OK, so this is what pisses me off.

Attorney General Michael Mukasey (thanks for that one, Schumer and Feinstein) says that waterboarding would be torture if it were done to him.  And Director of National Intelligence Michael McConnell says that waterboarding (you remember, something that the Attorney General would say is torture if done to him) would require the president’s consent and legal approval from the attorney general.  Oh yeah, CIA Director Michael Hayden said that waterboarding (again, something that the Attorney General not only would say is torture if done to him, but also something that both he and the president would have to personally sign off on in order for the CIA to engage in such acts) was actually done to three detainees while in US captivity.

By the way, all of those statements were made before a Senate committee and presumably none of the three individuals were lying when they made those statements.  

But wait, there’s still more here.  

The United States Senate voted to ban waterboarding, even though it should be pointed out that republican presidential candidate John McCain voted for more waterboarding, therefore supporting something that the Attorney General said would be torture if done to him..  And we all know that torture is something that is explicitly illegal, even though one of our own “radically extremist activist” Supreme Court Justices thinks that torture is justified at times.

And to top it all off, Mister Bush will veto a bill that calls waterboarding (something that the Attorney General said would be illegal if done to him) illegal.  So, not only is the current president breaking the law by ordering torture in the first place, but wants to use the evidence obtained through illegal torture in a death penalty case against detainees.  As for that evidence obtained through illegal torture?  Well, the little problem is that the CIA destroyed the tapes of the torture and confessions because, well, they knew it was illegal and they wanted to protect the agents who conducted the torture.

I’ll also take this time to point out once again that the republican frontrunner for the Presidential nomination, John McCain, also voted to support torture.

Of all of the things that this administration and its enablers have done that are impeachable events (Downing Street Minutes, FISA, US Attorney firings, caging, election stealing, a dereliction of duty (Katrina, 9/11, “who would have thought that….”, etc.) or even bordering on treasonous (CIA leak investigation, manufactured evidence on Iraq and Iran), torture hits the hardest.

It cuts to the core – right through the heart of what makes a democracy a, well, democracy.  It is the difference between civility and barbarianism.  It is the line that should never be crossed.  It shows an utter disgust and contempt for humanity.  It puts our troops at risk.  Enemy fighters will think twice before surrendering due to the choice of death or torture.  And it puts our soldiers at risk for being tortured if captured since our government does it.

Have I mentioned that not only does our current president support torture, but so does John McCain, the presumptive republican nominee for President?

If I was told 8 years ago that the legitimacy of torture would become part of the discourse in this country, I would have laughed out loud.  But now, not only is the legitimacy of torture part of the discourse in this country, it is also something that the president ordered, the CIA engaged in, and the United States Senate has actually taken the time to debate and vote on.

Anyone who can justify torture has no business participating in a civil society.  Yet we have people in the highest levels of government – in Congress, on the Supreme Court and in the White House – who not only justify torture, but have taken great pains and have gone to great lengths to blur the lines just enough (how, I still don’t know), authorize torture, engage in torture, destroy evidence of and evidence obtained by torture, cover up the destruction of evidence, seek a death penalty based at least in part on this evidence, and declare it “legal” because it isn’t explicitly and specifically denoted as “illegal” (or veto a law that would call it illegal, which is like making a law that circles have to be round).

All of this has happened, is happening and is continuing to happen as we find out more of the sordid details.  It is indicative of and an exhibit of the worst traits in humans.  It is despicable, inexcusable, subhuman.

It is illegal.

Tell me again why impeachment is off the table and what message allowing this to go unpunished sends to Americans, to the world community and to the most basic level of human decency?

Hell dot com

What The Hell Is Hell Really?

Catholic Encyclopedia

You’re Going to Hell

What the hell, why not this topic tonight? And I’m an optimist, as many of you know. But seasoned with a touch of cynicism.

As Bible translations become purer, we find that references to Hell vanish from the pages of the Bible. Most translations only contain the word “Hell” a dozen times or so and many do not contain the word at all. The primary word some Bibles translate “Hell” is the Greek word “Gehenna.”

What do you think? Don’t rec the pony. Be excellent to one another (just in case there really is a HELL), and so on and so forth.

1. Here’s a headline I never thought I’d see from the 110th Capitulation Congress. The Hill reports Bye-bye bipartisanship.

   House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said the Senate legislation is unacceptable because it grants immunity from lawsuits to telephone companies that shared private records with government officials. Pelosi said the legislation should also make clear that the administration’s authority to eavesdrop relies entirely on legislative statute and not on any executive powers granted to the president under the Constitution.

   Pelosi told reporters Thursday that she would allow the intelligence community’s broader surveillance authority to lapse, forcing its members to obtain warrants from the special court set up by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) until the House and Senate can reach agreement on a reauthorization bill.

   Democrats say that Senate Republicans deliberately slowed the passage of intelligence legislation in that chamber to put House leaders in a tight spot of having to either accept the Senate version or allow surveillance authorization to lapse.

   The Republican strategy seems almost to have worked. Democratic leaders were in position to take up the Senate bill Thursday after they passed a rule Wednesday evening to allow them to vote on “any bill related to foreign intelligence.”

   But their spines stiffened overnight. On Thursday, House Democrats claimed that allowing the authorization to lapse for a few weeks would pose no danger to the American people, bracing themselves for an expected onslaught of Republican accusations that Congress is imperiling national security.

   “President Bush has nothing to offer but fear,” said Pelosi.

   The Washington Post has more in House defies Bush on warrantless wiretaps.

   Several Democrats said yesterday that many in their party wish to take a more measured approach to terrorism issues, and they refused to be stampeded by Bush. “We have seen what happens when the president uses fearmongering to stampede Congress into making bad decisions,” said Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.). “That’s why we went to war in Iraq.”

   White House officials and their allies were angry that the Democrats did not “blink,” as one outside adviser said. The decision to defy the White House came in the form of a weeklong adjournment of the House yesterday afternoon.

   Pelosi said she instructed committee chairmen to begin talks with their Democratic counterparts in the Senate, who this week supported the administration’s position on the surveillance bill, suggesting that a compromise might be possible in the coming weeks.

   Nancy — don’t start that whole “compromising” with Bush and the Republicans thing again… that’s how America gets into these messes.

Four at Four continues below the fold. I’m not telling what’s there so you’ll have to leap below the fold to see…

2. The Los Angeles Times reports Dead zones off Oregon and Washington likely tied to global warming.

   Peering into the murky depths, Jane Lubchenco searched for sea life, but all she saw were signs of death.

   Video images scanned from the seafloor revealed a boneyard of crab skeletons, dead fish and other marine life smothered under a white mat of bacteria. At times, the camera’s unblinking eye revealed nothing at all — a barren undersea desert in waters renowned for their bounty of Dungeness crabs and fat rockfish.

   “We couldn’t believe our eyes,” Lubchenco said, recalling her initial impression of the carnage brought about by oxygen-starved waters. “It was so overwhelming and depressing. It appeared that everything that couldn’t swim or scuttle away had died.”

   Upon further study, Lubchenco and other marine ecologists at Oregon State University concluded that that the undersea plague appears to be a symptom of global warming. In a study released today in the journal Science, the researchers note how these low-oxygen waters have expanded north into Washington and crept south as far as the California state line. And, they appear to be as regular as the tides, a lethal cycle that has repeated itself every summer and fall since 2002.

   “We seem to have crossed a tipping point,” Lubchenco said. “Low-oxygen zones off the Northwest coast appear to be the new normal.”

   The Seattle Times and The Oregonian also have coverage.

3. Patrick Cockburn of The Independent asks Is the US really bringing stability to Baghdad?

   The only source of money in Iraq is oil revenues, and the only jobs – four million, if those on a pension are included – are with the government. The Shia, in alliance with the Kurds, controlled both. “The Sunni people found that the only way to be protected from the Shia was to be allied to the Americans,” said Kassim Ahmed Salman, a well-educated Sunni from west Baghdad. “Otherwise we were in a hopeless situation. For the last two years it has been possible for Sunni to be killed legally [by death squads covertly supported by the government] in Baghdad.”

   The “surge” – the 30,000 extra US troops implementing a new security plan in Baghdad – has helped to make Baghdad safer. In effect, they have frozen into place the Shia victory of 2006. The city is broken up into enclaves sealed off by concrete walls with only one entrance and exit…

   The present state of Iraq is highly unstable, but nobody quite wants to go to war again… In Iraq the fighting has never stopped, but the present equilibrium might go on for some time. All the Iraqi players are waiting to see at what rate the US will draw down its troop levels. The Mehdi Army is discussing ending its six-month ceasefire, but does not want to fight its Shia rivals if they are supported by American military power. Al-Qa’ida is wounded but by no means out of business…

   Iraq remains a great sump of human degradation and poverty, unaffected by the “surge”… For millions of Iraqis…, the war has robbed them of their homes, their jobs and often their lives. It has brought them nothing but misery and ended their hopes of happiness. It has destroyed Iraq.

4. The Los Angeles Times looks at The man behind Obama’s message — David Axelrod, a “political reporter turned political consultant, and Obama’s chief strategist.”

   The burly 52-year-old with the drooping mustache helped put together the team working to get Obama elected. He oversees ad creation and coordinates with the campaign’s pollsters. During preparation for debates, he plays Clinton. When not at Obama’s side on the campaign trail, he is most often in front of a television camera or otherwise surrounded by reporters, talking about the man he calls “my friend.” Asked point-blank what he does all day, he recently responded: “Schmooze.” …

   At one point or another, Axelrod worked for five of the eight candidates for 2008 Democratic nominee. He was part of John Edwards’ White House bid four years ago, and he helped get Tom Vilsack elected — and reelected — as the first Democratic governor of Iowa in 30 years. He has worked for Clinton and Connecticut Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, both of whom — along with Edwards, Obama and Clinton’s husband — have returned the favor, pitching in for a cause close to Axelrod’s heart: raising money for an epilepsy cure.

   Axelrod’s daughter Lauren, who is in her mid-20s, lives in a group home because of brain damage sustained in a lifetime of seizures. A decade ago, his wife, Susan, helped found Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy. Axelrod is an honorary member of CURE’s advisory board…

   Axelrod does take credit for the speech Obama delivered in 2006 at the Gridiron Club dinner, an annual send-up of politics and journalism by the very people who make that world run.

   Standing not far from Dick Cheney — who had accidentally shot a lawyer friend on a hunting trip — Obama told the vice president, “I know you came here expecting to be a target, which, it turns out, may prove easier for you than shooting at one.”

   Then he thanked the Democratic nemesis, saying: “For years we Democrats have succeeded in doing little more than shooting ourselves in the foot. You taught us a valuable lesson: Aim higher.“

cross posted from The Dream Antilles



Still Guantanamo

Every day it just gets worse.  Today (h/t to Smintheus at dKos), Prof Mark Denbeaux of Seton Hall University Law School (with assistance from many others) released a report (pdf format) on interrogations at Gitmo.  It’s a shocker.  Among other things it says that there have been 24,000 “interrogations” at Gitmo and that all of them have been videotaped.

Join me inside the wire.  

The short of it (from the report’s executive summary):

*More than 24,000 interrogations have been conducted at Guantánamo since 2002.

*Every interrogation conducted at Guantánamo was videotaped.

*The Central Intelligence Agency is just one of many entities that interrogated detainees at Guantánamo.

*The agencies or bureaus that interrogated at Guantánamo include: the Central Intelligence Agency and its Counterterrorism Center; the Criminal Investigation Task Force (CITF); the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI); the Behavioral Analysis Unit (BAU) of the FBI; Defense Intelligence Analysis (DIA); Defense Human Intelligence (HUMINT); Army Criminal Investigative Division (ACID); the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (OSI); and the Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS). Private contractors also interrogated detainees.

*Each of these entities has identical motives to destroy taped investigations as has the Central Intelligence Agency. As one former senior Central Intelligence Agency official put it: “It’s a qualitatively different thing-seeing it versus reading about it.”

One Government document, for instance, reports detainee treatment so violent as to “shake the camera in the interrogation room” and “cause severe internal injury.” Another describes an interrogator positioning herself between a detainee and the camera, in order to block her actions from view.

*The Government kept meticulous logs of information related to interrogations. Thus, it is ascertainable which videotapes documenting interrogations still exist, and which videotapes have been destroyed.

There’s a whole lot more in the report.  The report is a remarkable piece of work, and Denbeaux and his team deserve a great deal of credit for important work well done.

Now that it has been the disclosed that every “interrogation” has been videotaped– something that the Bush administration has not previously admitted–  one would hope that those in Congress who are in charge of oversight might want to view the video tapes.  They might want to see what techniques are actually being used in Gitmo.  They might want to decide with their own eyes and ears whether what is going on in Gitmo is or is not torture, is or is not legal, is or is not something they feel is appropriate.  They might want to see the videos and decide whether they’ve been told the truth about Gitmo, or if what they’ve been told is a pack of lies.  Bottom line, whatever is on the video is going to be different from reading about the events in classified documents.

At the very least those who are responsible for oversight should immediately demand that they be provided with copies of all of these videotapes.  They have the staff and resources to cull these videotapes and to find out precisely what has been going on.  And they should do that.  This is what they were elected to do.  And it’s different from sitting in briefings about the “interrogations” and nodding their heads.  (Yes, I’m talking to you, Nancy.)

And what if, as before, it turns out that the videotapes have been– quel surprise!– destroyed?  Maybe Arlan Spector and others can rouse them selves and make as big a deal out of these Guantanamo videotapes as they have about the NE Patriots videos.

Might this be something to dial up “our” Congress people about?

It’s not like I spend a lot of time watching TV to begin with, but during the WGA strike, I completely stopped watching two of my favorites: the Colbert Report and The Daily Show. For the first time in a long time,  I vegged and watched last night’s (2/13/08) Colbert Report.  

These two interviews with SuperDelegates Gov. Eliot Spitzer (D-NY) and Rep. Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) were very funny. It seems rare to find politicians with a sense of humor.  

I imagine Spitzer is going to be president someday.   He really has the charisma and the brains.  As a New Yorker he is enthusiastically in support of Clinton.          

Spitzer on The Colbert Report

Norton is a good sport.   Her Better Know a District  interview was classic  She puts up with Colbert’s teasing and dishes back any chance she gets.  Norton is backing Obama, although she put it that the SuperD’s will go along and vote for whichever candidate wins the most state contests.  

Eleanor Holmes Norton on The Colbert Report

Pony Party is open thread. Do not under any circumstances press the Rec button.  

First of all, I want to thank everyone who read “I Hate Writing About Myself….” and provided their stories, helpful advice, and kind words. This sort of thing is what I like about Docudharma. If you were all here, I’d give you all big hugs!

As a follow-up, yesterday was something of a rough day–because I knew after having read many of the comments I needed to see a doctor and get started on meds in spite of my reluctance due to the cost….

But I felt overwhelmed. Because I live in a city of about 115,000, which means I’d have had to time-consumingly search through the Yellow Pages for a doctor and keep calling until I could find one where I’d be able to get an appointment–which seemed a daunting task….

Then I was visiting one of my other favorite sites, depressiontribe, and found out that one of my friends on the site, one with whom I’d felt “in the same boat” because she’d been like me–having depression and bipolar but not receiving treatment due to lack of insurance–had gone to a free clinic and been able to get Cymbalta. She said she was experiencing side effects like drowsiness and nausea, but that the pain in her back was gone and she otherwise felt much better.

I should have felt ecstatic for her, but instead her happy news made me cry–because I just didn’t know where to turn. I envied her access to a free clinic and being able to get Cymbalta.

But then I had an idea. Because I’d already been planning on stopping at Kroger on the way home, I wondered about the medical clinic that’s next door to the store. So I first stopped at the clinic on the way home–but I don’t know what got into me then even with what I was going through(cold feet, maybe?) because I didn’t make an appointment right then and there. At the end of the day (literally–not the annoying cliche’–they were about to close) all I’d found out was that they charge based on income. But when I was at home I had the fact that I hadn’t made the appointment on my mind all night, which made it hard to sleep.

So first thing this morning, I took the bus back to that clinic. Now I’ve an appointment for 1:00 PM on Friday, Feb. 29. I was told that it would cost $20–which, while not as good as free, isn’t too painful. So wish me luck! I’m already feeling a bit better (as in hopeful.)

There’s something else I’ve been wondering about. I’m worried about the off-chance that I may not be able to get the meds I need for my depression/bipolar from the clinic–or because of the way I’ve been feeling decide that I need to start taking something before my appointment because I’ve a two-week wait.

I’ve heard about people taking St. John’s Wort–which is available over the counter–for depression. How well does it work, and does it have any side-effects? I figure that once I’m prescribed something, I’ll have to quit the St. John’s Wort–but how long does it stay in your system? And most importantly, how does it affect bipolar?

( – promoted by buhdydharma )

According to this story in the Guardian, today, Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia and former Prime Minister Tony Blair are in trouble. Apparently Bandar took a billion pounds as a bribe from the multinational defense contractor and arms producer, BAE, to pressure the British government into halting fraud investigations into BAE activities. Bandar is said to have threatened the British government that they would allow further terrorist attacks to take place in Britain if they continued investigations.

Saudi Arabia’s rulers threatened to make it easier for terrorists to attack London unless corruption investigations into their arms deals were halted, according to court documents revealed yesterday.

Previously secret files describe how investigators were told they faced “another 7/7” and the loss of “British lives on British streets” if they pressed on with their inquiries and the Saudis carried out their threat to cut off intelligence.

Prince Bandar, the head of the Saudi national security council, and son of the crown prince, was alleged in court to be the man behind the threats to hold back information about suicide bombers and terrorists. He faces accusations that he himself took more than £1bn in secret payments from the arms company BAE.

The Serious Fraud Office, no relation to the Ministry of Silly Walks, began investigating the fraud allegations regarding BAE and the Saudis back in 2004. BAE was said to have been funneling money to the Saudi royals in order to secure arms deals with them. The Saudis then blackmailed the British government with terrorist threats to halt the investigations.

Philip Sales QC, for the crown, said the government had “no other choice” but to stop the investigation as the Saudis were threatening to stop passing on intelligence about terrorists.

In sharp exchanges, the judge said the Saudi threat was to “stop the investigation or else”. He asked why that was that different from a villain seeking to avoid a 25-year sentence.

Sales said the Saudis were not villains in this case.

Moses replied: “The Saudis were not the villains, they were just protecting the villains.”

He found it difficult to understand, he said, why the British government did not explain to the Saudis – “a friendly and intelligent people”- that politicians could not interfere in a criminal prosecution. “Nobody said you can’t talk to us like that.”

Yesterday’s hearing laid out in detail the way in which BAE refused to cooperate with the investigators when ordered to identify the middlemen to whom they made undercover payments into Swiss accounts. One was named in court yesterday as the billionaire Wafic Said.

source

BAE was formed in the late 90’s from the merger of Marconi Electronic Systems, a subsidiary of The General Electric Compay, and British Aerospace. They are perhaps best known for their production of military aircraft, but are involved in most areas of the defense industry.

According to their website, BAE is a:

global company engaged in the development, delivery and support of advanced defence and aerospace systems in the air, on land and at sea. We have strong positions in each of our six home markets – Australia, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, UK, US – and have organised the business to reflect this.

Key facts

3rd largest global defence company

6th largest US defence company

96,000 highly skilled people

Global capability

Customers in over 100 countries

Annual sales exceed £15 billion*

Annual R&D exceeds £1.3 billion*

More than 100 new inventions every year

* On a pro forma basis, assuming BAE Systems had owned Armor for the whole of 2006

For more information on this case the Guardian has a file on BAE here: BAE files at the Guardian

For more info on the contracts between BAE and the Saudis see Al Yamamah

Hip hip hooray for real investigative journalism, courtesy of the good Brits at the Guardian.

Shrub and Bandar, no doubt having serious fraud talks in Crawford, 2002