April 27, 2009 archive

1. Newsweek reports How Ali Soufan, an FBI agent, got Abu Zubaydah to talk without torture.

   The arguments at the CIA safe house were loud and intense in the spring of 2002. Inside, a high-value terror suspect, Abu Zubaydah, was handcuffed to a gurney. He had been wounded during his capture in Pakistan and still had bullet fragments in his stomach, leg and groin. Agency operatives were aiming to crack him with rough and unorthodox interrogation tactics-including stripping him nude, turning down the temperature and bombarding him with loud music. But one impassioned young FBI agent wanted nothing to do with it. He tried to stop them.

   The agent, Ali Soufan, was known as one of the bureau’s top experts on Al Qaeda. He also had a reputation as a shrewd interrogator who could work fluently in both English and Arabic. Soufan yelled at one CIA contractor and told him that what he was doing was wrong, ineffective and an affront to American values. At one point, Soufan discovered a dark wooden “confinement box” that the contractor had built for Abu Zubaydah. It looked, Soufan recalls, “like a coffin.” The mercurial agent erupted in anger, got on a secure phone line and called Pasquale D’Amuro, then the FBI assistant director for counterterrorism. “I swear to God,” he shouted, “I’m going to arrest these guys!“

   D’Amuro and other officials were alarmed at what they heard from Soufan. They fretted about the political consequences of abusive interrogations and the Washington blowback they thought was inevitable, say two high-ranking FBI sources who asked not to be identified discussing internal matters. According to a later Justice Department inspector general’s report, D’Amuro warned FBI Director Bob Mueller that such activities would eventually be investigated. “Someday, people are going to be sitting in front of green felt tables having to testify about all of this,” D’Amuro said, according to one of the sources.

   Soufan wrote an April 23rd op-ed for the NY Times, titled “My Tortured Decision“.

   For seven years I have remained silent about the false claims magnifying the effectiveness of the so-called enhanced interrogation techniques like waterboarding. I have spoken only in closed government hearings, as these matters were classified. But the release last week of four Justice Department memos on interrogations allows me to shed light on the story, and on some of the lessons to be learned…

   It is inaccurate, however, to say that Abu Zubaydah had been uncooperative. Along with another F.B.I. agent, and with several C.I.A. officers present, I questioned him from March to June 2002, before the harsh techniques were introduced later in August. Under traditional interrogation methods, he provided us with important actionable intelligence…

   There was no actionable intelligence gained from using enhanced interrogation techniques on Abu Zubaydah that wasn’t, or couldn’t have been, gained from regular tactics. In addition, I saw that using these alternative methods on other terrorists backfired on more than a few occasions – all of which are still classified. The short sightedness behind the use of these techniques ignored the unreliability of the methods, the nature of the threat, the mentality and modus operandi of the terrorists, and due process.

Four at Four continues with torture, swine flu, Iraq, Afghanistan-Pakistan, and wave power.

On Monday, the New York Times front-paged a long, detailed investigative article on Tim Geithner, the Treasury secretary who is looting the nation’s public funds to enrich Wall Street executives. Not surprisingly, the article points out that Tim has lots of pals on Wall Street. What is a surprise is that he was offered the job of head of Citigroup in 2007 while serving as President of the Federal Reserve Bank of NY. You got that right: one of the chief “regulators” of the banking industry was offered a highly lucrative position as the head of one of the banks he was regulating.

What the NYT article does not point out is that this is how the stealthy corruption of our public officials works. Geithner was not just offered a job, he was implicitly offered assurance that Wall Street would take care of him financially as long as he took care of Wall Street. If Geithner had been busting heads and cracking down on Citigroup’s policies, he never would have received such an offer, and the implication of the offer was that if he started to crack down he would never again receive a similar offer. Geithner’s willingness to play ball with Wall Street led to his installation as Treasury Secretary, and now we see the fruits of “deep capture” of that high office: a lavish give-away program that has Wall Street salaries soaring again while the nation remains mired in recession and record setting deficits are funneling taxpayer cash into “private sector” institutions.

Just a few days earlier, the Washington Post ran an article on Judge Bybee, the issuer of an infamous White House opinion “legalizing” torture. It seems Judge Bybee was promised an appointment to the Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, but first Gonzales wanted him to do a little bit of dirty work in the Office of Legal Counsel. Of course there was never an explicit deal, but the torture was approved, and the judgeship granted. Bybee knew that if he had antagonized the Bush administration by resisting their demands to make torture legal he could kiss his seat on the bench goodbye. So he did the dirty deeds.

The perfection of legalized corruption is the main reason why no change of elected officials will clean up the United States government. The practice of controlling politicians and political appointees with tacit quid pro quos is legally impregnable. Only far-reaching reforms requiring rigid separation of public and private sector careers can overcome this stealthy form of corruption, and it is the corrupted politicians who would have to pass these laws. A new form of government must arise to end the insidious and destructive practices of stealthy, legal corruption. Building this new governmental structure should be the political goal of the citizens of the world. My book-in-progress on the Netstate is one step towards that goal. The first chapter can be read here:

https://www.docudharma.com/diar…

THE TORTURE OF DICK CHENEY

A Play in Two Scenes

Caution; the scene of interrogation might seem a tad bit harsh.

The Play begins below. Please turn off your cell phones. No flash photography. Thank you and enjoy the show.

Headlines Like This

Don’t Help

Is swine flu ‘the big one’  

I Guess They Just Love

Instilling Fear In People    

U.S. Steps Up Alert as More Swine Flu Is Found

Precaution Taken Despite Mildness Of Cases Detected Domestically

By David Brown

Washington Post Staff Writer

Monday, April 27, 2009

The United States declared a “public health emergency” yesterday as countries from New Zealand to Scotland investigated suspected cases of illness that they feared might be a strain of swine flu that has been identified in Mexico, the United States and Canada.

As of yesterday, however, no confirmed cases of the newly emerged flu strain had been found outside those three countries. Many of the people under observation around the world reported recent travel to Mexico.

With the U.S. announcement, civilian and military stockpiles of antiviral drugs were being readied for rapid distribution in the event that transmission of swine flu virus accelerates.

Swine flu death toll exceeds 100 as pandemic fears grow

• World Health Organisation urges global vigilance

• US declares national health emergency

Chris McGreal in Washington, Jo Tuckman in Mexico City and agencies

guardian.co.uk, Monday 27 April 2009 07.26 BST

Governments around the world are on high alert for a swine flu pandemic today as the death toll from the virus in Mexico rose to more than 100 and possible cases were reported as far afield as Israel, New Zealand and Scotland.

A declaration at the weekend by the World Health Organisation of an international public health emergency was followed by a call for worldwide surveillance of the spread of the virus. The illness has rapidly claimed 103 lives, confined hundreds of people to hospital, and brought Mexico City, one of the world’s largest, to a near standstill.The United States last night separately declared its own emergency after officials said the virus was now so widespread it was unlikely it could be contained. However, White House officials urged people not to panic and pointed out that no case outside Mexico had proved fatal.

USA

Shortage of Doctors Proves Obstacle to Obama Goals



By ROBERT PEAR

Published: April 26, 2009

WASHINGTON – Obama administration officials, alarmed at doctor shortages, are looking for ways to increase the supply of physicians to meet the needs of an aging population and millions of uninsured people who would gain coverage under legislation championed by the president.

The officials said they were particularly concerned about shortages of primary care providers who are the main source of health care for most Americans.

One proposal – to increase Medicare payments to general practitioners, at the expense of high-paid specialists – has touched off a lobbying fight.

Family doctors and internists are pressing Congress for an increase in their Medicare payments.

 Don’t Look Now