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May 08 2009
CIA Briefed 19 Democrats On Torture Specifics in 40 Briefings
Crossposted from Antemedius
A devastating document chronicling the dates and explicit details of secret Congressional briefings in which members of Congress were told of the Bush administration’s torture techniques and when they had been used has been leaked from the Central Intelligence Agency.
“Briefings given to Democrats are of particular significance because the party has been the most vocal about the Bush Administration’s torture practices. Apparently, however, they had known about the practices for years. At least 19 Democrats were briefed about the techniques in detail by end of 2006.” says John Byrne at RawStory.
“The document appears to conflict with recent statements from House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who was then the top Democrat on the House intelligence committee. Ms. Pelosi has said she hadn’t been told that the CIA was using the technique known as waterboarding, or simulated drowning. According to the document, Ms. Pelosi was one of the first lawmakers briefed on the interrogations in 2002.” reports the Wall Street Journal.
“CIA Director Leon Panetta said the agency compiled the document — based on the files and meeting summaries written at the time that represented the best recollections of the briefers — in response to requests from Republican lawmakers, including the top Republican on the intelligence panel.”
“The document lists 40 briefings provided to lawmakers on intelligence, judiciary and other panels, the first of which was provided to then-House intelligence committee chairman Porter Goss, a Florida Republican, and Ms. Pelosi of California on Sept. 4, 2002. That briefing is described as covering ‘enhanced interrogation techniques.” It included the use of the techniques on detainee Abu Zubaydah, background on legal authority, and “a description of the particular [enhanced interrogation techniques] that had been employed.'”
CIA document chronicling congressional briefings on interrogations.pdf
May 07 2009
Colbert: Let kids conduct torture trials
Stephen Colbert has a great idea: Let kids conduct torture trials…
“Kids have no political agenda. They ask great questions like ‘Do dogs go to heaven?’ and ‘When is it appropriate to abandoned the values of our country in order to save our country?’ Plus, kids will accept ‘because I told you so’ as a legitimate answer,” he explained.
Condoleeza Rice recently stumbled while fielding a question from a fourth-grader about torture, repeating the same phrase three times.
Paraphrased, the question was: What did Rice think about the things President Obama’s administration was saying about the methods the Bush administration had used to get information from detainees?
Colbert was inspired by the fourth-grader’s question. “So let’s have Rice, Cheney and everyone else explain the nuance of their rationale to a jury of children,” he said.
How might lawyers argue for torture in front of a jury of children? Colbert explains. “For example, kids, Mr. Bunny was a bad, bad bunny and he had information that President Raccoon needed so the president got his lawyer squirrels to write a magic letter which made everything did he did perfectly legal.”
“Then Mr. Bunny was strapped to an inclined bench with a blanky over his nose and mouth and Willie the Whale squirted water into his face so Mr. Bunny thought he was drowning,” Colbert explained as if he were telling a children’s story. “But, remember, President Raccoon had a magic letter so it was not a violation of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions. Then he married a princess. The end.”
Colbert summed up his argument for allowing children to serve as jury to torture prosecutions. “After all, remember children are the future. And if we explain torture to them right, it will be a future where torture isn’t wrong.”
This video is from Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, broadcast May 5, 2009.
May 06 2009
UPDATED: DOJ Inquiry Suggests No Prosecutions Of Torture Memo Authors
Crossposted from Antemedius
A new draft Department of Justice report, not yet approved by Attorney General Eric Holder, is recommending that Bush administration torture memo authors Jay Bybee, John Yoo, and Steven Bradbury not be prosecuted, but will apparently ask for disciplinary reprimands and/or disbarment by state bar associatons.
“The report by the Office of Professional Responsibility, an internal ethics unit within the Justice Department, is also likely to ask that state bar associations consider possible disciplinary action, including reprimands or even disbarment, for some of the lawyers involved in writing the legal opinions, the officials said,” reported the New York Times.
“The conclusions of the 220-page draft report are not final and have not yet been approved by Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. The officials said it is possible the final report might be subject to revision, but they did not expect major alterations in its main findings or recommendations.”
“Lawyers familiar with the process said the department’s willingness-as recently as this week-to solicit responses from the former officials indicated that there were no plans to conduct a criminal investigation,” reported Politico. ‘They don’t let you comment if they’re going to refer you for prosecution,’ said one former Justice Department official, who asked not to be named.”
May 06 2009
Obama Guantanamo Bay Closure An “Open Question”?
Crossposted from Antemedius
On January 22, 2009 newly inaugurated President Barack Obama to great fanfare signed an Executive Order requiring that the Guantanamo Bay prison “shall be closed as soon as practicable, and no later than 1 year from the date of this order“.
That was more than three months ago.
Today the Wall Street Journal reports that:
Top House Democrats raised tensions with the White House on a key foreign policy goal, rebuffing a request for funding to begin closing the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
President Barack Obama has sought $80 million to begin the process of closing the controversial detention facility, as part of broader legislation needed to continue funding for the U.S.-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Unveiling the House version of war spending bill, House Appropriations Chairman David Obey (D., Wisc.) didn’t include the funds, complaining that the administration has not yet developed a clear plan to wind down operations at Guantanamo and relocate the detainees, either abroad or in the U.S.
“When they have a plan, they’re welcome to come back and talk to us,” Mr. Obey said.
Mr. Obama has issued an executive order ordering the facility be shut down in one year. The administration still has some authority to shift dollars around the budget to help begin the process. But Mr. Obey suggested a “concrete plan” will be needed before lawmakers approve any direct funding to shutter the facility.
The White House had no immediate comment on Mr. Obey’s bill.
When asked in late April about President Obama’s plans to shut down the controversial “war on terror” prison, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said “I think that question is still open“.
May 05 2009
American Workers Outsourcing Own Jobs Overseas
Real News Network – May 5, 2009
American workers outsourcing own jobs overseas
Report finds personal outsourcing is revolutionizing how Americans don’t do their work
May 04 2009
Obama’s 100 Days – The Mad Men Did Well
from John Pilger, April 30, 2009
The BBC’s American television soap Mad Men offers a rare glimpse of the power of corporate advertising. The promotion of smoking half a century ago by the “smart” people of Madison Avenue, who knew the truth, led to countless deaths. Advertising and its twin, public relations, became a way of deceiving dreamt up by those who had read Freud and applied mass psychology to anything from cigarettes to politics. Just as Marlboro Man was virility itself, so politicians could be branded, packaged and sold.
[snip]
Much of the American establishment loathed Bush and Cheney for exposing, and threatening, the onward march of America’s “grand design”, as Henry Kissinger, war criminal and now Obama adviser, calls it. In advertising terms, Bush was a “brand collapse” whereas Obama, with his toothpaste advertisement smile and righteous clichés, is a godsend. At a stroke, he has seen off serious domestic dissent to war, and he brings tears to the eyes, from Washington to Whitehall. He is the BBC’s man, and CNN’s man, and Murdoch’s man, and Wall Street’s man, and the CIA’s man. The Madmen did well.
May 03 2009
Auto Industry: Too Big To Fail, Too Big To Be Privately Owned
Richard Wolff, American Economist well-known for his work on Marxian economics, economic methodology and class analysis, Yale University Ph.D. in Economics, and Professor at The New School University in New York City, talks with Real News CEO Paul Jay about the reform needed to pull the United States out of economic crisis.
“If we say something is too important to let it die, too big to fail, then we’re saying it’s so important to the society as a whole, but if it’s that important, it can’t be in the hands of a few people in the first place. If you’re too big to fail, your too big to be in private hands.” He goes on to suggest that if there is chaos in the US economy, the rest of the world will have chaos as well. “We have an unknown situation, the outcome of which could be very bad, we actually have a vision of that already, Mexico, it’s a society in free fall.”
Real News Network – May 2, 2009
Too big to fail, too big to be privately owned
Auto industry affects the whole society, it’s too significant for private ownership
May 01 2009
George W. Bush Demands His Own Prosecution
After the news broke of torture and humiliation of prisoners at Abu Ghraib, George W. Bush set up interviews to make the case that it was just a “few bad apples”.
Bush on an Arab television station after the Abu Ghraib situation went public, explaining the difference between a free nation with the rule of law and a dictatorship:
“It’s important for people to understand that in a democracy, there will be a full investigation. In other words, we want to know the truth. In our country, when there’s an allegation of abuse … there will be a full investigation, and justice will be delivered. … It’s very important for people and your listeners to understand that in our country, when an issue is brought to our attention on this magnitude, we act. And we act in a way in which leaders are willing to discuss it with the media. … In other words, people want to know the truth. That stands in contrast to dictatorships. A dictator wouldn’t be answering questions about this. A dictator wouldn’t be saying that the system will be investigated and the world will see the results of the investigation.“
May 01 2009
Memo to President Obama on Torture
In their first attempt to inform President Obama on a major intelligence issue, a powerful group of twelve intelligence experts who oppose torture has written a memo to President Obama asking him to investigate and prosecute torture by the Bush Administration. Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), consistently challenged pre-war lies and fabricated justifications for the invasion of Iraq, beginning with Colin Powell’s speech to the U.N. in 2003. They were absolutely right – and were ignored by the media.
Now they are battling the widely-accepted lie that torture “works”:
The fact that the exploits of Jack Bauer have injected a dangerous level of fiction and fear among impressionable viewers, and have misled not only interrogators at Guantanamo but also the chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Silvestre Reyes – not to mention Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia – leaves no doubt that such illusionary scenarios need to be addressed by professionals with real-life experience.
They insist from professional experience that:
torture tactics are not only ineffective in terms of getting reliable, actionable intelligence but have fueled recruitment by Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups to the point that, arguably, more U.S. troops have been killed by terrorists bent on revenge for torture than the 3,000 civilians killed on 9/11
As Bob Fertik at Democrats.com put it yesterday:
In effect, Bush’s torture regime created a second “9/11” – only the victims were our soldiers.
Read the VIPS Memo to President Obama on Torture in full here…
Apr 30 2009
Torture Arrest Warrants Issued? Michael Ratner: Obama Must Now Prosecute Or Pardon.
Crossposted from Antemedius
Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon is recognized worldwide for his determination to bring suspects to justice, wherever they seek refuge or how old the crime.
A 2005 BBC profile of Garzon notes that:
He came to prominence in the late 1990s, when he campaigned for the extradition former Chilean military ruler Augusto Pinochet, from London to Spain for human rights abuses.
In late 2003 Judge Garzon compiled a 692-page indictment which called for the arrest of 35 men, including Osama Bin Laden, for their alleged membership of a terrorist group. The number of suspects was later increased to 41.
…
Mr Garzon is one of six investigating judges for Spain’s National Court which, like many other European countries, operates an inquisitorial system, as opposed to the adversarial system used by the US and UK.The investigating judge’s role is to examine the cases assigned to him by the court, gathering evidence and evaluating whether the case should be brought to trial. He does not try the cases himself.
Today, April 30, 2009, Garzon opened a Spanish investigation into torture allegations against US military personnel at the Guantánamo detention centre:
Apr 30 2009
Chrysler Files For Chapter 11 Bankruptcy Today?
Chrysler is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy today on the heels of a failure to secure a deal to restructure debt in negotiations with bondholders, Reuters reports this morning:
The Chapter 11 filing, which sources said would be done in U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, will send shockwaves through the entire auto industry — including Chrysler’s rivals, suppliers, dealers and the many hundreds of thousands who rely on the industry for their livelihoods.
A statement from President Barack Obama on Chrysler’s situation and the auto industry is scheduled for noon EDT.
…
In a bid to win over three fund firms that had spurned an offer to accept $2 billion in cash in exchange for writing off all of Chrysler’s $6.9 billion in secured debt, U.S. officials sweetened the terms by throwing in another $250 million, people familiar with those discussions said.About 45 financial institutions hold Chrysler’s secured debt.
…
On Wednesday, Obama said concessions by Chrysler’s unions and its major bank lenders had made him more hopeful than a month ago that the struggling automaker could be made viable.
Chrysler would be 85 years old in 2010. In 1928, three years after the company was founded, construction began on the Chrysler Building, a Manhattan landmark and for a time the tallest building in the world. It was the world’s tallest building for 11 months before it was surpassed by the Empire State Building in 1931.
The Chrysler Building is a classic example of Art Deco architecture and considered by many contemporary architects to be one of the finest buildings in New York City. In 2007, it was ranked ninth on the List of America’s Favorite Architecture by the American Institute of Architects. (wikipedia)