much more to say about the progressions and history of life on Earth than about the possible identity of its Creator or Initiator. I embrace both the notion of intelligent design and the Theory of Evolution simultaneously. However, intelligent design is a spiritual concept and does not belong in a science class.
Thankfully, rational thinkers came up with an appropriate response to the school board?s insanity. The University of Kansas recently announced it would offer a religious studies course which would include intelligent design in the curriculum. Unfortunately, Fundamentalist Pseudo-Christians discovered that Professor Paul Mirecki, the faculty member assigned to teach the course, wrote highly derogatory remarks on the Internet about them. The Christo-Fascist response? Several of their members who have infiltrated the Kansas State Legislature are calling for an investigation into the use of public funds at KU. On 12/5, Dr. Mirecki literally felt the Iron Fist of Jesus as two ?Christian soldiers? attacked and beat him in retaliation for his remarks about their dogma. Much to the delight of ?God's Warriors?, KU has cancelled the religious studies course.
Tell me to Have a Merry Christmas, or Else!
Recently, the Christo-Fascists have been wringing their hands over the "liberal attacks" on Christmas. Even their faithful Evangelical champion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has forsaken them. Bush?s sin? He dared to send out cards that said "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". This has created a significant uproar amongst the ?Goodly Christian Fundamentalists?. Besides attacking their beloved president, they are threatening to boycott retailers (like Target) which do not include ?Merry Christmas? in their marketing or store displays. The American occupation of Iraq has caused the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqis, 2,000 plus American soldiers have died in Iraq, at least 1,000 Americans died (and hundreds of thousands lost virtually everything they owned) in Hurricane Katrina due to the federal government's abdication of its responsibility to "promote the general Welfare", 45 million Americans are without health insurance, over a million Americans are homeless, the CIA and US military regularly engage in abuse and torture, the Patriot Act has seriously eroded the Bill of Rights, and the US continues its neocolonial practices to economically rape nations around the globe. Christo-Fascist voters, leaders, and politicians bear a great deal of responsibility for these tragedies as they have supported, shaped and orchestrated the malevolent US government policies behind these violations of international law and human rights, war crimes, and instances of criminal neglect. Yet they have the hypocrisy to raise a significant issue over "Merry Christmas"? It is simply mind-boggling.
Frankly, I do not care if someone says "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" to me. As a non-Christian, I celebrate Christmas as a time for giving, family, and to place a particular emphasis on peace and goodwill. The Prince of Peace would have wanted it that way. While I do not worship him as the son of God, I do hold Jesus Christ in high esteem for his teachings, principals and act of martyrdom. I do not believe that Warrior Jesus will one day ride down from heaven on a white steed with eyes blazing as he prepares to ram a sword down my throat and obliterate my flesh with his devastating voice. However, I am convinced that were he alive today, he would be sickened by the greed, gluttony, commercialization, and over-consumption that comprise much of Christmas in the United States. Many of the Christo-Fascists are the first to shove their snouts into the trough to get their share of Christmas goodies. Since my spiritual awakening about twelve years ago, I have been doing a lot more giving than receiving, including to charities. In fact, donations to Oxfam (on my behalf) sit atop my very short wish list this year. The Christo-Fascist Jesus would pummel me to a bloody mass of unrecognizable flesh with his "Iron Fist" for not doing my part to support America by stimulating the economy. Somehow though, it seems far more reasonable to me to envision Jesus tending to the poor and down-trodden rather than preying on them like America's Social Darwinists do.
Terrorism, US Style
When the Higher Power set the universe in motion, they planned for the evolution of Christo-Fascists to lend balance to the universe. America has Pat Robertson, who has called for the assasination of Hugo Chavez, a leader dedicated to improving the lives of the impoverished in his nation. The Bush regime will probably answer Robertson?s call. The US capitalist aristocracy (built by stealing Native American land and resources, enslaving Africans, seriously exploiting American workers, and imposing neocolonialism and imperialism disguised as democracy and free market economics) can ill afford for a leader of one of its South American fiefdoms to threaten the prevalence of their exploitive system by rallying the serfs against them. For each Osama bin Laden in the fundamentalist Muslim world, there is a Pat Robertson in the Christo-Fascist world. The difference is that while the Pat Robertsons have the US government to perpetrate their acts of terror, the bin Ladens have little choice but to do their own dirty work.
Just How Does One Define a Christo-Fascist?
What qualities would one find in a Christo-Fascist? Greed, hubris, and self righteousness would probably top the list. Upon further inspection, one would find a streak of xenophobia, a significant amount of intolerance for those who do not fit the "traditional roles" of men and women and those who have not accepted Christ as their savior, and a passionate disdain for critical thinking. Lest I forget, Christo-Fascists are generally thin-skinned and highly hypocritical. A powerful persecution complex and an insatiable appetite for the revenge that they believe Warrior Jesus will one day perpetrate on their behalf arm them with conscience-blunting self-justifications for their mean-spirited actions. Hatred and bigotry gnaw at their malnourished souls like crows picking at the remains of a fallen soldier in the war for religious supremacy. Christo-Fascists wield their knowledge of scripture (and the commonly held Western belief that the Bible is sacrosanct) while performing unbelievable mental gymnastics to ensure they prevail in polemical discourse and successfully proselytize the weak and vulnerable. Narcissism and self hatred lie at the core of the personalities of the Fundamentalist Faithful. For a specific example of how the qualities of a Christo-Fascist manifest themselves, consider the Fundamentalist Christians? support of the illegal imperial Iraqi occupation involving the murders of tens of thousands of indigenous people, the deaths of over 2,000 American military personnel, the destruction of much of the nation's infrastructure, and the waste of hundreds of billions of federal tax dollars while US citizens suffer at home due to inadequately funded domestic programs. Iron Fist Jesus would approve!
In short, Fundamentalist Christians are the people whom the real Jesus would have hammered with his Iron Fist, if he had had one, and if he had been inclined to use it. Fortunately for them, Warrior Jesus is simply a myth the Christo-Fascist masters use to keep their minions in line. Unfortunately for the rest of us, America's religious extremists are as dangerous as those in the Middle East and around the globe.
Just in case there is an Iron Fisted Jesus and an impending Rapture, I am signing off by wishing you a Merry Christmas!
Authors Website: http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/
Authors Bio: Jason Miller is a 38 year old activist writer with a degree in liberal arts. He works as a loan counselor in the transportation industry, and is a husband with three sons. His affiliations include Amnesty International and the ACLU. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
The Inmates are Running the Asylum
How much damage will men like George Bush, James Dobson, Pat Robertson, Sam Brownback, Ralph Reed, and Rick Santorum inflict before reason prevails and they are unmasked as the twisted, malevolent charlatans that they are? Fundamentalist Christians, adherents to a nauseating perversion of Christianity (conjured from their twisted imaginations and their distorted interpretations of the Bible) wield a significant amount of power in the United States, socially and politically. Fund-raising, promotional, and organizational skills have enabled these Corpora-Fascist Capitalists masquerading as practitioners of the Christian faith to gain pervasive influence over the Republican Party. Despite recent blows, Republicans still control the Executive and Legislative branches of government, and are well on their way to dominating the Judicial branch by appointing judges who zealously rule in ways which promote the Social Darwinism, elitism, bigotry, property rights, and corporate power the Christo-Fascist Fundamentalist Christians crave.
God Bless America? Surely You Jest
One of the rationalizations for the illegal occupation of Iraq (and the murders of over one hundred thousand innocent Iraqi civilians) is that the United States is engaged in a struggle of "good versus evil". In spite of repeated heinous acts committed for years by the United States in the Middle East, including state terrorism resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians, installation and/or support of ruthless dictators (i.e. Saddam Hussein, the Shah of Iran), and enabling the Israelis to commit genocide against the Palestinians, these pseudo-Christians have managed to convince many Americans that the US is "good" and the "terrorists" (i.e. the Resistance to US occupation in Iraq) are "evil". As the US government continues to rape the Middle East, Christo-Fascists slap "God Bless America" bumper stickers on their gas-guzzling SUV's actually believing that the Father, the Son, and/or the Holy Spirit would bless a nation governed by murderers, thieves and thugs.
Yes, I can visualize a Christian God sitting on his throne in the kingdom of heaven gazing down upon humankind. As he surveys humanity, he "wisely and judiciously" decides to answer Jane Morgan's prayer for a 2005 Hummer to replace her two year old Navigator. After all, he can't have Jane driving a "jalopy" to worship him on Sundays, now can he? Spying eight year old Mahmoud, a Palestinian in Gaza, God decides to let him die of malnutrition because he is not a Christian, and in fact is an "evil" Muslim who could become "terrorist" someday. Jerry Falwell, who does not appear to be struggling with malnutrition, would be most pleased with his Maker.
Not the Jesus I "Knew" When I was Younger
Growing up Methodist, my indoctrination into the Christian faith was rather moderate. I do not recall our ministers preaching fire, brimstone, or eternal damnation. Somehow I missed the interpretation of Revelations in which the Christo-Fascists have determined that Christ will return to Earth to "judge and make war". For those of you not fortunate enough to be blessed with the knowledge that Jesus will smite you down "with a rod of iron" (or do much worse) if you are deemed unworthy, click on this link to learn of your fate:
(http://www.christiancourier.com/archives/righteouswarrior.htm)
Powerful leaders of the Fundamentalist movement in America have devoted a great deal of time and energy toward their goal of convincing their loyal "Christian" soldiers that they will be saved in the "impending apocalypse" while "non-believers" will suffer beyond the scope of human imagination. Their dichotomous view of Christ as a compassionate and merciful champion of society's victims returning as a vengeful warrior bent on inflicting misery on his "enemies" reflects their psychologically impaired tendency to employ black and white thinking almost continuously.
In April of 2004 (in the New York Times) David Kirkpatrick wrote:
Writers and artists have been imagining the Second Coming of Jesus for 2,000 years, but few have portrayed him wreaking more carnage on the unbelieving world than Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins.
In their new apocalyptic novel, "Glorious Appearing," based on Dr. LaHaye's interpretation of Biblical prophecies about the Second Coming, their Jesus appears from the clouds on a white horse with a "conviction like a flame of fire" in his eyes. With all the gruesome detail of a Hollywood horror movie, Jesus eviscerates the flesh of millions of unbelievers merely by speaking.
"Men and women soldiers and horses seemed to explode where they stood," Dr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins write. "It was as if the very words of the Lord had superheated their blood, causing it to burst through their veins and skin.'' The authors add, "Even as they struggled, their own flesh dissolved, their eyes melted and their tongues disintegrated."
Dr. LaHaye and Mr. Jenkins did not invent fire and brimstone. But some scholars who study religion say that the phenomenal popularity of their "Left Behind" series of apocalyptic thrillers - now the best-selling adult novels in the United States - are part of a shift in American culture's image of Jesus. The gentle, pacifist Jesus of the Crucifixion is sharing the spotlight with a more muscular warrior Jesus of the Second Coming, the Lamb making way for the Lion."
Match Made in "Heaven"
Desperately yearning to rule with the "Iron Fist of Jesus", the Christo-Fascists and Machiavellian toadies like Karl Rove were instrumental in thrusting a grossly inept George Bush into the office of the President to do their malevolent bidding. While Bush has certainly made decisions which have displeased the masters of the Christo-Fascists, and has at times distanced himself from them, ?God?s Favorites? could not have conjured up a more desirable denizen of the Oval Office, even in their most gratifying wet dreams.
Under Bush (who believes he is fulfilling a divine mission), America's regime continues its ongoing military, economic, and social assault on the Arab world, which according to the Christo-Fascists, is populated by "evil" Muslims ready to slice the white, Christian throats of "good" Americans if given the chance. They point to the handful of beheadings of Western hostages by extremist Muslims as ?evidence? of this ?fact?. The US continues its complicity in committing genocide against the Palestinians to clear the way for Jewish inhabitation of the "Holy Land", the necessity of which is woven into Christo-Fascist mythology. Legislative and judicial actions continue to chip away at the gains made for social justice here in the US throughout the Twentieth Century. Christo-Fascists have their coveted religious war to set the stage for the coming of the Warrior Christ and their regressive social movement to crush the threats to their mythical beliefs (i.e. critical thinking, science, freedom of religion, separation of church and state). Consummating the marriage made in the Christo-Faschists? horrifying version of heaven (one man's heaven is another man's hell, eh?), the corporations and politicians comprising the military industrial complex reap the huge financial benefits of perpetual war, a significant percentage of the American public to support their perpetual war (who do you think is still showing up in the polls as supporting the war?), and loyal voters to help keep them in office.
In the Land of Oz, Science and Reality Cease to Exist
Living in Kansas and having a child in a Kansas public school, I have been following the farcical actions of the six Christo-Fascists who represent the majority on the Kansas State School Board. They recently decided it was time to rewrite the definition of science so that it is no longer "limited to" searching for natural explanations of phenomena. The board is also implementing new standards which will open the door for the introduction of the so-called "theory" of intelligent design into science classes.
As an aside, I will say that as a Deist (or a reasonable facsimile thereof), I believe in an intelligent designer, but that in no way diminishes my acceptance in the Theory of Evolution, which is supported by evidence and has withstood the tests of time and scientific scrutiny. Evolution is by no means complete, but there is no true theory of which I am aware that rivals Evolution, and until one emerges, I want my child learning Evolution. Comparing intelligent design and Evolution is absurd. ID is a theological argument based on one simple premise while Evolution is a legitimate scientific theory which has much more to say about the progressions and history of life on Earth than about the possible identity of its Creator or Initiator. I embrace both the notion of intelligent design and the Theory of Evolution simultaneously. However, intelligent design is a spiritual concept and does not belong in a science class.
Thankfully, rational thinkers came up with an appropriate response to the school board?s insanity. The University of Kansas recently announced it would offer a religious studies course which would include intelligent design in the curriculum. Unfortunately, Fundamentalist Pseudo-Christians discovered that Professor Paul Mirecki, the faculty member assigned to teach the course, wrote highly derogatory remarks on the Internet about them. The Christo-Fascist response? Several of their members who have infiltrated the Kansas State Legislature are calling for an investigation into the use of public funds at KU. On 12/5, Dr. Mirecki literally felt the Iron Fist of Jesus as two ?Christian soldiers? attacked and beat him in retaliation for his remarks about their dogma. Much to the delight of ?God's Warriors?, KU has cancelled the religious studies course.
Tell me to Have a Merry Christmas, or Else!
Recently, the Christo-Fascists have been wringing their hands over the "liberal attacks" on Christmas. Even their faithful Evangelical champion at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue has forsaken them. Bush?s sin? He dared to send out cards that said "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas". This has created a significant uproar amongst the ?Goodly Christian Fundamentalists?. Besides attacking their beloved president, they are threatening to boycott retailers (like Target) which do not include ?Merry Christmas? in their marketing or store displays. The American occupation of Iraq has caused the deaths of over 100,000 Iraqis, 2,000 plus American soldiers have died in Iraq, at least 1,000 Americans died (and hundreds of thousands lost virtually everything they owned) in Hurricane Katrina due to the federal government's abdication of its responsibility to "promote the general Welfare", 45 million Americans are without health insurance, over a million Americans are homeless, the CIA and US military regularly engage in abuse and torture, the Patriot Act has seriously eroded the Bill of Rights, and the US continues its neocolonial practices to economically rape nations around the globe. Christo-Fascist voters, leaders, and politicians bear a great deal of responsibility for these tragedies as they have supported, shaped and orchestrated the malevolent US government policies behind these violations of international law and human rights, war crimes, and instances of criminal neglect. Yet they have the hypocrisy to raise a significant issue over "Merry Christmas"? It is simply mind-boggling.
Frankly, I do not care if someone says "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays" to me. As a non-Christian, I celebrate Christmas as a time for giving, family, and to place a particular emphasis on peace and goodwill. The Prince of Peace would have wanted it that way. While I do not worship him as the son of God, I do hold Jesus Christ in high esteem for his teachings, principals and act of martyrdom. I do not believe that Warrior Jesus will one day ride down from heaven on a white steed with eyes blazing as he prepares to ram a sword down my throat and obliterate my flesh with his devastating voice. However, I am convinced that were he alive today, he would be sickened by the greed, gluttony, commercialization, and over-consumption that comprise much of Christmas in the United States. Many of the Christo-Fascists are the first to shove their snouts into the trough to get their share of Christmas goodies. Since my spiritual awakening about twelve years ago, I have been doing a lot more giving than receiving, including to charities. In fact, donations to Oxfam (on my behalf) sit atop my very short wish list this year. The Christo-Fascist Jesus would pummel me to a bloody mass of unrecognizable flesh with his "Iron Fist" for not doing my part to support America by stimulating the economy. Somehow though, it seems far more reasonable to me to envision Jesus tending to the poor and down-trodden rather than preying on them like America's Social Darwinists do.
Terrorism, US Style
When the Higher Power set the universe in motion, they planned for the evolution of Christo-Fascists to lend balance to the universe. America has Pat Robertson, who has called for the assasination of Hugo Chavez, a leader dedicated to improving the lives of the impoverished in his nation. The Bush regime will probably answer Robertson?s call. The US capitalist aristocracy (built by stealing Native American land and resources, enslaving Africans, seriously exploiting American workers, and imposing neocolonialism and imperialism disguised as democracy and free market economics) can ill afford for a leader of one of its South American fiefdoms to threaten the prevalence of their exploitive system by rallying the serfs against them. For each Osama bin Laden in the fundamentalist Muslim world, there is a Pat Robertson in the Christo-Fascist world. The difference is that while the Pat Robertsons have the US government to perpetrate their acts of terror, the bin Ladens have little choice but to do their own dirty work.
Just How Does One Define a Christo-Fascist?
What qualities would one find in a Christo-Fascist? Greed, hubris, and self righteousness would probably top the list. Upon further inspection, one would find a streak of xenophobia, a significant amount of intolerance for those who do not fit the "traditional roles" of men and women and those who have not accepted Christ as their savior, and a passionate disdain for critical thinking. Lest I forget, Christo-Fascists are generally thin-skinned and highly hypocritical. A powerful persecution complex and an insatiable appetite for the revenge that they believe Warrior Jesus will one day perpetrate on their behalf arm them with conscience-blunting self-justifications for their mean-spirited actions. Hatred and bigotry gnaw at their malnourished souls like crows picking at the remains of a fallen soldier in the war for religious supremacy. Christo-Fascists wield their knowledge of scripture (and the commonly held Western belief that the Bible is sacrosanct) while performing unbelievable mental gymnastics to ensure they prevail in polemical discourse and successfully proselytize the weak and vulnerable. Narcissism and self hatred lie at the core of the personalities of the Fundamentalist Faithful. For a specific example of how the qualities of a Christo-Fascist manifest themselves, consider the Fundamentalist Christians? support of the illegal imperial Iraqi occupation involving the murders of tens of thousands of indigenous people, the deaths of over 2,000 American military personnel, the destruction of much of the nation's infrastructure, and the waste of hundreds of billions of federal tax dollars while US citizens suffer at home due to inadequately funded domestic programs. Iron Fist Jesus would approve!
In short, Fundamentalist Christians are the people whom the real Jesus would have hammered with his Iron Fist, if he had had one, and if he had been inclined to use it. Fortunately for them, Warrior Jesus is simply a myth the Christo-Fascist masters use to keep their minions in line. Unfortunately for the rest of us, America's religious extremists are as dangerous as those in the Middle East and around the globe.
Just in case there is an Iron Fisted Jesus and an impending Rapture, I am signing off by wishing you a Merry Christmas!
Authors Website: http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/
Authors Bio: Jason Miller is a 38 year old activist writer with a degree in liberal arts. He works as a loan counselor in the transportation industry, and is a husband with three sons. His affiliations include Amnesty International and the ACLU. He welcomes responses at willpowerful@hotmail.com or comments on his blog, Thomas Paine's Corner, at http://civillibertarian.blogspot.com/.
Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
Bush on the Constitution: 'It's just a goddamned piece of paper'
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005, 07:53
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml
Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
?I don?t give a goddamn,? Bush retorted. ?I?m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.?
?Mr. President,? one aide in the meeting said. ?There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.?
?Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,? Bush screamed back. ?It?s just a goddamned piece of paper!?
I?ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution ?a goddamned piece of paper.?
And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that ?goddamned piece of paper? used to guarantee.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the ?Constitution is an outdated document.?
Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn?t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn?t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine ? in the end ? if something is legal or right.
Every federal official ? including the President ? who takes an oath of office swears to ?uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a ?living document.?
?"Oh, how I hate the phrase we have?a 'living document,?? Scalia says. ?We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake.?
As a judge, Scalia says, ?I don't have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than anything else.?
President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a ?union between a man and woman.? Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.
Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.
?We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,? Scalia warns. ?Don't think that it's a one-way street.?
And don?t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.
But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just ?a goddamned piece of paper.?
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 9, 2005, 07:53
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7779.shtml
Last month, Republican Congressional leaders filed into the Oval Office to meet with President George W. Bush and talk about renewing the controversial USA Patriot Act.
Several provisions of the act, passed in the shell shocked period immediately following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, caused enough anger that liberal groups like the American Civil Liberties Union had joined forces with prominent conservatives like Phyllis Schlafly and Bob Barr to oppose renewal.
GOP leaders told Bush that his hardcore push to renew the more onerous provisions of the act could further alienate conservatives still mad at the President from his botched attempt to nominate White House Counsel Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court.
?I don?t give a goddamn,? Bush retorted. ?I?m the President and the Commander-in-Chief. Do it my way.?
?Mr. President,? one aide in the meeting said. ?There is a valid case that the provisions in this law undermine the Constitution.?
?Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,? Bush screamed back. ?It?s just a goddamned piece of paper!?
I?ve talked to three people present for the meeting that day and they all confirm that the President of the United States called the Constitution ?a goddamned piece of paper.?
And, to the Bush Administration, the Constitution of the United States is little more than toilet paper stained from all the shit that this group of power-mad despots have dumped on the freedoms that ?goddamned piece of paper? used to guarantee.
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, while still White House counsel, wrote that the ?Constitution is an outdated document.?
Put aside, for a moment, political affiliation or personal beliefs. It doesn?t matter if you are a Democrat, Republican or Independent. It doesn?t matter if you support the invasion or Iraq or not. Despite our differences, the Constitution has stood for two centuries as the defining document of our government, the final source to determine ? in the end ? if something is legal or right.
Every federal official ? including the President ? who takes an oath of office swears to ?uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States."
Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia says he cringes when someone calls the Constitution a ?living document.?
?"Oh, how I hate the phrase we have?a 'living document,?? Scalia says. ?We now have a Constitution that means whatever we want it to mean. The Constitution is not a living organism, for Pete's sake.?
As a judge, Scalia says, ?I don't have to prove that the Constitution is perfect; I just have to prove that it's better than anything else.?
President Bush has proposed seven amendments to the Constitution over the last five years, including a controversial amendment to define marriage as a ?union between a man and woman.? Members of Congress have proposed some 11,000 amendments over the last decade, ranging from repeal of the right to bear arms to a Constitutional ban on abortion.
Scalia says the danger of tinkering with the Constitution comes from a loss of rights.
?We can take away rights just as we can grant new ones,? Scalia warns. ?Don't think that it's a one-way street.?
And don?t buy the White House hype that the USA Patriot Act is a necessary tool to fight terrorism. It is a dangerous law that infringes on the rights of every American citizen and, as one brave aide told President Bush, something that undermines the Constitution of the United States.
But why should Bush care? After all, the Constitution is just ?a goddamned piece of paper.?
Rogue State? US Spurns Treaty After Treaty
Isaac Baker
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 8 (IPS) - In 1989, the United Nations put forth
the Convention on the Rights of the Child -- a treaty that protects
the civil and economic rights of children around the world.
To date, 192 nations have ratified the treaty. Only two have not.
A decade later, just seven countries voted against the Rome Statute
of the International Criminal Court (ICC), an independent body
created to prosecute genocide and crimes against humanity.
And in October of this year, members of the U.N. Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) voted overwhelmingly
to pass a new treaty aimed at protecting cultural diversity
worldwide. Only two states voted against it.
The United States is the only nation to oppose all three. And the
list of U.N. treaties and conventions that Washington has not signed
or has actively opposed goes on and on.
While the vast majority of the world's governments support these
treaties, as well as other U.N. diplomatic efforts and conventions,
the U.S. government can almost be expected to stand in opposition
each time such treaty proceedings arise.
Indeed, the United States, especially in recent years, is
increasingly being seen in the world as a lone state, thumbing its
diplomatic nose at international pacts on everything from banning the
use and production of landmines to curbing global warming.
This staunch refusal to join with other nations on such a wide range
of treaties, experts say, is hurting the already tarnished image of
the world's sole superpower in the eyes of the international
community.
"It sends the message that the United States has been the biggest
violator and thrasher of international law in the post-war period,"
Richard Du Boff, a professor emeritus of economic history at Bryn
Mawr College in the state of Pennsylvania, told IPS.
Du Boff added that while the U.S. has often opposed U.N. conventions
since the end of the Second World War, its isolationist posture "has
escalated dramatically and reached a level never before challenged"
during the presidency of George W. Bush.
This, Du Boff said, makes the U.S. a "rogue" in the realm of
international law.
"The term is inspired by U.S. officials themselves," he said. "This
is a term that they constantly apply to any country that does
something we may not like: 'rogue state'."
However, it is the record of the U.S. and its stance on international
legislation, he said, that stands in such stark contrast to that of
the rest of the world.
The U.S. stands alone with the East African state of Somalia in its
refusal to ratify the 1989 Convention on the Rights of a Child. The
treaty, which the U.N. calls "the most powerful legal instrument that
not only recognises but protects [children's] human rights", is one
of the most widely supported international agreements in the U.N.'s
history.
While the U.S. government has publicly stated its support for the
treaty, it has not taken the necessary steps to ratify it.
Others that Washington has rejected include the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty, the Treaty Banning Antipersonnel Mines, a protocol to
create a compliance regime for the Biological Weapons Convention, the
Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty.
The U.S. is also not complying with the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Commission, and the U.N. framework
Convention on Climate Change.
One of the touchiest areas in the rocky relationship between the U.S.
and the international community is Washington's overt hostility
toward the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.
The U.S. was one of seven states to vote against the formation of the
ICC in 1998. In taking this stance, the U.S. defied the rest of the
democratic world's support for the court and aligned itself with
notorious human rights abusers like China, Iraq, Libya and Yemen.
The U.S. continues to stand alone among even its closest allies in
its refusal to recognise the authority of the ICC.
The Bush administration maintains that U.S. personnel must be exempt
from prosecution by the court, and has pressured ICC member states to
sign bilateral deals promising not to hand over any U.S. nationals to
the court's jurisdiction.
Human rights advocates and non-governmental organisations say the
U.S. government's stance toward ICC creates a two-tiered system of
international law: one for U.S. nationals and one for everyone else.
Organisations such as the New-York based Human Rights Watch (HRW)
have blasted the U.S. for its refusal to recognise the legitimacy of
the court, saying such a stance hurts the image of the U.S. in the
world.
"U.S. ambassadors have been acting like schoolyard bullies," Richard
Dicker, director of HRW's International Justice Programme, said in a
statement. "The U.S. campaign has not succeeded in undermining global
support for the court. But it has succeeded in making the U.S.
government look foolish and mean-spirited."
The U.S. continues to reject the ICC, leaving no room for argument.
In the most recent example of the U.S.'s rejection of U.N.-backed
treaties, the U.S. and Israel voted against UNESCO's Convention on
the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions
in mid-October.
While the treaty is largely symbolic -- it doesn't carry any real
means of enforcement -- supporters say it is an important declaration
of the importance of cultural diversity and national aspirations.
Among other provisions, the treaty gives nations more leeway to
support local culture through subsidies of domestic films and
publications to help them stand up to foreign competition.
The U.S. government has called the treaty protectionist and says it
could be a barrier to international trade.
During the treaty negotiations, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, in a letter to other governments, called for changes in the
text, saying the treaty would "sow conflict rather than cooperation".
The U.S. State Department has also said the treaty could be used by
governments to censor or block foreign films or other goods in the
name of preserving cultural diversity, a claim that supporters of the
treaty deny.
"The United States is a culturally diverse country and a vigorous
proponent of cultural diversity, which is based on individuals'
freedom to choose how to express themselves and how to interact with
others," the State Department says. "Governments deciding what
citizens can read, hear, or see denies individuals the opportunity to
make independent choices about what they value."
At the UNESCO meeting, Timothy Craddock, the ambassador from Britain,
one of Washington's staunchest allies, called the treaty, "clear,
carefully balanced, and consistent with the principles of
international law and fundamental human rights".
However, he added that Britain and the European Union had "agreed to
disagree" with "one country". (END/2005)
http://www.ipsnews.org/news.asp?idnews=31346
UNITED NATIONS, Dec 8 (IPS) - In 1989, the United Nations put forth
the Convention on the Rights of the Child -- a treaty that protects
the civil and economic rights of children around the world.
To date, 192 nations have ratified the treaty. Only two have not.
A decade later, just seven countries voted against the Rome Statute
of the International Criminal Court (ICC), an independent body
created to prosecute genocide and crimes against humanity.
And in October of this year, members of the U.N. Educational,
Scientific, and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) voted overwhelmingly
to pass a new treaty aimed at protecting cultural diversity
worldwide. Only two states voted against it.
The United States is the only nation to oppose all three. And the
list of U.N. treaties and conventions that Washington has not signed
or has actively opposed goes on and on.
While the vast majority of the world's governments support these
treaties, as well as other U.N. diplomatic efforts and conventions,
the U.S. government can almost be expected to stand in opposition
each time such treaty proceedings arise.
Indeed, the United States, especially in recent years, is
increasingly being seen in the world as a lone state, thumbing its
diplomatic nose at international pacts on everything from banning the
use and production of landmines to curbing global warming.
This staunch refusal to join with other nations on such a wide range
of treaties, experts say, is hurting the already tarnished image of
the world's sole superpower in the eyes of the international
community.
"It sends the message that the United States has been the biggest
violator and thrasher of international law in the post-war period,"
Richard Du Boff, a professor emeritus of economic history at Bryn
Mawr College in the state of Pennsylvania, told IPS.
Du Boff added that while the U.S. has often opposed U.N. conventions
since the end of the Second World War, its isolationist posture "has
escalated dramatically and reached a level never before challenged"
during the presidency of George W. Bush.
This, Du Boff said, makes the U.S. a "rogue" in the realm of
international law.
"The term is inspired by U.S. officials themselves," he said. "This
is a term that they constantly apply to any country that does
something we may not like: 'rogue state'."
However, it is the record of the U.S. and its stance on international
legislation, he said, that stands in such stark contrast to that of
the rest of the world.
The U.S. stands alone with the East African state of Somalia in its
refusal to ratify the 1989 Convention on the Rights of a Child. The
treaty, which the U.N. calls "the most powerful legal instrument that
not only recognises but protects [children's] human rights", is one
of the most widely supported international agreements in the U.N.'s
history.
While the U.S. government has publicly stated its support for the
treaty, it has not taken the necessary steps to ratify it.
Others that Washington has rejected include the Comprehensive Test
Ban Treaty, the Treaty Banning Antipersonnel Mines, a protocol to
create a compliance regime for the Biological Weapons Convention, the
Kyoto Protocol on global warming, and the Anti-Ballistic Missile
Treaty.
The U.S. is also not complying with the nuclear Non-Proliferation
Treaty, the Chemical Weapons Commission, and the U.N. framework
Convention on Climate Change.
One of the touchiest areas in the rocky relationship between the U.S.
and the international community is Washington's overt hostility
toward the International Criminal Court (ICC) at The Hague.
The U.S. was one of seven states to vote against the formation of the
ICC in 1998. In taking this stance, the U.S. defied the rest of the
democratic world's support for the court and aligned itself with
notorious human rights abusers like China, Iraq, Libya and Yemen.
The U.S. continues to stand alone among even its closest allies in
its refusal to recognise the authority of the ICC.
The Bush administration maintains that U.S. personnel must be exempt
from prosecution by the court, and has pressured ICC member states to
sign bilateral deals promising not to hand over any U.S. nationals to
the court's jurisdiction.
Human rights advocates and non-governmental organisations say the
U.S. government's stance toward ICC creates a two-tiered system of
international law: one for U.S. nationals and one for everyone else.
Organisations such as the New-York based Human Rights Watch (HRW)
have blasted the U.S. for its refusal to recognise the legitimacy of
the court, saying such a stance hurts the image of the U.S. in the
world.
"U.S. ambassadors have been acting like schoolyard bullies," Richard
Dicker, director of HRW's International Justice Programme, said in a
statement. "The U.S. campaign has not succeeded in undermining global
support for the court. But it has succeeded in making the U.S.
government look foolish and mean-spirited."
The U.S. continues to reject the ICC, leaving no room for argument.
In the most recent example of the U.S.'s rejection of U.N.-backed
treaties, the U.S. and Israel voted against UNESCO's Convention on
the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions
in mid-October.
While the treaty is largely symbolic -- it doesn't carry any real
means of enforcement -- supporters say it is an important declaration
of the importance of cultural diversity and national aspirations.
Among other provisions, the treaty gives nations more leeway to
support local culture through subsidies of domestic films and
publications to help them stand up to foreign competition.
The U.S. government has called the treaty protectionist and says it
could be a barrier to international trade.
During the treaty negotiations, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza
Rice, in a letter to other governments, called for changes in the
text, saying the treaty would "sow conflict rather than cooperation".
The U.S. State Department has also said the treaty could be used by
governments to censor or block foreign films or other goods in the
name of preserving cultural diversity, a claim that supporters of the
treaty deny.
"The United States is a culturally diverse country and a vigorous
proponent of cultural diversity, which is based on individuals'
freedom to choose how to express themselves and how to interact with
others," the State Department says. "Governments deciding what
citizens can read, hear, or see denies individuals the opportunity to
make independent choices about what they value."
At the UNESCO meeting, Timothy Craddock, the ambassador from Britain,
one of Washington's staunchest allies, called the treaty, "clear,
carefully balanced, and consistent with the principles of
international law and fundamental human rights".
However, he added that Britain and the European Union had "agreed to
disagree" with "one country". (END/2005)
http://www.ipsnews.org/news.asp?idnews=31346
Foreign Ministry denounces U.S. lawsuit against ex-Shin Bet chief
By Yuval Yoaz, Haaretz Correspondent, and AP
The Foreign Ministry condemned on Friday a civil lawsuit filed in the
U.S. against former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter for the deaths of 14
Palestinian civilians who were killed in a targeted hit on a senior
Hamas operative in 2002.
"We see this as a cynical manipulation of the courts by groups with
extremist agendas," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli
Foreign Ministry.
Palestinians filed the suit against Dichter in a U.S. federal court
Thursday, seeking millions of dollars in damages.
The plaintiffs are relatives of the 14 civilians who were killed when
Israel assassinated senior Hamas operative Salah Shehadeh in July
2002.
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court - Southern District of
New York.
While Palestinians have previously filed suit in the United States
against other Israeli security officials, Dichter, unlike the
defendants in those cases, is currently in the U.S. As a result, the
plaintiffs have been able to serve him with the papers, thereby
enabling the court to hear the case.
According to the suit, Dichter shares responsibility for the deaths
both because of his role in the decision to drop a one-ton bomb on
the building where Shehadeh was staying and because he supplied the
intelligence on which that decision was based.
The plaintiffs seek to hold Dichter responsible under customary
international law and the Torture Victim Protection Act. They say the
court would have jurisdiction for human rights violations and war
crimes under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act, a law that has been used
by Holocaust survivors and relatives of people killed or tortured
under despotic regimes from South America to the Philippines.
The lawsuit, brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, says
the bombing occurred as part of a series of targeted attacks on
suspected terrorists that has killed 327 people and at least 174 non-
targeted bystanders, including at least 47 children, since September
2000.
The lawsuit says Dichter had "developed, implemented and escalated
the practice of targeted killings."
A spokeswoman for the Center for Constitutional Rights said Dichter
was served with the lawsuit during a benefit Wednesday in New York
City.
The Israel Defense Forces said at the time that it decided to drop
the bomb based on intelligence indicating that Shehadeh was alone in
the building.
While the suit does not ask for a specific sum in damages - that
would be decided by the jury - the total is expected to reach
millions of dollars. The plaintiffs are seeking both compensation and
punitive damages, arguing that the bombing constituted a war crime
that should not go unpunished.
Dichter has not yet responded to the suit.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/655820.html
The Foreign Ministry condemned on Friday a civil lawsuit filed in the
U.S. against former Shin Bet chief Avi Dichter for the deaths of 14
Palestinian civilians who were killed in a targeted hit on a senior
Hamas operative in 2002.
"We see this as a cynical manipulation of the courts by groups with
extremist agendas," said Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli
Foreign Ministry.
Palestinians filed the suit against Dichter in a U.S. federal court
Thursday, seeking millions of dollars in damages.
The plaintiffs are relatives of the 14 civilians who were killed when
Israel assassinated senior Hamas operative Salah Shehadeh in July
2002.
The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court - Southern District of
New York.
While Palestinians have previously filed suit in the United States
against other Israeli security officials, Dichter, unlike the
defendants in those cases, is currently in the U.S. As a result, the
plaintiffs have been able to serve him with the papers, thereby
enabling the court to hear the case.
According to the suit, Dichter shares responsibility for the deaths
both because of his role in the decision to drop a one-ton bomb on
the building where Shehadeh was staying and because he supplied the
intelligence on which that decision was based.
The plaintiffs seek to hold Dichter responsible under customary
international law and the Torture Victim Protection Act. They say the
court would have jurisdiction for human rights violations and war
crimes under the U.S. Alien Tort Claims Act, a law that has been used
by Holocaust survivors and relatives of people killed or tortured
under despotic regimes from South America to the Philippines.
The lawsuit, brought by the Center for Constitutional Rights, says
the bombing occurred as part of a series of targeted attacks on
suspected terrorists that has killed 327 people and at least 174 non-
targeted bystanders, including at least 47 children, since September
2000.
The lawsuit says Dichter had "developed, implemented and escalated
the practice of targeted killings."
A spokeswoman for the Center for Constitutional Rights said Dichter
was served with the lawsuit during a benefit Wednesday in New York
City.
The Israel Defense Forces said at the time that it decided to drop
the bomb based on intelligence indicating that Shehadeh was alone in
the building.
While the suit does not ask for a specific sum in damages - that
would be decided by the jury - the total is expected to reach
millions of dollars. The plaintiffs are seeking both compensation and
punitive damages, arguing that the bombing constituted a war crime
that should not go unpunished.
Dichter has not yet responded to the suit.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/655820.html
Heads roll at Veterans Administration
Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal blamed
by Bob Nichols
Project Censored Award Winner
Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter charged Monday that the reason
Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi stepped down earlier this
month was the growing scandal surrounding the use of uranium
munitions in the Iraq War.
Writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter No. 169, Arthur N.
Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in
New York, stated, "The real reason for Mr. Principi's departure was
really never given, however a special report published by eminent
scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive
cause of the `Gulf War Syndrome' has fed a growing scandal about the
continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military."
Bernklau continued, "This malady (from uranium munitions), that
thousands of our military have suffered and died from, has finally
been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the
guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed."
He added, "Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first
Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were
325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number
of `Disabled Vets' means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers
who served have some form of permanent medical problems!" The
disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it
was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.
"The VA Secretary (Principi) was aware of this fact as far back as
2000," wrote Bernklau. "He, and the Bush administration have been
hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret's report, (it) ... is
far too big to hide or to cover up!"
"Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans
Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that `Gulf Era
Veterans' now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739
Veterans," said Berklau.
"The long-term effects have revealed that DU (uranium oxide) is a
virtual death sentence," stated Berklau. "Marion Fulk, a nuclear
physical chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear
Weapons Lab, and was also involved with the Manhattan Project,
interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers (from the
2003 Iraq War) as `spectacular ? and a matter of concern!'"
When asked if the main purpose of using DU was for "destroying things
and killing people," Fulk was more specific: "I would say it is the
perfect weapon for killing lots of people!"
Principi could not be reached for comment prior to deadline.
References
1. Depleted uranium: "Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets: A
death sentence here and abroad" by Leuren Moret,
http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml.
2. Veterans for Constitutional Law, 112 Jefferson Ave., Port
Jefferson NY 11777, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director, (516) 474-
4261, fax 516-474-1968.
3. Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter. Email Gary Kohls,
gkohls@cpinternet.com, with "Subscribe" in the subject line.
Email Bob Nichols at bobnichols@cox.net.
http://www.sfbayview.com/012605/headsroll012605.shtml
by Bob Nichols
Project Censored Award Winner
Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter charged Monday that the reason
Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi stepped down earlier this
month was the growing scandal surrounding the use of uranium
munitions in the Iraq War.
Writing in Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter No. 169, Arthur N.
Bernklau, executive director of Veterans for Constitutional Law in
New York, stated, "The real reason for Mr. Principi's departure was
really never given, however a special report published by eminent
scientist Leuren Moret naming depleted uranium as the definitive
cause of the `Gulf War Syndrome' has fed a growing scandal about the
continued use of uranium munitions by the US Military."
Bernklau continued, "This malady (from uranium munitions), that
thousands of our military have suffered and died from, has finally
been identified as the cause of this sickness, eliminating the
guessing. The terrible truth is now being revealed."
He added, "Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first
Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were
325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number
of `Disabled Vets' means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers
who served have some form of permanent medical problems!" The
disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it
was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.
"The VA Secretary (Principi) was aware of this fact as far back as
2000," wrote Bernklau. "He, and the Bush administration have been
hiding these facts, but now, thanks to Moret's report, (it) ... is
far too big to hide or to cover up!"
"Terry Jamison, Public Affairs Specialist, Office of the Deputy
Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs, Department of Veterans
Affairs, at the VA Central Office, recently reported that `Gulf Era
Veterans' now on medical disability, since 1991, number 518,739
Veterans," said Berklau.
"The long-term effects have revealed that DU (uranium oxide) is a
virtual death sentence," stated Berklau. "Marion Fulk, a nuclear
physical chemist, who retired from the Lawrence Livermore Nuclear
Weapons Lab, and was also involved with the Manhattan Project,
interprets the new and rapid malignancies in the soldiers (from the
2003 Iraq War) as `spectacular ? and a matter of concern!'"
When asked if the main purpose of using DU was for "destroying things
and killing people," Fulk was more specific: "I would say it is the
perfect weapon for killing lots of people!"
Principi could not be reached for comment prior to deadline.
References
1. Depleted uranium: "Dirty bombs, dirty missiles, dirty bullets: A
death sentence here and abroad" by Leuren Moret,
http://www.sfbayview.com/081804/Depleteduranium081804.shtml.
2. Veterans for Constitutional Law, 112 Jefferson Ave., Port
Jefferson NY 11777, Arthur N. Bernklau, executive director, (516) 474-
4261, fax 516-474-1968.
3. Preventive Psychiatry E-Newsletter. Email Gary Kohls,
gkohls@cpinternet.com, with "Subscribe" in the subject line.
Email Bob Nichols at bobnichols@cox.net.
http://www.sfbayview.com/012605/headsroll012605.shtml
Blair Tries to Cover Up $1.3 Billion Iraqi Theft
By Patrick Cockburn
12/09/05 "CounterPunch.org" -- -- Baghdad - The British government is
trying to stall an investigation into the theft of more than $1.3bn
(�740m) from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, senior Iraqi officials
say.
The government wants to postpone the investigation to help its
favored candidate Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, in the
election on December 15. The money disappeared during his
administration.
The UK's enthusiasm for Mr Allawi may have led it into promoting a
cover-up of how the money was siphoned off and sent abroad. One Iraqi
minister believes the investigation will be dropped when the next
government is formed.
The scandal is expected to explode with renewed force in the next few
weeks. The Independent has learnt of secret tape recordings of a wide-
ranging conversation between a Ministry of Defense official and a
businessman, naming politicians and officials involved.
"It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history," Ali Allawi,
Iraq's Finance Minister, said. "Huge amounts of money have
disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal." Most of
the military purchases were made in Poland and Pakistan. They
included obsolete helicopters, armoured vehicles unable to stop a
bullet and grossly over-priced machine guns and bullets. Payments
were made in advance. Often the Ministry of Defense did not even have
a copy of contracts under which it was paying hundreds of millions of
dollars.
Ahmed Chalabi, the Deputy Prime Minister, says William Patey, the
British ambassador in Baghdad, asked him not to give prominence to
the scandal before the election because this might "politicise the
investigation". Mr Patey denies he had asked for the investigation to
be delayed.
A former senior British adviser was quoted as saying that Tony Blair
was convinced Mr Allawi "is the best hope" for Iraq. He added that Mr
Blair had sent a small team of operatives to give political help to
Mr Allawi. In background briefings, British officials have heavily
supported the former prime minister despite evidence that government
corruption was rife under his administration.
Mr Allawi is a former member of the Baath party who fell out with
Saddam Hussein in the 1970s. Resident in Britain for many years, he
became the leader of an opposition group, the Iraqi National Accord.
He has never denied a close association with British intelligence and
the CIA said he was justified in taking support from any foreign
intelligence service willing to help him fight Saddam.
Supporters of Mr Allawi have denounced allegations about widespread
fraud while he was prime minister in 2004-05 as an attempt to damage
him before a close-fought election next week. But documents seen by
The Independent show Mr Allawi's office authorising astonishingly
large sums of money to be spent by the Defense Ministry. The cabinet
was excluded at the request of Hazem al-Shaalan, the Defense Minister.
He asked for and received permission from the prime minister's office
to spend money without oversight in September 2004, citing the
gravity of the crisis facing the Iraq. In November, Mr Shaalan
received a letter from the cabinet secretariat saying the prime
minister had agreed to spend $1.7bn "for the purpose of creating two
rapid intervention divisions". By the winter of 2004, large sums were
being sent out of Iraq in sacks filled with $100 bills loaded on to
planes. One shipment of $300m was noticed and intercepted.
The Iraqi army and police have paid heavily in lives because of the
misappropriation of the almost all the defense procurement budget.
Insurgents are often better armed than government forces. Soldiers
travel through Baghdad in ageing white pick-ups normally used to
carry cabbages to the market.
The men chosen, primarily by the US, to run the Iraqi Defense
Ministry were extraordinarily inexperienced. They included Mr
Shalaan, the Defense Minister, who had worked in real estate in a
small way in London during the 1990s. He may have appealed to
American and British advisers because he was vociferously anti-
Iranian.
Ziyad Cattan was the head of military procurement at the Defense
Ministry who signed cheques for hundreds of millions of dollars. He
openly admits to knowing nothing about weapons. He returned to Iraq
just before the war in 2003 after 27 years in Poland. His previous
jobs included selling flowers, shoes and used cars. At one time he
ran a pizza parlour.
Mr Cattan is allegedly one of the voices secretly recorded when he
was talking in a car with Naer Mohammed Ahmed Jumaili. Mr Jumaili
acted as middle man for the arms deals, Mr Chalabi said at a press
conference in Baghdad this week. He said 35 cheques from the Ministry
of Defense worth $1.1bn were paid into Mr Jumaili's account at the Al
Warkah Bank in Baghdad.
A mystery surrounding the alleged misappropriation of military
procurement budget is that it passed unnoticed by American and
British officials in Baghdad. This was despite the fact that they
were supposedly supervising the build up of a new Iraqi army and
police force. Mr Shaalan and Mr Cattan both protest that nothing was
done in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense at this time that was not known
to the US.
A problem facing the investigation into the missing money is that so
many politicians and officials from the Sunni, Shia and Kurdish
communities in Iraq were either implicated or failed to notice what
was happening. The National Assembly has not lifted Mr Shaalan's
parliamentary immunity.
Supporters of Mr Allawi, the Kurdish parties and some members of Shia
religious parties have sought to delay the investigation.
Britain has backed Mr Allawi strongly in the hope that as a secular
Shia with nationalist credentials he can unite people from the three
main communities.
Despite British support, Iraqi political observers do not believe Mr
Allawi will be the next prime minister. Last weekend he was chased
from the shrine in the holy Shia city of Najaf by worshippers hurling
shoes whom he says were trying to kill him.
With most Iraqis voting on sectarian or ethnic lines Mr Allawi will
be doing well if he can win more than 25 seats in the 275-member
Assembly.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11257.htm
12/09/05 "CounterPunch.org" -- -- Baghdad - The British government is
trying to stall an investigation into the theft of more than $1.3bn
(�740m) from the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, senior Iraqi officials
say.
The government wants to postpone the investigation to help its
favored candidate Iyad Allawi, the former prime minister, in the
election on December 15. The money disappeared during his
administration.
The UK's enthusiasm for Mr Allawi may have led it into promoting a
cover-up of how the money was siphoned off and sent abroad. One Iraqi
minister believes the investigation will be dropped when the next
government is formed.
The scandal is expected to explode with renewed force in the next few
weeks. The Independent has learnt of secret tape recordings of a wide-
ranging conversation between a Ministry of Defense official and a
businessman, naming politicians and officials involved.
"It is possibly one of the largest thefts in history," Ali Allawi,
Iraq's Finance Minister, said. "Huge amounts of money have
disappeared. In return we got nothing but scraps of metal." Most of
the military purchases were made in Poland and Pakistan. They
included obsolete helicopters, armoured vehicles unable to stop a
bullet and grossly over-priced machine guns and bullets. Payments
were made in advance. Often the Ministry of Defense did not even have
a copy of contracts under which it was paying hundreds of millions of
dollars.
Ahmed Chalabi, the Deputy Prime Minister, says William Patey, the
British ambassador in Baghdad, asked him not to give prominence to
the scandal before the election because this might "politicise the
investigation". Mr Patey denies he had asked for the investigation to
be delayed.
A former senior British adviser was quoted as saying that Tony Blair
was convinced Mr Allawi "is the best hope" for Iraq. He added that Mr
Blair had sent a small team of operatives to give political help to
Mr Allawi. In background briefings, British officials have heavily
supported the former prime minister despite evidence that government
corruption was rife under his administration.
Mr Allawi is a former member of the Baath party who fell out with
Saddam Hussein in the 1970s. Resident in Britain for many years, he
became the leader of an opposition group, the Iraqi National Accord.
He has never denied a close association with British intelligence and
the CIA said he was justified in taking support from any foreign
intelligence service willing to help him fight Saddam.
Supporters of Mr Allawi have denounced allegations about widespread
fraud while he was prime minister in 2004-05 as an attempt to damage
him before a close-fought election next week. But documents seen by
The Independent show Mr Allawi's office authorising astonishingly
large sums of money to be spent by the Defense Ministry. The cabinet
was excluded at the request of Hazem al-Shaalan, the Defense Minister.
He asked for and received permission from the prime minister's office
to spend money without oversight in September 2004, citing the
gravity of the crisis facing the Iraq. In November, Mr Shaalan
received a letter from the cabinet secretariat saying the prime
minister had agreed to spend $1.7bn "for the purpose of creating two
rapid intervention divisions". By the winter of 2004, large sums were
being sent out of Iraq in sacks filled with $100 bills loaded on to
planes. One shipment of $300m was noticed and intercepted.
The Iraqi army and police have paid heavily in lives because of the
misappropriation of the almost all the defense procurement budget.
Insurgents are often better armed than government forces. Soldiers
travel through Baghdad in ageing white pick-ups normally used to
carry cabbages to the market.
The men chosen, primarily by the US, to run the Iraqi Defense
Ministry were extraordinarily inexperienced. They included Mr
Shalaan, the Defense Minister, who had worked in real estate in a
small way in London during the 1990s. He may have appealed to
American and British advisers because he was vociferously anti-
Iranian.
Ziyad Cattan was the head of military procurement at the Defense
Ministry who signed cheques for hundreds of millions of dollars. He
openly admits to knowing nothing about weapons. He returned to Iraq
just before the war in 2003 after 27 years in Poland. His previous
jobs included selling flowers, shoes and used cars. At one time he
ran a pizza parlour.
Mr Cattan is allegedly one of the voices secretly recorded when he
was talking in a car with Naer Mohammed Ahmed Jumaili. Mr Jumaili
acted as middle man for the arms deals, Mr Chalabi said at a press
conference in Baghdad this week. He said 35 cheques from the Ministry
of Defense worth $1.1bn were paid into Mr Jumaili's account at the Al
Warkah Bank in Baghdad.
A mystery surrounding the alleged misappropriation of military
procurement budget is that it passed unnoticed by American and
British officials in Baghdad. This was despite the fact that they
were supposedly supervising the build up of a new Iraqi army and
police force. Mr Shaalan and Mr Cattan both protest that nothing was
done in the Iraqi Ministry of Defense at this time that was not known
to the US.
A problem facing the investigation into the missing money is that so
many politicians and officials from the Sunni, Shia and Kurdish
communities in Iraq were either implicated or failed to notice what
was happening. The National Assembly has not lifted Mr Shaalan's
parliamentary immunity.
Supporters of Mr Allawi, the Kurdish parties and some members of Shia
religious parties have sought to delay the investigation.
Britain has backed Mr Allawi strongly in the hope that as a secular
Shia with nationalist credentials he can unite people from the three
main communities.
Despite British support, Iraqi political observers do not believe Mr
Allawi will be the next prime minister. Last weekend he was chased
from the shrine in the holy Shia city of Najaf by worshippers hurling
shoes whom he says were trying to kill him.
With most Iraqis voting on sectarian or ethnic lines Mr Allawi will
be doing well if he can win more than 25 seats in the 275-member
Assembly.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11257.htm
US Terror Watchlist 80,000 Names Long
US Terror Watchlist 80,000 Names Long
Agence France-Presse
Thursday 08 December 2005
Stockholm - A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a Swedish newspaper reported, citing European air industry sources.
The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to 40,000 a year later and now stands at 80,000, Svenska Dagbladet reported.
Airlines must check each passenger flying to a US destination against the list, and contact the US Department of Homeland Security for further investigation if there is a matching name.
The list contains a strict "no fly" section, which requires airline staff to contact police, and a "selectee" section, which requires passengers to undergo further security checks.
Some 2,000 passengers checking in at Stockholm's Arlanda airport have had to be cleared with the US authorities because of name matches on the "selectee" list this year, although none was prevented from boarding, Svenska Dagbladet said.
Agence France-Presse
Thursday 08 December 2005
Stockholm - A watchlist of possible terror suspects distributed by the US government to airlines for pre-flight checks is now 80,000 names long, a Swedish newspaper reported, citing European air industry sources.
The classified list, which carried just 16 names before the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington had grown to 1,000 by the end of 2001, to 40,000 a year later and now stands at 80,000, Svenska Dagbladet reported.
Airlines must check each passenger flying to a US destination against the list, and contact the US Department of Homeland Security for further investigation if there is a matching name.
The list contains a strict "no fly" section, which requires airline staff to contact police, and a "selectee" section, which requires passengers to undergo further security checks.
Some 2,000 passengers checking in at Stockholm's Arlanda airport have had to be cleared with the US authorities because of name matches on the "selectee" list this year, although none was prevented from boarding, Svenska Dagbladet said.
Eyewitness: "I Never Heard the Word 'Bomb'"
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1138965,00.html
Eyewitness: "I Never Heard the Word 'Bomb'"
A passenger on Flight 924 gives his account of the
shooting and says Rigoberto Alpizar never claimed to
have a bomb
By SIOBHAN MORRISSEY/MIAMI
At least one passenger aboard American Airlines Flight
924 maintains the federal air marshals were a little
too quick on the draw when they shot and killed
Rigoberto Alpizar as he frantically attempted to run
off the airplane shortly before take-off.
"I don't think they needed to use deadly force with
the guy," says John McAlhany, a 44-year-old
construction worker from Sebastian, Fla. "He was
getting off the plane." McAlhany also maintains that
Alpizar never mentioned having a bomb.
"I never heard the word 'bomb' on the plane," McAlhany
told TIME in a telephone interview. "I never heard the
word bomb until the FBI asked me did you hear the word
bomb. That is ridiculous." Even the authorities didn't
come out and say bomb, McAlhany says. "They asked,
'Did you hear anything about the b-word?'" he says.
"That's what they called it."
When the incident began McAlhany was in seat 24C, in
the middle of the plane. "[Alpizar] was in the back,"
McAlhany says, "a few seats from the back bathroom. He
sat down." Then, McAlhany says, "I heard an argument
with his wife. He was saying 'I have to get off the
plane.' She said, 'Calm down.'"
Alpizar took off running down the aisle, with his wife
close behind him. "She was running behind him saying,
'He's sick. He's sick. He's ill. He's got a disorder,"
McAlhany recalls. "I don't know if she said bipolar
disorder [as one witness has alleged]. She was trying
to explain to the marshals that he was ill. He just
wanted to get off the plane."
McAlhany described Alpizar as carrying a big backpack
and wearing a fanny pack in front. He says it would
have been impossible for Alpizar to lie flat on the
floor of the plane, as marshals ordered him to do,
with the fanny pack on. "You can't get on the ground
with a fanny pack," he says. "You have to move it to
the side."
By the time Alpizar made it to the front of the
airplane, the crew had ordered the rest of the
passengers to get down between the seats. "I didn't
see him get shot," he says. "They kept telling me to
get down. I heard about five shots."
McAlhany says he tried to see what was happening just
in case he needed to take evasive action. "I wanted to
make sure if anything was coming toward me and they
were killing passengers I would have a chance to break
somebody's neck," he says. "I was looking through the
seats because I wanted to see what was coming.
"I was on the phone with my brother. Somebody came
down the aisle and put a shotgun to the back of my
head and said put your hands on the seat in front of
you. I got my cell phone karate chopped out of my
hand. Then I realized it was an official."
In the ensuing events, many of the passengers began
crying in fear, he recalls. "They were pointing the
guns directly at us instead of pointing them to the
ground," he says "One little girl was crying. There
was a lady crying all the way to the hotel."
McAlhany said he saw Alpizar before the flight and is
absolutely stunned by what unfolded on the airplane.
He says he saw Alpizar eating a sandwich in the
boarding area before getting on the plane. He looked
normal at that time, McAlhany says. He thinks the
whole thing was a mistake: "I don't believe he should
be dead right now."
Eyewitness: "I Never Heard the Word 'Bomb'"
A passenger on Flight 924 gives his account of the
shooting and says Rigoberto Alpizar never claimed to
have a bomb
By SIOBHAN MORRISSEY/MIAMI
At least one passenger aboard American Airlines Flight
924 maintains the federal air marshals were a little
too quick on the draw when they shot and killed
Rigoberto Alpizar as he frantically attempted to run
off the airplane shortly before take-off.
"I don't think they needed to use deadly force with
the guy," says John McAlhany, a 44-year-old
construction worker from Sebastian, Fla. "He was
getting off the plane." McAlhany also maintains that
Alpizar never mentioned having a bomb.
"I never heard the word 'bomb' on the plane," McAlhany
told TIME in a telephone interview. "I never heard the
word bomb until the FBI asked me did you hear the word
bomb. That is ridiculous." Even the authorities didn't
come out and say bomb, McAlhany says. "They asked,
'Did you hear anything about the b-word?'" he says.
"That's what they called it."
When the incident began McAlhany was in seat 24C, in
the middle of the plane. "[Alpizar] was in the back,"
McAlhany says, "a few seats from the back bathroom. He
sat down." Then, McAlhany says, "I heard an argument
with his wife. He was saying 'I have to get off the
plane.' She said, 'Calm down.'"
Alpizar took off running down the aisle, with his wife
close behind him. "She was running behind him saying,
'He's sick. He's sick. He's ill. He's got a disorder,"
McAlhany recalls. "I don't know if she said bipolar
disorder [as one witness has alleged]. She was trying
to explain to the marshals that he was ill. He just
wanted to get off the plane."
McAlhany described Alpizar as carrying a big backpack
and wearing a fanny pack in front. He says it would
have been impossible for Alpizar to lie flat on the
floor of the plane, as marshals ordered him to do,
with the fanny pack on. "You can't get on the ground
with a fanny pack," he says. "You have to move it to
the side."
By the time Alpizar made it to the front of the
airplane, the crew had ordered the rest of the
passengers to get down between the seats. "I didn't
see him get shot," he says. "They kept telling me to
get down. I heard about five shots."
McAlhany says he tried to see what was happening just
in case he needed to take evasive action. "I wanted to
make sure if anything was coming toward me and they
were killing passengers I would have a chance to break
somebody's neck," he says. "I was looking through the
seats because I wanted to see what was coming.
"I was on the phone with my brother. Somebody came
down the aisle and put a shotgun to the back of my
head and said put your hands on the seat in front of
you. I got my cell phone karate chopped out of my
hand. Then I realized it was an official."
In the ensuing events, many of the passengers began
crying in fear, he recalls. "They were pointing the
guns directly at us instead of pointing them to the
ground," he says "One little girl was crying. There
was a lady crying all the way to the hotel."
McAlhany said he saw Alpizar before the flight and is
absolutely stunned by what unfolded on the airplane.
He says he saw Alpizar eating a sandwich in the
boarding area before getting on the plane. He looked
normal at that time, McAlhany says. He thinks the
whole thing was a mistake: "I don't believe he should
be dead right now."
Thursday, December 08, 2005
House, Senate Agree to Extend Patriot Act
House, Senate Agree to Extend Patriot Act
By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
9 minutes ago
House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement Thursday to extend the USA Patriot Act, the government's premier anti-terrorism law, before it expires at the end of the month. But a Democratic senator threatened a filibuster to block the compromise.
"I will do everything I can, including a filibuster, to stop this Patriot Act conference report, which does not include adequate safeguards to protect our constitutional freedoms," said Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., who was the only senator to vote against the original version of the Patriot Act.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., announced that the negotiating committee had reached an agreement that would extend for four years two of the Patriot Act's most controversial provisions ? authorizing roving wiretaps and permitting secret warrants for books, records and other items from businesses, hospitals and organizations such as libraries. Those provisions would expire in four years unless Congress acted on them again.
"All factors considered it's reasonably good, not perfect, but it's acceptable," Specter said of the agreement.
Also to be extended for four years are standards for monitoring "lone wolf" terrorists who may be operating independent of a foreign agent or power. While not part of the Patriot Act, officials considered that along with the Patriot Act provisions.
The Republican-controlled House had been pushing for those provisions to stay in effect as long as a decade, but negotiators decided to go with the GOP-controlled Senate's suggestion.
Most of the Patriot Act would become permanent under the reauthorization.
The White House applauded the agreement.
"The Patriot Act is critical to winning the war on terrorism," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "The president urges both houses of Congress to act promptly to pass this critical piece of legislation."
Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada intends to vote against the measure as currently drafted, according to an aide.
Feingold and five other senators from both parties issued a statement that said, "We believe this conference report will not be able to get through the Senate." They said they wouldn't support it in any form.
The other senators are Republicans Larry Craig of Idaho, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democrats Dick Durbin of Illinois and Ken Salazar of Colorado.
Feingold issued a separate statement threatening a filibuster, a stalling technique designed to block the measure from coming to a final vote.
It takes 60 senators to overcome a filibuster in the 100-member Senate.
"I don't think there will be a filibuster," Specter said. "I don't think it will succeed if there is one."
Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, said the deal should satisfy everyone. "This agreement both preserves the provisions that have made America safer since 9/11 and increases congressional and judicial oversight, which should alleviate the concerns of those who believe the law enforcement tools endanger civil liberties," he said.
But the American Civil Liberties Union immediately denounced the deal, calling on lawmakers to reject the legislation because it intrudes too far into the privacy of innocent Americans.
"This sham compromise agreement fails to address the primary substantive concern raised by millions of Americans, as well as civil liberties, privacy and business organizations and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and in both chambers," said Caroline Fredrickson, the ACLU's Washington legislative office director.
The ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, has not yet decided whether to support the agreement, a spokesman said. But the GOP-majority negotiating committee has enough votes to send the House and Senate the compromise if all of the Republican negotiators agree to it.
The Senate is expected to vote on the compromise next week, Specter said. That would give them enough time to deal with any filibuster threats before the Patriot Act provisions expire on Dec. 31.
Congress overwhelmingly passed the Patriot Act after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The law expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers against suspected terrorists, their associates and financiers.
The compromise also makes changes to national security letters, an investigative tool used by the FBI to compel businesses to turn over customer information without a court order or grand jury subpoena.
Under the agreement, the reauthorization specifies that an NSL can be reviewed by a court, and explicitly allows those who receive the letters to inform their lawyers about them.
By JESSE J. HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
9 minutes ago
House and Senate negotiators reached an agreement Thursday to extend the USA Patriot Act, the government's premier anti-terrorism law, before it expires at the end of the month. But a Democratic senator threatened a filibuster to block the compromise.
"I will do everything I can, including a filibuster, to stop this Patriot Act conference report, which does not include adequate safeguards to protect our constitutional freedoms," said Sen. Russ Feingold (news, bio, voting record), D-Wis., who was the only senator to vote against the original version of the Patriot Act.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., announced that the negotiating committee had reached an agreement that would extend for four years two of the Patriot Act's most controversial provisions ? authorizing roving wiretaps and permitting secret warrants for books, records and other items from businesses, hospitals and organizations such as libraries. Those provisions would expire in four years unless Congress acted on them again.
"All factors considered it's reasonably good, not perfect, but it's acceptable," Specter said of the agreement.
Also to be extended for four years are standards for monitoring "lone wolf" terrorists who may be operating independent of a foreign agent or power. While not part of the Patriot Act, officials considered that along with the Patriot Act provisions.
The Republican-controlled House had been pushing for those provisions to stay in effect as long as a decade, but negotiators decided to go with the GOP-controlled Senate's suggestion.
Most of the Patriot Act would become permanent under the reauthorization.
The White House applauded the agreement.
"The Patriot Act is critical to winning the war on terrorism," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said. "The president urges both houses of Congress to act promptly to pass this critical piece of legislation."
Democratic Leader Harry Reid of Nevada intends to vote against the measure as currently drafted, according to an aide.
Feingold and five other senators from both parties issued a statement that said, "We believe this conference report will not be able to get through the Senate." They said they wouldn't support it in any form.
The other senators are Republicans Larry Craig of Idaho, John Sununu of New Hampshire and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Democrats Dick Durbin of Illinois and Ken Salazar of Colorado.
Feingold issued a separate statement threatening a filibuster, a stalling technique designed to block the measure from coming to a final vote.
It takes 60 senators to overcome a filibuster in the 100-member Senate.
"I don't think there will be a filibuster," Specter said. "I don't think it will succeed if there is one."
Sen. John Cornyn (news, bio, voting record), R-Texas, said the deal should satisfy everyone. "This agreement both preserves the provisions that have made America safer since 9/11 and increases congressional and judicial oversight, which should alleviate the concerns of those who believe the law enforcement tools endanger civil liberties," he said.
But the American Civil Liberties Union immediately denounced the deal, calling on lawmakers to reject the legislation because it intrudes too far into the privacy of innocent Americans.
"This sham compromise agreement fails to address the primary substantive concern raised by millions of Americans, as well as civil liberties, privacy and business organizations and lawmakers from both sides of the aisle and in both chambers," said Caroline Fredrickson, the ACLU's Washington legislative office director.
The ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont, has not yet decided whether to support the agreement, a spokesman said. But the GOP-majority negotiating committee has enough votes to send the House and Senate the compromise if all of the Republican negotiators agree to it.
The Senate is expected to vote on the compromise next week, Specter said. That would give them enough time to deal with any filibuster threats before the Patriot Act provisions expire on Dec. 31.
Congress overwhelmingly passed the Patriot Act after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The law expanded the government's surveillance and prosecutorial powers against suspected terrorists, their associates and financiers.
The compromise also makes changes to national security letters, an investigative tool used by the FBI to compel businesses to turn over customer information without a court order or grand jury subpoena.
Under the agreement, the reauthorization specifies that an NSL can be reviewed by a court, and explicitly allows those who receive the letters to inform their lawyers about them.
Rice Fails to Clarify US View on Torture
Rice Fails to Clarify US View on Torture
By David Holley and Paul Richter
The Los Angeles Times
Thursday 08 December 2005
Moscow - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that an international ban on torture applies to US personnel overseas, in a statement that was apparently meant to ease growing concerns but that sowed new confusion about controversial American policies on treatment of terrorism suspects.
Rice said that "as a matter of US policy," American obligations under the UN Convention Against Torture, which also bans cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, applies to US personnel both in the United States and around the world.
Rice's remarks came amid complaints from Europeans about what they see as harsh and possibly illegal American treatment of terrorism suspects overseas. Rice's comments were interpreted by some US lawmakers and human rights advocates as a sign that the Bush administration was giving ground in the face of international and congressional pressure, but it was unclear whether her statement heralded any change in policies or practices.
The confusion underscored how much suspicion and uncertainty surrounds the subject, even among lawmakers, analysts and advocates who follow the subject closely.
On a tour of Europe that began Monday, Rice has been engulfed by criticism over reports that CIA planes used airports on the continent as stopovers while transporting prisoners to secret interrogation sites. Rice has insisted that US personnel don't use torture, and has argued that American counter-terrorism efforts on the continent help protect Europeans from extremist attacks.
Yet, questions about the behavior of US personnel abroad have lingered, fed in part by the revelation of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq; the denial of civilian court trials to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and the acknowledged American policy of "extraordinary renditions," in which terrorism suspects are seized in one country and flown to another nation for interrogation.
Rice's latest comments left much unclear. She did not try to define banned prisoner interrogation measures or specify what, in the American view, constitutes cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. She also did not address restrictions imposed by the torture convention on US security contractors.
Some saw her statement, at a news conference in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, as a shift from a legal opinion offered by US Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, who said in Senate testimony this year that US personnel overseas were not legally bound by the UN convention's restrictions on cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.
The United States is a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture. Gonzales, however, told the Senate that the administration considered the restrictions on cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment to be tied to acts illegal or unconstitutional under US law, but that American law did not protect non-Americans overseas.
Rice did not repudiate Gonzales' legal opinion but said US policy was to not use cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment on captives.
That stand is not a new one. Although the administration does not believe US officials overseas are legally obligated to observe the ban on cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, it is nonetheless government policy to adhere to it, officials say.
Gonzales wrote in October in response to a questionnaire from the Senate Judiciary Committee: "It's the administration policy to abide by the requirements barring cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment even if such treatment is not legally required, regardless of whether the detainee in question is here in the United States or overseas," said a US official familiar with the response.
Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, speaking of Rice, said Wednesday: "Her statement is a statement of policy, and it's been the US policy."
Still, some saw her comments as a shift from recent stances taken by Bush administration officials.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking minority member of the Armed Services Committee, said Rice's comments "represent a reversal from the administration's position on the convention up to now. It is an important and very welcome change from their previous position."
Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, said the statement left many questions unanswered.
"I'd like to be able to say, 'I strongly welcome this, good for Condi Rice,' " said Tom Malinowski, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch in Washington.
"But if the administration is not willing to clarify this and say it's a change in the policy Alberto Gonzales articulated ? then I don't know."
Another group, Human Rights First, said US officials in the past had refused to address whether techniques such as simulated drowning, sleep deprivation, religious humiliation and solitary confinement were covered by prohibitions against mistreatment. "Does your statement now mean that these practices are prohibited as a matter of law and policy?" the group asked in a statement.
The White House has opposed an amendment sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that would set new anti-torture restrictions barring "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment" of prisoners by all US personnel in all circumstances.
Vice President Dick Cheney has lobbied Congress to at least exempt the CIA from the tougher rules, which passed the Senate on a 90-9 vote in October. McCain is a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who endured torture.
CIA interrogators at overseas locations reportedly have been permitted to use techniques banned for use by the US military. The McCain amendment would make the Army Field Manual the authority on interrogation techniques for all US government agencies.
The administration, arguing that existing laws and regulations are adequate to prevent the torture of prisoners, has expressed concern that adoption of the McCain amendment could signal to detainees that they had little to fear during interrogations. But officials have been in negotiations with McCain to seek a compromise on his measure, which has not yet been passed by the full Congress.
One high-profile case that Rice has confronted this week is that of Khaled Masri, a German national of Lebanese descent. He filed a lawsuit Tuesday in US District Court in northern Virginia alleging that American intelligence operatives mistakenly abducted him in December 2003 and held him for five months, subjecting him to torture and mistreatment.
On Tuesday, without mentioning the Masri case directly, Rice said in Berlin that "any policy will sometimes result in errors, and when it does we will do everything we can to rectify them."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that she understood the comment to apply to Masri.
UN human rights chief Louise Arbour warned Wednesday that the US-declared war on terrorism was eroding a global ban on torture. In remarks at the United Nations in the run-up to Human Rights Day on Saturday, Arbour urged Rice to further clarify the US policy on torture and rendition.
"Pursuing security objectives at all costs may create a world in which we are neither safe nor free," Arbour said. "This will certainly be the case if the only choice is between the terrorists and the torturers."
US Ambassador John R. Bolton immediately responded, saying Arbour should be concentrating on "real" human rights abusers such as Zimbabwe and Myanmar - not the United States.
Holley reported from Moscow and Richter from Washington. Times staff writers Tyler Marshall, Bob Drogin and Greg Miller in Washington and Maggie Farley at the United Nations contributed to this report.
By David Holley and Paul Richter
The Los Angeles Times
Thursday 08 December 2005
Moscow - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Wednesday that an international ban on torture applies to US personnel overseas, in a statement that was apparently meant to ease growing concerns but that sowed new confusion about controversial American policies on treatment of terrorism suspects.
Rice said that "as a matter of US policy," American obligations under the UN Convention Against Torture, which also bans cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment, applies to US personnel both in the United States and around the world.
Rice's remarks came amid complaints from Europeans about what they see as harsh and possibly illegal American treatment of terrorism suspects overseas. Rice's comments were interpreted by some US lawmakers and human rights advocates as a sign that the Bush administration was giving ground in the face of international and congressional pressure, but it was unclear whether her statement heralded any change in policies or practices.
The confusion underscored how much suspicion and uncertainty surrounds the subject, even among lawmakers, analysts and advocates who follow the subject closely.
On a tour of Europe that began Monday, Rice has been engulfed by criticism over reports that CIA planes used airports on the continent as stopovers while transporting prisoners to secret interrogation sites. Rice has insisted that US personnel don't use torture, and has argued that American counter-terrorism efforts on the continent help protect Europeans from extremist attacks.
Yet, questions about the behavior of US personnel abroad have lingered, fed in part by the revelation of abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq; the denial of civilian court trials to detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; and the acknowledged American policy of "extraordinary renditions," in which terrorism suspects are seized in one country and flown to another nation for interrogation.
Rice's latest comments left much unclear. She did not try to define banned prisoner interrogation measures or specify what, in the American view, constitutes cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment. She also did not address restrictions imposed by the torture convention on US security contractors.
Some saw her statement, at a news conference in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, as a shift from a legal opinion offered by US Atty. Gen. Alberto R. Gonzales, who said in Senate testimony this year that US personnel overseas were not legally bound by the UN convention's restrictions on cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.
The United States is a signatory to the UN Convention Against Torture. Gonzales, however, told the Senate that the administration considered the restrictions on cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment to be tied to acts illegal or unconstitutional under US law, but that American law did not protect non-Americans overseas.
Rice did not repudiate Gonzales' legal opinion but said US policy was to not use cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment on captives.
That stand is not a new one. Although the administration does not believe US officials overseas are legally obligated to observe the ban on cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, it is nonetheless government policy to adhere to it, officials say.
Gonzales wrote in October in response to a questionnaire from the Senate Judiciary Committee: "It's the administration policy to abide by the requirements barring cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment even if such treatment is not legally required, regardless of whether the detainee in question is here in the United States or overseas," said a US official familiar with the response.
Adam Ereli, a State Department spokesman, speaking of Rice, said Wednesday: "Her statement is a statement of policy, and it's been the US policy."
Still, some saw her comments as a shift from recent stances taken by Bush administration officials.
Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking minority member of the Armed Services Committee, said Rice's comments "represent a reversal from the administration's position on the convention up to now. It is an important and very welcome change from their previous position."
Human Rights Watch, a New York-based advocacy group, said the statement left many questions unanswered.
"I'd like to be able to say, 'I strongly welcome this, good for Condi Rice,' " said Tom Malinowski, advocacy director for Human Rights Watch in Washington.
"But if the administration is not willing to clarify this and say it's a change in the policy Alberto Gonzales articulated ? then I don't know."
Another group, Human Rights First, said US officials in the past had refused to address whether techniques such as simulated drowning, sleep deprivation, religious humiliation and solitary confinement were covered by prohibitions against mistreatment. "Does your statement now mean that these practices are prohibited as a matter of law and policy?" the group asked in a statement.
The White House has opposed an amendment sponsored by Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) that would set new anti-torture restrictions barring "cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment" of prisoners by all US personnel in all circumstances.
Vice President Dick Cheney has lobbied Congress to at least exempt the CIA from the tougher rules, which passed the Senate on a 90-9 vote in October. McCain is a former prisoner of war in Vietnam who endured torture.
CIA interrogators at overseas locations reportedly have been permitted to use techniques banned for use by the US military. The McCain amendment would make the Army Field Manual the authority on interrogation techniques for all US government agencies.
The administration, arguing that existing laws and regulations are adequate to prevent the torture of prisoners, has expressed concern that adoption of the McCain amendment could signal to detainees that they had little to fear during interrogations. But officials have been in negotiations with McCain to seek a compromise on his measure, which has not yet been passed by the full Congress.
One high-profile case that Rice has confronted this week is that of Khaled Masri, a German national of Lebanese descent. He filed a lawsuit Tuesday in US District Court in northern Virginia alleging that American intelligence operatives mistakenly abducted him in December 2003 and held him for five months, subjecting him to torture and mistreatment.
On Tuesday, without mentioning the Masri case directly, Rice said in Berlin that "any policy will sometimes result in errors, and when it does we will do everything we can to rectify them."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel indicated that she understood the comment to apply to Masri.
UN human rights chief Louise Arbour warned Wednesday that the US-declared war on terrorism was eroding a global ban on torture. In remarks at the United Nations in the run-up to Human Rights Day on Saturday, Arbour urged Rice to further clarify the US policy on torture and rendition.
"Pursuing security objectives at all costs may create a world in which we are neither safe nor free," Arbour said. "This will certainly be the case if the only choice is between the terrorists and the torturers."
US Ambassador John R. Bolton immediately responded, saying Arbour should be concentrating on "real" human rights abusers such as Zimbabwe and Myanmar - not the United States.
Holley reported from Moscow and Richter from Washington. Times staff writers Tyler Marshall, Bob Drogin and Greg Miller in Washington and Maggie Farley at the United Nations contributed to this report.
Condi's Trail of Lies
Condi's Trail of Lies
By Sidney Blumenthal
Salon.com
Thursday 08 December 2005
Condoleezza Rice's contradictory, misleading and outright false statements about the US and torture have taken America's moral standing - and her own - to new depths.
The metamorphosis of Condoleezza Rice from the chrysalis of the prot�g� into the butterfly of the State Department has not been a natural evolution but has demanded self-discipline. She has
1. burnished an image of the ultimate loyalist, yet betrayed her mentor, George H.W. Bush's national security advisor Brent Scowcroft.
2. She is the team player, yet carefully inserted knives in the back of her predecessor, Colin Powell, climbing up them like a ladder of success.
3. She is the person most trusted on foreign policy by the president, yet was an enabler for Vice President Cheney and the neoconservatives.
Now her public relations team at the State Department depicts her as
a. a restorer of realism,
b. builder of alliances
c. and maker of peace.
On her first trip to Europe early this year she left the sensation of being fresh by listening rather than lecturing. The flirtation of power appeared to have a more seductive effect than arrogance. So the old face became a new face. But on this week's trip the iron butterfly emerged.
Rice arrived as the enforcer of the Bush administration's torture policy. She reminded the queasy Europeans that their intelligence services, one way or another, are involved in the rendition of hundreds of suspected terrorists transported through their airports for harsh interrogation in countries like Jordan and Egypt or secret CIA prisons known as "black sites." With her warnings, Rice recast the Western alliance as a partnership in complicity. In her attempt to impose silence, she spread guilt. Everybody is unclean in the dirty war and nobody has any right to complain. "What I would hope that our allies would acknowledge," she said, "is that we are all in this together."
For the European leaders, facing publics hostile to U.S. policy in Iraq and torture, Rice's visit was disquieting. In Italy, prosecutors have issued indictments of 22 current and former CIA operatives for their "extraordinary rendition" of an Egyptian suspect; among those indicted is the former Rome CIA station chief, whom an Italian judge has ruled has no immunity from prosecution. Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, asked about renditions, said, "We know absolutely nothing. We have not one single piece of knowledge." If the Italian government knew the facts, it would investigate, he added.
In Britain, the Foreign Office released a diplomatic disclaimer that it has "no evidence to corroborate media allegations about the use of UK territory in rendition operations." But upset members of the House of Commons have launched a parliamentary inquiry into whether the U.K. has violated the European Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Foreign Minister Jack Straw sent Rice a letter requesting any "clarification the U.S. can give about these reports in the hope that this will allay parliamentary and public concerns."
When the Washington Post reported on the eve of Rice's trip that CIA prisons holding U.S. detainees exist in Romania, Poland and other Eastern European nations, it triggered an explosion. Even though Romania and Poland denied the report, the European Commission and the Council of Europe began investigations. The E.C. declared that for any member state to harbor a CIA prison would be "extremely serious" and bring down sanctions upon it.
In Germany, Rice was greeted by the new chancellor, Angela Merkel, eager to repair relations with the Bush administration made awkward by former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's opposition to the Iraq war. Rice's visit was supposed to smooth over the conflicts of the past, but instead it surfaced new ones that indicated that the divisions between Germany - and Europe - and the U.S. are rooted in the Bush administration's fundamental policies.
Rice arrived in Berlin on the heels of a Washington Post report about the rendition, to a secret CIA jail in Afghanistan called the Salt Pit, of a German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, who was tortured and imprisoned for five months in a case of mistaken identity. After meeting with Rice, Merkel announced that Rice had acknowledged that the U.S. had made a "mistake" in the case. But Rice countered with a statement denying she had said that at all. The reconciliation with Germany was botched; Merkel was embarrassed; and Rice's credibility, at least in the German press, was left in tatters.
Rice had hoped to quell the controversy before she landed. On Monday, as she boarded her plane at Andrew Air Force base in Washington, she delivered a lengthy statement on torture. Her speech was remarkable for its defensive, dense and evasive tone. It was replete with half-truths, outright falsehoods, distortions and subterfuges.
Her remarks can never sway or convince any European leader, foreign ministry or intelligence service, which have the means to make their own judgments. In her effort to persuade world opinion and reassure the American public, she raised the debate over torture to greater prominence and virtually invited inspection of her claims.
Rice has made memorable statements in the past. There was her appearance before the 9/11 Commission, in which she had trouble recalling the CIA's Presidential Daily Briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US," and dismissed its significance. There were her many assertions about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." There was her attack on Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism chief on the National Security Council, for his disclosure that both she and the president did not regard al-Qaida as an urgent threat before Sept. 11, 2001, as a "scurrilous allegation." But her remarks on torture may turn out to be her most unforgettable full-length speech, tainting her tenure as secretary of state as indelibly as Colin Powell's speech making the case for the Iraq war before the United Nations blotted him.
"Torture is a term that is defined by law," said Rice. "We rely on our law to govern our operations." She neglected to explain that "torture" as she used it has been defined by presidential findings to include universally defined methods of torture, such as waterboarding, for which U.S. soldiers were court-martialed in 1902 and 1968 specifically on the basis of having engaged in torture.
But the Bush administration has rejected adherence to the Geneva Conventions as "quaint," in the term of then White House legal counsel and now Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; rejects torture as it is defined in the United Nations Convention Against Torture (although the U.S. is a signatory); and rejects torture as it is interpreted by other international expert bodies, including the European Human Rights Court, whose judgments are binding on the nations of the Council of Europe.
"The United States does not permit, tolerate or condone torture under any circumstances," Rice insisted in her statement. "Moreover, in accordance with the policy of this administration: The United States has respected - and will continue to respect - the sovereignty of other countries." But was the kidnapping of the Egyptian suspect in Italy that has resulted in the 22 indictments of CIA operatives a fiction? Have the Italian prosecutors been made aware that the event was a figment of their imaginations? Was holding el-Masri, the innocent German, not a violation of the sovereignty of another country?
Rice continued: "The United States does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture. The United States does not use the airspace or the airports of any country for the purpose of transporting a detainee to a country where he or she will be tortured." But the German government was reported to have a list of 400 flights over European airspace for the purpose of renditions. And Amnesty International reports that there have been 800 such flights. Once again, Rice relies upon her own definition of "torture" to deny it.
She went on: "The United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured. Where appropriate, the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured." In fact, the U.S. receives assurances from those countries that it would be unlikely that the suspects will be tortured, a technical loophole that provides for a washing of hands. Everybody on all sides understands that there will be torture, as there has been.
***** Rice's legal interpretations were authoritative, bland and bogus. It is hard to say whether they should be called Orwellian for their intentional falsity or Kafkaesque for their unintentional absurdity.
"International law allows a state to detain enemy combatants for the duration of hostilities," she said. But the administration has vitiated international law with its presidential findings. The "global war on terror" is a conflict without end; its time limit extends into perpetuity. So long as terror is used as a tactic, or the threat of terror exists, which it always does, a state of war, such as it is, justifies indefinite detention.
Then, Rice presented as the administration's position precisely the position it opposes: "Detainees may only be held for an extended period if the intelligence or other evidence against them has been carefully evaluated and supports a determination that detention is lawful. The U.S. does not seek to hold anyone for a period beyond what is necessary to evaluate the intelligence or other evidence against them, prevent further acts of terrorism, or hold them for legal proceedings." But the Bush administration has refused to place detainees within the criminal justice system. Instead, they have been kept in a legal limbo, denied the protections of both the U.S. justice system and the Geneva Conventions. The administration has hid "ghost detainees" from the International Red Cross. If the suspects are criminals, they have not been tried as criminals.
Rice cited two cases to make her point: Carlos the Jackal, the international terrorist captured in Sudan in 1994, and Ramzi Youssef, the 1993 World Trade Center bomber. But, unlike current detainees, both were put on public trial, Carlos in France, Youssef in the United States. And the European Commission on Human Rights issued a report that Carlos' rights were not violated. Both cases refuted in their particulars the larger argument Rice was making.
One case Rice did not cite was that of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a captured al-Qaida operative, whose claims about Saddam Hussein's possession of WMD were used by the administration to build the case for the Iraq war. "We've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases," President Bush said on Oct. 7, 2002, drawing on al-Libi's information. Al-Libi also provided the basis for a dramatic high point of Secretary of State Powell's U.N. speech: "the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al Qaeda. Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story. I will relate to you now, as he himself, described it." But al-Libi had been tortured and repeated to his interrogators what they had suggested to him. The Defense Intelligence Agency reported in February 2002 that al-Libi's information was dubious, and the CIA also questioned its credibility in a report in January 2003 - both reports made before the war. Rice's various statements created a pandemonium across Europe that she tried to quiet with a clarification Wednesday in Ukraine. The policy she had just declared we did not follow she announced we would no longer pursue. "As a matter of U.S. policy, the United States' obligations under the CAT [U.N. Convention Against Torture], which prohibits cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment - those obligations extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States," Rice said at a press conference with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
Rice's erratic journey also raises the question of her own part in the policy. The Washington Post story on el-Masri reports that Rice intervened on the side of informing the German government, a disclosure that resulted in el-Masri's release. This fact suggests that Rice has a degree of authority and knowledge in the realm of detainees and "black sites."
Since 2003, Rice has repeatedly told representatives of Human Rights Watch and other similar organizations that the U.S. does not torture. There is no trail of memos tracing her involvement in the titanic struggle over U.S. torture policy between Powell and the senior military on one side and Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft's Justice Department on the other. Was the national security advisor completely out of the loop? On Nov. 19., ABC News reported, "Current and former CIA officers tell ABC News there is a presidential finding, signed in 2002, by President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, approving the [harsh interrogation] techniques, including waterboarding."
That technique has its origin in the Spanish Inquisition. Indeed, in 1490, a baptized Christian who was a secret Jew, a converso named Benito Garcia, was subjected to water torture. The process drew out of him a confession of the ritual murder of a Christian child by crucifixion to get his blood for a magic ceremony to halt the Inquisition and bring about Jewish control. The incident greatly helped whip up the fear that led to the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, as described by James Reston Jr. in his new book, "Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors."
Since the Inquisition, the method of waterboarding has been little refined. But Rice, like Bush, says we did not and will not torture anymore.
-------
By Sidney Blumenthal
Salon.com
Thursday 08 December 2005
Condoleezza Rice's contradictory, misleading and outright false statements about the US and torture have taken America's moral standing - and her own - to new depths.
The metamorphosis of Condoleezza Rice from the chrysalis of the prot�g� into the butterfly of the State Department has not been a natural evolution but has demanded self-discipline. She has
1. burnished an image of the ultimate loyalist, yet betrayed her mentor, George H.W. Bush's national security advisor Brent Scowcroft.
2. She is the team player, yet carefully inserted knives in the back of her predecessor, Colin Powell, climbing up them like a ladder of success.
3. She is the person most trusted on foreign policy by the president, yet was an enabler for Vice President Cheney and the neoconservatives.
Now her public relations team at the State Department depicts her as
a. a restorer of realism,
b. builder of alliances
c. and maker of peace.
On her first trip to Europe early this year she left the sensation of being fresh by listening rather than lecturing. The flirtation of power appeared to have a more seductive effect than arrogance. So the old face became a new face. But on this week's trip the iron butterfly emerged.
Rice arrived as the enforcer of the Bush administration's torture policy. She reminded the queasy Europeans that their intelligence services, one way or another, are involved in the rendition of hundreds of suspected terrorists transported through their airports for harsh interrogation in countries like Jordan and Egypt or secret CIA prisons known as "black sites." With her warnings, Rice recast the Western alliance as a partnership in complicity. In her attempt to impose silence, she spread guilt. Everybody is unclean in the dirty war and nobody has any right to complain. "What I would hope that our allies would acknowledge," she said, "is that we are all in this together."
For the European leaders, facing publics hostile to U.S. policy in Iraq and torture, Rice's visit was disquieting. In Italy, prosecutors have issued indictments of 22 current and former CIA operatives for their "extraordinary rendition" of an Egyptian suspect; among those indicted is the former Rome CIA station chief, whom an Italian judge has ruled has no immunity from prosecution. Italian Foreign Minister Gianfranco Fini, asked about renditions, said, "We know absolutely nothing. We have not one single piece of knowledge." If the Italian government knew the facts, it would investigate, he added.
In Britain, the Foreign Office released a diplomatic disclaimer that it has "no evidence to corroborate media allegations about the use of UK territory in rendition operations." But upset members of the House of Commons have launched a parliamentary inquiry into whether the U.K. has violated the European Convention on Human Rights and the United Nations Convention Against Torture. Foreign Minister Jack Straw sent Rice a letter requesting any "clarification the U.S. can give about these reports in the hope that this will allay parliamentary and public concerns."
When the Washington Post reported on the eve of Rice's trip that CIA prisons holding U.S. detainees exist in Romania, Poland and other Eastern European nations, it triggered an explosion. Even though Romania and Poland denied the report, the European Commission and the Council of Europe began investigations. The E.C. declared that for any member state to harbor a CIA prison would be "extremely serious" and bring down sanctions upon it.
In Germany, Rice was greeted by the new chancellor, Angela Merkel, eager to repair relations with the Bush administration made awkward by former Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's opposition to the Iraq war. Rice's visit was supposed to smooth over the conflicts of the past, but instead it surfaced new ones that indicated that the divisions between Germany - and Europe - and the U.S. are rooted in the Bush administration's fundamental policies.
Rice arrived in Berlin on the heels of a Washington Post report about the rendition, to a secret CIA jail in Afghanistan called the Salt Pit, of a German citizen, Khaled el-Masri, who was tortured and imprisoned for five months in a case of mistaken identity. After meeting with Rice, Merkel announced that Rice had acknowledged that the U.S. had made a "mistake" in the case. But Rice countered with a statement denying she had said that at all. The reconciliation with Germany was botched; Merkel was embarrassed; and Rice's credibility, at least in the German press, was left in tatters.
Rice had hoped to quell the controversy before she landed. On Monday, as she boarded her plane at Andrew Air Force base in Washington, she delivered a lengthy statement on torture. Her speech was remarkable for its defensive, dense and evasive tone. It was replete with half-truths, outright falsehoods, distortions and subterfuges.
Her remarks can never sway or convince any European leader, foreign ministry or intelligence service, which have the means to make their own judgments. In her effort to persuade world opinion and reassure the American public, she raised the debate over torture to greater prominence and virtually invited inspection of her claims.
Rice has made memorable statements in the past. There was her appearance before the 9/11 Commission, in which she had trouble recalling the CIA's Presidential Daily Briefing of Aug. 6, 2001, titled "Bin Laden Determined to Strike in US," and dismissed its significance. There were her many assertions about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, including nuclear weapons: "We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." There was her attack on Richard Clarke, the former counterterrorism chief on the National Security Council, for his disclosure that both she and the president did not regard al-Qaida as an urgent threat before Sept. 11, 2001, as a "scurrilous allegation." But her remarks on torture may turn out to be her most unforgettable full-length speech, tainting her tenure as secretary of state as indelibly as Colin Powell's speech making the case for the Iraq war before the United Nations blotted him.
"Torture is a term that is defined by law," said Rice. "We rely on our law to govern our operations." She neglected to explain that "torture" as she used it has been defined by presidential findings to include universally defined methods of torture, such as waterboarding, for which U.S. soldiers were court-martialed in 1902 and 1968 specifically on the basis of having engaged in torture.
But the Bush administration has rejected adherence to the Geneva Conventions as "quaint," in the term of then White House legal counsel and now Attorney General Alberto Gonzales; rejects torture as it is defined in the United Nations Convention Against Torture (although the U.S. is a signatory); and rejects torture as it is interpreted by other international expert bodies, including the European Human Rights Court, whose judgments are binding on the nations of the Council of Europe.
"The United States does not permit, tolerate or condone torture under any circumstances," Rice insisted in her statement. "Moreover, in accordance with the policy of this administration: The United States has respected - and will continue to respect - the sovereignty of other countries." But was the kidnapping of the Egyptian suspect in Italy that has resulted in the 22 indictments of CIA operatives a fiction? Have the Italian prosecutors been made aware that the event was a figment of their imaginations? Was holding el-Masri, the innocent German, not a violation of the sovereignty of another country?
Rice continued: "The United States does not transport, and has not transported, detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture. The United States does not use the airspace or the airports of any country for the purpose of transporting a detainee to a country where he or she will be tortured." But the German government was reported to have a list of 400 flights over European airspace for the purpose of renditions. And Amnesty International reports that there have been 800 such flights. Once again, Rice relies upon her own definition of "torture" to deny it.
She went on: "The United States has not transported anyone, and will not transport anyone, to a country when we believe he will be tortured. Where appropriate, the United States seeks assurances that transferred persons will not be tortured." In fact, the U.S. receives assurances from those countries that it would be unlikely that the suspects will be tortured, a technical loophole that provides for a washing of hands. Everybody on all sides understands that there will be torture, as there has been.
***** Rice's legal interpretations were authoritative, bland and bogus. It is hard to say whether they should be called Orwellian for their intentional falsity or Kafkaesque for their unintentional absurdity.
"International law allows a state to detain enemy combatants for the duration of hostilities," she said. But the administration has vitiated international law with its presidential findings. The "global war on terror" is a conflict without end; its time limit extends into perpetuity. So long as terror is used as a tactic, or the threat of terror exists, which it always does, a state of war, such as it is, justifies indefinite detention.
Then, Rice presented as the administration's position precisely the position it opposes: "Detainees may only be held for an extended period if the intelligence or other evidence against them has been carefully evaluated and supports a determination that detention is lawful. The U.S. does not seek to hold anyone for a period beyond what is necessary to evaluate the intelligence or other evidence against them, prevent further acts of terrorism, or hold them for legal proceedings." But the Bush administration has refused to place detainees within the criminal justice system. Instead, they have been kept in a legal limbo, denied the protections of both the U.S. justice system and the Geneva Conventions. The administration has hid "ghost detainees" from the International Red Cross. If the suspects are criminals, they have not been tried as criminals.
Rice cited two cases to make her point: Carlos the Jackal, the international terrorist captured in Sudan in 1994, and Ramzi Youssef, the 1993 World Trade Center bomber. But, unlike current detainees, both were put on public trial, Carlos in France, Youssef in the United States. And the European Commission on Human Rights issued a report that Carlos' rights were not violated. Both cases refuted in their particulars the larger argument Rice was making.
One case Rice did not cite was that of Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a captured al-Qaida operative, whose claims about Saddam Hussein's possession of WMD were used by the administration to build the case for the Iraq war. "We've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases," President Bush said on Oct. 7, 2002, drawing on al-Libi's information. Al-Libi also provided the basis for a dramatic high point of Secretary of State Powell's U.N. speech: "the story of a senior terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to Al Qaeda. Fortunately, this operative is now detained, and he has told his story. I will relate to you now, as he himself, described it." But al-Libi had been tortured and repeated to his interrogators what they had suggested to him. The Defense Intelligence Agency reported in February 2002 that al-Libi's information was dubious, and the CIA also questioned its credibility in a report in January 2003 - both reports made before the war. Rice's various statements created a pandemonium across Europe that she tried to quiet with a clarification Wednesday in Ukraine. The policy she had just declared we did not follow she announced we would no longer pursue. "As a matter of U.S. policy, the United States' obligations under the CAT [U.N. Convention Against Torture], which prohibits cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment - those obligations extend to U.S. personnel wherever they are, whether they are in the United States or outside of the United States," Rice said at a press conference with Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko.
Rice's erratic journey also raises the question of her own part in the policy. The Washington Post story on el-Masri reports that Rice intervened on the side of informing the German government, a disclosure that resulted in el-Masri's release. This fact suggests that Rice has a degree of authority and knowledge in the realm of detainees and "black sites."
Since 2003, Rice has repeatedly told representatives of Human Rights Watch and other similar organizations that the U.S. does not torture. There is no trail of memos tracing her involvement in the titanic struggle over U.S. torture policy between Powell and the senior military on one side and Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and John Ashcroft's Justice Department on the other. Was the national security advisor completely out of the loop? On Nov. 19., ABC News reported, "Current and former CIA officers tell ABC News there is a presidential finding, signed in 2002, by President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, approving the [harsh interrogation] techniques, including waterboarding."
That technique has its origin in the Spanish Inquisition. Indeed, in 1490, a baptized Christian who was a secret Jew, a converso named Benito Garcia, was subjected to water torture. The process drew out of him a confession of the ritual murder of a Christian child by crucifixion to get his blood for a magic ceremony to halt the Inquisition and bring about Jewish control. The incident greatly helped whip up the fear that led to the expulsion of the Jews in 1492, as described by James Reston Jr. in his new book, "Dogs of God: Columbus, the Inquisition, and the Defeat of the Moors."
Since the Inquisition, the method of waterboarding has been little refined. But Rice, like Bush, says we did not and will not torture anymore.
-------
What Iraqi Forces?
What Iraqi Forces?
Elizabeth Spiro Clark
TomPaine.com
December 08, 2005
Elizabeth Spiro Clark is a retired career foreign service officer and writes extensively on issues of global democratization.
No one is playing with a full deck of cards on the great ?withdraw from Iraq? game. To the American public?s ear, ?training Iraqi forces? means training forces under the control of the ?Iraqi government? with the aim of turning over to them the job of fighting jihadists and the insurgency so the U.S. can withdraw. But this is not the reality behind the words.
The Kurdish authorities exposed the fallacy when the press reported the Kurdish provincial government had entered into negotiations with a Norwegian company for exploration of new oil fields?without apparently informing the Iraqi government. The Kurds cited provisions in the new Iraqi constitution that split revenue from existing oil fields among the provinces but remains silent on any division of revenue from new finds. Gen. Wesley Clark, in a Washington Post op-ed Dec. 5, scolded the Kurds and the Iraqis who, he said ?must? amend the constitution to change this provision.
As with oil revenues, so to with regional government?s control over security in the new constitution. Even with the four-month period we are entering for further revising the constitution, it seems unlikely the Kurds and Shiites would have any reason to give up powers granted them by the constitution?not only over oil revenues but also over internal security?however much the U.S. scolds.
Marine Brig. Gen. James Williams underlined this strategic flaw on security in reports he gave to The Washington Post on negotiations between tribal leaders and the U.S. military that took place on Nov. 29 in Ramadi. The Post reported the tribal leaders came to the meeting only to discuss American withdrawal. The Americans were there, Williams said, to persuade the tribal leaders to let their people join the Iraqi government forces, instead of tribal militias?which would allow the American forces to turn over security to the ?legitimate? government. The tribal leaders, in response, insisted that Americans should let the tribal leaders build up their own forces. ?It undermines Iraqi security,? Gen. Martin Dempsey later said, commenting on the Ramadi meeting, that ?Iraqi leaders? want to maintain their own thinly disguised militias.
The reality is that the thinly disguised militias are going to be the regular units that are in charge of internal security, answering to the regional governments that are given dominant power in the Iraqi constitution.
Just how weak the federal government is going to be in the security area, and how strong the regions, is only slowly coming to light. The result of Rep. John Murtha?s call for withdrawal was the opening up of a ?debate? on how well we were doing training ?Iraqi forces.? The reality is still smothered in misleading talk of the ?divided loyalties? of troops between their sectarian and regional militia commanders and the ?Iraqi army,? and the ?infiltration? of army and police units by militias. Reality is also obscured by taking problems with the Iraqi constitution out of the debate to be put down the road and labeled as yet another benchmark of Iraq?s march to democracy.
To read the Iraqi constitution , however, is to understand that if it survives, Iraq is going to be one of the weakest federal states in the world. The federal government has limited exclusive powers, among them signing treaties, receiving ambassadors, establishing weights and measures and allocating the broadband spectrum. The federal government is responsible for security on Iraqi borders and defense of Iraq. However, ?All that is not written in the exclusive powers of the federal Authorities are in the authority of the regions. In other powers shared between the federal government and the regions, the priority will be given to the Region?s law in case of dispute? (Constitution, Article 111). As to the power of the regions: ?The region's government is responsible for all that is required to manage the region, in particular establishing and organizing internal security forces for the region such as police, security and regional guards? (Constitution, Article 117).
It is extreme wishful thinking to suppose that the Shia and Kurds are going to compromise away the powers of autonomy they have won in this constitution. Why would they? If the constitution comes into effect as planned in April, we can help the Iraqis with their border security, but most internal security will be the responsibility of the regions?not the national Iraqi government we will have ?stood up.? The Murtha plan at least takes reality as its starting point; the latest Bush ?plan? takes no more account of reality than did the earlier ones.
Elizabeth Spiro Clark
TomPaine.com
December 08, 2005
Elizabeth Spiro Clark is a retired career foreign service officer and writes extensively on issues of global democratization.
No one is playing with a full deck of cards on the great ?withdraw from Iraq? game. To the American public?s ear, ?training Iraqi forces? means training forces under the control of the ?Iraqi government? with the aim of turning over to them the job of fighting jihadists and the insurgency so the U.S. can withdraw. But this is not the reality behind the words.
The Kurdish authorities exposed the fallacy when the press reported the Kurdish provincial government had entered into negotiations with a Norwegian company for exploration of new oil fields?without apparently informing the Iraqi government. The Kurds cited provisions in the new Iraqi constitution that split revenue from existing oil fields among the provinces but remains silent on any division of revenue from new finds. Gen. Wesley Clark, in a Washington Post op-ed Dec. 5, scolded the Kurds and the Iraqis who, he said ?must? amend the constitution to change this provision.
As with oil revenues, so to with regional government?s control over security in the new constitution. Even with the four-month period we are entering for further revising the constitution, it seems unlikely the Kurds and Shiites would have any reason to give up powers granted them by the constitution?not only over oil revenues but also over internal security?however much the U.S. scolds.
Marine Brig. Gen. James Williams underlined this strategic flaw on security in reports he gave to The Washington Post on negotiations between tribal leaders and the U.S. military that took place on Nov. 29 in Ramadi. The Post reported the tribal leaders came to the meeting only to discuss American withdrawal. The Americans were there, Williams said, to persuade the tribal leaders to let their people join the Iraqi government forces, instead of tribal militias?which would allow the American forces to turn over security to the ?legitimate? government. The tribal leaders, in response, insisted that Americans should let the tribal leaders build up their own forces. ?It undermines Iraqi security,? Gen. Martin Dempsey later said, commenting on the Ramadi meeting, that ?Iraqi leaders? want to maintain their own thinly disguised militias.
The reality is that the thinly disguised militias are going to be the regular units that are in charge of internal security, answering to the regional governments that are given dominant power in the Iraqi constitution.
Just how weak the federal government is going to be in the security area, and how strong the regions, is only slowly coming to light. The result of Rep. John Murtha?s call for withdrawal was the opening up of a ?debate? on how well we were doing training ?Iraqi forces.? The reality is still smothered in misleading talk of the ?divided loyalties? of troops between their sectarian and regional militia commanders and the ?Iraqi army,? and the ?infiltration? of army and police units by militias. Reality is also obscured by taking problems with the Iraqi constitution out of the debate to be put down the road and labeled as yet another benchmark of Iraq?s march to democracy.
To read the Iraqi constitution , however, is to understand that if it survives, Iraq is going to be one of the weakest federal states in the world. The federal government has limited exclusive powers, among them signing treaties, receiving ambassadors, establishing weights and measures and allocating the broadband spectrum. The federal government is responsible for security on Iraqi borders and defense of Iraq. However, ?All that is not written in the exclusive powers of the federal Authorities are in the authority of the regions. In other powers shared between the federal government and the regions, the priority will be given to the Region?s law in case of dispute? (Constitution, Article 111). As to the power of the regions: ?The region's government is responsible for all that is required to manage the region, in particular establishing and organizing internal security forces for the region such as police, security and regional guards? (Constitution, Article 117).
It is extreme wishful thinking to suppose that the Shia and Kurds are going to compromise away the powers of autonomy they have won in this constitution. Why would they? If the constitution comes into effect as planned in April, we can help the Iraqis with their border security, but most internal security will be the responsibility of the regions?not the national Iraqi government we will have ?stood up.? The Murtha plan at least takes reality as its starting point; the latest Bush ?plan? takes no more account of reality than did the earlier ones.
Saddam & Secret Witnesses
consortiumnews.com
Saddam & Secret Witnesses
By Robert Parry
December 8, 2005
S
ome of the worst journalistic abuses come when news organizations deal with accusations against a pariah. Normal standards of skepticism are set aside because the subject lacks influential defenders or is despised by those in power, so pretty much anything goes.
This unwritten rule of journalism is one back story of the Iraq War. Given how unsavory Iraq?s dictator Saddam Hussein was, American journalists felt no inhibitions about following the White House?s lead and imputing the worst conceivable behavior to him.
Indeed, doing so, burnished a reporter?s reputation for toughness and patriotism, a win-win for the journalist.
But the danger to the country was that as journalism morphed into propaganda, the American people could be more easily misled into wrongheaded decisions and into violations of longstanding principles. Without doubt, the U.S. news media?s animosity toward Hussein gave an emotional boost to George W. Bush?s invasion of Iraq.
Now, the latest example of the U.S. media?s anti-Hussein blinders is occurring in plain sight during his trial for the slaughter of more than 140 men and boys in the Iraqi village of Dujail after a 1982 ambush that sought to kill him.
While the media coverage has focused on outbursts by Hussein and his co-defendants, much less attention has been given to the unorthodox procedure of allowing witnesses to testify without using their real names and with their faces and voices obscured.
According to Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, the witness names are given to defense lawyers but the information can?t be passed to anyone outside the tribunal to protect the witnesses from possible reprisals. One woman, who described her alleged torture, was referred to as ?Witness A?; a male witness was known as ?W.?
Though understandable for security reasons, these restrictions would seem to make effective cross-examination of the witnesses impossible and deny the defendants the traditional right to confront their accusers.
A secret witness could pretty much say whatever he or she wished, such as claiming to have seen some event. Defense lawyers ? barred from mentioning the witness? name outside the tribunal ? would be powerless to investigate whether the witness was really there or not.
Getting What He Deserves
The visceral response from many Americans, including journalists, is that Hussein so violated due-process rights of his own citizens, why should anyone care that he might get railroaded to execution himself? Plus, how can anyone question the emotional testimony of witnesses who may have suffered grievously at Hussein?s hand?
Instead of a requirement that Hussein?s guilt be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, there is an assumption of Hussein?s guilt that pervades the American press corps and the current U.S.-backed Iraqi government.
That presumed guilt also has served as a secondary rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, with the argument that ?no one can say that Iraq isn?t better off without Saddam Hussein.?
So, the more attention devoted to the unsavory Hussein, the more sympathy there is for President Bush?s decision to invade Iraq, even if the principal justification for the war ? Hussein?s weapons of mass destruction ? turned out to be fictitious.
But the danger of letting blind hatred of Hussein block out standards of impartial journalism can be found in what was wrought by the news media?s credulous WMD reporting. By believing the worst about Hussein and failing to ask Bush the tough WMD questions in late 2002 and early 2003, the U.S. news media contributed to a war frenzy that has since led to the deaths of more than 2,100 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis.
The Syrian Case
Though chagrined by the WMD fallacy in Iraq, the U.S. news media may not have learned any lasting lessons.
A similar rush to judgment against a pariah government occurred in October when leading U.S. news outlets embraced allegations against Syria for its alleged role in the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
A preliminary report by United Nations investigator Detlev Mehlis cited some circumstantial evidence against the Syrian government and relied heavily on two witnesses who fingered Syrian intelligence agents as the assassins. The Bush administration hailed the findings as justifying its desire for regime change in Damascus.
Despite getting duped on Iraq?s WMD, major U.S. news outlets immediately fell into line behind the U.N. report ? and the Bush administration?s denunciations of Syria. For instance, the New York Times warmly praised the U.N. report and jumped to conclusions about Syria?s guilt.
?Some deeply troubling facts about the murder of Rafik Hariri, Lebanon?s former prime minister, have now been established by a tough and meticulous United Nations investigation,? the Times wrote in an Oct. 25 editorial demanding punishment for top Syrian and Lebanese officials supposedly implicated by the report.
But the Mehlis report was anything but ?meticulous.? After reviewing its preliminary findings, I wrote an article about the report?s obvious holes, its dubious use of circumstantial evidence and its reliance on questionable witnesses. [See Consortiumnews.com?s ?The Dangerously Incomplete Hariri Report.?]
In particular, my article cited the failure to follow leads about the Mitsubishi Canter Van that apparently carried the bomb that destroyed Hariri?s motorcade. The van ? identified from pieces found in the rubble ? had been stolen in Japan four months earlier, but little effort was made to investigate how it got from Japan to Lebanon.
My article also noted inconsistencies in the testimony of two key witnesses, one who was left unidentified and another, Zuhair Ibn Muhammad Said Saddik, whose background was apparently not well researched by Mehlis. The German newsmagazine Der Spiegel soon uncovered Saddik?s record as a swindler who boasted about becoming ?a millionaire? from his testimony.
Revisiting the Hariri case in a Dec. 7 article, the New York Times took a more skeptical look at the Mehlis investigation. Reporter Michael Slackman said the case ?has begun to sound more and more like a fictional spy thriller? as ?the issue of witness credibility has risen to the forefront.?
The Times noted Saddik?s credibility problems and also reported that the previously unidentified source, Hussam Taher Hussam, had recanted his earlier testimony, saying he lied to the Mehlis investigation after being kidnapped, tortured and offered $1.3 million by Lebanese officials.
Mehlis acknowledged that Hussam had been an important witness and vowed to subject him to follow-up questioning. Despite Hussam?s recantation and his bizarre claims, Mehlis said he continued to find Hussam?s original testimony ?very credible.?
The Hussein Trial
The significance of the Hariri case to the Hussein trial is the inherent difficulty of trusting witnesses who have not undergone adequate vetting. While it is easy to disdain the leaders of Syria or of Iraq?s old government, that does not eliminate the responsibility to test out allegations against them.
Concealing the identity of witnesses may reflect a reasonable concern for their safety, but it also is an invitation for exaggeration and even fabrication of evidence. A fundamental right under U.S.-style criminal justice is the right to confront one?s accusers, especially in cases that carry possible death sentences.
If such basic legal standards can?t be met in today?s Iraq, Hussein?s trial could be moved to the International Criminal Court at the Hague. But the Bush administration and the current Iraqi government have favored trying Hussein and other former government officials in Iraq where they can then be executed.
On the journalistic front, the U.S. news media has continued its long collaboration with Bush?s anti-Hussein agenda by averting its eyes from the irregularity of having secret witnesses represent the bulk of this capital case.
The apparent reason for tolerating this breached legal standard is that Saddam Hussein remains a political leader that American journalists love to hate.
Saddam & Secret Witnesses
By Robert Parry
December 8, 2005
S
ome of the worst journalistic abuses come when news organizations deal with accusations against a pariah. Normal standards of skepticism are set aside because the subject lacks influential defenders or is despised by those in power, so pretty much anything goes.
This unwritten rule of journalism is one back story of the Iraq War. Given how unsavory Iraq?s dictator Saddam Hussein was, American journalists felt no inhibitions about following the White House?s lead and imputing the worst conceivable behavior to him.
Indeed, doing so, burnished a reporter?s reputation for toughness and patriotism, a win-win for the journalist.
But the danger to the country was that as journalism morphed into propaganda, the American people could be more easily misled into wrongheaded decisions and into violations of longstanding principles. Without doubt, the U.S. news media?s animosity toward Hussein gave an emotional boost to George W. Bush?s invasion of Iraq.
Now, the latest example of the U.S. media?s anti-Hussein blinders is occurring in plain sight during his trial for the slaughter of more than 140 men and boys in the Iraqi village of Dujail after a 1982 ambush that sought to kill him.
While the media coverage has focused on outbursts by Hussein and his co-defendants, much less attention has been given to the unorthodox procedure of allowing witnesses to testify without using their real names and with their faces and voices obscured.
According to Chief Judge Rizgar Mohammed Amin, the witness names are given to defense lawyers but the information can?t be passed to anyone outside the tribunal to protect the witnesses from possible reprisals. One woman, who described her alleged torture, was referred to as ?Witness A?; a male witness was known as ?W.?
Though understandable for security reasons, these restrictions would seem to make effective cross-examination of the witnesses impossible and deny the defendants the traditional right to confront their accusers.
A secret witness could pretty much say whatever he or she wished, such as claiming to have seen some event. Defense lawyers ? barred from mentioning the witness? name outside the tribunal ? would be powerless to investigate whether the witness was really there or not.
Getting What He Deserves
The visceral response from many Americans, including journalists, is that Hussein so violated due-process rights of his own citizens, why should anyone care that he might get railroaded to execution himself? Plus, how can anyone question the emotional testimony of witnesses who may have suffered grievously at Hussein?s hand?
Instead of a requirement that Hussein?s guilt be proved beyond a reasonable doubt, there is an assumption of Hussein?s guilt that pervades the American press corps and the current U.S.-backed Iraqi government.
That presumed guilt also has served as a secondary rationale for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, with the argument that ?no one can say that Iraq isn?t better off without Saddam Hussein.?
So, the more attention devoted to the unsavory Hussein, the more sympathy there is for President Bush?s decision to invade Iraq, even if the principal justification for the war ? Hussein?s weapons of mass destruction ? turned out to be fictitious.
But the danger of letting blind hatred of Hussein block out standards of impartial journalism can be found in what was wrought by the news media?s credulous WMD reporting. By believing the worst about Hussein and failing to ask Bush the tough WMD questions in late 2002 and early 2003, the U.S. news media contributed to a war frenzy that has since led to the deaths of more than 2,100 U.S. soldiers and tens of thousands of Iraqis.
The Syrian Case
Though chagrined by the WMD fallacy in Iraq, the U.S. news media may not have learned any lasting lessons.
A similar rush to judgment against a pariah government occurred in October when leading U.S. news outlets embraced allegations against Syria for its alleged role in the Feb. 14 assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
A preliminary report by United Nations investigator Detlev Mehlis cited some circumstantial evidence against the Syrian government and relied heavily on two witnesses who fingered Syrian intelligence agents as the assassins. The Bush administration hailed the findings as justifying its desire for regime change in Damascus.
Despite getting duped on Iraq?s WMD, major U.S. news outlets immediately fell into line behind the U.N. report ? and the Bush administration?s denunciations of Syria. For instance, the New York Times warmly praised the U.N. report and jumped to conclusions about Syria?s guilt.
?Some deeply troubling facts about the murder of Rafik Hariri, Lebanon?s former prime minister, have now been established by a tough and meticulous United Nations investigation,? the Times wrote in an Oct. 25 editorial demanding punishment for top Syrian and Lebanese officials supposedly implicated by the report.
But the Mehlis report was anything but ?meticulous.? After reviewing its preliminary findings, I wrote an article about the report?s obvious holes, its dubious use of circumstantial evidence and its reliance on questionable witnesses. [See Consortiumnews.com?s ?The Dangerously Incomplete Hariri Report.?]
In particular, my article cited the failure to follow leads about the Mitsubishi Canter Van that apparently carried the bomb that destroyed Hariri?s motorcade. The van ? identified from pieces found in the rubble ? had been stolen in Japan four months earlier, but little effort was made to investigate how it got from Japan to Lebanon.
My article also noted inconsistencies in the testimony of two key witnesses, one who was left unidentified and another, Zuhair Ibn Muhammad Said Saddik, whose background was apparently not well researched by Mehlis. The German newsmagazine Der Spiegel soon uncovered Saddik?s record as a swindler who boasted about becoming ?a millionaire? from his testimony.
Revisiting the Hariri case in a Dec. 7 article, the New York Times took a more skeptical look at the Mehlis investigation. Reporter Michael Slackman said the case ?has begun to sound more and more like a fictional spy thriller? as ?the issue of witness credibility has risen to the forefront.?
The Times noted Saddik?s credibility problems and also reported that the previously unidentified source, Hussam Taher Hussam, had recanted his earlier testimony, saying he lied to the Mehlis investigation after being kidnapped, tortured and offered $1.3 million by Lebanese officials.
Mehlis acknowledged that Hussam had been an important witness and vowed to subject him to follow-up questioning. Despite Hussam?s recantation and his bizarre claims, Mehlis said he continued to find Hussam?s original testimony ?very credible.?
The Hussein Trial
The significance of the Hariri case to the Hussein trial is the inherent difficulty of trusting witnesses who have not undergone adequate vetting. While it is easy to disdain the leaders of Syria or of Iraq?s old government, that does not eliminate the responsibility to test out allegations against them.
Concealing the identity of witnesses may reflect a reasonable concern for their safety, but it also is an invitation for exaggeration and even fabrication of evidence. A fundamental right under U.S.-style criminal justice is the right to confront one?s accusers, especially in cases that carry possible death sentences.
If such basic legal standards can?t be met in today?s Iraq, Hussein?s trial could be moved to the International Criminal Court at the Hague. But the Bush administration and the current Iraqi government have favored trying Hussein and other former government officials in Iraq where they can then be executed.
On the journalistic front, the U.S. news media has continued its long collaboration with Bush?s anti-Hussein agenda by averting its eyes from the irregularity of having secret witnesses represent the bulk of this capital case.
The apparent reason for tolerating this breached legal standard is that Saddam Hussein remains a political leader that American journalists love to hate.
US attacks UN official on 'jails'
Washington has rebuked UN human rights commissioner Louise Arbour for criticising its anti-terror tactics as the alleged secret jails row goes on.
Ms Arbour said reports the US was using secret overseas sites to interrogate suspects harmed its moral authority and she wanted to inspect any such centres.
The US said it was inappropriate and illegitimate for her to question US conduct on the basis of media reports.
The issue is dogging a European tour by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Lots of human rights... can be set aside temporarily... but not the right to life and not the protection against torture
Louise Arbour
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
She will meet Nato foreign ministers on Thursday for formal talks but at a dinner on Wednesday the jails allegation reportedly already surfaced.
"There were a number of frank interventions, always respectful of Condoleezza Rice as a person," a source briefed on the dinner was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.
On Wednesday, Ms Rice said American interrogators were bound by an international convention banning the use of torture, regardless of whether they were working in the US or abroad.
'Second-guessing'
Ms Arbour, a former Canadian Supreme Court justice, told reporters in New York on Wednesday that the global ban on torture was becoming a casualty of the US-led "war on terror".
She singled out the reported US policies of sending terror suspects to other countries and holding prisoners in secret detention.
"Two phenomena today are having an acutely corrosive effect on the global ban on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," she said.
"There are lots of human rights that can be set aside temporarily in cases of emergencies, lots of them, but not the right to life and not the protection against torture," she added.
The UN human rights commissioner said the theme of Saturday's annual commemoration of the UN's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 would be "terrorists and torturers".
She added that the US had played an important leadership role in civil and political rights but that there was now a perception they had withdrawn from the commitment to such liberties, which made it harder for the US to exercise moral leadership.
America's ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said Ms Rice had already addressed the issue and he roundly criticised Ms Arbour.
It was, he said, "inappropriate and illegitimate for an international civil servant to second-guess the conduct that we're engaged in [in] the war on terror, with nothing more as evidence than what she reads in the newspapers".
Ms Arbour said reports the US was using secret overseas sites to interrogate suspects harmed its moral authority and she wanted to inspect any such centres.
The US said it was inappropriate and illegitimate for her to question US conduct on the basis of media reports.
The issue is dogging a European tour by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Lots of human rights... can be set aside temporarily... but not the right to life and not the protection against torture
Louise Arbour
UN High Commissioner for Human Rights
She will meet Nato foreign ministers on Thursday for formal talks but at a dinner on Wednesday the jails allegation reportedly already surfaced.
"There were a number of frank interventions, always respectful of Condoleezza Rice as a person," a source briefed on the dinner was quoted by Reuters news agency as saying.
On Wednesday, Ms Rice said American interrogators were bound by an international convention banning the use of torture, regardless of whether they were working in the US or abroad.
'Second-guessing'
Ms Arbour, a former Canadian Supreme Court justice, told reporters in New York on Wednesday that the global ban on torture was becoming a casualty of the US-led "war on terror".
She singled out the reported US policies of sending terror suspects to other countries and holding prisoners in secret detention.
"Two phenomena today are having an acutely corrosive effect on the global ban on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment," she said.
"There are lots of human rights that can be set aside temporarily in cases of emergencies, lots of them, but not the right to life and not the protection against torture," she added.
The UN human rights commissioner said the theme of Saturday's annual commemoration of the UN's adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948 would be "terrorists and torturers".
She added that the US had played an important leadership role in civil and political rights but that there was now a perception they had withdrawn from the commitment to such liberties, which made it harder for the US to exercise moral leadership.
America's ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, said Ms Rice had already addressed the issue and he roundly criticised Ms Arbour.
It was, he said, "inappropriate and illegitimate for an international civil servant to second-guess the conduct that we're engaged in [in] the war on terror, with nothing more as evidence than what she reads in the newspapers".
Court battle over John Lennon FBI files rages on
Court battle over John Lennon FBI files rages on
Wed Dec 7, 2005 7:03 PM ET
By Sue Zeidler
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Twenty-five years after John Lennon was murdered, a court battle to release the last 10 pages of secret FBI files on the former Beatle still rages on, with no end in sight.
The FBI assembled about 300 pages of files on the singer-turned-activist in 1971 and 1972 as part of President Richard Nixon's effort to deport and silence Lennon as a critic of the Vietnam War, according to historian Jon Wiener, who has led the court battle to release the files.
"After years of litigation, the FBI has released all the pages except for 10, which it is withholding using a national security claim," said Wiener, a history professor at the University of California-Irvine.
"At a time when we are confronted by life and death issues of terrorism, the FBI is trivializing national security in the name of political expediency," he said.
Wiener and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California first filed the Freedom of Information lawsuit in 1983 to gain access to the secret files on Lennon.
The case went all the way to the Supreme Court before the FBI settled in 1997, agreeing to release the files except for the last 10 pages.
In September 2004, a U.S. District Court judge in California ordered the FBI to release the last 10 pages, but in the latest twist, the FBI on October 20 of this year filed a notice of appeal of that ruling with the court.
Under the Freedom of Information rules, if information is received from a foreign country, that information would be exempted from release to the public," said FBI spokesman Bill Carter on Wednesday.
Lennon was assassinated by a deranged fan on December 8, 1980, as he walked into his Manhattan apartment house.
Wiener, who wrote "Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files," a book that recounts his struggle to the get the Lennon files released, said none of the released documents have anything to do with criminal violations.
"They all document Lennon's political activities as a war opponent," he said.
As for the contents of the withheld pages, Wiener said the public was not even allowed to know the name of the country that provided the pages. He speculates that it is likely Britain since a former employee of Britain's MI5 intelligence agency, David Shayler, has said he saw Lennon file at MI5.
"He said it contained reports on Lennon's contacts with the British New Left and anti-war organizations." said Wiener.
Shayler in 2002 was convicted of violating Britain's Official Secrets Act and jailed for six months. "He saw himself as a whistleblower who wanted to expose MI5 excessive surveillance," said Wiener.
Wed Dec 7, 2005 7:03 PM ET
By Sue Zeidler
LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Twenty-five years after John Lennon was murdered, a court battle to release the last 10 pages of secret FBI files on the former Beatle still rages on, with no end in sight.
The FBI assembled about 300 pages of files on the singer-turned-activist in 1971 and 1972 as part of President Richard Nixon's effort to deport and silence Lennon as a critic of the Vietnam War, according to historian Jon Wiener, who has led the court battle to release the files.
"After years of litigation, the FBI has released all the pages except for 10, which it is withholding using a national security claim," said Wiener, a history professor at the University of California-Irvine.
"At a time when we are confronted by life and death issues of terrorism, the FBI is trivializing national security in the name of political expediency," he said.
Wiener and the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California first filed the Freedom of Information lawsuit in 1983 to gain access to the secret files on Lennon.
The case went all the way to the Supreme Court before the FBI settled in 1997, agreeing to release the files except for the last 10 pages.
In September 2004, a U.S. District Court judge in California ordered the FBI to release the last 10 pages, but in the latest twist, the FBI on October 20 of this year filed a notice of appeal of that ruling with the court.
Under the Freedom of Information rules, if information is received from a foreign country, that information would be exempted from release to the public," said FBI spokesman Bill Carter on Wednesday.
Lennon was assassinated by a deranged fan on December 8, 1980, as he walked into his Manhattan apartment house.
Wiener, who wrote "Gimme Some Truth: The John Lennon FBI Files," a book that recounts his struggle to the get the Lennon files released, said none of the released documents have anything to do with criminal violations.
"They all document Lennon's political activities as a war opponent," he said.
As for the contents of the withheld pages, Wiener said the public was not even allowed to know the name of the country that provided the pages. He speculates that it is likely Britain since a former employee of Britain's MI5 intelligence agency, David Shayler, has said he saw Lennon file at MI5.
"He said it contained reports on Lennon's contacts with the British New Left and anti-war organizations." said Wiener.
Shayler in 2002 was convicted of violating Britain's Official Secrets Act and jailed for six months. "He saw himself as a whistleblower who wanted to expose MI5 excessive surveillance," said Wiener.
Pentagon to Kill Navy Cargo Ship
Pentagon to Kill Navy Cargo Ship: "Pentagon to Kill Navy Cargo Ship
InsideDefense.com NewsStand | Christopher J. Castelli | December 07, 2005
The Defense Department has blessed the Navy's plan to kill the T-AOE(X) cargo ship program in the fiscal year 2007 defense budget process.
This is one of several items listed in the first program decision memorandum, issued Dec. 1 in draft form by DOD's office of program analysis and evaluation, said a Pentagon source.
Eliminating the T-AOE(X) program allows DOD to save about $4.4 billion for other priorities, the source said. Though the program was still in the early stages, four ships had been programmed in the long-term budget, each valued at about $1 billion. Some research and development money associated with the program would still be spent on underway replenishment equipment for use on other ships, the source said.
The Navy's recommendation to kill the program was first reported by Inside the Navy Oct. 31. This recommendation was included in program change proposals, internal documents not intended for public release. The sea service decided that its existing fleet of fast combat support ships, coupled with plans to buy 11 Lewis and Clark-class T-AKE cargo ships, would satisfy Navy requirements.
Until recently, the Navy envisioned T-AOE(X) as a replacement for the retired Sacramento class that would act as a station ship for a carrier strike group. The new vessels were supposed to provide simultaneous delivery of ship petroleum products, ammunition, provisions and stores and redistribute these items.
The Navy had budgeted money to conduct feasibility studies aimed at determining the best designs, with the intention of holding a competition for shipbuilders who would vie to construct T-AOE(X) vessels. The president's FY-06 budget plan indicated the Navy would buy the first T-AOE(X) in FY-09, followed by one in FY-10 and two in FY-11. But it now appears those ships will never be built.
The FY-07 defense budget has not yet been finalized. It is subject to further revision as the Pentagon conducts its standard review. The Bush administration is scheduled to submit the budget to Congress in early February."
InsideDefense.com NewsStand | Christopher J. Castelli | December 07, 2005
The Defense Department has blessed the Navy's plan to kill the T-AOE(X) cargo ship program in the fiscal year 2007 defense budget process.
This is one of several items listed in the first program decision memorandum, issued Dec. 1 in draft form by DOD's office of program analysis and evaluation, said a Pentagon source.
Eliminating the T-AOE(X) program allows DOD to save about $4.4 billion for other priorities, the source said. Though the program was still in the early stages, four ships had been programmed in the long-term budget, each valued at about $1 billion. Some research and development money associated with the program would still be spent on underway replenishment equipment for use on other ships, the source said.
The Navy's recommendation to kill the program was first reported by Inside the Navy Oct. 31. This recommendation was included in program change proposals, internal documents not intended for public release. The sea service decided that its existing fleet of fast combat support ships, coupled with plans to buy 11 Lewis and Clark-class T-AKE cargo ships, would satisfy Navy requirements.
Until recently, the Navy envisioned T-AOE(X) as a replacement for the retired Sacramento class that would act as a station ship for a carrier strike group. The new vessels were supposed to provide simultaneous delivery of ship petroleum products, ammunition, provisions and stores and redistribute these items.
The Navy had budgeted money to conduct feasibility studies aimed at determining the best designs, with the intention of holding a competition for shipbuilders who would vie to construct T-AOE(X) vessels. The president's FY-06 budget plan indicated the Navy would buy the first T-AOE(X) in FY-09, followed by one in FY-10 and two in FY-11. But it now appears those ships will never be built.
The FY-07 defense budget has not yet been finalized. It is subject to further revision as the Pentagon conducts its standard review. The Bush administration is scheduled to submit the budget to Congress in early February."
Newsday.com: Bush blasts war critics
Newsday.com: Bush blasts war critics
Bush blasts war critics
Cites remarks by some Democrats as pessimistic as he prepares for second speech on Iraq plan
December 7, 2005
President George W. Bush yesterday sharply assailed Democratic critics whom he called "pessimists" for questioning his strategy in Iraq and calling for a withdrawal.
"Our troops need to know that the American people stand with them, and we have a strategy for victory," Bush told reporters in the Oval Office, on being asked about comments made on a radio show by Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.
In an interview with WOAI-AM radio in San Antonio, Dean said that the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," and that the conflict resembled the protracted Vietnam war.
Bush, who is facing declining public support for the war, fired back: "Of course there will be debate, and of course there will be some pessimists and some people playing politics with the issue. But, by far, the vast majority of people in this country stand squarely with the men and women who wear the nation's uniform."
Today, the president is giving the second in a series of speeches that he says lay out his strategy for success in Iraq.
In the first, delivered last week, he cited progress in preparing Iraqi army and police forces to take over the country's security. Today's address will focus on rebuilding the Iraqi economy, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Bush also was asked about claims by a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq that they kidnapped a U.S. citizen. A video broadcast by Al-Jazeera television showed a blond man sitting with his hands tied behind his back, a U.S. passport and an identification card in the name of Ronald Schulz.
"We, of course, don't pay ransom for any hostages," Bush said. "What we will do, of course, is use our intelligence gathering to help locate them."
The White House also is under fire for a secret "rendition" program for transporting and interrogating suspected terrorists to clandestine locations.
"I don't talk about secret programs" or "covert activities," Bush said when asked about the program, which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is discussing during a trip to Europe this week.
"I can tell you two things: One, that we abide by the law; we do not torture. And two, we will try to do everything we can to protect us within the law," Bush said. "We do not render to countries that torture and that has been our policy and that policy will remain the same."
The Bush administration addressed the Iraq issue on many fronts yesterday. While the president was in Washington outlining his agenda, Vice President Dick Cheney discussed their strategy in a speech to troops at Fort Drum, N.Y., saying U.S. troops will stay in Iraq until the country is capable of defending itself from terrorists and insurgents.
"We will stand by our friends; we will help Iraqis build a nation that is free and secure and able to defend itself," Cheney said. "Any decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground and the judgment of our commanders, not by artificial timelines set by politicians in Washington, D.C."
Cheney, in his third speech on Iraq in about three weeks, softened his tone from his previous remarks, where he lashed out at critics of the Iraq war as dishonest and irresponsible. He also praised individual units while listing their accomplishments, including the "Fighting 69th" from New York City, which he said showed its toughness in confronting insurgents around Baghdad. '
1)There are pessimists and politicians who try to score points, but our strategy is one that will lead us to victory.'- President George W. Bush, at the Oval Office yesterday
2) '[The] idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong ... We need to figure out how to leave.'- Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee chairman
Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.
Bush blasts war critics
Cites remarks by some Democrats as pessimistic as he prepares for second speech on Iraq plan
December 7, 2005
President George W. Bush yesterday sharply assailed Democratic critics whom he called "pessimists" for questioning his strategy in Iraq and calling for a withdrawal.
"Our troops need to know that the American people stand with them, and we have a strategy for victory," Bush told reporters in the Oval Office, on being asked about comments made on a radio show by Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.
In an interview with WOAI-AM radio in San Antonio, Dean said that the "idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong," and that the conflict resembled the protracted Vietnam war.
Bush, who is facing declining public support for the war, fired back: "Of course there will be debate, and of course there will be some pessimists and some people playing politics with the issue. But, by far, the vast majority of people in this country stand squarely with the men and women who wear the nation's uniform."
Today, the president is giving the second in a series of speeches that he says lay out his strategy for success in Iraq.
In the first, delivered last week, he cited progress in preparing Iraqi army and police forces to take over the country's security. Today's address will focus on rebuilding the Iraqi economy, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Bush also was asked about claims by a group calling itself the Islamic Army in Iraq that they kidnapped a U.S. citizen. A video broadcast by Al-Jazeera television showed a blond man sitting with his hands tied behind his back, a U.S. passport and an identification card in the name of Ronald Schulz.
"We, of course, don't pay ransom for any hostages," Bush said. "What we will do, of course, is use our intelligence gathering to help locate them."
The White House also is under fire for a secret "rendition" program for transporting and interrogating suspected terrorists to clandestine locations.
"I don't talk about secret programs" or "covert activities," Bush said when asked about the program, which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is discussing during a trip to Europe this week.
"I can tell you two things: One, that we abide by the law; we do not torture. And two, we will try to do everything we can to protect us within the law," Bush said. "We do not render to countries that torture and that has been our policy and that policy will remain the same."
The Bush administration addressed the Iraq issue on many fronts yesterday. While the president was in Washington outlining his agenda, Vice President Dick Cheney discussed their strategy in a speech to troops at Fort Drum, N.Y., saying U.S. troops will stay in Iraq until the country is capable of defending itself from terrorists and insurgents.
"We will stand by our friends; we will help Iraqis build a nation that is free and secure and able to defend itself," Cheney said. "Any decisions about troop levels will be driven by the conditions on the ground and the judgment of our commanders, not by artificial timelines set by politicians in Washington, D.C."
Cheney, in his third speech on Iraq in about three weeks, softened his tone from his previous remarks, where he lashed out at critics of the Iraq war as dishonest and irresponsible. He also praised individual units while listing their accomplishments, including the "Fighting 69th" from New York City, which he said showed its toughness in confronting insurgents around Baghdad. '
1)There are pessimists and politicians who try to score points, but our strategy is one that will lead us to victory.'- President George W. Bush, at the Oval Office yesterday
2) '[The] idea that we're going to win the war in Iraq is an idea which is just plain wrong ... We need to figure out how to leave.'- Howard Dean, Democratic National Committee chairman
Copyright 2005 Newsday Inc.
Music Companies Get Mean
Music Companies Get Mean
By Annalee Newitz, AlterNet
Posted on December 7, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/29208/
When Sony BMG admitted in early November that it had shipped a couple million CDs containing a hidden software program called XCP that secretly installs itself on computers, the public was weirded out.
Why the hell was a music company sneaking unidentified software onto people's computers without telling them? Sony's answer -- that it was digital rights management software to prevent music piracy -- seemed inadequate. After all, DRM has been around for a while, but it's never come in the form of secretly installed programs. What were those programs doing, anyway?
Computer security geeks wanted to find out too. Turns out XCP is based on a tool called a "rootkit," which bad guys have traditionally used to take control of their victims' computers. Anyone who plays the new Celine Dion CD on his or her computer is making him- or herself vulnerable to viruses and other digital nasties. The danger is so great that the US Computer Emergency Response Team actually issued a special alert Nov. 15 warning people not to play Sony CDs with XCP on them.
Note to entertainment companies: You know you've gone too far with your copy protection technology when the copyright-expansionist US government steps on your head.
So Sony agreed to fix the problem -- sort of. The company issued a deinstaller for XCP that was supposed to get rid of the nastiness. And that's when things got really interesting. According to Ed Felten, a computer security professor at Princeton, the deinstaller is even worse than the original XCP rootkit. After examining the deinstaller, Felten wrote on his blog, Freedom to Tinker, that it actually installs new versions of all the old files from the rootkit, and adds some new ones. "No doubt they'll ask us to trust them," Felten wrote. "I wouldn't."
Not surprisingly, the creepy discoveries continued. Researchers found that Sony's sneaky program also sends an electronic message over the Internet that potentially allows the company to track who's playing its CDs and where. Microsoft issued a statement saying that its antivirus software protects against the Sony rootkit. (Microsoft might have a few less-than-benevolent reasons for helping hapless consumers -- the company is in litigation with Sony.) Sony responded by saying that it will replace XCP-infected CDs with uninfected ones for free.
Meanwhile, the company got sued in Texas, California, and Italy under anti-spyware and consumer-protection laws. Thomas Hesse, president of Sony BMG, initially downplayed the rootkit problems in a Nov. 4 interview on NPR. Days later, he was eating his words: "We're very, very sorry for the disruption and inconvenience that this has caused to music consumers," he told Business Week.
But this DRM meltdown is far from over. It turns out XCP isn't the only piece of secretly installed and potentially malicious software Sony is distributing with its holiday CD releases. People who use Windows machines to play CDs with something called MediaMax on them will find that new files and programs suddenly show up, uninvited, in their Common Files directory in a folder called SunnComm Shared (SunnComm is the company that makes MediaMax). Recently Sony sent out a press release admitting that MediaMax contains a security flaw that, if untreated, could leave up to 20 million computers vulnerable.
What does all this bad craziness mean? In the short term, it means don't buy any new CDs from Sony BMG. The long term is a little more hazy. Remember, all this stupidity started with an entertainment corporation wanting to protect its intellectual property -- and so hell-bent on it that it was willing to sacrifice your computer. The scandal over DRM software has been an object lesson on the values of the music industry.
While I'd love to believe that the egg on Sony's face will force other entertainment companies to shy away from trying to protect their copyrights using DRM, I think the XCP and MediaMax debacles are, ironically, going to usher in an era of widespread acceptance of DRM. By making DRM that is so egregiously horrible, Sony has set the floor for what the public will accept. So long as the next generation of DRM doesn't leave computers vulnerable to viruses the way the XCP rootkit does, the media and the public won't kick up a fuss.
It won't matter that future DRM will probably call home -- securely, of course -- and let Sony know who listens to what CDs and where they are.
It won't even matter that future DRM may install all kinds of programs on people's computers to monitor and control their media consumption - as long as those programs are secure and are installed with "permission" (i.e., after you ignore a bunch of legalese and click an "I Agree" box at the bottom). Installing alien software to listen to the latest Sarah McLaughlin CD will just seem normal. After all, none of that software is as bad as the Sony rootkit, right? Yeah, right.
Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd who listens to music without any kind of protection.
By Annalee Newitz, AlterNet
Posted on December 7, 2005
http://www.alternet.org/story/29208/
When Sony BMG admitted in early November that it had shipped a couple million CDs containing a hidden software program called XCP that secretly installs itself on computers, the public was weirded out.
Why the hell was a music company sneaking unidentified software onto people's computers without telling them? Sony's answer -- that it was digital rights management software to prevent music piracy -- seemed inadequate. After all, DRM has been around for a while, but it's never come in the form of secretly installed programs. What were those programs doing, anyway?
Computer security geeks wanted to find out too. Turns out XCP is based on a tool called a "rootkit," which bad guys have traditionally used to take control of their victims' computers. Anyone who plays the new Celine Dion CD on his or her computer is making him- or herself vulnerable to viruses and other digital nasties. The danger is so great that the US Computer Emergency Response Team actually issued a special alert Nov. 15 warning people not to play Sony CDs with XCP on them.
Note to entertainment companies: You know you've gone too far with your copy protection technology when the copyright-expansionist US government steps on your head.
So Sony agreed to fix the problem -- sort of. The company issued a deinstaller for XCP that was supposed to get rid of the nastiness. And that's when things got really interesting. According to Ed Felten, a computer security professor at Princeton, the deinstaller is even worse than the original XCP rootkit. After examining the deinstaller, Felten wrote on his blog, Freedom to Tinker, that it actually installs new versions of all the old files from the rootkit, and adds some new ones. "No doubt they'll ask us to trust them," Felten wrote. "I wouldn't."
Not surprisingly, the creepy discoveries continued. Researchers found that Sony's sneaky program also sends an electronic message over the Internet that potentially allows the company to track who's playing its CDs and where. Microsoft issued a statement saying that its antivirus software protects against the Sony rootkit. (Microsoft might have a few less-than-benevolent reasons for helping hapless consumers -- the company is in litigation with Sony.) Sony responded by saying that it will replace XCP-infected CDs with uninfected ones for free.
Meanwhile, the company got sued in Texas, California, and Italy under anti-spyware and consumer-protection laws. Thomas Hesse, president of Sony BMG, initially downplayed the rootkit problems in a Nov. 4 interview on NPR. Days later, he was eating his words: "We're very, very sorry for the disruption and inconvenience that this has caused to music consumers," he told Business Week.
But this DRM meltdown is far from over. It turns out XCP isn't the only piece of secretly installed and potentially malicious software Sony is distributing with its holiday CD releases. People who use Windows machines to play CDs with something called MediaMax on them will find that new files and programs suddenly show up, uninvited, in their Common Files directory in a folder called SunnComm Shared (SunnComm is the company that makes MediaMax). Recently Sony sent out a press release admitting that MediaMax contains a security flaw that, if untreated, could leave up to 20 million computers vulnerable.
What does all this bad craziness mean? In the short term, it means don't buy any new CDs from Sony BMG. The long term is a little more hazy. Remember, all this stupidity started with an entertainment corporation wanting to protect its intellectual property -- and so hell-bent on it that it was willing to sacrifice your computer. The scandal over DRM software has been an object lesson on the values of the music industry.
While I'd love to believe that the egg on Sony's face will force other entertainment companies to shy away from trying to protect their copyrights using DRM, I think the XCP and MediaMax debacles are, ironically, going to usher in an era of widespread acceptance of DRM. By making DRM that is so egregiously horrible, Sony has set the floor for what the public will accept. So long as the next generation of DRM doesn't leave computers vulnerable to viruses the way the XCP rootkit does, the media and the public won't kick up a fuss.
It won't matter that future DRM will probably call home -- securely, of course -- and let Sony know who listens to what CDs and where they are.
It won't even matter that future DRM may install all kinds of programs on people's computers to monitor and control their media consumption - as long as those programs are secure and are installed with "permission" (i.e., after you ignore a bunch of legalese and click an "I Agree" box at the bottom). Installing alien software to listen to the latest Sarah McLaughlin CD will just seem normal. After all, none of that software is as bad as the Sony rootkit, right? Yeah, right.
Annalee Newitz is a surly media nerd who listens to music without any kind of protection.
Russia warns US on military expansion
Russia warns US on military expansion
AFP | December 7 2005
Russia may reconsider whether to abide by a key European arms control agreement if the US military presence continues to creep closer to its borders, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov warned Wednesday.
Speaking a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement to set up US military bases in ex-Soviet bloc country Romania, Ivanov questioned whether the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty had any meaning any more.
"The expansion of US and NATO infrastructure to Russian borders raises a question about the fate of the CFE," Ivanov said in remarks at a meeting outside Moscow, shown on state television.
"Russia currently fulfills all its obligations under the treaty. But if we see that other countries ignore it, we will draw certain conclusions," Ivanov said.
The landmark treaty was meant to slash deployments of conventional forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its Soviet-era counterpart, the Warsaw Pact. Following the collapse of the latter, the pact was adapted in 1999, with limits placed on specific signatories.
All member countries signed the adapted CFE, but so far only four of them -- ex-Soviet republics Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine -- have ratified the new document, according to Interfax.
"If this agreement is not ratified, the question arises of whether Europe needs such a restraining mechanism at all," Ivanov said.
NATO has charged that Russia has not met some obligations under the pact, including withdrawal of forces from bases in the Cuacasus republic of Georgia. Russia, which began pulling its forces out of Georgia earlier this year, says it has abided by the treaty fully.
Ivanov said Russia's reaction to the agreement on setting up US military bases in Romania would depend on the size and nature of the facilities.
AFP | December 7 2005
Russia may reconsider whether to abide by a key European arms control agreement if the US military presence continues to creep closer to its borders, Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov warned Wednesday.
Speaking a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice signed an agreement to set up US military bases in ex-Soviet bloc country Romania, Ivanov questioned whether the 1990 Conventional Forces in Europe (CFE) treaty had any meaning any more.
"The expansion of US and NATO infrastructure to Russian borders raises a question about the fate of the CFE," Ivanov said in remarks at a meeting outside Moscow, shown on state television.
"Russia currently fulfills all its obligations under the treaty. But if we see that other countries ignore it, we will draw certain conclusions," Ivanov said.
The landmark treaty was meant to slash deployments of conventional forces of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and its Soviet-era counterpart, the Warsaw Pact. Following the collapse of the latter, the pact was adapted in 1999, with limits placed on specific signatories.
All member countries signed the adapted CFE, but so far only four of them -- ex-Soviet republics Belarus, Kazakhstan, Russia and Ukraine -- have ratified the new document, according to Interfax.
"If this agreement is not ratified, the question arises of whether Europe needs such a restraining mechanism at all," Ivanov said.
NATO has charged that Russia has not met some obligations under the pact, including withdrawal of forces from bases in the Cuacasus republic of Georgia. Russia, which began pulling its forces out of Georgia earlier this year, says it has abided by the treaty fully.
Ivanov said Russia's reaction to the agreement on setting up US military bases in Romania would depend on the size and nature of the facilities.
MOI Condemns Israeli Assassination of Citizen in Rafah
MOI Condemns Israeli Assassination of Citizen in Rafah
GAZA, December 7, 2005 (WAFA) - Ministry of Interior (MOI) condemned the Israeli assassination crime of a citizen carried out today in the Gaza Strip (GS) city of Rafah.
.
In a statement issued Wednesday, the Ministry revealed that such attacks negatively effect the peace process and harm the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) efforts to maintain the truce, warning from returning to the retaliation policy.
.
The ministry shouldered the Israeli government full responsibility of results that could emerge of such policy, calling it to immediately stop the military aggression and the assassination policy.
.
It urged the international community and the Quartet to intervene to stop Israeli escalation and to pressurize Israel stop the assassination policy which could spoil efforts to revive the peace process.
.
Earlier, Israeli drones fired several missiles at a civilian car killing one and injuring seven others, including four children.
.
H.M. (22:42 P) (20:42 GMT)"
GAZA, December 7, 2005 (WAFA) - Ministry of Interior (MOI) condemned the Israeli assassination crime of a citizen carried out today in the Gaza Strip (GS) city of Rafah.
.
In a statement issued Wednesday, the Ministry revealed that such attacks negatively effect the peace process and harm the Palestinian National Authority (PNA) efforts to maintain the truce, warning from returning to the retaliation policy.
.
The ministry shouldered the Israeli government full responsibility of results that could emerge of such policy, calling it to immediately stop the military aggression and the assassination policy.
.
It urged the international community and the Quartet to intervene to stop Israeli escalation and to pressurize Israel stop the assassination policy which could spoil efforts to revive the peace process.
.
Earlier, Israeli drones fired several missiles at a civilian car killing one and injuring seven others, including four children.
.
H.M. (22:42 P) (20:42 GMT)"
Hey IRS ? What About AIPAC? By Ted Lang
Hey IRS � What About AIPAC?
By Ted Lang
12-7-5
Coming on the heels of the defeat of the ADL's much-desired hate crime legislation designed to silence dissent and debate relating to the holocaust and to stifle as well any inquiry or debate on unconscionable anti-American/anti-Christian Zionist activities, Abraham Foxman and his Israel first/America last Anti-Defamation League continue to attack American values and individual freedoms. Angered by the defeat of his intended draconian, fascist weapon of unjust laws to enable the control and supervision of all American speech and thought through the Israeli ADL , Foxman lashed out in an unbridled explosion of hatred directed at all Christians.
As pointed out by Reverend Ted Pike, "ADL is also the American adjunct of Mossad, Israel's secret intelligence organization. During the California ADL/police spy scandal of the late 1980s, David Gurvitz, librarian and researcher for ADL's Los Angeles office, testified that Mossad couriers routinely passed through ADL's Los Angeles office. They carried to Israel secret documents, which probably included detailed information from U.S. police departments concerning more than 10,000 Christians, conservatives, pro-lifers, and Muslim activists. My father and I were on the police/ADL list."
What right does the Israeli ADL have to lobby for the creation of anti-American and anti-Christian laws? They are agents of a foreign state, and a deadly oppressive and fascist one at that. Israel is NOT the "Jewish Nation" of biblical reference � it is a Zionist and ruthless police state created via the Council on Foreign Relations that agitated, lobbied and manipulated Israel into existence in 1948 under the auspices and legitimization via the United Nations. As such, Palestinians, trapped within the borders of this artificially created state, a state not established by demographics, ethnicity, religion, language, or any other aspect of self-determination, have been systematically slaughtered, tortured and mass murdered on propagandized pretexts justifying Israel's "right to defend itself."
"Jewish" organizations such as the criminal ADL attack all, and then hide behind their "Jewishness" claiming religious discrimination being unjustly directed towards them. They have elicited international sympathy for the brutal treatment they profess at the hands of Adolf Hitler and his Nazis. But increasingly, challenges to the holocaust numbers are revising established estimates to lower numbers of Jewish victims. Yet, Israeli organizations such as the ADL are trying to establish laws that would block further investigation and more accurate assessments. Many others perished in the six million figure routinely quoted, which include also Christians, gypsies and those judged mentally or physically defective or those that openly opposed Hitler.
Most astonishing are the current day revelations providing irrefutable evidence that elements of Zionism itself, specifically B'nai B'rith, the parent "Jewish" organization of the ADL, actually supported Hitler and his Nazis both financially and in terms of propaganda. The latter Zionist propaganda support for Hitler has been ascribed to no lesser a "Jewish" media source than The New York Times. I have provided proof of this previously in excruciating detail after reviewing the efforts and publications of Webster G. Tarpley and others.
As a crime-generating fifth column operation detrimental to the interests of the American people, the Constitution and our majority Christian religions, why, therefore, is the ADL granted tax-exempt status? Is the ADL a religious organization or an agent of a foreign state?
And the same can be asked of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC! Recently, Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin was convicted of espionage in turning sensitive documents over to the two top officials of AIPAC: Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman. As news consumers of the alternative media [AM] know full well, the subject espionage activity was intended to give Israel vital secret information concerning Pentagon policies and intelligence relative to Iran. All "Jewish" lobbying groups have been agitating to persuade the United States military to invade Syria and Iran. The AIPAC espionage program could have provided the basis for the Israeli Mossad to engineer a "false flag" operation perpetrated by Israel that would implicate Iran in an egregious attack against American interests.
Why has there been absolutely no attempt by anyone in Congress to hold these two espionage-conducting agencies of a foreign state accountable? More to the point, why are these organizations granted TAX EXEMPT status by the IRS?
Instead, "our" government is targeting our religious institutions in obeisance to the political correctness mandated by eight Zionist Masters of the mainstream media. As I and others have previously pointed out, eight Zionist plutocratic families own, operate and control all aspects of the "American" media. This includes television news and entertainment, newspapers, magazines, radio, publishing and Hollywood movies. The Masters of MSM are thus able to manipulate public opinion totally! They create "political correctness" augmented by humongous campaign "contributions" to American politicians. Combining their numerous organizations, lobbying activities and great wealth, they magnify their power and subjugate America to their will.
The report targeting All Saints Episcopal Church first aired in the Los Angeles Times in a November 7th article entitled, "Antiwar Sermon Brings IRS Warning," written by staff writers Patricia Ward Biederman and Jason Felch. Their account started with the exact opening line as was offered on the CBS Evening News anchored by Bob Schieffer. "The Internal Revenue Service has warned one of Southern California's largest and most liberal churches that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon two days before the 2004 presidential election." This is particularly galling as both MSM outlets took special pains to point out that the church was one of the "most liberal churches" in the land.
How would reporters in the MSM know this? Aren't they the parroting purveyors of their Media Masters' political correctness? And as such, do they really attend church on Sundays, or for that matter, participate in Jewish services on Saturdays? I would tend to doubt that very much. Therefore, the only conclusion that can be arrived at is that this is yet another partnering attack upon an American institution by the Masters of the Media and their stooges in government.
What business is it of either the government or the MSM as to what is preached from the pulpits in our Christian churches? The Media Masters are once again trying to make it a hate crime to utter "Merry Christmas!" As to what was specifically said is of secondary concern as to precisely who it was that "reported" these transgressions against political correctness. The fascist goons and terrorists of the criminal American political state offered that if the church would confess to wrongdoing, the American Nazi IRS would give them a break and not revoke their tax exempt status.
This is nothing short of criminal blackmail. It is empowering government to dictate what can and what can not be discussed in church. This is yet another Bill of Rights violation of freedom of religion that is being imposed by the Zionist ADL, ACLU, and AIPAC, all of whom are agents of a foreign country and all of which have bribed corrupt and morally bankrupt American politicians to suppress and criminalize the religion of the majority.
� 2005-2006 All rights reserved
Ted Lang is a political analyst and freelance writer.
By Ted Lang
12-7-5
Coming on the heels of the defeat of the ADL's much-desired hate crime legislation designed to silence dissent and debate relating to the holocaust and to stifle as well any inquiry or debate on unconscionable anti-American/anti-Christian Zionist activities, Abraham Foxman and his Israel first/America last Anti-Defamation League continue to attack American values and individual freedoms. Angered by the defeat of his intended draconian, fascist weapon of unjust laws to enable the control and supervision of all American speech and thought through the Israeli ADL , Foxman lashed out in an unbridled explosion of hatred directed at all Christians.
As pointed out by Reverend Ted Pike, "ADL is also the American adjunct of Mossad, Israel's secret intelligence organization. During the California ADL/police spy scandal of the late 1980s, David Gurvitz, librarian and researcher for ADL's Los Angeles office, testified that Mossad couriers routinely passed through ADL's Los Angeles office. They carried to Israel secret documents, which probably included detailed information from U.S. police departments concerning more than 10,000 Christians, conservatives, pro-lifers, and Muslim activists. My father and I were on the police/ADL list."
What right does the Israeli ADL have to lobby for the creation of anti-American and anti-Christian laws? They are agents of a foreign state, and a deadly oppressive and fascist one at that. Israel is NOT the "Jewish Nation" of biblical reference � it is a Zionist and ruthless police state created via the Council on Foreign Relations that agitated, lobbied and manipulated Israel into existence in 1948 under the auspices and legitimization via the United Nations. As such, Palestinians, trapped within the borders of this artificially created state, a state not established by demographics, ethnicity, religion, language, or any other aspect of self-determination, have been systematically slaughtered, tortured and mass murdered on propagandized pretexts justifying Israel's "right to defend itself."
"Jewish" organizations such as the criminal ADL attack all, and then hide behind their "Jewishness" claiming religious discrimination being unjustly directed towards them. They have elicited international sympathy for the brutal treatment they profess at the hands of Adolf Hitler and his Nazis. But increasingly, challenges to the holocaust numbers are revising established estimates to lower numbers of Jewish victims. Yet, Israeli organizations such as the ADL are trying to establish laws that would block further investigation and more accurate assessments. Many others perished in the six million figure routinely quoted, which include also Christians, gypsies and those judged mentally or physically defective or those that openly opposed Hitler.
Most astonishing are the current day revelations providing irrefutable evidence that elements of Zionism itself, specifically B'nai B'rith, the parent "Jewish" organization of the ADL, actually supported Hitler and his Nazis both financially and in terms of propaganda. The latter Zionist propaganda support for Hitler has been ascribed to no lesser a "Jewish" media source than The New York Times. I have provided proof of this previously in excruciating detail after reviewing the efforts and publications of Webster G. Tarpley and others.
As a crime-generating fifth column operation detrimental to the interests of the American people, the Constitution and our majority Christian religions, why, therefore, is the ADL granted tax-exempt status? Is the ADL a religious organization or an agent of a foreign state?
And the same can be asked of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC! Recently, Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin was convicted of espionage in turning sensitive documents over to the two top officials of AIPAC: Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman. As news consumers of the alternative media [AM] know full well, the subject espionage activity was intended to give Israel vital secret information concerning Pentagon policies and intelligence relative to Iran. All "Jewish" lobbying groups have been agitating to persuade the United States military to invade Syria and Iran. The AIPAC espionage program could have provided the basis for the Israeli Mossad to engineer a "false flag" operation perpetrated by Israel that would implicate Iran in an egregious attack against American interests.
Why has there been absolutely no attempt by anyone in Congress to hold these two espionage-conducting agencies of a foreign state accountable? More to the point, why are these organizations granted TAX EXEMPT status by the IRS?
Instead, "our" government is targeting our religious institutions in obeisance to the political correctness mandated by eight Zionist Masters of the mainstream media. As I and others have previously pointed out, eight Zionist plutocratic families own, operate and control all aspects of the "American" media. This includes television news and entertainment, newspapers, magazines, radio, publishing and Hollywood movies. The Masters of MSM are thus able to manipulate public opinion totally! They create "political correctness" augmented by humongous campaign "contributions" to American politicians. Combining their numerous organizations, lobbying activities and great wealth, they magnify their power and subjugate America to their will.
The report targeting All Saints Episcopal Church first aired in the Los Angeles Times in a November 7th article entitled, "Antiwar Sermon Brings IRS Warning," written by staff writers Patricia Ward Biederman and Jason Felch. Their account started with the exact opening line as was offered on the CBS Evening News anchored by Bob Schieffer. "The Internal Revenue Service has warned one of Southern California's largest and most liberal churches that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon two days before the 2004 presidential election." This is particularly galling as both MSM outlets took special pains to point out that the church was one of the "most liberal churches" in the land.
How would reporters in the MSM know this? Aren't they the parroting purveyors of their Media Masters' political correctness? And as such, do they really attend church on Sundays, or for that matter, participate in Jewish services on Saturdays? I would tend to doubt that very much. Therefore, the only conclusion that can be arrived at is that this is yet another partnering attack upon an American institution by the Masters of the Media and their stooges in government.
What business is it of either the government or the MSM as to what is preached from the pulpits in our Christian churches? The Media Masters are once again trying to make it a hate crime to utter "Merry Christmas!" As to what was specifically said is of secondary concern as to precisely who it was that "reported" these transgressions against political correctness. The fascist goons and terrorists of the criminal American political state offered that if the church would confess to wrongdoing, the American Nazi IRS would give them a break and not revoke their tax exempt status.
This is nothing short of criminal blackmail. It is empowering government to dictate what can and what can not be discussed in church. This is yet another Bill of Rights violation of freedom of religion that is being imposed by the Zionist ADL, ACLU, and AIPAC, all of whom are agents of a foreign country and all of which have bribed corrupt and morally bankrupt American politicians to suppress and criminalize the religion of the majority.
� 2005-2006 All rights reserved
Ted Lang is a political analyst and freelance writer.
Torture evidence inadmissible in UK courts, Lords rule
http://politics.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,15935,1662107,00.html
Torture evidence inadmissible in UK courts, Lords rule
Staff and agencies
Thursday December 8, 2005
Evidence that may have been obtained by torture cannot be used against
terror suspects in British courts, the House of Lords ruled today.
A panel of seven Law Lords voted unanimously to allow an appeal by eight
detainees who are being held without charge on suspicion of being
involved in terrorism, against a controversial Court of Appeal judgment
passed in August 2004.
The appeal court voted last year that if evidence was obtained under
torture by agents of another country with no involvement by the UK, it
was usable and there was no obligation by the government to inquire
about its origins.
But today's ruling means such evidence is inadmissible under British
law. It also means the home secretary must re-examine all cases where
evidence obtained by torture has been used against suspects.
Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the former Lord Chief Justice who headed the
panel, said English law had regarded "torture and its fruits" with
abhorrence for more than 500 years.
"The principles of the common law, standing alone, in my opinion compel
the exclusion of third-party torture evidence as unreliable, unfair,
offensive to ordinary standards of humanity and decency and incompatible
with the principles which should animate a tribunal seeking to
administer justice," he said.
The announcement was welcomed by human rights groups. Amnesty
International, who led a coalition of 14 organisations on behalf of the
detainees, said the decision meant the government must re-affirm its ban
on torture and evidence obtained by torture.
An Amnesty spokesman said: "This is a momentous decision. The Law Lords'
ruling has overturned the tacit belief that torture can be condoned
under certain circumstances.
"This ruling shreds any vestige of legality with which the UK government
had attempted to defend a completely unlawful and reprehensible policy,
introduced as part of its counter-terrorism measures."
Shami Chakrabarti, the director of civil rights group Liberty, said:
"This is an incredibly important day, with the Law Lords sending a
signal across the democratic world that there is to be no compromise on
torture.
"This is also an important message about what distinguishes us from
dictators and terrorists. We will not legitimise evidence obtained by
torture by using it in our justice system."
Sir Menzies Campbell MP, the Liberal Democrat shadow foreign secretary,
said the announcement by Britain's highest court of law was a "landmark
judgment".
"Set against the background of extraordinary rendition and illegal
detention it marks a return to due process and the rule of law," he said.
Amnesty International is now calling for an end to the deportation of
alleged terror suspects to countries where they are at risk of torture.
Torture evidence inadmissible in UK courts, Lords rule
Staff and agencies
Thursday December 8, 2005
Evidence that may have been obtained by torture cannot be used against
terror suspects in British courts, the House of Lords ruled today.
A panel of seven Law Lords voted unanimously to allow an appeal by eight
detainees who are being held without charge on suspicion of being
involved in terrorism, against a controversial Court of Appeal judgment
passed in August 2004.
The appeal court voted last year that if evidence was obtained under
torture by agents of another country with no involvement by the UK, it
was usable and there was no obligation by the government to inquire
about its origins.
But today's ruling means such evidence is inadmissible under British
law. It also means the home secretary must re-examine all cases where
evidence obtained by torture has been used against suspects.
Lord Bingham of Cornhill, the former Lord Chief Justice who headed the
panel, said English law had regarded "torture and its fruits" with
abhorrence for more than 500 years.
"The principles of the common law, standing alone, in my opinion compel
the exclusion of third-party torture evidence as unreliable, unfair,
offensive to ordinary standards of humanity and decency and incompatible
with the principles which should animate a tribunal seeking to
administer justice," he said.
The announcement was welcomed by human rights groups. Amnesty
International, who led a coalition of 14 organisations on behalf of the
detainees, said the decision meant the government must re-affirm its ban
on torture and evidence obtained by torture.
An Amnesty spokesman said: "This is a momentous decision. The Law Lords'
ruling has overturned the tacit belief that torture can be condoned
under certain circumstances.
"This ruling shreds any vestige of legality with which the UK government
had attempted to defend a completely unlawful and reprehensible policy,
introduced as part of its counter-terrorism measures."
Shami Chakrabarti, the director of civil rights group Liberty, said:
"This is an incredibly important day, with the Law Lords sending a
signal across the democratic world that there is to be no compromise on
torture.
"This is also an important message about what distinguishes us from
dictators and terrorists. We will not legitimise evidence obtained by
torture by using it in our justice system."
Sir Menzies Campbell MP, the Liberal Democrat shadow foreign secretary,
said the announcement by Britain's highest court of law was a "landmark
judgment".
"Set against the background of extraordinary rendition and illegal
detention it marks a return to due process and the rule of law," he said.
Amnesty International is now calling for an end to the deportation of
alleged terror suspects to countries where they are at risk of torture.
Ex-president doubts U-S military will ever leave Iraq
By Associated Press
12/07/05 "AP" -- -- WEST POINT, N.Y. Former President Jimmy Carter says
he doubts whether the U-S military will ever completely pull out of
Iraq, despite what the Bush administration says about a possible
withdrawal beginning next year.
Carter was at the U-S Military Academy yesterday to sign copies of his
newest book for West Point cadets.
He said he believes America will have a major military presence in Iraq
for decades to come. Carter's comments come a week after President Bush
told midshipmen at the U-S Naval Academy to expect troop withdrawals
sometime in 2006.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11235.htm
12/07/05 "AP" -- -- WEST POINT, N.Y. Former President Jimmy Carter says
he doubts whether the U-S military will ever completely pull out of
Iraq, despite what the Bush administration says about a possible
withdrawal beginning next year.
Carter was at the U-S Military Academy yesterday to sign copies of his
newest book for West Point cadets.
He said he believes America will have a major military presence in Iraq
for decades to come. Carter's comments come a week after President Bush
told midshipmen at the U-S Naval Academy to expect troop withdrawals
sometime in 2006.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11235.htm
No peace with Sharon
The Gaza withdrawal has been a veil for continued persecution and
ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
By Gerald Kaufman
12/07/05 "The Guardian" -- -- I know the attractive Israeli seaside
resort of Netanya well, having stayed several times at my niece's
flat there. Not long ago I heard on BBC radio a series of interviews
with residents of Netanya, which has in the past suffered a number of
terrorist attacks. They rejoiced at how much easier the situation had
become following the building of the Israeli separation wall,
designed specifically to protect places like Netanya, located at the
narrow neck of Israel's pre-1967 border. Two days ago five people
were killed in a suicide bombing in Netanya.
All terrorist attacks are unjustifiable atrocities. Five Israelis are
the latest victims. Over the past months, 15 Palestinians, two of
them children, have been killed by Israeli troops. Their deaths
attracted no headlines, but they are dead just the same.
I recently returned from leading the first British parliamentary
delegation to the Palestinian Authority. What we saw is never seen by
ordinary, decent Israelis, like the citizens of Netanya - who, since
they dare not venture into the occupied territories, have no idea of
the persecution of Palestinians being carried out in their name.
Last there two years ago, I was appalled at how an already
unacceptable situation has deteriorated. There are now more than 600
fixed checkpoints in the tiny Palestinian area, which, with so-called
flying checkpoints, make free movement almost impossible. In
Bethlehem, which used to be crammed with tourists, we saw just two
groups in Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity. The Old City
of Nablus, which I knew for a quarter of a century as a hub of
commercial activity, is also desolate. Heavily-armed Israeli troops
man walls, gates and huts, all preventing Palestinians from moving
about.
When our delegation, with Nablus Palestinians as our guides, tried to
walk down one street our way was barred by Israeli soldiers pointing
threatening weapons. When I explained our mission, a soldier
said: "You can pass, but the Arabs cannot." Naturally, we refused to
proceed. Meanwhile, we saw busloads of illegal Jewish settlers
sailing through this restricted area at will.
One of the motivations of this policy is to make the lives of the
Palestinians so intolerable that they get out. The success of this
ethnic cleansing is shown in Ramallah, which in the two years since I
was last there (meeting Yasser Arafat in the bunker where he was
incarcerated) has become bloated as Palestinians from other areas of
the West Bank huddle together there.
After Monday's bombing, Shaul Mofaz, defence minister and would-be
successor to Ariel Sharon as Likud leader, put targeted killings of
Palestinian "extremists" and blowing-up of suicide bombers' homes
back on the Israeli agenda, though even he cannot be too stupid to
understand that such reprisals will be used by Islamic Jihad and
other terrorist organisations as a pretext for the murder of more
Israeli civilians.
It is such posturing that leads Sharon to claim that he is now at the
centre of Israeli politics. Sharon's champions argue that Israeli
troops' withdrawal from Gaza demonstrates his peacemaking motivation.
Shimon Peres, now a pathetically vain frontman for Sharon, claims
that Sharon's alleged wish for peace is the reason for his jumping
ship from the Labour party.
Yet, as Brent Scowcroft, the first President Bush's national security
adviser, has explained to Condoleezza Rice: "For Sharon this is not
the first move, this is the last move. He's getting out of Gaza
because he can't sustain 8,000 settlers with half his army protecting
them. Then, when he's out, he will have an Israel that he can control
and a Palestinian state atomised enough that it can't be a problem."
It is good for Labour to be free of the albatross of Peres, following
the welcome election of Amir Peretz - a tough, no-nonsense Sephardi
whom I first met nearly 20 years ago in the slummy southern
development town of Sderot, where he was a populist mayor. Peretz is
no peacenik, but he does want a negotiated two-state solution.
Instead of lauding Sharon as he expands illegal West Bank settlements
and imprisons East Jerusalem in a ring of concrete and armour, the
British government should be giving full support to Peretz. He may
not be perfect but, if at this bleak hour there is any hope for
Israelis and Palestinians alike, he is it.
Gerald Kaufman is the Labour MP for Manchester Gorton -
kaufmang@parliament.uk
� Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11237.htm
ethnic cleansing of Palestinians
By Gerald Kaufman
12/07/05 "The Guardian" -- -- I know the attractive Israeli seaside
resort of Netanya well, having stayed several times at my niece's
flat there. Not long ago I heard on BBC radio a series of interviews
with residents of Netanya, which has in the past suffered a number of
terrorist attacks. They rejoiced at how much easier the situation had
become following the building of the Israeli separation wall,
designed specifically to protect places like Netanya, located at the
narrow neck of Israel's pre-1967 border. Two days ago five people
were killed in a suicide bombing in Netanya.
All terrorist attacks are unjustifiable atrocities. Five Israelis are
the latest victims. Over the past months, 15 Palestinians, two of
them children, have been killed by Israeli troops. Their deaths
attracted no headlines, but they are dead just the same.
I recently returned from leading the first British parliamentary
delegation to the Palestinian Authority. What we saw is never seen by
ordinary, decent Israelis, like the citizens of Netanya - who, since
they dare not venture into the occupied territories, have no idea of
the persecution of Palestinians being carried out in their name.
Last there two years ago, I was appalled at how an already
unacceptable situation has deteriorated. There are now more than 600
fixed checkpoints in the tiny Palestinian area, which, with so-called
flying checkpoints, make free movement almost impossible. In
Bethlehem, which used to be crammed with tourists, we saw just two
groups in Manger Square and the Church of the Nativity. The Old City
of Nablus, which I knew for a quarter of a century as a hub of
commercial activity, is also desolate. Heavily-armed Israeli troops
man walls, gates and huts, all preventing Palestinians from moving
about.
When our delegation, with Nablus Palestinians as our guides, tried to
walk down one street our way was barred by Israeli soldiers pointing
threatening weapons. When I explained our mission, a soldier
said: "You can pass, but the Arabs cannot." Naturally, we refused to
proceed. Meanwhile, we saw busloads of illegal Jewish settlers
sailing through this restricted area at will.
One of the motivations of this policy is to make the lives of the
Palestinians so intolerable that they get out. The success of this
ethnic cleansing is shown in Ramallah, which in the two years since I
was last there (meeting Yasser Arafat in the bunker where he was
incarcerated) has become bloated as Palestinians from other areas of
the West Bank huddle together there.
After Monday's bombing, Shaul Mofaz, defence minister and would-be
successor to Ariel Sharon as Likud leader, put targeted killings of
Palestinian "extremists" and blowing-up of suicide bombers' homes
back on the Israeli agenda, though even he cannot be too stupid to
understand that such reprisals will be used by Islamic Jihad and
other terrorist organisations as a pretext for the murder of more
Israeli civilians.
It is such posturing that leads Sharon to claim that he is now at the
centre of Israeli politics. Sharon's champions argue that Israeli
troops' withdrawal from Gaza demonstrates his peacemaking motivation.
Shimon Peres, now a pathetically vain frontman for Sharon, claims
that Sharon's alleged wish for peace is the reason for his jumping
ship from the Labour party.
Yet, as Brent Scowcroft, the first President Bush's national security
adviser, has explained to Condoleezza Rice: "For Sharon this is not
the first move, this is the last move. He's getting out of Gaza
because he can't sustain 8,000 settlers with half his army protecting
them. Then, when he's out, he will have an Israel that he can control
and a Palestinian state atomised enough that it can't be a problem."
It is good for Labour to be free of the albatross of Peres, following
the welcome election of Amir Peretz - a tough, no-nonsense Sephardi
whom I first met nearly 20 years ago in the slummy southern
development town of Sderot, where he was a populist mayor. Peretz is
no peacenik, but he does want a negotiated two-state solution.
Instead of lauding Sharon as he expands illegal West Bank settlements
and imprisons East Jerusalem in a ring of concrete and armour, the
British government should be giving full support to Peretz. He may
not be perfect but, if at this bleak hour there is any hope for
Israelis and Palestinians alike, he is it.
Gerald Kaufman is the Labour MP for Manchester Gorton -
kaufmang@parliament.uk
� Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11237.htm
Were the levees bombed in New Orleans?
Were the levees bombed in New Orleans?
Ninth Ward residents give voice to a conspiracy theory
MSNBC/Lisa Myers | December 8 2005
FLASHBACK: Locals, Officials Suggest Levees were Intentionally Blown
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/081205leveesbombed.htm
WASHINGTON - It's become a strongly held belief by some in the storm zone ? the idea that the destruction of New Orleans? heavily poor, heavily black Ninth Ward was neither an accident nor an act of nature.
Dyan French, also known as ?Mama D,? is a New Orleans Citizen and Community Leader. She testified before the House Select Committee on Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday.
?I was on my front porch. I have witnesses that they bombed the walls of the levee, boom, boom!? Mama D said, holding her head. ?Mister, I'll never forget it.?
?Certainly appears to me to be an act of genocide and of ethnic cleansing,? Leah Hodges, another New Orleans citizen, told the committee.
Similar statements, sometimes couched as rumors, have also been voiced by Louis Farrakhan, leader of the nation of Islam, and director Spike Lee.
?I don't find it too far-fetched,? Lee said in a recent television interview, ?that they try to displace all the black people out of New Orleans.?
Harvard's Alvin Pouissant says such conspiracy theories are fueled by years of government neglect and discrimination against blacks: slavery, segregation and the Tuskegee experiments, during which poor blacks were used to test the effects of syphilis.
?If you're angry and you've been discriminated against,? Pouissant says, ?then your mind is open to many ideas about persecution, abandonment, feelings of rejection.?
The latest theory is partly rooted in historical fact. In 1927, the levees were bombed to save parts of the city, and black neighborhoods were inundated.
But independent engineers investigating levee failures during Katrina say that's not what happened this time.
Prof. Robert Bea, from the University of California, Berkeley, studied the levee failures and his team issued a preliminary report.
?We didn?t find any evidence that would indicate explosions,? says Bea.
New Orleans columnist Lolis Eric Elie says the federal government badly neglected black Americans during Katrina, but he does not believe the levees were blown up.
?One of the problems with that theory,? Elie says, ?is that there were a whole lot of other areas of the city, including some that are predominantly white, where there was flooding.?
Harvard's Pouissant also says that latching on to conspiracy theories is a way for the powerless to cope with terrible losses ? incendiary claims born of an enormous tragedy.
Lisa Myers is NBC?s Senior Investigative Correspondent
Ninth Ward residents give voice to a conspiracy theory
MSNBC/Lisa Myers | December 8 2005
FLASHBACK: Locals, Officials Suggest Levees were Intentionally Blown
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/081205leveesbombed.htm
WASHINGTON - It's become a strongly held belief by some in the storm zone ? the idea that the destruction of New Orleans? heavily poor, heavily black Ninth Ward was neither an accident nor an act of nature.
Dyan French, also known as ?Mama D,? is a New Orleans Citizen and Community Leader. She testified before the House Select Committee on Hurricane Katrina on Tuesday.
?I was on my front porch. I have witnesses that they bombed the walls of the levee, boom, boom!? Mama D said, holding her head. ?Mister, I'll never forget it.?
?Certainly appears to me to be an act of genocide and of ethnic cleansing,? Leah Hodges, another New Orleans citizen, told the committee.
Similar statements, sometimes couched as rumors, have also been voiced by Louis Farrakhan, leader of the nation of Islam, and director Spike Lee.
?I don't find it too far-fetched,? Lee said in a recent television interview, ?that they try to displace all the black people out of New Orleans.?
Harvard's Alvin Pouissant says such conspiracy theories are fueled by years of government neglect and discrimination against blacks: slavery, segregation and the Tuskegee experiments, during which poor blacks were used to test the effects of syphilis.
?If you're angry and you've been discriminated against,? Pouissant says, ?then your mind is open to many ideas about persecution, abandonment, feelings of rejection.?
The latest theory is partly rooted in historical fact. In 1927, the levees were bombed to save parts of the city, and black neighborhoods were inundated.
But independent engineers investigating levee failures during Katrina say that's not what happened this time.
Prof. Robert Bea, from the University of California, Berkeley, studied the levee failures and his team issued a preliminary report.
?We didn?t find any evidence that would indicate explosions,? says Bea.
New Orleans columnist Lolis Eric Elie says the federal government badly neglected black Americans during Katrina, but he does not believe the levees were blown up.
?One of the problems with that theory,? Elie says, ?is that there were a whole lot of other areas of the city, including some that are predominantly white, where there was flooding.?
Harvard's Pouissant also says that latching on to conspiracy theories is a way for the powerless to cope with terrible losses ? incendiary claims born of an enormous tragedy.
Lisa Myers is NBC?s Senior Investigative Correspondent
US military continues Iraq propaganda operation despite probe
US military continues Iraq propaganda operation despite probe
AFP | December 8 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051207214022.a69ol9de.html
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/081205militarycontinues.htm
The US military is continuing a controversial "information operations" program that paid Iraqi newspapers to run favorable stories even as it investigates the effort, US defense spokesmen said Wednesday.
General George Casey has named Rear Admiral Van Buskirk to conduct a investigation of the program, they said.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said it will look at policies and procedures governing the program and "whether or not people are performing their duties and responsibilities within those policy and procedure parameters."
Asked whether the program has been suspended in the meantime, Whitman said, "I don't know of any changes."
Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said in an email that "MNF-I (Multi-National Forces-Iraq) has not directed that the IO (information operations) program be suspended."
"Any decision in that regard will come as a result of the investigation," he said.
Johnson said Buskirk "has been given authority to do as thorough a job as necessary to determine whether the placement of stories is in accordance with all legal guidelines and is appropriate to the situation."
The secret program has been vehemently criticized and heatedly defended since its existence was revealed earlier this month by the Los Angeles Times.
The Times and other newspapers said that the US military was producing favorable stories and then using a defense contractor, the Lincoln Group, to pay Iraqi newspapers to publish them.
The reports said staff for the Lincoln Group posed as freelance writers or advertising executives in placing the stories to mask their connection to the US military.
The military also was reported to have paid Iraqi reporters up to 200 dollars a month to write favorable stories about the US military effort in Iraq.
The US military confirmed last week that it placed paid stories in Iraqi newspapers through third parties, but has provided few details.
Neither Whitman nor Johnson could say whether the findings of the military's investigation would be made public.
US commanders have defended the program as using factually accurate stories to counter disinformation by insurgents.
Critics say it further undermines US credibility and corrupts US efforts to promote the development of an independent media in Iraq.
AFP | December 8 2005 http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051207214022.a69ol9de.html
http://prisonplanet.com/articles/december2005/081205militarycontinues.htm
The US military is continuing a controversial "information operations" program that paid Iraqi newspapers to run favorable stories even as it investigates the effort, US defense spokesmen said Wednesday.
General George Casey has named Rear Admiral Van Buskirk to conduct a investigation of the program, they said.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said it will look at policies and procedures governing the program and "whether or not people are performing their duties and responsibilities within those policy and procedure parameters."
Asked whether the program has been suspended in the meantime, Whitman said, "I don't know of any changes."
Lieutenant Colonel Barry Johnson, a military spokesman in Baghdad, said in an email that "MNF-I (Multi-National Forces-Iraq) has not directed that the IO (information operations) program be suspended."
"Any decision in that regard will come as a result of the investigation," he said.
Johnson said Buskirk "has been given authority to do as thorough a job as necessary to determine whether the placement of stories is in accordance with all legal guidelines and is appropriate to the situation."
The secret program has been vehemently criticized and heatedly defended since its existence was revealed earlier this month by the Los Angeles Times.
The Times and other newspapers said that the US military was producing favorable stories and then using a defense contractor, the Lincoln Group, to pay Iraqi newspapers to publish them.
The reports said staff for the Lincoln Group posed as freelance writers or advertising executives in placing the stories to mask their connection to the US military.
The military also was reported to have paid Iraqi reporters up to 200 dollars a month to write favorable stories about the US military effort in Iraq.
The US military confirmed last week that it placed paid stories in Iraqi newspapers through third parties, but has provided few details.
Neither Whitman nor Johnson could say whether the findings of the military's investigation would be made public.
US commanders have defended the program as using factually accurate stories to counter disinformation by insurgents.
Critics say it further undermines US credibility and corrupts US efforts to promote the development of an independent media in Iraq.
Running From the Truth
9-11 Commission dealt with several issues by simply ignoring them
by James Ridgeway
December 6th, 2005 11:07 AM
On 9-11 the U.S. government faced a terrible decision: Should the
military be ordered to shoot down other commercial airplanes full of
civilian passengers, so that they, too, would not be used as
missiles? Vice President Dick Cheney, although not part of the
National Command Authority, gave the orders, although under the
Constitution the vice president has no authority to command the
military. The 9-11 Commission dealt with this fundamental issue by
ignoring it. Among the other 9-11 topics the commission ignored:
? In the six months before 9-11, Federal Aviation Administration
senior officials received 52 intelligence briefings regarding threats
from Al Qaeda, warnings that mentioned hijacking, according to a
commission staff study. The study was not part of the final
commission report. The Bush administration blocked release of that
information until after the 2004 election, and well after publication
of the final commission report.
? The hijackers easily eluded CIA surveillance. Two of them landed in
California in 2000, where they were greeted by an FBI informant, who
actually rented one of the hijackers an apartment. FBI agents, then
under Louis Freeh, remained clueless?either the informant didn't tell
them what was going on or they didn't act on what they were told.
Efforts by the Joint Inquiry of Congress to interview the informant
were blocked by the FBI, which actually hid the man from
congressional investigators. Top FBI officials refused to take
subpoenas put in their hands by Senator Bob Graham. The 9-11
Commission never pursued this obvious obstruction of Congress.
? The Joint Inquiry traced the flow of money from the Saudi royal
family and government institutions to a Saudi spy in California who
had contact with the hijackers. The commission found Saudi Arabia
blameless, although behind closed doors the staff is said to have
demanded an airing of the situation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
Amid international outrage over the recent hotel bombings in Jordan,
11 top Jordanian intelligence officials, including the national
security adviser and a former prime minister, resigned. In contrast,
after 9-11, U.S. officials responsible for the nation's security were
promoted or got lucrative jobs outside the government. George Tenet,
head of the CIA during the worst intelligence debacle in the agency's
history, got a Medal of Freedom. FBI director Freeh left government
for private business and has written a book promoting himself as the
man who solved the mystery of the stain on Monica Lewinsky's dress.
Robert Mueller, his successor, blocked the congressional
investigation of the FBI's role in the California informant scandal.
Jane Garvey, head of the FAA on 9-11, left to take a position with
communications consultant APCO Worldwide, which carries this
biography of her: "Garvey's legacy as administrator includes leading
the FAA through one of the toughest chapters in all our history,
restoring America's confidence in air travel, and strengthening
airline safety. Under the leadership of Jane F. Garvey, U.S air
travel is safer, more efficient, and the FAA is poised for continued
success."
James Ridgeway is the author of The Five Unanswered Questions about 9-
11 (Seven Stories Press).
http://villagevoice.com/news/0549,ridgeway,70692,6.html
by James Ridgeway
December 6th, 2005 11:07 AM
On 9-11 the U.S. government faced a terrible decision: Should the
military be ordered to shoot down other commercial airplanes full of
civilian passengers, so that they, too, would not be used as
missiles? Vice President Dick Cheney, although not part of the
National Command Authority, gave the orders, although under the
Constitution the vice president has no authority to command the
military. The 9-11 Commission dealt with this fundamental issue by
ignoring it. Among the other 9-11 topics the commission ignored:
? In the six months before 9-11, Federal Aviation Administration
senior officials received 52 intelligence briefings regarding threats
from Al Qaeda, warnings that mentioned hijacking, according to a
commission staff study. The study was not part of the final
commission report. The Bush administration blocked release of that
information until after the 2004 election, and well after publication
of the final commission report.
? The hijackers easily eluded CIA surveillance. Two of them landed in
California in 2000, where they were greeted by an FBI informant, who
actually rented one of the hijackers an apartment. FBI agents, then
under Louis Freeh, remained clueless?either the informant didn't tell
them what was going on or they didn't act on what they were told.
Efforts by the Joint Inquiry of Congress to interview the informant
were blocked by the FBI, which actually hid the man from
congressional investigators. Top FBI officials refused to take
subpoenas put in their hands by Senator Bob Graham. The 9-11
Commission never pursued this obvious obstruction of Congress.
? The Joint Inquiry traced the flow of money from the Saudi royal
family and government institutions to a Saudi spy in California who
had contact with the hijackers. The commission found Saudi Arabia
blameless, although behind closed doors the staff is said to have
demanded an airing of the situation.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
----------
Amid international outrage over the recent hotel bombings in Jordan,
11 top Jordanian intelligence officials, including the national
security adviser and a former prime minister, resigned. In contrast,
after 9-11, U.S. officials responsible for the nation's security were
promoted or got lucrative jobs outside the government. George Tenet,
head of the CIA during the worst intelligence debacle in the agency's
history, got a Medal of Freedom. FBI director Freeh left government
for private business and has written a book promoting himself as the
man who solved the mystery of the stain on Monica Lewinsky's dress.
Robert Mueller, his successor, blocked the congressional
investigation of the FBI's role in the California informant scandal.
Jane Garvey, head of the FAA on 9-11, left to take a position with
communications consultant APCO Worldwide, which carries this
biography of her: "Garvey's legacy as administrator includes leading
the FAA through one of the toughest chapters in all our history,
restoring America's confidence in air travel, and strengthening
airline safety. Under the leadership of Jane F. Garvey, U.S air
travel is safer, more efficient, and the FAA is poised for continued
success."
James Ridgeway is the author of The Five Unanswered Questions about 9-
11 (Seven Stories Press).
http://villagevoice.com/news/0549,ridgeway,70692,6.html
U.S. gives Israel a large new camp
CAMP NACHSHONIM, Israel, Dec. 6 (UPI) -- The United States Tuesday
delivered a sprawling storage base it has built for the Israeli army.
The base, Nachshonim, will store equipment for an Israeli armored
division.
Nachshonim, which covers almost 400 acres, is the third base the
United States has built for Israel under an agreement reached during
the 1998 Wye River talks with the Palestinian Authority.
Israel then undertook to turn West Bank areas to the Palestinian
Authority and the Clinton administration undertook to provide $1.2
billion to implement the agreement. That included several camps to
replace facilities Israel would be vacating in the West Bank.
The United States has since delivered a training base for Israel's
paratroop brigade opposite the southern West Bank, another for the
Golani infantry brigade opposite the northwestern West Bank, and
Tuesday it delivered the storage facility for the Idan reserve
division east of Tel Aviv.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers managed the $127 million project.
Its 210 buildings include specialized storage facilities to control
humidity and dust levels so they would be ready to deploy on short
notice, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fact sheet said.
Israel's army is based on a standing force of career personnel and
recruits, and on a sizeable system of reserve units that could be
deployed in quick notice.
A few smaller projects are still underway and the Corps of Engineers
is adding facilities at the training bases, according to its chief
representative in Israel, LTC John Rovero.
Israel has already pulled its paratroop and Golani basic training
bases out of the West Bank and will now move stores that were located
near Jerusalem and in southern Israel, Israeli defense sources said.
--
(This report passed the Israeli military censor)
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?
StoryID=20051206-103905-7457r
delivered a sprawling storage base it has built for the Israeli army.
The base, Nachshonim, will store equipment for an Israeli armored
division.
Nachshonim, which covers almost 400 acres, is the third base the
United States has built for Israel under an agreement reached during
the 1998 Wye River talks with the Palestinian Authority.
Israel then undertook to turn West Bank areas to the Palestinian
Authority and the Clinton administration undertook to provide $1.2
billion to implement the agreement. That included several camps to
replace facilities Israel would be vacating in the West Bank.
The United States has since delivered a training base for Israel's
paratroop brigade opposite the southern West Bank, another for the
Golani infantry brigade opposite the northwestern West Bank, and
Tuesday it delivered the storage facility for the Idan reserve
division east of Tel Aviv.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers managed the $127 million project.
Its 210 buildings include specialized storage facilities to control
humidity and dust levels so they would be ready to deploy on short
notice, a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers fact sheet said.
Israel's army is based on a standing force of career personnel and
recruits, and on a sizeable system of reserve units that could be
deployed in quick notice.
A few smaller projects are still underway and the Corps of Engineers
is adding facilities at the training bases, according to its chief
representative in Israel, LTC John Rovero.
Israel has already pulled its paratroop and Golani basic training
bases out of the West Bank and will now move stores that were located
near Jerusalem and in southern Israel, Israeli defense sources said.
--
(This report passed the Israeli military censor)
http://www.upi.com/InternationalIntelligence/view.php?
StoryID=20051206-103905-7457r
Wednesday, December 07, 2005
Shots fired Aboard a Plane in Miami- AP Yahoo
Source: Shots Fired Aboard Plane in Miami
Shots were fired Wednesday from a federal air marshal's gun on board an American Airlines jet that had landed at Miami International Airport, an official said. At least one person was wounded, according to broadcast reports.
A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed shots were fired from the marshal's gun.
The plane had just arrived from Colombia and was headed to Orlando, the broadcast reports said. Television images showed police SWAT officers surrounding the plane.
Airport and Miami-Dade County police officials said they had no immediate comment. American Airlines officials had no immediate comment.
AP
Shots were fired Wednesday from a federal air marshal's gun on board an American Airlines jet that had landed at Miami International Airport, an official said. At least one person was wounded, according to broadcast reports.
A law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity confirmed shots were fired from the marshal's gun.
The plane had just arrived from Colombia and was headed to Orlando, the broadcast reports said. Television images showed police SWAT officers surrounding the plane.
Airport and Miami-Dade County police officials said they had no immediate comment. American Airlines officials had no immediate comment.
AP
Bush takes Cheney out of the loop on national security
http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Cheney2.htm
The role of Vice President Dick Cheney as the administration's point man in security policy appears over, according to administration sources.
Over the last two months Mr. Cheney has been granted decreasing access to the Oval Office, the sources said on the condition of anonymity. The two men still meet, but the close staff work between the president and vice president has ended.
"Cheney's influence has waned not only because of bad chemistry, but because the White House no longer formulates policy," another source said.
"There's nothing to input into. Cheney is smart and knowledgeable, but he as well as Bush are ducking all the time to avoid the bullets."
The sources said the indictment and resignation of Lewis "Scooter" Libby marked the final straw in the deterioration of relations between President Bush and Mr. Cheney. They said Bush aides expect that any trial of Mr. Libby, Mr. Cheney's long-time chief of staff, would open a closet of skeletons regarding such issues as Iraq, the CIA and the conduct of White House aides.
"There's a lack of trust that the president has in Cheney and it's connected with Iraq," a source said.
The sources said Mr. Bush has privately blamed Mr. Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld for the U.S.-led war in Iraq. They said the president has told his senior aides that the vice president and defense secretary provided misleading assessments on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, as well as the capabilities of the regime of Saddam Hussein.
As a result, the sources said, Mr. Cheney has been ousted from his role as the administration's point man in the area of national security. They said presidential staffers have kept Mr. Cheney out of the loop on discussions on policy as the White House has struggled with the political and intelligence fallout from the war in Iraq.
Mr. Bush is not expected to replace Mr. Cheney unless the vice president follows the fate of his former chief of staff. The sources also said Mr. Rumsfeld is expected to remain in his post until U.S. troops are withdrawn from Iraq.
US millionaire linked to looted relics
http://www.michelvanrijn.nl/artnews/archive/june2005.htm#alferr
US millionaire linked to looted relics
By David Hebditch and Lawrence Smallman
Sunday 19 June 2005, 16:17 Makka Time, 13:17 GMT
A top US businessman and an international network of smugglers and academics are making millions of dollars through their illegal dealings in looted Middle Eastern artefacts, according to a leading stolen antiquities activist.
Former self-confessed smuggler and police informant Michel Van Rijn told Aljazeera.net that multi-millionaire James Ferrell, the CEO of America's second largest propane gas company Ferrellgas, is running a London-based business that deals in smuggled relics.
Van Rijn says Ferrell established his network on 29 January 2000 with Hungarian-born antiquities dealer William Veres and academic Henry Kim of Oxford University's Ashmolean Museum.
After just eight months of dealing, a copy of Ferrell's own profit calcuations - provided to Aljazeera.net by Veres - show that the Texan-born tycoon had made a 400% profit on his initial $2.5m investment.
Neither Ferrell nor executive members of his staff have replied to repeated requests by telephone and e-mail for comment.
And even though Van Rijn invited the FBI to investigate evidence he supplied in 2003, the agency declined to investigate allegations of crimes that had not been committed in the US.
But Veres provided documentation after his relations with Ferrell soured in 2003. The former antiques middle-man explained to Aljazeera.net how the American CEO's network could make so much money so quickly.
Documents
Veres began his expose by providing Aljazeera.net a copy of an email sent to him by Ferrell two days after the founding of the "business" in 2000.
The Ferrellgas CEO wrote: "I made it crystal clear several times that this was first and foremost a business venture ... people who funnel the stuff from countries where it is found are many.
Unnamed collectors regularly put
Byzantine art up for auction
"In Turkey there must be over a dozen, all living in Istanbul and working the entire country - the richest in finds," Ferrell wrote.
Most of the discussion documented in the email centred on who could be recruited to the new network.
Looters and smugglers throughout Europe and the Middle East were also named by Veres as likely recruits.
Massive profits
As any businessman knows, the secret is to buy low and sell high. And Ferrell has proven himself to be a top businessman.
In September 2000, his $2.5 milllion investment had yielded an $8.5 million profit, according to Ferrell's own calculations provided by Veres.
But how could a Texan energy tycoon buy antiquities for prices so much lower than the estimated market value?
Veres told Aljazeera.net that antiquities with questionable or non-existent provenance [proof of legal ownership] can be bought more cheaply than those with well-documented histories.
Ferrell saw to it he would escape suspicion of his success by legitimising the unprovenanced artefacts he was buying, Veres said.
There are basically two techniques. Dealers and collectors use "tame" academics to write learned descriptions of the materials and explain how important they are. Thus, artefacts of dubious provenance can gain an air of respectability.
Scholars for dollars
This method was popular with Norwegian art-collector Martin Schoyen, who recently was shamed into returning a large collection of unprovenanced Afghan relics to the Swiss-based Afghan Museum in Exile.
Another ploy is to give artefacts to art galleries and museums. This enables the donor to claim a tax break. Ferrell has given some artefacts to the Cleveland Museum of Art, as this link shows.
Only three police officers deal with
art crime in the whole of London
And with such initial success, it was not long until Ferrell began investing millions more.
Veres told Aljazeera.net that Ferrell sent him to Lebanon to meet with antiques dealer Abbas Yaghi in his Baalbak home in 2001.
Yaghi had 22 silver Byzantine vessels that had been discovered that year in the northern Syrian village of Shiraz.
Shirazi villagers had found a set of Byzantine bowls, ewers and plates in 2000. The most important piece is a silver plate weighing 2kg thought to originate from 5th or 6th century Antioch. With scalloped edges and five stamps, knowledgable dealers in the London market estimate the plate's value at $15 million.
Despite tough sentences of up to 25 years for selling or smuggling Syrian antiquities, Veres says the village decided to sell to a local dealer, Mahmud Kaysum, for $200,000 - just 6% of the eventual selling price, once Kaysum contacted Yaghi in Lebanon.
Aljazeera.net has a copy of Veres' account of his negotiations with Yaghi and a copy of bank transfer statements showing a series of payments that eventually added up to $3.35m for the artefacts and $335,000 commission for Yaghi.
Veres' account indicates Ferrell was responsible for most of the payment to Yaghi, while Veres paid a smaller amount - as indicated by the bank transfer statement obtained by Aljazeera.net.
Smuggling and bribes
Next came the problem of getting the looted goods to London.
Three dealers based in London, Syria and Lebanon, who spoke to Aljazeera.net on condition of anonymity and at great personal risk to their safety, as well as Veres himself, have independently confirmed the following:
* The Byzantine vessels were driven to the Jordanian capital, Amman, where they were handed over to two corrupt officials at the kingdom's Foreign Ministry.
* Using their diplomatic credentials, the pair flew business class direct to London, where they checked into the $2000 a night Dorchester Hotel, while they waited for Veres to collect the shipment.
Veres said the pair received a $25,000 bribe for their services. The Jordanian Foreign Ministry has denied any such incident took place.
But the Syrian government did begin to ask questions. However, Van Rijn says the Damascus investigation ended abruptly after a $200,000 bribe was paid by the Ferrell network to Yaghi's go-between - Kaysum.
Corrupt foreign ministry staff
have been used to smuggle art
It was only later that Ferrell realised the significance of what he had done.
On 2 April 2003, the millionaire held a meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel in London with his executive employee Theresa Schekirke and Veres.
In a secret recording of the conversation - made by Van Rijn and Veres - Ferrell referred to the Lebanese dealings.
Veres: I still shudder, you know, about ... you know,
about the money sent to, er, Lebanon ...
Ferrell: Yeah, we're really at risk on that, but I don't...
What? I can't do anything about it now.
Schekirke: What have you got on paper?
Ferrell: Well ... but it still looks bad.
Later that day, Ferrell and Schekirke had dinner with Yaghi, who has an apartment in London. The encounter was filmed by Van Rijn. After the meeting, the Ferrell network made some major changes.
Now that Ferrell was in touch with a source that offered the possibility of cutting out the middleman, Veres was taken out of the supply chain, and Ferrell started working directly with Yaghi.
New deal
Aljazeera has learned from a fourth dealer interviewed in London that Ferrell bought a batch of 5th century BCE Byzantine necklaces from Yaghi for $250,000 in February.
In March, an even bigger deal was struck. Abbas Yaghi's brother Muhammad flew into London with a valuable but illicit collection of Byzantine artefacts, according to Van Rijn and the fourth dealer.
Veres: I still shudder, you know, about ... the money sent to ... Lebanon
Ferrell: Yeah, we're really at risk on that but ... I can't do anything about it now
From transcript of taped meeting in April 2003
This time, the goods included gold chains, finger rings with crosses, fibulae and an important group of 6th century Byzantine engraved gem stones, as well as a plundered hoard of Roman gold coins.
According to Aljazeera.net's fourth source, Ferrell's secretary, Schekirke, flew from Ohio to London to take delivery of the artefacts just a week after they arrived in London. She paid the Yaghi brothers �500,000 in cash, the source said.
But despite the international movement of antiques and the huge sums of money involved, nothing has been done to stop this London-based network in more than five years.
US millionaire linked to looted relics
By David Hebditch and Lawrence Smallman
Sunday 19 June 2005, 16:17 Makka Time, 13:17 GMT
A top US businessman and an international network of smugglers and academics are making millions of dollars through their illegal dealings in looted Middle Eastern artefacts, according to a leading stolen antiquities activist.
Former self-confessed smuggler and police informant Michel Van Rijn told Aljazeera.net that multi-millionaire James Ferrell, the CEO of America's second largest propane gas company Ferrellgas, is running a London-based business that deals in smuggled relics.
Van Rijn says Ferrell established his network on 29 January 2000 with Hungarian-born antiquities dealer William Veres and academic Henry Kim of Oxford University's Ashmolean Museum.
After just eight months of dealing, a copy of Ferrell's own profit calcuations - provided to Aljazeera.net by Veres - show that the Texan-born tycoon had made a 400% profit on his initial $2.5m investment.
Neither Ferrell nor executive members of his staff have replied to repeated requests by telephone and e-mail for comment.
And even though Van Rijn invited the FBI to investigate evidence he supplied in 2003, the agency declined to investigate allegations of crimes that had not been committed in the US.
But Veres provided documentation after his relations with Ferrell soured in 2003. The former antiques middle-man explained to Aljazeera.net how the American CEO's network could make so much money so quickly.
Documents
Veres began his expose by providing Aljazeera.net a copy of an email sent to him by Ferrell two days after the founding of the "business" in 2000.
The Ferrellgas CEO wrote: "I made it crystal clear several times that this was first and foremost a business venture ... people who funnel the stuff from countries where it is found are many.
Unnamed collectors regularly put
Byzantine art up for auction
"In Turkey there must be over a dozen, all living in Istanbul and working the entire country - the richest in finds," Ferrell wrote.
Most of the discussion documented in the email centred on who could be recruited to the new network.
Looters and smugglers throughout Europe and the Middle East were also named by Veres as likely recruits.
Massive profits
As any businessman knows, the secret is to buy low and sell high. And Ferrell has proven himself to be a top businessman.
In September 2000, his $2.5 milllion investment had yielded an $8.5 million profit, according to Ferrell's own calculations provided by Veres.
But how could a Texan energy tycoon buy antiquities for prices so much lower than the estimated market value?
Veres told Aljazeera.net that antiquities with questionable or non-existent provenance [proof of legal ownership] can be bought more cheaply than those with well-documented histories.
Ferrell saw to it he would escape suspicion of his success by legitimising the unprovenanced artefacts he was buying, Veres said.
There are basically two techniques. Dealers and collectors use "tame" academics to write learned descriptions of the materials and explain how important they are. Thus, artefacts of dubious provenance can gain an air of respectability.
Scholars for dollars
This method was popular with Norwegian art-collector Martin Schoyen, who recently was shamed into returning a large collection of unprovenanced Afghan relics to the Swiss-based Afghan Museum in Exile.
Another ploy is to give artefacts to art galleries and museums. This enables the donor to claim a tax break. Ferrell has given some artefacts to the Cleveland Museum of Art, as this link shows.
Only three police officers deal with
art crime in the whole of London
And with such initial success, it was not long until Ferrell began investing millions more.
Veres told Aljazeera.net that Ferrell sent him to Lebanon to meet with antiques dealer Abbas Yaghi in his Baalbak home in 2001.
Yaghi had 22 silver Byzantine vessels that had been discovered that year in the northern Syrian village of Shiraz.
Shirazi villagers had found a set of Byzantine bowls, ewers and plates in 2000. The most important piece is a silver plate weighing 2kg thought to originate from 5th or 6th century Antioch. With scalloped edges and five stamps, knowledgable dealers in the London market estimate the plate's value at $15 million.
Despite tough sentences of up to 25 years for selling or smuggling Syrian antiquities, Veres says the village decided to sell to a local dealer, Mahmud Kaysum, for $200,000 - just 6% of the eventual selling price, once Kaysum contacted Yaghi in Lebanon.
Aljazeera.net has a copy of Veres' account of his negotiations with Yaghi and a copy of bank transfer statements showing a series of payments that eventually added up to $3.35m for the artefacts and $335,000 commission for Yaghi.
Veres' account indicates Ferrell was responsible for most of the payment to Yaghi, while Veres paid a smaller amount - as indicated by the bank transfer statement obtained by Aljazeera.net.
Smuggling and bribes
Next came the problem of getting the looted goods to London.
Three dealers based in London, Syria and Lebanon, who spoke to Aljazeera.net on condition of anonymity and at great personal risk to their safety, as well as Veres himself, have independently confirmed the following:
* The Byzantine vessels were driven to the Jordanian capital, Amman, where they were handed over to two corrupt officials at the kingdom's Foreign Ministry.
* Using their diplomatic credentials, the pair flew business class direct to London, where they checked into the $2000 a night Dorchester Hotel, while they waited for Veres to collect the shipment.
Veres said the pair received a $25,000 bribe for their services. The Jordanian Foreign Ministry has denied any such incident took place.
But the Syrian government did begin to ask questions. However, Van Rijn says the Damascus investigation ended abruptly after a $200,000 bribe was paid by the Ferrell network to Yaghi's go-between - Kaysum.
Corrupt foreign ministry staff
have been used to smuggle art
It was only later that Ferrell realised the significance of what he had done.
On 2 April 2003, the millionaire held a meeting at the Intercontinental Hotel in London with his executive employee Theresa Schekirke and Veres.
In a secret recording of the conversation - made by Van Rijn and Veres - Ferrell referred to the Lebanese dealings.
Veres: I still shudder, you know, about ... you know,
about the money sent to, er, Lebanon ...
Ferrell: Yeah, we're really at risk on that, but I don't...
What? I can't do anything about it now.
Schekirke: What have you got on paper?
Ferrell: Well ... but it still looks bad.
Later that day, Ferrell and Schekirke had dinner with Yaghi, who has an apartment in London. The encounter was filmed by Van Rijn. After the meeting, the Ferrell network made some major changes.
Now that Ferrell was in touch with a source that offered the possibility of cutting out the middleman, Veres was taken out of the supply chain, and Ferrell started working directly with Yaghi.
New deal
Aljazeera has learned from a fourth dealer interviewed in London that Ferrell bought a batch of 5th century BCE Byzantine necklaces from Yaghi for $250,000 in February.
In March, an even bigger deal was struck. Abbas Yaghi's brother Muhammad flew into London with a valuable but illicit collection of Byzantine artefacts, according to Van Rijn and the fourth dealer.
Veres: I still shudder, you know, about ... the money sent to ... Lebanon
Ferrell: Yeah, we're really at risk on that but ... I can't do anything about it now
From transcript of taped meeting in April 2003
This time, the goods included gold chains, finger rings with crosses, fibulae and an important group of 6th century Byzantine engraved gem stones, as well as a plundered hoard of Roman gold coins.
According to Aljazeera.net's fourth source, Ferrell's secretary, Schekirke, flew from Ohio to London to take delivery of the artefacts just a week after they arrived in London. She paid the Yaghi brothers �500,000 in cash, the source said.
But despite the international movement of antiques and the huge sums of money involved, nothing has been done to stop this London-based network in more than five years.
America's Secret War
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2005/1205-SecretWar.html
America's Secret War
Saddam was 'quietly assured by the United States that it would have no objection to his claiming his prize - Kuwait'
by George Friedman
The United States had no use for the Iraqi regime and had supported the Shah's Iran in a war against Iraq in the 1970s, ending in a peace that had not been favorable to Iraq. With the Iranian revolution, the Americans were looking for a lever to control Iran, . . .
The Carter administration wanted to motivate Saddam to fight, but he had little to gain simply by fighting Iran. What Saddam wanted was to become the dominant power in the Persian Gulf. Absorbing Kuwait, which had historically been a part of Iraq under the Ottoman Empire until the British carved it our for their own interests, was a key goal, but so was dominating the region politically. He knew that if he defeated Iran, Iraq would be the dominant power in the region. He was also quietly assured by the United States that it would have no objection to his claiming his prize - Kuwait - once he defeated Iran. The assurances were very quiet and very deniable.
The United States then did everything it could to make sure that Iraq could never claim the prize, shifting its weight back and forth during the Iran-Iraq war, in classic balance-of-power style. The famous Iran-Contra affair engineered by Bill Casey was part of this strategy, with Americans delivering Hawk surface-to-air missiles and TOW antitank missiles to Iran in order to stave off an Iranian defeat - while also arranging for supplies to Iraq. Under the circumstances it was a clever move until better options emerged.
The Iran-Iraq war lasted nearly ten years and cost millions of lives. In the end, Iraq won - or, more precisely, was less exhausted than Iran. After some months of recovery, Saddam turned to collect his prize. In his famous meeting with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie on July 25, 1990, just before the invasion, Saddam calmly explained his intention to invade Kuwait, and Glaspie, not informed by the State Department that the policy had changed, proceeded to give Saddam the reassurance of American support that had been the U.S. policy transmitted by ambassadors and back channels for a decade. . . .
What Glaspie didn't know. and what Glaspie hadn't been told, was that the United States had never expected Iraq to win and certainly was not prepared to let Saddam collect his war prize.
America's Secret War
Saddam was 'quietly assured by the United States that it would have no objection to his claiming his prize - Kuwait'
by George Friedman
The United States had no use for the Iraqi regime and had supported the Shah's Iran in a war against Iraq in the 1970s, ending in a peace that had not been favorable to Iraq. With the Iranian revolution, the Americans were looking for a lever to control Iran, . . .
The Carter administration wanted to motivate Saddam to fight, but he had little to gain simply by fighting Iran. What Saddam wanted was to become the dominant power in the Persian Gulf. Absorbing Kuwait, which had historically been a part of Iraq under the Ottoman Empire until the British carved it our for their own interests, was a key goal, but so was dominating the region politically. He knew that if he defeated Iran, Iraq would be the dominant power in the region. He was also quietly assured by the United States that it would have no objection to his claiming his prize - Kuwait - once he defeated Iran. The assurances were very quiet and very deniable.
The United States then did everything it could to make sure that Iraq could never claim the prize, shifting its weight back and forth during the Iran-Iraq war, in classic balance-of-power style. The famous Iran-Contra affair engineered by Bill Casey was part of this strategy, with Americans delivering Hawk surface-to-air missiles and TOW antitank missiles to Iran in order to stave off an Iranian defeat - while also arranging for supplies to Iraq. Under the circumstances it was a clever move until better options emerged.
The Iran-Iraq war lasted nearly ten years and cost millions of lives. In the end, Iraq won - or, more precisely, was less exhausted than Iran. After some months of recovery, Saddam turned to collect his prize. In his famous meeting with U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie on July 25, 1990, just before the invasion, Saddam calmly explained his intention to invade Kuwait, and Glaspie, not informed by the State Department that the policy had changed, proceeded to give Saddam the reassurance of American support that had been the U.S. policy transmitted by ambassadors and back channels for a decade. . . .
What Glaspie didn't know. and what Glaspie hadn't been told, was that the United States had never expected Iraq to win and certainly was not prepared to let Saddam collect his war prize.
Terrorism acquittals a blow to feds
Terrorism acquittals a blow to feds
A former professor and three other Palestinian activists are acquitted of most terrorism-related charges they faced
BY PHIL LONG AND MARTIN MERZER
mmerzer@herald.com
TAMPA - A former college professor was found not guilty Tuesday of key charges linking him to a Palestinian terrorist group that allegedly operated an underground cell in Florida, ending a lengthy trial that balanced allegations of terrorist-related acts against assertions of abused constitutional rights.
After 13 days of deliberation, a federal jury acquitted Sami Al-Arian, once a computer sciences professor at the University of South Florida, of eight of the 17 charges against him, including a charge that he conspired with other leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad to murder people in Israel.
The 12-member jury deadlocked on the nine other counts against him, including charges that he aided terrorists.
Al-Arian wept in relief as the verdicts were read. One of his attorneys, Linda Moreno, hugged him. Supporters outside the courthouse cheered when families of the defendants emerged.
''I'm so grateful to God because He's the one who showed my husband's innocence,'' said Nahla Al-Arian, the defendant's wife. She also thanked the jury ``that showed there was no case and my husband was innocent.''
Two other pro-Palestinian activists, Sameeh Hammoudeh and Ghassan Zayed Ballut, were found not guilty of all charges.
The fourth man cited in the government's sweeping 51-count indictment in 2003, Hatem Naji Fariz, was acquitted of 25 charges, with the jury unable to decide on eight others.
BACK TO JAIL
After serving 33 months in jail awaiting trial and a verdict, Al-Arian was returned to prison and will remain there until prosecutors decide whether to retry him and Fariz on the deadlocked charges.
Fariz, who was not held in jail during the trial, remains free.
''While we respect the jury's verdict, we stand by the evidence we presented in court against Sami Al-Arian and his co-defendants,'' said Tasia Scolinos of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Taken as a whole, the verdict dealt a blow to one of the federal government's first major tests of the expanded search and surveillance powers authorized by the controversial Patriot Act, which was enacted shortly after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The four defendants had been accused of racketeering, conspiracy to maim and murder and providing material support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Branded by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization, the PIJ reportedly has killed more than 100 people in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The indictment did not allege a connection to al Qaeda or to any attacks on U.S. soil, but it was issued -- amid considerable fanfare by the Bush administration -- within 18 months of the Sept. 11 attacks and as the United States prepared for war with Iraq.
SENATE CAMPAIGN
The case also played a major role in last year's U.S. Senate campaign in Florida, with Democrat Betty Castor, a former USF president, absorbing harsh attacks over the Al-Arian issue from primary opponent Peter Deutsch and Republican candidate Mel Martinez, who ultimately won the election.
In the end, after more than five months of testimony by nearly 80 witnesses and the presentation of 1,800 faxes, wiretap transcripts, e-mail and other exhibits, most observers agreed that no single piece of evidence directly linked the defendants to terrorist acts.
Rather, the case boiled down to the jury's interpretation of a long series of statements and actions.
On Tuesday, the jury of seven men and five women found that those statements and actions did not rise above the threshold of guilt.
''I didn't think the government showed us clear, definitive evidence,'' one female juror said as she walked away from the courthouse along windy Polk Street. ``Let's just say I couldn't connect all the dots. There was a lot they didn't connect.''
A male juror who also asked not to be identified said: ``The main thing was that the evidence wasn't all there.''
But the jury could not complete the job: One juror complained Tuesday that holdouts were being intimidated as the panel sought unanimity on the remaining charges.
Born in Kuwait of Palestinian parents, Al-Arian arrived in the United States in 1975, began teaching at USF in 1986 and helped establish two pro-Palestinian groups in Tampa, including one that called itself an Islamic think tank. He was fired by the university shortly after the indictment was issued.
HELD FOR THREE YEARS
His brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, made headlines when he was held on secret evidence for three years and deported in 2002. Many observers believed federal authorities detained and held Al-Najjar in the hope he would turn against Al-Arian.
During the trial that ended Tuesday, prosecutors said the defendants' activities, including the collection and transfer of funds for the families of some people responsible for terrorist acts, proved that the four conspired to facilitate terrorist attacks and rendered the men just as guilty as suicide bombers and other attackers.
Five others charged in the February 2003 indictment were never apprehended.
''The men of the PIJ you got to know in this case, they didn't strap bombs to their bodies,'' prosecutor Cherie Krigsman told the jury during final arguments on Nov. 7. ``They leave that to somebody else.''
She and other prosecutors focused much of their fire on Al-Arian, 47, a high-profile supporter of the Palestinian cause who had been under federal investigation -- and subjected to hyperactive and sometimes lurid coverage by local media -- since at least 1995.
Prosecutors called Al-Arian a ''crime boss'' who exploited his position at USF and the nation's freedoms of speech and travel.
''Sami Al-Arian was a professor by day and a terrorist by night,'' Krigsman told the jury.
Krigsman and others pointed in particular to a videotaped statement in which Al-Arian said, ''Death to Israel,'' and letters and statements that seemed to rejoice over attacks that killed Israeli civilians.
Those came in contrast to Al-Arian's more moderate and public statements, in which he claimed to oppose such attacks.
''It is wrong,'' Al-Arian told The Herald in 1998. ``Anything that has to do with civilian casualties, it is just morally wrong, religiously wrong as well as politically wrong. How can you get people with you when you're doing that?''
LEGITIMATE CHARITIES
Defense attorneys said the trial failed to show a direct connection between the defendants and acts of terrorism. Rather, they said, the four raised money for legitimate Palestinian charities and were being punished for holding and expressing unpopular political views.
In addition, many of their statements and actions came before the government designated Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a terrorist organization in January 1995.
''At the end of the day, when you think about wiretaps, think about what's not there,'' William Moffitt, one of Al-Arian's lawyers, said during closing arguments. ``There's not one discussion of planning violent activity.''
Earlier, he had rested Al-Arian's case without calling a single witness.
''There's a document,'' Moffitt told reporters. ``It's called the U.S. Constitution. Unless the Constitution is repealed in this courtroom, it protects Dr. Al-Arian for his speech. . .. The fact that Dr. Al-Arian is a Palestinian deprives him of no civil rights.''
Constitutional issues played a major role in the case, with U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. refusing to dismiss the case on a defense motion citing freedom of speech. Instead, Moody cited a Supreme Court ruling that ``communication is the essence of every conspiracy.''
DIFFICULT TASK
But he also required prosecutors to thread a legal and semantic needle. They had to demonstrate that the defendants had knowledge of the terrorist violence and supported it with more than words. Merely showing sympathy for or an association with the group was not enough to merit conviction, the judge said.
A former professor and three other Palestinian activists are acquitted of most terrorism-related charges they faced
BY PHIL LONG AND MARTIN MERZER
mmerzer@herald.com
TAMPA - A former college professor was found not guilty Tuesday of key charges linking him to a Palestinian terrorist group that allegedly operated an underground cell in Florida, ending a lengthy trial that balanced allegations of terrorist-related acts against assertions of abused constitutional rights.
After 13 days of deliberation, a federal jury acquitted Sami Al-Arian, once a computer sciences professor at the University of South Florida, of eight of the 17 charges against him, including a charge that he conspired with other leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad to murder people in Israel.
The 12-member jury deadlocked on the nine other counts against him, including charges that he aided terrorists.
Al-Arian wept in relief as the verdicts were read. One of his attorneys, Linda Moreno, hugged him. Supporters outside the courthouse cheered when families of the defendants emerged.
''I'm so grateful to God because He's the one who showed my husband's innocence,'' said Nahla Al-Arian, the defendant's wife. She also thanked the jury ``that showed there was no case and my husband was innocent.''
Two other pro-Palestinian activists, Sameeh Hammoudeh and Ghassan Zayed Ballut, were found not guilty of all charges.
The fourth man cited in the government's sweeping 51-count indictment in 2003, Hatem Naji Fariz, was acquitted of 25 charges, with the jury unable to decide on eight others.
BACK TO JAIL
After serving 33 months in jail awaiting trial and a verdict, Al-Arian was returned to prison and will remain there until prosecutors decide whether to retry him and Fariz on the deadlocked charges.
Fariz, who was not held in jail during the trial, remains free.
''While we respect the jury's verdict, we stand by the evidence we presented in court against Sami Al-Arian and his co-defendants,'' said Tasia Scolinos of the U.S. Department of Justice.
Taken as a whole, the verdict dealt a blow to one of the federal government's first major tests of the expanded search and surveillance powers authorized by the controversial Patriot Act, which was enacted shortly after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The four defendants had been accused of racketeering, conspiracy to maim and murder and providing material support for Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Branded by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization, the PIJ reportedly has killed more than 100 people in Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
The indictment did not allege a connection to al Qaeda or to any attacks on U.S. soil, but it was issued -- amid considerable fanfare by the Bush administration -- within 18 months of the Sept. 11 attacks and as the United States prepared for war with Iraq.
SENATE CAMPAIGN
The case also played a major role in last year's U.S. Senate campaign in Florida, with Democrat Betty Castor, a former USF president, absorbing harsh attacks over the Al-Arian issue from primary opponent Peter Deutsch and Republican candidate Mel Martinez, who ultimately won the election.
In the end, after more than five months of testimony by nearly 80 witnesses and the presentation of 1,800 faxes, wiretap transcripts, e-mail and other exhibits, most observers agreed that no single piece of evidence directly linked the defendants to terrorist acts.
Rather, the case boiled down to the jury's interpretation of a long series of statements and actions.
On Tuesday, the jury of seven men and five women found that those statements and actions did not rise above the threshold of guilt.
''I didn't think the government showed us clear, definitive evidence,'' one female juror said as she walked away from the courthouse along windy Polk Street. ``Let's just say I couldn't connect all the dots. There was a lot they didn't connect.''
A male juror who also asked not to be identified said: ``The main thing was that the evidence wasn't all there.''
But the jury could not complete the job: One juror complained Tuesday that holdouts were being intimidated as the panel sought unanimity on the remaining charges.
Born in Kuwait of Palestinian parents, Al-Arian arrived in the United States in 1975, began teaching at USF in 1986 and helped establish two pro-Palestinian groups in Tampa, including one that called itself an Islamic think tank. He was fired by the university shortly after the indictment was issued.
HELD FOR THREE YEARS
His brother-in-law, Mazen Al-Najjar, made headlines when he was held on secret evidence for three years and deported in 2002. Many observers believed federal authorities detained and held Al-Najjar in the hope he would turn against Al-Arian.
During the trial that ended Tuesday, prosecutors said the defendants' activities, including the collection and transfer of funds for the families of some people responsible for terrorist acts, proved that the four conspired to facilitate terrorist attacks and rendered the men just as guilty as suicide bombers and other attackers.
Five others charged in the February 2003 indictment were never apprehended.
''The men of the PIJ you got to know in this case, they didn't strap bombs to their bodies,'' prosecutor Cherie Krigsman told the jury during final arguments on Nov. 7. ``They leave that to somebody else.''
She and other prosecutors focused much of their fire on Al-Arian, 47, a high-profile supporter of the Palestinian cause who had been under federal investigation -- and subjected to hyperactive and sometimes lurid coverage by local media -- since at least 1995.
Prosecutors called Al-Arian a ''crime boss'' who exploited his position at USF and the nation's freedoms of speech and travel.
''Sami Al-Arian was a professor by day and a terrorist by night,'' Krigsman told the jury.
Krigsman and others pointed in particular to a videotaped statement in which Al-Arian said, ''Death to Israel,'' and letters and statements that seemed to rejoice over attacks that killed Israeli civilians.
Those came in contrast to Al-Arian's more moderate and public statements, in which he claimed to oppose such attacks.
''It is wrong,'' Al-Arian told The Herald in 1998. ``Anything that has to do with civilian casualties, it is just morally wrong, religiously wrong as well as politically wrong. How can you get people with you when you're doing that?''
LEGITIMATE CHARITIES
Defense attorneys said the trial failed to show a direct connection between the defendants and acts of terrorism. Rather, they said, the four raised money for legitimate Palestinian charities and were being punished for holding and expressing unpopular political views.
In addition, many of their statements and actions came before the government designated Palestinian Islamic Jihad as a terrorist organization in January 1995.
''At the end of the day, when you think about wiretaps, think about what's not there,'' William Moffitt, one of Al-Arian's lawyers, said during closing arguments. ``There's not one discussion of planning violent activity.''
Earlier, he had rested Al-Arian's case without calling a single witness.
''There's a document,'' Moffitt told reporters. ``It's called the U.S. Constitution. Unless the Constitution is repealed in this courtroom, it protects Dr. Al-Arian for his speech. . .. The fact that Dr. Al-Arian is a Palestinian deprives him of no civil rights.''
Constitutional issues played a major role in the case, with U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. refusing to dismiss the case on a defense motion citing freedom of speech. Instead, Moody cited a Supreme Court ruling that ``communication is the essence of every conspiracy.''
DIFFICULT TASK
But he also required prosecutors to thread a legal and semantic needle. They had to demonstrate that the defendants had knowledge of the terrorist violence and supported it with more than words. Merely showing sympathy for or an association with the group was not enough to merit conviction, the judge said.
U.S. looks to India as new global ally
http://in.today.reuters.com/news/NewsArticle.aspx?type=topNews&storyID=2005-12-07T054845Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-226709-1.xml
ANALYSIS - U.S. looks to India as new global ally
By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is looking increasingly to India as a core ally as it seeks to engineer what could be a major diplomatic shift away from the power alignments forged after World War Two.
Old standby Britain, increasingly important Japan and, according to some of the officials familiar with administration thinking on geopolitics, Australia all join India in a group of countries Washington believes shares its values and goals.
"You might call this emerging set of alliances the 'four by four' strategy (which is) built around four great powers -- the United States, Great Britain, Japan and India," Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a think-tank with close ties to the administration, wrote on the AEI website.
Nuclear power India, a growing economic force on China's border and familiarly dubbed the world's biggest democracy, is the relative newcomer to the group.
Often an adversary as a Soviet sympathizer and leader of the non-aligned movement during the Cold War, it now enjoys dramatically improved ties under President George W. Bush.
Presidential aides say the United States is committed to helping India not just prosper but rise as a regional power. One senior official has said privately that the administration also intends to back India for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.
IN NEED OF HELP
When the United States launched its "war on terrorism" and later invaded Iraq -- a venture opposed by longtime allies like France and Germany -- U.S. officials talked of forming "coalitions of the willing," groupings of partner countries that might have different members, depending on the issue.
But Donnelly said the administration now realizes "preserving the Pax Americana requires more permanent arrangements" and that with Iraq and other security tasks taxing the U.S. military, "we need help."
He said the United States, Australia, Britain, India and Japan shared common principles.
These included a belief that the dangers of radicalism, failed despotic governments and nuclear proliferation in the Middle East must not be ignored; that China's growing military and political strength raises doubts about its peaceful rise; that representative governments are a force for peace; and that military force is a legitimate national tool, Donnelly wrote.
He described a new and fluid era of world politics in which U.S. partners could change from issue to issue but in which the U.S. strategy for promoting stability is based first on existing strong alliance relationships -- Britain, Japan, Australia and, now, India.
The U.S. "special relationship" with Britain was enhanced by partnership in Iraq, where Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has committed the biggest troop contingent after the United States.
Australia has increasingly worked closely with Washington, including in Iraq. U.S. efforts to repair the alliance with Japan are now considered complete, after Tokyo cooperated on Iraq and moved to assume more responsibility for its own defense, U.S. officials said.
A "TRUSTED PARTNER"
The U.S. shift towards India has been propelled by rapidly expanding business ties and a belief that India's size, democratic tradition and multi-cultural character provide a firm basis for partnership, U.S. officials say.
In one sign of convergence, India voted with the United States to find Iran in non-compliance of its nuclear non-proliferation commitments at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Asked if India is prepared to be a U.S. ally, Indian ambassador Ronen Sen was measured.
"India is too old a civilization and too large and diverse a country and too vibrant a democracy ever to follow the leadership of any country or group of countries," he told Reuters in an interview.
"But it mostly certainly can be a very reliable and trusted partner in pursuing common objectives," Sen said.
Gary Schmitt, another AEI expert, said the administration is "betting the farm on India -- leading with their hearts rather than their heads -- and I'm not sure it's sensible."
He predicted India, as a rising regional power, would use its new place with the United States to leverage benefits from China.
U.S. officials insist they do not fear India-China cooperation and say they are realistic that firm ties with India will take a generation or more to build.
ANALYSIS - U.S. looks to India as new global ally
By Carol Giacomo, Diplomatic Correspondent
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Bush administration is looking increasingly to India as a core ally as it seeks to engineer what could be a major diplomatic shift away from the power alignments forged after World War Two.
Old standby Britain, increasingly important Japan and, according to some of the officials familiar with administration thinking on geopolitics, Australia all join India in a group of countries Washington believes shares its values and goals.
"You might call this emerging set of alliances the 'four by four' strategy (which is) built around four great powers -- the United States, Great Britain, Japan and India," Thomas Donnelly of the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), a think-tank with close ties to the administration, wrote on the AEI website.
Nuclear power India, a growing economic force on China's border and familiarly dubbed the world's biggest democracy, is the relative newcomer to the group.
Often an adversary as a Soviet sympathizer and leader of the non-aligned movement during the Cold War, it now enjoys dramatically improved ties under President George W. Bush.
Presidential aides say the United States is committed to helping India not just prosper but rise as a regional power. One senior official has said privately that the administration also intends to back India for a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council.
IN NEED OF HELP
When the United States launched its "war on terrorism" and later invaded Iraq -- a venture opposed by longtime allies like France and Germany -- U.S. officials talked of forming "coalitions of the willing," groupings of partner countries that might have different members, depending on the issue.
But Donnelly said the administration now realizes "preserving the Pax Americana requires more permanent arrangements" and that with Iraq and other security tasks taxing the U.S. military, "we need help."
He said the United States, Australia, Britain, India and Japan shared common principles.
These included a belief that the dangers of radicalism, failed despotic governments and nuclear proliferation in the Middle East must not be ignored; that China's growing military and political strength raises doubts about its peaceful rise; that representative governments are a force for peace; and that military force is a legitimate national tool, Donnelly wrote.
He described a new and fluid era of world politics in which U.S. partners could change from issue to issue but in which the U.S. strategy for promoting stability is based first on existing strong alliance relationships -- Britain, Japan, Australia and, now, India.
The U.S. "special relationship" with Britain was enhanced by partnership in Iraq, where Prime Minister Tony Blair's government has committed the biggest troop contingent after the United States.
Australia has increasingly worked closely with Washington, including in Iraq. U.S. efforts to repair the alliance with Japan are now considered complete, after Tokyo cooperated on Iraq and moved to assume more responsibility for its own defense, U.S. officials said.
A "TRUSTED PARTNER"
The U.S. shift towards India has been propelled by rapidly expanding business ties and a belief that India's size, democratic tradition and multi-cultural character provide a firm basis for partnership, U.S. officials say.
In one sign of convergence, India voted with the United States to find Iran in non-compliance of its nuclear non-proliferation commitments at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Asked if India is prepared to be a U.S. ally, Indian ambassador Ronen Sen was measured.
"India is too old a civilization and too large and diverse a country and too vibrant a democracy ever to follow the leadership of any country or group of countries," he told Reuters in an interview.
"But it mostly certainly can be a very reliable and trusted partner in pursuing common objectives," Sen said.
Gary Schmitt, another AEI expert, said the administration is "betting the farm on India -- leading with their hearts rather than their heads -- and I'm not sure it's sensible."
He predicted India, as a rising regional power, would use its new place with the United States to leverage benefits from China.
U.S. officials insist they do not fear India-China cooperation and say they are realistic that firm ties with India will take a generation or more to build.
Russia defeating America in geopolitics
http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/5836.asp
A strange turn in cold war – Russia defeating America in geopolitics – America may have made mistakes in Iraq, India and China
Sunil Razdhan
Dec. 7, 2005
Russia is slowly turning the geopolitical chess board on America. Very quietly in recent days Americans are surpassed by the Russians in geopolitical movements and maneuvers.
First it started with Iraq. It was a miscalculation, an embarrassment and something that should not have happened. Saddam was a brutal dictator. He was comparable to Hitler. There was reason to believe that he could have indulged in causing trouble for America with perceived weapons of mass destruction. But America being the only super power should have used other means to contain him and eventually remove him. Look at Fidel Castro. He is contained and really powerless in terms geopolitics. But to go and attack Iraq like that just created a mess that cannot be undone so easily. Iraq is Al-Queda’s new breeding ground. The next mistake came in India and China. While India and China will like have American dollars, no one there are in love with America. They like American money, standard of living and sophistication associated with “anything with smell of America”. But to take all jobs and move the industrial base to China and India without correcting their artificially manipulated currency differentials is worse than attacking Iraq.
The Chinese trade surplus is so high that it is worrisome. President Bush understood that in his recent visit to China. Think about this, America has zero real savings and is absorbing 80% of world’s savings especially from Asia. Russians have made very interesting adjustments. They are flexing their strength by making quiet friendship with previous Warsaw countries. East European countries have started regarding America as a declining power while EU as the rising Sun and Russia a newly found friend with enormous amountss of oil and gas. While America in recent days has rushed towards India – the newly found friend, its complacency with Pakistani terror has made India rely more on Russia. Russia has brought a very strong strategic coalition together – the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Sino-Indian-Russian relations are on the rise. Russia’s available oil and relatively inexpensive high tech knowledge is making India and China more comfortable. India and Russia are going to start operating Air bases all around the world starting with Tajik air base. It is the start but not the end. Russia wants to leverage the Chinese military the same way to keep America on the toe. American military technology is far superior than the rest of the world. But its recent mistakes starting from velvet revolution in Ukraine to outsourcing from India and China to unnecessary and unpopular war in Iraq – all are long term trouble for America.
A strange turn in cold war – Russia defeating America in geopolitics – America may have made mistakes in Iraq, India and China
Sunil Razdhan
Dec. 7, 2005
Russia is slowly turning the geopolitical chess board on America. Very quietly in recent days Americans are surpassed by the Russians in geopolitical movements and maneuvers.
First it started with Iraq. It was a miscalculation, an embarrassment and something that should not have happened. Saddam was a brutal dictator. He was comparable to Hitler. There was reason to believe that he could have indulged in causing trouble for America with perceived weapons of mass destruction. But America being the only super power should have used other means to contain him and eventually remove him. Look at Fidel Castro. He is contained and really powerless in terms geopolitics. But to go and attack Iraq like that just created a mess that cannot be undone so easily. Iraq is Al-Queda’s new breeding ground. The next mistake came in India and China. While India and China will like have American dollars, no one there are in love with America. They like American money, standard of living and sophistication associated with “anything with smell of America”. But to take all jobs and move the industrial base to China and India without correcting their artificially manipulated currency differentials is worse than attacking Iraq.
The Chinese trade surplus is so high that it is worrisome. President Bush understood that in his recent visit to China. Think about this, America has zero real savings and is absorbing 80% of world’s savings especially from Asia. Russians have made very interesting adjustments. They are flexing their strength by making quiet friendship with previous Warsaw countries. East European countries have started regarding America as a declining power while EU as the rising Sun and Russia a newly found friend with enormous amountss of oil and gas. While America in recent days has rushed towards India – the newly found friend, its complacency with Pakistani terror has made India rely more on Russia. Russia has brought a very strong strategic coalition together – the BRICS – Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa. Sino-Indian-Russian relations are on the rise. Russia’s available oil and relatively inexpensive high tech knowledge is making India and China more comfortable. India and Russia are going to start operating Air bases all around the world starting with Tajik air base. It is the start but not the end. Russia wants to leverage the Chinese military the same way to keep America on the toe. American military technology is far superior than the rest of the world. But its recent mistakes starting from velvet revolution in Ukraine to outsourcing from India and China to unnecessary and unpopular war in Iraq – all are long term trouble for America.
Fixing the Game
NY Times Editorial
Fixing the Game
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/opinion/05mon1.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print
The rules of American democracy say every president may install his own team of like-minded people in the government - even at a place like the Justice Department, which is at its root a law-enforcement agency and not a campaign branch office. But the Bush administration seems to be losing sight of the fact that the rules also say the majority party of the moment may not use its powers to strip citizens of their rights, politicize the judicial system or rig the election process to keep itself in office.
There are sections of the Justice Department that are supposed to be dedicated to enforcing the laws that protect the rights of all Americans, not just Republican officeholders and the people who give them money. The Civil Rights Division, for example, has enforced anti-discrimination laws, including the sacred Voting Rights Act, since the 1960's, under more Republican presidents than Democratic presidents.
But The Washington Post's Dan Eggen reported last week that the Justice Department has been suppressing for nearly two years a 73-page memo in which six lawyers and two analysts in the voting rights section, including the group's chief lawyer, unanimously concluded that the Texas redistricting plan of 2003 illegally diluted the votes of blacks and Hispanics in order to ensure a Republican majority in the state's Congressional delegation. That plan was shoved through the Texas State Legislature by Representative Tom DeLay, who abused his federal position in doing so and is now facing criminal charges over how money was raised to support the redistricting.
The Post said the lawyers charged with analyzing voting rights violations were overruled by political appointees, and ordered not to discuss the case. The Justice Department then approved the Texas plan, which had been under review because the voting law requires states with a history of discriminatory election practices to get electoral map changes approved in advance.
This outrageous case is only one way in which the Justice Department under John Ashcroft and now Alberto Gonzales has abused its law-enforcement mandate in the service of the Republican majority. Last month, the Post reported that political appointees also overruled voting rights lawyers who rejected a Georgia law requiring that voters without a picture ID buy one for $20 - at offices that were set up in only 59 of the state's 159 counties. The Justice Department falsely claimed that the decision to O.K. the law - which was little more than a modern-day version of a poll tax aimed at reducing turnout among poor minorities - was made with the concurrence of the career lawyers. A federal court later struck down the law, properly.
And this was well after the appointment of Mr. Gonzales, who promised to make civil rights enforcement one of his priorities when he moved to Justice from the White House.
President Bush's attorneys general have systematically gutted the civil rights division, driving out the career lawyers and shifting the division's focus from civil rights enforcement to deportations, other immigration matters and human smuggling. The Post said the administration has filed only three lawsuits regarding discrimination in voting. All came this year, and the first accused a majority-black district in Mississippi of discriminating against white voters.
The administration's abuse of its narrow electoral majority extends to other areas. Mr. DeLay's requirement that lobbying firms contribute only to Republicans and hire his loyalists comes to mind.
Mr. Bush and his team don't understand that they merely hold the current majority in a system designed to bring periodic changes in the governing party and to protect the rights and values of the minority party. The idea that the winners should trash the system to make sure the democratic process ended with them was discredited back around the time of the Bolsheviks.
Fixing the Game
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/05/opinion/05mon1.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=print
The rules of American democracy say every president may install his own team of like-minded people in the government - even at a place like the Justice Department, which is at its root a law-enforcement agency and not a campaign branch office. But the Bush administration seems to be losing sight of the fact that the rules also say the majority party of the moment may not use its powers to strip citizens of their rights, politicize the judicial system or rig the election process to keep itself in office.
There are sections of the Justice Department that are supposed to be dedicated to enforcing the laws that protect the rights of all Americans, not just Republican officeholders and the people who give them money. The Civil Rights Division, for example, has enforced anti-discrimination laws, including the sacred Voting Rights Act, since the 1960's, under more Republican presidents than Democratic presidents.
But The Washington Post's Dan Eggen reported last week that the Justice Department has been suppressing for nearly two years a 73-page memo in which six lawyers and two analysts in the voting rights section, including the group's chief lawyer, unanimously concluded that the Texas redistricting plan of 2003 illegally diluted the votes of blacks and Hispanics in order to ensure a Republican majority in the state's Congressional delegation. That plan was shoved through the Texas State Legislature by Representative Tom DeLay, who abused his federal position in doing so and is now facing criminal charges over how money was raised to support the redistricting.
The Post said the lawyers charged with analyzing voting rights violations were overruled by political appointees, and ordered not to discuss the case. The Justice Department then approved the Texas plan, which had been under review because the voting law requires states with a history of discriminatory election practices to get electoral map changes approved in advance.
This outrageous case is only one way in which the Justice Department under John Ashcroft and now Alberto Gonzales has abused its law-enforcement mandate in the service of the Republican majority. Last month, the Post reported that political appointees also overruled voting rights lawyers who rejected a Georgia law requiring that voters without a picture ID buy one for $20 - at offices that were set up in only 59 of the state's 159 counties. The Justice Department falsely claimed that the decision to O.K. the law - which was little more than a modern-day version of a poll tax aimed at reducing turnout among poor minorities - was made with the concurrence of the career lawyers. A federal court later struck down the law, properly.
And this was well after the appointment of Mr. Gonzales, who promised to make civil rights enforcement one of his priorities when he moved to Justice from the White House.
President Bush's attorneys general have systematically gutted the civil rights division, driving out the career lawyers and shifting the division's focus from civil rights enforcement to deportations, other immigration matters and human smuggling. The Post said the administration has filed only three lawsuits regarding discrimination in voting. All came this year, and the first accused a majority-black district in Mississippi of discriminating against white voters.
The administration's abuse of its narrow electoral majority extends to other areas. Mr. DeLay's requirement that lobbying firms contribute only to Republicans and hire his loyalists comes to mind.
Mr. Bush and his team don't understand that they merely hold the current majority in a system designed to bring periodic changes in the governing party and to protect the rights and values of the minority party. The idea that the winners should trash the system to make sure the democratic process ended with them was discredited back around the time of the Bolsheviks.
Secret CIA Prisons Moved From Europe to North Africa
Secret CIA Prisons Moved From Europe to North Africa
Secret CIA Prisons Moved From Europe to North Africa
Barbara Ferguson, Arab News
WASHINGTON, 7 December 2005 — The United States held captured Al-Qaeda suspects at two secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe until last month when the facilities were shut down after media reports of their existence, ABC News reported Monday, citing current and former CIA agents.
Eleven Al-Qaeda prisoners who were held in Eastern Europe were relocated “to a CIA site somewhere in North Africa,” say reports, adding that the US scrambled to get all of the suspects off European soil before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Europe yesterday.
Germany, Hungary, Italy, Morocco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden have all been used as prison “transit camps.” The US has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the secret prisons, as reported by the Washington Post last month.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended US treatment of terrorism suspects before leaving for Europe, but would not respond to allegations that the CIA has run secret prisons in Eastern Europe. She insisted, however, that the US does not use torture.
The underlying question to all this remains: Why was this information of secret CIA prisons and flights leaked?
“Leaks usually happen for one of two reasons, either there is a deliberate effort to manipulate public opinion, so it’s done with the full sanction of the government authorities, or there is a fundamental policy disagreement on an issue, and those who think that the policy is wrong leak it,” said Larry Johnson, a former CIA intelligence officer and State Department Counter Terrorism officer. Johnson, who spoke to Arab News by telephone, said he believes the CIA officers involved with the secret prisons fear they may ultimately be held accountable for their actions.
“Valerie Plame’s leak is an example of the first kind; the CIA prison leak is an example of the second. Clearly some of those involved in this link are CIA officers who fear that they will ultimately be blamed as the master minds and implementers of this policy.
“The CIA does not set the policy. The president, the secretary of defense, and the vice president set the policy,” said Johnson. “The CIA implements the policy, but when they carry out a policy that runs afoul of international law, they feel vulnerable.”
The problem is accountability, he said. “Nobody in the White House or the Department of Defense, at a senior level, is being held responsible for these actions.”
Johnson said their vulnerability is not without reason: “The lesson of Abu Ghraib is: Don’t trust these guys to stand by their men.”
Recently the former commander of Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, Brig Gen Janis Karpinski was demoted. Nine junior US soldiers also have been charged in connection with the abuse at the prison in late 2003, and seven of them have already been convicted. The verdict came at the end of a hearing in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Another top US commander at Abu Ghraib also was recently reprimanded and fined $8,000. The US Army found Col. Thomas Pappas guilty of two counts of dereliction of duty, including that of allowing dogs to be present during interrogations. Col Pappas was in charge of military intelligence at the prison near Baghdad.
Aside from the vulnerability of CIA officers, Johnson said what is going on in prisons there “is reprehensible.”
Asked to comment on reports that the CIA prisons in eastern Europe have been closed and moved to North Africa, Johnson slammed the secret detainee prison policy.
“Shifting these prisons to Africa is reprehensible. It is incumbent upon the CIA officers to determine through interrogation on whether a person has knowledge or is a mere foot soldier who got caught up in the battle. If we start saying all things are justified, it would be difficult for us to make the moral argument that we are somehow different from the former Soviet Union or Communist China.”
Secret CIA Prisons Moved From Europe to North Africa
Barbara Ferguson, Arab News
WASHINGTON, 7 December 2005 — The United States held captured Al-Qaeda suspects at two secret CIA prisons in eastern Europe until last month when the facilities were shut down after media reports of their existence, ABC News reported Monday, citing current and former CIA agents.
Eleven Al-Qaeda prisoners who were held in Eastern Europe were relocated “to a CIA site somewhere in North Africa,” say reports, adding that the US scrambled to get all of the suspects off European soil before US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Europe yesterday.
Germany, Hungary, Italy, Morocco, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Spain and Sweden have all been used as prison “transit camps.” The US has neither confirmed nor denied the existence of the secret prisons, as reported by the Washington Post last month.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended US treatment of terrorism suspects before leaving for Europe, but would not respond to allegations that the CIA has run secret prisons in Eastern Europe. She insisted, however, that the US does not use torture.
The underlying question to all this remains: Why was this information of secret CIA prisons and flights leaked?
“Leaks usually happen for one of two reasons, either there is a deliberate effort to manipulate public opinion, so it’s done with the full sanction of the government authorities, or there is a fundamental policy disagreement on an issue, and those who think that the policy is wrong leak it,” said Larry Johnson, a former CIA intelligence officer and State Department Counter Terrorism officer. Johnson, who spoke to Arab News by telephone, said he believes the CIA officers involved with the secret prisons fear they may ultimately be held accountable for their actions.
“Valerie Plame’s leak is an example of the first kind; the CIA prison leak is an example of the second. Clearly some of those involved in this link are CIA officers who fear that they will ultimately be blamed as the master minds and implementers of this policy.
“The CIA does not set the policy. The president, the secretary of defense, and the vice president set the policy,” said Johnson. “The CIA implements the policy, but when they carry out a policy that runs afoul of international law, they feel vulnerable.”
The problem is accountability, he said. “Nobody in the White House or the Department of Defense, at a senior level, is being held responsible for these actions.”
Johnson said their vulnerability is not without reason: “The lesson of Abu Ghraib is: Don’t trust these guys to stand by their men.”
Recently the former commander of Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq, Brig Gen Janis Karpinski was demoted. Nine junior US soldiers also have been charged in connection with the abuse at the prison in late 2003, and seven of them have already been convicted. The verdict came at the end of a hearing in Kaiserslautern, Germany.
Another top US commander at Abu Ghraib also was recently reprimanded and fined $8,000. The US Army found Col. Thomas Pappas guilty of two counts of dereliction of duty, including that of allowing dogs to be present during interrogations. Col Pappas was in charge of military intelligence at the prison near Baghdad.
Aside from the vulnerability of CIA officers, Johnson said what is going on in prisons there “is reprehensible.”
Asked to comment on reports that the CIA prisons in eastern Europe have been closed and moved to North Africa, Johnson slammed the secret detainee prison policy.
“Shifting these prisons to Africa is reprehensible. It is incumbent upon the CIA officers to determine through interrogation on whether a person has knowledge or is a mere foot soldier who got caught up in the battle. If we start saying all things are justified, it would be difficult for us to make the moral argument that we are somehow different from the former Soviet Union or Communist China.”
Not Guilty Verdicts in Florida Terror Trial Are Setback for U.S.
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
Published: December 7, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 - In a major defeat for law enforcement officials,
a jury in Florida failed to return guilty verdicts Tuesday on any of
51 criminal counts against a former Florida professor and three co-
defendants accused of operating a North American front for
Palestinian terrorists.
The former professor, Sami al-Arian, a fiery advocate for Palestinian
causes who became a lightning rod for criticism nationwide over his
vocal anti-Israeli stances, was found not guilty on eight criminal
counts related to terrorist support, perjury and immigration
violations.
The jury deadlocked on the remaining nine counts against him after
deliberating for 13 days, and it did not return any guilty verdicts
against the three other defendants in the case.
"This was a political prosecution from the start, and I think the
jury realized that," Linda Moreno, one of Mr. Arian's defense
lawyers, said in a telephone interview. "They looked over at Sami al-
Arian; they saw a man who had taken unpopular positions on issues
thousands of miles away, but they realized he wasn't a terrorist. The
truth is a powerful thing."
Federal officials in Washington expressed surprise at the verdict in
a case they had pursued for years.
The trial, lasting more than five months, hinged on the question of
whether Mr. Arian's years of work in the Tampa area in support of
Palestinian independence crossed the threshold from protected free
speech and political advocacy to illegal support for terrorists.
Prosecutors, who had been building a case against Mr. Arian for 10
years, relied on some 20,000 hours of taped conversations culled from
wiretaps on Mr. Arian and his associates. Officials said he had
helped finance and direct terrorist attacks in Israel, the Gaza Strip
and the West Bank, while using his faculty position teaching computer
engineering at the University of South Florida as a cover for his
terrorist activities.
But ultimately, the jury in Tampa that heard the case found him not
guilty of the charge of conspiring to kill people overseas, and it
deadlocked on three of the other most serious terrorism charges.
Justice Department officials said they were considering whether to re-
try Mr. Arian on the counts on which the jury did not reach verdicts.
While expressing disappointment in the verdicts, the officials said
the department had a strong track record of success in prosecuting
terrorists, including the separate convictions last week of a
Northern Virginia student and a Pakistani immigrant in New York on
charges of supporting Al Qaeda.
"We remain focused on the important task at hand, which is to protect
our country through our ongoing vigorous prosecution of terrorism
cases," said Tasia Scolinos, a spokeswoman for the Justice
Department. "While we respect the jury's verdict, we stand by the
evidence we presented in court against Sami al-Arian and his co-
defendants."
In bringing the case against Mr. Arian in 2003, the department relied
on the easing of legal restrictions under the antiterrorism law known
as the USA Patriot Act to present years of wiretaps on the defendants
in a criminal context.
In the conversations cited by prosecutors, Mr. Arian was heard
raising money for Palestinian causes, hailing recently completed
attacks against Israel with associates overseas, calling suicide
bombers "martyrs" and referring to Jews as "monkeys and swine" who
would be "damned" by Allah.
But much of the conversation and activity used by prosecutors
predated the 1995 designation by the United States of Palestinian
Islamic Jihad as a terrorist group, a designation that prohibited
Americans from supporting it. Several legal analysts and law
professors said Tuesday that the government appeared to have
overreached in its case.
"I think the government's case was somewhat stale because a lot of
these events dated back 10 years, and the case was so complex that it
was all over the board," said Peter Margulies, a law professor at
Roger Williams University in Rhode Island who has studied terrorism
prosecutions.
For the prosecutors, Professor Margulies said, "this is clearly
embarrassing, and they were clearly outmaneuvered by some very good
defense attorneys."
David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University who represented
Mr. Arian's brother-in-law in an earlier deportation case that also
gained wide exposure, said the verdict amounted to a rejection of the
government's "sweeping guilt by association theory."
In the mid-1990's, news coverage of Mr. Arian drew attention to his
opposition to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and
led some critics to label the University of South Florida as "Jihad
U."
Many Muslims in Florida continued to support him, however, and, as an
influential Muslim activist, he continued to have access to the most
senior Democratic and Republican officials, meeting with Bill
Clinton, George W. Bush and others.
Criticism accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, particularly in
light of Mr. Arian's appearance on a program on the Fox News Channel
just weeks later, in which the host, Bill O'Reilly, confronted him
with his past statements calling for "death to Israel."
Mr. Arian's indictment in 2003 led to his firing by the university, a
move that had been debated for years. And the disclosure of his close
dealings with Palestinian militants as cited in the indictment
prompted even some university backers to rethink their support for
him.
Family members of Mr. Arian and the other three defendants - Sameeh
T. Hammoudeh, Ghassan Ballut and Hatim Fariz - wept in court on
Tuesday as the verdicts were read, and Muslims in the Tampa area
planned a prayer service and celebration on Tuesday night at the
local mosque Mr. Arian helped found.
Mr. Arian "loves America, and he believes in the system, and thank
God the system did not fail him," his wife, Nahla al-Arian, said
outside the federal courthouse as throngs of family members,
supporters and lawyers celebrated the results.
"Not a single guilty verdict," said Ms. Moreno, one of Mr. Arian's
two defense lawyers. "I have to say, that was more 'not guilty'
verdicts in those 20 minutes than I've heard in my 25 years as a
defense attorney."
Mr. Arian is to remain in jail on an immigration matter, but Ms.
Moreno said the defense would probably file a motion next week asking
to have him released on bond.
For the local Muslim community, the verdicts are "a huge relief, and
people are just jubilant," said Ahmed Bedier, director of the Tampa
chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Mr. Bedier, who attended much of the trial, said he had doubted
whether Mr. Arian could receive a fair trial in Tampa, especially in
light of the publicity his case had generated, but "the jury proved
us wrong," he said in a telephone interview.
"This was a very important case for us in that it tested both the
Patriot Act and the right to political activity," Mr. Bedier
said. "The jury is sending a statement that even in post-9/11
America, the justice system works, the burden of proof is on the
prosecution, and political association - while it may be unpopular to
associate oneself with controversial views - is still not illegal in
this country."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/national/nationalspecial3/07verdict.
html?th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1133968487-3kbwLuD9/c8U6tQ8qfUMEg
Published: December 7, 2005
WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 - In a major defeat for law enforcement officials,
a jury in Florida failed to return guilty verdicts Tuesday on any of
51 criminal counts against a former Florida professor and three co-
defendants accused of operating a North American front for
Palestinian terrorists.
The former professor, Sami al-Arian, a fiery advocate for Palestinian
causes who became a lightning rod for criticism nationwide over his
vocal anti-Israeli stances, was found not guilty on eight criminal
counts related to terrorist support, perjury and immigration
violations.
The jury deadlocked on the remaining nine counts against him after
deliberating for 13 days, and it did not return any guilty verdicts
against the three other defendants in the case.
"This was a political prosecution from the start, and I think the
jury realized that," Linda Moreno, one of Mr. Arian's defense
lawyers, said in a telephone interview. "They looked over at Sami al-
Arian; they saw a man who had taken unpopular positions on issues
thousands of miles away, but they realized he wasn't a terrorist. The
truth is a powerful thing."
Federal officials in Washington expressed surprise at the verdict in
a case they had pursued for years.
The trial, lasting more than five months, hinged on the question of
whether Mr. Arian's years of work in the Tampa area in support of
Palestinian independence crossed the threshold from protected free
speech and political advocacy to illegal support for terrorists.
Prosecutors, who had been building a case against Mr. Arian for 10
years, relied on some 20,000 hours of taped conversations culled from
wiretaps on Mr. Arian and his associates. Officials said he had
helped finance and direct terrorist attacks in Israel, the Gaza Strip
and the West Bank, while using his faculty position teaching computer
engineering at the University of South Florida as a cover for his
terrorist activities.
But ultimately, the jury in Tampa that heard the case found him not
guilty of the charge of conspiring to kill people overseas, and it
deadlocked on three of the other most serious terrorism charges.
Justice Department officials said they were considering whether to re-
try Mr. Arian on the counts on which the jury did not reach verdicts.
While expressing disappointment in the verdicts, the officials said
the department had a strong track record of success in prosecuting
terrorists, including the separate convictions last week of a
Northern Virginia student and a Pakistani immigrant in New York on
charges of supporting Al Qaeda.
"We remain focused on the important task at hand, which is to protect
our country through our ongoing vigorous prosecution of terrorism
cases," said Tasia Scolinos, a spokeswoman for the Justice
Department. "While we respect the jury's verdict, we stand by the
evidence we presented in court against Sami al-Arian and his co-
defendants."
In bringing the case against Mr. Arian in 2003, the department relied
on the easing of legal restrictions under the antiterrorism law known
as the USA Patriot Act to present years of wiretaps on the defendants
in a criminal context.
In the conversations cited by prosecutors, Mr. Arian was heard
raising money for Palestinian causes, hailing recently completed
attacks against Israel with associates overseas, calling suicide
bombers "martyrs" and referring to Jews as "monkeys and swine" who
would be "damned" by Allah.
But much of the conversation and activity used by prosecutors
predated the 1995 designation by the United States of Palestinian
Islamic Jihad as a terrorist group, a designation that prohibited
Americans from supporting it. Several legal analysts and law
professors said Tuesday that the government appeared to have
overreached in its case.
"I think the government's case was somewhat stale because a lot of
these events dated back 10 years, and the case was so complex that it
was all over the board," said Peter Margulies, a law professor at
Roger Williams University in Rhode Island who has studied terrorism
prosecutions.
For the prosecutors, Professor Margulies said, "this is clearly
embarrassing, and they were clearly outmaneuvered by some very good
defense attorneys."
David Cole, a law professor at Georgetown University who represented
Mr. Arian's brother-in-law in an earlier deportation case that also
gained wide exposure, said the verdict amounted to a rejection of the
government's "sweeping guilt by association theory."
In the mid-1990's, news coverage of Mr. Arian drew attention to his
opposition to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and
led some critics to label the University of South Florida as "Jihad
U."
Many Muslims in Florida continued to support him, however, and, as an
influential Muslim activist, he continued to have access to the most
senior Democratic and Republican officials, meeting with Bill
Clinton, George W. Bush and others.
Criticism accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, particularly in
light of Mr. Arian's appearance on a program on the Fox News Channel
just weeks later, in which the host, Bill O'Reilly, confronted him
with his past statements calling for "death to Israel."
Mr. Arian's indictment in 2003 led to his firing by the university, a
move that had been debated for years. And the disclosure of his close
dealings with Palestinian militants as cited in the indictment
prompted even some university backers to rethink their support for
him.
Family members of Mr. Arian and the other three defendants - Sameeh
T. Hammoudeh, Ghassan Ballut and Hatim Fariz - wept in court on
Tuesday as the verdicts were read, and Muslims in the Tampa area
planned a prayer service and celebration on Tuesday night at the
local mosque Mr. Arian helped found.
Mr. Arian "loves America, and he believes in the system, and thank
God the system did not fail him," his wife, Nahla al-Arian, said
outside the federal courthouse as throngs of family members,
supporters and lawyers celebrated the results.
"Not a single guilty verdict," said Ms. Moreno, one of Mr. Arian's
two defense lawyers. "I have to say, that was more 'not guilty'
verdicts in those 20 minutes than I've heard in my 25 years as a
defense attorney."
Mr. Arian is to remain in jail on an immigration matter, but Ms.
Moreno said the defense would probably file a motion next week asking
to have him released on bond.
For the local Muslim community, the verdicts are "a huge relief, and
people are just jubilant," said Ahmed Bedier, director of the Tampa
chapter of the Council on American-Islamic Relations.
Mr. Bedier, who attended much of the trial, said he had doubted
whether Mr. Arian could receive a fair trial in Tampa, especially in
light of the publicity his case had generated, but "the jury proved
us wrong," he said in a telephone interview.
"This was a very important case for us in that it tested both the
Patriot Act and the right to political activity," Mr. Bedier
said. "The jury is sending a statement that even in post-9/11
America, the justice system works, the burden of proof is on the
prosecution, and political association - while it may be unpopular to
associate oneself with controversial views - is still not illegal in
this country."
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/07/national/nationalspecial3/07verdict.
html?th=&adxnnl=1&emc=th&adxnnlx=1133968487-3kbwLuD9/c8U6tQ8qfUMEg
Observers say Venezuela vote was fair
Observers say Venezuela vote was fair
Observers say Venezuela vote was fair
By JORGE RUEDA
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
CARACAS, Venezuela -- European observers said Tuesday that Venezuela's congressional elections were fair and transparent despite opposition claims of irregularities and a low voter turnout.
President Hugo Chavez's party and allies claimed to have swept Sunday's balloting after five opposition parties pulled out, saying they did not trust the electoral system. Partial, regional results issued so far showed candidates aligned with Chavez taking a commanding lead.
While official results were not yet in, ruling party lawmakers have said candidates of Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement party won 114 seats and that allied parties won all the rest in the 167-member chamber.
Jose Silva, head of the European Union team, said the vote was clean and praised the elections council.
"For us, there was transparency in the electoral process," said Silva, who oversaw about 160 observers.
He said many Venezuelans did not trust the nation's elections system, leading them to abstain from voting.
advertising
Sunday's voter turnout of about 25 percent was lower than in recent Venezuelan congressional elections in 1998 and 2000, when about 50 percent to 60 percent turned out.
Chavez, who accused the opposition of plotting the boycott with the help of the United States as part of a plot to "destabilize" the country, said Tuesday that the low turnout "must be looked at, analyzed and considered." Washington and the opposition have denied the accusations.
"Nobody can claim the abstention as a victory," Chavez told supporters in Caracas. "The group of parties from the old order pulled out the elections without any good reason."
The boycotting parties expressed concerns about the voter registry and touch-screen voting machines. Election officials denied any problems, saying they made many concessions for the opposition.
The Organization of American States, which had 60 observers monitoring the vote, expressed concern about growing political divisions in Venezuela and urged election officials "to establish necessary conditions for the participation of all sectors" of Venezuelan society.
Venezuela is split between those who accuse Chavez of becoming increasingly authoritarian and supporters who say the former paratrooper commander has given new opportunities to the country's poor majority.
Silva told reporters the elections represented a "lost opportunity" for resolving differences that have caused "a fracture in Venezuelan society."
Court authorities on Tuesday delayed the start of a trial for leaders of a Venezuelan vote-monitoring group accused of conspiring against Chavez's republican system by receiving U.S. funding.
The group, Sumate, has alleged that Chavez's administration is guilty of electoral irregularities.
Its lawyer, Juan Martin Echeverria, said the trial was deferred until Jan. 18 while a higher court examines defense motions challenging the judge's impartiality and alleging legal violations.
Observers say Venezuela vote was fair
By JORGE RUEDA
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
CARACAS, Venezuela -- European observers said Tuesday that Venezuela's congressional elections were fair and transparent despite opposition claims of irregularities and a low voter turnout.
President Hugo Chavez's party and allies claimed to have swept Sunday's balloting after five opposition parties pulled out, saying they did not trust the electoral system. Partial, regional results issued so far showed candidates aligned with Chavez taking a commanding lead.
While official results were not yet in, ruling party lawmakers have said candidates of Chavez's Fifth Republic Movement party won 114 seats and that allied parties won all the rest in the 167-member chamber.
Jose Silva, head of the European Union team, said the vote was clean and praised the elections council.
"For us, there was transparency in the electoral process," said Silva, who oversaw about 160 observers.
He said many Venezuelans did not trust the nation's elections system, leading them to abstain from voting.
advertising
Sunday's voter turnout of about 25 percent was lower than in recent Venezuelan congressional elections in 1998 and 2000, when about 50 percent to 60 percent turned out.
Chavez, who accused the opposition of plotting the boycott with the help of the United States as part of a plot to "destabilize" the country, said Tuesday that the low turnout "must be looked at, analyzed and considered." Washington and the opposition have denied the accusations.
"Nobody can claim the abstention as a victory," Chavez told supporters in Caracas. "The group of parties from the old order pulled out the elections without any good reason."
The boycotting parties expressed concerns about the voter registry and touch-screen voting machines. Election officials denied any problems, saying they made many concessions for the opposition.
The Organization of American States, which had 60 observers monitoring the vote, expressed concern about growing political divisions in Venezuela and urged election officials "to establish necessary conditions for the participation of all sectors" of Venezuelan society.
Venezuela is split between those who accuse Chavez of becoming increasingly authoritarian and supporters who say the former paratrooper commander has given new opportunities to the country's poor majority.
Silva told reporters the elections represented a "lost opportunity" for resolving differences that have caused "a fracture in Venezuelan society."
Court authorities on Tuesday delayed the start of a trial for leaders of a Venezuelan vote-monitoring group accused of conspiring against Chavez's republican system by receiving U.S. funding.
The group, Sumate, has alleged that Chavez's administration is guilty of electoral irregularities.
Its lawyer, Juan Martin Echeverria, said the trial was deferred until Jan. 18 while a higher court examines defense motions challenging the judge's impartiality and alleging legal violations.
Agents say secret jails were shut in a hurry- Times Online.UK
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,13509-1910591,00.html
The Times Online .uk December 07, 2005
Agents say secret jails were shut in a hurry
By Daniel McGrory
THE CIA was accused yesterday of shutting down two secret prisons holding al-Qaeda terror suspects in Eastern Europe before Condoleezza Rice’s tour of the region.
The suspects were reportedly hurriedly moved to a new CIA-run facility hidden in a North African desert to allow the US Secretary of State to tell her European hosts that nobody was being held on their soil. Intelligence chiefs are also preparing new flight plans to avoid refuelling stops at European airports by aircraft operated by the CIA.
Renegade CIA officers who oppose the reported use of torture by fellow agents are alleged to be leaking details of the whereabouts of some of America’s most highly valued detainees to campaigners.
The latest leak, reported by ABC News yesterday, was that 11 suspects were recently moved after revelations that the CIA was holding them in Poland and Romania — Dr Rice’s latest stop on her European tour. The detainees are said to include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is believed to have orchestrated the September 11 attacks on the US.
The Times Online .uk December 07, 2005
Agents say secret jails were shut in a hurry
By Daniel McGrory
THE CIA was accused yesterday of shutting down two secret prisons holding al-Qaeda terror suspects in Eastern Europe before Condoleezza Rice’s tour of the region.
The suspects were reportedly hurriedly moved to a new CIA-run facility hidden in a North African desert to allow the US Secretary of State to tell her European hosts that nobody was being held on their soil. Intelligence chiefs are also preparing new flight plans to avoid refuelling stops at European airports by aircraft operated by the CIA.
Renegade CIA officers who oppose the reported use of torture by fellow agents are alleged to be leaking details of the whereabouts of some of America’s most highly valued detainees to campaigners.
The latest leak, reported by ABC News yesterday, was that 11 suspects were recently moved after revelations that the CIA was holding them in Poland and Romania — Dr Rice’s latest stop on her European tour. The detainees are said to include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who is believed to have orchestrated the September 11 attacks on the US.
Tuesday, December 06, 2005
Iranian plane crash leaves 116 dead-
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200512/s1525244.htm
Last Update: Wednesday, December 7, 2005. 6:00am (AEDT)
An Iranian military plane has crashed into an apartment block in Tehran, next to this building.
An Iranian military plane has crashed into an apartment block in Tehran, next to this building. (Reuters)
Iranian plane crash leaves 116 dead
A military plane carrying dozens of journalists has crashed into an apartment block in the Iranian capital Tehran and exploded, killing at least 116 people.
The Interior Ministry said all 94 passengers and crew on the C-130 transport plane died.
Witnesses said several children, at home because schools were closed due to a smog alert in the capital, were among the dead in the building.
The Tehran Coroner's Office told the ISNA student's news agency it had received 116 corpses.
Twenty-eight people, some in critical condition, were taken to hospital.
"I was sitting at home when the windows suddenly smashed and flames came pouring in," a woman with cuts on her neck said.
"There was smoke everywhere."
Iran's fire brigade chief Ahmad Ziaie told state television that the building which was hit, located in a densely populated area of south Tehran, housed about 150 people. The crash occurred in the early afternoon.
"Both the main and reserve fuel tanks were full which is why the plane went up in flames as soon as it hit," he said.
The Air Force plane was bound for the Gulf port of Bandar Abbas. It was taking 68 local journalists to cover military exercises. Military personnel were also aboard.
Engine trouble
Minutes after take off the pilot reported engine trouble and requested an emergency landing at Tehran's Mehrabad airport, but crashed just short of the runway, police said.
Iranian journalists at the scene wept and consoled one another over their colleagues' deaths.
"I was supposed to be on the plane as well so I don't know whether to be happy or sad," said a journalist from the ISNA students news agency who declined to be identified.
He said a colleague had called him from inside the plane before take off. "He said that the pilot didn't want to fly because there was a technical problem with the plane."
An Interior Ministry spokesman said some of those killed on the ground had been in their cars.
The front of the plane was destroyed on impact. A propeller and ripped wing smouldered in front of the blackened building. Flames licked out of the windows of the apartments and thick black smoke billowed into the sky.
"Some people were throwing themselves out of windows to escape the flames. I saw two die like that," a policeman said.
Passerby Hassan Hedayati, his face covered in dust and hands caked with dried blood, was among the first on the scene.
"I pulled 30 bodies out of the plane. They were all charred," he said.
The apartment block, which was still standing, is in the Shahrak-e Towhid neighbourhood, a residential area reserved for military families. It lies on the flightpath to the airport.
Emergency services used helicopters, ambulances and buses to evacuate the dead and wounded. Cranes were brought in to clear the wrecked fuselage.
Iran has a poor airline safety record following a string of air disasters in the past 30 years although most have involved Russian-made aircraft.
US sanctions have prevented Iran from buying new aircraft or spares from the West, forcing it to supplement its fleet of Boeing and Airbus planes with aircraft from former Soviet Union countries.
-Reuters
Last Update: Wednesday, December 7, 2005. 6:00am (AEDT)
An Iranian military plane has crashed into an apartment block in Tehran, next to this building.
An Iranian military plane has crashed into an apartment block in Tehran, next to this building. (Reuters)
Iranian plane crash leaves 116 dead
A military plane carrying dozens of journalists has crashed into an apartment block in the Iranian capital Tehran and exploded, killing at least 116 people.
The Interior Ministry said all 94 passengers and crew on the C-130 transport plane died.
Witnesses said several children, at home because schools were closed due to a smog alert in the capital, were among the dead in the building.
The Tehran Coroner's Office told the ISNA student's news agency it had received 116 corpses.
Twenty-eight people, some in critical condition, were taken to hospital.
"I was sitting at home when the windows suddenly smashed and flames came pouring in," a woman with cuts on her neck said.
"There was smoke everywhere."
Iran's fire brigade chief Ahmad Ziaie told state television that the building which was hit, located in a densely populated area of south Tehran, housed about 150 people. The crash occurred in the early afternoon.
"Both the main and reserve fuel tanks were full which is why the plane went up in flames as soon as it hit," he said.
The Air Force plane was bound for the Gulf port of Bandar Abbas. It was taking 68 local journalists to cover military exercises. Military personnel were also aboard.
Engine trouble
Minutes after take off the pilot reported engine trouble and requested an emergency landing at Tehran's Mehrabad airport, but crashed just short of the runway, police said.
Iranian journalists at the scene wept and consoled one another over their colleagues' deaths.
"I was supposed to be on the plane as well so I don't know whether to be happy or sad," said a journalist from the ISNA students news agency who declined to be identified.
He said a colleague had called him from inside the plane before take off. "He said that the pilot didn't want to fly because there was a technical problem with the plane."
An Interior Ministry spokesman said some of those killed on the ground had been in their cars.
The front of the plane was destroyed on impact. A propeller and ripped wing smouldered in front of the blackened building. Flames licked out of the windows of the apartments and thick black smoke billowed into the sky.
"Some people were throwing themselves out of windows to escape the flames. I saw two die like that," a policeman said.
Passerby Hassan Hedayati, his face covered in dust and hands caked with dried blood, was among the first on the scene.
"I pulled 30 bodies out of the plane. They were all charred," he said.
The apartment block, which was still standing, is in the Shahrak-e Towhid neighbourhood, a residential area reserved for military families. It lies on the flightpath to the airport.
Emergency services used helicopters, ambulances and buses to evacuate the dead and wounded. Cranes were brought in to clear the wrecked fuselage.
Iran has a poor airline safety record following a string of air disasters in the past 30 years although most have involved Russian-made aircraft.
US sanctions have prevented Iran from buying new aircraft or spares from the West, forcing it to supplement its fleet of Boeing and Airbus planes with aircraft from former Soviet Union countries.
-Reuters
Italy furious over CIA terror kidnap
Italy furious over CIA terror kidnap
By Craig Whitlock, Milan
December 7, 2005
http://theage.com.au/news/world/italy-furious-over-cia-terror-kidnap/2005/12/06/1133829595923.html#
IN MARCH 2003, the Italian national anti-terrorism police received an urgent message from the CIA about a radical Islamic cleric who had mysteriously vanished from Milan a few weeks before.
The CIA reported that it had reliable information that the cleric, the target of an Italian criminal investigation, had fled to the Balkans.
In fact, according to Italian court documents and interviews with investigators, the CIA's tip was a deliberate lie, part of a ruse designed to stymie efforts by the Italian anti-terrorism police to track down the cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, an Egyptian refugee known as Abu Omar.
The strategy worked for more than a year until Italian investigators learned that Nasr had not gone to the Balkans after all.
Instead, prosecutors say he was abducted in Milan by a team of CIA operatives who took him to two US military bases in succession and then flew him to Egypt, where he was interrogated and allegedly tortured by Egyptian security agents before being released to house arrest.
Italian judicial authorities publicly disclosed the CIA operation in the northern spring. But a review of recently filed court documents and interviews in Milan offers fresh details about how the CIA allegedly spread disinformation to cover its tracks and how its actions in Milan damaged an Italian investigation.
"The kidnapping of Abu Omar was not only a serious crime against Italian sovereignty and human rights, but it also seriously damaged counterterrorism efforts in Italy and Europe," said prosecutor Armando Spataro in Milan.
"In fact, if Abu Omar had not been kidnapped, he would now be in prison, subject to a regular trial, and we would have probably identified his other accomplices."
Mr Spataro declined to comment on any specifics of the investigation because the case is pending in the Italian courts.
The CIA declined to comment.
Since July, prosecutors and judges in Milan have issued arrest warrants charging 22 alleged CIA operatives, including the head of the CIA Milan substation, with kidnapping and other crimes.
Italian investigators said they now believe the abduction was overseen by the CIA's station chief in Rome and orchestrated by officials assigned to the US embassy in Italy.
The case marks the first time that a foreign government has filed criminal charges against US operatives for their role in a counter-terrorism mission.
In addition to jolting relations between the United States and Italy, normally a strong ally of Washington in the fight against terrorism, the case is fuelling a growing chorus of European complaints that the Bush Administration has crossed legal and ethical lines in dealing with Islamic extremists.
As investigators in Milan gradually unravel what happened to Nasr, 42, who remains in custody in Egypt, disclosures about the covert operation are causing political problems for both the US and Italian governments.
Italian officials have denied playing any role in the abduction or having any prior knowledge. But present and former US intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the operation, said the CIA briefed its Italian counterparts beforehand.
After the case became public, CIA officers involved in the decision to apprehend Nasr told their superiors the Italian intelligence agency cleared the operation with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. But there appears to be no documentation that would support the claim he was aware of the case, should a public dispute erupt between Italy and the US, US sources said.
Several former intelligence officials said such documentation, on such a sensitive subject, would probably not exist.
"The price of doing business is, if you get caught, you're on your own," said one former intelligence official.
There are signs Mr Berlusconi's Government has become increasingly uncomfortable with the criminal investigation, which is being carried out by independent judicial authorities in Milan.
Prosecutors and judges signed papers last month seeking to compel the US to extradite the alleged CIA operatives. But Justice Minister Roberto Castelli, a member of Mr Berlusconi's cabinet, so far has not given his approval — usually a formality.
WASHINGTON POST
RENDITION WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
¦ Rendition is bureaucratese for the CIA's practice of kidnapping terrorist suspects and sending them to secret detention centres out of the public eye and out of reach of the US justice system.
¦ It was authorised under President Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s to counter the threat of Islamic terrorism and overcome CIA difficulties in obtaining a conviction against suspects.
¦ It was expanded hugely under President George Bush, who gave the CIA sweeping new powers after the September 11 attacks.
¦ Since then the staff of the Counter-Terrorist Centre, the CIA branch that oversees renditions, is reported to have quadrupled to more than 1000 people.
¦ More than 100 more people have disappeared or been "rendered" in the past few years, in addition to the detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay.
¦ The most common destinations are Egypt and Jordan, which are known to have tortured prisoners.
¦ The US insists that it does not send people to countries that employ torture.
By Craig Whitlock, Milan
December 7, 2005
http://theage.com.au/news/world/italy-furious-over-cia-terror-kidnap/2005/12/06/1133829595923.html#
IN MARCH 2003, the Italian national anti-terrorism police received an urgent message from the CIA about a radical Islamic cleric who had mysteriously vanished from Milan a few weeks before.
The CIA reported that it had reliable information that the cleric, the target of an Italian criminal investigation, had fled to the Balkans.
In fact, according to Italian court documents and interviews with investigators, the CIA's tip was a deliberate lie, part of a ruse designed to stymie efforts by the Italian anti-terrorism police to track down the cleric, Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, an Egyptian refugee known as Abu Omar.
The strategy worked for more than a year until Italian investigators learned that Nasr had not gone to the Balkans after all.
Instead, prosecutors say he was abducted in Milan by a team of CIA operatives who took him to two US military bases in succession and then flew him to Egypt, where he was interrogated and allegedly tortured by Egyptian security agents before being released to house arrest.
Italian judicial authorities publicly disclosed the CIA operation in the northern spring. But a review of recently filed court documents and interviews in Milan offers fresh details about how the CIA allegedly spread disinformation to cover its tracks and how its actions in Milan damaged an Italian investigation.
"The kidnapping of Abu Omar was not only a serious crime against Italian sovereignty and human rights, but it also seriously damaged counterterrorism efforts in Italy and Europe," said prosecutor Armando Spataro in Milan.
"In fact, if Abu Omar had not been kidnapped, he would now be in prison, subject to a regular trial, and we would have probably identified his other accomplices."
Mr Spataro declined to comment on any specifics of the investigation because the case is pending in the Italian courts.
The CIA declined to comment.
Since July, prosecutors and judges in Milan have issued arrest warrants charging 22 alleged CIA operatives, including the head of the CIA Milan substation, with kidnapping and other crimes.
Italian investigators said they now believe the abduction was overseen by the CIA's station chief in Rome and orchestrated by officials assigned to the US embassy in Italy.
The case marks the first time that a foreign government has filed criminal charges against US operatives for their role in a counter-terrorism mission.
In addition to jolting relations between the United States and Italy, normally a strong ally of Washington in the fight against terrorism, the case is fuelling a growing chorus of European complaints that the Bush Administration has crossed legal and ethical lines in dealing with Islamic extremists.
As investigators in Milan gradually unravel what happened to Nasr, 42, who remains in custody in Egypt, disclosures about the covert operation are causing political problems for both the US and Italian governments.
Italian officials have denied playing any role in the abduction or having any prior knowledge. But present and former US intelligence officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to discuss the operation, said the CIA briefed its Italian counterparts beforehand.
After the case became public, CIA officers involved in the decision to apprehend Nasr told their superiors the Italian intelligence agency cleared the operation with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. But there appears to be no documentation that would support the claim he was aware of the case, should a public dispute erupt between Italy and the US, US sources said.
Several former intelligence officials said such documentation, on such a sensitive subject, would probably not exist.
"The price of doing business is, if you get caught, you're on your own," said one former intelligence official.
There are signs Mr Berlusconi's Government has become increasingly uncomfortable with the criminal investigation, which is being carried out by independent judicial authorities in Milan.
Prosecutors and judges signed papers last month seeking to compel the US to extradite the alleged CIA operatives. But Justice Minister Roberto Castelli, a member of Mr Berlusconi's cabinet, so far has not given his approval — usually a formality.
WASHINGTON POST
RENDITION WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
¦ Rendition is bureaucratese for the CIA's practice of kidnapping terrorist suspects and sending them to secret detention centres out of the public eye and out of reach of the US justice system.
¦ It was authorised under President Bill Clinton in the mid-1990s to counter the threat of Islamic terrorism and overcome CIA difficulties in obtaining a conviction against suspects.
¦ It was expanded hugely under President George Bush, who gave the CIA sweeping new powers after the September 11 attacks.
¦ Since then the staff of the Counter-Terrorist Centre, the CIA branch that oversees renditions, is reported to have quadrupled to more than 1000 people.
¦ More than 100 more people have disappeared or been "rendered" in the past few years, in addition to the detainees being held at Guantanamo Bay.
¦ The most common destinations are Egypt and Jordan, which are known to have tortured prisoners.
¦ The US insists that it does not send people to countries that employ torture.
CIA agents break ranks to disclose brutal ‘black sites’
Times of Oman--CIA agents break ranks to disclose brutal ‘black sites’
CIA agents break ranks to disclose brutal ‘black sites’
By Raymond Whitaker
The Independent
WASHINGTON — Amid a growing row in the US over torture, a list of “enhanced interrogation techniques” used by CIA agents in secret prisons — including near-drowning, freezing, sleep deprivation, shaking and slapping — has been leaked. In at least one case, a prisoner has died.
The techniques have been authorised for use at CIA “black sites” abroad, at which top terror suspects are held. Last week the US-based organisation Human Rights Watch said “ghost detainees” were held at two military bases, in Poland and Romania. Similar sites in half a dozen other countries, leased from Britain, are now said to have been closed.
The existence of these detention facilities, and what happens inside them, are the most secret aspect of America’s “war on terror”. In contrast to military-run camps and prisons such as Guantanamo Bay in Cuba or Abu Ghraib in Iraq, where it was impossible to shield all CIA activity from outside scrutiny, the location of the “black sites” and the identities of those held there are made known only to a handful of senior officials in the US. In the host countries, only the president and top intelligence officials are aware of them.
Details of the secret prisons and the methods used in them have emerged mainly from CIA officers themselves, who said the public needed to know “the direction their agency has chosen”. They broke ranks amid a furore in Washington over an amendment to the White House military spending package going through Congress. Senator John McCain (Republican), a former US Navy pilot who was captured and tortured in Vietnam, wants an unequivocal ban on all “cruel and inhuman” treatment of prisoners in US custody, including those held by the CIA.
Eighty-nine of McCain’s fellow senators voted for his amendment, rejecting attempts by the CIA and Vice-President Dick Cheney — who said after 9/11 that “we have to work ... the dark side” — to exclude prisoners held at the “black sites”. For the first time President George Bush has threatened to exercise his veto on any defence bill that has the amendment attached.
The CIA prisons contain only the 30 or so most senior Al Qaeda captives. They include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 2001 attacks, Ramzi Binalshibh, another prime 9/11 suspect, and the Indonesian Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, accused of masterminding the Bali nightclub bombings in October 2002. Only the merest hints have emerged about their treatment, but according to the most graphic account, given to ABC News in the US, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed won the admiration of his interrogators by enduring “waterboarding” for up to two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess. CIA officers who subjected themselves to the same technique lasted an average of 14 seconds.
ABC’s sources said that just over a dozen CIA interrogators were trained and authorised to use the “enhanced interrogation” techniques. At least three had declined involvement. The use of each technique on each prisoner had to be approved, stage by stage, up to the use of the “waterboard”. About a dozen “high-value” Al Qaeda targets had been interrogated in this way, and, as one put it: “All of these have confessed, none of them has died, and all of them remain incarcerated.” At least one death has been reported elsewhere, however. In a CIA facility in Kabul known as the “Salt Pit”, an officer, described as young and inexperienced, used the “cold treatment” on a detainee, who was left outdoors, naked, throughout a freezing Afghan night. He died of hypothermia. The case is being investigated, along with several others in Afghanistan and Iraq where interrogators — CIA officers, civilian contractors or members of the special forces — went well beyond the guidelines and suspects died as a result. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Colin Powell when he was US Secretary of State, said last week that he knew of more than 70 “questionable deaths” of detainees under US supervision up to the end of 2002, when he left office. That figure, he added, was now around 90.
These incidents are in addition to the increasingly well-documented practice of “rendition”: flying suspects to Middle Eastern countries where torture and deaths in custody are routine. “If you want a good interrogation, you send them to Jordan. If you want them dead, you send them to Egypt or Syria,” one former CIA agent is reported as saying. The McCain amendment, however, will have no impact on foreign torturers. It is mainly aimed at halting the abuses exposed at Abu Ghraib, where routine humiliations degenerated into sadism.
Yet only the low-ranking military police caught on camera in Abu Ghraib have been prosecuted. America’s covert forces are operating in a climate of impunity, described by Cofer Black, then CIA counter-terrorism chief, who told a congressional committee in 2002: “After 9/11, the gloves were off.” At one point, according to Newsweek, the Bush administration formally told the CIA it could not be prosecuted for any technique short of inflicting the kind of pain that accompanies organ failure or death.
The normal justification is that such methods could help avert a terror attack in which thousands might be killed. But are there any cases to prove it? Claims that the “waterboarding” of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed produced details of planned attacks on the US were sceptically received by one CIA official, who said: “What we got was probably not truthful. And there’s no way of knowing whether what good information they got could not have been obtained by more traditional means.”
CIA agents break ranks to disclose brutal ‘black sites’
By Raymond Whitaker
The Independent
WASHINGTON — Amid a growing row in the US over torture, a list of “enhanced interrogation techniques” used by CIA agents in secret prisons — including near-drowning, freezing, sleep deprivation, shaking and slapping — has been leaked. In at least one case, a prisoner has died.
The techniques have been authorised for use at CIA “black sites” abroad, at which top terror suspects are held. Last week the US-based organisation Human Rights Watch said “ghost detainees” were held at two military bases, in Poland and Romania. Similar sites in half a dozen other countries, leased from Britain, are now said to have been closed.
The existence of these detention facilities, and what happens inside them, are the most secret aspect of America’s “war on terror”. In contrast to military-run camps and prisons such as Guantanamo Bay in Cuba or Abu Ghraib in Iraq, where it was impossible to shield all CIA activity from outside scrutiny, the location of the “black sites” and the identities of those held there are made known only to a handful of senior officials in the US. In the host countries, only the president and top intelligence officials are aware of them.
Details of the secret prisons and the methods used in them have emerged mainly from CIA officers themselves, who said the public needed to know “the direction their agency has chosen”. They broke ranks amid a furore in Washington over an amendment to the White House military spending package going through Congress. Senator John McCain (Republican), a former US Navy pilot who was captured and tortured in Vietnam, wants an unequivocal ban on all “cruel and inhuman” treatment of prisoners in US custody, including those held by the CIA.
Eighty-nine of McCain’s fellow senators voted for his amendment, rejecting attempts by the CIA and Vice-President Dick Cheney — who said after 9/11 that “we have to work ... the dark side” — to exclude prisoners held at the “black sites”. For the first time President George Bush has threatened to exercise his veto on any defence bill that has the amendment attached.
The CIA prisons contain only the 30 or so most senior Al Qaeda captives. They include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the September 2001 attacks, Ramzi Binalshibh, another prime 9/11 suspect, and the Indonesian Riduan Isamuddin, better known as Hambali, accused of masterminding the Bali nightclub bombings in October 2002. Only the merest hints have emerged about their treatment, but according to the most graphic account, given to ABC News in the US, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed won the admiration of his interrogators by enduring “waterboarding” for up to two-and-a-half minutes before begging to confess. CIA officers who subjected themselves to the same technique lasted an average of 14 seconds.
ABC’s sources said that just over a dozen CIA interrogators were trained and authorised to use the “enhanced interrogation” techniques. At least three had declined involvement. The use of each technique on each prisoner had to be approved, stage by stage, up to the use of the “waterboard”. About a dozen “high-value” Al Qaeda targets had been interrogated in this way, and, as one put it: “All of these have confessed, none of them has died, and all of them remain incarcerated.” At least one death has been reported elsewhere, however. In a CIA facility in Kabul known as the “Salt Pit”, an officer, described as young and inexperienced, used the “cold treatment” on a detainee, who was left outdoors, naked, throughout a freezing Afghan night. He died of hypothermia. The case is being investigated, along with several others in Afghanistan and Iraq where interrogators — CIA officers, civilian contractors or members of the special forces — went well beyond the guidelines and suspects died as a result. Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Colin Powell when he was US Secretary of State, said last week that he knew of more than 70 “questionable deaths” of detainees under US supervision up to the end of 2002, when he left office. That figure, he added, was now around 90.
These incidents are in addition to the increasingly well-documented practice of “rendition”: flying suspects to Middle Eastern countries where torture and deaths in custody are routine. “If you want a good interrogation, you send them to Jordan. If you want them dead, you send them to Egypt or Syria,” one former CIA agent is reported as saying. The McCain amendment, however, will have no impact on foreign torturers. It is mainly aimed at halting the abuses exposed at Abu Ghraib, where routine humiliations degenerated into sadism.
Yet only the low-ranking military police caught on camera in Abu Ghraib have been prosecuted. America’s covert forces are operating in a climate of impunity, described by Cofer Black, then CIA counter-terrorism chief, who told a congressional committee in 2002: “After 9/11, the gloves were off.” At one point, according to Newsweek, the Bush administration formally told the CIA it could not be prosecuted for any technique short of inflicting the kind of pain that accompanies organ failure or death.
The normal justification is that such methods could help avert a terror attack in which thousands might be killed. But are there any cases to prove it? Claims that the “waterboarding” of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed produced details of planned attacks on the US were sceptically received by one CIA official, who said: “What we got was probably not truthful. And there’s no way of knowing whether what good information they got could not have been obtained by more traditional means.”
Retired generals and admirals subject to special investigation by Pentagon surveillance/intelligence team.
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
Retired generals and admirals subject to special investigation by Pentagon surveillance/intelligence team.
December 6, 2005 -- Retired generals and admirals subject to special investigation by Pentagon surveillance/intelligence team. Retired top U.S. generals and admirals planning to attend a December 7 meeting in Pentagon City, an office and hotel complex next to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, have drawn the interest of a special investigation by special agents of the Department of Defense. According to informed sources, the meeting, described as a "retreat," is to be attended by a number of former members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and key members of the U.S. Congress. The meeting is strictly a "no media" event, according to individuals familiar with its planning. Pentagon agents have called individuals who have been invited to the meeting and inquired about details and the involvement of active duty officers. The agents have also made contact with local police departments asking for assistance in tracking the movements of some of the invited attendees.
Retired generals and admirals subject to special investigation by Pentagon surveillance/intelligence team.
December 6, 2005 -- Retired generals and admirals subject to special investigation by Pentagon surveillance/intelligence team. Retired top U.S. generals and admirals planning to attend a December 7 meeting in Pentagon City, an office and hotel complex next to the Pentagon in Arlington, Virginia, have drawn the interest of a special investigation by special agents of the Department of Defense. According to informed sources, the meeting, described as a "retreat," is to be attended by a number of former members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and key members of the U.S. Congress. The meeting is strictly a "no media" event, according to individuals familiar with its planning. Pentagon agents have called individuals who have been invited to the meeting and inquired about details and the involvement of active duty officers. The agents have also made contact with local police departments asking for assistance in tracking the movements of some of the invited attendees.
Poll Shows Divide on Question of Torture
Poll Shows Divide on Question of Torture
Tuesday December 6, 2005 10:46 AM
By WILL LESTER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Most people in eight countries that are American allies don't want the United States conducting secret interrogations of terror suspects on their soil, an AP-Ipsos poll found.
Anxiety about recent reports of secret prisons run by the CIA in eastern Europe has been heightened by the ongoing debate on the use of torture. The poll found Americans and residents of many of the allied countries divided on the question of torture, with about as many saying it's OK in some cases as those saying it never should be used.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is traveling in Europe this week, said Monday the United States is following all laws and treaties on the treatment of terrorism suspects and has shared intelligence with its allies that has ``helped protect European countries from attack, saving European lives.''
Like other U.S. officials, Rice has refused to answer the underlying question of whether the CIA operated secret, Soviet-era prisons in Eastern Europe and whether CIA flights carried al-Qaida prisoners through European airports. She said the U.S. ``will use every lawful weapon to defeat these terrorists.''
About two-thirds of the people living in Canada, Mexico, South Korea and Spain said they would oppose allowing the U.S. to secretly interrogate terror suspects in their countries. Almost that many in Britain, France, Germany and Italy said they feel the same way. Almost two-thirds in the United States support such interrogations in the U.S. by their own government.
Officials with the European Union and in at least a half-dozen European countries are investigating the reports of secret U.S. interrogations in eastern Europe. The EU has threatened to revoke voting rights of any nation in the European Union that was host to a clandestine detention center.
After the report of secret prisons overseas, President Bush said, ``We do not torture.''
U.S. military forces have held hundreds of suspects at known installations outside the United States, including at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. has adopted aggressive interrogation techniques since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks - techniques some fear occasionally cross the line into torture.
``I thought we were the good guys,'' said Alan Schwartz, a political independent who lives near Buffalo, N.Y. ``I thought we were the ones with the high standards.''
Almost four in 10, 38 percent, in the United States said they thought torture could be justified at least sometimes. About one-fourth said it could be justified rarely, and 36 percent said it could never be justified.
About four in 10 in Mexico and France said torture is never justified. About half in Britain, Spain, Germany and Canada felt torture could never be justified, while only one in 10 in South Korea said torture is never OK, according to the polls of about 1,000 adults in each of the nine countries.
They were conducted between Nov. 15 and Nov. 28. Each poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The strongest opposition to torture came in Italy, where six in 10 said it is never justified.
``It doesn't matter if these people are dangerous, they still have a dignity and the right not to be tortured for whatever reason,'' said Maurizio Longo, an Italian real estate agent.
The Bush administration has taken the position that some terrorism suspects are ``enemy combatants'' not protected by the Geneva Conventions, which are international treaties that, among other things, spell out the rights of prisoners of war. In 2002, a group of Justice Department lawyers prepared internal memos that gave the government more freedom in the aggressive interrogation of terrorist suspects.
``The Bush administration policy is against torture of any kind; it's prohibited by federal criminal law,'' said John Yoo, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor who helped write the internal memos while at the Justice Department. ``The debate is whether you can use interrogation methods that are short of torture. Some who have been critical of the Bush administration have confused torture with cruel, inhumane treatment.''
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is pushing to ban the use of torture as well as ``cruel and inhumane treatment'' and said this week on NBC that he will accept no compromise.
The government has been redefining what counts as torture, said Gregg Bloche, a Georgetown law school professor and fellow at the Brookings Institution. Some interrogation techniques adopted by intelligence agencies and the military for locations like Guantanamo spread to other places like Iraq, he said.
Bloche said it will be difficult for the United States to reverse policy changes on aggressive interrogation because that might require an admission of wrongdoing.
``Once you're in the game,'' Bloche said, ``it's hard to get out.''
Tuesday December 6, 2005 10:46 AM
By WILL LESTER
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - Most people in eight countries that are American allies don't want the United States conducting secret interrogations of terror suspects on their soil, an AP-Ipsos poll found.
Anxiety about recent reports of secret prisons run by the CIA in eastern Europe has been heightened by the ongoing debate on the use of torture. The poll found Americans and residents of many of the allied countries divided on the question of torture, with about as many saying it's OK in some cases as those saying it never should be used.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is traveling in Europe this week, said Monday the United States is following all laws and treaties on the treatment of terrorism suspects and has shared intelligence with its allies that has ``helped protect European countries from attack, saving European lives.''
Like other U.S. officials, Rice has refused to answer the underlying question of whether the CIA operated secret, Soviet-era prisons in Eastern Europe and whether CIA flights carried al-Qaida prisoners through European airports. She said the U.S. ``will use every lawful weapon to defeat these terrorists.''
About two-thirds of the people living in Canada, Mexico, South Korea and Spain said they would oppose allowing the U.S. to secretly interrogate terror suspects in their countries. Almost that many in Britain, France, Germany and Italy said they feel the same way. Almost two-thirds in the United States support such interrogations in the U.S. by their own government.
Officials with the European Union and in at least a half-dozen European countries are investigating the reports of secret U.S. interrogations in eastern Europe. The EU has threatened to revoke voting rights of any nation in the European Union that was host to a clandestine detention center.
After the report of secret prisons overseas, President Bush said, ``We do not torture.''
U.S. military forces have held hundreds of suspects at known installations outside the United States, including at the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The U.S. has adopted aggressive interrogation techniques since the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks - techniques some fear occasionally cross the line into torture.
``I thought we were the good guys,'' said Alan Schwartz, a political independent who lives near Buffalo, N.Y. ``I thought we were the ones with the high standards.''
Almost four in 10, 38 percent, in the United States said they thought torture could be justified at least sometimes. About one-fourth said it could be justified rarely, and 36 percent said it could never be justified.
About four in 10 in Mexico and France said torture is never justified. About half in Britain, Spain, Germany and Canada felt torture could never be justified, while only one in 10 in South Korea said torture is never OK, according to the polls of about 1,000 adults in each of the nine countries.
They were conducted between Nov. 15 and Nov. 28. Each poll had a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
The strongest opposition to torture came in Italy, where six in 10 said it is never justified.
``It doesn't matter if these people are dangerous, they still have a dignity and the right not to be tortured for whatever reason,'' said Maurizio Longo, an Italian real estate agent.
The Bush administration has taken the position that some terrorism suspects are ``enemy combatants'' not protected by the Geneva Conventions, which are international treaties that, among other things, spell out the rights of prisoners of war. In 2002, a group of Justice Department lawyers prepared internal memos that gave the government more freedom in the aggressive interrogation of terrorist suspects.
``The Bush administration policy is against torture of any kind; it's prohibited by federal criminal law,'' said John Yoo, a University of California, Berkeley, law professor who helped write the internal memos while at the Justice Department. ``The debate is whether you can use interrogation methods that are short of torture. Some who have been critical of the Bush administration have confused torture with cruel, inhumane treatment.''
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is pushing to ban the use of torture as well as ``cruel and inhumane treatment'' and said this week on NBC that he will accept no compromise.
The government has been redefining what counts as torture, said Gregg Bloche, a Georgetown law school professor and fellow at the Brookings Institution. Some interrogation techniques adopted by intelligence agencies and the military for locations like Guantanamo spread to other places like Iraq, he said.
Bloche said it will be difficult for the United States to reverse policy changes on aggressive interrogation because that might require an admission of wrongdoing.
``Once you're in the game,'' Bloche said, ``it's hard to get out.''
U.S. Army report: Israel can't stop Iran nukes
U.S. Army report: Israel can't stop Iran nukes
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, December 5, 2005 http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/05/front2453710.0027777776.html
WASHINGTON — Geopolitical limitations render Israel's air force militarily incapable of halting Iran's nuclear weapons program according to a new report published the by U.S. Army War College.
The report asserts Israel lacks the military capability to locate and destroy Iranian nuclear assets. The report said the Israel Air Force cannot operate at such long distances from its bases.
"The Israeli Air Force has formidable capabilities and enjoys unchallenged supremacy vis-Ã -vis the other Middle East air powers, but Israel has no aircraft carriers and it cannot use airbases in other Middle East states," the report entitled "Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran," said. "Therefore its operational capabilities are reduced when the targets are located far from its territory."
[On Sunday, Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz warned that diplomatic pressure would not stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, Middle East Newsline reported. Halutz was one of three senior Israeli officials who warned that Iran would soon be able to turn into a nuclear power.]
In an article authored by Shlomo Brom, former head of air force strategic planning, the report said Israel's deep-strike air capability was based on the F-15I and F-16C/D aircraft. At a range of more than 600 kilometers, Brom said, Israel could not sustain an air campaign. Iran is about 1,000 kilometers from Israel.
"It is possible to determine that at long ranges — more then 600 kilometers — the IAF is capable of a few surgical strikes, but it is not capable of a sustained air campaign against a full array of targets," the report said.
An Israeli air attack on Iran must also include such support aircraft as air refueling, electronic countermeasures, support, communication, and rescue, the report said. The mission would also require precision intelligence.
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Brom said Israel's intelligence and military community was divided over the Iranian threat. He said military intelligence regards Iran as determined to destroy Israel. The Mossad and National Security Council see Teheran as preoccupied with national defense and regime survival.
"While the first school assumes no political pressure can force Iran to stop its military nuclear program, the other school believes that political pressure can be effective in at least delaying the nuclear program significantly," the report said. "The second school believes that a nuclear Iran with a different regime will not pose a high risk to Israel and can be easily deterred."
The report said the Bushehr nuclear power plant was vulnerable to attacks but does not constitute a key element of the military nuclear program. As a result, the destruction of Bushehr would not have a significant effect on Iran's military program.
Brom said Iranian nuclear assets are located between 1,500 and 1,700 kilometers from Israel. The report expressed doubts whether such Israeli allies as India and Turkey would allow Israel to launch a military strike from their territory.
"This means that the Israeli attack aircraft would have to take off from air bases in Israel, fly 1,500-1,700 kilometers to the targets, destroy them, and then fly back 1,500-1,700 kilometers," the report said.
The Israel Air Force has 25 F-15I and 137 F-16C/D fighter-bombers. The air force has already received more than 20 F-16Is, with longer range on the F-15I, but the report said the F-15I aircraft contains greater capabilities at long ranges.
The report said the F-15I has an operational radius of 1,270 kilometers. The F-16I has an operational radius of 2,100 kilometers while that of the F-16C/D is 925 kilometers.
But the report said the real operational radius was shorter because the planes would have to fly at low altitude to avoid radar detection. Brom said the Israeli aircraft could avoid Iranian air defense but would be detected.
"In any case, any Israeli attack on an Iranian nuclear target would be a very complex operation in which a relatively large number of attack aircraft and support aircraft — interceptors, ECM [electronic counter-measures] aircraft, refuelers, and rescue aircraft — would participate," the report said. "The conclusion is that Israel could attack only a few Iranian targets and not as part of a sustainable operation over time, but as a one time surprise operation."
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, December 5, 2005 http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/05/front2453710.0027777776.html
WASHINGTON — Geopolitical limitations render Israel's air force militarily incapable of halting Iran's nuclear weapons program according to a new report published the by U.S. Army War College.
The report asserts Israel lacks the military capability to locate and destroy Iranian nuclear assets. The report said the Israel Air Force cannot operate at such long distances from its bases.
"The Israeli Air Force has formidable capabilities and enjoys unchallenged supremacy vis-Ã -vis the other Middle East air powers, but Israel has no aircraft carriers and it cannot use airbases in other Middle East states," the report entitled "Getting Ready for a Nuclear-Ready Iran," said. "Therefore its operational capabilities are reduced when the targets are located far from its territory."
[On Sunday, Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Dan Halutz warned that diplomatic pressure would not stop Iran's nuclear weapons program, Middle East Newsline reported. Halutz was one of three senior Israeli officials who warned that Iran would soon be able to turn into a nuclear power.]
In an article authored by Shlomo Brom, former head of air force strategic planning, the report said Israel's deep-strike air capability was based on the F-15I and F-16C/D aircraft. At a range of more than 600 kilometers, Brom said, Israel could not sustain an air campaign. Iran is about 1,000 kilometers from Israel.
"It is possible to determine that at long ranges — more then 600 kilometers — the IAF is capable of a few surgical strikes, but it is not capable of a sustained air campaign against a full array of targets," the report said.
An Israeli air attack on Iran must also include such support aircraft as air refueling, electronic countermeasures, support, communication, and rescue, the report said. The mission would also require precision intelligence.
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Brom said Israel's intelligence and military community was divided over the Iranian threat. He said military intelligence regards Iran as determined to destroy Israel. The Mossad and National Security Council see Teheran as preoccupied with national defense and regime survival.
"While the first school assumes no political pressure can force Iran to stop its military nuclear program, the other school believes that political pressure can be effective in at least delaying the nuclear program significantly," the report said. "The second school believes that a nuclear Iran with a different regime will not pose a high risk to Israel and can be easily deterred."
The report said the Bushehr nuclear power plant was vulnerable to attacks but does not constitute a key element of the military nuclear program. As a result, the destruction of Bushehr would not have a significant effect on Iran's military program.
Brom said Iranian nuclear assets are located between 1,500 and 1,700 kilometers from Israel. The report expressed doubts whether such Israeli allies as India and Turkey would allow Israel to launch a military strike from their territory.
"This means that the Israeli attack aircraft would have to take off from air bases in Israel, fly 1,500-1,700 kilometers to the targets, destroy them, and then fly back 1,500-1,700 kilometers," the report said.
The Israel Air Force has 25 F-15I and 137 F-16C/D fighter-bombers. The air force has already received more than 20 F-16Is, with longer range on the F-15I, but the report said the F-15I aircraft contains greater capabilities at long ranges.
The report said the F-15I has an operational radius of 1,270 kilometers. The F-16I has an operational radius of 2,100 kilometers while that of the F-16C/D is 925 kilometers.
But the report said the real operational radius was shorter because the planes would have to fly at low altitude to avoid radar detection. Brom said the Israeli aircraft could avoid Iranian air defense but would be detected.
"In any case, any Israeli attack on an Iranian nuclear target would be a very complex operation in which a relatively large number of attack aircraft and support aircraft — interceptors, ECM [electronic counter-measures] aircraft, refuelers, and rescue aircraft — would participate," the report said. "The conclusion is that Israel could attack only a few Iranian targets and not as part of a sustainable operation over time, but as a one time surprise operation."
Corrosive Israeli Mossad in Iraqi Kurdistan
Corrosive Israeli Mossad in Iraqi Kurdistan
Imad Khadduri, Free Iraq
December 2, 2005
For the past year, every single news excerpt that has been posted on this site has been meticulously referenced to its original source. This posting will not be able to do that since the source, Yedioth Ahronoth, is in Hebrew with rare translations of its content in English and Arabic. However, these items are noteworthy.
Israelis trained Kurds in Iraq Yediot Ahronot, December 1, 2005
"A number of Israeli companies have won contracts with the Kurdish government in northern Iraq to train and equip Kurdish security forces and build an international airport, Yedioth Ahronoth reports; al-Qaeda warning of attack prompts hasty exit of all Israeli instructors from region Anat Tal-Shir.
Dozens of Israelis with a background in elite military combat training have been working for private Israeli companies in northern Iraq where they helped the Kurds establish elite anti-terror units, Israel’s leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronot revealed Thursday.
According to the report, the Kurdish government contracted Israeli security and communications companies to train Kurdish security forces and provide them with advanced equipment.
Motorola Israel and Magalcom Communications and Computers won contracts with the Kurdish government to the tune of hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars.
The flagship of the contracts is the construction of an international airport in the northern Kurdish city of Ibril, a stepping stone towards the fulfillment of Kurdish national aspirations for independence.
In addition to Motorola and Magalcom, a company owned by Israeli entrepreneur Shlomi Michaels is in full business partnership with the Kurdish government,providing strategic consultation on economic and security issues.
The strategic consultation company was initially established by former Mossad chief Danny Yatom (Labor) and Michaels, yet Yatom sold his shares upon his election to the Knesset.
But that’s not all. Leading Israeli companies in the field of security and counter-terrorism have set up a training camp under the codename Z at a secret location in a deserted region in northern Iraq, where Israeli experts provide training in live fire exercises and self-defense to Kurdish security forces.
Al-Qaeda warning prompts hasty Israeli exit
Tons of equipment, including motorcycles, tractors, sniffer dogs, systems to upgrade Kalashnikov rifles, and bulletproof vests, have been shipped to Iraq’s northern region, with most products stamped 'Made in Israel.’
The Israeli instructors entered Iraq through Turkey using their Israeli passports, undercover as agriculture experts and infrastructure engineers.
The Kurds had insisted the cooperation projects were kept secret, fearing exposure would motivate terror groups to target their Jewish guests.
Recent warnings that al-Qaeda may plan an attack on Kurdish training camps, prompted a hasty exit of all Israeli trainers from Iraq’s northern Kurdish regions.
The Defense Ministry said in response to the report that, "We haven’t allowed Israelis to work in Iraq, and each activity, if performed, was a private initiative, without our authorization, and is under the responsibility of the employers and the employees involved."
"The Defense Ministry renews its warning to Israeli citizens who choose to ignore our guidance and travel to banned destinations."
MK denies connection to strategic firm
Motorola Israel said it is a U.S. company that operates in over 70 countries throughout the world, including in Iraq where it helped set up a cellular phone network and provided communications systems and equipment to Iraqi security forces.
"Motorola’s global operations are in full accordance with U.S. laws, and the laws of local governments," a Motorola official said.
Magalcom sufficed with the following statement: "Being a public company traded on the NASDAQ and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Magalcom reports on its activities as required by law. The company is not in the habit of disclosing information about its customers beyond what appears in our reports."
MK Yatom said he has had no contact with the strategic consultation company since being elected to the Knesset.
"I haven’t promoted it and insisted on not receiving updates about its activities," he said.
Imad Khadduri, Free Iraq
December 2, 2005
For the past year, every single news excerpt that has been posted on this site has been meticulously referenced to its original source. This posting will not be able to do that since the source, Yedioth Ahronoth, is in Hebrew with rare translations of its content in English and Arabic. However, these items are noteworthy.
Israelis trained Kurds in Iraq Yediot Ahronot, December 1, 2005
"A number of Israeli companies have won contracts with the Kurdish government in northern Iraq to train and equip Kurdish security forces and build an international airport, Yedioth Ahronoth reports; al-Qaeda warning of attack prompts hasty exit of all Israeli instructors from region Anat Tal-Shir.
Dozens of Israelis with a background in elite military combat training have been working for private Israeli companies in northern Iraq where they helped the Kurds establish elite anti-terror units, Israel’s leading newspaper Yedioth Ahronot revealed Thursday.
According to the report, the Kurdish government contracted Israeli security and communications companies to train Kurdish security forces and provide them with advanced equipment.
Motorola Israel and Magalcom Communications and Computers won contracts with the Kurdish government to the tune of hundreds of millions of U.S. dollars.
The flagship of the contracts is the construction of an international airport in the northern Kurdish city of Ibril, a stepping stone towards the fulfillment of Kurdish national aspirations for independence.
In addition to Motorola and Magalcom, a company owned by Israeli entrepreneur Shlomi Michaels is in full business partnership with the Kurdish government,providing strategic consultation on economic and security issues.
The strategic consultation company was initially established by former Mossad chief Danny Yatom (Labor) and Michaels, yet Yatom sold his shares upon his election to the Knesset.
But that’s not all. Leading Israeli companies in the field of security and counter-terrorism have set up a training camp under the codename Z at a secret location in a deserted region in northern Iraq, where Israeli experts provide training in live fire exercises and self-defense to Kurdish security forces.
Al-Qaeda warning prompts hasty Israeli exit
Tons of equipment, including motorcycles, tractors, sniffer dogs, systems to upgrade Kalashnikov rifles, and bulletproof vests, have been shipped to Iraq’s northern region, with most products stamped 'Made in Israel.’
The Israeli instructors entered Iraq through Turkey using their Israeli passports, undercover as agriculture experts and infrastructure engineers.
The Kurds had insisted the cooperation projects were kept secret, fearing exposure would motivate terror groups to target their Jewish guests.
Recent warnings that al-Qaeda may plan an attack on Kurdish training camps, prompted a hasty exit of all Israeli trainers from Iraq’s northern Kurdish regions.
The Defense Ministry said in response to the report that, "We haven’t allowed Israelis to work in Iraq, and each activity, if performed, was a private initiative, without our authorization, and is under the responsibility of the employers and the employees involved."
"The Defense Ministry renews its warning to Israeli citizens who choose to ignore our guidance and travel to banned destinations."
MK denies connection to strategic firm
Motorola Israel said it is a U.S. company that operates in over 70 countries throughout the world, including in Iraq where it helped set up a cellular phone network and provided communications systems and equipment to Iraqi security forces.
"Motorola’s global operations are in full accordance with U.S. laws, and the laws of local governments," a Motorola official said.
Magalcom sufficed with the following statement: "Being a public company traded on the NASDAQ and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange, Magalcom reports on its activities as required by law. The company is not in the habit of disclosing information about its customers beyond what appears in our reports."
MK Yatom said he has had no contact with the strategic consultation company since being elected to the Knesset.
"I haven’t promoted it and insisted on not receiving updates about its activities," he said.
Lila Rajiva: the Torture-Go-Round
Lila Rajiva: the Torture-Go-Round
The CIA's Rendition Flights to Secret Prisons
The Torture-Go-Round
By LILA RAJIVA
Dana Priest's recent Washington Post article, "Anatomy of a CIA 'rendition' gone wrong"(1) only confirms what those who have watched the torture scandal closely already know. Abu Ghraib was no anomaly but the most visible tip of a widespread but clandestine policy. Priest reveals details about a case in which the CIA used German, Macedonian, Albanian and Afghan authorities and European air space and terminals to "render" a German citizen snatched up abroad for interrogation and torture, without any material cause.
Here's the case that's now causing a furor in Europe:
Khaled al-Masri, a German citizen resident in Ulm, Germany, went on a trip to Macedonia, was arrested by local authorities on New Year's Eve, 2003 and held for over 3 weeks in a motel. Then, he was handcuffed, blindfolded, stripped by masked men, drugged, diapered and flown to Afghanistan, on the basis of a "hunch" by a counter-terrorist chief in the CIA. The hunch was no more than the fact that Masri's name resembled that of an associate of one of the 9-11 hijackers
Masri was imprisoned for five months by Afghans and possibly Americans and claims he was tortured. A bus driver confirms that Masri was snatched up by border guards on the date he alleges; forensic analysis of his hair shows malnutrition during the time he claims he was imprisoned; flight logs confirm that a CIA front company flew a plane out of Macedonia on the day he says he was abducted.
Back in the US, Masri's passport and story held up and in May 2004, around the time when the Abu Ghraib scandal first burst into public view in America, the White House sent U.S. ambassador in Germany, Daniel R. Coats, on a special mission to German Interior Minister Schily, an ardent Bush supporter, to inform him of the error and tell him to keep the details secret should Masri go public.
Later in May, Masri claims he was visited in prison by a man he says was German, who told him that he was going to be released without documents that might confirm his story because the Americans would never admit to a mistake. He was released, flown out to Albania - Macedonia wouldn't admit him - and dumped onto a narrow country road at dusk. From there he was escorted to the international airport at Tirana by armed men and rejoined his family in Lebanon where they'd gone.
Masri's attorneys say they intend to file a lawsuit in U.S. courts this week. Neither the CIA nor the German ministry which was told about the case, is talking.
Masri's story is given support by other news pouring in from all over Europe in the last week:
December 1: The British Guardian reports that over 300 CIA flights have landed at European airports and that CIA planes visited Germany and Britain over 200 times, if chartered flights are included. According to the NY Times, there were 94 flights in Germany, 76 in Britain, 33 in Ireland, 16 in Portugal, 15 in Spain and Czechoslovakia each and two chartered flights that made stopovers in France. French officials say they had no knowledge of the clandestine flights. If so, the flights certainly violated French sovereignty.(2)
December 2: Le Figaro in France adds that the first flight was made on March 31, 2002 by a Lear jet that stopped in Brest en route from Iceland to Turkey, via Rome. The crew was reportedly alone. The second flight, which stopped over near Paris on July 20, 2005, from Norway, was a Gulfstream III jet that landed six times at Guantanamo.(3)
December 3: Berliner Zeitung in Germany reports that CIA aircraft used European airports minimally 15 times this past year and says that America's Ramstein Air Base (Germany) was a hub for the flights between 2002 and 2004. (4)
December 4: The Council of Europe, the foremost human rights watchdog in Europe, headed by Swiss senator Dick Marty and using satellite imagery, makes its first closed door report in Paris on "black sites" in eastern Europe and the flights in Europe. Marty also cites the illegal abduction in February 2003 of accused terrorist and Egyptian cleric Abu Omar from Milan to Germany and then Egypt, where he was reportedly tortured. (5)
Human Rights Watch identifies the Kogalniceanu military airfield in Romania and Poland's Szczytno-Szymany airport as probable sites based on flight logs of the CIA aircraft between 2001 to 2004. Other airports possibly used were Palma de Majorca in Spain's Balearic Islands, Larnaca in Cyprus, and Shannon in Ireland. The CIA flight logs were analyzed by Mark Galasco, a senior military analyst with the organization who was formerly a civilian intelligence office with the Defense Intelligence Agency. Not someone who can be easily dismissed as anti-American. (6)
Meanwhile, Poland and Romania as well as another ten nations deny having CIA facilities in their territory while Austria and Denmark are investigating US violations of their air space. There are over six investigations into flights in various countries.
To all this the White House has tried outright denial. Stephen Hadley, the National Security Advisor, told Fox News Sunday on December 4,
"... we comply with U.S. law. We respect the sovereignty of the countries with which we deal. And we do not move people around the world so that they can be tortured."
But when asked on CNN's "Late Edition" specifically if the U.S. operates secret prisons in Europe, Hadley side-stepped a clear-cut denial, preferring to fudge, "there is a lot of cooperation at a variety of levels on the war on terror."
Hadley is lying on all three counts he cites -
1. As the flight logs and investigative reports document, the US is moving people around the world to be tortured.
2. Since all 25 member states have signed the European Convention on Human Rights, and the International Convention Against Torture, secret torture cells would indeed be a violation of the laws of foreign countries. If officials in this country did not know about these flights, as seems to be the case, then the US did indeed violate their national sovereignty.
3. The United Nations Convention Against Torture was also ratified by the U.S in 1994, and it requires "substantial grounds for believing" that a detainee will be tortured abroad.
Since Syria, Jordan, Egypt and many of the other countries where suspects have been rendered have turned up all too frequently as violators in human rights monitoring and have been cited by the State Department itself, the US cannot plausibly argue as it has, that it does not have "substantial grounds for believing" rendered suspects would be tortured there. Its own officials are on record saying just the opposite. Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former counterterrorism director, told Newsday about an al-Qaeda suspect taken to Egypt, "They promptly tore his fingernails out and he started to tell things." (February 6, 2003). Former CIA agent Bob Baer told The New Statesman, "If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear -- never to see them again -- you send them to Egypt,"
Since CIA officials knew the fate in store of those rendered, the US is in utter
violation of international laws on torture which are binding on it.
It's not necessary anymore to hedge discussion of the program with words like "alleged," for Masri is only the latest in a long line of renditions without cause/due process of any kind: Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born Australian citizen, seized by a CIA team in Pakistan in October 2001, sent to Egypt, burned, electrocuted and beaten till he bled in his sleep from his nose, mouth, and ears, was dumped in Guantanamo and then released without being charged; Mohamedou Oulad Slahi, a Mauritanian and former Canada resident, taken by the CIA to Jordan for interrogation for 8 months, was sent to Guantanamo and released; Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni, an Egyptian imprisoned by Indonesia authorities in January 2002, flown to Egypt for interrogation, was returned to the CIA four months later, held for 13 months in Afghanistan, then sent to Guantanamo and later released; Maher Arar a naturalized Canadian citizen, kidnapped in New York in September 2002, was taken to Syria, held in a coffin and tortured with metal whips. He proved to have no ties to terrorism and was released.
Masri is telling the truth. There is just too much testimony from detainees that makes substantially the same charges, too many CIA admissions and leaks, too many eye-witness reports, the meticulously analyzed flight logs and even supporting medical evidence.
The Masri case is without any doubt an illegal operation involving authorities in at least five countries - Macedonia, Afghanistan, Germany, Albania, and the U.S.
Let me spell that out. In pursuit of the global war on terror, the U.S. government, apparently conspiring with foreign intelligence, has snatched a citizen of one country off the streets of another for no credible reason whatsoever, violating the sovereignty of several foreign countries in the process. It has then sent him to still another foreign country for torture for several months. And, having found itself mistaken, it has confiscated/withheld the documents necessary for the victim to substantiate a legal claim against the US government. There was no formal charge, there was no notification of the family, there were no witnesses called, there was no lawyer provided, there was no explanation or restitution offered.
Again, note. The CIA held these prisoners in contravention of the laws even of the torturing countries. Even Egypt, Syria or Jordan have legal systems - however harsh - that would have necessitated charges and a legal defense. But as ex-FBI agent Dan Coleman has stated, "We're taking people, and keeping them in our own custody [my emphasis] in third countries. That's an enormous problem....There was a process there [in Egypt]," Coleman says. "But what's our process? We have no method over there other than our laws"and we've decided to ignore them. What are we now, the Huns? If you don't talk to us, we'll kill you?" (7)
What is also clamoring to be asked is if the black sites allegedly in Eastern Europe - and according to the Post article, also in Thailand - are really all that there are to the story?
Given the extraordinary sensitivity of the whole program, what are the chances that CIA leaks tell the whole story? What about Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, and many other countries partnered with the US in the global war on terror who have dismal human rights records.
Uzbekistan has recently been in the news about just that. Craig Murray, the former British ambassador there, told 60 Minutes that Uzbek citizens, captured in Afghanistan, were flown back to Tashkent on an American plane operating on a regular basis. Uzbeki torture techniques include drowning, suffocation, rape, and immersion in boiling liquid. Murray calls these techniques "medieval" but there is not one that has not been used by the US, not only in the war on terror" but within US prisons. When Murray complained that British intelligence was using information elicited by torture, he was recalled and quit the foreign service.(8)
Indonesia is another strong candidate to have black sites, since the Asian tsunami last year provided the perfect justification and cover for US spy satellites and military to enter the area. Just this past November 23, the Bush administration announced it will lift a six-year arms embargo and resume full relations with the Indonesian military providing aid to "support US and Indonesian security objectives, including counterterrorism, [my emphasis] maritime security and disaster relief." (9)
And what about Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean? The US has vehemently denied a black site there, but what credibility do such denials have? Could the focus on Eastern Europe turn out to be an elaborate feint or a secondary story, as so much else in the uncovering of this story?
Masri claims he was not tortured but beaten. How many unknown victims permanently "disappeared"?
Finally, let's not forget that the Masri case was known at the highest level and concealed with the knowledge of then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. And for good reason. At a time when the administration was frantically dismissing Abu Ghraib as a case of a "few rotten apples," Masri's case shows it for what it really was - a reckless policy put in place by the administration in violation of US and international laws.
Lila Rajiva is a free-lance journalist and author of "The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American media," (Monthly Review Press). She can be reached at: lrajiva@hotmail.com
Notes:
1. Dana Priest, "Anatomy of a CIA rendition gone wrong," Washington Post, December 4, 2005. Also, Dana Priest, "CIA Hold Terror Suspects in Secret Sites," Washington Post, November 2, 2005.
2. "Twist to terror suspects row as logs show 80 CIA planes visited UK," Guardian, UK, December 1, 2005 and "Reports of Secret U.S. Prisons in Europe Draw Ire and Otherwise Red Faces," Ian Fisher, NY Times, December 1, 2005.
3. "Paper: CIA flights made stopovers in France," AP, December 2, 2005.
4. "CIA's secret detainee flights concern Germany," AP November 26, 2005.
5. "Many Hints of CIA prison flights," AP, November 22, 2005.
6. "EU to probe reports of secret CIA prisons," AP, November 3, 2005
7. "Outsourcing Torture," Jane Meyer, New Yorker, February 7/14, 2005.
8. "CIA Flying Suspects To Torture?" CBS Sixty Minutes, March 6, 2005.
9. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/23/152214.
_
The CIA's Rendition Flights to Secret Prisons
The Torture-Go-Round
By LILA RAJIVA
Dana Priest's recent Washington Post article, "Anatomy of a CIA 'rendition' gone wrong"(1) only confirms what those who have watched the torture scandal closely already know. Abu Ghraib was no anomaly but the most visible tip of a widespread but clandestine policy. Priest reveals details about a case in which the CIA used German, Macedonian, Albanian and Afghan authorities and European air space and terminals to "render" a German citizen snatched up abroad for interrogation and torture, without any material cause.
Here's the case that's now causing a furor in Europe:
Khaled al-Masri, a German citizen resident in Ulm, Germany, went on a trip to Macedonia, was arrested by local authorities on New Year's Eve, 2003 and held for over 3 weeks in a motel. Then, he was handcuffed, blindfolded, stripped by masked men, drugged, diapered and flown to Afghanistan, on the basis of a "hunch" by a counter-terrorist chief in the CIA. The hunch was no more than the fact that Masri's name resembled that of an associate of one of the 9-11 hijackers
Masri was imprisoned for five months by Afghans and possibly Americans and claims he was tortured. A bus driver confirms that Masri was snatched up by border guards on the date he alleges; forensic analysis of his hair shows malnutrition during the time he claims he was imprisoned; flight logs confirm that a CIA front company flew a plane out of Macedonia on the day he says he was abducted.
Back in the US, Masri's passport and story held up and in May 2004, around the time when the Abu Ghraib scandal first burst into public view in America, the White House sent U.S. ambassador in Germany, Daniel R. Coats, on a special mission to German Interior Minister Schily, an ardent Bush supporter, to inform him of the error and tell him to keep the details secret should Masri go public.
Later in May, Masri claims he was visited in prison by a man he says was German, who told him that he was going to be released without documents that might confirm his story because the Americans would never admit to a mistake. He was released, flown out to Albania - Macedonia wouldn't admit him - and dumped onto a narrow country road at dusk. From there he was escorted to the international airport at Tirana by armed men and rejoined his family in Lebanon where they'd gone.
Masri's attorneys say they intend to file a lawsuit in U.S. courts this week. Neither the CIA nor the German ministry which was told about the case, is talking.
Masri's story is given support by other news pouring in from all over Europe in the last week:
December 1: The British Guardian reports that over 300 CIA flights have landed at European airports and that CIA planes visited Germany and Britain over 200 times, if chartered flights are included. According to the NY Times, there were 94 flights in Germany, 76 in Britain, 33 in Ireland, 16 in Portugal, 15 in Spain and Czechoslovakia each and two chartered flights that made stopovers in France. French officials say they had no knowledge of the clandestine flights. If so, the flights certainly violated French sovereignty.(2)
December 2: Le Figaro in France adds that the first flight was made on March 31, 2002 by a Lear jet that stopped in Brest en route from Iceland to Turkey, via Rome. The crew was reportedly alone. The second flight, which stopped over near Paris on July 20, 2005, from Norway, was a Gulfstream III jet that landed six times at Guantanamo.(3)
December 3: Berliner Zeitung in Germany reports that CIA aircraft used European airports minimally 15 times this past year and says that America's Ramstein Air Base (Germany) was a hub for the flights between 2002 and 2004. (4)
December 4: The Council of Europe, the foremost human rights watchdog in Europe, headed by Swiss senator Dick Marty and using satellite imagery, makes its first closed door report in Paris on "black sites" in eastern Europe and the flights in Europe. Marty also cites the illegal abduction in February 2003 of accused terrorist and Egyptian cleric Abu Omar from Milan to Germany and then Egypt, where he was reportedly tortured. (5)
Human Rights Watch identifies the Kogalniceanu military airfield in Romania and Poland's Szczytno-Szymany airport as probable sites based on flight logs of the CIA aircraft between 2001 to 2004. Other airports possibly used were Palma de Majorca in Spain's Balearic Islands, Larnaca in Cyprus, and Shannon in Ireland. The CIA flight logs were analyzed by Mark Galasco, a senior military analyst with the organization who was formerly a civilian intelligence office with the Defense Intelligence Agency. Not someone who can be easily dismissed as anti-American. (6)
Meanwhile, Poland and Romania as well as another ten nations deny having CIA facilities in their territory while Austria and Denmark are investigating US violations of their air space. There are over six investigations into flights in various countries.
To all this the White House has tried outright denial. Stephen Hadley, the National Security Advisor, told Fox News Sunday on December 4,
"... we comply with U.S. law. We respect the sovereignty of the countries with which we deal. And we do not move people around the world so that they can be tortured."
But when asked on CNN's "Late Edition" specifically if the U.S. operates secret prisons in Europe, Hadley side-stepped a clear-cut denial, preferring to fudge, "there is a lot of cooperation at a variety of levels on the war on terror."
Hadley is lying on all three counts he cites -
1. As the flight logs and investigative reports document, the US is moving people around the world to be tortured.
2. Since all 25 member states have signed the European Convention on Human Rights, and the International Convention Against Torture, secret torture cells would indeed be a violation of the laws of foreign countries. If officials in this country did not know about these flights, as seems to be the case, then the US did indeed violate their national sovereignty.
3. The United Nations Convention Against Torture was also ratified by the U.S in 1994, and it requires "substantial grounds for believing" that a detainee will be tortured abroad.
Since Syria, Jordan, Egypt and many of the other countries where suspects have been rendered have turned up all too frequently as violators in human rights monitoring and have been cited by the State Department itself, the US cannot plausibly argue as it has, that it does not have "substantial grounds for believing" rendered suspects would be tortured there. Its own officials are on record saying just the opposite. Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former counterterrorism director, told Newsday about an al-Qaeda suspect taken to Egypt, "They promptly tore his fingernails out and he started to tell things." (February 6, 2003). Former CIA agent Bob Baer told The New Statesman, "If you want them to be tortured, you send them to Syria. If you want someone to disappear -- never to see them again -- you send them to Egypt,"
Since CIA officials knew the fate in store of those rendered, the US is in utter
violation of international laws on torture which are binding on it.
It's not necessary anymore to hedge discussion of the program with words like "alleged," for Masri is only the latest in a long line of renditions without cause/due process of any kind: Mamdouh Habib, an Egyptian-born Australian citizen, seized by a CIA team in Pakistan in October 2001, sent to Egypt, burned, electrocuted and beaten till he bled in his sleep from his nose, mouth, and ears, was dumped in Guantanamo and then released without being charged; Mohamedou Oulad Slahi, a Mauritanian and former Canada resident, taken by the CIA to Jordan for interrogation for 8 months, was sent to Guantanamo and released; Muhammad Saad Iqbal Madni, an Egyptian imprisoned by Indonesia authorities in January 2002, flown to Egypt for interrogation, was returned to the CIA four months later, held for 13 months in Afghanistan, then sent to Guantanamo and later released; Maher Arar a naturalized Canadian citizen, kidnapped in New York in September 2002, was taken to Syria, held in a coffin and tortured with metal whips. He proved to have no ties to terrorism and was released.
Masri is telling the truth. There is just too much testimony from detainees that makes substantially the same charges, too many CIA admissions and leaks, too many eye-witness reports, the meticulously analyzed flight logs and even supporting medical evidence.
The Masri case is without any doubt an illegal operation involving authorities in at least five countries - Macedonia, Afghanistan, Germany, Albania, and the U.S.
Let me spell that out. In pursuit of the global war on terror, the U.S. government, apparently conspiring with foreign intelligence, has snatched a citizen of one country off the streets of another for no credible reason whatsoever, violating the sovereignty of several foreign countries in the process. It has then sent him to still another foreign country for torture for several months. And, having found itself mistaken, it has confiscated/withheld the documents necessary for the victim to substantiate a legal claim against the US government. There was no formal charge, there was no notification of the family, there were no witnesses called, there was no lawyer provided, there was no explanation or restitution offered.
Again, note. The CIA held these prisoners in contravention of the laws even of the torturing countries. Even Egypt, Syria or Jordan have legal systems - however harsh - that would have necessitated charges and a legal defense. But as ex-FBI agent Dan Coleman has stated, "We're taking people, and keeping them in our own custody [my emphasis] in third countries. That's an enormous problem....There was a process there [in Egypt]," Coleman says. "But what's our process? We have no method over there other than our laws"and we've decided to ignore them. What are we now, the Huns? If you don't talk to us, we'll kill you?" (7)
What is also clamoring to be asked is if the black sites allegedly in Eastern Europe - and according to the Post article, also in Thailand - are really all that there are to the story?
Given the extraordinary sensitivity of the whole program, what are the chances that CIA leaks tell the whole story? What about Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Pakistan, and many other countries partnered with the US in the global war on terror who have dismal human rights records.
Uzbekistan has recently been in the news about just that. Craig Murray, the former British ambassador there, told 60 Minutes that Uzbek citizens, captured in Afghanistan, were flown back to Tashkent on an American plane operating on a regular basis. Uzbeki torture techniques include drowning, suffocation, rape, and immersion in boiling liquid. Murray calls these techniques "medieval" but there is not one that has not been used by the US, not only in the war on terror" but within US prisons. When Murray complained that British intelligence was using information elicited by torture, he was recalled and quit the foreign service.(8)
Indonesia is another strong candidate to have black sites, since the Asian tsunami last year provided the perfect justification and cover for US spy satellites and military to enter the area. Just this past November 23, the Bush administration announced it will lift a six-year arms embargo and resume full relations with the Indonesian military providing aid to "support US and Indonesian security objectives, including counterterrorism, [my emphasis] maritime security and disaster relief." (9)
And what about Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean? The US has vehemently denied a black site there, but what credibility do such denials have? Could the focus on Eastern Europe turn out to be an elaborate feint or a secondary story, as so much else in the uncovering of this story?
Masri claims he was not tortured but beaten. How many unknown victims permanently "disappeared"?
Finally, let's not forget that the Masri case was known at the highest level and concealed with the knowledge of then National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. And for good reason. At a time when the administration was frantically dismissing Abu Ghraib as a case of a "few rotten apples," Masri's case shows it for what it really was - a reckless policy put in place by the administration in violation of US and international laws.
Lila Rajiva is a free-lance journalist and author of "The Language of Empire: Abu Ghraib and the American media," (Monthly Review Press). She can be reached at: lrajiva@hotmail.com
Notes:
1. Dana Priest, "Anatomy of a CIA rendition gone wrong," Washington Post, December 4, 2005. Also, Dana Priest, "CIA Hold Terror Suspects in Secret Sites," Washington Post, November 2, 2005.
2. "Twist to terror suspects row as logs show 80 CIA planes visited UK," Guardian, UK, December 1, 2005 and "Reports of Secret U.S. Prisons in Europe Draw Ire and Otherwise Red Faces," Ian Fisher, NY Times, December 1, 2005.
3. "Paper: CIA flights made stopovers in France," AP, December 2, 2005.
4. "CIA's secret detainee flights concern Germany," AP November 26, 2005.
5. "Many Hints of CIA prison flights," AP, November 22, 2005.
6. "EU to probe reports of secret CIA prisons," AP, November 3, 2005
7. "Outsourcing Torture," Jane Meyer, New Yorker, February 7/14, 2005.
8. "CIA Flying Suspects To Torture?" CBS Sixty Minutes, March 6, 2005.
9. http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/23/152214.
_
No exceptions to the ban on torture
No exceptions to the ban on torture
Louise Arbour International Herald Tribune
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2005
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/12/06/opinion/edarbour.php
GENEVA The absolute ban on torture, a cornerstone of the international human rights edifice, is under attack. The principle we once believed to be unassailable - the inherent right to physical integrity and dignity of the person - is becoming a casualty of the so-called war on terror.
No one disputes that governments have not only the right but also the duty to protect their citizens from attacks. The threat of international terrorism calls for increased coordination by law enforcement authorities within and across borders. And imminent or clear dangers at times permit limitations on certain rights. The right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is not one of these. This right may not be subject to any limitation, anywhere, under any condition.
Many UN member states disregard this prohibition and continue to subject their citizens and others to torture and ill-treatment. Although a broad range of safeguards is available now to prevent torture, many states have either not incorporated them in their legislation or, if they have, do not respect them in practice.
Particularly insidious are moves to water down or question the absolute ban on torture, as well as on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Governments in several countries are claiming that established rules do not apply anymore: that we live in a changed world. They argue that this justifies a lowering of the bar as to what constitutes permissible treatment of detainees. An illegal interrogation technique, however, remains illegal whatever new description a government might wish to give it.
Two phenomena have an acutely corrosive effect on the global ban on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The first is the practice of having recourse to so-called diplomatic assurances to justify the return and "rendering" of suspects to countries where they face a risk of torture; the second is the holding of prisoners in secret detention.
The trend of seeking "diplomatic assurances" allegedly to overcome the risk of torture is very troubling. The international legal ban on torture prohibits transferring persons - no matter what their crime or suspected activity - to a place where they would be at risk of torture and other ill-treatment (the non-refoulement obligation).
Faced with the option of deporting terrorism suspects and others to countries where the risk of torture is well documented, some governments, in particular in Europe and in North America, purport to overcome that risk by seeking diplomatic assurances that torture and cruel, degrading or inhuman treatment will not be inflicted.
There are many reasons to be skeptical about the value of those assurances. If there is no risk of torture in a particular case, they are unnecessary and redundant. If there is a risk, how effective are these assurances likely to be?
But the problem runs deeper. The fact that some governments conclude legally nonbinding agreements with other governments on a matter that is at the core of several legally binding UN instruments threatens to empty international human rights law of its content. Diplomatic assurances create a two-class system among detainees, attempting to provide for a special bilateral protection regime for a selected few and ignoring the systematic torture of other detainees, even though all are entitled to the equal protection of existing UN instruments.
Let me turn to my second concern. An unknown number of "war on terror" detainees are alleged to be held in secret custody in unknown locations. Holding people in secret detention, with the detainee's fate or whereabouts, or the very fact of their detention, undisclosed, amounts to "disappearance," which in and of itself has been found to amount to torture or ill-treatment of the disappeared person or of the families and communities deprived of any information about the missing person.
Furthermore, prolonged incommunicado detention or detention in secret places facilitates the perpetration of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Whatever the value of the information obtained in secret facilities - and there is reason to doubt the reliability of intelligence gained through prolonged incommunicado or secret detention - some standards on the treatment of prisoners cannot be set aside. Recourse to torture and degrading treatment exposes those who commit it to civil and criminal responsibility and, arguably, renders them vulnerable to retaliation.
On Human Rights Day, I call on all governments to reaffirm their commitment to the total prohibition of torture by:
Condemning torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and prohibiting it in national law;
Abiding by the principle of non-refoulement and refraining from returning persons to countries where they may face torture;
Ensuring access to prisoners and abolishing secret detention;
Prosecuting those responsible for torture and ill-treatment;
Prohibiting the use of statements extracted under torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, whether the interrogation has taken place at home or abroad;
Ratifying the Convention against Torture and its Optional Protocol, as well as other international treaties banning torture.
(Louise Arbour is the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.)
Louise Arbour International Herald Tribune
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 6, 2005
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2005/12/06/opinion/edarbour.php
GENEVA The absolute ban on torture, a cornerstone of the international human rights edifice, is under attack. The principle we once believed to be unassailable - the inherent right to physical integrity and dignity of the person - is becoming a casualty of the so-called war on terror.
No one disputes that governments have not only the right but also the duty to protect their citizens from attacks. The threat of international terrorism calls for increased coordination by law enforcement authorities within and across borders. And imminent or clear dangers at times permit limitations on certain rights. The right to be free from torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment is not one of these. This right may not be subject to any limitation, anywhere, under any condition.
Many UN member states disregard this prohibition and continue to subject their citizens and others to torture and ill-treatment. Although a broad range of safeguards is available now to prevent torture, many states have either not incorporated them in their legislation or, if they have, do not respect them in practice.
Particularly insidious are moves to water down or question the absolute ban on torture, as well as on cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Governments in several countries are claiming that established rules do not apply anymore: that we live in a changed world. They argue that this justifies a lowering of the bar as to what constitutes permissible treatment of detainees. An illegal interrogation technique, however, remains illegal whatever new description a government might wish to give it.
Two phenomena have an acutely corrosive effect on the global ban on torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. The first is the practice of having recourse to so-called diplomatic assurances to justify the return and "rendering" of suspects to countries where they face a risk of torture; the second is the holding of prisoners in secret detention.
The trend of seeking "diplomatic assurances" allegedly to overcome the risk of torture is very troubling. The international legal ban on torture prohibits transferring persons - no matter what their crime or suspected activity - to a place where they would be at risk of torture and other ill-treatment (the non-refoulement obligation).
Faced with the option of deporting terrorism suspects and others to countries where the risk of torture is well documented, some governments, in particular in Europe and in North America, purport to overcome that risk by seeking diplomatic assurances that torture and cruel, degrading or inhuman treatment will not be inflicted.
There are many reasons to be skeptical about the value of those assurances. If there is no risk of torture in a particular case, they are unnecessary and redundant. If there is a risk, how effective are these assurances likely to be?
But the problem runs deeper. The fact that some governments conclude legally nonbinding agreements with other governments on a matter that is at the core of several legally binding UN instruments threatens to empty international human rights law of its content. Diplomatic assurances create a two-class system among detainees, attempting to provide for a special bilateral protection regime for a selected few and ignoring the systematic torture of other detainees, even though all are entitled to the equal protection of existing UN instruments.
Let me turn to my second concern. An unknown number of "war on terror" detainees are alleged to be held in secret custody in unknown locations. Holding people in secret detention, with the detainee's fate or whereabouts, or the very fact of their detention, undisclosed, amounts to "disappearance," which in and of itself has been found to amount to torture or ill-treatment of the disappeared person or of the families and communities deprived of any information about the missing person.
Furthermore, prolonged incommunicado detention or detention in secret places facilitates the perpetration of torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. Whatever the value of the information obtained in secret facilities - and there is reason to doubt the reliability of intelligence gained through prolonged incommunicado or secret detention - some standards on the treatment of prisoners cannot be set aside. Recourse to torture and degrading treatment exposes those who commit it to civil and criminal responsibility and, arguably, renders them vulnerable to retaliation.
On Human Rights Day, I call on all governments to reaffirm their commitment to the total prohibition of torture by:
Condemning torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment and prohibiting it in national law;
Abiding by the principle of non-refoulement and refraining from returning persons to countries where they may face torture;
Ensuring access to prisoners and abolishing secret detention;
Prosecuting those responsible for torture and ill-treatment;
Prohibiting the use of statements extracted under torture and cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment, whether the interrogation has taken place at home or abroad;
Ratifying the Convention against Torture and its Optional Protocol, as well as other international treaties banning torture.
(Louise Arbour is the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights.)
Plame Is Set to Leave the CIA
Plame Is Set to Leave the CIA
The operative whose covert identity was revealed in a 2003 column wants to spend more time with her family, friends say.
By Richard B. Schmitt
LA Times Staff Writer
December 6, 2005
WASHINGTON — Valerie Plame, the diplomat's wife whose secret resume was exposed in a newspaper column that eventually led to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is leaving the CIA on Friday, people familiar with her plans said.
Plame, 42, worked undercover for the CIA tracking weapons proliferation but saw her clandestine career imperiled after she was identified as an agency operative in the summer of 2003 in a syndicated column by Robert Novak.
Friends said the mother of 5-year-old twins wanted to spend more time with her family, and that although she agreed to be photographed last year with her husband for an article about the case in Vanity Fair magazine, she had no plans to speak out.
There has also been speculation that she would file a civil lawsuit against the Bush administration contending that it leaked her identity and damaged her career.
"She did not have a career left," said Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA officer and a friend of Plame since the two were in the same agency training class in the 1980s. "She was no longer able to work as a clandestine officer, which was her reason for being."
Johnson said that although Plame still had allies at the agency, her ability to function effectively was irreparably harmed after her status became publicly known.
"She is either a non-entity or radioactive," Johnson said. "Getting connected with her is not something that is going to enhance your career. She has been something of a leper."
Plame has been with the CIA for 20 years; the decision to leave makes her eligible to collect retirement benefits in the future, Johnson said. Her effective retirement date will be in January, but her last day at work will be Friday.
Plame is married to Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, who was sent by the CIA to Africa in February 2002 to evaluate claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy weapons-grade uranium in Niger. Wilson found the claims unverifiable and publicly criticized the intelligence used by the administration to justify the war against Iraq.
Administration officials began a campaign to discredit Wilson and identified Plame in conversations with several journalists, potentially violating a law against unmasking undercover agents. A federal grand jury recently indicted former Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges that he repeatedly lied to investigators.
A Justice Department special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, is continuing to investigate, and among his potential targets are White House political advisor Karl Rove, who has acknowledged being a source for the July 14, 2003, Novak column that named Plame.
Fitzgerald has indicated that he plans to present evidence to a new grand jury soon. He is to interview Time magazine correspondent Viveca Novak this week about a conversation she had last year with Robert D. Luskin, Rove's lawyer. Time's Novak is not related to the columnist.
The operative whose covert identity was revealed in a 2003 column wants to spend more time with her family, friends say.
By Richard B. Schmitt
LA Times Staff Writer
December 6, 2005
WASHINGTON — Valerie Plame, the diplomat's wife whose secret resume was exposed in a newspaper column that eventually led to the indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is leaving the CIA on Friday, people familiar with her plans said.
Plame, 42, worked undercover for the CIA tracking weapons proliferation but saw her clandestine career imperiled after she was identified as an agency operative in the summer of 2003 in a syndicated column by Robert Novak.
Friends said the mother of 5-year-old twins wanted to spend more time with her family, and that although she agreed to be photographed last year with her husband for an article about the case in Vanity Fair magazine, she had no plans to speak out.
There has also been speculation that she would file a civil lawsuit against the Bush administration contending that it leaked her identity and damaged her career.
"She did not have a career left," said Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA officer and a friend of Plame since the two were in the same agency training class in the 1980s. "She was no longer able to work as a clandestine officer, which was her reason for being."
Johnson said that although Plame still had allies at the agency, her ability to function effectively was irreparably harmed after her status became publicly known.
"She is either a non-entity or radioactive," Johnson said. "Getting connected with her is not something that is going to enhance your career. She has been something of a leper."
Plame has been with the CIA for 20 years; the decision to leave makes her eligible to collect retirement benefits in the future, Johnson said. Her effective retirement date will be in January, but her last day at work will be Friday.
Plame is married to Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador, who was sent by the CIA to Africa in February 2002 to evaluate claims that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy weapons-grade uranium in Niger. Wilson found the claims unverifiable and publicly criticized the intelligence used by the administration to justify the war against Iraq.
Administration officials began a campaign to discredit Wilson and identified Plame in conversations with several journalists, potentially violating a law against unmasking undercover agents. A federal grand jury recently indicted former Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on charges that he repeatedly lied to investigators.
A Justice Department special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, is continuing to investigate, and among his potential targets are White House political advisor Karl Rove, who has acknowledged being a source for the July 14, 2003, Novak column that named Plame.
Fitzgerald has indicated that he plans to present evidence to a new grand jury soon. He is to interview Time magazine correspondent Viveca Novak this week about a conversation she had last year with Robert D. Luskin, Rove's lawyer. Time's Novak is not related to the columnist.
CBC News: Vancouver transit police begin packing guns
CBC News: Vancouver transit police begin packing guns: "Vancouver transit police begin packing guns
Last Updated Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:09:44 EST
CBC News
Vancouver's rapid-transit system has become the first in the country to be patrolled by transit police who carry guns and have full police powers.
The Greater Vancouver Regional Transit Authority (TransLink) introduced the armed force on Monday to patrol the SkyTrain, Sea Bus and West Coast Express train.
The officers have been given the authority to conduct investigations, enforce outstanding warrants, enforce drug laws and make arrests ? even outside transit property.
'The new transit police force will enhance public safety throughout the SkyTrain route on buses, trains and stations and in the neighbourhoods that surround the depots,' said B.C. Solicitor General John Les as he unveiled the team.
Vancouver transit officials said it's no longer enough to count on municipal police to keep the system safe.
The new force has 70 officers, for now, who work in shifts of 12 to 16 hours to cover transit terminals throughout the rapid-transit system.
Eventually the force will grow to 91 officers, the vast majority of them retirees drawn from other police forces.
The officers are trained in firearms and their qualifications must match those required by a municipal police force.
Officials defend issuing of guns
The plan to arm the transit police created controversy when it was first announced in March.
But Les defended the move, saying it was necessary because SkyTrain stations in Vancouver have traditionally been magnets for crime and violence. '
'It is about helping to build public confidence and public safety,' the solicitor general said. 'We want to promote ridership and that can be much more readily accomplished when people actually feel safe.'
Toronto's system has different needs, official says
Vancouver's transit police officers are the first to take up arms, but transit safety has become a concern in the country's other big cities as well.
In Montreal and Toronto, where hundreds of thousands of commuters ride the subways every day, authorities rely on a combination of security cameras, police patrols and transit attendants.
'I think Vancouver has different needs,' said Rick Ducharme, the chief general manager of the Toronto Transit Commission.
'My understanding is there were issues not only in the stations but just outside the stations and they weren't getting the same response [from police] that we do.'
Riders divided over armed force
Reaction from transit users was mixed as the armed force hit the streets.
'I ride the SkyTrain alone at night all the time and I have never not felt safe,' one woman, who didn't give her name, told CBC News. 'I do not really think there is a need for it.'
But another rider, a young man, defended the force. 'If it is a deterrent to any potential crime, I do not have a problem with it.'"
Last Updated Mon, 05 Dec 2005 19:09:44 EST
CBC News
Vancouver's rapid-transit system has become the first in the country to be patrolled by transit police who carry guns and have full police powers.
The Greater Vancouver Regional Transit Authority (TransLink) introduced the armed force on Monday to patrol the SkyTrain, Sea Bus and West Coast Express train.
The officers have been given the authority to conduct investigations, enforce outstanding warrants, enforce drug laws and make arrests ? even outside transit property.
'The new transit police force will enhance public safety throughout the SkyTrain route on buses, trains and stations and in the neighbourhoods that surround the depots,' said B.C. Solicitor General John Les as he unveiled the team.
Vancouver transit officials said it's no longer enough to count on municipal police to keep the system safe.
The new force has 70 officers, for now, who work in shifts of 12 to 16 hours to cover transit terminals throughout the rapid-transit system.
Eventually the force will grow to 91 officers, the vast majority of them retirees drawn from other police forces.
The officers are trained in firearms and their qualifications must match those required by a municipal police force.
Officials defend issuing of guns
The plan to arm the transit police created controversy when it was first announced in March.
But Les defended the move, saying it was necessary because SkyTrain stations in Vancouver have traditionally been magnets for crime and violence. '
'It is about helping to build public confidence and public safety,' the solicitor general said. 'We want to promote ridership and that can be much more readily accomplished when people actually feel safe.'
Toronto's system has different needs, official says
Vancouver's transit police officers are the first to take up arms, but transit safety has become a concern in the country's other big cities as well.
In Montreal and Toronto, where hundreds of thousands of commuters ride the subways every day, authorities rely on a combination of security cameras, police patrols and transit attendants.
'I think Vancouver has different needs,' said Rick Ducharme, the chief general manager of the Toronto Transit Commission.
'My understanding is there were issues not only in the stations but just outside the stations and they weren't getting the same response [from police] that we do.'
Riders divided over armed force
Reaction from transit users was mixed as the armed force hit the streets.
'I ride the SkyTrain alone at night all the time and I have never not felt safe,' one woman, who didn't give her name, told CBC News. 'I do not really think there is a need for it.'
But another rider, a young man, defended the force. 'If it is a deterrent to any potential crime, I do not have a problem with it.'"
Venezuela's left awaits huge win
Guardian Unlimited | Special reports | Venezuela's left awaits huge win: "Venezuela's left awaits huge win
Greg Morsbach in Caracas
Tuesday December 6, 2005
The Guardian
The leftwing political parties allied to Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, were yesterday heading for what many predicted would be a clean sweep in the national legislative assembly elections.
If confirmed by final official results, Mr Chavez, Latin America's champion of the left, will be in a strong position to change the constitution and ensure that he can carry on running in presidential elections for many years to come. Party bosses close to Mr Chavez said they were sure the leftwing bloc in parliament had taken all the 167 seats in the national assembly.
The congressional elections were marred by a high abstention rate, with three-quarters of voters staying at home. Most opposition parties had called for a boycott of the polls because of what they regarded as fraudulent voting machines.
The government dismissed concerns about the legitimacy of a parliament based on the vote of only a quarter of the electorate. In a statement, it reminded the international press that 'the abstention rate in US parliamentary elections ranged between 60% and 70%, when carried out separately from presidential elections'.
In a news conference yesterday, the foreign minister, Ali Rodriguez-Araque, said the opposition had been plotting with the Bush administration to scupper the democratic process. He even went one step further: 'We have evidence there are concrete plans by the imperialist US to launch an attack against Venezuela.'"
Greg Morsbach in Caracas
Tuesday December 6, 2005
The Guardian
The leftwing political parties allied to Venezuela's president, Hugo Chavez, were yesterday heading for what many predicted would be a clean sweep in the national legislative assembly elections.
If confirmed by final official results, Mr Chavez, Latin America's champion of the left, will be in a strong position to change the constitution and ensure that he can carry on running in presidential elections for many years to come. Party bosses close to Mr Chavez said they were sure the leftwing bloc in parliament had taken all the 167 seats in the national assembly.
The congressional elections were marred by a high abstention rate, with three-quarters of voters staying at home. Most opposition parties had called for a boycott of the polls because of what they regarded as fraudulent voting machines.
The government dismissed concerns about the legitimacy of a parliament based on the vote of only a quarter of the electorate. In a statement, it reminded the international press that 'the abstention rate in US parliamentary elections ranged between 60% and 70%, when carried out separately from presidential elections'.
In a news conference yesterday, the foreign minister, Ali Rodriguez-Araque, said the opposition had been plotting with the Bush administration to scupper the democratic process. He even went one step further: 'We have evidence there are concrete plans by the imperialist US to launch an attack against Venezuela.'"
Report: Personnel cuts ahead at Pentagon
Report: Personnel cuts ahead at Pentagon
Report: Personnel cuts ahead at Pentagon
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Defense is looking at personnel cuts as a way to ease budget concerns, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The U.S. Army and Air Force are both looking to reduce current levels or delay planned increases, ahead of budget considerations. The Journal said the manpower reductions would make it easier to keep expensive weapons systems on the Pentagon budget wish list.
Defense officials also told the newspaper budget savings could allow for programs in the war on terror and to protect the United States from terror attacks.
While the cuts are yet to be finalized -- they will depend on White House requests for Defense budgets as well as further Pentagon planning -- the Air Force is looking to do away with some 30,000 uniformed and civilian positions by Fiscal Year 2011, the Journal reported. The Army is reportedly looking to delay its expansion by 10 5,000-solider brigades. It is not known exactly how much those job eliminations would save the department.
Even with the cuts, the Journal said, Defense officials will need to reduce weapons procurement, expected to total some $78 billion in the next fiscal year cycle.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
Report: Personnel cuts ahead at Pentagon
WASHINGTON, Dec. 5 (UPI) -- The U.S. Department of Defense is looking at personnel cuts as a way to ease budget concerns, The Wall Street Journal reported.
The U.S. Army and Air Force are both looking to reduce current levels or delay planned increases, ahead of budget considerations. The Journal said the manpower reductions would make it easier to keep expensive weapons systems on the Pentagon budget wish list.
Defense officials also told the newspaper budget savings could allow for programs in the war on terror and to protect the United States from terror attacks.
While the cuts are yet to be finalized -- they will depend on White House requests for Defense budgets as well as further Pentagon planning -- the Air Force is looking to do away with some 30,000 uniformed and civilian positions by Fiscal Year 2011, the Journal reported. The Army is reportedly looking to delay its expansion by 10 5,000-solider brigades. It is not known exactly how much those job eliminations would save the department.
Even with the cuts, the Journal said, Defense officials will need to reduce weapons procurement, expected to total some $78 billion in the next fiscal year cycle.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.
America 'abusing' mandate in Iraq
America 'abusing' mandate in Iraq
By Paul Tait, Baghdad
December 6, 2005
http://theage.com.au/news/world/america-abusing-mandate-in-iraq/2005/12/05/1133631201911.html#
THE US military is abusing its United Nations mandate in Iraq by detaining thousands of people without due process of law, a senior UN official said.
The Iraqi Government, installed after the US invasion of 2003, is also guilty of major human rights abuses, including holding people without charge in secret jails "littered" across the country, John Pace, human rights chief for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), said.
Referring to accusations of corruption among Iraqi justice officials and police, Mr Pace said illegal detentions were fuelling rather than curbing revolt.
"There is no question that terrorism has to be addressed. But we are equally sure that the remedies being applied ? are not the best way of eliminating terrorism," he said. "More terrorists are being created than are being eliminated."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has also voiced concern about mass detentions without charge, which US commanders say are a legitimate response to security threats under UN Security Council Resolution 1546, their mandate for occupying Iraq.
But in some of the strongest UN comments to date, Mr Pace said in an interview on Sunday that the system, including the pattern, duration and conditions of detention, were "not consistent with what is foreseen in 1546" and complained of a "total breakdown" in individuals' rights.
Mr Pace said that, apart from prisoners serving court-ordered sentences in prisons run by the Justice Ministry, there were between 1600 and 2000 people being held in up to eight known facilities run by the Iraqi Interior Ministry.
But there were also others in unofficial facilities in former palaces "littered" around Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, as well as roughly 14,000 held in US military facilities such as Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad and Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.
"All except those held by the Ministry of Justice are, technically speaking, held against the law because the Ministry of Justice is the only authority that is empowered by law to detain, to hold anybody in prison," Mr Pace said.
"Essentially none of these people have any real recourse to protection and therefore we speak ? of a total breakdown in the protection of the individual in this country.
"It's very rare to get judges ordering you to be released and effectively the police respecting that order.
"We have cases also where the judge who has ordered a group of people to be released, about 50-60 people, and the police, the Interior Ministry simply refuses," Mr Pace said.
� A Frenchman working as a water treatment engineer in Baghdad was kidnapped from his home yesterday, an Iraqi police officer said.
A French embassy official said he was unaware of any incident. Police gave the man's name, transliterated from Arabic script, as Brent Blanche. They said witnesses said seven gunmen in two cars snatched the Frenchman.
REUTERS
By Paul Tait, Baghdad
December 6, 2005
http://theage.com.au/news/world/america-abusing-mandate-in-iraq/2005/12/05/1133631201911.html#
THE US military is abusing its United Nations mandate in Iraq by detaining thousands of people without due process of law, a senior UN official said.
The Iraqi Government, installed after the US invasion of 2003, is also guilty of major human rights abuses, including holding people without charge in secret jails "littered" across the country, John Pace, human rights chief for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), said.
Referring to accusations of corruption among Iraqi justice officials and police, Mr Pace said illegal detentions were fuelling rather than curbing revolt.
"There is no question that terrorism has to be addressed. But we are equally sure that the remedies being applied ? are not the best way of eliminating terrorism," he said. "More terrorists are being created than are being eliminated."
UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has also voiced concern about mass detentions without charge, which US commanders say are a legitimate response to security threats under UN Security Council Resolution 1546, their mandate for occupying Iraq.
But in some of the strongest UN comments to date, Mr Pace said in an interview on Sunday that the system, including the pattern, duration and conditions of detention, were "not consistent with what is foreseen in 1546" and complained of a "total breakdown" in individuals' rights.
Mr Pace said that, apart from prisoners serving court-ordered sentences in prisons run by the Justice Ministry, there were between 1600 and 2000 people being held in up to eight known facilities run by the Iraqi Interior Ministry.
But there were also others in unofficial facilities in former palaces "littered" around Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq, as well as roughly 14,000 held in US military facilities such as Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad and Camp Bucca in southern Iraq.
"All except those held by the Ministry of Justice are, technically speaking, held against the law because the Ministry of Justice is the only authority that is empowered by law to detain, to hold anybody in prison," Mr Pace said.
"Essentially none of these people have any real recourse to protection and therefore we speak ? of a total breakdown in the protection of the individual in this country.
"It's very rare to get judges ordering you to be released and effectively the police respecting that order.
"We have cases also where the judge who has ordered a group of people to be released, about 50-60 people, and the police, the Interior Ministry simply refuses," Mr Pace said.
� A Frenchman working as a water treatment engineer in Baghdad was kidnapped from his home yesterday, an Iraqi police officer said.
A French embassy official said he was unaware of any incident. Police gave the man's name, transliterated from Arabic script, as Brent Blanche. They said witnesses said seven gunmen in two cars snatched the Frenchman.
REUTERS
U.S. Interrogations Are Saving European Lives, Rice Says
U.S. Interrogations Are Saving European Lives, Rice Says
By JOEL BRINKLEY
Published: December 6, 2005
BERLIN, Dec. 5 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chastised European
leaders on Monday, saying that before they complain about secret jails for
terror suspects in European nations, they should realize that interrogations
of these suspects have produced information that helped "save European lives
"
Skip to next paragraph
Pool photo by J. Scott Applewhite
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice read a prepared statement to reporters
before flying to Europe from the Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
Video: Condoleezza Rice Defends Tactics
Her remarks were the Bush administration's official response to the reports
of a network of secret detention centers in at least eight European nations,
said to house dozens of terror suspects.
At the same time, she denied that the United States has moved suspects to
these prisons to allow interrogators to use torture. "The United States,"
she said, "does not permit, tolerate or condone torture under any
circumstances." At another point, she said, "The United States does not
transport and has not transported detainees from one country to another for
the purpose of interrogation using torture."
Intelligence gathered from these interrogations, she said, "has stopped
terrorist attacks and saved innocent lives in Europe as well as the United
States." But she declined to offer examples or provide any specific
information to support her assertions. She said any information related to
the prisons was classified. Ms. Rice did not explicitly confirm the
existence of the detention centers, first described in news reports early
last month. But acknowledgment of them was implicit in her remarks. Without
the debate over the covert jails, there would have been no reason for her
statement.
"We must bring terrorists to justice wherever possible," she said, "but
there have been many cases where the local government cannot detain or
prosecute a suspect, and traditional extradition is not a good option."
"In those cases," she added, "the local government can make the sovereign
choice to cooperate in" the transfer of a suspect to a third country, which
is known as a rendition.
"Sometimes," she added, "these efforts are misunderstood."
Officials from the White House, State Department and Central Intelligence
Agency labored over Ms. Rice's statement for days and said it would serve as
the basis of the government's official answer to an inquiry from the
European Union - one of a half dozen under way.
Ms. Rice offered her remarks to reporters early Monday, at Andrews Air Force
Base, before setting off for a trip to Europe. The timing, she said later,
was not coincidental. She wanted to issue the statement "before I go to
Europe so if there are questions I can answer them."
Her five-day trip will take her to Germany, Belgium, Ukraine and Romania.
Analyses of flight records of United States government aircraft have
suggested that Romania may have been the site of one covert detention center
but Romanian officials have said that no such facility existed. Ms. Rice
arrived in Berlin too late Monday night to meet with any German officials or
to gauge any reaction to her remarks in Washington.
According to a report Monday night on ABC News, which could not be confirmed
current and former C.I.A. Officers say that 11 top Qaeda suspects have been
moved from secret C.I.A. Prisons in Europe to a new C.I.A. Facility in the
North African desert.
Administration officials, including Ms. Rice on Monday, have repeatedly
maintained since the reports about the secret prisons began that the
government is abiding by American law and international agreements. "We are
respecting U.S. Law and U.S. Treaty obligations," she said several times on
Monday. "And we are respecting other nations' sovereignty."
That is a change in the position of the Bush administration, which has
repeatedly maintained in recent years that American law does not apply to
prisoners held abroad. That is one reason some terror suspects were taken to
Guant�namo Bay in Cuba and to other foreign locations.
Asked about that conflict while speaking to reporters on her plane, Ms. Rice
did not answer directly and instead repeated her statement about respecting
American laws and obligations.
Following the reports of a secret detention policy, the administration has
come under criticism from the United Nations, at least two arms of the
European Union and several European countries. The Europeans say the secret
detention centers would be illegal in their countries. Jack Straw, the
British foreign secretary, wrote Ms. Rice on behalf of the European Union
last week, seeking an explanation.
In Congress, Democrats are calling for an investigation of the prisons and
the treatment of suspects held there, while Republicans are pushing for an
inquiry to determine who in the government leaked the information to the
news media.
News reports over the last month have said the C.I.A. began holding dozens
of terror suspects in secret prisons in Europe shortly after Sept. 11. While
the administration has not confirmed the reports, it has also not denied
them.
The mistreatment of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as well as
the ongoing debate over the imprisonment of terror suspects at Guant�namo,
have raised questions among Europeans and human rights organizations about
the treatment of suspects held in the C.I.A. facilities, where no one can
visit them or check on their treatment.
Ms. Rice insisted she could not confirm the existence of secret prisons
because that would involve discussion of classified activities. "One of the
difficult issues in this new kind of conflict is what to do with captured
individuals who we know or believe to be terrorists," she said. Many are
essentially stateless, owing their allegiance to the extremist cause of
transnational terrorism."
On her plane later, Ms. Rice expressed impatience with the spiraling
investigations and inquiries.
"Democracies are going to debate these things," she said. "But they need to
debate them not just on one side of the issue - that is, how the actual
activities are being carried out." They should also consider, "are we doing
everything we can to protect innocent lives?"
By JOEL BRINKLEY
Published: December 6, 2005
BERLIN, Dec. 5 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chastised European
leaders on Monday, saying that before they complain about secret jails for
terror suspects in European nations, they should realize that interrogations
of these suspects have produced information that helped "save European lives
"
Skip to next paragraph
Pool photo by J. Scott Applewhite
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice read a prepared statement to reporters
before flying to Europe from the Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland.
Video: Condoleezza Rice Defends Tactics
Her remarks were the Bush administration's official response to the reports
of a network of secret detention centers in at least eight European nations,
said to house dozens of terror suspects.
At the same time, she denied that the United States has moved suspects to
these prisons to allow interrogators to use torture. "The United States,"
she said, "does not permit, tolerate or condone torture under any
circumstances." At another point, she said, "The United States does not
transport and has not transported detainees from one country to another for
the purpose of interrogation using torture."
Intelligence gathered from these interrogations, she said, "has stopped
terrorist attacks and saved innocent lives in Europe as well as the United
States." But she declined to offer examples or provide any specific
information to support her assertions. She said any information related to
the prisons was classified. Ms. Rice did not explicitly confirm the
existence of the detention centers, first described in news reports early
last month. But acknowledgment of them was implicit in her remarks. Without
the debate over the covert jails, there would have been no reason for her
statement.
"We must bring terrorists to justice wherever possible," she said, "but
there have been many cases where the local government cannot detain or
prosecute a suspect, and traditional extradition is not a good option."
"In those cases," she added, "the local government can make the sovereign
choice to cooperate in" the transfer of a suspect to a third country, which
is known as a rendition.
"Sometimes," she added, "these efforts are misunderstood."
Officials from the White House, State Department and Central Intelligence
Agency labored over Ms. Rice's statement for days and said it would serve as
the basis of the government's official answer to an inquiry from the
European Union - one of a half dozen under way.
Ms. Rice offered her remarks to reporters early Monday, at Andrews Air Force
Base, before setting off for a trip to Europe. The timing, she said later,
was not coincidental. She wanted to issue the statement "before I go to
Europe so if there are questions I can answer them."
Her five-day trip will take her to Germany, Belgium, Ukraine and Romania.
Analyses of flight records of United States government aircraft have
suggested that Romania may have been the site of one covert detention center
but Romanian officials have said that no such facility existed. Ms. Rice
arrived in Berlin too late Monday night to meet with any German officials or
to gauge any reaction to her remarks in Washington.
According to a report Monday night on ABC News, which could not be confirmed
current and former C.I.A. Officers say that 11 top Qaeda suspects have been
moved from secret C.I.A. Prisons in Europe to a new C.I.A. Facility in the
North African desert.
Administration officials, including Ms. Rice on Monday, have repeatedly
maintained since the reports about the secret prisons began that the
government is abiding by American law and international agreements. "We are
respecting U.S. Law and U.S. Treaty obligations," she said several times on
Monday. "And we are respecting other nations' sovereignty."
That is a change in the position of the Bush administration, which has
repeatedly maintained in recent years that American law does not apply to
prisoners held abroad. That is one reason some terror suspects were taken to
Guant�namo Bay in Cuba and to other foreign locations.
Asked about that conflict while speaking to reporters on her plane, Ms. Rice
did not answer directly and instead repeated her statement about respecting
American laws and obligations.
Following the reports of a secret detention policy, the administration has
come under criticism from the United Nations, at least two arms of the
European Union and several European countries. The Europeans say the secret
detention centers would be illegal in their countries. Jack Straw, the
British foreign secretary, wrote Ms. Rice on behalf of the European Union
last week, seeking an explanation.
In Congress, Democrats are calling for an investigation of the prisons and
the treatment of suspects held there, while Republicans are pushing for an
inquiry to determine who in the government leaked the information to the
news media.
News reports over the last month have said the C.I.A. began holding dozens
of terror suspects in secret prisons in Europe shortly after Sept. 11. While
the administration has not confirmed the reports, it has also not denied
them.
The mistreatment of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq as well as
the ongoing debate over the imprisonment of terror suspects at Guant�namo,
have raised questions among Europeans and human rights organizations about
the treatment of suspects held in the C.I.A. facilities, where no one can
visit them or check on their treatment.
Ms. Rice insisted she could not confirm the existence of secret prisons
because that would involve discussion of classified activities. "One of the
difficult issues in this new kind of conflict is what to do with captured
individuals who we know or believe to be terrorists," she said. Many are
essentially stateless, owing their allegiance to the extremist cause of
transnational terrorism."
On her plane later, Ms. Rice expressed impatience with the spiraling
investigations and inquiries.
"Democracies are going to debate these things," she said. "But they need to
debate them not just on one side of the issue - that is, how the actual
activities are being carried out." They should also consider, "are we doing
everything we can to protect innocent lives?"
U.S. missile kills two children in Pakistan: Report
By Haji Mujtaba
12/05/05 "Reuters" -- - HAISORI, Pakistan, Dec 4 - Pakistani
tribesmen on Sunday displayed parts of a U.S.-marked missile they
said hit a house and killed two boys, evidence at odds with the
government which says an explosion there killed a top al Qaeda
commander.
Whatever the cause of the blast, the death of Abu Hamza Rabia would
be a coup for Pakistan and the United States which describe him as al
Qaeda's chief of international operations.
But his body has not been found.
Sat amid the ruins of his mud and concrete-walled home in the restive
North Waziristan tribal agency, Haji Mohammad Siddiq told Reuters his
17-year old son and an eight-year-old nephew were killed in a missile
attack, but denied there were any militants present.
"I don't know anything about them -- there were no foreigners in my
house," Siddiq said. "I have nothing to do with foreigners or al
Qaeda.
"We were sleeping when I heard two explosions in my guest room. When
I went there I saw my son, Abdul Wasit, and my eight-year-old nephew,
Noor Aziz, were dead," said the tall, moustachioed tribesman as he
received condolences from a stream of relatives and neighbours.
Pakistan, sensitive to domestic public opinion, has denied U.S. drone
aircraft have carried out missile strikes on its soil in the past and
Washington has declined to comment.
But tribesmen in Haisori showed U.S.-marked fragments of missiles
they said hit the village early on Thursday. One piece of casing
clearly bore the words US and MISSILE.
"I heard more explosions and went out to the courtyard, and when I
looked up at the sky, I saw a white drone," said Siddiq. "I saw a
flash of light come from the drone followed by explosions."
The tribesman, in his 50s, has been asked to appear later this week
before a court convened by government-appointed tribal agency
officials.
"200 PERCENT SURE"
President Pervez Musharraf said on Saturday he was "200 percent" sure
Rabia was dead.
But confirmation of Rabia's death is based on intelligence reports
and message intercepts, intelligence sources said, and Pakistani
security forces have still to find a body.
Officials say Rabia's corpse, along with those of two comrades, was
removed by other fighters and buried secretly.
An Arab television channel, al Arabiya, received a telephone call
from an unidentified caller denying Rabia was dead.
U.S. counterterrorism officials in Washington confirmed the
significance of Rabia's death, but gave no comment on how he might
have been killed.
Rabia's death would have a profound impact on al Qaeda's ability to
maintain its standing as the pre-eminent global militant
organisation, as most veterans had been killed or captured, according
to Rohan Gunaratna, security analyst at Singapore's Institute of
Defence and Strategic Studies.
"He was in many ways the last leader to have an understanding of how
the network operates outside Pakistan and Afghanistan," Gunaratna
said.
U.S. drones are reported to have operated in the area before, and in
May a drone missile attack was reported to have killed al Qaeda
bombmaker, Haitham al-Yemeni, in North Waziristan.
Pakistan denied an attack happened while the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency declined to comment.
If a U.S. Predator drone did carry out Thursday's attack, neither the
United States or Pakistan would be likely to admit it. Although
Pakistan is a key ally in the war on terrorism, it refuses to allow
foreign troops on its soil, particularly the sensitive semi-
autonomous tribal areas.
Hundreds of militants fled to Pakistan after U.S.-led forces
overthrew Afghanistan's Taliban government in late 2001 for
harbouring Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden himself is believed to have
passed through North Waziristan during his escape.
Copyright Reuters
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11216.htm
12/05/05 "Reuters" -- - HAISORI, Pakistan, Dec 4 - Pakistani
tribesmen on Sunday displayed parts of a U.S.-marked missile they
said hit a house and killed two boys, evidence at odds with the
government which says an explosion there killed a top al Qaeda
commander.
Whatever the cause of the blast, the death of Abu Hamza Rabia would
be a coup for Pakistan and the United States which describe him as al
Qaeda's chief of international operations.
But his body has not been found.
Sat amid the ruins of his mud and concrete-walled home in the restive
North Waziristan tribal agency, Haji Mohammad Siddiq told Reuters his
17-year old son and an eight-year-old nephew were killed in a missile
attack, but denied there were any militants present.
"I don't know anything about them -- there were no foreigners in my
house," Siddiq said. "I have nothing to do with foreigners or al
Qaeda.
"We were sleeping when I heard two explosions in my guest room. When
I went there I saw my son, Abdul Wasit, and my eight-year-old nephew,
Noor Aziz, were dead," said the tall, moustachioed tribesman as he
received condolences from a stream of relatives and neighbours.
Pakistan, sensitive to domestic public opinion, has denied U.S. drone
aircraft have carried out missile strikes on its soil in the past and
Washington has declined to comment.
But tribesmen in Haisori showed U.S.-marked fragments of missiles
they said hit the village early on Thursday. One piece of casing
clearly bore the words US and MISSILE.
"I heard more explosions and went out to the courtyard, and when I
looked up at the sky, I saw a white drone," said Siddiq. "I saw a
flash of light come from the drone followed by explosions."
The tribesman, in his 50s, has been asked to appear later this week
before a court convened by government-appointed tribal agency
officials.
"200 PERCENT SURE"
President Pervez Musharraf said on Saturday he was "200 percent" sure
Rabia was dead.
But confirmation of Rabia's death is based on intelligence reports
and message intercepts, intelligence sources said, and Pakistani
security forces have still to find a body.
Officials say Rabia's corpse, along with those of two comrades, was
removed by other fighters and buried secretly.
An Arab television channel, al Arabiya, received a telephone call
from an unidentified caller denying Rabia was dead.
U.S. counterterrorism officials in Washington confirmed the
significance of Rabia's death, but gave no comment on how he might
have been killed.
Rabia's death would have a profound impact on al Qaeda's ability to
maintain its standing as the pre-eminent global militant
organisation, as most veterans had been killed or captured, according
to Rohan Gunaratna, security analyst at Singapore's Institute of
Defence and Strategic Studies.
"He was in many ways the last leader to have an understanding of how
the network operates outside Pakistan and Afghanistan," Gunaratna
said.
U.S. drones are reported to have operated in the area before, and in
May a drone missile attack was reported to have killed al Qaeda
bombmaker, Haitham al-Yemeni, in North Waziristan.
Pakistan denied an attack happened while the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency declined to comment.
If a U.S. Predator drone did carry out Thursday's attack, neither the
United States or Pakistan would be likely to admit it. Although
Pakistan is a key ally in the war on terrorism, it refuses to allow
foreign troops on its soil, particularly the sensitive semi-
autonomous tribal areas.
Hundreds of militants fled to Pakistan after U.S.-led forces
overthrew Afghanistan's Taliban government in late 2001 for
harbouring Osama bin Laden. Bin Laden himself is believed to have
passed through North Waziristan during his escape.
Copyright Reuters
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11216.htm
Ex-US diplomat blames Israel for Pakistani dictator's death
Ex-US diplomat blames Israel for Pakistani dictator's death
Declan Walsh
Monday December 5, 2005
A retired US ambassador has reignited the debate about one of
south Asia's greatest whodunits, the death in 1988 of Pakistan's
president General Zia ul-Haq, by saying that Israel was
responsible.
John Gunther Dean, then US ambassador to India, said he
suspected Israel's secret service Mossad of downing Gen Zia's
aircraft in an effort to stop Pakistan developing the nuclear bomb.
But when he reported these suspicions to Washington, he was
accused of being mentally unbalanced and subsequently forced
into retirement. Almost 20 years later, Mr Dean, 80, was
speaking out in an attempt to tell his side of the story.
The circumstances of Gen Zia ul-Haq's death are as contentious
as the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy. The military
dictator died on August 17 1988, after leaving the town of
Bahawalpur, in Punjab province, where he had been watching a
trial of American M1 tanks.
Moments after Gen Zia's C-130 plane took off it wobbled then
plunged to the ground, killing all on board including the US
ambassador to Pakistan and a US general. Conspiracy theorists
have focused on a crate of mangos placed on board moments
before take-off. Some believe it was sprayed with VX, a poison
gas, which only a few countries had.
Gen Zia had a long list of enemies, all of whom have been
blamed for his death over the years. But Israel has received little
attention. Mr Dean told the World Policy Journal that it was
plausible Mossad had orchestrated an assassination plot,
believing Gen Zia's boast that he was only "a screwdriver's turn
away from the bomb". But when he told his superiors he was
removed from his position in Delhi and his career ended. Mr
Dean, a Jew who fled Nazi Germany, said he had no proof of
Israeli responsibility. General Muhammad Ali Durrani, a retired
Zia-era commander, told the journal the Israeli thesis was
"far-fetched" and blamed the crash on the C-130, which he said
had a history of faults.
Declan Walsh
Monday December 5, 2005
A retired US ambassador has reignited the debate about one of
south Asia's greatest whodunits, the death in 1988 of Pakistan's
president General Zia ul-Haq, by saying that Israel was
responsible.
John Gunther Dean, then US ambassador to India, said he
suspected Israel's secret service Mossad of downing Gen Zia's
aircraft in an effort to stop Pakistan developing the nuclear bomb.
But when he reported these suspicions to Washington, he was
accused of being mentally unbalanced and subsequently forced
into retirement. Almost 20 years later, Mr Dean, 80, was
speaking out in an attempt to tell his side of the story.
The circumstances of Gen Zia ul-Haq's death are as contentious
as the 1963 assassination of John F Kennedy. The military
dictator died on August 17 1988, after leaving the town of
Bahawalpur, in Punjab province, where he had been watching a
trial of American M1 tanks.
Moments after Gen Zia's C-130 plane took off it wobbled then
plunged to the ground, killing all on board including the US
ambassador to Pakistan and a US general. Conspiracy theorists
have focused on a crate of mangos placed on board moments
before take-off. Some believe it was sprayed with VX, a poison
gas, which only a few countries had.
Gen Zia had a long list of enemies, all of whom have been
blamed for his death over the years. But Israel has received little
attention. Mr Dean told the World Policy Journal that it was
plausible Mossad had orchestrated an assassination plot,
believing Gen Zia's boast that he was only "a screwdriver's turn
away from the bomb". But when he told his superiors he was
removed from his position in Delhi and his career ended. Mr
Dean, a Jew who fled Nazi Germany, said he had no proof of
Israeli responsibility. General Muhammad Ali Durrani, a retired
Zia-era commander, told the journal the Israeli thesis was
"far-fetched" and blamed the crash on the C-130, which he said
had a history of faults.
All Headline News - New Drug Fights Sleep Deprivation - December 6, 2005
All Headline News - New Drug Fights Sleep Deprivation - December 6, 2005: "New Drug Fights Sleep Deprivation
December 5, 2005 9:30 a.m. EST
Ayinde O. Chase - All Headline News Staff Writer
Irvine, CA (AHN) - Sleep deprivation leads to dull thinking and slower reaction time. A new drug being tested shows promising results of combating the effects of lack of sleep.
A regular pattern of restful sleep may be the non-drug solution. But for some shift workers, health care professionals, and military personnel, that's not always possible.
A new drug therapy including a leading ampakine compound called CX717, targets various neurological and psychiatric disorders.
The U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently tested CX717 in a sleep deprivation study in primates and found that CX717 administered to sleep- deprived monkeys improved cognitive performance and also reversed the delirious effects of sleep deprivation.
Further testing in the United Kingdom has also shows promising results, with evidence that CX717 promotes wakefulness, may improve memory and attention, and was safe and tolerable.
Dr. Roger Stoll, CEO of Cortex Pharmaceuticals says, 'We were particularly impressed in both the increased attention and vigilance scores and the cerebral arousal this first study identified in human subjects who had been sleep deprived.'
The National Commission on Sleep Disorders estimates 40 million Americans are either chronically or intermittently affected with various sleep disorders."
December 5, 2005 9:30 a.m. EST
Ayinde O. Chase - All Headline News Staff Writer
Irvine, CA (AHN) - Sleep deprivation leads to dull thinking and slower reaction time. A new drug being tested shows promising results of combating the effects of lack of sleep.
A regular pattern of restful sleep may be the non-drug solution. But for some shift workers, health care professionals, and military personnel, that's not always possible.
A new drug therapy including a leading ampakine compound called CX717, targets various neurological and psychiatric disorders.
The U.S. Department of Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) recently tested CX717 in a sleep deprivation study in primates and found that CX717 administered to sleep- deprived monkeys improved cognitive performance and also reversed the delirious effects of sleep deprivation.
Further testing in the United Kingdom has also shows promising results, with evidence that CX717 promotes wakefulness, may improve memory and attention, and was safe and tolerable.
Dr. Roger Stoll, CEO of Cortex Pharmaceuticals says, 'We were particularly impressed in both the increased attention and vigilance scores and the cerebral arousal this first study identified in human subjects who had been sleep deprived.'
The National Commission on Sleep Disorders estimates 40 million Americans are either chronically or intermittently affected with various sleep disorders."
Second Boeing X-50A Dragonfly Canard Rotor/Wing Prototype Completes Hover Flight
Second Boeing X-50A Dragonfly Canard Rotor/Wing Prototype Completes Hover Flight: " CHICAGO, Dec. 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- The Boeing Company's (NYSE: BA)
second canard rotor/wing (CRW) technology demonstrator - the X-50A Dragonfly
unmanned air vehicle - has successfully completed a four-minute hover flight
at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in southwest Arizona. The aircraft
reached an altitude of about 20 feet above ground.
'Our first flight test objectives were met today,' said Clark Mitchell,
Boeing Phantom Works program manager for the CRW prototype. 'This is a
significant achievement toward validating the new stopped-rotor technology.'
Under joint development by Boeing Phantom Works and the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the CRW is a revolutionary aircraft that
combines the speed and range of fixed-wing flight with the flexibility of
rotary-wing flight. It also incorporates tip jet propulsion and stopped rotor
technologies.
'The most significant objective met was verification that software
compensation effectively reduces the rotor control issue we were having, or
cross coupling,' he said. The phenomenon of cross coupling was a finding in
the mishap investigation of Ship 1 in 2004 that led to wind tunnel tests for
Ship 2 at the Boeing helicopter facility in Philadelphia earlier this year.
Ship 2 then completed ground checkout testing at the Boeing facility in
Mesa, Ariz., where it was configured for flight. After a flight readiness
review, the vehicle was shipped to Yuma where it completed a preparatory 'pop
up' flight Nov. 4. The flight lasted only about 30 seconds during which the
aircraft stabilized briefly at 16 feet above the ground and then landed.
Success with the initial flight led to the hover flight Dec. 2.
Mitchell said that flight tests are expected to continue into early next
year. The flight-test schedule calls for 11 flights. Under the remote control
of a pilot in a ground station cockpit, the X-50A Dragonfly will gradually
perform more extensive hover flights, then forward-moving rotary wing flights.
The test program will culminate with the first ever 'conversion' from
rotary wing flight to fixed-wing flight and back again to rotary wing flight
for landing. The conversion requires the main rotor to stop turning in flight,
and lock in place to become a fixed wing for high speed flight.
Ship 1, the first Dragonfly prototype vehicle, was involved in a flight
mishap on March 23, 2004, that led to a joint investigation by Boeing and
DARPA. The findings identified cross coupling of the rotor controls as the
main cause of the mishap. Since then, improvements have been incorporated into
Ship 2 that address design issues related to findings. These include changes
such as new rotor torsion springs for increased control power, new flight
control software and a flight data recorder.
SOURCE The Boeing Company"
second canard rotor/wing (CRW) technology demonstrator - the X-50A Dragonfly
unmanned air vehicle - has successfully completed a four-minute hover flight
at the U.S. Army's Yuma Proving Ground in southwest Arizona. The aircraft
reached an altitude of about 20 feet above ground.
'Our first flight test objectives were met today,' said Clark Mitchell,
Boeing Phantom Works program manager for the CRW prototype. 'This is a
significant achievement toward validating the new stopped-rotor technology.'
Under joint development by Boeing Phantom Works and the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the CRW is a revolutionary aircraft that
combines the speed and range of fixed-wing flight with the flexibility of
rotary-wing flight. It also incorporates tip jet propulsion and stopped rotor
technologies.
'The most significant objective met was verification that software
compensation effectively reduces the rotor control issue we were having, or
cross coupling,' he said. The phenomenon of cross coupling was a finding in
the mishap investigation of Ship 1 in 2004 that led to wind tunnel tests for
Ship 2 at the Boeing helicopter facility in Philadelphia earlier this year.
Ship 2 then completed ground checkout testing at the Boeing facility in
Mesa, Ariz., where it was configured for flight. After a flight readiness
review, the vehicle was shipped to Yuma where it completed a preparatory 'pop
up' flight Nov. 4. The flight lasted only about 30 seconds during which the
aircraft stabilized briefly at 16 feet above the ground and then landed.
Success with the initial flight led to the hover flight Dec. 2.
Mitchell said that flight tests are expected to continue into early next
year. The flight-test schedule calls for 11 flights. Under the remote control
of a pilot in a ground station cockpit, the X-50A Dragonfly will gradually
perform more extensive hover flights, then forward-moving rotary wing flights.
The test program will culminate with the first ever 'conversion' from
rotary wing flight to fixed-wing flight and back again to rotary wing flight
for landing. The conversion requires the main rotor to stop turning in flight,
and lock in place to become a fixed wing for high speed flight.
Ship 1, the first Dragonfly prototype vehicle, was involved in a flight
mishap on March 23, 2004, that led to a joint investigation by Boeing and
DARPA. The findings identified cross coupling of the rotor controls as the
main cause of the mishap. Since then, improvements have been incorporated into
Ship 2 that address design issues related to findings. These include changes
such as new rotor torsion springs for increased control power, new flight
control software and a flight data recorder.
SOURCE The Boeing Company"
L-3 Taps Darpa Vet
L-3 Taps Darpa Vet: "L-3 Taps Darpa Vet
By TSC Staff
12/5/2005 11:50 AM EST
L-3 Communications (LLL:NYSE - commentary - research - Cramer's Take) named Arthur A. Morrish chief technology officer for the Products Group.
The New York-based defense contractor said Morrish will review the group's research and development efforts. He will also have responsibilities supporting various other technology and research and development initiatives within L-3 Communications. Morrish will report to Charles J. Schafer, president and chief operating officer of L-3's Products Group.
Morrish, 48, was director of the Tactical Technology Office for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
'Art brings to L-3 an advanced technical background in strategic military development initiatives,' said Schafer. 'This expertise will not only help L-3 develop new technologies on behalf of our customers, but it will also support L-3 in identifying useful technology synergies from across the corporation, and enable us to refine our research and development efforts to develop new products more quickly and with advanced capabilities.'
On Monday, L-3 slipped 53 cents to $74.98."
By TSC Staff
12/5/2005 11:50 AM EST
L-3 Communications (LLL:NYSE - commentary - research - Cramer's Take) named Arthur A. Morrish chief technology officer for the Products Group.
The New York-based defense contractor said Morrish will review the group's research and development efforts. He will also have responsibilities supporting various other technology and research and development initiatives within L-3 Communications. Morrish will report to Charles J. Schafer, president and chief operating officer of L-3's Products Group.
Morrish, 48, was director of the Tactical Technology Office for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.
'Art brings to L-3 an advanced technical background in strategic military development initiatives,' said Schafer. 'This expertise will not only help L-3 develop new technologies on behalf of our customers, but it will also support L-3 in identifying useful technology synergies from across the corporation, and enable us to refine our research and development efforts to develop new products more quickly and with advanced capabilities.'
On Monday, L-3 slipped 53 cents to $74.98."
DARPA Grand Challenge Vehicles on Display at Pentagon
DARPA Grand Challenge Vehicles on Display at Pentagon
The five teams that successfully completed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge in October will display their vehicle technologies and answer questions from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. EST Dec. 6 in the Pentagon courtyard.
Vehicles on display will be: 'Stanley,' the winning vehicle developed by Stanford Racing Team, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.; 'Sandstorm,' developed by Red Team and 'H1ghlander' developed by Red Team Too, both from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pa..; 'KAT 5,' developed by Gray Team, Metairie, La.; and 'Terramax,' developed by Team Terramax, Oshkosh, Wis.
In addition to the vehicles, DARPA Director Tony Tether will make a presentation on the Grand Challenge at 11 a.m. in the Pentagon Auditorium (Room BH650).
Images and additional information on the Grand Challenge are available at http://www.grandchallenge.org and http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge .
Media without Pentagon badges interested in covering the event must pre-register by Tuesday, Dec. 6, at 9 a.m. with Jan Walker, DARPA Public Affairs, at (703) 696-2404."
The five teams that successfully completed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Grand Challenge in October will display their vehicle technologies and answer questions from 10:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. EST Dec. 6 in the Pentagon courtyard.
Vehicles on display will be: 'Stanley,' the winning vehicle developed by Stanford Racing Team, Stanford University, Palo Alto, Calif.; 'Sandstorm,' developed by Red Team and 'H1ghlander' developed by Red Team Too, both from Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, Pa..; 'KAT 5,' developed by Gray Team, Metairie, La.; and 'Terramax,' developed by Team Terramax, Oshkosh, Wis.
In addition to the vehicles, DARPA Director Tony Tether will make a presentation on the Grand Challenge at 11 a.m. in the Pentagon Auditorium (Room BH650).
Images and additional information on the Grand Challenge are available at http://www.grandchallenge.org and http://www.darpa.mil/grandchallenge .
Media without Pentagon badges interested in covering the event must pre-register by Tuesday, Dec. 6, at 9 a.m. with Jan Walker, DARPA Public Affairs, at (703) 696-2404."
FBI Has a Magic Lantern
FBI Has a Magic Lantern
FBI Has a Magic Lantern
To light the path to suspects' computers
Calling it a just "workbench project," that could not be further commented on, the FBI has confirmed the existence of its latest Internet-eavesdropping, controversy-raising snooping device exotically code-named "Magic Lantern."
Magic Lantern is software that, once installed on the suspect's computer, will record every keystroke typed. The gathered keystrokes will then be analyzed by the FBI to extract passwords. The harvested passwords will be used by the FBI to access the suspect's email messages and other encrypted documents, or to gain access to other computers contacted by the suspect via the Internet.
While the FBI has long acknowledged using its controversial Carnivore system to intercept data transmitted to and from a suspect's computer over the Internet, Magic Lantern differs substantially in design and, as civil liberty advocates will argue, its level of intrusion on personal privacy.
Carnivore is installed between the suspect's PC and the Internet, typically on hardware under the control of the suspect's Internet service provider. Magic Lantern, however, is installed directly on the suspects computer via a Trojan horse virus delivered over the Internet. Identity-stealing hackers have recently been sending similar viruses to computer users around the world via disguised email attachments hoping to gather passwords, user names, bank account and credit card numbers, and similar personal information.
When asked if use of Magic Lantern would require a court order, as does Carnivore, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson told reporters only that, "Like all technology projects or tools deployed by the FBI it would be used pursuant to the appropriate legal process."
Since Magic Lantern is essentially "just another virus," anti-virus software can be written to defeat it. According to a Reuters report of December 12, the FBI has not asked anti-virus software vendors to refrain from creating anti-Magic Lantern software. Most vendors, however, have stated they would not cooperate with the FBI unless ordered to do so by the courts.
Civil liberty groups argue that use of an Internet snooper systems like Carnivore and Magic Lantern represents an unreasonable search and seizure according to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
The FBI claims authority to intercept telephone and Internet communications under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and parts of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, or "ECPA".
According to the Department of Justice, interception of Internet data requires a much higher level of judicial approval than traditional searches.
"Unlike typical search warrants, federal magistrates are not authorized to approve such applications and orders, instead, the applications are viewed by federal district court judges. Further, interception of communications is limited to certain specified federal felony offenses." -- Testimony of FBI Assistant Director Donald M. Kerr before the House Judiciary Committee - July 24, 2000.
Congress, however, had concerns about possible misuse or overuse of Internet snooping systems in August, when lawmakers required the FBI to provide them with detailed reports on the Agency's actual use of Carnivore. [Congress Clamps Down on Carnivore]
Of course, that action came before Sept. 11, 2001. Given the importance of the war on terrorism and the fact that terrorist groups are known to formulate plans, raise funds and spread propaganda over the Internet, do not look for Congress to clip the wick of the Magic Lantern.
FBI Has a Magic Lantern
To light the path to suspects' computers
Calling it a just "workbench project," that could not be further commented on, the FBI has confirmed the existence of its latest Internet-eavesdropping, controversy-raising snooping device exotically code-named "Magic Lantern."
Magic Lantern is software that, once installed on the suspect's computer, will record every keystroke typed. The gathered keystrokes will then be analyzed by the FBI to extract passwords. The harvested passwords will be used by the FBI to access the suspect's email messages and other encrypted documents, or to gain access to other computers contacted by the suspect via the Internet.
While the FBI has long acknowledged using its controversial Carnivore system to intercept data transmitted to and from a suspect's computer over the Internet, Magic Lantern differs substantially in design and, as civil liberty advocates will argue, its level of intrusion on personal privacy.
Carnivore is installed between the suspect's PC and the Internet, typically on hardware under the control of the suspect's Internet service provider. Magic Lantern, however, is installed directly on the suspects computer via a Trojan horse virus delivered over the Internet. Identity-stealing hackers have recently been sending similar viruses to computer users around the world via disguised email attachments hoping to gather passwords, user names, bank account and credit card numbers, and similar personal information.
When asked if use of Magic Lantern would require a court order, as does Carnivore, FBI spokesman Paul Bresson told reporters only that, "Like all technology projects or tools deployed by the FBI it would be used pursuant to the appropriate legal process."
Since Magic Lantern is essentially "just another virus," anti-virus software can be written to defeat it. According to a Reuters report of December 12, the FBI has not asked anti-virus software vendors to refrain from creating anti-Magic Lantern software. Most vendors, however, have stated they would not cooperate with the FBI unless ordered to do so by the courts.
Civil liberty groups argue that use of an Internet snooper systems like Carnivore and Magic Lantern represents an unreasonable search and seizure according to the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.
The FBI claims authority to intercept telephone and Internet communications under Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 and parts of the Electronic Communications Privacy Act of 1986, or "ECPA".
According to the Department of Justice, interception of Internet data requires a much higher level of judicial approval than traditional searches.
"Unlike typical search warrants, federal magistrates are not authorized to approve such applications and orders, instead, the applications are viewed by federal district court judges. Further, interception of communications is limited to certain specified federal felony offenses." -- Testimony of FBI Assistant Director Donald M. Kerr before the House Judiciary Committee - July 24, 2000.
Congress, however, had concerns about possible misuse or overuse of Internet snooping systems in August, when lawmakers required the FBI to provide them with detailed reports on the Agency's actual use of Carnivore. [Congress Clamps Down on Carnivore]
Of course, that action came before Sept. 11, 2001. Given the importance of the war on terrorism and the fact that terrorist groups are known to formulate plans, raise funds and spread propaganda over the Internet, do not look for Congress to clip the wick of the Magic Lantern.
Report: FBI botched terrorism probe
Report: FBI botched terrorism probe: "Monday, December 5, 2005 ? Last updated 4:13 p.m. PT
Report: FBI botched terrorism probe
By MARK SHERMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- FBI agents botched a terrorism investigation in Florida and tried to cover up mistakes, said Justice Department investigators, who also concluded that a high-ranking official retaliated against the veteran undercover agent who first pointed out the problems.
The findings were included in a draft report by the Justice Department's inspector general on a complaint made by former agent Michael German about an investigation in Orlando that he believed showed promising signs of a link between terrorism financing and the sale of illegal drugs.
The inspector general's office 'substantiated German's allegations that the Orlando case was mishandled and mismanaged by the FBI's Tampa Division,' the report said. German, who left the FBI in 2004 after 16 years, received the Nov. 15 draft and made it public.
But the inspector general did not back up his contention that the agent in Orlando and FBI supervisors missed the chance to unravel a terrorism financing operation, concluding there was no evidence to undermine earlier reviews that the suspect had no link to terrorists.
German said Monday that the inspector general gave too much credence to those reviews, especially after documenting other significant problems.
Among the most serious issues investigators found in an inquiry that began in January 2004 was the use of correction fluid to alter dates on three FBI forms to obscure an apparent violation of federal wiretap law. But the investigation did not determine who made the changes.
advertising
The agent who handled the terrorism investigation in 2002 also misdated reports to make it appear he completed them much sooner than he had. One account of a key meeting between an informant and the main subject of the investigation was not entered in the FBI database for 10 months, the report said. FBI policy says such reporting normally should be done within five days.
German sought protection as a whistleblower in September 2002, by which time he believed his complaints were being ignored. Government employees who report allegations of wrongdoing are supposed to be shielded from retaliation.
Yet the report found that Jorge Martinez, then the chief of the FBI's Undercover and Sensitive Operations Unit, excluded German from serving as an instructor in undercover training programs in response to German's decision to persistently raise questions about the case.
Martinez told another FBI official he wouldn't use German in the training programs - despite his previous regular participant in such training - because he lacked confidence in him, the report said. Martinez said he didn't recall saying that, but if he did, it was a 'knee-jerk reaction but did not mean to indicate I was retaliating against him.'
The FBI had no comment on the report.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a critic of the FBI and ardent defender of whistleblowers, said German is 'in a long line of FBI whistleblowers who have had their careers derailed because the FBI couldn't tolerate criticism. I look forward to seeing a final report on Mr. German's case, but right now I believe it to be a sad day when someone at the FBI alters records in order to discredit a whistleblower.'
---
On the Net:
Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov
FBI: http://www.fbi.gov"
Report: FBI botched terrorism probe
By MARK SHERMAN
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER
WASHINGTON -- FBI agents botched a terrorism investigation in Florida and tried to cover up mistakes, said Justice Department investigators, who also concluded that a high-ranking official retaliated against the veteran undercover agent who first pointed out the problems.
The findings were included in a draft report by the Justice Department's inspector general on a complaint made by former agent Michael German about an investigation in Orlando that he believed showed promising signs of a link between terrorism financing and the sale of illegal drugs.
The inspector general's office 'substantiated German's allegations that the Orlando case was mishandled and mismanaged by the FBI's Tampa Division,' the report said. German, who left the FBI in 2004 after 16 years, received the Nov. 15 draft and made it public.
But the inspector general did not back up his contention that the agent in Orlando and FBI supervisors missed the chance to unravel a terrorism financing operation, concluding there was no evidence to undermine earlier reviews that the suspect had no link to terrorists.
German said Monday that the inspector general gave too much credence to those reviews, especially after documenting other significant problems.
Among the most serious issues investigators found in an inquiry that began in January 2004 was the use of correction fluid to alter dates on three FBI forms to obscure an apparent violation of federal wiretap law. But the investigation did not determine who made the changes.
advertising
The agent who handled the terrorism investigation in 2002 also misdated reports to make it appear he completed them much sooner than he had. One account of a key meeting between an informant and the main subject of the investigation was not entered in the FBI database for 10 months, the report said. FBI policy says such reporting normally should be done within five days.
German sought protection as a whistleblower in September 2002, by which time he believed his complaints were being ignored. Government employees who report allegations of wrongdoing are supposed to be shielded from retaliation.
Yet the report found that Jorge Martinez, then the chief of the FBI's Undercover and Sensitive Operations Unit, excluded German from serving as an instructor in undercover training programs in response to German's decision to persistently raise questions about the case.
Martinez told another FBI official he wouldn't use German in the training programs - despite his previous regular participant in such training - because he lacked confidence in him, the report said. Martinez said he didn't recall saying that, but if he did, it was a 'knee-jerk reaction but did not mean to indicate I was retaliating against him.'
The FBI had no comment on the report.
Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, a critic of the FBI and ardent defender of whistleblowers, said German is 'in a long line of FBI whistleblowers who have had their careers derailed because the FBI couldn't tolerate criticism. I look forward to seeing a final report on Mr. German's case, but right now I believe it to be a sad day when someone at the FBI alters records in order to discredit a whistleblower.'
---
On the Net:
Justice Department: http://www.usdoj.gov
FBI: http://www.fbi.gov"
Cheney Speaks for DeLay
Cheney Speaks for DeLay
by Richard Cummings
http://www.lewrockwell.com/cummings/cummings53.html
by Richard Cummings
The following is an advance copy of Vice President Dick Cheney?s remarks on behalf of Tom DeLay at the legal defense fund dinner to pay for DeLay?s legal expenses.
My fellow sleazebags. As I look down at this audience of fat cats who suck the blood of the state as if it were their own, I am filled with a sense of gratification that I am not alone in standing up for America?s biggest phony, and that includes the president and myself. That all of you have forked up a grand a piece so a pack of Washington sharks can make a bundle off of Tom?s legal troubles proves to me that the system is in tact, notwithstanding the cowardly criticisms coming from the anarcho-radicals of the left wing of the Democratic Party.
I was, like many of you, proud of Tom when he proclaimed "I AM the federal government." Not since Louis XIV has a public figure so accurately portrayed his role. Indeed, I have it on good information that, like Tom here, at least a hundred congressmen and senators are all under scrutiny by the Justice Department for the kind of patriotic rip-offs that Tom stands for, like fleecing Indian tribes so Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed can become billionaires. Is Tom a role model or what?
Take it from me as one who has looted a gigantic corporation, Halliburton, and bringing it to the verge of bankruptcy by buying a company facing vast liability for asbestos negligence and then bailing it out with billions on no bid contracts for a war in Iraq I launched as vice president, that it takes guts to outdo me. But Tom did it. And he did it with style. Once known as "Hot tub Tom" for his old frat party ways, he got religion, just like our great president did after his booze episodes.
So why is Tom in hot water today? And why are his aides getting indicted? So he laundered a few bucks to make illegal campaign contributions in Texas. That?s like bringing coal to Newcastle, if you get my drift. Is there such a thing as a clean campaign in Texas? Do the Democrats, who got Tom indicted, ever mention how Landslide Lyndon got elected to the Senate? A buck here, a buck there, and it ads up. Hey, this is an indigenous culture that is in need of preservation in the name of diversity. As far as what Tom did or is alleged to have done, all I can say is, to paraphrase Claude Raines in Casablanca "I am shocked, shocked, to learn that things like this go on."
What we have to day is a serious threat to an entire way of life in Washington, just like the threat to the way of life of those same American Indians Jack Abramoff has worked so hard to help. If Tom DeLay goes to jail, who might be next? Before you know it, they could have the entire federal government in the can, and where would the country be then? I?ll tell you where it would be. It would be hopeless and helpless without the culture of corruption based on man?s basic need for deceit and hypocrisy. Where would the writers be? The playwrights and moviemakers like George Clooney and Michael Moore? Without us, they would be on the breadline. Think of the thousands of people who would be thrown out of work. The investigative journalists would have to get honest jobs, like truck driver or dog walker. The prosecutors would be forced to become bartenders or go back to Ireland. Without us, the economy would not be pumped up with federal spending on military contracts that were awarded as the result of bribery. Don?t let anyone lie to you. We NEED this war in Iraq and Tom is one of the upfront guys that brought it to you.
And that is why this pack of ingrates is looking to bring him down. There isn?t one ounce of gratitude in any of them. You would think they would be kissing Tom?s designer Italian shoes the way they have all benefited from his patriotic pilfering of the public purse. And if you think the great Spiro Agnew inspired those alliterations, you are right. Those same types drove that great statesman from office just because he took a few groceries from friends while he was governor of Maryland, the only state to rival Texas as the nation?s capital of sleaze. But does anyone even remember Agnew today, forced out as vice president before the impeachment of "I?m Not a Crook" Richard Nixon?
I know what you are thinking now. That this is a familiar scenario and that the same thing is going to happen all over again. Thirty years ago, a brave president presiding over an unwinnable war who launched a policy of Vietnamization and supported a tyrant in Ethiopia is impeached after the lynching of his vice president, with his two top aides, Halderman and Erlichman indicted and sent to the hoosegow. Then, his Ethiopian puppet got overthrown. And now, there is me, and Liddy and Rove and Iraqization and the new tyrants in Ethiopia we back for reasons of national security. And let me tell you, if Tom goes to the can, can George W. Bush be far behind? When those commie sharks smell blood, its doomsday for America. They will even pull the plug on those essential new Ethiopian tyrants we fund to fight war on terrorism on the Horn of Africa.
If you think this is history repeating itself, you are right. Which is why I am here tonight to tell you that writing big checks for Tom to pay his lawyers is in all of our interests. Louis XIV did not only say "L?etat est moi ("I am the state"). He also said, "Apres moi le deluge." Which means, "After me, the flood," O.K., so in our case, the flood has already happened. The entire French Establishment, king and all, ended up getting their heads lopped off, and we wouldn?t want that to happen to us, would we?
My friends, I say to you tonight, when they complain that the war in bankrupting the country "Let them eat cake." And as I look down on my plate, I see that we have cake for dessert. So dig in.
Thank you.
December 5, 2005
Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper ? Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell.He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad ? The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.
by Richard Cummings
http://www.lewrockwell.com/cummings/cummings53.html
by Richard Cummings
The following is an advance copy of Vice President Dick Cheney?s remarks on behalf of Tom DeLay at the legal defense fund dinner to pay for DeLay?s legal expenses.
My fellow sleazebags. As I look down at this audience of fat cats who suck the blood of the state as if it were their own, I am filled with a sense of gratification that I am not alone in standing up for America?s biggest phony, and that includes the president and myself. That all of you have forked up a grand a piece so a pack of Washington sharks can make a bundle off of Tom?s legal troubles proves to me that the system is in tact, notwithstanding the cowardly criticisms coming from the anarcho-radicals of the left wing of the Democratic Party.
I was, like many of you, proud of Tom when he proclaimed "I AM the federal government." Not since Louis XIV has a public figure so accurately portrayed his role. Indeed, I have it on good information that, like Tom here, at least a hundred congressmen and senators are all under scrutiny by the Justice Department for the kind of patriotic rip-offs that Tom stands for, like fleecing Indian tribes so Jack Abramoff and Ralph Reed can become billionaires. Is Tom a role model or what?
Take it from me as one who has looted a gigantic corporation, Halliburton, and bringing it to the verge of bankruptcy by buying a company facing vast liability for asbestos negligence and then bailing it out with billions on no bid contracts for a war in Iraq I launched as vice president, that it takes guts to outdo me. But Tom did it. And he did it with style. Once known as "Hot tub Tom" for his old frat party ways, he got religion, just like our great president did after his booze episodes.
So why is Tom in hot water today? And why are his aides getting indicted? So he laundered a few bucks to make illegal campaign contributions in Texas. That?s like bringing coal to Newcastle, if you get my drift. Is there such a thing as a clean campaign in Texas? Do the Democrats, who got Tom indicted, ever mention how Landslide Lyndon got elected to the Senate? A buck here, a buck there, and it ads up. Hey, this is an indigenous culture that is in need of preservation in the name of diversity. As far as what Tom did or is alleged to have done, all I can say is, to paraphrase Claude Raines in Casablanca "I am shocked, shocked, to learn that things like this go on."
What we have to day is a serious threat to an entire way of life in Washington, just like the threat to the way of life of those same American Indians Jack Abramoff has worked so hard to help. If Tom DeLay goes to jail, who might be next? Before you know it, they could have the entire federal government in the can, and where would the country be then? I?ll tell you where it would be. It would be hopeless and helpless without the culture of corruption based on man?s basic need for deceit and hypocrisy. Where would the writers be? The playwrights and moviemakers like George Clooney and Michael Moore? Without us, they would be on the breadline. Think of the thousands of people who would be thrown out of work. The investigative journalists would have to get honest jobs, like truck driver or dog walker. The prosecutors would be forced to become bartenders or go back to Ireland. Without us, the economy would not be pumped up with federal spending on military contracts that were awarded as the result of bribery. Don?t let anyone lie to you. We NEED this war in Iraq and Tom is one of the upfront guys that brought it to you.
And that is why this pack of ingrates is looking to bring him down. There isn?t one ounce of gratitude in any of them. You would think they would be kissing Tom?s designer Italian shoes the way they have all benefited from his patriotic pilfering of the public purse. And if you think the great Spiro Agnew inspired those alliterations, you are right. Those same types drove that great statesman from office just because he took a few groceries from friends while he was governor of Maryland, the only state to rival Texas as the nation?s capital of sleaze. But does anyone even remember Agnew today, forced out as vice president before the impeachment of "I?m Not a Crook" Richard Nixon?
I know what you are thinking now. That this is a familiar scenario and that the same thing is going to happen all over again. Thirty years ago, a brave president presiding over an unwinnable war who launched a policy of Vietnamization and supported a tyrant in Ethiopia is impeached after the lynching of his vice president, with his two top aides, Halderman and Erlichman indicted and sent to the hoosegow. Then, his Ethiopian puppet got overthrown. And now, there is me, and Liddy and Rove and Iraqization and the new tyrants in Ethiopia we back for reasons of national security. And let me tell you, if Tom goes to the can, can George W. Bush be far behind? When those commie sharks smell blood, its doomsday for America. They will even pull the plug on those essential new Ethiopian tyrants we fund to fight war on terrorism on the Horn of Africa.
If you think this is history repeating itself, you are right. Which is why I am here tonight to tell you that writing big checks for Tom to pay his lawyers is in all of our interests. Louis XIV did not only say "L?etat est moi ("I am the state"). He also said, "Apres moi le deluge." Which means, "After me, the flood," O.K., so in our case, the flood has already happened. The entire French Establishment, king and all, ended up getting their heads lopped off, and we wouldn?t want that to happen to us, would we?
My friends, I say to you tonight, when they complain that the war in bankrupting the country "Let them eat cake." And as I look down on my plate, I see that we have cake for dessert. So dig in.
Thank you.
December 5, 2005
Richard Cummings [send him mail] taught international law at the Haile Selassie I University and before that, was Attorney-Advisor with the Office of General Counsel of the Near East South Asia region of U.S.A.I.D, where he was responsible for the legal work pertaining to the aid program in Israel, Jordan, Pakistan and Afghanistan. He is the author of a new novel, The Immortalists, as well as The Pied Piper ? Allard K. Lowenstein and the Liberal Dream, and the comedy, Soccer Moms From Hell.He holds a Ph.D. in Social and Political Sciences from Cambridge University and is a member of the Association of Former Intelligence Officers. He is writing a new book, The Road To Baghdad ? The Money Trail Behind The War In Iraq. He is a contribution editor for The American Conservative.
Mayberry Machiavellis
It's the culture, stupid
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 6, 2005, 07:50
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7750.shtml
The rapidly-multiplying scandals ripping through Washington like a category five
hurricane has Republicans reassessing their political futures while Democrats rub
their hands with glee amid dreams of massive gains in the 2006 midterm elections.
?It?s the kind of upheaval we see every so often,? says political scientist George
Harleigh. ?It happened after Watergate and during the midterms of Bill Clinton?s
first term (the 1994 elections when Republicans seize control of Congress.?
A Texas judge?s refusal to toss money laundering charges against former House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay all but sealed the Texas Republican?s hope of recapturing
his lost leadership post and DeLay, along with at leave five other Republicans (and
one Democrat) face additional charges from the widening Justice Department
investigation into the many illegal activities of GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
?The Abramoff scandal is the proverbial tip of the iceberg,? says Harleigh. ?It?s a
big closet with lots of skeletons.?
And it?s not the only problem faced by Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Fred
Frist faces serious questions about insider stock trading and California Republican
Congressman Randy ?Duke? Cunningham resigned his seat after copping a plea for
accepting bribes.
"The conduct is certainly brazen," says Kenneth Gross, former chief of enforcement
at the Federal Election Commission.
That?s one way of putting it. Politics is, and always has been, a dirty business
where shady deals dominate the way votes are bought and sold. Yet the brazenness of
the Cunninghams, DeLays and Frists shock even Washington oldtimers.
?You develop friendships,? says Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, vice chairman of the
House Republican Conference, ?and those friends see you after hours, on the
weekends, and they have nice play toys ? boats, access to golfing, country clubs,
credit cards ? and you're becoming friends with the guy and you don't think that
much of it, and before you know it you get caught up in it.?
Even those who come to Washington with promises to be different and clean things up
too often get caught up in the culture of power, greed and a belief that the rules
don?t apply.
?That corruption is rampant in Washington, D.C., surprises no one,? says
conservative commentator Chuck Baldwin. ?What is surprising, at least to me, is how
so many people, especially people calling themselves Christians or conservatives,
seem so willing to tolerate it!?
Political partisans, of course, see all this as the fault of the other party.
?Tom Delay and his congressional allies are taking political corruption to new lows.
Tom Delay is now under indictment on criminal charges,? says House Democratic leader
Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi forgets Democrats caught in their own share of scandals,
including North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan in the Jack Abramoff scandal or jail
terms handed down to cronies of former Democratic President Bill Clinton or jailed
Democratic congressman James Traficant.
Scandal doesn?t belong to any particular political party and neither can claim a
copyright on honesty. It?s the culture itself not a belief in any partisan political
philosophy that breeds corruption. But since Republicans control both Congress and
the White House, they face the most fallout from current scandals and that?s what
has GOP strategists worried.
Conservative consultant Craig Shirley agrees with Harleigh that 2006 could turn into
another 1974 when voters ousted Republicans in a post-Watergate house cleaning.
Conservatives, he says, could sit out the election to express their displeasure with
President George W. Bush.
?Conservatives are perilously close to driving a car through the front window of the
Republican Party,? he says.
Others echo the doom and gloom. GOP pollster Linda Divall says that even if Bush
makes peace with conservatives, moderates may bolt.
?Moderates don't feel they're being listened to,? DiVall says. ?You can?t just play
to your base.?
In the end, blame for the Republican Party?s woes almost always falls on Bush. Even
loyalists say the President, who promised the ?most ethical administration? in
history, has delivered, instead, a ?business as usual? White House where politics
too often overrides good public policy.
?There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a
complete lack of a policy apparatus,? says John J. DiIulio Jr.: who served as the
first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
?What you've got is everything -- and I mean everything -- being run by the
political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.?
By DOUG THOMPSON
Dec 6, 2005, 07:50
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_7750.shtml
The rapidly-multiplying scandals ripping through Washington like a category five
hurricane has Republicans reassessing their political futures while Democrats rub
their hands with glee amid dreams of massive gains in the 2006 midterm elections.
?It?s the kind of upheaval we see every so often,? says political scientist George
Harleigh. ?It happened after Watergate and during the midterms of Bill Clinton?s
first term (the 1994 elections when Republicans seize control of Congress.?
A Texas judge?s refusal to toss money laundering charges against former House
Majority Leader Tom DeLay all but sealed the Texas Republican?s hope of recapturing
his lost leadership post and DeLay, along with at leave five other Republicans (and
one Democrat) face additional charges from the widening Justice Department
investigation into the many illegal activities of GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff.
?The Abramoff scandal is the proverbial tip of the iceberg,? says Harleigh. ?It?s a
big closet with lots of skeletons.?
And it?s not the only problem faced by Republicans. Senate Majority Leader Fred
Frist faces serious questions about insider stock trading and California Republican
Congressman Randy ?Duke? Cunningham resigned his seat after copping a plea for
accepting bribes.
"The conduct is certainly brazen," says Kenneth Gross, former chief of enforcement
at the Federal Election Commission.
That?s one way of putting it. Politics is, and always has been, a dirty business
where shady deals dominate the way votes are bought and sold. Yet the brazenness of
the Cunninghams, DeLays and Frists shock even Washington oldtimers.
?You develop friendships,? says Rep. Jack Kingston of Georgia, vice chairman of the
House Republican Conference, ?and those friends see you after hours, on the
weekends, and they have nice play toys ? boats, access to golfing, country clubs,
credit cards ? and you're becoming friends with the guy and you don't think that
much of it, and before you know it you get caught up in it.?
Even those who come to Washington with promises to be different and clean things up
too often get caught up in the culture of power, greed and a belief that the rules
don?t apply.
?That corruption is rampant in Washington, D.C., surprises no one,? says
conservative commentator Chuck Baldwin. ?What is surprising, at least to me, is how
so many people, especially people calling themselves Christians or conservatives,
seem so willing to tolerate it!?
Political partisans, of course, see all this as the fault of the other party.
?Tom Delay and his congressional allies are taking political corruption to new lows.
Tom Delay is now under indictment on criminal charges,? says House Democratic leader
Nancy Pelosi. Pelosi forgets Democrats caught in their own share of scandals,
including North Dakota Senator Byron Dorgan in the Jack Abramoff scandal or jail
terms handed down to cronies of former Democratic President Bill Clinton or jailed
Democratic congressman James Traficant.
Scandal doesn?t belong to any particular political party and neither can claim a
copyright on honesty. It?s the culture itself not a belief in any partisan political
philosophy that breeds corruption. But since Republicans control both Congress and
the White House, they face the most fallout from current scandals and that?s what
has GOP strategists worried.
Conservative consultant Craig Shirley agrees with Harleigh that 2006 could turn into
another 1974 when voters ousted Republicans in a post-Watergate house cleaning.
Conservatives, he says, could sit out the election to express their displeasure with
President George W. Bush.
?Conservatives are perilously close to driving a car through the front window of the
Republican Party,? he says.
Others echo the doom and gloom. GOP pollster Linda Divall says that even if Bush
makes peace with conservatives, moderates may bolt.
?Moderates don't feel they're being listened to,? DiVall says. ?You can?t just play
to your base.?
In the end, blame for the Republican Party?s woes almost always falls on Bush. Even
loyalists say the President, who promised the ?most ethical administration? in
history, has delivered, instead, a ?business as usual? White House where politics
too often overrides good public policy.
?There is no precedent in any modern White House for what is going on in this one: a
complete lack of a policy apparatus,? says John J. DiIulio Jr.: who served as the
first director of the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives.
?What you've got is everything -- and I mean everything -- being run by the
political arm. It's the reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis.?
War Crimes, USA
Interview: Could administration officials be called to account?
Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler, and Brendan Smith
By Mark Engler
December 5, 2005
In normal times, suggesting that the leaders of our country might
have committed war crimes would violate a firm taboo in American
political discussion. Yet in the post-Abu-Ghraib era?and especially
as President Bush has quarreled with Congress over the McCain
amendment prohibiting abuse of all detainees in U.S. custody?
observers can no longer profess shock at the idea that criminal
breaches of humanitarian law have occurred. According to a recent
editorial in the Washington Post, the amendment "would mandate an end
to the hundreds of cases of torture and inhumane treatment, many of
them qualifying as war crimes, that have been documented by the
International Red Cross, and the Army itself at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
and in Afghanistan and Iraq, and elsewhere."
With the White House on the defensive about its justifications for
the invasion of Iraq, and with European governments in an uproar over
whether American abuse of prisoners has taken place in bases on the
continent, scrutiny of alleged U.S. war crimes looks sure to
intensify. And if debate about this inflammatory topic begins to
rage, a new book, edited by Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler, and Brendan
Smith, promises to add fuel to the fire. In the Name of Democracy:
American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond collects damning official
documents, leaked e-mails, testimonies, commentaries, and
investigative articles. Together, these items make a strong case that
Bush administration actions overseas violate international norms and
treaties, and that those responsible are subject to legal
repercussions.
Are we actually going to see Donald Rumsfeld stand trial?
Motherjones.com talked to the editors about why the issue of war
crimes may become an ever-sharper thorn in the side of administration
officials, about the potential and the limitations of international
law, and about the obligation of citizens to prevent further crimes
from being committed.
Historian Jeremy Brecher has written and edited over a dozen books,
including the labor history classic, Strike! Jill Cutler is an
assistant dean at Yale College and editor of Global Visions: Beyond
the New World Order. Brendan Smith is a legal scholar and former
congressional aide to Representative Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
Mother Jones: Does accusing United States of war crimes make you
sound out of touch with mainstream American sentiment? Wouldn't most
people think that these accusations are coming out of left field?
Jeremy Brecher: If the United States is involved in committing war
crimes, we as Americans have a responsibility to address that. I
don't think hiding from reality is a solution to the fact that no one
likes to be told that they're doing something wrong.
The second point, though, is that Americans actually are very worried
that our country may be doing things that are not in accord with our
own values. Appealing to that concern isn't a matter of trashing our
country, but of giving Americans a means of confronting what our
government has been doing.
Jill Cutler: People who work at the FBI, Senators, and Congressmen
are very concerned about our conduct in the war on terror. The FBI
was concerned about the torture that was occurring in various places.
Military officials are concerned that the Army's field manual is not
being observed.
Brendan Smith: The concept of war crimes is actually bringing
together some unlikely allies. Paralleling the peace movement, we're
seeing what we could call a "law and order movement." Here, you have
organizations like Amnesty International and the ACLU that are
concerned with civil liberties and human rights. But you also have a
dozen retired military officials, led by Marine Corps General David
Brahms, who wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee saying
that it should not confirm Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General
because he promoted violations of the Geneva Conventions.
JB: The public attitude about war crimes has changed a lot since the
beginning of the 1990s. We've moved away from a situation where war
crimes were just epithets that governments used to bash foreign
leaders they didn't like. Now, we've seen tribunals for the former
Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. We have the International Criminal Court,
which, even though the United States is not part of it, is designed
for the purpose of trying war crimes. The United States itself has
brought either formal charges or accusations of war crimes against
other countries' leaders?including, as we speak, against Saddam
Hussein. So this is a concept that we are becoming more familiar
with, something that is regarded as part of the fabric of law.
Mother Jones: The idea that the U.S. could commit war crimes is
taboo, yet on the other hand, it's taken for granted that our country
has a special role in the world--that America is an exception. And
that exceptionalism gives the U.S. a certain prerogative to act
without having to submit to an international litmus test.
JB: This is a claim that's made by the Bush administration, but when
you look at the poll data, it's quite clear that this belief is not
widely shared by the American people. There's a very interesting set
of polls done by an organization called PIPA, the University of
Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes. They show that
most Americans believe that the United States is bound by
international law and by the Geneva Conventions. It's this
fundamental belief in law, including both national and international
law, that we're hoping to appeal to.
For me personally, it goes back to the pictures I saw of the Nazi
concentration camp victims when they first came out after World War
II, and to hearing about the Nuremberg tribunal. I'm too young to
remember the tribunal actually happening, but I certainly learned
about it at an early age. The idea that top officials could be held
responsible for crimes committed by those under their command seemed
to me to be an essential part of how to make some decency and peace
in the world.
There was an attempt to apply that idea to the Vietnam War, but there
was no mechanism for actually enforcing it?even though the Bertrand
Russell Commission held a tribunal in what we would now call civil
society to investigate alleged U.S. war crimes. But as we moved
through 1990s, war crime tribunals became live institutions. And that
raised the question of whether this could really be meaningfully
applied to every country, including the United States.
BS: Beyond exceptionalism, there is a more grounded principle in
American society, which is that even the most powerful among us are
accountable to the law. If you juxtapose those two principles,
accountablilty and exceptionalism, I think the one that wins out is
accountability.
Mother Jones: What specifically are the war crimes that you are
identifying?
BS: We are talking about three categories. The first are crimes
against peace. After Nuremberg an idea took hold that launching an
aggressive war is the supreme international crime. There are only a
few specific circumstances where a state can use force against
another state. The U.N. charter says either you need a resolution
from the Security Council or you need to be acting in self-defense
from an imminent and immediate attack. In the current situation, the
U.S. launched an aggressive war in Iraq that even Kofi Annan declared
illegal.
The second category of crimes concern the conduct of the war and
occupation. This would include the administration's use of illegal
weapons, such as napalm, white phosphorus, and cluster bombs. It
includes a failure to protect civilians. It includes trying to break
the Iraqi insurgency with collective punishment against the civilian
population?with acts like cutting off water supplies. This is a
practice we saw in Fallujah and elsewhere, and which the U.N. has
condemned.
Fallujah actually summarizes several of these crimes. There we had
eight weeks of bombing, we destroyed 36,000 houses, 60 schools, and
65 mosques. One of the military's first acts was to storm the
hospital. The U.S. cut off all food supplies, all power to the entire
city. The Defense Department said that all the civilians were out at
the time of the attack, but reports show that 30,000 to 50,000
civilians remained in the city. The U.S. blocked the Red Crescent
from entering. All males between 15 and 55 weren't allowed to leave.
So in Iraq, Falljah has become iconic of American war crimes and
brutality.
The third set of war crimes centers on torture. Here, the question is
not whether it's happening, it's how often and who's responsible.
When we wrote the book there were 32 deaths of prisoners in U.S.
custody reported. Now there are over 100. The FBI reports cases of
strangulation, burning with cigarettes, routine beatings.
JC: Failure to count civilian deaths is also a war crime, a violation
of the Geneva Conventions.
Mother Jones: Certainly, war is ugly. Terrible things happen in war.
But the charge that these types of things are criminal seems to be
controversial. The administration would respond, for example, that
they are trying their best to prevent civilian deaths.
BS: Our claim is that there is more than enough evidence to bring an
initial indictment or to hold an investigation. The finer questions
of whether a certain attack?like the attack on the hospital in
Fallujah, whether that was a legal attack because the building was
overrun by insurgents or whether the facility was a functioning
hospital serving the sick and wounded?is a factual question. It
should be up to a jury; it should be up to a court of law to decide.
JB: The failure of the U.S. to record and investigate the deaths of
civilians really goes to the heart of this. If you do not investigate
the killing of civilians by bombs, or at road blocks, or in house-to-
house fighting, you have no way to know whether your operations are
being conducted in accord with international law or not. That's why
knowledge of the effects of warfare on civilians is the legal
responsibility of military commanders. There are open statements?
specifically by Mr. Rumsfeld?that these things are not being
investigated, that no records of civilian deaths are being kept. That
is an inherently criminal act.
Mother Jones: Torture may be the war crime that we hear the most
about, and perhaps there's good reason for that. The evidence on
torture, particularly the testimony of those who have been tortured
in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, and the leaked documents from our
government showing official knowledge of this situation, seems
exceptionally damning. I wonder if that's how you would account for
the focus on this area.
JC: The evidence of other war crimes is also very strong and quite
striking. I think maybe people have a special feeling about torture
because they feel a democratic nation doesn't use it. They don't care
so much that a democratic nation uses the deprivation of water
against civilians. We respond more strongly to the idea of torture
because we can see it happening to ourselves. Most of us can't see
ourselves in a position where our city is deprived of water.
BS: Like any good prosecutor, you go with your strongest case first.
And the strongest case out there, because of the incredible work of
Amnesty International, the ACLU and other groups, is torture. We know
about these leaked memos because of Freedom of Information Act cases
by the ACLU and other groups.
Another thing that really struck a raw nerve right at the beginning
was the scapegoating of low-level soldiers like Lynndie England. The
administration argued that that this was just a matter a few rotten
apples, when actually high-level officials are responsible.
Mother Jones: Recently, one of the daily newspapers in New York had a
large picture of President Bush on its cover and a banner headline
that was a quote from him, saying: "We are not torturers." The fact
that he would have to make this denial seems to me to be
extraordinary in the U.S. political context.
JB: We are seeing the fallout from some ideas and practices that
probably have never been pushed so openly to the extremes. One is the
idea that the President has unlimited power. This argument has been
made before, and certainly the executive has had wide latitude in
wartime. But people are now being forced to confront the fact that,
taken to its logical conclusion, this idea means the President can
simply order that people be tortured. The Bush administration has
actually said in court that if it decided to summarily execute those
it held captive, no court would have the right to intervene. They
actually said that in court.
Then there's the doctrine of preemptive war. The White House has
taken this so far as to say that it has the right to do anything it
claims is in defense of national security--and that international law
has no claim to stop it.
These are such extreme positions that they are beginning to force
people to say, "Where are the lines?" There must be some lines we
can't cross. And I think once that question is raised, it is a moment
for self-education for all of us--a moment for thinking about where
those lines we cannot cross actually lie.
BS: I believe the Bush folks are really in trouble. Sweden, Iceland,
Spain, Italy, and the European Union's human rights commission are
all investigating the CIA for torture?they're looking at charges that
the U.S. has reinvented the Gulag inside the gulags of Poland and
Romania. Various mainstream groups like the ACLU and Human Rights
First are already going after Rumsfeld for his direct role in the
torture.
I don't think the Bush administration knows how to get out of this
situation. Its solutions are things like having Vice President Cheney
lobby on the Hill to make an exemption in the McCain anti-torture
amendment, so that CIA officials can torture as a matter of policy.
In response, the Washington Post labeled Cheney the "Vice President
for Torture." The administration must be getting the sense that this
has really spun out of control.
Remember, they've explicitly expressed worry about charges of war
crimes. When Gonzales wrote his torture memo of January 25, 2002, it
warned the President about possible prosecution under the U.S. War
Crimes Act of 1996, which makes any grave violation of the Geneva
Conventions a crime under U.S. federal law. The President's counsel
is actually warning him there that he needs to think through this
problem and to plan so that he's not going to be busted for war
crimes.
Mother Jones: You argue that one implication of looking at the Iraq
war from a war crimes perspective is that it changes the way we see
war resisters.
JC: It doesn't necessarily change the way we see war resisters, but
it certainly leads us to put a higher value on their resistance. What
stands out for me is that the people who do resist, especially
military resisters, often face horrific consequences. When Greg Ford,
a 30-year Coast Guard veteran, went to tell his superior officer that
prisoners were being tortured by his unit in Samarra, Iraq, he was
told that he had 30 seconds to change his mind about making the
report. When he refused, he was airlifted to a psychiatric hospital
in Germany. In this context, I think resisting takes a kind of
courage that we can hardly imagine.
JB: One of the things that has been striking in profiling some of the
resistors is how much resistance is based on a defense of national
and international law. In late 2004 a military judge listened to the
testimony of Pablo Parades, a sailor who was ordered to get on a ship
bound for Iraq, He showed up in a t-shirt that said, "Like a Cabinet
member, I resign." He refused to go on board because he was convinced
that the war violated the law. The remarkable thing is that the judge
ultimately refused to send Paredes to jail. He said that the
government's case against the sailor was so weak that there was
reasonable cause to believe that the war in Iraq was illegal.
I don't think we're going to see a large number of judges in the
military declaring the war illegal. But this is an extreme reflection
of a deep concern about the illegality of the Bush administration's
actions that is widespread among military lawyers.
Mother Jones: In the book you discuss the "evident limitations"
international law. You write, "Surely there is little expectation
that members of the Bush administration will soon be subject to war
crimes prosecution in U.S. courts." Yet you argue nevertheless that
war crimes are an important part of a wider strategy to confront
White House lawlessness.
BS: When we wrote the book, I never imagined that we would be where
we are today, with so much action in the courts. Still, I think that
the general point is valid. I think we should be skeptical of the law
as alternative to organizing.
At the same time, the law can be a force that supports social
movements. One manner in which movements use the law is called
popular constitutionalism--the use of legal concepts to legitimize
social goals. We saw this when Martin Luther King argued that the
Constitution was a promissory note, that it promised equality to all
people, and that the civil rights movement was there to cash in the
note. There's a long history of using legal documents in this way.
Social movements can also capitalize on unintended developments in
the law. There are parts of the law that are very progressive but
were never intended that way. For example, President Truman insisted,
against the wishes of Churchill, that Nazi and Japanese military
leaders have a fair trial, with due process. Churchill at the time
was arguing for summary execution, that the enemies should be drug
out behind the building and shot. But Truman, who was originally a
small-town judge, believed in an abstract concept of legal justice.
He was only thinking about the Nuremberg trials. But when war crimes
trials developed in later decades?against Milosevic, for example?they
needed precedents. And they looked to the Nuremberg trials. We want
to encourage the on-going development of war crimes law and use
unintended developments to advance the goals of social justice.
JB: A key example that I would raise is the Brown vs. the Board of
Education decision, which ruled that separate was not equal. To the
extent that integration occurred in the United States in the decade
after the Brown decision, it was not because of the courts. It was
primarily because of the actions of the civil rights movement.
However, the legal principle gave a basis for action. The civil
rights movement ultimately had to use not only political persuasion
but also civil disobedience on a massive scale in order to achieve
what the court decision had promised. I would not be surprised if the
implementation of war crimes law will require that same kind of
social action.
Our book ultimately is not a compendium of crimes. It is about giving
us, as Americans, the understanding, knowledge, and perspective to
deal with a reality that otherwise is quite overwhelming. I think
it's very important that, as a society, we assimilate lessons of
what's happened in Iraq. We didn't assimilate the lessons of Vietnam
very well. We knew that something bad happened. But as a country we
never really saw the fundamental mistakes that led us there. That's
one of the reasons we facing the catastrophe in Iraq today.
One purpose of raising the war crimes issue is to point out that we
got in to this partly because we didn't have barriers, principles,
and values in our society to say that certain things are
unacceptable. If anything constructive is to come out of the horrors
of the United States in Iraq, it will be that kind of reflection and
the creation of limits that will prevent us from doing it again.
[Note: This month Brecher, Cutler, and Smith are launching a War
Crimes Watch web site to track continued evidence of war crimes and
national efforts to stop future crimes from being committed.]
http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2005/12/war_crimes_usa.html
Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler, and Brendan Smith
By Mark Engler
December 5, 2005
In normal times, suggesting that the leaders of our country might
have committed war crimes would violate a firm taboo in American
political discussion. Yet in the post-Abu-Ghraib era?and especially
as President Bush has quarreled with Congress over the McCain
amendment prohibiting abuse of all detainees in U.S. custody?
observers can no longer profess shock at the idea that criminal
breaches of humanitarian law have occurred. According to a recent
editorial in the Washington Post, the amendment "would mandate an end
to the hundreds of cases of torture and inhumane treatment, many of
them qualifying as war crimes, that have been documented by the
International Red Cross, and the Army itself at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba,
and in Afghanistan and Iraq, and elsewhere."
With the White House on the defensive about its justifications for
the invasion of Iraq, and with European governments in an uproar over
whether American abuse of prisoners has taken place in bases on the
continent, scrutiny of alleged U.S. war crimes looks sure to
intensify. And if debate about this inflammatory topic begins to
rage, a new book, edited by Jeremy Brecher, Jill Cutler, and Brendan
Smith, promises to add fuel to the fire. In the Name of Democracy:
American War Crimes in Iraq and Beyond collects damning official
documents, leaked e-mails, testimonies, commentaries, and
investigative articles. Together, these items make a strong case that
Bush administration actions overseas violate international norms and
treaties, and that those responsible are subject to legal
repercussions.
Are we actually going to see Donald Rumsfeld stand trial?
Motherjones.com talked to the editors about why the issue of war
crimes may become an ever-sharper thorn in the side of administration
officials, about the potential and the limitations of international
law, and about the obligation of citizens to prevent further crimes
from being committed.
Historian Jeremy Brecher has written and edited over a dozen books,
including the labor history classic, Strike! Jill Cutler is an
assistant dean at Yale College and editor of Global Visions: Beyond
the New World Order. Brendan Smith is a legal scholar and former
congressional aide to Representative Bernie Sanders (I-VT).
Mother Jones: Does accusing United States of war crimes make you
sound out of touch with mainstream American sentiment? Wouldn't most
people think that these accusations are coming out of left field?
Jeremy Brecher: If the United States is involved in committing war
crimes, we as Americans have a responsibility to address that. I
don't think hiding from reality is a solution to the fact that no one
likes to be told that they're doing something wrong.
The second point, though, is that Americans actually are very worried
that our country may be doing things that are not in accord with our
own values. Appealing to that concern isn't a matter of trashing our
country, but of giving Americans a means of confronting what our
government has been doing.
Jill Cutler: People who work at the FBI, Senators, and Congressmen
are very concerned about our conduct in the war on terror. The FBI
was concerned about the torture that was occurring in various places.
Military officials are concerned that the Army's field manual is not
being observed.
Brendan Smith: The concept of war crimes is actually bringing
together some unlikely allies. Paralleling the peace movement, we're
seeing what we could call a "law and order movement." Here, you have
organizations like Amnesty International and the ACLU that are
concerned with civil liberties and human rights. But you also have a
dozen retired military officials, led by Marine Corps General David
Brahms, who wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee saying
that it should not confirm Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General
because he promoted violations of the Geneva Conventions.
JB: The public attitude about war crimes has changed a lot since the
beginning of the 1990s. We've moved away from a situation where war
crimes were just epithets that governments used to bash foreign
leaders they didn't like. Now, we've seen tribunals for the former
Yugoslavia and for Rwanda. We have the International Criminal Court,
which, even though the United States is not part of it, is designed
for the purpose of trying war crimes. The United States itself has
brought either formal charges or accusations of war crimes against
other countries' leaders?including, as we speak, against Saddam
Hussein. So this is a concept that we are becoming more familiar
with, something that is regarded as part of the fabric of law.
Mother Jones: The idea that the U.S. could commit war crimes is
taboo, yet on the other hand, it's taken for granted that our country
has a special role in the world--that America is an exception. And
that exceptionalism gives the U.S. a certain prerogative to act
without having to submit to an international litmus test.
JB: This is a claim that's made by the Bush administration, but when
you look at the poll data, it's quite clear that this belief is not
widely shared by the American people. There's a very interesting set
of polls done by an organization called PIPA, the University of
Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes. They show that
most Americans believe that the United States is bound by
international law and by the Geneva Conventions. It's this
fundamental belief in law, including both national and international
law, that we're hoping to appeal to.
For me personally, it goes back to the pictures I saw of the Nazi
concentration camp victims when they first came out after World War
II, and to hearing about the Nuremberg tribunal. I'm too young to
remember the tribunal actually happening, but I certainly learned
about it at an early age. The idea that top officials could be held
responsible for crimes committed by those under their command seemed
to me to be an essential part of how to make some decency and peace
in the world.
There was an attempt to apply that idea to the Vietnam War, but there
was no mechanism for actually enforcing it?even though the Bertrand
Russell Commission held a tribunal in what we would now call civil
society to investigate alleged U.S. war crimes. But as we moved
through 1990s, war crime tribunals became live institutions. And that
raised the question of whether this could really be meaningfully
applied to every country, including the United States.
BS: Beyond exceptionalism, there is a more grounded principle in
American society, which is that even the most powerful among us are
accountable to the law. If you juxtapose those two principles,
accountablilty and exceptionalism, I think the one that wins out is
accountability.
Mother Jones: What specifically are the war crimes that you are
identifying?
BS: We are talking about three categories. The first are crimes
against peace. After Nuremberg an idea took hold that launching an
aggressive war is the supreme international crime. There are only a
few specific circumstances where a state can use force against
another state. The U.N. charter says either you need a resolution
from the Security Council or you need to be acting in self-defense
from an imminent and immediate attack. In the current situation, the
U.S. launched an aggressive war in Iraq that even Kofi Annan declared
illegal.
The second category of crimes concern the conduct of the war and
occupation. This would include the administration's use of illegal
weapons, such as napalm, white phosphorus, and cluster bombs. It
includes a failure to protect civilians. It includes trying to break
the Iraqi insurgency with collective punishment against the civilian
population?with acts like cutting off water supplies. This is a
practice we saw in Fallujah and elsewhere, and which the U.N. has
condemned.
Fallujah actually summarizes several of these crimes. There we had
eight weeks of bombing, we destroyed 36,000 houses, 60 schools, and
65 mosques. One of the military's first acts was to storm the
hospital. The U.S. cut off all food supplies, all power to the entire
city. The Defense Department said that all the civilians were out at
the time of the attack, but reports show that 30,000 to 50,000
civilians remained in the city. The U.S. blocked the Red Crescent
from entering. All males between 15 and 55 weren't allowed to leave.
So in Iraq, Falljah has become iconic of American war crimes and
brutality.
The third set of war crimes centers on torture. Here, the question is
not whether it's happening, it's how often and who's responsible.
When we wrote the book there were 32 deaths of prisoners in U.S.
custody reported. Now there are over 100. The FBI reports cases of
strangulation, burning with cigarettes, routine beatings.
JC: Failure to count civilian deaths is also a war crime, a violation
of the Geneva Conventions.
Mother Jones: Certainly, war is ugly. Terrible things happen in war.
But the charge that these types of things are criminal seems to be
controversial. The administration would respond, for example, that
they are trying their best to prevent civilian deaths.
BS: Our claim is that there is more than enough evidence to bring an
initial indictment or to hold an investigation. The finer questions
of whether a certain attack?like the attack on the hospital in
Fallujah, whether that was a legal attack because the building was
overrun by insurgents or whether the facility was a functioning
hospital serving the sick and wounded?is a factual question. It
should be up to a jury; it should be up to a court of law to decide.
JB: The failure of the U.S. to record and investigate the deaths of
civilians really goes to the heart of this. If you do not investigate
the killing of civilians by bombs, or at road blocks, or in house-to-
house fighting, you have no way to know whether your operations are
being conducted in accord with international law or not. That's why
knowledge of the effects of warfare on civilians is the legal
responsibility of military commanders. There are open statements?
specifically by Mr. Rumsfeld?that these things are not being
investigated, that no records of civilian deaths are being kept. That
is an inherently criminal act.
Mother Jones: Torture may be the war crime that we hear the most
about, and perhaps there's good reason for that. The evidence on
torture, particularly the testimony of those who have been tortured
in Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib, and the leaked documents from our
government showing official knowledge of this situation, seems
exceptionally damning. I wonder if that's how you would account for
the focus on this area.
JC: The evidence of other war crimes is also very strong and quite
striking. I think maybe people have a special feeling about torture
because they feel a democratic nation doesn't use it. They don't care
so much that a democratic nation uses the deprivation of water
against civilians. We respond more strongly to the idea of torture
because we can see it happening to ourselves. Most of us can't see
ourselves in a position where our city is deprived of water.
BS: Like any good prosecutor, you go with your strongest case first.
And the strongest case out there, because of the incredible work of
Amnesty International, the ACLU and other groups, is torture. We know
about these leaked memos because of Freedom of Information Act cases
by the ACLU and other groups.
Another thing that really struck a raw nerve right at the beginning
was the scapegoating of low-level soldiers like Lynndie England. The
administration argued that that this was just a matter a few rotten
apples, when actually high-level officials are responsible.
Mother Jones: Recently, one of the daily newspapers in New York had a
large picture of President Bush on its cover and a banner headline
that was a quote from him, saying: "We are not torturers." The fact
that he would have to make this denial seems to me to be
extraordinary in the U.S. political context.
JB: We are seeing the fallout from some ideas and practices that
probably have never been pushed so openly to the extremes. One is the
idea that the President has unlimited power. This argument has been
made before, and certainly the executive has had wide latitude in
wartime. But people are now being forced to confront the fact that,
taken to its logical conclusion, this idea means the President can
simply order that people be tortured. The Bush administration has
actually said in court that if it decided to summarily execute those
it held captive, no court would have the right to intervene. They
actually said that in court.
Then there's the doctrine of preemptive war. The White House has
taken this so far as to say that it has the right to do anything it
claims is in defense of national security--and that international law
has no claim to stop it.
These are such extreme positions that they are beginning to force
people to say, "Where are the lines?" There must be some lines we
can't cross. And I think once that question is raised, it is a moment
for self-education for all of us--a moment for thinking about where
those lines we cannot cross actually lie.
BS: I believe the Bush folks are really in trouble. Sweden, Iceland,
Spain, Italy, and the European Union's human rights commission are
all investigating the CIA for torture?they're looking at charges that
the U.S. has reinvented the Gulag inside the gulags of Poland and
Romania. Various mainstream groups like the ACLU and Human Rights
First are already going after Rumsfeld for his direct role in the
torture.
I don't think the Bush administration knows how to get out of this
situation. Its solutions are things like having Vice President Cheney
lobby on the Hill to make an exemption in the McCain anti-torture
amendment, so that CIA officials can torture as a matter of policy.
In response, the Washington Post labeled Cheney the "Vice President
for Torture." The administration must be getting the sense that this
has really spun out of control.
Remember, they've explicitly expressed worry about charges of war
crimes. When Gonzales wrote his torture memo of January 25, 2002, it
warned the President about possible prosecution under the U.S. War
Crimes Act of 1996, which makes any grave violation of the Geneva
Conventions a crime under U.S. federal law. The President's counsel
is actually warning him there that he needs to think through this
problem and to plan so that he's not going to be busted for war
crimes.
Mother Jones: You argue that one implication of looking at the Iraq
war from a war crimes perspective is that it changes the way we see
war resisters.
JC: It doesn't necessarily change the way we see war resisters, but
it certainly leads us to put a higher value on their resistance. What
stands out for me is that the people who do resist, especially
military resisters, often face horrific consequences. When Greg Ford,
a 30-year Coast Guard veteran, went to tell his superior officer that
prisoners were being tortured by his unit in Samarra, Iraq, he was
told that he had 30 seconds to change his mind about making the
report. When he refused, he was airlifted to a psychiatric hospital
in Germany. In this context, I think resisting takes a kind of
courage that we can hardly imagine.
JB: One of the things that has been striking in profiling some of the
resistors is how much resistance is based on a defense of national
and international law. In late 2004 a military judge listened to the
testimony of Pablo Parades, a sailor who was ordered to get on a ship
bound for Iraq, He showed up in a t-shirt that said, "Like a Cabinet
member, I resign." He refused to go on board because he was convinced
that the war violated the law. The remarkable thing is that the judge
ultimately refused to send Paredes to jail. He said that the
government's case against the sailor was so weak that there was
reasonable cause to believe that the war in Iraq was illegal.
I don't think we're going to see a large number of judges in the
military declaring the war illegal. But this is an extreme reflection
of a deep concern about the illegality of the Bush administration's
actions that is widespread among military lawyers.
Mother Jones: In the book you discuss the "evident limitations"
international law. You write, "Surely there is little expectation
that members of the Bush administration will soon be subject to war
crimes prosecution in U.S. courts." Yet you argue nevertheless that
war crimes are an important part of a wider strategy to confront
White House lawlessness.
BS: When we wrote the book, I never imagined that we would be where
we are today, with so much action in the courts. Still, I think that
the general point is valid. I think we should be skeptical of the law
as alternative to organizing.
At the same time, the law can be a force that supports social
movements. One manner in which movements use the law is called
popular constitutionalism--the use of legal concepts to legitimize
social goals. We saw this when Martin Luther King argued that the
Constitution was a promissory note, that it promised equality to all
people, and that the civil rights movement was there to cash in the
note. There's a long history of using legal documents in this way.
Social movements can also capitalize on unintended developments in
the law. There are parts of the law that are very progressive but
were never intended that way. For example, President Truman insisted,
against the wishes of Churchill, that Nazi and Japanese military
leaders have a fair trial, with due process. Churchill at the time
was arguing for summary execution, that the enemies should be drug
out behind the building and shot. But Truman, who was originally a
small-town judge, believed in an abstract concept of legal justice.
He was only thinking about the Nuremberg trials. But when war crimes
trials developed in later decades?against Milosevic, for example?they
needed precedents. And they looked to the Nuremberg trials. We want
to encourage the on-going development of war crimes law and use
unintended developments to advance the goals of social justice.
JB: A key example that I would raise is the Brown vs. the Board of
Education decision, which ruled that separate was not equal. To the
extent that integration occurred in the United States in the decade
after the Brown decision, it was not because of the courts. It was
primarily because of the actions of the civil rights movement.
However, the legal principle gave a basis for action. The civil
rights movement ultimately had to use not only political persuasion
but also civil disobedience on a massive scale in order to achieve
what the court decision had promised. I would not be surprised if the
implementation of war crimes law will require that same kind of
social action.
Our book ultimately is not a compendium of crimes. It is about giving
us, as Americans, the understanding, knowledge, and perspective to
deal with a reality that otherwise is quite overwhelming. I think
it's very important that, as a society, we assimilate lessons of
what's happened in Iraq. We didn't assimilate the lessons of Vietnam
very well. We knew that something bad happened. But as a country we
never really saw the fundamental mistakes that led us there. That's
one of the reasons we facing the catastrophe in Iraq today.
One purpose of raising the war crimes issue is to point out that we
got in to this partly because we didn't have barriers, principles,
and values in our society to say that certain things are
unacceptable. If anything constructive is to come out of the horrors
of the United States in Iraq, it will be that kind of reflection and
the creation of limits that will prevent us from doing it again.
[Note: This month Brecher, Cutler, and Smith are launching a War
Crimes Watch web site to track continued evidence of war crimes and
national efforts to stop future crimes from being committed.]
http://www.motherjones.com/interview/2005/12/war_crimes_usa.html
Navy to Expand Fleet With New Enemies in Mind
By DAVID S. CLOUD
12/05/05 "New York Times" -- -- WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - The Navy wants
to increase its fleet to 313 ships by 2020, reversing years of
decline in naval shipbuilding and adding dozens of warships designed
to defeat emerging adversaries, senior Defense Department officials
say.
The plan by Adm. Michael G. Mullen, who took over as chief of naval
operations last summer, envisions a major shipbuilding program that
would increase the 281-ship fleet by 32 vessels and cost more than
$13 billion a year, $3 billion more than the current shipbuilding
budget, the officials said Friday.
While increasing the fleet size is popular with influential members
of Congress, the plan faces various obstacles, including questions
about whether it is affordable in light of ballooning shipbuilding
costs and whether the mix of vessels is suitable to deal with
emerging threats, like China's expanding navy.
"We are at a crisis in shipbuilding," a senior Navy official
said. "If we don't start building this up next year and the next year
and the next year, we won't have the force we need." The officials
would not agree to be identified because the plan had not been made
public or described to members of Congress.
The Navy's fleet reached its cold war peak of 568 warships in 1987
and has been steadily shrinking since then. Admiral Mullen's proposal
would reverse that, expanding the fleet to as many as 325 ships over
the next decade, with new ships put into service before some older
vessels are retired, and finally settling at 313 between 2015 and
2020.
"The Navy appears to be grappling with the need to balance funding
for supporting its role in the global war on terrorism against those
for meeting a potential challenge from modernized Chinese maritime
military forces," said Ronald O'Rourke, a naval analyst with the
Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress.
The plan has not been formally adopted by the Bush administration,
though officials said it had been examined by senior civilians in the
Pentagon as part of a larger strategic review of all military
programs. The proposal is not expected to change much, if at all,
before the review is made public in February, the officials said.
Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, which is home to
major shipyards, endorsed the Navy proposal when told about it
recently and called on President Bush to finance it in next year's
budget.
"Military requirements should drive the budget, not the other way
around," Ms. Collins said. "I hope that the Navy's requirement for a
fleet of 313 ships will be matched with adequate funding in the
president's budget to achieve that goal over time."
But Defense Department officials acknowledged that with financial
pressures mounting and the overall Navy budget not likely to
increase, their plans could come apart unless they could trim costs
in other areas.
The Navy is planning to squeeze money from personnel and other
accounts, and ask shipyards to hold down costs, even if it means
removing certain capabilities.
Admiral Mullen is in some ways paying for the priorities of his
predecessor, Adm. Vern Clark, who improved pay and benefits during
his tenure as the service's senior officer but also agreed to trim
the Navy's budget in an unusual sacrifice to help pay the Army's
bills in Iraq.
Now Admiral Mullen is seeking a fleet that will give the Navy a
greater role in counterterrorism and humanitarian operations.
The plan calls for building 55 small, fast vessels called littoral
combat ships, which are being designed to allow the Navy to operate
in shallow coastal areas where mines and terrorist bombings are a
growing threat. Costing less than $300 million, the littoral combat
ship is relatively inexpensive.
Navy officials say they have scaled back their goals for a new
destroyer, the DD(X), whose primary purpose would be to support major
combat operations ashore. The Navy once wanted 23 to 30 DD(X)
vessels, but Admiral Mullen has decided on only 7, the Navy official
said. The reduction is due in part to the ship's spiraling cost, now
estimated at $2 billion to $3 billion per ship.
The plan also calls for building 19 CG(X) vessels, a new cruiser
designed for missile defense, but the first ship is not due to be
completed until 2017, the Navy official said.
The proposal would also reduce the fleet's more than 50 attack
submarines to 48, the official said. Some Navy officials have called
for keeping at least 55 of them.
The choices have led some analysts to suggest that the Navy is de-
emphasizing the threat from China, at least in the early stages of
the shipbuilding plan. Beijing's investment in submarines, cruise
missiles and other weapon systems is not expected to pose a major
threat to American warships for at least a decade. That gives the
Navy time, some analysts argue, to build capabilities that require
less firepower and more mobility, a priority for Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The plan also calls for building 31 amphibious assault ships, which
can be used to ferry marines ashore or support humanitarian
operations.
"This is not a fleet that is being oriented to the Chinese threat,"
said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a policy
research center in Arlington, Va. "It's being oriented around
irregular warfare, stability operations and dealing with rogue
states."
But the Navy would keep 11 aircraft carriers, just one fewer than the
dozen it has maintained since the end of the cold war. Retiring the
37-year-old John F. Kennedy could save $1.2 billion a year.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11221.htm
12/05/05 "New York Times" -- -- WASHINGTON, Dec. 3 - The Navy wants
to increase its fleet to 313 ships by 2020, reversing years of
decline in naval shipbuilding and adding dozens of warships designed
to defeat emerging adversaries, senior Defense Department officials
say.
The plan by Adm. Michael G. Mullen, who took over as chief of naval
operations last summer, envisions a major shipbuilding program that
would increase the 281-ship fleet by 32 vessels and cost more than
$13 billion a year, $3 billion more than the current shipbuilding
budget, the officials said Friday.
While increasing the fleet size is popular with influential members
of Congress, the plan faces various obstacles, including questions
about whether it is affordable in light of ballooning shipbuilding
costs and whether the mix of vessels is suitable to deal with
emerging threats, like China's expanding navy.
"We are at a crisis in shipbuilding," a senior Navy official
said. "If we don't start building this up next year and the next year
and the next year, we won't have the force we need." The officials
would not agree to be identified because the plan had not been made
public or described to members of Congress.
The Navy's fleet reached its cold war peak of 568 warships in 1987
and has been steadily shrinking since then. Admiral Mullen's proposal
would reverse that, expanding the fleet to as many as 325 ships over
the next decade, with new ships put into service before some older
vessels are retired, and finally settling at 313 between 2015 and
2020.
"The Navy appears to be grappling with the need to balance funding
for supporting its role in the global war on terrorism against those
for meeting a potential challenge from modernized Chinese maritime
military forces," said Ronald O'Rourke, a naval analyst with the
Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress.
The plan has not been formally adopted by the Bush administration,
though officials said it had been examined by senior civilians in the
Pentagon as part of a larger strategic review of all military
programs. The proposal is not expected to change much, if at all,
before the review is made public in February, the officials said.
Senator Susan Collins, a Republican from Maine, which is home to
major shipyards, endorsed the Navy proposal when told about it
recently and called on President Bush to finance it in next year's
budget.
"Military requirements should drive the budget, not the other way
around," Ms. Collins said. "I hope that the Navy's requirement for a
fleet of 313 ships will be matched with adequate funding in the
president's budget to achieve that goal over time."
But Defense Department officials acknowledged that with financial
pressures mounting and the overall Navy budget not likely to
increase, their plans could come apart unless they could trim costs
in other areas.
The Navy is planning to squeeze money from personnel and other
accounts, and ask shipyards to hold down costs, even if it means
removing certain capabilities.
Admiral Mullen is in some ways paying for the priorities of his
predecessor, Adm. Vern Clark, who improved pay and benefits during
his tenure as the service's senior officer but also agreed to trim
the Navy's budget in an unusual sacrifice to help pay the Army's
bills in Iraq.
Now Admiral Mullen is seeking a fleet that will give the Navy a
greater role in counterterrorism and humanitarian operations.
The plan calls for building 55 small, fast vessels called littoral
combat ships, which are being designed to allow the Navy to operate
in shallow coastal areas where mines and terrorist bombings are a
growing threat. Costing less than $300 million, the littoral combat
ship is relatively inexpensive.
Navy officials say they have scaled back their goals for a new
destroyer, the DD(X), whose primary purpose would be to support major
combat operations ashore. The Navy once wanted 23 to 30 DD(X)
vessels, but Admiral Mullen has decided on only 7, the Navy official
said. The reduction is due in part to the ship's spiraling cost, now
estimated at $2 billion to $3 billion per ship.
The plan also calls for building 19 CG(X) vessels, a new cruiser
designed for missile defense, but the first ship is not due to be
completed until 2017, the Navy official said.
The proposal would also reduce the fleet's more than 50 attack
submarines to 48, the official said. Some Navy officials have called
for keeping at least 55 of them.
The choices have led some analysts to suggest that the Navy is de-
emphasizing the threat from China, at least in the early stages of
the shipbuilding plan. Beijing's investment in submarines, cruise
missiles and other weapon systems is not expected to pose a major
threat to American warships for at least a decade. That gives the
Navy time, some analysts argue, to build capabilities that require
less firepower and more mobility, a priority for Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld.
The plan also calls for building 31 amphibious assault ships, which
can be used to ferry marines ashore or support humanitarian
operations.
"This is not a fleet that is being oriented to the Chinese threat,"
said Loren Thompson, an analyst at the Lexington Institute, a policy
research center in Arlington, Va. "It's being oriented around
irregular warfare, stability operations and dealing with rogue
states."
But the Navy would keep 11 aircraft carriers, just one fewer than the
dozen it has maintained since the end of the cold war. Retiring the
37-year-old John F. Kennedy could save $1.2 billion a year.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article11221.htm
Monday, December 05, 2005
DeLay's Money Laundering Charges Upheld
DeLay's Money Laundering Charges Upheld
Monday December 5, 2005 11:01 PM
By APRIL CASTRO
Associated Press Writer
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A judge dismissed a conspiracy charge Monday against Rep. Tom DeLay but refused to throw out the far more serious allegations of money-laundering, dashing the congressman's hopes for now of reclaiming his post as House majority leader.
Texas Judge Pat Priest, who is presiding over the case against the Republican, issued the ruling after a hearing late last month in which DeLay's attorney argued that the indictment was fatally flawed.
When he was indicted in September, DeLay was required under House rules to relinquish the leadership post he had held since 2003. While Monday's ruling was a partial victory for DeLay, he cannot reclaim his post because he remains under indictment.
The ruling means the case will move toward a trial next year, though other defense objections to the indictments remain to be heard by the judge.
``The court's decision to dismiss Ronnie Earle's numerous charges against Mr. DeLay underscores just how baseless and politically motivated the charges were,'' DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden said, referring to the Democratic district attorney who brought the case.
``Mr. DeLay is very encouraged by the swift progress of the legal proceedings and looks forward to his eventual and absolute exoneration based on the facts and the law.''
Earle had no immediate comment.
DeLay, 58, and two GOP fundraisers, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, are accused of illegally funneling $190,000 in corporate donations to 2002 Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature. Under Texas law, corporate money cannot be directly used for political campaigns, but it can be used for administrative purposes.
In asking that the case be thrown out, DeLay lawyer Dick DeGuerin argued that one of the charges - conspiracy to violate the Texas election code - did not even take effect until September 2003, a year after the alleged offenses occurred.
Prosecutors, however, said the crime of conspiracy was already on the books, and could be applied to the election code even though such uses were not explicitly in state law at the time.
The judge was unpersuaded by that argument, and dismissed the conspiracy charge. But the judge upheld charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Those charges involve an alleged attempt by DeLay to conceal the source of the campaign contributions by funneling the money through his own political action committee and then an arm of the Republican National Committee.
In trying to have those charges thrown out, the defense argued that the Texas money laundering law does not apply to funds in the form of a check, just coins or paper money. But the judge said that checks ``are clearly funds and can be the subject of money laundering.''
The defense attorneys also argued that the definition of money laundering in Texas involves the transfer of criminal proceeds. Because the money in this case was not illegal to begin with, they argued, money laundering never occurred.
But the judge rejected that argument.
Conspiracy to violate the election code carries up to two years in prison. Money laundering is punishable by five years to life. Conspiracy to commit money laundering carries two years.
The alleged campaign-finance scheme had far-reaching political effects: With DeLay's fundraising muscle, the GOP took control of the Texas House for the first time in 130 years, then pushed through a congressional redistricting plan engineered by DeLay that resulted in more Texas Republicans going to Congress.
At the court hearing last month, DeLay's lawyers asked for a quick decision on their request for a dismissal, and, if the ruling went against DeLay, a prompt trial, in hopes that he could regain his leadership post by the time the House reconvenes in late January. But the judge said at the time that it was unlikely the case would go to trial before the first of the year.
Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri became majority leader when DeLay stepped aside.
The judge has yet to rule on a defense bid to move DeLay's trial out of liberal, Democratic-leaning Austin and allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. DeGuerin accused the district attorney of shopping the DeLay case around to different grand juries until he found one that would indict the congressman.
The case ended up before Priest, a Democrat, after DeLay's attorneys had a previous judge removed for contributing to Democratic candidates and causes. Priest has made few political contributions over the years.
Monday December 5, 2005 11:01 PM
By APRIL CASTRO
Associated Press Writer
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) - A judge dismissed a conspiracy charge Monday against Rep. Tom DeLay but refused to throw out the far more serious allegations of money-laundering, dashing the congressman's hopes for now of reclaiming his post as House majority leader.
Texas Judge Pat Priest, who is presiding over the case against the Republican, issued the ruling after a hearing late last month in which DeLay's attorney argued that the indictment was fatally flawed.
When he was indicted in September, DeLay was required under House rules to relinquish the leadership post he had held since 2003. While Monday's ruling was a partial victory for DeLay, he cannot reclaim his post because he remains under indictment.
The ruling means the case will move toward a trial next year, though other defense objections to the indictments remain to be heard by the judge.
``The court's decision to dismiss Ronnie Earle's numerous charges against Mr. DeLay underscores just how baseless and politically motivated the charges were,'' DeLay spokesman Kevin Madden said, referring to the Democratic district attorney who brought the case.
``Mr. DeLay is very encouraged by the swift progress of the legal proceedings and looks forward to his eventual and absolute exoneration based on the facts and the law.''
Earle had no immediate comment.
DeLay, 58, and two GOP fundraisers, John Colyandro and Jim Ellis, are accused of illegally funneling $190,000 in corporate donations to 2002 Republican candidates for the Texas Legislature. Under Texas law, corporate money cannot be directly used for political campaigns, but it can be used for administrative purposes.
In asking that the case be thrown out, DeLay lawyer Dick DeGuerin argued that one of the charges - conspiracy to violate the Texas election code - did not even take effect until September 2003, a year after the alleged offenses occurred.
Prosecutors, however, said the crime of conspiracy was already on the books, and could be applied to the election code even though such uses were not explicitly in state law at the time.
The judge was unpersuaded by that argument, and dismissed the conspiracy charge. But the judge upheld charges of money laundering and conspiracy to commit money laundering. Those charges involve an alleged attempt by DeLay to conceal the source of the campaign contributions by funneling the money through his own political action committee and then an arm of the Republican National Committee.
In trying to have those charges thrown out, the defense argued that the Texas money laundering law does not apply to funds in the form of a check, just coins or paper money. But the judge said that checks ``are clearly funds and can be the subject of money laundering.''
The defense attorneys also argued that the definition of money laundering in Texas involves the transfer of criminal proceeds. Because the money in this case was not illegal to begin with, they argued, money laundering never occurred.
But the judge rejected that argument.
Conspiracy to violate the election code carries up to two years in prison. Money laundering is punishable by five years to life. Conspiracy to commit money laundering carries two years.
The alleged campaign-finance scheme had far-reaching political effects: With DeLay's fundraising muscle, the GOP took control of the Texas House for the first time in 130 years, then pushed through a congressional redistricting plan engineered by DeLay that resulted in more Texas Republicans going to Congress.
At the court hearing last month, DeLay's lawyers asked for a quick decision on their request for a dismissal, and, if the ruling went against DeLay, a prompt trial, in hopes that he could regain his leadership post by the time the House reconvenes in late January. But the judge said at the time that it was unlikely the case would go to trial before the first of the year.
Rep. Roy Blunt of Missouri became majority leader when DeLay stepped aside.
The judge has yet to rule on a defense bid to move DeLay's trial out of liberal, Democratic-leaning Austin and allegations of prosecutorial misconduct. DeGuerin accused the district attorney of shopping the DeLay case around to different grand juries until he found one that would indict the congressman.
The case ended up before Priest, a Democrat, after DeLay's attorneys had a previous judge removed for contributing to Democratic candidates and causes. Priest has made few political contributions over the years.
'Urban Myth' ? or Treason?
'Urban Myth' ? or Treason?
The Niger uranium forgery cover-up unravels
(follow link for embedded links)
Justin Raimondo
December 5, 2005
The War Party certainly has its party line down pat. In response to allegations that he had deliberately misinformed the Americans about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" and alleged links to al-Qaeda, Ahmed Chalabi recently declared:
"The fact that I misled the U.S. is an urban myth."
The Niger uranium forgery cover-up unravels
(follow link for embedded links)
Justin Raimondo
December 5, 2005
The War Party certainly has its party line down pat. In response to allegations that he had deliberately misinformed the Americans about Iraq's "weapons of mass destruction" and alleged links to al-Qaeda, Ahmed Chalabi recently declared:
"The fact that I misled the U.S. is an urban myth."